me come unto thee on the water.
And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down
out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But
when he saw the wind, boisterous, he was afraid, and he began to
sink. And he cried, saying, Lord, save
me. And immediately Jesus stretched
forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of
little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? When they were come
into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they were in the ship, came
and worshipped him, saying of a truth, Thou art the Son of
God. what prompted this message was
several months ago, and I had a conversation with my little
brother. We say those things like that,
and my little brother, I think he's probably 60 now, but he's
still my little brother, and we were talking on a visit I
had made to Winston-Salem to see my 95-year-old mother. And we were talking about the
world in general, as men do sometimes, sitting around griping and carrying
on about what's going on. Opinion and anger abounded. Things
are changing at a breakneck pace, it seems. The changes will continue,
and what we see today will be different tomorrow. And the changes,
whether political or social or religious or whatever, will not
be changes for the better. Things will wax worse and worse,
our Lord promised. And the love of many will wax
cold, and we see it on so many levels, in so many arenas. Time
and tide are like a great juggernaut careening apace toward the deadly
precipice of prolific depravity. And we will be aware more than
ever because of the devices that we carry in our pockets that
report news or opinion at the moment it happens. Those who cry for transparency
find that more than ever all they see is the public airing
of dirty laundry, causing men and women to glory in their shame.
I long for words like integrity and honor and duty, but they
have been sacrificed on the so-called altar of carnal acceptance. It
makes you long for a day when sin and debauchery were things
thought to be worthy of hiding from public view. under the guise of being honest
men and women put their depravity on public display. I know I'm
a murderer, but at least I told the truth. My brother and I both agreed
that in this present age it is hard to concentrate, to be fixed
on something worthwhile. It is what the Lord called in
the parable of the sower, the cares of this world. Paul called
it the sin that so easily besets us and hinders us from looking
to the prize. And we who believe know that
these things take our eyes off Jesus Christ. And we are easily
overwhelmed. My brother Myron spent four years
in the Coast Guard. His first tour was on an icebreaker
in the Arctic Circle. They often had to go out and
break ice. It was cold business up there.
But the latter part of his tour, he was in boats off the coast
of the Carolinas. And those, too, can be some challenging
seas. You know, rescue boats, self-righting
boats. If you were on deck when the
boat flipped over, you had to hold your breath for 45 seconds,
because that's how long it took to flip back over again. They
had to go out in stormy seas with the waves that towered over
the boats. And when they were on deck amid the towering torrents,
the standing order was always the same. Men, eyes in the boat. Men, eyes in the boat. This meant that they were not
to look at the roiling seas, but keep their eyes within the
parameters of the vessel, specifically at one man, the helmsman, who
sat afront. He was stationed forward in the
boat and kept it pointed in the right direction. The one man
was he who would guide the men through the storm to safety,
and to look away from him was to get yourself in trouble, was to be overwhelmed by what
you saw. On either side of the boat, the
perilous seas. As he explained this to me, I
thought of Peter in this day. He was a chosen apostle, this
man, Simon Peter. Our brother read before you preached
of the time when he was called from being a fisherman to a fisher
of men. He was one of the inner circle
that was always around the Lord Jesus Christ. He was there on
the Mount of Transfiguration when Elijah and Moses traversed
the space-time continuum and landed there on that mountain
and began to talk to Jesus Christ about the death that he should
accomplish in Jerusalem. He was there that night. He said
that was really something, but if you read his account of it
in 1 Peter, he said that's really not anything. I was there, I saw it firsthand. I'm not telling you wives' tales
or fables. I saw it firsthand, but we have
a more sure word of prophecy. And it says right here, even
the word of God, which is a light unto us when the days spring
rising in our hearts. There was no doubt about it that
Peter loved the Lord. He told the Lord three times
that he loved him. He was the one who declared Christ
to be the Son of God, the Son of the living God, and that was
revealed to him by the Father. No man could tell him that. He
was the one whom the Lord gave the commission to feed the sheep
three times. He was the one who led the charge
at Pentecost, and he was the first to personally take the
gospel to the Gentiles, and the first to defend the Gentiles
in Acts chapter 15 at the big Bible conference. And here in
this text, the Lord has just fed just fed 5,000 with some
fishes and a few loaves of bread. And John's account said that
they wanted to make Christ their king, but he wasn't buying into
that. So he sent his disciples into a boat and told them to
go on out to the sea. Told them that after he dispersed
the crowd, he would join them. And he dispersed the crowd. As
crowds are often dispersed by speaking the truth to their error,
they wanted to make him king. And he said, no. They said, well,
How do you do that work you did? That thing of making a whole
lot of fish out of a few and a whole lot of bread out of just
a few. How does that trick work? We
want to know the works of God. He said, you want to know the
works of God? This is the work of God that you believe on Jesus
Christ whom you've sinned. And that dispersed the crowd.
It still does today. The disciples didn't know that
he was going to walk to them on water. How could anyone know
such a thing? The words of this context tells
us a great deal about Simon Peter. Because he's a sinner saved by
grace, it tells a great deal about us. Our Lord had retreated
to the mountain to pray and the disciples had set sail. Soon
the disciples were in a quandary. Their little bark was being tossed
about with what the Lord called contrary winds. The Lord was
not with them, and the elements were making them afraid, and
even when the Lord was present with them, they became afraid
on troubled seas. In Mark 4, he was sleeping in the boat when
the seas became troubled, and they said, Master, carest thou
not that we perish? We're gonna die here. Don't you
care? And he just stood up and said,
be quiet, for it's he who holds the winds in his fist. and weighs
the mountains in a balance, and says to the sea, hither shalt
thou come, and no further. And the sea laid down at his
feet like a dog. The sea became glassy. But they
were afraid. Even though the Lord was present
with them, they were afraid. Why? They were looking at the
waves. It's that simple. They were looking
at the waves. The trouble around them caused
them to fear for their life. When they saw Christ walking
toward them in the water, they were even afraid that it was
a spirit, a ghost, an apparition, a specter, a spook, or whatever
they were afraid. Maybe they thought the grim weeper
was coming to collect. What this tells us is that if
the elements are contrary to us, what we see may not be what
we think at all. We may cry out in fear when in
truth it's the Lord in the control of the entire thing. Shall there
be trouble in the city and the Lord not do it? Scripture says.
He that walks on the waves, holds the winds in his fist and measures
the mountains in a balance, the Lord told them, be of good cheer. Don't worry. Be happy. Think about it. Don't worry. He's standing on water. The waves
are tossing them about. They're full of fear. They don't
even know whether he's a ghost or something, because they've
never seen anybody walk on water. And he said, don't worry. Be
of good cheer. It's me. It's me. The master is here. The master is here. I often wondered,
as I read words like these in scripture, what would our life
be if we could hear these words in our heart when the winds are
contrary? and the waves toss us to and fro. But for a little
while tonight, though the winds were contrary
outside these doors, and all the mess we'll see tomorrow's
going on right now outside these doors, what's wrong with me? I'm not worrying, and I'm happy. Something wrong with me, must
be. Though the words of Simon Peter
may be construed as doubtful along with that unbelief, there's
also faith, because he stepped out of that boat. Even if it
had been a specter and had lied to him, he would have stepped
out of that boat. He said, Lord, I believe it's you. I believe
it's you. Elsewide, he will remain in the
boat. Think of it. He stepped out on the water.
Now, as far as I know, he's the only fellow that's ever done
that other than Jesus Christ. But he stepped out on the water.
He didn't step into the water. It says he stepped out on the
water when the Lord said, come. Lord, if it's you, bid me come. The Lord says, come. And he stepped
out of that boat and stepped on the water. But just as Simon
Peter was a man of faith, he was also a man. And though the
sea had become solid footing for him, a true and sure foundation
for him, he took his eyes off the Lord and he saw the waves
rolling about him, he felt the bluster of the wind buffeting
him, he slipped from the moorings and began to sink. And his doubt
emerged when he turned his eyes from the only object of faith,
the Lord Jesus Christ. We know this to be true, don't
we? We know this to be true. We who
know something about the greatness and majesty of our sovereign
Lord, we know that when our eyes upon Him, we have no troubles. We know that. We know that. We forget our troubles when we
see Him. So what are we doing if we're
all the time feeling like we're in trouble? We're looking somewhere
else. When Peter took his eyes off
the Lord Jesus Christ, he began to sink into the waves. What
a picture this is, a true picture it paints. How full of faith
and courage we are when we see Christ. How sure we are of His
sovereignty when we hear the gospel preached and the Spirit
assures our soul. How true it is that when we are
buffeted by the doctrines of human wisdom and the torrents
of the world's chaos, lapsed at our feet, we begin to sink.
It's true. Have you noticed that the things
of the world never lift you up? They never lift you up. They always bring you down. What
can we do? Shall we apply to the law or
the impotence of our flesh or the wisdom of the world to undo
our downward plunge? There's just one thing. Eyes in the boat. Eyes in the
boat. Eyes on the helmsman. He cried,
Lord, save me. I got a feeling we make that
cry most of our life. A fella asked me one time, why
I love the gospel so much, why I would travel 500 miles to hear
a man preach. Fellas travel from Texas to come
hear the gospel this way. Why in the world would anybody
do something crazy like that? I told him, because I get saved
every time I hear it. every time I hear it. Thank the
Lord for that salvation that is by grace and when we see and
call on him he stretches forth his mighty hand and saves us
again and again and again. Looking to him is all that will
keep us afloat when we are detracted and distracted by the waves and
the contrary winds catch our attention we begin to sink. All
we have to say And we'll say it, Lord, save me. Save me. The old hymnal wrote,
the hymnalist wrote, I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful
shore. But the master of the sea heard
my despairing cry. From the waters he lifted me.
How safe am I? Another old hymn says, turn your
eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. and the things of this world
will grow strangely dim in the eyes of His glory and His grace. Brethren, sisters, eyes in the book. God bless you.