Parable of the Wheat & Weeds (Matthew 13:24-43)

Welcome to Wednesday in the Word with Krisan Marotta. What the Bible means and how we know. For more talks and study materials, visit wednesdayintheword.com. Speaker 1: We are in Matthew 13 today, and for those of you who are new, we're it starts on page 13 of your study guide. And there is a schedule on page two that tells you where we're going to be each week. So if you missed, you can always figure out where we are. Most of you will recall that we were hit by the state of Virginia was hit by one of those big storms. I've forgotten what you call them, they have a funny name. Yeah. Dere how do you say it? Derecho. Derecho. On last June. And of course we were one of several states, and almost the entire state was without power. And I bet you all have stories to tell about that. We were out without power for over a week. And then following the storm, we had this record heat and humidity, which makes me wonder how anyone lived in Virginia before air conditioning. I don't I don't know how that how we survived. But part of what made that storm so fierce was not just the fact that we had these hurricane force winds without the hurricane, but it came out of nowhere. So unlike most of the storms where they're tracking them for days and you're getting warnings and they tell you what's coming, there weren't any warnings, there weren't any watches posted, there was no advanced notice from the media. All of a sudden we got this violent wall of wind and none of us were ready for it. Well, I bring that up because the Bible uses images of storms and natural disasters to teach us about God's judgment, and judgment is at the heart of our parable today. So we're looking at the parable of the wheat and the tares, and if I could summarize that in one sentence, I'd say God delays his judgment to give us time to prepare. But rest assured, judgment is coming. So we could stop there, but I have a microphone, so I'm going to keep going. So the parable is going to teach us that judgment when it comes will be fierce and terrible like the storms we had last summer, but unlike our summer storm, we have had, we've been warned well in advance. Now, the concept of God's judgment has fallen out of favor today. It's not something we like to talk about. Um we think of, oh, you know, that's what Jonathan Edwards talked about and those kinds of preachers, but to our modern ears, judgment seems unfair and, well, judgmental. We'd much rather talk about how God is a God of peace and love who unites us in our diversity and overcomes our social barriers and the class barriers we erect. But the fact remains that God is a judgmental God, and the Bible presents him as such. So while our culture is trying to insist that all ideas are equal, there are everything's a shade of gray, the truth is relative, the Bible paints a very different picture. The Bible claims there is such a thing as good and evil, right and wrong, sin and righteousness, goats and sheep, or in our parable today, wheat and tares, and God is going to make a distinction. So we're going to delve into those unpopular waters today and talk about judgment. So this parable that we're looking at, the wheat and the tares, immediately follows the parable we talked about last week, the sower and the seed. And just to review briefly from last week, the parable of the sower explained why Jesus' ministry seemed to be ineffective. Remember, the Jews expected that when the Messiah came, that he would bring these kind of cataclysmic changes, that he would usher in the kingdom of God, that evil would be judged, and that not just Israel, but everyone would bow to God as God and recognize him as such. And now Jesus was here and there didn't seem to be that much response. So the people were saying, What's going on? This doesn't mean this isn't what we expected, and the parable of the sower and the seed addresses that expectation. That it's no surprise that out of the many people who hear the message of the gospel, only a few respond because only a certain type of person will respond. The person who is like the good soil, that is, those to whom God has given ears to hear and eyes to see, those to whom God has given faith. So the first part of their expectation was that the whole world would bow down to God as king when the Messiah came, and the sower addresses why that's not happening. But the second part of their expectation is that the Messiah would establish his kingdom by judging the powers of evil. And so the parable of the wheat and tares addresses, well, why isn't that happening? Okay, so the Messiah's here, and we understand that salvation is only granted to those who have faith, and faith itself is a gift of God, and only those who have been given faith will have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. But why isn't the Messiah judging everyone else? That's the cultural expectation. So why are the wicked continuing to prosper alongside the righteous? And what's happening here? So the kingdom of God we know must contain no evil, therefore, evil must be judged. So when the Messiah comes and establishes his kingdom, it should involve this moral cleansing because God is a holy God. How else could you bring in the kingdom of God except to have that victory over sin and evil and judging those who don't adhere to the law, like the Romans or other Gentiles, or uh and establishing this political reign of Israel. So just to give you an example of what they expected, this is back in Matthew 3. Um, and if you don't have a Bible and you want a Bible, there are lots of them on the shelves in the back of the room, so feel free to grab one. Because I'm also going to be looking at Zephaniah today, so you you might want to grab a Bible if you don't have one. So I'm looking at Matthew 3, verses 7 through 12. This is John the Baptist talking. It says, But when he, that is John the Baptist, saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father, for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children of Abraham. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees, therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So he's speaking to the religious leaders of his day who are coming to him, and they're saying, Well, why are you coming to be baptized when you haven't even repented? Don't you understand that it's not enough to be physically Jewish or a descendant of Abraham? God can make anyone a descendant of Abraham. What you need to do is is repent. Then he goes on in verse eleven. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not fit to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit in fire, and then listen to verse twelve. His widowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor, and he will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. So John the Baptist is describing this coming judgment and this moral cleansing that the Messiah is going to bring, and this is what the disciples were looking for. So Jesus is here teaching and preaching, and they're looking around, going, Well, the response seems a little thin, and look at all these people who are following him. They're sinners, they're tax gatherers, they're prostitutes, they're those who just want to see a miracle or a sideshow, those who want free food, those who are seeking a civil war against Rome. So these people don't look like the kind who are fit for the kingdom of God. And the parable of the wheat and tears is to answer that question, to say, well, when is this judgment? When where is the Christ who's going to thoroughly cleanse his chip his threshing floor? When is that going to happen? And that's what Jesus is answering. And he's saying, God delays his judgment. It's not now, it's not yet, and he's delaying judgment to give us time to respond so that no none of his children will be lost. But rest assured, judgment's coming. Okay, so let's look at the parable. Turn back over to Matthew 13. We're going to start in 24 through 30, which is where he tells the parables. And I'm going to slide over here into the light a little. Okay, so Matthew 13, 24 through 30. Jesus presented another parable to 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 tares among the wheat and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? And he said to them, An enemy has done this. The slaves said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, No, for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the re wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up, but gather the wheat into my barn. Alright, so let's talk about the dynamic of the parable and then we're going to talk about then we're going to look at how Jesus explains it. Some scholars object to this parable as unrealistic because weeds don't need sowing. They grow by themselves, right? And if you need proof of that, just come look at my front flower bed. I I'm conducting an experiment. And you don't need to sow the weeds, they just come along. However, it must have been a pretty common crime because there's a whole section of Roman law that deals with the punishments of people who sowed bad seed in someone else's field. So we assume it must have been a common enough problem that they had laws about it. The plant he's talking about, the tares, is also called the darnell, and it's indistinguishable from wheat in its early stages. It's kind of a pseudo-wheat, but its seed is a narcotic when it's eaten, so it's very different. And in its early development, the plant's indistinguishable from genuine wheat, and it so closely resembles wheat that the rabbis thought that it was like a degenerate form of wheat, like it was a subspecies of some kind. Modern botanists say that's not true, but at least it points to how similar the two plants are. So at their early stages of growth, you can't tell the two apart, and even careful scrutiny will produce errors. But once the grain develops, you can tell the two apart because the tears are shorter and they're darker colored. But by that time they've grown so closely together that their roots are intertwined. So you can't pull up one without pulling up the other because their roots are intermingled in the ground. So as best we can figure out in practice, tares were separated from the wheat after the harvest at the threshing, and then they were bundled and dried and used for fuel. So, like the parable of the sower, Jesus gives us an explanation of this parable. So we're going to look at his explanation and skip down to 1336, and we'll look at 1336 to 43. Then he left the crowds and went into the house, and his disciples came to him and said, Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. And he said, The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, 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. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. 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, and will throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteousness will shine forth then the righteous will shine forth as a sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And in what Daniel is talking about, there is a promise of the future resurrection. So that I think that's what Jesus is saying, and they there will be this resurrection, the righteous will shine forth as the sun. Now, at first glance, it looks like Jesus is interpreting this parable as if it were an allegory. And so we have to address that because it looks like he's making a one-to-one substitution. But I look closer, I don't think it is, and I don't think he interprets it as an allegory. Like the parable of the sower that we looked at last week, this is an analogy with many points of similarity. So how do we know it's not an allegory? First, the story doesn't rely on any symbolic value of the elements. So there's no indication that wheat or tares or the field or the enemy or the landowner or any of those were always used to refer to son of man, son of the devil, the world, and so on. They didn't have any obvious cultural symbols in and of themselves. And the disciples, if they had, the disciples wouldn't have required an explanation. And Jesus could have told the same story by talking about a good twin and an evil twin and not judging them until they've grown up and revealed their true characters. So there's a he could have told the same story with a different p different dynamic. The point comes from the dynamic of the story, and the elements in the story are like reality. So I would understand Jesus' explanation as saying the one who sows is like the good seed, the field is like the world in some way, and so on. Then he's making a comparison. But the most compelling argument is look at how Jesus sets it up and how he concludes it. In 1324, he says, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in this field. So he's telling you right at the outset, this is a comparison. I'm making a relationship between the dynamic of the story and something in reality. And a comparison is an analogy, not an allegory. And then when he concludes it in 1340, he says, so just as the tares are gathered up in bird with a fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. And that just as just as in the story, so something in reality is the hallmark of an analogy. That is the like the golden uh medal that you're trying to get to with analogy is to be able to come up with a just as-so statement. And that's the point of the comparison. So he tells us this has something to do with judgment, that it's a comparison between what's going on in the story and what happens in reality, and then he gives us this just as-so statement to conclude it. So that's why it's an analogy. So the parable teaches us there's this delay in the coming judgment, so just as pulling up the tares was delayed until the harvest, so no wheat would be lost, so judgment will be delayed until the day of the Lord, so that none of his people will be lost. But notice that in his explanation, Jesus emphasizes judgment is coming. Just as the tares were gathered up in the harvest, so it will be at the end of the age. So there will be this gathering and this judgment. So some people make the mistake of thinking that the Old Testament presents God as a judge and the New Testament presents God as a God of love. But the fact is there are hundreds of references to God as of love and mercy in the Old Testament, and hundreds of references to God as a j judging, righteous judge in the New Testament. And this is one of them. So the fact that Jesus teaches a parable to explain why judgment is not yet coming means it's coming. So God is both just and loving, both merciful and compassionate, and just and judgmental, if you will, or are a righteous judge. So we have to understand both sides of his character to understand him. Okay, so we're going to talk a lot more about judgment. This is probably not going to be too popular a topic, but I think it's necessary because it's fallen so out of far out of favor today, we just don't quite understand what's coming. And most scholars see Matthew 13, 41 through 43 as a reference to Zephaniah 1.3, because while Jesus doesn't quote word for word from Zephaniah, he uses the exact same language we find in Zephaniah, and he makes a similar point of comparison. So I want to look at that. The book of Zephaniah is not taught very often today. In it you'll find, as one of the commentators said, a very judgmental prophet who speaks for a very judgmental God. And what Zephaniah, he allows no shades of gray, there's no moral relativism, there's no compromise between good and evil. And while you'll find a lot of books in the Bible talk about God as a righteous judge at points, Zephaniah gives us the most intense, kind of complete picture of the coming judgment. And if we were going to go through and edit out the passages that talk about judgment, we would have to erase the whole book of Zephaniah. Just about. So, but we don't want to do that. So before we look at this section, let me give you a little background. Zephaniah preached during the reign of King Josiah, which was 640 BC to 609 BC, and his basic message is judgment is coming, so be prepared. That's essentially the point of the book. So just where we are in history, you'll recall that under the unit the monarchy or the country was united under David and Solomon. After Solomon's death, the nation underwent a civil war that resulted in a split kingdom. So there was the northern kingdom that was made up of ten tribes, and the southern kingdom with two tribes, and they had a different king on each throne. At this point, the northern kingdom has been wiped out. The Assyrians conquered them in 722 BC, and only the two southern tribes are left, the kingdom of Judah, and that's the kingdom that Zephaniah is preaching to. At the point he's preaching, there hasn't been a good king on the throne for about two generations, and the people are turning away from God. Wickedness is rampant. Now Josiah turns out to be a good king. He uh during his reign, we don't know if it's before or after Zephaniah preached, he's cleaning out the temple and he finds the law, and they read it and they go, Oh my gosh, we're messing up. And there's he institutes a lot of reforms. So it's in this setting that Zephaniah comes along and he says, Jerusalem's gonna fall, and more than that, judgment is coming. So let if you have your Bible, I look at Zephaniah chapter 1, and these first three verses are what uh Jesus is alluding to. So this is Zephaniah 1, 1 through 3, and God is he is warning that God is going to judge the entire earth. So the word of the Lord came to Zephaniah, son of Cushai, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, who was the king, son of Amnon, king of Judah. I will completely remove all things from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. So that's the thesis of the book. And from there he's going to amplify it. But this is there's no like greetings, peace. It's I will completely remove all things from the face of the earth, unless you think anything will be spared. Look at 1.3, I will remove man and beast, I will remove the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea and the ruins along with the wicked, and I will cut off man from the face of the earth, declares the word the Lord. Now that word ruins is also translated stumbling blocks, and it is the word that's the Aramaic or Greek word Jesus is using is from this passage. So he starts out and he says, I'm going to judge the entire earth, and then in 4 through 11 he focuses on the southern kingdom itself. He says, I will stretch out my hand against Judah, against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests, those who bow down on the roofs to the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom, which is another god, those who have turned back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him. Be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king's sons, and all who array themselves in foreign attire. On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, and those who fill their master's house with violence and fraud. On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will be heard from the fish gate, a wail from the second quarter, a loud crash from the hills. Wail, O inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traitors are no more. All who weigh silver who weigh out silver are cut off. And then he focuses in on Jerusalem itself. At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, I will punish the men who are complacent, and those who say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill. Their goods shall be plundered and their houses laid waste. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them. Though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them. The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty men cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. Now, if that isn't bad enough, listen to how he concludes. I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed. A full and sudden end he shall make of all the inhabitants of the earth. Okay, not a pretty picture, right? So when God's judgment comes, is there going to be anything left? Not much. Now notice that what Zephaniah is rebuking them for. He's rebuking them because they are turning to other gods and they are not living. Like judgment is coming. So they're practicing other religions, they're following the superstitions of other religion and trying to blend in with the other cultures. So the references in verse 5 to bow down on the rooftops to the host of heaven is worshiping the stars. Swearing by Milcom is swearing by another god, arraying themselves in foreign attire, verse 6, they're trying to look like other people around them. Jumping over the threshold in verse 9 is a reference to mixing other practices into their worship. And just let me explain that one to you, because a few years ago we studied 1 and 2 Samuel. So those of you who are in 1 Samuel, you'll remember this. You'll remember that early in Samuel the Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines, and they put it in their temple, and their God Dagon, their big s statue is there, and the next morning their their statue of Dagon has fallen over. So they prop him back up, and the next morning he's fallen over again, but this time his hands and his feet or his hands and his head are cut off. And the text tells us they fell over the threshold and cut off. So what happened in Philistine culture is they this superstition developed about the mighty power of the threshold. You couldn't step on the threshold or it would anger the God and you would be harmed in some way. And so they would they, you know, like don't step on a crack or you'll make your mother mother's brack, you know, that little child's rhyme. They would jump over the threshold or make sure they didn't step on it so as not to anger their God. Well, the Israelites should have known better. That it wasn't the power of the threshold that decapitated their God, it was Yahweh, the the God of their their religion. So he's he is chastising them for bringing in this superstition from the Philistines when they really should have known better. So just since those of you who are here in 1 Samuel, I thought you'd like to see how that carried through history. So they're mixing in the reference uh religions of other gods and superstitions, and they think gods are relevant. Notice in verse 12, or is it wait, I lost the reference. He talks about they've grown complacent. Yeah, in 12, they won't he won't do good or evil. Um, and they're thinking that because God has delayed his judgment, he's going to be merciful forever, and they begin trusting in their wealth and their posterity instead. So that's the references to the building houses, planting vineyards, drinking wine and their gold and silver. So Zephaniah issues this morning. He says, look, God is a holy God, he cares, and judgment is coming, and you need to live like it. Now the fact that judgment is coming means there is a standard of right and wrong. So our culture who's saying there isn't a standard, truth is relative, if it works for you, that's okay, but if it works for me doesn't work for me, that's okay, it's all relative. I can pick whatever truth I want. God, the Bible would say, not so. There is a standard by which to judge, and God is going to follow it. So the whole fact that judgment is coming means there must be a basis on which to judge, and that is the righteousness and holiness of God. So God's judgment when it comes will be devastating and complete, and it may seem like it's slow in coming, but we don't realize what fully what that coming means. Or we secretly believe we're going to escape it, you know, like those keep off the grass signs, they apply to everyone but me, right? So we think, well, judgment is coming, but it's going to apply to everyone but me. Just uh Amos addresses this. This is one of my favorite judgment passages. This is Amos 5, 18 through 20. He says, Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? So he's saying, okay, those of you who are looking forward to judgment because you think you're gonna pass, here's the answer. It will be darkness and not light, as when a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or goes home and leaves his hand against the wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it? So Amos is addressing that expectation saying, You think that you're gonna escape God's judgment because you're good enough. You've made this sincere good faith effort at middle class morality and decent living, and you know, you're not like those sinners and tax gatherers and drug dealers and and murderers. So you think judgment will come and God's gonna praise you while he's judging everyone else? And he says, You're like a man who flees from a lion only to be eaten by a bear, or a man who flees from a lion only to go home and be bitten by a snake. You don't realize the depth of your sinfulness, and that no human being is going to be able to stand. Now, Zephaniah gives us this terrible picture of judgment in chapter one, and then look at how chapter two starts. This is what he expects us to do in response. It says, gather yourselves together, yes, gather, O nation without shame. Before the decree takes effect, the day passes like chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you, seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who have carried out his ordinances. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. So he points out the severity of God's judgment, and then he says, prepare for it. And how do you prepare? You seek God. You humble yourself before him so that you will be hidden on the day of his wrath, because none of us can stand on our own merits. So this he gives us this incredible, devastating, severe picture of judgment, wants us to realize we're all in trouble, and we should be grateful that God delays long enough to bring us to saving faith. And then he said, There is a way of hope. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, seek righteousness and seek humility. Now don't be confused by that perhaps in verse 3, where it says, Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. The idea there is not that he's a whimsical God. You know, it's this isn't the daisy game of he loves me, he loves me not, he'll save me, he'll save me not. You know, it's not that's not what he's saying. The idea is that salvation is entirely up to God. So the perhaps is recognizing that he has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he is not required to save any of us. So there none of us have earned it. None of us left to our own merits have gained salvation such that God is now obligated to grant it to us. Apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, none of us has a claim to salvation. So that perhaps is recognizing God owes us nothing. We've done nothing to earn it. We will be saved because God is a loving, gracious, merciful God who is lavish with his grace, not because of anything we've done. So let me just conclude Zephaniah, and then we're going to look at trying to apply some of this and ask, so what? He goes on in the rest of chapter three to kind of it's a chiastic structure where he goes back through judgment, or through the rest of chapter two, he goes back through judgment against the nations, focuses in again on Jerusalem, and then returns to judgment over the whole world. And then in 3.8, he he comes back around to his conclusion again, and he says, Therefore, wait for me, declares the Lord. For the day when I rise up as a witness, indeed my decision is to gather the nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out my indignation, all my burning anger, for all the earth shall be devoured by the fire of my zeal. So he's saying, Yes, judgment is coming, that's my decision, but wait for me. And then in 3 9, for then I will give to the people purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord to serve him shoulder to shoulder. For beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my worshippers, my dispersed ones will bring my offerings. In that day you will feel no shame because of all your deeds by which you have rebelled against me. For then I will be removed from your midst your proud, exalting ones, and you will never again be haughty on my holy mountain. I will leave among you a humble and lowly people, and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel will do no wrong and tell no lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths, those for they will feed and lie down with no one to make them tremble. So he's promising salvation and restoration for his people, for those who wait for him. And Zephaniah says, What should our response be? 314, shout for joy, O daughter of Zion, shout in triumph, O Israel. Rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away his judgment against you. He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst. You will fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be set in Jerusalem, fear not, O Zion, let your hand let not your hands grow weak, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you with his love, he will exalt over you with loud singing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors, I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you in, at that time when I gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord. So he gives this amazing picture of judgment, this uh the severity and completeness and devastating picture of God's wrath, and then he says, But those who wait for the Lord will escape, they will feel no shame. Not only that, they will be made um given purified lips, they are their shame will be put away, they will rejoice. So that's the balance we want to remember, because Jesus is pointing in this parable to judgment is coming, and the passages that teach us judgment is in coming also teach us there is a way out, there's a way of escape, and it's through trusting the Lord. And so we should live like it. So there is a standard of right and wrong, and God cares about it, and God delays his judgment long enough to have mercy, so that some of us will prepare and come to know him. So that that's what the parable is as is assuring us. So judgment is coming, not when the Jews expected it to come with the Messiah's first coming, but with his second at the end of the age. And when that judgment comes, it will be complete and thorough and devastating. But if you wait for him, if you trust him, there is a a way of hope. So I would summarize this just as the tares were not separated from the wheat until the time was right at the harvest, so God will judge evil at the end of the age. Judgment is coming, and just as the workers delayed pulling up the tares until the harvest, so no wheat would be lost, so God delays his judgment so that none of his people would be lost. And what should our response be? Well, as Zephaniah said, seek him. Don't grow complacent, don't be tempted to think that God's delay in judgment means he's left the left the room never to come back. Um or don't think you can escape on your own merits. There's only one way of escape, and that's humbly trusting in the blood of Jesus. So let me let me go through a little bit of application, and then I'll give you time to ask some questions. Historically, this parable was applied to church discipline. So I want to talk about that. So historically, people use this parable to debate in the church what do we do with heretics, or what do we do with people who aren't don't seem to be following God? What's the place of church discipline? And I don't pretend to have all the answers here, but I want to give you a flavor of the debate, and then I'll tell you which which side I can I fall on. So there was one group, the Donatist, who emphasized the idea that the field is the world. So they said, in the world, we um we should tolerate evil, but not in the church. So the f Jesus is talking about the world, and there we should just let the sinners do what they're gonna do. They're not our place, but in the church, we need to come down on these people who are in the church and and with discipline. The pre-Reformation Catholics emphasized the idea of gathering the tares, you might uproot the re the wheat. So they said, no, you tolerate evil if wheat is in danger. So if there's danger of harming a believer or a or a true follower, then you you let it go. So but as long as there's no danger from the wheat or danger to the to the church, you can rip up all the tares you want, field or church, so world or not. And that led to their practice of excommunication. Then Luther came along and he argued, no, what's forbidden is the destruction of the tares. So it's not its gathering. So you can excommunicate people, but you can't kill them. So no more burning at the stake, you know, because they did burn heretics at the stake back then. And then there was another group in that, in that around the 16th century, who argued, no, no, it's God and his angels who do the judging. So the church is just to bear it patiently. And so we should just recognize that we live in an evil world and we are not to judge at all. And then around the early 1900s, scholars said, no, no, they went back to the idea that the point is not to uproot the wheat by mistake, but as long as there were no room for doubt, you could uproot all you want. So that's kind of where how the debate's gone throughout history. And as I said, I don't have all the answers. When we judge, what we tolerate, how long we delay, uh it's complicated. But the group that I agree with is the scholars who say this parable is addressing final judgment, not church discipline. So we need to realize that its main focus and main point is judgment at the end of the age is coming, and Jesus does not mean to address church discipline. And that kind of judgment, the kind that's we will see at the end of the age, is reserved for God. We're not even close to being able to address that. And so I would I fall in that camp. I don't think the parable is addressing the issue of church discipline directly directly, and so we need to tread lightly and carefully to find a theology of church discipline from it. There are other passages that are much more clear and much more helpful when it comes to church discipline. And I think just to go back to Bible study, part of the reason for the debate in history is because of the methodology. At that point, they were still very much interpreting parables as allegories, and so you'll notice everyone's arguing from the wording of the story, so they're emphasizing the field, or they're emphasizing the reaping, or they're emphasizing the uprooting, or who's doing the pulling. So they're arguing from the little elements of the story, and with parables, you want to argue from the dynamic of the story as a whole, not the individual vocabulary. So, as far as the question of how much evil should we tolerate in the church, which is really the issue behind church discipline, it seems to me rather than looking at this parable, we ought to look at, say, Jesus' attitude toward sinners. Then it's beyond us who's a Christian and who isn't to judge that with 100% surety, what looks to like wheat to us, maybe tears and vice versa. And Jesus' attitude toward sinners was not particularly one of judgment, but seeking. So he was always trying to win them. Yes, to give them a healthy view of their sinfulness, but to win them to the kingdom. And and to be fair, most churches practice church discipline with that goal in mind. Whatever they do is done with the goal of winning back the one who has lost. So it seems to me the parable is teaching us judgment is coming, and we ought to live like it. That means we recognize there's a standard of right and wrong. We're not free to just say it's all relative, it's all moral, I can make my own truth. And in the meantime, we should take the same care and concern to seeking the loss that Jesus took. And we're going to talk more about that when in some of the future parables. Now that doesn't mean we ignore sin. I think we can be discerning without being condemning. And it's right and proper we ought to seek to discern right from wrong and truth from falsehood and um moral and proper actions from immoral, selfish actions. We ought to discern that, but and we can discern that without condemning the person behind it or ourselves. So look at the way Jesus dealt with the lost. He does give them a healthy view that they are sinful and they are lost, but he also seeks to win them over. So he doesn't whitewash sin or excuse it as socially acceptable, but neither does he condemn the person behind it. So he offers them grace and hope. Actually, you can't my husband said, Well, except for the Pharisees, you know, he said a woe to them a lot. And there is a point, there's times when you someone needs to hear the law because they need to come face to face with their sin, and there are times when they need to hear grace because they recognize their sins, and now they need to know there's hope. So as I said, it's it's a complicated issue, and I don't have all the answers. But at least from I think from one of the things we can draw from this parable is that judgment is God's prerogative, not ours, at least final judgment. And it's his job to judge those who remain lost, and not our job. Our job is to try to win them and to judge ourselves. I mean, to see where our own heart is, and are we prepared for the kingdom? Have we sought him and humbled ourselves before him? And um are we counting on ourselves somehow to be good enough in that day of judgment? All right, let me pray for us and then I'll give you a chance to respond, ask some questions. Father, thank you that um you do delay your judgment to give us time to come to know you and to love you and and to become people of a broken heart and humble heart who uh count on nothing but the blood of Jesus for our salvation. We pray that we would not grow complacent in the delay, that we would not grow um superstitious or uh begin to turn away to other practices, other gods, other standards and systems of right and wrong, but that we would continually seek your face and your word and your values and your holiness. And I pray that um you would be taking these words and making them real in our lives, not just knowledge that we have in our head, but that you would change who we think we are, how we understand, so that we would grow more and more people who trust you and follow you and seek uh your kingdom. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word with Krisan Marotta. What the Bible means and how we know. For notes and study questions, visit wednesdayintheword.com. We hope you'll join us again, and may God richly bless you.