Okay, today we're gonna bring
our message from Matthew chapter 15, beginning at verse 29, down
to verse 39, Matthew 15, 29. And I'm taking the title for
a message this morning from the words found in verse 31. See the last line in verse 31,
They glorified the God of Israel. They glorified the God of Israel. The true and living God, the
God of all covenant mercies, the God of all covenant grace. Peter describes this God of Israel,
who is God. He's the God of all grace, who
called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ. He's a God of
all grace. He's called the Father of Mercies.
This is the ultimate end and eternal purpose and grand design
of everything our great God and Savior does. His glory. His glory. That's the grand design
of redemption is His glory. His glory. When Paul writes in
Ephesians chapter 1, he talks about God choosing a people God's
electing grace, He said, to the praise of the glory of His grace.
And then in that same chapter when He talks about the Lord
Jesus Christ in whom we have redemption through His blood,
the forgiveness of sin according to the riches of His grace, it's
all to the praise of the glory of His grace. And then when He
talks about in that same chapter about God regenerating us with
the power of God the Holy Spirit and sealing us into the day of
redemption, Again, he said, to the praise of the glory of His
grace. You see, the gospel of God concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ is all about Him and His glory. His glory alone. God forbid, Paul said, I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, last
week from our message, we found the Lord Jesus Christ departed
from the area of the Sea of Galilee and traveled
to a far country, Tyre and Sidon, a 50-mile distance, to find one
of his lost sheep and to show mercy to that one woman and her
family. And I love what he says to that
woman in verse 28 when she confessed that I'm a dog at your table.
You're my master. I'm just waiting for a crumb
of mercy. And the Lord said unto her, verse 28, O woman, great
is thy faith. Great is thy faith. Be it unto
thee as thou wilt. And she went home and she found
her daughter was made whole. You see that? And her daughter
was made whole from that very hour. She was completely healed
to the praise of His glory. Now in verse 29, we see the Lord
Jesus Christ has traveled from the coast of Tyre and Sidon and
come back to the area of the Sea of Galilee around Capernaum
and those other cities there, and went up into a mountain,
into a high place, and he sat down. He sat down there. And then while he's seated there,
all these people, this great multitude, they come unto him. I like the way it states that. He goes up to a mountain and
he sits. It reminds me what it says in
Scripture about the Lord when He had put away our sin, He ascended
and He sat down on a throne. On a throne. The Lord our God
is enthroned. But now we see the Lord Jesus
Christ back at work, back around the Sea of Galilee. back to the
area where he was from, back to doing the will of God, preaching
the gospel, teaching the truth of the Word, healing the sick,
and feeding the hungry. This seemed to be his standard
method of operation. We've seen this before. We've
seen the Lord doing the same thing before. Now, hold your
place there in Matthew 15, and let's look at some Scripture.
We've seen this before. Turn back to Matthew chapter
4. Matthew chapter 4. The Lord was always about doing
the will of the Father. Verse 23, and Jesus went about
all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel
of the kingdom, healing all manner of sicknesses, all manner of
diseases among the people. And fame, his fame went out.
His fame went out in that day. Turn to another scripture we've
looked at before. Find Matthew chapter 9. Matthew
chapter 9, verse 35. Matthew 9, verse 35. And Jesus went about all the
cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, teaching
the truth of God, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing
every sickness and every disease among the people. When he saw
the multitude, he was moved with compassion on them because they
fainted. And they were scattered abroad
as sheep having no shepherd. The Lord was always about doing
the Father's will. Turn over here to Matthew chapter
12. Verse 14 said, the Pharisees
went out and held a council how they might destroy him after
they told that man with a withered hand to stretch forth his hand,
and it was on the Sabbath day. Verse 15, but when Jesus knew
it, he withdrew himself from thence, and great multitudes
followed him, and he healed them all. Amazing, isn't it? Look at Matthew
chapter 14. We've seen this over and over
and over again. Matthew chapter 14, verse 13,
when Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert
place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, they followed him on foot out of the city. Verse 14,
Jesus went forth and saw the great multitude and was moved
with compassion toward them. And he healed their sick. Now that ought to encourage us
to seek mercy where mercy is found. As he did these things,
he was fulfilling the prophecy of Scripture. Fulfilling the
prophecy of the Scripture. I don't turn because you're familiar
with this, but over in Luke chapter 4, remember when he went to his
hometown synagogue, and they gave him the book of Isaiah,
and he read from Isaiah 61, and said, The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel. This
is Luke 4 verse 18. because he has anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captive, recovering sight to
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach
the acceptable year of the Lord. He closed the book, gave it to
the minister, sat down, and the eyes of all them were fastened
in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began to say unto
them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And they all wondered. You see,
everything the Lord was doing for us, he was fulfilling the
law of God, establishing perfect righteousness for us, honoring
God's law and justice for us. My friend, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The good news of
this to us is the good and glorious news of the gospel. The Lord
Jesus Christ is still receiving sinners out of his great compassion
and healing their sin sick soul and feeding them with the word
of truth. He's still receiving us and he's
still healing us. The Lord didn't come to call
the righteous, he came to call sinners to repent. Remember the
Pharisees criticized him for eating with the publicans and
sinners? And the Lord said, I didn't come
to call the righteous. Those who are whole don't need
a physician. I came to call sinners unto repentance. Now look at verse 30. And here
we see what happens. Matthew 15 verse 30, And great
multitudes came unto him. They came to him. Having with
them, when they came, they brought all the sick people in their
family, these 4,000 men, they gathered up all the sick people
in their family, maybe all the people in the neighborhood, having
with them those that were lame, they were crippled, they were
blind, probably born blind, like blind Bartimaeus. They were dumb. That is, they could not hear.
They could not speak. They were deaf. They were maimed
like that man who had the withered hand. And the Lord said, stretch
forth your hand. And he did. And many others. Too many to even mention. And,
it says, they cast them down at Jesus' feet. At His feet. And what happened? He healed
them. He healed all those that had
need of healing. He healed them. Now, several
things here in verse 30. Why did they come to Him? Why
did they come to Him? They came because they were in
need. They came because they were sick. They came because
the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who could heal the sick
in that day. They heard of Him. And they came
to Him, and they brought all their friends to the Lord. We see something else here in
verse 30. We see something of the effects
and the results of sin, don't we? Sin brought sickness. Sin brought deformity. Sin brought
death. All flesh is withering, dying
flesh. When sin is finished with this
body, Death ensues. Death ensues. So we see this
multitude affected by sin. How did we get that way? We were
born that way. And Adam all died. And Adam all
sinned. By one man, disobedient, many
were made sinners. Sinners. We're born with death. We're born, this body, this flesh
is born with a stamp of death upon it. This flesh is going
back to the dust. God said it would. Out of dust
you were made and dust you shall return. But watch this. Your sin, yes we're sinners,
but our sin will never keep us from coming to Christ. Our sin
will never keep us from coming to Christ. Sin will never keep
you from Christ, but I tell you what will. your righteousness,
your supposed goodness, your self-worth will keep you from
coming to Him. You don't think and you're not
convinced in your mind that you need Him. So if you know you're
a sinner, know that your sin will never keep you from Christ,
but your supposed self-righteousness will. You see, the Lord Jesus
Christ came to save Sinner, didn't he? This is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. And Paul said he was the chief
one. You remember who Paul was, the
apostle? You remember Apostle Paul? You
remember who he was? The Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus,
a very self-righteous, God-hating rebel. And yet the Lord showed
mercy to him. That encourages me because I
know Paul, he has to move over. I'm the chief of sinners. The
Lord Jesus Christ came to save such as we are. The Lord says
to the needy and the guilty sinner, he said, come, I'll give you
rest. Come unto me, come boldly to
the throne of grace that you may obtain mercy, find grace
to help. In our time of need, he said, come unto me, I'll give
you rest. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
the ungodly. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
sinners. Here's something else we see
at this, on verse 30, about this in verse 30. All these lame,
blind, dumb, maimed, thousands of these sick people, They came
to the Lord and these people who brought them, they cast them
down at His feet. At His feet. That's a good place
to be. A good place to be for sinners
seeking mercy is at His feet. Worshipping Him. You remember
the woman here in Matthew 15 verse 25. She came, came she
and worshipped Him saying, Lord help me. It says over in Mark
7 verse 25 concerning this same woman, a certain woman whose
young daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came
and fell at his feet. At his feet. This is where we
receive the mercies of the Lord at his feet. This is where we
come to the Lord Jesus Christ, not demanding anything, but we
come as mercy beggars. Lord, help me! Remember the publican
came that way, he said, Lord, be merciful to me, the sinner. The Lord said that man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. This is where
we receive mercies of the Lord at his throne, bowed in submission. Remember how the leper came to
him in Matthew chapter 8? He was full of leprosy. He came
to the Lord and worshipped Him. He fell at His feet and worshipped
Him. And said, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And the
Lord said, I will. Be Thou clean. Be Thou clean. Now look at verse 31. And so
much that the multitude wondered when He healed them all. He has
all power, all authority to heal. as he will, in so much that the
multitude wondered. This went on for three days.
It was a three-day healing service. The multitude wondered when they
saw the dumb speak. The maimed, they were whole.
The lame, the crippled, walking. The blind, seeing. And they glorified God. We see
the almighty power of the Savior over all things. The miracles
the Lord performed were not make-believe. It wasn't a sham miracle like
these so-called preachers in our day. It's just a sham. It's all make-believe. These
miracles were real. They were real. They were actual. They were lasting. They spent
three days at his feet begging for mercy. And everyone who begged
for mercy at his feet, he healed. Every one of them. And what we
have before us is the Lord's real power. And you know those
physical healings are pictures of what? Our spiritual healing,
aren't they? We have before us the Lord's
real sovereign power to heal sin, sick, soul. There's no plague
in our heart that He cannot cure, He cannot heal. There's no fever
of lust that He cannot stop. There's no bent of our fallen
will that He cannot change. He shall make us willing in the
day of His power. With God all things are possible.
Anything too hard for the Lord? Anything too hard for the Lord?
Nope. No, with God, all things are possible. You see, he has
sovereign power over all things. The Father had given him power
over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many
as the Father had given to him. All these physical healings the
Lord performed are real pictures of what the Lord has done for
us in healing us. We were dumb and deaf. ignorant, and he gave us ears
to hear a word from God. We were dumb and we were deaf.
We could not hear. But he made us to hear. He made
us to speak. And what do we speak when he
opens our ears? When he gives us faith comes
by hearing and hearing by the word of the Lord. What do we
speak? Unto him be the glory and honor both now and forever. As David said, not unto us, O
Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy
and for thy truth's sake." We give him the honor and glory,
don't we? That we were dumb, ignorant, could not hear the
word, could not speak the truth. He healed us. He healed us. And then we were maimed. We were crippled. We were crippled. Sin had crippled us. We could
not walk. We could not come to God. We're
unable to come. He made us whole. He made us
whole. In Him was all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily, and in Him we are made complete. That man
who was maimed, who had the withered hand, we studied about in Matthew
chapter 12. You remember, they wondered whether the Lord would
heal that man on the Sabbath day. And He said, it's lawful
to do well on the Sabbath day. Oh, I bet you may know. He said
to the man with the withered hand, stretch forth your hand.
And he did, and he was made whole. And that's what he does for us.
We're crippled with sin, and he makes us whole in Christ Jesus.
And we were lame. We were lame. Lame. We had a lame brain. I told someone recently when
I went into the hospital and had a, not an MRI, I had an MRI
on my shoulder, but he did a CAT scan on my brain. And my good
friend I was talking to said, what did they find? I said, they
found out I had a lame brain. He said, really? Was that the medical diagnosis,
I have a lame brain? By nature, we have a lame brain. We don't think right. We think
wrong. I'll tell you what we think.
We think high thoughts of self and low thoughts of God. That's
a lame brain. But the Lord, he heals us. He gives us right thoughts, good
thoughts, true thoughts. Think, true thoughts about the
true living God, who's almighty, who's eternal. The good shepherd,
he causes us to walk in the way of faith, seeking salvation in
him. He's a good shepherd that leads
us in paths of righteousness for his namesake. And then he
said, the blind were made to see. Of course, you know what that
means. We were blind. We had no eyes
to see His glory. We had no eyes to see His beauty.
But when He gives us eyes to see Him, oh, now He's altogether
lovely. To you who believe, He is precious. We see all of our salvation completed
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Eyes of faith to see Him. Our
Lord Jesus Christ is still the Great Physician today. He's still
Jehovah-Rapha. Jehovah-Rapha, Exodus chapter
15. Jehovah-Rapha means, I am the
Lord that healeth thee. He's our healer. With his stripes,
you remember Isaiah 53? He is wounded for our sin, our
transgression. With his stripes, we are what? Healed. Healed, completely made
whole. And look what they did. They
glorified God. They glorified who? Who is the
Lord Jesus Christ? They glorified Him as God. They
worshiped Him as God. And they glorified the God of
Israel. The God of Israel. Let not the
wise man glory in his wisdom, Jeremiah 9. Let not the mighty
man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in
his riches. But he that glorieth, let him
glory in this, that he understand and knows me, that I am the Lord
which exercise lovingkindness. Let us glory in him. That word
glory means to boast. To boast. What do we boast about?
We boast of Him, don't we? His blood, His righteousness,
His salvation. We don't boast about, Lord, we've
done all these things for You. No, it's what He's done for us.
It's what He's done for us. Nothing. We had that eclipse
last Monday, remember? And that moon passed in front
of the sun, and it was not a total eclipse here, but it was a 90%
eclipse, and everything just kind of got dark, didn't it?
Those places where it was fully eclipsed, it really got dark.
Our Lord Jesus Christ and His glory will never be eclipsed
by anything. He's the sun that shines forth
with healing in His wings, will never be, never be eclipsed. Now I told you to put, and they
glorified the God of Israel. We do that now and that will
be our occupation forever as believers. Turn back to the Revelation. And look at Revelation chapter
1. We'll read a few verses here. Revelation chapter 1. In the
book of Revelation, that word glory is used 16 times. The Lamb and all of His glory.
But look here at Revelation 1 verse 5, Jesus Christ, who is a faithful
witness, the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings
of the earth, and to him that loved us and washed us from our
sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto
our God, unto God, and to his Father, to him be glory, dominion
forever and ever. You say amen to that? I say amen
to that. Turn over here to Revelation
chapter 4, verse 8. Revelation 4, verse 8. And the four beasts had each
of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within.
And they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. And when those
beasts give glory and honor and thanks, to Him that sat on the
throne, who liveth forever and ever. The four and twenty elders
fall down before Him that sat on the throne and worship Him
that liveth forever and ever, cast their crown before the throne,
saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, honor, power,
for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are
and were created. We read in the Revelation chapter
5, in verse 13, blessing, honor, glory, and power be unto Him
that sits upon the throne unto the Lamb forever and ever and
ever. It's all about His glory, isn't
it? And then don't turn there. You can go back to Matthew 15.
But I wrote this down in Revelation 19, verse 1. After these things, I heard a
great voice of much people in heaven saying, hallelujah, salvation. glory, honor, and power be unto
the Lord our God. It's all about his glory, isn't
it? Now, who is this God of Israel? Who is this God of Israel? Well,
he's a God of scripture, isn't he? He's a God of scripture.
He's a God of, he's a true and living God. And repeatedly over
in Isaiah, I am God, beside me there is no other. I'm the only
just God and Savior. Now look unto me and be ye saved.
He is the God of our salvation. Where did this name Israel come
from? Remember old Jacob? Jacob Abba loved, Esau Abba hated.
God took that old cheating supplanter, Jacob, and gave him a name, Israel,
a prince of God. That's where that name comes
from. And he's made us kings and priests unto our God. He
that is our God, David said, is the God of our salvation.
Who is this God of Israel? He's holy. Holy, holy, holy Lord
God Almighty. God eternal from everlasting
to everlasting. He is God. He's a Lord that's
sovereign over all things. Whatsoever the Lord please, that's
what he does in heaven, earth, sea, and all deep places. In
Exodus 34, I think we read this recently, the Lord passed by
and said to Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful,
gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin, and will by no means clear the guilty. He can't clear the guilty. He's
got to justify the ungodly and declare them in Christ to be
justified. But he's not going to clear any
man who stands before God with his sins charged to him. But
our sins have been charged to Christ. No condemnation to those
who are in him. Now look at verse 32, Matthew
15, verse 32. Then Jesus called His disciples
unto Him, He called His disciples, and said, I have compassion on
the multitude, because they continue with Me now these three days,
and they have nothing to eat, and I will not send them away
fasting, lest they faint in the way. Now two things in that verse
caught my attention. Number one is this, I have compassion on the multitude. That means that the Lord is determined
to show mercy. And then the second thing I noticed
is this. He said, I'll not send them away
empty. Those who come to Christ empty,
He'll not send them away empty. He fills, He strips us and then
He fills us with His mercy. The Lord our God is a God full
of compassion, long-suffering, great in pity, Fervent love in
everlasting mercy to his own. Lamentation three, it is of the
Lord's mercies that were not consumed because his compassions
fail not, they're new every morning. He's full of compassion. And
then he says, I will not send them away empty, lest they faint
in the way. The Lord knows our frame, He
knows that we are but dust, that we are weak, we are frail, sinful,
dying creatures, and yet He meets all our need according to His
riches in glory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the story
in Genesis 22 of Abraham and Isaac? about the lamb that God
provided. He is Jehovah-Jireh. He will
provide. And that provision for us is
the lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, our great high
priest, is merciful, long-suffering. He's touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. At every point, he was tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. He knows our frame. He knows
what we need. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added
unto you." We have a great high priest. Seeing we have a great
high priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
he said, come unto me and rest. Come boldly to the throne of
grace. Now in closing, let me give you this. And the disciples
said, and this is a repeated story, You remember before he
fed 5,000 men plus the women and children? And his disciples
come to him. He said, I will not send them
away fasting. And the disciples say to him,
OK, we remembered what you did when you fed the 5,000, and everything's
going to work out OK. And we'll just trust you. Look
what they do here. When should we have so much bread? They look to themselves. to provide
for this multitude when they just saw what the Lord had done. And yet they say, Lord, we can't
do this. We don't have anything. We can't fill this great multitude.
Why didn't they say, Lord, we know you can? How many times did he say of
his apostles, oh, ye of little faith. Oh, ye of little faith. And the Lord said to them, you
know, he could have rebuked him so sharply. He could have said,
you big dummy. You so stupid, ignorant. I just
fed all those people. Don't you remember what I did?
But he's so long-suffering. He said, how many loaves do you
have? And they said, we've got seven this time. We had five
before. And we had five loaves and two fishes. And now we have
seven loaves and we have a few little fishes. And he commanded
the multitude to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven
loaves and the fishes and gave thanks and break it and gave
it to the disciples. And disciples gave it to the
multitude. And they all, they did all eat. and were filled, and they took
up the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. Here they fed 10,000 people,
maybe more, and they took up fullness, fullness. And they
that it eat were four thousand men beside the women and the
children. And then He sent the multitude
away. He healed them and then He fed them. And then He sent
the multitude away. We see the Lord so graciously
providing for these people like He did before in Matthew 14,
feeding the five thousand. The Lord not only supplied their
spiritual need, but also their physical need as well. The Lord
knows what we need. Now, I thought about this. I recently found out that there
are 8 billion people, 8 billion people that live on this earth,
not counting the birds, the animals, all the animal kingdom, 8 billion
people, and the Lord feeds them every day. Doesn't he? The Lord provides for people. They don't even realize it. They
don't even know it. They don't even give Him the
honor and glory for it. But He feeds us so generously
and graciously, doesn't He? But He feeds the whole world.
And yet they don't realize it. Look at verse 33. The disciples
confessed they were not capable of feeding the multitude. And
none of us are capable of ministering to the multitudes of sinners
in this world, but his grace, his grace makes it sufficient.
The apostle writes this, we're not sufficient of ourselves to
think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God
who has made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of
a letter. For it kills the law, but of
the Spirit they give us life. God made us able ministers. We're
not able to minister the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
keeps us by His grace, doesn't He? He keeps us by His grace.
The Lord received what was given, He break it, gave to the disciples,
and the disciples to the multitude. And that's what we do here each
week. We receive His message, and I try to feed you. What He
gives me, I try to give to you, and try to feed you. Feed the
sheep, which He purchased with His own blood. That's what we
try to do each week. Preach Christ. Preach the Word,
the Bread of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord commanded
the people to do what? Sit on the ground. Did you notice
that? Verse 35, He commanded the multitude
to sit down on the ground. Stand still or sit still and
hear the Word of God. Sit still and listen to the Word
of God. Don't come with your questions. Just sit still and
listen. All your questions will be answered
in due time. He commanded them to sit on the
ground, be still and know that I am God. And they all did eat
and they were all filled. Seven baskets full. You can't
diminish the supply of His grace. Of His fullness have we all received
grace for grace. Those who Christ feeds, He fills. Salvation is a free gift of God. The Lord Jesus Christ was raised
up in Nazareth, but He was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means
what? House of bread. House of bread. The Lord described Himself in
John chapter 6. I am the bread of life. He that
cometh in me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. We give Him all the honor and
glory for the salvation of our soul, don't we? The true gospel
of God always glorifies Him. That's how you distinguish between
that which is true and that which is false. Who gets the glory?
Who gets the glory? To God be the glory. Great things
He hath done for us.