Comfort and Security in Christ — William MacDonald

We'll turn just briefly now to Mark chapter 4, please. Mark chapter 4, and I'd like to read verses 35 to the end of the chapter. Mark chapter 4, verse 35. As you've noticed, we didn't take up a series this weekend.

Rather, I thought, take up something to edify, something to encourage, something to exhort, and then today, something to comfort. It's kind of contradictory. The comforting message is about a storm at sea.

I can think of nothing less comforting than a storm at sea, but we'll see what we can get out of it. Mark chapter 4, verse 35. On the same day when evening had come, he said to them, Let us cross over to the other side.

Now when they had left the multitude, they took him along in the boat as he was. And other little boats were also with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling.

But he was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke him and said to him, Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. But he said to them, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

I wonder if Amy would just appear for a minute with the fiddle, with the violin. Is Amy here? Sorry to bother you, but we need a lesson in geography here. I didn't want to just take the fiddle because I knew you would have cardiac arrest if I did.

It would sound like a hundred cats being strangled at one time. But the reason I'm asking Amy to do this is not to embarrass her. We've certainly appreciated her music. I have, tremendously, this weekend.

But the Sea of Galilee that we're going to be talking about is shaped something like a fiddle. Not exactly now. Don't press it. But in general. So if you just hold it the other way. Upside down. Oh, please.

Over here. No, I don't care. Just pretend this is the Sea of Galilee. And when the story begins, we're up here. And the Lord Jesus wants to leave this area. This is this side of the Sea of Galilee where all the main cities were, like Capernaum and Tiberias and Bethsaida.

They were all on this side of the sea. There were very few cities over here. This is the general area where the pigs ran down the slope and drowned into the Sea of Galilee. It's deep, swift on this side, as those of you who have been in Israel know.

But we're over here in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee and it's open. Thank you very much. It's a geography lesson. I appreciate it. Sometimes if you can see it, it fixes it better in your mind.

So, we read here at the beginning of these verses. The Lord Jesus said, let's cross over to the other side. Why did he want to cross over to the other side? If you study the passage carefully, I think it's very clear.

The Lord Jesus was tired. He was tired. You know, there is an expenditure in spiritual work. Even with Christ, the Son of God. You remember when the woman touched the hem of his garment, it said he perceived that virtue had gone out of him.

Power had gone out of him. There had been an expenditure. There had been a flow of strength that went out of the Savior to heal that dear woman who touched the hem of his garment. Well, he's been tirelessly ministering the word, teaching the people up here by the Sea of Galilee and now he wants to get away.

But there's little likelihood of it as we will see. He says, let us cross over to the other side. Now, when they had left the multitude, I think that's the key. Now, when they had left the multitude, he had been with the crowd.

The crowd followed him wherever he went, didn't they? You know, it's an interesting thing. And I watch this in life. When you get a man that's filled with the Holy Spirit of God, people come to listen to him.

I remember in the Navy, I approached a chaplain one time. I was telling a friend this last night. I approached the chaplain one time for permission to teach a Bible class in the Navy. And he said, a Bible class?

He said, I come over there every Sunday. And he said, nobody comes out to hear me but the man that plays the violin and he gets paid for it. And I felt like saying, if you preach the gospel, they'd come out to hear you.

You know, that's what the men want in a time of war. They want to hear the truth of God's Word. But I could tell you of other men, and when they preached, you could sense the power of God there, and people turned up.

Spurgeon said, get on fire for God and the world will turn out to see you burn. And it's true. Good word for all of you. Get on fire for God and the world will turn out to see you burn. Well, when they had left the multitude, that's why he was tired.

He'd been ministering. They took him along in the boat as he was. You know, the Bible's wonderful. Just those little words, as he was. Now, why are those words there in this account? And he went, well, they just wanted to pull away from the shore.

No chance to change. I suppose there'd be good reason for some change of raiment or adding raiment and going across the Sea of Galilee, but no. It says they took him along in the boat, and other little boats were also with him.

He couldn't get away from the crowd, could he? Some of them said, boy, we want to go, and we want to hear more of what he has to teach and what he has to say. Other little boats were, and a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat so that it was already going.

Well, the reason for that is, up in the north of the Sea of Galilee, that's the ravine of the Jordan, you know. And there's a principle, I don't know much about physics, I nearly flunked it, but there's a principle in physics that says that velocity increases in a constriction.

In other words, the wind comes down through that ravine, and as it comes down through the ravine, it picks up a tremendous velocity. And that wind hits the Sea of Galilee and churns it into a tremendous foam.

Now, I've given a naturalistic explanation for the storm in the Sea of Galilee, but there's more. What else is more? I'll tell you, it's a satanic storm, too. You know, Satan has a certain amount of control over the weather, doesn't he?

If you don't believe it, go back and read the first two chapters of Job. And to a certain extent, Satan was allowed to control the weather, as well as ungodly men, the Sabaeans and others, that wiped Job out in a single day.

Of course, you think, too, of the massacre of the infants in the time of Herod, an attempt to end the life of the Lord Jesus before his hour had come. The attempt to throw him off the cliff there at Nazareth, right?

And also, two attempts to stone the Lord in John's Gospel, and one attempt to seize him as well. Satan trying to destroy the Lord of life and glory. So, when I read about this storm in the Sea of Galilee, I say, yeah, there's a naturalistic explanation, but that doesn't exhaust it.

Satan is there against the Prince of Life. And I want to tell you this morning, dear friends, that I don't know anything in life as terrifying as a storm at sea. Most of you probably haven't been in one.

I have. I've been in one where the waves would beat over the captain's bridge on the ship. And I tell you that you could hear the beams in that ship, you could hear them creaking. In the Second World War, there was a time when there was a U .S. destroyer, a Navy destroyer, and they were in the midst of a tremendous storm.

And one wave came along and tipped the destroyer up just like that, and it went right down into the ocean, and the men didn't even have time to get out. It never came up. It went right down into the ocean.

And there was another time when a larger ship came up on the top of a wave, and the ship just split in half and went down. Nothing is terrifying. Some of you might be afraid of flying in an airplane. Well, I can think of a time some years ago when I left Chicago to fly down to the Bahamas.

Had to stop at Florida first. And I was on a Delta airliner, and we were flying. It was a beautiful day, sunshine just like today. And the flight attendants served the lunch. The lunch was, let's see, meatloaf, gravy, peas, and potatoes, and a roll, and then a dessert.

And just as we were over Kentucky, that plane went into clear air turbulence. And I want to tell you, I'm not exaggerating, that that was like a feather in a gale, that plane. At one time, the plane fell 3 ,000 feet.

Falling wasn't so bad. It's when it stopped falling and started up. And we were told later that the wingtips of that plane flexed 13 feet. And if they didn't flex 13 feet, the wings would have come off.

I want to tell you, it was really something. There weren't six square inches of the floor of that plane that didn't have meatloaf and gravy and potatoes. And all the dear people going down there in their finery to enjoy a holiday in Florida.

And I confess, I thought that my ministry had ended. I bowed my head and said, Lord Jesus, you've given me a wonderful life, and now it's come to the close, and I just commit my soul to you. And I think the Lord heard it in spite of the screaming that was taking on in the plane.

It was really a lot of screaming. And once they go into the clear air turbulence, they can't turn around because you never know when you've gone through the halfway mark. I don't know whether they could the radar in those days could not detect it.

I don't know whether it's any better today or not. But I want to tell you, I'd rather be in that than be in a storm at sea. When it was all over, the woman at the window I was in the aisle the woman at the window, she had one of these open-mouthed bags.

I call it Bohemian luggage. And she looked into her bag, and she said, Is this your dessert? I said, No, my dessert is in the other bag. It was a day to be remembered. But once again, I say, it was nothing compared to a storm at sea.

Turn back to Psalm 107. I believe in this Psalm. I don't have time to go into it this morning. But I believe in this Psalm that the storm at sea is used as an illustration of Israel in the tribulation period.

The Gentile nation. Tribulation. Psalm 127, verse 23. Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. For he commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea.

They mount up to the heavens. They go down again to the depths. Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man and are at their wits' end. I tell you, it's a graphic description of a storm at sea.

Then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble. He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm so that its waves are still. Then they are quiet. Then they are glad because they are quiet. So he guides them to their desire to Him.

The best way to develop a prayer life is to be in a storm at sea. Even ungodly men, even the coarsest, crudest, roughest seamen, they pray to the storms at sea. I can guarantee you that they do. This passage in Psalm 107 gives a very beautiful description of it.

Just imagine in the middle of a storm like that, the Lord Jesus is on a cushion at the stern of the boat, and he's sleeping. The humanity of the Lord Jesus is truly God, perfectly God, yet truly man. He's sleeping on a cushion at the back of the boat.

As God, he never flumbers nor sleeps, does he? As man, you find him sleeping. One of the great contradictions. Nobody can understand the person of Christ. You know, the mingling of humanity and deity is something that the human mind will never be able to understand.

Charles Rossi writes,. There's mystery all the immortal dies. Who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine. Amazing love. How can it be that thou, my God, should die for me?

There is mystery connected with the person of the Lord Jesus. We believe it because the Bible teaches that we accept it by faith. How could he sleep in a storm like that? He could sleep because he knew he was in the will of God.

That's why. He knew that he was on his Father's business and he could sleep. Brings me back to an incident I had. You'll think all my life has been storms. It hasn't. But during the Second World War, I was stationed in Kansas City and I got temporary duty orders to fly out to Oakland.

And naturally speaking, I am a worrywart. I'm not proud of it. And I was restless. The plane was leaving in the nighttime and I was restless. So I went over to the Naval Air Station. And I thought, well, I'll check out the plane.

And I looked at all of the plane. Well, it was one of our oldest planes held together with bailing wire. And then I looked at the pilot. One of the rookie pilots. Just a new pilot. And there was only one other thing to check and that was the weather.

So I went into the meteorology department and I said, what's the weather like between here and Oakland? And he said, do you really want to know? And I didn't like the inflection in his voice when he said that.

He said, do you really want to know? And I said, I think so. Well, he said, it's corruption all the way. And that's the first time I'd ever heard the word corruption used with regard to weather. Anyway, he said, I tell you, you go back to your room.

And he said, we'll send by a station wagon and pick you up when the time comes. And I thought a hearse would be more appropriate. I went back. And talk about restless. Then I thought, this is ridiculous, McDonnell.

You're a Christian. You say you're a Christian. And here you're getting all turbulent and boisterous and worried. Where's your faith? What have the people of God always done when they've been in tight spots?

Well, they go to the Bible. Well, why don't you go to the Bible? Well, I wouldn't know where to begin. Well, where do they usually go in a time of testing like that? Well, they go to the Psalms. Well, I wouldn't know where in the Psalms to go.

Well, why don't you go and begin? This is kind of a dialogue that went on in my mind. And so I read Psalm number one, and I couldn't get a thing out of it, you know. And I read Psalm number two, and I couldn't get anything out of it.

And I read Psalm number three. There was nothing there for me. And I came to Psalm four, verse eight, and it said, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

Not the plane, not the pilot, not the weather. Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. I lay down on the bed, and I had to be wakened by them when they came to pick me up. I don't take any credit for that at all.

It was the Lord. It was the Lord. Isn't that wonderful how he can speak to us through a verse of Scripture? I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. The Lord Jesus knew he was in the will of God, and he went to sleep in the will of God.

Then they said, wake up. Don't you know that we perish? And you know, when they said we, they didn't mean just the disciples. They meant you and us. We're all going to perish. We're all going to drown.

And what they're saying to him is, how can you be so unconcerned in a crisis like that? It wasn't a request that they were making of the Lord. It was a protest, wasn't it? Can you imagine frail mortals made of dust and a little water talking to their creator like this?

And can you imagine the patience of the Lord that he put up with it? I tell you, he's a wonderful Lord. He's really a wonderful Lord. How can you be so unconcerned? Imagine rebuking God. This is what they were doing.

They were rebuking God. Does Jesus care? Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song? As the burdens press and the cares distress, and the way grows weary and long? Does Jesus care when my way is dark with a nameless dread and fear?

As the daylight fades into deep nightshade, does he care enough to be near? Does Jesus care when I've tried and failed to resist some temptation strong? When from my deep grief I find no relief, though my tears flow all the night long?

Oh, yes, he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief. When the days are weary, the long nights dreary, I know my Savior cares. And he really does care. Do you not care that we are perishing?

Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Be quiet. My, that's wonderful, isn't it? Said to the sea. Here you have his deity, I think. You have his humanity. He sleeps there on the cushion at the stern of the boat, and then he gets up and he speaks to the wind as a way, and they obey his will.

You ever wonder why God is silent when we pray? Oftentimes that happens. God is silent when we pray. Well, he's still in control, as we shall see, before we finish. He hasn't forgotten us. Verse 39. He gets up and he says, He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, Peace, be still.

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. Actually, what he said literally was, Be muzzled. And that's another reason why I think the storm was demonically caused. I mean, I wouldn't say to waves and wind, be muzzled.

But I could say it to demons, couldn't I? Be muzzled. That's the literal translation there. And I think it's a strong implication that the storm was demonically inspired. Think of the Lord Jesus' power over nature.

And he has power over nature. He allows Satan to do certain things, but he overrules. And he overrules for his glory and for our good. I like to remind myself over and over again, No evil ever comes from God.

No evil ever comes from God. But he permits it, as we said yesterday. And then he gets the last word. They feared. It says in verse 41, They feared, they were awestruck. This is so interesting. First of all, it was the storm that caused them to fear.

And now it's this calm that caused them to fear. Yeah, we are funny people, aren't we? We really are funny. We're afraid in the storm, and then the calm comes, and we're afraid. And that's what it says here.

They had not learned. Really, it doesn't seem they really understood who the Lord was, does it? They didn't really have, after all this time with him, they didn't have a real deep appreciation of who he was, and they did not have their faith in him.

They hadn't learned to trust him. And I don't think they realized or remembered that he was the Lord, that he really was the Lord. They feared. They were awestruck. And this was, of course, a different fear.

Who can it be that even the winds and the waves obey him? Let me just draw a few lessons from this little passage of Scripture. First of all, the Lord said, let us go to the other side. Let us go to the other side.

That guaranteed that they were going to get there, didn't it? They didn't have to worry. I don't care whether they went through hell or high water, they were going to get there because he said it. The Lord's commands are his enablements.

He never tells you to do anything without giving you the power to do it. I can do all things through Christ. I used to think, I wish I could say that. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

I can't lift up a ford with one hand. That isn't what it means. It means anything the Lord wants me to do, he'll give me the power to do it. He'll give me the strength to do it. And the Lord said that they were going to go to the other side.

That should have been enough. His will never leads you where his grace does not sustain you. Two, the Lord never promised that our lives would be trouble-free. He never said things would get easier. He said they'd get better.

And they do. The path of the justice is the shining light that shines more and more into the perfect day. It's the picture of the sun rising in the morning, dawn, and it goes up and up and up until it reaches its noonday splendor.

That's the path of the justice. The path of the justice is that the shining light shines more and more until the perfect day. And it's really true. It should be true of our lives as Christians. The Lord never promised.

He did promise that he would be with us in the trials. That's really wonderful. That's really wonderful. Isaiah 43. When you pass through the waters, I think Gary read this yesterday, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

Through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. Makes us think of the men in the fiery furnace, doesn't it? Didn't even have the smell of smoke upon them.

That's marvelous. That's marvelous. And all the fire did was burn the bonds that tied them. What a great God we have. Isaiah 63. In all their afflictions, he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them.

Wonderful to know that in all the trials of life, the Lord is there. He might be asleep on the cushion at the back of that, the stern of the boat. He's there just the same. Hebrews 13 .5. He himself has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.

And he never does. Number three. There are terrible storms in life. I want to tell you, there are storms that go, that exist in the human heart, in the human breast today, that are worse than the storms of the Sea of Galilee.

They really are. And I want to tell you, a lot of dear Christians are going through difficulties. Illnesses. Illnesses. I had a friend out on the West Coast, Jim Knowles, and I knew him. He began getting weaker and weaker and weaker.

And he went to the doctor, and they put him through all... I couldn't recite all the tests he went through. Every test came out perfect. Just in the very glow of health. And he went home, and he kept getting weaker and weaker.

After three months, he said, Florence, I've got to go back to the doctor. He said, I can't take this. Well, his doctor, you know, God is sovereign. His own doctor wasn't there that day at the hospital.

There was a substitute doctor there. And he checked the records, and he checked Jack. And Jack was sitting down, and he said, put your hands out in front of you. And Jack put his hands out in front of him.

And he said, now get up. Now, don't you all try this at once. Jack couldn't get up. He said, you have Lou Gehrig's disease. And after all those tests, huh? After all those tests, they couldn't find a thing.

He said, put your hands out in front of you. Now get up. Couldn't get up. And dear Jack, he knew about Lou Gehrig's disease. A friend had just had it and gone home to be with the Lord. And Jack just dreaded the last stages of that disease.

Do you know one night in a prayer meeting, a brother prayed, Lord, give Jack a vision of your glory, and the bitterness of death will be passed. That prayer went up between 7 and 7 .30. At 7 o 'clock, Jack left the supper table.

They helped him into the living room. He sat down in a chair. He put his head back, and he went back to sleep. He went to sleep, and when he tried to wake up, he was in a coma. And he went to be with the Lord the next day, and he didn't have to go through the last stages of Lou Gehrig's disease.

But I want to tell you, I used to have lunch with him, and the storm was there going on in his life. The death of loved ones, especially of the unsaved, marital problems, people, the unhappiness in homes today, wayward children, teenage pregnancy, addictions, alcohol, and drugs.

I want to tell you, I talk to Gene Gibson a lot, and he quotes that hymn, Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? He says, anywhere, everywhere. He meets it from morning till night in his counseling sessions.

I want to tell you, dear friends, there are storms in life even when we're obeying the Lord. These disciples were obeying him. Rolling across a lake, the storm arose. But he was there with them in it.

The Savior can solve every problem. The tangles of life can undo. There's nothing too hard for Jesus. There's nothing that he cannot do. You can trust him. I think that's the great lesson of the book of Job.

I think that the Lord works with Job patiently and comes to the end of the book. And the moral of the book of Job is, you can afford to trust me. I know what I'm doing. And it's true. Dear friends, if the Lord can still a storm in the Sea of Galilee, he can still the storm that's going on in your heart today, I want to tell you, he can.

He can still say, peace be still troubled hearts today. Another lesson I learned is the boat can't sink when the Lord is in it. Isn't that good? I like Amy Carmichael's poetry. She said, thou art the Lord who slept upon the pillow.

Thou art the Lord who soothed the furious sea. What matter beating wind and tossing billow if we are only in the boat with thee? Keep us in quiet through the age long minute. I like that. Keep us in quiet through the age long minute.

You go through troubles and trials in life and it seems like eternity, doesn't it? Keep us in quiet through the age long minute. While the waves are high and the wind is shrill, can the boat sink when thou, dear Lord, are in it?

Can the heart faint the weight of thy will? The answer is no. No water can swallow the ship for life, the master of ocean and earth and sky. Then I get this lesson from this little passage too. Their worry was all in vain.

So is yours and so is mine. Yeah. If we're in the hollow of his hand, if we're in the apple of his eye, worry is all in vain. Worry is a sin. Did you know that? A lot of us are proud of our worry. If I didn't worry, there'd be precious little of it done around here.

But worry is a sin. It doubts the love of God. It says he doesn't care. It doubts the wisdom of God. It says he doesn't know what he's doing. It doubts the power of God. It says he isn't able to deliver me from that which is causing me to worry.

Let me go over that again. Worry is a sin. It doubts the love of God. It says he doesn't care. It doubts the power of God, the wisdom of God. It says he doesn't know what he's doing. And it doubts the power of God.

It says he's not able to deliver me from the thing that's causing me to worry. In Revelation it says that in heaven there's going to be no more sea. No more sea. I'd rather like the sea. I'd rather like to go down and sit and watch the waves come dashing on the shore and that.

But, Jeremiah says there's sorrow in the sea. You think of the Titanic and you think of the Lusitania and you think of all of the terrible tragedies at sea and there is sorrow in the sea. The sea speaks of sorrow.

It speaks of separation. Seas separate families today. Europe, United States. It speaks of storms. And it speaks of sin. The wicked are like the troubled sea. And I think when it says in Revelation there'll be no more sea, it has all of those thoughts in mind.

Finally, the important thing is to be in the boat with Jesus. Isn't it? That's the great thing. To be in the boat with Jesus. What does it mean? It means to know that he's your Lord and your Savior. Then you're prepared for the storms of life to come.

Passage, I said at the beginning, what could be less comforting than a storm at sea? But, there's a lot of comfort in it. Isn't there? Just a little passage of scripture like that. Just a few verses like that.

It speaks peace to our hearts. Keep us in quiet through the age long minute. The Lord can do it. He can speak peace to our hearts. Peace. Be still. May the Lord enable us to trust him in all the storms of life.