<TITLE>07. Par 22-24</TITLE>L-22 It must have been about time the sun was going down. It had been a terrible day. There's thousands of people had gathered around, but the big fisherman with his big brawny back and muscles was shoving the little boat off of the sandy banks of the lake. They were going over, commanded by their Lord, across over to the other side, while He sent the people away.
And as Simon, perhaps the largest one among them, pushed the little boat off the shore, climbed in up among the rest of the apostles, and set down about the middle of the ship, and took his oar in his hand...
And as they'd perhaps pulled two or three times, and then waved to the congregation they were leaving on the bank, and them crying, some of them, "Come back and see us again. We would love to be going with you." Because they had won their hearts, and they loved these men. They had seen the hand of God moving with them, and they knowed that they were servants of God.

L-23 The sun was getting red as it passed over the Galilean mountains, and the streets had settled, and the sky had begin to turn dark when I guess the oars let up just a little bit. And I believe it must have been the young John. He was the youngest among them, probably a man in his thirties. And when they stopped to rest just a little bit because the craft was made of heavy wood, and great huge oars, and it was heavy, and one man on a big oar and it was hard, and probably in the still of the evening, the winds had settled and there wasn't a ripple on the lake, and they'd pulled pretty hard.
John must've pulled the oar in and said, "Brethren..." Let's break in on their conversation. He might've said something like this: "We can rest assured that we're not following some sort of a deceiver. You know, I remember when I was a little boy." He might've said, "I remember my mother taking the scrolls of the Bible, and she used to set and tell me the stories of our people when they come to this land that God gave them, and what a great time they had coming: how they come up out of Egypt and Jehovah fed them in the wilderness for forty years. And I used to say, 'Mama, how did they ever get anything to eat in the wilderness?'

L-24 "And I remember my pretty little Jewish mother used to say, 'John, my darling, God rained their bread down out of heaven every night.'"
"And I would say to her like this, 'Mommy, where did God get such big ovens to make the bread?'"
"'Well, you see darling, God is a Creator. He doesn't have to have ovens. He just speaks and He creates; His Word is creative.'"
"And brethren, today when I stood on that rock behind Him, and seen Him taking those five little biscuits and two fish, and broke that bread and fed five thousand, I knowed He was something to do with that Jehovah Who could create. You see, brethren, if He is Who we believe He is, and we know He is the Son of God, then His works will be like God, for He said, 'If I do not the works of My Father, then believe Me not.'"


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