Bibles this evening to John chapter
6. Looking at the first 13 verses
in this chapter tonight. John chapter 6. After these things Jesus went
over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a
great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles
which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into
a mountain and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover,
a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his
eyes and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto
Philip, when shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this
he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do.
Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient
for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his
disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, there's
a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes,
but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, make the men
sit down. Now there was much grass in the
place, so the men sat down and number about 5,000. And Jesus
took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed
to the disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down, and
likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were
filled, he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that
remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them
up together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five
barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that
had eaten. This is the fourth of seven miracles
that John records in his gospel. And he tells us near the end
of the gospel in chapter 20 that the Lord Jesus worked many other
signs. And the word which is there translated
signs is the same word translated miracles here in verse 2. Miracles, signs. He wrought many
other signs. But then John makes this statement,
and it's very, very important, I believe. He said, "...but these
are written, that you might believe..." Here's the whole purpose. "...that
you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing you may have life through His name." When
does a person say, When is a person, or when does a person experience
salvation, I should say, because there is a verse of scripture
that tells us that we were saved before the foundation of the
world. You know that verse in 2 Timothy
chapter one and verse nine, that grace was given unto us before
the foundation of the world. But when does a person experience
salvation? When is a person saved? Well,
the Apostle Paul tells us this about himself when he experienced
salvation. He said, when it pleased God.
When it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. When is a person
saved? A person is saved when it pleases
God who was separated or chosen Even from his mother's womb,
he was one of God's chosen elect individuals. But then to reveal
his son in him when the Apostle Paul saw Christ and learned Christ
and came to know Christ. But John tells us this, and this
is I think the most easy to understand. that these things are written
that we might believe, and believing might have life through His name. A person is saved when he believes,
when she believes in the name, and of course the name means
the person. When a person believes in the
Lord Jesus Christ, that is when a person is saved. If you look
down in this chapter, chapter 6 of John, to the confession
of the Apostle Peter. And the Lord willing, if we are
unable to continue studying through this chapter in days to come,
we will come to this again. But you know in this chapter,
while these multitudes that we read here followed Christ because
of the miracles, and then we will see many others followed
him for other reasons, and when they came into the synagogue,
In Capernaum, he told them these statements, which he said, except
a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he hath no life in
him. And some of them, many of them,
in fact, this is a hard saying. That's a hard saying. And the
scripture says many of those who were called disciples by
John, they went away. They went away. And our Lord
asked His disciples, His 12 disciples, they came to Him and He asked
them, will you also go away? Will you? You know, in Hebrews
chapter 11, speaking of all those people who by faith came to know
God and serve God and love God that are mentioned there in that
chapter, it is pointed out that they all had opportunity to have
returned. And everyone, every child of
God, as we go through this world, we all have opportunities to
go back, to turn back. They are presented to us many
times in life. But notice Peter's confession
here in chapter 6 and verse 69, when he said, or verse, let me
read verse 68 also. Then Simon Peter answered him.
The Lord said, Will you also go away? Will you? Let me tell
you. If God has not begun a good work
in us, we will go away. We will. We'll turn back. Unless
He keeps us in His hand, we'll turn back. That's for sure. We're saved by grace and we are
kept by grace. looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. The Apostle John, in his first
letter, he said that there were some, they went out from us,
but they were not of us. Because no doubt, if they had
been of us, they would have continued with us. Our Lord asked his disciples,
his 12 disciples here, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter
answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. God's children have nowhere else
to go. I don't have anywhere to go,
do you? Other than to Christ. I'm a sinner. And I know that. And God with whom I have to do
is a holy God. And I'm going to stand before
Him one day. Where would I go? Where would
I look for salvation? Will you also go away? Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, but now notice, and we believe. We believe and are sure. Sometimes over the years I've
spoken with God's children who struggle with assurance and who
doubt their salvation. But I've never met one who doubted
who couldn't confess exactly what Peter says here. We believe
and are sure that Christ, the Son of the living God. People
may doubt whether they are saved, but when you ask them, do you
mean to tell me that you doubt that Jesus is the Christ? Oh
no, I don't doubt that at all. Do you doubt that He is not the
Son of God? Oh no, I don't doubt that at
all. Isn't that assurance? Isn't that
assurance? To know, to believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God? In John's first letter, he tells
us, whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God. So a person is saved experimentally. We're going to be saved in the
future too, aren't we? We're going to be saved in the
future, one day when the Lord takes us home. When we receive
a new body, we're going to be saved. In one sense of the word,
salvation is past, it's present, and its future. We're saved from
the penalty of sin when we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
penalty, which is eternal death, that's removed. We're saved from
the penalty of death. We are being saved from the power
of sin as we go through this life and as we walk with the
Lord Jesus Christ. And yes, one day we will be saved
from the very presence of sin. This miracle that we are looking
at tonight here in John chapter 6, it is the only miracle which
is recorded in all four Gospels. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ worked
thousands if not more miracles, hundreds if not thousands of
miracles. We know that when he was here
in the flesh and yet, out of all of them, this is the only
one. This didn't happen by accident.
This is God's Word. This is inspired Word of God. And so there's a reason. There's a reason why this miracle
alone is recorded by all four of the Gospel writers. Now here
are four things that other writers have pointed out that make this
miracle special. First of all, this miracle was
witnessed by thousands. Thousands of people witnessed
this miracle, while some of his miracles, which certainly were
great, were witnessed only by a handful of people. For instance,
when he raised the daughter of Jairus, remember the 12-year-old
daughter who had died, when the Lord Jesus Christ came to the
house, the mourners The official mourners were already there making
great lamentation over the death of that child. And the Lord Jesus
Christ told them as he went into the house, she's not dead, she's
sleeping. And they mocked him, they laughed
at him. But you remember he took Peter,
James, and John, and the father and the mother into that room
where the body of this girl was. And He took her by the hand and
spoke to her, and she arose. But it was only witnessed by
those few. Where this miracle was witnessed
by thousands. And then another reason, this
miracle contains the work of creation. That miracle I just
mentioned, He restored life. He restored life to that girl.
And have you ever thought about this? When he raised Lazarus
from the grave, the scripture says he wept. I've read many
things over the years as to why Jesus wept. But consider this. He had been dead four days. Did
he weep? Did the Lord weep because he
was calling him back to this life? He was in eternity. He was with the Lord. Is that
the reason the Lord Jesus Christ wept? I wonder, don't you? The fact that he called him back
to live longer in this world, this world of sin and sorrow,
I wonder if that's why he wept, or if he wept over the unbelief
of those that were there at the tomb. But in this miracle, this
miracle is a work of creation. He calls into existence, just
like in the beginning when he spoke the world into existence. By his word, the heavens were
created. So in this miracle, He is creating
something out of nothing. Something he calls into existence
that did not exist before. And a third reason why writers
have pointed out this miracle is special is Because it is clearly
typical of the Lord Jesus Christ. When He created bread, He is
the true bread. He is the living bread. He's
the bread which came down from heaven to give life unto the
world. And then, Arthur Pink, he wanted
to add something to these three, so he gave us this fourth one.
He said, this miracle being recorded by all four Gospels tells us
of its universal application. In other words, it has a message,
it has an application to all of us. Now I have three things
I want to bring out to us tonight. First of all, the place and the
time of the miracle we see in verses 1 through 4. After these
things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea
of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed Him, because they saw
His miracles which He did on them that were diseased. And
Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, a feast of
the Jews, was nigh. John tells us that the Lord with
his disciples went up into a mountain, or upon a mountain. Now Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, as I've said, they all record this miracle. But those three apostles, in
their record, tell us it was a desert place. And Mark, in
his account, he gives us this, which I find to be very interesting. He said that the Lord took or
led his disciples up with these words. He said, come, come you
yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. And then Mark tells us the reason,
for there were many coming and going. and they had no leisure
so much as to eat. There were so many coming to
the Lord Jesus Christ, so many coming. Can you imagine if there
was a person here in Houston, Texas who had the gift of healing
tonight? That's one reason I know these
charlatans that claim that they have the gift of healing, because
they try to advertise it. You don't have to advertise.
this, my friends. I mean, it's advertised all right
by word of mouth. It spreads quickly. When someone
hears that a man was healed of cancer, or a man was healed of
whatever it is, and he tells someone else, and they tell someone
else, it's kind of like that commercial several years ago
about the shampoo, remember? Two of it used and they told
two and before long you've got a whole screen full of people
know about this special shampoo. And I tell you the same thing
would happen and did happen when the Lord Jesus Christ healed
everyone that was brought to Him. And Mark tells us that they
didn't even have leisure to eat. There were so many people coming
and going that the Lord said to His disciples, Come you yourselves
apart into a desert place and rest a while. Rest a while. And my thought on this is the
world, this world in which you and I as God's children live
may easily be compared to a desert place filled with distractions. They were distracted. There were
so many people coming and going they did not even have an opportunity
to eat. how this may picture to us this
world. And the word which is there translated
desert, this desert place, it's the same word which is translated
wilderness when our Lord was led by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil. What can we say about this world
for a child of God? For you and I, for those of us
who know Christ as our Lord and Savior, what can we say about
this world? Well, first of all, we would
say that this world, or in this world, we are pilgrims and strangers. When you make a trip, you spend
a night here and a night there, motel here, motel there, you
may have some inconveniences in that motel, right, that you
wouldn't put up with at home. I mean, you just would not allow
if you were in your house. But you're only going to be there
a night. I had a friend years ago who owned a motel. And he was one of these people,
everything had to be perfect. Well, I'll tell you something.
If you're like that, don't buy a motel. Don't build a motel. He had a motel, a beautiful motel,
and he wanted everything pristine and clean and perfect, and it
like drove him crazy. He told me, he said, people take
a towel out of the bathroom, go out and wash the windshield.
Well, that just ruins one of those white towels. You'll never
get it clean again. But the point of my story is
a pastor friend of ours was staying in one of his rooms one night.
He was passing through. And the man that owned the motel
came into the room and he said, he said, don't you see that picture's
crooked on that wall? And the pastor said, well, I'm
only staying here a night. It just upset him so much because
the picture was a little crooked on the wall. Well, it didn't
bother him. Now, if it had been his house,
it may have been different. But he was just staying there
a night. We're just staying here a short time. And we let things
get us and bother us and trouble us that are part of this world. We're strangers. We're pilgrims. We're just passing through. We're
just here for a short time. If we could just learn that.
In this world, we are strangers and pilgrims. That's one reason
we speak about Pilgrim's Progress as much as we do. And I encourage
us to read it. You say, well, I've read it once.
Read it again. Read it again. You cannot read
that book too often. But that's what we see in Pilgrim's
Progress, isn't it? We see a pilgrim, a child of
God, as he's going through this world. As he gets to Vanity Fair,
and all the temptations he's just passing through as he goes
to sleep in that arbor and loses his role, remember, his assurance,
and he had to make his way back, and all of those things that
you read through Pilgrim's Progress, you see, it's the experience
of a child of God as a pilgrim and as a stranger in this world. And number two, in this world,
We are strangers in the pilgrim. Number two, we are all subject
to Satan's assaults. We are, and that's not going
to change. We are all subject to Satan's
assaults. I know this because the Apostle
Peter, writing to believers, he said, be sober. And you know,
you can be intoxicated by things other than alcohol. You can be
intoxicated by the things of this world, by pleasure, by possessions,
and just become, be sober. Be sober. Be vigilant. Because your adversary, the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. And number three, in this world,
we have many distractions. Many distractions. We may get
so busy, now listen, and I've watched people do this over the
years. We get so busy that we become like Martha. Remember
this story about Martha, Mary and Martha and their brother
Lazarus. Turn back with me to Luke chapter
10. Let's just read this. There's so many distractions
in this life that we become like Martha. Luke chapter 10, beginning
with verse 38. Now it came to pass as they went
that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named
Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called
Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But
Martha was scumbered about much serving. Now, we wouldn't say
anything critical about Martha, There are things that must be
done, things that are necessary. But she took it to an extreme,
obviously. She took it to an extreme. She
was cumbered about much serving, and came to him and said, Lord,
dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?
Bitter, therefore, that she helped me. And Jesus answered and said
unto her, Martha, Martha. Thou art careful and anxious,
troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. One thing. That makes it easy, doesn't it?
One thing. One thing. What is this one thing?
Well, obviously the one thing that was needful was for her
to hear the Lord Jesus Christ, to attend to the ministry of
the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the one, and it is a thing,
so I know it's not Him. I know He's above everything,
there's no doubt about that, but this is a thing, not a person. One thing is needful. And what
is it? Well, it was hearing the Word
of God. You imagine The Lord Jesus Christ
coming to visit in your house, in your home, and you not take
the opportunity to hear, to set at His feet, to listen to Him.
You're busy in the kitchen or you're outside cutting the grass
or something like that. One thing, Martha, is needful. And Mary has chosen the good
part, that which cannot be taken away. In this world, these three
things are so true. We're strangers and pilgrims.
We're always subject to Satan's attack. And there are so, so
many distractions that take us away from that which is most
important. Now, the second point I want
to make is the disciples were proved by the Lord Jesus in verses
5 through 9. The other Gospels tell us of
the Lord's compassion. We just love to read about His
compassion, do we not? How He had compassion. He would
not send them away because they had been there for some time
and they would go away fainting. But John alone tells us that
the Lord proved Philip. He proved Philip. When Jesus
then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him,
he saith unto Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these
may eat? The proving here, I try to put
it in my words, Philip Philip, will you look to and
believe in Christ to meet this need? Will you? Will you look to and believe
in me to meet this need? He proved him. And Philip, what
did he do? He looked at the number. He's
not looking at Christ. He's looking at the number of
people. And it was a large number of
people. There's no doubt about that. And he came to this conclusion,
200 penny worth of bread would not be sufficient for everyone
to have just a little piece of bread. In other words, in the
presence of the Lord God, he's speaking about insufficiency
when he is able to supply all our needs and will do so. There's plenty of power in the
Lord Jesus Christ, omnipotent power. And then as for Andrew,
I see that he's proved also, even though John tells us he
proved Philip, but Andrew, he knew, and this is peculiar to
Andrew, he generally knew the crowd. He knew, how did he know
there was a lad here? He was mixing with the people,
wasn't he? He was friendly. He made himself
known. He said, there's a boy here,
young boy here, he's got five loaves of barley bread and two
small fish. But, notice his conclusion, what
are they among so many? The Lord Jesus proved them and
they came up short. They both looked at their resources. They both considered what they
could do. And they realized that their
ability, their resources could not possibly meet the needs. Neither one of them looked to
Christ to supply the needs. Sort of like Peter. when they
were in that ship at night, and they saw the Lord Jesus Christ
walking on the water. And Peter said, Lord, if it's
you, bid me to come to you. And the Lord bid him to come,
and he got out of the ship, and for a time, he was upon the water. But then, when he took his eyes
off Christ, and he began to look at the waves and the wind, he
began to sink. These disciples, when the Lord
proved them, they came up short. And I ask us tonight, how many
times have we done the same thing? How many times have I done the
same thing? I couldn't count. We meet with
a problem, a need. And rather than first turn to
the Lord, rather than first look to the Lord to supply our needs. He who is able, who is not limited
in any sense. Usually we only look to the Lord
after we've tried everything else. After we've looked everywhere
else to meet our needs and finally we look to the Lord. I remember
years ago reading a message by Spurgeon in which he quoted overhearing
two ladies, and they came to this conclusion. They said, there's
nothing else to do but trust in the Lord. Well, that's the
first thing we should do. But how honest were they? How truthful were those women? There's nothing left to do. That
should be the first thing that we do. Well, no. Someone gets
sick. There's a need. We look to the
doctors. We look to the hospitals. There's a financial need. We
look to our friends. We look here. We look there.
We look everywhere until all hope is gone. And then we look
to the Lord. And He's faithful. He's faithful. The Lord... Let me ask you this. This has been my experience.
The Lord has proved me. A problem came, a need came,
and he delivered me. He met the need. And I promised
myself, the next time, the next time it's not going to be like
this. The next time, the first thing I'm going to do, I'm going
to look to Christ. But you know what? I failed the
next time, and the next time, and the next time. Our Lord proved
his disciples. We act, many times, we act as
if we do not have a friend. You know, that old saying, a
friend in need is a friend indeed. We've got a friend. We have a friend. He called us
his friends. He is the friend who sticketh
closer than a brother. You are friends to people, aren't
you? You have friends. And if one
of your friends came to you and said, I've got a need. I'm in
a bad situation here. I've got a need. You would do
everything that you could to help that friend. How much more
our Savior? But many times we act as if we
don't have a friend. Well, we do. The Lord Jesus Christ
is our friend. We act sometimes as if we had
no high priest. And if we do have one, that somehow
he cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
And yet the scripture clearly tells us we have an high priest
who can be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. Here's the
third thing. The Lord Jesus manifests His
glory. In the last three verses here,
the Lord Jesus Christ manifested his glory. John tells us that
after his first miracle, when he turned that water into wine,
he manifested his glory. And he does the same here. He
commanded the man to sit down. And the other Gospels tell us
that they sat down in companies. And one tells us in companies
of 50. And this just reminds us again and shows us that God
is a God of order. You see this in creation. God
is a God of order. And when he brought the children
of Israel out of Egypt, this is recorded in Exodus chapter
13 and verse 18. Can you imagine over a million
people marching out of that country? They didn't come out like a mob.
Now that's the way you would think, they just all head for
the gate. No, no. They came out in companies,
in ranks. God is a God of order. And in
the New Testament, Paul tells us, let all things be done decently
and in order. Speaking to the church, because
God is a God of order. Now the Lord Jesus took the loaves
first, and then the fish later. And the first thing he did, he
gave thanks. And this reminds us that we should
give thanks unto God for every gift. Every gift. And to remember, as the scripture
says, every good gift. Every good and perfect gift. Every good gift. We have many
good gifts that we receive. We have clothes, we have food,
we have shelter. I mean, just go on and on and
on. The good, every good, who did that come from? Every good
gift cometh down from the Father of lights. And then he adds,
and every perfect gift. Who's the perfect gift? The Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the perfect, the unspeakable
gift of His love. Every good gift, every perfect
gift cometh down from the Father above. And so the Lord here shows
us, first of all, He gave thanks. He acknowledged that this bread
and the fish, they were given by God. And then the scripture
says that He began creating. He began creating. as he broke the bread and gave
it out to the disciples. He used his disciples. This is
important. He used his disciples in giving
it out, but the food, the bread and the fish, was not increased
in the hands of the disciples. The bread and the fish was increased
in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. The disciples This is what is
pertinent, I believe, to us in preaching the gospel and witnessing
to others the gospel. The disciples here, they could
not give one person out of the 5,000 men plus women and children,
they could not give one person in that group a desire to eat,
a need. They couldn't give those people
a need. They just couldn't do that. Nor could they make them
partake of the food. They couldn't do that. All they
could do was make the food available, hand it out. They couldn't create
the food, they couldn't make the people desire the food, or
make the people eat the food. But their work was not in that. Their work was simply giving
out, giving out the food, that which the Lord multiplied. Their work was to receive and
give out. And the same thing is true in
preaching. I cannot give a person a need.
Every person who has ever come into this building, my heart's
desire, my prayer was that they would be saved. That everyone
would have a need, a hunger, a thirst. But I cannot give one
that need. That's not my place. my ability
or any other man. And I sure cannot make anyone
receive the gospel. That's not my work. But my work
is just like the disciples to receive, to receive, to receive
the word from my father, from God, and to give it out. It's
his work. the work of God the Holy Spirit
to create a need and to give people the desire and the ability
to come and eat to take of Christ. Let me close with this last statement. If anyone, if anyone in this
group, this multitude, went away hungry, It wasn't because there
was not enough. That just wasn't the reason.
There was 12 basket full of fragments taken up. If anyone went away
hungry, it wasn't because there was not sufficiency. And my friends,
the same thing is true concerning salvation. If man will not come
to Christ, it's not because there's not a sufficiency. in Christ. It's because men will not come,
men will not taste and eat. I pray that the Lord would bless
these words to all of us here tonight and teach us and help
us to trust in the Lord as the scripture says. And my God, he
shall supply all our needs according to his riches in glory.