Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Me and again, as we have
just Sung your word, we now come
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to your word, into the reading
of the word. And Lord, we
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asked indeed that you may bless it. I pray God, for myself and
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the words that I have prepared,
that I would not go beyond your word,
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that I would not say things that
are false or misleading. I Pray,
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God, that Christ may be magnified
in the words that I speak.
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And I pray, Lord, that
the text that I read, indeed,
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I will stay to it and Lord, I will rightly divide it for your
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people. Let me pray for your
illumination upon it as we read it and
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hear it. And God, I
prayed it in our hearts this morning you
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would use your word to stir a
desire to spread your Gospel, but also,
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God, to remind us of your
grace, which you will show in
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a marvelous way. And Lord,
I pray that I may make that clear
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to your people this morning again show
US wondrous truths out of your law and
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open our eyes to see it.
I pray in Christ's name. Amen,
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I'm reading from the Gospel of Luke
this morning, Chapter Five. If we
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continue our way through the gospel of
Luke and I will be reading one story
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that's found in the first eleven verses
of Luke Five. And here again,
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I remind you, what now I
shall read is God's word. On one
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occasion, while the crowd was pressing
in on him to hear the word of
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God, he was standing by the
lake of Gennesaret and he saw two boats
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by the lake, but the fishermen
had gone out of them and were washing
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their nets. Getting into one of
the boats, which was Simon's, he
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asked him to put out a little
from the land and he sat down and
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taught the people from the boat and
when he had finished speaking, he said
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to Simon, put out into the
deep and let down your nets for a
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catch, and Simon answered master.
retoiled all night and took nothing, but
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at your word, I will let
down the nets. And when they had
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done this, they enclosed a large
number of fish and their nets were breaking.
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They signaled to their partners and the
other boat to come and help them,
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and they came and filled both the
boats. So they began to sink.
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But when Simon Peter saw it,
he fell down at Jesus knee,
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saying depart from me, I am
a sinful man o Lord, for he
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and all who were with him were
astonished at the catch of fish that they
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had taken, and so also were
James and John Sons of Zebity, who
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were partners with Simon. and Jesus
said to Simon, do not be afraid,
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from now on you will be catching
men. And when they had brought
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their boats to land, they left
everything and followed him. Thus ends the
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reading of God's word. Please be
seated. Last week we looked at Jesus
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Ministry and Capernaum and saw that Luke
shows in that passage that Christ had authority
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over teaching. Uh in his teaching
the authority. He had authority over demons,
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authority over sickness. This morning we
moved to another story of Jesus Authority
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over the creation of God. We're
going to see the authority has over that,
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but we're also going to see a
great miracle of provision. I could
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easily, I found as I prepared
the message this week, I could easily
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have done two messages on this story, but I decided to no, I
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needed to get a little ways into
luke in my short time here, so
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I decided to make it only one
message. Out of this so we'll begin
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by looking at versus one to three. This story by Luke is is a
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little puzzling to commentators. They're not
exactly sure where it fits in. Um.
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It doesn't seem to quite be the
exact story that's found other aces.
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There is another miraculous catch a fish
in the Bible, but that's found in
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John Twenty one, and although some
trying to make a case that it's the
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same exact catch, Um, this
one happens at the very beginning of Christ's
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ministry and the one in John Chapter
one happens at the very end of of
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Christ's ministry. Although there is a
there is Luca. John gives us an
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neetcount. I'm just thinking of this
now, but he gives us that number
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of fish that were caught in that
one, which is very odd. It's
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just a strange number. But anyway, that's another message for another time.
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But Anyway, Um, it's I
think it's clear that this account is a
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different one. And of course our
Lord did miracles, repetitive miracles. This
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wouldn't be the only repetitive miracle that
our Lord did. There's many healings of
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the same kind and castine out of
spirits and demons of the same kind.
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Matthew and mark also give an account
of what appears to be the calling of
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the apostles, and that account also
seems to be somewhat similar to the account
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I read to you and Luke.
However, there is a glaring difference that
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seems to make it not the same. Now commentators are divided about this and
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Um, there there are those who
think that this is the same. Calvin
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says positively that he believes it's the
same account, that what Matthew and mark
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give is exactly the same as what
Luke gives, the same experience. G
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Campbell Morgan believes, however, they
are obviously two different accounts and to support
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that, uh, he mentions that
in the two accounts, in the one
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account where we have in Matthew and
mark, the disciples are actually fishing,
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but in this account it is expressly
said they're not fishing, but they are
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mending or walk, excuse me,
washing their nets. Uh, in doing
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that, and so Um, to
to to sound. That's important. I
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know that Morgan, it is important
because he thinks that they were first called
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in Matthew and mark, that that
account is the first calling. But he
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makes the point that he thinks is
important in the story that even after they
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have been called, they went back
to their nets and back to their occupation,
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and so Jesus has to come to
them a second time to get them
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away from their nets. And so
he thinks that is important and he thinks
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that plays a part as to why
Peter says depart from me, from a
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sinful man, for Peter now recognizes
he aired in Um in going back to
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his back to his nets and UH. And also the account. Why,
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if, if there was, if
there is the same account, why don't
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Matthew and mark mentioned the miracle,
the great catch of fish? It seems
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like, uh, that would be
there. And the Calvin actually says the
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reason he thinks it's the same account, as he says. Otherwise we make
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the apostles apostates. Well, we're
all apostate a time, so that's okay.
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William Hendrickson says, taken as a
unit, the story found here in
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Luke is peculiar to Luke. It
has no parallel. So I tend to
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believe and tend to decide with those
who believe this is a separate account from
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the others. But I'm not going
to argue about it. Now. One
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thing that Luke brings out that isn't
as clear in the other Gospel accounts is
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that Peter is the pre eminent apostle
and he will come through that way.
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Uh, in in the Gospel is
now the gospel of mark is kind of
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an exception. You may know that
tradition says that Mark wrote his Gospel,
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but it was Peter who actually kind
of gave it to him, and mark
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was kind of a ghostwriter for Peter. And so Peter and mark seems to
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put himself into the background. So
many of the things we know about Peter
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we don't find out in the gospel
of Mark Because, uh, Peter seemed
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to want to leave out the things
that would make him look better than anybody
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else. But it is true when
you look at the Gospel, all four
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Gospel accounts, that lists to us
the apostles, Peter is the first name
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in every single one of those lists. So in Chapter Five, Luke names
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the location as the lake of it
UH. This is uh one of those
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names that is not as familiar to
us. You know this better as the
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Sea of Galilee, which it is
also called. Of course, the title
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of Sea of Galilee actually appears thirteen
times in Matthew, in the Short Gospel
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of market actually appears sixteen times,
but never in Luke. Luke never mentions
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it as a Sea of Galilee.
He calls it five times a lake and
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later on in history, as as
time goes on, you may know,
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it will become known as the Sea
of Tiberia's UH. These are all named
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for the same body of water.
And the crowd is pressing in on Jesus
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to hear the word of God.
And and again in chapter four, at
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the end we saw a sunset that
everybody was bringing their sick out so for
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Jesus to touch him. And that's
a wonderful thing. But this is even
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greater that people are coming out not
to be healed but actually to hear the
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word of God. And that's what
they're doing. And what a what a
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marvelous thing must have been, what
an amazing thing to hear the words of
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God from God. That would be
an astounding experience, of course, and
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that's what they went through. And
so in verse two of the fishermen had
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gotten out of their boats and were
washing their nets fishing. I am somewhat
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of a fisherman I won't claim to
be a great fisherman, but I do
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love the fish and I fished a
lot during my life and fishing is generally
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better at night. It's generally easier
to catch them. So this is probably
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morning and the fishermen are tired,
as they spent the night throwing this large
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net over perhaps an area of about
a hundred feet and dragging the net hand
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over hand to bring not only the
net but the fish in. And this
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work would be very trying at best. But it's really true ride when you
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go all night and don't catch a
thing, and that's the problem here.
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They haven't caught anything at all.
And so the nets themselves were probably what
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are called Trammel Nets, and I
learned this this week. I didn't,
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I didn't know that, but they're
a net with a UM outer layers,
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two outer layers of larger Mesh and
then a small Innernet, uh layer that
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that had a very fine mess.
So the fish would get into the larger
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ones and then they try to get
out and they get confused and they get
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caught in the inner mass and that's
how they would get caught and be brought
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in. And because it was very
complex when you were done, you needed
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to wash those nets and clean them
up. The Nets would have bottom,
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our weights on the bottom of the
net and floats on the top so that
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they would either could rest on the
bottom or rest down and raise to the
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top for that. So in verse
three, again Jesus is going to teach.
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So again, as I've mentioned several
times now, he sits down to
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teach. Okay, you still haven't
implemented here in this church. But but
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Jesus sits down in the boat and
again pushes the boat out a little ways
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to make it more of a way
where his voice could be clearly heard by
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the crowd. Now, Um,
yeah, I don't know what I'm doing
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there. Okay. So going to
verse I was moving to my notes before
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I was done with my notes.
So so in verse four, Jesus said
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to Peter put out into the deep, and and that is in the singular
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in the Greek. When he says
put out into the deep, that singular.
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So he's saying that just to Peter. But then the second part is
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in the Pearl where he says let
down your nets, and so he is
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addressing that probably to the crew that
is in Peter's boat and of course,
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in Verse Five Peter Answers. Master, we've toiled all night and taken nothing.
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And I'm sure there's there's nothing that
you like better in your line of
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work when somebody who is not in
your line of work at all tells you
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what you ought to do. And
I'm sure you love that, as all
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US pastors love to hear why we're
not great preachers and what we need to
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do, uh, to be good
preachers. James Edwards put it this way.
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We need not ask what goes through
the mind of a professional fisherman in
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a foul mood when a non fisherman
orders him to do again in bad conditions,
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what he has already tried and failed
to do in good conditions. And
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Uh, I wondered about that.
And and I thought I didn't have this
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in my notes because this just happened
last night, but we were at the
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Desert Museum with with Pete and Jackie
and and Um, as we were going
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around, people were stopping and telling
us about the desert museum and I asked
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Pete. I said that that kind
of get to you where you want to
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say, Hey, I've worked here
all my good part of my life.
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I know this. You know,
you don't have to tell us this stuff,
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and I thought about that when I
was thinking about my message and I
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said maybe I'll put that in a
message tomorrow. Sole so I did.
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So that for you, Um.
But the second part is then Peter Remembering.
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So first he's like, you know, we've toiled all night and taken
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nothing. You know, you're a
carpenter, I'm a fisherman. Maybe I
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know a little bit more about this. I mean you're a master. But
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but then the second part he does
remember and he says Master, but at
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Earword, I'll laid down the nets. And so in verses six and seven
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we have this miracle recorded. After
what Jesus told them to do. They
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have such a catch of fish in
the nets that the nets are breaking because
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of the weight of the fish in
the nets, and they called to their
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partners and the other boat, it's
probably Peter and Andrew in the in their
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boat, the brothers, and it's
probably James and John, as we see
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later on, in the other boat. And so they're calling them to come
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and to help them, and they
bring in such a catch into the boats
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that even the boats themselves began to
sink. At that time. Now,
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you know, whenever you go to
like a magic show, you want to
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know how the magician does the trick
and wonder, you know, how did
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he do that? And I don't
think that woman's really saw it in half.
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But I don't know how he did
it. But but again we might
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wonder. Well, how did Jesus
perform this miracle? What are the details?
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I mean, we know he's God, we know he could do it,
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as far as that goes. But
did did he know where all the
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fish work? Did he just ominisciently
know in his knowledge as God? Did
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he know where those fish all were, or did he summon them by his
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omnipotence and say to every fish,
come on, you come to this area
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right now? Well, the scripture
doesn't tell us, but he did do
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it and that's all that matters.
David gooding says here was the Lord of
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fish and fisherman, the Lord of
Nature, the Lord of men and of
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their daily work. Now, because, I said, I have been in
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my life an avid fisherman and every
fisherman wants a fishing story one sometimes all
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it is is the one that got
away. Is is all that you can
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tell people. And I have a
fishing story, and I'll tell you a
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little bit later in the message here, but I don't have a story like
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this one. and Uh this is
like the ultimate fishing story. We're talking
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at fellowship group the other night and
pastor chop con mentioned about, uh,
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something he had heard about the guys
saying it would be terrible to be at
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a party with the guy that was
like the first man on the moon and
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you know, you're talking and you're
telling some extraordinary story and and then the
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guy goes, well, you know, I walked on the moon, and
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it's like, no matter whatever story
you tell it, it wouldn't be so
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great. Well, you know,
I got fishing stories, but it's not
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as great as this fishing story I
can't tell. And that's there's no fishing
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story you could ever tell the disciple, no matter what you could say to
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them. Hey, I gotta tell
you. And then as I was going,
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Oh, I have a fishing story, and you'd be done. There's
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nothing you could say. and Uh
so some people believe that Jesus did this
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miracle the provision to show to his
disciples. Listen, I can provide abundantly.
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Your gonna be following me. Don't
worry about your families. I will
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provide for them. I can do
that. And and of course he doesn't.
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And so then we have the response
in Verse Eight of Peter to the
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catch. He falls at the feet
of Jesus and says depart from me,
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for I am a sinful man o
Lord, in other words, Lord,
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I should have never ever doubted your
word. Now, earlier in verse five,
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when he doubted the Lord's advice,
he called Jesus Master. This is
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a Greek word which is only found
in the gospel of Luke. There says
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the word means any kind of superintendent
or overseer. But now when Peter Comes
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to Christ acknowledging his sin, he
doesn't call him master, but he uses
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the word Lord. The Greek word
curious. It's a very common word,
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found over seven hundred times in the
New Testament and is often used to refer
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to God, the father, or
Jesus as God. In the Greek the
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word is used to translate the Hebrew
word Yahweh up to this point in the
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Gospel, Luke has used this word
thirty times, all referring to the Lord
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God. So this is a good
transition from Peter. Yes, Peter you're
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right, he is your overseer,
but now you need to know him as
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your God. A plumber in a
that's that's a is the initial, not
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I'm not talking about a particular plumber, but a plumber. Is a commentary
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that he wrote in rites this.
It is the master whose orders must be
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obeyed, the Lord whose holiness causes
moral agony to the sinner, and Peter
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makes the statement I am a sinful
man, which is a statement people make
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when they know they're in the presence
of God, and I'll come back to
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that. So we'll look at the
last two verses. In verse ten we
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see that James and John were also
there, as I mentioned earlier, probably
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Andrew as well, and in the
application I want to talk more about what
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Jesus says here to Peter, but
I do want to especially note one word
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that is found here in the Greek, where Jesus says from henceforce thou shalt
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catch men. The word catch here
is a Greek word that means actually to
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capture alive, and the idea is
that one rescues someone from danger, and
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that's what we do. James says
in James Five twenty, my brothers,
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if anyone among you wanders from the
truth and someone brings him back alive.
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Because they bring him back alive,
let him know that whoever brings back a
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sinner from his wandering will save his
soul from death and cover a multitude of
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sins. John says in First John
Sixteen, if anyone sees his brothers committing
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a sin not leading to death,
he shall ask and God will give him
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life. To those who commit sins
that do not lead to death. The
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only one other place in the New
Testament this word kepture alive that Jesus uses
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is found, and it's found in
Second Timothy, Chapter Two, in Verse
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Twenty Six, where he says to
Timothy Paul says, and they may come
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to their senses and escape from the
snare of the devil after being captured by
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him, to do his well,
after being captured alive by the devil,
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to do his will. And this
miracle would have another significance relating to the
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harvest of human beings. When you
think about it, and we talked about
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this in the fellowship groups, about
when Jesus said greater works, and by
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greater works he doesn't mean greater in
in quality, but that in the area
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of converts. Our Lord didn't have
a lot of converts per se in his
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time as ministry, but Peter has. Peter Becomes that harvester of souls in
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his very first sermon and he preaches
and again talk about a fishing story,
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talk about a story of conversion.
In the very first sermon, in the
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day of Pentecost, three thousand people
and the second one it comes to five
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thousand people. That is there.
And so this natural miracle for Peter is
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re enacted as a spiritual miracle and
acts chapters two through four. So verst
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e Levan says when they brought their
boats back to land, they left everything
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and followed him. John MacArthur puts
it this way. At the very pinnacle
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of their earthly careers, having just
made the greatest catch of fish ever seen
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on nut lake, they abandoned their
boats, turn their backs on the fishing
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business, left everything and followed Jesus. I mentioned in the study a while
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ago as well. I said I
really I know a lot of reformed people
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make fun of this song, and
maybe for some good reason, but I
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don't have a problem with the song. I have decided to follow Jesus.
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I doesn't bother me at all because
I think people do decide to follow Jesus.
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Now I know the reason they decide
is because God lets them by giving
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them the Holy Spirit of regeneration in
their life and causes them to do that.
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But nevertheless they do indeed make a
decision, and I don't have a
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problem with that. But so the
disciples are making that decision now to follow
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Christ and to leave their nets and
all of that. We know it's God
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who initiates the work, but nevertheless
there is something that we will do as
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God initiates it. And what is
it that precipitated this verse? One says
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the crowd was there to hear the
word of God. It's the word of
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God that works faith in people.
That's what's working the faith in these people.
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Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. And
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that phrase, word of God,
is only found once in matthew and once
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in mark, but Luke uses it
almost twenty times to refer to the Gospel
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and the teaching of Jesus. And
that's an apt description, because it's the
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word of God. Why? Because
it's coming from Christ. That's why it
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is the word of God. That's
we we talked about the preaching and all,
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as I mentioned, I am not
preaching directly the words of God.
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Those are the ones I read earlier
to you. But when Christ spoke,
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it was always the word of God, if you need one more proof of
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his deity. And so there were
many there that were able on that day
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to say they stood on the banks
of the Sea of Galilee and heard the
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word of God from God himself.
But if they did not turn from their
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wickedness, there will be a greater
judgment that has put upon them, as
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Jesus Talks about in Matthew Chapter Eleven. But let me go to some applications
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this morning. We are also called
to be fishers of men, and I
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can tell you again as a fisherman, that you never quite know what you're
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going to catch. I've had times
in my life when I sat in a
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boat all day and never had one
sing, go bite, much less brought
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a fish into the boat. But
I told you, I have a fishing
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story. That's not a great fishing
story, but it's great to me.
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But I can remember a time,
it was an afternoon of about four hours,
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where I was in a boat with
my best friend at the time and
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my son in law and we just
every time we put our bait in the
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water a fish headed it was a
small mouth bass, which, if you
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know anything about fishing, they're great
fighters. So you're always having a fight
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on your hands and bringing them in
and it was just it, just one
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after the other. And when they
stopped biting, the Walleyes came in,
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which in Minnesota that's like the fish
of fish, that's that's everything is when
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you get a Walleye. And so
I've told that story many times and and
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we'd all like fishing to be kind
of like it was in the Texas morning,
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and that's true whether we're fishing for
fish or fishing for men. But
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there's something in the story here that
I think that we sometimes miss because we
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have to believe that God ordained all
those fish to be there at that time
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right, that that was that all
things in creation follow the will of the
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Creator and do what their creator wants
them to do. So all of the
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fish are there because God, the
Creator, has summoned them to that particular
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point. But sometimes we forget that. You know, during the night,
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God also or day, none of
the fish to be there. So whether
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the fish were there in droves like
we see in the miracle, or not
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there at all in the night.
God had ordained that. Sometimes we're sharing
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the gospel with someone who's right at
that point of willing to hear it and
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they want, they're ready and and
they're just they're just thirsting for it,
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and you get there just the right
time. It's like it's like a fish
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just ready to grab at the bait
and it's such a wonderful time. And
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then there are other times you're out, as I mentioned before so many times,
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sharing the gospel out in the streets
and other things, and you're all
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night and you don't even get a
nibble. And I have preached week after
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week as a preacher, and I
think other pastors can testify to this,
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with no particular knowledge of anyone that
comes up to and says, you know,
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pastor, I was converted by your
words this morning, the words that
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you shared, and I think about
growing up watching billy Graham Crusades on television
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and and the choir would start to
sing, just as I am, without
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one plea, and all of a
sudden you saw the people coming out of
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the stands and droves, hundreds,
even thousands of people that would would come
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out in in that asking Christ to
be their savior. At least that was
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what you thought was going on.
And and I know in reform circles we
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don't particularly use altar calls, but
but uh, I think in myself,
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you know, just once I'd like
to be throwing my net out and and
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the net breaks because there's just too
many people in the net and and all
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of that. But I'm not alone
in this. For me quote to you
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from the Puritan Thomas Boston, in
his article or sermon, called the art
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of Man Fishing. But yet,
seeing I'm called out to preach the Everlasting
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Gospel, is my duty to endeavor
and it is my desire to be,
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Lord, Thou knowest a Fisher of
men. But at last I may come
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in with my complaints to my Lord
that I have toiled in some measure but
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caught nothing. For anything I know, as to the conversion of any one
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soul. I fear I may say
I have spent almost my strength in vain
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and my labor for naught, for
Israel is not gathered. Oh my soul,
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what made me the cause of this? Why does my preaching do so
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little good? No doubt part of
the blame lies on myself, and a
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great part of it, uh,
to Um does uh, but a great,
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a great part of it too,
in prayer, uh my lack of
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prayer and faith, in the promises, and by consulting his word, where
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I made by a spirit shining in
my heart, shine Oh sort of righteousness,
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learn how to carry and what to
do. To the end, the
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Gospel preach by me may not be
unsuccessful. Well, Boston was a great
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preacher, but he understood that and
I also go through that. But as
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I closed this morning, I want
to make a particular application, taking note
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of Peter's Plea of Penitence, to
which I hope will apply to some of
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you here this morning, if not
necessarily in conversion, perhaps in a new
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renewal of God's grace and your understanding. So I want to you to think
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about the story a bit and think
about what Peter did. And really,
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if you read this story, all
he really did was question whether or not
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Jesus, as a carpenter, would
know more about fishing than he would.
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It's really all he does. There's
not what we would particularly say some gross
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sin that we'd put him up before
the session for discipline or nothing like that.
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But his statement to Christ is one
of deep repentance. Depart from me,
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for I am a sinful man,
O Lord. I think if I'd
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been there, I might have just
said something like well, you win that
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one, Jesus, you know,
or I guess you were right. But
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something about this whole incident causes Peter
to recognize the depth of his sinfulness,
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and I would say not just in
this incident, but all of a sudden,
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things are being brought home to him, because not having faith in God's
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Word is indeed a great sin.
And how often if we found ourselves right
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there with Peter? I know I
should believe this, Lord, but it's
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so difficult for me to really believe
this. But there comes a time in
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our lives, an often time,
more than once and several times, when
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our sinfulness is brought home. It
makes us realize who we really are.
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Do you remember the book of Job
in the very beginning that God said to
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Satan? Have you considered my servant
job, that there was none like him
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in all the earth? Think about
that. Wouldn't you love that that on
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your resume? That's what God said
about job. But to get to the
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end of the book of Job.
In Chapter Forty two, verses five and
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six, job says, I had
heard of you by the hearing of the
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ear, but now, my I
see you. Therefore, I despise myself
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and repent in dust and ashes.
Job was a righteous man, we read
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in the beginning, but yet there
came a time that his sin came home
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to him. Isaiah was a great
prophet. We read from his words a
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few times this morning. He was
a man of God. He knew how
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to deliver God's word to his people
and he did so. But there came
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a time, one day when Isaiah
saw a vision of God. He saw
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the Throne Room of God, he
saw heavenly beings and in a moment he
404
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said, woe is me, for
I am lost, for I am a
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man of unclean lips and I dwell
in the midst of a people of Unclean
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Lips. From my eyes have seen
the king, the Lord of host I
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think, like job and Isaiah,
Peter came face to face with the glory
408
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of God in Christ and in light
of that he saw who he was and
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it smote him deeply. And he
calls himself a sinful man. The confession
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is good in part but it's bad
in another way. M The first part,
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Lord of the part. I am
a sinful man, but the part
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that's wrong, that we should never
say depart from me, because once we
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indeed recognize our sinfulness and all of
its depths, the one thing we don't
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want is the Lord to depart from
us. A couple of weeks ago I
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spoke to you about a prayer maid
to the Lord that he didn't answer on
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the cross, when the mocker said, if you're the son of God,
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come down from the cross, and
I said I don't want that, I
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want him on the Cross. Well, here is another prayer and once again
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we see the great blessing of unanswered
prayer. Jesus didn't depart from Peter,
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but what Jesus answers are some of
the most common and comforting words in all
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of scripture. Don't be afraid,
because the one thing sin always leads to.
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His fear woe was me. He
said, Isaiah, I am undone.
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00:32:09.480 --> 00:32:13.960
And what follows this is the Lord
saying I commission you to be a
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Fisher of men. This is the
beginning. It seems unfold that what Jesus
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00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:24.839
says to Peter at this time is
follow me and I will make you Fisher
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of man. I want you to
remember that because I need to go to
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00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:37.000
another story in another Gospel that I
referred to earlier, with another miraculous catch
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00:32:37.039 --> 00:32:39.559
of fish, and I want you
to see something that I think is a
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00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:50.200
precious truth. It's three years later, again by the sea, but this
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00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:58.480
time Peter hasn't just doubted, he's
actually denied his Lord three times, which
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00:32:58.519 --> 00:33:06.160
he swore he would never ever do. And we're probably all familiar with the
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Lord's questioning three times of Peter,
Saint Simon, son of John, do
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you love me? And we know
about Peter's threefold response. You know that
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I love you and I'm not going
to get into all of that and all
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the questions and response will go on. I just have you note that,
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as Peter had denied the Lord three
times, even so our Lord asked the
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00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:35.079
question for an affirmation of faith three
times and Peter's response. You know,
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00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:40.279
Lord, that I love you.
But there's one thing here that I think
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is often missed. In the very
beginning, as I said, Jesus says
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to Peter, follow me and I
will make you a fissure of man.
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00:33:54.160 --> 00:34:00.200
Now you maybe not much in those
words, but I see a marvelist thing.
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00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:07.039
Here's what I see. In the
beginning, Jesus says, Peter,
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I am commissioning you and here's what
I want you to do. Follow me.
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00:34:15.559 --> 00:34:21.960
But now it's three years later,
and here's the marvelous grace of God.
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00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:28.559
Three years later and I'm putting some
words that aren't there. Peter,
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00:34:28.679 --> 00:34:34.000
you failed in a terrible way.
You have sinned in your denial of me.
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00:34:36.119 --> 00:34:42.480
But don't be discouraged, Peter,
because I want you to know my
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00:34:42.599 --> 00:34:49.000
commission has not changed. Your Commission
has not changed. It's still the same.
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00:34:52.800 --> 00:35:01.679
The Great and wonderful grace of God
that he gives to us in doing
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00:35:01.760 --> 00:35:08.079
so. And I want you to
note that sometimes in our life we get
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00:35:08.119 --> 00:35:15.440
to that place where indeed we've sinned
and we've fallen and we think, Oh
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00:35:15.480 --> 00:35:21.880
God, I can never ever be
what I was going to be. I've
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00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:28.039
just failed you too much. I
guess I have to give up about this
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00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:34.840
and give up about that. I
want you to hear this morning the Lord's
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00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:38.719
Commission to he has not changed.
He still says the same thing to you.
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00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:43.280
You say, Oh, pastor,
you don't know what I've done.
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00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:47.199
No, you don't know what I've
done, but I know what Christ has
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00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:54.519
done and I know what he did
was dying the cross for our sins to
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00:35:54.599 --> 00:36:00.800
give us grace, to let us
know that what he has called us too,
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00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:07.039
that the gifts and the calling of
God are without repentance. There is
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00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:10.880
a him that's not in our hymn
book. It's by him writer that's found
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00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:15.360
three times in our hymn book,
but this one is not there by William
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00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:21.039
Cooper, who said where is the
blessedness? I knew when I first found
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00:36:21.039 --> 00:36:23.880
the Lord. All of us have
that prayer. I think at times,
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00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:30.079
why don't I feel that first love, that joy? But this morning,
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00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:35.400
brothers and sisters, I want you
to go away from here remembering that God's
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00:36:35.400 --> 00:36:39.760
commission to you has not failed and
that he wants to use you the same
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00:36:39.800 --> 00:36:43.360
way he used you. And he
called. He knew everything you were going
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00:36:43.400 --> 00:36:49.480
to do, he knew it all, but he still called you. Trust
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00:36:49.559 --> 00:36:52.079
this morning. If you never have
and if you've failed to in your own
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00:36:52.119 --> 00:36:59.639
Christian Walk, trust in His grace
and believe in him. Can We pray,
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00:37:00.079 --> 00:37:02.320
Lord, we thank you for your
word this morning. We thank you,
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00:37:02.360 --> 00:37:07.280
God for what you teach us and
how your words are just words of
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00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:09.880
grace that flow from your lips,
and how there's so much grace that we
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00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:14.639
don't even discover it in all of
our searchings of your word. It is
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00:37:14.760 --> 00:37:20.280
unsearchable. And we think we understand
your grace and we haven't even begun to
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00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:25.960
dip in the water's Lord, much
less the swim. Lord. Your grace
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00:37:27.159 --> 00:37:31.159
is immeasurable. And Lord, you've
called us, all of us, to
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00:37:31.199 --> 00:37:35.239
be fishers of men, and we
fail in that, commission, again and
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00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:40.320
again. But Lord, help us, help us to realize what you've called
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00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:46.280
us to and help us to recognize
your great grace and to trust in that
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00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:51.239
and to believe in you. And
Use us, Lord, as you use
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00:37:51.320 --> 00:37:57.199
Peter, as you use James and
John and Andrew and others. Use US
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00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:04.920
as fishers of men and bless us
in your own way. We pray for
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00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:07.360
we ask it in Christ's name.
Amen.
