1. Be Perceptive to the enemy.
The first way to deal with conflict is to be perceptive to the enemy. Verse 25 “but while everybody was asleep, an enemy, (that is Satan), came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away”. Notice he went away, he was sly; he did not stay to watch, or say, “I did that”. … He did the deed and left … and he left everyone in confusion as to how the conflict arose. … He sowed the weeds while everyone was asleep.
Now in both ancient and modern warfare, it is or was common practice to destroy the enemy’s crops: because this would weaken and demoralise the soldiers and their families; particularly the soldiers as according to Napoleon who said, “An army marches on their stomachs” … and we all know this only too well, remember Hitler’s U-Boats in the North Atlantic during the Second World War, U-boats trying to sink every allied ship … why, to try and starve Britain into submission. …
And the Allies, they were no angels either, they developed anthrax for the same reasons in Operation Vegetarian, (I kid you not), that anthrax was planned to infect enemy cattle by dropping food pellets for them … cattle which would then be eaten by the German citizens, and thereby causing death by the millions; … but thank God this was never used.
This is a terrible example of an enemy sowing bad seed, but such bad seeds are sown by bad people every day as we all know. … You yourself may have sown such a bad seed!