Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 13, where our
lesson will be from this morning, Matthew chapter 13. Before we
begin, let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that you've given us yet one more opportunity to meet together,
to worship you, to praise your Holy name to have your word open
to us, your gospel preached, to have Christ preached to us,
Father, how thankful we are. And Father, I beg of you that
you would not allow us to waste this precious opportunity, but
enable us to hear and to believe, to believe for the first time
or to believe more fully in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bless
your word to your glory to the hearts of your people, we pray.
What we ask for ourselves, we ask for our children's classes
that you give them a special blessing this morning, that you
use this time to plant the seeds of faith. All these things we
ask in that name which is above every name, the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, amen. All right, I've titled our lesson
this morning Preaching, Gathering, and Separating. Our text begins
in verse 47 of Matthew chapter 13. 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. Now our text this morning is
what is the last of what is called the kingdom parables. These are
parables that tells us how it is that God puts his people into
his kingdom of grace. Now in this parable, the fishermen
are God's preachers. And really it's the whole church. God has preachers who preach,
but the whole church has a business of preaching. The sea is the
world. The net is the gospel being preached. The good fish are believers.
The bad fish are unbelievers, false professors. And the time
that they will be separated on the shore is the end of the world.
Now, let me give you a few important lessons that we can find in this
parable. Number one is this, churches.
I have that in quotation, churches. You know, there's one church,
isn't there? Made up of every believer of all time. There's
one church, the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. But what we
call a local church, a local assembly, those local assemblies
on earth are made up of both believers and unbelievers. Just
like the weed and the tares, they're both in the same field.
They're both in the same net. And you cannot tell the difference
just by looking at the fish, by looking at the flesh. You
know, the difference between a good fish and a bad fish is
the nature of the fish. There is a big difference between
trout and carp, the nature of the fish. The difference between
a believer and just a mere professor of religion is the nature. It's the new nature that God
puts in his people in the new birth. You see, faith is in the
heart where God put it. And we cannot judge that faith.
We cannot judge someone, whether they have faith or not, by looking
at the flesh, what they do or what they don't do in the flesh. A believer will commit any sin,
an unbeliever will commit any sin with the exception of apostasy. And that's just because God won't
let them. God will not let them. leave the gospel. A believer
cannot leave the gospel and stay away from it. God won't allow
it. They've got a nature that will
starve to death if they do. They can't do that. So in every
local assembly, there's both good fish and bad fish, believers
and unbelievers, just merely attending a service in this building
that makes somebody a believer. All right, number two, God's
people are gathered in and they're brought to God by the preaching
of the gospel. Now the casting of the net is
a picture of preaching the gospel. They cast that net and gather
in all kinds of different fish. Well, we preach the gospel to
all men everywhere. We don't just preach the gospel
to the elect. We preach the gospel to everyone because that's what
God has commanded us to do. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel to every creature. We preach to everyone because
we don't know who the elect are. The elect don't have a mark on
their flesh. You know, we can tell who they are, who's whose,
we just preach to them. We preach to all men everywhere.
We tell all men who will give us an ear who Christ is. We call on all men without exception. You come to Christ. You believe
on Christ. You repent. And to repent means
to turn. That doesn't just mean sorry
for your sin. It means turning. Turn from whatever false refuge
you've been trusting in and turn to Christ and trust him. Come
to him. We call on all men everywhere,
without exception, beg God for mercy. Beg God for the forgiveness
of your sin through the blood of Christ's sacrifice. And many
different people hear that message. Now some people hear that message
and they believe it. You know who they are? God's
elect. They hear with an ear of faith
because God gave them an ear of faith. He gave them a heart
to believe Christ when they hear him preach. Others hear that
message and they're unaffected by it. Well, who are they? They're
the unbeliever, who at least so far, God's left alone. That's
why they don't believe because God left them to their own devices.
But all sorts of people, believer and unbeliever alike, they hear
the message of the gospel preached, just like that net cast in the
sea gathers both good fish and bad fish. In every congregation,
people hearing the gospel, there's the believer and just the mere
professor of faith. But they're gathered in. God's
elect are gathered in. They're separated by the preaching
of the gospel. Now here's the third lesson.
Our job is to preach the gospel. That is our job. That is the
function of the church. That is the function of this
local assembly is to preach the gospel. Now let's not be fatalistic. You know, fatalism, people just
say, oh, God's sovereign, so whatever will be will be, whatever's
gonna happen will happen, that's God's will. Fatalism like that,
that is not trusting God's sovereignty. Fatalism like that is not faith,
it's not faith in Christ. Fatalism is say, oh well, if
I'm gonna get hit by a car and die, if it's God's will, I'm
gonna get hit by a car and die, if it's not God's will, I won't,
so I'm not gonna bother looking both ways before you cross the
street. You do that long enough, you're gonna get by car, and
ain't God's fault, it's yours. I mean, that's just so. Fatalism
says, well, you know, if I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die. If
I'm gonna be healthy, I'm gonna be healthy, so I'm never gonna seek
medical attention. The doctor tells me I need surgery,
and I'm not gonna have it. The doctor tells me I gotta have
this medicine to fix what ails me, and I'm not gonna take it.
That's fatalism. And any belief in sovereignty
that removes man's responsibility is an error. It's an error. Now
God is sovereign. I don't think you can find anybody
that believes that more strongly than I do. God is sovereign.
But God, as he's revealed himself in scripture, is a God of means.
And we are to use the means that God has given us. And I'll tell
you why this matter of fatalism is so dangerous, because this
is where it leads. Someone will say, now God hasn't
elected people. I know that so, and they're right,
aren't they? God hasn't elected people. Scripture tells us that.
And those people are going to be saved. They're going to be
redeemed. They're going to be glorified no matter what happens. God's going to see to it that
it happens because that's God's will. Well, fatalism says, well,
God's elect can be saved no matter what. So it doesn't matter what
I do. Now that's an error. That's an
error. That's not faith at all. I mean, to the natural man, that
can sound like faith. Oh, well, God's elect can be
saved no matter what. So I don't have to do anything because God's
just going to take care of the situation. That's not faith at all. All
that is, is laziness and unbelief. That's all it is. God is pleased
to save his people, how? Through the preaching of Christ.
How are they going to believe if somebody doesn't tell them
who he is? How are they going to look? How are they going to come if
somebody doesn't say, here he is? It's not possible. God has commanded
us to preach the gospel because he's pleased to save his people
by preaching, by telling people about Christ. Then brethren,
we had better get busy preaching Christ. Now we better be busy
preaching the gospel. Nothing else matters. Nothing
else matters. The glory of Christ, people knowing
and believing and trusting Christ. That's all that matters. That's
all we need to, to, focus our attention on. Now, I mean, you
know, you got, you have responsibilities. You got jobs, you got homes,
you got families, things you got to take care of. But the
job of this body is to preach Christ. That's our job. The fishermen
represent God's preachers. And like I said a minute ago,
God has ordained men to be preachers. It's their job to study and be
given to the word so they can preach, preach the gospel. God
has ordained men to do that. But preaching is the business
of the whole church. You do whatever it is you can
do to support it. Whatever it is you can do to
help the gospel be preached, you do it. And someone might
think, well, I don't have any talents, any skills, there's
nothing I can do. Well, I'll tell you one thing
you can do, you can pray, can't you? Can't you pray and ask God
to bless his word, to give an ear to hear? Can't you ask God
to bless the pastor, give him a message to preach, God's message
for that hour? You can attend the services.
You know, just being here helps more than you know. You know,
a preacher gotta have somebody to preach to. Being here helps, it really
does. Now our job is to preach Christ. Our job's not to get people to
think the way we want them to think. Our job is not to get
people to act the way we want them to act. Our job is to preach
Christ. And our job is not to try to
get results. Our job is not to try to get people saved. Our
job is not to try to make a fish into a good fish. Our job is
to preach Christ and to get out of the way and trust the Lord. He's going to call his people,
but he's going to do it through preaching. You know, when we
preach, we cast a net. We're not baiting a hook to try
to trick people. You know, we get them in by telling them one
thing, get them here long enough, and then, you know, switch and
start telling them something else. Our job is not to try to
trick people. We cast a net and we preach Christ and trust that
the Lord is going to have that net fall on good fish. He's going
to use that net to cause his people to hear and come to Christ.
The job of the fisherman is to cast the net and to keep casting
it and keep casting it and keep casting it and keep casting it.
God help us to preach Christ, to preach Christ and to preach
Christ and to preach Christ and then preach Christ some more.
Because preaching, the preaching of Christ is the one and only
means that God's given us to use to save His people, to feed
and comfort and instruct and edify His people. Our job is
to preach. All right, number four. Preaching
and religious services attract all different kinds of people.
You know, we preach to all men without exception. We tell them,
look to Christ, come to Christ, Beg God to forgive you. Beg God
to give you an ear to hear. Beg God to give you faith that
you might believe. So in every congregation, there's both good
fish and bad fish. And people could be there for
a wide variety of reasons. Now, I don't fish anymore. I used to fish quite a bit when
I was a kid and a teenager. But as I've gotten older, I don't
have the patience for it. I don't have the time for it.
But I used to fish quite a bit. And I learned this when you're
fishing. Even with a line and a hook, It's hard to tell what
you're going to pull out of that pond. It's just hard to tell.
I've been with guys, they've caught trash and stuff. You think, where in the world?
Who threw that in there? How'd that get in there, you
know? I was deep sea fishing one time and had my line out
there, you know, in the bell blue. You're supposed to pull
your line up, the boat's going to move. And I started pulling,
I thought I had the biggest fish in this world. And you know what
I caught? A piece of coral, about like
that, and the biggest thing I caught all day. You just don't know
what you're going to get, because you can't see down there under
the water. When you cast a net, you just
don't know what you're going to get. You don't know what's
under there. I mean, you could get trash. You could get an old
boot and plastic bottles. I mean, you just never know what
you'll get. Well, when you cast a net by preaching the gospel,
you cast a net. Both believer and unbeliever
could be brought in by it. Your religious professors, they're
interested in this matter of preaching and religion. Someone
might be impressed with a preacher. They might like the preacher.
They might be impressed with the doctrine. You know, this
doctrine is new to them. They've never heard it before. And it
intrigues them. And they're brought in for a wide variety of reasons. Maybe they got a girlfriend.
Who knows what's bringing them? But it's all different kinds
of people in the local assembly. And you know, when we preach,
we just can't tell. who's hearing this. You just
can't assume everybody knows this. You can't assume everybody
knows the gospel. You just preach the ABCs, preach
Christ as simply as you can every time because you just don't know
who's listening. Just like those fishermen, they
cast that net in the sea. I mean, maybe in a shallow water. I've seen them, you know, cast
those nets in shallow waters. They're doing it because they
see the little fish and they're getting them for bait or whatever. But
out there in the sea, you can't see under the surface of the
water. You're just casting a net. I know technology today, you
let you go out in a lake or whatever and see the fish under the water.
Why is that cheating? I don't know if that's cheating
or not. But God's preachers don't cheat.
They don't have to cheat. We just cast the net. We just
preach the gospel and trust this. The Lord's going to use it to
bring in his sheep, his fish. That's what he's going to do.
Some of them are going to be good. Some of them are going
to be bad in the local congregation, but the ones that God bring to
faith are fish he's made to be good fish. Now, here's a question. Why does the Lord do it that
way? It sure would be easier on us if only believers came
to the service, wouldn't it? If only God's people came to
the service, there should be, it wouldn't always be the case,
but it should be that there'd be a whole lot less conflict,
a whole lot less trouble if the only people that came to the
service are God's children. The only people that come to
the service are believers. Well, then why does the Lord in every
congregation have both believers and unbelievers? Why does he
do that? I don't presume to know why the Lord does anything. I
mean, the reasons that he does it are many and varied and far
above my head. But there's a couple reasons
I thought of that came to my mind. But why is it that the
Lord does this? In every congregation, there's
a mixture of believers and unbelievers. Well, number one is this. You
know God saves unbelievers. That's why they come. Every believer
that you know used to be an unbeliever and God gave him faith. and they
believed, and they did it through the preaching of the gospel.
That's why, because God saves unbelievers. Number two, God
brings unbelievers in to hear the gospel, maybe for years,
to add to the condemnation of those who refuse. You know, those
different cities, the Lord says, oh, it's going to be worse for
you in the day of judgment than for Sodom, because if Sodom had
seen the worst you've seen, the miracles, they would have repented.
If they'd heard the gospel that you've heard, they'd have repented.
God sometimes does this to add to the condemnation of those
who refuse to believe. Now, thirdly, look at 1 Corinthians
11. God does it this way. He brings
in all different kinds, both those who believe and those who
do not, those who have true faith and those who are just mere professors
to reveal true faith. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 18. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies
among you. There must be heresies among
you. There must be in those in the congregation who are gonna
follow after heresies, that they which are approved may be made
manifest among you. That's why God allows this to
happen. He allows these heresies, He allows these things to come
in that causes so much trouble, so much heartache, so much problem
to reveal true faith. There must needs be heresies
among you. That's the way God's ordained
it. So right now, both believer and unbeliever alike are in a
local assembly because religious services, the preaching of Christ
attracts many different kinds of people. But here's the fifth
lesson. It won't always be that way.
It won't always. There will be a time of separation.
the believer and the unbeliever. When they brought these fish
to shore, the people gathered together and they took the good
fish and put them in vessels. They're gonna take them home
to eat, maybe. They're gonna have a big fish fry, they took
them home to eat, or maybe they're gonna take them to market to
sell. Somebody's going out to sea, casting nets, probably a
professional fisherman. So they took the good fish and
put them in vessels to be used. But the bad fish, they just threw
onto the trash heap. And the Lord explains what that
means beginning in 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 and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.
There should be wailing and mashing of teeth. Now when Christ returns,
the angels are going to gather God's people and they're going
to be taken to glory. They're going to be taken to
glory to be with Christ, made just like Christ. And the angels
will gather the unbeliever and cast them into hell to be forever
separated from Christ and to suffer like you and I cannot
imagine. I'll be perfectly honest with
you. I don't like to think about hell. I don't like to talk about
it. I never want to be accused of
fire and brimstone preaching, but you are Lord talked about
hell frequently. I didn't look this up myself
and count the number of references, but this is what I read this
week from a very reputable source, that our Lord, during his earthly
ministry, talked about hell more often than he talked about God's
love. Hell's a real place, and our Lord talked about hell, the
word talks about hell, so if I'm to be God's faithful servant,
I'm gonna have to too. And I don't know a lot about
it, And I don't want to know a lot about it, but I'll tell
you this. Hell is a real place. It's a place of real torment
where people are right now, right at this very moment, they're
there. And it's a place, our Lord says, of great suffering,
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Now is that physical suffering?
We read about the fires of hell. Is that physical suffering, that
physically burning? Probably, it's physical suffering
of some sort. But without question, there's
spiritual, soul suffering. Hell will be to not have the
presence of Christ, to not have his gracious presence and want
it and need it. See, right now, people in the
flesh, we need the presence of Christ. We need his mercy. We
need his grace. We just don't know it. Hell will
be to know it and not have it. It's unimaginable suffering. And I don't, like I said a second
ago, I don't ever want to be accused of fire and brimstone
preaching because nobody is ever going to be motivated to seek
Christ by the preaching of hell, by threats of hell, by threats
of punishment. An unbeliever will not be motivated
to seek Christ because they're scared of hell. It won't do it.
It's the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance, not
being scared of hell. And you know what? The believer
is not going to be motivated by fear of hell either. The believer
is motivated by love for Christ and devotion for him. The believer
is motivated by God's grace and love and pity to his people.
They're motivated by the glory, the undeserved glory, undeserved
on our part, earned and deserved by Christ our Savior, but undeserved
on our part, the glory, the unimaginable glory that awaits for us because
of God's grace. So one day, the believer and
unbeliever, they're going to be separated. These two vastly
different eternities. And here's the sixth lesson.
Since all this is true, you and I can never be satisfied with
a mere profession of faith. Never. I always want to know,
do I love Christ? Do I believe him? Do I know him? I was with Bob Coffey one time.
He was preaching and he made this statement that if I don't
know Christ now, I want the Lord to show me today, right now. And boy, oh my goodness, he got
in trouble. I mean, the people are saying, what? The preacher
don't know anything. He got in trouble. But buddy, he's right. If I don't know Christ now, I
want God to show me. Oh, it's too important. And one
of the easiest places in this world to miss Christ is sitting
right in those chairs. One of the easiest places in
this world to just assume that because I know the gospel, I
know it in my head. I mean, even some of our young
people can probably have a pretty good guess what I'm going to
say next because I've said it so many times. But now we've
got to know this now. That's not salvation. Knowing
Christ is salvation, believing him, trusting my soul to him. And we have to constantly seek
Christ, constantly seek him, constantly rely upon him. And
just let's be sure that we're not taken up with the motions
of religion, but we're taken up with Christ. And here's one. Let's be sure that we're not
taken up with being different than people in false religion.
Let's not be taken up with now our doctrine is so much different,
better than them. Let's be sure we're taken up
with Christ. Let's be sure now that be sure. And our Lord closes
with telling us the importance of preaching, the importance
of the gospel ministry that we have. Verse 51, Jesus saith unto
them, have you understood all these things? And they say unto
him, yea Lord. Then said he unto them, therefore,
every scribe, which is instructed into the kingdom of heaven is
like unto a man that is a householder, which brings forth out of his
treasure, things new and old. And the Lord asked, do you hear,
do you understand what I've been telling you? And they said, yes,
Lord. But I'd say we would say the same thing. I mean, the parables
aren't really that difficult to understand. But just because
we usually don't have a real good grasp and real good understanding,
the Lord tells us what it is he's been teaching. The householder
here is God's preacher, God's pastor. God's pastor governs
the house. He guides the house. He protects
the house. He feeds those who are in the
house. God's preacher brings blessings to God's people out
of God's treasure house. This is God's treasure house.
God's preacher brings treasures to his people out of the treasure
house. And he does that week after week after week after week. I can't tell you how many times
Janet's cooked me dinner. She's going to have to do it
again. We need to be fed over and over again, don't we? Physically
and spiritually. So God's preacher brings treasures
to feed God's people out of his treasure house every week. He
keeps bringing gems out of the treasure house. of God's sovereignty,
his mercy, his grace, his love, his people. He keeps bringing
gems out of God's treasure house, gems of Christ obedience, not
our obedience to law, but Christ for us. He's bringing us gems
of Christ's sacrifice that made his people righteous before God.
The Lord says here, the householder, the pastor brings things new
and old. Now, you know, when he says that he does not mean
he brings new doctrines and new ideas, something that we've never
thought of before. Someone said, if it's new, it's
not true. And if it's true, it's not new.
And that might not be true necessarily about science and medicine and
different things, but it's true concerning the gospel. If it's
new, it's not true. And if it's true, it's not new.
So what does the Lord mean here? Well, the word new means fresh,
fresh. The gospel is the old, old story. The gospel is eternal. The gospel
salvation in Christ is older than creation, but it's both
new and old at the same time. The old, old gospel that we've
heard so many times before is always new and fresh to us. It's
an old, old story we've heard many times, but it's new. It's
fresh. It blesses me like it's never
blessed me before. And I believe part of the instruction
here is to preach the whole counsel of God, not just our favorite
topics, but the whole counsel of God. It's one of the reasons
I go verse by verse through books so that we preach the whole counsel
of God. If I just bounced around and chose my favorite passages,
I'd choose my favorite passages. You know, I'd choose things I
understand, you know, but going verse by verse through a book
forces us to preach the whole counsel of God. You open up the
Bible, there are many topics to preach from in there, but
just one subject. Each topic all has the same subject,
Christ our Savior. It's just like a diamond. The
diamond has as many facets, but the beauty of the diamond can
only be enjoyed when you look at all the facets at once. You
see all the facets have one subject. It's the glory of the diamond.
Does that make sense? And if you focus just on one
facet of the diamond, you're going to get a distorted view
of the diamond. You're not going to see it in
all of its glory. Well, preaching the gospel is the very same way.
Preaching the whole counsel of God, not just focusing on one
facet, not just focusing on, on, uh, one part of the doctrine,
you know, that we really like, but preaching the whole counsel
of God shows us all the facets of the glory of Christ so that
we don't get a distorted view of the savior. And if we do that,
give a distorted view of the savior, the lost aren't going
to be saved. Oh, and believers aren't going
to be fed. They're not going to grow in
grace either. And I think a good example of what the Lord is teaching
is these kingdom parables that he taught. The kingdom is not
just like one thing. There are several weren't there.
See, we only see what the kingdom of heaven is like by looking
at all of these parables together, not just one. You can't just
take one out and say, this is what it's like. No, you have
to look at all of them together. We had the parable of the sower
that showed the different effects that preaching has on various
different people. Then we had the parable of the
wheat and tares showing us that every congregation has both true
believers and false professors in them. And you can't tell the
difference by looking at the flesh, what they do, how they
act, how they conduct themselves. The difference is the nature
that God put in them. God made the nature of one a
wheat and the other a tarry. That's the difference, what God
has done. Then we had the parable of the mustard seed. Don't despise
the day of small things now. God's great church, a number
that no man can number, began with a mighty small seed, the
obedience of one, the righteousness of one, one who is forsaken by
every human being on earth, all alone, forsaken by the Father,
but that one man, Seemingly so insignificant, seemed all alone
by that one man, God saved a number, no man can number. And faith
in the believer begins with a mustard, something smaller than a mustard
seed, but it grows to faith, saving faith. It saves the soul,
saving faith in Christ. Then there's the parable of 11
and the meal. showing us the gradual effect, the gradual spreading
effect that the gospel has in the hearts of God's people. You know, I want to learn, don't
you? I want to get it. I want when
I preach, I want you to get it and remember it forever. But
that don't happen. That just doesn't happen. Don't
be too discouraged. Why can't I get this? Just keep
listening. Keep listening and keep listening.
The gospel spreads gradually. The Lord reveals things to us
gradually and slowly, slowly. That's everything I wanted. I
want everything now. This happens slowly, slowly.
Then we have the treasure of the parable, the treasure hidden
in the field, teaching us God's great redeeming love for his
people. This is the church that Christ
purchased with his own blood. And then we had the parable of
the pearl of great price. That shows us believer's love
for God in response to his love for us. And they bought the pearl.
Pearl, great price. They bought it without money
and without price. They sold out to have it. And
then the parable of the net cast in the sea teaches us how God
brings his people into the kingdom through the preaching of the
gospel. Now see all that, if you just looked at one, one of
those, you wouldn't get the whole view. When you see all of them
together, we see the kingdom of God. On our subject this morning,
our topic this morning, the preaching of the gospel is so important. God uses it to save his people
and his eternal wrath is going to be on those who refuse to
believe it. Well, God help us to preach it and to believe it.
All right. Lord bless you.