The first incident is that of Simon Peter. The Lord takes the loan of his boat and preaches out of it. Then He tells Simon to launch out into the deep, and let down his nets for a draft. Simon responds that they had toiled all night and taken nothing, but at His word he would let clown the net. This done, a great multitude of fishes was enclosed so that the net brake, and the ships began to sink.
What effect had this upon Simon? Surely the Divine character of the Person in whose presence he found himself must have been forced upon him with overwhelming power. Did he think of Psa. 8, where the Son of man has power over "the fish of the sea"? (See ver. 8).
NOTE.-It is not a little remarkable that when the times of the Gentiles come in, and Nebuchadnezzar-the head of gold-has power given to him, that power included the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens, but not the fish of the sea. Power over "the fish of the sea" is alone given to the Son of man. In the gospels the number of incidents in connection with the fishes of the sea is striking, and intended to clearly indicate who the Son of man was.
At any rate, he found himself consciously in the presence of a Divine Person, and he found himself utterly unsuited to that presence. Have you ever experienced this? Have you ever been in the Divine Presence, and there learned yourself? To the natural man it is an awful place. When God spoke in the vision of the ladder to Jacob, that guilty sinner cried out on awaking, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Yet this was Jacob's Bethel. Will a sinner, as a sinner, ever be happy in God's presence? Nay, heaven would be to such more intolerable than hell.
Simon Peter felt all this, and cried out, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." It is here more the conviction of his state than of his action, for he says, "I am a sinful man, O Lord." He was discovered in the secret springs of his being.
Yet in this exposure Simon was attracted, which is ever the case when the person is the subject of a divine work, and not merely convicted by the natural conscience, which leaves the will and affection untouched. This is illustrated by the difference in conduct between Simon in this incident and the Pharisees in John 8.
They found a woman in the very act of adultery, and brought her to the Lord. In this they were influenced not so much by a burning zeal for righteousness, but rather by an intense desire to oppose the Lord. And this is ever the true attitude of religiousness of the flesh towards Him. How could the exponent of grace maintain the law? they thought. Unrighteous grace, we know, is no real grace at all.
The Lord replied to them, "He that is Without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her;" in other words He indicated that-the executor of the law must be himself free from its curse. Alas! they were exposed, but, unlike Peter, not attracted. The light was too powerful. Their faulty characters could only be maintained in the darkness. Bent upon maintaining them, they went out. In other words, they took upon themselves the responsibility of departing from the light, from Christ; whereas Peter, truly exposed, and in a different and deeper way than the Pharisees, for no confession escaped their lips, put upon the Lord the responsibility of departing, for he said, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Blessed be His name, He never turns away from need, and so it is here.
Yet such was the attraction with Simon as with James and John, his partners, that when they got to land, they forsook all and followed Him.
In the next incident we get the need met.