Sermon on the Parable of the Net

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All right, praise God, if you would open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13, Gospel according to Matthew chapter 13, finishing up now this chapter.

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And as you guys get there, I have been mentioning that we are getting into some really, really interesting parts of the

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Gospel according to Matthew. Of course, every word of God is interesting and powerful, able to transform us, but we really are getting to what

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Matthew is doing in the story, which most good stories do. They get up to a climax, the climax, the build, and we're hitting now that middle section right in the middle of this book where you're going to begin to see now all that was happening in the beginning, the themes that were being brought up, the promise of impending judgment,

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Jesus' promises of looming judgment. You're going to start to see, like, why is that taking place?

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The explanation starts to happen, and you start to see the marks of it all over the pages, and it increases in intensity, in great intensity.

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Now, we're in Matthew chapter 13, again, near the end of the chapter now.

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We've gone through the majority of the parables, and as I said a moment ago, the parables, some of them are just restatements saying something another way.

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So you have the parable of the mustard seed that becomes a tree, and then one that's like it is the leaven in the three measures of flour, so two ways of saying the same thing.

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And then, of course, you have the value of the kingdom stated two ways, once as treasure hidden in a field, and another one like a merchant in search of fine pearls who finds a pearl of great price.

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Same thing stated two different ways. And now we're in a larger parable section that's essentially a restatement of one already said.

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Jesus had said before in the text that the kingdom of heaven was like a man who sowed good seed in a field, and while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds.

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And now we're in Matthew 13, verse 47.

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So hear now the words of the living and true God. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

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When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad.

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So will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace.

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In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. As far as the reading of God's holy word, let's pray together and ask

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God to bless this. Father, Lord, I am, Lord, unworthy to unpack this in the way that it must be unpacked.

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God in myself, Lord, I don't have any right to stand before your people before this holy word.

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But God, we all ask you, Lord, to bless this time as we open your word, and Lord, we learn from you.

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We pray that it would be from your word and your spirit that it would not be the words of a mere man.

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I pray that, God, you would get me out of the way as the minister, that, Lord Jesus, you would be glorified, magnified, exalted, made famous, that I would decrease, that everyone would leave here forgetting me,

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Father, please, remembering you and what they've learned from your word. I pray that you would use this message,

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God, to cut our hearts. I pray for those of us that are in you that we'd be transformed by this, that this would happen.

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Bless the way that we understand your word and your story. And for those in this room that don't truly know you, they've never turned to you in faith,

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I pray, Lord, that you would draw your sheep to yourself this day. We pray that,

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God, you would teach us, empower us, illuminate your word by your spirit. In Jesus' name, amen.

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So we're in 47. Jesus says, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net.

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So what's important here is, not assuming that everyone in the room right now has been here throughout the duration, is

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Jesus in the gospel according to Matthew uses the phrase kingdom of heaven.

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But if you look at the other gospels, you see kingdom of God is used. So it's synonymous.

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Kingdom of God is kingdom of heaven. They're the same thing. So if you look at the synoptic gospels, you'll see that the other gospel writers use kingdom of God.

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Matthew is being very cautious with the sensitivities in his day, and so they would refer often to God as heaven.

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Jews throughout history have had many superstitions and traditions around the name of God, writing

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God's name. The writers of the New Testament and the Old Testament did not share those superstitions necessarily.

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However, you do have caution taken by Matthew when he says kingdom of heaven, he means kingdom of God.

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And what's that mean? It means the rule of God. This is essential. The kingdom of God, the rule of the

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Messiah is a central theme throughout the entire Bible. It's not a throwaway, it's not a side issue, a peripheral thing.

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It's a core thing. What God was going to do with the rule of the Messiah was redeem the world,

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Jew and Gentile together. He was going to save people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

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He was going to wash away our sins so He would never remember our sins again. He was going to put

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His law within us. He's going to give us new hearts. He's going to indwell us by His Spirit. He was going to establish justice in the earth,

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Isaiah 42. This is a central theme, not a minor theme in the Bible.

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And so when Jesus comes in Matthew 13 and He has all these parables about the kingdom of God, that's how you would expect the

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Messiah to be talking. As a matter of fact, if it was any other way, you would have reason to be suspicious.

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Is Jesus the long -anticipated Messiah? Does He fit the bill? These parables are

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Jesus explaining to His people now, this is the way of history. This is what to anticipate in the world with My kingdom.

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This was where their heart was set. They knew, watch, sin entered the world and wrecked everything.

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It destroyed our relationship with God. It destroyed our relationship with one another. God made us

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His image to be His image bearers, to send His light out into the world.

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We failed in that divine task. We broke covenant with God. Death entered into humanity and our experience, and now history is moving forward throughout the

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Old Testament with all these marks of divine love. Even though we're rebels against God, even though we hate

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God, even though we run away from God, God steps into history in these acts of redemption, and He promises,

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I'm coming. I'm coming with My kingdom. I'll establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed.

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I'll establish justice in the earth. I will send light into the world. I'll dispel the darkness.

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God promises to reshape earth's story, whereas we wanted sin and not

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God. God obliterates our sin, and He gives us the gift of Himself. And so Jesus now,

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God as man in the flesh, is walking among us now. He's suffering among us.

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He's experiencing all that this sinful world has to offer. He's giving us the real interpretation of the law of God in the

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Sermon on the Mount. He's showing us who He is with His miracles and casting out demons, giving sight to blind people, hearing to deaf people.

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He's forgiving sins, and yet He's also reminding them of what they anticipated, and that is that the

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Old Testament said that when Messiah came, there was going to be a twofold thing happening in His ministry.

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One was redemptive. He was going to bring purification of sin. He was going to wash away the sins of His people.

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He was going to deal with what wrecked our relationship with God, our rebellion.

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He was going to satisfy that. But also the promise was in the Old Testament that when the old covenant age ended, they knew a new covenant age was coming.

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When the old covenant age had ended, there was going to be a time of very severe judgment upon the covenant breakers.

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Now, we've done this and rehearsed this a number of times at Apologia as we've moved through this, so I won't do it all today in rehearsal, but I will tell you that the

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Old Testament, without question, demonstrates that, that there were two eras, two ages, two epochs, epochs of time.

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You were going to have the old covenant age, temple, priest, animal sacrifices,

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Yom Kippur, an annual reminder of sins. You have all of these earthly things that can be shaken and destroyed, and yet you have the new covenant age coming, the age of the

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Messiah, the age of the kingdom of God, where now we relate to God in a new way. Our sins forgiven,

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God indwelling us, empowered by His Spirit, God establishing justice, and God putting the world right again.

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So, these two periods of time, old covenant age, the age of the Messiah, old covenant, new covenant, the law of God on stone tablets outside the people of God, people still in the flesh, unable to accomplish that, all of our sins not completely dealt with.

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They knew that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin, and they knew this new thing was coming, so they saw history divided into two sections.

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Old covenant age, new covenant age. You can think of it in terms of Moses and his law, the problems they had there of not being able to accomplish

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God's law, still violating God's law, and now you've got this blessed age of the

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Messiah coming, and then enter Jesus. That's why it's such a big deal for Matthew to open his gospel up with, hey, here's the genealogy.

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He's finally come. Father Abraham, the one that God covenanted with and promised to send the

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Messiah through, here's Jesus' genealogy taking him right back to our heroes.

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David, Abraham, you know he fits the bill. He owns the royal right to the throne of David, to be king of the world, king of kings, and Lord of lords.

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It's all right there. It doesn't mean a lot to us today, maybe, if we're not familiar with the Bible, but when you are in Jewish Awanus every day, you're learning your

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Bible, you're reciting Torah, you're memorizing these passages. It's a big deal to see that genealogy and to see

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Jesus being what Israel was not. In the wilderness temptation, it's a picture of Jesus.

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All that was pointing to Jesus. Where Israel fails, Jesus succeeds and has victory.

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Where Adam failed in the garden, Jesus succeeds and has victory. You see, all that we anticipated from the

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Old Testament shadows of Jesus. Everything the Bible was about is summed up in Jesus.

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Now he walks among us and here are his parables. And in the parables, four things

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I'm going to show you just quickly today, not rehashing the entire parable, but I'll say first, what we learn from the parables of the kingdom of heaven from Jesus in Matthew 13 is this.

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Jesus gives us the parable of the soils and the seed. And these are the types of people that the word of the kingdom comes to.

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So Jesus is the ruler of the world. He's the king of kings. He's the Messiah. He gives us the parables and tells us, here is what to anticipate.

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As you move through the world with the word of the kingdom, know this. You're going to encounter different people.

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And he gives us different types of people we're going to run into. So just as a quick thing, he says, hear then the parable of the sower.

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When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

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So there's a spiritual aspect as we preach the gospel. Sometimes there are nefarious, dark, evil forces at work.

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Satan comes and steals the seed. This is what was sown along the path.

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As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while.

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And when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. Jesus tells us, you're going to preach the gospel sometimes, and you think it's legit, and it's not.

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As soon as persecution comes, you see that person fall away. And you might be tempted to ask, well, was that person ever saved in the first place?

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And the answer is no, it never actually went into good soil. Jesus says, you're going to face these people.

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And Jesus, of course, tells us, as for the one that was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

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Expect it. People will not be seeking first God's kingdom, they'll have a profession of faith, and yet the love of the world and the things of the world will choke out that word of the kingdom, and it's meaningless, it disappears.

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It never went in the ground, and then, of course, Jesus gives us the hope that sometimes there's ground that's been prepared.

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It's been made ready for that word to come in, and it gets in, it penetrates, and it actually grows.

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And Jesus says, sometimes there's fruit a hundredfold, some 60, some 30. Here's the point.

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When you preach the gospel, sometimes you're going to actually have that seed fall on God's elect.

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It's ground that's been prepared, and it will always produce fruit. No such thing as a person who truly knows

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Jesus and the kingdom and has no fruit. Sometimes people have an enormous amount of fruit.

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You look at the ministries of some of our giants of the faith, you just think through history at the amazing people that have gone and preached the gospel and so much fruit and so much transformation in the world, you say, that's a hundredfold kind of bucket, right?

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Lots of stuff in that bucket, and some of us come to Christ, and maybe it's 30 -fold fruit, but the point is, is that when it's true and it's real, there's real fruit.

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And so Jesus tells us, you're going to have these types of people that receive the word of the kingdom.

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The next is Jesus tells us, and I'm doing this kind of out of order, cut your cake the way you like.

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This is how I like to. The value of the kingdom. Jesus tells us in Matthew 13, 44 through 45, he tells us about the value, and he does it by way of a parable about treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered it up.

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Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and he buys that field. Because when he sees the treasure, he recognizes that what he's been holding onto is not really treasure anyways, in comparison to this.

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The value of the kingdom is that it's better than your treasure, and when you stumble upon it, you realize instantaneously that what you've been carrying is pales in comparison to this treasure.

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And then Jesus says, in another way, it's like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

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Here's a person who's a businessman, he knows what he's looking for, and when he sees it, he says, that has value, and he goes and gets rid of everything else to buy the one.

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So Jesus says, this is the value of the kingdom. It's worth everything. It's worth all of you, and here's the thing.

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You don't have to convince somebody who is truly good soil and has received the word of the kingdom, that the kingdom itself is such a great value and treasure.

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They know it instantaneously because their heart's been prepared. They can see the value. You don't have to convince them.

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When they give everything up for the kingdom of God, it's not out of compulsion. Nobody's pushing them.

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When a person stumbles upon treasure in land, they recognize immediately the value of the treasure.

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You don't have to have a lecture. You don't have to convince them. They know it instantaneously, and if you are a son or daughter of the kingdom, you see the value of the kingdom of God, and you give yourself away for it.

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You give everything up for it. If you don't give everything up for it, then you don't see the value, which means your heart hasn't been made ready.

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Then of course, and this is one of my favorite ones, is that Jesus, third point, gives us a parable, not just about the types of people, not just about the value of the kingdom, but he gives us a parable about the progress and victory of the rule of the

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Messiah. In verses 31 through 33, he gives us two examples, and these two examples go clean, contrary against the popular view of the future that we hold to as Christians today in the

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West. Two parables. One, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. It's the smallest.

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I told you about the Mishnah and the Jewish writings that had lists of seeds, and the mustard seed was in the list as the smallest, and so Jesus isn't being literal there, like there's nothing else smaller, but in terms of the kosher seeds that they would point to, the mustard seed was the smallest, and Jesus says, you know, that one, the smallest one, you can barely see it, it looks insignificant, like it can accomplish nothing, and yet this thing can get as big as a man, and Jesus said the kingdom of heaven's like that, insignificant, nothing, and it becomes so large,

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Jesus says that the birds of the air nest in its branches, and Jesus says it's like leaven in three measures of flour, and it permeates the entirety of the batch, and by the way, we did the message on it, three measures of flour, really closely connects to the story of Sarah and the angel of the

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Lord showing up with Abraham and Sarah. She had three measures of flour, and so I think

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Jesus is showing sort of this connection between Sarah and Abraham, and the promise of Isaac, the kingdom of God in the world, all the nations being blessed, your descendants being as numerous as the stars, and Jesus says, yeah, the kingdom of heaven's like that, it's like leaven that permeates the entirety of the batch.

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So here's the thing, you know that you're going to run into different types of soils, you know that the kingdom is of value, of more value than anything you have, and you have the promise as a believer that there is going to be progress and victory in history.

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The leaven is going to get into everything, it's going to permeate everything, and then the final thing here is

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Jesus gives us some specific parables that I'm going to say two things about. Here's those two things.

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One, they have first century application directly. So there's a way to misinterpret it because they have direct first century application.

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They don't necessarily apply to every single generation, and yet there are principles in both these parables that have first century application that do count throughout the ages.

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So first thing, the two parables that are a restatement of the same thing, one is

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Jesus' parable about the landowner who sows a wheat field, and an enemy comes in and sows weeds.

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Darnel, Darnell. The darnel looks like wheat, not wheat, and it grows up together.

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It's an enemy that sowed these false believers. It looks so close to the real thing, and then

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Jesus says what's going to happen. Then He says clearly in verses 36 through 43, in verse 38, the field is the world and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

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The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the what?

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Say it again. I need you to make sure we're all on the same page, of the age. It's critical to get that right.

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There's a difference between kosmos and aion, Greek words that are different.

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Now if you have a King James Bible, sometimes where it says the word age in the Greek, it says the word world in your

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English translation. It's very important to get this right. I would say this, there are entire books on prophecy that are absolutely unbiblical, that are based upon a misunderstanding of this very word.

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Jesus says the harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the close of the what?

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Age. The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.

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In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, here listen, listen, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their

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Father. He who has ears, let him hear. Quick things, it's the close of the what? Age.

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Close of the age, Jesus says these two things grow up together, they look very similar, but at the close of the age,

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Jesus says God will send His angels in judgment, and He will take out of His kingdom the believers into a rapture.

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No? Let's see, He will take out of His kingdom what? The lawbreakers.

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Now, where do the righteous stay after all this is done? Where are they at? They're still there.

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So who's removed are the lawless ones, the believers abide to shine like what?

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Stars. So God says at the close of the age, I will send my angels in judgment, and I will remove the lawless ones so that my people shine like the stars in the heavens.

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Now watch, Jesus then has the next parable that's, again, a restatement of the same theme.

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First century application, here it is. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

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First thing to say about the net, it's often called, this parable is often called the parable of the dragnet.

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Now, I don't do a lot of fishing. When we went to Kauai a couple of times, we found a cheap place that could fit us all that sort of hangs off a cliff.

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It's kind of terrifying, to be honest with you. It sort of hangs off a cliff, and we watch people.

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In Kauai, you can fish all you want. So praise God for no regulations, right?

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They're allowed to eat in a sustainable way, raise their own food and fish all they want.

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They can just go out and they can do this, and no one's telling them not to. It's just, it's a beautiful thing. It sounds like Christian civilization, praise

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God. So we watch people at night sort of go into the water below us and start throwing out their nets, but the nets that they have are really, you know, they're kind of smaller nets.

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The net that's being referred to here, this dragnet, is actually a really large net.

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It's a very large net that covers a large surface. And so Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

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So some things to notice is that it actually covers a large surface area.

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Craig Bloomberg says that the literal way to state what's being said here is that all races, every kind is all races,

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Craig Bloomberg says is a way you can put that, which is a weird way to be talking about fish, all races.

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So here's the point. Jesus says that this net goes out, it is a large net, and it's catching things indiscriminately.

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All kinds of people, all races, it's indiscriminate. When it collects things, it collects even the junk.

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You don't get to decide how to spread that net. God calls His people in this context and in principle in ours to spread a very large net and to catch things.

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And what Jesus says here in this context, first century application, what it really pointed to, just like the other parable, is that this thing goes out indiscriminately, it catches all kinds of things, soda cans, trash, seaweed, which you, by the way, are not supposed to eat.

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Greg brought seaweed to a man camp one year. We sent the men on a mission to go get snacks for the men for this weekend, and Greg bought seaweed because he hates me.

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No, he loves us and he wants to keep us healthy. But here's the thing, you put the net out, it goes over a large surface area, it collects everything, the kinds of fish you didn't want, the tire, the soda can, the seaweed, the trash, it goes out to everyone, which would have been interesting to say to first century

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Jews who are very, very used to the context of we are God's chosen people, it's all about us.

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They missed the fundamental part of the story. How did they miss it?

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How? You got to give the Jews of the first century grace in some areas in terms of they're very confused because the pictures of the

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Messiah are multifaceted. You got king of the world, suffering servant, you've got judgment coming and victory and salvation.

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You got to give them some grace, right? But here's one place I would say, you know what? You should have known better.

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You absolutely should have known better. What was the promise to our father Abraham? This is where it all started.

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What was the promise to him? That in you shall all the Jews be blessed, right?

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No, in you shall all the, what? Nations be blessed. You're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars, they're going to be like the sand on the seashore.

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They should have known better. God said explicitly, Psalm 22, one example, he says that all the families of the earth are going to return to worship the

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Lord. Daniel chapter 7 verses 13 through 14, it says that when that Messiah comes up to the ancient of days, he's going to be given a kingdom and dominion that will never pass away and that men of every tribe, language, nation are going to serve him.

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They should have known better. And so what's interesting about the parable in the first century context is that here's the

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Messiah saying what he had to be saying to be the Messiah, but it would have been jolting to them, in a sense kind of scandalous to how they would have seen things, is it's all about me.

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It's all about the Jew. It's all about me. Think about this in John the Baptist. He comes confronting them.

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He's the promised Elijah calling people to repentance. And what are they bragging on? They're like, well, we got Abraham as our father, right?

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Like we're Jews. Like we get this because we're born Christian, right?

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We get this because we're born Jews. And he says, don't say to yourselves that you have

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Abraham as your father. God can raise up from these stones heirs of Abraham. And Jesus says, you cast this net indiscriminately, this massive net, and you gather everything.

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And Jesus says this, at the close of the age, God will send his angels to take out the lawbreakers, the sinners, the ones who are unrighteous, the ones who don't really know

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God. God takes his people and he collects them for service towards him and worship, and then he takes out the other ones in punishment.

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But I want to say this. We typically do this. It's not a problem just for them. I mean, you know, we can diss the

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Jews in the first century for saying it's about me as a Jew. It's about me. But we do this as Christians.

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We do. Well, think about how we do ministry. We do ministry with the people we're comfortable with.

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There's so many ways to point to this, and I think we're all guilty. We all have guilt in this area.

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When we do ministry and we say we're going to preach the gospel or we're inviting people to church, what do we do? Do we zero in on the kinds of people that we're comfortable with, the kinds of people that are like us, someone who dresses like me, sounds like me, likes what

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I like? We're afraid of ministry that casts a very broad net because we don't want to collect the garbage.

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We don't want to collect the things that we're not really looking for. We kind of want to build the perfect church. So, for example, when we went to Kauai on the last trip, it was interesting to me anyways.

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We go to Kauai and we try to figure out, okay, what are some of the other Christian churches in the island? What are they like?

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I mean, you know, no solid Reformed churches, but what do they look like? What are they doing? Are they at least reaching everybody?

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Are they at least casting a very broad net? I mean, they're in Kauai, for goodness sakes, right?

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All the natives and the Hawaiians. It'll be a blended church, right? And what do you see?

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It's not, I don't want to overgeneralize, but the churches you go to, you see actually not a broad mix.

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If you go to a big popular church, you see a lot of white people, very few natives, right?

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But if you go to the south side of the island, what do those churches look like? All natives, right? We're not casting very broad nets.

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Now, some areas you can't really help it. Some areas are predominantly just these kinds of people, white, suburban, sort of upper middle class, middle class.

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You just can't sort of help that because of just the demographic and circumstances. But if you have an area where it genuinely is mixed, right, are you casting a broad net or are you looking at people that look like you?

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We're so pious, right? Our piety has sort of set in so we start even evangelizing with a very tiny net, not broad.

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The select few. And Jesus says, you cast this broad net and you catch everything.

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Now, I want to point you again to the fact that this is just another reminder of the looming judgment upon that first century generation.

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Do not miss that. If you miss the significance of the close of the old covenant age and the entrance of the new, if you miss the significance of Jesus saying their temple in Matthew 24,

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Mark 13, Luke 21 is about to be toppled before they all die, then you can go off into all kinds of crazy woo -woo eschatological stuff.

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It gets crazy. The promise of judgment in the first century is clear in the

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Old and New Testament. Literally the timing is there from the Old, the promise of judgment, and in the

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New Testament it's constant reminders of the soon coming judgment. Let me give you an example of what that looks like.

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First thing, and we can't spend all day on this thing, but I want to just give you sort of a line directly to this particular parable.

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In Matthew chapter 3, you have the entrance of John the Baptist and he says, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and he says the ax is already laid at the root of the trees, bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

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He says that the judgment is about to come. Jesus comes in after the wilderness trial and he says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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Jesus says really shortly before this, as he sends his disciples out, he says this powerful statement, he says, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the

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Son of Man comes. That has twisted up many a people who have a very bad eschatology.

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Jesus says, you're not even going to finish going through the towns of Israel before I come in judgment.

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Matthew 16, Jesus says, some of you standing here will not die until you see this.

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And then it begins to go even further into parables about judgment, but I want to point you to a specific thing.

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Go to Matthew 24, it's that famous passage of the Olivet Discourse.

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This is the one that is, I would say, most abused. Whenever you see social unrest and difficulty, earthquakes, famines, whenever you see these things in the world, it has been this way for a very long time, you will see people wrongly applying

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Matthew 24 to their current circumstances. You will see it this year,

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I assure you. Matthew chapter 24, here's a famous section.

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Jesus says in this text that the temple is not going to have one stone standing upon another.

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They ask Him in verse 3, tell us when will these things be?

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What will be the sign of your coming and the close of the what? And the close of the age, the end of the age.

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Jesus says the temple is going to be destroyed, the vengeance upon this generation, I leave your temple desolate, and He goes to the

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Mount of Olives, watch, taking the same direction as the glory of God when

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God departed the temple in the Old Testament, His glory went to the Mount of Olives and rested.

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Jesus denounces the Jewish leadership, He promises desolation and judgment, and then

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He takes the same path that God took in the Old Testament before judging the temple and the

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Jews. And then Jesus now is on the Mount of Olives, same course God took in the Old Testament.

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They just heard Jesus say that they're about to be destroyed. They say, when? When will these things be?

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What's the sign of your coming and the end of the age? All this stuff's gone, when?

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And so Jesus tells them what to look for, famines, wars, persecution, but watch,

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He says this in verse 34, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Now quick question,

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I'm not going to do the exegesis of Matthew 24 in today's message, but let me ask you this, what's the rule we have as believers for a prophet?

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In Deuteronomy 18, 20 through 22, God gives you a test of a prophet.

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If he has one what? False prophecy, what is he? Now you can't say that applies to Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, and Mary Baker Eadie, and David Koresh, and Harold Camping, and on and on.

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You can't say it applies to them and not Jesus. If you're a faithful Christian with your Bible, you know that's a prophecy.

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And if it didn't happen like that, then you are, according to Scripture, supposed to reject this prophet.

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But Jesus says all these things are going to take place before this generation, the generation he was talking to, took place.

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Now watch, verse 36, but concerning that day and hour, no one knows. Not even the angels of heaven nor the

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Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the

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Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when

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Noah entered the ark. Now who's the they? Who's the they eating and drinking and just sort of going about their business while Noah's building the ark?

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Who's the they? Noah and his family or the unbelievers? Come on now, join in today.

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You guys, the unbelievers, okay? Think about context here. Those who were eating and drinking, giving in marriage were the unbelievers while Noah and his family are building this ark.

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Now watch, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.

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Who was swept away? Who were the they that were swept away? The unbelievers, keep going.

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Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.

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Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken and one left. Question, think about the story of Noah.

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Come with me now. This might be completely earth shattering to some of us. For those of us who've been raised with Left Behind series, those of us who've been raised singing

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DC Talk, I wish we'd all been, what? There you go.

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Two men walking up a hill, one disappears and what?

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You are so sad today, okay? And one left standing still. And watch, in the

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DC Talk song that's supposed to be reflecting Matthew 24, who's the one still left standing?

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In the DC Talk song? The unbeliever, who's taken away in the

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DC Talk song? The Christian, but it is literally in the reverse in Matthew 24.

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In Matthew 24, it's supposed to remind you of Noah's day when they were eating and drinking, giving and marriage until the flood came and swept them all away.

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Jesus says it'll be like this, two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.

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In Noah's day, who was taken and who was left? The unbeliever was taken and Noah's family was what?

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Left. This text is saying the same thing that Jesus said in his parables in Matthew 13.

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Jesus says at the close of the age, God will send his angels and he will remove from his kingdom the lawless ones so that his people stay to remain and shine like the stars of heaven.

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And Jesus says in Matthew 24, it's going to be like this at the close of the age. They're going to be eating and drinking, giving and marriage, and then

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God's going to come when they least expect it. He's going to leave the righteous to inherit the earth while he removes the stumbling blocks.

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Are you starting to see now how the whole story ties together clearly?

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Jesus promised that the righteous would inherit the land.

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What's Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount? The meek shall inherit the what? The meek shall inherit the earth.

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The theme in the Old Testament is that God removes the wicked from the earth and he leaves the righteous to inhabit it.

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Jesus says the meek shall inherit the earth. Jesus is removing the stumbling blocks, the wicked.

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He's recreating the world. It's a seed that becomes a tree. But this text, Matthew 13, has a first century specific application.

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However, there is clearly principles in both the parables that are true today.

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Let me just point you to something to kind of hang on to in terms of be ready for it, be thinking about it.

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He's warning them about judgment coming, removing them from the world, judging those ones, gnashing of teeth.

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If you're still in Matthew 24, just move back quickly to Matthew 21. You've heard this before, but think about how this is coming to a climax.

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Matthew chapter 21, verse 33. Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a wine press in it and built a tower and leased it to her tenants and went into another country.

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When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

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Again, he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did the same to them. Finally, he sent his son saying, they'll respect my son.

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But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, this is the heir. This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.

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And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What's that?

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That's Jesus is telling his story. This is what you're going to do to me. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?

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And they said to him, he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.

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Jesus said to them, have you never read in the Scriptures, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?

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This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.

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They knew he was talking about them. And this parable connects to Matthew 13, it connects to Matthew chapter 10, it connects to Matthew chapter 3,

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Matthew chapter 22 and the wedding feast and God sending his armies to burn their city up.

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It connects to Matthew 23 and Jesus' condemnation of the Pharisees and the religious leaders.

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It connects to Matthew 24 and Jesus' promise of what was going to happen to them in that generation. But something to talk about as this closes the age,

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I want to make sure that I send you a way with text to work through. Remember the

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Old Testament had the Old Covenant, New Covenant promise. The Old Covenant age, the age of the

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Messiah. The Old Covenant age and the time of the kingdom of God in the world where God's going to bring every tribe, tongue, and nation.

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That's what they knew. History is in two sections, not a complicated chart.

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You ever see the charts that I learned in Bible college of dispensational premillennialism?

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You ever see those? It's like very complicated charts. There's dashes and hooks and mountains and this is what they didn't see and then this age and seven years and then thousand years.

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It's very sophisticated, difficult system. Here's what it is in Scripture, Old Covenant, New Covenant, and they knew that.

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The age of the Messiah is coming. Now this end of the age you're going to see often. I want you to see what the apostles said about where they were in this timeline.

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Jesus says that this is all going to happen before the end of the age and if you look in 1

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Corinthians 10, 1 Corinthians 10 verse 11, 1

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Corinthians 10, this is what

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Paul says to the church in Corinth. He says, verse 11, now these things happened to them.

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He rehearses some of the stuff from the Old Testament. He says these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction.

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He's talking to the church in Corinth in the first century, upon whom the end of the ages has come.

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So to the church in Corinth in the first century, Paul says to that church that these

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Old Testament experiences, they happened to them, but they were written down for our instruction,

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Paul, the church in Corinth, first century, upon whom the end of the age has come.

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He says the end of the age had come upon them. Now, you can't have the end of the age happening to first century

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Corinth and 21st century America. Another verse,

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Hebrews chapter 9, Hebrews to the right, guys, Hebrews chapter 9, verse 26, powerful text.

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He says this, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly, Jesus, since the foundation of the world, but as it is, he, that's

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Jesus, has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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So brothers and sisters, come with me real fast here just for this one question. When did

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Jesus appear to put away sin once for all? Was it at the beginning of the age or the end of the age?

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Tell me what it is, guys, at the end of the age. Jesus appeared at the end of the age to put away sin once for all.

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And he says at the end of the age has come upon them. And so this end of the age is clearly the end of the old covenant age.

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The new covenant age, Scripture says, is a kingdom that will never end and never be destroyed.

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Final point here, because this gets to application, how does it apply?

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Matthew 13, back there and we finish. Jesus says in verse 49, so will be at the close of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace.

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In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now, I want to handle this with the respect that's due to it.

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We live in a time where it's popular to discredit the authority of Jesus.

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It's popular to deny the inerrancy of the Scriptures. It's popular to deny the clear teaching of the holiness of God, the justice of God, and eternal judgment.

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You see, we love the idea of eternal life in the modern, but we despise the idea of eternal judgment.

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And yet the Bible teaches both things. As a matter of fact, it's often been said that Jesus spoke more about hell and its details than He ever did about heaven.

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That's actually true. Jesus was more detailed about hell than He ever was about heaven.

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A couple of examples, Revelation 21 verse 8. You can just write these down.

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I'm going to just go through them rather quickly. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

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This is the second death. Matthew 25, 46, then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

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Notice how the Scriptures do that. There's eternal life, there's eternal punishment.

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Another text, 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 9, they will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the

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Lord and from the glory of His might. Matthew 13, 50, you've seen. Here's one,

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Mark 9, 43, if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into hell where the fire never goes out.

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Jesus says He is going to judge that generation.

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At the close of the age, God will send His angels in judgment to separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into a fiery furnace.

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In that place, there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In Luke chapter 16 verses 19 through 31,

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Jesus gives a story, and in the story,

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He talks about a rich man and Lazarus. Now, I do believe that there's a difference, we don't have time to unpack this today, between Hades, Hades, and Gehenna.

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Hades, which is the place that the Old Testament unbelievers would go, it was a place of torment, just like hell, essentially, in a way, it was sort of a holding place.

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There will be a place called hell that's different from Hades that is the place of everlasting torment, the lake of fire, those descriptions, so there is a difference.

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But in Jesus' day, He refers to the rich man and Lazarus, and in Luke 16, 19,

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He says, there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and who feasted sumptuously every day.

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And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table.

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Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. This man is in a bad way. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side.

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By the way, really cool thing, I'd love to do a series on this. Angels are the bomb.

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Seriously amazing. The Bible tells us all kinds of cool things about angels that we don't talk about often. I think for good reason, a lot of pastors are afraid to talk a lot about angels because people are idolatrous and we end up trying to talk to those angels and worship those angels.

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So we have to be cautious. But what the Bible says about angels, yes, God sends angels to minister to His children.

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It seems to me we have examples in Scripture of angels actually being directed by God to carry you into His presence when you die, which is totally sweet, right?

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You die, your eyes open, there's an angel, like, what's up? You ready? It's like, yes, right?

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This is totally cool. But in this text here, the angel carries him to Abraham's side.

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It says, the rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw

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Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, and he called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send

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Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame.

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So there is a difference between the state of Hades, this temporary thing, before final judgment and the lake of fire, the difference between the two, of course, but what's clear here is that there is flame, anguish, conscious, torment.

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Now, here's the thing. We don't like to talk about this, and I'll be honest with you, completely honest. I don't know how to fully describe in literal terms what the

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Bible says about hell, eternal torment, how much is metaphor, how much is literal.

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I'm not going to say as a pastor I fully understand that. I think there's actually somewhat of a mystery to it, the way the Bible describes it.

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However, it is clearly fire. It is clearly conscious. It is clearly torment.

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What's it like? Horrible, everlasting punishment.

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It is not a state of annihilation. It is a state of very conscious torment and punishment.

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And Jesus says to those people, there is judgment coming at the close of the age, which was going to happen right around the corner for them.

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That temple's about to be destroyed. Some of you won't die. That's how soon some of you are going to be alive when it happens.

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God sends His angels to punish, and then you go into a place of fiery torment, everlasting punishment, everlasting shame.

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That's what the Bible says. Now, here's the rub. Here's the end.

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Here's the so what. They didn't believe Him. Of course, the elected, of course

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His people, by God's grace, saw it, and they saw Jesus, and they wanted nothing but Jesus.

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And God gave them not only eternal life, but He also preserved His people from the destruction of Jerusalem.

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The Christians, historically, were the only ones to escape the destruction of Jerusalem. They fled to a town called

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Pella. Jesus not only saved their souls, but He saved them from the Roman -Jewish war.

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But, there were others who said, no, I reject you as Messiah.

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Pilate says, shall I crucify your king? And what do they say? They say, we have no king but Caesar. Give us

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Barabbas. No king but Caesar. And then Pilate washes his hands in trial as a sign, as a symbol.

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He says, I'm washing my hands. I find no fault in Him. And then like a coward, he says, you see to it.

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He knew he was not guilty, and he says, well, I'll let you take the guilt. And what do they say?

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They say, watch. When you know what was coming, this is harrowing.

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They say, His blood be upon us and our children.

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And then as Jesus goes to the cross, remember this, He's carrying that cross, and the women are weeping by the side of the road with Jesus carrying the cross to Golgotha.

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And He stops on the way to the cross. One of the few things that He says is He says this. He says, do not weep for me.

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Weep for your children. And then He warns them about the... On the way to the cross,

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He's warning them about the soon coming judgment upon them and their children on the way to accomplish redemption.

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And they didn't believe it. They didn't even see it coming. There's even some interesting stuff we'll get into in Matthew 24 that R .C.

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Sproul points out in his book, The Last Days According to Jesus, Josephus, a Jewish Pharisee and general in the

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Jewish army against the Romans in the revolt and in the war, Josephus records that in that time was one of the biggest earthquakes in history in Pompeii.

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There was famine rampant. It seemed like the whole world was at war with everybody.

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And at one point, the temple doors burst open shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem.

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The temple doors burst open and eyewitnesses said that a voice boomed out of the temple that sounded like thunder that said, let us remove hence.

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Let us leave now. And the Jews were confused about these very strange happenings.

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There was a comment that hung over the city like a sword for a year.

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And they were all terrified of what all these signs meant. And at one point, the Romans were lobbing these fireballs over the city walls.

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And Josephus records that the Jews started yelling, mocking the

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Romans saying, oh no, the sun is coming. The sun is coming. The Christians had been preaching in Jerusalem for that generation that Jesus was coming to judge the city and the temple and the covenant breakers.

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And when the war broke out, there's even records of the Jews mocking Jesus saying, oh yeah, we're really terrified,

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Jesus. Come get us. Interesting. They didn't believe it. And yet Jesus keeps

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His promises. So here's what we know. We know Jesus promises eternal life to all those who turn from their sins to trust in Him.

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There's reconciliation with God. There's peace with God. God says, I'll remember your sins no more, and I'll count you righteous apart from any works.

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I'll give you my righteousness as a gift. That's the promise. Eternal life, gift of God through faith.

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But Jesus also has another story. You see, Jesus is God, and God has attributes like love.

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But He also has an attribute of holiness, an attribute of justice. And while there is

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God's love poured out on us and giving us eternal life, there is also

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God's justice, His holiness, His righteous character, and the fact that God acts decisively and righteously with people.

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And He promises not just eternal life, but eternal punishment to all those who do not know

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Jesus. So how will you respond?

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How will I respond? How will you respond? Will you respond to the message of Jesus like many have throughout the ages with indifference?

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Or will you respond like Jamali from Vice, who came out to film us on the radio program.

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I said, you really need Jesus, Jamali. And his answer was this, and it was telling. He said,

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I'm not done sinning yet, maybe later. So there's indifference, don't care about the message of Jesus.

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Then there's, I'm not done sinning yet, and I thought that was amazing that he said that into the microphone.

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That was one of those honest moments, right? I'm just not done sinning yet.

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I want to sin a little bit more before I actually take the message of Jesus seriously.

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I imagine that a lot of first century Jews have thought exactly that way. Well, maybe I'll consider the claims of Jesus later.

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I'm kind of busy right now. How will you respond? Will you respond to the call of Christ to come to Him for life?

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Abandon everything, see this treasure in a field, and recognize everything you've been holding is just an idol, that it's not real treasure?

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Will you drop it where you stand? Will you sell everything to grab this treasure? Will you come to die, as Jesus calls you to, to be joined to Him in eternal life?

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How precious is this promise? My favorite Bible verse, John 5, 24, truly, truly

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I say to you, he who hears my voice and believes Him who sent me has, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life.

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That's the promise of the gospel. And so this is the call, repent and believe the gospel, come to Christ for life.