Devotionals

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Bad Seed

Matthew 13:37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.

Acts 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

Hayfields are not fun. As the old saying points out, you have to cut hay while the sun shines. In the middle of summer, out in a big field with little or no shade, putting up hay in stacks, or loading it onto trucks, is downright miserable. Besides the heat and the sweat, the grass makes you itch, and tiny bugs we called chiggers compound the problem.

One thing about hayfields, like wheat fields, is that there are always weeds among the grass, no matter how well tended the field is. It just isn't possible to separate out the weeds while the grass is growing, but you can do that to some extent once the hay is cut. With wheat, the process of separation is much more thorough, as indicated in Christ's parable. As long as the wheat is growing, though, so are the weeds. This reduces the size of the harvest, and takes nutrients away from the wheat plants.

We Christians don't like to accept the idea that the Devil goes to church. We assume that, once the ushers close the doors, Satan politely stays outside. Not only does he attend, through those who serve him, but he listens and watches closely. We might expect that he uses nonmembers, avowed sinners. To an extent, he does, but mostly he uses people whose names are on the church roll. After all, these are the ones that attend meetings, offer opinions, cast votes, and carry out the work of the church. These are also the people with the most potential to cause damage to the church's ministry.

Paul calls them savage wolves among the flock. They may attend church faithfully, teach Sunday school, serve on committees, and even get elected as deacons or chosen as pastors. They have one main fault: they never truly accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. Sadly, many of them don't even realize they were never born again, because they didn't really understand what it meant. They assumed if they came forward in a church service and repeated the right words, that was all it took. Nothing really changed in their lives, except that they "got religion

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