Living Under Grace – 4 – Parable of the Tares - 2
Recently visiting my mother’s congregation
• I was asked this question about the tsunami tragedy by an older member of the congregation
• Do you think because of the high number of casualties in Ache that God had singled out the Moslems for judgment?
• What do you think?
• The implication behind the question is that God in some way caused this tragedy – He caused the tragedy in order to punish the Moslems
• Well today as we continue our series on what it means to live under grace we are going to answer that question
• And appropriately it comes up in the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares which we are going to go back to now and look at it in more detail
• you might remember last time we took a general look at it in regard to how differently our solutions are to a problem than God’s are – His solution was to leave the evil alongside the good
• Matthew 13:24-30 (NKJV)24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field;
• In verse 38 we are told in this parable that the good seed represents the “Sons of the Kingdom” that is the offspring of what the Word has sown
• 25 but while men slept, (natural pastime, does the seed need us to watch it while it grows in the ground? No it is quite capable of doing its thing) his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.
• So now we see another mystery introduces to the story. We first of all have the mystery of the kingdom of God slowly going about its business in the world (the soil) despite what might sometimes appear on the surface
• Now a second mystery is introduced, the mystery of evil in the world
• Through the whole parable there is no danger to the wheat’s growth itself
• The seed, representing the kingdom of God continues to grow and flourish despite the tares
• The problem is more one of inconvenience to the farmer and his servants
• believe me no farmer likes weeds and I had enough experience as a kid helping my father chip the weeds out of the sugar cane fields to know – its hot, its dusty and its boring and you get blisters
• 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
• Now we come back to the question I was asked at the beginning – about the tsunami tragedy
• The servants come to the farmer and are surprised that tares are growing amongst the wheat when all they planted were wheat seeds
• Notice how Jesus answers their question to who caused this major inconvenience
• 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’
• And of course this is the answer to the tsunami tragedy and every other tragedy the world experiences – ‘An enemy has done this.’
• God is not the author of evil, Satan is
The first mistake we make when we make statements like my friend’s about God punishing the Muslims or anyone else is that we attribute evil to God!
• Last time we read how Jesus answered the Sons of Thunder’s request to call down fire out of heaven to teach the Samaritans a lesson
• The Jews regarded the Samaritans in much the same way many in the West regard Muslims today
• Hope we see the similarities to the question my friend asked – the implication being “The Muslims today need to be taught a lesson in the same way the Samaritans needed to be in Jesus’ day”
• Notice Jesus’ response, Luke 9:55 ….He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.
• Jesus is saying to them and to us today, The source of your hatred towards Muslims today is no different from the source of hatred the disciples displayed towards the Samaritans in Jesus’ time – it comes from the spirit of the enemy
• So the disciples didn’t have a corner on human nature – the same spirit of hatred is alive and well today
• 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”
• The Christian community needs to realize Jesus loves all his creation including Muslims and even AIDS sufferers (throw that in for good measure) and wants to save them all, not destroy them
The second mistake we make when we make statements like my friend is that we assume the world is now under the judgment of God
• And again this is a carry over from Old Covenant thinking when God dealt specifically with the Nation of Israel on the basis of Blessing and Cursing
• It was precisely because strong arm methods are useless against evil that Jesus had to introduce the New Covenant
• And again we need to go back to Jesus very clear statement on the subject of judgment under the New Covenant
• John 12:47 (NKJV) 47 And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.
• If Jesus very clearly says He did not come to judge the world why do we in the Christian community think we have the right to do so
• Now scripture is very clear there is a time of judgment coming, but its not until after the resurrection
• No one, not even Satan is going to get it in the neck until after the resurrection
• And again Jesus is very specific about who does the judging
• John 5:22 (NKJV) 22 For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,
• The Father doesn’t judge, the Holy Spirit doesn’t judge, so why does the church think it can
• And at this time I will throw in this little piece of encouragement as it will come up later when we get into the parables of Judgment, the same Jesus who is Judge is also our Savior
• But until that time we live in the age of Salvation
• Now I bring these things up because if we are going to be successful in reaching the unchurched, and being effective fishers of men, we need to view these people from our Savior’s perspective
• And one of the major hindrances to the spreading of the gospel today is the Christians community’s attitude towards the unchurched – we are too quick to rain down the judgment of God on them instead of regarding them as lost sheep that Jesus wants to save
Back to the Parable
• The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
• Here comes the nice clean solution to the problem – our human strong arm solution is to load up the sprayer with “Roundup” and get rid of the weeds – nice clean solution – we humans love a nice clean solution
• But Jesus offers a totally illogical (to the human mind that is) solution to the problem
• 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
• Jesus says the preferred response to evil at this point is to do……nothing
• In fact He tells them to “suffer” or “permit” both to grow together – can also be translated “forgive”
• Then He goes on to tell them that in fact their very proposals to solve the problem are more of a menace than anything else lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them
• So any specific program of humans designed to rid the world of evil will produce exactly the results the farmer suggests
• And to use a modern day equivalent, man’s strong arm efforts to remove the evil “tare” of Saddam Hussein has resulted in what we call today, collateral damage
• Many innocent Iraqis and coalition soldiers have been uprooted along with the tares
• And really any truly dedicated campaign to get rid of all the evil in the world would result in the total annihilation of everyone as we all have a little tare in us
• In fact it is to the enemy’s advantage to sucker “Do gooders” into thinking they can do something about the confusion he has introduced
• Of and by themselves the tares are not going to stop what God has purposed with the wheat. The kingdom is happily growing alongside the evil
• That’s why the enemy simply sows the weeds and walks away
• He simply spreads around a generous helping of darkness and waits for the children of light to do his work for him
• And this is precisely what happens when we come along with our “strong arm, shot gun” solutions – we do the devils work for him
• We simply are not qualified to handle the mystery of evil in the world
• And thinking we can will only produce more harm than good
• And like we learned last time Jesus comes along and handles the problem of evil by climbing up on the cross and turning the guns on Himself
Now we get to the part where we happily rub our hands together with glee because at last the evil ones are going to get their comeuppance
• “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
• We humans just love to focus on prophetic end time events or what the theological world calls eschatological events
• It used to be a huge part of our ministry, Tim LaHaye with his “Left Behind” series has amassed millions of dollars exploiting eschatological events
• I think its important to note the proportion Jesus gives to this part of the story in His first telling of it
• Out of seven verses He devotes only two thirds of a verse
Now let’s skip down to Jesus’ interpretation in v.36
• Matthew 13:36-43 (NKJV)36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
• Now notice here how the disciples too jumped straight to the eschatological aspects of the parable
• If you were to put a title on Jesus’ telling of the story it would have been called the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares. What did the disciples call it?
• They missed all the other aspects Jesus talks about and jump to the point about the “bad guys”
• In this explanation, The good guys only get two thirds of a verse
• So Jesus obliges and gives them a good dose of eschatology taking up half the story in His explanation
• 37 He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
• So He tells them how evil will eventually be dwelt with - there is a final judgment, there is a hell fire into which the incorrigible wicked will be thrown
• But before we all get up and cheer and rejoice over the agony of the damned, we need to remember that up to this point in His earthly life Jesus has not yet mentioned that aspect of His plan on how He plans to deal with evil through His own life, death and resurrection
• So here Jesus throws the disciples an eschatological bone to satisfy their curiosity, but then finishes with one more devastating irony when He says, He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
• Its as though He is saying, Hellfire might be how it ends up for some, but before we get to excited about that prospect, there are some intervening steps along the way that may alter the scenario, so stay tuned
So the message of the parable is the subject of evil is my department
• This side of the resurrection, “suffer” or “permit” or “forgive” it to dwell alongside evil. The farmer Jesus Christ has things under control
• On the other side of the resurrection, Jesus as the righteous judge also has things under his control
• So to repeat the message of grace that comes through this parable, is that it is not our job to judge the world, our job is to regard the world as Jesus regards them – lost sheep as his potential children whether they be Muslims, AID sufferers, abortion doctors, even Saddam Hussein is a lost sheep
• The message of grace is inclusive. Jesus wants to include all in his message of Salvation
