The Penn's Grove record., 1891-05-22
REV. DIR. TALL AGE.
THE BROOKE DIvINEs sun
DAY sRMoN.
suDtSct' end the Nets.'

D.
TEXT: flames the SON of Zebcdee. and
John his brother, in "a ship ioiH Zebeiee
their father, mendtag their ncts."-Mat-
thew w., 81.
~ 20 a fishing,'' cried Simon Peter to his
comrades, and { 8 most of the apostles had
hands hard from fishing tackle. The fish
cries of the world have Always attracted
attention. In the Third century the queen
of Egypt had for pin money four hundred
and seventy thousand dollars, received from
the fisheries Of Lake Moeris. And if the
time should ever come when the immensely
of the wor IDS population could not ID fed
by the vegetables and meats of the land, tue
sea has an amount of animal life tina would
feed all the populations of tho earth, anI
fatten them with a food that by its phos-
phorus would make a generation brainy and
intellectual beyond anything that the world
has ever imagined. My text takes us among
the Galilean fishermen. One day, Waiter
Scott, while hunting in al old drawer,
found among some old fishing tackle the
manuscript Of his immortal book "Waver-
ley" which he had put W a there as of no
worth, and who knows but that to-day we
may find some unknown wealth Of thought
while looking at the fishing tackle in the
text
1t is not a good day for fishing, and thres
men are in the boat repairing the broken
fishing nets. If you are fishing with a hook
and line and the fish will not bite it is a good
time to put the anglers apparatus into better
condition. Perhaps the last fish you hauled
In was so large that something snapped. Or
II you were fishing with a net there was a
mighty fioundering OF the scales, or an ex-
posed nail on the side of the boat which broke
some of the threads and let part or all OF the
c~aptives of the deep escape into theii natural
element. And hardly anything is more pro-
Toking than to nearly land a score or a hun
dred of trophies from the deep and when you
are in the full glee of hauling in the spotted
treasures through some imperfection of the
net they splash back into the wave.
This is too much of a trial of patience for
most fishermen to endure, and many a man
ordinarily correct of speech in sue circiim-
stances comes to an intensity of utterance
unjusti6able. Therefore no good fisherman
considers the time wasted that is spent in
mending his net. Now the Bible again and
again represents Christian workers as fish
ers Of men, and we are all sweeping through
the sea of humanity some kind of a net. In
deed, there have been enough nets out and
enough fishermen busy TO have landed the
whole human race in the kingdom of Co
long before this. What is the matter? The
Gospel is oil right, and it has been a good
time for catching souls for thousands Of
years. Why, then, the f~ailuresi TIL trou-
bic is with the nets, and most OF them need
to be mended. | propose to show you what
is the matter witt most of the nets and how
to mend them. In the text old Zebedee and
his two boys, James and John, were doing a
good thing when they sat in the boat mend
ing their nets.
The trouble with many of our nets is that
the meshes are too large. Ii a fish can get
his gills and half his body through the net
work, he tears and rends ant works his way
out and leaves the place through which he
squirmed a tangle of broken threads. h
Bible weaves faith and works right together,
the law and the Gospel, Righteousness ana
forgiveness. Some of our nets have meshes
80 wide that the sinner floats in and out and
is not at any moment caught for the heavenly
landing. In our desire to make everything
so easy, we relax, we loosen, we widen. WI
let men after they are once i'll the Gospel net
escape into the world and go into i~ndutgences
and swim all aroun | Galilee, from north side
to south side and from eastside to west side,
expecting that they will come bacA again.
We ought to make it easy for them to get
into the kingdom of GOD, and, as far as we
can, make 1t impossible for them to get out.
TIL poor advice nowadays TO many is:
Go and do Just rs you did before you were
captured for God an heaven. The net was
not intended to be any restraint or any
hindrauce. What you did before you were
a Christian, do NOW. Go to all styles Of
amusement, read all the styles of books, ell
gage in all the styles OF behavior as before
you were converted.m And so throus h these
meshes OF permission andlaxity they wriggle
out through this opening and that opening,
tearing the net as they 20, and soon all the
! souls that we expected to Land in heaven be-
fore we now it are back in the deep sea of
the world. Oh, when we go a-iospel fishing
let us make it as easy as possible for souls 10
get in, and as hard as possible to get out.
There should be no rivalry between
Il al,u-atac Each pnQ Hnaa "a work macmillan TO
itself. There should be no rivalry between
ministers. Coz never repeats Himself, and
He never makes two ministers alike, and each
one has q work that no other man i'll the
universe can accomplish. II fishermen are
wise, they will not allow their nets to en-
tangle, or il they accidentally get inter-
twisted, tho work of eXtTlcation should be
kindly and gently conducted What glad
spectacle for men and angels when on our
recent dedication day ministers OF all lie.
nominations stood N this platform and
wished fer each other widest prosperity and
usefulness, but there are cities in this coun.
try where there Is now going on an awtuI
ripping aud rending and tearing OF fishing
nets. Indeed, all over ChristeniOm at TIN.
time there is a great war going on between
fishermen, ministers against ministers.
Now / have noticed a man cannot fish and
fight at the same time. He either neglects
his net or his musket 1t is amazing hos
much time some of the fishermen have Il
look after other fishermen. 1t is more than
/ can do to take care Of my own net. You
see the win is just right, and it is such a
good time for fishing, and the fish are cou'
ing in SO rapidly that / have to keep my eyi
and hand busy. There are about two hun
bred million souls wanting to get into the
kingdom of God, and it will require all thu
nets and all the boats aud all the fishermen
of Christendom to safely land them.
fh ~ n4Ef LIT - GNhn 4
our time in fishing instead of fighting. Blu
il l angrily jerk my net across your net, an |
o jerk your net ansrily across NINE, we
will soon have two broken nets ani no ,iSh.
The French revolution nearly destroyed tho
French fisheries, and ecclesiastical war Is
the worst thing possible while hauling soulS
into the kingdom. L had hoped that the
millennium was about to dawn, bat the lion
is yet too fond of the lamb. My frien Is, l
notice in the text that James, the son OF
Zebedee, and John. his brother, were busy
not mending somebody else's nets but mend-
ing their own nets, and | rather think that
we who are engaged in Christian work in
this latter part of the nineteenth century
will require al, our spare time to mend our
own nets. God help US in the important
dutyl
In this work of reparation we need to put
into the nets more threads of common sense.
When We can present religion as a great
practically We VIII eaten a nunflreu Souls
where now we catch one. Present religion
as an intellectually and we will fail. Out
in the fisheries there are set across the
waters what are called gill nets, andthe fish
put their heads through the meshes and then
cannot withdraw them because they are
caught by the gills. But gill nets cannot be
of any service in religious work. Men are
never caught for the truth by their heads; it
is by the heart or not at all. No argument
ever saved a man, and no keen analysis ever
brought a man into the kingdom OF God.
Heart work, not mead work. Away with
your gill netsl Sympathy, helpfulness, con
ISOLATION, love, are the names OF some OF tine
threads that we need to weave in our Gospel
nets when we are mending them.
Again, in msn1ing our nets we neal also
to put in the threads o; faith and tear out al
the tangled meshes of unbelief. Our WORK Is
successful according to our faith. The mar
who halieves in only hnlf a Bible, or the
Bible in spots, the man who thinks he can
not persuade others: the man who haits
doubling about this aud about that, will be
failure in Christian work. Show ms th'
man who rather thinks that tne garden oil
Eden NAV nave been an alIegory, ani is no.
quite certain but that there may be another
chance after death, and does not know
whether or not the Bible is inspired, ana
tell you that mau for soul saving IS a poo