I want to begin this message
by going to the 20th chapter of John where I'm going to read
two verses to kind of jumpstart this message on feeding the 5,000. The reason One of the reasons that John
was inspired of the Spirit of God to write this book was to
establish the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God. He speaks of the deity. He's
all the time drawing our attention to the deity of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Matthew sets out to prove his
kingship, his royalty. The book of Mark shows him to
be the servant, the servant of God. Luke sets out to establish
him as being the son of man, real man. And then we get to
the gospel of John. John's desire according to the
Holy Spirit, was to establish the fact that that man from Galilee,
Jesus of Nazareth, was indeed the Son of God. And you'll notice
here in the last two verses of chapter 20 of John, verse 30,
and many other signs, many other miracles truly did Jesus in the
presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written, that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the promised
Savior. that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his
name. So keeping that in mind, go back
to the Gospel of John chapter 6 once again, John chapter 6. This miracle is the greatest
of our Lord's miracles when you consider How many people were
eyewitnesses to it? Now, this is recorded in Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and finally in John. We learned from Matthew that
besides the 5,000 men, there were women and children. And
conservative Bible scholars believe that there were about 20 to 25,000
people who were fed abundantly till
they were full. Every one of those eyewitnesses
not only witnessed what happened, but they were participants. That's
what makes this unusual. You see, there are only two miracles
of our Savior that are mentioned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
This one, this one, and there's one more. You know what it is?
His resurrection. The resurrection of our Savior
that attested to the fact that the work that he did upon the
cross of Calvary was satisfactory to the Father, satisfying to
God the Father, for he had by his death, he had brought us
to God, he had saved his people from their sins, and he had established
for us everlasting righteousness. So this is a tremendous miracle. Now, so far in the Gospel of
John, and all of you, most all of you are somewhat familiar
with the Gospel of John, this is the fourth great miracle in
the Gospel of John so far. So far. In the second chapter,
you remember this one in Galilee, he changed the water into wine. Then we'll get to the third chapter.
Toward the end of the third chapter, we'll find that our Lord healed
the nobleman's son. And then we get to the fourth
chapter, or the fifth chapter, I'm sorry. The fifth chapter,
we read about the man who was healed, who had been lame for
38 years, and then there's this one. Remember, any time you read
in the Gospel of John, here's what you're looking for, and
here's why the book was written, to establish the fact that Jesus
of Nazareth was the Son of God. He is deity. He is God manifest
in the flesh. He's not a mere man. He is God over all, blessed forever. He's the eternal God, from everlasting
to everlasting, thou art God. And here, when we get to the
sixth chapter, we find this great miracle. The greatest of all
of them, with the exception of his own resurrection. And so
many people are fed that when all is said and done and everybody
has dined to their fullness, there were 12 baskets left over,
enough for all of the disciples to have another meal. So be amazed at this feeding
of the 5,000 men plus women and children. And keep in mind, They
didn't have grocery stores back then. You know, all of these
passages in the Word of God, we have to bear in mind, they
didn't have so many of the conveniences that we enjoy. They couldn't
just run down, well, run down to Kroger's, would you? Get some
food or get a takeout from one of the restaurants. That just
wasn't available. Now, one of the things, another
thing that we know about this past scripture is getting close
to Passover time. In the fourth verse, we read
that it was close to Passover time. And depending on who you
read, at the beginning of the fifth chapter, there's a Passover
there, though some say it was a feast of tabernacles. So at
the most, it's been a year that has passed since the previous
Passover. Or if you say it's the Feast
of Tabernacles, the least it's been is about six months. A lot
of things have happened since the Passover and the Feast of
Tabernacles before. But the Passover, most likely,
The second Passover that our Lord Jesus partook of was in
the fourth chapter. And then, well, let me just look
back and refresh my mind. I don't want to steer you wrong
here. It's the fifth chapter. After
this, verse one, after this, there was a feast of the Jews.
either the Passover or Feast of Tabernacles, most likely the
Passover. And then we get to the sixth
chapter, and here's the Passover again. And there's only gonna
be one more Passover until our Lord Jesus dies on the cross. So lots of things have happened
between the first verse of chapter five and the first verse of chapter
six. About a year has gone by, most
likely. Many things. And now our Lord, he's kind of,
he's at the very crescendo, the very peak of his ministry. At the end of the passage of
scripture I read here, it says they were ready to anoint him
king. If he had come to be crowned king, now's the time because
his popularity will begin to wane after this. This is the
peak of his popularity. He's fed 20,000 to 25,000 people. Well, where did all these people
come from? You think they just gathered
there in the mountains? Whenever there was a Passover,
the Jews, about 30 days before the Passover, they would begin
to make their way wherever they lived. northern country, eastern
part of the country, western part of the country, southern
part of the country, they would begin to make their way to Jerusalem
for the Passover. And so you've got a lot of people
that are, they're making their way to the Passover in Jerusalem. And they hear Jesus of Nazareth,
Jesus of Nazareth, he's preaching up on the mountain. And so they
divert their, They're a journey toward Jerusalem and thousands
of them, thousands of them, thousands of them go to hear him. And they
know he's the miracle worker. He's the healer. I've already
told you they didn't have grocery stores. They didn't have pharmacies
either. Bunch of sick people. Most of
the diseases that we know now weren't even discovered or named
back in these days. People got sick, unknown reason,
unknown cause. There were not inoculations.
Like most of us, we got our shots when we was growing up. They
didn't have anything like that. It wasn't protection afforded
to them like it's afforded to us and our children and grandchildren. People got sick and died. And
then people began to say, but Jesus of Nazareth has the ability
to heal. Well, you can see why he became
popular, especially after feeding 20 to 25,000 people. He's a walking grocery store.
That's what he is. He's a walking pharmacy and physician. That's who he is. No wonder his
popularity grew. You got somebody sick in your
family, take them to the Lord Jesus. He's healing all kinds
of people. So you can see how there's a
fever pitch to the popularity of Jesus of Nazareth right now
in this passage of scripture. And it will begin to go down
after this, after this. A multitude followed him. And
we know they wanted to see more miracles out of curiosity, out
of entertainment, Let me tell you, the world today likes entertainment,
just like these people wanted to be entertained. And the world
today wants to be healed of their sickness, just like these people
want to be healed of their sickness. And people who are in need, they
want to be fed today like they needed to be fed back then. And
they found out Jesus is the answer to all your problems. But there's one problem they
had, that they weren't interested in Jesus. And that's the sin
problem. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. They weren't interested. They
weren't interested in hearing how God can be a just God and
a Savior. Yes, feed me. Heal me. I've got arthritis, I've got
bursitis, I've got this sickness, I've got that sickness. Heal
me!" So you have these preachers, these charlatans, religious crooks. They have healing services. And
thousands of people come out. You say, how can they be so gullible?
They want to be healed. Who doesn't want to have your
aches and pains taken care of? Who doesn't want to be healed
of cancer or heart disease or some other ailment? Everybody
does. And so a fellow rents a great
place to meet, a gymnasium or a stadium or something, he rents
it and then all these people flock in because they want to
be healed. They want to be fed. They want
the body to be taken care of. But they had these people and
people today have no interest in spiritual healing, nor in
spiritual food. You see the gospel of the grace
of God is the spiritual food. Our Lord Jesus himself is spiritual
drink. He said, I am the water of life.
And before he said, even in John chapter six, I'm the bread come
down from heaven. but people don't wanna hear of
Him being the sin forgiver, the sin remover, the savior of sinners. They're not really much interested
in that. What they're interested in, make
me feel better, give me Jesus, He's the answer to all my problems.
He'll heal my money problems, He'll heal my marriage problems,
He'll heal this problem and that problem, but they're not interested
in the sin problem. And the way he took care of the
sin problem was upon the cross of Calvary. When the good shepherd
laid down his life for the sheep, that God might be a just God. God can't show mercy, God can't
show grace at the expense of his justice. Preachers today say, oh, just
believe on Jesus. Why should I believe on Jesus?
Why should you believe on Jesus? Well, number one, because God
tells you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. But number two,
he's the only way to God. There is no other way. He's the
only Savior. He's the only one who took away
sin, the sins of his people. He's the only one who can make
us righteous. He's the only one who can bring us to God. He said,
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. There's no shortage of religious
entertainment today. Fake healers, people who make you happy, they
have gospel singings, a lot of things to draw people out. It's
fun. I used to hear us say, it's fun
being saved. You ever hear that? It's fun
being saved. It's no light matter to come
to know the living God. That'll humble you. If God ever
reveals himself to you by the power of the spirit, he will
humble you in the dust. and shut your mouth as far as
bragging about what a good person you've been, you'll see the spirituality
of the law of God. I'm gonna be dealing with that
more fully tonight. That law of God, there's a spiritual
side to the law, not just the literal side. Well, I've never
killed anybody, ever hated anybody. I can't stand that guy. You just
murdered him in your heart. That's the spirituality of the
law of God. You don't hear anything about
that today. God gave the law to leave all men guilty, to shut
our mouths before the Lord, to humble us and bring us down in
the dust. You say, well, if the Lord Jesus,
if he's so popular, He healed people and He fed people. Why
did people leave Him? Get this, they were drawn by
the miracles. They were driven away by His
words. That's important to remember.
They were drawn by the miracles. Look what our Lord said in verse
26. Jesus answered them and said,
verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me, you do seek me. Not because you saw the miracles,
and the meaning is not because you saw the miracles and you
wanted to know me. But because you did eat of the
loaves and were filled. That's why you followed me. for
the miracles that I perform. But as to his words, that drove them away. Go much
further over in this particular chapter. Look at verse 60. Verse 60. Many therefore of his
disciples, when they had heard this, They said, this is a hard saying. This is an offensive saying. Your words are intolerable. Who can hear it? Who will listen
to this? He talked about divine election. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Here's our Lord speaking to people
who were lost. And He declared unto them the
certainty of the graciousness of His electing grace. They didn't
like that. He talked a little further about,
no man can come to me, human inability. No man can come to
me. Preacher says, you can come to
Jesus anytime you want to. Well, he's speaking contrary
to what the Lord Jesus said. The Lord Jesus said, no man can
come to me except. Look at verse 44. He said, no man can come to me
except. You say, well, I can come anytime
I want to. I beg your pardon. You can't come anytime you want
to. In fact, you can't come except,
watch it, the Father which hath sent me, draw him, draw him. And the word there is the same
word that when Peter drew out his sword and tried to cut that
servant's head off and he missed his head, he just got the ear.
He drew the sword out. The sword was inactive just like
a sinner is inactive. The sword had to be acted upon. Peter had to pull that out of
its sheath. Except the Father draw him. In
this matter of drawing grace, irresistible grace, the effectual
call of God, it's the Lord Himself who draws sinners in. It's not
of your will. It's of God's will. It's God
who showeth the mercy. And our Lord says, no man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Here's the fact of the matter.
You must come to Jesus Christ, but you can't come unless God
draws you. That is absolutely required. And then he says, you can't live
unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. In other words, receive
me. And the people said, these are
hard sayings. We wish you'd feed us again.
Give us the food. Heal somebody. We don't wanna
hear the preaching. We don't wanna hear about sovereign
grace. We don't wanna hear about the
effectual call of God. We don't wanna hear about the
need of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. We don't
need to hear those things. They said, these are offensive
things. I know they are offensive to the flesh. And therefore, verse 61, Jesus
knew in himself that his disciples murmured, they grumbled at it. He said unto them, does this
offend you? And I would ask you, does this
offend you? Does it offend you when the Bible says salvation's
of the Lord and it's not of you? You don't even have a part. Does
that offend you? He says, What? And if you shall
see the son of man ascend up where he was before, it is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing, zero. The words, the words that I speak
unto you, the words, not the works didn't offend them, his
words offended them. They were drawn to the works,
feed us, heal us, But his words, his doctrines offended them. He said, the words that I speak,
here's the reason that they offend you, because they're spirit and
you're flesh. My words are life. Look at verse
64, for there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew
from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should
betray Him. And He said, Therefore said I
unto you, that no man can come to Me, except it were given unto
him of My Father." Don't run around saying, well, I can come
to Jesus anytime I want to. You're a fool. You can't. The Lord Jesus, that One who
speaks only the truth says, you can't do that. accepted were given unto him
of my father. And here's what happened. Imagine
20, 25,000 people and thousands of them followed him. He went
to the other side of the lake. Verse 66, from that time many
of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. We love you works. We love your miracles. We love your power to feed us. We love your power to heal our
elderly folks and heal the young, heal the children. We love that,
but we don't like what you preach. That's what they said. And you know what they said to
Jesus of Nazareth? Goodbye, we're not gonna follow
you anymore. And I don't know whether you
like this kind of preaching or not. I can tell you this, there's
a lot of preaching out here that will honor the flesh and entertain
you and make you feel good about yourself. I'm not interested
in you feeling good about yourself. I want you to feel bad about
yourself. I want you to see how rotten
you are in your sinfulness. And me too, me too. Our only hope is the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're not trying to entertain
people here, not trying to make everybody happy, leave you clapping
your hands and all excited. This town's full of churches
that'll do that for you. I'll tell you what, when you
die and you meet a holy God and he casts you in hell, that's
not gonna be entertainment. You face God at the judgment,
that'll sober you up really fast. And then you'll say, oh, I wish
I had listened to the word of God. That's probably, people
don't wanna hear the word of God. In verse four it says, the Passover,
the Passover feast to the Jews was not the Passover. John 6 for the Passover. You
remember that? And I put a little article in
the Bulletin about Charles Spurgeon. The Lord said, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. No blood, no passing over. And you'll notice that in verse
four it says, a feast of the Jews. It wasn't originally called
that. It was the Lord's Feast, Exodus
chapter 12. But now it had so gone downhill
through the years, it's just the Jews pass over now. God wasn't
honored. God wasn't blessed. God wasn't
worshiped. It's the Jews pass over. Well, here's all these people,
and our Lord knew they were hungry. It's toward the end of the day. And he's full of kindness. He's good to all. He sends rain
upon the just and the unjust. And his intention is to feed
them all. So he asks Philip, How we gonna
feed all these people? 20, 25,000 people. And you know, Philip calculated
like we do when we get in a jam. How can I handle this situation? But what Philip, what he forgot
was he calculated without the Lord. This is not going to be a problem
for the creator. So we don't have enough money.
If we took up a love offering, we ain't got enough money. And
where are we going to buy this much food? We don't have a food
fair or a Kroger or anything. We don't have anything like that.
There's a little hut down there, and they got a few figs for sale,
something like that. Andrew said, well, there's a
little boy here, and he's got five little barley loaves, five
little crackers, and a couple of little salted fish or something,
a couple of teeny-weeny fish, sardines, I'd
say. What are they amongst so many? And our Lord said, make people sit down by 50s. Now, there was much grass there. They don't have to sit down on
the hot sand, a cushion of grass. The Lord was good in providing
for them. And you're talking about a miracle.
He took these five little barley crackers and two little fishes,
and he began to break it. to the disciples, take this out
and give it to people. Now those five little barley
loaves, they were grown from the barley growing on a cursed
earth. But what our Lord gave them didn't
come from a cursed earth. It came from the hands of the
Creator. And I would say, I don't know
if they'd admit it or not, but I'd say that these people would
have to say, that's the best meal we ever had. I reckon it
was. It came directly from the hands
of the Creator, prepared right in front of their eyes. Pass
this out, pass this out. And you'll notice in verse 11,
Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed
to the disciples. He said, here, feed these people. It comes from me and I give it
to you to feed the people. And that's what the gospel is.
You see, the gospel comes from the Lord Jesus, our savior. And he gives it to his servants.
Give this to the people. And that's what I'm doing this
morning. Here comes some barley crackers your way. Here comes some fish your way.
You understand? I'm giving you what the Lord
has instructed me to give you, to tell you about Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, the only Savior of sinners, the only mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. He gives that message
to his servants. And then his servants, like this
servant, is giving it to you. I hope that God will give you
a spiritual appetite. And then they gathered up the
leftovers. You had enough? Anybody else? It's a buffet, you know. You
can eat as much as you want. Oh, I can't eat anymore. Oh,
that's delicious. I never had bread like that,
have you? And that fish, woo, that fish, the way it was prepared. I wish I had that recipe. Well,
that's divinely prepared. Want any more? Anybody want any
more? All you thousands of people,
anybody else hungry? I can't eat another thing. Gather up what's left over then.
And I'd say it's 12 baskets to take care of the preachers. And those men said, this must
be the prophet. And in verse 15, our Lord perceived
they were ready to come and take him by force. We gonna crown
him king. He's gonna be king of Israel.
He's gonna run these Romans out of here once and for all. But
that wasn't why he came. He didn't come to establish a
kingdom on earth. He told Pilate, my kingdom's
not of this world. And then at the end of the chapter,
you find out what happened ultimately. After he preached to them and
said he's a good healer and he's good at providing food.
But I don't like his preaching at all. You got another miracle up your
sleeve? No. Goodbye. We're not gonna follow you anymore.
No more excitement. No more entertainment. And he enters in then to the
last year of his ministry, and the following Passover, they'll
crucify him. Here's God's lamb. Who will listen to him? And the
only way you'll listen to him is by a miracle of grace. That's
exactly what it takes. A miracle of grace. Well, let's
get a songbook. We'll sing a closing song. 112. And I want you to just sing one
stanza, 100.