Storms

You have your Bibles with you. Turn with me, if you would, to Mark chapter 4, and we're looking at verses 35 through 41. And they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said to them, Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? They were filled with great fear, and said to one another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, today we are looking at the subject of storms. Those times in life that shake us, scare us, and sometimes shock us. Those are times that we can't figure out easily, times that we can't prepare for. When those storms come upon us, we realize that we can get hurt physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We don't like those times, but they enter our lives whether we like them or not. In this passage we learn that you are with us through the storms. We are told to increase our fear of God and decrease our fear of everything else. Help us to do that. It's easy to talk about it.

It's easy to give advice to others who aren't, who aren't, when we're not going through it. But sometimes it's hard to see through the rain, the waves, the wind, and to focus on you. Father, please give us grace. Lord, I pray for those this morning who are physically struggling. Pray for Scott Starcher and Linda McCatherin as they are recovering from surgery. Pray for Fran Ruisi who is diagnosed this week with esophageal cancer. Pray for Kay Rickhoff who is suffering with respiratory problems. Pray for Nicole Lohse who is still fighting vertigo.

Have mercy on these. Lord, please keep my lips from error this morning. Please open our ears that we may learn of you. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. As we have been studying through the Gospel of Mark, I'm sure that you have noticed that I have referenced on many occasions both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Why is that? Well, the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew are much longer Gospels. They have much more information in them. But it's very interesting that in this particular incident that we are reading about today that Mark has more information and more details than either Matthew or Luke.

And why is that? Well, Mark had a source for his Gospel and the source for his Gospel was Simon Peter. Mark found out that Peter was in prison and they were going to crucify him.

They did upside down. And he went all the way to Rome so that he could be with Peter. He went into Peter's prison cell, sat down with Peter, and Peter, through the power of the Holy Spirit, gave him exactly word by word what he needed to write as what we know as the Gospel of Mark. Peter was a fisherman. He spent much of his life on the Sea of Galilee.

He knew all about storms, tried to avoid them every chance he got. But in this particular story, we read about a storm that Peter would never forget. Now I want you to picture this in your mind if you can for a second. Picture Peter sitting in the prison cell with Mark. And he's sharing with Mark about what's happened in this part of his life with Jesus.

And his eyes get big, his hands begin to shake with excitement. And he says, we were out on the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and Jesus was there with us and a storm came up. It was the worst storm that I've ever seen in my life. And the waves were ten feet high and the waves were crashing into the boat. It was a horrible situation.

It looked like there's no way that we could survive this terrible storm. It looked like death was imminent. And then he said, Jesus did something that changed my life. He said Jesus was asleep in the boat.

And while he was asleep in the boat, he said we as the disciples came over to him and we shook him and we rebuked him for sleeping when he should have been helping us. And then Jesus did a miracle, Peter says, that shook me all the way down to my toenails. Thirty-five years later in Peter's prison cell, Mark is given by Peter a recollection of that storm and of exactly what happened. And so Peter was excited about it. And as Peter is filled with excitement, Mark's heart is filled with excitement. And so Mark is able to give us more detail than either Matthew or Luke.

Now, let me ask you something. Why was Peter so cranked up about this one miracle? I mean, my goodness, Peter had seen lots of miracles before. He'd seen Jesus do lots of miracles.

Miracles of healing. The blind were seeing, the deaf were hearing, the lame were walking, the dead were being raised from the dead. Not only that, but Peter saw Jesus' power over the demonic. And Jesus would speak to a demon-possessed person and command the demon to come out, and that demon would come out and come out very quickly.

I mean, this was enough right there to have your head spinning, but now some other things are taking place. And the miracle that Jesus does here in this story shows that Jesus not only has power over disease, over death and over demons, but he also has power over nature. I've got four points I want to share with you this morning.

The first point is this. Peace before the storm. Look with me at verses 35 through 36. On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, Let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was, and other boats were whipping. It had been a long day of preaching for Jesus. Jesus had been preaching the parables to the great crowds. He had preached the long parable of the sower and the seed. He had preached kingdom parables, the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the lamp on the lampstand, and probably a whole lot of others. And then when he was finished with the crowd, he got the disciples off to the side, and he preached to them, explaining to them the meaning of all these parables.

Jesus started preaching about sunrise, and he continued preaching all day long to sunset. Before I went in the ministry, I worked for Associated Grocers Mutual, and I worked in the meat division. One of our responsibilities was to unload carcass beef. Carcass beef, there were sides of beef that were hanging up in these long tractor-trailer trucks, and they weighed usually between 250-300 pounds.

Sometimes we would unload three of those trucks a day. And let me tell you something. When you came to the end of that day, you were absolutely worn out.

I mean, when I got home, I went to sleep, and I slept good. Well, I went to seminary after that, and I'll never forget Dr. Green, Leo Green. He was my Old Testament professor, and something he said one day. He said, preaching a sermon correctly, with study, with passion, with a broken heart for those that you're preaching to, is more tiring than working an eight-hour day. And he said, if you're preaching not only Sunday morning, but you're preaching Sunday night, he said, this is my advice to you. He said, you go home as soon as you get through preaching the morning service, you eat a very quick lunch, you go to your bedroom, pull down all the shades, take all your clothes off, get into the bed, and cover up with the covers, and sleep for at least an hour and a half, a deep sleep, then get up and study, and get ready for that night service. And I thought to myself, ah, Dr. Green, you've probably never unloaded carcass beef before. And that's work.

That demands sleep. Preaching? I don't know.

That's what I thought. Well, three months later, I got called to Olive Grove Baptist Church, and I preached my first sermon that morning, and I preached the night service that evening, and I knew this was going to be my pattern from here on out. And I remember saying, Dr. Green, I was wrong, and you were right.

You were right. Preaching is work for me. Preaching is work for Eugene. Preaching is work for Sinclair Ferguson. Preaching is work for Charles Stanley. Preaching is work for Charles Spurgeon.

Preaching was work for Jesus. It's exciting work. It's thrilling work.

There's nothing in the world that I would rather do. Let me tell you, it's tiring. I've had people say to me, Doug, if God's called you to preach, it's going to be easy.

Baloney. Brothers and sisters, if you can preach, and you can preach as God would have you to preach, and it doesn't wear you out, then you're not preaching. Rest assured of this, preaching tired Jesus.

Jesus is God, but he was also fully man. And so when it got hot, he sweated. When his heart got filled with sorrow, he wept.

When he cut his finger, he bled. And when he preached, although he was totally, completely filled with the Holy Spirit, he got tired. And so in this situation, he got in the boat, he got in the boat, he pointed the disciples in the direction in which they were to go, and he lay down with his head on a cushion in the stern of that boat, the rear of the boat, and he shut his eyes in order that he might try to get some good sleep. Here's the question. If a horrible storm is about to come crashing down on the Sea of Galilee, and the Holy Spirit of God knows exactly the moment when that storm is going to hit the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus is completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God, then why in the world wouldn't they just get up on shore, stay on the shore, and say, we'll wait this one out until tomorrow? We'll get this storm out of the way, and we'll stay on the shore here where we're safe.

Here's the answer. God Almighty wanted them in the storm. It was not an accident.

It was not a mistake. It was God's providential timing. Now, not all the disciples could get in that one boat. Scripture says here there were other little boats that were along with them, and they had the rest of the disciples in those other little boats, probably some very close followers of Jesus along with them. They were on the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes it's called the Sea of Gennesaret. Sometimes the Sea of Chinnereth. Sometimes the Sea of Tiberias. That's the same Sea of Galilee, and it's 690 feet below sea level.

It's the fresh water, the very lowest below sea level, fresh water body of water that is on the entire globe. Now, where did the water come from? Some of that water came from mountain streams that just went right down into the Sea of Galilee. Most of the water came from the Jordan River, flowed south into the river, and then continued to flow through the river and went all the way down to the Dead Sea.

Folks, this was important. Some of its water sources are mountain storms, but most of it came from the Jordan River. Folks, the water was a primary drinking source for the people of Israel. It was also filled with good tasting fish. 1976, I had the privilege of going to Israel, and we went to a little restaurant in Capernaum, and we ate what they call St. Peter's Fish. I said, man, this is good. What is it?

Never heard of it before. It was tilapia. They distribute tilapia now all over the world, but it was first found right there in the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee has steep hills and has mountains that cause real strange wind currents, wind currents that can get so strong that they can turn a tranquil lake into a raging sea in just a matter of moments. These storms still occur. In 1992, one of these storms hit the Sea of Galilee. It had waves that were 10 feet tall.

It was an amazing thing. The city of Tiberias is right off the shore, and it caused a flood in the city that flooded the whole city out. Now, what does the Sea of Galilee look like? Ever seen Lake Norman? The Sea of Galilee looks a lot like Lake Norman. It's fresh water. Usually, when I think of the sea, I think of Atlantic Ocean. I think of salt water.

They're huge. You can't even see a cross, and that's not so with the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee looks a lot like Lake Norman.

So I want you to think for just a minute, if you've ever seen Lake Norman, of what 10-foot waves would look like on Lake Norman. That's what's going on at the Sea of Galilee. So Jesus and the disciples sailed off. Luke 8 tells us that immediately Jesus went to sleep. All right, that takes us to point two. Peace during the storm.

Look at verse 37 through 38. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Were these hurricane-force winds?

Man, you better believe they were. They were creating waves that were crashing over the top of that boat, and the disciples were trying to bail the water out, but it was a losing battle. They couldn't get the water out fast enough, and they knew that this was danger. Picture the utter chaos on that boat.

The disciples are yelling and screaming. The wind is howling. The water is crashing onto the boat, and there's just panic and pandemonium in that boat everywhere except one place, and that's Jesus. Jesus is sound asleep. The howling winds don't wake him. The crashing waves don't wake him. The shouts of the disciples don't wake him.

The water splashing all over him does not wake him. Seven of these disciples were fishermen. They had navigated these waters for many, many years, several of them decades, and they were not novices, and they were not alarmists.

They'd seen lots and lots of storms, but this one was very unusual. They knew it was deadly, and they knew that if that ship sank, they were not going to be able to swim all the way to the shore to safety. They knew that if that ship went down, they would die, so they started shaking Jesus. Wake up, Jesus!

Wake up! Do you not care that we are perishing? Now, I entitle this point Peace During the Storm.

Who could have peace at a time like that? The wind was tossing that boat on the waves like a styrofoam cup on the water. The disciples would stand up, and immediately they'd fall right back down into the bottom of that boat. Water was filling the boat faster than they could bail the water out.

The prospect of drowning was not just possible, but it was probable. So where's the peace that I'm talking about? The peace is in a person. Peace is lying in the stern of that boat. He's drenched with water, his body stretched out, his head's on a cushion, and he's sawing logs.

I mean, he's snoring. How do you have peace in a time like that? Well, I know that he's God, but he's also fully man, and this is how he did it. His faith was in his Father, God the Father, and his faith was in the power of the Holy Spirit. You see, Jesus knew something. Jesus knew that he was not going to die in that boat. He knew it, because he knew that he was going to die at Passover season. He was the Passover lamb. He was not going to die by being drowned in a sea of Galilee. He was going to die by crucifixion. He also knew that the disciples were not going to die here, because they were going to carry on his ministry after his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

They weren't dying, and neither was he. But we need to think about this. If God is sovereign, and he is, then he has your death planned out. It will not happen one second before his predestined time. As a Christian, should you fear death? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. The Lord has planned it out perfectly. Jesus also knew that God sovereignly orchestrated this moment so that he could do a miracle that would shake those disciples like they had never been shaken before. After the miracle that Jesus did here, they could never view him quite the same again, because now they're looking at him as bigger and more authoritative and more powerful and more glorious than they had ever seen him before. So the disciples started shaking Jesus. And in their fear and frustration, they cry out, teacher, do you not care that we're perishing?

That doesn't sound like a request to me. That sounds like a rebuke, doesn't it? I mean, they're jumping on Jesus. They're saying, Jesus, do you not care about us? What's going on here? Why are you sleeping through this?

You should be helping us through this terrible crisis. Let me ask you something. Ever happened to you? You get in a time of anxiety? You get in a time where you just feel terribly fearful, and all of a sudden you start telling Jesus how to fix it?

You ever do that? Maybe it's a situation where you've got an unanswered prayer. Maybe you've been praying for a loved one for a long time, and this loved one's lost. You've been witnessing to that loved one. They don't care.

Their heart is a rock. They're not making any kind of response to you whatsoever, and you've prayed. You've cried a river of tears. You've begged God to do something. You said, Lord, you promised that if we ask anything in your name that you would give it to us, why are the heavens brass?

Why aren't you doing something? Lord, don't you care about us? Don't you love us? Don't you care?

Doesn't it matter to you? Listen, these situations are great opportunities to get dead serious with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. I don't know why God often says no, but I do know this.

I know his character, and I know his character is right. The disciples in that boat were questioning Jesus' love for them. They could not understand the peace that he had in a time when they were filled with hysteric panic.

They could not see in the future. They had no idea that Jesus was getting ready to do a miracle that was gonna solidify their understanding of the deity of Christ. They probably believed that he was the son of God at this point in time, but there were doubts.

I think after this miracle, they were much, much more assured that Jesus was God. Now, in that despondency, they would have done well to recall a few of the psalms. You know, what if they had memorized some of these psalms? I'm gonna share some of them with you, but I think if they had memorized some of those psalms, and they knew the words, when that water started crashing in over their head, I think they would have had a whole bunch more peace.

Let me share a few with you. Psalm 65, verse five through seven. By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, oh God, of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the father's sea, the one who by his strength established the mountains, being girded with might, and of the peoples. Psalm 89, nine. You rule the raging of the sea when its waves rise, you steal them.

And listen to this one. Psalm 107, verse 23 through 31. This sounds exactly like what's happening here with these disciples and Jesus in the boat, and yet it was written over a thousand years before Jesus was even born.

It says this. They saw the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep, for he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven. They went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.

They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits end. Then they cried to the Lord that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters were quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of men. Jesus had total peace in the storm. He knew Psalm 65, Psalm 89, Psalm 107. In fact, it was his Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, that inspired those great words.

Listen. When I hand you to the storm, when I hand you to meditate on Scripture, when I hand you to memorize the Word of God, that's not just preacher talk. That's the key to success.

And I don't mean financial success. I mean joy and peace and contentment. Study to show yourself a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of God. Verse 2.3, peace after the storm. Look at verse 39 through 40. And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, why are you so afraid?

Have you still no faith? After being awakened and then rebuked by his disciples, his eyes are being hit by that powerful, powerful wind. And he looks out over the water and says to the wind, hush, peace, be still. You know, it's the same thing he said to demoniacs when he wanted the demons to zip it up.

He said, hush, peace be still. And they obeyed. The wind also obeyed.

This is absolutely amazing. He spoke to nature and nature abating. He spoke to a hundred mile per hour wind and that wind stopped just like that and perfectly obeyed him. A century and a half ago, Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on this passage. He entitled it Christ Asleep in the Boat.

And listen to what he said. The result was instantaneous. In a moment, the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. The towering waves vanished, the howling gusts were silenced, and the surface of the lake became like glass.

There was no trace of storm another moment after he had been awakened. The most blustering of the conflicting winds slept like a babe at its mother's bosom. The waves were like marble. When Christ rebuked the wind and the waves, they did not subside gradually until calm was restored.

Both disappeared immediately. The storm may have risen suddenly, but it vanished even faster than it came. Mark's use of the word megas, meaning great, translated perfectly, indicates the absolute stillness that now characterized the Sea of Galilee. As the wind quit blowing and the waves quit crashing and the sea became smooth as glass, Jesus asked a question. He said, guys, why are you afraid? The disciples are, put yourself in their shoes a minute.

They're sitting there and their eyes are about this big. Hands are shaking and trembling. Jesus says, why are you afraid? Then before they can get an answer out of their mouth, he asked another question. Do you still have no faith? Now, they did have some faith because they had seen Jesus do miracles. They had seen Jesus reach over and touch a man's eyes who had been born blind, who had been in darkness all his life, who had never seen the light of day. And as soon as Jesus touched him, he's got 20-20 vision.

They saw that. They'd seen Jesus heal a man with leprosy. That man's got holes in the side of his cheek that go all the way down to his jawbone. He's got skin that has fallen off his bones. He's got legs that can't even move because the tissue and the muscles have been so attacked. Jesus says to him, be healed! And all of a sudden those holes in his cheeks are filled up with perfect flesh. His skin's just as clean and pure as a baby's skin. His legs are as strong as an ox.

He's perfectly well. They saw that. They also saw Jesus turn water into wine. This miracle's different.

Jesus spoke to nature and nature obeyed Jesus. He told a hundred mile an hour wind, hurricane force wind, to stop, and it stopped immediately. When Hurricane Hugo hit, I lived close to the Catawba River out in southwest Mecklenburg. And if you remember, that was back in 1989, but the storm came in through Charleston, went right up the river. By the time it came to us there in southwest Charlotte, the winds were still a hundred miles per hour.

I had never seen anything like that before. Our electricity was already off. Four o'clock in the morning, we were in the middle of the night.

We had 17 trees that were broken down in our front yard. I mean, it was absolutely amazing. And so I said, I've got to feel what this is like. And I went outside, and my goodness, the roar was like a locomotive. And not only that, but the wind felt like pins, needles that were hitting me. That's what the disciples had experienced. And so I said, I've got to feel what this is like. And the wind felt like pins, needles that were hitting me.

That's what the disciples had experienced. They were in the water. I was on solid ground. Next morning, I walked around to the backyard, and the night before, I had taken a cup. It had about a half-inch of water in it. It was a little styrofoam cup, and I put it on the handrail of our back porch.

And so I walked back around there. There was a tree about probably 20 yards, 20 feet from there, and it had broken off in half and fallen down. And that little cup was still sitting up there on that handrail. I thought, how in the world did that happen? How could it stay there through that terrible windstorm?

How could that happen? And all of a sudden, it hit me. God is sovereign. If He wants that cup to stay there, it's going to stay there. Come hell or high water, it's going to stay there. It reminded me, when we're in the midst of a storm, if God wants to protect us, you can rest assured of this.

You're going to be protected. In one split second, Jesus said to the winds, hush, no more wind, no more waves, no more noise, absolute peace, peace in nature. What's the lesson for the disciples? What's the lesson for us?

Listen carefully. We can trust Jesus even in the most treacherous and seemingly hopeless times. It's easy to talk about faith when life is running smoothly, but our faith is tested during the time of storms. Jesus does not want His people to be anxious. He doesn't want His people to be living in fear. He wants us to deal with that.

How do we deal with it? We trust His Word. Did you realize there are 365 times in the Bible where the scripture says, fear not? That's a different command for every single day of the year where God says, fear not. In Hebrews chapter 13, verses 5 through 6, Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you so we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear.

What can man do to me? First Peter chapter 5 verse 7 says, cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you. Listen, we need to think about death. What's going to happen to you if your doctor says to you, you've only got days to live? What's going to happen if we get to the point in this country where your government says to you, you either reject Christ or face the firing squad?

Are you going to freak out in fear or are you going to glorify God in peace? I have watched countless Christians die. I have watched many people from this church die and so many of them have died well. I think of Bob Beecham, I think of Joni Presley, I think of Martin Ephard, I think of my dad. They died not in fear, they died in faith.

E.V. Hill, great preacher, preached his wife's funeral service. I listened to that service and he made this statement about his wife. He said, my wife died well. Brothers and sisters, I don't know about you, I want that testimony.

I want to not only live well, I want to be able to die well. And you know what I believe? I believe that if Jesus is who He said He was and I know He is, then every single child of God in this congregation can get to the point where they can know that they're going to die well. My last point very quickly is the storm after the peace. Look at verse 41. And they were filled with great fear and they said to one another, who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Fear is the natural response of human beings when we experience a miracle of God or we experience the presence of God. I want to give you a few biblical examples. The Lord spoke to Abraham and Abraham said, I am but dust and ashes. The Lord spoke to Job and Job said, Lord, before I had just heard of you with a hearing in my ear but now my eyes have seen you. The Lord spoke to Manoah who was the father of Samson and Manoah cried out and said to his wife, I have seen God. Isaiah went into the temple of the Lord. He saw the Lord high and lifted up on his throne. His train filled the temple and Isaiah said, woe unto me for I'm an unclean man with unclean lips and I live in the midst of a people of unclean lips. I have seen the king.

I have seen the Lord of hosts. I think of Paul who fell in the dust of John on the island of Patmos writing the book of Revelation. God gives him a vision, a vision of Jesus Christ and it's so great that he falls at Jesus' feet as if he were dead. Wait, all those people that I just mentioned are people of God and yet all of them were expressing fear. What kind of fear was it? It was fear of God. Folks, if we fear God, we don't have to fear anything else for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, from a human perspective, it would seem that we have much to fear.

Russia is threatening to use nuclear warfare to finish off the Ukraine, put fear into the heart of the US and NATO. Put Jesus before government. We're experiencing food shortages, skyrocketing gas prices, double-digit inflation. Our crime rate is soaring.

Our culture is rotting with immorality and sexual nonsense. How can we not fear? Lord, help us to make a determination to fear nothing but God. Lord, help us to see that you are Lord over death, disease, demons, depression and cultural delusion. Help us to live with this truth ruminating in our hearts that you will never leave us nor forsake us. Help us to remember this. Jesus is in the boat. For it's in Christ's name Amen.