Sermon
The Doctrine Of The Kingdom Of God - Part 13
Kingdom Lessons From The Parables
Pastor Donald Sheley

For the last four or five months we've been on a wonderful journey going through the Scriptures learning about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven. And I'm doing this because this is my final sermon on the kingdom because again, we start our new series next week. We've learned a lot about the Kingdom of God. We've learned that in the four gospels alone we have over 130 references to the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven, which are interchangeable terms. We've learned that there has been great controversy, in fact, it's one of the battlegrounds of theology -- the whole issue is when is the kingdom of God -- did it come with Jesus or will it come when Christ comes back to set up His rule on earth for 1000 years?

We've learned that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual matter. Paul writes to the Romans and says the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but joy and righteousness and peace in the Holy Spirit. When the Pharisees asked Jesus concerning His kingdom, He says, the kingdom does not come with observation for the Kingdom of God is within you. And so we have learned that when the Scriptures speak of the kingdom it's that reference of Christ's rule and reign within the human heart. Now it may take on physical aspects in the closing days of time and I'll leave that to God as that comes to fulfillment, but this is one thing we've learned that's very clear and that is that when Jesus said the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent; when you go through the text you'll find Jesus said the Kingdom of God commenced with the coming of the King.

Thus, the Kingdom of God is His rule and reign, the rule and reign of Christ within our lives. And tonight what I'd like for you to do is to take your notes with me and we noted that in the kingdom series when you go through the parables of Jesus most of the parables begin with these words: and the Kingdom of God is like unto -- and the Kingdom of God is like unto -- it's a phrase that appears over and over again in the study of the parables.

And tonight we're going to think about one of the most complex parables that Jesus told. With your notes follow along as I read from Matthew 13:34, "All these things spake Jesus in parables, and without parables spake He not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world."

So we've observed that Christ's teaching was primarily parables or stories, and here's one of them, Matthew 13:24, Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept; his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 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?" 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? But he said, "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 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."

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

Now follow along and we'll keep close to your notes tonight because there's so much these parables tell us. The core concept around which the parables revolve is the Kingdom of God. Jesus came proclaiming the great thesis of the coming Kingdom as portrayed in the summary statement in Mark 1:15: "The time has been fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come."

And the parables portray it best. A significant portion of the parables explicitly relate to the Kingdom. Now while the use of parables was a unique feature of the popular teaching of Jesus for "without a parable spake He not unto them," He did not invent this form of teaching. Parables go back into antiquity. While Jesus contributed His unique parables to religious literature, and He raised such a method of teaching to its highest level, He was cognizant of the antiquity of this method of presenting truth. And in the age and in the country in which Christ appeared, parables were a common and popular method of instruction, for both parables and fables were popular among the people of the East.

And because of His infinity, God had to condescend to those things which man was familiar in order to convey to man's finite mind the sublime revelation of His will. When our Lord appeared among men as a Teacher He took possession of the parable and He honored it by making it His own, by using it as the vehicle for the highest truth of all. Knowing how Jewish teachers illustrated their doctrines by the help of parables and comparisons, Christ adopted these old forms and gave them a newness of spirit as He proclaimed the transcendent glory and excellency of His teaching. After Him, the parabolic method was seldom used by the apostles.

I was trying to think when I wrote that of any New Testament...in the writings of John or Paul. We have an analogy of which he uses in the Galatians passage with regards to Mount Sinai, but I could not find another reference that was parabolic in nature that was somewhat similar to Christ. So it seems that when Christ finished His teaching, parabolic teaching also came to an end.

Now the word for parable as used in the New Testament means "to stand for something" or the "likeness or resemblance." And the essential feature of the parable lay in the bringing together of two different things so that the one is used to explain and to emphasize the other. The parables display a pre-ordained harmony between things spiritual and things material. And when we come to examine the parables of Jesus we shall discover them to be earthly in form and heavenly in spirit, answering to the parabolic character of His own manifestations. Thus, parables are not forced illustrations, but rather mirrors of spiritual things.

And there is a strong word of caution when seeking to interpret the parables. And probably this is one reason why you don't hear too many messages on the parables because there are so many explanations and interpretations that almost reach ridiculousness. Let me illustrate. Dropping down -- Matthew 25, Jesus speaks the parable of the five wise and the five foolish virgins. Jesus tells us the meaning of the parable in verse 13: "Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." And in our last lesson on parables we learned usually that a parable has one main message, and if you try to read anything else into it, you really mess up what Jesus was trying to say in its simplest form.

Now it is amazing how this parable in Matthew 25 has been interpreted. Some have suggested that the five wise which had sufficient oil represents the Christians who have the Holy Spirit and the foolish did not. Now immediately you see the problem. Paul says if we have not the Spirit of God we're none of His. So we could not make that application that these are Christians, some had the Holy Spirit and some didn't, if you're a Christian you have the Holy Spirit living within you. Let's go on.

They also go on to suggest the five which had sufficient oil represents Christians who have the Holy Spirit and then the foolish do not. They go a little further in their imagination and suggest that one only has the Holy Spirit if they speak in tongues. You say, Pastor, where does that come from? Well there's one particular group within the Christian realm and they call themselves Christians, and they give this interpretation that when the oil represents the Holy Spirit then you have the Holy Spirit, and if you have the Holy Spirit the only way you can prove you have the Holy Spirit is that you speak in tongues, and if you don't speak in tongues you don't have the Holy Spirit. You see the falseness that immediately begins to arise.

I'm at the top of page 3. As for the extreme in interpretation, there lies the danger of an ingenious trifling with the Word of God, a danger, too, lest the interpreter's delight in the exercise of this ingenuity, with the admiration of it on the part of others, may not put somewhat out of sight the intended lesson to be learned from the parable. I said that in a way meaning that you can become very exciting sometimes in your own interpretation that you have and I use as an illustration...I go way back 1700 years to Augustine. He's an outstanding theologian, but he gives us an example of those who pressed parables to teach something plainly outside their limits.

Now here is the interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan by that ancient theologian, a great imagination, watch him. By the certain man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho-- that was Adam; that's interesting. Jerusalem is the heavenly city of peace, from whose blessedness Adam fell. Jericho means the moon, and signifies our mortality, because it is born, waxes, wanes, and dies; that's interesting. The thieves are the devil and his angels. Who stripped him, namely of his mortality; and beat him, by persuading him to sin; and left him half dead, because in so far as man can understand and know God, he lives, but in so far as he is wasted and oppressed by sin, he is dead; he is therefore called half-dead. Now that's a real stretch, isn't it?

The Priest and the Levite who saw him and passed by, signify the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament, which could profit nothing for salvation. Samaritan means guardian, and therefore the Lord Himself is signified by this name. The Binding of the Wounds is the restraint of sin. Oil is the comfort of good hope; wine is the exhortation to work with fervent spirit. The animal on which the wounded man rode is the flesh in which He deigned to come to us. Set upon the beast is belief in the incarnation of Christ. The Inn is the Church, where travelers are refreshed on their return from pilgrimage to their heavenly country. The Morrow is after the Resurrection of the Lord. The Two Pence are either the two precepts of love, or the promise of this life and of that which is come. The Innkeeper is the Apostle Paul.

Now that interpretation is an exercise in excessive imagination. So, in our learning from the parables the true spiritual lesson, we must be cautious to let Scripture interpret Scripture. That is the safest way folks. The best way to study your Bible is to have a good concordance then you just compare Scripture with Scripture with Scripture, and you'll find the Bible will interpret itself. You need no other, you need no other interpretation.

Now the parable which we have chosen to study in this lesson concerning the tares in the field is explained by Christ. "Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Quite a clear meaning of the parable, isn't it? Let's travel on. The pictures in this parable would be quite clear and familiar to the Palestinian audience. Tares were one of the curses against which the farmer had to labor. The tares were a weed called bearded darnel. In their early stages the tares so closely resembled the wheat that it was impossible to distinguish the one from the other. And when both had headed out it then it was easy to distinguish them, but by that time the roots of the wheat and the tares were so intertwined that the tares could not be pulled and weeded without tearing the wheat out with them. The tares and the wheat are so like each other that the Jews called the tares the bastard wheat.

Down at the bottom of the page -- In their early stages the wheat and the tares so closely resembled each other that the popular idea was that the tares were a kind of degenerated wheat which had gone wrong. Now the picture of a man deliberately sowing darnel in someone else's field is by no means only imagination. That was actually sometimes done. To this day in India one of the direst threats which a man can make to his enemy is, "I will sow bad seed in your field." And in codified Roman Law this crime is mentioned and forbidden, and its punishment laid down. Let me pause there for a moment.

You get the picture...the farmer makes sure that he has good seed, he plants good seed in the field, but he's got an enemy who lives down the road from him and the enemy wants to get even with them so at night he comes and he walks throughout the field and he throws these seeds of the tares. Now it's the way you take revenge in the old days. Today there are different ways of taking revenge. If you have a neighbor that doesn't like you and he wants to wreck your car, all he's got to do while your sleeping at night is take the gas cover off and fill the gas tank with water and you have problems the next day when you start your car. Sowing bad seed in the field was an act of vengeance.

Now Jesus begins the explanation of the parable by defining who the sower of the good seed is...none other than the Son of Man. And Jesus is the Son of Man, who being made in human likeness has taken on the appearance of a man. Paul writes of Christ in Philippians, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name."

Now the title that Jesus used most was...Son of Man...a title given in the vision of Daniel. Daniel 7:13 says, "I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven!" And so Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, has come to sow the good seed, and the sons of the Kingdom are the new humanity in Christ, those who are new creations in Christ. And Jesus continues with the explanation..."The field is the world." Now that's where the drama of good and evil takes place. And Jesus claims proprietorship of the world! Note the expressions, HIS FIELD, THY FIELD, which assert that the master is the Owner, the Lord, the Husbandman of this world of man. For "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," the Scripture says.

Now this field then is the sphere of human habitation in the world God so loved that He sent His Son to save. And so what Jesus is saying is that the field is the vastness of God's creation upon which men live and in which men live.

Now here we come to a problem because some Bible commentators identify the field as the Church. Now that's interesting, when Jesus said the church is the world. But some Bible commentators say no, what Jesus was referring to was the Church. One writer gives this view: "This parable is a prophetic declaration that the Church of Christ on earth should be an imperfect body. The visible Church, or the Church as a body organized on earth has two kinds of imperfection: the personal defects of the regenerated, and the membership of unregenerated persons."

Now we do not deny the lamentable fact that in the realm of Christian profession there are tares and wheat; all within the true Church, the Church of the Living God, form the good seed, the wheat, but in Christendom a mixture of "the sons of God" and "the sons of the evil one" can be found. Now pause with me.

What that commentator is saying is what Jesus was saying is the world is the Church...He is saying that in the Church it will always have sinners and saints. It will always have some who are genuine in their faith and it will always have those are hypocritical and put on the scene, but in reality their hearts have never been transformed. So that commentator is seeing the wheat and the tares as the Christians and the non-Christians within the Church.

Let's go on. I'm at the top of page 6. Now whether the field is the world or the church is actually irrelevant. The point is simply that the devil is going to bring forward people (whether in the church or out of it) so much like true Christians, yet not Christians, that even the servants of God will not be able to tell them apart. Jesus' reference is to the Kingdom of heaven and is not limited to the Church. However, the Church is in the world as well as in the Kingdom of heaven, so the truth applies. There are good seeds and bad seeds, children of God and children of Satan, in the church.

And Jesus tells us in verse 39 of our text that the enemy who sowed the bad seed is the devil. Now the word that Jesus used for His enemy was DIABOLOS, the traducer, the liar, the one who is against all that is true, against high and the noble. Now you'll notice the emphasis here, "His enemy" that is, Christ's enemy. Christ has ever been the object of the devil's malice. There's a trinity of good and a trinity of evil, and they stand opposed to one another throughout the Scriptures. There's the Father and the world; there's the Spirit and the flesh; there's Christ and Satan.

John says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."

Now the cunning of the enemy is seen in his actions of sowing his tares among the wheat while the servants slept. Now we cannot take this to mean a lack of watchfulness on their part and that therefore they were to blame for the mixed field. Doubtless it was nighttime and the ordinary sleeping time for the workers and watchers. Rather are we given an insight into the cowardly nature of the devil, in choosing the darkness for his diabolical work. Evil is sown secretly, and the devil's dupes love darkness because their deeds are evil. Thus the sleeping servants are not merely the dress, or color of the parable.

I bring this out folks because in a parable we've learned you cannot adapt each passage of the parable and find a spiritual truth. So I'm just suggesting here this is one aspect that He just throws in to bring color to the story.

Now who are the tares? So vigilant and unresting an enemy as Satan has so many of them to sow; tares of fleshly wisdom, of pride, of procrastination, of sin. The tares are the children of the wicked one. We oft times say the term those holy tares, but they are unholy tares. The tares are the children of the wicked one; those are the sinners. Jesus said to the obstinate Jews of His day: "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do." So we know the tares are the sinners.

The wheat then is the good seed, the wheat and the children of the kingdom are equivalent terms. And in the previous parable, "the seed" was the word of the kingdom, here, "the good seed" is the product of that precious Word received, understood and obeyed, namely, those who through such become "children of the Kingdom." The Son of Man, as the Sower or Householder sows only good seed: lives transformed by, and embodying the Word of truth. It is the Redeemer's purpose to sow His redeemed ones in this world of sin and misery in order that there may be fruit for His glory and satisfaction for His travailed soul.

Now this is why He has sown you here where we live and labor. As one bought with a price and born of the Spirit, and a new creation in Him and an heir of eternal life...He expects you to bear fruit in the corner of the field of the world in which you were sowed. So you and I as Christians...God puts us in our world. We're going to be surrounded by tares, the sons of Satan, but He places us here to make our influence upon the world.

Now in regards to the servants who asked their Master if they should go and pull up the tares...Jesus did not identify them. There's possibly no way you could fit that idea into the gospel story. This aspect of the parable brings us though to the deepest of all the mysteries, namely, the origin of evil and its continuance in the world. This problem of the parable is as old as the human race. Now when Jesus said...when they asked Him, who did this? He said an enemy hath done this. Let's pause just for a moment.

I'm suggesting that in that particular phrase Christ introduces one of the most deepest and profoundest mysteries that we live with here on earth, and that is, where did evil come from? O you say, but Pastor, I've been taught that the devil was one of the angels in heaven and he became jealous of the throne of God, and he...then we ask the question, but if heaven is a place of perfection how did jealousy get in the heart of an angel? You see immediately you come to an issue where neither the philosopher nor the theologian has ever resolved.

When you read the great philosophies of Greece you'll find that they wrestle -- wherever did evil come from? Jesus said the devil did it; that an enemy hath done this. And there are all kinds of concepts. I read a book this week by Norman Geisler, which is an excellent book and it's called 'The Roots of Evil,' and he searches through philosophy and theology to find the answer. He comes to one conclusion -- we'll never know. You and I will never know why Satan appeared in the form of a serpent in the garden. You and I will always question, why did Jesus allow Judas in His team? Where did evil come from?

And I tell you ladies and gentlemen, even the wisest, the most brilliant of theologians, will take that question and say we'll never know till we arrive in heaven. And there never has been an answer that has been proposed, either by a theologian or a philosopher, as to the origin of evil. It's one of the mysteries we will never understand. You know I think this is one of the interesting things of being people of faith. There's a lot that we can understand, but you and I, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to see on that eternal day when we stand in His presence how much we really didn't understand and know about spiritual things.

We know this...the world is the scene upon which evil and goodness wrestle. We know this...that the tares are the sinners who disrupt the works of righteousness. We know the wheat is the children of the kingdom. I want you to go with me to Page 8, and here is what our parable teaches. You can read this when you get home this evening. You say, what is Jesus trying to say in this parable?

And I'll tell you what He's trying to say, I think three things. In conclusion, we ask the question...What are the spiritual lessons we learn from this parable?
(1) It teaches us that there is always a hostile power in the world, seeking and waiting to destroy the good seed. Pause.

You know, I think again one of the great things we wrestle with, even as we grow older and our hair grows gray, is we say, Lord Jesus, why not...if we get older why wouldn't it be easier to live in our world, and yet we find that again, sin is always there. Problems are always around us. And here's the conclusion we have to live with ladies and gentlemen, you and I are in a world controlled by Satan. He is the god of this world. You have to know that. Our enemy is around us and he seeks to devour us if he possibly can. That is a fact of life and as we make our journey we are constantly wrestling against the evil forces and we're going to always have a spiritual battle that's going to rage. It still rages -- I been fighting it all week here at the church, and you'll find it to be true and that battle never ceases until we cross the river of Jordan in death and forever we are with Christ. But evil is always with us and it never changes.

It's an interesting thing. When you read history you'll find that men who wrote 500 years ago, 400 years ago, 300 years ago...they had the deep conviction that they were living in the very last days of time. They saw sin abounding on every hand. And they believed that Jesus could come any time, and here we are 2000 years removed and the battle of sin and righteousness still continues, ladies and gentlemen, and it will while this world lasts.

(2) It teaches us how hard it is to distinguish between those who are in the Kingdom and those who are not. And let's pause with this one. You know, they said, Jesus, shall we go out and pluck up the wicked ones, pick up the darnel? Jesus said, no, let them grow together. The Bible makes it very clear - by their fruit ye shall know them. But the Bible also makes it very clear for us that we be extremely cautious in judging others. And I think that that again as part of the lesson here. We are so quick to say because they don't believed like us they're wrong and we are right.

I believe when we arrive in heaven, ladies and gentlemen, we're all going to be amazed who got there and who didn't. Because only God knows the heart, and we are too quick, I think, at times to pick out people and judge them to be sinners. We might not see any evidence, but we do not read their heart and I think part of the lesson that's taught in this parable is - as we make our journey through life be very, very cautious how you judge other people.

It's obvious that some are deceitful workers of wickedness, that's not the case, but I'm saying we must be very, very cautious within the body of Christ how we judge one another. You never know a heart

On down to the third: It teaches us that judgment does come in the end. Judgment is not hasty, but judgment does come. "But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

So in this parable concerning the kingdom here's the picture...God is telling us that planted in a world of sin He plants the seed of righteousness and we are the children of righteousness. We are here for a purpose, to so live our faith and our love for Christ that we affect the world around us. Just remember, we're also to be very, very cautious as to how we judge. And we must always live with the knowledge that one of these days we're all going to stand before Almighty God. We're all going to have to give an account as to our deeds that have been done in the flesh. And so Jesus said as children of the kingdom live out your faith in a world surrounded by tares knowing that the day will come when we will all stand before Him and give an account. An interesting parable, isn't it? Jesus used stories to tell us divine truth.

Jesus, we can go through these parables and it's obvious we do not know all of the various facets and maybe truths that You wanted to imply in these parables. But You did make it very clear that You are the Son of God, the Son of Man, and that You are the sower. You made it very clear that You would sow good seed and it would spring forth in the hearts of men and women in our world, and we'll grow together. We'll live side-by-side with a sinner who is the child of the devil. And our challenge of course is to so live our life and to live our faith that we affect the world around us and our community in which we live. And we live with a sense of the harvest.

We sit here on this beautiful Saturday evening in the early part of the summertime and we sit here as Christians knowing that the day will come when the trump shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to be with You. But we are also aware that that will be the day the angels will come and gather from the four corners of the earth, and then the great separation will take place. The sons of the kingdom will shine as light forever, and the sons of darkness will spend eternity in hell. We live with that knowledge.

We live with the promise that in serving You, You shall on that eternal day say to us, well done thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. That's what our hearts desire to here on that eternal day, and for that harvest day we live. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you for this wonderful group of people who have come this evening to spend this time in Your house and Your Word. May Your blessings rest upon us now I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you folks.