The Lord said, follow me and
I will make you fishers of men. And when Drew read that passage
of scripture, I thought, here we have what the fishing of men
is. Some people asked the church,
his beloved, what is thy beloved more than another beloved? There
was some reason why they asked that question. And the answer,
my beloved is. And she goes on to describe her
beloved. That is the fishing of men. Now go back to our text in Matthew
chapter four. Verse 19, and he saith unto them, follow
me, and I will make you fishers of
men. Now, these men were commercial
fishermen. And he says, follow me and you'll
be a fisherman of a different kind, a fisher of men. Now, every believer without exception
is interested in this thing of being a fisher of men. All without exception who have
been saved by the gospel have a desire for others to be saved. We want to be fishers of men. All who know the Lord Jesus Christ
desire for others to know him. I believe it to be a thing impossible
to be saved and to be indifferent about the salvation of everybody
around us. We want people to know Him who
is altogether lovely. This isn't just talking about
convincing men to be in agreement with our doctrine. We want men
to see Him. I love the way she described
Him, my beloved and my friend. We want all men to know this
one who is our beloved and our friend. Now, that being said,
there's a lot that goes under the name of a desire for the
salvation of others that is not that in reality. This is important
for us to understand this distinction. We'll never be a fisher of men
if we do not understand this distinction. In the Lord's message
in Matthew chapter 23 that led to his death, after this message
they plotted his destruction. He pronounced eight woes against
the Pharisees and the third woe he pronounced on them was But
woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you compass sea and land
to make one proselyte, one convert, one person who you can say, I've
influenced this person for good. I brought them to a saving knowledge. And when he is made, you make
him twofold more the child of hell than you are. That's a sobering statement,
isn't it? With regard to the proselytizing of false religion,
and that could be said of most so-called soul winners. Now, I love Proverbs 1130. He
that winneth souls is wise. And indeed he is. And I love
that passage in Daniel chapter 12, verse three, where they that
turn many to righteousness. shall shine as the stars forever
and ever. And remember this, this is not
talking about anything less than turning them to His righteousness,
where they see His righteousness is the only righteousness. His
righteousness is the righteousness they're trusting is all that's
needed to bring them into God's presence, accepted, perfect,
saved, and complete. But what I'm talking about is
Men who come without the gospel message. They're seeking to proselytize. They're seeking to gain converts.
But they're coming without the gospel message. And that's not,
that's soul murder, is what that is. If I come to someone without
the gospel message. And these men that, under the
guise of We're trying to win people to Christ, don't really
have any love for Christ at all, or they preach his gospel. What
they're doing is manipulative. They're trying to use men to
further their own cause and a feather in their cap. Look what I've
done. Look at the good I've done. Look how I've influenced men
for good. Let me show you this in Galatians chapter six. Galatians chapter six, beginning
in verse 12. As many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh. I think that's such an accurate
description of man's religion. A fair show in the flesh. That's all it is. Let's go on
reading. They constrain you to be circumcised
They want to influence you to be circumcised. They want to
force you to be circumcised. Only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. They won't preach the
gospel because that will bring on persecution. For neither they
themselves who are circumcised keep the law. They tell you to
keep the law, but they don't. It's pure hypocrisy. They desire to have you circumcised
that they may glory in your flesh. Look how I've influenced this
person. Look what I've done with this person. Their life has been
changed through my influence. Now that is evil. That's all you can call it. It's
manipulative. It's using immortal souls in
order to put a feather in your own cap. And that is evil. Now, back to our text in Matthew
chapter four. Verse 17. From that time, Jesus
began to preach. I love thinking about that. The
Lord was a preacher. He began to preach. Look in verse
23 of this same chapter. And Jesus went about all Galilee.
Now Galilee was about six times the size of Fayette County. That
gives you some idea of his itinerant ministry. It was about 1,800
square miles. It had 200 villages in it. And the first part of his public
ministry, he went around all of Galilee teaching in their
synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the good
news of his reign. I love that title for the gospel,
the gospel of his reign, his kingdom. And he healed all manner
of sicknesses and all manner of diseases among the people. And his fame went throughout
all of Syria. And they brought unto him all
sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments
and those who were possessed with devils and those who were
lunatic and those that had the palsy. And he healed them. Not one time did he have to say,
you don't have enough faith to be healed. He healed them. and they were healed. And there
followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from
Decapolis and from Jerusalem and from Judea and from beyond
Jordan. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was
a preacher, preaching the gospel, and he was the fisher of men. Look in verse 17, from that time,
Jesus began to preach and to say, here was the content of
his preaching. This covers everything. Now,
we could talk about this for the rest of our lives, what this
meant. But here's the summary of his preaching at this time.
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, he came with
the same message John the Baptist came preaching. You know, there's
only one message. Mark chapter three, I mean Matthew
chapter three, verses one and two. In those days came John
the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, repent
ye, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Now what does this mean? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. Now the word means change your
mind. Change your mind. What you think
is wrong, what you view, how you view things is wrong. Change
your mind. That's what the word means. People
generally think, when they think of repentance, they think, well,
I need to repent of my sins. And that is a, listen, we ought
not ever sin again. Don't misunderstand me. But not
one time in the Bible do you find the phrase, repent of your
sins. It's not in there once. Repent
means a complete change of mind. Now what about, what about? Everybody naturally believes
in salvation by works. That is as natural as breathing,
to believe that salvation depends in some way upon what I do. There's something I must first
do before God will save me. I must first turn from. and give up all my sins. I must first, as an act of my
will, accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. I must first
accept His offer of the forgiveness of sins. He's offering it to
me, but I won't have it unless I accept it. I must, of my will,
an act of my will, except Jesus Christ, salvation is in some
way ultimately dependent upon me. There's something I must
first do before God will save me. That is called salvation
by works. If my salvation is dependent
upon me to first do something before God will do something
for me, that means salvation is ultimately dependent not upon
God, not upon what Christ has done, but upon what I do. Now, this belief in salvation
by works betrays an ignorance of the character of God an ignorance
of my own character, and an ignorance of God's salvation. Now, to believe
I can be saved by something I do is a denial of the character
of God. It's a denial of His attributes. It's bringing Him down to a human
level. Like if I believe salvation is
by my works, that means I believe He's not holy. He can accept something that
comes from me. That's a denial of his holiness. It's a denial
of his sovereignty. It's saying salvation is ultimately
dependent upon my will and not his will. His will is trumped
by my will. It's a denial of his independence.
It says he must have me do something first before he can do something
for me. It's a denial of his immutability. It's saying he can change in
his attitude toward me. He can want to save me and then
turn around and send me to hell. Every attribute of God is denied
in this belief of salvation by works. And I'm called upon to
change my mind. What I thought was wrong, what
I thought was not real. Everybody that believes in salvation
by works, they have a wrong view of the
character of man. Because if I believe what the
Bible says about man, I will know that I cannot be saved by
anything that I do. If I understand what the Bible
says about me, my own personal sinfulness, my depravity, my
fallen Adam, my spiritual inability, The carnal mind is enmity against
God. It's not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. Now, if I believe that, I can't
believe in salvation by works. It's impossible. If I believe in salvation by
works, I deny that salvation is of the Lord. Now, when I repent,
my mind is changed with regard to the character of God, my own
character, and salvation. He's holy, I'm sinful. Salvation must be what he does,
not what I do. Have I ever learned that? Salvation
and all that it implies must be what he does and not what
I do. Cain believed in salvation by
works. He brought the works of his own
hand. He brought his best. Abel knew
he could not approach God apart from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That's why he brought the blood
offering. He knew that God could not be approached unless justice
was satisfied. God cannot be approached on the
basis of our works. He understood that and so does
everybody else that comes to him. God's holy, God's just. I'm sinful, something has to
be done about my sin. That's what Christ accomplished
on Calvary's tree. Now the message, repent, change
your mind, everything you think is wrong about God, about yourself,
and about salvation. Repent for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. The king of the kingdom is at
hand. I'm here. Look to me only. Repent for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. Now that is a summary of our
message. Repent. The kingdom of heaven,
the reign of Jesus Christ is right here. Verse 18, now the Lord is going
to show how this message is spread. Verse 18, and Jesus, walking
by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brethren. Simon called Peter
and Andrew his brother. He saw these men, he knew these
men. They didn't know him, but he
knew them. He'd always known them. They were his from the
foundation of the world. And he saw these two men. I love the imagery. As he walks
by the Sea of Galilee, he sees two brethren, Simon and his brother,
Andrew. And they were commercial fishermen.
They were casting their net into the sea. This is not pole fishing, where
you have a pole and a line and you've got a hook and you put
bait on it in order to deceive the fish and trick them and try
to get them to bite, really not seeing the hook in there. That's
deceiving the fish. I mean, I enjoy fishing. I'm
not saying that active fishing is deceptive, but in gospel preaching,
it's deceptive. to bait the hook so people don't
recognize, to make it more attractive to the fish, to make it more
tantalizing to the fish, to bite that. That's deceptive when we
cover the gospel and dress it up and bait it to keep men from
seeing the hook. This is not the kind of fishing
that's going on here. What they were doing, they were casting
nets. They weren't trying to deceive anybody. They were casting
nets to capture the fish. And that is what gospel preaching
is. We're casting the net of the
gospel, not trying to deceive, but knowing God will capture
his people. Do you remember when, after the
Lord had risen from the dead and Peter had said, I go fishing? And I have no doubt when he said
that, he was saying, I'm going back to being a fisherman. Forget
this disciple business. I'm going back to the way it
was before. And several of them followed
him and said, we'll go with you. And they fished all night and
the Lord called to them and said, do you have any meat? Children,
have you any meat? No, we didn't catch a thing.
He said, cast on the right side. And the scripture says they brought
in a haul of 153 fish that were so heavy the boat was sinking
and they couldn't bring it in. Now this is gospel preaching,
throwing out the net. Turn with me to Luke chapter
five. This is Luke's account of this same event. Verse one. And it came to pass, as the people
pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the
lake of Gennesaret, this is in Galilee, 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, 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. Now, when he'd left speaking, he said unto Simon,
launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a big
catch. Now they'd been fishing all night.
They were tired. They'd just got their nets cleaned
and he's telling them to go back out. Simon answered him and said to
him, master, we know fishing. We've toiled all night and have
taken nothing. Nevertheless, if I were, I'd
let down the net. And when they had thus done,
they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net break. 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 the ships, so that
they began to sink." You know, I love to think of the Lord saying,
fish, get in the net. They got in the net. but the boats actually began
to sink with the weight of these fish. And I believe this is the
first time Peter saw who this was. Remember, he began in verse five,
master or teacher, teacher. Now look what he says in verse
eight, when Simon Peter saw He fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. You don't want to
have anything to do with me. He now sees he's the Lord. For he was astonished, and all
that were with him at the draw of the fishes which they had
taken, And so also was James and John, the son of Zebedee,
which were partners with Simon. And Jesus saith unto Simon, Fear
not, for henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they brought
their ships to land, they forsook all and followed him. And back
to Matthew chapter four. And he saith unto them, follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men. Now don't miss the first
part of this statement, follow me. Now this is not the same word
as in verse 20, and they straightway left their nets and followed
him. Not the same word. This word is the same word that
is used by the Lord in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, when he
said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden. And that's talking about laboring
under the burden of sin. Come to me. Don't wait for something
to happen. Don't wait till you get better.
Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. That's something I can do. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. Come to me. Same word that the Lord used
in John 6, 37 when he said, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. Same word the Lord used in John
6, 44 when he said, no man can come to me, there's the word,
except the Father which has sent me draw him, and I'll raise him
up at the last day. Now, come to me." Isn't that
salvation? Come to me. You remember when
he said, you will not come to me, that you might have life.
But here he says, come to me. And in coming to him, I am made
a fisher of men." Now, I'm a man created in the image of God,
fallen through the fall of my first father, in the sea of this
world, dead in trespasses and sins, and there I will remain,
because I don't even know it, and I will go to hell unless
God casts his net upon me and brings me in and captures me. I like that, captures me. Hail,
sovereign love that first began the scheme to rescue fallen man. Hail, matchless, free, eternal
grace that gave my soul a hiding place. Against the God who ruled
the sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised the mention of
His grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. Enwrapped in
thick Egyptian night and fond of darkness more than light,
madly I ran the sinful race, secure, without a hiding place. But thus the eternal counsel
ran, Almighty love, arrest that man. I felt the arrows of distress
and found I had no hiding place. The gospel net of Christ and
him crucified is cast out, not trying to hide the truth or disguise
the truth. But the net is cast out and everybody
God says, get in the net. They get in the net and they
are saved by the grace of God. You follow me, come to me, believe
the gospel, and I will make you a fisher of men. Now only the
Lord can make a fisher of men. It's not something you go seminary
for. It's not something you're trained to do. Only the Lord
can make a fisher of men. Turn over to Matthew chapter
nine for a moment. Verse 36. But when he saw the multitudes,
he was moved with compassion on them. Meditate on that for
just a moment. He, seeing these multitudes,
was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and
were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith
he unto his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers
are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of
the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. He is the one who sends forth
the laborers who are to be fishers of men. And you don't have to
be a pastor to be a fisher of men. If the Lord has saved me,
I want to be a fisher of men. And you want to be a fisher of
men. So how do I go about fishing
for men? Is there a course where I can
be trained to do it? Is there some kind of class I
can take where I can learn how to do it? You know, if you've
got to train a witness, that's corrupt, isn't it? If you're a witness to something,
you've got something to say. And if you gotta train somebody
and coach them how to do it, that's pure manipulation, it's
deceitful, it's not even real. Training people to be witnesses. Evangelism explosion. Training
people to be witnesses. That is corrupt as it can be. So how do I go about fishing
men? Well, the Lord tells us. Follow
me and I will make you fishers of men. And what did they do? The scripture says, and they
straightway left their nets and followed him. Now, here the word
is different than the word that was used previously when he said,
follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. When it says here they
followed him, the first time is the word come, but here it's
that word where you just, you keep your eyes on him. If you
keep your eyes on Christ and don't look anywhere else, you'll
be a fisher of men. That is the gospel message. I love what the
Lord says, follow me. Matthew rose up, forsook all
and followed him. Now, when you follow somebody,
you keep your eyes on them. You look nowhere else. If you
look down at your feet to see how you're doing, you'll lose
them. If you look behind you to look for some evidence that
you have followed him, you'll lose him. That's not looking
to him. If you look beside you to see how somebody else is doing,
you'll lose him. Listening to a preacher preach
today. I was listening to a Something
on my phone and there was a young man interviewing a preacher and
he said How can I have assurance of salvation? And the preacher
said, now, just throw out losing your salvation. You can't do
that. Throw it out. But here's what you need for
assurance. Three things. Three things. Number one, love. Do you love him? Number two,
obedience. I'm not talking about perfect
obedience, but obedience. Number three, well, I can't remember
what third one was. It's slipping my mind, but here's
the point. If I gain assurance from that,
I'm looking down at my feet, I'm looking behind me, I'm looking
to the side. You gain assurance for one reason, who Jesus Christ
is and what he did. Nothing else. Nothing else. If you can look at something
about you and give, yeah, I must be saved, you've missed Christ.
You look to Him only, nowhere else. Now, if you do that, that
is the preaching of the gospel. It'll come out, and you'll be
His witness. And you'll be fishing for men
at all times. We're to look to Christ alone
as everything in our salvation. He is my salvation. He is my
sin payment. He is my righteousness. I look
only to him. He is my justification. He is
my sanctification. He is my redemption. That's the
message I preach. That's the message I support.
That's the message I tell others. I'm fishing for men. I wanna
see men saved. I hope when I, well, when you
go to work tomorrow, your first thought is I wanna be fishing
for men. I wanna be looking for men to bring them this message
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want all of us to be
fishers of men. All of us, all of us. Fishers
of men. He said, follow me and I will
make you fishers of men. Verse 20. They straightway left their nets
and followed him. And going on from thence, he
saw other two brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and John,
his brother, in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets."
Now, evidently, these fellows were a little bit more successful
in their commercial fishing journey because their dad owned a boat.
And he says, follow me. They're out there cleaning their
nets. Follow me. and I will make you
fishers of men. How do you reckon Zebedee felt
when they just left him and went off and they're, what about me? Where do I fit in here? He's
just leaving me? They're just leaving me? Are
they going to sacrifice all of this, a successful commercial
fishing venture for this? Are they gonna say, that's no
sacrifice. You know, in following Christ,
there's no sacrifice. Somebody says, I've sacrificed so much.
No, you haven't. He did. His sacrifice. Oh, his sacrifice is all in my
salvation. Nothing I do is a sacrifice.
It's the privilege of following him. Zebedee watched his two
boys. They quit. They didn't give any
notice. The Lord said, follow me. They
rose, they went forth, and they followed him. And they became
fishers of men. And these men spread the gospel
all over the world. Why? Because Christ made them
fishers of men. Now, may we throw out the net,
that's fishing, throwing out the net of the gospel into the
sea of the world and knowing that God's going to tell a bunch
of fish, get in the net and they'll get in the net and they'll be
pulled in by the gospel message. May the Lord make me and you
truly fishers of men who follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's
pray. Lord, how we thank you for your
gospel net. Lord, how we thank you that we
were enclosed in the net of your gospel and brought to safety. Lord, how we thank you for the
clear direction to look only to thy son at all times, nowhere
else. And Lord, you said in your word
that in following him, you would make us fishers of men. And Lord, we ask that you would
put that in our hearts, that that would be in our mind, in
our heart, in our thoughts. to be fishers of men with the
gospel of thy grace. We pray that we might be privileged
to see many come to see how our beloved is altogether lovely. Bless this message for Christ's
sake, in his name we pray, amen.