It must have been an incredible sermon!
I imagine the fishermen, tired from toiling all night and catching nothing, now trying to clean up and put away their nets and forget about their poor results.
Along comes a crowd. The man they are following asks the fishermen if he can use their boat. If they cast off a little ways from land, he can speak from the boat to the people on the shore, and the water will naturally amplify his sermon.
Probably with nothing better to do, they agree.
As is often true of the Holy Scriptures, there is a lot that we do not know about this occasion. In Luke chapter 5, between verses 3 and 4, what did Jesus teach? How did it make the hearers feel inside their hearts?
It must have had a great impact though on Simon, James, and John. Jesus asks them to let down their nets. The nets that they have just been toiling to clean up and put away. All their hard work will be undone if they do as asked. Simon explains that they had a bad night of fishing, and now we have cleaned up and are ready to go home, “nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.” If You say so, we’ll trust You and do it.
It makes me wonder what had they witnessed and heard to have that level of trust in this Man?
They let down their nets, and they brought in the biggest catch of anyone’s recent memory.
Simon then was firmly convinced in Jesus’s power, and declared that he was not worthy of His miracle or His presence. “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
Jesus knew better.
He called them, then and there, to leave their profession, and follow Him.
Without hesitation, they said goodbye to their James and John’s father, leaving him and the hired servants to run the fishing business.
So again I wonder, what was said in that sermon?
See Luke 5:1-11; Matthew 4:18-22; and Mark 1:16-20