The doctrine of Christ Jesus
the Lord, the doctrine of Christ and Him crucified, is the believer's
foundation. And He is the strong meat which
we build upon that foundation. Multitudes regard practical teaching
as the strong meat which grows the believer after they've heard
the doctrine of Christ. And therefore, most every Christian
denomination majors on man's choice in his life, man's daily
doings, his morality, his walk, and they say little, if anything,
about Christ and Him crucified. God the Father's purpose in Christ,
that which Christ accomplished in the redemption of His people,
that which Christ accomplishes in the regeneration of his people,
that which Christ accomplishes in the growth of his people,
that which Christ accomplishes in the preservation of his people,
that which Christ accomplishes in saving every last one for
whom he gave his life in final glory is the preeminence and
the fullness by which God the Father was pleased that it all
should dwell in Him. Listen to the Word. He's the
one in whom we have redemption. It's through His blood, forgiveness
of sins. He's the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. By Him, all things were created
in heaven and earth, visible and invisible. He's before all
things. And by Him, all things consist He's the head of the body, the
head of the church. He's the beginning, the firstborn
from the dead. That in all, that in all, He
might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that
in Him should all fullness dwell. Our text tonight is Acts 11,
verse 27. It says, In these days, in the
days when Paul and Barnabas ministered and dwelt at Antioch, in these
days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. When the Lord ascended,
He gave prophets. And in the early church, these
prophets spoke as a confirmation that which Christ was bringing
to pass in these transitional days between the old covenant
when it was decaying and fading away. And we see here these prophets
were used of our Lord to inform the church, His church, of events
that He was bringing to pass to protect them, to guide them,
to provide for them, to instruct them in righteousness, and it
was by the Spirit of God that they spoke, and it was by the
same Spirit of God that those to whom they spoke were enabled
to trust them and believe them and heed their instruction, just
like the Word has to be accompanied by the Spirit in our day. Notice
in this next verse, by whom the prophet spoke. There stood up
one of them named Agabus and signified by the Spirit. And what was his message? that
there should be great dearth, famine throughout all the world,
which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. When it came
to pass, the people knew this indeed was a prophet of the Lord.
That's what the Lord God said. If a man prophesies something
and it doesn't come to pass, he's not sin of God. He's not
the man sent by God. But this came to pass. When we
see our economy fail, We have folks we can look to and blame
and accuse and excuse and this and that. The believer knows
that God is the one who holds everything in His hand. But when it's a famine, when
it's a famine throughout the land, when the rain stops falling,
and the sun stops shining, or the rain floods the earth, and
there's a famine so that the crops don't come forth out of
the earth, the man can't do anything to make it flourish. Man's made to realize this thing's
not in his hands. This is in God's hands, not in
his hands. And it says, then the disciples,
every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto
the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also they did, and sent
it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. Now I want
to look at three reasons that the Lord Jesus Christ brought
this carnal famine and this spiritual plenty. The title of the message
is Spiritual Abundance in Temporal Famine. Spiritual Abundance in
Temporal Famine. First of all, the Lord gave a
famine of temporal bread in Jerusalem because Christ, the spiritual
bread from heaven, was rejected in Jerusalem. Acts 11 verse 27
says, In these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. Now I want you to be turning
to Luke chapter 13. And as you turn there, let me
make a statement. A famine of physical bread indeed
came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. This was a real famine
of bread and water. But the fact that the Lord's
messengers, His prophets, left Jerusalem and went down to Antioch
was the evidence of a spiritual famine that already had begun
and already existed in Judea in these days. And it truly signified
the beginning of the famine of the Word which the Lord pronounced
upon Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ pronounced
this upon Jerusalem. Look at Luke 13, 34. O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that
are sent unto thee, They were sent preaching Christ, prophesying
of Christ the Messiah. And they stoned him. It had nothing
to do with how often would I have gathered thy children together
as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings. And ye would
not. Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. And verily I say unto you, you
shall not see me until the time come when you shall say, Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. When the Lord spoke
of the bread from heaven, the carnally religious men and women
to whom He spoke in Jerusalem understood Him as speaking only
of physical bread. They didn't understand that He
was speaking of that bread which came down from heaven. And He
very often spoke in terms like this, but they didn't discern
that He is the bread of life, that He is the life of the believer.
What was their life? What was their life? The religious
men and women in Jerusalem were busy constraining men. They were
too busy constraining men, engaging in the service which our natural
heart regards as true food, so that they had no need of the
true bread from heaven. They didn't see themselves as
lacking in spiritual bread, because they had plenty of bread. Their
earthly religious devotions was their bread. That was their life.
They're constraining men to tithe. They're constraining men to walk
a certain way. They're constraining men to read
scripture, to come to the temple. They're constraining men to pray.
This was their gospel and this was their life. And they killed and stoned every
man that came to them, preaching Christ is the life. Christ is
the life. And they rejected Christ, the
Prince of life, when He came declaring, I'm the way, the truth,
and the life. And they looked upon their earthly
carnal duties as their life just as surely as they looked upon
their daily carnal food as their life. And so just like we saw
last Sunday in the book of Isaiah, The Lord Jesus Christ said, you
look upon these things as being your life. You look upon this
physical food as being your bread, your life, your sustenance. I'm taking even that away from
you. Taking it all away from you. And there will be a famine
in this land. In these days came prophets from Jerusalem and Antioch.
When the Lord moves His messenger, His prophet from one place to
another place, there's a famine in that land already. A famine
that speaks higher and greater things than of any physical earthly
famine that could ever happen. We talk about the Pharisees and
we talk about what their life was. Let me ask you a question.
Let me try to give you an illustration. If Sarah was malnourished and
she was just her bones. She had starved so long without
any physical bread whatsoever. And her bones were out of joint.
Her tongue cleaved through the roof of her mouth. Her belly
was swelled. She couldn't think straight.
She couldn't get up out of bed. She couldn't walk. She couldn't
do anything whatsoever like a healthy young girl would function. And
I came to her and I said, Most young girls your age can
run really, really fast. Why don't you get up? You ought
to be running really fast. Or if I said, Sarah, most young
girls your age are full of energy and full of life. You ought to
get up out of your bed and be full of energy and full of life. And I said, Sarah, If you would
eat something, if you'd eat this bread, go to the table more,
sit down at the table more, at your father's table more, and
eat the bread that he's provided for you more. Eat that bread. You'd be healthy and you'd be
able to run and jump and play like most young girls your age. And yet I didn't give her any
bread. and she had no bread to eat whatsoever. I've told her
what she ought to do and what she ought not to do, but I haven't
given her the one thing she needs, have I? She needs bread. She don't need to be told what
she ought to do and ought not to do. She needs to be told about
the bread. Then, as her body strengthens and as she becomes
strong, she'll be able to do the things that young girls her
age do. And then if I feed her that bread
and I get her to the point by feeding her this bread to where
she's strong and she's able to perform things that most young
girls do, and then I turn around and stop feeding her that bread
and go back to telling her what she ought to do and what she
ought not to do, and yet I give her no bread, will she last? Will she be strengthened? Will
she continue in the strength that she had? She'll wither away
to nothing again. That's the gospel of a Pharisee. It's a gospel that centers on
what man ought to be doing and what he ought not to be doing,
and it does not major on Christ the bread, by whom and through
whom, and who comes into the heart of a sinner and walks in
him and causes him to do exactly what he would have him to do,
what he foreordained before the foundation of the world for him
to do. That's putting a cart in front of the horse. In all
natural areas of our life, we can understand this, but for
some reason, when a man stands up and starts declaring the Word,
the carnal heart says, enough of Christ! Kill that prophet!
Let's hear about what we ought to be doing and ought not to
be doing. And God says, since you think your hand and your
work and your ought to and ought not to is your bread, just like
you think your physical bread is your bread, Is your life? I'm going to show you. I'll take
away that bread, that physical bread from you, and you'll die,
wither away to nothing. How do you think then you could
come into the presence of God Almighty without Christ the bread? That's what the Lord is teaching
those that rejected Him in this life. And He's going to reveal
that in everybody. He reveals it in His people in
this life. And those that reject Him may
go through life as religious as they can be, doing what they
think they ought to and ought not to, just like the Pharisees
did when they thought they ought to be hanging Him on a tree and
crucifying Him and crying out, away with Him. And then one day
we're going to discover that that ought to and ought not to
is not bread. It is not bread. It is the law. It is legalism. You might as
well be saying, thou shalt and thou shalt not. It's the same
thing. Then secondly, look here, the
Lord declared His faithfulness toward His people. The Lord,
through this spiritual plenty and this temporal famine, the
Lord declared His faithfulness toward His people. What do we
see Sunday? Everything that's woe to an unbeliever
is well for the righteous. Everything that's woe in the
life of an unbeliever and in the world of unbelievers around
the believer is well for the righteous. Look here with me. The Lord had a people in Jerusalem
that He had saved by His grace. And He was not going to leave
that people without spiritual food. And He proved it in that
He wouldn't leave them without physical food. And so what did
he do? Before he sent this carnal famine
in Jerusalem, he sent his word of truth into Antioch at the
mouth of Paul and Barnabas. He effectually created a new
heart and he is redeemed in Antioch. He waited to give this famine
until those believers in Antioch had heard the gospel of the unspeakable
gift of God. They had heard Christ the Lord.
How do you know that? How do we know that's what they
had heard? Because we can read everything that the Apostle Paul
wrote and determined fully that His own mouth said, I'm determined
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
And so He preached to them how that God the Father gave His
only begotten Son. That was His message. He preached
how that the Son of God came to where we are and He gave His
life. He laid down His life for His
people. that they might be justified,
that they might be redeemed, that they might be pardoned,
that they might be bought from under the yoke of the law, and
that they might enter into the presence of God in newness of
heart and newness of spirit, because He gave them His Word. He gave them His prophets. He
gave them His Spirit. And He is all to all. That's
the message that the Apostle Paul preached. And through the
Holy Spirit, the Lord gave them spiritual eyes and spiritual
ears to hear the message. And they beheld that everything
that they are, everything that they were in the Spirit, in truth,
was solely, freely, fully by God giving them spiritual and
eternal life. They beheld this. In doing so,
He provided a people. And He was working in a people,
amongst a people, and within the individual people that collectively
made up the saints at Antioch. And He provided therein a people
to provide for His saints at Jerusalem when He brought this
famine into Jerusalem and Judea. And the Scripture says in verse
29, then the disciples. Not until then did He bring this
famine. But when He had prepared them,
He brought the famine and then the disciples. I want you to
understand me. The believers at Antioch, they
didn't necessarily have plenty. Did you know that? They didn't
necessarily have plenty. to give. Nothing is said here
about how much carnal, temporal, physical plenty they had. Nothing
is said about that at all. But because they had an abundance
of spiritual blessings by God's grace, it made them rich in liberality
toward their brethren in Jerusalem. We don't have to have plenty. We don't have to have an abundance
in physical things. In fact, A person who has an
abundance of physical things and lacks the spiritual abundance,
he's famished spiritually, could give everything he's got. He
could give everything that he's got in his possession and still
not have given anything. According to how God views him
and that's how it is is how God views us He hadn't given anything
because he did it from a carnal religious Constraint and not
from a spirit of love created by God created by Christ in the
heart which constrained him But that man who doesn't have anything,
that man who doesn't have plenty, that man who doesn't have an
abundance of things, when he has an abundance of grace in
the heart through the Spirit of God in the heart and beholds
Christ as He is high and lifted up, he's the richest man on earth. And what he's got is yours. And
he don't wait for you to ask him for it. He makes sure you
have it. If he hears that you need it,
you've got it. You got it. I was reading that
biography on William Huntington I was telling you about last
Sunday. He had begun to study some new literature and some
new writers and he was beginning to save some money to where he
could buy books every month and read these new books on the various
men that came before him. And somebody, one day he walked
outside and there was a whole library outside on his doorstep. And somebody through God's providence
had heard probably that he was doing this or what have you.
It may have just been the Lord gave somebody a heart to do it.
But the Lord provided what he needed, didn't he? He provided
what he needed. That's what the Lord does. That's what the Lord
does. Look over 2 Corinthians chapter
8. I want to show this to you. 2 Corinthians chapter 8. It doesn't matter how much you
have, materially speaking. You give abundantly more when
you're constrained by the love of Christ and not the religious
constraints of Pharisees. Look here, 2 Corinthians 8. Moreover,
brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on
the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction,
the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto
the riches of their liberality. They had an abundance of joy,
an abundance of God's grace, and it didn't matter if they
had an abundance of riches, temporal riches, they had an abundance,
they were rich in liberality towards their brethren. For to
their power, I bear record, yea, beyond their power, they were
willing of themselves. praying us with much entreaty
that we would receive the gift and take it upon us, the fellowship
of the ministering to the saints. And this they did, not as we
hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord and to us
by the will of God." They did it more abundantly, Paul said,
than we ever could have asked for or constrained them to do.
Look at verse 7. Therefore, as ye abound in everything... Now listen to this everything
that he says, as you abound in. In faith? in utterance, in knowledge,
in all diligence, in your love, see that you abound in this grace
also. Oh, those things were graces,
weren't they? Those things are spiritual blessings
given by God to the believer to abound in. And he says, as
you have received these graces and abound in these graces, see
that you abound in this grace also. And he says, I speak not
by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others,
and to prove the sincerity of your love. For you know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be
rich. The believer's motive, the believer's
constraint, the believer's desire It is Christ, and it is Christ
from whom he receives these same graces of faith, and of love,
and of diligence, and of utterance, and of knowledge. Christ makes him abound in this
gift of giving and providing because he loves his brethren.
And his motive is he beholds how Christ, who was rich, became
poor, that through the poverty of Christ, he might be made rich. Nothing else will constrain him.
Nothing else will constrain him. You could preach a whole message
on on what a man ought to give and what he ought not to give,
how he ought to give and how he ought not to give. But if
Christ hasn't been preached to him, if the bread hasn't been
given to him, if he hasn't been given the necessity of bread,
you can tell him, like that young girl, how she ought to be running
and jumping and doing what other young girls do. But if you haven't
given her the bread, she can't run and jump. She can't do anything.
Look here, the Lord brought this famine of bread upon those who
rejected Christ the true bread. And then secondly, the Lord proved
His faithfulness and power to provide for His people through
this famine and this plenty. But then thirdly, through this
carnal famine and this spiritual plenty, the Lord Jesus teaches
us right here today that He works this grace in His people because
in giving us a privilege to provide for our brethren, He glorifies
what His Father did in giving Him for His brethren. And it's
right here in our text. Let's look at it. First of all,
Christ gave Himself for His brethren because God sent Him to do so. As the Son of Man, He was the
servant of God the Father. Like a believer, it's the disciple
of Christ. Christ sent forth these people
to do His will, just as God the Father sent Him forth to do the
Father's will. And that's why we read here,
then, the disciples. That word disciples is a key
word, because these were true. We know from the Scripture. We
know when it says disciples. By the Spirit of God that moved
Luke to write this, we know these were true disciples of Christ.
We don't have to wonder about it. We don't have to guess it.
The Scripture tells us that the Son, though He were a Son, yet
learned He obedience. He perfected the perfection of
obedience. In perfecting the perfection
of obedience, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey Him. He obeyed the Father. He went
forth and gave Himself as the Father declared purpose for Him
to do. And when He saves His people,
He causes them to give themselves, just like He gave Himself. And
He's glorified in it. He gets the glory in it. Then
look here. Christ gave that which God had
fully provided Him. That's what it says here. Acts
11 29 then the disciples every man according to his ability
Every man according to what God had given him every man according
to how God had prospered him in spiritual blessings and in
Temporal blessings as according as every man had according as
God had given every man ability That's exactly what the what
God the Father Did for God the Son a body has thou prepared
me? Well, why did He prepare him
a body? He's the Son of God. Why did He give the Son of God
a body? He prepared him a body. A body
perfect to be accepted as the sin-bearer before God. A body
which was made sin in the flesh so as not to disparage His holy
divinity. a body of humanity which He sacrificed
on the altar of His divinity, on the altar of His deity. Listen,
Scripture tells us, He, His own self, bear our sins in His own
body on the tree. That we, being dead to sins,
should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.
Righteousness is a person by whose stripes you were healed.
And we learn in Hebrews 9.14 that the blood of Christ, the
life of His body, is what He offered through the eternal Spirit.
The body of humanity He laid down on the eternality of His
Godhead, through the eternal Spirit of His Godhead. Wherefore, my brethren, you also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ." The point
I want you to see is, God gave him that body. He said, a body
hast thou prepared me. Why did He make him that body?
Why did He give him that body? Why did He make him that holy
thing born in the womb of a virgin? To lay it down. To lay it down
on behalf of His brethren. So then, when He says, I've given
you substance to provide for your brethren. Who gets to glorify? Who does that glorify? He's given
you substance, just like the Father gave Him a body. What
did He do with His body? He laid it down for His brethren.
What are you going to do with that substance He's given you? Lay it down for our brethren.
And He's glorified in it. And then, look here with me.
It says, Then the disciples, every man according to his ability,
determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea.
Christ purposed, He determined in the everlasting covenant to
give Himself and He did that willingly. Just as these people
determined willingly to give themselves because He dwelt in
them. By the Spirit of Christ dwelling
in a man, we purpose to provide for our brethren willingly, not
by constraint. Not about what some man yokes
us into feeling guilty about our lack of giving. That doesn't
constrain us. Not the believer. Just as God
the Father declared to the Son the famine that was coming upon
His people. So the Lord Jesus Christ declared
to His people in Antioch the famine that was coming upon His
people in Jerusalem. And just as the Lord Jesus Christ
purposed from all eternity to come and determined to lay down
His life and to take away that famine from His people, so His
people, by the Spirit of Christ in them, determined to provide
for their brethren at Jerusalem who were in a famine. And then
it says here, They didn't only determine to send relief unto
the brethren which dwelt in Judea, verse 30 says, which also they
did. Christ not only purposed to be
the relief of His famished children, but He came and provided their
relief. He came to where we are and gave
Himself for our relief. And so it is that they set aside
that which would provide relief to the brethren in Jerusalem
as soon as they heard of their need because of the Spirit of
grace working in them. Look, fifthly, it says here,
it says, every man according to his ability determined to
send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also
they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas
and Saul. The Son of God not only purposed
to send relief, He not only accomplished provision of our relief, provided
our relief, but He also sends the full provision into the hearts
of His people at the hands of His ministers. And by His Spirit
working in them. You know what they did? They
sent the full provision they determined to give to relieve
the need of their brethren through the hands of His ministers. Is
this making sense? Are you seeing this? Just like
Christ must bless the earthly bread to nourish our bodies,
so He gives ministers to feed us with Christ's bread, and by
His Spirit, He enters in and effectually works in His people,
sustains them in the Spirit to do His good pleasure, and they
willingly do His good pleasure. He says, Every man according
as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly
or of necessity. For God loveth the cheerful giver.
And God is able to make all grace abound towards you, so that ye,
always having all sufficiency in all, may abound to every good
work. And there's something else here
that's implied, but it's not necessarily included, but you
can find it over there in 2 Corinthians 9. I'll get you to turn over
there with me. There was a famine of physical
bread in Judea, in Jerusalem, amongst the Lord's people, amongst
the believers. Or amongst the folks in Judea,
but in the houses where the Lord's people received this gift from
their brethren in Aneon. It may not have been much at
all. It may have been just enough for a day or two worth of food. But Christ produced spiritual
plenty in those houses as well as He did in those down there
at Antioch. Look here, that's exactly what we're taught here
in 2 Corinthians 9-11. Paul says, being enriched in
everything to all bountifulness which causes through us thanksgiving
to God. For the administration of this
service, you giving your gift not only supplies the want of
the saints, but when they receive it, they abundantly thank God. Because by the experiment of
this ministration, they glorify God for your professed subjection
unto the gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution
unto them and unto all. And by their prayer for you,
which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you,
they received the gift in Judea." And you know what they did when
the brethren received it? They thank God. They thank God
for His grace working in the hearts of those saints down there
in Antioch, of providing them, of providing substance to them,
and of giving them a heart to give to them at Jerusalem. And he says manifold thanksgivings
are given. An abundance of thanksgivings
are given to God. And you know what the people
in Antioch did? when they sent away that gift
by the hand of Barnabas and Saul? The same thing. They thanked
God for His grace in giving them a heart, giving them a pastor
that preached Christ the bread, through whom Christ the Spirit
entered and gave them this abundance of spiritual plenty so that they
could take whatever they had and give it to these folks and
send it to them. They thanked God for that. So
everybody involved, you know who they thanked? You know who
they praised? You know who they glorified in this? They glorified
Christ their Redeemer in it. Every one of them. Now, I want
to end here with giving you an illustration, an application
that I think may be a little different than what you might
expect. I was thinking of this famine in
Judea, in the midst of the Pharisees, and I was thinking of the plenty
that was there in spite of their message and what they were preaching
and the plenty that God provided for His people through the preaching
of Christ, how He did that through the folks in Antioch. And I was
thinking on that and I thought of this, thinking about how the
Pharisees in our day preach and how they make the message centered
on man. If I would have brought you a
message majoring on how you ought to give, like they gave. And yet I did not declare Christ
the life to you. I've tried to major on Christ
the bread of life. That it's Christ who did this.
That it's Christ who worked this in his people. That it's Christ
who brought on this physical famine. And it's Christ who provided
the spiritual plenty and the physical plenty that he provided
for his saints. But if I had done this and not
declared Christ's life to you, then I would have fallen into
the same camp with those Judaizers in Rome. The camp of the Pharisees majored
on what the believer ought to do and ought not to do. And by
doing so, they made folks white as a sepulcher on the outside
and full of famine and dead bones on the inside. Because they didn't
give them any bread. Did not give them any bread.
And the Lord said, in your house is left to you desolate, famished. Instead, I've tried to give you
what the Lord has given me. And that's what He commands us
to do, is to give to His people what He's given us to give. And
I've tried to hold nothing back from you. The camp at Antioch
were given messengers by God who fed them with knowledge and
understanding of Christ, And through that Gospel, Christ effectually
worked in the hearts of His people, gave them plenty in spirit, and
they held back nothing but provided the material needs of their brethren
in Judea. If you notice here, when you
go through Acts, back there when it said they were praying to
the Lord, and they were singing praises to Him, and they preached
the word bold in His name, and the Lord poured out His Spirit
on them. And it says, nobody lacked anything because they
They took what they had and sold it and gave. Then here we come
to this point. We see it several places throughout
the book of Acts. But we never find Luke recording. But they had to really be told
what they ought to be doing and ought not to be doing. But we're constantly hearing
that they went everywhere preaching Christ the Word. And we're just
told, then the disciples sent relief to the brethren. He sent
relief to the brethren. Now, I'm going to ask you this.
What's food for your soul? What's food for your soul? Which
camp causes you to delight in your Lord? Which exalts the love
of Christ which constrains the believer? Which one? Is it the
message which constrains you in the lesser matters of the
law, such as paying mint, anise, and cumin, while leaving off
the weightier matters of the law, such as judgment, mercy,
and faith? Or is it the message which declares the justice you
deserve poured out on Christ, wherein you behold the mercy
of God that you didn't deserve, and you behold His faithfulness
to provide everything for you? Which one is it? Which causes
you to behold how great and unspeakable gift the Lord Jesus Christ is? Which exalts the love which constrains
you to give yourself for your brethren? If it's the message
that majors on what you ought to be doing and ought not to
be doing, then you're squarely in the camp with the Pharisees,
and I'd be fearful that you're in the midst of a famine of spiritual
bread. But, but, if the message that
constrains you, that fills your heart with joy, is the message
of the full sufficient sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ who
gave himself for you, and works in your heart, then bless God
you're in a camp with those in Antioch and with those saints
that were at Jerusalem. Take this message which God has
given you and give it to your poor brethren. Give it to them. I mean physically, literally,
take it, make a CD of it and give it to them. And if we won't give them this
bread, then the earthly bread we give to men will be of no
greater benefit to them than if we gave them a stone. None
whatsoever. But give them Christ the bread. Whether it's through a radio
broadcast that we give ourselves to promote this Word, it doesn't
matter if we ever see what comes of it. They didn't say, that
Paul Sol, Marmos, y'all take this gift up there, be sure and
come back and tell us now how they used it. They just gave
it to them. Just give them. Give them the
gift. Just give them the gift. Whether
it's an ad in the paper to advertise this play. Whether it's a mailer
or something where we send out a mailer and just cast the bread
upon the waters. Whether it's paying someone's
gas money so they can come hear the Word of God. Whether it's
paying their shoe money so they can come here and hear the Word
of God. Or paying their rent so they
can be closer here to hear the Word of God. Or taking them out
to eat when they get here so they can go home spiritually
full and physically full. or whether it's providing temporal
provisions for our brethren in need or for true orphans or widows
in the church. It doesn't matter if you see
what becomes of your gift. What matters is let us give ourselves
for their sakes just as Christ gave himself for ours. That's
what matters. That's what matters. I hope and I pray But you'll
consider what I said about how you may have heard this message
from a Pharisee type approach of what you ought to and ought
not to do. And how you would have left here,
how you're feeling. And consider what you heard tonight. where
Christ is glorified, where Christ is all, where Christ is the bread,
and that you weren't left without the instruction, that it's a
privilege he's given us. It's not a duty, a duty. A duty is something that you
feel like you have to do, grudgingly. A privilege is something you
want to do. It's something you'd like to do. And if we just preach
Christ and Him crucified, if we just are settled at the feet
of Christ, that will get us out of the kitchen. That will get
us out of being cumbered about much serving. And that will settle
us down at the feet of Christ. And we will discover that we
are better servants. We will discover that we are
His servants. Brethren, consider these things. Consider these
things. This is the bread. This is the bread. Just as sure
as this physical bread. Just as sure as our physical
sacrifices and service is provision. This is the bread we must have.
And this is the heart from which we must engage. It's from a love
for Christ constrained by His love for us. I pray. I pray that God will give us
a heart to really discern the difference between that message
that says, you ought to and you ought not to. and just throws
a little crumb out about Christ and His providence and His election
and His sovereign grace, but doesn't ever, but doesn't major
on that. Major on the bread. Feed somebody
the bread. You want to see them be alive
spiritually? You want to see them walk spiritually?
You want to see them serve God spiritually? You want to see
them pray like they've never prayed before to God? Preach
Christ to them. Preach Christ to them. You can
tell a man to pray. You can drag him to a place,
a point in time for him to pray. You can bring him there. You
can force him to say the words you'd have him to say. But you
can't make him pray. Only Christ can. No more than
you can make a man give. Only Christ can.