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Tares Among the Wheat, June 22
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I
will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind
them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
Matthew 13:30
.
In this world we shall become hopelessly perplexed (as the devil wants
us to be) if we keep looking upon those things that are perplexing, for by
dwelling upon them, and talking of them, we become discouraged.... We
may create an unreal world in our own mind or picture an ideal church,
where the temptations of Satan no longer prompt to evil, but perfection
exists only in our imagination. The world is a fallen world, and the church
is a place represented by a field in which grow tares and wheat. They are
to grow together until the harvest. It is not our place to uproot the tares,
according to human wisdom, lest under the suggestions of Satan the wheat
may be rooted up under the supposition that it is tares. The wisdom that
is from above will come to him who is meek and lowly in heart, and that
wisdom will not lead him to destroy, but to build up the people of God....
None need to err, none need to lose the golden moments of time in their
short life history through seeking to weigh the imperfections of professed
Christians. Not one of us has time to do this. If we know what is the
manner of character Christians should develop, and yet see in others that
which is inconsistent with this character, let us determine that we will
firmly resist the enemy in his temptations to make us act in an inconsistent
way, and say, “I will not make Christ ashamed of me. I will more earnestly
study the character of Christ in whom there was no imperfection, no
selfishness, no spot, no stain of evil, who lived not to please and glorify
Himself, but to glorify God and save fallen humanity. I will not copy the
defective characters of these inconsistent Christians; the mistakes that they
have made shall not lead me to be like them. I will turn to the precious
Saviour, that I may be like Him, follow the instruction of the Word of God,
which says, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’”
(
Philippians 2:5
)
[180]
30
The Review and Herald, August 8, 1893
.
183