False DIsciples: Their Earthly Benefits

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the concept of false disciples who focus on earthly benefits. He explains that these disciples misunderstand Jesus’ teachings, thinking he was promising physical wealth and power, rather than spiritual growth and salvation. Paul warns against this mindset, stating that it leads to false followers who see God as a means to an end, rather than a spiritual guide. He concludes by saying that false disciples lack a genuine desire for worship, highlighting the importance of understanding and following Jesus’ teachings correctly.
➡ The disciples were caught in a storm at sea, struggling to make progress. They saw Jesus walking on water, which initially terrified them. Peter even walked on water towards Jesus, but began to sink out of fear. However, Jesus saved him, calmed the storm, and miraculously transported their boat to land. This series of miracles led the disciples to recognize and worship Jesus as the Son of God.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government, called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on upper uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focus discussion will be on false disciples. They’re earthly benefits.

These disciples who are false, they think only of earthly benefits. They think only of earthly benefits. You know in verse 14 what happened? The people said, this is truly the prophet who was to come into the world. That’s from Deuteronomy 18. The prophet that Moses said would come would be like Moses, only greater, the Messianic prophecy he’s here. This is the prophet who is to come into the world. So wow, that’s great. We say that’s great. They now are beginning to connect Jesus with Old Testament Messianic prophecy. They’re great. And what’s he been talking to them about all day? What was he telling them all day? He was preaching what? According to the other gospel writers, preaching the kingdom, preaching the kingdom, what’s the kingdom? Well, I’ll tell you what it’s not.

According to John 18 36 and 37, my kingdom is not what of this world? Well, when he was preaching the kingdom, he wasn’t talking about temporal life. He wasn’t talking about the here and now. He wasn’t talking about the land under their feet and the political issues that they were facing. That was not what he was talking about. When he was talking about the kingdom, he’s talking about the eternal kingdom of God over which God rules in the lives of those who are redeemed, those who repent and believe and are saved.

So he had been all day long since early in the day when the little bit of rest that he had with his disciples was broken up in the hill. He came down, the crowd comes to him, they meet, and he spends the rest of the day doing what? He spends the rest of the day healing their diseases and their illnesses and teaching them the kingdom principles, the principles of salvation. So they come to this conclusion because of the miracles. This is the prophet who is to come and what do they want to do? And Jesus reads their minds, by the way, in verse 15, which is no problem for him.

John 2, he knew what was in man. Nobody needed to tell him anything. He reads their minds. They are collectively intending to come and take him by force to make him their saviour. Is that right? No, no. It doesn’t say they fell down and honored him. They repented and believed in him. No, they wanted to make him a king because all they could think about was the earthly benefits to make him a king. They had one thing in mind. We want our independence from Rome. We want the Romans out of here and we want food.

This is really good food and we would like it all the time. And they knew this kind of power could be repeated. In fact, they wanted it so strongly, they wanted to take him by force. Usually someone is kidnapped to be hauled off to a cell. They wanted to kidnap Jesus to make him a king. I mean, there had never been anyone like him. Never. The only response, the only response possible, really, was we can’t let this guy out of our hands. He can create the perfect living conditions. Wow. This kind of power, he feeds us all the time, vanquishes all our enemies, heals all our diseases, chases the demons away.

But you see, this is the characteristic of false disciples. They think only of earthly benefits. And if that’s what you offer, you play into their hands. If that’s what the preacher talks about, that Jesus wants to give you everything you want in this life, you’re literally going to amass false followers. They’re already drawn by the supernatural. They’re already attracted by the people. That’s why when you turn on your TV, you say, how does that guy get that many people there? How does he feel that thing? You’ve got to understand, the crowd draws a crowd, the promise of the supernatural draws a crowd, and then the desire for earthly temporal satisfaction and fulfillment adds power to the attraction.

They just wanted Jesus to give them what they want, give them what they wanted. But no one really uses God for his own ends. It reminds me of 1 Samuel 4, where the children of Israel were confronted by the Philistines. And they were afraid that the Philistines were going to defeat them. And they got together and said, what are we going to do? And somebody said, well, the Ark of God is at Shiloh. Go get the Ark of God, the little box with the cherubim. That was the symbol of the presence of God.

We need God. They had become so twisted in their thinking that they were almost worshipping God as if he was an idol, the box. So though they had been unfaithful to God all along, and were deserving of the punishment that God would inflict on them through the Philistines, they thought the cure was to go get God. So they sent some people to Shiloh to bring the box. They brought the box, the Philistines heard that God the box had arrived, and they panicked because they knew the story of what had happened in Egypt when God delivered them.

And they went to battle anyway, and you know what happened. It says in Samuel 4.10, Israel was defeated. 30,000 soldiers were massacred. You don’t use God. You don’t use God. But that’s what’s so much offered to people today. God is your genie. He’ll show up and fix everything. That’s a formula for attracting false disciples. And that gets us to the text where we’re supposed to be this morning. So, but you’ve enjoyed the trip, haven’t you? Okay, so we get to verses 16 to 21, and there’s a fourth characteristic, and this is kind of coming in the backside of this.

The false disciple has no desire for worship. A false disciple has no desire for worship. This comes out in this little story, which is really amazing. And by the way, to get the whole story, you need Mark’s account, Mark 6, Matthew’s account, Matthew 14. But here’s what John says, evening came. This would be in the twilight. His disciples went down to the sea. Why? Jesus sent them there, right? Remember, I told you last week, he sent them away. He went into a mountain alone. He sent his disciples away. They went back.

It’s literally the boat. The boat that they had come in belonged to one of them, probably seven of them at least, or maybe even of them were fishermen on that lake, very familiar with it. So they had the boat, he sends them away, disperses the crowd, sends the disciples down to the sea or down to the lake to get into the boat. And they’re supposed to, verse 17, start to cross the sea to Capernaum. Actually, the other writers tell us they were going a little ways to Bethsaida, which was just on the north shore.

They’d go a little ways to Bethsaida and wait there for a little while. They stayed there for a little while, probably thinking, Jesus is going to come. He’s going to come. Maybe he’s going to walk here and meet us here. We’ll get in the boat and go to Capernaum, which was on the northwest shore across the lake. Jesus doesn’t come. He doesn’t come. So they wait for a while there, according to Mark 6, and then they leave. They start to cross the sea to Capernaum. It had already become dark. And Jesus said, not yet come to them.

They’ve been waiting. And then the sea began to stir up because a strong wind was blowing. That sea, that lake, is about 700 feet below sea level. And it’s ringed on three sides by mountains that rise several thousand feet into the air. It could be like a whirlpool. When winds that we would be familiar to us, like Santa Ana winds, is Soroko winds from the east come pouring down those mountains, hitting that cool water turns it into a cauldron. Winds from the north, the cedars of Lebanon, rise many thousands of feet into the north.

Cold winds come down. The collision of winds in the ravines and the valleys and the crevices and the deep and narrow gorges between those hills literally turned that thing into a boiling pot. And I’ve been on, Patricia and I have been on it, when it was nothing but white caps everywhere. It can be very dangerous, and it was dangerous at this point. And remember now, as many as seven of these guys fished that lake as a routine daily. They’re panicking. They’re afraid. This isn’t the first time this has happened. They had already had this experience once before in Galilee, and the waves were so bad they were crashing over the boat and Jesus was sleeping.

Remember that? And he got up and stilled the storm and stilled the wind and stilled the water. And what did they say? They said, what kind of person is this? What kind of man is this? That even the winds and the waves obey his voice. They’re still in process at that time. That’s recorded in Matthew 8. They’re still in process. Who is this? Who is this? Who is this? So here they come again, and the familiar storm starts. Then they rode about three or four miles. You say, that’s pretty good. No, it’s not because it’s the fourth watch of the night, Matthew says.

That’s three to six a.m. They’ve been doing this since dark. They have been going all night, and they have made no progress. They’ve only gone three or four miles in the fourth watch of the night. You can read more about it in Mark’s Gospel as well. They’re dominated by fear. They’re terrified that they’re not going to survive. They had said that back in Matthew 8. Don’t you care that we perish in that previous storm? But just to give you the familiar things that John doesn’t record, just quickly, Matthew 14. Matthew 14 verse 24.

When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it’s a ghost, and they screamed in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take courage, it is I, do not be afraid. Peter said to him, Lord, if it’s you, command me to come to you on the water. I don’t know why Peter did that or asked that. If he was just doing it as a test, it was pretty stupid, because if it had been a ghost. But anyway, he did it. He got out of the boat, and maybe the word come was a familiar enough voice.

He got out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. I think he thought he was going to drown anyway, and the only hope he had was to trust in what he saw and what he heard when he heard the voice of Jesus. He got out there, and seeing the wind, he became frightened. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. So he does know who it is. Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him, said to him, you have little faith, why did you doubt? When they got in the boat, the wind stopped.

Notice the difference. Last time this happened, they said, what manner of man is this? This time those who were in the boat did what? Worshipped him, and they said, you’re certainly God’s son. Now that’s true discipleship, true discipleship, worship, go back to John’s gospel. So verse 21, they willingly received him into the boat. Now you’ve got to understand, they’ve just seen, they’ve just seen an explosion of miracles. Miracle number one, they’re still alive. Miracle number two, Jesus walking on water. Miracle number three, Peter walking on water. Miracle number four, Peter sinks, and he’s pulled back up to walk on water.

The next miracle is Jesus stops the wind. The next miracle is Jesus stops the water. And the next miracle, the boat is at the land to which they were going. What? The boat went from wherever it was, whisked to the dock at Capernaum. I mean, this is pretty staggering stuff. This is a monumental moment for them because they now know who they’re dealing with. This is the son of God. He’s in control of nature. He’s in control of his creation. This is what sets the true disciples apart from the false. It was all about worship.

It was all about declaring him to be the son of God and bowing down in worship to him. This was a, this was a massively important moment in their lives. What is it about false followers? Oh, they’re drawn by the crowd, fascinated by the supernatural, interested only in earthly benefits and really have no desire for worship, real worship, bowing down and proclaiming Jesus. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of false disciples, their earthly benefits. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world.

To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].