From darkness to light

From darkness to light is the call of every redeemed of the Lord, to the Jew first and then to the gentile.

Christ Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and His greatest mission is to bring men out of the darkness of their sins into the everlasting kingdom of light.

He said “I am the light of this world” and who so ever is enlighten by Him becomes the light bearer among many who live in the darkness of this fallen world.

In Luke’s gospel chapter 5 we read an amazing event in the earthly ministry of our Lord that reveals the unfathomable grace of our God and Savior in the choice of His vessels of Honor and glory through His infinite majesty and sovereign glory. The word of the Lord through Luke in chapter 5 starting with verse 1 to 11 says that after preaching the kingdom of God in the synagogues of Galilee a crowed or a multitude of followers pressed about Him to hear the word of God. Then Jesus stood at the shore of the Lake Gennesaret and saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen have gone from them and were washing their nets.

Then He got into one of the boats which was Simon’s and asked him to put out a little from the land.

And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.

The amazing part in this is the election of the boat that belonged to Simon later on called Peter. The Lord in His sovereignty of predestination knowing the elect comes at the right time and at an exact hour and chooses the right boat among many others.

This has always amazed me about Him.

The greatness of His love for the truly lost is what makes Him so desirable. He comes to the exhaustedly tired. The simple who have lost all hope. He sees their boat empty and their nets being washed in despair. He feels the ordinary man’s pain and understands the agony of their heart. He sees the darkness of their perishing state of existance and suddenly enters into their boat to offer them life where darkness was all they could see.

He brings Kingdom hope to all who would uncompromisingly receive Him in the boats of their lives.  Upon His entrance He brings this sense of trust and love with Him and make the hearts of men willing to obey.  He asked Peter to put out the boat and make it ready for a place of preaching of the gospel to others. The same empty and cold place of utter hopelessness instantly becomes a podium to preach the message of the eternal Kingdom of God.

Before any physical evidence of any provision Jesus makes our empty boats a place for giving the eternal food for the souls of men. Simon Peter in his time of utter despair for physical sustenance obeys the commission to avail his boat as the vessel used by the Lord to extend the invitation of the coming Kingdom of Righteousness.

An unfruitful empty boat of a poor fisherman now is the greatest platform for preaching of God’s kingdom.

What a contrary concept of the 21^st century Christianity. Then the gospel writer says after He had stopped speaking He said to Simon “Launch out into the deep and let dawn your nets, for a catch.”

What a command for obedience, after this boat was used for Kingdom purposes. Here I take it that after He taught Simon Peter the priority of seeking His Kingdom and righteousness, now He was to help Him see all that could be added on to him.

Here in verse 5 Simon says in response to the command of the Lord. “But Master we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” Wow what an amazing statement of faith mixed with truth? First Simon admits the vanity of his toilsome efforts of a whole night in providing for himself the means of his livelihood and secondly he utters a profound mystery of obedience of faith by saying the following. “Nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net”.

This is a huge revelation many in the body of our Lord need to possess. “Nevertheless at Your Word”.

This spoke of God’s sovereignty in choosing the elect for the obedience of faith.  Many at this hour name and claim things  or use the strength of their flesh in doing things that the Lord has not spoken to them about it yet, and they remain unfruitful in what they do and soon blame God for it.

This is what this act of faith meant, that even though I might have tried all my life to earn my living or change the circumstances of my life and it has always failed me, but in obedience to His spoken word I will lower my nets to receive a catch which was impossible for me to attain in all my life.

And this only after I did willingly gave the empty boat of my life in His control to do what the Kingdom of God would be benefited from it  first.

Yes this is what Jesus meant by saying….

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added on to you”. Matthew 6:33

What a practical lesson learned through personal experience with Christ.

Then the word in verse 6 says… “And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking”. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filed both the boats, so they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees saying…

“Depart from me, for I am a sinful, man O Lord”.  Why did Peter speak these words in asking Jesus to leave him? Didn’t he just obey Him in His word and didn’t he just saw the miracle working power of God supply all his needs? Couldn’t Simon Peter ask Jesus, O Lord please stay, stay in my boat and don’t leave my boat for another man’s boat. Couldn’t he say, O Lord did you see how I exercised faith upon your word and lowered my net? Command me for my faith Lord? But His response was so beyond who Peter became later on.   why?

Because it was here where Peter truly saw His own utter sinfulness and the darkness in which he had lived all his life. The greatness of this light enlightened the eyes of His spirit and soul to see a greater truth than his own.

It was there that Peter saw the ugliness of His own righteousness and the depravity of His sinfulness. The light of God’s glory blinded the eyes of his natural instinct. Here for the first time he saw the truth as He was. This was the true act of the mercy of God in redeeming the sinful man. In this divine encounter Simon Peter did not seek anything, but he saw his own depravity in the presence of a holy and mighty God. This was the beginning of a true act of conversion through grace. This is what we all need to grasp for all eternity. Again a reality many of us have long forgotten in the body of Christ today.

The word continues to say that all were amazed at the catch including James and John the sons of Zebedee who were partners with Simon Peter. But what is very much amazing is that only Simon Peter was feeling the feelings of utter sinfulness and that the rest were only amazed on the greatness of the Catch.  This tells me after the Lord enters the boat of one man and reveals Himself to him it is only this one man than God’s greatness is revealed to. To the others the catch meant more important.  It was to the owner of the boat that the greatness of God was revealed. Ofcource the story says the other boats were filled with the greatness of the catch too, but it was only to Peter whom God appeared in this very unique way.  The revelation of God’s glory to His elect is the greatest of all miracles. Later on Jesus not only did not depart from him, but said “Do not be afraid from now on you will catch men”.

This meant Simon in your sinfulness do not be afraid in coming close to me it is in this state that I have found you and it is in this state that I am going to use you.  Draw close to me and I Am the one who chose your boat and not you. Yes the same Simon Peter when asked to be sifted by Satan denied his Lord only three years later.   This too is only to prove that all we have or ever will have in our godliness must come from Him and by the power of His resurrection through grace. Here once more we see the same sinner saved by grace, a very zealous disciple of God is weakened by the trials of his own faith.  This  lesson from the life of Peter teaches us that not only our initial salvation requires a great revelation of God’s holiness and our utter sinfulness, but  in all of our lives lived here on earth we need to hold on to its truth. It is through this continual illumination of our sinful state of being that he could keep us humble and useable in His kingdom.

Once again we see that before the Lord gave His final commission to Peter He needed to affirm the greatness of Peters love and faithfulness by asking him to feed His flock in response for His love for Him.