Matthew chapter 13, Matthew chapter 13, and
we'll read from verse 24, Matthew 13 and
verse 24.
Just for fun, you read it aloud, in
the version you have, and I'll do the
same, and see what chaos we have.
I'm reading from the, strange to say, NIV
tonight.
Alright?
See, I'm coming along, aren't I?
Right?
Now then, see how we get on with
this.
Verse 24.
Ready?
Come on, go.
Jesus told them another parable.
The kingdom of heaven is like a man
who sowed good seed in his field.
But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came
and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went
away.
When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then
the weeds also appeared.
The earnest servants came to him and said,
Sir, don't you sow good seed in your
field?
Where then did the weeds come from?
Stop!
See?
Absolute chaos.
Let me just go on and read it
myself.
You listen.
We've finished at verse 27.
Then, verse 28.
An enemy did this, he replied.
The servants asked him, do you want us
to go and pull them up?
No, he answered, because while you are pulling
the weeds, you may root up the wheat
with them.
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.
And down to verse 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.
He answered, The one who sowed the good
seed is the son of man, 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, and the enemy who sows them is
the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age,
and the harvesters are angels.
As the weeds are pulled up and burned
in the fire, so it will be at
the end of the age.
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.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace
where there will be weeping and grinding of
teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their father.
He who has ears, let him hear.
In other words, let him use them.
Right.
That's the parable of, well, it's called The
Tales of Weeds.
And you have it there in verses 24
through 30 and the explanation of it, interpretation
of it in verses 36 to 43.
And this parable gives the answer to the
often repeated question, what is God doing in
the world today?
And it gives the lie to the suggestion
that his redemptive purposes have failed.
It tells of the ultimate triumph of all
that has been in his heart to accomplish.
Now there's no difficulty interpretation because, as I
said, the parable is recounted in verses 24
to 30 and explained in verses 37 to
43.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto, literally,
it has become like unto, verse 24, something
that's happening before our eyes constantly.
There are two sowings and two harvests.
Going on and being prepared.
All the time.
And we'll look first of all at what
I've just called the activity of the Lord.
Now don't forget to stop me if I
go too quick.
Try not to, because I'll speak at dictation
speed where I won't like you to get
it down.
But just go average pace.
I have a great sympathy for those of
you who come from other nations.
I don't want you to lose out.
Bless your hearts.
Here's a man then sowing good seed in
the field.
Now this morning we thought of four different
kinds of seed flung into the soil and
producing four different results, the parable of the
sower.
Here we follow the fortune of the good
seed only.
Verse 37, he that soweth is the son
of man.
The good seed are the sons of the
kingdom.
The field is the world, verse 38.
And notice this, won't you?
It is his world, verse 24.
And you can jot down Psalm 24, verse
1.
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof.
It's his world.
Got that?
Now there's a simple picture.
Into all corners of the world, the Lord
is flinging his children.
Into all corners of the world, the Lord
is just flinging his children.
People regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
Redeemed by the blood of Christ.
And through them his purpose is being fulfilled.
In every nation, there are those who by
their lives witness to the possession of one
thing that all people need everywhere, that is
peace with God.
And it's tremendous to think that amidst all
the lack of order and chaos in the
world today, the children of the kingdom, the
good seed, reveal the discipline and the order
and the harmony of a life in tune
with God.
Can I repeat that?
That's just a sentence, it might be well
for you to put fully in your notes.
I'll go back just two sentences.
Into every corner of the world, the Lord
is flinging his children.
People regenerate by the Holy Spirit.
Redeemed by the blood of Christ.
And through them God's purposes are being fulfilled.
In every nation in the world, there are
those people who by their lives witness to
the possession of one thing that everybody needs,
peace with God.
Amidst all the chaos, lack of order, the
children of the kingdom, the good seed, reveal
the discipline, the order, and the harmony of
a life in tune with God.
Now that's the activity of the Lord Jesus,
today.
And we're all part of that.
Then you have what I've called the work
of the enemy.
You notice in verse 36 that the disciples
asked for an explanation of the parable of
the tares, of the weeds.
It was the work of the devil which
had startled them.
Verse 25, there came into the field an
enemy who sowed tares, or weeds.
The enemy, said the Lord, is the devil.
The tares, or the weeds, are the sons
of the wicked one.
Now here is a deliberate work of malice,
or ill will.
That may be a strange word, m-a
-l-i-c-e, malice, but it means
just ill will.
The enemy has only one object, that is,
ruining the harvest.
The weeds couldn't be of any use to
him.
Their only value was to destroy the purpose
of the owner of the field.
The devil had no right there, it wasn't
his field.
He was full of subtlety.
He did his work, you notice, while men
slept, verse 25.
Animated by one thing only, ruin, the field.
I would say that the devil is a
squatter.
S-Q-U-A-T-T-E-R
That's a man who settles on land he
hasn't any right to, and works it for
his own advantage.
A squatter, that's Satan.
A man who settles on land that he
has no right to, and works it for
his own advantage.
Got that, or the gist of it?
Not too fast, I hope.
So far, nobody looking desperately miserable.
Right.
Notice this again, that the devil's agents are
men.
Men and women, of course.
Verse 38.
The weeds, or tares, are the sons of
the evil one.
God works through people, and the devil works
through people.
One lot are regenerate, born again, Christians.
The others are not.
That's the one distinction.
God works through one, Satan works through the
other.
The one live for the Lord, the other
live for themselves.
And there is an eternity of difference between
the two.
I'll just say that again slowly, and give
you time to put that down so that
you can think it through.
The one, that is, children of God.
The one live for the Lord.
The other, children of Satan, live for themselves.
And there is an eternity of difference between
the two.
Notice that the enemy sows weeds.
Something which, at first, you can't distinguish from
wheat.
Satan sows weeds, something that you can't distinguish
from wheat.
Because his tactics have always been those of
imitation.
Always to deceive.
Never to boost paganism, or a religion.
But always to counterfeit reality.
Satan's greatest tactics have always been counterfeit.
C-O-U-N-T-E-R-F
-E-I-T.
Got it?
Shall I go again?
C-O-U-N-T-E-R-F
-E-I-T.
Counterfeit, imitation.
There's a classic passage in the Old Testament,
which I haven't time to ask you to
turn to, but just give it, and you
can read it and see.
1 Kings chapter 12.
Perhaps you remember that, I'll just say this
quickly to you.
At Solomon's death, his son Rehoboam came to
the throne.
But Jeroboam, a servant of Solomon, whom he
had entrusted with authority, rebelled against his son's
rule and led ten tribes of Israel into
revolt to the Northern Territory, and ordained feasts
and sacrifices, just like the feasts of Judah,
set apart for the priests.
The whole system resembled almost exactly the worship
of God, as nearly as it could.
But it lacked only one thing, the vital
thing, communion with the Lord.
It is too much for you to go
up to Jerusalem.
That's an admission of failure.
And that's exactly what Satan's doing today, and
boy, is he making a gel of it.
Give people anything but Jesus.
Anything but Jesus.
Anything but life, which is good seed.
Anything other than that quality of life which
reveals the transforming power of Christ.
Don't let anybody see that.
The good seed are people, if they're anything,
where the bias of degeneration has been dramatically
dealt with by the Holy Spirit.
Now, in its place, is the bias of
regeneration.
A new upsurge of dynamic life within.
A new motive force driving power.
Whereas everything was once discord, unrest, despair, now
life moves along another channel of harmony, peace,
victory.
And against that, Satan concentrates everything he has.
It doesn't suggest we're irreligious or pagans.
That's not his greatest advertisement.
But he offers a form of godliness which
denies the power of it.
2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 9.
It's religion without the cross.
So, in many areas of Britain, and of
all countries, we have reformation instead of regeneration.
We have a church, but without Jesus.
We have programs, but we haven't got any
power.
We have fun and games, but there isn't
any holiness.
We have pressure, lots of it, but no
prayer.
We're the world, but we haven't the word.
And Satan has flung all this at us
to keep us back from reality.
And he's so clever at doing it.
And do you notice where he does it?
Verse 25.
He so tears among the wheat.
That's the same word in the New Testament
as that which describes the Lamb of God.
In the midst of the throne.
Revelation 5, 6.
Tears in the midst.
And Satan, in the very center, he does
his foul, fiendish work at the heart of
everything.
And that's always so why, that's the explanation
of why, any evangelical movement has a fight
on its hands.
You never, never see a real church alive
for God without a battle in the middle
of it.
Satan concerting everyone.
That's why you need specialists, pray, for a
work like the Caveman Fellowship.
It must cause great menace to the devil.
He's very busy here, I'm sure.
Are you busy down in Birmingham?
And he's busy in our lives.
He'll be after you.
Why?
The Lord is only wanting reality.
I'm tempted and I've fallen.
Tell you, do you like flying?
I don't.
Oh, it was wonderful when years ago, before
most of you were thought of, you could
go across the United States and back in
the Queen Elizabeth I ship and have four
days on the water, perfect peace.
Never any jet lag or anything like that.
And come back, lovely.
I used to love it.
But now, goodness, what a crush.
But I'm very prayerful when I got onto
a plane.
I'm not frightened exactly, but very prayerful.
Because I've had too many incidents.
And I remember one occasion.
I'm just giving you three minutes of relaxation.
I remember one occasion when I was flying
from Johannesburg to London, on British Airways, of
course, if you'll excuse the commotion.
And I got into this Boeing 747, and
it was packed with people.
And I suddenly thought to myself, now, isn't
it, didn't I read, that a plane like
this, full of people and gas, weighs two
million pounds or a million and a half,
a colossal weight, to get up on it.
And I said to myself, how on earth
is this thing going to get up?
And I went into the plane.
It was full.
I sat down in the empty seat, and
it was next to a steward, one of
the crew.
So, unlike usually an Englishman, I thought I'd
have a word with him.
And I said to him, do you like
flying Boeing jets?
No, sir, not very much.
Oh.
Why?
Well, they're too often going wrong.
Oh.
Yes.
He said, this one, this one, has been
taken out of service twice in the last
three weeks, through engine failure.
Oh.
Oh, it's all right now.
You didn't worry.
It was put right yesterday, so we think
it's all right now.
Well, I got in and sat down and,
you know, offered up a real prayer.
Lord, watch us today.
And we took off, went to the runway,
took off with the usual formalities.
And the engines began to roar, and I
did something then that shows you exactly what
sort of person I am.
I looked at my watch.
It's got a little stop thing on it.
And I knew that a Boeing jet fully
loaded with passengers and gas takes 46 seconds
to get off the ground.
It could take more if it's a contrary
wind.
But we went along off, and I had
my watch.
And at 35 seconds, suddenly, the engines slowed
down.
And then, my, they suddenly began to roar.
And the vibration in the plane was absolutely
awful.
As engines roared, I looked at my watch.
46 seconds.
Well, 50 seconds.
55 seconds.
Lord, how long is this runway?
58.
62 seconds.
And whoop!
At the very moment when the lines marking
the end of the runway came under the
plane.
And I thought, he's made it.
And we went up and up and up
and up.
But I noticed the no smoking sign was
not removed.
And the fasten your seatbelt sign was not
removed.
They were both there.
And the plane was vibrating like nobody's business.
However, no word from the captain.
But a few moments later, well, half an
hour later, he suddenly came on the intercom.
He had a very Oxford accent.
You may not know what I mean by
that, some of you.
But he said, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm very sorry I've been so long speaking
with you, but I had no time.
I have some rather sad news to tell
you.
We have lost an engine.
I don't know how you'd react to a
situation like that.
I know I reacted by saying, don't worry.
At least I didn't say it, but I
thought, don't worry about that, old chap.
I'll jump out and get it for you.
You had me.
But of course, I knew there'd be hopeless.
I knew what he meant.
He lost a power engine.
And he said, with three engines, our next
stop is Nairobi.
And he said, I'm afraid we won't make
it.
And he said, with your permission, we'll turn
round and return to Joburg.
And we'll get there, and we'll be put
on another plane.
Well, we turned round, and we went to
Joburg, and of course we got another plane.
Else I wouldn't be here to tell you.
But you know, that story, maybe you don't
see it yet, but I hope you will
in a couple of minutes, it absolutely thrills
me, because that's the gospel.
Think of that plane a moment.
It's going along on that runway, and it's
held down by the law of gravity.
And in 35 seconds, it lost an engine.
And the engines began, the three other engines
began to put all pressure on.
And the plane is held down.
And at the time of supposedly take-off,
it was a long way short of the
required speed, 150 knots.
Nowhere near it.
62 seconds, it just made it.
And then the captain pulls the stick.
That's very amateur language.
And he turns the nose of the plane
up into the air, and it's grabbed by
another law.
The law of aerodynamics, which takes over from
the law of gravity, and lifts it up
and up and up and up above to
30,000 feet.
That's Christian living.
I dragged on for about 30 years, held
down by the law of sin.
Nothing could overcome it.
Jesus came into my heart, imparted himself, his
life.
And when I began to realize what he'd
come to do, all I had to do
was to turn my eyes upon him, look
up to him, and he grabbed me and
lifted me up above the law of sin,
and I found myself mastered by the law
of spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Took over.
Forgive me, that's Christian living.
Oh, I've made a mess of it many
times, but that's Christian living.
I could do all things through Christ to
strengthen me.
And it's that kind of person, when he's
mastered by the law of the spirit of
life in Christ, who's got a tremendous stake
for the kingdom, who's out to witness for
the Lord Jesus, and Satan fights that person
every inch of the way.
There's a battle on his hands.
I'm looking forward to getting to heaven.
There won't be any more battles there.
But I tell you, the problem is getting
there.
Constant fight, constant fight with myself, constant fight
with the enemy.
He won't give in, the technology's defeated, but,
but...
Turn your eyes on him.
Count on him, and he lifts you up
above it all.
What has that got to do with this
parable?
Nothing.
But it means an awful lot to me.
He sows tares among the wheat, right at
the very heart.
Not on the circumference, not on the periphery,
but right in the heart, he sows tares.
That's why he's doing his fiendish work at
the heart of churches, fellowships, everywhere, today, in
Britain, and throughout the world.
So don't be surprised if he attacks you.
Thank the Lord that he does.
He thinks you're worth bothering about.
A certain person who doesn't know much about
the attacks of the devil, well, you don't
need to bother about him.
But if Satan really attacks you, hallelujah, that
means you're the cause of a nuisance to
him.
May you always be worthy of the attention
of Satan.
And maybe be alert and awake to his
subtlety.
The question is, what realm are we working
in?
Reformation or regeneration?
Are you trying to improve yourself, or to
have yourself replaced by Jesus?
The Lord is never in the self-improvement
plan.
He's in the Christ-replacement plan.
There's all the difference in the world between
the two.
Never trying to make you better.
Don't kid yourself about that.
Five minutes after this service has ended, there
isn't a sin imaginable that I'm not capable
of committing, but for the grace of God.
I'm no different from what I was fifty
years ago, probably a lot worse, potentially.
But Jesus, grace, his sufficiency, that's all.
Are you trying to improve yourself?
I suggest you're almost at the edge of
a nervous breakdown, if you are.
I'm going to see a psychiatrist, you know.
And accomplishing nothing, except wearing yourself out, trying
to make yourself better.
Stop it, my friend.
Don't spend two minutes doing that, just take
Jesus.
The reality.
Is it Reformation, or is it the Church,
or Christ?
Denomination or dynamic?
Or is it program, or real power?
Is it new methods you're looking for, or
new men?
That's what God wants.
Is it fun and games, or holiness?
Entertainment has taken over in evangelical circles today.
Very largely.
Is it pressure, or is it prayer?
I don't care how attractive an alternative may
be, that's Satan's fear.
And the Holy Spirit doesn't operate in it
at all.
Face the cross, give yourself to God's plan,
and immediately the Holy Spirit is free to
work in revival.
And renewal.
But fail there, and we cut ourselves off
from the only source of real power.
Beware of every counterfeit of the enemy.
The action of the Lord, and the work
of the devil.
The Lord's activity, and the work of the
enemy.
Now, just look at this.
The counteraction of Jesus.
What does the Lord do about this situation?
Here we are, verse 30.
Let both grow together until harvest.
And at harvest time, I will tell the
reapers, gather the weeds first, and bind them
in bundles to be burned.
But gather the wheat into my barn.
That's verse 30.
Funny word for heaven, but in a moment
we'll see what it means.
Here's what I call the policy of discernment.
Discernment.
D-I-S-C-E-R-N-M
-E-N-T.
Discernment.
The Lord, discernment.
Let both wheat and tares grow together until
it's quite clear which is which.
At the time of harvest.
And when wheat and tares have come to
full growth, likeness has gone.
No possible mistake then.
For Jesus said, By thy fruits you shall
know them.
That's Matthew 7, 16.
As harvest time approaches, the difference between wheat
and tares is more marked.
So Jesus says, part of his counteraction, leave
them alone.
Why shouldn't we deal with them now?
For one thing, they're too much alike for
us to distinguish accurately which are which.
Too much alike for us to distinguish accurately
which are which.
And to deal with tares requires Jesus should
take the reins of power.
That he should come again.
And cast out all that's evil and all
that's counterfeit.
And only he knows, without any possible mistake,
those who possessed, possess Holy Spirit life.
Please don't spend your life heresy hunting.
Only he knows those who possess Holy Spirit
life.
And they shall be gathered into his barn
and shall shine forth as the sun in
the kingdom of their father.
But the counterfeit shall be cast into a
furnace of fire.
Verses 42 and 43.
Slow for this minute.
You get your pens and go at full
speed.
Ready?
Slow down.
I'm saying that to me.
Now I'm speaking to you though.
Sorry.
Slow down.
Me, yes I am.
Here you are, ready.
The establishment of a new heaven and a
new earth demands the final destruction of everything
that has thwarted God's plan here.
What?
Twice more.
Right, slow down.
Stupid.
That's not you, that's me.
The establishment Ready?
You don't want to spell that.
The establishment of a new heaven and a
new earth demands the final destruction of everything
that has thwarted God's plan here.
Leave them alone, said Jesus.
Leave them alone, why?
Second reason.
The children of the kingdom grow best amidst
antagonism.
I'll give it again.
The children of the kingdom grow best amidst
antagonism.
Got it?
Right?
Right.
It's the activity of the devil which drives
us to pray, drives us to depend on
the Holy Spirit, to determine to work together
in God's plan.
Delicate plants need a glass house.
Strong trees grow in a mountainside in the
teeth of storms.
Oh, how true that is.
I recently was speaking to somebody and he
said to me, as a Christian, the circumstances
in which I live are not at all
conducive to growth.
You sure?
What's that?
Only Christian in a home?
The only Christian in your office?
The pressure of a busy life, seven days
a week, non-stop.
The lack of Christian fellowship, nobody I can
share with at all.
And maybe ill health, and I go to
one person after another for healing, it never
happens.
Constant satanic opposition.
Conducive to growth?
Yeah.
When every prop is removed from you, and
there's no one and nothing you can lean
on, what a wonderful position for Jesus to
come in.
You read what Paul said in 1 Corinthians
12, when he got a thorn in the
flesh.
I wonder what that was.
I've got a little book that I'm going
to take up to heaven with me, and
I've put in it all sorts of things
in the Bible I don't understand.
It didn't used to have many things now,
but it does now.
And this one is, I wonder why Paul,
what was his thorn in the flesh?
Personally I think possibly it was lack of
eyesight.
Following the revelation of Jesus to him on
the road to Damascus.
Because he said to the church in Galatia,
in the fourth chapter somewhere, most gladly you
would have given your eyes for me.
I think that's what it was, he was
blinded by his revelation of Christ.
And so he started joining the club, which
most of us have joined, and said, now
Lord I can't stand anymore.
You've got to move it, shift it, take
it away from me.
Can't exist anymore and can't possibly grow with
this thing going on.
It's impossible.
Please Lord, take it away.
The answer from heaven, no.
My grace is sufficient.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
When you're weak, then you're strong.
And so he discovered, children of the devil
can become children of God.
Amazons carry the parable beyond the Lord's intention.
But implicitly, someone who's a child of Satan
and doing his work, however near it may
be to reality, can do what no weed
or tear can do in the realm of
nature.
He can become wheat.
And it's even possible, even possible, that here
in Canaan there might even be one person
who suddenly realizes you've been doing in the
name of Christ the work of the enemy.
Tears can become wheat.
The policy of discernment.
And the policy of discernment is also the
policy of destination.
There are two sowings and two harvests.
And, oh I can't imagine this, but at
the end of the age, under the personal
direction and authority of the one who bled
for men's salvation, the tears shall be cast
out, and the wheat gathered into his barn.
You notice the end of the age, verse
30 that was, the end of the age
is not in the hands of people, but
in the hand of God.
Finality is not brought about by human agencies,
but by divine intervention.
Angels are the reapers, verse 39.
I often wonder why the Lord calls heaven
a barn.
That sounds very uninteresting.
But I'll tell you something about a barn.
It has no divisions in it.
It's free from all the damage of rain
and gales and storms.
And when you're in a barn you could
never tell what field any particular grain of
wheat had grown in.
No fences between them.
They're all lumped together in a barn.
Oh, that'll be wonderful.
Because you live alongside there, happily with people
you don't like down here.
And you're all in a barn, crowded in
with everybody.
Oh, once in a barn, nobody can tell
whether we're Baptists or Anglicans or Pentecostals or
anything.
It's wonderful to be united in Jesus like
that.
So, we're finishing now.
But remember, it's for this we live.
And every testing, every tear, every sifting has
this in view.
Satan's policy cannot possibly succeed.
The great thing I have to be sure
about is that I'm not a tear.
But a wheat.
Gather the wheat into my barn.
That'll be a wonderful Thanksgiving day.
He sowed good seed.
And his barn is going to be absolutely
filled with them.
He shall see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied.
And listen to Psalm 126, verse 6.
He went forth weeping, bearing precious seed.
He shall come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves
with him.
What kind of seed are you?
Am I?
The time is 8.53. Pause.
Word of prayer.
Lord, how we praise you that you've redeemed
us.
And you want daily to fling us out
into the world in which we live with
all its desperate need and calamities as good
seed.
And we pray that we may behold following
you and obeying you completely.
And there shall be fruit that will remain.
Thank you, Lord, for the prospect of heaven.
Till then, keep us day by day looking
unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of
our faith.
In Jesus' name, Amen.