Good and Evil Coexist

Introduction

My wife and I watched this show called Secret Invasion. It is a Marvel show about aliens that can shape shift into any identity and the main character is trying to stop these aliens from taking over the world. The show has you questioning every character, “who is a human? Who is an alien? Are one of my favorite characters in the show actually an alien?” Your trust in who is who starts to erode until you aren’t sure who you can even believe anymore.

One of the difficulties we face

I think what is interesting about this is that even if there aren’t aliens on earth, we do have this human instinct to search for the imposters and root them out. We look for clues, we dive into conspiracy theories, looking for something that will help tell us who to trust and who not to trust. But the problem is we can never be sure.

In the parables Jesus tells His disciples He shows them that in the world we have a mixture of good and evil and He tells us how this conflict will be resolved in the end.

Jesus tells two parables here.

In the first parable it is the situation that results from the sowing that is like the kingdom of heaven, not specifically the master. And the master sows “good seed”, the seed that he knows will produce good fruit. But after he sows the good seed we see the enemy comes in and sows “weed”.

Now one thing that you don’t get out of the word used for weed is the type of weed that is used. It is called “darnel weed”. This type of weed, while growing, looks nearly identical to wheat. And even more dangerous, it is poisonous to humans in big enough doses.

The master identifies who is behind this, he says “the enemy”. It would have been easy to blame the gods, karma, even God himself. But he recognizes that someone is wanting him to pull out his good crop.

Rightfully, his servants are concerned. “Well we should throw out the imposters, we need to get rid of the poisonous weed.” They also know that the wheat would have to now compete for water, sunlight, and nutrients.

But the master knows this is over-zealous, it is the fast solution rather than the right one. He says “no, wait until the harvest” because they won’t truly be able to know which is which until the harvest, which can actually be translated “until they have produced fruit.” It reminds us of the Sermon on the Mountain where Jesus tells them to be careful of wolves in sheep’s clothing and that they will “recognize them by their fruit.”

The final fruit will be the indicator of what a good plant and what is a bad plant. There needs to be the time where the plants can show their full maturity even as they are intertwined with the bad fruit.

Second, Jesus gives a parable of the fish and the net. Where the fish are gathered into the net, there is no discrimination of what fish are gathered, all the fish are gathered. And as they are brought in they are separated between the good fish that are kept and the bad fish that are throw out.

He calls those who are good fish “the righteous”. Who are the righteous? it is those who hear Jesus words and trust in them. Jesus has told us that the righteous are the humble, the merciful, those who desire God and seek to live according to His character.

These two parables Jesus uses to relay the same idea. To provide a picture of good and evil that exists in the world and the way in which God will deal with both. "The kingdom of heaven is like...” not the kingdom of earth. Jesus is providing us a description of this upside down kingdom we continue to look at.

He is re-framing what they believe about the kingdom. Jesus’ followers would be expecting a time on earth when Jesus would overthrow the “ungodly” nations and create “The Kingdom”. But as we have seen throughout Jesus teaching, the kingdom Jesus talks about is different than the one we would expect. He says that we won’t during out time here on earth be able to root out the evil. They won’t be able to “purify” the nation as they would be hoping. Look at what Jesus says in John 18:36

John 18:36 ““My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.””

See, the problem with an earthly kingdom is that it isn’t just the Father that has sowed, but Satan has also sowed. Ever since Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden both good and evil have been sowed in the world. And throughout human history we have had trouble distinguishing between good and evil. Some will look like the ones God sowed, some will have a good exterior, some of what seemed like bad fruit may turn out to be good fruit.

So God says “wait…wait until all things have had time to grow and bear fruit.”

God is calling them to prepare for a better day, and to remind them His plan has not faltered just because there is evil in the world. One day all the weeds will be gathered and those who follow evil will not be able to escape that day. And so it is not our concern to find the imposters, to try and “root out” evil. Remember, what these disciples were looking for was a King, and they thought that this king would “Restore” Jerusalem. They thought that the Messiah would come and bring heaven on earth and that they will help Him in destroying all of their enemies.

But what Jesus tells the disciples is “if the Father has given you time to find Him for salvation, than you should be patient for the world in finding salvation” Because the day of judgment will come and all of us will be gathered that day.

God is patient with you, you are to be patient with the world.

That is the main point

And to get to this point we have to be reminded of three things

It will be hard to distinguish between good and evil

God is a righteous judge

We are called to be faithful in a troubling world

God is a righteous judge

We see that God has a plan, and notice the plan doesn’t have anything to do with us. Jesus says God will send the angels to uproot the weeds from the wheat.

Jesus tells us that God will judge all in the last days, when Jesus returns. None will escape this day, they will answer for their disregard for God's law. And we can feel like God is unjust for two reasons. 1. It can feel like God is letting the bad guys get away, like He isn’t be harsh enough on evil. 2. It can feel like God is too hard on evil! How could a just God send people to hell? Because...

God’s grace and mercy shines from His judgment

Thankfully the Bible answers both of these within the same exact verse!

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.”

Romans 9:22–24 CSB

And what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory—on us, the ones he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

I know some believe that there is no way God could "send" people to hell, or that we will have another chance to choose Him in the afterlife. I can't sit here and tell you I know exactly what will happen when we are before God but I can tell you what Jesus, the Son of God's, own words tell us.

Yes, there is a day of judgment one day and that day will be a day of pain for all those who choose to not follow God. In fact, this judgment is so terrible that the Son of God came to earth, endured suffering and death so that we might not have to endure what He did. God gave everything so that we may not have to go through such pain and suffering. And not only that but what seems like “delay” to us is actually God’s mercy toward us.

I know one tactic every parent has used when disciplining their child is the count. “I’m going to give you 3 seconds to get in your room” or whatever it is. Now, how many of your counts are actually 3 seconds? It is more like 10 seconds most of the times. You aren’t delaying your punishments as some might understand delay but you are patient with your child not wanting them to be disciplined but to come to obedience.

It is hard for us to understand because we have a hard time understand loving judgment. We are complex, we are sometimes very angry, and sometimes very kind. Sometimes we take discipline too far, sometimes we are too lenient. God is simple, He does not have this problem. God’s judgment comes from His mercy, and God’s grace comes is the same as His wrath. God has given each of us the time that we need in our lives to choose Him and He knows the good fruit from the bad fruit. There is no second guessing from God.

I also think we can come to this question with some arrogance that somehow if someones life was different they would have chosen Him or if we saw the miracles the Israelites saw it would change our answer. The Israelites saw the presence of God and they still built an idol. In fact they were terrified of His presence. The ONLY reason we are saved is because of God's miraculous gift of salvation by grace through faith. NOT OF OUR WORKS, but just in our faith in God and our desire to be in our presence. If we do not desire God here on earth we are no more going to desire Him in heaven. If we don't accept Jesus as our Savior here on earth we are not going to accept Him in heaven. This isn't fire and brimstone, this is just the Gospel, it is just reality. We say yes to Christ now so that on the day before God Jesus will also say yes to us.

We also see God’s grace in this because of the one who is talking now. Jesus, the Son of God, who has come down. Yes, there is a day of judgment one day and that day will be a day of pain for all those who choose to not follow God. In fact, this judgment is so terrible that the Son of God came to earth, endured suffering and death so that we might not have to endure what He did. God gave everything so that we may not have to go through such pain and suffering.

Hebrews 11:13-16 “These all died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they were thinking about where they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. But they now desire a better place—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”

We are not called to be the arbiters of justice

Our ego brings us to believe we can purge evil from our world. This is dangerous thinking...

We see the evil in the world, we search for the imposters and we think “it is my job to figure out who has the right motives and who has the wrong motives”. Or we think “well if only we had good people in political office” or “If we could just get rid of this person we could fix the problems”. But we assume that we can figure out who is evil and who is good. We think that we if only we had the authority that we would get it right. But then we are putting ourselves in place of God.

What is so dangerous about this is that we become like the pharisees, we refuse to acknowledge our own sin while we tell everyone else where they are wrong. Rather than looking inward to our own life we go on crusades to look into others lives.

Paul says in Romans 13:1-2

“Let everyone submit to the governing authorities, since there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are instituted by God. So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves.”

When we read this our immediate thoughts are about respecting the leaders God has put over us, which is certainly true. But I think what is more significant is that we are trusting that God has complete sovereignty over these situations. It isn’t that we are trusting humans that we submit to authorities, it is that we trusting it is all within God’s plan.

We want to see immediate justice

If you go to the produce section of the grocery store, when you search for what produce do you buy what is ripe then and there? Often not, you usually buy the produce that will be ripe at the time that you want to use it. You can’t judge based on current fruit, you have to judge it based on a time in the future.

Sometimes we can get over-zealous, we just want to “purge” all the evil that is in front of us. But God gives us a lifetime to show if we are the wheat or if we are the weeds. We should be thankful that God gives us our entire lives to come to know Him. He gives us a lifetime of mistakes, of going astray, of putting things as priority over him, to come to Him and trust in Him. He does not judge us based on our current state, He judges us based on where we will end up being.

Hasty choices never provide clear thinking

We must not get caught up in the schemes to create unnecessary division, to go on witch hunts or to cast blame. Anger, frustration…that is not a good starting place for justice.

So God is the judge, we are not. Then what is our role in this story?

We are called to be faithful in a troubling world.

We have to accept we won’t always know the good from the evil

The master of the field knew that if his servants tried to pull up the weeds that they would also pull out the good fruit. That there would be confusion between good and evil.

Now those of you who have a lawn…you know that weeds can be the bane of your existence. Sometimes you just want to pull all of it out because you don’t even know what are weeds and what is grass anymore. Sometimes you just go on a hunt for every single weed and try and pull them out one by one. Sometimes we don’t even know what we are pulling out anymore.

We have to accept that fact. That we our perception of right and wrong has been twisted by our sinful nature. I was talking to some of my students last spring on a Wednesday night. And I asked them “why is it the kid that does their homework, answers the questions the teacher asks, and follow the rules is the least liked person in the class but the kid who makes the jokes and doesn’t pay attention is the most liked?” And the overwhelming answer I got was “because they are a suck up! A teachers pet!” There was immediate connotation of something wrong with the good student. There has been a twisting of good and evil. And this isn’t to bag on students, because that is how our sinful nature has taught our brains to work.

The challenge comes because we sometimes have righteous desires and sometimes sinful desires.

Thankfully Jesus has given us direction as it pertains to the church specifically, we could look forward to Matthew 18 for that. The church does have guard rails against evil from among us. That isn’t what He is talking about in this context. There isn’t this same expectation for the world in the same way we do in the church.

But if we can’t distinguish and the Master is telling us not to pull up the weeds, then what hope do we have that the bad fruit will be identified?

Remember who your allegiance is to

This is what Jesus calls us to. The focus for the harvesters is for them to continue what they are doing until the day it is all uprooted.

Verse 41 tells us the ungodly will try and make the godly, the children of the kingdom, “stumble”. But the righteous should keep their allegiance with the kingdom of God than the kingdom of earth. There are troubles in this world, there is division, there will be those who will seek to make us “stumble”. And we can often sway one of two ways when we see trouble in the world.

Escape the world. Don’t interact with it, don’t live near it, live in a bubble outside of the “danger” of the world.

Be so intertwined with the world that we are unable to produce good fruit. That we lose track of the kingdom of heaven.

So how do we balance this?

Jesus calls us to focus on increasing the fruit rather than uprooting the weeds.

As Jesus finishes the discourse of these parables He asks them if they “understand all these things” or also put “have you brought together everything I have said?” And certainly not all of it has come together yet for them, but He says that if they understand these things they should be like one who brings out all of their treasure, both new and old, for others to see. What He is telling them is that they should help to explain to all people the Old Testament and the New Testament and the treasure there is in Christ who has come. That they should be sharing this treasure for others to enjoy. That they should be showing the world the kingdom of heaven while actively living in it.

See, if we are to increase fruit we have to sow among the weeds. But we also have to remember what type of fruit we are seeking to produce.

This storehouse of treasure Jesus talks about is the story of redemption that culminates in the work of Jesus on the cross. And what we should be storing is the treasure of the Gospel! How big is our storehouse? Are we putting new treasures in? Are we rejecting the treasures as worthless?

Jesus tells us not to hoard the treasures of the Gospel but to openly reveal it so that others may enjoy it.

But we also have to be storing the right things. Not storing earthly treasures that moth and rust can destroy, or that thieves can steal.

Our hope isn’t that we can build some sort of paradise on earth, or that we can get all Christian leaders into positions of political power, it isn’t that our enemies falter and we succeed. But it is what Jesus says in v. 43

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s kingdom. Let anyone who has ears listen.” Are you listening? Jesus is saying “stop focusing on how big and terrible the weeds are! Go and made disciples! Give everything up for the kingdom!”

See, the hope we have is that we will “shine like the sun” with Jesus. We will have unimaginable joy in God’s presence.