MacDonald, William: Dallas Area Conference-1984-02 ~ Luke 5:1-11

Chapter of Luke's Gospel, the fifth chapter, sorry, fifth chapter of Luke's Gospel. And we'll begin reading in verse one. Perhaps this is a fitting follow-up for the parable of the fisherman that Brother Rob gave us this afternoon. Luke chapter five. verse one. It came to pass that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, 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. When he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net. When they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their nets break. Actually, their nets were breaking, and they beckoned unto their partners which were in the other ship that they should come and help them. They came and filled both the ships so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knee, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken. And so was also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men. When they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all and followed him. I'd like to use a little sanctified imagination this afternoon and, and picture this scene. We're up on the Sea of Galilee. Coming from the United States, you go over there and expect it to be a huge lake, something like Michigan, Lake Michigan. It's actually seven miles across, fourteen miles from top to bottom, and I would guess that at this time the Lord Jesus was up at the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. It was probably a lovely day just like this, and he's out there by the side of the lake, and the people are pressing. They're pressing on him. That's kind of exciting to me to try to picture the Lord Jesus in his earthly ministry and see the multitude following him, and they did. Why were they pressing him? Why were they following him here? I think the verse tells us he was teaching the word of God. That's wonderful. You know, the word of God is its own attraction. It speaks to men, and the Lord Jesus was teaching the word of God, and I believe where you get the word of God taught in the power of the Holy Spirit, people will respond. Not only that, but the Lord Jesus taught with authority. He wasn't like the scribes and the Pharisees. The scribes and the Pharisees peddled a secondhand religion, and that's why it says of the Lord Jesus, he taught with authority and not as do the scribes and the Pharisees. People detect that. It came home to me in a striking way when I was in the service. No, that was not the First World War. Uh... And we had different kinds of chaplains, you know, we would have liberal chaplains, and they would get up and mouth a bunch of sweet nothings, and the fellas weren't the least bit interested. And we had chaplains who declared the word of God with power, and the fellas went out to listen to them. I had a liberal chaplain explode in my presence one day. He said, I come over there every Sunday, and he said, the only one that comes out to hear me is the piano player, and he gets paid for it. It's a terrible admission to make, wasn't it? That he wasn't teaching the word of God. The Lord Jesus is out there by the Sea of Galilee, and he's preaching the word of God, and he's preaching it with power, and the people come. I like to think of that crisis that came in Billy Graham's life years ago. You probably heard about it. He was down there in Los Angeles, and he was, there was a duel going on in his soul. He had heard so many doubts and, and denials about the scriptures, and he was wondering, he was really wondering about the word of God, and he went out behind Forest Home conference grounds. He was there alone with God, wrestling with God, and God brought Billy Graham to the place where he accepted the Bible by faith. He wasn't argued into it, he wasn't reasoned into it, he accepted the Bible by faith. And from that point on, he went out and he started to say, the Bible says. And right after that is when they had the Los Angeles Crusade, which in a real way was the start of his great. He said that he noticed a different authority in his preaching from that moment on because he had accepted the Bible by faith. A good word for young men in the audience today. Go forth, preach the word. Preach it with authority. Don't give me your doubts, I have enough of my own. Preach the word, and the people will respond. It makes me think of what Spurgeon said. He said, get on fire for God, and people will turn out to see you burn. Well, I think of that of the Lord Jesus. He was on fire for God out there, and people did, they turned out to see him burn. Remember, it says the disciples remembered that it was said of him, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. What does that mean? Well, I believe it means that the Lord Jesus was consumed with a passion for the glory of God, for the things of God. That's when he cleaned the temple out. They were dishonoring his father, and he was consumed with a passion for the holiness of his father's house. I tell you, when people see that, when they see that conviction that Rob has been speaking about, they'll respond. The disciples are there, and they're washing their nets. And probably some of us land lovers think that's quite, uh, unnecessary. Why wash nets? I mean, the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake, and the nets are in it. Why wash nets? Well, of course, the reason they're washed is because they come in contact with fish and the scales and with the oil and all the rest, and they have to be kept clean or they'll rot. First time I ever went there, I saw the nets hanging between trees alongside, uh, the Sea of Galilee. I wonder what the spiritual application for us in that would be. Is there any sense in which we have to wash our net? Well, I think it speaks, doesn't it, of a life of purity. I think it speaks of the necessity of a life of holiness. I think it speaks of the necessity of a life of separation. Rob quoted that verse, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. You know, it's when we're following Jesus that the fish are caught, isn't it? He didn't say take a course in personal evangelism, and I'll make you a fisher of men. He didn't say get all the neat arguments for Christianity down, and I'll make you a fisher of men. He said, you live the way I live, and people will be attracted. And you know, that's true. It really is true. I may have told this story here before, but I love it. It was a young fellow in the Navy. His name was Bert Graves. He's in Kansas now, and and uh, he used to go out and shoot baskets with the fellas over there in Honolulu at night after he got off duty. And uh, there was an unsaved fellow that used to go out and shoot baskets with him too in the basketball court. And this unsaved fellow was watching Bert, was watching him when all the other fellas would be losing patience. Bert was just unflappable. And one night, Dick Kegler, after they had finished playing, Dick Kegler went up to Bert Grace and said, Bert, you have something I don't have. I don't know what it is, but I want it. It wasn't hard for Bert to lead him to the Lord that night. I had a letter from Dick Kegler the other day. Yeah, still going on brightly for the Lord Jesus. Rejoice. Why? Because Bert was following Jesus, and Jesus made him the fisher that meant. Bert didn't have to say anything. It's wonderful, isn't it? It's wonderful when they're one without a word, one by the testimony of a life. The necessity, I think, of keeping our nets clean. I would suggest that to you. It's wonderful to think of the crowd so pressing upon the Lord Jesus that they were practically pushing him out in the water. So he got into Peter's boat. I think that's kind of exciting. That morning when Peter awoke, he never realized that if he gave his boat to Jesus, the Lord Jesus would use it as a pulpit, and people in nineteen eighty four would still be talking about it. You know, the Christian life is really a thrilling life. Do you ever stop to think about that? You never know when you wake up in the morning what wonderful things God has in store for you for that day. In fact, you never know that day or night that you trust the Lord Jesus, all the super bonuses that there are going to be. It's really unspeakable. And I just rejoice to think of that. I think, man, Peter gave his boat to the Lord, but the Lord used it in a wonderful, wonderful way. It's memorialized in God's word forever. Is there something you could give to the Lord Jesus? Every one of us has something we could give, and he can put it to work. Remember that other day by the Sea of Galilee? There's a lad here. There's a lad here. That lad had five loaves and two um fish or fishes, Rob. Wonderful, isn't it? Makes me wonder, is there a lad here in the meeting today? There's a lad here. Say not much, Five loaves, two fishes. They weren't even loaves as we think of it. It was pita bread. It was pocket bread, probably little pancakes, relatively speaking. I tell you, it was springtime when he blessed the loaves, it was harvest when he broke. Give what you have to the Lord, it's wonderful what he can do, uh, with it. I love to think of the unconventional pulpits that you find in the Gospels and in, and the book of Acts too. Tremendous. You wouldn't think of using a boat for a pulpit, would you? Jesus did. And the disciples realized this too. They realized there's no place where Jesus is out of place. And, uh, wherever the opportunity presented itself, they used it. The market was a tremendous pulpit, wasn't it? One of the best places was the prison. That was a great pulpit, you know. And the thing of it to me is, I see, as I study the Gospels and the book of Acts, the thing was that, that these men were filled with the Spirit of God. They were walking in the Spirit, and an opportunity came up to testify, and they walked right into it. As someone has said, it wasn't so much the performance of an hour, but the preparation of a lifetime. Somebody said to George Verba one time, how long did it take you to prepare that message? He said, all my life. And in a way, that's true, isn't it? The message is the, is not the performance of an hour, but the preparation of a lifetime. This in January, I was in Israel once again, and up in Nazareth. I always like to take the fellows that travel with me up to Nazareth, to that hospital. Uh, Sila and Louise know it well. And in the chapel of that hospital in Nazareth, there's, um, an unconventional pulpit. It's a carpenter's bench. I'll never forget the first time I stood be- behind it to speak. I thought, that's wonderful. That's what the Lord has had as a pulpit here in Nazareth when he worked in the carpenter shop. And he used it to the glory of God. And so the Lord Jesus is there in the boat, and he says to the disciples, launch out into the deep. Launch out. Verse four: now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, launch out into the deep. That's interesting. I wonder if there's a sense in which the Lord is saying that to us today. You know, we as Christians love to hug the shore. We love the comfort and convenience of the shore, and the Lord wants us to launch out into the deep. He wants us to launch out into the depths of faith. The faith life is an interesting life, isn't it? You can go up to your toes in it, you can go up to your ankles in it, up to your knees, up to your thighs, you can go up to your chest in it, you can swim in it. You can even walk on it. Somebody said, once you walk on the water, you never want to ride on a boat again. And the Lord is calling us really to walk a life like that. God wants our lives to be a perpetual crisis of dependence upon him, and we'll do anything we can to avoid it, including insurance policies and all the rest, security programs, the whole gamut. Launch out into the deep. I wonder if Jesus is calling some of us today to launch out into the deep, to forget all the pillows and the crutches and the supports and all the rest, launch out for him. Of course, there are the depths too of suffering and trial and distress, and oftentimes we're called to launch out into those as well. And the clouds seem ominous at the time, and we emerge and we realize we were afraid of a blessing because the Lord was in the clouds. Spurgeon said that all the good he came out of the prosperous times of his life could be placed on a penny, but all the good that came out of the sufferings and trials of life were incalculable. And that's true, isn't it? To suffer passes, but to have suffered remains for eternity. The benefits of suffering are always with him. Faith has its deep waters, and so do suffering, sorrow, and loss. But really, these are the things that fill the nets with fruitfulness. We're reminded in the Old Testament that Moab was settled on his lees. He had never been emptied from vessel to vessel, therefore his taste remained in him. Moab was a, a dead, insipid wine with no flavor because those casks had never been moved from position to position. Explains why a lot of the things that happen to us in the Christian life happen. God's trying to make good wine. God's trying to fill the nets with fruitfulness. Life, somebody has said this, and I like it. Life is filled with blessings that are cleverly disguised as trials. Note the omniscience of Jesus here. He said, when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answered, said, Lord, we toiled all night and have taken nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, we'll let down the nets. Jesus told him when to let down the net, and he told him where to let down the nets too. It's wonderful, the omniscience of Jesus. I get rather weary with the theologians and teachers that tell me when Jesus came to earth, he laid aside some of his attributes, including his omniscience. In fact, I get kind of weary with those who try to dissect the person of Christ at all. I'm content to know that the person of Christ is so great that my human mind will never be able to comprehend it. No man knows the Son but the Father. I'm content to leave it there. I can't understand how deity and humanity can be merged into one wonderful person like the Lord Jesus. I'll never be able to understand that. But I want to tell you something. He didn't lay aside any of his attributes when he came to earth. He was just as much God walking the dusty streets of Palestine as he was at the right hand of the Father in heaven. The Lord Jesus is not God minus, he's God plus. You say, what do you mean by that? The Lord Jesus is not God minus omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. He's God plus humanity. He took a- that's how he emptied himself, by taking upon himself something he never had before, that's humanity, and coming down as a man and as a servant and becoming obedient to the death of the cross. That's a real emptying of God. So I see here the wonderful omniscience of the Lord Jesus. The glory was all there, but it was veiled in a body of flesh. Aside he threw his most divine array and veiled his Godhead in a garb of clay, and in that garb its wondrous grace display, restoring what he never took away. When he said, let down your nets for a draft, Simon said, we've toiled all night and caught nothing. That's a terrible admission to make for a fisherman, isn't it? That's the worst thing a fisherman ever has to say. Haven't you met them? When they go off triumphantly on these fishing trips, and they come home and you say, what did you catch? And they say nothing. You feel like saying, why didn't you stop at the fish store on the way home? But this speaks to me. We, we oftentimes toil all night and catch nothing. Those are rather somber statistics that Brother Rob read to us today. I wasn't exactly elated by them. They seem to me to say we've toiled all night and caught nothing. Why is that? Well, I- I believe that we can oftentimes be very busy in work for God without doing the work of God. Maybe we don't spend enough time at the feet of the Lord Jesus, getting our directions from him. If he tells me to let down the net in a certain place, I can be sure of fish. I can be absolutely sure. Otherwise, I can't be sure at all. If I go and carry on the work of God in my own energy, I can't be sure that anything's going to be Accomplished. accomplished. So that speaks very powerfully to me, the, the necessity of being before the Lord and getting my guidance from him and getting my direction from him. Terribly important. Too oftentimes we create our own guidance, and our lives are fruitless, and the nets are empty. I was telling some of the friends of that little story in Reader's Digest about a man who loved bakery goods, and he used to come to the office at business, and he'd bring the most scrumptious coffee cakes. And then he decided that, you know, the weight problem was getting to him, and he better quit. So, in a great burst of self-will, he stopped bringing them. But then one day he came in, and he had one of the most delicious looking coffee cakes, and they said to him, oh, they said, you fell, you fell again, you fell to the temptation. And he said, well, let me explain to you. He said, by accident, he said, I went by the bakery today, and he said, I looked in and I saw all those goodies in the window, and so I prayed. I prayed, Lord, if you want me to have one of those coffee cakes, you provide a parking space right in front of the bakery. And he said, what do you know? He said, the eighth time around the block it was there. So we do, we manufacture our own guidance, don't we? And that's the result of it. We've toiled all night and carry and caught nothing. Service carried on by our own wisdom and strength is futile. The secret is to be guided by him. You couldn't speak, you couldn't witness to everybody in Dallas. It's impossible. You couldn't pass a tract to everybody at Dallas. So the thing to do at the beginning of the day is say, Lord, lead me to some soul today. You lead me. You have some soul ask me a question that will open the door for witness for you, and then I'll be fruitful. A The seventy-five-year-old woman said, I am seventy-five and I have done nothing with my life. I'm telling you, that's sad. Toiling Seventy five years and catching nothing. Notice that though Simon was an experienced fisherman, and I really believe he was. I really believe that Simon knew the Sea of Galilee as few men knew it. He knew where the fish were want to be. And yet, although an experienced fisherman, he was willing to take advice from a carpenter. Now, I know Jesus was more than a carpenter, but for the purposes of the point, a fisherman is taking advice from a carpenter. That's very good. It teaches me the value of being teachable. It's a terrible thing when we get to the ho-hum place in Christianity, when we say, what can he tell me that I don't already know? It's a terrible place when, uh, in in in our lives, when we can't learn something from any other Christian we meet. I feel that about some of our charismatic friends. I- I've never met a charismatic that I couldn't learn so- I don't agree with their doctrine, but I tell you, they teach me love, they teach me warmth, they teach me zeal for God, and I can learn those things from them. And when I see that, I want to be more like that myself. The value of being, uh, teachable. As a result of their obedience to the Lord, there was a great haul. It says, when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their nets were breaking. I tell you, that was a thrill, wasn't it? And Christian service is thrilling. It really is thrilling. There's a hymn that Margaret Clarkson wrote, So Send I You, and it really is more of a funeral dirge than it is a hymn of joy. It presents the Christian life in a very dismal way, and she's regretted having written it, although people sing it with great gusto. Uh, actually, the Christian life is a thrilling life and a life of service for the Lord is the greatest of all lives. And here the disciples know it. They bring in a great haul of fish. And what did they do? Well, I like to see that they weren't selfish when their nets began to break. It says they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other boat, that they should come and help. It's nice, isn't it? That shows the value of cooperation in the work of the Lord. It would have been nice, I guess, in a way, maybe they thought it would be nice if they could go back to the pier there by the shore, and, and, you know, the people would all come running down. They'd never seen a catch like this in the Sea of Galilee, and, uh, perhaps all the glory would, uh, accrue to Peter, James, and John, but that wasn't the way it was. No, they were glad to have others come and, uh, share that moment with them. It's wonderful how much you can do for the Lord if you don't care who gets the credit. It's when we're jealous for the glory that spoils everything. And I think we should constantly pray that he would get the glory and that we wouldn't touch it. And I like to think this too, that when they came in, actually Peter, James, and John couldn't take credit for the haul. They had toiled all night and caught nothing. Jesus said, let down your nets. They let down the nets. The nets are breaking, the boats are sinking, and, uh, they go back in and they couldn't say that it was because they were such great fishermen, could they? It makes me think about all the boasting and gloating that goes on in the evangelical world today over the salvation of souls. Really nothing to boast about. Any fish that are caught, it's the Lord who catches them, isn't it? Why should we want to get in the limelight? I personally abominate this mad scramble for numbers in the religious world today. The number of souls saved and all the rest. I'm sure that Peter, James, and John didn't engage in that. It says the nets began to break and the boats began to sink. Wow. That's terrible. No, it's not terrible. It's wonderful. It's the best situation that fishermen could ever have. You say, but it was a problem. Sure, there are problems in Christian life and service, but what wonderful problems they are. Hmm? Problems are the price of progress. One man said, don't bring me anything but problems. Good news weakens me. And I see that here. This- these are the kind of problems that any fisherman would love to have. And then a very strange thing happened. Here they're at the, the apex of their career. They're at their greatest moment of glory. And Peter falls down on his knees and says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Whatever brought that on? It's a strange interlude in an otherwise exciting story. Why did Peter say that? I believe that at that moment, Peter got a wonderful glimpse of the glory of the Lord Jesus and of his own unworthiness. Isn't that one of the paradoxes of the Christian life, that the closer we are to Jesus, the more we feel our own nothingness. Now, I know there's a lot of talk today about your self-image and how important it is to have a good self-image. But I know that Job had a vision of the Lord, and he said, I hate myself. That wouldn't go over too good today. Said, I heard of you by the hearing of my ears, but now my eyes have seen you, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. And Isaiah had a vision of the glory of the Lord, wonderful, really, and it reduced him to nothing. He said, I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of an un- of a people of unclean lips. Dear friends, it's a straight line that reveals a crooked line, isn't it? And the Lord Jesus is a straight line, and the closer I get to him, the more I realize that I'm nothing. I can do nothing, and I am unworthy. I like to see here that it was while Peter was engaged in his ordinary employment that Christ called him to be a fisher of men. He wasn't sitting around sipping cokes all day. He wasn't just waiting for the beatific vision or something like that. No, no. He went about his daily work, and while he was there on his regular employment, that's when he got the divine tap on the shoulder. Don't think that work is a curse. Work is a blessing from God. I often think of those shepherds out on the hillsides in Bethlehem. And I can, I can just picture one of them say, you know, I'm just tired of taking care of these dumb sheep. I'm going to go into Bethlehem for a pizza. You know, he could have said that. He could have said that, but he'd have missed the visitation of the angels. And I sometimes feel that we miss some of the greatest visitations of life, the passing of religious opportunity, when we don't stick to our work. While you're waiting for guidance, do the things that your hands find to do. God guides ships in motion. Then Christ called Peter from catching fish to catching men. Uh, one version of the Bible says taking men alive. That's nice, isn't it? Taking men alive. What a vision. What a vision. The value of fish, contrast it with the value of never dying souls. Where are the fish that they took that day? Gone and forgotten. What a wonderful thing to be engaged in doing a work for God in human souls that will worship the Lamb of God for all eternity. I tell you, that's the vision, isn't it? We get caught up with trivia, with smelly fish, when above us burns the vision of the Christ upon the cross. And God is calling us, the Lord Jesus is calling us to bigger business. Peter responded, but so did James and John. It says they forsook all. Didn't it say that? It says when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all and followed him. Do you ever think that God might be calling you, and that if you responded, others would follow your example? The power of example is really tremendous. I know men in this meeting this afternoon, because they took a step, because they sacrificed a career. Men are following Christ, and women are following Christ today. Peter followed. James and John followed. I remember years ago reading a sermon by Truitt, George Truitt, in his book, A Quest for Soul, and he told of a gospel meeting. At the end, he had given a, an invitation, and he saw a prominent lawyer from the community, uh, rise up and start down the aisle. And shortly after that man started down the aisle, two young fellows stood up and came down after. They were his own sons. They were waiting for dad to take the step, and when they took the step, when he took the step, then they followed him. They forsook all and followed him. Amy Carmichael wrote, I heard his call, come follow. That was all. My earthly gold grew dim, my soul went after him. I rose and followed, that was all. Who would not follow if they heard his call? And you know, to me, one of the most thrilling things about this whole episode is that those men followed Christ on the best business day of their lives. They followed him when the nets were full. One thing to follow him at a time of recession. One thing to follow him when the paychecks have stopped. One thing to follow him when the country is in a depressed state, but another thing to follow him when life is golden and the heart is young. Ian McPherson wrote this. I, these words have haunted me down through the years. He says, is there anywhere a sight more deeply moving than that of a man laden with gifts, laying them all humbly and adoringly at the Redeemer's feet? Isn't that beautiful? A man laden with gifts, laying them humbly and adoringly at the Redeemer's feet, and that is, after all, where they were meant to be. He says, in the words of a old Welsh divine, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin are all very well in their place, but their place is not where Pilate put them over the head of Jesus, but at his feet. Peter Fleming, one of the martyrs of Ecuador, had a favorite hymn. It was number twenty six, I think, in the InterVarsity hymn book. It says, Lord, at the, in the fullness of my might, I would for thee be strong, while runneth o'er each dear delight to thee should soar my song. I would not give the world my heart and then profess thy love. I would not feel my strength depart and then thy service prove. I would not with swift winged zeal on the world's errands go, then labor up the heavenly hill with wearied feet and slow. Oh, not for thee my weak desires, my poorer, baser part. Oh, not for thee my fading fires, the ashes of my heart. Oh, choose me in my golden time, and my dear joys have part, for thee the glory of my prime, the fullness of my. They followed Christ on the best business day of their lives. And they little knew that day that they followed him, the glorious results of that decision. Just think of it. Peter, James, and John. And what an important part they've had in the development of the Christian faith. I think there's a sense in which the Lord calls every man, every woman, every young man, every young woman, as we've read today. Great to follow him on the best business day of your life. You know, it's okay. He'll get someone else to follow him. But as I often say, you'll never get a better Christ to follow. So we pray. Father, we've been reminded today of the deep need of revival, uh, in our own lives, and we would pray the prayer that was suggested, that whatever the cost might be, Lord, send a revival and begin the work in us. We realize this might be very, very costly. Remember you said that except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. But Lord, we do want your name to be honored and glorified, even at our own expense. We would, in a very real sense today, fling our souls and bodies down for you to plow them on. We would have the great ambition of the Apostle Paul that Christ might be magnified, whether by life or by death. Lord, we pray that you might be speaking to our hearts in a very real way during this conference. Perhaps there are some young people here today that are doing business with you in great waters, perhaps some in a very real valley of decision. Father, may they see the glory of following you, of making lives count for eternity. Keep us from turning back, Lord, having set our hands to the plow. And now, once again, we've been asked, suggested that we give thanks for the food, and we do this. We love to look up into your face, oh God, and thank you for all that you've done for us, for the food, both spiritual and material, that you provide for us. We realize that every mouthful, every drop of water is a, a testimony to the grace and mercy of our God, and we receive it gratefully in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.