Luke 5:8

Luke 5:8

It is easy to trace the way by which Peter's thoughts had travelled to this conclusion. The miracle such a thing as had never been seen before on those familiar waters had taken a wonderful hold upon the fisherman's mind. His veneration for the mighty Stranger who had done it at once rose to the highest. From the contemplation of the wonderworker the eyes of his mind, as they are wont, turned, and in a moment turned in upon himself, and the contrast became intolerable. He was softened at the moment that he was convinced, and upon his melted heart's conscience he wrote the large, deep characters of sin.

I. The greatest and surest test of every man's state before God is this, "What is sin?" How does he feel to sin? In a child, I always notice, that quick perception of sin in little things, and a keen distress at it, is the most certain index of early piety. And, as it is in childhood, so it is in the Christian's after-life, which is childhood over again; the measure of the saint is always the depth of his convictions.

II. Until the spiritual eye has been fully opened, the sense of the distance which there is, and which the natural mind feels there ought to be, between God and the sinner, is ever strong in thoughtful, serious, and really converted persons. In one this feeling becomes despair. The soul dares not to admit the thought that it could ever be received into the love of God. The dread of the sin of presumption from which it is the farthest off is ever haunting it. (2) In another man this feeling destroys all present sense of God's mercy. A real deprecation of sin, acting unscripturally, leads to a wrong perception of the entire spirit of the Gospel. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."

III. It is an unspeakable comfort to know the awful prayer that Peter made in ignorance was never answered. Christ did not depart from him. Thank God, He knows when to refuse a prayer. He never leaves those who are only ignorant. On the contrary, Christ instantly gave Peter something more than forgiveness. He gave the employment to him which ensured his pardon: "Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men." Those who have ever feared lest they have lost the love of one whose love they most prized, will best understand the delicacy and the beauty of this way of treating a discouraged disciple.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 209.

Consider what it was that could lead St. Peter to wish the Lord to go away and depart from him; what he could mean, and what he could be feeling, that should make him shrink from Christ, and actually, on his knees, beg Him to go away and leave him, at the very moment when He had shown so signal a proof of His Divine power and goodness.

I. St. Peter's words in the text were the natural exclamation of wonder; and with wonder a natural shrinking back from One so good, so holy, so powerful, and so Divine. 1 think Peter felt as though he said: "Thou art too good, too great for me to be near Thee. Let me be Thy disciple farther off. Do not come to me; I am not good enough for Thy near company. Depart from me. I shrink, in uneasiness and distress of mind, from Thy closer presence." I believe this to be the true account of St. Peter's meaning, and of the feeling with which he spoke; and if it is so, it seems to me one which is very common. Men, conscious of sin, conscious of weakness, and not very much in earnest, do shrink from God in this sort of way. It is possible that their shrinking may seem to themselves like modesty and humility; but it is a shrinking away from God, and it may be extremely serious in its consequences. In its extremest form it is none other than the same thing which the poor creatures, possessed with devils in the country of the Gergesenes, cried out, "What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?"

II. But mark the difference in these two cases. In the one, a man shrinks altogether away from God, flies from Him, will not believe His love; is sure that he is quite hopelessly lost and ruined, falls into despair and that terrible recklessness of unclean living which is the characteristic of despair. And so he falls into complete and hopeless rebellion, and his end is utter loss and death. In the other case, a man, penetrated with the sense of his unworthiness and sin, also shrinks, or at least is tempted to shrink, away from God; he feels disposed to cry, with St. Peter, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." But he knows that he must not yield to such a temptation. He soon recalls and repents of his faithless cry. He learns by grace to trust his Saviour's love. He learns to repent of the yielding, such as it was, to the temptation of shrinking away. There may have been some likeness in the original feeling of the two, but the one has ended in despair, and the other in the high estate of a favoured apostle, one of the chief seats in the everlasting kingdom of glory.

G. Moberly, Parochial Sermons,p. 180.

References: Luke 5:8. G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends,p. 239; Bishop Lightfoot, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 177; J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life,p. 147; F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons,p. 125; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College,p. 9. Luke 5:10. Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 54.