The Kingdom and the World

To set our thinking in motion, we need to be reminded that the Lord is the King of the earth. As the Old Testament tells us that God is King of the universe, that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, so we affirm that Jesus Christ is the King of this earth. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Over the next half hour, John will unpack the parable of the wheat and the tares. Surprisingly, this parable is among the most misunderstood and misapplied portions of Scripture, even though Jesus explains exactly what it means.

Why is that? How can there be so many wrong interpretations of this parable? Well, as John takes you through this memorable story today, he's going to help you learn how to avoid common errors and ensure that you understand the meaning of the text. His study is called The Parables of the Kingdom. So turn, if you will, to the book of Matthew, and here's John. We come now to the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. I trust that you have your Bible ready and your mind is open, your heart available to the Lord, because we have some marvelous, marvelous things that God will show us as we look at the second parable in Matthew 13.

And it is a parable about judgment, a parable about judgment. To set our thinking in motion, we need to be reminded that the Lord is the king of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ is the ruler over this earth. As the Old Testament tells us that God is king of the universe, that the earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof, that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, so we affirm that Jesus Christ is the king of this earth. Within that kingdom, the Lord Jesus obviously allows Satan a certain amount of freedom. He allows sinners a certain amount of freedom, and yet over it all He is still the king. He is still ruling. Every phase of human history then marks some facet of the rulership of Jesus Christ, the rulership of God in the world.

There is no period of time when the kingdom of God is not in effect on the earth. God mediates His rule on the earth through men. Initially, God mediated His rule on earth through Adam. Adam was His agent.

Adam was His vice regent, if you will. And then there were the patriarchs through whom God mediated His rule. And then the monarchs, and then the priests and the prophets, and then the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. And then in a very real sense, God mediated His will and His rule through the apostles, who overlapping with Jesus Christ and the early church, were the very source by which God brought revelation to man about His kingdom. There's coming a future time when God will again bring His rule to earth as mediated through the living, exalted, glorified, incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, and that we know as the millennial kingdom. And then finally, the earth and heaven will be merged in the eternal kingdom when the universal kingdom and the mediated kingdom on earth become one and the same. The Bible delineates very clearly all of these elements of God's rule in the earth, and there is one more that we left out in our little recounting there, and that is the period of time from the rejection of Christ to the return of Christ, the age in which we live.

That too is ruled by Jesus Christ. This too is a form of His kingdom. The Bible designates it in the New Testament as the mystery form, that which was not seen in the Old Testament, that which was not revealed in the Old Testament, that period of time not really delineated, but now through the New Testament teaching of our Lord, and particularly the expanded teaching of the apostle Paul clearly defined for us.

We are living in that era. Jesus in Matthew 13 tells us what it will be like. He defines for us in seven parables the character, the extent, the value, and the consummation of this period known as the mystery form of the kingdom. God is mediating His rule on the earth through His church, through believers indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now the disciples didn't see this period of time as the prophets of old didn't see it either. So when the Messiah arrived, they thought immediately He would establish His kingdom. And when He established His kingdom, immediately all the rebels and unbelievers would be destroyed.

And holiness would fill the earth, and righteousness would fill the earth, and the kingdom would be as it was predicted to be by the prophets of old. And so they were always concerned about the kingdom, and its character, and its power, and its consummation. Even after Jesus died on the cross, they were still curious about the kingdom.

That's all He ever talked to them about really. Before His death it was the kingdom, and after His resurrection it was more about the kingdom. And it led them to ask Him in the first chapter of Acts in verse 6, Lord wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom? Is this the time to which He replied, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put into His own power?

That's not your business. They were always concerned about the kingdom. He said, It's not for you to know, but the angel said, This same Jesus who is taken up from you shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go. The kingdom will come, they said, but it won't come until He comes back in its fullness.

The kingdom you're looking for, the kingdom of glory, and righteousness, and absolute holiness, the kingdom where the Lord Jesus rules with a rod of iron and tolerates no evil, that kingdom that is that fully anticipated by the prophets awaits His return. But in the meantime, there is a form of the kingdom and that form is described as the mystery. Now this is very hard for the disciples, I think, to understand because they didn't see this.

They only saw the full and glorious consummation. Now I can only help you to understand and probably not fully understand what a devastating truth this would be to the disciples. They saw no such form of the kingdom, no such mingled kingdom, no such kingdom with good and bad tolerated. They didn't see that. They saw a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of holy glory, where unbelievers were devastatingly judged, punished, put out, destroyed.

They saw what Barclay calls a new and stainless humanity being brought into existence in the kingdom and the enemies being destroyed. So having heard the first parable, they probably would have thought to themselves, well, there's going to be then three kinds of rejecters and one kind of true and genuine fruit-bearing soil. What's going to happen to the rejecters? And I can think that in my own mind they must have been saying in those blasphemous Pharisees in chapter 12 who accused Jesus of being of Satan, what are you going to do to them? What's going to happen to the rejecters? Are they going to get it? Are they going to get blasted away? And they had good reason to think that because they'd been listening, no doubt, to the instruction that came from the mouth of John the Baptist who said, when he comes, he will baptize you with fire, and fire being symbolic of judgment.

His fan is in his hand. He will purge the floor. He'll gather the wheat to the granary and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. And here's John the Baptist, the immediate forerunner of Jesus Christ, and he doesn't even see this interim period. Here is the immediate forerunner saying, when he gets here, it is going to be fire and burning up of all the chaff and only the wheat will be kept.

So it's very obvious that they would have thought this. And so the immediate problem the disciples have is, look, if three kinds of people in this world aren't going to believe, are you going to blow them away right on the spot? Is this the time? And very likely in Acts 1, 6, when they said, is this the time you'll restore the kingdom? They were really saying, is this the time you're going to blast away the unbelievers? Is this the time for their devastating judgment?

That's really what they're asking. And so the Lord needs to explain to them then what he's going to do with the unbelievers who are in the earth during this mystery form of the kingdom. And he does that in parable number 2.

He answers their question, what happens to unbelievers during this age? And that parable begins in verse 24 of Matthew 13. And again I confess to you that with infinite omniscience, and that's redundant in itself, but I don't know of any other way to emphasize it, does the Lord Jesus Christ tell a simple story, the truth of which is absolutely infinite? I mean, my mind was bursting. I couldn't even keep up with myself. And I'd get one great thought and no sooner did I get it than another thought would push it out and I'll never recover. I've lost all the greatest thoughts probably.

It was coming so fast and furious. There is so much in this parable and I am only going to scratch the surface. But let's look at three things, the narration, the interpretation, and the application.

And we need no more outline than that because the story carries itself. Verse 24, another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field. Now this is a parable then about the kingdom of heaven. And that's synonymous with the kingdom of God, the kingdom ruled by God from heaven. What form of it?

The mystery form. But it even extends beyond that in a sense. Certainly what is taught in this parable is true of the past and it'll also be true even of the millennial period. So it's a rather sweeping perspective.

But it's a parable about God's rule on earth during this period. And he likens this to a man who sowed good seed in his field. Now this man owns the field, his field.

Keep that in mind. He's not borrowing the field. It's his field. And he sows good seed, not mediocre seed or average seed, but good seed, really good seed. Then verse 25, While men slept, and this indicates that he had a crew to help him.

He must have been a wealthy man. He had a lot of folks helping him with the sowing. And they were sleeping. It isn't because they were lazy, it's because it was night.

And a man who works hard has the right and the privilege to enjoy his sleep. And so at night his enemy came and sowed tares. They knew it as a darnel, which is the common term for it, rather than tares. But he sows darnels among the wheat.

And the word among there is a very strong Greek expression. I mean he sowed them all throughout and then went his way. Now you say, what in the world is this guy doing? Well it tells us he was an enemy. And one good way to ruin a man's crop is to sow his field full of weeds. You say they do that very often?

Common enough so that the Roman government had a law against it which prescribed a certain kind of punishment if you did that. That was a really great way to ruin your neighbor. Just over sow his field with weeds. And that is exactly what this enemy did. And then he stole off into the night. He went his way. He was a subtle man who operated in stealth and secrecy.

And he did an awful thing. And verse 26 says, When the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, when the head appeared, then appeared the darnel also. It became obvious at one point in the growth that this was not wheat. So the servants, these are the men who no doubt worked for the man, came and said, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?

From where then hath it terrors? Now they're shocked. And they wouldn't have been shocked if there were just a few of these darnels because they were common to the area.

It's a grassy kind of weed and it grows wherever it wants to grow. And they wouldn't have been shocked if there were a few of them because they always had a few weeds in the crop that they had to deal with. But they were shocked because the whole thing was full of them. And he said, Here's where it came from. Verse 28, An enemy has done it.

And so the servants wanting to defend the crop and their master and their own livelihood as well said, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? Now we can recognize them now because the heads have matured and we can tell the difference. The color was even different.

They were a slate gray color by now. And so they said, We can tell them apart. We'll go through the field and we'll tear them up. But he said, Nay. They were so full in the field and so close to the wheat, he says, You're liable in gathering up the darnels to root up the wheat with them.

So don't do anything. Verse 30, Let them grow together till the harvest. And in the time of the harvest, when that comes, I'll tell the reapers to gather the darnels, bind them in bundles to burn them and gather the wheat into my barn. Now that's the narration. A very simple story. Easy to understand.

But what does it mean? Well, that's what the disciples wanted to know. Look at verse 36. And later on, after he's given a couple of other parables in between, it's time to explain the parables. And as we learn from the other gospels, he explained all of them to them because they on their own could not fully understand them. But verse 36 says, Jesus sent the multitude away.

So he takes them apart from the rest. Just the disciples went back into the house. What house? The house he came out of.

Very likely Simon Peter's house in Capernaum. They went back in the house. The disciples came and they asked, Explain to us the parable of the darnels of the field. They wanted to know that.

Now they're back in the house. Just those apostles and Mark 4-10 says, Those who also followed them or believed. So the only people there are the believers. They're the only ones that get an explanation.

And that's the way it is. God only reveals His truth to His own. And He answers their question. Now note the question they asked. They identify the story.

He doesn't. He doesn't give it a title. They did. The title they gave it was the parable of the darnels. So they knew that was the main feature. They knew the story was about those things that didn't belong in the field and how in the end they were going to get burned up. They knew that. That was the feature that they attached importance to. And so after they are together and they ask the question, the Lord answers the question.

And they really needed an answer. Because of the confusion over the form of the kingdom in which they were existing. So He explains to them what's going to happen to the darnels, those that aren't wheat. Let's look at the interpretation. Verse 37. He answered and said, He that sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Now who's the Son of Man?

Christ. Christ is the Son of Man. That's His common title for Himself. He uses that more than any other title to refer to Himself. In fact, only one time in the New Testament is that phrase ever used by anybody else of Him.

Every other time it's His phrase for Himself. And He uses it because it identifies Him in His incarnation. It identifies Him in His humanness. It identifies Him as He truly participates in our life. It identifies Him to be all that a man could be, the perfect man. It identifies Him as the second Adam, the representative of the race. It is His unique incarnation term. But it is also messianic. In Daniel 7 13, the Messiah is said to be called the Son of Man. So He is identifying Himself as the Messiah God incarnate in that title.

It's a marvelous title. And so we see that the sower is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the farmer sowing the seed. Now, what does this tell us?

There's some lessons here and we're going to get some lessons as we go through. It tells us that the Lord is sowing seed. Where? In His field. In His field. Now if you'll notice it says in verse 38, the field is the world.

So the Lord is sowing seed in the world. And may I hasten to add that the world is His field. It belongs to Him. He is sovereign. He is monarch. He is king of the earth. He holds in His hand the title deed even though He hasn't really laid claim to it fully as He will in Revelation 6. When He unrolls the scroll, that's the title deed to the earth and takes back the earth. It is His nonetheless.

It is His nonetheless. And all creation, by the way, groans, doesn't it? Romans 8.

Waiting for Him to take possession of what is rightly His. So we see then the Lord is sowing seed in the world. Which belongs to Him. It's His field. It's His kingdom.

I mean He made it, didn't He? And He planted Adam and Eve in it. And Satan came along and usurped everything. But it's still His.

He created it and He will reclaim it and it's His in the meantime. So the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, sows in His own field. Now what does He sow? Well, it says the good seed are the children of the kingdom. What this means is that the Lord puts the children of the kingdom in the world.

Very simple. You'd be amazed how complex people have made this parable. I've heard people, well most commentators that I read, and I read probably 20 different books on this particular passage, most of them said the field is the church. And that in the church the wheat and the tares grow together.

And you've all heard that. That's been the common interpretation. Jesus said in verse 38, the field is the world.

Now that doesn't seem too difficult, does it? You say, but you have to interpret what He meant. No, He just interpreted what He meant. First of all, the field was a field.

Just a field with a guy sowing. And then He said the field means the world. And now you say, but the world means the church. Somebody else might come along in the next generation and say the church means the Baptist church. And then the next generation means the Baptist church in the corner over. You can't do that.

You just leave it where it is. The Lord said the field is the world, and He knows the word church. And if He wanted to use it, He'd have used it. Field is the world. What is it saying? God sows His children of His kingdom throughout the world. Now the disciples could handle that. Sure, it's going to be an earthly kingdom.

God's going to put His people all around the world. We don't have a problem with that. By the way, if you make it the church, you will wind up with such chaos in trying to interpret the parable that it's hopeless. Because later on when the servants say, can we pull out the Darnells? And the Lord says, don't pull them out.

Let them grow together. If that's the church, then we have no right to church discipline. We have no right to expose a heretic. We have no right to deal with the sin. And that's not what the epistles tell us. If you make this field the church, you've really got problems. Leave it the way Jesus interpreted it.

It's the world. So you have believing people. Now by the way, that phrase, children of the kingdom, is a marvelous phrase. We are children of the kingdom. We are the subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been planted in the world, His world.

This is a picture not of the world in the church, but of the church in the world. And we are placed within the world's system. We who genuinely love the King, who genuinely affirm His Lordship, who truly are subjects of His sovereignty, we are planted in the world. That's a great thought, you know, that we're not here by accident. We're planted by the Lord.

Isn't that great? In the place He wants us in the world. That also tells me that we're not to be out of the world. We're not to be off in a monastery somewhere, in a cubicle. But we're not called to do that.

We're not called to isolate ourselves. We've been planted in the world. So in this kingdom, we're going to be planted all throughout the world.

And we're there for many reasons. First of all, we're there to be matured by the trouble the world gives us, right? 1 Peter 5, 10, after you've suffered a little while, the Lord will make you perfect. In this world you'll have tribulation, but be of good cheer.

John 16, 33, I have overcome the world. And James said that that trial and that trouble and those things that happen in the world are what mature you and build you up. So the Lord plants us there so that we can develop. He also plants us there, are you ready for this, so that we can influence. So that we can influence. Now a parable can only go so far and then it breaks down as an analogy of spiritual truth.

And this is the point at which it breaks down, but I want to introduce the thought. We're in the world to influence for good the darnels or the tares. Did you know that everybody whose wheat was once tares, true? We were all bad seed before we got converted, right? Somebody said, well, no, if you take this in a Calvinistic predestination sense, we were planted as good seed and we just grew as good seed.

No, no. No matter what you believe about the sovereignty of God, no matter what you believe about predestination, we were all bad from the beginning. So the Lord puts us in the world not only to be perfected and to be matured by the pressure that it brings, but to influence the tares into becoming wheat like we did. Our redemption must be at work and that's why Jesus said in John 17, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that when they're in the world, thou shouldest keep them from what? The evil one.

You can't take them out. We're supposed to be in the world. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, helping you understand your role in the lives of both believers and the lost. The title of his current study here on Grace to You, The Parables of the Kingdom. Now, while we have a minute here, we want to let you know about the latest volume in a classic series of books by John. And of course, John, when I say the latest volume, it's worth mentioning that this book is both brand new and in a way it's not brand new. Yeah, this is a wonderful, wonderful new opportunity and really a new direction for Grace to You. Many years ago, we produced study guides and then decades have gone by and we haven't produced them, but we've gone back to them and relaunched our study guides. The first one was a couple of months back. Tremendous response to that. And now we're launching the second study guide, The Believer's Armor.

Now, here's the good news about this. This is free to anyone who has never contacted us before. Let me tell you a little about the study guides.

It began really in 1980. We produced dozens of these study guides. They were soft cover paperback books that corresponded to the sermon series on the radio so that you could listen and follow along with the outline that was given to you in the little booklet.

Each sermon was covered in 15 to 20 pages, included a lengthy section of questions at the end to reinforce the lesson. And these little booklets were designed for individual study or maybe group Bible study, discipleship, one-on-one, whatever. The publishing rights to these study guides have reverted back to us and we decided let's just reintroduce them to a brand new generation.

We're really thankful to be able to do this. And as I said, the second of the relaunched study guides has now been published. It's called The Believer's Armor and it's based, of course, on that passage in Ephesians 6.

Special offer. If you've never been in touch with us before, we will send you a free copy of The New Believer's Armor study guide. Help you to understand what spiritual warfare in your life is all about. So request your free copy right away. We're hoping to get it so you can use this study guide next month when we air The Believer's Armor on this broadcast. Take advantage of this free offer if you've never been in touch with us before. And by the way, anybody else already on our mailing list, you can order one from the ministry for a very reasonable price. Yes, this resource can help you clearly see the amazing resources God gives you for living a life of victory, joy, and obedience.

It also shows you how God's people withstood Satan in the past and how you can do the same. To pick up a copy of The Believer's Armor study guide, it's free if it's your first time contacting us. Get in touch today. You can call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. The Believer's Armor study guide includes questions at the end of each section that will help facilitate deeper study, discussion, and application, and it's ideal for either personal or group study.

Again, we'll send you The Believer's Armor study guide for free if you've never contacted us before. Call 800-55-GRACE, or go to gty.org. And when you visit gty.org, make sure to take advantage of the thousands of free resources available, including Grace Stream. That's a continuous loop of John MacArthur sermons from Matthew through Revelation. It takes a couple of months to get through all of them, and then the sermons repeat. Whether you have 15 minutes to listen or a couple of hours, jump into the Grace Stream today, and anytime, for verse-by-verse encouragement from the New Testament. You'll find Grace Stream at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John looks at how God's enemies attack his kingdom and how you should defend yourself. Don't miss the next 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.