Title: It is better to be left behind to be gathered later!
Text: Matthew 13:40-43
40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, 42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Sin can often have a gradual and cumulative effect on our lives. In Saint Louis there was a story, an unemployed cleaning woman who noticed a few bees buzzing around the attic of her home. Since there were only a few, she made no effort to deal with them. Over the summer the bees continued to fly in and out the attic vent while the woman remained unconcerned and unaware of the growing city of bees. The whole attic became a hive, and the ceiling of the second- floor bedroom finally caved in under the weight of hundreds of pounds of honey and thousands of angry bees. While the woman escaped serious injury, she was unable to repair the damage of her accumulated neglect.
Robert T. Wenz.
It is better to be left behind to be gathered later!
Last week we discussed the parable of the Sower who sowed seed, throwing it everywhere, on the path, the rocky ground and even in good soil. The parable was explained by Jesus that the seed was the word of God and the Gospel proclamation that went forth transforming hearts of stone to good soil where the word takes root and brings to faith those called by God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Today’s parable builds on that by saying:
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.
So in explanation to this parable, Jesus says that He is the one who sows the good seed and that the world is the field and the wheat that grows, which sprouts from the good seed, are those who are the children of the Kingdom by faith. The weeds, we are told, are those who are sons of the evil one which is the devil himself who sows the lies that Jesus is not who he claims to be, the way the truth and the life.
So as is made clear in our text, the world will consist of both those who believe and those who don’t and being that the church is also in the world, we will have our own share of weed among believers.
So as the church shouldn’t we look to pull out those weed among us? Who’ll be first? What should we use to judge each other? Today we had a good example. You all saw the beautiful children who were adopted into God’s family … marked as one’s redeemed by Christ the crucified. Made good soil by God’s Holy Spirit … certainly they are wheat … they have been washed and are clean. What if you haven’t been baptized? Well Paul says in Roman 10:
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
And then he continues:
11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.
So belief in the heart is what justifies or makes righteous and those who believe will not be put to shame but will be saved. So, as Jesus says to the question of, 28”do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 He says, ‘No, because in gathering the weeds you may pull up the wheat as well. 30 Let both grow together … until the harvest, and then I will tell the reapers to Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” In other words … the wheat is left behind after the weeds are gathered to be burned and then gathered into the Lord’s barn.
Ill.
Growing up in and around the Midwest, I’m sure we’ve all had plenty of experience pulling weeds. As a young boy I was sent out to do weeding around the house and also went with my dad to a farm that he leased a few acres to have a vegetable garden where we went to … you guessed it … pull weeds! Now, sometimes when I pulled the weed, I also pulled out the plant I was weeding around. Dad was none too pleased with that. That can be very frustrating and at times you might think that you are doing more harm than good.
It also seems that these weeds seemingly grow up overnight. I would go out and pull weeds with him one day, but the next day, out of nowhere, new weeds had appeared. Maybe you can appreciate like me the truly demonic nature of weeds and why Jesus used them in the parable?
With wheat and weeds at the time of harvest, the weeds, which look like wheat when they were green, turned out to be foxtail. But by then it was too late to pull them so the harvester, that big machine that is called a combine, would have to sort them for the wheat farmers, gathering the wheat safely in the tank and shredding the foxtail and other weeds behind in its wake.
You might imagine what a terrible thing it is to be shredded to pieces in the bowels of a combine! Most farmers have great and fearful respect for that massive mechanical harvester. How much greater and more fearful will it will be when Jesus sends his angels as reapers at the end of the age? But for you, the righteous, who trust in Christ just as for the wheat, there is no reason to fear, only joy and relief at being gathered safely home (Mt 13:24–30).
Jeffrey D. Springer, Fort Wayne, IN
When sin becomes visible in the church we are told to call those who are sinning to repentance … with gentleness and respect. We are first remove the beam from our own eye before seeking to remove the speck from the eye of our brother.
This past Sunday Pastor Merrell and I participated in ordination /installation services of new pastors, he at Good shepherd, Lake Orion and me at St. Mark West Bloomfield. One of the many verses that are read at these services is 2 Timothy 4:2 which says:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
The pastor is as well to call to repentance through the preaching of the Law those who are going the wrong way and are in disobedience to God’s word but also to do this with individuals as well. This, only deals with the visible sin and it can never show the intention of the heart or the motive and even more importantly, who are wheat and who are weeds. That will be determined by God himself at the final judgment.
It is better to be left behind to be gathered later!
So what do we know?
Well it is Christ’s desire that all would be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:4 even those whom we believe far from the Lord and his reach. This is accomplished by the proclamation of the Gospel in word and sacrament which will bring to faith by the power of the Holy Spirit those who will believe, and by God’s grace, those children baptized today were also adopted by God into His family through that same promised forgiveness by faith in Christ’s finished work.
We also know from the parable today, that some, those who are called the weeds in the parable are those who are the sons of the evil one, the devil, and that they will reject the saviors blessed call through the gospel message and through this unbelief be destined for destruction – thrown into the fiery furnace … and in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. This will be of their own choosing as they reject the work of the Holy Spirit choosing to remain dead in trespass and sin.
43 But you who believe, the righteous … will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment