What The Kingdom Brings

Take your Bibles once more and let's turn to Matthew 13. Matthew 13. Amen. Before we look again at the Word of God, bow with me in prayer. and let's ask God to use this time of worship as we hear Him speak to us. Our Father, now we worship by listening. Lord God, without Your Word, we are blind and ignorant. we are dependent on what you tell us for our understanding and for our lives.

Would you please open this text of Scripture to us, help us to hear our Master, our King Jesus, and help us to listen to Him, and then, Father, help us to listen and do to have our minds transformed. God grant that we pray in Jesus name Amen what is the kingdom of heaven really like well in these parables that we've been looking at Jesus has explained that to us what the kingdom of heaven is really like go to any churches today though and ask what is the kingdom of heaven like and you'll get a variety of answers well the kingdom of heaven is the realm of acceptance and love and all of us are God's children And so, you know, we're all part of that kingdom and it's a wonderful, wonderful place to be where God just accepts us for who we are and so forth. I hear this more than any times when I go and attend funerals and I hear people preached into heaven constantly because, of course, no one is outside the kingdom.

Or ask someone else and they'll say, well, the kingdom of heaven is yet to come. We waiting for it We waiting for Jesus to show up with his kingdom And someday he going to return and then we will live in the kingdom of heaven Still others say well the kingdom of heaven is when we advance against all these structures of oppression and people are given freedom and opportunity and they're freed from the shackles of economic slavery to their oppressors. All kinds of things come to our minds and all kinds of things are people postulate about what the kingdom of heaven is like.

But oftentimes they forget to go to the source. They forget to go to the king who tells us what his kingdom is like. And that's what we find in Matthew chapter 13. You remember that when Jesus came and Jesus said when he came, he came with the kingdom. In the beginning of this book, he goes out proclaiming this message. The kingdom of heaven is near.

Repent. The kingdom of heaven is right here. You're right close to it. Get connected. Repent. And there were people who had all kinds of ideas what the kingdom was going to be like.

They all held one thing in common. Suddenly, God was going to appear in his Messiah, and all opposition would be wiped out, and everything was going to be changed. So when Messiah appears, all this cataclysmic judgment will occur. Well, Jesus comes along in Matthew 13 and he speaks in parables for the purpose of telling us the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.

That is not to say that the kingdom of heaven is a secret, but that they had not understood how the kingdom of heaven unfolds and that Jesus was going to come along. Jesus comes along then and tells them exactly how the kingdom enters human history and what happens. So he's done that through a number of parables. The first parable he tells us is the parable of the sower and the soils, where the gospel message goes out, the message of the kingdom goes out, and finds a variety of responses.

It will grow, it will grow, and evil and good will grow together so that the opposition is not immediately vaporized, but opposition continues to grow as the kingdom goes out. and that someday the tares will be taken out and judged. That's the parable of the wheat and the tares. And then the parables of the mustard seed and the little lump of yeast in which Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like this.

It like a little mustard seed that has very small beginnings but grows large And even though it small like a lump of dough with leaven in it it permeates everything around it and brings about transformation and change and then what we saw last week is that the kingdom is so valuable that any sacrifice you make to get into the kingdom is really not a sacrifice at all that's the parable those are the parables of the of the hidden treasure and the valuable pearl. Now we come to these last two parables in our text. These last two parables relating to the secrets of the kingdom.

The parable of the net and the parable of the scribe. So let's look at them together. Verses 47 through 52 in Matthew chapter 13. Verse 47. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers, but threw away the bad.

So it 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. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have you understood all these things? They said to him, Yes. And he said to them, therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.

Well, Jesus finally wants us to understand two more truths concerning the kingdom of heaven, two more truths concerning the kingdom of God. he starts out with this first truth by telling us something that would have been familiar to his to his listeners in galilee he he draws a picture of some fishermen you know jesus lived around fishermen three of his disciples were fishermen he grew up in capernium near the the sea of galilee where there was lots of fishing going on so what he tells here There's something familiar to him and something familiar to his hearers. He says these fishermen go out and they put out a drag net. The word used here is about a drag net.

It has floats on the top and weights on the bottom so that this net is like this into the lake, into the sea. Sometimes they would have a boat on either end and they would move toward the shore moving along from the bottom all the way to the top moving along with this net catching everything that was in its way Every conceivable thing that was in its way was caught in the net Sometimes they would connect the net to the shore and bring it out to a boat and have it there, and then they would pull the boat in by a rope so that it had a swinging effect. It would come like this into the shore, and by that, gathering up everything that was in its way. and then the fishermen would haul in the net, which was a very arduous process.

And they hauled in the net that had everything that had been caught by that net, and they would sit and they would start sorting the fish. What they would do is they would find the fish that were kosher, the fish that were allowable under the regulations of the Mosaic Covenant that they could eat, and they would separate those and put them in good containers to go to market. They would take others that were not kosher and get rid of them, throw them away.

And they were not allowed. And they would get rid of the inedible stuff that inevitably would be caught in this net, things that weren't worth even eating. And so they would sit on shore and sort through all the things that were in that net. This is a picture of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says. Jesus wants you to understand this first truth. What's the first truth he wants you to understand?

That the kingdom of heaven brings judgment. The kingdom of heaven brings judgment. The kingdom of heaven brings an ultimate separation. That's the first truth that Jesus communicates in this first parable, the parable of the net. Now what is it that you should grasp here? What is he trying to tell us?

Here's what Jesus says. This separation will come at the end of the age. Now, he's talked about the end of the age before and the wheat and the tares. There he emphasized more the growing together, the existence together of good and evil. And then the final separation at the end where the tares are taken out of the wheat and burned. That's all he says.

So more of the emphasis there is that evil grows along with the good as the message of the kingdom goes out. But here Jesus emphasized the separation of judgment that will come at the end of the age. At the end of the age. We are living in an era of history that will certainly end. There is an end to history. an end to what all that all that has come before and all that's yet to come there's an end to it all it's the end of the age when jesus appears in all his glory for judgment all right there is you know a couple years ago well some years ago and maybe it's been more than a couple i'm noticing that the older i get the more the years get compacted it seems like a couple years ago it might have been as many as 10 years ago but there was this crazy discussion among academics about the fact that we had reached the end of history, which I thought was a silly discussion, but I don't, and I'm not exactly sure what they were driving at, but there was this talk about the end of history.

And the point is, the end of history doesn't come till Jesus shows up. That's the end of the age. When the end of the age occurs, there's going to be no discussion about the end of it all. God's angels, like fishermen, are going to start separating people in a judgment. Now when you arrive at the end of the age, this separation occurs. One has written this, one pastor wrote this, The dragnet of God's judgment moves silently through the sea of mankind and draws all men to the shores of eternity for final separation to their ultimate destiny.

Believers to eternal life in unbelievers to eternal damnation. I love that. The dragnet of God's judgment moves slowly and silently through human history. And then finally at the end, when it reaches the shore of eternity, a separation is going to occur. The separation, according to Jesus, will be between the wicked and the righteous, right? The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous. who are the evil who are the wicked turn back to chapter 7 chapter 7 real quickly this is near the end of the mount end of the sermon on the mount and here's what jesus says to us matthew 7 verse 21 not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven on that day many will say to me lord lord did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name and then i will declare to them i never knew you depart from me you workers of lawlessness isn that interesting These workers of lawlessness these wicked people they going to stand before God We think of workers of iniquity, workers of lawlessness, wicked people as these people who do horrible things, who are guilty of killing people and people who, like the Serbians wiping out the Albanians of Kosovo and and these wicked people and people who steal and rob banks and all that sort of thing not so not so you know what the standard of evil is you know what God's will is turn back a little bit to in the book of Matthew to Matthew chapter um five right what does he say you've verse 21 you've heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

So we say, yeah, boy, those murderers are going to be liable to judgment. But what does he say? But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoa. You know who a wicked person is? People who get angry.

They're murderers at heart. He goes on. You've heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already commit adultery with her in his heart. Well, adulterers, man, you're unfaithful to your wedding vows. You deserve punishment.

Boy, when you stand before God, he says, hey, you ever looked at a woman lustfully? You're part of the wicked. I mean, he goes on, doesn't he? Whoever divorces his wife, right? Whoever swears falsely. Right?

Whoever does not love his enemies. Boy, that's quite a standard there. Those are the ones. And notice, these are people who have done good works, he says in chapter 7. These are people who said, look, we've cast out demons. Look, we've taught, we've done all kinds of things.

He says, you are workers of iniquity. You know why? Because you didn't do my father's will. Those are the wicked. They're going to be separated and the righteous are going to be separated. The righteous, who are they? well it's interesting at one point in John chapter 6 they come to Jesus these people are listening to him and say what must we do to do the work that God requires and what is the work that God requires that would make us righteous you remember what Jesus response was the work of God is this to believe in the one he has sent and we know as we read the Bible that when you believe in the one that he sent you are clothed in his righteousness God does not count you as lawless.

And you say, yes, but I have failed in the things that Jesus said. I have not done the will of the Father like I should. And Jesus says, your refuge is in me. You believe in me. And God accepts you. That's not the end of the story, of course, that as you're accepted by God, as he gives you a new heart, as he transforms you, you begin to love and to do the things that God has told you to do.

And you no longer hate it, you love it. And certainly you fall short, but your confidence is not, I'm doing better. My confidence still is in Jesus, and yet he's transforming me more and more. So that my righteousness is not just what's declared in heaven's courts, but it's the righteousness that's seen before men. And so the wicked and the righteous will be separated on that day.

And when that separation occurs, then judgment falls. Please note the frightening words and yet true words in verse 50. They will be thrown into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus here speaks of the judgment of hell. Now look, if you're reading the book of Matthew, this is now the seventh time in the book of Matthew that Jesus talks about hell.

That's not the picture of Jesus most people have, is it? For most people, Jesus is this effeminate hand patter who comes along and says, oh, everything will be okay. Right? That's not the Jesus here. He talks about weeping and gnashing of teeth. he talks about a fiery furnace he talks about a place of torment he comes and warns of great judgment it's a fiery furnace where there will be grinding of teeth and the wail of weeping as people are tormented and i would say i would say to you these are only suggestive you know a lot of people want to get an argument are the fires of hell literal literal or is that just a metaphor Who cares If you must know the truth if you must know the truth it going to be worse than being burned in a fire It going to be utter torment It is described here in terms of a furnace with wailing and gnashing of tree teeth in chapter 8 Jesus describes it as a place of darkness but they will be thrown into darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

A few chapters ahead in chapter 18, Jesus says it's going to be eternal. He says it is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire listen dear people this is serious isn't it i don't approach this kind of a passage with with any kind of joy or delight but fear john bunyan that great great author who who by the way is is the subject of the insert today if your church history insert who spent years in prison because he wanted to preach the gospel freely, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress and other books. Here's what John Bunyan wrote.

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 opposition of the devils 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.

If after ten thousand years an end would come there would be comfort. But here is thy ministry, here thou must be forever. 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 in the seashore, yet thou hast to lie there forever.

Oh, this one word ever. How will it torment thy soul? That's frightening. That's frightening. I think that's an accurate description. This is all kingdom truth. truth you must know.

Do you live as if there is no end to anything? Do you live as if your comfortable life will go on forever? Do you live as if there's nothing to worry about when I die? Ah, it's okay. We're all going to heaven anyway. Not so, not with you.

Jesus says here, do you live as if everything will go unchanged or in your comfortable life without any thought of it ending at all? Do you ever think on the fact that you will one day be part of that separation of the righteous from the wicked? Do you ever consider that? That a day is coming when there will be this great divide and there will be some that will be condemned forever and some that will enter glory to live forever in bliss and joy and happiness.

Do you ever think you're going to be there? You need to think about that. You need to think of the reality of that event. does it ever cross your mind? It ought to not just cross your mind, it ought to occupy your mind. You ought to think carefully, someday I will be part of that great separation. And which way will I go?

Reflect on that reality. Listen, I know every one of you here today. There's no strangers here. Some of you I know very well. I don't know your heart I want to say this to you all that I can you can come to church your whole life you can come here because your parents make you you can come here because you think this is the nice religious thing to do remember what Jesus said it's not the people who do nice things that are counted as righteous it's the people who do not do the Father's will a reflection of the state of your heart whether you're at peace with God through Jesus or not and there will be a separation and you have been coming to church and you've never thought of the reality of hell think of it today this is a reality that you must face you can face it now or you will face it later but you must face it and you must flee to Jesus our call to worship is so marvelous I think from Nahum chapter 1, that prophet who talks about the judgment of God and the anger of God with the ability to break rocks and pieces and then turns and says, yet, where is our refuge?

It is in God. The refuge against God wrath God has provided in Christ Find refuge there and you will not face the reality of hell Hell ought to make you tremble And if you're sitting here right now saying, okay, get on with this, I've got something to do today. I plead with you. You listen carefully to what Jesus says. You reflect on that. This is the truth of the kingdom that Jesus calls you to understand.

The kingdom brings with it separation and judgment. well he goes on understand that the kingdom brings responsibility verses 51 and 52 have you understood all these things he says to his disciple and they reply yes and he said to them therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old jesus now turns to his disciples and asks have you understood all this revelation about the kingdom of heaven now remember most of them had set ideas of what the kingdom of heaven was like it was the cataclysmic judgment that appears suddenly all the opposition is gone vaporized and so forth and jesus has come along with these parables and said actually it's more like this and he tells us these parables and he has given them a new understanding through those parables he's given them knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have you understood what I have now taught you? Have you understood the true nature of the kingdom? And they reply, yes.

Now the same question is relevant today. Do you understand the kingdom of heaven? What have you learned in these last several weeks? Have you embraced what Jesus has said about his kingdom? If you have, then that therefore there, that therefore there, the therefore that stands there is what you must hear and what you must listen to therefore that is because of this understanding you must bring out treasures new treasures and old jesus uses this last picture to describe what is true and to challenge you to fulfill this role it's the disciples yeah we understood he says then you're like the scribe who's been trained in the kingdom of heaven now What is a scribe?

In those days before there was printing presses, scribes would copy the scriptures. They would copy them. Now what happens if you continually copy scripture? You thinking about scripture all the time The scribes are elevated to a place of respect They were the ones who knew the law they could tell you where the commandment was they could tell you what it meant they were very well respected and so he says you like that scribe you know the word of god but what are you like you you're like this teacher of the law this scribe who's become a disciple of the kingdom that is to say your allegiance has been transformed you recognize Jesus as Messiah, you know that his kingdom's been inaugurated with his coming.

It is here. It looks like this in all these various ways that he's described it. Therefore, on account of your understanding, you are these discipled teachers of the kingdom who are like the owner of a house. The owner of a house had a storeroom. This is where he kept his treasures. I don't know where you keep your treasures in your house, right?

Maybe you put them in the attic. Maybe you put him in the basement but you have all these treasures right and he brings these burden he brings these treasures out new and old bring out of his treasure what is new and old he brings this out to use them you don't bring out your treasures to just ogle them you bring them out to use them so he gets his treasure out to use so it is with you you're like a teacher you're like a scribe you know the revelation of God and now you have even more understanding of the revelation of God not only do you have the old treasures the thing you've understood before but the new treasures the things that now that you understand because of Jesus and those are the old and the new now what's Jesus driving at here Jesus is driving at the point that with him comes the final revelation and the point by which the lenses by which we understand all of scripture look back at Matthew 5 let's again look at what Matthew has told us concerning Jesus Matthew 5 17 through 20 do not think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets I've not come to abolish them but to fulfill them for truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away not an iota not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus here says that he the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament His teachings are the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament The Old Testament teachings are pointing forward constantly to Jesus and to his teachings And essentially, he says, if you obey what I have told you, you will have fulfilled everything that the Old Testament intended to accomplish.

The Old Testament law, the Old Testament promises, the Old Testament history, everything is fulfilled in him. You have all of the old at your disposal, but now you also have the new treasures that can be brought out of the same revelation of God. It's new, but it's grounded in the revelation that God has given us. Now only Jesus' disciples are able to do that because the others who have not been transformed by this recognition of him as Messiah will never see the old in the way that they should.

You see? And so he's given us these treasures to use. For example, can I give you a couple of examples? Because I know you're saying, what are you talking about? Turn back to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36.

Let's look at verse 25. Verse 25. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

There's a promise. How is it fulfilled? Now what do we find here? we find here that God's in the business of cleansing us and transforming us. Jews knew that. By the way, I think this is what Jesus is referring to when he's talking to Nicodemus. He says you got to be born again.

Here's an example of the new coming out of the old. You got to be born again by water and the spirit. What's the water he talks about in John chapter 3? He's talking about this. I'm talking about literal water. He's talking about the fact that God's going to come and and sprinkle clean water on you and cleanse you.

And the Spirit's going to do it. So how do we know this happens? We know it because now we see that Jesus has come, He's given us His Spirit. He's worked in us a new desire. The Spirit has worked in us that we want to obey. Our hearts are being cleansed from idols through the work of the Spirit of God.

You don't see that here as clear as you do now. There's a new treasure. How about this one? Psalm 32. Psalm 32. Very familiar psalm to us. blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered blessed is the man against whom the lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit for when i kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long for day and night your hand was heavy upon me my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer i acknowledged my sin to you and i did not cover my iniquity and i said i will confess my transgressions to the lord and you forgave the iniquity of my heart.

How can God do that? I don't even think David quite knew. We know now, we know that by the sacrifice of Jesus, we're forgiven. The debt no longer, justice no longer demands our death. Because Jesus has satisfied the demands of justice by dying in our place. What about the story of Joseph right Joseph is more than don't lose heart God's going to do something out of this and it'll be good now you know what I know I know this that God took the wicked the wicked plans of his brothers and use them to save those very same people Guess what?

The wicked plans of men crucified this one called Jesus and by their very wicked actions provided the way for us to be reconciled to God. Good comes from evil because of what Jesus does. and so we have before us a whole a whole new if you will treasure box a whole bunch of new treasures we can use that we can we ought and you ought to use them as you walk with god as you teach others as you share the gospel so jesus says you understand the kingdom then take the treasures that you know and use them. You use it to dig out both old and new treasures through your understanding of the kingdom.

So what is it that Jesus wants you to understand when it comes to his kingdom? One, to understand the necessity of reading the scriptures with Jesus in mind. You read the scriptures with Jesus as the lens. Okay? When you read the Scriptures with Jesus as the lens, whole new treasures are opened up to you. Out of the old comes new.

Okay? So read it through the lens of Jesus. And the other truth is the necessity of preparing for judgment you understand these things of the kingdom then you need to understand you got to prepare for judgment You understand these things of the kingdom Then you need to understand You got to prepare for judgment Because when the kingdom comes in all its glory, when Jesus returns at the end of the age, there will be judgment.

Are you ready for that day? I shudder to think that some of you in this place today will face that torment. It is a frightening thing for me to look in your faces and think that you might someday be in torment. But there is a way out. Jesus, as Paul says in the book of 1 Thessalonians, Jesus who saves us from the wrath to come. And for you who are sitting here today, who've never taken seriously what Jesus has said, I am saying to you, prepare for judgment. if you embrace Jesus you will not be in the place of torment with the grinding of teeth and the wailing of regret.

Listen, embrace Jesus. Father, help us to embrace these truths as well. That the kingdom brings us great treasures. Treasures to be used for the glory of our king. And for the fact that the kingdom brings with it judgment. Father, for those today who heard this, who are outside of that kingdom even now, I would ask that you give them no rest.

In your mercy, torment them now so that they will flee to Christ and never face torment in hell. Father, help us to live in light of the truths of this kingdom. That your name will be honored and glorified. That we will be seen as kingdom people who are glad subjects of a glorious and loving king. Help us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.