Charles Spurgeon Commentary Matthew 13:30

"Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn." — Matthew 13:30 (ASV)

Allow the two seeds to remain together for a season, so that they may be more effectively separated later on. It is true the evil will hinder and hamper the good, but even this will be better than for you to cast out the good by mistake. A separation time will come, and that will be in the time of harvest, when both will be fully developed. That will be a suitable season, when the division can be made and no harm done as a result.

The reapers then employed will do the work correctly, efficiently, universally, and finally. For the false wheat, there will be burning in bundles. For the true, ingathering into the Lord’s own storehouse. This will be a perfect separation, and we are instructed to wait for it. Our Lord’s words, I will say to the reapers, should indeed keep us from making any hasty speeches to the elders of the Churches or to the magistrates of the land, lest we incite them to hurried and ungenerous discipline.

Thorns and thistles they can root up, but the darnel is another matter. Magistrates and Churches may remove the openly wicked from their society. Those who are outwardly good but inwardly worthless, they must leave alone, for the judging of hearts is beyond their sphere.

Our Lord declares that the doom of the false wheat, the bastard professors, is terrible. Bind them in bundles, put like with like, sinner with like sinner. To burn them. No words can be more suggestive of terrible destruction. After this, what a quiet, peaceful tone we hear in the words, Gather the wheat into my barn. All gathered, all recognized as the Lord’s own, all housed in His storehouse.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, You gather together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

There will be an end of this mixture in due time; the hypocrite shall not always stand in the congregation of the righteous; the wheat and the tares shall be separated in the time of harvest.