First the Kingdom 13, The Counterfeit Kingdom

The Wheat and Tares

So far we have been focusing mostly on the positive work of Christ in advancing the Kingdom of God in the earth. In the model prayer that Jesus taught His disciples, He told them to pray for God’s Kingdom to come, and for His will to be done in earth as it is done in heaven. This is our mandate as well, to see the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven come to earth! But He also said there is a need to pray for deliverance from the Evil One. This is the negative side of the story. While God is all-powerful and always on the side of good, He in His wisdom also allows an adversary to work in the earth.

If you remember the story in Genesis, the man and the woman listened to the deceitful words of the serpent and in effect obeyed him rather than God. The judgment that came upon humanity and the creation was death. Ever since then the same serpent, the devil, Satan has held power over humanity in our falleness. We have always been left with this choice, to serve Satan or God.

The same evil one was extremely active in the days of the preaching of John and Jesus. Jesus was always aware of this, and warned his followers continually. He even told a parable about another hidden work.

Matt 13:24-29:

Jesus told them 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.'”

NIV

Any farmer will tell you that weeds are definitely a problem. In this parable the weeds they were dealing with were particularly troublesome. Unlike other weeds, these were hard to distinguish from the real thing. There was the danger that if they were to remove these “tares” that the genuine wheat would become damaged. Only later could they be separated safely.

Sometimes the tares in this parable are interpreted to be false Christians living among the true Christians. However, in other places we see that false teachers and false believers are exposed and removed before the great time of the harvest also connected with the “end of the age.”

This to me is a long-term problem. Since the Kingdom of God was first proclaimed there have always been counterfeit versions of the Gospel. The problem is that sometimes they so closely resemble the real deal that many true, godly people follow them. For the first 300 years the number of believers in Christ grew dramatically. Periodic persecution would weed out the fair weather Christians, but gradually new ideas, beliefs and practices entered in that Christ did not introduce. In the Fourth Century when Christians filled the Roman Empire, the Emperor Constantine embraced the faith. Eventually Christianity became the established religion, and some believed that the Roman Catholic system with its Popes, Bishops and Cardinals was the full and final manifestation of the Kingdom of God!

For hundreds of years there was in Europe only one church. Because so many godly people were involved, the false ideas, beliefs and teachings of that church could not be removed. In each generation God raised up certain brave souls to challenge the false beliefs and evil practices, who were often persecuted and even killed.

Finally a change came t[...]