Daily Devotional For Friday, November 14, 2025
Good morning! We are making our way through Matthew’s Gospel. Look at Matthew 13:24-30:
“Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. (25) But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. (26) But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. (27) The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ (28) And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ (29) But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. (30) Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn’” (NASB).
Many Jews believed that when the Messianic kingdom arrived, there would be all kinds of cataclysmic events. With this not happening with Jesus, it was challenging for the people to believe Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus had repeatedly said that the Messianic kingdom had arrived with His arrival. So, what does the Messianic kingdom look like? The answer is found in these parables.
The Kingdom of God is not a geographic location, but a spiritual realm where Jesus is King of kings and Lord of Lords. We serve and obey. When Jesus gives us His life, we automatically join this kingdom. As we have already seen, the four different types of soil represent how people respond to the Messianic kingdom based on where the soil of their heart is. Later in Matt. 13:36-43, Jesus explains what the Parable of the Tares means.
The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man, Jesus. The field is the world. The good seed is the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one (the devil) and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. As I have previously told you, in parables we must not attempt to allegorize every detail. Sometimes things are mentioned simply to add to the parable. The fact that people were sleeping does not need to imply they were negligent or at fault. Nor does that mean that when He went away does not mean He was absent. All of these details are given to show how in stealth and as a snake slithers, the evil one, the devil makes his moves.
In Jesus’ day, if you went to war, one of the first they did was try to destroy the agriculture of their enemy. Take away the food supply, your enemy gets weaker and eventually unable to fight. The fact that in this parable the devil is among God’s people shows he is there to weaken them. In pulling out the tares (weeds), it may have been a plant called darnel, a very poisonous plant that in the early stages of growth looks just like wheat. This makes it initially indistinguishable from real wheat. And this is why in this parable the hearers would have understood how the tares (weeds, darnel) could have grown among the wheat undetected.
One of the ways darnel grows is by its root attaching to the roots of wheat and they grow up together. Rome had a law that if you sowed darnel around someone’s wheat, this was a punishable crime. This becomes important in the church that we are able to distinguish spiritual darnel from wheat – genuine Christians. Verse 27 raises an important question: If God is good and all-powerful, where did evil come from and why is it still allowed to exist?” God does not generate evil, but it exists today due to our sin to rebel against Christ. This is why we must be aware we are in a spiritual war.
With the wheat and tares growing together intertwined, what did Jesus say to do? Let them grow together until the harvest where the wheat, genuine disciples of Jesus, are gathered into the barn (heaven) and the tears are cast into the fire (hell). Harvest is a term that refers to the Judgment (see Jer. 51:33 and Hosea 6:11. The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels (Matt. 13:39). Again, Jesus was making the point that while his coming signaled the arrival of the kingdom, its consummation would be delayed. The children of God and children of satan would grow together “until” the harvest; then, God would judge and separate his children from the devil’s children. The point is: it is not our job to do the weeding, but God’s.
Assignment: How has God’s Word taken root in your life and which of the four soils would you say you are and why? Which would the Lord say you are and why? Do you sit back in judgment of others? So you have a disdain for any of the tares in the church? Since we grow up with tares, how can you make sure you are different or distinguished from them?
Scripture To Meditate: 1 Peter 1:23, “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Lord, help me to stand out for you in the midst of so many “tares” around me. Help me not to compromise nor to judge. Convict me not to attempt to weed out the “tares.” I know that I am to be in this world, but not of it (John 17:11 and John 17:16). I pray that I will live out Romans 1:16 everyday in my life. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly