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0:20 Alright, the next parable in Matthew 13 that Jesus shares is called the parable of the weeds. 0:25 It's going to sound very similar, but there are some differences here. 0:28 Verse 24 of Matthew 13, Jesus says he put another parable before them saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 0:38 But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds. 0:42 If you're old school, um your your old school translations will say tares. 0:47 And what this actually is, it's a it's a plant called a daryl or daryl. 0:53 And the idea here is that when wheat and daryl are when they first start to start to sprout up, you can't tell the difference. 1:01 They look the exact same. 1:03 So as they grow up, then you can begin to distinguish between the two. 1:07 But the problem with this plant is this daryl plant is poisonous and the root systems begin to intermingle with the wheat, so it becomes problematic. 1:18 And so he says, But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 1:24 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 1:30 And the servants of the master of the house came and they said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? 1:36 How then does it have weeds? 1:38 And he said to them, An enemy has done this. 1:40 So the servant said to him, Then do you want us to go out and gather them? 1:44 In other words, take all the weeds out. 1:47 Verse 29, but he said, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 1:54 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned. 2:03 But gather the wheat into my barn. 2:05 Now let me say something that may be shocking to some of you. 2:09 What Jesus is talking about is judgment day. 2:12 And the reality is this judgment day is coming. 2:15 And every single one of us will stand before an almighty, sovereign, perfect king, and we will give an account for our life. 2:23 And we will be judged. 2:25 We will either be judged to be forgiven of our sin through the blood of Jesus, or we will be judged to pay for our sin because we rejected Jesus. 2:34 And all throughout the Bible, the way Jesus describes hell is this it's that we will be thrown into the fire to be burned. 2:44 He will say there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 2:46 This is an eternal conscious torment separated from God. 2:51 And some people might say to me, You mean to tell me a loving God? 2:54 How in the world was a loving God cast someone into hell? 2:57 Is that what you're saying? 2:58 I'm not saying it. 2:59 Jesus said it. 3:00 And so because he said it, I agree with him. 3:02 The reality is though, you don't have to go to hell. 3:05 Please don't go to hell. 3:06 Please turn your life over to Jesus right now because the truth of the gospel is actually greater than this particular story here. 3:14 Because in the truth of the gospel, we were all born weeds, and we can be transformed into wheat if we would simply turn our life over to Jesus. 3:21 Another part of, I think, what Jesus is teaching us here is if you're a believer in Jesus, in your zeal for purity for your church, for your community, whatever, do not root up the wheat while trying to take out the weeds. 3:35 Like God is the judge. 3:41 Now, I will say, accountability, yes, for sure, but that is best done in community. 3:46 This is why we need mat carriers. 3:49 This is why we need a king's table. 3:51 This is why we need foxhole brothers. 3:53 So that if you are veering out of line with the truth of the gospel, that you would have somebody that would love you enough to come and say, hey, bro, I love you. 4:00 You need to get back in line. 4:01 You were heading off a cliff, and I want to save you from that. 4:04 But when we try to become the eternal judge of other people, what ends up happening is not everybody checks the sanctification boxes in the same order. 4:12 And real quickly, we think we're taking out some weeds, and in fact, we could really damage the wheat, so do not do that. 4:21 We need a lot more men in the church to be on the welcome committee to the people that are entering the family of God. 4:29 And we need a lot less bouncers to try to keep people out. 4:32 Psalm 84, 10, the psalmist says, I'd rather be a door holder in the kingdom of God than be in the courts of the evil one. 4:39 You know what a door holder would do? 4:41 A door holder would hold the door open for all who the king has invited into his courts. 4:47 So quit being so judgy about everybody. 4:50 You know, we have a judge. 4:52 We are called to be witnesses. 4:54 And so when you go to a court of law, if you try to get out of the witness stand and sit behind the judge bench, you're in the wrong seat. 5:00 You also don't have to be uh a defense attorney, and you definitely don't have to be on the side of the act of the accuser. 5:07 But we should be witnesses. 5:08 And in our zeal for Jesus and for purity, may we see people with grace, the same kind of grace that God offers to us. 5:18 And it is by his grace that even though we were born weeds, we were born with a poison heart, he can, by his grace, save us and transform us into this wheat, into this good crop that he will take up and put in his barn forever and ever and ever. 5:34 Amen.