Alrighty. We'll be looking in
our Bibles at the book of Matthew chapter 15 again, but most of
everything we need tonight is in our handout. I'd like to begin
by reading our text in Matthew chapter 15, beginning at verse
29, and read it through the end of the chapter of verse 39. If
you would, read along with me. Matthew chapter 15, verse 29. And Jesus departed from thence,
and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain,
and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto
him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed,
and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet. And he healed
them. healed all those that were brought
to Him. Verse 31, In so much that the
multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, and the
maimed to behold, the lame to walk, and the blind to see, and
they glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called His disciples
unto Him and He said, I have compassion on the multitude. There's that word, He has compassion
on people. We spoke in great depth about
that in one of our earlier studies. 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 say unto
him, whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus said 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 the broken meat that was left seven baskets full and they that
did eat were four thousand men besides women and children and
he sent away the multitude and took ship and came into the coast
of Magdala." The rest of our time we'll spend in our handout
if you'd like to turn to page 1 with me. Our Lord says to His
disciples, I will not send them away. That was verse 32. And
I love the sound of these words. I love the sound of the words
of the Son of God. He also states it this way over
in John 6, verse 37. Him that cometh unto Me, I will
in no wise cast out. Aren't those wonderful words?
Folks, this is our hope. This is our hope for our children,
our family members, our loved ones who still walk in darkness.
Why we continue to pray for them, because today is still the day
of salvation. As long as there is breath in
the body, there is the ability for the Lord to save His people
to the uttermost. And He says to here, those that
cometh unto Me, I will let no one cast out. Why would He cast
them out? He's the one who brought us to Him. That means there's
nothing in any center in all the world that will keep Christ
from receiving Him. If He does come to Christ, come
then to Christ. Come just like you are. Just
come to Christ. That's what I say. I cry out,
just come to Christ and He will receive you. Listen to this.
short poem that I found and copied here. Just as I am without one
plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. In that thou biddest
me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. Regarding those who have
come to Him, our Savior says, I will not send them away. That means having come to Christ,
there's nothing in us that will cause Him to send us away. and no need that might arise
that can necessitate our going away from our Savior. In verses
29 and 30, our Lord continues to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. Listen to these words from Isaiah
35, verses 5 through 6. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened. That's what the Lord's telling
us there in verses 29 and 30. He's telling us this very thing. The eyes of the blind shall be
opened. and the ears of the deaf shall
be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as in heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. Or how about these
words from Isaiah 61 verses 1 through 3. The Spirit of the Lord God
is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good
tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort
all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give
unto them beauty for ashes and the oil of joy for mourning,
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they
might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord. that
He might be glorified. Page 2. Remember in John 10,
verses 24-25, then came the Jews round about Him and said unto
Him, How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ,
tell us plainly. And then Jesus answered them,
He says, I told you, and ye believed not. And then He says this, He
says, The works that I do In my Father's name they bear witness
of me. Folks, that's what he's doing
here. These are the works that bear witness of him. These are
the works that he does in his Father's name that bear witness
of who he is, why he's here. They bear witness that he is
the one sent of God as prophesied in the Old Testament as we read
in Isaiah a moment ago. They bear witness of his power
No one else had the power to heal the way the Lord Jesus did.
His ability to heal them that could not be healed in any other
way. Remember the woman with the issue of the blood? She had
gone to all the doctors in the land. She had spent all that
she had, yet nothing could heal her. Only Christ could heal her
body up. They bear witness of His great
compassion for the weak and the needy. This is yet another witness,
another display of our Savior's great compassion and grace, both
to the souls and the bodies of men. He manifests His power and
Godhead and proves Himself to be the Messiah, the one that
was spoken of, the one that was sent. Here was a great crowd
of people gathered around the Lord Jesus. They had been with
Him for three days. He performed miracle after miracle,
healing the sick, disease, and impotent souls, impotent souls,
and they were brought before Him, and His miracles were so
astounding that all these thousands of people were completely amazed
by the power and the grace of God, and they glorified the God
of Israel. Verse 31. This crowd of people
was so taken up with Christ, His miraculous power, His infinite
goodness, and His gracious word that they lost track of everything
else. As I was reading the fact that
they had brought their people, they're sick with palsy and all
that, when they brought all these people to be healed, they just
completely forgot everything else. Have you ever been so wrapped
up and something you looked up at the clock and time had passed
before you knew it? I've never gone for three days
without eating, I'll tell you that. But I can imagine how caught
up they were in the healing of their loved ones and this one
who is doing the healing that they just completely lost track
of all time. These folks were hungry, hungry
to the point of fainting, having received great mercy and blessings
one on top of another, they were yet in great need, and that was
need of filling their bellies. They needed food and strength.
Think about this for a moment. What could be more difficult
and troublesome than moving the sick? the diseased people, especially
in those days. Today, we have all kinds of fancy
gadgets to move people around. I got a little electric three-wheel
cart sitting in the church that our sister Roberta was using
for her husband. If anybody knows somebody locally
that needs one, I'd love to see it being used. But in those days,
they didn't have those things. They had to carry them. They
had to literally carry people to the Savior. But hope. of being healed was in sight
for them. That was their only thought.
Such a hope, page three, such a hope inspired these needy souls
and those who cared for them. Those who cared for them. No
obstacle was considered. No cost was calculated. Time
was not even a factor. When people are in desperate
need, nothing will prevent them from seeking relief. If there
is any hope, For bodily health, people will wait in a crowded
office, a doctor's office, for hours, or move from one state
to another. I know plenty who have moved
to Arizona to be in a drier air, or for purer air. And they give
up jobs. They'll pay any price. But few
are even slightly concerned about their soul's health. Yet the
word of God teaches us that any center who knows his soul's need
will allow nothing to keep him from Christ. Who alone can meet
his soul's needs? And anyone who knows the power
of Christ and cares for the souls of others will do whatever he
can do to get sin-sick souls to the Savior. Is that not what
we saw in the story of the Canaanite woman last week in verses 21
through 28? She went before the Lord and
begged for mercy. And when the Lord wouldn't answer
her, and finally did, saying it was not meet for him to go
to the dogs. I'm not saying it exactly how
he said it. I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house
of Israel. It is not meet to take the children's
bread and to cast it to dogs. After saying that, the woman
continued to cry for mercy. And she said unto him, She said
unto him, yet the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their
master's table. Oh, what faith this woman had.
Oh, the length that she would go to have the healing savior
heal her daughter. A man once shared with me how
he had been under a doctor's care for glaucoma. for many years
and at some point he got a little weary of going to the office
every two months and paying the fees connected with his constant
examinations. So he asked if he might be able
to cut back on the number of visits and the doctor's reply
was this, they're your eyes, you're the one who has glaucoma.
And he said he was embarrassed and immediately decided that
the inconvenience and the cost was far less significant than
the possibility of losing his eyes. He went to whatever it
took. He did whatever it took to make himself well. That's
what these folks were doing. They were doing whatever it took
to make their loved ones well, and that would be bringing them
to Christ. But that's nothing compared with losing our soul, and nothing compared with the
thought of others perishing. These words hit home close to
me with my two children. My son has agreed to possibly
go into church with me when I'm in Madisonville this next April.
I pray the Lord will move him to do so, and that in doing so,
he might move upon my son's heart as he did with me when I was
40. Nothing is more important. Let
all who value their souls make it their life's business to seek
Christ. Let all who value the souls of
others make it their life's business to bring sinners to the Savior. May the Lord be pleased to cause
us to be like those four men who were described by Mark in
chapter 2 verse 1 through 4, who carried their needy friend
up to the roof and tore the roof off so that they could get their
friend to the master. Remember they had him on a bed
and they lowered him down through the roof. Verse 31 displays for
us the omnipotence, the all-powerful of God's mercy. The multitude
wondered when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to behold,
the lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they glorified the
God of Israel. Our Lord Jesus healed people
with real infirmities. The word maimed means to be mutilated
or cut off, as if one whose limb had been cut off in an accident,
page four. What we have before us is a tremendous
picture of our Lord's power to heal sin-sick souls. Don Fortner
wrote this, he says, there is no plague of the heart that He
cannot cure. There is no deformity of the
soul that He cannot overcome. There is no fever of lust that
He cannot stop. No palsy of worldliness that
He cannot heal. no cancer of indolence that He
cannot remove. When the Son of God sends His
Spirit, omnipotent grace is healing grace for our souls. He opens
blind eyes, causes the dumb to sing His praise, the deaf to
hear His word, the blind to see His glory, and the lame to walk
in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Those who claim
gifts of tongues and healing are without a doubt deceitful
men, but do not imagine that the time of miracles has passed. I remember thinking the day that the Lord called
Kathy out of darkness over here in the church. When she wrote
that little note to me in the church I think I see what he
has been saying about the grace of God in choosing his elect. About the grace of God and only
in God saving his elect. I remember seeing her face. I remember her and Pastor Gene
and I crying over there on the side as I saw the miracle of
the Lord giving life to my wife. If you would be saved, go to
Christ by faith. Cast your soul down before Him.
Call upon Him for relief. He's still the same today as
He has been for 2,000 years. He is still the Great Physician.
He still receives sinners. He still is mighty to save. Listen to Malachi 3 verse 6,
For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. In Matthew 15, verse 32, we see
once again the compassionate character of our God and Savior,
where we read, 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. The word compassion
is used more often in the four Gospels to describe our Savior
than any other. It's used in the entire Bible
29 times, and it's used 14 alone in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And John. And they show us much
about our Redeemer's feelings of joy and sorrow, thanksgiving
and anger, holiness and zeal, but the word they most often
use to describe Him is this word, compassion. The word means to
be moved from within, Can you grasp that in your mind? I know
it's difficult. It's difficult for me, this sinner
who sits before you. My Lord considers me and He has
moved from within for me. He has compassion for me. Our
Lord's word, the English word means co-compassion or to suffer
with. It's a feeling of deep sympathy
and sorrow accompanied with a strong desire to alleviate the pain
and remove its cause. He has compassion. The Lord's
compassion for his elect, page five, extends to every aspect
of our lives. Our spiritual and our eternal
needs are indescribably important to him. And so are our immediate
temporal needs as well. I was just talking to our brother Thomas Carlyle down there in
San Diego, and he's just so amazed. He's a carpenter. Right now,
the market for carpenters is flooded with people from below
the border. flooded from people from other
countries. It's one of those things that
everybody knows how to swing a hammer, I guess. And so to
be in the United States and have to survive as a carpenter right
now is very difficult. There's not much work. There's
not enough work for everybody is a better way to say that.
And Thomas was telling me, he said, it amazes me how I'm approaching
the weekend and I don't know what I'm going to do for groceries
on Monday. And all of a sudden the Lord gives me a day's job
where I can go down and purchase enough groceries to get me through
next week. He said, it just amazes me, amazes me at how the Lord
provides. And he goes, and this is not
the only time he does it. He does it every week. Let us never imagine that our
Savior is less concerned for our welfare than we are for the
welfare of our own families. Folks, He's not only more concerned
for us than we are for our own family, He's God Almighty. He's the one who can take care
of it far better than anyone else can. Let no sinner question
the tenderness and the compassion of Christ. He is graciously receiving
all who come to Him. He is freely fully and forever
forgiving all the sins of all who trust in Him. He will forever
supply all the needs of all who call upon Him. God's mercy in
Christ is an infinitely bottomless ocean, though countless multitudes
draw from it, its boundless fullness is never diminished. What comfort
there is for our souls in this great attribute of our God. His
compassions fail not. Lamentations 3.22. He knows the
world in which we live. He knows our temptations. He knows Satan's devices. He
knows our frailties. He remembers that we are but
dust. And he pities us. Seeing then, we have a great
high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of
God. Let us hold fast our profession,
for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4, verse 14 through 15. Last paragraph of page 5, if
the Lord Jesus is full of compassion towards us, how much more compassionate
we ought to be towards the needs of men. We read in Ephesians
4, verse 32 through 5, verse 2, we read these words, and be
ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as
God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers
of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also
hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and
a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling Savior." Oh, I love the way Paul
writes these words and gives us such encouragement to walk. Walk according to the Lord. Walk
in love, as Christ also hath loved us. Pure religion, as it
says in James 1, verse 27, and undefiled before God and the
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. Page
six. Galatians, no, 1 John 3, verse
17, we read, but whosoever, but whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him. Or Galatians 6, 9 through 10. And let us not be weary in well-doing,
for in due season we shall reap. If we faint, not. As we have therefore opportunity,
let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are
the household of faith. Finally, brethren, let us consider
the useful instruments our God uses men for in these last words
of our text. Our Savior's employment of his
disciples in the distribution of the loaves and fishes teaches
us something about the use of men as instruments in serving
his purpose. Certainly, the Sovereign God
does not need us need us for anything. Our Savior does not
need to use us. He who can make a donkey speak
the words of man can certainly have distributed the loaves and
fishes far more easily and much more faster than the disciples,
but He chose not to do so. He chose not to do what they
were perfectly capable of doing. What a privilege it was for the
disciples to be allowed to pass out the bread and fish as He
multiplied it. Serving Christ by serving the
needs of others is the highest honor and the greatest privilege
in this world. He that receiveth you receiveth
me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. He
that receiveth a prophet in the name of the prophet shall receive
a prophet's reward, and he that receiveth a righteous man in
the name of the righteous man shall receive a righteous man's
reward. And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little
ones a cup of cold water, only in the name of a disciple, verily
I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. Matthew
10, verse 40 through 42. The Apostle Paul describes it
this way. He says, unto me, who am less
than the least of all saints, is this grace given that I should
preach among the Gentiles. the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Ephesians 3.8. It says in verse 33, And his
disciples say unto him, Which should we have so much bread
in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? Could it
be that their reply to the Savior was not a matter of unbelief?
Now remember, This is the second time our Lord having compassion
on the multitude, feeding them with such a little amount of
food. The first was recorded back in chapter 14, if you recall,
page 7. Could it be that they were simply
saying, Lord, if this crowd is going to be fed, you will have
to feed them? Not one of God's preachers that
I know could say that any better. Every single one of us. know
that if it wasn't for God being with us, his sheep would not
be fed. We're up there preaching the
word of God, but it is God who takes it and makes it applicable
and who applies it to the hearts of men. To feed God's sheep,
God must be with the man standing in the pulpit. We do not have enough bread and
have no way of getting any bread ourselves. Are we not most useful
when we acknowledge that we're useless? Are we not most sufficient
when we acknowledge our insufficiency? God never gives us a task to
do without giving us the means and the ability to do it. I was talking with Pastor Gene
this morning about this. He expressed to me how more than
one occasion in the 38 years that he had preached the gospel. The Lord had seemingly taken
him out of his body to where he was standing aside, watching
himself standing in the pulpit and preach, and yet he preached
the gospel, and it was almost like he was watching the Lord
standing in his place doing the preaching. I have never experienced
that, but kind of similar. I've stepped away from the pulpit
several times, many times, and just wondered, where in the world
did I get that? I never even thought about that up until it
just came out of my mouth. Where did I even get that? And
we know where that comes from. That comes from the Lord. It's
the Lord's doing. What great things He does. But
ye shall receive power, it says in Acts 1 verse 8, after that
the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses
unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all of Judea, and in Samaria,
and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, John, what
does that have to do with us? Folks, have you ever talked to
somebody about the Lord outside of your home, outside of church,
maybe at work, or at the store? Every time you speak about your
Lord, The Lord is with you. It's not you, it's Him. It's
always Him. He's the one who reaches out
through, and you're just quoting from remembrance of what you
know in His Word. But ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. If we would serve our
Savior, second paragraph, page seven, if we would be useful
to the generation in which we live, We must constantly acknowledge
that we have nothing with which to serve him, except that which
he supplies us. And such trust have we through
Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to
think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,
who also hath made us able ministers. of the New Testament. When I
read the last line of Matthew 15, 31, I'm reminded that the
glory of God, and only the glory of God, must be our motive in
all things. In all that we do, our motto
should be that according as it is written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. I've said this before, but if
you put these thoughts into your mind before you do anything,
before you ever do anything, before you ever act in any way,
if you say, if you can put these thoughts, does it glorify my
Savior? Oh, how well you'll be in this
world. When our Lord Jesus healed the
multitudes, they glorified the God of Israel. The object and
goal of everything we do in the service of Christ must be to
bring eternity bound souls to glorify and to worship the God
of Israel. The goal of the preacher, the
church, and the individual believer must never be success, fame,
popularity, or approval of men, but for the glory of our God.
So let's read Matthew, and I put it in our handout if you'd like
there. Let's read the last verses there from 34 to 37 again. And
may the Lord of glory teach us something about the blessedness
of giving. 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. of the broken meat that was left,
seven baskets full. So they gave unto the Lord, and
the Lord gave unto the people. The word baskets here is not
a little lunch basket as it was back in Matthew 14, 20, the leftovers
there. But this basket, if you look
it up in the concordance, is a large basket. It's a huge basket. It's the kind used by people
carrying the goods to the market, or the kind that we use to lower
Paul over the city wall. In Damascus, spoken of over in
Acts chapter 9 verse 25, these disciples handed the Lord Jesus
just seven loaves and a few small fish. With that insignificant
lunch, Sufficient only to feed one or two men by us, the Son
of God fed 4,000 men, plus their women and children, and the disciples
gathered up seven large baskets full afterwards of the Master's
leftovers. What an honor it is to give to
Christ. What an honor for our great and
glorious, all-sufficient God to take our loaves and fishes
and use them for His glory. Let us close with this great
display of Christ's goodness, being convinced that it is impossible
for anyone to impoverish himself by giving. Listen to Proverbs
3, verses 9 through 10. Honor the Lord with thy substance,
and with the firstfruits of all thine increase, so shall thy
barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out
with new wine. Malachi 3, verse 10, we read,
Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may
be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord
of hosts, if I will not open you to the windows of heaven,
and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be a room
enough to receive it. Luke chapter 6 verse 38, give
and it shall be given unto you. And last but not least, 2 Corinthians
9, 6-8, But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also
sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he is
purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of
necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make
all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to every good work.