Pastor, teacher, and author Adrian Rogers has introduced people all over the world to the love of Jesus Christ and has impacted untold numbers of lives by presenting profound truth simply stated. Thanks for joining us for this message.
Here's Adrian Rogers. found one pearl of great price. He went and sold all that he had and bought it. A very short parable. Now remember that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. And these parables explain mysteries. Go back to verses 10 and 11 of this same chapter and you'll understand what I'm talking about.
There's a reason why I call them mysteries. And his disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. So these are wonderful mysteries, mystery stories, sacred secrets that God is letting us in on. And this is the story of a priceless pearl, a merchant man who loves pearls traveling the world around. Then he finds that one great priceless, precious pearl sells everything that he has in order to purchase that one pearl.
And Jesus said this is a parable of the kingdom of heaven. I've been thinking about this message for a long time and some years ago I clipped from the newspaper a story about a pearl. The title of the article was, Monstrous Pearl is a Gem of a Deal. And it tells about a pearl.
You're going to be surprised when you hear this. This pearl as big as a football weighs 14 pounds. The world's largest known pearl, a football sized gem that weighs 14 pounds will soon go on the block in Los Angeles for 10 million. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records, the pearl comes with a history almost as rich as its price tag. An estimated 6,000 years old, the gargantuan gem was reportedly found in the Philippines in 1934 by a diver who drowned while trying to retrieve it from the shell of a giant clam. The 10 million asking price is considered a bargain for some have valued it much higher.
I tore that out. I said that just reminds me of this parable of a pearl of great, great price. I don't suppose there's any parable in these seven that has been more misinterpreted than this parable of the pearl of great price.
Let me tell you how it is misinterpreted and then let me tell you what I believe is the truth concerning the pearl of great price. Now, the average interpretation is that the merchant man is the lost sinner who is seeking the Lord Jesus Christ. He's on a search for God.
That's the merchant man who's looking for lost pearls. They say that just pictures a lost sinner trying to find salvation, trying to find God. That is so obviously wrong because the sinner is never on a search for God. To the contrary, the sinner never takes the initiative.
God must take the initiative. Let me give you a Scripture that will prove that. Romans chapter 3 verse 11 says, there is none that seeketh after God. So this merchant man cannot picture a lost man seeking God.
And as a matter of fact, just the opposite. God seeks man. Adam hid from God in the Garden of Eden and had not God taken the initiative and went after him and said, Adam, Adam, where art thou? Adam never would have come to the Lord.
Put it down big, put it down plain, put it down straight. If you sought him, it was because he first sought you. Amen. Now, secondly, the way this is often interpreted is the merchant man represents the sinner seeking Christ. And when he finds Christ, he sells all that he has in order to buy Christ.
Well, that's ridiculous. A sinner is bankrupt. He has nothing in the sight of God. What can he sell? What can he give?
He has nothing at all. He has no riches of his own to buy Christ with. In us, in our flesh is no good thing. Again, let me give you another Scripture. Romans chapter 3 verse 12. They are all going out of the way. Talking about sinners. They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Isaiah 64 verse 6. For we are all as an unclean thing. And our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. And we do all fate as a leaf.
And our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. What would a lost sinner buy Christ with? Number one, we're not seeking Christ by nature.
Number two, if we were, we didn't have anything to buy him with. And number three, and you listen very carefully, Jesus Christ is not for sale. Jesus Christ is not for sale. That's blasphemy to say that you could buy the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is not something that you earn that you can buy. Titus 3 verse 5 says it is not by works of righteousness that we have done.
But according to his mercy, he saved us. The Bible says again in Romans chapter 6 verse 23, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You will never buy the Lord Jesus Christ. And so what is the pearl of great price? The pearl of great price is not Jesus. I've often heard Jesus call the pearl of great price, but he is not the pearl of great price. The pearl of great price is the church. The church, the merchant man is the Lord Jesus who has purchased the church with his own precious blood. Now the last time we talked together, we talked about a treasure that was hid in the field. Israel is called God's peculiar treasure. That's the treasure hid in the field.
The church is never called a peculiar treasure, and Israel is never called a pearl. The pearl represents the church purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to see how this pearl was wrought. I want you to see how it was sought, and I want you to see how it was bought.
And then you'll thank God for the wonderful salvation that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. How is a pearl formed? How is a pearl wrought? The formation of a pearl is a wonderful picture of the church.
I did some research. I got the encyclopedia and read about pearls, and I found out that the best pearls come from the Persian Gulf. They come from a depth of about 150 feet beneath the water. They come from a seed pearl oyster. And the way the pearl is formed is that inside the clam there comes some impurity, some bit of dirt, some grit, some irritation, and it embeds itself in that living being beneath the ocean.
And then the oyster or the clam begins to exude a substance known as nacre, and it begins layer by layer by layer to cover that hideous, that ugly thing, that gritty thing, that filthy thing, and it covers it and covers it and covers it until something ugly has been covered and something beautiful has been made. And this pearl begins to grow and grow and grow. I also found out that a pearl is not like any other gem because a pearl is made of something living, and also a pearl cannot be divided.
An emerald can be divided, a diamond can be divided, an opal can be divided, but you can't divide a pearl without destroying it. And so now I want you to notice how the pearl represents the church. First of all, it goes from guilt to glory.
He has taken that grit, that grime that is there, and layer by layer he has covered it. He was wounded for our transgressions, and he has taken our guilt and he has clothed it with his glory. The church has gone from guilt to glory like a pearl. The church has gone from depth to height like a pearl. The pearl down in the bottom of the ocean has come now and has been brought up out of the troubled sea and has been made fit to be worn in the bosom of the king, to be on display in the glory. And we will shine forever in the glory, having come from great depth. The church is going to great height. The church has been taken from darkness to light. You'll never find a darker place than inside an oyster at the bottom of the sea. But that pearl is taken from darkness and to light, and the pearl is a gem that not only absorbs light, but it reflects light, and therefore it is a picture of the church.
As a matter of fact, perhaps the rite of the hymn had this in mind when he wrote, From sinking sand he lifted me, with his own hand he lifted me, From shades of night to plains of light, O praise his name, he lifted me. Like the church, the pearl has gone from grit to glory, from depth to height. The pearl has gone from darkness to light, and the pearl, like the church, is formed from start to finish. You see, the pearl grows layer by layer by layer. It is grown gradually, indivisibly, with no blemish if it is a perfect pearl. It cannot be divided.
It cannot be carved. There are not two churches and not three churches, but in the end there is one church without spot or wrinkle, any blemish whatsoever. So this pearl of great price represents the church, and you see how it was wrought.
Now I want you to see how it was sought. Look again at the scripture. The Bible says when this merchant man had found this pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. Wonder of wonders that Jesus was seeking me and he was seeking you. Wonder of wonders that he loves us. Psalm 45 verse 11 says, So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty. You are very precious to him.
You are a beautiful thing to him. You were in his heart before the foundation of this world. He is the seeking Savior, Luke 19, 10, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. Jesus is the merchant man.
Jesus is the one seeking the pearl. How does he seek? Well, he seeks through the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit of God that puts his finger on your heart and convicts you of sin.
Don't trifle with him. God speaks through his Spirit. God speaks through suffering and sickness. Have you been sick? Have you been in pain? Has some bad message come from the doctor? Well, that's God seeking you.
Sometimes a man has to be put flat on his back in order to look up. Sometimes God seeks through sorrows. Many a time at a funeral, I've been able to lead somebody to Jesus that otherwise, from my estimation, would not have come to him. God seeks through the Scriptures and through songs.
So many ways God is seeking you, and I've said it before. God doesn't love us because we're valuable. We're valuable because he loves us.
He set his attention on us. Now here's the third thing I want you to see, how this pearl was bought. The Bible says the merchant man sold all that he had and bought this pearl.
Let me give you a verse for your margin. 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 9, For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that through his poverty ye might be rich. When a man sells all that he has, what is it at that moment? He's bankrupt.
He's bankrupt. Jesus left heaven. Think of the price that the Lord Jesus Christ paid.
He became a pauper. Jesus came to a manger that I might go to a mansion. Think of the anticipatory sufferings of the Lord Jesus. You know what it is to anticipate trouble? When my brother and I would get in a fight, my mother would say, you boys are going to get it when your dad gets home.
Well, friend, that was worse than the whipping. All afternoon I lived in anticipation of my dad coming home. And you know that many times the anticipatory suffering is terrible in itself. Jesus, Jesus, from the moment that he was aware of himself as a youth, was living in the shadow of a cross. When Jesus, the little lad, was playing in the shavings of Joseph's carpenter shop, every beam that he saw reminded him of the cross beams that he would be nailed upon. Every nail that he saw would remind the Lord Jesus of those nails that would be put in his quivering palms.
The Lord Jesus, when he would go to the temple, every sacrifice in the temple he would see, every lamb that was slain would remind him that he was the Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world. Every rose that others may see the flower, Jesus had to see the thorns, would remind him that he would be crowned with thorns. I think of the sufferings of Jesus in dark Gethsemane. Gethsemane deeply moves my heart. Dark Gethsemane, I think of the price that Jesus paid when he stood before Pilate and had a mock trial and lost an election to a common criminal.
I think of the indecencies that they put upon the Lord Jesus when they stripped him naked, when they beat him with clubs, when they spat in his face, when they put a wilted reed in his hand. They crowned him with a crown of thorns. Why?
Why? Because he was purchasing the pearl of great price. The Bible says that he gave all that he had, this merchant man did. I see as they flay his back to ribbons of flesh or hanging down by some psychopathic dungeon keeper who flailed him with a cat of nine tails.
Men would often die of this. Then they lay him down on that splintery wood, nail him to that cross, and drop that cross in a hole with a thud. Then the heavens are black.
The sun refuses to shine. God the Father turns his back upon God the Son, and God the Son cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Of course, the answer is in the next verse, but thou art holy. God is a holy God, and a holy God cannot look upon sin, and the Lord Jesus now is hanging upon that cross, a mangled form on a rough-hewn cross, and every nerve is a pathway for the feet of pain to tread upon. But, oh, only the damned in hell can begin to know the anguish, the suffering, the utter midnight of his heart as God the Mighty Maker died for man the creature sinned. He could have called 10,000 angels, but he didn't do it.
He died alone on Calvary. So what does all of this tell us? Well, very simply, very plainly, here's what it tells us, that we cannot buy him. He is not for sale.
We are not seeking him. He sought us. And Jesus took my sin, your sin, he covered it with the glory of his grace. He made something beautiful out of something that wounded his side. We are that pearl of great price.
There are four basic things that you need to know. Number one is that God loves you and he greatly desires you. Jesus has come to seek and to save. Jesus is the merchant man.
He's the one seeking you. The second thing you need to learn is this, that you are a sinner. You're a sinner by birth. You were born with a sinful nature. You're a sinner by choice. You have sinned by your own choice. You are a sinner under condemnation for your sin deserves judgment. The third thing you need to understand is this, that there's no way that you can undo your sin, that the wages of sin is death. There's no way that you can buy your salvation.
You're absolutely totally helpless to save yourself. The fourth thing is this, that Jesus Christ is God's answer for your sin, that Jesus with his precious blood paid your sin debt. And the Bible teaches that if you will receive him by faith, he will forgive every sin, he will cleanse you, he will give you a new nature, and one day he'll take you to heaven. Would you like to be saved? I want to invite you to pray a prayer like this.
Dear God, just pray it out of your heart. Dear God, I know that you love me and I know that you want to save me. Jesus, you died to save me. Jesus, you promised to save me if I would trust you. I do trust you, Jesus.
Just tell him that right now. I do trust you, Jesus. Jesus, I receive you right now into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Oh, Lord Jesus, forgive me. Cleanse me, Jesus. Save me, Jesus. Pray it out of your heart. Save me, Lord Jesus.
Did you ask him? Then by faith, just pray like this. Thank you for doing it, Jesus.
I receive it by faith and that settles it. You are now my Lord and my Savior. I love you, Jesus. I will follow you wherever you lead me if you will only help me. Begin now, Lord Jesus, to make me the person you want me to be. Lord, help me never to be ashamed of you. In your name I pray, amen. .
