Let us welcome this gentleman. Some of you haven't seen him
or heard of him. His name's Darvin Pruitt. Known him for either too long or not long enough.
I'm not sure which, but it's way back in the 80s. And he is
now at Taylor Arkansas at Grace Baptist Church. And he knows
a little bit about preaching. So let's give him a good hearing. If you'll take your Bibles now
and turn with me to Matthew Chapter 14. Matthew Chapter 14. I originally titled this lesson,
A Lesson About Preaching. But I've changed my title now
and I've titled it Pitiful Means and Powerful Blessings. This
ought to be a very familiar story. This is about the feeding of
the multitude. Matthew chapter 14, beginning
in verse 13. When Jesus heard of it, that
is, that John had died, and how John had died, he departed thence
by ship into a desert place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, that is, where he had gone, they followed him on foot
out of the cities. And Jesus went forth and saw
a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them. And he healed their sick. And
when it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, This is
a desert place. And the time is now past. Send
the multitude away, that they may go into the villages and
buy themselves victuals." That word is meat. But Jesus said
unto them, They need not depart. Give ye them to eat. You feed them. And they said unto him, we have
here but five barley loaves and two fishes. And he said, bring
them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude
to sit down on the grass, and he took the five loaves and two
fishes. And looking up to heaven, he blessed. and break, and gave the loaves
to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did
all eat, and were filled. And they took up of the fragments
that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten
were about five thousand men beside women and children." Now,
the lessons in this passage are just inexhaustible. There's just
no end to the lessons in this passage. I actually become wearied
from reading almost every writer whose name I know has something
written on this passage. And they had a lot of different
subjects. There's lessons here about the compassion of Christ. He saw the multitude and had
compassion. There's lessons here of God's
care for His sheep. And there's lessons here about
faith. There's lessons about our doubts
and unbelief, lessons on Christ's deity and His omnipotence. But I believe primarily this
miracle has to do with preachers and to their role in the ministry
of Christ to this world. Now, just bear with me for a
minute. John the Baptist, according to our Lord, the greatest man
born of woman, had suffered a horrible death at the hand of Herod and
his harlot wife. If you want to know what kind
of death that was, get the tape of last night's message. But
what a blow it is when great men of God are taken out of the
world. horrible blow to the church. It's sad but true that the full
account of a man's ministry in this world is not accounted for
until he's gone and his influence is taken out of the way, when
God wets his finger and puts the candle out. Then a full account
of his ministry is known by all those whom he affects. Now, brethren, the Scripture
says that God's ministers are to be recognized and honored
for their work's sake. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 12,
he says, and we beseech you, brethren, to know them which
labor among you. Know them. Make it a point to
know them. Don't take them for granted. Know them. Get to know them.
Get to know their needs and get to know them personally. Know
them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord. God's
put them over you in authority. Paul said that they watch for
your souls as those who must give account. and there over you in the Lord,
and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for
their works' sake. But brethren, men are the means,
not the end." They are the means, not the end. Do not attempt to draw any comfort
or strength from a man. He is but a man. Perhaps a great
man like John, but still a man. Love him. Respect him. Care for
him. Listen to him. Pray for him.
But rest in Christ. Are you with me? Rest in Christ. Look to Christ. Build your hopes
on Christ. And if he's a great man of God,
that's what he's going to be telling you the whole time. Look
to him. Look to him. Look to him. Build your hopes on him. This
great man of God who's no longer with them was faithful in his
ministry to tell those who he ministered to, he said, I'm not
the Christ. I'm not the Christ. On many occasions,
John told them, I'm not the Christ. I'm not the bridegroom. That's
what he told them. I'm just a friend of the bridegroom,
and I'm just happy and rejoiced just to hear the bridegroom's
voice. I'm thrilled to death to hear his voice, aren't you?
If he allows me to preach, that's a double blessing. But I'm okay
if he don't. I just rejoice to hear his voice. Somebody said, I hope that message
will be a blessing to us tonight. And I said, it's already been
one to me. I get my blessing in the study when God speaks
to me. That's what John's saying. I
rejoice to hear His voice. I'm not the bridegroom. I'm just
His friend. And then He said, I'm of the
earth, and I'm limited in my understanding, and I'm limited
in my ability. He is the Lord from heaven. He
tells what He knows and what He thinks. No man has seen God
at any time save Him. Save Him. He has. And then John said, I have the
Spirit of God who has abided with me from my mother's womb.
But he has the Spirit without measure. Great men of God all
have an experiential knowledge of what they truly are and their
weaknesses, and they're faithful to tell those they minister to
that they are no different than them. I don't know how many times
folks have told me, and I suppose you've heard it, that's easy
for you to say, huh? You're a preacher. What's that
got to do with anything? It's not easy for me to say. I'm weak. I'm no different than
you are. Paul said, I who am less than
the least of all things is this grace given to preach, who in
less than the least. But men do not always listen
to what they're told. And that was the case here. I think if we discount this text
from the death of John the Baptist, we're going to miss the real
blessing of America. I'm told that there's no other
text in the Bible so often repeated by the gospel writers than this
miracle. It's recorded by Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. Now this tells me two things.
First, that this is a lesson that He intends for us to learn. He intends for us to learn this
lesson. He don't want us to miss this
lesson. And then secondly, it must be
one often overlooked, because he mentions it so many times. Must be something we need constantly
to be reminded of. Now, the object of faith is the
omnipotent God. That's the object. have faith. Religion talks about, well, I
just believe. No, that's not faith. Faith knows
what it believes. It knows who it has to believe. And the object of faith is the
omnipotent God, inexhaustible, all-sufficient, all-knowing,
unchangeable God. And in so much as faith sees
Him, and draws from him and rests in him. It finds the sufficiency
that it so desperately needs. It looks to him and it finds
its need. True faith. But when we look
within ourselves or when we look around us and look into others,
we're sure to be disappointed and left wanting. And as it is with every great
man of God, there's always those around them that follow the man
and miss the God he preaches. They follow the man. And when
the man goes by the wayside, so does the people. Our lesson
begins this morning with the disciples coming to Jesus and
telling him the whole sordid affair about the death of his
beloved prophet John. And having heard their story,
I hope you'll forgive me for reading between the lines, but
I don't think they just come up and said John's dead. I think
they told him the whole sorted of facts. I think they told him
the whole thing. I think this thing had been gossiped
about in the cities. I think the city was alive with
John was no mediocre preacher. All Judea and all regions round
about came out to hear John. John was somebody. And when John
was taken out of the way, it had a tremendous impact on everybody. And it was the talk. It was the
talk in the kingdom. It was the talk even in those
of this world. And it was a talk among believers.
And the disciples, they went and got the body of John. And
they brought it and buried it, and then they came and told Jesus
the whole sordid affair. And having heard the story, and
seeing how his death affected them, he departed from that place,
it says, to a desert place apart. I want to give you four things
that I believe the Holy Ghost would have us to know about preachers
and preaching and the congregations to whom they minister. The first
thing I see in this text is a divine separation. A divine separation. The master separates himself
and his disciples and the multitude away from the general population. To teach the lessons of faith,
two things are always required. First of all, he must separate
us from the population. You cannot learn or write the
lessons of faith with this world constantly jabbering in your
ear. It leaves you confused at best,
confused. This world constantly jabbering.
This world knows nothing of the Savior and nothing of the living
God, but they're as quick and irresponsible as the evening
news to give you their commentary on it. You ever notice that about newsmen?
Something will happen. Boy, they're on there two minutes
after it happened, and they're on there telling you why it happened.
They've got no more idea about why that happened than a man
in the moon. That's the way this world is about spiritual things. cannot be instructed in the gospel
of God's sovereign grace while this world still whispers in
your ear all of its vain ideas and philosophy. There is a way,
Solomon said, that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof
is destruction. This world does not think, walk,
or live by the faith of God's elect. They walk in the vanity
of their minds. That's what Paul said in the
book of Ephesians. They walk in the vanity of their
minds, and they walk according to the prince of the power of
the air. This world operates in the realm
of the natural. It looks within for its information. It looks within for its basis.
Tell somebody about the gospel of God's sovereign grace, and
the very first thing they tell you is, that don't seem right
to me. I didn't expect you to. There's nothing in the gospel
that agrees with a natural man. If it does, you're not preaching
the gospel. This world operates in the realm of the natural.
And no matter how smart they are, how influential they are,
or how religious they are, they can never break free from their
nature. You know, when it talks about
those angels that sin, they're bound in chains of darkness.
That's what he's talking about. They're bound by their nature.
So is natural man. He's bound in chains of darkness
by his own nature. Well, man's free, isn't he? He
can move all around inside that cell, anywhere he wants to go.
But he can't break free of his nature. And therefore, his will
is not a free will. Paul said, by nature they are
the children of wrath. So the first thing that's necessary
in this lesson of faith is to be led away from the population
of this world. You're going to have to get away
from it. God's going to have to peel you out from among them,
just unplug you and get you out where you can hear Christ. And
then the second thing necessary to the lessons of faith is a
desert place. There's nothing out there. Nothing
out there. He did that on purpose. There's nothing out there. There's
no visual aids. There's no impressive surroundings.
There's no big cathedrals. There's no choirs. There's no
soft music. There's no candlelight. Just
bad desert. No beautiful mountains. When
the spring, he didn't take them there. He took them to a desert.
Nothing out there but you and Christ and Christ's preachers. The only thing out there. Some of you have been listening
to some of my messages. I wrote a bulletin article one
Sunday after somebody said this to me. He said, they were invited
there to hear, and after they left, they asked him what they
thought. And he said, well, I didn't get much. He said, just two songs
and a sermon. So I wrote an article on two
songs and a sermon. Nothing out there but you and
Christ and His preachers. Isn't that what folks say when
they come? Y'all don't have the basketball? Y'all don't feature
that? You don't have a gymnasium or
weight room? You don't offer none of those
things? No? Just Christ. Just Christ. You know why? Because He's sufficient. If you have Christ, you don't
need the weight rooms. You don't need all the other
stuff that they have. You've got everything God has
for sinners in Him. There's nothing out there but
Christ and His preachers. There's nothing out there to
hear but Christ. Nothing out there to eat but
Christ. Nothing out there to discover but Christ. You're never going to make any
headway until God shuts you up to Christ. And you'll never see the true
value of preaching and preachers until He does, until the Master
leads you away from the multitude. All right, here's the second
thing. A need is awakened in the eyes of His disciples. The
Lord didn't say anything to them at all. He went out there, He
had compassion on the multitude as He did So often, said he healed
all their sick, and the disciples were just busy and about watching
things, watching everything that's going on. And this was a great multitude.
I think a conservative estimate in those times, there was 5,000
men besides women and children. And they figure somewhere between
20,000 and 25,000, a conservative estimate. There's a lot of people.
A lot of people. There was a great multitude,
and they must be hungry. And the disciples didn't believe
that they had enough to satisfy their needs. Now, they didn't
give us a thought back in town. You know why? Because there was
food everywhere. There was vendors on every corner.
There was kitchens. There was houses. There was restaurants. There was food everywhere. They
never gave one thought to the multitude eating back in town. But out here in the desert, they
saw something they never saw before. What'd they see? They
saw a multitude in the desert who had nothing to eat and nowhere
to get it. Brethren, until God separates
us from this world and its vain ideas and imaginations, we cannot
see the necessity of gospel preaching. I never saw it until God separated
me from the religious mainstream and took me over to a church
where there was nothing except Christ. Nothing but Christ. And then I begin to see the difference. I begin to see the necessity
of the preaching of the gospel. Because what I heard there is
not what I heard over here. What I was seeing over here,
I didn't see over here. He has to separate us and take
us out to a desert place where there's nothing, no distractions. And then he begins to teach us
something about preaching. But they didn't give it a thought
there in town. Now they've seen the hungry multitude. And brethren, until he separates
us from this world and its vain ideas and imaginations, we cannot
see that necessity. In religion, anything goes and
everything goes. no constraints, where men are
not shut up to Christ and His gospel, they're kept full with
the vanity of this world. Has God ever brought you to that
place? Has God ever brought you to that
place where you have to hear from Christ? Has He ever brought
you there? Has He ever shut you up to Christ?
made you to know that if you're going to hear from the God of
heaven, you're going to hear it through that man right there.
God ever set you up to that? God ever brought you to the place
where you begin to have a need that nobody that God can supply? Do you ever reveal to your heart
that you're in a desert place apart? That you're at the mercy
of Christ to feed your empty soul? Have you ever even thought
of the utter impossibility of a man ministering to men? Preacher, there's a church on
every corner. I can just go anywhere I want to and hear the gospel.
Can you now? Boy, now that's not my experience.
I'd drive 50 miles. Some of our folks drive farther
than that. We're in a desert place. And there's a great multitude
of God's elect and just a handful of preachers. You ever thought
about it? I'm not going to say whether
there's 12 or there's 15. I don't know how many preachers
God has in this world. But relatively speaking, for
the amount of His elect that's in this world, He has a handful.
He has a handful. And He's going to convince that
handful that they're going to feed this
multitude. What an impossible work the ministry
is. The first thing the ministry
to a sinner requires is a resurrection from the dead. Can you help anybody
with that? Anybody here sufficient for that? That's the first thing. If that
don't happen, nothing else ever going to happen. That's the first
requirement, a new birth, a new creation, a new creature. You
can't minister to dead folks. You can't teach them. You can't
exhort the dead. You can't correct the dead. The
dead are dead, totally oblivious to the truth. It demands a new
birth. And I'll tell you the second
thing it demands is it's just as impossible for a man to do
it. It necessitates divine wisdom. You ain't going to figure it
out. I've been there. You're not going
to figure it out. You're not going to get some
books and go crawl in your closet and figure this thing out. It's
a revelation of God. It's not going to come to you in the
middle of the night. You must hear the gospel, which Paul said
is the wisdom of God in a mystery. And the eyes of your understanding
must be enlightened. And the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, must give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. That's the
only way you're going to get it. And you know how God purposed
to do that? Through a preacher. Through a preacher. And it requires an effectual
working. Paul said, for this cause also
thank we God without ceasing, because when you receive the
word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the
word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God which
effectually worketh also in you that believe. A need was awakened
in the hearts and minds of the Lord's disciples, a hungry multitude
and no way to feed them. All right, here's the third thing
I want you to see. Some bad advice. Some bad advice. The disciples said to the Lord,
send the multitude back where they come from. Is that good
advice? Let them go buy their own meat.
That ain't how they got theirs. It's never good advice to send
hungry sinners where you know there is no bread. They said let them buy their
own victuals. Well, first of all, if there
was any place else for them to get bread, he wouldn't have led
them out to the desert. They were there because He that
worketh all things after the counsel of His own will brought
them there. They were here because this is
where the Savior is. They were here because this is
where the true bread is. And I think sometimes we just
get so caught up in our routines and caught up in the moment and
we forget what true worship is. We forget what preaching is all
about. I tell you, sometimes I sit in
my study and it will come to me, the awesome responsibility
of it or privilege of it or whatever it is you want to call it, and
I'll get to thinking about how absolutely impossible it is to
accomplish this apart from Him. Christ is why the multitude was
there. If there were no Christ, there'd
be no disciples, there'd be no multitude, there'd be no providence
to lead them out there. And if this world had anything
to offer, they wouldn't be out here seeking the Lord. Now watch
this, here's the fourth thing. What could they do? The Lord
said, feed them. Feed them. Give ye them to eat. Now, wait a minute, Lord. All
we have is five loaves and two fishes. That wasn't something
they found. We used to get Sunday school
lessons all the time. They talked about this little kid that brought
a lunch with him and come up, and all he had was some fishes
and loaves. This was the entire inventory,
the whole outfit. They had five loaves and two
fishes. That's all we've got. Do you
reckon the Lord of Glory didn't already know what to ask? Do you reckon he asked that question
for information? Do you really think that this
whole thing was not arranged to show them that feeding his
sheep was not dependent upon their pitiful contribution? Do you reckon the Lord of Glory
needed five barley loaves and two fishes to accomplish this
miracle? Not in the least. It's not our pitiful contributions
that make this miracle possible, it's the blessing of God upon
it by our Savior's request. They said, all we have. Shame
to them saying, all we have. He said, bring it to me. Bring it to me. Oh my soul, won't you listen
to me. The Apostle Paul, what a man,
what a scholar, what a writer, what a preacher. I want you to
listen to what he says. 1 Corinthians 3 verse 5. Who then is Paul? Who is Paul? Who is Apollos, but ministers
by whom you believed even as the Lord gave to every man? I planted, Apollos watered, but
God gave the increase. So then, are you listening? Neither
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but
God that giveth the increase. Bring it to me, he said. I don't expect you to feed them.
Bring it to me, and then you go feed them. John the Baptist was the greatest
man born of woman, but not because of anything he contributed. That's
what he's teaching. but what God did through him. Faith, and especially that faith
has to do with the preaching of the gospel and feeding God's
sheep, brings itself and its pitiful contributions to Christ
and waits on Him to bless it. And whatever it is that we have,
no matter how pitiful it is, is made sufficient with His blessings. Like the widow's barrel, Do you
remember the story of the widow's bearer? When it was blessed of
God, it became inexhaustible. It was just an inexhaustible
source of food for hungry sinners. And I tell you this morning,
I am a prime example of this miracle of God's grace. I've
got hardly any education. I do not in any way try to pass
myself off as an intellectual. And I've got very little skills
as a speaker. But I take myself in my pitiful
contributions to the Lord and let Him bless them, beg Him to
bless them for Christ's sake. And I don't care if you can be
just an old fisherman like Peter. Look what the Lord did with Peter,
my son. Matthew was a tax collector. I'm going to get on my soapbox
about that. They thought the same thing about
tax collectors then as they think about them today. The Lord said,
follow me, Matthew. I think he only had one doctor,
didn't he, in the Bronx? And look at the prophets, shepherds. David was the leader. David's
own father didn't even bother to call him in for the anointing.
You see what I'm trying to say? Well, you study, pastor. You
bet I do. I have to. I have to. But I tell you, I take what I
study to Him. And pitiful as it is, He's pleased to bless us. And I give Him all the glory
for it.