Soft pillow for the stormy voyage

There are two fundamental emotions humans deal with in life—one is love, drawing us toward things, and the other is fear, pushing us away from things.

“Fear is a debilitating thing; in John 14, the fear of men kept people from trusting and believing even when they saw the truth of God’s Word by seeing the Messiah in their midst," says Jordan.

“Jesus said, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ What does your heart do? With a heart man believes. Then He says, ‘Neither be afraid.’

“Without having that turmoil down inside, you have the ability to just go, ‘Ahhh,’ and let it all hang out and relax inside; relax in the truth of God’s Word about who Jesus Christ is and what He’s accomplished.

“Why should you trust it?  Christ says, ‘Look at me; I’m trusting it!’

“He says in John 14:28, ‘Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.’

“Christ is saying, ‘You know why you ought to have your heart trust me and not be afraid? Because you’ve heard my Word!’

“He already told His disciples, ‘If you love me keep my commandments.’ 'I’m living in complete total dependence on the will of my Father,' is what He’s saying. Paul has a great phrase for that—he calls it ‘the faith of Christ.’

“Jesus Christ entered into a plan and an agreement with His Father about what He would do and said, ‘Now, my peace I leave you.’ He’s completely at peace. He has complete inner tranquility even though He knows the agony He’s going to face on the Cross.

"In fact, when He says in verses 30-31 (‘Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

[31] But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence’), He’s saying in the vernacular of our day:

“ ‘Let’s git-er done! . . . Let’s get on with it! The Adversary, the prince of this world, has come to fulfill the conflict of Genesis 3:15 where the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan will be in personal hand-to-hand combat. That day has arrived, so let’s go!’

“Because He’s got nothing . . . ‘There’s no weakness in me at all; I’m ready to go.’

“He knows what the Scripture says is going to happen to Him and yet He doesn’t hold back. In Hebrews 12, it says, ‘Who for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.’

“He had in His mind an understanding of what God had promised Him and believed it and confidently trusted in it. There’s no rebellion, no hesitation; He has that complete inner tranquility.

*****

“There’s a fascinating passage in Philippians 4: 9: 'Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.'

“You want the God of peace to be with you? What does that mean? Well, look at verse 7: ‘And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’

“Wouldn’t you get the peace of God from the God of peace? This is peace that BELONGS to the God of peace.

“When Paul talks in Philippians 4 about the ‘peace of God,’ that’s the peace that BELONGS to God. In Romans 5, he talks about ‘being justified by faith we have peace WITH God.’ That’s us and God; there’s not an argument between us anymore. God is no longer against me. There’s a cessation of hostility; no cause for God to be angry with me anymore.

“But the peace OF God is something different than that. That’s the peace that God Himself has. God is at peace with His own will. He’s at peace with His own plans. He’s at peace with His own word.

“And God’s peace; that total tranquility and inner calmness over what He’s doing, He takes that and gives it to us when we trust Him.

*****

“By the way, when it talks about the peace WITH God and the peace OF God, Melchizedek was the king of righteousness and the king of peace. Righteousness is first, peace is second. Because peace can only be based on righteousness; things have to be dealt with righteously.

“So you have peace with God where the righteousness of God is satisfied; then you can have the peace OF God.

“James 3:17 tells Israel, ‘But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.’

“First you have the righteousness, then you have the peace.

“Isaiah 32 says, 'And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.

[18] And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.'

“Righteousness has to do with being right. God’s word is right and I’m in relationship with it and the peace comes out of His righteousness.

*****

“John 14: 27 is the great illustration of the peace OF God.  Jesus says, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’

“Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. Here’s God living in our humanity and He has complete and total peace—inner tranquility, inner calmness, a relaxed mental attitude in His heart that results in that faith, that total dependence on the Word of His Father.

“He’s going away to receive the kingdom. Remember the parallel in Luke 19? Remember the passage in Daniel 7 where the Son of Man comes before the ancient of days to receive the kingdom and the power and the dominion? He goes there to receive the kingdom and to return.

“Philippians 2:5 says, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’ This is a truth that Paul followers should be very clear about and should rejoice in.

"Paul goes on, ‘Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: [7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: [8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’

“He made Himself of no reputation. Who did that to Him? He did it to Himself. Voluntarily, He took up a position and took upon Him the form of a servant. Though He’s equal with the Father, He chooses to function in relationship to the Father as a servant. Did He have to? No, He willingly chose to.

“The next verse says, ‘He humbled Himself and became obedient.’ What does a servant do? He does what his master, his lord, tells him to do. So when Jesus Christ says, ‘The Father is greater than I,’ it’s in relationship to Jesus Christ coming as a servant. What He’s doing is owning His place as a servant.”

Here's an old blog piece from 2014:

In the gospels, Jesus Christ separates Himself from the multitude and takes His disciples and sends them into a ship across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and then He goes up into a mountain to pray.

“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. 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 and the fourth watch would be three 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 is a storm and these men are having a real tough time getting anywhere. Now Jesus has gone up into the mountain—a type of the ascension of Christ.

“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 great demonstration of the deity of Christ. If you want to talk about somebody doing something, talk about them walking on water.

“Job 9 very clearly identifies when you can walk on water, that’s a sign of deity. One of the demonstrations of the majesty and the deity--the strength, the power, the greatness of Almighty God--is Job says, ‘Who’s like Him that can tread on the waves of the sea?’

******

“Jesus comes along His disciples in the midst of a storm-tossed sea and He walks right across out there. And those guys knew the Old Testament. They knew those verses and they knew, or should have known, what that was a demonstration of in their midst.

"A tremendous declaration of the deity of Christ 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 and they didn’t expect to be delivered.

“They were out there in the middle of that ocean (or what it felt like 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 He was trying to communicate to them was not that upon which they were operating; they were operating on human viewpoint and their own emotions, rather than having learned the lesson God was trying to communicate to them.

“That point needs to be well-taken. These things going on here, they’re not just stories to tantalize and 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 70^th 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 to draw upon.

“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).

******

“And then in the Second Coming of Christ is Psalm 93: [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 70^th 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 70^th 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 going to be just like it was back there, so if you want to know what’s going to go on over here and where you can go in your Bible to find some instruction, go to those books.”