Rev. Deacon Allen J. Batchelder

Trinity Church
Waltham, Massachusetts
July 20, 2014, Pentecost VI

Genesis 28:10-19a, Psalm 139:1-12, Romans 8:12-25, Matthew 13:24-30

From the Book of Genesis:
And Jacob said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

From St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; an d not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

And from the Gospel of St. Matthew:
And his disciples came to him saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “He who sows the good seed is the Son of man; the field is the world, and the good seed means the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.”

Let us pray:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation.
Amen!

Last week, I asked the question: How does your garden grow? It was about the Parable of the Sower, which begins with the preaching of the Word, the planting of the seed in the hearts of people. The seed is God’s Word; the various soils represent different kinds of hearts; and the varied results show the different responses to the Word of God.

Well, in today’s Gospel reading we once again return to the garden. And whether it’s a flower garden or a vegetable garden, we need to deal with weeds. So we have a farmer who plants a wheat field. He uses good seed and plants the crop expecting a good harvest. However, while he and his servants slept, his enemy entered his field and planted tares among the wheat. What are tares? Basically, they are weeds that go by the name “Bearded Darnel.” In the early stages of its development, it looks exactly like wheat. It is only when the plant has matured and the kernels have form in the head of the genuine wheat plant that the two plants can be distinguished one from the other.
The bottom line is this: The wheat has fruit in its head, while the head of the tares is filled with little black seeds. So, the field looks good, the farmer is getting excited about harvesting a bumper crop. However, as the harvest grew nearer, it became apparent that tares were among the wheat. The servants wanted to pull up the tare, but the master told them to leave them and wait until harvest. The master knew that if the tares are pulled up, that much of the wheat will be uprooted along with them. So, the wheat and the tare were allowed to grow together until the harvest, and then the reapers would come in and gather the tares first and bind them together to be burned. Then the wheat will be gathered and placed in his barns.

Jesus explained this parable to His disciples. The sower is Christ. The good seed is the Gospel of grace. The one who sowed tares is the devil. The wheat are those who are saved. The tares are those who are unsaved, but have the appearance of salvation. The tares are those in the church who look saved, act saved, sound saved, but who are in truth deceived about their salvation. The tares are those who expect to go to heaven when they die, but will, in fact, go to hell!

Satan opposes the kingdom of God by trying to snatch the Word from our hearts (Matt. 13:4). But when that fails, he has other ways of attacking God’s work. In this parable, Satan is primarily an imitator: He plants false Christians, he encourages a false growth, and he introduces false doctrine.

Satan cannot uproot the plants, which are true Christians, so he plants counterfeit Christians in their midst. In this parable, the good seed is not the Word of God. It represents people converted through trusting the Word. The field is not human hearts; the field is the world. Christ is sowing true believers in various places that they might bear fruit (John 12:23-26). But, wherever Christ sows a true Christian, Satan comes and sows a counterfeit.

We must also stay awake to make sure that Satan’s ministers do not get into the true fellowship and do damage (2 Peter 2; 1 John 4:1-6). This is probably what has happened in many of our churches in New England. It is when God’s people go to sleep that Satan works. Our task is not to pull up the false, but to plant the true. We are not detectives but evangelists! We must oppose Satan and expose his lies. But we must also sow the Word of God and bear fruit in the place where He has planted us.

The Apostle Paul commanded the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 13:5, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” and do what the Apostle Peter told his readers to do in 2 Peter 1:10, “Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if ye do this you will never fall.”

Some of you may think that it is the people who are not here today, that should hear this message, which may be true, but I don’t want any of you to go through life being deceived about your salvation and ending up in hell! I want you to be sure that you are saved by the grace of God!
Are you wheat? Or, are you tares? You may think that all of us here today are saved! We don’t need to hear this sermon. The truth is, only God knows for sure that you are saved, because He knows your heart. Think about this, there are over 200 million Americans who claim to be church members. If they are all saved, why is there so much crime, abortion, drugs, sexual immorality in our society? The truth of the matter is that people often think that they are wheat when they are in fact tares.

On a spiritual level, the “seed” is that thing that we have placed our faith in. For the genuine believer, the “seed” is the Gospel of Jesus Christ; trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. The tares, on the other hand, may be trusting in any number of emotional, spiritual or physical experiences for their salvation. It all comes down to where you have placed your faith. Who do you trust in for your salvation?

Why do you attend a church? Is it because the service makes you feel good? Is the service about love: love thy neighbor, love thy family and maybe love God, through His Son Jesus Christ? And how much time is spent on Jesus Christ and how much time is spent on emotions and relationships? Is the fellowship at the coffee hour more important to you than worshiping and praising God? Who do you love more, God or someone or something else?

What we need to understand is that salvation only comes to a heart that has been convicted of sin and after genuine repentance has taken place. The question that must be answered today is this: “Where is your faith?” On what do you base your hope of Heaven on? It must be in the Gospel, that is, in the death and resurrection of Christ’s atoning work at Calvary, or your faith is in vain!

Are you able to tell the wheat and the tares apart? They grow alongside each other and it’s only when they mature that we can tell them apart.

A lost person can certainly understand the Bible. They can memorize it and know the Bible stories. They can join in the activities of the church. Tares can sing in the church choir, serve as Deacons and Sunday school teachers, and they can attend prayer meetings. They can even stand in the pulpit and preach the Word of God. But just because they have all the appearances of wheat, does not mean they are real. There’s an expression: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. Right? Not necessarily. The main difference between wheat and tares is that tares cannot produce fruit; lasting fruit. Tares will lack the things that make the genuine believer special. They will lack the fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). You may have all the external appearances of being a Christian, but don’t let what you look like and the things that you do, be the basis of your assurance. Be sure your faith is in Jesus Christ and in Him alone!

Only God can truly tell the wheat from the tares. Judging between the real and the false is God’s job and it must remain that way! All we see is the outward appearance, but God is able to look upon the heart.
We read in 1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Eventually the day of harvest arrived. The reapers were sent into the field to gather the tares first, and then the wheat. How could they tell the difference? It is easy at this stage, because as the wheat matures, the head becomes filled with kernels and the weight of the kernels causes the stalk of the wheat plant to bend toward the ground. The seeds in the head of the tare are light. This allows the tare to stand tall. The picture here is plain and clear. As a genuine believer grows in the Lord he tends to become more humble before the presence of God. The tare, on the other hand, will stand in his pride and go to hell clinging tightly to his false beliefs and foolishness. When the harvest time came, both the wheat and tare were both gathered, but they received vastly different ends.

Here’s what Jesus says: “Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:40-43).

When this life has run its course, there are only two possible destinations for the human soul. Every person who lives and dies as a tare will find themselves cast into the fires of Hell, to be eternally separated from the presence of God (2 Thes. 1:8-9).

Jesus is giving us a solemn warning here about what lies ahead for those who are not his people. Harvest time is coming, at the end of the world, when time itself shall cease, and the judgment of all is at hand. Just as you wouldn’t want any weeds spoiling your gardens or window boxes, so there is no room in God’s kingdom for those who are evildoers. Sin and sinners would be out of place in that atmosphere of perfect holiness.

None of us are righteous by our own efforts. All of us deserve the fire of hell for our sins. But the good news is that Jesus endured our punishment; He died the death we deserved, and as we trust in Him, we have that great exchange – He takes away our sin, and gives us His righteousness. We are found to be His, to be that good seed – and so no longer face punishment, but paradise.

The genuine believer can look forward to going to Heaven to be gathered into the Lord’s House in Heaven (John 14:1-3). The question is, which will it be for you? It all depends on whether you are a tare or you are wheat. Friend, please examine yourself carefully this morning. Do not allow yourself to be deceived right into hell. Put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive the gift of salvation and eternal life. Be the wheat that is used for His bread; His body which is broken for you, for the remission of sins. May you be part of His abundant harvest and bear much fruit.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen. †