In today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack Hibbs challenges us to rethink our understanding of discipleship and what it means to serve God effectively. Using the Parable of the Tares, he emphasizes the ongoing spiritual battle between the kingdom of God and the forces of darkness. Learn how to recognize true kingdom living and stay alert to the infiltration of deception in our lives.
He’s going to reveal to us about what true kingdom living is all about. And church, listen, it’s all about us living this life now, the kingdom of heaven in our lives now, in the midst of grave danger.
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This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. The cross. For a lot of us, it’s just a symbol that we wear around our necks, right? Display in our homes or maybe hang from the rear view mirror. But what if instead of being a decoration or accessory, the cross motivated and shaped the way we live every single day of our lives? What if it wasn’t about hiding or minimizing our sin, but actually crucifying it in order to move forward in the freedom that Christ offers? Born Crucified, it’s a book by Ellie Maxwell. In this book, you’ll discover what it truly means to live in a cross-centered life. This short but very powerful book is a classic for every Christian’s library. It reminds us that the cross isn’t just a symbol. It’s the key to victory over sin and the power to serve God effectively. Now, if you’re ready to experience the freedom and purpose found in a life centered on the cross, this book is one that you should get. Born Crucified. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash real radio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash real radio. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues with his series called The Parables of Jesus and a message titled Parable of the Tares. Now, whenever Jesus spoke to the masses, he often spoke in parables. And in this parable, we’re warned against deception. You see, tares are weeds that Satan plants among the good seeds. Tares are fruitless, they’re bitter, and when they’re cooked, they can be toxic. So Jesus is saying that we have an enemy who also sows his word among us to corrupt and pollute God’s biblical truths. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that we need to watch out for false leadership and teachers, spiritual imposters that pretend to be Christians and teach what seems to be true but are spreading a doctrine of lies. Now with his message called Parable of the Tares, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
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Give us your heart and give us your insight, Lord, on this parable. This is an alarming parable. I mean, we can’t look at this without having our hearts laid wide open. And the danger is for us tonight, even in our study, to go through it too quickly, though it’s just a few verses. And Lord, I pray that nobody within the hearing of this would take it lightly. I thank you for this series and the parables. I am being challenged myself, Lord, to very carefully review my own profession of faith in light of this truth. So Lord, give us ears to hear what the Spirit would be saying to us tonight. We ask in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, Amen. We’ll grab your Bibles tonight and turn to Matthew chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13 and… We are now into our second parable of the parable series. And if you’ve missed the previous two studies and the parable of the sower, we encourage you to either go to the media room and pick that up or go online and listen to it at your leisure or watch it at your leisure. But listen, church, the whole thing is that we would have a time on these Wednesday nights for discipleship. Now, my view of discipleship, I have to tell you, I’m biased. I’m biased because it’s how I was brought up spiritually. When I got saved at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in the 70s, there were no discipleship courses. There was just Bible study every night of the week in various rooms all around that property. And Pastor Chuck believed that if you came and sat and listened to the Word of God like you ought to be listening to the Word of God, that you would then get up and get involved. And you got involved in various ministries within the church. And in that ministry that you were involved in, that became your small group. And you heard the word of God in all kinds of venues, and then you put into practice what you had been hearing by serving one another. Isn’t it interesting? That’s true discipleship. Taking in the word of God and then doing it is the true definition of discipleship. Jesus taught the disciples, and then what happened when all those people, as the evening wore on, it got late, and they were hungry, and they were far from home. What did Jesus say to the disciples? You feed them. And they went like this, what? And whenever you present yourself to be used by God, God will fill in all the needs, and your faith will explode. And we want to keep that in mind as we look to these parables. They are intended to shed light upon an open heart, but the very same light that goes out to a closed heart actually causes that closed heart to if it stays in that position, to even shut down harder. The parable is an amazing way of teaching that unlocks or locks a person’s heart based upon their willingness. If they’re not willing, when they hear the truth, they push it away. And every time, and I hope you’re not in here tonight, but maybe you’re somebody tonight that just pushes away the truth. Listen, with every push away of God trying to reach you, through life’s issues, through illumination. Maybe God will speak to you through something or try to get your attention. If you push him away, listen, if you push, push, push him away, it becomes easier every time to push him away. He recoils. He recoils still. He gets further away. God, the Holy Spirit backs up even more. until there comes a point, like we’re reading, by the way, in our one-year Bible right now, where Pharaoh is so much pushing God away that there comes that point in time when God says, okay, that’s it. I’m done with him. And God lets him stand in what he’s been demanding to stand in, and that is rebellion against God. When you hear the word of God, like you’ll hear tonight, you want to receive it and not push it away. There’s a grave danger. And tonight on top of it, looking at the parable of the tares, in Matthew chapter 13, this is a very sobering parable, to say the least. Jesus came teaching, the Bible says, and preaching the kingdom of God. And that kingdom of God transcends all other things, church. It transcends, though we are not exempt from our nationality, our allegiance to a particular nation or state, to… a company or a family. These are things that God has intended for us to be involved in. And isn’t it interesting that God puts, I think, in the heart of every citizen of every nation, some sense of patriotism for that particular nation of theirs, which I think goes in line with scripture, that he’s established the boundaries and borders of nations and has placed people in them. But listen, the kingdom of God transcends even our nationality as Americans. The kingdom of God transcends all these earthly things. And yet we are right smack dab in the middle of living our faith out in this world. And the big question tonight as we get into this parable is are you, have I really become a true believer? And listen to the remarkable warning that Jesus gives us. I gotta tell you, this is not for the faint of heart. Matthew 13, verse 24, another parable, the second parable, he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven… is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted, that is the wheat had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 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? Verse 28. He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servant said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, no, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them. Amazing. Listen to verse 30. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather together the tares and bind them in bundles and burn them, but gather the wheat into the barn. This is a radical, direct parable that Jesus is speaking. It’s one, by the way, that is short, but we all need to be very careful that we don’t run across it too quickly. In Matthew chapter 13, verse 24, right in the opening, when it says here that another parable, he spoke to them saying that the kingdom of heaven, mark this down in your notes if you don’t have it already marked. The kingdom of heaven in the Bible and the kingdom of God are interchangeable statements. They’re exactly the same thing. What is it? The kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is God’s revelation that gets into someone’s heart. Remember when Jesus said, the kingdom of God is among you. Then Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you. What is he saying? That the kingdom of God, the gospel, the doctrine of God, the rule of God, the politic of God is designed to rule and reign in your hearts. That is where God’s throne is established in the life of a believer. And so when Jesus was preaching and teaching, the gospels tell us, and as he announced the kingdom, he made oftentimes the statement, the kingdom of God has come near to you. You’ve read that before. What does that mean? It means that the truth that unlocks your heart into everlasting life, to experience the love of God and the forgiveness of God, the grace of God, coming by you and when that news comes you’re to open up your heart wide and receive Christ and so he spoke to them this parable regarding the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God this new passport life this new politic that we have is of God. Jesus gives us a very stiff reality check here, and I’m gonna ask you to mark these things down tonight and really take them into your hearts personally. This is serious business. He’s gonna reveal to us about what true kingdom living is all about. And church, listen, it’s all about us living this life now, the kingdom of heaven in our lives now, in the midst of grave danger. Grave danger. Because if kingdoms of this world are at war and the whole thing is covert and spy and electronic sleight of hand and all this stuff that’s going on in the physical realm because there’s national pride at stake and there’s freedom at stake and there’s agendas at stake and it’s all this stuff of this earth at stake. How much more if the… Price is eternity, is the kingdom of darkness and of hell and of Satan, warring against the kingdom of light and of God. And you and I are on the battlefield. You are the prize. Your soul is the reward. Think about it. There’s the spiritual realm of demonic and angelic host. God is on his throne. Eternity doesn’t change. So what’s the big deal? Why is there such a big fight? Why is there this struggle within this kingdom as believers and there’s grave danger that Jesus warns us about? Because listen, the soul of every human being is precious to God and that case causes Satan to go after every human. He hates every human being. and wants them destroyed. How would he do that? I’m gonna ask you to write down these three things. There’s a three-fold campaign that Satan uses against the work of God and the mission of God regarding salvation and the gospel. It’s very important. Mark it, false Christians. That’s right, don’t look at me like that, write it down. False Christians, fake believers. Secondly, false teaching. False teaching comes out of false Christians. False Christians propagate false teachings, which result in false growth. That’s what this parable is about.
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You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
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False growth. Notice, we’ll see in a moment what they really are, but tares grow up with the weeds. An enemy comes and sows these false brethren among those that are of the kingdom of God. This parable, the illustration, is a little bit different than the parable of the sower and the seed. That parable gives description to the things shown. This one is a little bit different in this way. The believer and the non-believer are both, I’ll put it this way, religious, okay? They’re in a religious setting. The field is the world in this case. And the seed that goes out is not, or the wheat that goes out, or the tare that goes out is not the word of God or the word of Satan. It is those who follow those teachings. In other words, in the parable, the wheat are true believers and the tares are false believers. But mark this down, point number one, watch out for false Christians. This is an amazing truth. When he says here in verse 24, it says… It is like, or the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. The man is Christ. The sowing of the individual, the believer, is in the world. Note this. The parable means that Jesus Christ is not sowing the Bible now, the word of God. That’s the other parable. He’s putting believers everywhere in the world. That’s the wheat, right? It’s amazing. Jesus has his people everywhere. He sees to it. We know tonight painfully that Jesus has one of his people in an Iranian prison because he’s a Christian. God bless him and protect him. God’s people is everywhere. He puts his people everywhere. And God is at work. And so let’s look at this. The man sowed good seed in his field. There is godly believers in the world, of course. But while men slept, verse 25 says, speaks of a time when endurance is needed. You know how Jesus often said, he who endures unto the end, the same shall be saved? It doesn’t mean your endurance saves you. It means that because you’re saved, you are going to endure all the way to the end. Be it the course of your life or at the end of time, you’re going to make it. God will see to it. He gets you through. It’s very encouraging. But this word here, that as men slept, Jesus is warning. The word of God is going out. People are being converted. Christians are bearing forth fruit, being fruitful in the sense of wheat. And they’re walking with God. They’re loving God. They’re devoted to God. And as time goes on, as now look at us, we’re 2,000 years down the road. How much more true is this in our day? And in verse 25, he says, regarding… This sowing of tares, it says, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went on his way. This is an amazing warning by Jesus about deception and infiltration by false Christians. None of us like to talk like this or even hear this stuff. Do you mean there can be false Christians? You mean there can be false believers? Oh yeah. In fact, the Bible has promised us that in our midst, there’ll be false believers. Somebody might say, well, I’m gonna go to a church where there are no false believers. That’s impossible for you to know. You want me to make you a bizarre promise based on scripture? Jesus will show us this more later. Wherever God’s church is at, there will be false Christians. Guaranteed. Why? That’s Satan’s plan. You say, well, why doesn’t God put them all in the headlock and keep them outside? That’s not how it works. What are tares? You might ask, what are these things, tares? Glad you asked. Listen, tares are native to the eastern regions of the Mediterranean. They’re also known as darnel or darnel grass. Look, just like wheat. Can’t tell the difference. They grow alongside wheat. They grow where wheat is found. They resemble so much wheat that the farmer himself cannot detect if it’s wheat or not. The dangerous thing is, watch this, everybody. When it starts to sprout, looks just like wheat. When it grows up, looks just like wheat. When it forms its, what we’ll say fruit, though it’s not, it’s fake, the kernel or the meat of it, Looks just like wheats. You can’t separate them until the very end. That’s when you know, you’ve gotta wait till the very end. And it’s very interesting because when you take real wheats and rub it together in your hands, if you take the kernels of it and you rub it together in your hands, blow off the chaff, you can take that and put it in your mouth and chew it up and it becomes almost like a wheat gum. You can chew it and it’s actually pretty cool. Tastes okay, it’s fine. You do that with tears and you’re gonna get very sick. You put it in your mouth and immediately it’s bitter. Not only is it bitter, but it releases a toxin when you either heat it up or your body temperature from your mouth, chewing on it, heats up and releases this toxin that causes you to feel dizzy. It causes you and it can cause you to have some form of… Dizziness to the sense where you also begin to forget. And Jesus said, watch out for this. It’s amazing. They’re fruitless. Tears are fruitless, bitter, and usually sometimes empty in the husk. but always a fraud, always a fake. And the Bible says, Jesus says that he has this enemy in the parable. Now you don’t wanna push parables too far because honestly, let’s be honest, Jesus has no enemies. Do you guys understand that? Jesus doesn’t wring his hands in eternity saying, oh man, the devil really got me today. Jesus has no enemy. God has no enemies as the way of foes. He’s not competing against Satan. If Satan had a competitor, it would be like Michael. or Gabriel. Those are three angels, Lucifer, Gabriel, Michael, of archangel status. They’re equals. Jesus has no equal. But when he says an enemy has done this, it’s not that God is threatened, but the context demands it’s what God loves is threatened. Man is under threat, under that satanic threat. cloud or blanket of deception. Satan seeks to infiltrate. And I’m going to ask you to think about these five things that I’ve got you hopefully familiar to meditate on. How does the devil do this? Don’t you wanna know that? How does the devil come and sew these tears among us like this? He does it by counterfeiting all the truths of God. He takes, in fact, remember when Satan came to tempt Jesus, what did he use to tempt Jesus? He used the Bible, didn’t he? But when given enough time, Satan winds up misquoting the Bible against Jesus. It’s pretty fascinating. Satan will use the Bible. Church, listen. Boy, I tell you, if you don’t get anything out of this, get this. This is Discipleship 101. Satan, in the life of a Christian, will use the Bible to deceive him. How’s that happen? Because… He will, in fact, his fingerprints are all over the cults. You know what they do? Cults use the Bible to back up their position. Did you know that? But how do they use the Bible? The way Satan taught them. The very word of God rearranged or misarranged, I should say, can become a lie.
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pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Tares. Thanks for being here today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s new series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series highlighting the teachings of Jesus while he was here on this earth. And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.
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Everyone, it’s almost impossible to keep up with what’s going on in the world today. I think we’ve all come to that realization. My goodness, just the news regarding Israel and Israel’s neighborhood. We’re looking at what’s going on in North Korea. We’re seeing what’s happening in China and other parts of the world. It’s just overwhelming. But I want to encourage all of you. Be in the Word of God now and more systematically than ever before. In fact, as we are in this season of maybe the first quarter or second quarter of the year, I want to encourage you to join me actually at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, 5 a.m. Pacific Time, and whatever time zone you’re in you can join me at my facebook page live for five minutes as we are praying together with people all around the world and you can leave your prayer request right there you can leave it in the comment section and people will be praying for you so listen with all that’s taking place in the world you don’t have to walk through this alone there’ll be others with you to pray with you and love on you but friends more than ever If you draw near to Jesus and practice the presence of God more and more, it means you’re gonna have to turn some things off and minimize the distractions. You will see some pretty miraculous things start to happen in your life. So I encourage you to do that very thing. So listen, 5 a.m., you can do it. West Coast time, 5 a.m. For those of you who are in Cape Town, South Africa, it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon. And listen, we’d love to have you. And even if you can’t be with us live, you can always view it, pray with us, and leave your prayer request there at the comment section.
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The Lift Daily Prayer. That’s every day on Pastor Jack’s Facebook page. That’s at 5 a.m. Pacific time, so don’t miss it. Make it a habit if you would. Come get prayed for and join Pastor Jack in the Word. That’s the Lift Daily Prayer every day this year on Pastor Jack’s Facebook page. Be sure to join us. You’ll enjoy it. Did you know that along with the radio program, Pastor Jack also has a TV show with more of the Pastor Jack Hibbs content that you like. It’s called Real Life TV. If you enjoy Pastor Jack on the radio, you’re going to love him on TV. So check out your local listings or visit jackhibbs.com and catch the latest episodes. That’s jackhibbs.com. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
