Amen.
Okay, this morning we're going to turn to
the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 14.
Matthew in chapter 14, and the message this
morning is going to be a question, and
that question is who will feed the multitudes?
Who will feed the multitudes?
Matthew chapter 14, and we'll begin reading in
verse 13.
When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence
by ship into a desert place of part.
And when the people had heard thereof, 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.
But Jesus said unto them, They need not
depart.
Give ye them to eat.
And they say unto him, We have here
but five loaves and two fishes.
He said, Bring them hither to me.
And he commanded the multitude to sit down
on the grass, and took the five loaves
and the 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 the fragments that remained
twelve baskets full.
And they that had eaten were about five
thousand men beside women and children.
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for
your living word.
And God, I thank you for everyone who's
gathered here this morning, that not a single
one of us is here by accident, but
you have brought us together on purpose, Father,
and that you want to speak to every
single one of our hearts.
So I ask you to give us ears
to hear what your spirit is saying specifically
to us today.
Each one of us, Lord, I pray that
your word would go forth with power and
the anointing of the Holy Spirit, because apart
from the power of your spirit, Lord, we
can do nothing.
We can only proclaim the letter and the
letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
So God speak today, we pray in Jesus
name.
Amen.
Now, there was a hungry multitude, according to
verse twenty one, five thousand men.
That's beside women and children.
So how many were really there could have
been close to ten thousand.
When you consider all the women and the
children, this vast multitude and they're hungry, they've
been there with him all day.
When Jesus saw them, he was moved with
compassion for them.
When the disciples saw this great multitude, they
said, send them away.
Big difference between Jesus and the disciples at
this point.
There was a hungry multitude.
They were hungry for bread, something to eat.
But I want to talk to you today,
brothers and sisters, about another hungry multitude in
our day, and they're not I'm not talking
about those who are so much hungry for
a piece of bread or a bowl of
soup, although that hunger is there and we
as a church should meet that kind of
hunger.
But there's an even greater hunger, a far
more serious hunger than physical hunger.
There's a hungry multitude that have yet to
taste the bread of life.
Jesus Christ said of himself, I am the
bread of life.
There are multitudes who have never yet met
the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal savior,
a hungry multitude that are dying without him.
Now, in Amos chapter eight, I want you
to notice this verse with me, because this
is the days in which we are living.
I was sharing visiting with the brother earlier
today, and we were talking about just the
state of the church throughout this entire nation
of ours.
And when you think of that, the state
of the church today, in light of these
two verses, I think you'll agree with me
that these are the days in which we're
living.
Amos chapter eight, verse 11, listen to this.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the
land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst
for water, but of hearing the words of
the Lord.
And they shall wander from sea to sea
and from the north even to the east.
They shall run to and fro to seek
the word of the Lord and shall not
find it.
There's a famine in the land.
There are hungry multitudes who have yet to
taste and eat of the bread of life,
who have yet to receive Christ.
But the question I have today is who
will feed them?
Who will go?
Who will feed this hungry multitude?
We have the gospel, which is the power
of God unto salvation.
We have the word of God, which is
fresh manna from heaven.
And if you're a Christian, you have the
living Lord Jesus Christ living on the inside
of you.
You have the answer for the world today.
The question is, will you go feed them?
Who will feed the multitudes?
Verse 16, Jesus' disciples said, send them away.
Jesus said it's not or I'm sorry.
Verse 15, the disciples said, send them away.
Jesus said unto them in verse 16, they
don't need to be sent away.
They don't need to part.
You give them something to eat.
And the Lord would be saying the same
thing to us today when it comes to
Ingram, when it comes to Lady Smith, when
it comes to this entire area of Wisconsin,
who is responsible to feed the multitudes in
your land, in your community?
You are church.
And though many would say, send them away,
we don't want those kind to come in
here.
I don't know if there'd be someone say
that or not.
There are many churches that would say that
I've been told that we don't want those
kind.
What kind?
The kind that the Lord Jesus Christ bled
and died for and gave his life for.
Who will feed them?
Whose responsibility is it?
Jesus says to his disciples, you go give
them something to eat.
And he's saying to us today, you go
give them something to eat.
You bring to them what they need and
what do they need but the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, in order to feed these multitudes, we
have to be willing in a few areas.
We talked about this a little bit in
Sunday school.
The first thing we must be willing to
do is we must be willing to carry
the compassion of Christ.
We must be willing to carry the compassion
of Christ.
Notice what it says in verse 14.
And Jesus went forth and saw a great
multitude and was moved with compassion toward them.
He was moved with compassion toward this hungry
multitude.
Mark chapter six, verse 34, says that he
was moved with compassion for this multitude because
they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Did you know I learned this not long
ago from reading Charles Spurgeon that before the
gospels were written and even up to to
this point, I think you cannot find this
word compassion that they use in the Greek
here.
You cannot find that word in classic Greek.
And the reason was when they saw the
compassion of Christ, in other words, imagine seeing
Jesus as he looked at this multitude and
he was moved with compassion for them.
Imagine seeing Jesus as he looked over the
city of Jerusalem and literally wept over that
city when his heart was just bursting with
love and compassion for people and his eyes.
He wept for the lost.
He wept for the destruction of Jerusalem when
the disciples saw that they didn't even have
a suitable word to define it because they'd
never, ever seen that kind of compassion.
And they had to come up with a
new word in the Greek for this kind
of compassion that they witnessed in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Do you have that kind of compassion for
people?
Do you have that kind of compassion for
the lost?
This is the kind of compassion Jesus had
when he saw the leper, a person that
would have stunk.
The leper had sores all over him.
You could smell him hundreds of yards away.
No one would approach a leper.
And yet Jesus, when he saw the leper,
was so moved with compassion that he went
and even touched the leper.
When he saw a widow weeping over her
son, the widow of Nain, her son was
in a casket, he had died and she
was weeping over him.
The Bible says when Jesus saw that he
was moved with compassion.
And he raised her son to life.
When he saw two blind men that cried
out to him, Lord, have mercy on us.
The Bible says he touched them.
He healed them because he was moved with
compassion throughout the Gospels.
You read this over and over again.
Our Savior is a compassionate Savior.
Jesus is moved with compassion.
Now, when he looks at you and I
today, he looks at us through eyes of
love and compassion.
I want to ask you again, how do
you look at people?
It's only two ways we can look at
people, either through eyes of compassion or eyes
of criticism.
The scripture says of Satan, the devil, Revelation
chapter 12, it calls him the accuser of
the brethren.
And it says that he does something day
and night.
You know what it is?
He accuses them before God day and night.
Satan accuses day and night.
Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25, tells us that
something Jesus does day and night.
He intercedes, he ever lives to make intercession.
And I want to ask you, which whose
ministry are you joining?
The accuser of the brethren, where you look
at everybody through eyes of criticism and you're
quick to accuse you're joining hands with the
devil.
Or do you look through people with eyes
of compassion and it moves you to pray
for them?
Then you're joining the ministry of Jesus, the
ministry of intercession.
When Jesus looks at people, he looks through
eyes of compassion.
When the disciples looked at this multitude, they
looked through eyes of criticism.
Lord, send them away.
Let them buy their own food.
We've got to be willing to carry the
compassion of Christ.
I heard a story one time, a true
story about two people who were.
In a prison camp like a concentration camp,
these two men.
One was a Christian, the other was not.
Both of them were suffering.
They were starving to death.
They were in filth.
They were dying in this camp.
The one who was not a Christian was
in worse shape, worse health than the than
the other, and he had sores all over
him.
He was very ill.
He was dying.
And every day they would receive one bowl
of rice, but the rice was so horrible
they literally had to separate what was rice
and what was maggots.
Once they removed the worms, the maggots, they
would get the rice and that's all they
had to eat once a day.
And this Christian who was in the prison
camp would take his friend who was not
a Christian and he would put his arm
under his head and he would feed him
this rice.
He would even feed him his own rice
and he would go without.
He would wipe his wounds.
He demonstrated the love of Christ to this
man day in, day out, never preached to
him yet.
But the day came when he saw that
his friend was dying.
He wasn't going to live long.
He said, sir, I must tell you something.
I must tell you about my Jesus.
Have you ever heard about Jesus?
Has anybody ever told you about Jesus?
And this lost man who was dying looked
up and said, no, sir, I never heard
of him.
But if he's anything like you, I want
to know about him right now.
Can people say that of you, dear friends?
If your Jesus is anything like you, I
want to know him.
I want to know him right now.
That's what the world needs to see.
The true and living God, the true Lord
Jesus Christ, who lives on the inside of
us, who is a compassionate savior, he's moved
with compassion.
Are you willing to carry the compassion of
Christ?
That's who will feed the multitudes.
Who else will feed the multitudes?
It's those who are willing to be inconvenienced.
In other words, you're going to have to
get over yourself.
You're going to have to get your eyes
off of yourself and onto Christ alone.
And when you get them on Christ alone,
he will then also give you his eyes
for others, for those in need of him.
It was not a convenient time for Jesus,
but there's nothing about the Christian life that
is selfish.
The reason I say it was not a
convenient time for Jesus is because of verse
13.
Notice this with me.
It says when Jesus heard of it.
He departed then by ship into a desert
place apart.
What did he just hear about?
His beloved John, the Baptist, had just been
beheaded.
Jesus loved John the Baptist.
Remember what Jesus said about John the Baptist?
He said, I tell you, there's never been
one greater born among women.
He loved John the Baptist.
He had just received the news that his
beloved John the Baptist had had his head
cut off.
They killed him.
Herod had him put to death when Jesus
heard of it.
He must have been so grieved.
Don't forget that Jesus was fully man.
He's fully God, but he's also fully man.
His heart must have been broken to hear
what had just happened to John the Baptist.
And the Bible says when he heard about
it, he got in a ship and he
went to a lonely place.
I'm sure it was to grieve.
But when he left, this multitude followed him.
It wasn't a convenient time, Jesus could have
said, you know, I know they're hungry, but
it's not a good time.
I'm grieving over the loss of John the
Baptist, but there was nothing about Jesus that
was self-centered.
Nothing.
Even in the midst of a time of
grief, he had eyes to see others in
need, he had eyes to lift that to
go beyond himself onto those in need.
The Bible says in Philippians, chapter two, verse
21, the apostle Paul is is basically pouring
out his heart for this church at Philippi,
and he's saying, I want to send someone
to you, but I can't find anyone.
I'm paraphrasing, of course, he says in about
Timothy, he said, I have no one like
him.
Who will care for your state.
Why?
Verse 21, Philippians 221, because all men seek
their own.
Not the things of Christ, everybody's concerned about
himself.
The Bible says in first Corinthians, chapter 13,
verse five, that love seeketh not her own.
When you love Jesus and his love fills
you, you're not concerned about yourself, you're concerned
about others.
All men seek their own.
I tell you about a church that is
sure to die.
It's a church that is obsessed with themselves
and that seeks only their own.
Love seeketh not her own.
Love, seek of the things of Christ and
what he loves and what he's passionate about
and whether you're inconvenienced or not, you remember
the parable of the Good Samaritan.
There's a man who has jumped on this
road from Jericho to Jerusalem.
They beat him up, they stripped him, they
left him for dead.
And along comes a priest, priest got to
know God, right?
Priest ought to have compassion above everybody else
is on his way to the temple.
What does he do when he sees this
poor man wounded, stripped, beaten, lying for dead,
left for dead?
The Bible says he looks at him and
passes by on the other side of the
road.
He walks right on by a Levite comes.
That's the one who's going to lead worship.
He's coming along.
He sees this poor man.
He looks at him and passes right on
by.
He's got other things to do.
It's not a convenient time.
Got to get to church.
And the Good Samaritan comes by and he
sees this poor man.
And the Bible says he had compassion.
And on him.
He picked him up, put him on his
donkey, led him into the end, paid his
time to stay at the end, he took
care of this man, he loved him.
Was it a convenient time for him?
Probably not.
Those who will feed the multitudes are those
who are willing to be inconvenienced to go
out of their way.
The story is told about a man I
heard one time he had a gift, an
anointing upon him.
He would pray for people that were sick
and they would be healed.
He was leading people to Christ.
It didn't take long for the news to
spread, and when people hear that, they say,
I want to go and have him pray
for me.
I've got a problem.
His ministry started expanding, he got very busy
and all of a sudden he started getting
calls in the middle of the night.
One day he got a call in the
middle of the night.
He was so tired, but it was someone
in need.
He hung up the phone and he said,
oh, God, will you please stop these people
from calling me in the middle of the
night?
Stop them so much, so many from coming.
And you know what the Lord did?
He answered his prayer.
He removed the anointing.
And from then on, he would pray over
people and no one would get well.
He would share the gospel and no one
come to Christ.
And it broke that man and he said,
Lord.
Whatever the cost, give it back, I want
to serve you, brothers and sisters, if you're
going to follow Christ, you've got to die
to sell.
It's no longer about me, it's all about
him, because I am no longer my own.
That's what the Bible says.
You are not your own.
You've been bought with a price, the precious
blood of Jesus.
Now glorify him, live for him.
That's why you were created.
Your purpose in life is to bring glory
to God.
It's not about you.
It is all about him.
Who will feed the multitudes, those who are
willing to get over themselves and love people
and carry the compassion.
Also, it's those who are willing to become
co-workers with Christ.
Apostle Paul said in First Corinthians, chapter three,
he said, I planted, Apollos watered, but God
gave the increase and he goes on to
say, we're just co-laborers with God.
We're co-workers with God.
Now, I want to ask you a question.
Could Jesus Christ have fed this multitude without
this little boy's lunch of five loaves and
two fish?
Could he have done it?
Of course he could have.
He could have spoken the word and the
whole hillside would be covered with fish and
bread.
He could have performed a miracle like that.
But he chose not to do it that
way.
Why?
Because he's looking for co-laborers, someone who
will come along and join him in the
ministry.
And all he had at this point was
a little boy and his lunch.
And he took that little boy in his
lunch of five loaves and two fish, and
he performed an absolute miracle of feeding 5000
people beyond men.
It's probably closer to 10,000.
Are you willing to be a co-laborer
with Christ?
It's a privilege to serve God.
It's a privilege to serve him.
And he's not looking for people that are
able.
He's looking for people that are available.
He doesn't look for someone who's adequate.
In fact, he looks for people who are
inadequate.
The Bible says in Second Chronicles 16, nine,
that the eyes of the Lord go to
and fro throughout the whole world, looking for
someone that he can show himself strong through
someone whose heart is completely his.
God's looking for someone to join him as
a co-laborer.
I love what my friend Edgar Rich says.
He says it's his power and my dependence.
It's his will and my obedience.
It's his love and my ability.
Listen, all God is looking for is for
us to surrender all to him and give
him what we have.
And a lot of us, it's not even
five loaves and two fish.
Many times I feel, Lord, I don't even
have five loaves and two fish.
I don't feel like I have anything.
And the Lord says, just give me yourself,
surrender all.
And he does the hard part, he does
the miraculous part, the little boy, all he
had to do is give five loaves and
two fish, give his lunch away to Jesus.
Jesus would do the hard part.
That is the miracle of feeding five thousand.
Are you willing to give your whole heart
to Christ?
Are you willing to surrender all to him
so that he can use you?
You know what the beauty of it is?
Those who surrender all to God will never
lack any good thing.
If this little boy would have kept his
five loaves and two fish, how many people
would he have fed?
One himself, maybe maybe a few family members.
He gave it all to Jesus.
And how many were fed?
Over five thousand, Matthew six thirty three says
to seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness and all these things will be
added unto you, you don't have to worry
about yourself if you're sold out to glorifying
Christ, your needs will be met.
The scripture goes on to say in our
text, in Matthew, chapter 14, that after they
had all eaten this, the disciples had not
yet eaten, the disciples were serving the verse
20 says they did all eat and were
filled and they took up the fragments that
remained 12 baskets full.
How many disciples were there?
Twelve, how many baskets full did they pick
up?
Twelve, that's our God, you put others before
yourself, you serve others first and you will
go home with the full basket.
Each one of you don't worry about about
putting yourself first.
In fact, someone came up with a beautiful
acrostics.
It's joy, joy.
You want to have joy, Jay, Jesus first.
Oh, other second, why you last and you
have true joy.
That's our Lord, that's the way of the
Lord.
For being poured out for others.
Now, I want you to notice finally, Jesus
did two things before he fed this multitude.
He took the bread and the Bible says,
look at this in verse 19.
He commanded the multitude to sit down on
the grass and took the five loaves and
the two fish and looking up to heaven,
he blessed.
And he break and he gave the loaves
to his disciples and the disciples to the
multitude, he took the bread, he first blessed
it and then he broke it.
And if God is going to use you
to feed the multitudes, these two things have
to happen in your life.
You first must be blessed by God.
You secondly, must be broken.
By God and for God.
It's only blessed and broken bread that feeds
the multitudes.
What do you mean, Brother Brian?
First of all, blessed Jesus bless them.
You know what the greatest blessing that we
need, that the greatest blessing to the church
today from the Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest
gift is this, the gift of his blessed
Holy Spirit.
That's the blessing, that's what we need to
feed the multitudes.
Turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 11.
Luke chapter 11.
Is a beautiful example of what I'm wanting
to say here, Luke chapter 11.
In verse five, Jesus said unto them, which
of you shall have a friend and shall
go unto him at midnight and say unto
him, friend, lend me three loaves.
Now, midnight is a crisis hour.
And this friend has another friend coming to
him, he's hungry, he wants some bread, lend
me three loaves.
Verse six, for a friend of mine in
his journey has come to me and I
have nothing to set before him.
Have you ever felt like this?
God gave you an opportunity to witness to
someone.
God brought somebody across your path, but you
had nothing to set before them.
That's who he's talking about.
It's a midnight hour.
A friend has come to me and they're
hungry, they're in need and I'm dry.
I have nothing to set before them.
What a tragedy, what a tragic thing.
You know what happened after 9-11 when
the towers fell?
Many churches were full of people.
They came to the church, but they had
nothing to set before them.
In many churches, they didn't have a message
from God, a word from God for the
people and the people left just as dry
and empty as they came.
God forbid, brothers and sisters, that when God
brings needy people across your path, you have
nothing to set before them.
Who will feed the multitudes?
It's somebody that has something to set before
them.
They say, what do I do if I
don't have anything to set before them?
You've got to be blessed.
What do you mean blessed?
Let's continue reading verse seven.
And he from within shall answer and say,
trouble me not.
The door is now shut and my children
are with me in bed.
I cannot rise and give thee.
I say unto you, though he will not
rise and give him because he is his
friend, yet because of his importunity, in other
words, his persistence.
He will rise and give him as many
as he needed.
And I say unto you, ask and it
shall be given you.
Now, now, as we read this, answer the
question, ask and it shall be given to
you.
Ask for what?
Seek and you shall find.
Find what?
Knock and it shall be open to you.
What shall be open to me?
For everyone that ask receives he that seeks
finds and to him that knocks, it shall
be open.
If a son shall ask bread of any
of you that is a father, will he
give him a stone?
If he ask a fish, will he for
a fish give him a serpent?
If he shall ask an egg, will he
offer him a scorpion?
If he then being evil know how to
give good gifts under your children, how much
more shall your heavenly father give the.
Holy Spirit.
To them that ask him, this is the
blessing, how are we going to feed the
multitudes first, we got to be blessed, what
is the blessing, the blessed Holy Spirit, the
spirit of God, and apart from being filled
with the Holy Spirit, I have nothing to
offer them.
I have nothing to set before them.
And who does he give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him who are filled
with the Holy Spirit, those who pray, ask
and you shall receive, receive what the Holy
Spirit seek and you shall find find what
the filling of the Holy Spirit knock and
it shall be open unto you.
What shall be open?
This filling of the Holy Spirit.
God says I will give you everything you
need.
He says my grace is sufficient for you.
And his all sufficient grace, once it's poured
out upon us, we will have something to
offer a lost and dying, desperate world, brothers
and sisters.
That's the blessing and the blessing comes through
prayer, through asking, seeking, knocking till you find.
You're blessed now, what's the second part?
He blessed the bread.
Now he's got to break it and only
broken bread, only broken people, you know, for
years, I I broke horses for a living,
rode colts.
And those of you have ever experienced that
or done that, you you take a horse
that, you know, somebody is not in their
head.
You know what I'm talking about?
You get one that's not broken.
What's it like?
Stubborn, stiff necked.
They might buck, they might grab the bit
and take off running.
They're not broken.
They're useless to the rider.
A horse is not any good to the
rider until he's broke, broke of what broke
of his own will.
In other words, where his will is totally
yielded to the master and a good broke
horse.
My brother is still doing this and he's
one of the most amazing trainers that I
know.
And you get on one of his horses
and with the slightest command, the slightest cue
that horse is going to do exactly what
you will.
You want him to speed up?
He'll speed up.
You want him to stop and slide?
He'll stop and slide.
You want him to spin around?
He'll spin around on the slightest touch.
He yields to the slightest pressure because he's
broken until you are you and I are
broken of our stubbornness and our stiff neckedness
in our rebellion till we yield completely to
the Holy Spirit.
And we respond to that slightest prompting when
the Holy Spirit says, do this and you
go.
Don't watch that and you turn it off.
Go away from there and you leave.
Stop and visit him and you do.
Spend some time in my presence and you
kneel and pray.
That's a brokenness when you yield and you
obey the Holy Spirit.
Brokenness, broken bread, John, chapter 12, verse 21.
Look at this with me, if you will,
John, chapter 12 and verse 21, actually, I'll
back up one verse to verse 20.
It says there were certain Greeks among them
that came up to worship at the feast.
Verse 21.
The same came, therefore, to Philip, which was
a beside of Galilee, and desired him saying,
sir, we would see Jesus.
That is, we want to see Jesus, I'm
telling you, these lost communities around here are
waiting to see Jesus in you.
The real Jesus, we would see Jesus, we
want to see Jesus.
Verse 22, Philip cometh and telleth Andrew and
again, Andrew and Philip tell Jesus and Jesus
answered them.
What is he answering them?
He's answering this request.
We want to see Jesus.
OK, here's his answer.
Verse 23.
The hour is come that the son of
man should be glorified.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone.
But if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit.
He that loveth his life shall lose it,
and he that hateth his life in this
world shall keep it unto life eternal.
He uses the example of a kernel of
wheat.
If you take a grain of wheat and
that grain of wheat never is planted in
the ground, never dies, never breaks apart, you
have no fruit, you have no life.
You take a grain of wheat and it
never be broken, put it up on the
shelf.
And what is it seven years from now?
A single grain of wheat, 10 years from
now, a single grain of wheat, but plant
that kernel of wheat in the ground and
let it die and let it be broken.
And what happens?
Life comes forth, it produces more wheat, more
fruit.
You take a Christian who dies to himself
and is and denies himself and is broken.
What happens?
Fruit comes forth, more Christians.
But we've got to be broken.
Matthew, chapter 16.
And I'm coming to a close, Matthew 16,
verse 24, Jesus said unto his disciples, if
any man will come after me, let him
deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose
it and whosoever will lose his life for
my sake shall find it who will feed
the multitudes, those who are willing to die
to themselves so that they may live in
Christ.
Sadhu Sundar Singh.
Was a young man who was born in
the late late 1800s in northern India.
He grew up in a Hindu home with
a Hindu father, but his mother sent him
to a Catholic school at the Catholic school.
He heard about Jesus.
And he heard about the cross, even.
And when he was 14 years old, his
mother died and he became so angry with
God.
So angry and so violent that at 14
years old, he began to persecute Christians, he
literally bought a Bible one day, had his
friends over and they ripped out every page
and burned it, every page of the Bible.
He had no peace, he was tormented inside.
One day at 14 years old, he said,
I can't live like this anymore, I'm going
to commit suicide.
He was desperate, he was beside himself.
He said tomorrow morning, I'm going to go
out to the railroad tracks and lay my
head on the tracks.
I'm through living that night, he cried out,
who is the true God?
They worship hundreds of gods as Hindus.
Who is the true God?
And even in his prayer, he said, Jesus,
if you're the true God, show me if
you don't, if nobody answered him, he had
plans to commit suicide the next day.
That very night, Jesus gave him a vision
of himself.
He he met the Lord Jesus Christ in
a vision as a teenage boy, he was
so excited, he gave his heart to Christ,
repented of his sins.
He came to his father the next day
and actually woke him up in the morning.
Dad, I know who the true God is,
the true and living God is Jesus Christ.
And his dad became so angry at him,
he said, stop that nonsense, but he couldn't
change his mind.
And finally, he said, all right, you're no
longer going to live here.
We're going to have one final parting meal
and then you're done.
They had a big feast and they sat
down to eat.
And after the meal, Sadhu Sundar Singh was
kicked out of his house.
His father kicked him out, he immediately became
sick.
It was discovered later that his father had
poisoned his food, trying to poison his own
son.
There were some Christians that took him in
and nursed him and he lived through that.
At 16 years old, he got baptized and
surrendered all to follow Christ and preach the
gospel.
He preached the gospel all over that part
of India.
When he became a young man, he would
walk over the Himalayan mountains and go up
into villages on the other side and preach
the gospel to Buddhists.
One day he was on his journey to
go over these mountains and these mountains, the
Himalayans, you could not cross them by foot
at night after the sun went down.
It got so cold that if you tried
to cross them at night, you would die,
you would freeze to death.
So they would leave out early in the
morning and they would journey during the daytime.
By the time the sun went down, they
were at the nearest village.
One day he was headed over those mountains
to preach the gospel and a Tibetan monk
came alongside and they were journeying together.
On their way, they noticed somebody was laying
face down up there in the snow.
They thought he was dead, they walked up
there and rolled the man over and the
man was still breathing.
And the Tibetan monk said, what to do
if we try to pick him up and
carry him with us?
It'll slow us down, we won't get to
the village by dark and we'll all freeze
to death and die.
Sundar Singh said, will you go on?
I can't leave him.
I'm a Christian.
I'm not leaving this man to die.
The Tibetan monk took off all by himself.
He said, I'm I'm going.
Sundar Singh picked up this poor man and
put him over his shoulders.
And he began to pack him, it slowed
him way down, but he was determined not
to leave this man to die.
He carried him up the mountains and after
journeying for a long time, he noticed someone
laying up there in the snow.
It was the Tibetan monk.
He had frozen to death.
Sundar Singh made it all the way to
the village and this man made it with
him alive.
And he said, Lord, how is it?
That that man died and froze to death
and we were so slow getting here, we
didn't die.
And the Lord has showed him because of
all that physical exertion of carrying that man
on his back, there was body heat that
was produced in between the two of them,
they were kept warm enough to survive.
And Sundar Singh said, the words of Jesus
are true, Matthew 16, 25, for whosoever will
save his life shall lose it and whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall
find it.
I leave you leave you with this, brothers
and sisters.
Who will feed the multitudes, those who are
willing to no longer live for themselves, but
for the glory of God for which you
were created and the souls of men.
Someone inevitably says, but Brian, you got to
understand, I do have a job, I do
have to make a living.
I understand that and God knows that.
But you know what he's saying to you,
everything you do, you do with Jesus and
for the glory of God, if it's working
on the farm, it's for the glory of
God.
And even there, you're going to meet people.
If it's teaching in a classroom, if it's
homeschooling your own wherever you are, you do
that for the glory of God.
You're not living for yourself, but for him
and his glory.
And you're ready always to reach out.
If you're a Christian, God will see to
it that some lost person is placed in
your life.
If you're seeking to be used of him
and you're willing to go, he will show
you where to go.
He will tell you what to say.
He will lead you.
The issue is, are you willing?
Are you willing to surrender all and no
longer live for yourselves, but Jesus who died
for you?
One final verse.
Listen to this.
Second Corinthians five fifteen.
And that he died for all, Jesus died
for all that they which live should no
longer live for themselves.
But unto him which died for them and
rose again.
Who will feed the multitudes, you will church
if you're willing.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for
this precious time together.
Lord, once again, you've reminded us that this
life is not about us, it's all about
you, Jesus.
And once again, I ask you, Lord.
Even to give us the willingness to be
willing.
To carry your compassion to others, to be
taken out of our comfort zones, even if
it's an even if it's not a convenient
time, God, make us willing to go.
I pray, Father, that you would bless us
with your Holy Spirit and that you would
break us.
That we would die to sell and no
longer live for ourselves, but for you who
died for us because you loved us.
We praise you, Jesus, and I pray that
these words would sink deep into our hearts
this morning in Jesus name.
Amen.