======================================================================== WHEAT AND TARES by Randy Krahn ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the desires of the flesh. It addresses the need to confront sin, repent, and return to the Lord, highlighting the dangers of division, accusation, bitterness, and the presence of tares among believers. The speaker urges listeners to bear the fruit of the Spirit, avoid works of the flesh, and choose to serve God wholeheartedly, seeking to become like Jesus and bring forth sweet fruit in their lives. Duration: 34:36 Topics: "Walking in the Spirit", "Bearing Fruit of the Spirit" Scripture References: Galatians 5:16, Hebrews 10:26, Galatians 5:22, 1 Peter 4:17 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon emphasizes the importance of walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the desires of the flesh. It addresses the need to confront sin, repent, and return to the Lord, highlighting the dangers of division, accusation, bitterness, and the presence of tares among believers. The speaker urges listeners to bear the fruit of the Spirit, avoid works of the flesh, and choose to serve God wholeheartedly, seeking to become like Jesus and bring forth sweet fruit in their lives. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Good morning, let's pray. Lord, we're just grateful that we can be gathered together and to spend time one with another. We thank you for knitting us together by the power of your spirit and in love. We just invite the Holy Spirit to continue to work in our midst. Let's pray that you would continue to bring conviction, that you would bring revelation of where we're at spiritually, that we could confess, repent, and return in Jesus' name. Amen. I was dealing with a situation this morning of a division that's trying to come in a fellowship. And there's a scripture that says that we need to guard against having a divisive spirit among the brothers, a spirit of accusation. You know, whenever there's accusation, when the devil would go and stand before the Lord and he would say something about someone, he would make an accusation of Job and say, well, the only reason Job is serving is because you've given him all this stuff and you've blessed him with family. And, you know, he would go and make accusations as we shared last week about Joshua the high priest. And he would say, look, here's this guy and he accused him of his filthy garments. And like Dan shared last week, those things are generally true. He points out fault and he points out areas where there's areas that are not right and areas that are not good. And there's a way in which we can deal with these things properly, but just running one another down and being divisive is not tolerated in the house of God. It says if we're divisive, it says we're to warn a divisive brother once, warn a divisive brother twice. And after that, absolutely have nothing to do with a brother like that, because he's proud, he deceives himself and he shows bitterness among the brethren. Now there's time when I've been bitter and I understand that bitterness is a real thing. You can come bondage to that. We have to acknowledge it when we see it. We have to humble ourselves and fight against it so we can get victory over it. So we don't poison one another with the seeds of bitterness. The Lord loves it when brothers dwell together in unity. That's where the oil flows. That's where he commands a blessing. I've shared it in months past that the oil, it falls like from the dew of Herman and it comes on the head and it touches Aaron's beard and to the cloak and falls to the ground, but it doesn't come in contact with the flesh. It never hits the flesh. And if we want the anointing and the love of God to flow among us, it has to be by the spirit, not by might nor by power, it has to be by the spirit. It can't be this flesh kind of love. There's a lot of things that seems like, well, I know he's divisive, but we need to love. Well, when the word says that someone's divisive and you exhort them and you're patient with them for months and they continue to speak ill of one toward another and bring divisions, those ones that cause divisions, it speaks of them in Jude, those who cause divisions. And it's important for us to understand if we want the oil of the spirit to flow, then we need, and we want his blessing, then we need the Holy Spirit to work among us, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. I wanna read a passage in Galatians in chapter six. I believe Dan actually might've read it or quoted it already, and it says, Galatians rather in chapter five, verse 16, I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit. Here we see two powers at work. We see the flesh, the sinful nature, the pride and the rebellion that is battling in the flesh. And we see the good that we can do when we're walking in the spirit and the love that we have when we're in the spirit. And I've seen brothers who sometimes flow in the spirit and walk in the love of God. And I've also seen them when they become carnally minded and they just start speaking in the flesh and they get themselves into a bad way. And we have to be able to quickly identify, hey, I'm in the flesh here, but it says you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. So I'm behaving as though I'm carnally minded here and I need to repent of this and turn. And I think of a passage where Jesus speaks, well, John the Baptist is speaking and he says, I baptize you with water from Matthew three. But he says, there's one coming after me whose sandal straps I'm not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit fire. And his winnowing fork in his hand and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. And he'll gather the wheat into his garner into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. What I see here is a war with brother who's struggling between the flesh and the spirit. He's struggling between the good I wanna do and the evil that I hate. And he's seeking to become conformed and to become like Jesus. And so he gives the identification of what the flesh looks like. So we can identify and recognize it when it manifests in our life, because Jesus is coming to destroy the flesh, to burn it with unquenchable fire. We've been buried with him in baptism unto death. And so also we are raised in the likeness of his resurrection. So he says here, walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the sinful nature, the flesh. And so we need to put off all these things. We need to repent and renounce and return to the Lord when we see these things, as we're struggling to become a wheat, as we're struggling to become one of his precious sons and daughters. Now on the contrary to that, there's a parable in Matthew 13 about the wheat and the tares. And it says that a man went and he sowed good seed in his field. It says the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. But then while men slept, while elders slept, while pastors slept, while deacons slept, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, little my time, little me time, little doing what I want. And all of a sudden people creep into a gathering. I know the field is the world, but it also, the church is in the world. That's where he found his special treasure. He found it in the world. And all of a sudden there's tares that are sowed among the wheat. And most people cannot identify the tares. They don't have the discernment to identify the tares because a tare is someone who might be a good person who looks just like a wheat, who comes and attends church meetings, who quotes scripture perhaps, but an enemy sowed them. God did not sow them, an enemy sowed them and they're different than the wheat. And I'm gonna say something. Chaff is not a tare. Chaff is different than a tare. We don't wanna confuse the two. A tare is a son of the wicked one. His root is bad, his heart is bad. He looks like a wheat. He acts like a wheat. He looks like a lamb, but all of a sudden he speaks like a dragon. He has two horns like a lamb, but all of a sudden he speaks like a dragon. And there's poisonous in his tongue and there's bitterness in his heart and he's full of iniquity like Simon the sorcerer. He might be someone who the brothers baptized from Acts 8. He might be someone that was accepted among the brethren. And all of a sudden because of his love for money, because of his pride, because he seems to be something, he wants to be a somebody. He wants the honor of men. Next thing you know, he says, hey, can I buy the Holy Spirit with money? And there were some brothers there. John and Peter were there and they discerned this guy's heart's not right in him. And he said, your money perish with you. Who would say that to someone among the brothers? Someone full of the Holy Spirit who can identify a tear. Not someone who's struggling to shed chaff, but someone who is a tear, whose heart is not right in them. You have neither part nor portion in this matter. Not a part, not a portion. There's no good in there. An enemy sold them. Why did they baptize that brother? It says because he believed. He was among the believers. And just because you begin to believe, it doesn't mean that you're gonna be a wheat. There were people in John eight who believed in Jesus and Jesus exhorted them and said, come to me to be free. And all of a sudden their anger and their bitterness rose up. And Jesus was being patient with them. He said, listen, a slave does not abide in the house forever. There's a time when tears will be cut down. He said, repent. Repent and be converted that times of refreshing can come from the Lord. We continue to read here in Galatians in chapter five and verse 17, I read it already. It says the flesh, the sinful nature, it's lusting for the things of the world and it's against the things of the spirit. There's a hostility. And I'm gonna go on to say that the flesh, the sinful nature among us as believers were to reckon ourselves dead to sin from Romans six. This is the chaff. This is what the Holy Spirit is going to come to burn out of your life. This is where the Holy Spirit is working in us to thoroughly fan the chaff and separate the wheat from the chaff so that we might bear good fruit to God to deliver us from things like the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, outbursts of anger. Brother, sister, this is chaff. We have to get the victory over it. These are things that if we continue to give into them, we'll give a place to the devil. Because it says the spirit that now works where? On the shoulder of the sons of disobedience? Or does he work in the sons of disobedience? It says the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, we don't wanna be partakers of that. And so what happens is we come to justify that Christians have demons. I was at a meeting one time and I had this prominent deliverance guy say, I said, so you're saying Christians can have demons? And he said, no, I'm saying demons have Christians. And I said, so wait a minute now, we're in a big meeting and we have to guard against this thing because we have to be able to rightly discern what the spirit says. I said, so what are you saying right now? I said, so these Christians who have these demons or these demons who have these Christians, if they die in that state, will they go to heaven? And from the pulpit, this man said in a meeting where there are hundreds of people, you can go to Vancouver and sleep with a prostitute right now and God will forgive you. He preached that from the pulpit. This is another gospel, this is a different Jesus. We need to guard against this kind of teaching. When we look in Revelation chapter two and chapter three, it says that there's certain things that we need to hate, that the Holy Spirit hates, there's certain teachings. The teachings of the Nicolaitans, the teachings of Jezebel who seduces and teaches people to commit sexual immorality. So if it's okay to walk in the flesh and to be in the spirit and to be born again and to practice sin and have an assurance of God's forgiveness and to preach that from the pulpit, this is a different gospel. Now there's many people who fall into sexual sin as believers, David one of them. There were heavy, heavy, heavy consequences for that sin. And in his case, God had mercy on him. But we're not guaranteed that we're gonna have forgiveness of willful transgressed sin. Because he says in Hebrews in chapter 10, 26, if we willfully go on sinning, we come to church, we listen to the gospel, we love the word of God, we receive it with gladness, and then things get tough. And then we go to Vancouver and we go and satisfy our lusts by sleeping with other women. And then we say, Jesus, forgive me of my sins. And then we come back on Sunday to church. And then the preacher tells us, if you go to Vancouver and sleep with a prostitute, God will forgive you. And it makes provision for the flesh to obey it in its flesh. But we're not to be slaves of sin. A slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son. And Jesus was telling those Jews who believed on his name in John eight, come to me to be free. Jesus never made provision for the flesh to obey it in its lust. They told Simon the sorcerer, you are dead in sin and trespasses. Your heart is full of iniquity and bitterness, repent. And he said, pray that none of these things that you've spoken will come upon me. A true holiness preacher of God does not make provision for sin. We extend mercy and compassion. We say, implore the Lord, there's mercy with God, but we never make provision. Because there is something called willful sin. And it says also in Numbers, I believe it's in chapter 15, even in the Old Testament, presumptuous sin, there was no sacrifice. And in the New Testament, he said, those who practice willful presumptuous sin, they blaspheme the Lord. There's something called blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And in Hebrews 10 and 26, it says, if we willfully go on sinning, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, you know it's sin, you know it's wrong, yet you've made it a license. You've turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, into a license to sin. And you choose to believe a lie, and you go and you practice sin, you live in sin. It says, you insult the spirit of grace. And it says, that vengeance is mine and I will repay. It speaks that these people who receive the blood of Christ, by which they were sanctified, they were set apart. It says, they crucify themselves afresh, the son of God and put them to open chain. They insult the spirit of grace. We have to be careful that we willfully don't go on sinning. If we know something's wrong in our life, and we see that we are bound and we are enslaved to something we need to repent, confess and return. Therein lies forgiveness of sins. Perhaps God in his mercy will have pity on us, and have compassion on us. We don't wanna make soft sell of sin guys. We wanna be holy and pure. We wanna become part of the bride of Christ, that perfect spotless lamb of God, who doesn't cover over the sin. He takes away the sin of the world. His name shall be called Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua for some of us. The name above every name, that every knee shall bow in heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess Jesus is Lord. Some will confess Jesus is Lord. Have you made him Lord? Is he ruler of life over you? Have you given him the right to rule over your life? If you're still struggling as many are, with the flesh, we wanna continue to look at this in verse 19, the works of the flesh. Idol worship. Anything you love more than the Lord Jesus is an idol. Anything you spend more time on, and just engulfed your mind, you're just meditating on other things. It might be some car or truck that you just rub that thing with a diaper and you love it more than Jesus, it's an idol. Might be worth two grand, but it's an idol. It might be a fancy pair of shoes, when you're in Haiti and you have the best pair of shoes among the brothers and you just love those shoes, you just rub those things, you just thank the Lord for those things, those things are in your heart, because if somebody touches them or dirties them, oh, you just get so angry. It's not about the thing, it's about the heart. The love of money is idolatry. We can love things and we can love money. It says, do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The love of the Father, the love for brothers, the love for Jesus. Jesus is God's love poured out into our hearts. Jesus is not in you. The love of the Father is Jesus, the Holy Spirit. We can apply it to many things. If we love the world and we're lukewarm, and we honor God with our lips while our heart is for all these other things, we deceive ourselves. He says, I will vomit you out of my mouth in Revelation 3. Only time God vomits is when he finds a half-hearted Christian that's not serious about loving God with a whole heart. Idolatry, sorcery. Some people use manipulation. Some people are actually into witchcraft. It says rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft. When we're rebellious against the authorities that God's put over our life, as a woman being rebellious to her husband, as Saul being rebellious to Samuel's authority, as a man being rebellious to his boss and not subjecting himself to his boss's authority, as the church people being rebellious to the authorities that God has placed over them, even if they sometimes don't do everything perfect. God has an order. Sorcery, God hates it. Hatred, there's no place for hatred. Hatred is like murder. Oh, I hate that brother. I hate that sister. Hatred is murder. It's the spirit of Cain. We need to repent, renounce, and return. Cain said he was envious of his brother. Envy will produce hatred. He said, sin is crouching at the door. He told Cain, he gave him an opportunity to repent. He says, it's desirous for you. You better overcome it. You have to master this thing. And what did he do with God's counsel? Whatever, he went out in the field. He grabbed the stone. He took it and he smashed his brother in the head and killed him. He destroyed his brother because of bitter envy and self-seeking. He wanted to be first. These are things we have to guard against, repent of. How about this one? Outbursts of anger, jealousy, contentions, one with another, selfish ambitions. There's so many selfish ambitions in our heart of things that we just want to attain to. There's a good thing. You can have dreams and you can have desires, but when those desires become passion, it's as having crucified the flesh with its passionate desires. These desires cannot drive us. Our love for the Lord has to be the one that we drive after. Heresies, we need to love truth. We need to hate lies. We need to be a lover of truth. That's why we study the scriptures and that's why we listen to preaching, that we can rightly divide the word and understand what the spirit is saying to us. How about envy and murder and drunkenness and taking of pills and using of drugs? These things will destroy us. It says, and I've told you in times past, as which I tell you even now, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. We can inherit the kingdom of God on earth. Did you know that? When you receive the Holy Spirit and you're walking in the spirit, you are filled with righteousness of God, the peace of God and the joy of the Lord. And we translate from this life into the next. Though we die, it says, yet shall we live. And though we live, we shall never see death. And the kingdom of God can extend past this life into the eternal. That eternal life is in the spirit and it's in the son. He who has the son has the life. The one who hath not the son hath no life, if only the wrath of God abides on him or her. And so these are the works of the flesh. These things is the chaff that he's coming to burn with unquenchable fire. This is the winnowing fork that's in his hand. And he's coming to thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the garner. This is the sanctification process by which we who are wheat, who have good roots, need to allow the Holy Spirit to deal with us. And I'm gonna quote from 1 Peter 4 and 17. It says, brothers, don't think it's strange concerning the fiery trials or the winnowing fork or the thorough cleansing that's coming into your life as though some strange thing has happened to you, but rejoice that you become partakers of Christ's suffering, of his holiness, that his glory may manifest so that we would become men and women who live in the spirit, who walk in the spirit. Now the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is how we identify wheat. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love. That's the commandment, brothers and sisters, love from a pure heart, from a good conscience toward God and from sincere, genuine, saving faith. This is what we need. We need the Holy Spirit to deliver us so that we would walk in love one toward another. This is how they know that we're Christians. Love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But there's a perverted kind of love. There's a kind of love where we make compromises, where we, you know, love covers a multitude of sin, we understand that, but we don't turn a blind eye to willful, habitual sin that's unrepentant and causing other people to sin as a result. We wanna be free from sin. We don't have to point out every fault. There's two types of sin. There's sin unto death and there's sin not unto death. One sin we pray about and the other sin we don't pray about. I'll briefly clarify that. A sin unto death is some of the things that we read here. The works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, outbursts of anger, envy, some of these different things. When people have a knowledge of sin, they know it's wrong. You've heard the confessions and now they're back practicing those things again. These are things we don't pray about. These are things we confront. You say, hey, brother, I see that, you know, you're into the pornography again. This is not a good thing. You've confessed it a few times now. It's not good and you need to get the victory over this. If you're really serious about it, we can fast and pray and there's deliverance for you. I use it as an example because the number one confession, not just in this church, but in most places, is pornography, sexual sin, number one confession. And the internet and the phones and the things, the computers are hooking us and driving us into things that are not good in our search for things and our curiosity and our free time. We're not investing in the things of God. We're investing in the things of carnality and flesh and it's leading people into sin. These are things we confront. But if there's things committed in ignorance, sin's not unto death. Now, all of us are at different places and some people are committing things and they don't have light on it. They don't understand because they're just barely escaping. We don't have to confront everything. We say, Lord, give them light on these things. And we pray for people. I would say a lot of the things that we encounter or we see in people's lives are things we need to pray about. We need to pray for one another, encourage one another and pray for one another. And there's a time to confront sin unto death. You say, hey, if the brother or sister practices this thing, they're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you. There's a right way if we go into Ephesians and chapter six to talk about how, or rather Galatians chapter six and talking about how, we did talk about that a few weeks ago, how to deal with a brother or sister overtaken in a trespass. That's confronting sin. The fruit of the spirit, love, joy, the peace of God, long suffering with people, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh. They've put to death these things that we once struggled with. We're no longer walking after the flesh. We're bringing thoughts captive. We're not allowing them to get those thoughts to get into our members to obey it in its lusts. We're allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our life. We crucify passion and desire. We spoke of those things already. Verse 25, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let's find ourselves in the spirit, not becoming conceited nor provoking one another nor envying one another. It speaks also of this Esau, this man Esau. There were two brothers who came from the same womb and God knew the end of the matter and the choices that they would make in their life. Because God is all knowing. And you say, well, why would God judge us if there was no hope for a guy like Esau? There was hope for Esau. God gave him ample opportunities to repent and to make good choices. And he persisted in his unfaithfulness. He persisted in his rebellion and he persisted in his sin. And then when he sought the blessing and he diligently cried and he sought repentance with tears, there was no place found for him because he had bitter envy himself seeking in his heart. We don't wanna come to that place where we once been enlightened. We've become partakers of the Holy Spirit, of the divine nature. We've tasted of the good word of God and of the power of the age to come. And then we fall away from grace, the earth that often drinks in the rain and is refreshed by the word and by the teachings of Christ. And then it's near to being cursed the ground. May that not happen to us, brothers. We have a better hope than that. That we would come to that place where there would be no hope for us because we've crossed that line of blasphemy. We've blasphemed the Lord one too many times. Blasphemed the Spirit. Let's be careful. Let's be on guard. Let's choose the fear of the Lord. This thing is a key to life. It will guard our hearts from backsliding. It'll guard our hearts from the flesh, from living for the flesh, from lust of the flesh. It's an effort as Dan shared to enter by the narrow gate. We have the saying on the wall, for the gate is small and the way narrow that leads to life. There are a few who find it. It's a choice. It's a conscious choice to say, you know what flesh? The Lord rebuked you. I'm reckoning myself dead to sin. I'm not walking in this. I'm gonna shut this down that things rattled in my mind before I go and I put my hand to something that is sin. I wanna walk in the Spirit and not make provision for the flesh to obey it in its lusts. But these tares, they're among us this morning. They'll always seem to be among us because seemingly men have slept and they've crept in unaware. Jude said they crept in. They were participating with them in their love feasts, in their communion service, while they were feasting among them without fear. And that's the difference. There's a people who have no fear of God. And then there's God people who tremble at the word of God and say, Lord, let it not be me. Whenever those pruning shears come, we don't know if it's coming to prune us and discipline us as sons, or whether it's an ax coming to chop us at the root because we're using up the ground and we're not bearing any fruit. God is patient. He's long-suffering, wishing none to perish, but we can't abuse his mercy and his kindness. We can't take advantage of that. Brothers, sisters, we need to choose who we wanna serve. You wanna serve the flesh? And if you're gonna fight in the flesh, then what you're gonna find is you're gonna find you're fighting against God. Or maybe you're not a wheat at all. Maybe you're a tare. And it says, then all of a sudden, when the wheat came up and began to produce fruit, then all of a sudden the tares appeared. I wanna share something about the tares quickly. The tare is called a darnel or darnel. It's not a wheat. And the seeds, it just looks very similar to a wheat and they're growing together in the field. But the tares, the seeds are poisonous. That's flesh. That's full-blown flesh. Bitterness, envy, self-seeking. And when the fruit manifests, we're able to discern, hey, that's not a brother. That's not a sister. That's a tare. And those of us who see the works of the flesh manifest in our life, we say, hey, I don't want to, I don't wanna end up like this. I don't wanna be a tare. Jesus, save me. Have mercy on me. Help me. And all of a sudden, he allows trials to come in our life. I was with a brother and he said, I've been praying for patience. You wanna know what happened? Lot of problems. Lot of problems come because God has to cause us to endure hardship as good soldiers. You wanna be patient? You want patience? Then God has to bring trials. We just want to have this downloaded in six minutes what God took six years to do. That's a deception. To do in six minutes what took six years, that's a deception. God wants us to become conformed into his likeness. Have you ever seen a seed go in the ground and become a pear in six minutes or six years? It takes time for a fruit tree to grow so that it bears. I have some fruit trees. In the second year, they're growing already some. I go with a scissor and I cut them off because there was one year I did it and the whole branch broke off because of the weight. A plum tree. Almost half the tree came over because of the weight. It can't support it. And so the pruning is very necessary so that the tree can grow, the roots can become strong, the branches can become strong. Even the thinning of the fruit, it's all a mystery how God does it. He does it beautifully and perfectly. That we might bear better and sweeter. Those plums, there was many, but they were sour. Those pears, there were many, but they were hard. They never ripened. We don't want to be this kind of Christian. Say, oh, I have these friends and they're just, oh, it's always sour, sourness there. We want to bring fruit to maturity. We want to become sweet. So when people encounter us, there's a sweetness of Jesus that's coming forth from your life. That's the hope that we have. You say, well, I'm not there yet. The hope is that he's going to do exceedingly and abundantly more than we've talked about this morning, than we've asked or imagined, that he's able to finish the work that he's begun if we will continue to persevere with Christ, if we will continue to press on, fixing our eyes on Jesus, if we're continue to throw off the sins and not just the sins, but every weight, all these cares of life, these deceitfulness of getting ahead and these desires for pleasures that war against us. I struggle myself. We have to cast these things off so that we might bear sweeter, so that we don't bring this fruit to no maturity. We just stay sour Christians. That doesn't glorify God. It says he's glorified when we bear much fruit and when the sweetness of Jesus and the sap of the spirit is flowing in our life. May the Lord give us understanding in these things and may he help us to become like Jesus. Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/qtWB1_ngAJA.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/randy-krahn/wheat-and-tares/ ========================================================================