and we'll see our Savior in this.
Let's pray and ask the Lord to be with us. Lord Jesus, we pray that as you
fed these 5,000 and all the women and children with them, that
you would feed us today. Help us, dear Lord, in the desert
of this world and in the barrenness of our own heart to hunger and
thirst after our Lord Jesus Christ and find life and satisfaction
in Him for everything. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Matthew 14, we read last week about how Herod, King Herod,
had beheaded John the Baptist, and we pick it up in verse 12.
It says there in verse 12 that John's disciples came and took
up the body of John and buried it and went and told Jesus. That
reminds me of the song, I Must Tell Jesus. Remember that song?
I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, all of my trials, I cannot
bear my burdens alone. I must tell Jesus, he ever lives,
loves, and cares for his own. They came and told Jesus, and
there's actually a whole sermon on this that I had prepared,
but I think I'm going to skip that. But I just want to point
out a couple of things about this. If you look at the context
here, from Matthew 11, 12, 13, and
now in 14. In the first three chapters,
11, 12, and 13, you see the opposition of the unbelieving Jews against
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in chapter 14, you see
how dreadfully the king, King Herod, beheaded John the Baptist. So these two groups, the religious
anti-Christian world and the political anti-Christian world,
are together in force against Christ and his people throughout
Scripture. And here you see it. It says, as one man described
it, you see the power of the government and the world They
have all the weapons. They have all the authority to
hold you and to keep you. And their only aim at the direction
of Satan is to squash Christ and His people. And then you
have the anti-Christ religion of this world, and their only
aim is to deceive and to darken the counsel of Christ against
His people. I mean for His people. So you see these two forces at
work throughout scripture, and here you see it in chapter 14
where Herod beheads John. But in all this, remember that
whatever is done to God's people is done to the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is amazing. Zechariah 2.8 says that, "...he
that touches you touches the apple of my eye." Jesus says,
if they've done it to the least of these my brethren, they've
done it to me. Remember Matthew 25, around verse 40, he says,
inasmuch to those who were gathered before him in judgment, and he
says, when I was hungry you gave me food, naked you clothed me,
in prison you visited me, thirsty you brought me water, all these
things. And they said, when did we do that? And he said, if you've
done it to the least of these my brethren, you've done it to
me. And then Jesus told Paul on the road to Damascus, when
he was, his name was still Saul, he said, Saul, Saul, why are
you persecuting me? When he was persecuting the Christians.
Everything that happens to God's people happens to Christ. He
suffers when they suffer. Isaiah 63, 9 says, in all their
affliction, He was afflicted. And here John is beheaded. What
happens? The Lord Jesus Christ himself
suffers when his people suffers. Herod beheaded John. It was as
if he had taken out his sword against Christ. And it was as
if the Lord Jesus himself suffered with his servant. And you think,
well, how is that comforting? Well, it is comforting. Remember
what happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Remember when the
King Nebuchadnezzar raised up an idol and demanded everyone
bow down to this idol? And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
were the only ones standing. And the king's servants looked
out at the crowd, and they saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
standing there. And the king was angry, and he
said, what is going on? And so they pulled these three
men aside, and the king said, he asked them, why haven't you
bowed down? And they said, oh king, we are not even going to
be careful to answer you. We are not going to bow down
to your idol, even if you throw us into the fiery furnace." So
what did He do? He heated the furnace seven times hotter than
it had ever been heated. And the men who took them up
to throw them into the furnace fell down dead, it was so hot.
But when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into that
fiery furnace, Nothing happened to them. Not a hair of their
head was singed. Their clothes didn't even smell
like smoke. And the king looked into this
furnace, and he looks in there to see them, and he sees another
with them, the Son of God. So in their suffering, Christ
was with them in it. And this is the theme of all
of Scripture. John the Baptist was beheaded, Christ was with
him. And the comfort is that When the souls of God's people,
when they die, their souls go immediately to be with the Lord.
And they're with Him from that point forward until the Lord
comes again and raises their body to be with Him. Suffering
for God's people is the will of God. Think about how when
God told Abraham that He was going to give him the promise
of eternal salvation. What did He say to him in Genesis
15? He said to him, Your people,
these people, your children, your physical children, are going
to go down to Egypt. And for 400 years they're going
to be afflicted there. And then I'm going to bring them
out. The king is going to grow to the height of his power. And
when he gets to that point where he's proud and at the peak of
his rebellion, then I'm going to show my power over him so
that even the proudest and stoutest heart is humbled by God's power. And God brought them out. He
humbled the king. He delivered his people. He redeemed
them from Egypt by the blood of the Lamb. And he brought them
out and he destroyed their enemies in the sea. Now, but in all of
this, God's people suffered for 400 years. It was God's will
to save his people out of trouble. Out of the trouble of this cruel
king who ruled over them and subjected them to slavery. And
you can go through scripture. God's people are always suffering
and God always delivers us out of our own trouble. The trouble
we brought on ourselves. Remember how it says in Revelation
13.8, Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
So Jesus was slain before this world even began in the purpose
of God. And yet God created the world.
He knew He was going to redeem His people. He created it. They
fell into sin according to God's purpose. And in that world of
suffering and sin and shame that we experience, God saves His
people out of it. And so you see how God's purpose
is that His people suffer, and He shows Himself glorious in
their deliverance by saving them out of their sin. From the devil,
from this world, from all of the assaults of the kingdom of
darkness, Christ church prevails. And so that's what you see in
verse 12. And the disciples of John go and tell Jesus, that
is the best advice I can give anyone. If you were to condense
the gospel into everything that we say, week in and week out,
it's this. Go to Christ. Go to Him. Tell
Him. Pour out your heart. Tell Him
all of your fears and all of your sorrows and all of your
sin. Tell Him that sin has rule over you and you can't deliver
yourself and you're under His judgment and there's no way you
can get out unless the Lord Himself delivers you. Tell Him. Tell
them your fears and your sorrows about your loved ones and pour
it out to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the first thing we see
here in verse 12 of Matthew 14. And now let's read from verse
13 through verse 21. He says, and as we go through
this, it's a familiar account of what Christ did. And it occurs,
as I said, in every gospel. And we're going to refer to some
of the way it's worded in those other gospels as we go through
this. But I just want to go through this and comment as we go through
it. It says, when Jesus heard, heard of John, and heard it from
the disciples, He departed thence by ship into a desert place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities." Jesus
hears about John's death. He hears it from his own disciples.
And he takes his own apostles, his own twelve, apart into a
desert place. What is a desert? There's no
food there. There may not be water there.
But He's going apart into this desert place privately. He's
taking His apostles. Maybe the disciples of John go
with Him. I think they did. Even though
it doesn't mention that here. He just says His disciples went
with Him. And they go privately into this place. And the people,
the crowds, They know that he's leaving and they understand,
because they've seen his pattern before, that there's this place
he goes to privately with his disciples. So what do they do?
When Jesus gets into the ship to go, they take off on foot.
They go walking. And who knows how far it was.
It must have been a long way. So the people walked a long way
just to be with Christ. So they could hear Him. So all
the things that He might do for them would be done for them.
And so you see the earnestness of these people. They're not
going to let Him get away. They want to be with Christ.
And so it says in verse 14. And Jesus went forth and saw
a great multitude, and He was moved with compassion toward
them, and He healed their sick." In Luke chapter 11, I mean, I
think it's Luke chapter 9, verse 11, Jesus, the same account,
it says that when Jesus saw them, He healed all who had need of
healing. all who had need. The Lord Jesus
Christ looks upon this crowd, this large group of people, 5,000
men plus the women and children, coming to Him. And they had come
to Him on foot. Who knows how they all got there?
Can you imagine? If I was alive when Jesus was
here on the earth, and I heard that He was going to be there
somewhere, I would have gone to Him. I mean, laid my job aside
for the day, or for the week, or whatever I had to do. And
take my kids. Go to hear Him. And so they walked,
and who knows what they had. They didn't have water bottles
then. I don't know how they carried water. I don't know where they
got it. Maybe where Jesus went had a well of water. It doesn't
talk about water. But they went to hear Him, and
they went at a great cost, great personal cost to themselves,
just to be with Christ. And the Lord sees them. Jesus
sees them. And His reaction is that He has
compassion on them. He looks at them, and He says,
these are like, in Himself, He says, these are like sheep without
a shepherd. And I think about this. Think
about the fact that the Lord Jesus Himself sees these people
like sheep without a shepherd. And think about who He is. He's
God. And He's a man. And so with all
of the compassion of a man, and with all of the power of God,
He looks on these people as sheep without a shepherd. And His heart
is moved with compassion. And this teaches us that we learn
about what Jesus is like by how He saves His people, by how He
sees them and what He thinks about them in the salvation that
He Himself brings and does for them. This is His heart. It's a heart of compassion. When
we think about this, it should cause us to run out to Him. He sees our need and our true
need before we even know it. And He provides for us. He anticipates
our need and He Himself provides Himself for that need. This is
our Lord Jesus Christ. We learn about Him in His salvation. We know God and know His ways
in the way He saves His people, what He thinks about them, how
He makes Himself accountable for them. Even though their sins
separated them from Him, He provides for them in all these things.
So you see that He has compassion on the crowd. And when we think
about our own difficulties in our life, little things, things
that are insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, things
that are going to be brief times of suffering, the Lord knows
He has compassion. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting all
your cares upon Him, for He careth for you." God's own Word tells
us that the Lord Jesus Christ is full of compassion, and so
therefore we have warrant from His Word to go to Him. depending
on his compassion. And there's a verse in a psalm,
a song, that Charles Wesley wrote. And the song is Depth of Mercy,
Can There Be. Or Depth of Mercy is the name
of the song. And I think, if I can remember,
the words of the song is something like, He says, if I rightly read
thy heart, if thou all compassion art, And then he asked the Lord
to have mercy upon him. So we come to the Lord Jesus
Christ on the basis of what He said about Himself in His Word
and how He saves His people. And we come depending on Him.
Salvation really is depending on the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Coming to Him. And so you see that here in verse
14. But then look at verse 15. And when it was evening, His
disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place. For the
time is now past. Send the multitude away, that
they may go into the villages and buy themselves vittles. That's
food. An old-fashioned word for food.
Things they need to eat. So the disciples, it's been a
long day. They've all been together and
now evening is drawing near. The day is closing. The disciples
are probably tired. They've been with Christ in the
wilderness. And there's 5,000 men and all the women and children
all around. There's no rest. And they ask
the Lord, Lord send these people away. They got to go buy something,
some food for themselves in the place. They have to, in another
account in one of the other Gospels it says, and get lodging. They
need to find a place to sleep. What are they going to do out
here in the wilderness, in the desert for the night? But the
Lord answers. He says in verse 16, Jesus said
to them, they need not depart, give ye them to eat. And they
say to him, we have here but five loaves and two fishes. And
he said, bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the grass. And he took the five loaves and
the two fishes. And looking up to heaven, he
blessed and break and gave the loaves to his disciples and the
disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat and were
filled. And they took up the fragments
that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten
were about five thousand men beside women and children." So
here's the account. You see that the people are hungry. The Lord looks at them with compassion. He not only provides for their
souls, because all day long He had been teaching them. Can you
imagine going to a conference with the Lord Jesus and sitting
there all day in the desert? Who knows? I mean, just think
of the facilities that are not there in the desert. There's
no water fountains. Maybe there's a pool of water.
And there's all these people. Maybe 10,000 plus people out
there in the middle of the desert. And Jesus is teaching them all
day long. And who knows what they had for
shade. Nothing to eat. A little boy
is there. He has 5 loaves and 2 fishes. We don't know how big they were.
But I imagine a little baggie with 5 biscuits in it and a couple
of sardines. How did he have these? Well,
maybe they had taken some breakfast, and everybody had eaten their
breakfast, and this was all that he had left. His mom thought
far enough ahead to know that he was a hungry boy who liked
to eat, needed a lot, packed him a little extra, and here
it is left over. I don't know how he happened
to have it, and everybody else didn't have anything. They didn't
think, they just thought about coming to Jesus, and there they
are in the wilderness. And so the Lord and His disciples
say, send them away to buy food, and Jesus says to them, in verse
16, they need not depart. You see those words? They don't
need to leave. Why? Well, who is there? It's the Lord of Glory. The Lord
Jesus Christ. What do you mean? Send these
people away to the villages to buy food? The Lord of Glory is here. The
Creator of the Universe. The One who upholds everything
by the Word of His power. Here He is with them. And the
disciples don't even think. They wanted to send them away,
but Jesus says, no, no, don't. They don't need to depart. And
one of the things you see about this, besides the physical provision
that Jesus gives, He provides everything for us, doesn't He?
Our jobs, our homes, our food, our families, our life, our breath,
our heartbeat, everything that we have comes from His hand.
It's from His goodness. But more than that, hear the
Lord Jesus Christ, the only Savior of sinners. The only Savior of
sinners. There is salvation in no other.
And He Himself says they don't need to leave. Don't send sinners
somewhere else when Christ is there. Don't send sinners to
go beyond Christ. Don't send sinners to get something
in addition to Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is there.
If the fullness of the Godhead is in Christ, if He has put away
sin by Himself and established everlasting righteousness, if
He has obtained eternal redemption, and if He is eternal life, then
go to Him only. Go to Him. Colossians 2.19 says,
"...the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and you
are complete in Him." Do you see that? Is there anything that
we need that's not found in Christ? Then go to Him. His heart is
full of compassion for sinners. He Himself tells His disciples,
don't send them away. He's here. He's going to provide
for them. And so then, He says, not only does He say they need
not depart, but He says, give ye them to eat. You see, when
the Lord is here and He's about to feed 10,000 plus people, And when he does that, he doesn't
do it at his own hand, from his hand to theirs, but he gives
it to his apostles in order to give it to the people. He takes
the bread, he takes the fish, he breaks it and gives it to
his disciples, the twelve disciples, and they give it to the people.
10,000 plus people. All of them, Jesus said, group
them in fifties and hundreds. So a group of 50 with 5,000,
that'd be a hundred groups of 50. A hundred groups of 50? Can
you see this crowd? Maybe they were encircled like
this or maybe they're all out in front. That's a huge, you
probably couldn't hardly see the end of the crowd. That's
a large number. If you go to a football game
or something, there's like 10,000 people there. That's how many
people were there. And Jesus says, no, you give
them to eat. Jesus didn't walk around giving
bread to each person. He gave it to His disciples.
And this teaches us that the Lord sends His gospel into the
world through the preaching of His messengers. He went to heaven
and He says, Greater works will you do, because I go to my Father."
That's what he told his disciples. And the greater works were that
the gospel was going to go throughout the whole world, because in God's
purpose, it didn't come directly through Christ's hand. It came
through him to his disciples, and then to sinners like us.
So aren't you thankful that God sent Paul and Peter and Mark
and Luke and all these men to teach us the gospel? We wouldn't
even have this recording. if God didn't give it to them.
So here it is. And then in verse 17, and they say to him, we have
here but five loaves and two fishes. And notice what Jesus
says next. Bring them hither to me. Bring
what? Bring the five loaves. Bring
the two fishes to me. Here the disciples are, they
got a little bag maybe, or whatever they have, a wrap, that this
boy had his food in, and the boy gives it to them. I remember
when I was in Sunday school as a kid, the whole focus of the
sermon, or the lesson, was on how this boy gave his food to
Jesus. It doesn't say anything about
that here, does it? It just says they found the food. Yes, there
was a boy there. Yes, he had it. And yes, the
Lord brought it. But I don't know how men focus
on what humanity does when the Lord of Glory is here making
food out of such small. And you think, you know, maybe
his fish were big. Maybe it was like a 20 pound
halibut. Or a big loaf of French bread
or something like that. Well, who cares? Maybe it was. Maybe it was a couple of hundred
pound fish. But how did this boy carry 200 pound fish? Besides
the fact that how did they end up with over 12 baskets full
of food after everyone ate? It doesn't matter how much the
boy brought. It wasn't enough to feed 10,000
plus people and to have 12 baskets left over. The point here is
that there was nothing. hardly anything. And Christ took
it and fed thee. So we learn from this when Jesus
says to his disciples, bring it to me. Then, learn this. Give Christ what you have been
given. Give Him what you've been given.
But when you give it to Him, acknowledge your own insufficiency
in giving it. Your own insufficiency and the
insufficiency of what you have, what you've been given to do
anything of any value in the Kingdom of God. You are nothing. Your gifts are nothing in comparison
to what needs to be done. But bring it to Christ and give
it to Him. And put it in His hand by faith.
And give what you have been given, give it back to the Lord. And
then distribute what He gives to you. That's what the disciples
did here. They took what God provided through
this boy and they brought it to Christ. They were insufficient. The food was insufficient. But
He was sufficient. And they gave it to Him. And
He gave it back to them. And they took what they had been
given from Him. And they distributed it to the
people. And know that when you do that, the Lord will break
and bless and fill all He gives it to you. Have you ever wondered
how when the gospel is preached, and the things of Christ are
laid out from week to week, how there's always more than you
can eat, there's always more than I can digest, from the gospel, there's always
way more than we can possibly. And when we feel satisfied on
it, there's always a lot more left over, isn't there? That's
the way the gospel works. We bring our insufficiency to
Christ. We bring to Him what He's given
to us. And it's nothing, really. It's
who we are. It's our understanding. It's paltry compared to what
it ought to be. And then we go forth and we We
declare the gospel through the means that we have, which are
insignificant. Whatever that might be, whether
it be our direct words, or our encouragement, or our contributions,
or whatever it is, the Lord takes care of it. And there's always
more than can be taken in by those who hear it. And then next
look here, he says, after that, he commanded them that the multitude
sit down on the grass. And then He took the five loaves
and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, it says in John
6, in verse 11, that He first thanked, and then He blessed,
and He break it. He break this food, and He thanked
His Father for it. Now, think about what's happening
here. What Jesus is doing is He's feeding
people food. But what He's really doing, is
that God is teaching us that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the Bread of Life. This is proven in John chapter
6, where the same account is given. Jesus said, when the Jews
saw that Jesus had fed all these people, they came to Him later
and they said, you know, they followed Him and Jesus said,
you didn't seek after me because Well, let me go take a look at
exactly what he said, because I don't want to misstate it. But he says here, in John chapter
6, he said, "...you seek me not because you saw the miracles,
but because you ate of the loaves and were filled." So they didn't
come to Jesus because they knew He was sent of God, but because
they were hungry, and they ate the loaves, and they were there
for another meal. But when the Lord Jesus explained
what He had done, He said, and they said, if you can make bread
like that, then we heard about how Moses gave bread to the children
of Israel in the wilderness all those years. Can you do something
like that? And Jesus said, Moses didn't
give you that bread in the wilderness, my father gave it to you. But
my father gives you the true bread, and the true bread is
the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who came down from heaven. And
he's the one who gives life to the world, he says. And so, when
the Lord Jesus takes this bread and this fish in his hands, And
He thanks His Father, He blesses it, and He breaks it. It's significant
to understand that in breaking, in thanking His Father, in breaking
His bread and fish, and then blessing it, He's speaking about
Himself. who is the bread of life given
to his people. Now understand this, the bread
is Christ and him crucified. And the way we, the way we, how
do we, how do we eat? Well, we take food and we put
it in our mouth and chew it up and it's really good and tasty.
It's even better when you're hungry and we're satisfied with
it and we live by that. Isn't that the way food works?
Man, I'm really hungry, I'm so hungry. I could just eat a horse
and chase the rider. And we eat that food and it's
so satisfying. This is the best food I ever
tasted. I'm so hungry. And then a few hours later, we're
hungry again. God is teaching us something. He says, the Lord
Jesus is the bread of life. When we in our souls are hungry,
we are to take of Him and our souls are going to live and our
souls are going to be satisfied with Him. But what he does is
he takes the bread and he thanks his father and then he blesses
it and he breaks it. See in this how the Lord Jesus
gives himself to his people. First he thanks his father that
he could come in his own body and lay his life down and save
his people by himself taking their sins and bearing God's
curse against their sins in himself for them. And then bringing his
obedience in complete fulfillment to God's law for them. And standing
for them in everything so that when God sees him, he sees them
with him. And he receives everything from
Christ as if he received it from them. And he thinks about his
people. in proportion to what he thinks
about his son. And he blesses them as he would
bless his son. This is what Jesus is thanking
his father for. I can pour out my blood and break
my body for the life of my people. And he thanks him that he would
be able to give himself for his people. And then He blesses it
and breaks it just like He laid His life down willingly. Willingly
giving Himself for His people. And then He blesses it to us.
And this is what He's doing there in this miracle. He's giving
Himself for His people and to His people. There's a verse in
Genesis 15. I want you to look at this with
me. I think about this whenever I
think about Christ giving Himself for us. He says in Genesis 15,
verse 1, The Lord appeared to Abraham. His name is Abram at this point.
And He speaks to him these words that we should always remember.
He says in verse 1 of Genesis 15, After these things the word
of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying to Abram, Fear
not, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Do you
see that? Now, I remember reading that
one time and it just suddenly hit me. What is a shield for? Well, a shield is something you
protect yourself with. Someone's got a spear and they're
going to throw it at you. You need a shield to bump that
spear out of the way so it doesn't enter you and kill you. A sword?
Bam! You use that shield to protect
yourself. A dart, a rock, whatever it is, you use the shield to
protect you. What does the shield do? The shield is standing between
you and your death against the enemy. It's standing for you,
isn't it? The shield is what is for you,
between you and the curse or the enemy that's coming against
you. And the Lord says, I am your
shield. The Lord Jesus Christ says, I
am your shield to Abraham. All these enemies about you,
don't worry about them. I'm your shield. And then He says, not
just that I'm for you, but He says, and I am your exceeding
great reward. What is a reward? Well, it's
that thing that you would really like to have. I'd like to have
all this inheritance and given to you. It's a gift of great
blessing. It's a reward. And God says to
Abraham, now here's your reward, Abraham. I am your reward. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
only giving himself for his people, but he gives himself to his people. Just like the husband for his
wife, I'm going to take all of your debt and I'm going to pay
it. And I'm going to provide for you. And then He not only
does everything for her, but He gives Himself to her in love. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done for His people. In His atoning work, He gave
Himself for us. And when He teaches us this in
the Gospel, and gives us faith so that we can see it, and we're
persuaded of it, and we embrace it, and we go to Him and call
upon Him, then He gives Himself to us. He is our shield and our
exceeding great reward. He's our inheritance. Psalm 16.5
says, The Lord is my portion. Everything you want, the Lord
is mine. I've got Him. What else do I
need? And so, So you see that he thanks the Lord, he thanks
his father. He blesses the bread and He breaks
it just like He blessed Himself to His people. Faith eats by
hearing God's Word in the Gospel. Our bodies eat with our mouth,
but faith, our souls live with the mouth of faith. When I was
teaching kids Sunday school, I would draw a face and a mouth
and say, that's the way we eat. But then you put God's Word there. Faith takes God's Word. that
speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ and His salvation to us, and
all that He's done for us. And faith looks upon that and
says, that's all I need. That's all I live by. That's
what satisfies the deepest needs of my soul before God. And faith
receives what Christ has done. And we see God in that, don't
we? When we eat, When by faith we
see what Christ has done for us and how God treats us because
of what He has received from His Son. That God has substituted
His Son for us under His wrath and for our obedience. And He
is pleased with His Son and we know that He is pleased with
His people in Him. We want to find that. Where is
that? Say that in the Word of God. I want to live on that.
That is all I need in my soul. It gives me peace and assurance
and great joy. And it makes me love God. It
makes me understand who He is. And so this is what I want to
do. I want to look at a few verses with you just to feed your soul
on the Lord Jesus Christ and what He's done for us. We can
see it here in this miracle. But I want to speak to you from
the Scripture. We know that faith rests entirely
upon the Word of God. But look at Hebrews chapter 9,
verse 26. Hebrews chapter 9. I'll just
take you to a few verses here of Scripture, because this is
what We want to always be doing is we want to be thinking about
and finding in God's Word the promises of what He says that
He has done for us in Christ. And we want to rest upon them
and feed our souls. We need to live upon this and
rejoice in it and go to Him because of it. Hebrews 9.26 says, It's
in the middle of a sentence, so I'm just going to read it.
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,
but now, listen, once in the end of the world has he appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now John 6 explains
that bread, the bread of life, is that. It's Christ sacrificing
Himself. But it's not just Him sacrificing
Himself in some kind of an abstract thing. It's Him actually laying
down His life as an offering for sin. And putting that sin
away before God, for His people. It's what He accomplished by
that. Look at the words. Once, in the end of the world,
has He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
He appeared once to put away sin by the offering of Himself,
and He was successful. He actually put it away. We know
it because He was raised and ascended to heaven and was crowned
as the Lord of all, seated on His Father's throne. And God
would not raise and reward Him if He failed to accomplish God's
will, would He? If He didn't so highly glorify
His Father, God would not have so highly glorified Him. And
then look at Hebrews 1.3. Back at the beginning of Hebrews.
I'll just take you to a few of these verses. Hebrews 1.3. Speaking
about our Lord Jesus again, He says, "...who being the brightness
of God's glory..." and the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on high." The Olympics are on now. And I like to see people
competing in the Olympics. I like to see my team win. And have you ever noticed what
the glory is of an athlete? The glory for the athlete is
to win, isn't it? It's not to come in 4th or 5th
or 6th. It's to actually get a gold medal.
Someone said one time, a silver medal and a bronze medal are
consolation prizes to losers. The gold medal is the winner.
That's the only one who won, isn't it? And so we think of
someone who gets the gold medal, and we think that's the glory.
He just won the race. Look at that. Amazing. He was
like seconds ahead of everybody else. He was so dominant in this.
What is the gold medal of God? What is that thing that brings
Him glory? What is that thing that teaches
us the heart of God, the purpose of God, His work, His greatest
achievement? It's the death of His Son. He
says, "...when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down
on the right hand of God." Do you see this? Is it food for
your soul? Does it satisfy the deepest need
of your conscience to know that Christ by Himself has put away
your sins? Not by something you added. He
did it when He died on the cross and God received Him. Back in
history, at a place outside the walls of Jerusalem, the Lord
Jesus Christ actually put away the sins of His people. That
is food for His people. That's the bread of life. And
then look at Hebrews chapter 7. Just taking you to a few of
these verses. Hebrews chapter 7, he says... Verse 26, "...for such an high
priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needeth
not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first
for his own sins, and then for the people's. For this he did
once, when he offered up himself." You see this? He himself was
offered, and he offered himself once, and his offering was for
the sins of his people, the people of God's covenant of grace. And
he does not need to repeat his offering. His one offering perfectly
answered God's justice in full. It cannot be repeated, because
when he offered himself, he gave everything. Have you ever thought
about that? Not only did His offering actually satisfy God
so that it did not need to be repeated, but He had nothing
more to offer. He gave Himself. As I've said
before, God emptied Heaven. What else could He give when
He gave His Son? And then, look at these verses
also. Look at 1 Peter 3. He says in
1 Peter 3.18, How are we brought to God? suffered for sins, the just for
the unjust, in order to bring us to God. That's how. It's by
Christ's suffering. We think, well, we've got to
bring ourselves to God. No. God brings us to Himself. And God declares to us what He's
done. It's the just for the unjust.
He suffered once to bring us to God. And so we know that well-known
verse in 2 Corinthians 5, "...the Lord, who knew no sin, was made
sin for His people, that we might be the righteousness of God in
Him." Now look at Romans 8. I looked at this last week with
you. I want to look at three verses here in Romans 8, and
then this will be the end of it. Look at Romans 8. These verses are so powerful.
I don't know if I said it last week or when I might have said
it, but I think that this is probably the most powerful statements
in scripture that give assurance to God's people that could be
found. Because everything here is put
on Christ. Look at this. He says in verse
32. Romans 8, 32. 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? How
much did God love his people? He laid sin on his son, and when
he found that sin on his son, he didn't spare him, but he delivered
him up. I could never give my son for
anybody. I wouldn't want any harm to come
to my son, or my daughter, or anybody. Could you imagine? actually
giving up your child for someone else. And yet the Lord of Glory
gave up the eternal Son of God. He gave him a body and gave him
up for His people with their sins they had committed against
Him and laid on Him the punishment His justice demanded. And then
took that punishment and poured it out on His Son. He delivered
Him up. And then He says here in verse 32, He says, if this
is what God has done for us, then He will give us everything
with Christ. If He gave us His Son, He'll
give us everything. Now what does that say to us?
If God has given His Son for you, there's no possibility that
He's going to give eternal life to you. That's what the verse
is saying. There's no way that God would
give His Son for somebody and then not give them everything.
That's the argument here. Therefore He had to give His
Son for His people. All those who are given all things
are all those for whom He gave His Son. And that's the inescapable
truth of this verse. And then look at verse 33. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that
justifieth. This verse is saying that no
one can charge any of God's elect with any problem, with any sin.
No one can. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Why? Because God justified. And
therefore we know He justified. Who did He justify? All of His
elect. Who did God justify? His elect.
Who can lay anything to their charge? It's God that justified
them. Therefore, if you're justified,
what are you? You're the elect of God. And
God justifies all His elect. So who does God justify? Only
the elect. He doesn't justify all men. And
the elect were chosen before the foundation of the world.
And then look at this next verse. Again, this is the summon of
all these verses together in my mind. Who is He that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. What is the answer? What is the
one thing that I can hold up In defense of the condemnation
of the devil, of my conscience, even the law of God, what is
the one thing I can hold up? It is Christ that died. That's
it. He says, it's Christ that died.
That's the answer that addresses every cause of justification
in his people. But it therefore teaches that
if there's any who are not condemned, it's because Christ died for
them. And it also teaches that all
for whom Christ died cannot be condemned. These things are so
plain in these verses and they give us such comfort. Look at
one more verse in Galatians 2.21. I want you to see this because
I, in my own mind, think about these all the time. And perhaps
that's because you also will benefit from that. Look at Galatians
2. In verse 21, I do not frustrate. That means I don't try to make
it worth nothing. I do not frustrate the grace
of God. For if righteousness come by
the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If righteousness comes
by the law, Christ didn't need to die. That's what the verse
is saying. Righteousness does not come by the law. Therefore,
it does come by the death of Christ. You see that? How are
we justified? By the righteousness of Christ.
And how is that righteousness ours? By the death of God's own
Son. Righteousness comes by the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because if it didn't, then His
death was in vain. And we know His death wasn't
in vain. Therefore, He fulfilled what God gave Him to do. And
we have this righteousness. You're welcome. Sometimes we
fall into thinking that our salvation is this abstract thing. But Jesus
himself is the bread of life. Salvation is in a person. It's
in our Lord Jesus Christ. He has compassion on his people.
1 Peter 2.24 says, "...who his own self bare our sins in his
own body on the tree." It's the Lord Jesus Christ, who his own
self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. It's not an
abstract thing that we say, well, it's just a doctrine. It's the
Lord Himself. When we see Christ breaking the
bread, blessing the bread, thanking His Father for it, giving it
to His disciples, and doing it all at the end of the day. We're
seeing Him laying down His life for His people at the end of
His life, and then giving it to them. It's His love that did
this, His compassion, His tender mercy towards His people. And
when we see Him like this, Our hearts are moved to go out to
Him, aren't they? We don't have to think about
what we're going to do, or what we're going to be, or what we
can give, or any of those things. We receive from Him. It's like
we're in a welfare state. Everything we need and consume
comes at His hand of mercy and grace. And this is the message
of salvation. It's all free. It's all in Christ.
It's all accomplished. And God declares it to sinners,
ruined, helpless, lost sinners, in order that we might praise
the Lord for His goodness and for His marvelous works to the
children of men. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your mercy in Christ our Lord. Thank you for our Lord
Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all
iniquity and to purify to himself a people zealous of good works.
We thank you, Lord, for delivering us from the darkness of our unbelief
so that we might see Christ and be able to believe him and trust
him and find satisfaction in understanding and coming to know
Him and what He's done for us. Lord, we pray that You would
make Yourself known to us today, comfort our hearts, fill us,
Lord, with the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.