A Moody Stuart1
1An extract, edited, from Moody Stuart’s book Capernaum. Here are the last two of four sections in his exposition of Luke 5:1-11.
The Net Cast Into the Deep. There is first of all Peter’s objection, then his answer, and the casting of the net.
1. There is the objection, “We have toiled all night, and caught nothing”. Peter’s own judgement is against casting the net now, for the night was their time for fishing, as often with ourselves. The boats on our coast may return in the morning empty, yet the boatmen never think of renewing their work till the following evening; for if the fish avoided their nets in the dark, much more will they shun them in the light of day. In the best hours of the 24, they exerted all their skill and exhausted all their patience and brought up nothing but weeds and mire, from which they are now cleansing their nets for a better opportunity. To cast them now is certain disappointment. Once and again, as the morning drew on, they forced themselves to hope against hope and cast the net anew, but only to meet with another failure. And now the sun is blazing in his strength in the heavens. If another effort was to be attempted at all, it would at least have been wiser not to let the sermon intervene and to have gone out an hour or two earlier, when Jesus first entered the ship.
However, more than Peter’s own judgement is involved. It is taking place, not only in the presence of other fishermen, but of the whole assembled crowd. They are familiar enough with the Lake and would look with a scrutinising and wondering eye on this daylight experiment on the waters. The less believing spirits among them will ask, Are these new-doctrine men such fools? Can they do nothing like other people? But, however good at teaching they may be or even at working wonders, they will now find that they cannot turn upside down the settled rules of fishing, and they will only be laughed at for their pains. Peter, into whose heart the gibe of the maid-servant in the hall was to cut so sharply, must be keenly alive to such taunts circulating now on the crowded shore; and where would he look if, in the face of all, they drew up the net from the deep as empty as it went down?
2. But the simple word of Christ answers all this reasoning: “We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing”; we have proved the effort to be useless and now it seems to us foolish; “nevertheless, at Thy word I will let down the net.” The simple word of Christ is to Peter an answer to all objections. He will both obey that word and trust it; he will let down the net because Christ commands; he will trust for a draught of fish because Christ promises. Nor is it Jesus taking the net from Peter and dropping it into the deep, relieving him of the responsibility. But it is Jesus taking Peter along with Him, taking him for His fellow-worker; or rather laying the whole act on Peter, while the word, the power and the blessing belong only to Himself.
Where nature fails, grace interposes. When man’s power and wisdom are quite exhausted, the wisdom and power of Christ are put forth, so that no flesh may glory in His presence. Then His redeeming arm is often stretched out, under the command to do again what we have often done already but always failed. We pray and get no answer; we pray again, and the deep yields no supply; we bestir ourselves, we hope against hope, and cast the net for the last time, but it comes up empty as before. We have toiled all the night and caught nothing, and it must be given over.
3. Jesus now comes and says, “Let down your nets for a draught”. This is not our last time; it is a time after the last, but it is His time. We therefore cast in faith, and we obtain abundantly. So in reading the Word, in searching the Scriptures for eternal life, we seem to have searched them all through and conclude, There is not a word in the Bible for me. But we do it once again, and all is light and love – bread enough and to spare. So it is in things of this life as well as of the life to come, in the manifold works of providence as well as of grace, and in the works where grace and providence so often meet and sweetly mingle in the life of the believer.
The Net Filled. At the command of Christ, Peter instantly lets down the net; and the filling of the net with fish is as rapid as the casting of it is prompt. It is no longer the fishermen waiting and watching for the fish, but the fish waiting and ready to rush into the net the moment it is let down. Before it is well cast, the fishermen feel the pressure on it; and when they begin to draw, the net is so filled that it breaks. They now beckon to their partners in the other ship, making signs for them to come to their assistance. It cannot be distance that prevents them calling, for sound reaches far over the smooth water; and the distance could not be great between the deep water and the shore, where the others still remained.
In the second miracle of the fishes, the boat was only about a hundred yards from the land and Jesus easily conversed with the disciples from there. On the present occasion it seems to have been farther off, yet it could not have been very far. But men of warmer countries use their voices much more freely than we do, continually shouting when we would be silent; so there must have been a great awe on those boatmen’s spirits to still them at such a time. Both Peter and “all that were with him were astonished” at the draught of the fish which they had taken.
It was so contrary to all experience and all natural hope that they feel at once that they have with them in the ship a Great One, in whose presence it behoves them to stand in awe and be still. The fishermen are less overjoyed by the great spoil which they have suddenly taken than overawed by the manner in which their nets have been filled, and by the presence of the Son of man, who has manifest dominion over the fish of the sea and over all that moves in the deep. This one draught more than recompenses all their labour. Both crews had toiled all the night for nothing; now by one cast of the net, both ships are filled beyond their fitness to carry the burden.
It is the Lord’s constant way to bear long and then to answer speedily in the end; to let many hours seem quite unproductive, and then at once to grant more than enough to repay the labour of all. This does not make the nightly toiling useless; for unless they had toiled so long in vain, Jesus would not have so blessed them now. But it gives us a most instructive warning against the unbelief which, on account of past failure, refuses to let down the net at Christ’s word, when there would come an instant recompense for all the loss of time and strength.
Faith in Christ never disappoints; all else often does. The land disappoints the farmer, the sea disappoints the fisherman, but Christ never disappoints the believer. The man who seeks in faith always finds, if he does not turn aside. Then deliverance comes; it is good in itself, and doubly so as deliverance out of evil. It is light out of darkness; the straight out of the crooked; great abundance out of deep poverty. Skill fails, experience fails, labour fails, but faith never fails, for “all things are possible to him that believeth”; “he that believeth shall not be ashamed”.
This unexpected supply is a princely gift on the part of Jesus Christ, a noble recompense for the use He has made of the ship or may yet make of it for preaching the word again. He fills that ship twice over with fish, so that no man may seem to receive injury at His hands. As at Cana He had already turned water into wine, more than He was ever to require for Himself on earth; and as afterwards, in feeding the five thousand and the four thousand in the wilderness, He supplies much more bread to men than He is ever to receive from their hospitality in return; so now He repays the use of the ship with a royal liberality from His own treasures of the deep.
As a result of the miracle, Peter forsakes all to follow Jesus; forsakes the boats and the nets, at the very moment when there seems a prospect of making something great out of this humble calling of fishermen. But he did not cast the net from the love of gain, but from love to Jesus and by faith in His word; and he does not see in the loaded vessel an abundant harvest from the sea, but a wonder-working Lord and Saviour.
The draught of fishes opens the eyes of Peter to the divine majesty of Christ, as no discourse has ever done to himself or to the people. Without a word uttered by Jesus, Peter at once discovers His glory and worships Him. The sinking ship inspires no fear, but now the presence of Jesus does, who still remains where He sat while He preached to the people. He had sat down in the ship and taught; seated still, He calmly bids them to launch out into the deep; and in the midst of their excitement and astonishment, He sits quietly where He was.
Peter falls down at His knees – himself kneeling and clasping the knees of Jesus. His thoughts are the same as Job’s: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee”. In the words, “Depart from me”, there is nothing of aversion to Christ, or desire to avoid His presence, or regret at being brought so nigh, but only as Isaiah: “Woe is me, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts”. Peter looks on the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus. He finds himself as if too near the High and Holy One and feels it would be more suitable that Christ, the object of his worship, should be in the high heavens above him than so close beside him in his own little vessel. It is more than if the invisible God had wrought the wonder; it is God manifest in flesh, nearer and therefore more awful. Though the majesty is veiled, the wondrous work strips the veil away and prostrates Peter at the feet of Jesus. The same reverence and holy awe are experienced by every soul of man that is brought very near, into the presence of the Holy One.
There is next the deep conviction of sin: “I am a sinful man, O Lord”. The multitude of fishes brings before him the multitude of his own sins, as the abundance of the Lord’s mercies ever does. Jesus has not spoken a word about sin, and this draught of fish is not in judgement but in mercy, yet it convinces Peter of his sins. God, answering Job out of the whirlwind, says little either of His own holiness or His servant’s guilt; but asks him, “Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? . . . Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?” He convinces Job that He is God, the Creator of all; he is brought into God’s holy and awful presence and instantly abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes.
So it is here with God manifest in the flesh. Peter sees he has to do with the Creator of heaven and earth, and the living One revealed is always seen to be the Holy One. Peter looking on Jesus feels himself to be looked upon and searched by the holy Lord God; he exclaims, “I am a sinful man, O Lord”. In the end of all their earthly communication, as now at its beginning, Jesus looked on Peter after he had denied his Master. And Peter instantly felt, “I am a sinful man, O Lord,” and went out and wept bitterly. There is no special transgression to weep for now, but there are past sins and present sinfulness, to humble guilty man in the dust before the Lord. It is the goodness of God revealed by His power that awakens both holy fear and deep repentance in Peter and in us: “They shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity, that I procure” (Jer 33:9); “That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God” (Ezek 16:63).