The "Ergotized" Kingdom And The Farmer Who Saves The Crop

I should be attending my Monday chores of cleaning up the house after the weekend onslaught of messes but I think this is a more important matter. All weekend long I have been reflecting on the Matthew 13 parable Jesus told his disciples about the darnel and the wheat; the word Mercy kept scrolling through my mind as I thought about the story.

As the heading note in The Chronological New Testament states, "It is important to understand the term, "Kingdom of Heaven". Found only in Matthews gospel, it describes the current age in which we live." It is important to understand the wheat is the true followers of Christ and the darnel is the many deceptions that lead one astray. One can list many, many things that fall under the darnel category.

As I read the story and got to verse 29, the reason the word mercy was so prominent in my thoughts made sense. The servants of the field had found out the enemy sowed weeds in the framers field and asked the farmer if they should take care of the problem immediately. The farmer replied, "No, lest perhaps while you gathered up the darnel weeds, you root up the wheat with them."

Darnel is called false wheat, it looks just like real wheat except it has unworthy attributes. (See the amazing facts below taken from botanical.com by Mrs. M Grieve)

1)When Darnel has been given medicinally in a harmful quantity, it is recorded to have produced all the symptoms of drunkenness: a general trembling, followed by inability to walk, hindered speech and vomiting.

2)The ancients supposed it to cause blindness, hence with the Romans, lolio victitare, to live on Darnel, was a phrase applied to a dim-sighted person.

3)The alleged poisonous properties of Darnel are now generally believed to be due to a fungus.

4)It is said that the country people of Cheshire believed Darnel to be 'degenerated wheat'

5) In the East it is a more serious enemy to the farmer, and in the low-lying districts of the Lebanon and other parts of Palestine it becomes alarmingly plentiful. If inadvertently eaten it produces sickness, dizziness, and diarrhoea. It would seem that the 'malice aforethought' of sowing this wild grass deliberately (as in our Lord's parable), was a not unusual practice. The following is a quotation from an old newspaper:

'The Country of Ill-Will is the by-name of a district hard by St. Arnaud, in the north of France. There tenants, when ejected by a landlord, or when they have ended their tenancy on uncomfortable terms, have been in the habit of spoiling the crop to come by vindictively sowing tares, and other coarse strangling weeds, among the wheat, whence has been derived the sinister name of the district. The practice has been made penal, and any man proved to have tampered with any other man's harvest will be dealt with as a criminal.'

6) Chemically the seeds contain an acrid fixed oil and a yellow glucoside, but as far as microscopical appearances indicate, the Darnel contains nothing that is not contained in wheat, and analysis has not yet revealed its poisonous elements.

I find it amazing that even modern science has trouble distinguishing the false from the real and in the case of darnel, a new word to describe its malice has been created in order to describe it. The word is ergotize and means to be poisoned by grain...

Can you see why the farmer said to wait until harvest? Can you see how sneaky the evil sower is trying to"ergotize" the real? (Religion, in ALL sects, forms and denomonations worldwide certainly are candidates for being placed under that "darnel" category.)

Can you see the wonderful act of grace and compassion in the decision of the farmer? He waits until the harvest where only a trained eye can distinguish the real from the fake. Isn't He the only one who knows our hearts? (Jeremiah 17:10)

The good news of the wheat and the darnel parable is this; the farmer; Jesus, came to fulfill the promises given in order to save us from being strangled out by the darnel. If we keep our eyes on Him, take up our cross and follow Him, learn to submit to what His will is through obedience made possible only through a daily relationship, we can be made ready for the harvest and "shine forth like the sun." (Matthew 13:43). The field is the world, the wheat is the real and the darnel is the false.

Jesus and all He has done and IS, is MERCY. He is the "farmer" that constantly tends to the crop, surveying the heart (substance) that seeks His truth. He makes strong those "stalks" of wheat that reject the facade of the darnel as it bides its time growing in the Kingdom of Heaven side by side.

The truth will set you free...(John 8:32) even in a world choked with weeds...