"Christians are often tempted to get into 'weed pulling'. Do you know what I mean by that? We are so anxious to clean this world up for God that we say, 'God, we're going to pull the weeds up.' The owner of the field says, 'Don't pull the weeds up, you might destroy the wheat.' When the harvest is ripe, the angels, says Jesus, will come. They are the reapers, not us. We are the labourers, to produce the harvest. It is the angels who will come and take the tares out of the harvest field which is the world - not the church. They will take out of the world everyone who does evil and everything that causes evil, and throw the weeds on the fire.
In fact, by the grace of God we are called to turn weeds into wheat. When I went to Winnipeg, I was intrigued. They put me on television as soon as I arrived. I happen to have read a bit of the history of Winnipeg and discovered to my astonishment that an ancestor of mine had founded that city by emptying the Scottish highlands of people to make room for sheep, and sending them off to the Red River. So I said, 'I'm happy to be here because you wouldn't be here but for my family, so I'm really interested to be here.' That really got them listening, even the cameraman. But I said: 'In the early days, the pioneers came here and they established the city, and the next group to come along were the prostitutes, and the women came to take the money off the pioneers. The next groups to come along were the families, and then after the families came the evangelists and the pastors to start churches, and that was how the mid-west towns were established. Then the churches decided to have a united anti-evil crusade, run the prostitutes out of Winnipeg and close down the red light district. All the churches rose up in enthusiastic union. They did it, and they cleaned the town up and the women moved further West, and all the Christians thought this was a great victory. I am not sure that the Lord thought it was. They pulled the weeds up, but Christians did not go to those prostitutes and tell them of the love of God. The gospel is not getting rid of them that way - and not one preacher preached to the men who had been their customers to tell them to repent.'
If we are not careful we are going to get into a 'weed pulling' crusade in this country and think that that is Christianity. Think that though very carefully. The Lord will come with his angels to deal with godlessness and we must look for his coming and pray for it, and leave judgement to Him. Our task is the task of getting people saved and making sure there is wheat growing, because the wheat and weeds will both grow together. Some Christians talk as if the church is going to get so strong we are going to push Satan across the English Channel. He can go to France and they can cope with him - as if we are going to clean up England. We are not. The kingdom of Satan is going to get stronger in England. There are other Christians, who are natural pessimists and take the opposite view, saying, 'Oh, we're in the last days. Aren't things terrible? Things are going down and down - in fact, when the Lord comes back, there could be only you and me, and I'm not sure if you're sound.' Have you heard that kind of talk? I am a realist who believes with Jesus that both are going to grow together - the kingdom of God is going to get stronger and stronger and the kingdom of Satan is going to get stronger and stronger, and there will be an increasing battle between them and increasing confrontation, until finally Jesus Christ and Antichrist face each other, and I know who is going to win because that is when Jesus will come with ten thousand angels. He has not told the church to establish the kingdom. The angels will establish it finally, but Jesus has told us to get on and announce it, and get everybody we can into the kingdom. That is a balance which is needed in Christian thinking." - David Pawson (A Commentary on Jude, 2011)
What a quote, huh? I was recently reminded of this and felt like sharing it - to me is such an accurate portrayal of modern Christianity, which seems in many ways to have 'lost the forest through the trees' as it were. Our calling universally, as Christians, is to share the Good News with everyone around us. If we a) commit ourselves to personal discipleship and b) commit to living that out and sharing the message of God's promises, Jesus' life/sacrificial death on the Cross, and the certain Judgement to come, we are sure to make an impact, in concert with the Holy Spirit, within our own spheres of influence. Put another way - if we commit to living as Jesus' disciples and to obedience to His words, the rest of it (concern and care for the poor/widowed, concern and care for the oppressed/marginalized, etc) will fall into place. It must be so, because as we emulate the conduct, cares and concerns of Jesus, we will inevitably start to see the world through His eyes as He changes the attitudes and appetites of our hearts.
Two More Points:
First, anything that we do within the Church, whether it is feeding the hungry or advocating against some political idea (abortion, for example), whatever it is - if it is not coupled with the message of The Gospel, then it is merely delivering people from temporal suffering and delivering them to eternal damnation. Feeding people and standing up for Biblical morality and advocating for the marginalized and oppressed are all good things, noble things even. But if those things are done without connecting people to the reason WHY we are doing them, we not only miss the opportunity to share the ETERNAL hope that we have, but we fail to care for people in the ways that matter most.
Second, we live in an age where a lot of people have an inflated sense of their sphere of influence. I'll share my favorite meme below that illustrates this, but my point is undeniable. Many people, especially younger people, go around thinking that there are oodles of people curious about everything they're doing and thinking. Social media gives people the false impression that their platform is large. In reality, for most of us, our actual sphere of influence is small. My point here is that we are never going to root out the major ills of society and culture. We can talk until we are blue in the face about how evil systemic racism is and about how the Church needs to be the catalyst for change...but all of that is talk. What we ought to be doing is finding out how we can make a difference for the people right in our own communities. Can we help a neighbor? Can we serve meals in our community? Can we help the people in need right around where we live? Start there. Stop talking and start actually serving people and opening your mouth to share the good news of the Gospel of God.
In Isaiah 2:4 we read, "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples." This verse can only be true if there continues to be dispute and disagreement, right up until the end. My point is - we aren't going to have Justice, complete justice, this side of Jesus' return. That doesn't take us off the hook, but with an accurate view of what we can influence, we can start making a small difference within our own communities. We can stop talking about helping others and do it. We can start opening our mouths and sharing the message of Truth to a world that is losing hope. We can stop being 'weed pullers' and instead, with God's guidance and help, start turning weeds into wheat.
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