Over in the 13th chapter of Matthew,
verse 34, it says, ìAll these things spake Jesus unto the multitude
in parables. And without a parable spake he
not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables. I
will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation
of the world.î Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went
into the house. And his disciples came unto him,
saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He
answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed
is the Son of man. The field is the world, the good
seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the
children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is
the devil, the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers
are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered
and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth
his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things
that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them
into a furnace of fire. there shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father, who hath ears
to hear, let him hear. Again the kingdom of heaven is
like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found,
he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he
hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when
he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that
he had and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a net that was cast into the sea and gathered
of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore
and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the
bad away. So shall it be at the end of
the world, the angel shall come forth and sever the wicked from
among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire,
and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus
saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto
him, Yea, Lord. And then said he unto them, Therefore
every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is
like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his
treasure things new and old. Now the Lord of course taught
in parables, as of course the Scripture says, and this was
prophesied, that he would come. And of course one of the reasons
that he said that he preached in parables was so that those
that it was given to know the things of the kingdom of God
might know them, and to those that it was not, that it would
be hid from them. So it is needful that we look
at the parables and seek to know what the Lord is teaching in
them. Now, I believe that this is a
true thing that just as the The greatness of the purpose
of God is beyond the comprehension of men, so is every nuance of
these parables. Now, we can know some things
about the parables if the Lord is pleased to show them to us,
but there are many things that are contained in these parables
that I don't think we can know. And they will remain mysteries,
but the Lord taught in parables so that He said so that those
that could hear would, and those that could not would not. And it is the same thing that
he said in his prayer to the Lord. He said, I thank Thee,
O Father, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
the prudent, and revealed them unto babes. So he is pleased
to reveal his truth unto those whom he sees fit to reveal it
to. And when he reveals that truth unto them, then they have
an understanding of the things of the kingdom. And so he had
given this parable of the tares which were sown into the field,
and the tares and the wheat grew up together, and then at the
harvest they were separated out. But he let them grow until such
time as that. And he goes on to explain what
this parable means. And he said that He that soweth
the good seed is the Son of Man. Now the Lord is that One who
has sown His seed in the earth. His elect belong to Him. They are called the seed of God. They are that seed which He has
planted in the earth because it seemed good for Him to do
it. When we look at the unfolding of the purpose of God, we can't
know, again, all of the purpose of God. But we can know some
things about the purpose of God, and we can generally understand
what it is that God has revealed in His Word that His purpose
is. Now, the general consideration that men have of God's purpose,
if they even believe that God made the world, which most people
would confess that they believe in God. I mean, there are many
that say they don't, but there are actually very few people
that really honestly and openly walk in that line of thought. And that is just the way that
they have been made as it is. And so it is. that most people
think in their general consideration, there is a way that seemeth right
unto men, but the end thereof are the ways of death. They think
that God created the world basically as an experiment or as a way
to get something done and it didn't turn out like He planned
for it to do. Now if you ask most people, did
Adam do what the Lord created Adam to do? They would tell you
no. But the Scripture indicates that
he did exactly what the Lord purposed for him to do. How do
we know that? Because the Lord has done all
things according to the good pleasure of his will. And there
is nothing that transpires in the earth that does not fulfill
his purpose. Not one thing, not one iota of
one thing can ever go contrary to the purpose of God. Now, some
might say, well, that's absolute. Yes, it's absolute because God
is an absolute God. He said to Moses when He revealed
Himself to him, I am. Now, think about that for a minute.
He could have said a lot of things. He didn't say, I'm trying. He
didn't say, I hope. He said, I He is the Existent
One. The Scripture says that He inhabited
eternity. That sets God apart from all
that He has created because, you see, nothing that God has
created is eternal because all things have a beginning in Him. He is eternal. We are created. And he has, according
to the book of Revelation, he has created what? All things
for his pleasure. And so all the things of his
creation, when God created the world in the Scripture it says,
he looked upon it and he said it was good. Now, some come along and say,
well, that couldn't possibly be true. Well, it is true because
God is God. Now, if He created some things
and it didn't turn out like He planned, He might say, well,
that wasn't good. But He said it was good because
He created it to do exactly what it was He set out to do. And as we go through the Scriptures,
We discover that the purpose of God is to bring glory to the
name of Jesus Christ, because it is in Jesus Christ that the
Lord has seen fit to reveal Himself unto men. Now, the Scripture
plainly says, No man hath seen God at any time. The Son who is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him. And the only way that any
man can ever know anything about God is by revelation. And the only way that anybody
can ever know anything about God is through Jesus Christ. That's why He said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but
by me." Because there is no way that anybody can have any understanding
of the truth of God apart from a revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, this puts to a lie all the
notions of men and their religious desire to include all men under
one big tent, that the way that it is, you know, oh, well, all
of these different faiths of the earth, they're all serving
the same God. Well, I mean, if we know and
understand what the Scripture says, if this is true, if what
the Scripture tells us is true, that is not true. It cannot be
true. Because apart from worshiping
Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, it is impossible to worship God. Now, that's pretty narrow, isn't
it? But it is the one who said, I
am. The same one who, when the soldiers
came to take him in the garden, They said, ìWe seek Jesus of
Nazareth.î And he said, ìI am.î And the scripture says that they
all fell backwards. Now, I don't know about you,
but I've thought about that a lot. I believe if I'd have been among
them now, I mean, I'm saying I wouldn't have done just exactly
what they did, because that was the old dang thing. But I'm thinking
in my mind now, didn't that bring a little question into their
mind? When by the very words that he spoke, they were knocked
off of their feet. Because you see, they were blinded,
and they could not see. And they could not embrace the
things of God. And so it is that the Lord taught
in parables, because you see, men seeing will not see, because
they want to see what they want to see. Now, that's the way religion
is. It causes men to see exactly
what they want to see. That's why when men heap to themselves
teachers having itchy ears, they heap to themselves men that will
tell them exactly what they want to hear. Now the natural man,
this old flesh, it does not want to hear, it does not want to hear that
our destiny is in the hand of another because you see, Innate
in the heart of every man is the determination to be the captain
of his soul and the master of his faith, is it not? I mean,
buddy, we're in control. We don't want to leave it in
the hands of anybody else. We want to be the one in control. But as we look in the Scriptures,
we find that such is not the case, because those who are The
hearers of God's Word are those who it has been given to, to
hear the Word of God. They are the seed of God. They
are the elect of God. They are those chosen before
the foundation of the world. They are those hidden in Christ
from before the foundation of the world. They are those for
whom Christ came into the world to redeem. And so the purpose
of God, as we were speaking a moment ago, is to bring glory to the
name of Jesus Christ in the revelation of Him as the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. Now, Philip, or was it Thomas,
I always get that confused in my mind, but one of them said,
well, show us the Father and it will suffice us. And he said, Philip, if I've
been so long with you and you haven't known who I am, he said,
if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Now why is that? Was he just a reasonable facsimile
of the Father? No. He was the Father. He said, A virgin shall conceive
and shall bring forth a child, and thou shalt call his name
Immanuel, God with us. He is the everlasting Father. Now that's spelled out so plainly
in the Scripture that it's hard for me to comprehend why people
would have such a difficulty with that. But that is the absolute
fact. The reason men have a difficulty
is because they don't want to worship Him. They realize that
that kind of narrows it all down. Now, a man cannot boast of having
believed in Christ, because apart from the grace of God of putting
him in that number, he would never believe it. But so it is that the Lord would
bring glory to His Son in the earth, And the fashion in which
he has ordained that his son would be glorified and thereby
his name magnified throughout the ages to come is in the redemption
of sinners. Now, the Scripture says that
the angels desire to look into these things and cannot. Because
you see, this is such a great wonderment to the angels that
they cannot comprehend. What it is that God, whom the
Scripture says they have observed what He has done, the Scripture
says that a third of the angels were cast out of heaven. They
saw that happen. They saw some rise up as Satan
and said, We will lift up ourselves. We will magnify ourselves. And
the Lord, in no uncertain terms, just cast them out of heaven. They saw that. What a wonderment
it is to them that God has created a world and put His people in
the midst of this world so that they cannot be discerned from
the world. They are by nature the children
of disobedience even as others. They are just all mingled together. And yet it has pleased the Lord
out of the midst of this mass of, as the Scripture describes
it, a mass of maggots writhing around. Now, we don't want to
offend our sensibilities why we couldn't be maggots, but that's
exactly how we appear unto the heavenly creatures. We're just
a bunch of maggots down here. And all, without exception, have
gone contrary to the commandments of God. And the only thing that
an angel could imagine, having observed the wrath of God against
all unrighteousness, the only thing they could imagine was
that at any point in time the Lord is going to just poof, snuff
this whole mess out. Why come birth at the ground?
Why is it there? But yet, you see, the Lord has
a greater purpose. Because though He created men
a little lower than the angels, yet it has pleased Him to raise
them up to a place of great glory, to be heirs and joint heirs with
Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, the everlasting Father. It has pleased Him to raise them
up out of this mass of maggots, And the glory that exists in
the raising up of this people, of these unworthy wretches, the
glory of it all rests on Christ. But these angels cannot comprehend
it. They desire to look into it because
they have never experienced anything like that. You see, the elect
angels, they don't know what redemption is, because they never
fell. They've never been subjected
to vanity. But it pleased God to cast His
seed into the earth, into the field. That's what He
said. What is the field? The field is the world. The Lord
has cast His seed into the world. And the devil has come and he
has sowed his seed. Now what did he say to the Pharisees?
He said, Ye are of your father, the devil. You belong to him. And he's cast the seed. You see,
the Lord cast them the good seed. Now, He created all men. Again, like I believe it was
Benjamin Keats said that you cannot make the parables run
on all fours. That is, they are sent to teach
a lesson, but they do not necessarily always in every point teach everything
that men try to make them teach. The Lord made the devil. And
whatever the devil has done has been according to the purpose
of God. And one can look at the book
of Job and see that very plainly revealed. I mean, the devil has
no power except that which God is pleased to let him have. He
is like a dog on a leash. He goes as far as the bounds
of his habitation enable him to go. The Lord directs his steps
as much as he directs his steps. of all men and angels, because
he would have all these things to fulfill his own purpose, to
bring glory to his name in the redemption of sinners through
Jesus Christ and in the redemption of those sinners to magnify the
name of Christ. Because you see, that is the
Song of Ages. That is what John saw when he
saw the vast multitude that no man could number, saying, Worthy
is the Lamb. that was slain to receive honor
and power and glory and riches and might and dominion forever. And the Scripture says that through
the ages to come we might bring glory unto Him. So this world
is but an interlude. This world is but a temporary
state. It is not eternal. Everything
that you see today will pass away. Everything. For those things
that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen
are eternal. And we have reserved in heaven
a greater and a more enduring substance that passeth not away. And so it is pleased the Lord
to manifest His purpose in the earth of sending forth His Son
into the world as the Redeemer of that chosen seed which belonged
to Him from before the foundation of the world. In other words,
before there was ever any creation, the Lord loved His people. He
didn't create men and then pick and choose out of them. Now,
I know that's the picture that a lot of people have of what
election is, that God made this mass of humanity and then He
said, ìAny meanie minie moe.î That's not the way the election
of God worked. The election of God was that
He had a people in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the
world was ever made. They belonged to Him. He loved
them, the Scripture says, with an everlasting love. And He created
the world to bring glory to the name of Christ through redemption. And in order to set the stage
for the redemption to occur, He sowed what? The seed into
the world. And there were sown among them. Actually, in greater numbers,
according to what the Scripture says. And he said, ìLet the tares
and the wheat grow together until the time of the harvest, and
the Lord will separate them.î And so it is that he said, ìThe
tares are the wicked one, the children of the wicked one, the
enemy that sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end
of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As therefore
the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at
the end of this world.î There is going to be a great
destruction of all the works of darkness, and they shall be
no more. I mean, when the devil said to
Eve, when he told her the first and greatest lie that has ever
been perpetrated upon man, was he said to her, ye shall not
surely die. And that's what man thinks. I
mean, all you've got to do is go to a funeral. Everybody always
makes it in, don't they? I mean, you ever been to one
where the guy stands up there and he says, well, that guy,
he went to his own destruction. No, it's all well. He's all in
a better place. I mean, that's just man's fairy
tale that he tells himself. Everything's going to be all
right. It's whistling past the graveyard as he runs past. He
doesn't want to look over there. He just wants to say, oh, everything's
all right. But that's not what the Scripture
says. It says that there are some who are sown unto destruction. They are appointed unto this
end, dear brethren. Now that makes men mad. They
don't get mad if you tell them that God has made salvation available
to anybody who wants to come along and take it. They don't
get mad if you tell them something like that. But, buddy, when you
tell them that God has appointed some men unto destruction and
some men unto life, oh, wait! Why, that wouldn't be what? Fair. Wouldn't be fair. Well, you see,
God doesn't do things according to man's notion of what's fair. He is just, and He is good, and
He may show mercy. Now, if men want God to be fair,
there won't be any hope for anybody, because if it was fair, what
would be fair would be for God to just destroy the whole mess, that it has pleased Him. to sow
a chosen people into the world for the purpose of redeeming
them unto the glory of His name, what can man say about it? It's
not a thing in the world. Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou created me thus? Rather,
there's just no place for man to have any place of glory or
consideration of what he's going to do, because it's what God's
going to do. And this is what the purpose
of the parables are for, is to show what God has done and what
God is doing in the present time. The Son of Man shall send forth
his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things
that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them
into a furnace of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth." There's going to be a terrible conflagration, an
awful thing. Robert Murray McShane wrote a
hymn, and in that hymn he said, When this passing world is done,
when it has sunk, young, glaring son, when I stand with Christ
in glory, looking o'er life's finished story, then, Lord, shall
I fully know, not till then, how much I owe, when I hear the
wicked call on the rocks and hills to fall, when I see them
start and shrink on fire and deluge break, then, Lord, shall
I fully know, not till then, how much I owe, Dear brethren, hell is not a satisfaction of
God's justice per se. I know that's how it's presented.
Oh, they're going to get what's coming to them. Oh, my, oh, dear
brethren. No, hell is the place of destruction
of all that is not made holy in the sight of God. And who
is the most tormented inhabitant of that place? It is the devil
and his angels. Death and hell itself shall be
cast in there. Dear brethren, it is a place
of utter and absolute destruction, the most terrible thing that
a man could ever imagine in his own mind. is that which is that
place called hell. But then he says, Then shall
the righteous shine forth as the son and the kingdom of their
father, who hath ears to hear, let him hear. Then shall the
righteous shine forth. Because you see, when all of
that conflagration is done and all of those former things the
Scripture says are passed away, then that kingdom which is prepared
shall be fully realized. Because this old sinful flesh
will no longer be able to destroy our fellowship with Christ. and
those things that are valuable to the sons of God shall be those
things that they actually hold in their hands. Again, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when
a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and
selleth all that he hath, and buyeth the field. Now, when I
was growing up, that would have been a good illustration of a
man wanting to be saved, but I am telling you that is not
at all what this parable is about. This parable is about the one
who hid the treasure in the field, and he found the treasure that
he hid. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto treasure hid in a field. Now what is the treasure?
The treasure is the sons of God. The treasure is that which He
said was valuable. See, nothing is of value. What
good is gold to a blind man? I mean, if he couldn't see it,
what good would it be to him? I mean, if all of us were blind,
the only reason that people value gold is because they see it and
it looks pretty. Is that not right? I mean, if
you were blind, it could be lead, couldn't it? It wouldn't really
make any difference, but you see, that's the way the old mind
is geared up. But you see, that which is a
treasure is that which is valued. And the Lord does value His people. He said, I have loved you with
an everlasting love. I didn't choose you because you
were the greatest of the people on the earth, but I chose you
because I loved you. Because I would manifest the
glory of my grace in the earth. I would show forth my loving
kindness. I would demonstrate my mercy. And so the kingdom of heaven
is like a treasure hidden in a field. Where is the field?
It's the world. And the treasure which is hidden
in the world cannot be seen by men. See, I don't know who the
sons of God are. Now, the Lord scrapes back the
dirt occasionally, and we start to see a little glimmer here
and a little glimmer there. But you see, it's only as the
Lord unearths the dirt And the scripture says that he
hid the treasure in a field, and when he found it, he went
and sold all that he had and bought the field. He purchased
the earth. Now, the earth is his, is it
not? He made it. He can do with it
what he wants. But the scripture says that he
has bought it. Now, he redeemed the world. He
has redeemed the earth. You see, this is His earth because
He purchased it. Now, we know that in the blood
redemption that is set forth in the Scripture, it has to do
with the purchase of the elect of God. He satisfied their sin
debt because they were that treasure which was hid in the field that
caused Him to come into this world to redeem them out of this
world. But in the process, he redeemed
the world. You see, it is his world as a
man. As the Lord Jesus Christ, as
in Adam, all fell, so in Christ shall all be made alive. Because he is that second Adam. He is that one who is the Redeemer. So that, dear brethren, we are
not angels. The Lord never created us to
be angels. He created us to be men. And
the Scripture says that He is going to create a new heaven
and a new earth. Heaven is not the place of the
abode of God's people. The earth is the place of the
abode of God's people. And He has redeemed the earth.
And He is going to cleanse the earth in the final day, as the
Scripture says, as He wipes out all of that which is harmful.
unto His people. And for the joy thereof, the
Scripture says that for the joy that was set before Him, what
did He do? He endured the pain. He endured
the suffering for the joy that was set before Him. Because you
see, He knew what was hid in the field. And He said, I'm going
to buy the field because what's hid in the field is Mine. And I want it. And the men of this world, they
say, well, you're a fool. He said, no. He said, that treasure
is mine. He said, well, I don't see any
treasure. You see, the world doesn't see any treasure in the
people of God. They're just a bunch of old sinners.
They're not worth having. I mean, if they were a bunch
of righteous folks, it would be one thing. If they were going
about doing the things of God all the time, it would be one
thing. You could say, well, you know, scarcely for a righteous
man would some die, but Christ did what? Even while we were
yet sinners, He died for us. Why? Because He saw the treasure
that was hidden in the earth, and He hid it. That's why he
doesn't ever have any problem finding it. You ever heard somebody
say, I found the Lord? Well, they got it wrong. They
didn't find the Lord. The Lord found them. And the
reason the Lord found them is He knew exactly where they were.
And He found them right where He
put them. And he bought the field that
they were in. Again, the kingdom of heaven
was like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. And when
he had found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that
he had. And he bought it. Again, that
picture is of the treasure. And he said, this is that which
I want. It is that which I value. It
belongs to me, and I'm going to buy it back. Somebody has
got to hold it, and I want it. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of
every kind. When it was full, they drew it
to the shore, sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but the
bad they cast away. So shall it be at the end of
the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from
the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, and
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. And so it is that the
gospel of Jesus Christ, he said, preach it to every creature that
is on the face of the earth. And there is going to be multitudes
that are gathered in to that net in some fashion or other
and for some reason or other. to that. Religion is a powerful
force. And it should not amaze us that
the Christian, quote, religion is one of the largest in the
world, not the largest, but it is one of the largest in the
world. It is one of the major religions. Now, some people take
great comfort in that and they say, Oh, well, see there, all
these people are being gathered in to the kingdom of God. Not so. For it is as a net that was grown
to the shore. But you see, there is coming
a weeding out process. The Lord said that He would shake
that which could be shaken so that that which could not be
shaken would remain. And the Lord shall separate the
precious from the vile. You remember when the The good
man of the feast, he sent men into the highways to gather men
to the feast when some wouldn't come, when the ones invited wouldn't
come. And he gathered them in. And
he came in there and he said, Well, there's a guy in here that
doesn't have on a wedding garment. He said, Bind him and cast him
from it. Dear brethren, only according
to the mercy of Almighty God Can a man have a wedding garment
to put on? Can he put it on? Can he be invited
to the feast? And can he be allowed to remain? But you see, the gospel of the
grace of God is that he will save that which is lost. He came to save sinners. and
so a man knows himself to be lost he doesn't need having any fear
ever being cast out because if a man knows himself to be lost
then that man can only be found by him who loves the treasure
may the lord give us grace and give us a mind and heart called
upon him Because the Scripture does say, and this is the promise
of God, that everyone that calleth upon him he shall hear. And he'll cast none away that
come to him when they seek him with their whole heart. That's
just the facts of the truth. And that's the way the Lord manifests
his people in the earth. He causes them to believe. He
causes them to fall down and confess that Christ is the Lord
of all. What a glorious thing!