At this time and throughout Jesus' ministry, He has been preparing His apostles for their future leadership role in His church. They are learning about Jesus and about His kingdom. In this section, two lessons are presented for Him.
The first lesson occurs during the boat ride in a storm that blows up suddenly. The disciples panic and are afraid they are perishing, so they wake Jesus, who calms the sea. The lesson for the disciples was that their faith was lacking. Jesus had told them to go across the lake. They were doing just exactly what He had told them to do. And Jesus was right there in the boat with them. The main problem, what Jesus rebuked them for, was the way they came to Him in a panic. They should, like us, have had faith that they were doing exactly what He had given them to do, and approached Jesus with confidence and assurance, rather than panic.
The second lesson occurred after they reached the end of the boat trip, where they were immediately met with a demon-possessed man. This man had a reputation for being extremely violent and breaking his bonds. The demons within him immediately recognized Jesus and knew they were helpless. They entreated Jesus to send them into a herd of swine (what were these Jews doing raising swine?) and Jesus consented. The swine rushed into the river and were drowned; the man was completely restored. The people of that area were greatly afraid and urged Jesus to go away. So Jesus decided to leave, but the man who had been healed asked to go along with Jesus. Jesus told him to instead stay and tell all in that land what had happened to him. And the man obeyed.
What are the points to be learned from this lesson? First note that all Christians will suffer tribulations. Each of us will be confronted with sin. Many of the people in the world around us are, like the man in this story, not in their right minds. There is great crime and wickedness in the cities around us. All over the world we hear of Christians being killed for their testimonies. Even now there is demonic activity. The devil will use the sinfulness of man heart to his own advantage. Evil breeds more evil and sin grows to deeper sin. We, like, the apostles, will be confronted with it.
However, in ever tribulation, we know that we shall conquer. Jesus is near us, and He is our shield, hiding place, rock of refuge, our defender. We know that He is:
Lord of the Present -- whatever we are doing, we must do it with Jesus. Whatever we do through the day, we do in faith knowing it is the thing that God has given us to do. We approach every aspect of our lives: our work, our recreation, our relationships, knowing that we are doing what He has given us to do, and we are doing it to please Him.
Lord of the Past -- Jesus knew the storm was coming when He had the disciples set out on the Sea of Galilee. He know all about everything that comes into our lives. He is the Author of our stories, and the Planner of our lives. Note that the Lord set off across the lake in order to save only one man -- a man who was not at all seeking Him. This is grace!
Lord of the Future -- We don't know what God will do. But we do know that He works good for His children through all the evil and tribulation in this life. We can go to Him in trouble. But we need not go in a panic, as the disciples did. But rather than being scared in difficult circumstances, we need only lay out before Him these principles in total confidence that He will answer.
See Christ's mercy in this passage! He works toward one man at a time. He saved this man and sent him as the "first gospel missionary". He had compassion even on these Geresenes who had rejected Him and told Him to go away -- He left a man to share the gospel with them.
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