Seeking once again the help of
God, I'd like us to turn to the chapter that we read together,
Luke chapter 5, and the text you'll find in verse 5. And Simon
answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all night and
have taken nothing. Nevertheless at thy word I will
let down the net. We come to the sixth miracle
of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord Jesus Christ began
his earthly ministry, he began, as we saw, by changing the water
into wine at the wedding in Galilee. And as the Lord Jesus continued
on in his ministry, we saw that he showed the people his power
over sickness, over the demonic world, the kingdom of darkness,
and over even death itself. in this miracle of the Lord Jesus
Christ as he enters into the ship and he begins to speak with
Simon Peter, we see his authority over the creatures of this world. that Christ has the power and
authority over the natural world, the things that he created. But not only does he have the
power and authority over the fishes of the sea, but also we
see a great transformation in the man, Simon Peter. Simon Peter,
being a fisherman, had known of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
had sat under his ministry. He had witnessed the healing
of his mother-in-law in chapter 4. And as he has gone fishing,
he's been fishing all night, he has caught nothing. Night
time was the good time for fishing. No doubt they used various means,
lights and flaming torches to bring the fish to the surface.
No doubt they used bait and all the tricks they could think of
to try and catch some fish and yet they came home in the morning,
their nets were empty, their hearts were discouraged and they
had to spend the morning without any fish and mending their nets. But as they were mending their
nets, the Lord Jesus Christ comes to the shore. The Bible tells
us that many people came to press upon him to hear the word of
God as he stood by the lake of Galilee, Gennesaret. So he, many
people. And what a wonderful thing it
would be. It's this part of it that struck
me. Many came to hear the word of God as we read in our history
as a country. There were times in the land
of, in this land of England that many, many people came to press
to hear the Word of God. There were times when at six
o'clock in the morning as men were ministering the Word of
God outside in the rain, in the snow, thousands of people would
come and gather around and to hear the Word of God. Such was
the power and the moving of the Holy Spirit in those days. You
only have to drive round our town of Hastings and you see
the many churches that are built in this town. because so many
people wanted to hear the Word of God. So many people wanted
to be fed with this spiritual food and as the Lord Jesus Christ
was preaching, as he was teaching the people, they pressed against
him because they wanted to hear the Word of God. We come here
this morning to hear the Word of God? Have we come out of just
a mere habit or tradition? Have we been pressed by our parents
to come here this morning? Or have we come because we want
to hear the Word of the Lord as we gather around the Word
of God? Is that our desire? What does
the scripture say? What is the Lord speaking to
us this morning? Are our hearts ready and prepared
to receive the word of God. What was it that you were doing
last night? What was it that you were doing
this morning in preparation to come and to worship God? You
remember when we looked at the Passover and there was to be
that preparation period They were to go into the flock and
they were to choose the lamb. They were to leave it aside for
a few days and prepare themselves for the sacrifice. There was that preparation. Throughout
the Jewish Levitical law there is that preparation for entering
into the presence of God. They were to check whether they
were clean or unclean, whether they were ceremonially clean.
They had to wash themselves and prepare themselves to enter into
the presence of God. What have we done this morning?
As we come into the presence of God, as we come into the worship
of God, with God's people, what have we done to prepare our hearts
to receive the word of the Lord? Think of the parable that the
Lord Jesus tells us about the good ground here, those people's
hearts who have been broken open, good soil, in preparation to
receive the seed of the word of God. as the ground is ploughed
open and the farmer comes and he places the seed into the ground,
he has that desire that it will receive water and moisture and
that it will bear fruit, it will grow and bear fruit. I wonder
if we have prepared our hearts like that ground this morning
in preparation for the Word of God. It may not be that the minister
is any good, but it may be that even the reading of the Word
of God as an effect upon your soul that the Word of God enters
in. They pressed around the Lord
Jesus because they wanted to hear the Word of God and Jesus
as he is being pressed around he sees Simon Peter's boat and
he says to him if he could borrow his boat and he gets into Simon
Peter's boat and they push it out a little from the land and
they began to and he begins and continues to preach to the people
and Lord Jesus comes to the end of his sermon and now he turns to Simon Peter
and he speaks to him he says to him and when he had left speaking
he said unto Simon launch out into the deep and let down your
net for a draft. Peter, at this moment in time,
was just like all the other people around about, pressing to hear
the word of the Lord. But there's a difference between
hearing and acting. Many people hear the word Many
people hear the word of the Lord but it is just like water off
a duck's back. It has no effect upon them. It maybe stimulates their conscience
for a little while but it just passes by and it has no real
lasting effect. Peter had been sitting under
the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had no real effect
upon him. He was continuing on with his
fishing. He was continuing on with his
normal day-to-day things. He was hearing the word, but
he was hearing only. Sometimes we say to our children,
when you tell them something, do this or do that, and you know
they hear you, be impossible that they don't hear you or they
don't act. They don't take on board what
you say, they don't do what you say and so we would class that
as rebellion or disobedience, a willful disobedience, a stubbornness. They've heard but they don't
want to obey. They will even lie and say, well,
I didn't really hear, but you know that they have heard. And
so it is a stubbornness and a hard heartedness. The Bible calls
it in the Old Testament, stiff necked. He says to the children
of Israel, you're a stiff necked people. You hear the word, but
you don't listen to the word. You don't obey the word. You
don't turn to the Lord, your God. And so Peter is being changed. He's going from a hearer of the
word to becoming a doer of the word. The letter from James,
he speaks there in James chapter one of those who are hearers
and doers of the word. Verse 21, wherefore lay apart
all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with
meekness the engrafted word. The word of God as it is given
to the believer, it is engrafted, it is planted within their hearts,
it becomes a living word within, a seed planted within the ground.
which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be
a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding
his natural face in a glass. For he beholds himself, and goeth
his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. And so the And so James is presenting
before us somebody who hears the word. It's gone into their
ears. They've heard it. They've understood
it. Yet they don't respond to that word. They're hearers only. And the multitudes who followed
the Lord Jesus Christ, they were hearers of the word only. They weren't doers. It had no
effect upon their hearts. They thought that no man spoke
like this man. The things that he said, they
were interesting. They'd be powerful, but they
had no effect upon them. It is a doer of the word. Someone
who receives the word with joy, understands it and then lives
it and obeys it. as the truth that has come from
God, the Word of God. So Peter, now he is buckling,
we can say, under the Word of God. You think he had been fishing
all night and he had caught nothing. Him and his friends, they'd been
out from He'd been out all night labouring, seeking to provide
for their families, doing what he always did, his job, what
he knew, what he was able to do, what he was familiar with. But he laboured and he laboured
and he caught nothing. Some people may know what it's
like to have done a night shift and you've worked all night. It's been a difficult night and
you come home and you are tired. or even if you've been laboring
through the day, it's been a hard day, you seem to have made no
progress in your work, you're discouraged in the mind, your
body is tired and you don't want to continue, you just want to
get home and you just want to relax and do nothing. You would
think that Simon Peter and his friends, they're discouraged,
they're downhearted, they're fixing their nets. No doubt their
nets have been snagged upon rocks as they've been trying to fish
these fish. No doubt they're frustrated.
And then the Lord Jesus Christ comes and speaks to him and tells
him to launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a
catch. Simon answering him, Master,
we have toiled all night and have caught nothing, taken nothing. You can almost sense the frustration
in the voice of Peter. Peter, an experienced fisherman,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of a carpenter, a teacher. What does he know about fishing?
He's telling me to go out and to fish. I've been fishing all
night. It's now not the right time for fishing. But he says, nevertheless. Nevertheless at thy word I will
net down the net. Acknowledges who Jesus is. He calls him master. He sees his authority. Yes he may just be the carpenter's
son. Yes he may just be a teacher.
Simon Peter acknowledges him here as master. And that the word that the master
has spoken was a word of power. Thy word. The word of the Lord
Jesus Christ is a powerful word. It is a word, a voice of authority. The scripture tells us In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him, and without him was not
anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life
was the light of men. And the light shineth in the
darkness, and the darkness Comprehended it not and so this man who was
standing now or sitting in the boat of Simon Peter and telling
him launch out your boat into the deep and you will catch and
to catch some fish is the word of God. Everything was created by him
and through him and for him. In the beginning was God. and
God created the heavens and the earth. The very sea that Simon
Peter was floating his boat on was the sea that belonged and
was created by the Lord Jesus Christ. The very fish that Peter
had been trying to catch, those fish that had been fleeing from
his net all night, were fleeing because Christ did not allow
them to go into Peter's net. The Bible tells us that it is
God. God makes rich and God makes poor. We can struggle, we can
try and we can do all manner of things, but unless the Lord
opens the door, unless the Lord makes the way, unless the Lord
gives strength, ability, wisdom, determination, then it will all
ultimately fail. And so it's this word, At thy
word I will let down the net. The word of Christ is a powerful
word and a word to be obeyed. Not just a hearer of the word
of the Lord Jesus Christ but a doer of the word of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Peter was now becoming a doer
of the word he was going to say just like the Lord Jesus Christ
would do in a few years time he was going to say not my will
but thy will be done. He was going to act in faith
to the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was going to do something
that completely contradicted everything that he knew he should
do. He was a fisherman. He knew that
he had been labouring all night. He knew that in the morning was
not the best time to go and catch fish, especially if he was tired
and frustrated. And yet at the word of the Lord
Jesus Christ, he obeys. Some might say that this is blind
faith. Sometimes Christians are accused
of acting in blind faith. I don't think true Christians
can truly act in blind faith because if they act in accordance
with God's word and walking obedience with God's word they are trusting
that God will provide and do everything that he has told them
that he would do. To his friends maybe Peter was
acting in blind faith he was being stupid fishing under the
command of a carpenter going to fish in the morning But it
wasn't blind faith. It was true faith in Christ Jesus
and his word. We have it throughout scripture.
Abraham, was that blind faith? Or was it faith in the word of
God? That God said to Abraham to go
out and he went unto the place that he didn't know. He went
out not knowing where he was going. But he went out trusting
and resting in the promise of God. Peter was resting in the
word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus has told me, go out into
the deep and let down your net. Abraham could say, God told me
to leave my land and to go and wander in the wilderness. Look
at Moses as he came to the Red Sea. An impossibility. But God says speak unto the children
of Israel that they go forward. They went forward and the sea
opened up and they went through on dry ground. An impossibility. Goes against complete human logic
and reason that man can walk through the middle of the sea
and the sea would open up It's not blind faith. It is faith
in the almighty and all-powerful God that created the heavens
and the earth and that everything is under his control. And if
he wants to split the sea, he will split the sea. If he wants
to turn the world backward 10 degrees as a sign to a Hezekiah,
God will do it. And if he wants to make a way
for you and for me, then he will make a way. The scripture says,
nobody can stand in his way. Nobody can stop his hand or say
unto him, what are you doing? So Simon Peter, hearing the word
of God, the word of the Lord Jesus Christ, acted in accordance
with that word. and he let down his net. There are times in our lives
when we are unable. Yet the scripture tells us that
God is able. There are things in our lives
that seem total impossibilities and we may try, like Peter, to
deal with it ourself. We may struggle and struggle
and struggle ultimately we're struggling on our own. We haven't
brought it to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who
is able to do far more than we can ask or think. He's able to
do the impossible. Man can do possible things but
God does impossible things. Man cannot work miracles but
God works miracles and what he was about to do in the life of
Simon Peter and his friends around about him was to work a miracle
and he sees that miracle because he obeys the word of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Looked at the other day preaching
at East Peckham about the man where the Lord Jesus spat on
the floor and mixed, made clay and then put that clay into the
eyes of the man. And then he says to him, go and
wash in the pool of Siloam. Go and wash. The man couldn't
see anyway. The man couldn't see with the
clay in his eyes. It was not the clay that healed
him. but he obeyed the Lord Jesus
Christ. And in obeying the Lord Jesus
Christ and washing it in that pool, then he became able to
see. And I think so much of our lives
we don't witness the greatness of God is because we don't obey. We don't step forward. We don't
do. We are hearers of God's word
only, but we don't act in accordance with God's Word. Therefore we
don't receive the blessings that there are to be found in walking
in obedience to God's Word. The man was able to see. He listened to the voice of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says to him, go and wash
in the pool. So he went to wash. He could
have said in his mind, well what's that going to do? What good is
washing in a pool? I've washed in pools. I washed
my face time and time again. What good is that going to do?
But he listened to the word of the Lord Jesus Christ and he
obeyed the word of the Lord Jesus Christ and he saw the blessing
of obedience to that word and he came seeing. Simon Peter goes
against the grain, goes against everything he knows about fishing,
goes against his own ideas, his own thoughts, his own knowledge. And he obeys the Lord Jesus Christ
and he experiences a great catch of fish, so much so that the
net begins to break. so obedience to God, obedience
to Christ is the path of blessing. If you are not obeying then you
are disobeying. You're not walking in obedience
you're walking in disobedience. Peter could have said no, the
blind man could have said no and maybe you are saying no. Maybe you are today and you are
saying no I'm not doing this, no I can't do this, I will not
do this. then you will continue to walk
in disobedience as a child walks in disobedience when they refuse
to obey their parents you've heard the word you've heard the
word you're not walking in obedience to the word Peter obeyed and
he received the blessing a multitude of fishes a multitude of fishes. Now that
was not the greatest blessing that he saw. The greatest blessing
that he saw, more than a multitude of fish, that he saw who the
Lord Jesus Christ really was. Verse eight, when Simon Peter
saw it, He fell down at Jesus' knees saying, Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord. So I've said before, the miracles
of Christ stamp the authority of Christ upon the word of Christ. They declare who the Lord Jesus
Christ really is. And so as these people were pressing
to hear the word of God, they were listening. but it had no
lasting effect. Simon Peter now sees who Jesus
is. He sees himself as a sinful man
when he realises who Christ is, the Son of God that came into
the world, the holy, spotless Lamb of God. When Simon Peter
saw him, as his eyes were opened by faith, saw him who he was,
he realised that in the presence of God, And I am a sinful man. And the more we see of Christ,
the more we know of God, the more we see of ourselves. I said to you before, if you
hold up a sheet, a white sheet that you've had for many years,
it's gone through the wash time and time again, and then you
buy a brand new one. and you put the brand new one
next to the one you've had before and you realise that it's not
quite as white as you thought it was. And so it is when you
stand a sinner next to the Lord Jesus Christ, that sinner looks
black as black, filled with sin because Christ is so holy. That's what we thought to be
clean. becomes unclean. Peter saw himself in the presence
of Christ and saw himself as a sinner. Jesus tells him not
to fear. Fear not, for henceforth thou
shalt catch men. Peter's life had been a life
of fishing and now he was going to use the same principles which
he used for fishing to fish for men. He was going to become a
preacher of the gospel. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was
going to change his job, change his career, send him now into
the job of fishing for men. And as Simon Peter and his friends
in obedience to Christ caught a load of fishes. On the day
of Pentecost when Peter began to preach the word of God that
gospel net was thrown out. And that day they caught a multitude
of fishes. Three thousand souls were saved
on that day. And today, today the gospel net
is still being thrown. As men preach the word of God,
as Christians live Christian lives and witness in their own
spheres they are casting a gospel net. One and another is collected
and brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been caught in the gospel
net? Are you a hearer of the word?
You are a hearer and a doer. Are you like those fish that
Peter tried to catch during the night and every single one of
them fled away from his net? Or are you one that has been
caught and are safely in the net of the Lord Jesus Christ? He says, none shall escape from
my hand. They are safe and secure in the
gospel net of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jesus says to Simon
Peter, launch out into the deep and let down your net for a catch.
Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all night
and have caught nothing. That was his human reason. That's
what we have done. But In obedience to your word,
I will obey. I will go against everything
that I know and I will obey. I will let down my net. And in
doing so, he enclosed a great multitude of fishes. May it be
that we witness this great casting of the net and the gathering
in of a multitude of fishes. I may the Lord add his blessing. Amen. May the Lord help us as we close
this service by singing from Hymns of Worship, number 14.
We render thanks to thee, O Lord, it is a comely thing, and to
thy name, O thou most high, do praise aloud to sing. Hymn number
14 from Hymns of Worship to the tune 129. and our thanks to Thee alone. It is a comely thing. And to Thy name, O Thou most
high, to praise our love, to sing. Thy loving kindness to
share forth, and shines the morning light. And to My faithfulness with pleasure
every night. Upon the Thames in Sister Man
? And on earth's solitary ? ? Upon the harp with solemn sound
? ? May Christ's great melody ring ? O Thou, Jehovah, by Thy birth,
hast gladness to me poured, And I will try and be in the
world Which I have never owned. And I'm a poultry florist, ?
Shall be the righteous one ? ? He shall take to the seat of God
? ? That is in the heaven above ? Who is that within Jehovah's
house? Appointed by His grace, they
shall grow up and flourish o'er, in our God's heavenly place. And then, O day, when lovers
face There are halls where fruit shall find, They shall be packed
and full of sound, And life in me be found. They shall know that our pride
is above. He is above to be. And he from all unrighteousness
is Almighty God and Heavenly Father,
we thank thee for the gospel net that was thrown on that day
of Pentecost and we pray, Lord, that it may continue to be cast
and that many fishes may be won and gathered in for the Lord
Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that you'll give
us those hearts that desire to swim into that net and to be
gathered in with Christ. We ask that we may be dismissed
with thy blessing and do return us here again in peace and safety
this evening. And now may the grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, the fellowship
and communion of the Holy Spirit to be with you all now and for
evermore. Amen.