Go back to Mark, chapter 6. The title of this message is, Compassions
Fail Not. They fail not. His mercy, His
pity that He has upon Children, they never fail, never. And we'll see this here in just
this short little portion of scripture. Our Lord has compassion
on the multitude, not just one or two, thousands. He has compassion this morning
on thousands, on us this morning. The fact that we have his word,
someone to stand and preach his word, is evidence of his compassion
this morning. It's still on us. In spite of
ourselves. In spite of me, the Lord still
has compassion on me. Listen to this scripture over
in Lamentations 3, verse 22. It is of the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed. That's why you're not consumed
this morning. Don't let any of us think that we're pretty good
fellows. That's why we're doing well and not consumed. We're not consumed
because of who He is. I'm the Lord, I change not. Therefore,
you sons of Jacob, But here it is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because His compassions fail not. They fail not. And we see this
in the Gospels. As our Lord is just time after
time after time, so many people keep coming to Him, and the sick
keep coming, and they keep coming, and His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. In verse 29, and when his disciples
heard of it, that is John's disciples, when they heard of John being
beheaded, they came and took up that headless body. And they
buried it. As I told you last week, they
didn't bury John. He was with the Lord. They buried
his body. And they laid it in a tomb. And
over Matthew it says they came and told the Lord what happened. And the apostles gathered themselves
together under Jesus. You've got the disciples of John
and you've got the apostles and they've gathered themselves to
the Lord. And the disciples of John have told him what happened
to John and what they did. They buried the body. And he
knew their heart. He felt their pain. He felt it. And that's why he took them and
the apostles aside for a while. He said, let's come apart for
a while. Let's come apart and rest for a while. Our Lord remembers our frame
that is dust. We're not nearly as strong as
we think we are. Not at all. But He knows who
we are. He made us. And He knows what's
going on in their hearts. And He's going to take them apart
for a little while, and they're going to rest. And the apostles
gathered themselves together under Jesus and told Him all
things, both what they had done and what they had taught. Remember, He gave them power
over unclean spirits, and they went out and they preached repent,
They preached the gospel and healed the sick and cast out
demons. And they came and they told the
Lord all things that they had done and that they had taught.
And the first thing that hit me when I read that is that Christ
is our Lord and we must give account to him. They are giving
account for the ministry and what they did. Give an account
for it. You know how weighty that is?
To stand before God and give an account. To look into His
face someday and give an account. And that's what they're doing
here. They're giving account. And He said unto them, because He
knew their hearts, He knew their hearts, Come ye yourselves apart
into a desert place and rest a while. Take it easy. There's nothing
wrong with that. I remember, I was telling Henry
once, I said, it was, Vicki and I had been 15 years, we hadn't
taken a vacation. And he said, John, even the Lord
came apart for a while. He said, you need to come apart
for a while. You need to take a break. You need to go on vacation
and rest if you can go, if you can rest on vacation. I haven't
found vacation to be too restful myself. We never take a vacation
usually in a place close enough where we can rest. We wear ourselves
out driving there, and we wear ourselves out playing there,
and we wear ourselves out getting back. That's the idea of an American
vacation. We don't know how to rest. I'm
convinced of that. In this country, our culture,
we don't know how to rest. We don't know how to sit down.
My granddaughter, the other day, she says, I'm bored. She's at
the house. I said, I'm bored. I said, tell
me what that word means. She goes, I don't know. I said,
then how do you know you're bored? I said, if you don't know what it means,
then how do you know you're bored? We don't, we're just, we're just
fidgety. We just got to be entertained.
And the Lord's saying to them, come apart for a while and take
a break. Rest. I made you. I know you need rest. I know how sinful nature is.
I know how sinful you are. I know how sinful this world
is. You need to take a break. You need to take a break from
it and from yourself. Henry told me, I probably ought to tell
this, but Henry said that he was going to take a vacation.
And somebody said, what do you need a vacation for? And I said,
Henny, why didn't you just say from you? He goes, I wish I had
thought of that. I need to take a vacation from
you. I don't need to take one from
you. Maybe we need to take one from
each other. But he says, come and park for a while to a desert
place. Not the beach where it's crowded.
Not where it's hustle and bustle. Just come apart and let your
mind come down. Let your emotions come down.
A place where you can actually reflect and think upon the Lord
and meditate and get out of the hustle and bustle of it. We need rest. But where do we
find real rest? Where is real rest found? with Him. Christ is our rest. In this desert place of a world,
there is one place where we can come apart and rest, and that's
in our Lord. It's in Christ. We can find rest. Whatever troubles are going on,
whatever there is, at the end of the day, you can truly and
honestly find rest in Him. Rest in His person, rest in His
providence, Rest in His grace, rest in His truth. I'll never
leave you and forsake you. Can you rest in that? Can you rest? Yeah, you can rest.
If you're His, you can. And they departed into a desert
place by ship privately. What do we see here? You know
what we see here? The shepherd feeding the sheep
to the great pastures. and he's going to make them lie
down and rest. He's going to take them over
there and he's going to feed them. They've been out feeding the
people. Now he's going to take them and he's going to gather
them by himself and he's going to feed them. I need fed. There's no way for me to feed
you without him feeding me. No way. So we see the shepherd
of the sheep leading the sheep to the green pastures so he can
make them lie down and rest. It's also said to be a desert
place. People were coming and going and just hustling and bustling. It says they didn't have time
to even eat. They had no leisure time to even eat. He takes them to a place, he
calls it a desert place. When Christ is there, wherever
He is, It's a time of refreshing even
if it's a desert place. This world is a desert place.
Where you work is a desert place, isn't it? But if Christ is with you, it's
a time of joy, it's a time of refreshing. Someone said, a prison,
a palace would prove if Jesus would dwell with me there. A
desert place. And now here the Lord shows his
compassion. And I want us to get a hold of
this because this is who he is. This is not just, you know, every
now and then we may have a random act of kindness. You heard that
slogan, do a random act of kindness. This is not a random act here.
This is who he is. This is the meek and lowly one.
He is so easy to approach. He's so easy to be around. Not
like those Pharisees that were hard, I mean hard, hard as a
stone. But sinners felt comfortable
with Him. And He had compassion on them. He wasn't saying, my,
you guys wear me out. Because we can do that. Compassion
is new every morning. Mine's not. Mine's not. And yours not either. You and
I can literally wear out each other's compassions. We can do
that, but we cannot wear out his. They're new every morning. We don't leave any of it unused,
that's for sure. But here he shows his compassions, and his
compassions, as I said, they fell not. Over in Mark chapter
1, that leper came to him and said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. And the Lord looked at him and
had compassion on him. So it says he had compassion
on him. And he said, I will be thou made clean. He said, if
you will, you can make me clean. Look over in Micah chapter 7. Let me read this to you. Our Lord's compassion. Chapter 7, right before Nahum, and that
probably didn't help anybody, and that's right before Habakkuk,
and that probably didn't help you. Those little ones are hard
to find. Habakkuk, what did I say? Chapter
7, verse 18. Who is a God like unto thee that
pardoneth iniquity? and passeth by the transgression
of the remnant of his heritage. He retaineth not his anger forever,
because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, he will have
compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniquities, and thou wilt
cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Boy, you
ought to hang that on the fridge. Hang it up. He will have compassion. He will
subdue our iniquities. Iniquity will not reign over
us. Sin will not have dominion over
you. It will not be allowed to. In Romans 9 it says, He will
have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and He will have compassion
on whom He will have compassion. And the people, in verse 33,
and the people saw them departing, And many knew him, and ran afoot
thither out of the cities, and out went them, and came together
unto him. As I said, they felt comfortable.
I see a crowd here that feels comfortable around him. We never read of them running
after the Pharisees like this, do we? No, it's like, I've got
to go there again. People follow them begrudgingly.
No blessing out of it. There's nothing worse. I don't
think there's anything worse than to come, than it would be
to come here, sit down and just go home week after week and go,
oh my goodness. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't
do it. Life's too short to do that.
Eternity's too long. But the people here felt comfortable
in his presence. And those who saw Him, it says
they knew Him, and when they knew Him, recognized Him, they
what? They ran after Him. I pray, oh I pray, that He will
enable us to continually run after Him. Not leisurely take
our stroll and take it for granted that He's going to be here. He
may not. He may vacate the building before you ever know it. Run after him. Urgent. It's urgent because he's never
still. Our Lord was never still. He's
always moving. Always passing by. He's passing
by. And I'm telling you this. Our
Lord is passing by here for however long. Who knows? Maybe many years. May not be. I don't know. But
I do know this. Right now, he's passing by, isn't
he? And I hope he keeps that up.
I hope he does. But they knew. They saw him and
they knew him and they ran afoot. They put forth the effort. A
lot of effort went into this to run after him afoot. They
came out of all the cities and they outwent them and gathered
themselves together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out,
he saw much people and he was moved. Mood with compassion. I loved
you. I love to read this because I'm
reading of my Lord. I'm reading of my God and I'm
watching him. I'm looking at these pages and
I'm watching him and I see who he is. And if he has compassion
on them, he can have compassion on me. They ran after him, I'm
going to run after him. Maybe he'll have compassion on
me. He's a compassionate person. The most compassionate person
ever walked on this earth. It's Him. That's His nature.
Meek and lowly in heart. And He was moved with compassion
toward them because they were a sheep not having a shepherd. And He began to teach them many
things. I believe it's over Matthew. This is recorded in Matthew and
Luke. That He healed some sick. There He is again. Doing good.
Doing good. Showing mercy. You know, this world benefits
every day. Every day this world benefits
from His compassions. Those 5,000 men and all those
women and children were not all saved, but they were all fed. They were all fed. They were
all taken care of. Who takes care of this world
every day? He does. This is my Father's
world. It's His world. The earth in
Psalm 24, the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof and
they who dwell therein. It is. He has compassion every
day on this whole creation. He sends the rain, the sunshine,
the food grows. Do you realize, do you realize
how much, how totally, not how much, how totally we are at his
mercy, even at just his creation? Just let it not rain and see
what happens. He had compassion on that multitude. And when the day was now far
spent, at the end of the day, a long day, long day, his disciples
came to him and said, this is a desert place where we are.
And now the time is far past. He took them out there on purpose.
The rest, and once again, they're going to see the power of God.
They're going to see the mercy of God out here in this desert
place. That's where we see it. When
He takes us out there away from all the help and all the grocery
stores and everything that we could use to help ourselves,
He takes us away from it. It's going to perform a miracle. Send them away. My, my, my. The apostles who just cast out
demons, who healed the sick, are now saying to the Lord, this
is how blind and dumb we are. After what they just witnessed,
they said, send them away so they can go out and buy food
and take care of themselves. You can't take care of yourselves. Not what you really need. Not
what you really need. But I want you to notice something
here. And this is what our Lord made. This is on purpose now. He made His disciples, His apostles
realize their inability to feed all those people. You're not
able to do it. And they recognized that. They
looked at that crowd of 5,000, probably 5,000, I don't guess
it's 10,000 to 15,000 people. And they looked at that crowd
and they're saying, Lord, we don't have enough. You know,
there's not enough money for this crowd. We don't have enough
here. Send them away. Let them go and
provide for themselves. You're not going to provide anything.
God's going to provide. God's going to provide all that
we need in Christ. And they had to recognize, or
the Lord made them recognize first, their inability to feed
the people. I can't do that. I cannot do that. Paul said,
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do
it that way. But other than that, I can't do it. We who preach must be made to
know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are not sufficient for
these things. I'm not sufficient for this. I know I'm not. And nobody else
is either. Nobody is. Paul said God is our
sufficiency. God's our sufficiency. If you're
truly fed this morning, if you're truly fed, if you really leave
here blessed and filled and you've got something out of it, he did
it. He did it. He used his crackpot to say something. And you've
got something out of it. But he did it. He broke the bread.
He blessed the bread. He blessed it. And he broke it. And he gave it to them. He said,
now you give it to the people. And that's the way preaching
is. He blesses it. He breaks it. He prepares it. And he gives
it to the preacher. And he says, now you give it
to the people. You feed the sheep. I don't want
to hear a rendition of the gospel. I don't want to hear somebody
repeating the three R's. You don't want to hear that in
this pulpit. I don't want to just repeat the
three R's. And it's not reading, writing, and arithmetic either.
It might as well be if that's all you're going to do is repeat
it. I want to hear preached. I want Him to feed, to give you
something. And He will, if you're hungry. If you come hungry, if you come
looking for food, if you really come hungry, not just to come
here because it's Sunday morning, But you come here because you're
hungry. I promise you, they'll feed you. You'll eat. You'll eat. And you'll be filled. You'll be filled. And then we
must learn not only our own inefficiency to do this, but we must learn
that Christ is sufficient. He is sufficient. He answered
and said to them, give ye them to eat. They say unto him, shall we go
and buy two hundred penny worth of bread and give them to eat? Is that what you want us to do?
No. No. You give them to eat. He makes
them take account. Secondly, first of all, they
realize their inability. He's going to make them realize
his sufficiency, but one of the first things he's going to do,
he's going to make them take account of what they have. I can look at myself and I think,
what do I have? Who am I? Isn't that what David
said? Who am I? What is my house? Who
am I? They said, we just have five
loaves. I just have a limited education. So do you. We all have a limited education.
We're just pretty much educated in one area. But he makes us take account
of what we have to really look at it. And I mean to really look
at it. To really look at it. And you
look at it. And you think, man, this is over
my head. Sooner or later you're going to realize this is over
my head. And they realized, they realized, as all God's preachers
must realize, that what they have is not enough to feed the
people. Lord, I need you. I need you. It's depressing. It is absolutely
depressing when I look at myself and think, I'm going to feed
you. I'm going to feed you. That would
be like a cook, a lone cook standing in a kitchen and there's 5,000
people out there wanting something to eat. And she's going, are
you serious? I've got to cook for all those
people? I've got to feed all those people? And you've got
to feed them week after week after week? That's depressing to think of.
If, now if, if you've got to do it. If you've got to do it. Now there's some people like
Joe Olson who believe they can do it. But believe me, you know I'm
not that. You know I couldn't do that.
I could think like that I guess, but I couldn't do that. But when I look, when I look
to the Lord Jesus Christ and I see Him, I realize I can do it. Through Him, I can
do all things. He saith unto them, How many
loaves have ye? Well, they got to look into that
bag and look at those people. He said, Go see now. You're going to look at it. You're
going to check it out. You're not going to get to ignore
it. Well, they knew. They said, I've
got five loaves and two fishes. And he commanded them to make
all sit down by companies upon the green grass. God's a God
of order. I want you to notice the order here. He said, now
you go out there and make every one of them sit down. Sit down. He commanded them. He said, don't go out there and
ask them to sit down. Tell them to sit down. You know, we kind
of, in this day and time, we just don't like to order do it.
We give a command, don't, don't, just tell them to do it. Just
ask them to do it. You know, you don't want to offend
them. You don't want to make them think they're a servant.
Good night, call them an associate. That's too offensive nowadays
to call somebody a servant. Gee whiz. Our Lord said, you will command
them to sit down. I'm the Lord. I'm about to feed them. And I'm
not going to feed them. until they sit at my feet. That's
when we learn. When we sit down, shut up, and
listen. And we sit at his feet. Like
Mary, who sat at his feet and learned of him. She sat at his
feet. And they sat down in ranks. They
did what they were told. By hundreds and by fifties. And
when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, that's all
he had. That's all he needed. He looked up to heaven and blessed. He blessed. And then he'd break
the loaves. And then he gave to his disciples.
And he said, now you give them something to eat. That's what I called you to do.
Peter, feed my sheep. Peter. And the two fishes, he
divided among them all. Now, I can imagine, you've got
10,000 plus people sitting out here. You've got five loaves
that could sit on this podium right here. You've got two fishes.
And it never ran out. And we have trouble trusting
God. We have trouble trusting Him. We are fed when He blesses His
Word. When He blesses it, we're fed. He looked up to heaven. I want
you to know something here, and I'm going to close here. He looked
up to heaven. He looked up to His Father. Why
did He do that? Because He did nothing by Himself. He did nothing by Himself. The
whole Trinity works together. They're one. They're one. And they did eat. They did all
eat. And were filled. If He does the feeding, I assure
you, you'll be fed and you'll be filled. If He does the feeding.
And they were all fed the same meal. That just struck me. They were all fed the same. You
know, if we all went to a restaurant right now, we would not all order
the same food. I stopped once with my mother
at McDonald's, and she's standing there looking and looking and
looking. I'm thinking, Mom, it's McDonald's. It never changes.
I mean, it's just, I know what I want before I even go there.
And she's looking and looking because she wants something different.
She wanted something different. I never wanted anything different.
I used to eat the same old, same old, same old. But He fed them all the same
thing. And they were all filled on that one meal. We have one
message. We have one gospel. And everybody here that's hungry
will be filled. If you're hungry, you will be. There's something in every message
for everyone who's hungry. Something. Some of you, I've
said this before, you've left here and you say, boy, I got
this out of this. And somebody says, I got this out of this.
I mean, you'll get different things out of it. But they were
all filled, weren't they? They took up 12 baskets full
of the fragments. And that's only 12 baskets. They
gobbled that thing up, didn't they? 10,000, you know, 10,000,
15,000 people? You'd think there'd be more scraps
than 12 baskets. They ate it all up. It was good.
It was good. The gospel's good to the needy,
to the hungry. It's good. No waste. There is
no waste in the gospel. Absolutely no waste in the gospel.
And they did eat of the loaves and were about 5,000 men. I believe
it's over Matthew 6, plus the women and children. He fed them
all. Those disciples, I bet they were
thinking every time they came back, wow, wow, wow. Just like that barrel of oil,
just kept on filling up, just kept giving it out. It's amazing
to have seen that. They saw it with their eyes,
and yet they still doubted. Isn't that amazing? They still
doubted. How many times has God delivered
us and we still doubt when the next one comes around?