'When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees,
saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'
--LUKE v. 8.
'Now, when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he
girt his fisher's coat unto him,... and did cast
himself into the sea.'--JOHN xxi. 7.
These two instances of the miraculous draught of fishes on the Lake
of Gennesareth are obviously intended to be taken in conjunction.
Their similarities and their differences are equally striking and
equally instructive. In the fragment of the incident which I have
selected for our consideration now, we have the same man, in the
same scene and circumstances, in the presence of the same Lord,
acting under the influences of the same motive, and doing two
exactly opposite things.
In the first case, the miracle at once struck him with the
consciousness that he was now, in some way, he knew not how, in the
immediate presence of the supernatural. That was immediately
followed by a quick spasm and sense of sin, and that again by a
recoil of terror, and that again by the cry, 'Go out of the boat;
for I am a sinful man, O Lord.'
In the other instance, as soon as he saw (or rather, by the help of
his friend's clearer sight, learned) that that dim and questionable
figure on the morning beach there, was the Lord, the sight brought
back his sin to his mind. But this time the consciousness of sin
sent him splashing over the side, and through the shallow water, to
struggle anyhow to get close to his Lord, not because he thought
more complacently of himself or less loftily of his Master, but
because he had learned that the best place for a sinful man was as
close to Christ as ever he could get. And so, if we put these two
incidents together, we get two or three thoughts that it is worth
our while to dwell upon.
I. I ask you to notice, first, that instinctive and swift awaking of
conscience.
This was not Peter's first acquaintance with Jesus Christ, nor his
first enrolment in the ranks of disciples. John's Gospel tells the
very beginning, and how, long before this incident, he had
recognised Jesus Christ to be the King of Israel. This was not his
first experience of a miracle. There had been many wrought in
Capernaum of which probably he was an observer; and he had been at
the wedding of Cana of Galilee; and in many ways and at many times,
no doubt had seen manifestations of our Lord's supernatural power.
But here, in his own boat, with his own nets, about his own sort of
work, the thing came home to him as it never had come home before.
And although he had long ago recognised Jesus Christ as the Messiah,
there is a new, tremulous accession of conviction in that 'O Lord!'
It means more than 'Master,' as he had just called Jesus. It means
more than he knew himself, no doubt, but it means at least a great,
sudden illumination as to who and what Christ was. And so the
consciousness of sin flashes upon him at once, as a consequence of
that new vision of the divine, as manifested in Jesus Christ. The
links of the process of thought are suppressed. We only see the two
ends of it. He passed through a series of thoughts with lightning
rapidity. The beginning was the recognition of Christ as in some
sense the manifestation to him of the Divine Presence, and the end
of it was the recognition of his own sinfulness. He had no new
facts; but new meaning and vitality were given to the facts that had
long been familiar to him. The first result of this was a new
conviction of his own hollowness and evil; and then, side by side
with that sense of demerit and sin, came this other trembling
apprehension of personal consequences. And so, not thinking so much
about the sin as about the punishment that he thought must
necessarily come when the holy and the impure collided, he cried,
'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!'
Now I take it that you get there, in that one instance, packed into
small and picturesque compass, just the outlines of what it is
reasonable and right that there should always go on in a heart when
it first catches a glimpse of the purity, and holiness, and nearness
of God, and of the awful, solemn verity that we do, each of us for
himself, stand in a living, personal relation to Him. That sudden
conviction may come by a thousand causes. A sunset opening the gates
to the infinite distance may do it. A chance word may do it. A
phrase in a sermon may do it. Some personal sorrow or sickness may
do it. Any accidental push may touch the spring, and then the door
flies open, for we all of us carry, buried deep down in most of us,
and not easily got at, that hidden conviction, only needing the
letting in of air to flame up, that we have indeed to do with a
living God; that we are sinful and He is pure, and that, that being
the case, the discord between us, if we come to close quarters, must
end disastrously for us.
You remember the grand vision of Isaiah, how, when he saw the King
sitting on His throne, 'high and lifted up, and His train filled the
Temple,' the first thought was, not of rapture at the Apocalypse,
not of adoration of the greatness, not of aspiration after the
purity, not of any desire to join in the 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' of the
burning spirits, but 'Woe is me, for I am undone; for mine eyes have
seen the King; for I am a man of unclean lips.' Ah, brethren!
whenever the commonplaces of our professed religious belief are
turned into realities for us, and these things that we have all been
familiar with from our childhood, flame before us as true and real,
then there comes something analogous to the experience of that other
Old Testament character--'I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the
ear, but now mine eyes see Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes.'
And then there comes, in like manner, and there ought to come, along
with this new vision of a God in His purity, and the new sense of my
own sinfulness, the apprehension of personal evil. For, although it
be the lowest of its functions, it is a function of conscience, not
only to say to me, 'It is wrong to do what is wrong,' but to say,
too, 'If you do wrong, you will have to bear the consequences.' I
believe that a part of the instinctive voice of conscience is the
declaration, not only of a law, but of a Lawgiver, and that part of
its message to me is not only that sin is a transgression of the
law, but that 'the wages of sin is death.'
Now, let me ask you to ask yourselves whether it is not a strange
and solemn and sad testimony to the reality and universality of the
fact of sin that the sense of impurity and dread of its issues are
the uniform results of any vivid, thrilling consciousness of
nearness to God. And let me ask you to ask yourself one other
question, and that is, whether it is a wise thing to live upon a
surface that may be shattered at any moment; whether that is true
peace which needs but a touch to melt away; whether you are wise
with all this combustible material deep down in your conscience, in
paying no regard to it but living and frolicking, and feasting and
trafficking, and lusting and sinning on the surface, like those
light-hearted, light-headed fools that build their houses on the
slopes of volcanoes when the lava rush may come at any moment?