All right, there we go. Mark chapter number eight, better get into the preaching. Mark chapter eight, and there's more. And there's more, but not tonight. Mark chapter number eight. You've been a good crowd to speak to, so praise the Lord, thank you for staying awake and listening. We're in Mark chapter number eight. I have a title for the message, it's called No Hungry People. No Hungry People. So we're gonna read about a story, a true story, a true account, about physical hunger in the word of God here. And I believe it can symbolize, and we'll use it here to symbolize the spiritual hunger that many people in the world face. And what you'll notice is that Jesus didn't want any of these people to go hungry in the story. And if he didn't want them to go hungry for physical food, he certainly doesn't want anyone to go hungry for the bread of life. So we'll pick it up here in verse number one. Mark chapter eight, verse one. In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat. You get that? Nothing to eat. Jesus called his disciples unto him and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. There it is again. And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way. For divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him, from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, how many loaves have you? And they said, seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground and he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and break and gave to his disciples to set before them and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes and he blessed and commanded to set them also before them. So they did eat and were filled. And they took up of the broken meat that was left, seven baskets, and they that had eaten were about 4,000. and he sent them away. So this is the feeding of the 4,000. Two chapters before, we read about the feeding of the 5,000. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful again for your word, and we ask that it'll be a help, an encouragement, a blessing. I need wisdom, Lord. It's your word, and we want your people to hear what you want them to hear. And I ask, Lord, that you'd apply the truth to our lives, that we'd just be encouraged to do a little more for you, we pray in Christ's name, amen. So I want you to see, first of all, the compassion. There was compassion. And we find it here in verse number two. I have compassion on the multitude. Interesting. He didn't say I had compassion. Sometimes we're that way, right? I used to be a soul winner. I used to sacrifice and give. I had a burden. But he didn't say that. He said, I have compassion. And if we're lacking compassion, then we need to make sure that we look into our lives and get that resurrected a little bit, right? And so he saw the multitudes and not just the disciples that were around him, he saw the multitudes. And we have to start looking at the big picture of things and try to see the multitudes. That's the wonderful thing about a missions conference because we get refocused, don't we? We get dialed back in and, oh, this is what God has for us. We've gotta be remembering that there's a lot of other people around the world who need the Lord. And Jesus saw not only the multitudes, but he had seen how long they had been without food. It says there in verse two, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. There are places where there aren't churches. There's places in America that there aren't churches. There's a lot of places around the world where there are no churches. I remember talking to a pastor one time and he said, so what are you doing? I said, I'm a missionary to Zambia. And he said, we already have a missionary in Africa. And I thought, well, that's great. You asked me what I was doing. But what was he saying? We already have a missionary in Africa. Can I tell you how big Africa is? You can take the entire United States of America and Australia and Europe and fit it onto the continent of Africa. And so when we say we have a missionary in Africa, that's not gonna cut it, is it? That's not gonna cut it. There are people who have needs and see love sees the needs of others and it doesn't ignore. Jesus saw the multitudes. He saw that they had a great need. They were hungry and they had been without food for a while. There are people in this world who have been without the gospel for a long time and Jesus has compassion. And compassion does something about the needs. It's not just, oh, be warmed and filled. It does something. Is there a stirring in your heart? Someone's got to take those people to the gospel. Well, could it be you? Could it be you? True compassion sees and does something. Secondly, we see the condition. I already mentioned it there. in verse number one and at the end of verse number two, those three little words that say, nothing to eat. Nothing to eat. Right now, currently in Zambia, there's a terrible drought going on and the people haven't had good, they didn't have good rains last year so most of the people's crops that they planted failed and the food has been, there's been more of a shortage on food and what is there, the price has gone up. They rely on, you know, their wells are not filled. The electricity, most of the country's electricity runs off of a hydro plant, and the water in the dam is low. And most of the people only have, they're without power 20 to 21 hours a day. And I remember when we first got there in 2002, there was also a drought. And there was real hunger. There really was, there was real hunger. One day there was a lady, it was raining out. The rainy season had started, but it was going to take a while before the crops grew. She came to our gate at our place and we're thinking, what does she want? It's raining out. She's got a baby strapped on her back. And come to find out, she wanted to work that day. She wanted to come and see if there's any kind of work that we had for her. She'd rake leaves, do whatever. She just wanted to do some work. She needed enough money for food for that day. She was hungry. She had a family to feed. No, we did not make her work out in the rain. We gave her a little bit of food. We gave her a little bit of money and sent her on her way. We never saw her again. She just needed something for that day. They were hungry. My wife one day went to a house and they were eating rats. You say, I would not eat rats. I'll tell you when you get hungry enough you'll eat what you can find. The Bible says to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. And so that same house not that day I don't believe but that same house There was a boy from that house that was coming to the Sunday school class. His name was Loy. About 14 years old, and my wife was with some ladies. We had just gotten there. We hadn't even studied the language. Most of the people, many of the people could speak English, especially the bigger towns, most people could speak English. But some of the young people and some of the rural people and some of the ladies who might not have had as much education would speak a local language. Well, this 14-year-old boy came up and just started, you know, saying a bunch of words, and then the only word my wife heard was, Bible-ay. Can you guess what that one was? Yeah, Bible-ay, Bible-ay. And so my wife's thinking, so she looks, she recognized that one. She asked, was he asking for a Bible? And they said, no. He wants you to come to his house and teach him the Bible. OK. So, they went to the house. They sat down and shared the gospel with Loy. Remember, this is the house that they're eating rats, physical hunger. Here's a young boy who's got spiritual hunger. And she got to lead him to the Lord that day. And he loved coming to Sunday school. He loved coming to Sunday school. Well, let me just fast forward. Time came, we're having a baptism. He wanted to get baptized. He had a little bit of doubts of assurance of salvation. We got that all cleared up. He got baptized. And then remember coming into town one day, Thursdays was our day for soul winning there in the town of Pemba. So we got there in Pemba on Thursday and they said, pastor, just so you know, Loy has malaria, he went to the clinic. Okay, thank you, we'll be praying for you. And Loy ended up with cerebral malaria and Loy passed away. Fourteen years old. See, physical hunger is nothing compared to the spiritual hunger. There's millions of people out there, as we mentioned in the verse this morning, that are without a preacher. And actually, that's the verse in Romans 10 that God used to call me to missions. I was sitting in my study, Pastor, I was sitting in my study, I'm studying, I'm getting ready to preach, you know, getting a message together, and God just breaks my heart and said, there are millions of people out there who have nobody, tell them. And I'm sitting there thinking, here I am in America, and sometimes I get up and preach and the people don't even want to hear what I've got to say. And there's people out there who want to hear, what am I doing here? And God said, You're going somewhere else. Lord use that. People are without a preacher and they need to have the bread of life. What a shame. What a shame. We had a lady named Bainbridge. She came to church and visited and So if someone comes to church, we always go back and follow up and visit. So my wife and some of the other ladies went to follow up, this is in the town of Monsey now, so they go to see Bainbridge. And my wife said, so, and she started to go through the gospel with her, and she says, well, I've already done that. My wife said, so when did you do that? She said, well, she pulls out a tract. Somebody from the church gave it to my husband, and he didn't want it, he gave it to me. I read it, and I did what it said to do in there, and I came to church because of that, and now you're telling me about this, and I've done that. Praise the Lord. Here was someone out there, so tracts, by the way, do work. And she had a spiritual hunger. The condition, there are people, I'm gonna tell you, there are people out there who have nothing to eat. And Jesus wants no hungry people. So we see the compassion, we see the condition, nothing to eat. Now we see thirdly the caution. The caution in verse number three says and if I so Jesus speaking if I send them away fasting to their own houses they will faint by the way they will faint by the way. Now with this physical hunger if they had to travel without food and they've been without anything to eat for three days by the way you'd be hungry by then. and not have enough strength and energy. And this is because some came from far. They came from a long distance. They were going to faint. They were going to just kind of pass out on the way home. He didn't want that to happen. But worse than fainting physically is people fainting spiritually. And God's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. People need the word of God. People need to hear before they pass away. I was with, going back to the church at Pemba, I was with one of the men in the church, and he says, Pastor, there's a man not far from the church here, he's sick, and I think we should go witness to him. Let's go. So we went to visit Mr. Peary, and Mr. Peary, sure enough, Really, he was not far from the church at all, and he was sick. And he was suffering from tuberculosis, which is a highly contagious airborne disease. So, what do you do? He's got TB. I got the Bible. So, what do you do? I sat right next to him, opened my Bible, and showed him the gospel. Say, what would have happened if you caught TB? Well, I was hoping I wasn't going to catch TB. I'm glad I did share the gospel with Mr. Peary. Mr. Peary made a decision that day. The next day, he went to the clinic. A couple days later, he went to heaven. Hungry people need to eat. I wonder how many people like Mr. Peary are out there waiting for someone to come and bring them the gospel. But there's no missionaries to go. We need young people. We need, again, not so young people to say, here am I. You want an exciting life? Go to the mission field. You want to see God work? You want to see answers to prayer? You want to see miracles? Go to the mission field if God's called you. And don't be afraid of God calling you. You say, but you talked about snakes. Yeah, I got some cool stories. Right? And so you're not going to have those stories unless you have some trials to go through. And you can talk about how good the Lord is. And so the caution is we need to reach these people before it's too late, because it's too late for many people. I remember now going to another town, town of Chisokessi. We were out witnessing, most of the time, you just walked around, passing out tracks, walking to where you're going to go in these villages and small towns. And so we were walking toward our visit. And then my soul winning partner says, Pastor, there's a man here in this house that's sick. They would say, he's a patient. We usually think of a patient as someone in the hospital, but he's a patient. So I said, OK, well. So we went. And we went to talk to him. And so we said, hodi. And that's how you knock on the door. You don't knock on the door. You just hodi. And someone comes out. And so he says, yeah, we're here. We heard so-and-so is sick. We were here to see him. And it was the son who came out. And he said, he died today. It was too late. It was too late. Again, how many people are out there perishing? And you don't have to go overseas to find people who are perishing. People you know, relatives, coworkers. I found this out, people don't wait for you to give them the gospel before they die. They're going to die. It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this, the judgment. We see Jesus has compassion and he does something about it. He doesn't want them to perish. He doesn't want them to faint. He wants them to have enough food in their bellies. He wants them to be satisfied. So we pick it up here in verse number four. And his disciples answered him from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, how many loaves have ye? And they said, seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and break and gave to his disciples to set before them. And they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes and he blessed and commanded to set them also before them. Now look what it says there in verse number eight. So they did eat and what? Were filled. Oh, you starting to see it here? You starting to see it here. So we see the command. The command was the Lord told him to, he told the people to sit down. He told the disciples to, uh, to take the food, to take the bread and give it to the, to the people. Hold your finger and just turn back to chapter six. We'll look at the idea of the feeding of the 5,000. Chapter six, verse number 37, look what he told them, a very similar scenario here. In verse 37, and he answered and said unto them, give, ye them to eat. It's basically what happened here in Mark 8. But give ye them to eat. So God wanted his people to give bread to the hungry. Could we apply those words to us tonight? Give ye them to eat. Shouldn't we be giving people the bread of life and feeding the hungry people? God wants his people to give the gospel to hungry people, and when they receive it, they'll be filled. Isn't that a blessing? Isn't it a blessing to see and hear about people who are getting saved? Don't you get excited when you hear about people getting saved? And people do get saved. We just have to keep on sowing the seed. We have to keep on sending out missionaries. We have to keep sending out church planners. We have to keep doing what we can. You say, this is a big job. It is a huge job, but could you imagine if every local church did their job? We might start reaching the world. They were filled. And Jesus wants everybody to be filled. But not everybody has eaten. So, back to the town of Moseley. We were out on a dirt road. Most of the roads are dirt roads, anyway. Unless you've got the main road going through the town. Most, most, most, anyway. So, we're out on the, on the side road, and if you went one way, it takes you back toward town. You take the other way, it takes you, I mean, mile after mile after mile after mile out to, I have no idea, because it's so far out there. I'd never traveled that far down, because I had so much work where I was. And we were passing out tracks, and you know, neat thing, you know, If a guy's riding by on a bicycle, sometimes I'd just reach it out and they'd grab it and take it. One guy stopped, and that wasn't uncommon either, but this particular guy stopped and took the tract and says, what's this? And I told him, Majuia Leza, which means the word of God. And you know, do you read Tonga or Chinguisi, which is English? And so I'd have the track for whichever one, right? And so he said, we, you haven't been to our village. So he had been, he had rode his bike for three hours to come to town. And on the back of his bike, I mean, they use their bikes like pickup trucks. He's got these two huge bags. It's two or three. I can't remember exactly. But two or three huge bags of charcoal. But it's homemade charcoal. So they would take trees, cut them down, and they would build these big pits. And they would make charcoal. And it would kind of like partially cook. the trees, and then they'd break it up, and you'd get these big lumps. And obviously, it cooled down. It didn't burn burn. It would kind of smolder anyway. So they would bring it to town. They lived out in the rural areas. They would bring it to town, sell that stuff, and get enough money for soap, cooking oil, or whatever, and then ride three hours back and have what he needed for home. And he said, we need churches, too. When are you going to come to our village? It's like three hours. You know how many villages there are along the way? I have no idea. Who knows what village, where, what? You know what I'm saying? And it hit me. Here's a guy. We need churches, too. So who's going to go there? On my survey trip, I remember telling you, I think it was this morning, I went and looked at all sorts of different towns. One of the towns I went to is Mamba, which is kind of down in the valley. It's really hot down there. we went out to find Chief Mwemba. Chief Mwemba was in charge of all the villages in that area. And we found Chief Mwemba, he had us sit down and we witnessed to him. He said, if you come, we will give you land and you can build churches here in Mamba. God didn't lead me to Mamba, but as far as I know, there's still no missionaries been to Mamba. So who's going to take the gospel there? So God doesn't want hungry people, but there are. I say all this, I guess, I don't know why I'm saying all this, but maybe it's to say this. When we start thinking we've done enough, think again. I think maybe the other reason, maybe the Lord put this on my heart is, we need more missionaries. I teach the missions classes at Fairhaven Baptist College, and I'm not plugging necessarily for that college, but just the fact that this, here's the fact. I remember when I was in college, there were a lot of people going on the mission field. And now, there are not a lot of people to study in missions. In fact, the dean of students from our college, God called him to missions. I think he's 50, 51 years old. You say, that's old for going to the mission field. Well, if no one else is going. I know a guy who's on deputation right now going to Poland. He's been pastoring, and God called him to Poland. 58, 57, or 58. And some of these guys, one or two of these guys have told me, you know, pastors are telling them that there's a lot of older men going into missions. I'm thinking, why? You know why? Because the young men aren't going. Young men aren't going. They want to make money. And we need some young ladies who will say, here am I, send me. I'll tell you, I'm so thankful for my wife. Now, if you would meet her, she's a very refined lady, and you would not think that this lady's out there killing spitting cobras. All right. Yeah, you can read about, if you get the Adventures in Africa book, yeah, you'll read about her and a drunk man. She won. Yep, I'll just say this, if you ever meet her with an umbrella, be careful. That's all I'm gonna say. She never would have thought she was going to Africa. When I told her, I said, the Lord's called us to Africa, she said, well, where thou goest, I will go. Thy people will be my people. She faithfully served the Lord there. We need some people who will just say, Lord, you don't want hungry people. I know not everyone can go. I know that, I know that. We can pray. I challenged you the other night on that. We can give. and we can try to witness the people around here. And if we can do our part, that's all we can ask, remember? This generation can only reach this generation. So God's will, is that everybody should be fed. He wants everyone to hear the gospel. He commanded the disciples, that's us, to give the people something to eat. Can we do that? Yes, we can. They gave him what they had, which wasn't much. It was seven loaves and a few fishes. And what did God do? He blessed that little and turned it into much. He said, I don't have much. You don't have to have much. That's the beautiful thing. He said, what am I? Just like me, nothing, a nobody. But when you give your life to God and you give your substance to God, God can take that and multiply that and do tremendous things. That's an exciting life. That's a fulfilling life. I will be honest with you. Our time in Africa was the hardest time in our lives. But let me tell you this, it was the most rewarding time in our lives, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. You say, but you almost died four times. Yep, and I didn't enjoy any of them. But I can look back and say, thank you, Lord, that I got to go. Jesus saw the needs of the multitudes and so should we. Let's bow our heads.