Wheat & Weeds - Part 1: The Purpose of Parables

Matthew 13:24–30 LEB

He put before them another parable, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed darnel in the midst of the wheat and went away. So when the wheat sprouted and yielded grain, then the darnel appeared also. So the slaves of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have darnel?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ So the slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, “No, lest when you gather the darnel you uproot the wheat together with it. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the season of the harvest I will tell the reapers, “First gather the darnel and tie it into bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my storehouse.” ’ ”

First things first: “He put before them another parable.” Jesus often spoke in parables.

But why?

Jesus often spoke in parables.

Why did he speak in parables so often? Why didn’t he speak plainly to people?

This question has a lot to do with the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

Why did Jesus speak in parables?

Well, he did speak plainly. In fact, to His disciples, he even gives the correct interpretation of this parable to them later. Let’s read it right now, here it is:

Matthew 13:36–43 LEB

Then he left the crowds and came into the house, and his disciples came to him saying, “Explain the parable of the darnel in the field to us.” So he answered and said, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world. And the good seed—these are the sons of the kingdom, but the darnel are the sons of the evil one. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Thus just as the darnel is gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all the causes of sin and those who do lawless deeds, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth! Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one who has ears, let him hear!

So the answer, to us who have this Scripture, is right in front of us, and we don’t need to spend time interpreting it. End of sermon, there we go, go home!

But wait. We have this today, but think about the situation when Jesus was preaching this parable.

Jesus didn’t give the interpretation to the crowd He spoke to earlier. Why? Why did His disciples get to hear the answer, but the crowd didn’t?

This question has a lot to do with the parable of the wheat and the weeds.

Jesus used parables, for a specific reason:

Matthew 13:10–11 LEB

And the disciples came up and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered and said to them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to those people it has not been granted.

This is why Jesus spoke in parables. Without going into a whole study on this with source verses and such (which we should do), I’ll just cut to my take on this after my own studying, as this is something I’ve studied quite a lot:

Satan puts a veil over people’s eyes, so that they don’t see the world the way that God sees it.

Matthew 4:8-9, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, 1 John 4:1-6, John 18:33-37, Ephesians 2:1-3, 1 John 5:19-20, John 12:27-31, Revelation 12:7-9, Daniel 2:31-45

Note that in Revelation 12:9 that Satan isn’t thrown out of Earth, he’s thrown out of Heaven to Earth.

Especially note in Daniel 2:44 that Jesus’ Kingdom “will bring an end to all these kingdoms.” It’s not just spiritual, it’s physical.

Satan wasn’t dethroned when Jesus rose from the dead; according to Revelation, he was cast down (and banned) from Heaven. In fact, the Christian persecution that took place after the resurrection of Jesus was absolutely horrific. Even Foxe’s Book of Martyrs has been edited to remove some of the absolutely gut-twisting, literally gut-twisting stories that it used to contain. Satan has never been locked in Hell, he even makes an appearance in the courtroom of God in the book of Job. And he was very, very angry about it, as Revelation warned. Today, he roams the Earth as a ravenous lion, seeking whom he may devour.

There is a veil over the eyes of the world, which remains to this day.

Can we have that veil removed? Yes. but it’s a spiritual veil, you need help from God to take it off.

John 16:7-13, Revelation 3:18-20, 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

If you have a desire to live in devotion to God, then you’ll figure out the meaning behind the parable, because God will reward that desire.

Jeremiah 29:11-14, Luke 11:5-12, Matthew 7:7-12, Ephesians 6:10-14

If you have a desire to live in devotion to God, then the veil will be removed.

In other words:

Parables reward those who want God but confuse those who don’t want God.

To them, it’s just a boring story. Is it cruel, for God to hide the truth behind a story? Consider the story of Lazarus and the rich man:

Luke 16:19–31 LEB

“Now a certain man was rich, and dressed in purple cloth and fine linen, feasting sumptuously every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, lay at his gate, and was longing to be filled with what fell from the table of the rich man. But even the dogs came and licked his sores. Now it happened that the poor man died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes as he was in torment and saw Abraham from a distance, and Lazarus at his side. And he called out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he could dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am suffering pain in this flame!’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you received your good things during your life, and Lazarus likewise bad things. But now he is comforted here, but you are suffering pain. And in addition to all these things, a great chasm has been established between us and you, so that those who want to cross over from here to you are not able to do so, nor can they cross over from there to us.’ So he said, ‘Then I ask you, father, that you send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he could warn them, in order that they also should not come to this place of torment!’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they must listen to them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

“If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone rises from the dead.”

Luke 16:19-31

If people don’t want to change, they won’t change even if you give them the truth. It’s not because they just weren’t warned or didn’t know, it’s because they don’t want to.

John 12:37-43

I’ve been shocked before by people who experience literal miracles—audible words from God, healings, visions, they said “Wow, there is a God! Wow, Jesus really was real!” And then before even a month passes, they’re right back where they started! They never made a commitment to repent and submit themselves to Jesus.

It’s better on judgment day to have never understood than to have understood and still said “I don’t care, I will live how I want.”

2 Peter 2:20-22, Hebrews 6:1-8, Matthew 10:11-15

People won’t change until they want to.

Not all veils are bad, though, God even uses mental veils to protect us from bad doctrine.

2 Corinthians 3:12-14

But as far as the bad kind of veil, we choose the veil when we choose the selfish things of this world, when we choose a worldly life.

God may even give someone over to their deception, and prevent them from seeing the truth until their discipline is over, and they’ve had enough of their pride.

2 Corinthians 3:15-18, 1 Timothy 1:18-20, 1 Corinthians 5:2-5

Now, don’t let this discourage you from witnessing to people. If God leads you to, continue to witness to that person. Remember that Paul took part in the murder of many Christians until he became arguably to most influential human being in the fight for the Gospel.

I know people personally who others had to grapple with for years until they gave their lives to Jesus and became an extraordinary Christian. (Loren!)

You really don’t really know if a car is stuck in the mud until you give it a tug. You don’t really know if a person is stuck in their ways until you give them a tug.

But if God isn’t leading you to minister to that person, then don’t strive with them much longer. At some point, whether it’s the 5th time you try, the 10th time you try, maybe even the 1st time you try, you may realize that you need to dust off your feet and move on. Let God handle it from there.

Sometimes the Spirit says “Go talk to that person,” sometimes the Spirit says “Don’t talk to that person.”

I’m not an expert on people, but I like to meet people and learn about them. And so, although it’s not much compared to other people, I’ve witnessed to people in 5 different countries now and had many different conversations with many different people.

And I learned, to my shock, that my dad was right when he told me as a kid that some people don’t want to grow, and they won’t even if you give them every opportunity in the world, even if you encourage them, even if you tell them about Jesus--and get this, even if they have to suffer through the same consequences over and over and over. Surprise surprise, we have free will, and that means people can choose the wrong thing even if it hurts them.

So, parables are extremely clever.

Although they might confuse us at first, parables connect those who desire God with God and they cut off those who don’t.

They often use the subjects, animals, plants, and objects in them to symbolize other things, to hide the real meaning. They use creation to represent the desires of the Creator.

Parables are chronicles that connect creation to the Creator.

Parables are chronicles that connect creation to the Creator.

They’re stories that may not always be based on real people, but they contain real treasure, buried under the immediate face of the story.

These stories are designed to teach us something--but not just anything: something to help us connect with God.

Basically, these parables teach us how to be who God designed us to be rather than who we might otherwise become.

The parable before this is also really famous, it’s the one about the seed being sown onto different soils.

Matthew 13:18–23 LEB

“You, therefore, listen to the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is what was sown on the side of the path. And what was sown on the rocky ground—this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he does not have a root in himself, but lasts only a little while, and when affliction or persecution happens because of the word, immediately he falls away. And what was sown into the thorn plants—this is the one who hears the word, and the anxiety of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unproductive. But what was sown on the good soil—this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces, this one a hundred times as much, and this one sixty, and this one thirty.”

In the preceding parable, you are the soil. In the next, you are the plant. It’s amazing how many examples of God or of our relationship with God is in creation around us, if you just look.

God’s plan can be seen in creation around us.

If you spend too much time in thorns, then eventually you’ll get cut. You might know someone like this. If you try to plant seeds into stubborn soil, they won’t grow very well. You might know someone like this. God has given us so much to learn about each other and about Him from His creation.

That’s what we’ll focus on in the next part of this message. In this message, we focused on parables in general. Why did Jesus use them?

Next, we’ll look at what we can specifically learn from this parable, because There’s a lot that we can learn if we really look at God’s creation understanding that it was made with meaning and purpose.

What can we get out of this parable?

How do I know if I’m wheat or a weed?

How do I know about someone else?

What do I do about it?

Closing

Let’s close with this challenge:

Do you desire to live in devotion to God? How do you know that you’re truly 100% submitted to Jesus?

You might feel good right now, but this next sermon might challenge you more than you expect. It did for me.

You won’t pour 100% of yourself into something you don’t 100% believe in.

If there’s even one hole in the bowl of the Gospel, you won’t pour your whole soul into it.

God wants to reveal the mystery of the Gospel to you, to patch up all these confusions. All you have to do is want it, and seek it.

Jeremiah 29:13 LEB

When you search for me, then you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart.