In the Parable of the Dragnet, Jesus teaches about the effects of his kingdom in the world and throughout history. The net in the parable represents the preaching of the gospel, which gathers all kinds of people. The drawing of the net to the shore symbolizes the end of the age, when the preaching of the gospel will come to an end and the time for judgment begins. The sorting of the contents of the net represents the final separation between the righteous and the wicked, with the wicked being cast into the furnace of fire. This parable emphasizes the coming day of judgment and the eternal separation between those who have repented of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ and the rest of fallen humanity. The parable also draws imagery from Ezekiel 47, where a river flows from the temple and brings life wherever it goes. The parable concludes with Jesus explaining that those who understand his words become like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.

Amen. Come, let us adore Him. Well, if you would take out your copies of the Scriptures and open up to the gospel according to Matthew chapter 13. The gospel of Matthew chapter 13 and we're gonna be in verses 47 through 52 and we're continuing our study in the parables of the kingdom taught by our Lord during his earthly ministry and today we're really going to be looking at two parables but primarily we're going to focus on the one in verse 47 through 50 called the parable of the dragnet but in addition we'll look at Jesus's concluding remarks in this this larger parable discourse that he he ends with a description of what the one who understands these things is like and he presents that in another parable and so we will briefly consider that at the end. So Matthew 13 47 through 52.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full they drew to the shore and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth Jesus said to them have you understood all these things they said to him yes Lord then he said to them therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old. Let's pray. Father, we come before you in the name of your Son and we thank you for this day.

Thank you for this time you have brought us together. And Lord, we thank you for this passage of Scripture and the instruction that we get of the very words of your Son preserved for us in Holy Scripture. God may you instruct us this afternoon. Open hearts to receive the wonderful things you have for us in your word. In Jesus name, amen.

So as I said we're continuing in our study of the parables. Most recently we looked at the parable of the pearl of great price and before that the parable of the this escapes me the parable of the great price the parable of the treasure hidden in the field and we saw how the kingdom is this this vast treasure worth abandoning everything for and we've looked at other parables the parable of the leaven and the parable of the mustard seed about the the expansion of the kingdom of God in the world in history and how it would grow and fill the earth. We saw the parable of the wheat and the tares that this world will be a mixed place until the end when there will be a final separation and the parable of the different kinds of seed that the Word of God though it is the perfect infallible Word of God when it goes forth it causes different effects Some receive it gladly and produce fruit, some reject, some receive for a time and fall away, different effects and different consequences. So Jesus has been instructing his followers and the crowds on what the effect of his kingdom in this world what what are the effects of his kingdom in this world now that the Messiah has come and he's brought his kingdom what are the consequences in the world and throughout history And so here he again turns to another parable to instruct the people.

And he gives this parable. It presents us with a fairly simple scene. It's a short parable. We have a scene where fishermen have cast a dragnet into the sea. Now what is a dragnet?

It is a net that is exactly what it sounds like. It's weighted on the bottom so that it drags along the bottom of the the lake or the bottom of a river and it has floats attached to the top so that the net stretches from the top of the water all the way to the ground underneath. And it is pulled to the shore so that everything in its path gets gathered up into this net. The net is then cast, it's cast and then it's dragged to the shore and the contents are examined and separated. The net is emptied and the contents are separated, the good being retained in vessels and the bad being thrown away.

And Jesus interprets or more accurately just gives the application for it. He says this is what the end of the age will be like. That just as the net is brought ashore and the contents of the net are divided and some kept and some rejected, at the end of the age the angels of God will be sent out and there will be a final division among mankind with some received and some rejected and cast away into eternal fire. And so the elements of the parable are very simple. There's there really three basic components to the story there's there's the net which we're going to consider What is the net then there's the the net being drawn to the shore and then there's the sorting of the contents of the net So first the net itself.

What is the net? I believe the net is a picture of the preaching of the gospel. It's a picture of the preaching of the gospel. The gospel is to be preached and proclaimed far and wide, And because of this widespread preaching of the gospel, some of all kinds of men are brought in. Now, shortly we'll look more into what does it mean, some of every kind, but for now we will suffice to say that the net of the gospel is cast out into the world and there is a great catch of all kinds.

All kinds and categories of people are caught, so to speak, by the proclamation of the work, the death, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we heard last week, Paul says that the apostles have been given their apostleship in order to bring about the obedience of faith, not among Israel, but among all nations. Not among a handful of people, but among all the nations. And we heard this morning, Paul had a moral obligation. He had an indebtedness, and all of us in some sense to some degree have that same indebtedness to preach the gospel to all kinds of people.

The Greeks and the barbarians, the wise and the foolish, the cultured, the uncultured, the educated, the ignorant, Jews, Gentiles, Romans, Scythians, the Germans, the English, the Turks, the Chinese, and even Americans. Everyone. We have an indebtedness to in some way get the gospel wherever men live and whatever tribe they are a part of the gospel net is to be spread there because God has said he will have this great catch of all kinds so that's the first element the net itself secondly there's the drawing of the net to the shoreline. Once the net is full, it does no good if the net is just left in the sea. It's not simply an exercise in futility.

They're not just casting a net to see how good they are at net casting. Once the net is full, it's brought to the shore and the catch is sorted. Bringing the net ashore, as Jesus says, is a picture of the end of the age and this is a reminder to us that the present order of things, the way things exist now, will not go on forever. The way the world is right now is not permanent. It will come to an end at some point.

Now it could be soon, it could be 10, 000 years from now. We do not know, but we do have the promise, the assurance that this world as it now exists does not go on forever. It will come to an end. There is an end of the age coming. We don't know when, but we do know what's coming.

There will be a time when the preaching of the gospel comes to an end. There will be no more preaching of the gospel at some point, because after the net is full is the time for judgment. So the present order of things will come to an end. The net will be drawn to the shore. And that's the third element, the net being drawn to the shore.

After the net is on the on the beach, the contents of the net are emptied and they are sorted. The sorting is a picture of the judgment. The angels again are presented as those who are sent out into the world at the end of the age and they separate the righteous from the wicked or the wicked from the righteous, rather. The wicked are those who are removed. That's the emphasis in this parable.

He says the angels will come forth and separate the wicked from among the just. We're not waiting for some mysterious event where the righteous are beamed out of here in an instant. It is the wicked who will be removed. The judgment of God will come and the wicked will be separated from the righteous. And they are not simply cast back as fish that are not good for eating may be cast back into the sea.

The wicked are not cast back into the world. They are cast into a place far, far worse. They are cast into the furnace of fire and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. They are removed and they are cast into hell. That is what the furnace of fire is.

It's a word picture, a metaphor for hell. That's not a word that a lot of people like to use very much today, but it is the truth of Scripture that just as there is a heaven promised to those who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ, there is hell for those who refuse. And hell is not merely separation from God. Hell is eternal punishment. It is unending torment under the wrath of God.

Hell is not separation from God. You are present with God in hell, but you will be present before God in the fullness of his wrath. That is what hell is. It is all grace, all mercy, all kindness removed, and you are before God in the fullness of his anger. That is what awaits those who do not turn to Christ.

Now in the parable, obviously he says that there are those who are separated, those who are sorted and kept in the vessels, the good and then the bad are thrown away. Does this mean that the gospel goes forth and gathers all kinds of people in and some lose their salvation? No, I don't think that's what that means. I believe in the perseverance of the Saints. I don't believe that the net itself is conversion, but it is the proclamation of the gospel it is it is the the message going to all people if we misunderstand the parable and think that being caught in the net is being converted then we could say that there may be some who lose their salvation, but that's not what is happening here.

The net is spread broadly and encompasses all kinds of people. It goes out and reaches all the nations, but not everything in the net is kept because not everything in the net is good. This does not mean that the Lord loses any of those whom he saved, but rather the parable is teaching us that there are those that when the gospel goes forth there will be those who still reject it. The net has been cast over them, but they have not been changed. On that day of judgment, they are not one of the good that will be retained, they are the bad that will be cast out.

So the message of the kingdom goes forth to all the nations, but not everyone in every nation will receive it. At the end of the age, some will be rejected because they have rejected Christ. Even some who have lived their entire lives knowing the gospel and hearing it and yet still died in unbelief. So the parable of the dragnet, this is the emphasis of the parable. There is this coming day of judgment and of final, eternal, irrevocable separation between those who have repented of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ and all the rest of fallen humanity.

That is the main thrust of the parable, and so in a way it kind of seems redundant. That was really the message of the parable of the wheat and tares, right? That's the primary meaning But we shouldn't be bothered by the fact that there's some measure of Redundancy teaching something over and over again as an effective way of teaching And so the greatest teacher should be expected to repeat himself in some ways, though he uses two different pictures to teach the same truths, particularly when dealing with such a weighty matter as the final judgment. However, there is a nuance to this passage that I believe is maybe not entirely absent in the earlier parables, the parable of the wheat and tares, but is more clear here. In the parable of the wheat and tares, there's only the wheat and the tares, or the weeds.

And in a similar way here, there's the good and the bad that are caught into the net. But at the same time, among those categories of the good and bad, it is sum of all kinds. He's not talking about kinds good and bad, but sum of all kinds, if we want to stay with the picture, all species of fish, for instance. Now the parable doesn't actually say fish. You look at your New King James, it says, it gathered some of every kind.

Now if you have another version, New American standard, ESV, those will actually supply the word fish, but it's not actually there in Greek. And so it's generally gather some of all kinds, and people take this a couple different ways. Some argue that it's not some of all kinds of fish, but some of all kinds of things are gathered. So it's not just fish that are caught in the net, but there's shrimp and clams and rocks and trash and bicycles and whatever else you may toss into a lake. And so the good are the fish that are retained and the rest is the bad that's thrown away.

Or it could mean every kind of fish. Fish of all kinds are caught and among those kinds some are good and some are bad and the good kept and the bad rejected. I'm not entirely sure it matters which way you take it, but I do want to lean toward and argue for the interpretation that it's all kinds of fish that are caught. Two main reasons. First, I think it makes the most sense.

Naturally, you're reading the parable. It's fishermen casting a net into the sea. It feels the most natural that it would be fish that are caught in the net that the parables about. And again, parables are simplified pictures of the world. Of course, when fishermen cast a dragnet into the the lake, into the sea, they would catch all kinds of things, junk and as well as fish to eat.

But the parables don't have to be perfectly realistic to be useful tools. Not every detail needs to account for reality. So as we read through, it just naturally seems to be implied that all kinds, some of all kinds of fish are caught in the net. But secondly, and most persuasively in my mind, the parable I believe is intentionally and consciously drawing from the imagery of Ezekiel chapter 47. If you want to turn there you can.

Ezekiel chapter 47 I believe is a very useful passage. We've recently heard from this was Pastor Scott was finishing in the book of Revelation. John at the end of that book seems to also be drawing from Ezekiel 47. And you have this glorious picture of a new temple, a new temple under the new covenant that is not like the old temple. At this temple there's water flowing from under the threshold of the temple out of the temple to the east and this in this vision that Ezekiel has this angel is showing him this this temple and there's this remarkable thing of a river essentially that has its headwaters under the temple and goes out and expands and fills the nations.

So Ezekiel 47, I'm not gonna read the whole whole chapter, but you can look there in verse three. First, the angel comes and shows him the water and he measures and the water is up to Ezekiel's ankles. And then next he goes a little bit further and it's now knee-deep water in verse 4. And then again in verse 4 he goes a little bit further and the water comes up to his waist and then later on in verse 5 it becomes too deep to wade across. You have to swim to get across this river now.

It's an ever deepening river. It's a picture of the gospel going out into the world. The church as the new temple spreading the gospel with the power of the Holy Spirit going and reaching all nations and the kingdom spreading and deepening and going wherever it goes by the sovereign hand of God and as we see later on wherever it goes it brings life. But it began knee-deep. Well it actually began with just a trickle under the threshold.

So you have the kingdom in the world beginning with 11 faithful followers of Jesus to the point now where we are at today with two and a half billion professing Christians worldwide. Now I know I said professing Christians, we know the problems with that number. Maybe now we're ankle-deep. Who knows how deep we are? But the picture is of this river going out and what is the consequence?

He says, verse 8, this water flows toward the eastern region then goes into the valley and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed and it shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the rivers go will live the gospel brings life wherever it goes and there will be a very great multitude of fish because these waters go there for they will be healed and everything will live wherever the river goes it shall be that fishermen will stand by it from in Getty to in go in game that they will be places for the spreading of their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds of the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many." And so the Prophet had this great vision of this river filling the world and healing the world being filled with an exceedingly many number of fish, all kinds, wherever the river goes, everything in it is healed. What more beautiful picture of the gospel could we ask for? An ever expanding, an ever deepening stream filling the earth, filling the nations, and bringing in a great multitude of all kinds of fish into the sea.

And this added element, this element of this great multitude, this many kinds of fish, is what distinguishes, I think, this parable from the parable of the wheat and the tares. Now in that parable we are given a hint about the expansiveness of the kingdom of God in the world. He says that the world is a wheat field with weeds sown in. It's not a weed field with wheat sown in. But here what was hinted at before is I believe made more explicit.

All kinds of fish will be gathered into the net. And so this parable, I think, is a culmination and even a synthesis of the preceding parables. The expansion of the kingdom is here because all kinds are brought in. But there's also a reminder that this mission to go to the world will end and there will be a day of judgment and final separation when God will purify his kingdom and everything wicked will be cast out. And so this parable reiterates and reinforces these two truths that we must hold in our minds as believers.

We are to go and proclaim the gospel to all people. And one reason for that is because there will be a day when gospel preaching ends and the time of judgment comes. And so having these two great truths set before us, the success of the gospel in the world in some form and the reality of final judgment, what do we do? I believe we do three things. First, examine your own heart.

Examine yourself. What state are you in? Have you been brought into the net and are you one of those that having been brought into the net will not be cast out on that last day. Has your heart been changed? Not simply do you just do the good things you know you ought to do because of pressure from family or parents or peers or whoever, but do you love God?

Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Has your heart been changed from a heart that hates God and hates his law to now you love him and you long to obey him. What is your state? Give serious thought to these things. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Redeemer and your King.

Because one day you will stand before him and you will give an account. You will be judged And whether the end of the age comes first or you die, one way or the other, you will go to him and you will stand before him and you will be judged. And if you stand before him in your sin, in your own self-righteousness, if you stand before him without the covering of the blood of Christ, you will be cast out into the furnace of fire. Do you understand how serious this is? This is not a game.

This is not just something we do and we come here on Sundays and we just say things for the sake of saying words and hearing ourselves talk. This is more than life and death. This is your eternal state, the state of your soul, because you will live forever either in joy and peace with Christ himself or you will live forever under the unceasing wrath of God. God. Understand this and believe it and examine yourself and see where you stand.

What are you trusting in today? What is your hope and is the thing you're hoping in enough to turn away God's anger on that day? Because there is only one thing that will satisfy God's justice. There's only one shield and one protection that you can hope in and that is Jesus himself and his work that he's done on behalf of sinners. So what is your state?

What is your heart? Are you trusting in Him today? Secondly, what do we do? Secondly, we recognize that the fish become fishermen. When Jesus called his first followers, what did he say to them?

They were fishermen. What did he say? He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. In the parable, the fishermen are just background noise. They're not even mentioned by name.

But elsewhere we see and we know that those who have been brought into the kingdom are given the the joyful and glorious task of going out and bringing others in. And so the fish caught in the gospel net now become fishermen to go and catch others. And so we go to our friends, we go to our families, our neighbors, We go to the nations because we know these two great truths. We know that God will save a great multitude of people, and so we go to all people because God has his elect everywhere. So we can send missionaries around the world because we know that God has his chosen ones wherever the gospel goes.

There will be those who are brought in. At the same time, we know this other great truth. There is a day of judgment coming and those in all lands who die apart from Christ have no hope. Because of knowing these two things, we become fishers of men and we tell others come come and find the one that your soul needs come to Christ we become ambassadors calling men and women everywhere to be reconciled to God. And thirdly, we pray.

We pray for that great catch. We know that it's promised and so we pray that the Lord would grant his promise. We pray knowing that while we are commissioned to go and it's an obligation laid on us to preach the gospel to all kinds of people, we know that we do not have any power or sufficiency in ourselves to make it happen. The Lord gives the increase, so we go and we pray that the Lord would fulfill his promises we pray God may it be in our day may you create a great catch in our city in our nation Let us be a part of the casting of this net. And let not one of these that we know and love here be lost.

God bring in your full number. So with the last minute or two that I have, let's look at the conclusion Jesus gives here in verse 51 and 52. Jesus said to them, Have you understood all these things? And they said to him, yes, Lord. Then he said to them, therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.

So Jesus ends this parable discourse and asks them, have they understood what he's said to them? And they say, yes, we've understood. He's had to explain along the way, but they get it now. And so Jesus explains what the consequences are of understanding his words with another parable. Now when he says a scribe instructed concern of the kingdom, I take that to be a reference to a disciple.

Some understand it to be more more of an emphasis on those who are leaders in the church because the scribes were those who were the those who were most trained in the law of God they were the ones who were extraordinarily diligent in copying and reading and studying the law. It's possible that this has a particular application to those who are in authority in the church, to the elders of the church, to the apostles that Jesus is speaking to. But I do believe it has a broader a broader application to all disciples because we are all Intended to be students. We're all disciples. We're all to learn from our master.

So a scribe was a student of the law who taught others and I believe that's what we're to be as disciples. We're to be students of Jesus and to be students who learn from him and then proclaim him to others. Jesus intends his followers to communicate his message to the next generation after. And these trained and teaching students, these scribes for the kingdom, he says, are like householders or household managers who bring out of their treasury things old and new. What does that mean?

I believe that just as the scribes were trained in the Old Covenant law, the scribes constructed in the kingdom are trained in the Old Covenant law, but also in the New Covenant teaching of Jesus. This is telling us that as instructed disciples, as scribes of the Lord Jesus, we ought to know the old covenant and the new covenant. We should understand the pictures and the promises, the shadows and the types of the old covenant scriptures. They knew a Messiah was coming. They knew all nations, not just Israel, would somehow be brought in to worship Yahweh, but they didn't understand exactly how.

They didn't see it. They didn't understand it. But now the new covenant has come, and the new covenant scriptures have come. And so we see that what was hinted at and prophesied and promised is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. He brings in the nations through the preaching of the gospel because of the blood of his cross and his resurrection from the dead, the proclamation that he is the Son of God in power, as we heard about last week.

And so old and new truths, not in contradiction to one another but complementing and completing one another. We're to be trained in these things and teach them to others because that is how that net is spread. The verbal, open proclamation of the truth of God, what God has given his people. And so let us strive to be scribes for the kingdom of heaven. Let us learn and grow and study what our Lord has given us so that we can bring forth these new and old treasures to show the world and bid them to come.

Let us cast the net far and wide and pray that God would grant a great catch before the net is finally drawn in and the time for preaching is over. Let's go and serve our King. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for this marvelous teaching that you have given us from the lips of your own son.

Lord, help us to be faithful, help us to be diligent to do these things. God give us hearts that yearn to see the lost saved. God, give us compassion on those who do not yet know you. And God, as we go forth and as we do these different ministries that we're involved in and we preach the gospel, Lord, may you be pleased to grant us success. Lord, we long to see people brought in to your kingdom.

We long to see souls saved. We long to see those who are dead and sins be brought to new life in Christ. Lord, it's a great privilege that you even called us to go. Oh Lord, we also pray that you would grant us success to see fruit, to see the harvest. May it begin in our own homes and may it spread to our city and to our nation until you fill this whole earth with praises to your name that the glory of God would cover this world as the waters cover the sea as you've promised and in Christ's name we pray all these things amen