Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 443
“Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a draught.” Luke 5:4
“And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and you shall find some. They cast therefore and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.”
John 21:6.
THE whole life of Christ was a sermon. He was a Prophet mighty in word and deed. And by His deeds as well as His words He taught the people. It is perfectly true that the miracles of Christ attest His mission. To those who saw them they must have been evident proof that He was sent of God. But we ought not to overlook that probably a higher reason for the miracles is to be found in the instruction which they convey. To the world without, at the present time, the miracles of Christ are more hard to believe than the doctrine which He taught. Skeptics turn them into stones of stumbling and when they cannot object at the marvelous teaching of Jesus, they attack the miracles as monstrous and incredible.
I doubt not that even to minds seriously vexed with unbelief, the miracles, instead of being helps to belief, have been trials of faith. Few, indeed, are there in whom faith is worked by signs and wonders. Nor, indeed is this the Gospel way of bringing conviction to the soul—the secret force of the Living Word is the chosen instrumentality of Christ—and wonders are left to be the resort of that Anti-Christ by whom the nations shall be deceived. We, who by Divine Grace have believed, view the miracles of Christ as noble attestations to His mission and Divinity. But we confess that we value them even more as instructive homilies than as attesting witnesses.
It is our conviction that we should lose much of the benefit which they were meant to convey to us, if we were merely to view them as seals to the roll, for they are a part of the writing of the roll itself. The marvels worked by our blessed Lord are acted sermons fraught with holy doctrine, set forth to us more vividly than it could have been in words. We start with the assumption upon which our sermon will be grounded this morning—that Christ’s miracles are sermons preached in deeds—visible allegories, truths embodied, principles incarnated and set in motion. They are, in fact, the pictures in the great book of Christ’s teaching—the illustrations by which He flashed light into dim eyes.
We have heard of some ministers who could say that they had often preached from the same text but they had never delivered the same discourse. The like may be said of Christ. He often preached upon the same Truth of God but it was never precisely in the same manner. We have read in your hearing this morning, the narrative of two miracles (Luke 5, and John 21), which seem to the casual observer to be precisely alike. But he who shall read diligently and study carefully, will find that though the text is the same in both, the discourse is full of variations.
In both the miraculous draughts of fishes, the text is the mission of the saints to preach the Gospel—the work of man-catching—the ministry by which souls are caught in the net of the Gospel and brought out of the element of sin to their eternal salvation. The preacher is compared to a fisherman. The fisherman’s vocation is a toilsome one. Woe be to that minister who finds his calling to be otherwise. The fisherman must go forth in rough weathers and at all hazards. If he should only fish in a calm sea he may often starve. So the Christian minister, whether men will receive the Word with pleasure, or reject it with anger and wrath, must be ready to imperil reputation and risk comfort.
Yes, he must hate his own life, also, or he is not worthy of the heavenly calling. The fisherman’s is a rough occupation—no dainty fingers may come in contact with his nets. It is not a trade for gentlemen, but for rough, strong, fearless men, who can heave a rope, handle a tar-brush, or scour a deck. The ministry is not meant for your dainty souls who would go delicately through this world without a trial, an offense, an insult, or a sneer. Such work is meant for men who know how to do business on great waters and can go abroad upon the sea, not fearing the spray or the waves. The fisher-man’s calling, too, must be carried on perseveringly. It is not by one grand haul that a man makes his fortune. He must constantly cast forth his net.
One sermon makes not a preacher. He who shall but now and then deliver himself of some carefully prepared oration, is no true minister of God. He must be instant in season and out of season. He must cast his net in all waters. He must in the morning be at his work and in the evening he must not withhold his hand. To be a fisherman, a man must expect disappointments. He must often cast in the net and bring up nothing but weeds. The minister of Christ must reckon upon being disappointed—and he must not be weary in well-doing for all his disappointments—but must in faith continue in prayer and labor, expecting that at the end he shall receive his reward. It needs no great labor for you to work out at leisure the comparison between fishermen and the Gospel ministry, the simile is so aptly chosen.