Okay, back to Matthew chapter
13. There's eight parables that's found in this 13th chapter, and
we've looked at the first six. And today we want to look at
the last two, the last two parables here given in Matthew 13, verse
47, down through verse 50, and then in verse 52 is the last
parable. So we have these two parables,
One, the first one called the parable of the gospel net that's
cast out into the sea, and then the parable of the householder
that brings out and brings forth treasure. Notice it's singular,
treasure, but it says there, and the word things has been
added, but treasure new and treasure old. but it's all his treasure,
old things newly revealed in Christ Jesus. So we'll look at
these two parables here. And then in the center of these
two parables, the Lord asked that question in verse 51, have
you understood all these things? Have you understood these things?
And they, I don't know, but maybe with some presumption, because
I'll show you later on where the Lord asked them, do you understand
these things? And they really didn't, but maybe
with some presumption when he said, have you understood all
these things? And they said, yep, we got it. Did they really? I'm sure they
understood the aspect about casting a net, because they were fishermen,
James and John. Peter and Andrew, when the Lord
called them, they were fishing, they were cleaning their nets.
So they, certainly they understood that aspect of it. But remember
in other parables in this chapter, when the Lord gave that parable
of the wheat and the tares, and the disciples came to the Lord
and said, will you teach us what that means? So it's an ongoing
process, isn't it? We are learning of the blessings
we have revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's look
at that first parable, Matthew 13, 47. And again, again, again,
that's a good word right there, isn't it? The Lord teaches us
again, and again, and again. You know why? Because we need
to be taught. Again, the kingdom of heaven,
and that is the kingdom of God, that is the gospel of God, concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ, this kingdom of heaven is like unto a net
that was cast into the sea, and it gathered, this net gathers,
and it gathers of every kind, which when it was full, They
drew this net to the shore. And then these wise fishermen,
they would go through that net and they would pick out the fish
that they were fishing for and they would put them in a good
vessel. And then those other fish that just kind of got caught
up, they discard them. And then the Lord says, verse
49, so shall it be in the end of the world. The angel shall
come forth and sever the wicked from among the just. the wicked
from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire,
and there shall be wailing, and there shall be gnashing of teeth."
They're talking about eternal, eternal torment, eternal condemnation. Now, what is the lesson for us
here today? The gospel of the kingdom of
God, the kingdom of God's grace, is likened to this large, vast
fishing net. The gospel is a net designed
by God and is ordained by God as a means to gather out his
elect. We are called oftentimes sheep,
right? Here, he calls the elect the
good fish, the good fish. We go forth as preachers of the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, casting this net. We go forth
preaching Christ and him crucified, accomplishing all of our salvation.
And we do so because God has commanded us to go and preach
the gospel. It pleased God through the foolishness
of preaching to call out his people. Faith comes by hearing.
Hearing what? Hearing the word of God, the
word of truth. We preach salvation by the sovereign
grace of God, by the Lord Jesus Christ, his faithful obedience
unto the holy law of God, whereby he established for us and brought
in for us everlasting righteousness. You remember chapter 5 in Matthew,
he says, I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets. He
came to honor the law of God for us, for God and for us, and
he did. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord Jesus Christ has made wisdom, righteousness, redemption, and
our sanctification. So we go preaching salvation
by the total sovereign grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. We go preaching the gospel message
about the Lord Jesus Christ, his successful atonement, putting
away the sin of God's people. It's not an attempt. The Lord
Jesus Christ did not die to make salvation a possibility. The
Lord Jesus died for a definite people and made complete atonement
only for God's elect, only for his church. He loved the church
and gave himself for it. He obtained for us eternal redemption
with his own blood. So we go forth preaching this
gospel message, just casting this net because the Lord commanded
us to do so. when Paul in prison writes his
last words to young Timothy before he's executed for the gospel,
he said, I charge you before God, preach the word, preach
Christ, preach Christ in him crucified. And then the risen
Lord, before he ascended to the father, having accomplished all
of salvation, he told those disciples to go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature, every one, indiscriminately,
without prejudice, go and preach the gospel everywhere. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. So we cast out the
message of the gospel into the sea of this world. The sea of
this world is full of sinners, and the Lord, through the preaching
of that gospel, he draws sinners unto himself. He draws and he
gathers his elect unto himself. That's why Paul said, as much
as in me is, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are at
Rome. For in that gospel is the power of God and the salvation
to everyone who believes, to the Jew or to the Gentile. His
sheep will hear his voice. His sheep will follow him. His
fish will swim, if you will, after him. because they're drawn
in this net. They're drawn in this net of
love. They're drawn in this net of mercy. His sheep hear his
voice and they follow him. This gospel net gathers all kind
of sinners, some young, some not so young, some old. It gathers
Jew or Gentile. It gathers black or white. It
gathers Jew or Gentile, some educated, some not so educated,
some it draws who are very self-righteous, for example, Saul of Tarsus,
and some who are outwardly most ungodly, guilty, and vile, like
that thief upon the cross. You see, salvation's for sinners. This gospel net that is thrown
out, controlled by the sovereign mercy of God, by the sovereign
love of God, and he draws sinners unto himself. He said, no man
can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him. This
is a faithful saying, and it's worthy of all acceptation. The
Lord Jesus Christ came to save folks just like you. Sinners, sinners. Paul said,
I'm the chief one. Remember in Matthew chapter nine,
he said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I came to call
sinners, sinners to repentance. Some, by this gospel net, God's
elect, are caught up, they're caught by, they're captive, held
captive to the Lord Jesus Christ with the gospel and given faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ to truly believe, and they're made new
creatures in Christ. So those are drawn irresistibly
unto the Lord Jesus Christ, while others are simply just drawn
into the visible church. They're not really made one with
Christ. There's no real vital union with
the Lord Jesus Christ. But like the parable of the tares
and the wheat, The Lord will distinguish in the end the tares
from the wheat. You remember those servants said,
Lord, we'll just go out and we'll just pull up all them tares out
of your wheat field. He said, no, that's my business. You just let them grow, and in
the end, I will separate the wheat from the tares, and I'll
gather my wheat into my barn. So, that's the blessing of the
gospel, is it not? To be one with Christ. Look at
verse 48 and 49, which when it was full, they drew to the shore,
and they sat down, these fishermen, they drew in this net that they
had cast out, and they gathered the good into vessels, containers,
but the cast, the bad, they cast out. So shall it be in the end
of the world. The angel shall come forth and
sever the wicked from among the just. So those who are justified,
it says here there's good and bad. It says here there's wicked
and just. You see those two things? There's
the good and the bad. and then there's the wicked and
the just. Those who are justified in Christ,
made good by his grace, will be gathered into everlasting
glory, everlasting heaven, to be with the Lord forever, and
the wicked, the bad, Those without Christ will be cast away into
everlasting destruction. Now does the Lord have the right
to make a distinction? Absolutely He does. Now we know
this, no one is just and good in themselves, right? We've all
sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're none of us,
by nature, righteous. All of us, by nature, are wicked
and bad. That's what we are. We know we've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God, but it's the
grace of God that's made us to differ. The grace of God. Sinners are only made just and
good in Christ, being justified by his grace, cleansed by his
blood, through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
only by the God of all grace, who called us into his eternal
glory, by Jesus Christ, after that you have suffered a while,
make you perfect, establish you, strengthen you, settle you, to
whom be glory forever, forever. Amen. It's only the grace of
God that made us to differ. It's the grace of God that has
drawn us with that gospel net to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Now, look at verse 50. And in
the end, So shall it be in the end of the world, verse 49, the
angel shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire and there shall
be wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Now we've seen this before
when he gave the explanation of the parable of the wheat and
the tares. If you would look right across
the page in Matthew 13, verse 41, the son of man shall send forth his angels,
and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend,
and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace
of fire. There shall be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father, who hath ears
to hear. Let him hear. There will be in
the end In the end, and I underscore that word in verse 49, so shall
it be at the end of the world. There's coming an end to this
world. The Lord is coming back. There will be an end to this
world. and a full and final total separation
of the wicked from among the just. Now let's look at a couple
of scriptures here. First of all, turn to Matthew
24, Matthew 24, verse 14. Matthew 24, verse 14. This gospel of the kingdom, this
net of the kingdom, Matthew 24, 14, in all the world for witness
unto all nations, then shall the end come." The end's coming. The end is coming. If you look
over here in Matthew 25, turn over there, Matthew 25 verse
31, the Lord is coming back and He will make a separation Matthew
25, 31, when the son of man shall come in his glory and all the
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his
glory and before him shall be gathered all nation. He shall
separate them one from another as the shepherd divided the sheep
from the goats. He shall set the sheep on his
right hand and the goats on the left. Then shall the king say
unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed to my father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. Now look down at verse 41. Then
shall he say also to them on the left hand, the goats, the
bad fish, depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. Again, in this same chapter,
look at verse 46, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment,
but the righteous unto eternal life. There's going to be a day
in the end where there will be a judgment and there will be
a separation. A separation. That's why I read
over here, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from
heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance
on them that know not God, that obey not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
There is going to be an eternal glorification of God's saints,
His elect, and there is going to be an eternal separation and
eternal condemnation. Now, judgment and separation
is only done by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not our business.
That's God's business. It's our responsibility as God's
church to preach the gospel. The results is left to Him. And
all judgment has been committed unto the Son. The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." The Apostle
Paul preached this on Mars Hill to those intellectual Greeks. God commanded all men everywhere
to repent. because he has appointed the
day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that
man, the Lord Jesus, whom he has ordained, whereof he hath
given assurance unto all men that he raised him from the dead. There is eternal glory and there
is eternal condemnation. Now, look at this question right
in the middle, verse 51. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
them, now this is the Lord who knows their heart, who knows
their thoughts. He knew exactly where they stood.
But yet, to draw this out, the Lord never asked a question for
information. But to make them know where they
stand before God, have you understood all these things? And they said
unto him, and I can think, Can't you just imagine Peter, Peter
usually the one who spoke up first, can't you just imagine
Peter said, yep, we got it, yep, we understand all things. But
did they really? Did they really? Certainly they
understood the part about fishing and nets, for the most part of
them were fishermen. James and John. When the Lord
called them, they were cleaning their net. And I take them at
their word, what the Lord was teaching them about the necessity
of preaching the gospel in this world, and the gospel making
a distinction between the saved and the lost, but to say that
they understood all things about the Lord's person, about the
Lord's mediatorial work, wouldn't that be an understatement? Now,
I can make good on that, Because look at chapter 15. Look at chapter
15. You remember the Pharisees were
all upset because the disciples didn't wash their hands. Matthew
15 and verse 10, He called the multitude and said unto them,
Hear and understand, it's not that which goes into the mouth
that defiles, but that which comes out of the mouth, out of
the heart. This defiles the man. Then came his disciples, And
said unto him, Knowest thou not that the Pharisees were offended?
And he answered and said unto him, Every plant which my heavenly
Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Leave them alone. They be blind, leaders of the
blind. And if the blind lead the blind, they'll both fall
into the ditch. And Peter answered and said, Declare unto us this
parable. And the Lord said to them, Are ye without understanding? Well, Peter, I thought you understood
all things. Do you not understand that whatsoever
enter into the mouth goes into the belly and out through the
sewer? But those things which proceed from the heart out of
the mouth come forth from the heart, and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adultery,
fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These things are
the things which defile the man. But to eat with unwashing hands,
that's not our problem. It's what comes out of the heart.
The heart of deceitful, above all things, and desperately wicked. Now, I don't want to be too hard
on them, but I want to be hard on me. At best, we say with Paul,
we see through a glass darkly, we know in part, and we preach
in part. We've been given an understanding. of the gospel of Christ only
because it's been revealed unto us and we've been taught by the
Lord. We know the son of God has come
and given us an understanding that we may know him that is
true. We're in him that is true. This is a true God and eternal
life. But I would never say, and I trust you wouldn't either,
but I never would say I understand all things revealed in the word
of God. There are great deep mysteries.
and we read them and we believe them, by faith we receive them,
but to say that we understand everything perfectly, no we don't. We see in part, we know in part. But here's the key, we know Him. That's the key. We know Him,
whom to know is eternal life. We are found in Him. Saving faith
is always coming to Him, looking to Him, resting and relying upon
Him. The Apostle Paul put it this
way, I've suffered the loss of all
things, Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed." Now notice that, I know whom
I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he's able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. I
know whom I have believed. Now, what you believe, now listen
to this, what you believe is determined by who you believe.
If you believe the God of Scripture, you believe all things written
in the Word of God. But to say that we understand
all the deep mysteries of God, we know in part, we preach in
part, but the key is we know Him, whom to know is eternal
life. Now, in the last parable, verse
52, He said unto them, Therefore, every scribe which is instructed,
every scribe, and he's talking about the preaching of the gospel. He's talking about those apostles
that were sent of God. Those who were instructed of
God, who have been given understanding from God, in understanding and
instructed in the kingdom of heaven, in the kingdom of the
gospel, is likened to a man that is a householder. someone who
is over the house, which brings forth out of his treasure new
and old. Notice that word things has been
supplied. We'll just leave it out. He brings
forth out of his treasure new and old. It's just one treasure.
One treasure. Now, again, the Lord teaches
us the importance of preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We say with the Apostle Paul, I'm determined not to know
anything among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified. We
preach Christ crucified accomplishing all of our salvation and establishing
a righteousness justifying us before God through Christ and
him crucified. Every ready scribe, that is every
gospel preacher, has been instructed by the Lord and sent by the Lord
to instruct others about the way of salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ from the only one safe source. What is that one
safe source? The word of God, the word of
God, the word of truth. So like the householder, gospel
ministers preside, they watch over, they feed the church of
God, they feed them from the word of truth. We're gonna study
this in Hebrews 13, Lord willing, in a few weeks, where it says,
obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves,
that is, those who are pastors and teachers of the gospel, ministers
of the gospel, for they watch for your soul, as they must give
an account that they may do it with joy, not with grief, for
that's unprofitable for you. So I watch for your soul. I want
you to believe the truth, hear the truth, and love the truth,
and persevere in the faith. I'm not gonna lord over you,
I'm gonna preach the gospel to you, I'm gonna feed you the word
of God, and the Lord will take care of that, but it's my responsibility
to declare the gospel of God. When Paul was on his way to Jerusalem,
never to see the elders at Ephesus again, and when he called them
unto him, He declared unto them all the counsel of God, and he
said to those elders, take heed therefore unto yourselves and
all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers
to feed the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
Gospel ministers are those who are taught of God. Gospel preaching
is repeating what God's already said. Gospel preaching is one
beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. Gospel
ministers, those who are taught of God, who've been given the
understanding of the gospel, who are sent of God, bring forth
the treasures of the gospel from the word of God, things that
are new and things that are old. You remember, the Word of God,
down in verse 44, you remember, again, the Kingdom of Heaven
is like a treasure hid in the field. What did I tell you that
treasure hid in the field was? The Word of God. The Word of
God gives one message. Christ is everything in salvation. So that treasure hid in the field.
Now, we bring out things new and things old. Now, one old
preacher of the past said this, referring to doctrine. He said,
if it's new doctrine, it's not true. And if it's true, true
doctrine, then it's not new. It's as old as God. So we don't
go searching for some new revelation. We preach the old revelation
that's made new every day, revealed to us in Christ. We preach the
old, old story that's ever new. Gospel ministers have a vast
storehouse of treasure revealed in the word of God, which contain
many old eternal truths, don't they? Eternal truth, as old as
God, that they're ever made new to our weary heart. You see,
the gospel of God is older than creation. The gospel of God is
as old as God. The Lord Jesus Christ is a lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Now that's old, isn't
it? But isn't it just new and fresh to us as it's revealed
in the preaching of the word? We bring out things each week.
You know, I preach the same thing every week. I try to. The same
thing every week. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is in Christ, in the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is
as old as God, but it's ever new. It's refreshing, it's wholesome
to our soul, and to the household of God. We're preaching the gospel
to the household of God. Now I'm gonna close by reading
this. In Ephesians chapter two, now
therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and are of the household of God. We've been
made sons of God by his eternal grace. We're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets. What's the foundation of the
apostles and prophets? Well, it tells us Jesus Christ
himself. To him give all the prophets
witness. Jesus Christ himself is the chief cornerstone in whom
all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy
temple in the Lord, in whom you are also built together for habitation
of God through the spirit of God. So every scribe, which is
instructed, we've been given the message, preach Christ, Christ
crucified as all of our salvation, having accomplished and secured,
not attempted, but secured and finished the work of redemption
for us. And we preach that message. It's a treasure. It's a treasure. It's as old as God, but it's
new and fresh. You remember that? Scripture
in the book of Lamentations chapter 3, where it says his mercies
are new every morning. It's new every morning. It's
the old, old story, but it's ever new, isn't it?