Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Job 25-26
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 13:47-51
Jesus: Or think of it this way: the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea, a net that caught a world of flickering fish. When the net was full, the fishermen hauled it to shore. They separated the good fish from the bad, placing the good fish in a bucket and throwing out the inedible fish. That is what the end of time will be like. The heavenly messengers will separate the good from the bad, the righteous from the wicked, the repentant from the prideful, the faithful from the hard-hearted. The bad, the wicked, the prideful, and the hard-hearted will be thrown into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.
Do you understand?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
I’ve never been fishing with nets. I’ve watched a few documentaries about fishing, though. And it seems no matter how good the technology today that helps fishermen find those swarms of fish for their catch, they invariably get nets full of all kinds of fish. If they trawl for tuna, they get a lot of other fish besides tuna. If they are fishing for salmon, there’s a lot more than salmon in their nets. You see, nets are pretty indiscriminate about what gets caught. It just scoops up anything too big to get through the holes between the threads.
It seems to me, when I watch those documentaries, they haul everything out of the sea, pull a release and all the fish come tumbling out on the deck. Then most of the fish go down in the hold of the ship. The fisherman take only enough time to sort out a few of the fish while on deck. Most of them just follow the rest into the huge holding tank in the bottom of the ship.
Of course, today’s fishing boats, unlike those in Jesus’ day, are almost factories on the ocean, doing a lot of the processing while at sea. Part of the crew will start filter the fish as they move through something of a water conveyor into a processing room where the fish are gutted and either preserved for selling, or cut up and used for bait for the next cast. Before the nets are thrown again, the bait goes overboard to attract the fish for the next haul.
In Jesus’ day and still in some parts of the world today, men wade out knee or waste deep and cast their nets into the sea, pull in whatever their nets capture and haul all of the catch onto shore. Once on shore, everything is hauled up away from the water and the fishermen sort out their catch. Of course, by the time all this is done, the fish have been out of the water too long to survive, so they are either sold as edible fish in the markets or thrown away. Go to those more primitive fishing villages and you’ll always find the smell of rotting fish along the shore where those fishermen cast their nets and sort their catch.
And so Jesus uses this familiar scene as He talks to those around Him about heaven. Judgment day will come. God will call and end to time and send His messengers to scoop up everyone who ever lived. No one will escape that harvest of souls. Everyone will be present for that final reckoning. All of us will give an account for the lives we lived. And His messengers will sort the good from the bad, the righteous from the wicked, the repentant from the prideful, the faithful from the hard-hearted.
How will His messengers know the difference? God stands in judgment and sees our hearts. As He gives directions, His messengers carry them out. There are no mistakes because God knows everything and sees everything. He knows those who harbor sin in their hearts and those whose sins have been covered by the blood of His Son’s sacrifice because they have come to Him in repentance. He knows our intent, or motive, or thoughts. He knows everything about us. There will be no errors in His sorting process.
The results from that sorting process should be a little scary for those whose hearts are not right with God. Jesus says they will be cast into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Doesn’t sound like a pleasant place to me. Many discount Jesus’ descriptions of hell and assume there is no hell. But Jesus talks a lot more about hell than He does about heaven. Why would He do that if it wasn’t real? I doubt if He’s just trying to scare us. That doesn’t sound like God. I think He continually tries to warn us. He doesn’t want us to go there, but He still gives us the choice.
Why would anyone choose to go there? But they do. Because when you don’t choose heaven, you choose hell. There is no other place. Jesus only talks about two places. You have your choice, but there are only two to pick from. Pick the right one.
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