Sunday, March 27, 2022 PM

The Gospel of Matthew, we have finished our study of chapter 24 of Matthew, and at the very beginning of chapter 25, there is an important transition which takes place, wherein

Jesus says, now the kingdom of heaven is like. And, of course, by the time you read all the way to chapter 25 in Matthew, you had better become familiar with the topic of the kingdom of heaven.

If you don't, you might be a little bit lost as to the importance of what is being said when

Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like. So, to give ourselves the best understanding of what

Jesus has to say in chapter 25 of Matthew, we have backed up in the

Gospel of Matthew to chapter 13, to begin to look at what else

Jesus has said, what else Jesus has said concerning the kingdom of heaven.

He has said a lot. Last week, you were given a handout which lists over a dozen various parables, stories that Jesus told to explain this very important topic, the kingdom of heaven.

And so, tonight, we are going to look particularly at the second parable in Matthew 13, the parable of the wheat and the tares.

And before we read that parable, I'm going to do a little bit more teaching on the kingdom of heaven, its themes as it appears in Scripture.

The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, whether we're reading in the Gospel of Matthew or Mark or Luke, is used interchangeably in the very same parables from Gospel to Gospel.

It is used interchangeably in the very same sayings that Jesus has from Gospel to Gospel. So, Jesus was not trying to be tricky and sneaky and talk about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God and deceive people into thinking that these were two different things.

They are the very same thing as is proven by any casual reading of the text.

Keeping this in mind, we recognize the source of authority in just simply the statement saying the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven.

We are immediately made aware that this is a kingdom whose authority is divine, whose authority comes from a throne not upon the earth, but a throne from heaven.

Now what is a kingdom? A kingdom involves a people, a kingdom involves a place, and a kingdom involves a rule of authority.

When you put a bunch of people together in a place under a common rule of authority, a king's authority, you have a kingdom.

And so if you have a kingdom of God, it's God's people in God's place under God's rule.

It's a theme that we see in many places, but when Jesus says the kingdom of heaven, he's thinking of something very particular.

He's thinking of something very particular. And for that, we only have to go back to Daniel chapter 2.

In Daniel chapter 2, we're in Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream, a dream about kingdoms, very important kingdoms, strong kingdoms, the kingdom of Babylon and the kingdom of Medo -Persia, the kingdom of Greece and the kingdom of Rome.

Each of these were mighty. They spanned the known world in their own times. They had wealth beyond reckoning, power complete, and yet each one was succeeded by the other.

And the golden head made way for the silver chest and arms, made way for the bronze waist and thighs, made way for the iron legs and the feet of iron and stone, the clay feet of iron and stone.

And even though this statue, this statue of the empires of man stood upon the earth and were obviously empires of the earth, kingdoms of the earth, kingdoms of men, there was a greater kingdom that was displayed in that dream that Nebuchadnezzar had.

And this kingdom was not from the earth. It was a stone uncut by human hands.

It was not graven like this image was. It was a graven image of these empires, but the stone was uncut by human hands and it was sent by God.

Verse 44 of Daniel chapter 2, in the interpretation of the dream, in the interpretation of the stone, which struck the statue on its feet, indicating what empire, in what empire does the stone appear?

It did not strike the head, the chest or the waist, even the lower legs, but right into the feet of this statue.

This stone crushed the statue. This stone then became a great mountain which filled the whole earth.

Now with the interpretation, verse 44, in the days of these kings, which kings?

The kings that were revealed in this dream, in this statue. In the days of these kings, the text says, verse 44, the

God of heaven, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. Now doesn't that sound familiar?

We read about God setting up a kingdom, the God of heaven setting up a kingdom.

Well where do you think Jesus got the phrase kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven? Could it be he got it from Daniel?

I would say that's a safe assumption. Kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God.

In the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever.

The paganism, the wickedness, the abominations, the philosophies, the worldly speculations raised up against the knowledge of God which arose out of Babylon and Medo -Persia and Greece and Rome, their pagan witchcraft did not survive the crushing power of Christ.

There was a new kingdom that would not be destroyed.

So, in verse 44 we have this kingdom which God sets up, the God of heaven sets up this kingdom.

Last Wednesday we were reading in Luke 17 and the Pharisees asked Jesus, well when is this kingdom of God going to come?

Why don't you just tell us that? And he says, well it's already showed up and you're not paying attention. It's already in your midst.

Now, in thinking about that we remember from Daniel chapter 2 that the kingdom that God sets up, the kingdom that God sets up, the kingdom of heaven is not like the kingdoms of the earth.

Jesus says my kingdom is not of this world. Just like his followers are not of this world.

We're not to be of this world, we're supposed to be in the world and very much so Christ's kingdom is in this world even though it is not of this world.

Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes in Luke 17 that it's in your midst, it's among you already.

And that helps us understand a little bit more when we're going to read this parable of the wheat and the tares. So it's about Christ's rule, about Christ's authority.

He reigns from the right hand of the Father, a name above every name. All authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth, he says in Matthew 28.

And first Corinthians 15 says he will reign from the right hand of God until every enemy is placed as a footstool for his feet and the last enemy is death.

Looking forward to that one, being defeated. Now another parable, verse 24,

Matthew 13, 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 the man 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 to then 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.

So you see, Jesus tells a story to illustrate the kingdom of heaven. And he says, it's like a quandary.

The quandary is this. The man owns the field.

He's in total control of the field. He has sown good seed, but in his field there are also tares.

This becomes evident to everyone. Look, there's wheat in your field and there are tares in your field.

Now, what will the man do? The servants say, Let's get rid of these tares.

Let's go ahead and just take them out. And then the owner of the field wisely says,

No, no, here's my decision. We're going to let all of this grow up into its fruition.

And then only when the time is right, then we're going to remove the tares out first so that we can get at the wheat and safely bring the wheat into the barn for harvest.

Another agricultural story, a story in which the folks would know something about, you know, weeds among the wheat afflicting the harvest.

And what do you do? A quandary that the audience could relate to. Now, as we have said,

Jesus is telling all of these parables. But then later on, Jesus' disciples want to know more. So we skip ahead to verse 36.

Then Jesus sent the multitudes 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 the 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. So what is the field?

The world. Nine times out of ten, when

I've heard this parable taught, the first thing that comes out of the expositor's mouth is, now the field is the church.

I have no idea why that persists. Sometimes when a reader says, well, excuse me, it says the world,

I say, well, in this case, world means church. Give me a break. Give me a break.

Yeah, I went and checked the Greek. It's cosmos. It's the whole big thing. It's not even world in the

King James usage of age, ion. It's not even that. It's not that. It's world, cosmos.

It's not erits, which could mean earth or land, a particular region. No, it's cosmos. It's the big one.

The big one. Jesus says the field is the world. Well, that's clarifying.

Thank you. That shouldn't be hard. The field is the world. Now, notice that the sower of the seed in the story, the owner of the field, now

Jesus says the field is the world, and then he identifies the one who sows the seed as the son of man.

So the son of man owns the what? The world. Doesn't Hebrews say he's the heir of all things?

Doesn't he get everything? I mean, all things from him and through him and to him, all things for Christ.

Yeah, so he says the field is the world, and the one who owns the field is the one who sows the seed, and that's the son of man.

Now, son of man is usually excellent explanatory language for when we're talking about the kingdom.

Where does the language son of man come from? It comes from Daniel chapter 7, revealing

Christ having ascended to the ancient of days and receives from him a dominion which will not be destroyed, an everlasting dominion, and all peoples and nations will serve him.

So that's a great title to use of Jesus Christ, who owns the world and is talking about what it's like to live in his kingdom.

That makes sense. Son of man is a royal title given to Christ, talking about that he has a kingdom, an everlasting dominion which will never be destroyed, the mountain that fills the earth and will not be overturned or shaken.

But you know, one of the questions that Jesus' disciples are going to have, and one of the questions that I have, is how is

Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, at the right hand of God, at the highest throne, the highest vantage point, the most power, the most authority, he's ruling and reigning even now,

I believe that's what the scriptures, I believe it, the scriptures say it, I believe it. And then why are there so many problems?

I mean, have you seen the world lately? There are a lot of problems.

This parable explains what is going on. The field is the world.

Now, we have a good sower of seed, the son of man, and he sows a lot of good seed.

He sows seed so much that by the time we get to Revelation 7, it's a multitude that no man can count.

So I'm not complaining about how much seed he plants that comes to fruition, because I can't count that high.

But at the same time, we see, even today, there are problems everywhere. Well, how do we explain that?

Well, we don't quite explain everything, but we recognize that the tares are the sons of the wicked one, we're told.

We're also told that the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed as the borders, oh, the borders are here or the borders are over there.

But the kingdom of God is among you, in your midst, kind of like wheat growing up in a field, and there's tares and wheat, and they're all growing up together in the same field.

See? This is consistent with what Jesus explains in Luke 17. This is consistent with this.

So the tares and the wheat are both growing up together. And one of the great questions that many people have when they look at the pain and the suffering and the sorrow and the misery and just the evil, just absolute evil going on in the world today, is why doesn't

God just fix this? Right? Why doesn't he just, you know, hit the smite button and take care of all of this right now?

But we see in Jesus' explanation, he emphasizes the goodness of the sower of the seed, that he knows what's best.

Now, the servants are like, let's get rid of these tares, and the owner says, no, we're going to fix the maximally good point.

When we will do the most good, then the tares will be taken away, and then the wheat will safely be gathered into the barn.

So in other words, all will continue till the end of this age.

What does this age refer to? The kingdom of heaven. The age of the kingdom of heaven.

In the days of these kings, God sets up a kingdom, right? In the days of Tiberius.

The righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

This is pretty much the same program that the Apostle Paul writes about in 1

Corinthians 15 verses 20 -26. Exact same sequence of events. So, the wheat and tares are separated at the end.

Now, that's going to be a theme. Remember, the whole goal here is that we're going to try to understand what Jesus is saying in Matthew 25.

And at the end of Matthew 25, we have that famous story of sorting things out, and who gets put on the right and who gets put on the left?

Goats on the right? No. Goats on the left. Sheep on the right. There's a sifting. There's a separation of here and here.

Just like there's a separation between wise servants and foolish servants. Separation between wise virgins and foolish virgins.

And so on and so forth. In the stories that Jesus tells, there's a great sifting that occurs at the end.

Okay? So, how does this parable teach us to live in this kingdom of heaven in which we now live?

Jesus told his disciples, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, on the basis of that authority, and go make disciples of all the nations.

What's that going to look like? Is it going to be a making disciple of nations in a sense that we're going to make a completely, thoroughly, every citizen of this country is going to be a

Christian? No. Making disciples of the ethnoid, the peoples, the

Gentiles, all the different people groups making disciples. Teaching them who

Christ is. Calling them to repentance and faith. Calling them to follow Christ because he has all authority. Notice in this kingdom of heaven that Jesus, the son of man, is in charge of the whole field.

He's even in charge of the tares. He's in charge of those who offend.

He's in charge of those who practice lawlessness. He's in charge of the sons of the wicked one.

He's in charge of them too. Because he's king of kings and lord of lords.

And he determines when the judgment is to be brought to pass. Because the son of man owns the field and the field is the world.

So we see the sovereignty of the king of kings and the lord of lords. Now how does this help us live now?

It's an excellent explainer when we're trying to follow

Jesus and love him and follow the lamb wherever he goes.

Sing this song of the redeemed and follow the lamb wherever he goes. How are we going to explain and make an account for all these horrible things happening around us?

Well, you know, we immediately recognize the desire where we want everything to be resolved right now.

Get me out of this. God, please just end all the problems right now, please. Why don't you just take out the wicked?

But then we are to trust the goodness and the sovereign timing of the one in charge.

He's going to work it in such a way where all of the wheat are safely gathered into the barn.

Sounds good to me. And he's going to make sure that all that deserve the judgment will be judged.

And he's the one who's going to make sure that it's sorted and he's going to make sure that justice is done.

So what does that require of us? It requires of us patience. It requires of us faith, that we walk by faith and not by sight.

Correct? Jesus is king of kings and lord of lords. Yes, but I don't see that proven everywhere now.

Welcome to walking by faith. Okay? God is just and righteous and he will judge the wicked.

Yeah, but look at all these examples of wicked people having a great time. Welcome to walking by faith.

We walk by faith, not by sight, that Jesus Christ is king of kings and lord of lords and that he will bring all this to a satisfying end.

And Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Okay, questions or thoughts about this parable?

Right, yeah, so because we're made in the image of God, we have a great instinct within us to see that justice is done.

Limited in our capacities and often tainted by our own sin, we don't always know how that's supposed to actually happen.

And the justice systems of the earth, of the world have never really been great at dispensing justice.

So our trust is in the Lord that he will see it done.

So there's patience upon our part and living by faith.

Yes, so think about the explanatory phrases in the model prayer.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. When you say our Father in heaven, you've already hallowed his name.

These lines are blended together. They're reinforcing each other.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What does it mean for the kingdom of heaven to come other than that God's will in heaven be done upon earth?

It's the kingdom of heaven. It's the rule of heaven being instituted amongst those on earth.

The examples that we have that Jesus talks about in terms of the kingdom is that it grows like leaven within a lump of dough.

It spreads. It gets everywhere. So your kingdom come, certainly, yes.

We look for the final, ultimate victory, the return of Christ, and he hands the kingdom over to his

Father. And the Father is fully pleased in all that the Son has done in his perfect stewardship of this kingdom.

We certainly should look forward to that. That is our blessed hope that we all look forward to.

And that would be part of praying your kingdom come. But in this sense, remember that we are, first of all, praising

God in his name rather than making for ourselves a name like they did on the plains of Shinar building the

Tower of Babel. And we say your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So his authority and his priorities before our own.

And in fact, we want to be living according to the word of God because man does not live by bread alone.

We'll pray for God's word to come to pass first before we pray for our daily bread. You see how this is flowing?

So in the model prayer, when we're praying for God's kingdom to come, we should pray for it to come in the fashion that Jesus says it does.

And we have examples of that in the preaching of the gospel and the calling for people to submit to the king.

And wherever people submit to the king, submit to Christ, and are born again, a renewal takes place in their lives where things are changed.

And the character of God becomes more and more evident in the lives of these people as they are sanctified and renewed in the image of God who is

Christ. To become more Christ -like means to become more godly. And godliness is simply living in the image of God.

And as the image of God is renewed and renewed and renewed in Christ, wherever that is, you see the kingdom of God spreading and growing and flourishing.

And so sometimes we're in the sovereign reign of Christ is acknowledged and people fear

God. And the more you see communities saturated with the fear of the

Lord, you see communities that are blessed beyond measure. Great joy.

The Puritans were by no means perfect, but they had a lot of fear of God and there were a lot of blessings that for generations blessed our country.

You know? We're blessed by that, by all, when they feared the

Lord and followed Christ and served him and recognized him as master and king, that brought blessing to generations and generations.

They didn't fix everything. They couldn't go pull all the tears out, but it does matter.

So we're not sitting around, you know, but those will be other parables that talk to us about those emphases.

We didn't sign up for a picnic, yeah. So the terrors are there, right?

An enemy has done this. Well, so the reason why we don't be discouraged is because we always have the end in mind.

We always have the end in mind. Remember that Jesus Christ for the joy set before him endured the cross and that we are told to follow in his steps, that for the joy set ahead of us that we go and do what

God has called us to do. All right, well, let's close by singing the doxology together.