The Fifth
Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Collect.
|
O
|
LORD, we beseech thee to
keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion; that they who
do lean only upon the hope of thy heavenly grace may evermore be defended by
thy mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle
Colossians 3:12-17
|
P
|
UT on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, a
heart of compassion, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering;
forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel
against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these
things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of
God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye
thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do
all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
The Gospel
Matthew 13:24-30
|
T
|
HE kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good
seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought
forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder
came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from
whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The
servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he
said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with
them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I
will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in
bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
ON THE GOSPEL: We find that there are eight parables in the 13th chapter of Matthew. Though most of these parables relate directly to
the Kingdom of Heaven, this parable is a mix of the Kingdom and of the World.
Though all scripture point to Christ, these Kingdom scriptures relate to His
Presence in the churches – or sadly, His absence. Around the end of the 19th century, there began to be propagated a great lie by politicians and
their cohorts in religion that there existed a great brotherhood which embraced
all men upon the earth. The Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God
– was the popular slogan behind this insidiously false claim. We are not “all
God’s chillun’”! There are two, only, families upon the earth – the Children of
God, or the Children of the Devil. We all belong to one or the other of these
two families. While it is true that God created all living, He does not force
His privileged parentage on any. The results of this lie has been a
justification for every excess in governments to collectivize their economies
and societies, and to enforce the mediocrity of Communistically inclined
policies upon their populations. The concept forces all – good and evil – into
the lowest common denominator of value as human beings.
Perhaps our susceptibility to deception is a result of a failure to fortify our
souls with the wisdom and knowledge that comes directly from God’s Word. In the
reading of many letters home from soldiers of the American Revolutionary War
and War Between the States, I have observed that there is often greater faith
and mastery in the Holy Scriptures evidenced in those letters than that
demonstrated by most modern theologians and ministers of mainline churches.[1]
Have we forgotten what one thing will assure the destruction of God’s people?
Allow me to rekindle your fires of remembrance: My people are destroyed for
lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject
thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of
thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6) Another factor may be
that our ears have grown dull of hearing the Word of God through selective
filtration of things Godly. Jesus concludes the previous parable with this
mysterious command: Who hath ears to hear,
let him hear. (Matt 13:9)
There is an auditory disability called auditory verbal agnosia, also
known as Pure Word Deafness, that is caused by bilateral damage to the
posterior superior temporal lobes. Well, there is a corresponding disability of the inner ear of the
heart which has disregarded God’s full counsel with such frequency that the
Voice of God can no longer be heard by that heart. That heart, calloused by
repetitive sin and rejection of righteousness, has grown dull: Now
the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of
devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a
hot iron. (1
Tim 4:1-2)
So, the setting that Jesus confronts is a multitude of hearts that have been
subject to fables and endless genealogies of the Pharisees and Sadducees that
have stunted their understanding and removed any reference point for grasping
these marvelous truths of Christ that are so completely extrinsic to their
primitive minds.
24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed
good seed in his field: We see a slightly different venue and
application in this parable of a Sower and that of the prior Sower and four
different soils. The Sower is still the Lord Jesus Christ, the field represent
the world, and the good seed here represents the children of the kingdom. He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the
children of the kingdom; (Matt 13:37-38)
25 But while men slept,
his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
It is perfectly normal for men to rest and sleep after their labors. Such rest
does not make them remiss of their duties before God or man. The point seems
that, despite the best efforts of righteous people, evil is bound to come from
that same source it came in the Garden at Eden – the Devil himself. He works
best during the hours of darkness and his seed are seeds of ruin and death.
These seed sowed by the Devil are the children of the devil. “…..but the tares are the children of the wicked one.
(Matt 13:38b) The one who sows these bad seed is the Devil: “The enemy that sowed them is the devil….”.
(Matthew 13:39a)
26 But when
the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
27 So the servants of the householder came and
said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then
hath it tares?
What do men expect of the seeds they plant? I suggest that they expect the same
nature of plant to grow therefrom as the seed planted. The good seed produced
good fruit. The bad seed produced bad fruit (tares). The tares are the children
of the wicked one, who are filled with his spirit, live according to his
principles, and are under his control. They are not a degenerate form of
virtue, but as distinct as virtue and vice. They often resemble the good till
the fruit begins to appear, but they are as different as wheat and tares, as
thistles and roses. We are the Lord’s servants (not simply the ordained
ministry, but all believers). Do we sometimes wonder why our best efforts and
Godly projects are mixed with emotions of greed, jealousy, and vanity in
church? The devil does not restrict his children to the gaming tables, bars, prisons,
and bordellos of the city – he also sends them to church as purveyors of every
indecency. Though all men bear the seeds of wickedness in their hearts, the
mastermind of all wickedness is Satan. He coordinates his plans and activities
with a brilliance that is beyond the mind of man to understand. But God’s
Holy Spirit is a defoliant against every parasitic weed, and plants, in its
place,Trees of Righteousness and Virtue.
28 He said
unto them, An enemy hath done this. Who did Jesus say did this evil? “An enemy!” Satan is the enemy of your
soul. He seeks no other joy than to ruin your hope and destroy your soul
through every means of deception available in his arsenal of dirty tricks. It
is discomforting to know that he NEVER takes vacation! We would like to clean
house of the traitors, but Christ reserves that duty to Himself lest we ere in
our judgment. The servants said unto him,
Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye
root up also the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together
until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather
ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather
the wheat into my barn. Good
and evil will exist side by side until the end of the world, then comes the
harvest. The reapers will be sent into the four quarters of the earth to
gather, first, the tares. These shall be shackled and cast into the fires. Then
comes the gathering of the wheat (good seed) which is gathered into His barn
(Kingdom).
“… the
harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in
the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they
shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do
iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace
of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the
kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matt 13:39c-43)
Have you heard and understood? The only proof that learning has occurred is by
way of a change in behavior. Is your hearing keen to God’s Word, and does your
living stand the earnest of your hearing?
[1]
Would one consider
this may be the natural outcome of a dearth of reading material, most people
not being able to afford many books and selecting the most necessary first,
spent most of their time reading the Bible? I know my life and outlook have changed the more Scripture I
have read. Today’s seminarians go
to school to learn that the Bible is not the Word of God.
