The Parable Series – The Truth Behind The Wheat and the Tares

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Do you ever find yourself searching for something bigger than you? For a community to be a part of? A place founded on truth and love. A place to worship the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Son of God. Welcome to Founded in Truth, where we're more than just a fellowship. We're a family, so welcome home. We're continuing the sermon series today, the parable series, and I'm really excited about it. How many of you guys enjoyed last week's message? Maybe enjoy wouldn't be the right word. Jason, can you turn me down just a little bit? Maybe enjoy wouldn't be the right word. We spoke about the soil, the parable of the soil and the seed that drops on the soil. And Yeshua's parables aren't these magnificent life lessons, and they're not exactly these philosophical ideas that rock our world. When Yeshua tells these stories, sometimes they hurt a little bit.

Stories That Hurt

For example, last week we went into the story and we were so excited because he's speaking about a sower and some seed and we're drawn into this story and the seed is falling on all sorts of soil and some of the seed, the birds just pluck it away before it even takes root and some seed, the sun burns it up, it's shallow and some seed is good soil and it reaps a harvest perfectly. And we're drawn to the words of Yeshua when he speaks because he's speaking on authority and he's telling the story. And then he tells us what he's actually saying. And he's telling us that every single one of you fits into one of these categories of soil. Did you guys have any time of reflection last week?

Maybe it was kind of edifying. It's not always fun, is it? And the one thing that we read specifically about the stories that Yeshua tells, as we're going to read in Matthew 13, is they're about one thing, one specific thing. And what was that one thing that the parables and the stories and everything that Yeshua puts his energy into when he's speaking to this huge crowd of people? Some people hate him. Some people love him. Some people aren't sure yet. What is the one theme of all of the parables that he speaks about? What is it? The kingdom, the kingdom of God, something that was highly anticipated in the first century, something that was coming but not yet, and everybody was expecting God to send this king that would rule over Israel and fulfill the promises that God had made in past times.

A Story of Gardens

And so I want to start with a story, my own story. When Jenny and I first got married, I had just gotten a job down here at the hospital, and we moved in with my mom and dad for a few months. That was fun, newlyweds living with my mom and dad. And then we moved out, and we got that little loft in downtown Rock Hill above the Vietnamese restaurant. And that was fun because it was there that I discovered the importance of the drainage hose of a washing machine. You stick it in the drain pipe, and at least it works a lot better if you do instead of if you don't, which I didn't when I installed it. And it was pretty funny because once we cleaned up the flooding upstairs, we ran downstairs.

It was about midnight and we were above a Vietnamese restaurant. And you could see the tables just soaked with water from above. It was pretty funny. We couldn't get into the club. That morning it was gone. I don't know if someone came in and was like, what in the world, and cleaned it up. But that was fun. And then we decided to move to York. Anybody ever been to York? South Carolina, right? It's a very pretty town. We lived right off Congress Street, right downtown, walking distance to downtown. And we lived in this house, and it was not a pretty house, but the rent was awesome, so we loved it. Huge backyard.

And Jenny wanted to plant a garden. Okay, whatever you want, babe, right? That's what husbands do, right? Our wives need something or want something. What do we do as men, right? We fix things, right? If there is a problem, it is a nail that needs to be hammered, and we are getting the sledgehammer out to fix the problem.

The First Harvest

And so my wife wants a garden, but we don't have any garden beds. So I get the hammer out, and I build her four garden beds. She was reading some book called Square Foot Gardening or something. It was weird. Anyway, so we planted these gardens. And they were awesome because we planted lettuce and cabbage. We had some herbs. And I think the first season we tried to plant carrots. And this was a test of patience and endurance because you're watching these carrots grow underneath the dirt. And the evidence that they're growing underneath, at least I thought, was what was coming up on top. And we had these luscious green stems coming out of the dirt.

And they were long. When the wind would blow, they would shh, and I would go outside and be so proud of my carrots that are like Bugs Bunny, just waiting for the time to pick them. And the time finally came, and I grabbed the stems, and I pulled my carrots up, and the stems were just long, luscious green, and they were attached to these carrots that were no bigger than two or three inches. Jenny was so frustrated, she just threw them all away, and I went inside and washed them up—one, two, three—that's all you had.

Seasons of Gardening

That was our first gardening experiment, and our first season actually looked pretty good. Actually, I found some pictures because I was trying to find pictures of the carrots. And our first run was awesome, and I think the second season we planted some lettuce, and I know she didn't want a whole lot of vegetables for some reason. She wanted herbs. She was going through this herb phase, and so she wanted to grow her own herb gardens and all this stuff, and all this stuff began to grow. And does anyone ever like to try activities and hobbies out just to see what it's like? We went through a chicken phase once. We got some chickens, and for about a year to a year and a half, the chickens were fun until they weren't anymore. Well, you try things out. This was our experience with gardening. We gardened for a year, two years, or whatnot, and then it was not really entertaining anymore, and so what do you do? You ignore the garden.

The Weeds Take Over

And a few weeks passed. And I went outside to mow the lawn, and I noticed that our garden had flourished, flourished with many things that we did not plant. And it was just big and green, and there were weeds in it. And not just any weeds, but York County weeds. And all of the herbs were overtaken with weeds, all choking them, and the lettuce you couldn't even see because you had to pull the weeds off of them. So what did I do? Men, when there's a problem, what do we do? We got to fix it. And so I had an idea of how to fix it because it was frustrating. It was a frustrating, frustrating scenario because we had put so much time and effort in the garden and I expected maybe a few weeds would come up, but not to that point.

And so I said, you know what? I'm going to fix this. So I got my weed whacker and I stepped into the garden bed and I fixed it. And I attempted to miss the lettuce, but I kind of hit half of the lettuce. And you know when you knock half the lettuce plant off of itself, it's all chopped up. At that point, it's like I need to just put it out of its misery, right? I didn't even consult with my wife about this. And did I get rid of the weeds? Yes, I did. Those weeds died in the most violent way. But what else did I get rid of? The entire garden, the entire garden was gone.

The Parable of the Weeds

And it's fascinating because Yeshua tells a parable in Matthew 13 that's similar. It's not the same, but it has some of the same elements. And I'd like you to turn with me to Matthew 13, starting in verses 24. We're going to skip over a couple of parables because this is another one that's kind of, yeah, it's heavy. And we've read it many times. And let's read it again. And so the parable reads, and Yeshua is speaking, and he says: Another parable he put 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 as well. And the slaves or the servants of the householder came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where did all these weeds come from? And he answered, An enemy has done this. And the slaves said to him, Well, can we go and gather them all up? You want us to go and cut all the weeds down? And he replied, no, for in the gathering of weeds you would also uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest. And at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God is like a field sowed with good seed. What is Yeshua telling us? What did we learn last week? If you have ears, listen. Are we hearing or are we listening? Is this a story about a farmer who had a bad day with some weeds? Or is it a story about something bigger? As we discussed last week, what is the proclamation of this kingdom that Yeshua is speaking about? It's the proclamation that despite how badly we have messed up this world through our own eagerness to seek autonomy from God and not resisting the influence of evil in our hearts and in our actions, that God still has a plan of redemption.

Restoration of Heaven and Earth

And this plan of redemption is the mission to restore heaven and earth once again to each other. You guys know what the opposite of heaven is? It's a bait question. Everyone knows it. No one else knows it. What's the opposite of heaven? Generally, hell, right? And that's technically true, but I would argue or assert that hell can be experienced in this world, as James speaks about it. And I would also assert that perhaps the opposite of the state of heaven is an earth without heaven. In other words, in the beginning, it doesn't say God created heaven and hell. It says God created heaven and earth, and they were united. They were one. Remember, God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. And it wasn't until Adam and Eve chose to rule the world with their own authority, apart from God's, that the state of heaven, this reign of God, this place where God's will would be done, separated. This is the fall of mankind.

The Serpent's Deception

It's amazing. It was such a good lie that the serpent told Eve. If you eat the fruit, you will become like God. She was already like God. She was already in the likeness of God. She was already in the image of God. What more was she seeking? Not only that, but God had given authority to Adam and Eve to reign the earth. He was going to reign the earth through his images, his image bearers on earth. No, you can reign with your own ability. You can reign with your own power apart from God if you eat the fruit.

The Kingdom Proclaimed

And Yeshua comes proclaiming that the kingdom of God spoken about by the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah specifically—about a time when God would redeem creation back into himself, a creation would once again see him on his throne reigning over it, and heaven and earth would be united on common ground again. He was not proclaiming that this was going to happen only in the future, or that it was not going to begin in the future. He didn't even proclaim that you had to go to a specific piece of land to experience it—like, "You've got to go to Jerusalem." No, he says very simply: it's happening now. It's starting now. The reign of God, the fulfillment of God's promises throughout the prophets, is crashing into the earth that we have here among us—that is full of brokenness and destruction—and it is among you. The kingdom of heaven is among you. This was revolutionary. Revolutionary that this guy was preaching this.

The Parable of Wheat and Weeds

And the way he was trying to preach it, look at the story. He has a farmer and he has wheat. And there's an enemy—what did the enemy plant? Weeds, right? Tears. And you have servants that seem anxious to whack the weeds. And you have the conclusion where the farmer takes care of the wheat and the weeds in his own timing and his own ways, apart from his servants standing right there.

Messianic Revolutionaries of the First Century

See, in the first century, there were many messianic figures that jumped on the scene. It was anticipated that this revolution was going to happen and God was going to restore the unity of his reign on earth back to Israel and back to the people. And we see chapters about this. Earlier in the first century, I believe, we have Judas the Galilean. I think he was one of the intricate foundations or founders of the zealots, if you will. We had his son, Menachem bin Judas. I think he was really an encourager of the Saqqari sect, the assassins of the Romans—these guys that would go around engaging in violence, believing they could usher in the kingdom of God.

And then Theodos, which is also mentioned in Acts. And then you have the big one. In the Great Revolt, you have Simon ben Kosovar, Simon ben Kokhba, the star, the son of the star. This is one that Rabbi Akiva proclaimed was the Messiah. They gave him that name from the prophetic verse in Numbers. And the one thing that all of these revolutionaries had in common was that they stood up and pointed to Rome, looked at the followers, and said, "Hey, that's the enemy. And if we can destroy them—if we can destroy all of the wicked people in the world, all of these tax collectors, the sex workers, all of these sinners, all of these people who are unclean, these Romans and Greeks—if we can kill them all, then we'll have a clean slate forever for God's heaven on earth scenario to begin. It's going to happen at any moment."

The Book of Enoch and Messianic Expectation

It's highly anticipated. The book of Enoch was only about 150 to 200 years old at this point. And what's it about? Why did it become so popular in the first century? Because it was about the fall of mankind, the separation of heaven and earth, and the restoration through this messianic figure of heaven coming to earth—this climactic event. And we know what this heaven on earth is going to look like. Isaiah 25 mentions it, and he speaks about a huge banquet that's going to take place. And you know who's going to be at the table eating at this banquet celebrating God's victory over our rebellion? It's going to be all nations, all colors, all backgrounds, all cultures. And the shroud that engulfs all nations, the sheet, if you will, will be taken up, taken away, and sin and death will no longer be something that is a reality to us because God's will is manifest on earth.

In a Twinkling of an Eye

And I was listening to a pastor on a podcast, and it was funny because he was challenging the notion that in a twinkling of an eye we're going to be changed, that we're going to have these incorruptible bodies, and death will no longer affect us, and it'll be gone. But he asked the question, and he's like, "Does that mean that in a twinkling of an eye, your character is going to change? Perfect. What do you mean—character's going to change? Or is your heart going to change? Is that the moment that if you're still a hateful person who does not love their neighbor, who does not want to represent God's reign on earth, in the twinkling of an eye, does that mean it'll just wash all those inclinations of your heart, the selfishness that we have?

Is it just..." And it's interesting because when we think about truncating a vow, we think about poof, and now we're going to be in heaven, and we're going to have these new bodies, and we're going to fly or whatever, and we're going to feel good all the time, we're going to love each other, and it's going to be hippy land. Like, it's going to be great, and it's not going to be by any effort of our own.

Character Must Be Developed

And of course, he was like, "I don't think that's the case." That's why Yeshua is constantly talking about—specifically in this parable—you're supposed to be wheat. In the last parable, you're supposed to be good soil. There is a change that must take place in you, that must be developed for you to represent the kingdom that is here but not here, that is represented but not yet. And he made a point—he says, "I feel really bad for a racist who's going to be sitting at that table, because he's going to be looking around. And racism is not going to be something that will exist. It can't possibly exist in the world to come. It's impossible. So are the things in our lives that we need to dig out." And that's what Yeshua is talking about in all of these parables. He's talking about the things that we need to feel convicted about. And the reason why we feel convicted about certain things in our life is because there's no way that they can enter into the kingdom. They don't exist in the kingdom.

Incompatibility with the Kingdom

This is why Paul lists a bunch of things. Any of these people—the drunkards, the adulterers, these things—it's not like you're not going to get there. You're not going to inherit the kingdom of heaven. And do you know why? Why? Because you don't deserve to be in there? Well, kind of, sort of, but those things do not exist in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, you will not be compatible. That's why we need to work and strive towards these goals of working out our own salvation, praying daily, asking God to take these things from me so that I can represent your throne here now.

The Hasmonean Revolt and Ongoing Exile

And we know that after the Hasmonean revolt, that's when things got really serious. That's when Torah became more of an identity marker than anything else in the identity of the Judean people. The Hasmonean Revolt was a big deal when it happened because a lot of people thought, "Wow, this is it. We've had this ongoing exile. Even though we were in exile in Babylon, it has still continued because we are still not our own people. We're still not ruling over ourselves. Others are ruling over us. And we killed the Greeks, and we're beginning our independent state, which did not last very long at all. And then the Romans came in, and so, of course, we're still in exile. If we slaughter the Romans, then that will be the beginning of this new kingdom, right?"

The Vision of Restoration

And so we know what the kingdom of heaven is going to look like. Last week we read Isaiah 35. Was that kind of a cool chapter? It talks about the deserts disappearing because the greenery and the rivers are breaking forth upon the earth. God's kingdom coming to the earth. The ransomed of Israel will all be brought back. There will be a road to Zion where everybody is jumping for joy, praising God. We know what it's going to look like, but I have a question. What does it look like when you have the kingdom and the reign of God coming, and you have this earth—this world that has been corrupted by our desire to be separate from God and be independent from Him—and the two meet, they kiss, and they begin to merge and crash over, and one begins to overtake the other? What does the transition look like?

The Kingdom's Overlap and Messianic Expectations

What does the overlap look like when God's kingdom merges into this one? In the first century, it looks something like the Canaanite Congress. You kill everybody who's a sinner and then there's no more sin. Kill everyone that you think is a weed. All of these messianic figures—Judas, Manahim, Simon or Simeon—all of them were recognized by some groups of the Judeans during their lifetime as messianic types, king types. "This is going to be our king that ushers in this kingdom. A king sent by God to free them from oppression. A king that would overthrow the world and lead us back to the garden." And how did they think that this was going to be accomplished?

And this is important, and I'm hammering this point for a reason. How did they believe this was going to be accomplished? By what? By violence. Violence. By the same tactics the Romans were using to usher in their kingdom. It's amazing because Yeshua warns about using the tactics of the Romans. If I can say pagan tactics, that might hit harder. Pagan tactics to usher in victory, violence, aggression, spears, swords. If you use these same tactics against the Romans, they will decimate you. That is a test. If you live by the sword, you're not going to achieve victory ushering in God's kingdom through violence and frustration.

And did they listen? In 66 AD, the Great Revolt began, and the Judeans began to fight the Romans. And what did the Romans do? A few short years later, they went to the temple, and they didn't just knock it down. They ground the stones into powder just to show: "You are weak. Your kingdom will never be manifest or greater than ours." The irony of that is just a couple hundred years later, the Roman Empire became Christian, but that's beside the point. Fascinating, the little things. That was the expectation. And so here comes this Yeshua guy, and he says that's not how it's going to happen. It's not how it's going to happen.

You're not going to pull out a whole bunch of guns and M16s and shotguns and homemade weapons. That's not how you're going to usher in the kingdom of God. That's how the pagans do it. I have a different way.

A Kingdom Built Slowly

And it's not going to happen in a poof moment. Yeshua seems to assert that the kingdom of heaven is going to slowly progress through a certain strategy into this world until at some point in the future, God will declare the fullness of his reign on the earth. But until then, it's going to be a slow progression. And this is how he speaks about the parables. A season will happen before the fullness of that reality comes. A season where the world of brokenness will exist beside a world of healing. A season where a sinful world will exist beside a world in which forgiveness exists. A world where pain and loss will be accompanied, not replaced, with peace and justice.

This overlapping of the two worlds until one finally and completely overtakes the other. And this is done, as he claims, through the children of God, specifically in this parable. The children of God are going to do this. The children of God are going to stand and represent the kingdom of heaven that is coming, and that is a reality here. Remember we were talking about faith? Living out the hope, living out the reality of those things that are not present yet. And of course some Judeans didn't like that. They wanted God to come down like Zeus. But it was different. It was different.

Growing Wheat, Not Whacking Weeds

And in this season right now, in the parable he's speaking about, he says this is a season not about whacking weeds. It is a season about growing wheat. And that's his focus. You guys need to be focused on growing the wheat. Now is the season when the harvest grows. And one day the weeds will be dealt with, but not now. That's not the goal right now. The goal is to grow wheat. Do you have ears? Do you have ears? Are we listening? And so the farmer plants wheat. And then what happens? We know what happens next, right? Someone sows tares into the garden. Sometimes we think of them as weeds in a garden, sometimes like weeds in our lawn or clover or whatever. There's weeds everywhere. It's not pretty.

Identifying the Plants

And it's fascinating because the Greek word there is zazania. I think I said that right—zazania. It means Darnell. It's the Greek word that means Darnell in Old English. It's tares, right? And did I get my pictures set? Did I? Let's see. Someone may have to hit that button for me. And I want to show you, this is something profound that the disciples, when they heard this, would have caught. So this is two pictures, and one of these pictures is wheat, and the other is Darnell. Now, Darnell is a weed, and it's actually poisonous. And sometime in the Roman Empire, it was actually illegal. It was a law.

If you sowed Darnell into someone else's farm, it was an imprisonment. It was a big deal because it's poison. The seeds are poison. Not only that, they choke out the weed. It's a very devastating circumstance. And I wonder, can you guys guess which one is the wheat and which one is the Darnell or the tares? The wheat is actually, I don't know, hit the next slide for me, Jason. Oh wait, I might be able to do it. There we go. The wheat is actually on the left and the Darnell is on the right. And what's fascinating is before they bloom, you really can't tell the difference. Before they bloom, before the bud comes up at the top, you cannot see the difference.

"By their fruit you will know them." Right? And so the enemy did this—this guy came and sowed Darnell into the garden. That's why, when they sprouted, the servants began to notice what had happened.

When the Servants Wake Up

And so the servants come out from their bed, go to the farmer, and say, "I thought you were growing wheat. Where did all the weeds come from? What is it? I thought this was your garden, right? This is your garden and your field and you're responsible for this. And I thought you were growing wheat. You said the kingdom was here and you're doing great growing wheat and doing good. It's your field. Didn't you plant wheat, God? Why are there weeds growing here? Why is there evil in your field? Why is this manifesting here, God? Why do bad things happen, God? I thought you were growing wheat." And this is a profound, profound thing I feel.

And we miss it a lot of times when we read this. But it's one of those hard things that we have to deal with as a world of believers. And Yeshua intentionally tells the story this way. Has anyone ever felt pain in this life? And I'm not talking about having to prick your finger or you fell down and stripped your knee. Has anyone ever felt the pain that represents a brokenness in this world, a loss in this world, devastation? Has anyone experienced what they would consider hell on earth? Has anyone ever been mad at God, upset that God's world is not running the way that I think it should? And we laugh about it.

But in the moment, yeah, in the moment, it's not funny. It's like, why would you do that? Why does this happen? If you're such a great God, these are the questions and arguments people make. David was angry at God. You should read some of the songs. The Lamentation Psalms—just mad writing to God, arguing with God, ticked at God. And Yeshua addresses this right here through the servants' question.

The Mystery of Evil

The servants come out from their bed, go to the farmer, and say, "I thought you were growing wheat." And Yeshua responds with a simple, short answer. It's quite unsatisfactory, to be perfectly honest. He says, "An enemy came." Okay. An enemy has done this. Okay, who's the enemy? Who is this guy? Where does he live? We need to go and take care of him. I know some people, men—we can fix this. Where does this guy live? Who is he? Does he have any friends? And Yeshua doesn't care to expound on that too much. A few verses later, he's going to explain. He's going to say that the enemy is the devil, but that doesn't help us much.

I mean, okay. And it's fascinating because we want to focus on evil so much, and we want to figure out how to fix it so much. An enemy did it. Okay, it happened. But when we look throughout Scripture, there is not a whole lot written about this enemy, this personified evil. He works through us by influence, right? Snake in the garden. There's a couple prophecies like in Ezekiel that could be referring to him, but it's debatable. Who is this guy? And the Hebrew scriptures just don't expound much on evil —where it truly came from, what its true intention is. We can kind of see what it's doing and how to address it.

It's fascinating because Yeshua is focusing on something else in this parable. He says, "Evil is an outsider to God's kingdom. It is an invader, if you will, into God's kingdom. It's not supposed to be there. He's trespassing on the farm." And his workers' response is quite entertaining because they're ready. "Okay, the enemy came. The enemy came. You want us to go pull the weeds out now? That would be logical. I mean, if you can see the weeds, it would be logical to go pull them out, right? You want us to go take care of this, God? We can do it. We can take care of it. I got my sledgehammer. We can do it.

You want us to get the weed whacker and go get them, God? We can whack every single weed, and we'll be victorious." We're going to use the illustration again, right? You could see the workers coming out and saying, "All right, farmer Yeshua, we're ready. Can we get the weeds? We can take care of the weeds. I promise. I know how to do this." And what's the problem with this? What's the problem if we try to take care of the weeds in the world? We'll wipe out the wheat. Yeshua's like, "No, you're going to uproot the wheat as well. You will destroy the wheat as well, and you will destroy the entire garden if you go in there with a weed whacker.

You will mess up everything. Everything will be destroyed that the farmer has worked for." You see, it's easy to tell ourselves that we're some type of watchman on the wall. It's really fun to tell ourselves that. We're willing to protect the sacredness of God's garden with our weed whacker. And it seems so easy to convince ourselves that we are somehow the Maccabees. We are the Maccabees, ready to fight anybody who is against our people and the kingdom of God. We are the Maccabees, right? It's so easy, willing to kill everybody who you believe is evil in your own sight. It's really easy to get a weed whacker out in the name of Jesus and mow down anything and everything in the name of your own self-righteous agenda.

In Christianity, we've actually done this quite a few times. We have. We go to war and kill people to force the teachings of Yeshua onto them. Really? We did that several times. Several times. And it's fascinating because it's very easy to get in that mindset of being the weed whacker when we forget about one fact—when we're blinded to one simple fact—and that fact is that this is not our garden. When we pull the weed whacker out and we hold the trigger down, we're so focused on bringing the justice, the righteousness, and God's judgment into His kingdom, making the decision on who gets cut down and who doesn't, proclaiming what truth is, and we get consumed by the passion of wanting to make the garden look the way we see it should be.

And we forget that what we're doing is more or less the enemy's intention—he came and tried to make the garden into what he thought it should be. He thought the farm should look like a bunch of weeds. He thought it should look his way. He thought the kingdom should look like that.

The Question of Our Own Hearts

See, we're so focused on wanting to be these watchmen or these weed whackers that we never really look in the mirror and ask ourselves, could I be a weed? See, the tares in the story, Darnell, are looking to achieve one goal, and that is to absorb all the nutrients in the ground, take it for themselves, selfishly. And they can choose if they want to distribute it back out to another tare or another weed if they want to, but no, they're selfish. They want to keep it to themselves. They want to poison whoever tries to eat them, and they want to choke up everything around them that is good through force.

What's the difference between that and a weed whacker? It's interesting because we're entering into a season of the year where those of the whole Bible movement, those who claim to have experienced the Torah in their lives, get very sensitive and passionate. And I'm speaking about Christmas time. Anybody get sensitive and passionate about this time of year? I was once. Very much so. And it stuns me to look back and see myself and to see others who allegedly have tasted the Torah, the wonderful Torah, God's reign manifest into their lives, and they spend more and they invest more and they put forth more energy and passion, and are more vocal about Christmas time and what everyone else is doing than they are about Passover when it comes around.

Do you remember the season of freedom, the festival of freedom where God sent a lamb whose blood birthed the exodus from sin and death? The day that commemorates our freedom from slavery to this world, the day that commemorates when we ran into the arms of the Father and felt His love and His mercy and His grace wrap their arms around us. That day—not simply today—Exodus from Egypt, Exodus from sin and death. This is exactly what Paul emphasizes about the Passover motif. This is why Yeshua came as a greater type of Moses, a greater Passover took place, a greater Exodus took place.

Your Agenda Determines Your Identity

And it's fascinating: how do we know if we're wheat or not? Your agenda will determine your identity. Whatever your heart seeks after is what you will put your energy into and you will become most passionate about and you will become most vocal about forever. And maybe that's not holidays. Maybe that's something else. But the thing that we have to be careful of is when we become more passionate about something other than God's kingdom manifesting within our lives and God's forgiveness and redemption and God's plan to stop at nothing, not even His own son, to make sure that we had a way back into His arms.

A few verses later, the disciples and Yeshua go into a house after this parable is told. And the disciples come up and they're like, "Okay, so you told us about the seeds and the soil on the ground. And that was cool. You kind of explained that. We get that. And then there was the mustard seed, and then you said that the kingdom of heaven was like leavening. Which really threw us for a loop because leavening is supposed to be about sin and death. But you're saying that leavening, depending on the context, can actually represent the kingdom of God when put in the dough and it manifests. But we're hung up.

Yeshua, what are you talking about with the wheat and the tares? Can you explain this to us? What are you talking about? Why can't we whack the weeds?" And Yeshua explains it in verse 36—if you have your Bibles, Matthew 13, verse 36—and he states: "And the harvest is the end of the age, the aeon, end of this age." And in the first century, there was a concept of aeons, of ages. There was this current age of corruption, this current world of the flesh. We've spoken about this before. And then there's also the age to come, the eternal age. And he speaks that the harvest is the end of this age. And the reapers are angels.

Listen. Okay, so we got something to chew on now. People. And just like all of Yeshua's parables, this one has a double-edged sword.

The Focus on Fire

In Yeshua's explanation, what part do we typically focus on in this parable? You can be honest. What part? See, in church we used to focus on that fire, and we tend to now—we focus on that fire, don't we? That fire gets us. Do you want to go to the fire? I don't want to go to the fire. I'm going to focus on that fire. And it's true, there is a fire. What else do you do with the weeds? They have no other purpose. Toss them in the fire. The only purpose they have. But look at verse 43. It's one that I've never paid much attention to. "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. Let everyone who has ears listen." And I heard a sermon once where the pastor, a teacher, depicted this parable as a parable of not judgment, but hope. Hope. Hope. God's going to come down, and then the reapers are going to be these grim reaper-looking angels with big sickles, throwing everybody in the fire, right? All the weeds are going to hell. That's what the parable's talking about. What hope are you talking about?

And I remember his message. He said, "What are we supposed to be? What are we supposed to be? What is the hope that we will be in this parable?" The wheat, right? The wheat—that's the hope. And what's Yeshua's purpose as the farmer? To grow wheat. To grow wheat. This is a season of growing wheat. So what are we supposed to be doing? Being the wheat that he grows, right? I mean, that's a good assessment of the parable. Representing what his kingdom stands for. Walking out the love and the mercy. Walking out the environment and the atmosphere of what the kingdom that is coming and that is here among us now is supposed to be.

Practicing the Kingdom Now

Remember we spoke about why it's so important to forgive your enemy and then to pray for them. Because in the world to come, all relationships will end in reconciliation. There will be no more brokenness, no more hate, no more unforgiveness. That will not be something that exists in the kingdom. So why are you practicing it now as we attempt to usher in the kingdom? As Yeshua is standing there with the banner and we as his ambassadors, we ought not do the things that are not acceptable in the kingdom now to show forth the hope and the anticipation of what is to come. But there's a problem. There are weeds, and weeds are no fun.

The weeds represent the evil that exists in the world. The suffering, the tribulations, the brokenness—weeds. And if you are in a place of suffering right now, and I don't mean like you're just offended by someone or you're ticked about something. If you're in a place of suffering right now, where you're unsure if your faith can make it through whatever situation you're going through, if the tribulation just seems so great, there's a promise here that God makes. And the promise is that God has not forgotten you. God has not turned his back on you. The promise here is that God is watching and God is hurting, seeing the weeds and the wheat grow up together.

But the promise made here is that there is going to be a day when He is going to deal with the weeds. There's going to be a day when His justice will deal with evil, His justice will deal with brokenness, His justice will deal with death, His justice will deal with pain, His justice will deal with suffering that is instigated by the weeds and the evil that is manifest in this world. And His justice will be exalted over all creation and heaven and earth will be one in an ultimate, complete way. And you will be vindicated once and for all from your experience, from what the world has put on you and rejected you for because of your faith. And you will be lifted up and you will shine like the sun.

When you're in a place where you feel the pain caused by the world around you, I want you to remember that verse because that's a promise Yeshua gave to us.

God Has Not Forgotten You

We don't know a whole lot about suffering for our faith in this life. The biggest thing that we have is if an atheist posted something mean on our Facebook page or something. Oh, suffering. Or if our boss makes us work on Shabbat, we're like, oh, that's oppression. Let's be honest. It stinks. It really does. But let's be honest. We can open up a book called The Fox's Book of Martyrs and we can talk about persecution, we can talk about tribulation, we can talk about the Christians that ISIS has been killing, taking their babies and slaughtering them before their very eyes because of their faith, walking them out to the beach and blindfolding them and having kids with knives come up and stab them and slit their throats.

And if you were in one of those situations, would you be so concerned about the weed and going in the fire in this verse? Or would you be hopeful? That there is a day that God has made a promise to you right here—that because of our faith, just because the weeds are attacking the wheat, if we stand firm, there will be a day when this will not be like this anymore. And God has made a promise that the pain and the suffering and the tribulation will be no more. And the weeds will be taken away, and the only thing that will remain in this good world are the wheat and the things and the people that God has raised up and the people that have committed their life to Yeshua to walk out the heaven that is among us, but not a reality yet.

It's a promise. It's a big one.

Be Wheat, Show What Wheat Looks Like

We spoke about faith a while back, a couple weeks back, and that's what I was trying to articulate in that entire message—that we live out the kingdom now, and how our job is to be wheat. And if there's a weed in our life, you know what our job is to the weeds? It's not to be that. It's not to be that. Because when do we really know if a weed is a weed versus wheat, Darnell? It's when the sprout is at the end of the heart. And so it's not that that we need to become. We don't need to swing the trimmers around and knock them all down. We need to show them what wheat looks like. And we need to show them what the desire of the farmer is.

And we need to stand firm. The hope is that the weeds, the darnel, when it's time for them to sprout, that there won't be poison inside, but that there will actually be grain, that they will be wheat, that they will be part of the kingdom. And the hope for the weeds, at least our hope for the weeds, is that when the reapers come, that when you get harvested, so will they. And you will both go to the barn in the arms of the Father. That's the hope. And I'm stretching the parable a little bit, but you understand what I'm saying.

The Farmer's Job, Not Yours

That's our job—to be wheat, the sons and the children of God, representing God's kingdom, not the kingdom of destruction and evil, not the kingdom of the enemy. But we know who our God is. We know the covenant promises of our God. And we've seen and we have the testimony of the resurrection of Yeshua that has promised a seal that is granted upon us that we can walk this out. And so this parable: don't give up. Do not give up. Do not let the weeds overtake you. Don't let your flesh and this world convince you that the wheat whacks weeds because that's not your job and it's not your garden. You have a different mission to carry out.

That's the farmer's job. This is what Simon Peter did. Remember at the arrest of Yeshua? In Matthew , this is the incident: "And they came up and they laid hands on Yeshua and seized him. And behold, one who was with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear." That was far worse than death. But regardless, then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you not think that I cannot appeal to my father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But then how should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?"

Trust in God's Power, Not Weapons

And we always think of angels. And what Yeshua is saying here is talking to Peter, to Simon Peter, and he's saying, listen, don't you think that I can appeal to my dad to have angels come down here? What would the angels do—just give out back massages? No. Don't you think the angels can come down here with swords, like magic swords, like holy divine swords with fire and fireworks shooting out the ends of them and just slaughter every single one of these soldiers in the bloodiest, most goriest way that you want to happen? Don't you think that I can do this? No, that's not what the prophecies declare. They say something different, and I'm declaring to you something different is happening, and we're called to live above the weeds, not with the weeds. When Yeshua was talking to Pontius Pilate, remember that conversation? "You're the king, huh?" And Yeshua basically tells him: "Listen, if my kingdom was of this world, you'd be dead.

You'd be dead forever. My followers would be up here with big machetes and everything, and you'd be gone. But my kingdom is not of this world." Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Those who spend a life trying to whack everybody else, and if you don't get my drift, it doesn't have to be a physical death that you put on other people. Scripture talks about that through gossip and the power of your tongue. The power of the tongue can be set afire with the fires of where? Hell. Hell. You can be an ambassador of hell by opening your mouth and spewing out hellfire. You can bring death.

Choose Life or Death

When Scripture talks about in the Torah, "Choose this day, life or death"—was He talking about, all right, you're going to physically die right now if you don't keep My commandments? No. It was a different type of death, a different type of renewed life. You can whack people without a weed whacker, and we do it all the time. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Those who live by the fires of hell will be consumed by the fires of hell. But those who live according to Yeshua's example, the promise is that you will live forever. Don't give in. Don't give up. Stay strong. Stay wheat. Live out the hope of what God is doing in our lives and in your life and forgive and love and have mercy. This is the Torah that Yeshua taught, that even the Pharisees had a big problem with because it was a hard issue. Many followers left him, and he accepted that. Stay strong and do not be one of those that proclaims with their mouth one thing and then spews out hellfire out the other side of it.

About Founded in Truth Fellowship

Hey everybody, I'm Matthew VanderEls, pastor at Founded in Truth Fellowship. And if you enjoyed this message and would like to see more messages like this one, please subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here. If you'd like more information about what we do and who we are, or if you'd like to partner with us to make a donation, you can do so with this link right here. Hope you guys have a great week and we'll see you next time. Shalom. Info@foundedintuth.com Google