Very good.The "Kingdom of God" includes Christendom within which is the "true Church". Hence the Kingdom is already here, and many TARES have been sown among the WHEAT. We see this use of the "kingdom of God" in various parables to describe the state of Christendom before the coming of Christ:
18 Then He said, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
19 "It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches."
20 And again He said, "To what shall I liken the kingdom of God?
21 "It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened."
(Lk. 13:18-21 NKJ)
"Birds" symbolize demons (Rev. 18:2 "every unclean and hated bird"); "leaven" symbolizes sin (Mt. 16:6 "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees") The woman mixing in leaven is the great harlot Babylon, paganism beginning from the Tower of Babylon (Babel).
The wicked gathered by angels at the time of Christ's coming, and cast into the fire are the TARES in Christendom who converted to the antichrist Beast as he morphed from being the "Man of Sin" [False Christ] into the "Son of Perdition" [Antichrist] or seed of Satan.
36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field."
37 He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.
38 "The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one.
39 "The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels.
40 "Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.
41 "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness,
42 "and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
(Matt. 13:36-42 NKJ)
As verse 38 implies, the sons of the kingdom are the Wheat in Christendom, while the sons of the wicked one are the TARES who practice lawlessness:
18 "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19 "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 "Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
21 "Not everyone who says to Me,`Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
22 "Many will say to Me in that day,`Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'
23 "And then I will declare to them,`I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Matt. 7:18-23 NKJ)
Many who apostatized and followed the antichrist will say "in that day" of Christ's advent, they once served Him.
But He will deny He ever knew them because they disobeyed Scripture manifesting the "bad fruit" of a bad tree.
John the apostle called this time the "last hour" and likened what happened in his church to the end time apostasy:
18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.
21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (1 Jn. 2:18-23 NKJ)
What did the apostle John reveal when he said: “It is the last hour”? | End Time News
John saw the apostasy of miracle working schismatics leaving his church as fitting Christ's description of the End Time falling away (Mt. 7:22-23; 24:11-12; Mk. 13:22-23) and writes "it is the last hour". What did John mean? Was he speaking chronologically or did he thereby illustrate to every...endtimenews.net
They were without the Law of God, Lawless. So they are cast into the fire:
17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
18 Now "If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?"
(1 Pet. 4:17-18 NKJ)
The ground the various seeds are planted in are men’s hearts. Just as seeds spring up in not so good rocky ground, Christian life seeds planted in men look promising, but it can wither away.
Men’s hearts (the ground) can support things that are not good too.
After the planted thing matures the individual is looked at as a member of the Church.
You looked at the title and saw the Church. I ignored the Church and saw the individual. I reckon it a be both. One a young sprout, and the other a tree of God or a tare.
Mississippi redneck
eddif