Good evening. It's good to be
back with you. I ask you to turn with me to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1. Our text tonight will look a
little familiar. And that's all right. Mark chapter
1, look with me at verse 16. Now as he walked by the Sea of
Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come
ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook
their nets, and followed him. And when he had gone a little
further thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John
his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.
And straightway he called them, and they left their father Zebedee
in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him. So obviously this is Mark's account
of what we looked at this morning. We saw Luke's account as well
as Matthew's account. And tonight I want to focus more
on their calling. I said that the Lord called them.
We saw the Lord called them. Well, what exactly did He call
them to? That's what I want to consider.
So we see, like we just saw this morning, our Lord came to them.
They were just out. fishing, out living their life.
The Lord came to them. He saw them. He knew them. He knew who and what they were.
And you think about that. God saw them and knew exactly
who and what they were. And what did he do? He called
them to himself. That amazes me. The Lord revealed
himself to them in power, in mercy, and in grace. Now, the call that the Lord called
them with, this was not a general call. Sometimes we talk about
there being a general call to believe the word of God, to repent
and believe the gospel, but the scriptures plainly declare that
we will not and we cannot. John 5, 40, our Lord speaking,
said to some religious folks, He said, ye will not come to
me that ye might have life. Life eternal is having Christ,
it's knowing Him, it's being in Him, one with Him. And He
said, you will not come to Me that you might have life. And
that speaks of all of us, all mankind. We're dead in sin. And
in John 6, He said, no man can come to Me. You won't and you
can't. Except the Father which has sent Me, draw him and I will
raise him up at the last day. Our Lord drew them. And He will
draw all His people. Our Lord said on one occasion,
many are called but few are chosen. We're all called to believe. Naturally, I worship myself,
and so do you. God commands us to worship Him,
believe on Him, okay? All are commanded to believe
on Him, but few have been chosen of God to do so in this life. There is a remnant according
to the election of grace, and they shall believe on Him, they
shall. Now we know that in that day,
in the great day of judgment, every knee shall bow. Every tongue
is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. God will see to it. We may despise
Him every day of our life, but the time is coming when we will
bow to Him. I just pray that it's in this
life while there's still time, not when it's too late. Turn
over with me to 1 Peter 2. I quoted this this morning, but
I want us to see it. 1 Peter 2. Verse 9. And before we even read this,
I just want to say, though we're all commanded to repent and believe,
and we acknowledge only God's people will, I hope we see the
importance of it. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. But I'm here to tell you, the
only ones who are going to call upon Him are those whom the Lord calls
to call upon Him. But I pray we'll at least understand
how vital this is, and that we might pray for the Lord to call
upon us and enable us to call upon Him. But look here with
me, 1 Peter 2 verse 9. It says, But ye are a chosen
generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar or
purchased people, that ye should show forth the praises of him
who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now
look what it says in verse 10. Which in time past were not a
people, but are now the people of God, which had not obtained
mercy, but now have obtained mercy." Peter right here is writing
from experience. Up until this moment when the
Lord came to him and called him, he was not a people, he was a
nobody. He had not obtained mercy, but now mercy is looking at him
saying, follow me. Praise God, he obtained mercy.
Praise God for the God who delights in mercy, delights to show it
to all who need it. Praise God, this blessed call
came to Simon Peter and his brother. You know, often we read in the
scriptures where the Lord, well, he loved Jacob, he hated Esau,
right? Loved Isaac, hated Ishmael. All
through the scriptures, he'd save one and not the other. One
shall be taken the other way. Two sets of brothers. Not only
did our Lord save him, he took two sets of brothers and said,
you're coming with me. You're going to preach with me. I love
that. He's able, isn't he? Oh, he's
able. And what a blessed calling this was. Our Lord saved them,
and he called them to be his apostles, called them to be his
disciples. And I love how the Apostle Paul described the calling
of God. I want to show it to you. Turn
with me to 2 Peter. Should be back in just a few pages. I'm
sorry, 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 1. 2 Timothy 1, verse 8. Paul here is writing to Timothy.
2 Timothy 1, verse 8. He said, Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the
power of God, who hath saved us and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began. I don't know a verse of scripture
that declares it more plainly than that. God hath saved us,
and he hath called us. It was not according to our works,
it was in spite of our works, in spite of everything that we
are. But it was according to something. Look at it again with
me. According to his God's own purpose
and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
I love that. I look right there at the next
verse, "...but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel." He did that for
Simon Peter. How did he abolish death? He
died. You know, we're here to live,
he came here to die. Must be about his father's business.
From the moment he came into this world, his face was set
like a flint to that cross. whole reason he came. He abolished
death by dying our death. I'm crucified with Christ when
he died I died nevertheless I live we live in him we must be vitally
joined to him and I love how it says he hath it's done brought
life and immortality. Peter's immortal you know that?
Immortal in Christ we're going to live forever in him. I love
thinking about it. Verse 11, Paul went on to say,
Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher
of the Gentiles, just like the apostle Paul, Peter, was appointed
by God long before he was ever born to be a teacher and a preacher
of the gospel. It was appointed. Now here's
what I want to get to. Peter, Andrew, James, and John. They
were called to be something. Did you see what our Lord said
in our text? Look back there. Mark 1. Verse 17. Mark 1, 17. And Jesus said unto them, Come
ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. Fishers of men. He said, I will
make you to become this. All true gospel preachers must
be made of God, must be made of Him. He saves us, He calls
us, and He sends us to preach the gospel. A man who sends himself
is not sent of God. I didn't ask to come here. I'm
delighted to be here, but I didn't say, hey Donnie, I'd like to
come preach for you. Oh no. But if he calls, I try to come
if I can. There are many who sin themselves.
There are many itching for a pulpit, itching to have their voice heard.
I'm telling you, I couldn't care less if it's my voice or your
voice or whoever's voice. We need to hear the word of God
and pray God might speak His voice to us. We need to hear
Him. Our Lord said this in Jeremiah 23 verse 21. He said, I have
not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to
them, yet they prophesied. What he's saying is, there's
all these false preachers running around saying, hear me, listen
to me, hear what God has to say. Kind of like Satan twisted the
word of God, didn't he? That's what he did. He twisted
it. That's what false religion does. And it tricks us. I pray
God would keep us from it, and he will. If it were possible,
the elect would be deceived, but it ain't possible, and I'm
so thankful it's so. But he warns us all throughout
this book of false prophets. Don't hear and beware of them.
They come as wolves in sheep's clothing. They're gonna look
like a sheep. They might even sound like a sheep for a little
bit. But Christ said, my sheep hear
my voice. A stranger's voice will they not follow? But nonetheless,
we should beware. Now, the scriptures plainly declare
that, that there are many false preachers. And let me tell you
something about them. They're man-saved. They just plum-saved
themselves. Ask them. Ask them their help.
Well, I dis. Well, there you go. That's all
you need to know. God be merciful to me, a sinner. That's my cry.
I didn't do a thing. They're man-saved. They're man-called. Well, I think I'll join the ministry.
Man-sent. Here's what they are. They're
man-made. Ephesians 2.10 says we're His workmanship. I want
to be His work, don't you? I need it. It's He that hath
made us, not we ourselves. God's people know that. They
believe that. He made us. We didn't make ourselves. Now
these false preachers thinking about this fishing, fishing of
men. I thought about fishing, and
again, I don't know a whole lot about fishing, but I know this.
It's deceitful. Those fish aren't looking to
get caught, right? You have a pole, or in this case,
a net. Put a hook on your line. Put a pretty little bait on there
that, man, it looks attractive. You can find you some nice, expensive
bait. Sometimes you put a nice fat worm on there and throw it
out there. Man, you just smile. You sit down and you smile. Oh,
I can't wait to trick that fish. That's exactly what false preachers
do. trickery, handle the Word of God deceitfully, twist it
like Peter said in his second epistle unto their own destruction.
So sad. In Matthew 23 our Lord was talking
about these man Pharisees. He said they'll compass sea and
land, they'll work so hard to make one proselyte, one convert,
and he said when he's made they make him twofold more the child
of hell than themselves. He's saying all they did was
condemn that fellow. for that woman, for preaching
lies to them, and they soaked it right up, just like those
fish they eat. Once they bite, well, too late. I'm thankful for the words, but
God. Pray God might intervene and save us. Another thing about
these false preachers, they, to us, to this flesh, they're
impressive. You see them on TV sometimes,
don't you? They find a way to say, give me your money, and
you just can't wait to send it. Can't write the check fast enough.
It's sad. It's so deceitful. God is not
deceitful. God is honest. God is truth.
You know, all honesty and all truth comes from Him. All of
it. That's not what we are. That's what He is. These false
preachers, they might look impressive. I'm sure they all sound far better
than I do. In myself, I'm a fool standing
up here. But I pray God might be pleased to use this foolishness
to speak to one of you. These men are educated, well-learned,
well-taught, well-versed. They can quote all the scriptures
probably, and yet they don't know who the scriptures are about.
Our Lord told some folks, He said, you've not so learned Christ.
Isn't that sad? I don't want to know this book
and not know Him. It's all about Him. I don't want
to miss Him. There are so many people who
seem to be qualified to preach. What about these four men in
our text? What about Simon Peter? What about James and John, Andrew?
You think they were qualified to go preach, to preach the glory
of God, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ? Were they qualified? Not at all. Oh, not at all. They weren't even pursuing it.
They weren't even saved until the Lord came to them. There's one church sign
I've seen, one, I'm assuming, false church, that had a sign
on it that I remember it and I actually agree with it. There's
one. I don't want to mess it up. It said, God doesn't call
the equipped. He equips the called. And that's
true. I don't know. Maybe there's some
truth there. I don't know. I believe that
quote. Peter, Andrew, James, and John, they knew how to catch
fish. They didn't know the first thing about catching men. They
didn't know the first thing about the ministry because until Christ
came to them, they didn't know the first thing about God. And
people get up in pulpits who don't know God have no business
being up here. My only business being up here
is that God has revealed himself to me and given me an unction
to declare him. That's the qualification. They
shall be all taught of God. He must call us. He must send
us with a message from Him. The Lord did not call these men
because He saw something in them. He saw some sinful fishermen.
That's all He saw. He didn't call them because He
thought, well, you'd make some good preachers. Buddy, they're
the last you and I would have chosen. This thing of preaching. It's
God's work. That's what I'm trying to say.
It's not our work. Yes, God calls men to the work,
but it's His work. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4,
he said, Therefore seeing we have this ministry, yes, it's
our ministry, but whose ministry is it really? It's His. We've received it. We didn't
pursue it. We didn't bring it about. We
received it from Him. He's given it to us. He's entrusted
us with His word, with His gospel. That's what He said. And I like thinking about Paul,
just study him sometime, look into his upbringing a little
bit, a little bit of his background, he tells us about it. And yet
after the Lord saved him and called him to the ministry, here's
what he said concerning preaching. Who is sufficient for these things?
Paul said that. I'm glad Paul said that because
when I look at Paul, I see someone dare I say qualified. He knew
the scriptures. He was well-learned, well-taught.
He was a religious leader. And yet he said, I got to count
all that, but I got to get rid of all that. If God's going to
use me, once God saved him, God made him throw it all away. God
didn't need that. You know Peter. Two occasions
with Peter preaching that stick out to me. One, the Lord used
him, he declared Christ, and he saved 3,000 people. They heard
him declare the word of God, and they said, men and brethren,
what shall we do? The Lord turned their life upside
down, and he used Peter to do it through his word. And then
I believe shortly after that, Peter stood up again. God saved
5,000 more. Our qualifications are nothing,
brethren. God can use whoever He wants. He could use a donkey
if He wants to, couldn't He? Paul said, who's sufficient?
I'm not. If He wasn't, I guarantee I ain't.
We're not sufficient, but turn with me here to 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. I mentioned I didn't ask to come
here. I'm tickled to be here. It's a great honor and privilege.
But I came here because Donnie Bell called and asked me to come
here. And I can't not think of this before I come up here and
stand here and open the word and start talking to you, preaching.
I'm not sufficient for this. There's no ability in Cody, OK? It's all of him. I am needing God to speak to
us. I need Him to open my, as I'm
talking to you, I need Him to open my eyes to this. Cause my
heart to receive and believe what I'm telling you. All right?
And Paul tells us that right here in 2 Corinthians 3, look
at verse 5 with me. I love this. 2 Corinthians 3,
5, he said, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything
of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of And He's not just talking
about preaching. Certainly, that includes preaching. He's all our sufficiency. But
He's all our sufficiency in everything. What can you do on your own?
Without Him, I can do nothing. But I can do all things through
Christ which strengtheneth me. He's my all in all. He's all
in all. Look at the next verse right
there, verse six. Who also hath made us able ministers of the
New Testament, or covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit,
for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. We need to
remember this, especially if you're ever asked to stand here,
and I pray God would remind me of this constantly, every time
I come up here. I am nothing. Again, Paul said
that very thing about himself. Nothing. Chief of sinners. Nothing.
Less than the least of all saints. That's what Paul said about himself.
And I say the same thing. We like to say, move over Paul,
don't we? That's me. And yet Christ truly, I don't
want these to just be words that enter our brain. I pray they'll
pierce our heart. Christ is all. What do you need? He's it. He's
it. I pray he'll become more to me,
however that's possible. How many days I have left? Every
day, Lord, may you be more to me, my all in all." Now, concerning
this matter of fishing for men, I'll make you fishers of men.
How do we fish for men? It sounds odd to even say these
words, but how do we do it? Do you remember what Peter said
when the Lord told him, you launch out and you cast your net for
a draft? At first, we saw Peter's sin. We saw him doubting our
Lord just like we all do. And then he said, nevertheless,
according to thy word, I'll let down the net. We fish for men
according to his word, according to the word of God. Just like
that net caught all those fish at the Lord's word, we stand
here and we cast the gospel net, we declare the gospel message,
and God is pleased, it hath pleased the Lord to use that to save
His people, to catch His people. The net goes out, and God's people
get drawn in. Aren't you drawn to Christ? I
like the illustration of a net. It draws you in, and you ain't
trying to wiggle out. You gladly get in the net, just
like those fish did. The Word of God. Paul told Timothy,
he said, Timothy, here's your commission. Preach the Word.
Be instant. In season, out of season. Preach
the Word. God's people will hear it, and
they will believe it. How are we to preach it? I don't
want to preach it arrogantly. I don't want to bring reproach
on God whose Word it is. I pray for the Lord to help me
to preach it humbly, honestly, sincerely, prayerfully, urgently. It's an urgent message. We could read the verse, now
is the day of salvation, now is the accepted time, and yet
we still wouldn't have any idea just how urgent it is. It's the
most urgent thing in this world. This is life and death. This
is life eternal that we might know him. How do we fish for men? According
to his word and completely relying on God to bless it. Remember,
Peter had fished all night and caught nothing. I can stand here
all day, week in and week out, and I can't do a thing. I can
try as faithfully as possible to take it as seriously as I
can, pray for God to bless it, but at the end of the day, He's
going to have to bless it. Do you understand that? We don't bless it. Sometimes
we say, bless you. Well, all blessing comes from
Him. We can't save each other? I didn't
save myself. Peter and they didn't save themselves.
God saved them. He must do it all. All we can
do is toil. We labor with wearisome effort.
But the Lord, let me tell you about Him, the Lord whom we preach
is able. If there's one thing He is, it's
this, able. What's He able to do? He's able
to save to the uttermost all those that come to God by Him.
and he will make his people come to God by him. He's able to do
exceeding abundantly above anything we could possibly ask or think.
That's our God. Gabe told me once, he said, anywhere
you go to preach, if there was no prayer before you get up there,
pray for our Lord to dwell in your midst. Pray for the Lord
to be there, to be in the midst of you. And there's a reason
he said that. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there
am I in the midst of them. We need to beg him for his presence. Again, if I'm relying on him,
I can't stand here and not be mindful of that. But I'll just
stand here and make a fool of myself, and we'll all go home
empty and hungry, unless the Lord do something for us, unless
the Lord meet in our midst. And lastly, how do we fish for
men? It's according to God's Word. We're relying on Him. We
wait on the Lord. This is so important. Again,
something my pastor deals with all the time. Wait on the Lord.
Wait on the Lord. We like to rush and try to figure
things out on our own. I do. Just run to and fro and
weary myself. Wait on the Lord. When Peter
let down his nets, he didn't know what was going to happen.
I suspect he thought it was just a waste of time. How often do I or we stand here
and go about trying to preach the Word of God and doubt that
our Lord will bless it? Seriously. I don't know if anything will
come of it or not. I was asked to go, I'll go, and that's that.
I'll maybe have somebody in mind. Well, will they hear something?
Well, I doubt it. I heard Brother Henry say this
in a message once. He said, when you preach, when
you preach the gospel, expect men and women to believe it.
That's the exact opposite of what I naturally do. I think
I will. Expect them to believe it. I
was reading in the book of Acts today, some believe the things
which were spoken and some believe not. Are we encouraged by that? Some believe the things that
were spoken. What things? The things concerning Jesus Christ. They believed it. Isn't that
amazing? Isn't that comforting? That encourages me. That makes
me want to stand up here when I'm called upon to do so because
I know somebody's going to believe it. Some fool for Christ's sake
is gonna go home rejoicing in their Lord. I love just thinking
about it. That makes me excited to preach.
It's not my message, it's His. I get to preach His message.
Oh, what a blessing. So we stand here, we preach.
Paul said, not with enticing words of man's wisdom. He said,
I came in simplicity. That's what he said. And that's
what we're to do. I'm not trying to impress anybody. I want to
impress upon you the need of the Savior. I want us to go home
looking to Him and Him alone. We preach the Word and then we
sit down. I don't need to have a personal
conversation with each of you. You ready to confess? No! We
preach the word and we sit down. We wait on the Lord to speak
to whoever He's pleased to speak to. I'm not going to go chase
you down in the parking lot and say, well, do you believe? That's
not our business. Christ sent us to preach the
gospel, to declare Him, and we can trust this, that He will
bless it. To whomsoever He will. He will.
He will. I know He does to me. That's
how I know He will. I've experienced it. Here's the last point I have
for you. God will catch His people. Every one of them. Those people
we just read about in 1 Peter 2, the chosen generation, the
royal priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar people, that He's
chosen to call out of darkness into the light of Christ. He's
gonna catch them. We can run all we want to. Adam,
well, he took off running, didn't he? He couldn't hide from the
Lord. The Lord said, where are you?
He knew exactly where he was. He knows everything. The Lord
will, he will have us. He will have us. There's a verse
in John 3, I think it's maybe verse 35, somewhere in there,
where it says, he that hath the bridegroom, well, won't you just
accept Jesus into your heart? He has his bride. He that hath a bride, the bridegroom
hath a bride. He has his bride. He's not trying
to have her, he has her. He woos her to himself. Back
when I was trying to date, I'm not very good at it, just so
you know, I'm thankful to have Rachel. I'm not very wooing, okay? Why
she landed with me, it's a miracle of God. Thank you, Bruce. Christ doesn't have to try to
woo us. He just speaks the word, I am, and we're just in love
with Him. If we ever see Him, hear His voice, that's the most
comely voice we'll ever hear. We'll just drop everything and
leave our boats and our dad and everybody and just follow Him.
He's all we need, all we want. God sends out these preachers,
these fishers of men, and yet who's really doing the preaching?
God is. It's His work. It's His work.
I like what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 7. We have this treasure in
earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and
not of us. It's not of us. We preach, but
the Lord speaks through us, through His Word. He begets us with His
Word, the Word of truth. He calls us by our gospel, the
gospel of Christ. It's His work. He's called us
to it, but it's His work. If someone said the word like,
your ministry, it's His ministry. I don't even like the phrase,
honestly. It's His ministry. Lord, use us as you see fit.
Call out your people as you're pleased to do. Add to the church
daily such as you determine should be saved. When that miracle took
place earlier, those men were just astonished at what the Lord
had done for them. It never ceases to amaze me when
I hear about somebody who the Lord has saved. Nothing cheers my heart like
that. To hear so-and-so was baptized, oh, what good news. The Lord uses this means. He didn't just call Peter, Andrew,
James, and John to go be fishers of men just for no reason. It
was certainly for their benefit, but it was for... I just mentioned
the 8,000 people. Two messages, the Lord saved
8,000 people. Isn't that amazing to you? We doubt that the Lord
would do that again, don't we? Don't you? I do. He might. Why should I doubt Him? He did
it before. Why won't He do it again? He's
saving His people. The earth's still here. We're
still here. His Word's still being preached. And know this
about His Word, it endures forever. You say, well, when He burns
the world up, where's His word going to be? His word is Christ. And He's
heaven. He's God. Alright. The last thing
I want to tell you about God's word is that it's effectual.
It's so effectual. When our Lord came to Peter,
His word came to Peter in power. In power. You see that in Peter's
response, don't you? When our Lord dealt with him,
did he sit down and think things through and make a decision?
No. Our Lord spoke to him, and he fell down at our Lord's feet
and cried, Depart from me, for I'm a sinful man, O Lord. I take
that to mean there's power in our Lord, in His Word and in
His work. There's power in it. And what
I'm standing here doing, again, to me, I feel foolish being up
here. And yet I know because God said
it, He uses this to speak life and to impart faith to His children. I'll leave you with this. Turn
with me to Isaiah chapter 55. I want to read some verses here. I'm so thankful this is not dependent
on me. I'm here, I've tried to take
this seriously and study for it and seek a message from the
Lord and be honest with you and honest before Him. But I'm telling
you, this is Him. It's not me, it's Him. I pray
it's of Him. Look right here, Isaiah 55 verse
6. It says, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found. Call ye
upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord,
and he will have mercy upon him. And to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts, verse 10.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and
returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring
forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to
the eater. So shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. God's word shall not
return void. That gives me such hope. Seriously. That encourages me so much. He
sends out His Word with purpose. Today, He might have been pleased
to pierce someone's heart with His Word for the very first time,
and He did that on purpose. Wherever it might have been.
Whoever it was. God does it. He sends His Word. He sends it. He sends it. And
I love too, it said, it shall prosper in the thing where to
He sends it. I mentioned the blessing doesn't
come from me or you. He will bless it. as he sees fit. He
will. Now look at the first three verses
here and I'll be done. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters. And he that hath no money, come
ye. Buy and eat, yea, come. Buy wine
and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which
satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and
eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear and come unto
me, here and your soul shall live. And I will make an everlasting
covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." God's people
will hear that. And they will come to Christ
begging. I like what someone said about
a preacher. It's one beggar telling another beggar where he found
bread. God's people will hear His word that shall not return
void. And it'll say, oh, if you're thirsty, if you're hungry, if
you're bankrupt, come. Come to the Savior. Come to Christ. And by God's grace, we will.
If He calls us, He puts that need in us, we will come to Him.
And I love what it said here. We're going to eat that which
is good. Verse 2, the end of verse 2. And our soul is going
to delight itself in fatness. And right before that it said,
right now we're just laboring for things that can't satisfy.
That's what life in this world is. We labor and we labor and
we labor and nothing satisfies us. You're rich, you just want
more, don't you? Just never satisfied. If God
ever speaks to us, If God ever does for us what he did for Simon,
Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we're going to be satisfied.
Not for a moment. Things here satisfy us temporarily.
We're going to be satisfied forever. Forever. I am so thankful that
God purposed to have fishers of men. I really am. And I'm
truly grateful to have the opportunity to stand here and declare the
glorious works of our God This is the greatest privilege I could
possibly imagine. And again, I'm nothing. I can do nothing.
But God just might use this. He just might bless this to somebody.
I pray He will. Let's have a word of prayer.