John 6, John 6, 1 through 15. Let's hear the word of the Lord. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain And there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat? He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, there's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? Jesus said, have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, So the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. May God add His blessing to the reading and preaching of His Holy Word. Let us pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we've read Your Word, and in this Word You bring us back in history to a great incident in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was a day like no other day. Help us to see on that day the power and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ as he broke the bread and all the people ate their fill and gained strength for the day. May your word today also strengthen us. We pray in Jesus' holy name. Amen. God's people have always been in great need. You remember the book of Genesis when Jacob and his sons were starving in Canaan. because of lack of rain, Yahweh sent them down to Egypt to find food. 400 years later, they had ended up and became slaves in Egypt. They were under oppression and difficulties and God sent Moses and Aaron and brought deliverance to them and they escaped from Egypt. They went out, they came to the Red Sea and their way was blocked. And Pharaoh's army was thundering down behind him in his chariots. But God opened up the Red Sea. And they went through on dry land. And the water came down and drowned the whole Egyptian army. So they escaped safely to the other side. They were in great need. But God came to their deliverance. Well, they weren't out. They went out into the wilderness. God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai. And then they went out into the wilderness, wandering toward the promised land for 40 years. And before long, their water ran out and their food ran out. So they began to complain to Moses about their hardships. They said, we wish we were back in Egypt. At least we had food to eat and water to drink. Moses went to the Lord. The Lord told him what to do and so he took the rod that he held over the Red Sea and it opened up and God told him to strike the rock with the rod and the water poured out to quench their thirst and water their animals. And here they are out there in this desert wilderness in the dry sand and the wind and their food ran out. Now this is a great mass of people, probably about three million people. We can imagine their little ones were crying. They were hungry. Their parents were probably beginning to panic. Are our children going to starve to death out here in this wilderness? And so in their desperation, they cried out to Moses, why did you bring us out in this desert to starve to death? We had onions and leeks and meat pots and Egypt. So Moses prayed to God. And this is what happened. Dew came down upon the camp. And when the dew, I'm reading here from Exodus 16, when the dew had evaporated, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flaky thing like frost. When the people saw it, they said to one another, what is this? They didn't know what it was. Moses said, it's the bread that Yahweh has given you to eat. And so the Lord commands you to go out and gather up as much as you can for your household. As many people as in your tent. And so they did it. And they measured it with an omer. I didn't look up how much an omer is, but it's probably a half a bushel or something. And so they gathered up and everybody had enough. And Moses said, don't leave any till morning. And they called it manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and taste of it was like wafers made with honey. And Moses said, this is what Yahweh said, take an almirah of it and Put it in the Holy of Holies and it will be a remembrance to you that I fed you in the wilderness those 40 years. That's what they did. They put it in a jar, the manna in a jar. And they put it inside the holy tent. And so the people of Israel ate manna for 40 years till they came to the inhabitable land to the border of Canaan. So here we see again the people of God were in great need and Yahweh abundantly met that need. The manna that came down from heaven was a very tasty and a versatile food. It could be boiled or baked or fried. So the people had a great need and Yahweh supplied that need. So this incident from Exodus 16, it's also in Numbers, is the background for what happened this day on the mountainside 1,300 years later. Jesus went up on the mountain and taught a large crowd of people. There were 5,000 men with their families. And what Jesus did on the mountain that day is recorded in all four of our Gospels. This shows us what a significant event it was. It was a great event. Nothing like it had ever happened before. The coming down of manna was a great event, but this was a different kind of event. And nothing like it has ever happened since. Well, what did happen? Let me tell the story here from the scriptures. It was the spring of the year. Now we know this because verse four says it was Passover. The Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. And the Passover is always in the spring, in March, April. And verse 10 says there was much grass in that place. So when are the hills green with grass in Palestine? It's in the spring. After the cold winter is over, before the hot summer comes, the grass is green. Well, verse 1 says, He went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, or the Sea of Tiberias, same place, two different names. What is the Sea of Galilee? It's a large inland lake. And I think I read it's actually the lowest lake in the world of its size, below sea level, a couple hundred feet or so. It's 13 miles long, it's eight miles wide. So Jesus was with his disciples, and they went to the other side, which would be the western side. But Jesus and his disciples were not alone. as was often the case, there was a great crowd of people following them, and there was a reason they were following Jesus. It was because of what verse 2 says, because of the signs he was doing on the sick. In other words, they saw him healing many sick people, and casting out demons, and they wanted to see more of these signs. They wanted to see what's going on with this prophet from Nazareth. Some of their motives may have been out of their own desperation, their own need for healing. Perhaps others just wanted to see something spectacular or unusual. But we should not miss the point that there was real healing going on. People were being healed. He is performing acts of healing. These were signs. They were pointing to something. that this man is no run-of-the-mill prophet. He is an unusual prophet. He's a great prophet of Yahweh God. Even Nicodemus acknowledged that in chapter 4. He said, Teacher, nobody can do these signs that you're doing unless God is with him. For example, we read at the end of John chapter 4 that he healed the official's dying son by pronouncing him healed from 25 miles away at like 1.30 in the afternoon, and that's when he was healed. Chapter 5 of John, we read of the paralytic who'd been paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus told him, take up your bed and walk. What did he do? The scripture says, John 5, 9, at once he was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. So these were no small miracles in themselves. They were spectacular miracles. They were messianic miracles. They were messianic signs. One day, when Jesus was in his hometown of Nazareth, he went in the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. They handed him the scroll that was being read, Isaiah. He opened it up to chapter 61, and he began to read. And I quote here. This is what Jesus read to the people. The spirit of Yahweh is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. He rolled it up and he sat down and he says, He says, he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. So Jesus read to them what Isaiah said would be true of the Messiah, the anointed one of God, when he arrived in human history. And he was telling the people in his hometown, the one that Isaiah was reading about, I'm that one. Well, they didn't appreciate that. They didn't believe it. But the acts of healing that he was doing were indications, they were signs that he was the one that Isaiah was talking about. Now, in those days, large crowds of people would move through the countryside. during the great festivals of the Jews three times a year. This was the Passover season. So these great crowds were going to Jerusalem to worship. Some of these crowds may have detoured when they heard that Jesus was nearby and they went to see Jesus because they had heard of what he was doing. They wanted to see some of these signs So here's this great crowd. They were following him. And he went up on a mountain, apparently, to give his disciples some rest. But they were discovered. Now the mountain was probably the Golan Heights on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Now, I believe it's in southern Lebanon. just north of present-day Israel. Well, here's the situation. I want us to look at it in four parts today. First of all, the overwhelming need. Secondly, the meager supply. Thirdly, the abundant provision. And fourthly, the inescapable conclusion. So first of all, let's think about this overwhelming need. The crowds had discovered the whereabouts of Jesus. Jesus and his disciples were up on the mountain, so they began to walk up the mountain. Jesus must have spotted them first, coming up the mountain. In anticipation of what was going to happen, realizing they were out in the wilderness, no villages were nearby, he asked Philip, it says in verse 5, where are we to buy bread? so that these people may eat. Verse 6 says this, Jesus said this to test him, to test Philip, for he himself knew what he would do. Well, even as God had used the great patriarchal prophet Moses to announce to the people how Yahweh would feed them in the wilderness by raining down manna every morning, so Jesus as the greater second Moses would also feed the people that day in a miraculous way. Not by manna appearing in the morning, but by the multiplication of the bread and fish. So I think what we see here is Jesus' own messianic awareness. He knew the Old Testament backwards and forwards. He knew about Moses and the provision of the manna. He knew that he was appointed Not only to provide bread for the people on this day, but as we will read later on in John chapter 6, he himself was the true spiritual bread who had come from heaven to meet the spiritual needs of those who would partake of him and who would believe in him. Now there were 5,000 men here. As I mentioned, all four Gospels record this, so the number is irrefutable. But they were not alone. They had their families with them because they were traveling to Jerusalem. Many of them would take their families. So there were probably 20,000 people, conservatively, gathered here on the mountain. And so Jesus is asking Philip, how are we going to feed all these people? And Philip's answer was, well, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little. Well, what's a denarii? A denarii is what a man would earn one day as a laborer at that time. So 200 denarii would be 200 days of labor. So Phillips says, if we had 200 denarii here, it wouldn't be enough to give everybody a little bit, to give everybody a bite. So they had an overwhelming need to feed these people. Have you ever had an overwhelming need that looked impossible? I think all of us have. Sometimes our needs are overwhelmingly great and our resources are meager. But there's a man on the mountain. His name is Jesus. He's in heaven. He's our great high priest. Well, tremendous need. And there's this meager supply to meet the great need. Is there no way to feed all these people? But Andrew comes up and he says, who was Simon Peter's brother, he says, there's a boy here. He's got five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? Well, what's a barley loaf? Barley was the grain that the poor people used to make their bread. So these were five humble loaves of bread. And as Professor D.A. Carson points out, these fish may have been not big trout, but little sardines, pickled. They were eaten with the bread, so they were maybe very tiny fish, and five barley loaves. How do you feed 20,000 people with this small amount of feed? An overwhelming need and meager supply. There's a principle here, a universal truth, and I only want to give you the first half of the truth. Here's the first half. Humanity is always in great need. So if you're in great need today, don't feel alone. This has certainly been the history of the Hebrew people. As I mentioned before, Jacob and his sons were starving in Palestine until they traveled to Egypt to escape the famine. Israel was starving in the desert until God rained manna from heaven. He did it for 40 years. And then another situation here in John chapter 6. on the mountain. People were following Jesus. They walked up the mountain. And they actually spent the whole day there. He taught them all day long. We read in Matthew's account, chapter 14, verse 15, his disciples were telling him, the day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. So there's this overwhelming need up on a mountain. It's a desolate place. The hour was late. The crowd was great. The people were hungry and tired. The disciples had almost nothing to feed them with. But let's consider this, the abundant provision. Let's look what happened. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they'd eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments, and that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments. Jesus took the bread in His hands and He prayed. He gave thanks to the Father. What did He pray? Well, someone suggested He may have prayed the ancient Hebrew prayer that goes like this, Blessed are You, O Yahweh our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth. Well, as the Son of God, He was not independent of His Father. But He was always in communion with His Father. He was always in dependence upon His Heavenly Father. He said in John 5.30, I can do nothing on my own. If Jesus had to pray in such circumstances to His Father, how much more do we need to pray in our circumstances? And look at the abundant provision that God provided. Verse 11 says, they ate as much as they wanted. Verse 12 says, when they had eaten their full. Mark's Gospel says, they all ate. All 20,000 of them. And were satisfied. Well, I want to give you now the second half of the equation that I had given you earlier. And that is that humanity is always in great need. Here's the second half. But Christ is abundantly able to meet those needs. And it happened that day. on the mountainside. There was a feast on the mountainside that day. The people were tired. They were hungry. They were far away from any place to buy food. But Jesus Christ fed them well. They were fully satisfied. They received the sustenance that they needed. So they ate their fill. And then Jesus told his disciples to gather up the fragments. that nothing may be lost. Christ had done a great miracle. The bread was multiplied by an act of God, and the leftovers were not to be wasted. So the leftovers were gathered up into 12 baskets. Not a coincidence, we're sure, because there were 12 tribes of Israel. So when Christ does something for his people, it's to be received and used and not wasted. So there was this overwhelming need, this meager supply, the abundant provision of the Lord Jesus, and now we come to the inescapable conclusion. It says in verse 14, when the people saw the sign he had done, They said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. What were they talking about? They were referring to the prophecy in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 18, that Moses gave the people. And this is what the prophecy said. important prophecy in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 15 the Lord your God will raise up for you speaking to the people a prophet like me Moses is speaking from among you from your brothers it is to him you shall listen and that in verse 18 of Deuteronomy 18 I'll put my words in his mouth he shall speak to them to the people all that I command him Moses, the great honored patriarch of the Jews, said, somebody's going to follow me. There's going to be a prophet like me. And when he comes on the scene, you need to listen to him. You need to hear him. The people said, this is a prophet. This is a prophet who is to come into the world. They were absolutely right. They hit the nail on the head. The sign of the feeding of the multitude on the mountainside was an inescapable sign, an irrefutable sign that this was no common prophet in their midst, but this was a man who had been sent from God, who was in vital touch with the living God. The people recognized who he was. The leaders in Jerusalem did not recognize who he was. They refused to recognize that this was indeed the prophet whom Moses had prophesied would come. Now, we should not underestimate the importance of these signs, the works of power that Jesus did. The book of John speaks of these signs. Some of these important signs that Jesus did. Was Jesus really the son of God? Was he really the prophet that Moses spoke about? Was he really the one who had come from heaven to reveal God to humanity and to take some of these sinful humans with him into the presence of God by dying for their sins? Who is this Jesus Christ? How important were the works of Christ for the verification of his identity of who he really was? Listen to what Jesus said about this question. John chapter 10, verse 36. Do you say of him, Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming? Because I said, this is Jesus speaking, I said, I am the Son of God. If I'm not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. What is Jesus saying here? He's saying, if you don't believe me when I tell you that the Father sent me into the world, when you don't believe me when I tell you that I'm the Son of God, look at what I'm doing. Look at my works. They are testifying to who I am. As sane and logical persons, you cannot refute the evidence. If you're out in the country, After it's been raining and the roads are muddy, and you see wagon wheel tracks in the road, what do you know? You know that a wagon has passed by. If you see hoof prints in the mud, you know that a horse has gone by. Now, it would not be a cow. A cow has cloven hooves split. A horse is completely round all the way. So the evidence tells the story, tells the truth. So if a man goes around healing people of every kind of disease and affliction, if he delivers people from demon powers If he walks on the water if he calms storms on the Sea of Galilee if he raises dead people back to life if he feeds 5,000 men with their wives and children on only five barley loaves and two fish Then who is this man? Isaiah 42 gives the answer verse 1 Behold your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. Who did all these things? Jesus of Nazareth did all these things. He walked back and forth across Judea and Galilee. for at least three years doing all these signs. These miracles were continually happening. How do you explain them? How do you account for them? As Jesus said, the Father was working through him. John the Baptist said the Holy Spirit would come upon him. Luke the historian records in Acts 1038 that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. What happened on the mountain that day was an act of divine power. Nothing else but divine power. You cannot get around that. It says, he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. Here we are, 2,000 years later. We have historical records telling us that 20,000 people were fed with a few barley loaves and fish. What are we to conclude? What would any sane and logical person conclude? We would have to come to the same conclusion that the Jews out there in the wilderness declared in verse 14. This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. Now, you and I may have opportunity to talk to people about Jesus Christ. Yes, we talk about his death and his resurrection, his ascension is coming again. Those are the vital elements of the gospel but we should not neglect either the great acts of power that he did that verified who he was. The prophets declared that this anointed one would come. And when he arrived in human history, when he began his public ministry, what he did in Israel and Judea and Galilee was not hid in a corner. It was well known. The Jewish leadership, Pontius Pilate, Herod, all these people knew what was going on. He could not keep it hidden. There were such mighty acts of power. And when Peter went to talk to Cornelius, sent by the Spirit, he begins to tell him about Jesus, tell him of the gospel. And he says to Cornelius and the household in Acts 10.39, we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. So Peter says, we are witnesses of all that he did, his acts, actions, things he performed. He demonstrated many divine acts of power and authority and mercy, as he did on the mountainside that day, enabling 20,000 tired and hungry people to have a feast. Well, what have we seen today? We've seen the overwhelming need of the people out on the mountain, the meager supply, Five barley loaves and two fish. The abundant provision. Everybody fed. They had a feast. They were well satisfied. There were even leftovers. Nobody left hungry. And the inescapable conclusion that this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. That he did. This act of power is irrefutable. It's confirmed by four historical records. The 12 disciples were there. They all saw it. They recorded what happened so that we, too, could know that this Jesus from Nazareth is indeed the prophet, the messiah, the one whom God sent into the world. In him is life. abundant life. He extended life to the people so they could endure the day and make it home or make it to Jerusalem. In Christ is life, life that only God can give. What is your need today? Is it a great need? It may be. It may be an overwhelming need. But look at the Lord Jesus Christ. Call upon Him. Ask Him to extend His hand of power in your behalf. Look at all His mighty works. Look at the evidence. Believe the signs that point to who He really is. He is the Prophet who has come into the world to reveal the Father and to die for the sins of His people. Believe in Him. Serve Him. Proclaim him. Tell what he has done. He fed the 5,000 men with their families with only a few barley loaves and fish. He is the prophet who Moses said would come, the Son of God. Service in his name is the only way to live the Christian life. It's the way of joy. to live in the truth of who Jesus is and proclaim Him. So let us go forth to live for Him and to proclaim Him. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for what our Lord Jesus did on the mountainside that day. The hungry and tired were fed and refreshed. Your provision was abundant and supernatural. Jesus, your Lord, your provider, you make the way when no way can be seen. You bless your people abundantly, and we give you thanks. In your name we pray, Lord Jesus.