The Wheat and the Tares
The Tares of the FieldMatthew 13:24-30, 36-43
The reader will observe in our study of
the Parable of Tares Among the Wheat
that the time for the fulfillment of this
parable is twice given as "the end of the
world," or as the marginal reference
reads, "the consummation of the age" - the
time in which we now live.
Let us begin by reading verse 36 and
continuing on through verse 43. As we
read these verses note particularly that
Christ is the sower of people called “the
good seed,” that the devil is the sower of
bad people called “tares,” and that both
seeds are sown in the same “field.”
“Then Jesus sent the multitude away,
and went into the house: and his disciples
came unto him, saying, Declare
unto us the parable of the tares of the
field.” ( Editor's note : This is the only parable
that Christ explained in its entirety and therefore
it has many revealing and important points.)
“He answered and said unto them,
He that soweth the good seed is the
Son of man; The field is the world; the
good seed are the children of the kingdom;
but the tares are the children of
the wicked one; The enemy that sowed
them is the devil; the harvest is the
end of the world; and the reapers are
the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered
and burned in the fire; so shall it
be in the end of this world. The Son of
man shall send forth his angels, and
they shall gather out of his kingdom
all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity; And shall cast
them into a furnace of fire: there shall
be wailing and gnashing of teeth ,
Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of
their Father. Who hath ears to hear,
let him hear.”
Here, as in the parable of the net, the
leaven, the treasure hid in the field, and
the mustard seed parable, we find the
United States of America has all the earmarks
of being the beginning of the
Kingdom of God on earth.
No one will deny the fact that the
Pilgrims and early settlers were of the
Christian faith. Therefore in a very
unique and real sense this nation was
planted by the Son of man, Jesus Christ.
In any effort to find the nation or people
that are to blossom forth to be the
Kingdom of God on earth this fact must be
kept in mind, for it must absolutely be a
nation of Christendom, officially recognizing
Jesus as the Son of God. It must have
been founded by Christians.
Since Jesus said “the field is the
world,” we know the Kingdom of God is a
nation in the world at the end of the present
age.
In the Parable of the Sower and the
Seed, the seed is the Word of God and the
sower is any person who preaches and
teaches the Word of God. But in this kingdom
parable on the tares (Jesus) the Son
of man is the sower and "the good seed are
the children of the kingdom (or a people),
but the tares are the children of the
wicked one" (also a people).
Jesus is not implying that every
unsaved person in the nation is a plant of
the wicked one. He was foretelling what
we all today realize and witness, namely,
that the devil who inspired atheistic communism
has been busy planting his
agents, stooges and sympathizers in our
midst, and for the time being we seem, as
Jesus said, unable to do much about it.
As to what people Jesus had in mind
when He said "the good seed are the children
of the kingdom" we need only to read
a few of many passages from the Old
Scriptures. Throughout the Old
Scriptures the Isaac sons are spoken of as God's
kingdom people ; therefore the children of the
kingdom are descendants of the Isaac
sons.
Speaking through Moses in Exodus
19:6: God said to them, “Ye shall be unto
me a kingdom,” and in Deuteronomy
14:2: Moses wrote, ” . . . the Lord hath
chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto himself, above all
the nations that are upon the earth.”
Beware lest you believe the devil's lies
that these promises and prophecies are all
done away with, for as Paul wrote in
Romans 15:8, “Now I say that Jesus
Christ was a minister of the circumcision
for the truth of God, to confirm
the promises made unto the Fathers.”
Christ came to "confirm" and not to cancel
out the promises made to the fathers.
Coming back to the kingdom parable of
the tares, we find as we noted before, that
in both verse 39 and verse 40 Jesus gives
the time for the tares to be removed from
the kingdom nation as "the end of the
world" or at the end of the present age.
In verse 41 we read, “The Son of
man shall send forth his angels, and
they shall gather out of his kingdom
all things that offend, and them
which do iniquity.”
The “angels” that the Lord will commission
and use to remove the children of
the wicked from His kingdom could be
both human beings and celestial beings
for the word “angel” means messenger,
leader, pastor. From what we already
know about the infiltration of Reds planted
in important positions, it will undoubtedly
require the assistance of actual
angels to root them out.
When Jesus gave the parable on the
tares, as recorded in verses 24 through 30,
He indicated that some of the good people
of this nation would attempt to gather the
tares prematurely for in verse 29 He said
to them, “Nay; lest while ye gather up
the tares, ye root up also the wheat
with them.”
In other words, Jesus said if this is
done prematurely you will merely create
violence and you will give the tares a better
opportunity to hide themselves and to
sink their roots deeper into the nation.
Therefore in verse 30 Jesus said, “Let
both grow together until the harvest:
and in the time of the harvest I will
say to the reapers, Gather ye together
first the tares, and bind them in bundles
to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”
Twice in this verse we find the word
“harvest,” and in verse 39 Jesus said, “The
harvest is the end of the world” — or the
“consummation of the age” as we read in
the marginal reference. So this kingdom
parable is very clearly an end time
prophecy.
In the light of the words of Jesus when
He said, “Gather ye together first the
tares, and bind them in bundles to burn
them,” we are witnessing very significant
things. For many years the F.B.I.,
Congressional Committees, and private
citizens have been identifying, classifying,
and “binding in bundles” the subversive
forces in our nation, and because so little
has been done to root them out of places of
influence many good people are in despair
for the future well-being of our nation.
But they need not be and they will not be
if they know and believe the Lord's kingdom
parables.
This does not mean we are to be fatalistic
and close our eyes to the dreadful
harm that these plants of the wicked one
can do and are now doing, but we must see
the wisdom of our Lord's strategy in
allowing these tares to become so confident
of success that they will freely and
boldly identify themselves.
When wheat becomes ripe it hangs its
head. When tares are ripe they hold their
head erect. So it is today. Many good
Americans hang their heads when they
think of our national security and survival.
The tares are confident, arrogant
and defiant, utterly unaware of the fact
that they are being tied in bundles for the
burning.
The burning, wailing, and gnashing of
teeth spoken of in this and other kingdom
parables does not refer to punishment
after death for the individual Christ
rejecter. It is symbolic language found
only in the Gospels, and always in a kingdom
parable. It is symbolic language used in the
kingdom parables to denote the anger and
the loud protest on the part of the subversives
that will be deported when we enter
the final phase of our life and death struggle
with Christless world communism.
The Lord closed this kingdom parable
in verse 43 with these beautiful and hope
inspiring words: “Then shall the righteous
shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father. Who hath
ears to heat, let him hear.”
The righteous that will "shine forth as
the sun in the kingdom of their Father"
must refer to the rule of the Body of Christ
(the true Church) when the will of God is
done on earth as it is in heaven.
________________