SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/18/2021 9:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The Panic”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt. 8:25-26a
Message of the verses: “25 And they came
to Him and woke Him, saying, "Save us, Lord; we are
perishing!" 26 He said to them, "Why are you afraid, you men of
little faith?’”
I
want to begin with a quotation from Psalm 10:1 “Why do You stand afar off, O
LORD? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” I am not
sure who the Psalmist was who wrote this Psalm but the point that I want to
make is that even the greatest saints of God at times have forgotten their
heavenly Father and become swamped by the circumstances they are involved
in. Now we will look at Psalm 44:22-23 “22 But for Your sake we are killed all day long; We are
considered as sheep to be slaughtered. 23 Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O
Lord? Awake, do not reject us forever.”
The Psalmist of this Psalm is lamenting as seen in these two
verses. Isaiah was dismayed at God’s
seeming inability to help His people as we can see in Isaiah 51:9 “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; Awake as in the days of old,
the generations of long ago. Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces, Who
pierced the dragon?” Isaiah is wondering
just like the disciples in our story from our verses today, why the Lord was
sleeping in a great time of trouble. I
think that it was good to look at these three examples for at times we all can
wonder if the Lord is sleeping on the job.
Now
the first response from the Lord to His disciples was to rebuke them gently for
their lack of faith as seen in verse 26a “He said to them, "Why are you
afraid, you men of little faith?’” John
MacArthur writes “Deilos (timid) has
the basic meaning of being fearful or cowardly, and the disciples must have
wondered why Jesus wondered at them.”
They were probably wondering why Jesus asked them why they were afraid
for they were up against and earthquake of a storm that was shaking the lake
that they were trying to row a boat on, and remember that these were seasoned
fishermen. I am sure that they were
wondering why it was that Jesus was not afraid of this storm. They were in the middle of the night in a
boat, in a great storm wondering why the boat had not sunk and their response
to them was normal, but Jesus’ was not normal to their thinking. In Mark 4:38, which is telling the same story
the disciples asked Jesus “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
Jesus
turned that rebuke upon them “Why are you timid,’ He asked, and then gave the
answer as part of the question: ‘You men
of little faith?” The reason that they
were fearful was because they were faithless; they were timid because they had ‘little
faith.’” What Jesus was really asking
was “Don’t you believe in Me and in My power?”
These disciples had just seen many great miracles that Jesus had done,
but seemed to forget about that at this time while in the boat, for they had
never seen Jesus do any miracles that had to do with nature, but they were
about to. I am reminded of when Jesus
had sent His disciples out into the cities to do miracles and they came back
glorifying God for what He had done through them. A few hours later when people needed food
Jesus told them to feed the very large crowd, but they had forgot what God had
done through them at that time too.
We
conclude with a quotation from John MacArthur and then from a Psalm that he
also quotes: “The disciples knew the
Psalms. Many times they had heard and
repeated the words of Psalm 89: ‘O Lord God of Hosts, who is like Thee, O
mighty Lord? Thy faithfulness also
surrounds Thee. Thou dost rule the
swelling of the sea; when its waves rise, Thou dost still them’ (vv. 8-9). They had sung, ‘God is our refuge and
strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though
the mountains slip into the heart of the sea: though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains quake at its swelling pride’ (Ps. 46:1-3). They knew well the majestic and comforting
words of Psalm 107:
23 Those who go down to the sea in ships, Who do business on great waters; 24 They have seen the works of the LORD, And His wonders in the deep. 25 For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind, Which lifted up the waves of the sea. 26 They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths; Their soul melted away in their misery. 27 They reeled and staggered like a drunken man, And were at their wits’ end. 28 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, And He brought them out of their distresses. 29 He caused the storm to be still, So that the waves of the sea were hushed. 30 Then they were glad because they were quiet, So He guided them to their desired haven.”
“It
was a literal fulfillment of those verses that Jesus was about to accomplish on
the Sea of Galilee.”
4/18/2021 10:26 PM
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