This morning I was reading Notes on the Parables of Our Lord by Richard Chenevix Trench, a dean of the Church of England in 1864. In particular I read his chapter on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-30 and 36-43)–and it turned on a very bright light bulb in my head. I can’t wait to make it the subject of my weekly Newswithviews column when I write it on Tuesday.
What did it teach me? That the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, sowed good seed in the world–sowed His word–but His enemy, the devil, sowed bad seed, tares.
There are innumerable species of this bad seed, but they all belong to the same genus: the enemy’s ancient lie to Eve, that she and Adam and all their descendants, by disobeying God, should become as gods themselves, defining good and evil as they pleased (in Genesis 3).
The Lord does not let His servants, His people, gather up the tares and burn them, lest they inadvertently pull up some of the good with the bad. That job will be done by His angels at the end of days, when He is ready: when both the good and the bad have fully grown and their fruits, good and evil, are plain to see.
Boy, are there tares growing in this field! All planted by the Enemy–atheism, unbelief and misbelief, Evolution, transgender and “gay marriage,” the crackpot notion that Big Government can control the natural processes of the earth, the incessant redefining of the basic institutions of human life–oh, so many! These are the bad seeds sown by the Enemy.
But it’s critically important to remember that the good seed is growing, too–faith, hope, and charity, belief and trust in God, belief in Jesus Christ and His redemptive power, and the truth itself. These will be gathered by the angels and safely stored in barns; the fruit of the bad seed will be uprooted and cast into the fire.
If we can’t see the truth of this parable manifesting itself in our time, now–well, we’d better learn to see it.
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