Dear Bride of Christ,

In the World but Not of It

By your Groom's own Word, He wants you to ripen before He returns to gather you in! There is a certain fruitfulness required before harvest.

He made the same point in another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' 'An enemy did this,' he replied. The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn'" (Matthew 13:24-30)

How often this parable has been twisted to mean that Jesus expected and allowed for worldliness in the church, and that He somehow instructed us to tolerate it, too! Actually, Jesus' own divinely inspired interpretation is quite different:

"The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear" (Matthew 13:36-43).

The field is the world. The Son of Man intended for the entire world to be filled with His Kingdom, but the enemy won over the hearts and minds of many of its inhabitants. The angels, in horror and revulsion, desired to bring a judgment on the world now to stop the atrocity of the enemy's rebellion immediately. Yet Jesus would not allow that immediate judgment. It would require such drastic action that the life of the crop--His Kingdom--would be affected, too. Jesus wasn't concerned that somehow the angels would be unable to tell the wheat and weeds apart. Any farm worker can do that! Instead, He realized that it would be impossible to harvest the weeds (to bring Judgment on the world) without harvesting the crop, too--and the crop wasn't ready. So Jesus' decision was to wait until the wheat was mature, and only then to harvest and bring Judgment.

You then, dear Bride, are to be "in the world but not of it." You will co-exist on planet earth with the sons of the evil one, but they must never be part of you. Satan's activity will not change Jesus' plans one bit. Your Lord will not panic; He will not act hurriedly or prematurely. You will reach maturity, fulfilling every purpose He had for you. Then and only then will Jesus return, cleansing His creation of every last bit of the enemy's rebellion. That's when you will truly have a "home of righteousness." But first, right now, your passion must be to mature and to become who you were chosen to be.

Next Page
Back to Contents