Tares are not genuine Christians.
The true Church of the living God is the abiding wheat of Christ’s heavenly harvest. Tares, on the other hand, are the natural-minded, counterfeit churchgoers who lack both biblical repentance and legitimate faith.
They’re the ones, for example, who never think twice about purchasing the latest heresy-hardback so they can figure out how to get their best life now. They are more interested in getting God’s stuff than discerning God’s will for their life.
Yet that is precisely the problem with tares. They’re mainly concerned about what they will be doing over the weekend, not where they will be two seconds after they’re dead.
For the most part, tares are blind to the spiritual darkness of their souls. They are deceived. The thing about tares, however, is that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between them and genuine wheat (true Christians). Difficult, that is, until the wheat around them begins to grow, mature, and yield abundant grain.
As the wheat begins producing its grain—which is the normal result of worshipping God and serving others—the unfruitful tares inevitably present their barren stalks.
In Matthew 13:24-30 Jesus told the following parable about the tares sown among the wheat. He said,
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
In this parable our Lord explained that there will be many churchgoing tares scattered around the world, mingling throughout the fields of authentic Christianity. In fact, and lest we miss the point of the lesson, Jesus interpreted the parable for us a few verses later in Matthew 13:36-43. He said, “as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one.” In other words, wheat are the children of God (genuine Christians) and tares are the children of the devil (unbelievers masquerading as professing Christians).
You just can’t get any farther apart on the family tree than that. Wheat are God’s children. Tares are the devil’s children. Yet both show up for church come Sunday morning!
Many churches today have tares sown throughout their membership. It is bizarre, really, how the devil’s children appear so at ease sitting in church pews, rubbing shoulders with the worshippers of the God they themselves reject. It is often difficult to distinguish between the genuine and the counterfeit, but not normally. In fact, Jesus said in the parable that the man who owns the field (along with his slaves) can see the difference between the tares and the wheat just fine.
Yet notice that the difference in the natures of the plants became apparent at one time in particular. The time when the wheat began to manifest its grain.
My wife and I have some beautiful Japanese maple trees in our front yard. Every spring new buds shoot forth on their branches and, without fail, every autumn those blood-red leaves wither and fall to the ground. Over the course of the year, however, some of the branches didn’t produce any leaves at all. I never noticed which branches were dead during the cold winter months because all the leafless branches looked pretty much the same during that time of the year. As the trees begin producing their leaves around the month of March, however, it becomes rather easy to see the difference between the good branches and the bad. So easy, in fact, that I have no problem figuring out which branches should be cut off and which branches are to be left alone.
That is precisely what Jesus is telling us about the wheat (genuine Christians) that will produce its grain and the tares (unsaved churchgoers) that will remain barren.
Tares are undesirable weeds. Their seeds are actually noxious, making one feel poisoned with drunkenness and can even cause death. All I am saying is that you wouldn’t want to risk your life by snacking on a bag of roasted tare seeds.
Wheat, on the other hand, produces a grain that nourishes life and is capable of reproducing more wheat and more grain. Spiritually speaking, genuine Christians produce wholesome grain by radically serving God and others, and are capable of reproducing like-minded disciples through the sowing and watering of the Word.
Unlike God’s wheat, tares are false converts living a flat-line Christianity. They are pseudo-Christians lacking a holy pulse. They don’t produce grain because it is not in their unregenerate nature to do so.
Tares do not support wheat; they steal the soil’s nutrients that the wheat needs in order to grow strong and healthy. Sadly, it is like that in hundreds of churches across America today. Many of the church’s resources and countless hours of pastoral counseling are wasted on the stony hearts of false converts, consuming the spiritual manna meant for God’s children alone.
Such is not always the case, but it occurs more often than God is happy about, I’m sure.
The worst part about all this is that not only should churches not be providing unsaved tares with things like spiritual assurance and pastoral counseling, but we should be warning them to repent and turn to God by faith in Jesus. As Christ-loving believers, we should not be veiling the truth of their lost condition but warning them to flee from the wrath to come.
As God’s adopted children, we need to reassess our spiritual priorities and inform the tares that they are, indeed, unsaved. That is God’s will. It is downright shameful for us to ignore their spiritual condition just so we can be well-liked, feel more comfortable, or have a bigger church. To our own disgrace, many American Christians today have made it their personal ministry to do just that.
What do you believe God thinks about all that? Do you think it grieves Him to know that so many of His children are unconcerned about the spiritual welfare of those around them? Do you think it makes God angry? Do you even care all that much if it does?
I could be wrong, but if you were trapped in a burning building, I bet you would want someone to tell you about it and do whatever they could to get you out of there. And fast. No doubt the news would initially upset you, but in-your-face truth is not only what you would want to hear but it is what you’d need to hear. You’d be interested in details—not vague generalities. And the last thing you would expect your would-be rescuer to do would be to toss you a lukewarm pew so that you’re more comfortable when the flames came calling.
Yet that is precisely what much of American Christianity has been doing lately.