Matthew 13 24–30, 36–43

²⁴He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵But while people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. ²⁶When the plants sprouted and produced heads of grain, the weeds also appeared. ²⁷The servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where did the weeds come from?’ ²⁸He said to them, ‘An enemy did this.’ The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and gather up the weeds?’ ²⁹‘No,’ he answered, ‘because when you gather up the weeds, you might pull up the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First, gather up the weeds, bind them in bundles, and burn them. Then, gather the wheat into my barn.”’”

³⁶Then Jesus sent the people away and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” ³⁷He answered them, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the Evil One. ³⁹The enemy who sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the world. The reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Therefore, just as the weeds are gathered up and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the world. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will pull out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and those who continue to break the law. ⁴²The angels will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. (EHV)

Dear Friends in Christ,

There was once an Atheist farmer who often made fun of his fellow farmers who believed in God. He wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper and said, “I plowed on Sunday, planted on Sunday, cultivated on Sunday, and hauled in my crops on Sunday; but I never went to church on Sunday. Yet I harvested more bushels per acre than anyone else, even those who are God-fearing and never miss a service.” The editor printed the man’s letter and then added this remark: “God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October.”

Even though unbelievers make fun of us, we can rest assured that someday God will settle His accounts. The weeds will be pulled. Meanwhile there will always be “Weeds Among the Wheat” in the Lord’s field here on earth.

Who Are the Weeds?

Who are the Weeds Among the Wheat? Some might be open sinners, who flaunt their false doctrine or adultery or stealing or whatever other sin they happen to openly manifest. They’re like the obvious weeds that are easy to see. There are people who flout the law like rioters, looters and shoplifters in some of our cities. Will any of the rich Weeds be revealed who flew off to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island? What about the prominent Weeds who seem to get away with whatever because they have the right connections? The perversion of justice leads to more open sin and a breakdown in morality. Those are the world’s weeds.

But there are church Weeds too: Clergy who teach false doctrine publicly; who argue against the 10 Commandments still being relevant; church members who live in open defiance of the Commandments—these things lead other Christians away from the faith and ultimately to eternal death. That’s one reason why church discipline is so important, namely, to teach people that sin and falsehood are still wrong and extremely dangerous to their souls.

Jesus is not speaking against church discipline in His parable. In fact, 5 chapters on down, Jesus gives thorough instruction on church discipline in Matthew 18. There He emphasizes trying to win a brother over who is caught in sin, but ultimately, He says if a person refuses to repent “treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. ¹⁸Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:17–18). There we see the other reason why church discipline is so important—namely to try to win your brother over.

There was once an especially egregious case of open sin in the congregation at Corinth. A man was living in a sexual relationship with his father’s wife! The Apostle Paul scolded the congregation for not dealing with it. They all knew about it, but they were too afraid to say anything. On the one hand it was corrupting the rest of the church. On the other hand it was allowing a young man to head straight to hell. The congregation acted. And it worked. Later, in his second epistle Paul commended the congregation for listening to his admonition and finally confronting the man. Their confrontation achieved its goal. The man repented and his soul was rescued from damnation!

But then there’s the situation of the “Weeds” that Jesus told His parable about: the hypocrites—the people closely intertwined with believers, who look like believers, the way certain weeds look so much like the crops they’re growing right next to, so that only a professional farmer can see the difference. In Jesus’ explanation of the parable, it’s the angels who play the professional farmer role of separating them in time. When it comes to hypocrites, only God can see the difference, and He’s the one Who’ll send the angels in due time.

The outward piety of many Weeds leads some to say, “Wow, so and so is really a great person. God will definitely let them into heaven.” And it’s precisely for that reason that “pretty” Weeds can also do a lot of harm. They harm their children by not passing on living faith heart-to-heart. They harm the church’s message of the Gospel in the community by misrepresenting Christianity as a religion of works instead of grace. Sometimes, they hurt the life of the church by working against the church’s true mission without even realizing it—because they don’t really understand the Gospel of grace.

While Weeds often enough belong to a visible church, they don’t belong to the invisible church—the communion of saints. Some of them fall away over time and leave the church in the way Jesus spoke of last week. Others will remain on the church’s membership list until the day they die. We won’t know until judgment day one way or the other, because we can’t read hearts.

But we don’t need to know! That’s Jesus’ point! It’s clear from Jesus’ parable that He doesn’t want us to be busybodies, speculating and gossiping about who’s a real believer. That sort of thing has led to a lot of mischief in church history. Remember reading about the Spanish Inquisition—church discipline in cases of public sin or false doctrine? It led to the government sanctioned burning of heretics and municipal Witch hunts. Church and state do not mix well! It’s God’s job to pull the weeds. And He will surely do it at His return.

God Will Take Care of the Weeds

Even if we can’t see into the heart and tell the difference between the good plants and the pretty weeds, God can. He always sees the difference. He knows what’s in everyone’s heart. He knows if we believe in Jesus or not. And He promises to “send out his angels, and they will pull out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and those who continue to break the law. ⁴²The angels will throw them into the fiery furnace….”  Hell is a very real place. It’s not a myth or a state of being or a temporary place. It’s eternal punishment. It’s eternal separation from God, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” But it’s God, not we, who sends weed-people there.

St. Peter explains it this way, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned but handed them over to chains of darkness by casting them into hell, to be kept under guard for judgment; ⁵ and if God did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, along with seven others when he brought a flood on the world of ungodly people; ⁶ and if God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, by turning them into ashes when he made them an example of things to come for the ungodly; ⁷ and if he rescued righteous Lot, who was very distressed by the unrestrained immorality of the wicked people ⁸ (while that righteous man was living among them, he was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by the lawless deeds he saw and heard); ⁹ then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under guard until the day of judgment, in order to punish them” (2 Peter 2:4-9).

God Will Take Care of the Wheat

God will take care of the weeds, and God Will Take Care of the Wheat “The Lord knows how to deliver the godly….” Jesus said, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” As for us, how do we become godly and righteous? After all, we’ve all been guilty of hypocrisy at times. We’re not perfect plants! At times we could be mistaken for weeds.

The only thing that can rescue us is the righteousness of Christ, credited to us through faith! Jesus Christ is the only one who deserves to “shine like the sun in the kingdom of [the] Father.” It’s faith in Jesus alone that makes you Wheat and not a Weed. And Jesus wants to save you, just as He wants to save everyone, even the Weeds! In His mercy, He can do it by converting Weeds into Wheat. As long as the Weedis alive, there’s still a chance, a time of grace!

Shortly before He died, Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem and passed through Samaria. He was going to stay in a Samaritan village, but they didn’t welcome Him since He was going to Jerusalem. James and John were angry. “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” they said. ⁵⁵But he turned and rebuked them. “You don’t know what kind of spirit is influencing you. ⁵⁶For the Son of Man did not come to destroy people’s souls, but to save them.” John learned his lesson and later wrote, “My children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1).

So, leave the weeding to God and the angels. We might get rejected too, just as Jesus was rejected in the Samaritan village. We might be hated and persecuted. We may be “cancelled” and “shunned.” Yes, it is true that the weeds in the world can make life less than pleasant for us! Think of the poor town folks who read the smug taunt of the Atheist farmer in their local paper. Painful! As long as we’re living in the world, we’re in the same field as false teachers, disguised as true teachers, false Christians disguised as true Christians, and of course all the openly obvious weeds in the field of the world.  

But we don’t need to worry about the weeds, nor should we call down fire from heaven on them like James and John, the “sons of thunder,” wanted to do. Remember “God doesn’t always settle His accounts in October,” but He will settle them. On the Day of the Lord, the difference between the Wheat and the weeds will be clear to every eye on earth, because “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Nor do we need to fear the coming Judgment because Jesus has already rescued us by living and dying in our place and crediting forgiveness and righteousness to us believers through faith. Because of Him and what He has done, we who patiently believe and endure here in time, will one day shine like the sun in the kingdom of [our] Father! Amen.