Matthew 15. You all know that we're going
through the book of Matthew right now. And these are the next verses
in line. And I love the fact that on the
day that we're going to go down and have a feast as brother Tony
keeps putting it. We've come to the account where
our Lord provided a great feast for a multitude of people. Let's read verses 32 to 39 again. It says, then Jesus called his
disciples unto him and said, I have compassion on the multitude
because they continue with me now three days. and have nothing
to eat. And I will not send them away
fasting lest they faint in the way. And his disciples saying
to him, whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus saith unto them, how
many loaves have ye? And they said, seven and a few
little fishes. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves
and the fishes and gave thanks and break them and gave to his
disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all
eat and were filled and they took up of the broken meat that
was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were 4,000
men beside women and children. And he sent away the multitude
and took ship and came into the coast of Magdala." This is now
the second time that our Lord has done this. He just did it
in chapter 14 for a multitude of 5,000 men beside women and
children with five loaves of bread and two fish. And now he
does it again for 4,000 men besides women and children with seven
loaves and a few fish. And the first thing we see in
this is our Lord's miraculous ability. Just think about this.
This really happened. This really happened that there
were men and women really there. And this event really happened.
Think about the miraculous ability of this man. Just think about the ability
of this man. The disciples handed him seven
loaves of baked bread. Somebody had brought lunch. That's
what happened the first time they said, well, a lad here has
lunch. And again, somebody brought some
baked bread and, and a few cooked fish fillets and they, gave it to the Lord. In chapter 14, you know, they
were saying, how are we going to feed these people again? And again, they said, where are
we going to find this much bread? And what he said in chapter 14
was bring them to me, bring them to me. Do we have
a dilemma here? Bring them to me here, hand it
to me. So they hand the seven loaves
and a few fish into the hands of the Lord. And I can envision
him reaching his hand over into a basket or baskets and breaking
up portions. And they see his hands down inside
this basket, you know, and they know that he took seven loaves
and a few fish and he had it down in there and he breaks up
this bread and fish into portions. And then he handed the basket
or baskets to the disciples. And he said, go feed them. And because this had happened
once before, I see them doing it with a little
bit more faith this time. Just a little bit more faith
this time. You know, they again said, where are we going to find
this much bread? And like when we looked at this last
time, everybody needs to be fed. Where's the bread going to come
from? Bring it to him, put it in his hands, put it in his hands. Put it all in His hands. And
how soon we forget. Oh ye of little faith. What happened
to the faith I just gave you? Have you forgotten already? But
then when it comes back to memory, through experience, through the
Lord proving Himself to us, we grow. Lord, increase our faith.
We grow in knowledge. We grow in faith. I can envision
them after they had their moment of doubt, and He said, here,
hand me that. And he broke it up and handed
it back to them and said, go feed him. I can see them with
gladness of heart taking that basket. All the people sat down in rows. I would imagine a lot like this. And one by one, the disciples
went to every man, woman and child. And they reached in and
they pulled out until their heart was satisfied. They pulled out
all that their heart desired. And the basket never went empty.
It just never went empty. You know, this is God we're dealing
with. This is God. This is God that
we are speaking of. God almighty, God almighty is
anything too hard for the Lord. Anything. If he wills it to be,
it is. All he has to do is will it to
be. And it is. So the first glorious thing that
we see in this account is the absolute sovereign ability of
our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, our Lord
and our God. And the second thing we see in
this is the compassion of our Lord and our God. Verse 32 says
He did this because He had compassion on Him. If you look with me,
it says, Then Jesus called His disciples unto Him and said,
I have compassion on the multitude because they continue with Me
now three days and have nothing to eat. Oh, the compassion of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The word compassion means to
be moved by love. It's what compassion is. It means to yearn in sympathy
and pity for moved by love, yearning in sympathy and pity for thank
God for the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 9 verse 15 says, he will
have compassion on whom he will have compassion. It is a sovereign compassion. It's a particular compassion
singled in on every soul that the father gave to him and joined
him to. But thank God he will have compassion.
I just thank God for the character of this man. This man is God
who does what he wants with whom he wants, and this is what he
wanted. He was moved by love, yearning and sympathy and pity.
That's what he wanted to do. Thank God for the compassion
of the Lord Jesus Christ on sinners, sinners like you and me. Thank God he was moved. Thank
God. Don't turn, but Psalm 86 verse
15, it says thou O Lord are to God full of compassion and gracious
long suffering. That means patient and plenty
us in mercy and truth. Thank God. Thank God. full of compassion, gracious,
long-suffering, plenteous in mercy and truth. How amazing,
how wonderful. Where was that compassion and
grace and mercy from God found? How was that compassion and grace
and mercy shown to God's people? It was shown, it was given through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That's what this account represents.
It represents the redemption that is freely given in Christ
Jesus. This story is a picture of the
cross. Every single story in scripture
is a picture of the cross. Everyone in this one is no different.
The details of this story describe the details of the cross to us.
All right. Who did he do this for this glorious thing that
he did? streaming from his compassion
and his love. Who did he do this for? Look
at verse 32. Then Jesus called his disciples
unto him and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they
continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And
I will not send them away fasting lest they faint in the way. He
did this for the empty. He did this for the empty. He did this for the weak. He did this for those who are
in a place where they have no ability to provide for themselves
what they need to sustain life. People make this statement all
the time. So many people believe this. The statement is he helps
those who help themselves. That is not so. He helps those
who can't help themselves. That's who he helps. He did this for those who are
in a place where they have no ability to provide for themselves
what they need to sustain life. None whatsoever. It says, He made them all to
sit down in verse 35. That's what it says. He did this
for the humbled. He did this for beggars. And I pray that that's you and
me. The true preaching of the gospel is one beggar telling
other beggars where he found bread. That's what the preaching
of the gospel is. One beggar telling other beggars where he
found bread. I pray that's you and me. It's, it's nearly impossible
to make a man or a woman empty, nearly impossible. It's almost a sincere rarity
to find a man or woman who's weak. You can't find a beggar to save
your life. They're everywhere. They just
don't know it. It has not been revealed to it.
May God reveal to us our true condition in the flesh, empty,
weak beggars. I pray that's you and me. Verse
36 says, he took the seven loaves and the fishes and gave thanks And break them. That's what he did for his disciples
the night that he was betrayed. He pictured what he was going
to accomplish on the cross of Calvary for them. In the ordinance
of his table. What it was going to take to
put away their sin. That's what he pictured. He said this is
my body. Broken for you. Broken for you,
he said you take this and you eat this. You live on this. You live on me. Live by me. That was the accomplishment of
the cross. That's the message of the cross. That's the accomplishment.
That's the message of the cross. Verse 36 says he broke it. He broke it. That's the sovereign
message of the cross. He broke it. He said, no man
takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. He sovereignly
bowed his head and gave up his ghost. He broke it. And then verse 36 says he gave
it to his disciples and the disciples gave it to the multitude. That's
the responsibility of God's preacher to buy the Holy spirit. through
the Holy Spirit, take the things of Christ and deliver it to his
people. And verse 37 says, every soul
who truly fed was filled. Every soul who truly fed on it
was filled. If we ever feed on Christ, if
we ever feed on the Lord, Jesus Christ will be filled. There's
no room for emptiness. If a soul feeds on Christ, there
is no emptiness. Our Lord said, open your mouth
wide and I will fill it. I'll fill it with heavenly bread.
Christ, our heavenly bread, he or she who hungers and thirsts
after him shall be filled. Verse 37 says they did all eat
and were filled and they took up of the broken meat that was
left seven baskets full. They started with seven loaves
and they ended up with seven baskets full. That declares the
fullness, the all sufficiency of Christ our Savior. He and
His glory and His mercy and grace, it cannot be exhausted. It cannot
be exhausted. Where our sin has abounded, His
grace has much more abounded, infinitely more abounded. His
fullness is infinitely greater than our emptiness. The mercy
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. It just cannot
be exhausted. It's brand new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. Oh,
the compassion of the Lord. Oh, the compassion of the cross.
Who can partake of it? Who is the fullness of Christ
for? Verse 38 says, men, women, and children. Old, young, Jew, Gentile, rich,
poor, sinner, greater sinner. Do you need Christ? Do you hunger and thirst for
the righteousness of Christ? If you do, I have a wonderful
announcement for you this morning, okay? Let's get to the message. If anybody needs Christ, the story is told of a doctor,
a general practitioner, family doctor who, and I spoke to a
man not too long ago who knew this doctor, this is a true story,
but he was in his practice and there was a waiting room full
of people. They kept coming in and everybody
was waiting. It was taking forever to get to the patients. And somebody
would come back and, you know, they'd have a, you know, a bump
on their knee and need a bandaid. And then somebody would come
back and just little things. And he finally said, hold on
just a minute. And he walked out into the right
waiting room and he said, is anybody here sick? Is anybody
actually sick? If you are, come on. And that's the message this morning.
Is anybody sick? Does anybody actually need Christ? I'm not talking about religion.
I'm not talking about a feel-good moment. I'm saying, does anybody
need Christ? Here's the message this morning.
Come on. Come on. In heart, in soul, not
in feet, Not in geographical location. Don't come to the front. Don't come to the preacher. Come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you are empty, some are and some are not. I realize that. If you are weak, some are and
some are not. But if you are empty and if you're
weak and if you're in need, come on. Come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are some people who know what it is to be empty. Empty in heart, empty in soul,
empty in spirit. There are some people on this
earth, there are some people here in this room right now this
morning. who know something of what it is to be weak and faint
in the flesh. Weak and faint in sin. Weak and faint in any good deed,
saying, I have no good deeds. In my flesh dwells no good thing. Weak and faint in anything that
could be offered to God. empty of anything that he would
accept, anything, nothing. And the more we know of our emptiness,
the more weak and faint we feel. The more we know of it, the more
weak and faint we feel. Listen to this glorious news
right here. That is the very type of person that the spirit
of the Lord Jesus Christ says, come on to. I have a message this morning
for the empty and weak. It's coming from one line in
this account. One line stood out to me. It
spoke to my heart. It blessed my soul. And my prayer
to God is that by his spirit, he will make every man, woman,
and child here today empty in self. I pray he empties everybody. I pray every soul here winds
up crying, woe is me. One man made the statement and
I love it. He said, I'm not trying to get
anybody saved. I'm trying to get people lost. If a person
ever gets lost, that's where Christ finds them. If anybody here is empty in self,
weak in the flesh of our own ability. Then come on. Here's the reason
why I say that. Okay. This is what the Lord Jesus
Christ has said concerning every sinful and weak center who comes
to him. I mean every sinful and weak
center who comes to him. Look at the end of verse 32.
This is the line that got my attention. And here's the message from his
own word to us. Okay. The end of verse 32, he
said, I will not send them away. Empty fasting, empty handed. I will not send them away. Now, let me have your attention
for just a moment here. Okay. Listen to these scriptures. I'm just going to quote the word
of God to you. In Isaiah 55 verse one, he said,
ho, everyone that thirsted. 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. He said, if you're bankrupt,
busted and broke, that kind of empty, not just
I'm a little light. I'm talking bankrupt, busted
and broke. Come on. In John 7, 37, He Himself said,
He stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come
unto Me and drink. In Revelation 22, 17, He said,
Let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever will. Whosoever
will. Let him take the water of life
freely. You say, well, wait a minute,
Gabe. What about election? Don't you preach that God elected
a people to say, I thought you preached election. Doesn't the scripture say that
God has a particular people that He's chosen to redeem to Himself
and receive to Himself? And doesn't it say that the blood
of Christ was only shed for those particular people? Doesn't it say that not one drop
of His blood was wasted being shed in vain? Doesn't it say
that? Doesn't it say that God's Spirit
is only going to call those particular chosen people to Himself? Yea
and amen. Yes and absolutely. To every bit of that. Well then why is the cry to everyone? Why ho everyone? Why is the cry to any man? Why whosoever will? It's not. That's not the cry. It's to everyone who has no spiritual
money. That's who it's to. It's to everyone who is spiritually
bankrupt. And only God's people see themselves
to be that in the flesh. It doesn't matter what the balance
of a savings account is. All of God's people see themselves
as being absolutely spiritually bankrupt before Him. They've
been made. to see that and made to feel
that, just bankrupt in sin, bankrupt by sin, ruined by sin. Our Lord did not stand up and
say, any man. He said, if any man thirst, if any man thirst, truly hungers
and thirst for Christ, hungers and thirst for the righteousness
of Christ. Only God's people do. Only God's
people are given that hunger and that thirst outside of that
gift from God. The only hunger that men, women,
and children naturally have is a hunger for self. A thirst for self, the deeds
of self, the things of self, the gratification of self, the
glorification of self. The only thirst that man has
naturally is a thirst for the flesh. But if any man is caused
to thirst for Christ, God's people believe him. He says, in my blood, you're
forgiven. And we believe him and we cry, please forgive us.
I believe you. Please forgive me. The Word of
God says there's mercy for sinners, and we say, I believe that. Please
be merciful. They beg, they beg, they need. If any man is given a thirst
for the blood of Christ, a thirst for the mercy of Christ, a thirst
for the grace of Christ, a thirst for the salvation that is only
in Christ, the gift, the gift The free gift, whosoever will take it freely,
whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely,
whosoever will take it freely, let him or her take it freely.
Man by nature will not have the salvation that is in the Lord
Jesus Christ freely. He won't have it freely. You
can have it freely. I don't want it freely. I want
to earn it myself. Man wants to do his own part.
He wants to pull his own weight. He wants to pay his own way.
God will not accept any sinful payment of man. The only spotless
payment that God will accept is the one that the Lord Jesus
Christ made. That's the only one. If any sinner has been made
to see, it's his payment alone. And I'm
so glad And I want it to be that way. Amen. That sounds good to
me. Yes, I'll have it freely. You're
giving it freely. Yes, I'll have it freely because
that's the only way I can have it. Paid in full by the Lord
Jesus Christ with me having no obligation to fulfill. Him getting all the glory. I'd love to give him all the
glory. Absolutely. All the credit. Absolutely. He did all the work. Whosoever
has been made willing, the spirit and the bride say, come, come
on. Whoever has been made willing
to have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus freely may have
the salvation that is in Christ Jesus freely. It does not matter
how empty you are. You know, some people say, I
just can't, I'm just too empty. It doesn't matter how weak you
are. I just, I don't think I can come.
I'm just too weak. It doesn't matter how empty,
it doesn't matter how weak, it doesn't matter how sinful you
are. I am just too sinful. I'm just not like the little
sinners, the white liar sinners. I'm just too sinful. It does
not matter how sinful you are. You come to the Lord Jesus Christ. You come to the Son of God. Come to the Son. Here's the answer,
here's the remedy, here's the call, the sovereign, eternal,
electing call. Come to the Son. Come to the
Son of God. Here's a true story. I haven't
told this one in a little while. This is a true story. In the
days of the Civil War, there was a Union soldier who was out
away from his home. He got word that his mother was
dying and was on her deathbed, and it wouldn't be long. And
he was in Washington, and he wanted desperately to go see
his mother one more time before she died. And he could not get
leave to go see her. So he had it in his mind that
if he could get to the president, maybe the president would grant
him leave. So somehow he made his way to the White House and
he went up the steps of the White House to the front door and there
were two guards there. You know, he immediately tried
to start stating his business, explaining to them that I have
gotten word that my mother's dying and I just want to see
her one more time before she dies. And I can't get leave and
I'm hoping to see the president and I'm going to ask him, you
know, before he can finish, they stopped him and said, that's
not a possibility. You cannot come in. And he said,
I am begging you, would you please just let me have one word with
him? They said, no, turn around and
leave. And he said, you don't understand. They said, no, you
don't understand. We're under direct orders. No
one comes into this house. If you don't turn around and
leave right now, action is going to be taken against you. So the man turned around. And
he walked down and he sat there on the steps of the White House.
He put his head in his hand and he just started crying. Just
sat there crying. And while he was sitting there,
a little boy walked by looking at him strangely. Why was this
grown man crying? And after a second, he sat down
beside him and he said, what's wrong, mister? And the man said,
you wouldn't understand. And he said, well, just Tell
me, what's wrong?" And the man said he wouldn't do any good.
And he said, well, mister, just tell me, what is it? So he explained,
my mother is dying, and I want to go see her one more time before
she dies. And the only way I can go is
if the president would give me a leave, and I cannot get in
to see the president. And the little boy said, well,
I'll take you in. Let's go. And he said, huh? He said, stand up, let's go.
So the man stood up, and they walked up the steps straight
through the front door of the White House. And they walked
down a hall where another door was with two guards, and they
walked straight through that door into the Oval Office. And sitting at his desk was President
Abraham Lincoln. And Abraham Lincoln looked up
at that little boy and said, what can I do for you, son? And
he said, dad, this man needs to see you. That little boy was Tad Lincoln,
the son of the president of the United States of America. You go to the sun. And you will
not leave empty handed. You come to the sun. You get
to the sun. And you'll be satisfied. You
will have what you need. You will not be turned away. God promises. I can say I promise
you all I want to. I didn't do any good. promises. I will not turn them
away. I will not. Do you need forgiveness? Many don't. Some do. Do you need
forgiveness for the sins that you can't stop committing every
single day? Come to the sun for that. Come
to the Son for that. Come to Christ. Do you need a
hope that God is going to spare you in the end? Come to Christ
for that. He said, Come unto Me, all ye
that labor and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest. spiritual
rest, eternal rest. I pray God will cause every soul
here, I mean this, every soul here to see himself or herself
in this spiritual condition. I pray every soul here will hear
the call of the heart to come to Christ. come to Christ. If you do come with this assurance
right here, this is what he said. He said, no man can come to me
except the father, which has sent me draw him. But all that the father has given
to me shall come to me. They'll hear it. They'll need
it. They'll come like every sinner does, lowly, crawling, meekly,
beggarly, humbly. But all that the Father has given
to me, he said, shall come to me. And him or her that cometh
to me, greatest words ever spoken, I will in no wise cast That's the greatest news ever
heard. The sweetest words I know. Fills my every longing, keeps
me singing as I go. If you need Him, God Almighty
puts you in that position of needing Him. You come to Him
with all your need and He'll supply it. He will not send you
away empty. He will not do it. All right.