C. H. Spurgeon - Peter`s Prayer

THE disciples had been fishing all night. They had now given up fishing they had left their boats and were mending their nets.

A stranger appears. They had seen Him, probably, once before, and they remembered enough of Him to command respect. Besides, the tone of voice in which He spoke to them and His manner at once ruled their hearts. He borrowed Simon Peters boat and preached a sermon to the listening crowds.

After He had finished the discourse, as though He would not borrow their vessel without giving them their hire, He bade them launch out into the deep and let down their nets again.

They did so and, instead of disappointment, they at once took so vast a haul of fish that the boats could not contain all and the net was not strong enough and began to break.

Surprised at this strange miracle overawed, probably by the majestic appearance of that matchless One, who had worked it, Simon Peter thought himself quite unworthy to be in such company and fell on his knees and cried this strange prayer Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. So I desire that, first of all, we shall hear.

As it stood, it was not a good one. Now let us put it in a different way. Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Would it not be better to say, Come nearer to me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord? It would be a more brave prayer and a more tender prayer more wise and not less humble, for humility takes many shapes. I am a sinful man, here is humility. Come nearer to me. Here is faith which prevents humility from degenerating into unbelief and despair! Brothers and sisters, that would be a good argument, for see Since, Lord, I am a sinner, I need purifying. Only Your presence can truly purify, for You are the refiner and You purify the sons of Levi. Only Your presence can cleanse, for the fan is in Your hand and You alone can purge Your floor. You are like a refiners fire, or like fullers soap come nearer to me, then, Lord, for I am a sinful man and would not be always sinful.

Come, wash me from my iniquity that I may be clean. And let Your sanctifying fire go through and through my nature till You burn out of me everything that is contrary to Your mind and will. Dare you pray that prayer? It is not natural to pray it. If you can, I would say to you, Simon Barjona, blessed are you, for flesh and blood have not taught you this. Flesh and blood may make you say, Depart from me it is the Holy Spirit, alone, that under a sense of sin, can yet put a divine attraction to you in the purifying fire and make you long, therefore, that Christ would come near to you!

Again, Come near to me, Lord, since I am a man and, being a man, am weak and nothing can make me strong but Your presence. I am a man so weak that if You depart from me, I faint, I fall, I pine, I die! Come near to me, then, O Lord, that by Your strength I may be encouraged and be fitted for service. If You depart from me, I can render You no service whatever. Can the dead praise You? Can those with no life in them give You glory? Come near me, then, my God, though I am so feeble! And as a tender parent feeds his child, and the shepherd carries his lambs, so come near to me.

Do you not think he might have said, Come near to me, Lord, and abide with me, for I am a sinful man, in the recollection of how he had failed when Christ was not near? All through that night he had put the net into the sea with many a splash and had drawn it up with many an eager look as he gazed through the moonlight and there was nothing that rewarded his toil. In went the net again and now when Christ came and the net was full to bursting would it not have been a proper prayer, Lord, come near to me and let every time I work, I may succeed! And if I am made a fisher of men, keep nearer to me, still, that every time I preach Your Word, I may bring souls into Your net and into Your Church that they may be saved?

What I want to draw out from the text, and I shall do so better if I continue bringing out these different thoughts is this that it is well when a sense of our unworthiness leads us not to get away from God in an unbelieving, petulant despair, but to get nearer to God! Now, suppose I am a great sinner. Well, let me seek to get nearer to God for that very reason, for there is great salvation provided for great sinners! I am very weak and unfit for the great service which He has imposed upon me let me not, therefore, shun the service or shun my God, but reckon that the weaker I am, the more room there is for God to get the glory! If I were strong, then God would not use me, because then my strength would get the praise for it.

But my very unfitness and lack of ability and all that I lament in myself in my Masters work is but so much elbowroom for omnipotence to come and work in! Would it not be a fine thing if we could all say, I glory not in my talents, not in my learning, not in my strength, but I glory in infirmity because the power of God does rest upon me! Men cannot say, That is a learned man and he wins souls because he is learned. They cannot say, That is a man whose faculties of reasoning are very strong and whose powers of argument are clear and he wins sinners by convincing their judgments. No, they say, What is the reason of his success? We cannot discover it. We see nothing in him different from other men, or perhaps, only the difference that he has less of gifts than they. Then glory be to God! He has the praise more clearly and more distinctly and His head who deserves it wears the crown!

See, then, what I am aiming at with you, dear brothers and sisters. It is this do not run away from your Masters work, any of you, because you feel unfit but for that reason do twice as much! Do not give up praying because you feel you cannot pray, but pray twice as much, for you need more prayer and, instead of being less with God, be more! Do not let a sense of unworthiness drive you away. A child should not run away from its mother at night because it needs washing. Your children do not stay away from you because they are hungry, nor because they have torn their clothes they come to you because of their necessities! They come because they are children, but they come more often because they are needy children because they are sorrowful children! So let every need, let every pain, let every weakness, let every sorrow, let every sin drive you to God. Do not say, Depart from me. It is a natural thing that you should say so and not a thing altogether to be condemned, but it is a glorious thing, it is a God-honoring thing, it is a wise thing to say, on the contrary, Come to me, Lord. Come still nearer to me, for I am a sinful man and without Your presence I am utterly undone.

I shall say no more, but I would that the Holy Spirit would say this to some who are in this house, who have long been invited to come and put their trust in Jesus, but always plead as a reason for not coming that they are too guilty, or that they are too hardened, or too something or other! Strange that what one man makes a reason for coming, another makes a reason for staying away! David prayed in the Psalms, Lord have mercy and pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Strange argument, you will say. It is a grand one! Lord, here is great sin and there is now something that is worthy of a great God to deal with! Here is a mountain sin, Lord, have omnipotent grace to remove it! Lord, here is a towering Alp of sin let the floods of Your grace, like Noahs flood, come 20 cubits over the top of it! I am the chief of sinners here is room for the chief of Saviors. How strange it is that some men should make this a reason for staying away!