“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.” Matthew 13:47-48.

This parable is nearly the same as the parable of the wheat and the tares which the Lord interprets in Matthew 13:37-43.

The repetition of this theme of the wicked being gathered in to be cast into the furnace of fire is a confirmation that this event is going to happen.

It is also a warning to all who prefer evil to salvation in Christ that they will not escape judgment.

The difficult word here is dragnet, and may well be what indicates the difference between these two parables.

Speaking of the tares Jesus tells us that the angels will gather out of His worldwide kingdom, “…all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness…” Matthew 13:41b.

Those who offend would be persons who lead others into error or sin. Those who practice lawlessness are those who do iniquity – contempt and violation of law, practicing wickedness. This will be a thorough search and the angels will miss no one.

The word translated dragnet is rendered “a net” in the old King James Version as well as in many of the older translations.

It is translated dragnet in both the New King James and the New American Standard Version.

In the Greek the word can mean, a net, a seine, or a dragnet.

Why all this meaningless prattle?

It concerns the method involved. A seine net can be used to describe a dragnet, yet it is different by degrees.

Seine netting can be done from shore, or boats, it is done in shoals (shallow water) and consists of a net with weights at the bottom so it will hang down and floats at the top so the top stays up. While the methods of drawing the nets to entrap the fish vary, the basic intent is to catch a school of fish.

The method of the dragnet is similar but varies in that the net is drawn along the bottom entrapping everything as it is dragged along by the boat.

Recently this method has been found to be destructive to habitats and gathers many things which the fisherman has no need for; as such its use is forbidden today.

So the use of the word dragnet is important and also curious. The Israelites were limited in the types of fish they could eat, those with fins and scales were clean for them to eat (Leviticus 11:9-12).

While mollusks, eels, and other bottom dwellers were forbidden and unclean, indicating how little use they would have for a dragnet.

This then is the likely meaning of the statement made that after the net was full they came to shore, “… and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away.”

The clean versus the unclean fish were divided. But notice, with the dragnet, everything is caught, good and bad, nothing escapes, in the same manner as the tares are gathered.

“So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 13:49-50.

So it will be at the end of the age, the dragnet will gather both the good and the bad to be separated, none will escape.

The church age and the end of the age are hard to describe. The church age began at Pentecost and will end at the rapture, which is the removal of all true believers from the earth, an event that is imminent.

Shortly after the removal of the church a seven year period of intense tribulation will begin, and out of this crucible many will hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and accept Him as their Savior. Many will reject Him.

Out of this time of intense testing will come an absolutely clear demarcation between those who embrace Christ and those who hate Him.

It will also show that no matter how many signs, wonders, and judgments come upon mankind, men will not believe what they do not want to believe. It is as simple as that.

It is at the end of this seven year period that Christ will return to rule the earth in righteousness.

When He returns He will separate the good (the sheep in Matthew 25:33 below) from the bad (the goats) and the bad will be carried off to hell by the angels.

And the good, those made righteous by the blood of Christ, will enter a world rebuilt by Christ Jesus wherein He will rule for a thousand years.

This is the point in time, after the tribulation and before His thousand year reign begins, that Jesus refers to as “the end of the age”.

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” Matthew 25:31-33.

For this reason, the parable of the wheat and the tares would be said to begin at the start of the church age, because Satan immediately began to sow godless men in the church to destroy it.

That this tactic was successful is evidenced by the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven which represented their destructive activities within the church.

However, while the wheat and the tares represent the church period which ends at the rapture, Jesus tells us that the tares are gathered, “…at the end of this age” Matthew 13:39.

This statement indicates that the tares are not gathered until the time described above in Matthew 25:31-33. Logical since they will not be taken up in the rapture with the wheat.

As an aside to the Christian, always remember this, while there is life, there is hope. Even if your relative or friend has stopped listening to you, they can see your living example and you must never ever stop praying for them.

Let me reemphasize this, never ever stop praying for those whom you love or feel led to pray for, even though it seems hopeless.

So now the question becomes, is the parable of the dragnet just another way of restating the parable of the wheat and the tares or not?

Some view the dragnet as the gospel which has been preached from the beginning and like a dragnet has caught everyone in it, believers and rejecters alike through to the end of the age.

This certainly has merit, but there is another view that fits the parable a little more closely.

In the parable of the wheat and the tares the wheat represents Christians who are taken out of the world before the tribulation begins.

This will happen before the ending of the age which comes after the seven years of tribulation ends and Jesus Christ returns to earth to rule.

This presents a question; who are the good fish (sheep, Matthew 25) caught in the net? These would have to come out of the tribulation.

If the dragnet is indeed cast after the rapture for the purpose of once and for all separating the wicked from the righteous then the clean fish would be those who responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ after the church had been removed.

“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” Revelation 7:9-10.

“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” Revelation 7:13-14.

These righteous believers would have had to live through the entire tribulation to have been caught in the dragnet and brought before Christ. The unrighteous (unclean fish) will also have survived the tribulation.

It is significant too to note that the dragnet is cast into the sea. The sea is symbolic of the Gentile nations of whom multitudes are seen as coming out of the great tribulation in Revelation 7. Because of the sea’s restlessness, Gentiles are seen in the same manner, constantly being tossed to and fro with no anchor.

“Daniel spoke, saying, ‘I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea [Mediterranean Sea]. And four great beasts [Gentile governments] came up from the sea, each different from the other.’” Daniel 7:2-3.

“Then he [an angel] said to me, ‘The waters which you saw, where the harlot [apostate super-church] sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.’” Revelation 17:15.

It is said of the net that, “when it was full, they drew to shore…” the experienced fisherman of course will know when the net is full.

The same can be said of the dragnet, God knows when the net is full and there is nothing more to catch, He then orders the net to be drawn in and sorted.

Scripture says this about the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ with all His angels at the end of the tribulation:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” Matthew 24:36.

When asked a similar question just before His ascension into heaven, Jesus gave this answer:

“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.” Acts 1:7.

It is God the Father who will know when the net is full and the very last person has either accepted Christ as their savior or rejected Him for the last time.

This is a decision for all of us, to either accept Christ as our Savior, the payment for all of our sins, or reject His offer of grace.

One can indeed put it off, but it will be no different than putting off a heart or kidney transplant, thinking about it does not stop the clock from ticking and they could very well be dead before they decide.

No matter what you may have heard; hell is always the default in cases like this.

Tragically, hell will be chock full of good people who put off, or just could not be bothered with such decisions.

A person’s good deeds are not weighed against their bad deeds to see if they merit going to heaven. That is a fiction that goes back beyond even ancient Egypt.

“There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Romans 3:10-12.

You and I are not the exceptions to this rule, there are no exceptions.

As we have seen twice in these studies, the angels are both the reapers and those who sort the fish, “the wicked from among the just” they will be thorough, missing no one.

Matthew 25:31-46 further shows us that the angels will bring them before Jesus the King and He will condemn them to hell. The angels will then, “…cast them into the furnace of fire.

There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 13:50. The identical words are used concerning the fate of the tares in Matthew 13:42.

This is not the final Day of Judgment, that day comes at the end of time, about a thousand years later.

No, these people are consigned to hell until Judgment Day arrives, at which time they will be cast into the lake of fire.

Do not be fooled, there will be good reason for wailing and gnashing of teeth; all hope will be gone and everything, including purpose in life will truly die.

If we could visit hell what would we see?

“Do you not know that the unrighteous [those who reject Christ] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8.

On the other hand heaven will be filled with many of the people listed in these verses because they turned to Christ and away from their sins.

“And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” 1 Corinthians 6:11.

Hell will be filled with the self-righteous, pedophiles, sexual predators, sex perverts, bullies, liars, cowards, serial killers, idolaters, revilers, and many more perverse twisted God haters.

Hell will be filled with sadistic ISIS thugs, greedy self-centered politicians, liberal theologians who mock Scripture, church leaders who are responsible for the torture and murder of millions of Christians and Jews, Satan, his fallen angels, and the Antichrist.

Add to this Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden, and Ted Bundy, then ask yourself, “Is this the kind of company a normal person would like to keep for eternity?”

When these are cast into hell, the righteous will be led into the millennial kingdom for a thousand years of peace in a world that will be very close to the one that existed before the worldwide flood of Noah’s day.

I do not think that there is a poet or an artist who can express what life will be like in that day.

“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’” 1 Corinthians 2:9.

Dragnet taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 1-14-15, updated on 7-21-23.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.