“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.  When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

 “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

Mathew 13:47 – 51

Jesus resets our sights – in order to understand the present, we do well to examine the end times which will surely come, are already coming in a sense.

Once again, the teaching is that good and evil co-exist, a fact that is obvious.  Like tares growing among the wheat.  So, good and bad fish share the same waters and the same foods.  But the day is coming when a great separation will occur, the day of reckoning, when the good fish will be collected for use, the bad ones thrown away.

Earth’s courts will not decide on who is good and who is bad.  That is the role of the angels who will come from the heavenlies to assist in the judgement.  Jesus is teaching about the kingdom of heaven, here and now and in the future.  People of the kingdom of heaven live in the light of this great separation.  They do so without fear, knowing that they are citizens, not primarily of a nation of this world, but they are under the good reign of Jesus Christ, citizens of the kingdom of heaven.

I sometimes wonder if I see myself as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, primarily, or as a member of a kingdom of the earth.  I have made my decision, as you probably have as well, to take my place in the kingdom Jesus came to establish.  As I read these parables of Jesus, I am reminded that my hope is in this everlasting kingdom.  That hope is bed-rock foundational.  There is a place in this kingdom of heaven for me and for you.  Let us not be moved!