INTRODUCTION
A. John Powell tells of watching his Theology of Faith class come in.
1. Tommy had long hair and he wrote him off as very strange.
2. Tommy was an atheist (objected to a God who loved unconditionally).
3. After turning in final exam, “Do you think I’ll find God?” “No.”
4. “Oh, I thought that was the product you were pushing.”
5. “Tommy, I don’t think you’ll ever find him, but I am certain that he will find you.”
6. Tom graduated, but then got cancer.
7. Came to Powell’s office with a body badly wasted and his long hair fallen out.
8. “Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick.”
9. “Oh yes, very sick. I have cancer. It’s a matter of weeks.”
10. “Can you talk about it?” “Sure, what would you like to know?”
11. “What’s it like to be 24 and know you are dying?”
12. “Well, it could be worse.” “Like what?”
13. “Well, like being 50 and having no values or ideals. Like being 50 and thinking that booze, seducing women and making money are the real biggies in life.”
14. Tommy wanted to talk about what professor had said on last day of class about God finding him.
15. Told of his search for God when the doctors found cancer.
16. Gave up his futile appeals to God and decided he didn’t care about God or the afterlife.
17. Began to spend his remaining days telling people he loved them.
18. Started with his dad, the hardest one. Dad cried and hugged him. Hadn’t ever done that before.
19. Then his mom and little brother.
20. Then he told of how God found him.
21. Asked him to come to his theology class and tell them.
22. Never made it. Had one more talk, “I’m not going to make it to your class.”
23. “I know, Tom.” “Will you tell them for me? Will you tell…the whole world for me?”
24. “I will, Tom. I will tell them.”
B. Waiting on a spanking as a child
1. In a public place somewhere and did something wrong.
2. “You’re going to get a spanking when you get home,” or “Just wait till your Dad gets home.”
C. Parable is about judgment but also about telling people about God’s love.
1. Tells about what happens to believers and unbelievers.
2. Setting was common to Jesus’ hearers, especially those who lived around Sea of Galilee.
3. Several of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen.
D. Three methods of fishing on Sea of Galilee.
1. Line and hook.
2. One-man small casting net.
a. Fisherman folded net and carried on shoulder as he waded into water.
b. Hold the center cord with one hand and cast with the other.
c. Opened into a large circle and came down over the fish (shrimping).
d. Weights were on the perimeter of the net, which caused it to sink.
e. When the net was closed, he hauled it to shore.
3. Dragnet
a. Required a team of fishermen and covered as much as a half square mile.
b. Pulled into a giant circle around fish using one or more boats.
c. Floats were attached to the top of the net and weights to the bottom forming a wall of net from surface to bottom of the lake.
d. Nothing escaped so all sorts of things were caught (Like in the movie Forrest Gump when he first started shrimping).
e. Take several men to drag it to shore.
f. Fish to be carried to a distant market were placed in container with water and those to be sold in dry containers.
GOD IS CASTING A NET
A. The net has been cast since humanity first rebelled against God.
1. It is a dragnet so it encompasses a wide area.
2. The weights are causing the net to sink and form a wall of net from which no one will escape.
3. The weights are sinking slowly for God is allowing unbelievers and believers to exist side by side.
4. He doesn’t rejoice in anyone perishing and wants all to follow him.
5. Ezekiel 18:23, “Do you think, asks the Sovereign Lord, that I like to see wicked people die? Of course not! I only want them to turn from their wicked ways and live.”
6. 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise to return, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to perish, so he is giving more time for everyone to repent.”
B. God will one day draw the net in.
1. When the weights reach the bottom and all are encompassed, he will pull the cord.
2. God will then bring that net filled with all humanity to shore and a separation will begin.
3. Just as in the parable of the Wheat and Tares, the believers will be separated from the unbelievers.
C. People often live in this net as if they were free.
1. I can do what I want. God doesn’t have any control over me.
2. From time to time though, we bump up against the net.
3. Maybe some tragedy takes place in our life and it causes us to consider our mortality and responsibility to God.
4. Then the tragedy passes and we forget about God again and swim away from the net.
5. God often gives people many opportunities to bump into the net and consider their ways, but one day he will pull the cord.
D. There will be a great judgment.
1. Revelation 20:11-12; “And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to the things written in the books, according to what they had done.”
2. Angels will be the Lord’s instruments in this judgment and separation.
3. People are often indifferent just as in the days of Noah.
PERIL AWAITS UNBELIEVERS IN THE NET
A. They will be thrown into the fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
B. The doctrine of hell is tough and variously interpreted.
1. Some believe in annihilation after death.
2. Some believe earth is our hell.
3. Some believe in literal fire and brimstone.
4. Some point out the darkness of hell and say fire and darkness cannot co-exist.
C. Hell is the absence of God.
1. Wicked people will still have the wicked longings they had on earth but will not be able to fulfill them.
2. They will still have no love for God or time for him.
3. There will be no sinning but the desire to will still be there.
4. There will be punishment not the perverted pleasure of doing what you want with no accountability to God.
D. Interviewer of a young punk rock singer
1. What are you looking for at the end of your career.
2. “Death. I’m looking forward to death.”
3. Why. “I want to go to hell, because hell will be fun.”
E. What the Bible says about hell.
1. Place of torment, misery and pain. Described as darkness. Fire that will never go out. Weeping and gnashing of teeth.
2. Body and soul will be tormented. Not annihilated. At death, soul goes to be with God or not. At the resurrection we will get new bodies, but they too will be with God or not.
a. Place where the worm does not die.
b. Our bodies are placed in the ground and begin to decay. Worms eat them, but once consumed the body is no longer in harm’s way.
c. Resurrected body will never be consumed. Live forever in heaven or hell.
3. Punishment comes in various degrees.
a. Greater punishment for those who willfully reject Christ.
b. Lesser punishment for those who had less light.
4. Torment will be everlasting.
a. We can bear most anything if we know it will end.
b. Eternal just like heaven for the believer.
F. John Bunyan, great Puritan writer and preacher, “(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 devil’s appearing to thee makes thy flesh to tremble and thine hair ready to stand upright on they 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 they wit’s end and ready to run stark mad again for anguish and torment. If after ten thousand years, an end should come, there would be comfort. But here is thy misery: here thou must be forever. When thou seest what an innumerable company of howling devils thou are 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 sand on the seashore, yet thou hast to lie there forever. Oh, this one word-ever-how will it torment thy soul.”
CHRISTIANS MUST WARN ABOUT THE NET
A. Jesus’ question, “Do you understand?”
1. If they did, they had responsibility.
2. If we do, we have it too.
B. What must we understand?
1. That good and evil are currently growing together.
2. That believers must continue to increase and permeate the world.
3. That entering God’s kingdom involves repentance and surrender.
4. That salvation is found only in Jesus Christ.
5. That there will come a day of separation.
6. That the separation will be eternal.
C. What is our responsibility?
1. Tell others that God’s net has been cast.
2. Invite others to turn their lives over to God.
3. The gospel is an offer of heaven and a warning about hell.
CONCLUSION
A. God is casting the net. Peril awaits unbelievers in the net. We must warn others about the final judgment.
B. Billy Graham preaching in a small town.
1. Wanted to mail a letter and asked a young boy where the post office was.
2. “If you’ll come to the Baptist Church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to Heaven.”
3. “I don’t think I’ll be there. You don’t even know your way to the post office.”
