Are You Wheat or Weeds? - Pastor Diedrich Harms

Matthew 13 puts another parable before the hearer: the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. The good seed goes into the ground, but while the men are sleeping, the enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat and goes away. The weeds do not show themselves right away, because they look very similar to the wheat until the fruit starts to come. The fruit makes it clear what was growing there all along.

The servants see the weeds and ask if the master sowed good seed. The master says, “An enemy has done this.” The servants are ready to pull the weeds out, but the master says no, because the roots are intertwined, and pulling the weeds would root up the wheat also. The only solution is to let both grow together until harvest, when the weeds will be bundled for the fire and the wheat gathered into the barn.

Jesus gives the meaning plainly. The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seed is the sons of the kingdom, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.

The life of Jesus shows the same hard thing, because Judas walked with the twelve, heard the instructions, helped with the work, carried the money, and yet was a weed among them. The question, “Are you wheat?” presses into families, into church life, and into each person’s fruit. The concern is not appearances at the beginning, but the fruit that finally shows what root has been feeding the life.

The picture of new wine and old wineskins also says that religion cannot simply be patched up. The old brittle skin cannot hold the new wine. A person has to be born again, led by the Spirit, and made new, not just cleaned up on the outside.

The Holy Spirit convicts where weeds are still growing. The blood of Jesus cleanses guilt, but the believer still must listen when the Spirit knocks in the heart. Clean thoughts matter, because fleshly desires tangle the roots with the weeds. The righteous will shine like the sun in the Father’s kingdom, but “he who has ears, let him hear” means more than sound entering the ear. The word of God must be perceived, received, and obeyed.