Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 2 - Jesus Has Power Over Nature

All right. Hope you guys had a great week in the Lord. Walking with him, we're gonna be looking at. The miracles of Christ this morning after we take our little quiz.

Everybody ready for your quiz? So the question we're asking is, are there any miracles in the Bible that you don't believe? Any miracles in the Bible that you don't believe. Thank you, sir.

You're a gentleman and a scholar. Not many of us left. It's supposed to be a joke. are, are, are.

Yeah, so there are some interesting miracles. That at first glance, you're like, man, how does that happen? Like with Hezekiah where he asked for the shadow to go backwards and the shadow to go forward. How in the world, how does God stop the rotation of the Earth without Everything just going into complete chaos, or you have the sun just standing still.

Right? in Joshua. So there's some miracles like that, that are Yeah, so there's some real mind-boggling stuff. Let me make one little correction.

sometimes papers will print things and then they print real, it'll be real big and then later on in some obscure place in the paper, they'll print a correction. last week in John 3:11, we talked about, Nicodemus and that how that the first you was plural, in that context. I don't know if you guys remember that. It's a John 3:11.

Yeah, and I was actually incorrect about the first one. Most assuredly, I say to you, I said, that's plural. It's actually singular. We speak what we know and testify that we have seen, and you, that's the plural, do not receive it.

So, he starts out singular and then, and then goes to plural. And the reason we're bringing out the plural was that Christ is turning to Nicodemus as a representative of Israel. So I just want to make sure that that got corrected. Plural is in the verse, but just not the first you is plural.

Jesus. I Yeah, that seems like that's definitely the we of the Trinity going back to earlier in the chapter when Nick and Neman says we. As a representative probably of the Sanhedrin. So, yeah.

But let's go ahead and pray, and then we're gonna, we'll jump into our, our study. Our Father, we are so grateful just to be here in your presence this morning. We thank you for the many ways that you have provided for us, showing your kindness, the food that you give us, the clothing, the shelter, the health. we thank you, Lord, for salvation that you have granted us through your Son Jesus Christ, who has authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him.

We pray that you would be honored and glorified with your Son this morning as we study your word, and that you would cause your people to be sanctified and set apart from the world, knowing that your word is truth. So, we thank you, Lord, to protect us from the evil one. We bless all of our children and those that are ministering this morning. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen. Right, let's do a little bit of review. we are doing Life of Christ is our, our big study. Today, we'll be talking about Christ's power over nature.

And, last week, we tried to do a little bit of review on the period of the Old Testament, and not everybody was quite able to get it, so I went home very depressed and, and wept in my coffee. there were clouds in my coffee. And, and so we're gonna do a little bit of review here just on the nine periods of Israel's history. So we're Did anybody watch that, that video that I sent you guys?

OK, cool. All right, so this is like a mnemonic device that I put together a few years ago. We'll go to the next slide. Yeah, exactly.

You watched it, all right, and a few people, I see those hands. and so the first thing you have to do is memorize the mnemonic device, right? So, so we're basically, it's anything that you're gonna memorize, it's just a list like the 10 Commandments, periods of Israel's history. The number 1 is bun, one bun, you're gonna think of, I think of a hamburger bun, and I try to create scenes in my head.

All right, there we go. It's starting to go. OK, so one bun. 2 shoe, you have to imagine a shoe.

Then you have 3 tree, you're gonna have to create some tree in your head, 4 door, 5 hive, 6 sticks, 7 heaven, 8 gate, 9 dime. And then if you were gonna memorize something that had 10, then you would have 10 hen. We only have 9 periods, so we don't need 10 hen. And a So, All right.

So one bun, this is the, I'm not artistic. I, years ago, my wife drew these things up real quick to kinda help me for one of my classes that I was teaching. So, when I think of one bun, I've got the sesame seeds are creating like a star and a moon and the, and the sun to help. OK, so, one bun, I've got a, I've got a bun in my head.

And this reminds me of Beginnings. One bun is the beginnings. 2 shoe, that's Father Abraham coming out of that shoe there. So that's the patriarchal period, at one bun, two shoe.

Then you have 33. 33, that's a tree, and what's on there is an exit sign that's reminding me of the Exodus. So that's the period of, obviously, Israel coming out of Egypt. Four doors, the conquest.

Not the walls are broken down, just like the walls of Jericho. So, that's the conquest, Joshua going into the land. Then we have 5 hives. That's a very unwise judge that is banging a tree hive, 5 hives, that's the period of the judges, right?

6 sticks, you've got a king holding the two sticks together. Those are drumsticks. Yeah, rock on, he's holding them together. That's United Kingdom.

So, Israel and Judah still together. This is underneath David and Solomon, right? But then, unfortunately, after Solomon, you get this period. OK, there we go.

7 heaven. that's the divided kingdom. So the cloud reminds me of heaven, that's not theologically correct, but, whatever. So, you got a crown that's broken up.

This is just for memory devices, so it's a divided kingdom. So that's a divided kingdom. If you go to 8 gate, you're gonna see a guy in a prison outfit who's chained to a gate. That's the exile period, exilic period.

9 dime, I've got like this map of Israel and Judah, and there's this dime-headed guy. Can you guys see it? So, the dime-headed guy is coming from Persia back down into Israel. That's the post-Eilic period, 9 dime.

Right? So that's just how, that gives you a skeleton to hang things on from the Old Testament. And then as we're going through our New Testament, it's really helpful to think about, OK, Christ is quoting these different things from the Old Testament. Where does this fit in Old Testament history?

So, first of all, let's just see if you guys can tell me the The little, the, just the, the thing that goes with the number, just the image that helps you with the mnemonic device. So, 1, you think of, 12, 3344567. 8 9 And you guys are super smart. You guys are really super smart.

So now, you just, you have that image in your head. So I don't want you to tell me the image. I want you to get the image and then tell me the period. All right.

Hope we already gave it to you. All right, so, one bun makes you think of what period of Israel's history? Beginnings cause you've got those little sesame seeds. 2 shoe.

Patriarchal period. If you can see Abraham coming out of that shoe. 33. Exodus, cause you've got the exit sign on the tree, 4 door.

Conquest cause you've got a door with all the walls broken down, walls of Jericho, 5 hive. Judges, nobody should hit a hive. No judge should hit a hive, right? Judges, 6 sticks.

United Kingdom, rock on 7 heaven. Divided kingdom and 8 gate. We haven't seen that one yet. OK, so that's the guy, poor guy.

So that's the exilic period. So they're taken up to captivity in various stages, which we talked about last year, 9 dime. is the post-ahiic period. So the dime-headed guy coming down back in.

Good. So you guys all get A's. Very good job. It's graded on a curve.

So since everybody got an A, you guys all get A's. OK, so that, that gives you guys the basic idea of the period. Last week, we, we're the 9th period. So, last week, we ended up just asking the question, why did Jesus come to the earth?

And we investigated different theories that people have had over the years. And what was the ultimate answer that we gave last week? To save who? To save people from their problems, right?

Jesus came to save people from their problems. Is that it? No. OK.

What did we determine? Jesus came to the earth to what? From their sins, right? That's the ultimate answer.

He came to glorify the Father by saving people from their sins. There's lots of things that Jesus did, but he didn't solve poverty on his first Advent. He didn't heal everybody in his first Advent. He didn't solve everybody's problems on his first Advent, but he did make an all sufficient atonement for sin.

And so that's, that's where we ended last week. so let's go ahead and open up our Bibles to Matthew 14. And we're going to look at a few of the miracles. that are on display for us.

In the Bible, starting with this particular narrative. Now, Pastor Carlos a couple of weeks ago, spoke about an earlier occurrence of in Matthew 8. of Jesus being asleep in a boat, and the boat, just the storm freaking everybody out, everybody's worried. They wake up Jesus, Jesus, don't you care?

Jesus calms the storm, and in that particular instance, the result is they're like, They were in great fear and they're like, who in the world is this person? Who is this? who must this be that he has control? So, let's go ahead and pick it up in verse 22, and we're gonna make some comments as we move through the text.

I'm reading from a New King James Version. Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat. This is after the feeding of the 5000. And go before him to the other side while he was sent, while he sent the multitudes away.

Now, if you compare this to the other gospels of the same event, Mark 6, John, I believe it's 6, we realized that we're talking about the Sea of Galilee and so he's sending them to the other side of the sea, sometimes it's called the Lake of Genesaret. over to the Baeda area, Caperniums, Bea, yeah. I'm reading New King James. It's the, the ultimate, the ultimate version.

No, I just like the way it reads. I, I, actually, I think there's some better, it depends on the translation philosophy. We can get into that some other time, but There's some positives and negatives about the New King James, and when I'm studying for studies like this, I, I normally read about 4 to 6 translations, but I use the New King James when I'm reading. OK, so he sends the disciples away, verse 23, and when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

Now, when evening came, he was alone there. This is just an amazing verse to me. That Jesus Christ goes up alone to spend time praying to the Father. It's interesting that Jesus feels the need.

you think about it, how many needs did the multitudes have that he had just sent away? Not only that, we know a little bit about Jesus by this time that he's pretty aware of events that are about to occur and so on. He sends the disciples off into the Sea of Galilee, knowing that they're gonna run into some crazy winds, right? But with all, even with the knowledge of the, that what's gonna happen, he goes up into this mountain and he spends time with the father praying.

And we didn't really get to look at John 17 last week, but if you wanna get at least one idea of the, of the type of language that's used in Christ's prayer, prayers of the Father, look at John 17. We, we only have a few examples of Christ's actual content when he like raises Lazarus from the dead or when he prays before multiplying the bread. In the fish, but in John 17, you have 26 verses of Jesus just dialoguing with his Father. And it's pretty amazing when you.

When you look at what Jesus says, and it's being recorded, by the way, by whom? In John 17, who's recording that prayer? John, and John tells us, tells us in first John that they had seen what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have handled with our hands, we declare to you. So John is declaring to us what he saw and what he heard with his own ears.

So that's why he could say with detail that Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven. How did he know that? Because he was there. He watched Jesus lift his eyes up to heaven, he heard Jesus say, Father, the hour has come.

And so what's the first thing that Jesus is gonna pray for in that prayer? Glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you. Would any of us in this room start our prayer with that phrase? Father, glorify Mike Berry.

No, I wouldn't. We know right out the gate that this is a prayer that is happening between persons of the Godhead. There's some amazing things that are happening in that prayer. And so we don't know in this particular text, what Jesus is praying, but we do get some insights in other places to the contents of Jesus's prayers.

We do know that he's alone with the Father. How much more do we need to be alone with the Father? Jesus feels his need to be alone with the Father. We can, we can take that example, verse 24, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Now, on the fourth watch, one of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea. Fourth watch, you guys can look in your Bible notes. Most of your Bible notes are gonna tell you, this is around, this is like 3 to 6 a.m. at this time in history, if you said to someone, hey, it's the first watch of the night, you're talking about 6 to 9 p.m.

second watch, 9 to 12 p.m. third watch, midnight to 3. So we're in the fourth watch of the night. And so, when did Jesus start praying again in the context?

In the evening, so in the first watch of the night. So we don't know exactly how long he prayed, but we do know that by the 4th watch, he's now walking on the sea. And we're so used to this story. We've we've read this since we were in Sunday school, a lot of us.

It's like, yeah, Jesus was walking on the water. Just run by, when I'm reading through this, sometimes during my devotion, I just read right by it, don't even think a whole lot. Now, this is a person walking on the water. I don't know the last time you've tried to do that.

It's not very easy, right? And so Jesus comes walking not just on flat water, but just crazy wind blown water. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it is a ghost, and they cried out for fear. So, I think this would freak all of us out.

And these are fishermen who are used to being out in pretty treacherous waters. These are, these are not girly men, so to speak. These are men that They have, they've been through a lot, and yet they're freaking out and their, their first thought is it's a ghost. What else?

I don't know what other conclusions would you come to. It's an angel, it's a spirit. much, much to my chagrin, sometimes we, our kids. we'll find out that they watched.

Some, what do they call it? It's, it's one of those reality shows about ghost adventures or, these investigator people, they go try to investigate paranormal stuff. Yeah, I'm not very excited when I come back to those reports, but, sometimes you find out about things after the fact and, and so, they, but they, they like the show. They think it's so incredible, that they're trying to do measurements on metaphysical activity.

If you're talking about a contradiction in terms, right? Physics, using physics to measure metaphysical. And it's, it's a lot of nonsense. But, but in this case, something's happening.

They don't know what's happening. They're just, they think it's a ghost. Verse 27, but immediately, Jesus spoke to them and said, be of good cheer. It is I, do not be afraid.

So, they're freaked out. He tries to calm them. But then verse 28, Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. This is a very interesting request because Peter's, he's saying, if it's you, so there, there seems, just by virtue of the fact that he's talking to this ghost, he seems to think that maybe it's the Lord.

Then again, maybe his senses are being cheated. And so he's like, OK, let's, what would be a test to determine whether this is really Jesus? OK, we've, we've been walking with Jesus long enough now to know that he's got some pretty amazing power. So Peter's like, I got an idea.

If this is really Jesus, not some demon or a ghost, hey, tell me to come out onto the water. That's an interesting test, right? If you, if, so you can see that there seems to be actually some rationalizing or some logic going on here. We've seen what Jesus has done.

Let's, let's test this out. verse 29, so he said, come, that's his command. And when Jesus said, and when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. And that's just stop right there.

that's just a crazy thing. Now, the disciples are looking out, seeing two people in the water. But you guys, many of the story, verse 30, but when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, began in, in beginning to sink, he cried out saying, Lord, save me. so at first, a lot of times we can be pretty harsh on Peter.

I don't know that I would have said, thought to say, hey, let's do a test case. If this is really the Lord, hey, command me to come out of the water. I don't know that I would have stepped out on the water. So, at the very least, Peter gets out there a few steps before he starts sinking.

but he's, even then, he has the wherewithal to say, Lord, save me. Right? And it just seems like there's a beautiful picture here and while the Lord gently rebukes him for not having or having very little faith, why did you doubt in the next verse. there's just a picture here of all of us, the, we, we get afraid, the Lord says, don't be afraid.

We take steps of faith, and we doubt, we start to sink, but we can always cry out, Lord, help me, Lord, save me. And that's something that I think that as, that I've been encouraged by lately, I've been reading a book called The Praying Life by Paul Miller. Anybody ever heard of it? Praying, a praying Life, Paul Miller?

Killer book. The thesis of the book is, rather than sitting around just talking to yourself worrying, And even beating yourself up about not being so disciplined in your prayer life, turn your worries and your troubles into regular prayer. That's one of the theses of the book. Yes, I don't know about you, but I, I just drive around and just think and worry and, and talk.

I'm always talking to myself and then, but when I stop, I'm like, OK. OK. Instead of just sitting here worrying and talking to myself, how about I turn those thoughts into prayers and say, Lord, I'm worried right now, help me. Lord, I'm concerned about this, I'm concerned about that.

Lord, may you, Jesus, I was praying this this week, the Father has given you authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all those whom the Father has given you. Would you grant eternal life to my unsafe family members? Father, give eternal life. You have that authority.

And so I'm just, turning these worries and concerns, sanctify the Bible, sanctify them by thy truth. Thy word is truth. Lord, would you take my kids and sanctify them by your truth? Your word is truth.

So would you plant your word deep in their hearts? I can't do anything to make, as much as I wanna make them do certain things, I can't do it. Would you do that? And by the way, Lord, while I'm sitting here being so worried about my kids, Would you help me?

Because if I just worry about myself, that's enough for a day, right? First Timothy tells me that, tells Timothy, Paul says, give attention to yourself and to the doctrine. So, for me to be any good whatsoever to my family or to you, I gotta be praying for myself, watch out for my own soul. I can be over here worrying about everybody else and be in neglect of my own soul, right?

So these are just prayers that we can offer to the Lord and And so Peter, to his credit, says, oh Lord, save me. And this picture right here is one of my favorite pictures. I don't know if you guys have seen this online, but it's a painting, I forget who, who did it. This is a beautiful image to me that I, it comes to mind frequently of, of Just Jesus reaching down to Peter and pulling him up.

It reminds me also of like the end of John Bunyan where Christian's gone through all these valleys and depths and heights, and he gets to the final river where he's gonna cross over to heaven, as it were, to the celestial city, and what happens in the middle of the river? He starts to doubt, and he's sinking. And then his buddy reaches down and pulls him up and he gets to the other side just by the grace of the Lord. So, all of us, it doesn't matter how long we've been walking with the Lord, we all, it's always every step is just the grace of the Lord.

It's the mercy of the Lord. And so this is just a beautiful picture reminder, and then just the general rebuke of Jesus in verse 31. Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, caught him and said to him, Oh, you have little faith, why do you doubt? And when they had got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Now, the previous time something like this had happened, they all just sit there dumbfounded and say, Who must this person be that he has control over the wind and nature? But notice what happens in verse 33. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. So there's a different response now from the passage that Pastor Carlos preached a couple of weeks ago, from, in fact, look back there real quick.

Matthew. just a few pages back. Where is it at? Yeah, so verse 27, 8:27, so the men marveled, saying, who can this be that even the winds and the sea obey him?

That was their previous response. Now, they're worshiping the Greek word here is Prosko. Can anybody say that? Prosko.

And this is actually an interesting study that you can do. this Greek, word happens throughout the Bible, but it's really concentrated in the book of Matthew. Matthew uses this word a lot and uses this word a lot, having to do with the worship of Christ. Now, Prasano in some contexts can just mean to just bow down and give honor to someone, but in other contexts, it means to bow down and actually worship them as a deity.

So, for instance, like in Matthew 4, when Jesus is being tempted by the devil, the devil says, hey, why don't you proscaneo me and I'll give you all these kingdoms. What's Jesus' response? You shall proscaneo no one except the Lord your God. That's his response.

And then here in chapter 14, right after this incredible display of the power over nature, Jesus walking on the water, telling Peter to come, keeping Peter suspended over the water, lifting him up, getting in the boat, and then everything gets calm. They begin to pros can nail him. I wanna suggest to you that this is not just, oh, let's honor a person. Oh, you're like a king, we're gonna about and honor you as a king.

No, they're prosk nailing him the way that the devil was saying Prosko me and Jesus said, no way. We're gonna, you pros can nail the Lord your God. And so, if Jesus theoretically was not God, There's no way he would have received this prosko, and you can track this, this term. Throughout the book.

it happens, again in Matthew 28:9. You can also see, an evidence of it in Isaiah 66:23 in the Septuagint, that's the Greek translation of the Old Testament. you see that same concept there. Right?

So that's the, that's this, this narrative of, of Christ's control over nature and it's just an amazing thing that we have a Christ. Who's able to suspend his body on top of water, but not only that, to control the wind and the waves. When you look throughout the Bible, you see that God does have power over the meteorological phenomena. We've got this Hurricane Florence, we've got this big typhoon that just went through the Philippines area.

Bagua, in fact, was hit. just as big as Florence, at least in its devastation and impact. And yet, God is the first cause of all of that. God has control over all of those things.

he has the ability to whip them up. He has the ability to cause them to go away. We see, it's just plain in the Old Testament that, when you look at the blessings and cursings, God says, if you keep my covenant, I'm gonna bring all these blessings upon your land and you. If not, guess what?

I'm gonna cause it not to rain. You're not, your crops are not gonna grow. You guys are gonna have famine and poverty. And what happens?

That exact type of stuff begins to happen. You, you see people that will belittle the Christian faith and, and say, well, we know that we've studied, the meteorological phenomena from a scientific perspective. It's very clear what causes storms. The Bible never claims that God is not using the meteorological laws that he's put into place to, to move his sovereign will forward.

God is a God of means and many times he does use His, his means through the nat, the laws of nature that he's established. But at times, Christ totally is, is able and is sovereign to break the laws of nature. Somebody walking on water is breaking the laws of nature that God set in motion. And so we see examples of that.

Let's look at another one. Let's look at Luke. We're gonna skip by Colossians for now because of time. If we have time, we'll come back to it.

But let's look at Luke 5. And this is going to be. 5 starting in, in verse 1. So, we're going forward in the gospels, but we're actually going back in time a little bit.

So this is earlier in the ministry of Christ as we look at Luke, but it's where, it's the same, it, it's dealing with the same sea, the Sea of Galile here called the Lake of, of Genesarre. I think that's how you pronounce it. Starting at verse one, so it was, as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, that he stood by the lake of Genesaret and saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. When he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him, or then he got into one of the boats and asked him, to put out a little from the land.

And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. Now, if you're, if you're imagining a, a little canoe, this really doesn't seem to be much advantage, right? But this is obviously would be a larger fishing vessel that Christ would be able to get a little bit of probably elevation above the crowd and then to look out over the crowd and teach them. And so, and this just so happens to be Simon Peter's boat, right?

Just so happens. Verse 4, when he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. That's his first response.

Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net. At this point, Simon Peter really doesn't know Christ, right? This is their early interactions. Now, why would, why would Peter and his compadres be fishing at night?

Say it again. Yeah. the fish are active. So at nighttime, so you gotta imagine these guys aren't like trolling or dropping down deep lines.

These guys are net fishermen. So at night, what do the fish do? Yeah, they come up and they, and they start going after the bugs on the surface and things like that. So, in this part of the world, and I, I don't, I'm not a fisherman in this sense, so I'm just telling you what I've read, you would normally fish at night cause that's when the fish are up.

They spend all night fishing, nothing. Now, it's daytime. What do fish do in the daytime? I do know this.

They go down, right? When it gets hot, they go down. That's why when we go up to Mammoth in a few weeks, those that really want to catch fish, when are they gonna be on the lake? Yeah.

They're gonna be out there early when the sun's just barely coming up. We're all cold and we're saying. Because we wanna catch those fish, right? Cause as soon as that, once that sun starts getting up over the lake, you'll catch a few, but unless you can get down deep, the, the bites normally go down.

And that's a good time to get on the boat and start dropping down deep, right? So, Peter's like, Lord, we didn't catch anything at night, we ain't gonna catch anything in the day, right? Nevertheless, let's go ahead, we'll go out. So, they go out.

At your word, I will let down the net for 6. And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled their partners to the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink. Now, remember, Jesus got into this boat in the first place.

Why? To have a better advantage to teach. So, these are, I don't know exactly how big these boats are, but they're big enough to give Christ better viewpoint to teach a large crowd. So, these are not small, little tiny canoes.

These are larger boats. They're bringing in so much fish that these, these boats are starting to sink down. And, sometimes when we read this story, we just think Jesus would run over or Peter would run over and give Jesus a high five and be like, man, something like that. But look at his response.

Verse 8, when Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord. For he and all who were with him were astonished at at the catch of fish which they had taken. It's an interesting response. what's going on here?

I think Peter, he is very aware of what's just happened. This is just not, we did not have a good night of fishing. Daytime is not the time to fish. We go out, not only do they catch a few fish, but the impression you get is they probably catch more fish than they've ever caught in their lifetime.

Peter looks at Jesus, realizes This is at, at the very least, a holy man of God, at least a prophet. God is, he's probably, you guys have probably experienced it. There's these times in your life, right? Where the Lord does something special and you're just overwhelmed with his goodness and mercy, and you feel like, I don't deserve this.

And so, Jesus is just overwhelming him with goodness and Peter's just overwhelmed and says, Lord, I'm, I'm a sinful man. Who knows what he's recalling to mind. this, this is before Peter's officially started to follow him, is Peter cheating on his taxes? Is he, he, he's a Jewish man, but we don't know what sins he's, he's fallen into.

But just being confronted with Christ, being confronted with Christ's rule over nature, he's overwhelmed with the goodness of the Lord, which drives him to thinking of his sin and his position as a sinner. And what he wants Jesus to do is just to leave him. Isn't that a lot of times our, our default response of our flesh, when a lot of times when we consider our own sin, and even sometimes we think of the goodness of the Lord and the, and the backdrop of our sin, there's this part of us that just says, Lord, I'm not worthy, leave me, or we think that we can't go to the Lord because of our sin.

But notice what happens right after in verse 10.

And so also were James and John, the son of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Jesus said to Simon, Jesus could have said, OK, Peter, you're right. You're a pretty simple guy. I'll see you later.

Right? That's what, and Jesus knew Peter better than he knew himself. So, whatever's going on in Peter's head, he knows I'm a bad guy. This is a holy guy.

Depart from me, Lord. But Jesus' response is not to leave him, but to say, do not be afraid. First of all, So, part, so we get a little bit of a clue of what's going on here. First, they're freaked out by the miracle.

And perhaps recognizing this is at the very least a prophet who is representing Almighty God. What's gonna happen to us right now? when people in the Old Testament, when they suddenly realize that they've come into contact with God, they think they're gonna die. Pastor Milton will be covering Jacob wrestling the, the angel of the Lord here in a couple of weeks.

And when Jacob's done with this, he's not like, man, that was awesome, dude. He's like, I'm a dead man. I should have died. And that's so often the response.

And so there, there seems to be this fear and this sense of sin and So Jesus says, don't be afraid. not only am I not gonna leave you, but I've got a job for you to do. From now on, you will catch men. which is a greater miracle than what you've just seen.

I think it is implied here. From now on, you've just caught fish. Your, your vocation is now changing. Peter, you think you're so sinful, you are, you're afraid, you have every right to be, but I want you to come follow me and I'm gonna make you a fisher of men.

And, and then we're gonna begin to see miracles that go way beyond Jesus just causing some fish to jump into a net. and so then, so that's the end of that. Particular narrative, which just leaves us with just, just amazing. Sense of who, who is this guy?

That, that Jesus could just go out and, and, and when no, there's no fish to be found, that somehow in his sovereign powers, here he is a man. And there's no indication that people think that there's something particularly particularly special about him just by looking at him. It's not like he's walking around with a halo or he's got a glow or anything like that. By all appearances, this is just a man.

But then he does these things that clearly demonstrate he is more than a man. Somebody who can walk on water, calm the sea, basically, without even saying a word, just He's just willing that these fish show up and that they get caught. I don't know about you, but I've, when I was a kid, my, I go fish with my grandpa, and he would tell me if I just talked to the fish, I got a whisper to the fish, and then you would catch them. And so I'd be out there, it's like, come here, fishy fishy.

Please, come on, fish, you bite my, and then it, it, it would happen. I would catch the fish. And so I really thought my grandpa was a miracle worker, right? Be bringing that fish in and so we would talk to the fish, and then, but sometimes it didn't work, so I wasn't sure what was, what was happening.

And I passed that on to my son, Samuel, and we go up to Mammoth here in a few weeks, we'll be talking to the fish and maybe they'll come in, maybe they won't. I'll look at my fish finder and be like, OK, start talking. But Jesus does need a fish finder. He, he didn't even need to say it out loud.

He didn't need to tell Peter, hey, Peter, start talking fishy, fishy. No, just boom, the largest catch probably he's ever had. And it probably dropped the overall market value of fish for the day or for a week, we don't know. but Jesus is just amazing.

And I, I, I wanna just encourage us that we serve our Lord. That, he looks at little steps of faith, Peter jumping, taking a step out on the water, and he's willing to answer our prayers. And then when we doubt and we start to sink, to sink, he's willing to reach down and get us. Peter's like, we've been fishing all day, but OK, let's do it.

And then the Lord just answers his prayer. And then when when Peter says, depart from me, I'm too sinful, Peter knows how sinful he is, but he doesn't move away from him, he moves to him. Not only that, but he gives him a job. I don't know about you, but I, there's times in my life where I've just felt completely overwhelmed.

It's like, why would God allow me to be a pastor? I can remember sitting at Cornerstone, Mike Beasley's preaching on August 1st, 19, I think it was 94. And he's preaching on Jeremiah, how the Lord says, I knew you before you were born. And I'm just sitting there weeping.

Probably thought people didn't know me as well back then, they probably thought, what in the world is wrong with this guy till they got to know me later. And I'm just like, the Lord was just overwhelming me that it, it was like I just felt the sense that God was calling me into the ministry in spite of some of my sin and failings. And the Lord was just saying, no, I got a job for you to do. And that's just the Lord.

That we serve. if we're looking, it's not like all of his providences are so apparently good. A lot of times, like the hymn we're gonna sing this morning, there seems to be a frown in Providence, but behind that cloud of frowning, there's a smiling Providence. We don't always see it right away, but we see it in the end.

So, let's talk a little bit to wrap this up about this concept of miracles. You guys have a sheet that I'd encourage you to, to look at this week for your homework. It's called Accepting Miracles. And basically, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna really do it in class.

I, I wanna encourage you to, to do it outside of class. But the big idea is Do we really believe that Christ walked on the water? Raise your hand if you believe that Christ walked on the water. OK.

Raise your hand if you believe that, that Jesus really did cause those fish to go into the net, right? And there's lots of miracles like that, but not just today but throughout church history, there's been people have said, OK, we can accept certain things, but we're not gonna believe that Jesus could be born of a virgin. We're not going to believe that Jesus could be raised from the dead. Who can really raise somebody from the dead?

We're not gonna believe, and then you can go beyond that. Jesus talks about Jonah and the whale. We're not gonna believe that somebody can really be swallowed by a whale, even though Jesus talks about it as historical. We're not gonna really believe that God could flood the earth.

We're not going to really believe that God could create the world in 6 days. there's little things we'll, we'll say, OK, well, we're gonna keep Jesus on the cross, but we're very embarrassed by the Old Testament. There's, there's a growing movement amongst evangelicals to be embarrassed by various stories in the Old Testament and to try to dismiss them as not real. And I want, I just wanna suggest to you that, go back, there's lots of people that talk about this concept, but I've got a sermon a couple of years ago that basically shows the connection between the flood and the cross.

And that if you reject the flood outright, that you're gonna have a lot of trouble keeping the cross because Jesus joins the two in the New Testament. And so, it's, it, it doesn't seem logical to accept certain miracles like Jesus walking on water, and then to say, oh well, he couldn't have done this in the Old Testament. And so in light of that, I want to show a little video. These are two of my favorite theologians, Donald and Connell, from a site called Lutheran Satire.

Anybody ever heard of it? Lutheran Satire? OK. So, this is somewhat funny, but what they do is they teach theology by making fun of stuff, all right?

And so, this, this video posits them having a conversation with, with Richard Dawkins, who is an atheist that denies the Bible and miracles, and he particularly denies the resurrection, says it's ridiculous. And so these guys are going to argue. from a preceptional, presuppositional viewpoint on why we should believe in the resurrection, right, so let's watch it and then we'll Lutheran satire you can find it on. YouTube.

That's Couple of my favorite theologians. Yeah, the reason they always call, they always call everybody Patrick because Patrick is the most common name, I guess, in Ireland, but their first video was of Saint Patrick as, and they're basically talked to him about his argument for the Trinity from the three-leaf clover, and they're like, that teaches modalism, Patrick. And so they're going back and forth on The false teaching of the three-leaf clover. There's also a good one on the meeting a couple of Mormon missionaries.

And other, other stuff. It's a, it's a very Oh, it is. It is, yes. And honestly, the, the approach that they're taking is, it's, it's not the only approach, but it's a good traditional presuppositional approach that basically tries to, to, to set out the idea that people are gonna, if you're approaching something from a certain worldview, you're gonna make certain arguments and you're excluding other worldviews.

So, it's kinda like what we were saying earlier, to say, if we're trying to measure metaphysical data with physical instruments, that's just nonsensical. So, if you start out by saying the only thing that exists is, is physical measurable data, so the scientific method, it's got to be observable, measurable, repeatable, right? Well, what about things in the universe that just can't be measured, observed, and repeated? If you say that the only thing that can be true has to fit in the scientific method, you've excluded a whole bunch of other things that can't fit into that category, including logic.

Logic cannot be observable, measurable, and repeatable, the laws of logic. And Doctor Greg Bonson was really good at demonstrating that back in the day before he went to be with the Lord. All right. So let's, so let's finish with just some application here.

Since we live in a time when many people are very skeptical of miracles and look to natural explanations to explain the world, should we, avoid bringing up miracles as we seek to share the gospel with them? What do you guys think? Yeah, no, I don't, I think we, it's pretty clear that we shouldn't. We should focus in on what the scriptures say.

And, and affirm what everything that the Bible says, and if people have questions about it, there's ways, I think, to demonstrate from a Christian worldview the rationality of our position, even if we can never prove absolute certainty outside of the movement of the Holy Spirit. One thing I do wanna caution you guys from, I used to hear this a lot from young apologetic students. is I'd hear these kids getting up and giving these apologetic cards, basically arguing that we can prove with absolute certainty the resurrection of Jesus Christ using historical scientific methods.

And I, and I would say, if you do that, you will get annihilated in a, in a debate with somebody who knows what they're talking about.

All you can demonstrate is you can draft, you can demonstrate the rationality of the Christian worldview. Using the, the things that are out there in the world because our God is real and he has put things out there that are real and can be observed. but you need to realize that evidence or data is always interpreted through a worldview. And there is no uninterpreted fact in the universe.

It was Cornelius Van Til that coined the phrase that every cow is a Christian cow. What he meant by that is you can't look at a cow and, and just observe a cow without a worldview. Everybody looks at stuff through a worldview. And so, part of presuppositional apologetics is acknowledging our worldview and trying to point out to people their worldview and then try to demonstrate, well, which worldview makes the best sense of the data.

And we realized that we can't prove to anybody with absolute certainty. Our faith in Christ, what we can do is point them to the rationality, but then ultimately depend upon the power of the gospel and the Holy Spirit to bring certainty in their hearts. Because we know, as we talked about epistemology last week, we know that people who don't know Christ have been taken captive by the devil to do His will. And so they need to be released by the devil in order to hear.

What Jesus tells us, do you guys remember the verse that we said is the most basic verse of epistemology in the Bible, from what I argued? Last week, it was John 3:11. Remember what John 3:11 says, he's talking to Nicodemus. Most assuredly, what does that mean?

Some versions say, truly, truly, Amen, amen. In other words, if there's something true, this is it. When you see that, amen, amen, or that truly, truly. So here's something that's true.

I say to you, Nicodemus, we speak what we know. Jesus says, the Father, Son, and by implication of the Holy Spirit, we're speaking of stuff that we're not unsure about at all. This is true. We speak of what we know, and we testify what we have seen.

And you do not receive our witness. So, basically, Jesus is basically pitting the knowledge of the Trinity against Nicodemus and saying, we know, we've seen, we're sure, there's no doubt, and yet you have not received our witness. That's the core verse, I think for a Christian epistemology is the Trinity has no doubts whatsoever about anything in the universe. And they the Trinity reveals knowledge, and then it's, we either respond to the Holy Spirit or we don't, but we're ultimately, we're completely dependent upon God to open up our eyes to see the world as it actually is, if that makes sense.

So, last thing we'll say and then we'll pray is a lot of people, and I, I think appropriately so, when they wanna talk about, how we should engage unbelievers, they'll go to Acts 17 and they'll talk about Paul, Mars Hill, right? Remember he sees that idol. Yeah, I noticed that you guys have an idol over here to the unknown God, the one that you worship unknowingly, I now declare to you. And then sometimes people will say, see what Paul does?

He's just quoting from their secular sources, and he's not trying to get overly religious and doing stuff that would shut down an interaction. He's just trying to meet them on their own terms. I would argue that no. No, he's not.

Basically, there's about 40 different quotes from the Old Testament in his dialogue there. He just doesn't say chapter and verse. He doesn't say, Isaiah says or Jeremiah says, but he's just given us Old Testament theology, and then he comes right up and he starts talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you wanna just totally have a showstopper with a bunch of Greeks who think that matters evil, just mention the resurrection of Jesus.

And that's what he does. He brings it all the way up to the resurrection of Christ, and that is where the conversation ends. But guess what? When he finishes the conversation, some people get saved, some people say, well, I'll hear more about this, some people laugh at him.

And that's the way our gospel evangelism is always gonna go that way. You should not feel you're a failure if you try to present the miracles of Christ, including the resurrection of Jesus, and a bunch of people laugh at you. I, I interact with people online. That their attitude basically towards me and I think towards other Christians is you have nothing to say.

You're an ogre. so if you, if you try to argue and, and whatever is, I, I doubt and question everything you say because you're coming at it from a, a, a position of faith. And so, therefore, out the gate, I reject you. And so, we just need to remember in the back of our minds that there's this spiritual warfare going on and if we present the gospel and just let it loose, that the Holy Spirit can engage people and completely change their hearts on his own terms.

Remember, the Father has granted authority to the Son over some flesh, no, over all flesh. Jesus has authority over every man, woman and child. So that he should, he should give eternal life to as many as the Father has given him. Will there be anybody that Jesus fails to give eternal life to?

That has been given to him by the father. No. Jesus has absolute authority to give eternal life to those, and so, we like, this is mysterious and, and sometimes we don't like to think on these terms, but Jesus Christ throughout the, throughout the history of the world, he's basically doing his fantasy draft. And he's going out and he is giving eternal life to as many as the Father has given him.

The Father has given him this list. These are who I'm giving you, giving to you. Jesus is going around one by one in his timing, he's plucking them up. And he will lose none of them.

They'll all be unfolded into the Father's hands, Father's hands of the Father, the hands of the Son. And when you get to the end, Jesus will turn and hand everything back over to the Father that God may be all in all, and God gets all the glory, all the credit. And it, it, I, I'll just, we'll let the, if you didn't know this already, we'll kinda let the the cat out of the bag. God wins.

I don't know if you guys knew that. Jesus wins in the end. The devil loses. that Jesus gets everybody he's after, and he hands them all back to the Father for the Father's glory.

What do you, what do you think? That's pretty cool. Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to start your fantasy football league and to know from the get-go that You're gonna win, right?

Say it again. Spoiler alert. Jesus wins. Yeah, and we get to participate.

Let's go ahead and pray. I'll be up here for questions. If you have any, make sure you pick up the lesson for next week. We'll be moving on to the lesson 3.

Lord, we thank you so much for just the encouragement as we look at these miracles that you have accomplished. We look at Peter and And your relationship with Him, and we just see so much camaraderie on the pages of Scripture. We thank you, Lord, that you're so merciful and kind, even in your rebukes. We thank you for your great power that's demonstrated in these miracles, and even just the miracle of, of salvation that you would use us to go out and be fishers of men, and Lord, that we've been recipients of that.

The people have shared the gospel with us. You've awakened us, awakened our hearts to believe. We pray, Father, that You would cause us to persevere to the end, Lord, that you would sanctify us by your, your truth and your word is truth. we, pray, Father, that You would protect us and, and ours from the evil one.

And we just thank you so much that we look, we get to look forward to this day through the many, many valleys, even the valley of the shadow of death, and we are looking to a prospect of your ultimate victory and living with you forever in heaven. we pray, Father, you just be with us this morning as we continue to worship you as your word is preached in Genesis, and Lord, as your people minister their gifts, may you receive all of the glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

All right, I'll be up here if you guys have questions or, but otherwise, we'll See you guys next week. Thank you for that message.