Angelic Conflict part 266: Master of the sea – Mar 4:35-41; Rom 8:22; Psa 104:1-7; 29:3, 10; 74:10-15; Job 38:1-11; 41.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 266: Master of the sea - MAR 4:35-41; ROM 8:22; PSA 104:1-7; 29:3, 10; 74:10-15; JOB 38:1-11; 41.  

 

Christ displayed mastery over demons, physical illness, temptation, false doctrine, sin, evil, death, and nature.

 

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MAR 4:35 And on that day, when evening had come, He said to them, "Let us go over to the other side." 

 

MAR 4:36 And leaving the multitude, they took Him along with them, just as He was, in the boat; and other boats were with Him.

 

MAR 4:37 And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up.

 

MAR 4:38 And He Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they  awoke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?"

 

MAR 4:39 And being aroused, He rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Hush, be still." And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm.

 

"Hush" - fimo,w[phimoo; perfect passive imperative] = to make silent or to muzzle. Same word is used in MAR 1:25; 4:39; LUK 4:35 as command to silence demons.

 

The perfect tense seems to imply that Christ's command of this kind of demonic activity on the sea against Him and the disciples was to not happen again.

 

"rebuked" - epitima,w[epitimao] = to bestow strong blame, to rebuke, to reprove, to denounce.

 

This word is used several times for the denouncement of demons by Christ. In the first instance of a demon interrupting the beginning of His ministry in Capernaum both words are used.

 

MAR 1:21 And they went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and began to teach.

 

MAR 1:22 And they were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

 

MAR 1:23 And just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

 

MAR 1:24 saying, "What do we have to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are —  the Holy One of God!"

 

MAR 1:25 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be quiet, and come out of him!"

 

MAR 4:40 And He said to them, "Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith?" 

 

MAR 4:41 And they became very much afraid and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?"

 

What we can say unequivocally is that Christ has power over the fallen groaning world.

 

ROM 8:22

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

 

What is also significant about this passage is that the description of the Lord rebuking the wind (stated in all three synoptic gospels) and His commanding the waves to be quiet sounds remarkably like other exorcism narratives in the gospels.

 

It is possible that this storm was created by satan and the KOD in order to attempt to drown the Lord and the disciples, or at least just the disciples, however this can only be conjecture, yet the words used, rebuke and muzzle, are telling. If the language is indeed telling us this, then it appears that Christ Jesus looked upon this ordinary storm at sea, this ordinary event of nature, as a demonic force, and he rebuked it and muzzled it.

 

It could be that satan sent the storm this particular night out of all the other times they were on the Sea of Galilee because Christ was asleep. Did satan think he could murder the apostles before Christ awoke to rebuke his demonic act?

 

The disciples were given an earthly and heavenly destiny by Christ (I will make you fishers of men) so they had nothing to fear even if Christ slept.

 

The word rebuke in both the old and new testaments is a term that denotes an authoritative exercise of God's power in subduing His enemies.

 

The identical language of Jesus Christ rebuking and subduing hostile waves and Jehovah's rebuking and subduing hostile waves in the OT can hardly be coincidental.

 

God created all things in nature as good in Gen 1 and then at the fall things went bad.

 

Animals have an aversion to man and can kill man. Man would have to till the ground by the sweet of his brow or it would only offer up thorns and thistles and some plants became poisonous. The earth produced quakes, storms, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, etc.

 

It is interesting to see in light of this that God often speaks of rebuking and restraining the sea.

 

PSA 104:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul!

O Lord my God, Thou art very great;

Thou art clothed with splendor and majesty,

 

PSA 104:2Covering Thyself with light as with a cloak,

Stretching out heaven like a tent curtain.

 

PSA 104:3He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters;

He makes the clouds His chariot;

He walks upon the wings of the wind;

 

PSA 104:4He makes the winds His messengers,

Flaming fire His ministers.

 

PSA 104:5He established the earth upon its foundations,

So that it will not totter forever and ever.

 

PSA 104:6 Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment;

The waters were standing above the mountains.

 

PSA 104:7At Thy rebuke they fled;

At the sound of Thy thunder they hurried away.

 

JOB 38:1 Then the Lord  answered Job out of the whirlwind and said,

 

JOB 38:2"Who is this that darkens counsel

By words without knowledge?

 

JOB 38:3"Now gird up your loins like a man,

And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!

 

JOB 38:4"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding,

 

JOB 38:5Who set its measurements, since you know?

Or who stretched the line on it?

 

JOB 38:6 "On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

 

JOB 38:7When the morning stars sang together,

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

 

JOB 38:8"Or who enclosed the sea with doors,

When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb;

 

JOB 38:9When I made a cloud its garment,

And thick darkness its swaddling band,

 

JOB 38:10And I placed boundaries on it,

And I set a bolt and doors,

 

JOB 38:11And I said, 'Thus far you shall come, but no farther;

And here shall your proud waves stop'?

 

There is a sense of the sea, under its present curse, as a potential sinister force that would submerge the world if the Lord didn't restrain it.

 

There is a sense of the sea as some sinister force that, left to its own, would submerge the world and destroy God’s ordered creation.

 

What prevents this frightening possibility is the mastery of the Lord, who forces the sea into its proper place.

 

But sometimes it doesn't behave itself, as in the case with the Lord and His disciples on the sea.

 

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Yet the Lord has delivered us all from any disaster since even if it ended up in a believer's death, he would immediately find himself in heaven. Do you think any of them have ever wanted to come back? This is why the Lord asked the disciples why they were afraid while He slept. Are you afraid of physical death?

 

Every believer should be as David:

PSA 116:15

Precious in the sight of the Lord

Is the death of His godly ones.

 

Every believer after the cross up to today has been delivered from all disasters spiritually. If he loses everything materialistically or even loses his life he does not ever lose his spirit, and if that spirit is one of peace and tranquility, despite any circumstance, because and only because of the victory of our Lord and His graciously given inheritance, that spirit is precious in the sight of the Lord.

 

1PE 3:3-4

And let not your adornment be merely external —  braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.

 

PSA 29:3 The voice of the Lord  is upon the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The Lord  is over many waters.

 

PSA 29:10 The Lord  sat as King at the flood;

Yes, the Lord  sits as King forever.

 

Certainly, directly after the flood, the power of God over water and the permissive will of God to release the waters was well known to the 8 who survived. Yet we have noted that the rebel Nimrod, a son of Ham, revolted against God and established the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar or what would become Babylon. We have noted how Nimrod established a false religion, represented by the Tower that would bring men to heaven (or so promised). This religion was based on astrology, and all astrology's have their mythologies.

 

It is not accident that all mythologies of the cultures that stemmed from this first opposition to God by men after the flood included great conflict.

 

satan fostered mythologies in the ancient kingdoms that mimicked God's conflict, even representing the sea as a sinister force, yet with satan as the heroic conqueror.

 

The best known warfare myth among the ancient Mesopotamians is the Babylonian Enuma Elish, probably dating back to the second millennium BC. In the beginning, according to this story, Apsu and Tiamat lived peacefully in “the happy nothingness of the pristine abyss.”  (or water swirling in chaos) In time, they together engendered other gods who eventually made too much noise and irritated them. Apsu therefore decided to kill them, but Tiamat learned of his plan and warned her eldest son, who put Apsu to sleep and killed him. Tiamat becomes enraged at the younger gods who killed her mate. She summons the forces of chaos and creates 11 monsters or demons charged to destroy the younger gods.

 

The younger gods fight against Tiamat without much success until a champion arises among them by the name of Marduk. Marduk kills Tiamat. Out of her corpse Marduk creates the heavens and the earth. Marduk then kills one of her accomplices, another god, and from his blood creates the human race. The first man is charged with helping Marduk and the other gods to maintain order and to keep chaos [the deeep] at bay. Since chaos was composed of swirling water in the beginning, Marduk posts guards to keep chaos’ waters, upon which the earth rests, from escaping.

 

Hence “the deep” in myth Enuma Elish represented the evil of chaos. Marduk, the hero, kills his creator (Tiamat) and restrains chaos, thus making peace.

 

In mythology satan copied and falsified (as he always does) the very real sinister force of the sea as a destroyer after the fall.

 

Turn to Psa 74.

 

Scripture introduces sea monsters as enemies of God and specifically Leviathan as a multi-headed dragon of the sea.

 

This is not a mythological figure or some kind of metaphor, but a real foe against God.