My Kindle version of the venerable JFB commentary. Better than the other slop on Amazon.

I got a Kindle from my mama and papa for Christ­mas, and I absolutely love it for reading — and only for reading. Light in my hand, reads with natural light, not the glow of a com­puter screen, and is purpose-focused on just one thing: reading.

One of the biggest dis­appoint­ments, however, is that many of the books available from Amazon are abso­lutely horrendous in their digital format­ting. The text often looks like it was OCRed and not corrected. Words are mis­spelled, missing, or run together. And these issues are horribly worse with the public domain materials, which seem to be, for the most part, sloppy auto­mated re­packag­ing of Inter­net Archive output. There may or may not be the nec­essary links to navi­gate the book (table of contents is a must, and an index is often helpful).

Amazon at least gives this slop out for free, but there are a slew of shady publishers on the store who like to charge for it. All of which gives a very bad experience for a user who actually likes to read, and cares about things like text, format, and setting.

I can’t save the world, but I can contribute better things. So I figured out how to make Kindle eBooks and distribute them in Amazon’s store. I’ve done two books so far: a short one of the Westminster Confession of Faith, with integrated Scripture proofs, and the longer Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, by Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown.

I think they are two great resources for Kindle, and are pleasant and useful in a properly formatted ebook. If you have a little spare change, I’d be honored for you to buy them from Amazon (99 cents and $3.99, respectively). If you’re hard up for cash, let me know and I’ll send you the book files directly.

Another publisher who cares about such things and seems to have invested significant effort to make usable Christian resources is OSNOVA. Don’t know the guy, but he is a conscientious guy and I think you’ll appreciate his materials.

I’m picky when it comes to Bibles. Binding has to be good, cover has to be perfect, margins can’t be too small, font can’t be some stupid modern nonsense, and the paper can’t be too thin or transparent. So this is just a quick note to plug an amazing good Bible, the Cambridge Pitt Minion.  You can even pick from major translations: mine is the ESV, my sister’s is the NIV, and there are also NKJV, NASB, and NLT options available.

Having used this as my primary Bible for two and a half years, I have to say this is the absolute best Bible I’ve ever owned. Quality leather that feels and looks nice and handles well. Sewn binding that is strong and permits the Bible to lay open flat (without holding) pretty much from beginning to end. Clear and crisp text, nice formatting and layout. The Bible has held up excellently.

One caveat for the potential buyer is that it is smaller than one might expect. I’m young, I can afford small text. But if somebody made this Bible just like it is, only 25% larger, I’d jump for it in a heartbeat.

I’m not getting paid for a review. I just really like my Bible!

Instead of making the IT person get up every morning at 7 am to do it, how ’bout a little scripting magic? Windows is no UNIX, but we can try.

First, some useful commands to stop and start a service:

net stop MSExchangeIS /y

net start MSExchangeIS /y

Works peachy if the service is actually responding. When it’s stuck, it doesn’t stop on request. You have to kill store.exe in Task Manager. But how do you script that? With PsTools, silly!

So in between that stop and start request, we add:

pskill store /accepteula

Make sure pskill is somewhere in the path of the user executing the batch file. The /accepteula switch is to prevent it from sticking at the EULA which pops up on first use, and perhaps again? — but since this is automated, you’d never know that it stuck, just that your information store never restarted.

Important here, by the way, is to try to stop the service before you kill it. That way if the thing is responding, we don’t send it the shock of a rough shutdown. Pskill will fail gracefully if the service is already stopped.

Put these bad boys in a batch file and run it after the backup completes. Presto change-o, an information store that is ready for the business day.

A side note: It seems that running Exchange on a Domain Controller is a bad idea. But this is Windows Small Business Server, so that’s exactly what we have. One major problem is that shutting the system down takes a full 30 minutes, because Windows kills Active Directory before Exchange and it sits spinning its wheels not knowing AD will never respond. Possible solution (not tested yet) is to script an Exchange shutdown by group policy before Windows itself starts shutdown. This one is for implementation another day…

Introduction

A. The story

John 6:16-21

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum.  It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.  The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing.  When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.  But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”  Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

B. Immediate context – it’s a sandwich!

The text we are considering is a relatively short passage, just 6 verses.  Whenever we begin a study, we examine where a section fits in the narrative, in the larger study of the particular book, and in the Bible, in God’s story as a whole.

Right before this passage is the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.  Right after this passage is the sermon that explains that particular miracle.  Jesus explains how he is the true bread from heaven – not just the new provider of manna, but the manna itself.  So the story of Jesus walking on water fits between the miracle of bread and the sermon on bread.  In effect, it’s a sandwich!

So how does this particular “meat” speaks to the “bread” that surrounds it.  I’ll tell you right up front.  In the miracle of the new manna, Jesus demonstrates to the crowd that he is indeed the prophet like Moses that God had promised.  But what he reveals to his disciples is that he is more than a bigger Moses – he is almighty God.

This is a huge thing.  What was veiled prior is veiled no more.  Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  When the crowds disperse at the end of John 6 because Jesus’ teaching is too difficult, it is these 12 disciples who remain with him.  They have seen and they know who he is and they know that only he has the words of life.

C. Context of the “seven signs” given by John

John, who wrote this gospel, also wants us to see who Jesus is.

The three other gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – record many different miracles performed by Jesus.  But in selecting the material for his book, John focuses specifically on just seven miracles.  More than miracles, these are signs that have deep meaning for Jesus’ identity, his work, and our salvation.

Walking on water is the fifth of the seven signs.  To put things in context, here are the seven, with what we can learn from each:

1. Water into wine
Jesus is the True Vine who gives us life and joy in abundance.

2. Healing of the nobleman’s son
God saves us through faith in his Son.

3. Healing of the paralytic
God saves us by his grace alone.  Salvation is Jesus’ prerogative, and by his work and word alone.  Our work cannot accomplish it.

4. Feeding of the 5,000
Jesus is the Bread of Life who satisfies our hunger.

5. Walking on water, stilling the storm
Jesus is the divine Son of God who delivers us by his mighty power.

6. Healing the blind man
Jesus is the Light of the World who overcomes the darkness.

7. Raising Lazarus from the dead
Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life who overcomes death.

D. Themes

There are a few themes that we’ve been seeing in John that intertwine with our passage today.  There is a hint of the theme of darkness and light.  There is certainly the continued revealing of the identity of Jesus as the eternal Word become flesh.

In a larger sense there is the theme of Exodus, as Jesus is revealed as the Prophet like Moses who was promised by God.

One cool theme that I want to point out but not spend too much time on, because we’ll see it in later messages, is the connection here to Jesus the Good Shepherd.  Did you notice that before he fed the 5,000, he made them sit down in the grass?  And now Jesus calms the storm and brings the disciples safely to their destination.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures.  He leads me besides the still waters.  He restores my soul.”

E. The overall theme of John

All of this comes under one overall theme.  The recording of the seven distinct signs, of the distinct “I am” discourses, of the whole of John is for a purpose.  The apostle John tells us that “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.  But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name.”

I. God sends us into storms

A. The Lord sends us out

When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. (v. 16-17)

Last week we left off as Jesus was just finishing feeding the many thousands who had gathered.  He did this miraculously with only five loaves of bread and two fish – and there were leftovers!  The people recognized Jesus as a great prophet, and were ready to make him king.  But Jesus would have nothing of it.

John’s retelling of this event is short; Matthew tells us a few more details.  While Jesus was dismissing the crowds, he told his disciples to get in the boat and start across the lake.  And then Jesus went by himself up to the mountain to pray.

Soon after they are sent out by Jesus, they find themselves in the midst of a storm.   A strong wind was blowing from the west, making the sea rough and their sails useless.

B. God raises the storms

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. (v. 18)

Storms, particularly powerful storms, cry out the power and sovereignty of God.

God is the lord of all creation.  We talked in our catechism a few weeks back about the providence of God, how he oversees and rules over all things.  God is the sovereign King, and nothing occurs that is not directly caused or permitted by his will.  Despite our scientific knowledge and our work to subdue the earth, the weather is one thing that is yet clearly beyond our control.

Psalm 107 paints a useful picture for us, and we’ll be returning to it at the end of our message:

²³ Some went down to the sea in ships,
doing business on the great waters;
²⁴ they saw the deeds of the Lord,
his wondrous works in the deep.
²⁵ For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.

1. God often raises storms in response to our disobedience

God often sends storms because we have disobeyed.  He turns life into chaos to awaken us to our need to turn to him.  You remember Jonah, who was called to deliver God’s message to Nineveh.  He refused to go, boarding a ship that would take him as far as he could go in the opposite direction.  God sent a storm to that ship that threatened all who were aboard.  Jonah confessed his guilt to the sailors, who agreed to throw him overboard to save themselves.

Sure we see God’s active weather-making in Jonah, but how about the difficulties that seem to be consequences of our own actions, as apposed to God’s testing us.  What about the hell of going through withdrawal from drugs or alcohol, for instance?  What about the difficulties brought on by our financial disobedience?  Or the chaos of a family whose husband and father is in jail for crimes he committed?  Or the relational nightmares of adultery and pornography?

We did these crimes, surely we brought the storms, did we not?  But if we think fully through our declaration that all things are under God’s authority and control, even these storms have to be according to his will.  The storms that seem to be the natural consequences of our actions are in fact God’s work in our lives.  This is particularly difficult to accept when the storms that God raises in response to our sin are the cause of pain and even death for other people, people we love.

This is not the point or direction of this text, but it is worth making known.  It is God’s grace when our disobedience has consequences! How horrible would it be to remain in our sin with an easy path ahead of us, unaware of the mortal danger that lies ahead?  We enjoy this life in our rebellion, only to face judgment and eternal condemnation.  The storms are warnings for us to turn from our wicked ways for the saving of our souls.  Heed God’s correction.  Turn to Jesus.

2. God sometimes raises storms when we obey

But not all storms are because of our disobedience.  Indeed, God will sometimes raise up storms in our lives because of our obedience. This was the case here.  After Jesus had fed the multitudes, the disciples obeyed his instruction to set out across the sea.  They obeyed, and yet God raised up a storm to frustrate their task.

Job was a man who was “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”  Yet it is Job who suffered the blistering attacks of the devil, not absent God’s protection, but indeed with God’s permission and oversight.  In quick succession he lost all of his servants, all of his possessions, and all of his children.  He was left only with a nagging wife (seems Satan thought it a good idea to keep her around!) and three misguided friends, convinced they could fix Job if he would only repent of his evil.

3. For the perfecting of our faith

So if they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, why are the disciples surrounded by the storm?  If Job was a blameless man, why would God permit him to be persecuted to these great extremes?  Understanding the love of God the Father, we know that these trials have to be for our good.  The question is, what purpose do they serve?

The passage that Dave taught on Wednesday night was from 1 Peter, and it told us that we need to have humble minds.  Humility is not thinking more of ourselves than we ought. In light of our sin and God’s grace, humility means to be fully depending on God.  The opposite of humility is pride.  I think the difficulties that God gives us protect us from perhaps the greatest danger and the greatest temptation we face: PRIDE.

Pride has many dimensions, one of which is the idea that we are smart enough or strong enough to handle the situation all by ourselves.  We don’t need – or we don’t want – help.  When looking at 1 Peter on Wednesday night, Dave told us that “pride says, ‘I’ll call you when I need you, Lord.’”  The storm is God’s way of saying, “you need me always!”  With Dave, my prayer for this church is also “that we would look more and more to the Lord of glory, and humbly depend on him.”

So how were the disciples tempted by pride?  They had experienced great excitement as they took part in a thrilling miracle – the feeding of the multitudes.  (They might even still have the leftovers in the boat.)  Their adrenaline was pumping, the crowds were excited, and their humble leader was about to be made king!  Peter was in line to be the right-hand man of the greatest empire ever formed; the other disciples surely would have formed his cabinet of leaders and governors.

The crowd’s move to make Jesus king was not just about Jesus, but was a powerful narcotic that fed the disciples’ desire for greatness.  Jesus sent them away from this temptation, and God reminded them through the storm of their weakness and inability.  He reminded them through the storm of their need for a Savior.  Indeed, the Lord has to balance our lives, otherwise we become proud and then fall.

There was one man in the story of Job who spoke some measure of wisdom.  Elihu rebuked both his friends’ misguided condemnation, but also Job’s pride.  Here’s what Elihu said:

¹¹ God loads the thick cloud with moisture;
the clouds scatter his lightning.
¹² They turn around and around by his guidance,
to accomplish all that he commands them
on the face of the habitable world.
¹³ Whether for correction or for his land
or for love, he causes it to happen.

Every storm, even Job’s storm, comes from the hand of God – the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord!  Each accomplishes all that he commands.  Whether for correction, for the earth, or for the sake of love for us, he causes them to happen.

I listened to a new song last night, and some of the words struck me:

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize just how beautiful you are.
Oh how he loves us so
Oh how he loves, how he loves us so.

God uses times of difficulty to remind us of our weakness – and to reveal in ever greater measure his glory and the greatness of his saving work.  The storms are eclipsed by the greater glory of the Savior, and we suddenly realize how beautiful he is, and how much he loves us.

C. All is darkness without Christ

It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. (v. 17)

Notice two things about the disciples’ situation.  It was dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.  At first glance, this verse seems just to be a description of the situation.  It sets the scene.  From the disciples’ perspective, they were used to Jesus going off alone, and were probably comfortable on the sea.  Some of the disciples were fisherman, and would have been accustomed to fishing on this very lake during the night.

But particularly in John, with the recurring theme of darkness and light, and of the coming of the Son of God into the world, we need to take a closer look.  I think there are a few things we can tease out of this verse.

First, for those who do not know Jesus, everything is darkness. By God’s grace there is joy and sorrow in this life. But there is no hope, and no comfort in the midst of the storms, without Jesus in our lives.  This is the greatest darkness of all, and the very definition of hell.  Jesus, the Son of God, became flesh and dwelt among us, so that we may behold his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  Jesus comes into the darkness of this world and brings the light of life.

A second thought here related to the concept of darkness.  For we who are his disciples, sometimes we are surrounded by clouds and darkness.  This makes the storms all the more difficult, for we cannot see our way out.  We have trouble seeing God’s hand in the design and the purpose of the storm.  In the first storm recorded in Matthew, Jesus was in the back of the boat.  Sure, he was sleeping, but he was there to save them.  In this storm, Jesus asks them to trust his unseen care for them.

There are times when Jesus seems to withdraw himself from us.  We feel distant, we miss his touch, his voice.  For reasons that only he knows, these “dark nights of the soul” are his work to test and refine us.  Surely Jesus, by his Spirit, is never absent from us.  He never abandons us, and is always watching over us.  Mark tells us that as the disciples rowed across the lake, Jesus was watching them.  His concern was for his disciples, and in due time, at just the right time, he came to them.

II. Jesus comes to us

A. He comes “at just the right time”

When they had rowed about three or four miles. (v. 19)

[His time, the fullness of time, God’s sense of patience.  “At just the right time, when we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.”]

So in the fourth watch of the night, maybe 4 o’clock in the morning, after the disciples had been rowing for much of the night, and had only gotten about three or four miles across the sea, about halfway, Jesus came to them.

B. He comes with power and glory

They saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. (v. 19)

This was no ordinary arrival.  You might think Jesus would hop in another boat and follow after the disciples.  You might expect in the midst of a contrary wind for him to walk around the lake and meet them at the other side – in fact, this is what the multitudes did the very next day.  But an ordinary arrival would not suffice, because Jesus is no ordinary man.

He walks on the sea, the sea that is tossed with great waves due to a strong wind, to come to his disciples.   So what is this miracle of walking on water?  It may seem like a minor miracle in the grand scheme of things.  But when you realize that miracles are signs that are meant to signify, to teach us something.  So what is this sign supposed to teach us?

To figure this out in the gospel of John, I think we have to look back at the book of Exodus and consider the miracles that God performed through Moses.  God had promised that he would raise another great prophet, like Moses, to deliver Israel.  The people made this connection, as we see a little earlier in John 6, when they decide that he’s the very Prophet that God had promised, and they were ready to make him king.  So what are the connections?

Looking at Jesus’ first sign in John 2, turning water into wine, you see he has surpassed the sign of the water that was turned into blood.  Blood signifies the judgment of the Law.  Wine, on the other hand, signifies the abundant new life that comes to us through grace. The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth have come to us through Jesus.

When Jesus was talking with the Samaritan woman in John 4, they had a little conversation about water.  Jacob had provided his descendants with water in the desert by digging a well.  God, through Moses, provided water to the Israelites in the desert from the rock that Moses spoke to, and the second one which he struck in anger.  Jesus offered the Samaritan woman water that would not just preserve this current life, but give eternal life.  Jesus himself is God’s spring of living water!

When Jesus provided bread for the multitudes, the people saw a parallel with the provision of manna in the desert.  As we’ll see in later messages, though, the true bread that Jesus offers is himself.  He is the Bread of Heaven.  Eat of him and live!

Now that we’ve moved on to consider Jesus’ power over the waves, we remember that Moses parted the Red Sea so that the Israelites could walk across on dry ground.  In like fashion, Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha parted the Jordan River.

Moses and the Israelites went through the waters, but Jesus walked on the waters.  The question is what does this tell us about Jesus?  I can tell you what the disciples thought it told them – Matthew says that those in the boat worshiped him and declared that, “truly, you are the Son of God.”

John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Job: “God is wise in heart and mighty in strength.  He tears up mountains, and they know it not; he shakes the very pillars of the earth; he commands the sun not to rise, and it does not rise.  He stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.”

Psalm 89: “O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty as you are, O LORD, with your faithfulness all around you? You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.”

The disciples have seen glimpses of Christ’s glory before. They have marveled and wondered at the identity of this man who is obviously anointed by God.  But here, perhaps for the first time, Jesus reveals, by a raw display of his superiority over all creation, his identity as God incarnate.

C. He comes with words of peace

But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” (v. 20)

What is our natural reaction to such a raw display of power?  Fear.

This is not just the promised Prophet, who happens to do better miracles than Moses.  This is not just the promised King, who will reestablish the throne of David, and free Israel from its oppressors.  Jesus Christ is the eternal Lord of glory, the Son of the Most High God.

Isaiah saw the Lord, seated on his throne, descend into the Temple and train of his robe – just his robe! – filled the Temple with glory.  “Woe is me, I am undone!”  Why? “Because I am a man of unclean lips.”  Our very nature as sinners makes us afraid of the approach of God’s glory and his majesty.  We know it in our bones that we stand condemned.

The disciples weren’t even sure it was Jesus they were seeing.  Matthew tells us that they thought they saw a ghost, a spirit, an apparition.  Perhaps they thought this was a demon come to finish their destruction.  The reactions are the same: “Woe is me, I am undone!”

But how sweet then to hear the Savior’s words of peace.  “It is I; do not be afraid.”

Matthew Henry: “Nothing is more powerful to convince sinners than that word, ‘I am Jesus whom thou persecutest;’ nothing more powerful to comfort saints than this, ‘I am Jesus whom thou lovest;’ it is I that love thee, and seek thy good; be not afraid of me, nor of the storm.”

When trouble is near, Christ is near.

III. Jesus delivers us safely

Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. (v. 21)

The disciples gladly received Jesus into the boat, and “immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going,” verse 21.

This is perhaps another miracle that the boat suddenly arrived at the shore.  Perhaps it is comparative – they arrived at their destination “in no time at all.”  The truth we need to see, however, is that it is Jesus who brought them safely there.

The storms of God’s mercy are certainly difficult and frustrating.  The disciples had rowed for much of the night, and were stuck in the middle of the sea.

But the greatest storm from which our Savior delivers us is the storm of God’s wrath.  The fury of the wind and the waves is but a taste of the fury of God’s anger poured out in judgment. No amount of struggling can deliver us safe to “that other shore” in the face of that storm.  The Son of God is the one who stood in the face of that wrath, who walked through the fury and violence of that storm victorious over sin and death.  Only Christ’s accomplished work on our behalf, and the power of his resurrection, can bring us finally “home.”

Let’s look back to Psalm 107, which we considered at the beginning of our time.

²⁸ Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
²⁹ He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.
³⁰ Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.

What is the necessary response for the redeemed?

³¹ Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man!

We looked at only a small portion of Psalm 107, but the entire psalm is about how the Lord redeems us from our trouble.  Those who are hungry and thirsty in the wilderness are led to a gleaming city where their longing souls are satisfied.  Those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death are set free from their prisons, as he shatters the doors that hold them and cuts in two the bars of their cells.  Those who are foolish, who have suffered because of their sin, cry out to the Lord and are healed by the very Word that is sent out by the Father.

For those who have not yet experienced divine rescue, cry out to the Lord!  He will hear your cry and will have mercy upon you.  No sin or guilt, no suffering, no demon, no personal hell is too great for God’s power.  By the blood of Jesus redemption is accomplished and salvation is won.  Our Father will move Heaven and Earth, and bring to bear the armies of his angels, to bring deliverance to his children.

(Isaiah 43:1-3)

But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Conclusion

If I had to sum this passage up in one sentence, here it is again: “Jesus is the divine Son of God who delivers us by his mighty power.”

Let those who have been redeemed give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love.  Let us marvel at the miraculous deliverance of Jesus.  Who are we that he should know our names?  God’s faithful, pursuing love, and his mighty power which he displayed when he raised Christ from the dead, has rescued us, and will yet rescue us, from all our troubles.

¹ Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
² Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble.

One thing that struck me very deeply as I prepared for this sermon is what this passage says to Wyoming Avenue Baptist Church.  As we seek a pastor and struggle for the very life of the church, let us be encouraged.  Know that the road we are on is not by accident – we walk the very path that God has set before us.  This storm is of his making, and it is for our good.  We must, as the disciples, keep rowing.  But in due time, Jesus will come to us, and will reveal his glory in greater measure.  And I believe that he will deliver each and every one of us, and his church, safely through this storm.

Matthew Henry: “The ship of the church, in which the disciples of Christ have embarked themselves and their all, may be much shattered and distressed, yet is shall come safe to the harbor at last; tossed at sea, but not lost; cast down, but not destroyed; the bush burning, but not consumed.  The power and presence of the church’s King shall expedite and facilitate her deliverance, and conquer the difficulties which have baffled the skill and industry of her friends. The disciples had rowed hard, but could not make their point till they had got Christ in the ship, and then the work was done suddenly.”

Though the night be dark and the wind strong, let us be comforted by this, that we will be at the shore shortly, and are nearer than we think.

A thousand years ago you and I were nothing, and yet the church was preserved at that time without us. He who is called “who was” and “yesterday” had to accomplish this. Even during our lifetime we are not the church’s guardians. It is not preserved by us, for we are unable to drive off the devil in the persons of the pope, the sects, and evil individuals. If it were up to us, the church would perish before our very eyes, and we together with it (as we experience daily). But it is another who obviously preserves both the church and us. He does this so plainly that we could touch and feel it, if we did not want to believe it. We must leave this to him who is called “who is” and “today.” Likewise we will contribute nothing toward the preservation of the church after our death. He who is called “who is to come” and “forever” will accomplish it. What we are now saying about ourselves in this respect, our ancestors also had to say, as is borne out by the psalms and the Scriptures. And out descendants will make the same discovery, prompting them to join us and the entire church in singing Psalm 124: “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say,” etc.

It is a tragic thing that there are so many examples before us of those who thought they had to preserve the church, as though it were built on them. In the end they perished miserably. Yet such fierce judgment of God cannot break, humble, or check our pride and wickedness. What was Munzer’s fate in our day (to say nothing of old and former times), who imagined that the church could not exist without him and that he had to bear it up and rule it? Recently the Anabaptists reminded us forcefully enough how mighty and how close to us the lovely devil is, and how dangerous our pretty thoughts are, impelling us to pause and reflect (according to the advice of Isaiah) before any undertaking, to determine whether it is God or an idol, whether gold or clay. But it is no use — we are so secure, without fear and concern; the devil is far from us, and we have none of that flesh in us that was in St. Paul and of which he complains in Romans 7:23, exclaiming that he cannot deliver himself from it as he would like, but that he is captive to it. No, we are the heroes who need not worry about our flesh and our thoughts. We are sheer spirit, we have taken captive our own flesh together with the devil, so that all our thoughts and ideas are surely and certainly inspired by the Holy Spirit, and how can the Spirit be found wanting? Therefore it all has such a nice ending — namely, that both steed and rider break their necks.

But this is enough of such lamentations. May our dear Lord Christ be and remain our dear Lord Christ, praised forever. Amen.

(From “Martin Luther’s basic theological writings,” some pages of which are available on Google Books.)

My major issue with purchasing these units is that there is no good review information online for any of the Promise gear. No user forums, either. So you don’t know what you’re getting in to, and have to trust the word of the sales guy (did I mention these things are generally only available through reseller channels?). To perhaps help the next guy, I wanted to provide some feedback on my experiences.

Load

I got my units empty, which I hear they won’t be doing anymore. Came with all the necessary trays and screws to load drives. SATA drives work with no adapters (unlike some Dell arrays), haven’t tried SAS drives. Simple as pie. Biggest trouble was dealing with all the trash: boxes, bubble wrap, and clamshells for the hard drives from CDW.

Power Up

The dual power supplies are rated at 450W each, 900W total, and a max draw of 9A on 100V. So I was worried about overloading my 15A circuit with two of these starting up. From experience, however, the half-loaded unit draws far less. A CyberPower UPS (very nice unit, by the way) shows a peak wattage at startup of 225W, which is only 2A at 110V. Wattage once the fans have gone to normal speed is under 150W. (This is one expensive light bulb!)

UPS Compatibility

The VessRAID has two USB ports on the back to connect the unit to an Uninterruptible Power Supply. (The second one is for an un-defined support mechanism to upload config or debug files via flash drive.) Given that there’s a pretty well-developed UPS standard for using USB HID interfaces, and I figured just about anything new should work. Nope.

The hardware compatibility list provided by Promise lists only two compatible units: APC Smart-UPS 1500, and APC Smart-UPS 3000. My guess is they’re using an antiquated APC protocol. Important note: you cannot use the cheaper SC line from APC, because they only include a serial port, not a USB port, which you get at double the price on the non-SC units. So you probably don’t want to stray from the hardware compatibility list, particularly when buying a UPS.

If, however, you’re creative, you can make something work. If you have a regular server attached to any other UPS, you could use SSH or telnet scripting to login to the VessRAID CLI and initiate a shutdown. I tested it using the Telnet Scripting Tool by Albert Yale (widely available, including at an unauthorized archive of the guy’s software).

Initial Configuration

Initial config, particularly for the network settings, is best done via the serial console port. The units include a RJ-11 to DB-9 cable, but you’ll need a working serial port on your PC or laptop. Given that most laptops don’t have one these days, you might want to invest in a USB to Serial adapter. The Trendnet TU-S9 was cheap and seems to work well.

Management through the web interface must be done on the management port, so configure it in a subnet that you can access from your other machines. NAS and iSCSI will happen through the iSCSI ports. NAS should be on the same network as the clients; you might want to isolate iSCSI traffic in a different subnet (or even a separate physical network).

Configuration (NAS)

All the “i” units of the VessRAID 1000 series (i.e., the 1840i) are mainly intended to be used as iSCSI devices, and have 4 x Gigabit ports for that very purpose. However, they also have a built in Network Attached Storage system that can be used to provide Windows sharing, FTP, and NFS access.

The pros of this arrangement:

• The VessRAID units operate as their own distinct servers, and need not rely on any other machine to do their storage work. Particularly useful on a smaller network, or for a very particular storage task.
• The units will sync themselves automatically, using a customized version of rsync. You can easily configure this backup from one unit to another in the web configuration software.
• Multiple clients can access the same file system at the same time. Remember that with iSCSI, the array is presenting the low-level data blocks to the initiator on the client (a Windows server, for instance), so there is no way that multiple clients could use one file system at the same time — unless you share it through the client.

The cons of this arrangement:

• Active Directory support (available via a firmware upgrade) is poorly implemented. Getting the NAS connected to your domain is a touchy matter, requiring an exact combination of case-sensitive domain and user names that I got to work, but couldn’t figure out.
• Active Directory permissions are even worse. Instead of specifying which users or groups should be used in the ACL for a particular share, the NAS web configuration presents ALL of your users and groups, with default full access permissions.  If you want to include only a few users, you have to click “Deny” on every other users. If you want to include a group, you can’t effectively, because the Deny permissions on individual users will override Allow permissions on a group. This implementation is absolutely useless.
• Poor support for Windows permission lists. This is true in any SAMBA implementation, because the underlying Linux-based file system only supports the user/group/all permission scheme. So the NAS can’t handle fine-grained permissions on folders or files within a share.
• Speed. Access through iSCSI is much faster.

Configuration (iSCSI)

I originally configured the units in NAS mode, but the client wanted to put some Windows user shares on the array, which require fine-grained folder permissions. So I reconfigured the logical disk for iSCSI use.

The simplest approach is to use Microsoft’s iSCSI Initiator (included in Windows 2008 server, and available to download for Windows 2003 server). There are good instructions available in the VessRAID documentation and from Microsoft on how to get this to work. Especially helpful for best practices is Microsoft’s step-by-step guide.

After connecting the client to the logical disk using iSCSI, you format it in the Windows Disk Management utility. To enable use of partitions larger than 2 TB, you have to convert the disk to use GUID Partition Tables (GPT). Once done, the whole space should be available to format using NTFS. I won’t discuss it here, but make sure to consider the types of files being stored, and other requirements (such as Shadow Copies or NTFS Compression), when choosing an appropriate cluster size.

Benchmarking

I used PassMark’s Performance Test software to obtain some basic benchmark numbers for the VessRAID’s performance. This is using a standard Broadcom Gigabit interface on a Dell Poweredge 1900. All arrays are RAID5.

Note the very significant performance difference between the WriteBack cache setting the WriteThru cache setting on the VessRAID. WriteThru writes the data directly to the disks when it arrives. WriteBack holds data in cache before flushing it to disk, which is far more efficient, as sectors can be written together and larger chunks at a time. To safely do this, however, requires a battery backup for the cache, so that if power is cut suddenly you don’t lose that data (which hasn’t yet been written to disk). The problem is that Promise does NOT include the battery with the units. It’ll cost you an extra $100. You’d figure on larger units like this they wouldn’t nickel-and-dime you, but they do.

Correction: I had reversed the WriteThru and WriteBack terms. I have corrected it in the text above, after the feedback from the commenter below.

So we found the wiring schematics from Carrier. The high power stuff was wired correctly. Problem had to be in the low voltage. So we traced compressor 1′s control wiring from the thermostat connections through the pressure switches, and did the same with compressor 2 (minus the now-disconnected switches). Everything seemed to be correct, except that the incoming low voltage for C2 wasn’t powered.

So we traced a little further, and found a broken jumper in the economizer unit that was constantly calling for outside air, and also thus not energizing the second compressor. My father the soldering gun guru did a little magic on the resistor wire, and C2 powered right up.

Back in the summer of ’95, I had a crazy little summer internship for NAVSSES, the Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. I worked for the boiler control division, doing electrical diagrams for steam boiler and turbine control systems. And now, 15 years later, it finally pays off. Turns out I can read an electrical diagram.

More important, I think, is Stafford’s followup response in this month’s issue (the Letters section):

Ever since my story appeared in Christianity Today, the most common question I’ve heard is, “How did you move from pain to deliverance?”  My reply to readers is a single word: forgiveness.

At age 17, I realized that those who hurt me would never apologize. They weren’t even sorry. But I could no longer bear carrying the pain of my past, so I chose to forgive them anyway. “Get out of my heart. Get out of my mind. Get out of my life!” I remember saying. “What you did to me will not define me. You stole my childhood, but you cannot have the rest of my life. Get out — I forgive you!”

Since then I’ve learned that while God always requires us to forgive, forgiving isn’t saying that what happened was okay. It doesn’t release someone from the consequences of their actions. And it doesn’t require letting someone back into your life. It does mean giving up the right to seek revenge.

So, here is my counsel to those who have suffered: If you have never been able to forgive, you are allowing the person who hurt you to live rent-free in your heart. It’s costing him nothing and costing you everything. Perhaps it’s time for you to evict him through forgiveness.

One of the things that wasn’t particularly obvious was how to add our own logo next to Google’s logo at the bottom left of the map window. Especially if other sites will be using the maps (like PhilaPlace, for instance), there should be some credit and a link back to the source of the maps. This wasn’t obvious, but it wasn’t hard. Here’s how to do it:

1. Make a nice little logo, probably about 30 pixels high, and not too wide. It should be a PNG file with transparency, so it overlays nicely in the Google Maps interface.

2. Create a new Javascript file that contains the class for your “custom control,” which is Google’s term for any element that sits on top of the map window but doesn’t move around with the map. In this file (here’s the geohistory.js file), you should have the following:

// SETUP CUSTOM GOOGLE MAPS CONTROL TO DISPLAY GEOHISTORY LOGO

// instantiate the new "class"
function GeoHistoryLogoControl() {}

// inherit the functions from Google's Control class
GeoHistoryLogoControl.prototype = new GControl();

// setup the content of the control
GeoHistoryLogoControl.prototype.initialize = function(map)
{
     var container = document.createElement("div");

     var lnk = document.createElement("a");
     lnk.href = 'http://www.philageohistory.org';
     lnk.title = 'Historic map images provided by the ↵
          Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network';
     lnk.target = '_blank';

     var img = document.createElement("img");
     img.src = 'http://www.philageohistory.org/tiles/viewer/ ↵
          images/mapsfromgeohistory.png';

     lnk.appendChild(img);
     container.appendChild(lnk);
     map.getContainer().appendChild(container);

     return container;
}

// set the default location for the control
GeoHistoryLogoControl.prototype.getDefaultPosition = function()
{
     return new GControlPosition(G_ANCHOR_BOTTOM_LEFT, new GSize(75,4));
}

3. In your page that contains the map, load the Javascript file you created above, then add the control to your map.

<script src="js/geohistory.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script type="text/javascript">
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map"));
map.enableDoubleClickZoom();
map.enableScrollWheelZoom();

map.addControl(new GLargeMapControl());  // navigation
map.addControl(new GeoHistoryLogoControl());  // logo

map.setCenter(new GLatLng(39.95,-75.2), 13);
</script>

That’s it. Works like a charm.