Progress and Outcome (Matthew 13:31-33; 47-50)

In this sermon, I want us to consider parables three (mustard seed) and four (leaven) and seven (a fishing net) of the seven that Jesus gave in this chapter. We have already considered parables one, two, five and six. All of the parables are about the kingdom that Jesus will reign over. First, I will give a summary of what we have discovered so far. Second, I will answer the question, What is meant by the kingdom in this set of parables? It is important to know the answer to that question because the term kingdom has different meanings and applications in the New Testament. Third, I will make some comments on the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven. Fourth, I will spend some time on the final parable, that of the dragnet, and make some applicatory comments.

Summary so far

Parable one, about the Sower and the seed, is about two kinds of responses, one good and the other bad. There are three bad responses to the message of the kingdom (initial refusal, dislike of opposition, and loss of interest) and three good responses (expressed in different amounts of growth).

Parable two is about two Sowers: one sower is Jesus, and the other sower is the devil, and both sow people in the kingdom, a fact that may surprise us. Maybe we can say that the unfruitful responses in the previous parable are made by people sown by the devil. The idea of sowing here is placing people somewhere. The surprising point in parable two is that Jesus tells his servants not to remove the wrong people but to leave them in case removing them damages the true followers.

Parables five and six (the hidden treasure and the valuable pearl) indicate the worth of the kingdom and the priority the kingdom must have in a person’s life. The worth of the kingdom is seen in the salvation that it offers, and the priority is seen in everything else being small in comparison.

Significance of the kingdom

Obviously, people ask what is meant by the description of the kingdom in this set of parables. We can see what it is not. It is not perfect because there are false professions made in it. Yet neither is it the world in general because the good as well as the bad have a connection to the kingdom and its message.

Some suggest that these parables describe what we call the visible church. Bishop Ryle certainly thought that the parable of the wheat and the weeds did so (parable two): ‘The visible Church is set before us as a mixed body. It is a vast “field” in which “wheat and weeds” grow side by side. We must expect to find believers and unbelievers, converted and unconverted, “the children of the kingdom, and the children of the wicked one,” all mingled together in every congregation of baptized people.’ And he said something similar about the parable of the dragnet.

Surge

The first point that is stressed in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven is that the kingdom will have small beginnings. In order to see that was the case, all we need to consider is the number of disciples that Jesus had when he was here on earth and when he began his rule after his ascension. The highest figure that is given is the five hundred that met him in Galilee after his resurrection. So there were not many. Of course, if all who had expressed an interest had remained true followers there would have been many more. But after the miraculous feeding of the at least five thousand people, none of them continued as followers even although initially they seemed to want to do so. So the church, whether visible or invisible at that time, began with a low figure.

The second point in these two parables is that the kingdom will grow dramatically. The little mustard seed becomes like a large tree in which birds can have nests, and the little piece of leaven permeates all through the flour.

It is not possible to say with total certainty that this growth is totally good or a mixture of good or bad. Regarding the possibility of a mixture, some commentators say that the birds in this set of stories represent something bad because in the first parable they ate up the seed and prevented a person benefitting from it. They also say that leaven when mentioned in the Bible usually depicts something evil, such as when Jesus told his disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.

Yet I would say that we have to accept as possible the opinion of others who say that what Jesus is saying in these two parables is not that there will be a mixture, but that despite the opposition of the devil and the presence of false disciples as described in other parables, his kingdom will have genuine growth. And is that not what happened in the Book of Acts where we are told how the church grew incredibly fast in all kinds of circumstances? It grew at Pentecost when everyone approved of it, and it grew when opposition and persecution were present. And that growth has continued down the centuries, as sinners are converted and brought into the kingdom of God. Jesus, we can say, sows the seed of his Word and sinners accept it and produce fruit; we can say that he also sows sinners all over the world by converting them; and we can say that there are many who put him and his salvation first.

Separation

We come now to consider the final parable, that of the net. It is likely that the parable is designed as the conclusion of the messages about the kingdom. If that is the case, what is the really important feature for us to remember? What should concern the three false followers and the three genuine followers in the parable of the sower? What should concern those who are mingled together as wheat and weeds in the second parable? What should concern those like the seekers for treasure and pearls? What should concern those who identify with the growing kingdom? The answer is found in the parable of the dragnet.

What does the parable say about the net? This type of net was a large one, capable of gathering a lot of fish, the ancient equivalent of modern trawlers that sweep the depths and catch large numbers of fish of all kinds. Once the net was full, the owner of the net would get his servants to pull it to the shore and they would separate the good fish from the bad, with the bad being discarded. Jewish fishermen often had to discard fish because some kinds of fish were forbidden by the ceremonial law. The details of the parable would be common knowledge to the listeners of Jesus.

The net is not an illustration of the disciples of Jesus spreading the gospel. We can imagine how a fisherman with his net is a picture of evangelism, as Thomas Boston wrote about in his The Art of Manfishing. Rather the dragnet containing good and bad fish is a picture of the kingdom in which good and bad people are found. But the focus of the parable is on the closing day of the kingdom. The separation of the good and bad is a picture of the day of judgement, and it has the same message as the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The angels will be sent to separate the righteous from the wicked, and throw the wicked into a place of awful punishment.

One author said of this parable: ‘We here come in sight of the border-land of the eternal world. The parable now to be considered presents the first scene in the great future toward which all the arrangements of the kingdom are pointing. The Redeemer discovers to us, far in the distance, the line where the waters of Time find their boundary on the shores of Eternity.’ This is where the kingdom is going, as it were. Remember how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:24 when, writing about Jesus and the kingdom, he says: ‘Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.’

Applications

The theme of the chapter in Matthew is what will happen to those with gospel privileges. That is not hard for us to work out from the stories that Jesus told. Those mentioned in each of the parables had gospel privileges. Those privileges have spread far and wide. The young and the old, the rich and the poor, the intellectual and the practical, the strong and the weak, had reacted to the message and the existence of the kingdom. Yet at the end of the day, as far as the kingdom is concerned, there are only two types of people – the righteous and the wicked.

It is possible to be in the net of the kingdom and yet not be in Christ, the king of the kingdom. That kind of thing happens all the time. People can be in the net because they have a family connection to it and are baptised in the name of the Trinity. People can be in the net because they felt something under a sermon. That used to be a common experience in revivals – some people wept over their sins, but they never met the King sadly. Everyone in this room is in the net, and following the details of the parable we are in it until the day of judgement.

What is essential? The necessity of righteousness. We can see that from the Saviour’s description that there are two kinds of people in the kingdom – those who are righteous and those are wicked. What is a wicked person from the Bible’s point of view? A wicked person is someone who is not righteous. This should cause us to ask how one becomes righteous.

We already know the answer to that question. Or do we? But we can take some biblical passages to guide us? First, we need the righteousness that is connected to divine justice, to God’s standard of acceptance as revealed in his holy law. This righteousness is reckoned to us as a gift when we trust in Jesus. What is this righteousness? It is the perfect life of Christ that was lived by him as the representative of his people. We are regarded as justified in God’s sight, forgiven because Jesus paid the penalty on the cross, and clothed eternally in his righteousness.

Second, a righteous person is an individual who is progressively sanctified by the indwelling Holy Spirit. A description is given of that individual in Psalm 1, of what he does and what he does not do, and what will be the outcome for that individual when judgement day comes. Or we can read the description of the judgement day as stated by Jesus in his parable of the sheep and the goats and what the evidence is that they are righteous. There must be a changed life, of becoming Christlike. Yet the details given of such a life are not extraordinary evidences of faith. Rather they are simple, everyday expressions of commitment to Jesus and his commandments. It is not enough to have the privileges of the kingdom. We must experience the power of the kingdom in our souls.

Jesus told very vivid parables. They are designed to cause us to think. The description of the judgement is short, but it is full of detail. Those details are designed for focussing on. Imagine the net being hauled to land, a picture of the angels bringing the current aspect of the kingdom to a close. Imagine each fish being examined, a picture of what will happen to everyone in the kingdom. Imagine some fish being put in a barrel or basket because they are good, a picture that they belong to a healthy harvest. Imagine some fish being cast away, and note how Jesus describes their response.