THE PARABLE OF THE TARES

I'm sure you've all read it. I'm sure you have heard it explained. Jesus explained it Himself. The question I would put to you today is, Can the parable of the tares be used to keep the church from exposing false teachers or leaders? Let's examine it. Matthew 13:24-30, with Jesus' interpretation of it in the same chapter, verses 36-43.

A farmer sows some good seed in his field, but when it begins to grow he notices that someone has sowed some bad seed. He concludes it is an enemy. When he is asked if he should uproot the young plants, the bad ones, he says that that would be dangerous, because the good plants would be uprooted too. His advice is to let everything grow until harvest time, when the products of those seeds are obvious and easy to distinguish from one another. The bad plants will be burned, the good gathered into the barn.

The disciples didn't understand. Most disciples today would not have either. Jesus, knowing this, had it recorded for all time what He meant to say:

Jesus is the farmer.

The field is the world. Not the church. Very important detail.

In this parable, seeds equal people. Good people. Bad people.

That other farmer is the Devil.

Harvest is the end of this age (not a so-called end-time revival, by the way). Reapers are angels, not end-time saints.

The outcome is then obvious. Angels will remove bad people to their eternal judgment or blessedness.

So, what is the message? There are evil men in the world planted next to godly men. The Devil has his plants everywhere, sent to deceive, to discourage, to block, to hurt, the children of God. That should be very plain.

The uncertainty comes via the question of the "servants" in the parable, who, by the way, are not identified by Jesus. Their role is simply to bring up that question, and to let us know Jesus' answer to it for our own time. The question: what should our response be to evil men, even evil men right next to us in the church? Should we send them to their judgment, that is, kill them?

This was the response of the Roman "Church" of the dark times. They felt it was their personal responsibility to do away with all evil men. Kill them. Burn their bodies. Take their property. Send them to God, as it were.

But if we understand Jesus properly, His own response is depicted in His explanation. No. Wait. By sending them to death, you could offend those who are still alive. My angels will take care of judgment later. Vengeance, after all, belongs to the Lord. He will repay, in His time.

We have to ask, how many souls were turned away from the Lord by Rome's actions during those awful years of the Inquisition and Imperial conquests of nations? How many came to understand that Christianity is a brutal religion that conquers in the flesh and treats lightly the promises of the Spirit, and the true power of God, the Gospel of Jesus? How many still despise Christianity in our own day because of their mental association of Christianity with Catholicism, Crusades, Inquisition, as though they were all one and the same? Does not Islam and the world media consider Rome and the Vatican as the very heart of Christian practice?

Heads up to Rome and all other vengeance-now believers: We don't kill in the Christian Church. We simply do not.

That is not to say that God Himself has not judged people "before the time". Consider Ananias and Sapphira, upstanding church members, carried away by greed and deception, then carried out the back door of the church, dead. But that is God's business, not ours. Peter, who was there, was only the messenger on that fateful day. I repeat, we do not kill. That is what the parable of the tares teaches us.

It does not tell us to keep our mouths quiet when apostasy is in the church. It does not tell us to withhold the names and teachings of offending brothers from a flock that will be devoured if silence becomes the new golden rule. Silence, in this case, is not golden, but yellow. Evil teachers and practitioners must be exposed and excommunicated. But again, God takes it from there, not us.

Jesus exposed Judas. And the Pharisees. And the Sadducees. And the lawyers. The High Priest. These were the false people of His day. He did not attempt to kill them, only to expose them. He is our model.

Peter exposed Simon, the sorcerer who tried to join the church. Didn't cut his head off. Just rebuked him in the presence of other believers.

Paul exposed Demas as a deserter, who loved the world more than Jesus, and Alexander, a coppersmith who tried to harm Paul.

John exposed Diotrephes, a self-styled guardian of the church, lifted up with pride.

Paul gave instructions to the younger Timothy to be careful about his handling of older men. They were not to be rebuked. But if two or three people accused them, Timothy would have to respond. Not by blood, but by discernment and if necessary, cutting them off from fellowship.

No one was to get a free pass in Christ's church. Sinning members who would not repent were to be delivered out from the protection of the Spirit of God into enemy territory. Excommunication was not a Catholic invention but is supposed to be practiced among the godly to this day. Seen it lately? Rome abused it by sending the separated brothers into the swords of the secular power, which the church controlled.

Divisive men were to be warned, then rejected, per Paul's message to Titus.

There was to be absolutely no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. On the contrary, says Paul, those works were to be exposed. Rather difficult to expose a work without exposing the worker of that work. If I preach against alcoholism in the church, and there is a man still given to his bottle, it becomes obvious that this man's sin as well as this man - unless he repents - is to be judged. Cast out. That the church continues to be holy.

Have you been to a holy church recently? A church that has not lowered its standards so as to make worldly visitors comfortable? A place where holy people and the Holy Spirit Himself feel at home? Hard to find.

But I think the point is made. It is appropriate and even necessary for those who know God and know His Word, and who are armed with humility, and love for the church, to speak against certain men who have been brought in, or as Jude puts it, "crept in" unnoticed at first. This is no violation of the parable of the tares, and follows a long-standing practice initiated by Jesus and His apostles.

Having said that, I wish to suggest that I shall try not to make the final decision about this man and his writings and works. I want you to do that, led by the Holy Spirit. Defamation is not what I am after. As I approach this man's story, I have told the Lord that if he is truly a man of God, I'll follow him. If he is deceiving the people, I want to expose him. He has a very familiar message and way of operation in our day. To affirm or expose him is to affirm or expose many hundreds or thousands of men and women just like him.

I will share his teachings first. Then as much of his autobiography as I was able to piece together, for the information about him is scant. Then the miracles that have happened to him. And the miracles he says have been performed through him.

Then you be the judge. Should such a man be permitted to circulate among the churches and sell his "wares"? Or should there be an outcry made against him? Some will of course ask that all-important third question, Who really cares? It is, I'm afraid, the question of the day. Is the Bible really God's Word? Is Jesus really God? Should we take a stand against this or that sin? Who really cares? Ho hum. Let's just love each other and move on.

I will not belabor that point. I have shown the Scriptures about our responsibility to expose darkness... if it really is darkness. I will be interested in your responses.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES

Another familiar story. Hans Christian Andersen. A little boy sees what no one else can see, or at least what no one else is willing to say that he sees. I have had the privilege of visiting many of the meetings of the modern miracle workers. I have watched their videos. I have listened to their teachings and seen their methodology. I have studied them.

I have seen audiences in total frenzy over what is happening, when essentially nothing is happening. How often have I wanted to rise up and say, symbolically, "But he doesn't have any clothes! He's twisting the Scriptures! He's manipulating people's minds! He is making them think they feel better! When they go home, the aura will pass!"

Gotta stop here. There is the genuine to deal with. Real answered prayers. Real supernatural interventions. People healed by the simple prayer of the elders of the church, as in James. Real praise.

And there are tons of people who because of the workings of the human mind do indeed receive a "touch" in their inner person somewhere. For some, this awareness of something else can turn into faith, and healings can come later.

What I have not seen is anything that vaguely resembles the things I read of in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Verifiable miracles. Documented miracles. And especially, the one hundred percent track record that Jesus and the apostles had. Whatever they tried to do, they did. With Jesus, there were times when people's faith failed, and so they did not come asking for His help. But those who did finally come, wherever He was, were never sent home disappointed. Never. Same with Peter and Paul. Faith reached out, the power of God responded, and voila! the miracle.

Today, one of the best of the faith healers will tell you he expects no more than 10% of his crowd to receive anything. And should you stand at the back door and allow the "healed" to walk by you, you might be saddened to find that most of the healings were not true healings after all.