Well, good morning. You would
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 14. Continue our study
in Matthew chapter 14 this morning. Before we. Begin, let's. Bow for our Lord's throne in
prayer. Our father. Oh, how thankful
we are. What a miracle of your grace.
Sinful men and women like us can bow before you and call you
our father. Oh, how thankful we are for your adopting, regenerating,
electing mercy and grace. Father, thank you. We pray this morning that you
would enable us by thy spirit to worship you in spirit and
in truth. Father, would you reveal your
glory to us this morning, your saving, redemptive glory in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Father, reveal your glory and
give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear, give us a heart
that believes, that will believe and then hunger and thirst after
our Lord Jesus Christ and continually seek Him, continually rely and
depend upon Him. Father, we're so thankful for
this place Pray that you make this place, this morning, a special
place of worship. Be with us in this class, and
we pray a special blessing for our children's classes, which
you would see fit to use this time to plant the seeds of faith
in the hearts of our young ones. Father, how can we begin to thank
you for how abundantly and richly you have blessed this people?
We pray that you'd always give us a grateful and a thankful
heart, that we would never begin to presume on your mercy and
your grace and your generosity to us. We're so thankful that
you've, again, allowed us to meet with freedom and given our
country some relief from this pandemic. And Father, pray you
would remove this plague from the earth completely, if it could
be thy will. Father, we pray that you bless
us as we look into your word. Enable us to see the glory of
Christ our Savior. For it's in his precious name
we pray and give thanks. All right, I've titled our lesson
this morning, They Did All Eat. And this is a very well-known,
you're all familiar with this parable, not parable, the miracle
of the loaves and the fishes. And the reason that they all
ate is because of how wonderful, how powerful our Savior is. The
miracle of the loaves and the fishes. This is interesting to
me. It's the only miracle that's
recorded in all four Gospels. The only one. You know, there
are only three events recorded in all four Gospels. Interestingly
enough, the birth of Christ isn't one of them. John doesn't record
the birth of Christ, but the death of Christ, the resurrection
of Christ, And this miracle, the loaves and fishes are recorded
in all four gospels. Now that tells me there must
be something very important for us to learn here. I mean, you
can't say one passage of scripture is more important than the other.
It's all the word of God, but there's something, there must
be something very important for us to learn here. Of all our
Lord's miracles, this one was the most public. So it has to
be meant for us to see it and to understand it. And this is
what is to be understood for the miracle of the loaves and
the fishes. The Lord Jesus Christ is the bread of life. He's sufficient. He's sufficient to save us. He's
sufficient to fill us. He's sufficient to keep us by
himself, Christ himself. Our lesson begins Matthew 14,
verse 13. When Jesus heard of it, when
he heard of the beheading, the death of John the Baptist, he
departed thence by ship into a desert place apart. And when
the people have heard thereof, They followed him on foot out
of the cities. Now, the Lord left that place because of unbelief.
He left that place because of their refusal to believe on him
and because of their hatred and the killing and murder of his
prophet, John the Baptist. The Lord left that place. But
the Lord's purpose of salvation for his people in that place
wasn't important. He left, but his people aren't
going to be left there to their own devices. They're not going
to be left there unsaved. The people followed the Lord
out of town. He left and they followed him.
They went to this desert place. And when they did, when they
followed him, they saw the power and the glory of the Lord Jesus.
And that's what God's going to do for all of his people. He's
going to draw them. He's going to draw them away
from man's religion. He's going to draw them away
from the way of the world and draw them to Christ. And when
the father, when the spirit draws us to Christ, we'll see his glory.
And there's four things about the glory of the Savior that
I want us to see from this miracle. The first one is this, the compassion
of Christ for sinners. Look at verse 14. And Jesus went
forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion
toward them. And he healed the sick. Now,
I don't know who all these people were that followed the Lord out
there. I'm pretty sure they weren't all believers. We'll see this
as we go through the study. They didn't all follow him for
the right reason. But the Lord still had compassion
on them. He had compassion on their suffering. His heart, the
heart of God, was moved with compassion toward these people.
It overwhelms me. I've read this and studied it
all week and it still just overwhelms me. The heart of God, the most
innermost being of God was moved with compassion for the poor,
sick, suffering people. Mark in his account of this says
the heart, the being of the Savior was moved with compassion toward
the people because they are a sheep, not having a shepherd. They were
sheep that They didn't have a shepherd to lead them, to guide them,
to protect them, to feed them. And His heart was moved with
compassion for them. Now I point all that out because
that's the character of the Savior you and I need. We don't need
somebody to give us what we deserve. We need somebody to have compassion
on us, on our poor, sick, needy, filthy selves. We are needy,
sin sick sinners and we need somebody to have compassion on
us. And like I said, I don't know
who all these people were, but they came out there, they followed
Christ out there and they were fed. Well, I know this, but everybody
who comes to Christ, they're going to be healed. They'll be
healed of all of their sin, of all of their sin, sickness, their
wounds, their bruises, their putrefying sores, anybody that
comes to Christ. will begin. Any sinner who comes
to Christ begging for forgiveness, he's got compassion on them and
forgiveness. Any sinner who comes to Christ to be saved on God's
terms will be saved. And this is God's terms. You
come to Christ to be saved all by him. Without any of your help,
without any of your input, you come to Christ begging for salvation.
That's God's terms. If you come to God that way,
he'll save you. He has compassion on sinners. You know why God
does not destroy his people in wrath? Because he's moved with
compassion toward them and gives them, instead of what they deserve,
his tender mercies. That's the savior we needed.
But look at verse 15. And when it was evening, his
disciples came to him saying, this is a desert place and the
time has now passed. Send the multitude away that
they may go into the villages and buy themselves victuals.
But Jesus said unto them, they need not depart, give ye them
to eat. Now, not only were these people
come out to the Lord, they were sick, but the Lord had healed
them. And now they're hungry. And you
know, the sick that the Lord healed, they were hungry. Everybody
else that was seeing, you know, the Lord heal all these people,
they were hungry. They've been out in this desert
place all day long. There wasn't anything to eat out there. And
the disciples, mm-mm-mm, Wanted to send the people away. But the Lord had compassion on
them. He said, they don't need to go. They don't need to go.
He didn't send them away to go out and fend for themselves.
He didn't say, well, go out in the city and fend for yourself.
That's what sheep who don't have a shepherd have to do. The Lord,
at least for this time, he's going to be their shepherd. They
don't have to fend for themselves. The Lord was moved with compassion
on these people and he's going to feed them. And that is what
the Lord does for every needy sinner who comes to him begging
for mercy. They don't deserve it. They can't
earn it. They're nothing but a needy, dirty, smelly, stinking,
rotten sinner. Christ has compassion on them.
He'll forgive them. He'll have mercy on them because
he has compassion for sinners. All right, here's the second
thing I want us to see about the Savior, his power, the power
of Christ to save. Verse 16. Jesus said unto them,
they need not depart, give ye them to eat. And they say unto
him, we have here, but five loaves and two fishes. And he said,
bring them hither to me. 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.
Now, In these verses, you see a picture here of man's ability
versus God's ability. This is the difference between
man's way of salvation and God's way of salvation. In John, when
he recorded this miracle, he said to Andrew, the Lord said,
feed the people. And Andrew said, we don't have
any food. He said, all we got here is a
boy's lunch. Five barley loaves. And barley loaves are the rougher,
more coarse bread. It's not even the real wheat
bread would be the best bread. Barley loaves are rough. They're
not considered, you know, fine eating. Five barley loaves and
two fishes. They're probably two sardines.
Or they wouldn't beat them big old bass that meet the 15-inch
qualification. These are just little old sardines,
you know. And I thought about that. At
first I thought, you know, five loaves, two fishes, that's pretty
good lunch for a boy. And then I remembered being a
growing boy. Oh, I could eat way more than
that. I mean way more than that. Still
good. That boy could eat more. It wasn't
even a big lunch for a boy. How can a lunch, not big enough
to really satisfy the hunger of a boy, be enough to feed 5,000
men, plus women and children? There could have been 10,000,
15,000 people there. How's that boy's lunch gonna
feed all those people? And here's the picture. Man's religion puts
men to work. but it's never enough. It's never
enough to get the job done. You're trying to figure out how
our work can be enough to accomplish salvation. It's like trying to
figure out how that boy's lunch can't feed all those people.
Brother Henry called that calculating without Christ. When you calculate
without Christ, it's never enough. Never. Man's religion has calculated
a way of salvation, but they calculated without Christ. They've
left Christ out of it. and that way we'll always come
up short. Now that's true spiritually and
that's true physically. Every single time we depend on
ourself, our way, our strength, the arm of the flesh, we always
come up short. It's never enough. That's true,
before I start talking about the spiritual application of
that, isn't that just true physically, naturally? This is shameful. shameful. But
how often does some problem come up and we've limited God by what
we think is possible. That's just shameful. I'm trying
to teach myself to pray and just lay out my heart, the problem
to God and leave it there. I'm so prone to make suggestions.
I'm so prone to say, Lord, would you do this? Would you, we just
lay out the problem to God. And thankfully, Lord's not limited
by our prayer, our weak prayer. I'm thankful for that. But how
often have we limited God by thinking too small? Well, spiritually speaking, how
much worse is that? Man has no power. no ability,
no way to help the situation, no way to accomplish salvation,
no way to accomplish spiritually feeling. But our God has all
power, all power. And here is an example of it
on display. The Lord said, give me that boy's
lunch. And he took that lunch in his hands and he gave thanks
for it. And he began to break. those
barley loaves. And he began to break those fish
and to hand out the bread, to hand out the flesh to his disciples. And as he broke the loaves and
broke the fishes, he created food. He created matter that
wasn't there before. That's power. That's the power
of the creator. And that's the kind of Savior
we need. We need a powerful Savior. We need a Savior who has the
power Put sin away. We need a Savior who has the
power to create new life in us. We need a Savior who has the
power to call us and to make us come. We need a Savior who
has the power to call us and to draw us to Him. I was going
over my notes this morning. I heard you calling one of the
dogs and calling and calling. She wouldn't come. Aren't you
glad God's not that way? Do He call and we just don't
come? We just act like we don't hear? We need God to have the
power to call us and make us willing to come to Him. We need
a Savior who has the power to save us and then to keep us. That's what we need. And that's
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior who has all power. He's omnipotent. He has the power as the creator. He has the power over all flesh. He has the power to speak. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the word of God. He's the one that spoke
and said, let there be light. He's the one that spoke and said,
let the dry land appear. Christ is the one that did that.
Look over the second Corinthians chapter four. Now that's powerful. That's wonderful. And I'm thankful
for it, but he has power to speak and to give life where there
wasn't life before. He has the power to speak and give spiritual
life where it was not there before. Second Corinthians four verse
six. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
that's in creation, has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Our savior speaks and there's
light. There's spiritual light and we
see Christ. Now that's the Savior that we
need. The Savior who has all power. Now I tell you, you come to Christ. I tell you that in every message
I think, you come to Christ. You come to Him in full confidence. He's got the power to save you.
He's got the power. You're not going to find out
that you come to Christ and you're such a bad sinner that Christ
Can't save you. I don't want to be mean, but
somebody that thinks that is just thinking too highly of themselves.
You're not that special. You know, our parents tell us
how special we are. You're not that special. You come to Christ. He got the power to save you.
Nothing's too hard for God. Nothing's too hard for him. God's
got enough grace for you. He's got enough grace for your
sinful soul, just like he's got enough water in the ocean for
a minnow he put in it. Now you come to him in full confidence. He's got the power to save you.
Our God has power to give food to all flesh. When you think
of all the flesh, the animal flesh, all the flesh out this
animal, how do animals eat all the time? God gives it to them.
God gives it to them. How do you eat every day? God
gives it to you. God gives it to you. That's true
naturally and that's true spiritually. God's people get power to give
them food. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
bread of life. He is the food for the soul of
all of his people. And someone might be confused
and be like Andrew and say, but what is one man among so many? Well, he's the son of God incarnate. That makes him able to satisfy
the need of the souls of all of his people. Christ alone is
enough. He's enough for your soul. He's
enough to save and to keep a number that no man can number. He's
certainly enough for you. Now you come to him. And someone
else might say, but I don't understand this. What is one man's righteousness? One man's obedience to the law
in the midst of this multitude of unrighteous sinners? What's
one man's righteousness? Well, the answer to that is simple.
It's the righteousness of God. It's a perfect righteousness.
What is one man's blood in the face of so many sinners? It's
the blood of God. He will make his people righteous
because it's the righteousness of God. It's the blood of God. Christ alone will satisfy the
need of every hungry sinner because he's God. He's got the power
to do it. All right, and here's the third
thing. This is such a mystery to the natural man. Our Lord
has such compassion on sinners who has all power. He uses gospel
preaching to save and defeat his people. Did you notice that
in verse 19, 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. Now the location
of this miracle is worth noting. It's a desert place and that
desert place is a picture of our hearts. Our hearts, naturally
speaking, Desert places, dry, dead, barren. And it's a picture
of the world in which we live. It's a desert place. There's
no life there. There's nothing to give life. There's nothing
to sustain life there. The world in which we live, in
our hearts, are barren wastelands that are worse than any desert.
I see pictures of the Sahara Desert. And I think, how in this
world does anybody ever get in their mind, take a camel and
cross that thing? I mean, it just goes. far and far and far
as you can see. There's no life, there's no water,
there's no hope. Our hearts, spiritually speaking,
are much worse than that picture. Much worse. I reckon if it rained
in the desert, you know, something could give life to it. Life springs
up and different things. The only way our hearts can live
is if God gives a new one. God's got to work a miracle.
There is no life in this desert place where the people come out
to the Lord. But the Lord was there. The Savior was there. And there's nothing there that's
going to feed them. But he took the bread and he took the fish
and he broke them and gave to the disciples and the disciples
to the multitude. And when he did that, when he
took that bread and broke it and the fish and broke it, you
know what he did? He gave us a picture of where spiritual
life comes from. Spiritual life comes from the
death of Christ. When Christ died, his body was
broken, was broken under the rod of God's justice. That's
what the bread of the Lord's table represents. It's the broken
body of Christ when he died. And when the Lord took that barley
bread and broke it, he gave us a picture of the same thing.
Now, since the body of the Lord Jesus was broken and he died
for sin, that's why his people can have life. He died in the
place of his people. God's elect have life only because
Christ died as their substitute. Just like that enormous crowd,
they couldn't have had anything to eat unless the Lord took that
bread and broke it and the fish and broke it. They couldn't have
anything to eat, could they? God's people could not live unless
Christ died. His body was broken for us. And
the food the Lord broke and gave to the disciples was distributed
by the disciples. Now that's a picture of gospel
preaching. God's preachers, we just take what the Lord has given
us, we go into study, we seek God's will, we seek God's face,
we seek God's message for his people. And amazingly, because of his
power, because of his compassion for his people, the Lord gives
a message. Every Sunday, every Wednesday,
I go home. I often tell Jana, well, that's
all I got. That's all I know. That's it. That's everything
I know. And somehow, next Sunday, next Wednesday, the Lord's given
another message. I'm so thankful. Oh, I'm so thankful. It couldn't
come any other way. God's preachers, they go into the study. God gives
them a message, and they just turn around and distribute it
to God's people, exactly like the Lord gave it to us. without
adding it, without to it, without taking anything away from it,
without diluting it. Just give it to the people exactly
like God has given it to us. God's preachers are not giving
our ideas and our point of view. God's preachers are not to give
our opinions about the goings-on of the world, you know, the society
of the world, how the world's being governed, like the potsherds
of the earth strive with the potsherds of the earth. God's
going to raise up some heathen to govern the world. Let them
take care of it. We're to take care of God's people.
Feed God's people. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people
by showing them again and again and again, the Lord Jesus Christ
is saying look to Him. Look and live. Look and be healed.
Look and be comforted. Look and have life. Look to Him. God's
preachers don't take what God's given us and try to make it taste
better to the flesh. We just give it to God's people
exactly like God has given it to us. And when I say that, believe
me, I'm not making preachers to be out on some higher plane
than everybody else. Obviously, these disciples weren't
much, were they? They just weren't much to write
home about. They didn't have any strength. They had faith,
but it was mighty weak faith, wasn't it? Lord, you got to send
these people away because we can't feed them. They had faith,
but it was weak. But everybody there was still
fed. Everybody there still received
the bread and the fish from the hand of the disciples by the
power of the Lord. Not the disciples' power, the
power of the Lord, the power of the Savior. And I tell you,
use the talents that God's given you. Whatever talent it is that
God's given you, use it in His surface. And you think, well,
it's just, it's so little. Who cares? The Lord takes something
little and uses it mightily, doesn't He? The disciples didn't
have any talents. All they could do is fish. They're
in a desert place, so their skills are useless, aren't they? But
the Lord still used them to feed the multitude by His power, not
theirs. That boy did not have much of
a lunch. Did you ever wonder about that
boy? How did they get that boy to let go of that little lunch
he had? The power of the Savior, that's how. That little boy didn't
have much of a lunch, but he gave it to the Lord and it fed
a multitude. You and I don't have much talents,
but whatever it is that God's given us, use it. Use it in his
service. Use it to help his people. Serve
God in his kingdom. Serve the gospel in this place,
for our community, for the glory of our Savior might be known
in our community. We just don't have to have great
talents for the Lord to use us. Matter of fact, we just gotta
have little ones. If we're too big for our britches
and overestimate ourselves, God's not gonna use us. Moses thought
he was gonna deliver Israel by the arm of the flesh. It took
40 years for the Lord to whittle Moses down to where Moses said,
I've been out here not seeing anybody for so long to see a
bunch of sheep. I forgot even how to speak. I
can't even speak to people anymore. Now God's ready to use you. Just
take what little talents you have and serve the Lord with
them. Just do what you can. The Lord just might bless it
mightily because the power is of the Lord and not of us. All
right, here's the fourth thing. Christ, and his gospel fully
satisfies every sinner. Verse 20, and they did all eat
and were filled. They all didn't just get a little
bit, they were all filled. And they took up the fragments
that remained, 12 baskets full, and they that had eaten were
about 5,000 men, beside women and children. This multitude
followed the Lord out to this desert place, and everybody there
was satisfied. They all ate till they were full. They didn't want any more. And
I just bet you, barley bread and fish, sardines, never tasted
as good as that. I just bet you. They were fully
satisfied. And that's what Christ does for
his people. That's what the gospel is to God's people. It fully
satisfies them, fully. Christ alone satisfies God's
people. If you give me Christ plus my
works, I'm not going to be satisfied. If you give me Christ plus my
morality, Christ plus my anything, I'm not going to be satisfied.
But you give me Christ alone, I'll be satisfied. Just give
me the gospel of Christ alone. Don't try to make it taste better
to the flesh and add the spices of man's works. I watched Janet
Cook and she gets all these spices and I don't even know what all
she's doing. but she adds everything together, it tastes real good.
And that's great for cooking, but not for preaching. Just preach
the gospel of Christ alone without any spices, without the spices
of man's works, without the sauces of emotionalism, without the
sauce of feel good, just making the flesh feel good religion.
Don't add that. Christ alone is enough to fully
satisfy God's people. And I've learned this. If people
aren't going to be satisfied with Christ alone, they're not
going to be satisfied in you at either. Yeah, they might for
a while and then, you know, they'll go on and whatever. But Christ
alone is enough to satisfy God's people. As a matter of fact,
that's the only thing that will satisfy them. Christ alone is
all it takes to save God's elect. Christ alone is enough to satisfy
both the appetite and the taste buds of God's people. You spice
it up with man's works. You put the sauce of emotionalism
on it. That's just not going to taste good to God's sheep.
But plain grass does. Just give them Christ. Just give
me Christ and I'll be satisfied. You know, they started here with
five barley loaves and two fishes. Something just fit in the bag.
And they ended up collecting 12 baskets full of bread and
fish. Well, that's the power of God
to create. And that's also a picture of
God's saving power, the saving power of Christ our Savior. There
was plenty for everybody. Everybody had everything they
wanted, didn't they? And not one thing was wasted.
They gathered it all up. That's Christ. That's his atonement.
That's his sacrifice. The broken body, the shed blood
of Christ, his sacrifice for his people is enough to save
his people. And not one bit of it's wasted.
Not one. Don't you ever think that Christ
died for somebody that's going to perish anyway. Christ shed
his blood and it's enough. It's enough to fully atone for
all of God's people, but not one drop of that precious blood
was wasted. He never shed his blood for anybody whose sin was
not atoned for. He never shed his blood for anybody
that goes to hell for their sin. Not one drop of it was wasted.
Everyone for whom he shed his blood is fully redeemed. fully cleansed from all of their
sin. That's the doctrine of limited atonement. And I preach that
unashamedly, boldly, and as clearly as I possibly can. Limited atonement. And it's not to be mean. It's
not to be doctrinally straight. It's to preach the glory of Christ
the Savior. Limited atonement does not mean
that you want to be saved and can. Not at all. Limited atonement
does not mean that Christ's atonement was limited in its power to save. Christ's atonement is limited
in its scope to save. And everyone for whom he died,
fully redeemed, fully cleansed from all of their sin. And that's
the glory of Christ. Is that the Savior you need?
Is it? He has compassion. Are you a sinner? Oh, I hope
so. Come to Him. He has compassion. Are you a great sinner? Well,
I hope so. I hope so. He has the power to
save. You come to Him. He has the power
to save. Are you lost and you don't understand? You don't know
God and you can't figure Him out? Come where Christ is preached. That's where He distributes.
That's where he makes himself, not you come. Oh, I hope Laura
bless that too.