WE SOMETIME ago, dear children, I wrote you about the Apostle Peter in connection with fishing. Here is another picture of fishing; and this takes place just before the winter sets in, when those who wish to lay in a supply of fish, set their nets in the lakes, and then put away in a small log building called a “cache”, all which they wish to reserve for winter use. Then “Jack Frost” soon fixes them; and thus they will keep good till spring. The cache has to be well made, or the wolves will probably break in and steal. I have known them to visit such a place; and to climb on the top to see if they could affect an entrance, and people have sometimes killed them with poison.
Well, when we set nets in the fall, as you see in the picture, we catch a great number. The good fish we reserve for food, and give the dogs the common ones.
Now, will you read in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, from verse 47 to verse 51?
First, who is the speaker? He is the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is “the kingdom of heaven”? It is that form of Christianity which He as God foresaw the kingdom would take during the absence of Him as the rejected King. It will not be so when He as King Jesus Christ takes His great power and reigns over the whole earth. Satan is the god of this world just now, and practically reigns over the nations. That is why there are so many unsaved people in the kingdom of heaven, as it is down here. All baptized people are in it. Look again at the picture. Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea”. As the net catches various kinds of fish, so different kinds of persons—believers and unbelievers, good and bad, persons who pray in the power of the spirit of God, and persons who merely say their prayers like turning a machine—all who profess Christianity are in the kingdom. The spiritual fish are being caught day by day as the gospel is being preached by some and religious forms and ceremonies taught by others. The time for taking up the net is not yet; but it will surely come when the net is full.
Now, who will visit the net and take it up? Not the persons who put it down —not the preachers of the glad tidings of the grace of God, nor the teachers of religious rites. The 49th verse says it will be the angels. They will know at once which are the good fish and which are the bad. There seems to be one particular point in this parable, and that I think is that the good and bad fish will not always be together in the net—that saved and unsaved boys and girls will not always sit together in class on Sunday afternoon, nor always kneel together at prayers, nor always pray together either. The angels will sever the wicked from among, the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. What an awful future for all unsaved souls! Depend upon it, the net will be taken up — “overhauled”— as fishermen say. Where will you, dear children, be then? Taken for judgment, or gathered for the King’s use? That depends upon whether the angels find you to be bad or good fish. If they find you to be fit for the King, they will gather you to be in His presence forever. And what can make your fit for Him? Nothing but His atoning blood. If you can by faith point to it and say, “That made my peace with God”, you need not fear the overhauling of the net. But all who are not thus made fit for God’s presence must meet their doom in the furnace of fire. Oh? flee from the wrath to come! Cry to the Lord Jesus now to save you from your sins. Take them all to Him who died for you, and God will forgive them at once for Christ’s sake. Don’t delay; for although God is love and ready to forgive, He is also just, and must punish for sins, either on the cross or in the furnace of fire. The former He has done for all who own their sing to Him, and believe in the atoning sufferings of Jesus at Calvary. The latter will certainly take place for all who do not avail themselves of God’s great salvation. (Hebrew 2:3.)
If Jesus were to ask you the question of verse 51: “Have ye understood all these things?” could you answer in the last two words of it “Yea, Lord”?
ML 01/11/1903