Seventeenth Meeting
(February 13, 1964 P.M.)
Read:
Matthew 13:24-30.
I feel
that the Lord has very definitely led me back to these
parables of the Kingdom. Therefore, I can only give you
what the Lord has told me to say. These seven parables in
Matthew thirteen are a prophecy. The Lord Jesus was
foretelling things that would happen during this
dispensation from the time of His first coming to His
coming again. You will notice that the last of these
parables ends with THE CONSUMMATION OF THE AGE. The Lord
knew that in this dispensation up to His coming again,
certain conditions and situations would come about. These
conditions which would come about would greatly perplex
and distress His servants. Therefore, by means of these
parables, He did two things.
Firstly,
He made it very clear that these things would happen. He
provided a Word which perfectly described what would
arise in this dispensation. In these seven parables, we
have a perfect description of the things which have
really come about in this age.
Then He
did the second thing. He showed that, however difficult
it would be for His servants to understand, all these
things would be within the compass of the Sovereign Rule
of God. When He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like
unto," He meant that all these things which would
happen, which would be so discouraging and perplexing,
would be within the realm of the Sovereign Rule of
Heaven. The name, the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of
God, simply means the Sovereign Rule of God or of Heaven.
It is within that Sovereign Rule that all these things
are permitted. We do not understand them. They give us a
lot of trouble. They are very discouraging, but they are
all under the Sovereign Rule of Heaven. You notice that
is how it comes out at the end of every parable. It is
the end which matters. It is the end of every parable
that we have to take note of. Certain very difficult
things would come about, but in the end, GOD WINS. God
has the end in His hands. This is the only way in which
to read these parables. Sometimes you read a book. It
begins very good, and then trouble arises. Everything
seems to go wrong. And some people, when the trouble
begins, turn over to the end of the book and see how it
ends. And, of course, it always ends all right. Well,
that is how it is with these parables. Things began very
well, soon trouble arises. But when you look at the end
of the story, it is all right.
We were
thinking the other day of the parable of the sower. The
sower went forth to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell by
the way side. Well, when he started, it was all right.
Things have gone wrong. Some seeds fell by the way side,
some seeds fell on the rocky soil, some seeds fell among
thorns. All three of those seem to be wasted. That is
very discouraging. To the workers who go out with the
seed, it is very discouraging to see how much of it seems
to be wasted. A lot of people do not seem to bear very
much fruit, if any at all. But the end of the parable,
some fell ON GOOD GROUND, bringing forth an
hundredfold, sixtyfold, thirtyfold. It is the end which
matters. All is not in vain at the end. At the end
everything is not wasted. However people may react,
Heaven Rules. It is all within the compass of the
Sovereign Rule of Heaven.
Now we
come to this second parable, the parable of the two
seeds. Of course, the disciples called it the parable of
the darnel. That is the word which is in the original, it
is not tares but darnel. We shall see that in a minute.
They called it the parable of the darnel. I call it the
parable of the two seeds.
Now let
us break up this parable in order to get to its message.
There are eight parts to this parable, we can pass over
them very quickly and come to the message at the end.
First of all, there is the field, and here we must get
our mentality quite clear. This thing has been very much
misunderstood because men have thought that this field
was the Church, and that the two kinds of seed were in
the Church. That is not the teaching of the parable. The
field is the same field as the sower went to sow. And the
Lord Jesus said, "The field is the world." No,
we are not dealing with the Church now, we are dealing
with the world. It is important to recognize that for
this reason. This field or this world is the rightful
property of the Son of Man. He that sows the seeds, it
says, is the Son of Man, and the field belongs to Him by
right. It is His property. This world really belongs to
the Lord Jesus, and this world is intended to be occupied
by His people. The seed that He sows are the children of
the Kingdom. And this world which belongs to Him is
intended to be inhabited by the children of the Kingdom.
It is very important for us to recognize that. "The
earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." When
we go out to the Lord's work, and come into any place, we
have the right to say, this place by right belongs to the
Lord Jesus, and we put our feet down there and claim that
for the sovereign rights of the Lord Jesus. The field is
the world and it by right belongs to the Lord Jesus. The
good seed, it says, is the children of the Kingdom which
He sows in the world. What the Lord Jesus is doing
through this dispensation is sowing children of the
Kingdom in this world. We are here in this world as
children of His Kingdom to claim His rights in this
world.
Then the
next thing is the enemy. He comes to sow his bad seed.
Jesus says, 'The enemy is the devil.' You notice this
devil, this enemy, comes into what does not belong to
him. Satan is a trespasser in this world. He is an
invader. The world does not belong to him by right. He
has come into it as an enemy. It is enemy occupation. He
comes to sow his seeds and to sow his seed alongside of
the seed which the Son of Man sows. This one hates the
Son of Man. Jesus calls him an enemy, and He gives him
the name 'the devil', which means, 'the adversary,' the
one who just hates this Son of Man, and is determined, as
far as he can, to spoil the work of the Son of Man. And
so he comes into the field of the world and sows his own
seed alongside the good seed.
Now you
have got to note a very special thing here. The Lord
Jesus is not here saying that all the unsaved people in
this world are the children of the devil. There is truth
in that. The Apostle John says, "The whole world
lieth in the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). There is a
sense in which it is true that all unsaved people are in
the power of the devil. But that is not what the Lord
Jesus is teaching here. He is not here teaching
especially that all unsaved and all unevangelized people
in this world are children of the devil. If He were
teaching that, there is not much point in the parable.
Everybody knows that there are children of God, and that
there are other children in this world. There are
children of the Kingdom and there are those who are not
children of the Kingdom. We all know that. We know that
the other children are alongside of us every day. We do
not need a parable to tell us that. We do not need the
Lord Jesus to especially teach us that, we know that.
But you
see, here is the point. These children of the devil, of
whom the Lord is speaking are a special kind. Jesus calls
them darnel. Now, darnel in the east is something that is
almost exactly like wheat. It is so much like the true
wheat that it is not until it is full grown that you see
the difference. This darnel is something that is false.
It is something that is an imitation. It is something
that is a lie. It is something that pretends to be like
the children of the Kingdom but is not.
The
enemy comes and sows something that looks very much like
the true thing but it is false. It is something that is
the devil's lie. This kind of people talk the same kind
of language as the children of the Kingdom. They can use
the Scriptures. They can use the same phraseology. They
can talk about Jesus. They can talk about the Scripture.
They can talk about the death of Jesus. But they mean
something different.
The
Jesus of whom they talk is not God incarnate. They talk
about Jesus, but they do not believe in the deity of
Christ. They can talk about the Bible, but they do not
believe the Divine inspiration of the Word of God. They
can talk about the death or crucifixion of Jesus, but
they just mean something quite heroic like other men's
death. They take out of the death of Christ all the
Divine meaning of atoning sacrifice. And in many other
ways these children of the devil speak the language but
they have not the voice. They are imitation Christians.
They have not been born of God. They are not the fruit of
a definite work of the Spirit. And the devil brings them
alongside of the children of the Kingdom in order to make
confusion, to make the children of the Kingdom look
something different. It is just this work of mixture
amongst people. Very often you cannot on the surface see
the difference. So the servants of the householder went
to Him and said, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your
field? Whence then had it darnel?' And the Lord said, 'An
enemy has done this thing.' Remember, this is one of the
works of the devil, to imitate Christianity. To set up
alongside of the truth something that is false.
Then the
servants said, 'Shall we go out and root up these
darnel?' The Lord said, 'No. If you do try to do that,
you may not be able to discriminate between the true and
the false, and you will be pulling up some of the true as
well. Let both grow together unto the harvest.' This is
the Lord's governing principle in this dispensation. Oh,
there is a lot of meaning in this. Our business is not to
be always trying to expose what is wrong. Many servants
of the Lord had been caught in doing this. They are
spending their lives and their energies in trying to
track down something that they think is false and to root
it out. This world is full of suspicion, suspicion among
the people of God. It is almost impossible to go anywhere
without somebody saying, 'Now what is wrong with this
man? We must find out where he is not sound in doctrine.
We must not trust him until we have examined him.' This
world is full of that sort of thing, all the time trying
to find some error somewhere, to find out the
imperfection of this one and that one. And they are using
their own judgment about this. The result is, that many
who are true children of God are being rooted up by these
people. Many a true servant of God has been simply rooted
up and thrown away by this kind of suspicion. The Lord
Jesus has said very emphatically, do not do that, that is
not your business, just let both grow together, and as
things grow, you will be able to recognize what they are.
The evil will show itself more and more as time goes on,
you will be able to recognize that that is not of the
Lord. By the process of development it will show its true
nature. In the course of time and in the end it will be
manifested that that thing is of the devil; it is against
the Lord.
But on
the other side, and this is the real message of the
parable, that which is truly of the Lord has got to grow
and grow and grow more like the Lord. It is, of course,
true that the Church is in the world, and what is true of
the world can be true of the Church. There can be those
who are not truly born-again children of God. They mix
with the Lord's people. They profess to believe the
things that are in the Word of God. My point is that
there are a lot of people mixing with the true children
of God who are not really born-again. They are not truly
children of the Kingdom. The Lord Jesus wants us to
understand that the true children of the Kingdom will
grow more and more like the Lord Himself. The others will
not grow like the Lord. They will just be false
professors.
Now the
message of the parable is this, when the Lord comes or at
the end of the age, those who are His will be perfectly
clearly known as His. There will be no mistake in the
children of the Kingdom. You will know who are the
children of the Kingdom. There will be no doubt about it.
They have been growing more and more like the Lord. The
true divine nature which He had put into them at the
beginning is showing itself more and more. This process
of intensification is the law of the Kingdom. The parable
raises this big question for us all, 'Am I growing more
and more like my Lord? Is there more and more of Christ
in me as time goes on?' The great consummation of the age
is the manifestation of the sons of God. The word is,
'When He shall be manifested, then we shall be manifested
with Him.' In the end, the sons of the Kingdom will be
clearly identified, but that is a thing which has got to
go on every day. See, these two seeds were growing every
day, and as they grew, it was possible to see which was
which.
Let me
say to the young people here, begin by making very sure
that you are a truly born-again child of God, that you
are a true child of the Kingdom, that you are not just
where you are because other people have said you ought to
be there. But it is because of a very real work which God
has done in your own heart. And that being your
beginning, make sure that you are growing and growing and
growing more like your Lord every day. So that those who
look on are able to say, there is no doubt about that man
or that woman, that boy or that girl. They are the true
and genuine things. There is no falsehood about them,
there is no hypocrisy about them. They are not pretending
to be Christians; they are the real thing. In the end, it
will be manifested to all the world who are the sons of
God!
One
other thing to notice here. What happens at the end?
Well, the Lord here says that it is that which is of the
devil, which is to first be destroyed. It is all that
which the devil has done, which the devil has planted,
which will go to judgment first. He says, 'First gather
the darnel into bundles and burn it.' All that is false,
all that is not true, is going to burn in the judgment.
And then the Lord says, 'Gather the wheat into My barn.'
It is a long story of the evil work of the enemy. It
created great difficulties for us, but in the end the
Lord wins. In the end the Lord has the true thing, and
all the other has gone. It is the end that matters.
Now, I
do not know why the Lord made me say this. I said to the
Lord, 'Now if I say this to that company of people, they
will all think that I am teaching them like little
children. They have got so much teaching. They know so
much of the deeper things. If I go right back to this
picture book of parables, they will think that I am just
regarding them as a kindergarten.' But the Lord said,
'You say what I tell you. We have got to get right back
behind all this Christianity. We have got to get right
down to [the] foundation. We have got to make sure that
everybody knows exactly where they are. The great
judgment fires are coming. We are working for a future
day, the day when everything will be manifested for what
it is, and we must be very faithful, and leave nothing to
chance. We must not assume that the people who think they
are the Lord's people are really the Lord's people. We
must do everything that we can to remove falsehood. The
devil has put very much falsehood into Christianity. He
has brought very much that is a lie alongside of the
truth, and we must be very faithful to see that people
know exactly what they are and where they are before
God.'
So you
must forgive me for being simple in this way, I can only
say what the Lord tells me to say. Well, I think that
most of you will agree that this is the sort of thing
that has to be done. If you are a true child of God, you
will not mind being talked to like this. Well, if you are
not a true child of God, take a word of warning, nothing
that is false or a lie is going to get into the Kingdom.
Only that which is the truth. So, may we all be those who
are children of the Kingdom, and are growing day by day
like Him Who planted us.