Thoughts From Luke - Day 19

                                     Luke 5:1-11

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ² He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”
⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

        We saw in the previous blog that when Jesus spoke, His words were different than all other speakers because His words were authoritative. He wasn't giving opinions, pontificating, arguing, philosophizing - it was like He knew the truth because He created truth and He was letting people "in" on it. One thing I've missed in this passage before is that I have always jumped straight to the miracle and missed the fact that Jesus taught for the first 4 verses. The disciples weren't way out in the lake and He yelled to them. They hadn't fished all night and were ready to come in - they were already in. They were ready to go home to rest but stayed around to hear Jesus speak. After hearing Jesus speak with authority as He did, He told them to go back out fishing. I imagine everything was all put up, prepared for the next time out. The sails were probably all down. The deck would have been swabbed. The wind was probably "blowing from the North where wise fishermen don't go forth" or "from the East where the fish bite the least"- nevertheless, because after hearing Jesus speak, not telling things he learned but revealing things He knew, the disciples could do nothing but obey what He said, even though this was probably the last thing that they would have wanted to do.

    Then the miracle happened. Human reasoning - I'm tired, there are no fish out there, it's the wrong time of day, the wind is wrong - was overcome by the power of God. What was Simon's response? It was, "I am sinful and unworthy to be in your presence." I'm not sure that he comes up with that response without first hearing Christ's teachings. Maybe, I am in the presence of greatness, or I am nothing compared to You, or who is this guy-only God could pull off something like that. But to say that he is morally unfit to be in Christ's presence took some prior teaching on how one should behave morally, something like the sermon on the mount.

     What's my point? As we go out being fishers of men, we have two obstacles, Number one, human reasoning. People's minds have been blinded by the God of this age. They have objections such as human suffering, hell, hypocrites, science, religious atrocities throughout the ages, virgin birth, etc. Secondly, people have to be convinced of their need for a savior - they need to realize that they are sinful, not basically good people. How is this accomplished? In this account it is a dual approach. First it requires words. Meeting people's needs, serving them, basically the social gospel without words will inspire people, promote love for mankind, even stimulate pay it forward campaigns, but it cannot save them because it doesn't effect the ultimate need of the heart - separation from God by sin. Secondly it takes the power of God to awake a stone cold heart and perform the miracle of rebirth.

     That old statement of preach the gospel continually and if necessary use words just doesn't cut it. It is a two faceted approach. So keep speaking truth, meet people's needs and let God perform a miracle in their heart.