Learn that -

I. THE MOST UNUSUAL PLACES AND THE MOST UNUSUAL TIMES ARE, ACCORDING TO THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST, TO BE UTILIZED FOR THE SEEKING AND CONVERTING OF THE MOST UNUSUAL CHARACTERS, AND THOSE WHO MAY BE APPARENTLY OF THE MOST HOPELESS KIND.

II. THAT BY THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST NO LIMIT MUST BE SET TO THE CONDESCENSION - WHENEVER EVEN IT MAY MOST REALLY MERIT THAT DESCRIPTION - OF THE MAN WHO WOULD EMULATE THE CHARACTER AND THE WORK AND THE METHODS OF THAT MODEL PHYSICIAN OF SOULS.

III. THAT AS THE SUPREME NEED OF THE SOUL IS MERCY, SO ALSO THE SOVEREIGN QUALIFICATION OF HIM WHO WOULD RE ITS PHYSICIAN IS READINESS TO MERCY - TO FEEL IT AND TO SHOW IT. Contrast the "having mercy" and the requiring of sacrifice. - B.

This conduct of Christ was not official or symbolic. It was His feeling as very God that led Him to this course. It opened to the world the very Divine nature. A disposition to heal men of sin is a greater manifestation of Divine rectitude than to exterminate sin by punishment. It is this thought that I shall attempt to draw out briefly, and apply to our own case and experience.

I. To HEAR SIN EVINCES HATRED OF EVIL EVEN MORE THAN A SUMMARY PUNISHMENT OF IT. Consider the patience, the self-sacrifice, which is required to win men from evil habits, and from wicked dispositions. Now we measure our moral likes or dislikes by what they lead us to undergo. How much we love we can tell by how much we will bear for our affections; how much we dislike, by what effort we are willing to put forth to resist or avoid what is offensive to us. Consider a teacher who shall avenge himself of a pupil's disobedience by punishing, or by summarily excluding that pupil. How cheap is such riddance of mischief from his school! How is all summed up in one outburst of feeling! It is very painful and disagreeable, but it is short. But suppose that, instead of resorting to expulsion, with its disgrace, the teacher shall enter into the sympathy of the pupil by gentleness, by winning kindness, by forbearance, by devoting his very life to him, and shall set him upon reformation, and wait for him to reform, and endure while he is reforming. How much more does he, by such a course of conduct as this, evince his dislike of evil, than by merely excluding the pupil! What we will bear for the sake of getting rid of evil, measures how much we dislike it.

II. A DISPOSITION TO HEAL SIN IS THE CLEAREST POSSIBLE EXPOSITOR OF MORAL RECTITUDE. Men do not always see it to be so. It is a part of our lower thinking to believe that a thunderous exhibition, with a display of wrath and punitive judgment, is a more solemn and conclusive manifestation of the Divine abhorrence of sin. But an abhorrence of sin is more illustriously marked by gentleness and patience in healing it, than by any display of justice in punishing it. He that once conceives of the God that presides over the universe, and keeps all its elements intact and unharmed, as a God that makes Himself the medicine for those that are led away from purity, and becomes Himself the Saviour of sinners — he that once does this has a conception of rectitude in God, and of the Divine hatred of evil, such as he can get in no other way.

III. A DISPOSITION TO HEAL SIN DOES NOT TAKE AWAY FROM SIN ANY OF ITS DANGERS. It removes no barriers, and yields no encouragements. There are ways of dealing with evil that lead to the presumption that it is safe to sin because there is a chance for recovery, if harm begins to come upon the sinner; but the way in which Christ dealt with evil led to no such presumption. Where men fall into sickness by their excesses, is the tenderness on the part of the nurse an argument for the repetition of those excesses. The care and the kindness of a parent in restoring a son from downfall are never a reason with a grateful son for falling again. And the grace of God in Christ Jesus, that bears With sin, not because it is to be allowed, but because, being hateful. God addresses the whole energy of His Being and administration to the rescue of men from it-this does not take away anything from the fear of sin, nor furnish motives to transgression.

IV. On the part of those who Ere healed, A DISPOSITION TO HEAL SIN PRODUCES A GENEROUS REPENTANCE, WHICH GROWS OUT OF THE NOBLER SENTIMENTS OF THE MIND, and which is therefore a true repentance — one that does not need to be repented of. It is no longer fear of consequences, nor even self-condemnation or conscience, that inspires reformation; it is an action of gratitude; a work of love.

V. SUCH A DISPOSITION PRESENTS THE DIVINE CHARACTER IN A LIGHT WHICH TENDS TO UNIVERSAL ADMIRATION AND UNIVERSAL CONFIDENCE. It takes nothing away from the essential authority and monarchy of God; but it brings God into vital sympathetic relations to His creatures — especially where the remedy has been wrought out at the expense of His own life. The spectacle of a God that is clothed with a spirit of justice made firm in the administration of a righteous government, and of one that, loving justice, still finds rescue and release for the transgressor through the interposition of His own self — that spectacle is one that cannot but fill the heart of every pure and noble creature with admiration and confidence and love. God, by the very pains with which He sought to cleanse the heart and the conscience, testified to how dangerous was that sin that had disfigured the conscience and soiled the heart. With this brief statement, I remark —

1. There is great encouragement for men that have given way to temptation and transgression, to turn back from evil, to repent, and to enter upon a course of right-living. One of the most wonderful of doctrines was the declaration of Christ that a man might be born again; not merely that he must be — which it true, if he would see the kingdom of heaven — but that he might be; that a man who had for years and years gone wrong, might, as it were, go back and call all the past nothing, and start over again. What would men give if they could do this in their secular affairs t Only God is on the side of the man that wants to return to the path of holiness. There is no parallel to the Divine helpfulness towards the erring anywhere out of the family. When men in secular relations and social connections have done wrong, nothing is on their side — everything is against them. The influences of this world tend to hold a man up in the beginning.

2. This exhibition of God in healing sin instead of punishing it, is the model for Christian dispositions. We must have the Spirit of Christ, or we are none of His. The mother that watches over her child, and that, seeing its faults, not so much punishes it as trains it out of those faults, devoting her life, day and night, to its welfare; the mother that wins her child out of evil into good — that mother stands as the child's saviour, reproducing the example and conduct of Christ towards her little one. Arc there those round about you that need succour and help: Have you done some things for them?

3. What will be the glorious disclosure of this Divine nature in heaven — the lovableness of God, the attractive beauty that there is in Him, so disclosed by the Saviour!

(H. W. Beecher.)

The man who thinks he is not so very bad, is no true penitent. "I am the chief of sinners," said holy Paul, and that is sure to be the feeling of the man who is truly penitent. A good Quaker told me once how he visited a sick neighbour, and began to talk to the man about soul-matters. Religion was all very good, the poor sick man acknowledged, but he could not see what need he had to concern himself abort it, for he had never done anybody any harm in his life. The good Quaker tried to convince him that he had lived without hope and without God in the world, and that he was not fit to die; that he had neither prayed nor worshipped, nor read his Bible, nor trained up his children in the fear of God, and he ought to feel himself a sinner in the sight of his Maker. The good Quaker knelt and prayed with him, and visited him again and again, and began to observe that the man gradually forgot to boast of his innocence; and, at last, seemed to be growing very tender, for he observed him in tears. At last he could conceal his state no longer, but burst out into weeping — "I am too great a sinner," said he; "there is no mercy for me!" "Thank God!" said the good Quaker, "I have hope of thee now. Let us pray once more, and see if there be no mercy for thee." The Quaker prayed, and the poor sinner prayed; and before they gave over, the sinner's soul was set free, and he rejoiced in the pardoning love of God.

(Thomas Cooper.)

I. WHAT IS THE PURPORT OF CHRIST'S COMING INTO AND WORK IN TEE WORLD AS ANNOUNCED IN THE SCRIPTURES GENERALLY? Universal and all-inclusive. The world. Whosoever.

II. HERE, HOWEVER, AN APPARENT LIMITATION. Some whom He did not come to call: the righteous. Who were these righteous? Wee e they really righteous? No, but only self-righteous.

III. ARE THERE, THEN, ANY WHOM CHRIST DID NOT COME TO SAVE? NO. But so long as a man is self-righteous he is not saveable, he cannot hear and obey the call of Christ. Christ's errand is to the needy and the sinful. Let the self-righteous become conscious of his unrighteousness and sinfulness, and he becomes at once one of those whom Christ came to call. For —

IV. IN COMING TO CALL SINNERS HE TRULY CAME TO CALL ALL, for all are sinners. And thus is the apparent limitation, so far as His desire and purpose are concerned, shown not really to exist. He will have all men to be saved and to tome to a knowledge of the truth.

(J. B. Bailey.)Criminality certainly appeared to Christ more odious and detestable than it did to His contemporaries. How strange, then, to find Him treating it more leniently I perfect justice here appears to take the very course which would be taken by injustice. It is true that the extremes do in a manner meet. Christ, representing the highest humanity, treats crime in a manner which superficially resembles the treatment of it by those in whom humanity is at the lowest stage. But the other toleration was barbarous. Christ's toleration is the newly-revealed virtue of mercy.

(Ecce Homo.)There are two classes of men — the righteous who believe themselves sinners; and sinners who believe themselves righteous.

(Pascal.)

James, Jesus, John, Levi, Peter, Simon, Zabdi, ZebedeeGalilee, Genneseret, Jerusalem, JudeaOnes, Persons, Reformation, Repentance, Righteous, Sinful, Sinners, Sins, Upright1. Jesus teaches the people out of Peter's ship;
4. shows how he will make them fishers of men;
12. cleanses the leper;
16. prays in the desert;
17. heals a paralytic;
27. calls Matthew the tax collector;
29. eats with sinners, as being the physician of souls;
33. foretells the fasting and afflictions of the apostles after his ascension;
36. and illustrates the matter by the parable of patches.

Luke 5:32

     6734   repentance, importance

Luke 5:27-32

     4438   eating
     6040   sinners

Luke 5:29-32

     2027   Christ, grace and mercy
     4476   meals
     5381   law, letter and spirit
     7552   Pharisees, attitudes to Christ

Luke 5:30-32

     7464   teachers of the law

Luke 5:31-32

     2377   kingdom of God, entry into
     5297   disease
     5334   health
     6028   sin, deliverance from

March 25 Evening
Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.--LUKE 5:5. All power is give unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: . . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea. Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: necessity is laid …
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

March 19. "Launch Out into the Deep" (Luke v. 4).
"Launch out into the deep" (Luke v. 4). Many difficulties and perplexities in connection with our Christian life might be best settled by a simple and bold decision of our will to go forward with the light we have and leave the speculations and theories that we cannot decide for further settlement. What we need is to act, and to act with the best light we have, and as we step out into the present duty and full obedience, many things will be made plain which it is no use waiting to decide. Beloved, …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

December 9. "Launch Out into the Deep" (Luke v. 4).
"Launch out into the deep" (Luke v. 4). One of the special marks of the Holy Ghost in the Apostolic Church was the spirit Of boldness. One of the most essential qualities of the faith that is to attempt great things for God and expect great things from God, is holy audacity. Where we are dealing with a supernatural Being, and taking from Him things that are humanly impossible, it is easier to take much than little; it is easier to stand in a place of audacious trust than in a place of cautious, timid …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Humility
LUKE v. 8. Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Few stories in the New Testament are as well known as this. Few go home more deeply to the heart of man. Most simple, most graceful is the story, and yet it has in it depths unfathomable. Great painters have loved to draw, great poets have loved to sing, that scene on the lake of Gennesaret. The clear blue water, land- locked with mountains; the meadows on the shore, gay with their lilies of the field, on which our Lord bade them look, …
Charles Kingsley—Discipline and Other Sermons

Instructions for Fishermen
'Now when He had left speaking, He said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.'--LUKE v. 4. The day's work begins early in the East. So the sun, as it rose above the hills on the other side of the lake, shone down upon a busy scene, fresh with the dew and energy of the morning, on the beach by the little village of Bethsaida. One group of fishermen was washing their nets, their boats being hauled up on the strand. A crowd of listeners was thus early gathered round …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Fear and Faith
'When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' --LUKE v. 8. 'Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him,... and did cast himself into the sea.'--JOHN xxi. 7. These two instances of the miraculous draught of fishes on the Lake of Gennesareth are obviously intended to be taken in conjunction. Their similarities and their differences are equally striking and equally instructive. In the fragment …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

Blasphemer, or --Who?
'And it came to pass on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. 18. And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before Him. 19. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the house-top, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions Of Holy Scripture

"The Moody and Sankey Humbug. "
There was a man, while we were in London, who got out a little paper called "The Moody and Sankey Humbug." He used to have it to sell to the people coming into the meeting. After he had sold a great many thousand copies of that number, he wanted to get out another number; so he came to the meeting to get something to put into the paper; but the power of the Lord was present. It says here in this chapter (Luke 5) that the Pharisees, scribes, and doctors, were watching the words of Christ in that house …
Dwight L. Moody—Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations

Absolution.
Preached June 2, 1850. ABSOLUTION. "And the Scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?"--Luke v. 21. There are questions which having been again and again settled, still from time to time, present themselves for re-solution; errors which having been refuted, and cut up by the roots, re-appear in the next century as fresh and vigorous as ever. Like the fabled monsters of old, from whose dissevered neck the blood …
Frederick W. Robertson—Sermons Preached at Brighton

Carried by Four
When our Lord left his retirement he found the crowd around him exceeding great, and it was as motley as it was great; for while here were many sincere believers, there were still more sceptical observers; some were anxious to receive his healing power, others equally desirous to find occasion against him. So in all congregations, however the preacher may be clothed with his Master's spirit and his Master's might, there will be a mixed gathering; there will come together your Pharisees and doctors …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

The Secret of Success.
5th Sunday after Trinity S. Luke v. 5. "We have taken nothing; nevertheless at Thy word, I will let down the net." INTRODUCTION.--S. Peter and the other Apostles had been fishing all night, and had met with no success at all, then Jesus entered into the boat of Simon, and bade him launch out and let down his net. S. Peter did not hesitate. He had met with no success when fishing in the night, nevertheless now, at the word of Christ, he fishes again, and this time the net encloses a great multitude, …
S. Baring-Gould—The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent

Christ the Great Physician.
"They that are whole have no need of a physician; but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance" (Luke v. 31, 32). "For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them" (Matt. xiii. 15). "He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted" (Luke iv. 18). …
Frank G. Allen—Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel

Jesus, Still Lead On.
"Jesu, geh Voran." "They forsook all, and followed him."--Luke 5:11. [7]Ludwig von Zinzendorf transl., Jane Borthwick, 1846, 1854 Jesus, still lead on, Till our rest be won! And although the way be cheerless, We will follow, calm and fearless. Guide us by thy hand To our Fatherland. If the way be drear, If the foe be near, Let not faithless fears o'ertake us, Let not faith and hope forsake us For, through many a foe, To our home we go! When we seek relief From a long-felt grief-- When oppressed …
Jane Borthwick—Hymns from the Land of Luther

Travelling in Palestine --Roads, Inns, Hospitality, Custom-House Officers, Taxation, Publicans
It was the very busiest road in Palestine, on which the publican Levi Matthew sat at the receipt of "custom," when our Lord called him to the fellowship of the Gospel, and he then made that great feast to which he invited his fellow-publicans, that they also might see and hear Him in Whom he had found life and peace (Luke 5:29). For, it was the only truly international road of all those which passed through Palestine; indeed, it formed one of the great highways of the world's commerce. At the time …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Penitence, as Explained in the Sophistical Jargon of the Schoolmen, Widely Different from the Purity Required by the Gospel. Of Confession and Satisfaction.
1. Errors of the Schoolmen in delivering the doctrine of repentance. 1. Errors in defining it. Four different definitions considered. 2. Absurd division. 3. Vain and puzzling questions. 4. Mode in which they entangle themselves. 2. The false doctrine of the Schoolmen necessary to be refuted. Of contrition. Their view of it examined. 3. True and genuine contrition. 4. Auricular confession. Whether or not of divine authority. Arguments of Canonists and Schoolmen. Allegorical argument founded on Judaism. …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Seventh Appearance of Jesus.
(Sea of Galilee.) ^D John XXI. 1-25. ^d 1 After these things Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and he manifested himself on this wise. 2 There was together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee [see p. 111], and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. [As usual, Peter was the leader.] They say unto him, We also come with thee. They went forth, and entered into the boat; …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Jesus Heals a Leper and Creates Much Excitement.
^A Matt.VIII. 2-4; ^B Mark I. 40-45; ^C Luke V. 12-16. ^c 12 And it came to pass, while he was in one of the cities [it was a city of Galilee, but as it was not named, it is idle to conjecture which city it was], behold, ^b there cometh { ^a came} ^b to him a leper [There is much discussion as to what is here meant by leprosy. Two diseases now go by that name; viz., psoriasis and elephantiasis. There are also three varieties of psoriasis, namely, white, black and red. There are also three varieties …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Disciples of Jesus.
In this terrestrial paradise, which the great revolutions of history had till then scarcely touched, there lived a population in perfect harmony with the country itself, active, honest, joyous, and tender-hearted. The Lake of Tiberias is one of the best supplied with fish of any in the world.[1] Very productive fisheries were established, especially at Bethsaida, and at Capernaum, and had produced a certain degree of wealth. These families of fishermen formed a gentle and peaceable society, extending …
Ernest Renan—The Life of Jesus

The Conflict with Evil
The Kingdom of God Will Have to Fight for Its Advance The great objective is the Kingdom of God. In realizing the Reign of God on earth three recalcitrant forces have to be brought into obedience to God's law: the desire for power, the love of property, and unsocial religion. We have studied Christ's thought concerning these in the foregoing chapters. The advance of the Kingdom of God is not simply a process of social education, but a conflict with hostile forces which resist, neutralize, and defy …
Walter Rauschenbusch—The Social Principles of Jesus

The Lake of Gennesaret; Or, the Sea of Galilee and Tiberias.
Jordan is measured at one hundred and twenty furlongs, from the lake of Samochonitis to that of Gennesaret. That lake, in the Old Testament, is 'The sea of Chinnereth,' Numbers 34:11, &c. In the Targumists, 'The sea of Genesar'; sometimes, 'of Genesor'; sometimes, 'of Ginosar': it is the same also in the Talmudists, but most frequently 'The sea of Tiberiah.' Both names are used by the evangelists; 'the lake of Gennesaret,' Luke 5:1; 'the sea of Tiberias,' John 21:1; and 'the sea of Galilee,' John …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Peter's Repentance
"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:61, 62). That was the turning-point in the history of Peter. Christ had said to him: "Thou canst not follow me now" (John 13:36). Peter was not in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not been brought to an end of himself; he did not know himself, and he therefore could not follow …
Andrew Murray—Absolute Surrender

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