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The Enemy Sowed the Tares

The birth of the Catholic Church…

ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMNT, a significant event of great misfortune will occur for those who are not considered part of the “good seed,” referred to in the scriptures as “tares” in Christ’s parable:

“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”  [Mathew 13;24-30 NKJV]

THE SON OF MAN SOWED THE GOOD SEED

According to Christ’s parable, the “kingdom of Heaven” (or God) is likened to “a man who sowed good seed in his field”:
“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field.”
(Reference: Matthew 13:24 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
The “sower of the good seed” is the “Son of Man” (or the Lord Jesus Christ):
“He answered and said to them: ‘He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.”
(Reference: Matthew 13:37 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
The “good seed” that was sowed by Christ are the “children of the Kingdom”:
“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; …”
(Reference: Matthew 13:38 KJV)
According to the Lord Jesus Christ, the “kingdom” is given to the “flock”:
“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
(Reference: Luke 12:32 NKJV)
The “flock” referred to is the “Church of Christ”:
“Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to feed the church of Christ which he has purchased with his blood.”
(Reference: Acts 20:28 Lamsa, Emphasis Mine)
How the “Son of Man” (the Lord Jesus Christ) sowed the “good seed” (the Church of Christ)? The Lord Jesus Christ built His Church: 

“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

(Reference: Matthew 16:18 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
The Lord Jesus Christ built only one Church. He said, “I will build My church.” He did not say, “I will build My Churche(s).” This Church was called in the name of Christ because:

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

(Reference: Acts 4:12 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
Thus, the Church built by Christ is called “Church of Christ”:
“For just as the human body is one and yet has many parts, and all its parts, many as they are, constitute but one body, so it is with the Church of Christ.”
(Reference: I Cor. 12:12 NTME)
Even Catholic authorities testified that the Church built by Christ is called “Church Of Christ”:
“5. Did Jesus Christ establish a Church?
“Yes, from all history, both secular and profane, as well as from the Bible considered as a human document, we learn that Jesus Christ established a Church, which from the earliest times has been called after Him the Christian Church or the Church of Christ.”
(Reference: Doctrine and Practice for use in Catholic High Schools, 12th and revised edition, By Francis Cassilly, S.J.; Imprimi Potest: Charles H. Cloud, S.J., Imprimatur: George Cardinal Mundelein, Loyola University Press, 1934, p. 442-443, Emphasis Mine)

THE ENEMY SOWED THE TARES

This parable of the Lord Jesus Christ proves that there is only one true Church that Christ built, the Church of Christ. Why, then, are there many churches today? How have they come about? According to the parable of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is what followed:
“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.”
(Reference: Matthew 13:24 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
The “enemy” came “while men slept” and sowed “tares.” The “enemy” who sowed the tares is the devil:
“The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.”
(Reference: Matthew 13:39 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
The true Church of Christ is likened to the “good seed” sowed by the Son of Man (or established by the Lord Jesus Christ). Aside from the Lord Jesus Christ, was there anyone else who built other churches? Yes, the “enemy” or the devil. The devil sowed “tares” (the true Church of Christ is likened to “good seed,” thus, the “tares” are the false churches).
The devil sowed “tares” while “men slept.” What the Lord Jesus referring by “sleep” is death:
“These things He said, and after that He said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.’ Then His disciples said, ‘Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.’ However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead.”
(Reference: John 11:11-14 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
Apostle Paul explained to us who were those “asleep” or dead after whose passing away the devil sowed tares. This is what he said in Acts 20:29-30:
“For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.”
(Reference: Acts 20:29-30 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
Apostle Paul said, “…after my departure…from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” He is referring to his death (Acts 20: 25, 37-38, and II Tim. 4:6).
Thus, after the death of the apostles, the enemy sowed the tares, or the devil established the “false church.”

HOW THE TARES WERE SOWN?

It was not the devil himself who will come and establish the false church (the “tares” as mentioned by the parable of the Lord Jesus), but he will use an instrument:

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

(Reference: II Thessalonians 2:9-12 NKJV, Emphasis Mine)
They will come according to the working of Satan (the Devil), “with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with unrighteous deception.” They will make the people “believe the lie that they all may be condemned.” They are those Apostle Paul referring to in Acts 20:29-30:
“I know that after I leave, fierce wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. The time will come when some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them.”
(Reference: Acts 20:29-30 TEV, Emphasis Mine)
When Apostle Paul said, “I know that after I leave,” he was referring to his death. Thus, after the death of the apostles, Apostle Paul warned us that “some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them.” This is how New International Version rendered this verse:
“I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them.”
(Reference: Acts 20:29-30 NIV,Emphasis Mine)
Thus, after the death of the apostles, “from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things” (NKJV), “some men from your own group will tell lies” (TEV), and “from your own number men will arise and distort the truth” (NIV). Who were those referred to by Apostle Paul that “among them” or “from their own number” men will arise telling lies or distorting the truth? This is what the Bible says in Acts 20:28 and 30:
“Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood.
“And from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.”
(Reference: Acts 20:28, 30 ASV, Emphasis Mine)
So among the bishops will rise those who will tell lies or who will distort the truth. Apostle Peter calls them “false teachers”:
“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.”
(Reference: II Peter 2:1-2 NKJV,-Emphasis Mine)

As Apostle Paul said, “from your own number men will arise and distort the truth,” Apostle Peter said, “there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring destructive heresies.” Hence, both Apostle Paul and Apostle Peter explicitly proves that “false teachers” or “false prophets” that will be used by the devil to teach lies to lead the disciples astray came “among the numbers” of the teachers or bishops of the first-century Church of Christ.

Thus, the enemy will “sow the tares” through the “bishops” that will rise, distorting the truth or telling lies. The devil is the father of lies (cf. John 8:44). Hence, lies are the teachings or the doctrines of the devil. What are some of the lies that will be taught to the first-century Church, and what will happen to them as they embrace these lies? Apostle Paul answered:
“But the Spirit speaks expressly, that in latter times some shall apostatise from the faith, giving their mind to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons speaking lies in hypocrisy, cauterised as to their own conscience, forbidding to marry, [bidding] to abstain from meats, which God has created for receiving with thanksgiving for them who are faithful and know the truth.”
(Reference: I Tim 4:1-3 The Darby Translation,-Emphasis Mine)

The Bible said, “…giving their minds to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons… forbidding to marry, [bidding] to abstain from meats…” Because of this, they were “apostatized.” Which church teaches and implements these doctrines? The Catholic Church forbids their priest to marry; they call this doctrine “clerical celibacy”:

“Although celibacy is not expressly enforced by our Savior, it is, however, commended so strongly by Himself and His apostles, both by word and example, that the Church felt it her duty to lay it down as a law. The discipline of the Church has been exerted from the beginning in prohibiting Priests to marry after their ordination.”
(Reference: The Faith of our Fathers By James Cardinal Gibbons, Ninety-third Carefully Revised and Enlarged Edition, Publisher: John Murphy Company, New York, R. T. Washbourne, Ltd., 1917, p. 379, Emphasis Mine)
The Catholic Church also commands her members to abstain from meat on certain days of the year:
“1. What does the second commandment of the Church order us to do?
“It orders us to fast and abstain from flesh meat on certain days of the year.”
(Reference: Manual of Christian Doctrine: Comprising Dogma, Moral, and Worship By A Seminary Professor, 6th Edition, Nihil Obstat: Remy Lafort, S.T.L., Imprimatur; Patritius Joannes, Publisher: John Joseph McVey, 1906, p. 317, Emphasis Mine)

Thus, through the apostasy of the first-century Church of Christ, the church established by the devil emerged. The rise of the “apostate church” is the fulfillment of what the Lord Jesus Christ said, when men are asleep, the enemy will come and sow the tares.

The fulfillment of the “tares” points and commences with the establishment of the Catholic Church when the First-Century church of Christ underwent a drastic transformation after the departure of Christ and His apostles. The church became a very different institution and unrecognizable or changed its nature when compared to the first-century church established and built upon the teachings of Christ and the apostles after it had entered the Great Apostasy:

“For fifty years after St. Paul’s life a curtain hangs over the Church, through which we strive vainly to look; and when at last it rises, about 120 A.D. with the writings of the earliest Church-fathers, we find a church in many aspects very different from that in the days of St. Peter and St. Paul.”

(Reference: Story Of The Christian Church By Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, D.D. New Revised Edition with a foreword by Daniel A. Poling, D.D., S.T.D., LL.D. Copyright 1933, p41, Emphasis Mine)

“The Imperial Church of the 4th and 5th centuries had become an entirely different institution from the persecuted church of the first three centuries. In its ambition to Rule it lost and forgot the spirit of Christ.

“The Church had Changed its Nature, had entered its Great Apostasy…“

(Reference:  Halley’s Bible Handbook by Henry H. Halley, Pub: 1965 p. 760, Emphasis Mine)

THE TIME OF HARVEST

The Bible depicts the “tares” to be gathered at the time of “harvest” which is the day of judgement where the tares or the false churches will be gathered and cast into the lake of burning fire: 

“Let the wheat and the weeds both grow together until harvest. Then I will tell the harvest workers to pull up the weeds first, tie them in bundles and burn them, and then to gather in the wheat and put it in my barn.’” (Matt. 13:30 GNT, Emphasis Mine

What does harvest signify, who are the harvesters and what does it mean that the weeds will be burned? Christ further explains:

“…The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.

“Just as the weeds are sorted out and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the world.

“The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. And the angels will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

(Reference: Matt. 13:39-40 NLT, Emphasis Mine)

Therefore, it is clear that the “harvest is the end of the world” and the weeds represent the  false churches and its followers in which they will be burned or cast into the fiery furnace by the angels. The “fiery furnace” is no other than the lake of fire on the day of judgement which is known as the “second death” (Revelation 2:11, 20:6, 20:14, and 21:8).

This is why through God’s words recorded in the holy scriptures, He admonishes us to get out of Babylon which represents the Catholic Church and any church or offspring of the Catholic Church that Satan has planted in the field (world) and taken part in her sins and deception:  

“I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of Babylon, my people, so that you do not participate in her sins and suffer from any of her plagues.”

(Reference: Revelations 18:4 GWT, Emphasis Mine)

“Then I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out, my people! Come out from her! You must not take part in her sins; you must not share in her punishment!”

(Reference: Revelations 18:4 GNT, Emphasis Mine)

IN CONCLUSION

1

WE KINDLY EXTEND our visitors an invitation to explore the pristine, unadulterated teachings of Christ and His apostles as they were taught in the first-century Church Of Christ. These teachings presented here is the path that leads to eternal life for all on that appointed day of Judgment:

The Apostasy

AFTER THE DEATH of Jesus Christ and His Apostles, the Apostasy took place. Christians were hunted down, persecuted, and killed, causing the church to drift from the original teachings of Christ and His Apostles. False teachings emerged, leading to the contamination of the pure doctrine. With the Apostles no longer around to defend the truth, the Church Of Christ evolved into a different organization ( the Catholic Church), adopting many pagan rituals and deviating from the pristine gospel established by Christ. This era is known as the “Great Apostasy.”
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