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The Harsh Truth of the Wheat and Weeds Parable
There are counterfeits and deception running rampant across our land right now. And it's even worse with the fragmentation of podcasts and YouTubers and more. What do I mean by fragmentation? I mean everybody's got a podcast. Everybody's got a YouTube channel now. You can't swing a dead cat on YouTube and not find a heretic or a false preacher. It's that extreme out there.
And many of them are so slick at what they say and they sound so good to our fallen, selfish ears. But when you lay it down next to the Word of God and it fails the test of authentic Christianity—lay it down next to real discipleship as outlined by Jesus and the actual apostles—we see something entirely different than what many of these spiritual grifters are teaching today at every click of the mouse.
I want to ask you something. If you closely examine how a lot of folks act once they have their actual scales lifted from their eyes—once they have their ears open and their eyes open by God—how do they then behave? What I have seen is that there's a portion of them, maybe you might use the word many, who double down on things they now know to be false. Why? Well, I think maybe it's just to keep from being embarrassed or something.
When our eyes are open, can we admit that we were wrong? Can we now go forward with the new truth in our life and be joyful that God has saved us from that deception?
Let's talk about it.
The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds
In Matthew 13:24–30, Jesus put another parable before 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 weeds among the wheat and went away.
So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And 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?'
He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.'
So the servants said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let 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.'"
Now, in between this parable and its explanation, Jesus tells the parables of the mustard seed. Then he tells the parable of the leaven, or the yeast. Then he tells us that he will be speaking in parables to share stuff hidden from the beginning of time. And he's doing that actually to fulfill prophecy.
Then, starting in verse 36, Jesus actually explains the wheat and weeds parable for us. He gives us the complete explanation in Matthew 13:36–43:
"Then 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.'
He answered, 'The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.
Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.'"
Why This Parable?
In this chapter, Jesus gives no less than eight parables in these what are called earthly stories with heavenly meanings. Jesus speaks about God's plan of salvation, the work of Satan, the fickle nature of the human heart, and the greatness of the kingdom of heaven.
Now, after Jesus had finished telling all these different parables, the disciples came to him and asked him a question. They didn't ask about the sower, the soils, the seed. They didn't ask about the mustard seed or the leaven. When they came to ask Jesus to explain a parable, they asked him to explain this one—the parable of the wheat and the weeds.
Why do you think they chose this one over all the others? The Bible doesn't say for sure, but I'm going to venture a guess. I'm going to say that this parable contains some element or the other that really troubled these twelve guys. They needed an explanation.
And I've got to be honest with you—some of the elements of this parable bother me.
So by way of introduction, let me shake down this parable using Christ's own explanation. And I want you to notice some reasons why this parable—of all the eight he told that day—caught the attention of the disciples.
Setting the Scene
Let's start with the context. A farmer plants a wheat field. He uses good seed and plants the crop expecting a good harvest. However, while him and his servants slept, the enemy entered his field and planted tares—or weeds—among the wheat, depending on what translation you have. Whether it's weeds or tares, it's the same thing.
These weeds have a name. And the name in the ancient world was called a bearded darnel. In its early stages of development, it looks exactly like wheat. Exactly. It is only when the plant has matured and the kernels have formed in the head of the genuine wheat plant that the two plants can be told one from another.
The bottom line is this: the wheat has fruit in its head, while the head of the weeds or the tares is filled with little black seeds.
So the field looks good. The farmer's getting excited about harvesting a bumper crop. And it seems there's even more wheat than he expected—because that's what the word "among" in verse 25 shows you. It was thick as it was growing. He was jacked.
However, as the harvest grew near, it became apparent there were weeds among the wheat. And the servants discover the weeds and come in to tell the master about the problem. Now, you see, they were able to finally tell the difference—because as the wheat develops and that kernel grows inside its head, the weight of the kernel causes the stalk to actually bow toward the earth.
Think of the spiritual parallels in that.
The weeds, on the other hand—they have light heads and they continue to stand straight and tall.
The servants see the problem and they offer to pull up the weeds. And the master, knowing the roots of the weeds and the wheat have now intertwined, forbids them to do it. He knows that if the weeds are pulled up, much of the wheat will be uprooted right with them. His counsel is to let them grow together until the harvest. And then he will send harvesters to gather the weeds first, bind them to be burned, and the wheat will be gathered and placed in his barns.
Jesus Tells Us What's What
And so in explaining this parable, Jesus gives his disciples and us the identities of those involved in the story. That's what's so awesome about this—Jesus actually tells us what's what.
The sower is Christ. The good seed is the gospel of grace. The one who sowed the weeds is the devil. The wheat are those who are saved. And the weeds are those who are unsaved.
But don't miss this.
They have the appearance of salvation.
That's the key to the whole story for us today. The wheat are those who are saved, and the weeds are those who have the appearance of salvation but are in fact lost. They look saved. Oh, the weeds—they can act saved. They can even sound redeemed. But in truth, they're deceived about their salvation.
Now, I am almost 100% confident—based on obvious, just basic facts and statistics—that I'm sharing with someone today who is in fact a weed. Folks who think they are saved, who hope they are saved. These folks know the lingo of the church and they act as redeemed as anybody else around you, but they have never really been born again.
The Settled Truth
Listen to me now. We have been very, very intentional of building on the foundation that the environment created in a church would be one to honor the Bible as our final authority, sufficient, and provide a place for all people of all backgrounds to come in and hear the settled truth without pretense.
See, there are many who have been bounced around and need a place to belong. And we're not just talking about their sinful past. That is no problem for us. Your sinful past is no problem for us. We don't care. But also, any and all religious and counterfeit fake Christianity is also no problem for us. We are going to share with you the settled truth and we're going to create an environment to which we hope you feel welcome to come in and hear that settled truth.
But we're not a theological melting pot. You bring in stuff that doesn't jive with what we teach as the narrow road of Christianity—we don't give it any credibility. We don't hate you. We just don't give it any credibility.
A Call to Self-Examination
I have one objective in this message today, and that is that I want each of you to do what the Apostle Paul commanded the Corinthians to do. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, he said:
"Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test."
Let's double down with the Apostle Peter. He said this in 2 Peter 1:10:
"Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall."
You will never feel like you are not a piece of wheat. You are a fruit of wheat when you have examined yourself. When you are diligent in your calling.
So why share this particular message? The answer is I want to build on the questions I've been asking to authentic believers. I really don't want you to go through life being deceived about your salvation and ending up on the outside of the kingdom. I want you to be sure you are saved by the grace of God—because you can't go to a deeper place of discipleship unless you have that assurance. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
I believe the times are calling for us to push for that deeper discipleship—a calling for us to become elite servants of Christ as a group. I think the times are upon us in a big way. A higher calling of walking with Jesus for such a time as this. The same old, same old is fading fast, and the time to stand firm is at our doorstep.
And the push for elite discipleship starts with one rubber-meets-the-road question:
Are you wheat or are you a weed?
The truth of the matter is that people often think they are wheat when they are in fact weeds. The flip side of that—and don't miss this—the flip side of that is folks who are very much wheat but they struggle to see the fruit within them, causing them unnecessary weed thoughts and doubts.
So today I want to give you three brief thoughts that will tell you what the wheat and the weeds have in common but which also points out what makes them different. As I share this with you today, I beg you not to tune me out. Please let the Lord speak to your heart today.
If you are saved, if you are redeemed, this message will not hurt you—and it will help push off those doubts and should solidify you back to where you need to be. But if you're lost, this could be the turning point of your whole eternity, of your whole life.
Let God speak to you today.
Three Things the Wheat and the Weeds Have in Common
1. Both Were Planted Together
Matthew 13:24–25
Both the wheat and the weeds shared the common experience of having been planted. The difference in the experience is revealed in two very important ways. One is the character of the seed, and the other is the character of the sower.
The Character of the Seed
Obviously, the wheat seed produced wheat while the weed seed produced weeds. On a spiritual level, the seed is that thing—listen now—the seed is that thing that we have actually placed our entire faith in.
For the genuine believer, the seed is the gospel of grace found in Jesus Christ. The true born-again person is trusting Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. The weeds, on the other hand, may be trusting in any number of emotional experiences, spiritual experiences as they call them, physical experiences for their salvation.
It all comes down to this: where have you placed your faith? What are you trusting in for your redemption?
What we need to understand is that salvation only comes to a heart that has been convicted of sin, and then—after genuine repentance has taken place—they are now so soundly saved they are now wheat.
Another thing: the Gospel of John tells us it is impossible to be saved until a sinner has been drawn to God by God. John 6:44 tells us this:
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day."
So the question that must be answered today is this: where is your faith? On what do you base your hope of heaven? It must be in the gospel. That is in the death and resurrection of Christ's atoning work at Calvary as the substitute for your deserved punishment.
Yes, you deserve it.
"Well, ain't I just a good person?" No, you're not. We're all born into sin. We've all broken the Ten Commandments. By God's perfect standard, we are all guilty and we are deserving of punishment. And Jesus took that punishment on himself.
And part of it is—and this is the hard sell in modern-day America—I just want you to understand today, as loving as a brother as I can be, how little you and I bring to the table. We ain't much.
Let me give you a little insight into this from the Sermon on the Mount. This is how the Sermon on the Mount starts. And if you get this, you're going to get a lot of the rest of it. Matthew 5:3, at the start of the Sermon on the Mount, says:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Pretty straightforward, right? So what does "poor in spirit" mean? Well, the most literal translation of the original word would be the word—you ready?—bankrupt.
Blessed is the one who is absolutely bankrupt in their spirit. Nothing to give. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The Character of the Sower
So with that in mind, let's look at the character of the sower. The good seed was sown by the owner of the field, and the weeds were sown by his enemy. Why did the enemy do this? Obviously, it was in an effort to ruin the crop—and ultimately this is an attack on the farmer, an attack rooted in hatred.
Satan is in the business of planting weeds among the Lord's wheat. Why? Because Satan's game of hatred is cunning and is played out with all kinds of counterfeits—faking, imitating the real. And it's everywhere. See, he knows if he can place just enough of that artificial among the genuine, then he can devastate the entire crop.
Satan is in the business of undoing all of what the Lord is doing. And if he can fill the church with lost church members, then he can fill hell with a multitude of deceived people. If he can mix in enough goats among the sheep, then he can disrupt the harmony and the blessedness of the entire church.
Listen—whenever there is church trouble, you can almost bank on the following truth: there's a lost person involved somewhere. Satan knows that enough lost people in the church will give the church a bad ride. Why? Because the lost can only imitate the saved so long. Then their true nature, like that of the weeds, will come out.
What I'm saying today is that you do not need to base your hope of heaven on some experience or the other. You need to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have truly trusted Jesus Christ—and him alone—for your salvation.
2. Both Grew Together
Matthew 13:26–30a
Now, this is interesting. Both the wheat and the weeds grew. And as the wheat grew, so the weeds grew right alongside them. They did everything the wheat did, and they looked good doing it.
It's pretty obvious that saved people grow in the Lord. If you stay in a church, stay in the Bible, stay in prayer, then you're going to prosper and grow in the things of God. However, do you know that it is possible for a lost churchgoer to grow in the things of the Lord also?
Ever thought about that?
Take the Bible, for instance. It's a spiritual book. That is, it takes the right kind of spirit to understand the deep truths of the Bible. But we have intellectuals who take it on an intellectual level in an unredeemed state and they come up with all different kinds of intellectual conclusions about it. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says this:
"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned."
Now just for a minute, imagine a lost person who gets deceived into thinking that he or she is saved. They sit under preaching where the truths of the Bible are explained and made clear. That lost person can certainly understand the Bible. They can even memorize it. They can know the Bible stories. They can possess all the activities of a genuine believer.
Weeds in the church can get on stage and sing. They can serve in various places. They can attend faithfully and come to this or that. And sometimes—yes, it's true—sometimes they even stand in the pulpit and preach the Word of God. But just because they have all the activity of the wheat does not mean that they're real.
See, in this story, there was all the appearance of wheat at first. Not only do the weeds grow alongside the wheat, but they look just like the wheat until they have matured. Until they have matured, they are impossible to tell one from the other. So if you had wheat in one hand and weeds in the other and held them both before your eyes in their early growth, you would not be able to tell them apart.
That's the way things are in the church. We cannot tell the difference between the genuine and the artificial. The weeds in the church dress right, look right, talk right. They have every appearance of being saved. And in a come-as-you-are church, that's everybody. We just got to treat everybody as if they can know the Lord or they do know the Lord.
But if you open the head of the weed, you would find it filled with tiny little black seeds. If you open the head of the wheat, you see the fruit of the wheat kernels in there.
The one thing the weed can never produce is any kind of lasting fruit.
So it is with the weeds in the church. They give all the external appearances of being the real deal. They look right, act right, talk right, walk right. But when you get right down to it, there's no fruit in their life.
The Fruit That Matters
What do we mean by fruit? What I'm about to share with you is what makes the genuine believer so special. And it's found in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23:
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
I don't think there's a human being alive that displays every one of these things all the time. But they show up. You know you have joy that shouldn't be there. You know you have a peace that passes all understanding. You know you have patience in situations when you should blow up. And there's a kindness and a goodness and a faithfulness that starts to permeate.
And it has nothing to do with trying to do good unto others. It has everything to do with being a servant of Jesus. Putting on the apron of a slave. Clothing yourself in humility. That's what that means in your Bible.
See, people may be able to counterfeit it for a while, but eventually their true nature will be seen. And I'm not talking about you and I losing our patience, you and I being bummed out, not having the joy of the Lord on any given day. Because you and I that are soundly saved, we will wobble. We will stumble. That's why the Bible says daily—not weekly, not monthly, not annually—daily, in keeping with repentance, we serve the Lord.
So listen, just being straight up. If you are a weed, you might give all the external appearances of being a Christian, but don't let what you look like and the things that you do be the basis of your assurance. Be sure your faith is in Jesus Christ and him alone. It's a simple faith. It's a biblical faith. It's a narrow-road faith.
Don't Play the Holy Spirit
Because the roots of the weeds intertwine with those of the wheat—if they're pulled up, the wheat would be damaged also. That's why it's so interesting to note that when the servants asked about the removal of the weeds, the farmer's counsel was: don't pull them up. We're kind of intertwined.
So here's the picture. You and I cannot really tell the difference between the genuine and the artificial. If we set ourselves up as judges to start trying to point out those we think may be weeds, we can certainly pull up some of the wheat as well.
Judging between the real and the false is God's job, and it must remain that way. All we see is the outward appearance. God looks upon the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 tells us so:
"But the Lord said to Samuel, 'Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.'"
Again, let me caution you against playing the Holy Spirit in the lives of those around you. You do not know who is saved or lost.
Now, do not throw common sense out the window. We are told to judge correctly. With some of this progressive nonsense and other anti-biblical mumbo jumbo, we can discern heretical practices and doctrines and we can reject that. It's not what I'm talking about here. This is not that. This is about fakes that are living counterfeits and trying to be real.
3. Both Were Harvested Together
Matthew 13:30b
Eventually, the harvest day is going to come. And when it arrives, the reapers are sent into the field to gather the weeds first and then the wheat.
They could tell the difference now, couldn't they?
It's easy at this stage because when the wheat matures, its head becomes filled with kernels. It bows the stalk toward the ground. The seeds in the head of the weeds remain light, even up to harvest day. They stand tall.
Can you see the picture? Is it as clear as a bell to you as it is to me?
The genuine believer grows in the Lord and tends to become more humble before the presence of God. The weed, on the other hand, will stand in his pride and go to hell, clinging tightly to his false beliefs and his foolishness.
The harvest time came. They were both gathered, but they had vastly different ends.
The weeds were burned. These plants were bound together. They were allowed to dry and were used like kindling. They were fit for nothing but to be burned. And if you accidentally ate those black seeds, you know what would happen? It would cause nausea and dizziness. What a picture the Lord paints with this parable in Matthew 13.
The wheat was barned. The wheat was gathered and taken into the barns. Here it would be processed for human consumption and sold for a tidy profit by the farmer. He kept the wheat but had no use for the weeds.
The Implications Are Stone-Cold Clear
When this life has run its course, there are only two possible destinations for the human soul. Every person who lives and dies as a weed or as a tare will find themselves cast into the fires of hell. That's what it says. That's the teaching. That's not very nice—sorry. Eternally separated from the presence of God.
The wheat—the genuine believer—on the other hand, can look forward to being gathered into the Lord's house in heaven (John 14:1–3).
The question is: which will it be for you? It all depends on whether you are a weed or whether you are wheat.
Examine yourself carefully. Do it today.
Do not allow yourself to be deceived right out of the kingdom of God. If your faith is anywhere but in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, as your Substitute—simple faith, you don't have to add anything else onto what the Bible has already said—then you are in the kingdom of God.
That simple faith comes one way. You're bankrupt in spirit. You realize you got nothing to offer. You realize you're guilty. You've lied. You've stolen some things. Jesus says if you lust after a woman in your heart, you've committed adultery. So a lot of us are adulterers at heart. Want me to keep going through the Ten Commandments? You're guilty. So am I.
Jesus Christ as our Savior and as our Substitute is the only option. If your faith is in anything else—anything else—even something that looks like, "Yeah, but there's another kind of Jesus I want to create that might not line up totally with the Bible"—too bad. You're a weed, and you need to be saved.
Three Warnings: How Weeds Are Made
As I try to bring all these thoughts together, I'd like to close with something of a caution, a warning. How are weeds made? Where do they come from? How do they get into the church? Yeah, obviously it's the work of Satan, but there are some things you need to be aware of as you walk through this life. And some of this may shock a little bit. I'm not meaning to. I'm just attempting to be a good pastor and warn you correctly.
See, when judgment day rolls around, the Bible tells us that those who teach are going to have it a lot worse. And part of it's going to be what did I do when I was here with you. I always envision it going like this—that you're standing before God on judgment day and he's going to look at me and he's going to point at you and he's going to say, "You knew and you didn't tell them."
That ain't going to happen, my friends.
What's going to happen is he's going to look at you and he's going to point at me and he's going to say, "He told you. Why didn't you listen?"
Those of us who lead are going to be judged more harshly because of what we've been given, which is a flock of people that we love with a love that we don't conjure up ourselves. So I must tell you the truth.
Warning #1: Beware of Good Works
I know this is going to sound weird, but stay with me. It's easy to substitute good works for salvation. Often the weeds are not the worst ones we can think of. They are the best. They are busy and active in the church, but they are lost nonetheless.
Don't let the appearance of an activity, a job in the church, or something else good you have done decide your salvation for you. Not by works, but by faith. And yet your faith is proven by your works. Are you seeing the possible issue here?
See, the saved person cannot help but serve in the church. They have to, because God will just make it that way as part of their joy, peace, patience—all that stuff. They will serve their family. They will serve in the church. There will be an honesty that builds up in them that they might not have had before. There will be this activity and they will serve in the church with joy. A saved person can't help it.
The weed person will mimic this, thinking it may bring the peace they covet but yet can't grasp—because simple faith in Jesus from the Bible isn't enough. You follow?
Warning #2: Beware of Good Beliefs
I know—doesn't sound right, does it? Stay with me here.
There's a danger in coming to a church where the truth is preached. The danger is this: so much truth is preached and taught that it's easy to learn the doctrines and the lingo and then believe the right things while actually never believing in the right Person.
You see, you can believe the Bible and every word in it and still not be part of the kingdom.
You don't believe me? Name me a verse that the devil doesn't believe. How about James 2:19? Check this out:
"You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!"
See, even though he believes it all and even trembles at it, he will never be saved. What makes the difference in your life is when you bow before the Lord in repentance for your sins and receive the atoning death of Jesus as your only—I repeat, only—hope of salvation.
Much of this cannot help you until you come to Jesus as a lost sinner and repent of your sins. Bankrupt in spirit, you're bringing nothing to the table. If you've grown up around Bible preaching but you've never been born again, you've never been brought under Holy Spirit conviction and repented of your sins—you're a weed, my friend.
Warning #3: Beware of Good Feelings
It's easy to feel the emotion. Cry a little. Even tell about that time when you were really afraid and you made a deal with God, or when you had this experience or that experience or the other.
You just need to know those emotional feelings cannot save your soul.
I like the good feelings. I like them. I've had mountaintop experiences where I know Jesus is there. But I'm not counting on them to place me in the kingdom. Do you know why? Because I'm saved whether I feel like it or not. Why? Because I'm trusting Jesus Christ alone for my salvation.
What about you?
Weeping and Gnashing
One more thing in the text today. It says that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Do you know that's two different things?
The weepers are not gnashing, and the gnashers are not weeping.
Some are weeping because they missed out on it. It was served to them and they rejected it, and they're weeping. Others are gnashing their teeth. What does that mean? That means they're mad at God. "But I thought we had a deal. I thought I was in. I thought I was doing the right stuff."
Many of the gnashers are going to be weeds who could not humble themselves—bankrupt in spirit—and seek the Holy Spirit with everything in their being, saying, "Lord, save me, a sinner who can bring nothing to the table."
And the Bible says, "While you were yet sinners, Christ died for you" (Romans 5:8).
For those who are soundly saved, the time for us to push to be elite disciples is upon us. And if God has spoken to you today, don't walk out the door without coming to him—to give your life to him, to surrender your life to him, to come to the foot of the cross and accept his substitutionary work on your behalf.