[0:00] The Lord is to shine at the sun in the kingdom of the Father, who are there to hear, let him hear.
[0:21] This parable that Jesus spoke to the people was perfectly familiar. To those who heard him, like all his other parables did.
[0:36] He took his illustrations from the common things of life, things that happened among the people, and he took these and made spiritual use of them.
[0:53] He used them as illustrations for spiritual teaching. Now, it was a common thing, as it is in our own part of the world, for people to sow good seed in the fields.
[1:12] That was so they were able to live. But evidently, it was sometimes done in the East, and it is still sometimes done, I understand.
[1:28] But it happens when it is a terrible spite to a neighbor who has a field. After the good seed is sown, he sows another kind of seed.
[1:49] In order to spoil the good seed and ruin the harvest. I understand that that is still done. I understand that that is still done. And they have a phrase for it, which I don't need to mention.
[2:04] When people threaten to do this kind of thing. So, this happened in the case of this man who Jesus is talking.
[2:18] He sown, he sown good seed. Then an enemy came and sown what they call darna. Teve, it is called here.
[2:31] And it is so like wheat that it is sometimes called bastard wheat.
[2:41] It is so like wheat that nobody is able to tell the difference between the one and the other. Why they are still growing.
[2:51] Why they are still growing. Why they are still growing. Why they are still growing. Until they begin to ripen. Nobody can tell the difference between the two.
[3:02] And evidently, the darnel or the teve, they wind themselves around the roots of wheat and are so close that even if one knew the teve, it would be dangerous to take them away for fear of ruining the wheat as well.
[3:28] Now, this was the illustration that Jesus used. Now, we have his own exposition. And I shall give you that very briefly.
[3:39] I am not going to dwell on it all. But in the exposition we have a distinction. And then we have the exercise of discretion.
[3:54] Then we come to the consummation, which indeed is a separation. All these are words, all ending, what you say, letters and symmetry.
[4:10] Just done purposely in order to help you to carry the teaching in your memories. Now, the exposition of Jesus is quite plain.
[4:24] The field, he says, is the world. That is the whole world as we know it. The world where the gospel is preached.
[4:36] The whole world. It would take me the whole day to tell you how many expositors say that the field is the church.
[4:54] Many have said that, including the great cow then. But Jesus says the field is the world. And it doesn't mean by that that the field is the church.
[5:08] Well, we know what the field is. We know what the seed is. The seed is not the word of God, as it is in the parable of the sower.
[5:22] But Christian people, believers, they are the children of the kingdom. That's the wheat. That's the wheat. Christian people.
[5:33] The two are the children of the wicked one. In belief. The enemy that sowed them is the devil.
[5:50] And the harvest, gathering in, is the end of the world. No, the exposition is really very simple.
[6:05] The reason for which so many say that they feel it is the church, is that as the wheat and the the table, they were growing together, there are good and bad in the church of Christ in all ages.
[6:27] Now we know that that is true. But we maintain that that is not the teaching here. So there was Judas among the apostles.
[6:40] There was Anas and Ananias and Sapphira in the apostolic church. There was Demas, company with the apostles, even with Paul.
[6:57] And he deceived him. And he deceived him. And you always get that. I was reading the other day in one of the magazines that I get of conditions, spiritual conditions, the conditions of the church in Soviet Russia.
[7:20] And among other things, they spoke about the danger of the church from spies, wolves in sheep's clothing.
[7:35] And he told the story of a young married woman who was converted and began to attend the meetings of Christians, which of course, many of which are in secret.
[7:54] And she used to go into their homes. and told her husband. And so she treated her.
[8:07] She shouted at the Moving phi-to-chiarden. And so she was seated in the abnormal ways of being grieved, but ella ended in the absence of millions of bees that failed in a Romanianaises.
[8:22] She was a man who braced her. and sat and prayed for six years with them. And then one night the police swooped down and gathered up that small remnant.
[8:42] All the time she was a spy. And of course this is the kind of thing that you get in the Church of Christ.
[8:53] All this battering and this disowning by her husband, this molesting by the police, it was all a show to deceive Christian Peter.
[9:09] And there she was spying until she got to know anything that was to be known. And then the blow of her. But let us come to the position, to the exposition of the parable itself.
[9:28] We know that there is good and evil in the world. This is what Jesus tells us. The good has been put in by God. They are the children of the kingdom. And the evil are the unbelievers.
[9:40] They are the children of the devil. Now God wants nothing but good. But the devil wants nothing but evil.
[9:51] And we see how he works secretly and craftily and maliciously. Just as he always does.
[10:02] But this is not the time to talk about that. We see the distinction between two. They grow together, but they are quite distinct in their nature.
[10:15] Wheat has not the nature of a tail, nor of the down end, nor has the tail the nature of the wheat.
[10:29] Let them be as alike, as can be, but they are different entirely. As different as if there was no resemblance at all between them.
[10:40] Now we have this state in the world that is growing together. And one of the people who speaks of this parable asks the question, which I think is very relevant.
[10:58] He says, Is the world getting better, or is it getting worse? Well, what do you think, yourself? We hear a lot of people saying that the world is getting worse every day.
[11:13] And we hear people also saying that the world is getting better. Education, scientifically, scientifically, and so on, advances are made the way, the way old people are looked after, and so on.
[11:30] Now, his answer is, and one with which I entirely agree, is that the world is getting better with every age, and that it is also getting worse with every age.
[11:51] And I think, if we wanted no other evidence for it but that, what we have here, let them both grow together. Now, the wheat was growing towards life, happening, and the tears were also growing.
[12:13] The good was growing, and the evil was growing. And if you take a sensible view of the way things have been growing in the world, according to your knowledge of history, and according to your own observation, I think you will agree that the world is getting better and better in many senses, and worse and worse in many other senses.
[12:47] The darmest growing, and so is the wheat. And as an aside, I should like to say, but to those of you who are the children of the kingdom, to those of you who are Christians, that in your heart there are these two principles at work.
[13:13] The principle of grace and the principle of sin. And if I were to ask you, are you getting better or worse? Probably you would say, well, if I speak according to my own feelings, I'm getting worse and worse every day.
[13:38] Now, I think the truth concerning you, too, is that you are getting worse and worse, and you are getting better and better.
[13:52] there is no doubt that the principle of sin is growing in your heart and you daily become more sinful.
[14:05] The dots of the principle of grace is growing and you daily become more holy. So that yes and no is the proper answer for that question, both with regard to the world and with regard to the Christian.
[14:24] You ask the oldest Christian in this house today, and some of you have been professing for a long time, are you better or worse than you were?
[14:36] When you professed the Lord so many years ago, they would say, we feel much worse than we did then. And they're telling the truth.
[14:49] Evil has been growing in their hearts, and evils have sprung up that they never suspected a year ago. But on the other hand, it would just make a fiasco of religion if they were in the rapening and increasing in holiness and growing in grace.
[15:11] And so they are. Now friends, you take that with you, and I think it will help you a little bit on the way. Now we have the third place discretion.
[15:27] The servants wanted to take away the taish from the queen, and he said, no, let them both grow together until they harvest. Now, there are cases when taish, if you want to refer this to the church, it should be taken away.
[15:49] There are cases where the taish prove themselves to be taish, and the wheat proves itself to be wheat. But that does not really, doesn't come into the orbit of exposition today at all.
[16:07] We are not speaking about what happens in the church. but we know this, that this is the exposition teacher says, that total separation, infallible separation, belongs to God only.
[16:29] Now, friends, I have often warned you, and I am going to issue the warning once again, for any failure, keep your hands and your tanks of professing Christian people, and of everybody for that matter of it.
[16:49] You say, that's your Christians for you, that's what they do, that's what they do, that's your Christians for you. Well, let me remind you that God didn't make you or me a judge on anybody.
[17:06] He is the judge, and I suppose if there is anything that ought to trouble us, it is if we have made a false accusation against any one of the people of God.
[17:27] There are many people and we might conclude that they're not Christians because of weaknesses in them, that they're tame. There are other people and we might conclude that they're not tame, they are so like the wheat.
[17:45] Well, then what are we going to do? By their fruits he shall know them, but that only goes so far. Leave them alone, let them both grow together until they harvest, and they harvest is the end of the world.
[18:04] Well, now, I want to say a word to a book, Dan. There is a harvest coming, friends. In other words, there is an end to the world, something which many people don't believe.
[18:22] And there are many who, if they believe it, they go on as if they didn't believe it at all. But things as we know them now are going to come to an end.
[18:38] The harvest is the end of the world. And the end of the world is not going to come as the end comes to us or to a piece of mechanism.
[18:55] If you have a car, you got it new, well, if you keep it long enough, one of these days you'll have to put it into the scrapyard.
[19:07] It came to an end. Either the body work gave way, or mechanically it became a use of them and it saved, and its end came.
[19:20] It ran out. And this is what happens to ourselves. Our powers decay. And we ran out. Now the end of the world is not going to come like that.
[19:36] It is not. The power that holds up the world today will be ever the same. And he upholdeth all things by the word of this power.
[19:47] And when the end comes, it's not going to be a running out. The end is going to come because God appointed the day which is going to be the last day.
[20:00] Just the same as yesterday was the last day of the last week. And we came on from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, to Saturday, the last day.
[20:11] Then the last day in the history of this world will come. And God has appointed that day. day. And he knows it just the same as we know that next Saturday will be the last day of this week.
[20:26] He knows when the Saturday of the world is coming and that will be the last day. And he'll bring it about. Oh no, let us not think for a single moment of no, there's going to be a Holocaust, there's no doubt about death.
[20:45] There is no doubt that one of these days there are things going to happen such as the world has never known when nuclear power will be used by the super powers against each other and that is going to happen.
[20:58] But my friends, the super powers will not bring the end of the world about. It is God who's going to do that. It's to be an act of God.
[21:10] Man can't destroy the world. Nations can destroy each other, but that won't be the end of the world. The end of the world will come in God's time.
[21:21] It's a conclusion. It's the last page in the world system. It's as if you were reading a book, reading the Bible, reading any book, and you come, turn page after page, and then you come to the last one.
[21:37] Well, you can count the pages as year for a century, but the last one is going to be reached, and then it comes to the last word where that is to be the time.
[21:50] So when the end will come, there will be no more births, no more marriages, no more deaths. If there were newspapers, there would be no birth column, or dead column, or marriage column.
[22:09] There will be no more preaching, there will be no more praying, there will be no mixing of good and evil, everything is going to come to an end, then come at the end.
[22:22] And my friends, can anyone hinder the end from coming, do you think? Can anyone harden himself against him and prosper the Lord tells Job about that great beast?
[22:39] And he tells about what likely is the hippopotamus, and he says who can stand up against him, he churns up the ocean like a pole, and he says to Job, what can you do against him?
[22:55] My friends, what can we do against God? Can we keep the end of the world from coming? Can we hinder this? Can the power of man hinder this?
[23:06] The power of Rome and the power of Herod could not prevent the first coming of Christ. And all that happened is that a little baby was born, born in a manger among the beasts probably, and not the pulse of the whole world could keep that baby from being born, and not the pulse of the whole world could destroy him, and they tried to destroy him, and when they were destroying him as the thought they were only putting forth, furthering the purposes of God, and nothing can prevent the second coming, or how great God is.
[23:45] I was thinking of something like this the other day, when we were reading or hearing about Concord, making its way, British Concord to Bahrain, stupendous, phenomenal, to think of man going through space, at twice the speed of sound, as it did, something like that, 1,300 miles an hour, yes, my friends, but when Christ comes, he will not come that slow, the lightning shines from one side of the heaven to the other, at 192,000 miles per second, and Concord can't do that sort of thing, nor can any Concord that man will ever build, do that sort of thing, but God can do that sort of thing, and when he comes, he will come like the lightning shining from one side of the heaven to the other, and when he comes, then he will separate the wheat from the tears, this is what we told, now this is to be the work of the angels, well, without dwelling very much upon that, we know that there are angels, and at the end of the world, the gathering together and the separation is to be done by the angels, not by
[25:08] God himself, not by Christ, directly, just as the furthering of the kingdom in this world is done by men, by preachers, it is not done by God directly as it were, so in the end, we are going to give way to the angels, and the angels are going to take up the work, and they are going to do the separating then, this is to be their work on the last day, they have their work now ministering to the saints, and we often wonder what they are like, we often wonder, but there is no doubt in the world that they are there, I have no doubt at all about it friends, and I would like to say that I love the angels, if nothing else but for the protection of myself, I love the angels of God, I know that the angels of God are round about us, if we are
[26:09] Christian people, we don't see them, but they're there, and we love them, and one of these days, when the last day comes, they're going to take them away from the children of the wicked one, and separate this, finally and completely from them, and they're suitable for the world because of their supernatural power, because of their freedom from ignorance, and prejudice, I see, we can't do this sort of thing, we couldn't do it very well because of our prejudice, and everything is colored by the color of the glasses through which we look, and no, you know that even spiritual things are, never mind other things, we couldn't do a separation, if we were going to separate, I told you already to keep your hands up the Lord's people, and I remember, I think I told you this already,
[27:11] I remember a man once talking about Christian people, and they were all hypocrites, and he went on, and on, and on, and on, well I waited until he was finished, I knew the man, and I knew his people, and when he was finished, I said, very well then, it comes down to this, I said your mother was a professing Christian woman for over 50 years, and she never cast a reflection upon the Lord's cause, she went to meetings, everybody looked upon her as a Christian, and I said, it comes down to this, but all the time I said, she was a child of the devil, deceiving of the people, and a black hypocrite, all the time, I said, you mother, no, he said, my mother wasn't that, I know,
[28:12] I said, your mother wasn't, but other people's mothers were, so of course, I think he knew that he had lost the argument, I think he felt ashamed of himself, and he had ever a reason to feel ashamed of himself, but you see, friends, we are prejudiced, we are prejudiced to the hearing of the gospel, it all depends, if we like and love the person who is preaching the gospel, then we like the sermon better, if we like the person who is going to preach in a certain place, if we like the man, then we make more efforts to go and hear the gospel, not because of the gospel's sake, but because of the man's sake, because this was always the case, some said in the Corinth, I am of Paul, others said I am of Apollos, under them said I am of Peter, and the prejudice was there, some loved Paul better, some Peter, some Apollos, and so our looking at things, our view of things is prejudiced according to the way we think.
[29:23] Well, anyway, the ancients have no prejudice, no partiality, no timidity, they'll not be afraid to do the separation, and they'll not erroneously said here either, they'll do it fairly and rightly according to the command given to them, and what a work of love it will be to them to gather the quilted into the barn, what a work of love, they had from the time the world was created to minister to the saints, and I never saw them all at home, never, them, I saw a picture in one of the papers some two years ago, I know some of the family and that's how I was so interested in it, one of the family, the oldest member went off, emigrated, years before the youngest was born, they'd never met, never seen one another, and then in God's good providence, they were all spirit, except the father, mother, the mother was living, and they were all spared, and one day in this country, they had a reunion, the whole family, they met for the first time, and they had a reunion, and there was that beautiful picture of them in the paper, all together, the oldest looking as here they were the father of the youngest, but never mind, they were children of the same parents, and so my friends, what a work of love it would be to the angels to gather together all this family of God, that was separated by centuries, separated by tongues, separated racially, separated in many, many ways, and they're going to gather them together, into the one place, into my barn, what a blessing it would be, how happy the angels would be, how happy they would be to do away with the free church, and the
[31:31] Baptist church, and the free Presbyterian church, and all the other churches, and there'll be no more churches, and to do away with black and white, and so on, they'll be doing away with all that, and gather them together, into his barn, oh well we should look forward to the day, when that will be too, they will be gathered into the barn, every one of the not one grave will be missing, not one however small, they'll not leave one behind, they say that no barber shaves so closely, that another barber would not get a hair somewhere, but when the angels will gather the wheat together, there will not be the smallest grave, it doesn't matter how despised you are, it doesn't matter how despicable in your own eyes, if you are the wheat, you're going to be gathered by the angels into the barn, into God's garden, and nothing will keep you out, oh you haven't been a man, or a woman of great faith, and you haven't done very much in the world, no you haven't, but nobody ever even heard of you, why my friends, there have been millions of Christians in the world, of whom the world never even heard their names, there was only one
[32:54] Peter, one Paul, one Luther, one Calvin, one Spurgeon, but the rest of us, hardly anybody in the world knows that we're there at all, and once we're gone, our memory will be forgotten, but what does that matter, we'll be in the same barn as Luther, and be the same gardener as Paul, we're going to be in the same place, we're going to be gathered together, oh what a God we have, how precious he is, my friend, how do you look upon yourself, you look upon yourself as a poor sinner, and nothing at all, absolutely unworthy, it doesn't matter, my friend, if the principle of grace is in you, even if you feel like I must not see, you're going to be gathered into the barn, and then he says, my barn, gather them into my barn, not your barn, it doesn't belong to the ancients, it belongs it belongs to God, it's my barn, and what is it, well he says himself that it is the kingdom of the father, that's the barn, then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the father, then that will happen, it shall shine forth, that is the barn, but what a marvel this is, that God has a hope, it is just as there as the house of many mansions, it belongs to him, in my father's house, it's not the angel's house, it's my father's house, and there are many mansions, and he will gather them into the barn, now my friend, as I go on, do you expect to be in that house, would you like to be in it, do you want to be in it, where you going to be, where you going to be in that house, my barn, well I'll tell you there are lots of things in that house, that you don't get here, and there are lots of things that you get here, that would not be that house, so then, would you like to go to some place where you would never get a pint of beer, there will be no public house, in God's gardener, oh no, there will be nobody there who will say a bad word, would you like to live, without ever spicing your language with a bad word, and there will be nobody there who will say a bad word, there will be nothing like that, there will be no wearisome
[35:37] Sabbath, you say oh I'm not going to go to church today, no, it's too wet, it's too damp, it's too cold, I'm not going, or do you say well I'm not going to go in the evening anyway, I was there in the morning and I'm not going to make a habit of going, but if you get to this house you have to be there all the time, not just twice a week, not for an hour, twice a week or an hour and a half, maybe, and that would be my longest, twice a week on Sabbath, but you have to be there all the time, day and night, to be in it, well how would you like that, doing nothing but singing and praising and worshiping God, do you think that would suit your nature, do you think your inclinations are geared that way, well my friends, that is to be the Father's kingdom, they shall be gathered into my barn, there will be no drink, there will be no curfew, and they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the
[36:44] Father, oh I wish I would talk more about that, I was thinking this morning, I didn't think of it until this morning, I was thinking as I was putting this through my mind and thinking of it before coming to church, I was thinking of Moses, he was up there on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights with God, and he came down from the mountain and he had to put a veil on his face, the people couldn't look at him, he was so long with God, I was thinking of the angels and their bright appearance that made the Roman soldier fall down as dead, for these angels came with their bright appearances, the brave soldier fell as dead, but here it says, the righteous shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of the father, well, very often they're concealed, concealed, sometimes their grace is concealed from themselves, very often they're concealed by the tail, and in the view of the tail, and sometimes they're even tarnished by their own folly, but in those days
[37:57] God is going to polish them and it's going to make every one of them rough as they were in the world, and dim as they were, and dim as they were, it's going to make them shine as the sun, oh friends think of what's awaiting you, how is it that those of you who are not Christians, how is it that you don't stir yourselves up, how is it that you don't say look I'm going to become a Christian, the end of the world is going to come, and I want to shine as the sun in the kingdom of God, shine in all purity with glorious changeableness forever and ever in my father's kingdom, they shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their father, their father, their father God, see friends this is so sweet, nothing can conceive them, nothing whatsoever can come in between them, and they shall shine as the sun, you who were in a corner as it were, the nameless people in the bible who did something, people that the world never even heard, people that the world never thought were Christians, they're all going to shine as the sun, every one of them, oh you say, so not to serve for
[39:19] Paul, and John, and Peter, and these great men, and Mary Magdalene, and Mary Bethany, no my friend, they shall be gathered into the barn, and they shall shine as the sun, every one of us will, now don't think of mental, don't think of bodily appearance, shining like the sun, this means that they're going to shine when a ripen in holiness, it is the glory of their holiness, of their perfect purity, that is in mine, well then, be at the sight, just briefly, and the turf will be gathered into bundles, and they shall be cast into the thighs, for there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, see the turf will be gathered into bundles, and I think that means that like goes with like, that's what it means, take the scholars, oh the world has been full of them, take the atheists,
[40:27] Tom Paine, and Vortez, and people like that, it's a strange thing friends, that when they elect a chancellor of the university, I think that's the name, as they did in Aberdeen yesterday, when they elect, our rector of the university, that's the kind of people he quotes in his quotes, people like Vortez, a man who denied God, denied the existence of God, a man who had a horrible day, a man who was nerved by somebody who would never go and nerved anybody again, but a Christian, because of the horrid things that she heard and saw and felt for this denier of God was fighting the last battle with death, they shall be gathered into bundles, the atheists, the scoffers, the sabbath desecratives, they shall be gathered into bundles, the churchlets, they shall be gathered into bundles, and they shall be cast into the vine, why?
[41:38] Because there's no other place for them, there'll be only the two places, there's their father's kingdom, and he's not their father, God is not their father, so they can't get in there, there's only one other place, and that is the fire of the wrath, the gifness of the wrath of all the mighty God, all my friends, to be quite frank with you, I shiver, I shiver to the marrow of my bones, as I use the phrase, the wrath, the gifness of the wrath of all mighty God, and that's what's awaiting some of you, that's what's awaiting everyone, who's going to be among the earth, when the angels would make this separation, yes, my friend, do I sometimes shudder, let me ask you, oh,
[42:39] I hope this doesn't happen, I hope nobody in my congregation uses these words, but they're used so often, perhaps they're used to you, they're used so often, people say, go to heaven, go to heaven, heaven, my friends, their ordering of us to hell will not send us to hell, but those who say to other people, go to hell, one of these days, they're going to go to hell, and they cannot help it, and the angels will gather them, and gather them into abundance, and they do the work, they do it, heaven, oh, friends, think of the contrast between the two places, the father's kingdom, where the saints would shine as the sun in glory, and the other place, the thine, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, well, that's what's going to happen at the end of the world, and it's coming, friends, the world has an end, as sure as today is today, the world is going to have an end, and all these days, that we see are going to pass away, and the lusts that are, well, what's going to happen to you and to me?
[44:05] Well, let me just end by saying to you, there is to be no change of nature, there's only to be a change of state, the nature of people on the day of judgment would be exactly according to the nature they had while they lived, it's change would be only in state, not in nature, and what you are today, you would be there.