The Parable Of The Net

THE PARABLE OF THE NET

Text: Matthew 13:47 - 50

Have any of you ever auditioned for a role or a part in a school play? How about applying for a job? How many of you have tried out for a sport, hoping that you would make the team? For those of you who auditioned for a position or applied for a job, or tried out for a sporting team you went there because you wanted that part in a play or production, or that job and position, or to make the team.

This parable illustrates a lot about God’s grace. This parable also illustrates just how wide God’s grace reaches. It is one thing for us to be attracted to God’s grace which this net symbolizes. It is another thing to be changed by God’s grace. In an audition, tryout or interview, we are the ones seeking a position. Through His grace, God reaches out to us through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. God catches all kinds of people---people from all walks of life. God is not willing for anyone to perish (II Pet. 3:9) which is why God gives us the free gift of His grace. God chooses us but not everyone chooses to have a relationship with God. God also wants us to choose Him.

CASTING THE NET

The Gospel net not selective. The two styles of fishing that were common in the Palestinian culture of the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry were fishing by a small 1) casting net or by a larger 2) dragnet. The casting net was a net that was cast from the shore whereas the dragnet that was drawn by a boat or two boats rather than by hand. (William Barclay. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel Of Matthew. Volume 2. Revised Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, pp. 88 – 89). The net in this parable is a dragnet. The dragnet is not selective because it catches all kinds of fish.

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet because it was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind (Matthew 13:47). 1) John Wesley said that “… the Gospel preached, … is like a net gathering of every kind”. (Wesley’s Notes.). 2) We as modern day fishers of men preach the Gospel in our words as well as in our deeds. 3) We also have to remember that our actions sometimes speak louder than our words. So how well do we preach the Gospel in our words and deeds?

The fishermen in the audience of this parable would have a really good grasp of what Jesus was talking about. 1) Jesus had four disciples that we know beyond a doubt were fishermen because He was walking by the sea of Galilee when he called them to become disciples. Andrew and Peter were casting their nets while James and John were on the shore mending their nets. 2 ) Herbert Lockyer called them the “consecrated fishermen”. (Herbert Lockyer. All The Parables Of The Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963, p. 206). What does it mean to call someone or something consecrated? Something or someone that has been consecrated has been set apart as sacred for a purpose. 3) Our consecration is for the purpose of preaching the Gospel. They were consecrated fishermen to fish for men in that day. We are the consecrated fishers of men in this day. Just as the fishermen were taken out of the sea of sin, they had the privileged task of rescuing others. (Herbert Lockyer. p. 206). Today we are His privileged fishers of men who rescue others just as our Lord rescued us.

Everyone who is a fisherman wants to know where the fish are being caught. In this parable, the sea is where the fish are being caught in the sea. We have to remember that the sea is symbolic. 1) As someone (Lockyer) has said, “The sea represents the whole mass of fallen humanity in this parable.” (Herbert Lockyer. All The Parables Of The Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963, p. 205). We live in a world where people are hungry for the Gospel.

2) A good many of them try to find in a substitute only what they can find in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 3) Just as the sea is deep, people, like fish, can get lost in the depth of the sea. Again, the sea is a metaphor for the world and all that is within in it. The sea is a metaphor for the world, its sins, deception and its wide paths that lead to destruction (Matthew 7:13). 4) There is hope because of the Gospel net!

CATCHTING THE FISH

We live in a world where everything or almost everything is selective. 1) Everyone has or will encounter some sort of system of selectiveness. 2) For those of you who auditioned for a position in a play or applied for a job, or tried out for a sporting team, you know what I am talking about. 3) We do not like to think so, but even the church is selective from time to time. Jesus teaches that we are to love our neighbors as well as our enemies (Matthew 5:43 - 48). Jesus also taught us that we are called to love through hospitality even strangers (Matthew 25:38). We would rather love those that are just like us, but Jesus questioned the kind of love that selective among believers (Matthew 5:46). Jesus asked what good is a love that is selective among God’s people who are called to reflect God’s character (Matthew 5:48) when He said that we are called to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Luke 6:36 seems to compliment Matthew 5:48 when Jesus said, that we need to be merciful just as God is merciful.