The Kingdom and the World

Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 30 June 2013

As we now study Matthew 13, I hope that you have your Bible ready, that your mind is open and your heart available to the Lord because we have some great things that God will show us as we look at the second parable. It is the parable about wheat and tares.

Remember that the Lord is the King of the earth. Within that kingdom, the Lord Jesus allows Satan a limited amount of freedom. He also allows sinners a certain amount of freedom. And yet over it all He is still the King and He is still ruling. Every phase of human history, then, marks some facet of the rule of Jesus Christ.

Initially God conveyed His rule on earth through Adam. And then there were the patriarchs, and then the monarchs, and then the priests and the prophets and then the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And then God conveyed His will and His rule through the Apostles in the early church.

There will come a future time when God will again bring His rule to earth as mediated through the living glorified incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and that we know as the millennial kingdom. And then, finally, the earth and the heaven will be merged in the eternal kingdom on earth becoming one and the same.

But there's one period that we left out in recounting the periods and that is the period of time from the rejection of Christ to the return of Christ, the age in which we live. This, too, is a form of His kingdom. The Bible designates it in the New Testament as the mystery form, that which was not seen in the Old Testament. We are now living in that era.

Jesus in Matthew 13 tells us what it will be like. He defines for us in seven parables, the character, the extent, the value and the end of this period known as the mystery form of the kingdom. God is mediating His rule on the earth now through His church, through believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Now, His disciples didn't know about this period of time just as the prophets of old didn't either. So when the Messiah arrived, they thought immediately He would establish His kingdom and all the rebels and unbelievers would be destroyed and holiness and righteousness would fill the earth and the kingdom would be as predicted by the prophets.

Even after Jesus died on the cross, they were still curious about the kingdom. And it led them to ask Him in Acts 1:6-7, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom?" To which He replied, 'It's not for you to know the times, or the seasons which the Father has put into His own power." That's not your business.

The kingdom will come, the angels said, but it won't come until He comes back in His fullness. The kingdom of glory and righteousness, the kingdom where the Lord Jesus rules with a rod of iron and tolerates no evil, that kingdom that is anticipated by the prophets, waits until His return. But in the meantime, there is a form of the kingdom described as the mystery.

Jesus begins to tell them parables here in Matthew 13 to help them understand the nature of this period in which we live. And He begins to describe it to them and the first is a parable of soils. He told them there were four kinds of soils: the hard soil, the rocky soil, then the thorny soil and then fourthly, the good soil which produced real fruit. In this kingdom state, not everybody believes and bears the fruit of righteousness.

John the Baptist, the immediate forerunner of Jesus Christ doesn't even see this interim period. Here is the John the Baptist saying - When He gets here it is going to be fire and burning up of all the chaff and only the wheat will be kept. And all of this too, was based upon the Old Testament prophet’s sayings.

And so, the Lord Jesus needs to explain to them what He's going to do with the unbelievers who are in the earth during this mystery form of the kingdom. And He does that now in parable number two. He answers their question with a parable that begins in Matthew 13:24 and is called the parable of the wheat and tares.

Matthew 13:24-30, “Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

So let us see what each verse teaches us. Verse 24, "Another parable put He put forth to them, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.” This is then about the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. The kingdom ruled by God from heaven. This is talking about the mystery form, the time since Jesus, and this age now and even into the millennial period later.

Then verse 25, "But while men slept," and this indicates that he had a lot of people helping him with the sowing. They slept because it was night and a man who works hard has the right to enjoy his sleep. And so his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. The enemy sowed all throughout, and then went his way.

And verse 26 says, “But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared." It became obvious at one point in the growth that this was not wheat. Verse 27, "So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?”

They are shocked. They wouldn't have been shocked if there were only a few of those weeds because they always had a few in the crop that they had to deal with, but they were shocked because the whole field was full of them. And in verse 28, "He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?”

Now we can recognize them now because the heads have matured and we can tell the difference now. And so, they said - We can tell them apart, we'll go through the field and we'll tear them up. Verse 29, "But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.” Jesus said, “Don't do anything.”

Verse 30, "Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Now, that's the narration. A very simple story that is easy to understand. But what does it mean?

Later on, after He's given a couple of other parables in between, it's time to explain the parables and as we learn from the other gospels, He explained all of them to them because they on their own could not fully understand them. So in verses 36-43 Jesus explains it. Verse 36, “Jesus first sent the multitude away." Now that is most important, He only wants to be with His disciples.

Verse 36 continues, “and went back into the house.” Very likely it was Simon Peter's house in Capernaum. “and the disciples came and they asked, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” They wanted to know that. And that's the way it is. God only reveals His truth to those who are His own and He answers their question.

So, Jesus explains to them what's going to happen to the tares, those that aren't wheat. Verse 37, "He answered and said: He who sows the good seed is the Son of man." Now Christ is the Son of man, the common title for Himself. And He uses it because it identifies Him in His incarnation, with His humanness. But it is also Messianic. In Daniel 7:13 the Messiah is to be called the Son of man.

Verse 38, “The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.” So, the Lord is sowing seed in the world, which is His field. It belongs to Him. He is King of the earth. He holds in His hand the title deed even though He hasn't really laid claim to it fully as He will in Revelation 6 when He unrolls the scroll, which is the title deed to the earth and takes back the earth.

Well what does Jesus sow? It says the good seed are the children of the kingdom. What this means is that the Lord puts the children of the kingdom in the world. Most commentators say that the field is the church and that is where the wheat and the tares grow together. But Jesus said in verse 38 that the field is the world.

What is it saying? God sows His children of His kingdom throughout the world. So, you have believing people that have been planted all over His world. This is a picture of the church in the world. We are placed within the world's system. We're not called to isolate ourselves. We are not here by accident; we're planted here specifically by the Lord, right?

First of all, we're here to be matured by the trouble the world gives us, right? 1 Peter 5:10 says, "After you've suffered a little while, the Lord will perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you.” John 16:33 says, “In this world you'll have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." So the Lord plants us everywhere so we can develop.

He also plants us here, so that we can influence the world. Do you realize that everybody who is wheat was once a tare? We were all real bad before we got converted, right? So, the Lord puts us in Denver not only to become mature by the pressure of becoming Christian, but to also influence others into becoming followers of Jesus, like we are.

Our redemption must be at work and that's why Jesus said in John 17:15, "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” Do not take them out of the world; we are supposed to be in the world. There are only two kinds of people in the world, children of the kingdom and children of the wicked one.

In John 8:44, Jesus said to those leaders of Israel, "You are of your father, the devil." In I John 3, John compares the children of God against the children of the devil because those are the only two kinds there are. The origin of evil is from the evil one, God is not the author of evil. Evil proceeds from the evil one.

So, good and evil are mingled in the world. This is how it has been and this is how it will be in the mystery kingdom. Satan now really has his fallen angels everywhere. In fact, in some parts of the world they are so thick it is hard to find in there some wheat. And he likes to sow them as close to the wheat as he can. And he does sow them in the church.

In Matthew 7:21-23 it says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” These are church people.

And that's where we come to verse 39, this is very important, "The harvest is the end of the age." Jesus is saying if you are trying to judge the world without divine insight, you're going to wind up condemning Christians. Do you know that the church has done that throughout its history? That is not the church's function to go around ripping out the tares. We are not to attack the world.

What was the Lord Jesus Christ's attitude toward those people? Jesus treated them with meekness, love and kindness, right? How did He treat Judas? Judas was there in His presence and He didn't blow him away with fire. He was patient. And this is the time of patience. He was gracious, and this is the time of grace.

You see, the Lord knows how many people belong in the kingdom. We are not to pray that God would destroy them. We are to pray that God would save them, that He will redeem them. That's the only proper attitude. That was the attitude of the Lord Jesus Christ the night in which He was betrayed.

Now, that brings us to the climax in verse 39, “The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.” Now listen to me, angels are called by God to give judgment. Christians are called to influence by doing right. We are not called to judgment. We are not called to condemn the world. We have to preach against its sins. We want to love sinners while hating their sin.

Verse 40-43, "Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 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, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

People think they're going to be in hell and everything is going to be fine. They're going to be with their friends and they'll love it down there. But this verse tells us that not only is hell a fire, but it tells you what your reaction is going to be, grinding teeth and piercing shrieks, an eternal, inevitable, inescapable judgment. Hell is not being with friends, it is isolation from God and everyone else.

Then comes the anticipated kingdom, then comes the righteous Shekinah, lighting the face of all the saints for all the ages. "They'll shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." So Jesus says - that part of the future is coming, just as surely as the judgment. In fact, Daniel 12:3 says, “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”

Verse 43 is the application. Simply it means you better listen. What and who are you listening to? If you are a believer, you are to coexist in this world and you're to influence the world for good, not be influenced by it. Who are you following? If you are not following Christ, you are following the devil. You are to be used by God to reach that brother or sister near you so they too can become children of the living God. Let us pray.