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Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the
other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the
crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came,
he was there alone. Matthew 14:22-23
The world of Christendom with its thousand-and-one gimmicks for "winning
souls" must not only look strange to the world around it but you
can be sure it looks strangest of all to God. All the effort that goes
into figuring out some new way to "win people to the Lord!"
All the gospel blimps that have been launched! All the money and the organization
and the strain! And when it's done the souls that are caught are caught
all too often into something which is not the kingdom of God at all.
Jesus once said to the scribes and Pharisees, "You traverse sea and
land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte you make
him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." It can almost be
stated as an axiom that when the winning of souls into the kingdom involves
complex machinery, intricate techniques, and gobs of money, the enemy
kingdom is involved in the operation. Jesus always insisted that the harvest
is plentiful...the fish are out there waiting to be drawn. All we have
to do is lower the net!
The catching of souls for the kingdom of God is the easy part. If we cast
the net on the right side of the boat the fish are always drawn. All we
have to do is start proclaiming and living the mercy of God in Jesus among
the people under our noses whom the world has rejected and we quickly
have more fish in our net than we can handle. The problem is not how to
be successful at catching fish. The problem is what to do with success.
What do we do when the fish start coming? When people are drawn to us
and find help and others are drawn and they find help, and life starts
getting busier and busier, more and more complicated, we have reached
a critical stage. The danger is that we get so involved in attending to
our booming fishing operation that we lose touch with the One who sent
us fishing in the first place and who drew the fish into our net.
Now our eyes are on the fishing, the boats, the workers, the opportunities
for expansion. Before we know it what started out as supernatural fishing
in the kingdom of God is now fishing for the kingdom of self. Now it's
our fishing operation. God is still given lip service, but he has long
since been bypassed. This kind of thing has happened again and again in
the history of the Body of Christ on earth and it could happen to us.
It will happen to us unless individually and corporately we give first
priority to staying in touch with the One who sent us. Listen to the passage
that immediately follows the miracle of the fish in Luke 5:
...and Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; henceforth you will
be catching men." And when they had brought their boats to land,
they left everything and followed him. While he was in one of the cities,
there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his
face and besought him, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean."
And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, "I will;
be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged,
him to tell no one; but "go and show yourself to the priest, and
make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded, for a proof to
the people." But so much the more the report went abroad concerning
him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities.
But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed. Luke 5:10b-16
After the miracle of the fish Jesus shows the disciples how people are
caught into the kingdom.
A man is healed. Quickly, without any publicity, a multitude is drawn.
And then, just as the thing begins to boom Jesus withdraws into the wilderness
and prays. Our natural tendency is to take advantage of the building momentum
of interest.... stay on top of it, exploit it, expand it into something
even bigger, institutionalize it, make it permanent. But divine wisdom
is to withdraw and restore our souls in the presence of God, even if we
lose our grip on the multitudes, even if the multitude evaporates.
When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is
a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into
the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They
need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him,
"We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring
them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass;
and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and
blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples
gave them to the crowds. And they all ate, and were satisfied. And they
took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those
who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. And
he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other
side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds,
he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
Matthew 14:15-23
Jesus never sought crowds. Primarily he sought his Father. Secondarily
he sought the lost. As he did these things crowds sought him and Jesus
had compassion on them. But Jesus never let himself become intoxicated
by the power and the glamour of being sought by multitudes. He dismissed
the multitudes, withdrew, and sought his Father in prayer.
If Jesus hadn't given first priority to seeking the Father in prayer,
Son of God though he was, he would soon have had nothing to give the multitudes.
It was of supreme importance to him to stay in touch with the Father.
And to do that Jesus had to withdraw.
Now in those days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists
murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the
daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples
and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word
of God to serve table. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven
men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint
to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry
of the word.
Acts 6:1-4
The corporate life of the Body of Christ was threatened by the hassles
that always come with increasing numbers. Notice that the organizing and
structuring that was done that day was not so they could "win more
souls" rather it was so that the word of God and prayer would not
be engulfed by the pressing needs that had to be attended to. From all
this we can see that just as surely as we need to get out and mingle with
the multitudes with that word he has put in our hearts and on our tongues,
we also need to withdraw. If we learn from our Lord how to repeatedly
withdraw into the presence of God, our going out will always be fresh.
If we don't learn how to withdraw we'll never survive.
First, there is the withdrawal of the believer into the presence of God
This is not only a necessity, it a our increasing pleasure. It's walking
into peace. It's being bathed in forgiveness, being renewed. It keeps
our active life dwelling in the Sabbath rest of God. Many of us still
have a very limited idea what this daily withdrawal into the presence
of God can be. We see it as a duty as a time of semi-boredom as we plod
through chapters of scripture. And semi-drudgery as we try to offer up
prayers and intercessions .... remembering those same names before God
day after day. But the more we do it, even when we're weary, even when
we have headaches and backaches, we find that this time alone with God
is like an oasis of sanity in a desert of the absurd. How will we ever
face the clamor and the confusion and the heartbreak and the blatant sin
which come in on us like a flood everyday unless we get that inner renewal,
which occurs only in the presence of God, on the other side of the veil
torn apart for us by the Lamb?
Second, there is the withdrawal of the believers into that foretaste of
heaven which is corporate worship.
The weekly gatherings of believers to worship and break bread may seem
rather tame and uneventful. But when we finally arrive at the end of the
journey and enter into the courts of glory we will find that these gatherings
were closer to the worship of heaven than we ever dreamed, and we will
wonder how we could have been so stiff-necked and hard-headed not to really
put our hearts into it.
"Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,
we laud and magnify thy glorious name evermore praising thee and saying.....
When we come together to worship we're not just "coming to church."
We're coming to the city of the living God.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and
to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a
judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood
that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.
Hebrews 12:22-24
We eat at his table. We make ourselves one with his broken body and his
shed blood.
The Lord has sent us out to fish, and to our amazement we are finding,
as brothers and sisters all over the world are finding, that when we lower
the net he draws the fish. Our hands are full, and getting busier. The
multitudes are increasing. But while the fishing is unbelievably good
as God-thirsty souls are finding their way to us everywhere we go, it's
essential that we stay in touch with the source of our life. No need that
cries out to us can be allowed to take precedence over our own need of
God. The busier we get and the more complex our life becomes, the more
urgent is the need to keep our relationship with Jesus simple and clear.
The source of our life is not the heady wine of "success" as
we go out there fishing. The source of our life is the cross of Jesus.
We can survive without the glamour of success, but we cannot survive without
the fellowship of Jesus' cross. And our goal as fishers of men and women
is not greater and greater numbers, but a cross where we lay our lives
down along side of his.
If we stay in touch with Jesus Christ and him crucified we will bear much
fruit. Souls will be drawn into the kingdom in ways and with an abundance
that will stagger our minds. And we will come at last to the place where
we will be able to lay down our lives with joy at the feet of our Master.
