Well, good morning, everyone.
If you would open your Bibles to Mark chapter eight this morning.
Mark the eighth chapter. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord, seek his blessing. Our Father, we carefully and
reverently come into your presence this morning, daring only come
before you, before your throne of grace, pleading the person
and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we beg of
you that you would see us in him and accept us in him, that
you would accept our praise and our thanksgiving for such a wonderful salvation
that you would in your mercy and grace and wisdom provide
for such wretched sinners as we are through the obedience
and the sacrifice of your only begotten son. Father, how we
thank you, how we praise your matchless name. And Father, I
pray this morning as we look into your word that you'd show
us your glory, that you would reveal to us the Lord Jesus Christ,
that he is everything that we need. and cause us to run to
him, cause us to rest in the power and mercy and grace of
our God. Bless us, we pray. We pray you'd
bless our children's classes and bless your people wherever
they're meeting together this morning in this dark and dreary
day. Father, I pray you'd cause your
word to run well to your glory for the good of your people.
And Father, we hold up to thee, your people, that you've brought
in the time of trouble and trial. We pray for them. We pray that
your mercy and grace would be upon them, that you give them
a special portion of your presence. Be with them in the valley, Father,
until you see fit to deliver. And we pray that you would deliver
us as soon as it could be thy will. And all these things we
ask in that name which is above every name. the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. It's for his sake and his glory
we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
More Loaves, More Fishes, and More Grace. I like to read the
text and then we'll come back and make some comments on it.
Beginning Mark eight, verse one. In those days, the multitude
being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples
unto him and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude,
because they have now been with me three days and have nothing
to eat. And if I send them away, fasting to their own houses,
they'll faint by the way, for divers of them come from far. And his disciples answered him,
from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in
the wilderness? And he asked them, how many loaves
have ye? And they say, seven. And he commanded the people to
sit down on the ground And he took the seven loaves and gave
thanks and break and gave to his disciples to set before them.
And they did set them before the people. And they had a few
small fishes and he blessed and commanded to set them also before
them. So they did eat and were filled. And they took up of the broken
meat that was left seven baskets. And they that had eaten were
about 4,000 and he sent them away. I'd like to give you five
observations about saving grace from this miracle this morning.
The first one is obvious. We need a continual supply of
God's grace. In verse four, the disciples
answered him, for whence can a man satisfy these men with
bread here in the wilderness? The disciples asked this question
and they had just seen this exact situation two chapters ago. Now, I don't know how much time
had passed there, but two chapters ago, they had seen this exact
situation, and they'd already forgotten how the Lord provided
for the hungry multitude. They'd already forgotten and
said, situation's hopeless. Nobody can feed this many people
with what we've got. Now, you think about that. If
you had seen the Lord feed 5,000 men, not counting women and children,
maybe 10, 15,000 people, with a boy sack lunch, just five loaves
and two sardines, if you'd seen the Lord do that, and then you
took up 12 baskets full after everybody had eaten all they
wanted, could you possibly forget that? Yes, we could. Yes, we could. If 5,000 was not a problem to
the Lord, 4,000 certainly wouldn't be either, but they'd already
forgotten. And every one of us here, if
we're honest, have been in the same boat, haven't we? The disciples
had seen the Lord perform so many miracles. They saw him cast
out a legion of demons out of just one man, a legion of them.
They saw him cast out demons from others. They saw him heal
the maimed. He gave sight to the blind. He
gave hearing to the deaf. They saw him raise the dead.
I mean, somebody was dead. They saw the Lord raise them
back to life. They saw him walk on water and
control the weather and the waves of the sea. Now, if you'd seen
all that, These men saw that firsthand, they experienced it.
Do you think you could possibly forget that the Lord has power
to do anything at all? I mean, anything. Yeah, we could,
couldn't we? See, you and I are no different
than the disciples. And actually I would say we're
worse. Yes, they saw all those things
firsthand. But Peter said, we have a more
sure word of prophecy. They didn't have the completed
word of God, we do. And Peter called this book a
more sure word of prophecy than seeing all those miracles with
your eyes, being an eyewitness of it. This book is a better
witness and we still forget. Yet our God keeps being gracious
to us, doesn't he? He keeps being, he fed the 5,000
And now there's 4,000 and they doubt, but he fed them anyway.
It's a continual supply of grace, isn't it? And you just think
how gracious God has been to us. I mean, it's staggering,
isn't it? God's graced us. God saved us
by his grace. We believe that just as strongly
as we believe anything, don't we? Salvation is by grace. But
how quickly do we forget and find ourselves doing works, trying
to earn our salvation or get ourselves a better standing with
God. We think, oh, God bless me, because I do this. Other
people don't do that, but I'll do that. We might not think we're
trying to get a better mansion and glory, but that's what we're
trying to do. Because we forget. How soon we forget the bondage
of the law. How soon we forget how sweet
relief that God's grace gave us. He delivered us from the
law Yet how often are we trying to think of something I can do
that would put me back under bondage to the law? Trying to
earn something from God. We forget so easily. God has
saved us by His grace. He's kept us by His grace. Every person here can give testimony
to this, that by God's grace, He's delivered me from every
danger, every toil, and every snare. Every one of them, by
His grace, He has delivered me. But yet, the next time the first
bit of a trial comes up, the first bit of difficulty comes
up, what we think is, oh, he's forgotten me. What am I gonna
eat? What am I gonna wear? What's happening? Because we're
forgetful, aren't we? And it's shameful. And God has
provided for us materially. God has provided for us. I mean,
there's not one person here that ever goes hungry unless you're
just trying to die and want to or something. He has provided
for us, but yet the first little thing that comes up, we're just
exactly like the children of Israel in the wilderness. What
are we gonna eat and what are we gonna wear? I'm tired of what
the Lord's provided for me. We're so forgetful. I mean, it's
just shameful. and forgetting God's grace and
forgetting to trusting, the only thing I can think to call that
is sin. I mean, it's just embarrassing. And I'm talking here not about
people out there in the world that really don't know God, don't
know anything about God, that God has not revealed himself
to them. I'm talking about believers.
These people who genuinely know and trust Christ. How much we
forget. We're just like the disciples,
and it shows our constant need of God's mercy and God's grace
and God's forgiveness. And our Savior keeps freely giving
it then. All right, here's the second
thing I want us to see from this miracle. It's the Lord's compassion
for sinners. In verse two, the Lord said,
I have compassion on the multitude, because they've now been with
me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away
fasting to their own houses, they'll faint by the way, for
divers of them have come from far. Now the Lord was compassionate
to these people who'd been following him. He'd healed all their sick. He had such compassion for them,
he healed all their sick, he healed their suffering, he had
compassion on their suffering, even though he knows in a short
while every last one of them but the 12 is gonna leave him.
And he still had compassion on them. He had compassion on their
suffering, what they already had suffered, and he had compassion
on what they're getting ready to go through too. They soon
would be suffering from hunger, and they'd faint by the wayside,
and the Lord had compassion on them, and he provided for them
before they ever asked him to do anything. Now that's compassion
for sinners, isn't it? Now that's Christ our Savior.
We have a high priest. who's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. God Almighty became flesh. He became a real human being.
He was not a hologram. He was not a pretend thing. He
became a real human being. He had human emotions. He felt
joy and sorrow. He had real human bodily needs. He felt thirst and hunger. He
was bone tired, so tired he fell asleep in a boat that was being
tossed all around like a cork. He was so tired he just slept
through it, just bone tired. In everything his people go through,
our Savior has compassion on them. You know why? He knows
what it feels like. He knows what it is, whatever
it is that you're suffering, whatever it is you're going through
right now, our Savior went through it first. And He has compassion
on you and what you're going through. Now, our Lord's compassion for
sinners, that's good news, isn't it? That's good news. It's one
of those things about His character that just makes me run to Him.
He has such compassion on His people that before anything was
created, before he spoke the first bit of the world into existence,
before he did that, he moved in mercy and grace to save his
people, to provide a savior for his people long before they ever
asked him to do it. He has compassion on his people.
The Lord has compassion on his people all through our journey
here below. Isaiah 63 verse nine says, In all their affliction, he was
afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love
and in his pity, he redeemed them and he bare them and carried
them all the days of old. He did that because of his compassion
for his people. He puts up with us, he bears
with us and carries us all the days. Our Lord has compassion
on what we're going through right now. and he also has compassion
on what we're getting ready to go through. And you know how
he's preparing us for it? Is by the preaching of his word.
You know, it's always, I just can't stress how important it
is to be taught the word, to be here as often as you possibly
can to hear the word preached, because the Lord's giving us
something today from his word. that's gonna be helpful to us
tomorrow. He's given us something today so that when we need it
tomorrow, He'll bring it back to our mind. I can't tell you
how many times that's happened to me. I bet it has you too.
This something, the Lord brings back His word to your mind. He
brings back something that the pastor said about it, you know,
and it's so helpful. It's so helpful. The Lord is
preparing us for it. He has compassion for what we're
getting ready to go through. And I tell you, you can trust
a savior who is compassionate for sinners. This is the savior
that I need. You can trust him. The Lord said
in Lamentations 3, verse 22, it's of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed because his compassions fail not. The Lord
does not consume us when we forget, like the disciples forget here
and we think, I'm so embarrassed, I would understand if the Lord
cast me off, I would understand if the Lord just consumed me
with the fire of His wrath, but He doesn't. He doesn't destroy
His people, you know why? His compassions fail not. And
that's the Savior we need. I thought about this, and you
try this on, ponder this son this afternoon. The infinite
God, the Lord Jesus Christ is God. Isaiah said he's the eternal
father, he's God, he's the infinite, eternal God, is full of compassion. Now you try to imagine how much
compassion that is. If the infinite God is full of
it, that just calms the heart, doesn't
it? That's the compassion he has for his people. I just don't
reckon he's gonna run out of it, do you? All right, here's the third thing
I see from this miracle, the Lord's power. This is the power
of the Savior. In this miracle, the Lord Jesus
displayed his power as God, as clearly as he could possibly
display it. He showed his power as the creator. He took bread and fish in his
hands and he broke it. And in dividing it, he multiplied
it. He took that fish in his hand,
that bread in his hands, he broke it, and when he did, he created
matter in the very same way that he created the world in Genesis
chapter one. God said, let there be light,
and there was light. God said, let the firmament appear, and
it appeared. God said, let the dry land appear, and it appeared.
God said, let all the animals appear, and they appeared. He
created matter that wasn't there before, didn't he? He did the
very same thing when he took these loaves and fishes in his
hands. Now that shows us the Lord Jesus
Christ is God. He's the creator. And since he's
God, he has the power and the right to save sinners like you
and me. The Lord Jesus saves his people in such power that
they're completely and utterly saved. There's power in everything
about him, there is power. There's power in his blood to
forgive sin. Colossians 1 verse 14, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of
sin. The blood of Christ causes the
father to forgive our sin because his blood removes the sin of
his people. So there's no reason for the
father to be angry anymore. There's nothing to charge him
with, so their sin's forgiven. That's power, isn't it? That's
power. There's power in the blood of
Christ to cleanse us from sin, not just to pay the debt, but
to cleanse us from the filth of sin. 1 John 1, 7. The blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. All traces of sin, all the filth
and iniquity of sin is cleansed by the blood of Christ. That's
power. Our Savior has power to give
spiritual life, to give spiritual life to the dead. And he does
it by causing a new man to be born that never existed before. So that the believer has two
men, two natures in, an old dead nature and a new man who's righteous
and holy. Ephesians 4 verse 24 says, put
on the new man, which after God is created. This is his power
to create life that's not there. is created in righteousness and
true holiness. Our Savior has power to draw
His people to come to Him for life. To come to Him, He makes
them thirsty. He has the power to make them
thirsty. And then He says, come to me and drink. And they come.
He has power to make them hungry. And He says, come to me and eat.
He has power to make them weary. And He says, come to me and have
spiritual rest. All you that labor are heavy
laden." He said, come, I'll give you rest. Come. I know the world
doesn't come, but I tell you who comes, His people. They come. Why? If you've come to Christ,
you believe Him, you trust Him, why do you? You felt Christ,
you felt the power of the Holy Spirit drawing you to Christ.
Why were you willing to come? because God made you willing
in the day of his power. He has the power to draw his
people to come to him. He has the power to save his
people. He has the power to give them life. He has the power to
draw them to him. And he has the power to keep
them from falling. God's not gonna save you and
then leave it up to you to give from here to glory. He has the
power to keep them from falling. Jude verse 24. Now unto him that's
able to keep you from falling. And get this, to present you
faultless before his presence with exceeding joy. I have power to be able to keep
somebody like me from falling, because I'd fall away, Gary,
in a heartbeat. He has power to keep me from falling. And
then try to imagine the power that it takes to take you and
me and to present us faultless before the Father. Now that's
power. That is power to say. You know what we're doing here
this morning? A sinful man getting up and daring
to open the Word of God and make some comments on it. And try
to point sinners to Christ. Try to tell people about who
the Lord is. How God saves sinners. To try
to comfort the hearts of His weary people. To take this book
and try to make some comments on it that would make, that would
satisfy the need, all the different needs of everybody here, the
world says that is utterly foolish. It's foolish. We'd be on a basketball
team. This preaching business is foolish.
But you know, there is power in our Savior to bless His word
as it's preached and give salvation. and life and comfort and teaching
to his people. Our Lord powerfully and wonderfully
moves in a way that we can't understand so that he gives life
to his people. Comfort, the Lord feeds his people,
he instructs his people, he heals his people of all their spiritual
diseases through the preaching of Christ. Preaching one message
satisfies all those different needs. That's the power of God. Now that's the power, we sure
do enjoy it, don't we? You've been here before, you
just felt like, oh, the Lord's speaking to me, the Lord gave
that message to the preacher just for me. That's the power
of God. Now we sure do enjoy it, but
now that's a mystery to me. And it's just his power that
he is pleased to show. And I'll tell you one of the
things that draws a dead sinner to come to Christ. It's His power
to save. Don't be making excuses about
why you don't come to Christ. Don't be saying, well, you know,
I'm too sinful, or I'm too far gone, or I've got this problem,
or I've got this problem, or I've got this problem, I've got
this difficulty that keeps me from coming to Him. You just
come to Christ. Just quit that excuse making.
You come to Christ. He has the power to save you. He has the power to take care
of you because of his omnipotent power. If he didn't have that
power, there'd be no use in us believing. But he has the power
of God to save his people. Then the fourth thing I notice
is this. There's power in our Lord's prayer. In verse seven
says, they had a few small fishes and he blessed them and commanded
to set them also before them. In verse six, he commanded the
people to sit down on the ground. He took the seven loaves and
he gave thanks and break and gave to his disciples to sit
before them. Before the Lord started breaking the bread and
the fish, before he started creating this matter and handing it out
to his disciples to meet the need of the people, before he
did that, he prayed. And I find it very, very, very
interesting. He didn't pray and ask the father
to give him the power to perform this miracle. He already had
that power, he is God. But he gave thanks. He gave thanks. Now I know this, there's power
in prayer. And there is certainly power
in the prayer of the God man, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
say that to make this point, now there's power in his prayer.
Because do you know, the Savior is still praying today? As he
makes intercession for his people. Now he's not praying in this
sense, he's always praying and asking the Father to forgive
that sin, forgive this sin, forgive, oh Father, forgive this sin.
The Savior asked for forgiveness for the sin of his people simply
by demonstrating to his Father the scars that are in his body
from his sacrifice. Those scars are evidence the
price has been paid. This sin has already been paid
for, it's forgiven. But the Savior also gives thanks.
He's still giving thanks. He gives thanks that the sin
of his people has already been forgiven. He gives thanks that
his sacrifice has been effectual to save his people. He gives
thanks for his people because in his compassion and care for
them, he's thankful. Their sin is forgiven. That makes
him thankful. Now think about that for just
a moment. If the Lord's praying for you,
this one who has all power, this one who has compassion for sinners,
this one who keeps giving grace upon grace upon grace upon grace
to his people. If he's praying for you, you
got no worries. That's who performed this miracle.
And then the last thing I see is this. God's grace is always
sufficient for us. Verse eight says, and they did
eat. They all ate, they were all filled, and they took up
of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. And when they
had eaten were about 4,000. And then after they'd eaten,
after he provided for them, he sent them away. Now seven loaves
and a few small fishes, that was enough to stuff 4,000 people. and then to gather up all these
fragments afterwards. So they started, or they ended
with more than they started with. Now, how's that possible? How
can seven loaves and a few small fishes be enough? Because Jonathan,
they were in the hand of the Savior. That's why they were
enough. There was plenty for every hungry
person there, but none of it was wasted. In that sacrifice
of our Lord, when His body was broken for us, there's plenty
for everybody who's hungry. There's plenty for everybody
that needs a Savior, but none of it will be wasted. A drop
of His precious blood will be wasted. Now, if you're empty,
you're spiritually empty, you're spiritually hungry, you've got
nothing God requires of you, tell you what to do, just come
sit at the feet of Christ and trust Him to feed you. It will
be enough. There's enough for you and me
when we come to Christ. God's grace is sufficient for
every need you and I will ever have. Well, we sure need salvation,
don't we? We need to be saved from our
sin. How can we be saved? We're saved by grace. That's
what scripture says. We need to be justified. We need
to be made so that we have no sin. That's the only way the
holy God can accept us. How can a sinner be justified?
How's that possible? How can a sinner be made without
any sin? Scripture says being justified freely by His grace. His grace will provide what you
need. Well, we need to be delivered from God's wrath, don't we? How
can we be delivered from God's wrath? It's by grace. Noah gave us such a great picture
of that. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's
why he was delivered in the ark. And if you and I find grace in
the eyes of the Lord, we'll be delivered in Christ, won't we? Oh, but preacher, I'm a great
sinner. We're great sinners. We're saved by grace. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. He's gonna keep giving grace
upon grace upon grace. Oh, but I'm such a rebel. God's
not gonna take me, and I'm such a rebel. I would never choose
God, never. I think grace is what you need.
Even so, at this present time also, there's a remnant, according
to the election of grace, of grace. Oh, but my trials, they're too
severe. I mean, The Lord's delivered
me from passion. I just can't make it through.
I cannot do this. I can't do it. Tell you what
you need is grace. My grace is sufficient for thee. For my strength is made perfect
in weakness. His grace, of course we can't
do it. Of course we can't handle this on our own. Of course we
can't make it through it on our own. But His grace is sufficient. Oh, but preacher, I'm so ashamed.
I'm so ashamed of myself. Lord saved me by his grace. He's
called me by his grace. He's given me his word. He's
taught me his word. He's taught me so much about
him. And I keep forgetting and find myself so full of doubts
and fears. God's grace is what we need.
He's going to give more loaves and more fishes and more grace. Thank God he keeps giving grace,
and more grace, and more grace, and more grace, and more grace,
and it's always what we need. Maybe one day we'll learn, huh?
Maybe one day we'll learn to trust him. And since I got a couple minutes,
let me give you this. You know the Lord, he performed
this miracle. He didn't really need the disciples,
did he? but he was pleased to use them. He was pleased to use
them to distribute this bread and fish to the people. The Lord
really, I mean, he's gonna create matter anyway, right? He didn't
really need somebody to give him these seven loaves and a
few small fishes. He's gonna create matter and
feed the people anyway. It's gonna be by his power. But
the Lord took what his people gave willingly and blessed it
to the multitude. Now I think about our abilities
to do things. Our abilities, it's like the
seven loaves and the few small fishes. It's not enough, is it?
That's our inability. But I think I've learned this,
that we can only serve the Lord in our inability and our insufficiency. And we serve him by just depending
on him. And he takes it and blesses it
anyway. And it's something I've told you before and I tell you
again. Whatever it is that you, the
Lord's given you to be able to do in His service. To serve your brothers and sisters
in this congregation, to serve in this ministry, to help get
the gospel to our community, to our loved ones. And you think,
it's so small, it's so dumb, that's not gonna help anybody.
Neither did the seven loaves and the few small fishes. Do
what the Lord's given you to do. Give what the Lord's given
you to do. And we'll trust Him to bless
it to the multitude, won't we? All right, I'm gonna bless that
too.