In the last message we saw that the good earth is the people according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. The constitution is a complete description of the good earth, of one who is poor in spirit and pure in heart, who has no worldly traffic within him, whose being is not hardened, who has no hidden rocks of temper, lust, self, and flesh concealed within him. All this corresponds to the requirements given in the constitution. Those who are the good earth have no thorns, no anxiety of life, and no deceitfulness of riches. Therefore, they become the good earth in which the seed can grow. This good earth is the people who live according to the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. In other words, their living exactly matches the constitution.
The kingdom of the heavens is built by the multiplication of the seed. The sower sows the seed, the seed grows and multiplies, and eventually the multiplication of the seed becomes the constituent of the kingdom. This reveals that the kingdom is not built by any kind of work, but that it is built by the multiplication of the seed sown by the sower. Christ came as the sower sowing Himself as the seed of life. This seed of life enters humanity to bring forth fruit, the sons of the kingdom. This is the multiplication of the seed. The kingdom is built by this multiplication. Therefore, the kingdom is the multiplication of the seed sown by the sower. The sower Himself is the seed, and the multiplication of the seed is the multiplication of the sower. Hence, the kingdom is built with the multiplication of Christ. The kingdom is the enlargement of Christ, the multiplication of Christ as the seed sown into us. If we see this, we shall know what kind of living we should have and in what kind of situation we should be so that we may participate in the kingdom. Having seen this matter, let us now proceed to consider the second parable (13:24-30, 36-43).
Verse 24 says, “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to a man sowing good seed in his field.” With the second parable the Lord began to say, “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to,” because the kingdom of the heavens began to be established when the church was built (16:18-19) on the day of Pentecost, the time when the second parable began to be fulfilled. It was from that time, after the church was founded, that the tares, the false believers, were sown amidst the true believers, the wheat.
The kingdom of the heavens began with the second parable. This is the reason the Lord used the words “The kingdom of the heavens was likened to.” These words were not spoken by the Lord in the first parable because at that time the kingdom of the heavens had not yet come. Rather, that parable was concerned with the preliminary work for the kingdom of the heavens. But at the time of the second parable, the kingdom of the heavens had come; thus, the Lord said that the kingdom of the heavens was likened to a man sowing good seed in his field.
The parable of the tares is easy to understand. In the first parable the seed sown by the sower was the word of the kingdom. Verse 19 says this clearly. But in the second parable we see that the seed has developed into the sons of the kingdom (v. 38). Firstly, this means that the seed was the word sown into humanity and, secondly, that it has grown into the sons of the kingdom. In the foregoing message I pointed out that the seed is the word with Christ in it as life. According to the second parable, this seed grows into us, the kingdom people, the sons of the kingdom. Therefore, the wheat is the sons of the kingdom, the real believers, those regenerated with the divine life.
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