John 21:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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John 21:6

Comments

‘He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship’, but they were experienced fishermen. Are they likely to have taken an instruction from someone a hundred yards away or more on the shore? Surely they would have known better. Well, probably they still did not know the Saviour’s voice, but nevertheless there was something so helpful, so kindly and yet so authoritative in the way he expressed it that those exhausted fishermen found themselves meekly complying with his instructions. Previously, at the very beginning of the ministry of Christ, Peter had said, ‘Master, we have toiled all night and have caught nothing. We know what we are doing, we are experienced at this. Nevertheless, you ask us and we’ll let down the net.’ There is nothing of that now. Immediately the stranger on the shore calls out to them, they comply. Of course, it would be nonsense to say that from where Christ was standing, he could see somehow that there were fish on that side of the vessel. No, this was the Son of God and it was his divine direction. But don’t you think that there is an inkling now that it is the Lord coming into their minds? We are not actually told this, but why else should they comply and obey without any hesitation, without any complaint? And they do so and there is this miraculous shoal of fishes.

Application

We have to follow Christ’s instruction. The instructions were very precise and very simple – lower the nets on such and such a side of the ship and you shall find. And that is a lesson forever – follow the instructions of the Lord. It is by witness and the preaching of the Word that souls are saved, not by drama, not by gimmicks, not by fictional, well-intended but fictional, films and tear-jerkers and all this type of thing. It is the proclamation of the Gospel, it is the methods of the Lord. Let down to the net according to his instructions.

Gospel work does involve effort. We know churches that do not do a thing to win souls, and yet they do pray for revival and they do pray for conversion. But you have to do more than just pray. They actually had to put the net down, and they had to haul it in again, and in the winning of souls there is effort, there is something for us to do. The power is of the Lord, the blessing is of the Lord, the instruction is of the Lord. But it is not only prayer; it is prayer, but it is expending the effort, going out in the contact work and the visits and teaching the Sunday school children and rounding them up and bringing in the people and declaring God’s Word to them and witnessing in place of business and study.

Another lesson is that they had to work together, and working together is a great thing in Gospel work. So it is always the case. You think of the story of the great missionary, William Carey. For his first seven years of his work in India he seemed to work alone, but he was learning the language and preparing literature and working for his living and he was witnessing too. But as soon as the work started in earnest, God put it into the hearts of others to set sail and to join him, and there was the Serampore Trio of Joshua Marshman, and Ward and Carey, and then others. If you are a highly individualistic believer and you do witness for the Lord, but you do not do anything with connection with the church, you are missing out on one of the instructions because we are meant to work together, and that is important and it is in the great resurrection lesson.

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John 21:6 Commentary and Bible Study