Fish For Men in the Right Area with the Right Equipment!
Well, praise Jesus today everyone. I wanted to make just a short
message today about something that's important in the Christian culture and
that is the way we fish for men. See Jesus calls us to fish for men. When he
called his first disciples he used that play on words. Instead of just fishing,
going about our worldly business, we also need to fish for men, calling them
into the kingdom of God so that they can be led by the Lord. But the way that
the worldly church, that is the Babylon church, has taken these words is to
fish for people to get them into their communities, into their organizations
and pay tithe and tribute to them. So they have all of these devices to get
people into church and mostly it has to do with connecting to the culture and
making them feel comfortable in church, which Jesus hasn't called us to look
like the culture to make the world feel comfortable.
So when I was in church for example we would have rock bands come
play at the church. We would open up the youth building for even totally
secular, ungodly bands to come and play and we thought to ourselves, “well at
least all of these people are at church”. So one gimmick that the Christians
maintain is ungodly music and they think that if they can get people on the
church property with ungodly music that then they somehow will be imputing
righteousness or imputing godliness into these people just because they are on
the church property. One gimmick that a lot of youth groups also have is some
kind of ministry that seems cool to kids, maybe it's a skate park at their
church, maybe they go BMX biking together, maybe they go and they have a
motocross track or something that's really cool. And so you end up collecting
all of these people, praise Jesus everyone, you end up collecting all of these
people that just want to ride motocross or they just want to skateboard or they
just want to see the punk band come to your church. So undoubtedly it is cool,
but you're not going to get people into heaven by a cool gimmick.
And that is the first thing I wanted to talk about, but I wanted
to share this dream with you that I had just a few nights ago. I may not
remember all of the details, but it was quite interesting and it was about this
topic. In my dream I was fishing in a certain area, in a certain pond, and I
don't know if I was catching any fish there or not, but I met these other
fishermen who would fish in a bigger sea, it was like bigger than a lake,
possibly the ocean, but I'm not sure, just a big body of water. So I followed
these fishermen over to this bigger body of water that was more like an ocean,
a sea, it was huge. And when I got there I took my fishing pole and I saw these
other men throwing their lines into the sea. And I took my fishing pole and I
threw mine in as well. And I had a thought to myself that I didn't really need
a fishing line with a hook on it, that was traditional, in other words I didn't
need a hook with a worm. I thought to myself, I could probably catch a fish in
this sea literally with anything. I probably could just attach any piece of
trash to the end and I'd get a bite from some kind of a fish. So in my dream,
oddly enough, what was sitting next to me was, it was something that was kind
of like a Happy Meal toy, if you can imagine that, if you get a little Happy
Meal it comes with a toy for children. So it was this little piece of plastic,
this little toy, and I just wrapped this toy to the end of my fishing line and
I threw that fishing line into the sea. And sure enough, within minutes I had a
bite, I had a tug on my line and I started telling the other people, the other
fishermen, see I didn't even need a hook to catch a fish I mean. And so I
started reeling this fish in and I could tell it was huge and I was hoping that
I wouldn't get pulled into the ocean. So while I was reeling the line in, this
fish was bumping along the bottom and hitting rocks and it was dragging along
the bottom of the beach. And when I pulled it up, it had already stopped
struggling. And when I pulled it up it was a huge fish that was extremely ugly,
I mean it had big teeth and it just looked like a sea monster. It was the
ugliest green you'd ever seen and I wondered to myself if I could eat this fish
and the flesh looked like it was rotting, it was the most disgusting fish you'd
ever seen. And the other more experienced fishermen that were fishing by my
side, they told me that there wasn't one thing that was edible about that fish,
that the only thing I could do is throw it back in the ocean because if I were
to keep it, it would make me sick or it would make other people sick. So there
wasn't one piece of flesh that was desirable for anything with the fish I had
caught. So I just took that giant fish and I threw it back out into the sea and
I decided to fish the normal way you would fish, with a fishing hook and with a
worm. And so that was the end of my dream.
What this represents is two parts of my life or two parts to
anyone's life that repents and comes out of dead religion. See the first part
of my dream with fishing without a hook or fishing with some piece of plastic
at the end of my line, represents Christians who are trying to fish for men
with the gimmicks of the world and with all of the things that Satan has to
offer. So Satan says, if you dress a certain way, you'll be able to fish for
men because people will think that you're really well dressed, they'll think
you're cool. Satan will say, if you just go out to the bar with people and
you're an edgy Christian, then you're going to have a lot of friends and you'll
be able to be a good Christian testimony to these people because you're in the
world and not of the world. So you're trying to fish for men with this plastic,
fake kind of relationship. And the kinds of people that you will collect are
not the sort of people that are really interested in the gospel. You will
notice that they themselves are totally fake and all they care about is the
vanity of the world. And like in my dream when I caught the fish, that nothing
of the flesh of the fish was good. So these people are that come to church for
all the wrong reasons. They're coming to the church for all the gimmicks, for
whatever ministry, outreach ministry the church was providing.
And so if we really want to fish for men, a couple things. First
we need to be fishing in the right area. When I came to Jesus, He called me out
of church altogether. He called me not to fish in church whatsoever because all
of the fish there will not be caught or if they are, they're not caught for
righteousness. So number one, you have to fish in the right area. The second
thing is you have to fish with the things that the Holy Spirit gives to you,
the right tackle so to speak. Because if you're fishing with the tackle of men,
with fake gimmicks, you're just going to collect people who don't want to hear
the truth and who are attached to that gimmick, not to the Spirit of God. So
when we truly come to the Lord and when we want to be a light for the world, we
have to make sure that our heart is in the right place and that the way we're
trying to reach people is truly by the Holy Spirit and by the words of truth
that He's putting in us. Being Jesus has nothing to do with being cool and
trying to attract people to ourselves by our clothing or by the kind of music
we're into or by the sports or hobbies we enjoy. All of those things are of the
world and will eventually perish with the world. But the words of Jesus are
everlasting and eternal and that is where we have to put our hope, our joy and
when we tell people about Jesus, we have to tell people about these things,
about holiness, about righteousness, being right before God, what it means to
really repent, what it means to throw off ungodliness and false religion. And
the people that will listen if we get rid of all those false gimmicks and all
those false hooks in the world will be the people that really want to hear
about Jesus Christ. But we don't want to waste our time with all of these
gimmicks and catching fish, even if it seems like a big fish, because when we
catch that fish it will be good for nothing except to throw back into the sea. So
we need to stop wasting time as disciples of Jesus with dead religion, with all
these sorts of gimmicks.
On YouTube it's the same way. People are looking just for views,
they're looking for ways to boost the amount of views they have online. And so
they do all of these incredible things to attract attention. But are they
making disciples for Jesus? Are they being led by the Holy Spirit? Are they
pure in heart? Are they holy and righteous? Or are they just trying to catch a
big fish? Anyways guys, that's all I have for today. I want to encourage the
true body of Christ to be fishers of men, to stay in the love of the Lord and
continue to walk in holiness and righteousness. The Lord wants us to keep our
eyes on Him and to continue to do what's right before God. The days that we're
living in are evil, they are dark, but the Lord makes the way for His children
and He makes the way for us to continue to live righteous and to fish for men. “So
Lord Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters in the Lord. I pray for Your
true church. I pray that people really stand in the light of the truth and that
they would fish for men in righteousness, that they would come out and be
separate from the world and that we would live by our testimonies, that we
would live by Your Spirit so people would see the light of the truth in us and
want to know You, not because of our clothing or outward appearance or the
things that we do in the world, but because we truly are a light for You and
because we're truly leading by example, seeking first Your righteousness and
Your truth. So I pray for my brothers and sisters also to truly come out of
ungodliness and to be worshiping You in purity and being led by Your Holy
Spirit. So I pray this in Your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.”
