Matthew 13:24-30 - Smoking Weed - Part 10 Series

Matthew 13:24-30 - SMOKING WEED - Part 10

The world is amazed as a corrupt president is removed from power in Egypt. The people who protested on the streets of Cairo are hailed as heros. In the midst of their jubilation we hear of a reporter being raped and beaten as she seeks to cover the story on the streets of Cairo. Like the parable in Matthew 13:24-30, the world is full of WEEDS. So is my garden at the moment but that's not the topic of this parable.

Amidst the devastation of flood waters in Australia heros are born. SES workers rescue people from rooftops, Churches open their doors of their meeting places as evacuation centres and send out work parties to clean up homes from the mud and debri. Yet looters thieve the pickings of people who have lost everything. WEEDS AMONG WHEAT?

Rapists among the heros. Looters, like vultures among those trying to help the weak and helpless. Child traffickers among those who build orphanages to protect the children of Cambodia. Self righteous hypocrites among genuine followers of Christ. WEEDS AMONG THE WHEAT. "Why does God allow evil people, hypocritical people and people who apathetically look on while evil happens in the world to exist?"

Why doesn't God force everyone to believe and to honour one another and Him? Way back in the Garden of Eden why didn't God snuff out Adam and Eve the moment they sinned and start again? In the parable Jesus tells, even the angels don't quite know what to do. "Should we pull out the weeds?" they ask (Matthew 13:28).

I'm with the angels in this parable. I just want to get rid of all the evil in the world. I'm not sure where to draw the line with this, but there's some obvious people who deserve to be UPROOTED first. Let's get rid of all the religious hypocrites while we are at it. But Jesus says "‘No, ..., you'll uproot the wheat if you do." (Matthew 13:29).

Jesus identifies the fact that we have an ENEMY who works against God's kingdom purposes. We CO-EXIST with all kinds of evil people (sin has tainted our world) and to make hasty, malicious, unfounded judgments about them and try to uproot them would damage us. The reason is that I am tainted with sin too. I am hardly equipped to judge without taking the log out of my own eye (Matthew 7:5). How do I know who is righteous and who isn't? My flawed judgment is likely to pull up the wheat with the weeds.

Besides, ALL of us deserve to be uprooted and thrown into the fire (What a horrible picture that is). Romans 3:23 (NLT) says "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard." But in God's grace He let's "both grow together until the harvest. Then" He says "I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.'" (Matthew 13:30 NLT). It puts a whole new slant on smoking weed.

Of course the intention of this story is not to say that God wants to BURN THE WEEDS - those who don't know Christ! The intention of the story is to show that He is allowing plenty of time BEFORE He judges the world. 2 Peter 3:9 (NLT) says "The Lord isn't really being SLOW about His promise, as some people think. No, He is being PATIENT for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent." It seems even weeds have a chance to be transformed (Now that's the kind of miracle I need in my garden at present).

Jesus is saying that the only hope for an evil world is found in a holy God and because of Him we have an ancient invitation, a time capsule rediscovered again and again in John 3:16 (NLT) "For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that EVERYONE who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." He is still the only Way, Truth and Life we have (John 14:6).

Pastor Ross