We'll go ahead and turn in your copy
of God's Word to Matthew chapter 4, Matthew
chapter 4.
And some of you will, many of you
were there when Don Kern at the men's
time Friday night, he mentioned in order to
become more like Christ, one thing that would
be beneficial is to go read through the
Gospels and make your own commentary on Christ,
specifically reading through Matthew and stopping everywhere there's
something about Christ and writing that down.
And I tend to hear advice on Bible
reading and I weigh it, consider it.
A lot of times I don't apply it.
But with what Don shared, I thought I'm
going to do that.
I'm going to write my own commentary about
Christ from the Gospel of Matthew.
And so I've been doing that the last
few weeks in my morning reading, just going
to the next verses and thinking about what
does this say about the Lord Jesus Christ?
And so there's something in Matthew 4 that
stood out to me.
It's a well-known verse, but I felt
like it was something that God wanted me
to bring.
So for the last few weeks, this has
been on my mind.
So Matthew 4, we're going to learn something
in Matthew 4.19 about the Lord Jesus
Christ.
We're going to learn about what he is
seeking to make out of his followers.
Matthew 4.19, let's just read starting in
verse 18.
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he
saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter,
and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishermen.
And he said to them, here the statement
is, Follow me.
And what's he going to produce?
I will make you fishers of men.
Immediately they left their nets.
They followed him.
And going on from there, he saw two
other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and
John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee,
their father, mending their nets.
And he called them.
Immediately they left the boat and their father,
and they followed him.
Let's pray, and we'll consider this.
Father, Lord, we thank You for the life
of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We thank You for the window into His
life that You've given us in these Gospels.
And Lord, we want to be like Your
Son.
We want to grow to imitate His person,
His conduct, His actions, His life, His thoughts.
And Lord, here we've seen You've made, in
a way, a promise that You're going to
make these men fishers of men.
Lord, You didn't tell them You're going to
make them fishless fishermen, but fishers of men.
And Lord, we want to, by all means
possible in our lives, to see others come
to know You, to know the Gospel, to
have their sins forgiven.
And so Lord, I pray that You would
even produce this in us.
Lord, would You use this message right now
to burden specific people and all of us
just to have a renewal of a cry
to You in our own prayer life to
say, Lord, make me a fisher of men.
Lord, I pray that that would really be
the result here, that that would be something
we're asking of You in a greater way
in our lives and pleading for those that
we have been evangelizing for years, pleading with
You to bring those precious souls into the
Kingdom.
And so Lord, I just ask for Your
help right now.
Lord, please strengthen me.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
So I see right here in this text
a promise from Christ that He is going
to produce fishers of men.
Fishers of men.
And you saw He didn't just call the
two.
He goes on and He calls two more.
Now what would these men have thought Christ
meant by fishing for men?
They find out shortly thereafter.
But where else does the Bible talk about
fishing?
And in what way does it talk about
fishing?
Thus far, the only thing in the Scriptures
leading up to this point of Jesus' words
are Old Testament verses that speak about many
fishers rounding up the population for what?
Destruction and exile.
When you thought about fishers in the Bible,
that's what you thought.
Gathering people for exile.
Gathering people for destruction.
And whether or not they had an initial
thought, what does Christ mean by this?
They find out very shortly after in verse
23.
Verse 23 records He went throughout all Galilee.
So this seems to imply they're with Christ
now.
And what is Christ doing?
He's teaching and proclaiming the Gospel of the
Kingdom and healing.
He's healing people.
He's preaching the Gospel.
So right away, He's called them to be
fishers of men, and they're following Him as
He's engaging in this act of proclaiming the
good news, of showing compassion, and seeking to
bring people to Himself for life, to His
Kingdom.
And ironically, this is the opposite of what
it is to fish for actual physical fish.
Physical fish, you catch them.
Pete knows this very well.
You catch them, you kill them, you cook
them, and then you feed them to GCC
to eat them.
That's what you do with physical fish.
Why is Christ using this imagery?
If anything, it was their physical task.
They were fishers of men.
And Christ is relating to their physical task
of fishing and saying, you're going to go
be fishers of men in another sense.
And this Gospel net that we cast is
to produce a different result than destruction.
We're not seeking to fish men for destruction,
but for salvation.
In this Gospel, it's going forth to every
kind of fish, Jew and Gentiles.
And you've got people coming in and they're
hearing the truth and they're professing.
And we even read later on in Matthew
13, maybe a different sense with the similar
imagery, but we find that one day there's
going to be a judgment and angels are
going to separate these fish.
These professors of religion.
There's going to be a separation that day.
So, a few observations.
First, what has to come first in order
for you and I to be a fisher
of men?
What's the first statement here from Christ that
we should consider?
And if you look at verse 19, He
said to them, follow Me.
Follow Me.
That's the first thing on the docket.
That's the first thing to really think about
and consider.
And what's follow Christ mean?
I mean, this is a call to discipleship.
It's a call to accompany Christ.
It's a call to imitate Christ.
It's a call to walk behind Christ.
And this is what you find throughout all
the Bible is that the Christian life is
modeled after Christ and His example.
Even in the Epistles, Paul says, Husbands, love
your wives as Christ.
Or Colossians 3, forgiving as Christ.
The Bible constantly points us to Christ.
Christ is our example.
Not just in how to love, but even
in how to win souls.
His evangelism in verse 23 and on, right
after this section, it's not just the preaching,
it's the compassion.
He's got all of this together.
And it's no wonder that when we send
missionaries out, we have both aspects happening.
And where you don't have the compassion aspect
and all you have is the preaching aspect,
you end up hearing reports of what our
brother shared in China.
Nothing was happening.
But when they started showing compassion, when they
started living out Isaiah 58, then they saw
God coming in in a powerful way.
So Christ is our emphasis, our focus.
Am I following the Lord Jesus Christ?
And think, what time did these men in
Matthew 4, what particular time did they follow
Jesus?
What were they involved in doing when He
called them?
They were involved in their ordinary work, right?
Ordinary work, just their employment.
Basically, someone stops by the office, so to
speak, a messenger, and He calls them to
follow Him and everything changes in their life.
To me, that's an interesting reality because how
many of you all were saved because of
someone evangelizing you?
In what context?
Work.
Or purchasing something on Craigslist.
And some of you were converted through that
conversation.
And Christ, He wasn't their coworker, but they
were one to Him while they were at
work.
And we see this.
David was called by the Lord when he
was keeping his father's sheep.
Moses was out keeping Jethro's flock when the
Lord appeared to him.
And Gideon was busy at the threshing floor
when God called him.
I mean, humanity is out there living real
life, right?
They're working, they're laboring, and we're coming to
them.
You're going to them as able in your
own work environment and you're calling them to
follow Christ.
You're calling them to a life of being
a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Brethren, how many men and women, they hear
the truth from other believers in this context
of work.
Do not lose heart.
If that's the extent of your fishing, don't
lose heart.
Lloyd-Jones, he made the comment, when the
local church has a spirit of evangelism, members
tell others about Christ and through personal contact
among friends, acquaintances, and business associates, they bring
many into the church.
And you find that right here in the
beginning.
People at work being called to follow the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And another thing to think here about these
men, it's not just Christ takes this imagery,
applies imagery to their physical work and says,
here you're out there fishing for fish.
Okay, you're going to go fish for men.
But these men were out there actually fishing
for fish.
They were working.
They were engaged in this labor.
And now they're taking the same physical energy
they invested in physical fishing and they're using
that for spiritual fishing.
You don't find Christ calling those who are
lazy and doing nothing and all of a
sudden they become effective in evangelism for the
kingdom of God.
We just don't witness that reality.
But you do find the energy that you
put into your work, even as a lost
person, God comes along and when He saves
you, that same energy there, you're now able
to use it in a channel that is
honoring to God.
I mean, that's one reason that I want
my kids to be hard workers and disciplined
at the moment they do follow the Lord
Jesus Christ.
They already have that zeal and that energy
to invest in their lives, to be disciplined,
and that's going to carry over into the
spiritual realm.
So the first thing here, before He's making
you a fisher of men, you've got to
follow Him.
And one of the main reasons many people
who say they're Christians have no desire to
evangelize is they've not done the first step.
They've not followed Christ.
They've not come to Him as a disciple.
They've made excuses.
They've said other things and they've refused to
come.
So, second observation here.
Those who are following Him, He says, I
will make you fishers of men.
And as I was looking at this and
wanting to apply it to myself and say,
Lord, is this something I can take and
make it for me?
Can I take it and make this for
me?
Can I pray this to You, Lord?
Well, I've got to define the you.
If He says to specific people, I will
make you fishers of men, an obvious question
to ask, can I apply that to myself?
Because there are certain statements made in the
Scriptures to certain people that might not necessarily
be for me.
And so, Lord, I'm following You.
You said to them, You'll make them fishers
of men.
So let's think about this you.
Can I apply Matthew 4.19 to myself?
Can I take it for myself?
Or is there anything here where maybe I
shouldn't?
And we should ask this too because and
this is key, what happens to these four
men who Jesus calls right here in these
verses?
They all became apostles.
Now, I'd emphasize the key word is they
all became apostles.
They weren't apostles right here.
Even in Mark when He calls them and
says, I'll make you fishers of men.
Mark 3, at a later date, He says
He called them out as apostles of Christ.
These men were just following Christ's call to
discipleship.
You don't find Him going to other people
to follow Him and changing it and saying,
well, you're not going to have a burden
in your life or a desire to see
other people one to me.
And so, we need to be careful here
to narrow all of this down.
Furthermore, what does Paul assume is on the
heart and the mind of a saved person
as a lost spouse?
You're saved.
Your spouse is lost.
What does Paul assume is on that person's
mind?
Listen to 1 Corinthians 7.
For how do you know, wife, whether you
will save your husband?
Or how do you know, husband, whether you
will save your wife?
What does that imply?
These Christians, what's on their mind?
They're married.
Their spouse is lost.
What do they desire in their life?
Their spouse to be converted.
You see, this is part of being a
Christian is you want others to partake in
this grace.
This woman is trying to catch in this
gospel net and fish be a fisher of
her own husband.
Think of Jesus' words in Matthew 10.
He says, everyone who acknowledges Me before men,
I will acknowledge before My Father.
That's something for all of us.
It's not just a select group.
Well, that group better acknowledge Christ before men.
That's for all of us.
What is acknowledging Christ before men?
It's speaking about being witnesses of Him.
And when Peter shrinks back and denies Christ,
he misses out on an opportunity to witness
and testify and evangelize to that little girl
around that fire.
Instead, he communicated to her Christ isn't really
worth suffering.
What happened to that little girl?
Maybe he didn't say she's a little girl.
Did she ever get converted?
Peter had an opportunity in fear he protected
his flesh.
And so, does this apply to you?
All of us are seeking to acknowledge Christ
before men.
All of us are called to be witnesses
of His.
According to Jesus, if you do not acknowledge
Him before men, He will deny you before
the Father.
Those are very strong words from Christ.
Every believer is a witness.
And yes, we see even to this point,
you see in Mark 5, the demoniac, he
gets converted.
There's no evidence he became an apostle.
Jesus didn't say, I will make you a
fisher of men.
But what does Jesus tell them to do?
Go home to your family and tell them
of how I have had mercy upon you.
You see, it's just implied in following Christ.
There's something in the heart of the one
who's been saved where they want to see
others brought into the kingdom.
That there's this fishing that's seeking to happen.
We're seeking to bring people in, not for
destruction, but for salvation.
So I really think what Christ is saying
to these people who are not yet apostles
here, but who He's calling, He's not just
saying something just for them.
That they could say, well, Lord, earlier on,
You told us You were going to make
us fishers of men.
Lord, bring that about as a reality.
I believe this is something that's true of
all Christians to some degree that we're all
seeking to be soul winners.
This is a desire that all of us
have.
This is something that all of us should
go to the Lord with.
The Lord Himself in Luke 19, He said,
the Son of Man came to seek and
to save the lost.
Christ's very purpose is to save the lost.
And we're called to imitate Him.
Just two more verses on this point.
Mark 8.
Listen to this.
Whoever would save his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life for my sake and
the gospel's sake will save it.
And so what does that imply?
All believers are living for the gospel's sake.
That's a call to all Christians for discipleship.
There's not this segmentation that's happening here where
there's Christians who are fishers and there's others
who have no involvement in that activity at
all.
Now, to this point, to kind of balance
some of this out, is there a spiritual
gift?
A greater expression of the Spirit manifesting Himself
in certain Christians with an ability to evangelize?
Yes, that absolutely is true.
Ephesians 4, verse 11, Christ has given gifts
to men in the church and one of
them is He gave evangelists.
Acts 21, they entered the house of Philip.
But He doesn't just say Philip.
He adds a description of Philip.
And what is that description?
Philip the evangelist.
The evangelist.
So these designations made about the believer's emphasis,
that's something that's important for us to be
doing in the life of the church, right?
Years ago, we supported a few men to
do local evangelism.
You're looking out and seeing if God's given
a certain portion of the Spirit to specific
men in the church to evangelize and to
be soul winners, they're going to be fishing
to an extent that might be greater than
other people in the church.
And we want to identify that.
And we need reminders to be evangelistic.
2 Timothy 4-5, you've got a church.
You've got Paul facing the end of his
life.
You've got a church at Ephesus that has
all manner of problems.
And Paul, he says to Timothy, as for
you, always be sober-minded.
Endure suffering.
Do the work of an evangelist.
Fulfill your ministry.
So part of Timothy's specific design is this
work of evangelism.
He's part of Paul's missionary team.
He's actively engaged in the proclamation of the
Gospel to a great extent because the Spirit
of God is upon him in a unique
way for that endeavor.
So all that to say, here you're following
Christ, and He says, I'm going to make
you fishers of men.
And I think all of us can take
this promise in Matthew 4-19 and not
just look at it and say, oh, this
is for men who became future apostles.
But look at this and say, Lord, I
followed You.
I've done what You said.
You said to follow.
You're going to make me a fisher of
men.
Not a fishless fisherman.
Not someone who just sows seed and nothing
ever happens.
Lord, You've made a statement that makes my
heart feel like I'm expecting results from this
endeavor.
Think of this.
This statement, I will make you.
How many times does the Lord say something
like that to us in the Bible?
What's another time He says, I'm going to
make you something?
It's not often stated.
If you have verses like 2 Corinthians, He
says, I will make My dwelling among you.
Hebrews 10, I will make with them a
covenant.
Revelation 3, the one who conquers, I will
make him a pillar.
There's not a lot of those statements being
made.
But here Christ says to these disciples as
He says, follow Me, I'm going to make
you fishers of men.
I'm taking you from this physical task of
fishing.
Come, follow Me.
I'm going to proclaim the Gospel.
I'm going to show compassion.
People are going to be brought in with
this Gospel net.
And it's going to lead not to their
destruction, not to their exile, but bringing them
into heaven.
And this is something Jesus has to make.
You can't bring this about in your own
life.
It's, Lord, work this in me.
Give me the wisdom, the guidance, the right
opportunities.
Lord, this is something You said You were
going to produce and make in me.
So a fourth observation.
Jesus says right there in v.
19, I will.
I will make you fishers of men.
Notice how certain the Lord is that He's
going to turn these men into fishermen.
It's kind of like the father saying to
his sons, you're going to be fishermen when
you grow up.
They might get to the point where I
don't want to do dad's business.
Well, that's not what's going to happen to
these men.
Because this isn't some pick and choose.
Do I want to be an engineer when
I grow up?
Do I want to be a fisherman when
I grow up?
No, this is part of following Christ.
It's acknowledging Him before men.
It's being His witnesses.
Though to different degrees, we will have various
opportunities and gifts.
This is something that we're all involved in
because we've all lost our lives for the
sake of the Gospel.
So He says I will.
This gives me confidence in asking the Lord
about this reality.
And you know, one question I thought of.
Here Peter is getting called to be a
fisher of men.
When did he get his first catch?
And when is his first catch ever recorded?
Again, there's a lot that's not said.
But you know what you find?
Okay, I will make you fishers of men.
What do you find in Peter's life?
Oh Lord, don't go to the cross there.
Don't go suffer.
Get behind Me, Satan.
You're setting your mind on things of earth.
You find Peter's denial.
What's my point?
In Peter's life leading up to Acts 2,
leading up to conversions, what led up to
that?
Christ making him someone in his character.
Right?
The Lord disciplining him.
The Lord humbling Peter.
The man who said, I'm ready to go
with you both to prison and to death
sounded zealous.
He sounded bold.
But underlining all of those bold statements was
arrogant pride that God had to root out
of his life.
So what's happening in both of these cases?
Youthfulness might not happen, brethren, as fast as
you hope it will be.
Right?
There might be a slow process to get
to that point.
Eventually, Peter saw a massive catch in the
book of Acts.
For long you might labor and catch nothing,
and then you might put your nets on
the other side of the boat, and the
Lord, He brings the men.
But he says, I will make you fishers
of men.
It really does imply to me that you
can live your Christian life expecting to see
people converted.
Expecting that.
Not the opposite.
Expecting no one is going to be converted.
The rate and the frequency by which that
happens, there's a whole lot of questions you
could ask about that.
And I'll think of that in a little
bit.
But one evening, Peter caught 153 physical fish.
I mean, the Lord can work in that
way in the spiritual realm as we saw
in the book of Acts.
You know one thing this reminds me of?
1 Corinthians 3, verse 7.
So neither he who plants nor he who
waters is anything, but only God.
But only God who gives the growth.
Now what a statement.
But only God who gives the growth.
We're really cast on the Lord.
We're really cast upon the Lord to see
people saved.
This is His idea.
It's His idea there's a harvest.
It's His idea to send laborers into the
harvest.
It's His idea for us to be witnesses
and acknowledge Him before men.
You be faithful in that.
And you take a stand for Christ.
And you proclaim His truth.
Your expectation should be that will lead others
to know the Lamb who takes away the
sin of the world.
Another question here.
How did Jesus fish?
And you could have five sermons under that
title.
How did Jesus fish?
Because He said He's going to make them
fishers of men.
And I already pointed out in the context
here, right away, He flows into proclaiming the
Gospel and healing.
You've got this preaching and compassion that's happening
at the exact same time.
And that's not always what you find.
But right there, that's what you find from
Christ.
There's a proclamation.
There's not just the compassion and there's not
just the proclamation.
How did He fish?
He fished by preaching the Gospel that pleased
God through the folly of what we preach
to save those who believe.
We don't have to alter the message.
We don't have to come up with something
new.
We can preach Christ and Him crucified.
But think of a few cases of conversion.
What led to Zacchaeus' conversion?
What happened there?
Hospitality.
That's how I look at it.
He had Zacchaeus.
He said, Zacchaeus, hurry, come down.
I must stay at your house today.
What an invite!
Have you tried that downtown?
Gone up to some rich man and said,
I've got to stay at your house tonight.
Who knows?
Maybe that's exactly what they need to happen.
But hospitality?
He didn't just go up to him outside
and lay it all out.
He went to his home, was in the
home, and he's proclaiming the truth to this
man.
And the Lord saves him.
D.E. Host, the missionary who took over
for Hudson Taylor, has always struck me.
He remarked that the natives in China would
not believe that God had an open door
to receive them if the missionaries themselves did
not have an open door to the Chinese.
That's the right deduction.
Here, come to this Christ.
His door is open.
And then they come to your house.
It's like, well, y'all are dirty.
They're going to believe your message about God
having an open door to His enemies?
When you don't have an open door to
them?
It's not going to happen.
Hospitality is mightily used by the Lord to
draw people to Himself, to give an opportunity
to show Christ.
How did Jesus fish?
He hammered home on people's idols, right?
This is what you see in Mark 10
with the rich young ruler.
Christ, He's discerning specifically the idol in a
man's life and He just lays right into
it.
And if God gives some of you the
discernment to almost see into someone's heart and
to read their thoughts, and there's that spiritual
discernment given by God, don't waste that by
not saying anything, but drive certain things home.
Yes, in a sharp way at times.
Yes, in a gracious way at times.
You've got to discern what case it is
that's before you.
God's able to use that.
You go read Ichabod Spencer's pastor's sketches.
That's what happened.
He was trying to find the one thing.
Jesus did that in Mark 10.
That's not some random methodology of fishing.
That's like Christ fished.
So we could go on and on with
examples of Christ.
But Jesus, He's sending us to fish for
people.
This is something He makes every believer to
various degrees, a fisher of men, a witness
of Him, an acknowledger of Him before people.
Some will be gifted and designed by God
in a unique way to do that.
They ought to be recognized and supported to
do such.
But many of you keep being faithful in
the workplace, with the family, with those who
come into these four walls.
Look beyond that with whatever open doors you
can find.
And so we should pray.
Father, I'm following Your Son.
He said You'd make me a fisher of
men.
I've labored hours and I've caught nothing.
Lord, provide for me souls.
That's what this verse makes me pray to
the Lord and what I have been praying
to the Lord.
Lord, You said You'd make me a fisher
of men.
Not just fishing with no catch, but actually
seeing men come to Christ.
Lord, I've been trying to catch this one
person in Your Gospel net.
Would You save them this year?
We should be praying bold statements like that
to the Lord.
What time have we got?
We're halfway.
Okay, those are some thoughts on Matthew 4
.19. But I want to give some examples
and some quotes that have really struck me
in this area and I hope they will
edify you as well.
Who's heard of Thomas Boston?
Yeah, a handful.
He wrote a book called The Art of
Man Fishing.
How old was he?
Anyone read that book?
He wrote it when he was 22 years
old.
I didn't realize that.
22 years old he wrote this book.
Listen, it's based on this verse.
This is his comment.
My soul cried out for accomplishing of that
to me, making me a fisher of men.
I was very desirous to know how I
might follow Christ so as to become a
fisher of men.
And from my own instruction in that point,
I addressed myself to the consideration of it
in a manner.
And indeed, it was much on my heart
in these days not to preach the wisdom
of my own heart or produce my own
gifts, but to depend on the Lord for
light that I might, if I could have
reached it, be able to say of every
word, Thus saith the Lord.
That's Boston at 22.
He's not seen anyone converted in his life
that he's aware of.
The Lord saves and you don't even know
it.
But here he cried, Lord, accomplish this in
me.
You said to these men, you're going to
make them fishers of men.
Lord, do this in my life.
He says in that book.
Many preachers are shamed by the devil and
the devil's zeal.
The devil goes out like a roaring lion.
He seeks who he can devour.
While these preachers, they're set upon saving souls
by creeping about slowly like a bunch of
snails.
The devil is in earnest when he tempts
you, yet to the opposite, some preachers are
unconcerned whether people hear or forbear to hear
their invitations and reproofs.
The devil's agents that handle his business, how
concerned are they?
In order to gain one convert, they will
travel across sea and land.
Should preachers of the Gospel be unconcerned?
You see, he's contrasting the zeal of Satan.
It reminds me of one comment my father
-in-law made to me that always stood
out.
He said the one thing to imitate from
the devil, and he referred to Revelation where
it says the devil knowing his time was
short, what did that produce in Satan?
He had great zeal.
And Bob's point was if Satan could recognize
his time is short and he has great
zeal, we as Christians should recognize our time
is short.
It's but a hand breath.
And we should have great zeal likewise.
So here Boston is in 1699 expressing these
things and wrestling with these things in his
heart.
Now, make me a fisher of men.
Do not have the imagery, the Lord's thinking
about me with a fishing pole at Lion's
Lake.
We'll go by Lion's Lake, that lake by
our house.
Tons of people are fishing.
Fishing to them is they've got a pole
in their PVC thing they've stuck in the
ground, and they're drinking a lot, and their
pole's just sitting there.
Is that fishing according to the Bible?
Is that what these men were doing?
No, no, not at all.
In case you have some wrong imagery here
of what Christ is pointing at and what
they're asking of, He's talking about some serious
labor.
This is with a net, not a pole.
The imagery of using a lure and a
line and waiting for the fish to strike,
that's foreign to what's happening here.
Rather, this is the imagery of straining of
long hours and often little results.
We labored all night.
Caught nothing.
How many times have we gone downtown and
we come back?
We labored all night.
Apparently, we caught nothing.
Now, you never know, because you left a
bunch of silent messengers, the tracks, and they're
in people's pockets.
They're in their cars.
You never know what's going to happen.
But there might be toiling all night.
We don't catch anything.
There's storms.
Some get frightened.
They go back to the shore.
And others venture out.
They don't want to lose any fish in
the deep.
Listen, when you think about where to go
fishing, listen to Luke 4.
This is not the ESV.
I think it's the KJV.
Listen to how it renders it.
When he had stopped speaking, he said to
Simon, launch out into the deep.
Launch out into the deep and let down
your nets for a catch.
You could stretch that statement.
What does that sound like?
Launch out into the deep.
There's some people, they go launch out into
the deep.
They cast that net in the storm, in
the trials.
They labor all night.
They labor for year after year.
They catch nothing.
And they stay.
They don't lose heart like Judson.
It's incredible.
I'm going to look at some of those
examples that have really stood out to me
over the years in a little bit.
But some are called to launch out into
the deep.
To go out into the deep.
Listen to this.
A.J. Gordon wrote a book, The Holy
Spirit and Missions.
Has anyone read that?
The Holy Spirit and Missions?
About halfway through on the last few days.
But listen to this.
Think about launching out into the deep.
Think about the difficulty of evangelism.
I know part of this is thinking about
global missions more than it is local evangelism.
But bear with me.
For 33 years, this is Adernheim Judson Gordon.
His dad was John Calvin Gordon and he
named his son Adernheim Judson.
So it's A.J. Gordon.
He was alive when Adernheim Judson was alive.
That's a side note.
For 33 years, the Moravian missionaries had toiled
on 33 years amidst such discouragements seeing almost
no one converted for 33 years.
33 years.
That they had begun seriously to consider the
abandonment of their primary station in Massachusetts.
But one day in 1804, as a missionary
was preaching from the text, the Son of
Man has come to seek and save that
which was lost.
33 years, brethren, of faithful labor.
Toiling all night.
33 years.
Not because they did anything, but God sovereignly
chose to come.
They did do something.
They remained faithful.
The Son of Man seeks to save that
which is lost.
The words took powerful hold of a wretched,
abandoned woman so sunk in every evil that
she was despised and shunned even by her
degraded countrymen.
And what a person for Christ to save,
right?
I mean, the worst of the worst.
She was filled with the deepest anguish on
account of her sins.
She spent the night in the huts occupied
by the dogs as though unworthy to associate
with human beings.
It sounds like the demoniac getting converted all
over again from Mark 5.
The great word of the preacher, however, proved
a source of life to her soul.
She entered into sweet peace.
Immediately, she began to praise the Savior in
the most exultant manner for what He had
done for her.
She became as a live coal in her
village.
Go home and tell of how I've had
mercy on you.
That's a live coal in Mark 5.
You've got it right here.
From which the whole community became set on
fire.
Old and young were brought under powerful conviction.
In every hut, the sound of singing and
praying was audible.
And the churches could not contain the numbers
who flocked to hear the message of salvation.
Those converted were moved at once to become
missionaries to their heathen countrymen.
Again, Mark 5.
Burden to go home.
And so the work spread throughout the land.
This was Labrador's Pentecost.
It was ignited by a single verse.
The Son of Man has come to seek
and to save that which is lost.
It is not My word like fire, saith
the Lord.
Isn't that amazing?
Now many, they don't have the stanima.
They have faith in God for 33 years
of laboring and seeing no results.
And you know what struck me?
They're insecure.
After 30 years, there's a sense they have
this insecurity in their heart.
Maybe God's not with us because no one's
been saved in 30 years.
You let that little insecure thought of unbelief
into your heart, you're going to abandon the
work.
You're going to just...
that's it.
You're going to let results dictate your faithfulness
to the work.
Imagine 10 years, hardly any results.
20 years.
30 years.
Imagine what people were even saying to them
at that point.
Maybe that's written somewhere.
I'd love to read all of that.
How are these people processing that?
And they kept on.
Brethren, don't get some insecurity in your heart
that God is not with you just because
there's no results after 33 years.
You and I need to be faithful to
God in the sphere He's put us in,
regardless of results.
Results can be an evidence of the hand
of God.
At the same time, no results are obviously
an evidence of the hand of God too.
But is it the evidence of the hand
of God on judgment upon us because we've
sinned?
Or is it the evidence of the hand
of God testing His workers?
You see, how you interpret that is going
to be a massive difference on what you
conclude and how you respond.
And so these Moravians right here after 33
years, it's not just the Lord started to
save.
These people then were burdened for their heathen
countrymen and all of a sudden you just
have this revival that's spreading.
It's absolutely incredible.
And it's a reminder that man sows, but
who gives the growth?
God.
I mean, you look at so much through
history.
And it's something when you look at history
because you can already see these men weren't
compromised.
They were being faithful and yet there were
no results.
When you're in the midst of it, it's
easier to wonder, maybe these guys are really
compromised and that's why they're not seeing any
results.
But, you look at history and you realize
they were God's men.
And God was testing them.
Listen to this.
Gordon, he goes on in this book.
He says it was seven years before Cary
baptized his first convert in India.
It was seven years before...
Seven, not 33.
Right?
These guys have got nothing on those Moravians.
It wasn't that they didn't have any converts,
but hardly anything.
So this was first converts.
It was seven years before Judson won his
first disciple in Burma.
Does it stop there?
Morrison toiled seven years before the first Chinaman
was brought to Christ.
Does it stop there?
Nope.
Moffat declares he waited seven years to see
the first evident moving of the Holy Spirit
upon the Buchanan's of Africa.
Henry Richards wrought seven years on the Congo
before the first convert was gained at Banza.
It had almost seemed as though God had
fixed the sacred biblical number of seven as
a term of a missionary's apprenticeship.
As I found it reoccurring again and again
in the story of the planning of the
Gospel.
But how rich is reward who has waited
patiently till the seed should spring and grow
up, he knoweth not how.
God has seasons of delay, and glorious indeed
are the seasons which often follow His delays.
We are now seven years in this land,
wrote Brother Botch of Gosner Mission among the
Indians.
But through these long years, it was but
the trial of our patience and endurance.
Everything seemed to be in vain.
And many said the mission was useless.
Then the Lord Himself kindled a fire before
our eyes, and it seized not only single
souls, but spread from village to village.
And from every side the question was raised,
what shall we do to be saved?
See, Gordon's book is six lectures that he
gave.
They founded Gordon Conwell Seminary after him.
Lecture 2 is very good about the Holy
Spirit and missions.
But these are from that book.
It's amazing as he's making these observations.
But this is connected to fishing because missions
is a massive fishing trip of evangelism and
seeking to bring the Gospel in the deep,
right?
Now, I want to look right here at
the end at a fisherman whom God has
really used much lately and who's still alive.
I've never personally met this brother, but in
the last few years I've kept hearing about
him.
I heard about him from Mack Tomlinson recently
when Don Kern was here.
I heard about this brother again.
And his name is Dave Story.
In 2017, Michael Durham had a post about
Dave Story and this is what Michael said.
This is six years ago.
Eleven years ago, the Lord brought Dave and
Lisa back to his hometown in Canada to
plant a church.
David, burdened for the perishing in the area,
would pray and weep over a long list
of people he knew.
In the ensuing years, God has done a
steady work of saving sinners.
Although DeCotown has a population of only 793,
he goes there, he plants a church.
This is six years ago.
Six years ago.
The church now runs on an average of
175 people with visitors almost every Sunday.
There have been multiple conversions in the past
13 years since the plant begun.
And that was part of what Durham said.
This is from the HeartCry missionary site.
In November 2013, I think this is Dave
Story writing himself.
Another young lady named Melita, now my daughter
-in-law, was on her way to another
church before deciding to stop at her church
that Sunday.
She came under strong conviction of the Spirit
that morning.
Realized she was a false convert.
She was gloriously converted.
As a result of her conversion, four months
later, her brother was also born again.
Now he's my son-in-law.
Their uncle Dave, when he saw the change
in their lives, realized he was lost.
He came to Christ in June of 2014
on a Friday.
And his wife Rhonda was converted the next
day.
They've been attending our services for about four
weeks when this took place.
Dave's son and daughter Cassidy came to Christ
within a few weeks after that.
As a result of this, Melita's grandfather Winston
was also awakened.
Then her mother Angela was converted the next
fall.
Followed by Angela's father Glennie.
It's like God's just sweeping them all in.
Then Cassidy had a strong witness to her
other grandfather.
I too went to him several times.
He was a very hard man.
But after sharing the Gospel with him for
several months, he too was converted.
He has since gone to be with the
Lord.
Finally, in the last year, Melita's father Richie
has been truly converted.
I will baptize him and others very soon.
At least seven of those converted in this
family were previously convinced they were heaven-bound
when in fact they were lost.
This is the Lord saving professing Christians who
were deceived.
This one after another.
Obviously, what's a massive part of being a
good fisherman is following Christ in His character
and godliness and holiness and not having character
that is hypocritical, right?
That's not going to help your ability to
convince someone of Christ.
He goes on, Last summer, my wife Lisa
and I went to a local restaurant and
I witnessed to a man named Peter for
over an hour.
I saw him a week later and reminded
him of our former conversation.
I then prayed urgently for him for a
whole week.
The next Sunday, he showed up to church.
Five weeks later, he was gloriously converted.
And like the others, he continues to walk
with Christ and boldly declare what Christ has
done for him.
There's another post on the HeartChrist site.
Changing gears.
These are people who we prayed for.
This is still Dave's story.
This gets more behind this man, Dave's story.
These are people who we prayed for their
conversion daily.
We repeatedly witnessed to them repeatedly.
You hear that?
We begged them to repent.
Didn't ask them.
Begged them to repent.
Be reconciled to God through Christ.
Many times it was in tears.
We keep the language plain, very direct, like
Jesus in Mark 10, and we repeatedly visit
them.
Some of them he was visiting for ten
years.
Mitchell was one of those who I witnessed
to regularly and prayed for for ten years.
He was converted on a Sunday two years
ago when Mack Tomlinson was preaching at our
church.
His wife Anita was converted a few months
before.
They were both walking faithfully and serving Christ.
By grace, Mitchell's father and mother were then
converted through this ministry ten years ago.
You just see again the Lord saving and
then saving more in the family.
And this is a more newer update from
2017.
In these last years, several years ago, another
young man, a young woman named Beth, started
coming to the church.
At the end of a church service, she
cried out that she wanted to be saved.
I immediately started discipling her and her live
-in boyfriend who was the father of their
two children at the time.
They now have four kids.
During a period of nearly 20 weeks, he
was also converted.
She had no further union with him until
after his conversion and they were married.
They were both faithful followers of Christ in
her training and instructing their children in the
ways of the Lord.
We go to several people each week.
We pray for them.
We constantly plead with them to repent and
believe the Gospel.
We go until they are either converted or
until they tell us to never come back.
Does this sound like a fishing pole?
This is like throwing a net.
We went to their house again.
We threw the net down.
We caught nothing.
We went again.
Ten years.
Same fishing spot.
Caught nothing.
Or maybe it looked like we caught the
fish and then it got out of the
net.
You go hear this man's sermons.
If you had not heard all this, you
hear his sermons, you would never think God's
used him in this way.
You wouldn't.
It's like the Apostle Paul in a way.
He's not an eloquent speaker, but God has
used him in such a mighty way.
The last update serves as a laborious update.
To me, it's just incredibly encouraging.
The last update from 2022.
Again, just plead the Lord.
You're making fishers of men and seeing...
I hate to even use the word results,
but seeing these fruits in this way.
Lord, bring something of this in a greater
degree even here among ourselves.
The last one.
He says, Joshua, an 11-year-old boy,
attended one of the chapels at our Christian
school.
He was converted early last fall.
Despite his age, he has a real zeal
for the Gospel and wants to see people
come to Christ.
He's 11 years old.
A few months back, he began to read
the Bible to his grandfather, Wayne, who is
a professing atheist.
An 11-year-old boy reading the Bible
to his granddad.
I know a lot of the kids are
in the back.
One of the things I even think with
my own kids, if you're going to say
you're a follower of Christ, and he says
he makes you fishers of men, is there
not any type of desire there to tell
others?
If there's no desire there, to me that's
very discouraging about whatever profession someone's making.
They don't even know.
It's like I don't even think about telling
others about what Christ has done.
Well then, has what Christ's done really gripped
and changed your own heart?
To me, that's a valid question to ask.
I don't want to wrongly condemn the child
in that area, but it's something for them
to think about.
Take to heart.
Where was I?
Oh, Joshua would read while in Wayne's bedroom.
All the while, burdened to see his grandfather
saved.
And guess what?
Wayne was gloriously converted a few months ago.
And I believe the Lord has saved Joshua's
twin sister, Sophie, as well.
They're a wonderful family and we love them
tremendously.
Thank God for sending them to us.
They will be baptized next month with a
few others, Lord willing.
And that last update is from the HeartChrist
site in 2022.
The first two Sundays in September we baptized
12 people.
They went public for Christ.
That's someone to pray for.
Dave Storey.
It could be nice to have him come
down sometime.
Yeah, all of that was happening at one
church in a small town of 800 people.
Look, it's easier to have a captive audience
in a town of 800 people to follow
up with people, right?
I mean, you know everyone.
There's certain people you see downtown and you
never see them again.
I mean, they're probably a tourist.
I don't know.
Do I have any more excuses I can
come up with?
The Lord clearly has gifted this man as
an evangelist.
It's just obvious.
The Spirit of God is upon this man
in a unique way.
Again, I say that because as we're all
involved in taking forth the Gospel, there's some
who have an exquisite manifestation of the Spirit
of God in their life and the wisdom
to woo souls to Christ that others just
don't have.
And that's just the Spirit operates in that
way.
But if you don't sense that in yourself,
don't lose heart and say, well, I don't
think I have that gift, so I'm not
going to see fruit.
No, no, you're following Christ.
I'm following Christ.
Pray that God would save.
Well, one last thought.
2 Peter 3.9 says, God is patient
towards you, not wishing that any should perish,
but all should reach repentance.
And to quote Ryan Fullerton, I really appreciated
what he shared on this a while back.
On that text, he said, the reason today,
because here God's waiting to come back, right?
That's his point.
The reason today exists is that God wants
more people to be saved than are currently
saved.
And He's willing to prolong human history to
get them into His kingdom.
Which means that every time you rub the
sleep out of your eyes, there ought to
be this awareness that today exists for evangelistic
purposes.
Because of God's patience, the heavens have not
been destroyed.
The final judgment has not yet come.
You see, you look at life that way.
You look at it in that perspective.
God could come and bring destruction.
He's not because He still has people He
wants to be saved.
And oh, we get to be the hands
and the feet to bring the good news
and the glad tidings to the nations, to
the neighborhoods, to our family members.
So may it be so.
May the Lord help us and make us
all more fishers of men.
Let's pray.
Lord, You looked at those men who were
there engaged in their job.
Lord, they had no idea what was ahead
of them.
We don't even know how much they knew
about You at that point.
But Lord, You looked at them and You
said, follow me and I will make You
fishers of men.
Lord, we're grateful that You've not just told
us to follow You aimlessly.
We're not just people beating against the air
with no purpose.
But Lord, You've given us a purpose to
be Your witnesses, to acknowledge You before men,
to seek to see our lost spouses saved,
children saved, our countrymen, our hearts' desire for
them is that they might be saved.
Lord, we want to have a burden like
Paul and unceasing anguish in our hearts that
people would be saved.
Lord, I pray that You would make me
and make my brethren more fishers of men.
Lord, there's areas that we've toiled.
We've not seen results.
And Lord, forgive us if there's some idolatry
at times of results.
Lord, we want to be like those Moravians,
faithful for 33 years even if it seems
like nothing happens.
Lord, give us the faith to know we're
in Your will, to not question ourselves in
a wrong way.
But Lord, at the same time, if there
is something in my own heart or our
own hearts that's keeping someone or something about
our character that's keeping certain people from Christ,
Lord, reveal that to us.
Lord, we don't want Your name to be
blasphemed among the Gentiles.
We don't want our conduct not being hospitable
like Host said to be a reason the
pagans don't believe Your offer that they can
come to You.
And so Father, I thank You for Your
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank You for sending Him.
Lord, I thank You for 15 years ago
saving me.
Lord, I thank You for the men I
saw downtown preaching the Gospel.
Lord, I hated them.
I was offended by them.
I apologized for what they were doing.
And then here, Lord, You saved me.
And You put me right there in front
of that Alamo proclaiming the good news of
Christ.
Lord, I'm thankful that You make men fishers
of men.
I'm thankful, Lord, You give us opportunities.
And so Lord, would You continue to do
this work in us, to bring this production
about.
Lord, we look at our degree paper and
it's not some random thing that's stamped on
there.
It says for all of us, Lord, fishers
of men.
Acknowledgers of You.
Witnesses of You.
And Lord, I pray You'd be with those
who are out there, Lord, laboring like Vess
and Lord, even Tim and everything in Manchester.
And Lord, everything in Nepal and the Wilkinsons
and the Florises.
Father, Lord, we want to see the Word
of God speed ahead and be honored.
And Lord, I think about the discouragements that
some people have encountered and faced.
Lord, I pray You'd encourage their hearts wherever
they're at this morning.
Would You even save in their meetings?
Lord, maybe this morning in Nicaragua or this
morning even in Ecuador.
Now, Clayton's not there, but Lord, there's a
man there sharing.
Lord, would You not use even a verse
like Jesus came to seek and save the
lost to lead to massive amounts of conversion?
Lord, You're able to do that.
Your arm is not short that it cannot
save.
And so, Lord, we pray that Your arm
that's so long, that's able to reach down
even to the North Sentinel Island and bring
out those pagans into the Gospel.
Lord, we pray that You'd do that work.
Lord, be with those out there in the
field.
Be with us here.
Lord, I think of that little boy that
my daughter talked to on Friday.
Lord Haven, I pray You'd save that kid's
soul.
Lord, that the Gospel wouldn't be confusing to
him.
But Lord, that he'd know the truth.
And so, Lord, we want to be those
who see souls saved.
We want to, by all means possible, save
some.
And Lord, what a comment from Paul to
say that he's involved in the saving of
some.
Lord, help us to not lose heart.
Help us to pull in the nets.
Help us to cast them.
Lord, help us to speak in a plainer
way to sinners that we could make sense
and that You would empower our words.
Lord, would You raise up in our own
church evangelists.
Lord, who among us is gifted in a
unique way with a manifestation of Your Spirit,
a measure of faith to operate as an
evangelist?
Lord, I pray that You would identify those
people.
Lord, approve their worth.
Lord, and use them in that way that
sinners might come and bow the knee to
Christ now and Lord, not then in eternity
and in judgment.
And so, Lord, we just commit ourselves to
You.
Help us, please.
Lord, we thank You.
In Jesus' name, Amen.