Nevertheless at Thy Word

Before He says anything about fishing, He borrows the boat.

That is the part of Luke 5:1-11 that gets skipped, and I do not think it should be. The crowd is pressing in on the shore at Gennesaret, and there are two boats pulled up with the fishermen out of them, washing their nets, because the night's work is over and it did not go well. Jesus gets into Simon's boat, asks him to push out a little from the land, and sits down and teaches the people from it.

So the first thing that happens to that boat is that it becomes a pulpit.

It is the boat of a man who has been out all night and caught nothing, and it is currently the least useful object on that beach, and it gets used before it gets filled.

Then, when He has finished speaking, He says this.

Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.Luke 5:4, King James Version

Now, that is professionally wrong, and Simon knows it and everybody on that shore knows it.

You fish that lake at night, in the shallows, where the fish come up. You do not fish in the deep water in broad daylight. A carpenter from Nazareth has just told a commercial fisherman how to do his own job, in front of a crowd, using the wrong method at the wrong hour.

The whole thing is in one word

Here is the answer, and I want to read it slowly, because there are two halves and both of them are honest.

And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.Luke 5:5, King James Version

First half: we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing.

He does not pretend it went fine. He does not say he will give it another go with a good attitude. He states the result plainly, and he uses the word toiled, which is a word about labor and not about a pleasant evening on the water. He also says we, because there were other men in that boat who also have nothing to show for the night.

Second half, and it is one word: nevertheless.

Not therefore. Not because I now believe it will work. Nevertheless. He goes out carrying the whole of the first half with him.

You are not going out on your own word. Luke 5:5 puts nevertheless at thy word directly after taken nothing, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps both halves of that sentence attached for somebody who has been told they need to feel differently first.

I want to be honest about the state a person is in when they say a sentence like that, because it is not a triumphant state.

Simon is tired. He has been awake all night. He has already washed the nets, which means he had finished, which means going out again is not simply effort, it is undoing a thing he had already closed. And he is being watched by a crowd who will see whatever happens next.

He does not have faith that the fish are there. Nothing in his answer suggests he does. He has a word from somebody, and he moves on the word rather than on the expectation.

You have been asked for obedience and not for optimism, and Luke 5 never confuses the two. The written account records his flat assessment and his compliance in the same breath, and the same Spirit who kept both is the reason nobody has to manufacture a feeling before they move.

And then the catch, and it is comic in its size. The net breaks. They signal the other boat. Both boats fill until they begin to sink. Two working vessels, at the wrong hour, in the wrong water.

Now here is the part I want you to have, because it is the strangest thing in the passage.

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.Luke 5:8, King James Version

That is not gratitude. That is a man asking Him to leave.

The blessing did not make Simon feel rewarded. It made him feel exposed. Something about being given that much by somebody whose word he had just quietly doubted put him on the floor of a sinking boat asking the man to go away.

You have been made uncomfortable by kindness before, and Luke 5:8 records that reaction without one word of correction. The written word puts depart from me in the mouth of the man who just obeyed, and it is His Spirit who makes that a mercy for a person who has never been able to receive anything easily.

And the answer.

And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.Luke 5:10, King James Version

Fear not. Then a job. He does not depart, He does not agree with the assessment, and He does not discuss whether Simon is a sinful man. He hands him work.

You were handed a commission in the middle of a confession, and the passage puts them in that order. Luke 5:8 and 5:10 sit two verses apart with no examination between them, and the same Spirit who kept that gap short is the reason nobody has to be resolved before they are useful.