DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- TARES AMONG THE WHEAT

DAD'S RAMBLINGS – TARES AMONG THE WHEAT

"Another parable He put forth to them, saying: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. ... The servants of the owner came and said to him, "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?" But he said, "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them" ' " (Matthew 13:24-26).

It is a sad fact that in the Kingdom of Heaven, there are both true believers and nonbelievers in the same field, and sometimes it is hard to tell them apart.

Mildred's brother was a grass seed farmer before he passed away. I would go to the farm and watch the process. The combines would go through the fields and gather anything that grew – both weeds and good seed. Then trucks would take all the seed to the warehouse where there were sieves to separate the good seed from the bad. The weeds that were separated from the good seed were destroyed. In the end, his goal was to have 100% purity of good grass seed so he would get the best price on his crop. I don't know all of the tactics he used to try to keep the weeds from growing. I think he probably used some weed killers, and at the end of the season, the field would be burned to destroy both weeds and pests. But to my knowledge, he never went into the field to pull up weeds by hand. Had he done so, he would have destroyed a lot of good grain.

The lesson for us is this: understand that there will be people in our fellowship who have never come to faith. They go through the motions, and look like good wheat. It is not my job, nor yours, to try to root out the bad weeds. We need to leave that to the Master Farmer. Jesus gave this explanation. "Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.
The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire" (vss. 40-42).

God will make sure that the good seed is saved. But woe to those who are pretenders who try to appear good, but have never come to faith. In the end, God knows the hearts and will make the proper judgment. I will leave it to Him.

Love, Dad