Just like the psalmist professes in Psalms 119:105 he says – “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” the word here simply means revelation, it is the revelation of the word of God that will lighten up our path, when you don’t have the true revelation of the word of God you’ll walk in darkness, and this is what we see setting in into the message of the hour, we have people who lack the true revelation of the word of God propagate different false doctrines and that’s we who have this light should walk in the light and be sure we have believed the message right. If you do not believe right, you’ll believe anything brought to you as the message of the hour, and that is why we are looking into the subject The Tares, The Wheat, and The Chaff. How did they come by? And who are they? Who are to gather them respectively? – continue the read as we journey to answer these questions.
Text: Matthew 13:24, Matthew 22:2, Revelation 2:2, Acts 15:1, II Timothy 2:15 -19, Act 15:18, Jeremiah 23:29, Matthew 4:12, Ephesians 4:11, Acts 5:35, Jude 1:3-5
The 13 chapter of Matthew has 7 parables in it that described the kingdom of heaven, and the Prophet William Marion Branham typed it with the conditions of the seven church ages in this gentile dispensation, which I believe you know we are in the era of grace. critically looking into these parables, we’ll see that they match each dispensation exactly.
Division of the parables:
- Matthew 13:3 Parable 1
- Matthew 13:24 Parable 2
- Matthew 13:31 Parable 3
- Matthew 13:33 Parable 4
- Matthew 13:44 Parable 5
- Matthew 13:45 Parable 6
- Matthew 13:47 parable 7
The kingdom of heaven in this passage is not talking about paradise, rather it is talking about a period of time (Dispensation) here on earth, and Jesus is making us understand the 7 different conditions that will take place here on earth. Taking a review of the second condition in Matthew 13:24-30:
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the 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.
A good seed was sown to the land of the gentiles and this is as a result of the rejection of the gospel by the Jews, the Lord turned to the gentile world calling both the good and the bad by his word. This seed was sown in the first church age by the apostle Paul who was the first messenger to the gentiles. The devil who was after the church tried in the first age to sow tares but didn’t succeed until the second church age which we saw it described in Matthew 13:24. The question to ask next should be who are the good seed (Wheat)? Who are the tares? Who are the reapers? Matthew 13:38 gives the answers which we’ll be highlighting below:
- The good seed are the children of the kingdom sown by God
- The tares are the children of the wicked one sown by the devil
- The reapers of these seeds are the angels (Messengers)
Angels in this context are the messengers (Good and Bad) sent to these two different groups (The Wheat and the tares) to gather what they were ordained for before the foundation of the world – Where do you belong? Wheat or a tare? Are you able to differentiate an angel sent to gather the wheat and vice versa? – if God has sown his own seed and also the devil you’ll agree with me that both sources must have their own harvesters, you are either harvested by the messenger of God or the messenger of the devil, and you can’t be in between.
The first church age was the sowing time and the conditions of that age in terms of faith were the standard for the gentiles and that is why God didn’t allow the devil to creep in with his own seeds, they were fought out of the true Church of God (Act 15:1 – End) because they were people with revelation, they were people who had encounter God and can’t be driven by any kind of doctrine. Brethren until our belief is accompanied by an encounter and revelation we’ll not know the value of the faith you believe, it is not a new thing that people rise up with false doctrine we just have to stand for the truth if actually we have the revelation of the truth. Not until the death of the apostles the devil could not find his way to the church to sow his own seeds and that is why he had a chance for his mission in Matthew 13:25 – But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. Men in this context are the Apostolic fathers who laid the foundation of the faith which we hold on to now.
Now God who gave the dispensation of the gentile knew there was going to be mixed up at some point, and he allowed it because he had a purpose for the end time (The time of Harvest), nothing can catch God unaware, and that is where the devil missed it. God who allotted time to adopt the gentile had a well-structured plan of salvation that no man can alter, this is to encourage us that what God has planned for your life cannot be altered by any demon because he’s God overall (Amen). For a clearer understanding, the seven dispensations of the gentiles are further divided into 3 stages which are:
- The sowing time (The first Church Age)
- The growing time (The Second to Sixth Church Age)
- The Harvest time (The seventh Church Age
The growing time was a period where God was sending reformers to reveal a part of his revelation to his seeds as the wheat and tares grow together. This stage continued until the time of harvest when God will not patch things up, and brethren we are currently at the harvest time where God is gathering his wheat and the denominational churches are busy gathering the tares.
The 7th Parable (Matthew 13:47)
Jesus in the seventh parable was talking about a fisherman, comparing the kingdom of heaven to a fisherman who cast his net into the sea and caught different things, and minds you the sole pursuit of a fisherman is to catch only fishes. Very quickly let’s give a breakdown of the verses:
- The net in this context is a type of message given to Prophet William Marrion Branham in this last dispensation, which he threw out to the world and it caught different kinds of things (people with other belief systems, mindsets, motives, etc) and drew them to the shore for sorting.
The sorting process is purposeful to sieve the chaffs from the wheat by the faith (Revelation) of our Lord Jesus Christ. The chaffs here are those who are in the message of the hour, claiming to have seen the light of the Message, indeed they were caught out of the sea by the net, but they are not fish, the sole interest of the fisherman is good fishes. There is a reason why God sent his message in this last age and that reason is to gather his children into his barn and that is why if you are not part of the body of Christ you’ll find your way out of the barn of the lord, cos if indeed you came from God, you’ll surely end up with God.
This process of sorting is the toughest because it requires some rigorous hitting and smashing off the chaffs from the wheat, so it can be consumable, and this is what we are currently going through in the last age by the word of God. The word of God is a tool for smashing and hitting all kind of chaffs that entangles themselves among us, so we can be consumable. So, where you are standing after the been hit by the word of God determines who you are, probably you are a tare, wheat, or chaff, we have to belong somewhere.
So, Brethren if we claim to be wheat, I have a rhetorical question for you which I want you to answer as you read along – Are you growing? It’s your knowledge of God that can uphold you when the wind of doctrine blows at you. Let us know what God has rightly given us and rest upon it.
Shalom Brethren.