Who are the Tares?

Every believer thinks that they have the tares identified: it’s those people whose doctrine is wrong. They aren’t saved.

Everybody thinks they have revelation about what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was: it’s whatever is tormenting them relentlessly.

John said that there were already “many antichrists,” so it is probably ok for everyone to disagree about who THE antiChrist is going to be – we could each pick one of our own.

Maybe the biggest danger in all of our rules about “who’s who” is that on days we are no more discerning than the Pharisees, who thought the Holy Ghost was a demon (Luke 11:14-23), or the rich members of the ekklesias in Corinth, who were getting sick and dying because they could not discern the presence of Jesus in the poorer members of their congregations (1 Corinthians 11:29).

When Jesus judges the nations, He said that He will separate them based on whether they fed Him, clothed Him, visited Him, etc. The people who were judged as successful in that process didn’t know when they were around Him in those bad conditions (Matthew 25:37-40.) With Jesus, but unaware…

We need to pray that the Spirit of Discernment will make us able to know Truth when we see it and to reject lies and deceptions. The couple who walked miles with Jesus after He was raised from the dead, whose hearts burned within their chests when He opened the Scriptures about Himself to them, could not even recognize Him without His help.