The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

If there is anything in the bible that convinces me that Christians will be on this earth until the 2nd coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the parable of the wheat and the tares.  Here are notes I made from the sermon on this parable by Paul Dowling of Whiteabbey Congregational (Reformed) at Sermon Audio.  Link to the sermon at the end:

The Wheat and the Tares

Matthew 13:24-30, V36-43

The day that Jesus told this parable he was at the seaside and sitting on a fishing boat just off the shore, preaching to multitudes of people on the beach. (Matthew 13:1-2)  According to V24, a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  A temporary tale with an eternal message. An illustration in words that are commonly understood to bring a message that is commonly forgotten.  This parable is taken from the agricultural world.  This parable is commonly known as the wheat and the tares and it is about the kingdom of heaven.  Where is the kingdom of heaven?  is it big or is it small?  how does it grow? what is the value of becoming a part of the kingdom of heaven.  This parable is about the kingdom of heaven.

What are the facts?  V24 "...the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field." The kingdom of heaven is like a field.  a field that has been prepared for sowing.  V25 "But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way."  At night, the enemy comes and sows tares among the wheat in the field.  Tares are a type of a weed called Darnel.   Darnel is a poisonous plant that is related to wheat and it is a plant that is impossible to distinguish from wheat because it looks precisely the same until the ears form for the fruit, and then when the fruit comes it looks very different from wheat. (Here is a link to an article on Darnel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolium_temulentum )That is why it says in V26 "But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also."   They couldn't tell the difference until the fruit came.  One is poisonous and one is good.  This parable the Lord was teaching was something that really happened, sowing Darnel in the wheat was a crime against a particular Roman law.  People did this as an act of vengeance against someone else, they would sow Darnel in their field. 

V27,28a  "So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?  He said unto them, An enemy hath done this...."   It wasn't the good farmer that sowed the tares, he sowed only good seed, it was an enemy that sowed the tares.  V28b-30 "The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?  But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.  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 into my barn."   The servants wanted to pull the weeds but the master wouldn't let them do that.  A heavy infestation of Darnel couldn't be pulled up because the roots of the weeds were stronger than the roots of the wheat.  They were tangled together, to pull the weeds up you have to wait until the harvest and pull them up together.   There would be a separation of the plants in the future.

How God Reveals Himself

Psalm 8:1-4, Job 38:1-7,33-37

The word "revelation" means revealing, God has revealed himself.    Something that you wouldn't have found out by your own methods, that is what revelation means.  The doctrine of revelation is the doctrine that tells us that God reveals himself.   This revelation of God is absolutely essential for without God revealing himself to us we would never come to know him.  Man by his own abilities can never find out God.  By our own mind or intellect, we could never know or discover God because God is not subject to our tests and our methods.  God does not put himself under our microscope to be investigated.  He is not an object to be inspected by great men, he is above and beyond us.   By nature an object to be inspected must be lower than the one inspecting it.  That is why you can inspect an ant but the ant can't inspect you.   Without God revealing himself to us in two main ways, we would be completely in the dark about God.  But Praise the Lord, he has condescended to reveal himself to humanity.   It is general revelation and special revelation.  Let us not forget that for God to reveal himself is needed  Isaiah 40:28 "Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding."  Man cannot come to understand God without revelation.  Job was asked in Job 11:7 "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfections?"  No.  Humans are completely shut in to what God reveals.  Everything we know about God we know because he has revealed it to us.

General Revelation:  God reveals himself generally, in a general way to everybody, to all mankind.  Externally and internally.  External revelation is this:  God has seen fit to leave his fingerprints upon the creation, like we do if we are making something of wood or metal.  The creation of the world, the planets, God has left his fingerprints in the creation.  The detail and complexity of the universe is amazing.  So complicated, man could not make a leaf because these things call for a designer.  God tells us that from the creation, the outward creation,  people can see that there is a God.  This is external revelation. Psalm 8:3-4 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?....."   When the psalmist studied the sun and the moon, it made him think naturally about God, when, not if.  It is taken for granted that God's people would be interested in his creation.  The heavens declare the glory of God, the earth shows his handiwork.  There is a creator, there is a designer.  There is no human being that has any excuse for not believing in God.  Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.."  Created beings fully and clearly see and understand that there is a God, and so they are without excuse. 

Internal revelation: man has built in religion, he is God conscious by nature, God has placed eternity in the heart of man.  Everybody knows that there is a God.   But it's not enough to lead us to a saving knowledge of the true God, because even man with his intellectual capacity cannot find the true God.  They need special revelation.  When Paul was preaching on Mar's hill (Acts 17:19-31) he spoke of the unknown God, the true God.  Human knowledge admits that there is a God, but true knowledge of God, has to be specially revealed.    

One Month Away..

My goodness, how time flies.  It has been one month since I made my last blog post and so much has happened.   Illness was in this house, and I was sick with bronchitis and the flu.  My husband came down with the same thing but whereas I was able to stay home, he had to make a trip to the emergency room of the local hospital having breathing problems and abdominal pain.  He was on oxygen and IV fluids while there and they sent him home on antibiotics saying that he also had bronchitis.  In all, I was sick from February 4th until this past week which was end of March, and he was sick from middle of March to this week when we both finally stopped coughing.  Thank the Lord that this is past.

Also, in the middle of March I sadly made the decision to sell my little Chihuahua/toy poodle puppy after taking her for her second vaccine and was told by the vet of all the problems that a tiny dog such as her can face.  I saw future huge vet bills in the picture which would be very difficult to meet being retired and on fixed income, and this combined with the fact that our Shih Tzu had become very depressed while we had her, plus the fact that house-breaking her was going to be a major issue, brought about this decision.  I know that it was the right decision because the day after I listed her she was sold to a very nice lady.  I believe in my heart that the Lord sent this lady.

As well, my daughter-in-law was involved in a car accident which was not her fault.  Someone turned left in front of her and the crash which followed resulted in her car being written off.  I am so very thankful that she was not seriously injured, and that my granddaughter was away at Girl Guide camp and so was not in the car when the crash occurred.  Quite often we hear of accidents in this area where people are killed, so thank the Lord for my daughter-in-law's life being spared.

I confess that I have not been listening to sermons this past month, with all that has gone on I have felt kind of numb, but I know that it is time to get my life back on track and to this end, I will be posting notes to sermons by Paul Dowling again soon.