The Real Food and Drink (DCLC – July ’86, Part 2)

Brothers and sisters, you’ve had enough application to keep you busy forever. I am here this week to bring your eyes to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father within Him. That’s all I want you to see. Now then, as I tell this story, I want you to try to find this Christian living the Christian life by means of someone who lives within Him. And this is a remarkable period of time. You can really appreciate this God of ours, this Lord of ours. This is about, other than the period of His passion, the period of the crucifixion; this is about the most intense day He ever lived. It’s a day that goes into the night. It’s a sleepless night, and it’s all the next day, and there are people packed around them. It is a day of enormous dynamic stress and so forth.

Now, on page 74, and I’m at the top, where it says 5,000 are miraculously fed. This is in Mark 14, Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6, the only story in the New Testament that was covered in all four gospels. Alright, here we go.

They just came back; 12 men have come back from going out preaching in pairs, and the Lord greets them. They share with one another. He says, “You’ve been out. You’ve been working hard. Rest.” And immediately, we see that the Lord Jesus, at this moment, somehow recognizes the need for rest. And we’re talking very physically here. He gets in a boat with His 12 brothers. They’re going across the Sea of Galilee, and they’re going to Bethesda, but the people figure this out, and they come pouring out of the towns to follow Him, and they are doing this and listening to this very carefully. It states clearly why they are going. Motive, because He heals sick people and because He gives miraculous signs.

He steps out of the boat. He’s been on a mission. His six groups of two have been on a mission; they were going to rest, but now this God of ours steps out of that boat, and He is filled with compassion. Now I’m going to tell you something right quick. This is strange. This is odd. This is inexplicable. This Lord of yours at this moment is filled with compassion. You feel His compassion, you feel those people coming up there, and you just feel like one of them, and you feel so good about His loving you. And you’re one of those people in the crowd, and it’s incredible, but He’s going to face the same crowd tomorrow, and He’s going to be ticked off with Him. He is going to be angry with them, the same group of people; the compassion will have left.

Now, isn’t that interesting? Same God, same Lord. Are you following me? Alright, we’re moving along. He sees us standing out there, pressing and joining Him as sheep with no shepherd. And He is a shepherd. He talked to them about the kingdom, and if there was anybody there who needed to be healed, He healed them. He’s still concerned about these people. It’s getting late. It’s kind of beginning to get dark. He talks to His disciples. How many messages have been preached out of this? They have already figured out there’s no food around. They’re telling the Lord to send them home, let them go find lodging way out in the middle of nowhere. They’ve walked for miles; they’ll never get home. They’re hungry. Let them go buy food. And the Lord says, “Let’s feed them.” They said, “Well, Lord, it takes a fortune to feed these people.” And He said, “What do we have here?” Now, are you listening? We’re looking at the life of a Christian lived one day; by what means is He living the Christian life? Alright, are you with me? That’s all I want you to think about. I’m telling the story, but you think about this. By what means?

Now then, He knows they’re hungry. He asks, “What do we have?” They tell Him, “Five loaves, two fishes.” And then He says, “Bring them to me. Bring them to me.” Then He sits everybody down in lines of 50. And then He looks into the heavens, He blesses the bread, He passes it out, and 5,000 men eat. And these chauvinists didn’t even count the women. There were women who got fed and children, but whoever wrote it didn’t even bother to count the women. Terrible. This is very late in the day now. He is being pressed upon by these people to be made king. He grabs His disciples quickly and hurriedly, and He says, “Get in that boat and get out of here.” And He turns to the crowd who would try to make Him king, and He dismisses them, and He sends them home. And He goes up into the mountain alone to pray, and He is alone praying, and we don’t know how He prayed up there, and we don’t know what He did, and we don’t know how He did it. Are you with me? This is quite a day for a Christian. Would you not agree?

Well, it’s not evening. It’s dark, and they’re out in a boat, and a Christian is about to try something that’s never been tried before. He walks up to that shore, and He steps out on it, and He begins to walk. And I am not talking about Simon Peter. I’m talking about another Christian. This is the first Christian. He’s walking out there. Simon Peter sees Him, and I’ll love Simon Peter for this forever. I hope, I hope I would have been like him. Impetuous, bold, half crazy. Even if I have sunk like a rock. That is so beautiful; Simon Peter getting out of that boat saying, “Lord, I’m coming.”

It is nighttime; it is in the middle of the night. And of course, He picks Peter up out of the water, and the wind stops blowing, and they fall down in front of Him and say, “Lord, you are the Son of God.” Now they have lost an entire night’s sleep by the time they land in the land of Gennesaret. Now then, the writer who tells us this story jumps ahead and tells us what the following weeks are going to be, and I’m going to read these to you because it’s incredible. This is what happens in the weeks to come. Then he’ll drop back and pick up his story. I’m on page 77. In every place He entered, in villages, cities, or the countryside, they kept laying the sick in the marketplace and begging that they might only touch the border of His garment, and as many as touched it were made completely well. Every place He entered, in villages, cities, or in the country, they poured out of everywhere to just touch Him. Now, if you turn to page 79 (The Life of Christ in Stereo, by Johnston M. Cheney, available on Amazon), we find the author dropping back again and telling us about the next day. It’s the next day, He’s tired, He’s had no sleep. He had a day yesterday that was enough for anybody. Are you following me?

How is this Christian living the Christian life? Somebody’s tried to make Him king. He’s walked on water. He’s healed the sick. He went away to rest and got some rest. He wanted to spend time with His disciples and didn’t. He has fed 5,000 people – and this is no small feat. He did all that one day and then didn’t sleep all night. It’s the next day. Somewhere or other here, in a very complex statement, the people find out where He is. They don’t know how He got there because they know He didn’t leave in a boat. No, I want you to listen to this change in His tone completely. They said, “How’d you get here?” And listen to Him. “Verily, verily, I say to you, you seek Me…”

Now, why did they seek Him yesterday? Because of healing and signs. And He had what? Compassion, right. There are the same people coming to Him today. How’d you get over here? He looks up and He skips their question completely. He’s noticed something, and He’s addressing it. And He says, “Verily, very verily, I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the food which abides unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, for on Him has God the Father placed His seal.

Now, a totally different attitude, would you not agree with that? What has happened? There was nothing wrong with yesterday’s motives. They needed healing, and they were, and He was performing signs, and they were impressed, but brothers and sisters, today they are looking for Him because He gives out free meals. That is absolutely correct. Isn’t it amazing how different we will change?