The Wheat And The Weeds

In his parable of the wheat and the weeds, Jesus spoke of a man who sowed fine seed in a field. But "while men were sleeping," an enemy came and over sowed weeds. Hence, the wheat came to be obscured by the weeds. Jesus explained his parable in these words: "The sower of the fine seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; as for the fine seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil." He then showed that the wheat and the weeds would be allowed to grow together until "the conclusion of the system of things," when the angels would "collect out" the symbolic weeds. - Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

What Jesus and the apostles Paul and Peter warned about happened. "While men were sleeping," either after the apostles fell asleep in death or when Christian overseers became drowsy in guarding the flock of God, Babylonish apostasy sprouted right inside the congregation. (Acts 20:31) Soon the weeds greatly outnumbered the wheat and hid it from view. For a number of centuries, it might have appeared that the seed of the woman had been completely engulfed by the voluminous skirts of Babylon the Great.

In the 1870's anointed Christians began to make determined efforts to disassociate themselves from the whorish ways of Babylon the Great. They abandoned false doctrines that Christendom had bought in from paganism and boldly used the Bible in preaching that the times of the Gentiles would end in 1914. The chief instrument Babylon the Great, the clergy of Christendom, opposed these stirrings of restoration of true worship. During the first world war, they took advantage of wartime hysteria to try to stamp out that small group of faithful Christians. In 1918, when their activities were almost completely suppressed , it appeared that Babylon the Great had succeeded. She seemed to have triumphed over them.

As we previously noted, the proud city of Babylon experienced a disastrous fall from power in 539 B.C.E. Then the cry was heard: "She has fallen! Babylon has fallen!" The great seat of the world empire had fallen to the armies of Medo-Persia under Cyrus the Great. Although the city itself survived the conquest, her fall from power was real, and it resulted in the release of her Jewish captives. They returned to Jerusalem to reestablish pure worship there. -Isaiah 21:9; 2 Chronicles 36:22, 23; Jeremiah 51:7, 8.

In our century the cry that Babylon the Great has fallen has also been heard! Babylonish Christendom's temporary success in 1918 was sharply reversed in 1919 when the remnant of anointed ones. The John class, was restored by a spiritual resurrection. Babylon the Great had fallen as far as having any captive hold on God's people was concerned. Like locusts, Christ's anointed brothers swarmed out of the abyss, ready for action. (Revelation 9:1-3; 11:11, 12) They were the modern "faithful and discreet slave," and the Master appointed them over all his belongings on earth. (Matthew 24:45-47) Their being used in this way proved that Jehovah had utterly rejected Christendom despite her claim to be his representative on earth. Pure worship was reestablished, and the way was open to complete the work of sealing the remnant of the 144,000-the remaining ones of the seed of the woman, the age-old enemy of Babylon the Great. All of this signaled a crushing defeat for that satanic religious organization.

Next time: Endurance For The Holy Ones.