Lesson Four – Wheat and Tares
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who 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 grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matt. 13:24-30)
We have seen in the previous lessons what the bible says the body of Christ should look like. Is the distinction between the world and the church today what we would expect based on these truths put forward in scripture?
When weeds overtake a garden the plants that are placed there beforehand disappear under the foliage, the stems are strangled and the flowers or fruit are starved of the necessities to grow and bloom. The weeds bring death. The above passage of scripture gives us a picture of what happens in the body of Christ when the worldly influences infiltrate and are accepted without question; when the doctrines of men replace expositional bible teaching; when soft doctrine is taught in place of godly discipline. Could Jesus have foreseen the modern institutional church? The above parable strongly suggests He did.
In the early twentieth century Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a clear view of where the body of Christ stood, and where it was heading:
Cheap GRACE is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace.
Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions of fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God.
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain the same as before.
(The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, page 43)
Since these words were expressed by Bonhoeffer over seventy-five years ago, not long before his execution, much of the church has further compromised the principles of God’s holy word and the teachings of Christ. In His sermon on the mount Jesus spoke of those who “heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto the wise man” (Matt. 7:24 KJV). In Christ’s words He is telling His listeners that they are to obey. He does not allow His hearers to go away and make of His sayings what they will, picking and choosing from them whatever they find helpful, and testing them to see if they work. He does not give them free rein to misuse His word with their mercenary hands nor does He imply that His words can be discussed as an ideal. Jesus only knows one possibility: simple surrender and obedience.
The “old man” has been allowed to thrive. A significant portion of the modern institutional church and its leadership is more focused on building its membership than teaching the pure milk of the Word; than meting out discipline for those who choose ungodly paths; preaching to an audience hungry for a “feel good” message than mentoring for holiness in the flock. When the old man is fed what it needs it will grow, sin will fester beneath the surface until it manifests in behavior, and that behavior is mostly tolerated because confrontation is too hard; its easier to keep the peace than obey God’s Word.
Jesus’s instruction is clear – the old man is consigned to death. There is no alternative no matter how noble the alternatives may seem to sinful men. Spiritual fruit can only come through those who are alive in Christ; just as Christ had to first die so that all could live, so too must we die so that His spirit can live in us.
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