Chapter 10

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These scriptures are some of the most solemn in Scripture. Each of them brings before us eternal issues; that is what makes them so solemn. One passage from the Apostle Paul comes to mind in connection with some of these verses: "The Lord knoweth them that are His." The profession had become so large and so mixed, even in the Apostle's day, that the house of God had become "a great house" with vessels of honor and of dishonor. "The Lord knoweth them that are His" is, in substance, the Apostle saying, "I cannot undertake to decide who are the Lord's and who are not. I know my path in the confusion and mixture and that is, 'Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.' " 2 Timothy 2:1919Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. (2 Timothy 2:19).
These parables are all about the kingdom and different phases of the kingdom of heaven save the last one which is the kingdom of the Son of man. In that first passage you see we get the Lord Himself going forth as the Sower: "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man." In Luke, in connection with the same parable, we learn that the seed is the Word of God; and the Word of God has been sown abroad in this world from the day the Son of man began to sow.
Whenever God is working in mercy and goodness, there is that ever watchful enemy. Those who ought to have been watchful in the realization of the watchfulness of the enemy, are asleep, and the enemy taking advantage of that, sowed tares among the wheat and went away. He got his seed in! His work was unperceived until it sprang up. The seed sprang up and brought forth its fruit. One thought before me in connection with the expression "sowed tares among the wheat" is that Satan is a good imitator and a good counterfeiter. Hence the Apostle had to say, "The Lord knoweth them that are His."
Here when these servants come to the Lord, they say, "Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in Thy field? From whence then hath it tares?" The Lord says, "An enemy hath done this," to which his servants respond, "Wilt Thou then that we go and gather them up?" Oh no, "lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them." They would not be able to determine or distinguish between them all the time. The seed is in and brought forth fruit and henceforth the two have grown together, the tares and the wheat. The possessor and the mere professor go on side by side in company one with the other. Who of us can tell who is a "tare" and who a "wheat"? There is one blessed and sure test if we only know how to use it, but alas, few know how to use it or know what that test is. What is it? The truth as to Christ. "Let both grow together," tares and wheat, in the vast field of this world.
Tares and wheat are not to be together forever. There is a day of separation coming as we get in the 24th of Matthew. The good seed are the children of the kingdom, that is, children of God. The tares are the children of the wicked one. Both are in the same household, a dreadful thing in the sight of God. Let us say here, though it need not be said, there will be no tares in heaven, mark that!
How may I know I am not a tare? Ask yourself the question and get it settled. How may I know I am not a child of the wicked one? It is very easy and simple to decide; and it is a solemn thing to have decided, and needful for the peace of our souls.
What is your soul resting upon for its salvation? If you answer that question we shall form our judgment as to whether you are a child of the kingdom or of the wicked one. All depends upon whether you have learned as a poor wretched sinner your need of Christ and the work of Christ in order to save your soul. If you have learned that outside of Christ there is no salvation, have learned the solemn and blessed truth that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin and that is all that can cleanse the sinner and make him meet for the presence of God—if that is your faith, you are not a tare. We may know definitely for ourselves, and the Lord would have us know just where we stand in relation to Him in this day of easy-going Christian profession. There is to be a separation, an everlasting separation, a separation as far as the heaven is from the earth and as far as heaven is from hell.
Presently we will find ourselves either in heaven or in hell. "In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." One will be gathered for judgment, the other for blessing, and with each it is eternal. The blessing is eternal and the judgment is eternal. See the mighty contrast here. "Gather . . . the tares . . . in bundles to burn; .. . gather the wheat into my barn." People don't like this kind of thing. They say it might do for a by-gone age, but the Word of God doesn't change with ages. What the Word of God was when given, it is today, and the Lord speaking of these parables looked on down to the end. That is what we get in these, the full course of this age.
"The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire." The Son of God is speaking. "There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." There it stands, and He whose blessed lips spake as never man spake, speaks these words. "They wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth." "Furnace of fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth!" What a contrast to that song of joy! We will have part in one or the other. Such is the fact, and we do ourselves a service in this day if we remind ourselves of these searching scriptures.
"Then shall the righteous shine forth"— "righteous, " mark you—"as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." "The kingdom of their Father" is that upper heavenly part of the kingdom in the coming day of glory. A little further on in this gospel, speaking to His disciples there in connection with the passover supper, He says, "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." That is that day when He will share the glory of the Father's kingdom with His disciples. The kingdom is one but has two parts or spheres, if you please: the heavenly sphere and the earthly sphere. The upper sphere is "the kingdom of their Father." What a separation. One gathered for blessing, the other for judgment.
Next, the net is cast into the sea. What is that?
That is the gospel net cast into the sea of nations. Good and bad are gathered, but a separation takes place. Good and bad won't live together in heaven, and we need not say they won't live together in hell. The main point before us is the great truth of separation, and it is a searching truth. What becomes of the separated? "The good into vessels!" The bad are "cast away!" "So shall it be at the end of the world." Let us remark here, this is not for the outside world. It is in that "great house." The net has caught both good and bad in some way. They are separated just as the wheat and tares are separated; divine judgment will make an awful separation.
In the second passage we find another parable of the kingdom of heaven and many guests have been gathered. The wedding is furnished with guests. The king comes in to see the guests and detects a tare there, one there naked of a wedding garment, naked of Christ. That is what we have to see to. You may deceive those about you, but there is One we cannot deceive and sooner or later that One is to be faced. "And the King came in to see the guests." He has only one question to ask him: "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" Perhaps that poor man didn't know his own nakedness in the sight of God. "And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." That is all inside the Christian sphere of profession. What has the man got to say? He had heard the gospel and accepted it but had never learned that in order to be at that marriage feast, there was but one garment which became all that were there. He is in without it. The wedding garment is Christ. What a sad thing to be a professor of Christ and naked of Christ. That is very possible and, one fears, very common. Very, very few say "Christ is mine." One sometimes gets a confession of Christ after he has called attention to Christ and has had to call attention to Christ because the one spoken to didn't name Him. There is just one thing. "How camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?"
In the address to the church at Sardis, that gracious work of the Reformation, we get a very solemn word. "Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead"— profession without life. That is the characteristic feature of Protestantism as an "ism." No charge of evil doctrine but that state of spiritual deadness while professing of Christianity. What is the answer of this one? Speechless. What is said as to him? "Bind him hand and foot." That is one feature of the lost. What is the next thing? "Take him away." Who says this? The King. Who is He? CHRIST. In Revelation we read of Him: "From whose face earth and heaven fled away." It is the same Christ. "Take him away." He is banished into outer darkness. There is no ray of Christ. It is well to face these words of the Lord Jesus Himself: "Weeping and gnashing of teeth." There are no tears of repentance. There is no repentance in hell, only remorse and rage. Being in hell doesn't change the enmity of man's heart to God. Grace and mercy do that. "Bind him hand and foot...take him away...outer darkness...weeping...and gnashing of teeth."
The next parable is marked by profession. All go out to meet the bridegroom. There is a vital difference in those ten. All look alike. All have vessels of profession, torches of profession. We couldn't have told any difference. Five of them were wise and five foolish. They go on hand in hand as it were, the foolish and the wise, and they all go to sleep alike too. Not only the foolish went to sleep, but the wise too. "They all slumbered and slept." We know from history that there was a long, long sleep. For ages and ages those represented by these virgins had forgotten their calling. They ceased to go forth. They were not on the move at all to meet the bridegroom. They had settled down in the world. At midnight, when they slept most soundly, naturally the best time to sleep, a cry is made: "Behold the bridegroom." That cry startles them, wakes them, sets them all on the move. All those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.
One can hardly speak to a professing Christian now who doesn't believe in the coming of the Lord in some way. There was a time when the truth of the Lord's coming was comparatively little known. Not so now. The enemy of the truth has corrupted the blessed truth of the coming of the Lord Jesus.
All those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. The foolish say to the wise, "Give us of your oil." They took their lamps but no oil, nothing to sustain the profession they made. They say to the wise, "Give us of your oil for our lamps are gone out." They tell out their own tale. They had never learned they have to get the oil from them that sell; that is, that each one has to do with God for himself. You can direct them to the One from whom the oil is to be had. The very fact of their asking the wise to give them of their oil shows they had never learned that each one must come himself to God, each be saved for himself. Salvation is an individual thing. You can't trust Christ for another. Each must trust Christ for himself, and trust Him individually in the personal conscious knowledge that one must have Christ for his or her own Saviour.
There is another one at the end of the chapter. That is another tale but a very solemn one that takes us really outside of our own dispensation or age. Mark this, there is a day coming when millions will never die. God has appointed Christ judge of living and dead. Scripture speaks a good deal more of judgment of the living than of the dead. The judgment of the living takes place before the judgment of the dead. God "hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world [earth] in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained." In view of that day of judgment of living men, God commandeth all men everywhere to repent. There they are. It takes us beyond our own day, but we find the same truth as to the eternal issues. "When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory." Mark it is the Son of man. He shall separate the sheep from the goats, the sheep on the right hand and the goats on the left.
There will be two classes of living men: nations (Jews not included) and "brethren" (here—"least of these My brethren"). I know of no more solemn word in Scripture than what we have here. We hear the Son of man speak sitting on His throne of glory, as that division, that separation, takes place. "Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." It is all on earth, in the earthly part of the kingdom. They had been sufferers but they had received those messengers—those persecuted messengers—bearers of the gospel of the kingdom.
Let us consider. Now notice, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The same One says that, who says, "Come ye blessed." "While they went to buy, the bridegroom came." Where did they go? God's grace brings salvation. All they had to do was to receive it without money and without price. They that were ready went in. All alike had gone to sleep. The man in the 22nd chapter lacked the wedding garment. Those foolish virgins lacked one thing—oil. There was just one thing lacking in both cases. If you have Christ, you have the Holy Spirit, and if you have not Christ, you have not the Holy Spirit. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Matthew 25:4646And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46).