He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
The one who secretly sowed weeds among the good seed is Satan, the enemy of God and man, who works out of enmity to harm the crop and bring loss to its owner, while neither God nor His angels ever sow seed that produces a tare. He does his work while men sleep, meaning while workers are unwatchful, self-sufficient and neglecting prayer, while he himself never slumbers. When the servants recognize his work and ask to go and pull up the weeds at once, they are refused, because the tares closely resemble wheat while green and their roots are entwined with it, so ruthless gathering would root up and destroy the precious grain. Both are commanded to grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers will gather the weeds for burning and bring the wheat into the barn. Therefore the work of judging and separating is forbidden to men and left to Christ and His angels alone, since men cannot reliably distinguish wheat from tares or read hearts, and believers are to show forbearance, patience and humility rather than condemning and uprooting those they judge evil.
Enemy and His Sowing
The one who sowed the tares is an enemy, and that enemy is Satan, the devil, the evil one, the enemy of God and man. He works in enmity toward Christ, out of revenge seeking to harm the crop and bring loss upon its owner, afflicting the human family by this evil sowing. Neither God nor His angels ever sow seed that produces a tare, nor does the owner himself sow such seed, for all tares are of Satan's sowing alone. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and not one was placed in the Lord's great garden, for Christ never planted the seeds of death in the human system. The servants' question about gathering them up already introduces the danger that removing the tares would uproot the wheat as well, so both are left to grow together until the harvest when they are separated.
The sowing is done while men sleep, which is secret work succeeding when workers are unwatchful, self-sufficient, and spiritually sleeping, neglecting constant prayer and watchfulness. Such sleep is unconsciousness and inaction, as when older experienced Christians stand as mere spectators toward the young, or when church members sleep instead of shining and leave undone through idleness and selfish self-centered spirit the work God gave to everyone. In that unwatchfulness they become ensnared, blinded in understanding, ignorant of wonderfully specious devices, and perverted in vision by dependence on human wisdom, professing to work for God while in reality serving the prince of darkness unless through living faith and earnest prayer they become partakers of the divine nature. The enemy himself never slumbers but is wide awake, working as a devouring lion and a living persevering power to complete rebellion, to bar the way of Christ's kingdom, to persuade men to take his arm and advance woe and misery, and to take God's standard from God's people without their discerning it. Servants who see the wrongdoing but let it continue become implicated in its guilt and help his work, so men must awake out of sleep, remain watchful, and act against evils that can be checked rather than allowing them to take root and spread.
That enemy is a deceiver who sinned in heaven, the first great sower of evil, whose rebellion commenced and continued under the power of a lie. By deceptive power he drew away part of the holy family of heaven, drawing many angels into rebellion with him, and every disloyal subject who apostatized with him fell and was turned out of the blessed abode, cast out with his sympathizers never again to occupy his holy exalted place. Even the loyal angels did not fully discern his character, and God did not at once destroy him, for had He done so the holy angels would not have perceived the justice and love of God, and doubt of God's goodness would have become as evil seed yielding the bitter fruit of sin and woe. Therefore the author of evil was spared to fully develop his character, and through long ages God has borne the anguish of beholding the work of evil and has given the infinite Gift of Calvary rather than let any be deceived by misrepresentations. God suffers the tares for a time to allow envy and hatred to fully manifest, just as He allowed Satan, until Satan stands exposed before the heavenly universe and before unfallen and fallen worlds in his true attributes as deceiver, accuser of the brethren, and murderer at heart.
The evil manifest even in the natural world comes from that same enemy and is no part of God's creation. Brier and thorn, thistle and tare, briars multiplying to choke the good seed, and poisonous herbs springing up after Adam was tempted to disobedience, came through the enemy by the curse when he tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge, which meant disobedience to God. By ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares, making labor tenfold harder and toilsome, and leading men to murmur against God as the cause of misery when Satan himself is the real cause, with men cooperating by do-nothing habits and neglect. Everything God made is useful, yet even a child coming in contact with nature finds cause for perplexity because he cannot but recognize the working of antagonistic forces, so nature needs an interpreter to teach this sorrowful lesson to children and to everyone. Nature is read rightly only in the light that shines from Calvary, where the story of Bethlehem and the Cross shows how good is to conquer evil and how every blessing is a gift of redemption, and if left unchecked the tares spoil the wheat by rank growth.
The field first sown with pure wheat is Christ's church in the world, including the church and its institutions, where God's work of salvation is carried out and where people grow and ripen for God's harvest. It is also the world itself, the same field where good seed is sown, where good and evil workers labor side by side and truth and error contend, and where their opposing work and conflict continue until the great harvest at the close of history. There the unjust may be found among the just, with some spreading error and darkening minds while others sow good seed by revealing Christ, and the final separation is not yet taking place. The enemy's work there is the bringing in of worldly elements and placing them in positions of trust as respected teachers, directors, and officials, where they are worked by the spirit of darkness until the line between him that serves God and him that serves Him not is no longer distinguished and institutions become unsubstantial and unreliable.
Servants' Request and Refusal
When the servants learn that an enemy has sown tares among the wheat, they recognize the enemy's work and ask whether they should go and gather them up. The question expresses the desire of human agents to condemn church members and purify the church by removing the tares at once. It arises because tares are present among the wheat in the church militant, which is not yet triumphant. The weeds were sown to injure the owner, and the servants propose to take them out and leave only the wheat.
The request is refused with Nay, lest in gathering the tares the wheat be rooted up also. The tares are harmful weeds growing alongside the wheat and closely resembling it while the blades are green, so pulling them could disturb the wheat's roots and destroy young plants. Their roots are entwined with the precious grain, and ruthless tearing would uproot the wheat with them. That work is forbidden to men and left to the Son of God alone, who lived the law of God in humanity and understands the strength of temptation coming to every child of His, for if committed to human judgment terrible mistakes would be made. The same forbearance shown by the Lord of heaven toward Satan is required toward fellow men, not condemnation and judgment of others but humility and distrust of self, since being in the church does not prove one a Christian and removing those judged evil could cause others who might have remained steadfast to stumble or be driven to despair.
Both are therefore allowed to grow together until the harvest, and until then good and evil remain together and their conflict continues. The harvest is the end of the world, when God sends angels as reapers to separate them. Then the weeds are gathered and bound for burning and the wheat is brought into the barn, the good and evil separated and their destinies fixed forever with no probation after the Judgment.
Wheat, Tares, and Harvest
The tares are persons embodying error and false principles, children of the wicked one sown among the children of the kingdom by Satan, who is the enemy that did this work. They are counterfeit Christians and false brethren bearing Christ's name while denying His character, hypocrites and mere professors mingling for a time with true followers yet not joined to Christ, and their presence dishonors God, endangers souls, damages the gospel work, and gives no excuse for unbelief or disobedience. The wheat are the true followers of Christ, genuine Christians true in heart and action, the good seed sown among whom the enemy secretly introduces evil. The church militant is therefore composed of wheat and tares, with counterfeit Christians in every church, and the fact that men are in the church does not prove them Christians.
The tares closely resemble the wheat while the blades are green, so that pulling them could disturb the roots and destroy the young wheat plants. Their outward show of piety and semblance of Christianity can conceal that they are not joined to Christ and is calculated to deceive many, and they are erring and hypocritical professors whose sin among God's people frustrates in part Christ's work of saving fallen humanity and making the heart fruitful in good works. Their mixed crop draws attention and brings reproach on Christianity, so that observers may judge the whole field and its sower as worthless or corrupt and the world may doubt Christ's truths. They are known by fruit, for when the field is white to the harvest the worthless weeds bear no likeness to the wheat bowing under the weight of its full, ripe heads, and in the harvest of the world there will be no likeness between good and evil when those who joined the church but did not join Christ are manifest.
The tares remain tares rather than being changed into wheat, and are then gathered and destroyed while the righteous are gathered into eternal life. The verse does not teach that all tares will become wheat, but that wheat and tares grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when angels as reapers separate them. At that time Christ will distinguish them and judge each person by words, works, and character, not by profession.
The tares also represent what the enemy sows as seed: error mingled with truth, false teaching and heresies diligently spread alongside good doctrine, doubts and unbelief planted in minds and hearts, skeptical thoughts, strange theories, infidel sentiments and ideas mixed with education, seductive spiritualistic sophistries, human maxims and false interpretations, and chaff sown instead of pure sanctifying truth. Satan secretly plants these seeds of evil and error in human minds while Christ sows good seed in the heart, mixing evil with good so the two are hard to distinguish without clear spiritual sight. Once sown the seed cannot be gathered up but grows abundantly, spreads from field to field, crowds out and destroys what is good, weakens faith, corrupts young minds, and produces a harmful harvest that will continue to the close of history.
The verse belongs to the parable of the wheat and tares, one of the familiar objects of seed, fieldwork, and harvest used to make divine truths memorable to the hearers. Like the parable of the sower it applies broadly, to people from every class, with imagery of seed scattered by laborers and grain harvested that was familiar to those who heard it. It introduces the servants' question whether to gather up the tares before the harvest. It is applied to the gospel harvest ripening for Christ's coming, when Christians bearing fruit to God's glory more quickly sow the world with the gospel and the final harvest ripens for Him to gather the precious grain.
Patience Without Human Separation
The pulling up and judging is not given to human hands but is reserved to the Son of God alone, and if it were committed to human judgment terrible mistakes would be made in rooting up wheat with tares. He alone is fit to judge because He lived the law of God in humanity and understands the strength of temptation and the weakness and striving of every child of His toward Christian perfection. The servants are answered with Nay, lest in gathering the tares the wheat be rooted up also, and both must grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers gather the tares to burn and the wheat into the barn. The righteous and wicked therefore remain mingled in life until the Lord alone separates them and gives each a true position in the judgment, and faults seen in members must not be made an excuse for criticism or for deciding who belongs among God's people. Human beings are not given the right to pass judgment on others or to condemn and root out those they judge false, for Christ who owns and redeems them does not use force to remove even a perverse disciple, and pity is to restrain wrath and passion toward the deceived.
Men cannot now safely tell tares from wheat nor read hearts, and may mistake wheat for tares, while Christ and His angels know the difference by fruits and will never make a mistake. The tares closely resemble the wheat while green, so attempted cleansing could harm true believers or drive to despair those Christ is drawing to Himself. The church on earth is militant and not yet triumphant, containing both, and the Lord alone knows who are His. No one is therefore to decide membership by private judgment nor to exclude any from footwashing and the sacrament, for though Jesus knew Judas would betray Him He washed his feet and let him partake with the rest. At every such service unseen angels and messengers of darkness are present as then, yet even those not in heart united with truth and holiness are not to be forbidden the ordinances by men.
The refusal teaches forbearance, patience, humility and distrust of self rather than condemnation, accusation, faultfinding, or feeding on the real or supposed faults of brethren. Evil is allowed time to reveal its character, and believers are to bear patiently with others rather than act hastily to force out harmful elements, lest sincere believers be damaged like wheat pulled with tares. Premature separation can create opposition and factions, give grounds for complaint, and cause others who might otherwise remain steadfast to stumble, so difficulties call for careful consideration, earnest prayer, and wise judgment, and may sometimes resolve without intervention. The fact that men are in the church does not prove them Christians, for sinners making a pretension of piety mingle for a time with true followers and the semblance of Christianity is calculated to deceive many. One's own faults may be greater or less visible, so Christ alone is the pattern to feed upon rather than the faults of others.
The same warning forbids trying to uproot those judged evil before the harvest by force through civil power. Imprisonment, torture, and killing of those counted heretics in Christ's name reflect Satan's spirit and method, misrepresent God, and seek to bring the world under Satan's rule.
Defective and unconverted persons, counterfeit Christians, pride, self-sufficiency, stubborn unbelief, and refusal to yield even when evidence is piled upon evidence may be present in every church, with precious and vile together, yet their presence does not make the commandment-keeping church Babylon nor blot it out so that it will not exist. The church is loved and is not to be disparaged, abandoned, disorganized, broken into independent atoms, or torn to pieces by human efforts to gather out the evil. Believers must stay in Christ's lines, strengthen the wheat, work for purification, and let the Lord who knows His own do the separating at the harvest, when angels and not men first gather the chaff and bind it in bundles to burn and gather the wheat into the garner.
Final Separation at Harvest
At the harvest the good and the evil are clearly distinguished and separated forever, with destinies fixed and no probation after judgment. Both grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers bind the tares to burn and gather the wheat into the barn. The wicked are removed from among the righteous and destroyed while the righteous receive eternal life. The tares remain tares rather than being changed into wheat, and are then gathered and destroyed. The church militant today is therefore composed of wheat and tares, with counterfeit Christians and false professors mingling with true followers, bringing reproach and danger to the gospel work, yet allowed to remain together for a time.
Each is then given a true position according to character, judged by words and works and fruits, not by profession. The wheat are those really believing, genuine and true in heart and action, while the tares are those appearing Christian but not joined to Christ, whose works disclose an unchanged, unsanctified character. Reaping is as sowing, for none can sow tares and reap wheat, and what a person sows determines what is reaped. A character molded by devotion to earthly things receives a worldly mold that remains as at death and appears unchanged in the morning of the resurrection, with no conversion or transformation of character then.
Divisions will come and two parties will be developed, the wheat and tares growing up together for the harvest to the very close of time. Divine and satanic agencies are engaged in decided opposition and vital conflict till the close of this earth's history. God has long borne with stubborn self-indulgence, and the time has come when everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain, as He tests and proves His people. Meanwhile a new life from heaven takes possession of all God's people and the last message of mercy is sounded to a fallen world, growing deeper and more earnest with laborers together with God contending for the faith once delivered to the saints.
That selecting and sealing or binding of the wheat for the heavenly garner is the work of the third angel. The vile is separated from the precious, and the wheat is selected and sealed for the heavenly garner. This separation calls for the whole mind and attention, and failing to take part in it is failing to work with that angel.
False professors bound closely to Satan will be among the first to feel God's wrath. They are men found all along among believers who do much harm to the cause, spots in feasts of charity and wolves among sheep, tearing and devouring, delighting to bear false witness and cruelly injure reputation by lies. They are not rooted out at once but remain among the wheat until God's appointed day to judge the world in righteousness, when the separation will be made and every man rewarded according to works. In that day those who sought to destroy reputation will be revealed as hypocrites, their own lips bearing testimony that clears from suspicion those they falsely accused, showing they knew all along they were injuring their fellow man.
Growing together does not forbid all effort against evil. Faithful guardians must watch and pray, give marked attention, reprove, rebuke and correct with wholesome words, set in order any person seen sowing tares, and refuse to allow tares to be sown through wrong associations that hurt youth and contaminate health. Objectionable teachings and evils that threaten to choke the work must be met and corrected through decisive action, and leaders are to work for purification of the church so it can shine as a light rather than disparage or abandon it. Successful care of the school requires discipline taught by precept and carried out by practice, and corrupting influences that block the work must be cleansed by removal. Yet labor must be personal, house-to-house missionary labor of the kind that builds up, restores, and strengthens faith, not of the kind that weakens and confuses and destroys souls ransomed at infinite price.
Enemy Sowing in Life
In the home the child's heart is a field where the enemy preoccupies the mind when parents neglect early culture, sleep, or leave the child to do as it pleases and take in good and bad indiscriminately. His tares there include stubbornness, selfishness, impurity, pride, love of pleasure, disobedience, sinfulness, and evil habits that overshadow precious plants. Evil learned early grows faster than good and is difficult to eradicate, so that allowing good and evil to grow together in hope good will later prevail is dangerous, and removing its influence afterward may take many years. The untrained mind is like an uncultivated field requiring unceasing care, and unless parents keep watchful guard the tares will spring up to bear evil fruit. The remedy is to sow good seed from babyhood by filling minds with what is good and pure before evil can be planted, guarding education and society, giving patient answers, forming pure habits, cultivating good traits, repressing evil, and exercising firm wise control. Teaching children to reject trashy exciting tales and turn to sensible reading that leads to Bible story, history and argument, and reading that throws light upon the Sacred Volume and quickens desire to study it, stores the mind with Bible truth and is beneficial and not dangerous.
In education the enemy sows tares through teachers taught by him whose influence should not educate the young, through unbalanced or loveless teachers, and through books presenting errors and fables. False teaching is weeds sown among good seed, mixing infidel ideas with education and sowing erroneous sentiments in young minds, with a harmful harvest to follow. Such teachings corrupt minds, create distaste for the Bible, lead away from biblical truth, introduce error alongside truth, and threaten spirituality and belief, turning youth into infidels. Teachers may spread harmful notions while some mistake those tares for precious wheat, so teachers should introduce no new idea unless sure it is true. Schools must therefore guard manuscripts, erect barriers, discard degrading matter including infidel books and fictitious profane literature, novels handled on the same presses as truth, Greek and Latin overloads, and hypnotic bewitching heresies, and store minds with Bible truth and sensible reading.
By tongue and example every worker is either a devoted servant of Christ or under the enemy's leadership, sowing wheat or tares by letters written, by thoughts, by words, and by the spirit in which daily duties are performed, all forming character. Those who sow wheat abide in the true vine and partake of the divine nature with pure holy motives, speaking only words in harmony with Christ and helping others do right, while those who appropriate low debasing worldly influences imbibe pride and self-indulgence and grow in worldliness and sin. Sowing tares is planting doubts and unbelief in minds and hearts so faith is weakened, and once sown that seed cannot be gathered up but will grow and produce a harvest. Evil words and skeptical thoughts are seeds that take root in other minds to bear harmful fruit, and a person can become the agent through whom such tares are sown in younger minds by example. The tares also include doubts and questionings suggested by Satan such as picking at straws and setting up men of straw to attack over the words I, we and us, which those who pass along become his agents for communicating, so that clearing one brings another; the right response is to sow grand soul-saving truths and remove his questions when possible rather than employ minds in unprofitable work over images of straw. The same sowing is done by words and actions, even by those in responsible positions, when they criticize those who by the Holy Spirit labor with God and reject the messages they bear, the enemy working through evil angels guiding the sowers and inspiring imagination with defective perverted eyesight to see many things in false light, openly and secretly counteracting God's appointed work through human agencies, and those continuing without repentance will soon find no place for repentance though sought carefully with tears, like Esau. Other forms are raising suspicions without foundation, faultfinding and jealousy from self-sympathy, repeating confidences, betraying friends, envy, evil-speaking, misrepresentation, bitterness, self-exaltation, and criticism that disrupts faith.
In churches, sanitariums, publishing houses and gospel work the field first sown with pure wheat is the church and its institutions, and the enemy's work while men sleep is bringing in worldly elements and placing them in trust as respected teachers, directors and officials, where they are worked by the spirit of darkness until the line between him that serves God and him that serves Him not is no longer distinguished and institutions become unsubstantial and unreliable. Objectionable teachings and evils that threaten to choke gospel medical missionary work are tares whose wrongs must be met and corrected through decisive action. Satan attempts to introduce vice among virtue and corrupt God's work, and those not converted may contaminate others, so zeal must follow Christ's leading rather than act ahead of Him. Harsh management by ordering, scolding, sharpness in voice and exertion of kingly authority does not come from God but from the enemy, who has sown unholy tares among the wheat souring those in the office, and it is high time for cleansing by removing those tares and working in the tender loving spirit of the Master with sweetness of Christ, calling good and evil by right names. The remedy for perverted principles, unbelief sown by misrepresentation and dominating rule, display of wealthy patrons, and rival enterprises mingling tares with truth until its holy character sinks from sight, is tender Christlike management, cleansing by removing corrupting influences, and refusing to abandon neglected fields where weeds were sown through long neglect, since that field is now harder to work yet urgently needs labor.
This life is sowing time when the seed sown should produce wheat rather than tares, and God works with people giving talents to use in producing a harvest. The Master sends servants to sow His field with wheat, pure wheat and not mingled seed, for the tares are the heterogeneous mass of heresies, strange new things, unstable theories, mere suppositions and vagaries of the brain that unsanctified men conjure up and present as oracles of God and life-and-death questions. To pass those speculations along as food is to sow chaff instead of pure sanctifying golden truth from the Word, and even if the sowers see folly, repent and are forgiven for teaching what was never committed to them, they cannot change tares into wheat by tears and repentance, and when chaff is found in the wheat at harvest they will realize souls never had the light and experience they might have had. Christians must therefore sow seeds of truth and sow no tares, avoid sowing weeds through wrong conduct, and instead sow the kingdom's good seed by living faithfully and helping others do right. Because wheat and tares grow together in the church with dangers threatening it, there is need as never before for personal house-to-house missionary labor that builds up, restores and strengthens faith and does not weaken, confuse and destroy souls ransomed at infinite price, with every faculty appreciated and every talent used for God's glory. Faithful guardians given responsibility for souls must stop tares sown through wrong associations that hurt youth and contaminate spiritual and physical health, by marked attention, watching and praying, reproving, rebuking and correcting with wholesome words, setting in order any person seen sowing tares and refusing to allow it, with discipline taught by precept and carried out by practice, purging from vessels of dishonor, tending one's own garden rather than finding weeds in a neighbor's, and associating with the self-denying.
The mixed crop draws attention and may lead observers to judge the whole field and its sower as worthless or corrupt, for tares as erring hypocritical professors bring reproach on Christianity, cause the world to doubt Christ's truths, and in part frustrate Jesus' work of saving fallen humanity from Satan's power and making the heart fruitful in good works. False brethren will remain until the close of time, yet their presence should not dishearten Christians or give reason to doubt Christianity, and Christ's patience with Judas shows believers are to bear patiently with erring people rather than seek to lose any soul. God will arouse His sleeping people, and if other means fail He permits heresies to come in to separate chaff from wheat, calling all who believe to awake, study Scripture diligently, and examine positions critically in the light of Bible truth showing perils right upon them. The two groups grow toward different ends, the faithful as wheat for God's harvest and the worldly as tares for destruction, distinguishing those faithfully serving God from those rejecting divine authority. Those who fail to stand in Christ's freedom and gather precious wheat choose instead to gather tares, while truth stands on its eternal basis amid error professed by God's people developing among tares. Leaders are therefore called to purify the church so it shines rather than be disparaged, though the barrier the mixed crop becomes keeps some from standing with God's people and does not excuse unbelief or disobedience, for God still loves His faithful.
The same enemy work appears as two working forces with deceptive wiles to be warned against. At Corinth after Paul's departure harmful influences took root among believers and produced evil fruit, picturing tares planted by the enemy among wheat. The unjust may thus be found among the just in the field, and servants ask whether to remove them. Students who encourage evil and bring trouble or discouragement to teachers are likewise tares springing up among wheat, showing evil can be planted among good and raise the question of removal. So also Solomon's pagan alliances mingling idolatry with faith, secret-society vows binding members, unreliable complaining workers, friction-making plans, traits needing testing, novels and falsehoods in publishing, infidel questioning in Bible study, error-spreading such as Elder McCullagh's, and last-day covert counterworking of the Spirit, will be exposed at judgment when books are opened.
The one who secretly sowed weeds among the good seed is Satan, the enemy of God and man, who works out of enmity to harm the crop and bring loss to its owner, while neither God nor His angels ever sow seed that produces a tare. He does his work while men sleep, meaning while workers are unwatchful, self-sufficient and neglecting prayer, while he himself never slumbers. When the servants recognize his work and ask to go and pull up the weeds at once, they are refused, because the tares closely resemble wheat while green and their roots are entwined with it, so ruthless gathering would root up and destroy the precious grain. Both are commanded to grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers will gather the weeds for burning and bring the wheat into the barn. Therefore the work of judging and separating is forbidden to men and left to Christ and His angels alone, since men cannot reliably distinguish wheat from tares or read hearts, and believers are to show forbearance, patience and humility rather than condemning and uprooting those they judge evil.
Enemy and His Sowing
The one who sowed the tares is an enemy, and that enemy is Satan, the devil, the evil one, the enemy of God and man. He works in enmity toward Christ, out of revenge seeking to harm the crop and bring loss upon its owner, afflicting the human family by this evil sowing. Neither God nor His angels ever sow seed that produces a tare, nor does the owner himself sow such seed, for all tares are of Satan's sowing alone. Every noxious herb is of his sowing, and not one was placed in the Lord's great garden, for Christ never planted the seeds of death in the human system. The servants' question about gathering them up already introduces the danger that removing the tares would uproot the wheat as well, so both are left to grow together until the harvest when they are separated.
The sowing is done while men sleep, which is secret work succeeding when workers are unwatchful, self-sufficient, and spiritually sleeping, neglecting constant prayer and watchfulness. Such sleep is unconsciousness and inaction, as when older experienced Christians stand as mere spectators toward the young, or when church members sleep instead of shining and leave undone through idleness and selfish self-centered spirit the work God gave to everyone. In that unwatchfulness they become ensnared, blinded in understanding, ignorant of wonderfully specious devices, and perverted in vision by dependence on human wisdom, professing to work for God while in reality serving the prince of darkness unless through living faith and earnest prayer they become partakers of the divine nature. The enemy himself never slumbers but is wide awake, working as a devouring lion and a living persevering power to complete rebellion, to bar the way of Christ's kingdom, to persuade men to take his arm and advance woe and misery, and to take God's standard from God's people without their discerning it. Servants who see the wrongdoing but let it continue become implicated in its guilt and help his work, so men must awake out of sleep, remain watchful, and act against evils that can be checked rather than allowing them to take root and spread.
That enemy is a deceiver who sinned in heaven, the first great sower of evil, whose rebellion commenced and continued under the power of a lie. By deceptive power he drew away part of the holy family of heaven, drawing many angels into rebellion with him, and every disloyal subject who apostatized with him fell and was turned out of the blessed abode, cast out with his sympathizers never again to occupy his holy exalted place. Even the loyal angels did not fully discern his character, and God did not at once destroy him, for had He done so the holy angels would not have perceived the justice and love of God, and doubt of God's goodness would have become as evil seed yielding the bitter fruit of sin and woe. Therefore the author of evil was spared to fully develop his character, and through long ages God has borne the anguish of beholding the work of evil and has given the infinite Gift of Calvary rather than let any be deceived by misrepresentations. God suffers the tares for a time to allow envy and hatred to fully manifest, just as He allowed Satan, until Satan stands exposed before the heavenly universe and before unfallen and fallen worlds in his true attributes as deceiver, accuser of the brethren, and murderer at heart.
The evil manifest even in the natural world comes from that same enemy and is no part of God's creation. Brier and thorn, thistle and tare, briars multiplying to choke the good seed, and poisonous herbs springing up after Adam was tempted to disobedience, came through the enemy by the curse when he tempted Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge, which meant disobedience to God. By ingenious methods of amalgamation he has corrupted the earth with tares, making labor tenfold harder and toilsome, and leading men to murmur against God as the cause of misery when Satan himself is the real cause, with men cooperating by do-nothing habits and neglect. Everything God made is useful, yet even a child coming in contact with nature finds cause for perplexity because he cannot but recognize the working of antagonistic forces, so nature needs an interpreter to teach this sorrowful lesson to children and to everyone. Nature is read rightly only in the light that shines from Calvary, where the story of Bethlehem and the Cross shows how good is to conquer evil and how every blessing is a gift of redemption, and if left unchecked the tares spoil the wheat by rank growth.
The field first sown with pure wheat is Christ's church in the world, including the church and its institutions, where God's work of salvation is carried out and where people grow and ripen for God's harvest. It is also the world itself, the same field where good seed is sown, where good and evil workers labor side by side and truth and error contend, and where their opposing work and conflict continue until the great harvest at the close of history. There the unjust may be found among the just, with some spreading error and darkening minds while others sow good seed by revealing Christ, and the final separation is not yet taking place. The enemy's work there is the bringing in of worldly elements and placing them in positions of trust as respected teachers, directors, and officials, where they are worked by the spirit of darkness until the line between him that serves God and him that serves Him not is no longer distinguished and institutions become unsubstantial and unreliable.
Servants' Request and Refusal
When the servants learn that an enemy has sown tares among the wheat, they recognize the enemy's work and ask whether they should go and gather them up. The question expresses the desire of human agents to condemn church members and purify the church by removing the tares at once. It arises because tares are present among the wheat in the church militant, which is not yet triumphant. The weeds were sown to injure the owner, and the servants propose to take them out and leave only the wheat.
The request is refused with Nay, lest in gathering the tares the wheat be rooted up also. The tares are harmful weeds growing alongside the wheat and closely resembling it while the blades are green, so pulling them could disturb the wheat's roots and destroy young plants. Their roots are entwined with the precious grain, and ruthless tearing would uproot the wheat with them. That work is forbidden to men and left to the Son of God alone, who lived the law of God in humanity and understands the strength of temptation coming to every child of His, for if committed to human judgment terrible mistakes would be made. The same forbearance shown by the Lord of heaven toward Satan is required toward fellow men, not condemnation and judgment of others but humility and distrust of self, since being in the church does not prove one a Christian and removing those judged evil could cause others who might have remained steadfast to stumble or be driven to despair.
Both are therefore allowed to grow together until the harvest, and until then good and evil remain together and their conflict continues. The harvest is the end of the world, when God sends angels as reapers to separate them. Then the weeds are gathered and bound for burning and the wheat is brought into the barn, the good and evil separated and their destinies fixed forever with no probation after the Judgment.
Wheat, Tares, and Harvest
The tares are persons embodying error and false principles, children of the wicked one sown among the children of the kingdom by Satan, who is the enemy that did this work. They are counterfeit Christians and false brethren bearing Christ's name while denying His character, hypocrites and mere professors mingling for a time with true followers yet not joined to Christ, and their presence dishonors God, endangers souls, damages the gospel work, and gives no excuse for unbelief or disobedience. The wheat are the true followers of Christ, genuine Christians true in heart and action, the good seed sown among whom the enemy secretly introduces evil. The church militant is therefore composed of wheat and tares, with counterfeit Christians in every church, and the fact that men are in the church does not prove them Christians.
The tares closely resemble the wheat while the blades are green, so that pulling them could disturb the roots and destroy the young wheat plants. Their outward show of piety and semblance of Christianity can conceal that they are not joined to Christ and is calculated to deceive many, and they are erring and hypocritical professors whose sin among God's people frustrates in part Christ's work of saving fallen humanity and making the heart fruitful in good works. Their mixed crop draws attention and brings reproach on Christianity, so that observers may judge the whole field and its sower as worthless or corrupt and the world may doubt Christ's truths. They are known by fruit, for when the field is white to the harvest the worthless weeds bear no likeness to the wheat bowing under the weight of its full, ripe heads, and in the harvest of the world there will be no likeness between good and evil when those who joined the church but did not join Christ are manifest.
The tares remain tares rather than being changed into wheat, and are then gathered and destroyed while the righteous are gathered into eternal life. The verse does not teach that all tares will become wheat, but that wheat and tares grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when angels as reapers separate them. At that time Christ will distinguish them and judge each person by words, works, and character, not by profession.
The tares also represent what the enemy sows as seed: error mingled with truth, false teaching and heresies diligently spread alongside good doctrine, doubts and unbelief planted in minds and hearts, skeptical thoughts, strange theories, infidel sentiments and ideas mixed with education, seductive spiritualistic sophistries, human maxims and false interpretations, and chaff sown instead of pure sanctifying truth. Satan secretly plants these seeds of evil and error in human minds while Christ sows good seed in the heart, mixing evil with good so the two are hard to distinguish without clear spiritual sight. Once sown the seed cannot be gathered up but grows abundantly, spreads from field to field, crowds out and destroys what is good, weakens faith, corrupts young minds, and produces a harmful harvest that will continue to the close of history.
The verse belongs to the parable of the wheat and tares, one of the familiar objects of seed, fieldwork, and harvest used to make divine truths memorable to the hearers. Like the parable of the sower it applies broadly, to people from every class, with imagery of seed scattered by laborers and grain harvested that was familiar to those who heard it. It introduces the servants' question whether to gather up the tares before the harvest. It is applied to the gospel harvest ripening for Christ's coming, when Christians bearing fruit to God's glory more quickly sow the world with the gospel and the final harvest ripens for Him to gather the precious grain.
Patience Without Human Separation
The pulling up and judging is not given to human hands but is reserved to the Son of God alone, and if it were committed to human judgment terrible mistakes would be made in rooting up wheat with tares. He alone is fit to judge because He lived the law of God in humanity and understands the strength of temptation and the weakness and striving of every child of His toward Christian perfection. The servants are answered with Nay, lest in gathering the tares the wheat be rooted up also, and both must grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers gather the tares to burn and the wheat into the barn. The righteous and wicked therefore remain mingled in life until the Lord alone separates them and gives each a true position in the judgment, and faults seen in members must not be made an excuse for criticism or for deciding who belongs among God's people. Human beings are not given the right to pass judgment on others or to condemn and root out those they judge false, for Christ who owns and redeems them does not use force to remove even a perverse disciple, and pity is to restrain wrath and passion toward the deceived.
Men cannot now safely tell tares from wheat nor read hearts, and may mistake wheat for tares, while Christ and His angels know the difference by fruits and will never make a mistake. The tares closely resemble the wheat while green, so attempted cleansing could harm true believers or drive to despair those Christ is drawing to Himself. The church on earth is militant and not yet triumphant, containing both, and the Lord alone knows who are His. No one is therefore to decide membership by private judgment nor to exclude any from footwashing and the sacrament, for though Jesus knew Judas would betray Him He washed his feet and let him partake with the rest. At every such service unseen angels and messengers of darkness are present as then, yet even those not in heart united with truth and holiness are not to be forbidden the ordinances by men.
The refusal teaches forbearance, patience, humility and distrust of self rather than condemnation, accusation, faultfinding, or feeding on the real or supposed faults of brethren. Evil is allowed time to reveal its character, and believers are to bear patiently with others rather than act hastily to force out harmful elements, lest sincere believers be damaged like wheat pulled with tares. Premature separation can create opposition and factions, give grounds for complaint, and cause others who might otherwise remain steadfast to stumble, so difficulties call for careful consideration, earnest prayer, and wise judgment, and may sometimes resolve without intervention. The fact that men are in the church does not prove them Christians, for sinners making a pretension of piety mingle for a time with true followers and the semblance of Christianity is calculated to deceive many. One's own faults may be greater or less visible, so Christ alone is the pattern to feed upon rather than the faults of others.
The same warning forbids trying to uproot those judged evil before the harvest by force through civil power. Imprisonment, torture, and killing of those counted heretics in Christ's name reflect Satan's spirit and method, misrepresent God, and seek to bring the world under Satan's rule.
Defective and unconverted persons, counterfeit Christians, pride, self-sufficiency, stubborn unbelief, and refusal to yield even when evidence is piled upon evidence may be present in every church, with precious and vile together, yet their presence does not make the commandment-keeping church Babylon nor blot it out so that it will not exist. The church is loved and is not to be disparaged, abandoned, disorganized, broken into independent atoms, or torn to pieces by human efforts to gather out the evil. Believers must stay in Christ's lines, strengthen the wheat, work for purification, and let the Lord who knows His own do the separating at the harvest, when angels and not men first gather the chaff and bind it in bundles to burn and gather the wheat into the garner.
Final Separation at Harvest
At the harvest the good and the evil are clearly distinguished and separated forever, with destinies fixed and no probation after judgment. Both grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world, when the angels as reapers bind the tares to burn and gather the wheat into the barn. The wicked are removed from among the righteous and destroyed while the righteous receive eternal life. The tares remain tares rather than being changed into wheat, and are then gathered and destroyed. The church militant today is therefore composed of wheat and tares, with counterfeit Christians and false professors mingling with true followers, bringing reproach and danger to the gospel work, yet allowed to remain together for a time.
Each is then given a true position according to character, judged by words and works and fruits, not by profession. The wheat are those really believing, genuine and true in heart and action, while the tares are those appearing Christian but not joined to Christ, whose works disclose an unchanged, unsanctified character. Reaping is as sowing, for none can sow tares and reap wheat, and what a person sows determines what is reaped. A character molded by devotion to earthly things receives a worldly mold that remains as at death and appears unchanged in the morning of the resurrection, with no conversion or transformation of character then.
Divisions will come and two parties will be developed, the wheat and tares growing up together for the harvest to the very close of time. Divine and satanic agencies are engaged in decided opposition and vital conflict till the close of this earth's history. God has long borne with stubborn self-indulgence, and the time has come when everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that what cannot be shaken may remain, as He tests and proves His people. Meanwhile a new life from heaven takes possession of all God's people and the last message of mercy is sounded to a fallen world, growing deeper and more earnest with laborers together with God contending for the faith once delivered to the saints.
That selecting and sealing or binding of the wheat for the heavenly garner is the work of the third angel. The vile is separated from the precious, and the wheat is selected and sealed for the heavenly garner. This separation calls for the whole mind and attention, and failing to take part in it is failing to work with that angel.
False professors bound closely to Satan will be among the first to feel God's wrath. They are men found all along among believers who do much harm to the cause, spots in feasts of charity and wolves among sheep, tearing and devouring, delighting to bear false witness and cruelly injure reputation by lies. They are not rooted out at once but remain among the wheat until God's appointed day to judge the world in righteousness, when the separation will be made and every man rewarded according to works. In that day those who sought to destroy reputation will be revealed as hypocrites, their own lips bearing testimony that clears from suspicion those they falsely accused, showing they knew all along they were injuring their fellow man.
Growing together does not forbid all effort against evil. Faithful guardians must watch and pray, give marked attention, reprove, rebuke and correct with wholesome words, set in order any person seen sowing tares, and refuse to allow tares to be sown through wrong associations that hurt youth and contaminate health. Objectionable teachings and evils that threaten to choke the work must be met and corrected through decisive action, and leaders are to work for purification of the church so it can shine as a light rather than disparage or abandon it. Successful care of the school requires discipline taught by precept and carried out by practice, and corrupting influences that block the work must be cleansed by removal. Yet labor must be personal, house-to-house missionary labor of the kind that builds up, restores, and strengthens faith, not of the kind that weakens and confuses and destroys souls ransomed at infinite price.
Enemy Sowing in Life
In the home the child's heart is a field where the enemy preoccupies the mind when parents neglect early culture, sleep, or leave the child to do as it pleases and take in good and bad indiscriminately. His tares there include stubbornness, selfishness, impurity, pride, love of pleasure, disobedience, sinfulness, and evil habits that overshadow precious plants. Evil learned early grows faster than good and is difficult to eradicate, so that allowing good and evil to grow together in hope good will later prevail is dangerous, and removing its influence afterward may take many years. The untrained mind is like an uncultivated field requiring unceasing care, and unless parents keep watchful guard the tares will spring up to bear evil fruit. The remedy is to sow good seed from babyhood by filling minds with what is good and pure before evil can be planted, guarding education and society, giving patient answers, forming pure habits, cultivating good traits, repressing evil, and exercising firm wise control. Teaching children to reject trashy exciting tales and turn to sensible reading that leads to Bible story, history and argument, and reading that throws light upon the Sacred Volume and quickens desire to study it, stores the mind with Bible truth and is beneficial and not dangerous.
In education the enemy sows tares through teachers taught by him whose influence should not educate the young, through unbalanced or loveless teachers, and through books presenting errors and fables. False teaching is weeds sown among good seed, mixing infidel ideas with education and sowing erroneous sentiments in young minds, with a harmful harvest to follow. Such teachings corrupt minds, create distaste for the Bible, lead away from biblical truth, introduce error alongside truth, and threaten spirituality and belief, turning youth into infidels. Teachers may spread harmful notions while some mistake those tares for precious wheat, so teachers should introduce no new idea unless sure it is true. Schools must therefore guard manuscripts, erect barriers, discard degrading matter including infidel books and fictitious profane literature, novels handled on the same presses as truth, Greek and Latin overloads, and hypnotic bewitching heresies, and store minds with Bible truth and sensible reading.
By tongue and example every worker is either a devoted servant of Christ or under the enemy's leadership, sowing wheat or tares by letters written, by thoughts, by words, and by the spirit in which daily duties are performed, all forming character. Those who sow wheat abide in the true vine and partake of the divine nature with pure holy motives, speaking only words in harmony with Christ and helping others do right, while those who appropriate low debasing worldly influences imbibe pride and self-indulgence and grow in worldliness and sin. Sowing tares is planting doubts and unbelief in minds and hearts so faith is weakened, and once sown that seed cannot be gathered up but will grow and produce a harvest. Evil words and skeptical thoughts are seeds that take root in other minds to bear harmful fruit, and a person can become the agent through whom such tares are sown in younger minds by example. The tares also include doubts and questionings suggested by Satan such as picking at straws and setting up men of straw to attack over the words I, we and us, which those who pass along become his agents for communicating, so that clearing one brings another; the right response is to sow grand soul-saving truths and remove his questions when possible rather than employ minds in unprofitable work over images of straw. The same sowing is done by words and actions, even by those in responsible positions, when they criticize those who by the Holy Spirit labor with God and reject the messages they bear, the enemy working through evil angels guiding the sowers and inspiring imagination with defective perverted eyesight to see many things in false light, openly and secretly counteracting God's appointed work through human agencies, and those continuing without repentance will soon find no place for repentance though sought carefully with tears, like Esau. Other forms are raising suspicions without foundation, faultfinding and jealousy from self-sympathy, repeating confidences, betraying friends, envy, evil-speaking, misrepresentation, bitterness, self-exaltation, and criticism that disrupts faith.
In churches, sanitariums, publishing houses and gospel work the field first sown with pure wheat is the church and its institutions, and the enemy's work while men sleep is bringing in worldly elements and placing them in trust as respected teachers, directors and officials, where they are worked by the spirit of darkness until the line between him that serves God and him that serves Him not is no longer distinguished and institutions become unsubstantial and unreliable. Objectionable teachings and evils that threaten to choke gospel medical missionary work are tares whose wrongs must be met and corrected through decisive action. Satan attempts to introduce vice among virtue and corrupt God's work, and those not converted may contaminate others, so zeal must follow Christ's leading rather than act ahead of Him. Harsh management by ordering, scolding, sharpness in voice and exertion of kingly authority does not come from God but from the enemy, who has sown unholy tares among the wheat souring those in the office, and it is high time for cleansing by removing those tares and working in the tender loving spirit of the Master with sweetness of Christ, calling good and evil by right names. The remedy for perverted principles, unbelief sown by misrepresentation and dominating rule, display of wealthy patrons, and rival enterprises mingling tares with truth until its holy character sinks from sight, is tender Christlike management, cleansing by removing corrupting influences, and refusing to abandon neglected fields where weeds were sown through long neglect, since that field is now harder to work yet urgently needs labor.
This life is sowing time when the seed sown should produce wheat rather than tares, and God works with people giving talents to use in producing a harvest. The Master sends servants to sow His field with wheat, pure wheat and not mingled seed, for the tares are the heterogeneous mass of heresies, strange new things, unstable theories, mere suppositions and vagaries of the brain that unsanctified men conjure up and present as oracles of God and life-and-death questions. To pass those speculations along as food is to sow chaff instead of pure sanctifying golden truth from the Word, and even if the sowers see folly, repent and are forgiven for teaching what was never committed to them, they cannot change tares into wheat by tears and repentance, and when chaff is found in the wheat at harvest they will realize souls never had the light and experience they might have had. Christians must therefore sow seeds of truth and sow no tares, avoid sowing weeds through wrong conduct, and instead sow the kingdom's good seed by living faithfully and helping others do right. Because wheat and tares grow together in the church with dangers threatening it, there is need as never before for personal house-to-house missionary labor that builds up, restores and strengthens faith and does not weaken, confuse and destroy souls ransomed at infinite price, with every faculty appreciated and every talent used for God's glory. Faithful guardians given responsibility for souls must stop tares sown through wrong associations that hurt youth and contaminate spiritual and physical health, by marked attention, watching and praying, reproving, rebuking and correcting with wholesome words, setting in order any person seen sowing tares and refusing to allow it, with discipline taught by precept and carried out by practice, purging from vessels of dishonor, tending one's own garden rather than finding weeds in a neighbor's, and associating with the self-denying.
The mixed crop draws attention and may lead observers to judge the whole field and its sower as worthless or corrupt, for tares as erring hypocritical professors bring reproach on Christianity, cause the world to doubt Christ's truths, and in part frustrate Jesus' work of saving fallen humanity from Satan's power and making the heart fruitful in good works. False brethren will remain until the close of time, yet their presence should not dishearten Christians or give reason to doubt Christianity, and Christ's patience with Judas shows believers are to bear patiently with erring people rather than seek to lose any soul. God will arouse His sleeping people, and if other means fail He permits heresies to come in to separate chaff from wheat, calling all who believe to awake, study Scripture diligently, and examine positions critically in the light of Bible truth showing perils right upon them. The two groups grow toward different ends, the faithful as wheat for God's harvest and the worldly as tares for destruction, distinguishing those faithfully serving God from those rejecting divine authority. Those who fail to stand in Christ's freedom and gather precious wheat choose instead to gather tares, while truth stands on its eternal basis amid error professed by God's people developing among tares. Leaders are therefore called to purify the church so it shines rather than be disparaged, though the barrier the mixed crop becomes keeps some from standing with God's people and does not excuse unbelief or disobedience, for God still loves His faithful.
The same enemy work appears as two working forces with deceptive wiles to be warned against. At Corinth after Paul's departure harmful influences took root among believers and produced evil fruit, picturing tares planted by the enemy among wheat. The unjust may thus be found among the just in the field, and servants ask whether to remove them. Students who encourage evil and bring trouble or discouragement to teachers are likewise tares springing up among wheat, showing evil can be planted among good and raise the question of removal. So also Solomon's pagan alliances mingling idolatry with faith, secret-society vows binding members, unreliable complaining workers, friction-making plans, traits needing testing, novels and falsehoods in publishing, infidel questioning in Bible study, error-spreading such as Elder McCullagh's, and last-day covert counterworking of the Spirit, will be exposed at judgment when books are opened.