The Parable of the Fishing Net

Matthew 13:47–50 ESV

47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The Parable of the Fishing Net

This is the last of 7 Parables found in Matthew 13 and it is the climax of all the Parables. It is a parable about judgement.

If you were a Jew in the OT, you would draw your time line with a present age and an age to come, separated by Messiah’s coming. The prophets did not see the Church Age. They didn’t see a second coming; only but one advent.

A careful look at Old Testament prophecies shows an underlying assumption of two advents. Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 7:14 predict the first advent. Separately, Isaiah 53:8–9 predicts a suffering and dying Messiah, who will be given life and greatness according to Isaiah 53:11–12. Daniel 9:26 describes the Messiah being killed after His appearance. At the same time, prophets such as Zechariah (Zechariah 12:10) say this same “pierced” Messiah will be seen again by His enemies. So the clues are there. (GotQuestions)

The Parable of the Fishing Net

All in all, the Hebrew Scriptures indicate that the Promised One would appear, be cut off, and then reappear in victory. The first advent has occurred; the second is still future. Both the New and Old Testaments predict a second advent of the Messiah.

We now know that everything promised in OT was not fulfilled when Jesus came the first time. Jesus said that He would be back to do the rest. In the meantime there is something going on that no one in the OT knew about.

What is going on in between these advents becomes the question and Matthew Chapter 13 is answering the question.

Revelation 10:7 ESV

7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.

Colossians 1:26 ESV

26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

The Mystery of the Church Age

We’re talking about the mystery of the Church and the Church Age. This is only a very temporary time in the prophetic plan of God. There is coming a time when the Church Age will be completed and Israel will again reenter the scene to complete God’s prophetic plan. This final 7 years of Daniel’s 70 - 7’s in Daniel Chapter 9.

In Matt 12:24 the religious leaders accuse Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan. This is the climax of the rejection by the leadership.

The Mystery of the Church Age

Matt 13 is hinge in the literary structure of the book of Matthew. It is a turning point in ministry of Jesus. In Matt 13 Jesus begins talking about the mystery form of the kingdom by telling parables. We know that because in Matthew 13:10 the disciples asked Jesus why he was speaking in parables. He answers that he is revealing the mysteries of the Kingdom. This parable illustrates vividly the coming judgement of God and the reality of Hell.

The Mystery of the Church Age

The Parable of the Soils talks about the sewing of the seeds of the Kingdom into the hearts of Man

The Parable of the Wheat and Tares talks about the counterfeit kingdom of Satan sewn among the seeds of the Kingdom of God

The Parables of the Mustard Seed and Leaven introduce the unnatural growth of worldly systems in attempt to make the Kingdom into something it is not.

The Parable of the Hidden Treasure is mystery nature and realized value of the Kingdom

The Parable of the Pearl again underscores the magnanimity of the Kingdom and the requirement for one to abandon all in order to obtain it.

And now we come to the climax of these Parables, which underscores the immense cost of rejecting the Kingdom for the treasures of this world. It is the eternal separation of the damned from the redeemed.

The Mystery of the Church Age

To some, it is uncomfortable to discuss hell. Most people today don’t want the topic addressed, especially in church. We talked about this fact when we learned about the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus on April 21 & 28. The fact is, Jesus talked more about Hell then did about Heaven and Love. The whole world is moving toward this. The prophetic clock is rapidly spinning as we come to the culmination of time, the Rapture of the Church, the entry of the Antichrist and the Beast System, and ultimately the glorious return of Christ and the judgement of the living and the dead.

This parable serves as a warning.

The Picture the Lord Paints

Matthew 13:47 ESV

47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.

The Picture the Lord Paints

Fishing in Jesus’ day was a common industry in Jesus’ day. It was the trade of several disciples and the Sea of Galilee is abundant with fish. Just like today, you could catch fish mainly by throwing a line and hook into the water (Matthew 17:27), casting a net (Matthew 4:18), or using what is called a drag net.

A drag net was a very large net that was trolled through the water. It could be as long as a half a mile, according to some commentators. One end was attached to the shore line and the other end was attached to the boat. The top of the net had floats and the bottom of the new was lined with weights.The boat would stretch the net out and then sweep around, capturing all the life that was within the sea inside of its circumference.

The Picture the Lord Paints

This parable reveals what God is doing among lost people today. The gospel of the kingdom involves two things: invitation and then separation. The sea in the parable is representative of lost humanity. The net is the Church, extending the gospel invitation.

What Jesus wanted his hearers to understand is first the immense size of the net. Second he wanted his hearers to understand that the brings in EVERYTHING. The net doesn’t distinguish what it is catching, it just brings in a full cornucopia of all that is in the sea.

The Separation of the Catch

Matthew 13:48 ESV

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

The Separation of the Catch

The central figures of the parable are a group of fisherman gathered around the mass of net filled with the conglomerate of life gathered into the net. What happens next is a very exacting, stringent, uncompromising sorting of the good from the bad. This would have been a very common scene to the hearers of Jesus’ parable. Day after day this would’ve been a common scene of the sorting of the fish into vessels to preserve and discarding the bad.

John 4:35–36 ESV

35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

Matthew 12:6 ESV

6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

2 Peter 2:9 ESV

9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,

The Lord’s Interpretation

Matthew 13:49 ESV

49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous

The Lord’s Interpretation

Here the Lord provides the interpretation for us. That is the upcoming angelic separation that is about to happen. This is a sobering and intense time at the end of the age. This is the culmination of every man’s sum total of life. This is the reckoning that every single one of us must and will face.

So what should be the emphasis of preaching in the church? What should we be concerned with today? Entertaining the goats into pretending they are heading to heaven as they are still lost in their sin or warning everyone of the impending judgment that is yet to come, lest they repent of their sins? Tell me? What should we be preaching today?

The Lord’s Interpretation

So if Hell is so awful, so hideous, so dreadful that the Lord saw it fit to speak about it more than heaven, what do we need to know about Hell. Let me offer to you four truths.

1. Hell is a Place of Eternal Torment

Number one, hell is a place of eternal unrelieved torment.  It is a place of a horrible misery.  And the Bible defines it as darkness, outer darkness. Have you ever been in the darkness and longed for the daylight?

In hell, you will never see light is how our Lord describes hell.  Bund the Bible also says it is a fire.  Now, it is not a fire that we would know as fire, to burn something in this world.  But fire is God’s way of describing it because it is a tortuous, unrelieved kind of fire, more terrible than any fire that we would ever know. 

1. Hell is a Place of Eternal Torment

The one is the Lord’s parable in Luke 16 where He says the man cried out in torment and said, “Cool my tongue for I’m tormented in this flame.”  And the other is that constant statement of our Lord, “There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”  The response to hell is not fun.  It is weeping.  That’s crying, wailing, screaming and grinding of teeth in pain. 

Revelation 21:8 ESV

8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Revelation 20:15 ESV

15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

2 Peter 2:4 ESV

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

2. Hell is a Place of Unrelieved Torment

Secondly, it is a place of unrelieved torment. When a person dies without Christ, their soul descends into that torment.  In the future, there will be a resurrection of the living and the dead.  And they will be raised, according toe John 5, for the single purpose of being punished forever.

That’s why Jesus in Matthew 10:28, “Fear not them that can destroy the body, but fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”  You see, hell is soul and body. It is not some kind of annihilationism. It is not some kind of soul-sleep. It is the eternal torment of soul and body. That is how abhorrent sin is to God.

Matthew 23:23 ESV

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

Mark 9:43 ESV

43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

John 3:16–18 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

3. Hell will be Ultimate Suffering

There will be no relief for that, but there will be even more severe degrees of suffering for some.

Hebrews 10:29–31 ESV

29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

3. Hell will be Ultimate Suffering

People who have cursed Jesus Christ, who have rejected his cross, will know a greater hell than those who have not. There will be degrees, just as there will be degrees of reward in heaven. 

Matthew 10:15 ESV

15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

3. Hell will be Ultimate Suffering

 You had Jesus Christ in your city, they didn’t.  You rejected Him with more light; therefore, hell will be more severe for you. 

John Gerstner said, “Hell will have such severe degrees that a sinner, were he able, would give the whole world if his sins could be one less.”

3. Hell will be Ultimate Suffering

“If you can sin and not weep over it, you are an heir of Hell. If you can go into sin, and afterwards feel satisfied to have done so, you are on the road to destruction. If there are no prickings of conscience, no inward torments, no bleeding wounds; if you have no throbs and heavings of a bosom that cannot rest; if your soul never feels filled with wormwood and gall when you know you have done evil, you are no child of God.” (Charles Spurgeon).

4. Hell is Avoidable

You say, “Well, how do you avoid hell?  You avoid hell only by the receiving of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  If you don’t appropriate the kingdom, if you don’t take the treasure, if you don’t purchase the pearl, there’s no way out.

4. Hell is Avoidable

John Bunyan wrote this, “In hell thou shalt have none but a company of damned souls with an innumerable company of devils to keep company with thee.  While thou art in this world, the very thought of the devils appearing to thee makes thy flesh to tremble and thine hair ready to stand upright on thy head.

“But oh, what wilt thou do when not only the supposition of the devil’s appearing, but the real society of all the devils of hell will be with thee howling, roaring and screeching in such a hideous manner that thou wilt be even at thy wit’s end and ready to run stark mad again for anguish and torment.

4. Hell is Avoidable

“If after ten thousand years and end should come, there would be comfort.  But here is thy misery; here thou must be for ever.  When thou seest what an innumerable company of howling devils thou art amongst, thou shalt think this again, this is my portion forever.

“When thou hast been in hell so many thousand years as there are stars in the firmament, or drops in the sea, or sands on the seashore, yet thou hast to lie there forever.  O this one word ever, how will it torment thy soul!”  And many are in the net moving to that inevitable furnace of fire.”

4. Hell is Avoidable

Not going to hell is easier than you think. Some people believe they have to obey the Ten Commandments to not go to hell. Some people believe they must observe certain rites and rituals in order to not go to hell. Some people believe there is no way we can know for sure whether or not we will go to hell. None of these views are correct. The Bible is very clear.

4. Hell is Avoidable

Since only an infinite and eternal penalty is sufficient, an infinite and eternal price must be paid. God became a human being in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14). In Jesus Christ, God lived among us, taught us, and healed us—but those things were not His ultimate mission. God became a human being so that He could die for us. Jesus, God in human form, died on the cross. As God, His death was infinite and eternal in value, paying the full price for sin (1 John 2:2). God invites us to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, accepting His death as the full and just payment for our sins. God promises that anyone who believes in Jesus (John 3:16), trusting Him alone as the Savior (John 14:6), will be saved, i.e., not go to hell.

4. Hell is Avoidable

God does not want anyone to go to hell (2 Peter 3:9). That is why God made the ultimate, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice on our behalf. If you want to not go to hell, receive Jesus as your Savior. It is as simple as that.

ABC’s of Salvation