Look at Mark 1 17 with me again. And Jesus said unto them, come
after me. The same word is translated in
Matthew's account, follow me. And I will make you to become
fishers of men. I've entitled this message, Fishers
of Men. And this is something that every
believer is interested in being. I wanna be a fisher of men. And the Lord says, you follow
me, you come after me, and I will make you to be fissures of men. And every believer in this room
wants to be a fissure of men. I want to see people come to
know the Lord Jesus Christ and bow the knee to him and see his
glory and his greatness and his beauty. I want men to know the
Lord that I know. Every believer is vitally interested
in being a fisher of men. Now, this story begins in verse
16. Now, as he walked by the Sea
of Galilee, he's already began his public ministry. And we have
an account of this in Matthew and Luke. As he walked by the
Sea of Galilee, he saw I love the way this message begins with
him, doesn't it? Doesn't begin with Simon and
Andrew and James and John, it begins with him. Him walking
along the Sea of Galilee, I love to picture this in my mind. And him seeing someone that he
had known eternally. These men were his elect. These men were men that he'd
known as his own. These were men that he knew he
would soon die for. These were men that he knew that
he was going to make them apostles. And he was going to make them
fishers of men. He saw these men before they
saw him. They didn't have any idea what
was getting ready to take place. They were sitting there fishing.
They'd been fishing all night. We know from Luke's account, didn't
catch anything. And it was the morning time and they were cleaning
their nets. Now, this was not fishing with
a pole and baiting a hook. When you do that, you're trying
to trick the fish. I don't know how else to put it. I don't know
anything about fishing. So forgive me. I'll say what I know about
it, which is very little. But I know that when you bait
the hook, you're trying to trick the fish. You're trying to present
it to be something that it's not in order to get that fish
to bite. Now, that's not the way these men fished. They threw
out a net that enclosed over the fish. And that's what they
did for a living. Verse 17, and Jesus said unto
them, come after me, follow me, and I will make you become fishers
of men. Now this come after me, it's
a command. And you know, the Lord never
says to any individual, come after me, and then disobey his
command. Never happened, never will happen. Lazarus, come forth. He that was dead came forth.
He didn't have a choice. The Lord never calls upon someone
and they refuse. If you refuse, he never called
you. It really is that simple. He said to these people, come
after me. This is the call of invincible and irresistible grace. It's the same word used in Matthew
11, 28, when he said, come unto me. all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Now, all that are labor and are
heavy laden, laboring under a burden of their sin, you know what they
do? They do come to him in obedience to his command, and he does give
them rest. The rest of not working, resting
in Christ. Come, ye blessed of my Father,
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of
the world. And everybody he says come to,
they go. They go. Now, the Lord gives us a parable
likening the gospel to net fishing. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
13. Verse 47, again, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and
gathered of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to
shore and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but cast
the bad away, so shall it be at the end of the world, the
angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just,
and shall cast them into the furnace of fire, there shall
be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Now, in this simple and beautiful
parable, the net is the gospel, the gospel net. And this net
It's not like pole fishing where you use bait to deceive the fish. You don't use lures. You can't
see. You don't know what's going to
happen. You just throw out the net. Now that is gospel preaching. You throw the net into the sea,
totally looking to the Lord for any results. It's never right to say the net's
the gospel and not tell what the gospel is. As a matter of
fact, any message, I don't care what it is, I don't care what
you're dealing with, you must declare the gospel. The gospel,
Paul said, moreover I declare in you the gospel, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures. Now that's the
gospel, it's how that. Christ died for our sins, who's
the our? the elect, those who believe,
those Christ died for. He died for our sins according
to the scriptures, according to the Old Testament scriptures,
all the types brought out in the Old Testament. You can't
preach the gospel and not preach the Old Testament scriptures.
You're not preaching the gospel if you're not. Christ died for
our sins. Now, when he died for our sins,
he accomplished salvation for everybody he died for. The death
of Christ wasn't making salvation available or possible. He saved. That's how Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. He's successful. Christ couldn't
fail in anything He did. He's successful. Now that's the
gospel net we throw out. And anybody that comes to Him,
He'll receive. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. We preach the Inclusiveness of
the gospel. This is for anybody who will
come. And we preach the exclusiveness of the gospel. God only uses
the gospel, nothing else. We throw the net out. No one is saved by a false message. Now, man's religion bapes the
hook. They don't like this kind of
fishing. And listen, it's okay to bait a hook. I've tried to
catch caught fish, make a hook. I don't mind deceiving fish,
but I mind deceiving men. Man's religion baits the hook,
trying to make the gospel more attractive. And that's deceitful. And the Lord is not in that.
The net is thrown into the water to enclose the fish. And when
the net was gathered in, there are all kinds of different fish,
good and bad. In an invisible church, it's
always a mixed assembly. Always, good and bad. And the
Lord in the same chapter gives us the parable of the wheat and
the tares. Look with me beginning in verse 24 of chapter 13. Another parable put he forth
unto them saying, the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man
which sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his
enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But
when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, there
appeared the tares also." And the thing about wheat and tares
is you can't tell the difference by looking at them, not readily.
They look the same. So the servants of the householder
came and said unto him, sir, didst thou not sow good seed
in the field? From whence then hath it tares?
And he said unto them, an enemy hath done this. The servants
said unto him, wilt thou that we go up and gather them up?
He said, nay, while you gather up the tares, you root up also
the wheat with them. Now, if I try to root out the
tares out of the church, all I'll do is mess things up. You
will, too. You will, too. We don't have enough sense to
do that. Let's get a pure membership. Well, maybe if you'd leave, it'd
get that way. That's how you fill it, and I didn't mean to
say that, but I don't know where that came from. But at any rate,
We are not to try to pull up tares. The Lord forbids that. Don't do it. Let both grow together
into the harvest. In the time of harvest, I will
say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and
bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into
my garden. Now, who is the one who does
the separating? The angels. Look in verse 49 of this same
chapter. So shall it be at the end of
the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from
among the dust and shall cast them into the furnace of fire.
There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Now, who is it that
makes this separation between the wheat and tares, the good
fish and the bad fish? The angels, the angels, not me
and you, the angels. Look back up at verse 47, again, the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a net that was cast into the sea and gathered of
every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore and
set down and gathered the good into the vessels, but cast the
bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels
shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just. Now
that's who the bad fish are, that's how the good fish are.
The wicked and the just. The wicked and the righteous. The wicked and the justified.
There's only two kinds of people. The wicked and the righteous. And I've said this several times
before, but every time I get a chance to say it, I like to
say it again. All of the wicked, without any exception, believe
themselves to be righteous, or at least have the potential to
be righteous. All of the righteous believe
themselves to be wicked. You can just write that down.
That's true across the board. But the ones that are gathered
in as just are the ones He's justified. They stand just before
God. Christ has put away their sins.
They have no guilt. They have perfect righteousness.
The wicked stand before God by themselves without Christ and
they're judged as wicked. And then the Lord says they're
going to be cast into hell at the end. And I, you know, I don't
even like talking about hell. I don't like thinking about hell.
I don't, I really don't, but I've got to, it's in the scripture.
And the reason that Anybody has a hard time with hell, and I'm
one of them that does, because we so little understand how bad
sin really is. If we understood how evil sin
is, we wouldn't have any trouble at all with this. You think of
what the Lord had to endure. He endured the full equivalent
of hell, and he was the Son of God. And if I'm not in Christ,
I will spend eternity in hell and hell is very real. Now, notice the Lord says you'll
become fishers of men back to our text in Mark chapter one. And Jesus said unto them, come
ye after me. and I will make you fishers of
men. Now the only way somebody can be a fisher of men is if
the Lord makes them that way. And here's what they all have
in common. They all follow the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's that simple. Every fisher
of men is a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. You love the men
and women you'll be preaching to Fishing and you prove it to
them by telling them the truth. There is no real love to men
in a false gospel. Somebody that is preaching a
false gospel, trying to get converts, all they're trying to do is get
stars in their crown. There isn't any real love for men. There
isn't any love for God. There isn't any love for his
gospel. It's soul murder. It's soul butchery. There's no
goodness in that. But if you love men, you prove
it by telling them the truth. Not trying to cover it up. Not
trying to be deceitful. but by giving them the truth,
throwing out the gospel net. I look in verse 18 in a straight
way. Immediately they forsook their
nets and followed him. I love to think about that. I
mean, here they were, this was their livelihood. And as soon
as the Lord said that, they forsook their nets. And you know, it
wasn't hard for them. It wasn't a sacrifice. They wanted
to do this. They forsook their nets to follow
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look in verse 19. And when
he'd gone a little further then, she saw James, the son of Zebedee
and John, his brother, who also were in their ships, mending
their nets. And we know from Luke's account that there were partners
together. All four of these men worked together, throwing these
nets into the sea, trying to bring in fish to sell. And I
like thinking about James and John. The Lord later named him
Barad-Denis, I think is the way you pronounce it. Sons of Thunder.
Sons of Thunder. They were the one who, when some
people rejected the Lord, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we
command fire to come down from heaven as Elijah did and consume
them? The Lord said, you don't know
what manner you're speaking in. You don't know that. The Son
of Man didn't come to destroy men, but to save men's life.
I like to think of the story of their mom. She asked the Lord,
grant me what I request. He said, what do you want? He
said, grant that these, my two sons should sit on my right hand
and on my left in the kingdom. And I liked the way the others
were. moved with indignation. You see, they thought they should
be on the right hand and the left is what it was. But James
and John, they too left their nets. You know, John probably
was the only apostle that was not executed. He lived to be
an old man and the gospel of John, the book of Revelation
are probably written after a hundred AD and he was the only one left. Verse 20, Straightway he called
them and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the
hired servants. Evidently they were from a more
well-to-do family because their father owned the ship and he
had hired servants, but off they go. Where are y'all going? We're
going to follow the Lord. And that's exactly what they
did. Now in Matthew's account, he says, follow me and I'll make
you fishers of men. Follow me. Now, when they left,
it's because that the Lord had caused them to find that one
pearl of great price. They'd been seeking pearls, but
now they had no interest in pearls. They saw the one pearl of great
price. the Lord Jesus Christ, and they
followed him. Now the Lord said in another
place, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross. That confession of the gospel
that will create all kinds of problems in your life. And follow
me. I know this much about following
Christ. You know, I think, I want to
follow, what's it mean? It almost seems like a difficult concept.
What do you mean, follow me, follow me, follow me? Well, I
know this much about following. In order to follow someone, you
have to keep your eyes on them. That's it. Look to Christ. Keep looking. At all times, look to Christ. Look to him as your surety. Look to Him when He became flesh
and kept the law for you. Look to Him in the power of His
death when He put away sin. Look to Him when He was raised
from the dead for your justification. Look to Him right now as He's
seated at the right hand of the Father as the great intercessor.
Look to the Lord with regard to everything. Look to Christ,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That's
how I'm gonna look to Him. Now, if you're going to plow a straight
furrow, straight down that aisle, you know what I'd do? I'd look
at that clock and I wouldn't take my eyes off the clock. I
just look at that clock and move toward it. Now, if I look at
my feet, how well I'm walking, what's going to happen? I'm going
to veer. I'm not going to be straight.
If I look to you and see how you're doing, what am I going
to do? I'm going to veer off to the right. I'm going to veer
off to the left. Looking unto Jesus only. That's the way you follow Christ.
You keep, by his grace, you keep your eyes on him. What about
this? Look to Christ. What should I do here? Look to
Christ. That's it. Somebody says that's too simple.
Do it then. Do it then. Looking unto Jesus. Follow me.
and I will make you fishers of men. Now let's go to Luke's account,
Luke chapter five, and we're gonna end up there. Luke gives
us more detail as to what took place at this time. Luke chapter five. Look in verse 43, or verse 42
of chapter four, And it was day, he departed and
went into a desert place, and the people sought him and came
unto him and stayed him, that he should not depart from them.
But he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to
other cities also, for therefore am I sent. And he preached in
the synagogues of Galilee. Now this is the beginning of
his public ministry. 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. and saw two ships standing by
the lake. It was the one boat, Andrew and
Peter owned it. The other was James and John's
dad. They'd been fishing all night
and hadn't taken a thing. And I'm sure they were tired
and frustrated and thinking, well, this was a waste of time.
They didn't know who the Lord was. He saw two ships standing
by the lake, but the fishermen were gone out of them and they
were washing their nets. I'm sure you get seaweed or dirt
or whatever all over the nets. And so every time when they pulled
the nets out in order to preserve those nets, they'd have to wash
them. And there they were after having fished all night, washing
their nets. And he entered into one of the
ships, which was Simon's and prayed him that he would thrust
him out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the
people out of the ship. I don't know how long this sermon
lasted, but can you imagine what it would be to sit there on the
shore or stand on the shore and have the Lord launched out in
a boat and hearing him preach? Never man spake like this man. And to think that eternity will
be spent hearing him speak. Now, when he left speaking, he
said unto Simon, I remember, he'd just met him, launch out
into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. Now, he'd been fishing all night.
He was tired. and he just cleaned his nets. And he knew something about fishing.
And here this man is telling him to launch out in the deep
for a draught. And Simon answering said unto
him, master. Now that word master means teacher. And what this lets me know at
this time, he didn't really know who the Lord was. He didn't know
any more than Nicodemus did. We know that thou art a teacher
come from God, for no man can do the miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him. He looked at the Lord Jesus Christ
as a great teacher, a great prophet, but he didn't know who he was. Master, we have toiled all the
night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I'll
let down the net. I don't know how many times I
felt that way about preaching. I've told all not and taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I'll
let down the net again. But do you know in this, we're
given the true rule of faith. His word. Nevertheless, at thy word, I
don't have any evidences of results. I don't have any proof that this
is going to work. I know fishing. I've been fishing
all night. I haven't taken a thing. I'm tired and look at all the
trouble we're going through. Nevertheless, at thy word, I
will let down the net. Now this is the ground of faith,
His Word. You know, there's things we wouldn't
dare believe did not His Word say them. For instance, this
is a powerful one. Thou has loved them, talking
about us, as thou has loved me. John 17, would you ever believe
that for what in the Word? As the Father hath loved me,
so have I loved you. Would you believe that were it
not in the Word? No, we couldn't believe something like that,
but we really believe His Word. That's all that's needed, His
Word. You know what you really think about Christ, what you
really think about His Father, what you really think about God,
the Holy Spirit, is seen by how you respond, how I respond to
His Word. This is the Word of God. All His words, are the Word of
God. He is the Word of God. Nevertheless, even though everything
that I see tells me that this is fruitless, nevertheless, at
thy Word, I will let down the net. And what happened? You see, there's always results
to faith. And when they had this done, They enclosed a great multitude
of fishes and their nets break. And they beckoned to 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. They never had anything like
this happen. I mean, the ships were sinking. It was so filled
with these big, heavy fish. Now look at Peter's response. When Simon Peter saw, when he perceived, when he understood,
he fell down at Jesus' knees saying, depart from me. I am a sinful man. Now, why is this? Well, notice this word, O Lord. I'm a sinful man, O Lord. You see, he now knew who the
Lord was. He didn't know before this, but
now he does. He sees through this miracle
that this one standing before him is the Lord. He's the Lord
of creation. He's the Lord God. He's the one
who created the universe. He's the Lord of providence.
He controls everything. He's the Lord of salvation. He
understood same thing the leper did. Lord, if you will, you can
make me clean. He knew He's the Lord. He knew
salvation was in His hands. knew what the thief was going
to come to know. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
He knew he was the Lord of the living and the Lord of the dead.
He's the Lord of believers. He's the Lord of unbelievers.
He's the Lord of all. That's what Peter came preaching.
Jesus Christ is Lord of all. That can only be said of Him
who is the God-man. He now knows who He is. And if you see who he is, one
thing I'm dead sure you're going to see about yourself is that
you are sinful, full of sin. And if somebody doesn't see that
about themselves, one reason, they've never seen the Lord. If you look at these men in scripture,
when they saw the Lord, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted
up. And he said, woe is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean
lips. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips because mine eyes have seen the King, the
Lord of hosts. Woe is me. What about Daniel? You read the,
you read Daniel and what a sterling character. Joseph and Daniel,
The Lord, for some reason, is not pleased to show any blemishes
in these men's character. They were such exemplary men.
But what did Daniel say? When I saw him, my comeliness,
that which I thought was good about me, turned into corruption. What about Job? The Lord said
there's none like him, one that fears God and eschews evil. In
his own testimony, he said, I've heard of thee with the hearing
of the ears, and now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I hate
myself and repent in dust and ashes. Now what Peter is saying
is, Lord, you don't want to have anything to do with me. You don't
want to have anything to do with me. I am full of sin. There's nothing to work with. Kind of like the Gadarene demonic
we just read about that you read. What have I to do with thee? There's no connection between
us. You're light, I'm darkness. You're good, I'm bad. You're
holy, I'm evil. That's what Peter said. He falls
on his knee. He can't see why the Lord wouldn't
have anything to do with him. Depart from me, Lord. That's
not saying because he hated him. He's not saying depart the way
those folks did when they asked him to leave their coast. They
didn't want to have anything to do with him. He was saying, Lord,
why would you ever want to have anything to do with me? I don't
have anything to bring to the table. I'm sinful. Look in verse 9. For he was astonished, awestruck. And all that were with him at
the draught of the fishes which they had taken. He was astonished. He was amazed. He was seized
by amazement. He was awestruck. Now, please
listen to this very carefully. I want to say this to myself.
I want to say this to you. When grace is no longer amazing
grace, watch out. You're in a bad place. When the gospel becomes old and
stale and dry, it's because the heavenly manna has become light
bread, not enough to satisfy. When the doctrine of grace becomes
just doctrine, not that which you need, not that which you're
in awe of. You're not hearing. That's a bad place to be. You
know, the children of Israel got into that state, didn't they?
Our souls loathe this light bread. You know what the Lord did? He
had that brazen servant raised up and look, And Jesus said unto Simon, the
one who was just saying, Lord, just leave me. He says, fear
not. From henceforth thou shalt catch
men. And when they brought their ships
to land, they forsook all and followed him. And they, did not
count this as a sacrifice, but a privilege of grace. It wasn't something that, oh,
look what all I'm giving up. I like what Paul said he gave
up. You know what he called it? Dung. Dung. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look
full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow
strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. May the Lord make me and you,
through following him, fishers of men. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank You for the
Gospel. How we thank You for Your Word.
How we thank You for Your Son. How we thank You that we were
enclosed by the Gospel net and brought in. Lord, how we thank
You that You justify sinners by what Your Son has done on
the cross. Lord, give us the grace to look
to Him only, always, nowhere else. And Lord, open up doors
for us to be fishers of men. May we see men brought to the
feet of thy son for his glory and for his honor. Lord, please
do that for us, for Christ's sake. In his blessed name, we
pray. Amen.