The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30

Matthew 13:24–30 (KJV 1900)

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

Matthew 13:36–43 KJV 1900

Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. In His parables he often mentioned the kingdom. Fortunately for us He went ahead and explained several of his parables. In this parable there is broad agreement among commentators that this parable directly applies to the church. He ushered in His kingdom with his advent, death, and resurrection. What does that Kingdom look like? It is all around us and yet it often makes little sense. Through the parables of Jesus we can begin to make sense of all that we see around us.

God (and His servants) Sowed Good Seed

The first thing I would like to note in this parable is that Jesus, and by extension His servants, sowed good seed. So often we blame God and accuse Him of being at fault for the bad we experience and see in this life. If indeed we as Christians are a part of the kingdom of Heaven why does the King of heaven allow such difficulty and trouble? Further Why does God allow such pain and suffering in the world?

It must first be understood that the Gospel that Jesus brought to the world is a good seed, a seed with brings peace and righteousness to a troubled world. We could just as easily be astounded by the good in the world, and I suggest that we indeed should be. In a world full of evil people, ruled by evil regimes, with each new person being born into the world being evil from their birth, with Satan as yet being unbound in this age, raging against us how can there be the good that we see? Why is it that we rage against certain evils? How can it be that society fights against so many evils, that so much good exists in this world?

My friend it is because of the good seed sown by God and because of the vestiges of His image that we are created in. It is because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that good wars with evil in this world. It is because good seed is spread by the master that we are not altogether comsumed with evil as in the days of Noah. Those who are the fruit of the good seed of Christ are those who war against the evil of the day, wo are messengers of hope and rightouseness to a hopeless and sin filled world.

In this parable we see the sower is Jesus. The seed that he spread is good. We see from scripture that God’s word will not return unto Him void. As long as we spread the seed that is God’s Word, we his servants in this age too are sure of spreading that good seed that brings forth good fruit. Good seed can only bring forth a good harvest.

Satan Has mixed bad tares into the wheat

I have just said that only good wheat can come from good seed and yet as we look around we see within the church, intermingled with the kingdom of God so many that at one point or another we find to be tares. Spiritual heroes are sometimes found to be great hypocrites. People who many look up to fall. So many leave the church and leave Christianity because of hypocrites. Many blame God for the actions of these people who are not obeying Him. On this point I believe there are a few things to be said. First God and His true servants sow Good seed and only good wheat can come from good seed.

If you plant corn, you will not grow a walnut tree. If you plant walnuts you will not grow a raspberry bush. Once my dad went to a store and bought a decorative cherry tree. Eventually it grew and it brought fruit. The strange thing was it grew apples! What happened? Did we plant a cherry tree that switched and grew apples? No, somewhere along the line the tree was mislabeled. It was never a cherry tree, it was an apple tree. We know that apple trees bring apples and cherry trees bring cherries. It not a cherry tree in our backyard that yields apples. Good seed brings forth good fruit.

It is not the seed that God has planted that has brought forth hypocrites! It is the Enemy who has come in and planted hypocrites in the mix of the kingdom of God! It is not the good seed of the Gospel that grows tares within the kingdom of God. It is the enemy that has planted the tares to bring trouble into the kingdom of God.

The second thing I would say to people who refuse to attend church because of hypocrites in the church would be a question. Why do you come to church? For people or for God? We come to meet with God, we gather with fellow believers because God has told us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. If we are looking at others we are looking at the wrong place. Yes the fellowship of the brethren is important, but the primary reason we gather together is to meet with God not each other. The sad truth is that people will always disappoint you. Not one person will ever perfectly live up to your expectations. Either your expectations will be flawed or the other person will be. Likely both. There will be areas in each persons life that will disappoint and disillusion you if you are looking to other people and not to God. God alone will never disappoint, never fail, never waver, never make a mistake, never misunderstand! Since the Enemy is active we will face false Christians, and even true Christians may disappoint us. Turn you eyes upon Jesus, and the failures of your fellow man will matter less and less.

The existence of hypocrites does not disprove the good seed of the Gospel but rather proves it. If someone is obviously a fake, the only way to truly know is to be familiar with the real. I am told that those skilled in spotting counterfeit money become so without extensive handling of counterfeit currency. Instead of studying all the various ways that people have counterfeited bills they instead study all the real bills. They spend hours each day handling real money, both new and old. They learn the feel so well that with near perfect accuracy they can spot a counterfeit by feel without even seeing it! Instead of studying all the ways it can be faked they become so familiar with the real the fake is immediately apparent.

It is not our job though to spot hypocrites, it is not for us to seek out the fakes, but if they are being spotted that means there must be real! If the fake stand out as being unique rather than disproving the real it proves it beyond any doubt the possibitily of real Christianity. If everyone seems to be fake, yet a few still stand out, once again this proves that the good seed does exist. Perhaps it may seem to you to be in the minority, but the existence of those whose lives and characters has been transformed by God cannot be debated. The real is out there and can be found.

God Leaves the Tares Until Harvest Time

It would seem to you and I perhaps and it seemed to the servants of the sower that the best thing to do would be to go out and uproot the tares now. To rid the kingdom of God of any of these hindrances and impurities before they grow in among us too much! To us perhaps we would love to spring into action now to clear the church of these hypocrites. Yet the master knows a better plan. There are a few problems with clearing out these tares. It seems that most commentators agree that these tares are likely referring to a plant called darnel. This plant is closely related to wheat and looks very similar to wheat. Just as it is often difficult to distinguish between a true Christian and one who is that only outwardly it is difficult to tell what is wheat and what is a tare. In the parable the sower tells the servant that it will all be sorted out at harvest time. That damage could be caused to the good plants if they tried to clear it out now.

It is only God who looks on the heart and not man. The sower himself knows what is from the good seed and what is sown by the enemy. It is his job to sort the harvest not ours. His angels, his reapers can sort the harvest and can tell the real from the fake. We cannot. If we try to rid the church of any potential evil seed we will likely damage and destroy much of the good seed that has been planted by the sower himself. We can only look on outward appearances. We cannot know for sure the heart of any man, and yet it is the condition of the heart that determines the real and the fake. It would be ruinous for us to think that we could. Wiersbe aptly observes “Our task is not to pull up the false, but to plant the true. We are not detectives but evangelists! We must oppose Satan and expose his lies. But we must also sow the Word of God and bear fruit in the place where He has planted us.”

It should be here noted that this commentary on wheat and tares or darnel is referring to those who look to be real but are not. Wesley notes that “Darnel, in the church, is properly outside Christians, such as have the form of godliness, without the power. Open sinners, such as have neither the form nor the power, are not so properly darnel, as thistles and brambles: these ought to be rooted up without delay, and not suffered in the Christian community.—Whereas should fallible men attempt to gather up the darnel, they would often root up the wheat with them.” This does not mean we mistreat or disregard anyone, even if they are proved beyond any doubt to be a false Christians, but rather that we treat these open sinners as ones who need to be saved rather than as Christian brothers and sisters.

The sower perhaps could sort things out now, but we, his servants are not capable to. Let us as his servants labor to plant as much good seed as we can and let God sort out the difference in the time of harvest.

The Tares will be Gathered and Burned

A frightening truth is brought up in this parable. Jesus was not afraid of laying out the plain truth of both the good news to the Christian and the bad news for the sinner. What does harvest look like? For wheat and as far as I know darnel it is the seed that is what we harvest. In the harvest the good harvest and the evil harvest will be sorted. The wheat was to be gathered into the great storehouses of the sower, but the seed of the darnel was to be burned, to be destroyed so it could not bring forth any more ill fruit. Jesus in explaining this parable shows that it is a rather literal illustration. At the day of harvest the angels of God will gather the righteous into the glory of His eternal presence, but the unrighteous will be cast into a furnace of fire.

While many would like to ignore this truth, some going so far as to cast the idea of hell out of their theologies it is an unavoidable truth in scripture. We do not pass judgement, we do not sort out who is real and who is fake, we only seek to spread and cultivate as much good seed as we can. Do not worry over those who offend the brethren and those who may be false. God will sort it out in the end and true and righteous Judgement will be meted out in the end.

The Evidences of True and False Seed

Now the question must be raised. Which are you? Ask yourself, Which am I? Since we cannot know the spiritual condition of any other than ourselves it is incumbent upon us to carefully consider what we are in this parable. What is the criteria by which the sower can tell which is true and which is fake? Matthew 13:41–43 say “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”

Them that offend calls the mind to Jesus talking both of the children and the weak in Christ. Harsh judgement shall be cast upon those who cause these little ones, whether spiritually or physically, to stumble, not only sealing their own fate but ruining good seed and taking it with them as well. That which offends is that which hinders the good seed from taking root or bearing fruit. Them that offend shall be gathered along with them which do iniquity. To tie this to another passage we find in I John that sin is lawlessness and to do iniquity is to be lawless or to commit lawlessness. To disregard the law of God is to sin. To disregard the law of God is to be gathered and cast into a furnace of fire.

Who then is the good seed? Here we see that it is the righteous. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.” A couple other references make even more evident who shall be sorted where. Romans 2:6 “Who will render to every man according to his deeds:” and Revelation 20:12 “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”

So it is the righteous, the ones who live as God desires us to live are the one who are sorted into the presence of God. To be righteous is to be in conformity to a set of expectations in a relationship, specifically in this case it is being or living in accordance to what God requires. To be righteous is not some impossible standard of infallibility but rather to meet the standard that Gods asks us to meet. And my friend the truth is that God never asks us to do something He will not enable us to accomplish! Perhaps this requirement of righteousness seems like an un-climbable mountain. Like an impossible standard. That is a lie told by satan. I have fallen prey to this same lie, I am not immune. But it is not an impossible standard we are called to. We hear the word righteous and we run from such a formidable term, but God has said that He has made His Children righteous and that He will enable them to continue to live lives of righteousness.

Yet this standard should not be scoffed at or made light of either. We certainly could do nothing to become righteous, and neither could we live up to the expectations of God in this relationship with Him without His help. But we cannot rely on a past experience when we reach the day of final judgement, we must rely on that transformation as well as its continued effects on our daily lives. I love to hear the testimonies of what God has done in the past. I love to hear how God saved you out of a pit of despair. I truly do. I hope you know that. I have heard preachers scoff at what they may term stale testimonies. Testimonies of past victories. I love to hear any testimony, anyone praising God whether it is praise for something in the past present or future. Yet that moment no matter how recent or long ago will do you no good in the final judgement unless the God who saved you still lives within you and works in your life today!

Conclusion

In Conclusion tonight what do we learn from this parable of Jesus? We first learn that God sows good seed! The truth of the Gospel brings forth good fruit! But we also learn that we must be wary of our enemy. One commentator noted that this parable is talking about the world, not just the church. God’s good seed is sown into the world. In places far and wide this good springs forth good fruit. Yet in the world there is an enemy who sowes tares, counterfeit wheat as well. Wherever the good seed is found to be bringing forth good fruit you may be sure that false seed is bringing forth false fruit. Wiersbe puts it this way. “We must beware of Satan’s counterfeits. He has counterfeit Christians (2 Cor. 11:26) who believe a counterfeit Gospel (Gal. 1:6–9). He encourages a counterfeit righteousness (Rom. 10:1–3), and even has a counterfeit church (Rev. 2:9). At the end of the age, he will produce a counterfeit Christ (2 Thes. 2:1–12).”

We learn that now is not the time to try and sort everything out. God and His angels will gather the harvest, and no amount of counterfeit righteousness will confuse God. We can only look on the appearances of man, but God sees the heart. The great question we must consider for ourselves is where we stand in this parable. Are we wheat or tares? Lets band together and build each other up and believe through the disappointments and confusion we may have with one another that we are gathered together with wheat. I pray that one day we all will be gathered together into the eternal presence of God and that none of us will be found to be tares and justly separated and burned.