BEING PATIENT
Text: Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
I used to work at the Milliken plant in Saluda, SC. As I worked there I became increasingly familiar with how things were in the textile industry here in the United States as opposed to other countries. One day while eating breakfast I had read a newspaper article that mentioned that there was some brand of clothing that was made here in the United States. That same article mentioned how there were bootleg versions of the exact same product. The items of clothing had been made overseas but it was discovered that a tag had been sown into the inner part of the clothing products that said "Made in the United States". That was 1985. I do not remember how long the article mentioned that this problem of counterfeiting had gone undetected. But, it was obvious that whoever was behind the scheme had an agenda to make profits off of the counterfeiting. It was also obvious that the purpose of the counterfeiters product was to make money at the expense of the company that made the genuine clothes. That is also the way that Satan tries to work. He tries to infiltrate and plant counterfeit Christians that will blend in with authentic Christians.
SATAN’S STRATEGY
Satan has a strategy to try to duplicate counterfeits to confound God’s purpose as well as God’s people. Go back to the stories of the ten plagues in Exodus. Before the first plague, by God’s design at Moses command, Aaron threw down his staff and it became a snake. Pahroah called in his sorcerers to throw down their staffs which became snakes (Exodus 7:8-13). However, the snake from Aaron’s staff ate the snakes from the staffs of the sorcerers. Then came the first plague where Moses and Aaron at God’s command turned the water in the Nile river to blood, using the staff. Again, Pharoah got his sorcerers to duplicate this wonder (Exodus 7:14-25). The second plague was frogs that covered Egypt when Moses (following God’s command) told Aaron to stretch out his hand using the staff. Again, Pharoah whose heart was still hardened against letting the Hebrews go got his sorcerers to duplicate this wonder (Exodus 8:1-15). Then came the third plague which was gnats which came by God’s design when God commanded Moses to tell Aaron to use the staff and strike the dust. The sorcerers or magicians could not duplicate this wonder (Exodus 8:16-19). History tells us the rest of the story and the message which was God always has the last word. God always has the last word regardless of what Satan tries to do or through whom Satan to accomplish frustrating God’s plans.
Satan tries to use our impatience against us. Herbert Lockyer once said that Satan’s method is "opposition by imitation." (All The Parables Of The Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963, p. 181). Satan hopes that his strategy of opposition by imitation will cause us to get impatient and quit waiting on God to intervene. It is Satan’s hope that we will get so impatient that we will start to uproot whatever we think might be a weed as opposed to wheat. In the Orient it was not uncommon for an enemy to seek revenge by sowing weeds in his neighbors field. (Richard Carl Hoefler. The Divine Trap. Lima: C. S. S. Publishing Company, 1980, p. 33). Both weeds and wheat may look alike until they mature and bear fruit (Hoefler, p. 37). Satan hopes that his opposition by imitation will turn us into vigilantes who will turn on each other and suspect each other of being a weed that needs to be uprooted. But, the counterfeit weed looks so much like wheat that it is hard to tell one from the other which makes the task of uprooting dangerous because of how wheat could be mistaken for a weed. The tendency is that we have the capacity to become obsessed with the speck in the eye of a brother while neglecting the log in our own eyes (Matthew 7: 3-5).
OUR HOPE FOR FAILSAFE SECURITY
"There is no zone of security from the work of evil". (Richard Carl Hoefler. The Divine Trap. Lima: C. S. S. Publishing Company, 1980, p. 39). We often associate evil with evil places. The only problem is it is not that simple. There is no such thing as a safety zone. Remember when you were a child and you played tag or hide and go seek? There was always a base where you were safe and could not get tagged by whoever was it. Consider Mark 1:23-24 where Jesus encountered a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue. "… the Evil One prefers Holy Places---God’s field---for there he can artfully utilize his artful disguises and exercise his full bag of tricks" (Hoefler, p. 39). If Satan cannot use the people in the church because they are saved, then he will try to use areas of potential conflict. "The same authority that aggravates demons awakens hope in the helpless". (David L. McKenna. The Communicator’s Commentary: Mark. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1982, p. 53). The only security that Christians have from evil and the schemes of evil spirits is in Jesus Christ who has conquered sin ,death and the fear of death and given us the victory.
Satan considers any of God’s people as fair game. If Satan cannot possess someone because he or she is saved, then he will try to make trouble wherever he can find a spot to make it and the people for that spot. He will strive to make adversaries of friends and family members. God has called us to live at peace with each other (Romans 12:18, Proverbs 16:7). We can only have that peace by possessing the peace that Jesus gives that makes us peacemakers. Satan is a sore loser which is why he is always trying to put weeds in God’s field.
GOD’S AUTHORITY IS SUPREME
God and ultimately God alone determines when the weeds will be uprooted and separated from the wheat of His field. There are times when we get in God’s way when He is trying to tend to the business of His kingdom here on earth. "A man was struggling with a large box at the back edge of his truck. A passing neighbor saw his plight and came over to help him. He put his shoulder to the box. After a few tiring moments the neighbor exclaimed, "What’s in that box anyway? I don’t think we will ever get it on the truck." "Get on!" the exasperated man shouted, "I’m trying to get it off!" … Well-meaning Christians can be God’s worst enemies. When we judge and condemn others, when we set up our own standards of what it means to be saved, when we claim absolute knowledge of God’s will and of his Scriptures, we take over God’s role and attempt to run his business" (Hoefler, p. 47). That is the very reason that we sometimes fail to see that we are trying to put the box on the truck when God wants the box off the truck.
God is patient and waiting. There are some who think that God does not act fast enough in removing the weeds from the field. The field belongs to God. Unlike us, God is patient. God has a plan and His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8,9). God’s plan is that His word will not come back void or empty but will accomplish its purpose and will succeed as to why He sent it (Isaiah 55:11). God wants to usurp the power of evil and the hold that it has on those who are lost. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsufferring toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance" (Second Peter 3:9 NKJV). God is therefore not indifferent! Quite the contrary! God is waiting and desiring the salvation of all!
The toughest thing that we have to learn to do is to put our faith in God and be patient as we wait with God for Him to accomplish His plan. Yet, sometimes we pray "God give me patience and I want it right now!" God wants us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10).
God usurps the power of evil. We look at evil in the world and the worst that evil has the capacity for doing, we look at matters like the events of September 11, 2001. What we need to remember is that there is nothing or no one that will ever keep God’s will from being done. The cross of Christ is an example. Following the crucifixion there was an empty tomb! The evil that Satan had hoped would defeat Jesus Christ was defeated by Jesus Christ.
Another example that comes from the Old Testament was when Pharoah finally let the Hebrews go and then changed his mind and sent his army after them. The same Red Sea that God parted so that the Hebrews could cross on dry ground was the same sea that God used to close in on and destroy Pharoah’s army. God has the final word!
When God got the Hebrews out of Egypt He continued to take the remnants of Egypt out of them. The Bible tells us that the field in Matthew 13 is the world. We must not mistake the field as the church. If the heart of every man were likened to the field in Matthew 13, then how much wheat would there be as opposed to weeds? God works with His adopted children to remove the traces the world’s weeds from their hearts. What we must do is cooperate with God who has called us out of the world so that He can continue to remove the worldliness in us.
