Difficulty Living with the Weeds

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 13th chapter. So Jesus put another parable 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 also. And the servants of the master of the house came to him and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?

He said to them, An enemy has done this. So the servants said to him, Well, then do you want us to go and gather them? But he said, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the weed along with them.

Let them both grow together until the harvest. And at the harvest time I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned. But gather the weed into my barn. Then he left the crowds and went into the house.

And his disciples came to him saying, Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. He answered, The one who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seed is the children of the kingdom.

The weeds are the sons of the evil one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the clothes of the age. And the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the clothes of the age.

The son of man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears, let him hear. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus.

Amen. Weeds.

Wheat, an enemy, and a fiery furnace. There's a lot going on in this parable today. And you'll note that what's going on in this parable is the first time we hear in the parables of Jesus any kind of a reference to hell.

And I will make this note, that Jesus himself, it's as if he decided when it comes to the doctrine of hell, he better be the one who preaches about it the most. Could you imagine, liberals today, if Paul was the one who preached on hell the most?

They would say, man, that guy, there was something wrong with him. Because all he ever seemed to preach about was hell. We can just dismiss his words. Hell doesn't exist. But it was our Lord and Savior who talked about hell.

So we need to consider this particular parable very carefully in what it says here. And we will note that eternal judgment is mentioned. But the other bit of it is a description of the reality that we find ourselves in.

Have you ever noticed that this life's hard, difficult? That as a Christian confessing Christ, confessing your hope in the forgiveness of sins, your belief that Jesus died for you, your hope of a new world to come, your belief in right and wrong, good and evil, up and down, all of those things have been turned upside down today, right?

Have you ever noticed that while living with a lot of weeds seems to be a bit of a challenge? And so you'll note that our epistle text is going to help us in dealing with that. There's a lot of concepts we need to take a look at.

The Malicious Enemy and the Meaning of the Field

So our gospel text, it says that Jesus put another parable before his disciples. And you'll note that at this point we get another inspired interpretation of the parables, which is a good thing. Because by the time we get to the end of chapter 13, Jesus is going to go, you guys understand how to understand these things now?

And they'll go, yep, we got it. So pay attention to how the parables are interpreted. It's really not that hard. You look for the Christ figure and what the different pieces are pointing to and then you can see what's going on.

And again, I remind you, Jesus preached in parables so that people would not understand him. Me as a pastor, I sit in there going, you want me to preach on something that people don't understand? Why?

But anyway, so here's our parable. The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. And while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.

Now that's a pretty malicious enemy. This is sabotage of the highest degree. I mean, think of it. Back in the day, they didn't have Hugos. They didn't have Sam's Club. They didn't even have Happy Harry's.

So if you wanted things to eat, to drink and stuff like that, you had to grow it. And so this is the sabotage of a kind where your enemy basically is saying, I want to make sure you're dead, that you're going to starve to death over the winter.

That's kind of the sabotage that's going on here. It lets you know the slander and malice of the devil. And so consider that. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has an enemy. He does. And it's because of this enemy that we find ourselves in the sinful condition, in the broken world that we are in.

So the servant said to the master, and we learn from the interpretation that these are the angels, they come to Jesus and say, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?

And the enemy did this. The enemy's done it. So the servant said to him, well then do you want us to go and gather them? He said, no, no, no, less than gathering the weeds you root up the weed along with them.

Have you ever had those times when you're sitting there going, you know, the world has just gone bonkers. Evil just seems to abound all of a sudden, right? And nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

In fact, if you speak out against the evil, well then, you're in trouble. And have you ever thought, how long before God actually deals with this? Well, no, if God's going to definitively put an end to evil, that's going to be the end of us too.

So, yeah, you'll note that Jesus in his wisdom decides, you know, for the sake of the wheat, it's best to let things go until the harvest day. So he's thinking about the wheat here. But that means that in the world then, we're going to grow up together with weeds.

And weeds and wheat don't seem to be getting along. Now, in plant world, I don't know how hostile they are to each other. Plant hostility is one of these things that I wonder about. I've heard about it.

But let's just say that in the real world that we live in, weeds and wheat don't get along very well. And usually the hostility is started by the weeds. That's how that goes. So, let them both grow together until the harvest.

I'll tell the reapers, gather the weeds first. Bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. And here's our inspired interpretation of this parable. They came to him and explained to us this parable.

He said, the one who sows the good seed, that's the Son of Man, that's Jesus. The field is the world. Always and again, I always find it fascinating when somebody messes up a text like this. One of the Eleathians said that a church they had gone to in the past, their pastor said that the field was the church.

And so there were weeds and wheat in the church, and you had to do your hardest to make sure you weren't a weed. That's a miserable, miserable sermon. Complete botching of the text and confusion of law and gospel.

But you'll note, this is the world that's being discussed here. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and that's how unbelievers are described. The enemy who sowed them, that's the devil. The harvest is the clothes of the age.

The reapers are the angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the clothes of the age. And listen to this next verse. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers.

So much for a pre-trib rapture. That kind of blows that one out of the water. First to go are the sinners, not the Christians. I'm just saying, that's what the text says. So you'll note then that there is a day coming when all of this will come to an end.

And we confessed in the Creed that we believe that Jesus is coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead. And listen to what Christ says happens after that day of judgment. The weeds will be thrown into the fiery furnace.

Now that's a phrase that doesn't appear too often in Scripture. First time you hear of a fiery furnace is in the book of Daniel. And that's a type and shadow of our salvation. You think of Nebuchadnezzar as a stand-in for the devil, wanting to throw people into the fiery furnace for not worshiping him.

Sounds a lot like the devil to me. But what does Christ do? He saves those who trust in him from the fiery furnace. And he saves each and every one of us also from the fiery furnace. So do not be deceived.

We are not saved from a bad hair day. We are not saved from a broken hangnail. We are not saved from, well, the slipsies and oopsies and annoyances of this life. We are saved from the wrath of God itself.

That's what we are saved from. And God's wrath is described as the fiery furnace. And Jesus says, in that place there will be weeping and there will be gnashing of teeth. This is what Christ bled and died so that we would not have to experience.

So you'll note then, when you hear the phrase, Jesus says he's going to send out his angels and they're going to gather up all the lawbreakers, it's really easy to get anxiety and go, whoa, wait a second, I think I'm one of those.

Because, well, I'm looking at the commandments and I've broken those commandments today, yesterday, last week, last month, last year. I'm pretty sure, yeah, there's an unbroken chain of lawbreaking that goes all the way back to my conception.

Same with you. But see, brothers and sisters, fear not. You are wheat. How do I know? Well, you've been watered in the waters of baptism. You've been joined to Christ in his death and his resurrection.

He's taken your sin upon himself. And he's gone to the cross. All your lawbreaking, he bore. And he suffered the fiery furnace of the cross in your place and mine so that we can be forgiven. So rather than have anxiety, take comfort and note that there is a day coming when all of this will come to an end.

And then when it all comes to an end, Jesus says, the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father, so he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So pay attention. Pay attention to the end.

Where is it all going? Because in the midst of this, I don't know if you've noticed, life is really hard and getting harder. Consider the words of Christ in the book of Revelation chapter 2 to the church in Smyrna.

Listen to these words. This kind of typifies what it's like for we wheat to live among the weeds. It's just not easy. Christ says to the angel, to the Angelos, you could almost say the pastor of the church of Smyrna because pastors are messengers of the Lord.

My job is to preach the word and give you a word from God. Here's what Jesus says. The words of the first and the last, the one who died and came to life, don't let those words go by too quickly. You'll note that Christ is providing comfort to the church in Smyrna so don't forget this.

Not only did Jesus die, he rose again. He's conquered death. And here's the best part. He's not saving us from death. He's not saving us from suffering. He's not saving us from trials and tribulations.

He's saving us through them. So he says to the congregation at Smyrna, I know your tribulation. I know your poverty, but you're rich. Don't let your circumstances fool you. Though you do not have a penny in your bank account and you be poverty stricken.

If you are in Christ, you are wealthy beyond your wildest imagination. Not in this world. And he says this, I know your poverty and I know the slander of those who say they are Jews but are not, but they are part of the synagogue of Satan.

Oh, that's the other part of it. Isn't it fun when you're being slandered by people who basically identify themselves with God, but you can tell by their slander that they're not from God? When the devil speaks his native language, he's lying.

It says of the dragon that he was cast out of heaven and before he was cast out of heaven, what was he? He was the slanderer of the saints. It was as if his only job when he had access to God in heaven was to sit there and say, that guy sinned.

That guy sinned. Send him to hell. Send him to hell. Always accusing the saints. So Christ said, fine, I'm going to take away your ability to accuse my saints. I'm going to go to earth, be born of the Virgin Mary, suffer, bleed, die, rise again for their sins.

And so all of your sins are accounted for. The record of debt that stood against you, completely canceled, nailed to the cross. So the devil doesn't have a foothold to accuse you with anything anymore.

Not before God. So what does the devil do? He's changed focus. Well, if I can't get God to listen to me, I'll get everybody else. Those Christians, they're a bunch of haters. They're a bunch of fear mongers.

They're closed-minded bigots. Right? This is how it goes. I know your tribulation, your poverty, and the slander of those who say they are Jews, but are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Don't fear what you are about to suffer.

Excuse me? I wanted my best life now. Yeah, don't fear what you're about to suffer. Christ says, you're going to suffer. So what do we do in the face of suffering? Don't fear. Why? Well, remember what he said.

I died and came to life. So don't fear. Do not fear what you're about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, so that you may be tested for ten days. And there's the bit that's kind of fun.

So when you look at the book of Revelation, oftentimes numbers are symbolic. Was this a literal ten days that happened in Smyrna? Maybe. But you'll note that this is a letter not only written to the church of Smyrna, this is written to all of us.

There's a little bit of Smyrna here that applies even in tongues of anger. So, in the midst of trial and tribulation, don't worry, it's only for ten days. I mean, ten days, that's pretty much the time of a decent honeymoon.

In Aruba, someplace exotic. But isn't it like this? Have you ever been on a vacation, like a ten day vacation? And the day you arrive, you recognize you only have nine days left. Right? And it's the worst thing ever.

You go on vacation and the only thing you can think about, in two days I've got to pack up and go back home. Right? And so what happens is that wonderful ten day vacation, that time off, that time away, it comes to an end just like this.

Ten days is nothing. It's a decent vacation. So Jesus says that's how long your testing is going to take place. Just ten days, no big deal. You can get through that. So don't fear. It's only for ten days.

Brothers and sisters, our life here on this earth is just like that. God says that we are a mist. We are like the grass of the field. It's here today, piled up in bundles and burned tomorrow. The crops that you see so green in the fields today.

The corn that's already past our knees and chest high. The wheat that, oh, it's just that perfect green color and you know that in a couple weeks it's going to be a golden brown. Right? In just a few weeks, the snow is going to come back.

Don't stone me for saying that. The snow is coming back and you know what I'm talking about. And we will be thinking about the summer of 2020 in the rear view mirror and it's going to happen tomorrow.

So what do we have to look forward to? Well, Jesus says this. He says don't fear. You may be tested for ten days and you're going to have tribulation. So be faithful unto death. Unto what? Yeah, death.

Keep believing until you die. It's only going to be ten days from now. And I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

By the fiery furnace. That's what the second death is. So how do we conquer? By believing. The saints conquer by the blood of the Lamb. He's the one who's forgiven us. He's the one who's already conquered.

And what does he say? I've already conquered death and came back to life. You'll be here in ten days. No big deal. Just hang on. Keep your eyes on what's coming. And that's really the point of what we see in our epistle text.

Consider these words of comfort then as we consider life together as weeds in wheat. Paul says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Do you realize in ten days we're all going to be looking back going man, that was nothing. Nothing compared to the glory that we see. The face of God. The new heavens. The new earth. Worshipping in his presence.

The heavenly Jerusalem. The sufferings of this present time, they're not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. You see, right now, the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

The creation itself was subjected to futility, not willingly, because of him who subjected it in hope. So that the creation itself will finally be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

You see, that day is coming. That's the day after the angels gather up the weeds in the wheat. That's the day after when all of a sudden, all of this world, and what is this world marked by? Death. Have you ever stopped to think for a second how morbid it is that we have refrigerators in our refrigerators?

We have meat that we keep cold. Our refrigerators are basically morgues. Right? You'll never eat. You'll go vegan after this, I can tell. All right. Good. But the idea here is that even our diet is all based on death.

It is. But see, this whole world has been subjected to death, decay, to futility. I mean, have you noticed that the pyramids in Egypt just don't look as good as they used to a few thousand years ago? Right?

All of the great empires of the past lie in ruins. Oh, believe me when I tell you, if Christ tarries, the great empire of America will lie in ruins. It looks like we're going to commit suicide. Right?

All of this is because of the futility of our sin. We know that the whole creation is groaning together in the pains of childbirth. And childbirth is not an easy thing. I've witnessed my wife do it three times, and I can't make eye contact because if I do, I'm going to get in trouble.

Not you, Ashley. But you get the idea, right? And so here's the thing. If the creation is in child pain, is in labor, what's it about to give birth to? The new heavens, the new earth. And this creation is going to die in childbirth.

Thank God. So keep your eyes on what's coming. But not only that, not only the creation, we ourselves who have the first roots of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons and the redemption of our bodies.

And that's what we're waiting for, for the completion of our salvation. And boy, I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to seeing my feet again. I wonder what they look like. For in this hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. So note then, we're waiting. We're waiting. So don't fear. Do not be afraid.

Keep looking to what's coming, the glory that will be revealed, the new earth that we will be in the presence of, the place where we will live so that we won't even think about the suffering that we go through.

It's only for 10 days. So in the midst of it, what are we to do? Pray. Pray. Likewise, the Spirit then helps us in our weakness. And we are weak. We don't even know what to pray for as we ought. So God himself helps us and the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us.

You ever feel like your prayers are weak and not quite up to snuff? Well, that's because they are. But don't worry. The Holy Spirit is going to fill the gap there. His groanings are too deep for words.

He who searches the hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So brothers and sisters, that's a lot of ground to cover in one parable.

But it's all there if you think about it. Our Lord has an enemy. We have an enemy. This is why we are in the predicament we're in. But Christ has saved us from that enemy. And don't worry, the harvest, it'll be here soon.

Really, really soon. So take heart. Conquer through the blood of Christ, through your faith and trust in Jesus, not by your works. And in the meantime, like all good Christians, continue to pray and know this, that the Holy Spirit himself is also praying for you and interceding.

So, if God is for us, who can be against us? In the name of Jesus,.

Amen.

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