Weeds in the Garden
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
September 3, 2006
Introduction
How would you define a weed? What makes a plant a weed? Or better yet, why are weeds bad?
Here is how the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines a weed:
“a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially : one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants.”
Did you know that even a rose can be a weed? That’s right. If it’s growing somewhere it shouldn’t, then it’s a weed.
In this parable we’re looking at today from Matthew 13, Jesus talks about weeds in the kingdom of God – the Church. And He makes it very clear in his description here that weeds aren’t a good thing. And He says that weeds will not end up with a good end.
This is just one of a bunch of parables in this section of Matthew. This parable is a parable of judgment, and my guess is that when Jesus first gave it, it caused a number of eyebrows to raise.
But Jesus was never one to enjoy the status quo. He shook things up a lot to get people’s attention and to make them consider the truth He was sharing.
Well, let’s take a look at this section of Scripture, which is found in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (Page 691) –
24 Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27 "The owner’s servants came to him and said, ’Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 "’An enemy did this,’ he replied.
"The servants asked him, ’Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 "’No,’ he answered, ’because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’"
Then skipping down to verse 36 –
36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
37 He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
It’s very important to distinguish this parable from the parable of the sower.
In that parable, anyone could be involved in the sowing of the seed, which was the Word of God. The key to the parable was the soil.
In this parable, Jesus is the sower, the soil stands for the whole world, and the seed stands for the “sons of the kingdom,” or followers of Jesus.
Here in this parable, the main issue is not the soil as in the last parable, but in the seeds. The seeds in this parable are people.
And the people in this parable meet two different ends.
I think there are four major lessons we can learn from this parable, all of which we can take to heart, so let’s dive in, shall we?
Four major lessons from this parable:
1. The Savior is active.
Jesus, the Son of Man, is the main active participant in this parable, and He has two main functions in it: He sows the seed (v. 37) and he supervises the harvest (v. 41).
First, He is active in spreading the message of the kingdom all over the world.
Verse 38 says that the seed represents “the sons of the kingdom,” those who belong to Christ.
And I think it’s pretty cool that Jesus is spreading these people not just in the US, nor just in Europe. They are being spread throughout the world.
This is cool, because it lays quite nicely beside what we read in Revelation 7:9-10 –
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Folks, Jesus isn’t just sitting around in heaven waiting for everything to finally get done. He’s active today – planting more seeds of His people all over the world.
Why? Because the job’s not done yet. Oh and one other thing – He does that work through you and me.
So would you like to be a part of the activity of Christ? Get involved in helping people find Christ, in some form or another.
2. The enemy is active.
He really is.
There are some who say that the enemy was able to get away with his sneaky sowing only because the servants of the Savior were lazy or taking a siesta in the middle of the day. But I disagree with that. Jesus says that everyone was sleeping, which to me indicates that this happened at night.
But really the issue here is that the enemy is sneaky and malicious.
This is very important for us to grasp. I think one of the dangerous attitudes within Christianity nowadays is that Satan is just hiding somewhere until the end when Jesus returns.
That he’s sneaking around with his tail tucked between his legs like a scared puppy.
But the fact of the matter is that the enemy is working very hard to do all he can to thwart the plans of Jesus.
One of the ways he is active is what Jesus is describing in this parable – sowing people who cause sin and do evil within the church.
He’s good at it, and you see it all the time around the Church of God.
Notice Jesus says that they both cause sin – in other words they entice others to sin in some way – and they do evil themselves.
Where do they do this? Not out in the world, but in the church.
But how can this be? Surely the Church would recognize this kind of activity and “weed it out” before it got out of control, right?
Theoretically, yes. But unfortunately, it is not the case in very many churches. The sad fact is that many churches tolerate and even become breeding grounds for weeds.
Why is this? Well, I think there are a number of reasons, including the reluctance of the people of God to stand up to those who spread sin and dissension within the church.
But I think there is another reason that these dangerous seeds are allowed to grow, and that is seen in our third lesson from this parable, and that is that…
3. There will be confusion in the congregation.
The weed Jesus was referring to, according to commentators, was probably a weed called, “bearded darnel,” which looks a lot like wheat when it’s young, and can only be distinguished when it matures a bit.
One question we need to wrestle with is this: just who are the weeds?
Major opinions:
> Unbelievers.
> Hypocrites.
Listen to this quote from Ray Stedman –
“….notice that a major point of this parable is to give us a clue to the way that the enemy works most successfully. It is by imitation, by counterfeit. How simple it would be if evil people would only look evil. Wouldn’t that help a lot? If hypocrites would only snarl and growl a little bit it would help so much. But they always look so pleasant. They always talk so sweetly. They are such nice people, and that is why we go along with their ideas. We cannot believe that such nice people could be so far wrong. And, unless we use the Word of God to evaluate their teachings, we can be deceived by the niceness of people who are imitation, counterfeit apostles, as the Word of God calls them.” (From the sermon, THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS HARVEST, by Ray C. Stedman)
How true is that?
But regardless of whether they are unbelievers or hypocrites, or something else entirely, the fact remains that at first, the crops look the same.
But these people are false believers who appear to be true believers.
That is one of the reasons they are allowed to be grow and even prosper in a church. Their appearance is deceptive.
Folks, listen up here, because this is very important. Just because someone claims to be a Christian, and even acts like one at times, this does not mean that the person IS a Christian. These people are pretenders, not believers in Jesus.
So what is the key to recognizing wheat from weeds?
Transformation. A person of the “wheat” category is one whose life has been changed by the transforming power of Christ and the Word of God. They are striving to live for Christ as much as they know how.
But if a person claims to be a Christian but causes others to sin, or sows seeds of sin within the congregation, or is in willful, unrepentant sin themselves, then they are not wheat, they are weeds.
And what is the measure we need to use to evaluate if something is sin or not? The Bible. The Word of God. If the Bible says it’s sin, then it’s sin, whether anybody else thinks so or not.
And when we find sin in the Body, we need to apply some spiritual “weed-killer” and deal with sin within the congregation when we know about it.
Leaving a weed to grow without doing something to stop the spread is a dangerous thing to do, and it’s one that way too many churches do.
This week I received in the mail a notice from the city forester, saying that one of the trees in my yard has Dutch Elm disease.
And do you know what they want me to do with that tree? Cut it down! And you know, they get a little tough about that.
In fact, the letter said that if I didn’t get that tree down within two weeks, they would remove both my lungs and sell my family into slavery. Now that’s tough!
But I’ve decided to call their bluff. So if I show up to church in a couple weeks without my family and hooked to an oxygen tank, you’ll know they weren’t kidding…
But really. The tree has to come down. Because if it doesn’t, the disease could spread to other trees, and cause harm to them.
So it’s the right thing to do. And because of that, I’ll be spending my afternoon and evening today with my brother-in-law and his trusty chain saw trying to get that thing down.
Not the way I was planning to spend my afternoon, but that’s the way it is.
I have to get rid of the “weed” in my neighborhood so I can prevent harm to others.
The church needs to do the same thing, but in a way that takes care to not uproot the wheat that’s in place. We don’t do a wholesale “slash and burn” to get rid of the problem.
One thing we can understand from this parable is that this is going to be a problem until the time Jesus returns.
So why doesn’t Jesus just take care this already? Why doesn’t He just do the lightning bolt thing and get rid of these people?
For our sake! For some reason, uprooting the weeds might cause damage to the wheat, and God’s not willing to risk that.
Now how’s that for cool? Even though God hates sin, and the fact that it even hurts his cause won’t push Him to get rid of it because to do so would hurt those He loves.
You gotta love a God like that!
But let’s turn out attention now to the fourth lesson we can learn from this parable, and that is that…
4. There will be a final separation.
Here is the bottom-line point of the passage: those who belong to Christ will be separated from those who don’t. And those who don’t belong to Christ will be cast away to be burned.
Why? Because weeds spread and choke the life out of the plants, and they can bring harm to the crop.
That wasn’t a popular message in Jesus’ day, and it’s not a popular message in our day, either.
After all, who wants to think about judgment, especially if you’re not sure how it’s going to come out for you?
And it’s for that reason that a lot of people will not only refuse to think about judgment, they will refuse to consider Jesus at all, because they don’t want to believe in a God that will send people to hell.
But when someone tells me they don’t believe in that kind of God, I have to simply answer, “I hope you’re right, because you can’t afford to be wrong.”
If I’m wrong about Jesus, then no big deal – we just die and that’s it.
But if you’re wrong, then you’ll have eternity to regret it.
Because Jesus is very clear here that there will be a separation, whether we want it or not.
Jesus says that there will be those who have spent their time among His people who will not be in heaven, because they were not truly believers.
They looked like believers and acted like believers, at least for a while.
But Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you,” just like He’ll say it to those who say, “But wait a minute, Jesus! We spoke for You – we prophesied for You, we even drove out demons in Your name! You can’t do this!”
And Jesus says that He’ll look them and say, “I never knew You.”
So where do you stand? Are you wheat or are you a weed?
Conclusion
Folks, these are tough words from Jesus. These aren’t just fluffy words about harps in heaven or comfort here on earth.
They’re words about judgment. The judgment of God.
But I want to give you some good news here today.
2 Corinthians 5:17 (Living Bible) –
When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!
Here’s the good news:
* God can make you into wheat!
It starts by becoming a Christian. What do I mean by that?
Well, the Bible says that we aren’t born Christians, and we’re not baptized or confirmed Christians, we become a Christian by placing our faith in Christ.
We do that by admitting our need to be forgiven for our sins, believing that Jesus died for your sins and rose again, calling on Him to deliver us from the penalty we deserve. The penalty that the weeds get.
When that happens, our sins are forgiven, we are given a home in heaven, and God’s Holy Spirit comes to live in us, to help us live to please the Father.
But we also get a new identity. We are a new creation. It may not seem like it right away, and it may take some time before the old ways start to finally leave forever, but it’s true nonetheless.
You’re new identity is “wheat!”
And you can live with the anticipation that comes with knowing that your destiny isn’t the fire along with the weed, but glorious heaven with all those who have done the same thing!
And you can spend your remaining days working with the sower, sowing seeds of righteousness in the world rather than seeds of sin and dissension.
But again, the choice is up to you. You have to come to Christ of your own free will. The Holy Spirit works in us to bring us to the point where we understand our need, but you’re the one who has to make the choice.
And my prayer is that you will choose Jesus.
I’m going to say a prayer right now that you can pray along with me if you want to get eternity squared away.
