Matthew 13. I'm going to look at verses number
45 and 46, but I believe I'll read just a few verses here,
starting at verse number 44 in Matthew. We have the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He taught in parables. And He asked the disciples, asked
Him, says, why do you do this? Look at verse number 10 of this
chapter 13. And the disciples came and said
unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? Why do this? And verse number 11, He answered
and said unto them, Because it is given unto you that know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
For whosoever hath, to him shall it be given, and he shall have
more abundant. But whosoever hath not, from
him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak
I unto them in parables, because they see and see not, and hear
and they hear not, neither do they understand." And he goes
on in verse 16, says, Blessed are your eyes, for they see,
and your ears, for they hear. And he quotes an Old Testament
in between there of Isaiah. So here's the prophet of the
church, and look at verse number 34 and verse number 35, before
we look at, in verse number 33, he said, And now the parable
spoke he unto them, The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven,
which he only took, and he had three measures of meal, till
the whole was leavened. All these things spake Jesus
unto multitude in parables, and with their parables spake he
not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophets, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I
will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation
of the world." And so he spoke to them in parables, and here
he tells us that he reveals secret the things from the very foundation
of the world. So, the Spirit of God and these
secret things, and what are these secret things? Well, isn't it
that of salvation? Isn't it that of the election
of grace? Isn't it that of the atonement,
the effectual atonement? Isn't it the things that are
brought to light through it? Isn't that the secret things? And doesn't the Spirit of God
search and find that from whom Christ died? And we see that
whom the Redeemer shed His precious blood for, and the fruit of His
suffering, isn't that the secret things that is brought to light?
And the Spirit of God, He witnesses to us the Father's love. He witnesses to us the redeeming
grace. And that's the secret thing.
We realize that here it is. He reveals the things that has
happened before unto us. That we have an interest in those
things. So He spoke to these disciples. We find in verse number 44, again
he says, the kingdom of heaven is like unto the treasure hid
in a field, the which when a man has found, he hieth, and for
joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth
the field. Again, the kingdom of heaven, and this is the verse
I wanted to speak from this morning. The kingdom of heaven is like
unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, whom when he has found
one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and
bought it. So we have in this text this
morning, the kingdom of heaven, we have the merchant man, We
have the search, as it speaks of here, and the godly pearls
that they are sought for, then the pearl of great price that
is found, then also it says he sold, or the sale, he sold all
that he had and he purchased and he bought it. The kingdom
of heaven. We notice that he, as the Lord
teaches here, and here's the master teacher, and as he teaches,
he says, again, again, you notice in verse 47, again, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a net that was cast in the sea, and
gathered a lot of every kind. Which one is full, it drew to
shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into the vessel, but
cast the bad away. And he goes on and he likens
that to the end of the world when the angels come forth and
sever the wicked from among the just. And he says again, he repeats
this. In the Scriptures, you remember
that the Apostle says, put them in remembrance. And again, here's
the Lord, again, he uses that term. He taught them again. Now
the kingdom of heaven as we look at this in this passage of scripture
and it's used here several times. And what is teaching us that
there is genuine that is found in the midst of that, of the
world, there's the genuine and there's also the counterfeit
in the world. As it talks about here, as you
look at it, in this verse, the net cast in the sea and it brought
forth and there was the good and there was the bad. And so,
the Kingdom of Heaven is like that of a net that contains the
good and the bad fish. It's like that of a field that
contains the tires and the wheat, as well as the wheat. So, what
he's saying, the children of God is scattered among mankind. And it is. Here's the world today.
We live in this world. But in this world, there is the
children of God. They're scattered. They're scattered
among a corrupt people and men by sin is corrupt. They're among
mankind. And so the world is made up of
those that are redeemed and those that are unredeemed. That's the
way that the world is. The world is made up of those
that are regenerate and those that are unregenerate. It's made
up of those. The Bible even goes on, it talks
about dogs. It talks about swine and opposition. There's lambs and sheep in this
world. It's made up of all of these.
So we see in Matthew's Gospel, we see the Lord Jesus Christ
preaching to the crowds. But in John's gospel, we find
that he brought his disciples in. He began to speak to them,
the circle of his disciples, didn't he? We find the crowds,
and the crowds opposed him for the most part, and they scattered
about as you look at it. You find the scribes and the
Pharisees, they brought the outcast woman, and they accused her of
her sin, and her sin was adultery. And he writes, the Lord does,
he writes on the ground, and whatever he wrote there, they
all left, didn't they? These scribes and these Pharisees,
they scattered whatever that he wrote. We don't know what
he wrote, it just says that he wrote on the ground. But he drew
this one, this weak one, he drew him to himself. So, the Kingdom
of Heaven, we see that it's God's gracious work in the midst of
an earthly surroundings, a corrupt surroundings, and a carnal surroundings. There is His very Word in the
Kingdom of Heaven, as it speaks right here, that He works in
the midst of all of this. We see the merchant man, as it
says here, like unto a merchant man, Now, I used to think, and
I've owned this passage of scripture, and if you go and look at commentaries,
you'll find that there's different ways that it is written. And most would preach this as
a sinner seeking Christ. But it says here in this parable,
It says that a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, and when he has
found that pearl, he went and sold all that he had. Now it's
like there's a buying, but does man buy the Lord Jesus Christ? He doesn't buy Christ. The sinner
doesn't do this, does he? The salvation is not a buying. The salvation, Christ is not
for sale. And God's salvation and Christ's
salvation is far above price, isn't it? It's far above that. And besides this, the seeking
sinner is bankrupt by nature, isn't he? You look at him by
nature, isn't he bankrupt? He has nothing that he possesses
that would come before God, a just and a holy God. And it's like
Top Lady said, nothing in my hand I bring. We don't bring
nothing, do we? We can't bring anything. We don't
have anything to bring. And we know that we are brought
by grace. We are brought by God's grace
when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ. When we seek Him, you
know, we are brought by grace. So here is a merchant man and
it is pictured as like that he has a stock in hand, but the
sinner is not able to purchase salvation or the very favor of
God. And we're like the psalmist said,
I am poor and needy. And that's what we are. Outside
the Lord Jesus Christ, we are poor and needy. And the psalmist
said, he's my help and my deliverer. So I'm glad that he think of
it. The Bible says, the psalmist says, I am poor and needy, and
he thinketh upon me. We're glad of that, aren't we?
You remember in the passage in Luke, there was the debtors,
and the Lord talked about the two debtors, and He said a woman
had nothing to pay, didn't And she had nothing to recommend
her to the Savior. And he was asking, who loves
the one that is forgiven the most? And asked Simon that. Simon said that, I suppose, the
one that is forgiven the most. And she is given the unsearchable
riches of Christ, but she didn't have anything to pay. She couldn't
pay anything. Over here in Romans, the third
chapter, in the book of Romans, In verse 19, let's look at this
verse, 3.19, it tells us here, now we know that
whatever things soever the law saith, is saith to them who are
under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall be no flesh be justified in His sight, For by
the law is the knowledge of sin. And here the world, it says here,
that they may become guilty before God, that every mouth must be
stopped. So this merchant man here that
is speaking out in this parable must be the seeking Christ. It must be the seeking Savior. Now, you see next the search. And here's the search. He's seeking
for goodly pearls. Here's the search. And if it
wasn't for God seeking, none would ever seek him, would they? It's God seeking first. And if he's not determined to
find, there'd be none found. And who sought Adam? We look
at Adam and Adam sinned and he failed and he did this out of
love to his wife. Adam was natural. We find Christ
is spiritual. We find Adam was earthly. Christ
is heavenly. We find that his way was from
God, but Christ's way is to God. And we see Eve, and Eve stood
in the midst of this rurn. We're seeing it plunged her.
And we see Adam, he would not depart from her. He plunged himself
in this rurn, and he'd not depart from her. You know, we see a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Adam parted with all that
he had for the sake of Eve, his love of Eve. That's the type
of picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, Elias Adam. He left all
that he had for the sake of his bride, the church, didn't he?
See, he loved his bride. He plunged himself. He came to
this earth. And as Adam discovered the plight
and the state that he was in, we find that they both hid themselves. As what the Bible says, they
hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees. They hid, but who sought them?
God sought them out, didn't he? They ran from Him, but they didn't
get away from His arm, did they? There was His reaching arm under
them. They hid, but He could see them. And He comes to them and asks
them, where art thou? Now that's not a question that
God was wondering, where art thou? But He's asking them, where
art thou? See, they recognized where they
were, wouldn't they? Where art thou? And here's the
truth that is taught to these two. Adam and Eve as sinners,
that God sought them. That He sought them. Now, the
covenant God seeks, and that's what we see here with this merchant
man. He seeks the gifts of goodly
pearls. We find a parable, and we find
in Luke, the 15th chapter, there's three parables there. There is
the shepherd seeking the lost sheep. There is the woman seeking
the lost corn. There also is that of the father,
the lost son. All three of these things are
there. And they show that the love of God and that for that
of his family, it shows the love of God as lost sheep. And there's something that is
very interested in that passage of Scripture. It says, Said the
good shepherd seeks the lost sheep, and he says, until he
finds it. Isn't that a blessing there? He seeks until he finds it. Then
he talks about him laying it up on his shoulder and brings
it back rejoicing. And there's a lost corn. And
there's no life in the silver or the corn, but yet it's something
of value. And God values His people. There's a Spirit of God that
seeks out the people of God. Then there's a lost son, and
the father seeking his lost son, he saw him. And this is the prodigal
son, and he ran and he fell upon his neck and kissed him. And
also, this is a picture from the Old Testament, Isaiah. It
says, I was found of them that sought me not. And so we find
that Christ is the seeker. He's the merchant man. Seek of
goodly pearls. Now, these goodly pearls, and
here is the goodly pearls, and then there's a pearl of great
price. And I want you to see this morning
that this is speaking about the same. It's speaking about individuals,
but it's speaking about the unity of individuals also. The Pearl
of Salt, it says goodly pearls. Now a pearl is white and it's
a precious treasure of the ocean. Now we live in a day that there's
real genuine pearls and there's called cultured pearls. And there's
different types of pearls, and most of them are man-made, but
there's a few that are naturally made that are pearls. And what
he's speaking of here and teaching us, that here's the goodly pearls,
and that is the people of God. Precious people of God, they're
like the treasure up here, they're hidden in a field, they're hidden
in the world. And what does he do? He finds them. He brings
them. He brings them to life. He brings
them to love. He brings them to liberty. And
here's something else about the origin of Pearl. Now Pearl comes
from a couple of things. There's a Pearl oyster. And because
it has an irritant, It secretes some chemicals and it secretes
and forms a pearl and it is formed in layers as pearl is. And it
is because there is an irritant, a scratch or something like that,
that it heals over and begins to heal and it makes a pearl. Now this leads us to the church,
and we find that God saves it by his rich and sovereign grace
from all of sin's defects. So it's interesting how a pearl
comes about, and the pearl is very valuable. In our day, if
it's a genuine pearl, shaped and round to round and so forth. And they tell the natural from
the culture by x-ray. But they're sold for over a million
dollars, genuine pearls. And so we find that this leads
us to the church. And God saves it from all sin. There's that which has caused
the problem, and that's sin. He washes. That's the defect
of sin. And God's pearls, they're surrounded
with that of myrrh and dirt, yet they don't lose any value.
God's pearls don't. His church are pearls in his
eyes and they're goodly pearls, they're beautiful pearls, they're
graceful pearls in his very eyes. And here's these goodly pearls
and here's a merchant man seeking those. But let's look at the
pearl of great price this morning and when we look at this let's
think in terms of these goodly pearls, they're individuals.
But here is the pearl of great price is that of the church,
and the church is one, it's made up of individuals, isn't it?
It's made up, this pearl of great price, and the Bible sets forth
this, and we'll go into it this morning and look at it. But there's
a oneness to the body of Christ, His bride. There's a oneness. Over in the book of Romans, in
the twelfth chapter of the book of Romans, and we turn there
this morning to the twelfth chapter of the book of Romans, and I
want you to notice what it tells us here in verse number four. For as we being many members
in one body, so here is the goodly pearls, but yet it is one great
pearl when it looks at it as a body, doesn't it? You see what
I'm talking about this morning. You'd look at the church, you'd
look at it as goodly pearls, but you'd also look at it as
one this morning, a body, which is made up of many members. So
here's this pearl of great price, the church, the body of Christ. We look at this this morning
here, and it says, it's made up of many members in one body,
and all members have not the same office. But we being many
are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another.
Now see, just as you can talk about this morning that you've
got your members, you've got your eyes, your nose, your lips,
and all of this, and your arms, and your legs, they're members,
but yet you're one body, aren't you? So here's that body here,
that one pearl of great price. And I'll turn over to 1 Corinthians,
and I've got another verse or two, 12.12 here. 1 Corinthians
12.12. Let me see what... For as a body is one and has
many members, and all the members of that one body being members
are one body, so also is Christ. And he goes on, we are baptized
into one body, whether it's you or Gentiles, with a bond or free.
We've been made to drink of one spirit, but our God is not one
member, but many. And here again, you can look
at it and think this morning of the church. It's many members,
but yet it's one body. It's one. Now, this merchant
man here, he found this one pearl. He found this one pearl. Now,
let's think a moment, where did he find it? Where did he find
this pearl? Well, we look at it and it says,
well, he found it in the world. Well, that's true. But he also
found it in the purpose of God before the foundation of the
world, didn't he? He found this pearl. John the 17th chapter
says, find they were and thou gavest them me. So here is this
pearl of great price. It comes from the Father. It
says, Thine they were, Thou has given them to me. And he goes
on, he says, all of Thine are mine, and mine are Thine, and
Thine are mine. Thou has given them to me. They
are one. So there is one pearl when we
look at the church and this way of looking at it. It is just
one. One body. Now, this pearl is
that of perfection. It's not imperfection. Here's
a pearl that is perfection. That's it standing. That's the
church and how it stands. Now, what did he do? Here's the
merchant man. What did Christ do? He sought. He saved. He found his pearl. He's finding his pearls, but
he found his pearl in his church. And he does this by the Spirit
of God. And the Bible speaks and, you
know, he may find them, the Bible says, in the desert land or the
hallowed wilderness. They're scattered, as it talks
about here, they're a treasure hid in the field. They're scattered.
Scattered throughout the world. And he finds, by the Spirit of
God, he finds the various members of this one body, doesn't he?
He finds them. When he finds them, what does
he do? He washes them, he cleanses them, he purifies them. And the
church appears, this pearl appears before God, clean every whit. There's not a spot found or can
be seen. Now, we go a little further,
and here I think is the key to it. It says he went and sold
all that he had. He went and sold all that he
had, the merchant man did. Now, what have we got to sell
or dispose of? But look what the Lord Jesus
Christ, He sold all to purchase His church, didn't He? He sold
all to purchase His church, this pearl of great price. Let me
give you a couple of Scriptures, and we'll look at these this
morning in Philippians. And turn with me to Philippians,
and these verses we'll look at from the Scriptures. Here in
Philippians chapter 2 and verse number 6. Here's the Lord Jesus
Christ, and let's see this morning what He done to purchase the
church. It says, let this mind be in
you which is also in Christ Jesus. Verse 6 of the second chapter
of Philippians. Who being the form of God thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation
and took upon himself the form of a servant. Now isn't that
selling off? He left heaven's glory, didn't
he? He left heaven's glory. Can you see and picture in your
mind this morning of Christ with the Father in glory? Then you look at Him this morning
as He walked on the face of the earth. You look at Him this morning
as He is among His persecutors. Look at Him this morning as they
hung Him upon the cross. Look at Him this morning as they looked at Him upon the cross
between two thieves. The male factors. It says here,
Ben took upon himself the form of a servant, as made in the
likeness of man. Now you tell me that that wasn't
humiliation. Look where he was, a perfect,
in heaven, perfect. Everything was perfect. Then
he comes down and says, being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself and became obedient unto death. even the death of the cross."
Now, it seems to me he sold everything, didn't he? To the death on the
cross? Wherefore God now has highly
exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, and to things in heaven, and
things in earth, and things under the earth. And every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father. So, you can see there this morning. Now turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 8 and verse number 9. Look at this verse this morning.
And here's this merchant man. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it says here in verse number 9, For you know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, he was rich, yet for your sakes he became
poor. What a Scripture this morning
that is given unto us, that ye through his poverty might be
rich. Now, look at that this morning. He parted with what he had for
this pearl. this pearl of great price. He parted. It says here, he was
rich. We know his richness. It's interesting
to note that he is king, but look what he laid aside when
he came to this world. He became poor. You know, the
scripture says that he said that the foxes have dens, the birds
have nests, but he had no place to lay his head, didn't he? Look
at him. And all of this says, for your
sakes, for my sake, your sake, this morning, he did that, that
we that was poor might be rich. And look at the, it was going
to say that he threw his poverty. So he sold all that he had to
come to this world to go to Calvary's cross and to die that we might
be rich. So there's a richness his people
has this morning because that he sold all that he had. Here's that merchant man. The
Bible says he gave his life as a ransom. He gave His life. And the Bible
says, Paul wrote and it says, who Himself. He gave Himself
for our sins. He gave Himself. Wasn't that
paying all this morning? He paid His life. He paid His
blood. All that He had for His church,
for His bride, for His pearl. Then it goes on and says here,
sold all that he had, then he bought it. Bought it. The church is a purchased possession
of the Lord. He purchased it. And Acts 20,
verse number 28 says, the church of God which he has purchased
with his own blood, It says he purchased it with his own blood.
He bought it. You know over in 1 Corinthians
chapter 6 and verse 20, it says you are not your own, you are
bought with a price. So, here's that this morning
in the church. It is bought with a great price. Peter speaks of it over in Peter,
the first epistle of Peter, and he says that you're not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold. You know, most things
are bought by silver and gold. We live in a world that is money
that buys. But he says this is something
different. He says you've been bought with the precious blood
of Christ. That precious blood. Not corruptible
things, but by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
He bought it. Christ bought the church. As I said a while ago, He gave
His life a ransom. The book of Revelation says He
has redeemed us to God by His blood. So that was a purchase. So it
says here, when he has found this pearl of great price, sold
all that he had, and he bought it. I submit unto you today that
in looking at this, there is this treasure spread out in the
world, and he's bought it with a great price, his church. He
says, seeketh godly pearls. He seeks. And He's seeking in
this world today. It's still going on. He seeks
out His own. Brings them to Himself. They
believe they receive Christ. He brings them to Himself. And
that's the goodly pearls. But they also make up this one
body. This pearl of great price. It's spoken of as unity here
when it says the great pearl, but as individuals when it's
speaking of goodly pearls. So this is something to think
about here and I think it's a good picture of the Lord Jesus Christ
and what he does and how that he received his pearls and the
pearl of great price. He sought it and He bought it
with His precious blood. Our Father, take the message.
Use it today as we think about what Christ has done for us.
We know that the expense of our salvation was His blood. It was the cross. It was His
suffering. We are thankful that, as He says,
all are mine are thine and thine are mine. He says, Thou gavest
them to me. And every believer has been given
unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Been given unto Him. And He's
the Redeemer. He's the buyer. He purchased. As He purchased us with the salvation,
as He purchased us, we see that In that salvation is the blessings. All thy blessings flow unto us
from Christ Jesus. We are thankful to ask you to
bless this message to the hearing of the ears that are gathered
here. May they think upon Christ and think about Him paying all
to redeem His church and to buy His church. And as the scripture
says, you're bought with a price, you're not your own, but we belong
to another, we belong to Christ. He's bought us and paid for us. Not only bought us and paid for
us, but He sought us out among the mass of mankind and brought
us unto Himself. We are thankful. We praise You
this morning. Now we just seek Your blessings. May we meditate and think upon
Thy Word. In Christ's name, Amen.