Y'all will please turn to John
21 John 21 Read these first 14 verses and
then Go through them briefly and make
a few comments on them, but It's the Lord's Word The words that
he says is what quickens. It's not my opinion on the word
that's going to give somebody life. It's not the commentators
that's going to give somebody life. It's going to be the word
of God. And that's a miraculous thing.
And I prayed, be with us and show us why he recorded this
and what he's doing. instead of us just going through
a sermon, and us going to church, and us getting together to do
something for an hour on a Wednesday night. I pray God be with us
and reveal Christ to us and feed us. Give us life, make us hungry,
and then give us something to eat. I love feeding babies. All ours are little. That's the
first thing I want to give them. They call it cereal, and the
first time I'd ever seen cereal, I said, that ain't even cereal,
that's just like some kind of powder. But I wanted to feed them the
day they got home. Kim said, you got to wait a little
while, so can I feed them now? I wanted to feed them. I wanted to eat
because I like to eat. Lord let me feast on this and some of
it was kind of hard to chew. It hurt me. That's all right.
These boys hairs would hurt too. And so I got to give what I got.
So I got to give you what the Lord gave me. Here in John 21,
begin verse one. After these things, Jesus showed
himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias. And on
this was showed he himself. There were together Simon Peter,
and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Canaan and Galilee,
and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. Simon Peter saith unto them,
I go fishing. And they saying to him, we also
go with thee. They went forth and entered into
a ship immediately, and that night they caught nothing. But when the morning was now
come, Jesus stood on the shore. But the disciples knew not that
it was Jesus. When Jesus saith unto them, Children,
have ye any meat? They answered him, No. What answer? What truth? He said unto them, cast the net
on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast
therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude
of fishes. Therefore that disciple whom
Jesus loves saith unto Peter, it is the Lord. Now when Simon
Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto
him, for he was naked, and did cast himself into the sea. And
the other disciples came in a little ship, for they were not far from
land, but as it were, 200 cubits, dragging the net with fishes.
As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals
there, and fish laden thereon, and bread. And Jesus saith unto
them, bring of the fish which ye have now caught. Simon Peter
went up and drew the net to land full of fishes, and 153 And for all there were so many,
yet was not the net broken. Jesus saith unto them, Come and
dine. And none of the disciples durst
ask him, Who art thou, knowing that it was the Lord? Jesus then
cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise. This is now the third time that
Jesus showed himself to his disciples after that he was risen from
the dead. It says in verse one there that
after these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples
at the Sea of Tiberias. This was the third time the Lord
revealed himself after he had risen from the tomb to his people. The Lord came to his people.
He revealed himself to them. And even while he walked this
earth as a man that other people could look upon and see and handle
and things, some were drawn to him like Nicodemus. Some were. But the Lord Jesus Christ must
reveal himself. He must show himself. And he
only does that to his own. He only comes in power and revealed,
because once you see it, you can't, once you see him, you
can't unsee him. Once he gives you knowledge,
you can't not know it. Once that love's in you, it ain't going
to go away. His gifts are without repentance.
You know, that's the most needed thing. It's needed more than sleep.
It's needed more than food, or physical food. It's needed more
than happiness. It's needed more than self-fulfillment,
than success. There's one thing needful, and
the Lord must reveal himself to us and in us, and everything
else is vanity. And if these disciples, these
apostles of the Lord, there are seven of them here, If they needed
to have Christ revealed to them again, what do you think I need? What do you need? This is needful,
isn't it? That's what's gonna take place
in these next few verses. We're told that from the get-go. The Lord says he's gonna reveal
himself again, but here's how this revelation comes to pass.
It says at the end of verse one, and on this wise showed he himself. This is who the revealer is,
Christ, and this is how he does it. This is the wise on which
he did it. This is how he did it. To whom? Who's he gonna reveal
himself to? Verse two. There were together
Simon Peter, And Thomas called Didymus. Now, I knew Didymus
was Thomas' Greek name, and I never, until this evening, until just
a couple hours ago, knew what it meant. You know what it means? Double. Twin. Twin. Thomas was a twin! Now that's
a close bond, isn't it? I've got siblings, I'm kinda
close to one or two of them, and I know people that are close
to one another, but a twin's a special bond, isn't it? Where
was Thomas' twin? Not there. The Lord chose one,
didn't choose the other. So much like maybe had the same
DNA, maybe they're identical twins. But this Thomas was there. Thomas was there, and Nathanael
of Cana and Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other
of his disciples, Peter and six others. This is on the wise. The Lord is going to reveal himself
to them again. We know who's going to do the
revealing. We know who is going to be revealed to, but how? How's
the Lord going to reveal himself to them? Well, he's going to
have to get them in the right place to show them, isn't he?
Were they there in the upper seats of the synagogue talking
in a very funny way? No, they weren't. Doing something
dumb. You ever done something dumb?
You ever done something you shouldn't have done? Knowing full good
and well when you was doing it, it was wrong? Maybe you haven't,
but I have. Verse three, Simon Peter saith
unto them, I go a fishing. They saith unto him, those are
the six, we also go with thee. And they went forth and entered
into a ship immediately. I thought of Jonah. Lord said,
you go down there to Nineveh. And he went down to the port
and they said, you all got any tickets going to Tarshish? And
they said, yeah, it's leaving right now. Well, it must've been
the Lord's will for me to go to Tarshish or he wouldn't have
had a ticket there. He immediately got on that ship. It wasn't too
long. He was immediately in a whale's
belly too, wasn't he? They immediately got into the ship, and that night
they caught nothing. Is that what it says there? It
says that night they caught nothing. You know, there's a whole lot
here to be said. There's nothing bad here. Peter
wasn't kicking rocks. I'm going fishing. That's how
we always say it, because that's normally my attitude. I'm going
back to fishing. Or sad, defeated. I'm going back
to fishing. There wasn't nothing said about
his attitude. He just said, I'm going fishing. And they said,
OK, we'll go fishing with you. There's nothing evil in fishing.
We eat fish. Somebody's got to catch it, right?
That's not a bad thing. And I thought, you know, a good
attitude, a faithful countenance that looks to the Lord, that
is contagious. I wrote down a whole list of
people I can think of real quick. Ron and Tammy Fannin and Bob
Coffey and Gabe and Paula Mindy and Shelby and a whole bunch
of them. They always have something good to say. You can't bellyache
to them long, that's terrible. I hate that for you and I pray
for you. And then they turn it right back around. They have
a good countenance about them. There's joy within them and contentment
and it's contagious. You know, and I thought if we
were speaking to someone that only has complaints and grievances
to talk about, and just, I mean, you just get through preaching
the gospel. I want good things Christ did and they go straight
into their medical problems and their family problems and their
car problems and their tractor trailer problems or whatever
problems they got. And you just start saying all the good things
the Lord's done to you and for you, and tell them all the good
things the Lord's done, and it will either sugar them up or
shut them up. That's a Kevin Thacker original.
You can write that down. It'll either sugar them up or
shut them up. If somebody does that to me, I say, hey, you're
right. Don't you? You're right. We got a lot to
be thankful for. Light afflictions, because we
know what he was afflicted with. We enter into that a little bit.
What's my afflictions? So what? Who cares? It don't matter. Is a great famine
coming? Maybe. And we'll all get a walk
together to another place. It'll be great. Lord, stay right
with us. But just the same as that positive countenance, it'll
drive those that don't believe the Lord. It'll shut them up.
They'll quit talking or they'll just keep talking about carnal
things. but normally it'll make them
mad and they'll quit talking to you and they'll leave you alone. Or if
they're a brother or sister, it'll turn the frown upside down
and they'll say, you're right, I'm sorry. And then you have a good
conversation. It'll be good either way. It'll be beneficial. But
as contagious as that good attitude is, a bad attitude is just the
same, isn't it? A negative attitude, a self-serving
attitude, a murmuring attitude. You want to stir up some murmuring?
Have somebody talk about murmuring. I think there's a lot of murmuring
going on. That's murmuring. It is. Lot begats lot. It's what
Paul told us in Ephesians 4, wasn't it? Each thing after its
own kind. That's what it breeds. Sinners
make sinners, right? The flesh begats the flesh, and
the spirit begats the spirit. That's what the Word says. Everything
I just told you. Lots easier way to say it, wouldn't
it? Well, Peter's going fishing. Two things I noticed here, and
I want us to really get this. Let's get a hold of this. It's
important, because there's been a lot of bad information on this. Peter
was not going sport fishing. Me and Josiah got to go fishing
for rockfish out there in the Pacific Ocean, and it was a great
time. We enjoyed it. I had fun. I like to fish. That's the first time I fished
in six years or something, five years. I want to go tuna fishing
real bad. We'll look later. I want to eat
it right then. As soon as I catch it, we'll make some poke or something.
I'm really wanting that to happen. But Peter wasn't going for fun.
He wasn't going sport fishing. But also, he wasn't leaving the
gospel. The Lord gave him something to
do. He wasn't doing that, but he hadn't forsaken the gospel.
He hadn't turned back to his old ways of religion, and his
old thoughts, and his old doctrines, and his old circles of worshiping
some false god together. He didn't leave the gospel. And
he wasn't going sport fishing. He was going back to work is
what he was doing. Lord said, I'm going to send you out. Just
as the father sent me, I'm going to send you. That's what he told
us in the previous chapter, right? After these things, the first
time he revealed himself to him after he was risen, he said,
I'm going to send you out and y'all are going to go out preaching.
But the Lord didn't give too much guidance after that. And they may not
have seen him for a few days and they were getting hungry. They were broke. You know, a
good place to go when you're broke? Work. He went back to
work, is what Peter was doing. And then my other one said, yeah,
that's a good idea, let's go. Six more apostles follow Peter
to go back to work. Personally, I know that sin. We call it a side hustle in our
generation to influence God-fearing men that labor in the Word to
go do something else. That hurts me. I wish I could
undo it. They already were fishers of
men. Fishermen, right? Fishers of men. The Lord said,
He called them there in Matthew four. And Jesus walked them by
the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter to Andrew,
his brother. They were casting the net into the sea for they
were fishers. That's what their old job was. It's what they used
to do. And he saith unto them, follow
me and I'll make you fishers of men. And straightway they
left their nets. They didn't do that no more.
And they followed him. This is from a preacher's perspective.
I got a few things to say and then we'll look from our perspective.
Okay, but hang with me. I got to tell you what I got
told. They straightway left their nets and going on from there,
they saw two other brethren, James, the son of Zebedee, and
John, his brother, in a ship with Zebedee, their father, mending
their nets. And he called them. This is kind of the same crew,
isn't it? He called them. They're on a boat. They weren't
on the side of this. banks. They moved on up and daddy owned
the boat. It's a family business. And they immediately left the
ship and their father, both of them, and they followed him.
They straightway left the boat. They just walked clean off of
it. We're about to see that again here in a minute too. Paul told
Timothy, no man that woreth entangle himself with affairs of this
life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier."
I went to Iraq and I didn't, I did not take my own gun. I
didn't take my own backpack. I didn't have to buy my own bullets.
I didn't have to buy my own food. All that stuff. Guys there to
fight. There to do a job. Peter and them was going and
getting their own rucksacks and their own magazines, weren't
they? Buying their own bullets. The Lord told us, he said, take
therefore no thought what saying, what shall we eat? What shall
we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed? That's what the
Gentiles seek after. For your heavenly father knoweth
that you have need of all these things, but seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be
added to you. Just as a believer. Lots have to stay on. Somebody's
got to go to work. We're not fools. We're not going
to sit around and wait for a handout and the Lord just drop food in
our mouths. That man that came from heaven, they had to bend
down to get it. A lot to be learned in that. Remember that lesson?
Somebody's got to go to work, but how often do we, when I was
one working, do I get concerned about the things of this life?
Do I think what's bigger and what's better? And how much more
money can I make? And how much more time? Well,
I only have to miss one service a month, that's all. Well, maybe
two services a month. It's very easy to leave a gospel
for a better job. The Lord has to make us leave
a better job for a better gospel. But we still have things to do,
don't we? But it's so easy getting tangled with things of this world,
and I know well. Well, what good did Peter taking
these other six and a commercial fisherman again produce when
he said, I'm just, all I'm gonna do is just go work. Won't you
come with me? Mary didn't even say that. That's,
we're coming too, right? Look at verse three again. Simon
Peter saith unto him, I go fishing. They saith unto him, we go also,
we also go with thee. And they went forth and entered
into a ship immediately. And that night, they caught nothing.
That says night, doesn't it? That night. They were in darkness.
And it was something they'd had success with before. It's something
they understood very well. You know, I got to thinking about
this. I was walking on about mile three, and I thought, I
ain't never caught a catfish in the daytime. Bottom dwellers
a lot to be said about it biblically, but you go catfishing at night
I've caught a bunch of fish at nighttime. I bet these men caught
a bunch of fish at nighttime. I never commercially fished but
They're doing something that seems good to them. This seems
so large. It just made sense to do this, didn't it? What everyone
else was doing? There's a whole bunch of other
people out there fishing, but there was no light in it and
they caught nothing. They had the right net and they
were throwing it on their own. And without the Lord, they caught
nothing. They caught nothing. Verse four
says, but when the morning was now come, when that day star
arose, you get that? When there was light, not darkness. When the morning was come, Jesus
stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. They
were so concerned with these carnal things and getting food
and making a living and all these things, fishing, that they didn't
recognize the Lord. It was daytime, there's only
a hundred meters away, and they didn't recognize His voice. And
that led me to a question. How long is too long to hear
from the Lord or see Him? How long's too long? Well, I'll
be fine for four or five months. I'll be fine for four or five
weeks. I'll be fine four or five days.
No. No, it's been what, maybe a day,
day and a half. Look what turned, they didn't
even hear his, they didn't recognize his voice, they didn't recognize
him. That's a place I don't wanna be. People say, well, I'll go
to church once a year. I'll go to two conferences a
year. You won't know the Lord, and you won't know his voice,
and you won't know his face. I hope somebody hears that, because
God sent you a man to tell you that. Hear it. I need to see
him day by day. I need to see him hour by hour,
don't you? Every moment. He asked him something, verse
five, and Jesus says to them, children, have ye any meat? And
they answered, no. He called them children. How
old do you reckon they was? Old enough not to be a child.
They were old enough to shave, weren't they? They might've been
boys that could shave, but they wasn't little children. That
didn't offend them. John talked to those that he
wrote his epistles to, and he said, my little children. You
know, we must be made like children to enter the kingdom of God.
And I heard old Brother Mahan say this, Paul said it. He goes,
if Paul saw through a glass darkly, where does that leave me? If
Paul, that great apostle, that one that's entered into the third
heaven and seen so many things and had so much revelation and
so much input, I mean, that guy understood way more than I do.
And if he saw through a glass darkly, you think I know everything? You think you know everything?
We're just children, aren't we? Didn't offend them. Jesus said
to them, children, have ye any meat? Do you have anything that
satisfies? that sustains, satiates you. And you know, they were honest.
It's a gift to be honest, not to cover our tracks. And there's
something that I try to give other people comfort and it lets
me drive on. And it's a terrible thing, really,
scripturally. I say, you know, I made the best
decision I could with the facts I had at the time. I'd be a lot more honest if I
said I was wrong. You got anything that sustains
you? Do you have anything that satisfies you? All this toiling
and this laboring that you've been doing and this religion
that you've been playing and this going out on your own and
fighting your own battles and casting your own nets where you
think you ought to cast the net and making your own way of the
world and going out to war on your own dime. Has that worked
for you? And honestly and purely and simply,
they said no. What was their proof? They didn't
have no fish. You got any meat? No, I don't
have any meat. Nothing satisfies. The Lord came to Paul and he
said, is it hard to kick against the pricks? Resisting me? How's that working
out for you, Paul? The Lord asked Jonah that, didn't
he? He says, doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? that
I took away. Jonah was a little more feisty
and he said, yeah, I'm mad. I'm mad all the way to death.
So it takes all kinds. There's a lot of different fish
the Lord fishes for. The great fisherman. Don't work out good. How do we know it didn't work
out for Jonah? Jonah wrote the book of Jonah. There's a question
mark. It's the last punctuation in that book. How's all that working going
for you? That's hard work, casting nets all night long. That's labor,
isn't it? The Lord said, come unto me.
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me." Don't learn to memorize
some verses and scripts out us and don't learn all these church
histories and all these things. He said, learn of me. For I'm
meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden's light. You're picking up these
heavy nets. You can't do nothing with that. He said, learn of
me, my yoke's easy. Well, what's the easy yoke the
Lord gave him? Look at verse six. And he said unto them, cast
the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. You do what I tell you, and you're
going to find fish. They cast their fore, and now
they were not able to draw it for the multitudes of fish. I
thought, what difference is it? In fact, the boat's six feet
wide. And there's a school of fish. You got this great big
net. You'd have caught one or two on this side, wouldn't you?
If there was so many, you couldn't draw the net in on this side.
That's logic, isn't it? Isn't that our logic? I'll tell
you what difference it would make. You wouldn't have caught
nothing unless the Lord commands it. What a lesson there is to
learn there. He's the Lord of the oceans and
the Lord of all things under the sea. He calmed the waves.
He walked on the water and he gathers the fish. The Lord doesn't
delegate his oceanic power to that Roman God, Neptune. We deal with a sovereign God.
If it's so with water, if it's so with fish, it's so in providence
and it's so in salvation. That's who we're dealing with.
And he said, cast it on the right side. You know what? Because today's reading, I was
reading, there's a wrong side. There's a way that seems right
unto man. That's in Proverbs 14, isn't
it? And what's the end of it? Death's the end of it. Well,
how could they die if they kept casting to the left side? They
would have gotten no fish and you'd starve to death. Lord said, you cast it on the
right side. They had the net, which represents the gospel net.
It's not a baited hook. It's not an artificial bait.
It's not a lure. It's not a tactic. You just throw
it and pull it in, and the Lord fills it as he sees fit. But
not a one of these seven, before they went out there that night,
said, hey, did anybody pray about this? Did we take, I mean, I'm
not talking about six or seven minutes of consideration, and
I've had a revelation today. Have we took six or eight months
and thought about this? What was the last thing the Lord
told us? Do you remember he said, peace be unto you, and as my
father has sent me, even so I send you. To what, to go catch some
carp? No, he made us fishers of men,
remember, remember? There wasn't a remembrance there.
These are the apostles. What shape am I, huh? Another
point concerning this power of the word of the Lord, it's not
the commentary on it, it's not my thoughts on it, it's not what
I say, it's just the fact of what the Lord says. He just show
us that. He told professional fishermen. They didn't know it was the Lord,
they didn't know it was anybody else for that matter. He told professional
commercial fishermen how to fish, and they did it. And they did
it. And I thought, just from HVAC,
you know, if I was working on something and somebody just called,
have you tried turning it off and turning it back on? About
as hard as you tried is minding your own business. Leave me alone.
Get out of here. Don't bother me. That would have
been my attitude. Here's these men the Lord said,
cast it on the right side and it'll be full. And they did.
His words ain't like my words, are they? Somebody's getting
in, going fishing one time, and the preacher, there's two preachers
going fishing. They said, what would you think
if somebody came up and just sat down in your boat and said,
let's go? I said, the only way I'd tolerate that is if it was
the Lord that did it. That's true. You would if it was the
Lord that did it, wouldn't you? Says in verse six, and he said to
them, cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall
find. You might do pretty good. No,
he said, you shall find. And they cast their four, and
now they were not able to draw it for the multitudes of fish.
They were calculating without Christ. And calculating without
him produces nothing. Produces nothing. Old friend
of mine was preaching on his pastor, and he said, zero plus
a zero plus a zero still equals nothing. That's us. But if you put the one in there,
now that gives meaning to those zeros. Casting that gospel net without
his spirit and his power with us, it produces nothing. But
unseen to us, something happened underneath them waters that we
don't know. Hang with me now. In his word, there are so many
gathered that they can't even lift them in the boat. multitude. It says in verse 7, John told
Peter, it's the Lord. It is the Lord. Now when Simon
Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girded his fisher coat unto
him, for he was naked, and he did cast himself into the sea.
Lots been said about him being naked and what kind of coat he
wore. What was the action that took place? Remember verse one,
the Lord's gonna reveal himself to them, to these particular
people. And he did. They said, this is the Lord.
A man told him that Christ revealed himself. And what Peter was saying
was, y'all stay here if you want. I must be where the master is.
Well, we got a lot going on that day. I don't care what day it
is. He's there and I'm gonna get
to him. Just like that woman with the issue of blood. She
said, I'm gonna touch him. I don't think that's the way you ought
to go about things. Well, thank whatever you want, I'm gonna go touch him.
He straightway left the boat, didn't he? Verse eight says,
the other disciples came in a little ship for they were not far from
land. As it were about 200 cubits dragging the net with the fishes,
they still couldn't get in the boat. And as soon as they were
come to land, they saw a fire of coals there and fish laid
there on and bred. What a spread. How long had Cross
been there? It doesn't say fire of sticks,
does it? It says a fire of coals. And
some of y'all built fires before, ain't ya? You know, it takes
a good while to get a good bed of coals. It doesn't happen in
10 minutes. It takes a while, don't it? You
gotta work hard to get those coals. And then, especially enough
to cook on. So he'd been there for a while.
And though they had left him, Not for the night, not rejecting
the gospel and preaching another gospel, which is not another.
But though they had strayed from the Lord that night and wandered
off the path, the Lord had never left one of his own. And he never
will. Right there. And preventing us. Grace going before grace. Well,
we're hungry. You got any meat? No. That's
why I was out here in the first place. There it is. And Jesus
saith unto them, verse 10, bring of the fish which you have now
caught. Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of
great fishes, great fishes. That's why I said I wanted to
eat fish fresh. What's great about a fish? They all smell
like fish. And then you always try to find a way to prepare
fish so it don't taste like fish. And even if it's real fresh,
if you just cut it up right there, sashimi or whatever it's called, It ain't that great. I like it,
but ain't nothing great about us. But there's big ones, big
ones, great fishes. 153. And you know what the numerological
significance of 153 is? If you get an abacus out and
get cross-eyed and take about 15 minutes, you still ain't gonna
figure it out. It's an exact number, and it's odd, just like
me. We're an odd bunch, ain't we? A peculiar people. Somebody
got it. I'm weird. I don't know about
anybody else. Don't agree with it once. 153, an exact number. And for
all there were so many, yet was not the net broken. A big fish,
great fish, a lot of them. And that net encompassed them. They were gathered there. They
were brought there. It encompassed them. It secured them. And it
did not break. No one needs to worry about being
too big a sinner to come to Christ. You ain't gonna break his net.
Well, I'm a big stinky fish. You ain't gonna break his net.
I'm slippery. You ain't gonna get through.
It's his net. It's his net. That's what the Lord said, go
gather this fish. Whose fish are those? You think
one of them said, well, I did a pretty good job. No, not them. Those are preachers of the Gospels
or whatever. I didn't do nothing. I didn't even know what was happening.
I just did what you told me and it's miraculous. It's miraculous. Jesus saith unto them, verse
12, come, dine. Come, dine. And none of the disciples
durst ask him, who art thou? Knowing that it was the Lord.
Jesus then cometh and taketh bread and giveth them and fish likewise. Just like
those first 5,000 that he fed on John 6, that boy came there
with two loaves and five sardines, and that's what they ate in the
beginning, and that's what they ate here too. Fish and bread,
wasn't it? And he didn't offer it to them.
This isn't a buffet, and you can go take the pieces that you
want. You don't make a sandwich and make it any way you like.
He said, come, dine. What does he say at the Lord's
table? Take, eat. Well, do you have a whole grain
option? Take, eat. We don't share the gospel. We
declare it. We declare it. I'm not splitting
things over words, but once you get the principle and the particulars
will fall into place, okay? We declare the gospel. If any
man's gonna speak on behalf of God, this ain't we're gonna go
around the room and everybody say what makes them warm and fuzzy about
this. It's a one-way conversation from God's heart to your heart. That's true preaching. If any
man speaks, let him speak as oracles of God. That's how the
Lord did, didn't he? He said, come, dine, take, eat. And he gave it to them. And he
came, he took, he giveth them, and likewise. That's what was
needed, wasn't it? And I thought about this too.
The fish and bread. What's that comprised? We call
it macros in our day, right? There's protein, omega-3s and
omega-6s, that falls in the fats and oils category, and carbohydrates.
I don't know what the ratio's needed. I guarantee it's exactly
what their body's needed. Well, I don't like the taste
of that. It's exactly what's needed. It's perfect. It's perfect,
because that's what the Lord's provided. And this food don't
get old. It don't. Creeds get tiresome. Doctrine gets stiff and cold
and letterish, doesn't it? And men that people follow, they
will fail you. They'll let you down. But the
gospel of Christ, it tastes better each time we eat it. I guess this is good. I like the bread Kimberly bakes.
If the Lord made bread, I'm gonna take his, honey. I'm gonna eat
his first. I got to speak to a new friend of mine, Brother
Billy, down in St. Petersburg. He's been preaching
down there for several years, and the Lord saved him. He was out in a boat by himself,
though, and some kind of weird net and lures and everything
else. And you know what he told me in a short conversation? He
told the truth. He told the truth. He said, I
was a false prophet. And he said, I didn't know the
Lord and no one I knew knew the Lord either. And I had no meat. I was hungry. And you know what
happened? He said, God called me. I didn't
find him. He wasn't lost. I didn't figure
him out. He had my number. He called me
and he commanded me and he fed me. And you know what? I'm alive
from that. That was refreshing. He got a
phone. He told me he loved me. I told
him I loved him back. He speaks my language. He speaks
your language too, don't he? That's the man God's worked in. Nothing's changed, has it? The
Lord gave them bread and meat just as he gave his body for
them. His own blood. You know, the
law demands. Grace gives. The law demands, requires, grace
gives. The Lord was gracious to these
people. Who? The ones that went out to fend
for themselves. Knuckleheads. Just like this one. Now this
is now, verse 14, the third time that Jesus showed himself to
his disciples. Not twice before, it's the third time after he
was risen from the dead. How many times am I gonna wander
off and turn to this world, or turn to myself, or turn to books
that ain't worth reading, or shows that ain't worth watching,
or conversations that ain't worth having. And I must have the Lord
reveal himself to me again. I highlight that in my Bible.
Again. Again. You know how many times?
Until I'm made like him. Until I'm home with him. It's
needed. And I need to be fed. I need
to be fed. He must lead me along. He must
leave me. I thought of that hymn. We don't
have music for it. In shady green pastures so rich
and so sweet, God leads his little dear children along. Where the
waters cool flow, bays the weary one's feet, God leads his dear
children along. Some through the waters, some
through the flood. And some through the fire. Neither
one of those are appealing, are they? But all through the blood. Some through great sorrow, but
God gives a song in the night season and all the day long.
I pray he'd give us his song, a new song to sing. And then
I'd quit wondering. I know it's gonna happen. And
I know he's faithful and he's gonna keep proving that to me.
But that new man within me doesn't want to. Yours don't either,
does it? But thankfully, he's the one
that's faithful and he'll bring us to a nice warm fire and give
us all the protein and bread that we need. It's a good thing.
Brother Mark.