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Sowing Tares…Hoping for Wheat

By February 14, 2017Featured, What's New

The Kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat (Matthew 13:24-25)

By not honoring God in our schools, We have allowed unbelief to be sown into the lives of our children. And when a nation sows unbelief it reaps a harvest Of brokenness, division and moral decay.

Recently I had the insight that the principle of sowing and reaping applies to our public-school system in America. It’s been more than 50 years since the courts decided it best that our schools became “secular” institutions. As a result, we have seen a progressive march toward the removal of God from our halls of learning. Recognizing His existence is no longer considered important and relevant at school, but rather inappropriate and even repressive.

Having someone like Ms. Holmes, my 3rd grade teacher, who led our class in prayer each morning, has become a thing of the distant past. Today the message is clear, “Christians, keep your faith to yourselves in the public arena…including our schools. You are an agent of the state, and as such, you are not allowed to endorse or promote the existence of God.”

Some educators are being told by administrators they are not allowed to stand with Christian students before school at See You at The Pole gatherings. They are being instructed to stay away, even though it’s before their duty hours, nor are any prayers being led. Others are told they must remove symbols of faith from their work stations and desks; no Bibles in view, no crosses or posters making mention of God. In science curriculum, from kindergarten to college, educators are required to teach naturalism and evolution exclusively. Conversations about the possibility of an intelligent designer are aggressively prohibited, even though many brilliant scientists embrace the theory for legitimate scientific reasons. Belief in God, and especially expressing it, has become something out of place and inappropriate in school.

With that in mind, we can’t ignore the fact that kids come to school expecting to learn what is true and right and important. They come to gain knowledge from the knowledgeable and education from the educated. So it should come as no surprise that we have seen our country move rapidly into moral decay in the last 50 years. We have sown unbelief into a generation of children and we are now reaping the resulting harvest. We had hoped to instill honesty, integrity, purity, compassion, kindness, morality and love. But without belief in God we have banished absolute truths. Right and wrong are now relative and relegated to the selfish inclinations of the individual.

What is “true” is interpreted through the lenses of our teachers’ world-view. What is “right” is measured by what is good for “me.” And what is “important” is discovered by seeing what is valued by those we respect.

Truth has lost its clarity, and in the struggle to define right and wrong for themselves, our children have become confused, stumbling through adolescence without clear direction. They have no compass pointing north anymore. The precepts and principles that stemmed from a belief in God, and understood though a biblical worldview, have been discarded and seem nearly impossible to re-instate.

We have educated our children…but we have not cared for their souls. We have given them knowledge…but not wisdom. We have hoped for wheat…but we have sown tares.

3 Comments

  • Al Eads, Jr. says:

    We can stand in the gap through our actions and our words even in today’s classrooms. It is more difficult now than when we were students in the 40′ and 50’but as a teacher in the 60’s when flower children began to flourish, we still maintained a presence. Throughout my K-12 career by paying close attentionby and through to court rulings, I was able to still be a witness in the classrooms and in the buildings where I was an administrator. Since my retirement, I have had the wonderful opportunity to teach at the graduate school level and share with many prospective administrators the judicial laws of the land. They are currently witnessing in their positions as administrators in several schools and districts through their knowledge of adjudications and their application of these in their school settings. However, you are correct, many tares have been sown among the wheat but I firmly believe that all is not lost as we refine and nourish the fields.

  • Joe Burks says:

    What a powerful analogy Mike! Thanks for this article, and thanks again for your LIFT America event this past year in Louisville, KY!

  • Cheryl Myrick says:

    Praying for blind eyes to be open in Jesus name.