"Gather the wheat into my barn."—Matthew 13:30.
GATHER the wheat into my barn." Then the purpose of the Son of man will
be accomplished. He sowed good seed, and he shall have his barn filled
with it at the last. Be not dispirited, Christ will not be disappointed.
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." He went
forth weeping, bearing precious seed, but he shall come again rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.
"Gather the wheat into my barn": then Satan's policy will be unsuccessful.
The enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, hopeful that the false
wheat would destroy our materially injure the true; but he failed in the
end, for the wheat ripened and was ready to be gathered. Christ's garner
shall be filled; the tares shall not choke the wheat. The evil one will
be put to shame.
In gathering in the wheat, good angels will be employed: "the angels
are the reapers." This casts special scorn upon the great evil angel. He
sows the tares, and tries to destroy the harvest; and therefore the good
angels are brought in to celebrate his defeat, and to rejoice together
with their Lord in the success of the divine husbandry. Satan will make
a poor profit out of his meddling; he shall be baulked in all his efforts,
and so the threat shall be fulfilled, "Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and
dust shalt thou eat."
By giving the angels work to do, all intelligent creatures, of whose
existence we have information, are made to take an interest in the work
of grace: whether for malice or for adoration, redemption excites them
all. To all, the wonderful works of God are made manifest: for these things
were not done in a corner.
We too much forget the angels. Let us not overlook their tender sympathy
with us; they behold the Lord rejoicing over our repentance, and they rejoice
with him; they are our watchers and the Lord's messengers of mercy; they
bear us up in their hands lest we dash our foot against a stone; and when
we come to die, they carry us to the bosom of our Lord. It is one of our
joys that we have come to an innumerable company of angels; let us think
of them with affection.
At this time I will keep to my text, and preach from it almost word
by word. It begins with "but," and that is A WORD OF SEPARATION.
Here note that the tares and the wheat will grow together until the
time of harvest shall come. It is a great sorrow of heart to some of the
wheat to be growing side by side with tares. The ungodly are as thorns
and briars to those who fear the Lord. How frequently is the sigh forced
forth from the godly heart:—"Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that
I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" A man's foes are often found within his
own household; those who should have been his best helpers are often his
worst hinderers: their conversation vexes and torments him. It is of little
use to try to escape from them, for the tares are permitted in Gods providence
to grow with the wheat, and they will do so until the end. Good men have
emigrated to distant lands to found communities in which there should be
none but saints, and alas! sinners have sprung up in their own families.
The attempt to weed the ungodly and heretical out of the settlement has
led to persecution and other evils, and the whole plan has proved a failure.
Others have shut themselves away in hermitages to avoid the temptations
of the world, and so have hoped to win the victory by running away: this
is not the way of wisdom. The word for this present is,—"Let both grow
together"; but there will come a time when a final separation will
be made. Then, dear Christian woman, your husband will never persecute
you again. Godly sister, your brother will heap no more ridicule upon you.
Pious workman, there will be no more jesting and taunting from the ungodly.
That "but" will be an iron gate between the god-fearing and the godless:
then will the tares be cast into the fire, but the Lord of the harvest
will say, "Gather the wheat into my barn."
This separation must be made; for the growing of the wheat and the tares
together on earth has caused much pain and injury, and therefore it will
not be continued in a happier world. We can very well suppose that godly
men and women might be willing that their unconverted children should dwell
with them in heaven; but it cannot be, for God will not have his cleansed
ones defiled nor his glorified ones tried by the presence of the unbelieving.
The tares must be taken away in order to the perfectness and usefulness
of the wheat. Would you have the tares and the wheat heaped up together
in the granary in one mass? That would be ill husbandry with a vengeance.
They can neither of them be put to appropriate use till thoroughly separated.
Even so, mark you, the saved and the unsaved may live together here, but
they must not live together in another world. The command is absolute,—"Gather
the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the
wheat into my barn." Sinner, can you hope to enter heaven? You never loved
your mother's God, and is he to endure you in his heavenly courts? You
never trusted your father's Saviour, and yet are you to behold his glory
for ever? Are you to go swaggering down the streets of heaven, letting
fall an oath, or singing a loose song? Why, you know, you get tired of
the worship of God on the Lord's day; do you think that the Lord will endure
unwilling worshippers in the temple above? The Sabbath is a wearisome day
to you; how can you hope to enter into the Sabbath of God? You have no
taste for heavenly pursuits, and these things would be profaned if you
were permitted to partake in them; therefore that word "but" must come
in, and you must part from the Lord's people never to meet again. Can you
bear to think of being divided from godly friends for ever and ever?
That separation involves an awful difference of destiny. "Gather the
tares in bundles to burn them." I do not dare to draw the picture; but
when the bundle is bound up there is no place for it except the fire. God
grant that you may never know all the anguish which burning must mean;
but may you escape from it at once. It is no trifle which the Lord of love
compares to being consumed with fire. I am quite certain that no words
of mine can ever set forth its terror. They say that we speak dreadful
things about the wrath to come; but I am sure that we understate the case.
What must the tender, loving, gracious Jesus have meant by the words, "Gather
the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them"? See what a wide distinction
between the lot of the Lord's people and Satan's people. Burn the wheat?
Oh no; "Gather the wheat into my barn." There let them be happily, safely
housed for ever. Oh, the infinite distance between heaven and hell!—the
harps and the angels, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth! Who can ever
measure the width of that gulf which divides the glorified saint, white-robed
and crowned with immortality, from the soul which is driven for ever away
from the presence of God, and from the glory of his power? It is a dreadful
"but"—that " but" of separation. I pray you, remember that it will interpose
between brother and brother,—between mother and child,— between husband
and wife. "One shall be taken and the other left." And when that sword
shall descend to divide, there shall never be any after union. The separation
is eternal. There is no hope or possibility of change in the world to come.
But, says one, "That dreadful 'but'! Why must there be such a
difference?" The answer is, Because there always was a difference. The
wheat was sown by the Son of man: the false wheat was sown by the enemy.
There was always a difference in character:—the wheat was good, the tares
were evil. This difference did not appear at first, but it became more
and more apparent as the wheat ripened, and as the tares ripened too. They
were totally different plants; and so a regenerate person and an unregenerate
person are altogether different beings. I have heard an unregenerate man
say that he is quite as good as the godly man; but in so boasting he betrayed
his pride. Surely there is as great a difference in God's sight between
the unsaved and the believer as between darkness and the light, or between
the dead and the living. There is in the one a life which there is not
in the other, and the difference is vital and radical. Oh, that you may
never trifle with this essential matter, but be really the wheat of the
Lord! It is vain to have the name of wheat, we must have the nature of
wheat. God will not be mocked: he will not be pleased by our calling ourselves
Christians while we are not so. Be not satisfied with church membership;
but seek after membership with Christ. Do not talk about faith, but exercise
it. Do not boast of experience, but possess it. Be not like the
wheat, but be the wheat. No shams and imitations will stand in the last
great day: that terrible "but" will roll as a sea of fire between the true
and the false. Oh Holy Spirit! Let each of us be found transformed by thy
power.
II. The second word of our text is "gather,"—that is A WORD OF CONGREGATION.
What a blessed thing this gathering is! I feel it a great pleasure to gather
multitudes together to hear the gospel; and is it not a joy to see a house
full of people, on week-days and Sabbath-days, who are willing to leave
their homes and to come considerable distances to listen to the gospel?
It is a great thing to gather people together for that; but the gathering
of the wheat into the barn is a far more wonderful business. Gathering
is in itself better than scattering, and I pray that the Lord Jesus may
ever exercise his attracting power in this place; for he is no Divider,
but "unto him shall the gathering of the people be." Has he not said, "I,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me"?
Observe, that the congregation mentioned in our text is selected and
assembled by skilled gatherers: "The angels are the reapers." Ministers
could not do it, for they do not know all the Lord's wheat, and they are
apt to make mistakes—some by too great leniency, and others by excessive
severity. Our poor judgments occasionally shut out saints, and often shut
in sinners. The angels will know their Master's property. They know each
saint, for they were present at his birthday. Angels know when sinners
repent, and they never forget the persons of the penitents. They have witnessed
the lives of those who have believed, and have helped them in their spiritual
battles, and so they know them. Yes, angels by a holy instinct discern
the Father's children, and are not to be deceived. They will not fail to
gather all the wheat and to leave out every tare.
But they are gathered under a very stringent regulation; for, first
of all, according to the parable, the tares, the false wheat, have been
taken out, and then the angelic reapers gather nothing but the wheat. The
seed of the serpent, fathered by Satan, is thus separated from the seed
of the kingdom, owned by Jesus, the promised deliverer. This is the one
distinction; and no other is taken into consideration. If the most amiable
unconverted persons could stand in the ranks with the saints, the angels
would not bear them to heaven, for the mandate is, "Gather the wheat."
Could the most honest man be found standing in the centre of the church,
with all the members round about him, and with all the ministers entreating
that he might be spared, yet if he were not a believer he could not be
carried into the divine garner. There is no help for it. The angels have
no choice in the matter: the peremptory command is, "Gather the wheat,"
and they must gather none else.
It will be a gathering from very great distances. Some of the wheat
ripens in the South Sea Islands, in China, and in Japan. Some flourishes
in France, broad acres grow in the United States: there is scarce a land
without a portion of the good grain. Where all God's wheat grows I cannot
tell. There is a remnant, according to the election of grace, among every
nation and people but the angels will gather all the good grain to the
same garner.
"Gather the wheat." The saints will be found in all ranks of society.
The angels will bring in a few ears from palaces, and great armfuls from
cottages! Many will be collected from the lowly cottages of our villages
and hamlets, and others will be upraised from the back slums of our great
cities to the metropolis of God. From the darkest places angels will bring
those children of sweetness and light who seldom beheld the sun, and yet
were pure in heart and saw their God. The hidden and obscure shall be brought
into the light; for the Lord knoweth them that are his, and his harvestmen
will not miss them.
To me it is a charming thought that they will come from all the ages.
Let us hope that our first father Adam will be there, and mother Eve, following
in the footsteps of their dear son Abel, and trusting in the same sacrifice.
We shall meet Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Daniel,
and all the saints made perfect. What a joy to see the apostles, martyrs,
and reformers! I long to see Luther, and Calvin, and Bunyan and Whitefield.
I like the rhyme of good old father Ryland:
"They all shall be there, the great and the small,
Poor I shall shake hands with the blessed St. Paul."
I do not know how that will be, but I have not much doubt that we shall
have fellowship with all the saints of every age in the general assembly
and church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.
No matter when or where the wheat grew, it shall be gathered into the
one barn; gathered never to be scattered; gathered out of all divisions
of the visible church, never to be divided again. They grew in different
fields. Some flourished on the hillside where Episcopalians grow in all
their glory, and others in the lowlier soil, where Baptists multiply, and
Methodists flourish, but once the wheat is in the barn none can tell in
which field the ears grew. Then, indeed, shall the Master's prayer have
a glorious answer—"That they all may be one." All our errors removed and
our mistakes corrected and forgiven, the one Lord, the one faith, and the
one baptism will be known of us all, and there will be more vexings and
envyings. What a blessed gathering it will be! What a meeting! The elect
of God, the elite of all the centuries, of whom the world was not
worthy. I should not like to be away. If there were no hell, it would be
hell enough to me to be shut out of such heavenly society. If there were
no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, it would be dreadful enough
to miss the presence of the Lord, and the joy of praising him for ever,
and the bliss of meeting with all the noblest beings that ever lived. Amid
the needful controversies of the age, I, who have been doomed to seem a
man of strife, sigh for the blessed rest wherein all spiritual minds shall
blend in eternal accord before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Oh that
we were all right, that we might be all happily united in one spirit!
In the text there is next A WORD OF DESIGNATION. I have already trespassed
upon that domain. "Gather the wheat." Nothing but "the wheat" must
be placed in the Lord's homestead. Lend me your hearts while I urge you
to a searching examination for a minute or two. The wheat was sown of the
Lord. Are you sown of the Lord? Friend, if you have any religion, how did
you get it? Was it self-sown? If so, it is good for nothing. The true wheat
was sown by the Son of man. Are you sown of the Lord? Did the Spirit of
God drop eternal life into your bosom? Did it come from that dear hand
which was nailed to the cross? Is Jesus your life? Does your life begin
and end with him? If so, it is well.
The wheat sown of the Lord is also the object of the Lord's care. Wheat
needs a deal of attention. The farmer would get nothing from it if he did
not watch it carefully. Are you under the Lord's care? Does he keep you?
Is that word true to your soul,—"I the Lord do keep it; I will water it
every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day"? Do you experience
such keeping? Make an honest answer, as you love your soul.
Next, wheat is a useful thing, a gift from God for the life of men.
The false wheat was of no good to anybody: it could only be eaten of swine,
and then it made them stagger like drunken men. Are you one of those who
are wholesome in society,—who are like bread to the world, so that if men
receive you and your example and your teaching they will be blessed thereby?
Judge yourselves whether ye are good or evil in life and influence.
"Gather the wheat." You know that God must put the goodness, the grace,
the solidity, and the usefulness into you, or else you will never be wheat
fit for angelic gathering. One thing is true of the wheat—that it is the
most dependent of all plants. I have never heard of a field of wheat which
sprang up, and grew, and ripened without a husbandman's care. Some ears
may appear after a harvest when the corn has shaled out; but I have never
heard of plains in America or elsewhere covered with unsown wheat. No,
no. There is no wheat where there is no man, and there is no grace where
there is no Christ. We owe our very existence to the Father, who is the
husbandman.
Yet, dependent as it is, wheat stands in the front rank of honour and
esteem; and so do the godly in the judgment of all who are of understanding
heart. We are nothing without Christ; but with him we are full of honour.
Oh, to be among those by whom the world is preserved, the excellent of
the earth in whom the saints delight; God forbid we should be among the
base and worthless tares!
Our last head, upon which also I will speak briefly, is A WORD OF DESTINATION.
"Gather the wheat into my barn." The process of gathering in the
wheat will be completed at the day of judgment, but it is going on every
day. From hour to hour saints are gathered; they are going heavenward even
now. I am so glad to hear as a regular thing that the departed ones from
my own dear church have such joy in being harvested. Glory be to God, our
people die well. The best thing is to live well, but we are greatly gladdened
to hear that the brethren die well; for, full often, that is the most telling
witness for vital godliness. Men of the world feel the power of triumphant
deaths.
Every hour the saints are being gathered into the barn. That is where
they want to be. We feel no pain at the news of ingathering, for we wish
to be safely stored up by our Lord. If the wheat that is in the field could
speak, every ear would say, "The ultimatum for which we are living and
growing is the barn, the granary." For this the frosty night; for this
the sunny day; for this the dew and the rain; and for this everything.
Every process with the wheat is tending towards the granary. So is it with
us; everything is working towards heaven—towards the gathering place—towards
the congregation of the righteous—towards the vision of our Redeemer's
face. Our death will cause no jar in our life-music; it will involve no
pause or even discord; it is part of a programme, the crowning of our whole
history.
To the wheat the barn is the place of security. It dreads no mildew
there; it fears no frost, no heat, no drought, no wet, when once in the
barn. All its growth-perils are past. It has reached its perfection. It
has rewarded the labour of the husbandman, and it is housed. Oh, long-expected
day, begin! Oh, brethren, what a blessing it will be when you and I shall
have come to our maturity, and Christ shall see in us the travail of his
soul!
I delight to think of heaven as his barn; his barn, what
must that be? It is but the poverty of language that such an expression
has to be used at all concerning the home of our Father, the dwelling of
Jesus. Heaven is the palace of the King, but, so far, to us a barn, because
it is the place of security, the place of rest for ever. It is the homestead
of Christ to which we shall be carried, and for this we are ripening. It
is to be thought of with ecstatic joy; for the gathering into the barn
involves a harvest home, and I have never heard of men sitting down to
cry over an earthly harvest home, nor of their following the sheaves with
tears. Nay, they clap their hands, they dance for joy, and shout right
lustily. Let us do something like that concerning those who are already
housed. With grave, sweet melodies let us sing around their tombs. Let
us feel that, surely, the bitterness of death is passed. When we remember
their glory, we may rejoice like the travailing woman when her child is
born, who "remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born
into the world." Another soul begins to sing in heaven: why do you weep,
O heirs of immortality? Is the eternal happiness of the righteous the birth
which comes of their death-pangs? Then happy are they who die. Is glory
the end and outcome of that which fills our home with mourning? If so,
thank God for bereavements: thank God for saddest severings. He has promoted
our dear ones to the skies! He has blessed them beyond all that we could
ask or even think: he has taken them out of this weary world to lie in
his own bosom for ever. Blessed be his name if it were for nothing else
but this. Would you keep your old father here, full of pain, and broken
down with feebleness? Would you shut him out of glory? Would you detain
your dear wife here with all her suffering? Would you hold back your husband
from the crown immortal? Could you wish your child to descend to earth
again from the bliss which now surrounds her? No, no. We wish to be going
home ourselves to the heavenly Father's house and its many mansions; but
concerning the departed we rejoice before the Lord as with the joy of harvest.
"Wherefore comfort one another with these words."
