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The Gospel Truth
How to Become a Water Walker: Episode 10
00:28:31
Have you ever felt overwhelmed, like only a miracle could carry you through? In this powerful series, discover how Peter's walk on water reveals the path to breakthrough. Learn to confront fear, trust God's Word, and step into the supernatural. You...
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Andrew Wommack
Welcome to Gospel Truth with Andrew Wommack celebrating 25 years of sharing God's unconditional love and grace on television.
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Testimonial Speaker / Partner
Thank you so much, Andrew for preaching the truth and teaching us as believers and how to use our authority. Because of that, I was set free from a lot of pain.
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Andrew Wommack
And now here's Andrew.
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Welcome to our Friday's broadcast of the Gospel Truth. Today is the end of a two week teaching that I've been doing on how to become a water walker. I tell you, I've really enjoyed this. This is something that the Lord spoke to me probably 45 years ago. It's been a long time that I put out this book and this teaching and yet I was just studying this in the last couple of weeks and it just ministered to me so much I decided I would share it with you again. I haven't taught on this on television for a long time and today's our last day that I'm making these materials available. So we're asking for a donation of just whatever you can do for the larger book. And this would be the best thing for you to get either that or the CD or the DVDs. But if you couldn't or wouldn't send anything for the book, we'll send you the little booklet free and post paid. And then we have cds, DVDs, we have a USB that has the audio and the video on it. And then we also have this study guide. And this study guide is 255 pages and it is designed so that you can teach a Bible study or disciple other people. And I tell you it's a powerful, powerful tool. Again, today's our last day to make these materials available. So please go to the effort of calling and and are going to our web site and getting these. I've already covered so much material in this, there's no way I can go back and summarize everything. Let me just back up a couple of verses and read here. It says In Matthew chapter 14, verse 28 and Peter answered him and said, lord, if it be you, bid me come unto you on the water. And he said, come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus and man. I've taught on nearly every word in those verses. This is so powerful. If you've missed any of this, if this isn't ringing your bell, your bell is broken. Amen. This is powerful stuff. And then in verse 30 it says, but when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to Sink, he cried, lord, save me. And yesterday. This is the verse that I was on and talk about. I've never seen anybody begin to sink in my whole life. You either sink or you don't. But he began to sink. We don't lose our faith and get fear all at one time. It comes gradually. And if you will recognize the signs, the warning signs, you can reverse this process before you drown. And in verse 31, it says, and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, o thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And yesterday I was really emphasizing that, that this reveals that he had nearly made it to Jesus, because it didn't say Jesus ran and rescued him, he just stretched out his hand. That means that Peter had nearly reached him. And it's when you have nearly reached your goal that you are your most vulnerable. Because when we are out in the middle of the sea and the wind and everything around us and it looks like we're going to drown if a miracle doesn't happen. It's relatively easy to keep your attention on the Lord in a crisis situation. But in prosperity is when you are your most vulnerable because you, you don't recognize your dependency, your. Your. Your need for God as much in a situation like that. And that's when so many people fail. And I talked about David, that. That's when he failed, when he had reached success, and that's when he entered into sin with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. So we've already talked about all of those things. Look at what Jesus said to Peter when he reached out his hand and grabbed him and lifted him up. He said, o thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? There are some things right here in this verse that I could literally spend weeks teaching on. And as a matter of fact, I think what I'm going to do is in next week's broadcast, I'm going to start building on this and go into a series that I've entitled Hardness of Heart. And that title is kind of a negative title. I had a good friend of mine, Bob Yandian, who got so blessed by that teaching that he decided he was going to teach it to all of the people in his church and on his mailing list. But he said he changed the title to the Power of an Established Heart because he said that's a positive title and Hardness of Heart is a negative title. And so this may not be the best title that I put on this teaching, but that's just the way that God spoke it to me and, and reveal to me what a hardened heart will produce and what are the signs of it, how, how it comes, how you reverse it, and how you get a sensitive heart as a result. But anyway, right here the Lord spoke to him and he said, thou, O thou of little faith. Wherefore didst thou doubt? There's two things to see out of this that are really important. First of all, he only had little faith. Most people would think walking on the water is a big deal. And most people have this concept that you got to have big faith. When I go into this teaching on hardness of heart, out of Matthew, chapter 17, his disciples asked him, why couldn't we cast this demon out? And he did not say, it's because of your little faith. Now that's what the NIV says. I'm not 100% opposed to the NIV. I'll use it sometimes, but I believe they totally missed it there. And that's in Matthew, chapter 17, verse 20. The Lord said, it's because of your unbelief, not your little faith. And the rest of that verse goes on to say, because if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you might say unto this sycamine tree, remove and it'll be removed. And so the point wasn't that you need big faith, it's just that you need pure faith. You need to get rid of the unbelief. And then the NIV doesn't even have Matthew, chapter 17, verse 21 in it. They just took that out of the Bible right along with Mark, chapter 11, verse 26. They took that out of the Bible. I can show you six places that they just chose not to put those verses in. Again, I'm not a, a King James only guy, but I am saying I believe that the King James is accurate in these situations. So my point is, he said, O you of little faith. You don't have to have huge faith. What you need is a pure faith. A faith that isn't counterbalanced, weighted down by unbelief. You know, if you could imagine that I had a helium balloon here, and if I was to release this helium balloon, it would just start floating up. But if I put weights on it and if I attached weights to that balloon, even though it had the potential of rising, it wouldn't rise because it was held down by these weights. That's the way that, like faith is faith. It doesn't take a big faith. But if it isn't weighted down with unbelief, unbelief is Like a weight that keeps your faith from rising and working. And see right here, the Lord said he only had little faith. Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. And his evaluation of Peter's faith is accurate. So Peter only had a little faith. He didn't have this huge amount of faith, but he had a little faith. And as long as he was looking at Jesus, as long as he didn't consider the wind and the waves and anything like that, his faith allowed him to walk on top of the water. That is not a symbolism. It physically happened. But when he took his eyes off of Jesus, the author and the finisher of his faith, he. That's where doubt came. You know, the scripture says in Romans, chapter 10, verse 17. So then faith comes by hearing and, and hearing by the word of God. So the word of God is where we get his faith from. Where does doubt come from? Doubt comes from when you take your eyes off of Jesus. And you don't have to be into pornography. You don't have to be into R rated, X rated stuff. You don't have to be murdering and killing. You don't have to be doing something bad. Just take your attention off of Jesus and become preoccupied with the natural things of this world. And that's where doubt comes from. Peter's doubt didn't come from him reading a Playboy magazine. It didn't come from him plotting something bad. It came from him seeing the wind and the waves. There wasn't sin in the wind and the waves. Those are just natural things. What it did, it made him take his eyes off of the supernatural and relating to the supernatural and it made him relate to just the natural world around him. So here's a lesson for us. And when I get into this teaching on hardness of heart, this will be one of the main points that I'm making, is that your heart becomes hardened, which the dictionary defines hardened as cold, insensitive, unfeeling or unyielding. It becomes hardened towards God by the things that you consider. The word consider means to focus on, study, examine, ponder, deliberate upon. You could say meditate, would be a scriptural. It's talking about your focus. Your focus doesn't have to be on demonic stuff, just let it be on natural things. And whatever you focus on is what's going to dominate your heart. If you are a person who's not living in sin, but you are carnal, you are just totally controlled by the natural things around you. You go only by what you can do, by what the human world can do. The banker can do, the doctor can do. But you, but you don't trust God for anything supernatural. You're what the Bible calls carnal. And that will cause doubt. In the same way that faith comes by hearing the word of God, doubt comes by just being locked in to this natural world. And herein is a problem because we have to some, to some degree, pay attention to this natural world. You know, if I asked you to drive me to the airport, I don't want you to drive me by faith. I don't want you to have your eyes closed and just feel, here's where God wants me to go. No, you need to have your eyes open. You need to be relating to this natural world to a degree to be able to drive and reach your destination, to do your job. We have to function in this natural world, but we can't be limited to only this natural world. And this is where most people are missing it. Most people are just completely controlled. If it isn't physical, if you can't put it into a test tube, the average person can't believe that it exists. They don't believe that anything exists beyond what you can see, taste, hear, smell and feel. And this is one of the reasons that I just love the Bible so much. Because Jesus said In John chapter 6, verse 63, it's the Spirit that quickens the flesh, profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. God's word is spirit. It will tell us what's happening in the natural, but it'll show us why it happened in the natural. It'll show us what was going on behind the scenes. For instance, you know, In Daniel chapter 10 is where he prayed a prayer, and it took 21 days for the messenger from God to come and answer his prayer. And, and from just a natural standpoint, if you only Read Daniel Chapter 10 From Daniel's perspective, then you would have wondered, why didn't God answer his prayer earlier? What was going on? But when the messenger came, the messenger told him that from the very moment that Daniel prayed a prayer, God gave a command. This supernatural messenger, an angel from God, came to answer his prayer. And, but he said In Daniel chapter 10, he says there was a demonic power, the Prince of Persia, that withstood him for 21 days. See, this is why I love the word of God. Because instead of just saying, Daniel prayed a prayer. And 21 days later, he got an answer. It tells us what was going on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm. Like when David was fighting a Battle. One time the lord told him to just confront the enemy, to charge them head on. And he did, and he won. But then the enemy regrouped and came back. And this time, the lord, it says that the lord spoke to him, and he says, you go make a circuit. You make a compass, and you come around behind them. And when you hear the wind, the wind moving in the mulberry trees at that time, you attack. Now, see that? That changes everything. It wasn't just a great idea that he had. It was a word from God. And this little breeze that came through, it was ordered God. You know, I'm a hist history fan. Jamie and I just recently went to a number of civil war battlefields. We enjoy looking at history and stuff. And I remember I got the biography of Robert E. Lee, the guy who was the general of the confederate forces in the civil war in the United States. And I read it, and it was really interesting to me, But I was frustrated because things would happen. Like in the very beginning of the civil war. Did you know that Robert e. Lee had the union defeated, and he could have trapped them, and the civil war could have ended with the civ. With the south winning in the very first year of the conflict. But all of a sudden, his orders were just a avoided. And the generals let the union forces flee and go to the sea and get on boats and go back north. The war could have ended right there. There was another time that they had attack planned, and it was a great plan. Robert e. Lee was the best general in the entire civil war, and he was on the south side, and he was an awesome general. Matter of fact, Lincoln even offered him to take command of the union forces, but he refused to do it. And instead, he went with the south. But anyway, he had a great battle plan. And did you know what stopped it from working? One of the generals had the battle plan wrapped around three cigars, and it fell out of his pocket. And they found those cigars and the battle plan, and because of it, they were able to thwart Robert e. Lee. And there was time after time after time, things like this happened. And it was interesting, but I just wanted it to be like the bible. I would have liked to have known. How did those battle plans fall out of this guy's pocket? How is it that these generals didn't follow through with Lee's commands to pursue the Union army? I can guarantee if it was written like the Bible, you would have known, I think that there was supernatural things happening behind the scenes. I remember Israel during the six Day war. I heard one of the generals of Israel talking about that they would see the Egyptian jets fly and come to attack them and it would fly into a cloud and they would never fly out. They just disappeared. It was supernatural. This recent war against Iran where Israel was fighting and then the United States bombed them, I can guarantee you the preciseness of that. It wasn't all just technical. They had people on the ground. The way they infiltrated the things that happened. There's spiritual things going on. Anyway, the reason I'm saying all of this is to say that, see, there's a lot of people that just don't believe that jets could fly into a cloud and never come out. They don't believe that things could supernaturally happen, that God could do things. They are what the Bible calls carnal. And people like that that are always looking for only a physical explanation for every single thing that happens. Your heart will be hardened towards the supernatural power of God and you will not be able to walk on water. You will not be able to do this. And this is descriptive of where the average Christian today lives. They aren't looking at the supernatural. They aren't looking at the spiritual. They're looking at everything from just a physical, natural standpoint, trying to explain it. You know, we just got through with the Healing is here conference and we saw miracles. We saw people take off break. We saw people come out of wheelchairs, we saw people move that couldn't move things. We saw all kinds of things happen. And I can guarantee you that there are people that don't believe that God heals today. And if they would have been in those services, I'm sure there probably were some and they saw all of these miracles happen. They would come up with some explanation. Well, that person really wasn't as bad. I bet you they could have got up and walked on their own. I bet you they probably could have moved there. They would come up some with some explanation. You know, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, there was people that saw this great miracle. He had been dead for four days and he came out and the Bible says he was wrapped hand, head and foot in the grave clothes. Do you know the way they wrapped you in grave clothes? That means he couldn't walk. They weren't. They didn't wrap their legs separately. They wrapped them together. And yet he came out of the tomb. And it appears to me that he was just translated. He was somehow or another moved out of the tomb and they had to loose him and let him go. It was not only a Miracle that he was raised from the dead, but it was a miracle that he was transported and all of these things. And yet there's people that saw that and immediately went to the scribes and Pharisees and took counsel how they could kill not only Jesus, but Lazarus. I'm telling you that a hardened heart is something that just makes you spiritually retarded, spiritually dull to where you cannot understand the things of God. And how does that happen? Well, of course sin can harden your heart. Hebrews chapter three says that. But did you know your heart can become hardened without being in extreme sin, just dominated by the natural? Just like Peter right here, taking your eyes off of Jesus and, and looking at the wind and the waves, that'll harden your heart towards God. And that's one of the lessons that you learn through this. He didn't have huge faith, he had only a little faith. But because there was nothing holding it down, his faith was able to rise and he was able to walk on water. But when he looked at just natural things and he began to relate back to just doing things in the natural, then unbelief came and that unbelief weighted him down and kept his faith from rising above that man. That is powerful. What I've said right here is really powerful. And starting next week, I'm going to go into more explanation and I've got an entire series talking about hardness to heart, what it is, what causes it, and how you can reverse the process. You can actually become the opposite of hardened towards God. You can become hardened towards the devil, Cold, insensitive, unfeeling feeling and unyielding towards the devil. You can get to a place to where you don't know how to doubt. I know some people can't relate to that, but it can be done. The same part of you that becomes hardened towards God can become hardened towards the devil. I've had people come up to me before and they say, you said that the Lord told you something. I've never heard the Lord speak. And I, I'm not sure that you can hear the Lord speaking. The devil told me and the devil said this. And these people who will sit there and criticize me because I say I'm hearing the Lord. They can't hear the Lord, but they can hear the devil just fine. Did you know the same part of you that hears the devil speak is the same part of you that hears the Lord speak? It just depends on which way you've got your attention focused. You can reverse this process. And so in verse 32, the end of this teaching it says, and when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying of a truth, thou art the Son of God. Did you know that same day or just the day before, they had seen the 5,000 fed with only five loaves and two fish. And it didn't say that they came and said, you are a of a truth the Son of God. And they didn't worship him, but when they saw him walking on top of the water, this impacted them and they came and worshipped him. And if you read this same account in John's Gospel it says that when Jesus and Peter entered back into the boat, immediately they were translated to the other side where God told them to go in the first place. You know that's amazing to me. There were three gospel writers who reported this. But only Matthew recorded Peter walking on the waters. The other reported Jesus walking on the water and, and stilling the storm. But only Matthew recorded Peter walking on the water. That's amazing to me. And John is the only one who reported that Jesus, the disciples and the ship were translated to the other side. That is just amazing to me. And you know, this is one of the benefits of studying the Gospels simultaneously or chronologically. Instead of just going through Matthew and then back through Mark again and then through Luke and then through John, when you put everything in its chronological order, you get an understanding of things that you don't get if you just read one account and depend upon your memory to remember what you read in one of the other gospels at a previous time. So I now have a new program called through the Bible with Andrew Wommack. And this is one of the things we're going to do is study all the way through the gospels in chronological order. And, and I tell you that's going to be valuable to people. So again, let me just mention that today is the last day of this teaching on how to become a water walker. And I tell you this is really important. It's a faith builder. I believe it would give you some understanding that would help you to start walking in the supernatural. It would warn you against how Satan tries to stop us from walking in the supernatural. And it would just be a blessing. So this is a book that we're asking for a donation of any amount, just anything you could do. And we'll send you this book. If you could not or would not send anything. We'll send you this little brief summary, a booklet, and we'll send that free and postpaid and then we have cds and DVDs that were taken from one of my meetings and also from our television program. I have a USB that is the audio and the video both on there and then we have this study guide that is a 255 page thing that is a guide primarily to help you teach other people these truths and I tell you this is powerful. So today is my last day to make this offer here on television. I would encourage you to please take advantage of this, go to the effort of requesting it. We're making it as available to you as we possibly can. I'm not doing this to get the money, I'm doing it to get the word out. And so please listen to our announcer as he gives you this instruction and then call or write Today.
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Discover how to rise above the waves when you receive Andrew's teaching How to Become a Water Walker. Andrew is offering his booklet An Introduction to How to Become a Water Walker as his free gift to you today. This offer is limited to one free booklet per household and is available in the us, uk, Canada and Australia. Contact us today to receive your free booklet. Andrew's series how to Become a Water Walker is available as a book, a study guide and as a newly updated CD and DVD album made from our daily television broadcast. You can also enjoy this powerful teaching as a USB which includes both the audio and video. Each of these valuable resources are available for a gift of any amount. When you contact us, scan the QR code on the screen or go to awmi.net to see all the ways you can get these products. We want to remind you of Andrew's Living Commentary software. The Living Commentary includes more than 50 years of Andrew's Bible study notes and personal encounters with and is available as a web based software that you can access by computer or any mobile device. Get Andrew's Living Commentary Today we also want to say a special thank you to the Grace Partners of Andrew Wommack Ministries. Your gifts make it possible to put free ministry materials into the hands of many people in need. If you're not already a Grace Partner, we ask you to pray about becoming one today. You can become a Grace Partner through our website@awmi.net while there you can discover more product details and download additional free resources. Also, our products and additional resources are available in various languages through our web site. You can also order resources or receive prayer by calling our helpline at 719-635-1111. Our helpline is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to write us, use the address on your screen. We appreciate your generosity and hope to hear from.
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Ministry Announcer
Your gifts to Andrew Wommack are an eternal investment and they are multiplied through the graduates of Charis Bible College.
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Testimonial Speaker / Partner
I can't imagine how we pay as little as we do for tuition for as much as we get. And I know a lot of that is due to partners.
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Andrew Wommack
Charis has been the best thing that's ever happened to me.
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Ministry Announcer
Thank you friends and partners, for joining Andrew in this end time Harvest. These are your treasures in heaven.
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Charis Bible College Student
Am I a mistake?
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Testimonial Speaker / Partner
Did God overlook me?
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Andrew Wommack
Why do I still deal with depression?
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Testimonial Speaker / Partner
I need direction.
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Andrew Wommack
Why does life feel meaningless?
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Testimonial Speaker / Partner
Have I wasted my God?
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Andrew Wommack
Why don't I know what to do? God's people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. If you've got any problem in your life, it's really because you don't understand fully what God has done. This word is the greatest gift that God has ever given us because this is how we know Him. I'm promising you preparation Time is never wasted time. Regardless of what you feel that God has called you to do, you need to be prepared.
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Charis Bible College Student
At Charis Bible College, you will be transformed by the word of God. You will develop your relationship with God and ability to hear his voice. That is what is going to transform your life, your vision and your future. It's not too late. Stop disqualifying yourself. No matter who you are or what you've done, God still has a plan for you. Learn more@charisbiblecollege.org did you know that we.
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Andrew Wommack
Have over 200,000 hours of free material on our web site? I mean you. If you were to watch every single for eight hours a day, it would take you over 22 years to go through all of that. And it's free. We do have some things for sale, but we have a great web site. I encourage you to check it out. Awmi.net We've got television programs, radio programs, we've got videos, we've got teaching, we've got books on there. Just all kinds of things. Check it out. Awmi.net.