The Wheat and Tares Parable Warns about the Ungodly

Matthew 13:24-30: Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which 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 blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.  So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?  from whence then hath it tares?  He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.  The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?  But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of 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.

Matthew 13:36-43: 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.  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..

The Wheat and Tares Parable shows the difference between the ungodly and the godly.  The ungodly claim to be saved but produce no fruit.  The godly produce spiritual fruit which proves that they are truly saved.  The ungodly may truly be saved or they may be lost, but we can not tell the difference in this world.  Only God's angels can separate the lost ungodly from the saved ungodly and that is after death.  One application of this parable is that, in the church, there are ungodly saved people and ungodly lost people and we can not tell the difference before God's harvest at death.

The basic parable is in Matthew 13:24-30 with Matthew 13:36-43 giving us the explanation from Jesus.  That explanation end is Matthew 13:43, which says: Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.  Thus, we are warned that this parable must be understood spiritually.

As with all parables, this is 'An Earthly story with a Heavenly meaning which is designed to lead lost and carnal people into doctrinal error and only reveal the true spiritual meaning to save people who seek the meaning from God'.  As a story, it (probably) never actually happen, but is believable as being possible and understandable.  However, the message is not the story but the spiritual application.  And, in order to get the true spiritual application, we must consider the context in which it is given.

Our chapter starts by telling us: The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.  And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.  And he spake many things unto them in parables.  Thus, we see that this chapter tells us that Jesus  was speaking to great multitudes.  Now, Matthew 13:10 says: And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?  He answered and said unto them.  Thus, people might think that the rest of the chapter tells what Jesus  spoke to just His disciples.  However, Matthew 13:36 says: 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.  Therefore, we see that the audience, of this chapter, changed from tine to time.  Almost everything said, within this chapter, was said to great multitudes.  Only Matthew 13:11-23 said to the disciples only.  The end of the chapter involves a different audience.  One thing to pay attention to is that Jesus  had three different audiences and He dealt with each differently. Jesus  gave the most teaching to the people who did the most to understand.  He did nothing for the people who refused to believe.  He spoke in parables to the people who made an effort to hear Him but refused to become true disciples.  We see the same response from God when He deals with people who won't go to church and with people who go to church but that's all and with people who become true disciples.

Now, returning to what we see in our chapter, we read in Matthew 13:24: Another parable put he forth unto them,  which lets us know that Jesus  is, again, speaking to the great multitudes  until Matthew 13:36, where we read: Then Jesus sent the multitude away.  Thus, it is important to know that what Jesus  said to everyone was different from what He said only to His disciples.  Jesus  spoke in parables to the multitudes but gave the explanations only to His disciples.  The reason for this difference is given in Matthew 13:11, which says: Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.  The disciples sacrificed and left everything to learn from Jesus.  Therefore, He honored their sacrifice by giving them greater understanding.

Now, with the knowledge that Jesus  said different things to different groups of people and that He gave different levels of understanding, we can consider the subject of His teachings.  This chapter has several parables about the kingdom of Heaven.  In most of the chapter, the regular Jew, who considered himself to be a child of God, did not understand the various parables.  We see this in Matthew 13:11 which says: Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.  Thus we see that most of the people, who claim to be a child of God, do not truly understand God's word.  Therefore, it should be obvious that just claiming to be a child is not sufficient to get all of the blessings of God.  People must put forth the effort to become a true disciple of God in order to receive true understanding and true blessings from God.

As our quoted reference tells us, the disciples received additional teaching that the majority of the Jews did not receive.  The disciples were given understanding which was denied to most people who claimed to be children of God.  And, since God does not change, we can expect God to treat people the same way today.  In addition, the chapter ends with the people who knew Jesus,  as a child, rejecting His teachings.  That section ends with: And he (Jesus) did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.  Thus, one of the first general messages of this chapter is that: some of the people who claim to be saved will reject the truth of the Bible.  In addition, most of the people who claim to be saved will not truly understand the message from the Bible or, if they receive some understanding, most will not allow it to truly change their lives.  Only a few, who are truly willing to study and work for understanding, will become true disciples and have God give them true understanding.

With that truth in mind, and realizing that this chapter is teaching us about the kingdom of Heaven,  in different ways, we need to consider the context, in a more detailed fashion, in order to truly understand the message of this parable.  However, one thing to keep in mind is that the kingdom of Heaven  is: 'The things that belong to heaven'.  You can not lose your salvation.  Therefore, the things which we are told that happen in the kingdom of Heaven  can not cause anyone to lose their salvation.  Remember this truth because there are people who teach religious doctrines which indirectly support the lie of our loosing our salvation.

So, before we move on, we need to consider things which are true throughout the Bible and especially true in the New Testament.  First, Jesus  treated different groups of people differently even though all of them claimed to be God's children.  Therefore, we can expect God to treat people differently even though all of the people claim to be saved.  The people who are the equivalent of saved people who just go to church were taught in parables and were denied true understanding of spiritual truths.  The true disciples who dedicated their lives to serving God and maintained their personal relationship with Jesus  received greater understanding.  While I have not covered it yet, they also received greater blessings.  In addition, we lightly mentioned the people who rejected Jesus  and His teachings.  They received nothing from Him.  Therefore, while religion tell us that people are either saved or lost, the Bible actually gives us three groups.  Those who represent the lost because they reject Jesus  and His teachings.  The disciples represent those people who truly dedicate their lives to the service of God and their ongoing personal relationship with Jesus.  They received the greatest understanding and blessings.  Then the third group was the great multitudes.  They represent the person who claims to be saved but only goes to church and does the minimum to be sure that they go to Heaven.  They believed religious doctrinal error and did not receive true understanding nor true blessings.  In fact, although I have not shown it yet, they were punished by God.

With that summary, we will look at more details and see these three groups are also in the details.

Our chapter starts with the 'Parable of the Sower'.  That parable is also in Mark 4:1-20 and Luke 8:2-15.  Since this parable is in three Gospel accounts, God wants us to know that understanding it is critical to our understanding all parables.  In it, we are told about four different types of ground, which represent four different types of heart in people, and those hearts produced three different results.  Since our eternal rewards and punishments depend upon the results which we receive from God, this parable teaches us that there are three different eternal results which people receive based upon how they serve God.  The main lie from religion is that there are only two different eternal results.  Religion claims that you are either saved and live in a communistic Heaven with everyone getting all of the blessings of God or you go to Hell and, after that, an eternity in the lake of fire.  In general, religion denies the Bible truth of variable eternal rewards in Heaven.  Anyone who is deceived by these religious errors will be shocked when they are judged by God.  For all of eternity they will know that they lived their lives as fools.  This truth about God's judgment on religious fools is explained by Jesus,  in our chapter, in Matthew 13:12.  This is the result that is also taught by 'The Parable of the Pounds' (Luke 19:11-27), 'The Parable of the Talents' (Matthew 25:14-30), and 'The Parable of the Householder' (Mark 13:34).  All three promise variable rewards based upon the amount of spiritual profit brought to God's kingdom while we are still in this world.  All three promise punishment in Heaven to the saved person who brings no spiritual profit to God.

Therefore, one of the important lessons of our chapter is to beware of being deceived by religious traditions which go against what the Bible literally says.  The main danger is believing the religious lie that you receive all blessings just by being saved.  The religious lie claims that it does not matter is you produce spiritual fruit or don't produce fruit.  If you believe that lie, You can end up with tears an average of twice a week for more than 1,000 years and lose a lot of what you expect to receive.  The most important thing for a saved person to do is to devote their lives to the service of God so that you can bring a spiritual profit to God as a result of your personal salvation.

After the first parable, in our chapter, we see a warning about judgment and then the explanation of the first parable.  After that, our chapter continues with the 'Parable of the Wheat and Tares', which will be explained in a minute.

Next we have the 'Parable of the Mustard Seed', which teaches that there will be devils hiding in large Christian churches.  You need to be careful who you make friends with even in the church.  Be careful of people who claim to be saved but justify ongoing sin in their life.

Next we have the 'Parable of the Leaven', which teaches that true salvation grows in the life of the true believer until it is involved in every aspect of a true believer's life.  It also teaches that sin, and doctrinal error, will also grow if not removed.  Both will eventually affect all of the person's life.  Either you allow God's righteousness to consume your life or you allow sin to consume your life.

Next, we are told that Jesus  taught with parables to fulfill prophecy.  That means He was doing the will of God the Father.  God gave us each a free will.  If we refuse to put in the effort to learn the truth then God will give us the truth in a way that allows us to be deceived.  That is one of the main reasons why Jesus  taught in parables.  Only those people who truly seek the truth, from God's Holy Spirit, will receive the truth from God.

Next, we have the explanation of our parable from Jesus.  We will deal with that shortly.

Next, Jesus  tells us the results that God expects from everyone who is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven  and He says that God expects them to bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.  (The th,  in the word bringeth  means that this is to be an ongoing lifestyle action.)  The things old are what the Bible truly says.  The things new are how to apply Bible truth to the circumstances of life, which are constantly changing.  We will be judged by God for how well we produce the results which He expects from us using what he has given to us.

The last part of our chapter tell us about is that Jesus,  and His teaching, were rejected by the people who watched Him grow up as a child.  As the true saying goes: 'Familiarity Breeds Contempt'.  If we accept an attitude that we know the things in the Bible, and are not careful, we will start to have contempt towards the messengers from God and will miss out on the blessings that God wants to give us.

So, what we see in this chapter is a lot of information on the kingdom of Heaven.  We also see that what is taught in this chapter is misunderstood by most people who claim to be saved and it is rejected by many others.  With those contextual considerations in mind, we can now look at our parable.

In the explanation of the parable, by Jesus,  we read: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.  Thus, this is a prophecy about the time just before the great white throne  judgment (Revelation 20:11).  However, our parable also tells us: 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  (Matthew 13:41-42).  Therefore, we see that Jesus  will not allow things that offend, and them which do iniquity  in His kingdom.  With that in mind, we know that there are other times where the Bible tells us about judgment by the Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, we can expect the same type of judgment at the other times also.  That is, there are other valid applications of the method, used for judgment, which is explained in this parable.  One such is the 'Sheep and Goat Judgment' found in Matthew 25:31-46.  Another such is the judgment seat of Christ  (Romans 14:10; 2Corinthians 5:10).  And, since this is a judgment that every truly saved person will face, it is the application which we should be most concerned with.

We already saw that most of the people who claimed to be children of God did not understand the truth and some of them even rejected the truth and also rejected the true messenger from God.  Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that we have the same things happening today.  Since these two groups hold the majority of people who claim to be saved, we should not be surprised to find that it is only a few people who truly understand and obey Bible truth.  That is: very few people truly understand and believe that they must dedicate their entire life to the service of God if they want to have good eternal rewards.

Now, we see this same truth taught elsewhere in the Bible.

In Revelation 3:15-16, we read that Jesus  says that there are three types of people in the world.  They are: Hot  or cold  or lukewarm.  In 2Peter 2, we read that the same groups of people are called godly,  ungodly,  and unjust.  Religion will tell you that there are only two types of people, the lost and the saved.  That is true in eternity.  However, our parable, and many other places in the Bible, tell us that the unjust  and lukewarm  people are not separated into the lost or saved until they die.  And, we can not know if such people are truly lost or saved.  Therefore, we have a lot of doctrinal error taught about the parables in our chapter because religious people are trying to claim that the unjust  and lukewarm  people are either lost or saved.  As a result, some people claim that, in 'Parable of the Sower', the people who produce not fruit are lost while others claim that they are saved.  The truth is that they are the unjust  and lukewarm  people and we can not know if they are lost or saved.

While there might be a lost Judas here, we will ignore them and concentrate on the group that the Bible calls unjust  and lukewarm  because the doctrinal errors taught about this group are the most dangerous to the truly saved people.

Satan hates all truly saved people.  He can not cause them to lose their salvation but he can cause them to lose their eternal rewards and he can cause them to be punished in this world and at the judgment seat of Christ.  Satan does this by telling believable lies about God and about the judgment of the saved.  Those are the lies which we need to expose.

When we look at our parable, we see two kinds of plants which look the same but only one of the two produces edible food.  That was the plant which was burned and did not go into the storehouse, which represents Heaven.  When we look at 'The Parable of the Pounds', 'The Parable of the Talents', and 'The Parable of the Householder', we see that the servant who failed to obey and produce a profit was punished.  When we look at the judgment Seat of Christ,  we see that saved people, who are in heaven, receive bad  and the terror of the Lord.  Religious doctrinal error claims that all of these truths from the Bible are lies and that no saved people receive punishment after they get to Heaven.  If that is true then we have no hope of salvation because if God lied about anything in the Bible then God lied about our salvation since it is the most basic promise of the Bible.

In our chapter we read that Jesus  said: 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  (Matthew 13:41).  If our life makes Jesus  spue thee out of my mouth  (Revelation 3:16), then our life will offend Jesus.  Revelation 17:14 tells us that only they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful  will return to reign with Christ.  Matthew 20:16 and Matthew 22:14 tell us: many are called, but few are chosen.  Everyone who is saved is called  but only those who are faithful and who dedicate this life to serving Jesus  are chosen  and get to return.

Revelation 19:8 tells us that the bride of Christ  is arrayed in the righteousness of saints.  We have no righteousness  of our own.  However, when we let Jesus  work through our life then he gives His righteousness  to be our own.  Such people will be part of the bride of Christ.  However, saved people who refuse to let Jesus  work through their life will not be part of the bride of Christ,  even though they are saved.  In Matthew 22 we read about a certain king, which made a marriage for his son.  As part of that parable we read about the king finding someone there a man which had not on a wedding garment.  Our parable ends with: Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  For many are called, but few are chosen.  The phrase outer darkness  only occurrs three (3) times and all are in Matthew and all are part of Jesus  explaining abourt the kingdom of Heaven.  You can not go to Hell from Heaven.  The people who claim that the outer darkness  is not in Heaven are using the way of Satan to take this phrase out of context.  This phrase is used for saved people who refuse to dedicate their life to serving God through an ongoing personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote the epistle to the Ephesians because they were mixing doctrinal error with truth.  Paul warned them to not do that or they could change from being Godly people who will be rewarded by God into the lukewarm  people who lose their blessings from God.

Paul wrote the epistle to the Galatians because they had turned from truth to following religious doctrinal error.  Paul wrote that he was afraid that some had believed in vain.  Even though they were church members, they could still go to Hell.

One last point then I will close.  In Acts, as pastor has pointed out many times, we see thousands and thousands saved in the first chapters.  Then God brought persecution because the church preached to the Jews only.  Acts continues with how God worked through those who went to the mission field, but we don't read about God blessing the Jerusalem church.  In fact, God not only withdrew His blessings but caused a famine, which was why Paul took up a collection for the poor saints in the Jerusalem hurch.  There is more to this account, but God sent the Roman Army in to destroy the Temple and kill most of the people in the Jerusalem Church.  Peter spent his life as the head preacher of the Jerusalem Church, but when he knew that he was going to die he wrote to strangers,  who were non-Jews and not the people that Peter spent his life ministering to.  That was because most of them were dead.  God killed them because they refused to let the word of God correct the doctrinal error which came from their traditions.  They kept preaching Jewish religious traditions which went against what the New Testament literally teaches.

Now, there are many other places in the Bible which teaches this truth.  However, Satan uses religion to concentrate on one little part of the Bible while ignoring the greater lessons of the Bible.  The greater lesson that we see here is that there are saved people who dedicate their life to the service of God and they receive many everlasting rewards.  There are also saved people who only do enough to satisfy religion and believe the lie that God will reward them.  Such saved people will lose everlasting rewards, will probably have tears an average of twice a week for over 1,000 years, may die early in this world and will probably be the reason that their loved ones go to Hell.

The religious lie says that you get everything if you just make a profession.  The Bible says that is a lie.  The Bible teaches that your reward or punishment, even as a saved person, is dependent on how much you serve God and maintain your personal relationship to Jesus Christ.  So, the question is: 'Are you going to draw nigh to Christ so that He can guide and bless you or are you going to sit there believing that your religion said that you did enough?'

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