Count on that. Turn to Matthew,
if you would, chapter 15. Chapter 15 in Matthew. We're
going to continue our studies in this book of Matthew. Remember
that we're looking at a series of studies that are titled Simon
Peter and Apostle of Christ. And we're going through Not necessarily
Matthew alone, but it just so happens that Matthew has given
us great detail on some of the things that the Lord is doing
to teach His apostles to be what they are. The same things that
the Lord does with us, He teaches us the same way. We go through
all these different things in our lives to experience the grace
of our Lord. Speaking with a brother earlier
about anger that was raising up in his heart. anger that was
driving him to do certain things. And he said, Lord, what am I
doing? And I told him, I said, you know, you've got to understand
something. Your actual recognition that He is God glorifies Him
in all things, even in trying to understand our own problems,
our own trials, our own feelings of sin and stuff like that. These
things all draw us to look to our Lord. Even when we look to
Him and say, Father, forgive me for what I just thought. That
glorifies our Lord. Because we recognize in our hearts
that He is Lord. And these are the things that
our Lord is using to teach Peter how to be an apostle. And it's
the same way our Lord teaches you and I to love Him, to know
Him more. In our last study, we considered
the woman from the coast of Tyre. whose daughter was vexed with
the devil. You'll recall that our Lord went out to the coast
and she came out of Tyre to Him on a mission to save her daughter. But she sought the mercy of God. She was the one who came to God
asking for mercy. She was the one who came to Christ
Jesus looking for someone to heal her child. And when the
Lord told her, I don't feed the dogs, or the dogs are not welcome
at the table, she said, yes, but we have the crumbs. Right? She didn't give up. She didn't
turn away because the Lord was giving her faith to continue
looking. Our great Lord declared that this woman had great faith.
And we considered what it was about her faith that was so great.
Great faith involves great repentance. She was a Gentile. A Canaanite woman who worshipped
other gods, who worshipped idols, and she had set those idols apart
and came to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. She had repented
from who she was worshipping, the gods of her people, and turned
from that, that's what repentance means, turning from, and turned
to the Lord Jesus Christ, the true and living God. The real
Lord. Great faith bows to the Word
of God. When Christ spoke of election,
notice that she worshipped Him. When He called her a dog in Matthew
15, 26, she acknowledged it. She said, yes, I am a dog. But
yet even the dogs eat the crumbs from the floor of the table.
This woman turned from her sin and her religion in regards to
Christ. I backed up there a minute, sorry about that. She acknowledged
it and she used it as an argument for mercy. In verse 27 of chapter
15. Great faith cannot be driven
from Christ. It never gives up. Even when
our faith is as small as a mustard seed. It's God given faith and
it's the exact faith that puts our trust and our faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It never gives up because the
Lord's the one who keeps it going. We may think we run out of faith,
folks, but when we can stop and consider that very thing, we
never run out of faith. Our Lord never runs out of giving
us faith. We may think we do, but then
He brings us right back around to look into Him in some way
or another, doesn't He? It never quit. Look how that
poor soul hung on to Christ. She had nowhere else to go. Nothing
else could save her daughter from the vex of the devil. Great faith always gets what
it wants. Great faith is always looking
for mercy. Faith wants, it needs, and it
seeks nothing else but the mercy of the throne. and the mercy
at the throne of grace. And great faith must endure great
trials. We were speaking just a moment
ago about our dear sister Cheryl. What a great and tremendous trial
it is for her to be going through. I can't even imagine that. I
can't imagine what it was like for my brother Lee to lose his
son just like that. Just like that. I can't imagine
what it's like to lose a loved one who you've been married to
for so many years. I can't imagine what it would
be like if the Lord took my wife from me today. So much so that
I don't even think about these things. But our Lord puts us through
these things. that He might show us how great
our faith is. You throw something against the
wall and, oh, Lord, what's going on with me? That's an act of faith. I know
what I did was wrong. I know what happened was ugly. But Lord, I'm sorry. That's putting faith in our Lord. I'd like to pick up this morning
in verse 29, if you would, Matthew chapter 15, verse 29. And Jesus departed from thence,
and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee. And he went up into
a mountain, and he 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, insomuch that 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. Here we have another
display of our Savior's great compassion and grace, both to
the souls and the bodies of men. He manifested His power and His
Godhead, and He proved Himself to be the Messiah. fulfilling
that which was prophesied of Him in Isaiah 35, verses 5 and
6, where it says, Then 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.
For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the
desert. Here was a great crowd of many people gathered around
the Lord Jesus Christ, They had been with Him for three days.
He performed miracle after miracle, healing the sick, the diseased,
and the impotent souls that were brought before Him. His miracles
were so astounding that all of these thousands of people were
utterly astonished by the power and the grace of God. And they
glorified the God of Israel. Verse 32 we read, Then Jesus
called his disciples unto him, and he says, I have compassion
on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days,
and having nothing to eat, I will not send them away, fasting lest
they faint in the way. And his disciples said 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 of the broken
meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were
4,000 men besides women and children. And he sent away the multitude
and took a ship and came into the coast of Magdalaea. What
a lesson for Peter to experience here. The miracle of feeding
this multitude with such a little amount. This is what I'm talking about
earlier when I said, even in today's world, our Lord is still
committing miracles by bringing life into the dead. I don't know
if you had the blessings of witnessing your loved one come to the Lord
as I did. Five years God had been showing
me who He was and giving me the faith to believe on Him, to see
the grace of my Lord in loving me. And yet in those first five
years, I had to walk by myself. As you all know, Kathy walked
a different path. She thought Gene had hypnotized
me and brainwashed me, and she really did hate him. She didn't
like what she saw her husband going through, but yet the day
the Lord called her out of darkness, the very day that she showed
up here attending church with me, was a blessing, but it was
the day that my God opened her heart to see that very thing. I saw the miracle of God. Not just the miracle that He
committed in me, but the miracle with my wife. What an amazing
thing that was. What joy, tears of joy flowed
from Pastor Eugene and I both. That's what Peter is seeing here.
He's seeing God Almighty make a whole bunch of food out of
just one little basket of fish and bread. What a miracle that
must have been for this man to experience, to see for himself. The miracle of feeding this multitude
with so little. Our Lord and Savior proved His
claim to be God in the flesh over and over and over again
with all these different miracles. So many that you could fill all
the books at that time. But this lesson is not just about
His power as God, but also about His compassion. He said, I will
not send them away. Don Fortner wrote this, he said,
this crowd, this great crowd of people, 20,000 or more strong,
was so taken up with Christ, and His miraculous power, His
infinite goodness, and His gracious word, that they lost all track
of other things. Everything's going along real
good, you know. The Lord Jesus, He's just creating miracle after
miracle. I would just be amazed at seeing the stuff that was
going on there on that hill. I can understand losing track
of time. Three days had passed before
they even knew it. I don't know about you folks,
but it doesn't get past noon before I'm starting to think,
oh, I'm hungry again. Three days! of witnessing and
being an experience of these very things. And now, they're all hungry and
faint. Having received a great, great
mercy and the blessings, one on top of another, they were
yet in great need. They needed food for strength. Notice our Lord's response to
their need in Matthew 15, verse 32. He says to His disciples,
I will not send them away. Oh, isn't that a better thing
to hear than depart from me, you workers of iniquity? That's what we all deserve, isn't
it? That's what we all have coming to us if it weren't for the graciousness
and the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who says, I will not
send them away. Oh, how I love, Don Fortner goes
on to say, the sound of these words falling from the lips of
the Son of God. He says, Him that cometh unto
me I will in no wise cast out in John 6.37. That means that
there is nothing in a sinner in all the world that will keep
Christ from receiving him. If He does but come to Him, come
then to Christ. Come just like you are. Just
come to Christ and He will receive you. What could be more difficult
and troublesome than moving sick and potent people? A diseased
people, especially in those days. Consider that for a moment if
you would. Look at what we have in today's world to move our
sick and disabled people. In those days it must have been
much more difficult. They had to be literally carried
to the Savior up this hill to where He was. But the hope of
being healed was in sight. You notice He was on the hill.
Oh, look up there. Oh, He just saved another. Look at that one. He got up and
walked. Let's take our loved one to Him. Let's bring Him to Him no matter
what we have to do. The hope of being healed was
in sight. Such a hope inspired these needy souls and those who
cared for them. No obstacle was considered. No
cost was calculated. When people are in desperate
need, nothing will prevent them from seeking relief if there
is hope. For bodily health, people will
wait in the crowded doctor's office for hours. They'll move
from one state to another for a pure air, or give up jobs and
pay any price. But few are even slightly concerned
about their soul's health. Yet the Word of God teaches us
that any sinner 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 they
can to get the sick souls to the Savior. Did we not see that
very thing in the story of the Canaanite woman? Did she not
do whatever it took to help her daughter? Even when her daughter
couldn't be with her. I can't take her with me, she's
crazy, she's doing all kinds of stuff. Just like the crazy
man in the tomb breaking the chains. I'll go to him alone
and ask for his mercy. We call that praying for our
unsaved loved ones. I can't get my son to come here
and listen. I can't get my daughter to grace
the door of a church. But I can go to my Lord. I can go to him. Lord have mercy
on my child. A man wrote this. I have been under a doctor's care
for many years and he treats me for glaucoma. A while back
I got a little weary of going to his office every two months
and paying the fees connected with his constant examination.
So I asked if I might not be able to cut back on the number
of visits. And my doctor's reply was this. He says, they are your
eyes. You're the one that has the glaucoma. And I was embarrassed. And I
immediately decided that the inconvenience and the cost was
far less significant than the possibility of losing my very
eyesight. But that is nothing compared
to losing my soul. and nothing compared to the thought
of others perishing. 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. Every believer ought to be like
those four men who are described in Mark Chapter 2, verses 1-4, who carried
their needy friend up to the rooftop, and then tore the roof
off so that they could get their friend to the Master. What love
those men had for their friend. What does it take for us to cry
out to our Lord for our loved ones? Will we go to the rooftop
for them? What is it to gain the things
of this world, but to lose one's soul? Folks, this world is not
our home. Now that does not mean that we
must live in squalor. It does not mean that we must
deny the comforts that God has given us. But it does set the
perspective. It sets the importance of what
leads our walk in this world. Now I'm not talking about earning
any rewards or salvation by works, but when God does a work in a
man's heart, there is a difference from whom we used to be. I don't believe in luck anymore,
do you? I don't believe in mother nature
anymore, do you? I do believe that there is a
God who rules over everything. Every little detail. So much so that He knows the
number of every hair on your head. Now that fact just amazes
me. Just amazes me. The great compassion that Christ
has for this crowd of sick and palsy must have been overwhelming
to those who witnessed it. Does not the compassion and the
mercy and the grace that he expresses to you have an effect on you?
When the truth of what we are before the thrice holy God has
been revealed to our heart, do we not see the magnitude of his
mercy? Does not our hearts break with
the depth of his love for his people? One of my favorite verses that
brings great comfort to my heart, not just for my own sins, but
for those who sin against me, is where we read in Romans 8,
31 and 32, what shall we say then to these things? If God before us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son.
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He, not with Him also,
freely give us all things? That will cause a believer to
walk a different life. That will cause a believer to
stop for a moment and say, yeah, Lord, I don't know what got a
hold of me there. I don't know what... Speaking to the Lord. Giving Him the glory as Lord.
Declaring Him to be God. You know, that glorifies the
Lord. He loves that. Here is my child who recognizes
that I am God. Have you considered Job? Have you considered Job? Peter was experiencing the love
of Christ before his very eyes. But it was not just his physical
eyes that saw this love of God. Many saw. Many saw the miracles,
yet few had the Spirit speak to their heart. In Matthew 20,
16 we read, So the last shall be the first, and the first shall
be the last, for many be called, but few chosen. Once again, I
take the liberty of quoting Pastor Don Fortner where he wrote, when
I read that last line in Matthew 15, verse 31, I'm reminded that
the glory of God, only the glory of God, must be our motive in
all things, even in our complaints. 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 worship the God of
Israel. The goal of the preacher, the
church, and the individual believer must never be success, fame,
popularity, or an approval of men, but it must be the glory
of our God." End of quote. That's a wonder that I believe
must have been in the hearts of his disciples at that time.
as it is in all of His saints today. Once the Lord has taken up residence
in the heart of one of His chosen, we glorify our Savior. If it
does not give glory to Him, then we put it aside and we count
it as nothing. Look at what the Master has done,
is what we say. That's what He has done for me. Look at what the Master has done
on this hill with that one who was just laying. That's what
he has done for me. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. Amen. Will you please stand?