People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — GOD AMONG THE FISHES. [ARTICLE]

GOD AMONG THE FISHES.

Dr. Talmage Discourses on the Ichthyology of the Bible. The Importance of the Finny Tribes in the Economy of Nature—The Monsters of the Deep—Fishing for Souls with Bible Bait. The following discourse, in continution of his series on “God Everywhere,” was delivered by Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage in the Brooklyn tabernacle. The text was: And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.—Genesis i., 20. What a new Book the Bible is! After thirty-six years preaching from it and discussing over three thousand different subjects founded on the word of God, the Book is as fresh to me as when I learned, with a stretch of infantile memory, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept,” and I opened a few weeks ago a new realm of biblical interest that neither my pulpit nor anyone else’s had ever explored, and having spoken to you in this course of sermons on “God Everywhere,” concerning the “Astronomy of the Bible, or God Among the Stars;” “The Chronology of the Bible, or God Among the Centuries;” “The Ornithology of the Bible, or God Among the Birds;” “The Mineralogy of the Bible, or God Among the Amethysts,” this morning, as I may be divinely helped, I will speak to you about “The Ichthyology of the Bible, or God Among the Fishes.” Our horses were lathered and tired out, and their fetlocks were red with the blood cut out by the rocks, and I could hardly get my feet out of the stirrups as on Saturday night we dismounted on the beach of Lake Galilee. The rather liberal supply of food with which we had started from Jerusalem was well nigh exhausted, and the articles of diet remaining had by oft repetition, three times a day for three weeks, ceased to appetize. I never want to see a fig again, and dates with me are all out of date. For several days the Arab caterer, who could speak but half a dozen English words, would answer our requests for some of the styles of food with which we had been delectated the first few days, by crying out. “Finished.” The most piquant appetizer is abstinence, and the demand of all the party was, “Let us breakfast on Sunday morning on fresh fish from Lake Gennesareth,” for you must know that that lake has four names, and it is worth a profusion of nomenclature, and it is in the Bible called Chinriereth, Tiberias, Gennesareth and Galilee. To our extemporized table on Sabbath morning came broiled perch, only a few hours before lifted out of the sacred waters. It was natural that our minds should revert to the only breakfast that Christ ever prepared, and it was on those very shores where we breakfasted. Christ had, in those olden times, struck two flints together and set on fire some shavings or light brushwood, and then put on larger wood, and a pile of glowing bright coals was the consequence. Meanwhile, the disciples, fishing on the lake, had awfully “poor luck,” and every time they drew up the net it hung dripping without a fluttering fin or squirming scale. But Christ, from the shore, shouted to them, and told them where to drop the net, and one hundred and fifty-three big fish rewarded them. Simon and Nathaniel having cleaned some of those large fish, brought them to the coals which Christ had kindled, and the group who had been out all night and were chill and wet and hungry, sat down and began mastication. All that scene came back to us when on Sabbath morning, December, 1889, just outside the ruins of ancient Tiberias, and within sound of the rippling Galilee, we breakfasted. Now, is it not strange that the Bible imagery is so inwrought from the fisheries, when the Holy Land is, for the most part, an inland region? Only three lakes, two besides the one already mentioned, namely, the Dead Sea, where fish can not live at all, and as soon as they touch it they die, and the birds swoop on their tiny carcasses, and the third, the Pools of Heshbon, which are alternately full and dry. Only three rivers of the Holy Land, Jabbok, Kishon and Jordan. About all the fish now in the waters of the Holy Land are the perch, the carp, the bream, the minnow, the blenny, the barbel (so called because of the barb at its mouth), the chub, the dog fish, none of them worth a Delaware shad or an Adirondack trout. Well, the world’s geography has changed, and the world’s bill of fare has changed. Lake Galilee was larger, deeper and better stocked than now, and no doubt the rivers were deeper and the fisheries were of far more importance than now. Besides that, there was the Mediterranean sea only thirty-five miles away, and fish were salted or dried and brought inland, and so much of that article of food was sold in Jerusalem that a fish market gave the name to one of the gates of Jerusalem near by, and it was ealled the Fish Gate. The cities had great reservoirs, in which fish were kept alive and bred. The Pool of Gibeon was a fish pool. Isaiah and Solomon speak of fish pools. Large fish were kept alive and tied fast by ropes to a stake in these reservoirs, a ring having been run through their gills,and that is the meaning of the Scripture passage which says: “Canst though put a hook into his nose or bore his jaw through with a thorn?” So important was the fish that the god Dagon worshipped by the Philistines, was made half fish and half man, and that is the meaning of the Lord’s indignation when, in first Samuel, we read that this Dagon, the fishgod, stood beside the ark of the Lord, and Dagon was by invisible hands dashed to pieces because the Philistines had dared to make the fish a god. That explains the Scripture passage: "The head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon,the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.” Now the stump of Dagon was

the fish part. The top part, which was the figure of a man, was dashed to pieces, and the Lord, by demolishing everything but the stump or fish part of the idol, practically said: “You may keep your fish, but know from the way I have demolished the rest of the idol that it is nothing Divine.” The Lord, by placing the fish in the first course of the menu in Paradise, making it precede bird and beast, indicated to the world the importance of the fish as an article of human food. The reason that men and women lived three hundred, and four hundred, and five hundred, and nine hundred years was because they were kept on parched corn and fish. We mix up a fantastic food that kills the most of us before thirty years of age. Custards and whipped sillabubs and Roman punches and chicken salads at midnight are a gauntlet that few have strength to run. We put on a tombstone glowing epithets saying that the person beneath died of patriotic services or from exhaustion in religious work when nothing killed the poor fellow but lobster eaten at a party four hours after he ought to have been sound asleep in bed. There are men to-day in our streets so many walking hospitals who might have been athletes if they had taken the hint of Genesis in my text and of our Lord's remark and adhered to simplicity of diet. The reason that country districts have furnished most of the men and women of our time who are doing the mightiest work in merchandise, in mechanics, in law, in medicine, in theology, in legislative and congressional halls, and all the presidents from Washington down—at least, those who have amounted to anything —is because they were in those country districts of necessity kept on plain diet. No man or woman ever amounted to anything who was brought up on floating island or angel cake. The world must turn back to paradisaic diet if it is to get paradisaic health. The human race to-day needs more phosphorus, and the fish is charged and surcharged with phosphorus. Phosphorus, that which shines without burning. What made the twelve apostles such stalwart men that they could endure anything and achieve everything? Next to Divine inspiration, it was because they were nearly all fishermen, and lived on fish and a few plain condiments. Paul, though not brought up to swing the net and throw the line, must of necessity have adopted the diet of the population among whom he lived, and you see the phosphorus in his boldest of all utterances before the wiseacres on Mars Hill, and the phosphorus as he went without fright to his beheading, and the phosphorus you see in the lives of all the apostles, who moved right on undaunted to certain martyrdom, whether to be decapitated or flung off precipices or hung in crucifixion. Phosphorus, shining in thedark without burning! No man or woman that ever lived was independent of questions of diet. Let those who by circumstances are compeled to simplicity of diet thank God for their rescue from the temptation of killing delicacies. The men and women who are to decide the drift of the twentieth century, which is only seven or eight steps off, are now five miles back from the rail station, and had for breakfast this morning a similar bill of fare to that which Christ provided for the fishermen disciples on the banks of Lake Galilee. Indeed, the only articles of food that Christ by miracle multiplied were bread and fish, which the boy who acted as sutler to the seven thousand people of the wilderness handed over—five barley loaves and two fishes. The boy must have felt badly when called on to give up the two fishes which he had brought out after having caught them himself, sitting with his bare feet over the bank of the lake and expecting to sell his supply at good profit, but he felt better when by the miracle the fish were multiplied and he had more returned to him than he had surrendered. Notice also how the Old Testament writers drew similitude from the fisheries. Jeremiah uses such imagery to prophesy destruction: “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them.” Ezekiel uses fish imaginary to prophesy prosperity: “It shall come to pass that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even to En-eglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many.” The explanation of which is that En-gedi and Eneglaim stood on the banks of the Dead Sea, in the waters of which no fish, but the prophet says that the time will come when these waters will be regenerated and they will be great places for fish. Amos reproves idolatries by saying: “The day shall come upon you when He will take you away with hooks and your prosperity with fishhooks.” Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, declares that those captured of temptation are as fishes taken in an evil net. Indeed, Solomon knew all about the finny tribe and wrote a treatise on ichtyology, which has been lost. Furthermore, in order that you may understand the ichthyology of the Bible, you must know that there were five ways of fishing. One was by a fence of reeds and canes, within which the fish were caught. But the Herodic government forbade that on Lake Galilee, lest pleasure boats be wrecked by the stakes driven. Another mode was by spearing; the waters of Galilee so clear, good aim could be taken for the transfixing. Another was by hook and line, as where Isaiah says: “The fishers also shall mourn, and they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament.” And Job says: “Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook?” And Habakkuk says: “They take up all of them with the angle.” Another mode was by a casting net or that which was flung from the shore. Another by a drag net or that which was thrown from a boat and drawn through the sea as the fishing smack sailed on. How wonderful all this is inwrought into the Bible imagery, and it leads me to ask in which mode are you and I fishing, for the church is the

boat and the Gospel is the net and the sea is the world and the fish are the souls, and God addresses us as did Simon and Andrew, saying: “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” But when is the best time to fish for souls? In the night. Peter, why did you say to Christ: “We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing?" Why did you not fish in the daytime? He replies: “You ought to know that the night is the best time for fishing.” At Tobyhanna Mills, among the mountrins ot Pennsylvania, I saw a friend, with high boots and fishing tackle, starting out at nine o’clock at night, and I said: “Where are you going?” He answered: “Going to fish.” “What, in the night?” He answered: “Yes, in the night.” So the vast majority of souls captured for God are taken in times of revival in the night meetings. They might as well come at twelve o’clock at noon, but some of them will not. Ask the evangelists of olden times, ask Finney, ask Nettleton, ask Osborn, ask Daniel Baker, and then ask all the modern evangelists which is the best time to gather souls, and they will answer: “The night, by all odds, the night.” Not only the natural night but the night of trouble. Suppose I go around in this audience and ask the Christians when they were converted to God. One would answer, “It was at the time I lost my child by membraneous croup, and it was the night of the bereavement,” or the answer would be, “It was just after I was swindled out ot my property, and it was the night of bankruptcy,” or it would be, “It was during that time when I was down with that awful sickness, and it was the night of physical suffering,” or it would be, “It was that time when slander took after me and I was maligned and abused, and it was the night of persecution.” Ah, my hearers, that is the time for you to go after souls, when a night of trouble is on them. Miss not that opportunity to save a soul, for it is the best of all opportunities. Go up along the Mohawk or the Juniata or the Delaware or the Tombigbee or the St. Lawrence, right after a rain, and you will find the fishermen all up and down the banks. Why? Because a good time to angle is right after the rain, and that is a good time to catch souls, right after a shower of misfortune, right after floods of disaster. And as a pool overshadowed with trees is a grand place for making a fine haul of fish, so when the soul is under the long dark shadows of anxiety and distress, it is a good time to make a spiritual haul. People in the bright sunshine of prosperity are not so easily taken. But be sure before you start out to the Gospel fisheries to get the right kind of bait. “But, how,” you say, “am I to get it?” My answer is: “Dig for it.” “Where shall I dig for it?” “In the rich Bible grounds.” We boys brought up in the country had to dig for bait before we started for the banks of the Raritan. We put the sharp edge of the spade against the ground, and then put our foot on the spade, and with one tremendous plunge of our strength of body and will, we drove it in up to the handle, and then turned over the sod. We had never read Walton’s “Complete Angler,” or Charles Cotton’s “Instructions How to Angle for Grayling in a Clear Stream.” We knew nothing about the modern red hackle, or the fly of orange-colored mohair, but we got the right kind of bait. No use trying to angle for fish or angle for souls unless you have the right kind of bait, and there is plenty of it in the promises, the parables, the miracles, the crucifixion, the Heaven of the grand old Gospel. Yes, not only must you dig for bait, but use only fresh bait. You can not do anything down at the pond with old angle worms. New views of truth. New views of God. New views of the souL There are all the good books to help you dig. But make up your mind as to whether you will take the hint of Habakkuk and Isaiah and Job and use hook and line, or take the hint of Matthew and Luke and Christ and fish with a net. I think many lose their time by wanting to fish with a net and they never get a place to swing the net; in other words, they want to do Gospel work on a big scale or they will not do it at all. I see feeble-minded Christian men going around with a Bagster’s Bible under their arm, hoping to do the work of an evangelist and use the net, while they might be better content with hook and line and take one soul at a time. They are bad failures as evangelists; they would be mighty successes as private Chistians. If you catch only one soul for God that will be enough to fill your eternity with celebration. All hail, the fishermen with hook and line! I have seen a man in roughest corduroy outfit come back from the woods loaded down with a string of finy treasures hung over his shoulder and his game bag filled, and a dog with his teeth carrying a basket filled with the surplus of an afternoon’s angling, and it was all the result of a hook and line; and in the Eternal World there will be many a man and many a woman that was never heard of outside of a village Sun-day-school or a prayer meeting buried in a church basement who will come before the throne of God with a multitude of souls ransomed through his or her instrumentality, and yet the work all done through personal interview, one by one, one by one. You do not know what that one soul may be. Staupitz helped one soul into the light, but it was Martin Luther. Thomas Bliney brought salvation to one soul, but it was Hugh Latimer. An edge-tool maker was the means of saving one soul, but it was John Summerfield. Our blessed Lord healed one blind eye at a time, one paralyzed arm at a time, one dropsical patient at a time, and raised from the dead one girl at a time, one young man at a time. Admire the net that takes in a great many at once, but do not despise the hook and line. “JUST take a turn around the block,” is what the busy man said to the organ grinder who was playing in front of his office.