Matthew 13 (Part 2) :24-43

--- Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13 would you please we're continuing our study through the New Testament on Sunday morning and we are in the book of Matthew and last week began the 13th chapter we're picking it up in the 24th verse but before you start reading ahead let me just let me just kind of prime the pump a little bit just for a moment here by saying that we've we've moved into a fairly critical juncture here in Matthew's narrative of the gospel message because the Jews have effectively rejected Jesus now as the king as the Messiah he has been rejected for all intents and purposes although there are still crowds that gather when he speaks from a from a leadership standpoint and so forth he has he has been rejected and so Jesus now begins to speak in parables when we started this last week and he'd be he's beginning now to talk to them about what the kingdom is gonna look like without its proper king in place and he's gonna talk about the characteristic of the kingdom he's gonna say he's gonna tell you and I what the kingdom is going to look like until his second coming which you'll see in these verses he will refer to as the end of the age don't think of that as the end of the world it is not the end of the world the end of the age scripturally speaking means when the church age essentially ends in Christ returns and then he will then set up the millennial age which is the next age we will go into we are living in the church age right now anyway let's read these verses and then we'll pray and then we'll get into him here this morning beginning in verse 24

he told them another parable

he told them still another parable

Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables he did not say anything to them without using a parable and so was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet I will open my mouth in parables I will I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world by the way that is quoted from Psalm 78 by a man by the name of Asaph then he left the crowd and went into the house his disciples came to him and said explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field he answered

stop there if you would please let's pray father God open our hearts to the message of truth wisdom may we gain understanding from it Lord God may you speak to us to each person here today exactly what you want to say may we be listeners today and then Lord give us the strength to be doers as well we ask these things in Jesus name Amen Jesus begins in this section here today with the parable of the weeds which basically describes the work of an enemy who infiltrates the field of someone who is attempting to grow wheat and he sows weeds literally puts the the seeds of weeds into that that man's field and the the parable itself is you know pretty simple for the most part it's hard to imagine somebody actually doing it I've heard that there are examples of it being done but the point is Jesus then gives us the interpretation of this parable as we skip down to verse 37 and if you look there again in your Bible this is where Jesus said to them that this is how it is to be interpreted the one who sowed the good seed is the son of man and of course he's speaking about himself in the third person he's saying I am the farmer who is literally sowing the good seed all right and the good seed as we learn in this parable are those people of the kingdom they are the people whom Christ himself has sown it and there isn't any problem figuring out this you know what Jesus is talking about because you know Jesus is the one through whom we all come to a saving knowledge of what the gospel means it is you know as Jesus said no one comes to the Father except by me so he's the sower he's the one who is working you and I and so forth into the kingdom he goes on to say and this is interesting look in verse 38 he says the field is the world did you catch that not the church the world that's the whole field that's being sown into and so Jesus is the farmer in the parable sowing into the world the weeds he tells us are the people of the evil one literally in the Greek it's sons of the evil one and he says in verse 39 that the enemy who them into the world is in fact the devil no big surprise there finally he says that the harvest that takes place at the end of the age which is of course when Christ returns is is that that work of separating those who are in the Lord and those who are not he says the harvesters are angels and then there we have the interpretation of the parable now what we need to understand those we look at this parable is what he is trying to tell us about the kingdom and there are really two simple points that he's making in this fairly simple story the first thing Jesus wants us to understand is the character of the kingdom of God now when I say that when I say the kingdom of God what do you think of I imagine that there's probably a lot of different answers you might come up with but when I say the kingdom of God what is it that comes into your mind well does duplicity come into your mind you probably not but Jesus is telling us in this parable that the kingdom in his absence okay until he returns the kingdom is going to be characterized by duplicity there is going to be true and there is going to be false living in the kingdom side by side and by the way this is the age that you and I are living in right now and do we see this in the kingdom today absolutely we see it all the time we'll actually talk more about that later but the point of these parables is to make you and I aware of the fact that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are at many times going to be difficult to distinguish it's going to be hard to tell them apart from you know a worldly perspective and so the weeds that Jesus referred to in this parable are those that are growing up right alongside the people who have been planted here by Christ and guess what he said it just is in the parable you know his well-meaning servants say should we go and should we uproot the weeds right now no no the wise farmer says no go ahead and let them grow together and we'll take care of it at the harvest that's when we will take care of this issue but for right now let them grow so the kingdom of God is one where you have true wheat that is growing symbolizing the the children of God and the weeds that are growing right up there with the wheat symbolizing the children of the enemy and in many cases they are virtually indistinguishable you know Jesus Doesn't mention a specific weed here, but we actually know what kind of weed plagued wheat farmers at that time and still actually grows today It's called Darnell and Darnell weed is Really really interesting. I I looked it up online In fact, I found on a website that has nothing to do with the Bible. It was a secular website I found this interesting description of this weed called Darnell. Let me put it up on the screen for you Look at this. It says Darnell usually grows in the same production zones as wheat and is considered a weed the similarity between these two plants is so great that in some regions Darnell is referred to as false wheat it bears a close resemblance to wheat until the ear or The fruit of the wheat plant actually appears that's when you can tell That it's not real wheat. Now. What a fascinating parable that Jesus would tell About this process that is going on in the kingdom of God this this this literally the whole world if you will where God has been sowing the seed of His true people but there are these other weeds coming up at the same time that are virtually indistinguishable and that's exactly What we read from a secular source that Darnell is like now. I found something else about Darnell that is also Very interesting. I learned that when it grows next to wheat Its roots actually intertwine with the roots of the wheat plant So that to go and pull up the Darnell is To pull up the wheat you you literally cannot take the Darnell weed and pull it without Upsetting or uprooting the wheat at the same time. This is picture-perfect to the parable that Jesus is giving here No, he says to his servants. We can't pull them up right now We have to wait until the wheat grows until you know It's time to harvest and then we will take care of the issue So the this parable gives you and I this insight this understanding and how the kingdom is going to progress Until the coming of the Lord and what he tells us is the characteristic is it's going to be a mixed kingdom You know don't think of the kingdom of God as just all of these people who love the Lord The kingdom of God is made up of people who love the Lord and people who are literally false plants false professors You know people who even believe that they're Christians. They may own a Bible they may go to church from time to time but they're no more Christian than the man in the moon and and and it's you know and These people are living together and and and operating together and so forth Now the second thing that Jesus wants us to see I believe from these these parables Is that they obviously declare to you and I the final end of all that is true and false and growing up at the same time together and the fact that You know God has a plan that he's going to take care of this thing ultimately But he's going to take care of it At the harvest when our Lord returns. He basically speaks of it in verse 40. Look with me, please in your Bible right there Here's how he says it

Jesus is reminding us that there's going to be a final and ultimate reckoning for all people and so forth, but this idea of of the kingdom of God being one in which there's a mingling of Unbelievers and believers together and and so forth is one that we See in these other two little short parables that he added to it. Look again in verse 31 with me in your Bible It says he told them another parable the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed Which a man took and planted in his field and though it is the smallest of all seeds And by the way, it was the smallest of all seeds that the Jews at that time had in their experience people have Taken issue with this passage saying well, there are seeds that are smaller than the mustard seed Well, not that the Jews knew of back at that time That was the smallest of all the seeds that they knew and so he says even though it's the smallest Yet when it grows it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree actually like a big bush so that the birds come and Perch in its branches Now. What's this parable all about people? This parable isn't just being told so that you and I will know and understand that the kingdom of God is going to experience growth It's given to us for another reason and that reason is found in the last part of this Statement where he says the birds will come and perch in its branches Who are the birds? Well, that's an interesting question because in the Bible in Almost every instance where birds are used Symbolically They symbolize evil They symbolize bad stuff Over and over again look at look in your Bible You know everything from when when Joseph was in prison and he was interpreting the dream of the baker who had the basket of bread on his head and the birds came and ate out of it and Joseph said yeah your head is three days from now your head's going to be literally lifted off cut off by the king and Then you've got in numerous other sorts of references now There are references to birds that are actually good, but when they are used Symbolically they symbolize evil over and over and over again And if you're looking for what we call this, there's a term that defines it. It's called Expositional constancy. It's a big word or big phrase. That simply means expositionally speaking there is a Consistency to the symbolic use of birds in the scripture and they are almost always evil and what we see in the context of these parables is bad stuff Getting in. All right, because you see the parable of the weeds sets the context of how these other parables Ought to be interpreted And so when we get to this parable of the mustard seed growing into the the tree that's large enough for birds To nest in it. We see that what Jesus is telling us here is that there is going to be Yeah, there's going to be a phenomenal growth that takes place in the body of Christ But it's not going to be good In fact, it's going to be you know, pretty bad And you know, this is probably nowhere better illustrated historically speaking Then when the church became the state religion In about Little little past the 300 AD marker on 312 the king of Rome who was known as the Emperor a Man by the name of Constantine converted to Christianity went out to war saw a sign in the heavens of the cross and Decided that was a sign from God and he converted to Christianity. Well up to this point Rome had been persecuting Christians. You'll remember the Apostle Paul died in Rome had his head cut off and the Rome Crucified and Slaughtered many many many Christians through the early years of Christianity. Well suddenly in 312 All that changed because now the king is a Christian the Emperor himself is a Christian Well, can you imagine what that did from a political standpoint for all the people around him? Suddenly now confessing Christianity was politically advantageous Whereas before we persecuted Christians Now we're going to embrace them. Oh, and we're all one big happy family now, aren't we? Well, what happened as a result the kingdom of God grew? Explosively, but it was not good growth. It was corrupt. It was politically motivated it was carnal and that the the Emperor becoming a Christian actually led in the next, you know, a couple of hundred years into what we knew as the Roman Catholic Church Which plunged us into that period of time we called the Dark Ages from around 500 to 1500 AD that 1,000 year period we referred to as historically the Dark Ages which was a time where the church was filled with corruption and murder and and some of the most Horrific things that you can imagine it took the Reformation of the 1500 and Martin Luther and all the way that God used him to to begin just to begin to bring the kingdom of God out of that Kind of horrific corruption and and so forth, but Jesus is foretelling this in these parables He's talking about this explosive growth that's going to take place in the kingdom of God But it's not going to be good and it's going to be and he uses this symbol Like type of birds which we see which are evil and so forth, but he's not done. It says in verse 33 He told them still another parable Look with me there in your Bible

now what's interesting about this is that there's a popular interpretation of this parable That basically says oh that yeast That's the gospel and that dough. That's the world and so we Christians we're just gonna keep working the gospel into that dough until it permeates the entire thing and and and we're gonna usher in a time of Peace and and righteousness here as the church. Well, first of all, it doesn't square with Scripture now secondly It's just a bad translation. And here's another reason why Expositional constancy tells us that yeast Always represents sin and corruption. I mean even from the Old Testament during the feast times Jews were told you may not bake bread with yeast In fact, God told Moses you tell the Israelites if we even find yeast in their house They're gonna be they're gonna be put out of the the community You know no yeast and then we get into the New Testament Jesus saying things to his disciples like watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees You know and all these pictures throughout the scripture yeast is a picture of the the permeating effect of sin in our lives So using expositional constancy once again, we realize this isn't a positive parable This is a negative one and Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like this this Corrupting influence that gets worked into the dough until it's worked all through it And and and he's telling us here that things are going to look really bad Yeah, I know this isn't really a good news message and I'm sorry for that But that's just the reality of the situation and you know, you start reading your Bible Where the church began in the book of Acts and you read forward into the letters written by Paul and and Peter and John and And James, what are they doing? They're combating the influence the Corrupting influence of the world in the church, aren't they? They're warning people and saying stay away from stuff like this. Don't get close to I mean even in those early, you know Decades of the church which are listed for us in the book of Acts. We already see this permeation of corruption and sin happening in the church To the point where Paul wrote to Timothy I'll just give you one quick example up on the screen Paul wrote to Timothy in first Timothy 6 and he said Timothy Man, he says guard what has been entrusted to your care turn away from Godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge Which some have professed and in so doing what have they done? They've departed from the faith You know, this was going on in the early years of the church. What do you think has happened in 2,000 years? How much of that yeast has worked into the batch of dough in the last 2,000 years? What kind of corruption have we have we? Seen happen how many spinoffs of cultic groups that that claim to have the full truth But who've actually perverted and twisted the truth of God's Word have have risen up in 2,000 years How many are we dealing with right here today? and and and and and and so forth, I mean it's just It's crazy But what we see in these parables is Jesus foretelling this for us And saying listen, it's gonna be like weeds sown into a wheat field You know, it's gonna be like birds Nesting in the in in in the kingdom of God and becoming actually part of it It's gonna be like yeast the sin the corrupting influence of sin sin working its way into the kingdom of God That's that's that's what it's gonna be like I just Jesus is saying I just want you to know what the Characteristic of the body or the kingdom of God is gonna look like in my absence And then he tells us this he says listen I just want you to know that I do have a plan to deal with this situation. It's gonna be dealt with at the harvest At the end of the age, which again is the end of the age that you and I are living in right now I'm gonna deal with it. There's gonna be a separating and you know, Jesus told many parables to show that separation would take place You know sheep and goats and wheat and tares and and and fish from those things which you know Weren't edible that the net caught and so forth, you know many many parables to describe this sort of a thing And that's all good and fine So, you know We know that his plan is to wait till the end of the age before kind of exposing and weeding out the true from the false and so forth, but the question that kind of Reverberates in my heart is how are we supposed to deal with this today? I Mean, we're living in a kingdom of God right now. That is full of corruption. I Mean chock full of corruption How are we supposed to deal with it? I mean, how are we supposed to to handle this thing? How hi, you know? How in the world? Are we supposed to take the message of God's Word and I Mean do you ever stop to ask yourself the question? How do people even get saved today? I Mean how in the world can you work your way? through all these opposing ideas and and and you got Joseph Smith and you got all these other guys who have claimed to have a Revelation from God and how do you work through it all? Well, here's the good part He didn't leave us alone When Jesus ascended to be with the father Before promising to return through those angels who declared to the disciples men of Israel The same Jesus who was taken from you will return in the same way you've seen him go He gave us his spirit He gave us his Holy Spirit and Let me tell you something. We have a powerful ally in The person of the Holy Spirit. Do you guys realize that do you realize how powerful he is? To the point where Jesus said this is recorded in John chapter 16 up on the screen here for you But when he the spirit of truth comes He will do what first of all, he will guide you into all not some all Truth and he will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears and He will tell you What is yet to come? You know, I don't I don't I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say that without the Holy Spirit And without the Holy Spirit For us to come to a place of knowing and accepting. The truth is absolute hopelessness Without the Holy Spirit who could possibly come to Christ in this in this morass of craziness mixed up confusing corrupted Information that the world is trying to convey to us on a day-to-day basis. I mean, it's just it's confusion on steroids Who in the world can possibly work their way through all the garbage And all the misinformation and all the half-truths, you know How do I know for sure? Well Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes He's gonna lead you Into all truth, you know the Holy Spirit Superintended the writing of the scripture the Bible literally tells us that when those who sat down By God's direction to write these things down. The Holy Spirit was completely involved in that process. He Superintended that process. It says that the Spirit breathed upon that situation and oversaw the writing of These these these manuscripts and then and then the process of just you know Seeing how these things were preserved over the years The Holy Spirit has just moved Powerfully to do that and and now the Spirit works in our hearts and opens the heart and the mind of all those who desire Understanding, you know, it's it's been one of the most incredible testimonies of the Holy Spirit to me to listen to people who've come out of craziness Doctrinal craziness some of you It's like that's your address or at least it was in years past doctrinal weirdness. That's where I lived 501 doctrinal weirdness Avenue You know and and and you it's it's it's so amazing because there's always a There's a thread of consistency that I hear people say they'll say things like, you know I was raised in a family. That was you fill in the blank. They were Jehovah's Witness or LDS or or some other group or whatever, you know, that's just kind of run off on a tangent and Wallowed in the corruption that we're talking about here in these parables and they will say something like But you know what? there was all I just Something was always wrong. There was always just something wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't know what I didn't even know enough about what they believed or what they didn't believe Or what the Bible said to really refute anything they had to say but something inside Said to me that's not right You And then something happened in their life to kind of draw them toward God Maybe they just start reading the Bible or some tragedy or some something took place that just you know Shook their life and and they they turned and moved toward God and God just opened up the floodgates of knowledge and understanding and and and they they started reading the Bible and things started making sense and they started realizing that all the things they did been taught and shown for all those years were were nothing but The fabrication of Clever people and had really nothing to do with biblical truth, you know but though but they but they become this testimony of God's faithfulness through the Holy Spirit to put his hand on Someone during that sort of stuff and bring him out and there's no way we could have been able to reach them for Christ Other than the Holy Spirit. There's the only way to explain it. He had his hand on him from day one And he brought him out of that situation However, it might have happened and your story might different be different Your mileage may vary the point is God did something God worked Something in you to draw your heart and bring you to a knowledge of the truth and it was God the Holy Spirit and he is the one who who then draws us to to himself and and Regenerates our hearts as we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and King and we are we're born again by the power of the Holy Spirit We're sealed by the Holy Spirit and then he doesn't stop there He then empowers us with his spirit so that we can go out into the world and share this message with other people and see the same miracle happen over and over again and it's exciting and the bottom line is It's the Holy Spirit you guys and he is the one who makes us to know What is true and what is false? It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us Instructs us and fills us with understanding sometimes fills us with dread when we hear something that's ridiculous or Completely off base and you know, you know that that thing and some of you guys who have come out of weird churches You've gone back after you got saved. Oh and you tell interesting stories about just Getting the creepy crawlies I mean when you go back in that situation and you hear the things that they're saying and you and and you're just like Yeah That is just total weirdness and and nothing nothing less You know So we've got this kind of this double-sided sort of a thing that's going on here These parables are telling us that the characteristic of the kingdom is going to be that it's going to be filled full of junk and The world is sometimes going to look at the kingdom of God and say There's no way in the world. I'm opening my heart to that mess But you know you scratch below the surface and you realize that there are some people in the kingdom of God who are true wheat plants and you know God's always had a remnant and They are the people who've decided that they're going to kick religion to the curb and They are going to just focus on what this book has to say and they are not going to add to it nor are they going to take anything away from it because to do so is to enter into error and The very same thing that religion has gotten us into the same Sewer of corruption But those are the people who are simply and genuinely just wanting to know God through his word Little by little you know line upon line precept upon precept Jesus I want to know you and that is how God is Even right now Weeding this field and bringing people to a knowledge of what is really true You know it's important that we see these things in the word because you know as a pastor I might otherwise think that the pressure was on me or you as someone as a believer sharing with family and friends You might think well gee what what do I got to do to bring this person to a knowledge of the truth? There's nothing you can do in and of yourself. You can pray and that's what we ought to be doing You know we need to be going to our our ally the Holy Spirit. Don't we and just saying Lord sick him Right just sick him just you know Lord open their heart open their mind this person this person cannot see this person cannot hear Father in the name of Jesus I pray that you would work in their heart through your Holy Spirit to bring them to a knowledge of the truth apart from that There is no knowing there is no accepting. There is no embracing It is only through the Holy Spirit that you and I can work our way to a place of simply saying you know what? This is truth, and there's nothing else that needs to be added to it, and we darn well better not take anything from it This is the this is this is the truth that God has given us And we're gonna stick to it You ---