Not a sign but a boat ride with Jesus
In my years of preaching “Go Ye” messages to God’s people I have heard this statement many times. “I would go to the mission field if God would call on me to do so; you know just give me a sign.” You are not alone, I think more than we like to admit, it is the first place we want to go at times to confirm our stepping out in faith to the unknown.
Today we have the Word of God showing us many things that Jesus has done to prove Himself to be Lord yet like the Jewish leaders of Jesus’s day our cry is the same. “What sign do you give that we might believe?”
I am amazed when I reflect how Jesus raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, walked on water, calmed the wind and sea with just a word and plainly said, Go ye into all the world with the gospel message yet they asked, as we do today. “What sign do you give us?”
As I bathe myself in the book of Luke it is interesting to see the difference in the Jewish leaders of the Jesus’s day and a lowly fisherman standing on the banks of Lake Gennesaret. Weary from fishing all night Peter was a bit reluctant to take Jesus out into the deep part of the lake to do some fishing. But, he says, at Your Word I will go and let down the net. God’s Word tames the wind and fills the heart of men with obedience.
It was not letting down the net, nor was it the great catch of fish that I want you to see, but what filled the nets that took two boats to get them to shore was brought about with these words from Peter and they can be ours today. “But at Your Word I will let down the net.”
We do not need to fish all night for signs to go into all the world, God has spoken. The words,” Go Ye” I think, will be a road sign on the street of gold in heaven as a monument of what great things God has done. Those from every tribe and tongue will be giving glory to God because He commissioned the church to go.
Understanding the Word of God to be the Word of God, right out of the mouth of God will free you and me to go out into the deep, let down our nets to be filled with men and women, because He has made us fishers of men. Come on now, let’s do this, that last tribe is before us. Let’s not wash our nets just yet; there is more fishing to do on the right side of the boat. Jack