Let's open our Bibles to Luke
chapter 5. Let's ask the Lord's blessing before we
begin. Our Lord and our God, We bow before thee, militant
and Christian, and we hope, tremble as I was. You said that this is the man
to whom you will look and dwell with. And so we come before you in
this way. We hope, we pray, and yet we
need Thy Spirit to approach you in a real manner.
We worship Thee in spirit as in truth. And so we asked her
to re-sing, Breathe, on tape. She left the sound to the front. But here's the lower query system. Cannot tell the sound better
out. The task that you would do is, the song says, come into thy garden,
breathe. O wind, blow upon the God of
heaven, my sin thereof. Come out, come forth, come forth. The garden
of Your Word and Your Church is peaceful. Because, bless us, the showers
of blessings are shining in Your Word. Give glory and honor unto
Yourself. And what is said and done is
not by words, through what we do. We sing hymns, we read, we
call upon Thee, and we preach the Word. By Thy Word now, we
do this, and we ask that You would honor Your Word for Your
glory and our goodness. We continue to pray for the needs
of Your people. It's in everyone that sexual
abuse is intended to break forth. Darnell, yes, it is. Lizzie Gordon,
who I refer to, is pretending to pray for her. She prays for
her sister, Jennie. She would come to her at the
same time as the time of the truth. If this will might be done, she'll
flow with it. Like Coach Richard Hodges and
others, Lord, every need You know of. We pray, we continue
to pray for the radio. That's the last thing we would
do. We call on someone to heal the
company. To lead them. To come here. More importantly, come
here to hear the company. We pray, do it for your glory,
and we will We give you all the praise and honor that you alone
are worthy to give us of our sins now, we pray. We ask that
you meet with us again in Christ's name. Amen. All right, in Luke chapter five,
this first eleven verses, Luke chapter 5 took place before the miracle at the end
of chapter 4. This is not chronologically. This took place, actually took
place before those casting out of the devil in that fellow and
others. And according to Matthew, Mark,
and John, this place is full, all right? Now, why Luke put
it in this order, I don't know. God knows. There's got to be
a reason. I'm certain there's reasons unknown
to us, unknown to me, perhaps to cause us to search the Scriptures.
compare Scripture with Scripture. I know this. For me personally, I know this.
That if it had not been this way, I wouldn't have gone back
and searched and seen some things that I believe the Lord has shown
me. I wouldn't have searched this
out like that. But let me show you what happened up to this
point. Okay? We need a little history up to
this point. The title of this message is, The Making of a Disciple. The Making of a Disciple. And several things took place
before this. God's problem, Christ's purpose
in bringing these disciples to this point right here, where
He's going to really reveal Himself powerfully. And you may see your
own stories. I know you'll see them. and similarities
and how the Lord dealt with you. Now let's go ahead and turn back
to John chapter 1 and build the history. John chapter 1. Now
John the Baptist, the baptizer, was baptizing. And here in John
chapter 1, look at verse 28. It says, These things were done
in the Thabara, beyond Jordan, where John was baptized. Now,
the Thabara beyond Jordan was about 40 or 60 miles, 40 to 60
miles south of the sea or the lake of Galilee. Sea of Galilee,
Lake of Galilee, Lake of Gennesaret, same place. Lake of Gennesaret,
we went to in Luke 5. That's the Sea of Galilee. That's
the Lake of Galilee, same thing. An inland huge body of water.
All right? But Fabra, where John was baptized,
was 40 to 60 miles south of there. All right? Now look at verse
35. And you know how John was preaching for two or three days.
It had the same message every day, remember that. In verse
thirty-five it says, and now again the next day after, John
stood and two of his disciples, and two of his disciples standing
there with John, talking with John, and these two fellows,
who these two fellows were, they were fishermen. These two fellows
were fishermen from up at Galilee. Forty, sixty miles north of here. Galilee. They were born and raised
in a place called Bethsaida. All right? One was named Andrew. Look at verse forty. One of the
two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother. And I believe the other one was
John. Well, if John didn't like his
name, I believe the other one was John.
Now these fellows were partners in a fishing business. They were
cousins. And they had two brothers. They
were in it with them too. Andrew, I mean Simon and James. All right? Well, they had felt compelled
before. Obviously, they felt compelled
to come down 40 or 60 miles I come foot to hear this preacher named
John, all right? They came all the way down, left
their boats, left their brothers and fishing, and came all the
way down, 40 to 50 miles, to hear this fellow named John speak
in here something, hear him preach, all right? I know who can tell
me. But somebody's waiting. And they came to hear a preacher,
but who they ended up meeting, They heard a man, but who they
ended up seeing and meeting was Christ himself. That's the way
it is. That's the way the Lord deals
with us, the way it is with all of his followers, the making
of all his disciples. They hear of him through a preacher,
and in the Lord's good time, he personally comes to them and
reveals himself to them. All right, here in John chapter
1, now John, the baptizer, knew The Lord Jesus Christ, as he
bore witness of it. Do you remember? Every time he
got up to the priest, he said, Behold the Lamb. The next day,
Behold the Lamb. The next day, Behold the Lamb.
He said, All you know, John, is all there is. Behold the Lamb.
Well, look at verse thirty-seven. And the two disciples heard him
speak, and they followed Jesus, as I've said so often. This is the true preacher, the
gospel one, who wants men to quit following him and start
following Christ. And they followed Jesus. Then
Jesus turned and saw them following and said unto them, What seek
ye? What seek ye? Here is the mark
of a true disciple. They said unto him, Rabbi, that
is, the interpreted master, where dwelleth thou? You, who came
here from you, follow you. That's what they said to him. All right, so look at what he
said, verse 39. He said unto them, Welcome. Come on, follow me. Come on, let's go. Where are
you dwelling? Now, look at verse 39. Now, they came and saw where
he dwelt and abode with him that day, and it was about the tenth
hour. Now, that's two hours and four nights. That's six o'clock
in the evening. Now, you know John started preaching
earlier than that. He didn't sleep till noon when
they had said it. He didn't get up and say, oh,
what am I going to do today? He got up and cracked the dawn
and started preaching. And fishermen don't sleep in
either. They heard John 3 early in the
morning, all right? Now it was 6, 4, 9. They, he said, they said, where
do you dwell, Master? And he said, well, come and see.
And they started walking. And they were going to walk back. He's going to Galilee. That's
where he lives. We're going to see that, and
Luke's got the facts. He walks anywhere from 40 to 60 miles.
And he can do it. It takes eight, 10 hours. He
can do it. He can walk two or three miles
an hour. Right? Four miles an hour. All right? Five miles an hour. I got my math right? Five miles
an hour is not unreasonable to walk. All right, the point I'm
going to make here in a moment, I'm going to tell you this. All
right? He said, come and see. So they had to follow Christ
and walk for anywhere from 8 to 12 hours to get all the way up
to Galilee. Christ walked everywhere. Except when he got to the other
side. Then he did some walking too,
didn't he? I just thought about it now.
Then he got out of the boat every now and then. But Christ walked everywhere.
All His life, He's walked. Except when He rode into the desert. Why? Because He walked
by. Christ, He walked. And so much
with. And if we walk with God, like
the disciples of Christ, we're going to walk too. Discipleship
with Christ is a slow, steady walk in this life. You know what I'm
saying? It's not fast, per se. It's a
slow journey. It's a walk. Slow progress. And if you walk for miles on
end, after a while you think, I don't know if we're going to
make it. And I'm sure as they walked with
pride, they thought, where is he? Where is he going? He thought we'd have been there
by now. He said, come and see. And so we followed him, and then
he saw us. Well, that's just awesome. So Abraham went out, not knowing
where he was going. I mean, you know, he walked. Well, as they started, so they
walked, and walked for miles, and as they neared Galilee, closer
they got to Galilee, they thought, maybe he's going to Galilee.
And Andrew and John, they may have spoken up to him and said,
well, Lord, we live in Galilee. Well, you're headed up to our
hometown. We're from Bethsaida. I think he knows that. He said,
we fish in Lake Galilee up here. We do all our fishing up here.
I said, I know that. We're going to do a little bit
more fishing. In this lake. And he said, we've
got two brothers up there. That's precisely the reason he's
headed there. That's exactly why he's headed
there. The Lord didn't just go up and say, well, we'll stop
here for the night. But where was I going to go? He had a purpose.
Every step he took was according to divine purpose that saved
one of his men. And he went to great lengths
to forgive. And this discipleship with him
has been flowed and walked through this life. All right, look at
verses 40 through 42. And one of the two which heard
John speak followed him with Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
And this is what happened when they got there. He found it in
his own brother, Simon, and said to him, We've found the Messiah.
Boy, they were ignorant, weren't they? We've found the Messiah. Oh, yeah. Boy, when the Lord
first begins to deal with us, we don't know much, do we? Our
speech is pure wrong. He changes that, doesn't He?
He changes that. And he said, in verse 42, he's
a Christ. And in verse 42, and he brought
him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he
said, Thou art Simon, the son of John. Thou shalt be called
Cephan, which is by interpretation, a son. So they got there about
two hours before night. Now turn over to Luke chapter
5. This is our story. Luke chapter 5. They got there
about six o'clock in the evening, and that night, as dark came
on, that evening, as dark came on,
they decided to go fishing. You know, that's what enters
in a fisherman's mind. When it gets dark, they like
to fish. The fishing conditions were perfect. And they decided to go fishing,
so the Lord let them go. And they went. But the Lord had other purposes. He had
other purposes for each of them. Are you with me? And their occupation
was about to change. He was about to change their
occupation. And how He's going to do it is
He's going to spoil their fishing. They fished all their lives,
and they were good fishermen. They were in business, and there
were four of them. They were partners, and they had many boats. And
their dad was in on it. It was a family affair. They
had a private fishing business. They knew what they were supposed
to do with their money. You go out with them, you don't get anything. Well, they fished
all night long, and caught nothing. They couldn't understand
it. This was life. Probably a little
light rain following, falling, you know, night time, or the
time of the year, and they couldn't understand it. Well, let me just
tell you a little bit of my story here. I remember when the Lord,
and we all need to think back on how the Lord brought you to
where you are now. Everybody here ought to do that. You ought to remember, now, the
Lord, where you were and how it brought you. Think back on
that. Do that. Sit down sometime and say, can you imagine, of
your life, and see what marvelous things the Lord has done in your
life to bring you where you are now. Do that. Do you want a blessing?
Do it. See how He providentially brought you to hear the gospel. Right now, you are where you
are. I remember when the Lord called me, began to call me,
I come here. And I went fishing for jobs,
didn't I? I went fishing for jobs, and
there were some jobs I saw that I was well qualified for. Remember
that one with the ice on the oil? I didn't think it was mine.
My conditions were right. My qualifications were good.
I had inside connections. I knew some people. I knew the
fella who was hiring. He was a good buddy. He made
it. It was mine. The job was mine. I was confident in it. I caught nothing. I didn't get
the job. I tried something else. I caught
nothing. Everywhere I went, I didn't get the job. Remember that car
dealership? And I was frustrated. And I received a call. And it was not the job I was
looking for. But it's where I am. It's right where I'm supposed
to be. Lord frustrated my job seeking. You know. Put out my
net and caught nothing. And like I said, you can surely
recount in your past. what all the Lord has done. It
frustrated your purposes, spoiled your fishing trip, to bring you
to the point of hearing the gospel. Can you? All right, now look
here in Luke chapter 5. It came to pass that as the people
pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the
lake of Gennesaret, that's Galilee, and saw two ships standing by
the lake. But the fishermen were gone out
of them and were watching their nets. All right, this is the
next morning, and Simon, James, Andrew, and John were not in
their boats. They were watching their nets.
They caught nothing that night. All right, and it says that he entered
into one of the ships, which was Simon, and prayed him or
asked him that he would thrust out a little from the land. The
Lord, I enjoy thinking about this, the Lord got in that boat,
and Simon was over there watching his net, and that's his boat. But like the Lord, So that man
that owned that donkey, you know, the Lord had to lead us. He did
not. Whatever the Lord decided to do, he's going to do, and
everybody's going to do it. So he got into Simon's boat,
and Simon, over there watching his net, came over to him, and
the Lord said, now, get in, get through, and shove off. By this
time, people would have heard he was there, and they were gathering
around him. Everywhere he went, large crowds
gathered, OK? They wanted to hear him preach.
So he said, shove off. away from the land. So they did.
And he sat down in the ship. He sat down and taught the people
out of shit. He taught the people out of shit. Why? Why'd he sit in a ship? Well, to show them. And I see here, I see the ships. I see our Noah right there in
the ark. I see our Red right there in
the ark. And I thought of this too, Christ
in the ship, because when a fellow comes to Christ, he enters into
fellowship with Christ, on board the ark with Christ. All right, verse 4, it says,
Now when he had left speaking, when he finished teaching or
speaking to the people. He said unto Simon, he looked
straight at Simon there. He spoke specifically, particularly
to Simon and said, Lodge out into the deep. Let down your
nets for a day. Simon, you and I are going out
into the deep. Come on. He sat down on the neck
of a grass. Now, he talked to people. He was speaking to people, all
right? Many were called by what he said. I'm about to be chosen for Him
to reveal Himself to them in a powerful way. Chosen to be
His Son and follow Him all the days of their life. All right?
Now, he specifically says, the Master, the Lord, God manifests
in the flesh through our fellowship with the Father and the Son.
I, sitting in that ship, And he said, Peter, come on, you
and me, end of the day. And I look at Genesis 7, we're
prepared to get a blessing. Genesis chapter 7, as you know,
is the story of Noah and the ark. Christ was in the pit, and
he said, Peter, come on, come on, get in the pit, let's go
out and pray. I look here at Genesis 7, you
got it? Just as Christ bid Simon, and if you look here at Genesis
7, verse 1, the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house
in the earth. He didn't say go,
he didn't say go into the earth, what did he say? Why, where was God? He's already here. Come now,
look at this. For thee have I seen righteous
before me. Why is it saying that? No better
than anybody I know. And this is exactly what Peter
found. Peter found grace in the eyes
of the Lord, like Noah did. Peter was seen as righteous before
God. He called him, all right? And
look what he said to Noah, or look what happened to Noah, all
right? He got in the boat, in the ship, Noah did, and thrust
out. They went out in the deep, and verse 11, it says, In the
six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the
seventeenth day of the month, the same day where all the fountains
of the great sea had broken up, he got out in the blue waters
and the windows of heaven were closed. And I was there, damnation to
some, but blessing to another one. I got out in the deep. Now
back in the text, so he said, Let's go out on the beach, launch
out into the deep. I believe this, the water, we
know, stands for the Word, the Word of God. And other things,
but principally, I believe it stands for the Word of God, and
Scripture says this. Listen to these Psalms, as I
quote them to you. Psalm 36, verse 66. I have a hard time saying that word,
but it's a fishing term. unfathomable God's worship
to thy judgment of great deeds, thy ways and my ways to the bottom. They're deep. Listen to this.
Psalm 42, verse 7, "'Deep, call it unto deep at the noise of
thy water.'" The Word calls unto the Word. It advances the Word. It prepares you for spiritual
things of the future. All thy ways and thy billows
are gone open. Listen to this, Psalm 107, verse
23. Psalm 107, verse 23, says, They that go down into ships
through fishing in the great wide sea. You hear that? He didn't hear
that first time. Okay. They that go down in Christ are
do business with Him. God's business is God's business. Huh? Religion today, not even
ways and acts of religion, but those that are in Christ by faith,
oh, we do business. And we urgently seek to dive
deep into this one. Oh, can't you see the ocean is
just still an unexplored, unknown quantity, isn't it? Isn't it? The ocean is just wonderful. Men haven't discovered the how.
And that's a picture of God's fullness and God's Word. The
half has been filled. The ocean of His fullness, of
His Word. And you know also, this stands
for trial. Trial. Deet called us under Deet. That Psalm 42 is a Psalm of trial. He called upon the deep, and
the noise of thy waters spathed all thy ways, and thy billows
had gone over me. Trials, deep trials, believers
are called to go through deep waters. Come through the waters. Come
through the waters. These waters, they do business.
Those are in Christ. They're going to go in these
waters, the waters of His Word, the waters of His trials. Now,
look at this, chapter, in verse 5. So He said, "...launch out
into the deep, and let down your nets for a draft." Now, I believe
that the nets here, they stand for several things. And I believe
in what we're saying here, what we're looking at, the water being
the Word. We're going out to see if our
Lord has been revealing Himself to us. I believe it. This net
is the mind. Pardon me. Let go of your net. Open your mouth. I feel it. Open up and be filled. All
right? Lay down your net for a bath.
All right, now look at verse five. It says, "...Simon, after
he had said unto him, Master, we have toiled all night, and
have taken nothing." We have toiled all night and have taken
nothing. That's right. You can toil all
your life. You can work all your life. And all of your work, your effort,
will avail nothing. No merit to no avail. Works of re-toiled all night. Works all night. Romans 13 says, calls them works
of heart. We've toiled all night. Well,
Christ the Light came, Scripture says, to give light to them that
sat in darkness. This fellow's been sitting in
a boat all night toiling and caught nothing. Well, Christ
came to give light to them that sat in darkness, to turn them
from darkness from the fish, the fish, the fish, to reveal
Himself to them. And as in creation, listen to
this, you're going to like this. In creation, it starts out this
way. Darkness is on the face of the
fish. Darkness is on the face of the
fish, and the Lord said, let there be light. He darkens on the face of his
people until the Lord says, You like them, let there be light.
All right, well, Simon, I'm glad I don't do that. I can cure
relations. Simon said, Master, we've toiled
all night. Now, Simon didn't know him too
well right now, did he? He just didn't know it too well.
We're going to see that because he calls him that. He's just
basically what he says. Rabbi. It's an interesting note.
Well, I've got to go. I've got to go. All right. He
said, we've toiled all night and taken nothing. Never the
less, at thy word. At thy word. I will let thee
out. At Thy Word. Take you at Your
Word. At Thy Word. At Thy Word. This could be said. What three
glorious words these are. At Thy Word. And this could be
said concerning everything that has ever taken place. It has
taken place and been done at His Word. According to His Word. That's how it works. The world
was made at His Word. Right there. The seas were filled at His Word. He said that everything that swam is His mercy. A little
later on, I'm going to tell them it's man's. At His Word. The
seas were filled. Man was created. Noah built an ark. Noah said,
it never rained, Lord. He didn't say that, he thought
it should. It never rained. Nevertheless,
at thy will. And Abraham left home, didn't
he? How? Why? At thy will. At thy will. Moses led the people. I can't
leave these people and live. At thy will. At thy word, he
upholds all things by the word of his power. Everything and
everyone does his bidding. At thy word, Simon says, I will. At thy word, I will. At thy word, I will. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. What is his power? He upholds
all things by the word of his power. At thy word, I will. That's
pure. That's pure. That is pure. One
thing's for sure. What he tells you to do, you
will do. At thy word, I will. It is God
which worketh in us both to do, will and do it this way. All
right. Now look at verse six and seven.
And when they had done this, they let down the net. I wish
I could paint this picture, but this is wonderful. Oh, this is
wonderful. I can't do it. Some men are much
better at painting the scene. But this actually happened. This
is an actual event, like that fellow with the devil and everything.
It actually happened. They de-celled right on the scene.
And they threw those nets out. And it says, and when they had
this done, now they'd been out all night and tired, and they'd
already washed their necks. I said, where'd you put your
necks on? You know, it took time. But,
Sam, you've got to fold those necks just right, because when
you throw them, they'll tangle up, right? The floats and all
that got to be just right. Anybody ever thrown a neck? Yeah. Look, Cody Gruber showed me one
time. He was so hard to that. He was a landlubber like me. I tried it, and it got caught
in the neck. Fold it up just right so that
when you throw it, they have got to use it. They have got
to wash them. They are rotten. And they fold
them up real nice and neat and exposed. And they quit fishing.
They are tired. Never left. Have you ever been
tired? Huh? Y'all ready to fold it in? Fold it up? Come on now. Come
on. We are going to back out there. Okay. Five words. Always get it right. Keep coming
and get it right. And I said, All right, Lord,
you said it. So when they had done this, they went out, lost
out in the deep, took a while to row out there, sail out there.
And when they threw that net out there, all of them were in
on it, at least Simon and Andrew and the one folk. And it says,
They enclosed a great muck to the fish, and their net broke. And what that means is, there
it began to break. It was right at the breaking
point. He was right at the breaking point. And they beckoned unto
their partner, and verse 7, And which were in another ship, and
they should come and help them. And they came and filled both
the ships, everybody that come, and let down their necks. Come on, come on. They're fishing
out there. And it says, and they began to
sink. That is, they were so full, they weren't going to sink, because
somebody was in that skin. Just like the next time they
were in a boat and got carried, it wasn't going down. Ain't no
way. Ain't no way. Who was in that
boat? But their nets were right at
the breaking point. Their ship was so full of food
that they were just burdened with it. Way to think. Well, this is a picture, I believe,
of us when we come and the Lord reveals great things from His
Word. It allows us, causes us to let
down our nets or our poor feeble minds and understanding. The
Lord takes us in as deep water as it were and begins to fill
us up. So much so that we can't take it all in, whereas we're
full. He's always saying, I've had
enough. I've had enough. He's bringing help and I said,
yeah, we can't take it all in. Our capacity won't hold us. At
the breaking point. Or at the dancing point. All
right? And we go to others for help,
too. We go to them. They're floundering,
too. Well, and this is what we see.
And this is what we understand when He takes us out into the
deep waters and He fills us with knowledge. of His Word, when He causes us
to look into the deep waters of His Word, this is what we're
going to see. We're going to see two things. And this is what Simon
Peasick saw and learned from this fishing trip. Two things,
along with having his eyes and face the same. All right? First thing was, he saw through
this water. He saw His power, His glory.
Secondly, now we saw, everybody that sees who He is, sees who
He is. And without fail, everybody that
sees who this is, who Christ is, sees Himself for what they
are. Look at it here in verse 8 and
9, it says, He fell down at Jesus' knees,
saved. Now, listen to what He called
Him. And what did He say? He said,
Depart from Me, for I am a sinful, cold Lord. If you call Me Lord and Master,
you say, Well, I am. It's a strange language to have
in the first place. It's a strange what Jesus did
in the last person. Huh? It's not strange to me. It's strange to somebody who's
a stranger to the cattle and the grain. Huh? It's strange
to somebody who's never met him. It's not strange to me. It's
strange to you, John, what he did. He should have done this
a long time ago. But he's not going to do it until
the Lord reveals it. He saw who this was. Verse 9,
it says, He was astonished. Astonished at what? The draft
officials? Yes. All that were with Him at
the draft officials which they had taken. But they knew it was
at His. That this fish, this fish and
all these fish and all this wasn't due to their own abilities or
it wasn't some unexplained phenomena. It was because this man sitting
in the boat said, drop the net. He dropped the net and they couldn't
get it. They couldn't bring it. He missed
it. You know, the same thing happened
when the Lord came out on that boat later on. You know, they
were afraid they were going to perish. And when the Lord came
out and asked him what it was, he called the ocean, and he said,
What matter of man is this? They all said that. What manner
of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey his
voice? That he just speaks and the ocean
lies down at his feet. He just speaks and fish jump
in a net. Who is this? It's God manifesting
Himself. Peter found that out. This ain't
no mere teacher. This is the Lord. And if He knows
where the fish are, He knows my thoughts. If He can see fish in two hundred
feet of water, He can see every thought in my heart. And he dropped it at me and said,
he's reading my mind right now. Oh, I don't have any business
in your business. He felt unworthy, he felt sinful,
he felt, he was amazed in the presence of this Jesus of Nazareth
and wondered why he'd chosen him, a fisherman unclean. Huh? To get in his boat, of all
boats that were lined up to shore that day, he got in his boat.
I spoke to him personally. Went out in the deep with him
personally to go fishing. Held up his net personally. Not
anybody else's, just me. And he fell at his feet. Oh.