<TITLE>04. Par 12-14</TITLE>L-12 It must've been about sundown to the best that I can imagine, when the big, brawny-backed fisherman pushed the little boat out into the lake, climbed aboard himself, and up to the seats, and found his place by the side of his brother Andrew, and set down.
As each one took the oar and begin to pull the little boat on a smooth lake, sailed quickly out into the lake. After the last one had waved good-bye from the shore, waving good-bye to them as they were crossing over the lake, and they got out far enough to where they could not see or wave any more, it must've been the young John who stopped a minute, and took his hand to wipe the perspiration from his brow, said, "Brethren, when I was just a little boy, I can remember how mother used to take me up in her arms and read the Holy Scriptures to me. How she used to read and tell me that when our people come to this fair land, coming up out of Egypt where they'd been in bondage for four hundred years, that the great Jehovah God rained bread out of heaven and fed our people for forty years in the wilderness. And I can remember of how I used to say, 'Mama, did Angels bake that bread and send it down to our people?' And she'd say to me, 'Little Johnny, I don't believe that Angels baked that bread. I believe that God the great Creator of heavens and earth just spoke the word and created that bread that fed our people.'"

L-13 "And now, brethren, what opinion did you have this afternoon when you seen Him take those five little biscuits and two fishes and feed five thousand? Surely we're not following a faker as people says that we are. That Man has some connection with Jehovah God, because He could create bread right in His hands. I do not believe," he might've said, "that that Man is a false prophet. I believe that we're following the Son of Jehovah God."
"Well," said Simon, the big fisherman, "truly, just right over yonder where dad and I used to fish years ago, he said to me one day: 'I'm getting old, Simon, and I've tried to serve God all my life and have lived just as honest as I knowed how. And I have raised you, my boy, to believe the same God. But it seems like maybe that I won't see the promised One. But you're a young lad yet. You may see Him. And now, son, before I go away, I want to instill this in your heart.'"

L-14 Peter might've said that his father was talking, saying, "Son, don't never get away from the Scriptures for anything that happens. Stay with the Word."
"Now, Moses the prophet told us that the Lord our God would raise up a prophet among us someday among our people. And this Man would be the Messiah. He's to be a man, just a common man raised up among us. But how you'll know Him, son. He will be a prophet, and you'll remember that that is the oncoming Messiah. Long has been the day since this land had a prophet."
"And then when Andrew came that day and told me some of those stories about this Jesus of--of Nazareth, I doubted it, brethren, in my heart. I really doubted it." And I said, "Andrew, you're daydreaming; get next to yourself." And I treated him pretty rough. But one day He persuaded me to go. And when I come up beside the Man, I noticed there was nothing unusual about Him, but He turned, and looked at me, and said, 'Your name is Simon, and your father was Jonas.'"
"Not only did He know me but He knowed that godly old father of mine. That settled it with me, brethren. I believed right then, before I ever seen Him break any bread and bless it. I believe that that was the Messiah, for my father had read it to me out of the Scriptures, and I know the Scriptures don't lie. So I was satisfied that that was the Messiah."


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