[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters!
A sublimely beautiful picture is revealed to us in the wake of the reading of the Scripture: on the shores of the beautiful Lake of Galilee, Jesus is standing alone, perhaps praying, perhaps admiring the beauty of the landscape, perhaps meditating. Suddenly he notices that a great crowd is standing around him, people who have followed him in crowds from all directions, and who have stopped respectfully on the rising bank, waiting for Jesus to speak.
Then Jesus stepped into a small fishing boat that had been moored there, and, sitting in the small boat on the smooth surface of the lake, taught the crowds on the shore. Oh, what an uplifting moment, what an extraordinary feast in the drudgery of everyday life for people who longed for the Word to sit down around Christ and refresh their weary souls in the healing bath of His divine teachings!
In fact, this beautiful scene is repeated every time a congregation fills a church and settles down around the Word from the pulpit to listen to Christ speak. The sublime scene at the Lake of Galilee is repeated in every service, and in our congregation it was repeated most recently every evening for a week.
Oh, how good it was to be quiet in the noise of everyday life, to settle down here in the church around Jesus and to refresh ourselves in the spiritual bath that His Word has prepared for us. Have we not already felt, my brothers and sisters, when we hear a real preaching of the Word, that is, when we sit down at the feet of Jesus, that yes, this is what we need, what our souls have longed for, what is good for our souls, like balm for a wound, like cold water for a fevered lip.
It is generally true to say today that there is almost a thirst in souls for the Word, that men are longing for serious spiritual nourishment. Our churches are filled in proportionably enough, evangelistic evenings are held all over the country before large audiences - and yet, brethren, all this great zeal has so little tangible result.
There is hardly any serious spiritual awakening to be seen anywhere, hardly any real converts to be found, hardly any real salvation of life. What could be the reason for this?
It is that the churches full of people at a service or evangelisation are very much like the crowds that surrounded Jesus' boat, according to our basic story: after listening to Jesus with great devotion, they dispersed, were for a while still under the influence of what they had heard, and then, so to speak, recovered from the effect.
That's what happens to us in a service, even more so in a week-long evangelization like the one we had here last week, that we are blessed, spiritually refreshed, softened, delighted in the majestic riches and grace of God - and then we disperse: our souls begin to cool again, begin to harden again, the many other influences begin to balance and counterbalance the influences of Christ, and we are back where we were!
This story shows us that it is not enough for us to sit down as a group at the feet of Christ and listen to His word - do not misunderstand, this is also a great blessing - but Christ has much more blessing in store for us.
The crowd on the beach just listened to Jesus and then left. But Peter, and those in the boat with him, experienced the power of Christ in a very tangible way, and were almost overwhelmed by the blessing of God.
For what happened was that, at Jesus' command, they went in, cast their nets, and caught an unprecedented amount of fish, so that their nets broke, and they had to call for help, and they had to call for the other boat to help them carry away God's abundant blessing.
Behold, this is what Jesus wants for everyone. He wants his life to be a life full of blessings. That's the kind of God-rich life the apostle Paul had, he writes to Timothy, when he says, "Now the grace of our Lord has abounded exceedingly through faith and love in Christ Jesus." 1Tim1,14 God overflows his children with his goodness, with his love, with all his blessings, beyond expectation, beyond understanding.
God wants you to experience the wonder of having your prayers answered not just once in a while, but each time you pray, you will have great riches in experiencing the God who answers prayer.
God does not want you to be always burdened by guilt, by repentance for all your failed good intentions, but to be full of triumphs over sin, to be rich in the experience of Christ triumphing over sin.
God wants you to experience not just the occasional touch of His helping hand in your life, but a life filled with miracles and solutions that testify to the power and love of God.
God so wants to fill your life with the evidence of His grace and love, with precious faith experiences, that you will be overwhelmed by the abundance of His blessings, that you will not be able to bear it alone, but will call on others.
We usually turn to others for help when we are weak, fallen, miserable - but there is also a state of abundance when we can no longer bear it alone, when we can no longer fit, when our net is torn beneath us: we must share it with others.
Have you ever had an experience, my Brother, an experience of God's blessing so powerful that you felt you could not contain it, that it filled your soul so much that it poured out of you, that you had to tell others, that you had to share it with others? Well, that's how God wants to bless you every day. He wants to fill your hands with His riches.
Have you ever experienced this abundant richness of God's grace? It's very different, it's much more than simply sitting at the feet of Jesus, delighting in His teaching, thirsting with a thirsty soul to take in His majestic teaching, His words. It means to experience the truth of all that Christ speaks, to live all that He says, to truly receive and expand in all that He promises.
So, my brother, do not just stand on the shore of the kingdom of God and listen to the beautiful words from there, but row with Jesus into the deep, reach the deep waters of our Christian Reformed faith, and then you will experience the true riches of the real, divine power of Christ!
Jesus said to Peter, "Row to the deep! And Jesus is now saying to you, to me, "Row to the deep!
Has anyone ever experienced the difference between getting to know a person superficially and getting to know a person thoroughly? It often happens that we grow to like, value and appreciate a person more and more after meeting him or her several times.
It is possible to make a passing acquaintance with Jesus. In fact, all acquaintanceship with Christ begins in this way - but it is a great pity if one sticks with it and never wants to know Him better. A sermon or an evangelisation can do no more than introduce a man to Jesus. If someone then wants to go further than an introduction, they have to paddle the deep end themselves.
If there are awakened souls here, if there are those who have already been touched by the call of Christ: for them in particular the command is now: row to the deep! To have your life filled with the blessings of God you have experienced, you must paddle to the deep.
Take out your Bible every day and study it, but not as superficially and hastily as you may have done so far, but row deep, delve deeper, read it for yourself, immerse yourself in it! Many people read the Bible, but they do not benefit from it because they rush through it, because for them reading the Bible is like some external religious formality that they have to go through every day.
Well, then, every time you open your Bible, let Jesus' exhortation ring in your ears: paddle deep! The first time you read the Word, it may say nothing, but by the third, or fifth, or sixth reading, the riches of God open up, and God rewards you for your efforts with results you could never have hoped for.
The study of Scripture is always accompanied by prayer. In the Bible God speaks to you, in prayer you answer Him. Here too, let us be guided by the same motto as before: whenever we fold our hands in prayer, let Jesus' exhortation ring in our ears: paddle to the deep! Immerse yourself in prayer as Jesus did, who often stayed up all night praying - immerse yourself in prayer!
Examine, my Brother, your own prayer life, have you sufficiently penetrated the depths of prayer's possibilities, or is your prayer still as shallow a one-way stumbling as it used to be?
Jesus says to Peter, "Row to the deep and cast your nets to catch." It's like he's saying: God's blessing awaits you beyond all hope, but first row to the deep, and there you will find the blessing.
Why are we so spiritually anaemic, why are we ignorant of the great beauties of the kingdom of God, why are we ignorant of the riches of God's grace? It is because our Bible reading and prayer life is terribly superficial.
Yet, my brothers and sisters, the greatest performance in the world cannot make up for the rich blessings of the minutes and hours that God spends alone with one man. As Jesus said: in secret, with your door shut, locked away in your inner room, immersed in solitary prayer and Bible study, paddling deep and casting nets to catch: these are the times when a person can receive the most blessings from God.
No Bible study, no worship, no evangelism can replace this - the command is not for the church, but for the individual, for you and me: paddle deep! If you do not want, my Brother, either the evangelisation or the blessing of a service to be wiped out of your life after a while: take Jesus' command and row into the deep! Awakening, conversion, is only the beginning, go on, go on, into the kingdom of God.
And there is one more thing you must do. If you are truly awakened, if you are truly converted, if you are truly following in the footsteps of Christ: then your relationship with other people must also be radically changed.
The story goes that Jesus says to Peter, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will fish for people." For a man to remain close to God, it is absolutely necessary that he should be constantly fishing for other human souls. The Christ-follower is interested in all other men, and all other men without exception, for one reason only: that he must win that other man to Christ at all costs.
Look upon men as swimming like fishes, floundering in the sea of life's miseries, and it is up to you, the fisherman, to catch these men in the net of Christ. If you don't know how to start, turn to the church, she will help you, give you an opportunity to serve.
Everyone can find a place here in the church where they can best manage the net of Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, this scene is recorded of Jesus saying to the fishermen in the boat, "I am going to make you fish for people." Mt 4,19 So trust in Jesus, and he will make you fish for people.
Once Peter and John, according to the ancient tradition, on Mount Tabor, witnessed the miraculous transfiguration of Jesus: the Saviour stood before them in all his divine power and glory. The two apostles were stunned by the heavenly light, they forgot the earth, and asked Jesus to let them stay here for ever, so that they would not have to return to an earth full of misery from this beautiful place of heavenly peace and splendour.
Yet Jesus came down with them into the valley and continued with them in their daily work. In our lives, too, there are those rapturous moments when it is a very painful thing to descend from the glowing heights of festive emotions into the shadowy valley of ordinary work. But we have to do it, because our lives are not about rapture, they are about work.
But if you want the effect of the rapturous, celebratory moments to linger and even intensify in the valley of the working day, then take Jesus' advice: paddle into the deep and fish for His glory! That is how you will share in the true blessing of God, in a way that you cannot bear in yourself, you must share with others.
So paddle out into the deep and start fishing people for life!
Amen.
Date: 9 November 1941.