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In the last message we saw that the good earth is the people according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. The constitution is a complete description of the good earth, of one who is poor in spirit and pure in heart, who has no worldly traffic within him, whose being is not hardened, who has no hidden rocks of temper, lust, self, and flesh concealed within him. All this corresponds to the requirements given in the constitution. Those who are the good earth have no thorns, no anxiety of life, and no deceitfulness of riches. Therefore, they become the good earth in which the seed can grow. This good earth is the people who live according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. In other words, their living exactly matches the constitution.
The kingdom of the heavens is built by the multiplication of the seed. The sower sows the seed, the seed grows and multiplies, and eventually the multiplication of the seed becomes the constituent of the kingdom. This reveals that the kingdom is not built by any kind of work, but that it is built by the multiplication of the seed sown by the sower. Christ came as the sower sowing Himself as the seed of life. This seed of life enters humanity to bring forth fruit, the sons of the kingdom. This is the multiplication of the seed. The kingdom is built by this multiplication. Therefore, the kingdom is the multiplication of the seed sown by the sower. The sower Himself is the seed, and the multiplication of the seed is the multiplication of the sower. Hence, the kingdom is built with the multiplication of Christ. The kingdom is the enlargement of Christ, the multiplication of Christ as the seed sown into us. If we see this, we shall know what kind of living we should have and in what kind of situation we should be so that we may participate in the kingdom. Having seen this matter, let us now proceed to consider the second parable (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43).
Verse 24 says, “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to a man sowing good seed in his field.” With the second parable the Lord began to say, “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to,” because the kingdom of the heavens began to be established when the church was built (Matt. 16:18-19) on the day of Pentecost, the time when the second parable began to be fulfilled. It was from that time, after the church was founded, that the tares, the false believers, were sown amidst the true believers, the wheat.
The kingdom of the heavens began with the second parable. This is the reason the Lord used the words “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to.” These words were not spoken by the Lord in the first parable because at that time the kingdom of the heavens had not yet come. Rather, that parable was concerned with the preliminary work for the kingdom of the heavens. But at the time of the second parable, the kingdom of the heavens had come; thus, the Lord said that the kingdom of the heavens was likened to a man sowing good seed in his field.
The parable of the tares is easy to understand. In the first parable the seed sown by the sower was the word of the kingdom. Verse 19 says this clearly. But in the second parable we see that the seed has developed into the sons of the kingdom (v. 38). Firstly, this means that the seed was the word sown into humanity and, secondly, that it has grown into the sons of the kingdom. In the foregoing message I pointed out that the seed is the word with Christ in it as life. According to the second parable, this seed grows into us, the kingdom people, the sons of the kingdom. Therefore, the wheat is the sons of the kingdom, the real believers, those regenerated with the divine life.
Verse 25 says, “But while the men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares amidst the wheat and went away.” The men were the slaves (v. 27), referring to the Lord’s slaves, mainly the apostles. It was when the Lord’s slaves were sleeping, not watching, that the Lord’s enemy, the Devil, came and sowed false believers amidst the true ones.
Verse 25 says that the enemy sowed tares amidst the wheat. A tare is a kind of darnel, a weed resembling wheat. Its seeds are poisonous, producing sleepiness, nausea, convulsions, and even death. The sprout and leaves of the tares look the same as those of the wheat. It is impossible to discern one from the other until the fruit is produced. The fruit of the wheat is golden yellow, but that of the tares is black.
In the Old Testament, the children of Israel in the kingdom of God were likened to grapes growing in the vineyard (21:33-34), whereas in the New Testament, the kingdom people in the kingdom of the heavens are likened to wheat growing in the field. The vineyard was fenced, limited only to the Jews; whereas the field is worldwide, unlimited, open to all peoples.
This parable discloses that not long after the establishment of the kingdom by the building of the church, the situation of the kingdom of the heavens changed. It was established with the sons of the kingdom, the wheat. But the sons of the evil one, the tares, grew up to alter the situation. Hence, a difference has arisen between the kingdom of the heavens and its outward appearance. Whereas the sons of the kingdom, the wheat, constitute the kingdom, the sons of the evil one, the tares, have formed the outward appearance of the kingdom, which today is called Christendom.
The wheat is the sons of the kingdom, the real believers regenerated with the divine life. The tares are the sons of the evil one, the Devil. In the early stages of their growth, the tares appear exactly the same as wheat in color and in shape. Even experts cannot discern the difference until the fruit appears. There is a great difference in the fruit of the tares and the fruit of the wheat, for the fruit of the tares is black and the fruit of the wheat is greenish yellow. The sons of the kingdom are the sons of God who have the divine life within them. The sons of the evil one are the false believers, believers only in name, who do not have the divine life in them.
When the King’s slaves wanted to gather up the tares (v. 28), He said, “No, lest while gathering the tares you may root up the wheat at the same time with them.” Both the tares and the wheat grow in the field, and the field is the world (v. 38). The false believers and the true ones live in the world. To gather up the tares from the field means to take away the false believers from the world. The Lord did not want His slaves to do this, lest while taking away the false believers from the world, the true ones may be taken away from the world. The Catholic Church did much of this and by so doing killed many true believers.
Many Christian teachers have wrongly interpreted the field, saying that it is the church. According to this interpretation, in the church there are both false ones and real ones. But the Lord says clearly in verse 38 that the field is the world. The wheat and the tares are allowed to grow together in the world, not in the church. According to the Epistles, not even sinful ones are allowed to remain in the church. In 1 Corinthians chapter five the Apostle Paul charged the church at Corinth to excommunicate the sinful one. If even the real but sinful ones must be cast out, then how much more the false ones? The church is not to tolerate the false believers, but both the false and the true are allowed to grow together in the world. Please be clear that the field refers to the world. In the world there are both true and false believers, but this must not be so in the church.
The Lord told His slaves not to separate the wheat from the tares, but to allow them both to grow together until the harvest. Otherwise, the wheat may be rooted up with the tares. This means that the false believers must be allowed to exist in the world with the true believers. In the past centuries the Catholic Church has made the serious mistake of trying to uproot those who were considered tares. But most of those taken away by the Catholic Church were the real ones, even the best ones. This is the reason the Lord Jesus did not allow His slaves to do such a thing.
Verse 30 says, “Allow both to grow together until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather first the tares and bind them into bundles to burn them up, but the wheat bring together into My barn.” The harvest is the consummation of the age, and the reapers are angels (v. 39). At the consummation of this age, the Lord will send the angels firstly to gather all the tares, all stumbling blocks, and those who do lawlessness, bind them into bundles, and burn them with the fire of the lake of fire (vv. 30, 40-42). Then the wheat, the righteous, will be brought together into the King’s barn, the kingdom of their Father, to shine forth as the sun (vv. 30, 43).
In Galatians 2:4 and 2 Corinthians 11:26 Paul mentioned false brethren, saying that he was damaged by the false brethren. This indicates that in Paul’s time the tares were present. Of course, a great many more tares have come in since Constantine made Christianity the state religion.
In this parable the Lord points out the serious matter of the judgment upon the tares. This will be a special judgment, for the tares will be bound into bundles and cast into the furnace of fire, which is the lake of fire. The first two to be cast into the lake of fire will be Antichrist and the false prophet. Following them, the tares will be cast into the lake of fire at the time of the Lord’s coming back. The judgment upon the tares will be so serious because they have been confusing, frustrating, and damaging God’s economy. In the eyes of God, the tares are exceedingly evil.
The modernists of today are evil. They blaspheme the Lord by saying that He was an illegitimate child. They also say that the Lord Jesus was not the Redeemer, that His death was that of a martyr, and that His death was not for redemption. They also deny that Christ was resurrected. Furthermore, some modernists are very vague about God. It is difficult to determine what they believe concerning God. If you ask them about God, Christ, or the Spirit, they will respond that it is all a matter of definition. This answer is subtle and more than evil. Therefore, at the consummation of this age, the angels will bind the tares into bundles and cast them into the lake of fire. There will be no need for them to pass through the judgment at the white throne. By this judgment we can see how evil the tares are in the eyes of the Lord.
Although the tares have caused confusion, frustration, and damage, some so-called Christian groups actually boast of having tares among them, and they condemn us for not having any tares.
When the Lord Jesus came, He did not sow tares; He sowed only wheat. In His preliminary work for the establishment of the kingdom, He sowed only Himself, and He was very careful in so doing, sowing only one kind of seed. While the Lord’s slaves were sleeping, the enemy, the evil one, Satan, came in to sow another seed, the seed of the tares. This took place not too long after the church was established on the day of Pentecost. The book of Acts indicates that certain false ones who had not received Christ into them as their life came in apparently as real ones. But they were tares, not wheat. In the early part of the fourth century Constantine the Great made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. At that time tens of thousands of false believers came into Christianity. In order to Christianize the people, Constantine encouraged them to be baptized. Many who were baptized into Christianity were given a material reward of silver or clothing. This was the greatest opportunity for the evil one to sow his tares. At that time there were perhaps ten tares for every stalk of wheat. This has continued until the present. In Christendom there are millions of so-called Christians, but so many of them are not real believers.
Let me illustrate this from my own experience. I was born of a Southern Baptist mother. She taught us the stories of the Bible; however, at that time, although she was for Christianity, she herself definitely had not been saved. There were so many tares there it was difficult to find the wheat. The professor of world history in the American Presbyterian college where I studied came from a Jewish background. He was a false believer, believing neither in the Bible nor in the resurrection of Christ. Nevertheless, the Presbyterian mission sent him as a mission teacher to be a professor in their college. Some of the missionaries in China were modernists. Among both the Methodists and the Presbyterians, modernistic missionaries taught the people that the Bible was a book of fairy tales. They said that the Red Sea was not actually opened by God, but that the Israelites passed through a portion of the sea made shallow by the blowing of the wind. By now modernism might have penetrated the seminaries of even the Southern Baptists. Union Theological Seminary in New York treated John Sung like a mental case. After John Sung was saved, he was beside himself in the Lord, but those in that seminary, considering him a mental case, sent him to a mental hospital. Later John Sung returned to China, preached the gospel, and became probably the greatest evangelist in China. In today’s Christendom there are thousands and thousands of tares.
In Matthew 13 we see a picture of the outward appearance of the kingdom of the heavens. (Please refer to the chart) The kingdom of God covers everything from eternity past to eternity future. Between the two eternities there is time divided into various ages or dispensations. The first is the dispensation before law. After Adam was created, he was placed in the garden where there was no sin or darkness. From him, is the period of the Patriarchs, the fathers, extending to Moses. This period of the Patriarchs is known as the dispensation before law. Then comes the dispensation of law. Following this are two crucial dispensations, the first of which is the dispensation of grace, the church age, and the other, the dispensation of the kingdom, the millennium. As we have pointed out already, the kingdom of the heavens covers only these two dispensations. In the dispensation of grace there are a number of complications, for the kingdom of the heavens has three aspects: the aspect of reality, the aspect of appearance, and the aspect of manifestation. As long as the church is normal, it is the reality of the kingdom. In a normal situation the church equals the reality of the kingdom. The third aspect of the kingdom, the manifestation, is in the heavenly part, the upper part, of the millennium. The lower part, the earthly part, is the Messianic kingdom, the kingdom of the Messiah, but the heavenly part is the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. This heavenly part in 13:43 is also called the kingdom of the Father, whereas the earthly part is called in Matthew 13:41 the kingdom of the Son of Man. Therefore, the kingdom of the Son is the kingdom of the Messiah, and the kingdom of the Father is the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens.
In this message we are concerned with the appearance of the kingdom. On the chart we have noted the appearance of the kingdom with a dotted line. It seems that Christendom is different from the world, but actually there is no difference at all. The appearance of the kingdom of the heavens is today’s Christendom. It is dark, devilish, and even hellish, and we all must condemn it. Where are you? Are you in the appearance of the kingdom or in the reality of the kingdom? You used to be in the world, but now you are in the church. But the church is no longer normal; rather, it has become abnormal. Therefore, there is the need of the dotted line within the church. The normal church is the reality, but the area in the dotted line indicates the abnormal church. All real Christians are in the church, but some of these Christians have become abnormal and defeated. You may say that you are neither in the world nor in Christendom, the appearance of the kingdom. You are in the church. But are you in the church in a normal situation or in an abnormal situation? The believers who are the thorny soil are abnormal. They are real Christians, but the growth of the seed is choked by the thorns so that it does not bring forth fruit. Fruit denotes both multiplication and expression. But those believers who are on the level of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens are normal. They are poor in spirit, pure in heart; have all their temper, lust, self, and flesh dealt with; have no anxiety; and are not deceived by money. They are the good earth growing Christ into the kingdom. Therefore, they are in the normal church, which is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens.
When the Lord Jesus comes back, where will you be? If we have endured unto the end, that is, have kept ourselves in the spirit until the end, we shall be saved and shall be in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, the heavenly part of the millennium. Those who are there will rule with Christ. According to 13:43, they will “shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” This is the real barn where all the wheat will shine over the nations. That shining will be the ruling, the reigning as kings.
We need to see that today’s Christianity is in darkness. So many do not know where they are, where they should be, or where they will go. But in the Bible there is light, and the view is very clear. What we have seen is absolutely not according to human thought; it is a word according to the divine revelation. Everything in this chart is confirmed in the Bible. Everyone in the Lord’s recovery must be deeply impressed with this chart. We are in an age of complications. Christ has come and has sown the seed, but the enemy has also come in and has done things to cause complications. Therefore, in this age we have the worldly people; the wheat, the sons of the kingdom, the children of God; and the tares, the false believers, the nominal Christians, the sons of the Devil, who are among the children of God. Many of the sons of the kingdom have become degraded and have fallen below the standard. Hence, they are abnormal.
Thus, there are four classes of people: the normal believers, the abnormal believers, the false believers, and the worldly people. Day after day, we are involved with all four categories. In the very place where you work all four types may be represented. We need to face this situation with a clear view of today’s age. We would not stand with the world nor be a part of Christendom. Furthermore, we would not be real yet abnormal believers. Rather, we want to be real and normal believers, real sons of the kingdom who live according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. We would grow Christ by living a life according to the constitution. Whatever we grow will be the multiplication which is the constituent of the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore, today we are not only in the reality — we are the reality. Then when the Lord Jesus, the King, comes again, we shall be in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, shining over the world to reign as Christ’s co-kings and enjoying the heavenly part of the millennium.
