The Kingdom and the World

Bill Woody

The Kingdom Parables • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Matthew 13:24–30

Kingdom of God

Parables of Jesus

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The Kingdom and the World

Text: Matthew 13:24–30 (KJV 1900)

24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27 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?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30 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.

Introduction:

* To prepare us for consideration of this second parable, we need to remind ourselves of an Old Testament truth concerning God.

* God the Most High, our creator, is the ruler, the King of the universe.

Deuteronomy 10:14 (KJV 1900)

14 Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

Psalm 24: 1 (KJV 1900)

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein.

Psalm 24:6–10 (KJV 1900)

6 This is the generation of them that seek him, That seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah. 7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; And the King of glory shall come in.

8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. 9

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; And the King of glory shall come in.

10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

Colossians 1:12–20 (KJV 1900)

12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,

and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; 20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say,

whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

* So we see from the Scriptures, both Old and New, that Jesus is, and always has been, King over the entire universe, that includes heaven and earth I Corinthians 1:18 says “whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

* Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 45:21:

Isaiah 45:21–23 (KJV 1900)

Who hath declared this from ancient time?

who hath told it from that time? Have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; A just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: For I am God, and there is none else.

23 I have sworn by myself,

The word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall swear.

Romans 14:10–12 (KJV 1900)

…for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. 12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

Philippians 2:5–11 (KJV 1900)

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

* This second of the Kingdom Parables, is a parable about Judgment.

* Jesus gave the story contained in this second of the Kingdom Parables to illustrate to his newly made disciples why it is that the world will not yet be judged.

* Those who heard Jesus preach were looking for a Messiah that would Judge the world in righteousness and put down all who rebel against God.

* Now this was all a result of what the Old Testament Prophets had foretold about the Messiah.

* Now I want you to Listen to just a little of why these people thought that Jesus was going to wipe out all the sinners and establish His earthly kingdom right then:

* I am going to go fast, so you might want to just jot down some of these scriptures is you want to keep them.

* In Isaiah chapter 2, Isaiah looked at the kingdom, it says,

"It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow into it. And many people should go and say, Come ye and let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths."

And then verse 4,

"He will judge among the nations, He will rebuke the peoples."

* So, these disciples of Jesus saw the law of God and the word of God and the righteousness of God in the words of Isaiah, dominating thee arth.

* They saw everybody accepting the law of God and judgment and rebuke from the King to those who rejected the law of God.

* In the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, and the third verse, when the Messiah comes and the kingdom comes, it says,

"He shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, not superficially, nor after the hearing of his ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor. He will reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. He will smite the earth with a rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips will He slay the wicked and righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins."

* In other words, these new disciples of Jesus expected righteousness and the slaying and the destroying and the devastation of the wicked.

* Now, if you come to Jeremiah 31, you find in the words of Jeremiah the same kind of prophecies.

* In chapter 31, verse 33, "When the Lord comes to build His kingdom with Israel He will make a covenant.

" He says, "I'll put My law in their inward parts. I'll write it in their hearts. I'll be their God and

they'll be My people. And they'll teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother

saying know the Lord for they'll all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the

Lord. I'll forgive their iniquity, I'll remember their sin no more."

* And so Jeremiah effectively says the same thing as Isaiah- the Reign of the Messiah will be a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of glory, a kingdom of virtue, a kingdom of holiness.

* In the 20th chapter of Ezekiel, Ezekiel the prophet says the same thing.

"I will bring you out from the peoples, I'll gather you out of the countries with a mighty arm an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out."

* And this is the fury, verse 38, "I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against Me.”

* Now, that's just sampling of what these new Diciples of Jesus expected that Jesus would do.

* You have it again in the 14th chapter of Zechariah. The prophecies all come together to say that when the Messiah comes, He will be the King, He will establish a kingdom, He

will purge out the ungodly, purge out the rebels, rebuke the unbelievers, establish righteousness across the face of the earth, everyone will believe, everyone will walk in His law.

* And so the immediate problem the disciples have is - Look, if three kinds of people in this world aren't going to believe, are You going to blow them away right on the spot?

* Is this the time? And very likely in Acts 1:6 when they said - Is this the time You'll restore the kingdom? They were really saying - Is this the time You're going to blast away the unbelievers? Is this the time for their devastating judgment?

* That's really what the disciples were asking.

* And so, the Lord needs to explain to them, then, what He's going to do with the unbelievers who are in the earth during this mystery form of the kingdom, what we the apostle Paul called the “dispensation of Grace.”

* And Jesus does this in the parable we have before us this morning.

* Jesus answers their question -What happens to unbelievers during this age?

* Jesus begins in this second of the Kingdom Parables to picture a time when, instead of ruling with a rod of iron as the prophets foretold, a time that evil would be tolerated, and a time in which God will give the World an opportunity of Grace to repent of it’s rebellion against the rule of God in Heaven and in Earth.

* Now, this truth was very hard for the disciples, to understand. They didn't see this in the teaching of the prophets.

* They only saw the full and glorious consummation of the Kingdom in the prophecies concerning the millennial reign of Jesus.

* Now remember last time, Jesus begins to tell them parables

here in Matthew 13 to help them to understand the nature of this period of the Grace of God in which we live.

* Jesus begins to describe the nature of the Kingdom of God in the age of the church.

* The first thing Jesus says is a parable of soils.

* And He told them there were four kinds of soils: the hard, resistant soil, the seed never even penetrated.

* And then there was the rocky ground soil where the seed went

down a little ways, sprung up for a while and then died because there was no depth.

* Then there was the thorny or weedy soil where the seed went down, began to grow but was choked out by the weeds and thorns that occupied that soil.

* And then fourthly, and finally, there was the good soil where there was real fruit.

* And Jesus is saying an amazing thing. He is saying - In this mystery form of the kingdom not everybody believes, not everybody is genuine, not everybody is bearing the fruit of righteousness.

This was a devastating truth to these new followers of Jesus. They saw no such form of the kingdom, no such mingled kingdom, no such kingdom with good and bad tolerated.

* They didn't see that. They saw a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of holy glory where unbelievers were devastatingly judged, punished, put out, destroyed.

I. The Narrative

* This simple parable that Jesus told is so profound, so full of wisdom and understanding! It contains the answers to the deepest of theological questions!

* Now this is an amazing parable, in that this parable gives us an amazing understanding of the entire history of the human race.

* Why are things in the world the way they are?

* This simple parable answers some deep theological questions.

* People are always asking hard questions like “If God created everything that is, then did God create evil?

* Why would a kind and loving God do that?

* Well we find the answer to this amazingly hard question right here in this simple parable told by Jesus.

* Now let’s take a look at the parable it’s self this morning:

Text: Matthew 13:24–30 (KJV 1900)

24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

II. The Interpretation

* Look with me now at our Matthew 13:36-43 and let’s examine Jesus’ interpretation of this second Kingdom Parable:

Matthew 13:36–43 (KJV 1900)

36 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.

37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;

* Who is the man that sows the good seed in the Parable?

* This is Jesus the sovereign God of Heaven and Earth. The earth is His field because He created it.

* We live in a day and time in which men think the earth belongs to them, but it belongs to God the creator of the Universe.

* Now in the parable before us, Jesus, the creator, the Messiah sowed good seed in His field.

* Verse 37 says "He answered and said, He that

sows the good seed is the Son of man."

* Now who's the Son of man? Christ, Jesus, Christ, is the Son of man.

* That's His common title for Himself. He uses that more than any other title to refer to Himself.

* In fact, only one time in the New Testament is that phrase ever used by anybody else of Him, every other time it's His phrase for Himself.

* And Jesus uses it because it identifies Him in His incarnation. It identifies Him in His humanness.

* It identifies Him as He truly participates in our life. It identifies Him to be all that a man could be, the perfect man.

* It identifies Him as the second Adam the representative of the human race.

* It is His unique incarnation term. But it is also Messianic.

* In Daniel 7:13 the Messiah is said to be called the Son of man.

So, Jesus here is identifying Himself as the Messiah, God incarnate ... in that title.

* The Jews knew that this was a Messianic title and we know that from Luke 22:69. Jesus before the Sanhedrin says, "Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God."

* And they said, "Art Thou, then, the Son of God?" Jesus said He was the Son of man, they said He was the Son of God... from this we see then that they must have known the Son of man was a reference to the Messiah.

* And so, we see that the sower is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the farmer sowing the seed.

38 The field is the world;

* Now the parable tells us that the Lord is sowing seed. Where is He sowing this seed? … in His field.

* Now if you'll notice it says in verse 38 the field is the world.

* So, the Lord is sowing seed in the world. The world is Jesus field. It belongs to Him.

* He is sovereign. He is monarch. He is King of the earth.

* Jesus holds in His hand the title deed even though He hasn't really laid claim to it fully as He will in Revelation 6 when He unrolls the scroll, that's the title deed to the earth and takes back the earth.

* The apostle Paul says in Romans 8 that all creation, groans, waiting for Jesus to take possession of what is rightly His. His world, His Kingdom!

* So, we see, then, the Lord is sowing seed in the world which belongs to Him. It's His field. It's His kingdom. I mean, He made it, didn't He?

* And He planted Adam and Eve in it. And Satan came along

and usurped everything. But it's still His. He created it and He will reclaim it and it's His in the meantime.

* So the Son of man, the Lord Jesus Christ) sows in His own field.

the good seed are the children of the kingdom;

* The good seed are the children of the kingdom.

* What this means is that the Lord puts the children of the kingdom in the world. Very simple.

* God sows His children of His kingdom throughout the world.

* Now, the disciples could handle that, sure, it's going to be an earthly kingdom, Jesus was saying to them that God is going to put His people all around the world.

* We that have obeyed the Gospel and repenting of our sin, have believed the preaching of the Gospel, are children of the kingdom.

* We are the subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been planted in the world, His world.

* This is a picture, not of the world in the church, but the church in the world.

* And we are placed within the world's system.

* We who genuinely love the King, who genuinely affirm His Lordship, who truly are subjects of His sovereignty, we are planted in the world.

* That's a great thought this morning!

* We are not here by accident! we're planted here in the world by the Lord! We have a purpose for being here!

* The Lord places us where He wants us in the world.

* That also tells me that we're not to be out of the world. We're not to be off in a monastery somewhere, but living out our testimony for Jesus in the world.

* In His High-priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus plainly tells us that we are to be planted in the world:

John 17:14–18 (KJV 1900)

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

* We're not called to isolate ourselves.

* We've been planted in the world. So, in this kingdom, we're going to be planted all throughout the world and we're there for many reasons.

* First of all, we're there to be matured by the trouble the world gives us.

* First Peter 5:10 says , "After you've suffered a little while, the Lord will make you perfect."

Peter also wrote: "In this world you'll have tribulation but be of good cheer,"

* In John 16:33 Jesus says "1 have overcome the world."

* And James said that that trial and that trouble and those things that happen in the world are what mature you and build you up, so the Lord plants us there so we can develop.

* He also plants us in the world- now listen to this- this is important- so that we can influence the world!

* We are planted in the world to influence world for good.

* Did you know that everybody who is wheat was once tares?

* In the light of the first parable of the kingdom, the parableof the sower, we were all bad seed before we got saved.

* We were all bad from the beginning. So, the Lord puts us in the world not only to be perfected and to be matured by the pressure that it brings, but to influence the tares into becoming wheat like we did.

* Our redemption must be at work and that's why Jesus said in John 17 "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world but that when they're in the world Thou shouldest keep them from ... what? ... the evil one."

* You can't take the good seed, the children of the kingdom out of the world; we're supposed to be in the world, we are here for a reason.

* When the age of the church is over, “the dispensation of Grace” as the apostle Paul puts it, then the children of the Kingdom will be taken out. We call that the rapture.

* Why will we the children be taken out then? Because then it will be the time to judge the world.

but the tares are the children of the wicked one;

* Verse 38 says the false wheat, or the tares the, are the

children of the wicked one.

* It says in verse 39, the enemy that sowed them is the devil. He is the wicked one.

* The title devil in verse 39,diabolos means enemy, or adversary.

39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil;

* He is called that several different places in the New Testament. The wicked one ... and the article there is emphatic, he is the utterly wicked one, the absolutely wicked one, the wicked one of all wicked ones.

* There are only two kinds of people in the world, children of the

kingdom, children of the wicked one.

* If you're not a child of the King through your obedience to the Gospel, you're a child of the devil; it's that plain and simple.

* You are on the devi’s team; you are functioning under his control.

* Ephesians 2 said you are directed and moved and motivated

and guided by the prince of the power of the air who works in the children of disobedience.

* If you will not obey Jesus as your king, then the devil is your king

* John 8:44, Jesus said to those leaders of Israel, "You are of your father, the devil."

* The origin of evil is from the evil one, God is not the author of evil.

* Evil proceeds from the evil one. He is the enemy who,

over sows in the good field.

* You see this principle in the account of the creation, back in the book of Genesis.

* God originally sowed in the Garden of Eden children of the kingdom ... Adam and Eve, and then came the enemy, the devil, and over sowed and caused two seeds.

Genesis 3:14–15 (KJV 1900)

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

* And the two seeds, the good seed, and the bad seed, the children of the kingdom, and the children of the devil, continue through all of human history.

* And so, Satan is the origin of evil.

* Whatever is not of God, it says in Matthew 5:37, cometh from the evil one.

* People always ask the question - Where did evil come from? That's where it came from. The evil one.

* The Lord sows believers, subjects of the King, in the world and

Satan oversows his own children.

* So the world, then, is co-mingled: subjects of the King, the subjects of the usurper, the marauder, the enemy, the devil himself.

* So, we're mingled in the world. Now that's very important. This is how it has been and this is how it will be in the mystery form of the kingdom, a commingling.

* Jesus said the children of the kingdom and the children of the devil will exist together.

*We breathe the same air, we eat the same food, we drive the same highways, we live in the same neighborhoods, we work at the same factories, we go to the same schools, we visit the same doctors, we entertain ourselves with the same entertainment, we're under the same sky, we enjoy the same warm sun, we breathe the same air, the just and the unjust are rained upon in this era because it's all commingled until the end of the age.

* Now there's several things we need to note. Satan, it says the enemy when he came and sowed, he sowed among the good seed, everywhere.

* Satan really has his people everywhere. I mean, he is really sowing them.

* In fact, in some parts of the world they are the dominating that part of the world.

* You'd look a long time to find in there some wheat.

* So there's a massive sowing and he likes to sow them as close to the wheat as he can. And he does sow them in the church.

* He does sow them in the church. Because Jesus says in Matthew 7, that on Judgment day he will have to say to some who claim to serve God "Depart from Me," those who say we did this,

we did that in Your name.

* To them Jesus will say "Depart from Me ye that work lawlessness, you who work iniquity."

* The devil has his sinful workers sown right in the church, with the wheat.

* Now, when we find them here, we do have biblical instruction to put them out, the New Testament is clear on that.

* But we are not to Judge the world, or pull up the false wheat, the tares, at this point in the kingdom that job is assigned to the angels in the last day, not the church.

* So, Satan is oversowing what God has done.

* And that's the history of the world!

* There you have it! God sows good seed, and Satan sows the bad and that's the way it goes throughout all of human history.

* And when we come to the mystery form of the kingdom, or the age of Grace, Jesus says it's going to be that way.

* There will be Judases right among the apostles.

Verse 39:B the harvest is the end of the world;

* Why does He say in verse 39 that the harvest is the end of the world?

* Because, you see, the disciples were ready to put in the sickle right now and root out the tares from among the wheat.

* That is what they were expected Jesus, the Messiah to do right then.

* Even today, sometimes when you see the wickedness and the rejection and the unbelief and the grief that the world causes the church, and the Lord's purposes and people, you just say - God, would You just come down and wipe it out.

* And you understand David, don't you? When he cries

for God to destroy His enemies.

* And you understand those people under the altar pleading with God to do something.

* But here the Lord says - Don't be impatient, the harvest waits till the end of the age.

* “The end of the world,” or “The end of the age” is a very important phrase used several times in Matthew that speaks of the final and ultimate judgment of the world, the time when God judges the world once and for all.

Verse 39 and the reapers are the angels.

* Now we come to the - "The servants in the parable ask the owner of the field “Do you want us to pull

the weeds up?''

* We can see who they are now, they've grown up, we see the manifestation and we know who they are, you want us to yank them out?

* And the Lord says No, don't do that. Because if you yank out the false wheat or seed, you're liable to do what? You will yank out some wheat with it.

* Jesus is saying if you go about trying to judge the world, without divine insight, you're going to wind up condemning the Christians with it.

* You say - Wait a minute, what does that mean? Let me explain.

* Do you know what the church has done throughout its history?

* Just what Jesus said not to do! The Roman Catholic Church, for example, could well be described by these guys.

* They tried to clean out all the ungodly out of the world...and

by their own definition only they were the godly so they persecuted the true believers.

* They went out and slaughtered the true believers.

* Jesus said you can't do tha! God didn't call the church of Jesus Christ to judge the world.

* God doesn't want us in a position of political power, destroying unbelievers because we don't have the discernment to know who is a child of the kingdom and a child of the devil.

* The church's function is not to go around ripping out the tares of the world, that'snot what we've been called to do.

* We are not to attack the world. God hasn't given us that ministry.

* But it's not for us to go ripping the tares out.

* Wherever in history the church became a political power, it was prone to corrupt that power, and attempt to destroy quote/unquote "the apostates."

* Think about the inquisition. Have you ever read FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS?

* All of those martyrs of Christ that were slaughtered, were slaughtered by people who claimed to be quote unquote, “Christians.”

* Read about the crusades, one of the worst points of human history.

* Crusaders in the name of Jesus Christ in Europe, were going to go to take the holy places of Israel back from the Turks and in the process they massacred people all across Europe.

* In one village alone, they trampled with their horses three thousand Jews because they said they were apostates.

* This is not the age of judgment.

* What was the Lord Jesus Christ's attitude toward the tares?

* Simply ask yourself this. How did He treat publicans and sinners?

* With meekness, love and kindness, right?

* How did Jesus treat Judas?

* And Judas was there will Jesus and Jesus didn't Judas, Jesus didn’t blow him over with fire from heaven,

* Jesus was patient, even with Judas.

* And this is the time of patience. Revelation talks about “and this is the patience of the saints”

* Jesus was tolerant of the tares. And this is the time of tolerance.

John 12:46–48 (KJV 1900)

46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

* Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more!

* Jesus was gracious with sinners. And this is the time and age of grace.

* And while some people are running put trying to destroy the sinners of the world, they may be forgetting the fact that they

were once also a sinner.

* Maybe God knows that the person you wish to destroy needs time enough to become wheat.

* If we go out destroying everybody, we will be totally out of line with God's plan for this age.

* If we acted as a church against the ungodly of the world, we would be interfering with God's patient, gracious waiting... for those people to come to Him, in His good time.

* That was not Jesus’ calling at his first coming, and it is not our calling either.

* we are not to damn the unbelievers of the world, we are not to pray that God would destroy them, but we're to pray that God would...what? ... save them!

* That's the only proper attitude for a Christian to have.

* That was the attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ the night in which He was betrayed.

* He took the sop, which was a sign when you gave it to the person next to you that this person was the honored guest, and who did He give it to? Judas ...

* Jesus was still wooing Judas with love. Judas and Jesus are an illustration of our relationship to the world in this age of grace.

* We cannot act as executioners. We must be lovingly patiently graciously tolerant like our Lord was.

* You know, you could take this a step further. * We can't apply the spiritual principles we learned in the Beatitudes in chapter 5, to the world.

* When we try to enforce the principles of the kingdom on the world Jesus said that we would be casting your pearls before swine.

* Only the true believers can live by the principles and standards of the kingdom.

* In Matthew 7, Jesus talks about how we are not to judge one another but we're to be careful that we look at our own lives.

* And before we get a splinter out of another guy's eye, we get a two-by-four out of our own eye.

* And then He talks about how we deal with each other.... and how we treat each other and so forth.

* And then Jesus says right in the next verse, "Don't bother to try this stuff on the world, that would be casting your pearls before swine."

* And you can back up and take the whole Sermon on the Mount there and what He's saying is - Don't take these principles of the Sermon on the Mount and try to enforce them on a society of ungodly people because they can't handle it.

* And so we don't damn them when they live like children of the devil.

* We are not called to do that, we are called to love them and call them to Jesus for salvation in His name.

* And so, we are called, then, to be patient like Jesus was with the sinners of this world.

* Now is not the time of Judgment, but time of patience and grace.

40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

* Now, this brings us to the climax of the parabe in verse 39.

* Remember in the parable He said - Just let it go until it's

time for the harvest, and the reapers will come and they'll do the separating and verse 39 says the reapers are the angels.

* Now the angels are called to judgment. Christians are called to

righteous influence.

* We are not called to judgment. We are not called to condemn the world.

* Jesus is saying God's going to be the judge.

* He's going to judge the world in the end of the age and the angels are going to be the reapers.

* You can see over and over again in the New Testament, from

Matthew to Revelation, how that God has called the angels to reap.

* Matthew 16:27 it says, "He'll come in glory, the glory of His Father with His angels." In Matthew 24, 1 think it's verse 31, "He'll send His angels to gather the elect," and so forth.

* The gathering process of the elect, and the gathering process of the judgment...of those to be judged is to be done by the angels.

* You see it, also, in Revelation as you read the fourteenth chapter particularly, and then the nineteenth chapter, that angels are God's agents of judgment, not men, that's not our task.

* So, He says to these guys in the parable - You're the sowers, I've got some other folks for reapers.

* In verse 40, "When the angels come, the reapers, the children of the devil, the false wheat, are going to be gathered and burned in the fire and it will be that way in the end of this age."

* We have to wait until the King comes back with His angels for the judgment to happen.

* That's precisely what II Thessalonians 1:7 says.

"When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire

taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who

shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."

* When's that going to happen? When He shall come to be glorified in His saints.

* He'll come to be glorified in His saints and when He comes at that time, with His holy angels, He'll burn in unquenchable fire all those children of the wicked one.

* Now, notice verse 40. It shows us the children of the devil are gathered out and burned.

* That's the picture. And verse 41 explains it.

"The Son of man shall send forth His angels, they shall gather out of His

kingdom,"

* The term kingdom is talking about the whole world, it's all His field, and He pulls in the net, as it were, pulling them all in together, like unclean animals and clean in the same ark, goats in the same pasture with sheep, bad fish in the same net with good fish, chaff on the same floor as the grain, vessels to dishonor in the same house as vessels to honor.

* He pulls them all in and "...all that offend and all that do iniquity," or do lawlessness, the same phrase as Matthew 7:23, those that do lawlessness, pulls them- all in and all of them, verse 42, Are cast into the furnace of fire." And their reaction to that is "...wailing and gnashing of teeth."

41 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;

42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

* And so, there's coming an inevitable judgment when the Lord sends His angels, pulls all of them out of the kingdom that offend Him.

* And anything that is sinful, unbelieving offends Him, all those who work iniquity, these are just two ways of defining sinful people, and they're all thrown into a furnace of fire.

*Now, fire is the most horrible death that man ever experiences. And fire is the imagery of eternal hell.

* It speaks of the terrible and everlasting doom of the unrighteous, the sons of Satan.

* It's used again and again in Scripture. We read in the Scripture-about weeds being burned, about chaff being burned, about barren branches being burned, even in the Old Testament of trees being burned.

* And here we see the children of the devil being burned.

* The idea that the ungodly will be consumed in fire.

* It pictures the same thing, the furnace of fire does, as the lake of fire of Revelation 19, of the unquenchable fire of Mark 9, the everlasting fire of Matthew 25. It is the consuming burning fire of hell.

* It is the same fire of Malachi 4, the same devastating judgment fire that Daniel alludes to in Daniel 12 verse 2. It's eternal punishment in hell.

* And the reaction in verse 42 is so frightening- Grinding of teeth and piercing shrieks!

* That's the reaction, grinding of teeth and piercing shrieks.

* People think they're going to be in hell and everything is going to be fine. They're going to be with their friends and they'll love it down there and this verse tells us that not only is hell a fire, but it tells you what your reaction is going to be ... grinding teeth and piercing shrieks ... painful, eternal, inevitable, inescapable judgment.

* And the Lord is saying to the disciples - Look, for now... wait, for

now...be patient, for now...influence, for now...co-exist while the plan is working out. And finally the judgment will fall.

* And after it falls?

Verse 43, "Then," mark that word, "Then," not now, but "Then shall the righteous shine forth," then comes the holy glory, you see.

* Then comes the anticipated kingdom, then comes the righteous

Shekinah, lighting the face of all the saints for all the ages.

* "They'll shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father," then.

So, He says - That part of it's future but it is coming, just as surely as the judgment.

* In fact, Daniel 12:3 says they'll shine like stars. They'll shine as the brightness of God's glorious, marvelous heaven.

III. The last point is the application...verse 43.

"...Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." That's the application. You say - What does it mean? Simply it means what I use to hear a school teacher say when I was little, "Johnny, you better ... what? ... listen." You better listen.

* Ask yourself this, - are you wheat?

* I mean, you ought to know that to start with. Are you wheat? Or are you tares? Are you a child of the kingdom, or are you a

child of the enemy?

* If you're a child of the enemy, then listen.

* This is a time of patience, this is a time of grace, but judgment is inevitable, eternal, painful.

* You better check and make sure you have been saved- you better listen to the warning of Jesus this morning.

* You say - I'm not a child of the devil, I'm wheat. Then you better listen to this.

* You're to coexist in this world and you're to influence the world for good, not be influenced by it.

* You're to be used by God to reach that child of the devil near you that's going to become wheat.

* So use it as an opportunity. Not to condemn the world,

not to blast the world, not to judge the world, that's God's business, but to love them while condemning their sin loving the sinner.

* That's the plan.

Are you doing what you were planted in the world to do?

* Now, what does this tell us?

* Now what does He sow? Well, it says the good seed are the children of the

* So we have a sower, that is God, now in this verse we also have a field. What does the field represent?

* The field represents the world.

* There are a lot of commentaries that say the field represents the Church and that the...in the church the wheat and the tares grow together.

* But I want you to see something from the text Jesus said in verse 38, "The field is the world."

38 The field is the world;

Now it doesn't seem too difficult, does it?

* In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, he placed in his garden, what we call the Garden of Eden, good seed- the seeds of mankind, Adam and Eve.

Now what does He so? Well, it says the good seed are the children of the kingdom. What this means

is that the Lord puts the children of the kingdom in the world.

* Now we know that the man who sows the seed in this parable resents God, the creator of the universe, in the next verse see a new player- the enemy.

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

* Skeptics of the Bible are always asking the question, if God created everything that is, then God must create the evil in he world- right?

* Well the answer to that question, the question of where did evil come from, is found right here in Matthew 13 and verse 25.

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?