Come back to Matthew 15. Matthew chapter 15. In these verses, we see the Lord healing those
who had need of healing. And once again, feeding the multitude. I titled the message, His Compassions
Fail Not. We are told in the scriptures,
his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. And one of the things we're going
to see here that I wrote down this morning
as I was going over this, we will see our necessity and the Lord Jesus Christ ability
to meet our need. There is no need that we have
that he can't meet. And I would do God we could realize
that. What comfort that would give
us, whether it's a spiritual need or whether it's physical
need. Our Lord is able to do it, and
He does it. Time after time after time, day
after day after day, He meets all our needs. You need to eat
today? You're gonna have something to eat when you leave here, aren't
you? He is meeting that need. He's the one meeting that need.
The air I breathe, I need air to breathe. He's meeting that
need. There are so many needs that we really have to just sustain
this body and this life we have on this earth. And our Lord meets
those needs moment by moment, and we don't even realize it.
Really, we take for granted taking a breath. We take that for granted. And yet that's a need we have,
and He meets it constantly, constantly. Now, what we're going to see
here, first of all, is that our Lord was always about his father's
business. Always working, always saving,
always busy. Busy, busy, busy. There's a man
that lives in Cottageville, Danny Belcher. I've known him for years. I've never known a man work like that man until I moved here
and met the Parkers, Johnny and Tommy. I've never met, really
I've never met anybody that works like that. Except one, the Lord
Jesus Christ, from the time he got up in the morning to the
time he closed his eyes at night, he was either working, saving,
doing good, or praying. It's constant. I know His disciples,
when they followed Him, I know they had to be wore out every
day. They had to be. Until every now and then, He'd
say, let's come apart. He'd have some mercy on them
and take them apart and rest them a little bit. But most of
the time, He was always going from this place to that place
in multitudes. would follow him, and I'm telling
you, you know this, people wear you out. Am I right? You know, they can wear you out.
I wear you out, you wear me out, we can wear each other out, that's
why we gotta go home. That's why Solomon said, withdraw your
foot from your neighbor's house, lest your continual coming weary
him. He's like, he said, go home once
in a while. Know when it's time to go home. But he always had these multitudes
following him, and he would be there all day into the evening
hours. And you know his disciples were
weary, and in the evening hours, instead of sending him home,
what's he do? He tells the disciples to feed
him. And I know they're tired. I know
they're tired. But when I get tired and I get
weary, You know, you study, you prepare,
you look for a message. And sometimes my mind is just
tired. It's just like it just doesn't
want to work anymore. And I often, I do, I often think
how tired and weary our Lord was, how he just wore himself
out. And that encourages me to, sit up a little longer, study
a little longer, think a little longer, meditate a little longer,
because He did. Busy, busy, busy. And our Lord
also, He never stayed in one place very long to glory in His
success. We read this in the Gospel. He
would bless a group of people, a multitude, or a person, then
He'd move on. He would move on. He never stayed
to glory in his success. There are many sinners in different
places that need him. Unlike us, we take, you know,
we do something successful. We take a victory lap or two
or three, you know, we take victory laps. He just do good. and then he'd move on to the
next one, and the next need, the next need here and the next
need there. He never sat around in glory
in his success. We also see here that where Christ
is, there's always a stir. Now God can't be here and there
not be a stir. God cannot be in a community,
in a congregation, and there not be a stir. where our Lord went, everywhere
He went. Now, I'm telling you, there was
a stir, good or bad. Good or bad, there was a stir. And here, our Lord makes Himself
available. In verse 29, it says, He went
up into a mountain and He sat down there. And He sat down there
to make Himself available to the needy. Come to Him. When I look at that,
as a preacher of the gospel, come to Him. He's made Himself
available. Whatever the need is, come to
Him. Come to Him. Don't think your need's too little. Whatever it is, come to Him.
And if you'll notice here, this crowd, this great multitude came
to Him, and they brought with them Those that were lame and
blind and dumb and maimed and many others, many other sick
people. Now, all healing is of God. He can speak a word and heal
me of whatever spiritual problem I have or physical problem I
have. He can speak a word. Or God being a God of means,
He can use medicine to heal me physically. But all healing is
of God. It's of God. And here, I believe
what He does here to these people physically, we have a spiritual
implication. That He's able to heal anyone
who is spiritually blind, dumb, maimed, crippled, he's able to
heal us spiritually. And that's what I need. I need
spiritual healing. Now, physical healing would be
good. It'd be nice if I'm not hurting.
It's good if I can walk around, like James in a wheelchair. It'd
be good if she could get up. It'd be good to her. She would
love to be able to do that, to get up and walk. But that's not
the greatest need. The greatest need is that I can
spiritually walk with God in Christ, that I can spiritually
speak with God, that I can commune with my Heavenly Father. That's
the best voice. That's the best language. That's
the best speaking is when I'm able to speak with Him and the
Lord Jesus Christ. When He gives me a heart to do
it and the ability to do it, that's the healing you and I
need. That's the healing we need. If you'll notice what they did
with these that needed healing, they laid every one of them at
his feet. At his feet. And it says he healed them. He
healed them. His power over all flesh is evident. No case was too difficult that
he could not heal. No case. Our Lord has never,
our Lord has never, I was gonna say he's never met a challenge,
he's never been challenged. There is no challenge to God's
power. There is challenge to mine. There's limits to everything
about me. God is infinite. And everything about God is infinite.
And he's infinite, listen, he's infinite in wisdom, he's infinite
in knowledge, and he's infinite in power. There's no challenge
to his power. It's all a matter, listen, it's
all a matter of his will. You know, whatever problem I
might have or sickness I might have, it's not a challenge to
his power to heal me, it's a matter of his will. Lord, if you will,
the leper said, you can make me clean, if you will. Our Lord said this, He said,
"...all power in heaven and earth is given to Me." Well, that being
so, what ought we to do? Go to Him who has all power and
all authority. He's the Great Physician of souls.
It says in the Scriptures, "...He's able to save unto the uttermost
them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make
intercession for them." Now this doesn't mean a whole
lot to anybody that doesn't need Him. If you really don't have
a need of Christ, you don't have spiritual need of healing, this
won't mean anything. But to the hungry, to the lame,
to the dumb, to the deaf that need it, it means everything. Christ means everything. And here's the result after He
healed them. They glorified, it said, the
God of Israel. All spiritual healing is for
His glory. But I tell you, I had written
all spiritual healing, but listen, all healing. Whatever the Lord heals me of
is for His glory, my good. And if He leaves it with me,
and He doesn't, He'll may say physically, I've got some physical
ailment and I've got to live with it for years and years and
years. That's for his glory and my good too. I need it. I need it. Whatever I have, God's
given me, whatever I'm going through, God's putting me through
it and I need it. And you need it. As Peter said,
if need be, if need be. Every trial is a need be. And
evidently you need to be going through it. Evidently. We can never, listen, it says
they glorified the God of Israel. We can never praise or worship
Christ too much. Too much. You and I will never
ever be guilty of giving Him too much praise. We will never
be guilty of worshiping Him too much. We won't be guilty of that. And then it says in verse 32, I have compassion on the multitude. Now, that means that he felt
their need. He felt their need. He knew they
was hungry. He knew they was tired. He knew
they'd been following him. I believe this crowd had been
following him for three days. This is more than I feel sorry for them. I feel bad for them. I have compassion
for... He was moved. Now listen, He
was moved for them. Their hunger and their weariness
moved Him to do something about it. He was moved. He has compassion and when he
has compassion, listen, he does something about it. He does something
about it. He says, I have compassion on
the multitude because they continue with me now three days. They've
been following him for three days and they have nothing to
eat. and I will not send them away
fasting, lest they faint in the way." Remember the last time
that the multitude followed him and he was going to feed them
and the disciple said, should we send them away? And that's
what he said. He says here, he said, I'm not
sending them away. Don't even bring it up. Don't
even bring it up. I'm not sending them away hungry. I promise you one thing. And
I've learned this over the years. If you really came here hungry,
he's not gonna send you away. He's not gonna send you away
hungry. If you don't get anything out of this, it might be my fault,
but it might be yours too. It might be yours. But listen,
it will not be his. I promise you, it will not be
his fault. If you came hungry, you will go away full. That's
Scripture. That's Scripture. I will not
send them away fasting lest they faint in the way. Christ knows what we're made
of, and He knows what we need. He knows I need to eat today.
He said in the early part of the Sermon on the Mount, He said,
Your heavenly Father knoweth what things you have need of.
Don't worry about it. Don't fret over all these things
that you, what we're gonna eat, drink, and wear. Don't spend
your life worrying about that. You spend your life on your relationship
to Jesus Christ, your union to Him, and your growth in grace
and in knowledge of Him. You spend your life on Him. Your
Heavenly Father will take care of all these other things you
have need of. Our wants, they're like the ocean. You can't fill
that up. You can't fill that up. But our
needs, He takes care of all of our needs. And then here in verse 32, something
else I see, that following Christ is never easy. He proved their
sincerity. You know, our Lord proves, He
proves our sincerity. They followed him for three days,
for three days. He says, they've been with me
for three days, and they have nothing to eat. Once, when we were living in Milton, back
years ago, and a company I worked for, it went out of business.
I'd lost my job, and things were tough, were tough. And we were
driving national, 50 miles or so. And there's times we didn't,
I mean, it was tough to even come up with the money for gas
to be driving back there and then drive to work, you know.
Well, I wasn't even driving to work, I lost my job. But anyway,
I remember saying this, I remember saying this once, I said, why?
Of course, now I know why, 40 years later. Why does the Lord
make it so hard and so difficult for to hear the gospel? I want
to hear the gospel. I want to be there. And I thought,
why is he making it so hard? I remember saying it. Why is
he making it so hard to go and hear the gospel? I tell you why. I can look back now, I know why.
Proven faith. Proven faith and proven the sincerity
of faith. I didn't know that at the time.
I just couldn't understand, why is He making it so hard to hear
the gospel? And here, these people following
for three days, nothing to eat. Nothing to eat. He proves the
sincerity of them. And He says here, I'm not going
to send them away fasting unless they faint in the way. and I've said this just a minute
ago, he feels our need. We have not a high priest who
cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in
all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. You know, I can't feel your,
you got different needs out here, you got different things you're
going through, your different heartaches, maybe different things
physically. I can't feel all that. Our Lord can. He can be touched,
it said, with the feeling of our infirmities. That woman,
remember that woman who had the issue of blood? She touched the
hem of his garment. And he said, what did he say?
Who touched me? And the disciple said, Lord,
there's a great throne here. They're all touching. Everybody's
reaching out and touching you as they go by. What do you mean? Who touched me? Look at this
crowd. They were puzzled. They said, what are you talking
about? He said, no, someone in this crowd, and he knew who,
but someone in this crowd has touched me. He said, because I have perceived
that virtue has gone out of me. It went to her knee. He felt
her knee. And he said, virtue's gone out
of me. Somebody touched me. The Lord Jesus Christ can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And the disciples answer in verse
33, they answer, we don't have enough food. His disciples say
to him, when should we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to feel so great a multitude? Didn't we just go over this a
few pages back? He fed the 5,000. They said,
we're in a desert place. There's no food here. A little bit of time goes by and
they forget it. How in the world, you have to
think this, how in the world can you forget such a miracle?
How in the world can you forget taking five loaves and a few
fishes to the Lord and then all of a sudden here you are just
feeding 5,000 men plus the women and children and you just keep
giving it out, just keep giving it out? How can you forget that? How can you forget the last time
the Lord delivered you? How can you forget that? We do,
don't we? We become just as anxious and
just as worrisome when we start to go through something, something
begins to happen. We forget the last time how he brought us through
it. I tell you what, our memories
are about that long. When it comes to grace, when
it comes to grace. And our Lord said, how many loaves
do you have? And what he does, he makes them
take inventory, not for himself. He knew how many they had. Little is much when the Lord's
in it. Turn over to 1 Kings chapter
17. Reading this this morning. Let me read something to you
here. 1 Kings chapter 17. Look in verse 8. And the word of the Lord came
unto him, Elijah. He came unto Elijah, saying,
Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and
dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow
woman there to sustain thee. So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate
of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of
sticks. And he called to her and said,
Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel that I may
drink. And as she was going to fetch
it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel
of bread in thine house. And she said, As the Lord thy
God liveth, I have not a cake, but a handful of meal in a barrel,
and a little oil in a cruz. She's very poor. The Lord did not send him to
a rich widow, a woman who was left a lot of money and a lot
of means. He sent Elijah to a very poor woman. She said, I am gathering
Let me go back here. I have not a cake, but a handful
of meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruise. And behold,
I am gathering two sticks, two sticks that I may go in and dress
it for me and my son that we may eat and die. They're about
to starve to death. This is a beautiful picture now,
don't miss it. She said, we're about to starve
to death. God didn't send him to a rich person, but to a very
poor person. And Elijah said unto her, and
here's something else, let me point this out. God said in the
beginning of this, I commanded. There's a woman there, I commanded.
She didn't, when she saw Elijah, she didn't say, oh, the Lord
told me to take care of you. I was commanded. She didn't know
that. But what God said to Elijah,
this woman's commanded. She don't even know it yet. She
don't even know it. But the Lord commanded her to
do this, and she doesn't even realize it. And Elijah said unto
her, Fear not, go and do as thou hast said, but make me thereof
a little cake first, and bring it to me, and after make for
thee and for thy son. And thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, the barrel of mill shall not waste, neither shall the
crews of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain
upon the earth. And she went and did according
to the saying of Elijah." You see, when God commands faith,
it happens. It happens. She believed what
Elijah said. And she and he and her house
did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted
not, neither did the cruise of oil fail according to the word
of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah." It never failed. Little is much when Christ blesses
it. You think, I can't afford to
give this or I can't afford to do that. I tell you what, if
we do what we do, for Christ's sake, for Christ's sake, it won't
run out. It will not run out. Our Lord said, how many loaves
do you have? And I never noticed this before,
and I don't know. It just jumped out at me. I never
noticed that. Word, they said 7, the word 7
is capitalized. They said, we got 7 and a few
fishes. Well, the number 7 is the number of completion, it's
the number of perfection. And it just stood out to me this
morning, the Lord Jesus Christ is our 7. He's our 7. He's our completion. He's our perfection. He's our
seven. And then the Lord commands them
to sit on the ground where they belong. And I pointed this out
the last time, our Lord always has order. Not chaos, order. There's order. Order in the service. But someone said this, our greatest
blessings are usually received in the dust. are usually received
when He brings us down. And then our Lord lifts up His
eyes and He gives thanks. Always giving thanks. And then
He'd break it and He gave to His disciples and His disciples
gave to the multitude. He does not work apart from His
servants. Pastors and teachers, He uses
them. He uses them to feed the people. He feeds them He feeds
them just like if the Lord really gonna feed you this morning,
He's gonna feed me in the study. He's gonna give me something
in the study to say. He's gonna feed me and then I'm
gonna come out here and I'm gonna feed you with the same bread
He fed me with. You know, He break that bread
and when He fed them, they all ate of the same bread. We eat
the same bread of life. We are filled with the same bread,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And they all did eat. They all
did eat. And they all ate, listen, now
listen, this is important. They all ate at the same time.
How important it is to assemble ourselves together here. If it's possible, always be here. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes
the ox falls in the ditch on Sunday and you have to get him
out. But always be here if possible.
Because the Lord has put a special blessing on these meetings, on
the gathering together of his people. He said where two or
three are gathered together, they're in the midst. Brethren,
if we really believe that, we want to be there. I want to be
where he is. You want to be where he is. And
it says they were all filled. You know why? They were all hungry.
They were all hungry and they all did eat. It says they all
did eat. All of them. And they took up
more than they started with. They got seven loaves and then
they took up seven baskets. You know, 40 years has gone by.
I can say right now, even spiritually, and the material things in this
life. I've got more now than I ever
started with. I've got more. You've got more than you started
with. You know that. I have more understanding than
I had 40 years ago. They took up more than they started
with. And it says there in verse 38,
and I close. 4,000 men. That's a lot of people,
plus the women and children. That's a lot of people. I mean,
think how long it probably took the disciples to go around to
each group. I mean, we were sitting at that
wedding last night, and I'm thinking, are they ever going to get around
to our table so we can eat? We were like number 17. I'm like, I want to go trade
somebody to get number one and slip it over there. But I'm thinking, man, this is
going to take forever. And His disciples, at the end
of the day, at the end of the day, they go out and they feed thousands,
thousands. I'm glad thousands weren't there
last night. We'd still be waiting. No, it's... Our work is done when the sheep
are fed. That's my job. That's my responsibility.
Feed the sheep, feed the sheep. And then here's what he does.
Verse 39, he takes ship and he goes to the next place to bless.
He takes ship and he heads for the next place to bless. His
compassions fell not, they are new every morning. Great is thy
faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Alright.