Andrew Wommack - How to Become a Water Walker - Part 2
Welcome to our Tuesday’s broadcast of the gospel truth. Today I’m continuing a teaching from Matthew, chapter 14. This is about when Jesus compelled his disciples to get into a ship and go to the other side and then a storm came up and he came walking to them on the water and Peter said, if it’s you, bid me come, and he said, come, and Peter walked on the water. This is a miraculous account and I believe it literally happened. It’s amazing to me how many people believe that these are just stories or something that are made up. I believe this actually happened.
Now, I don’t necessarily believe that there’s a great need to walk on the water. You know, I’m nearly 65 years old and I don’t know that I’ve ever needed to walk on water, so I’m not teaching you how to walk on the water physically, but I believe that this principle of overcoming natural circumstances and doing miraculous, supernatural things certainly is applicable to us today and every one of us need to know how to do this. So, I’ve got this series entitled, how to become a water walker, based on Matthew, chapter 14, and I tell you, this has really, really blessed me.
Yesterday I mentioned a couple of things. First of all, as we go through this story, it goes from verse 22 all the way down to verse 32, and I read these verses yesterday, but the very first point I made yesterday is, you’ve got to position yourself for a miracle. The Lord compelled these disciples to get into the ship and to go to the other side and the wind was against them. It was so strong that a regular two hour trip, at least nine hours later they were only half way through, so that shows you how strong this wind was, and the disciples could have just turned the boat around and headed back for shore and they would have been out of danger in a relatively short period of time, but instead they kept going in the direction that the Lord called them to go and this is just essential. If you want to see a miraculous intervention in your life, you need to be doing what God has called you to do.
One of the reasons people don’t see this miraculous intervention is because you’re doing your own thing and asking God to bless it. You need to make sure that you’re headed in the direction that the Lord wants you to go. So, these disciples, one of the things to their credit is that they didn’t turn around, they didn’t quit even at the risk of their own lives. They were still moving in the direction that the Lord told them to go, that’s critical. If you want to see miraculous intervention, you need to be about your father’s business. You need to be doing what he told you to do, so that’s critical.
And then the next thing that I was talking about is that Jesus came walking unto them and in Mark, chapter 6, this same account of this, it says, he made as though he would have passed by them. He made himself apparent to them. He revealed himself and his power and his ability to them, but they had to reach out and make a demand on God’s power. This is another reason that a lot of people don’t see the miraculous power of God is because the first time they get into a bind, they just immediately default to trying to fix it themself. They go to the doctor, they go to the banker, they go to the psychiatrist, they go to somebody else, but they don’t ever go to God.
Now, I’m not saying that there’s not a place to have these other things, but I’m saying that most people only use God as a last resort, not the first resort. If you are going to really see the miraculous power of God in your life, you need to use the Lord as the number one thing that you are trusting and looking to and there’s a lot of people that just don’t do that. They trust in themself. They just, they can’t get outside of the natural. These disciples had to place a demand upon Jesus. He walked out on the water absolutely clearly for their benefit so he could help them, but he didn’t just automatically still the storm, he didn’t automatically bring the ship to the shore. They had to call out to him, and if they hadn’t have called out to him, if they’d have been so possessed or focused on their problem that they never made a demand upon God, he could have walked right past them.
Their miracle could have just passed them up, and I really believe that there’s some people watching this that God has tried to intervene, but you just aren’t open to it. You don’t call out to God. You aren’t looking to God for deliverance. You’re looking to all of these other things. If you want to become a water walker, if you want to see the supernatural power of God in your life, you need to start calling out to God. You have not, because you ask not. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be made full, and then it says in verse 26, it says, «And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it is a spirit: and they cried out for fear».
Now, this is not a positive thing that they did, this is an indication of how hardened their hearts were. You know, I haven’t really got the time to develop this. I’m just going to say it real quickly, but if you were to take this in its context, right here in this chapter, also in Mark, chapter 6, and also in John, chapter 6, this instance of the disciples being in the ship and being in this storm and Jesus walking to them on the water, it immediately follows the feeding of the five thousand, and Jesus had these 5,000 men, not including all the women and children. We know that there were children there because a young boy gave his lunch to the disciples and Jesus took this lunch that consisted of five loaves and two fish and he broke them and he fed this multitude, five thousand men, not including women and children, so it was probably ten thousand or more people, and he fed all of them with one little boy’s lunch.
That was miraculous, and again, I haven’t got time to teach all of this. I’ll just say it. You may not agree with this, but I could prove this to you if I was to turn over to Mark, chapter 6, and deal with this, but the miracle didn’t take place in Jesus' hands. The miracle took place in the disciples' hands. That’s the only way it could have happened. When they went to, they each had groups of peoples in fifty and each disciple had just a little bit of fish and a little bit of bread and they walked towards these hundreds of people that they had to feed and the multiplication took place in their hands. That’s the only way that this could have happened.
So, they had not only seen this miracle, they had been a part of it, that the Lord had flowed through them. They broke off this bread and it was still there and they broke off a piece of fish and the whole fish was still there. I mean, it was miraculous, they had seen it. And over in Mark, chapter 6, this is the same story recorded by Mark, and in Mark, chapter 6, when they saw Jesus walking on the water and they cried out for fear, it says in verse 51, he went up unto them into the ship: and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.
You know, those are a lot of adjectives right there. This just means that they were overwhelmed. I mean, this just overwhelmed them that Jesus could walk on the water, that he could still the storm and as I’ve already mentioned over in John, chapter 6 it says that when he entered into the ship, immediately they were at the land, at the shore. So, the whole boat and all of the people in it were just translated to the other side of the lake. This was awesome. This was amazing and they were overwhelmed, sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered, and then verse 52 says, «For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened».
These verses are saying that to be shocked, be overwhelmed, sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered, at this miraculous thing isn’t a good thing, it was an indication of their hardened heart, and the reason their heart was hardened was because they didn’t consider the miracle of the loaves. In other words, anybody who could feed 5,000 men, not including the women and children, with five little loaves of bread and two fish could walk on the water, and if you go back to Matthew, I’ve already made this point on our program yesterday, he had to compel his disciples to get into the ship and go to the other side. In other words, they didn’t want to do it. He had to constrain them, compel them to do it, and so this means that he was responsible for them. It was against their better judgment. If it would have been left up to them, they would not have gotten into this boat. He compelled them, constrained them to do it, so that means he was absolutely responsible for them.
Also, you’ve got to remember that he wasn’t in a holiday inn some place out of the weather, you know, asleep and ignorant of their plight. He was out in the exact same storm that they were in. He was up on one of the mountains praying, he was getting wet, he could see what was happening to them. So, he was responsible for them and he was totally aware of their situation. If they would have been thinking correctly, they would have expected Jesus to come walk on the water instead of being shocked. Anybody who could feed all of those people with just a tiny bit of food could certainly walk on the water. They shouldn’t have been sore amazed. They shouldn’t have been shocked. They should have been expecting it, and here’s the application to us, that many of us aren’t seeing the miraculous power of God is because we are just so hard hearted, we are so used to the natural that we aren’t even expecting a supernatural intervention.
You know, I could give a million applications of this, but in the area of physical things: there’s a lot of people that just totally expect their health to come in some physical, natural way. They don’t believe God for supernatural things. There’s a lot of people that just accept headaches, colds, flus, and they say that this is just the way that it is and they aren’t even believing for anything miraculous, and so guess what? They don’t get it. You know, I just got an e-mail last night and I was reading about someone who had been studying my material and because they had been believing the Word of God that they just decided that they weren’t going to have the flu cycle and the cold cycle and all of these things, and with their kids they started breaking it, and she was just praising God about everyone of these things has happened and that their family is now well and that they don’t have these sicknesses. It’s been three years and they don’t get sick anymore and they don’t just spend money on all of this stuff.
Now, am I saying that you’re of the devil if you take a pill or something or if you go to the doctor or if you get sick? No, that’s not what I’m saying, but I’m saying that there’s a lot of people that they just aren’t expecting anything supernatural. They are just so carnal that they expect to be sick, they expect that headaches, you just get headaches and that you get sick and that you get colds and stuff like this.
One of the reasons they don’t have a testimony and don’t see the miraculous intervention of God is because they aren’t prepared for it. These disciples had not kept their mind focused on the spiritual things that they had seen Jesus do and change people’s life, they were just totally carnal, they were in the natural, they were focused on trying to preserve their life, they were thinking in their own natural ability, about bailing water, about turning the bow of the boat into the waves instead of being broadsided and capsized.
They were just thinking in the natural, and you know what? There’s nothing wrong with the natural in its proper place, but they were in a situation that their natural ability and their natural thinking wasn’t going to get them to the other side, and you have to be able to go beyond the natural when you get into a crisis situation and you need to expect the supernatural. These disciples didn’t expect it. When they saw Jesus walking on the water, they were troubled and they cried out for fear, and according to Mark, chapter 6, those verses that I read, verse 52, it was because of their hardened heart, because they hadn’t considered the miracle of the loaves. Man, this is important.
One of the reasons that we don’t see the miraculous power of God, that we aren’t able to walk on top of our problems is because we just aren’t expecting the supernatural, we aren’t looking for a supernatural deliverance. We’re just looking for natural, physical things trying to cope with our problems. I tell you, that’s disappointing to me. I deal with so many people that are in crisis situations because they just default to the natural. You know, I’m not against doctors. I’ve got a doctor on my board of directors. I’ve got doctors that are my friends. If it weren’t for the doctors, all the Christians would have been dead, so I’m not against doctors, but I just heard a statistic last week and I’m probably won’t get it perfectly right, but there was 1.5 million people, I believe, that died in the United States last year because of prescriptions that were filled incorrectly.
The druggist didn’t give the right prescription or gave them too much or didn’t give them the right details about how to use it, 1.5 million people died because of those kind of things and then if you add to that all of the people that die from doctors making mistakes. Man, there’s a reason doctors have the highest malpractice insurance in the world because they’re people. I am not against them, but they are people and they make mistakes, and then you add to that, I’ve heard the statistic, and again, I don’t know the number, but it’s millions and millions of people that get infections and things in hospitals. I’ve actually seen a statistic that the number one place for contacting disease and infections in the world is in the hospital, and there are millions of people that die from that.
So again, I’m not against doctors, but my point is that, you know, this isn’t a perfect system, and yet it seems like people just default to taking a pill, going to the doctor for the slightest little thing and they don’t believe God. You know, personally, I just believe that God can handle anything that comes my way, so I’m just trusting God for everything. But at the very least, and please understand, at the very least, you ought to go to God first and go to believing God for a supernatural intervention, and then if you aren’t seeing results, go and maybe let the doctors help you and see if there’s something that can be done there.
But instead, most people only use God as a last resort, and I got off on all of this by saying that in my meetings I have prayed for literally thousands of people who had minor things wrong with them and because they took a pill, self-medicated, went to the doctor, they’ve had complications and now they’re in crisis situations because they just went to the natural things first and they had problems, and I’m telling you, you could avoid most of this. These disciples, they were shocked to see Jesus walking on the water. They shouldn’t have been.
In Mark, chapter 6 it makes it very clear, it’s because of their hardness of heart and because they hadn’t been meditating on the miracle that had just happened through them to minister to these people and that’s the reason they were shocked. The reason it’s so hard for us to receive miracles is because we only use them as a last resort. You need to get to where you just live a life of supernatural. If your life isn’t supernatural, it’s superficial. I really believe that. You know, I just trust God for everything. The first thing I do is start believing God, not the last thing if all of the natural stuff can’t be done, and yet, I would say that the majority of people, their mindset is exactly the opposite. They have this concept, God helps those who help themselves. You do all you can do and just use God to make up the difference.
I don’t believe that that’s so. I believe that, man, we ought to trust God, turn to God and receive his direction and be looking for supernatural supply in everything that goes on in our life. These disciples were shocked to see Jesus. They said, it’s a spirit. They just could not believe that Jesus could walk on the water, but again, anybody who could feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish, he could walk on the water. They shouldn’t have been surprised, but they were, and in verse 27 it says, and straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, be of good cheer: it is i: be not afraid.
Now, here again, is something that’s subtle. Many people will miss this, but if Jesus just wanted to calm their fears and take away all of their problems, why didn’t he just stop the storm? I mean, they were about to drown. They were in this crisis situation, and if he really just, if all he wanted was for them to be of good cheer and not be afraid, why didn’t he take away all of their problems? Why didn’t he still the storm and just make the sea calm and the boat empty and all of a sudden everything’s cool? Why didn’t he do that? Here is a great principle in how you receive the supernatural power of God.
Before you see your deliverance from these problems, you first of all have to take a step of faith. He told them to be of good cheer before the storm was stilled. He told them not to be afraid when there was every reason to be afraid. Boy, this is important. You can see this same thing done in John, the 7th chapter when Jesus went to the woman whose son was being buried and she was crying because it was her only son and she had lost him. Jesus didn’t just raise the boy from the dead, instead, he walked up to the mother and he says, weep not. If he wanted her to quit weeping, why didn’t he just raise the boy from the dead? But instead, see, there always has to be a response of faith. God has to have something that we’re believing that he flows through.
In Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 20 it says, now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Most people just stop and say, he’s able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, but that’s not true. He’s only able to do that according to the power that works within us. There has to be a response of faith.
Hebrews 11:6, without faith it’s impossible to please him. We’ve got to believe God, and this is why he told them to be of good cheer, get rid of your fear, before the situation was solved. This is why he told that widow woman not to weep before he raised the son from the dead because he had to have some faith. God doesn’t just automatically solve the problems in your life. If it was only up to him, every person watching this program would be healed, blessed, prosperous, joyful, saved. Everything in your life would be awesome because God’s will is that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers, that’s what 3 John, chapter 1, verse 2 says.
That’s God’s will, but it doesn’t come to pass automatically. We have to respond in faith. There has to be a response of faith in our heart to be able to see the miraculous power of God, so this is really significant. He told them to be of good cheer and not to be afraid before he solved any of the problem, and in your situation, if you are in a crisis situation, if it looks like you’re about to drown in the storm, God is speaking to you today and saying, you know what? You need to exhibit some faith. You need to go to believing God instead of just looking at the problem and anticipating absolute failure, death, or whatever your circumstance is, you need to start praising God and exhibit some faith.
You know, this happened in my own life when my son died and I felt the same thing that anybody else would feel if you were told that your son was dead. He had been dead for four hours, and yet I just decided that I was going to start praising God, and I didn’t feel like praising God. There wasn’t any reason to do it in the natural. Everything I heard was that my son was dead and had been dead for four hours at that time, but you know what? I just chose to start praising God and believing God and immediately the heaviness left, the grief left, faith rose up.
I started praising God, long story, but the end result is, my son was raised from the dead in a city morgue after being stripped naked, put on a slab with a toe tag on, had been dead for nearly five hours, he was raised from the dead and praise God, he’s alive and well today, and you know why? Because I started praising God before I heard that he had come back from the dead, before any of these things.
Everything I had was bad, and yet I decided to take a step of faith, and I didn’t raise him from the dead, God did it. It’s his power, but you know what, he used that little mustard seed amount of faith that I had when I started praising God, and because of it, my son is alive and I’ve got a granddaughter that was born a year later that wouldn’t have been with us if we hadn’t have done that. Some of you today need to take a step of faith and you need to start praising God and exhibiting some faith on this side of the Red Sea, not after you get on the other side and all of your enemies have been destroyed.