Good to see you here tonight to hear the word. We invite you to take your Bibles now and open, please, to the book of Matthew, chapter 13. We're looking at the parables that Jesus gave us here in Matthew 13, and he calls these the mysteries of the kingdom. Jesus is revealing kingdom mysteries to us. And so we want to look at these and gain understanding about what the Lord is doing in the world today. Look at verse number 24 of Matthew 13 and follow along as we read. I read these and you follow along. Verse 24, down to verse 30. And another parable put forth unto them, saying the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which showed 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? And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And 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. And so this parable here is the tares among the wheat. Now, counterfeits are extremely dangerous people to be around. I read this week about people who have phony medical degrees. Have you examined your doctor's degree lately? Let me read you what I read. It's estimated that 10,000 physicians have phony medical degrees. This is according to Claude Pepper, a Democratic congressman from Florida. He said that many American citizens may be getting medical treatment from doctors who lied on their medical school loan applications. And they used the money not to go to school, but to pay a broker for fake documents claiming they completed school and training. In fact, they called in one man before a Senate committee, a congressional panel rather, and they gave him a three-year sentence for fraud. And this man said that he provided clients with false transcripts showing they had fulfilled medical requirements when they had not. And he basically said this man, the clients paid me from $5,000 to $27,000 for my services. In all, this man earned about $1.5 million over three years. for providing false documents to men who really weren't doctors. Now I'm going to tell you something, Brent, that's pretty dangerous. But let me tell you something even more dangerous than that. That not having a counterfeit, not in the physical practice, but in the spiritual world to have counterfeits. And Jesus is warning us about this very thing. You know, Satan has a lot of counterfeits out there, and we have to be aware of that. He has counterfeit Christians who practice a counterfeit righteousness. They believe a counterfeit gospel. And he also has a counterfeit church. And at the end of the age, he will produce a counterfeit Christ. Satan is in the business of producing counterfeits. And this is what Jesus is warning us about here in this parable of the kingdom, the parable that we just read a moment ago. Now, let me set the context for you again, in case you are just coming tonight. We've already looked at the first parable. We're going to look at this one here. But now remember, Jesus is speaking about the time between his first coming and his second coming. This is the age of the church. This is the age when the kingdom is spreading. You remember the first time that Jesus came, the Bible says He came unto His own, but His own what? Received Him not. That He was ready to reign as King, but they didn't receive Him, and so Jesus postponed setting up His physical, literal kingdom. He'll do that when He comes again. But in the meantime, the kingdom of God is spreading in a spiritual way. It is spreading spiritually. Now, because the people rejected Jesus, the whole tone and tenor of his ministry changes in Matthew 13. He stops preaching to the multitudes a straightforward gospel, and he begins to preach in parables. And he tells us why he does that. Look again in chapter 13. Look down at verse number 10. And the disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? And he answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance, but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that which he has." Basically, that generation of people that rejected the message of Jesus. Jesus said, I'm not going to reveal more to you. I'm not going to cast my pearls. I'm not going to give what is holy unto dogs. If you look in chapter 12, we don't have time to look at it, but several times Jesus refers to that generation. He says this wicked generation. This evil generation. Why? Because they were recipients of truth, divine truth, spoken and revealed by not only the words, but the works of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus. And they rejected it all. And Jesus said, I'm not going to share with you any more truth. In fact, whatever you have, I'm going to take away. it shall be given, but to him that hath not, even what he hath shall be taken away." In other words, you are stewards of the truth. When God reveals truth to you, if you don't receive that truth and practice that truth, then, friend, God will take away whatever you have. But to those who are faithful and receive the truth, he will give you more. And so thus Jesus speaks in parables. In a way, he's showing judgment to that one generation, but also he's revealing truth to those who are a part of his kingdom. Now, last week, we looked at the parable of the four soils, and what we learned is that The reason that the gospel is not spreading more is there's nothing wrong with the sower. There's nothing wrong with the seed. Remember, the sower represents, of course, the Lord Jesus and, by extension, anyone who is sharing the Word of God. And there's nothing wrong with the seed. There's power in the seed. The seed represents the Word of God. And the soils, however, represent the heart of man. And really, to summarize it, what we learned last week is that a true believer hears the Word, receives the Word, And a non-believer does not. You see, the soils represent the heart. The wayside soil represents the hardened heart. The shallow soil represents the heart that does not fully receive the seed. It only looks like they do. Perhaps there's a lot of foliage, but there's no real fruit. And by and by, it withers away. And then the thorny or weedy soil, the word is choked out because there's too much care of riches. However, there's one good soil, and that soil is the heart that receives the Word of God. And again, what's the difference between a true believer and a non-believer? A true believer receives the Word of God. What did Jesus say in John 10? My sheep, what? Hear my voice, and they follow me. That's the mark of a true person who knows the Lord Jesus, one of his real sheep. They hear the voice of Jesus and they follow him. And by the way, whenever we preach the word, you're hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus when we give you the word of God. And so a true believer wants the word and a non-believer does not respond to the word. So the problem is not the seed. The problem is the soil. And now Jesus here gives us another interesting parable. And this parable helps us to answer again some questions, perhaps questions that were floating around in the heart of the disciples. between some who were genuine followers of Christ and some who were not. Now, let me just give you again this in two parts to the parable. We're going to look at the information of the parable, and then number two, we're going to look at the interpretation of the parable. So look, first of all, at the information that we're given. This story can be summarized in just a few general acts. First of all, there's the sowing. Look in verse 24. Another parable put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. Now again, Jesus is going to reveal another truth about the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is like. He's going to reveal a mystery, so listen to what he says. Notice the good seed, verse 24. Here's a man who sows good seed in his field. Now again, this is something very familiar to the people back then because that's what a parable was. The good seed was the staple crop, it was the wheat that was used, very well known in that area of Palestine and Galilee. Now, there's a difference here between the other parable that Jesus gave. We saw a sower sowing seed kind of indiscriminately out there. But here, this is not a peasant farmer who sowed seed from a canvas bag. This is really dealing with a wealthy landowner who has many day laborers. And he has these laborers going out, taking care of his farm and sowing seeds in his field. And the Bible says very clearly that they sow good seed in his field. Now, that's the sowing. But now notice the next part, the sabotage. Look at verse 25. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. Now, here's the opposition. Here's the attack. Jesus is going to reveal to us one way, at least one way. Now, there are several ways, but here's one way that Satan attacks the kingdom. And here is some people that sow bad seed in the field. Notice the time of the attack. But while men slept, the enemy comes at night while the workers are asleep, and he sows tares among the wheat. You know, when Satan works, he works secretly. He works subtly, in stealth, perhaps when we're not aware or not alert. And sometimes the church needs to wake up and see the work of Satan. But he works when those are asleep, not only the time of his attack, but again, the technique. He sows tares. The Greek word here is referring to a certain plant. This was a poisonous weed that looked exactly like the wheat in the early stages. It was called darnel. It was called bearded Darnell because, again, it looks like wheat. In the early stages, you could not distinguish them or tell them apart. But in the later stages, as it continued to grow, it became a bit more obvious what was true wheat and what was tares. Now, something like this would seem far-fetched to us, that a man would go in or someone would go in behind a farmer in his field and sow tares. But this was something that was very commonly done in Palestine. Again, we're talking about things that people back then could relate to very, very well. And did you know that this was called oversewing another man's grain crop? And if you lived back then and you had an enemy and you really wanted to get at that enemy, what you would do is while he slept and while his workers slept, You would go in and you would over-sow his field. You would purposely put in bad seed. You would sow crops or tares among the wheat crop. Now, why would a person do that? Well, obviously, you wanted to ruin your neighbor's crop. You wanted to render it useless and nullify his chief source of income. This was a serious, serious offense. And did you know that this happens so often? that they had to pass a law against it. This happened, in fact, in Rome, and in Roman law, I'm reading to you here from Barclay, who is very good at history, he said this, and in codified Roman law, this crime is forbidden and its punishment laid down. So there was a law passed against this because it was so prevalent. And in fact, you can go in certain places in the Middle East today. And the worst threat that a person can receive is I'm going to over so your crop, I'm going to over so your field. And so this was done on purpose to ruin the crop. So we see the sabotage. But then notice the surprise. Look at verse 26. But when the blade was sprung up, also brought forth fruit, then appeared the tears also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tears? So as this crop begins to grow, it becomes obvious that something had happened. They began to see the tears manifesting themselves among the weed. Now, this wasn't just a few weeds, because any farmer knows you can expect a few weeds in every crop. But this was something that was incredible. This was tears all over the place. In fact, the word among in verse 25, a very strong Greek expression that talks about it being all over the place. There were tears all among the wheat, so much so that it shocked and surprised the servants to see that much. And so they said in verse twenty seven, did that didn't you so good seed in the field from when then has it tears? Where did all these weeds come from? Now, notice the next part, the suggestion, verse twenty eight, and he said unto them, an enemy hath done this. The master of the house knew exactly what happened. This is the work of the enemy. Now, if you're a servant living back then, part of your income, in fact, a big part of your income as you work for the master was this crop. And so they wanted desperately to save the crop. And so they make a suggestion in verse 28, wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? In other words, let us go out into the field. Let us distinguish between the tares and the wheat. Let us pull up the tares, the weeds, from the wheat so that we can save the crop. That was their suggestion. They were desperate. They wanted to save this big source of income. But the master of the household said, No, don't do that. Why? Look at verse 29. But he said unto them, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. This crop was so much intertwined, they had grown together so much, that the master of the household said, if you pull up the tares, you'll also uproot some of the wheat. You'll damage the crop. In fact, the roots of this plant are much bigger and stronger, and it would very easily destroy the good crop that was there. And then there's the other problem, and that is some of these servants, they're not going to be able to tell the difference between wheat and tares. So, by trying to pull up the tares, they'll pull up the real thing, the wheat, rather than the tares, because they were so very hard to distinguish what was the legitimate crop and what was not. And so, what's the next stage then? Look at verse 30, the separation. Verse 30, let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say unto the reapers, gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." So here's the solution. The householder says, let them grow together. Let them stay together. Let it be. But when the time of the harvest comes, then we'll distinguish the wheat from the tares. Now, how is this done? William Barclay has a note on this. Again, let me read to you from him. He said, the weeding of the tares could not be safely separated when both were growing, but in the end they had to be separated because the grain of the bearded darnel is slightly poisonous. He writes, it causes dizziness and sickness and is narcotic in its effects. It even has a small amount of bitter and unpleasant taste in it. And so in the end, it was usually separated by hand. This was a painstaking process of going through the harvest and by hand examining the wheat from the tares and separating them. It was a very long, laborious process of distinguishing the wheat from the tares. And so that's what would happen. What would happen to the tares in verse number 30? First the tares bind them in bundles to burn them But gather the wheat into my barn. The tares are burned and the wheat is barns. Now, this is a very simple story, one that was very familiar and well known to the people there in Palestine. But again, what does this mean? What spiritual truth is Jesus trying to teach? Remember, we said a parable means to cast down alongside. And here Jesus is casting down alongside a spiritual truth. He's casting this well-known, familiar story down alongside a spiritual reality in order that we may understand what it means. So this is the information of the parable, but here's point number two, the interpretation of the parable. Now, Jesus gives it for us. We don't have to wonder what it is because he tells us very clearly. By the way, in verse 31 and down to verse 33, he gives two more parables, and we'll look at those later. at another time. But look at verse 34, "...and all these things fake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, without a parable spaking not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which is spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." Now notice in verse 36, Jesus sends the multitude away. He goes into the house. What house is this? This is the same house that he had dwelt in during his Capernaum ministry. This was perhaps the house of Peter, Simon Peter's house in Capernaum. It's referenced in Matthew 8, 14. And again, we saw it in chapter 13, verse 1. So he goes back into the house. The multitudes are all the way. And he has around him his disciples. Now notice what the disciples said in verse 36. And the disciples came unto him, verse 36, saying, declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. Interesting that they asked Jesus about this one parable. Lord, we'd like to know, what did you mean by this parable of the tares? Perhaps they were able to decipher a little bit themselves. And they were very, very curious about what spiritual truth is Jesus trying to tell us in this parable. And Jesus gives the truth. Look at verse 37. And he answered and he said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the son of man. Now, again, we don't have to wonder who's the sower here. The son of man. Who's the son of man? That's Jesus. In fact, this is one of the favorite titles that Jesus uses referring to himself. We see Jesus using this title more than any other title when talking about himself during his earthly ministry. Why is that? Well, this title identifies him in his incarnation and in his humanness. It identified him as living among man, he himself being a man, a representative of the human race. He's the second Adam from above that came to dwell among men. But also this title has another connotation to it. It's a messianic title. Did you know that in Daniel 7.13, Son of Man is messianic? In fact, the Jewish leaders knew this, because in Luke 22, 69, Jesus said to the Sanhedrin, Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God the Father. And you know what they said after that? They said, Art thou then the Son of God? You see, they related the two together. They understood Daniel, Son of Man, equals God, Son of God. And so they asked him, Are you the Son of God? And so this title is a reference to Jesus in his deity. So the sower then is the Lord Jesus. Now notice the next part, verse 38. The field, Jesus says, the field is the world. Now, some overly stress this point, saying the field is the world, therefore it cannot be the church. I've read a lot of guys who say, well, the field is the world, therefore This is not referring to the church. It's referring to the world. But now, don't miss the point. The point is the kingdom is going to spread throughout the what? The world. God's kingdom is going to spread all over the world. OK, that's the point there. How? How is God's kingdom going to spread throughout the world? Through the what? The church, right? It's the church. that is going out into all the world. OK, notice the end of verse 41, the son of man shall send forth his angels. They shall gather out his kingdom, out of his kingdom, all things that offend. Notice where it says out of his kingdom. So the field is the world into which the kingdom spreads. You understand that? So this does refer to the church. All right. The church is spreading throughout all of the world. That's the idea. Now remember, Jesus is revealing what? Secrets, right? He's revealing things that we may not have known or we could not know unless he has revealed it to us, okay? Now, it's not a revelation to say that Satan has his people in the world. Is that a revelation to you? That's not a mystery revealed, right? We know that. We know that the world is already filled with Satan's people. However, It is a mystery revealed to say that within the kingdom spreading, Satan will plant his people. That is a mystery that is revealed. And so Jesus is referring to the fact that the church is spreading all throughout the world. And as the Lord is spreading His kingdom through the church, through the spreading of the gospel and people believing and coming to know Christ, as the kingdom grows, Know this, that Satan is also going to plant his tares among the wheat. He's going to plant his people among the church. OK, now notice the next thing. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. Look at verse 38. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. Now, that means Christians. These are, of course, people who have declared Jesus to be their Lord and Savior. repented of their sin, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. They came into the kingdom declaring Jesus as their king. And these are the people that Jesus shows all throughout the world. The church will be planted all throughout the world. And that's exactly what God is going to is doing today. And I want to tell you something. It's wonderful to see God's church spreading throughout the world. Now, I've had the privilege of going on mission trips, and it's always a joy to see the gospel spreading. It's a joy to see churches being planted all over in places that perhaps we would never imagine. I've been to mountain jungle villages in Africa and seen God's people worshiping in spirit and in truth. They don't have all the fancy things that we have here in America. I've been in basically in churches where the floor is nothing but mud. There's wooden benches. Their instrument to play is just a bongo drum. And one person will play that drum and people will sing. And I want to tell you, the Spirit of God is there. And God is worshipped in a wonderful way. Some of the most worshipful services I've ever been in have been in places like that. I've been in the shadow of Mayan temple ruins, and remember there's a place in Honduras where they're called Copan ruinous, the ruins of Copan, because all over that area were Mayan temples, ancient Mayan temples, where many years ago, hundreds of years ago, there was human sacrifice. And now in the shadows of those temples are churches with believers. that know the Lord Jesus Christ. All over the church is spreading. That's what God is doing in the world today. He's spreading his church. Now, notice the next thing, the tares. Look at verse 39. The enemy that sowed them is the devil. Now, the tares then are non-believers, and the one who sowed them is the wicked one in verse 38. Actually, this is titled the wicked one. And we know that that wicked one is Satan, because that phrase is used of him in many different places in the New Testament. The article the is emphatic here. He is the absolute wicked one. We could say like this. He is the wicked one of all wicked ones. He is the wicked one. And very simply, anyone who is not a child of the kingdom is a child of the wicked one, anyone who's not truly born again. They are under the control of the wicked one. Friend tonight, you're either on the Lord's side or you're on the devil's side. There's no in between. You can't say, well, I'm neutral. No decision is a decision. If you don't choose to make Jesus your Lord and Savior, you are on the side of the wicked one and you are his child. Jesus said to the leaders of Israel, John 8, 44, year of your father, the devil, They must have been shocked by that. Hey, they're probably thinking, here we are. We're Jews. We're we're the chosen of God. Jesus said, no, you're of your father, the devil. You're either a child of God or you're a child of Satan. First, John 519 says this. The whole world lies in the lap of wickedness. Or we could say it like this. It's articulate in the Greek, the wicked one, the wicked one. Now, this lesson is not very hard. Very simple, and Jesus means it to be. Wherever God puts His wheat, Satan will come along and he will plant his tares. Now, here's the question. Why does Satan do that? Why does he put his people alongside God's people? Why does he counterfeit those who are real? Well, again, what's the point that we saw here in the parable? What was the enemy trying to do to his neighbor's crop? He was trying to ruin the purity of that crop. He was trying to ruin the investment that that man had made, ruin the whole thing. You know how Satan is fighting the kingdom of God? He is placing his people alongside God's people all over in the kingdom. Why? Because he wants to destroy, he wants to hurt the purity of the church. That's what he's trying to do. Did you know there are two ways that Satan attacks the church? Two ways. The first one is persecution. We read about this. Pastor read a letter this morning in his sermon about persecution. This is going on all over the world. It's hard for us to relate to, I know, here in America because we are so blessed. But I want to tell you something, friend. There are Christians all over the world that are paying a price for naming the name of Christ. Satan is persecuting. But you know what? We find out through church history is that persecution doesn't stop the church. You know why? Because it just causes the church to spread more. You see, Satan tried to stamp out the fire. All he does is scatter the embers. And what happens? More churches just pick up wherever Satan tries to stamp it out. In fact, if you read the book of Acts, all the church was gathered in Jerusalem. And what happened? Persecution hit there. And what happened to those believers? They scattered abroad. And what happened when they scattered abroad? Churches began to rise up all over the place. That was one means that God used to spread the gospel. He allowed that persecution to happen. So, friend, persecution doesn't stop the church. It only scatters the church and more people get saved as a result. But I want to tell you the second way Satan attacks the church is a bit more effective. He attacks the church from the inside. The first way is persecution, but the second way is infiltration. Satan says, if I can't beat him, I'll join him. And so what does he do? He mingles among true believers, some of his own people. Why? To do damage to the crop. And really notice verse 41. It kind of tells us, it describes the effect. Look at verse 41. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels. They shall gather out his kingdom. All things that what? Offend. Look at that word offend there. Here's the effect of the tares among the wheat. What do the tares do? They offend. Now the Greek word here for offend is the Greek word, listen to it carefully, skandalon. What does that sound like? That's where we get the word scandal. Skandalon. What does it mean? It literally refers to a stick that you use for a trap. Let me illustrate like this. When we were little, growing up in Baltimore, I don't know why we did this, you know, we were just trying to have fun. We were trying to catch pigeons Okay, and if I ever try to do this what we do is we would take like a milk crate and And then we would prop it up with a stick and tie a rope to that stick, a string to it. And then we would take breadcrumbs and make a trail of breadcrumbs into that that trap there and put a pile of them there. And of course, you know, the theory behind that, you're hoping that the pigeon will follow the breadcrumbs into the trap. And once he got inside, we would pull the string. The stick would trigger the trap and we would catch the pigeon. They say, why did you do that? I don't know. We weren't going to eat it or anything. We wouldn't know what we would do if we ever caught a pigeon. In fact, I don't think we ever did catch a pigeon in that. But it was a lot of fun. But I want you to think about that. The stick that props up the trap. That's the Greek word scandal on. That's the idea behind this word here to trigger a trap. And so it has this idea of catching someone. Now, later on, metaphorically, this came to refer to anything that caused another person to stumble into sin. That was the idea here. Something that caused another person to stumble. So let me ask you a question. Why does Satan plant tares among the wheat? What is his purpose? He wants to cause God's people to stumble. He wants to bring a scandal on, a trap. He wants to cause people to fall into iniquity. That's why, friend, I want to tell you, it doesn't matter whatever church you go to, wherever God plants His wheat, Satan's going to plant his tares. And you better keep your guard up even no matter where you are. Even in a church, you have to be alert and to be aware because Satan wants to cause you to stumble. That's one thing that he does, but also look again in verse 41, there's another phrase we need to look at. And out of his kingdom, all things that offend and them which, what? Do iniquity. Now the verb do here, present tense, remember I told you about that before, continual action. We could say like this, those who practice iniquity. This is a person who has a lifestyle of sin that's without repentance, without Without a break, we could say an unbroken pattern of a sinful lifestyle. Now, I'm not talking, friend, let me qualify this very clearly because I don't want anyone to be confused. I'm not talking about a person who wrestles with sin in their life. You know, there are believers who get saved and they might struggle in sin. They might wrestle with sin in their life. But the key is there's a struggle. You're wrestling, you're trying to overcome it. And so therefore, you're striving against it because you don't want to do it. Now, you may get weak and you'll stumble and you'll fall. But what's a true believer going to do? A true believer is going to get up, brush himself off, confess that sin and say, God, forgive me. Let me go on. Help me, Lord, never to do that again. And they'll go on. And you know what? They're upheld by the grace of God. So this is not talking about a person who is wrestling against iniquity. OK, because true believers will wrestle and fight against sin, and sometimes we'll lose that battle. But what is it talking about when it says a person who practices iniquity? This is a person who there's no struggle. They're not striving against sin. They don't confess their sin. In fact, they don't feel the weight of sin. And First John, this reveals the true from the false. A false believer, a counterfeit Christian will say, I don't have any sin. What sin? They'll sin and say, I'm walking in the light as far as I know. They don't feel the burden of sin. But a true believer will what? Confess those sins. They'll feel the weight of sin when they fall and they'll have to confess it. They'll have to get it right. And so here Jesus is saying, here's another characteristic of those who are tares and not wheat. They just live in an unbroken lifestyle of sin. They feel no weight of sin. They feel no guilt. They don't confess. They just practice iniquity. Now, they might have covered up real well. In fact, they are really good at keeping things in their life hidden from others, but they're living in a broken pattern. And you know what eventually they'll do? If they're in the church and they befriend other believers, they can pull other believers down with them. They can pull them down to what they're doing. And you know what? A true believer, maybe a young Christian, will look at that person and say, well, you know, they're a believer. They confess. They say they know Jesus. But friend, a Christian is someone who is more than just confesses Christ with their mouth. But friend, they strive for righteousness. They try to live a righteous life. And so what is Satan doing by doing this? He's bringing impurity into the church. He's hurting the church in that way. He causes division and disunity and defilement by planting his people in the wheat field. He is doing all of that. And I want to tell you something, friend, these folks are very hard to detect. In fact, I think when we get to heaven, we're going to be surprised. We're going to be surprised. You remember when Jesus said to the twelve, one of you is going to betray me. Now, you know what the disciples didn't do, they didn't point to Judas and say, yeah, we got him Lord, he's right here. What did they say? Lord, is it I? In fact, you know what? They gave Judas the money bag. He was the treasurer. Now, I want to suggest that you don't give the money to someone that you don't trust. At least I don't. You let someone that you trust hold the money bag. And so out of all the disciples, Judas perhaps appeared to be the most trustworthy. But friend, he was not real. And so Jesus warns us about this. And there are other places in the New Testament we could go to. We know the story of Ananias and Sapphira and other places. But let me just show you one more thing. Hold your place here, Matthew. Go to the book of Jude. Let me just show you this one passage in Jude, because this is a good parallel passage. Jude is that little book right before Revelation. In fact, we can't call it an epistle. It's really just a postcard, isn't it? There's not chapters, there's only verses. Verses 1 down to verse number 25. There's 25 verses in it, but I want you to look in verse number 1. I want to read a few of these verses to you. And notice what Jude has to say. Jude, verse 1. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and called, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Verse 3. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation, It was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints." Now, what Jude says in verse 3 is, you know, really, I wanted to write an epistle about the common salvation. I wanted to write about the salvation that we all enjoy and have. He wanted to really write another theological treaty. It's kind of like Romans. But God redirected him. And he said, you know what? I'm writing to tell you that as believers you need to earnestly contend for the faith. Why Jude? Look at verse 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares. Notice that. That's a very expressive phrase there. Crept in. That word crept is a compound Greek word that means to slip in the side door. slip in the side or to slip in unnoticed. It was used to talk about a snake that could slip in the house without you knowing it. Or it was used to speak about an alligator slipping into the water. without a ripple. You ever see that? I remember one time I was going down the Nile River, we were stopping at places, we were sharing the gospel, and all along the banks of the river there were these crocodiles. And you could see them scurry to the bank and then slip gently into the water. That's the idea behind this word here. They slip in gently, almost in the side door, almost unnoticed they start coming. And then later, look at verse number 12. Later, what Jude says about them, these are spots in your feasts of charity. What does he say about them? Spots in your feasts of charity? What does that mean? Did you know that the early church had what they called agape feasts, or we would call them love feasts? This is what they would do. They would celebrate the Lord's Supper. But before they would celebrate the Lord's Supper, they would have a feast together. And they would have, everyone would bring food. You think potluck is something new? That's not new, friend. They were doing that in the early church, only they didn't call it luck. Where did that word come into the church? We should call it pot safe. All right. Right. They would all bring their food and they would bring it all together and people would come and eat and they would have this love feast together. And then when they were done enjoying fellowship, they would cap it all off with the Lord's Supper. This was called a love feast. Now Jude says, these ones who slip in the side door, they're spots at your love feast. By the way, the word spots here is a word that means hidden rocks. And this word was used to describe rocks that were in the sea just below the surface of the water. Some of you who may have been boating before, perhaps out in the bay or something. You know that what could be a danger to a ship are rocks that are just below the surface. You can't see them. And friend, if you come upon them, what will it do? It'll tear up the bottom of that boat. It'll sink that ship. In fact, this was a threat back in this day when they would take a ship and these hidden rocks would tear the bottom of a boat apart. It would just sink that vessel. They were dangerous. And this is what Jude is saying. These people that just slip in, they're spots at your love feast. They will wreck your ship. They will wreck your fellowship, we could say. They will not bring unity. They will bring division. They will defile the church. That's why you have to be careful. And again, we don't have time, but one illustration, just sometime read First Corinthians 11. You know why? What's going on in First Corinthians 11? Paul's rebuking the Corinthian church. Why? Because they were practicing the agape feast. They were bringing their food together and they were eating together. And then they would celebrate the Lord's Supper, only there was one problem. There were some people in the church that said, let's just take our food and put it over here. We don't want the poor people to eat our food. You let them have their own food. And we'll eat our food over here. And a feast that was intended to signify love and unity was doing the exact opposite. Because there was someone in that assembly that had a bright idea of let's separate our food. And the rich had meat. If you were poor living back in that day, you couldn't afford meat. Perhaps the only time a poor person in the church ever could eat meat was at one of these feasts. But the rich said, we're not going to let them eat our meat. We're going to put it over here and we'll have our own. And they were gluttonous. And some of them were getting drunk. And they were shaming the poor. And then they pretended to celebrate the Lord's Supper. No wonder God was mad. And no wonder Paul said, therefore, some are weak and some sleep among you. Some are sickly. God was judging that church because of the division. They were hidden rocks in the love feast. And so Jesus is telling us you better beware. Now, go back to Matthew 13. Let me wrap this up. Look in verse number 39. Notice the harvest, the enemy that sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels. So the harvest stands for the judgment. The angels are going to be the reapers throughout the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation. It's the angels whom God has called to reap. Just jot down Matthew 16, 27, it says, for the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels. In Matthew 24, 31, we are told that he shall send his angels and they shall gather together his elect. And again, in Revelation, we see this same thing. The angels are agents of God's judgment. And so the angels will do this at the end of the age. The tares will again be burned. Those who don't know the Lord Jesus, the furnace of fire, obviously that is speaking about eternal punishment, the doctrine of hell. And I want to tell you something, beloved. There is a real hell, a real hell that burns for eternity. And we need to grieve over that. It's a reality. And friend, that should motivate us to share Jesus. But there's a real hell. And then the wheat will be barned. And then notice what it says. in verse 42, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Verse 43, then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear. And so Jesus said the righteous are going to shine like the sun. Did you know 1 Corinthians 10 says that when we get that brand new glorified body, we're going to shine with the glory of God? Paul said, look up into the sky on a dark night and see how that some stars shine brighter than others. That's the way it's going to be in the resurrection. We're going to shine with glory. And it's according to your faithfulness. Be it unto you. Those the Bible says in Daniel, if you lead people to righteousness, you're going to shine like the stars. And so that's what's going to happen at the end. And then Jesus says this. And this is to all of us. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Sometimes people say, well, preacher, I don't understand why. Are there people that just seem to come to church and, man, they don't live right and they cause division? Friend, you just mark it down. God's true people want peace. If you're a child of God, you crave unity and peace in the body. But those who are not, they're hidden rocks. And so, friend, we need to be careful. We need to earnestly contend for the faith, like Jude said, because Satan is mixing his people in and sometimes they'll just depart out and they'll try to pull others out of the church. John said they went out from us because they were not of us. Had they been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they went out that it might be made manifest that they were never of us. Someone said the faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first. They were never of us to begin with. And so this is a warning to all of us to be alert, to be diligent. And I want to tell you something else. Let's examine our own heart. Friend, make sure that you know Jesus. Make sure that you've repented. Make sure that your faith is real. Peter said, give all diligence. to make your calling and election sure. A preacher once tried to use reverse psychology on his church. So he got dressed up into a devil suit one Sunday morning. And when people started coming into his church, he would say, stay away from this church. Don't come to this church. Stay away. Well, some of the people were alarmed and they called the police. And the police came and arrested this guy in the devil suit, and when they took the mask off, it was the preacher. And, friend, I want to tell you something. What's more dangerous than a preacher in the devil suit is the devil in a preacher suit, or counterfeits that Satan plants all over. So, friend, we better beware. Let's bow for prayer. And so, Lord Jesus, we thank you. for revealing to us the mysteries of the kingdom. Lord, we can rejoice to know that the kingdom of God is spreading, that, Lord, you're planting your wheat all over the world, and it rejoices our heart to see that. Lord, we want to get involved in this. In fact, Lord, that's why you leave us here in this world, not to just sit and soak, but, Lord, so that we can get involved in sharing the seed, spreading the seed, and seeing the gospel increase, the kingdom increase throughout the world. But Lord, help us also to know that in this age there are counterfeits. Not everything that glitters is gold. So Lord, give us discernment. Help us to beware what our master told us here in this parable. And Lord, help us to examine our own heart, to know that we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that we're truly a child of God, hearing the word of God, living for your glory, pursuing righteousness and holiness in the fear of the Lord. God, grant that to our hearts. Let no one leave here tonight being self-deceived. Lord, help them to know. Give them discernment to know that they know Jesus Christ. And Father, we'll thank you and praise you in his precious name. Amen.