The Dragnet: Parables of the Kingdom of God

Our text begins in verse 47 this morning.

Do you have the notes there?

Matthew 13.

And uh, by the way, thank you, Jude, for helping us.

Jude gives us his Wednesday.

I want to congratulate a good young man.

He just got a job at Tractor Supply.

And so we were talking last week, and I said, Look, I said, I could really use your help on Wednesdays.

And I said, when you get a job from a secular company, go in right away and tell them.

I go to church, I'm faithful to my local church, and I have to be there on Sundays and Wednesdays to serve.

But you have to do it when you get the job, because if you take the job and don't say it, you're you're done, right?

So he did.

And he told him he can he comes to church on Sunday and Wednesday.

He got the job and he got those days off.

And so let's give that young man a round of applause for standing to his convictions and serving the Lord here, and it's a huge help to us, and I really appreciate that.

There's so much talk about bad young people.

I want I want to talk about good young people that are giving their life to God.

So good on you, Jude, and good on your parents.

We're really grateful that you're here.

All right, enough of that.

We don't want we don't want him to get prideful and get the big head or anything.

Amen.

Alright, verse 47.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

So shall it be at the end of the world.

The angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, and there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net.

A net.

So Jesus closes the section of kingdom parables with a picture that would have immediately been familiar to these disciples.

A net.

A fishing net, being dragged through the sea and gathering everything in its path.

Jesus isn't merely giving the disciples a lesson on fishing.

It was a sobering lesson about the kingdom of heaven and coming judgment.

The net was cast broadly, the sea full of humanity, and the catch was mixed.

Some good, some bad.

I'm hungry right now.

Thinking about Red Snapper and Black Grouper, and Pompano and Sheephead and Snook.

That's good.

Channel cat.

Bone fish, tarpon.

That's bad.

Jesus is reminding us that the kingdom invitation goes out to all, indiscriminately to all, but not everyone who responds outwardly is genuine, and not everything gathered will ultimately be kept.

And so Christ says there will be a day when the gathering will end, the sorting will begin, and eternity will reveal what is truly valuable, what is utterly worthless.

Well, number one, let's go fishing.

Let's go fishing.

Verse 47 The kingdom of heaven is likened to a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind.

Now he's talking about a dragnet here.

As we look in the Word of God, we notice that the Bible actually describes several forms of fishing.

I find this interesting.

I think sometimes we don't read the Bible with nearly enough imagination.

Well, first of all, we know in Scripture they used hooks and bait.

It even says of Peter, Matthew 17, verse 27, notwithstanding lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, cast in a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up.

Matthew 17:27

And when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money.

That take and give it unto me and for thee.

Boy, that makes me want to go fishing.

We might get some money out there.

So they used hooks and bait.

So depending on where we're fishing, we'll talk about in a second, it would require different bait.

So we live on a canal, and we've tried to use shrimp.

So far, we caught a smallmouth bass with a shrimp, and uh a gar with a shrimp, and I've tried worms and plastics and jigs and haven't caught anything.

So there's hooks, there is bait applicable to particular bodies of water and species that you're going after.

I'm not a good enough fisherman to say I'm going fishing today and I'm going to catch a red fish.

I'm going to catch a tarpon today.

I'm not of that quality.

I just put a shrimp out there, put it on the bottom, and just excitedly reel in whatever decides to bite it.

So there's there's hooks, there's bait.

There were baskets that they used.

They would disturb the top of the water, putting a basket on their head, and they would catch those flying fish uh through the air, and then of course they used nets.

So the different modes of fishing spoke to a targeted species that they were going after.

Again, hook and bait would target a certain species.

Maybe they were spearfishing or what we call sight fishing, which is very targeted fishing, going uh looking for a certain species in a certain size.

But a net is not discriminatory.

Uh it catches all without discrimination.

If we took a sane net and you took one side and I took the other, and we walked through um Lemon Bay, we we would catch all kinds of interesting things without discrimination.

Uh, and that's the way that that works.

So there's a negative connotation to this type of fishing.

There's a positive connotation as well.

I want to look at those very quickly.

Let's think, first of all, about the positive usage of a net.

Well, first of all, we should cast a net of the gospel before all people.

Amen.

I mean, we should just use a net and we should cast it before all people.

If we went fishing with hooks or spears, we would become discriminatory.

And there's people that do that.

I think sometimes churches maybe have slanted towards maybe reaching sophisticated people or people with money to the exclusion of the poor.

And then I think there's an extreme on the other side that the Bible says that the common people heard Jesus gladly.

And so sometimes there's a discrimination against people of means, as if not sharing the gospel with people with money, thinking that they may not receive it.

Does anyone use a Schofield study Bible?

Does anyone have a Schofield?

You have a Schofield?

Cyrus Ingersoll Schofield was a businessman who would book appointments with some of the wealthiest people in American business in order to share the gospel with them.

So every time you see a Schofield Bible, think about a man who used a hook and pretty expensive bait in corporate America.

So, hooks, we're looking for something very specific.

We're toying with bait that's to find exactly the right species that will bite it.

Or sight fishing, looking and saying, well, we don't want to reach those kind of people.

Those don't look like church people.

And you know what?

We ought to not sample the soil.

We ought to just sow the seed.

Just sow the seed of God's word.

And you know, a healthy church will have people of every demographic that are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ, because when you come through those doors, you cease, you cease to have ethnic divisions or racial divisions or financial divisions or experiential divisions or how many years you've gone to school, or if you didn't go to school, or if you're from the north or the south or the east or the west, red and yellow, black and white.

None of these divisions matter.

It's level at the foot of the cross.

It ought to be, it ought to always be that way.

So we should cast a net before all.

We shouldn't go fishing with hooks and spears.

Uh we should use a net to catch men.

And I think this is exactly what Jesus is saying as the disciples are pulling their nets onto their boats on the Galilee.

Follow me, I'll make you fishers of men.

And they forsook, the Bible says specifically, they forsook their nets, and they went to follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

And these nets are to be cast into all waters.

Romans 16, 15.

He said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Every creature needs a preacher.

Amen.

We ought to cast this net into all waters.

And then we ought to cast this net to all people groups.

Again, in the Great Commission, Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth.

There's a positive nature to just taking this gospel net and dragging it through the waters of all people and all waters and all species and all walks of life and giving everyone access to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the positive usage of the net.

But let's think about a negative usage of the net.

And the negative is spoken about by the Lord Jesus in this passage when he tells us that we should not assume that all that rise from the depths are useful or genuine.

Again, if we take that net, we drag it through Lemon Bay, we might get us a mutton snapper, or we might just catch a mutt.

Right?

Not all should be assumed to be useful or genuine citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

And that's what Jesus is saying.

The kingdom of heaven is like to a net.

There are a lot of critters and creatures in the net.

Someone said to me Sunday that when you turn on the gospel light, when you turn on the gospel light, it's like when you turn the floodlights on, the exterior of your house, okay, what does the light attract?

It attracts some bugs sometimes, right?

And so that net drags through Englewood, and sometimes it it brings some interesting characters into the kingdom of heaven.

Years several years ago, this would have been 2020.

Yeah, 2020.

2019, before COVID.

So uh Trump was coming to uh the Deland airport for a rally, and my buddy um was in politics and he said, I want you to come.

He says, I want you to meet somebody that works for Trump because we need someone to pray for the rally in Ocala, and we're gonna have you pray at the Trump rally, but I want you to come and meet my people.

So I'm not much into politics, but I thought, hey, maybe I'll get to meet the president, that'd be a pretty cool thing, and get to pray and share the gospel, and so I went.

So Marie and I are in the uh we're in the in the audience, and there are tens of thousands of people on the tarmac.

I mean, tens of thousands of people.

And uh, you know, this is Donald J.

Trump and MAGA and all this kind of stuff, and and um just full disclosure.

Um I'm registered as a Republican, but I'm a conservative.

The Republicans bother me most of the time as much as the Democrats do.

That's just full disclosure of how the pastor feels about some things.

And so I'm standing there and I'm looking around, and I thought, some people find their identity in this group right here.

This this is their identity, this is who they are.

They got the sticker on their car, and this is the this is the flag under which they rally.

And I look at Marie in the middle of this rally, and I said to her, these are not my people.

Now we may vote the same way, and we may have similar political ideology, but man, these are not my people.

Half of them are intoxicated, many of them are cursing, many of them are being vulgar.

These are not my people.

What am I saying?

I'm saying there was a net that was drugged through the political waters of America and caught all kinds of people.

That's why I'm saying to you, don't put your identity in a political party.

Don't put your identity in any earthly institution.

No, our identity is in Christ.

And I and I followed that up by saying to Marie, these are not my people.

My people are at our church.

Those are that's my that's my crowd.

And I'm with my crowd this morning as well.

Well, we shouldn't assume that all that rise from the depths are useful or even genuine.

So we've talked about the net.

Let's talk about the sea.

Verse 47.

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every kind.

The sea.

What is he talking about?

Well, in Scripture, the sea is a picture of humanity.

First of all, it's a picture of restlessness.

Isaiah 57, 20.

The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest.

The sea is a picture of chaos.

Genesis 1 9.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.

And it was so.

Psalm 2.

Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord, against his anointed.

The sea of humanity is a sea of chaos.

It's a sea, a picture of the nations.

Revelation 17, 15.

And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

Even Daniel saw this.

Daniel 7, 2.

I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea.

The sea.

You put the net into the sea, the sea of humanity, a picture of chaos, a picture of the nations, but it's also a picture of God's control.

Think about this.

Mark chapter 4, Jesus arose and rebuked the wind and said unto the sea, praise God, peace be still.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

And the wind ceased.

Commentator said it wasn't, and it had not been since the days of Noah that a son of man exercised dominion over the natural world.

And when Jesus said to the sea, Be quiet, exercising his full sovereignty over the sea, be quiet.

They said, We've never seen it on this fashion before.

A picture of God's control.

Psalm 48, 148, verse 8, fire and hail, snow and vapor, stormy wind fulfilling his word.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself should be with them and be their God, and there shall be no more sea.

Picture of God's control.

So you got the picture.

The sea is humanity, the net of the gospel, like the kingdom of heaven.

It drags itself through the waters of time and it catches.

What does it say?

Look at verse 48.

Which when it was full, they drew to shore and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.

So let's go fishing.

We're going to turn that gospel light on, we're going to take that net, we're going to take it through Englewood, and we're going to get good and bad.

Well, number two, let's be realistic.

Let's be realistic.

Well, Pastor, how many do you have in church today?

I'm more interested in how many are in the church.

Like in Christ.

Let's be realistic, right?

So there's two categories of catch, the good and the bad.

Those are the words that Jesus used here.

The good and the bad.

Well, the good, the word here is kalos.

It means beautiful or desirable.

Ethan sent me a picture.

His first day in Greek, one.

I can't wait for the torment he's about to endure.

I'm so excited about it.

I got the popcorn ready and I can't wait to hear all the complaining for the next couple of weeks.

And I told him all summer long, Ethan, if you'll learn the alphabet, how to read it and write it before you get to your first day of the semester, you'll be three weeks ahead of the rest of the class.

And what did he do?

Absolutely nothing.

And so now he's in torment in the back of the class.

I'm so excited about this.

Okay.

Good.

It's beautiful.

It's desirable.

So what does he say?

That net was full, and in that net there were good things, beautiful things, desirable things.

But there were also bad things, verse 48, but cast the bad away.

Now this word is sapros.

It means rotten or worthless.

Rotten or worthless.

That net was full, they drew it to shore, and they sat down and gathered the beautiful, the desirable, into vessels, but cast the worthless and rotten away.

Now remember, we're old enough to remember that the last couple weeks have surrounded the good, the incomparably valuable, and the desperately worthless.

Remember, read verse 44 again with me.

Again the kingdom of heaven is likened to the treasure hidden a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth and for joy goeth and selleth all that he hath.

That's something quite valuable, isn't it?

That's good.

Verse 46.

And he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

That's good.

That's valuable.

That's inestimably valuable.

That's incalculably valuable.

That is priceless.

Can we say it that way?

But the bad, the rotten, the worthless, the cast away.

Wow.

Gather, sort, and separate.

What is Jesus saying?

Not all that claim to be genuine are invaluable.

Hard language from our Lord.

Some will be destroyed.

By whom?

Verse 49.

So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just.

Remember, this is the tares.

Why can't we do it now?

Well, they they're intertwined and rooted together until the end of the age, and the angels come.

What do they do?

They come, they gather, they sort, they separate.

They separate into the furnace of fire.

The worthless.

Think about that.

There are supernatural elements in these parables, if you want to mark your Bible.

Verse 19, he talked about the wicked one.

Verse 25.

While the men slept, his enemy came, sowed tares among the wheat.

Verse 39.

The enemy that sowed them is the devil.

Verse 41.

The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, verse 49.

So shall it be at the end of the world.

The angels.

This is a supernatural chapter here.

Not just men and women and Republicans and Democrats and all of that hollow baloo.

That's why, don't get caught up in that.

Can I just go on record of this?

Don't get caught up in all that.

Well, it's it's Democrat versus Republicans, it's conservatives versus liberals, it's it's capitalist versus common.

No, it's not.

It hasn't been and it never will be.

It's the kingdom of darkness against the kingdom of light.

It's truth versus error, it's right versus wrong, it's good versus evil every time.

Every time very supernatural here.

The angels.

Why are there so many supernatural characters playing a part in the kingdom of heaven?

Well, first of all, because the kingdom of heaven invades enemy territory.

I mean, I feel pretty safe this morning.

Do you guys feel pretty safe this morning?

We're in enemy territory.

Everywhere the gospel goes, it invades enemy territory.

Oh yeah.

Why are there so many supernatural characters?

Because the devil opposes the work of God.

He opposes the advance of the gospel.

That's why I want us to see it that way.

Because the world is moving towards final judgment.

So why then does God use angels to separate and to condemn the bad to a furnace of fire?

Why the angels?

Well, number one, the Bible says that angels are God's messengers.

Well, I've got one for you on Sunday.

You want a little preview?

John chapter 5, verse 4.

John 5:4

An angel came and stirred the waters.

What in the world does that mean, and who in the world is that?

Well, I'm not going to tell you now.

You wouldn't come back to church on Sunday.

Right?

They're God's messengers.

Angelos, messenger.

Hebrews 1 14.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?

Psalm 103 Bless the Lord ye his angels that excel in strength and do his commandments, hearkening to the voice of his word.

Bless ye the Lord, all ye his host, ye ministers of his that do his pleasures.

Angels are God's messengers.

Number two, angels are God's means of judgment.

Matthew 24, verse 31, and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

Matthew 24:31

Did you notice that any time in Scripture an angel is mentioned, the angel is ancillary?

The angel is not the primary figure in the story.

The angel is there to point you to the Lord of hosts.

The Bible says in the end times there'll be the worshiping of angels.

We ought to be careful about that.

They are God's means of judgment.

Matthew 16, verse 27.

Matthew 16:27

The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Number two, let's be realistic here.

As the net drags through the sea of humanity, gathering of every kind, it shall be at the end of the world the angels shall come and sever the wicked from among the just.

What does this do?

It takes all of this out of human hands.

Because as we've discovered in Matthew 13, we do not truly know the good from the bad.

We think we have an idea, sometimes we don't know.

We would make very poor judgments.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay.

We do not know the nature of man's heart.

We hardly could even say we know our own heart.

The heart is deceitful, it's desperately wicked.

Who can know it?

Only God.

Let's be realistic.

Number three, let's work wisely.

That's a simple truth here, but it comes at the end as we put a bow on Matthew 13.

So Jesus says to them in verse 51, Have ye understood all these things?

And they thought they did.

Yea, Lord! We want to.

Isn't that good?

We want to, do they?

No.

No, they're just getting started.

But he wants them to change their thinking.

Then said he unto them, Therefore, every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.

And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence.

A scribe, verse 52, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man instructed as a scribe, or the disciples.

The disciples now are serving in the kingdom as householders, and they're to what?

They're to bring forth out of his treasures things new and old.

What was old?

The Old Testament, dispensations, covenants, history, prophecies of the Old Testament.

They were to bring forth something that was new grace and the gospel and the local church and the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's work wisely.

So let me show you something, one more thing here.

Jesus leaves this place of incredible revelation, talking about the wheat and the tear, the field and the pearl, and the fish.

Verse 54, and when he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?

Is not this the carpenter's son?

Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, and his sisters are they not all with us?

Whence then hath this man all these things?

And they were offended at him.

But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own house, and he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

Aren't you glad that Jesus gave them some clarification on the nature of their ministry before they began this ministry?

Because that rejection would be felt so personal had Jesus not said, look, we're going to go, we're going to preach, we're going to drag that net.

And there'll be some who claim to be followers and are not.

There'll be some that reject your message and will not follow.

And there will be others that will receive the message.

And what do you do when you find yourself in a place where you're not received?

Go to a next town and preach Christ.

Someone said years ago, and it just kind of stuck with me.

So when I go witnessing, I'm looking for that one that's looking for me.

That's good.

I'm looking for that one that's looking for me.

Because you know, we take rejection personally.

We knock on a door and they slam it in our face, or they're not welcoming to our message.

But someone in their heart of hearts is saying, Oh God, I don't know who you are and I don't know what you're doing, but reveal yourself to me.

We are looking for that one that's looking for us.

And really that is the nature of the kingdom of heaven.

Father, thank you for the last several weeks in this chapter of your word.

It has given us light and knowledge and understanding, and we're grateful for it.

Help us to apply this to our lives.

Help us, Lord, not to not to sample the soil just to drag our net through Inglewood and all around this state, just to preach Christ.

And let you be God in the lives of the listener.

Bless the Calvary Baptist Church today as the gospel goes out, as we seek to preach the gospel and disciple and encourage lots of families.

May your power be upon us, is our prayer, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.