03.06. THE NET

THE NET Matthew 13:47-50 In the foregoing parables of the kingdom Jesus has pointed out the causes of its success and failure, its mixed appearance in this world, its surprising growth from small beginnings, and the method of its extension. He now points to the result of all, when the great net shall be drawn to shore, all the influences and efforts of this life ended and brought to a pause; when there shall be “no more sea,” no fluctuation, no ebb and flow, no tide of good resolve and progress sucked back from all it had reached, and leaving a foul and slimy beach; especially no mingling of bad and good in an obscure and confusing element; but decision and separation, a deliberate sitting down to see what has been made of this world by us all, and a summing up on that eternal shore of all gains and results, and every man’s aim made manifest by his end.

There is obviously considerable resemblance between this parable of the net and the parable of the tares. But the one is not a mere repetition of the other under a different figure. Every parable is intended to illustrate one truth. Light may incidentally be shed on other points, as you cannot turn your eye or the light you carry on the object you wish to examine without seeing and shedding light on other things as well. Now the one truth which is especially enforced in the parable of the tares is that it is dangerous in the extreme to attempt in this present time to separate the evil from the good in the Church: whereas the one truth to which the parable of the net gives prominence is that this separation will be effected by and by in its own suitable time. No doubt this future separation appears in the parable of the tares also, but in that parable it is introduced for the sake of lending emphasis to the warning against attempting a separation now; in this parable of the net it is introduced with no such purpose. A weeding process might very naturally suggest itself, indeed always does suggest itself, to one looking over a hedge at a dirty field; but no one watching the drawing of a net would dream of plunging in to throw out worthless fish. Let the net be drawn; then, as a matter of course, the separation will be made. The value of the take, which cannot yet be estimated, will be ascertained by and by. The whole results of the work of Christ in the world will then but not sooner be known.

Another point of distinction between the two parables is this, that while in the one parable the springing of tares among the good corn is ascribed to the design of an enemy, in the other the mixture of good and bad in the net is rather exhibited as necessarily resulting from the nature of the case. In hunting, a man can make his choice and pick out the finest of the herd, letting the rest go; but in fishing with a net no such selection is possible; all must be drawn to shore that happens to have been embraced within the sweep of the net. So in sending out His servants to invite men to the kingdom, our Lord did not name individuals to whom they were to go, and who should, from first to last, prove themselves obedient to the word; He did not even name classes of persons or races with whom they would be sure to find success, but He told them to go into all the world and invite all men without distinction. The preachers of the kingdom have no powers to make selections for God; and to say of one that he will be, and of another that he will never be valuable to God. They are to cast the net so as to embrace all, and leave the determination of what is bad and what is good to the end.

Before endeavoring to extract from the parable its direct teaching, one cannot fail to notice some more general ideas suggested by the figure used. We are, for example, reminded that we are all advancing through life towards its final issue. Our condition in this respect bears a close resemblance to fish enclosed in a net. You have seen men dragging a river, fixing one end of the net, taking the other across the whole stream, and then fetching a wide compass, and enclosing in their net everything dead or alive, bad or good, from surface to bottom. Or you have seen the same thing done in the sea, one net enclosing quite a lake within itself, and gradually as it closes round the fish, and they find that it is sunk to the sand and floated to the crest of the wave, you have pitied their wild efforts to escape, and seen how sure a barrier these imperceptible meshes are. At first, while the net is wide, they frisk and leap and seem free, but soon they discover that their advance is but in one direction, and when they halt they feel the pressure of the net. So is it with ourselves — we must go on, we cannot breakthrough into the past, we cannot ever again be at the same distance from the shore as we were last year, yesterday, now. Yesterday, however delightful, you cannot live twice; eternity, however distasteful, you are certainly going on to. This day you have less space and scope than ever you had before, and every hour you spend, every action you do, every pleasure you enjoy makes this little space less. You cannot make time stand still till you shall resolve how to spend it. You cannot bring your life to a pause while you make experiments as to the best mode of living. The years you spend ill, you cannot receive again to spend well, the years spent in indecision, in doubt, in selfish seclusion are spent, and cannot now be filled with service of God and profit to your fellows. Your lifetime you have but once, and each hour of it but once; and as remorselessly as the last night of the convicted criminal is beat out and brings round the morning that is to look upon his death, so are your lives running steadily out, never faster when you long for to-morrow, never slower when you fear it, but ever with the same measured and certain advance. Do what you will, make what plans you will, settle yourself as fixedly in this life as you will, you are passing through and out of it, and shall one day look on it as all past — forever past. By no will of our own have we come into this life, but here we find ourselves and the net fallen behind us, so that we must accept all the responsibilities of human life, and go on to meet all its consequences.

Besides enclosure and inevitable passing on to a termination, the net suggests the idea of entanglement. Looking at fish in a net you see many that are not swimming freely, but are caught in the meshes and dragged on. The experience of some persons interprets this to them. While all of us are drawing on together towards eternity there are some who feel daily the pressure of the net. They have got into circumstances which they would fain be out of but cannot. Their position is not altogether of their own choosing, and they discharge its duties because they must, not because they would. At some former period they were too careless, or shortsighted, or irresolute; they exercised too little their right to determine their own course, and they now suffer the bondage consequent on this neglect.

If the conduct required of you by the position or connection into which you have come be disapproved by your conscience, then you must somehow break through and escape, else your soul will suffer detriment, and that in you which was good when first you were entangled will be landed broken, bruised, and useless. But if the conduct required be only disagreeable and humiliating and not sinful, you may have to adjust yourself to your circumstances. Do not toss and struggle in the net, but quietly set yourself to make the most of the condition you have unfortunately brought yourself into. It may now be your duty to continue in a position it was not your duty originally to enter. A wrong choice may have brought you to a right thing. Do not, therefore, allow any feeling of the awkwardness, restrictions, unsuitableness, or painfulness of your position, nor any reflections on the folly that brought you into it, to fret you into uselessness. Just because it seems in so many ways unsuitable, it may call out deeper qualities in you, a patience which otherwise might have been undeveloped, a knowledge of God and man, a meekness and strength, which enlarge and mature your spirit.

Under very strange influences and forces are we passing onwards; by hopes and ambitions, by sickness and watching, by anguish and mirth, by the forlorn remembrance of a happy past and the sad forecasting of the future, by occupations that hurry us on from day to day, and by longings that abide with us through life and are never satisfied. And often we would fain escape from the gentle compulsion by which God draws us to our end, and have to remind ourselves that however entangled and tied up we are, and however prevented from our own ways and directions, this present time is after all but the drawing of the net and not the time of our use; that though now debarred from many pursuits we think we might be useful in, and hurried past enjoyments that delight us, we are passing to a shore where there is room and time enough for the fulfilment of every human purpose and the exercise of every human faculty; that after all our sins and follies, after all our pains and anxieties and difficulties, there does most surely come the kingdom of heaven and its glorious liberty. Here we quickly wax old, our freedom of choice and liberty of action are quickly taken from us, we stretch forth our hands and another girds us and carries us whither we would not; but there our youth shall be renewed with all its freedom from care, its spring and energy, its fresh views of truth, its boldness to live and see good days, its purpose for the life that lies before it unsullied; and it shall be again as when “thou wast young and girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest.” But these are not the points emphasized in the parable. The parable sets the present mixture of good and bad in the kingdom of heaven or in the Church over against the eventual separation.

I. First then, we have the truth that the net gathers “of every kind.” This is the first thing that strikes one looking at a net drawn ashore — the confused mass of dead and living rubbish and prize. Shells, mud, starfish, salt-smelling weed, useless refuse of all kinds, are mingled with the fresh and wholesome fish that lie gasping and floundering in the net. Of the bad there is every kind of thing that can spoil the net and injure its contents; and of the good there is every kind, small and great, coarse and fine. And until the net is fairly landed it is impossible to say whether the weight is to be rejoiced in or not. This is set before us as a picture of the Church of Christ as it now is. It embraces every variety of character. At one time we are tempted to think that the mass of professing Christians is but so much dead weight; at other times we measure the success of the gospel by the mere numbers brought within the Church. The truth is, we cannot yet say much about the success of the gospel. Occasionally indeed there may be a gleam through the water that gives assurance of a large and fine fish: there may be deeds done which draw the eye of every one, and unmistakably prove that in the Church there are men after God’s own heart. We feel that of some men the character and quality are already ascertained, and that it needs no day of separation to tell us their worth. But there remains a vast mass about which we can say little; nay, we know that in the Church there are foul, lumpish, poisonous creatures. This is what our Lord anticipated, that while His Church would attract men whom God would gather to Him with delight as being of His own spirit, there would also be drawn to it a number of wretched creatures who would go through life trying to hide from themselves that they love the world much more than God, and who must in the end be thrown aside as fit for no good purpose, as so much useless rubbish. This mixture arises from the manner in which the kingdom of heaven is proclaimed among men. It is not proclaimed by addressing private messages to selected and approved individuals, but publicly to all. And it is so proclaimed because it is for men generally and not for any special kind or class, and because God “would have all men to be saved.” The recruiting sergeant watches for likely men and singles them out from the crowd; but the kingdom of heaven opens its gates to all, because it has that which appeals to humanity at large, and can make use of every kind of man who honestly attaches himself to it. Our freedom of choice is left absolutely uncontrolled so far as the outward offer of the gospel goes; it is not even biased by any knowledge on our part that we are considered specially suitable for the work God has to do. Christ’s kingdom gathers in not only those in whom there is a natural leaning towards a devout life, or those who are of a susceptible temperament, or those who are attracted by a life of self-sacrifice, but it gathers in “of every kind.” You really cannot say who among your friends is most likely to become a Christian, because men become Christians not from any apparent predisposition, not because religion suits their idiosyncrasy, their individual mood and special tastes, but because the kingdom of heaven satisfies human wants which are as common to the race as hunger and thirst. But the kingdom being thus open to all, many enter it for the sake of some of its advantages, while they remain at heart disloyal, and are never carried out of themselves by a sense of its glory, and are alien to that great movement for the lasting good of men which the kingdom truly is. They have an external present attachment to the kingdom, but they do not belong to it and are not in it heart and soul. But this mixture is at length to give place. In the net, while we are in this world, all distinctions seem to be made light of; in the end, on the shore, a final and real distinction is to be exhibited and acted on. All are to pass through the hands of skilled judgment. The angels sever the wicked from among the just, so that the just alone are left in the net. The purpose of the net, of the draught, of the whole ongoing of this world is at length seen to have been for the sake of the just. Much bulkier, weightier, noisier, brighter colored, more curious things are drawn up, but these are cast aside summarily — it was not to secure these the net was drawn. The fishermen were not mere naturalists dragging for what is curious and rare; not mere idlers fishing for sport and caring little for the use of the result; not mere children amazed and delighted with every strange or huge thing they land; but they have cast the net for a purpose, and whatever is not suitable for this purpose is refuse and rubbish to them. The huge creature that has been a terror to the deep, the lovely sea plant that has waved its fruitless head in the garden of the sea — these are not twice looked at by the fishermen. They are acting on an understanding that the net was drawn for a purpose. And so it shall be in the end of the world. The end is not a mere running down of the machinery that keeps the world going, it is not a mere exhaustion of the life that keeps us all alive, it is not a hap-hazard cutting of the thread, it is a conclusion, coming as truly in its own fit day and order, as much in the fulness of time and because things are ripe for it, as the birth of Christ came. It is the time of the gathering up of all things to completion, when the few last finishing strokes are given to the work, that suddenly show the connection of things which seemed widely separate, and reveal at once the purpose and meaning of the whole. Men will then understand, what now scarcely one can constantly believe, that it is God’s purpose that is silently being accomplished, and that it is usefulness to Him that is the final standard of value. The distinction which finally separates men into two classes must be real and profound. It is here said to be our value to God. Are we useless to Him, or can He make us serve any good purpose? Have we become so wholly demoralized by a selfish, limited life, that we cannot cherish any cordial desire for the common good, or enter into sympathy with purposes that do not promise profit or pleasure to ourselves? You have some idea what the purposes of God are; you see these purposes in the life and death of Christ; you know that in God’s purposes that which contributes to the elevation of character takes precedence of what merely secures outward comfort or present advantage; you recognize that His Spirit delights in deeds of mercy, of self-sacrifice, of holy service — have you, then, such qualities as would be helpful in carrying out such purposes? are you already influential in society for good, helpful in extirpating vice and crime, and in alleviating the wretchedness of disease and poverty? do your sympathies and your thoughts run much towards such an expenditure of your energies? have you the first requisite of His servants, such a participation in His love for men, and such a zeal for the advancement of the race as wither within you all isolating and debasing selfishness? The fish taken in the net are disposed of by the fishermen, and are in their hands without choice or motion. A minute before they were swimming hither and thither, moving themselves by their own energies; now they are dealt with according to a judgment not their own. The situation is not more novel to the fishes than it will be to us. Here in this world we are conscious of a power to choose our own destiny, to change our character, and become different from what we are. We are not yet all we ought to be, but we can discard evil habits, repress base motives, and become at length suitable for God’s work, harmonious with Him through all our being. So we flatter ourselves. But there comes a time, when, whatever we are, that we shall forever be; when we shall be, as it were, passive in the grip of destiny, disposed of by it, and unable to resist or alter it; when we shall find that the time for choosing is past, and that we must accept and abide by the consequences of our past choices; when for us the irrevocable word shall have gone forth, “He that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”

Amidst the sudden revolutions of thought and revulsion of feeling, amidst the utter discomfiture of many a hope on that day when the net is drawn and we are all suddenly thrown out on the eternal shore, will your hope not fail you? As you anticipate the hand that is to separate the good from the bad, do you rejoice that a penetrating eye and an unerring wisdom will guide it? do you rejoice that it is God who is coming to judge the world in righteousness, and that no mistake can be made, no superficial distinction hide the real one?

It is possible some one may defend himself against the parable by saying, “I will not alarm myself by judging of my destiny by my own qualities; I am trusting to Christ.” But precisely in so far as you are trusting to Christ, you have those qualities which the final judgment will require you to show. “If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” You are useful to God in so far as you have the Spirit of Christ. Plainly the criterion given by the parable is the only sufficient criterion by which men can be judged as they issue from this life. Are they in such sympathy with God as to be capable of entering into His work and ways in the future, or have they only cultivated habits and qualities which served them for a life that is now past? Only by what we are, can we be finally judged; not by what we believe, but by what our belief has made us; not by what we profess, not by what we know, but by the results in character of what we have professed and known. In the final judgment, we shall not be required to assert that we are converted persons, or that we are trusting in Christ; we shall not be required to assert anything; but our future shall be determined by our actual fitness for it. Fitness for carrying on God’s work in the future, fitness for helping forward the cause of humanity in the future, fitness for living in and finding our joy in the future which Christ’s Spirit is to rule, we must have if we are to enter that future. Get the fitness how you may, it is this you must have. If you can get it by some other means than by adherence to Christ and the reception of His Spirit, use that means, but this fitness you must have. And I think any one who seriously accepts this as the real outlook for us men will feel that he cannot do better than go to school to Christ that he may acquire not only a perception of what this fitness is, but that genuine humility and absorption in great and eternal aims which are its prime requisites. Apart from Christ, men may be good handicraftsmen, they may be gifted with genius that delights and aids mankind and beautifies life, they may see clearly what constitutes civil prosperity, in one way or other they may materially help forward the common cause; but if after all they are not in sympathy with the purpose of the king who rules and heads the forward movement, if their motives in using their gifts are still selfish, it can never be said to them, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” His joy is a joy they are not prepared to share, if they have sought their own advantage and not with Him sacrificed themselves to the common good. It is impossible to say who are helping and who are hindering the cause of Christ; and happily it is not our part to judge. The aims and ideas which Christ introduced to the minds of men have so permeated society that no one can grow up in a Christian country without coming more or less in contact with them. And the Spirit of Christ may have wrought in men in ways we are quite unable to trace. But it would seem as if only through Christ it were possible for us to come into that full sympathy at once with God and with men, which we see so clearly in His life and death, and which also is our salvation from selfish isolation and all ungodliness and inhumanity. It is serviceableness which is to determine our entrance into or exclusion from the future of God; or, as God does not desire service in which is no spirit of fellowship, but rather the intelligent and delighted co-operation of sons, it is sonship that determines our destiny. And who but Christ enables us to see what sonship is and to become sons? How is that tender, humble, sin-fearing, reverent spirit of God’s children to be produced, how has it ever been produced, save by the acceptance of Christ as God the Son dying for our sin to bring us to the Father?