Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men
Fishing for men
To be good fishermen we must be--
I. ARDENTLY ENAMOURED OF THE FISHING.
II. INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH THE FISHES. In following the analogy, we may observe that, because of his acquaintance with the fishes, the fisherman knows--
1. Where to fish. A novice would throw in his line anywhere; but not so the fisherman. Fishes of various sorts must be sought in various localities, and in some places you may seek in vain for any. Many a man has “toiled all the night and has taken nothing,” simply because he has been trying in the wrong place; while others round about him have “made a good tide.” For one sort he may go to the quiet lake and the gentle stream; for another to the open sea or the deep channel; while for others he has to go out into the great wide ocean. And in our spiritual fishing we must learn where to catch men. We may find opportunities in the quiet lakes of our own domestic circles, or in the pleasant streams of our social friendships. Because of his acquaintance with the fishes, the fisherman also knows--
2. How to fish. Like men, fishes differ very much in their dispositions and habits, so that what would be suitable for catching one class would not be successful with another. For instance: While some must be drawn, others must be driven. I have seen fishermen, after casting their net, row round about it, making as much noise as possible with their oars, in order to frighten the fishes into it; while, in other instances, a bright light has been burned in the boat to allure them, if possible, into the snare. It is exactly so with men. Some are caught in shoals, while others must be caught singly. There are some that never can be taken in a net, and there are others that can never be taken with a line. You must go about it very cautiously. The fish is a shy creature, and many would-be sportsman has driven away all chance of success by his incautious procedure. Almost anybody can cast a net, but it requires an expert to use the line. People can successfully address large assemblies, who are ill at ease when in personal intercourse with the ungodly. This is a work that demands all our skill and care. You may see a wonderful example of this in our Saviour’s conversation with the woman at the well. I have been in the same boat with several persons, each provided with similar lines, hooks, and bait; and yet some have been as wonderfully successful as others have been strangely unfortunate. The secret, to those who understood fishing, was obvious. The good fisherman, knowing exactly how to manage and tempt his prey, could, with inferior apparatus, secure success; while the novice, with the best patent gear, might sit, and wait and watch in vain. The application is easy. Seek to allure men! Make your Christianity an attractive thing! Surround all you do with the genuine sunshine of the Bible! Reveal Christ, and He “will draw all men unto Him.” Again, his acquaintance with the fishes will teach the fisherman--
3. When to fish. “A word in season, how good it is!” Some fishes are to be caught when the tide is high; others, when it is low; and others, when it is “slack.” Some can be obtained only in cloudy weather, and others may be caught when the sky is clear and bright. For some the daylight is needful, and for others there is no time like the night. And the fit season for approaching men may be equally various. As in fishing, so, as a rule, with men, the best time to seek them is during “the slack” of the tide. It is not well to make the attempt during either the full swing of the flood, or of the strong rush of the ebb. Indeed, no ordinary lead would carry your bait to where they are. You must seek men when they are quiet. It is worthy of observation that most fishes arc caught best in cloudy weather. When the sky is murky and lowering, then the fisherman puts out to sea. This certainly suggests to us the appropriateness of Christian words in seasons of sorrow.
III. MORALLY QUALIFIED TO BE FISHERMEN. Piety, patience, perseverance, and every Christian grace will be needful in this work. Its difficulties are neither few nor small. (W. H. Burton.)
Catching men alive
Thou shalt catch men. The word “catch” is different from any word that has been used concerning the fish, and expresses the catching alive of the prey to be caught; so that the phraseology of our Lord seems to carry with it the thought that fishers of men are to toil for living creatures, and that unless they be caught alive they might as well not be caught at all. How well would it be for all those who are called to be fishers of men, to remember that their work is not to fill their boat with fishes which may serve as food for themselves, but to catch living men and make them servants of the Most High God. (Bishop Goodwin.)
Fishers of men
The design of this miracle was twofold. It was intended--
1. To produce an immediate effect upon the minds of Peter and the rest, to deepen their faith in the Master who had called them, and to set forth His power, His watchfulness, His love. But still more--
2. To take effect in the future; it was emphatically a prophetic miracle--to be looked back to and to yield inexhaustible comfort again and again amid the heavy cares and discouraging tasks of the years to come, when the gospel-net had been finally put into their hands, and they had become “fishers of men.” St. Peter was to translate into spiritual language all that belonged to his old fisherman’s life. He was to understand that it had been in a homely, but still most real, way a preparation for the new unearthly service to which Christ was calling him. So you may remember the simple shepherd-life of David is set forth in the seventy-eighth Psalm as a preparatory discipline for kingly rule. And so, according to the fancy of an early writer, the trade of tentmaker followed by Saul of Tarsus prefigured the work which lay in store for Paul the apostle, as the maker of tabernacles for the people of God, the founder of Churches all over the known world. (Canon Duckworth.)
The promise that Peter should become a fisher of men was made still more impressive by a great symbolical miracle.
1. The number of fish caught at Jesus’ word represented the men he should some day take.
2. As he fished all night and caught nothing, so had he afterwards to labour long in Israel without winning a single human soul.
3. So, too, at Jesus’ word, he put further out into the deep of the great Gentile world, and drew there a great draught.
4. Last of all, there were two boats to fill--the Gentile-Christian and the Jewish Christian Churches. Then the net began to tear, and the opposition of these two sections threatened the Church with a grievous schism. But the draught was brought safely to land, to the confounding of the circumcised Jew, through whose instrumentality this Divine action had been brought about. (B. Weiss.)
Men-catchers
The man who saves souls is like a fisher upon the sea.
1. A fisher is dependent and trustful.
2. He is diligent and persevering.
3. He is intelligent and watchful.
4. He is laborious and self-denying.
5. He is daring--not afraid to venture upon a dangerous sea.
6. He is successful. He is DO fisher who never catches anything. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
There is as much analogy as contrast between the first and second vocations of the sons of Jonas and Zebedee.
1. Like the fisherman, the minister of the gospel must be furnished with a good net, i.e., he must be conversant with the Scriptures, and mighty in them.
2. Like the fisherman, he must be acquainted with the sea, i.e., the world, and not fear to confront its perils in pursuance of his calling.
3. Like the fisherman, he must now mend, now cast his nets.
4. Like the fisherman, he must labour perseveringly, and wait patiently.
5. Like the fisherman, he must enter into the spirit of his vocation, i.e., he must be animated with the enthusiasm of the holy ministry.
6. Like the fisherman, he must dare to expose his life (Acts 20:24).
7. Like the fisherman, he must draw in his net after having cast it. (C. Babut, B. D.)
Sympathy a bait
It is a fact of which we can scarcely make too much, that nothing baits the gospelfisherman’s hook like sympathy. (Dr. J. Clifford.)
Purposeless sermons
Are an insult to God and man. A sermon that aims at anything short of catching men is a mistake. Let us beware of converting means into ends. (Dr. J. Clifford.)
Catching bait
The fisherman, however, thinks far less of his gathering bait than he does of his catching bait, in which he hides his hook. Very numerous are his inventions for winning his prey, and it is by practice that he learns how to adapt his bait to his fish. Scores of things serve as bait, and when he is not actually at work the wise fisherman takes care to seize anything which comes in his way which may be useful when the time comes to cast his lines. We usually carried mussels, whelks, and some of the coarser sorts of fish, which could be used when they were wanted. When the anchor was down the hooks were baited and let down for the benefit of the inhabitants of the deep, and great would have been the disappointment if they had merely swarmed around the delicious morsel, but had refused to partake thereof. A good fisherman actually catches fish. He is not always alike successful, but, as a rule, he has something to show for his trouble. I do not call that man a fisherman whose basket seldom holds a fish; he is sure to tell you of the many bites he had, and of that very big fish which he almost captured; but that is neither here nor there. There are some whose knowledge of terms and phrases, and whose extensive preparations lead you to fear that they will exterminate the fishy race, but as their basket returns empty, they can hardly be so proficient as they seem. The parable hardly needs expounding: great talkers and theorizers are common enough, and there are not a few whose cultured boastfulness is only exceeded by their life-long failure. We cannot take these for our example, nor fall at their feet with reverence for their pretensions. We must have sinners saved. Nothing else will content us: the fisherman must take fish or lose his toil, and we must bring souls to Jesus, or we shall break our hearts with disappointment. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Sucking off the bait
Walking to the head of the boat one evening, I saw a line over the side, and must needs hold it. You can feel by your finger whether you have a bite or no, but I was in considerable doubt whether anything was at the other end or not. I thought they were biting, but I was not certain, so I pulled up the long line, and found that the baits were all gone; the fish had sucked them all off, and that was what they were doing when I was in doubt. If you have nothing but a sort of gathering bait, and the fish merely come and suck, but do not take the hook, you will catch no fish; you need killing bait. This often happens in the Sunday-school. A pleasing speaker tells a story, and the children are all listening; he has gathered them; now comes the spiritual lesson, but hardly any of them take notice of it, they have sucked the bait from the hook, and are up and away. A minister in preaching delivers a telling illustration, all the ears in the place are open, but when he comes to the application of it the people have become listless; they like the bait very well, but not the hook; they like the adornment of the tale, but not the point of the moral. This is poor work. The plan is, if you possibly can manage it, so to get the bait on the hook that they cannot suck it off, but must take the hook and all. Do take care, dear friends, when you teach children or grown-up people, that you do not arrange the anecdotes in such a way that they can sort them out, as boys pick the plums from their cakes, or else you will amuse but not benefit. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Over-cautious fishermen
A very zealous revivalist of our acquaintance was wont to say that over-cautious preachers were like fishermen who refuse to cast forth the net for fear they might catch a devil-fish. (From Hervey’s “Manual of Revivals.”)
Sinners must be taken out of their native element
We must never be satisfied till we lift sinners out of their native element. That destroys fish, but it saves souls. We long to be the means of lifting sinners out of the water of sin to lay them in the boat at the feet of Jesus. To this end we must enclose them as in a net; we must shut them up under the law, and surround them with the gospel, so that there is no getting out, but they must be captives unto Christ. We must net them with entreaties, encircle them with invitations, and entangle them with prayers. We cannot let them get away to perish in their sin, we must land them at the Saviour’s feet. This is our design, but we need help from above to accomplish it: we require our Lord’s direction to know where to cast the net, and the Spirit’s helping of our infirmity that we may know how to do it. May the Lord teach us to profit, and may we return from our fishing, bringing our fish with us. Amen. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The draught of fishes
This miracle illustrates--
I. THE LOW LEVEL OF A LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST FOR ITS MASTER. Fishing had become to these men the chief end and whole aim of living. Up to this time their life was exceedingly narrow. It had no horizon wider than the sea which held their food and supplied their trade. Thus they would have lived and died, but for the call and commission of Christ. The secular ideal of life always binds men to earth. Only Christ can raise it.
II. THE TRUE RELATION BETWEEN BUSINESS AND RELIGION, Our Lord lived a carpenter before He died a Saviour. Through all His early manhood He consecrated manual toil by His own example, and so He wedded the daily and spiritual life for ever in one. Here He sanctions Simon’s business, even while crowning it with a higher calling. Our Lord is master both of business and religion; no drudgery is too low or mean to become, when done for Christ’s sake, the very service of God. How this transfigures the net of the fisher, the miner’s pick, the grocer’s scales, the clerk’s tape: in each of them can be discerned a humble tool for the accomplishment of the Divine will. The servant’s broom, thus held, becomes a sceptre in the hand that holds it.
III. THE SECULAR LIFE, SUBMITTED TO CHRIST, BECOMES A SCHOOL FOR THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. It was in doing His daily work for Christ’s sake that Peter took his first and most needed lesson in apostleship--the lesson of humility. And thus it is, through the arts and implements which are the most familiar, that the Lord is always seeking to lift men up from secular to spiritual lives. As the Eastern astrologers were pointed to the Redeemer’s cradle by a star; as the woman of Samaria, in the very act of drawing water out of Jacob’s well, was led to dip and drink of the sweeter waters of life; as Peter, the fisherman, by a surprising draught of fishes was made lowly enough to catch men--so through the humblest art or calling of the daily life, the Lord is reaching down hands to train and mould us for a purer spiritual life and service. The counting-room is no longer narrow, when thus its higher use as schoolroom of the soul is recognized. Dollars and cents no longer degrade men when they learn to read on their face, not the name of Caesar only, but the holier seal and superscription of God. The irritating cares of home cease to fret the housekeeper’s spirit when she begins to treat them as part of that ministry by which the Lord seeks to make her a more profitable servant.
IV. THE NOBLE SERVICES OF A LIFE CONSECRATED IN ALL ITS ACTIVITIES TO THE LORD. Not all at once; we cannot enter school and graduate the same day. It needs many lessons; line upon line of experience; but success does come at last.
V. PRACTICAL LESSONS.
1. The service of the Lord is always the truest service we can render to ourselves. We have all something to give up to become followers of Jesus. Yet give it up! Yours will be a strange experience if the things you give up for Christ’s sake do not soon look small beside the things you have gained. They will be, in comparison, as the Sea of Galilee to the world, as the worth of a fish to the value of an immortal man.
2. No business on earth is worth following for its own sake. It may be an honest and innocent business; but if it be not also a Christian calling, and that by our own most deliberate choice, it will certainly dwarf the higher nature of him who follows it. It may keep us alive. It may bring us gains. But what are life and wealth worth, in any sober man’s estimate, when thus secured? The “successes” of millionaires have been commonly the worst mistakes of life. There is a higher law reigning over all trades, professions, occupation (1 Corinthians 10:31).
3. The climax of all callings is to be a fisher of men. (J. B. Clark.)
The noblest calling
An eminent New England divine, in his last sickness, was asked by a friend, “What seems to you now the greatest thing?” “Not theology,” said this prince of theologians; “not controversy,” again replied this chief of debaters; “but,” gathering up his last breath to speak the words, while his spirit hovered at the gate of heaven, “the greatest thing in the world is to save a soul.” He spoke of what he knew, for he had felt the joy of delivering many; and could the witness of all saints, from Peter down to the last ascended, be taken, would it not be the same, “the greatest thing on earth is to save a soul”? (J. B. Clark. )
The “net” of a genuine Christian life
You and I may never be heroes of a Pentecost; we are not masters of the great seine, which Peter and John of old, and some modern disciples, shoot out and catch men by the thousands; but have we not some humble hand-net with which we can take a few? Along our coast line, for some years, men have been setting up what they call “weirs,” consisting of a series of enclosed ponds, connected with each other by openings, and terminating, at last, in a netted fence running far out into the bay. Against this netted fence the fish, in their progress, strike, and, following it down, they are safely enclosed, at last, in the smallest pond where they are easily captured when the tide is out. Like this netted arm, running far out into the busy world, is a genuine Christian life. It has none of the special gifts of a Finney or a Moody, but in the coming and going tides more than one soul is arrested by this standing net of a godly life. Unconsciously guided by the holy barrier in their way, they are drawn into stiller waters, and when the tide goes out at last, many, I believe, will be found taken for Christ, and taken by fishers of men whose chief skill has been to stand, to stand firm and without rent, in the midst of a restless sea. (J. B. Clark.)
Catch men by love
Would you be a fisher of men? And do you ask, How may I succeed? Love is the best pilot, the only wise interpreter. Love men as Christ loved them, and you will not mourn your small skill or limited chance. Love will soon show you your own best way. To catch men without love is as hopeless as to catch fish without a net. Love is the net. There never was a wicked sinner unsoftened by a pure and steadfast love. There never was a wayward scholar who did not reward the faithful, patient love of his teacher. Let our love be only such that we can pray as Christ prayed for men, can weep as Christ wept over them, can bleed as Christ bled for them, can stretch our arms of help as wide as He stretched His on the cross of sacrifice I Then we shall be able to catch men, for so He drew us, and so He is drawing the world to Himself. “Fear not,” He seems to say to all who love, yet shrink from this holy calling, “fear not; love men, and you shall catch them.” (J. B. Clark.)
Ministerial lessons
Christ’s method of training His ministers for their high office was very remarkable. It was by a miracle, especially designed to represent, in a figure, their future office, me that the homely trade in which they were engaged was for ever hallowed to be the emblem of the gathering into the Church of such as should be saved.
1. The unwearied patience and consummate skill, without which the fisherman cannot be successful in alluring his prey, are, no doubt, fit illustrations of that constancy of purpose and that heavenly wisdom which are such important elements in the character of the Christian teacher.
2. And, perhaps, the fact that the four disciples had toiled all night and taken nothing, and yet were ready, at their Master’s bidding, again to let down the net for a draught, is recorded as an instance of that unwavering faith in the Divine promise, and that patient continuance in well-doing, which had prepared these simple-minded peasants of Galilee for that office in which the Christian minister has only to obey, while he leaves results in a higher hand, and, even when he fears he has bestowed labour in vain, still to labour on, in reliance upon the assurance that God’s word shall not return to Him void.
3. But perhaps the chief ministerial lesson which our Lord intended to convey to the minds of His apostles was this--that as even the fisherman, in spite of all his skill, must still depend on the power of Him whose is the sea, for He made it, so all the success of the gospel preacher is of the Lord alone. (J. S. Hoare, B. D.)
Fishers of men
I. NONE SHOULD ENTER THE MINISTRY BUT THOSE WHO ARE CALLED OF CHRIST, There are other voices to which young men are apt to listen.
1. There is the voice of the love of a life of literary ease. The young man has a passion for books; his daily toil seems to him mean and degrading; and he fancies that if he were in the ministry he would have nothing to do but to study, and that study would be a lifelong and ever-increasing delight. At the best he becomes a respectable bookworm, who hates preaching, which so greatly interferes with his studies; but he must preach or starve, and so he preaches sermons about the gospel--very learned sermons--which do his hearers about as much real good as would an admirable lecture on the chemistry of food delivered to a number of farm labourers who at the close of a day’s toil had hurried into a kitchen! hungry for food.
2. There is a voice of the ambition to be respectable, genteel!
3. There is the voice of the love of publicity. Sometimes a little success in delivering half a dozen addresses to a Sunday School, or in making as many speeches in a debating society, turns a young man’s brain, and he is sure that his proper place is in the ministry.
4. There is still another voice to which many young men are apt to listen, imagining that it is indeed the voice of Christ calling them to devote themselves to the ministry--the voice of a sincere desire to do good. This desire is quick and powerful in the heart of every young man who has really given himself to Christ. But it is a pitiable mistake to imagine that the call to do good and the call to become a preacher of the gospel is one and the same thing. To none of the voices that I have named should a young man listen when he is debating the question whether he should devote himself to the ministry of the Word. Before he takes that solemn, and in many cases irrevocable step, he should be very sure that it is the voice of Christ that he has heard saying to him, “Follow Me, and I will make you a fisher of men.”
II. BUT--this is the second fact that should be pondered--WHEN A MAN HAS HEARD THAT CALL HE SHOULD OBEY IT AT ANY COST. It may be that he cannot do so without making sacrifices; like Simon and Andrew, James and John, he may have to leave behind him nets, boats, valuable fishing-tackle, and dear friends; he may have to give up great present advantages, still greater prospective advantages; but like those of whom this narrative speaks to us, he should cheerfully forsake all, and follow Christ. Amos, the herdsman, was as true a prophet of the Lord as Isaiah, although he was reared in a palace. The other young man is in the counting-house; he is the eldest son of the successful head of the firm; he knows that in due time he will be a partner in the firm; he, too, is called, clearly called--he has no doubt that it is Christ’s voice he hears--yet he hesitates, for the nets and boats that will have to be left are too many and too valuable; he reminds himself of the fact of which of I have reminded you, that it is not in the ministry only that a man can do good, and so, with this excuse, which he knows is for him a lie, he silences the Voice that calls so clearly. And hence comes that fact, which all the Churches deplore, that so few young men come forth from the middle and upper ranks of society to serve our Lord Jesus Christ as preachers of His Word. This was Garibaldi’s most effective appeal to his fellow-countrymen:--“Soldiers, your efforts against overwhelming odds have been unavailing. I have nothing to offer you but hunger, thirst, hardship, death: let all who love their country follow me” (July 22, 1849). Such an appeal does Christ address to-day to the sons of our Christian merchants and landowners. (Christian Age.)