Have you ever been in a situation where you're in a crisis mode and God is snoring? Dr. Tony Evans says when you're hit by a life hurricane and everything feels out of control, it's not the storm that'll wake God up, it's you calling out to Him in desperation.
So if the bad circumstances don't drive you to wake Him up, He may still be sleeping. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Life sooner or later hits all of us with unexpected problems, difficulties that we never thought we'd have to face. Well in today's message, Dr. Evans reminds believers that they already have the tools needed to weather the storms of life. The question is, will we use those tools or panic and give up?
Let's join him as he begins. This is a season for testing. High schoolers are testing in order to be able to graduate. Even those younger are tested to go to the next grade level. College students are taking tests and finals to matriculate to the next level of their college career and experience. Various marketplace jobs will require a test.
If you want to be a lawyer, you have to pass the bar exam. It's a test. In the medical practice, there are tests. Tests are normally designed to reveal what you know. You can say you know it, think you know it, and feel you know it until you take the test.
You may be an A in your head, but an F in your exam, because teachers give tests to reveal. Now, if it's a good teacher, they are testing you over what was taught. They have given you a body of information for you to reveal whether you really captured it or not through the process of a test.
When God wants to see whether we really have heard what he's had to say, he's not satisfied with amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. It is regularly accompanied by a test, something designed to reveal, demonstrate whether you really captured the information that was given. As Jesus was developing his disciples, he would teach them, and then he would test them. He would give them the information that he wanted them to grasp. Then he would assign an exam to see whether they grasped it or not. What he did in biblical days is what he does today when he gives us life exams.
But like a good teacher, he gives us tests over things he's taught to see whether, in fact, we have grasped it or whether we've just agreed with it. Such as the case in the passage read before you from Mark 4. Jesus has attracted a large crowd according to chapter 4 verse 1.
There is a large crowd that have come to hear him teach. He's been teaching them about the kingdom of God. And for example, it says in verse 11, as he was saying to them, to you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God. Again, in verse 26, he was saying the kingdom of God is like. In verse 30, how shall we picture the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God was Jesus's central theme in his earthly ministry. In fact, his first sermon was the kingdom of God is at hand.
The Greek word kingdom, basilia, means rule or authority. So the kingdom has to do with the rule of God, first entering the kingdom through salvation and then operating under the kingdom through discipleship. And so he was regularly speaking about the kingdom and then with his disciples training them in kingdom living and kingdom thinking. He spent his time in chapter 4 speaking a lot of parables about the kingdom, and he regularly throughout the chapter brings up the word seed. He says the kingdom is like a seed, and he makes it known that the seed is the Word of God. But like any seed, unless it's developed, you never fully realize what was in it, that the Word of God comes to us in seed form. But the seed of a watermelon has to develop before the watermelon from the seed is visible. The seed of vegetables and fruit must develop. The oak comes from the acorn, but until it develops, you never realize all it was designed to do. And so he says the Word is like a seed. It's there.
It's got a lot in it, but until it's developed, you don't see all that it offers. So he's been talking to them about this. He comes to the end of the day. He's been teaching all day to the large crowd, which included his disciples. At the end of the day, dusk is setting in, and he says in verse 35 to his disciples, let us go to the other side. He's talking about the other side of the Sea of Galilee. You read a lot in the Gospels about the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee was a major fishing port. It was known for fishing. In fact, half of Jesus's disciples were fishermen.
They were people who knew fishing, and they had a whole company on the Sea of Galilee where fish would be gathered in large sums for eating and for sale. Major fishing place. The Sea of Galilee is a very interesting location. It sits 700 feet below sea level. It's a freshwater body, but it sits in a bowl because it's surrounded by hills and mountains, and it's sunken down 700 feet, so it's like a bowl.
It's 13 by 8. Eight miles by 13 miles is the Sea of Galilee. Jesus says to his disciples, let's cross the sea. Let's go to the other side of the sea.
He's been teaching all day, explaining, illustrating, and now he says it's time to go. So he gets in the boat with his flotilla joining him. It says other boats were with him.
Everybody couldn't fit into his boat, so there were other boats alongside as they went across the Sea of Galilee. On their way across, we're told there was a fierce gale of wind, verse 37 says, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. On their way across this fairly short area of travel, they run into a fierce gale of wind. The word fierce gale in the Greek means the wind with the force of a hurricane. So when the Bible says fierce gale, you think hurricane strength wind.
So we're talking 70, 80, 90, maybe even a hundred mile an hour wind hits them. Now the way this worked on the Sea of Galilee, because it sat in a bowl, is there could be when cold air came and hit warm air on the top of the water, it would create this funnel-like scenario that could whip it up on a moment's notice, turning it into a massive windstorm. They didn't leave in a windstorm. They got hit by a windstorm very quickly since they were going a fairly short distance in the boat. But out of nowhere, they run into hurricane season. They run into something that is overwhelming them, and it is wicked, fierce, hurricane. Not only that, but we're told that the boat was filling up. So the wind is blowing so hard, the waves are crushing so thick, that these fishermen, professional fishermen, find the boat being filled up with water.
Let me put it another way. These professionals found themselves in a crisis. They found themselves in an overwhelming situation. They found themselves with a problem that was too big for their professionalism to handle.
And how did they ultimately deal with the situation? Dr. Evans will have the answer for us when he continues in just a moment. First though, if you need help building the kind of faith that can weather the storms of life, Tony provides it in our current series, Having Faith During Fear. Through these messages, you learn why the idea that we're in control is a myth, and discover how much better life can be when we admit the truth and recognize God's authority.
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Do not be caught off guard. They found themselves in a situation they were unable to rectify on their own even though they were pros at what they did. They found themselves in a fierce gale of wind that out of nowhere everything changed from where they started to what was going on now. This storm has uprooted their world. It has strung them a curve ball. I wonder who ever here ever been hit with a life hurricane, a fierce gale, something that swoops down and just disturbs everything.
Well that's what's happening to the disciples. And they find themselves in a major interruption of life. It is an exam that comes out of nowhere and it is outside of your control. When we were matriculating through school there were different kinds of tests. There were pop quizzes. Pop quizzes came out of nowhere. They didn't tell you you were going to be quizzed. They just threw it at you to keep you alert. Then there would be those dastardly midterms and finals.
Those were monster tests because they were covering half a semester. But they are hit with a problem out of their control because this was nature. This is a storm. This is wind.
This is waves. And the boat was filling up which meant that they were not able to bail it faster than it was filling because the boat was filling up. Now they're not just sitting there watching the water filling up. They're trying to get rid of water, but it was filling up.
They couldn't move fast enough to change the circumstances. That's when we hit verse 38. Jesus himself was asleep in the stern, asleep on the cushion.
Okay, let's stop right there. Jesus is asleep in a storm. We just read it's a fierce storm. It's hurricane stuff. This boat is being tossed all over the place.
It's filling up with water. But Jesus himself was asleep in the stern on a my pillow. If you sleep on a pillow, it means you meant to go to sleep.
So you're not doing you're not you're not doing that. If you didn't tuck that sucker up under your head and you didn't lay down on the pillow, that means you plan to go to sleep. You're not you're not just trying to stay up.
You didn't put a cushion under you. Says Jesus was asleep on a cushion and the circumstances didn't wake him up. I mean these are bad circumstances. This is a fierce problem, a devastating problem, and Jesus is asleep on a cushion. So we read in verse 38, and they woke him up and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Have you ever been in a situation and Jesus is sleeping on you? Have you ever been in a situation where you're in a crisis mode and God is snoring? Have you been in a situation that is beyond your pay grade, beyond your ability to rectify and Jesus won't get up? Psalm chapter 10 verse 1 says, why do you stand afar off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
That's the same cry here. They are going through three storms at the same time. They're going through a physical storm because we're about to perish. We're about to drown. And we're professional fishermen. We know this sea. We've been doing our—carrying on our business here for years. We're part of the Zebedee Fishing Corporation.
We've been doing this for years, and we have experienced nothing like this. This thing is going to kill us, and sometimes when hurricane hits you bad enough, you question whether you'll survive. You don't know whether you'll make it, because the boat of life is filling up and you could be drowning in the circumstances. So they've got a physical crisis. They also have an emotional crisis because we're gonna see in a moment, Jesus says, why are you so afraid? So they are scared. They are terrified.
After all, we might perish. And when you're in a crisis that you can't fix, that threatens your very existence, you become afraid. The palpitations increase. The worry expands. You just don't know whether you can survive it, not only physically, but emotionally.
You are so afraid. So they have a physical crisis. They have an emotional crisis. They also have a spiritual crisis. Care is though not that we perish.
It's bad enough we're going through this. It's bad enough we're living in terror, but now we got to deal with the fact that you don't care, that we're in this crisis and you are asleep at a time like this. When I need you most, you're sending up Z's regularly when you read the Psalms. The Psalmist cries out, where are you, God?
Where are you? Have you ever noticed something when you were going to school? Whenever the teacher was giving you a test, he or she was silent. She sat behind the desk, but she didn't say anything. Sometimes they wouldn't even leave the room because you were taking a test.
And again, if it was a good teacher, it was a test over something you should have already known based on what was taught. There in a spiritual crisis, they say, how could you not care right now? You up with nothing wrong. When everything goes wrong, you sleep.
Please notice something. The circumstances did not wake Jesus up. They did. The problem, the wind, the waves, the storm, did not wake Jesus up. Jesus didn't wake up till they woke him up, because a lot of times we want Jesus to respond to our need before he responds to us. He didn't get up because times were bad. He got up because they were desperate for him when times were bad.
So if the bad circumstances don't drive you to wake him up, he may still be asleep. They're in a desperate situation. They're in a storm. Now as I speak to us today, you're either in a storm, just come out of a storm, or headed toward a storm, because in life it rains. Jesus said, in this world you're gonna have trouble. John 16 33, that you will have times when there are thunderstorms and hurricanes and is out of your control. You can't change it. You can't wish it away.
You can't override it. You can't bail fast enough to get rid of the water that is threatening to sink the boat. Let me make sure I'm being relevant.
Anybody in here been in hurricane season before? They've been in a place where if Jesus don't wake up, you won't make it. So they wake him up. They say, get up, Jesus. We need you, Jesus. We're not gonna make it, Jesus.
We're desperate for you, Jesus. And he got up when they woke him up, when they got desperate enough to shake him till he got up. It reminds me of Jacob wrestling with the angel. And the angel told Jacob, let me go. And Jacob said, I'm not gonna let you go until you bless me.
If we got to go all night long, we gonna get it on all night long, because I'm not letting you go until you bless me. Jacob was in a threatening situation, and he was fighting for his life and said, until you move, I'm not gonna let you go. When God is giving us a major exam, the question on the floor is, how much do we want him? Because he didn't get up because of the circumstances.
He only got up when they woke him up. Valuable words from Dr. Tony Evans on surviving life storms. We'll hear more from him on this tomorrow. In the meantime, if you'd like to get the full-length version of this lesson, copies are available on CD or digital download. You can get them as a part of the entire six message series I told you about earlier called, Having Faith During Fear. Remember, when you help support the alternative broadcast with a contribution, we'll say thanks by sending you this powerful audio series, along with the Hope for the Hurting Leader Kit, including the book, study guide, study session materials, teaching videos, and more. But this is a special limited time offer, so don't wait. Drop by our website, tonyevans.org, to let us know you'd like to take advantage of this exclusive deal. Or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where the friendly people on our resource team are ready 24-7 to help you.
Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll tell you about what's in store for tomorrow, right after this. How do you share the gospel with confidence? What's God's plan for our communities?
Why does the Old Testament matter to your faith today? Those are just a few of the questions you'll get answered when you enroll in the Tony Evans Training Center, an interactive online study experience with Dr. Tony Evans, where you can grow in your knowledge of God's Word and learn to advance His kingdom agenda in your life. Visit tonyevanstraining.org to get started today. That's tonyevanstraining.org. Well, tomorrow Dr. Evans will tell us more about what it takes to trust God when it seems like our circumstances are about to wash us away. You'll discover why even when things are at their worst, there's something bigger at work than the storm. Be sure to join us.
