Peter, characteristically, speaks out, and says exactly what a
fisherman would be likely to say to a carpenter from Nazareth, that
came down to teach him his business. The landsman would not know
what the fisherman knew well enough, that it was useless to go
fishing in the morning if you had not caught anything all night.
There was very little chance of getting any better success when the
sun's rays were glinting on the surface of the water.
'We have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.' Experience
said, 'No! do not.' Christ said, 'Yes! do.' And so when Peter has
made a clean breast of his objection, founded on experience, he goes
on with the consent prompted by the devotion and consecration of
love, 'nevertheless.' A great word that. 'We have toiled all the
night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless at _Thy_ word we will
let down the net. So here goes.' And away they went, breakfastless
perhaps, with their nets half cleaned, and sleepy and tired with the
night's work.
Here, then, we see obedience that springs delighted to obey, because
it is impelled by love. That is the spirit which can be trusted to
go out into the deep, which does not ask whether things are
recognised and usual or not, but which, if once it is sure of the
Lord's will, takes no counsel of anything else. How should it,
seeing that there is nothing so delightsome to a heart that truly
loves as to know and do the will of its beloved? And that, dear
brethren, is the spirit that all we Christian people need--a deeper,
more vivid, more continual, soul-subduing, muscle-straining
consciousness that Jesus Christ 'loved me and gave Himself for me.'
Then His whisper will be like thunder, and the motto of our lives
will be 'At Thy word, I will!'
Further, here is obedience that was not in the least degree
depressed by the recognition of past failure. All night long they
had been dropping the net overboard, and drawing it in, and with
horny, wet hands seeking in its meshes, and finding nothing. Then
overboard with it again, and more pulling at the heavy sweeps, till
the dawn began to show, and all in vain. Now the weary task must be
done all over again, though in all the past hours though they were
the best, there has been only failure.
I think that our Christian courage and consecration would be
immensely increased, if we could learn the lesson of my text; and
feel that, however often in the past I may have broken down, the
word of Christ's command, which thrills into my will, is also the
word of Christ's promise which should stay my heart, and give me the
assurance that past defeat shall be converted into future victory.
There is an obedience which did not grudge fresh toil before the
effect of past toils had been quite got over. The nets, as I said,
were only half cleaned. It was a pity to begin and dirty them again.
The fishers had had a very hard night's toil. If they had been like
some of us they would have said, 'Oh! I have been working hard all
the night. I cannot possibly do any more this morning.' 'I am so
very busy with my business all the week, that it is perfectly absurd
to talk about my teaching in a Sunday-school.' That was not their
spirit at all. No matter how they had to rub their eyes to get the
sleep out of them, they just bundled the nets into the boat once
more, pushed her down the strand, and shoved her out into the blue
waters at Christ's bidding. And that is the sort of workmen that He
wants, and that you and I should be.
Further, we have here an obedience that kept the Master's word
sounding in its heart whilst it was at work. 'At Thy word will I let
down the net.'
Ah! we very often begin working with a very pure motive, and as we
go on, the motive gradually oozes away, and what was begun in the
spirit is continued in the flesh; and what was begun with a true
devotion to Jesus Christ is continued because we were doing it
yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and
because it is the custom to do it. So we go on. The heart having all
gone out of our service, the blessing is gone out of it too. But if
we will keep our hearts near that Lord and listen to His voice
calling us, wearied or not wearied, beaten before or not beaten
before, and do as He bids us, launch out into the deep, we shall not
toil in vain.