Because of their failure to recognize Christ for who He was, and their desire for material blessings without the eye of faith, Christ separates Himself from the multitude and rounds up His disciples for a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee.
Matthew 14:22-24 reads, "And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. [23] And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. [24] But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary."
“If you look at Mark 6 and John 6, you’ll see they were in the middle of the lake (when Jesus arrived),” explains Jordan. “The Sea of Galilee at its widest point is just 10 miles across. It’s about 8 miles by 15 miles, so if they’re going across it, and they’ve only gotten half way, they haven’t got very far, and in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them.
“In other words, they go at 6 p.m. and the fourth watch would be 3 o’clock in the morning. They been out there rowing for 9 hours and hadn’t gotten but about four miles. That’s tough sledding, you know that? I figure I could walk that far in 9 hours!The problem is there's a storm.
“Verse 25-26 says, ‘And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. [26] And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.’
“Have you ever wondered why they were troubled? Why wouldn’t they be happy? It says they ‘cried out in fear.’
“Now that passage is a tremendous demonstration of the deity of Christ. If you want to talk about somebody doing something, talk about them walking on water.
“Job 9:8 very clearly identifies that when you can walk on water, it’s a sign of deity. Job says God 'alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. '
“Jesus comes along His disciples in the midst of a storm-tossed sea and walks right across out there and those guys knew the Old Testament. They knew those verses in Job and they knew, or should have known, what the miracle was a demonstration of in their midst.
"A tremendous declaration of the deity of Christ right in front of them and what do they do? They’re troubled, they’re afraid, they’re bothered.
“You say, ‘Why in the world is that?!’ Mark 6:52: ‘For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.’
"You know what the problem of those men was? Fear had mastered them. Fear had overtaken them. Fear controlled them.
“They were out there in the middle of that ocean (as it felt to them) in the storm and they didn’t expect any deliverance. They were scared to death and when Christ showed up coming as the deliverer, they were all afraid.
“You see, they didn’t learn the lesson of the feeding of the 5,000. The doctrine God was trying to communicate to them (about belief in His Son as Messiah) was not what they were operating on; they were operating on human viewpoint and their own emotions.
*****
“That point needs to be well-taken. In these things going on here, they’re not just stories to tantalize and to tell little children in Sunday school. There’s some tremendous lessons being taught in the feeding of the 5,000 and Christ walking on the water. There are some tremendous prophetic truths; truths that affect the kingdom program that these apostles represent.
“Christ comes walking to them on the stormy sea. That’s a type; a picture of the tribulation period, the time of Jacob’s trouble.
“Daniel 7:1-2 says, 1] In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. [2] Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
“It’s a night vision. Matthew 14 is a night experience. The wind is whipping up a storm on the sea and you know what the rest of that passage is? It’s a picture of the 70th week of Daniel and the tribulation period and the Antichrist and the persecution and the torment raised by the Antichrist against the nation Israel and how he torments and persecutes and seeks to wear out the saints of the most high god in Daniel 7 and that’s just a picture.
“Revelation 13:1 says, ‘And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.’
“You see, he says, ‘I saw the sea,’ and a beast comes up out of the sea and all those kind of things.
“Again, the issue has to do with the tribulation and, as these men go out on the sea, they go out upon that time of Jacob’s trouble. It’s a night vision as the tribulation is. As Daniel 7 and so forth are. Christ appears to them. He comes down walking on the water. He comes treading upon Israel’s enemies and He appears to them as who He is—the Son of God, Jehovah Himself, to rescue them, and He comes walking on the water.
*****
“All of these things are a type of what’s going to happen in the tribulation involving the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. What you’re seeing in the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus coming to them in that fourth watch of the night to rescue them in that storm-tossed sea, is a picture of the Second coming of Christ, and when that ‘little flock’ gets into the real storm, and the real time of Jacob’s trouble, they’ll have some information they’ve gone through to draw upon, and the things He’s illustrating to them here will REALLY come about and they’ll have some lessons they’ve been taught to get them through that real time in the wilderness in the tribulation when He feeds them (Revelation 12).
“Psalm 93, a passage about the Second Coming of Christ, reads:
[1] The
LORD reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength,
wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot
be moved.
[2] Thy
throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.[3] The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
[4] The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.
[5] Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for ever.
“When He comes back, the waves are roaring, the storm is tossed, the billows rage, and He comes back and He’s mightier than that and He just calms the whole thing down, and He fixes it and puts it to rest and brings peace.
“Revelation 12:6 says, ‘And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.’ Time wise, this passage is in the middle of the 70th week of Daniel (chapter 9). It’s right in the middle of the tribulation.
“Where are these men in the Sea of Galilee? In the middle. That’s half of the 70th week.
“The woman Israel flees into the wilderness. Just like Christ took that multitude in the wilderness and fed them in the wilderness, He one day in that tribulation is going to take the nation Israel and feed them in that wilderness.
“In fact, Hosea 2:14-15 says that in the tribulation God is going to allure the nation Israel, bring them out into the wilderness, and deal with them in that wilderness just like He did when He brought them up out of the land of Egypt.
“The passage reads, ‘Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. [15] And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.’
“The information is in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and He says, ‘Here in Hosea, the way I’m going to deal with Israel in the trib is just going to be just like it was back there, so if you want to know what’s going to go on over here, where can you go in your Bible and find out some instruction, go to those books.
*****
“Matthew 14: 25 says, ‘And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.’ It’s important you understand the issue of the watches of the night, especially as they relate to the Second Coming of Christ. At this time a night was divided into four sections. Each of those sections had a watch to it.
“In the Old Testament, the Jews divided the night into three watches, but at this time the Romans are in control and you go by their system and so it’s four watches.
“You see the names for the four watches in Mark 13:35: ‘Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning.’
“The first one is even (6-9), then there’s midnight (9-12). We call that the ‘graveyard shift.’ The next one is the cock crowing. That runs from 12-3 and then the next one is called morning. That would run from 3-6. So you’ve got four watches that run the night.
“From Matthew 14:25, we know Jesus comes in the fourth watch of the night. Now, there’s an interesting thing you learn when you study Bible prophecy. The Second Coming of Christ is described as ‘the sun coming up in the morning.
“Malachi 4:1-2 says, ‘For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.’
“You see that ‘s-u-n.’ Who is that? That’s Jesus Christ. In Christ’s coming, and the beginning of the millennium, it’s like the sun going up in the morning.
“Matthew 13:41. That kingdom is like the sun coming up, so it’s called the daytime. John 9:4. Then when Jesus Christ is here it’s daytime. He dies on the Cross, He’s resurrected, and then He ascends up into heaven, and when He goes out of the world, it’s called nighttime here.
“The time period in your Bible between the ascension of Christ, His going up into the mountain, and the time that He comes back over here, is called nighttime in the prophetic scripture.
“In fact, the Apostle Paul in I Thessalonians 5: 1-10 describes the period in which we live today as night, and he says, ‘You are not children of the night but are of the day,’ and He’s describing the fact you’re a child of God and not a child of Satan. Without Jesus Christ, the world’s in darkness.”
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