Luke chapter 5. And we'll read the first 11 verses
of this chapter together. Luke chapter 5. And it came to pass, that as
the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood
by the lake of Gennesaret. and saw two ships standing by
the lake, but the fishermen were gone out of them and were washing
their nets. And he entered into one of the
ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust
out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the
people out of the ship. Now, when he had left off speaking,
he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your
nets for a draw. And Simon answering said unto
him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.
Nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. And when they
had done this, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes. And their net break. And they
beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship,
that they should come and help them. And they came and filled
both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter
saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me,
for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all
they that were with him, at the draught of fishes which had been
taken. And so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
which were partners with Simon. and Jesus said unto Simon fear
not for henceforth thou shalt catch men and when they had brought
their ships to land they forsook all and followed him the title of my message this
morning is the means of salvation the means of salvation Now here,
our Lord is preaching the gospel to a multitude of people. And
so great was the multitude, he was pressed backward toward the
sea. And seeing two ships, he beckoned
to Simon to take him out a little so that he could preach to them
from the land. And so he did. He preached to
them the gospel. And after he was finished, He
commanded Peter, take me out to the deep, take us out to the
deep, and let down your nets for a draw. And you know, Peter,
these men were no novice in fishermen. This was their business. They
did this all of their lives. The sons of Zebedee was a fisherman,
taught his son to fish, and these men were skilled fishermen. told all night. They knew exactly
when the fish were supposed to be there. They knew that it was
supposed to be at that time at night. So they told all night.
But what they had done, they had taken nothing. And it was
a wrong time. It was a wrong time of day for
it to be out there fishing. And Peter said, Lord, we've done
this all night. We're not taking anything. And you know what he
expected? He expected nothing, right? He
expected to drop down his nets and draw out just what he drew
out that night. Nothing. But what happened? What was the difference? The
difference was the Lord was with him. The difference was the Lord
commanded him to put down his net. And remember, he told him
to put it on another place, on the right side of the boat. Put
it down there. Right there. Put it down. And
he said, okay, whatever you want, I'll do what you said. He dropped
it down, and sure enough, there comes out a great multitude of
fish. He let down his net, and a great
multitude of fish is in verse 6. So much that their net began
to break, and so they beckoned their partners, and they got
these other two boats out there, and they filled up all their
boats with fish. It was so much. Look, I've been fishing. That's
hard. It's hard to fill up a live well
full of fish, much less a whole boat full, much less several
boats full. This was a miracle. It was a
great miracle that happened to them. They beckoned their partners,
filled up their boats, and Peter, seeing this miracle, knows he
is in the presence of deity. He again called him Master at
first, but now he begins again to realize who this man is, who
controls nature and beasts so as to draw out such fish as this. This was never done before in
all of his life. He had never seen anything like
this. And he bows down and he says what? Depart from me. He was afraid. He was scared
that the judgment of God would come down on him at any moment.
He said, leave me, leave me. Don't kill me. If I stay in your
presence any longer, surely God would strike me dead for my sins. And what did the Lord say? He
said, don't be afraid. I'm doing this for a reason. I'm doing
this for a purpose. From now on, You shall catch
men. You shall catch men. And what did they do? They took
their boats to the land with all that fish in it and they
left it and followed Him. Our Lord never
does a miracle without a purpose. There are many times he went
through just preaching in places and didn't do miracles. Sometimes
he just preached. But whenever he did a miracle,
it always had a purpose. This miracle is no different.
The Lord has a purpose for this miracle. And it wasn't for the
fish. They left the fish. They left
it all. So it wasn't to make them wealthy
or rich, or it wasn't to show off his power, but it was to
manifest something concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a manifestation of how
it is God saves sinners. You realize you can do that with
any miracle. Any miracle is a picture of the Gospel. Any miracle that
Christ ever did, you can do that with every one of them. They're
all pictures of a blind man being healed. You were born blind,
yet by grace of God now you see. See the dead child and He raises
him from the dead, is that not a picture of us? All of His miracles
do this. It's a picture of something. Now we know this. We who are
believers in Christ, we understand this greatly, that we know that according to the
Word of God, God has chosen a people. We know that. Without a doubt
that God, before the world began, chose and elect people. He chose
to redeem them by Jesus Christ. We know this. We know that the
Holy Spirit will come to every elect sinner, quicken them to
life, and they shall believe in Christ alone. They'll do exactly
what these apostles did. They believed, forsook all, and
followed Christ. That's exactly what will happen
to everyone now then. How will He accomplish this? By what means? will he use? And this is what he's teaching.
He's teaching us the means by which the gospel is conveyed,
by which he will draw men to himself. As those fish were drawn
in by that net, even so it is, by the preaching of the gospel,
Jesus Christ draws his elect to himself. That's it. That's what he's testifying of
here. plainly declares the truth of
God's sovereign election in Romans 9 concerning Jacob and Esau,
that according to the election of grace before the children
were born, having done good or evil, that the purpose of God,
according to election, might stand. He said, I have loved
Jacob and hated Esau. So then, the mercy of God, the
salvation of God, is not by works or will of man, but rather by
the free, sovereign mercy of God. Therefore, It is not of
him that willeth nor him that runneth, but God that showeth
mercy. And so it was for Jacob, so it is for all of the elect
of God. That God sent Christ into the
world to fulfill all the salvation of all his elect. This is the
message of the gospel. This is the message of the gospel
we preach. That God is the author of salvation. That God is the first cause of
salvation. That He is the root cause and
the root power by which sinners are saved. And Christ came into
the world to perform that salvation. Lo, I come to do Thy will, O
God. By the witch will. We are sanctified. By the obedience of Christ to
the law and by the offering of Christ upon the cross. He gave his life a ransom. But for who? For everyone? No. He gave his life a ransom for
the elect. I have encountered this. somewhat
frequently recently if I ever get out much I imagine I'd encounter
it much more but people are absolutely opposed to God's sovereign grace
in the election absolutely utterly opposed to it you quote them
scripture quote them scripture they all nod their head they
say yeah that's right that's right but I feel. I think. I don't care what you
feel and I don't care what you think. It's what God says. Throw
that away. One woman said, you know, I believe
that Jesus' blood was sufficient to save the whole world. And I said, so do I. I believe
it's sufficient to save 10 billion worlds if God willed it. So the sufficiency of Christ's
blood is not the issue here. It's the scope of what He intended
to save. If God purposed to save the world,
all men without exception, you bet He would have. But the Scriptures
are clear. The Son of Man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for
many, many. We eat the Lord's Supper and
you know that the blood of the New Testament is shed for many,
many. In Isaiah 53 and verse 8 it says,
for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And how do we
know that it was not for all men? Because not all men are
saved. That's how we know. If it were, then they would be.
And so Isaiah 53 and verse 11 says, "...he shall see of the
travail of his soul and be satisfied." Hebrews 10, 14, "...by His one
offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." And
so pleased was God with His righteousness and His offering that He raised
Him from the dead, set Him on the throne of heaven, and right
now has given Him power over all flesh. To do what? What is Christ doing? Thou hast given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
hast given him. He is giving eternal life. To
who? As many as. How many is that?
I don't know. As many as. As many as He will. Now things don't look very organized,
do they? They look chaotic. The things
of the world look chaotic. They look as though they're random.
That everything's in disarray. Confused. But we know that all
things are working together after the counsel of His own will. Our Lord said that in Isaiah
46, He said, Remember the former things of old, for I am God,
and there is none else. I am God, and there is none like
me, declaring the end from the beginning. From ancient times
the things that were not yet done, declaring the things that
were not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand. Now then, who shall disannul
the counsel of God? Who shall thwart the plans that
God has determined to do? Who? Man? That's what false religion believes,
that God has a plan for you, and only one can thwart that
plan is you, liars. No. God has a plan. You bet that. And whatever God's plan, that's
exactly what He's doing. So it's not out of control. This
is not in chaos. This is in perfect order. Everything
is moving exactly as God determined. Nations rise and nations fall
at His command. Men live and men die at His command. He said, I am God and there is
none else. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. He said this, I will do all my
pleasure. So then if God's counsel will
not be moved, then what is God's counsel? If God will do all His
pleasure, what is His pleasure? His pleasure is to give eternal
life to as many as the Father had given Him. That's what He's
doing. That's what He's doing. But how will He do it? How will
He do it? There's a lot of debate about
this. How does God save sinners? By what means? Go to fifteen
different churches, you see fifteen different things being done.
Musical programs, plays, see that? You see, taking them out
to do camping trips. They can find God in nature somewhere. No. There's only one means God
has chosen by which He will save His people. By the foolishness
of preaching. By the foolishness of preaching. Now, in this parable, I want
you to see some things and see the picture here. The picture
here. I want you to understand that
the fish here in this picture are men. Fish are a picture. You know, it often strikes me
how God picks the stupidest animals to depict us. But that's what
he does. Sheep are the dumbest animals
in the world. Fish are equally ignorant. They're just animals of nature.
They're just animals of reaction. That's why when you have a little
frog you jig across the water, they just snap at it without
thinking. They're not thinking. You know, that's what we do.
We like to give them thoughts, fish thoughts. So that fish is
thinking. No, he just reacts. He's a stupid
fish. That's what man is. He's the
fish in this. And remember, they said that
from now on you're going to catch what? Men. So the fish here are
men. These disciples, they caught
fish, but they shall catch men. See the greatness of this picture,
in that the, what's the nature of fish about being caught? Do
fish like to be caught? If you ever fish, you know they
don't. You know they don't. I remember
fishing with my wife's grandfather all the time. We loved to fish
for white bass because they'd pull the hardest. They'd pull,
they'd be the strongest to fight out there, and it was fun. But
man didn't get a hold to that thing and they would just dive
right down. Why? It was their nature not to be
caught. They didn't want to be caught. And listen, neither does
man want to be saved. Man by nature does not want to
come to Christ and will not come to Christ. Except, you listen,
he's caught. Isn't that what that hymn we
just sang, Madly I Ran the Sinful Race, Secure Without a Hiding
Place? It said, in the providence of time, he
said, Almighty love arrests that man. Listen, we won't ever come
to Christ unless we're arrested, unless we're caught. No man will
ever come to Christ except God catch him. Our nature is seen
clearly in Isaiah chapter 1. I'll read it to you, Isaiah chapter
1. How horrible is man's nature
that he says this, "...An ox knoweth his owner, and an ass
his master's crib. But Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider." Ah, sinful nation! A people laden
with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children of corruptors. They
have forsaken the Lord, and have provoked the Holy One of Israel
unto anger, and they are gone away backward. Why should you
be stricken anymore? That's a good question. Why would
you be stricken? Why should you die? And yet you will revolt more
and more. The more I tell you of grace,
the more men revolt. The whole head is sick. The whole
heart is faint. From the sole of the foot to
even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores that have not been closed, neither
bound up nor malified with ointment. Your country is a desolate, and
your cities are burned with fire. Your land, your strangers devour
it in your presence, and it is desolate as an overthrown by
strangers." Isn't that what the man's nature is? Just like that. Stupid ox. An ox is more intelligent
than man. That he will not come to God
and bow before Him. And so it is with salvation.
Man, like this fish, will not come. But here's the glory of
it. Christ determined to bring these
fish to the surface. He determined that they be caught.
and He knew exactly where to get them. He determined, He purposed
the time, the place, and the means by which these fish should
be drawn in. So it is with our salvation. God knew exactly our nature.
He knew exactly where we were. He determined the place where
we would be, and He determined the means by which He would draw
us in. The salvation of God's elect
is always this way. There we were in our sin, we
could not and would not obey the law of God by nature, hated
the gospel, which is manifest by rejecting Christ. Now isn't
that so? Rejecting Christ is the manifestation of the hatred
of God. Now listen, to say I love Jesus
is easy, isn't it? How many people are saying that?
Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh. Easy to say. But unless you've ever been caught
by the gospel of God's grace, you do not love Him. Unless you've been caught and
quickened by the God of all grace to life and faith, to see your
sin and the justice of God and your need of Christ, you will
never come to Christ. Never. And so then, the elect of God have been redeemed
by Christ, it is His purpose to save them. This is the only
way they would ever come. But how are they brought? By
nature, no man can come to Christ. Now what Jesus said, I just love
this scripture, it's so plain. Why murmur you among yourselves?
No man can come unto me. Now is that plain language? I
mean I love when one scripture disavows a whole religion all
by itself. All free will works religion
is done away with one text. Just simple, plain. No man can. Oh yes I can! No you can't. Accept. Now a divine exception
is this. The Father which has sent me,
pull you, drag you, draw you as these fish in the net were
to be drawn up. Even so must the Father draw
us to Christ or we would never come to Christ. And behold, in the text, the
display here of drawing, the drawing of men by the net, by
the preaching of the Gospel. And that's the picture of the
net. The net is the Gospel. Christ is the one directing it.
But the net by which it's used is the Gospel of God's grace.
Paul said, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So then, if a man is to hear
the Word of God, how shall he hear without a preacher? And
how shall they preach, except they be sent? And what are we
to preach? Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
That's it. That's the only message of the
Gospel. Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Now go back to your text, and we're going to go through this
a little bit. See a couple of things here. First of all, I
want you to see that no man goes of his own accord. No man is
to go and preach the gospel of his own accord. He is only to
go at the command of Christ. Look at this. Jesus, when He
had done preaching, He says this in verse 4, told Peter. He said, "...launch out into
the deep, and let down your nets for a draw." The command of Christ
to preachers is to preach. He said, launch out into the
deep. Now they tried this themselves. All night. They tried. They used every skill available
to them. Every trick in the book. Everything
they had learned over years and decades of skilled fishery, they
tried that night. And when the night was done,
they were tired, they were empty, they had nothing, and they were
washing their nets, ready to quit. That was it. There was
no more. They were done. Until Christ
came in the boat and said to Peter, launch out into the deep
for a draw. now men who are not sin of god
such as false free will works religionist they go out of their
own accord but listen they don't bring in any fish they just bring
in trash These men drag the bottom of the lake, and all they bring
up are tires, and bottles, empty, dead vessels, no life in them. No life in them. The worldly
church and its world religion will only catch the world. That's
all it'll catch. But such as are called of God
to cast out the net of the gospel, listen, we are guaranteed this,
we will catch the elect. just as sure as Peter was to
catch all of those fish, even so it is just as sure that everyone
commanded of Christ to preach shall have success." Now what
the world measures as success and what God's gospel measures
as success are two different things. But we shall have success
because we are commanded of God to do it. And like Peter, we don't know
what we'll catch. Now Peter, he didn't expect anything, did
he? He didn't expect anything from this draw. But he did it
anyway. He did it at the command of Christ. This morning, I don't
know what the gospel does. When I cast this out, I have
no clue what it does to your heart and soul. I have no nothing. I see you see visual things.
I've learned to cast all that off. I don't know anything about
that. I don't know what this gospel does to you. All I know is it's in the hands
of God to do it. And if there's anything to be
done, it has to be by His command. It has to be by His power, by
His grace, by His mercy, not by the power of the preacher.
There was no power in Peter. There's no power in even the
net. The power was in the one in the
boat, Christ. It was the one who commanded
Him to go out. Don't you know that salvation
belongs to God? And He gives it to whomsoever
He will. And so then, what do we do? We
obey. That's all I can do. I obey. Nevertheless, Lord, I don't see
anything. Nevertheless, at Thy Word, at
Thy Word, we will obey And this is the word, go you into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And what is
it that we're to preach? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2,
verse 2, I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. You notice they didn't try different
means, did they? They had the nets all night.
They'd taken nothing all night. But, by the same net, when Christ
commanded it, it became full. We don't change our message whether
we have few or many. That's not my purpose. Same net. Same net. Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. If Jesus Christ is not the sum
subject and object of every message, that's an abomination. It is. It's an abomination to
have a message that's devoid of Christ and Him crucified. So we say, Behold the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world. My whole object
is to point you to Him. Look to Him! Now! Look to the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, sin of
all types of men. You know, there are all types
of fishes in here. There are all types of fishes they caught.
So it is with the gospel. Catches all types. Jew, Gentile,
bond-free, male, female, young, old, drunkards, as well as self-righteous,
religionists, doesn't matter. When this gospel catches, it
catches all. All that it intends to catch.
And so then we say, come to Him. Right now, every one of you,
listen. Come to Christ. Come now. Come now. Believe on Christ and
you shall be saved. His blood is sufficient to save
you. I don't care who you are. His
blood is sufficient to save you. Do you believe that? His blood is sufficient alone
to save you without your works, without your offerings, without
your merits. It's sufficient to save you, and all you have
to do is come with nothing. What a wonderful thing! Free
grace! Free salvation! This net of the gospel will save
the fish in the deepest water. He is able to catch. Do you know
your need of Christ? And are you drawn to Him? Are
you drawn to Him? Do you need Him more than anything
else? That's because you're caught.
You're caught by His love. By His grace, by His mercy, He
has drawn you by His Holy Spirit and there's no escape. Oh, I
love this. He always gets His fish. He always gets His fish. Every
time He wants Him, He gets Him. And once He's got you, there's
no way out. That's what false religion will tell you. Well,
He can get you and you can get yourself. If you can get yourself
out, it's not the Holy Spirit. That may be your own emotion
and your own passion that drew you to Him, but if you can escape
Christ, it's not the Holy Spirit. Oh, no. When the Holy Spirit
gives you life, you have life, and you come to Christ. But all
who are His sheep, He gives them eternal life, and they shall,
what, never perish. Neither can any man pluck them
out of my hand. Again, simple texts destroy whole
religions. Isn't that wonderful? You don't
need to be a deep theologian to understand these things. They're
simple things. They're things that only a saved
man could know, but when you know them, they're plain, they're
simple words. And because He has caught you
and drawn you, He has made you willing in the day of His power. And so knowing that God has an
elect people, knowing that the Spirit will draw them, knowing
that Christ commands His men to preach, what do we do? We
preach. We preach. But also notice this, we doubt. Look at Peter. Look what he said.
Simon answering, he said, Master, we've told all night and we've
taken nothing. How often do preachers, seeing
little, begin to doubt the power of the Gospel? To our shame. To our shame. We, like Peter, begin to speculate,
surely, we'll take nothing today. Nevertheless, I don't care how I feel. I have
a command. And at the appointed time, it will be full. It's always full. You know that? That every time the gospel is
preached, it is successful. It catches exactly how many it
determines, he determines to catch. He draws as many as he
determines to draw. One or a million. Whether to feed you, to rebuke
you, To draw you. To wound you. To heal you. Whatever. That's not the preacher's
business. Our business is just simply to
obey. Cast the net. Cast the net. At a venture. To us it's a venture.
To him it's no venture. And so we obey him. And we have
this promise that it will be successful. It's not for us to question the
time and providence of God. We are sent simply by God, and
we are here for the glory of God. The glory of God. And at the appointed time, God
will draw His people. Now then, what is always the
result of this calling? with the result of this casting
of the net. They drew in the fish, but I
think that the better picture is what the reaction of Peter.
This is the reaction of one who is caught. This is one who is
saved by the grace of God. Look what Peter says, and he
says, Simon Peter saw it, and he fell down on his knees, saying,
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. I am a sinful man. What does this gospel always
do? It causes a sinner to confess who he is. I am a sinful man. Gospel is never meant to make
you feel good about your nature. Never. It's always to make you
feel good about your Savior. But never about you. Remember
that New Covenant we just talked about, what it said? He said,
then you will remember and loathe yourselves because of your iniquity. That's us, truly. And so we,
like Peter, when we hear the Gospel, we confess our sins. You know what I long to preach
to? Sinners. I do. I long to find sinners
in need. Sinners indeed. Sinners that
have no hope. Ruined sinners. That's who I
want to preach to because I have a message for ruined sinners.
I don't have a message for self-righteous folk. Jesus said, they that are
holy, not a physician, but they that are sick. I'm preaching
to sick folk. Sinners. What did God do to be
sinners here? Because sinners can identify
with this. And what do sinners do? They
bow at the feet of Christ, confessing their sin. You know what he said?
He was afraid. He said, depart from me. Why? Because I deserve nothing more
than you to leave me alone. Do you know anything about that? that I deserve nothing but the
wrath of God for my sins. Peter understood that. He confessed
also the deity of Christ. He confessed the deity of Christ. He knew he was Lord. And so then if men will ever
seek God and come to God, it will always be by the same means,
by Jesus Christ alone. Not Jesus Christ plus something.
He came to Christ, he saw his need. And Christ alone gave him
comfort. Fear not. Now how could he say that to
a sinful man? Because that's what he came to do. He came to
die in the stead of this man. That sin that should have separated
him from Christ. Christ was to bear that sin in
his own body on the tree for him. Therefore he could say,
fear not. So all who come to Christ alone, fear not. Fear not. Now, remember what
those people in Galatia did, they came to Christ with circumcision,
right? They said, Jesus is good. Now
we need Jesus. We need his blood, we need his
righteousness, we need his redemption. We need all of that that you
say we need. But, you need to be circumcised. They added one
thing. And what did Paul call them?
He said, they are anathema. Their gospel is nothing but a
curse. And so what is all religion that
adds anything to Christ? It's a curse. It's a curse. But one who is confessing, confesses
himself to be a sinner and deserves nothing but the wrath of God, but hears the word of Christ
concerning the gospel, fear not. Fear not. Why? All is ready.
Provisions are made. Isn't that the king's feast? Isn't that what he said? Tell
them that are lame and halt to come. All is ready. And so what must we do, sinners?
How are we drawn? When you're drawn, you cast off
your religion, you cast off your righteousness, you cast off everything! And you believe. You take His
righteousness and put it on. You take His blood and you're
washed in it. All is ready! All is ready! Come! And isn't that what they
did in the last verse? He said this, it says, "...when
they brought their boats to shore, they forsook all and followed
Him." Like I said, it's easy to say, I'm a sinner, I need
Jesus, I need Jesus, I love Jesus, I love Jesus. The evidence is
this, you forsake all and follow Him. TRUE FAITH ABANDONS EVERYTHING
FOR CHRIST. TRUE FAITH ABANDONS EVERYTHING
FOR CHRIST. You suppose that they look back
after they had given up those fish. You suppose they thought,
man, we just left a lot of money there. Not one thought of it. They had in Him everything they
needed. Why? They heard the gospel and
they believed. And what did He do? He made them
fishers of men. Even today, this book that we
read catches men. It catches men. It caught me. It catches you. And I'm very thankful that this
means is always successful. Paul said this, we do always
triumph. You got that? The gospel is always
victorious. Always. Why? Because this is the means by
which God will save his people. And it's by this means God feeds
his people. feeds us, keeps us, sustains
us. Oh, how weary we get. The land
outside here is desolate, barren. No joy out there, no hope out
there. All my hope is right in there
concerning Christ. I pray God will bless His message
to you and realize that He has made us fishers of men. The gospel
is the net. The fish are the men. The one
who draws them is Christ. The one who is sufficient to
save them is Christ. And all who believe on Him, forsake
all and follow Him. I pray that God give you such
grace to do so even today. Give me grace to continually
do so. Faith's not a one-time thing,
is it? It's day after day, believing
on the Son of God. Sometimes we're confused and
we say, Lord, what's going on? But we know this, we can't go
nowhere else. To whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life. I pray God will bless this to
you. Stand and be dismissed in prayer.