come out to worship the Lord.
I'm thankful for your faithfulness. If you will, let's turn tonight
to Matthew chapter 13. We're going to look tonight at
one of our Lord's parables, the one in verses 45 and 46. The
Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price. 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 and bought it. I've been thinking about this message for
several weeks and preparing my notes and I had to remember and
remind myself of our Lord's words as we look at this parable tonight
in verse 11 of this chapter. There's seven parables. in this
chapter, his disciples asked him in verse 10, why, why speakest
thou unto them in parables? His disciples asked the Lord
Jesus Christ, after he had spoke the parable of the sower that
went forth to sow, he was asked by them, why, why do you speak
to them in parables? And I had to remember his answer,
and it's very important to see how the Lord answered. Verse
13, I'm sorry, verse 11. He answered
and said unto them, because it is given unto you to know the
mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. In thinking about the message,
I had to remember and remind myself that understanding the
word of God is a gift from God. The gospel comes by revelation. And these Israelites who were
alive when the Lord Jesus Christ was here in the flesh were under
a judicial blindness. And this fulfilled the prophecy
that went all the way back to Isaiah chapter six. You know,
usually when men like myself preach from Isaiah chapter six,
we only go partially in that chapter. But we don't go and
we don't deal with what Isaiah asked, how long? How long shall
I preach? And the scripture answer there,
God answers him, till a complete blindness has come upon the nation
of Israel. And that's what we see here.
Our Lord spoke unto them in parables because it's given unto you. And that's the only way any of
us will ever understand the truth of the gospel, is that God the
Holy Spirit reveal these mysteries, he calls them mysteries. Now,
a mystery is not like we think of. A mystery today, you buy
a mystery book and read it or watch a movie and it's a very,
you get all into it, you know, and trying to figure out. No,
a mystery in the scripture just simply means something that we
would have never, never known. We would have never understood
unless God reveals it to us. We need God the Holy Spirit.
And as we look at this parable tonight, the parable of the Pearl
of Great Price, how I pray that God would give us to know the
meaning of the parable. You know, it's so easy for people
just to assume, well, I've advanced beyond that, the word of God. It's so simple. Well, it really
isn't. It really isn't. The Lord must
teach us. And we do have that promise in
John chapter 6 where the Lord said they shall all be taught
of God. And all of those who are chosen
and named in that new covenant of grace, that everlasting covenant,
are all taught of God. And may the Lord teach us this
evening. I have three questions as we
look at this parable. It's called one of the lesser
parables by man but I don't think anything that our Lord spoke
should ever be referred to as lesser because of who he is. But I have three questions as
we look at this parable tonight. My first question is this. Did
the pearl, did the pearl have a special place in that day in
which the Lord spoke this parable? Did the pearl have a special
place among all the jewels and all the gems that men have? Did the pearl have a special
place? And I answer, yes, I believe
that it did. Now, most everyone would say
that a pearl is a valuable gem, but did it hold a special place? Now, I looked at the 12 stones
I've read that many times, I'm sure you have as well, that were
put on the breastplate of the high priest. There's not a pearl
listed. There's not a pearl listed there.
There's diamonds, there's a topaz, there's an emerald, and all of
them, all of them, all 12, very special. But the pearl had a
special place in the thinking of the people in that day. Ancient
history tells us the greatest gem was a pearl that Cleopatra
had. I don't know if that's so or
not, but I know that in the word of God, this is what I found
as I looked at this, the pearl had a special place, a special
place. We think of diamonds today, don't
we? Most of us, I guess, we think those are the most precious jewels,
diamonds. But I'm saying tonight that in
that time, in that day, it was the pearl that had that special
place. If you look back to Matthew chapter
seven, for instance. Matthew chapter seven and verse
six. Give not that which, these are
the words of the Lord to his disciples, give not that which
is holy unto the dogs. In other words, to those who
would just mock and make fun of the gospel and the message
that they had to deliver and preach, don't give that which
is holy unto the dogs, neither cast you your diamonds. It doesn't say that, does it?
Neither cast you your topaz. Doesn't say that. What is it?
Pearls. Pearls. Now these pearls here
obviously represent, and in our Lord's words here, those precious
things of the gospel. Those precious things of the
gospel are pictured here not by other precious stones, but
by the pearl. The pearl. Don't cast your pearls
before swine. That which is so perfect and
so important. unto you, the truths of the gospel. And then I want you to turn to
the book of Revelation. And in three verses of scripture,
we see how that the pearl is separated from these other stones. In Revelation, first in chapter
17 and verse four. And the woman, Revelation
chapter 17 and verse 4, and the woman was arrayed in purple and
scarlet color and decked with gold. Now watch this, precious
stones and pearls. See, pearls are set apart from
other precious stones. And then if you turn to chapter
18 and verse 12, The merchandise of gold and silver
and precious stones and pearls set apart. Pearls are set apart
from precious stones, diamonds and rubies and emeralds and all
of those stones that we call precious pearls set apart. And then in that same chapter
down in verse 16, and saying, alas, alas, that great city that
was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls. That's the reason
I ask this question. Did the pearl at that time when
the Lord gave this parable, did the pearl have a special place
in the thinking and the valuation of the people of that day? And
I believe we can see from the scripture that it did. I just
believe that. So it's clear to me that when
the Lord spoke this parable, pearls had a special place among
valuable gems. My second question is this, does
the pearl of great price represent Christ and eternal life? You know, when you read the commentators,
some of them believe that the merchant man here represents
Christ. I don't believe that. And then
some say, well, the pearl, the precious price, it represents
Christ. Not the merchant man, but the
pearl represents Christ. And then others say, no, the
pearl represents eternal life. Well, when you think about that,
they're one in the same. Christ and eternal life. There is no eternal life apart
from Christ. Once we, you and I, and all mankind,
once we had rebelled in our head Adam from our creator, Once that
relationship was broken, it had to be restored, and only Christ
is able to do that. Only Christ is able to bridge
the chasm that sin caused between holy God and us sinful men and
women. Now here's some things to think,
consider about a pearl and thinking of it as a picture of Christ.
That's the way I want to deal with it. And we should keep in mind what
men thought, what men believed about the pearl. when the Lord
gave this parable. Now, men of science, men of learning,
men of knowledge, we've learned more about pearls, obviously.
They're pearl farms, did you know that? They're places where
they grow pearls. They're cultured pearls. There's
pearls that are produced in salt water. There's pearls that are
produced in fresh water. There's manufactured pearls.
That's all true today, but it wasn't when our Lord spoke this
parable. And I want to keep that in mind.
First of all, the pearl is a perfect gem. All the gems you think of tonight,
as I've mentioned, diamonds and rubies and sapphires and emeralds,
but the pearl is a perfect gem. gem among all the precious gems. Other gems, sometimes there's
a place up in Arkansas where you can pay and go in and try
to dig for diamonds. And every once in a while, you'll
see in the news maybe someone's found a big diamond. But I tell
you, it's not very pretty. It's not. When they show a picture
of it, it's not. It's just a rock. Something has
to be done. Has to be put on a lapidary.
Several years ago, actually, this took place as old as Austin
is, because I remember I was in Arizona preaching when you
were born. So this took place several years
ago, preaching out there for a pastor in Phoenix, Arizona. I think it was in Glendale, a
suburb of Phoenix. But he had one of those at his
house, a lapidary. And he would go out sometimes
in the deserts there, and he would look for stones, bring
them back to his house. He had a bunch of them there
in a bucket or something. And every once in a while, when
he had time, he'd take one of those stones and put it on that
machine. It was just a big grinder, really, and work on that stone. And you know, there's a lot of
stones. They're beautiful. They're pretty, as far as I'm
concerned. They're not valuable, but they
are pretty. But they all have to be polished
and ground to get to that place, but not a pearl. In fact, you
would never put a pearl on that machine. You wouldn't have anything left
if you did. It's not made for grinding. It's
perfect. It's perfect. It would destroy
the pearl if you tried to add to it, if you tried to in any
way make it look more beautiful. Oh, what a picture of Christ
that is to me. He is the perfect one, and we
don't add anything to Him. He doesn't need anything. He's
beautiful. He came into this world perfect. The Holy One. You know the scriptures
say this about the Lord Jesus Christ and sin. It says He knew no sin, first
of all. He knew no sin. Can't say that
about you. Can't say that about me. He knew
no sin. He did no sin. In Him is no sin. He's perfect. Perfect Savior
for sinners. You could search the world over
and you would never find another Savior like this stone, this
pearl of great price. Perfect, perfect. He's just the
Savior that you need, just the Savior that I need because He's
both God and man. As man, we read that verse in
Hebrews 10, a few minutes ago, a body hath thou prepared me.
When he came into this world, God the Holy Spirit prepared
him that body. And in that body, he obeyed God. He suffered in that body. And
because he is God and man, then those suffering, his sufferings
and his obedience There's no way you can put a value on it,
can you? It's infinite, in fact. He is. So that, to me, pictures,
or the pearl pictures Christ in that way. And you know, there's
a verse in Leviticus 22 concerning the sacrifices under the law.
You know, man brought various kinds of animals to be sacrificed. There was lambs, there was bullocks,
there was pigeons. But, you know, God said this. about these sacrifices, it shall
be perfect to be accepted. Amen? It shall be perfect. You can't bring some animal in
here that's maybe blind in one eye and lame and have some kind
of disease or something. Oh, no. Now, if the picture of Christ,
if it had to be perfect to be accepted, How much more the real,
that is Christ. His sacrifice, it had to be perfect. He had to be perfect. His sacrifice
had to be perfect to be accepted. And God accepted his sacrifice,
didn't he? You say, how do you know that,
preacher? Because let me tell you something. After laying in
that grave, his body for three days, he walked out of it, didn't
he? He came out of it, showing that
he was justified from all the sins of his people that he had
taken upon himself. That's the first thing about
a pearl. The second thing about a pearl is the color, the color
of righteousness. Now I know, and I had to look
this up, but I know there's pearls of various colors today. But
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that at that time,
at least, pearls were white. They were white. And I think,
generally speaking, that's true today. If it's a true pearl,
it is of that color. At that time, they were white.
And what a picture, you know, when the scripture speaks about
the righteousness of Christ, He uses the white, doesn't he? Why? For purity, for purity. Revelation 19 in verse 8, and
to her was granted that she should be arrayed in white linen. That means you, that means his
church, her. To her, to her, it was granted. Didn't earn it, sure didn't merit
it. It's granted. I give unto my
sheep eternal life. Salvation's a gift, isn't it?
Let's just see this over. Unto her was granted that she
should be arrayed in white linen, clean and white. For the fine
linen is the righteousness of the saints." Now, we know that
doesn't mean that we have a linen garment upon us. We have something
much better than that. We have the righteousness of
Christ. And this pearl, being white, pictured that to me, the
purity of the righteousness that the Lord clothes His people with.
Being dressed in this righteousness, the scripture says that we are
unblameable, unblameable, irreprovable before Him. A third thing about
the pearl, and again, we're going back to
this time, the pearl was obtained at a big risk, considerable risk. And this, of course, adds to
its value. The risk that was taken to obtain
a pearl at that time. Now, from what I've read, this
is the way they would find a pearl. A man would, he would weight
his body down. And then he would practice breathing
exercises because he would need to hold his breath for a long
period of time. And he would go off the side
of the boat and go down to the bottom in dark waters. And yes,
some didn't come back up. They stayed down there too long,
held their breath too long, and then I guess had to try to breathe
and drown. It was very risky to obtain a
pearl at that time. They go down into the dark waters
at the bottom. And this is where we see a great
difference between the pearl and the Lord Jesus Christ. The
man who obtained a pearl at that time, he did it at great risk. The Lord Jesus Christ, he didn't
risk his life. He gave his life, a ransom for
many. A man who was trying to obtain
a pearl, if he knew, if he knew once he came off the side of
that boat, he wasn't coming back up alive, he wouldn't have done
it. He wouldn't have done it. Wouldn't have been worth it.
No, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he came into this world, he knew
He knew from old eternity what it would cost him to save you,
to save me. He didn't risk his life. He gave
his life, the scripture says, a ransom for many. The pearl of great price. And
a fourth thing about this pearl, and the poets, I read the poets,
they used to teach how a pearl was was made, I guess that's
the right terminology. They believed, or they would
say this in their poetical language, beautiful language, that the
shellfish would come to the surface and open the shell and a dewdrop,
a dewdrop would enter and the shell would be closed and it
would go back to the bottom of the ocean and over a period of
time, then that pearl would be formed and be brought forth.
Now, we know better now, but as the pearl developed in the
oyster, in the shellfish, it developed in a dark place, didn't
it? You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
developed in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The lowest is referred
to as the lowest part of the earth. The Lord refers to his
incarnation like that coming into this world. So the pearl
of great price is Christ. It's a beautiful picture, I think.
There's several things that we could bring. Now, third, does
the merchant man buying the pearl picture a sinner receiving Christ? Well, I believe that it does.
I believe that it may. I say that this merchant man
in our Lord's story, he was a merchant man dealing in pearls. He was
seeking goodly pearls. And so I believe we may assume
that he had some. He had some goodly pearls. He'd
been in this business for a while. And he had found some goodly
pearls. They were goodly to him. You
say, what does that picture? Well, to me, it pictures a man's
morality. Morality. I've always treated
my neighbor as I would want him to treat me. I'm a good person. He had goodly pearls. I've got
my religion. I've got a standard that I live
by. I've been baptized like the Pharisee
who in the temple our Lord spoke about. I tithe twice in a week. I fast twice in the week I should
be. I tithe of all my possessions. You know, they were very, very
precise about tithing, weren't they? They had their little herb
gardens. And they produced spearmint,
and anise, and other herbs. And they would see 10 little
leaves on that. They'd take those 10 leaves.
Oh, one leaf went to God. They were very precise. They
had some goodly pearls, is what I'm saying. This man had some
goodly pearls. And all men, they have something. in which they trust, something
that they believe will put them in good standing
when they meet God. But listen, this man, I can see
him going through the garage sales and going through the flea
markets and looking for pearls. And every once in a while, he'd
find something. Nobody didn't know what they
were selling or something. He had a sack full of them. But
one day, he came across the pearl of great price. And he had to have that pearl. So he sold everything he had
for that pearl. You say, well, how can that picture
Christ? How can that picture salvation? He had to let everything
go. Everything that he had trusted
in. That's what I see here. Everything he had trusted in
before. His so-called righteousness, his morality, his tradition,
his religion, everything. He had to let all of that go
to obtain the pearl of great price, Christ. It had to be Christ
and Christ alone. He had to come. The strange thing
about buying in the scripture, it's like a market you'll never
find in this world. You go down to the flea market
and you better have a little change in your pocket or some
bills in your pocket if you're planning on buying anything.
But when you come to buy Christ, you better not bring anything.
It's a paradox, isn't it? Isn't that what Isaiah said or
God said through Isaiah? Ho, everyone that thirsteth. Are you thirsty? Oh, yes. I'm thirsty for that pearl of
great price. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the water. Come, come to the pearl. And
he that hath no money, come, yea, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. But yes, he had some goodly pearls.
He had to sell all of that, get rid of all of that to have the
pearl of great price. If anyone would come after me,
the Lord Jesus Christ said, let him deny himself and take up
his cross and follow me. Paul, the apostle, said, I count
all things but loss. He had a laundry list, didn't
he, of things. Circumcised the eighth day, Hebrew
of the Hebrews, as touching the law, blameless. All that had
to go. All those goodly pearls had to
go. for the pearl of great price. He said, I count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my
Lord. When I was preparing this message,
I remembered a story that Ralph Borner told years ago when I
heard him preaching. He told about a man in the South
somewhere who owned some slaves. And this man dressed like some
of those southern gentlemen did, you know, in white suits. His slaves asked him if they
could have a religious meeting. And he said, well, yeah. He allowed
them to have a religious meeting. One of them was a preacher. You
know, John Jasper was a slave when he started preaching. And
at first, he could only preach at funerals. That's the only
time the masters would let them take off, I guess you would say,
to preach. But this man in Rolf Barnard's story, he let them
have a revival meeting or preaching meeting. And he would slip down
there to the quarters where the slaves lived and listen. And
he heard the gospel. And God began working on him
in his heart. And one night after the service
there, he asked the preacher, he said, what would I have to
do to be saved? And he said, Master, you see
that hog pen over there? Yeah. You've got to get down
right in the middle of it and ask God for mercy. I'm not going
to do that. You'll never catch me doing that.
But the next night, he was back listening. And he asked the man
again, what must I do? He said, you got to get, I told
you, you got to get in that hog pen over there in that mud and
ask God to have mercy on you. But about the third time, he
received the same answer. You've got to get down in that
hog pen. And the master said, if I must, if I must. I've got to have the pearl of
great price, is what he's saying. And he puts one foot on the fence
row there to start climbing over. And the preacher tapped him on
the shoulder. He said, no, master, you don't
have to do it. You have to be willing to do
it. And to come to Christ, like our Lord said, we must deny self. Now, the writers say we must
deny righteous self. That's all of our goodness. We
must deny sinful self, all of our sin. But we must deny self
in order to have that pearl of great price. God give all of
us the grace to follow him, as he said, except If anyone would
come after me, anyone, preacher, deacon, Sunday school teachers,
doesn't matter. If anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
these words and thoughts to all of us here tonight.