Join Sharon Knotts in this thought-provoking episode as she explores the profound message behind The Parable of the Tares. In a time when deception runs rampant, Sharon emphasizes the critical distinction between the seeds planted by Christ and the tares sown by the enemy. Through a detailed exposition of scripture, she reveals how the forces of darkness infiltrate even the most sacred spaces, urging Christians to awaken from spiritual slumber and stand firm in faith.
Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome. I’m Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today on The Sound of Faith, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today’s message, The Parable of the Tares, is a timely word for Christians in this time when Satan is sowing poisonous tares amongst not the world or sinners, but amongst the church and the saints. What is most disturbing is the fact that the tares look exactly like the wheat. And when their roots become entwined, it is hard to separate the two. But God knows the wheat from the weed in the parable of the tares. You know, last week when I preached on the parable of the seed, I had no idea that it was going to have the effect that it did. Actually, I had another message picked out last week and I… literally changed it the night before I was busily putting it together Sunday morning and I had notes from way back in the nineteen nineties I dug out and photocopied and came in here last Sunday morning really not expecting it to be as powerful as it was and I feel like it was a jump starter for the summer for us to get ready for evangelism Because it really is a powerful word for the church, amen? And especially to get us ready to get the word of God out. And you know, it’s about the parable of the tares, but I call it the parable of the seed. And the reason why I do that is because the whole thrust of the message last week was about the fact that The seed in this parable is different than the seed in the parable of the sower. Completely different. We know in the parable of the sower, the seed was the word of God. And we would have expected it to be the same in this parable, but it wasn’t. We found out the seed was the children of God. In whom is the seed of the word of God. And that we found out that every seed after its own kind. So that means that Christians produce Christians. Amen. Let’s turn in our Bibles and guess where we’re going. Matthew the 13th chapter. Amen. Matthew 13 and let’s look at verse 24. Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which 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 blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.” So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? From whence then hath it tares? And he said unto them, an enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, wilt thou then we go and gather them up? But he said, nay, lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let them both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn. drop down to verse 36. Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house and his disciples came unto him saying, declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, he that sows the good seed is the son of man or Jesus. The field is the world, the good seed are the children of the kingdom, and the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sow them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.” As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them that which do iniquity, and shall cast them in a furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. This tells us that this is a very special parable for the end times. And when Jesus says, him that hath ears, let him hear, he is saying, I want you to listen up. Heads up, this is important. because obviously all men have ears. So he’s talking about hearing with spiritual ears. Amen? So we have this parable that we talked about last week, and you said, well, Sister Sharon, you preached this last week. Yes, we did. But we were concerned last week mainly with the good seed are the children of the kingdom. and how that they’ve got to go out there and be scattered as seed would be in order to produce other Christians. But today we’re going to look at what most people look at when they teach on the parable of the tares, and that’s the tares. Amen? So first of all, we see very quickly the sower is Jesus. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of God. The tares are the children of the wicked or the children of the devil because the enemy is the devil. And at the end of the age, the reapers are the angels. Amen. So we know that we have to produce Christians because we are the seed. We found out that Jesus had told them before Pentecost, after the resurrection, but before Pentecost, he said that you will be endued with power from on high, and afterwards you will be my witnesses, and you’re going to go to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. But two years later, they were still sitting up in Jerusalem having church. And they weren’t spreading the gospel like they were told to do. So what happened? He said in Acts 1.8, go to the uttermost parts of the earth. Two years later, in Acts 8.1, a great persecution came and scattered them. And we read that verse in Acts 8.1, but we didn’t read verse 4 that I just want to point out to you very quickly here because it’s important. And verse 4 says, Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. That’s what they were commanded to do from the get-go, but not until they had this persecution that forced a dispersion of the people. And it may have seemed like a bad thing to them at the beginning, but the fact is God had to get them out of their comfortable nest. He had to get them out of that comfy place in Jerusalem that they could go abroad and preach the word. Because as we have said many times, persecution never destroys real saints. It actually is something, it’s an impetus to stir them up. Amen? They get stirred up and they begin to become bolder. Bolder. Amen? You read the whole book of Acts. Every time they grabbed the disciples and threatened them, they got bolder. They beat them, they got bolder. They threw them in jail, they got bolder. A real child of God does not shrink away from persecution. Amen. I mean, we don’t go out there looking for it, but we know it’s going to come. All they that live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But when you have the real thing, when you’ve got the power of Pentecost, you’re not going to be afraid. Amen. You’re going to stand up boldly. Amen. So now we know that the good seed refers to people. Right? The good seed refers to people, and those people are the children of God. Well, so also does the tares refer to people. It refers to the children of the wicked one. Jesus said in John 8, 44, you are of your father, the devil, and his lust they will do. Amen? You know, people don’t like it when you call them a child of the devil. And I don’t recommend that you go around saying that to sinners. Because I don’t think you’ll get a chance to tell them much more after that. Amen? There is a time and a place, but it’s not normally how you begin your evangelistic endeavor. But you’re a child of the devil because they don’t understand that. They don’t get that. And then that’s going to be the end of your opportunity. Now, when you’re facing someone who’s demon possessed and they are a vessel that Satan has specifically set to withstand you, to hinder you from preaching to people that want to hear it. But because they got this interference of demonic forces, that’s a different story. Because we know that when Peter and they went to Samaria and that one sorcerer began to interfere. And he looked at him and he said, oh, thou child of the devil. Full of subtlety and evil. You need to repent. Amen. So there is a time for that. But for the most part, we don’t call them that. But what we need to understand is we need to realize who we’re dealing with. We are dealing with tears. And a tear is a child of the devil. But here’s the thing about it. The tares were not sown just amongst sinners where we would expect that we can recognize, okay, there are the sinners. No, they were sown amongst the good seed. They were sown amongst the saints. They were sown amongst Christians. And here’s what we’re told, while men slept. While men slept. The Bible says he that sleeps, sleeps in the night. And the Bible says that they are of the night or the children of darkness. But ye are not the children of the night. You’re the children of the day. You’re the children of light. Amen. that you should go forth and let your light so shine. I’m quoting now from the book of 1 Thessalonians, the fifth chapter. So we’re the children of the day and the children of the light. But what does this mean while men slept? When people are caught off guard. Amen? When people are lukewarm, when pastors are failing and ministers are failing to preach the gospel from their pulpits and to warn people. If you don’t warn the sheep, if the pastors don’t warn the sheep and warn the flock, amen, then they’re going to be caught off guard. Today, you’re going to find that so many people, the political correctness that’s in the world that has reached the point of insanity, in my opinion. You know, this transgender thing, it’s become insanity. We are talking about less than 1%, less than 1% of the population is transgender. So I’m not even talking about for it or against it. I’m making a factual statement. So why are we changing all the laws to inconvenience the other 99 point something percent of people? Why are we changing the laws for less than 1%? And we are going to risk all kinds of bad things have already started to happen and they will increase because the devil will take the opportunity to let sexual predators go into not only bathrooms but now locker rooms and shower rooms. Amen. Amen? That you have to consider that if your wife and maybe your seven-year-old daughter is going into the public bathroom, that men can be in there, and they’re using the excuse, I’m transgender and I identify as a woman, and the fact is they are in there because they want to be, they’re a voyeur, they want to either look or watch or whatever, amen? And that always escalates. Amen. And it’ll go from looking to touching to assaulting. Amen? And so we find that political correctness in the world is absolutely going crazy. And if we’re not careful, that same ideology is coming into the church. Now, I’m not talking about transgender. That rabbit’s caught and done, okay? I’m talking about that propensity to always speak correctly. And when you are so afraid of offending someone, and if I say this, it’ll offend this person. And if I say that, it’ll offend that person. And if I say this, it’ll offend this group. Then after a while, you won’t say anything to offend anybody. Which means after a while, you won’t preach against sin. Amen. And you won’t get specific if you do. Sin is this big generic thing. But you won’t get specific about the sin that’s going on. Amen? You won’t want to offend people so you will not speak against certain things. Amen? And you will get to the place that everything is, I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re all okay. And week after week, you’re going to be told you’re a wonderful person. And you are. And God’s got something great for you. And he does. Amen. And you have a great destiny before you. Yes, you do. But it’s all predicated on your being obedient to God’s word. Amen. These people that say God’s plan for you is going to come to pass no matter what you do are wrong. I’m sorry, they’re wrong. God has a destiny for you. Amen. But he gave you your own free will. And certain things we do can either derail what God would have had us to do. Amen? Or alter it greatly. Isn’t that right? Because we have the right of choice. And I preached this before. I have a message on CD. It’s called Predestination vs. Fatalism. And you see, that’s what it is. It’s fatalism. Fatalism is que sera, sera, what will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see. Que sera, sera. That was a famous song way back before a lot of you were even born. But it states what fatalism is. My destiny, God already designed it before I was born, when I was in my mother’s womb. And all those things are true. Amen? But at the end of the day, God says, now you choose. I set before you life, a good future, a good plan. I set it before you. Now you choose. And then God is saying, come on, choose the right one. Come on, choose the right one. Oh, no, don’t choose that one. No, you don’t want that one. You really don’t want that one. This is the one you want, child. And he’ll let preachers preach and teachers teach to guide you and steer you in the direction of the right one. But you still get to choose. Amen? And if you choose the wrong thing and you realize you made a mistake and then you’re all upset and you’re sorry and you feel bad about it and you come to God, God will say, all right, that’s okay. We’ll work something else out. I can still bless you. I can still give you good things. I can still give you a good future. It may not be exactly like I had planned initially, but I’m a God of redemption. So just give it to me. Give me your mess. Just give it to me. Amen? But people that are not taught that will just go ahead and persist and pursue what they’re doing. Amen? And that’s when the devil catches them off guard. And he can sow those tares. When all people are hearing is the prosperity gospel. And we saw that when we talked about the third ground in the parable of the sower. What was the thing that snared them? It was the cares of life. It was the deceitfulness of lust and riches. Amen. That is the most precarious of all of the grounds because they bring forth fruit, but something choked it out. And I say it’s precarious because it may lead the people in the third ground to believe they’re okay. Obviously, the first grounds don’t even come back to church. They’re gone. And the second ground comes to church for a little while. They do come for a while, but they don’t last very long. But the third ground can go on and even bring forth fruit, but it’s choked out. Amen? And so people have got to be warned about that. Jesus said, if you don’t understand the parable of the sower, you can’t understand anything. Amen? Amen. But today people say, don’t judge me. You can’t judge me. You don’t have love. If you don’t judge sin, sin will increase. Whatever you allow increases. Amen. And when people are not taught to walk in the spirit and know the word of God, they’re going to be susceptible to the tears. While men slept. Amen. He sowed the tares amongst the good seed and went his way. Everything Jesus says is important. He not only sowed those tares amongst good seed, but he went his way. You see, the evil one comes and sows his seed and he moves on. Why? Because Satan knows that in the heart of man is soil where lies and deception can take root deeply and grow profusely and rapidly with very little cultivation. I want you to think about that for a moment. Because the human heart is predisposed to sin. We’re born with a sinful nature, are we not? Amen. We are predisposed to sin. So left alone, these seeds will sprout up quickly and grow. You can think about it in the natural. How many of you plant weeds in your garden, in your flower bed? Anybody plant weeds? Okay, those of you who have a vegetable garden, do you plant weeds in your vegetable garden? Well, how many, in spite of the fact that you never planted them, still get them? Because weeds grow with very little or even no cultivation. But if you want to get a healthy tomato plant, you’ve got to get the right soil. You’ve got to put fertilizer in there. You’ve got to water it. You’ve got to make sure it’s in the right spot to get the right amount of sun. If all of these things, if you want a beautiful flower garden, then you’ve got to get out there and you’ve got to pull out the rocks and the stumps. And if it’s hard ground that doesn’t get, you know, water doesn’t permeate it very well, you’ve got to go buy some good potting soil. You’ve got to work hard to get a beautiful garden. You’ve got to work hard to get healthy vegetables to grow. But you don’t have to do a blessed thing to get weeds to grow. They just grow. Right. You can have a crack this big. By the way, I came in there and on Puget Street over there in the cracks of our sidewalk, there’s already some stuff growing. I hope somebody has a little bit of gumption will go get some weed killer or something and spray it. Because you only need a crack this big and a weed will grow. I have seen these weedy-type trees, not the kind you want, these weedy trees growing up against the corner, like the corner where that door is a wall, and there’s about that much dirt, and they’re growing up there. I’m thinking… And you would think because it doesn’t have much area, it would be very easy just to go over and pull it out. But you’d find out that wouldn’t be true. It can get itself rooted in there. It will even start growing around the cement and the rocks and everything else. You see, weeds don’t have to be cultivated. The earth, because of the curse, is predisposed to growing weeds. And I have actually seen, it’s common a lot of times in my particular yard for holly trees and bushes to just sprout up here and there and everywhere. And we don’t plant them. But you see the birds, they go and they eat off of the holly trees and then they’re flying and they’re dropping them. They’re dropping the seeds. That’s the enemy. He’s dropping the seeds and he’ll drop it in next to your azalea bush or next to your other nice bush. And if you let it go, it begins to compete for the nutrients that are there. And guess which one’s going to win? The weed. The one you didn’t plant will begin to overtake what you did plant. He said that Satan sowed that seed and he went his way. He just left it there. Amen? Because he knows that the propensity of the heart of man is sinful. Amen. And saints of God, that is why we ministers, we preachers have got to preach messages. And I’ll just put it on myself because the Lord has put me in a position of authority. Amen. And not everybody that preaches in this church is in the same position that I am. So I would just say this. That is why I preach messages that get up in your business. Yes. And I know it. When I preach them, I’m getting up in your business. Amen. And I don’t do it in a haughty way. I may do it in a bold way because I’m under the anointing. But I don’t do it in a haughty way. It’s more like Paul said, woe unto me. Amen. If I preach not the gospel. Amen. And you see the gospel not only says salvation to everyone that believes. It also said it reveals the righteousness of God. That’s number two. But number three it says that it also reveals the wrath of God against all unrighteousness. And that’s another message we’ll preach one day. Amen? The three things the gospel reveals. So I have to preach messages that expose. expose what Satan’s doing. Expose the tares. Expose those seeds. Amen? I love to preach feel-good messages. And I have a whole bunch of them, and I preach them. Amen? But I realize I cannot neglect to preach the truth that can open up your minds and your hearts to Satan’s strategies. Amen? And when the Holy Spirit gives me a stern word to tell it, I’m going to tell it. But I guarantee you when I do, it’s because somebody needs to hear it. Maybe it’s not you at that moment, but it’s somebody. Amen? Because somebody, and more than one, is making contact in the church with tears. And the thing about it is, is they do not realize that they’re tears. If they knew they were tares, they would be on guard. They would beware. They would even separate themselves. Amen? They may not do it overtly to make a scene, but they would know in their spirit, ah, something’s not right here. And after a while, if they see that pattern continuing, and if they can’t seem to steer them away from that, then they realize this might just be a tare. So I need to be on guard. Perhaps they turn out that they’re wrong and the person’s just a mixed-up person that doesn’t have very much word in them. That’s why you have to be careful. Yeah. But you must always, for your own sake, be on guard. Because Satan is sowing those tares. This is how Jude put it. For there are certain men crept in unawares. Just close your eyes for a moment, and in the imagination of your mind, I want you to think about what it means, crept in unawares. What are you seeing? What do you think of crept in unaware? You’re thinking of a lion who’s stalking his prey or another cat in the cat family. You know how they… Do you ever watch a cat that’s watching its prey? You ever watch those nature things? It is fascinating. Those cats, they get in a pose and they can stay there for a while. And then you think that they’re frozen and then… And they’re just creeping up. And this little whatever animal is over there just nibbling away and having a nice time. Especially if the animal that they’re looking at is a baby. Whatever the species, it’s a baby. And that lion knows, I’ve got this one. The only thing that can save that baby from certain death is while that lion is so focused on that baby, that little cub, he’s watching that little bear club, and he’s having a little good time, and all of a sudden, he sees in the periphery of his vision, mama bear stands up. She’s like seven foot tall, and she goes, rawr! That’s what saves that baby. Amen. And that’s how it is in the house of God. That’s how it is in the church. Amen. Amen. What an urgent message from the words of Jesus, the parable of the tares. In this parable, which is different than Jesus’ foundational teaching on the parable of the sower, the seed is not the word, but people. Christians are the seed that produces wheat, and the children of the devil are the tares, which was a poisonous seed that looked exactly like the wheat. In fact, it was called false wheat. But when it was fully grown, the wheat is brown and the tares are black. And when its seeds are eaten by birds and beasts, they cause intoxication, vertigo, convulsions, and even death. Satan sows these seeds in the church amongst the saints where people are asleep spiritually and unaware. Jude said of the last days, for there are certain men crept in unaware who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, which means a license to sin. Jesus said that at the end of the church age, the angels will separate the tares from the wheat, and the tares will be cast into eternal fire. God has called ministers to preach the true gospel, the whole counsel of God, and leave the separating to him. But he has charged us to warn and protect the sheep. The Parable of the Tares is available on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for our radio ministry. Request SK187, mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203, or go online to soundoffaith.org. We’ll be right back. Request SK-187. Mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Till next time, this is Sharon Otts saying, Maranatha.
