Turn back to Matthew chapter 13. This is the parable
of the wheat and the tares. Every word in this book, every
sentence in this book and every book in this book is absolutely
true. There is not another book written
where that can be said. But every word in here is true. And we need every bit of it. We need every truth in the Word
of God. We need to be taught it. We need
to learn it, digest it. We need it. And our Lord gives
another truth here that is so. This is so. And I can really
just give it to you in a nutshell. There will always be tares among
the wheat. That's the nutshell of this message, of this parable.
Our Lord is speaking to that crowd and to his disciples and
he tells his disciples there will always be tares among the
wheat. So let's look at this. Here it says another parable
given by our Lord to reveal a heavenly truth. He's not being philosophical. He's just telling the truth.
He's telling us the truth. This is the wisdom of God speaking. This is God incarnate, God in
the flesh speaking. Truth flowing from His lips. And that being so, He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear. Give great attention to what
our Lord is saying here. In verse 24, another parable
put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened
unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. He went out and
he sowed good seed in his field. Now, the kingdom of heaven is
the visible church in this world. That's what it's speaking of.
It is His kingdom. His kingdom in this world is
the church. And He's the King. He's the King. We live in this world. Believers
live in this world. But our citizenship, our true
citizenship is in His kingdom. We belong to Him. We belong to
His kingdom, even though we live in this world. We are governed
by His Spirit and we are governed by His Word. Speak, Lord, thy
servant heareth. And He speaks to us by His Spirit
and by His Word. How important it is to study
the Word of God. And the man which sowed this
good seed here is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who's sowing
the good seed. He's the sower. And although
He uses men, He calls men as pastors, evangelists, teachers,
He uses them. But yet, He's the sower. He's
the one who plants the seed. He's the one who sows it. He's
the one. We give all the glory of the
good seed to Him. All of it. Now, the good seed
are the children of God. He sows them. He's the one who
owns the seed. He's the one who created the
seed. He's the one who sows the seed. It's his seed. Even though
he uses men like myself, Frank, other men whom he's called to
preach, he's the sower and the seed is his. It's his. The good seed are the children
of God. The Lord never sows. Now, listen. The Lord never sows
bad seed. He never sows bad seed at all. True converts is what He sows.
True believers is what He sows. And they will come to harvest.
They will bear fruit and they will come to harvest. And the
field here is the world in which the good seed are sowed. Sprinkled
throughout this whole world is the church of the living God. He sows it in His, it's His world,
isn't it? It's His field. The earth is
the Lord's and the fullness thereof is they who dwell therein. It
all belongs to Him. And throughout this world, He
has sowed His good seed. His children, His church. But while He slept, no, while
men slept, no, while men slept, the enemy came. The enemy came
and sowed tares, always destructive. Satan is always destructive.
He sowed tares among the wheat and then slipped out the back
door, went his way, lest he should be detected. He can't hang around
too long and be detected. He comes in and sows his tares
and then he slips away. He goes his way. But notice here, he says, but
while men slept, those are his servants. Speaking here of his
servants. There is a natural time to sleep
and let our bodies rest. But there's never a time. There is never a time to sleep
spiritually. There's never a time for me to
ever let down the guard. There's never a time for me As
a preacher of the gospel, as a pastor of this church, there's
never a time for me to sleep. Spiritually, no. And there's
never a time for you to ever sleep spiritually. Never. Physically,
we have to do it. Spiritually, we better not do
it. Although, because of remaining sin, we will do it. But that's
not an excuse. We make no excuses for our slothfulness. We make none. This is to be wept
over. It's to be wept over by the preacher, and it's to be
wept over by the people. When we fall into a spiritual
stupor, for whatever reasons, and there are plenty of reasons
that come along. The Scripture says, watch and pray. Watch and pray. The enemy here is Satan. That old enemy, the devil. And
like a roaring lion, he goes about sinking. Seeking earnestly. Can you imagine somebody that
earnest? Seeking whom they may devour.
Seeking someone to destroy. He's seeking someone of God's
children to destroy. Seeking a church to bring down. Seeking someone to destroy. He's
constantly waiting for the opportunity. You see, we can't see Him. We
can only see things physically. We cannot see with these eyes
things spiritual. You cannot see Him walk in the
door. But He does it more often than you realize it. It happens
more times than you realize it. Whenever God allows it, it happens
more times than we realize. But we can't see Him, not with
these physical eyes. And He waits. He waits like a
lion in the... You've seen a lion crouch, waiting
for the prey to come by unsuspectedly. And he waits for that moment
when we slumber and we sleep. And then he plants his tares
and he slips out the door. That's the picture that the Lord
has given us here. It's sad to say, but it happens.
The best of God's servants. Think of it. Think of the best
of God's servants throughout history. The best of God's servants. slumber and sleep. The best. And this is due to remaining
sin. That's what it's due to. And Satan, he's constantly looking
for that opportunity to slip in like he did in the Garden
of Eden and do his damage, do his work, and slip out. Never forget this. Never forget
the church will always have her enemy in Satan. and his tears. He's crafty, he's deceitful,
he's sharp, he's witty, and he does his work
in darkness. You notice it said when they
slept. When do you sleep? Well, naturally when you sleep
it's at night time. He slips in under the cover of
darkness. when we're asleep, when we're
slumbered, spiritually slumbered, and he does his work. And then
he slips out, lest he be found out and his work stopped. And
here's what he does. He sows tares. These tares are
hypocrites. These tares are posers. They
are posers. They are what they call Darnell,
which is this, bastard wheat. That's what that is. It's bastard
wheat. It looks like the real thing.
It looks like real wheat at first. And this is what our Lord is
teaching the disciples. He says, don't be fooled. This
crowd, this whole multitude is following Him. He's saying, now
don't be fooled. Don't be fooled. There's always tares among the
wheat. They look like it. They're hourly moral. They talk
of grace, they sing praises, but they don't know any of it
in the heart. If it's not in the heart, a man does not know
God. If it's not in the heart. And
he sows among the wheat. He doesn't sow a field. You don't
have a field of good seed here, then over here is a field of
tares. No, it's among them. It's in
with them. He mixes it in. He knows how to do this crafty
work. He knows how to do it. Satan does his evil work among
the weak. And there will always be, this
is what our Lord is teaching. Here's the point. Here's the
point of this whole thing. There will always be false believers
among true believers. Now, there's false religion out
there that you know is just off the wall. But boy, when it's
among you, it's hard to detect. In fact, you'll see here, He
will not let the servants touch those tares unless you tear up
the wheat. Because you're not going to be
able to tell the difference. You'll go in there and sure as
the world, you're going to cut down some wheat. There will always be false believers
among true believers. And there will never be in this
world, in this life, There will never be a congregation without
tares. That's the truth. Truth is what
it is. There will never be a congregation
without tares, no matter how pure, no matter how powerful
the preaching may be. There will always be tares. The first church had its tares. The Reformation had its tears,
and we have our tears. He says in every place, every
place. There will always be tears among the weak. Satan doesn't
care. I thought about this this morning as I was going over my
notes. He does not care if you profess the gospel of grace as
long as you do not possess the God of grace. He doesn't care. He doesn't care
if you profess religion as long as you don't possess Christ. He doesn't care. But when the
blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the
tares also. He's saying the Lord has established
a local church. This is what he said. The Lord
has established a local church. And when it sprung up, The tares
sprung up at the same time. He said they sprung up also. When they sprung up and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. Both appeared together. Both appeared at the same time. And both appeared to have life.
And both appeared to bring forth fruit. One bore fruit unto God.
The other bore fruit unto death. One was the work of God, the
other was the work of Satan. Yet both were in the same congregation. This is sobering, isn't it? I
tell you, when I read this and studied this this week, I thought,
man, how sobering this is. But it's truth. Truth is sobering. It is. Not everyone, he said,
that says, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven. One worships God. and the other
worships a day. To one, this is a religious service,
and to the other, it's a worship service. If you notice, last time we preached
from the parable, it's the parable of the sower. I think we looked
at that last week, or week four last, or sometime, not too long
ago. There were four types of hearers in every congregation, basically. Only one of them was good out
of the four. Only one was a good field. The
others were the wayside and the thorns and the rocky places.
But there was one good ground. And there's always those tares
among the wheat. So the servants of the householder came and said
unto him, This not thou sow good seed in
thy field? From whence then hath it tares?
How did these tares come in? How did they show up? How did these get into here?
We preach the gospel. The gospel has been preached
in power. How did they get into the field? Now the servants here, first
of all, are the ministers of the Lord. They're His ministers,
His servants. And the householder is the Lord.
The house is His. It's His. And notice here their
respect. They came to Him and said, Sir? Sir? They came to Him with deep
reverence. And they asked Him, where did
these tares come from? Where did they come from? They
knew. They knew that the householder,
they knew that the master only sowed good seed. They knew that. Lord, your people have been made
righteous. They're good seed. He doesn't
sow bad seed. You see, when he saves a sinner,
that sinner is saved and that sinner is born again. That sinner
is born of God. That sinner is born of a, he
has a new nature. He's good seed. He's good seed. He's regenerated. He's good seed. How did these bad ones get in
here? How did they get in here? Well,
let me, before I answer that, let me make note of this. Let
us notice, take a look at this. They did not take the credit
of the good seed, the sowing of the good seed to themselves.
How many converts have you had? I've had absolutely none. If I can convert you, someone
else can unconvert you. But if God converts you, if God
regenerates you, you're a good seed and you're going to stay
that way to the harvest. You'll stay that way to the harvest.
So they gave Him the glory. They said, Lord, You sowed the
good seed. How did these tares come in? Because they knew that
the true sowing of this seed was His. His work. I'm just a voice. I'm just a
messenger. The good seed is of God. The
true converts of God. And He says here, And he said
unto them, An enemy, an enemy hath done this. An enemy. The servants said unto him, Wilt
thou then that we go and gather them up? The disciples said one
time, Lord, would you that we call down fire from heaven and
burn them up? Well, no. No, it could have been a believer
in one of those. They wanted to burn up. Could have been. He revealed to them, first of
all, that an enemy Satan. Satan. The archenemy has done
this. This is the work of Satan. Like
I said, you never see him come in. You'll never notice it. Slip in, slip out. The enemy has done this. I thought
of this last night. A Christian gone bad is not a
Christian at all. It's a terror. It's a terror. That's what it is, it's a tear.
It's a plant of Satan. The servant said, do you want
us to clean this mess up? No, you'll make a bigger mess
of it. You will make a bigger mess of it. Do you want us to
clean it up? No. Do you need our help? No. No, I don't need your help. Does the Lord need our help?
I think maybe their conscience might have been bothering them
for being asleep. You know how you get caught and you want to
hurry up and try to make amends? No. Now this is something you
can't do. It's something you cannot deal
with. It's over your head. It's over your head. You can't do it. But I say this, they were ready
to defend the Lord's kingdom. They were ready to do the work,
but they would have made a bad work out of it. How would you
do it? I wrote my notes here. How would
you do it? How would you go about doing
it? Are you going to get a disciplinary committee together? Are you going
to examine people's lives? Well, you better start with yours
first. I bet if you started to do it, you'd start looking out
and say, who are you going to cut off? But you wouldn't look
at yourself. I shouldn't have been asleep. No, he said, no, no, no, this
is over your head. It's over your head. You cannot see the heart. You
cannot see the heart. I can. I can see the heart of
everyone in every congregation. I know them that are mine. I
know of them that trust me. He knows the heart that absolutely
trusts Him. And He knows the one that's just
religious. He knows it. He knows it. But He said, Nay,
lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat
with them. Oh, the care. The care that our
Lord takes of his children. He said, no, no, no, you'll harm
the wheat. You'll do harm to the real wheat. So just leave them alone. Let
them grow together. Let them grow together. You'll only create
a mess, that's all. You'll create a mess trying to
make things right out of your zeal, but really, you'll just
destroy some wheat. You'll destroy some babes in
Christ. That's what will happen. Some
of the weak ones, some of the babes in Christ, you'll think
they're tares. Like children. You know how children
are. They're children. They're not grown up. They haven't
learned. They haven't been taught yet. That's the way babes in
Christ are. And the first thing you'll do,
you'll start cutting off babes in Christ. No, you leave it alone. You leave
it alone. You'll root them up if you start
bothering them. The tares grow so closely with
the wheat. They grow so closely with the
wheat. You'll root up the wrong ones.
You won't be able to tell the difference. And you'll do more harm than
good. Zeal is good, but blind zeal is deadly. There is a time for rooting up
and God knows the time. God knows the time. Besides,
there is a purpose in this or He would not have allowed it
to happen. There is a purpose in it. But let both grow together
until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I
will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and
bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat The
seed that I sowed, you gather them into my barn. Let both grow
together. The Lord is not afraid of losing
His harvest. He's not afraid of losing the
harvest. He's not going to lose one grain of wheat because of
the tares and because of Satan. He's not going to lose any. Everyone
for whom Christ died shall be saved. He will not lose any of
them. He said, let them both grow together.
I'm not going to lose them. I've got this under control.
They're mine. And then he gives the time of separation. There's
a time to separate. And he says here, in the time
of harvest. In the time of harvest. And that
means in the end of the world. The time of harvest here is the
end of the world. There is an end to this world.
There is an end to this. Then all things will be separated
as it should be. And it will be done right. It
will be done right. And the reapers here are the
angels of God. The angels of God. The elect
angels of God are the reapers. They know how to reap the Lord's
harvest. They know how to reap their Lord's
harvest. And they will not harm the wheat.
Well, how do they know the difference between the wheat and the tarry?
They've been watching over that wheat since it was born. He shall
give His angels charge over thee. They know who you are. They know
God's elect. They know who they are. The wheat
with the blood on it is His. It's His. And they've been watching
over you since the day you were born. So they're not going to
make a mistake. They know who to gather. They
know them that are His and those that are not His. And they will first gather the
tares and bind them in bundles. Put them all in a bundle. Wrap
them all up in a bundle. All false religion. will be bound,
all false professors, even sitting in a true church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, will be bound in one bundle to be burned in the
lake of fire. There's a time of separation
and He will do it. He'll send His angels to do it.
And they will bind the tares. They'll do the separation and
they'll burn them. But you gather the wheat into
my barn, into my granary, into my heaven, into my new earth,
into my presence. You gather the children of God,
the weak, the ones sown by Him, have nothing to fear when the
end comes. Every believer should rejoice,
and I believe we'll rejoice when the end comes. whether it be
the end of the world or just the end of this life. They have nothing to fear when
the end comes. They will be gathered into his barn, into his granary. There he is. There will come
a day of separation. He will separate the sheep from
the goats, the tares from the wheat. But until then, here's
why he Here's what He's teaching us in this parable. But until
then, you will never find a true church on this earth without
tares in it. That's a sobering, sobering thought. Truth. But the Lord will someday
purge His church. He will purge His church from
all tares, and it will be nothing but pure wheat, giving glory
to Him.