Luke 5:4 Now when he had left speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. I. RECALL THE HISTORIC EVENT. 1. It is not work that tries men and women, half as much as it is the disappointment which unsuccess brings. 2. The best and only real recreation which any soul can find is that which comes from resting in the Lord, and in abiding patiently upon Him, in the faith that He doeth all things well, even when He asks us to labour on without finding any immediate reward. II. CHRIST TAKES HIS PEOPLE INTO THE DEEP. There was in the crisis hour of St. Peter's personal history a striking coincidence between his outward and his inward experience — a parable of all Divine dealings with men. 1. Think of the present attitude of the world towards revealed truth. It shrinks from launching out into the deep. The prevailing tendency is towards the superficial rather than the substantial. We aim at greatness instead of thoroughness. Men have pushed their investigations in every direction; but they are disposed to stop just where the problem deepens into anything like mystery, and where faith must take the place of sight. Whenever I meet with one of these flippant retailers of modern objections to Holy Scripture, and hear him making light of revealed truth, and ventilating with imperiousness his opinion that the Bible is largely a myth, I always feel like asking such a man: "My friend, have you ever pushed out from the shallow into the depth of these questions? Have ever your knees touched the waters of God's mighty sea? Have you ever gone, alone with Christ, away from the shore and its noisy multitude, to where His waves are mountains?" 2. In the workings and leadings of His providence, God sometimes takes us out of the region of shallow, everyday experiences, into those which are very deep and solemn. There are depths of sorrow, of affliction, and doubt and depression, of poverty and bodily sickness, of temptation, of penitence and shame, and of spiritual weakness; and some of them are mysterious, unfathomable. There is, in such cases, no use in trying to see bottom. Now and then the soul is tempted to think that chance, or accident, or lack of foresight, or an enemy of some kind, has lured him out there, just to drown him or to fill him with terror, Nay, it was a loving Guide who led you thither. (E. E. Johnson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. |
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