Now we're looking this morning
in Luke chapter 9 about this familiar, familiar miracle that
many know about. Last week we saw that the Lord
healed all those that had need of healing. Remember in verse
11 of Luke 9, Many followed him, and he received
them, spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them
that had need. of healing. He is the wise and
great physician. Now today the Lord of glory filled
all those that were hungry. That crowd of over 10,000 people,
5,000 hungry men. No one that day who was hungry
went away empty. Not one. Not one. Look at verse
16. and verse 17 of Luke 9, then
He took the five loaves and two fishes, looking up to heaven,
to the God of heaven, He blessed them and break. And He gave to
the disciples to sit before the multitude, and they did eat and
were filled. You see that? They were filled. And then was taken up fragments
that remained of them twelve baskets. The title of the message,
they did eat and were filled. They did eat and were filled. Now this miracle that the Lord
does here is the only miracle the Lord Jesus Christ performed
that is recorded by all four gospel accounts. That is Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. It's the only one that's recorded
in all four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now I would encourage you to
go back and read All of those we've read from John and also
from Luke, but this is the only miracle that God was pleased
to give to record to all four men. Must be something special
about this miracle, and certainly there is. Something else to keep
in mind about the Lord Jesus Christ and His many, many miracles
You remember in John 21-25, John says that if all his miracles
were recorded, the world itself could not contain the books of
all the miracles that the Lord did that are not recorded. Well,
this world is not sufficient to contain all those miracles. Certainly, this is none other
than God Almighty, God in the flesh dwelling among us. But think about this, our blessed
Lord being a real man, God in the flesh, representing us as
a surety of the everlasting covenant, even though He was tempted and
tested in all points like as we are, yet without sin, He never
performed a miracle one time to relieve His own sufferings. When He was weary in body and
needed a drink of water, He sat down on a well and asked a woman
to give Him the drink. When he was forty days tempted
in the wilderness, and Satan said, well just turn those rocks
into bread, and you'll have plenty to eat. The Lord said, man doesn't
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the
mouth of God. He never performed a miracle
to relieve His own suffering. That way, He can be identified
with us in our frailty, in our weakness. He wearied Him body. He was thirsty. He was hungry. He needed rest. He was a real
man. And He's identified with us in
our humanity. This is the Savior that we need.
But instead, the Lord Jesus Christ, instead of relieving any suffering
that He might have, He perfectly was obedient to the holy law
of God in all things for us, fully honoring and magnifying
that law of God for us. Oh, He was tempted, but He had
no sin, He knew no sin, and He did no sin. Such a high priest
became us who was holy, harmless, undefiled. separated from sin,
and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our righteousness. You see,
He was working out a righteousness not for Himself, He's righteous. But He's working out a perfect
righteousness according to the law for us. A justifying righteousness
which He freely gives us by His will, His power, and His grace. We just read a moment ago, He
heals all those who are in need of healing. Unfortunately, or
sadly is a better word, not many people see their need of healing. I need a healing righteousness. I need a healing salvation. I need a healing pardon from
God. Oh, but blessed is that man to
whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without works. Now, what can
we take home from this story today? It's a great miracle,
is it not? It's a great miracle. What can
we take home today? What can we learn about the Lord
Jesus Christ and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ from this
miracle. Well, let me give you three or
four things. I won't keep you long, but three
or four things. The first thing is obvious, isn't
it? We see the wonderful, almighty, eternal power of God. He takes five loaves two fishes
and multiplies that by His power and feeds thousands and thousands
of people to the full. You see, the God that we worship
and the God of the Bible has all power in heaven and in earth. Now when we say he has all power,
you know what that means? That means nobody else has any
power. He said, all power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth. So much so that he says, whatsoever
the Lord pleases, that's what he does in heaven and earth,
sea and all deep places, he has as God power over heaven and
earth. He has all power to create all
things by the Word of His power. He spake, and there was light. He spake and created all things
that we see in creation. He created all things by the
Word of His power, and by Him all things were created, and
by Him all things consist. We just came through this season
of winter into spring. Did you notice it happens that
way every year? There's an order to it. Creation
isn't there. Who controls? What's the power
behind this order of the sun coming up, the sun going down?
All creation, the weather, the wind, the rain, all these things. Who controls all that? It's not
Mother Nature. It's God Almighty. He controls
and rules and reigns over all things in creation. He has all
power to create all things and to sustain all things. He has
all power to bring to pass everything that He has decreed from the
beginning. He said, I the Lord have spoken it, I've purposed
it, I'll bring it to pass, I will do it. Now we may say something
like, well, Next week I'm going to do this and next week or next
month or next year I'm going to do that. And maybe that comes
to pass and maybe it doesn't. But God Almighty has decreed
all things from eternity and by His power all things come
to pass. You see, He ever lives to make
sure. Known unto God are all His works
from the beginning. He has all power to accomplish
all things and to sustain all things that He has established. We read in Scripture, with the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is God Almighty, with all power, with
Him, nothing is impossible. Nothing is impossible. Matter
of fact, with God, All things are possible. Now, he said, without
me, you can do nothing. But with God, all things are
possible. Anything too hard for the Lord? I mean, we're not talking
about peanut God. We're talking about God who is
God, who has all power in heaven and earth. Anything too hard
for Him? No, sir. Absolutely not. Now,
in this miracle of feeding, the Lord's feeding this great crowd,
5,000 hungry men, not counting the women and the
children, we see the great power of God put on full display. No one could dispute it. No one
could disprove it. It's written in the Word of God
and there were many thousands of witnesses to say the Lord
Jesus Christ fed this crowd with five loaves and two fishes. This little lad brought his lunch
and the Lord took that lunch and multiplied it. greatly. The Lord clearly demonstrates
to us that He is the Almighty God, able to save to the uttermost
all that come to God by Him, able to heal those who are in
need of healing, and He's able to feed sinners. And I like what
Abraham said, and I'm of this persuasion, aren't you? That
of all that God had promised I am persuaded that He is able
to perform, I mean all things, He's made a lot of promises,
but He's able to perform all things that He has promised. He has all power. We've been
studying in our Sunday morning Bible study from the book of
Romans, and we recently studied Romans 1, 16, where we learned
again that blessed, valuable lesson that the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believes it. You see, it's only by His mighty
power that we believe the gospel. You see, it takes the mighty
power of God to raise a dead sinner who is spiritually dead
and give him life. You hath he quickened who were
dead. The Lord prayed in John 17, Father,
you've given me power over all flesh that I should give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given to me. Remember we read
in John 6, 37, All that the Father hath given to me, they will come
to me, and those that come to me I will in no wise cast out. You see, we only believe the
gospel by the working of His mighty power. Faith is a miracle
of God. If you're a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ as all of your salvation, all of your righteousness, all
of your hope before God, that's a miracle of grace. It doesn't
happen naturally. It happens by the supernatural
power of Almighty God. His will, His power, and His
way. So we see in this story, don't
we? The Almighty power of God. Secondly, we see this. We see
the flip side of that. We see the total inability of
the poor sinner to supply his need or to fill himself. We have no ability. Our Lord
said, no man can come to Me except the Father which sent Me draw
him. We read that just a moment ago in John 6, verse 44. What
does that teach us? That teaches us that man has
no ability to please God, no ability to come to God, no ability
to honor the law of God, no ability to produce righteousness before
God. We are totally depraved and sinful
before God. Here we have in this great crowd
out in the desert place, and they were out there with nothing
to eat, basically. Andrew said, there's a young
lad that has five loaves and two fishes, but what is that
among so many? Now you put yourself in their
place. You had five loaves and two fishes, and here outside
the door with a crowd of 10,000 people, and the Lord said, feed
them. No way. No, it's not going to
happen. But you know what this is a picture
of? Of those out in the wilderness with no food, nothing to sustain
life. This is a picture of what we
are by our sinful state and what mankind is by their sinful state
in nature. We are by nature in the wilderness
of this wicked world, hungry, helpless, destitute of spiritual
bread and without any means to supply our need. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures
describe us this way in Ephesians chapter 2, that we are by nature
without God, without hope, without Christ, and without salvation. That's us by nature. We are bankrupt
sinners on the dunghill of sin, needing to be rescued, needing
to be healed, needing to be fed. needing to be rescued by the
Almighty Lord who's the captain of our salvation. I love what
the Lord said here when the disciples said, send them away. It's recorded
in Matthew 14, 15. I love what the Lord said. You know what he said? They don't
need to depart. You remember we read the Lord
knew Himself what He was going to do? He knew all along that
He was going to feed them. He knew all along that He had
the power and the ability to do so. It says also in Mark chapter
6 of this same story, He had compassion toward them because
they were as sheep not having a shepherd. Now, I love what
David said in Psalm 23. You remember? The Lord is my
shepherd. Therefore, I shall not want."
The Lord Jesus Christ is called the Good Shepherd of the sheep
who laid down His life for His people. He is called the Great
Shepherd of the sheep, the God of peace that brought again from
the dead the Lord Jesus Christ, that Great Shepherd of the sheep.
And the Lord Jesus Christ is called that chief shepherd, who
shall appear without sin unto salvation. Now that's the shepherd
I need. How about you? The great shepherd,
the good shepherd, the chief shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Who's my shepherd? The Lord.
What does the shepherd do? He provides for the sheep. We're
going to see that in just a minute. Now here's the third lesson we
see is this. Here's a good lesson about faith. A good lesson about
faith. We know faith, saving faith and
true faith is a gift of God, right? It's not of ourselves.
And here we see a good lesson about saving faith. The disciples
were ready to send the multitude away instead of believing the
Lord of glory was able to provide all things for them. Matter of
fact, one of the disciples said, well, 200 penny worth of bread.
If we had that much money, and they didn't, but if they had
that much money, we couldn't buy enough bread to feed this
crowd. We have no resources. But instead
of believing the Lord of Glory was able to provide them to feed
the crowd, they started taking inventory, didn't they? They
started counting up resources. Okay, we've got this, this little
guy right here, he's got five loaves and two fishes and maybe
one of his friends, maybe he brought something. They started
calculating and taking inventory and seeing what kind of resources
I had. And they all came up short, didn't
they? Came up short. You know what they were doing?
They were calculating without the Lord Jesus Christ. You see,
with Him all things are possible. They were depending on their
ability to find some food to feed this great crowd. Now think
about this. They just watched the Lord heal
hundreds. This great crowd, we get an idea
about this crowd that followed Him, and He healed those that
had need of healing. This crowd was 10,000 or more,
and He healed hundreds of them. They just watched the Lord Jesus
Christ raise the dead, give sight to the blind, all these different
miracles. But instead of looking to Him
in faith to supply the need, why didn't they just say, You know all things. We're looking
to you to supply this need. And they didn't. They didn't.
They looked to themselves. They were depending on what they
could see instead of walking by faith. You see, true saving
faith is not with this natural eye. Faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things Not seen. Now, I've been guilty of doing
exactly what these disciples did. When troubles arise, when
troubles come, I start calculating, how am I going to fix this? What
am I going to do here? How is this going to go? Many times we've all been guilty
of the same thing. Instead of waiting upon the Lord,
instead of looking to Him, we start scheming, don't we? We
start plotting our course. We start planning what and how
we're going to fix things instead of waiting upon the Lord and
walking not by sight, but by faith, looking to Christ. You see, you remember that Psalm
62, I call that the only Psalm, where it says we're to trust
Him At all times, ye people, pour out your heart before Him.
God is a refuge for us. I mean when things are going
well. When the sky is blue and the lights are green and you've
got plenty of money in the bank, trust Him at all times. When
the lights are red, the sky is dark and stormy and you're broke. What are you to do? Look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him at all times. Set your
heart upon Him. He is a refuge for us. He said, "'Come unto Me, all
ye that labor and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy. Find grace
to help in our time of need.'" Now, here's the third thing we
see in this lesson is this. the wonderful provision of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He took in verse 16 of Luke 9,
He took five loaves, two fishes, looked to the God of heaven and
earth, blessed the food, thank you Lord, gave to the disciples,
they did eat, were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full. You cannot exhaust the storehouse
of mercy. The Lord Jesus Christ has provided
mercy, grace for thousands of years and His storehouse is still
full. Think of it. A wonderful provision
of grace. He's still the same Jehovah-Jireh. You remember what that means?
Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide. He's the same yesterday
and today and forever. The Lord does not change. The
gracious free supply of mercy in the Lord does not change. He supplies the need of every
hungry soul. That day they went home healed
and filled, and they gathered up twelve baskets full. The baskets were not diminished.
You see, you cannot exhaust His mercy. to John chapter 1, and
just stay there in the book of John because we're going to look
at another scripture. But in John chapter 1, we see
this about the fullness of Christ. Christ is our provider. My God
shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory through
the Lord Jesus Christ. In John chapter 1, look at verse
16, John 1, 16. Of His fullness, have all we
receive grace for grace." Of whose fullness? You see, He's
the storehouse of mercy. He's the storehouse of love.
Of His fullness, have all we receive grace for grace. Now, don't turn to this scripture.
Hold your place there in John. But in Colossians chapter 2,
we read this, "...in Him dwells all the fullness of a Godhead
bodily, and in Christ we stand complete." Whole. Nothing lacking. My God shall supply all your
need according to His riches in glory through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now turn to John 6. John chapter
6. And we'll look at a few scriptures
here. John chapter 6, verse 35. The Lord said, I am the bread. I'm the bread of life. I'm the
bread that you need. I'm the bread that you need to
eat thereof and you'll never die. He that believeth on me
hath everlasting life. He said, I'm the bread of life.
I'm the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. Spiritually, never hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst for the water of life. He is that flowing, flowing
river. We read in Romans 15, The God
of hope. Now, the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope.
The God of hope may He fill you with all joy, hope, and peace. Now, the conclusion to this,
some said, right there in John chapter 6, we read this a moment
ago, some said, verse 14, John 6 verse 14, Then those men, when
they had seen the miracle that the Lord Jesus Christ did, said,
this is of a truth, that prophet, he's that prophet, That should
come into the world. Now, what's that referring to?
You look at that marginal reference there on that prophet in Deuteronomy
18, verse 15, and it's all the way down to verse 18. That prophet
that Moses was promised, that would come. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the fulfillment of all Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ indeed
is the promised Messiah, the Christ of God, but he's more
than just a mere prophet. This prophet here is God. He's God our prophet. The prophet that was promised
of God that would come and tell us the way of salvation. Now you know in scripture he's
revealed as the prophet, the prophet who reveals unto us the
way of salvation. where it says, He's hid these
things from the wise and prudent and revealed them unto babe.
And then the Lord Jesus Christ is not only the prophet of God,
He's the priest of God, isn't He? I need a prophet to reveal
unto me the way of salvation. I need the priest of God to redeem
me and to represent me before God. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is our great high priest. He's the one that we need. and
he is prophet, priest, and king. What does he do as king? Well,
what does a king do? A king rules and reigns, and
the Lord Jesus Christ, he is king of kings, and he is Lord
of lords. Christ is all and in all. Let us trust him as our prophet,
priest, and king, as God our Savior, as the Lord our righteousness
for all of our salvation. He's everything. Now, stay right
here in the book of John. I want to show you here a few
scriptures and I'll let you go. John 4, chapter 4, verse 14. John 4, 14. You remember the
Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Moses in that burning bush? And
He said, I am that I am. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
same great I am, and He said, if you believe not that I am,
you'll die in your sin. John 4, look at verse 13, the
Lord answered and said unto her, Verse 13, whosoever drinketh
of this water, this natural well, shall thirst again. But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst,
but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of
water springing up into everlasting life. Give me that water. Christ
is the water of life. You cannot exist in this life
without water, without drinking water. I drink water all the
time. If you walk in my office in there, there's a couple cases
of drinking water in there that my dear friend brought and gave
to me. I drink water all the time because
you can't go without drinking water. And that's true spiritually. We must have the water of life,
and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, turn to John chapter 6.
What else do we need? We need bread. We've already
read this, but the Lord said in John 6, 35, I'm the bread
of life. I am the bread of life. He says that twice. In verse
48, I am the bread of life. And truly, we feed upon Him.
He's the children's bread. We desire the sincere milk of
the Word and the bread of the Word that we might grow thereby. Now, turn over to John 8. John 8, verse 12. The Lord said here, I am the
light of the world. Now, we not only need water,
we not only need bread, But we can't live in the dark. You have
to have light. Christ is our light. He is our revelation of God. He is our light. He's the light
of life. I am the light of the world.
He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, now watch it,
but shall have the light of life. He is the light of life. God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our heart to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now turn to John
chapter 10. John chapter 10. Look at verse 7. John 10 verse 7. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me
are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and go in to life, out of death, and find pasture."
The green pasture of His Word. We feed upon Him. I am the door. That is, He's the entrance. Now,
how many of you came here today into this building and climbed
through a window? Anybody here climb through a
window? Why didn't you climb through the window? There's a
door right there. You came through that door. The
Lord Jesus Christ is that door of salvation. The door of salvation. He opens it and He commands us
to come in. Come in. He is the door, and
then right here in John chapter 10, he's that good shepherd. Look at verse 14. John 10, 14. I am the good shepherd, and know
my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even
so I know the Father. I lay down my life. He said,
no man takes my life from me. I lay it down. I lay down my life for the sheep.
That's particular redemption. Call His name Jesus. He shall
save His people from their sin. Now turn to John 11. John chapter
11. The Lord Jesus Christ. The point
I'm making here is this. Christ is all and in all. Everything
we need has been thoroughly supplied in Christ. John 11 verse 25. The Lord said to Martha about
Lazarus being dead, He said, she said, he'll rise again in
the resurrection at the last day, verse 25, John 11. And he
said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die, Do you believe this? You see, He is our resurrection
because Christ is life. You see, salvation, as I've said
for years and years and years here, salvation is in a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. Not in
a church. Not in a persuasion. Not in a profession. Not in a
pool. Salvation is in a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. He that
hath the Son hath life. He is our resurrection. He is
our life. Now, one last one. Turn to John
14. You all know this one by heart.
If I said John 14, 6, you could all stand up and quote it, right?
John 14, 6. The Lord said unto him, Thomas,
Lord, we know not whether thou goest. How can we know the way?
The Lord said to him, I am not a way. Not a way of salvation. Now, Mohammed, they say he is
a way. They say Jesus is a way. But
that doesn't, that's not what this says. The Lord Jesus Christ
said, I am the way. The way. I'm the only way. I am salvation. I am the truth. Definite article. The way, that
means there's no other way, right? He's the truth. That means everything
else is a lie. Let God be true and every man
a liar. And he said, I am life. I am the Savior. I have salvation. I am the way, the truth, the
life. No man cometh unto me but by
my Father." Now I can tell this on my son because he's here today.
But when my little boys were little and I would say no to
them, I would often follow up by this statement, what part
of no don't you understand? No means no. No man can come
to me except my Father which sent me draw him. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. You see, he's the way. That means
there's no other way. He's the life and He is salvation. Well, I've actually got one more.
Turn to John 15, verse 5. And this is sounding the same
note. John 15, verse 5. I am the vine,
you are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you
can do nothing. You see, we're totally dependent
upon Him for all salvation, all forgiveness of sin by His grace
in Christ Jesus.