Sons of the Evil One are the weeds in Jesus’ parable of the field.
The good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one.
The enemy who sowed them is the devil.
They grow in the same world until the harvest.
The parable is not a license to hunt faces.
It is the Lord’s explanation of a mixed field and a coming fire.
Jesus interpreted His own story.
- The Son of Man sows sons of the kingdom.
- The devil sows sons of the evil one.
- The two crops share soil, rain, and time.
- They do not share a father.
John records Jesus telling some who claimed Abraham that they were doing what they had heard from their father, and that their father was the devil, a murderer from the beginning who does not stand in the truth. John also wrote that whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, and that the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s works.
Genesis had already set enmity between the serpent’s offspring and the woman’s. Sons of the evil one, then, are not a secret caste the church is told to catalog. They are the counter-sowing: people whose life and lie line up with the enemy who planted them. They can sit in rows that look religious. They can look like wheat until the grain heads. The servants are forbidden to rip the field apart ahead of the angels.
The King will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers.
Until then the church preaches, discerns fruit, and refuses both naivete and a crusade of uprooting.
- The title comes from Jesus’ interpretation, not from later scare language.
- Two sowers. Two seeds. One field. One harvest.
- Fatherhood here is moral and spiritual: whose word you hear and whose works you do.
- Looking like wheat for a season is part of the warning.
- The church is not the reaper. Angels are.
- Destroying the works of the devil is the Son’s mission. Imitating the devil’s sowing is not ours.
- Enmity was promised in the garden. The parable shows how that enmity grows in public.
- Sown by the Devil – An enemy did this while men slept.
- Weeds among Wheat – Close growth; delayed separation.
- Father of Lies – They hear and do his word.
- Practice of Sin – 1 John ties “of the devil” to a way, not a single fall.
- Law-Breakers – Gathered out at the end of the age.
- Not the Church’s Harvest – Let both grow until He says.
- Doomed Crop – Bound for the fire; the righteous shine.
- Matthew 13:38-42 – “The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.”
- Matthew 13:28-29 – “He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’… ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.’”
- John 8:44 – “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
- 1 John 3:8-12 – “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil… By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.”
- Genesis 3:15 – “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
- Matthew 23:15, 33 – “You travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves… You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”
- Acts 13:10 – “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?”
- Ephesians 2:2 – “…following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”
- John 8:37-40 – Abraham’s seed by flesh, yet seeking to kill Him because His word finds no place in them.
- 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 – False apostles; Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
- Matthew 7:15-20 – False prophets; you will recognize them by their fruits.
- Revelation 12:9 – The great dragon, that ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.
- Psalm 58:3 – “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.”
- Matthew 25:41 – “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil.
An enemy has done this. Let both grow until the harvest.
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.
Cain was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
Do not appoint yourself the angel with the sickle. Do not call every opponent a weed to excuse your hate.
The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil.
At the end of the age the reapers will gather the weeds for the fire. The righteous will shine. Hear.
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