A Fisherman

Matthew chapter 4, verse 12 through 22. Matthew chapter 4, verse 12.

Now, when Jesus had heard that John, this is John the Baptist, was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the seacoast, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The land of Zebulun, and the land of Naphtali, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them who sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And he said unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they immediately left their nets, and followed him.

And going on from there he saw two other brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. And he called them, and they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed him. We're continuing our series tonight on Help Wanted.

Tonight, God is looking for fishermen. Ever since that gracious moment when God the Father interrupted his Sabbath rest and went and found disobedient, fearful, sinful Adam and Eve, the heart of God has been focused on the winning of the loss. This is why God the Father called Abraham, because through Abraham the Savior would come and all the nations be blessed.

This is why Jesus Christ came to earth, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. This is why the Holy Spirit is here. The Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

And the Holy Spirit tonight can speak to some unsaved person's heart and communicate eternal life. So God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are concerned with one thing—bringing glory to God by the building of his Church through the winning of the loss. And by the grace of God, you and I can be a part of that.

Now, you people are good Bible students, and so I don't tell you anything new. But when I say to you that there are in the Bible many different pictures of soul winning or evangelism, there are some churches that if you mention the word evangelism or soul winning, they throw up their hands and say, don't bring that sort of thing up. We don't believe in disturbing people.

We don't believe in trying to change people's religion. Well, if all the Lord Jesus died for was to change people's religion, we're in bad shape. He died to do something to this basic human nature of ours, which is wicked.

He died to rescue us from eternal darkness. And so when we talk about evangelism, we talk about soul winning. We're not talking about something that's foreign to the Bible or foreign to the heart of God.

It's foreign to some churches because they have ceased to believe the Bible. There are churches you can visit where people will say to you, now, everybody is a child of God. The good news of the gospel is that everybody's a child of God.

Just go tell them. And once they discover it, their lives will change. My Bible doesn't say that.

And Jesus didn't say that. In fact, Jesus looked at one group of people who were really sure they were going to heaven and said, you generation of vipers. Instead of calling them the children of God, he called them the children of the devil.

Now, evangelism in the Bible is compared to a shepherd out looking for a lost sheep. Some people don't like to be compared to sheep, but the Bible does this. All we like sheep have gone astray.

God doesn't compare us to lions. God doesn't compare us to elephants. God compares us to weak, ignorant sheep who are prone to wander away.

And so when we're out seeking for the lost, we're like shepherds looking for the lost sheep. He has compared evangelism to harvesting, not only the animal kingdom, but the vegetable kingdom. He said, lift up your eyes and look on the fields.

They are white already to harvest. That's a beautiful picture. God plants the seed of his truth in the human heart, and that heart can receive the seed.

It can grow and there can be a harvest of life. Sometimes the Bible compares the winning of the loss to being a fireman. You say, I didn't know that yet.

Back in Zechariah chapter three, God said about his people, is this not a brand plucked out of the burning? And so when you see somebody who's in the burning and you reach in and help to pluck that person up, you're being an evangelical fireman. You see, the Lord didn't tell us to go out and put the fires out. He said, get the people out of the fire.

And I tell you that that takes some courage and it takes some skill. The word of God compares being a soul winner to producing babies. Paul said, you've had many instructors in Christ, but not many fathers.

I have begotten you through the gospel. And so when you share the word of God, you become a spiritual father and you bring spiritual babies into the world. But I suppose the one picture of evangelism that is the most familiar and the least understood is the one you used to sing about when you were a little kid in the primary department.

I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, if you'll follow me. Our Lord Jesus said to four fishermen one day, follow me and I'll make you to become fishers of men. Now, the Lord Jesus didn't invent this picture.

He didn't make this up. This phrase, fishers of men, had been in use for a long time. The Greek philosophers used it.

The Roman teachers used it. Back in the Old Testament, God is compared to a fisher of men when he goes out searching for his people. Evil people are compared to fishers of men.

Some of the prophets talk about the evil men who go out fishing for people to exploit them. But if you went up to a Greek philosopher and you said, sir, are you a fisher of men? He'd say, yes, I am. What does that mean? Or if you went to a Roman teacher and said, sir, what's it mean to be a fisher of men? They'd both say the same thing.

To the Greek and Roman world, a fisher of men was someone who taught men and persuaded them and captured them with the truth. When Jesus Christ said to these four men, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men, they knew what he was talking about. He was talking about using the truth to persuade and capture the minds and the hearts and the wills of men.

This is what Socrates did. It's what the great philosophers did. There are many ways to capture people.

You can bribe them and say, hey, follow me and I'll give you, but we don't do that. You can capture them physically. You can put a gun to their head and say, now you be baptized or else.

And there are some faiths that operate this way, or you can trick them. But the phrase fisher of men refers to a person, a dedicated person who is winning others to his cause and to his belief. He persuades them and he convinces them through the truth.

The truth is, as it were, a net that goes out and captures men. The truth is, as it were, a hook that catches men. Now, with this in mind, let's look at this little phrase fishers of men.

And I don't have to tell this group tonight that God expects each of us as believers to be fishers of men, fishers of children, fishers of women. He uses the word men here generically. Fishers of human beings.

He expects us to do this. Now if I'm going to do it, I better know what I'm doing. And so from this little phrase fishers of men, the Lord gives to us three very important insights.

And without these insights, you and I are going to have a difficult time doing the job that he's called us to do. It may be that some of us here tonight are doing a very poor job of capturing people for Christ because we've never really understood what it's all about. First of all, this phrase fishers of men gives us an insight into the opportunity that's around us.

Here were Peter and Andrew and James and John at the Sea of Galilee. Now you must know that the Sea of Galilee is not a sea, it's a lake. It's about 13 miles long and at the widest about eight miles.

It's not a sea, it's a lake. But in this lake were 25 or more different species of fish. And around this lake were a number of communities that lived on catching fish.

Bethsaida. Peter and Andrew and James and John originally came from Bethsaida. Bethsaida means house of fishing.

If you're going to update it, you'd call it fish town, fishville. Numbers of the little communities around the Lake of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee were named because of their fishing. And fishing was a big enterprise.

We have a tendency today to think of fishing in the Bible the way we fish, a vacation. But in the Bible, fishing was not a vacation, it was a vocation. It was a matter of life or death.

It was a matter of paying your taxes, it was a matter of having food to eat. The common food of people would be fish and bread and eggs. The average Jewish boy never said to his mother, mother, what's for dinner tonight? You know, they'd have two meals a day usually.

It would be bread, fish, if you had meat at all, some eggs, possibly some vegetables. The Lord Jesus Christ called four men who were involved in a big industry at the Sea of Galilee. He was saying to them, what a tremendous opportunity you have here.

Here are your boats and here are your nets. Apparently the sons of Zebedee came from a pretty wealthy family. They had servants.

So when James and John left their father Zebedee to follow Jesus, they weren't leaving their father in the lurch. He had servants to help him with his work. Fishing was a good way to make some money if you could grow big enough in your fishing enterprise.

Our Lord is saying to them, you have a great opportunity here. This is one of the finest fishing places you'll ever find. But he's saying to you and me, there's an opportunity all around you where you are.

In fact, wherever you go, you're going to find fish. Now we don't want to carry this to an extreme. There's some people who try to make every symbol in the Bible walk on 15 legs.

You know, you just don't do this. You got to be very careful about this. It's rather interesting when a fisherman catches fish, he catches living fish and brings them up and they die.

Our job is just the opposite. When we're out fishing for souls, we catch dead fish. But when we catch them, they come alive.

Now we can't talk to fish. There are people who claim they can communicate with animals. I don't think that we can talk to too many fish.

Now if you talk to your fish, I'll apologize to you, I'm sorry, but I don't think we can talk to fish. But if we could, if we could go down to the Sea of Galilee and get in a boat and find a school of fish down there, and maybe we could talk to the teacher down there, and we could say to that fish, do you enjoy it down there? Oh, we're made for this. We're made for this.

You know, the Creator gave to us gills and gill slits and little combs in there, and He has so made us that when we take in the water, it cleans it out and we get nourishment and we get the oxygen that we need, and we have these scales to protect us, and we've got little fins that we can use and tails. We're made for this environment. Have you ever considered another environment? Did you ever climb a tree? No.

You ever heard a symphony? No. Ever read a book? No, we travel in schools, but we've never read a book. Do you enjoy where you are? It's all we know.

Now, why do I use this somewhat juvenile illustration? You get the point, I'm sure. You talk to unsafe people, and the environment they're living in, that's all they know. They look at us Christians who are up here in a different environment.

We aren't swimming through dark, dirty, polluted water. We're breathing polluted air. And they look at us Christians and say, you people are crazy, man.

You're up there, and why, we've got the life. I say to you that I would much rather be what I am, who I am, in the city of Chicago with all of its problems, than be a fish. Now, sometimes people are like fish.

You've got bullheads. You've got sharks. Catfish.

That's not what Jesus is talking about. Our Lord is saying this. Unsaved men and women all around us are in that deep, dark sea of sin.

They don't know any better. They have no idea what it's like to be delivered from it. And because they are down there and they don't know any better, somebody has to help them.

And all around us there are people who need this kind of help. The tendency on the part of the Church of Jesus Christ is to take up an offering and to pay the bill for somebody else to go out and catch the fish. But it wasn't that way in the New Testament Church.

In the New Testament Church, daily, people were coming to Christ because daily the fishermen were out catching them. You see, we have neighbors and friends and loved ones who are fish. That's all they know.

And they're swimming around, enjoying life. They don't know anything better. And we've got something better for them.

And we don't share it with them. And so the Lord gives us an insight into the opportunity around us. Everywhere we look, there are people who need to be caught.

Not exploited, not tricked, not pushed into some kind of a shallow decision, but people who are convinced and persuaded by the truth of the Word of God. People who trust Jesus Christ as their Savior. There are many joys to the pastorate.

But one of the greatest joys to the pastorate is having somebody come up and say, Pastor, I want you to meet so-and-so. I had the joy of leading him to the Lord last night or last week. That's one of the great joys.

The insight into the opportunity around us. So before we proceed any further tonight, let's all admit this. The sea is full of fish.

Now, there's a second insight that the Lord gives to us when he talks about fishers of men. Not only the opportunity around us, but the essentials within us. Now, not everybody can be a good fisherman.

At least four of our Lord's disciples were fishermen, possibly seven. There are some Bible students who believe that it's possible that seven of the twelve disciples were fishermen. Now, why would the Lord Jesus Christ call four and possibly seven men who were fishermen? He didn't call any shepherds that we know of.

And yet all the way through the Bible you find shepherds. He himself was a carpenter. We have no evidence that he called any mechanics.

Why did the Lord Jesus call four and possibly seven fishermen? Because fishermen have the kind of characteristics that we need to have if we're going to be fishers of men. In other words, as I discuss these characteristics, these essentials, I'm examining my own life. And I'm saying, now, Lord, here's why I didn't witness last week.

I lack that. Here's why this fish got away two weeks ago. I lack that.

What are the characteristics? What are the essentials of a successful fisherman? And once again, I'm not talking about somebody sitting on the edge of a lake or a river sleeping, drowning worms. We're talking about somebody who has to feed his children and pay his taxes. I think the first characteristic you'll find is that of energy.

You do not find Bible fishermen doing nothing. You never find them sitting around saying, well, what shall we do? They're either washing their nets or mending their nets or caulking their boats. Peter had been out all night fishing and he caught nothing.

I want you to know if I'd have been out all night fishing, catching nothing, I wouldn't go back. I'd sell the boat. I'd sell Avon for the rest of my life.

What do you find Peter doing? Washing his net, getting ready to go back out again. Fishermen have energy. They are people who are busy doing something.

Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, now you be instant in season and out of season. Say, well, it's not a very good season to catch fish. Wait a minute, in season, out of season.

Well, excuse, fishermen don't do this. They're out to catch fish. And these are people who are busy.

I have noticed in my Bible and you have noticed in your Bible that God calls and uses people who are busy. God calls and uses people who are busy. Gideon was threshing wheat.

David was taking care of sheep. Moses was taking care of sheep. Peter and Andrew and James and John were working on their nets.

Nathaniel was meditating in the word under his fig tree. He finds people who are busy. There's no place for a lazy person in this business of fishing for souls.

A second essential is courage. If you're going to be a fisherman, you've got to have courage. Now, remember, when we go fishing, we rent a rowboat.

We put a motor on it and we go out. And if the weather doesn't look too good, we stay home, watch television. These men went out and came back and went out and came back.

And when the storms came, they were out there. Quite frankly, and you've heard me say this, I do not like to be on the water. I don't mind being in the water if I'm baptizing or taking a shower, but I don't like to be on the water.

And yet these men were on the water. It took courage. Storms could come up.

Boats could capsize. All sorts of things can happen. That takes courage to be a fisherman.

Takes courage to fish for souls. You say, well, I'm afraid if I say something, they may argue with you. They're not arguing with you.

They're arguing with God. We can be sweet and gentle and persuasive and kind and loving. And if they are arguing with us, we don't have to argue with them.

It takes courage to be a fisherman. And many Christians are just plain timid. Here are the fish waiting to be caught.

And we're just too timid about it. I've heard a lot of preachers criticize the apostle Peter. If the judgments see to Christ, they're going to have to apologize to Peter.

Peter made his mistakes. The only people who don't make mistakes don't make anything. I grant you, Peter was impulsive, but Peter had courage.

Thomas didn't say, Lord, if it be thou, let me walk on the water. Peter said that. That took courage.

Peter shouldn't have done it. He pulled out his sword and fought in the garden, but he had courage. It takes courage to be a fisherman.

It takes courage to be a winner of souls. Many of you have read the books of Louis Sperry Schaeffer. Louis Sperry Schaeffer is one of the founders of Dallas Theological Seminary.

And his books are enjoyable, delightful. He actually began his ministry as a musician. He was a music major, and God gave him a special gift of Bible teaching.

One day, Dr. Schaeffer was walking across some railroad tracks, and he saw a little shack where the man sat who came out to stop the traffic when the train came along. And on the sign at the side of the shack, it said positively no admittance because you can't have the fellow who's supposed to be watching out for your safety in there playing checkers with somebody. And Louis Sperry Schaeffer thought to himself, I'm going to go talk to him anyway.

Now, you and I would have said, well, I'll pray for him. I can't get in there. The sign says no admittance.

As he looked through the window, he saw the man was sitting there reading a Bible. And so he knocked, and the man was shocked. He let him in.

He said, I know you're reading a Bible. The man said, yes. And he said, do you understand what you're reading? Do you know the Christ of the Bible? He said, no, I don't.

And within a short time, Dr. Schaeffer led him to the Lord. That takes courage. You've got to be sure the spirit of God is in it.

You don't want to be a bull in the china shop. But when God is in it, there's courage. Thirdly, it takes faith to be a fisherman.

It takes faith to be a farmer. You sow that seed. You don't know what kind of weather you're going to have.

You don't know what the bugs are going to do. It takes faith to be a farmer. It takes faith to be a shepherd.

But it takes a lot of faith to be a fisherman. You don't know what the weather is going to do. You can't see what you're after.

Whether you're using a net or throwing in a hook, you can't see what you're after. There's no way you can automatically get a catch. It takes faith.

It takes faith to be a winner of souls. If you take a pessimistic attitude about soul winning and say, well, she's not interested. He's not interested.

I recall walking out of a hospital room one day. I had visited a fellow. As I started to walk out of the room, something stopped me.

I looked, and there was a young man in the other bed. Usually, I always talk to everybody in the room, whether they want to talk to me or not. I say, hello, how are you? And you never can tell.

This young fellow was lying there, and my first reaction was, well, why talk to him? But then the Lord said, well, you haven't anything to lose. Try it out, you know? So I said, hi, what's your name? He said, Daniel. I said, that's great.

I said, are you named after Daniel in the Bible? He said, I'm not named after anybody in the Bible. I said, do you ever read your Bible? No. Are you a Christian? No.

Well, after about 10 minutes of conversation, some seed that had been planted into his heart by a Sunday school teacher bore some fruit, and I had the joy of leading the young man to the Lord. Now, if you take a pessimistic approach, say, well, it's like, do you remember Elmer Blurt from years ago on the radio? Oh, you kids won't remember him, but you older ones will. He was a salesman, a door-to-door salesman, and he used to go like this.

He'd knock on the door and say, there's nobody home here, I hope, I hope, I hope. That's the way many Christians witness, well, this won't do any good. Pessimistic.

It takes faith to be a fisherman. It takes faith to be a fisher of men. Fourth, it takes patience and persistence.

Patience and persistence. We didn't catch anything tonight, we'll mend our nets and wash our nets and go back out. Discouragement is the greatest difficulty in soul winning.

In my years of ministry, I've had people come to me and say, Pastor, I'm going to quit, I'm never going to witness again. And we quit too soon. We sing the song that says, never give up, never give up, and we do give up.

The American Management Association tells us that 80% of the salesmen miss their sales because they don't go back. And the other 20% keep going back and they do most of the business. Now, this doesn't mean we make pests out of ourselves, doesn't mean we become thorns in their flesh or burrs in their shoes.

It does mean that we don't give up. We persist in praying. We persist in witnessing.

We persist in sharing. When we were on this trip to Africa, it was our delight to be able to spend a couple of days in Spain with the man who was my pastor when I was just a little kid. He taught me the books of the Bible.

And I can still remember the day, as a Moody Bible Institute student, he came to our home, and he was introducing himself as the new pastor of that church. And he interested us children in Sunday school and interested my parents in what was going on, and he was always encouraging us. I owe a lot to that man.

A fisherman has to be persistent. The pastor who was my confirmation pastor when I was confirmed, oh, I'm glad he didn't give up on me. I was the toughest student he ever had.

I passed all the exams, learned all the verses. I wasn't saved. He knew I wasn't saved.

I was as phony as a six-dollar bill, I guess. And you know, he didn't give up on me. He used to fall on his face and pray and weep over me.

I'm glad he did. It takes persistence to be a good fisherman. Now, there's a fifth characteristic, a fifth essential.

Cooperation. Now, if you want to catch one fish one at a time, that's all right. Nothing wrong with that.

That's all right. Peter one day went down with a hook and caught a fish. But you know, when Jesus said to Peter in the daytime, let's go on out into the deep and catch some fish, Peter said, wait a minute, I fished all night.

On the Sea of Galilee, there are two requirements for good fishing. Number one, fish at night. Number two, fish close to the shore.

Jesus broke both of those. He said, let's go out at day in the deep. And they caught a great host of fish.

In fact, so much so that they had to call their partners to come and help. You know, there's no place for competition in soul winning. We're all working together.

Somebody caught me in a Youth for Christ rally, but the preparation had been made in home and in vacation Bible school and in church and in Sunday school. Lots of people were involved in holding that net. Cooperation.

Now, you can fish alone if you want to, but the best way to get results is to work together and fishermen have to work together. Some of the nets that they use, you can go fishing with nets, you can go fishing with hooks, or you can even go fishing with spears. Spears are interesting.

There's some mention of spear fishing in the Bible. That's the way to win souls. You kind of watch them and then get them.

Kind of beats dangling a hook around, doesn't it? Sometimes you can win them that way. You just kind of watch them and you get them. But basically, in the word of God, they had these long nets, 100 feet, 200 feet long, and several men in several boats would let out these nets and then they would move in toward the shore, working together.

There's times and places and occasions when God's people have to work together to win souls. Or you can use the smaller nets. They had kind of a thrown net and you threw it out like this and it had weights on it and it would sink down and you'd bring it up and catch your fish.

They had trap nets. They had nets that were like wicker baskets and the fish would swim in and couldn't get out. But any way you look at it, fishermen have to learn how to work together.

There's no room for competition. Which leads us to a sixth requirement. They've got to have skill.

You've got to learn how to be a fisherman. How do you learn? You go out fishing with somebody else. You could watch movies on fishing, read books about fishing, pass examinations about fishing, and not know how to catch a single fish.

How did Peter and Andrew and James and John learn how to go fishing? They went fishing with somebody else. I'm sure they fell out of the boat a few times. I'm sure they goofed up the nets a few times.

It's all right, they were learning. I preached in a church some years ago and I was talking along these lines about the winning of souls and the pastor came to me after the meeting and he said, You know what? There's a lady in this church who has attended every soul winning seminar and every soul winning study course that's ever been offered in our church and in this association and she's never won a single soul to Christ. We can salve our conscience.

Oh, I passed a course. I've learned some verses. But the best way to catch the fish is to learn the skill by going out and doing it.

You get wet. You get disappointed. That's the way you learn.

And the men have got to have skill. My friend, if you and I are going to go out and catch some fish, we better have some skill. Now, everybody has his own approach.

I've never been a believer in cookie cutter evangelism. Everybody has his own approach. Every time a new book comes out on this subject, we read it, and I say, Well, I couldn't quite do it that way.

You've got to do it your own way. Remember the lady? No, it was a pastor. A pastor who stopped D.L. Moody one day and said, Mr. Moody, I don't approve of your methods.

Moody said, Well, I'm always ready for improvement. What are your methods? The man said, I haven't got any. Moody said, I'll stick to mine then.

Whatever approach you have, whatever means God's given you, whatever skills you've developed, use them to imitate each other. Just work together skillfully in the winning of souls. Finally, there has to be, on the part of the fisherman, alertness.

You're not going to be a good fisherman asleep. Alertness. Alertness if you're spearing.

Alertness if you're angling. Alertness if you're casting the net. There has to be alertness.

You've got to know when to draw the net. You've got to know when to spear the fish. Alertness.

Where does this come from? The Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God is the great fisherman. Fishers of men, it gives us an insight into the essentials within us.

Now, none of us completely measures up. If we look at these seven characteristics, we say, Well, I don't always measure up. It makes no difference.

Get out and do it. I would rather have a person bungle it. I would rather have a person get tongue-tied and stammer through it and at least give a witness for the Lord than to be a beautiful, pious statue.

Second time, it'll be easier. Third time, it'll be easier. Fourth time, it'll be fun.

It'll be a great delight just sharing the Word of God with people. Which leads us now to our third insight. He's given us an insight into the opportunity around us.

There are fish all over the place. He's given us an insight into the essentials within us. We've got to be able to stay with the job.

And he gives us, thirdly, an insight into the encouragement before us. I want to encourage you as we close this message. Jesus didn't say, Go out and fish for men.

Our Lord didn't say, Go out and do the best you can. Our Lord said, You follow me, and I'll make you a fisher of men. Did you get that? That's the encouragement before us.

Jesus Christ is the great fisherman. He was angling there at that well of Sychar, and he caught himself a woman and won her. He caught a fish up in a tree one day.

The fish's name was Zacchaeus. Sometimes he caught them in the multitudes. Most of the time, it was one here, one there.

Our Lord's the great fisherman. He caught Peter. That's quite a fish to catch.

And Jesus said, Now if you'll follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men. Keep your eye upon me. To follow Jesus Christ means to be devoted to him, not distracted, not detoured, not divided, devoted to him.

To follow Jesus Christ means to let him open the opportunities. To follow Jesus Christ means to depend upon him. Just read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and see what he did with Peter.

Peter was an expert fisherman. And yet when Jesus called Peter, Peter had failed. Jesus said, Now you follow me, Peter.

I'll make you into something. And he did. Oh, Peter had his ups and downs.

He had his mistakes. He did foolish things. But I want you to know something.

When you get to Acts chapter 2 and that fisherman, Peter, throws out the net, he caught 3,000 fish. And a few days later, he threw out the net again, got 2,000 more. And you read through the book of Acts, you find Peter either throwing out the net or spearing or hooking.

Jesus made him into a fisherman, a fisher for souls. This means that you and I have got to begin every day saying, Now, Lord, here I am, opening his word and letting him instruct us, letting him teach us, yielding ourselves to him and saying, Now, Lord, throughout this day, if you want me to keep quiet, keep me quiet. If you want me to say a word, help me to say a word.

But you have to do it, Lord. You have to work in me and through me. You've got to make me a fisher of men.

And he'll do it. The trouble is most of us don't want him to do it. We argue and we debate and we have our timidity and we have our excuses.

And all the while, all he says is, Look, just follow me. Stay close to me. Be devoted to me.

Listen to me. Watch me. Listen.

Here we go. I'll make you into a fisher of men. As you get to the end of the Bible, you find in the book of Revelation a long list of no mores.

I think it was William R. Newell who used to say that Romans is the book of much more and Revelation is the book of no more. No more death. No more tears.

No more crying. No more pain. No more night.

No more darkness. But there's an interesting no more in the book of Revelation. John says there's no more sea.

Now, as you know, in the Bible, the sea is a symbol of the nations. And God says the wicked are like the troubled sea. You've seen the sea as it casts up the dirt and the slime and all the refuse.

So here are the nations like the sea and swimming around in the sea are all these fish that need to be caught. And God needs fishermen. The day is going to come when there will be no more sea.

Now, I know what that meant to John. John was on the little isle of Patmos. He was surrounded by the sea.

He was separated from all the people he loved over there in Ephesus. And when John said no more sea, his heart said, hallelujah, no more separation. Somebody else reads that.

No more sea. Hallelujah, no more storms. But you know, no more sea means no more soul winning.

No more fishing for men. We will be singing in heaven. I trust I will be doing some teaching in heaven.

We'll all be teaching each other. We'll be serving God in heaven. There's one thing we'll not be doing.

We'll not be fishing for souls. Now is the time to be doing that. God's looking for fishermen.

All of us say, well, Lord, I can't do it. He said, I know that. Peter had to learn.

With all the years' experience he had fishing for fish, he needed three more years' training and a special power from the Holy Spirit to start fishing for souls. So don't be discouraged. The opportunity is all around us.

Just make yourself available to the Lord and say, Lord, starting today, make me a fisher of men. If you really mean that, he'll do it. And you'll have the joy of putting in the gospel net, of casting forth the truth and catching dead sinners and seeing them come alive.

Gracious Father, we confess that this is our great need tonight, to follow Jesus Christ and let him make us fishers of men. Lord, it's easy to pray. It's easy to give.

It's easy to attend meetings. We confess it's not so easy to throw out that net, to cast in that hook. And yet, Father, you have prepared us and you've prepared them, and we dare to believe that day after day there are people that you have prepared for us to witness to.

Now prepare us. We do want to follow Christ. We don't want to be timid.

We don't want to be selfish. We don't want to be afraid. You've not given to us a spirit of fear.

You've given us a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. And so I pray help us as a church family to have the joy of reaching others. Now, Lord, there's some here tonight who need to be reached.

There are people here tonight, Father, who are living in sin and without Jesus Christ. It's the only life they know, and they think it's the best. Father, you have something better for them.

And I pray that some of them here tonight, yea, all of them here without Christ, will be caught by your gospel net. Thank you that Jesus Christ died for lost sinners. Thank you that he's alive today and he can save.

He can change our lives and forgive our sins and one day take us to heaven. And, Father, for those here tonight who need that, help them to come. I pray, Father, that your spirit will draw them into the net and they'll trust Christ and their lives will be changed.

So bless as we do this now, as we throw out the gospel net, as we give your invitation of grace for Jesus' sake. Amen.