Once again, good morning. In our last study, we began this
new series that's titled, Simon Peter, an Apostle of Christ.
And we began looking into his life, the life of this child
of the Most High, this one who was loved before the world was,
this one whose sins are paid for by the Lamb, the One who
is called the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
This One who is God Almighty in the flesh, who fulfilled every
part of the law, every commandment that we were speaking of just
a moment ago. Not just the Ten Commandments, not just the First
Commandment, but all of the things that our Lord Jesus Christ commands
of His people. He fulfilled it perfectly for
this man just as he did all of God's people. So as we look at
life, at the life of Peter, as we looked last week and saw how
he was a fisherman, and we saw how the Lord passing by called
him and he left everything immediately. We took a look at the three different
accounts, one in Matthew, one in Mark, and one in Luke, and
we stopped and took a moment in Luke because Luke gives us
a very close detail of that calling, and part of that calling was
the collection of fish, the catching of the fish. We considered last
week that holy calling our Savior calls with the power of God,
for He is God manifest in the flesh. All the fullness of the
Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily. We look at the result of this
power shown by those that He calls leaving all and following
Him. We consider on how when we first
heard the gospel preached, when we first heard the words of Jesus
Christ and who He is, when we first heard the words of Jesus
Christ and what He has done for His people, When we first heard the words
of Jesus Christ and what he is doing right now, sitting on his
throne, risen from the grave, there's a lot of people that
are celebrating that on this day, mixed in with bunny rabbits
and chicken eggs. Foolishness. I was very reluctant at first
to But I decided as a member of
the community, it was probably better to do so. So I allowed
the fire department to have their Easter egg hunt out here yesterday.
But I thought to myself, I wonder if I'm sending a wrong message
in doing so, or should I stand the ground and say no? I ended
up giving in, I didn't see any harm in that. Those people probably
weren't gonna go to church today anyway. And it was raising money
for the volunteer fire department, so I let it go as it, and Kathy
and I took off and left. But when we heard that word,
the word of God preached, and we heard the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking to our hearts, these new hearts that we have today,
these hearts who believe. We remember that time when we
didn't believe and how we left that behind. I heard a testimony
yesterday, just a wonderful, wonderful blessing of a testimony
from a brother in Christ on how the Lord called him. And on how
when he came to this very church the first time, the pastor was
out in the front hugging and saying hello and being just as
kind as all these other men are. And the first thing that crossed
his mind was, oh no, here we go again. Another one of these. That was the day heaven came
down for him. And touched him. Not through the man who was guiding
him, greeting everybody, but through the gospel that was being
preached. from the pulpit that the Lord
has provided us with. Christ walked by and he said to that man, come,
follow me. And he has been keeping that
man following him ever since. No. Well, yes, me too, but I'm
talking about another man. Our brother Mike Lovelace shared
this with me yesterday and how he was steeped Steeped in religion. Zealous to do the work of God
for the Seventh-day Adventists. But as he was going along doing
these things and looking at the Word of God, looking at Jesus
Christ speaking to his heart, he knew something was wrong and
he had to turn away from it, so he did. And then by God's
grace, one day his daughter said, let's go to this church. And
they said, okay. And they came here and heard
the gospel preached. You know, that's a testimony that I've
heard from almost every one of you in some way or another. That's
a testimony that could be mine. And how our Lord walked right
by and said, John, come follow me. And even for a while, I didn't
know that's what I was doing, but yet I did. I did. Ask the lady sitting right there,
she'll tell you. She thought I came home that
very day brainwashed. Oh no! You heard something! And then one day, one day, one day
the Lord laid it upon her heart to feel that loneliness of sitting
home on a Sunday. Alright, I'll go with you. And the Lord began to speak to
her heart. That's what the power of God does to His people. That's
why we speak so outwardly about free willism. Because we know
that if we were left to our own free will, we'd still be back
there fishing, wouldn't we? We'd still be back there looking
for whatever it is we were looking for in life. Yet because of the
love of God, Because of the love that he has had for us since
before the world began, he said, come, follow me. And we did. Our Lord says, my sheep hear
my voice and follow me. There was also another point
that was made. And I'd like to take just a little bit of a deeper
look at it this morning. We're not going to have long
30, 45 minute Bible studies. I'm going to keep them short,
and here's why. I want to make a short point. I want to make
one point. And then after we're done with
these short Bible studies, I want you to be able to go back, have
fellowship, and maybe the Lord's laid something on your heart
to talk to one of the others about. The other day, Bill Silva. The
Lord sparks stuff in his heart all the time, He's not ashamed
to grab ahold of John and say, come here, look at this. I was
thinking about this. What do you think about that?
And I was just, I was, I'm so blessed. And I want that blessing
for you folks. So we're going to take short
Bible studies. We're not going to take long periods, but we're
going to take short ones. So that way we can look at one
point and consider that. Now you may recall that, turn
to chapter, turn to Luke chapter five again, if you would, please.
That's where we left off last week. You may recall that Luke
gave us a more detailed look at the event of Christ calling
his apostles, and one of the details was catching a great
multitude of fish. Remember he said, go out into
the deep. And these men who had been out
all night, yet they had caught nothing. So this catch was a
very miraculous thing indeed, especially out in the deep. So
much so that it filled both ships to the brink of almost sinking. Yeah, you know, you can catch
a few fish out in the deep. I'm not saying you can't. But
if you want to catch a lot of fish, anybody who's ever done
any fishing will tell you, you go to the shoreline. And that's
where most of them are. Yet here, in the deep, our Lord
shows the power of God in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by
bringing in a multitude of fish. So many so that it would have
sunk two ships if it hadn't been for the power of God holding
them up. And Luke knew, Peter knew that he was in the presence
of God Almighty. He knew in his heart that he
was nothing before this man called Jesus. And here in Luke chapter
5 verse 8, Peter reacts to this revelation that he is in the
presence of God. Read verse 8. Chapter 5, verse
8, And when Simon Peter saw it, when he saw all the fish and
the miracle of God, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart
from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. We know that the account shows
us that Peter left all. He left everything to follow
Jesus immediately. But yet, when he saw the miracle
of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he saw the
power of this man who is 100% man and 100% God, when he saw
the authority, he had reverence for Him. Oh my goodness. Moses, when he
came in the presence of the bush, what did he do? Take off your
shoes, you stand on holy ground. Moses went to the ground. He
put his face into the dirt. I'm in the presence of a holy
God. I'm not worthy. Peter says, depart from me, oh
Lord. I am not worthy to be in your presence. Obviously, I know
who you are. You have shown this to me. You
have revealed who you are to me, just as he does to each and
every one of us in his word. We were talking about Harold
Camping yesterday. I had the blessings of spending a little
time with Mike and Shirley yesterday afternoon. And we were talking
about this man over in the Bay Area who was just as crazy as
could be preaching about the end of the world in 1994. Yet Mike was very clear when
he mentioned this. He says, but I know he's a child
of God. And I totally agree with that. I believe he was a child
of God preaching the truth of God and God allowed him for some
reason to go off on those crazy things. And I don't know why.
We don't know why God allows us to do certain things, do we?
We don't know the path that God has for us, do we? We're going
to talk about that in my message later on. But here this man was
being used to preach the truth of the gospel. And Mike heard
it. Which confirmed to him that this
other stuff that he heard, this other, I'll say dung, Forgive me if that offends anybody,
but I'll say dung. This other stuff, this other
religious things that you have to go do, he could see, when
he started hearing the truth, that this is wrong, and I'm glad
I left that. And he started looking for churches. When he found the truth being
preached, the Lord arrested him. When he found and heard The sovereignty
of God. The perfect holiness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The mercy and love that He has
for His people. Oh Lord, depart from me. I am
unworthy of you. And he cried. I shared with him that same thing
happened to me on the road to Reading. I was in my semi. I had been going to church for
maybe a month or so. I don't know how long it was.
I was driving to Reading every day. I had six hours to listen
to Harold Camping. And this was after Harold had
left the foolishness of the world ending. Well, he didn't actually
leave it. He just stopped pursuing it for a while. Because he came
back to it later. But there was a time there in
between those where he preached the gospel again. And the Lord
was using this man to speak to my heart. And as I heard the holiness, the perfection of who God is,
it convicted, it pricked my heart. I actually pulled over between
Corning and Red Bluff and bawled for about a half hour. Over the mercy that my God has
for me in revealing these things to me. Here, Peter. Now remember, these are things
that's leading Peter up to read, to write about the grace of God. To write about the love of God. To write about what He has done
for His elect. That's what we're going to read
about when we get to the books of 1 Peter. And these are the
things that Peter must experience. Just as Jonah had to experience
death in the belly of the fish. Just as Jonah had to see himself
delivered from death so that he could say to the Ninevites,
a very nasty people, salvation is of the Lord. He had to learn
that. Here, Peter saw the miracle of
Christ. before his very eyes. How many
others saw that? How many others does it tell
us here, drop to their knees, drop down in the presence of
God? I only see one. I only see one that the Lord
reached out and pricked the heart of. And when Simon Peter saw it,
he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me for I
am sinful. When one has had the revelation
of who Christ is, one will lower themself as one should in the
presence of the Most High. To prostrate oneself is to show
reverence to this one who is God in the flesh. A reverential
fear, not a fear of, oh my goodness, I'm going to be harmed, but a
fear of, I do not deserve to be in the presence of one so
good. This is what makes the grace
of God so precious to us, isn't it? Is this not how our Lord shines His grace
in our lives? When we see what we deserve,
when we know who we are, and we see the mightiness of His
love. Did not we all go through this
very thing when we first understood who this Jesus is? Maybe not
in our flesh. Maybe we didn't go through it
in our flesh, but was not our spirit brought low as we heard
the preaching of His Word? As we heard of His grace for
His people? Isaiah puts it this way in chapter
6 verse 5, he says, Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." John, he puts it this way in
chapter 3 verse 30, he says, he, he, speaking of our Lord
Jesus, He must increase, but I must decrease. That's the reverence
that I'm talking about. Peter was experiencing that very
thing. He was in the presence of God
Almighty, who is man. Who are we that can stand in
the presence of God? A holy God, so perfect that He
can't even look on us. Yet He doesn't look on us alone,
does He? He looks on the blood of His Son. The blood of love. The blood
of mercy and the blood of grace. And He sees our sins no more. Turn over to the 8th chapter
of Luke, if you will, and let's consider a moment. Let's consider a moment of point. The eighth chapter of Luke. I
was going to cover two, but that's going to bring it up a lot longer
than I wanted to, so we'll just look at one real quick here. We see here in a story, an event. Now, when I say a story, I want
to make sure you understand this is an event that actually happened. We read it as a story because
it's in the book written. But it's an actual event that
really happened. There were many, many witnesses to this event.
This event was recorded in other places. It's an event, not just a story. But it's about Jesus Christ,
who is 100% God, and yet he's also 100% man. And we're going
to see a man who is in the presence of the Almighty. I was going to begin in verse
22, but let's go to verse 26, please. And they arrived
at the country of the Gadarenes. Now they had crossed over the
lake. The Lord had gone to take a nap
and the winds had come up. This was the other event that
I was going to take a little closer look at, but we're going
to bypass that for a moment. And the Lord had, they'd gone
down to the bottom of the ship, and they woke the Lord up, and
the Lord said, oh ye of little faith, and he said, be still.
And the seas were calm. OK, so this is right after that
event. They'd come to shore on the other side. And they had
arrived at the country of the Gadareans, which is over against
Galilee. And when he went forth to the
land, there met him out of the city a certain man which had
devils long time, and wear no clothes, neither abode in any
house but in the tombs." Are we not looking at a picture of
ourselves at one time? We were naked. We had no righteousness
of our own. We abode nakedly, and we hung
out in the tombs, in the valley of the shadow of death. And when
he saw Jesus, he cried out, and he fell down before him, and
with a loud voice said, what have I to do with thee, Jesus,
thou son of the God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. For he, speaking of Christ, had
commanded the unclean spirits to come out of the man. For often
times it had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains
and in fetters. And he broke the bands and was
driven of the devil into the wilderness. And Jesus asked him,
saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion, because
many devils were entered into him." When I read that, I think of
the boils. boils on Job's head all the way to
his feet. Leprosy, a disease that fills
the whole body, rots it out. Devils were entered into him,
many, and they besought him that he would not command them to
go out into the deep. And there was there a herd of
many swine feeding on the mountain, and they besought him that he
would suffer them to enter into them, and he suffered them. Then
went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine and
the herd ran violently down into a steep place into the lake and
were choked. Do we not see the power of God
even over the devil himself? Even over all the devils? Jesus
Christ rules everything. Never let us forget the sovereignty
of our God. And when they that had fed them
saw what was done, they fled and went and told it to the city
and in the country. Then they went out to see what
was done and they came to Jesus and they found the man out of
whom the devils were departed. And here's what I wanted to get
to. Just like Peter. Just like you and I. When the Lord commands that the
light be shined in our hearts, what will happen? The light will
shine in our hearts. When the Lord commanded the devils
to leave this man, the devils left this man. And they were departing. And
then they went out to see what was done and came to Jesus and
he found the man of whom the devils were departed sitting
at the feet of Jesus clothed. Clothed in the righteousness
of Christ and in his right mind and they were afraid. They were
afraid. And they also which saw it told
them by the means that he was possessed of the devils was healed.
And then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadareans
round about beside him to depart from them." Now notice the depart
and the reason for it. This is important, folks, because
this is the world. Here's what the world does to
Jesus Christ, sovereign ruler of everything. Here's what the
world did to the one who claimed to be God in the flesh. They
crucified Him. Depart from us, for they were
taken with great fear. And He went up into the ship
and returned back again. They were afraid of what He had done.
That they were going to take away all their power. That they
were going to take away all their wealth. He was going to take
away these swine. There was a great multitude of
them. You know how much money the guy who owned those swine
lost right there? They just went and ran right
over the edge and were gone. How dare you take away what is
our high point, our free will? They were afraid of that. You're
going to take away from me what's mine. Peter was, I'm not worthy
to be in your presence. Depart from me, for I am a sinner. These are the points that I want
us to take into consideration. points that God has laid heavy
in my heart to present to you as we consider what kind of man
Peter was when he sat down and penned out the grace, the love,
the wonder that God has in saving his people. Amen.