Get this picture. Jesus had just fed fifteen thousand folks with five barley loaves and two small fish. Then He sent the unbelieving disciples across the sea of Galilee to Capernaum while He went to pray and hide from the masses who wanted to make Him their king to overthrow the Romans and the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes who brutally oppressed them.
When the disciples had rowed about eight miles, they saw Jesus walking across the water towards them. He had just walked that same distance on the water.
They were scared to death as He must have appeared to them as an apparition. When they recognized Jesus, they welcomed Him onto their boat, AND IMMEDIATELY, the boat traveled the remaining eight miles to Capernaum. Jesus had just performed a molecular transformation right in front of them.
Rewind. Jesus fed fifteen thousand people with five loaves of barley bread and two small fish, walked eight miles across the sea of Galilee, and immediately transported a boat large enough to hold thirteen grown men eight miles to the shore towards which they were rowing. Would those miracles open the eyes of your heart and cause you to believe every single word that Jesus said after that? Not for the disciples.
Fast forward perhaps a couple of hours, and we find Jesus and the boys in the Synagogue at Capernaum. There, Jesus proclaimed that He is the replacement for the Ten Commandments and the six hundred attached man-made ordinances.
He really drove the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Jews, and the disciples nuts by declaring that the only way to receive salvation is not through works and rituals, but by believing and believing in The One whom God has sent.
(John 6:28-29)
The “Seventy” that you have read about ran away. The disciples freaked out and wanted to run away as well. Jesus knew that they were afraid that Jesus’s Words could get them killed. He knew that despite witnessing all of His miracles, they were bound by the Law and believed they were the only hope for salvation.
He also taught the people that unless they consumed His Words (learned them, believed them, walked in them, made them the only Truth for them) and drank His blood (believed that He guaranteed every Word with His blood) they would have no life in them because His Words are Spirit and Life.
Read His Words to them:
“When His disciples heard Him, many of them said, This is a hard and difficult and strange saying, an offensive and unbearable message. Who can stand to hear it? Who can be expected to listen to such teaching?”
But Jesus, knowing within Himself that His disciples were complaining and protesting and grumbling about it, said to them: Is this a stumbling block and an offense to you? Does this upset, and displease, and scandalize you?
What then will your reaction be if you should see the Son of Man ascending to the place where He was before?”
(John 6:60-62)
Now, let’s fast forward a few weeks to a scene involving the disciples.
” And when He said this (the great commission), He was caught up, and a cloud received Him and carried Him away out of their sight. And while they were gazing intently into Heaven as He went, behold, two men dressed in white robes suddenly stood beside them, who said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into Heaven? This same Jesus, who was caught away and lifted from among you into Heaven, will return in the same way in which you saw Him go to Heaven.”
(Acts 1:9-11)
Did that make them believe? NO! They still would not teach or eat with Gentiles until Paul confronted Peter fourteen years later in what was known as the incident at Antioch—a long story for another teaching.
Don’t you know that at least one of the twelve asked the others: “DID YOU SEE THAT?”
Surely, they asked themselves the same question after all of the miracles they witnessed, such as Jesus raising four people from the dead, including Himself.
Our question is, what will it take for us to believe? Yes, we believe that Jesus is our salvation, but how many of His Great and Precious Promises do we take as literal Truth?
Try these out. John 3:14-18, 2Peter1:1-4, Mark 11:22-24, John 14:12-14) Do we really believe that WHOEVER believes and believes in Jesus will be with Him in Heaven?
THAT IS ALL FOLKS
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