What kind of king and kingdom?

    The disciples and people of Jesus day were taught that the Messiah would be like a conquering king like Solomon that would free them from the rule of the Romans and establish Israel as a great kingdom.  That is what they were expecting.  I really think that is what attracted Judas Iscariot in the first place.  He was the treasurer of the disciples money in Jesus' day and probably had hopes that he would be put in charge of the entire kingdom's money when Jesus came into power (John 12:6).  He was expecting a conquering king because of some of the Old Testament language that refers to Jesus as a king, but he didn't understand God's timing or plan.

 

   Jesus himself affirmed that he is a king.  In John 18:36 it says that Jesus said "My kingdom is not of this world.  If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting, that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm."  If you notice how many times in Matthew alone the kingdom of heaven is mentioned.  Jesus was trying to teach people that his kingdom was not like what they anticipated.  He did this in the triumphant entry also mentioned in Mark 11 when he came riding into town on a young donkey instead of a white stallion like a king of this world would.  Yet, Jesus riding on a donkey was a exact fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9.   But, it seems they missed the because they saw what they wanted to see instead.

     Prophesy can be confusing like that.  I would compare it to looking at a line of mountains on the horizon.  From our vantage point, it appears that the mountains are all close together, but as you get closer you realize there are great valleys between them.  To make it more difficult there are verses that start talking about an earlier time and then rush forward to the future without so much as a comma between thousands of years of time.   An example of this is in Isaiah 14 when the beginning of the chapter references Babylon, but then verses 12-15 specifically mention Satan.  The shift is so slight that if your not paying attention you may miss it.  

       So difficult for them to understand this that the suffering servant mentioned in Isaiah 53 that is "crushed for our iniquities" was thought to be someone separate from the Messiah since they could not imagine someone doing both.  Or passages like Psalm 22:6 where the Messiah or suffering servant is mentioned as a reproach of men and despised by the people.

     That is why in Mark 8:31-33 when Jesus begins to talk quite bluntly about his death and resurrection Peter rebukes him.  He doesn't yet understand the kind of kingdom that Jesus came to introduce.  He doesn't understand that Jesus came to be a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins to rescue us from the domain of darkness as mentioned in Colossians 1:13.   

Look in Mark 8:31-33:

31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not [a]mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

    Peter is finding out here that his plans and God's are not the same and that the death and resurrection of Christ though very difficult for them to fathom at that point is a part of the plan.   It is why Jesus mentioned very plainly from this point on that he would be killed and resurrected.  See for example Mark 9:31-32, 10:33-34 Interestingly, it says that the disciples did not understand and were afraid to ask him about it.  Peter perhaps did not yet fully understand that man is utter helpless to save himself.  In Romans 5:6 it says that "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly."  

    I don't think we should be surprised when God does things we don't understand.  God is infinite and we are finite and just by the nature of who we are and who he is there are going to be times when I don't understand Him.  There has to be an element of mystery to God and that is why faith is required because we will never be able to box God in completely.  In Isaiah 55:8-9 the Lord says that His thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways and that the heavens are higher than earth just as his ways are higher than ours.  That means that his ways are infinitely higher than ours.  This should be something that encourages us rather than disheartens us because God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine.

Parable of the Tares and Wheat and the Mustard Seed and Yeast Matthew 13:24-43

      24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

Matthew 13:24-30

       The Parable of the tares and wheat are stated by Jesus in Matthew 13:24-30 and then it is explained to the disciples in Matthew 13:36-43.   Jesus is telling us that not everyone who claims to be a part of the church is.    In this parable, the wheat represent the children of God and the tares represent those of the earth who are ruled by Satan.  These grow together and that until the wheat form a head of grain they are difficult if not impossible to tell apart.  This suggests that there are counterfeits in the church who claim to be believers but are not.  Jesus said that these two will be allowed to grow together until the very end of the age or the harvest when the tares will be destroyed in eternal fire.

      It may be surprising to the reader today how many times Jesus refers to the eternal fire of judgment for those who don't call him Lord and Savior.  There are some denominations and church which seek to suggest that any punishment that a person experiences in eternity will be temporary or the person will be annihilated in the end.  There is nowhere in scripture that supports such a view.  Jesus spent an enormous amount of his time talking about eternal punishment where the fire is not quenched and the worm doesn't die.  Jesus talks more about this in the parable of the sheep and the goats mentioned in Matthew 25:31-46.  In the end, one group goes off the eternal punishment while the righteous go to eternal life.  Scripture doesn't minimize eternal punishment.

     We see the corruption of the church also in Jesus parable of the leaven.  Leaven was a symbol of evil and sin.  The birds mentioned in Jesus parable of the mustard seed typically symbolize evil such as in Jeremiah 5:26,27 and Rev 18:2.  These parable are talking about the fast growth of the church both externally and internally.  As with many other things, evil people sought to use the church for their own purposes and it did not take long after Jesus' life and death and resurrection for people to come along and peddle their own version of the gospel for their own evil purposes.   If you read about the history of the church you will see that soon after the apostles are gone there is much corruption of the church.  The birds, those who are evil, seek the safety and shade of the church to try and corrupt it.  Jesus, John and Peter all warned that there would be false teachers who would arise after Jesus' resurrection.

     Years ago, when I spoke a message at the church in Philippi, WV about the absence of leaven in the Passover meal that Jesus ate with his disciple. I hadn't really intended to speak about it and it wasn't emphasized in my notes and seemed that the church there had never heard that lesson before.  Someone who was in the back of the room who had been on the communion committee mouthed the words "sorry".  I didn't understand why she was apologizing until we lifted the lid off the bread for communion and there was normal bread there.  When Jesus ate the Passover meals with his disciples and later at the Last Supper no leaven would have been present.  Leaven represents sin in the story and the absence of it speaks about how we are to be separate from the world.  

31 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, 32 which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”  33 Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three [c]measures of meal till it was all leavened.”  Matthew 13:31-33

     The parable of the mustard seed that Jesus gives in Matthew 31-32 is very interesting.  It would be normal for a mustard seed to grow the size of a bush.  It would be unnatural and extremely unusual for it to grow the size of a tree.  This  grow is also shown in the parable of the yeast that Jesus mentions in verses 33.  The woman who mixed the large amount of flour with yeast is mixing enough flour to feed about 100 people or 40 litres.   It was unusually large and symbolizes the institutional church that became corrupt soon after Jesus walked the earth.   G Campbell Morgan said about this that the leaven represents the paganizing influences brought into the church.

       Having said all of this, God always reserves a remnant of the true church for himself.  Elijah thought he was the only one left of all the believers in 1 Kings 19:14-18, yet God told him that he had reserved 7,000 believers in Israel for himself.  I think there is some practical guidelines to take from these parables that I will mention briefly

1.  I think this calls on us individually to examine ourselves and our faith rather than tradition or simply going to church on Sunday.   Do you love God and hate sin?  Are you truly following Christ or just another man?  Have you taken up your cross and followed Christ?  Are you a tare or wheat?

2.  The church today will have some level of corruption in it, so that means we are responsible to be in the word of God for ourselves and not just to believe whatever we hear from a pulpit or a preacher or evangelist.  You are responsible not to be lazy and get into the Word of God yourself.

3.   You need to test what you hear from teachers and those who claim to be preachers or evangelist (1 John 4:1).  Does their words line up with what scripture says?  Does the teacher emphasize the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus?  Much of what is taught in the modern church today resembles psychology and positive self talk rather than the gospel.

4.  Not everyone who you see in church will you see in heaven.  The tares are growing these days with the wheat.  So, don't be surprised if at times the church and its programs resemble the world.  People go to church for all sorts of reasons and not always the right ones.

   

The Sower of Wheat Parable and the Explanation Matthew 13:3-9 and 18-23

3 "Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

In Matthew 13:3-9, Jesus tells the story of the sower who went out to sow (the word of God).  The seed falls upon four types of soil, 

a. the wayside or path vs.4

b. the rocky ground that did not have much soil vs.5

c. the ground covered in thorns representing the worries and riches of this world vs.7

d. the good soil that bears a good crop.  vs.8

     I think we would all like to think of ourselves as being in the fourth category, the one who bears fruit.  This is one who hears and understands the word that he hears and applies it to their life.  The nature outflow of this from the Spirit of God is that it bears fruit.  This is primarily the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23.   The soil is good soil because the person is in such a place that they can hear and understand what they are hearing.  The word understand is the greek word syniemi- to set or bring together.  The person is able to take what they hear and apply it. Interestingly, the person described as the path is one who hears, but never does understand.  And because he or she doesn't apply it with understand they end up losing it.  Like the old phrase that you may have heard "Use it or lose it."

    How does a person become then the good soil that bears fruit?   One way is found in Galatians 5:16 where it says to "walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh."   One walks by the Spirit by a constant trust and faith in Christ and staying in close communion with God.   Even Jesus when he walked this earth stayed in close communion with God and got away to pray often.  Are you a person who spends consistent time in prayer?  This means that this person lives with a different perspective on their problems as well as joys.  They see things through what we would call a Christ centered view or Christocentric view.   Much like as a new testament believer we interpret the Old Testament through Christ and what he says in the New Testament.

   The person who has rocky ground has not depth to their soil.  So, when hardship comes along there is no root and they tend to fade away Matthew 13:5.   The truth is that in life there are always hardships that come along.  In fact, in Matthew 4 we see Jesus go through some of those hardships himself when he is in the wilderness being tempted by Satan.  The book of Acts is full of stories about believers going through hardships.  Hardship can test our faith and produce endurance and help us to be complete in Christ James 1:2-4.  But, the person on rocky soil has no firm faith and so the rocky soil bears no fruit.

    I think for most of us though the soil that is most likely to represent us is the soil covered in thorns.  The thorns Jesus said represent the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things Mark 4:19.  In other words, this person's loyal is divided and their concerns are full of the noise of this world.   In our culture, this is a constant danger.  Did you know that in America alone there are about 40 million people who have a anxiety disorder that could be diagnosed at any one time.  This is why John said in 1 John 2:15-16 not to love the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life which is not from God, but from the world.  A divided heart is a distracted heart, one who is not truly listening and therefore won't understand.   And the truth is that it takes special effort and skill and practice 1 Corinthians 2:14-15 to hear God's voice and to understand it.

    I want to be the kind of believer who hears and understands the voice of God.  John 10:4 says that the shepherd puts forth his own sheep and goes before them and they follow him because they know His voice.  The sheep will run from a counterfeit, of which there are many today, because they don't know his voice.  They have trained themselves from long hours of being near the shepherd to hear his voice and to be able to tell the difference.  They know the shepherd has their best interest at heart and want to give them an abundant life John 10:10.   While we are saved by grace through faith in Christ and it is not a thing to be earned Ephesians 2:8.  There is a sense in which we can either continue to grow in our lives as christians or become stagnant and unfruitful or carnal.  It takes some discipline and effort on our part to make the effort to be still before God and to take time to listen to him  Psalm 62:5-7.

David Guzik's commentary on Matthew 13  

https://www.blueletterbible.org/comm/guzik_david/study-guide/matthew/matthew-13.cfm?a=942024