Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
March 4, 1984
The Wheat and the Weeds
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
I love to garden. I've already bought 36 packets of seeds and in a week or two I'll get to put them out. I had my first real garden last summer. Ken Brenneman and Bruce Carmichael gave me a little plot in between theirs and I loaded it with vegetables and watermelon. Every day Ken and Bruce would be out there picking weeds on their hands and knees. They sprayed herbicides. Ken rototilled between his rows to plow the weeds under. Bruce used his Amish weed wheel to scrape them up. But I knew the better way. I practiced Biblical gardening. To garden Biblically you plant your seed and then set up a comfortable lawn chair. In that lawn chair you sip lemonade until September. Then you use a machete' to hack your way over to your cucumbers, your carrots and whatever tomatoes haven't rotted.
Our basement pantry is completely stocked. Yours can be too - all you need is a lawn chair and friends like Edith Daugherty and Pearl Brown.
The Biblical way to garden is what this parable is all about. Let's take another look at the story in verses 24-30. A landowner had good seed planted in his field but one night someone who didn't like him sneaked in and sowed tares in the field. Tare is an old fashioned word for weed, which was my most successful crop. This particular weed is probably darnel because when darnel starts to grow it looks just like real wheat. It's only when the wheat matures and forms heads of grain that the darnel begins to look different.
At this point the servants knew something was wrong. You always expect some weeds but this field was loaded with them, so they told the landowner about it. There were so many weeds he knew someone was out to get him. Sowing weeds was a common trick back then and still happens in the Middle East. In verse 28 the servants ask logically, "Do you want us to go and weed them out?" This makes sense because the darnel weed is poisonous. Somewhere along the line it has to be separated from the real wheat. But there are two problems when you try to weed out darnel. First, it's difficult to distinguish it from wheat when they're both immature, and second, if there's a lot of darnel weed the roots intertwine with the wheat so you end up pulling both up.
Because of these points the landowner decides to practice the David Holwick method of Biblical gardening. As he says in verse 30:
"Let both grow together until the harvest... then they will be separated."
In verses 36 to 43 Jesus gives his interpretation of the parable, which is unusual. Only two other parables receive explanations by Jesus. For this parable Jesus identifies seven of the parables' characters:
The landowner is Jesus
The field is the world.
The wheat are those who belong to God's kingdom.
The weeds are those who belong to the devil.
The enemy is Satan.
The harvest is the end of the age.
The reapers are angels.
At first glance this parable seems to be simple. All the characters are laid out for you and the theme is the Judgment Day. In reality this parable is a little more complicated than that. There are two approaches you can take with it. One approach says it deals with Christians and non-Christians in the world. Jesus is saying they will co-exist until God decides to come in judgment. The problem with this is that verse 41 says both the wheat and the weeds are in Christ's kingdom, which we would call the church. It also doesn't make sense that Christians filled the world and then non-Christians were added. It's the other way around. They were here first.
Because of this, many scholars think the church alone is in view and the weeds are phony Christians in the church. When verse 38 says the field is the world, it means it in the narrow sense, the part the church occupies in it. According to this view Jesus is saying the church is not pure and we shouldn't be too quick to boot sinners out. We should wait for God to do it. Both these approaches can be supported but I think a combination of the two is best. Whether Jesus is talking about First Baptist Church or the village of West Lafayette, he is still saying that there are weeds among the wheat and they both look the same.
I think five applications can be safely made from this parable. The first is that not all Christians are real. Some people who warm a pew every week actually belong to the devil. The Apostle Paul warns us about this in 2 Corinthians 11:14-15. According to the NIV it reads:
"...Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."
Usually, but not always, you find out about them. Sometimes you find out when they abandon Christianity entirely. I've known people who have gone through all the motions - reading their Bible, witnessing, and serving in church - only to drop out and say it never meant anything to them. Other phony Christians never drop out but their hypocritical lifestyle makes you wish they would. We shouldn't be surprised that such people exist. Some of them are even behind pulpits like this. Just remember that Jesus warned you about them.
The second application is that unbelievers shouldn't make excuses because the church is not pure. Jesus never pretended that the Christian church is perfect and neither should we. Sometimes unbelievers say, "I'm not a Christian because the church is full of hypocrites." Usually this is just an excuse. It's also somewhat hypocritical itself because when you call someone a hypocrite you're setting yourself up as better than they are. Jesus got into trouble because he accepted people who were far from perfect and told them about God's forgiveness. In his own words he said,
"I came not to call the righteous but sinners, to repentance."
If hypocrisy and sin were to be totally eliminated from God's people then there would be no place for non-Christians here. They wouldn't fit in! The next time someone says the church is full of hypocrites, tell them there's room for one more!
The third application has to do with premature weeding. Christians should want the church to be as pure as possible. This was one of the motivations behind the Baptist movement. Other churches accepted people from birth on, no questions asked. But Baptists wanted the church to be pure, so only those who professed to be born-again Christians and were baptized could become members. The desire for purity is one reason the whole church votes on new members. It gives an opportunity to say, "No, we don't accept that person."
Unfortunately, the desire for purity can get out of hand. The famous evangelist Jack Van Impe saw this happen in his own ministry. Beginning in 1969 he led crusades which reached more than ten million people. In those early days they invited any evangelical church to participate but soon his co-workers began to grumble. They said his united crusades involved "weedy" denominations. So he only allowed Baptists groups to participate. Nazarenes, Methodists, Mennonites and others were banned. His co-workers still were not satisfied. Grace Brethren churches were banned. Then questionable Baptists got axed - Baptist General Conference churches, Conservative Baptists, Free-Will Baptists, etc. Finally, the few independent churches that were left started to ban each other. It got to the point where purity was defined as those who rejected pantsuits, hair over the ears and wire-rimmed glasses. Attendance at his crusades went from tens of thousands to a few hundred. In 1980 Jack Van Impe quit in disgust. He stopped organizing crusades. With a broken heart he wrote in the Fundamentalist Journal, "The only meaningful label in eternity will be Christian!"
If you pull up every last weed before the harvest you can damage a lot of wheat. No church is absolutely pure. Ours certainly isn't. We have to do the best we can and leave the rest to God.
This brings us to the fourth application. God sees into the human heart. We don't. We may think we do but I am shocked at how superficial the judgments of Christians often are. Just like it says in 1 Samuel, we tend to focus on outward appearances. How many times have we judged someone's salvation on the basis of a few outward habits? I suppose we all tend to do it. But remember Jesus' words:
"Judge not, lest ye be judged. For with the measure you measure, it will be measured to you."
Be prepared to be surprised in heaven.
A final application of this parable is that God can and will judge the world. His very character demands it. All hypocrisy and sin will be shown for what it is. According to Jesus, this will be a terrible day and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Where will you stand? Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
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Typed on September 25, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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