Gooding, David: 7 - Beginnings of Public Ministry

Let us begin this evening by reading once more the words of our blessed Lord as we find them in the Gospel of Luke in chapter four, verse sixteen. And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And he entered, as his custom was, in the synag- into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, Today hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears. And all bear him witness and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, doubtless you will say unto me this parable. Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we have done at Capernaum, do also here in thine own country. And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But of a truth I say unto you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over the land. And unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. And they were all filled with wrath in the synagogue as they heard these things. And they rose up and cast him forth out of the city and led him onto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way. And may that same Lord Jesus who spoke these words so long ago, speak to us here this evening. Yesterday I suggested that the Gospel of Luke is by its author planned to divide into two parts. The first part running from chapter one to chapter nine and verse fifty. The second part beginning at nine verse fifty one and following on to the end of the gospel. Then we turned to consider what are the main sections in the first half of the gospel. If the first half ends at nine, uh uh, verse fifty, what are the main themes that Luke has collated for us in these early chapters? And I suggested for your consideration, maybe not for your approval, but for your consideration, that there are five major sections to this first part of the gospel. They are the arrival of the Son of God, the account of which fills chapters one and two, marked off by what follows, because between the end of chapter two and the beginning of chapter three there is in history a gap of some eighteen years. Then I suggested also last night that the second major section of this, uh, first half occupies chapters three and four. We noted the formal literary indicators that these two chapters are meant to stand together. Their theme is the introduction of the Son of God. And when we look more closely at what Luke has written, we find that he has spent the first half of that section, uh, telling us about the preparation for our Lord's public ministry. Here is the pa- the other passages that we briefly touched upon yesterday, the introduction of the Son of God, the preparation for the public ministry. It is the story of John in the desert and at Jordan, and then secondly, it is the story of Christ at Jordan and in the desert. John fulfilled his role given him and defined in the words of Isaiah chapter forty. He was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and he subsequently described the coming ministry of the Messiah in those terms of his ministry that mark him unique. He was the one able to bestow the Holy Spirit. He was the one who will eventually execute the final judgments of God. Then John was imprisoned, and we hear no more of him until chapter seven. Then in the second half, uh, we have Christ at the Jordan being baptized, and then in the desert. At the baptism, we have the acclaim of God the Father to the Lord Jesus, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased. There follows at once the temptation in the desert, and we saw the devil himself assailing our Lord and saying that if he were indeed the Son of God, he should be prepared to produce the evidence that he was and act accordingly. So we picked up in this chapter of, uh, of, of Luke, chapter three and up to verse seven of chapter four, this peculiar emphasis that Luke himself has on the demand for evidence. John Baptist, when the people came to him professing to repent, was not content with their mere say so, but demanded they bring forth works meet for repentance, works that showed they were genuinely repentant. Then when Christ is proclaimed to be the Son of God and then son of Adam, here comes the devil, and he demands evidence. And we saw how devilish were his suggestions and the way the Lord magnificently triumphed in answering him according unto and on the basis of God's word. Thus then, the preparation for the public ministry. Tonight we must spend a brief while looking at the actual, uh, beginning of the public ministry. And you will notice that as far as geography goes, there are two major parts to this second half. There is Christ at Nazareth, where in the synagogue on the Sabbath, he delivers his program. It is a programmatic statement of what his ministry is to be. And then in the second half, as far as geography is concerned, he is seen at Capernaum for the main part of that ministry that is recorded. So let us now turn to the statement at Nazareth. I have not time to, uh, deal with it in detail, eh, and it would be remiss, uh, wrong of me to try to skip over it by some skimpy exposition. We notice, however, uh, that just as John's ministry was defined by Luke at the beginning in the terms of Isaiah forty, now our Lord's ministry on his own statement is defined by reference to Isaiah and chapter uh sixty two. Uh, it is as we have read, and I shall now take it as read. All I want to do now is to point out that here too, after our Lord's statement of the program of his ministry, we have a demand from the people in the synagogue that he should supply evidence for it. Our Lord read their thoughts, for they had not voiced, uh, their demand, but he read their thoughts as he looked at their faces. These, I remind you, were the people of Nazareth, along with whom he had been brought up, perhaps his aunts and his uncles among them, sitting there in the synagogue. And he says, you will say to me, doubtless you will say to me, this parable, physician, heal thyself, meaning you've got the cure in your own hands. No good you're just standing there and saying that you are the fulfiller of this prophecy in Isaiah, this tremendous claim that you are God's anointed Messiah. No good just standing there. If you want us to believe that, you have the cure in your own hand, heal yourself, do some more miracles. The miracles that, uh, we have heard done at Capernaum, do here in front of us, and then we're prepared to believe you. But our Lord saw through the illogic of the evidence that they required. For consider what he had just said, what he had come to do. As God's anointed, he had come to preach the gospel to the poor, sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. That is what our Lord had come to do. The miracles he had done at Capernaum were by way of pointing to him that he was the Christ, and at that level people could be convinced. But if they wanted ultimate evidence and proof that he could do the work of Messiah, then they must themselves be prepared to submit to him, mustn't they? And experiencing, experience that work in their own hearts and souls and lives. If, for instance, you find yourself one day unfortunately suffering from some malignant growth. You are in search of a surgeon capable of curing you. You hear all sorts of testimonies of a particular surgeon in Auckland, it may be, and he has the record of having cured numbers of people from this evil complaint. That is good evidence and important evidence. It would be foolish of you to put yourself in the hands of some quack with no experience, some junior who doesn't know which end o- o- of the instrument is which. No, of course not. You look for evidence and testimonials that this particular surgeon is the very best one in New Zealand, and being that, of course, is the very best one in the world, but uh uh he is the one, you'll see. Knowing that, having the evidence for it and the proof of it, does it cure you? Well, of course not. If you want the final evidence that that surgeon is a capable surgeon, as far as you are concerned, the only way you'll ever come at the evidence of that is by submitting to the surgeon. It will be an act of faith, of course, not blind faith. You have the preliminary evidence that he has cured many other people. Now it is the sensible thing, on the basis of that evidence, now to take the personal step of faith and commit yourself to his hands, that he, by his skill, might remove the tumor and you be cured. There is no other way for you to get that ultimate evidence that behind the letters that stand behind the man's name is capability to do what he claims. So it was with the people of Capernaum. They had heard miracles done at, uh, at Nazareth. They had heard miracles done at Capernaum. Yes, they showed that Jesus was this Messiah. Now he stood in their synagogue and quoted the, uh, prophetic scriptures that defined his ministry and claimed that it was now being fulfilled in front of them. He'd come to preach good tidings to the poor, to preach deliverance for captives, not prisoners in jail, but captives of war, that is, captives of his satanic majesty, captives of sin. He'd come to set them free. They demand evidence. What kind of evidence? What's the good of asking for a few more miracles like he did at Capernaum? They know all about those. Suppose he'd done um twenty up there. How much more evidence would it be if he did another twenty down here? That would be still just saying the same thing all over again, pointing to him that he had the ability to save. What they needed in Capernaum was to take that next step and to submit themselves to him, that they might receive from him that deliverance that he pro- that he claimed he had the power to give them. But then, you see, there was a difficulty for the people in Nazareth. There was his aunt there. Uh, there were some of his cousins and not a few of his uncles. Do you suppose they were going to say to this man that they'd known ever since he was a toddler? Do you suppose they were going to come to him and confess that they were poor and they were spiritually bankrupt and they were captives of sin and they needed him to come and save them. No, indeed not. Human heart very often is not made that way round. And our Lord discerned it. And now he said to them, you'll see a prophet actually is not without honor, save in his own country. A prophet, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. That was the difficulty. They'd known him since he'd grown up. How would they confess to him their need and humbly seek his salvation? So now he cited two instances from the Old Testament. One, the story of Elijah and the miracle that was done for the widow woman of that country. And then the story of Naaman, to whom Elisha the prophet brought healing. And as he told the story, he contrasted the Gentiles who received the blessing with the Israelites who didn't receive it. And when the people heard it, they were filled with anger, so much so that they led him out of the city to upper Nazareth, I suspect, uh, to Eilat, and would have, um, uh, thrown him over the hill. What was it about what he said that angered them so much? Here, the commentators and the experts disagree. So, if I disagree, that isn't adding much to the disagreement, is it? The first idea is that our Lord was chiding them for their Jewish exclusiveness. That when he cited that, uh, people in Israel weren't healed or blessed, and then said that Gentiles were, he touched the raw nerve of their exclusive attitude. And that could be, of course, the, uh, solution, all of it may be. Paul notices, doesn't he, in, uh, uh, Romans chapter eleven, that Israel for the time is hardened, but in as much as he is the apostle to the Gentiles, he magnifies his office that he might provoke his national brothers and sisters, the Israelites, according to the flesh, he might provoke them to jealousy. Paul wasn't behind using that tactic. I watch him with a profound admiration, beaten black and blue in the riot that broke out in the temple grounds, as he was dragged out of it by the captain with his squad of soldiers and asked permission as they mounted the stairs to the citadel, would he be allowed, please, to stand at the top of the stairs and address this seeding mob? He was given permission, and he began to argue with him, knowing his own superiority as a rabbi over this rabble, and pointed out that he was brought up in the very best of rabbinic circles, star pupil of Gamaliel. What had they, the rabble, to do to question his undoubted academic qualifications? And then, and then he pointed to them how zealous he had been in persecuting these nasty little Nazarenes, as he taught them. They hadn't been so zealous for the law as he. And then he pointed to his conversion, in which God used the agency of that profoundly and widely respected Jewish saint that was Ananias. He then pointed out that he was in the temple when the Lord appeared to him and said, get out, the Jews will not accept you. Behold, I send you to the Gentiles. And then he told the crowd how he pleaded with the Lord to the effect that the Jews weren't as bad as that, surely they would listen to him. And the Lord said, no, you must go to the Gentiles, at which point the crowd erupted in their mindless shouting. It had touched their nerve, hadn't it? That God should send somebody with a message to the Gentiles, and Paul should take the privilege of Jews to Gentiles. They were like the little blue-eyed boy o- o- o- on the nursery floor. Mama has given him a bright toy engine to play with, and he doesn't want it, and he kicks it, and he pushes it around, and then mama, to his horror, goes and gives it to the boy next door, and the first boy erupts in jealousy. He didn't want it himself, but he isn't going to have it given to somebody else. This may be the true explanation, but our Lord is saying, you exclusive jewels, if you don't want it, I will give it to the Gentiles, like God did in the days of Elijah and Elisha the prophet. And their jealousy erupted. That is one view. It is probably true, but there could be a little bit more to it, couldn't there? If we should ask, how was it that this lonely widow up there in Sidon received such a blessing from Elijah that many in Israel didn't receive? Then to answer it, we should have to consider her circumstances. Elijah was outside her city when she came out to gather a few sticks, and she, uh, was going home, so she told Elijah, because she'd got a handful of meal left and just a little oil. She was going home to cook a cake with them and to eat it with her son. And that would be the end of everything. And she would lay down and die. She was literally at the end of her resources. When Elijah made to her a startling proposition, nice gentleman that he was, he said, you go home and make me a cake first. Christian gentlemen don't normally talk like that. What, taking the widow's last might handful of flour and oil, last drop of oil, and asking to be made a cake first. If you'd been the widow, would you have done it? When you had so little left, would you have given the Lord's prophet virtually all you had left? Or would you have kept hold of it? I suspect with womanly logic she reasoned it out. If I keep the stuff and don't do what he says, then I'll eat this last cake, and in a week I shall be dead. If I give my oil and flour to him, well, there's a chance it works, isn't there? He might be God's prophet. Then I shall live. If he turns out to be a deceiver, I shall die just a few days earlier, that's all. Now, had she had a whole barrel full of flour and oil, she might not have taken the risk. But realizing her bankruptcy, it wasn't all that of a risk to take, was it? And she dared trust the prophet and proved him true and lived to tell the tale. That was a lesson that could have been applied to the people in the, uh, uh, in the synagogue of Nazareth. They resented, did they, his implication that they were poor and captives and bruised and needed him to save them. To be saved, they would have to confess their miserable bankruptcy. But they thought they were so spiritually wealthy. They didn't wish to admit they needed salvation. What proof could such people ever have that Jesus was the Messiah sent to save them? If only they had been like some of the prostitutes and tax gatherers that knew themselves morally and spiritually bankrupt, then they might have taken the risk, if one may so put it, of confessing their bankruptcy, trusting the Savior, and proving his salvation real. It was so with Naaman. When Elisha proposed at first he should dip in Jordan, he went away in a rage. He was not going to humiliate himself like that. Yeah, yes, he had a spot of leprosy, so what? It was only a spot, wasn't it? But his servants knew better. They said, sir, you know, it could be fatal. Wouldn't you be wise to give Jordan a try? And he humbled himself and washed in Jordan, and his flesh came as that of a little child. Evidence. Evidence. As we should not forget that Luke was writing his gospel for a certain Theophilus, and Theophilus's group of friends, and then us as well, and writes that he might know the certainty of the things that have been recorded, not only the historical certainty that they happened, but the reliability of the claims of our blessed Lord. They must be honest with Theophilus that even the people of his village, Nazareth, that knew him so well, rejected him. Now Luke is wise enough to put before Theophilus now the story of the reasons why they rejected him, and why they failed to prove that Jesus was and is the Messiah. That kind of lesson, of course, is still to be preached, isn't it? For people who demand evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. There are two kinds of evidence. There is the external, the signs that point to that he is the Messiah, but then there's the evidence that can come only as people take their faith in hand and confessing their need, put themselves in the hands of Christ, thus to experience the solid evidence in their personal lives that Jesus is the Messiah sent to save them. The second half of the beginnings of the ministry takes place in the area of Capernaum, as you see. And there it is interesting to notice that when he went into the synagogues in that area to teach, the demons started to cry out, I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. Thou art the Son of God. They knew him to be the Christ. The amazement that then took the crowd was this, amazement came upon all, and they spake together one with another, saying, what is this word? For with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits to come out of them. We remember the temptation in the preparation for his ministry, how he was tempted by the very devil himself, and triumphed in that temptation by obeying and sticking uncompromisingly himself to the word of God, which he quoted on each occasion that he was tempted, applying the word of God to his own life in his resistance against the temptations offered by Satan. Now he begins to preach, and what is, according to Luke, the great center of his preaching? What is the battering ram that he lives with which to assault the very gates of hell? It is his word, says Luke. He preached the word, and when the demons heard it, they came out crying i- i- i- in their fear. And the people said, what word is this that he commandeth even the demons to come out, and they come out. That is important, exceedingly important, as we consider the ministry of our blessed Lord. He came to undo the works of the devil, and his prime instrument in so doing was the preaching of the word. It was by getting Adam and Eve to distrust and then disobey the word of God that Satan first triumphed. And men will be delivered from their captivity to Satan by the word of God and being brought to believe that word. You will recall the refrains with which Luke, uh, marks the end of each successive triumphal stage of the spread of the gospel. The word of God was magnified. Still, it is true in our day and generation that if we would make assaults on, uh, uh, uh, on the devil and be in God's hand instruments to release people from the captivity of which our Lord spoke. And our prime instrument must be the Word of God. I write unto you, young men, says John, because you are strong and the Word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the evil one. And if you allow an old, old boy, that's me, to give a little personal experience. Too often I have seen in my day men and women come up to university, Christians in profession, but with little knowledge of the word of God, to face the blasts of atheism and modernism and all the other isms that are contrary to God, such as you meet in universities, not that they are specially sinful places. It's like sending young people out with bare hands to face modern cannons of warfare. It is the word we need to get. The word of the God of this creation. The word of our blessed Lord that will undo the blindness and the temptations and the slavery that Satan has imposed on mankind by getting them to disbelieve God's word. We are to notice finally in this part that, uh, the demons cried out and gave their, uh, unwilling testimony that Jesus was the Christ. He refused to accept their testimony and told them to be quiet. It pleases the devil sometimes to quote the truth, as Satan did in the temptation, quoting scripture to our Lord. When demons quote the truth, they don't do it so that people shall believe the truth. They are still fighting and batting on the other side. Their aim is to deceive mankind, wrapping up a whole lot of lies, lies in a cover su- of sugar. That is the truth. More than that, now I do not wish to say, because we must take advantage of our last small time to move on and prepare ourselves for tomorrow's study by beginning to look at section three of this gospel, the major section three uh of the gospel. I suggest to you that it, uh, is, uh, it comprises chapters five and six. Why do I say that? Well, look at the end of chapter end uh, of chapter four and verse forty four. and he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee. Do you notice that little general phrase once more, the device by which ancient writers mark the end of one section before they begin another? Then, if you notice what we have already noticed on previous occasions, chapter seven verse one: after he had ended all his sayings in the ears of the people, he entered into Capernaum. Another general end note. So for the moment, tentatively, chapters five and six. and what shall they be about? I should suggest that they are about the general topic of Christ's way with sin and sinners. Why do I say that? Well, let us briefly, uh, ga- glance over the section. It's five, you'll see, and notice the numerous occasions on which you get the words sin and sinners. Uh, chapter five, one to eleven. Here is a story that is peculiar to Luke. It's a story in the prime position, therefore, in this section. Its climax comes as Peter kneels in his boat and says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. The third story in this section, five seventeen to twenty six, is the story of the paralytic. So first our Lord says, your sins are forgiven you. The crowds say, who can forgive sins but God alone? Our Lord replies that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins and demonstrates it by healing the paralytic. That was five thirty to thirty two, Pharisees criticize him, why eat and drink with tax gatherers and sinners? And our Lord replies, I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Chapter six verse thirty two to thirty four, our Lord says, thirty two, if you love them that love you, what thank have ye? For even sinners love them that love, uh, them. If you do good to them that, uh, uh, uh, if you do good to them that do good to you, what thank have ye, for even sinners do the same. Verse thirty four, even sinners lend to sinners. And similarly, not only the explicit words sin and sinners, but throughout we shall find the Pharisees accusing our Lord of doing things that are not lawful. In other words, he's breaking the law and is sinning. Christ replies that David on one occasion did what was not lawful, and then shows how David was justified in doing it. Or again, our Lord meets a man with a withered hand, asking him to stand forward, he says to the Pharisees, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day or not? It is a question, of course, of right and wrong, of what is good and what is sinful. In this section, therefore, uh, we have the Lord's moral teaching, Luke's counterpart to what in Matthew is called the Sermon on the Mount. This, then, is the section that's going to deal with our Lord's attitude to sin and to sinners. It is, of course, in some proce- progression, isn't it? For you notice that now our Lord has a note, uh, has announced his program. We've had a section, we have a section dealing with this thing, the root cause of man's trouble. How will our Lord deal with sin and with sinners? And what will be his teaching about sin and sinners? And how does he judge what is right and what is wrong? The astonishing thing that we ought to notice about his teaching on morality is this, that, uh, he makes himself the criterion and the touchstone of what is right and wrong. At the beginning, it is Christ's word and no other consideration which Peter must obey as he lets down his net to achieve success. At the end of chapter six he says, if you want to build on a right foundation, you hear my word and do it. Then he points to the hypocrisy of people that hear his word and call him Lord, but don't do what he says. The result is disaster. It is his word that is the criterion of right and wrong. It is himself and his word that form the true foundation of life. And blessedness comes, he says, at a certain point, if it is for his sake that men persecute you and cast out, uh, your name as evil. It is because he is the son of man that he has the right to forgive sins. And so forth and so on. The astonishing thing is that our Lord does not simply take them back to Moses' law and say, look, you should obey it a little bit more than you have done hitherto. He comes into a world of sin and sinners. He is the lawgiver incarnate. It is his word that is the criterion of what is right and wrong. It is his authority given him of the Father that can declare a man or woman forgiven. It is his word that is the basis for building a successful life. It is neglect of his word that will bring you to eternal disaster. Christ is himself the criterion and the touchstone of what is right and wrong. As to the formal, uh, arrangement of this particular part of the gospel, let me just run you through it then, if I may. First of all, three chapters in chapter five that begin each one, or they used to before modern translations came, uh, and it came to pass a formal statement, and it came to pass, and it came to pass, and it came to pass. Christ, I have called it, and the authorities. What do I mean by that? Well, you will notice that these three stories give us authorities in three different areas of life. There is the expert fisherman, expert at daily work, with whom our Lord comes now in contact to teach him a profound lesson about daily work. There is then the untouchable leper, and when he is healed, our Lord sends him to the expert, he sends him to the priests. And then there is the case of this paralytic whose sins our Lord forgiven, but the experts challenged our Lord. Who is this that forgives sins? They were the teachers of the law, the scribes, the experts in the interpretation of Old Testament. When they heard our Lord say, thy sins are forgiven thee, they challenged him and resented him and suggested he was indulging in a blasphemous claim. Who is it, they said, that forgives sins except God? They were the experts. But to prove to those experts that he had the authority on earth to forgive sins, he did a miracle, made the man walk straight, and the man walking straight was an evidence to the experts. Three lots of experts then, uh, and the way our Lord handled them and made his converts, those whom he had saved and forgiven, eh, eh, examples to the experts. That is followed by a statement of Christ's principles of spiritual discipline. When he got, well, first the techniques that he used to get converts, and then when he got them, what kind of spiritual discipline did he impose upon them? And it ends with a threefold parable, parable of old and new garments, old and new wineskins, old and new wine. So much for the first half. The second half is similar in its format. It runs like this. Three stories introduced originally by a formal and it came to pass, and it came to pass, and it came to pass. It is once more Christ and the authorities, that is the ethical, moral, legal authorities. The story of the disciples in the cornfield and how the authorities claimed that our Lord was allowing them to sin. The man with a withered hand, and our Lord challenging the authorities as to whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath day or not. And then the healing of the mu- the the multitudes, and an exceedingly important historical event. With all the people standing by, our Lord came down the mountain and appointed twelve men to be his apostles. Whereas the scribes and the teachers of the law were the recognized and official interpreters of the Old Testament for the people, they were the authorities. Here was Christ now setting up the men that in succeeding ages should be times should be his authorities, his official interpreters, his apostles, as distinct from the scribes of the Jewish nation. So then three stories, how they match with the previous three, we shall see on another occasion. And then after those three stories, here is our Lord with his principles, not of spiritual discipline so much, but his principles of morality. I have selected, arbitrarily selected some, just to call our attention to some of the main points. There's a lot more detail than I have put on this sheet, but attitudes of mora- principles of morality, attitudes to poverty, hunger, sorrow, and social ostracism, attitude to riches, society, laughter, and social acceptance, attitude to enemies and would-be borrowers, our Lord's enunciation of his moral principles. It ends with a parable which is in three or possibly four parts. It doesn't matter how many, but it's one parable, parable of the good and bad eyesight, good and bad fruit trees, good and bad building. Formally, therefore, the passages have a, a lot, the two sides have a lot in co- common, do you see? Uh, let me just take my final five minutes to think of the first lot. Uh, that is, eh, Christ and the authorities, the three instances of which we shall take just the first one this evening before we go. That is the story given us in chapter five, verses one to 11. Herein Christ will show himself the Lord of daily work. The story begins with our Lord coming to the lakeside and seeing some fishermen's boat. He asked one of their owners if he might use it to push out a little from the land, and from the land address the people. The boat happened to belong to a certain Simon Peter, and Simon Peter was a good man, keen man, believer in God. He was also a very good fisherman, and since he didn't need his boat, he was quite happy to lend his plant to our Lord to use it for his religious campaigns, you'll see. He's a decent chap. He was also a very good, uh, and a keen fisherman and businessman, for he wasn't sitting in the cafe drinking his morning coffee and whiling, wasting the time. He was washing his nets, as any efficient fisherman must do if he hopes the next night to catch a decent catch. He can't afford to have the nets bunged up with a lot of flotsam and jetsam, as he won't catch many fish. He was an efficient fisherman, getting on with his daily work properly, as all people should do, and as students do. And, uh, you'll see, I don't know whether he was in earshot of the sermon, and if he was, whether he was moved or not. I'm not, we're not told he was busy, I presume, washing his nets. When the sermon was over, our Lord asked him to please row them out into the deep, you'll see, and go for a draft. So they rowed out into the deep, and our Lord said, let down the nets. Well, now, Peter didn't mind listening to the Lord preaching sermons. He was good at preaching sermons, but when it came to fishing, what on earth did Christ know about fishing, of all things? Here, Peter was the expert. Should leave the experts to do the job, shouldn't you? Well, said Peter, uh, uh, you know, with due respect, of course, Lord, but there aren't any fish about really, really. We toiled all night and caught nothing. There are no fish here. They're senseless to let down the nets. No good at all. But our Lord insisted. And for the first time in his life, he let down his nets not to catch fish as he thought. Not to make money, because he didn't believe there were any fish to be caught or any mon- money to be got. He'd never done that before, deliberately letting down a net where he, net where he thought there were no fish. For the first time in all his daily life, he let down his fisherman's net just to please Christ. Christ was not blaming him that he'd never done such a thing before. Christ had not been there before. But now today there came into Peter's life an altogether different dimension to daily work. For now the Creator incarnate has stepped into his fishing boat and was taking an interest in the question of daily work. And Peter, who before was the expert, was now going to let down his net at his daily work to please the Lord. And at his direct command. That was a new thing for Peter, and revolutionized his attitude to daily work. Yes, there was a miracle. And that, uh, uh, brought Peter to realize in whose presence he stood, who it was now in the boat that had taken command of his daily work and sought to be pleased by Peter. He was the creator, and he demonstrated it. He wasn't saying to Peter that if only he had been better behaved, he'd have had a miracle every time, every day of the week, whenever he let down his net. That was not the point. He now demonstrated who he was. From now onward, then Peter should never return to anything less than this, that he was letting down his nets to please Christ. And we're Christians, aren't we? How would you, how would you describe Sin. sin? We sometimes think of sin as things lurid, going off with somebody else's wife or something. Now, for us as believers, to go about our work and seek first food, clothes, and money. Oh, don't get me wrong, it's not wrong to seek food, clothes, and money. Surely it isn't. It's what we go to work for, isn't it? Well, that's a subsidiary reason. But if we would seek the rule of God in our lives, says our blessed Lord, in going to our daily work, we should seek first not food and clothes. That's what the old Gentiles do. That's why they go to work. We Christians are supposed to be different. What have I got to do at my work first? What is my prime motivation? My prime motivation should be that I seek the rule of God in my life and let down my nets to please the Lord. You'll see, I can learn that it is a good thing to be kind, to be patient, by just reading the Bible. But reading it in the Bible that I ought to be unselfish and kind and patient doesn't make me unselfish, kind, and patient. To become unselfish, kind, and patient, I shall need some practice at the job. Yes? It is by practicing un- uh, kindness and patience in daily work that I develop a character as I seek the rule of God in my life and the righteousness that practically comes by doing my work first for God's sake. And if I needed to be taught patience, and I did sorely need it, the Lord saw fit to put me where I could learn some patience by practice, by sending me to teach sundry students. I recommend it to you if you're looking for patience, Josie. A mother feeding a baby and running the house, and the tax accountant wherever he is. The prime revenue, the prime duty, the prime objective, to seek God and his kingdom, to do it to please the Lord. And it brings the practical development of Christian character. Moreover, when Peter had learned to let down his net at the command of the Lord Jesus, now our Lord took his fisherman's qualities. You have been a fisherman of fish so far, now you shall become a fisherman of men. Thus, as our good brother was telling us in the morning, does God use our daily occupation to train us in the ways of righteousness that we shall now use our skills in the higher service of the seeking of men. But however long Peter lived in the so-called full-time service of the Lord, he would never forget he learned its basic principle when he was in a fishing boat at fishing. We should not divide life, perhaps, into two separate compartments, should we? Secular work and spiritual. Do you see, there's more to fishing, actual literal fish, isn't there? They're making money out of them. You know, you can't get to heaven without eating fish, did you know that? Well, if you've got any fish, you can eat beef or lamb or something, or cornflakes, but you can't get to heaven without, can you? You say, what do you mean? Well, unless you get food to live as creatures of God, you'll never arrive at the stage when you might, by faith in Christ, become children of God. The natural is necessary, and catching fish will do for maintaining our bodies and maintaining a healthy life, but there's more to it than catching fish. That is an integral part of the creator's program for maintaining creatures, that they might have the chance of hearing the gospel and become children of God. Catching fish, therefore, is in that sense a sacred occupation, isn't it? As is farming and all the rest of the occupations that God gives us to do. And we need a unified attitude to the whole thing. It's not just spiritual work that is done for the Lord. The Lord wants to come into our boats that we do our daily work at his word, unto the Lord, primarily to f- to please him. And he assures us that so doing, our Father knows what we have need of and will supply our daily needs. If that be Christian standards, if it be sin to go about our daily work for any lesser motive as Christians, how many days have I spent completely in sin because I serve simply myself rather than the Lord. On that thought, let us pray. Lord Jesus, thou who did stand in Peter's boat these many years ago, and teach him what is thy desire for our attitude in our daily employment. Stand in our boats tonight, we do beseech thee, that all we do may be done for thee, and that our daily work may contribute to the glory of God and the salvation and building up of thy people. That with unified purpose, whether it be natural or spiritual work, we may seek thy pleasure and do thy will, and thus develop a Christian character under thy kingly rule, for thy glory and for the benefit of others, we pray, for thy name's sake. Amen.