Thursday Thoughts

Today in Bible study we covered the thirteenth chapter of Matthew. It is the chapter in which you will find seven parables that Jesus teaches. The parables were a way of "encoding" God's message so the spiritually sensitive could understand, but the hardened would merely hear a story without heaping up additional condemnation for rejecting God's Word. I want to concentrate on the seventh - the parable of the dragnet.

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. Matthew 13: 47-48

The kingdom of heaven is like a net ... and you can see the vividness of this imagery. That net moves through the world. It is invisible to those around who can't yet see it. And if perchance it touches the back of a fish, the fish simply flits a little further ahead and enjoys the freedom he thinks is his permanently. And men live in this world imagining themselves to be free, moving about, fulfilling their own desires, going here and going there as they will, with little knowledge that the net comes closer and closer and closer. People float about in the liberty of the wide-deep sea of life, not knowing the invisible lines of judgment move closer and closer and closer. And each time they are touched by it, they move a little further away. And they're touched again and they move a little further away. And finally they've moved one time and they've hit it on the other side because it's moving toward the shore and then wildly the fish may dart for the sea only to be caught again in the same net ... finally to be dragged in the shore and the last throws of a flailing and flipping enter into a silent death. And that's how it is. Men may not perceive the kingdom, they may not see God moving in the world, but He is moving. And men very often when touched by the gospel of Jesus Christ, or threatened by the threat of judgment, dart into the freedom they think is ahead of them but sooner or later they run right back into the same net because there's no freedom there. And they are inexorably moving toward inevitable judgment.

"So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 13:49-50

Look at verse 49, "So shall it be at the end of the age." When man's day is over and Jesus returns to set up His glorious kingdom, then comes the judgment. The angels are the separators, just as we saw in verse 41, just as we see in Matthew 24; the angels come with the Lord to act out judgment. Just as we see in Matthew 25, just as we see repeatedly in Revelation, particularly chapter 14. The angels are the agents of God's judgment. So while the kingdom may, for a while, tolerate good and evil growing together, the separation is moving closer and closer all the time.

Jesus spoke of this same thing in Matthew chapter 25 when He said in verse 31, "The Son of man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory." And what will He do when He comes? It says, "And before Him shall He gather all the nations and He shall separate one from another. Separation. "And He'll say to them, on His right hand, Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And He'll say to them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

And Jesus said in John chapter 5 that there's coming a resurrection of all men, some to the resurrection of life and some to the resurrection of damnation. There will be a final separation, an eternal destiny will be determined for every soul that has ever lived on the face of the earth.

The Bible also says God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The Bible says that He is not willing that any should perish. The Bible says that God our Savior will have all men to be saved. Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said - 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft I would have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brood, but you would not. You will not come unto Me, He said pensively, that you might have eternal life. His heart of compassion is one that warns because He loves.

It goes back to Matthew 9:38. "Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." Jesus saw the world as a harvest moving to judgment, He saw that God would come and put that sickle in the harvest. And He said - I ... pray with Me that the Father would send forth laborers, send forth people into His harvest to warn men. And so in chapter 10 He called the disciples, didn't He? And in chapters 11 and 12, He trained and prepared the disciples. And in chapter 13, He taught the disciples. And now He says - Are you ready to go out and be those warners in the harvest?

"Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest."

Thank You that we can be a part of the kingdom. Thank you, Lord, that after the announcement of judgment, there was always the message of grace, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest." "He that doeth the will of My Father, the same is My brother and sister, and mother." Always the message of grace.

And so, Lord, to this rejecting world, we must preach the message of judgment because they too have rejected the King, but for some, their hearts are opened to do Your will to come for rest. And I would ask, Lord, that if there are any who are reading this and do not know Jesus Christ, that today they might open their hearts to Him that they might be translated, as Paul put it to the Colossians, from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. May they believe the gospel and repent, turning from their sin in sorrow and brokenness. And may they enter the kingdom to walk forever with the King. Amen.