The Tares of the Field
Mat 13:24-30, 36-43
As I was reading through the parable we’re dealing with today, a very well-known passage of scripture came to mind. Gen 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. When the creation story came to mind, something began to stir within, the beginnings of a notion or spiritual enlightenment began to flicker. In the beginning God created the world, right? On the first day He brought forth light. The second day He brought forth the expanse which separated the waters above from the waters below.
On the third day He assigned boundaries to the waters below the heavens and brought forth dry land. He also brought forth plant life such as grass, fruit bearing plants and trees. The fourth day the heavens were filled with stars, constellations and our own Sun and moon. On the fifth day, living creatures came forth. The beasts of the earth, the skies, and the seas.
Now up to this point, each day that God looked upon His handiwork, He let it be known that “It was good.” Everything that God creates is good! But when we get to the sixth day and the creation of man in His own image, this day’s creation wasn’t simply “good”, it was “very good!”
Very good! Life was abundant, man and woman walked and talked with God in their garden home. There was no death. There was no hatred. There was no sin or evil in the world. All was good until the serpent entered the picture and questioned God’s word, “Yea hath God said?” and it was at that point that the downward turn of man began. The evil one deceived us and we died.
Now the light bulb moment I had is that the creation story and the subsequent growth and spreading of mankind throughout the earth lines up very well with the Lord’s parable of the Wheat and the Tares. You see, what God created was good, but then the enemy came and through stealth and deception spread discord and corruption. Just before man was driven from the garden the Lord emphasized the enormity the situation when He said to the serpent Gen 3:15 …I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel."
To the woman He said Gen 3:16 …"I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
And then finally, to the man He said Gen 3:17-19 …"Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it'; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. (18) "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; (19) By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Cursed ground, thorns and thistles, sweat of our face, toil and labor all our life, does any of that sound familiar in connection with both last week and this week’s parables? And then, after our parents were driven from the garden, mankind began to multiply on the earth, and two specific lines of humanity began to take shape, and those lines grew and expanded to this very day. Two lines of man, beginning with Adam and Eve and the children they produced one of which we call the godly line of Seth and the other is the ungodly line of Cain, and from those two men came all that we have today.
Now if you will, turn in your bibles to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 13. We’ll read verses 24-30 and then we’ll jump down to 36-43 where I’m hoping you’ll be able to see the connection I’m making. Or if you wish, you can just follow along with me the projection.
Mat 13:24-30 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. (25) "But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. (26) "But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. (27) "The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' (28) "And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves *said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' (29) "But he *said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. (30) 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"
Mat 13:36-43 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." (37) And He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, (38) and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; (39) and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. (40) "So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. (41) "The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, (42) and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (43) "Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
He who desires to understand, let him understand. Understand this, that the world is divided between those who belong to God and those who don’t. Our modern sensibilities do not like that message. We would rather believe a gospel in which all are saved, that no one gets left behind, and though the gospel is truly open to all to believe, the truth is that not everyone is going to believe. As a matter of fact, the vast majority will not believe.
One of the disciples who followed Jesus through the towns and villages on their way to Jerusalem, asked Him Luk 13:23 …"Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?" and His response seems to affirm that belief when He told them to Luk 13:24 "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. It’s one of those “many are called, but few are chosen” kind of responses. The kingdom of God is going to flourish throughout the world, but in the end, there are going to be more non-believers than believers.
This is one reason why His primary objective for His disciples in teaching through parables is that they might be trained for kingdom living. They needed to understand that the kingdom is going to be different than what they thought, different from what all the Jews of His time thought. They believed that when the Messiah came, He would immediately put all things right, destroy His enemies, and establish His kingdom on earth. This is why John the Baptist eventually sent to Him from prison asking Mat 11:3 …"Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?"
You see, even to John, things weren’t going like he thought they should. Jesus wasn’t cutting down the unfruitful trees and casting them in the fire (Mat 3:10). He wasn’t taking his winnowing fork and thoroughly cleaning His threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn but burning the chaff with unquenchable fire (Mat 3:12). None of this was happening. Instead, everything was going much slower than anyone expected? Even His own disciples, after His death and resurrection, right before His ascension would ask Him Act 1:6 …"Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
So, He used parables to illustrate the slow and steady progress of the kingdom and the surety of the coming day of judgment to His disciples. But to those who didn’t believe in Him, those who reject and deny Him, these same parables judge them, obscure the message, and shut them out. There is a great separation that takes place in the preaching of the word of God between those who respond in faith and those who do not.
And this separation is illustrated in this parable of the Tares of the Field. The Lord had just given His parable of the Soils and then explained it to His disciples. It’s believed that very soon after that, He launched into this parable of the Tares, which though it has some similarities to the Soils, it stands out as different because for the first time Jesus explained that this new parable, and the ones to follow, would be teaching them about the kingdom of heaven when He opened with Mat 13:24 …The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…
So, everything that follows illustrates some characteristic or characteristics of the kingdom of heaven. And every parable in the rest of chapter 13, with the exception of the first one, the Soils, begins in this same way, Mat 13:24 …The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…
Now something else that’s interesting is that the parable of the Soils and the parable of the Tares are the only ones in this chapter that the Lord gives a detailed explanation of. All the others, the Mustard Seed, the Leaven, the Hidden Treasure, the Costly Pearl, and the Dragnet aren’t explained. I suppose that from the explanations already given, the disciples were able to understand what they were all about without asking the Lord to tell them the meaning.
So, Jesus began by telling the disciples what all the key points were. The Sower was Himself, the field is the world, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom or believers, the tares are the sons of the evil one, or unbelievers, the enemy is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
Now, by telling us who all the key players were, one might think that the rest is easy. Everyone ought to be able to get a proper understanding of what the Lord is trying to teach us, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. For example, so very many believe that this parable is a picture of the church and how there are going to be unbelievers amongst us. And while I firmly believe that that is true, that there are posers among us. There are false believers among us just as the parable of the soils illustrates, this really isn’t what this parable is teaching.
I mean, think on a much larger scale. Jesus specifically told us that the field is the world. The field is not the church. It’s not the human heart. The field is the world. This was that thing that sent my thoughts to Genesis because the parable of the Tares of the Field is replicated in the story of our origins. In a nut shell, God created His good world. He created His good seed. An enemy showed up and spiked His good world with bad seed. And now the good seed and the bad seed are living alongside of each other, waiting for the harvest.
So, in other words, the kingdom of Heaven is going to exist right alongside the sons of the devil throughout this age. This parable has to do with eschatological expectation or end time expectations rather than ecclesiological deterioration or religious failure. What I’m trying to say is this parable is a picture of the church in the world, not of the world in the church. And folks what we need to understand is that Christians are not in this world by accident. We are placed here by divine assignment from the Lord!
Now Jesus doesn’t make this point in the parable because it just wouldn’t fit the analogy, but friends, the reality is that all good seeds were once tares; all of the sons of the kingdom were at one time sons of the evil one. When sin entered, man died. So, to go beyond the scope of this parable while still using some of its figures, it could be said that the primary purpose of the “good seed” in the world is to make converts of the “tares,” that they might also become sons of the kingdom.
The devil has sown his seed thoroughly, and throughout history the tares have outnumbered the wheat by enormous percentages to the point that some parts of the world would seem to be totally engulfed with the seed of the enemy. But the reason we are still here in this world is because our God is loving and gracious. He does not wish that any should perish, but that all men would repent and believe the gospel. His mercy is so great, and His patience goes far beyond what any of us deserve. He did not allow His servants the angels to uproot the tares very early in human history because doing so might damage some of the good crop.
Think of that. God loves us so much that He is willing to allow the wicked to continue until the harvest or the day of judgment for our sake. No doubt that many of His disciples are ready to put the sickle to the unbelieving tares right away, just as the landowner’s slaves were prepared to do in the parable. This is the same attitude that James and John had with the Samaritans when they asked Luk 9:54 …"Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"
At that time the Lord responded with a rebuke Luk 9:55-56 …"You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; (56) for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
The church is in this world for evangelism, not judgment. Christians aren’t qualified to infallibly distinguish between true and false believers. We are called to preach and teach against sin and all unrighteousness—not for judgment, but for the winning of souls. Not to punish, but to convert sons of the evil one into sons of the kingdom.
The separation of the wheat and the tares will come when Jesus returns at the end of the age. In the meanwhile, they will continue to exist side by side, breathing the same air, enjoying the same sunshine and rain, eating the same foods, attending the same ball games, working in the same factories and offices, living in the same neighborhoods, and sometimes, even attending the same churches.
What we are to concern ourselves with is making the most of the time we have left with the tares, because when the Lord returns, there will be no more opportunities for them to believe and be saved. Because at that time Mat 16:27 …the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. The Lord’s angels will deal out 2Th 1:8-9 …retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
Beloved, hell will not be a place, as some jokingly envision, where the ungodly will continue to do their thing while the godly sit around on clouds in heaven strumming harps. Hell will have no friendships, no camaraderie, no comfort at all. It will not even have all the sinful pleasures the ungodly love to pursue here on earth. There will be no pleasure in hell of any kind or degree—only torment Rev 20:10 …day and night forever and ever.
When the Lord’s angels make the final separation between the godly and the ungodly, they will do it with perfection. Not a single godly person will be uprooted with the ungodly. None one will be left out. None will be forgotten. None will be overlooked. Each person and every soul will go to their eternal place for punishment or blessing, and then long-anticipated and long-postponed kingdom of righteousness will be here on earth Mat 13:43 Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
He who desires to understand, let him understand. Friends. Beloved. Do you hear? Do you understand? Every person who has the least bit of uncertainty about their relationship with God should ask themselves if they are wheat or merely a tare that looks like wheat. Are you truly a child of God or a child of the evil one?
Remember, our God is in the business of transforming sinners into saints, tares into wheat, and He will transform you if you will come to Him in repentance and place your heart and soul into the hands of His dear Son, Jesus.
Will you do that today?
Invitation
