Tares Among Wheat
14th November 2021
Jesus presented another parable to 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 tares among the wheat, and went away.
“But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.
“The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’
“And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’
“But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them.
“Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.””
Matthew 13:24-30
This is one of a number of parables in which Jesus spoke about the kingdom and just like the parable of the sower, it comes with an explanation from Jesus. We find the explanation in verses 36 to 43. In His explanation, Jesus tells us that the good seed represents believers (Christians) and the tares represent unbelievers. It is Jesus who sows the believers and the Devil who sows the unbelievers. The sowing of the seeds by both parties occurs in the current age that we are living in known as the Church Age and the harvest occurs at the end of the Church Age. Prior to the harvest, the tares and the wheat grow side by side and are hard to tell apart because they are both green and have a similar appearance. However, as harvest approaches their appearance becomes distinct. The tares become black and the wheat become golden. Jesus tells us that the harvest occurs at the end of this age. At that time, it is easy to distinguish between the tares and the wheat and they are separated by the angels. The tares are judged and thrown into the fire (Hell) and the wheat go through into the barn (the millennial kingdom).
Along with other teachings by Jesus, this parable warns us that the Devil plants false Christians amongst true Christians. This has been going on since the beginning of the Church and is still going on today. The false Christians are planted in the Church in order to do harm in all sorts of ways but most of all by corrupting the Church through false teachings and practices. These false Christians often get into places of influence such as leaders of churches and theological colleges. A friend of mine who was familiar with theological colleges thirty years ago was alarmed at the way that many false teachers were getting into evangelical colleges and evangelical Christians were standing by and letting it happen. These false Christians were then having a bad influence on the next generation of church leaders. I could give many more examples.
Over the many years that I have been a Christian I have become more and more aware of how widespread this problem of tares among the wheat is. There are far more tares in the Church than most people realise and most true Christians lack the ability to identify the tares. This is partly through ignorance and partly through a lack of maturity. Most true Christians don’t have a proper understanding of what I call the marks of a Christian. Please see my teaching on ‘The Authentic Marks of a Christian’ which tells you what to look for in a true Christian. As a result of their ignorance most Christians tolerate false Christians in their midst and allow them to have a bad influence.
In my life time I have seen a massive increase in the prevalence and influence of tares in the church to the point were most of the Church has become utterly corrupt. The extent of false teaching and the depth of its depravity has plumbed depths never seen before. And more than ever before, the blackened tares are really standing out. And what is exposing them? The answer is the events of the world at this time such as the woke agenda, the racism agenda, the false pandemic and the false climate change agenda.
Those Christians today who are familiar with biblical prophecy are asking are we in the last days, is this the end of the age? Well, this parable helps us to answer that question because Jesus describes what happens at the end of the age when the harvest occurs. At the end of the age, it is easy to spot the false Christians and that’s where we are today. False Christians are being exposed on a grand scale in our time. All around us we find people who we thought were true Christians being exposed as false Christians. It’s a shocking revelation because of the shear scale of it. The true Christians are now being shown to be very small in number; a mere remnant. So, what we learn from this parable is that it is harvest time, that we truly are at the end of the age.