27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir,
didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are
pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both
grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First
collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat
and bring it into my barn.’”
Jesus explains this parable when the disciples ask
Him to.
Matthew
13: 36 – 40
36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His
disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the
field.”
37 He answered, “The one who sowed the
good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good
seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil
one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the
end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the
fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will
send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that
causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the
fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He
who has ears, let him hear. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013:36%20-%2043&version=NIV1984)
In this scripture Jesus is telling
us that we are going to have to live amongst weeds in this world. At some point the people of this world, who
choose to do evil will be pulled out and only the true sons of God will remain. As I read this scripture I had to think of
not only the outside world but the world inside our churches today. It was the same for Jesus, if you recall, at
one point He went to the temple and turned over the tables of those who were
there to make a profit. He told them to
get out because this was a place for prayer not for robbers, Matthew 21:12 – 13, Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who
were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers
and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It
is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are
making it a ‘den of robbers. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2021:%2012%20-%2013&version=NIV1984) It seems to me that we are trying to attract the outside
world into our churches. Yes, we want
the lost to find the Savior but at times I believe we might let our standards
drop just a little to try to get them inside the door. Those who are attracted to the Lord and
Savior should do so because of the prompting of the Holy Spirit not by the
music we play, the clothes we wear or the hip pastor that we may have. We should be living a life full of the Holy
Spirit that others see and want. We should
be telling others of the love of our Father and showing them the way, not
telling them about our cool praise team or the dynamic minister. The heart of the church should be about
praising our Lord and Savior, urging fellow believers to know more of our Lord
and Savior, spurring each other on to spread the Good News, and encouraging one
another as we live a life where weeds seem to come in and try to choke us of
our joy. Yet, in today’s society we seem
to be trying to attract the world to the church rather than to Christ. We have changed the process of worship to
meet society needs and wants, we have tried to make the church look like the
world with all of its worldly pleasures all in the name of spreading the
Gospel. In essence, we bring in the
weeds into the fellowship of believers.
Stop Sheila, what are you saying?
Shouldn’t we be sharing the Gospel with everyone, shouldn’t we want
these people to come to church? Of
course we want to spread the Gospel but what I am saying is nothing more than
what Paul said in I Corinthians 5:6-11,
9 I have written
you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10
not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and
swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11
But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls
himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a
slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. 12
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to
judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the
wicked man from among you.”
Often times we look at the early
church as our example as the Lord was adding to their numbers daily, as the
scripture tells us in Acts 2: 42 – 47, 42 They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of
bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many
wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the
believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling
their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke
bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47
praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to
their number daily those who were being saved.
What I want you to take special note
of is that they were obeying the Lord, meeting together, seeking Him, and HE
added to their numbers. It was not
because of some new program or some dynamic speaker it was because they had
glad and sincere hearts. They weren’t
grumbling because they had so much to do in the church they were praising God,
their lives were about serving Him. Wow,
that is a lesson to be learned. Yet even
at that, they had those who were not living the life the Lord would have them
to live and the weeds began to grow. There was sexual immorality among them,
idolaters, slanderers, drunkards, greedy, and swindlers.
Satan wants nothing more than to
take hold of the church like he has taken hold of this world. The church is a place where Christian can be
set apart from the world. Yes, we should
want the Lord to add to the numbers, yes we want more people to see the truth
and be set free but are we going out and sowing or are we allowing the weeds to
come in and choke us out? If you think I
am incorrect, go to Revelation 2 and
read what the Lord had to say to the seven churches. I believe that if we are really honest with
ourselves we can each identify our churches with at least one of those churches
that He is speaking to.
It is my firm belief that if we
truly seek Him with all our hearts, we will begin to not only see the example
that we are to follow but we will become that example to others through the
work of the Holy Spirit. Seek Him with
all your hearts and bring glory to Him in all you say and do.
Seeking Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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