Evening, everybody. Missed seeing
you all last month. It's good to see you. Good to
be back with you. If you want, turn to Luke chapter 5. Luke chapter 5. We're going to attempt to look
at the first probably 10 verses of Luke chapter 5 this evening.
I've enjoyed studying this over the last couple of days. This
portion of scripture is chock full of types and illustrations
of the gospel of Christ. And it's beautiful. There's so
many of them. Many of them I've tried to bring out. But the main
focus of this passage of scripture is an interaction. Interaction. There are two major players.
There is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's always the focus. He's always
the pivot point. And there's Peter. He's referred
to in the story as Simon. Now Simon Peter, he knew the
Lord before this. He had met him. He had spoken
with him. He'd spent time around him. But this is the name he
knew him by up to this point. He knew him as Master. Master,
Teacher. And that is commendable. Commendable.
He knew something of who the Lord was. a teacher, his master. At the end of this story, he
will call him Lord. His name will change. Peter's
relationship with him will change. It will be cut because Christ
revealed himself to Peter. He revealed himself in a saving
way that Peter, for the first time, calls him Lord. My Lord, my God. And if you or
I, if the Lord has done anything for us, if he has revealed himself
to us, the same way he reveals himself to Peter here, everything
Peter experiences here, everything he says, our experience is gonna
line up just perfect with that. So if you would, look at verse
one. And it came to pass that as the
people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, He stood by
the lake of Gennesaret. Our Lord was famous. He was famous
for his miracles, for his preaching. And these people, they had come
to hear him. And they were pressing upon him.
Pushed him all the way to the edge of the sea, as a matter
of fact. That's the lake Gennesaret. It's the Sea of Galilee. They
had pressed upon him and they had a great desire, they had
a great need, and they came to him with urgency. That's what
this thing of pressing means. It was urgent, it was a need.
They were insistent and they were persistent. And I have a
great admiration for these people because of what they wanted and
how they went about getting it. Here's what they wanted, the
scripture tells us. They wanted to hear the word of God. Now
you think about that for a minute. This is what they wanted. This
is all they wanted. We just want to hear what God
has to say. We've heard plenty of people
before, heard plenty of the preaching. Not a one of them spoke for God.
Not one of them had anything to say that God said. You speak
for God. You have the words of God. We
just want to hear a word for God. And we are insistent on
this thing. We are persistent. We are pressing upon you. We
have to have a word from God. I hope I approach every service
with that same attitude. They were persistent and they
were insistent. They had come to the truth, for
the truth, and they intended to buy the truth and to sell
it not. They'd come to the truth. Christ is the truth. He is the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but
by Him. He's the truth. He's the truth about who God
is. God is so holy, and God is so just, when Christ became the
sins of His people, when God found sin on His only begotten
Son, He did not spare Him. That's how just and that's how
holy God is. That's the character of God.
He's the truth about man. When God walked among us, This
is how wicked and polluted and sinful we are. We murdered him.
And he is the truth about how God can be just and justify a
sinner. He has to take your place. God's
justice must be satisfied. Before any mercy can rain down,
before there can be any grace, God's perfect justice, His perfect
holiness, it must be satisfied. This is the way that God can
be just and He can justify a sinful man or woman like me and you.
Christ had to take our place. He had to suffer in our stead.
He must be our Redeemer. He's the truth. They came to
the truth for the truth. They were gonna buy the truth
and sell it not. This was important to them. And
this thing of pressing, It almost seems wrong, doesn't it? It seems
wrong that the created would be pressing, would be insistent
upon the creator for anything. Seems absolutely wrong. Man has
no claims on God, but you know what, they're not wrong here.
They're not wrong at all. The Lord allows for this. In
fact, if a man does this, it's simply because he causes a man
to do that. Let me give you some scriptures
here, and here's the first one I thought of. You remember that night,
that the Lord wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of the day.
The Lord said, let me go. What did Jacob say? I will not
let you go until you bless me. You can punch me, you can kick
me, you can break my leg, you can tear my head off. I don't
care, but I have to have you. I have to have your blessing.
I have to have your mercy. I have to have your grace. I'm
holding on. It's the only strength I have,
grip strength. I'm just going to cling on to you and you do
with me as you will, but I'm not letting go until you bless
me. Intensity, persistence, insistence. The Lord's good with that. There's
another scripture, Hebrews 4.16. It says, let us therefore come
boldly under the throne of grace, boldly. that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help in time of need. Come boldly to the throne
of grace. Come how? Come just as you are.
Come as a sinner. Don't try to clean yourself up.
Don't try to clean your wounds. You come naked and exposed. You
come vulnerable. Come just as you are. That is
the only way you can come boldly. You come to that throne of grace,
Christ's throne, and here's what you will find. You will find
mercy, and you will find grace to help in time of need, and
you will find it every single time. Come boldly. Matthew 11,
12, and from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom
of heaven suffereth violence. and the violent take it by force. Nobody could have written that
but God. Now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and
the violent take it by force. Do you need mercy? Do you need
to be saved by Christ? Come. And you know how you violently
take it by force? You violently beg and you violently
grovel. That's the violence he's talking
about there. There is no room for apathy in this thing. The
stakes are too high and our need are too great. And listen to
this, Christ is too accessible to a sinner. So come and come
just the way these people did. Now, look at verse two. Our Lord is being pressed against
the side of the sea there. These people are pressing upon
him. Verse two, he says, and saw two ships standing by the
lake. But the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing
their nets, and he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's,
that's Simon Peter, and prayed him that he would thrust out
a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people
out of the ship. Think about this for a second.
The Lord is being pressed upon, pressed upon. These people have pressed
him all the way to the edge of the ocean. He sees two ships anchored there,
right? Two ships. And the scriptures
would lead us to believe these are the exact same ships. Nothing
special about either one of them. The Lord hops up in one. He needs
a little standoff distance. It's Simon's boat. This is not
by accident. Nothing is by accident. Two boats. Everybody watched him choose
one, hopped up in one. No one probably thought a thing about
it. He just hopped up in a boat. It was a particular boat. Everything
that happens, folks, every interaction, even the ordinary things in our
daily lives, everything is according to his purpose and his will,
all working together to accomplish his purposes. And he has a purpose
here. This is Simon Peter's boat, and he is the man, mainly, he
is going to deal with today. But he hops up in this boat,
and he preaches to these people, and we don't know exactly what
his message was. It's possible and quite probable
that Matthew 13, what Matthew records there, those parables,
That may be what he preached there. It may be giving the account
of what happened here. I'm not quite sure. It's where
the Lord gives the parable of the sower, and the parable of
the leaven, and the parable of the hearers, the thorn-choked
hearer, the good ground hearer, things like that. That may have
been the topic of his message, but it doesn't tell us here.
It doesn't tell us what he said. We don't need to know that. The
gospel is the same wherever you're preaching it from. It's always
speaking of Christ, Christ and Him crucified. Every passage,
every chapter, every verse, always saying the exact same thing.
And really, if we want to know what the gospel is, all we have
to do is look at His posture here as He preached to these
people. Now, I'm standing here, right? I'm standing up here trying
to preach to you, trying to keep your attention while we're here
and things like that. The Lord didn't need to do that. He always
commanded the attention of everyone who's around here. Look at me,
they did. That's the way it was. He sat when he preached to these
people. He got up in that boat and he
sat as he preached. And folks, that is the message
of the gospel. We preach a sitting Christ. I'll say it again if you didn't
hear it. We preach a sitting Christ. What do I mean by that?
He is not the standing Christ. He is not a man who stands as
if he is on guard from attack from his enemies. He sits, he
sits because he has already made his enemies his footstool. That's
what happened on the cross. On the cross, he did battle.
He did battle with all his enemies and all his enemies were our
enemies. What are those enemies? Satan, our great adversary, the
accuser of the brethren. On that cross, he crushed the
serpent's head, put him down. Death, death, where is your sting?
He put death to death. Now for everyone he died for,
there is no more death. Death has been put away. He was
raised from the dead. Death has no sting. The sins
of his people, that's our great enemy. That's our huge enemy. They were all put down on that
cross. Everyone he died for, he bore
their sins in his body. He bled and died under the wrath
of God for them and for those sins. And now they are gone.
They are enemies under his footstool. And the sudden substance of all
that is Hebrews 10 verse 12. But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his
footstool. We preach a seated Christ, a
seated Christ, a victorious Christ who has already triumphed over
his enemies. We do not preach a standing Christ
because a standing man is a man who still has work left to do.
You get up in the morning, You've got work to do. Maybe you're
gonna build something at your house. You stand, you get your tools, you're
on your feet all day long, and you know what you're gonna have
to do the very next day? Go back and work some more. Not this
man. Not this God man. He's the seated Christ because
his work is done. What his father gave him to do,
coming into this world, he accomplished, and now he sits. What did his
father send him to do? John 6, 39, and this is the father's
will which is sent me, that of all which he hath given me I
should lose Nothing but should raise it up again at the last
day. His father sent him with a particular
task. These people, my people, your people, you're going to
go and you're going to redeem them. You're going to save them.
You're going to do it single-handedly. You're going to do it with no
help from anyone else, especially not them. They can't help at
all. You're going to do it all. That's my task for you. And now
he sits. He sits because his work is done. The evidence of that, he's the
resurrected Christ. God raised him from the dead.
That means everybody he died for, those sins are gone. They
are perfect with God. We do not preach a standing Christ
as a man who stands anxious. He's pacing around. He's wondering
whether what he wants to happen will happen. No, no, no, no,
no. We preach a seated Christ. He's not anxious in any way.
He sits. He sits easily. He sits calmly. He sits in sovereignty and he
sits in omnipotence. He sits in his will and having
the power to ensure that his will is always done. He's not
worried about anything. Are my people going to receive
me? Are they going to come to me? Are they going to believe
upon me? These are not questions he asks because he holds the
keys to life. He's the one who gives them life. He's the one
who draws irresistibly and invincibly. There are no unanswered questions
with him. He does not pace anxiously, he
sits. He sits easy as the absolute sovereign of this universe. That's
the gospel. The gospel is the seated Christ. Now, look at verse four. Now when he had left speaking,
when he was done preaching to these people, he said unto Simon,
launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a drought. And that word drought means a
great haul, a great haul of fish. And Simon answered and said unto
him, master, there it is, master, that's what he knows him by,
teacher, we have toiled all night, worked all night, and have taken
nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I
will let down the neck. Now there's a couple different
ways you can look at this, a couple different pictures we get here. Number
one, this is a picture of man's religion, perfect picture of
it. This man, Peter, he went out with some of the other guys
that would eventually be disciples, Andrew, and James, and John.
And they left out in the afternoon, and they had fished all night.
They had a purpose. They were going to go out there,
they were going to cast their nets, and they were going to get a whole bunch
of fish, right? And they had completely and utterly
failed in their purpose. They toiled all night long in
the dark. And they had taken nothing. They
didn't catch one fish. He used that word toiled. What
that word toil means is weary labor. It's night. They're in
the dark, the pitch black, working themselves to the bone. And you
know what they had to show for it that next morning? Absolutely
nothing. That's actually wrong. It's worse
than that. There's a cost of doing business in anything. There's
wear and tear on the ship. There's wear and tear on the
nets. There's wear and tear on all the gear. And they had taken
nothing, which means they were in a worse spot when they came
back than when they had launched out that evening. They were out
money. They had spent all night wearing
them nets out, wearing them boats out. They have to make repairs
and things like that, and they have no fish to sell. When they left,
they were in a better spot than when they came back. They came
back worse off than when they left. And that's man's religion.
It is weary toil in the dark. In the dark. No knowledge of
who God is. No knowledge of who I am and
how I sit before him. No knowledge of how he saves
or what he expects from me. Absolutely no light from God
whatsoever. Just weird labor. Just working
and working. Somebody tells you, here's what
you have to do to make your peace with God. You stop doing this
and you start doing that. OK, I did it. Am I done? Nope.
Now stop doing this. Start doing that. OK, I did it. Am I done? Nope. When's the work
over? Never is. When's God going to
be satisfied? When's my peace with God going
to be made? We don't know. Just keep working. Just keep
breaking your back. And the truth of the matter is, you end up
in a worse spot than when you started. Because of all those
things you did and you stopped doing that you thought earned
you favor with God. You know what they were? They
were iniquities. They were just sins and transgression. You just
heap more coals on your head. That's it. Romans 4, 5. But to him that worketh not. Stop working. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness or rather his faith is the evidence
that God has made him righteous. To him that worketh not. You
can't make your peace with God and I can't make my peace with
God. I can only make it worse. And you can only make it worse.
To him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly. Believe on Christ. That is the
command. That is what God demands. That
is what you must do. Believe on him. Stop working. Now we have another picture here.
Peter clearly has reservations. He does not want to do this.
Master, we've toiled all night, and we've taken nothing. Now
think about what's happened here. They'd fished all night. They'd
come back. It tells us early in the story
that the fishermen were cleaning their nets. So they had come
back from fishing, taken absolutely nothing, worse off than they
were the day before. They had cleaned up the boat,
repaired whatever they need to, mended their nets, cleaned their
nets. They had put everything away. They had just got done
with work. They'd been up all night. They're hungry. They're
tired. And their experience tells them,
there's no fish out there right now. And the Lord says, you go
out there. You launch out in the deep. You
let down the net. You're going to get a huge haul
of fish. And there's a part of Peter here,
clearly from his language, He doesn't believe he's going to
catch anything. We've toured all night. We were out there.
They're just not biting. They're not where we thought
they would be. They're just not active right now. Nevertheless,
lowered out that word, I'll let down the net. Peter is struggling
here with the same thing you and I struggle with if you're
a believer. I'm a believer. It's called unbelief. unbelief. Anytime there is God-given faith,
faith in Christ, unbelief is right there next to it. That's
because there's two men residing in every believer. You have that
old man, and make no mistake, that old man, he never gets any
better. He remains completely and utterly
unchanged. He's as wicked and as sinful
as the day he was born, and he will never believe God. He refuses
to, and he will be there until the day we die. But then you
have the new man, the new man in Christ Jesus, the very spirit
of God dwelling. And you know what he does? And
the only thing he can do? He believes God with every fiber
of his being. And here's the issue. Both these
men encompass this one body. And they encompass this one mind.
And they encompass this one mouth. And so we say from that man of
old, Lord, I believe. I do. I believe you. Help thou
my unbelief. And that's what Peter is struggling
with right here, unbelief. Here's the next picture we have.
This is a beautiful picture of faith. True, saving faith and
faith in action. Now I want to ask you a question,
a series of questions. What did Peter have to go on at this time?
The Lord gave him a command, made a promise. What did he have
to go on other than that? Did he have an experience to
accompany this? No. His experience actually was
to the contrary. He had toiled all night. He hadn't
taken a thing. His experience told him, you
ain't going to have any fish in that boat. He didn't have
an experience. Did he have a vision or an example? Could he look out where the Lord
pointed to? Could he see fishes jumping in the water there? Could
he see other boats out there pulling in huge holes of fish?
Some sort of vision, some sort of example that would confirm
that what the Lord told him to do, that's what was going to
happen. Did he have any of that? Does the scripture record that?
No. What did he have? Peter had nothing but the promise
and the command of God. And that is all he needed. This
was the command and this was the promise. Let down your nets
for a drought, for a huge haul of fish. The promise and the
command was not this. It was not let down your nets
and you might get a huge haul of fish. It's possible, maybe.
That wasn't the command. The command was not this, let
down your nets and employ all your experience and wisdom as
a fisherman and you get a huge haul of fish. That wasn't the
command. This was the command, go out
in the deep, let down your nets, you are going to get a huge haul
of fish. Peter, I created this lake. I
created this beach. I created them fish. I have purposed
everything that is going on right now. And I have appointed those
fish to be in that particular spot at this particular moment. And here's what you're going
to do. You're going to go out to the deep. You're going to put your nets
down. And you are going to bring up a huge haul of fish. I'm not asking you to do anything,
Peter. I'm telling you what is going to happen because I am
in control right now. All he had was the promise of
God and his command, and that is all Peter needed. And you know what he did? He
pushed off, he cast out in that deep, and he let down his net. You know what that's called?
That is called the obedience of faith. Faith always takes
action. And it's not outward action,
it's an action that takes place in the heart. Now we have the
promise of God. Let me remind you who promised
that. A God who cannot lie. A God who cannot fail. A God
who cannot promise something and go back on it. A God who
cannot purpose something and it not come to pass. This is
the one who has promised this. And if you wanted to sum up all
the promises of this book, here it is right here, Matthew 11,
28. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. To you, if you labor. toiling in darkness, the heavy
burden of work. I can't make my peace with God.
I can't work my way into acceptance with God. Are you heavy laden? Labored? You sin, there's nothing
you can do about it? I can't make it go away. I can't
atone for the things I've done, for the things I've said, for
the things I've thought, and I can't stop. Labored and heavy
laden. That's who this promise and this
command is directed to you. those who labor and are heavy
laden, come unto me, believe upon me, trust me, rest in me,
and I will, this is the promise, I will give you rest. A cease from all your labors,
a perfect standing with God, come unto me. And when the Lord
makes that command and that promise effectual to the hearts of his
people, faith takes action. We believe God. Don't you? I believe God. He makes his promise. I believe him. You know what?
I'm labored. I'm heavy laden. I can't come
up with the goods. Christ says, come to me. We do.
This is the obedience of faith. It is the movement of the soul
from one place to another. That's what Peter did. Peter
went from one place to another. The Lord said, cast out into
the deep. Leave this place you're at right here, and you go out
there to the deep. You know where the deep is? It's
a place of vulnerability. Go out to the place of vulnerability.
That's how we come to Christ. We come naked and exposed and
vulnerable. We come in all our sins. We don't
try to dress anything up. You go out to the deep, that
place of vulnerability, naked and exposed. You know what he
told them to do? Let down your net. Let go. Let go of your net. When we leave a place in this
thing of coming to Christ, you know what we leave? We leave
any hope of saving ourselves. We leave any hope of establishing
a righteousness of our own, any hope of justifying ourself before
God by our works. We leave all that behind. We
drop it. Peter dropped that net. We go
out into the deep, vulnerable, exposed before Christ, and we
cling to Him. That is the obedience of faith. It's not an outward act. There's
no outward action taking place. It is something that takes place
in the heart. This is a very familiar passage
of scripture. Paul said this, 2 Timothy 1.12,
he says, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. And that word committed used
to drive me nuts. When am I committed? How do I know when I've committed? This is the movement. How do
I know? Folks, commitment is very, very easy when you have
nothing else to commit to. Letting go of my works, letting
go of your works, it's easy when you see them for what they are,
nothing but filthy rags. Nothing that does you any good.
It's easy to leave all that behind and to cling to Christ and commit
to Him when you have absolutely nothing else. So I ask you that
question. Do you have anything else? Your hope of salvation. Do you have anything else other
than Christ and Him crucified alone? Is there anything else
you can hold on to? That's it. You're committed.
That's commitment. That is the movement of the soul
to Christ. Come unto me. That's the obedience
of faith. Now, look at verse 6. And when they had this done,
when they went out into the deep and they dropped the net, they
enclosed a great multitude of fishes. And their net break came
to the point of breaking. That's how many fishes they caught.
And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other
ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and
filled both ships so that they began to sink. Now, I find this
interesting. The Lord's ways are not our ways.
This event right here, this miraculous thing that the Lord did, it's
this event the Lord used to teach Peter who he was. It's an amazing
thing. And you have to imagine what
Peter was thinking at this time. He had such a poor attitude before.
Lord, we've toiled all night. Caught nothing. Nevertheless,
at your word, we'll let down the net. Such a poor attitude.
He was full of unbelief. And now his boat is sinking.
His net is breaking because of all these fish that are piling
up in this boat, just exactly as the Lord promised. So important. Just as he promised, it ended
up just that way. The Lord used this to reveal
himself to Peter. And you can only imagine what
Peter's thinking this time in seeing who the Lord really is.
Before, I have no doubt that Peter held the Lord in high regard,
but I have no doubt he thought he was some sort of a prophet,
perhaps the greatest prophet the Lord ever sent. But now he
does not see him as just a prophet, just a prophet. Now he sees him
for who he really is. He sees him as God himself. Before he saw one who could foresee
the future. This man had some insight, some
insight from God. He can foresee the future. Now
he sees one who created the future, who purposed the future, who
is controlling the past, the present, and the future because
he is without time and he exercises sovereign dominion over his creation. Before he saw one who had command
over the creation and over the elements. And now he sees the
creator. Big difference there. This is
not second-hand power. He is the one who created all
this. Peter said, all those fish got in that net at his command.
You want to know why? Because he created those fish.
And he created that lake. And he created that boat. And
he created Peter. And he had to deal with that
right there. This is my creator, the one who made everything. Before, when he heard Christ
speak, he heard a man speaking for God. Now, when he heard Christ
speak, he heard God speaking. Big difference there. Every other prophet said, thus
saith the Lord. The Lord said, I say unto you. These are my words. This is my
gospel. This is the God who cannot lie.
This is the God who can't make a promise and not deliver on
it. God whose purpose must always come to pass. Peter saw him for
who he really is, absolutely trustworthy, God himself, omnipotent,
sovereign, immutable. That's exactly who he knew him
to be. And what's interesting about this is this. Every time
the Lord reveals himself to a man in this saving way, where he
sees who Christ really is, that man also gets a glimpse of himself
and not a second before. The order is so important. It's
not that a man naturally comes to some understanding of his
sinfulness and he starts seeking God. That's not it. The Lord
takes hold of a man. He reveals to a man who he is.
When that man stands in the light of who Christ really is, that's
when he sees himself. That's revealed in Peter's statement
here. Look at verse 8. When Simon Peter saw it, He fell
down at Jesus' knees, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, O Lord. You catch that? Not master anymore. It's Lord
now. New name. For he was astonished. and all that were with him at
the drought, the great haul of fishes which they had taken."
Now I want to break down everything that's happening right here.
It says here that Peter and his cohorts were astonished. And
I actually looked that word up. It doesn't mean what you think
it would mean. It's not that astonishment, it's I'm amazed. It means to
be seized. It means to be surrounded. It
means to be arrested. You know what happened? Christ
took hold of this man. This is the only way that a man will
know who God is if Lord takes hold of that man and he speaks
to that man's heart and he reveals himself to this man. It's personal. This is not nothing generic about
this. He is dealing with a particular man. He took hold of Peter. He
seized him. He astonished him. Took hold
of him and he taught him who he was. And this was Peter's
reply. When Peter saw who the Lord was
in all his greatness, this is what he said about himself, I
am a sinful man. Other men have said this. This
is Job. The Lord revealed himself to
Job, and this is what Job said. He says, I have heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear. I've heard of you before. But
now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself. I hate myself. And I repent in
dust and ashes. You are not who I thought you
were. And I am not who I thought I was. You are altogether different. Altogether different than me.
And now that I've seen you, I've heard of you before, but I've
seen you now. And you know what? I hate myself. I see myself,
I take my place with Peter. I'm a sinful man. This is what Daniel said after
the Lord revealed himself to him. He said, therefore, I was
left alone. Remember, this is particular.
This is personal. Nothing wrong with being alone.
That's a good place to be. That's where the Lord deals with men,
alone, one-on-one. Therefore, I was left alone.
and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in
me, for my comeliness, my beauty, was turned in me into corruption,
pollution, and I retained no strength. Daniel said everything
about me I thought was beautiful and pleasing, acceptable to God.
When I stood in the light of who Christ is, when I actually
knew Him and He revealed Himself, my comeliness, my beauty, it
all turned to corruption. I sought for what it really is.
Just wickedness. Just sin. That's it. Isaiah had
a similar experience. Turn over there to Isaiah chapter
6. Isaiah chapter 6 and look at verse 1. Isaiah says, in the year that
King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne
high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Now, you remember
what happened with Uzziah? Uzziah was a king, and he was
a good king. The Lord blessed him greatly. But at some point,
Uzziah was lifted up in pride. The Lord left that man alone.
And he walked into the temple. And he bypassed the priest, and
he grabbed a censer to burn incense unto the Lord. Only the priest
could burn incense. And he burned incense unto the
Lord. He bypassed the priest. He did not have an intercessor.
He did not have a mediator. And he came into the presence
of God on his own. And you know what the Lord did?
He killed him. Struck him as a leper, and he died a short
time later. Isaiah was his kinfolk. I think he was his cousin. Isaiah
was high on Uzziah. Thought a lot of him. Isaiah
said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. When I
saw that God is no respecter of persons, when I saw Uzziah
walk into the presence of God and bypass the priest, bypass
the man who could deal with God and try to offer up something
from himself to God, that's when I knew God was no respecter of
persons. Absolutely none. None can stand before him. You
have to have a mediator. You have to have an intercessor.
You have to have Christ. He says, in that year that King
Uzziah died, that's when I saw the Lord. This event spurred
all this. And he saw this. He saw him sitting
upon a throne. Now, we talked about that, didn't
we? What do we preach? We preach a sitting Christ. He
didn't see one standing with work to do. We didn't see one
standing who was ready to do battle with enemies. Absolutely
not. He didn't see one standing that was anxious. He saw the
king, that's who sits on a throne, an absolute sovereign, an omnipotent
one, sitting on his throne, ruling and reigning at utter ease. That's
who he saw. He saw him high and lifted up,
and that's relative positioning, is what that's talking about.
And that happened with Peter as well. What's the first thing
that happened after Peter brought in that drought of fish? Said
he fell at Jesus' knees. Position of Christ didn't change,
Peter's position changed. He's always been high and lifted
up. He's always been worthy of worship. He's always been the
God on high. When he reveals himself, we come
down. He said, I saw him high and lifted
up. I saw where I stand in all this.
I'm down at the bottom. I'm down there with Job, abhorring
myself in dust and ashes. I see this one worthy of worship,
no matter what he does with me. I am in his hands. And my eternal
destiny, whether it be heaven or hell, redeemed or not, it
is completely and utterly up to him. He is the king. That's
who I see here. And he says this. He says, his
train filled the temple. What's his train? That's the
hem of his garment. That garment, clean and white. That is the very righteousness
of Jesus Christ. He's someone who is righteous
and holy. And in that, he saw God's expectation. He saw his demand. He demands
perfect and utter righteousness and holiness, and he will accept
absolutely nothing less. That's what Isaiah saw. Go on
reading. Look at this, look at verse two.
Above it stood the seraphims, Each one had six wings, with
twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet,
and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and
said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth
is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. He has seen who the Lord is in
all his terribleness. And I don't mean that in a bad
way. He is frightening, absolutely frightening and amazing. Now
Isaiah's gonna see who he is. Look at verse five. Then said
I, woe is me. Was it woe is me and then I saw
the Lord? I saw the Lord. Woe is me. For I am undone because
I'm 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. Now if the Lord has revealed
himself to you and me, we went through the exact same thing
and we're going through the exact same thing. I've seen the king,
and this is my confession about me, woe is me. I'm undone. Peter referred to himself as
a sinful man. What does it mean to be a sinful
man? The meaning is found in the word.
This cup right here. Is this cup full? I'll hold it
up so everybody can see it. Is it full? It is not. If it were full, if I took an
eyedropper and put one more drop in that cup, it would run over.
Then we would know it's full. It's not full. Peter said, I'm
a sinful man. That means I am full of sin. Everything about me is sin. The
nature, the heart, works its way up to the mind, comes out
the mouth, comes out the hands, comes out in the motives, comes
out in the intentions, comes out in the will. So bad that
every act, every work is infected with sin. The best thing I can
do, go back there, put an offering in that box. I'll skip away thinking,
look what I did. Look what I did for God. Somebody
pat me on the back. Always a self-serving motive.
Always self-glory. Every single time. Can't get
away with it. Sin is what I am. Sin is what I do. Sin is what
I think. And I can't stop. That's what it means to be a
sinful man. This is not a religion for good
people, folks. This is a religion for sinful people. And Peter makes a curious statement.
He says, Lord, depart from me. Depart from me. Now, why does
he say that? Why does he say, depart from
me? You know, that's the natural man's reaction to Christ. If
they ever get a glimpse of him, of who he really is, they say,
depart from me. I want nothing to do with him.
I don't want anything to do with this one sitting on a throne,
high and lifted up, holy and demanding. I want absolutely
nothing to do with him. Depart from me. The demons said
that. Lord, you come to torture us before the time? Let us alone.
Leave me alone. Demons said that. Is that how
Peter meant it? No, that's not how Peter meant it. Peter meant
it this way, Lord, I got a glimpse of you, and I got a glimpse of
me, and we got absolutely nothing in common. It's best you just
leave me be. I'm a sinful man. And the only way I wrap my head
around why Peter would say that is because he only knew in part.
He didn't know the whole story yet. He had seen something of
who Christ did, but the lesson isn't over yet. It's not over.
He'd seen something of the holiness of Christ. He'd seen something
of the holiness of God and the justice of God and the unwavering
purity of God. He'd seen that, but he hadn't
seen anything about the mercy and the grace of God yet. But
he's gonna learn. Look at verse 10 of your text. Keep your place
there in Isaiah 1. And so was also James, and John,
and the sons of Zebedee. They were all astonished as well,
which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, now
I want you to remember where Simon's at right here. He is
on his knees, and he has said, depart from me, Lord. I am a
sinful man. You want nothing to do with me.
There's no hope for me. Just separate yourself from me.
This is exactly where he's at right now. And Jesus said unto
Simon, verse 10, Fear not. I suspect those are the best
words Simon Peter ever heard. That was the Lord's way of quoting
a scripture to Simon Peter that had not been written yet. Paul
would say this sometime later, 1 Timothy 1.15, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Folks, this is the
glory of the gospel. There is nothing I enjoy hearing
about or preaching about more than this. Jesus Christ came
into this world to save sinful men. the chiefs of sinners, and only
the chiefs of sinners. That's who He came to save. And
right now, if you were a sinful man or woman, you can't approach
God. You have nothing to bring before Him. I want you to understand
this. You are a saved man or woman. The Lord Jesus Christ
laid down His life for you. And this is what you see in and
of yourself. You see a sinful man, but you
know the polar opposite is true. Now go back to Isaiah chapter
one. We're gonna look at that word full again. Three times,
Isaiah chapter six, I'm sorry. Three times is Isaiah chapter
six. He speaks of something being filled, filled. Isaiah chapter
six and look at verse three. And the posts of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. What is that house? That's the
church. That's the body of Christ. That
is the lake. It says the house is filled with
smoke. What's the smoke? The smoke in the tabernacle and
in the temple that spoke of the intercessory work and the intercessory
prayers of our Lord Jesus Christ to his people. By our experience,
by our estimation, the house is sinful, it's full of sin. But here's the reality of the
situation. You're full of the intercession
of Christ. He took your place. He bore your sins in His body. He bore your guilt. He bore your
shame. He bore the wrath of God that was reserved for you. And He took that fullness of
sin and He extracted it from you and He put it in Himself
and now it is gone. As far as the East is from the
West, absolutely gone. He made intercession for you.
Now look at the next one. Look at verse 1. In the year
that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne high and lifted up, and his train, what's that word?
Filled the temple. What's the temple? That's the
church. That's the body. That's the elect. What's the
train? That is the righteousness of Christ. Through his intercessory
work, the sin is removed, and now we are refilled. Filled with
what? Filled to the very brim with the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. That is the truth concerning
all God's people. You have the very righteousness
of Jesus Christ, and it really is yours. You have a real union
with Him to where that really is yours, and you're full. Full. That cup's not full because it
can hold more. You can't hold any more. This scripture, John
makes this curious statement, John 1 16, he says, and of His
fullness, His fullness, how full is Christ? Can He get any more
pleasing to God? Could God love him anymore? Could
God see him as any more pleasing? No, he's full. He's absolutely
full. And of his fullness have all
we received, and grace for grace, all by grace. You're absolutely
utterly full. God couldn't want anything else
out of you. When he looks at you, he sees
Jesus Christ, and in him you are well pleasing. Can't get
any more accepted. Can't get any more pleasing to
God. You have His fullness. And finally, there's another
statement about fullness here. Look at verse 3. And one cried
unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is what? Full of His glory. Peter was astonished, wasn't
he? He was astonished. Let's just take that word for
what we think it means, astonished. Why would he be astonished? Why
me? Why would you do this for me? Why would God send his son
to die for sinful men? Why would Christ be willing to
take on the sins of sinful men and die for sinful men? He literally
died for the men who put him to death. Why would He be willing
to do that? I'll tell you about this. So
He would have the fullness of glory. And what I'm about to
talk about I don't truly understand. I don't know how God can attain
to a greater glory than He has always had. But through His cross,
He attained to the fullness of glory. He saved humanly unsavable
men and women. who could offer absolutely no
help. He did it single-handedly, and now when he enters heaven,
and all of us are there, his name is sung, he receives all
the glory, because he gets to sit back and see, see this group
right here. They were sinful, but look how
I've made them. Holy, and unblameable, and unapprovable,
and he gets full glory. And there's another motivation
there as well, love. an eternal love. He loved us with an everlasting
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. That's his motivation right there,
his glory and his love for his people. I want to finish over in John
21. I'll turn there for a second. Peter learned a very valuable
lesson. It's the heart of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ
died. He saved sinful men and women. That's his people. Sinful. And this would stick with him
for all his days. Of course it would. I feel kind
of foolish saying that. Stick with him. That is the gospel.
It's what we cling to every single day. But at this point in John
21, there's been a lot of water under the bridge. A lot of things
have happened. Peter has seen a lot. He's had
many experiences with our Lord. And finally came time when the
Lord told his disciples, my hour has come. It's time for me to
be delivered. And Peter told him this. He said,
Lord, I'm ready to go with thee, both into prison and to death. Peter was very confident, very
courageous. Lord, I'll go into prison. I'll die with you. Whatever. I'm down for the cause. Let's
do it. Very courageous. And the Lord said this to Peter.
He said, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt
thrice deny that thou knowest me. And Peter starts the day
very courageous. Soldiers come to try to take
our Lord, and Peter almost kills one of them men. He pulls out
a sword, aims for the guy's neck, lops his ear off. And I appreciate
where Peter's heart is at and all that. I appreciate his love
for Christ. But sovereignty and omnipotence
does not need defense from men. The Lord had actually healed
that man's ear. He started out very courageous, but as things
wore on, he lost heart. And he ended up denying the Lord.
He was finally intimidated by a little maid, and the cock crowed,
and Peter had denied the Lord three times. And I have no doubt
how Peter felt. I'm sure he felt, I'm definitely
not a disciple. I'm definitely fake in that respect.
But am I even saved? Has the Lord ever done anything
for me? Am I real? All these swirling
questions. I have no doubt he had those
questions. I would have those exact same questions. I know exactly
how it would feel. And finally, Peter says this
to the other disciples. He goes, I go fishing. And what
he meant by this was this. He says, I'm done with this discipleship
stuff. I'm not cut out for this. I'm not real. I'm going back
to what I know. I'm going back to fishing. And
they said, we're going to go with you. Pick up in verse 3,
John 21. Simon Peter saith unto them,
some of the other disciples, I go fishing. I'm done. Going
back to what I know. They say unto him, we also were
with thee. They went forth and entered into a ship immediately. And that night they caught nothing. Now this is familiar, isn't it?
A lot of time has passed, a lot of water under the bridge, and
where does Peter find himself? Back where he started. He's in
a boat, he's in the dark, and once again, he's not catching
a thing. And I have no doubt that his
thoughts, because he had a lot of time to think, not catching
any fish, drifted back to this interaction with our Lord when
he revealed himself to him. when he saw the Lord for who
he was, when he saw himself for who he was. He heard those words,
fear not. And you remember what he said
when he asked the Lord to depart from him. I bet he was kicking
himself going, that's so stupid, I should have never said that.
And he's sitting there thinking about these things. And look
what happens, look at verse four. But when the morning was now
come, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that
it was Jesus. Then Jesus saith unto him, Children,
have you had any meat? They answered him, No. And he
said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship,
and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now
they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
It's the same story all over again. Peter is reliving Groundhog
Day. It's the exact same thing all
over again. You can only imagine what's going
through his mind at this point. Look at verse 7. Therefore, the
disciple whom Jesus loved, John, saith unto Peter, it is the Lord. Now, remember what he did the
last time. When he saw the Lord, he said,
Lord, depart from me. Depart from me. I'm a sinful
man. Let's see what happens this time. Now when Simon Peter heard
that it was the Lord, he girded his fisher coat unto him, for
he was naked, and did cast himself into the sea. Before it was Lord,
depart from me. And now it's this. I don't care
about them waves. I don't care about that water.
I don't care about any animals in that sea. I don't care if
it's thunderstorming. I'm getting to him. I'm getting to Him. I've seen something of His mercy
and His grace. You know what? I'm still a sinful
man. But I remember this. He is the
Savior of sinful men. And He came to the Lord seeking
mercy and that's exactly, exactly what He found. Now I get to the
point. I get to the point here. If you are a sinful man or woman,
sinful, understand this, the Lord Jesus Christ died for you. You have been saved. I'm not
telling you to do a thing. I'm simply telling you the way
it is. If you were a sinful man or woman, he shed his blood for
you, and you are complete of his fullness. You are complete
right now. Now, what do you do? Come to
Christ. moving your soul right now, and you come to Him. And
you know what you do after that? You just keep on coming. But
I still sin. He's the Savior of sinful men. But I'm full of unbelief. He's
the Savior of sinful men. But I've committed great sins.
I brought dishonor upon myself, upon my family, upon my church,
I've done great and terrible things. Jesus Christ is the Savior
of sinful men. Go to Christ just like Peter
did. That's where I'm going to leave
you.