Here is a parallel miracle to that in Luke 5:4, as though Christ is saying to them, ‘Do you remember at the very beginning, when I brought in that great catch and the nets broke and two boats almost began to sink? You realised my majesty and my power and my holiness and I called you to become fishers of men and you responded and you became at that point my full-time devoted disciples.’ What does this parallel miracle teach? It reminds them, ‘You will be fishers of men. What I have done now with the fish, I am going to do through you with the harvesting of human souls. But there are some things you have to learn. Just as on the other occasion, you have toiled all night and you have caught nothing in your own wisdom and in your own skill … but as soon as I gave the word, you caught the fish. That is what it is going to be like with the harvest of souls. You won’t do it in your own ability or strength. You just obey me. I say, Let down the net on the right and the catch is there. Do it the way I decree and I command and I will give the increase and the souls.
Another lesson in this event is the largeness of the fish. By the grace of God we catch very large fish. Does that mean that emperors or kings or generals are converted? No, said the old commentators, great sinners, great unbelievers. The most wayward of people. They are the greatest catches. Suddenly there is somebody that comes to the Lord, the biggest atheist you could imagine, the most difficult case, the hardest rebel, the person we would least imagine ever succumbing to the message of Christ. God works in the heart, and we did so little. We proclaimed Christ or we witnessed to that person, and then there was that mighty work of grace. In fact most of the fish, when it comes to spiritual catches, are great fish. We are all great sinners in some way or the other, and that's the nature of the miracle. We see wonderful works of God in every congregation, every church of Christ. And we get that immense encouragement.
Do you know what the best-selling books are at the moment in the Christian world? It’s very sad to say this – top of the charts, Christian books, miles ahead of all the others, going into millions, their sale. They come from one or two authors mainly. They are what we call ‘how to’ books – ‘How to save souls’; ‘How to grow the church’; ‘How to turn the church into a massive one’ and so on. And these series of books are giving you techniques and methods. The authors are not listening to the Lord. This miracle is to tell you that you cannot do anything with your own methods and your own schemes and your own ingenuity. Just obey Christ. What is the instruction of the Lord? Preach the Word, witness the Word, call upon him in prayer, nothing else. Don’t compromise with the world, don’t devise techniques and methods. Now, if you want to write books to help people in witness, write books giving advice to people from the Scripture, expounding the Scripture.
This time the net did not break. What a lesson! As you bring in human souls, your net, as it were, will not break, nor will your ship sink because those who are truly saved, will be saved for all eternity. They won’t disappear through a gaping hole in the net. Those who Christ saves through the preaching of the Word are secure for ever. And there will always be a Church. The net will not break in this sense either. If this church stops preaching the Gospel and believing in the Word of God and this alone, then the net will break and in due course this church will become corrupt, even liberal, perhaps, and fade out and disappear, like so many. But while we maintain the Gospel and the Word of God and the doctrines of the faith, it will not break. We will never need to change the message, we will never need to change the approach. It will always hold whatever God intends. So we keep what God has given to us.