This is the last parable in this
chapter. There are seven parables. Some
say eight because of the householder. They call it a parable. There
are seven parables in this chapter, and we have looked at six of
those parables given by our Lord. These are not philosophical sayings.
These are truths, heavenly truths given to us by our Lord. through
earthly examples. Now, the first one we were given
by our Lord was the parable of the soul. He says there are four
types, and what he's telling us here is that there are four
types of hearers in every congregation. There's the wayside hearer, the
stony ground hearer, the thorny ground, thorny ground hearer,
and the good ground. There's only one good ground. But there's only one good ground,
and it's the one He makes good. And then we have the parable
of the tares and the wheat. And what he's saying here is
that in the visible church, not all are saved. Not all who profess
to be saved are saved. That's what our Lord is teaching.
He's teaching His disciples, His preachers, and His people. He's saying in the visible church,
He said, Not all are saints. Some are terrors. Satan comes
in and sows terrors among the weak. And then he gives us the
parable of the grain of mustard seed. Now that the gospel may
have small beginnings, but its end is going to be great. The
end of the gospel and the work of God, the work of Christ in
redemption is going to be very great. There's going to be a
number that no man can number. You know, we see little of it
here. But I, and I have no doubt, this is my I'll probably give
you my personal feelings about something, but I think the greatest
part of those redeemed are made up of children and infants and
people with mental handicaps. I think that's where most of
them come from. Because there are not many, and you know this,
there are not many adults that believe the gospel. And I believe
that's where the greatest part of them come from. He says, some
of the little children come to me and forbid them not for such
is the kingdom of heaven. He may be alluding to that. And
then he gives us the parable of leaven. How that this woman
took a little lemon and she put it in this three measures of
meal and the whole loaf, it says, was leavened. You know, when
the gospel comes in, the gospel of God's grace, Christ, you can't
separate them. When they come in and take residence
in a man, in a woman, in those whom God saves, it takes over. It takes over. The power of the
gospel rules a man and a woman's life. It just absolutely changes
them. It rules them. And then he gives
us the parable of the treasure hid in a field. He gives, you
see, he gave us the, you know, don't be fooled by these, by
numbers. How many converts he had? I haven't had any. I've
never had more. You know, some, you watch these
televangelists and they'll tell you how many converts they had
in a crusade. We don't count converts. Only
God knows them there is. He knoweth them there is. He
knoweth them to trust in him. He knows. He gives us this parable
of the treasure hid in a field and how that man went and sold
all that he had and bought that seed. The gospel, the gospel is the
greatest treasure that there is, because it contains Christ. It contains him. The world is
a field. I listened to a message by Henry
this past week, and he said this in the message, what is Christ
worth to you? What is the gospel worth to you? Everything. It has to be everything. It's worth everything. There's
nothing that a person who hears the gospel will hold back in
order to have the gospel. Say, well, I'm going to keep
this. No. No, we forsake all and follow him. We forsake it
all. And then he gives that pearl,
a parable of the pearl of great price. Priceless. What's price worth to you? Having
him. What's it worth? It's worth everything,
and it'll be proven in our everyday lives that we have Him. If we count Him worth everything.
And now we come to the parable of this fishnet, the gospel net. The gospel here is the net. It
is cast out into the sea, which is the world, and it's cast out
by those who are called to preach the gospel. The fish here are the sinners
that were caught up in this net. The gospel goes out over the
land, and sinners of all sorts are saved. All sorts, black,
white, red, yellow, every tribe, every tongue, every nation. God
is going to save a people out of every one of these places.
And to some, the gospel means nothing. It's really just a religious
service. But to others, it's life. It's salvation. It is absolutely
everything. It's everything. And it says
here, some of the fish, some of them are good and some are bad. Some are good and
some are bad. Some are good fish, just as some
sinners are made righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
good, that's why they're called good. The steps of a good man. Well, the scripture says there's
none good, no, not one. And that includes me. But then
it says the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Well,
that good man is a man who's been made good in Christ. Christ
is my goodness. He's my righteousness. While
others remain bad, even though they've made a profession. That's
what our Lord's teaching you. It's the plain, simple truth
of it. He says there's good in every congregation. There are
those who have been made good by the grace of God, the work
of God, the righteousness of Christ, and then there are those
who are professed to be good, but they're not. He said they're
not. If it were not for grace, though,
none of us would be worthy, would we? He says here that he kept
the good. If it was not for the grace of
God, none of us would be kept. None of us would be worthy to
be kept. What this shows here is the necessity
of preaching the gospel to sinners, and sinners are going to be saved.
They're not going to be saved without this gospel man, without
this preaching of the gospel. If it was God that saved them,
they'd believe through the foolishness of preaching. Preaching the gospel is absolutely
necessary if God's going to send someone. It's necessary. Although, the preaching of the
gospel is not at fault. The preaching of the gospel is
not at fault for all those bad fish, for all those stinking fish.
It's not the fault of the gospel. They just got caught up in the
net. It's just natural for men to
be religious. It is absolutely just natural
for men to be religious. And when the gospel goes out
and God gathers in the good, there are going to be some baddies
who are going to jump in there and make a profession. That's not real. It's not real. Now in verse 48, once again,
He says here, when the net is full, you see, he's going to
draw the net here to shore. Let me find my place over here
and read this. He says, again, the kingdom of heaven is like
unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of every
kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore. When it was full and it's being
drawn to shore, it's just like the parable of the wheat and
the tare. It's the end of the world. And what our Lord is saying
to the disciples and us is there is an end to this. There is an
end. I know we all have to die. We
all have to die. But there is an absolute end
to all that exists right now concerning this world. There
is an end to it. And our Lord speaks in that. And He says when
this end comes, He says when it was full, they drew it to
shore and they sat down and they gathered the good into vessels. Here's what that means. They
were preserved. They were preserved. God has
preserved his people by his grace in Christ. We are preserved in
the Lord Jesus Christ, kept by the power of God through faith,
but we are put in vessels. The good are gathered into his
kingdom, prepared for them from the foundation of the world,
while the bad are cast into outer darkness. Only God knows them that are
his. It's not the responsibility of a pastor or preacher to say,
well, this one's his, this one's not, because I'm telling you,
we'd pick the wrong ones. We would pick the wrong ones.
Who would pick David to be his? Who would pick David and others? You can go through the Bible.
He didn't hide their sin. Who would pick the Corinthian
church to be a church? But it was a church. Who would
have thought that man that was in that Corinthian church, where
he had an incestuous relationship, who would have thought that he
would have been a child of God? Who would have thought that?
Also, when he came back, he said, receive him as a brother. Who
would have thought such a thing? You can just go through the scriptures
and just take out different ones whom God has chosen and used,
and if you were just looking at it with a natural eye, you
wouldn't think that. Who would think God would pick
you and me? See, we're looking at others.
Who would think he'd pick you and me? Something that just jumped
out at me while Wayne was reading this. And they're going to be
separated, it says in verse 49. And so shall it be at the end
of the world. The angels, the appointed angels, shall come
forth and sever, cut off the wicked from among the just. He's
going to make this separation once and for all. And it will
never happen again. And shall cast them into the
furnace of fire. There's real torment. Real torment. Something just jumped in when
you read that. Still blaming somebody else. Still blaming
somebody else. Ashing of teeth and unleashed
hatred and still blaming somebody else. He said they're going to
settle the just from the unjust. There's going to be a clear distinction
made. We'll send forth these angels
and it's going to happen. This is serious business. And
as I read this yesterday, the other day, I read the scriptures
three or four days in a row, just read it and read it and
read it and see what comes out of it. And I thought, here's
the one thing that came out of it for me. How serious is this?
How serious? How serious is this? matter of our relationship with
Christ and having him and eternal life. Because when it's over,
it's over. Psalm said, as the tree falls,
so shall it die. Many have professed, they've
been baptized, they've taken the Lord's Supper, and they've
perished. They perished because it was
all outward. They were just caught up in the
dead. Nothing serious about it. And then he says here, have you
understood all this? It's a good question, isn't it? We've
gone through these parables now for a few weeks. We've looked
at seven parables now. Have you understood this? Have
you understood what I'm saying? Well, thank God if you do. Thank God if you do understand
it. And it sinks down into your heart and affects your whole
life. So you understand all these things.
And they said, and they said truthfully, yes, Lord. Yes, we
understand. We understand. And then he says
to them, look at the responsibility that he's going to lay upon them
now. He says here, let me find my
place here. Therefore, you understand these
things. You're called to preach. You're
a pastor. God's given you an understanding.
Therefore, every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that's a householder. And a pastor
is, in a sense, like that, a householder. He's put over God's house, not
the Lord over them, but he's put over God's house. He's the
undershepherd. He's God's undershepherd. And
he brings forth out of his treasure, what's his treasure? The gospel.
The gospel is the only treasure we have. It's not the prophecies
and, you know, who's going to be the Mark of the Bee and the
Mark of the Beast. No, that's not my treasure. Christ is my
treasure. It's the riches of Christ. When
men leave that, it's evident they haven't found the treasure.
And they have not found the pearl of great price when they leave
then. He's saying here we are to study
and pray and dig into this treasure, this gospel treasure that we
have, this treasure chest of truth, and bring out and get
to you things new and old. I didn't think there was anything
new. Have you ever read the Scriptures?
And I know you have. And for the first time say, well,
I see that. I never saw that before. Well,
it's always been there. It's always been there. But it's the
responsibility of those who teach, like Frank, and as I stand here
and preach, it's our responsibility to dig into this treasure, this
gospel treasure, the riches of the Lord Jesus Christ, all that
he is, all he offers us, and bring out things to you new and
old. I don't know how many times I've had different ones of you
leave and say, I never saw that before. I've read that and never
saw that before. Well, to you it's new. I'll tell you this, when you
hear the gospel, I mean God blesses it to you. It's new every time,
isn't it? It's new every time. It's as
if Christ, who was it that said he was crucified yesterday, rose
today and coming back tomorrow. It's new. Oh, it's new. It's
fresh. It's fresh. It used to amaze
me. It still does. How fresh Henry stayed all those
years. And then why? Because he stayed in this. He
stayed with the treasure. Stayed with the treasure. That's
our duty. It's our duty to study and preach.
But then here, look. This is sad. Verse 54, 53. And it came to pass that when
Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence. And when
he was coming to his own country, look back to Nazareth. He taught
them in their synagogues. He went to their meetings and
taught them, insomuch that they were astonished. Astonishment is not regeneration. A broken heart and a contrite
spirit is. They were just astonished. Listen,
they were caught up in that net. They were just getting caught
up. They were astonished, and they
said, when hath this man this? You know, David said this, thy
word hath made me wiser than my teachers. Where did you get
such wisdom from? Where did you get such understanding
from? And these mighty words, where did he, where did he get
these things from? God. He got these things from God
and he is God. This infinite wisdom. and this
mighty works that he performed, they were astonished when they
looked at this man and they saw nothing in him. They said, where
the hell did he come up with this? And I want you to notice
something here. This is just so like human nature.
Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not this the carpenter's son?
And this is the one that lived down the street in that little
house down there. Is not his mother called Mary?
Who's she? She's not president of any Lions
Club. Who's Mary? Save her, save thy grace. Is
not his mother called Mary? And his brethren, James and Josie
and Simon and Judas, they haven't amounted to anything. Wisdom
is not in his genes. That's what it's saying. His
family's not known for wisdom. His family's not known for education.
Who is this man? They were offended at his education. They were offended at his appearance. They were just absolutely offended
at him, at his family. James and Josie, those men aren't
worth anything. They haven't achieved anything.
Who is he? His sister, we know his sisters
also. They didn't marry anybody important,
and they're not important. Are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all
these things? Well, boy, it'd be good to find
out, wouldn't it? Whence hath this man all this
wisdom? All this power, all this glory,
he has it because he's God. And they were offended in him. They were offended. They recognized, this is the
stupidity of human nature. They recognized his wisdom. They
recognized his mighty works, but they couldn't get past his
appearance. If he walked in here today, in
the flesh, like he walked in that day, you and I, fleshly
speaking now, fleshly speaking, you'd be disappointed. You'd
say, well, that's not what I thought he looked like. Hollywood has
him looking pretty good. They look to him and his family.
After all, the Lord said to Peter,
blessed are your eyes when they see and your ears They were offended in Him. They
were not going to bow down to Him. They were not going to bow
down to such a man as this and claim this is our God, this is
our Redeemer, this is the Messiah of Israel, this is the Savior
of the world. Oh, they wanted somebody probably
about six foot six and looked like Goliath. Maybe not as ugly,
but that's what they were looking for. But Jesus said unto them, a prophet,
a prophet, God's prophet is not without honor except in his own
country and in his own house. He's not without honor except
where he grew up, even though people recognize
the change. Still can't forget his past. They can't forget him. You can't get past that flesh. And here's what happened. Here's
the result of this. He did not many mighty works there. He did
not many mighty works. Not many were saved. Because
of what? Unbelief. Not because he was
not able. Not because he wasn't willing.
They didn't believe him. They couldn't get past the flesh
and see Him for who He is. Let's believe God, let's believe
God and expect great things of Him. Let's believe and expect
great things of Him.