If you would turn with me to
the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13. We'll be looking at verses
45 and 46. There were many times in our
Lord's earthly ministry when He would use what's called parables,
stories, illustrations. that the people could relate
to. Many times they misunderstood them, yet many times they knew
exactly what he was saying. In the 13th chapter of Matthew,
the Lord gives several parables, but today I want to look at one
in particular, beginning in verse 45. Our Lord is saying here,
again, the kingdom of heaven I'm interested in that. That
grabs my attention. I'm interested in the kingdom
of heaven. I want to be a part of it. Again, the kingdom of
heaven is likened to a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. Who, when he had found one pearl
of great price, went and sold all that he had embodied. As I said this parable was given
by the Lord Jesus Christ and most people interpret this parable
to represent fallen men and women who earnestly desire and diligently
seek after salvation. But this way of thinking that
they believe in seeking and finding this pearl of great price, which
they say to be Christ, they think that they're somehow rewarded
by their efforts of seeking and finding. Then they go on to believe
that somehow in finding Him, they sold all that they had,
meaning that they forsook their evil fleshly ways and abandoned
their worldly companions and straightened up and flew right. and by their own doing somehow
in some way secured their own salvation. That's the modern
interpretation of this parable. Now there are several things
wrong with that, several things wrong with this way of thinking.
Mainly it doesn't take into account the overall teaching of Scripture.
We compare Scripture with Scripture and it never contradicts itself.
Some say, well John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son. And then John 17, the Lord says,
I pray not for the world. I pray for those that thou hast
given me. So that must mean that John 3.16,
when it speaks of the world, is speaking of all types of men
from all different parts of the world. The scripture does not
contradict itself. The first thing I see wrong with
this modern way of thinking of this parable is that there's
never, ever been a sinner who has truly sought after Christ.
Although Scripture teaches, Isaiah 55, 6 says, "...Seek ye the Lord. While He may be found, call ye
upon Him while He is near." That's God's command. God's saying, seek ye the Lord
while ye may be found. But listen, a dead sinner in
his fallen state and condition never has, never will seek the
Lord for salvation. He's dead. We can use Adam, can't
we, the first sinner? As is our example, when Adam
sinned against God, what did he do? What did he do after he
sinned against God? Well, the Lord called him. Did
he hasten to the Lord God? Did he fall in the dust and shame
and cry for mercy? No! He didn't seek the Lord. He fled God's presence. Tried
to hide. Hiding from God? It can't be
done. Sinners don't seek God, friends. Like their father Adam,
they hide, and the Lord seeks them. Those that are His. And
we know from the account of Adam and Eve's fall in the garden,
Genesis 3 verse 9, it says, And the Lord God called unto Adam,
and said unto him, Where art thou? Who's doing the seeking? Who's doing the seeking? Don't
think for a second that God didn't know where Adam was. God called
for Adam so that Adam might take responsibility and that he might
confess his sin. But did he? You know what he
did? He blamed it on his wife. The woman thou gavest me, she
gave me thee. Boy, that's us by nature, friends. That's the way we are. It's always
somebody else's fault. Always somebody else's fault.
What about Father Abraham, spoken of so highly in the Scriptures?
Did Abraham seek God? Those of you that know the story
of Abraham, you, like me, can find no place in the Scripture
that would support that Abraham sought God. He was living in
Ur of Chaldees, an idolatrous nation. He was a heathen. His parents were idolaters worshiping
false God. And in the book of Joshua, Joshua
stands in before the people. And he tells them about their
father Abraham. And he said unto all the people,
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other
side of the flood in the old time. The father of Abraham and
the father of Nachor. And they served other gods. And
that's little g gods. You look at it when you get a
chance, Joshua 24, verses 2 and 3. And then it says, and I, and
this is, he's speaking for God. He said, and I took your father
Abraham from the other side of the flood and led him throughout
all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his seed, and I gave him Isaac. Sounding to me like God didn't
seek. No, Abraham didn't seek God. God sought Abraham. God
sought him and brought him out of that evil, adulterous, idol-worshipping
nation and gave him Isaac, the seed. Christ being the seed came
forth from Isaac. And it's the same with us, dear
friends. It's the same with God's elect. He sought us. He bought
us. He brought us. And he taught
us that salvation, the seed, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke
19, verse 10 says, "...for the Son of Man has come to seek and
to save them which was lost." There will be many that say,
well, my experience was this, and I cannot deny it. I know
that there was a time when I sought the Lord. But if I may ask, who
caused you to seek the Lord? Child of God, we sought Him because
He first sought us, just as we love Him because He first loved
us. Salvation begins with God. We were sought out by God. It
wasn't by our seek. Does the sheep seek the shepherd
when they're lost? Of course not. When the sheep
was lost in Matthew 18, the scripture said that he left the ninety
and nine and he went and he sought and he found and he took that
lost sheep and put him upon his shoulders and carried him home.
Now what did the sheep have to do with that? You think that
sheep is out there hollering, help, here I am. You're a dumb
sheep. lost, didn't know where he was,
and would have died if the shepherd had not rescued him. To teach
that the sinner, especially while lost, especially while unsaved,
is seeking Christ, the Pearl of Great Price. It's to forsake
the true teaching of the Scriptures, and it's to dishonor the sovereign
grace of God. There are things that a natural
man will seek. There are things that a man will
seek after, but salvation in Christ is not one of them. A
man of seek after pleasure. A man of seek after wealth. But
none, none seeketh after God. That's what the Scriptures plainly
teach. Romans 3. It's written there's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that understand
it. None. There's none that seeketh after
God. That's plain. They're all gone
out of the way. They're all together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. How many seek after God? None. Zero. Only Christ is the sovereign
seeker, dear friends, and oh, that the day he might be pleased
to seek out some poor, needy, wretched, wicked sinner and show
them their desperate need of him. That's my prayer. That's my hope. That's my desire.
May God create a longing in someone's heart to long after Christ. We know that the Lord will seek
out His own. Now another problem with this
modern interpretation of this parable is that men not only
believe that they've sought out Christ, who by the way was not
lost. Men say all the time, I hear
it all the time, I found Christ. I didn't know He was lost. But
they believe that they've sought out Christ and they somehow sell
all that they have to buy salvation. How can that be when a man and
a woman who is dead in sin has nothing to sell? Nothing. How does he buy that poor old
grapevine? We're all as an unclean thing,
Isaiah said. And our righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. And we do fate as a leaf and
our iniquities like the wind taking us away. What do you figure
that our filthy rags will bring at market? We have no goodness. We have no righteousness. We
have no faith in and of ourselves. It's a gift of God. If a man's
got faith, it's because God gave him faith. Saved by grace through
faith, that's not of yourselves. What? No, it's not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not by works,
lest any man should boast Ephesians 2, verse 8. According to Isaiah
55, salvation comes without money and without price. How are you
going to buy something that ain't for sale? Now you may go up to
a guy who's got something in his front yard, a car, an RV,
a boat, whatever, and it may not have a for sale sign on it.
And you might walk up to him and say, I'd like to buy your
boat. He says, well, it's not for sale. And you make him an
offer, and he says, it's for sale. But it's not that way with
God. You can't barter. You can't remember
that game show, Let's Make a Deal. You can't do that with God. God don't make deals. Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to what? His mercy. He saved us by the washing of
regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. For the wages
of sin is death. But, oh the blessed buts of the
scripture. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now may God give us grace and
knowledge to see the true interpretation of this parable. Look at it with
me again. Verse 45, it says, Again the
kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man. Now this man
referred to is Christ. He is the man that is spoken
of throughout this chapter. The man that sowed the good seed
in the field in the first parable, that's Christ. The man referred
to in verse 24 at the beginning of the second parable, It's Christ,
the man in this parable, the merchant man. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. First, He desired this goodly
pearl. The kingdom of heaven is likened
to a merchant man seeking goodly pearls. And when he found one
pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and
bought it. Notice that this parable implies
that this merchant man had set his heart upon this pearl. The pearl represents his church,
dear friends, in its entirety and the people the Lord Jesus
desired. And this is something I know
which altogether passes our comprehension. A child of God who has been revealed
who and what he is, I tell you what, it's hard to convince him
of this truth. But in the eyes of God Almighty,
because of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're a pearl. What was there
in us, poor, fallen, depraved, sinful creatures, to cause Him
to desire? Only one thing, His blessed Son. John chapter 14, you don't have
to turn there. The words that Christ spoke showed
forth His very heart. He said, don't let your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, You believe
in me. Why? He was God. And he said,
in my Father's house are many mansions. And he said, if it
wasn't so, I wouldn't have told you. And he said, I go to prepare
a place for who? You. My people. How that speaks forth His love
for His own. how precious they must be in
His sight. I go to prepare a place for you,
and if I go prepare a place for you, I'll come again. And wonderful,
as wonderful and beautiful and perfect as that place is, friends,
it does not satisfy the longing of the heart of the Lord Jesus
Christ until that place is occupied by those for whom it's prepared. He says, I'll go and prepare
a place for you, and if I go, I'll come again and receive you
unto myself, that where I am, there you may be also. How that shows the intense desire
and love in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will not
be satisfied. until he has his own blood-brought
people around himself. Now I know by nature what we
are, but I know in Christ what we are. Doesn't that not imply the desire
of Christ for this pearl he purchased in the parable? How much does
Christ love his people? Well, in Ephesians 5 he tells
and encourages husbands to love their wives even as Christ also
loved the church and did what? Gave himself for it. Gave himself for it. That's how
much he loved. His people, enough to die for. No greater love is there than
this, that a man lay down his life for his brother. This is
God talking, dear friend. Oh, how He loves those that Christ
died for and purchased with His own blood. And can you see that
this merchant man regarded this pearl as being of great price? That's what it's called, Pearl
of Great Price. Solomon, King David's son, considered
to be the wisest man that ever lived, said in Proverbs chapter
8, he said, Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and
I was daily his delight. Do you realize that in Christ
you're God's delight? rejoicing always before Him. And then God Himself says in
verse 31 of Proverbs 8, My delights were with the sons of men. Oh,
that's hard to fathom. That's hard to fathom, but nevertheless
true. May God allow us to wrap our
hearts around this amazing fact. God loves you just as much as
he loves his precious son." This is money. No less. Can you understand
that? No. I can't understand it. That's beyond my finite mind. My little mind's inadequate to
reach that level of thinking. But I'll tell you what, I can
bow. I can believe. I can worship
Him because of what He says. I don't have to understand it.
We're told this merchant not only desired this pearl, and
esteemed it of so great value, but he sold all that he had to
purchase it. What it meant is that Lord of
Glory, the Creator of the universe, the God of this Bible, He who
is in the heaven and does whatsoever He pleases, sold all that he
had to purchase this pearl of great price. How does God do
that? Well, the scriptures tell us.
He who was rich for his people's sake became poor. You know what
the Bible says? poorer than any of us have ever
been, much poorer. So poor that he was born in a
manger, a stable, a place where the animals were kept. He occupied
a manger, friends, that one day we might occupy a mansion. How
poor did he become? So poor that he said, I have
no place to lay my head. Foxes have their dens. But the
Son of Man has no place to lay His head. And He became that
way in order that you and I, who are among His favored ones,
might rest our heads forever upon His chest, upon His breast,
in His bosom. He who was rich for your sake
became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. God sold all He had, gave all
He had. The merchant man in this parable
sought the pearl, and all sinners are far off from him. Are there
any sinners nigh to him by nature? No. All of Adam's race was far
off from him, born of a woman, born dead in sin, born under
the law, born condemned. All of us are far off. I was
a far off when he sought me. I wasn't seeking him, I'll tell
you that. And if you're honest with yourself, you weren't seeking
him either. And if you say I was seeking
him, it's because he had already put none of the work in your
heart that caused you to. Yet in sovereign mercy and grace
at the appointed time of God's sovereign purpose, Christ sought
and bought me by his own blood, according to Ephesians 2.13.
Christ must need to go through Samaria. He's God. He didn't have to do anything.
But he must need to go through Samaria. You know why? There
were elect children of God there that he must serve. Joshua sent
spies to Jericho. And they met a harlot named Rahab. You know why? Because God had
before the foundation of the world set his affection on that
harlot and she was going to be saved. Oh, listen friends, this
ain't by chance. This don't have anything to do
with luck. This is the purpose of God Almighty. How many times
in Holy Scripture do we see our Lord and Savior seeking His people? Was it an accident that the Lord
one day was walking by the wayside and there sat an old blind beggar
named Barnabas begging? Was that an accident? Was Barnabas
lucky? Not according to this Bible.
He works all things after the counsel of His own will. He's
a God of purpose. All things work together, what
for the good of them who love the Lord, who are thee called
according to His purpose. It wasn't no accident Christ
was seeking. He came to save that which was
lost. And notice this, that this merchant
man bought the pearl. He bought it. Oh, isn't that
what the last three words of verse 46 says? And bought it!
Friends, it was on the cross that our Savior bought the pearl,
and the price that He paid was His own precious blood. Peter said, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed. That word redeemed simply means
purchased. You weren't purchased. You weren't
bought with corruptible things like silver and gold from your
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ. That's what purchased
you. Oh, what a price that was paid.
The blood of God Almighty was shed. That's much more costly
than silver and gold. And lastly, let us consider the
pearl itself. Way, way down in the ocean's
depths, there lives a little animal encased in a shell. called an oyster. But one day
a foreign substance, a grain of sand, intrudes and pierces
the oyster's side. And God has given that oyster,
as he does most of the animal kingdom, an instinct of self-preservation. And when that grain of sand pierces
the side of that oyster, it secretes a slimy substance called nacre. And it covers that wound that's
caused by that grain of sand. And it repeats this process of
secreting this nacre over and over again and again. One layer after another, that
nacre, that mother of pearl is cast out by that little animal
from the wound in its side until ultimately there's built up what
results in a pearl. So we must conclude that first
of all that the pearl is a result of suffering. The very thing
that injured the animal, the little grain of sand that intruded,
is then clothed with a beauty that is not its own. Oh, some
of you know where I'm going. It is then covered with a comeliness
of the one that it injured. The very thing that injured the
hoister is the very thing that eventually becomes the gem, the
pearl of great price. Oh, do you see that picture?
Acts 2.22 says, Him, Christ, being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. That wasn't an accident,
mistake, or chance either, friends. God ordained it before the foundation
of the world. He's the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. For there was ever a sinner,
there was a Savior. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. You. You have taken in your
hearts and your minds. You may not have been. If we
weren't there, no. But we do in our hearts and our
minds. We've taken and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain. Now that's what we've done. Your
mind is full of enmity. Your heart is full of hatred.
And you don't want this God to rule over you. You want to be
your own God. All of us. And notice the lowly estate and
condition of the sinners before the Lord Sodom. It was in the
depths of the sea. Our place was in the filth and
in the mire, just like where the oysters congregate. Oh, that should remind us and
humble us who have by sovereign grace been sought and found by
Christ. We by nature are the children
of wrath found in the mar and the filth and ruined by the fall. And that's what Ephesians 2 says,
that at that time you were without Christ. You were aliens from
the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise,
having no hope without God in this world. Now friends, the
beauty of this pearl is not seen by the eye of man. It's down
there at the bottom of the ocean in that oyster and it's doing
all this. We don't see that. This is a work done in you and
I, friends, that belongs to God and it's seen by God alone. Blessed
be His name. He sees His work of Christ in
me, and that's my only hope of glory. Now, I say this in closing. I pray that those of you here
this morning that have Christ, trusting in Christ, claiming
that He is your all in all. I hope you're able to see the
object of value and beauty only because it's Christ in you. Christ in you is that pearl of
great price. We're made a gem only because
of Him. When Christ your life shall appear,
then shall you also appear with Him in glory. So let me say this
as my last words this morning. Those of you who are yet without
Christ, now listen to me. May God show you from this parable,
once and for all, the absolute, utter impossibility of attempting
to purchase your salvation by any work or doing of your own. You can't do it. First of all,
it's not for sale, and secondly, you don't have anything to buy
it with. So if that's your belief, then you're without hope. This
pearl has been purchased by Christ, and we are the purchased property
of Him. You're bought with a price. We're
not our own. We're not our own. We're bought
with a price. And the only thing that we have
that gives us a right to eternal glory is Christ in us. Oh, you're the pearl of great
price, but it's not because of you. It's Christ in you, the
hope of glory. Christ in us is the pearl of
great price. We're sought and we're bought. by God alone in Christ alone. And that's the gospel. That's
the truth.