Friday, March 25, 2022

The Vision (3.25.22): Spurgeon on the Parable of the Tares of the field

 


Image: Forsythia, North Garden, Virginia, March 2022.

Note: Ipreached last Sunday on the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Matthew 13:24-30, 36-44 (or, as the disciples call it in Matt 13:36, “the parable of the tares of the field”). As I’ve preached through Matthew I have been reading Spurgeon’s commentary on this Gospel (Matthew: The Gospel of the Kingdom, Banner of Truth, 1893, 2019). Here are a few quotations from Spurgeon I tweeted out this week:

Matt 13:28: "He said unto them, An enemy hath done this...."

Spurgeon: "It may have been a learned doctor, or a clever poet, or a treacherous orator, who scattered doubt among the people, and introduced skeptics into the church; but the worker behind the scenes, the real author of the mischief, is always the devil himself."

Matt 13:29: "But he said, Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them."

Spurgeon: "Hasty disciplinarians have often cast out the best and retained the worst. Where evil is clear and open, we may not hesitate to deal with it; but where it is questionable, we had better hold our hand till we have fuller guidance."

Matt 13:30: "Let both grow together...."

Spurgeon: "Magistrates and churches may remove the openly wicked from their society; the outwardly good who are inwardly worthless they must leave; for the judging of hearts is beyond their sphere."

Matt 13:38: "The field is the world...."

Spurgeon: "In many cases the cruel treatment of the very best men has been produced by the notion that they were erroneous teachers and therefore ought not to be tolerated. To contend earnestly against error by spiritual means is right and needful, but to use carnal weapons, and other remedies of force, is absolute folly and wickedness. This world is now a field of mingled growths, and so it must be till the end come."

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

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