Make Me A Fisher Of Men! — James Jennings

Christ’s Call to Become Fishers of Men

We'll go ahead and turn in your copy of God's Word to Matthew 4. Matthew 4. And some of you will... many of you were there when Don Kern at the men's time Friday night, he mentioned in order to become more like Christ, one thing that would be beneficial is to go read through the Gospels and make your own commentary on Christ.

Specifically, reading through Matthew and stopping everywhere there's something about Christ and writing that down. And I tend to hear advice on Bible reading and I weigh it, consider it. A lot of times I don't apply it, but with what Don shared, I thought I'm going to do that.

I'm going to write my own commentary about Christ from the Gospel of Matthew. And so I've been doing that the last few weeks in my morning reading, just going to the next verses and thinking about what does this say about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so there's something in Matthew 4 that stood out to me. It's a well-known verse, but I felt like it was something that God wanted me to bring. So for the last few weeks, this has been on my mind.

So Matthew 4, we're going to learn something in Matthew 4 .19 about the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to learn about what He is seeking to make out of His followers. Matthew 4 .19, let's just read, starting in verse 18.

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen. And He said to them, so here the statement is, follow Me.

And what's He going to produce? I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets. They followed Him. And going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets.

And He called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and they followed Him. Let's pray and we'll consider this. Father, Lord, we thank You for the life of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank You for the window into His life that You've given us in these Gospels. And Lord, we want to be like Your Son. We want to grow to imitate His person, His conduct, His actions, His life, His thoughts.

And Lord, here we've seen You've made in a way a promise that You're going to make these men fishers of men. Lord, You didn't tell them You're going to make them fishless fishermen, but fishers of men.

And Lord, we want to by all means possible in our lives to see others come to know You, to know the Gospel, to have their sins forgiven. And so, Lord, I pray that You would even produce this in us. Lord, would You use this message right now to burden, Lord, specific people and all of us just to have a renewal of a cry to You in our own prayer life to say, Lord, make me a fisher of men.

Lord, I pray that that would really be the result here, that that would be something we're asking of You in a greater way in our lives and pleading for those that we have been evangelizing for years, pleading with You to bring those precious souls into the kingdom.

And so, Lord, I just ask for Your help right now. Lord, please strengthen me. In Jesus' name, amen. So I see right here in this text a promise from Christ that He is going to produce fishers of men, fishers of men.

And you saw He didn't just call the two, He goes on and He calls two more. Now what would these men have thought Christ meant by fishing for men? They find out shortly thereafter. But where else does the Bible talk about fishing and in what way does it talk about fishing?

Thus far, the only thing in the Scriptures leading up to this point of Jesus' words are Old Testament verses that speak about many fishers rounding up the population for what? Destruction and exile, right?

When you thought about fishers in the Bible, that's what you thought, gathering people for exile, gathering people for destruction. And whether or not they had an initial thought, what does Christ mean by this?

They find out very shortly after in verse 23. Verse 23 records He went throughout all Galilee. So this seems to imply they're with Christ now and what is Christ doing? He's teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing.

He's healing people. He's preaching the gospel. So right away, He's called them to be fishers of men and they're following Him as He's engaging in this act of proclaiming the good news, of showing compassion and seeking to bring people to Himself for life, to His kingdom.

And ironically, this is the opposite of what it is to fish for actual physical fish, right? Physical fish, you catch them. Pete knows this very well. You catch them, you kill them, you cook them, and then you feed them to GCC to eat them, right?

I mean, that's what you do with physical fish. I mean, why is Christ using this imagery? If anything, it was their physical task. They were fishers of men. And Christ is relating to their physical task of fishing and saying, you're gonna go be fishers of men in another sense.

And this gospel net that we cast is to produce a different result than destruction, right? We're not seeking to fish men for destruction, but for salvation. In this gospel, it's going forth to every kind of fish, Jew and Gentiles.

And you've got people coming in and they're hearing the truth and they're professing. And we even read later on in Matthew 13, maybe a different sense with the similar imagery, but we find that one day there's gonna be a judgment and angels are gonna separate these fish.

These professors of religion, there's gonna be a separation that day. So, a few observations. First, what has to come first in order for you and I to be a fisher of men? What's the first statement here from Christ that we should consider?

And if you look at verse 19, He said to them, follow Me. Follow Me. That's the first thing on the docket. That's the first thing to really think about and consider. And what's follow Christ mean? I mean, this is a call to discipleship.

It's a call to accompany Christ. It's a call to imitate Christ. It's a call to walk behind Christ. And this just, you know, this is what you find throughout all the Bible is that the Christian life is modeled after Christ and His example, right?

Even in the epistles, Paul, you know, says, husbands, love your wives as Christ. Or Colossians 3, forgiving as Christ. The Bible constantly points us to Christ. Christ is our example, not just in how to love, but even in how to win souls.

You know, His evangelism in verse 23 and on, right after this section, it's not just the preaching, it's the compassion. He's got all of this together. And it's no wonder that when we send missionaries out, we have both aspects happening.

And where you don't have the compassion aspect and all you have is the preaching aspect, you end up hearing reports of what our brother shared in China. Nothing was happening. But when they started showing compassion, when they started living out Isaiah 58, then they saw God coming in in a powerful way.

So Christ is our emphasis, our focus. Am I following the Lord Jesus Christ? And think, at what time did these men in Matthew 4, what particular time did they follow Jesus? What were they involved in doing when He called them?

They were involved in their ordinary work, right? I mean, ordinary work, just their employment. Basically, someone stops by the office, so to speak, a messenger, and he calls them to follow him and everything changes in their life.

And to me, that's an interesting reality because how many of you all were saved because of someone evangelizing you in what context? Work, right? Or purchasing something on Craigslist? And some of you were converted through that conversation.

And Christ, He wasn't their coworker, but they were one to Him while they were at work. And we see this, David was called by the Lord when he was keeping his father's sheep. Moses was out keeping Jethro's flock when the Lord appeared to him.

And Gideon was busy at the threshing floor when God called him. I mean, humanity is out there living real life, right? They're working, they're laboring, and we're coming to them. You're going to them as able in your own work environment and you're calling them to follow Christ.

You're calling them to a life of being a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just brethren, how many men and women, they hear the truth from other believers in this context of work. Do not lose heart.

If that's the extent of your fishing, don't lose heart. Lloyd-Jones, he made the comment, when the local church has a spirit of evangelism, members tell others about Christ and through personal contact among friends, acquaintances, and business associates, they bring many into the church.

And you find that right here in the beginning. People at work being called to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And another thing to think here about these men, it's not just Christ takes this imagery, applies imagery to their physical work and says, here you're out there fishing for fish.

Okay, you're going to go fish for men. But these men were out there actually fishing for fish. They were working. They were engaged in this labor. And now they're taking the same physical energy. They invested in physical fishing and they're using that for spiritual fishing.

You don't find Christ calling those who are lazy and doing nothing and all of a sudden they become effective in evangelism for the kingdom of God. We just don't witness that reality. But you do find the energy that you put into your work, even as a lost person, God comes along and when He saves you, that same energy there, you're now able to use it in a channel that is honoring to God.

I mean, that's one reason that, you know what, I want my kids to be hard workers and disciplined. At the moment they do follow the Lord Jesus Christ, they already have that zeal and that energy to invest in their lives, to be disciplined.

And that's going to carry over into the spiritual realm. So the first thing here, before He's making you a fisher of men, you've got to follow Him. And one of the main reasons many people who say they're Christians have no desire to evangelize is they've not done the first step, right?

They've not followed Christ. They've not come to Him as a disciple. They've made excuses. They've said other things and they've refused to come. So, second observation here, those who are following Him, He says, I will make you fishers of men.

And as I was looking at this and wanting to apply it to Myself, and say, Lord, is this something I can take and make it for Me? Can I take it and make this for Me? Can I pray this to You, Lord? Well, I've got to define the you.

If He says to specific people, so I will make you fishers of men, an obvious question to ask, can I apply that to Myself? Because there are certain statements made in the Scriptures to certain people that might not necessarily be for Me.

And so, Lord, I'm following You. You said to them, You'll make them fishers of men. So let's think about this you. Can I apply Matthew 4 .19 to Myself? Can I take it for Myself? Or is there anything here where maybe I shouldn't?

And we should ask this too, because, and this is key, what happens to these four men who Jesus calls right here in these verses? Yeah, they all became apostles. Now, I'd say that it emphasizes the key word is they all became apostles.

They weren't apostles right here. Even in Mark, when He calls them and says, I'll make you fishers of men, Mark 3, at a later date, He called them out as apostles of Christ. These men were just following Christ's call to discipleship.

You don't find Him going to other people to follow Him and changing it and saying, well, you're not going to have a burden in your life or a desire to see other people one to Me. And so we need to be careful here to narrow all of this down.

Furthermore, what does Paul assume is on the heart and the mind of a saved person as a lost spouse? You're saved. Your spouse is lost. What's Paul assume is on that person's mind? Listen to 1 Corinthians 7.

For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? What's that imply? These Christians, what's on their mind? They're married.

Their spouse is lost. What do they desire in their life? Their spouse to be converted. You see, this is part of being a Christian is you want others to partake in this grace. This woman is trying to catch in this gospel net and fish, be a fisher of her own husband.

Think of Jesus' words in Matthew 10. He says, everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I will acknowledge before My Father. That's something for all of us. It's not just a select group. Well, that group better acknowledge Christ before men.

That's for all of us. Well, what is acknowledging Christ before men? It's speaking about being witnesses of Him. And when Peter shrinks back and denies Christ, he misses out on an opportunity to witness and testify and evangelize to that little girl around that fire.

Instead, he communicated to her, Christ isn't really worth suffering. What happened to that little girl? Did she, or made, or maybe didn't say she's a little girl. Did she ever get converted? Peter had an opportunity in fear he protected his flesh.

And so, does this apply to you? All of us are seeking to acknowledge Christ before men. All of us are called to be witnesses of His. According to Jesus, if you do not acknowledge Him before men, He will deny you before the Father.

Those are very strong words from Christ. Every believer is a witness. And yes, we see even to this point, you see in Mark 5, the demoniac, he gets converted. There's no evidence he became an apostle. Jesus didn't say, I will make you a fisher of men.

But what does Jesus tell him to do? Go home to your family and tell them of how I have had mercy upon you. You see, it's just implied in following Christ. There's something in the heart of the one who's been saved where they want to see others brought into the kingdom.

That there's this fishing that's seeking to happen. We're seeking to bring people in, not for destruction, but for salvation. So I really think what Christ is saying to these people who are not yet apostles here, but who He's calling, He's not just saying something just for them.

That they could say, well, Lord, earlier on you told us you were going to make us fishers of men. Lord, bring that about as a reality. I believe this is something that's true of all Christians to some degree that we're all seeking to be soul winners.

This is desire that all of us have. This is something that all of us should go to the Lord with. I mean, the Lord Himself in Luke 19, He said, the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. I mean, Christ's very purpose is to save the lost.

And we're called to imitate Him. Just two more verses on this point. Mark 8, listen to this. For whoever would save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel's sake will save it.

And so what does that imply? All believers are living for the Gospel's sake. That's a call to all Christians for discipleship. There's not this segmentation that's happening here where there's Christians who are fishers and there's others who have no involvement in that activity at all.

Now, to this point, to kind of balance some of this out, is there a spiritual gift? A greater expression of the Spirit manifesting Himself in certain Christians with an ability to evangelize? Yes, that absolutely is true.

Ephesians 4 .11, Christ has given gifts to men in the church and one of them is He gave evangelists. Acts 21, they entered the house of Philip, but He doesn't just say Philip, He adds a description of Philip.

And what is that description? Philip, the evangelist. The evangelist. So these designations made about the believer's emphasis, that's something that's important for us to be doing in the life of the church, right?

Years ago, we supported a few men to do local evangelism. Right, you're looking out and seeing, if God's given a certain portion of the Spirit to specific men in the church to evangelize and to be soul winners, they're going to be fishing to an extent that might be greater than other people in the church.

And we want to identify that. And we need reminders to be evangelistic. 2 Timothy 4 .5, you've got a church, you've got Paul facing the end of his life, you've got a church at Ephesus that has all manner of problems, and Paul, he says to Timothy, as for you, always be sober-minded.

Endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. So part of Timothy's specific design is this work of evangelism. He's part of Paul's missionary team. He's actively engaged in the proclamation of the Gospel to a great extent, because the Spirit of God is upon him in a unique way for that endeavor.

So all that to say, here you're following Christ, and He says, I'm going to make you fishers of men. And I think all of us can take this promise in Matthew 4 .19, and not just look at it and say, oh, this was for men who became future apostles.

But look at this and say, Lord, I followed you. I've done what you said. You said to follow, and you're going to make me a fisher of men. Not a fishless fisherman. Not someone who just sows seed and nothing ever happens.

Lord, you've made a statement that makes my heart feel like I'm expecting results from this endeavor. And think of this, this statement, I will make you. How many times does the Lord say something like that to us in the Bible?

What's another time He says, I'm going to make you something? It's not often stated. You have verses like 2 Corinthians. He says, I will make my dwelling among you. Hebrews 10, I will make with them a covenant.

Revelation 3, the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar. I mean, there's not a lot of those statements being made. But here Christ says to these disciples, as He says, follow me. He says, I'm going to make you fishers of men.

I'm taking you from this physical task of fishing. Come follow me. I'm going to proclaim the gospel. I'm going to show compassion. People are going to be brought in with this gospel net. And it's going to lead not to their destruction, not to their exile, but bringing them in to heaven.

And this is something Jesus has to make, right? You can't bring this about in your own life. It's Lord, work this in me. Give me the wisdom, the guidance, the right opportunities. Lord, this is something you said you were going to produce and make in me.

Expecting God’s Growth Through Patient Labor

So fourth observation, Jesus says right there in verse 19, I will, I will make you fishers of men. And notice how certain the Lord is that He's going to turn these men into fishermen. Right? It's kind of like the father saying to his sons, you're going to be fishermen when you grow up, right?

They might get to a point where I don't want to do dad's business. Well, that's not what's going to happen to these men. Because this isn't some pick and choose. Do I want to be an engineer when I grow up?

Do I want to be a fisherman when I grow up? No, this is part of following Christ. It's acknowledging Him before men is being His witnesses. Though to different degrees, we will have various opportunities and gifts.

This is something that we're all involved in because we've all lost our lives for the sake of the Gospel. So He says, I will. This gives me confidence in asking the Lord about this reality. And you know, one question I thought of, here Peter is getting called to be a fisher of men.

When did he get his first catch? And when is his first catch ever recorded? Again, there's a lot that's not said, but you know what you find? Okay, I will make you fishers of men. What do you find in Peter's life?

Oh Lord, don't go to the cross there. Don't go suffer. Get behind me, Satan. You're setting your mind on things of earth. And you find Peter's denial. What's my point? In Peter's life, leading up to Acts 2, leading up to conversions, what led up to that?

Christ making him someone in his character. Right? The Lord disciplining him. The Lord humbling Peter. The man who said, I'm ready to go with you both to prison and to death, sounded zealous. He sounded bold.

But underlining all of those bold statements was arrogant pride that God had to root out of his life. So what's happening in both of these cases? Youthfulness might not happen, brethren, as fast as you hope it will be.

Right? There might be a slow process to get to that point. Eventually, Peter saw a massive catch in the book of Acts. For long you might labor and catch nothing, and then you might put your nets on the other side of the boat, and the Lord, He brings them in.

But he says, I will make you fishers of men. It really does imply to me that you can live your Christian life expecting to see people converted. Expecting that. Not the opposite. Expecting no one is going to be converted.

The rate and the frequency by which that happens, there's a whole lot of questions you could ask about that. And I'll think of that in a little bit. One evening, Peter caught 153 physical fish. I mean, the Lord can work in that way in the spiritual realm as we saw in the book of Acts.

You know one thing this reminds me of? 1 Corinthians 3, verse 7. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God. But only God who gives the growth. And what a statement. But only God who gives the growth.

I mean, we're really cast on the Lord. We're really cast upon the Lord to see people saved. This is His idea. It's His idea. There's a harvest. It's His idea to send laborers into the harvest. It's His idea for us to be witnesses and acknowledge Him before men.

You be faithful in that. And you take a stand for Christ. And you proclaim His truth. Your expectation should be that will lead others to know the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Another question here.

Christ’s Methods of Evangelistic Fishing

How did Jesus fish? And you could have five sermons under that title. How did Jesus fish? Because He said He's going to make them fishers of men. And I already pointed out in the context here, right away, He flows into proclaiming the Gospel and healing.

You've got this preaching and compassion that's happening at the exact same time. And that's not always what you find, but right there, that's what you find from Christ. There's a proclamation. There's not just the compassion and there's not just the proclamation.

How did He fish? Well, He fished by preaching the Gospel. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. We don't have to alter the message. We don't have to come up with something new.

We can preach Christ and Him crucified. But think of a few cases of conversion. What led to Zacchaeus' conversion? What happened there? Hospitality. That's how I look at it. He had Zacchaeus. He said, Zacchaeus, hurry, come down.

I must stay at your house today. What an invite! Have you tried that downtown? Gone up to some rich man and said, I've got to stay at your house tonight. Who knows? Maybe that's exactly what they need to happen.

But hospitality? He didn't just go up to him outside and lay it all out. He went to his home, was in the home, and he's proclaiming the truth to this man. And the Lord saves him. D .E. Host, the missionary who took over for Hudson Taylor, has always struck me.

He remarked that the natives in China would not believe that God had an open door to receive them if the missionaries themselves did not have an open door to the Chinese. That's the right deduction. Here, come to this Christ.

His door is open. And then they come to your house. It's like, well, y 'all are dirty. They're going to believe your message about God having an open door to His enemies? When you don't have an open door to them?

It's not going to happen. And hospitality is mightily used by the Lord to draw people to Himself, to give an opportunity to show Christ. How did Jesus fish? He hammered home on people's idols, right? This is what you see in Mark 10 with the rich young ruler.

Christ, He's discerning specifically the idol in a man's life, and He just lays right into it. And if God gives some of you the discernment to almost see into someone's heart and to read their thoughts, and there's that spiritual discernment given by God, don't waste that by not saying anything, but drive certain things home.

Yes, in a sharp way at times. Yes, in a gracious way at times. You got to discern what case it is that's before you. God's able to use that. You go read Ichabod Spencer's pastor sketches. That's what happened.

He was trying to find the one thing. Jesus did that in Mark 10. That's not some random methodology of fishing. That's like Christ fished. So we could go on and on with examples of Christ. But Jesus, He's sending us to fish for people.

This is something He makes every believer to various degrees, a fisher of men, a witness of Him, an acknowledger of Him before people. Some will be gifted and designed by God in a unique way to do that.

They ought to be recognized and supported to do such. But many of you keep being faithful in the workplace, with the family, with those who come into these four walls. I mean, look beyond that with whatever open doors you can find.

And so we should pray. Father, I'm following Your Son. He said You'd make me a fisher of men. I've labored hours and I've caught nothing. Lord, provide for me souls. And that's what this verse makes me pray to the Lord and what I have been praying to the Lord.

Lord, You said You'd make me a fisher of men. Not just fishing with no catch, but actually seeing men come to Christ. Lord, I've been trying to catch this one person in Your gospel net. Would You save them this year?

We should be praying bold statements like that to the Lord. Okay, what time do we got? We're halfway. Okay, well, those are some thoughts on Matthew 4 .19. But I want to give some examples and some quotes that have really struck me in this area.

And I hope they will edify you as well. Who's heard of Thomas Boston? Yeah, a handful. He wrote a book called The Art of Man Fishing. How old was he? Anyone read that book? He wrote it when he was 22 years old.

22, I didn't realize that. 22 years old, he wrote this book. Listen, this is based on this verse. This is his comment. My soul cried out for accomplishing of that to me, making me a fisher of men. I was very desirous to know how I might follow Christ so as to become a fisher of men.

And from my own instruction in that point, I addressed myself to the consideration of it in a manner. And indeed, it was much on my heart in these days not to preach the wisdom of my own heart or produce my own gifts, but to depend on the Lord for light that I might, if I could have reached it, be able to say of every word, thus saith the Lord.

That's Boston at 22. He's not seen anyone converted in his life that he's aware of. The Lord saves and you don't even know it, right? But here he cried. Lord, accomplish this in me. You said to these men, you're going to make them fishers of men.

Lord, do this in my life. He says in that book, these many preachers are shamed by the devil and the devil's zeal. The devil goes out like a roaring lion. He seeks who he can devour. While these preachers, they're set upon saving souls by creeping about slowly like a bunch of snails.

The devil is in earnest when he tempts you. Yet to the opposite, some preachers are unconcerned whether people hear or forbear to hear their invitations and reproofs. The devil's agents that handle his business, how concerned are they?

In order to gain one convert, they will travel across sea and land. Should preachers of the Gospel be unconcerned? You see, he's contrasting the zeal of Satan. And it reminds me of one comment my father-in-law made to me that always stood out.

He said the one thing to imitate from the devil, and he referred to Revelation where it says the devil knowing his time was short, what did that produce in Satan? He had great zeal. And Bob's point was if Satan could recognize his time is short and he has great zeal, we as Christians should recognize our time is short as but a hand breath, and we should have great zeal likewise.

Persevering Through Years of Unseen Results

So here Boston is in 1699, expressing these things and wrestling with these things in his heart. Now, make me a fisher of men. Do not have the imagery, Lord, make me, you know, the Lord's thinking about me with a fishing pole at Lions Lake.

You know, we'll go by Lions Lake, that lake by our house. Tons of people are fishing. Fishing to them is they got a pole in their PVC thing they've stuck in the ground, and they're drinking a lot, and their pole's just sitting there.

Is that fishing according to the Bible? Is that what these men were doing? No, no, not at all. In case you have some wrong imagery here of what Christ is pointing at and what they're asking of, He's talking about some serious labor.

This is with a net, not a pole. The imagery of using a lure in a line and waiting for the fish to strike, that's foreign to what's happening here. Rather, this is the imagery of straining of long hours and often little results.

We labored all night. Caught nothing. How many times have we gone downtown? We come back. We labored all night. Apparently, we caught nothing. Now, you never know, because you left a bunch of silent messengers, the tracks, and they're in people's pockets.

They're in their cars. You never know what's going to happen. But there might be toiling all night. We don't catch anything. There's storms. Some get frightened. They go back to the shore. And others venture out.

They don't want to lose any fish in the deep. Listen, when you think about where to go fishing, listen to Luke 4. This is not the ESV. I think it's the KJV. Listen to how it renders it. When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, launch out into the deep.

Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. I don't know if you could stretch that statement. What does that sound like? Launch out into the deep. There's some people, they go launch out into the deep.

They cast that net in the storm, in the trials. They labor all night. They labor for year after year. They catch nothing. And they stay. They don't lose heart like Judson. It's incredible. I'm going to look at some of those examples that have really stood out to me over the years in a little bit.

But some are called to launch out into the deep, to go out into the deep. Listen to this. A .J. Gordon wrote a book, The Holy Spirit in Missions. Has anyone read that? The Holy Spirit in Missions? About halfway through on the last few days, but listen to this.

Think about launching out into the deep. Think about the difficulty of evangelism. I know part of this is thinking about global missions more than it is local evangelism, but bear with me. For 33 years, this is Adoniram Judson Gordon.

His dad was John Calvin Gordon and he named his son Adoniram Judson. So it's A .J. Gordon. He was alive when Adoniram Judson was alive. That's a side note. For 33 years, the Moravian missionaries had toiled on, 33 years, amid such discouragements, seeing almost no one converted.

For 33 years, 33 years, that they had begun seriously to consider the abandonment of their primary station in Massachusetts. But one day in 1804, as a missionary was preaching from the text, the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.

33 years, brethren, of faithful labor. Toiling all night. 33 years. And not because they did anything, but God sovereignly chose to come. They did do something. They remained faithful. The Son of Man seeks to save that which is lost.

The words took powerful hold of a wretched, abandoned woman. So sunk in every evil that she was despised and shunned even by her degraded countrymen. And what a person for Christ to save, right? I mean, the worst of the worst.

She was filled with the deepest anguish on account of her sins. She spent the night in the huts occupied by the dogs. As though unworthy to associate with human beings. I mean, it sounds like the demoniac getting converted all over again from Mark 5.