Matthew 13:24  He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.

Back in 1981, when I was living in Australia, there was a small scandal that showed up in the news. This is a summary of the news story explaining the event that was written up and recorded for reading. Kangaroo meat was discovered being illegally sold as beef in the United States, primarily in 1981, during the infamous Australian meat substitution scandal. In July of that year, inspectors discovered that imported boneless “beef” from Australia was actually a mix of horse and kangaroo meat, some of which had been processed into hamburgers and taco meat. Investigations revealed this mislabeled meat had entered the U.S. food supply as early as January 1981. The Web brothers wrote and humorously performed a song called Who Put The Roo In The Stew? Yes, this was a funny event that only Australians can turn into a topic of laughter at a barbecue while cooking meat.

The thing that struck me the funniest was when I returned to Canada, I was often asked in a joking manner if I had eaten kangaroo. I would laugh and say, “No, but you most likely did,” then explain the story. The looks on their faces were priceless. I was reading the scripture in Matthew that talks about how the enemy sowed weeds in a man’s field by night after the man had sown good seed in his field by day. I thought out loud, “Who put the roo in the stew? Who was this joker who came by at night and sabotaged a person’s life’s work? Matt. 13:24 He presented another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away.

The Lord is making the point that even though we are Christ followers and doing the right things in life, the demonic enemies of our souls will try to destroy our efforts and our lives as well. John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Thank God that Jesus came to give us an abundant life and the ability to overcome the sabotaging trickery of the devil. I have written in the past about my experience buying grapevines that were supposed to produce seedless grapes, only to find out years later that the grapes had seeds. I brought a cluster of seedless grapes, receipts, and labels back to the nursery, and they were extremely apologetic and replaced everything. However, there were a couple of years of wasted work and effort due to someone’s tardiness at the labelling stage, which cost me and others who bought the same mislabelled vines.

This grapevine experience reminded me of the Lord’s parable of – when everyone was asleep, the enemy came and sowed weeds. The only time Satan can sow weeds into our lives that take root is when we have let down our guard and become lax within our faith. We often forget that we are in a life-and-death battle until the Lord comes for us or our days come to an end in this life. The reason the battle we are in is called ‘The good fight of faith’ is that it is a lifelong fight to remain victorious in it. In the same way that meat inspectors allowed kangaroo and horse meat to slip by the checks and balances department of food inspection and security, so we too allow the enemy of our souls to get away with different ticks and assaults, until we remember who our God is. Psalm 106:21 They forgot God their Saviour, the One having done great things in Egypt.

The problem for the farmer who had planted the good seed was the constant reminder of the enemy’s work that grew side by side with his good produce. The farmer had to wait until harvest time to separate the bad from the good. Matt. 13:30 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.” This is often the issue in life when dark powers attack us. If we do not have a strategic prayer life and desire to walk in righteousness, we can be overwhelmed by the daily reminder of our battle.

The reality of our faith walk in Christ is that there will be battles in life, and thank God, there will be days of victory and breakthrough. There will be wars and rumours of warfare of all kinds. There will be times of lack, and praise the Lord, times of plenty. We will have bad days, weeks, and months, but we will have years of righteous maturity to know that we have won the war of eternity. The Lord God Almighty, who is our Saviour, has won our battle for us. We, by faith, need to accept that fact and walk in the integrity that His power and love give us. Yes, there might be a bit of roo in the stew at times, but we have been given a heart that knows how to detect the counterfeit work of the devil when we see it. Stay alert and remain in Him who first loved us.