Seed or Weed Pastor Luz Quiñones

Amen.

Praise God.

So today's sermon is titled Weed or Seed, as you guys can see on the screen.

So turn to your neighbor and ask your neighbor, are you a seed or are you a weed?

So I'm I brought the Bible today.

So I told Pastor Leslie, I was like, You're gonna give me some time because now I gotta flip through pages.

Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

We're gonna start verses 24 through 30.

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 sow 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 the how then does it have tares?

And he said to me, he said to them, An enemy has done this.

The servant said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up?

But he said, No, lest while you gather them 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.

Amen.

So whoever watches the sermon, whether it's later on YouTube, I hope y'all still love Pastor Luce after this.

Amen.

So I know this probably is a parable that everyone knows, has heard it, right?

The wheat and the tares.

So a parable, for those of you who don't know what a parable is, it's a short, simple story used to illustrate moral or spiritual lesson.

That's the definition.

Okay.

So think of the tortoise and the hare.

So in the tortoise of the hare, that's a story that I've known since elementary school, right?

Like, just keep going, just keep going, you'll make it there, right?

So, what is the purpose of a parable?

I'm gonna go back a few verses.

It's not on the screen, Eli.

Um, I'm gonna read verses 10 and 11, still in chapter 13.

And the disciples came and said to him, Why do you speak to them in parables?

He answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

And that reminds me of y'all ever talk to somebody about the Bible, and it don't matter how you word it, how you say it, how many times you explain it, they still be like, I don't know, I don't get it.

Right?

And so that's how it is sometimes.

Some people just ain't, they're not gonna get it, right?

So I find it interesting as we read this passage that the sower didn't realize that there were weeds thrown into his seed until they started sprouting.

Right?

That makes me think of the enemy.

He plants a seed, something that you don't notice, right?

Because it takes time.

These things don't just sprout overnight.

If you if you've ever planted something, it takes time for things to grow, right?

So the enemy plants a seed, it starts to grow, then you realize that the seed isn't as good as you thought, right?

There were some seeds, some weeds thrown in that you thought were seeds, but as it grew, you realized it was a weed.

So the weed could be a new habit, it could be a new friend, it could be a new hobby.

Sometimes things seem innocent and insignificant until time unfolds.

Then you see the fruit of that weed.

It starts to pull you further and further away from God.

Bad things don't feel bad anymore.

Bad people are now tolerable.

So the servants ask him if they should gather the weeds, but the sower tells them no.

Let's look at why that's significant.

Whenever I read the Bible, I do a deep dive.

I don't know if anybody else is like me, but there is a reason, right?

So we know that back then a lot of Jesus' parables had to do around agriculture because that's what they knew and understood.

Right?

Nowadays, if Jesus was here, his parables would probably be about TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram or Snapchat, because that one in the back.

So why is it significant?

What is a seed, right?

So a good seed is planted and it's wanted, okay?

It grows fruit, food, flowers, bushes, trees, right?

Whatever.

But it's something that you want.

If I want the front of my house to look nice, I'm gonna plant some nice flowers, bushes, whatever.

If I want to grow apples, I'm gonna plant apple seeds.

So a weed is a wild plant that grows where you don't want it.

Okay.

So let's talk about good seed.

You have to be intentional when you plant a good seed according to your desire.

If I desire an apple tree, I'm not gonna plant seeds that are gonna grow an orange tree because that's not what I desire.

So, as I said, seeds also make things beautiful.

A good seed, right, is gonna make things beautiful.

But you know what good seed also needs?

It needs watering, it needs fertilizer, it needs nurturing, it has to be tended to, right?

Throughout the whole lifespan of that thing.

So I have a plant that someone gifted to me at home, and it started growing white stuff on the top.

So my mom loves to plant, and I'm like, mommy, I don't know why there's white stuff on the top.

It's gonna die.

Clearly, I was not tending to the plant.

So here comes mom to the rescue, and she fixed it.

She messed with the soil and everything, and we saved the plant, right?

So a good seed is not something that you can just plant and walk away from.

It don't work like that.

You have to take care of it.

Now, what is a weed?

There's nothing really good about weeds.

Some weeds are medicinal, like dandelion leaves, right?

People use dandelion leaves.

But if you didn't know this, most weeds are actually poisonous.

Weeds come from seeds that are either already dormant in the soil or they're introduced from the outside.

So, for example, this is something that I just learned.

Fun fact, if y'all didn't know, y'all gonna know today.

So a dandelion.

We have a whole bunch of dandelions on our grass.

They start off as a flower, but then they turn into those little puffballs that kids love to, right?

When you blow those little puffballs, those are seeds.

So as they're flying through the air, if they find some good soil, you done messed up that person's load.

Because it's a weed, right?

And so again, something that a child, because Jarelli thinks that dandelions are beautiful flowers, she picks them all the time and she brings them inside to me for me.

But they're actually a weed.

So why is a weed bad?

Weeds cause problems because they aggressively compete for the resources your plants need to survive.

Weeds grow taller and faster than surrounding plants, casting shade, which um stops the plant from photosynthesizing, right?

Because you don't know plants need sun, they're not gonna grow if they don't have sunlight.

They also can regenerate.

And I know this because, again, my lawn, we're gonna do something about that lawn.

But we can cut the lawn today, and tomorrow, we're gonna see a few more weeds that I thought were gone, but clearly we're not.

Okay, dense weed growth physically steals the root space your plants need to expand and grow strong anchors.

So I want you to pause for a second and think of the weed that's in your life.

The thing that sucks you dry, that you allow to suck you dry.

The people that are around you that you refuse to uproot from your life.

They take your peace, they take your joy, happiness, desire to do good, to grow your relationship with God.

Sometimes weeds are family, friends, co-workers, spouses.

Yes, I said spouse.

Weeds host harmful insects and fungi, acting as a bridge that brings pests and disease directly to your prized plants.

They also release toxic chemicals from their roots into the soil to actively stunt or kill neighboring plants.

So, why am I going so deep into this?

Because I need you guys to understand the severity of having a weed in good soil next to a good seed.

So, how do you get rid of weeds, right?

In our modern day world, manual removal, you pluck them out, right?

But you have to take them from the root.

You can't just grab, like Jareli does, she goes and picks flowers in our backyard and they grow right back.

You have to take it from the root.

But in taking it from the root, you're also gonna take some grass with you because, as I just read, their roots entangle.

You can do physical barriers.

So, for example, if you want to plant a flower bed, you would put plastic down or cardboard or something that goes in between, right?

So the weed cannot continue to grow.

And then there's chemical treatments, my favorite.

Right?

That's what we do.

We buy something connected to the hose, and we go around our backyard, and they unfortunately well, not for unfortunately, they die, but they do come back.

So this is so you see, if you kill a flower, and I'm gonna throw you under the bush, Pastor Les threw some killer on some bushes that we had in the front of the house because he was tired of them and they died.

He did it on purpose, clearly.

But then they look so ugly, but they never grew back.

When we treat our grass for weeds, this is two times a year.

This isn't just a one and done the weed killer and they're gone.

They continue to grow back.

Let's talk about the tares, which is a weed.

Okay, the official name of it is called darnal.

A darnal is extremely poisonous if consumed.

In the early stages of growth, it's almost impossible to tell wheat and tears apart.

If workers tried to pull the weeds, they would accidentally pull the wheat too.

So as you can see, the wheat and the tear is almost identical.

So that's what they look like once they're pulled, once they're fully mature.

The tares are, hold on, smush.

Sorry, Eli.

The tares are a little darker than the wheat, and then go to the next slide.

So leave that, leave it right there.

The more the tares and the wheat grows, the easier it is to tell them apart, right?

So if you look at it as bunches, you can see that clearly they're completely different, right?

But in the early stages, everything is green.

They're not different colors yet, right?

They all look the same.

So you're looking at a field of green.

Is that not true in our spiritual walk?

The more you're exposed to a person, the easier it is to tell if they're a seed or a weed.

People only allow you to see the version of themselves that they want you to see.

Right?

As they say, actions speak louder than words, right?

Eventually, their fruit or lack thereof will show.

So, how can you tell them apart?

I'm gonna explain how they tell them apart, okay?

The heads, as the heads appear, you're gonna see that they form ears or seed heads.

It takes about three months.

They have posture changes, so wheat ears become heavy with grain, which causes the stalks to bow, and the tares stay light and standing straight up, and then the color shifts.

Right?

Wheat turns golden, whereas the darno turns a distinct dark purple or black color.

I use Chat GPT just so y'all could get an image because I could not find one on Google.

All right.

So, what is the process of separating the wheat from the tares?

In ancient times, it ain't even ancient, but to me it's ancient, right?

Way back in the day, separating the poisonous tares from the wheat was a meticulous multi-step process that required both careful handpicking and traditional grain processing.

Because eating Darno could cause sickness, blindness, death.

Okay, farmers had to be very thorough.

So, first they're gonna gather them with their hands.

Keep it on the other slide, Eli.

No, go back.

Yep, leave it there.

So, first they gather them with their hands.

Teams of reapers would walk through the field, specifically looking for the tall, upright, dark stalks of the mature darnal.

They would cut or pull them down individually, bundle them together, and burn them to prevent their seeds from dropping back into the soil for the next year.

This is a whole process.

The second step, the next slide, is called threshing the fields.

So once the patches of tars were removed, the remaining wheat was harvested and taken into a threshing floor.

This was a flat, hard surface, usually built on a hilltop to catch the wind.

Oxen would walk over the piled stalks, or farmers would beat them with heavy sticks to crush the plants and break the edible grain away from the outer husks.

So that's pretty much an image of what it would look like for step two.

Step three, it's called winnowing by the wind.

After threshing, the farmers use a large wooden fork or shovel to toss the mixture high into the air.

This process is called winnowing.

The chaff, incredibly light, papery husks were instantly blown away by the wind.

The wheat, because it was heavy, would fall to the floor.

So after the threshing, that's basically what they would be left with, right?

So you have the seeds, which you can clearly see, and then you have the chaff, which are the little pieces.

Nowadays they have machines that do all of that, but they would literally just throw it into the air and the wind would take the chaff and the seeds would fall.

The fourth and final step was direct hand sorting.

God bless all the farmers that we have out there, even though there's technology now that they probably don't have to go through this, but in some countries they probably still go through this whole long process.

Okay, so even after all these three steps, some Darnell seeds still make it into the wheat pile.

Why?

Because they're similar size and weight.

Okay?

So now you have a group of people, workers, women, they spread them across, and now they're dividing.

They're taking out the plump golden brown wheat kernels and taking out the toxic seeds so that they can turn the wheat into flour.

Okay?

So now we know the difference between seed and a wheat, and we know the process of separating the two.

So let's look at the explanation of the parable that Jesus gives us in chapter 13, verses 36 through 39.

I'm going to start with.

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house, and his disciples came to him, saying, Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.

He answered and said to them, He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.

The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.

The enemy who sowed them is the devil.

The harvest is the end of age, and the reapers are the angels.

I'm gonna pause there for a second.

So the good sower is Jesus, the field is the world, the good seed, God's people, the weed, evil people, the enemy, the devil, the reapers, the angels, right?

Jesus clearly gives them exactly what the parable meant, but it says that he took them aside.

He didn't explain the parable in front of everybody.

He was like, I need y'all to understand what I'm saying.

I want to talk about the enemy because it's just it's been big, I think, on my mind probably for the last month or two.

We all know that the enemy can't create, but he can corrupt, right?

So for every good thing, there's a bad thing.

He's a master manipulator and he counterfeits everything.

So I'm gonna use this as an example.

He has what we call mediums or psychics, right, which would be his version of prophets and seers.

Except they can't see the future because he doesn't know the future.

What can he see?

He knows your life, he knows your generation's life, right?

Because if you really study and look into what they do, right, um, they watch you.

And I'm not saying the devil himself watches you because he's not omnipresent, he can't be everywhere at once, right?

But he knows your life, he knows your triggers.

And so some people think that Satan is powerless because the Bible says that we go from victory to victory, but that doesn't mean that Satan doesn't have power here on earth.

So I want to read Exodus 7, 8 through 12.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, Show a miracle for yourselves, then you shall say to Aaron, Take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and let it become a serpent.

So Moses and Aaron went into Pharaoh, and they did just so, just as the Lord commanded, and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers, so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in the like manner with their enchantments.

For every man threw down his rod and they became serpents, but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.

Why did I read that?

To show that the enemy has power.

Right?

We think that because we serve God, these things can't touch us, or that these things don't happen.

Right there you see perfectly that the enemy is like, Oh, I could do that too.

Right?

You want to make a serpent, I'm gonna make more than one serpent.

But what happened?

The one that Aaron had ate up the other ones, right?

Let's go to Luke 4, verses 5 and 6.

Luke 4:5

Then the devil, taking him up on a high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

And the devil said to him, All this authority I will give you and their glory, for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours.

This he was talking to Jesus, if y'all don't know that.

That's who he was talking to right here.

So he's saying, I have authority over all of this.

The world is his, we just living in it.

Okay.

Last verse I'm gonna use for this.

1 John 5 19.

We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

We are of God, but this world is owned by the devil, right?

So when we think that he's powerless, that's where we go wrong.

Because we think that just because we serve an almighty God, we are immune to the things that the enemy does, and we're not.

He has authority here.

And if you don't believe me, go read the story of Job.

Right?

The devil took his wealth, his health, his family.

And I know what y'all are gonna say, but Pastor Luz, he had to ask permission.

Yes, he did.

Right?

The Bible says that he went before God and he's like, let me let me have at it, right?

And God told him, You can touch anything you want except his soul.

But what's the difference between us and Job?

The Bible says that he was a blameless and upright man that fears God and shuns evil.

God says that more than once.

So what does it mean to shun?

It means to persistently and deliberately avoid, ignore, or reject someone or something.

So the blameless and upright man or woman in this place, please raise your hand.

None of us.

None of us can raise our hand to say that we qualify.

Do we shun evil?

The enemy throws you a thought that you know is not from God and you entertain it.

You're not dismissing it, you're not avoiding it.

You're like, mmm, that sounds good.

The moment something goes wrong in your life, we blame God.

When the Bible tells me that only good things come from God, there's also things called consequences, and people don't talk about this enough.

That's why the Bible says that he turns all things for good for those who love him, right?

Romans 8, 28.

We choose our path.

You choose to decide if you're gonna listen to the spirit or you're gonna listen to the flesh.

So, for example, we misuse our money, we don't steward it correctly, we work in all these hours, overtime, multiple jobs, and you're still broke.

You don't take care of your body.

You don't get checked, you eat trash, then you cry when you get a bad diagnosis.

You don't cover yourself or your family in prayer.

Then when something happens to you, you say, God, where were you?

He was right where you left him.

This is an everyday thing.

Accidents don't happen on purpose, right?

They're accidents.

Why?

I do you think that it's really God's will for all these people to die?

You cross the street, you get hit by a car.

Let's just say, right?

God protect and cover all of us in the name of Jesus.

I cancel anything.

I'm just using an illustration.

There's things that happen because of lack of prayer.

Your prayer is like your bubble.

Have you ever, I have a friend that she's always sick, and I'm like, I'm gonna put you in a bubble because you always, there's always something wrong with you, right?

But that's what prayer is for us.

It's our bubble.

It's our our our little thing where the enemy can't touch us.

But we don't pray.

We are satisfied with getting up, thank you, Lord, for this day, keep it moving.

There's a spiritual world.

It's more than just prayer.

And as Dawn had said for the last two weeks, this is war.

It's war against generational curses, against witchcraft, altars you don't even know that you're on, tainted bloodlines, and so much more.

I know that there's generations before me that were in witchcraft.

So, me knowing that, I have to pray.

I have to cancel that, I have to denounce that, I have to cut ties with that.

Is that not disturbing?

That you meet someone and they're like, oh yeah, my mom, my mom got that.

And they're proud.

They're like, Yeah, my mom got high blood pressure, girl.

Yeah, I got it too.

And why is that a proud thing?

Why is it proud for you to claim these generational things that are that continue to be brought down?

And you're like, no, I don't got that.

We we claim everything.

The doctor says something, and you're like, okay, cool.

What medicine I gotta take?

Fantastic.

And this ministered to me before anybody else because I'm one of them, right?

I believe in medicine, right?

I had thyroid cancer, they removed my thyroid, I'm on level thyroxine.

I don't stop taking my medicine.

But it's something that sometimes you regret.

But at the same time, they caught it so early that I didn't have to go through chemo, I didn't have to go through radiation, I didn't have to go through all of that.

So, in the same time, did God not work in my life because I'm on medication?

No, he did, right?

But because of that, I cancel all of that in my blood.

And I'm like, that's that's the only cancer that's gonna go into this body and into my bloodline for the rest of my days, right?

So the church right now is sleeping.

The enemy has all of us on some nice comfy hammocks from our Puerto Ricans on a maca.

Think of a nice spring breeze, and you just swinging.

The devil, his demons, the principalities, their main job is to steal, kill, and destroy.

And you're just there.

When Daniel prayed, the Bible says that God sent Gabriel immediately.

But what happened?

If you don't know the story, go read Daniel chapter 10.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

The Bible says that the prince of Persia held him up for 21 days, and the archangel Michael had to come and help him.

So 21 days.

Here we are, we pray one thing for one day, and we're like, oh, I'm done.

Where is your perseverance?

Where is your persistence?

It took the angel 21 days.

That shows you that there's a spiritual world.

So you're praying for something, and you're one, you want to see breakthrough, but after day two, you're like, I'm done.

I guess God isn't listening.

No, the angel that he sent is probably stuck somewhere.

So your prayer should be like, Lord, I don't know where the answer is, but I need you to open the way, send Michael, send whoever you need to send to get this message down, right?

But this shows you that God uses angels.

It's all through the Bible.

If you study the Bible, you'll see that there are laws in the spiritual realm.

There's a court in heaven.

Our accuser is Satan.

And he has so much evidence against us that we don't even, you don't even know.

Every spoken word that you have over yourself, over other people.

When is enough gonna be enough?

Because you're saved, you're not gonna fight.

Salvation is enough.

That shouldn't be enough.

Because you should not be living the life that you're living, but be saved.

Because the Bible tells me, on the contrary, but we're not willing to fight.

When are you gonna learn how to pray like a warrior?

When will we learn not to accept what the world says and declare what the word says?

I started correcting people if they say something negative towards me, even if it's a joke.

It doesn't matter what it is or who you are.

My mom knows I do it in love.

Right?

Why?

Because I've learned the power of our words.

And so I was guilty of using words in a bad way, right?

Even being a believer, right?

You get frustrated with your kid and you're like, oh my God, you're so stupid.

Right?

Eli back there clapping.

But I repented from that and I've learned and I've grown, right?

So now I'm like, nah, we're not doing that.

Someone says something, oh, you know, whatever.

Oh, Jotty's Jotdy's hyper.

No, she's not.

She's a kid.

Right?

She stays saying we rich.

I'd be like, yes, we are, baby.

Yes, we are.

The first time she said it, Les is like, girl, we ain't rich.

I said, who said it?

He was like, oh yeah, yes we are, baby.

Yeah, we rich.

No, Les caught on, right?

I said, Les caught on real quick.

But those are the things that we dismiss, right?

We think that they're just words, that they don't mean anything.

Why?

Because that's how we kind of grew up.

We just repeat everything.

So if there's one thing that I want you to take away from today, is that we need to create a specific life as believers, as people that are saved.

Create a life of fasting.

You shouldn't have to fast before an assignment.

You should be ready.

It shouldn't be like, oh, I preached tomorrow, so let me fast.

Oh, I'm gonna do some deliverance, so let me fast.

No, that cup should always be full.

It's like a battery, right?

If you're constantly charging the battery, your phone is never gonna die if it's always on the charger.

I'm not saying you gotta fast every day.

I'm just saying if it's a lifestyle, you're never gonna feel the pressure of not being ready because it's in you.

When we think of the military, that's how the enemy is.

His demons work together like no other.

They do recon.

I watch a lot of military movies, that's why I know.

Right?

And that's how the enemy is.

He's watching our lives, he's watching how you react.

Oh, I put this little thought in Pastor Les head.

Oh, he made a face.

Yep, right there.

Got him.

Right?

That's how he is, he watches us.

Cover yourself in prayer.

And I'm not talking about Chat GPT prayers.

I made that image with Chat GPT, but the sermon was not made with Chat GPT, it was made with the Holy Spirit.

Our prayers should be heartfelt.

Do you really think that God is going to accept a Chat GPT prayer?

I don't.

You're not pouring your heart out, you're pouring out what AI told you to say.

Have you ever prayed to where you literally just felt empty?

That's how our prayers should be.

To where it's like, bro, I ain't got nothing else to say at this point, right?

That's how our prayers should be.

We have access to a whole army of angels.

We see it through scripture that God uses angels.

They're all around us, but because we can't see them, out of sight, out of mind.

The enemy uses his army to his full capacity.

The church, all it does is battle.

One denomination against the other.

That's the army.

They battle each other.

Where the enemy is, they're together, they're one mission.

Not us.

Pastors against pastors, members against members.

Oh, they used to go to my church, so I don't talk to them no more.

When did church become a gang?

That doesn't make sense to me.

You guys are not mine.

You don't belong to us.

You don't belong to me.

You don't belong to Pastor Les.

God called you elsewhere.

I'm gonna pray for you.

Praise the Lord.

You're not ours.

You know, and we shouldn't feel entitled to know why someone left going to another church, right?

The only way you should be concerned is if they're like, yeah, I'm not going to church altogether.

Why?

What's going on?

Let's talk about it.

What happened?

Right?

But if they feel like God is calling them elsewhere, pray for them, pray with them that that really is where God is calling them.

So God can reveal to them that that's really what he wants.

So Satan sees that you haven't covered yourself in prayer.

You're not in your word, you're not fasting.

So your spirit is weak, but your flesh is strong.

He has you.

The Holy Spirit is sending you warnings, but you're not listening because his volume is on mute.

That's what we do.

Take the muzzle off of the Holy Spirit.

He talks to us all the time, but we don't listen.

The Bible says that the enemy goes around like a roaring lying, looking for who to devour.

And in God's infinite mercy, he does step in so many times.

I was sick at one point with a skin disease that no doctor could diagnose.

My mom is right there.

I lost the first three layers of skin.

It literally just peeled off.

And so I didn't have skin to hold in like water.

So I would ooze my whole body.

I lost my hair.

It was really bad.

And I wasn't serving God at the time.

But in his mercy, he healed me.

He sent someone to come pray for me and healed me.

And I think that that is the perfect example of I'm here because of a praying mother.

So through all of that, I recognize that everything is through prayer.

I wasn't covering myself, but I know my mom was covering me.

The Bible says that this fight is not against flesh and blood, it's against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness.

At what point are we going to stop saying God got me and fight the spiritual fight that we're supposed to?

Because what we're doing is we're fighting with our arms tied behind our back.

You hold on to pride, anger, hate, unforgiveness, envy, and the list goes on.

Did you know that it's scientifically proven that your emotions can make you sick?

I'm gonna let that sit for a second.

Gut issues, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, heart issues, autoimmune disorders, a weakened immune system.

Your emotions trigger your body into thinking something's wrong.

So now your adrenaline is high, your cortisol is high, and it stays high because you don't change.

You refuse to let things go.

You choose to continue in the path that you're on.

Let's go to Matthew 13 40 to 43.

I'm almost done, guys.

Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.

There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteousness will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father.

He who has ears let him hear.

Someone who claims that they follow God or Christ, but their heart, their actions, and their beliefs don't match.

Y'all met somebody like that?

I know a few people.

I ain't gonna blow spots though.

There's gonna be judgment.

And sometimes people feel the need to be that person, right?

You don't need to.

You can fool me, you can fool Pastor Les, you can fool Dawn, you can fool Devon.

You could fool people, but you know who you're not gonna fool?

God.

It's not our job to separate the seed believers from the weed believers.

God gonna take care of that.

There will come a time where the angels will come and take the harvest and divide the seed from the weed for judgment.

So today I want us to examine ourselves.

I want you to ask your neighbor again.

Are you a seed or are you a weed?

Sarah, are you a seed or are you a weed?

She's so innocent.

She was like.

So I'm gonna read Matthew 7, 21 and 23.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

Why did I read that?

Because there's so many people sitting in church thinking that they're saved and they're not saved.

That's clear.

They prophesied, they cast out demons, they did wonders, but they weren't saved.

We think we know God, we think we know Jesus, we think that we have a relationship.

But the Bible says something interesting that I always repeat it's not about your gifts.

The Bible says that you will know them by their fruit.

So it don't matter how much you prophesy, how much you be dancing, how it doesn't matter.

Do you have low love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Galatians 5.

What voice are you obeying?

I say all the time.

Just like Samuel told Saul, obedience is greater than sacrifice.

You can find that in 1 Samuel 15.

Whoever has an ear, let them hear.

To cater to the younger generation is like, if you know, you know.

So when I started this message, I told you the difference between a seed and a weed.

A seed is planted on purpose, a weed grows by neglect.

Think about that.

One missed prayer, one act of disobedience, one offense, one moment where you chose your flesh over the Holy Spirit.

Slowly but intentionally, you've been lulled to sleep.

Weeds don't ask permission to grow, they just grow.

They take over any ground that is not being cultivated.

We need to cultivate our heart and we need to cultivate our minds.

And that's daily.

If you don't intentionally plant the word, if you don't intentionally pray, if you don't intentionally fast, if you don't intentionally obey, something else will grow in its place.

Today is not a day of judging.

I am not judging you, because those of you who preach know that it goes to you first, and you'll be like, go back.

You feel that conviction and you're like, ooh, okay, Jesus, I got you.

But Jesus made it clear the angels will do the separating.

So today, look at yourself in the mirror.

Have you been producing the fruit of the spirit or the fruit of your flesh?

Are you feeding your spirit or are you feeding the weeds?

It's frightening that the weeds look like the seeds, the wheat, until harvest.

You could look like a believer, sound like a believer, serve like a believer, but eventually your fruit will tell the truth.

God isn't looking for gifted people, He's looking for faithful people.

So if the Holy Spirit has revealed weeds growing in your heart today, pull them up, repent, forgive, surrender, pray, fast, get back into the word.

Because the same God that warns us about the harvest time is the same God that is giving us a chance to change before he comes.

So don't wait until the harvest, because at that point it's too late.

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

Amen.