Power over the natural world
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 24 June 2012
This evening we are studying Matthew 8:23-27. Let me give you some background to our thinking. When God created man God ordained that man was to be the king of the earth. Genesis says that God gave man dominion, or sovereignty, or kingship over the earth.
And then when man fell into sin he lost his right to rule, he lost the kingdom that God had given him. The earth was cursed by God. And as a result of that curse the control of the earth fell into the hands of Satan, who is called the prince of this world, the god of this age. And so man lost his dominion and the earth lost its glory.
What was the result of this? Let me just give you some examples: sickness, pain, death, difficulty in human relationships, war, sorrow, injustice, falsehood, famine, natural disaster and demonic activities. These are the things that result from sin, and the earth endures all of these things constantly.
But the Bible tells us about a great and glorious redemptive plan in which God is not only redeeming man, but also redeeming man's environment, the earth and universe, and reversing the curse. Now according to God's plan, in order to do this God would come to earth twice. The first time He would come to redeem man. The second time He would come to redeem the earth and the universe.
So we see in the first coming of the Lord Jesus Christ where He was crucified and rose again for the redemption of man. The second time He comes in blazing glory, establishes a thousand year kingdom and then a new heaven and a new earth throughout eternity, and so redeeming the whole of His creation.
Now Christ came because He was the only one able to carry out that plan. The ultimate design then is a universe with no sorrow, no tears, no pain, no sickness, no death, no difficulties, no disasters, no demons, where it is all righteous, all holy, all beautiful, all glorious forever. That is the coming kingdom of God.
Its first phase is the thousand-year when the Lord reverses the curse in the earth itself. The second phase is in the eternal state when He creates a new heaven and a new earth unlike the one we have now.
Everything is going to change in the future. Everything that we know of as a curse, everything that spoils man's existence, everything that breaks man's heart, everything that steals man's joy, everything that takes away from him the dominion and dominance that God intended him to have, the sovereignty that God designed will be reversed.
And the Bible says that we will reign forever and ever with Christ in His throne. That's the redemption of the universe. Things aren't always going to be the way they are now.
Now it is clear to us that man can't do anything to effect that change. We can try to deal with some of the problems, but we can't eliminate them. We don't have the power. We can shoot off rockets into space, but all we do is pollute space. We can build all kinds of machinery and equipment, but all we do is pollute the environment around where we're building.
Now if the earth is going to be changed, and the environment is going to be altered, and if there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, it is going to have to be done by somebody far superior to any man. In fact, it is not only a power beyond man, it is a power that is inconceivable to man. We can't even imagine the kind of power that it takes for God to create in the beginning and to then sustain creation.
What kind of power does God have? It's visible to us. "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,” says Romans 1:20. What kind of power is it? The more we look at the universe the more shocking it becomes to see the power that is exhibited there. What kind of power does it take to move the universe beyond our imagination?
Our little telescopes can take us out 4 billion light years or if you do not understand that try 2.3 times 10 13 miles. We know we haven't even come close to the edge of our galaxy which is 100,000 light years across and there are billions of galaxies in space. And everywhere we look we find power, movement of heavenly bodies energized with incredible power.
We live on a ball 25,000 miles in circumference, 8,000 miles in diameter and the earth weighs six thousand trillion tons and it hangs on nothing. We say well gravity holds it up. What power is gravity that holds this thing in space? Not only that, what makes it spin? Where does that power come from that make us spin a thousand miles an hour?
And we're moving in an orbit around the sun that covers 580 million miles at a speed of a thousand miles a minute. And not only that, our whole solar system is moving through endless space in an orbit that takes billions of years to complete at a faster speed than that. We're going in three speeds. Where's the fuel? Where's the energy? What makes us go?
When the Bible says Jesus sustains the world with His power, it means He energizes every atom in the universe. What kind of power? Do you think God has the power to recreate the earth? He does. He has the power to reverse the curse. He has the power to bring back Eden, the power to create a new heaven and a new earth, and that's why Jesus came, to show us that power.
Look at Matthew 9:6, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth.” You see, that is the whole issue in the miracles, so that men might know He has power. The miracles were previews of kingdom power. When He healed the sick He was giving a preview of a glorious kingdom where there would be no sickness. When He raised the dead He was giving a preview of a glorious kingdom where there would be no dying.
When He calmed the waves on the sea He was previewing a glorious kingdom where natural elements would never be out of control. When He cast out demons He was previewing a kingdom where there would be no demonic activity at all. You see everything He did was to say to man, "I am the one who can reverse the curse. I am the one who can bring back sovereignty to man in a glorified eternal kingdom."
Matthew 10:1, "And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” He gave them power in two areas: over demons and over disease.
But only Jesus did those miracles that dealt with nature. In Matthew 28:18, He said, "All power is given to Me on heaven and on earth." In Mark 9:1, "Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”
He was referring to His transfiguration. He immediately went into a mountain and there were those that were dead, Moses and Elijah, appearing there because Jesus had brought them back, that's power. He transfigured Himself and let His glory be seen, that's power. They saw the power that would be fully manifest in the kingdom.
Now we've already discussed the first three miracles these past weeks. There are nine miracles in Chapters 8 and 9. The first three dealt with disease, didn't they? We've already seen these. The next three show His power over nature, the supernatural world, and then over sin. Let us look at the first one tonight.
Now remember the last group they were fascinated, they were curious, they were thrilled with His power, but when He gave offered them to believe in Him and said, "If you're going to follow Me you're going to have to leave everything. You're going to pay a deep price, and you have to come right now with a full commitment," they went away. That was the first response.
Now we move into the second three miracles and we see at the end of these three a different response. Notice Matthew 8:23. "Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.” They were on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, just a little lake, 13 miles long and 8 miles wide and He said we're going to the other side.
He was weary, the Sabbath Day was over, it's late in the night, the crowd has pressured Him more than He can bear in His humanness, and He made the decision to leave. And so as the little boat left the shore by Capernaum to sail maybe six miles to the other side, and several other little boats went along.
In fact, Mark 4:36 says, "And other little boats were also with Him.” Notice at the end of verse 23, His disciples followed Him. Now by this time it is recorded in Mark and Luke that He has already selected the twelve, but the word here, "His disciples followed Him," is much bigger than the twelve.
There is some confusion in the New Testament when it says, "His disciples," to whom does it refer? The word disciple here simply means people who want to know more. You have the multitude that are indifferent and then you have the people who are saying, "Hey, I want to hear what He says, I'm interested." The level of their commitment is undetermined at this point. And so Jesus speaks to them on the matter of salvation because that is the key issue.
In Matthew 10:22, Jesus said, "But he who endures to the end will be saved.” Judas didn't endure to the end and showed he wasn't a true disciple. There were learners around Jesus but just because they are called disciples doesn't mean that they are believers. The word in itself is not an indication of anything except that they were attracted to Jesus' teaching and they were listening.
And Jesus was about to show them something that was absolutely unbelievable. And He had to create the conditions for it, so it says in verse 24, "And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep.” Now those boats are just basically little open boats without any protection and there came this storm.
And so there they are. It is night, it's dark and it says suddenly a great tempest. And things began to blow and the Greek word used in the Mark and Luke accounts is a different word that means a whirlwind or a storm. In other words this was a shocking, unexpected and severe thing.
These sailors had seen lots of storms; but never was there anything like this. And look again at verse 24, "But He was asleep." Anybody who could sleep through this must have been very tired. And that speaks of Jesus' humanness. The sea is raging, the storm is howling, the wind is careening around and the little boat is tossed like a cork on the ocean, it's filling up with water the other gospels tell us, and the creator of the world is sound asleep.
He sleeps so peaceful because He doesn't have fear. Absolutely trusted the Father's care, oh it would be wonderful if we could live like that. We get tossed around by circumstances in our world and we begin to mistrust God and we panic. Jesus is omniscient and knows everything in the universe yet He was sleeping peaceful in the care of God.
In verse 25, His disciples came to Him and awoke Him saying, "Master, Master, save us, don't you care we're perishing," The fact that they turned to Jesus is interesting. How could He help these sailors, but they had nowhere else to turn. They're not so much convinced that He is God at this point, as they are hoping that He is God.
But they were right where God wanted them. Sometimes God has to bring us to desperation to get our attention, doesn't He? They had run out of human solutions; they wanted a divine answer. Their hope was that the miracle worker who could handle sickness maybe could handle the sea, and they had fear mixed with faith. You see if they had total faith they would have been asleep, confident in the Father's care.
But often our first cry is like theirs, as is recorded in Mark 4:38, "Do You not care that we are perishing?” Have you ever done that? You know you get into a difficult circumstance and you say to God, "Don't you care, God?" That's the lack of faith. But that's nothing new. Look at Psalm 10:1, "Why do You stand afar off, O LORD? Why do You hide in times of trouble?”
Find the same thing in Isaiah 51:9, the same kind of approach, which shows such a lack of faith. The prophet is saying, “Awake, awake, put on strength, oh arm of the LORD! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, and wounded the serpent?” How can you let this happen God? How can you let me go thorough this?
And the reply is a classic: verse 26, "But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” What kind of question is that? Look around you. It's the middle of the night. There's a storm here like we've never seen. The boat is full of water.
In fact in Mark 4:40 it says, "Why do you have no faith?" Don't you believe in Me and My love and My power? Those are the two key things. If you believe in God's love and God's power you can weather any storm. Number one you know God cares about you and number two you know He can handle the situation, right? That's all you need to know.
Isn't it amazing how we can see the reality of God but then when the circumstance becomes bad for us we forget His love and power altogether. The disciples first learned that they didn't have enough faith so in Luke 17:5 they said, "Lord, increase our faith." And you know what He did? Right after that He healed ten lepers. Faith needs constant strengthening.
The concept of little faith basically means distrust in God's ability. You don't believe God can provide. So you worry, you panic, you fear, you're cowardly, you don't believe that God can take care of you.
Have you forgotten Psalm 46:1-3, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3 though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling.”
And so they had nothing to fear. Verse 26, "Then He arose," middle of the verse, "And rebuked the winds and the sea." And there was a great calm. Mark 4:39 says, "He stood up and said, 'Silence,' and instantly not just calm but a great total calm. Or as one commentator translates it hush and the sea became as glass. The waves stopped, the wind stopped and it was all still.
It's impossible to measure the power of the wind that was existing in that kind of a storm, but just in a normal storm there are billions of horsepower generated in a storm. No one could even measure the power of wind and the waves, and Jesus stopped it immediately with a word.
Matthew's message to us is, this is the one who can conquer disease, this is the one who can handle nature and later He'll tell us He is the one who controls the demons. He is the one who forgives sin. He is the one who raises the dead. Think about it, He is the one who lives in your heart.
And what was their reaction, verse 27, “So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” In Mark 4:41 it says, "They were exceedingly afraid." You know what's more fearful than being in a storm? Realizing you're standing in the presence of the living God.
The same Jesus Christ that stilled the sea is the one that keeps all those atoms moving in your body, the one that keeps this earth whirling in space, the one that keeps this universe in balance. That same Jesus Christ will one day come and set up His eternal kingdom. Will you be a part of that kingdom by faith?