The Things that God Hates 7: A False Witness who Speaks Lies

Proverbs 6:16-19; 1 Kings 21:4-16; John 3:35-36; Revelation 3:14.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 26, 2021.

This morning we will look at the 6^th thing on the list of things that God hates, and we find it in verse 19 of Proverbs 6.  God hates a false witness who speaks lies.

God hates a false witness who speaks lies

The word for “speaks” is literally breathing out, or exhaling, lies, which is a metaphor for speech.  It should remind us of the fact that breath, wind, and spirit are linked conceptually in the Bible.  Thus, it pictures a man who is breathing out lies.  His spirit is not a good spirit and is in league with the work of evil spirits, irrespective of the idea of possession.

Another grammatical thing that we should look at is the phrase “false witness.”  The word false can refer to the testimony itself, but it also speaks to the intent and character of the person who is witnessing.  This is a witness who is not committed to the truth and God.  They are a deceiver.  If a false witness says anything that is true, it is twisted and part of a deception, even if just to throw you off the scent of their deception.

In order to highlight this abominable issue, we are going to look at an event that is recorded in 1 Kings 21.

Ahab is king of the northern tribes of Israel.  About sixty years earlier 931 B.C., Israel had split into two kingdoms with the southern portion taking the name Judea, and the northern portion taking the name Israel.  The Bible tells us in 1 Kings 16:31 that Ahab was more wicked than any other northern king before him.

What did he do to deserve such a description?  He continued the worship of the golden calves at Dan and Bethel to keep his citizens from going to Jerusalem and its temple.  He also married Jezebel who was the daughter of a Sidonian King, a Baal worshipper.  This leads to Ahab building a temple to Baal in his capital city Samaria, and promoting Baal worship.  In fact, he begins to persecute the true prophets of Yahweh by imprisoning them and putting some to death.

Our problem in this chapter has to do with a vineyard next to Ahab’s summer palace in Jezreel.  He offers its owner, Naboth, either money or another field in trade, but Naboth refuses.  We will talk more about why later. 

Now, Ahab is a wicked man, but through his wife, we see that there are different levels of wickedness.  Ahab is more apt to pout and throw fits when people don’t go along with his plans.  Whereas, Jezebel has no boundaries and no qualms with using lies and murder to get what she wants.  When Jezebel finds out what Ahab is pouting over, she upbraids him and promises to get the vineyard for him.

A couple of week ago we talked about people who devise wicked plans in their hearts.  Well, this is exactly what Jezebel does.  Of course, Ahab knows what kind of woman he has married, and later God holds him accountable for her actions.  Jezebel is a leader who sees her position (and Ahab’s) as a means for her own benefit, and not for the people’s.  The people are just sheep, food, and assets to leaders like this.  Everyone is expendable for the sake of the great ego of such a leader.  Jezebel’s plan involves two scoundrels, worthless individuals, who will lie and say that they heard Naboth blaspheme God and the king.  This is a capital crime in Israel, and notice how she uses a cloak of morality to keep the populace going along with the ruse.

Wicked plans often need others in power to go along with it.  These others didn’t hatch the plan, but they knowingly carry it out.  Some do this out of fear because they don’t want to lose their life, power, and authority.  Others may simply do it out of their own lusts.  Perhaps they see themselves getting ahead or getting in the favor of the king, which could come in handy down the road.  Jezebel uses the kings seal to send a message to the elders of Jezreel.  This message tells them to have a fast and seat Naboth in a very public place where to scoundrels can accuse him of blaspheming God.  They are then to take Naboth out and execute him.  Regardless of what they were thinking, the elders of Naboth’s town sell him out in order to please the king.  They know it is all a lie, and yet they go along with it. 

Such wickedness is bad enough between nations, but for a leader to do such a thing to their own citizen is unconscionable.  God deliver us from such leaders, but it is not only kings that can abuse their power.  Every level of power over others down to our job and families can be abused in wickedness.  The wrath of God is coming for such things, and woe to the person who is found by him doing it.

Wicked plans always crush innocent people in order to satisfy the lusts of the wicked.  However, Naboth is not just innocent of the lies against him.  The story pictures him as a godly man.  In general, it would be his right not to sell to Ahab, but in Israel land was a birthright that was passed down from your ancestors, and ultimately it was a portion given by God.  To sell it would be seen as the same as Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of beans.  Naboth knows that the land has been given to his family by God, and he will not sell it for any price.  A gift from God meant more to him than mountains of money.

Ahab and Jezebel have nothing on Naboth because he has lived a godly life.  They then concoct bald face lies to pin on him.  Did anybody from Jezreel protest that day?  Who were these scoundrels accusing their friend Naboth of something they knew could never be?  In fact, although it is not mentioned in this story, 2 King 9:26 makes it clear that Naboth’s sons were killed with him, so there would be no heirs.  All of this because Ahab thought it would be nice to have a vineyard that was close to his palace.

Ahab didn’t enact the plan, but he knew it was going on, and was all too happy to rise up and take possession of the land after the heinous deed.  This was an abomination to God on Jezebel’s part, Ahab’s part, on the part of the leaders of Jezreel, and on the part of everyone who remained silent in the face of obvious wickedness. 

God then sends Elijah who just happens to catch Ahab as he is in Naboth’s field.  What is God’s message?  In short, Ahab will die in the same place that the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth and his sons, outside the city like an outcast.

Of course, the Pharisees tried this ploy on our Lord Jesus.  In their midnight phony trial, several witnesses were put forward as false witnesses against Jesus, but their testimony didn’t match and would stand the light of day.  However, the Lord knew what would give them the charge they sought.  When he declares that they will see him sitting at the right hand of the God, and coming on the clouds of heaven (a direct reference to Daniel 7:14), they believe that he has blasphemed, and that is what he was tried for, blaspheming God and the king (Caesar). 

Yes, in this world, wicked men seem to get away with wicked plans.  However, do not go along with them, no matter how afraid you are, or how much you will get ahead in this life by it.  This is an abomination to God and a righteous man will do his best to expose them.

So, what does God love?  I want to look at John 3:35-36 and then Revelation 3:14

God loves one who witnesses to the truth

If we are to carry out the imagery in Proverbs, we see that Jesus is animated by a pure spirit, wind, breath.  It is a holy spirit that is truth itself, and gives witness to the truth without fault.  This is the one who is loved of God.

Yes, it seems obvious that the Father loves the Son, but He loves us too because we have put our faith in the Son.  Jesus is the perfect image of God.  For all of the lies that Satan has spread against God, Jesus hanging on the cross shuts the mouth of all accusations for all eternity.  How can you question God’s love and motives after that?  Jesus became our template, but he also is our leader.  We will never get to being like him without his direction and help.  He is also the one who empowers us by his Holy Spirit.

The main purpose of this life is for us to learn to become more like God the Father through Jesus.  Of course, there are many who are trying to be gods in this world, and it will only get worse until the One True God ends it.  You cannot separate God’s power from His character.  You can’t try to obtain that power and reject His character.  It will never work.  There are two paths presented to us in this world.  The first is from the spirit of this world and it encourages humanity to follow its lusts, and pool its gifts in order to make ourselves gods.  God’s path requires us to turn away from our lusts and to embrace Jesus.  Of course, we won’t become God, but we will be like Him; we will be the Sons of God.  No matter how god-like humans become, we will one day have to give an account to the One who truly is God.  No one who is unprepared can survive that moment. 

Christians must not become tempted by that path, no matter how successful it may look.  Keep your eyes upon Christ and become more like him, not this world.  If we believe in the Son, we will see eternal life, and the wrath of God will not remain upon us, but His love will rest upon us.

In Revelation 3:14, I want to focus on two of the Titles that Jesus uses for himself.  The first one is The Amen.  It may seem to be a strange title, but it really isn’t.  “Amen” basically means that something is true and trustworthy.  Jesus used this to emphasize his statements to his disciples.  It is translated as “verily” in the KJV, and “most assuredly” in the NKJV.  Twice, Jesus doubles up the word, “Verily, verily I say unto you.”  This is a way of doubly intensifying the meaning.

Jesus is a metaphorical Amen to the Father’s will.  He not only assents that the Father’s plan is true and trustworthy, but he gives his strength to carrying it out.  He is not just declaring true and trustworthy things.  He himself is the Truth and Trustworthiness!  When we stand in Christ, we stand alongside the greatest one of all creation declaring a cosmic “Amen!” to the Father.  When we follow Christ and obey his commands, we are shouting “Amen!” to the Father in heaven with our lives.  Father, we praise you for you are True and Trustworthy regardless of what we see and experience down here!

He is also called The Faithful and True Witness.  I mentioned this earlier, but think of all the slander that the enemy whispered about God the Father throughout history.  Jesus came down to set the record straight.  His death on the cross makes it clear that the Father does not want people to die in their sins and go into the Lake of Fire.  Jesus did not just give a faithful and true witness about God.  He was Faithful and True in all that He said and did, faithful and true to his Father in heaven.

Yes, you and I have a lot of work to do to become like Jesus, and there are many in this world who are witnessing of Jesus, using his moral credentials, but they are not being faithful and true to God’s Word.  With the help of Jesus, this work will be finished in us, if we will just believe him and his word.  Let us be faithful and give a true witness of Jesus, and in so doing, become more like our Father in heaven!

The Things that God Hates 3: A Lying Tongue

Proverbs 6:16-17; Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 32:3-4; Psalm 109:1-4; Revelation 21:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12; Ephesians 6:13-14. 

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on August 22, 2021.

Today, we will continue our look at the seven things that God hates.  Proverbs 6 lists a lying tongue as the second thing that God hates. 

Let’s get into our passages.

God hates a lying tongue

The word translated as “lying” in Proverbs 6 can be translated as: an untruth, a lie, a sham, falsehood, fraud, and deceit.  The phrase is literally “a tongue of falsehood,” or “a tongue of lies.”    It is like the tongue is the offspring of lies and belongs to them.  Of course, the tongue is not the real problem.  Even if God had not given us a tongue, we would still be capable of misleading and lying to one another.  The tongue is just a powerful tool for those whose hearts are inclined to mislead others.

At its core, a lie is a refusal to face the truth, to face reality.  This is precisely why we see much of what we see in these last days.  Mankind is in league with fallen spiritual beings, and are rebelling against truth and reality itself.  Of course, to rebel against reality is to rebel against the One who created it.

Many people object to a God.  They may never say it this way, but they feel that reality is a straitjacket that restricts them.  Only a liar would call reality a straitjacket because it is their own perversity that restricts them.  It is their own life of pursuing pleasure that leaves them shackled and bound to sin.  This is what we all would be, if it weren’t for the love of God calling us back from the precipice, saying, “I love you.  Why will you die?  Choose life!” 

The ninth commandment in Exodus 20:16 tells us not to bear false witness against your neighbor.  Of course, it is wrong to bear false witness against anyone, but the neighbor part is added to intensify the command.  It is not setting the limits of the command, but rather intensifying it.  How could you do such a thing to your neighbor, or even your brother?  If neighbors do not live truthfully with one another, if we lie against those we depend upon for mutual protection, then no society can last long in such circumstances.

There are different reasons why people lie.  Some people really will say anything in order to protect or promote themselves.  Others lie because they believe the ends justifies the means.  Lies are told to conceal activity from others, and in some cases, lies are told to protect others from harm.

Regardless of the reasons why we may lie, such reasons are only the superficial motivation.  There are deeper reasons that go to the core of our human nature, which brings us to the rub.

In Deuteronomy 32:3-4, Moses declares the nature of God.  He is something that is like a large Rock.  It cannot be moved and can be trusted.  You can build your life upon Him and it will hold up, as opposed to sand, which looks solid at first.  I mean, isn’t it just broken up rock?  However, sand is not dependable between sinkholes and liquefaction.  God doesn’t change, yesterday, today, or forever.  The words Justice, Truth, Righteous, and Upright are woven together to highlight God’s nature.  God by His nature is truth, but we are not.  Even when we speak of justice, truth, and righteousness, we are not generally being completely honest.  We just want the justice that is in our favor, and not that which hurts us.  Moses reminds Israel, and us, of just who God is, so that they will do the hard work of fighting against their own sinful nature.

Lies come too easy for us, and only a person who keeps their eyes upon God and has a healthy fear of Him, can be transformed into His image.  The choice is always to conform to the perversity of this world, or be transformed into the truth of who God is.  Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie.  Why?  He cannot lie because He is Truth.  It is His nature.  Whereas, lies are contrary to the nature of God and the reality He created.

In Psalm 109:1-4, David was able to take his prayers, his cries to God, and put them in poetic form.  Always remember that songs which move us deeply are crafted from the difficult things and the anguish that they have gone through. 

David speaks of how the wicked have lied against him, that is within society.  Saul is a good example of what David is talking about.  Saul continually defamed David as a rebel insurrectionist, a usurper, but the truth is that Saul was the true rebel.  He was in rebellion against the path of God, and though he was not usurping the throne, he was usurping God’s place of leadership within Israel.  Still, Saul deflects the truth and paints David as the bad guy.  David also mentions that the wicked do this without cause.  Even their feigned reason for coming after him is a lie.  He has done nothing to them, but good!

Like the cry of Israel rising up from the mud pits of Egypt to God, the cry of the righteous reaches God’s ears.  Even people who lie against others often complain about those who lie against them.  However, notice what David’s answer is to all this frustration. “…but I give myself to prayer.”  David appeals to The Power that is higher than King Saul, or anyone else on this planet, or in this cosmos, for that matter.

If you are not convinced that God will deal with all liars, then read Revelation 21:8.  There, we are told that “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone…”  It may not look like it in this world, but God is committed to destroying those who give themselves to lies, and to lying.  This passage uses inheritance language.  They will have their part, their portion, their lot, in the Lake of Fire.  It becomes their inheritance.  They will not be allowed to enter into the new heavens and the new earth.

Any time a person complains that a good God should not allow so much evil on earth, remind them that they should be more careful.  God has set a day of recompense, but will you survive?  Will I survive and come through the coming Great Filter of God?

Let us not fool ourselves.  God hates lies and false causes.  He will bring to destruction everyone who embraces them, and He will separate them from His creation.

God loves truth

The flip-side of hating lies is that God loves truth.  I could have said that He loves a truth-telling tongue, but there is a deeper issue here. 

In 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, Paul reminds us that part of what God is trying to do is to give us a love of the truth.  Think about that.  What is God doing right now?  He is working to help us learn to love truth.  To love truth is to love God because He is truth by nature.  You can’t separate these two.  This includes our wrestling with our sinful nature, and learning to cooperate with the lessons of truth that God is trying to teach us.

Paul pictures the end times as a time in which God quits trying to convince the world to love truth, and He hands them over to a strong delusion, a great lie that the whole world will believe hook, line, and sinker.

In fact, we should recognize that salvation itself, the Gospel, is all about asking people to embrace truth.  I am a sinner, that is the truth.  God’s judgment hangs over my head, that is the truth.  Yet, God doesn’t want me to be destroyed, that is the truth.  If I will throw myself upon His mercy, die to self, and put my trust in the person and the way of Jesus, then I will be spared.  Truth!  If you don’t love that truth, then something is very wrong with your heart.  Something is wrong with all of our hearts, but God can help us if we will trust Him.  Many today keep pushing away the love of God that continues to reach out to them. However, one day it will come to an end because God loves others too much to give you eternity of choosing lies over truth.

In Ephesians6:13-14, Paul reminds us that Truth is part of the armor of God.  Like Saul with David, this world offers us all kind of armor that it says will protect.  Lies and deception are the protection of the wicked.  David knew that he would not survive using this world’s armor.  His trust was in God and the truth.  The truth is that God has either sent Goliath and the Philistines to chastise Israel, or that God is looking for someone with enough guts to trust that He would be with them.  David was that man.

Of course, Jesus also trusted in truth, and it got him killed.  At least, that is what the world, and your flesh, wants you to think.  The truth did not get Jesus killed.  They were actually killing truth when they killed him.  He willingly laid down his life for us, that is the truth!  To overcome the attacks of this world upon our faith, we must love truth more than life itself.  This is the real battle.

As we close, I bring to our remembrance the warning of Jesus himself.  Perhaps Matthew 24 and the Olivet Discourse is what Paul had in mind when he wrote 2 Thessalonians 2.  There, Jesus gave his disciples a look at what lay ahead of them from the first century to the end of the age and his Second Coming.

Jesus emphasized and warned against deception, false prophets, false christs, and lying signs and wonders that are coming to convince the world of The Big Lie.  It will be convincing to those who have not clung to the truth of God and loved it.  Many who claim to be believers in Jesus will become believers in the anti-Jesus because they let themselves use lies as a defense instead of repenting before Christ.

Today, let us not only hate those lies that are told against us, but to hate the deceptive cause that is dripping with a false coat of righteousness and appeals to our sinful nature.  May God enable us to love truth because He is truth, and without Him, we will not survive what lies ahead of us.

A Lying Tongue audio

Lessons from the Underground Church 2: The Truth about the Truth

This is a 13 week series that will not be posted on our website.  If you would like an audio of the sermon or a written article on the sermon contents then please contact the church at AbundantLifeEverett@frontier.com.  You can also leave a message at 425.438.1500.  Thank you for your interest.

The Lord of All Creation

Mark 6:45-52.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, October 20, 2019.

In our story today, we have a miraculous event that makes it easy for some to scoff and discount it as a myth, at best.  There are even some Christians who will say that this didn’t actually happen, but that the story is designed to teach what the writer believes is the truth about Jesus.  To them, these mythical and miraculous stories are merely vehicles to take us to the truth.  They are not the truth themselves.

All of this may seem good in some halls of academia (note: not all schools of higher learning teach this), but these men were not university professors with the desire to make up and use myths in order to teach truth.  They were humble fishermen, hated tax collectors, and men who did not think in such ways.  Their world had been turned upside down by an almost incredible man named Jesus.

Something else we should keep in mind is this.  God does not present himself as an “ends justifies the means” being.  His Holy Spirit was not encouraging these disciples to spin mythic yarns in order to get some people to believe the truth.  This is important in our day and age because it is becoming an increasingly common method of “persuasion.”   In truth, such methods are actually manipulation.  No, God really is as great as He is presented in the Scriptures, even the miracles of Jesus.

In this life, we will face much difficulty.  Some of it is simply life; some of it is the effects of our choices; and some of it is spiritual opposition.  Regardless of what we are facing today, may God help us to trust His power over the natural and the supernatural creation that He has made by His power.

Jesus walks on the water

Last week we stopped with Jesus and his disciples picking up 12 baskets of leftovers from a miraculous provision of food for over 5,000 people.  We are then told that evening was upon them and dark was approaching.

There are two other narratives of this event in the other Gospels in Matthew 14, and John 6.  In John 6, we are told that Jesus recognized that the crowd wanted to take him by force in order to make him king.  This leads to Jesus doing two things.

First, Jesus makes his disciples leave in a boat without him.  Most likely, he doesn’t want them to get caught up in the fervor of the crowd, and he has other plans for why they will be on the water in a boat without him.

Second, Matthew records that Jesus sent the multitude away and went up on a nearby mountain alone in order to pray.  It was not the time for Jesus to present himself as king, and he was destined to be rejected by the nation.  Jesus was not looking to crowds as an opportunity for self-advancement.  He was looking to His Father for the proper advancement that comes from Him alone.  This is why it is a common theme throughout the Gospels that Jesus would get alone to pray.  Believe me, he had even less time to pray than you do.  Yet, he took time to commune with Father God late at night and early in the morning.

In light of the rest of this story, we must also recognize that Jesus knew that his disciples had not completely understood the magnitude of the miracle that had just happened with the feeding of the multitude.  He is setting them up to see just who he really is in an unmistakable way.

It appears from the different accounts that the disciples took off in their boat across the Sea of Galilee as it grew dark, and began rowing across the large lake.  It is around 6 to 7 miles across.  At some point, the winds begin to pick up and they are not tail winds.  Now, oaring is difficult enough without the resistance of the wind.  However, this wind becomes very hard and the waves very large.

This account is very similar to the storm we saw earlier in Mark 4.  There the storm was swamping the boat and the disciples feared that they would perish.  However here, the storm seems different.  It is impeding their progress and exhausting their efforts more than it is jeopardizing their lives.  This is important because, when you think about it, we face exhaustion and giving up far more often than we face physical threats against our lives.  When we become physically exhausted, it commonly leads to emotional and mental exhaustion.  This can then lead to spiritual exhaustion wherein we simply give up and quit.  It is a good thing to guard against spiritual exhaustion by taking care of ourselves physically, and making sure we are not physically exhausted.  We can be our own worst boss, driving ourselves harder than is good for us, and harder than God desires for us.  Yet, sometimes life does not give us a choice in this matter.  We can be assailed by ill winds that just won’t quit, and by things that sap our strength in every way.  The good news is that Jesus knows this.

Jesus wasn’t only praying on the mountain.  Verse 48 tells us that he was also watching the progress of the disciples across the lake.  Of course, he wanted to spend time with the Father and would not forgo that.  However, he also allows them to oar, and oar…, and oar, for hours against the wind.  Yet, he eventually does come to them in the last watch of the night.  The last night would be anywhere from 3 AM to 6 AM.  Clearly, these guys had been oaring for a long time and were not getting very far.

Do you ever wish that God would show up sooner than he does?  Of course, we all do.  Yet, the testimony of saints through the ages is that God’s timing was always for their good in retrospect.  The problem with hindsight is that you don’t get it until you reach the other side of the story.  Can we keep faith and trust in Christ in the midst of difficulty, or will we quit oaring the direction Jesus sent us and go back?  These stories, the stories of other believers today, and our own past experiences, all teach us that God can be trusted to take care of us.

This time, Jesus is not going to dramatically tell the storm to stop.  He is going to come to them in a way that will help them understand that the storm is not bigger than him.  This may seem cliché, but God help us to hold on to the truth that He really is bigger than all of our problems.  We don’t have to fear.  He doesn’t always help us in the way that we want, or in the same way, but help He will and none too late!

The disciples are rowing as best they can, probably taking shifts, but they are making little progress if any.  It is at this point that Jesus comes walking on the water looking as if he is going to pass on by them.  This is an important point.  Jesus is coming for them, yet they need to recognize his presence and call out to him.  We can get so caught up in our difficulties, with our head down towards the ground, and not see him in our situation, and not cry out to him.

The comedy of this situation should not escape us as these grown men think they are seeing a ghost, and give a cry of fear.  This is not anything they would expect to see.  Someone is walking on the water, and, as if that wasn’t enough, it is in the middle of a storm.  Another boat would have been surprising to see, but normal.  However, this scared them.

When we come face to face with the mighty power and ability of God, it can be a hair-raising experience.  He is more powerful than we can imagine, and we definitely do not want to be His enemy.  Yet, even His children can be caught by surprise and have a sense of fear at how great His power really is.  It is not God’s intention to cause us to fear, but it will happen nonetheless.  Thus, Jesus states, “Be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid.”  Ah yes, the classic statement of angels, and now Jesus, to those freaked out by their presence.  “It is I” is the promise Christ makes to all who trust him.  “I will never leave you nor forsake you…I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  These are the words he gives to us.  God help us to hold on to them in our storms, and even when we are exhausted.

We should note that the episode of Peter, sort of walking on the sea, happens at this point, but only Matthew 14 records this event, and so we will not go into it now.

Essentially, the disciples go from fear that Jesus is a ghost (some kind of shade from the Hebrew equivalent of Davey Jones’ Locker) to amazement at what they had just witnessed.  The waves, the wind, and the water that impeded them so greatly were no such impediment to Jesus.  We can almost hear those words again, “What manner of man is this?”  Mark uses three different ways of telling us their minds were blown: they were “greatly amazed,” “beyond measure,” and “marveled.”  That is our God, and we must never forget it.  When He needs to do so, He can blow our minds with His power and ability.

When Jesus gets into the boat, the winds cease.  There was no command of Jesus.  It just simply calms down.  There is a good historical reason to believe that Peter was the main source for Mark in these stories.  So, it is interesting that Mark’s account is the one that points out that their inability to grasp that Jesus was more than a man was due to their hearts being hard.  After they saw Jesus speak to the storm, cast out the legion of demons, feed the multitude with a paltry amount of food, surely then they should have understood the power of Christ and what it says about him. 

We are used to seeing the phrase “hard hearts” with unbelievers like Pharaoh, but not with believers.  They were believers in Jesus, but they were also disciples, which implies that they had much to learn (that we have much to learn).  Discipleship is not easy, and is filled with moments that challenge our faith to step up to the next level.  May God help us to understand that no force of nature is greater than He is.

There is a final point to be made with this story.  Jesus literally walked on water and that is a tribute to His power as the Son of God.  Yet, there is some purposeful symbolism here that also gives tribute to His power over supernatural forces as well.

Revelation 17:15 clues us in to the fact that the waters of the sea are sometimes used as symbols of the peoples of the earth.  The waves picture the forces from within humanity and beyond it that cause a turbulent movement of societies in every which way.  Ill winds blowing upon the waters is often a picture of supernatural forces, whether good or evil, interacting and affecting the nations of the earth.  Also, there is a theme of the Bible that is explicitly seen in Isaiah 27:1, where the devil is pictured as an aquatic reptile, or a water dragon.  He is like a sea monster, slithering throughout the peoples of the earth, mastering the chaotic seas, and causing havoc wherever he wishes.

These are the kind of things that scare us and make us feel puny, but Jesus is the Lord of all creation, both its natural aspects and its supernatural ones.  He will slay the fleeing serpent and we need not fear even when all the forces of hell are marshalled against us.  How?  We can know that Christ is always watching over us, and praying for us.  He will come to us at just the right time, and we will grow to know His power and grace even more.

Lord of Creation Audio