Sunday morning preaching hour at Calvary Baptist Church of Trehearne. Take your hymn books and turn to number 134. I know that my Redeemer liveth. I know that my Redeemer liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know eternal life He giveth, that grace and power are in His hand. I know that Jesus liveth and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know, That life He giveth, that grace and power are in His hand. I know His promise never faileth, the word He speaks, it cannot die. Though cruel death my flesh assaileth, yet I shall see him by and by. I know, I know, that Jesus liveth, and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know that life he giveth, that grace and power are in his hand. I know my mansion he prepareth, that where he is there I may O wondrous thought for me, careth, and ye at last will come for me. I know, I know, that Jesus liveth, and on the earth again shall stand. I know, I know, that life he giveth, that grace and power are in his hand. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful that we can know that our Redeemer is alive, that Jesus Christ is alive. Thankful that Job knew that, that he was confident in that, even though he was facing some very difficult times. He was confident of that fact that he would see him one day. I'm thankful that we can know that, that the Lord Jesus Christ is seated on thy right hand in glory, that we can come into thy presence this morning in the name of thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thankful that we can also know of the resurrection, that one day we will be raised up. Those that are saved, we will end up in heaven. Those that are lost, that will be a dreadful day. as they stand at the Great White Throne Judgment and then are cast into the Lake of Fire. We pray for each one that's listening this morning. Thou knowest the heart of each one. We pray for those that are not saved, that they might see that the day of grace is today. Tomorrow never comes. That they might want to turn to Thee and know Thy peace and blessing today. We ask that I will be accomplished in our country of Canada. We pray that we would be faithful in our witness, be able to help others to know the truth. Thank you for bringing RJ back safely from the Philippines. And we do pray for his daughter there, that I will be accomplished in her life, whoever's looking after her. And we continue to pray for the Imadis, for safety for them. And as they prepare to come back, we pray as well for Josie, that she would desire truth in her heart and we could be a help to them both. We pray that we would allow thee to direct us here, that we would be faithful in our outreach. Pray for others who have expressed an interest in our church, that they would come, that they would see the need to learn the truth and to know thy peace and blessing. So bless our time together here this morning. May thy will be accomplished in all that is said and done, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Number 216, look to the Lamb of God. If you from sin are longing to be free, look to the Lamb of God. He to redeem you died on Calvary. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save you, look to the Lamb of God. When Satan tempts and doubts and fears assail, Look to the Lamb of God. You in His strength shall over all prevail. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For he alone is able to save you. Look to the Lamb of God. Are you a weary? Does the way seem long? Look to the Lamb of God. His love will cheer and fill your heart with song. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save you. Look to the Lamb of God. Fear not when shadows on your pathway fall. Look to the Lamb of God. In joy or sorrow, Christ is all in all. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save you. Look to the Lamb of God. And then over to number 257, I believe it is. Yeah, it was so sweet to trust in Jesus. It is so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word, just to rest upon His promise, just to know, thus saith the Lord. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I prove him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, all for grace to trust him more. Oh, how sweet to trust in Jesus, just to trust His cleansing blood, just in simple faith to plunge me neath the healing, cleansing flood. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I prove Him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, O for grace to trust Him more. Yes, it is sweet to trust in Jesus, just from sin and self to cease, just from Jesus simply taking life and rest and joy and peace. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, O for grace to trust Him more. I'm so glad I learned to trust Thee Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend And I know that Thou art with me Will be with me to the end Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him How I prove Take your Bibles and turn to Luke's Gospel account of the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke chapter 9. We'll be reading there from verses 10 to 17. Luke chapter nine, verses 10 to 17. We'll stand please for the reading of God's word. And the apostles, when they had returned, told him all that they had done, and he took them and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. And the people, when they knew it, followed him, and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing. And when the day began to wear away, they then came the twelve and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country roundabout and lodge and get victuals, for we are here in a desert place.' But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more but five loaves and two fishes, except we should go and buy meat for all this people. For they were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, make them sit down by fifties in a company. And they did so and made them all sit down. Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven, he blessed them and break and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they did eat and were all filled. and there was taken up of fragments that remained to them twelve baskets." Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful again for reminding us in Thy Word that we have a God who knows everything and is able to provide for our needs even beyond what we think. And the important thing for us is to know Thee as our God and Savior. We're thankful that we can learn some important lessons again from this passage, how the disciples were concerned about the people, but not in the same way that Jesus was, and how that we need to have that compassion for people, that we might want to help them to know thee, to know thy peace and blessing, and that people would want to know the truth in these days of grace. We're thankful for providing us a place to meet and thankful for thy word, which is truth. We ask thy blessing upon the reading of thy word and ask that as we look into these verses that we would Allow thee to guide us that we would set aside anything in our minds that would hinder us from receiving that blessing that we need from thee this morning. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is The Need for Spiritual Food. The Need for Spiritual Food. We are living in interesting times in the world right now. I remember when I was a young person that as I looked at things going on in our world and I was reading history from the past of Canada and different things and I looked at times and thought how good it would be to live back in the past. but of course we can't do that, we live now. And as I look at the world in recent times, things are changing very quickly, and it is an interesting time to live in. It's very interesting, especially for those of us that are saved, as we watch how God is working in the midst of everything that's going on in our world. When you look at the world, We see that we have no clue in our country as far as our politicians are concerned. They haven't got any clue as to how to address the problems we face. Mr. Trump, the President of the United States, has imposed tariffs on Canada, and then he has withdrawn the tariffs, and then he has imposed them again, and then he has withheld them again. And the Canadians in general are saying, Mr. Trump doesn't know what he's doing. He's a very deluded man. And yet they never said that about Mr. Biden, who didn't have a clue, didn't even know what day it was and had no idea what he was doing. I believe that Mr. Trump is using these tactics on Canada because he does not have any love for our prime minister. In his first term, our Prime Minister was at a world meeting, and he was mocking the President of the United States. And he doesn't forget. He's a lost man, Mr. Trump is. He doesn't forget. And Mr. Trudeau is not a respectable man, sad to say. He's more concerned about the color of his socks than he is about any decent policies. And so that's why we're having the trouble that we're having in our country. So then we have the Conservative leader who gets up there and he sings the same song as Mr. Trudeau and says that these tariffs are all unjustified. Well, no, if you look at Canadian history, the tariffs are not unjustified. We have a very unfair trading plane with the United States, and yet we expect the United States to protect us in case of a war. We don't have any submarines that are seaworthy. We don't have any jet planes that are airworthy for fighting. And we have a reduced military that can't look after itself, can't even equip itself. And we are very dependent on the United States. And we are also unfair in our trading. relationship. So what Mr. Trump is doing is not unreasonable. It would hurt us because we have had such poor leadership for many years. And so if things go the way he, Mr. Trump says they're going to, it's going to hurt us, no doubt about it. But that's our own fault. Because we have not been running as a independent nation. And that's the problem. So the solution is not to attack Mr. Trump, we're too small anyway to make any difference. It's like a child who goes and kicks their parent. What does that going to accomplish? You know, you're not going to win. And so, but that's the problem we're in is that we don't have any leadership. And then we look at the situation in Ukraine, and we realize that the president of Ukraine was a comedian before he became the president of Ukraine. So what does he know about government? And he's a very corrupt man. He's a Jew, which is interesting, but he's also a supporter of Nazism, which doesn't really make sense. But that's how corrupt a man he is, and he has been very, very crooked with the financing that has been sent to him, billions of dollars. At least half of it hasn't gone to where it's supposed to. And so that's the problem over there. And then again, we have our country continuing to pour millions of dollars into that useless war. So we're in trouble when we look at the physical situation in our world. And the only solution to that is, just as in our case here, we need spiritual food that will help us to be able to see things from God's perspective and give us a completely different understanding of what's going on than what we get from the world. We've come through, what is it, over four years ago now when they first announced the Wuhan virus. And again, unless we have that spiritual food, and most people don't, most people had no understanding of how to deal with that whole situation. And most people to this day, four years later, still haven't learned anything about how the government treated us and would be willing to go back into another lockdown if the government said so. So we are in trouble when it comes to the majority of society. The only hope for man is to know the true God. So as we look at these verses that we're looking at today, Jesus is dealing with his disciples, but he's also dealing with a crowd of people, a large multitude of people. So the first thing that we see in this passage is the need for reevaluation. So verse 10 is picking up from the first six verses of this chapter that we looked at two weeks ago. And there we see that Jesus told his 12 disciples, he gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he told them not to take anything with them. They were not to take any food, any money, any extra clothing. They were simply to travel very lightly and go from city to city. And they were dependent upon the people of the cities to take them in, to feed them, and to look after their needs while they were in that city. He also told them what to do if a city would not accept them, would not receive them. So in then verses seven through nine, which we looked at last week, was then things that were happening while the disciples were gone. And now in verse 10, they've come back. And so it says, and the apostles, and we see here in verse one, they're called disciples. And now they're called apostles because an apostle is a sent one. And in the case of biblical apostles, they're sent by God, by Jesus Christ. They were chosen by Jesus Christ, they were trained by Jesus Christ, and they were sent out with the ability to do signs and wonders. In the book of Acts and onward, we are told several times that one of the marks of a true apostle would be that they would be able to do signs and wonders. Different than what the Pentecostal movement is doing in our time, different than what the Antichrist will do when he comes on the scene. But the apostles here, the people needed to know how could they trust these men. As they're traveling from city to city and they would be strangers, there was no internet, so people from different regions wouldn't even know their names. who are these men and they're coming into our city and they're talking about jesus christ they're talking about the kingdom of god and the pharisees have been teaching us a completely different message and what these men are now teaching how do we know who we should believe and that's why they were given the ability to do signs and wonders so now in verse ten again it says when they were returned told him all that they had done And he took them and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. So disciples, as we read in the other Gospels, they've come back and they're quite excited about what happened. The things that they were able to do, the things that they experienced and so on. But Jesus here, he saw the need to take them aside. There was a need for him to take them aside. And as you read in the other gospels, he took them aside and he took them to a desert place where he could help them to evaluate what had taken place by their ministry in the different cities. They were very excited about certain things, but he needed to give them the right perspective on the things that were taking place. And that is always very important that we do that as we go through life for those that are Christians. And we face different things and we read and we hear about reports of people that go to a certain place, especially overseas, and they preach there and many people come to the Lord, at least that's what they claim. But then we need to take some time and we need to re-evaluate that and see what actually happened and what was the actual result of what took place. And the sad reality is today, That's not the case here with the apostles, but the sad reality today is that many of the people that go out and try to evangelize in other places follow a similar method to that of Jack Hiles, which is an easy believism, and they use an emotional type of preaching that will get the people to laugh when they want them to, and to cry when they want them to, and they can bring about, it's not that hard to make a person feel guilty about something because we're all guilty of sin at some time in our life. And so that's not that hard to do, but the solution, what's the solution to that? That's where the problem comes in. And unless you are getting the answers from the word of God, you're not gonna come out with the right result. And so the apostles here are in training. and they need to be reminded of what's going on and what is the permanent results of their labors. And we know from the Gospels that even though the disciples were quite successful on the outside with their ministry in this case, we know that the majority of the people that follow Jesus around were the same crowd that cried out, crucify him, crucify him. Jesus was not someone who used hype. He did not try to work on the emotions of the people. And yet, the people in general were very shallow in their thinking. And the disciples, the apostles, needed to understand that as well. Even though they were received in many of the cities, they were not received in the right manner. Outwardly, it looked good, but the real results were not what they had hoped for, but Jesus understood the nature of man. So the second point we have is the spiritual need of the people. So now in verse 11, Jesus, the disciples are still there, the apostles are still there, But now Jesus is going to turn to the people that have followed him. So even though Jesus took the disciples aside privately into a desert place, that didn't stop the people from following him. And of course, it's important to note here that they're in a desert place. They didn't go to the center of Toronto, where there's all kinds of stores where you can go and buy something. They went into a desert place where there's no water, there's no food, there's no shelter. and that's where the people are going. And that's the interesting thing that we find here, and we find in different times throughout history, that there are times where it seems that people are more hungry for spiritual things than at other times. We are finding in our time today that there is still a desire for spiritual things, but that desire is turning more to entertainment than it is to the word of God. And the Apostle Paul warns us of that, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. And that's where we're living today. So it's very difficult today to get people to come out to listen to sound preaching. But if you have some kind of entertainment, if you're bringing in some kind of a music group or something like that as your drawing card, you can get people to come out. But here it says the people when they knew it followed him and he received them. So even though Jesus took the disciples aside to help them. This was not an interference, an inconvenience for him as the people followed them. We noted that in Sunday school, that God is omnipresent. Jesus Christ being the eternal son of God, also omnipotent, I mean, also omnipotent, and what was happening here was not interfering with Jesus' plans. He had a plan for the disciples and there were things that they would learn as Jesus dealt with this crowd. So he received them and spake unto them of the kingdom of God. So Jesus' message here to the crowd is the same message that the apostles were told to preach to the people they would meet. And we noted there in verse 2 that it's called the kingdom of God and then we go down to verse 6 and it's called the preaching of the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel is good news. And in the book of Romans we are told that there's a specific gospel that we are to preach and that's the gospel of Christ. In today's world there's a lot of gospel preaching going on but it's not the gospel of Christ, it's not even good news. It's a message that has been concocted by smooth talking people who are good salesmen, but they're not good at telling the truth. So here, the kingdom of God, as we mentioned already, because Jesus told the disciples that they were only to go into the cities of Israel, they were not to go anywhere else. So the message that they had was a Jewish message. So the message of the Kingdom of God that they were to preach here is of the coming of the King. Now we know that when the wise men came looking for Jesus, they asked Herod, where is he that is born King of the Jews? So the wise men understood that there was a king coming, a king of the Jews that would come, and they expected that they would meet him, and they did. He didn't come as a king in his first coming. However, when he rode into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, he rode in presenting himself to the nation of Israel as a king. And the people were excited. And the Pharisees, they were not excited. They were bothered by what was going on. They didn't like what the people were doing with Jesus, and they told him to stop them. And he didn't, because they were right in worshiping him. So he came and presented himself as the king, but he knew before he came that they would not receive him as the king. In John chapter 1, we find there in verse 11, he came unto his own and his own received him not. They didn't receive him as a king. They didn't receive him as the Messiah. They didn't receive him as the Savior. They didn't even believe that he was the eternal Son of God. So here, his message is teaching them of the kingdom of God. So he's talking about the future here, about the millennium. The kingdom of God in the Bible can refer to many different aspects of God's rule, but because of the context here, the immediate context, he's talking to them about how things are going to be when he rules. And so as a part of that, as he's speaking to them, About the kingdom of God, it tells us here that he healed them that had need of healing. So once again, there is no restriction with Jesus when it comes to healing. And so we find the same thing in Jesus' command to the disciples in the beginning of this chapter. They were to cure diseases and they were to heal the sick in verse 2. and there was no restriction on that. Now today, we have individuals who advertise themselves as faith healers. We have some that are men and some that are women. They claim to be able to heal, but when they have their healing services, there are many people who never get healed. And of course, these fake healers Their answer to that is, well, you don't have enough faith and that's why you weren't healed and that's why that other person was healed because they had more faith. I had a brother, he's dead now, but he lived his life as a defeated man because he chose to believe the lies of the charismatic movement And he was trying to be a good charismatic, and he couldn't be it, and he was defeated all the time. And I told him, I said, you're going the wrong way, you're believing the wrong things. And I'd show him from the Bible, and he could see it, but he was not willing to give it up. And that's a sad thing, when people are willing to believe lies, and they're not willing to turn from their lies, and it gets them through life in a very defeated manner. There's no need for that. And Jesus here, the reason again that Jesus did all these miracles, because how would the people know who is the real Messiah? The Jews to this day reject Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And they have chosen different individuals. They had one a while back. He lived in New York. They had built him a house in Israel, and they were anticipating his return to Israel. He was an older man, and they believed that he was the Messiah. The sad thing is that before he could arrive in Israel, he had a stroke and died. Now, he wasn't the Messiah, but the Jews are so desperate, they want a Messiah, and for some reason, they assumed that this man was the man And they built him a house and everything, but it didn't work out because he's not the Messiah. And that's why when the Antichrist comes, the Bible says the Jews will embrace him. They'll be so excited about him because they are looking for a Messiah. The Jews, they have everything ready to build the temple. They have the priest's garments are all ready. I don't know for sure, but I believe they now have the ashes of the Red Heifer as well that they need for cleansing the temple when it's built. All they need is they need to have the permission to build the temple and get it up. And the Antichrist is going to give them that. And that's why they're going to embrace him, because he's going to do everything that the secular Jew expects of their Messiah. He's not going to do what the true biblical Messiah was prophesied to do, but they're not interested in that. They don't believe that they need a savior. They just want someone to give them back the glory days of King David. And they don't understand that the reason that David has such success as a king is because he walked in the fear of God. And the Jews are not doing that today. Mr. Netanyahu studies the Old Testament, but he doesn't accept Isaiah 53, and he doesn't accept the fact that he needs a savior, nor does his cabinet, and nor do many others in Israel, and that's their problem. So Jesus here was speaking to them about the kingdom, things about the kingdom that they needed to understand that would prepare them against the deception of the Pharisees. And in our generation, it would prepare them against the deception of the Antichrist. But again, most of the Jews are blindly following after the lies of their ungodly leaders. You have in Israel today and in New York in particular as well, other places as well, but New York has a very large Jewish population, and you have the Orthodox Jews. And you maybe have noticed on the news sometimes that you'll see Jews and they wear their particular hat and they have ringlets going down even on the men, and some of them have a long bit of a tail at the back of their hair. And you'll see them reading and they're reading like this, and that's an Orthodox Jew. You have to do this. You cannot stand there and read like this. And when we were in Israel, then we went to a synagogue and the Orthodox Jews there, it was like a zoo in there. I don't understand how anybody got anything from it. I didn't because they were speaking in Hebrew and I don't know Hebrew. But I don't know how they got anything from it, because there were Orthodox Jews around us, and they were standing and they were reading, and the guy at the front was talking, and up in the gallery were the women and they were talking. It was so noisy in there, I don't know how anybody got anything out of it. But that was their synagogue meeting. And that's why they're in such trouble, because they're not being taught, and they don't want to be taught. There are very few born again Christians in Israel. And I don't know how bold they are for the faith. When we were there, we met some that claimed to be born again, but they were very compromised. And I didn't meet anybody, any Jew, that was standing true on the word of God. Now, I'm hoping there are some. But we didn't meet any, and we went over there as an independent fundamental Baptist pastors, so that was our intent was to try to find some, but I didn't meet one. So, that's the problem. You have this vacuum. That's what we had here in the time of Christ. There was this spiritual vacuum because the Pharisees had been brainwashing the people for generations already and teaching them lies. And John the Baptist came along, and we know what the Pharisees did there. They wanted to have the people see them as their leaders. And so they wanted to be baptized by John, but they didn't want to follow John. And so John says, no, I'm not going to baptize you. He says, you got to give, show forth fruit, meet for repentance. And of course the Pharisees didn't want to do that. And so they hated John and they were quite happy when Herod had him beheaded. And that's why they hated Jesus as well, because Jesus did not go along with their games. Life is far too serious. us to be going along and deceiving people. It's far too serious for individuals to listen to deceivers, and yet most people are satisfied to do that. They're not interested in the truth. But the sad thing is, and the reality is, that when you die, you don't come back for a second chance. It's over. And so if you don't make the right decision, and not right decisions, if you don't make the right decision now, it's too late. And most people are not paying enough attention to that, very careless in their lives. And so we have in New Evangelicalism now, we have preaching that talks about God is the God of second chances. No. That's not true. God forgives sin. Yes, he does. But there are things that God has declared in his word that are important and imperative, and there is no other option besides following what he says. And that is not a difficult thing to do when a person is saved. For the lost, it's impossible. But for the saved person, and that's the interesting thing for me as a pastor in the churches that I've pastored, is in every church you find people who claim to be Christians but fighting against the truth. And those two things don't fit together. So the third thing that we see in this passage is the need for compassion. There was a need for the disciples to come apart. They needed to rethink and to think of things that were happening in their ministry from the biblical perspective. There was a need to teach the people about the kingdom of God, but there's also a need for compassion. You can teach people. You can give them the truth. But you have to also be aware of what's going on in their lives. Now, we as people are not mind readers. I'm not a mind reader. Jesus knew the thoughts of the people. So unless someone is going to tell me what's going on in their life, I really don't know what's going on. I can guess, sometimes I might be right, but sometimes I might be way off too. But there does need to be that opportunity for people to be able to express their needs, and we need to be willing to help them to meet their needs according to God's word. And so Jesus here, he taught the people, and not just for half an hour, not just for an hour, but all day. So it tells us in verse 12, it says, and when the day began to wear away, Then came the twelve and said unto him, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the towns and country round about and lodge and get victuals, for we are here in a desert place. Now stop and think about it just for a moment here. When Jesus sent the apostles, the disciples out earlier, he told them not to take anything with them. but to be dependent upon the people of the city they were going to, to feed them, to house them, and all the rest of it. Now here come all these people coming to Jesus, and the disciples are telling him, send them away. The exact opposite of what the disciples were to do when they went out. They were to be dependent upon the cities. And so these people coming to Jesus now, who should they be dependent upon? Jesus. They should be looking to him to meet their needs. Same thing for us today. We should be looking to Jesus to meet our needs. Does that mean that the local church should be a soup kitchen? No, doesn't mean that at all. But it does mean that we need to understand that everything that we have comes from God, and we need to trust in Him. And if there is a need, we need to seek to try to help people with that need. That's why in our church, we have a noon meal every Sunday, because we don't want anybody to think, I have to get home, I have to get this done. And if they're traveling a distance, we don't want them to think they have to go and find a restaurant somewhere. We want to feed them. And through that, also, if they have questions, try to help them with that. So it tells us here, the disciples, they see this multitude, and yeah, they didn't have the food along with them to feed them, but they didn't know who Jesus was. That's the problem. They had spent some time with Jesus already, but they didn't know who he was. And so Jesus was going to use this opportunity here to help them to see who he was and to also help these people to really get a better glimpse of who is this man that's been teaching us the kingdom of God all day. So in verse 13, it says, but he said unto them, give ye them to eat. And they said, we have no more but five loaves and two fishes. except we should go and buy meat for all this people. So the disciples, they knew what they had. They'd already been assessing the situation and they knew what they had, five loaves and two fishes. But what's that when you've got 5,000 men? It says in verse 14, how are you going to feed them with that little bit of food? But again, they didn't know Jesus. And so their only other solution was we got to go to town and buy some food. And where would they get the money to feed that kind of a crowd? The disciples were not rich people. Jesus owned the cattle on a thousand hills. It's not a problem. And that's why this whole thing was not a problem for him. But the disciples, they were limited, very limited. And so in verse 14 it says, for they were about 5,000 men and he said to the disciples, make them sit down by fifties in a company. So you notice here that Jesus doesn't tell the disciples in verse 14 to ask them to sit down. He says, make them sit down by fifties. So one of the things that we learn about God is he's a God of order. So he doesn't tell the people, just go and find yourself a place to sit. And you know how it is when you have a group of people together, and you might even tell them, here's where we're gonna have our meeting, but somebody wants to pull a chair off over on that side over there, or sit over here somewhere. People, we're not very quick at following instructions. There's always some people that want to do their own thing. They want to be in the perimeter of the thing that's going on, but they don't want to be actually in the midst of it. And so here, Jesus took control of this situation because he's God. And he says, make them sit down by fifties. So in groups of 50, now we've got an organized group of people. And now when the food is going to come, it's much easier to feed them when they're in these smaller groups. And so in verse 15, the good news here is that the disciples did what Jesus told them to do. And they did so and made them all sit down. People are usually, they're not that hard to manage unless you've got a protest going on. But generally speaking, if you have a group of people that come together for a certain purpose, it's not that difficult to manage them as long as you know what you're doing. The leader has to know what he's doing. And Jesus, of course, knew what he was doing. You can't let people have too much rope. You've got to keep them in your circle. You've got to be able to control things if you want to have success. And so in verse 16, it says, then he took the five loaves and the two fishes. So Jesus is in charge here. So he takes this food that is there. The disciples said, this is what we've got. And Jesus took that and it says, looking up to heaven. Where else would you look? You're not going to look out there. Whoever this food came from. You're not going to say, thank you very much for that food, even though you might do that. But ultimately, where does our food come from? Where is the source of our food? Where does the sunshine come from? Where does the rain come from? Where does the nutrients from the soil come from? And so Jesus did, which is proper for any Christian, he's acknowledging where does our supply come from. And so not only does Jesus do that with his words, but he looked up to heaven. He's outside. The whole crowd is outside. So he's looking up to heaven and he blessed these five loaves and the two fishes. Now again, Jesus did some things here that you and I can't do. If I had five loaves and two fishes and 5,000 people to feed, it wouldn't go very far. It would still be five loaves and two fishes. But I'm not Jesus, and I don't need to have that power. But Jesus here, again, keep in mind that he is proving to the people that he's the king. And if you think back in your Bibles to the Old Testament, when David received a blessing from the Lord, he divided that blessing amongst the people. And the people saw that the king was a very generous man and he was able to feed the people and send them home with more than what they came with. And that's what we have with Jesus when we turn to him for our salvation. We come to him with nothing. We come to God with nothing. But we leave with far more than we expected if a person turns to God for salvation and trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. They go away with far more than they came with. Because that's who Jesus is. That's what true biblical salvation is. That's to me what bothers me so much about New Evangelicalism. People who get involved in that and who follow that, they go away empty. Or they may have had an emotional high, but spiritually speaking, they've got nothing that they can hold on to. They've not been given anything of value. So why bother? And yet, that's what we do. We guide people. Here, go there, go there, go there. To what? We need to give them the truth. People need to be able to come away with something that will meet their need. And so here Jesus took these five loaves and two fishes and looked up to heaven. He blessed them and break them and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. So the disciples here are very involved in what's going on. These are the men that Jesus has chosen outside of, well, Jesus chose Judas, but Judas would not last. And Jesus knew that. But these are the men that were going to be the foundation stones that would continue the building regarding local churches in the Book of Acts and in the Epistles. These are the ones. There's no other ones. There's none besides them. There's no more after them. And so these men were involved and not just involved in standing in front of the crowd and preaching. Some people think that The preacher, you know, I want to be a preacher because I want to stand in front of people and talk to them. Well, there's more to preaching than standing in a pulpit and preaching, a lot more. And these disciples here, they would understand and they would see that there's more to meeting the needs of people than standing in front of them and teaching them. Now, teaching is very important. And that's why we find that Jesus spent all day teaching them about the kingdom of God. And the meal here wouldn't have taken that long, but it was important. And so he blessed them and told the disciples to set them before the multitude. And then in verse 17, it says, and they did eat and were filled. And that's important. Now I know that there are people who say, well, what God did here is he took away the appetite of the people so that they didn't eat very much. It doesn't tell us that because it tells us here in the end of verse 17 that they picked up 12 baskets full of food. So I don't believe that God stifled the appetites of the people so that they weren't hungry. I believe that he increased the food to feed them. And that's what happens with the Word of God. People can come together for a meeting, a church meeting, and there might be many people sometimes, there might be few people sometimes, but as the preacher preaches, he doesn't know what the need of every individual is. But the Word of God is able to meet the need of every individual in that service because it's the Word of God. And so the preacher doesn't need to know what you've done the past week, because he doesn't need to center you out. He just needs to preach the word of God. And as he preaches the word of God faithfully, and as I believe too, every time that someone walks into the doors of this building, it's because God led them here. There've been people that have come and said, I don't know why I came here today. And I said, I know why you came. because God wants people to know the truth, and he knows the need of that individual. And so Jesus broke the bread and gave it to the disciples, and the disciples took it and gave it to the people, and it says they were all filled, and there was taken up of the fragments that remained of them, to them, 12 baskets. 12 baskets. Now I guess we could start playing with numbers and say, well, the number 12, there was 12 disciples, so one basket for each disciple. But again, that's no indication here that that is what we're supposed to be doing. But it simply tells us that there were 12 baskets of food left over. And one of the things we learn as well about the word of God and the God of the word is that he's not wasteful. In today's world, You go to a restaurant and you go and you eat your meal and you see the table next to you and quite often people leave food over. Now you can get a doggie bag if there's more than you can eat and you can take and you can take it home and eat it later. But a lot of times that food is left on the plate and it goes back to the back and it gets scraped into a bucket and it goes into the waste. It's garbage. And there are a lot of hungry people that need food and don't get it because there's so much waste in our country. But the other side of that is there's so many people who need food, but they're also very fussy. And so they sue as soon as they have something they don't like and they think that it's made them sick or whatever. And so that's why you have that imbalance. I think back to the town that I grew up in, Ontario, Leamington, Ontario, where the Heinz factory was. And the Heinz factory, and you have a factory that's canning all kinds of different products. You're going to have some jars and some cans that are dented, and they're not fit to put on the store shelf because people want to have it looking perfect. And so they had what was called DNR. And so you were allowed, if you were a factory worker, you could go there and you could buy from that DNR store, and you'd get it at a great discount. It was a good place to go. And the Heinz factory would also, when they would take you through on a tour, and they would give you a sample of things that were in the factory. But over time, because people are so foolish, some people would complain about what they were given, and they would try to sue the factory, and so they quit that. And so everybody loses. Tim Horton's the same thing. Tim Horton throws away lots of donuts. They throw them away. And they used to give them out to places that fed the poor. But that was stopped again because of people claiming they got sick from this donut or that, whatever. And so we don't want to be sued, so we're not going to give them out anymore. So everybody loses in a situation like that. But here, in this account here, the people were not thinking that. They were not looking to get rich quick. They came to Jesus because they were hungry. They were hungry for spiritual truth. That's why they came. They liked Jesus' teaching. They didn't respect him as the king, but they liked his teaching. We read that in the scriptures, that they recognized that Jesus taught with authority. not like the scribes and pharisees. They could see the difference between Jesus' teaching and that of the scribes and pharisees. And so that was a good thing. But as the day wears on, as it is for us too, our bodies get hungry too. Their spirits were hungry. Jesus fed them what they needed for their spirits. They didn't take advantage of it at this point in their lives, but he gave them what they needed. But now he was also going to give them what they needed because they had to travel home. They couldn't just get in their car and turn the key and then drive home. If you have to walk a distance, it's tiring. And if you're hungry already, it's going to make you more. And you're coming from a desert here, so it's hot. So they have to be fed. And so Jesus met their needs here, their physical needs, and by taking up 12 baskets of leftovers, he is demonstrating as well the bounty that there is in his spiritual food. Far more. than we could ever digest. No matter how long a person lives, we will never be able to say, I've studied the entire Bible, I know the whole thing forwards and backwards, I can tell you everything there is in the Bible, I know it all. I know Jack Van Impey claimed to do that in many ways, but near the end of his life, he believed that the Pope was a God-fearing man, so tells you how little he knew about the Bible. But none of us can claim that we've got it all figured out. I'll tell you anything you need to know, because we don't know it all. But we need to be learning it. In Job chapter 23 and verse 12, we read there, it says, neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. That should be our attitude towards the word of God today. It should be of greater value to us than the food that we put in front of our faces three times a day. It should be that way. That should take greater precedence in our lives than that meal that we need. We need that food. I'm not saying we don't need it. But we should be more concerned about the spiritual food. And you know, it's a sad thing when we look at the book of Hebrews, it tells us that we should be gathering together more now than they did back then. And yet what we find is that we are meeting less today than they did back then. In Acts chapter two, the people got together daily for the apostles doctrine. We don't do that. But we should be because we are living in a time of great deception and most people are not prepared for it. Most people can't see what's going on. What's the impact of what's going on? How do we address what's going on? How do we prepare ourselves for what's going on? Most people aren't prepared for that, but they're also not hungry to know what to do. Yes, they claim hunger, so they go on the internet, they find some YouTube person, but they're not going to the local church where they can actually meet with the pastor and find out who he is and what he's all about and find out whether he's worth listening to or anything like that. You can't do that on YouTube. You can follow people who claim to believe this and that and the other thing, but you don't really know them. And unless you're going to really pay attention to what they're saying, you're bound to be deceived because that's what most of what is on there is about. So as we look at this passage here, Jesus here took the disciples and took them aside to help them to see the benefit, the real results of their time with the people. And then he taught the multitude that came and followed him. And then he fed them and showed the disciples. the bounty that there is in knowing the true God, the spiritual bounty that was pictured in that physical material bounty that was there with that food. So for us today, if you want an answer, you got to go to God. You need to know him. You need to want to feed on his word. And you're going to find that if that's what you're doing, if you're saved and you're feeding on his word, you're going to come away with more than you expected. And you're going to find that the next time you come, there's still going to be more that you need and more that you can have. And there's always going to be more because God is good and we are in need of his help. So I trust that each one that is listening that you are willing to receive that blessing that God wants for you today through his word, that you can know his peace and have his truth in your heart, and that you're not gonna predetermine what the truth is, but you're gonna let God be the truth, because he is the truth. So accept what he has to say and follow what he has to say. If you're not saved, get saved. know his peace in your heart, know his blessing in your life, and then help others to know the same. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we're thankful that we have thy word. We're thankful that we can study thy word. Thankful for thy son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was so compassionate, so patient, so willing to help the people, including the disciples, to understand who he was, and how necessary it was for the people to believe in him. Today as well, we need to know who the true Jesus is. We need to know that the true Jesus is able to meet all of our needs. We don't need no spin doctors, we need the truth. We're thankful that thy word is truth, and that if we know thee as our God and Savior, that we can walk in the truth, and we can be a help to others that they also might know the truth. So we pray that thy will would be accomplished in each one that's listening today, that each one would truly desire the truth that is in thy word and desire thy peace and blessing in their hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.