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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] One more turn there. It's Ecclesiastes, number seven. Ecclesiastes seven, begin reading, verse one. The Bible reads, A good name is better than precious ointment on the day of death and the day of one's birth. It is better to go to the house of mourning, to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living will lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. As the crackling of thorns under a pot so is the laughter of the fool, this also is vanity. Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad, and a gift destroyeth his heart. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger wresteth in the bosom of fools. Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. For wisdom is defense, and money is defense, but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth light to them that have it. Consider it the work of God, for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. God also hath set one over against the other to the end that man should find nothing after him. All things have I seen in the days of my vanity. There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness. Be not righteous over much, neither makest thyself over wise. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish. Why shouldest thou die before thy time? It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this, yea, also from this withdraw not thine hand. For he that feareth God shall come forth of them all. Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city. For is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not? Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee. For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others. All this have I proved by wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me. That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find out? I applied mine heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness, and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands, who pleaseth God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her. Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one to find out the account. Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not. One man among a thousand have I found, but a woman among all those have I not found. Lo, this only have I found that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. Brother Walid, would you pray for us? Lord, we ask you to bless our ears and our hearts so that we may receive your word, Lord God, with all sincerity. We ask you this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we'll be back in Ecclesiastes a little bit later, but if you want to go back to Mark 4, I'm going to wrap up Mark 4 tonight. And if you were here this morning and last week, you remember that we were going through the parables that were in Mark 4 where Jesus is doing just a lot of teaching about the kingdom of God, about the kingdom of heaven. And at the last part here that we're going to look at, verses 35 through 41, is where we have some action in the end of the chapter. It's actually a very well-known story, one of several times in which Christ had his disciples get into a boat and then go straight into a storm. If you remember the context here, it says in verse 35, in the same day when the evening was come, he saith unto them, let us pass over unto the other side. And it says there in verse 36, when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship, and there were also with him other little ships, and there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship asleep on a pillow, and they awake and say unto him, Master carest thou not that we perish? And it goes on in verse 39, and he arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace be still, and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and sea obey him? So great story where Jesus is getting up and he rebukes the wind. There's something that happened more than once in his ministry, and there's suddenly this calm. So it's a great miracle that's taking place. But I believe there's some details that we can look into a little bit more and make some application and glean out of it tonight. So let's do that again in verse 35. The same day when the even was come, he saith, and unless pass over the other side. The first thing I want to point out is that he says, Let us pass over, right? So Jesus is in the ship. As it says there a little bit later in the verse, they made the ship to sail as he was in it. So if you remember in the story, Jesus is preaching from the ship. After he's done kind of giving his parables, he says, all right, it's the end of the day. Let's set sail and go over to the other side. And what we see in the story is that Jesus is leading them into a storm. Now, Jesus, obviously, if he has the ability to just instantly calm the storm, he also has the ability to, you know, maybe make that weather pattern go around, you know, wherever they're going to be sailing through. He has the ability to keep that from happening. And yet we see Jesus getting in the ship with his disciples and heading straight into the storm. And it's not just some little storm. It's not just some sprinkle. I mean, these are several of these guys are seasoned fishermen and they're going to Jesus and waking him up and saying, we're perishing, we're dying. So this isn't just some little, you know, storm. This is some kind of a squall. This is a very significant storm that Jesus has led them straight into. And I believe there's some things that we can learn about that. And the first before we really break that down, I also want to point out here, it says that he did this the same day. Right. The same day that he had begun, you know, preaching and teaching these parables. And expounding these things. So there's a lot that's going on. If you remember in the book of Mark, it's just one thing after another. In fact, sometimes it's hard to make a distinction where one event is ending and another is beginning and where you get the passage of time. But here the Bible is telling us that it is the same day, the same day in which these parables have been spoken and that it's even when this is taking place, when the even was come. It's at the end of a day. It's at the end of a very busy day that Jesus decides, okay, let's get in the ship and let's go to the other side, knowing that there's a storm waiting for them, knowing that they were going to be frightened, that they were going to go through this trial. He decides to go anyway. So he comes and so they go into this and it was this very busy day. And what I want us to understand is that storms in life are never going to be convenient. That's kind of the nature of trials and things that we go through in life. You ever notice they never kind of happen at an opportune time? You ever notice that when you are kind of going through something, you often might find yourself thinking, man, if this could have just happened six months from now, a year from now, or, you know, I could have handled this a lot easier if this had taken place a year ago or two years ago. We like, but that's the nature of storms. That's the nature of trials. That's the nature of life is that it's never going to be convenient. And often, even after we having, you know, seeing great things happen, we're still going to have to deal with trials in life. I mean, imagine being the disciples at this point in the Book of Mark. They've seen so many great things in the book. They've seen so many miracles. They're seeing all these miracles of Christ, the teaching. They're on the spiritual high. And yet they still have to go through storms. They still have to go through these difficulties. You know, we're never going to reach a time in our life when there is not difficulty, when there aren't things that we're going to have to experience and go through, because that is the nature of life. That's just the way things are in this world. And serving God also, and we get from this, is never going to be convenient. It's never going to be convenient to just go serve God. Jesus is saying, all right, well, you know, sun's getting ready to set. Let's get going. And, you know, humanly speaking, logically, you might think it would have made sense if he said, hey, let's just, you know, dismiss everybody. We'll kind of push up on shore here. We'll get a nice bonfire going. We'll catch some fish. We'll have a nice dinner. We'll relax. We'll recoup. You know, maybe we'll sleep in. We'll get up in the morning and, you know, because we'll push off and sail. And everything can wait until tomorrow. We can just, you know, put this up. But Jesus says, no, at the end of this busy day when the even was now come, he says, now let's go. Now let's get going. I know you guys are tired. I know you've been working hard. I know you've been listening to what I've been teaching. I know there's been great multitudes that have been coming. You've been managing that. But now it's time for actually us to get in the ship and go. And notice, who is it that's taking a nap in the ship? You know, it's Jesus. You know, he's the one that they have to come and wake up and say, hey, we're dying. Right. And there's a lot of things that we can get out of this passage when we stop and think about it. And I don't think it was that Jesus was, you know, just just making everybody else do all the work. It's that he's doing he's been doing a lot of work. Right. In ministries, you know, the burden has to be shared amongst people for ministries to work and to thrive. You know, one man can't do everything. Jesus can't do all the preaching, all the teaching, all the healing, all the miracles and row the ship. You know, he had to have his men get involved and get them where they needed to be. And they say, well, why couldn't we have waited until morning? Because serving God is never going to be convenient. And we should never have this attitude of, well, I'll get to serving God more with more fervor. I'll get I'll get to serving God, you know, later on, later in life, when things are easier, when I've worked out some things. Look, there's always going to be something coming up. There's always going to be an excuse to why I can't make it to church or why I can't read my Bible or why I can't go soul winning or whatever it is, whatever aspect of serving God you want to talk about. We could all come up with excuses as why we can't do it, why we're busy. But it's never going to be convenient to serve God. Jesus is saying at the end of the day, let's go and you guys do the work. You guys do the rowing. And it shows us, too, that, you know, Jesus, that's the humanity of Christ. He's probably exhausted. You say, why is he passed out? Why is he sleeping through a storm in a ship? You could say, well, it's because he knew that it wasn't really any kind of a threat, but he could have just been sitting there all the same. Right. But he elected to sleep during this time. Right. He's sleeping probably because he was, you know, as as one of us, that he was manifest in the flesh. Right. That he was still wearied. We see him often the scripture being hungered, being wearied. It shows us the humanity of Christ and it shows us that often, you know, ministry is very taxing on leadership. And let me just come out and say it. And I'm not trying to get a pity party here, but this is true. I can kind of sympathize a little bit with Jesus and say, you know, being in leadership, doing all the preaching, making sure all the bills are getting paid and stuff's getting cleaned up and, you know, checking in on this person. You know, that can be very taxing. And obviously the greater and bigger a ministry is, the more so that seems to be the case. OK, but so there's a lot of great things we can just pick out of this passage. But the main thing I want us to get right now is that Jesus is saying, let us pass over at the even at the end of a busy day, the same day when the even was come. And he leads them into a storm showing us that it's never going to be convenient to serve God. And that as we endeavor to serve God, storms are going to come. Look at verse thirty six. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship and notice this little detail. And there were also with him other little ships. Right. So they had this bigger vessel that was carrying Jesus and his disciples. I don't know who all else was in there, but then there's these other smaller ships, maybe the little rowboats or maybe a smaller vessel. You know, just a few people in it that are attempting to follow Jesus. And they, too, are going through this storm. They're following Jesus. Now, Jesus didn't command them. He didn't say, hey, if you guys you guys need to come with us, too. He's saying this to his disciples. He's got something to do on the other side. He's got to get over there. He's just concerned about his people, getting them to where they need to be. But nonetheless, these others just kind of want to be around Jesus and just kind of tag along. And they're just going to follow along and go with the flow. And they themselves are also going through the storm. These they have also other little ships with them. And what I want to preach tonight about this idea of going through storms in life, about going through trials, going through tribulations, going through difficulties, going through suffering in this life. And what I want to point out with these other little ships being there is that everybody is going to go through suffering in life. Everybody saved, unsaved. Every single person is going to go through a storm. We should never have this mentality of it's just me. I'm the only one. I'm the only person that's ever gone through anything. That's not true. Everybody has gone through things. You know, it's sometimes people can kind of want to wear their suffering as a badge. They can wear the things that they've gone through as some kind of a badge of honor. And maybe we could even start to look down on other people who we deem having not gone through things. Sometimes people can do this and say, well, you know, so and so is that way because they haven't gone through the things I've gone through. If they've experienced the things that I've gone through, they wouldn't be like that. They wouldn't have it all put together. They wouldn't have the character that they have. They wouldn't be doing what they're doing if they had experienced what I had experienced. And really, you know, while there might even be a grain of truth to that, that's still not something that we can use as an excuse for bad character or bad behavior. Because everybody goes through suffering. Right. Some people might not have had a rough childhood or young adulthood. Some people might not have been thrown to the wolves and gotten into sin and everything else. They might have had come from stable homes with mom and dad or their godly Christian homes where they had good influences. And they might have even grown into healthy, productive adults, you know, Christians with character and are accomplishing things in life. But I guarantee you, even those people are going through things and suffering things. It's not just a few group of people that do it. Everybody goes through it. You know, some of us might experience it early on in life and other people might experience it later. You know, are we going to really get into some kind of a, you know, some kind of a comparison? Let's all compare our suffering. Right. And see who's got it the worst. And here's the thing. Somebody's always got it worse than you. There's always somebody that's got it worse. And again, I'm not trying to minimize things for people, but that is true, isn't it? And we don't want to dwell on these things too much and understand that when it comes to suffering, when it comes to going into storms, lots of other people are going through them, too. In fact, everybody. There's other little ships. And if we would take the time to notice, we would see other people going through some of the same things that we have gone through or at the very least going through suffering in some way, shape or form. Suffering is universal. OK. Let's close in a word of prayer. No, I'm just kidding. Right. You know, that's that's that's the end of the story tonight. You know, we're just you're going to suffer. That's life. Get over it. You know, move on. Right. Life is pain and then you die. OK. Amen. Let's close. No, but, you know, suffering is universal, though. That's kind of a downer of a sermon. Right. That's kind of a downer of a point. But it's true nonetheless. However, you know, we as God's people have hope. Other people, they're in other little ships. They're on their own. They don't have the master in the ship. They don't have Christ in the ship with them. They're not close to God. They can't just at a moment's notice go to the Lord and say, I'm perishing. Save me. You know, they're out on their own trying to figure it out. They're they're getting turned around. So they might even sink and drown. Who knows? You know, we have hope in Christ. We have the God of all comfort to guide us through these storms in life. That's the advantage that we have as Christians. This is one of the great things about being a Christian is that we can be taken through times of suffering. We will not mourn as others who have no hope. Suffering is universal. Hope is not. Hope is not universal. Now, people might prop themselves up and have false hope, but ultimately it's it's going to be proven false. We have a a promise from God that he will comfort us in all our tribulations. Let's look at some scripture. If you would go to a second Corinthians chapter number one. Second Corinthians chapter number one. The Bible says in First Thessalonians four. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, meaning those that have passed on, that you sorrow not even as others which have no hope. Now, Paul isn't telling the Thessalonians to not sorrow. He didn't say don't sorrow. He's saying sorrow not even as others which have no hope. You know, when the Christian suffers, when we go through things, when we go through storms, we still have hope. We still know that there's a purpose behind what we're going through. We still know that we're going to come out on the other side and that God is with us in the midst of these storms that we go through in life that everyone goes through. However, those in the little ships, those that are without Christ, they don't have that assurance. I don't know how some people get up sometimes and face the world we're living in. What they how they go through life without Christ. Well, actually, I do know how they do it. They distract themselves. They pretend it's not going on, you know, and we're living in a great day and age for that, aren't we? They, you know, they pop pills. They're on all kinds of psychiatric drugs or they take drugs and alcohol to numb themselves from the pain. They try to just ignore things that are going on. They distract themselves with all the things that are going on in this world and they just block it all out somehow. I mean, imagine that's how it's got to be. But the Christian, you know, we don't have to rely on those things. You know, we don't have to ignore the suffering. You don't have to ignore the difficulty. We can just go to Christ. And it's always amazing to me when, you know, when going through something, what a comfort it is to simply just get down on your knees and pray and just let God know what's going on. And just just tell God how you're feeling and just go to him for help. Just go to him in that hinder part of the ship, as it were, and just ask for help. You know, and God is there. You know, it reminds me that's, you know, of Elijah in the cave, as I preached a couple of weeks ago. You know, when Elijah was in that cave feeling sorry for himself and feeling like a victim and feeling like, you know, nobody else was going to stand with him, that he was the only one that had bowed the knee to Baal and all of that. And God told him, go to the mouth of the cave. And Elijah didn't do it. And then the fire came and the earthquake came, the great wind and Elijah still did not go to the mouth of the cave. And if you read that story carefully, it's when he hears the still small voice that he gets up and obeys. You know, sometimes all we really want in life is just to know God is there. You know, I don't need to see God do some great miracle. I don't need to see God rend the rocks. I don't need to see fire come down from heaven. I don't need God to shake the earth. All I need to know is that he's there. And we have the assurance in Scripture that God is there, that God cares, that God knows what we're going through, whatever it is. And it's a great promise in the Word of God. Look at there in Second Corinthians chapter number one, verse three. Blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. That's the God that we serve. That's whose throne that we have access to, to go boldly before to find mercy and help in time of need. We can go boldly before the God of mercy and before the God of all comfort, the Father of all mercies. Right. And God is a father and he, you know, he nourishes his children. He takes care of them. He guides them through. Does he shield them from suffering? Does he keep them from having to go through difficult things in life? No. But he's there to guide us through. He's there with that still small voice. And we know that he's there to be drawn close to. That's why it says in James Chapter one, brethren, count all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience ever perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. James is saying, count joy when you fall into diverse temptations, when you go through difficulties, when you go through temptations and trials and storms. Why? Because we have a God of comfort and it's God is going to work through those things to make us better. OK. So we see, you know, that's verse thirty five. That's the first verse we're looking at that Jesus decides to take his disciples in a time that it's not convenient. Maybe everybody else is tired. He himself is apparently exhausted to the point where he can just sleep through a squall. And it says it's the end of the day. Let's get in the ship. Let's go over a time when it's not convenient. And we see that he's there leading them directly into the midst of a storm. Because what is this showing us? Storms are unavoidable. They're inevitable. We're going to go through them. And so are other people around us in their little ships. The difference being we have the God of all comfort with us. Verse thirty seven. And there rose a great storm of wind and the waves beat into the ship so that it was now full. You know, that's not like what you like to see when you're sailing. I'm not much of a mariner. OK. And I don't I doubt anybody else living in this region is right. Right. But I think even us desert dwellers know enough about, you know, waterways and things like that to know that when it comes to ships, you want the water on the outside of it. When you start to see water on the inside of the ship, you know, you got a problem. Right. But that's what's going on in the ship. And it didn't take these guys long to figure out this is not good. Verse thirty eight. And he, Jesus, was in the hinder part of the ship asleep on a pillow. He's got his pillow. I mean, it's just such a scene. Right. And just put yourself there. You know, you're in there and you're just rowing away whatever they're doing. And there's just the clouds have, you know, dark, dark in the sky. Maybe the sun's gone down at this point. And the rain's just beating down and just pouring. The waves are high, just crashing the ship. The ship is just getting lower and lower and lower in the water. You know, the other all the disciples are looking at, you know, Andrew and Peter and James and John, the fishermen. And they're looking at them and they've all got a nervous look on their face. Now, everybody else is getting more nervous. Like, well, when the fishermen are freaking out, that's what we're going to freak out. I remember when I was we were flying out of L.A., I think Karen was with me. We were flying out of L.A. to go up to Seattle or Vancouver or somewhere. And I think when you take off, you've got to fly out over the ocean before you go before you turn north. And it's just something about where that wind comes in in L.A. off the ocean and all the mountains. It makes it very turbulent. Right. And it's just, was that you or maybe it was Linda? I don't know. The ship's doing, you know, the plane's doing this. But I remember there was a couple of pilots that were sitting back in the cabin that weren't flying. They were just, they were just passengers, but they were in full uniform. And they're just asleep, you know, as they're kind of rocking along this turbulence. And I just kept watching them, you know. And everybody else is, you know, freaking out every time the plane would drop. Karen was laughing the whole time. It was like a ride to her. She's just having a great time. Man, I had an eye on those pilots. If I saw the pilot sit up and kind of tighten his butt. I said, well, hey, the pilot's sleeping. I must be good. Everything must be OK. Must just be. These guys didn't have that, you know, mentality here. They should have just looked at Jesus and been like, oh, we're good. Not worried about it. We're suffering sometimes when we go through these inevitable storms in life. Sometimes we forget that God is going to see us through and it feels like we're going to sink. It feels like this is it. This is the end. It's all over. I'm done. Put a fork in me. And it could seem like God doesn't care. I mean, doesn't it seem kind of when you kind of read the story at first glance? Maybe you don't consider Jesus a little indifferent to the situation when he's just sleeping in a pillow in the back. We need to learn and understand is that God is not indifferent to our suffering. God is not indifferent to the things that we're going through. But the picture is this, is that when we're in the storm, we must go to God. When we're going through the tribulation, when we're going through the difficult draw nigh to him. So, you know, God is the God of mercies, the father of all mercies. He's the God of all comfort. I can't just expect God to come to us and make everything OK. They had to go to Jesus and get his attention. They had to go to him and say, hey, we perish. Do something. Right. And look, there's nothing wrong with going to God with that exact kind of, you know, in that same manner. I guess what I'm trying to say. Go there and just emphatically go to God and say, hey, I'm down here. I'm going through something. God, can you please help? You know, I believe that God would honor that. You say, well, why would God insist that we come to him? Well, we'll think about it even in our own lives. When we see somebody that's maybe they're not even maybe they are aren't suffering, maybe they're just going through something or they're having a difficult time or they're struggling in some way. And we might even know the solution and how to fix things. Do we always just go and offer our advice? No, because it probably wouldn't be received. You know, this is something as you know, as a pastor, somebody's pastoring, I have to kind of keep that in mind that sometimes when people come to me and talk about things, they're not they don't want an answer. Right. This is good for men. Right. Those of us that are married to when your wife comes to you and starts telling you about her. She just wants you to listen. OK, that's it. She just wants someone to listen and not have to fix everything. OK, sometimes you need to fix things. But, you know, it's the same thing. Like sometimes, you know, people come to me and I realize that I don't have to just put on my thinking cap and solve the problem. They just want someone to talk to. They just want to get something off their chest. Right. But if I were to go to somebody that was struggling in some way and just start saying, hey, I noticed you were going this was what's going on. Let me give you some advice. They might even get offended. They might just say, well, you know, I didn't ask. People don't typically like unsolicited advice, do they? Because sometimes they're not even aware of the problem that they have. They might have a problem. And it's like if you come and say, hey, I noticed you're having a problem this area. Let me give you a solution. Well, I don't think I have a problem. You know, people like being told there's something wrong with them or there's something wrong with their doing. Right. So I think that's why God kind of insists that we come to him when we go through things so that we're coming with the right attitude. We come with humility. We come ready to hear what the solution is and we have to recognize that we're going through something, that we have a problem, that everything isn't all right. OK. So when you read that part about Jesus being asleep on the pillow, you know, that's not him being indifferent. That's him. You know, he's there. He's ready to help. But they had to go to him. That's a great picture for us, too. It says in verse 39, and he arose and rebuked the wind. Right. They go to him and they wake him and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he doesn't get up and go and, you know, rebuke them. What do you mean I don't care? You know, how long have I been with you? You think I don't care? You call me a jerk? You call me cold? You call me indifferent? I mean, isn't that kind of a, they're being a little curt, don't you think? Maybe being, whatever, what they said seems almost kind of rude, almost like you don't care. Right. And this is the attitude sometimes people can have towards God. Well, he must not care. If I'm going through something, then God just must not care about me. God let something happen in my life. It's causing me to go through some trial. Well, he just must not care. You know, God, God allowing things to happen, he must not care. Isn't that what people say all the time? Oh, well, if God, you know, if there's a God, if God's so good, then why do bad things happen? Because man, God isn't the source of those things. Man is, right? And we talked about that when we were going through Genesis. If God were to remove all suffering from the earth, he'd have to remove all of mankind from the earth, right? Because man is the source of suffering, okay, and sin. But I already preached that. But they're coming to him and saying, oh, carest thou not that we perish? And God, it doesn't take the time to rebuke them. He just deals with the problem. He just gets up and says, I understand why you're upset. He kind of gives them a pass on that. You know, it's not that I don't, I do care. What are you talking about? And he gets up and he and he and he rebuked the wind in the sea. Verse 39. Peace be still. And the wind ceased. And just like that, from one second to the next, the storm's over. What a great miracle, right? I would wish we could kind of have the power to do things differently, where we could go out and cause the storm to come in, right? Living down here, like, let's get the cloud cover. Let's get the rain, right? But there's this great calm. And he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? So he does deal with the situation afterwards, right? But he doesn't, it's not like he stood up and waited, you know, through the storm and then started laying into them, right? While the storm's still going and while the ship is sinking. He gets up, he deals with the problem, and then he turns to them and it says, hey, what's the problem here? Why were you so fearful? Don't you have any faith? Didn't you trust me to get you through to the other side? You know, and that's how it is in life, too. You know, some 20, you know, hindsight is always 20-20, right? And sometimes when we're in the midst of the storm, you know, we can have maybe, maybe we're not going to react the right way. But when we get to the other side, when we get through it, you know, we have perspective and we can say, you know, why did I doubt? You know, any of us, it's all of us, people that have been through things or will be going through things, just keep that in mind, you know, that when you get through it, you're going to look back and learn a lesson from it. Verse 41, and they feared exceedingly and said one to another, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? And it's kind of interesting, you know, obviously they're afraid during the storm, but then it says in verse 41, and they feared exceedingly. So their fear was not abated. That did not go away. In fact, it seems like they're even more fearful. Now, instead of being afraid of the storm, they're afraid of the Lord. They're afraid of God. And that's really where our fear needs to be, too. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We got to fear God above all things. This is the whole duty of man to fear God and to keep his commandments. And if we would do that, you know, we'll be seen through the storms. God will get us through. And we should fear God more than the things that we go through in this life, because a lot of times when we go through things, sometimes people will use that as an excuse for bad behavior or to get into sin or do things they shouldn't or to quit on God. Right. They'll say, well, God must not care. And they quit. Right. The church goes through something or some kind of trial or persecution and people who are in the church seem faithful. They'll quit. I've seen it happen. And I want I scratch my head. So where's the fear of God? You know, and it's like once you get through that storm, once you get through that persecution, once you get through that, you know, then you then you have a good, cool story to tell. Right. These guys have got a story to tell. Because they went through the storm and they saw Jesus get up and rebuke it. Now go back to Ecclesiastes, chapter number seven, Ecclesiastes chapter number seven, and I'll wrap it up there. But we get out of the story is that, again, we're all going to go through suffering. Every single person in this world, no one's going to escape it. It's inevitable. The difference is that we as Christians are in the vessel with the Lord. But even then, we have to make sure that we have the right attitude, that we understand that we still have to go to God. We still have to go to him, that he's not always just going to come to us, that he will draw nigh to us if we draw nigh to him, and that he's not indifferent. We must go to him, though, and continue to fear him. You say, well, great. I'm going to go through suffering. Well, here's the thing. Suffering is nothing to fear. And this is something that we see in our society today. People want to avoid discomfort. They want to avoid suffering. They want to avoid doing hard things because suffering is hard. Suffering is difficult. No one wants to do it. But we're all going to go through it. It's unavoidable. And I don't say that to scare anybody. Like, you know, you got it coming. You know, every last one of you, every last one of us, it's any day now. You know, you're going to get that phone call, you're going to get that doctor report and whatever it is, you know, something's going to happen and it's just going to be like, here we go. Suffering, you know, you should just live in fear every moment until then. Right. No, suffering is not anything to fear. That's why you read Ecclesiastes chapter number seven. Look at verse one. It says, a good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one's birth. That's kind of a hard saying, right? It is better to go into the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting. It'd be better to go to a funeral than to a party. That's what he's saying. For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart. You know, we ought to, you know, lay it to our heart and consider that we only have so much time on this earth. And if we go through suffering, like when we see other people suffer, it reminds us that our time is limited. You know, as we grow older and we see our elders pass off the scene, what it should remind us of is the fact that our days are our number two. Our days are limited. Four score and ten if by reason of strength, right? Sorrow is better than laughter, verse three, for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The Bible says that your heart is made better through sadness. And sadness is obviously often the result of suffering. When we suffer, we're sad. We don't we're not happy about it. But the Bible says that that makes our heart better. How can that make our heart better? Well, remember, who's going to suffer? Everyone. Everybody is going to go through things. So if we experience that suffering, we go through it. Our heart is made better in that we can counsel other people. We could see other people through that same thing. Look at verse four. The wise of heart is in the house of the morning. Excuse me, house of mourning. The heart of the wise, excuse me, is in the house of mourning. But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Mirth being like, you know, again, happiness, rejoicing, partying. He's saying wise people will be in the house of the mourning. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools. So the Bible is real clear here that, you know, suffering is not something to fear. It's not something to be avoided. It's something that can't be avoided. And it's actually something that will make us better, better human beings. And honestly, you know, I could look back at my own life and I could see things that I've gone through. And I think that I like to think that it's made me a better person. It's made me be able to relate to other people in a better way. If my life had been perfect, I probably would not be the person I am today. Look, I'm not saying that I'm some great person. I am who I am. OK. Right. And that's that's often the case for people. You know, if we just had it easy through our whole lives, we probably wouldn't be very good people. And you kind of, you know, we probably all met people like that who kind of have the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic. They might even look down on other people. Right. Because they haven't suffered anything. They haven't gone. It just might happen later on in life. It makes us better people to suffer. That's why, you know, just seeking comfort is so dangerous. We have God in our lives. What should really frighten us is God's absence of power in our lives. That's what you see us through. That's what's truly frightening. But praise God, you know, He is there. Now, if you would, I told you I was at a price. God's presence comes at a price. Help and know that He's there to see us through things. But in order for God to see you through something, you have to go through something. Right. You have to suffer if you want to know. Look at Romans Chapter five. Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation Hope. We go through these tribulations. Why do we glory in a tribulation? Why would anyone be glad to go through something? We patiently go through the suffering, the tribulation. Then we have experience. Then we've gone through something. You know, this is the through it. I went through something. I was in a tribulation. Hard time. I was suffering. I went to God. He was there. You know, it was like, hey, if it be, bid me come. You know, that's pretty bold. And then Peter goes out. He goes out in the midst of the storm. Right. What gave Peter that boldness? Last time, you know, we went through something like this. He just spoke, you know, a sentence. He just one phrase and everything ended. And even when when Peter began to sing, what did he cry? Lord, save me. And instantly he was there. Right. So when the next storm comes, we know God's there. That's why that's why it says an experience, hope, hope. And hope that and hope maketh not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. We're not going to be ashamed of that hope. That hope is not misplaced. OK, we're going to suffer. We're going to go through things. We know we can have hope because of the fact that we've gone through other things in life. And, you know, we can offer that same consolation to other people. If I've experienced something, if I've gone through something and I see somebody else going through it suffering, I can say, hey, God's God hasn't forgotten about you. Same comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted. Right. Let's go ahead and close in this world to just blindly grope through it, Lord, or to suffer things and to have no hope, Lord. But we know that you're God who's been touched with the feeling of our infirmities and that you've suffered every bit as much as we ever have or ever will and so much more. Pray that as the storms of life touch every one of us, as we go through them, comfort amongst brethren, the Lord, most of all, that we would be found at your throne and going to you and we would be comforted through the hope that we have in Christ and, Lord, that we would be able to share that experience with others as the years go on. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. All right. We'll go ahead and sing one more song before we are dismissed. Let's sing that. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, oh,