Parable of the Wheat and the Tares

don’t remember the last time I did any of those things…we’ll pray for you!]

God didn’t leave us here to take up space, but to accomplish specific things for Him, and to bear fruit!

• Wheat grows upward and dies downward. And we ought to become more and more alive to things above, and dead to that which is below. The Apostle Paul said, “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.”

• Wheat has a head which when mature begins to bow. What a beautiful picture! The head of wheat becomes full of grain and slumps over. Bearing more fruit for the Christian should not lead to pride, but to humility. But for many, success doesn’t cause the head to bow, but the nose to rise!

B. The sowing of the weeds.
v. 25 The enemy came by night and sowed these tares right among the wheat.
v. 39 Look at the end of v. 38: “children of the wicked one.” Remember that the next time you hear someone trying to reconcile Islam with Christianity, making the common statement—“remember, we’re all God’s children!” This is a common belief, that all humans on the earth are God’s children.

No! We’re all God’s creation, but not all His children. Jesus told a group that they were of their father, the devil. There are 2 family lines on this earth. Some have been born once, and others twice. Ye must be born again. Jesus is the way. That sounds narrow and politically incorrect. I have no desire to be narrow except for where God the Creator is narrow. And I’d rather be Biblically correct than politically so.
The Sowing…

II. The Growing

So we’ve got children of God and children of the devil together in the field of the world, and the interesting thing is that they both look very much alike outwardly. What are we being taught here?

The devil attacks the kingdom of God by infiltration, and by planting imitators in the church. They may not know they aren’t the real thing, and the others may not know, but Satan surely knows, as does God! They are counterfeit Christians. Paul called them “false brethren.” [II Cor. 11:26]

They are fakes, phonies, but eventually their true colors show thru. In the meanwhile, they can be poison to a church. For this reason we are careful when someone wants to join the church. We need to know their testimony and what they trust in for salvation. They cannot be members of GBC unless they are true members of the kingdom of God! There’s 160 million members of churches in America today. Are they all born again? I wish! What a Christian nation we’d truly be, and we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today. Abortion is on the rise, teen pregnancy, cohabitation, divorce, suicide, drug and alcohol use, etc…and I’m talking about the church as well as the world, because the statistics are virtually the same in every category whether you’re looking at the world or the church!

Billy Graham said his greatest mission field has been the roll books of churches. He cites that of the many thousands saved under his ministry, 70% are church members. They were tares among the wheat, but they got saved!

I had friends in Bible College go forward and get saved. They were sitting right beside me and then went forward! My pastor’s wife in Jacksonville walked the aisle and made sure. I preached in MO and an associate pastor’s grown daughter got saved. And how respectable it is when a church