Turn with me now, if you would,
to Mark 6. Mark 6. And let's read our text, which is going
to be verses 35 to 44. Mark 6, verse 35 says, And when
the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him and said,
This is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them
away, that they may go into the country round about and into
the villages, and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing
to eat. He answered and said unto them,
Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall
we go and buy two hundred penny worth of bread, and give them
to eat? He saith unto them, How many
loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew,
they say, Five and two fishes. And He commanded them to make
all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat
down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. And when He had taken
the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven and blessed
and break the loaves and gave them to the disciples to sit
before them. And the two fishes divided He
among them all. And they did all eat and were
filled. And they took up twelve baskets
full of the fragments and of the fishes. And they that did
eat of the loaves were about five thousand men." Now here's
the account that we have before us. These people, I'm sure you know
this story well, don't you? These people are out in a desert
place where there is nothing. They have nothing. They brought
nothing with them. But the Lord, in His goodness
and in His mercy, He took something that was so small, something
that seemed so insufficient, and He blessed it. And He said
to His disciples, now I want you to take this to the people
and I want you to feed them with it. Every soul who was there that
day, every soul that reached inside
that basket out of a true need, I mean a true need, And I stress
that. I would stand here and say that
for the next 20 minutes. Out of a true need. Every soul that reached inside
that basket pulled out something that satisfied their soul. Every
single one of them. Now, as we just saw with Naaman,
this is the Gospel. This right here is the Gospel.
Verse 35 says, And when the day was now far
spent, His disciples came unto Him and said, This is a desert
place." I don't know of a more fearful truth than that right
there. This is a desert place. Springfield,
Missouri is a desert place. Kingsport, Tennessee is a desert
place. The United States of America
is a desert place. The world we live on is a desert
place. See if you can find the book
of Amos with me. If your Bible is at all like
mine, mine's on page 1147. That may help you or hurt you,
I don't know, but Amos chapter 8. Amos 8. I'll give you just a
second. It's after Joel, it's after Hosea, it's after Daniel. Amos 8. And look with me at verse
11. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine
of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the
Lord. And they shall wander from sea
to sea, and from the north even to the east. They shall run to
and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it."
Now materially speaking, everybody's doing fine. We're all doing fine. There are even brethren down
in Mexico who don't have floors. We're all doing fine. There is something, though, that
we don't have. This land we live in does not
have anymore. We don't have it plentifully
anymore. And that is the actual words
of the Lord. They are getting harder and harder
to find, to go into a place that will actually preach and declare
and read and study the words of the Lord. Men and women are
not holding it anymore. They're not holding it anymore.
They keep making all these translations of the Bible, all of these versions
of the Bible. And what they say they're doing
is they're trying to make it easier to understand. The Word
of God is easy enough to understand. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Isn't that right? The Word of
God could not be clearer. Men just don't like it. It's
not that they don't understand it. They just don't like it. And in trying to explain it,
they just explain it away. This is a desert place. The truth of this, though, it
goes much deeper. It goes much, much deeper than
that. Look at Matthew 4 with me. Matthew chapter 4. Matthew 4, verse 1 says, Then was Jesus led up of the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And
when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward
and hungered. And when the tempter came to
him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these
stones be made bread. But He answered and said, it
is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Now that is the
absolute truth. Our Lord is not saying that metaphorically. That is the absolute truth. God
has given man three score and ten. Maybe a little more, maybe
a little less. but 3 score and 10. And during
those 70 years, if a man or a woman does not eat physical bread,
he will die. He won't make it 70 years. Isn't
that right? That is only a physical death. That's all that is. After a man
leaves this earth and goes to meet God, If that man has not
received, if that man has not tasted and fed on and been nourished
by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, he will
die spiritually for all eternity. A spiritual death. Man shall
not live forever by bread alone. But man is going to live forever
by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Not one
word shall fail. I can't help but adore the thought
of you'll, I believe, love this. I was down in Mexico years ago
and Brother Cody Groover had his Bible sitting on the coffee
table. And I don't speak Spanish, I
don't read Spanish, but I was curious if I could understand
it based on some Scriptures I knew and could quote. So I opened
up his Bible to Psalm 23. And Psalm 23, verse 1 in Spanish
said, Jehovah es mi pastor. The Lord is my shepherd. Jehovah
is my pastor. And when I heard that, I thought,
that's exactly right. The Lord is my pastor. Can you
not wait to get up to the great congregation and watch our Lord
Jesus Christ step up into the pulpit and say, turn with me
to Genesis 1.1. How long could he spend preaching
from in the beginning, God, telling us everything that happened in
the beginning before he ever created all this? The Lord is
my pastor. Don't you love that? Man is not
going to live forever by bread alone. Every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of God We all must understand, we all must
enter into the fact that we are not born into this world naturally
possessing this spiritual bread. We're not born perfect little
beings and then, oops, we sinned and lost it. That's not how it
is. This right here, this heart, this man, What's inside us is
a desert place. This is a desert, desert place. That's what our text is telling
us here. Go back to Mark 6 with me. Mark 6 verse 35 says, And when
the day was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him and said,
This is a desert place. And now the time is far past,
Send them away that they may go into the country roundabout
and into the villages and buy themselves bread, for they have
nothing to eat." What the disciples are saying here is, we don't
have anything for them. He said, send them away that
they may go buy something to eat. We don't have anything for
them. They're saying, we can't feed them. This great multitude
is here. And this is a desert place and
we can't feed them. And I'm going to tell you something.
I know this feeling. I know it well. I know it well. I was feeling
it. I've been feeling it all week. Lord, I'm about to get
on an airplane and fly out to a desert place. And you have
some sheep out there who are hungry. And they need to be fed. And I can't feed them. I just
can't. I can try to be as nice, make
you like me and all that kind of stuff, but I can't feed you.
I just can't feed you. God, I know, I'm convinced, God
gives His ministers, those whom He has given this task of serving
in feeding, He gives His ministers a heart for His sheep. God said, feed them. The servants say, Lord, how? How? How can I feed them? I've said this many times to
the brethren in Kingsport. I believe I mean it. I do. I believe I mean it. If the time
comes that the Gospel is not clearly preached in Kingsport,
Tennessee, I want those sheep to leave Kingsport, Tennessee.
I mean that. I have one desire for them. I
want them to feed on the Word of God. I want them to be fed
by the Spirit of God. And if that time comes when I
leave it, then they need to leave Kingsport, Tennessee. They either
need to fire me, they either need to kick me out, send me
packing, or leave themselves. There is one thing needful. I mean, there is one thing needful. I need to hear the Gospel. You
need to hear the Gospel. We have one thing needful. We need our eyes opened to Christ. We need our hearts opened to
Christ. We need to be saved. We need
to be called and we need to feed on Him. And I mean it. I tell them. If you don't hear
it, there's one thing needful. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Our
Lord said this, and this applies to me. I want this to apply to
me. I want this to apply to you. He said, buy the truth and sell
it not. Buy the truth and sell it not.
Well, back over in Mark 6 here, verse 35 says, And when the day
was now far spent, His disciples came unto Him and said, This
is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them away,
that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages,
and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. He
answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat." That's
what He said, give you them to eat. Don't send them away. They're here at the feet of Christ.
They've all come to the table of the Lord Jesus Christ. They've
brought their need to Him. Don't send them away. You feed
them. I want you to feed them. I love
this right here. Go with me over to John 21. John
chapter 21. John 21, verse 12 says, Jesus
saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst
ask him, saying, Who art thou, knowing that it was the Lord?
Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish
likewise. Same thing He's given to this
great multitude. Bread and fish. This is now the
third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after
that He was risen from the dead. So when they had dined, Jesus
saith to Simon Peter, Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me more
than these?" And he's pointing at Simon. Simon
just said, I'm going back to fishing. Right? And they fished all night, and
they didn't catch anything. And he said, cast your net on
the other side. And there was a great multitude of fish, and they couldn't
hardly get it in the boat. And one of them told Peter, it's
the Lord. Peter took his robe off and jumped
in the water, and they finally drug all that fish to land. Here, his whole life is there.
They've got their boat, they've got the nets, they've got the fish.
Our Lord points at all that stuff, and He said, Simon, do you love
Me more than these? He's not saying the other apostles.
You love me more than your brethren. He's talking about all the worldly
stuff. You love me more than these. And this is great mercy. This right here, I hope you enjoy
this as much as I do. Simon Peter, I'll tell you this
first, he's also the one who denied the Lord. Isn't that right?
And he was so disturbed by it, so distraught by it, he had to
think, I don't belong to him. I'm going back to fishing. I'm
just going back to fishing. Our Lord right here, verse 15,
He said, When He had dined, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son
of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him,
Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him,
Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second
time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me He saith unto him, Yea,
Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He said unto him, Feed
my lambs. He said unto him the third time,
Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because
he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? You know why
he was grieved? He was sitting there remembering
his denial. They said, You were with him,
weren't you? He said, No. I don't know him. They said, we saw you with him.
You are one of his. He said, no, I'm not. I can't stand that man. Crucify
him. They finally said, your speech
is betraying you. You're one of his. And he started
cussing that man. I cuss that man. I hate him. I hate him. And here he is thinking, Denied
my Lord. And God looked straight at him
and He said, Simon, do you love Me? He said, yes. He said, Simon,
do you love Me? He said, yes. He said, Simon,
do you love Me? He said in verse 17, Peter was
grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou
Me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things. You
know that I love you. Jesus said unto him, then feed
my sheep. Feed my sheep. You comfort them. If you love me, you give them
what will nourish them, what will satisfy them, what will
sustain them. What's that? Every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God. Feed My sheep. That's what our Lord is telling
His disciples in the text. If you love Me, you feed My sheep. Back in Mark 6, verse 37 says, He answered and
said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto Him,
Shall we go and buy two hundred penny worth of bread and give
them to eat? Over in John's account of this
same story, Philip is the one who said, 200 penny worth of
bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take
a little. What he said was, Lord, we have
200 pennies. And if we go buy 200 pennies
worth of bread, this crowd is so big, that's not enough for
everybody to have one crumb. If we break it into crumbs, it's
not enough for every single person to have one crumb. And I'll tell
you this, if this message is up to me, if the Lord leaves
us to ourselves this morning, I don't even have crumbs for
us. I really don't. I don't even have crumbs. Verse 38, He said unto them,
How many loaves have you? Go and see. And when they knew,
they say, Five and two fishes. Now here they stand, and they
have this food in their hands. Here they're holding some food.
and they know that they have food in their hands. They can
see clearly that they are holding some food in their hands, but
what they cannot see is how they're going to feed the people with
it. They can't see it. That is the position that God
puts every one of His servants in that He has called to feed
the sheep. Lord, I know that I have food
here. I know I do. I know I do. But what I personally possess
of this is so small. It is so insufficient. Who is sufficient for these things? With man, it's impossible, isn't
it? It's impossible. What would you have me to do? Lord, I need you. I need you. I'm looking to you. What would
you have me to do? Go with me over to Matthew's
account of this. Matthew 14. Matthew 14. And look at verse
15 with me. 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 victuals.
But Jesus saith unto them, They need not depart. Give ye them
to eat. And they say unto Him, We have
here but five loaves and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither. to Me." Sounds like the last
message, doesn't it? Bring them hither to Me. That food that you hold in your
hand, those words that you hold in your hand, bring them to Me.
Bring them to Me. Those who have come out of great
need, And that's what God's people are. That's what sinners are.
They are sinners in need. Those who have come out of a
great need. Those who see the fact that they
are nothing. And they have nothing. And if
they stay in the desert place that they're in, they're going
to die right there. If I stay in this desert place, if this
heart stays in that desert place, I'm going to die right here.
He said, you bring them to Me. When you open up that Word, bring
them to Me. You point them to Me. If there's
a spiritual hunger in that desert place, you tell them, I am the
living bread. I'm the living bread. You tell
them, come to Me, and they'll never hunger again. Never again. David said, taste and see that
the Lord is good. When God feeds His sheep with
living bread, That sheep never hungers again. That sheep wanders
in the wilderness to and fro looking for food. That sheep
goes into this feeding place and can't find any food. Then
he comes and goes into this feeding place and can't find food. There's
no food. There's no sustenance. There's
no satisfaction. And all of a sudden, God's Spirit
feeds that sheep with living bread and he says, I'm satisfied. That's it. I'm satisfied. And as long as he stays right
there, he'll never be unsatisfied. Never. Our Lord said, if they
are thirsty, you tell My sheep to come to Me and take the water
of life freely. Drink. Drink. He said, if they're weary, you
tell them to come to Me and I'll give them rest. I'll give them
rest. If they're broke, if they're
flat broke, You tell them to come to Me. You stand up and
you cry, He that hath no money, come, buy and eat. Yea, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price. You just bring them to Me. Bring
them to Me. Salvation is a real man. Salvation is a real man. This mind struggles and struggles
and struggles trying to figure all this out. And the answer
is this. Salvation is a real man. A real man. Eternal life is not
a thing. Eternal life is a person. Heaven
is not a place. Heaven is a person. If we get
to this place and Christ is not there, that's not heaven. Heaven is a person. Salvation
is a person. Eternal life is a person. There
is a real man sitting on a throne right now. There is a real man
sitting on a throne right now. There is a real man sitting in
that chair right now. And more real than that man is
right now is a man. God became a man. God became
a man. There is a man. We're going to
see a man. We're going to walk up to a man.
We're going to talk to a man. We're going to hug a man. And
through this man, One day, we see Him right now with eyes of
faith. We don't know exactly what He
looks like. And we don't know what we shall
be when we see Him. But we know when the trump resounds,
and the clouds separate, and this man descends, as soon as
our eyes see Him, we're going to be just like Him. We'll all
be changed. In a moment, in a twinkling of
an eye. And it's all because this man came down and gave himself
for his people. And through the sacrifice of
that man's blood, because that man shed his own blood, this
is not a theory, this is something a man did. And because that man,
out of his own love, in His own heart, because He came and emptied
the blood, emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for our
helpless race. Because of that blood and because
of that man, we're going to get to walk up to the throne of grace
with the boldness that He's not going to kill us on sight. because
he dealt with our sins and they're gone. And we're going to find
mercy and we're going to find grace to help in time of need. All because of this man. I'm going to tell you this, I
can feed on that. That tastes really good to me. That tastes so delicious to me.
Taste and see that that man is so good He is so good. Back over in Mark 6, verse 38
says, Mark 6, verse 38, He saith unto them, How many loaves have
you? Go and see. And when they knew,
they say, Five and two fishes. And He commanded them to make
all sit down by companies upon the green grass. When it comes
to the issue of life, the quickening, the feeding of the soul. Man
must sit down. He just must. He must. God must do it all. Verse 39
says, He commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon
the green grass, and they sat down in ranks by hundreds and
by fifties. And here we sit. Everybody's in ranks? And maybe one of these days we'll
be in here by hundreds and fifties. Here we sit, ready and waiting. Verse 41, And when He had taken
the five loaves and the two fishes, He looked up to heaven and blessed
and break the loaves. He is the One who did this. He is the one who did this. He
took it, He looked up to heaven, He blessed it, and He break it. That is how this gift of life
was given to us. He said, a body hast thou prepared
me, and He took it. For thirty-three and a half years,
this man walked this earth perfectly looking up to heaven. Always
in perfect communion with his Father. Absolute perfection. And God his Father blessed it.
He said, this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. He's
the only man who was ever well pleasing to the Father. Don't
you love how it says in Isaiah, Behold My servant, Mine elect. That's talking about Christ.
Do you know who God chose? Christ. God chose Christ. Do you know
who God elected? Christ. If I'm in Him, I'm elect
in Him. If I'm not in Him, I'm not elect
in Him. But it all hinges on Him. God
chose Him. God blessed it. He said, this
is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And then God the
Father broke it. Our Lord said, Father,
into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. And having said thus, he gave
up the ghost." He said, this is my body which was broken for
you. This is my body which was broken
for you. Verse 41, when he had taken the
five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven and blessed
and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set
before them And the two fishes divided He among them all. And
they did all eat and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets
full of the fragments and of the fishes. And they that did
eat of the loaves were about five thousand men." That's amazing,
isn't it? That's amazing. I thought about a couple of things
as I was envisioning that scenario. I'm sure that they started feeding
the people at the front of the crowd. Can't you see all these
people sitting in rows? And they're all facing the Lord,
right? And the disciples are up there
with the Lord because He hands these things to them and says,
you feed the people with this. And here they start. They have
these baskets. And the other Gospels say, 5,000
men beside the women and children. They had families. Back then,
they had large families. So a family of four would be
20,000 people. And more children than that,
there could be 25, 30, 50, who knows how many? Thousands of
people. Huge crowd of people. Can't you envision some of the
people in the back? looking at each other, scared
to death, worried as they look up and they see what He did.
They saw Him take it, look up to heaven and bless it, break
it, gave it to the messengers, and the messengers are giving
it to the people. And can't you see them thinking, oh, I hope
there's enough for me. Are they going to make it all
the way back here to the back? And they see people up there being
fed, reaching in, filled. I read about men like Abraham.
I read about men like Moses. I read about men like David and
Solomon and Isaiah and Jeremiah. And I read about men like Paul
and Peter and James and John. And I think, oh, I hope there's
enough left for me. Is there going to be one crumb
left for me? Is the work that Christ did... I see that Christ just did a
work. Is the work that Christ did enough
for all who come to Him? Will there be anything left for
me? Peter finally walks up with that
basket and that man looks at Peter and he says, is there anything
left in that basket? He says, all you can hold. Reach in. Reach in for more. Put that in
your pocket and reach in again. All you can hold. Our Lord said, open your mouth
wide and I'll fill it. Isn't that what He said? I love how David said, my cup
is running over. I can see Him with goodness and
mercy so happy and excited. Wait a minute. All of this goodness,
all of this mercy, my cup is running over. Grab another cup,
David. I thought about the apostles
too. Bless their hearts. Here they are passing the food
out. Trust me, they're hungry too. They're doing what their God
told them to do. They're feeding the people. And
you know what's going through their mind? I'm telling you,
I know what's going through their mind. I hope there's something
here for me too. I would love to eat today too. Is there going to be anything
left for me? Will there be literally one crumb
left for me? I'm dishing this all out. I would
love to have some too. Our Lord said, You give, and
it shall be given unto you, good measure pressed down and shaken
together. Isn't that what He said? Twelve
apostles passed out all of this food. And when it was all said
and done, there was twelve baskets of food left over. One for every
apostle. You just can't out-give the Lord.
I'm telling you, you cannot out-give the Lord. Give it all. You can't out-give the Lord.
His Word will not return void. Open your mouth. He will fill
it. Seek. You'll find. And we know
it's because the Father in His kindness is drawing us. When a sinner comes to Christ,
he finds out, this is what he finds out, not only is Christ
all I need, not only is He all I need, this is what he finds
out, He is unsearchable riches. He's unsearchable riches. Wealth
that can never be told. Once a sinner has Him, he realizes,
I have it all. I literally have it all. I have
it all. Now, I'll close with this question
for every one of us. Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Am I hungry? Go to Him. He said, bring them
to Me. If you're hungry, and oh, I pray
God would make us hungry, If you're hungry, go to Him. He will feed your soul. He truly
will feed your empty soul. Thank God He feeds mine. He feeds
mine too. He's so good. He's so kind. We
feed on Him. I just want to tell each one
of you that I've known you now for With the
exception of these two, I've known you for a solid probably
18 hours. And I love you. I love you in
Christ. I really do. I pray the Lord
will bless the work here. I pray the Lord will bless all
of your hearts. All the generations that are
here. I pray for you all back here in the back. You all could
be the future of this ministry. God could give you believing
spouses. He could give you believing children. He can do great wonders
here. And I pray for you. I pray the
Lord will strengthen you in the days ahead. I pray He'll comfort
your hearts. I pray for these men who are
coming. May God bless them. Give them the message. May God
feed this place. And may it all be for His glory
and His honor. Let's close with one more word
of prayer, okay? Dear Heavenly Father, thank You
for this time. Lord, thank You for this gathering.
We know that You have brought us here. You have gathered us
together. We desire to be Your sheep, Lord. We long for the
Great Shepherd. Would You please take this glorious
Word and feed our hearts with it? Lord, would You please bless
us by Your Spirit? Feed us, and would You allow
us to feed on this for the days ahead? We do pray for Your Gospel
everywhere You've raised it up. We do pray for every man We pray
for every brother and sister. We pray for every minister. Lord,
may You receive all glory and honor in all things. Thank You
for choosing us and thank You for showing mercy to us. May
You give us the ability to declare this Gospel. Declare to others
how great things the Lord has done for us. And would You bless
it according to Your will. We ask all these things in Christ's
name. Amen.