In this thought-provoking episode of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack Hibbs invites listeners to engage with the Parable of the Dragnet, a narrative designed to challenge and illuminate the path to true faith. By comparing this parable with the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, Pastor Jack highlights Jesus’ call for introspection among believers amidst cultural and theological debates about hell. Experience a deep dive into the transformative power of parables, intended to open our hearts to biblical truths in a contemporary context.
How do you know if a Christian is a real Christian? By fruit production. It’s true. We are not to condemn anyone. We don’t have that authority. The Bible says, judge not lest you be judged. The word is condemned. It should say, condemn not lest you be condemned. But we are supposed to be fruit examiners.
SPEAKER 01 :
This is Real Life. Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I’m David Jay, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God’s Word, the Bible. Looking for real answers in real time? JackHibbs.com is your go-to destination for resources on faith, world events, and everything in between. Explore Happening Now, where Pastor Jack Hibbs takes a timely, no-nonsense look at today’s biggest issues, blending biblical insight with the latest headlines. Now, whether you’re curious about the world around you or you want guidance on a personal level, Pastor Jack has you covered. And, by the way, don’t miss the Real Life Network. It’s packed with relatable, family-friendly content that really speaks to everyday challenges and triumphs, offering something really valuable for every member of your family. Now, if you’re new to the faith, you want to refresh your perspective, start with that tab that says Know God, an accessible, welcoming space to learn and reflect and find your footing. Now, whatever your path, jackhibbs.com has the tools and the insights and the encouragement that you need. Tune in, log on, find something real. Once again, the website jackhibbs.com. On today’s edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack now continues with his series called The Parables of Jesus with the message titled Parable of the Dragnet. Whenever Jesus spoke to the crowds, he often spoke in parables, a common sort of picture story that has a lot of facets to it. in this parable jesus teaches on something very powerful but not very popular you see this parable hits hard jesus is again sitting by the sea of galilee even using it in his message and serves as a warning as to the fact that there is an end coming and that no one’s going to escape it So today, Pastor Jack teaches that a day will come when God will separate the true believers from those who are not, and the ones who say they’re Christians but don’t know Christ at all, they’re going to be cast out of this world and thrown into utter darkness. Now, with his message called Parable of the Dragnet, here’s pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs.
SPEAKER 02 :
Did you know that Jesus spoke? regarding hell more than any other New Testament biblical personality. Of course, it doesn’t surprise me because Jesus was going to pay the price like no other. And it’s very clear in the reading of Scripture that the Lord doesn’t want anyone there. In fact, Jesus came to make sure that you would have the opportunity to not go there, the choice to not go there. And so tonight we look at a parable that is very, very powerful and yet not very popular. Turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 13, verses 47 to 50. We’re looking at the parable tonight of the dragnet. In some of your study Bibles, it might be called the parable of the giraffe. or the dragnet. The dragnet is more accurate because it actually is the right word. Though we use the word dragnet in English, it does describe the actual word that Jesus used in the Greek regarding this particular parable. The parable of the dragnet, Matthew 13, Verse 47, hold your finger there, and I want to read you the introduction to the parables. Jesus, or the scripture, I should say, says, Matthew 13, one, that on the same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And a great… multitudes were gathered together to him so that he got in a boat and sat and the whole multitude stood on the shore then he spoke many things to them in parables parabolic parabolos he’s throwing truth you know this now alongside the minds of the hearer so that they might take it The parables are the most effective form of delivering information. The tragic thing on one end is if a heart is not open to the truth being delivered, God wraps the truth in perfect modern day or current time, real time images, and he deposits it alongside the hearer so that they might grab it. The amazing thing about a parable is that if they don’t grab it, it’s not a deficiency in the parable, it exposes the darkness of their heart. Two people can hear a parable, same parable, sitting side by side, and they’ll hear it and one person says, I don’t get it. and the other person gets it. Why does that happen? One heart is open, one heart is not. Parables expose the heart. Isn’t that a serious thing? Think about it. Wow, that is powerful. So Matthew 13, 47, the parable of the dragnet. Again, Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven, the church age, the preaching, the going forth of the gospel age is like a dragnet. Verse 49, here comes the interpretation. He interprets it for us. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from or among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. This parable is very similar, if you’re taking notes, to the parable we studied regarding the wheat and the tares. Remember that. If you weren’t here, you can go online and watch or listen to it, or you can get it in the media room, but they’re very similar. And again, Jesus is delivering the message. And the destination, by the way, the warning is regarding the eternal destination of those who would reject the love offering of God’s gospel. That rejection brings consequences. And so this parable lands like a rock in the minds of the hearer. And it’s a very powerful thing. Because it tells us, make note of this, Jesus says, time is running out. Jesus is saying, there’s an end coming. Note this. There’s a time coming when the angels will be dispatched And time will end, an age, an epoch, a period that we’ll know more about as we come through this study together. But this is an awesome thing. In fact, listen to this. There’s a real-time warning, I would say, for us today that there’s an increasing number of people, church, listen, that are religionists. They claim to be religious people. They even claim to be Christians. They’re famous. Who today… tell us there is no way that Jesus meant what he’s saying here. That there cannot be, they say, an actual hell. They say it wouldn’t be consistent with God. That God is love. Now listen to this, because if you pitch it their way, listen to how reasonable this sounds, but watch out. How does this truth land? They say, Jesus is just trying to make a point. Hell cannot be real. Wouldn’t be consistent with the love of God. It’s a symbol, it’s a type, it’s an illustration. And so he’s just trying to encourage us to get very serious about living our lives in a meaningful way. That there is no real or actual hell. This is very, very popular doctrine growing today, predominantly among young people. Why? Honestly, because they have an absolute skewed view of the love of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God, and listen, because it comes out in their lifestyle, the pathetic or weak view view of sin. The very same ones that entertain a carnal lifestyle also embrace this doctrine. I can do anything I want, I’m a Christian now. Oh, and by the way, there is no hell. I find it interesting that all of the cults, they don’t agree on anything except two things. Did you know this? They all agree on two things and two things only. No matter what cult it is, Jesus cannot be God. And there is no hell. Those two doctrines play right into Satan’s hands. Undermine the deity of Jesus Christ. And oh, by the way, even if you come to doubt your cult membership and your cult group, even if you doubt that and you doubt what their leaders are saying, are you even doubt the doctrines that are propagated, you don’t have to worry because after all, all said and done and all of those cults, there’s no hell. Isn’t that interesting? There’s nothing to worry about. Isn’t that a brilliant stroke of demonic action to get someone, to get a soul to believe there is no hell? If there is no heaven or hell, or if there is no hell, why would we evangelize to reach out to love on people and give them the gospel if the end is not separation from God? Think about it. No, Jesus said exactly what he meant, and don’t you think it’s powerful that he spoke on this topic more than anybody else? He would pay the price, he knows. But see, this is what happens when emotionally based theology trumps biblically based theology. I don’t like the way it sounds, so thus it’s truth. Jesus does not ask you how it sounds to you. And they’ve relegated and neutered God’s righteousness down to a very good guy. And it’s very, very dangerous, church. Be very careful. James Montgomery Boyce says that the sobering main point of the parable is thus. A day of reckoning will come in which God will separate the true believers from mere pretenders, and those found to be false will be cast into hell, says the Bible. A parable is designed to better explain and illuminate a reality. This is true for all parables. So friends, listen, tonight as we come to this parable, which is very, very direct, this parable now is not different than the others. Jesus takes an actual living event to teach us about something that is a spiritual reality. That’s the purpose of a parable. Number one, jot it down this morning, this morning. I’m still at Sunday morning. Jot this down, if you would, regarding the parable of the dragnet. It’s this, and by the way, this is my subtitle. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, okay? Number one, the gospel into the world. Write that down. The gospel into the world. That’s how it begins, and that’s a good thing. Matthew 13, verses 47 and 48 says, again, Jesus is the kingdom of heaven. What’s it like in the church age? From the day of Pentecost to when the gospel has run its course. It’s like a dragnet, Jesus says, that was cast into the sea. We’ll know all this in a moment, what it means. And gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore. Stop right there. This is awesome. Because right now, church, you can highlight those verses 47 and 48. This is exactly the time zone of which you and I are living in right now. Verse 47 and 48 is happening right now in our lifetime. You’re living in those verses today. The dragnet is going out. Let me explain. The kingdom of heaven is synonymous with the kingdom of God or the church age preaching of the gospel. It goes all over the world. It started in Jerusalem, and look, it’s reached Chino Hills. It’s encompassed the world. And imagine, it’s being broadcast by internet, by television, by radio, by shortwave, by missionary, all around the world. In every time zone around the world. But what’s amazing is you and I are literally living in a moment’s Time now that Jesus prophetically spoke about back then. You can sign your initials next to verses 47 and 48. We’re living it now. Don’t you get, isn’t that kind of awesome? All of a sudden my Bible jumps off its pages and it’s a reality of my life. I’m living verse 47 and 48 as I stand before you right now.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Real Life with Pastor Jack Hibbs. You know, to hear more episodes and maybe catch up in the series, just go to jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. And for now, let’s get back to our teaching. Once again, here’s Pastor Jack.
SPEAKER 02 :
And all of the disciples would have understand the parable. He speaks to them about a very common thing of their day. They all knew about the kingdom coming. It was an Old Testament concept. It would come. They also knew what a dragnet was. Let me tell you. A dragnet, the word implies a wide, broad, deep net that is weighted down with lead balls so that it scrapes the bottom of the lake or of the sea. It is completely indiscriminate about who it scoops up or what it scoops up. It is massive. It’s pulled often by several boats. at the same time. It brings everything into it that’s in its path. It’s very important to remember. Then, the laborious part of it is that the fisherman must then sift out what is brought up in the net. Now, I don’t know if you go out deep sea fishing or not. Personally, I hate it for this reason. You don’t know what you’re bringing up. I don’t like that kind of fishing. I wanna be at a river or a creek and you’re fishing for trout or bass or whatever. When you throw a hook into the ocean over here, what are you gonna get? You don’t even know. In fact, even if you catch something, what is it? Looks like the stuff we pull out of our shores here, looks like from Mars. But when you put in a net and you pull up all kinds of stuff, man, you’re pulling up, you know, octopus and fish and boots and teacups and you don’t know what you’re getting. All of this stuff is coming up. And that’s the very word. And all the disciples would have said, yeah, we know how that is. Jesus, we got it. We’re fishermen. We got that. We understand that. Crystal clear. And then the word sea. The sea. This is kind of cool. The sea throughout Old and New Testament. The sea is always, in the reading of the Bible, not good. Did you know that? The sea. The dragon in the book of Revelation and Daniel comes up out of the sea. The sea is always speaking about the populace or the humanity of the Gentile world predominantly. The sea. The world-governing empires are seen often rising up out of the sea. Isn’t it interesting that the book of Revelation, chapter 21, one, the Bible says, now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth that is yet to come had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. There’s not gonna be a sea in the new heaven and the new earth. No surfing. No fishing for all those demonic looking fish I talked about. No sea. Now that might disappoint some of you. It did me when I first read it, but I’m sure God’s going to make up for it. It’s going to be amazing. To the Jewish mind, the sea is not good. Are you with me? Even today in Israel, the sea is not a good thing. They’re not a seafaring people, by the way. It’s always been in the Jewish mind from Old to New Testament. But as soon as Jesus mentions it, they all understand that’s the world. So in your note taking, the dragnet is the gospel going out. The sea is the world. So the gospel’s gonna go to the world. And there’s, watch, there’s going to be gathered some, circle the word some, this is amazing, some of every kind. Not everything is drawn up in the net. Some of every kind. What does that mean? That means, listen, not everyone is saved. Listen, this gets real technical. And even the some that are brought up in the net, are you listening? When it’s pulled up, there’s gonna be a dividing of the good from the bad. Wow, there’s kinda three groups of people. Those who are not in the net, then those who get in the net, and then those who are in the net, out of the two of them, the Bible says there’s a good fish and a bad fish. Uh-oh, what do you mean? Do you mean that people who are saved, they’re a good fish but they turn into a bad fish? Nope. Jesus has warned us over and over again. The wheat saw around them the what? Tares, the chaff, the false. The gathering together, there was the leaven that ruined the whole offering of the bread. The little leaven leavens the whole lump. There’s always, listen, in the kingdom of God, Jesus is saying when the net goes out, fish get in it. But in the end, it will be proven, it will be shown that not all the fish in the net are good fish, meaning there are pretenders and lookalikes and mimics in the body of Christ, in the church. Fake or false brethren, Paul called them. Imposters, you say, well, what church? The church, where? Everywhere. But not here, right? Here. Not in this service, right? Maybe. Think about it. I told you before, Jesus had a church of 12 people. One of them was a goofball. There’s a warning to this, and it’s very serious. And so the dragnet goes out. It’s a Interesting thing, look at this. And they gathered some of every kind. This does not mean limitation. It’s an observation. Jesus is not saying the gospel’s ability to save is limited. No, no, no, no. There are those who respond to the gospel. Again, in your note-taking, Bible students, what is excellent to this is, again, the parable of the sower and the seed. Do you remember? Jesus went out, and many people responded to the seed that was sown, which, remember, was the word of God. But in time, persecution arose and some of those, quote, believers gave up on believing. Remember? They weren’t real. Do you remember what the proof was? And the one that received the word on good soil with a good heart? They produced fruit. Remember that? He was the only one that produced fruit. How do you know if a Christian is a real Christian? By fruit production. It’s true. We are not to condemn anyone. We don’t have that authority. The Bible says, judge not lest you be judged. The word is condemned. It should say, condemn not lest you be condemned. But we are supposed to be fruit examiners in people’s lives. Jesus said, by their fruits, you will know them. Or by their fruit, you will know them.
SPEAKER 01 :
pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs, here on Real Life Radio with his message called Parable of the Dragnet. Thanks for being with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Parables of Jesus. It’s a series that highlights the teachings of Jesus while he was here on earth and will continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Pastor Jack, we heard from Michael, sent us a listener letter. Michael recently gave his life to Christ. So let me read it to you. Dear Pastor Jack, I recently gave my life to Jesus. Not too soon afterwards, I was browsing YouTube and saw a video called Jack Hibbs on mental health. In this video, you mentioned Philippians 4, verses 4 through 9. Now, I opened my Bible, and the verses literally matched almost everything I had just prayed for. He says, I cried with joy. Isn’t that great? Realizing that God was with me. I got chills just reading that myself. He says, thank you, Pastor Jack, for doing God’s work. Michael. Now, we don’t encourage what we call Bible roulette, right? But the chances of that happening naturally are astoundingly low. Does God work through that sort of thing?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I mean, first of all, We should never lean upon Bible roulette. And for those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about, that is like, oh, God, I need you to speak to me. So help me. And you plop, you know, you run your fingers through the Bible with your eyes closed and then plant your finger and then look at a verse. You could have landed on a verse that says, and Judas went out and hung himself. So that’s probably not a good thing to do. However, there is no doubt about it. that there are times when you are in a specific moment and need, and it just so happens, right, which I do not believe just so happens happens, that that’s exactly the verse I needed to hear. Or I’ve heard this verse, this is now the second time I’ve heard that verse, or the fifth time I’ve heard that verse. God, what are you saying? What are you doing? Yeah, it happens in my life. I will read a verse and the more obscure I’m reading this verse, I’m looking, I’m pondering, Lord, what does that mean in my life? You know, how does this apply? And, you know, part of Bible growth is knowing what questions to ask yourself and to ask God. And then, you know, you get up and you go about your day and then a moving truck goes down the street and has the same exact Bible verse on it where it’s like, Lord, thank you.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
So the beautiful thing is, is that our God is not a God of coincidence. He’s a God of planning. And so what that means for Michael is that God is speaking to him loud and clear.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hey, you know, if you’d like to drop a note of encouragement to Pastor Jack, that’d be awesome. He’d really love to see what you have to say about him and how his ministries affected your life. So please do that. Go to the Connect tab at jackhibbs.com. That’s the tab labeled Connect at jackhibbs.com. What if the greatest battles in life aren’t fought with swords and armies, but with the struggles of the heart? What if the most defining moments of leadership come not from triumph, but from pain, betrayal, and humility? How do we handle being misunderstood or wronged, and how do we navigate the deep waters of authority, submission, and forgiveness? In A Tale of Three Kings, Jean Edwards takes us inside the lives of King Saul, King David, and Absalom, illustrating the powerful lessons learned from their brokenness and their failures. Through these kings, we discover that true leadership often comes through humility, suffering, and trusting God’s sovereignty, even in the most difficult seasons. This book will challenge you to reflect on your own heart, leadership, and your walk with God. A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards. It’s available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com slash realradio. That’s jackhibbs.com slash realradio. This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That’s jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in His Word. We’ll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.
