Matt 13:24-30; 36-43
24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” 36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40 “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will WEED OUT OF HIS KINGDOM everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.
The field is the world and believers and unbelievers are already living together in it, so it is pretty obvious that there is no need for the devil to plant his agents in the world outside the kingdom of God. It is stated clearly in verse Matt 13:41 that at the end of age, the angels will weed these devil’s agents OUT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. (Further scriptural references supporting the premise are found in Matt 8:11-12 and John 15:1-6). When Jesus our Lord was explaining the above parable to the disciples, He shared more parables about the Kingdom of Heaven. In the parable of the net, He said that the Kingdom of Heaven Is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind till it was full. Later the men would sit down and sort the good into the containers and throw out the bad. Again the sorting was done not with the whole sea of fish but only the fish that were gathered in the net.
Sometimes we really wish that the weeds (the false teachers and their minions who are agents of the devil) can be weeded out now out of God’s kingdom, but our Lord explained that if the weeding is done by the servants of God now, the wheat might also be uprooted probably because men are still fallen and are not perfect in discernment. The angels will do the weeding at the end of age instead. An example was the Spanish Inquisition. In the name of weeding out heresy in Spain, the objective turned out to be consolidating the power of the Spanish monarchy. Many innocent believers suffered brutal deaths.
So we must bear this in mind that not all who call themselves Christians are wheat. We must also accept the fact that some whom many hold in high esteem as apostles of Christ and servants of righteousness may be the devil’s agents who are skilled workmen in disguise and deception. It is sad that most believers are so receptive of the feel good messages of these seeds sown by the devil. When the few true prophets were proclaiming the judgment of Israel at the hands of the Babylonians, Israel chose to believe the feel good messages of the numerous false prophets then. Likewise today, we should not expect the false teachers to preach on the coming birth pains, the nearness of salvation and the impending return of our Lord.
