Catching Men

The Cancer Book, Suffering, and the Reach of the Ministry

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Eppendorf and I'm glad to be your host today. Don't forget the two new books that are out. 31 Day Guides, both of them. Sexual Fidelity, a 31 Day Guide to Purity, and Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd, a 31 Day Guide to Suffering.

The Cancer book, I wrote the first 16 days and then the final days, particularly about cancer, although you could just take that word out and put in MS or ALS or whatever you'd like, and it would apply because it's God-centered, primarily not sickness-centered.

And then the last chapters, 17 through 31, the second half of the book, Section 2, I called it, it's about suffering in general, affliction in general. And so wherever, if that is tuberculosis or in the old days, remember that I think they called it consumption, it would be a book that would help you.

We suffer for lots of reasons. And how do we respond to suffering? So I wrote the first half, particularly about cancer, second half, Thomas Watson, Thomas Brooks, those types of folks. And then it ends with an appendix, a sermon about suffering from Charles the Haddon Spurgeon.

So you can get that. If you want to order 10 or more, I can get you a discount and you can email me, mike at no compromise, radio .com. I'm additionally trying to figure out how to get this book into maybe a more mainstream evangelicalism.

I mean, if you think about the world in general, and then think about Christianity, broadly speaking, whether they're Methodist, mainline Roman Catholic, what the world would consider a Christianity, that's a pretty small slice of the pie, Christianity.

Then it's even smaller when you say, let's look at Protestant denominations. Then it's even smaller when you look at non liberal Protestant denominations, evangelicalism in general, if we want to call it that.

And you could put everything in there from Pentecostal to Free Methodists to Calvary Chapel to Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Anglican. You'd put that slice in there, the evangelical side of those denominations.

It's smaller even yet. And then of course, if you put Covenantal, it even grows to be, shrinks to be non-existent. But I would imagine that my no-code Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram pretty much appeal to those within our circles, generally Calvinistic, that is four to five point Calvinists, Doctrines of Grace, that's what we would call that, Five Solas.

And we would be in the world of Southern Seminary, Southeastern Seminary, Southwestern Seminary, Midwestern, Mid-Atlantic, Master's Seminary, Talbot Seminary, RTS, IRBS, Westminster Escondido, Westminster Philly, Puritan, I don't know, Denver.

I forget all the places, all the seminaries. But anyway, I'm going to try to see if this book will be helpful to those outside of those circles. And I've even gotten some comments that people that they know who have cancer and they're not Christians, they're in a place where they'd be willing to read something like this because the time is dwindling down.

God Shows Himself Before He Calls People

All that to say, Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. I was talking last time about how God calls people, how God enlists people. I remember when I was younger, I want to say 14, 15 years old, that would be 1974, 1975.

And I remember having to go to the post office in Omaha, Nebraska, and I had a sign up for, if memory serves, something called Selective Service. And that was to make sure that there were enough men registered, young boys, teenagers, so that if the Vietnam War continued and or another war, then we would have our name in for the draft.

And I remember that was kind of scary. I don't remember when Vietnam ended. I wish I remember. It's 1973 or something. But putting my name in right around that time was still scary because you didn't know the after effects or what would happen in the future.

To be drafted, right? To have the government say, I mean, let's think about Vietnam draft, for instance. You get the draft notice and you have three options. Maybe there are more options, but three basic options.

Option one, to go in and enlist. Option two, deny that and go to jail. So enlist in the army or other branches, enlist in the jail or go to Canada, right? That was kind of what people did back in those days.

And I remember my father talking about the cowards that went to Canada. Well, this isn't about being a coward. This is being drafted into the army, enlisted, conscription. I think the Latin word was legio and where we get our word legion.

So how do you get an army? Well, you draft them. And it's interesting because how does the Lord draft people? How does he consign them? How does he say the equivalent of Simon, you carry Jesus's cross, right?

And you're conscripted into that military service or helping the military. And so we learned last time that basically what God does and whether this is in Revelation 1, Daniel 10, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1 and 2, Exodus 1, 2, and 3, and more that God shows himself to the person.

And that's how it starts with a divine revelation of who he is. And of course, you can tell where I might be going with this eventually. And that is, how does he conscript people like us, right? Saul of Tarsus sees the glory of God.

And the response is going to be many, but eventually that response will be following, conscripted into the army, right? I'm not saying you follow first, but you believe first and then you follow, but you do follow.

Theological autocorrect. The response to the gospel isn't follow. The response to the gospel is believe, receive, trust, and then of course follow, right? That's just a different category, but nonetheless, here we go.

Jesus Calms the Fishermen by Filling Their Nets

We are in Luke 5 and God is going to conscript Peter, James, and John, with Peter being the main one that we're talking about. And the text says here, I have the text here in front of me. Don't you think it'd be nice to have the Bible in front of you if you're going to teach a radio show about the Bible?

I think that's true. I think that would be a good thing. Well, I have the Bible in front of me. It happens to be an ESV, and it says, on one occasion, while the crowds were pressing in on him, Luke 5, to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.

Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat. All right? That's where we are. Washing the nets, and Jesus finds, as I said last time, someone else said this, but I then repeated them, Jesus finds a floating pulpit, and he sovereignly picks Simon's boat.

The text talks about two boats, and so this is all planned out, of course, because the Lord plans it out. And when I think of fishing, I think of shooting, spawning fish with my fishing bow and arrow that would have a pretty heavy test line on it and a Zebco 808 reel, if I remember correctly, or you think of a bobber with a hook and a little weight.

You might think of maybe a little throw net or something that you would throw a small net and it would sink down in the shallow water, and whatever's caught underneath it, you would get it. But here we have a different kind of net, and I don't need to get into all the setup of the net and the three layers and everything else, but these nets, these what we call trammel nets, they need washing, and they're back from fishing, and you've got to take care of your nets to get ready for the next time, right?

You don't wake up the next morning and say, well, we'll clean up the nets. Lots of fishing boats, certainly, Josephus would say that, over 300 boats on the Sea of Galilee. You can see one of the boats that was on the Sea of Galilee, but then it sunk and they found it in the silt, and they've reconstructed it, and you can go see the boat, I don't know what it's called, there's some name of it, the boat over there by Magdala, it's not exactly, it's south of Magdala, just a little bit.

And Jesus, after he gets done speaking, put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Wait a second. As I said last time, now it's time for sermon application. Jesus preaches, and now it's time to do what he says, and maybe there's going to be a lesson.

This is a pop exam. I read a pet train pop test. Put out and let down. Put out your nets, let them down. Singular, plural. Kind of like, how do you let down a net? It's the same word, letting down the paralytic from the ceiling that we'll see soon enough.

And Simon gets those two commands. The nets are washed, are being washed. Jesus isn't a fisherman by trade. His father wasn't a fisherman. What are you going to do? Fish in the daytime, right? The fish will see the net.

That's why you don't do this kind of fishing with trammel nets in the daytime. I mean, I'm sure they're tired. What do you do? Well, even though it might not seem normal, even though it might not seem rational, with a little bit of back talk, Peter answers, Master, we toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word, I will let down the nets.

Of course, Luke has been pushing the authority of Jesus, has he not, with demons, with sickness? And here, Simon calls him Master. And every time you see the word Master, it's used only by Luke, except, I don't think there's one exception even, Matthew and Mark say teacher or rabbi.

And of course, we've got Luke written to a Gentile audience, primarily. Of course, Jews could read it. And so, instead of describing what a rabbi was or something like that, you'll see the word Master here, and it does show the authority of the Lord Jesus that Peter recognizes.

And this word Master means, it could mean crassly boss or supervisor or director or overseer. That's what this means. And so, yes, Jesus is the boss, and he's literally the word it means to be set over.

We're set over, we worked all hard, we sweat, we toiled, we did everything we could, we're exhausted. And you know what? Okay, we'll do it. But you can see a little hesitancy, a little reluctance there.

When they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish and their nets began to break or were breaking at the point of breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink.

So many fish in the middle of the day, following the master, the carpenter, that the two ships...it's pretty big. I don't want you to think of canoe. They're pretty big. If you go see that Vialali boat, it's pretty big.

Here, something happens. What happens? What's God, the Holy Spirit, through the pen of Luke, trying to show you? That Jesus is sovereign. That Jesus has authority, not just over demons, not just over sicknesses, but he has power and dominion and authority as the God-man over the fish in the seas.

Psalm 8, you have given him dominion over the works of your hands, and you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beast of the field, the birds of the heaven, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. So you see what's happening, do you not? God, the Son, preaches out of the pulpit in the boat, the pulpit boat, boat pulpit, and now it's confirmed that he is who he said he is by him doing only what God could do.

Here's a confirmation. Here is a reminder that this master, this preacher, is sent from God, because this authenticates the message. This confirms the message. That's what signs are for, to make you say, I understand the nature of the message and the messenger, that they're both from God, or in this case, he is God.

Jesus is God. Now, just a little hint ahead of time. When we get to the end of this section, I'm going to make you fishers of men. You don't have to become fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men.

On your own, you're not going to catch anything. But when the master tells you to do something, and you do it his way with his message, his methods, right motives, you're going to catch a lot. In fact, Peter, Pentecost, 3 ,000 souls.

Sounds like that was two boatloads of souls. Does it not? Isn't that cool? All right, I'm getting ahead of myself, but I couldn't stop it. I needed to do that. I think it was a commentator that I read earlier in the week, and he said, Jesus does not assert his lordship at Peter's weakest point, but his strongest.

That is, he, Peter, is a professional fisherman, and that Jesus doesn't wait for the appropriate mood. They failed to come back with nothing. Well, I'll wait till he's in a little better mood before I tell him something.

We've all seen that in our own lives, have we not? Or done that? I've never done that, but I'm sure you have. Master, we'll do whatever you say. And you know what? The fish are obedient to the Lord Jesus.

Hundreds, thousands of years earlier, certainly frogs and flies and locusts, they were all obedient to God in the plagues of Israel. Master, we toiled all night and have taken nothing. Hey, they worked hard.

They knew what they were doing. There were lots of fish in the sea. But all of a sudden, it's now in the middle of the day that these fish are driven into the nets. What was Peter's response? God shows that he's the holy and sovereign Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of Man.

And what's the response to that, when you really realize who God is? But when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he and all who are with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken.

He falls down at Jesus' knees. That's exactly the Greek word. It's not his feet, it's his knees. Now, maybe there was an open spot, but if there's so many fish in the ship that the ship is about ready to sink, well, what's...

Do you think he kneeled down in a little dry area? Do you think he kneeled down in a place that was smooth? Well, what happened? There were such a large number of fish that the nets were breaking. I mean, you filled both boats.

They began to sink. I think he's down on his knees before now the Lord, O Lord, the New Testament equivalent of Yahweh in the Old Testament. I know you're God, and now I'm down on my hands and knees, at least his knees, at Jesus' knees.

How'd he get there on your knees? Kneeling on the fish. I mean, just picture that for a minute. This is the response to knowing who Jesus is. Obviously, they knew he was a man. He looked like a man, acted like a man, ate like a man, slept like a man, but he's more than a man.

He's the God man. Peter essentially says, and I won't take credit for this because I read it somewhere, the same God that could see into the depths of the ocean, this particular case, the Sea of Galilee, can see into the depths of Peter's heart.

And Peter says, leave. How great is Jesus? How holy is Jesus? How small is Peter? How sinful is Peter? You encounter the God of the universe. This is the right response. Go away. Go away. Moses is out.

He sees the burning bush and he's told, this is not a science experiment. You better take your shoes off because this is holy ground. Peter's response is like the tax collector in the parable with the Pharisee.

The tax collector standing some distance away was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, God be merciful to me, the sinner. Peter is so amazed, so dumbstruck, so astonished that he's down on his knees in the middle of the ship, on top of all the fish, realizing that Jesus is the God man.

Jesus understands who Simon is, and we're going to see that in just a minute. I'm sinful. You're the Lord. You're holy. Compared to other people, I'm probably pretty good, Peter could have said. But in your presence, I'm undone.

This is Peter's acknowledgement of who the Lord is. Supernatural Lord. Now, commentator Davis, he said, you know what Peter didn't say? That's always a good question. Peter said, depart from me for I'm a sinful man, O Lord.

But what did he not say? I know you told me so. I should have believed it. I'm just a bad fisherman today. No, he said, I'm a sinful man. Instead of just, you know, you're in charge, you're the Lord. James Edwards said that the Lord has been used 30 times in the gospel of Luke up to this point, all in reference to the Lord God, that is Yahweh.

You see the Lord for who he is because he's revealed himself. And then you know who you are. That's the key to the universe, understanding who God is and understanding you. I think that's how Calvin's institutes started.

Started with those facts. Calvin said, no one ever attains clear knowledge of self unless he is first gazed upon the face of the Lord. Remember Joshua? He's by Jericho. Moses is dead. He lifts up his eyes and looks and behold, a man standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand.

And Joshua went up to him and said to him, are you for us or for our adversaries? And he said, no, but I'm the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, what does my Lord say to his servant?

And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. A little demotion here. You're no longer general.

The, the, the pre-incarnate Jesus is general. You're, you're demoted to Lord general, I mean, to a Lord general, to lieutenant general. You might be trained by Moses. You might be the one who's going to take over for him, but you're not really in charge.

And don't you think there's great soothing comfort hearing that you should be taking your shoes off, your sandals off because there's holy ground. Eswoshan said, now that would have been a great comfort to Joshua because he would have had remembered that Moses, his great leader, had had an experience like that before and would have convinced him that the same God who led Moses is a God who will now lead him, providing he will subordinate to him.

Amazing. Mike Ebenroth here, No Compromise Radio Ministry. And that's the response. Fear mingled with astonishment and wonder and amazement. That's the response. To see God's holiness, you respond with fear, knowing that you're sinful.

This is not just for Peter. This is not just for Joshua. This is for all of us. Think about your salvation. How'd you get saved? Well, somebody preached to you, or you read the Bible, you heard a sermon, you had your grandma preach, a Sunday school teacher, and you realized who God was.

God revealed himself in scripture to you, as great, as mighty as the Lord. And your response was you're sinful because you understood the difference in the gap between God's holiness and your sin. Now, there could just be judgment after that, and God would be just and right to do so.

But there's more. How does God call people into ministry? He shows himself, they respond, and then there's a reassurance. Remember Peter said, go away? That's a prayer that wasn't answered, thankfully.

Thankfully. And so also were James and John, the son of Zebedee, verse 10, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, do not be afraid. Can you imagine? Do not be afraid. Don't be afraid. You do not need to fear.

Now, it's right to fear. It's good to fear. But there's more to God than holiness. There's goodness. There's kindness. There's love. I think this kind of preaches on its own, doesn't it? Because of Jesus, the mediator, we don't have to fear.

We don't have to run. We have a mediator between God and man. And by the way, heaven is being in the presence of God with a mediator. Hell is being in the presence of God without a mediator. Who is that mediator?

It's the Lord Jesus and what he's done at Calvary and his work of reconciliation and making propitiation and accomplishing redemption. Don't be afraid. Now the fear of the Lord is turned into not a servile fear, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God type of fear, but a fear of respect and honor and the fear of a son, the fear of a daughter.

God is holy. Man is sinful. God is gracious and loving. Do you see it? And now here's the commission. If you're a Christian, you have been shown God's holiness in nature and character in essence. You've acknowledged that you are sinful and don't deserve salvation, but God out of his love and compassion and grace and goodness saved you anyway.

What's your response? Out of gratitude, it should be whatever you want, I'll do. I'll serve. And here in verse 10, it says, from now on, you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

From now on, you'll be catching men instead of fish, men. So, they get back to the shore, they leave it all. Hey, wait a second. You've got two boats filled full of fish and they left it all? They left everything, nets, boats.

I don't know who grabbed them. I mean, Peter, after Jesus died, he started fishing again. So, maybe his dad grabbed him or somebody else. I don't know who grabbed him. You're going to catch men. That's what you're going to do.

And good thing that this has happened because men have been captured alive by Satan to do his will. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verses 24 through 26. You catch a fish, you kill it. You catch a man, you let it live because it'll be alive for the first time.

More to see in the future. But have you ever thought about being a pastor? Pastor's wife. Ever thought about being a missionary? Missionary's wife. Ever thought about serving the Lord in your local church?

Ever thought about doing more than you're doing now out of gratitude? Well, that's the right thing to say. That's the right thing to think about. My name is Mike Gabenroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry.