The Kingdom of Heaven: Growing And Harvesting

Take your Bibles this morning and turn with me, if you will, to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13. And though you've just sung a song that you think is a Thanksgiving song, that song comes from the very text that we're going to read today. It comes from this parable in Matthew chapter 13. It is in song form what Jesus teaches in this parable. parable.

The parable that is commonly called the parable of the tares and the wheat. Or in our Bibles, the parable of the weeds. All right. If you will, you begin, you follow along with me in Matthew chapter 13, verse 24. He put another parable before them saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away so when the plants came up and bore grain then the weeds appeared also and the servants of the master of the house came and said to him master did you not sow good seed in your field how then does it have weeds he said to them an enemy has done this so the servants said to him then do you want us to go and gather them but he said no lest in gathering the weeds you root up the weed along with him let both grow together until the harvest and at harvest time I will tell the reapers gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned but gather the wheat into my barn now turn if you will to verse 36 then he left the crowds and went into the house and his disciples came to him saying explain to us the parable the weeds of the field he answered the one who sows the good seed is the son of man the field is the world and the good seed is 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 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 lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace in the place in the place there and throw them in the fiery furnace In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

He who has ears, let him hear. Let's pray. Father, would you open up our minds now to this parable. And Father, having understood it, leave here with hope, knowing how you operate, knowing how things are, knowing them from a heavenly perspective would you grant us that we pray and Lord we pray this so that again we pray again that we would be profitable disciples of Jesus growing to maturity and standing for your grace and your righteousness help us then to understand Lord not just to understand but to change and we'll thank you in Jesus name, Amen If you live in Iowa, on an Iowa farm, and for that matter, just about any farm, but I know this from the farms in Iowa, it won't be long before you get the impression that the worst enemy of mankind is weeds.

Weeds. Weeds. in that culture out there sometimes your sole reason for existence is to eradicate the weeds hundreds and hundreds of acres of beans would be walked that is to say a bean hook in one hand to cut the weeds and walking hundreds of acres taking out all the weeds that you could see I can remember being out there in Iowa and being in the pasture the pasture mind you to cut thistles can't have thistles in the pasture Becca even tells me that sometimes during harvest she and her brothers and sisters would walk ahead of the combine to get the last stand the last stalks of cockleburs and sun sunflower and button weeds the nefarious enemies of all but you know sometimes when they would the weeds would be mature what they would do is they would take those weeds and very carefully pick them so that the seeds would not scatter and put those pods in their pockets or carry a bag with them and they would bring them back and consign them to the weed fire that was there on the property Now we have something like this going on in the parable before us These noxious weeds are consigned to the ultimate fire. The fire meant for those weeds. this is the ultimate harvest and the ultimate weed burning now let's recall what jesus has said so far to us in the parables that we have looked at last week we looked at the parable of the soils and there we found that the message of the kingdom of heaven goes out and finds varied responses it finds varied responses there there are many kinds of responses to the message of the kingdom and though that message makes its way amid hard hearts and competing pressures and even failure, it will not fail to produce an abundant crop.

And now Jesus is going to explain his kingdom in a different way with this parable of the weeds. He says the kingdom of heaven is like a situation in which a man goes out and sows his seeds, his wheat seeds in the field. Remember, sowing as he broadcasts those seeds and he sows those seeds. But that night, as all the workers are sleeping, an enemy, a neighbor comes along and does the same thing, except he starts scattering some seeds of weeds as as it was called.

It used to be called tares. And so I don't have to say weeds and wheat for the rest of this sermon. I'm going to use the term tare. You know, the tares then are the weeds. And so he's sowing tare seeds among the wheat and pretty soon they're growing together. Pretty soon they're growing together.

Now, remember here that Jesus is teaching in parables in order to teach the secrets of the kingdom. Now, he's not saying the kingdom is a secret. He's trying to give explanations of the kingdom. Explanations that people did not have. The kingdom was no secret. everybody who was listening to Jesus that day knew that the kingdom of God, in their view, was coming.

They knew it was coming, but Jesus says, this is in order to give you the secrets or the mysteries of the kingdom. That is to say, I'm going to tell you how the kingdom really operates, and people just don understand this You see because this is the view of the kingdom they had The Messiah was going to come The Son of Man was going to appear in this cataclysmic day of judgment We heard about it from the book of Zephaniah already. He was going to appear in a cataclysmic judgment in which he would crush the opposition, establish justice, and even renew the whole of creation.

Everything would be like it's supposed to be. They were expecting a divine visitation in which God would suddenly appear in the Messiah and would separate the sons of light from the sons of darkness. And guess who they thought were the sons of light? Yes, themselves. And that the Messiah was going to appear and all opposition to God's rule would be vanquished, vaporized, eliminated in that powerful appearance of God. well jesus says actually the kingdom is like this here is a man who goes out and sows his wheat during the night his neighbor who hates him comes along and starts scattering some weed seeds some some tears the seeds of the tears in in his newly sown wheat field now why is that such a problem I mean, so what?

You know, we all deal with weeds. What's the big problem? The big problem is that that then will contaminate the crop. It will reduce the yield, right? It will cause some real problems when it comes to getting the weeds out. I mean, I know how this is.

You know, I can remember being out on the farm in Iowa, and I had the job of driving the corn into the co-op. When you go, you drive up to the scales. they drop a probe down into the corn and they pull it out and they take a sample. And in that sample, they're going to find out your moisture content. They're going to find out if you've got any other kind of stuff in there besides corn.

And if there's more than the acceptable rate, they dock you. You don't get as much for those bushels because there's more than just corn in there. There's a lot of, for example, weeds, seeds in there, or whatever the case may be. They'll dock you. You don't get as much money. I mean, he understood what the problem was.

In fact, this is so real to life that the Romans actually had laws against this sort of thing. If someone was ever, it was ever proven that you had done this to someone. You had sown tares. seeds among the wheat, you would be in trouble. There were prescribed judgments that would be leveled against you for that. Now the weed looks just like the wheat in its early stages of growth.

For example, if you would go out and travel the roads out here and start seeing that little green winter wheat poking through the snow, right? Farmers sow wheat in the fall so they can harvest it in the summer. That winter wheat, when you look at it, looks like grass, doesn't it? Looks like blades of grass. Well, if you would have grass grown up there, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

However, when the wheat starts reaching maturity and heading out, so do the weeds, so do the tear heads. They start heading out too. And then you can see, oh no, there's weeds here. And that's why it's so late in the season when the servants come to the master and tell him about it. It's late enough in the season where they can see now, wait a minute, that's not wheat. that's that's those are some weeds and they're heading out so they go to their master and they say we got a problem here here was the problem basically that he sees and that is that when the weeds reach that point of maturity their roots have wrapped around the roots of the wheat so if you tried to pull out the weeds what happens you're going to pull out the weed as well you're going to destroy your harvest so they come to the master with this problem and he explains to them I mean, he's seen it before.

They say, what happened? You sowed good stuff here. And he responds with, oh, it's my neighbor. He hates me. He's the guy who did it. He's trying to get revenge for something.

Well, they say, do you want us to go out and start pulling the weeds out? And he says, no, no, that's not going to be wise because at this stage of development, all their roots are entwined together. If you start pulling out the weeds, you're going to start pulling out the wheat. We're not going to do that. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to wait until the harvest, until it's all done. then I'm going to tell the harvesters to go out pull out the weeds bind them up in bundles throw them on the fire and then go back and after they've separated the weed out of course then they're going to gather that bundle it up and put it in the barn such is the operation Jesus says as this is how the kingdom of heaven operates in the world today this is what it looks like it doesn't look like what everyone is expecting it looks like this we say well what does that mean so Jesus says ok now listen to the truth of the kingdom in this parable Let look at verse 36 Let read it over again just so we get it Verse 36 here the explanation Then he left the crowds and went into the house, and his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.

He answered, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world, and the good seed is 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. 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 lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father he who has ears let him hear now the first thing you notice in verse 36 is that the parable separates those who are gods from those who have hard hearts those who refuse to listen now the thing to notice here is that god's people are not distinguished from the unbelieving crowd by an instant intuitive understanding of the meaning of the parable they don't understand. But they are distinguished from the unbelieving crowd by the fact that they are persistent in pursuing an explanation. They're persistent in pursuing an understanding of the parable.

That's what sets them apart. Not that they know the meaning of it immediately, that's obvious, but that they want to know the meaning and they're going to be persistent in finding out the meaning. Now imagine if you were there and you were listening to people in the crowd and you come across a couple guys in there talking and one of them says, did you just hear what he said?

Do you get that about the weeds and the wheat and everything? Did you understand that? And the guy responds and says uh no you know I actually let me tell you something I here because my brother got healed yesterday and I had this back problem for years And I hoping I can get to him to this Jesus and he can heal my back And then, you know, life will be good.

Life will be good. See, he's not interested in the truth. He's just interested in a better life, right? And that's what distinguishes the people of God from these who are hard-hearted. who this is why Jesus tells things in parables because then you find out who's interested and who's not who wants the truth and who just wants you see because think about it there's so many people there were thousands of people that followed Jesus in his three years of ministry literally thousands of people and how many hundreds if not thousands were healed how many did he end up at the end of his three years of ministry?

120 people. That was it. How do you explain that? These people are users, right? They want Jesus for what he can do for them. But what distinguishes his people in the telling of parables, what distinguishes God's people from those who are not his, is these are persistent in seeking to understand exactly what Jesus means.

And so when they go into the house, they say, tell us what the parable means. We need to understand this. Well, so we need to understand then the workings of this kingdom of heaven. Notice all the different players involved. There's the sower. This obviously is Jesus, the owner of the field, the king, the one in charge.

And notice that it is Jesus himself, that is the son of man, who directs the harvest as well as sowing the seed. then there is the field the field is the world so the kingdom of god enters the world it is there and this is the action of the kingdom as it's operating within the world within that field okay the good seed the good seed is sons of the kingdom those are though these are the ones who are objects of their messianic favor these are the ones who believe these are the ones who've accepted the message of the kingdom and follow. These are the ones who persist in understanding and then follow on the basis of that understanding. The weeds are the sons of Satan.

Now, before you start thinking, okay, those are all the psychopaths, sociopaths, crazy nutty Satanistic ritual people He talking about anybody anybody who is under the sway of Satan And who might that be? Anybody who's not a believer. I mean, look at the description of them. Look at a very, very, very familiar passage. I've referred to this passage probably, oh, I don't know, 1265 times in Ephesians chapter 2. this to me is is one of the greatest explanations of unbelievers and followers of satan what does it say and by the way notice the apostle paul identifies christians as former followers of satan okay he says and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world following the prince of the power of the air the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Who are these weeds? They are the sons of Satan. And who are the sons of Satan? They are people who are captivated by him. They are people who are dead in their trespasses and sins. They are people who live by their desires, not by the will of God.

They are people who follow the course of this world. Whatever the world says they do, it sets the agenda for them. It's a normal person born into this world. That's the bad seed. Those are the weeds. Okay?

They are the ones who belong to Satan. And notice in the parable that they are for a time indistinguishable from the sons of the kingdom. For a time. They are indistinguishable. Alright? So, they're not necessarily these crazy serial killers.

They're normal people. They're normal people. They're the abortionists and euthanasia doctors who appear to be the paragon of compassion. Who are saying things like, don't ruin your life by having this baby. You know you've got so much promise. Don't let this baby ruin that.

Or you know your grandmother is suffering so much. We just give an extra, you know, let's go to Oregon. Just take her to Oregon where it's legal to kill her and just end her suffering. They seem so compassionate, right? They're the psychologists and the counselors who certainly have a concern for people, but lead them away from the pure word of truth that's found in the Bible.

These are the pastors who do love people, who've gotten involved in ministry because they care about people, but care nothing for Christ crucified for sinners, who lead churches full of people and they're concerned about them, but don't give them the answers that they need in Christ and in God. They're the friend who comforts you in your difficult times and tells you, divorce the guy, leave the bum, he's no good for you. Why are you going to live with this person anymore?

That's stupid, right? These are the people that look like us. They look like everyday normal people. They're the weeds. And then there's the enemy. Who's the enemy?

Well, that's Satan. He identifies him as the devil, the arch enemy of God who seeks to move us away from faith in Christ, who seek to keep us from obeying the commands of Jesus, who seek to dissuade us from a loyal attachment to Jesus where He is everything for us. Nothing more. And notice that He's stealthy and malicious. He works while they're sleeping.

Right? He works while they're sleeping. And Jesus shows us the depths of iniquity. It's more than human weakness and miscalculation. In other words, what do people always say? Well, you know what, I'm only human.

It goes much deeper than that. Satan is this stealthy, malicious worker. There is this deep, dark enemy of God who is working evil behind the scenes. Then there's the harvest. What's the harvest? The harvest is the end of the age.

When everything comes to an end, harvest time is here, and the harvesters are the angels that the Son of Man sends out. Now, what do we need to understand? First of all, understand the present state of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus makes it clear that in this stage of the kingdom, Satan is free to operate He is free to sow opposition He is free to raise opposition against the rule of God That the way it is in the kingdom now The invasion of the kingdom of God with Jesus into the stream of human history does not mean the eradication of opposition to God.

It has not eradicated the opposition. Remember, that's what they thought, that's what they thought the kingdom of God was going to be. It was going to be the sudden eradication of all opposition to the reign of God. And here Jesus is saying, this is the mystery of the kingdom, actually no. The kingdom arrives, but it doesn't eradicate the opposition. In fact, the enemy is still able to raise opposition. to the kingdom.

And by the way, that's what happened with John the Baptist. That's why John the Baptist almost stumbled near the end of his life. Turn back just a couple pages to Matthew chapter 11. You remember, John has been talking to Herod and really giving him grief, and so Herod had him in prison. And we find in chapter 11 this, when Jesus had finished instructing, I'm in verse 1, when Jesus had finished instructing his 12 disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, isn't that interesting how Matthew writes that? When he heard about the deeds of the Messiah, this promised one, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another why is he asking that question because Jesus has not suddenly exploded with all the force of God to eradicate all the evil against God as it appears to say in the old testament if you read it a certain way and so John is saying okay I'm sorry but are you the one because you don't look like the one and Jesus responds this way go and tell John what you hear and see the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me. He goes to a place like Isaiah 35, and he says when the kingdom of God arrives, this is what's going to happen, and this is what happening So he telling John no the kingdom has arrived but it hasn arrived in the way that you thought it was coming And that why he telling this parable you see Because we think, and some of us have the same view.

We say, well, the kingdom of God is not here yet. That's not till the end. Not so. Jesus is saying here, the kingdom is here. And this is what it looks like. It looks like a man who has sown his seed and wheat is growing up, But there's also an enemy at work at the same time producing these weeds, these tares that are part of the whole picture.

So if you want to understand the kingdom, you have to understand the kingdom has arrived. It is producing something, but there is still opposition being raised against it. And at this stage of the kingdom, Satan sows his people everywhere. We breathe the same air as they do. We eat the same food. We drive the same highways.

We shop at the same stores. We go to the same doctors. We work in the same factories. We go to the same schools. We're all together. Well, then where is the justice of the kingdom of God?

Where is the justice? Where is the judgment? Well, this is where Jesus says, now look, judgment is delayed, but it is not denied. Judgment is coming. Yes, you are right. the kingdom of God does mean the kingdom of heaven does mean the eradication of evil but that doesn't come until the end and just as the weeds are pulled up and thrown on the fire so all that belong to satan will also be thrown in the fire and in this period of growth of growth in the kingdom both are growing together but at the end at the end the weeds will be burned and what Jesus is telling us is that the new age of the kingdom has come the kingdom has invaded it is it has entered the stream of human history but it's not entered in the same way that they thought it was coming.

It has entered the stream of human history. It will continue with opposition until the very end until the very end when suddenly the Son of Man will appear and judgment will happen Judgment has not been denied It been delayed This is what they did not see This is what Jesus is telling us So think of it this way. The kingdom is inaugurated and it is in this age as well.

But it will be consummated at the end. It will be consummated at the end when judgment comes. and the nature of that bad seed will be revealed for all to see notice what these are like these are those who cause sin these are the lawbreakers they cause others to sin these are the people who trip others up who drive others away from faith who move them away from their allegiance to Jesus and to his commands they do evil they live contrary to the commands of this Messiah. And they encourage others to live in opposition to the commands of this Messiah.

Judgment for them. Judgment for them means torment. Remember what it means to be part of those weeds. It does not mean that the people going to torment are going to be just the serial killers and the and the crazies that we call them out there. They're going to be normal everyday people who are captives of Satan. And please note, yes, this is Jesus talking about hell.

This is Jesus. Do you know that Jesus is the one who talks about hell more than anybody else? Do you know that? You wouldn't get that listening to people talk about Jesus, would you? This is Jesus saying, there's going to be torment. these scandalous immoral people that some find harmless that some find helpful that some find amusing will someday experience the torment of eternal punishment and he says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth weeping because of lost opportunities and gnashing of teeth the grinding of the teeth in pain and in agony listen to me carefully all of you This is real.

This is real. Some of you are sitting here today, and you may be coming to church regularly. But you're part of those weeds. This is what's in store. The bundling of these weeds and throwing in the fire. Listen, if you're not paying attention to me right now, you better.

This is serious. This is what Jesus says. I can't imagine what that's going to be like. I can't imagine what that's going to be like. You know, I was just talking to a brother this week who said, you know, I talked to these kids about what hell is like and they kind of joke about it and they just kind of say, yeah okay tell you what let's get the lighter okay put your finger over that do you think anybody did it nope nope don't make light of this this is serious and jesus says that is the fate of those who stand against him but then notice as well the judgment even though it means torment for those weeds it means glory it means glory for the sons of the kingdom and that day when the kingdom is revealed in its glory right now the kingdom is is doesn't look real glorious it's producing things but it doesn't look glorious on that day when it appears in all its glory then the sons of the kingdom will be glorified with it That is to say those who belong to the kingdom will be like perfect unblemished mirrors who when Jesus explodes on the scene in all of His glory we will reflect that glory without any kind of hindrance, without any blemish at all.

That glory will be seen, and at that point, we will be distinguished from the sons of darkness. You see? Yes, Jesus is saying. There is a day when the sons of light and the sons of darkness will be clearly seen. That day is coming. Now listen.

Listen to what he says. Verse 33. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. Take this seriously. Listen to what he says.

And listen. interpret the world through this parable. When you look around and you see what seems like Islam marching almost unopposed across the world, you need to think of this parable. When you're at work and you seem to think that there's no distinction, where is this kingdom? Remember this parable when you starting to lose hope that everything you hold dear is being crushed remember this parable You see, the opposition will continue to grow, but so will the kingdom.

Until that final day, when the final distinction is made, and glory explodes on the horizon of the entire earth. that's what you need to remember the arrival of the kingdom with its power to convert people from darkness to light has not eradicated all the darkness or the opposition it's going to grow the kingdom will grow alongside the existence of evil and evil people but someday it will explode in glory when Jesus appears now Jesus has told us this so we understand what's happening in the world this is what we need question is do you have ears to hear do you have ears to hear listen if you're sitting here today and you're saying okay that's interesting thanks pastor Tim that's interesting uh you know what life's been a lot better since I've been coming to church and I really like that I like these sermons. I'd be worried if I were you. It more than just getting a better life It about following a king it about following one in obedience and following one because he loves you you see that's what it's about this is a serious question what kind of seed are you what seed are you Father, thank you for our Lord Jesus who tells us these things, who empowers us to live this way.

Thank you that you've not left us in the dark, but you have revealed to your people the mysteries of the kingdom so that we understand what's happening. Help us to be people then, Lord, help us to be people of hope, people whose allegiance is entirely given to Jesus people whose obedience is crafted because we love our King people Father who understand this world help us to that and we pray for your glory and we thank you in Jesus name Amen Thank you.