Springs Of Life Bible Church - The Parable of the Fishnet

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		The Parable of the Fishnet

THE KINGDOM PARABLES
The Fishnet

INTRODUCTION

Only Matthew’s Gospel contains the parable of the fishnet. It is clearly a companion parable to the parable of the wheat and weeds; the interpretation of both are focused on the judgment day.

FISHING IN THE DAYS OF JESUS

Most of Jesus’ disciples were fishermen by trade; they had left their nets and their boats to follow Jesus and to become fishers of men. When Jesus told them the parable of the fishnet, they understood every nuance of the story. Jesus touched upon their very livelihood of earlier days.

Experienced fishermen would try to locate a school of fish before setting out the net. But once the net was set, the men pulled in all the fish that were in the net. Their catch was always a mixedgood one; they drew in the edible as well as the inedible—the and the bad.

Sorting the fish ultimately determined the weight of the catch; until sorting time, no one knew the exact yield.

THE MEANING AND LESSON OF THE PARABLE

Jesus uses the parable of the fishnet to portray the Day of Judgment. He addresses his disciples who knew how to catch fish and sort out the good from the bad.

The words of this parable are almost identical to those given by Jesus in His interpretation of the parable of the wheat and weeds: “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

Jesus uses symbolic language and transfers the message of the parable to man’s spiritual destiny: heaven or hell.

Just as the fishermen cannot be selective while catching fish in their nets, so Jesus’ followers, appointed to be fishers of men, are unable to be selective concerning when and to whom they proclaim the gospel.

The appeal of the gospel is directed to all without discrimination. But in the end “many are outwardly called but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).

The wicked are taken out of the multitude of Adam’s sinful fallen race and are separated from God’s righteous ones (declared so by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and living in obedience to God’s word).

All those not declared righteous by God through faith in His Son Jesus Christ will be cast into the lake of fire where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

APPLICATION

As those made fishers of men by the grace of God, we are to go out into the world (from where we live to the ends of the earth) and call sinners to repentance and faith in Christ.

We must also remind sinners of the judgment day, at which time the final separation between the wicked and the righteous will take place.

Jesus spoke more of hell than any of the prophets or apostles did—perhaps for the reason that its horrible truth would be all but impossible to accept had not the Son of God Himself absolutely affirmed it.

Hell is not merely the fate of forever reliving bad memories or of going out into nothingness, as many people believe and teach. Nor is it a place where sinners will continue their sinning, unrestrained and unrebuked. There will be no pleasure at all in hell, not even the perverted pleasure of sin—only its punishment.

From God’s Word we learn four basic truths about the furnace of fire that will help us to partially grasp its terror.

First, hell is a place of constant torment, misery, pain. The torment is often described as darkness (Matt. 22:13), where no light can penetrate, and nothing can be seen.

Second, hell will involve the torment of both body and soul. Neither the soul nor the body is annihilated at death; nor will they ever be. When an unsaved person dies, his soul goes out from the presence of God into everlasting torment.

At the resurrection of all the dead, the bodies of the unsaved will be raised, and those resurrected bodies will join the soul in hell’s torment (Matt. 10:28; cf. John 5:29; Acts 24:15; Rev. 20:11-15).

Just as believers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can enjoy the glories of heaven forever, unbelievers will be fitted with resurrected bodies so they can endure the torments of hell without being destroyed.

Third, the torments of hell will be experienced in varying degrees. For everyone in hell the suffering will be intense and permanent, but some will experience greater torment than others. (Hebrews 10:28-29)

Those who willfully reject Jesus Christ and trample, as it were, on the sacrifice He made for sinners with His own blood will receive much greater punishment than those who had only the light of the Old Covenant or the law written on their hearts.

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

Fourth, the torment of hell will be everlasting. Nothing will be as horrible about hell as its endlessness. Jesus uses the same word to describe the duration of hell as the duration of heaven: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46).

Although God originally designed hell for the devil and his fallen angels, men who choose to follow Satan’s way instead of God’s will also suffer Satan’s fate. Matthew 24:41