We're going to look at Matthew
chapter eight, beginning at verse 23. And this is an episode where
Christ, in the power of his deity, calmed a storm on the Sea of
Galilee. And I've entitled the lesson,
the actual title of the lesson comes from the last verse of
our lesson in verse 27. After he'd done this in verse
27, it says, but the men marveled saying, what manner of man is
this that even the winds and the sea obey him? Well, what
manner of man is this? He is a man, but he's more than
a man. He's God man. He's the son of
God incarnate, the Messiah and the second person of the Trinity.
Well, let's go back up to verse 23. It says when he was entered
into a ship, you know, he told his disciples that he was going
to go over to the other side. He left the multitude. to go
to the other side, and as I mentioned last week, everything that he
did was by design, by divine design. He didn't do anything
by accident. I used to know a guy one time,
after he retired, he was gonna travel, and he'd get a map, and
he'd lay it out on a table, and he'd close his eyes, and he'd
put his finger down, and that's where he was gonna go. Well,
Christ didn't do that. He knew exactly where he was
going. He knew what it was for. And it was always in seeking
his sheep. It was always in calling his
disciples to come to him. And of course, the main goal
of all of his movements on this earth in that three and a half
year period of his public ministry was leading up to the cross.
Because that is the salvation of his people. Christ crucified,
risen from the dead. So when he was entered into a
ship, his disciples followed him. He's the shepherd, the sheep
followed him. Now, of course, we know that
as he went over on a boat and his disciples with him, there
were others who came on a boat too. And you can see that in
the other gospels and their account of this. I'm not going to say
that every one of them were true believers. I mentioned that last
week. Multitudes followed him. But
later on multitudes left him. Later on multitudes said crucify
him. So we know that not everyone
who followed him was following him for the right reasons. Some
followed him for the loaves and the fishes. Some followed him
because they were enthralled with the physical miracles. And
a few followed him because they saw him to be the Messiah, the
savior of sinners. And they saw that he is the fulfillment
of the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. And so, like
the book of Mark, Mark wrote that more disciples followed
in other ships. You can see that. Now this is
the Sea of Galilee, and the Sea of Galilee is also known as the
Lake of Tiberias. You can see that it's a body
of water, like a large lake. But it was so big they called
it a sea. And it was freshwater lake. I've got in here 13 miles long
and eight miles wide at its largest point. And the point is this.
Oceans, seas, and large bodies of water were looked at back
then as something to be feared, the unknown. You can only see
the top of it. You don't know what's below it.
I always think of that movie, Jaws. You get out there in the
ocean and then one of those fins pops up. Then everybody scrambles
out of the water. But when you consider the seas
in the scripture, it's usually considered a place of danger,
a place of trouble. The storms, for example, things
like that. the unknown. And then also the
seas, sometimes in certain contexts, represent the Gentile nations. In other words, it's away from
Judea. And so, you know, when the Bible,
in fact, in the book of Revelation, it talks about the sea, that
it was a troublesome place. And I've got listed in your lesson,
Isaiah, in his prophecy, in Isaiah 5720, Listen to how he described
the sea. He says, the troubled sea, when
it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. And that's how he described it. And twice in the book of Revelation,
John mentions a sea of glass. In fact, in Revelation four,
he mentions that. And that's a clear sea. You know
what's underneath. You can see through it. It's
pure, it's calm, things like that. And that talks about the
new creation. So the sea in the Bible was something
that men looked and feared, basically. But John doesn't elaborate much
on the sea of glass in Revelation, but we know that's what it's
about. But here he is, the Lord, he says, he went into his ship,
his disciples followed him, and look at verse 24, and behold,
there arose a great tempest, a great storm. And this indicates
maybe an unusual storm, something that was worse than normal. In the sea, insomuch that the
ship was covered with the waves, so here the ship's in danger
of sinking. And John Gill said this is certainly
indicative of our natural spiritual condition in the world. We're
a troubled people, we're sinful. We're like drowning in a sea
of sin. I love that passage in Romans
5 in verse 20, where it says, where sin abounded. The picture
of that language, the language describes people drowning in
an ocean of sin, where sin overflowed us. And that's the way we are
by nature. We're in a place where we cannot
save ourselves. And that's the picture here.
This tempest came in so much that the ship was covered with
the waves, and it was going to be destroyed. So they're in grave
danger. Well, that's indicative of us. In our natural state, we're in
grave danger from this ocean of sin that engulfs us from within
and from without. And we cannot save ourselves. We're helpless. We're unable. We can't stop the storm. And so we need a savior. And
we're sin abounded and all this trouble, but look at the last
words of this verse, 24. But he was asleep. Christ was asleep. Now not only
is this indicative of his humanity, which he did grow tired. He was
subject to the infirmities of the flesh, sinless infirmities. He got tired and he had to sleep.
And all this is going on. Now you can picture this. This
tempest going and waves going over there and the Lord's asleep.
He's calm. because he knew who he was, he
knew, listen, he has sovereign power over nature. And although
there were times that, there are times in the Bible it says
that he became troubled, and I listed a few verses there that
said this, but his trouble was always due to the sinless infirmities
of his humanity over the pain and sorrow that accompanied his
life on earth with sinful people, and the pain he anticipated in
his flesh on going to the cross. You remember in the Garden of
Gethsemane, he sweat great drops of blood, and he agonized, not
because he was considering not doing the work, but because in
his sinless humanity, he was going through pains and sorrows
that he'd never experienced before. And that's why I love that passage
over in Hebrews, I think it's chapter, let me see if I can
find it here. Hebrews chapter nine. I may have
the wrong reference there. No, it's Hebrews chapter two.
I'll get back to it here. Yeah, it says in verse 10 of
Hebrews chapter two, It says, for it became him for whom are
all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons
unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect, which
means complete, through sufferings. He suffered. And what was he
doing in that suffering? He was doing a complete work.
And that's what that's talking about. It's not talking about
making him perfect in himself. He always was and always will
be. or complete in himself, he always was and always will be.
But he had a work to complete, and he completed it through sufferings.
Sufferings unto death, that's what that's saying. So yes, there
were times he became troubled, but not about this. You know,
when a hurricane comes through here or a tornado or something
like that, we all, you know, they say, head to the room where
there's no outside walls and everybody gets all flustered.
Our Lord was asleep, he was calm. And look at verse 25. And his
disciples, this is Matthew 8, 25. And his disciples came to
him and awoke him saying, Lord, save us, we perish. Well, they
knew the score. They knew they had no hope. But
they looked to him to save them. Now, if they didn't think that
he was God manifest in the flesh, what could he do about the storm?
Lord, save us, we perish. So I believe this is them attesting
that he, admitting that he is the Lord God of heaven, the God
man, the Messiah, the Son of God incarnate. So what could
he do about a storm if he's not God? If I'm in a tornado, I'm
not gonna call one of y'all and say, help me. Help yourselves. That's the only thing. Lord,
save us. And what a tremendous picture
this is of Holy Spirit conviction. When the Holy Spirit, through
the preaching of the gospel, comes and shows us our sins and
our depravity and our spiritual death, we see we've got no hope
but to turn to the Lord. Lord, save us, else we perish. I can't save myself. My works
won't save me. My decisions won't save me. My determinations and my sincerity
won't save me from the storm of sin and death. Only Christ
can save me by the power of his blood and his righteousness alone.
And that's why he came. Without Christ and his power
and his grace, by his obedience unto death as my surety, my substitute,
my redeemer, without his grace and power to put away my sins
completely, satisfy God's justice, establish righteousness for me.
Without him, I'll perish. That's the only way. He's the
only way. And just like the disciples in
this storm, without Christ, we'd all perish. And so they cry out,
Lord, save us, or we perish. In verse 26, he said unto them,
why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and
rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. Why
are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Mark wrote in his version
of this, and these are not contradictions. These are just different ways
of saying the same thing. Mark wrote that Christ said,
how is it that you have no faith? And Luke wrote this, he said,
where is your faith? Now we know that Christ had already
revealed himself to them as the Son of Man, the Son of God, the
Messiah, the only Messiah, the Savior of sinners. He'd revealed
them why he'd come, to redeem his people from their sins. It
was said at the very beginning of his birth. He shall save his
people from their sins. He came to establish rights. Remember back in the Sermon on
the Mount, he said, he said, I didn't come to break the law,
I come to keep it. And he said, unless your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness. See, he'd said all this, he revealed
it to them. And we don't know, you know,
when you look at the disciples in their lives under the Lord's
teaching, we don't know exactly when each and every one of them
came to a knowledge, a saving knowledge of Christ. We just
don't know. We know that when he called his disciples, his
true disciples, his true sheep, we know that he kept them together
providentially. and then began to reveal himself
to them. I think about after his resurrection
when he sat down with the disciples and he went back over what he
had taught them. He taught them out of the law
of Moses and the Psalms and the prophets, the things concerning
himself, how he must die for their sins and all of that. Well,
they'd already heard that and I believe there, it's recorded
in Luke chapter 24, I believe the main thing that what he was
doing was showing the disciples how to preach the gospel, how
to preach Christ crucified and risen, how to preach him as the
righteousness of God from the Old Testament. And then he ascended
unto glory. But we know this, that even true
believers, even we as true believers, when we get into trouble and
have things kind of out of kilter, there is a sin that so easily
besets us. Hebrews chapter 12 speaks of
it. And I've heard preachers take that verse and just chop
it up and destroy it. They'll say, well, that's some
particular sin in your life. And I've got some particular
sin in mine. That's not what he's saying at all. We're all
sinners saved by grace. But the sin that so easily besets
us, you know what it is? It's unbelief. It's doubt. That's what it is. And the only
answer is to do what the disciples did. Lord, save us, else we perish. In Hebrews 12 too, it says, we
run the race looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. And that's the only remedy for this sin that so easily besets
us. And some of them may be going
through that at this time or whatever, but the point is, We're
imperfect in ourselves. So when you see things like this,
don't look down on the disciples for their unbelief. We're subject
to the same thing. They said one time, one of them
said, Lord, we believe, help thou our unbelief. Forgive us. We're in a constant battle. Our
lives are marked with a warfare that we have to go through every
day of our lives. It never lets up. It's the warfare
of the flesh against the spirit. The flesh keeps us from doing
what we desire to do in the way of serving the Lord perfectly,
obeying him perfectly. And thank God the Holy Spirit
who indwells us keeps us from going the full swing of the flesh,
which is to deny Christ completely. We can't do either one. And Paul
described this in Romans chapter seven, and he concluded with
this, oh, wretched man that I am, who's gonna deliver me from this
body of death? And I often tell people, I say,
you know what a Christian is? He's a wretched man or a wretched
woman. But his only hope is Romans 7.25, I thank God through Jesus
Christ my Lord. Well, it says here, then he arose
and rebuked the winds and the sea. It's not really recorded
what he said. He rebuked them, it says. But
he spoke his word in rebuke, and there was a great calm. Don't
you love that? There was a great calm. Don't
you love it when a bad storm comes and there's hail and wind
and blowing everything around, and then all of a sudden it stops
and you see the sun coming out? Don't you love that? Well, that's
what this is, that great calm. What does this speak of? It speaks
of the authority, the power, the sovereign will of our Savior. He commands the wind and the
waves. Nature, nature obeys. King Jesus. Every bit of it. And all he had to do was speak.
He didn't get up and dance around or didn't get up and perform
magic tricks or anything like that. He just spoke. He rebuked
it. I know one version of another place, he said, peace be still. There it was. Peace be still. It reminds me, I think about
this, I think about him on the cross. And in John 19.30, he
said this, he said, it is finished. And when he gave up the ghost,
when his spirit left his body, the veil in the temple was torn
in two from top to bottom. All he had to do was just speak. Because when it was finished,
There came that calm. Our sins were put away. Righteousness
was established. The righteousness that God has
imputed to us was established, fulfilled, complete. Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. And
I've got in your lesson here is prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah
32, 17 through 18. Listen to this. Now keep this
in mind with what we're studying here. He said there was a great
calm. Well, Isaiah 32, 17 through 18
says, the work of righteousness shall be peace with God. The
effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever. And God
said, and my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation and
ensure dwellings and in quiet resting places. We are recipients
of the blessing of peace and calmness of salvation, assurance
with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now we may go through
storms here on earth, probably will, but when it comes to that
ocean of sin that engulfed us and that storm that raged against
us, it's peace and calm in Christ. He said it's finished. It's finished. And then it says here in verse
27, but the men marveled, saying, what manner of man is this, that
even the winds and the sea obey him? What an amazing thing. They were bewildered, as most
commentators say here. Mark wrote this, he said, they
feared exceedingly when they saw this. But I've got in your
lesson, I asked this question, was this the fear that comes
from faith or from ignorance and unbelief? And I believe Luke
gives us the answer. Luke wrote that they, being afraid,
wondered. They wondered. And that means
they were filled with admiration and amazement. They were just
flat amazed. I believe they had faith to know
that he could calm the storm or they wouldn't have called
on him. Lord, save us, else we perish. But to see it happen,
and it's kind of like when the Lord brings us to see the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Isn't it amazing? And you'll
think about this, I know I do, and several of you have said
things like this to me. It's amazing that I read the
Bible for so many years and studied the Bible and didn't see it.
But when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, and I saw it,
and I knew it was true, and I stood amazed, like that hymn, I stand
amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how
he could love me, a sinner, unclean. So having been taught by Christ,
they knew the word of God, They may have been, I put in here
Psalm 8 and 9. They may have been familiar with
this Psalm. It says, thou rulest the raging of the sea, when the
waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. But now they saw it firsthand. That's the difference. It's one
thing to hear of these things, it's one thing to see it for
yourself. And so they said, what manner
of man is this? What unusual qualities, perfections
and power. And surely he must be more than
a man. He is. He's the God man. He's
our savior. He's the Lord, our righteousness,
and he is our peace. And he brings that calm that
comes from knowing him. Okay.