THE FINAL SORT - Matthew 13:47-52
What Does it Say?  Jesus tells a parable about the Kingdom of heaven compared to throwing a net into the sea and pulling up everything caught in it.  In the end, the angels will separate the evil from the righteous; the evil will be cast into hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
What Does it Mean?  If you pulled up a net with everything caught in it here on the BC coastline, you would pull up a little of everything.  You might get coral, sea cucumbers, prawns, crabs, starfish, seaweed, cod fish, and maybe some salmon.  A lot of the sorting would be fairly easy until you come to sort the salmon and try to tell the difference between a coho and a sockeye.  Sockeye are thinner and stronger and don't have spots on their tail. Coho have a black mouth with white gums on their lower jaw and spots on the upper part of their tail.  The kingdom of heaven is like throwing out a net into the general population.  A lot of the sorting would be fairly easy, but some sorting would be difficult because we base our opinion on outward behaviour at any given time.  Salmon look different in the ocean than they do in the river on their way to spawn.  Our faith is easy to see by how we respond under pressure, but not see easy to see when things are going good for us.  We only see what is on the outside; God sees the heart.  Being a good person or living a Christian lifestyle will not pay our ticket into the Kingdom of Heaven.  We can never be good enough.  When we break God's law in one small way, we are guilty of breaking all of it.  God's standard is perfection (Matthew 5:48) and we can never achieve that on our own. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and we must accept His forgiveness.  God is gracious and never turns anyone away that really wants to know Him.  It is not wrong to do good, but we are not saved by it.  In Ephesians 2:8-9, Paul makes it very clear that we can’t save ourselves.  Verse 10 says that God has good things in mind for us to do, which give beauty and purpose to our lives. It is what Jesus has done for us that makes the difference in the final sort at the end of the age.

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