SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/20/2022 9:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-4 “The Interpretation of the Parable
of the Wheat and Tares”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
13:34-43
Message of the verses: ““34 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitudes in
parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable, 35 so that what was
spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, "I WILL OPEN MY
MOUTH IN PARABLES; I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE
WORLD." 36 Then He left the multitudes, and went into the house. And His
disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of
the field." 37 And He answered and said, "The one who sows the good
seed is the Son of Man, 38 and the field is the world; and as for the
good seed, these are the
sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the
devil, and the
harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels. 40 “Therefore
just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the
end of the age. 41 "The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they
will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit
lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place
there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 "Then THERIGHTEOUS WILL
SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him
hear.”
We want to begin this SD by talking about the “tares.” Unlike the wheat the tares are the sons of
the evil one, and of course that would be Satan. I have mentioned a number of times that there
are only two kinds of people living in our world today, the sons of the kingdom
through faith in His Son or there are the spiritual sons of the evil one, simply
by virtue of their sinful nature and unbelief.
Here is a list of references to see this truth: John 8:44; Eph. 2:2-3; 1 John 3:10; 5:19.
MacArthur writes “Jesus does not make the point in this
parable, because it would not fit the analogy, but all good seeds were once tares;
all the sons of the kingdom were once sons of the evil one. To go beyond the scope of this parable, while
still using some of its figures, it could be said that the primary purpose of
the ‘good seeds’ in the world is to make converts of ‘tares,’ that they might
also becomes sons of the kingdom.”
In
the parable we see that the enemy who sowed the tares is the devil, the evil
one. As is evident from the wording of
the parable itself as seen in verse 25, sowed here carries the idea of thoroughness. “25 “But while men
were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went
away.” Throughout history the tares have
always outnumbered the wheat by enormous percentages; and some parts of the
world seem to be totally sown with the seed of the enemy. I am thinking about Asia as a great example.
Now
moving on we see that the harvest represents God’s judgment at the end of the
age, when the reapers who are angels will execute judgment on unbelievers, just
as the human reapers in the parable separated out the tares, which were then gathered
up and burned with fire.
MacArthur
writes “So shall it be at the end of the age, Jesus explains. The disciples were doubtlessly ready to put
the sickle to the unbelieving tares right away, just as the landowner’s slaves
were prepared to do (v. 28). This was
revealed as the attitude of James and John toward the unbelieving Samaritans
when they said, ‘Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven
and consume them?’ (Luke 9:54).
“In
the parable we are told that ‘the wheat sprang up and bore grain, [and] the
tares become evident also’ (v. 26).
Jesus does not elaborate on that statement, but in light of His other
parable explanations, that aspect of the parable would seem to teach that most
true believers can be identified by their spiritual and practical fruit (grain)
and unbelievers by their lack of it.”
Now just to talk a bit more about that statement about fruit, fruit is
the one thing that separates the believer from the unbeliever, and to find out
if a person giving a testimony about their faith in Jesus Christ one of the
things that can show if their statements are true is to see if there is any
spiritual fruit in their lives.
The
slaves wanted to take out the tares as soon as they noticed them, but the landowner
told them that they might take some of the wheat with the tares as seen in
verse 29. As observed earlier under the
discussion of that verse, damage could be done to some of the good crop either
because some plants matured late and
would be mistaken for tares because they did not yet have grain or because the
roots were son intermingled that some good plants would be uprooted with the
tares. As stated earlier it is only by
one’s fruit that will show whether or not they are a believer. Again I can go to Ephesians 2:10 which shows
that God in eternity past has given to believers works to do for the cause of
Christ and those works can certainly be called fruit.
4/20/2022 10:16 AM
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