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anyone except His heavenly Father who was His sole Plan Mak er. For this reason He instructed His disciples to embark for Ca pernaum while He dispersed the multitude. For their own good, it was essential that the disciples be separated from the scene. So Christ sent them away first, which left Him free to deal with the crowd alone. “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.” Matthew 14:22. As the people sadly and angrily left, they recognized that there was little hope of their plans receiving Christ’s endorse ment. Their experience is a further illustration of the truth that “faith without deeds is useless.” James 2:20. As we have seen, faith mixed with human works is faith without God’s works, and as such is faith without works as de fined by James in the above Scripture. The only outcome for this combination of faith and human works is a dying faith, which is dark unbelief. The surest way to destroy a living, vi brant faith experience is to mix human works, plans, and so lutions with it. Such a combination is guaranteed to destroy even the strongest faith, which is demonstrated forcibly in this story. When the five thousand had been miraculously fed, their faith in Christ as the Messiah was very strong. No doubts dimmed their vision and they felt assured that the Promised One was truly among them. They were enthusiastic and confident, excit ed and happy. The future seemed filled with the brightest of prospects. They had no doubts about Christ’s marvelous capabil ities and they were sure He could more than carry out the “splendid” plans they had formed on His behalf. If they had only accepted God’s works at this point and com bined them with their faith, the results would have been very wonderful. But they did not. In the plans they formed that day, there was not a single thread of divine participation. It was all of them and none of God. Worse still, even though they Separation from Christ