The Catch of Fish

In Luke chapter 5, we read about Jesus loading the nets with fish. It was miraculous, and out of fear and astonishment, Peter asked Jesus to leave. The reason He gave, Lord, depart from me, because I'm a sinful man. If Peter had any sense at all, if he had a single brain in his head, he would have said, Lord, don't go. Come here, because I'm a sinful man, because what Peter needed more than anything in the world was a Savior. Being in the presence of holiness does make us uncomfortable, and for Peter, when he realized who was standing in the boat with him, he just wanted to get away. But as we'll learn today on Renewing Your Mind, the presence of Christ shouldn't push us away. It should draw us and remind us that He is our Savior, that He offers forgiveness and new life. Here's Dr. R.C.

Sproul. When last we looked at the gospel of Luke together, we remembered that it was on that occasion that after Jesus had healed so many people that He withdrew from the multitudes into a remote place, but they pursued Him relentlessly, asking Him to stay in their midst that He may continue His healing ministry among them. And He said, don't you know that I must be engaged in preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, for it was for this purpose that I have been sent into the world. And so now as we come to chapter 5, we see that the people continued to press around Him, only on this occasion not to insist on healings and miracles, but rather the multitude now is pressing about Jesus that they might hear the Word of God. Now that's a good thing, that the multitudes now, instead of just looking for some personal gain, they came rushing to Jesus when He explained to them that what His mission was was to proclaim the Word of God.

The multitude still came, and they pressed about Him because that's what they wanted to hear. Just like you can see this morning here in this building, standing room only, no empty seats, the people of Sanford and of Orlando flocking in here, such is their desire to hear the Word of God. Oh, how that would be the case, how God would cause a revival in our land, that people would press into the kingdom of God and have a flaming desire in their hearts to hear the Word of God. And in this day and age, I wonder if they would come even if Jesus were preaching this morning.

I hope they would come in greater numbers than they come when I'm preaching. But in any case, Jesus was standing by the lake when He was beginning to teach, and He saw that there were two boats there moored by the lake. The fishermen were gone from them because they were mending their nets.

I can see that in my mind's eye. We used to live on the north shore of Boston, and frequently we would drive to Gloucester at noonday to eat at the wharf there, and we would watch as the boats, the fishing fleet would come in, and we would see the old grizzled tars, the sailors there on the sidewalks with their nets, just as they did two thousand years ago. Meticulously, these men with gnarled fingers would be working on the nets to make sure that any weak portion of the net was strengthened and anything that had ripped would be repaired so that they could continue on their vocation of bringing fish to the land. And so here, just as there in Gloucester, these fishermen were sitting by the way, washing their nets, and Jesus got into one of the boats, which happened to be Simon Peter's, and He asked him to put out a little ways from the land so that He could get some space from this multitude that was pressing against Him. And when Peter cast off a few feet from the shore, out of the reach of the multitudes, Jesus sat down, and there from the boat He began to teach the crowds that had gathered. And when He had stopped, listen to what happened. He said to Simon, launch out now into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

Interesting, isn't it? Why did Jesus do that? Well, we aren't told for sure why He did it, but we certainly get a strong hint as to why He did it. Jesus, as prophets in the Old Testament were wont to do, would frequently accent their verbal proclamations with some kind of visible object lesson. And now after teaching the multitudes with His Word, now He's going to teach Simon Peter something by giving him an object lesson that he will never forget. He says, Peter, I want you now to launch out into the deep.

We're going to go fishing. Now you can sense the tension in Peter here, the frustration. Jesus tells him to push out into the deep.

He's been out there all night fishing, didn't catch a thing. You know what he's thinking. This is impetuous, Peter.

He's thinking, Jesus, you know all about theology. We love to hear you teach about the things of God and the kingdom of God, but give us some credit. We're professional fishermen.

We know about how to fish and how not to fish, where to fish and where not to fish. We've been out there all night, and our nets are empty. But He's relatively polite. He said, Master, it's a good way to start.

We've toiled all night and caught nothing. Nevertheless, if you say so, at Your Word, I'll let down the net. I don't want to do this, Master, but since You are the Master, and since as Master You've given me the command to do it, I'll do it, albeit reluctantly. It reminds me of an experience I've related on another occasion, in another context, when I was in seminary in Dr. Gerstner's class. There were about 19 of us in there sitting in a semi-circle, and he said, if God is sovereign and the doctrine of election is true, why should we be engaged in evangelism? And he started asking each student one by one.

And I was sitting on the right end of the semi-circle, and I was so grateful that he started on the left then. But he went to the first student, and the first student said, beats me. I've always wondered that myself. The second student says, well, if God is sovereign and election is true, I really can't see the point of being all that exercised about evangelism. The third one said, I have no earthly idea.

And one by one, 18 Indians fell in sequence until it came to me. And the gaze of the professor was on me, and he said, well, Mr. Sproul, what do you say? If God is sovereign and election is true, why should we be engaged in evangelism? And I said, well, I know this isn't the reason you're looking for. But one small reason that we should still be concerned about evangelism is, after all, Jesus commands us to be, doesn't He? And Gerstner started to laugh in a mocking type of laugh, saying, yes, Mr. Sproul, and what could possibly be more insignificant than that? That the Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior, commands you to do something.

I got the message. So the next time I was asked that question, I didn't downplay it. If the Lord God omnipotent commands you to do something, you do it, and you don't do it reluctantly. And you don't do it smugly, as if you're ready to say when you fail, I told you so. But that's Peter's response here, just like ours. Okay, Lord, you're the master.

If you command it, and he says to the other guys, let's humor him, throw down the nets, and you know what happened? Every fish in the Sea of Galilee jumped in the net. Well, first of all, we have to understand how that happened. Who made those fish? Who was the Lord of those fish? Those were Jesus' fish. Jesus made those fish. He made the lake. And when Jesus tells His men to put the net in the water, the fish come to do the bidding of the Master.

There was hesitancy on the part of Peter, no hesitancy on the part of the fish. The fish were jumping to their deaths at the bidding of their Master. When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish so that their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came, and now they filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

This was the greatest catch of fish that these fishermen had ever experienced in all of their years of fishing in this lake. And when this happened, I want us to note Peter's response. I've mentioned this before. You would think that Peter, who had partners of James and John, we're told here that they were in business with the sons of Zebedee, that Peter would have been the spokesman for his partners and would have said to Jesus, look, Jesus, 50 percent of the business is Yours. You just come down here once a week and do this.

No, 90 percent will pay you if you'll do this once a week. That's what you would expect Peter's response to be. That wasn't what it was. His response is profound, and his response, dear friends, is profoundly important for us to understand. When Peter saw this, Luke tells us he fell on his knees in front of Jesus, begging him not to go in business, but begging him on his knees to leave, to go away. Lord, he says, depart from me. Please go. And we don't have to guess why he did that.

He states his reason clearly. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. You want to know why this church isn't filled right now? Well, because there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people out there who want to stay as far away from Jesus as they possibly can. And the reason they want to avoid the worship of Jesus and the presence of Jesus is the same reason Peter gave to Jesus. Please leave.

Get out of here. Depart from me, because I am a sinful man. And the reason why sinners don't want to come to church is because they are sinners. And nothing makes a sinner more uncomfortable than the presence of a holy God.

In my book on the holiness of God, I have a whole chapter on the holiness of Christ. We have already seen the response of the demons to Jesus. Jesus, please leave. Why are you tormenting us? You are here before the time.

The demons couldn't stand to be in the presence of the holy, and neither could the sinners. Now, I've told a story before about an experience I had about forty years ago or so. I was speaking at a college in western Pennsylvania in a town that was situated along one of the rivers in the Steel Valley. And it was a bleak day at the end of winter. Snow had not yet completely been melted from the sidewalks, and the snow was not white, but it was black from the soot and the dirt.

It was a dreary day, overcast. And I was on this bus, and I looked at the people who were getting on this bus, and these were people who were depressed, who were oppressed, who were just trying to eke out some kind of subsistence of living. And you could see them with their stooped shoulders and the lines etched in their face and the looks of despair that they had. And I was sitting on this bus looking at these people, and I was thinking, do these people have any hope whatsoever?

And I started to look out of the grimy windows on the bus. And the first thing I noticed was we were passing by a storefront church, and it had a rudimentary cross in the front window. And suddenly my spirits were buoyed, and I thought, there it is. There's the sign of hope for these people, the cross.

And we went a little further, and I saw another one. And I was amazed to realize that I couldn't go a city block in this town without seeing a cross, the universal symbol of the Christian faith, the symbol of humanity's hope. And without the cross, men and women are without hope in this world. But you know, the cross is not just the sign of hope, but it's also a sign of guilt. Because when we see that cross, we know what it represents.

It represents a work of somebody who was trying to save people who were in their sin. And just as a vampire shrinks in horror from the sign of the cross, so a fallen human creature shrinks in horror at the sign of Christ. Because Christ is holy, and we are not. And people who are unholy are always uncomfortable in the presence of the holy.

You don't have to say a word. If people know you're a Christian, you'll make them feel uncomfortable, not because you're holy, but because you're associated with one who is. And people are not comfortable in the presence of Jesus unless He's here, Jesus, unless He's healing them or feeding them. And so Peter wants Jesus to leave. Now this was not merely a wicked desire on Peter's part to want Jesus to leave.

It was stupid. It was foolish because the reason he gave, Lord, depart from me because I'm a sinful man. If Peter had any sense at all, if he had a single brain in his head, he would have said, Lord, don't go. Come here because I'm a sinful man. Because what Peter needed more than anything in the world was a Savior. Now how many times have you heard it?

I don't know. I've heard it hundreds of times where people have said to me, you know, religion may be good for you, and going to church and all that's fine if you get something out of it, but I don't feel the need for Jesus. You don't feel the need for Jesus?

Is your heart that hard? Don't you realize that there's nothing on this earth that you need more desperately than you need Jesus? What else can satisfy your need except Jesus? And I say to people, what do you do with your sin? What do you do with your guilt?

And I've said that I don't know how many times to people. What do you do with your guilt? I've yet to have somebody say to me, I don't have any guilt. I don't have any sin. Every impenitent sinner on this planet, even sociopaths, know that they have guilt, and they know that they have sin. And if you are a human being and you know that you have sin, how can you be so foolish as to think you don't need Jesus because no one else can fix your problem? So again, if Peter would have had any sense, he wouldn't have asked Jesus to leave.

He would have begged Him to come closer. Please come here. I'm a sinful man.

I need you. And Jesus said, Simon, don't be afraid. From now on you're going to catch men. You're going to catch people, My people whom the Father has given Me. I don't need you to catch them.

I can catch them without you. My Father can print His Word up in the clouds if He wants to, but He's chosen the foolishness of preaching as the means to save the world. And I'm choosing the foolishness of you disciples to bring My people into the fold. So when they had brought their boats to land, boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him. Fame, glory, riches, power, all these things were forsaken because they realized that nothing could compare with this One who had just performed that miracle before their eyes.

Nothing could compare with this One who was the pearl of great price. They had nothing to trade for the greatness of the benefits of the benefits from Jesus, and so they stopped running from Him. That's what happens at conversion. That's what happens when your life is turned around by God the Holy Spirit. You stop being a fugitive. You know the tragedy for me is that the fugitives are not just outside.

They're people in this room who are still fugitives, who are still fleeing from Jesus, hiding from Jesus, wearing a mantle or a cloak of respectability by coming to church and so on. But in their hearts they're still saying, Depart from Me. I'm not ready to forsake all and to follow You. But once you've heard the Holy One say to you, Your sins are forgiven.

Come, follow Me. And the Spirit of God changes that rock that's in your chest that you call a heart and causes it to beat anew under the Spirit's breath, then all you want to do is get as close as you possibly can to Jesus and to follow Him and to follow Him the rest of your life. That's what it means to be a Christian. That regeneration, that change from death to life comes as a free gift of God. My prayer is that you have repented and placed your trust completely in the finished work of Christ.

I'm glad you've joined us today as we continue Dr. R.C. Sproul's sermon series from the Gospel of Luke. Over the past few months we have studied verse by verse through the first five chapters and will continue through the rest of the book. It's so helpful to study God's Word this way because we get to know the context of the passage. We'd like to help you as you continue your own studies, so when you contact us today with a donation of any amount, we will be glad to provide you with Dr. Sproul's nearly 600-page commentary on Luke's Gospel.

Our offices are closed on this Lord's Day, but you can give your gift and make your request online at renewingyourmind.org. As believers, we are eager to renew our minds in prayer and Bible study, and here at Ligonier we want to help you as much as we can. That's why we established RefNet to be a source of faithful Bible teaching throughout your day. You'll hear teaching and preaching, Scripture reading, audio books, and more 24 hours a day.

Listen for free at any time when you go to RefNet.fm or when you download the free RefNet app. We know that Jesus went from town to town healing everyone who was sick. Next Sunday we'll return to Luke's Gospel to learn about one leper who found restoration at the hands of Jesus. I hope you'll join us for that next week here on Renewing Your Mind. you