Turn back to Matthew 15. Matthew
15. Let me say this. After the service, we're going
to meet out at Sandy and Cecil's for a potluck dinner. The kids
are going to hunt Easter eggs. So, as many of you can make it,
make it. It'll be good fellowship. He fed the multitude. He fed
the multitudes. As I sat up here and I looked
out over the crowd, I realized, like the disciples, said, Lord,
we only have a few loaves here. My scant abilities can't do this. My scant abilities cannot feed
this multitude, this crowd, even here this morning. The crowd
I read was estimated to be over 20,000 with women and children
that he fed. And if he feeds us this morning,
we'll be fed. You'll go away rejoicing. If not, you'll say, well, John
missed it. But if he feeds us, if he feeds us, we will be fed. we will be filled. Our Lord was always about His
Father's business. He worked more than any man before
or since. No man, no person has ever worked
so tirelessly, so vigorously, so energetically, so enthusiastically
as the Lord Jesus Christ when He walked on this earth, being
about His Father's business. He never stayed in glory in His
success. He would move on to the next
order of business. He would move on to the next
needy sinners. He had many sinners secure in
other places. It must needs go where they are,
like that woman at the well. He said, I must needs go through
Samaria. There's someone there that needs
me. And of course, she went into
town and others came out and there was a, he preached to a
multitude and many believed on him. They said, we believe on
you, not because of her word, but because we heard you ourselves. That's what I want. That's what
I want this morning. I want you to hear Him. We believe
not because we've heard you, but because we've heard Him.
We've heard Him. And where Christ is, you'll see
there in verse 30 and 31, where He is, there will always be a
stirring of sinners. Always. Sinners always congregate
to Him. He just drew sinners. When they
found out he was in town, sinners flocked to his presence. The
Pharisees would show up to straighten him out. Then they'd leave. They'd
be offended and they'd leave. But sinners, boy, they came because
they needed him. Like this woman who came to him
that he called a dog. Sinners congregate to Christ.
Those who need mercy congregate to the one who delights to show
mercy. And I want you to notice here in verse 30 and 31, and
great multitudes came unto him, having with them, they brought
people that were in need, people who could not bring themselves,
people who were crippled, maimed, blind, dumb, and many others,
this too The problems were just too innumerable to write down. And here's what they did. They
cast him down at Jesus' feet. They didn't bring him and say,
well, this is so-and-so. He was such a good person. You
know, he had an accident. He was maimed. His arms had been
all messed up or his legs. No, they just brought him and
cast him down at His feet. At His feet. This is the best
place for needy sinners. At his feet. The leper who said,
Lord, if you will, you can make me whole, fell down at his feet.
This woman who had come to him and asked him to heal her daughter,
she was vexed with the devil. It says in Mark, she fell down
at his feet. Every sinner in need of him and
in need of mercy, always fall at His feet. That's where you
find mercy. In the dust. Let me ask you a question. Which
is more important? A cure for my body or a cure
for my sin-diseased soul? People will go to great lengths
to find a cure for their bodily sicknesses. But in general, generally
speaking, they won't walk across the street for a cure for their
soul to hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, our
physical senses far outweigh spiritual. Naturally, I'm talking
about naturally. The natural man. They far outweigh
our spiritual senses because we can feel We can feel our arm
hurt. We can feel our heart hurt. Or any bodily part. We can feel
with our senses these things hurting, but we cannot feel the
pain of a soul unless God makes it alive. Because it's dead. Now when you die, you won't feel
your arm hurt. Dead people don't feel those things. Not in this
body. God has to make us alive to feel
these things. Let a man find out he's dying
because of some disease and he will spare no expense. You know
how difficult it had to be at this time for these people to
bring all these sick people? For three days he taught and
healed the sick. For three days. They brought
a lot of disease and that was not an easy task. for people
to bring all these sick folk. But you tell a person, you tell
a person that their soul is diseased and they are going to die eternally and they don't care for it unless
God, unless God does something for them and in them, unless
God shows them their need of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will
go and spare no expense to have a disease healed, but my soul,
my soul is worth far more than this body. The eternal welfare
of my soul is far, far better, far outweighs the temporal ease
of my pains in this flesh. My greatest need and the greatest
need of every man and woman on this earth is the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's what He gives. It's what
He can do for us. And it says here, He healed them. Every last one of them that was
cast down at His feet, it says He healed them. He healed every
last one. There was no disease. There was
nothing that any one of them had that was a challenge to his
power. You know, I've had this coughing
spell and this sickness since February. I finally got to the
right doctor that said, all right, here's what's wrong, and here's
what you take, and now it's cleared right up. But no one that was
laid at his feet was a challenge to his power. There's not a problem
we have, a soul sickness we have, a spiritual need that we have,
or any need that we have that's a challenge to His power. His
power over all flesh is evident. He healed them all. His power over all principalities.
He cast out all devils. You know He cast out some demons
there. The Lord Jesus Christ is the great physician of body
and soul. of the whole man. He is able to save to the uttermost
them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them. He said in one place, all power
is given unto me in heaven and earth. All power is vested in
that man. He has the power to heal He has
the power, listen, and this is what we need to forgive. I would
rather be forgiven of my sins than healed of any bodily affliction. I can die with a bodily affliction. I cannot die with my sins. I
can't do it and not stand before God. Oh, that we would apply
to Him more than we do for spiritual healing. He healed them. This ought to
encourage every sinner here. He healed them. Well, if He healed
them, maybe He'll heal me. Maybe He'll heal me. He can make
me whole. When He healed them, they didn't
get up and limp away. Or they didn't get up and barely
start to walk. They were perfectly physically whole. And that crowd
marveled. Wouldn't you marvel this morning
if that happened, if you saw that physically happen here?
Well, we ought to marvel even more because it has happened
spiritually. I'm looking at some people that believe God. I'm
looking at some people who have been spiritually raised from
the dead, spiritually healed. And here's the result of this
healing. Here's the result of any spiritual healing that the
Lord does for us. They glorified the God of Israel. All spiritual healing is for
His glory. He didn't heal them just to be
healing them. They're going to get sick again,
I guarantee. They all died. They all died. Physically, they all had to die.
But here's the end result of salvation. They glorified the God of Israel. All spiritual healing is for
His glory. It's to the praise and glory
of His grace. That's why God saves us. To the praise and glory of His
grace. In fact, the whole Godhead is
praised and glorified. We thank the Father who chose
us. the Son who redeemed us, and the Holy Spirit who regenerates
us. You cannot worship one and not worship the whole Godhead.
When one is glorified, the whole Godhead is glorified. Because
they cannot be separated. Cannot be. So healing and worship
always go together. Where the Lord saves a soul,
where the Lord saves a sinner, I promise you there will be worship. There will be worship. Where
the Lord reveals Himself to the heart, and where the Lord forgives
sin, and where He washes clean a sinner, there will be worship. Worship is an attitude of the
heart. And then it says here in verse
32, Then Jesus called His disciples
after he had done all these miracles. And this went on for three days
now. This was not just an hour service. We will be here for
an hour and a half, two hours at the most. Three days. And it's hard to say how long
those three days. It was all day long. I know that.
These people did not go home. They stayed right there with
him. They stayed with him. They did not want to leave. They
wanted to hear His instructions. They marveled at His miracles.
They were awed by Him. And He said to His disciples,
He called them over. He said, come over here. He said,
I have compassion. He didn't say, I feel sorry for
these people. I have compassion. That means to be moved within. He's saying, you know, you and
I can, and we do, we can have compassion on one another. We
can have compassion on someone that's down. But when the Lord
had compassion, He had it in the perfect sense of that word.
He was absolutely moved within Himself toward this multitude
that had been with Him now for three days. Three days. And He called His disciples.
And He said, I have compassion on the multitude. Notice one thing here. He does
not work apart from His ordained means. He called His disciples. He's given pastors and teachers.
If you really, truly want to be blessed and receive the blessings
of God, I tell you what, it's right here. I've listened to
tapes and I enjoy them. CDs. I listen to messages on
the internet. And I am blessed and I enjoy
them. But here, here is a blessing here that you can't get anywhere
else if the Lord's in it. You can't get it anywhere else.
And He lets His disciples know, He lets them know the feeling
of His heart toward this crowd. He lets them know His compassion.
He said, I have compassion. on the multitude. Oh, I hope the Lord this morning
has compassion on this multitude here, this crowd here this morning.
I hope He has compassion on us. Our Lord recognizes that the
body must be fed as well as the soul. He recognizes. He's been teaching them. For
three days, He's been teaching. He's been feeding them. Spiritually,
He's been feeding them. But now they're hungry. You see,
body, soul and spirit makes up a man. That's what makes me who
I am. And so he says, I have compassion
on them. He recognizes their physical
needs as well as their spiritual needs. He recognizes it. Just
that lesson you taught is the Lord recognizing our needs of
one another. He recognizes it. They've been
listening to Him and they had little to eat over those three
days. They were so consumed. I wish that we could get so consumed
we'd forget about lunch. Oh, to be so consumed with the
message, to be so consumed with the Lord's mercies, to be so
consumed with Him that we would forget about eating, forget about
these bodily things, that we'd be so consumed with them. He
knows that we are made of body, soul, and spirit. He made us.
He knows our needs. He knows our needs. He made us. But even better, He became us. He became us. He knows what it
is to be hungry. He was just as hungry as they
were. He was just as hungry. He knows what our needs are,
both physical and spiritual. He knows what they are. It says
they continued with Him for three days. And they have nothing to
eat. He said, no, this is beautiful.
This is beautiful. I will not send them away. I
will not. Did anybody come hungry this
morning? I will not send them away. I will not send you away
fasting. I will not send you away hungry.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
They shall be filled. I will not send them away. Those who come to Christ have
this promise. They have this promise. I will
not send them away. He that comes to me, I will in
no wise cast out. That verse kept me going for
years when I first heard the gospel because I thought the
Lord surely wouldn't receive me. With that verse right there,
I will not cast, he that cometh to me, I will not cast him out. I'll not cast him out. I'll not send them away, he said. And also here, he would not allow
his disciples Our Lord would not allow His
disciples to be indifferent to the poor and needy. He wasn't. And He's not going to let His
pastors be that way either. He's not going to let them be
indifferent. He lets them know, I have compassion on the multitude.
And you have compassion on them. You have compassion on them.
And listen to what they say here in verse 33. And His disciples
say unto Him, When should we have so much bread in the wilderness
as to fill so great a multitude? Well, didn't this just happen?
Didn't we just go over? This is just history repeating
itself. Didn't he feed 5,000 men plus the women and children?
You see, Matthew was a tax collector. He was a census taker, so they
counted the men in that day. They didn't count the women and
children that day. We do nowadays. We count the men, women, and
children. And that day, they counted the men. Then there's
all those women and children. Oh, His disciples saying to Him,
when should we have so much bread? Do we ever learn? Do we ever learn? Do we ever
graduate? I know we have to graduate. out
of high school. You know, you can't be 50 years
old and still be in high school. You've got to move on. But really,
do we ever really learn? They saw him feed 5,000 and now
they act like it didn't even happen. How many times though, now listen,
how many times has God fed us and delivered us and yet we doubt
Him the next time? How many times has that happened?
But I think, I believe what they are saying is this, Lord, we
are in a wilderness. We had this small lunch again.
You're going to have to do it again. Here we are, here we are,
a multitude, a wilderness and a lunch. Lord, you're going to
have to do it again. You're going to have to feed
this multitude if they're going to be fed. And then He says to
them, He makes them take count of their scant abilities. That's
what He does. How many loaves, He says there
in verse... And Jesus said unto them, how
many loaves have ye? And they said, seven. And a few little fishes. Little, just little. We didn't
catch them. They're just bony fishes. There's not much meat
on them. Little fishes. Well, that's like our abilities,
really. Our abilities are just like a
few loaves and a few little fishes. But I thought of this last night.
Are we afraid to use up all that we have for Christ's sake? Are we afraid to take this little
lunch that we have for ourselves? The seven loaves and the few
little fishes is what they had for themselves. Now here's a
multitude. Well, it's evident we're not
going to get to eat any of it if we give any of it out. Oh, I
tell you, are we afraid to spend our last dime on the gospel for
fear we won't have enough? I thought about this concerning
myself. Am I afraid of that? Am I afraid of that? They said
we only have seven loaves and a few little fishes. I tell you this. Whatever little
we have, if he blesses it, it'll not run out. And if he blesses
it, a multitude will be blessed. Who knows what little we do?
Who knows years down the road what little we do now can be
a great blessing to a lot of people? Who knows? Who knows? But he makes them realize, and
I think he makes every one of his preachers Pastors and teachers
realize that without Him, they don't
have any abilities. Without Him, they couldn't feed
anybody. He makes us realize our need of Him. The greatest
thing God can make you realize is your need of Him constantly. And then he commanded, in verse
35, he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. You know, our greatest blessings
are generally received in the dust. That's usually where we
have to be brought to before we receive the greatest blessings. We have to come down, sit down. And he had them sit down. Then
he took He took the seven loaves and
the fishes. He took them. And the first thing
He did, and here's a good lesson for us when we eat or anything
we do, He gave thanks. Here's the God of heaven and
earth giving thanks. He gave thanks. And then He gave
to His disciples. See, this is the order. He gave
thanks. He broke the bread and He gave
it to His disciples and the disciples gave to the multitude. You see,
God is a God of order. He's a God of order. In His hands are little fishes
and few loaves can be a great blessing. And if He blesses His
Word this morning to your heart, you'll leave here filled. But I want you to notice, He
used His disciples. He didn't have to use them. He
doesn't have to use me. He can use someone else. He can
use someone else with greater abilities than I've got. He used His disciples to feed
the multitude. He used them to do it. He could
have done it, and He could have done it probably faster than they
did it, but He used them. He chose them, called them, made
them His disciples. He blessed. He gave thanks. He blessed and He gave it to
the disciples. He said, now you go give it to
the people. You go give it to the people. And I thought of this once again
as I studied this. He must give to me first. if
I am to give anything to you that's worth anything. If you
are going to be blessed this morning from anything I have
to say, He will have first had to give it to me. I'll just give
to you what He gave to me. That's what the disciples gave.
They gave exactly what He gave to them. No more, no less. And that's
what I must do. I must give you what He's given
to me and only what He's given to me. And they all did eat. They all did eat and were filled. Not one person left hungry. Listen, they all did eat the
same thing. They all did eat the same bread. There's only one gospel to preach.
There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism. There's only one
Christ. There's only one message, only one. They all did eat the
same thing. They all did eat at the same
time and the same place. Now listen, that to me shows
us how important it is to assemble here together to be fed. They
ate the same thing, the same place, at the same time. Forsake
not the assembling of yourselves together. as the manner of some
is. There's a special blessing on
this. A special blessing. And they were all filled. And
I thought, oh, that we would be filled this morning with the
bread from heaven. That we would be filled with
Him. Filled with Christ. And they took up more. Lord,
we only have a few loaves, seven loaves and a few little fishes. That's all we have. Well, they took up far more than
they gave out, didn't they? I promise you this, from the
heart, you will never impoverish yourself by giving to the Lord's
cause or to the gospel. Can't be done. Can't be done. It will never happen. And it
says there was 4,000 men plus women and children. Well, it
could have just as easily been four million or four billion. Look how many he feeds every
day. Does he not feed the whole world
every day? Does he not feed all the animals
every day? Does he not feed all the plant life every day? No challenge to him. He feeds
the whole world every day. And after he fed them, After he healed those that needed
healing, after he fed them, he wouldn't leave. He didn't teach
them to send them away hungry. He taught them and fed them.
And then after this, he sent away the multitude, verse 39,
and he took ship and came into the coast of Magdala. Our Lord, after He did all this
for those sinners, fed them, healed them, He took the ship
and headed for the next place to bless. Headed for the next
order of business. He never stopped. He never took
a vacation. Didn't do any of those things
ever. He just got in the ship and headed for the next order
of business. I must be about my Father's business. And that
was to save sinners. Save sinners. Well, I pray. I do. I pray that God feed us
this morning. I pray that He's fed us and we'll
leave here feeling. If you're hungry, you're hungry. He said, I will not. I will not
send them away hungry. So if you're hungry, If you came
hungry, He'll not send you away that way.