All right, let's turn to Mark
chapter 4. It's good to have our visitors with us today again,
and Sister Gazzetta, good to have you with us today. You saw
the sign on the door downstairs. Next Sunday, there'll be a pancake
breakfast here. So we'll meet at our house like
we do. I'll send you a reminder by email
this week. So I think I have everybody's
email. But if I don't, if you'd like
a reminder, just give it to me and I'll send you that. But the
address is in the bulletin. on the front where it says mailing
address for if you've never been there before. And for the record,
I do know how to spell or Miller's name. We had a back and forth
on that. The first time I had it, I had
it right the first time. When I emailed y'all the second
time and said, I spelled it wrong, I spelled it wrong that time.
So I spelled it right the first time. So, U-R-M-I-L-L-A. All right, just so you know. All right, Mark chapter four,
verse 35. And the same day, when the evening
was come, the Lord said unto them, Let us pass over unto the
other side. And when they had sent away the
multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there
were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great
storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it
was now full. And he was in the hinder part
of the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him, and say unto
him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose,
and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there
was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are
you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?
And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What
manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? I've titled this Stormy Lessons,
and I want to look at five words here in this passage, and I'll
give you these five words. The first one is watching. That'll
be our first word, watching. The second one is fellowship.
The third word is peace. The fourth word is mercy. And
the fifth word is blessing. Watching, fellowship, peace,
mercy, and blessing. Now, let's see here a word about
watching. At the most unexpected times,
believers experience great storms of trial. At the least expecting
time. Verse 35 says, the same day when
the evening was come. You know what they had been doing
all that day? All that day, they had been with the Lord Jesus
Christ, listening to Him preach the gospel, and watching Him
do miracles. All that day, and that same evening,
this took place. They'd been with Him all day.
You think about how your heart gets when you hear the gospel
preached and how your heart just becomes so full of peace by Him. Think of how their hearts must
have been when they sat there and listened to Him preach that
day. And then notice this too, that they were obeying Him. They were doing what He said
to do. It says, verse 35, He said unto them, Let's pass over
to the other side. And when they had sent away the
multitude, they took him, even as he was in the ship, and there
was also with him other little ships. Whenever the Lord calls
a sinner by His grace, when He calls, we obey Him. And we hear
this peace that He preaches, that He speaks into our hearts.
And the new babe in Christ starts out, and for a time may think
now, smooth sailing from here on out. It's going to be smooth
sailing. That's not so. That's just not the case. Or
we come in and we hear the gospel preach. We hear the gospel and
the Lord speaks to our hearts and He makes you have great peace
in your heart, makes you see the assurance we have in our
Redeemer, settles us, strengthens us in faith. We walk out of here
with hearts set to obey Him. And often it's not very long
at all. And here comes a storm. And everything
we've heard is carried away. Just that fast. That fast. Verse 37 says, there arose a
great storm of wind. No sooner had they heard the
Lord preach, no sooner had their hearts been settled, no sooner
had they started out on this sea and it was just smooth as
glass. And there arose a great storm
of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now
full." Look over at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter
5. Knowing this is the case, knowing
that this storm can come just so suddenly, these trials can
come so suddenly, and carry away this word, And there's all kinds
of ways it comes. You know, it could be a storm,
a great wind that comes from rejection of our own family.
There have been many who hear the word preached and they go
home and they begin to speak to their mothers or fathers.
They reject this gospel. They hate this word of grace.
And that causes a great storm. It comes in the form of worldliness
sometimes. As soon as the message is over,
we go to talking about this nonsense. We go to talking about stuff
that has no importance whatsoever. And before you know it, we go
from one thing to the next in our conversation until we're
just wrapped up in all this worldly conversation and completely forgot
about what we heard. that quick. Or it may come from
us being careless and presuming. You know, we get so assured sometimes
and so full of ourselves that we think ourselves, we'll never
stop believing. I just, I can't stop believing
Him as much as I believe Him right now. We'll make some foolish
statement. I'm going to, from here on, I'm never going to go
do that again. I'm going to trust the Lord from
here on out. And you know what we like to do? We like to stand
on the bow of the boat and just stand out there and admire the
sunset and just become careless and forget what's going on, what's
really happening around us. Well, with that being the case,
what should we do? We should be watching. Watching.
Look at 1 Thessalonians 5, 6. Therefore, let us not sleep,
as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep,
sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in
the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, be putting
on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope
of salvation. You know what Peter said? He
said, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil as a
roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour. And he says
the only way we can resist him is to be steadfast in the faith. Steadfast in the faith. And we
know these same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren.
They're happening in our brethren too. We have to be steadfast
looking to Christ and trusting Him and keeping our eyes set
on Him, the eye of faith. So that's the first word, be
watchful. This happened to him just that fast. Here's the second
word. The second word is fellowship.
Verse 38 says, and he was in the hinder part of the ship. Now, remember this, when the
trial does come, That child who's been called and quickened and
saved by His grace, we are in fellowship with Christ. We're in union with Him. We're in fellowship with Him.
Now, Christ was already in the ship. He was in the ship. You see, Christ never has lost
fellowship with the Father. other than when he was bearing
our sin and his body on the tree. But when he, when he, he's not
the one who had to be brought back into fellowship. That's,
that's what I'm saying. We were the ones that had to
be brought back into fellowship with God. We sinned and went
away backwards from God. Back up there in verse one, It
says that he was teaching by the seaside and there was so
many that came around, such a great multitude, that he entered into
a ship and sat in the sea and the whole multitude was by the
sea on the land. He was in a ship, they were all
out there. That's a picture of us. See,
he's in fellowship with the Father. He's never been out of fellowship
with the Father. We were the ones that were out
of the ship, us. But this fellowship came by a
divine call. Whenever he preaches this gospel,
and he has to preach it, he has to preach it to us in our heart.
But when he preaches this gospel to us in our heart, we hear him
speak. Now, everybody sitting there
heard, everybody heard, but he spoke to his apostles, his disciples
particularly. Look down there, look back up
there at verse 11. He said unto them, unto you is
given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God. But unto
them that are without, all these things are done in parables that
seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and
not understand. Those who are without, those
who are out of fellowship with God, outside of Christ, who haven't
heard this particular effectual call, they don't understand a
word this gospel is saying. They don't understand it with
the heart. They may get a little intellectual understanding of
it, but they don't know what we're saying. They don't know.
But unto you who've been called, it's given to know the mysteries
of God. He's given it to you. And when
He gives this mystery to us in our heart, He speaks effectually
to us in our heart. Verse 35 says, He said unto them,
Let us pass over unto the other side. You know what the life
of faith is? When He calls us and He calls
us into Him, we start on a journey like sailing on the sea and we're
going over. That's what we're doing. We're
going to the other side. Jordan is called death. We're
going to the other side. We're going on the other side.
We're going to glory with Him. But we've got to go through this
sea to get to glory with Him. And when His Word is spoken affectionately
in our heart, it works repentance in us. If we can take license
and see that here in verse 36, they sent away the multitude.
He separated them from the multitude. He called them to Himself and
separated them from the multitude. That's what God does for His
children. And then it says here, they entered into the ship. Through
faith we enter into the ship. Look at verse 36. They took Him
even as He was. That's what we're going to do
if God calls us by His grace. We keep wanting to make Christ
say something He's not saying and make Christ to have done
something He hadn't done and make Christ to be somebody He's
not when we're in our flesh. That's what this world is doing
by wrestling the Scriptures to their own destruction. But when
He calls us by His grace, we take Him as He is. They took
Him as He was. And where was He? He was in the
ship. And they went in the ship with him. They went in the ship
with him. So, I've just pointed that out to you to show you that
when he sovereignly, irresistibly calls his children, regenerates
us and calls us, he brings us into fellowship with him. And so, remember, when the storm
comes and the trial comes, Remember, we're in fellowship with Him. He was in the hinder part of
the ship. So what does it mean to be in fellowship with Him?
If I'm in fellowship with Christ, what's that mean to me? Let me
give you a few scriptures. Look at Isaiah 41, verse 10.
Isaiah 41, verse 10. Here's what it means. Fear thou not, for I am with
thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. Look over at Isaiah 43 in verse
1. This is what it is to be in fellowship
with Him. These are His promises that He
makes into the heart of His child of grace. Now thus saith the
Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel,
fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy
name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the
waters, and they are troubled, and there are stormy seas, I
will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow
thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame of the
trial kindle upon thee and destroy you. Fellowship is ours with
him. This is his promise to his child.
And we have the assurance of fellowship by how this fellowship
came about. No storm of trial, nothing will
be able to separate us from Christ because of how this fellowship
came about. The Lord Jesus Christ bore the
storm. Look it up, Isaiah 51. Why are
you there? The Lord bore the storm, the
storm of God's wrath, God's fury in the place of his people. And
having been made sin for us, he was forsaken in justice when
he cried out from the cross and said, My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? So he was separated in judgment
when he was on that cross because he was bearing the judgment that
demanded we be separated from him. All the elect of God be
separated from him. That's what he was bearing in
his own body on the tree. But now look at this. When he
calls us, this is his promise to us. Look at Isaiah 51, 22.
Thus saith the Lord, thy Lord, thee Lord, and thy God that pleadeth
the cause of his people. Behold, I've taken out of thine
hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury,
and thou shalt no more drink it again." Because he drank it. But he drank it. And he says,
because he drank it, he's taken that cup out of our hand, and
he's put this sweet fellowship that he has with us into our
hand, into our heart, and brought us together with him. And when
he calls us, The fellowship we have is because He put His glory
upon His people when He calls us and regenerates us and makes
us partakers of the divine nature. He puts His glory upon us. And
this is what He said in John 17, the glory which thou gavest
me, speaking to the Father, I've given them, He's speaking of
those He called by His grace, that they may be one even as
we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one." That's what fellowship is, to
be made one with God in Christ. That's what he's done for his
people by bearing the wrath of justice for us, that he took
that cup out of our hand and he's given us this sweet fellowship
with one another. So, nothing Nothing, even when
the storm's raging, even when it seems like God has turned
His back on us, and we don't have the smile of His face, and
we don't hear His voice, and we can't do anything to get it
back. You've been there. Have you been
there in those times when you just feel like you can't pray,
you can't worship Him, you can't read the Scripture, you just
feel dead as a hammer? But nothing's gonna separate
God's people from Him because He's put away our sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. And He's brought us into sweet
fellowship with Him so that nothing can separate us from the love
of God in Christ. That's good to know when we're
going into the face of the storm. Very good to know. So trials
are gonna come and we'd be watchful, we're watchful. But even when
they come, we know we have fellowship with Christ. And He said, I'll
never leave thee nor forsake thee. All right, here's the third
word. The third word's peace. Look
down at Mark 4. Look at verse 38. He was in the hinder part of
the ship, asleep on a pillow. And they awake him. And look
at what they said. And they awake him and said unto
him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? Now, Christ in
his humanity. as the righteous servant of God,
the Son of Man, he rested in God the Father. He rested in
God the Father. He was asleep. He was in this
ship asleep. And this is the only place we
read of in the Scripture where the Lord Jesus Christ slept.
But I'm sure he slept more, but this is the only place we read
about it. But he slept. He was in this ship and he was
asleep. That tells us Christ became a real man. Christ became
a real man. He'd been preaching all day long. And he was tired. And he went
in the ship and he laid down and went to sleep. He went to
the back, found him a place, laid down and went to sleep.
But as the servant of God, as the one serving God, he rested
peacefully in God the Father's hand. And what an example here. Believer, rest in Christ's hand. Let us rest in His hand. Let
us lay down and rest in His hand. Pope Peter said, cast all your
care upon Him, for He careth for you. We're walking around
Worried about things, worried about tomorrow, and the next
day, and the next day, and the next day. Our care is in the
hand of Christ. I don't know if I ever told you
all this or not, but maybe I'll illustrate this, but I remember
one time I was taking Emma and Will to school one morning, about
a year or two ago. They weren't as old as they are
now. And Will's in the back, Emma's in the back, and Emma
said, when I get to be grown, I want to have nothing but girls,
because they're a lot easier to shop for. And Will looked
at her just as serious as he could be, and he said, well,
what if you don't have girls? What if you have boys? And she said,
well, I don't want to have boys, I want to have girls. I believe
I'm going to have girls." And they got in this big conversation
about whether Emma was going to have boys or girls when she
got to be older and if she marries and has children. Here's two
little kids in the back seat talking about something that
if it does take place, it'll take place, you know, 18, 19
years from now. But I thought about that, that's
us, that's how we are, grown folks. We're in the back seat,
and God's driving. He's got to, our Lord's caring
for us. He's got control of everything
around us. And we sit back there and get
to talking about one another, and arguing with one another
about something that's gonna happen tomorrow, or the next
day, or the next day, or the next day, like little kids. And He's got the care of us,
the care of us. The way of our flesh is opposite
to Christ. That's the first thing I see
here in this. Most of our trials are for doing the opposite of
what the Lord's doing. While Christ was asleep, the
disciples were awake. And while he was calm, the disciples
were terrified. They were just terrified. Usually we're asleep when we
ought to be awake. and we're awake when we ought
to be resting. We ought to have our calm just as sure in our
hearts in Him. Usually we're awake when we ought
to be asleep and asleep when we ought to be awake. We're terrified
when we ought to be at peace. You remember the Garden of Gethsemane?
The Lord took them there to the Garden of Gethsemane and He's
about to bear being made sin for his people. And he's in that
garden. I don't know what was transpiring, but it was such
a heavy weight. He knew no sin. And for somebody
that never known sin, he knew what sin is. He knew what that,
how awful sin is. We don't. We're like a fish in
water. We never known anything but sin.
So we don't know what it's like. But he knew it. He knew exactly
what sin is. And he sweat, as it were, great
drops of blood in the garden. And he's called some of his apostles
there with him, and he said, Pray with me. Watch and pray.
And he went a little further and began to pray to the Father
when he came back to them. There's a time when they ought
to have been awake. There's a time when they ought
to have been alert and watching and praying. And what were they
doing when he came back? They were asleep. There they
are asleep. And he said, could you not watch
with me one hour? And in here now in our text,
he's in the high counterpart of the ship. He's sound asleep.
They've heard him preach the gospel all day. And the great
promises that he's working in their midst. And here they are
awake now and just terrified. Terrified. Look over at Philippians
chapter 4. Philippians chapter 4. We can't expect peace, brethren,
by looking at our way and our understanding and our flesh,
because sin is so ever-present with us. We've got a messed-up
sense of what's truly taking place around
us. And we can't depend on our way
and our wisdom and our understanding. We need to look to Him. We've
got to look outside of ourselves. We've got to look outside of
this present evil world to Christ who is our peace. He's our peace.
He's our peace. And Christ our peace never changes. The Scripture says He's Jesus
Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. The change
that comes about is in us. The change is in us. When we
start looking to our strength and our will and our way and
our wisdom, We are looking in the wrong direction, and we're
as apt to change as the weather when we start looking at ourselves.
The change wasn't in the Lord. The change was in His apostles.
And the change is not in the Lord. The change is in us. When
we get beside ourselves and become fretful and become fearful, none
of God's promises have changed. Nothing God has said He's going
to do has been altered one bit. Everything He's promised His
child is the same. He's the same. His word's the
same. His power's the same. His hand's
the same. His wisdom's the same. His way's
the same. But when we become fretful and
scared and cast down and terrified and beside ourselves, who's changed? We've changed. We've started
looking in the wrong place. That's what it is. So seeing
that's the case, brethren, that Christ is our peace, let's heed
this word. Look at what Paul said in Philippians
4, verse 4. And I remind you here, Paul's
in prison. He's in prison. They may walk in any minute and
unshackle him and say, we're fixing to go kill you. He knows
that. He said, I might live and I might
die. And he said, whether I live or
die, I know this, this is going to turn to my salvation. One
way or the other. Whether I live or I die, he said. Because God's his salvation.
And he knew if he was freed, God freed him. And he'd go on
preaching the gospel. And if he died, he'd be with
Christ. So he said, this is going to
turn to my salvation. One way or the other. Look at what he
says here, verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. He's talking about all the time.
Even in the trial, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I
say, rejoice. Let your moderation be known
unto all men. The Lord is at hand. The Lord's
right here. You know what he means by, let
your moderation be known to all men? When he says, let your moderation
be known, the Lord is at hand. He's right here. He tells us
in the next word, be careful for nothing. Don't be overly
anxious. Don't become terrified and afraid
and think that because the storm has come and the waves are rolling
all around you that God's changed or that God's not in control
of everything that's taking place. He is. He is. Be careful for
nothing. But in everything, we can do
that when it's something good. We do it when it's something
good coming our way. But when we see that storm coming,
It's hard to do this, but he says in everything, by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving. Thank you, Father, that you've
made me sick. We ever pray that? Thank you,
Father, that you've made me be in this pain. Thank you. With
everything, make supplication. With thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known to God. and the peace of God, here's
the peace, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. You see
where our peace is? Our peace is with Him. He is
our peace. Our peace won't be found in us,
or in the world, or in the situation, or in the circumstances around
us. We always want to look at second causes. Well, if they
hadn't done that, this hadn't happened, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. We just keep going on about that. God is in control of all
the second causes. He's the first cause. He's got
everything in His hands. So He's our peace. And I need
you to remind me of that, and I'll try to remind you of it.
Because we're just, we are the apostles. We're like them. We're
just like them. He's our peace. Alright, here's
the fourth word. The fourth word is mercy. Mercy,
and you might add to it faithfulness. Mercy and faithfulness. Watch
this, verse 38. Mark 4, verse 38. And they awake
him. And they said unto him, Master,
carest thou not that we perish? Now, our faithfulness waivers,
doesn't it? I don't care how we might want
to think it doesn't, how we might want to think we're rock solid.
Our faith waivers. Our faith is feeble, feeble,
feeble, feeble. I'm talking about our faith toward
God. They did supplicate the Lord. Paul said in everything. pray, ask the Lord, supplicate
the Lord, and they did. They sought Christ. They went
to the right one. They went right to Him. But notice
our prayer is not always the language of faith. This is a
great combination of words right here. They said, Master, that's
who He is. He's the Master. But they followed
it with these words. Carest thou not that we perish? We get a loved one that gets
sick. And we go to the Father. We go to Christ. We go to Him
and we ask Him to help us. And they continue to be sick
for a while. And we wouldn't say it to anybody.
We wouldn't pray it in front of anybody. We wouldn't acknowledge
it to anybody. But what we really think in our
heart is, Master, carest thou not that they're sick? Do you
not care that they're sick? That's foolish talk, isn't it,
really? Is there any possibility that God at any time cannot care
for some child that He has everlastingly loved? Any remote possibility
that that can happen? Never. Never a possibility that
that can happen. I quoted that something to you
here a while back that I said that I got from Spurgeon, and
he said, I just love this. I love to think about this. He
said, the believer is at the center, every individual believer
is at the center of God's thoughts continually. With us, there's times when we're
not thinking about Everybody that we know everybody that we
love even our own children sometimes They're kind of out on the circumference
a little bit. We got one here We're dealing
with we're carrying with and we're we're looking after because
that's all we can do is take care of one at a time But God
his children every one of them. They're not a they're not out
there. They're not out on the circumference They're always
at the center of his attention and his thoughts all the time
continually Hmm Look at this now, he was asleep there, and
Christ and his humanity was asleep, but Christ our God Christ, our
Savior, our God, don't ever sleep. He said in Psalm 121.3, He will
not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. God's all-knowing, ever-present, and He's always,
He's always taking care of His children at all times. Now, let's
fathers and mothers, let's think about this for a minute. If you
had a child, one of your children, you fed him or her, you've clothed
them, you've housed them for all this many years, and all
of a sudden they got anxious and worried and doubting that
you're not going to provide their next meal. I mean, just fearful about it.
Just come in and just act like they just don't have any trust
whatsoever that you're going to provide that next little thing
for them that they need. After all that you've done for
them and all that you've provided for them. I could bear a child
not believing me who doesn't know me, whose father I'm not. But my own child, my own child
come to me and tell me that? We give our children what they
ask for, don't we? The Lord said, He said of us,
if you, being evil, know how to give good things to your children,
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask Him? But look at this now. Our faith
waivers. His doesn't. Christ is always
merciful and He's always faithful to His children. Look here how
tender He is. What did He do? Look at verse
39. And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there
was a great calm. Now, after that, he says a few
words to them to correct them. But he took care of this thing
first. He got up. Here they are, all
in a tizzy. And he gets up, and he walks
out in front of them, and he says, Peace, Be still. And the wind stopped, and the
wave stopped, and a great calm came over the whole thing. Don't
we operate just opposite of that? We upbraid first, our children. Upbraid them first, and once
we've upbraided them a while, then we might go do whatever
it is that they need it done. He calmed everything down first. Said, peace, be still. Whenever
Christ became our sheriff before the world began, He arose for
us. He arose for His people. And
He said, and He rebuked the wind and the sea and He said, peace
be still. And ever since then, since eternity, in Christ Jesus,
there's been an everlasting, eternal calm in Him. There's never been a possibility
that His children would ever perish in Him. This thing is
eternal in Him. And then He arose when in the
fullness of time He came and went to the cross for His people.
He arose and He rebuked the winds of Satan and rebuked the winds
of sin and rebuked the winds of death and hell and said to
the sea that divided us from our God, peace be still. And
the winds ceased and there was a great calm. And just like He came into our
hearts through the Gospel, and He arose in our hearts and said,
Peace, be still, and He caused us to quit kicking and fighting
against Him, and He nailed His nails in place and established
us in Him through faith in Him. Just like that, brethren, He
can speak in every trial we're in and say, Peace, be still,
and the wind will cease, and there will be a great calm. Where
does He do that most often? in our heart. He does it in our
heart. The winds around us may not cease,
and the winds of this world aren't going to cease. There are going
to be wars and fighting and carrying on until there's times no more. And a lot of times around us,
He doesn't stop the waves and the wind and the sea. The trials
raging, everything's going on, but He speaks in our heart. And
when He speaks in our heart, it could be Everything going on around us
and we just enter into this great calm knowing He's got everything
he's got it. He's got it So our Redeemer you
see what I'm trying to show you is we waver our faithfulness
is not when I speak about mercy and faithfulness I'm talking
about his mercy and his faithfulness. He got up in the midst of this
they're doubting and all that and he he was so so kind and
so tender to him. He got up and rebuked the sea
and the wind and stopped it all. Let's remember this. I'll try
to remind you and you remind me. The Lord's predestination
of all things means that God's timing is always right. It's
always right. He works all the storms together
for His glory and our complete salvation. Everything. So instead
of saying, Master, carest thou not that we perish? Let's pray
this, without doubting, knowing this. It's the Lord. Let Him
do what seemeth Him good. It's the Lord. So we watch as
the trials come. We've got to be watchful. And
then when they come, we've got to remember we're still in fellowship
with Him. And remember this, He's our peace. We're not going to find peace
trying to take the bull by the horns and try to affect peace
by our strength. We've got to look to Him. He's
our peace. And gotta remember that he's merciful and he's faithful.
When our faith is wavering and we've changed and turned aside,
he's faithful and he's merciful to our sinfulness. Here's the fifth thing. Here's
the fifth word. The fifth word's blessing. Blessing. The blessing that he gives through
the storm, through the trial, is always abundantly better than
the light affliction of the trial. It's always better. Well, in
the blessing, He gives us the blessing of seeing ourselves.
Look at verse 40. The disciples were shown what
they were. Verse 40, He said unto them, Why are you so fearful?
How is it you have no faith? You see, if it wasn't for the
trial, we would never hear the Lord speaking to us in our hearts
and saying to us, Why are you fearful? Why is it you don't
have any faith? But through the trial, we get
to find out they had faith, they had faith, just like we have
faith. But through the trial, we get
to see how feeble our faith is. We get to see how feeble it is
when Christ is with us all the time, when He's near, when He's
abiding with us. He says, why are ye so fearful?
He says, why is it ye have no faith? Ye, you, you who were
entrusted to Christ of the Father, you for whom this world was made,
so that God could show you His glory and the salvation of you
from your sin. Paul said all things are yours.
He said whether life or death, they're all yours. whether it's
peace or whether it's a storm. In short, this storm was theirs.
It was there. It was sent for them. So he says,
you, you, why are you fearful? He says, you who for whom he
came, for whom he lived, for whom he suffered, for whom he
endured the cross, you, why? Why are you fearful? Why is it
you have no faith? He says, you who He's graciously
given all things that pertains to life and godliness, who He's
come to and He's made these exceeding great and precious promises in
our hearts. And He's told us, you're justified,
you're sanctified. He's told us that you've been
made the righteousness of God in Him. And He says, so why is
it that you're fearful? Why is it that you have no faith? Aren't they needful? Aren't these
trials needful? If they weren't for these trials,
and the Lord is speaking this into our hearts continually,
we'd get so puffed up, and we'd get so proud, and we'd set sail
on the sea when we leave here every week, and we'd go out into
the world And we'd go out with our chest poked out, and we'd
go out telling everybody, I've been with the Lord Jesus Christ
all day. I've been listening to Him speak.
I've watched Him say miracles. He's come to me, and He's told
me it's given to me, and it's not given to them. And we've
become so proud in this grace that he's given us. Paul said,
don't be high-minded, but fear. If he's sparing not the natural
branches, be careful that he's sparing not thee. That's what
he said. But these trials bring us back down to reality and make
us see real fast, I don't have quite the faith I thought I had.
I don't have quite the strength I thought I have. I'm a fearful
little weakling. God just turned something just
a little bit contrary to me. And I see real fast just how
weak and how faithless I really am. That's a great blessing.
It's a great blessing to be taught that. And this is the other thing
we see. This is the blessing of seeing
His glory. That's the blessing that comes
too. Verse 41 says, And they feared exceedingly and said one
to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and
the sea obey him? Isn't that a wonderful thing
to remember? Our Savior, who knows the feeling of our infirmity,
who was one minute in that ship sleeping because he was tired,
just like me and you get tired. The next minute, that same one
was up and he spoke a word, and the storm ceased. The hurricane
stopped. The wind ceased and the waves
stopped. There was calm. Because this
one who is a man is also God Almighty. Our Savior who knows
us intimately, knows what we are, knows that our frame is
just dust. He's God Almighty. He's God Almighty. And he's able to come to us,
and do you see how tenderly he spoke to them when he said, how
is it you're so fearful? How is it you don't have any
faith? He spoke tenderly to them. I don't think he spoke that in
a harsh way. I don't think he spoke that.
He didn't have to. He could just speak it to them,
and it just came, but it came like a hurricane in their heart. And they looked at Him and they
saw in this one that did this, they said, even the winds and
the waves obey Him. He's got all power at His disposal. It's not so with man. When our
Lord makes claims in His Bible that He is sovereign, when He
says that I will do my pleasure, in heaven and in earth where
I would do whatsoever I've said from the beginning that's what
I'm going to do when he says I'm going to bring it to pass
just like I've said I brought it to pass when he shows us over
and over that he has And when he makes that claim,
it's real, it's genuine, it's true, and we can trust it because
that's who he is. It's not so with a man. Men may
boast about their claims and what they can do and their strength,
but it's not so. You can't trust a man's claims
of power. I read this somewhere about a
man who went all over town and he had a tale of a line. And
he went around boasting about his power and his strength, holding
up the tail of this lion by how he had cut the tail of this lion
off. I cut the tail of this lion off. I'm powerful. I'm all powerful
and all wise. And met this tiger head on and
cut his tail off. And a little boy came up to him
and said, why didn't you cut his head off? And he said, well,
somebody already done that. Anybody cut the tail off a dead
lion. But our God, when he makes a claim to sovereignty, it's
true. It's real. It's real. He's Lord of heaven
and earth. He's Lord over nature. He's Lord
over all. He's Lord over all. There is
no mother nature. There is no mother nature. The
rule of gravity is his rule, God's rule. He's the law of gravity. It's His Word that makes gravity
exist. One time, somebody dropped an axe head in a creek when they
were working in the scriptures, and He made the law of gravity
to stop. He made that axe head swim in the water. You believe
that? He is the law of gravity. God is the God of nature. He
can speak and make the wind stop like that. So He's the ruler
over our trial. He's the ruler over our stormy
sea. He's the ruler over this life we're going through right
now. Remember that. So let's close in remembering
this. Look at Psalm 46. I know none
of us like trials. I don't. I don't like them enough. Chastening that comes about.
No chastening for the moment's pleasant. We don't like it any
more than our children like for us to have to correct them. But
when He turns us back to the Lord our righteousness, and He
turns us back to the Lord our holiness, and He keeps us there
trusting Him, and we see Him like they saw Him. And He fills
our heart with His joy to know He's keeping us, brethren. It
brings forth peaceable fruit. It brings forth fruit whereby
we praise Him and rejoice in Him and give Him the glory and
stop looking to ourselves. The psalmist said, it's good
for me that I've been afflicted. It's good for me that I might
learn His statutes, learn that He is the God of this world,
just like He says He is. Look here in Psalm 46, verse
1. God is our refuge and strength. of very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though
the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains
shake with the swelling thereof. There is a river, the streams
whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the
tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She
shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that
right early. The heathen raged, and the kingdoms
were moved. He uttered his voice, and the
earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge. And I'll just stop there, but
I'll end with this, and you can go home with this. This is great
consolation. Some of you may be in great storms
of trial, and the storm may rage for a little while. But in his
time, when he's worked what he purposed in the trial, and that
purpose is always to turn us to him and cause us to look outside
of ourselves to him, look out of this world to him, to see
his glory, to see our nothingness and to rest in him. When he's
done that, he'll stop the trial. He'll stop it. He'll bring it.
He'll bring it, wind it down. And if not, Real soon, very soon,
He's gonna stop the trial forever. He's gonna bring us out of this
world and it'll be over. This world's passing away. All
of these things are passing away. And then the trials will be over.
Then we'll see Him face to face. Then we'll know Him as He is.
This is what Peter said, 1 Peter 5, 10, the God of all grace,
who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after
that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish you,
strengthen you, settle you." He did it right then for his
apostles, and he's done it for me repeatedly. Established me,
strengthened me, settled me, made me look to him who is my
perfection. And He'll do it for you continually.
You know Him. He'll do it. And one day soon,
He's going to do it for us. Finally, fully, completely, forever. And we'll be with Him. Isn't
a trial good? It's good. Amen.