Charles Spurgeon Commentary Matthew 13:25

"but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away." — Matthew 13:25 (ASV)

But while men slept his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

It was a very malicious action. This has been done many times. Counterfeit wheat was sown in among the true wheat, so as to injure the crop.

The servants are all too apt to sleep. There is a season when nature requires them to do so, and there are other times when sinful sloth persuades them to the same indulgence. Good, easygoing men, they cannot believe that anyone would do harm to their master’s field. Besides, watching and driving away trespassers is unpleasant work. “Heresy-hunting” is the nickname for watchfulness. “Rigid Puritanism” is the contemptuous title for careful discipline. “Bigotry” is the title by which faithfulness is described. While men slept, could any cultured person resist the spirit of the times and keep awake?

His enemy came. We know who the enemy is. His time for work is in the night. He does not sleep when watchmen are steeped in slumber; instead, he is then especially active. Quietly, cunningly, without observation, that malicious one sowed the darnel, the bastard wheat—something so like wheat that no one could tell the difference until they began to ripen. He brought in those who loved “modern thought” and worldly amusements, who were by their talk Christian and by their boasts profoundly spiritual, and having introduced them cunningly, he departed. He might have been suspected had he lingered upon the scene of his craft, and so he went his way to do the same elsewhere. His dear children all declared that he did not exist but was a mere myth, and as he had gone away, many concluded that they were right. Satan is not omnipresent, but this he cunningly turns into an advantage, for he can often do more by his absence than by his presence. A known devil is only half a devil.

But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

Wherever Christ is active, the enemy is sure to be active too. If you have a sleeping church, you may have a sleeping devil; but as soon as Christ is in the congregation sowing the good seed, the devil wakes up, and by night, when men are off their guard, the bad seed—the mock wheat, here translated "tares"—is sown among the true wheat.