An Enemy Did It!

If you had lived in Bible times in the Holy Land and if you hated your neighbor, you had three possible attacks that you could use to give vent to your hatred. One would be to gather your friends together, get a collection of stones, and some night when your neighbor is asleep fill his land up with stones. Then when he comes out to try to work on his land, he has to pick up all those stones.

Stones are a great problem in the Holy Land. The tour guides will tell you the myth that they like to tell visitors, that centuries ago God called two angels, gave them all of the stones, and said, "Distribute these throughout the world." And one of the angels got over the Holy Land and tripped.

It's a very stony place, but if you wanted to hate your neighbor and show it, you would just throw stones on his property. Of course, they can be removed, so if you wanted to do something worse you could salt his property. Just get a hold of some salt and let it get on the land, and when he goes to try to work that land he's in trouble.

However, if you really want to watch your hatred of him grow, wait until he has sown his land and then some night when nobody's watching go out into that same soil and sow tares. Looks just like wheat. They grow together, and then the harvest comes and he realizes he has weeds growing right alongside of his crop.

And he can't go out and pull up the weeds; if he does, he'll pull up the wheat, so he waits until the harvest. But if he harvests that wheat he's going to have the seeds of the weeds in with it, and who wants to buy that kind of a corrupt product? And so you've had all season to watch and gloat and say, "Aha, I fixed you." And, of course, next year he may do the same thing to you.

I'm not suggesting you do this. I'm only suggesting this because our Lord talked about it in Matthew 13, in what we call the parable of the wheat and the tares. Remember now, the tares are counterfeit wheat; that's important. Our Lord was in a boat, His congregation was on the shore, and He was giving them a series of parables.

Matthew 13:24, "Another parable he put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?'

He said to them, 'An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, 'Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No, no, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

Now, fortunately, we have our Lord's explanation for this parable. It begins down in Matthew 13:36. "Then Jesus sent the multitudes away and went into the house, and His disciples came to Him, saying, 'Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.'" Let me pause to say you'll notice that the thing that attracted their attention was not the field or the wheat; it was the tares.

"He answered and said to them, 'He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom. But the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age.'"

Remember that after the benediction, will you? The harvest is not the end of the meeting. The harvest is the end of the age. Some preacher or evangelist gives an invitation. Nothing happens. How do you know? The harvest is the end of the age.

"And the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

Perhaps the best way to approach this parable, that we might get the most out of it, is to look at it by way of explanation: what does our Lord say? Then by way of illustration: what does our Lord mean? And finally, by way of application: what does it mean to us today?

Let's begin with explanation. Whenever you study your Bible, be careful that you do not confuse symbols and illustrations. Now the Bible is a book of pictures. Most preachers don't preach it that way. We've turned a picture book into a very didactic, academic kind of a doctrine book. There's lots of doctrine in the Bible, but it's wrapped up in pictures.

When our Lord spoke to the multitudes, He spoke in pictures. "A man had two sons." "A woman lost a coin." "A sheep fell into a well." And He was talking about pictures throughout the word of God. The mind of man is not a debating chamber; it's a picture gallery. And so when our Lord was speaking here, He was using imagery.

Now in the first parable, the parable of the sower, He used the same images with different meanings. Therefore, don't say, "Well, water means the Holy Spirit here, so it must mean the Holy Spirit there." Oh, no. Water for drinking is a picture of the Holy Spirit. Water for washing is a picture of the word of God. Don't confuse them. In one part of the Bible, the lion is the Lord Jesus Christ; in another part of the Bible the lion is the devil. Don't confuse them.

In the parable of the sower, you had four kinds of soil representing the human heart. In the parable of the tares, you have one soil representing the world. "The field is the world." In the parable of the sower, you had one seed representing the word of God. "The seed is the word of God," and the seed landed on the different kinds of soil, and three-fourths of it produced no fruit.

However, in this parable there are two seeds and there are two sowers. In the parable of the sower you have one sower. In the parable of the tares you have two sowers. One sows in the daytime; one sows at night.

And you have two harvests. You have a harvest of the tares, and they're thrown into the fire. Every once in a while somebody says, "I want to follow the religion of Jesus. It's a religion of love. Jesus didn't say anything about judgment." Oh, didn't He? Here He compares hell to a furnace of fire. And the other harvest is the harvest of the wheat, and that wheat is put into the barn. That should make all you farmers glad. He compares heaven to a barn.

Now what is our Lord saying here? It's very simple. Get your hands on it. Our Lord is saying this: "I am busy in this world sowing seed. That seed represents My children. I pick up a person and I sow him in Chicago. I sow her in Nairobi. I sow the Hansens in Italy. I pick the Wiersbes up and sow them in Lincoln, Nebraska. I am sowing the seed of My people throughout the world." After all, Jesus said, "Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit."

Now, seed is a picture of the Christian. I know, in the first parable, it's a picture of the word of God, but remember, the word becomes flesh. We now are the seed that carries the life-giving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So the Lord takes us and plants us where He wants us.

We're in a world of some 5 billion plus people, and one of the big problems in today's world is loneliness. Isn't that strange? People in the city of Chicago, New York, London, name it, they're lonely. Because loneliness has nothing to do with geography on the outside; it has lots to do with the inside.

If you want to be lonely, just don't be planted. A lonely Christian is a paradox. If you want to be lonely, just keep your life to yourself. "He who saves his life shall lose it." But if you let the Lord Jesus take you and plant you where He wants you, I guarantee you will not be lonely, and you'll be fruitful. You'll reproduce.

Why does the Lord compare us to seed? Well, for one reason, seed has life in it. If there's an unsafe person here tonight, you don't have life. You have physical life, but not spiritual life. You're dead. And if you are buried dead, you always will be dead. We have life in us. We have received life through faith in Christ. Now, that life has to be reproduced. You plant one seed, you get 20 seeds back. You plant 20 seeds, you get 200 seeds back or more.

As we were driving to the conference, we would pass some of these fields out in the farm area with the big signs telling you that this was an experimental farm. They were testing various hybrid forms of corn. They wanted to see how much they could get, what the quality and quantity would be.

Now, the teaching of the parable is simply this: the devil is an imitator. I know he's other things. He's an accuser, he's a destroyer, he's a murderer. The devil's an imitator, and wherever the Lord Jesus plants the true child of God, the devil comes along and plants a counterfeit. Now, he can't root that up. He doesn't have that power. Once that seed is planted there and starts to bear fruit, the devil comes along and plants a counterfeit, because the world can't tell the difference.

People have the idea that Satan gets ahold of people's lives through things like chemical addiction, and he can. Murder, gluttony, all of these gross sins of the flesh, and he can. But fundamentally, in the word of God, Satan's a counterfeiter. How is Satan opposing your testimony, your church, the ministry of this conference, the ministry of Back to the Bible? Wherever God sows the true seed, he comes and sows a counterfeit. That's the teaching of this parable. Basically, the devil's an imitator.

Now, let's look at this by way of illustration. Have your Bible ready. I want to walk through the word of God with you and show you how this happens. We're going to begin at the very beginning in Genesis 4. Immediately, you know the story in Genesis 4, namely, Cain and Abel. I don't have to read the entire story. God had taught Adam and Eve how to worship, how to bring sacrifices. Cain and Abel were taught how to bring sacrifices.

Genesis 4:3, "And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell." Now you know the rest of the story. God rebuked him and said, "Get right. Start living by faith."

Genesis 4:8, "Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him." Then the Lord comes along and says, "Where's your brother?" and he said, "I don't know." Would you notice, please, Cain was a murderer and Cain was a liar. Now Jesus says in John 8:44, to the Pharisees, "You are of your father, the devil. He is a murderer, and he's a liar."

Now, we go all the way to the other end of the Bible, to 1 John 3, because here is the commentary on Genesis 4:11. "For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you." Now notice how he introduces this paragraph in 1 John 3:10. "In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest."

Get a hold of this. From Genesis 4 to the very end of the Scriptures, until the Lord establishes His glorious kingdom, you will find two seeds: the devil's crowd and the Lord's crowd, the children of God and the children of the devil.

Now I'm going to pause at this point to make a statement with which some of you will disagree. I will not debate it. It's not a basis for new fellowship or a test of spirituality. I often hear people say, "If you are not a child of God, you are a child of the devil." I don't think that's biblical.

The Lord Jesus never called the publicans, the sinners, children of the devil. He called them lost sheep, lost sons, lost coins. He called them patients who need a physician. He called them beggars who need new clothing. But He never once called any of the common sinners children of the devil.

According to Ephesians 2, we are, by nature, children of wrath. We're born that way. We are, by choice, children of disobedience. I was born, by nature, a child of wrath. I deserved to go to hell. I got old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, and I chose wrong. And I became a child of disobedience.

Now, there are those people in the world who are counterfeits. Cain was religious. Cain brought an offering. Cain talked to the Lord. Cain made a sacrifice. But Cain was not a believer. He was a counterfeit.

We're in the New Testament. Let's turn to Matthew 3. Now, remember what we're proving: wherever God sows a true child of God, the devil comes and sows a counterfeit. Matthew 3 records the ministry of John the Baptist. For 400 years, the Jews had not heard a divinely anointed prophet in their nation. John shows up, dressed in camel's hair and wearing a leather belt and eating locusts and wild honey, a man of the out of doors. And droves of people came to hear him, and multitudes repented and were baptized.

Now notice, God has sown John the Baptist, the seed, the true child of God, to bear fruit. Notice what happens in Matthew 3:7: "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, 'Brood of vipers.'"

Question, class: who is the viper, the snake, in the Bible? Devil? Satan? From Genesis 3 on, he's the serpent. Then what is a brood of vipers? Children of the devil. To whom was he speaking? Not the folks he was baptizing. No. He said this to the counterfeits: the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, who professed to know God.

We must go on. Turn to Matthew 12. Our Lord Jesus comes ministering now. John the Baptist is in prison. Our Lord comes ministering in Matthew 12. He healed a demon-possessed man in Matthew 12:22. And the Pharisees show up, Matthew 12:24. What does Jesus say to them? Matthew 12:33. "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Brood of vipers"—now the word brood means offspring—"offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks."

Now throughout His earthly ministry, our Lord battled the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and they did not repent, and they would not believe. You're in Matthew; turn to chapter 23. Matthew 23 is our Lord's denunciation, His anguish-filled denunciation of the Pharisees.

Look at Matthew 23:15. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." What's He calling them? Children of hell, children of the devil. What are their converts? Twice as much children of the devil.

Matthew 23:33. "Serpents!" Now if I said that in the pulpit of the average church in America, I'd never get invited back. Our Lord said, "Serpents! Brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?" Why didn't He call them to repent? Why didn't He admonish them to believe? I say it again, my Lord, as far as the record is concerned, never called the common sinner a child of the devil. He reserved that title for the religious counterfeits.

Now, our Lord wasn't the only one who faced this problem. Would you turn to Acts 13? The apostle Paul is on the Isle of Cyprus. Acts 13. He's preaching the gospel to a leading official, Sergius Paulus, and he was opposed—Paul was opposed by a sorcerer. Acts 13:8, "But Elymas the sorcerer withstood them," opposed them, "seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith." Wherever God sows a true child, the good seed, the devil sows a counterfeit.

What does Paul say to this sorcerer? Acts 13:9, "Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, 'O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?'"

Paul had discernment. Many saints today don't have discernment. The devil's got his counterfeits all over the place; people can't tell the difference. Wherever God sows the true seed, the devil sows a counterfeit.

Let's be specific now. What are these counterfeits? We're going to be turning the pages of the Word of God quickly, so keep your Bible handy. We've already seen that the devil has counterfeit Christians. "The tares are the children of the wicked one."

The devil's got a family. You remember in Genesis 3:15, our Lord talked about two seeds, two families. The devil's got a family. There are those who believe Satan's way and are counterfeit Christians. I didn't say they were Satanists. They're believing Satan's way, and they're under Satan's influence, but they're acting like Christians.

Galatians 1, turn there, please. The devil not only has counterfeit Christians, he has a counterfeit gospel. Verse 6, Galatians 1. "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel." The suggestion there is that the gospel that is the true gospel is the gospel of grace, "which is not another."

In other words, there can't be another gospel. There can't be two gospels. There can only be one good news from the heart of God. "But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert"—distort—"the gospel of Christ."

Now, what is the gospel of Christ? Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians 15. You know the passage. "I delivered to you of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried. He arose again the third day according to the Scriptures. He was seen of witnesses." That's the gospel. It's the good news that Jesus Christ has died for lost sinners, and those who will believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved.

Now notice what he goes on to say. Galatians 1:8, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than that we have preached to you, let him be accursed," anathema. "As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone"—no matter what his degrees—"if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed."

There is a false gospel believed by false Christians who then have a false righteousness.

Turn to Romans, please, chapter 9. Romans 9. This passage deals with the Jewish nation, but it illustrates what's going on among Gentiles. Romans 9:30, "What shall we say then?" Well, we'll say this, "that the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith." Did you notice that? It's faith. Wherever there's grace, there has to be faith. Wherever there's faith, there has to be grace. "But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness." Why? "Because they did not seek it by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law."

We are not saved by making promises to God. We're saved by believing the promises of God. "For they stumbled at that stumbling stone, as it is written, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone, a rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.'" "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel, they may be saved."

We could put the word church in there. My heart desire and prayer to God for multitudes of church members is that they might be saved. "For I bear them witness they have a zeal for God," that sounds like the Pharisees, "but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God."

The devil has false Christians who believe a false gospel and practice a false righteousness. Where did they get this? From false ministers. Turn to 2 Corinthians 11. We'll be touching upon this in our morning studies, but I want to look at it now. 2 Corinthians 11:13. Paul's talking about the crowd that got into the Corinthian church and wrecked it.

2 Corinthians 11:13, "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ." The word transform there means masquerade. Masquerading as the apostles of Christ. "And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light."

If you were to see Satan, you would not see a creature of ugliness with a long pointed tail carrying a pitchfork. He's too smart for that. He is an angel of light. "Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers"—the devil has ministers—"also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." False Christians who believe a false gospel, who have a false righteousness because they believe the message of false ministers.

Now, we could go on. I'll just wrap it up in this area by saying it's all going to culminate, of course, in a false Christ. The word Antichrist not only means against Christ; it means instead of Christ. The Greek prefix means instead of. There will one day be a false Christ who will head up a false church, and the world will follow him.

So much by way of illustration. Let's come to the important part: the application. What does it mean to us today? It means, first of all, we had better examine ourselves to be sure we are in the faith. How easy it is to grow up in a Christian home, be surrounded by Christian influence, and have a false righteousness, having never submitted—oh, what a word that is—submitted to the righteousness of Christ.

In fact, Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, "Examine yourselves to see whether or not you are in the faith." "Not everybody who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' enters into the kingdom of heaven. In that day," said Jesus, "many," not a few, "many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, we have done many wonderful works. We have preached. We've done so much in your name,' and I'm going to say to them, 'I never knew you.'" That little word "many" frightens me.

An evangelist friend of mine who has been in evangelism for 60 years, who has preached in many parts of the world and up and down the country of the USA, he said to me one day, "I have come to the conclusion that half of the people in our churches are not born again. They just think they are."

Now, it's not my task tonight to have you go to bed worried and disturbed. Some people live in a perpetual autopsy. No, you don't have to do that. You know whether or not you're born again. You know whether you've got the Spirit of God witnessing in your heart. You know when you open the word of God that God talks to you. You know when you gather with the people of God, the Spirit witnesses to you. And as you sing "Amazing Grace," you've experienced it. You know that. You can't experience a miracle and not know it.

Now, you may not know when it happened. I wouldn't know my own physical birthday if my parents hadn't told me. I was too dumb when I was born to notice what it was saying on the calendar. It's not important that you can pinpoint on July 14th, no. But if you've got that witness of the Spirit down inside, and the word of God talks to you, and you're at home with the people of God, you've got the real thing. But it's possible somebody here tonight is a false Christian.

When I was at the Moody Church in Chicago, I could walk out the front door and walk over to the Gold Coast to visit. Astor Avenue and the Gold Coast there, where the people were very well dressed, they were out walking their cute little dogs that had all been manicured and everything, and lovely people, cultured people, religious people. It was so hard to witness to them. So hard. Because they didn't need anything.

But if I went the other direction, if I went west instead of east, I found myself in Old Town, where the street people lived, and you'd see folks sometimes lying in the gutter, and those people knew they needed something.

Now when our Lord looked at the publicans and sinners, He was over in Old Town. He said, "These folks need something, and I'm here to give it to them." And they know they need it. But when my Lord went and walked down Michigan Avenue and Astor and some of those other places, He saw the other crowd, and with anguish in His heart—not anger, anguish in His heart—He said, "Oh, generation of vipers."

My second application is this. Let's stay awake. Did you notice when this all happened? While people were sleeping. "While men slept," the enemy came in and sowed the counterfeit. That's how schools go liberal. While somebody is on the board is sleeping, in comes somebody who just doesn't have the real thing, but he acts like it, and before long, the school is gone.

Now sleep is a wonderful thing. God made us to sleep. I thank God for tiredness. Do you? I do. When I go to bed at night, I just thank God for tiredness, and I love that time when you're just drifting off. You don't feel the bed; you don't feel it. Some of you are there now, I think.

But sometimes I've been awakened in the night by the dog across the yard barking. Jack lives in a little pen across the yard from us, lovely, lovely retired hunting dog, and I hear Jack bark, and I know one of two things. Either somebody is back there who's not supposed to be there, or a rabbit is running across the yard, and he doesn't like that. But I'm glad he barks.

I read about a lady in Texas who had a watchdog, and the dog slept too much and didn't bark, so she trained a duck to keep the dog awake. That's kind of complicated. I'd get a new dog, and I'd eat the duck.

Now, friends, what I'm going to say now may offend some of you. God bless you. I love you anyway. In some churches and some ministries, there is so much repetition of the same leadership that they go to sleep. You got to have a blood transfusion occasionally, get a few new folks on the board, get a few new folks in the ministry. They'll come in and say, "Well, how come we're doing this?" "Never noticed that." "How come we didn't see that?" Because you were asleep.

Children do that to us. It's so much fun to have little children in your home, or grandchildren; they ask questions. They aren't afraid to ask questions. "Grandpa, why do you do that?" "Well, I don't know. I've always done it." Don't go to sleep. Don't go to sleep. It's time to wake up. It's high time to wake out of sleep! I don't know who it was used to preach the sermon that had the following points: lullaby, rock-a-bye, bye-bye.

Now there's a third application I want to make. Let God plant you where He wants you. The purpose of seed is planting to bear fruit. "You have not chosen me, I've chosen you, that you should go and enjoy life." Well, if you want to enjoy life, finish the verse: "that you should go and bring forth fruit." At the judgment seat of Christ, the most important thing is: have we been faithful, have we been fruitful?

Now you may not see the fruit, and by the way, the seed doesn't eat the fruit; somebody else does. You may never see the fruit. I was in a meeting sometime ago where a lady came up to me, and I didn't know her. She smiled at me and she said, "When I was a little girl, I visited the church you pastored just for one Sunday, and that Sunday I got saved." Now my guess is I went home from that service saying to my wife, "Well, that was a waste of time." But it wasn't a waste of time.

Let God plant you where He wants you. Some of you folks are retired. Have you said to God, "We're willing to be planted someplace else"? Talk to Dave Hansen about all the opportunities that are available in mission ministry around the world. I mean everything from carpenters and dorm parents, and, you name it. My wife and I have had the privilege of traveling to many missions—to many mission fields, different mission fields—and there we meet retired people having the time of their life! Being planted.

Now it may not be in a mission field. Nothing wrong with retirement; just don't retire from life. Let God plant you where He wants you. Maybe there's a young person here tonight, and God's talking to you and saying, "I want you, I want you," everybody else is saying, "No, you don't want to do that." You do what God wants you to do. Let Him plant you where He wants you.

I have a fourth application I want to make. Take the long view of life, and you'll get along better. The servants came running in and said, "Where did these weeds come from?" "Well," he said, "an enemy did that." "Well, let's go out and rip them up." I wish that all the money and time and energy that's going into ripping up the weeds would go into planting the seeds.

Now, I'm for good laws and for good things to help people. I want this world to be as good a place as it can be. But if we spend all of our time ripping up the—the weeds, who's going to be out planting seeds? Not talking about church discipline. He's not talking about church discipline. The field is the world, not the church. In the church we must have discipline.

I get discouraged sometimes. I really do. The Lord knows about it, and you know about it. Doesn't bother me. Spurgeon used to hit such depths of discouragement, he'd just go off someplace, hear somebody else preach. He couldn't preach himself; just go off and hear somebody else preach.

One day he heard a man preach one of his sermons. And he went up with tears in his eyes and said to the young pastor, "Pastor, thank you for that message. It blessed my heart." He said, "Mr. Spurgeon, that was your sermon." Spurgeon said, "I don't care where it came from. It did me good."

I get discouraged sometimes. Then I got to get the long view. The harvest is not the end of the broadcast. The harvest is not the end of the meeting. The harvest is not the end of the evangelistic campaign. The harvest is the end of the age. And you know who the Lord of the harvest is? Jesus. And you know who owns the field? He does. It's called His field.

The devil doesn't own this world. He's just an interloper, an enemy, who's creating all kinds of trouble for us. The Lord Jesus owns the field, and He runs the harvest, and He's going to take care of the tares in His good time. My job is not to categorize people, sit around with my computer and figure out who's wheat, who's tares. That's not my job. I have to use discernment. Oh, I've got to exercise discernment, I know that. I want to take the long view of life.

Now if you're not truly a child of God, beware. Beware. Judas had every opportunity, every opportunity to become a Christian. Every opportunity. And at the Last Supper, when they were gathered there, and Jesus washed his feet, and Jesus at the Passover handed him the sop, you know what it says? Not the Holy Spirit entered him; the devil entered him. He was born again from below, not from above.

It's a dangerous thing to resist the grace of God. It's a dangerous thing to pretend the righteousness of God. It's a wonderful thing to be a child of God and let Him plant you and then bloom where you're planted.

Let's pray. Before we close the meeting—and you've been so gracious tonight, as you always are—is there somebody here who is not really sure of salvation? You don't have the witness of the Spirit of God in your heart. Now, if you don't, ask the Lord Jesus right now to come into your heart and save you. I'll be here at the front. David Hansen will be here at the front after the service, and if we can be of help to you in counsel, my wife is available, the Latchaws are here; we're glad to help you. I don't want anybody to go away with a false confidence. If you're worried about the place where God has planted, you let Him worry about it. Just bloom where you're planted.

Thank you, Father, that Jesus taught us some of the devices of the Devil. Help us to be awake. Help us to be available. Plant us where you want us, bring forth the fruit that you want us to produce, and be glorified in it. And Father, I pray that anyone here tonight who needs the Savior will trust the Savior and experience that wonderful miracle of the new birth. This is our prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.