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Summary
On New Years Day, I drove my daughter to Denver International Airport to catch her flight back to Washington D.C., where she works. Five miles from the airport, we passed an old red barn. My other daughter who was with us and works for the airlines said, “That’s where the Illuminati go to enter a tunnel that takes them to the basement of the terminal (the headquarters of the lizard men), or at least that’s what some people say.”
I thought, “Wow. There sure do seem to be a lot of conspiracy theories. And we sure do seem to be awfully troubled by all these conspiracy theories… almost as if it’s all a conspiracy.”
If someone were to convince everyone that everything is an evil conspiracy, then that someone would trap everyone alone in hell, for hell is trusting no one at all; it’s being utterly alone. “Jesus entrusted himself to no man (neither Trump nor Biden), for he knew what was in man.” So, Jesus, who are we to trust if we don’t want to get stuck in hell?
It’s hard to believe all of these conspiracy theories. And yet, it’s also hard to believe that there is not some enormous conspiracy of evil. And yet, even if we suspect that there is, we don’t seem to know what it is or what exactly to do about it.
In Matthew 13, Jesus leaves a crowded house where His mother and brothers had come to get Him — even His brothers didn’t believe. I wonder if He felt like there was a conspiracy against Him. Perhaps you feel like there is a conspiracy against you? Remember Joseph? His brothers were jealous of him, conspired against him, threw him into a pit, and sold him into slavery. Jesus sits by the sea, crowds come to Him, and He tells parables. He quotes Isaiah 6 to explain why He does this. Isaiah was to preach Israel down to a stump that is a root that we now know is Jesus — He is the One to trust.
He tells the parable of the Sower and the four types of ground (adamah in Hebrew). Then He tells them The Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds — “Tares” to be specific. Tares look like wheat, but they are an entirely different species.
Matthew 13:24, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed (sperma) in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds (tares).” Later, the servants ask the Master about the weeds. He informs them of the conspiracy. They ask if they should pull them up, but he says, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
He then tells them about a mustard seed that turns into a tremendous tree and leaven, hidden like seed in dough until “it was all leavened.”
Back in the house, He explains “the secrets of the kingdom” to His disciples. The Sower is the Son of Man. “The Good Seed is the sons of the Kingdom.” In the last parable, the seed appears to be a Word, and, of course, Jesus is the imperishable Seed and the Word. . . almost as if He’s sowing Himself. His field (the adamah) is the world. The Enemy is “the evil one.” The tares are the “sons of the evil one.” The harvest is “the close (syntelia) of the age.”
Matthew 13:41, “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all [‘doers of lawlessness’] and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”
Aren’t you glad that you are one of “the sons of the Kingdom”? But here’s something a little weird and rather troubling: In Matthew 8, it’s “the sons (not some sons) of the Kingdom” that are thrown into “outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In Matthew 7, it’s to those who say, “Did we not do many great works in your name, Lord?” to whom the Lord says, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” What does “THE TRUTH” not know? Perhaps, a lie?
Well, the conspiracy of evil is to sow tares in a world that’s already been sown with “the sons of the Kingdom.” Tares don’t convert to wheat. They’re not wheat but false wheat. You can’t distinguish them from wheat. And if you uproot them, you uproot yourself, for under the surface, your roots are inextricably wound together with theirs. The tares are the sons of the evil one.
So yes, there is an enormous conspiracy of evil, and in this world, we are surrounded by lizard men, sons of the snake, sons of the evil one. And what can you do about it? You can: Let it be. And don’t judge them. It’s the command of the Master: “Let [aphiemi: let, suffer, forgive] both grow together until the end [syntelia] of the age.”
Someone said, “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” The Master says, “All it takes for evil to prevail is for men to do something.” Maybe there are no good men. The Master did say, “God alone is good.” So perhaps the conspiracy of evil is to make you anxious about conspiracies until you do something. The Lord once told me, in the most dramatic way, “With fear, you put flesh on the evil one.”
In John 8:31, to “the Jews who had believed in him,” Jesus said, “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin… you seek to kill me… you are doing the works your father did (that’s at least Adam) …you are of your father the devil… he is the father of lies.” Not people; lies.
Jesus talks as if just sinning is taking His life and doing what Adam did and becoming a son of the snake, who is not the father of people but the father of lies — false people. Each of us is something God has made by breathing His breath and His word into His field, His Adamah. And each one of us is imprisoned in something that we think we have made, a self-made man, a self-righteous man, a false man, for we have believed a lie whispered in a garden by a snake. It’s one hell of an evil conspiracy.
Each of us is a field of wheat and tares. Satan will get us to obsess over the tares in our neighbor’s field and the tares in our own, that we would uproot everyone around us and then uproot ourselves. And what can we do about it? We can, “Let it be, forgive it, suffer it,” until the “syntelia of the age.”
Peter was wheat and Peter was tares (“Get behind me,” said Jesus when Peter tried to save Him from the conspiracy of evil.) On the night that Jesus was betrayed and immediately after informing Peter that he would in fact deny him three times, Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” That’s what they were to do about it. But in the morning, later that same day, the sixth day, they would witness the “syntelia of the age.”
Hebrews 9:26, “As it is, He has appeared once for all at the end [syntelia] of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
In Adam, at a tree in a garden, a lie tore all of us apart. In Christ, on a tree in a garden, Truth in Love brings all of us together. “Syntelia” is “syn” (with) plus “teleo” (to end, to complete, to perfect). It is the revelation of Love. God is Love. Jesus is the Word of Love. And we are His body.
You can’t judge your enemies, but when you love your enemies, Love judges your enemies, even if (especially if) that enemy is yourself. Love separates the weeds from wheat. He burns the weeds and purifies the wheat until “the righteous shine like the sun in the kingdom of God their Father.” Our righteousness is Christ. And the syntelia of the ages is an inner sanctuary in the temple of your soul.
There is a massive conspiracy of evil, and you need to know about it. But you, yourself, can do nothing about it; however, God is doing something in you. It’s called “faith.” Faith is the conspiracy of the Good; it’s growing in you even now. It’s Faith in Love — Love, who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and does not end, for He is the End.
Of course, Satan intends all things for evil. But God intends all things for Good, and what God intends is called reality. We all conspired against Him, but all according to plan — HIS plan. There’s nothing intended for evil that He hasn’t already intended for Good. This is the Divine Conspiracy.
I have a New Year’s resolution (or it has me): Less weeding and more worship. Less asking “What’s wrong with me?” and more adoring what’s right with God, the righteousness of God revealed in Christ Jesus, my Lord. Less “making” resolutions and more resting in the syntelia of the age, the revelation of the Divine Conspiracy — Jesus: the glorious conspiracy of God.
Rest in Him, and Love will do all things in and through you.