“He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.”
(Matthew 13:28)
Today’s verse passage is part of the Lord’s Parable of the Weeds. In the story, a man planted wheat in his field, no doubt hoping for and expecting a good crop. While he slept, an enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. The tares were a particular kind of plant known as darnel, a kind of “false wheat.” This plant looked like wheat in some ways, but it was intoxicating when ingested. In larger doses it can be fatal. The sower of this hateful, objectionable plant was an enemy indeed. When we look out into our world, we see unmistakable evidence for the Bible’s claims. The evidence for the existence of God, for instance, is literally everywhere. The unmistakable marks of intelligent design can be seen in the intricate, specified complexity of the biological world and in the law-like regularity that exists throughout the cosmos. Man’s capacity to love and to feel empathy, his choice to behave altruistically and the moral imperative he feels to do so, all speak to us of the wisdom, power, sovereignty, and moral perfection of the Creator Himself. Just as the world displays the unmistakable signs of God’s creative power and sovereign care, it also bears the marks of an enemy attack upon God’s once “very good” created order (Genesis 1:31; Genesis 8:22). This too is evidence for the Bible’s claims. Our chief religious competitor, the evolution story, simply cannot explain or account for the level of wickedness and depravity we see in our world; the evil that men do to each other outstrips any Darwinian necessity. Furthermore, to even recognize evil in the first place entails the existence of an objective standard of moral good, something only the God of the Bible could (and does) provide (Psalm 19:7-11). Where did moral evil come from? The Bible attributes the first act of rebellion against the wise and good rule of God to Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44). Taking people captive at his will (2 Timothy 2:23-26), he leads them into deeper and deeper levels of wickedness and degradation (Romans 1:18-32). The crimes of depraved people are sometimes blatant, being easily recognized as evil by those whose sensitivity to God’s law has not been dulled. On the other hand, as in today’s parable, sometimes the enemy’s attack is subtle and initially undetectable. We see just this kind of thing in the western world. The enemy of our souls has commandeered virtually every cultural megaphone in order to deceive and destroy people. For those in darkness, his lies seem more than believable; they seem to be obviously true. Not only so, but there is a felt moral imperative to adopt and practice the enemy’s social, political, and moral philosophy. Those whose eyes the Lord has opened look at this and groan within themselves, “An enemy has done this.” Praise the Lord, He has not only revealed the truth about our world to us, He has promised to soon crush the enemy under our feet (Romans 16:20) and cast him and all his influence from the earth once and for all (Revelation 20:10).
Walk strong, dear saints, overcome evil with good, and be encouraged,
Pastor John
English