Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

²⁴He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, ²⁵but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. ²⁷And 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?' ²⁸He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' ²⁹But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let 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.'" ³⁶Then 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." ³⁷He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, ⁴²and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

This parable of the weeds among the wheat can almost be thought of as a sequel to the parable we studied last week; the parable of the sower. Remember, the sower who scattered seeds on bad soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and good soil? Now today, we take a more detailed look at the good soil, and what life was like on the farm later on in the good soil.

The sower turns out to be Jesus himself. It just so happened that after the seed was sown on good soil, an enemy came along and sowed weeds in the field. The good seed was wheat and the enemy sowed seeds of a weed known in English as darnel. Now darnel is biologically related to wheat so that as it is growing it looks just like wheat. It cannot be distinguished from wheat until it is ripe. On mature wheat, the heads of grain bow down because of their weight. However, in darnel, the lighter weight seed allows the heads to remain straight up. Another difference is that wheat seeds are a light color, whereas darnel seeds are dark in color. The big problem is that darnel is poisonous. It makes you feel drunk and can even cause death. The enemy actually sowed poison. It was the enemy's attempt to destroy the kingdom of God, to poison those who are in the kingdom, and to snatch away the kingdom from him. This is exactly what he did in the garden of Eden. "By the one man, Adam, all men sinned and death passed to all men." The fact is, all of us are, by nature, the weeds; we are all sons of the evil one from the time of our birth.

Jesus has an enemy. And an enemy of Jesus is an enemy of the church; he is our enemy. He intends to destroy us. He will always plant weeds in the church. Therefore, in the visible church there will always be both sons of the kingdom and sons of the evil one.

But the sower is patient and loving. He doesn't allow the workers to pull out the weeds and burn them. He is patient and wants these weeds to repent and seek him for forgiveness and salvation. In short, he wants to make the darnel into fine wheat, which only he can do because he is the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer. He is the Lord of hosts. He is the redeemer who redeems the weeds and turns them into wheat. He is the only one who by his own suffering and death can turn the darnel into wheat.

And so in this parable, Jesus is telling us to patiently bear the suffering and trials that the enemy places in our lives. The darnel is all around us. There will always be suffering. There will always be temptations. There will always be those who cause us to stumble. Those who try to destroy our faith or make us fall into sin. The poison is all about us.

But it is hard to distinguish between the two. We cannot see who the hypocrites, the weeds, are. That won't be revealed until the harvest, which is on the Last Day when Jesus returns to judge all men. Then the darnel and the wheat will be sorted out. So what that means is that for the entire time we are in the world, we will have an enemy. One who attacks us. One who attempts to poison us. One who tries to separate us from Jesus and cause us to lose our faith and die in eternal condemnation. That enemy is the evil one; the devil; Satan. We are surrounded all the time by the sons of the evil one, those who do not believe in Jesus, those who Satan uses to draw us away from Christ and to snuff out our faith.

Now, the real problem here is that by nature all of us are sons of the evil one. The first son of God was Adam, but the evil one poisoned him and now all of us have eaten the poison darnel. "The entire creation was subjected to futility...for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together." So that now, "the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God."

That brings us to the sower of the good seed. When asked by his servants if they should gather up the weeds and burn them, he told them to wait until the harvest. Then it would be evident which was the wheat and which was the darnel. Until that time he would keep on taking care of his field, making sure it had water and sun, and fertilizer.

The sower was patient. He did not want any of the wheat to be cut down and thrown into the fire by mistake. So he patiently waited until the harvest.

Now the sower was Jesus himself, as he told us when he explained this parable to his disciples. Jesus is patient. He doesn't come and immediately cast us into the fire. For by nature we are the darnel, but he is patient for us to repent of our sins and turn to him in faith. "He is the Lord, the king of Israel and our redeemer. He is the Lord of hosts."