Luke chapter 5. Our text is verses
1 through verse 11. And the title of the message
this evening is, The Preaching and Calling of Christ. The Preaching and the Calling
of Christ. In verses 1 through 3, we read
of the Lord Jesus Christ preaching the Word. preaching the Word. And then in verses 4 down through
verse 11, we have this miracle of the fishes, the miracle of
the great catch. And this miracle of the Lord
that He caused to happen by Simon and his fellow fishermen is,
as all miracles are, allegories. You know, miracles in Scripture
were not meant to just show off. If you and I could do miracles,
we would do that. We would just show everybody
how wonderful we are by doing miracles. Christ did miracles
on purpose. There was a reason for His miracles. They were to display His deity
as well as preach the Gospel. Is that not what we do every
time we come to a miracle in Scripture? We should automatically
see that this is the Gospel. This is a Gospel in an allegory,
a picture. And so we have that here. in
this passage as well, which is an allegory of his calling, his
disciples, a calling to the preaching of the gospel. So first of all,
let's look at this first three verses here. Christ preaching. Christ preaching. Scripture says,
And it came to pass, that as the people pressed upon him to
hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennazarit, He
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 he prayed him that he would
thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught
the people out of the ship. The preaching of the gospel.
Christ's preaching. Here we have the Lord Jesus Christ
continuing His work. continuing his work of preaching
the gospel. Remember, we've already studied
this, when the Lord began His ministry, He preached from that
prophet, the prophet Isaiah, which said, the Lord, the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, to do what? To preach the gospel to
the poor. And so this is what he did his
whole life, his ministry. He preached the gospel to the
poor. Now this gospel, praise God,
was not for self-righteous men. This gospel was never intended
for men who have no need of salvation. That's why when we preach the
gospel, you know who I preach to? Sinners. All the time. Every time. When Christ preached
His gospel, He was preaching to sinners. If you ever read
John chapter 6, you know he fed that 5,000. But in John chapter
6, he's left them. He just leaves them. And he goes
on. And they follow after him trying
to get some more bread. And he, as it were, preaches
to them as he's walking away from them. He's not concerned. Why? He said, you are not my
sheep. That's it. So who do we preach
to? We preach to sinners. Because
they're the only ones that'll hear this gospel and receive
it. And so this gospel is about mercy. And not about works. This gospel that Christ preached
is not about works. It's about mercy. It's about
grace. It's about forgiveness of sins.
Jesus Himself said, I came not to call the righteous but sinners
to repentance. Jesus came not to call the righteous
because, listen, there's none righteous. There's none righteous. So this gospel truly could be
preached to everybody. But you know, only those that
hear it are those who are sinners in need and feel their condition,
their spiritual condition and woe of sin. But herein is the
gospel good news. It's good news. That's what the
gospel means, good news. For Christ came to preach to
the poor, to poor sinners who have nothing to pay. Am I speaking
to anyone? Am I speaking to anyone? To those whose best deeds are
filthy rags in the sight of God? God says, come, let us reason
together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be made as wool. But how? How shall this come
about? Even by this One who is preaching,
Jesus Christ. That's how sinners are made clean. By a substitute. If you want a word to describe
the gospel, this is a good one. Substitution. Substitution. It's throughout the whole book.
Substitution. This means that he who is rich,
he who is God, very God, who purposed in love to save and
elect people, came to be made one of us." You remember those
sacrifices of the Old Testament. These that only pictured Christ,
they were substitutes, weren't they? They were substitutes.
You had a man who was a sinner. He was commanded to bring an
offering, a sacrifice. Why? So that the sacrifice should
die in his stead. Yet we know this, that the blood
of bulls and goats could never take away sin. Why? Because it
was man that sinned, therefore it must be man that pays for
sin. And so they were not adequate
substitutes. They were pictures of the one
God-purpose to be the substitute. And this, the Son of God, therefore
the Son of God was made flesh and dwelt among us in the likeness
of sinful flesh, made of a woman, made under the law. Why? That
He should be our substitute. That He should redeem us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. This is a substitute. And he being found in fashion
as a man, the Scripture says he humbled himself and became
obedient. You see, as our substitute, this
same one who is preaching here at Gennesaret, he felt the pains
of human life. He felt all the grief and the
sorrow and the effects of the fall. He felt everything. and yet he himself was without
sin. Have you ever been accused of
something before that you didn't do? Does that not make you angry? I mean, that's just a first instinct,
isn't it? This man did no sin, and yet
he felt every effect of sin. Every effect. He was hungry. He was thirsty. And He humbled
Himself to do this so that He might be an adequate substitute
to perfect a robe of righteousness made by His own hands for us. But not only this did our Substitute
do by His obedience and suffering in life, He did this by His obedience
in death. In death. Not just our woes of the flesh
did He suffer positively to make us a robe of righteousness, but
He also must negatively suffer the fury of God's justice. Go to Colossians. Go to Colossians. And see what the substitutionary
death of Christ has done. Colossians chapter 2. And you, being dead in your sins,
in the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together
with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. blotting
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, that was
contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His
cross. This is what He did. By His blood,
He blotted out your transgressions. They used to have ledgers. They
have computers now. But they used to have books of
ledgers that they would write debts in. And they would have
your name with a list of debts. This is to show that God, by
His divine holiness, had a ledger. And all of your debts were, as
it were, written down. But now the blood of Christ had
blotted out And that's what they would do when you paid a debt.
When you paid a debt, they would put an ink blot over it so it
couldn't be seen anymore. And that's what Christ's blood
has done as our substitute. He blotted out our sins as a
thick cloud so that God cannot and will not ever see them again. Now this is what the substitute
has done. This is what the glorious Lord Jesus Christ came to do. And I'll tell you, this message
that I just preached to you is the same message Christ was preaching
to them. It's the same message that Moses
preached. It's the same message that Isaiah
preached. It is the same message Jeremiah
preached. It is the same message Christ
preached. And you know it is the same message
the apostles preached. And it's the same message everyone
that is called of God preaches. He preached to them the Word
of God. That's what it says. It came
to pass the people pressed upon him to hear the Word of God.
And he sat down in the boat and he taught them the Word of God. When you come to this book, any place you pick, what are
you looking for? What are you looking for? This book, completely from cover
to cover, is all about Christ. And if you're not looking for
Him, you missed the whole point of the book. This is about His
Son. This is about God's Son. From
cover to cover, it is about God's Son and God's glory. And how
He saves His people. That is His glory. It's His grace,
His mercy, it's His glory. And it all is summed up in Christ.
And that's what Christ preached. He preached the word of God.
Now, who pressed in to hear him? It says that the people pressed
in. What a wonderful sight that must
have been. A large group of people just pressing in. And you can't,
you see, I'm above, I have this podium here, I'm kind of above
you and everybody can see me. Imagine if I was level with you
and was full of people. Now you have to imagine, Because
if you imagine, it's full of people. Now my voice could carry
only so far. And so the people in the back
would be pressing in to try to hear. They'd be leaning in trying
to hear. They want to hear. So who's hearing? Well, all sorts of people. All
sorts of people were listening. There were some people like the
Pharisees were listening. Now what were they trying to
do? They were trying to catch Him. They were pressing to catch him. They were pressing to try to
prove him to be a fraud. Some in the crowd were just there
because they were curious. They were curious. You know why bigger churches,
the larger, big congregation seems to grow so fast is because
most people in there are just curious about what's going on.
They're curious. When a big crowd gathers, isn't
that what we are? When there's a big crowd gathered,
aren't we saying, oh man, what's going on over there? So that's
how some of those people work. Some people come into the church,
that's what they come in to do. They're just curious. They're
just curious. Now God may use that. I don't know. But it's just,
some people, they come in and they hear about election. They
hear about predestination. And their minds start spinning
and they say, oh man, that sounds interesting. I'd like to know
something about that. And so they're just curious.
Some people come in, they're just curious. Some people came for physical
healing. They had some very bad problems and they needed healing.
So they came for that. But there were some, there were
some who came to hear even because they believed Him. They believed
on Him. Some came to hear because they
were ordained to eternal life. They were ordained to eternal
life. And those that were ordained to eternal life, they pressed
in to hear the Word preached because they believed it. They
believed it. The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violent, and the violent take it by force. In other words,
there were some people in that crowd that must have it. Isn't that, believers, isn't
that you? We must have it. We press in
and everything opposes us. How many things opposed you this
evening just to come? How many? I know how many things
opposed me and I don't know even a half of them. But they were
opposing me. My flesh opposes me. My kin may
oppose me. My troubles may oppose me. My
difficulties, the weather, the wind, the rain, everything opposes
us. But we press in because we have
to have it. We have to have it. We must be
fed by the Son of God lest we die. We must have it. So some
came for that reason. I tell you, yes, God has an elect
people. God has loved them from eternity.
Christ came into the world as their substitute. They are His
sheep. He victoriously accomplished
their redemption, sanctification. He is their wisdom. But those sheep, those sheep, they didn't come into the world
that way. They didn't come into the world with that knowledge.
They were born lost. Those elect were born dead even
as others. Yet Jesus said, Other sheep I
have which are not of this fold, them I also must bring. So how
then does God call His people? Even by the same means that Jesus
was instituting here, showing forth here, through the preaching
of the Word. Those that pressed in who were
ordained to eternal life, how did they come to believe except
they hear the preaching of the Gospel? This is what he was doing. The work of regeneration is by
the sovereign Spirit of God. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. But the means of this experience
of grace, this application of the blood, this creation of the
new nature, comes only by the ordained means of God, which
is preaching the gospel. And so here we have the Lord
preaching. What was he preaching? The Word
of God. To whom was he preaching? To
poor sinners. What was he preaching? Substitution. And who pressed in to hear it?
Those that were ordained to eternal life believed it. They must have
it. They must hear it. Preaching
of the Gospel. Now then, secondly, let's look
now at the calling of preachers. That's what he does in the next
verses 4 through verse 11. Now, verse 4, when he had left
off speaking, when he was done preaching, he said to Simon,
launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draw. Now, Simon was opposed to this. He said, Master, we've told all
night. Now, Simon was not some... I like to fish, okay? But I am
a complete and utter amateur at fishing. With me it's not
a profession. I don't need to do it I did it
for enjoyment, but I have really no idea what I'm doing, but Simon
Peter was a professional man These men did it for their living.
They did it for their livelihood and he had toiled all night long
Fishing and he had taken nothing master we've already done this
we've done we've taken nothing and the Lord he said but nevertheless
at thy word in obedience and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He let down that net and he draw up all these fishes. So, so vast,
so full. It was a miracle. But this, my
friend, is nothing more than an allegory. The Lord uses that
miracle as an allegory because then, by that miracle, Simon
Peter sees his sin, sees the deity of Christ, kneels down
and pleads for mercy. And he says to Simon, don't be
afraid. I did this to call you to preach
my word. Fear not, Simon, for thou shalt
catch men. Okay, so it's an allegory. The
calling of these preachers by Jesus Christ. I'll tell you,
if a man is ever called to preach, he would be wise, surely, to
learn and follow Christ's method. He should. He should learn to
follow Christ, learn from his preaching and what he taught
to those he called into this labor. Now, disciples, So before He calls these disciples,
Jesus Himself first preached, displayed what preaching was
about, and then He starts to call them. Now Jesus preached
to everyone. That's a good lesson for us who
are called to preach, isn't it? Preach to everyone. And so let us learn then, if
we are called to preach, that Jesus did not follow men around,
wearying them with His Word. You notice that? Jesus never
followed anybody. They followed Him. What a good
lesson it is for preachers just to simply declare the gospel
and leave it to God. Instead of trying to follow around
making disciples for themselves. That is a natural tendency for
us. And so Jesus never went, He just
went preaching the gospel He didn't weary them with His Word,
though it was vital to their souls. Yet, to all that came,
He did not refrain His lips from preaching the Word to them. In
Psalm 40, verse 9, He says, I have preached righteousness in the
great congregation, and I have not refrained My lips. And preach
the gospel then to every creature. And nor did Jesus change His
gospel to make it acceptable to men. And neither should anybody
ever call to preach, change his gospel. I'll tell you, I learned
something from these men. Another place said, mending their
nets. But, you know, I'll tell you
what, I should learn to mend my preaching. According to this
word. I'll tell you there's some things
that I have said that I wish I'd never said Why because it
was not according the Word of God I should always be ready
to learn If we were preachers, we should be ready to learn from
God ready to learn from his word. I And so let's look at this calling
now. He commanded Peter. He said, Peter, launch out into
the deep and let down your nets for a draw. So what is this net?
The net is represented by the gospel. The gospel net. Believer, the gospel is the net
by which the souls of men are caught and made useful to God
and men. It is the means by which God
saves sinners and brings them to the shores of heaven. And
Peter did not know if he would catch anything. Matter of fact,
I said just a second ago, he was very doubtful. Master, we've toiled all night,
but taken nothing. Yet, nevertheless, at thy word,
he let down his net. At the word of Christ, by faith,
We who are called to preach the gospel let down the net at a
venture. Tonight, listen, I don't know
what the Lord would do with His Word, that's His business. But I know this, this is the
means by which God saves His people and keeps His people and
feeds His people through the preaching of this gospel. And
so we let it down as a venture. Even so, we cast the seed at
adventure, not leaving it to chance or fate or even the will
or works of man. We preach to all men because
Christ promised to have a remnant. I preach to all men because I
know there is a remnant that will hear it, a remnant of the
elect. The promise that some will hear
and believe, not by chance or accident, but by divine purpose
and power. If you hear anything of the gospel,
it is on purpose. Not your purpose, not my purpose,
God's purpose. If you hear any of the gospel
and believe it. Now the draw to these fishes was no purr adventure
with Christ though, was it? The master of the sea knew exactly
where the fishes were because He had ordained them to be there. He had ordained them to be there.
This was no puradventure, even so is the draw of the gospel,
no perhaps, no puradventure, no yes and no, yea and amen is
the gospel we preach, and Christ will find His people, He will
save them and call them, every one, and not one will be lost.
No puradventure to God. Therefore, preachers and witnesses
of Christ, we cast the net, we preach the gospel far and wide,
and the scriptures tell us, as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. Acts 13, 48. As many as were
ordained to... So I cast the gospel. I say to
you, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? It's
an adventure to me. It's not a peradventure to Him. It goes right where He wants
it to. Second of all, all who preach must apply ourselves and
give ourselves wholly to the work. Wholly to the work. Jesus said to Simon, launch out. Where? Into the deep. And let down your net for a draw. Simon was a fisher by trade,
and no doubt a successful one, a good one, even though he had
heard and believed on Christ before this. You know, the disciples,
these disciples, they were with Christ at Jordan. They were disciples of John first. And then when John pointed Christ
to them, they followed Christ and they went to Him with the
wedding of Canaan. They had seen His power. They
had seen His glory. And yet here they are, they're
still in their chosen profession. They're still fishy. And notice the diligence of their
trade. They toiled all night and they
were washing their nets in the morning. These men were diligent
workers in their trade. I've had this, and I bring this
up because I did have a man talk to me about this this week. He
said, what do you think about our service in our work, our
labor, our job? I said, you should serve the
Lord in your work. That your work is vitally important. And whatever you do, do it with
all your heart as unto the Lord. Whatever God has given you to
do, do that. And so some believers are confused
about this as to how they should serve Christ. They struggle and
they say, well, you know, should I quit my job? Especially young
men, they say, well, should I quit my job and serve Christ in the
ministry? Not if He doesn't call you. You shouldn't. You shouldn't
do that. Well, why can't you serve God
in your job or whatever you're doing? You should. These disciples
did not neglect their labor, nor did they neglect to hear
Christ. They didn't neglect to hear Him. You should do both. And the only
one that should suffer should be the job over the Word. The Word should come first, and
then your work. You should do that with all your
might. But the Lord here had some other purpose for Simon
and his disciples than just fishing, than just a human trade. He was going to call them to
a work. And when He calls them to this work, well, whoever He
calls to preach, whenever Christ calls a man to preach, He says,
launch out into the deep. In other words, you need to be
dedicated to this. When a man is called to the ministry,
he launches out into the deep, and he gives himself completely
to the work. Matter of fact, in the other
portions of Scripture that this is paralleled to, Jesus said
unto them, Come and follow me, and I will make you fishers of
men. And they did that. At the very end, in verse 11,
they brought their ships to the land and forsook all. and followed
him. To preach the gospel is to launch
out into the deep. And I thought of some things
about the deep. When we're called to preach, surely we are sent
into deep matters, deep afflictions. Deep afflictions. Anyone called
to preach is sent into deep afflictions. Isaiah 42, verse 7, as deep calleth
unto deep. at the noise of thy waterspouts,
all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." The work and
labor of a gospel preacher is one of deep affliction and trouble. Now I did not think that when
I first came into ministry. I did not think that. I thought
that it would get better. I thought this, you know, as
more I studied, the more I prayed, the more I... I surely thought
my heart would overflow with joys and graces, and I would... the words of God would come to
my lips, and they would just pour out, and everybody would
hear and believe. That is not my experience. And
that's not the experience of many gospel preachers. We are
people of deep affliction. And they're necessary. They're
not meant to destroy us, but rather they're meant to help
us in the work. You see, we learn best in afflictions
to be compassionate. If we were not afflicted, we
could not be compassionate. Tenderhearted. forgiving one
another as Christ forgave us. How could we speak the truth
in love had we not ourselves been afflicted? Had we not been
pressed down and pressed out? And yet in our
deep afflictions we learn also the depth of God's grace. We
learn the depths of God's grace in these afflictions. We learn How deep Christ had to reach
down and pluck this brand from the burning. And we know then
that God is able to save even the worst of sinners through
these deep afflictions. Second of all, we launch out
into the depths of the wisdom and riches of Christ. Paul in
Romans 11, go to Romans 11, look at this. Romans 11, verse 33. Now after Paul declared the sovereign
election of grace, the salvation of man according to the sovereign
mercy of God through the righteousness and death of Christ, he could
not help himself. It is though he breaks out and
he says, Oh the depths! Oh the depths of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God. He breaks out and he just
can't contain himself anymore. Have you plumbed the depths of
God's election? Have you plumbed the depths of
God's grace? Have you even found the bottom
of your own depravity? You see, these riches and glories
and joys and pleasures of God are all stored up in Jesus Christ. And how should we learn except
we read His Word and pray? And this is what men of the Gospel
are given to. We should be given to study and
prayer concerning the depths of the riches and knowledge of
God. And as Paul says, I have not
yet attained I'm not perfect. Paul said, I'm not attained to
perfection, but I press on. And that's what preachers do.
I've not attained to perfect knowledge of the Scriptures,
but I press on. That's what preachers do. We
press. We follow after. If that I may apprehend or seize
that for which I was apprehended for. You see, we long to seize Christ. That's what I long to seize.
When I study, I want to seize Him. I want to grab a hold of
Him. And then, as much as I can grab
a hold of Him, I want to show you what I've grabbed a hold
of. I want to show you what God has. I want to tell you as plainly
and as simply as I possibly can, the glorious riches of the glory
of God in Christ. That's what preachers do when
we launch out into the deep. We want to hold on to Christ
as the object of both our faith and love, and the desire both
of our heart and mind, so that we should be better able to preach
the gospel to you. And thirdly, we let down the
net into the deep. You know, God in Jeremiah says
it twice to false preachers. He said, They have healed the
hurt of the daughter of Jerusalem slightly, saying, Peace, peace,
when there is no peace. The word of false preachers only
speaks of surface issues. Have you noticed that? The word
of men who don't know anything of Christ, they only talk of
surface issues of life. Marriage, family, common troubles
that happen to all men. And so they're really more psychologists
or psychiatrists trying to heal the outward man. That's not what
gospel preachers are called to do. We are called to cast our
nets into the very depths of the issue of man, which is sin. Jesus said the heart is the problem. Sin is the problem. I tell you, I don't want to make
light of any common trouble. Our Lord Jesus Christ knows our
common troubles. Matter of fact, He ordained them.
So I know He knows our troubles. But the main purpose of the preaching
of the gospel is Christ. Preach Christ. The remedy for
sin. The only remedy. And so we launch
out into the deep. And we preach the deep things,
the root of man's issue, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Now that's an issue, isn't it?
That's a real issue. Man cannot believe on Christ
except God give him the new birth. That's a great issue. And I'll
tell you this, except the Spirit of God give a man life, he shall
never enter the kingdom of God at all. And this is the Spirit of God
that He sent through the Gospel messages. Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Saved! And this is the
Gospel net we let down. I tell you, there is no peace
with God except you be born again. You have no promise of peace
with God except you be born again. You must be born again. And so
you, are like these fishes. So long as you remain in the
depths of your sin, you will be no use. You will never be
drawn to Christ. Isn't that right? The fish had
to be drawn up to the feet. They had to be brought to the
feet of Christ. And that's what He does with
His people. He throws them, casts the net, we draw the net, and
they are brought to the feet of Christ. except the net of the gospel
reach down by the hand of the Spirit and give you faith, you
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on you." These
things we preach are deep things. And I tell you, as Paul said,
these are a savor of life unto life to some and a savor of death
unto death to others. We who preach the gospel This
is a joy. Paul said in 2 Corinthians, we
are victorious. This is good news for me. This
is the only thing that really moves me to preach, is that this
gospel is always victorious. It does exactly what God sends
it to do. Even because Christ who sent
us to the deep is with us in the deep. Why was Peter successful
in drawing the fish? Because Christ was in the boat.
Before, when he was alone, when he was alone, he was unsuccessful. Only when the preacher is with
Christ, obeying Christ, is he successful, and the gospel successful. When Christ commanded him to
go, Without Christ, without obedience
and faith, in the gospel of Christ we will toil and toil and do
no good. So many have run without Christ. I thought of that illustration
of Ahimaz. You remember Ahimaz, he heard
the battle. He heard that David's enemy was
defeated. And he said to Joab, I want to
tell David. And Joab said, no, you didn't
see anything. And then he sent that man Cushi.
And Cushi ran to tell David about Absalom his son. And Ahimeb says,
I want to run too. And Joab said, I don't care,
run. You got no message, but go ahead.
And you remember Himaz outran Cushi and got to David first
and David said, what's the message? And Himaz said, I don't know.
I heard a big noise. And your enemies are gone. Well,
David didn't want to hear anything about that. He wanted to know
about his son. Himaz didn't have a message. He ran without a message.
Man running without a message of Christ will toil and toil
and do no good. But Cushi had a message, and
he ran slower, but he had the message. He had the message.
And you know what? David heard what he needed to
hear about his son. Even so, we preach Christ. We have a message, and it's Christ.
And as long as he's with us, we are successful, and we are
a saver of life unto life to some. But to some, the gospel
is a saver of death unto death. You know what was true about
the fishes that were caught and the fishes that were left? You
know what was true about them both? They all died. They all died. Even the fishes
that weren't caught, they eventually died. They all died. But only those in the net were
useful. Isn't that right? You put a starving man in an
aquarium, What good does that do Him if He can't get to the
fish? Doesn't do Him any good. Even so, we who come to Christ
die to self. We who are drawn to Christ must
die to self. If you would be Christ's disciple,
you must take up your cross and follow Him. You must die to sin
and self. This is not an option. Do you
know that? It's not an option. When these
fish were drawn up, they were dead. They were as good as dead.
When we are drawn to Christ, we're as good as dead. Is that
not the most sweetest thing you've ever heard in your life? It is. Because only then can we live.
Only then can we live. Believer, nothing can separate
us from the love of God that is in Christ, but are we not
sheep as counted for the slaughter? Except a man take up his cross
and follow me, he cannot be my disciple. See, life and faith
in Christ means death to flesh and sin. I'm sure that those fish that
were caught, that they appeared to be the unfortunate ones. Now,
we appear to be the unfortunate ones. To the world, we appear
to be unfortunate. And at times, we even envy those
outside of Christ, don't we? We see them prospering, we see
them... We're in the net. We're constrained by the love
of Christ. We're in a struggle. We're in
a battle between the flesh and the spirit, warring against each
other. And oftentimes we look out and
there's no trouble with them. There's no bonds in their death.
They are able to follow their passions and they prosper. But
it's only when we see their end, we see that we are truly the
blessed ones in the net. To us, to us is eternal life,
righteousness that is without sin and corruption, eternal life
and joy in the presence of God. May the Spirit of God teach me
to continually preach this. For the grace to cast the net
of the gospel so that God should draw his people to himself. that we should preach it to all,
that we should cast ourselves out into the deep of affliction and trouble, the
deep of study and prayer, the deep of separation from sin and
self, so that Christ should bring in His people. And the result is always the
same. The result is always the same.
Peter's experience is our experience. When Peter saw it, he fell on
his knees and confessed his sin. Is that not the experience of
everyone caught in the net of grace? We confess our sin. We behold the deity of Christ,
we confess our sins. We're astonished at Him. And then he commands us, fear not. Henceforth thou shall catch men. When they brought their ships
to the land, they forsook all and followed him. We who preach the gospel of God's
grace are called to forsake all and follow him. But listen, this
is not just the ministry of this preacher. This is the ministry
of God's church. You are just as much a part of
this preaching as I am. You may not have this office,
but I'll tell you this, as Simon had to call his partners to help,
even so does God use his whole body in this work to support
the ministry, to help the preacher, to help the pastor. This is what we're called to
do as a body. And we ask that the God would
be gracious to use the message from this place to call His people. That's what we desire. That's
why we give. That's why we love. That's why
we serve in the ministry for the glory of Christ. And I pray
that God would cast out more men. that God would call more
men to preach the gospel. And I know this, He will. According
to the proportion of people He has, He will call men to preach. They will be sent out and they
will catch men. Praise God for His glorious gospel.
I pray God bless this lesson to our hearts and minds. Let's
stand and be dismissed in prayer.