Matthew 8:23-27
“When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being covered with the waves; but Jesus Himself was asleep. And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, ‘Save us, Lord; we are perishing!’ He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?’ Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, ‘What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?’
Beloved, notice what is packed into the question the Lord asked His disciples during that critical time, when the danger of drowning seemed so overwhelmingly real to them. The Lord knew that He would soon be apprehended and killed. And He knew that the men before Him would suffer the same fate for the most part. But yet… He was amazed and disappointed that they would still be reacting in a way that would have been totally natural and normal to the unbelieving people of this fallen world! Yes, any worldly person would have also been terrified had they been in their position. But this Scripture text implies that the Lord expected that these precious disciples of His would know better! Isn’t that amazing?
They were not, by any means, ‘ordinary people!’ And their natural, very understandable reaction was not something that God’s Living Word expected to see coming from these Israelites that God had chosen and called to follow Him as His personal disciples. But why was He disappointed in their reaction? It was because their reaction gave testimony that they too were convinced that God isn’t ever faithful; and that He isn’t really always ‘on the job.’ Their reaction gave testimony that they believed God to be absent, or at least, ‘sleeping!’
“Why are YOU afraid…?”
Doesn’t the fact that He asked His disciples that question, jar our sensibilities? We wonder, ‘How could they not have been afraid? Who in his right mind would remain calm and unafraid at a time like that?’ Isn’t that how most of us would react in such a situation?
So… there must be something very important that God wants to show us through the four verses of this text in Matthew chapter 8. And so (especially at this critical time of history), it behooves us to take a deeper look at the disciples’ situation. First of all, we must remember that these were God-fearing Israelites… raised and reared in the Land of God’s Promise… Israel! They’d been steeped in the ultimate Israelite Biblical environment, from birth! And they had the genes, the upbringing and culture that God intended to impart to His priestly chosen people through His Covenant. God had always intended to reveal Himself and His ways to the whole world… through these Israelite people! They knew the Scriptures! From birth they had had the advantage of knowing the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob from a perspective and in a way that the other peoples of the world could have never known Him! They knew what their awesome, Living, Blood Covenant-keeping God had revealed about Himself throughout all of His previous interactions and history with Israel, ever since the days of Abraham! They knew the revelation God had given of Himself in Isaiah 55 about the vast differences between what He knows, thinks and sees and what we fallen children of Adam, with our dreadful Sin-corrupted limitations, are able, by nature, to know, think and see. And they knew that God had promised that His Living Word would do everything He revealed, commanded and promised… to Perfection, and that He was going to come to be in the midst of the people of Israel, to save and protect them and to make sure they would overcome all odds and join in His Eternal Triumph over Satan, Sin and Death! And He had been proving to them in a variety of ways that He was the very one that Moses had been writing about!
John 1:44-45
“Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph!’”
This is partly why Yeshua was amazed at their fearful reactions. He was disappointed that, instead of sharing His calm, peaceful demeanor, they were amazed and shocked by it. Yeshua was always totally relaxed and at peace in all kinds of dire situations. But yet, after all they had seen and experienced with Him, they still didn’t seem to understand why. Why was there no need for Him to fear, or doubt His Father? As His disciples, it was their task to learn to be as He was, and to do what He was doing… just the way He did it. But in this situation, they still didn’t ‘get it’. They didn’t know what He knew, nor could they see into the spiritual realms in which He was always abiding with His Father, through the Holy Spirit. They still had no real understanding that He was actually God’s Living Word made flesh, living in their midst! So, although they were living with Him day and night, they still didn’t know Him as He really is. So it was still not possible for them to fathom how He was able to sleep so peacefully in the back of that boat… all the while the storm was raging and threatening to kill them all! They couldn’t see that the Father was always with His Son… and since the Son was always with them… the Father was always with them! And even amid that raging storm… Almighty God was there with them, just as much as He was with Yeshua!
Isaiah 55:8-11
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord, ‘for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it!’”
So Which of Us Can Respond Without Fear?
The faith, peace and rest levels with which the Lord expected His disciples to respond were, to the normal human understanding of unbelievers, responses that would be utterly supernatural! In other words, their Master’s calm, peaceful, carefree response would have been crazy in the estimation of ‘normal earthly people.’ It would have made no sense! It would indicate that He was out of touch with reality, or at least under some kind of delusion or trance, that prevented Him from realizing what is actually happening!
So, was the Lord being unreasonable and unjustly impatient with them? Or, is the Holy Spirit trying to help us see something those disciples were not yet able to see at that time? I submit to you that the Lord is showing us that there is an enormous difference between being able to see in the Spirit… by being one with God’s Living and written Word… and living like those that do not yet know God… navigating merely by their natural sight and faith in their own imaginations, intellects, faculties and natural automatic feelings. Such people may become very religious, nevertheless, there remains a huge separation and difference between them, and what God wants us to know. It is one thing to be one with God’s Word, and quite another to remain ‘decapitated’ and thus separated from Him and all that He contains within Himself! If you are one with Him, you have spiritual faculties that enable you to see and remain connected to the realm in which your Heavenly Father abides! But if you’re not really one with God’s Living and written Word, you remain blind, empty, bankrupt, abandoned and hopeless when it comes to discerning and grasping the meanings of things that pertain to God!
But when disciples finally learn and submit to the Perfect Presence of their abiding Lord… that union with Him gives them the ability to see. Then they too can see what Yeshua saw, and they are no longer limited to just seeing the temporal, fleshy parts of any human scenario. They’re able to see much more of what is included and embedded throughout the whole picture. They’re able to spot the Heavenly, Eternal, Blood Covenant Relationship side of God and all of the dynamic activities of His everlasting Lovingkindness on behalf of those who are His own. Then they have the spiritual eyes that are necessary for us to see all of that. Then it is clearly revealed in any situation the Spirit-filled people may consider. They are able to see what Elisha could see and what he asked Father to help his personal disciple to see in 2 Kings, chapter 6:
2 Kings 6:15-17
“Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’
“Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha!” (Emphasis added.)
What an enormous ‘before and after’ difference there was in Elisha’s disciple in that text! At one moment, he was clueless and bereft of any resources and overcome with panic; but at the next moment, he was overwhelmed and awed by the Glory of God and the awesome Presence of His Heavenly Hosts! What he saw then, caused the enemy king and his puny army to virtually fade from the focus of his attention!
“O Lord, We Pray, Open Our Eyes That We May See!”
How does this apply to us – especially if it’s true that we are part of the generation that is destined to live and operate amid the deadly violent turmoil and chaos that will be common in the Last Days? Isn’t the Lord showing us that the level of faith out of which we must learn to operate during the climactic days of human history will need to be just as heavenly and supernatural as the reactions of Yeshua and Elisha were? Will we not need the same level of faith penetration that comes from that spiritual ‘X-Ray Vision’ that disciples receive from God… so that they can do their jobs in a way that aligns with Father’s Truth and Reality standards, instead of aligning with the God-less circumstances and situation that envelop this fallen world?
We will have to be equipped to operate at a level of faith that springs from something that is completely supernatural… something that is humanly unattainable and completely different from and independent of, any created temporal worldly source! Our faith will have to be imparted to us by the Holy indwelling Presence of Almighty God’s own Spirit! It will be an actual ‘transfusion’ coming into us from the Eternal Infinity of God Himself! Only He, operating from within us, can make us to be totally immune to the demonic manipulations and deceptions that our enemies are always trying to suck us into! We will need a level of faith that will give us that supernatural X-ray vision, the vision that will empower us to abide and soar far above any altitude level that the powers of Darkness may be able to reach! God Himself must bring us up to His Supreme Altitude Level of Wisdom and Awareness. Only He can render us impervious to any and all dreadful, threatening earthly circumstances the demonic powers will try to create to scare us and stop our advance into their realms! This level of faith response will be our unassailable, undeniable Testimony that we will be able to give before the powers of Darkness… in the Arena of Testimony:
Matthew 5:11-16
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in Heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your Light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven!”
Joel 2:26-29
“You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the Name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame. Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other; and My people will never be put to shame. It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days!” (Emphasis added.)
Yeshua was preparing these disciples for the installation and launching of the New Covenant that God had promised to make with Israel in Jeremiah 31! The time had come for Yeshua to begin instituting that Covenant. And so, during the Gospel accounts that we have to study and absorb, His disciples were in the midst of their ‘New Covenant Boot Camp Training!’ And, as part of that training, He expressed disappointment at the fact that they had not yet absorbed and become one with the substance that the Scriptures of Israel were intended to instill and activate within them.
And now, it’s our turn to undergo that same New Covenant training. The Bible contains many similar accounts of how faithful and true the God is Israel is, and always has been, and always will be… on behalf of His Covenant people. This is unchangeable, Eternal, Infinite Truth! God has revealed that He, by Nature, is infinite Perfection and everlasting Covenant faithfulness toward His people! His Perfect Nature can never change or diminish in any way! His Perfection is our Eternal Guarantee that He will ALWAYS come to the rescue of His people. He shows this over and over again. And that is what God commands each generation of Israel’s Remnant, the faithful, obedient ones, to absorb into their minds and hearts, and to pass along to their children, and their children’s children… and to demonstrate the Reality of God’s dynamic sovereign Presence in their midst, to the unbelieving idolaters around them that populate this fallen world.
But, sadly, that is what many of the Word’s chosen disciples in each generation fail to learn to do. And the people that were around the Lord when He was among them in the first century, and even His own original disciples… gave proof that even Israel has a very difficult time when it comes to dealing with the Serpent’s lies and the manipulations and deceitful traps. Even God’s people can be deprived of their awesome Blood Covenant identity and blinded to the blessings and the eternal Inheritance God imparts to those that truly believe and receive what He sends His beloved Son, His own Perfect, Eternal, Living Word, to impart to them.
God has continually proven to His chosen people that He has made Himself to be as one with them. He has proven that His Living Word is so eternally Perfect, that whenever He sends His Word to reveal or command or promise something… no matter what it might be, not only does the Word reveal and proclaim it, but He also abides within and among them to actually CREATE and BESTOW the Reality of what is revealed, commanded and promised! The Word reveals, produces, and delivers… Everything for us… for He contains within Himself the Eternal Fullness of Almighty God Himself… in all of His eternal Fullness and Perfection! And His Word has sworn to be with us and in us and among us and all around us and FOR us – ALWAYS!
And that Perfect Living Word of God was there in the boat… abiding with His disciples in the midst of that storm! They had the Fullness and Eternal Infinite Perfection of their ever-faithful Almighty God in their midst… to cover and provide for and abide with them! But they could not yet see beyond the humble human form of their Master, Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth. They did not yet comprehend the awesome fact that Almighty God Himself was Present in Him and through Him… fulfilling His awesome promises to Abraham and to His chosen family, through them and their circumstances:
Genesis 17:1b-2
“I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My Covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly!”
Matthew 8:26-27
“Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?”
“Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, ‘What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?’ (Emphasis added.)
Beloved, can you see what the Lord (who is our perpetual Life-providing ‘Vine’) is telling us about Himself? By that time, His disciples had been given every reason to know what kind of man He truly is! Their Israelite background, and their many personal experiences with Him should have prepared them by then to realize this. They should have been able to realize that the very One, the Living Word of God that had appeared to Abraham… and the very One that Moses had promised would one day come to Israel, was right there with them in that boat! Had they and the other Israelites understood and heeded Moses when he wrote about the One who was going to be sent to them, they would have been able to take to heart what God had revealed about this awesome Man who was now in their midst! The Holy Spirit would have used what they had stored in their hearts from Moses… and enabled them to recognize their Messiah who was now actually with them in that boat!
In that case, they would not have been so much in awe of the storm; their awe of Him would have equipped them to deal with that storm – and everything else – in a spirit and attitude of outrageous confidence… confidence in Him, and joy and gratitude at having the privilege of being their Messiah’s close friends and disciples:
Deuteronomy 18:15-19
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me (that is, He will also be sent to you by God, just as truly as God also sent me, Moses, to you. He will emerge) from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to Him. This is according to all that you asked of the Lord your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, let me not see this great Fire anymore, or I will die.’ The Lord said to me, ‘They have spoken well (instead of sending Him in the form of Fire, I will send Him in another form). I will raise up a Prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words, which he shall speak in My Name, I Myself will require it of him…” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Just As It Was With Them… So Will It Be With You!
Beloved Family… you may not be in a boat that is riding the very dangerous waves of a stormy lake, but it really does appear as if we have entered the times that our Master warned us about. So whether you’re in a tough dangerous family situation, or caught up in a war, or a natural disaster, or a dicey work situation, or any public and social situation that is negative and dangerous, the Truth God wants you to embody remains intact:
Luke 17:22-30
“And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! Look here!’ Do not go away, and do not run after them. For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building; but on the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. IT WILL BE JUST THE SAME ON THE DAY THAT THE SON OF MAN IS REVEALED!” (Emphasis added.)
Are we not seeing a Last Days resurgence of the days of Sodom and the time of Lot? Aren’t Western societies and cultures being inundated by the stormy capsizing waves of sexual immorality and perversions of all kinds, and moral and intellectual relativism that are literally turning the foundations of human societies and cultures into mush? Would what is happening in our day not amaze and stun even the people of Sodom? Have we not reached a time when the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and His Mosaic Torah foundational revelations and commandments and promises are increasingly being ignored, and even willfully rejected and outlawed? And, is there not a great wave of apostasy taking place, in what has come to be called Christendom?
“…But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation…”
Beloved… I urge you to join me in asking our awesome God to help us to see. Ask him to activate His Living Word and Release His Holy Spirit upon all flesh. Let’s ask Him to do it in a way that exceeds anything the world has ever seen before. It is time for the Fullness of Almighty God to reveal and honor and validate and testify to His Beloved Son, the Living Word, in and through our flesh. It is time for God’s Glory to burst into the view of each of the Lord’s true disciples… even in the midst of the danger and turmoil and deadly turbulence that the winds of the Last Days are beginning to kick up all around us. We will have to be equipped to see what Stephen saw during his last moments on Earth… and that is what will empower us to operate at that level and give the kind of testimony that he gave on His Lord’s behalf:
Acts 7:54-60
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the Glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!’ Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them!’ Having said this, he fell asleep.”
Do you see what captivated Stephen’s conscious attention? It wasn’t the hate-filled screaming murderous mob upon which he was focused. It was God… in all of His Heavenly Glory that filled Stephen to overflowing at that critical moment.
Romans 8:18-25
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption INTO THE FREEDOM OF THE GLORY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD! For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it!” (Emphasis added.)
So beloved, let us ask Father to remove all the impediments that stand between Him and us. Let us remember that our resurrected Messiah is always within us… even closer to us now than He was then, when He was in that boat with His original disciples! Let us submit ourselves to God’s Word and Holy Spirit wholeheartedly… so that God may equip us with the eyes and ears that will enable us to see what the prophets saw… and what our Messiah was able to see, when He limited Himself to operating only as a Man, like us… purely by Faith in the Credibility and Perfection of Almighty God.
Romans 8:31-39
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,
“’For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”’
“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”
Ephesians 3:14-21
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in Heaven and on Earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His Glory, TO BE STRENGTHENED WITH POWER THROUGH HIS SPIRIT IN THE INNER MAN, SO THAT CHRIST MAY DWELL IN YOUR HEARTS THROUGH FAITH; and that you, being rooted and grounded in Love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the Love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, THAT YOU MAY BE FILLED UP TO ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD!
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the Power that works within us, to Him be the Glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever! Amen. (Emphasis added.)