Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13
and verse 44.
In our previous studies we have been considering
the parables of the kingdom of heaven.
And we saw that this is the kingdom
of heaven in its outward expression as we
see it here on earth.
And therefore we saw that it contains good
seed and bad seed as well.
The children of God and the children of
the devil sitting together in the same church,
hypocrites.
And then we read in verse 41 that
the son of man will send forth his
angels and sort out.
The two gather the stumbling blocks, the compromisers,
everything that offends and those who live in
sin and cast them into a furnace of
fire.
Verse 42, in that place there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.
There are many people who sit in the
church today who will finally end up in
hell because they lived in sin, they caused
offense to others, they lived as back biters
and gossipers and many other evil things in
their hidden life.
Remember, Jesus spoke about hell more than anyone
else.
He spoke about that furnace of fire, verse
42, in which there will be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.
There was no preacher that this world has
ever seen who preached so much about hell
as Jesus.
There was reason for that because he knew
more about hell than any of us.
He could see it.
He had seen it.
He had seen the end result of people
who had lived in sin.
And he was so concerned, he warned people
about this furnace of fire where there would
be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And it's good for us also not to
so misunderstand the love of God that we
don't warn people, as Jesus did, about this
furnace of fire where there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth in the day when
the righteous will be separated finally and will
shine forth as the sun.
That is why sin is serious.
It leads people to a furnace of fire.
And going to meetings and appearing to be
righteous and singing the right hymns and saying
the right language and saying we are born
again will not help us if we are
not seeking to be free from sin in
our life.
It's not religion that takes people to heaven.
No.
It is a life.
It is repentance from sin.
There are many religious people who go to
many, many meetings who will finally go to
that furnace of fire because they did not
repent from sin.
It's righteousness that leads us into that kingdom.
It's the righteous who will shine forth, we
read in verse 43, as the sun, not
the religious.
Religious people go to hell.
Righteous people go into heaven, into the presence
of the Father.
Those who have turned from sin and who
have first been justified by faith in Christ,
having the righteousness of Christ imputed to their
account, and then who have partaken of that
righteousness in their life, that is the proof
that they are justified.
If God justifies a person, He sanctifies them.
If a person is not being sanctified, it's
the clearest proof that he is not really
justified.
His faith is a counterfeit.
In that day the righteous will shine.
This is where the wheat and the tares
look so alike.
Verse 44.
Then Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven, and
here He is speaking about the treasure hidden
in the field, speaking about the wholehearted disciple,
just like in the two parables in verses
31 to 33, He spoke about the opposite
of this, the compromisers who corrupt the church.
Here He spoke two parables in verses 44
to 46, of those who are wholehearted, who
are the core of a church, the true
church in the midst of what is known
as the church.
The real church, in God's eyes, is a
small group of brothers and sisters in the
midst of a large system, which is known
as the church by the world.
In every place that is true.
In every congregation of people, the real church
is a much smaller core, and it's very
important in every church that we belong to
that core of people whom God considers to
be the church, and not what the people
around us consider to be the church.
That's a very small number compared to the
other who are like the fringe people who
sit on the outside.
They sit in the meeting, but in God's
eyes, they are on the outside.
It's the core that God looks for, and
the core consists of people like those described
in verses 44 to 46, these two parables,
and all the others consist of the people
described in the earlier two parables, who are
like the birds of the air sitting in
the church, and who have been leavened by
Babylon the great woman.
But here it speaks about those who kept
themselves pure, and how did they keep themselves
pure?
We read in verse 44, The kingdom of
heaven is like a treasure hidden in the
field, which a man found and hid, and
from joy over it he goes and sells
all that he has, and buys that field.
What is this field?
The field is, we can say, the true
kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God,
as it is found in the Lord Jesus
Christ, in whom that kingdom was personified.
And for a person to get this, here
the price is told us.
Forgiveness of sins is free.
You don't have to pay any money for
it.
You don't have to sell all that you
have to get forgiveness of sins.
It's free.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit, that's free.
God gives a treaty.
In fact, on the day of Pentecost, all
that Peter said was, Repent, and you can
receive forgiveness of sins, and also the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
But, if we want God's kingdom, that righteousness
and peace and joy, Romans 14, 17 says,
the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Spirit.
If we want the fullness of the power
of the Holy Spirit, that brings righteousness and
peace and joy, not just that enables us
to speak in tongues, but that brings righteousness
and peace and joy into our life, and
floods our life with it, then we have
to pay a price.
Here it speaks about something which you can't
get free.
Here is something that is bought.
Obviously, this is not referring to forgiveness of
sins.
It's a false teaching to say that we
have to buy forgiveness of sins, or buy
the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
But here is something we have to buy.
You have to sell all that you have,
and buy.
Notice the word Jesus uses, you've got to
buy this field.
Again, the second parable teaches the same thing.
He's like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and
upon finding one pearl of great value, he
went and sold all that he had and
bought it.
Notice the word again, he buys it, he
buys it, he pays a price for it.
And the price is, in both parables, this
little phrase, all that he has.
All that he has, all that he possesses.
To understand this, we need to look at
one of the conditions of discipleship that Jesus
spoke in Luke chapter 14 and verse 33.
He said, No one of you can be
my disciple, Luke 14, 33, who does not
give up all that he possesses.
Does that mean we are to be hermits,
and give up our clothes, and give up
our house, and give up marriage, and give
up our children?
Because we have all these things.
There is a difference in having and possessing.
Having in the sense of having as my
own.
What did this man seeking the field do?
He collected all that he had, and gave
it to the owner of the field, and
bought the field.
What did the man seeking pearl, this wonderful
pearl, do?
He gave to the owner of that pearl,
all that he had, and got the pearl.
We can say the owner of the kingdom
of God is God.
So to get the kingdom, we have to
give all that we have to God, in
order to get the kingdom.
That is the meaning of those two parables.
The owner of the field and of the
pearl of great price is God, and we
have to give him all that we have.
That is the meaning of Luke 14.33.
That we don't possess anything as our own
in future.
And this is best illustrated in the story
of Abraham, who possessed Isaac.
He was the darling of his heart.
He was probably an idol in Abraham's life.
And God said, give him up.
And Abraham gave up Isaac to God on
a mountain one morning.
He didn't kill him, because God said, don't
kill him.
But I see that you have given him
up to me.
From now on, he is no longer yours.
He is mine.
He lives in your house.
You can have him, but you can't possess
him, because he is mine.
That is how we must hold everything that
we have on earth.
Your possessions, you can have them, but you
can't possess them.
Your children, you can have them, but you
can't possess them.
Your house, you can have it, but you
can't possess it.
That is the mark of a disciple.
He doesn't become a hermit and run off
to the mountains.
No, he has.
Isaac in his house, but he doesn't possess
Isaac.
Because he has laid all his Isaacs on
the altar.
Everything that is valuable, your job, you can
have your job, you don't have to give
it up.
But you shouldn't possess it.
It shouldn't be as though your job is
everything to you.
If God wants you to give it up,
you should be willing to give it up.
And you shouldn't make your profession everything, to
be a God in your life.
This is what it means to pay the
price.
And we need to make a checklist of
everything that we consider valuable.
That list can be different for different people.
Because some people consider one thing valuable, some
people consider another.
And make a checklist if you want to
be a wholehearted disciple.
And list all the things that you consider
valuable.
Your bank account, your house, your property, your
vehicle, your job perhaps, your children, your wife,
your partner.
Make a list if you are really sincere.
And go through that list and lay every
one of those on the altar.
Then you can possess the kingdom and be
a part of that core that God is
building in every congregation.
To the leader of the church in Laodicea
and to the whole church, also Jesus said,
I advise you to buy from me gold
refined in the fire, white garments and eye
salve.
You have to buy these things, we read
in Revelation 3 and verse 18.
There are things we get free from Jesus.
There are other things we have to buy.
And the price is to lay everything that
you have on the altar.
And say, Lord it's yours, it's no longer
mine.
And then we become a part of the
core of God's kingdom.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel chapter 13
and verse 47.
We have been going through these parables that
Jesus spoke concerning the kingdom of heaven.
In these last studies.
And we saw that Jesus is referring to
the kingdom of heaven and its outward expression.
And that becomes very clear when we consider
this last parable.
It's like a dragnet, he said.
But the interesting thing is, this dragnet, when
it is cast into the sea, which is
the world, gathers fish of every kind.
And when it was filled, they drew it
up on the beach.
And they sat down and, unfortunately, there was
good fish as well as bad fish in
the net.
And they put the good fish into containers.
And the bad they threw back into the
sea.
They threw away.
So will it be at the end of
the age, the angel shall come forth and
take out the wicked from among the righteous.
The wicked are found in the midst of
the righteous and will cast them into the
furnace of fire.
And there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth.
The second time Jesus speaks about this furnace
of fire.
He had spoken about it earlier in verse
42.
And he emphasizes this weeping.
Regret that they lived before the face of
men.
Regret that they lived in sin.
Regret that they didn't turn from sin despite
all the good words they had heard.
Gnashing of teeth in pain and suffering in
an eternal hell.
And Jesus spoke about it.
And if we are those who take God's
word seriously, we will find that there is
a very healthy warning here.
For all who go for meetings in certain
churches.
That in the dragnet of the kingdom of
heaven.
He is not speaking about the world now.
The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet,
he said in verse 47.
And in that dragnet, the sea is the
world.
This net is cast into the sea.
I will make you fishes of men, Jesus
told Peter.
And they dragged this net.
This is how they caught fish in those
days.
They put the net in and pulled it
in.
And when they pulled it in, there were
fish that were good, fish that were bad.
The bad fish are those who did not
repent.
Those in whom the seed did not produce
fruit.
Those which had no depth of earth.
Those which were choked by the thorns.
Those which allowed the seed to be taken
away by the birds.
The bad fish were those who, like the
mustard tree, grew up to be big in
the eyes of men, but not pure in
the eyes of God.
For those who allowed the leaven of sin
and compromise to corrupt their whole life.
And became part of a system that was
compromising.
But finally it sorted out.
And the wicked will be taken out from
among the righteous.
Exactly like He said earlier on in verse
41.
The Son of Man will send His angels
and gather out of His kingdom all the
stumbling blocks.
And all those who commit lawlessness.
All those who live in sin.
All those who do not turn from sin
in their life.
Sin is a very serious thing, dear friends.
God sent His Son into the world to
save us from sin.
Not to save us from hell.
There is no verse in the Bible which
says Jesus came to save us from hell.
But there are many verses which teach that
He came to save us from sin.
In fact, in the very first page of
the Bible.
The very first page of the New Testament.
We read.
Thou shalt call His name Jesus.
Matthew 1.21 For He shall save His
people not from hell.
Mark you.
But from their sin.
Sin is a very serious thing.
And Jesus came to save His people from
that.
And those who take that message.
They will be the good fish.
Those who allow Jesus to save them from
the sin.
In their life.
And the others.
Who only have religion.
Who only have an outward form of godliness.
But not the power of God unto salvation
from sin.
Which the gospel is.
They will be cast into furnace of fire.
And we need to remember that not everybody
who says he is born again.
Is born again.
Unfortunately today there are many people who say
they are born again.
Who are not born again.
Really.
Because they have not truly repented.
There is a shallow gospel that is being
preached today.
Which does not have the element of repentance
in it.
And that is what makes it a counterfeit.
Just like a counterfeit currency note.
Will not have that little strip.
In the middle of the paper.
Which a genuine currency note has.
A little strip.
That thin strip that you can see.
When you lift up a hundred rupee note
into the light.
Like a wire.
That is not there in a counterfeit note.
That element of repentance is missing.
We know that that is a counterfeit conversion.
True conversion will always have that element of
repentance in it.
A turning from sin.
A mourning over sin.
The fact that you fall into sin.
Is not the serious thing.
The serious thing is that you do not
mourn when you fall into sin.
You may fall.
But if you mourn.
And you desire to turn from it.
You are alright.
There is hope for you.
But if you can sin.
Particularly sin in the private life.
In the thought life.
And you do not turn from it.
That is a very serious condition.
That is like a man having leprosy in
the conscience.
That his conscience does not trouble him.
He can sleep peacefully at night even though
he has sinned.
Take that seriously dear friends.
It is not a light thing.
We shall discover the end of the age.
Many who are first will be last.
And many who are last will be first.
Those whom we despised as not clever and
smart.
May end up first because they repented of
sin.
And those who were clever and smart in
the church.
But who did not turn from sin.
We shall discover our last.
And then Jesus spoke to his disciples and
said.
Have you understood all these things?
They said to him yes.
And he said to them.
Therefore every scribe.
A scribe is a Bible scholar.
A man who studies the Bible.
It is very important to study the Bible.
But Jesus spoke about more than studying the
Bible.
He said every scribe who has become a
disciple.
The Bible scholar must become a disciple.
It is not enough to study the Bible.
It is also necessary to obey it.
That is how you become a disciple.
Otherwise you remain a scribe.
You cannot become a part of the kingdom
of heaven as a scribe.
You can be among the bad fish as
a scribe.
You can be among that corrupted leavened system
as a scribe.
You can be among that unnaturally grown mustard
tree as a scribe.
You can be among that bad ground as
a scribe.
But the scribe it says must become a
disciple of the kingdom of heaven.
You see how he concluded this section on
the parables.
He is speaking about scribes.
And then he says the scribe must become
a disciple of the kingdom of heaven.
Otherwise he remains like the bad seed, the
tares which are sown by the enemy.
Like the leavened system.
Like that which is big and great in
the eyes of men.
Where the birds of the air, the agents
of Satan come and live.
It is not enough to be a scribe.
Every scribe who has become a disciple of
the kingdom of heaven.
That is he has fulfilled the condition of
discipleship in Luke 14.33. He has forsaken
everything and made Jesus supreme in his life.
He is like a head of a household.
He can have a ministry then.
Bringing out of his treasure of his life
things new and old.
Fresh revelations and revelations received years ago.
But everything can be brought forth powerfully, anointedly
only if you are a disciple.
Now this verse teaches that Bible scholars cannot
bring forth spiritual revelations if they have not
become disciples.
A scribe, we could read that as a
Bible scholar.
Every person who studies the Bible must become
a disciple.
And then only he can bring forth out
of his treasure.
Otherwise he has no treasure.
Bible knowledge is not a treasure.
Bible knowledge we can say is only a
photograph of a treasure.
It becomes a treasure when you become a
disciple of the kingdom of heaven.
When you allow that truth to sink into
your life.
And it brings obedience in your life.
Then you can bring forth out of your
treasure of your life new revelations.
And they will be fresh.
And even the old revelations that you got
ten years ago will also be fresh.
Because there will be an anointing on it.
And it came about, verse 53, Matthew 13,
53.
When Jesus had finished these parables, he departed
from there.
And coming to his hometown, he began teaching
them in their synagogue.
So that they were astonished and said, where
did this man get this wisdom and these
miraculous powers?
They had seen Jesus grow up in Nazareth
as a little boy.
And like the proverb says, familiarity breeds contempt.
They were familiar with him from childhood and
they despised him.
Isn't this the carpenter's son?
How can a carpenter's son be a man
of God?
They despised him because of his job.
They despised him because of his origin.
Because of his family.
Is not his mother called Mary and his
brothers James, Joseph, Simon, Judas?
They are all ordinary people here.
His sisters are with us.
This is one of the verses that teaches
us that Jesus had blood brothers.
At least four of them.
And sisters, we don't know how many.
It means at least two.
In other words, Jesus grew up in a
family of at least seven children.
Of which he was the eldest.
Mary had six other children, at least, if
not more.
And they are all with us.
They are very ordinary people.
Where did this man get all these things?
And it says they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, a prophet is
not without honor except in his hometown and
in his own household.
They despised him.
We read in John 7 that the brothers
of Jesus, the blood brothers of Jesus, spoke
very rudely to him.
But the loss was theirs.
He did not do many miracles there because
of their unbelief.
Think of that statement.
Many miracles that Jesus wanted to do could
not be done because they didn't believe.
Think if we faced that statement in the
day of judgment, that the Lord wanted to
do many things for you.
But he could not do it because of
your unbelief, because of your familiarity.
Don't be so familiar with the word that
you are unbelieving.
The important thing is faith, not knowledge.
The important thing is to be a disciple,
not a scribe.
May it never be said of us that
Jesus could not do miracles in our life
because of our unbelief.
But may we be men of faith, not
just Bible scholars, but disciples.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel chapter 14
and verse 1.
At that time Herod the Tetrarch heard the
news about Jesus and said to his servants,
This is John the Baptist.
He has risen from the dead, and that
is why miraculous powers are at work in
him.
For Herod had seized John and bound him
and put him in prison on account of
Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip.
For John had been saying to him, It
is not lawful for you to have her.
And although he wanted to put him to
death, he feared the multitude because they regarded
him as a prophet.
But when Herod's birthday came, the daughter of
Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod.
Thereupon he promised with an oath to give
her whatever she asked.
And having been prompted by her mother, she
said, Give me here on a platter the
head of John the Baptist.
And although he was grieved, the king commanded
it to be given because of his oaths
and because of his dinner guests.
And he sent and had John beheaded in
the prison.
And his head was brought on a platter
and given to the girl, and she brought
it to her mother.
And his disciples came and took away the
body and buried it, and they went and
reported to Jesus.
Here we see a number of things concerning
the character of Herod.
And it's because of the way he conducted
himself that later on we read that when
Jesus stood before Herod, in Luke 23, verse
8 and 9, the same Herod was very
eager to see Jesus and was hoping to
see some miracle Jesus did.
But even though Herod asked Jesus many questions
and Herod was a mighty king, Jesus answered
him nothing.
He never spoke a word to Herod.
Jesus answered the high priest.
He answered Pilate.
But he never answered Herod one word, and
that's very significant.
And the reason lies in a spiritual principle
that we need to understand.
It's possible for a person to have heard
the truth for so long that he can
cross a line where God does not speak
to him anymore.
He has gone beyond the possibility of repentance.
This is partly the meaning of the sin
against the Holy Spirit, which does not have
any forgiveness.
Because Herod had crossed the line and there
was no need for Jesus to do anything
for him.
Jesus would certainly not do a miracle to
demonstrate anything to Herod, much less would he
even speak a word to him.
No, he wouldn't do a miracle.
He wouldn't even speak a word.
But we read here the reason for it
in Matthew 14.
Herod's conscience troubled him when he heard about
Jesus because he had done something wrong in
killing John the Baptist.
And when he heard about Jesus, he felt
that this is John the Baptist risen from
the dead.
It's amazing how the things that we do
wrong begin to affect us in our conscience
and trouble us so that anything that happens,
we say, ah, this is because of the
wrong that I did at such and such
a time.
And there you can see the indication of
a conscience that is not right with God
and with men.
When you feel that something has happened because
of something else that you have done, this
is how it was with Herod concerning John
the Baptist.
He never was at rest in his conscience.
And it's a very serious thing to go
against our conscience.
And we can see why did he do
it.
It says here in verse 3, Herod seized
John and bound him and put him in
prison on account of Herodias.
Now Herod himself did not want to put
John in prison.
But because he had married his brother's wife
or taken her, even if he was not
lawfully married to her, living with her, and
John the Baptist, fiery prophet that he was,
not afraid of any king, told Herod straight
to his face, it is not lawful for
you to have her.
And Herod himself was probably convinced of that.
We read in Mark's Gospel, chapter 6, in
verse 20, that Herod was perplexed when he
heard John the Baptist.
Herod was afraid of John, Mark 6, 20,
knowing that he was a righteous and holy
man.
It's amazing, this godless king Herod was afraid
of John the Baptist because he was a
righteous and holy man.
Many people are afraid of Herod, but Herod
himself was afraid of John the Baptist.
Only because he was a righteous and holy
man.
There's a tremendous power in righteousness and holiness
that puts a fear even into kings.
And so Herod kept him safe.
And when he heard him, he was very
perplexed, we read Mark 6, 20, but he
used to enjoy listening to him.
So, obviously, Herod listened to John the Baptist
frequently, but he never obeyed.
The fact that a person likes to listen
to a God-fearing, fiery preacher like John
the Baptist does not necessarily mean that he
is spiritual.
Many people enjoy listening to fiery sermons, but
they're not spiritual, they're no more spiritual than
Herod.
But, because Herod was so henpecked by his
wife, his new wife, his brother's wife actually,
Herodias, Herodias kept on harassing Herod to kill
John the Baptist.
And Herod meekly submitted to his wife, like
many foolish husbands do when their wives prompt
them to do something wrong.
And, but we read that he would not
put him to death.
Again, the reason given in verse 5 is
Matthew 14, 5, that Herod feared the multitude.
He was afraid of the opinions of men.
He was influenced by the opinion of his
wife.
He was influenced by the opinion of people.
He played to the gallery, as they say.
He was interested in his own honor, his
reputation, and his position, and for that he
was willing to sacrifice his conscience.
No wonder Jesus never spoke one word to
him when he stood before him later on.
When people are like that, that they are
willing to sacrifice their conscience for the sake
of their own honor and position and reputation,
we can be fairly sure that God will
never speak to such a person.
And we read here, because the multitude regarded
John the Baptist as a prophet, Herod was
afraid as to what people would say or
think about him, and therefore he kept him
alive.
He was tossed between the opinions of the
multitude and the opinion of Herodias.
And then we read something else.
We read about Herod celebrating his birthday.
The Bible records only heathen people making grand
public celebrations of their birthdays.
One was Pharaoh, and the other was Herod.
God never asked us to celebrate the birthday
of Jesus Christ like Pharaoh and Herod celebrated
their birthdays.
Jesus is never meant to be put in
the same category as Pharaoh and Herod.
That is the teaching of a Christendom that's
drifted away from the word of God.
It's Herod and Pharaoh who celebrated their birthdays
in grand style, making a great feast.
And we read at the time of this
birthday, when he made this great feast, he
was so happy with the dancing of the
daughter of Herodias that he promised her anything
that she asked for.
And she was prompted by her mother and
asked for the head of John the Baptist.
And notice what's written in verse 9.
He did not want to kill John the
Baptist, but again he was concerned about his
opinion, his reputation in the eyes of his
dinner guests, we read in verse 9.
He was concerned about the opinions of men.
And because he was concerned about the opinions
of men, we read that he was willing
again to sacrifice his conscience.
And he had John beheaded in the prison.
This passage of scripture is a tremendous warning
to us to be careful about going against
the still small voice of conscience.
Never to sacrifice that to seek to please
others.
And so at the feast itself, John's head
was brought on a platter and given to
the girl.
And she brought it to her mother.
And it's amazing that this man Herod could
live after all that and never be bothered,
never feel that he had done something wrong.
It's possible for a person to go against
his conscience once, twice, three times, four times
and still his conscience speaks.
Apparently, even though he had listened to John
the Baptist so often and disregarded it, yet
his conscience still spoke to him because it
says he was grieved in verse 9.
He was grieved because there was still the
voice of conscience speaking to him.
But then he finally crossed the line and
he killed John the Baptist.
And we can say after that God didn't
speak to him anymore.
The word of God speaks about people crossing
a line where they have heard and heard
and heard and heard the truth so often.
And they harden their hearts and they can
no longer hear.
That's a very dangerous possibility.
The word of God warns us today if
you hear his voice, harden not your hearts
like the people did in the wilderness.
And that's a warning that we can get
from the life of Herod as well.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel chapter 14
and verse 13.
In our last study we were considering how
Herod put John the Baptist to death.
We read here that in verse 12 that
the disciples came and took away the body
and buried it.
And they went and reported this fact to
Jesus.
And when Jesus heard it, he withdrew from
there in a boat to a lonely place
by himself.
When the multitudes heard of this, they followed
him on foot from the cities.
And when he came out, he saw a
great multitude and felt compassion for them and
healed their sick.
We read something here which shows us the
humanity of Jesus.
How he had emptied himself when he came
down to earth of that perfect, complete knowledge
of all things that God has.
Omniscience that he gave up.
He knew about the death of John the
Baptist only when the disciples came and reported
it to him.
God knows everything, but Jesus had emptied himself
of that.
And when he heard about it, he felt
the feelings that we as human beings feel
when someone who had been so close and
so faithful had finally been martyred.
He withdrew to a lonely place by himself,
no doubt to be quiet with his father.
But he would not allow the sorrow to
take so much of his time.
He saw that he had a ministry to
fulfill and he saw a great multitude.
We read in verse 14, and felt compassion
for them and healed their sick.
A lesson for us and an example that
even when we face sorrow, we are not
to let it overwhelm us so much that
we fail to discharge the ministry that our
father has appointed for us.
When it was evening, the disciples came to
him, saying, The place is desolate and the
time is already past.
So send the multitudes away that they may
go into the villages and buy food for
themselves.
And Jesus said to them, They do not
need to go away.
You give them something to eat.
And they said, We have here only five
loaves and two fish.
And he said, Bring them here to me.
And ordering the multitude to recline on the
grass, he took the five loaves and the
two fish, and looking up toward heaven, he
blessed the food.
And breaking the loaves, he gave them to
the disciples, and the disciples gave to the
multitudes.
They all ate and were satisfied, and they
picked up what was left over of the
broken pieces, twelve full baskets.
There were about five thousand men who ate,
aside from women and children.
That last verse indicates there probably were about
ten thousand people there who were fed, five
thousand men alone, it says, beside women and
children.
And there are a number of things that
we learn here concerning the attitude of Jesus
to people who are in any type of
need.
And that includes material, physical need as well.
God is not only interested in our spiritual
needs.
He is interested in our physical needs, our
financial needs, our material needs.
He is very much interested in them because
he knows that we need these things to
live on the earth.
He knows that we need food, we need
clothing, we need money, we need a house,
we need to educate our children.
He knows all those things, and he is
concerned about them.
Jesus taught us to pray, give us this
day our daily bread.
And that's a very spiritual prayer, to pray.
It's perfectly right to pray to God for
our material necessities.
It's quite another thing to pray for luxuries
or for unnecessary things.
And also, Jesus taught us to pray for
material things after we had prayed first for
the hallowing of his name, the coming of
his kingdom, and the fulfilling of his will.
So there's nothing wrong in praying for material
things, provided it is put in the proper
place next to the kingdom of God and
his righteousness.
And we see a demonstration of that here,
that when the disciples who wanted to pass
on the responsibility of feeding them came on
to the people themselves, said, send these people
to the villages.
In another passage it says that these people
had been a number of days without food.
It's quite amazing how so many people followed
Jesus to hear his word.
And Jesus had compassion on them.
Give them something to eat, he said.
And we read from John's gospel that they
brought a little lad who had five loaves
and two fish with him.
And it's very interesting to see something here,
that Jesus, who could have easily created bread
from nothing, did not do that.
And that is a spiritual lesson for us.
The Lord always wants to work in partnership
with human beings.
He could have evangelized the world without the
help of any human beings, but he chooses
to use us.
He could have blessed others without any human
instrumentality, but he always uses a human instrumentality
to bless.
And that's what we see here.
He's using a little lad to bless the
multitude.
And one can imagine that little lad going
home and saying that Jesus and he fed
the multitude.
And that was true.
It was his gift of five loaves and
two fish, which was probably sufficient just for
himself, which enabled Jesus to feed the multitude.
Not because he could not have done it
without that, but because he wanted to do
it with the cooperation of one human being
at least.
And this is a fundamental principle.
You remember in the marriage of Cana, he
could have created the wine from nothing, but
he asked the servants to fill the water
pots of stone with water and turn the
water into wine.
An act of cooperation.
Jesus always works in partnership with us.
Take my yoke upon you, we studied in
Matthew 11.
It's a partnership, a fellowship with Jesus in
which we fulfill our ministry.
And he doesn't need much.
Five loaves and two fish look like an
insignificantly small amount of food to feed a
great multitude, but that's enough.
And that's an encouragement to every one of
us, that when you look at the need
and you look at your own resources, your
own resources may look pitifully small compared to
the need, whatever the need is.
Maybe a need in your home, maybe a
need in your children, it may be a
need in your church, it may be a
need in your area, and you look at
your own resources and they are so small.
If you keep that for yourself, of course,
you'll only feed yourself.
But if you give your all to Jesus,
he can feed a multitude.
There's another lesson here.
It's those who give everything that they have
to the Lord, who are used by God
to bless the multitude.
Do you give everything that you have to
the Lord, like this little lad?
Then he can use it to bless the
multitude.
There are people who give ten percent to
God.
That was Old Testament.
In the New Testament, we're not called to
give ten percent.
We're called to give everything.
And when we give everything to the Lord,
it's not that our needs are not met.
In fact, this boy who gave five loaves
and two fish could have had ten loaves
and four fish if he wanted afterwards.
He gets back not only what he gave,
but more than what he gave, and in
addition, the multitudes are fed too.
And that's a lesson, that if you give
your all to the Lord, you'll find not
only your own needs are met, but God
can use you to bless the multitudes.
And here is where very, very few people
give their all.
So many people seek their own, even among
believers.
They're always keeping back for themselves, and that's
why God cannot use them to bless the
multitudes.
And we read here that the disciples took
the food and gave it to the multitudes.
And there again, we learn another lesson, that
Jesus did not ask for volunteers.
One would think that a more efficient way
of distributing the food would be to ask
for five hundred volunteers, and the job would
have been done quicker.
But he didn't ask for volunteers.
He asked his twelve disciples to feed these
ten thousand people.
Not the most efficient way of doing it,
but the most spiritual way.
Because in God's service, there are no volunteers.
You cannot volunteer to serve the Lord.
You have to be called.
If God doesn't call you, you cannot serve
him.
You cannot go and bless the multitude just
because you want to.
You cannot volunteer in saying, Well, Lord, here
I am, I would like to serve you
full time.
He may not want you to serve full
time, then you better sit down.
No, Jesus called his disciples, and only to
them did he give the food.
And here is the reason for such a
lot of shallowness and hollowness in the ministry
of the word today.
Many are preaching who have not been called.
They have volunteered.
We cannot volunteer.
Jesus did not ask for volunteers.
He gave the food to the disciples, and
the disciples gave to the multitudes.
And remember, the disciples were hungry too.
They had also been without food for a
number of days.
And one can imagine the disciples thinking, I
hope there is something left for us after
all these people have eaten.
But the Lord took care of them.
We read that after everybody was fed, the
Lord had made such an abundance, and he
asked the disciples to pick up what was
remaining.
What was remaining does not mean the broken
bones of the fish and the crumbs of
the bread.
No, this was fresh bread and fish that
had been multiplied in excess of what was
needed.
Good bread and fish.
And they collected twelve baskets, one for each
of the disciples to take home.
That is how God rewards those who serve
him.
If we serve him unselfishly and faithfully, you
can be sure that there will be a
basket full left for you at the end
of your life.
None of your needs or your family's needs
will ever go wanting, when you have served
the others unselfishly.
Let's turn today to Matthew's Gospel, chapter 14,
and verse 22.
And immediately, that is immediately after he had
fed the five thousand men, beside women and
children, and after they had all gone home,
it says he made the disciples get into
the boat, and go ahead of him to
the other side while he sent the multitudes
away.
And after he had sent the multitudes away,
he went up to the mountain by himself
to pray.
Notice something here.
Jesus compelled the disciples to get into the
boat, and go ahead of him.
The literal word there is he compelled them,
which seems to give the indication that they
did not want to go.
But since he compelled them, they went.
And that's a very significant statement, which we
shall consider in a moment as we go
on with what happened later on.
But notice this just for the time being,
that he compelled them.
He insisted that they go.
Sometimes the Lord tells us to go somewhere,
and we don't want to go.
And then he compels us, of course we
can still refuse him, because he doesn't take
away our free will.
He urges us, he will not catch us
by the neck and push us into the
boat, but he says, you must go, I
want you to go.
And you say, no Lord, I don't really
feel like going.
But the Lord says, no, I want you
to go.
That's the meaning of he compelled them.
And they obeyed.
And they got in and went.
And then he sent the multitudes away.
And after sending the multitudes away, he went
up to the mountain by himself to pray.
And when it was evening, he was there
alone.
We see here that Jesus often sought time
to pray.
He was very, very keen on finding time
alone to pray.
Now notice, Jesus was not praying for material
things.
Most believers, when they pray, they are praying
for some material thing or some healing, usually
something which has no eternal value.
Jesus prayed for things which had eternal value.
He was more concerned about the things of
eternity and of heaven.
And notice also this fact, that Jesus was
one who had never sinned.
In all those years, it was not that
he was praying because he wanted restoration of
fellowship with the Father, because it had been
broken in some way.
His fellowship with the Father was never broken.
All through his earthly life.
And yet, we read of a time when
he spent a whole night in prayer.
We read of times when he would slip
away from multitudes and his disciples and be
alone and pray.
We also read of a time when he
was praying with his disciples present.
That was a time when the disciples, after
hearing him, said, Lord, teach us also to
pray the way you pray.
So we see that he prayed in public,
he prayed in private, quite a lot in
private.
He would often slip away into the wilderness
and pray, we read in Luke 5.16.
Just like tourists, when they come to some
new place, they want to see what are
the sights to be seen.
Jesus, whenever he came to a new place,
he'd find out if there was some convenient
quiet place where he could go and pray.
That's the difference between tourists and disciples of
Jesus.
Jesus was looking for place where he could
be quiet to pray.
And many of us may live in homes
where we don't have a room to ourselves
to pray.
But if we are wholehearted, God will show
us some place where we can be alone.
And we can be alone with him.
And I believe that the greatest incentive to
prayer is the fact that Jesus himself, the
one who had never sinned, the one who
walked in perfect fellowship with the Father, needed
to spend time alone with his Father.
Otherwise he could never have lived the life
that he lived of purity and fulfilled the
ministry that the Father had for him.
And we read further in verse 24.
As the boat in which the disciples had
been compelled to go was a number of
yards away from the land, hundreds of yards
away, many stadia means each stadion was 200
yards, hundreds of yards away from the land,
it was battered by the waves, for the
wind was contrary.
Notice that when Jesus compels us to go
in some direction, as we read earlier on
in verse 22, the wind is not necessarily
going to be smooth and calm, the waves
are not going to be calm and quiet.
No.
Many people think that when we follow Jesus
and obey him, life will become easy.
Quite the contrary.
He compelled them to go and when they
went in the boat, they found that the
waves were battering the boat and the wind
was contrary.
And that's very often our experience in life,
that when we obey the Lord, we find
we run into problems, we run into difficulties,
we run into storms.
And God has designed them to teach us
a lesson.
Who are the people who have the easiest
time in the world?
It's the sinners.
It's the people who disobey the Lord completely.
Jesus did not say, in the world you'll
have an easy time.
But what did he say?
He said in John 16.33, In the
world you shall have tribulation, but in me
you will have peace.
Be of good cheer, for I have overcome
the world.
He himself faced tribulation and persecution.
And he does not allow us to face
any temptation that he has not faced himself.
For we read in Hebrews 4.15, that
he was tempted in all points exactly like
we are.
And he did not sin.
So he does not send us into any
trial without going ahead himself.
And just like here, we read that he
sent the disciples in the boat, compelled them
to go, and they faced this contrary wind
and the battering of the waves.
But where was Jesus himself?
He was on the mountain praying for them.
And that's a beautiful picture, when Jesus has
thrust us out into the world, and we
find in the world the wind is contrary
and the waves are battering us, we can
remember that there's one who's standing on high
at the right hand of the Father praying
for us.
And that's our comfort.
We're not alone.
And he's also sent his Holy Spirit to
be with us, which is something better than
what those disciples had in the boat.
And in the fourth watch of the night,
he came to them walking upon the sea.
In the middle of the storm, we shall
find the presence of the Lord there to
encourage us.
And when the disciples saw him walking on
the sea, they were frightened, saying it's a
ghost, and they cried out for fear.
They were very human.
And immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take
courage, it is I, do not be afraid.
And dear friends, that's what we need to
hear in the middle of every storm, and
when the waves are battering our life, we
need to hear the Lord speaking to us,
saying, Take courage and don't be afraid, for
I'm here.
In the middle of the storm, when the
waves are battering you, the Lord says, I'm
here.
You don't have to be scared.
And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if
it's you, command me to come to you
on the water, because Jesus was walking on
the water.
Now, this is not because he was the
Son of God.
He was the Son of God, no doubt.
But remember, he had given up those powers
when he came to earth.
He came as a man.
It was as a man with the supernatural
ability that the Holy Spirit gave him that
he walked on the sea and overcame the
law of gravity.
And the proof of that is that he
told Peter that Peter could do the same.
Peter was not the Son of God, but
Peter also walked on the water with the
same power that Jesus walked on the water.
And that is the significant thing for us.
And what an experience that was for Peter.
To come out of the boat, Jesus said,
Come.
And Peter got out of the boat and
walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
What Jesus was saying is, as I overcome
the law of gravity, Peter, you can also
overcome if you look at me and have
faith in me.
And the spiritual application of that for us
is, there is another law which is very
similar to the law of gravity.
It's called the law of sin and death
in Romans chapter 8.
The law of sin and death also pulls
us down into sin, just like the law
of gravity pulls us down.
And the interesting thing is Jesus, when he
came to earth in our flesh, was tempted
and was subject to this law of sin
and death as well.
But he never sank.
He overcame.
He was tempted, pulled by sin downwards.
But he overcame and triumphed and walked in
triumph every moment.
And the message to us is, the miracle
here is not just that Jesus walked on
the water, but a far greater miracle is
that Peter walked on the water too.
That Jesus overcame sin, the law of sin
and death, is that a great thing?
It is, because he had our flesh.
But the greater thing is that we too
can follow in his footsteps.
And overcome that same law of sin and
death.
Romans 8 too says, the law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set
me free from the law of sin and
death.
And we can take an illustration from the
flight of the aeroplane.
We can say the law of aerodynamics has
overcome the law of gravity so that 1
,000 tons of steel flies in the air
without any effort almost.
Because the law of aerodynamics overcomes the law
of gravity.
That's what Paul says in Romans 8 too.
The law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus, that when I experience that same
life that Jesus had, that I receive it
through the Holy Spirit, it gives me the
power to overcome the law of sin and
death.
Just like the birds.
God's put a life into those birds that
can overcome the law of sin.
And he can put a life that can
overcome the law of gravity.
God can put the life of Jesus in
us in the same way so that we
can overcome the power of sin.
But it depends on our looking unto Jesus.
Because we read here that when Peter stopped
looking at Jesus and started looking at the
wind and the waves, he said, Lord, save
me.
He began to sink.
And we do begin to sink when we
turn our eyes away from Jesus unto the
trial or the sorrow or the difficulty or
the temptation.
But in that moment too, if we say,
Lord, save me, Jesus is still there to
stretch out his hand and to take a
hold of us.
He said to him in verse 31, Oh,
you of little faith.
Why did you doubt?
Everything depends on faith.
If you can have faith that the Lord
can enable you to walk in triumph in
every situation, like it says in 2 Corinthians
2.14, Paul had it that way, we
too can walk in triumph.
If we look to him and say, Lord,
you'll give me grace to overcome as you
overcame.