Luke 8: 22 Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.” And they launched out. 23 But as they sailed, He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy. 24 And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 But He said to them, “Where is your faith?”
Is there any explanation for the unlimited authority that Christ had to rebuke the winds and the waves and to see the storms respond to Him?
This is a difficult question to answer. On the surface, we could say it happened because He was the Son of God, but that is not a satisfactory answer. Jesus said, “I can of Myself do nothing” (John 5:30). Why did He say that? Christ was as helpless as any man and as limited as all humanity.
Can you rebuke the wind and make it stop? Can you quiet a storm? Can you walk on water? Can you raise the dead? No, you cannot do those things in yourself, and neither could the Lord. He said, “It is My Father who is doing the works. I can of Myself do nothing” (John 8:28).
Jesus had to be as limited as you and I are otherwise, his incarnation meant nothing.
Jesus was not a superman or God bottled up in a human body with no limitations upon Him. He was tempted in all points as we are, and He had to be as limited as we are.
He was limited even in His knowledge of who He was. He grew in grace and in knowledge and increased in wisdom (Luke 2:40).
The Word says, And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52.
By the age of twelve, He had a conscious awareness of who He was, for we find the Lord saying in the temple, 49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”- Luke 2:49.
When Jesus met Satan, how could He have been tempted if He were not limited? Some people think that He could not possibly have sinned. If He was not able to do anything wrong, then His victory has no meaning for us.
It was necessary that He be in all points tempted like as we are, which means He had the potential of sin and failure; however, the Word says He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).
This is significant because it means that He met temptation with the limitations of a man and overcame by the same means that are available for us. When the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and drove Him into the wilderness, He met the temptations in the same way we meet them (Luke 4:1–13).
How do we overcome Satan? By the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. We proclaim, and not loving our self-life to the death. “It is written.…” We believe the Word of God, and we give testimony to it. We overcome in the same manner that Jesus did.
In Luke, we see Jesus rebuking the wind and waves, and in our hearts and minds we begin to wonder how He could do this.
The answer is in Philippians 2: 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
We are going through the same things Christ went through, because the same Christ is in our spirit.
This is important for us to know, because we are dealing now with a very deep question:
How do we come to the point where we take dominion over the futility that is on all creation? How can the manifestation of the sons of God in their authority and power come?
To answer this, we must study the life of Christ and see how He moved into authority.
On the human level, He moved into authority by humbling Himself and becoming completely submissive to the Father, for He said, “I do always those things which please the Father” (John 8:29).
It was in complete submission that He emptied Himself, came down to earth, and was obedient even to the point of death.
Philippians 2::9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father..
Submission comes before the manifestation of authority.
Was there ever a time when such great futility rested upon the nations and their economies as now does?
In this day Satan is raging. Because he knows his days are shortened, because the Body of Christ is waking up to the fact that Jesus disarmed him of all authority in the heavenly realms, and has legally given it to us, but we appropriate it in degrees according to our submission to his authority (Lordship) over us.
What God first imposed upon creation; Satan is anxious to prolong. Therefore, he rages against the sons of God, who will release creation from futility. Satan tries to swamp you with the spirit of futility, but you must overcome it.
It is essential that we move in authority. If we are to have authority over the spirit of futility that is raging against the human race, we must get right down to the basics: we must move into submission.
Submission has always been important, but it is the truth of this hour. As we become totally submissive to the Lord in our lives, and we believe for His Kingdom to come forth in the earth, we are aligned with Christ’s authority.
For that reason, Satan is working to create all the rebellion he can. He is doing everything in his power to prolong the limitations which have been imposed upon the human race.
God is opening the door for us to be loosed from our limitations, and we shall be loosed by our submission to the Lord.
Once we are totally submissive, we move right into the authority; then we can move just as the Lord Jesus Christ. He could rebuke the wind; He could rebuke the waves; and there was a great calm.
The disciples saw only His works; they overlooked the complete, total submission that Christ had to the Father which brought about the authority.
Jesus said, Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls..… Matthew 11:29.
Christ possessed a meekness and a lowliness before the Father.
He tells us, Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5. (This is a word that most Christians do not understand, we inherit dominion over the earth, which is called the first dominion.)
Putting it in plain terms, blessed are those who are not on an ego trip, who think they are Mr. or Mrs. God’s somebody.
Blessed are the submissive ones. Blessed are those who are willing to lose their own identity. Blessed are those who are willing to lose their lives for His sake, for they will find them (Luke 9:24).
The meek are the ones who will move in God’s authority. They are the ones who will inherit the earth.
The manifestation of the sons of God will come forth in a people who are very submissive to the Lord.
To the extent that you are submissive to the Lord, to that extent His authority works in you.
You may think all you need to do is use the name of Jesus Christ. The name of Jesus Christ on your lips will be no more effective than it is in your heart.
If you are bowing to the name of Jesus and you are submissive to the authority of that name in your heart, then from your mouth that name will be effective.
Acts 19 tells of the sons of Sceva who tried to cast out a demon by saying, “We adjure you, by Jesus whom Paul preaches, that you come out.” The devil answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” and he jumped on the men and wounded them (Acts 19:13–16).
The sons of Sceva tried to use the name of Jesus plus an apostle’s name in order to cast out a demon, but he would not come out.
Demons do not have to respect the name of Jesus any more than the one who is using His name. If the person respects and honors the Lord’s name, the demons must honor it also.
When we come into complete submission, we can take authority over every circumstance that comes, no matter how futile it may seem. That spirit of futility must be broken in our own hearts first.
Once it is broken there, and we are no longer walking in confusion, but in complete submission to the Lord, then we can take dominion over futility in every area.
We need to understand the ways of the Lord to understand the ways of Satan. We need to understand the ways of Satan more clearly than we do now if we are to overcome him.
Before a man competes in a prize fight, he studies movies of his opponent in action to become familiar with every method of his opponent’s performance.
Then he can beat him because he knows his one area of weakness. We should study the enemy and find out what he is doing, where he lies and bluffs, and where he is weak.
Let me tell you something about Satan. He has power, but you do not need to be afraid of it because he has no authority.
That is the reason he comes as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). He must bluff and rage because he has no authority. All authority in heaven and earth is given to the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18). Principalities and powers were stripped of their authority by Jesus Christ.
Satan has another weak point that you must understand. He cannot change the existing spiritual laws. He can only try to twist them and distort their use. He must accept the world as God created it. Satan himself must bow to the spiritual principles as they are.
When God imposed futility upon man at the fall, Satan set about to capitalize on that. He could not invent something new; he could only work with what existed.
After death was imposed upon man, Satan preyed on the principle of death through witchcraft, murder, wars, and many other things.
The human instinct of self-preservation and the striving for personal identity is born in man because he is alienated in his mind from God.
Satan cannot change this, so he must prey upon it. Satan will come against you through this instinct of self-preservation, making you feel that you had better look out for yourself and for no one else will. That is a lie, an instinct which Satan preys upon.
You are an individual, and in your fallen state you are, of necessity, independent. But if you will love God and serve Him and are willing to give your life for Him and lose it for His sake, then you will save it (Matthew 16:25).
You will have to go against that self-preservation instinct and be willing to lose your life for Christ’s sake.
The day that you are willing to do that, you will move into the release of the Lord because of your total submission to Him.
Satan keeps trying to maintain man’s independence from God. In your total submission and subservience to the Lord, you place your life completely and totally in His hands.
That is the only way to escape from the independence which man inherited as a son of Adam and Eve.
What do we do now? We must break from every human way and move into the divine way by totally giving ourselves over to the Lord and by becoming totally submissive to Him in what He wants for our lives.
When we understand the necessity of this, we can understand how Satan comes against us and sometimes succeeds.
Once you realize you must overcome the human nature, you may try to do so by an exertion of will power.
Satan knows that if he keeps you independent from God, you will continue to struggle against the human nature. You can struggle against lust, against greed, against habits; and you will never completely succeed.
There will always be some way that Satan can get to you because he has you separated from God through the carnal brain.
He works on you as an independent individual because that is what you are, outside of Christ in you.
Just being a Christian is not enough; you must totally give yourself over to the Lord to be His. In that surrender and submission, you will find the release from everything that bothered you in the old realm.
This is the absolute truth. You do not set yourself to fight your problems; the answer is in surrendering yourself to God. This puts you in a position to appropriate grace for the release and cleansing you need.
Luke 8: 25 But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!” 26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gadarenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house but in the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before Him, and with a loud voice said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
This storm was not an accident. I have heard reports of dangerous storms which arise on the Sea of Galilee apparently out of nowhere, and that might have been the case.
On the other hand, Satan’s kingdom is well enough organized to anticipate the trip that Jesus was going to make. Those demons had a real knowledge of Christ and addressed Him as “the Son of the Most High God.”
They knew who He was, and they pleaded not to be tormented. This storm might have come because Jesus was coming to confront and cast out those demons and to loose that man.
Whenever you start to walk with God, it seems as if the enemy anticipates the deliverance that will come and does everything, he can to lay something in the way, to bring some kind of storm or circumstance to distract, to hinder or discourage you from pressing on to the victory that you are about to obtain.
Satan can anticipate, but I do not believe he knows all things. There are many things hidden in the heart of the Father.
There are things in the heart of God which Satan cannot read and which not even the only begotten Son of God knew while on earth.
The Father has retained many things to Himself; and that could be the reason that when the prophets spoke, one prophecy might refer to many different things which God was going to do.
In the Old Testament books of the prophets, God very carefully interspersed references to the sufferings of Christ and to the glory to be revealed at His first and second comings. The fact that these references to Christ were mingled together with references to other events shows that even the prophets themselves were not allowed by the Holy Spirit to comprehend the sequence of events in God’s plan.
Most of the prophecies in the Old Testament concerning Christ speak about the glorious Kingdom of Christ that is to come upon the earth. Only a few refer to the first and second coming of the Lord when He would come to suffer and to be our Savior and Redeemer, and then come again to destroy Jerusalem who persecuted all the prophets including Jesus and destroy the temple so that the Old Covenant system of offering animals, would never happen again.
Remembering the Old Testament prophecies, the disciples asked Christ after His resurrection, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Christ answered, “It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has placed in His own hand. But you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you to be witnesses of the gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and in all the earth” (Acts 1:6–8).
They began preaching the second coming of the Lord immediately, because they knew by the words of Jesus it would happen in their generation, but they did not know the day or hour.
In this new day and hour, it is very important that we understand that God is suddenly thrusting upon us the manifestation of the sons of God.
How long will it take? I do not know; no one does. But I do know that God is not leading us down a dead-end street. We are being brought right into everything that God has for us. These are the days for us to open our hearts and move forward with everything that is within us.
Satan would not be working so actively against us if it were not for the fact that he anticipates what is coming, that all the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of Christ, through the sons of God.
He is aware that his time is short, so he is raging against the inhabitants of the earth (Revelation 12:12).
The intensity of Satan’s effort is not an occasion for discouragement, but one of the greatest indications of what Christ is beginning to do in his people.
The ultimate goal of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is that we no longer walk as the Gentiles, in futility of the mind (Ephesians 4:11, 17).
The spirit of futility is to be broken for us who are in the restoration under divine order.
It is inevitable that the restoration will lead us into a release from the futility of the mind which rests upon the whole world, so that we become renewed in the spirit of our minds and begin to walk forth in the things of the Lord (Ephesians 4:23).
Are you aware of the tactics of Satan? How he has used the natural things in your life to confuse and disturb you? That does not really matter.
Just realize that Satan is greatly handicapped. He cannot invent a new law; he cannot create a new world; he cannot do a thing except try to torment and to slow down what God is doing in the earth.
When you realize this, you will magnify the Lord and minimize “what’s-his-name.” Ask the Lord to help you see this and to open your heart to his majesty.
Remember the bible is a concealed revelation, the truth is hidden in plain sight if you just realize the New Testament was written mainly to the early Church and that generation that was alive at that time, but the Holy Spirit will interpret it to us for the time that we live in.
Look at all the imperatives (commandments) in the New Testament, they all apply to us and must be obeyed if we are going to fulfill our destiny.
Look at the Pauline revelation, that even the other Apostles did not understand until Paul explained it to them, of who we are in Christ.
Just remember we are not in the last days, but the new day of the kingdom invading every realm of the earth once the church comes into the unity of the spirit and the faith, because Jesus delegated this authority and honor to us, and Jesus must remain in heaven until this happens.
Perhaps you are really battled by Satan, and you are wondering which way to turn next. Do not focus on that, or you empower him, he has not authority unless you agree with him and give him yours.
Submit totally to Jesus as Lord so that you can have authority over the storm that Satan is blowing up to capsize your boat. The secret of victory is in submission.
Wherever futility or confusion has been reigning in our thinking and in our hearts, we must seek the Lord to loose us from it.
Let us learn again what it is to be submissive, for it is the submission that we seek above everything else.
Let us repent of our arrogance and of our independent thinking and actions. We must learn to be led by the Spirit and totally submissive to the Lord in all things.
When the futility is broken, you will be surprised what liberty there will be and how free you will feel.
Instead of trying to come to grips with your problems, come to grips with the spirit of futility within your human nature. Lay yourself in the hands of the Lord to serve Him and let Him take care of everything else in your life.