In this sermon, the speaker focuses on the passage from Mark's Gospel Chapter 1, verses 16 to 20, where Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John to be his disciples. The speaker highlights the industry and zeal of these fishermen, which distinguishes them from others. Jesus chooses ordinary men to be the first subjects of his kingdom, revealing his heart and purpose. The condition of discipleship, according to the speaker, is to follow Jesus, be sensitive to his teaching and spirit, and align with his will.

It's a joy to greet you again this morning and to know that as we gather together in our Lord's name, He Himself, by the Spirit, has promised to be with us. We shall be very much depending upon Him now to teach us what He would have us hear and understand and feel today from His Word. I would invite you to turn with me to Mark's Gospel, chapter 1, and we shall read together as the basis of our study and meditation this morning, verses 16 to 20. Mark, chapter 1, verses 16 to 20. And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he, that is our Lord Jesus Christ, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little further, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, who were in their boat, mending their nets. And immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him. Now in our last study in Mark's Gospel, we came to verses 14 and 15, where we saw our Lord Jesus Christ moving into the territory of Herod Antipas, that profligate ruler who had caused John the Baptist to be beheaded. When Herod silenced John, Jesus stood in the breach and began to lift up his voice, declaring what was essentially the same message as John, though with a difference, but basically taking up the theme that John himself had so faithfully declared and had paid with the price of his life for the privilege of declaring it. Now the passage before us today shows Jesus walking alongside the Sea of Galilee. It's a more peaceful setting, and yet the thunderclap of difficulty and danger is not far away. This is a setting, actually, that is to occupy a considerable section of the Gospel narrative, somewhere around the Sea of Galilee, so we need to get quite acquainted with this. The Sea, of course, was but a lake. Let's be quite clear about that. Luke often refers to it by that simple name, just the lake. On one occasion Luke refers to it as the Lake of Gennesaret, that is in chapter 5 of his Gospel. John speaks of it by another name. He gives it the name the Sea of Tiberias. When Luke calls it the Lake of Gennesaret, he's referring to it from the name of the district on its western shore. And then when John gives it another name, the Sea of Tiberias, he calls it after the name of the principal town on its shore, Tiberias. But it's the one and the same entity. Call it the Sea of Galilee if you like, but it's the Lake of Galilee, to be accurate. Now, on the northwestern shore of this lake stood the cities where our Lord's mightiest works were done. And will you please remember that this is still in the territory of Herod Antipas, in what the Old Testament referred to as Galilee of the Nations, the darkest, most dismal and spiritually benighted area in the whole of the land. Now at this point, as king of the kingdom which he has come to inaugurate, our Lord Jesus Christ senses that the opportune moment has arrived when he must exhibit something of his kingship. He has declared the time is ripe, the time has arrived when the kingdom of the heavens, the kingdom of God, has come right among you. Implying, of course, that as he, the king, has come, the power of the world and the age to come has arrived. But he must substantiate that. Is it true that the power of an omnipotent God has become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, and as Jesus of Nazareth moves into Galilee of the Nations, the power of God is present there? Is that possible? It's a tremendous claim, recognizing that Jesus senses the opportune moment to begin, to manifest to the unbelieving multitudes and to a few half-believing followers, that he is indeed the king and the kingdom has come, in principle, in himself. So what he does is this. He gathers together a handful of men in order, first of all, to exhibit his power within them, to show what he can do with a handful of men from Galilee of the Nations, the people that sat in darkness. And then, as he exhibits his power within them, his power to transform and commission them and make them his servants, he will, of course, be manifesting his own power through them, in the fulfillment of his larger purposes and of his great grace. Now before we go any further, there is one other thing, I think, that needs to be clarified. I have heard people preach on our Lord's call from three sets of texts, saying almost the same thing from the three. First of all, there is that call of our Lord that was sounded forth and recorded in John's Gospel, from which our brother Mr. Lowe read this morning. And our Lord called individuals to himself. Then there is the call of our Lord to some of his disciples, recorded here in Mark and in the corresponding passages in the rest of the Gospel, or at least in Matthew. And then there is another call recorded in Luke chapter 5. Now I have heard, let me repeat, people refer to the three sets as if they were one and the same entity, and addressing the same kind of message on the basis of those three texts. I want to suggest to you today that they are quite separate, and they are quite distinct. And if we do not get clearly in our own minds the distinction between these three, we are going to misunderstand our Lord in the text that is before us today. You see, you imagine a person just coming on to the seashore when he has never seen these fellows before, and he says, follow me, and I will make you to become fishers of men, and suddenly they leave everything and follow him. It smacks of magic. That is not what we have here. Was this the same calling with that recorded in John 1, 35 to 42? Not at all. And I want to give you the reasons, and I am going to read them hurriedly in order to pass through them, but I must give them. Now, the first thing I want you to notice is that the call in John 1 was addressed while Jesus was yet in Judea. This one in Mark was addressed to the disciples after his return into Galilee. Secondly, will you notice that here in Mark it is Christ who calls Andrew, whilst in John it is Andrew who solicits an interview with Jesus. Thirdly, here in Mark Andrew and Peter go together. There, in John 1, Andrew, having been called together with an unnamed disciple, who was probably the beloved disciple, goes to fetch Peter his brother to Christ, who then calls him likewise. Fourthly, here in Mark, John is called along with James' brother. There, in John, John, the disciple, is called along with Andrew after having, at their own request, had an interview with Jesus. No mention being made there of James. This means, then, that we have two separate, two quite distinct calls in John 1 and in Mark 1. But what about the call addressed to the disciples, recorded in Luke 5, verses 1 to 11? Well, now, I suggest to you that the following considerations are as decisive against our identifying this with either the call in John or in Mark as the case we have presented against identifying the call in John with that of Mark. Now, the first thing I want to say about this is that, whereas here in Mark the four are called separately in pairs, in Luke they're all called together as one body. Secondly, in Luke they are called after a glorious miracle. But here in Mark, the one pair are casting their net into the sea, whilst the other pair is mending theirs. Further, here in Mark, our Lord had made no public appearance in Galilee to date, and so he had not yet gathered around him a following. He is walking solitarily by the shores of the lake when he sees these two pairs of fishermen and calls them to follow him. In Luke it is so different. The multitudes are lying upon him, we are told, and hearing the word of God as he stands by the lake of Gennesaret. That represents a state of things which really require us to locate the incident later on in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if we mix up, if we get out of focus here, I think we're going to get the whole thing topsy-turvy. Today then, the call is not the call to salvation. It's not the call to launch out to be the disciple of Christ for the first time. On the contrary, it is something different. It's the call to those who have made a profession of a kind to come out. Leave your father, leave your boat, leave your business, leave everything, and come right alongside of me wherever I'm going, and in process of my going ahead, I'll teach you, and I will make you to become fishers of man. Now, I'm sorry for that rather lengthy introduction, but I think it's necessary. Now, against that background, come to the choice of personnel. Who will Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who will be king of the kingdom that is to come? Who will he choose to share in this great honor? What kind of people will he call to be the first subjects of his kingdom, to experience at first hand and witness at close range the powers of the world to come? Who will he call? I suggest to you it will be as revealing of the heart of Jesus as of anything else. And the first thing that is obvious is this, he calls ordinary men. And you and I should be rejoicing at that. He called ordinary men, ordinary men. Simon and Andrew his brother, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother. They had ordinary names and they were ordinary men. The men whom Jesus called were not from among the rich segment of society, any more than they were from among the cultured or the educated. Neither were they from among the ecclesiastical set up of the day and age. Let's put it again, they were ordinary men. They came from among the hoi polloi, as the Greeks would say. Now one commentator quotes George Bernard Shaw saying this, I have never had any feeling for the working classes except a desire to abolish them and replace them by sensible people. Now you forgive me. I'm only quoting that in order to show how different our Lord Jesus approached his men. He loved men. He loved the ordinary man. He sat by the well side and talked to the woman of the well. He loved the ordinary person as he loved the extraordinary. And it is tremendously significant here that our Lord Jesus calls a band of ordinary men to be the first disciples and to be the apostles in the making. Now these ordinary men were fishermen. Fish was a staple diet in Palestine, of course. And the historian Josephus records that in his time there were some 330 fishing boats on this little lake. Can you imagine it? Twelve miles long at its longest point, six miles wide at its widest, and 330 registered fishing boats wandering around on this little bit of a lake. Jesus chose four men, two sets of brothers, from among these present fishermen of Galilee, Galilee of the nations. Ordinary men, sunk in the darkness of their own people and of their own time, he calls them, and he's going to build everything around these four, and others that he will call to be with them. Now if there is anything that distinguishes them, it seems to me that there are just one or two things. You might even say one. I would say that it is their industry and their zeal. If there is anything that distinguishes them from other people, it is surely this. You see this first of all on the plane of the material. We read for example that Simon and Andrew were casting a net into the sea. Now you may gloss over that, and English readers are not blamed for that. They were casting a net into the sea. You may say, well there's nothing interesting there. I suggest to you there's something very interesting there. You see it was daytime, and fishing was normally done with a large net at night. But these guys don't sit down during the day. If they can't fish with a large net at night because it's daytime, they will fish with a smaller net, and the Greek tells us that, in the daytime as well. What I'm suggesting is this. These fellows were not idlers. These fellows didn't believe in just twiddling their thumbs, and sitting down, and looking up into the sky. They were men who were busy. And the same goes for James and John. If they could not fish, they were mending their nets. They were preparing for another haul, and another outgoing into the water. We may also conclude that these four had shown a somewhat similar industry and zeal on the plane of the spiritual. Had they not been followers of John the Baptist? Now we can't dogmatize about all of them, but we know about some of them they had. Why did they follow John the Baptist? The answer is simple. Because they wanted to know their God. They weren't satisfied with what they discovered in the synagogue, or in the temple. They weren't satisfied with a nondescript, vague kind of religion, just coming and going through the motions, and leaving it there. If this man is an authentic prophet of God, they wanted to know what he had to say about God, and they wanted to learn. And I think it's tremendously eloquent that we see these men leaving their boats, some of them, and going down to listen to John in Ammon in Judea, and fastening to every word he said. You see, they're real about things. There's a zeal here. Andrew and John, of course, had shown great initiative also in finding out more about Jesus than John could tell them. You remember, John reached the high watermark of his teaching when he announced, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And these two fellows heard him say that, and it was absolutely staggering. If he is the Messiah, the sin-bearing Lamb of God, we've got to know more about him. You remember what they did? They left John and they followed Jesus. And furtively they followed him that day as Jesus was going ahead somewhere, until he turned back and he said, Fellas, what are you looking for? And not quite knowing how to answer, they said, Well, what's your address? Where do you live? When he said, Well, come and see. And he took them with him that day, and they were together under the roof for the rest of the day. And when they come back, my, weren't they different. Come, the one said to other people, We found the Messiah. We know him, the one of whom Moses spoke. And Andrew went and got Simon Peter, his brother, and so forth. You see, these fellows are real. Real, zealous, industrious. Doesn't the Bible say somewhere to him that hath shall be given? Doesn't Jesus say somewhere much later on, If you've been faithful in the least, I'll make sure that you get much more. And I'll put you, and I'll give you authority over a vast territory. Men and women, what are you and I, what are we doing with the light we've got and the privileges we've got? How are we responding? Are we real in living? The next thing I want you to notice is the prospect he places before them. We've seen his choice of ordinary men. Now, this is the prospect. You come after me, he says, you follow me, and I will make you to become fishers. There were fishermen already. Do we read or write? Fishers of men. What a remarkable statement. Follow me, he says, leave your nets, leave your fishing, cattle, leave the business, leave everybody. You come after me and I will make you to become fishers of men, men fishers. Now, why did our Lord Jesus use that language? First of all, let's put a corrective in here. We mustn't so dwell upon this concept of the Christian servant as a fisher of men as to forget that there are many other metaphors used in the New Testament. We mustn't overwork the one at the expense of the others. For example, a Christian worker is spoken of in the New Testament as a farmer, as a builder, as a reaper, as a shepherd, as a steward, as a servant, and in many, many other terms, and included in them this, fishers of men. Now, why did Jesus use this? Well, of course, the reason is this, they were fishermen. And I suggest to you that he wants to imply to them in the first place that, though he's calling them to something which is quite different, they're leaving the old to start something new. There is, in a sense, a measure of continuity. He's calling them to be fishers. Well, they were fishers already. He's calling them to be fishers of men. And there is a measure of continuity. They're going to be fishermen still. Now, what does that mean? Well, let me just throw out a few things. It's a large area of this, but let me just throw out a few things, which to me seem obvious. You see, a fisherman went out on a positive task. You simply can't imagine a group of fishermen going into their boat and getting their nets ready and going out for a night's fishing to play with fish, or to talk about them, or to tickle them. Now, you may wonder why I should say that. I suppose this is purely my background. But when I was a boy going to school, the village school, which was a mile away from the place where I was born, there were four brothers who lived in a little house down by the brook, and one of them was a kind of fisherman I'd never met, and never will, I don't suppose. He seemed to be able to talk to fish. And at least five or six times, I saw him bury his hand in the water. And he put his hand in the water perhaps for ten, fifteen minutes, and the fish would come and eat out of his hand. And he used to tickle them. But he never caught them. He didn't try to. He just let them come into his hand, and they seemed to eat out of his hand. But you see, you can't imagine a band of fishermen getting the fish together to tickle them, and talk about them, and philosophize about them, and, you know, and have a committee to talk about fishing. They go out to fish. They go out on business. There's something to be done. Tonight, every time we go out, we're going out fishing, fishing, fishing. This is no pleasure trip. And I suggest to you that our Lord Jesus wants to get this across. I'm calling you not to philosophize, not to come aside into an unreal setting where we're going to be purely in the realm of thought or meditation. I've got something active for you to do. You're going to get involved, still. And I'm going to set you on—into a business of catching men, of fishing men. Oh, there's much more to be said about that, but let me add this. Whatever continuity there is, there is a sense of promotion here. Now, fish, as we've seen, was a staple diet in the country, and it was very necessary, very important that there should be those who would catch fish. But it's a long way from catching fish to catching man. Man made after God's own image. You know, that's only half the wonder of it. Man was not only made after God's own image, man was made for God and by God. And the call is to catch men. Man is the chiefest of God's creatures and the sublimest. And his capacities are infinitely great than any of the other creatures. He is made after God's own image. He's the jewel of all creation. And he says, in effect, look, look, look, fellas, he says, you've been going out onto the Sea of Galilee and you've been catching fish. Now, he says, I want to make you capable of bringing men in, for me and for my Father. Catching men. And the training is very simple. Perhaps the simplicity of it evades us when we have familiarized ourselves with it, with these words. But here it is, says our Lord Jesus, just follow me. Just follow me. Well, why, following him. Now that means, as far as they were concerned, please, let's get this, as far as they were concerned, it meant leaving the boats, leaving their parents, leaving their brothers and sisters if they had any, leaving the hired servants, leaving everything behind, and walking physically with him wherever he went. Listening with these ears intently to what he said. Watching him, looking at him, taking in all the lessons, following him. Binding themselves to him so that they don't miss anything he's got to say and he's got to teach them. Follow me, he says, and I will make you to become. In other words, my friends, let's get it. He is the master fisherman. There was no one like him. He is the supreme fisherman. And what he's telling them is, look, is this, just you come with me, and just watch, and just follow, so that I may impart to you something of my genius, and something of my heart, and something of my mind, and something of myself that you may become in turn something akin to what by my Father's will I am. Now I find something very challenging here. As you see, this is precisely, this is precisely the condition of discipleship. Now forget now about fishing men, forget about becoming missionaries, forget about saving the lost. This is exactly the condition of being a Christian, following Jesus. Now, not for us in the twentieth century necessarily to leave friends and family and home and so forth, and go out on a will-o'-the-wisp sort of quest, but it's to follow his teaching, and it's to be sensitive to his spirit that he leads us according to the word, in the way of his will. And these are the terms of discipleship. Do you see what Jesus is saying here? You can't be a proper disciple without becoming a fisher of men. They're one and the same thing. Follow me, that's all I ask you, and if you follow me, you'll become a fisher of men, as sure as you follow me, I will make you to become. You see, this is where I find it hurting. It means this, you see, if I'm not a fisher of men, I can hardly be following. You see, that's where the shoe pinches. Dare I ask, dare I ask a congregation like this on a Lord's Day morning, when last did you throw out a net for Jesus Christ? You know, are there really Christian people here of longstanding who have never tried to lead another person to the feet of Jesus? And you say you're following him? Now please, withdraw that. You can't be. Or you make him a liar. Or you make him a liar. He says, follow me, and I will make you to become. You say you're following? And you say you're not involved, and you've never tried, and you've never thrown the net out for him? My friend, I want to tell you quite sincerely, there must be some misunderstanding somewhere. Somewhere. Now come with me then, and just let us say a word. You know, the clock is especially fast again this morning. Just one word in closing about the price of fulfillment, and I just want to put it like this. Come after me, he says, follow me, and I will make you to become. Now just these two thoughts, I must just extract them. One, if Jesus is going to have these people exclusively his property and his servants, that by day and by night they're available for him to send them out on a fishing escapade, to catch fish. If they're to be exclusively his, then they've got to forsake those boats, those nets, those friends, the family, and what not. There's got to be a forsaking. Now, it seems to me that in looking at this text against the larger background of the New Testament, it is right to say that every Christian man and woman, every disciple of Jesus Christ is called to be a fisher of men. Everyone. That's involved in what we've said already. But here, you see, in calling these people, there was something beyond that. You and I may be fishermen when we're involved in our ordinary everyday tasks in the office, in the school, in the college, wherever we are, we can be that. And there are many people in Knox who are doing that. Thanks be to God for that. And in every church. Thank you. Thanks be to God for them. And they're winning souls where they are. They're casting out the nets. But that's not what we've got here. Our Lord, you see, works on a twofold principle. One, there are some that he calls to be involved in his business day and night, week in, week out. And they leave their salaried employments, and they place themselves at his disposal so that they shall be available and shall be mobile. Availability and mobility are the two words. Day and night. They forget their salaries and they forget the things of this world for a moment, and they go right out and they say, Lord, okay, I'm leaving it all. I'm yours. Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to say? What have you got for me to do? Anywhere, anytime. That's what we've got here. Jesus Christ could not build his church, may I say so reverently, without having at his disposal a handful of men who would say, anywhere, anytime, what you say. That's the way he chose to build his church. And he's telling these people, in order, in order for me to fulfill my purpose and my plan, I need you utterly at my disposal. Other people can fish men occasionally where they are, but I need you as—I hesitate to say full time, because I know people who are in business. And one might almost have to say that their full time is used for God, even though they're involved with secular things. I guess the thing to stress here is this. It's totally involved in the one business of fishing men. Now, my friend, I believe that the Lord needs some of us, and maybe some of us here this morning, for this precise task. Perhaps for the majority of us it's a question of being fishers of men where we are at the moment. Being available in the office, in the school, on the street, wherever we are, whatever our business is, being available and mobile to move for him, so that he can place us anywhere at his will. Not necessarily where the salary is best, but where he wants us, where he's got fish, where he's got souls for whom he's died, and he wants to get them in, and he wants to place us there, and we're mobile, we're movable. A lovely house in which we live doesn't hold us here like glue, because God calls me. Therefore move and break up the nest and go. Availability and mobility. Don't you know there are some of us that he wants to leave the boats, and leave the home, and mom and dad, and Mary and Rachel, and Jim and Andrew, and leave them behind and say, Lord, all right, I'll follow you in the way. And I want you to ask that question this morning, my friend. Could it be you? You know there is a knowledge of God and an experience of his grace which is only possible when we're following him. I don't know whether I've ever said this before, but I'll mention it again anyway. I remember being tremendously helped and at the same time challenged. Sometime after the last war I heard an officer, last Great War, World War, I heard an officer say how he had been sent abroad. And when he got his orders to report in such-and-such a place, he had a very important family business to attend to. He asked for compassionate leave to deal with the business at home. It was granted. He had two weeks' special leave to deal with this urgent domestic business. But the forms that he had to have in order to deal with this business never arrived. And he waited for the extra two weeks all in vain, and finally he just had to go abroad to the place where he was posted. Lo and behold, when he arrived there, there were the forms and the things he needed at home to put things right. And he really was angry, and he went to his commanding officer and he said, you know, this is absolutely wretched. I had two weeks' special leave in order to put things right. I needed these documents, and I waited for two whole weeks for them to come, and they didn't come, and now they've been posted from England out here. The commanding officer said to him, my dear friend, he says, haven't you learned the simple lesson that in headquarters they forward all the communications to the place where you've been posted? And you know, the thing came through to me. There is a word of God. There is a communication from heaven that I will not hear in Knox if I am meant to be in Buenos Aires. There is a word of God and a grace of God that you cannot hear in the most evangelical setup. If you are meant to be in India, communications are sent to the place where you've been posted. If some of you young people today are sensing that things are a little bit dead, and the voice of God is not clear, and the promises of the New Testament are not being fulfilled in your life, may I ask the question, could it be that you're not where you've been posted? There must be a forsaking, and there must be a following. This is the way the church has been built, by men willing to forsake and willing to follow. I've been amazed as I've been reading a little bit of church history these last few weeks, here and there, and I've been amazed, and it's a never learned before, that some of the New Testament Christians and post-New Testament Christians were men who were so utterly available for the Lord that they would at a moment's notice, if they believed it was the Lord's will, they would go anywhere, literally anywhere. I was reading, for example, of people like Irenaeus, a great scholar of the Christian church, moving all around the world, waiting here for the Lord's command, where am I to go? You know, this almost seems strange to us, but he was a man who went literally around the world for God. He was available, and he was mobile. He was not so attached to anything at the base that he couldn't be moved around where God wanted him to be. You get a top intellectual like Pantanus leaving the Christian University of Alexandria, of which he was the head, and going off to spread the gospel to the Indians. People told him it was a waste of a man with all his massive gifts, leaving the university as what we would call its principle. But he moves, and he's going, and he's going to do it, because you see, he was available for his Lord, and I could go on, the list is great, following on, following on. Said William James, the great use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it. True, and yet our Lord goes further. You and I are summoned to follow him in order to become fishers of men, that men may be saved from their damning element, from the night of Galilee of the nations, or the night that is brought upon our western world by the new barbarianism of the twentieth century, saved out of the darkness and the night of our situation and circumstance into the light of an eternal day. Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. Come after me and I will make you to become fishers of men. Not for me to say who has to leave everything and become one of the smaller band of people who are day and night every season of the year available for him and are not attached, not bound to anything else. It's not for me to say, but he has a word to say about it. And I believe, and will you pray with me, that today he will communicate to any of us here if he wants us to be on the move for him. But to all of us, as perhaps we've never got the message before, that the day requires us all to be fishers of men. To God's glory and his praise. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, your dwelling place, hear us. Hear us with gratitude that we have such a passage as this and kindred passages in the gospels to lead us, enunciating principles that abide for all time, even though some of the details are necessarily historically dated. We pray that we may be able to extricate those principles and apply them to ourselves and really to get going. Grant that this church may have as many members as there are on the books, each holding the net and no one letting the net fall so that there is an escape for the fish. Oh Lord, we pray that as a company of people united together in our dedication to yourself, we may be as one. And that none of those who come into the net of this congregation may be lost for the kingdom of our Lord. That old and young alike may be one, completely one, eternally one, securely one for Jesus Christ. To that end, take us afresh. Solemnize us to the task and yet remind us that the resources are not ours but are in the promises which you have given. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.