Now we turn again this morning
to the Gospel of Matthew and chapter 13. Matthew chapter 13. And as I did two Lord's Days
ago, I shall read selective portions from the 13th chapter of Matthew. Matthew 13, beginning with verse
1. On that day, Jesus went out of
the house and sat by the seaside. And there were gathered unto
him great multitudes, so that he entered into a boat and sat.
And all the multitudes stood on the beach. And he spoke to
them many things in parables, saying, and then there follows
the parable of the soils and the sower. And in verse 10, And
the disciples came and said unto him, Why do you speak unto them
in parables? And he answered and said unto
them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever has,
to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But whosoever
has not, from him shall be taken away even that which he has. Therefore speak I to them in
parables, because Seeing they do not see, and hearing they
do not hear, neither do they understand. And then down to
verse 34. All these things spoke Jesus
in parables unto the multitudes, and without a parable he spake
nothing unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
through the prophets, saying, I will open my mouth in parables,
I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.'
Then he left the multitudes and went into the house." Now verse
44, "'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in
the field, which a man found and hid, and in his joy he goes
and sells all that he has and buys that field again.' The kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant, seeking goodly
pearls, and having found one pearl of great price, he went
and sold all that he had and bought it. Well, having been
reminded from this very portion that if we are to understand
the things of God, it must be given to us, let us come to the
God who says, Ask, and it shall be given unto you. Let us together ask. Our Father, we would come acknowledging
that apart from the present activity of the Holy Spirit illuminating
our minds, we shall understand nothing aright from your Word. We shall understand nothing in
a way that profits our souls. We think of these multitudes
who heard the very words of truth incarnate. The one who said,
I speak not my own words, but I speak the words that my father
gives me. The words that I speak are spirit
and they are life. None ever spoke as that man spoke,
and yet our father we read, that eyes were blind and ears were
deaf. O God, have mercy upon us. Open our eyes that we may see
wondrous things out of Your Word. Unstop our ears, we pray, and
come to preacher and people alike with illuminating, life-giving,
life-transforming grace and power in and through the preaching
of Your Word. Hear us, for Jesus' sake we plead. Amen. Two Lord's days ago, we considered
together the parable of the hidden treasure, the first of these
twin parables found in Matthew 13, verses 44 to 46. And these two parables are found
in the midst of seven parables recorded here in Matthew 13,
and they are often identified or described as the kingdom parable. because the kingdom of God is
the central theme of each of those parables. That kingdom
which has come in the person and in the work and grace and
power of the King himself, even our Lord Jesus Christ. The passage
read in your hearing, Matthew 13, 10 and following, clearly
teaches us that the parables were spoken by our Lord both
to reveal in grace to some, but to conceal in judgment to others. They are both a revealing and
a concealing tool of instruction in the hands of our blessed Lord. And while the other parables
in this chapter convey some very vital lessons on such themes
as how the message of the kingdom is received, the parable of the
sower and the soils, the fact of the mixed character and the
future perfecting of the kingdom, the growth and development of
the kingdom. It's like leaven. It is like
a mustard seed. It is in these two parables,
the parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great worth,
that we are taught something of the preciousness of the kingdom. When the kingdom of grace draws
near in the King of Grace, the kingdom of heaven is like unto
a treasure hidden in the field, and like unto a man seeking good
or excellent pearls. Now because both parables teach
essentially the same thing, some commentators and some preachers
have expounded them in tandem. They did this because they felt
it was either unnecessary or would be tedious to treat them
separately as I am doing. Well, to those who have thought
that way and who think that way and act that way, I can do no
better than to read the words of a Scottish preacher and writer
from the 19th century by the name of William Arnott. And he
writes in his introduction to his separate treatment of the
Pearl of Great Price, so closely allied are these two parables
that if we regarded repetition as a formidable blemish in our
teaching, we would not have proposed to expound them separately and
successively. We would have at least put some
time between them, lest people think we are guilty of absent-minded
repetition. The two lines are coincident
or parallel throughout their whole length, except at one point. But there, the diversity is broadly
marked, amounting in one aspect to a specific contrast. In view of this difference on
the one hand, and of the example of the Lord on the other, I think
it right to open and apply the parable of the pearl as fully
as if the parable of the hidden treasure had not gone before
it. We need and get not only different
pictures of the same objects, but also the same pictures repeated
in different colors and on different grounds. One eye may be more
touched and taken by this color and another by that, although
the outline of the objects be in both cases essentially the
same. Your eye may be attracted to
red, and so the bird is outlined in red, and your eye turns to
the red bird. Someone else is more natively
and naturally attracted to yellow. And the same kind of bird in
shape is pictured, but it's yellow. Your eye instinctively turns
to the yellow. Here is a wise teacher recognizing
that this is a fact of natural revelation, and in conveying
the stuff of special revelation, God does not ignore what He has
woven into the fabric of natural revelation. Thus, the conception
of a treasure found may convey the meaning more impressively
to one mind, and the conception of a pearl purchased may convey
it more impressively to another. And so, although the lesson of
the second parable had been more nearly identical with that of
the first than it is, it would not have been expedient to dismiss
it with just a passing notice. by a full examination of the
principle under the picture of a precious pearl, we shall obtain
the advantage which, in moral questions as in material operations,
is often unspeakably great, namely, that of a second blow upon the
same spot. you're hammering on the rock
at the same spot and after the second or third blow it begins
to have a crack and it's on its way to being broken. The usefulness
and even the necessity of this method is acknowledged by all
teachers in whatever department they may be called to exercise
their office. The same reasons moreover which
induced the master to reduplicate his lesson demands that we should
also reduplicate ours. It is our part both in the matter
and in the method to follow the steps of our Lord. He thought
it good and necessary and wise to give us these twin parables,
which in their essential lesson are identical. In one prominent
difference, there is a very helpful lesson to be learned. But if
the Lord Jesus did not scruple to say to his own disciples back
to back, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure, the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls,
Mr. Arnott rightly says we should
submit to the wisdom and to the pattern and practice of our Lord. We take up the twin parable this
morning, that older brother or sister of the parable of the
treasure hid in the field. And we begin, as we did with
the previous parable, with an explanation of the basic elements
of the parable. An explanation of the basic elements
of the parable. First of all, note the identity
of the man. And when one reads the parables
together, one is struck with a different focus right at the
outset. Verse 44, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a treasure hidden, where the focus is immediately
taken to a treasure that's hidden somewhere. This parable begins
with the words, again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man
that is a merchant, like unto a treasure, an inanimate object,
like unto a man that is a merchant. It is like unto a merchant, and
this merchant is one who traffics in pearls. And the word used
for merchant could be rendered a wholesale dealer. It's the
Greek word from which we get our English word, an emporium.
The opposite of the emporos was a kapelos. He would be your common
street vendor. He would be the retailer who's
bickering in the bazaar, in the marketplace with pearls of various
worth. But this man is a sure enough
expert in pearls. He is a real gemologist who traffics
not in cheap stuff, But he's a wholesaler who traffics in
first-grade pearls. He is described as a merchant
man seeking goodly pearls. That is, he's engaged in seeking
to lay hold of pearls that are of unusually high quality. This word for pearl, or the word
pearl, used several times in the New Testament enables us
to recognize that when our Lord spoke these words, the pearl
was a gem of unusual worth. Because they did not yet know
how to have cultured pearls, and there were all kinds of romantic
and superstitious notions as to how the pearl was formed in
the oyster shell. The pearl is put right up there
with gold and silver and precious stones two times in the book
of the Revelation. Pearls are mentioned with gold
and with precious stones. One time included in the list
of gold and silver and precious stones and pearls. When Jesus said, cast not your
pearls before swine. He understood and knew that the
average listener there on the hillside, when he spoke the Sermon
on the Mount, would understand, do not cast that which is of
extreme worth and precious, intrinsically worth much, do not cast that
before swine. So that's who the man in the
parable is. He's a wholesale merchant who deals in first-class,
first-rate, precious pearls. Now note the activity of the
man. We're told three things about his activity. First of
all, we are told that he was continually seeking these fine
pearls. Again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a man, a merchant man, and there you have a present
participle, continually in search of goodly pearls. He didn't read
one day in the Wall Street Journal that pearls were going to be
the next hot ticket and say, well, I'll dabble a while in
being a pearl merchant and read a few books or go to a weekend
seminar on how to distinguish pearls. No, this man was taking
up pearls for his life. Here is a merchant, a wholesale
merchant, that is constantly in a search for the highest grade
pearls that are out there on the market. That's what our Lord
says about His activity, continually seeking fine pearls. Like a good diamond merchant
who knows that there are diamonds and there are diamonds. Most
of us with our untrained eye, we couldn't tell the difference.
If it glistens and sparkles and looks nice, well that looks like
a lovely diamond. But it takes the gemologist to
take his eyepiece and look into that diamond and hold it in different
lights, and he can grade it as to this, that, and the other.
That's what this man was continually doing. Pearls were his business
life. That's the first thing about
his activity, continually seeking fine pearls. The second thing
is that in that activity he comes upon one pearl of exceeding great
value. Our text says the kingdom of
heaven is like unto a merchant man continually seeking goodly
pearls, excellent pearls, and having found one pearl of great
price, of exceeding great worth. The only other use of this word
in the New Testament is John 12, 3, where it speaks of the
ointment with which Mary anointed Jesus, and most of the translations
describe it as ointment that is very precious. Now try to
live out the scene. Your life is pearls, and you've
become an expert in pearls of great worth. You're not dabbling
in the stuff that is market-ware junk. You're dealing with high-class
stuff, so your eye is trained to look at those characteristics.
The moment you come up to a man's shelf where he has his pearls
laid out, your eye can immediately distinguish those that are cut
above the others, and you discount the others, and you set your
eye upon the excellent pearls. And one day in the course of
doing that, someone with whom you are doing business spreads
out his pearls. And before you is something that
takes your breath away. And when the man's eye lights
upon this, it's as though he's never seen another pearl. It's
size. It's shape. It's luster. He comes close to it. He examines
it and does everything with it that a pearl merchant who's an
expert would do with his pearl. And he is so taken up with the
exceeding great worth of this pearl that he strikes a deal
with the merchant on the spot. And he says, all that I possess
for this pearl. And this merchant happens to
know that back home, this guy's got a 10 room house. He knows
that he's got a vintage Corvette sitting out in his garage. He
knows that in the display case in his family room, he was, when
he was younger, a baseball nut. He's got one of the baseballs
that Roger Marris hit out in Yankee Stadium in the year when
he had the record until Mark McGuire came along. And in there,
he's got an original glove from Stan Musial. And he's got all
kinds of baseball memorabilia of tremendous work. And this
guy's been to his home. And he knows all that he's got.
And he says, look, George, this pearl, everything I have for
this pearl, And George says, man, I know something of what
he's got. That vintage Corvette, his ten-room house, is a good
deal for me. And this man who has found this
pearl of exceeding great price is persuaded he's getting a bargain.
And so what does he do? The next activity is described
as selling all he possesses and acquiring the pearl. Again, look
at the text. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a man that is a merchant seeking excellent pearls. And
having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that
he had and bought it. See the verbs? He went, he sold,
he bought. Here's a man who is a pearl merchant
in first grade, high class pearls. Perhaps he had a safe deposit
box in his local bank with the best of his good pearls. And people know at the bank,
when he comes in and asks for a safe deposit box, he's depositing
one of those excellent pearls. His reputation is known throughout
the community. And lo and behold, he comes in
on that Monday morning and says, I want my safe deposit box. I'm
closing up business with the bank. I'm going to put them all
on auction this week. And they look at him and say,
what in the world has gotten hold of you? Why, what's in that
box is known by all in the community. Those are the best of the best
pearls. He says, ha ha, no more. If you
had seen what I've seen, what I'm determined to have, You know
these high class pearls are now secondary pearls. I found one
pearl that's worth everything. Then the notice goes up in his
front yard. House sale next Saturday. All the contents must go. One day auction. Everything liquidated. Look at the text, folks. Sold
all that he had. Use your imagination. What would
it mean? Sell all that he had. empty out
his safe deposit box, sell his house, auction off his vintage
Corvette, auction off his baseball memorabilia, and he takes all
the proceeds, now converted into cash, and he goes to George the
merchant and says, take my stuff, but give me the pearls. And maybe they write out a deed
validating it was done, I don't know what the customs were. But
the scripture says, who having found it, he went, he sold, and
he bought it. Now these are the basic elements
of the parable. The man identified as a wholesale
pearl merchant who was in the business of seeking only good,
high class, first grade pearls. finds this exceedingly rare and
precious gem, and he goes, sells all that he has, and buys it. Now, that's an explanation of
the basic facts of the parable. Secondly, an identification of
the central lesson of the parable. What is the central lesson? Well, here I have to do as I
did with the other parable and state what it is not. Pastor
Lamar has mentioned this on more than one occasion, and so have
I. Reading commentaries is not only at times a tremendously
edifying and humbling thing, at times it's a humorous thing.
And you have to laugh at what sincere men think God put in
His Word. And when we think of this parable,
what is its central lesson? Let me state very simply and
briefly what it is not. This parable is not intended
to teach the kind of truth found in a passage such as Ephesians
5 25 and following. Husbands love your wives as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for the church. And there
are some who say this parable that the goodly man or the merchant
man is Jesus. And the pearl is the church.
And Christ was willing to lay down His all that He might purchase
us for Himself. Now that's a wonderful truth.
That lies at the very heart of our hope. The Son of God who
loved me and gave Himself for me. But dear friends, that's
not in this parable. It's wonderful when people want
to see Christ in every passage of Scripture. But when you put
Christ where He didn't put Himself, you don't honor Christ. All right? The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a pearl merchant seeking goodly pearls. The central truth
of the passage is not a lesson on Christ seeking his people
and giving his all for them. Furthermore, it must never be
used to teach that we can enter the kingdom by purchasing an
entrance with money or with good deeds. Someone says, ah, but
the text says that having found, he went, he sold, he bought it,
we can buy into the kingdom. Now there was a time when multitudes
were duped by the horrible practice of the Church of Rome and its
sale of, quote, indulgences, and basically the indulgence
was a provision whereby, for so much money, you could pay
for the release of someone out of purgatory by neutralizing
the temporary punishment for their sin. And this was one of
the horrible abuses that brought that Augustinian monk to the
floor. And in his debates with Tetzel,
it is said that when Tetzel and others were in business, that
they would tell the poor, ignorant peasants that every time one
of the drachma, or one of the coins, fell on the top of a drum,
a soul was released from purgatory. And certainly our Lord is not
teaching that the kingdom of God can in any way be purchased
by money or by the currency of our deeds that God would regard
as payment in kind. Our tears, our prayers, our repentance,
our faith, our reformation of life, whatever there is of real
coinage in them, they have absolutely no worth in terms of purchasing. a standing with God and entrance
into the kingdom. And furthermore, it is certainly
not intended to teach us the ways in which the growth of the
pearl is a picture of the growth of the kingdom. And you say,
surely no one would do that. I read from a commentator, very,
very helpful in some ways, but then he writes, if our suggestion
regarding the cause and manner of the pearl's growth is correct,
that an irritant goes into that bivalve, into that oyster. And
then it secretes things that envelop it, etc. He says, now
listen to what he says, if our suggestion regarding the cause
and manner of the pearl's growth is correct, the kingdom of God
in the gospel of his son was generated in the same way. The
pearl and the pearl of great price have the same natural history. Some foreign, hurtful thing falls
in the creature's life. forthwith the irritation which
that invader produces causes the creature to throw out and
over it the disturber, that which forms a covering around it, hiding,
smothering, annihilating the originating evil, and constituting
over it and in place of it a gem of the tenderest, gentlest beauty,
impenetrable, imperishable, glorious, So sin, a corroding drop, a dark,
deadly, vexing, torturing thing, fell upon God's fair creation,
threatening to inoculate it with a poison that should leaven the
whole lump and change its beauty into corruption. But around the
dark sin spot, and because the sin spot was there, divine love
showered down like the impalpable silver gathering on its object
in the electrotype, embracing, surrounding. And he goes on to
say, that's a picture. God intended, Christ intended
to give us a picture of how the kingdom grows. Now, it's one
thing to say that where the Bible teaches how the kingdom grows,
we find an analogy or a simile in the activity of a mollusk,
of an oyster, or a spider as John Bunyan does. He finds excellent
analogies with spiders on the walls of kings and maidens brushing
a dusty room. but to say that when Jesus said,
the kingdom of heaven is like unto, that Jesus meant to teach
in this parable how the kingdom develops. No, my friend, the
parable was never given for that purpose. Well, if that's not
what the parable is intended to teach, what is it intended
to teach? Well, as I noted two weeks ago
in our study of the parable of the hidden treasure, the common
denominators in both parables are these. In both cases, a single
object of supreme value is discovered. In the one, a man discovers a
treasure in the field. In the other, the seeking pearl
merchant finds this pearl of exceeding great worth. In both
cases, a single object of supreme value is discovered, and secondly,
in both cases, the single object of supreme value is acquired
at the cost of liquidating all other personal assets. In the
case of the treasure, this man in his joy goes and sells all
that he has and buys the field. In the case of the pearl of great
price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. And the
meaning of the parable is found essentially in that common denominator. And what is it? I give it to
you as I did two weeks ago. The discovery of the great worth
of Jesus Christ and of the salvation that is in Him will always cause
a sinner to dispense with anything and everything that would keep
him from possessing Christ and the salvation offered in Him. That's the central teaching of
this parable. that the discovery of the great
worth of Jesus Christ and of the salvation that is in Him
will always cause a sinner to dispense with anything and everything
that would keep him from possessing Christ and the salvation offered
to us in Him. Go back over this parable and
see if it fits. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto A man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls. Here's
the man, here's the woman, the boy or girl. Diligently seeking
that which is good, noble, virtuous. Seeking meaning in life. Passionately
desiring to know the answer to the most elementary questions.
Why am I here? What happens when I leave? Here
is someone not immersed in sensuality and merely living off the end
of his or her nose for the next personal, sensuous, temporal
pleasure. Their mind and spirit has risen
above that and they are seeking goodly pearls. They are seeking
that which is of worth intrinsically. And in that search, in that search,
a discovery of Christ is made. by the Spirit, through the Word,
and then what happens? Well, what happens is exactly
what happened with this man seeking excellent pearls. The acquisition
of the one pearl becomes the all-absorbing passion. That's
the first thing that happens. The acquisition of the one pearl
becomes the all-absorbing passion. When he found it, he went, he
sold, he purchased. This is the Philippian jailer,
whose one obsession, when he has been brought face to face
with the gospel in the power of the Spirit, surrounded with
a demonstration of God's power in the physical realm, says,
what must I do to be saved? That's the one passion. And so
he opens his home to the apostle and his companion. And in the
wee hours of the morning, he sits with his household, hanging
on the Word of God. Why? Because a discovery of the
pearl has been made. And now only one thing matters.
It's the Ethiopian eunuch who down there in Ethiopia finds
no satisfaction in the pagan gods with which he was reared
and that are all around him. And he sees in the scriptures
of the Old Testament and in Yahweh, the God of Israel, something
that looks like excellent pearls. There is something here not to
be had there. And he becomes in some way or
another a loose proselyte to the revelation of God in the
Old Testament, makes the long trip from Ethiopia all the way
up to Jerusalem to be at one of the stated feasts. and to
show that he was not a formalist just trying to do his thing to
ease his conscience. In his spare time on the way
back in the rough ride in the chariot, he's holding a scroll
and he's reading. And Philip comes. What are you reading? Oh, I'm reading here in Isaiah
53. But I don't know of whom is he
speaking. And it says, beginning at that
place, Philip preached unto him Jesus. What happened? He discovered
the pearl of great price. And at that point, nothing mattered
but having Christ and making it known that he found the pearl.
He said, here is water. What doth hinder me to be baptized?
I found the pearl. I want to be identified with
him. The kingdom has come. It's Bunyan's Christian who has
discovered from the book in his hands that the city he's in is
doomed to destruction. And he's on his way to get rid
of the burden on his back. And when people try to dissuade
and discourage him and distract him, the fingers go in his ears
and he cries out, Life! Life! Eternal life! The grand
obsession of the soul. The acquisition of the one pearl
became the all-absorbing passion with this man. And it's that
way whenever God brings someone into the kingdom. He brings them
in having persuaded them that what is there in the person and
work and virtue and gifts and graces of the King Jesus is worthy
of single-eyed pursuit, the all-absorbent passion. Secondly, the acquisition
of the one pearl at any cost as regarded as the only rational
thing to do. You see, once this pearl merchant
finds this one pearl of exceeding great price, there's something
going on in the reckoning faculty of his mind. And he's come to
this persuasion, the only rational thing for me to do is to get
that pearl, and to get that pearl, I must liquidate all I've got
at home. But that's the most reasonable
thing in all the world. I obtain a bargain in that pearl. And when the Lord Jesus, by His
Spirit, is drawing a sinner to Himself, the Spirit of God, through
the Word, always works a marvelous work of radical devaluation within
the soul of the sinner. Up until the discovery of that
one pearl, had you gone to him when he came back from one of
his normal merchant trips and said, I'd like to buy your vintage,
did I say Corvette? I think I did, yeah. Corvette
in the garage. He said, no way. I mean, that thing, I've nursed
that thing and polished that thing and no way. What about
your Roger Merritt Bateman? No way I'm going to part with
that man. I mean, you couldn't dicker with him. You couldn't
offer him anything. These things were precious to him. But now
suddenly he comes home and he's ready to auction them off and
sell the whole shoot and match. Not because something snapped
in his brain. It's because he came to the rational
conclusion that pearl is of such worth that I'd be stupid and
crazy if I didn't liquidate my house, my Corvette, my Roger
Maris baseball in order to get the pearl. Look at the text. Having found one pearl of exceeding
worth, he went, he sold, and he bought it. The kingdom of
heaven is like that. The Holy Spirit never reveals
Jesus in such a way that you sit and dicker and make calculations. Well, if I commit myself here,
I'll hedge my bets here, I'll diversify my portfolio there,
so that if this doesn't pan out, I've still got something left.
No. No. If you say you know Christ
and He's a commodity, that can in any way share your portfolio,
you are deluded, my friend, utterly deluded. For Jesus, the King
of Grace, says the kingdom of heaven is like unto a pearl merchant
seeking excellent pearls, who when he finds, who when he found
one pearl of exceeding great worth, he went and sold off. The third thing we see is that
the acquisition of the one pearl at the cost of all else is reckoned
as an immeasurable gain, as an immeasurable gain. Not only did
he come to the rational conviction that the pearl was worth all
that he possessed, but he's convinced he's gotten a good deal. No doubt
the merchant feels that, man, I've got a wing fall from this
pearl, why was he willing to part from it? Because he believed,
as a merchant, it was in his best interest to part with the
pearl to get this guy's stuff, right? Isn't that what happens
when you buy and sell and trade and barter? You go down to the
local car place and you look at the car, it's got all the
features, you believe it's in your best interest to part with
so much money to get that hunk of tin. The man there believes
that your money is worth parting with his hunk of tin. It'll be
in his best interest to relinquish the car, and you believe it's
in your best interest to take it off his hands. And that will
be due in business exchange. Are you with me? This is a business
deal. He went, found this one pearl
of exceeding worth, and he says, look, it's in my best interest
to part with everything to have it. And the merchant says, it's
in my best interest to take what you've got, to part with it.
They both got the best of both worlds. But now when we realize
here's the significance of it in the realm of the spiritual,
when the Spirit of God has brought to the heart a discovery of Christ
crucified, risen, standing in the plenitude of His grace and
mercy, receiving sinners in that grace and in that mercy, the
discovery of Christ is such that we never walk away talking about
how much we gave up for him, how much we sacrificed for him. You couldn't come up to this
fellow while he's admiring his pearl and say, aren't you shedding
any tears? You don't have your Corvette
in your garage anymore. What about your Mickey Mantle
memorabilia? And your Stan Musial glove? And
he would laugh and say, you don't understand. I've got this pearl. Do I miss
my Corvette, you crazy? Don't come to sympathize with
me that I've got no Corvette, that I've got to spend some time
in the local boarding house for a while until I find out where...
Don't shed any tears for me because I've parted with my house, with
my Corvette, with my stuff, and partied with my stuff. I have
it. I have this pearl of exceeding great worth. William Taylor,
who expounds both of the parables together, has captured this element
so beautifully. At these parables, he says, teach
us that the perception of the value of salvation in Christ
makes a man happy to part with everything that is inconsistent
with its possession. The merchant made a good investment
when he bought the pearl, even at such a price. He was getting
more than he gave. And the finder of the treasure
has no sadness in his heart when he sold all that he had to buy
the field. The text says, for joy thereof. of which multitudes
lose sight, which perhaps the vast majority of readers, and
I say listeners, never see, is the gem of the parable of the
hidden treasure. And if I might, I would fain
take this gem and set it in the prominent place in the ring of
my discourse." And going back then to the treasure in the field,
he says, the man did not regret the selling of all that he had
for the purchase of the field. nor the man who purchased the
pearl of great price. He didn't go around whimpering
about the sacrifice he was making, the self-denial he was practicing.
He gave much, but he got far more. And the joy of getting
the thing swallowed up in itself, all the pain of his giving. The
joy in the getting swallowed up any pain in the giving. Now it is in this that the truth
resembles, I'm sorry, that he truly resembles the true Christian
convert. You remember how the young ruler
went away sorrowful, wedded to his possessions? Here we have
the true explanation of his making that great refusal. He had no
adequate conception of the value of Christ and of his salvation. It says he had great riches. No, the riches had him and he
stood before truth incarnate. He stood before eternal life
incarnate and says, what must I do to have eternal life? And
Christ says, you must have me as your treasure. He went away
sorrowful because he had another treasure and he'd never seen
the beauty and the worth of the true treasure that was before
him. What's the central lesson of this parable? The central
lesson is essentially what it is in the parable of the treasure
hidden in the field. It is when the Spirit of God
brings home to the heart of the sinner a saving discovery of
Christ. Christ is reckoned to be of such
exceeding worth that the whole of the heart goes out to Him. Repentance is saying, the stuff
in my garage doesn't matter. The title to my ten-room house
doesn't matter. I must have the pearls. Repentance
is saying the approbation and approval and smiles of my peers
doesn't matter. I'm ready to let the world know
the pearl is mine. In that sense, I am the pearls.
It has captured me. He has captured me. Do we feel the loss of friends
for Christ's sake? Of course we do. but not when
we compare the pain of that loss with the joy of the discovery
of Christ. We say no to every pleasure that
must be had in the way of violating God's law. promoting the knowledge
and communion with God and the advancement of the kingdom of
God. With the Apostle Paul we are ready to say, I will eat
no meat or drink no wine, nor do anything whereby my brother
is caused to stumble. The salvation of the souls of
others, my passion that others will come to discover, this pearl
of great price makes any pleasure of any kind in any way expendable. I found the pearl and I want
others to possess the pearl. That's the teaching of the passage.
And if that is, let me ask you as you sit here this morning,
are you that wholesale pearl merchant? Have you seen in Christ
what you are willing to embrace? Selling your own self-righteousness,
saying with Paul, all that I've ever done in law-keeping and
religious rituals is as dung, that I may gain Christ. Christ
can only be purchased as the pearl when you repudiate all
of the rot and stink of your own self-righteousness, your
own arrogant notions about true religion and what is of value
and what is right and wrong, the rotten stuff of your own
depraved thoughts. Are you ready to trash it that
you might have him in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
are hidden? your sins that can only disappoint
you and leave a bad taste in the mouth of your soul? Are you
prepared to sell them that you might have the pearl? Could I
but show you the beauty and the worth of Christ? You know what
would happen to every single unconverted person here? You'd
be saved before you left this place this morning. If you could
see for a moment the true worth of Jesus, And all that is in
Jesus, you'd say, what a wretched, stupid fool I've been thinking
I could find life, true joy, peace, satisfaction anywhere
but in Him. And if the Spirit of God is pleased
to take the Word of God and shine in your heart upon the face of
Christ, you'll become another of these merchants who goes,
who sells, and who buys. This Christ who says, come unto
me, I'll give you rest. If you thirst, come to me and
drink, and I'll give you an artesian well of spiritual life. You'll
never thirst. The water I give shall be in
you a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. I'm the bread of life. He who
eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall never die. Christ is all
of that and more. And the reason you sit in unbelief
is you don't see that. All you see is a lump inside
an oyster. Ugly looking oyster. You ever
see anyone get excited about the outside of an oyster shell?
It's ugly. Dark ridges, sand worked in.
If you're cleaning oysters before you crack them open, nothing
pretty about an oyster. That's all some of you see. We
stand up here preaching Christ and all you see is an oyster
shell. of words and notions that has no attraction to your heart.
Oh, my friend, cry to God that he'll help you to see the pearl,
the pearl. You see the pearl and its worth,
and your heart will run out to him. Well, I've sought to give
an explanation of the basic elements of the parable and identification
of the basic meaning of the parable. Now, in the time that remains,
the basic contrast between the two parables Some of you have
been waiting for this, I know, because you hold me to my promises.
And I said in the introduction of the other parable that before
we were done, we would address that area of dissimilarity, the
basic contrast between the two parables. And the contrast is
clear and lies on the very surface. In the case of the treasure,
The man finds it. No indication that he's a treasure
hunter. He's not going out there with one of those wands over
the sand, hoping to find a few nickels or dimes that someone
dropped in the sand when they were half drunk at a beach party.
How he was there, we don't know. May have been a hired hand. He
may have been a sharecropper. But when he's not thinking about
treasures, he discovers the treasure. In the case of the pearl merchant,
he is in the business of seeking pearls. There's the obvious contrast. And I believe what our Lord is
pointing to in that contrast is giving the full spectrum of
the different ways that God by the Holy Spirit brings people
into the kingdom. For some people, the kingdom
and all the blessings of that kingdom come to them as this
treasure came to the man there in the field. It's not something
they're thinking about. It's not something they're agitated
about. God, as it were, breaks down out of the clear blue sky
and apprehends them by His grace. In them, Isaiah 65, verse 1 is
fulfilled where God says, I was found of them that sought Me
not. The woman at the well. She's
coming out to the well for one thing. Carry back water for herself
and any in her house. And before she leaves, she finds
living water. Think of Zacchaeus. He's heard
about the buzz and excitement about Jesus of Nazareth. Scripture
says he went up in a tree just to see. That's all he wanted.
He wanted to be able to say the next day when the people are
all talking, hey, I saw Jesus. I saw him too. I got a better
look. How did you see him, Shorty?
I was up in a tree. I got a better look than you
did. All he's doing is wanting to get a look. He got something
more. Jesus said, today is salvation. Come to thy house. They're like
the treasure. Their life is not in any way
focused in seeking the things of God, yearning after something
more noble and elevated and satisfying. Think of the dying thief. In
the beginning of his time on the cross, the Bible says the
thieves, both of them, cast the same reproaches into Jesus' face. In a couple of hours, he's ready
to go to heaven. Today, you should be with me
in paradise. He found a treasure hanging on a cross. But now at
the other end of the spectrum, you have those in whom the Spirit
of God creates a yearning and a desire for something above
and beyond the temporal. And they hardly know what it
is for which they seek. And as the Spirit of God draws
them out and elevates their desires, and they seek and search, and
they go down a hundred different rabbit trails, eventually God
brings them to discover the pearl. Isn't that Nicodemus? He comes
to Jesus by night. Probably didn't want to be known,
but he was interested. He talks. Jesus exposes his real
need. But by the time we come to the
end of John's Gospel, he's one of the two men that takes down
the body of our Lord Jesus and shows his love for the pearl
by washing it and wrapping it in clean cloth with spices. Think also of the Bereans who
searched the Scriptures daily. They were merchants seeking goodly
pearls, and they found the pearl of great price. Think of Lydia.
This cellar of purple was part of a lady's prayer meeting, a
yearning, a reaching out for far more than she could find
in her pagan environment back in her hometown. And it says,
when Paul came and preached, whose heart the Lord opened like
a flower opens to the sun. And I believe our Lord has given
us those two ends of the spectrum to cover everything in between.
The kingdom comes to some like the treasure came to that man.
Unsought, unexpected, but it comes on the same terms as it
came to the pearl merchant seeking goodly pearls who found one pearl
of exceeding worth. Like the man with his treasures,
so the pearl merchant with his pearl sold all to have it. So whatever the diversity of
God's saving work may be in its details, one thing is the common
denominator. If you're in the kingdom, Christ
is your treasure. Christ is your unparalleled pearl
of exceeding great worth. Now in application, let me say
these things. Number one, this contrast between
the treasure and the pearl should be a source of encouragement
to those who are like the pearl merchant. Some of you are like
that pearl merchant. You've not been able to believe
that all there is to life is what you can see with your eyeballs,
what you can feel with your five senses. What people around you
say is the meaning to life. You've not been able to buy into
that. And sitting here this morning, you're very conscious of a yearning
for something higher, more noble. And perhaps you've read in this
philosophy and that or tried this religion and that. My friend,
this passage will be of encouragement to you. God says you shall seek
me and you shall find me when you search for me with all your
heart. That's the text illustrated in
the pearl merchant, you shall go and pray unto me, and you
shall seek me, and you shall find me when you search for me
with all your heart. God says in Isaiah, I was found
of them that sought me not. He says in Jeremiah, I will be
found of those who seek me. Are you seeking? My friend, make
sure you let no one pass off as a goodly pearl, the great
pearl of exceeding worth, a cheap imitation. Go to your Bible and
ask God by the Holy Spirit to show you the exceeding worth
of Jesus and all that He offers to sinners in Him. The contrast should be of encouragement
to those of you who are like the treasure finder. As I was
praying over this in the earlier hours of the morning, I said,
Lord, could it be that sitting here today I see faces I've never
seen before? I said, Lord, could some of them
be Like that man who found a treasure. Maybe you've come here today
just to satisfy some relative, some friend, curiosity. But while
you've sat here in the hymns, in the reading of the scripture,
in the preaching, the mist is beginning to go away and you're
beginning to see what this man is saying and the Bible says,
and these people are saying in their prayers and praises, Christ
is the answer. Christ is life. Christ is salvation. Christ is all in all. Is that
what's happening? My friend, you can have the pearl
sitting there today. You can have the treasure, the
treasure discovered and sought for. But here you are. And as
it were, the dirt is beginning to be pulled back. And you say,
the treasure is Christ. How could I have missed it so
long? I must have Christ. He's yours if you will have Him.
Have Him on His terms. Any man come after me, say no
to self, get out of the God business. Take up your cross, be willing
to be identified with the despised and rejected Jesus. Give yourself
to Him in unqualified surrender. He will be yours. He will be
yours here and now, if you will not have Him. But neither class
One like the treasure finder, the other like the pearl merchant.
Neither class or any in between can take comfort until you have
the treasure and you have the pearl. Notice, he had, sold all
that he had and he bought the field. Sold all that he had and
he bought it. Acquisition was everything. One
commentator used a vivid analogy. If you were in a ship, in the
midst of a heaving, tossing, turbulent sea. All the powers
of the wind seem to have broken loose, and you fear that the
boat is going to capsize unless you can find some sure anchor.
This writer said, if the anchor chain stops one foot from the
bottom, it may as well never have been cast. It's when the
tines of the anchor sink into the ocean floor, that the sea
can batter the ship, but it remains stable. My friend, don't stop
a foot short of being angered to Christ. Being angered to Christ
is everything. The drowning man who cries for
help and the life preservers sent to him, and his hand falls
six inches short of grasping that donut which is his way of
escape from death, he drowns as much as if none ever heard
his plaintive cry for help. My dear friend, acquisition is
everything in the gospel. As many as received him, to them
gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe
on his name. And then none should be comforted
who think they've discovered and acquired the treasure or
the costly pearl who've not sold all that they have to acquire
it. If you've not been willing to
part with anything and everything that is an impediment to having
Christ, you are none of Christ's. Do you hear that? Am I saying
you must relinquish your title to every piece of clothing, every
piece of property, every commodity, every stock, every bond, every
insurance policy. Of course not, the Bible doesn't
teach that. What the Bible teaches and what I'm seeking to articulate
is that you must be prepared to part with anything and everything
that keeps you from having Christ on his terms. In the case of
the young ruler, it was his stocks and his bonds and his cash in
his pocket. For him, his money was his idol. And Jesus said, smash your idol,
and then you'll have me as your God and your Savior. For some
of you, it could be. You won't get saved until you're
ready to relinquish what comes to your mind. Unless you're ready
to what comes to your mind. Then for you, that may be the
hinge on which your eternal destiny turns. You know what it is. You know who it is. You know
who she is. Whatever it is, don't you comfort
yourself that you have Christ as the treasure and Christ as
the pearl, unless you have him on his terms. And child of God,
you who have by grace acquired the treasure and found the pearl, you know the only way to maintain
a proper relationship to everything else in your world is to constantly
grow in your estimation of the worth of the treasure and the
worth of the pearl. Now you think about that. When
do you hang most loosely to the things of this life and enjoy
the most warm, intimate, soul-refreshing communion with God in Jesus Christ? When do you enjoy it the most?
Is it not when Christ has no rival in any area of your life? When you can say with Paul, for
to me to live is Christ. Life means Christ to me. Then and only then will death
be gained. Because you've already let loose of any idolatrous attachment
to anything that will be taken from you in death. You see, death
can't be gained to you. If all you count worthy is here,
that'll be lost to you. For to me, to live is Christ,
to die is gain. Why? Because I've got nothing
to lose when I go to be with Him. To depart and to be with
Christ is gain. Why? Because there's nothing
of any idolatrous worth to which I cling that would be otherwise
lost to me. If there's any secret to the
flourishing Christian life, surely it's here, when the treasure
grows in our estimation each time we look at it, each time
we open it and finger its contents. When the pearl grows in its worth
each time we look upon it, each time we hold it up in different
lights, as Christ becomes increasingly precious, so we understand more
and more of what it is to live with joy in the acquisition of
the treasure at any cost and the pearl at any cost. May God make us a congregation
of people who are like that. Let's pray. Our Father, once again we express
to you our deep gratitude that you would ever condescend to
our weak and constricted hearts and minds, and give to us these
very vivid pictures of how you work in the hearts of people
when you bring them into your kingdom. And we pray that this
day there would be some who discover the treasure, who find the pearl
of exceeding great worth. O Lord Jesus, show yourself in
the beauty and grandeur and glory of your saving mercy and power. And for those of us who, by your
grace, have bought the field and have bought the pearl, we
ask that you would help us to understand more fully the worth
of Him who is the treasure and of Him who is the pearl. O Spirit
of God, make us increasingly thirsty to know our Lord Jesus
better. to love Him more passionately
and purely, to serve Him more devotedly. O God, we pray, seal
Your Word to each of our hearts for our good and for Your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.