Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today.
Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. We'll just pray and begin, but we have here the parable of the wheat and the tares. So when explaining this parable, Jesus gives his disciples and us the identities of those involved in this story.
So I want to give you the characters this morning so you understand it. The sower here is Christ. He's the good sower. The good seed is the gospel. The food, the tares is the devil.
This is what Jesus says. The wheat are those who are truly saved. The tares are those who are unsaved but have the appearance of salvation. The tares are those who may be in the church or who may not be in the church, but they look saved, they act saved, they sound saved, but in truth they're deceived about the their own salvation.
The tares are those who expect to go to heaven when they die, but will in fact be gathered and burnt in hell. You see, just like tares, lost sinners, even those who act saved are good for one thing only. A person who does not truly know Christ is good for one thing only. I'm not saying this according to the Bible, and that is to be burnt. I want you to look at these verses, 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5, it says, Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates.
Look at 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 10, wherefore the rather brethren give diligence to make your call calling in election, sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall. See, I believe God asked me to do this on a Sunday morning, although we're going through all the parables of Jesus on Wednesday nights, our folks have really enjoyed that study as we did all of the miracles of Jesus, took us about a year, and now we're going through the parables, but God said do this on Sunday morning. All I'm asking you to do today is to examine yourself. Let's just look at the truth of God's word.
Here's what I will promise you. I'm not going to tell any scary stories today. I'm not going to tell you how so and so thought they were saved, got in a car wreck, how they're burning in hell today or whatever the case might be.
I'm not here to manipulate you or scare you or any of those things. I am just here to teach you God's word, but I do believe that oftentimes there are many individuals who have the appearance of being saved, who tell people they're saved, and who have even convinced themselves that I feel saved. But are not really saved. And I've got to teach the truth of God's word. By the way, isn't that what you want from your pastor is to teach the truth of God's word. So I just want to do that of love today. Let's pray. Lord, we need your help as we look into your word. God, I pray that you would give us wisdom today and open hearts. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. So we have here the parable of the wheat and the tares. The wheat is useful. The tares are useless. The wheat will end up in the barn to be used. The tares will end up wrapped up to be burnt. What is the difference in this story between the wheat and the tares? Because they look so similar.
It's on the screen for you. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is likened unto a man which soweth good seed in his field. That means this seed was planted. But notice in verse 25, but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. Both the wheat and the tares shared a common experience of having been planted. So what is the difference in these two being planted? First, I want you to know and notice the nature of the seed.
You see, the wheat seed produced wheat while the tare seed produced tares. On a spiritual level, the seed is that thing that we have placed our faith in. It's the foundation of our salvation. For the genuine believer, the seed, as Jesus said, is the gospel.
The good news, the fact that Jesus died, that he was buried, that he rose again, the good news that includes anyone, any race, any person who wishes to put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That is the good seed of the gospel. The truly born again person is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation.
The seed is different. You see, literally it all comes down to where have you placed your faith? What are you trusting in for your salvation? There might be somebody here this morning that says, preacher, my mom assures me that I got saved when I was a kid. Friend, your mama can assure you of your salvation. You had better not depend on the assurance of someone else for your salvation. Just because your mama told you the story 15 times and you got it memorized now. You had better not depend on, another might say, well listen, it's kind of fuzzy and I don't remember much about it, but everyone tells me I was saved. Now, can I tell you something? We need to realize hell is going to be filled with people who are basing their salvation on some fuzzy experience.
Some experience they had when they were a child or some emotional experience during a revival or during a good service. But dear friend, you better not trust in an emotional experience. You better not trust in a trip to the altar.
You better not trust in what mama said. Salvation is in Jesus Christ, not some kind of experience. You should see, I can show you pictures of the car, but God saved me. And listen, you just survived a wreck. God kept you alive so you could be saved. You weren't saved because you lived through a wreck. Do you understand what I'm saying? It's two different seeds.
It looks alike and it feels similar, but it's different. And if your faith or your trust is in some kind of an experience, be it physically, be it emotionally or whatever, or because someone has told you that you're saved, dear friend, salvation comes when the Holy Spirit draws you. It's called conviction, and there must be conviction for sin in your life. And the reaction to that conviction is a repentance. It's an admittance that I'm on my way to hell, that I can't save myself, that all the good I could do could never purchase my salvation. But I believe in the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it's not because I feel something or because I've been through something, but because I put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ. What we need to understand is salvation only comes to a heart that has been convicted of sin.
Can I read you a verse, John 6 44, no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. May I say something? If you have ever been under conviction, you will remember it.
There's nothing fuzzy about that. If you were under conviction when you got saved, it's not something that you just can't quite remember. Do you understand that what we often deal with, there is no age limit on salvation, and I have parents all the time, and I have to work with my own children. And when you grow up in a church, it's a wonderful thing, but when you grow up in a church, we have junior church, that they hear all these things. They hear the gospel that many times it is possible that maybe a child can be so willing and obedient that maybe that there is the action of salvation but not really the conviction of sin.
And that's the difference. Somebody has to be able to understand that they're a sinner and that there is sin and there's consequences of that sin. And we have trained our children, and Brother David does a fantastic job, Brother Eli and Brother Frank and all these that when we deal with children, we don't walk them through a prayer.
We don't say repeat after me. In fact, if we have a child that wants to be saved and we go, we come get the parents. And we want the parents in there and we want them to see, because may I say something?
There's a lot of confusion that can build up over the years because of a child that was never convicted of sin but just obeyed a person. And all I'm saying is this, you say, preacher, you're trying to scare me. No, I'm not. I'm just trying to tell you the truth.
I would rather tell you the truth and hurt your feelings than lie to you and not hurt your feelings. The nature of the seed, but notice secondly the nature of the sower. You see, the good seed was sowed by the owner of the field. The tares were sowed by the enemy. Why did the enemy do this? We know that the good seed, the good sower is Jesus and the sower of the tares is the devil.
Why does he do this? Well, I tell you why. It's in an effort to ruin the crop. Satan is in the business of sowing tares among the Lord's wheat.
Why? Well, Satan knows if he can place enough of the artificial among the genuine, then he can kind of hurt the entire crop. Satan is in the business of undoing all that the Lord is trying to do. If he can fill the church with lost church members, then he can fill hell with deceived people. If he can mix enough goats in among the sheep as the Bible gives reference to, then he can disrupt the harmony and the blessedness of the church. May I say something? I had a preacher make this statement one time. I don't know if I fully agree with it, but the longer I've been in it, I do because we've been blessed here at this church. We just don't have a lot of mess. We just don't, and I'm thankful. It could start tomorrow.
It might start before I'm done. I don't know, but we're just blessed with harmony here, but this is what he said. Whenever there is church trouble, you can almost always bank on this truth that there is a lost person involved somewhere, and usually it's the one that looks the most saved. Man, may I say something? Satan knows that enough lost people in the church is going to give the church a bad name. Let me say this.
Why? Because the lost can only imitate the saved for so long. Then their true nature, like the nature of the tares, will come out.
You know, a person can look saved, act saved, be in the church, do everything we do, but give it time. And eventually real wheat grows different. Real wheat has fruit. Real wheat bears fruit.
Tares have no fruit. Both were sown, number two. Both sprouted. Both began to grow. Now this is a question I have. So even a tare, who is not even a real piece of wheat, grows just like the wheat.
Yep. Verse 26 says, but when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. They're growing right along with the real wheat. Well, I want you to notice first, as we look at this, notice first the increase of the wheat. Verse 28, literally his servants come in and tell him this, and he said to them, an enemy hath done this. The servant said in him, wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
They're growing together. So do you want us to go in and separate them? And notice what he said, nay, lest when you gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat. That is why you and I don't play judge. I am not in the business, and you better not be in the business of deciding who's saved and who's not, or telling a person who's saved and who's not. Because you can root up the wrong thing if you start doing that. That's why he said, no, you're going to try to pull up all this bad, but when you do, you're going to pull up some of the good too.
So we're just going to let them all stay together. And when harvest day comes, when the rapture comes, this is interesting. Both the wheat and the tares grow. As the wheat grows, the tares grow right alongside them.
They did everything the wheat did, and they look good doing it. Do you know it is entirely possible for a person who doesn't know Christ to come into this church, to listen to the Word of God, to obey the Word of God, to grow, to look the same, to act the same, to do everything, but over time, there'll be no fruit. You see, God doesn't, a person, an unsaved person should open the church, God doesn't pluck them out of church. Well, the ideal scenario is God wants the person to hear the truth and to accept the truth and to get saved. But let me tell you, the person that won't hear the truth and won't get saved is the person that sits here and thinks they're already saved. And they think they're already saved because they're trusting in the wrong seed. Interesting to me. Did you know that it's possible for a lost church member to grow in the things of God?
It sure is. Take the Bible, for instance. It's a spiritual book. It takes the right kind of spirit to understand. Listen, look at this verse, 1 Corinthians 2 14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness under him. Neither can he know them, because they're not spiritually discerned.
Now imagine a lost person who gets deceived into thinking he's saved. They sit under the preaching of the same truth. The Bible is explained the same to them.
That lost person can literally understand the Bible, because I'm up here explaining it. Tares in the church sing in the choir. They can serve as a deacon. They can be a Sunday school teacher. They can attend faithfully. They can come and they can be involved.
They can even stand in the pulpit and preach. But just because they have all the activity of wheat and the appearance of wheat, they're growing just like the wheat, and they look just like the wheat, that doesn't mean they're real. The increase of the wheat, notice secondly the image of the wheat. Verse 30 says, let both grow together until harvest. The tares grow alongside the wheat. They look just like the wheat. If you had wheat in one hand and tares in the other hand, you would not be able to tear them apart, and that's often the way things are in church.
We cannot tell the difference between the genuine and the artificial, and that's why it's not up to us to tell the difference. Don't go, listen, mamas and dads, don't go tell your kids they're saved. If they ask questions, no, no, no, when you were three, just because you might have been the one at the house that led them to the Lord, you didn't do wrong. You answered their questions, but they start having questions and things.
Don't get offended because you think you're the one that dealt with them and it's a pride issue now. No, you got saved back then. Well, I was with brother Frank. Brother Frank was preaching and God's really convinced. No, you got saved when you were three.
How dare you do that? This is their eternal destiny in front of them. We are not to pick apart between the tares and the wheat. They look the same. They act the same.
All that. Look at second Timothy chapter three, verse five, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Parents should never tell their children they're saved.
Spouses should never tell the other one that they're saved. The fact is you don't know. Only the Holy Spirit knows. Notice thirdly, the ingredients of the wheat. Verse 38 says, the field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. There's one thing different between the wheat and the tares. One thing is tares cannot produce fruit. If you were to open the head of a wheat plant, you'll find it filled with wheat kernels. But if you open the head of a tare, it'll just be tiny little black seeds.
Tares cannot produce lasting fruit. And that's the way it is with tares in the church. They give all the external appearances of being real.
They look right, act right, walk right, talk right, dress right. But when you get right down to it, there's no fruit in their life. They lack the things that would make them a genuine believer. Because when you have begun a relationship, a true relationship with Jesus, He works through us and fruit comes out. Tares have no fruit. You know what's interesting? It's interesting here that in response, the farmer, they asked, do you want us to remove the tares? His counsel was to allow them both to grow until harvest.
The picture is this. You and I can't tell the difference. Look at this verse, 1 Samuel chapter 6, verse 7.
We're almost done. But the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart. Both were sown, both sprouted. Number three, last, both were sifted. Harvest time came. Verse 30, let them both grow together unto harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first.
The tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. What are we talking about here prophetically? We're talking here about the great white throne judgment, because the tares were taken first. In the rapture we're taken, the tares are left. But after we go to heaven and we have literally the, we're judged, you know, at the great white throne and all that, and we are in heaven, we come back with Jesus, we rule and reign on this earth for a thousand years, and then there is the great white throne judgment.
You and I are saved or judged at the judgment seat of Christ after the rapture of the church, but we're talking after we have ruled and reigned. This is the end. This is the end of the world, this passage says. The end of the world. This is harvest. And what happens is the tares of the great white throne judgment, those who have never truly been saved, doesn't matter how they looked, doesn't matter how they acted, doesn't matter all the good things they've done, the Bible says they will be gathered and thrown into hell. And then we will be put in the barn.
We have an eternal home with Christ. Both were sifted. Interesting. The reapers were sent into the field to gather the tares first, and then the wheat. Now, how could they tell the difference now? Well, it's easy at this stage because the wheat matures, the head becomes filled with kernels, and the weight of those kernels cause the stalk on that wheat plant to bend over and bend over and bend over and bend over, and the seeds of the tares are so light that you begin to easily tell the difference.
The picture here is plain and clear. Listen to me. As a genuine believer grows in the Lord, he tends to become more humble in the presence of God. The closer you and I get to Christ, the lower we become. The tare, on the other hand, will stand in his pride and go to hell clinging tightly to his experience. When harvest time came, they were both gathered, but they had two very different ends.
Very simply. Number one, the tares were put in the fire. Verse 39.
Here's Jesus' explanation of the disciples. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world. The rapture of the church is not the end of the world. Do you know we're going to be taken? People will still be alive. You understand that?
You've seen enough movies, correct? And it's going to go on. There's going to be, obviously, the seven years, and I'm not going to get into all that right now, but the end of the world's not there. We're talking now at the literal end of the world. And the reapers are the angels.
Verse 40. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. These plants were bound together, allowed to dry, and were used much like kindling.
They were good for nothing. You know what tares were done? They were gathered the tares, and they would simply use tares as a fire starter.
What a picture. So we know first that the tares were put in the fire. Second, that the wheat was put in the barn.
Interesting. Here, the wheat would be processed for human consumption, maybe even sold for profit by the farmer. He kept the wheat, but he had no use for the tares. The implications are clear. When this life has run its course, there are only two possible destinations, the fire or the barn. The fire or the barn. The barn meaning heaven, the fire meaning hell.
Now, as we close, I want to try to help you just a little bit. It's not a warning. It's just an observation, and I want you to think about this. As we look at this fact that there are wheat and tares, you say, do you think there are wheat and tares at Kerwin Baptist Church?
Probably. That keeps me up at night sometimes. You can't show a person their need of salvation if they already think they're saved. And I'm not trying to make people doubt their salvation. I really am not. But there's some questions to ask you.
Number one is this. Beware of good works. It's easy to substitute good works for salvation. Often the tares are not the worst ones we think of.
They're often the best ones we think of. They're busy and active in the church, but they're lost nonetheless. Don't let a seat in the choir or a job at the church or something good you've done send you to hell. Beware of trusting in good works. Number two, beware of good beliefs. There is a real danger sometimes in coming to a church like this one. The danger is that we tell you the truth, and the truth is preached so much and taught here that you begin to learn doctrines and to believe the right things and never actually believing in the right person. You see, you can believe the Bible and every word in it and still go to hell.
Did you guys know that? Name a verse that the devil doesn't believe. Do you know Satan himself believes every verse in this Bible?
That's why he's working so hard. He believes it all, and the Bible says in James 2 19, not only that Satan believes it, but he trembles at it. It won't make a difference in your life until you bow before the Lord in repentance of your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You can believe in the blood, you can believe in the resurrection, you can believe in the virgin birth, you can believe in every fundamental doctrine of faith and still die lost. It's not just based on good beliefs. It's about putting your faith in the right person. Number three, beware of good people. There are people all around that wouldn't hurt you for all the money in the world, but that could even send you to hell without realizing it. Don't ever let someone else tell you, no, you're good, no, you're saved. Well, they're good people and they believe it, dear friend. It's not up to people.
Well-meaning people. Listen, I have watched this happen. I have been literally dealing with a person. I've dealt with a husband when the wife said something. I've dealt with a wife when the husband said something and got to the point they said, I really believe I need to be saved and the husband or the wife. No, you've already been saved.
No, you've already, listen, they might be good people, but don't listen to good people when it comes to your eternal salvation. Number four, beware of big time, good feelings. Beware of good feelings.
Now, I want to show you this. Look at verse 40. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this world. The son of man shall send forth his angels. They shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire.
There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sometimes we have emotional services. Sometimes there's intense good feelings in church.
There should be, by the way. It is easy to feel emotion and cry a little, even give a testimony and feel better, but you need to understand those emotions can't save you. You need to understand that a good feeling experience doesn't save you. You see what happens is over time, you begin to see a tear can only imitate the wheat so long.
All of a sudden you see the fruit. Our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.
