Good evening, good to see everybody
here. Let's open tonight's service with hymn number 225 in the hardback
temple, 225. Let's all stand together. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
come unto me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, lay
down thy head upon my breast. I came to Jesus as I was, weary
and worn and sad. I found in Him a resting place,
and He has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Behold, I freely give. The living water, thirsty one,
stoop down and drink and live. I came to Jesus and I drank of
that life-giving stream. My thirst was quenched, my soul
revived, and now I live in I heard the voice of Jesus say,
I am this dark world's light. Look unto me, thy morn shall
rise, and all thy day be bright. I looked to Jesus, and I found
in him my star, my sun. And in that light of life I'll
walk till traveling days are gone. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to Isaiah
chapter 55, Isaiah 55. I didn't know what hymn we were
going to open with tonight, how appropriate what we just sang
is to this scripture. Isaiah 55, beginning at verse
one. Ho, everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye,
buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. I like that word price, it's
the word barter. You say, what's the difference
between money and price? Well, the word price means to
barter and how prone we are to try to do that with God. Can't
buy it, you can't trade for it, it's free. Wherefore do you spend
money for that which is not bread and you labor for that which
satisfies not, hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which
is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness. The mouth
of faith is the ear. Verse three, incline your ear
and come unto me here and your soul shall live and I will make
an everlasting covenant with you even the sure mercies of
David. Behold, I have given him for
a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we ask for the grace to do what you have commanded. We know,
Lord, that what you require you must enable. We ask that you
would give us ears to hear. We pray that you would create
in our souls a thirst for Christ. We ask, Lord, that you would
enable us to come to the river of life and drink freely. We
pray, Lord, that you would forgive us for our thoughts and behavior
of trying to barter with you and a mercenary salvation, Lord.
We know that if we're to be saved, it'll be all of thee and it'll
be all of grace. And Lord, we pray, Lord, that
you would be merciful to us this hour and that you would reveal
more of the glory of Christ and and draw us Lord into the him
and cause us to run onto the Lord. We thank you for the progress
that you've given Marvin and asked Lord for your hand of strength
to continue to be upon him and give him a full recovery. And
we Thank you for Deanna and Robert. What an encouragement they are
to our fellowship. And Lord, we ask that you would
give those that minister health to them, that you would
give them understanding and wisdom, and Lord, that you would help
Deanna and the doctors that care for her. We ask it in Christ's
name, amen. Deanna went in the hospital Monday.
She went home today, but she has to go back for some other
heart-related procedures and told her that we would pray for
her. So as the Lord enables you to
remember her. And Marvin did go home yesterday,
so he's still got a ways to go, but he's making progress, so
thankful for that. Tom? Number 374, let's all stand together
again, 374. Jesus calls us for the tumult
of our lives while restless sea. Day by day His sweet voice soundeth,
saying, Christian, follow me. Jesus calls us from the worship
of the vain world's golden store, from each idol that would keep
us, saying, Christian, love me more. In our joys and in our
sorrows, Days of toil and hours of ease, Still He calls in cares
and pleasures, Christian love be more than these. I love the last line of that
hymn. Give our hearts loving obedience. We might serve Thee. We don't
use that term Christian much because it's so abused in the
world, but it is biblical and it is a good word. It's a good
name. And the last phrase of that hymn
that we just sang defines what a Christian is, a follower of
Christ. I pray the Lord will enable us
to follow him tonight. Let's open our Bibles together
to Matthew chapter 14. Matthew chapter 14. Everything
that the Lord said and everything that our Lord did is of infinite
value and it is eternally profitable. to the salvation of his people. It is glorious how the Holy Spirit
often takes a very simple phrase in God's Word and drives it home
to our hearts. We looked at that phrase, who
am I, Sunday, and I know the Lord has reminded me of that
often. and taking just those three simple
words and taught my heart so much from that. How the Holy Spirit can take
what is seemingly an obscure word and speak so much light
and so much truth and so much comfort and hope to the hearts
of His people with just a word, a fit word. empowered by God's
Spirit. All of that being true, when
the Lord gives a large portion of Scripture to something, we
must pause and give special attention to that. We've been on Wednesday nights
looking at the miracles that are recorded in the Gospels that
our Lord performed. And we know that many of the
things he did that are not written in this book, but these have
been written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
son of the living God, and that believing we might have life
through his name. These miracles all point us to
him. And of all the miracles that
are recorded, there's only one that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John record for us. The Holy Spirit
inspired all four gospel writers to give us an account of this
miracle. And not only of this miracle,
but of another miracle that is almost identical to it. In the
miracle that we're looking at tonight, we have 5,000 fed by
five loaves and two small fishes. And then just two chapters later,
we're gonna have 4,000 that are gonna be fed by seven loaves
and a few small fishes. The significance of this miracle
has caused me to pause and and give some special attention to
what it is the Lord is saying. And there's so much, so much
in each one of these recorded miracles where the Lord has compassion
over a large group of people and he feeds them. It's almost
as if when the Lord says, verily, verily, now what he says when
he says verily, verily, is not any more inspired or more significant
than anything else he said, but he's saying pay special attention
because I'm going to summarize something for you here that you
need to hear. Matthew chapter 14, and we'll
begin reading at verse 13. And when Jesus heard of it, that
is the murder of John the Baptist, he departed thence by ship into
a desert place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, they followed him on foot out of the city. And Jesus
went forth and saw the great multitude and was moved with
compassion toward them. And he healed their sick. And when it was evening, his
disciples came to him saying, "'This is a desert place, and
the time is now past. "'Send the multitude away that
they may go into the villages "'and buy themselves vituals.'"
I understand that's the word from which we get our word vitals.
It means food to eat, that they might buy food for themselves. "'But Jesus said unto them, "'They
need not depart, give ye them to eat.'" You feed them. And they said to him, we have
here but five loaves and two fishes. And he said, bring them hither
to me. And we may try to bring a couple, three messages from
this miracle since it is recorded so many times. And each one of
the gospel writers gives, it seems, emphasis to a different
aspect of it. When I read Matthew's account,
it seemed to me that verse 18 is the one that stood out. Bring
them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the grass and took the five loaves and the
two fishes and looked up to heaven. He blessed and break and gave
the loaves to the disciples and the disciples to the multitude.
And they did all eat and were filled. And they took up of the
fragments that remained 12 baskets full. They that had eaten were about
5,000 men besides the women and children. Families would have been typically
much larger than four people, but let's just say that there
was a wife to each one of the men and a couple of kids. We're
talking 20,000 people. 20,000 people. That's a pretty good group of
people. The Lord said to the disciples,
you feed them. One of the writers said 200 penny worth of money
would not be sufficient to feed them. And they're out in the
desert and the villages would have been very small. I've been
in small villages in developing countries You know, you show
up with a busload of 30, 40 people and it overwhelms them. How is
20,000 people gonna find food to eat in the villages? The disciples didn't know what
to do. Send them away, they'll find some way to take care of
themselves. No, no, you feed them. Lord, we can't. And one of the gospel writers
says, and he said that to them to try them. He was proving them. He was getting them to see the
impossibility on their part to provide for this large group
of tired and hungry people. Bring them hither. to me. Now the sad thing about this
story is if you continue to read in Matthew and also in a couple
of other accounts, you find that the people that he fed were only interested in having
their bellies full. He rebuked them for that. This was nothing more than a
physical blessing to them. And they had no understanding
of the spiritual significance of the Lord himself being the
bread of life. And in one of the accounts, I
think it is in Matthew, it says, and they tried to make him king. They tried to make him king and
he departed from them and he hid himself. And in another place
he said to the group, he said, the only reason you're following
me is so that you can have your bellies full. They that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. And we are fleshly beings and
we have a lot of fleshly needs. But how sad it is that oftentimes
the needs of our flesh overshadow the needs of our spirit. How we are like the children
of Israel in the wilderness oftentimes. The Lord rebukes us and corrects
us and creates a need for us and we cry out to him And then
when the need is met, our cry is not quite as loud or as frequent. That's a condemnation on each
one of us. They that are after the Spirit
do mind the things of the Spirit. And we come together and open
God's Word in hopes that the Lord will minister grace to our
spirits, Yes, he will be the one that will meet all the temporal
and physical needs that we have in this world, but that the real
need that we have is for him to speak peace and truth and
hope and comfort and grace to reveal more of his glory to our
hearts. And if that happens, then all
is well. All is well. Doesn't matter what
our physical condition is at that point. John chapter two, when they saw his miracles, many
believed in his name, but Jesus did not commit himself unto them
because he knew all men. Oh, this is the Christ. This is the prophet that we've
been waiting for. This is the one that's gonna
provide social welfare programs for all of Israel, and they believed
that he was him. But he knew what was in their
hearts. And he needed not that any man tell him, for he knew,
the scripture says, what was in man. And he knows what's in
my heart, and he knows what's in your heart, doesn't he? And
he knows it so much better than we do. And yet what we know says
to us, Lord, I need a new heart. I mind the things of the flesh.
I'll be satisfied with just me, you meeting my physical needs.
Lord, if you don't stir my heart to see my need for thee and my
need for forgiveness and my need for grace and my need for love
and my need for light and my need for For peace and salvation,
Lord, I'll be just like these 5,000. And so the Lord says to
his disciples, will you lead me also? Because they all left.
All 5,000 of them went home after they were fed. The Lord said,
you follow in me so that you can have your bellies full. But
if you want to be my disciples, you must take up your cross and
deny yourself and follow me." And they left. And the Lord said
to the disciples, will you lead me also? Lord, where shall we
go? Where shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. That's what we need. We know and are sure that thou
art the Christ, the son of the living God. We've got no place
else to go. Oh, how... How hopeful and how needful we
are that the Lord would not leave us to ourselves and not let us
be content with the material blessings of life but that we
would be given by His Spirit the grace to seek Him. To seek
Him. I love what the Lord said in
Matthew chapter 6 He was talking about the things that the Gentiles
seek. And there's a Gentile spirit
in us. And he said, don't worry about
what you're gonna eat or what you're gonna drink or where you're
gonna live, what you're gonna wear. Your heavenly father knows
that you have need for these things. These are the things
that the Gentiles seek after. But you, what'd he say? Seek first the kingdom of God. and his righteousness. And all
these other things will be added unto you. I need to be reminded
of that. I need to be reminded that seeking
Christ is my greatest need. And if I have him, I have everything.
And all the temporal blessings that I need will come in him. And we would seek his face, seek
my face, thy face Lord have I sought. How prone we are to seek the
hand of God. And then when he gives us what
we think we need, we go on. His hand will come with his face.
His face doesn't always come with his hand. These people They
experienced the hand of God. It was the hand of God that fed
them. They didn't see his face. His disciples knew, they knew,
they knew that this was the bread that came down from heaven. The parallel to this miracle
in the Old Testament was the daily providing of manna that
God gave to the children of Israel in the wilderness. And they ate
that bread. And even in the time of our Lord,
thousands of years later, 1,500 years later, the Pharisees had
to be told Moses didn't give you that man,
my father gave you that bread. And that bread wasn't just the
sustenance of your physical life in the wilderness. I am the bread
of life. I am the bread of life. He's the living bread. He's the
manna. And I love what the scripture
says about the Israelites in the Old Testament. They that
gathered much had none left over. And they that gathered little
were not in want for more. So here's the bread of life. Lord, give me a crumb that falls
from the master's table and that'll be sufficient if it comes from
your hand. If it comes from your hand, And it feeds my soul, that'll
be enough. And they that had little, lacked
nothing. They that had much, had nothing
left over. So they had to go every day,
didn't they? Every day. And the Lord made
a spiritual truth of that when he said, give us this day our
daily bread. We have to eat physically regularly,
don't we? Mark and I were talking about
that before the service. Renee, he's bragging on you about
what a good cook you are. And we need to eat. Our physical bodies crave food. Might God give us that sort of
hunger and thirst for righteousness in our souls? That's what this
miracle's about. It's about the Lord feeding the
souls of His people with Himself. What did the children of Israel
say? Most of them were unbelievers.
Most of the children of Israel were just like these 5,000 or
20,000 or however many it was. Probably the least number was
20,000. Children of Israel, when they
saw the manna, they said, manna. And the translation of that word
is, what is it? What is it? We don't know what
this is. We like it. It tastes good. It tastes like
honey. All the nourishment that the
body needed was in that manna. Every vitamin and mineral and
everything that the physical body required was in that manna.
And they ate it every day. And they kept calling it, what
is it? What is it? We don't know. We just know it's
keeping our bodies alive. They didn't know what it was.
They didn't know it was Christ. Notice where this miracle takes
place. It takes place in verse 13. And
when Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert
place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities." You know, I was thinking about,
you've watched these shows, you know, the History Channel or
something where they show people surviving, Bedouin people that
live in the desert. And I would die if I had to live
in the desert. There's no way I could survive
in the desert. But they know where the food source is. Scarce
as it is, they know how to get the water out of the land, out
of the plants. There's special skills that you
have to have to survive in the desert. And if you and I were
to survive in the desert, we would have to have one of those
people take us by the hand and show us how to live. Isn't that the way it is spiritually?
We live in a dry and thirsty land. This is a desert. The food
source and the water source is very scarce. And if somebody
that doesn't know where it is doesn't take us by the hand and
lead us to it and show us how to survive in the desert, we'll
die. We'll die in this desert. But
the Lord took them into a desert place. They're out of the safety
of the city. They're out of the, away from
their homes. They're in a place where they
have to depend upon the Lord. This world is a spiritual desert
and the river of life that flows clear as crystal from the throne
of God is invisible to the natural man. It is a mystery. They don't know where it is. The manna, they don't know what
it is. It has to be revealed by someone
who knows where to find it. He led us to a place Well, we have to come
before him, say, Lord, if you don't feed me, if you don't give
me, if you don't give me water to drink, if you don't allow,
if you don't enable me to come before the fountain of life and
drink freely, freely, I've got no money and I can't barter with
you. I've got to have it for free. Lord, you're gonna have
to provide it. You got to keep me alive in the
desert place. I've tried sustaining my life
with the husk of this world. I've wasted my inheritance on
riotous living. I've eaten the husk that the
swine do eat. I've drank from the polluted
waters of broken cisterns. I've tried all those things and
they don't meet the need of my soul. And it's like not only do they
not meet the need of my soul, they make my soul sick. They
make me sick. I drink polluted water, I get
sick. You see these little mud holes
out in the desert somewhere and the water in it is poisonous
and that's what we... It's what we drink. If the Lord
doesn't open up the fountain of life and pour into our souls
the water of his spirit, we'll drink that stuff. He leads us outside of the city. The book of Hebrews speaks of
that. how the Lord went outside the camp and we follow the Lord
outside the camp. The safety of the cities, the
security of the cities, the Lord shuts us up to himself and takes
us in a place where only he can meet our need. What a blessing
it is when he does that for us spiritually. when he strips from
us all the securities that we would otherwise depend upon and
makes us need him and only him. He brings us, I brought out this
passage, I think we even turned to it. Let's look at it again.
This has been such a blessing to me the last few days. Psalm
107. Psalm 107. Verse 24, these see the works of the Lord
and his wonders in the deep, for he commandeth and riseth
the stormy wind which lifted up the waves thereof. David said,
before I was afflicted, I had gone astray, but now I've kept
thy word. God sends afflictions into the
hearts of his children in order to cause them to see, you know,
my need is not first and foremost to have this problem solved as
much as that is a need for me. My need first and foremost is
to find my hope and rest in Christ. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. all that come before me are thieves
and robbers." If we have anything come before Christ, it's going
to, you know, the difference between a thief and a robber,
a thief is a person who works in secret, wears a mask, comes
at night, He's in disguise, steals what he wants and nobody knows
what he's done. A robber, on the other hand,
is in your face with a gun. And the Lord said, all that come
before me are thieves and robbers. What does anything that we look
to for our hope and for our comfort and for our peace and for our
salvation that comes before Christ has deceived us? It has robbed
from us the hope and comfort of our salvation. It's deceived
us in thinking, well, I've got, if I can just get peace there,
then I'll have peace in my life. No, you won't. God solved the
problem and if he doesn't speak peace to the heart, let's see,
we get deceived like that, don't we? And a robber, a robber goes
right into the face of God with a gun robs from him his glory
and has no fear of God. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Oh, all that come before me. When the Lord said, yeah, I have
no other gods before me. He wasn't talking about you can
have other gods after me. He was talking about putting
any God, anything that would be before
me. And all that come before me are thieves, They steal from
us unbeknownst unless the Lord gives us discernment and wisdom
and understanding. We will be robbed of our peace
and of our hope and they'll rob from God his glory. The Lord sends the, he mounts
up, look at verse 26. They mount up to the heaven and
they go down again to the depths. Their soul is melted because
of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger
like a drunken man and they are at their wits end. I looked up that word wits. It's
the same word from which we get the word wisdom. Lord, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do. I'm out of options here. I'm out of choices. I'm out of
understanding. I don't know. And James tells
us, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God. And he give
it to all men liberally and he upbraid if it not. In other words,
the Lord doesn't roll his eyes at us because we've asked him
for wisdom for the 10,000th time. We would never tolerate that
from another person. Somebody came to us and asked
for help as many times as we come before the Lord, we would
say, I'm done with you. Not you again. But our God's
not like we are. He's full of compassion. We just
read that he looked upon the multitude and he had compassion
toward them. As a father pitieth his children,
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. And he remembers that
we're made of dust. We're frail. He never, if any
man lack wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth liberally
and upbraideth it not. He doesn't hold it back. He doesn't
say, okay, well, I'll give it to you if. You get for real this
time. You get serious this time. You
mean it this time. You do better this time than
what you did last time, then I'll give you more. He doesn't
treat us like that. He says, I upbraideth it not.
You ask, I'll give it. You seek, I'll find it. You knock,
it'll be opened up unto you. How many of you Having a son asking for bread
would give him a serpent. Or he asks for meat and you give
him a stone. I remember how that, we won't
do that. And if you being evil do good unto your children, How
much more shall your Heavenly Father do good to them that ask Him?
He upbraideth it not, brethren. Keep asking. Keep asking. And when the Lord speaks of that
in Matthew chapter 7, He says, Anyone that asks it, the word
there is a continuation. It's not just, well, I'm going
to ask one time. No, you just keep at it. And amen, keep knocking. Keep seeking. It's a continual. But we're at our wit's end. We
don't have any place to go. That's a good place to be, because
now we're like these people out in the wilderness. They've come
out of the city. It's late in the day, it's getting
dark. They followed him on foot. So you know they're exhausted.
The disciples just said, these people are wore out. They've
been walking all day. We're out in the desert. We've
got to send them home, send them away so they can find something.
Maybe in a village they'll pick up a little something. They're at their wit's end. Now you feed them. Bring them hither unto me. I'll feed them. Verse 28 in Psalm
107. Then they cry unto the Lord in
their trouble and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet. They be quiet. Is it possible to be quiet at
rest before God when our circumstances are otherwise? Yeah, that's the whole point.
That's the whole point, isn't it? And often the Lord doesn't
change our circumstances until we find that quiet peace before
him in the midst of our trials. Now it's accomplished its purpose.
Now it's brought you to your wit's end. Now I can start relieving
you a little bit of that. And he does, and we're thankful. But what happens? What happens? We get right back in the same
mess, don't we? We're just like children of Israel. Lord, we gotta go through the
whole cycle again and again and again and again, bringing us
to our wit's end. Verse 31, oh that men would praise
the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the
children of men. Let them exalt him also in the
congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of
the elders. Is difficulty, trouble, reason to Not pray, no, no. This is a sin of God to cause
us to praise him, to worship him, to seek his face. It's not an easy journey. As
I said, Matthew is the only one I think that says that they followed
him on foot, out of the city. No donkeys, no beast of bird,
no wagons, no horses, nothing. They're all on foot. Tired and hungry. That's who he feeds. Lord, I'm
tired. I'm hungry. I'm in my wits end. I can't. I've got to have thee. I've got for you. I've got to
have you feed my soul. Oh, there's a famine in the land. It's not a famine of bread and
water. We got plenty of that. but it's a famine of hearing
the word of God. That's the famine of my soul.
Lord, I need ears to hear. Let him who has ears to hear
hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Lord, that's my
famine. That's where I'm shriveled up. That's where I'm malnourished.
I'm malnourished in my soul. Only the bread of life can feed
me. And Jesus went forth, verse 14
in our text, and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion
toward them. We might be prone to think of
ourselves, and I know we're prone to judge others, by saying, you
brought this on yourself. And thinking that God would not
have compassion on someone who brought that on themselves, but
it's not so. It's not so. You know, We err if we make God to be such
a one as ourselves. He delights in showing mercies
full of compassion. You know, I was thinking about
a small child. Lest you become as a little child
this night in the kingdom of heaven, suffer the little children
to come unto me. And in both of those passages, scripture
is talking about a baby, a diaper wearing baby. who can't feed
itself, can't clean itself up, can't do anything for itself.
And the Lord said, lest you become like that. We would never look
at a baby who's crying because it has a dirty diaper and say,
you brought this on yourself. You take care of that yourself.
You did that to yourself. We wouldn't do that. And if we
have compassion toward a small child, how much more? A heavenly
father doesn't say, you brought this on yourself. He allows us
to suffer the consequences of our sin. And we might learn from
that. But he never stands in judgment
of his children and says to them, you brought this on yourself,
you work it out. He doesn't do that. He knows our frame. He remembers
that we're made of dust. Children of Israel, the scripture
says they provoked the Lord and he let them suffer the consequences
of their sin and then he had mercy and compassion upon them. Oh, the mercy and compassion
that he has, first and foremost, is feeding our souls with Christ,
the bread of life. bringing us to our wits end,
taking us out into the desert where there is no water and there
is no food and saying to us, you feed them. Lord, I can't,
can't feed them. Lord ever brings me to mind,
you ask for your benefit, for your benefit, ask the Lord to
give me message for you because here's the here's the point he
gave the to the disciples on the disciples gave it to the
people distributed to the people that's the means by which the
Lord and I and it's a Jeff and I were talking about this what
what a struggle it is to try to get a word from God a message
not just a you know not just explain a passage of scripture
but to have a message that will speak to the heart God has to
give you that. But he uses the foolishness of
preaching to save them which believe. And the means is that
he gives the bread to the disciples and the disciples distributed
among the people. Bring them hither to me. Where is the Lord? Right now. Well, he's in the heavens, seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high. And we bring men hither
to him when we come to the throne of grace in prayer and we intercede
for them. It's what the Lord, you know,
a lot of people doing a lot of
praying, but how many believers are there? True believers that
go before God and intercede on behalf of another person. Let us not underestimate the
importance and the value of prayer. It's unmatched. Bring them hither
unto me. Parents, bring your children
before the Lord in prayer. Bring your spouse, bring your
neighbors, bring your friends, bring your grandchildren, bring
them before the Lord in prayer. I mean, the Lord said bring kings
and those that are in authority to him in prayer. In 1 Timothy,
he's talking about praying for the civil authorities in the
world. And we should, we should pray
for them that we might live quiet and peaceful lives in this world. But bring him hither unto me
in prayer. And then we bring men hither
unto Christ when we take them to his word. You know, we get
in a conversation with somebody about the gospel, And the gospel
is logical, it is logical, it's reasonable and the false gospel
is absurd, it doesn't even make sense. They talk about God being
sovereign but his hands are tied, they talk about him being holy
but he's willing to offer, he's willing to make a you know, accept
a sacrifice that comes from a sinner. You know, they say he loves everybody
but he's going to punish most of the people that he loves and
hell, it just doesn't even make sense. And it'd be very easy
for us to engage in a logical conversation with someone. I've
done it. I've done it where you try to convince someone with
reason and with logic about how much clearer the gospel is. And
And it always turns out the same. They just, they argue with you.
Men are unreasonable. Then they're illogical when it
comes to spiritual things. But you know what I found that
will shut the mouth of men and call it God's word. God's word. Maybe you don't know what word
to give them at the time, but you go before the Lord and spend
some time in God's word and ask the Lord to show you and text
it to them. Text them a verse of scripture. Text them a passage.
Say, you know, you asked me this question. I didn't know the answer
to it at the time, but here's what the Bible says. And very few people will want
to argue that. Okay, then maybe they won't talk
to you about it. But if God's going to open the eyes of their
understanding, he's gonna do it with his word. Bring them
hither unto me. Bring them to my word in the
volume of the book it is written of me. And then bring them hither unto
me by bringing them to the place where the Lord has promised to
bless the preaching of the gospel to the hearts of his people.
the place where he has promised to be amongst us, to bless us
with his spirit. Bring them hither unto me. Encourage
them to join you in coming to the place. Be like that woman
at the well in John chapter four. Come, come, meet a man who told
me everything I ever did. Is not this the Christ? We don't encourage our, we don't
say to our unbelieving friends, come worship with us, because
they can't worship until the Lord saves them. But we can say
to them, come here, come here. I know, I don't know all the
answers to your problems. I don't understand all that you're
going through, but I know someone who does. And I know someone
that can meet your every need. And I know a man that'll tell you
about him. A place where we can come and hear about him. Trisha and I were talking the
other day and I was telling her something I was gonna, matter
of fact, I think it was on our way to church. She always talked
about message I'm going to preach and I started trying to explain
something to her that I was planning to say in the message. And she
said, I don't fully understand what you're saying but I'll get
it when you preach it. When you preach it, I'll get
it. Because I hear things when I'm listening to preaching, I
hear things that I can't hear any other place. Isn't that amazing? That's just the way the Lord
works. The foolishness of preaching. Lord, if you don't show me Christ,
I'll have no wisdom. If you don't open my eyes, I'll
have no understanding. If you don't give me a new heart
and increase my faith, I'll have no faith. No ability to worship you apart
from your spirit. No strength or desire to follow
you in obedience unless you work in me, causing me to will and
to do. After your good pleasure. Mary and I were talking about
this. When she brought up the verse of scripture that says,
without Christ, I can do nothing. And she said, you know, I used
to think that was just spiritual things. But truth is, I can't
draw my next breath without him. I can do nothing without Christ. I've got to have him. Bring them hither to me, right
here. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down in the grass. The Lord is my shepherd. There's the sheep sitting in
the green pastures, feeding on the bread of life. And he took five loaves, five
is the number for grace in the Bible, and two fishes, and two
is the number for union. And here we have Here we have
a picture of our hope in Christ by virtue of our union with him
given to us by his free and sovereign grace. His life is our life,
his death is our death, his resurrection is our resurrection. Christ is our life. The multitude of people, 20,000
however many there were, Got their bellies full? You know,
the belly in the Bible is just a synonym to flesh. And it's a perfect picture of
religion today. Men, you know, get involved in
religion to have their fleshly needs met. We have a much greater need than
that, don't we? Pray the Lord to be pleased to
meet it. Let's stand together, Tom. 334. 334? 334. Let's stand
together. Be Thou my vision, O Lord of
my heart. Taught me all else to be safe
at Thou art. Thou my best thought, my day
or my night. Waking or sleeping, Thy presence
my light.