What the Net Dragged In

 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.  When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad.  So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous -- Matthew 13:47-49

This little parable follows after the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares and its explanation.  It is related, for, as the weeds are separated out at harvest and burned, so the undesirable fish are cast away. They are not thrown back.  Those aren’t the fish the fisherman wants reproducing. 

I was reading Herman Ridderbos’ comments in his book The Coming of the Kingdom.  He discusses the question of why the tares could not be separated before the wheat was harvested.  When you think about it a little, this is the question that troubles a multitude of those in the valley of decision, as Joel says.  Why do we have to wait for the wicked to be removed from among us?  Why does God work only at the end of history?  The atheist’s answer is that, obviously, there is no God, and we are living in a delusion. 

The promoters of evolution ought to understand this better than anyone -- except for the fact that they reject the idea of the cosmos and existence having any meaning at all.  What we believe is that nature is very much part of the language of God and part of His revelation.  As we know from observing nature, if a predator is removed from the environment, the ecosystem is thrown out of balance.  There is overpopulation of the prey species and food sources are depleted to the point, in some cases, of irreversible destruction. 

If that is part of God’s revelation then we can see, as Jesus is teaching in these parables, that there is a balance to be maintained in the development of the kingdom.  There will come a point when the kingdom is perfected, when it is matured to a degree that allows us to move into an entirely new realm of existence.  This is depicted in the parables as the time of harvest, of the drawing in of the net.  When that Omega point is reached, the balance that has been part of our maturation process will no longer be necessary, and those influences will be removed while the righteous are brought in to their ultimate purpose and destiny. 

The answer that we give to the problem of evil will never be good enough for some of those who pose the question.  There are times, when I am battered and down, that it sounds pretty hollow to me.  I understand. The elk need the wolves as much as the wolves need the elk, yet it doesn’t make the kill any less painful or gruesome for the creature caught by the fangs.  I don’t know if elk have some sort of animal understanding of the interplay between themselves and their adversaries.  Perhaps they have something that gives them peace when it is their time to go down.  

 I do know that we have access to the wisdom of God.  A person may choose to live an animalistic, materialistic life.  He doesn’t have to.  The truth is all around us.  No one has to be a weed or a bottom-feeding scavenger, but even they, blindly, serve the ends of the kingdom.     

Live Hard Or Die Trying

No disaster overcomes the righteous, but the wicked are full of misery – Proverbs 12:21

That is obviously not true. We all know, don’t we, that doing the right thing is no guarantee of success or of protection from evil. Good people are murdered in their sleep. Bad people get MBA’s and law degrees.

At least that is what I think at first glance, especially if I read it in the King James -- There shall no evil happen to the just. If, though we consider the second phrase which states that the wicked are filled with trouble and misery, this is true. I hope I don’t know what goes on in the mind of a psychopath, but in general, the wicked are miserable. One look at the face of Bill Maher (reputed bastard spawn of Marty Feldman and Hooker Smurf) should convince most anyone of that. Since I use Maher as an example, you can understand that by wicked I am not talking about some kid smoking reefer down on the corner, or those who make mistakes and do things that are foolish. The unrighteous are possessed of a filthy, degrading spirit, a warped, self-aggrandizing sense of justice. They are hate-filled bearers of false witness, mockers, and traitors.

Among the wicked are those who purposely remove all the old landmarks because they do not like boundaries. They reject the foundational moral truths of society as hindrances to their desires. They do this not realizing these delimiters create the patterns for deriving meaning from life. By casting away the markers they become lost in a pointless world of excess and emotion. Liketakingoutallthespacesbetweenwordsandthennotcontentwiththatfurthergimnorzadni.

And we wonder why they are petty, ugly, confused, and crazy.

OK, so the wicked are miserable losers. What about the righteous? Does disaster or evil overcome the just?

As Petey often says, there is none good but God. Jesus, the Righteous One, was crucified by the sins of man. Yet He overcame evil. In Romans 12:21, Paul tells us, Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good. I know I reference this verse frequently, and I repeat so often because it is possibly the most difficult for me to internalize. I want to overcome evil the way John McClane did in Die Hard. I want to beat it at its own game. I want to smack it down and gloat over it. And sometimes it is necessary to fight back in a physical way when the innocent are threatened. When a person with a weapon goes berserk, the proper response is to put him down as rapidly and efficiently as possible.

By far, though, most conflicts with evil are not like that. Wickedness takes many forms apart from bloodshed and death. Far better, on a personal level, to respond to slights, insults, and unfairness with truth, love, and forgiveness – not necessarily in that order – than to climb into the pit with one’s attacker.

So once again God is right and I am wrong. The righteous are never conquered by evil for they see beyond today's trials and failures. At the end of the road is another road. We trust in the ultimate justice of God, in His wisdom, grace, and power, first to see us through this life and enable us to overcome in Christ, and then to ultimately set things right where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest".