And now people of God, let us continue working our way through Mark's gospel as we come to chapter eight, and we will read the first 21 verses. Mark's gospel, chapter eight. 1 through 21. Let me remind you that the Lord has been ministering in the area of Decapolis. He's in a predominantly Gentile region, that he ministered to this Syrophoenician woman. Last week we saw how he healed a deaf man, and now we come to the feeding of the 4,000. It was only in chapter 6 that he had fed the 5,000. You might think, well, there's not much more to be said. He fed 5,000, here is 4,000. Let's make a few comments and go on. Well, some of the same things need to be said again, but there's much more. Let us bow in prayer before we read. Our Father and our God, we have just sung together in praise to thy name that we see thee on the page. of sacred scripture. This is wherein our great God has revealed himself to us as the triune God, as the God who is infinite and eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth, has revealed yourself to us as creator and also our blessed redeemer. Meet us here, Father. We know that our great triune God is everywhere present, but in that special way in which in covenant love and mercy, Thou dost meet with thy people. Meet us this morning. Meet those who are suffering, those who have deep needs with the knowledge of thy sustenance. Meet Christians under the word of God and its authority who are straining in their pilgrimage to find strength. meet heavenly father the little children that they may find something here that they can take into their hearts for the rest of their lives be with the elderly with pains and aches and concerns that they may look forward to the future hope and every day give thanks to thy name and meet father those families in our midst who have material needs, who have deep spiritual needs. We come to the searcher of hearts and we ask that now as the Word of God is read and proclaimed, that it would be this special covenantal time of true communion with the living and true God through the Word of God read and proclaimed. Please hear us, Father, and we are thankful that our God is a father to each one of his children. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please take your copy of God's word and stand, the eighth chapter of Mark, beginning at verse one. This is the word of God. In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place. And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish, and having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about 4,000 people, and he sent them away, and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmunitha. The Pharisees came, and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. And he let them go into the boat again. and went to the other side. Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, Twelve. And seven of the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, seven. And he said to them, do you not yet understand the word of the Lord? Please be seated. People of God, do you not yet understand Understand, this is the question with which the text ends. It is not a question that was intended to drive the disciples away. It was a question that was an invitation to communion with Himself, and the question serves us in the same way. And the question also shows us that Jesus does not give up on His own. but he leads us into understanding gradually and tenderly. He leads us to himself. We come to this passage about the feeding of the 4,000, and Jesus feeds the 4,000 as the first thing we see. It's primarily undoubtedly a Gentile congregation in this Gentile area, and it shows us again that only the Lord Jesus Christ is adequate. The compassion of Jesus to feed the crowd is stressed in the opening verses, and it's important to note that Jesus also wants his disciples to share with him in his compassion for these people. Verse four tells us again, just as was the case in the prior feeding of the 5,000, that they were in a desolate place. But why did they not ask Jesus to repeat the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000? The disciples, of course, are inadequate. In verse five, he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven. They're totally inadequate. but the Lord Jesus is totally adequate. Verses six and seven, and he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they set them before the crowd. Sit down on the ground, he says. And he has these seven probably flatbread cakes. Don't think of loaves in the sense in which we typically think of loaves. And he had these few fish. And the verb that is used is based on the verb eucharisteo, from which we derive our term eucharist. And it may draw out actually the Eucharistic significance of this feeding. That is to say, once again, Mark, looking back on this scene, sees a connection with the Lord's Supper. Certainly, it's intended by the sequence of the verbs, just as we found also in chapter 6. When we come to chapter 14 and there is the institution of the Lord's Supper, we read these very words. As they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it, broke and gave it to them, just as he did with these loaves and these fish on this occasion. It's really unmistakable. So just as with the feeding of the 5,000, it would be difficult for the early church to fail to see in this meal a hint of the meal which they took so frequently in the Lord's Supper. And Mark intends this undoubtedly as the multitude enjoyed the fellowship of Jesus. So now the church of Jesus Christ enjoys fellowship with the exalted eternal Lord. Post-resurrection readers of Mark, and that's us, That's you who are here today. Post-resurrection readers of Mark would see here a hint of our future hope. The Lord's Supper anticipates the eschatological feast, the banquet awaiting us at the end of time. And just as with the feeding of the 5,000, so now with the feeding of the 4,000, it points us to the Lord's Supper, which points us to the feast at the end of time, the marriage supper of the Lamb. And so we should view the Lord's Supper as an unfinished meal looking forward to the unhindered, undiminished communion with the Lord that belongs to us, that is promised to us, that is purchased for us by Christ, a new enjoyment with which our present enjoyment in the supper is but a true but faint hint. Can't you see here in this feeding an acted out parable? This is how Jesus cares for us. This is how Jesus loves us. This is how he sustains us. This is bread with which he feeds us in desolate places. This is that which he does for us as we pilgrimage to our heavenly home with all of the stresses of life in a fallen world. He meets our deepest needs because ultimately he is himself the bread of life as he points out in the bread of life discourse in John chapter six. So this miracle, this multiplication from the hands of Jesus, abundance comes, you see, from his very person. It's from him that this abundance comes. Jesus broke the bread cakes and he kept giving them. This little verb gave. is a verb that indicates continuous action. What we should think of when he's doing this is that his disciples are there ready to distribute. He takes and breaks off from the bread cake and then after the fish, and as he breaks it, he gives to his disciples and it just keeps coming. He breaks and hands to Peter. He breaks and hands to James. He breaks and hands to Nathaniel. He breaks and he breaks and it keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming and keeps coming. And then the fish, it's taken to everyone and everyone has exactly what they need to eat. What a remarkable thing to think on. He broke off the pieces of bread and the fish. So picture what is happening here as the abundance comes from his own person. It was seen by Peter who told Mark. It was seen by Matthew who records this in his gospel in almost the same language. And then seven hampers full were filled with the remains of the bread that came from his abundance and the fish that came from his own person. Now this probably would have been quite large. I'm talking about the basket, not just small little baskets full, but large baskets. The word here that is used for basket, you remember back in Acts chapter nine or over in Acts chapter nine when the Apostle Paul was let down the wall in a basket? That would have been a sizable basket to have held a man as he is let over a wall. Well, this is the term that is used for basket here. These would have been large baskets filled with the remnants of what Jesus did for them. We have here also a portrait of the church and his blessing upon his church. Here are messianic blessings because here is the distinction between the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000. The feeding of the 5,000 is a covenant meal with primarily Jews. He came to the lost house of Israel to minister to them. But now here, primarily a Gentile audience, and it is saying something to us, is it not? that his blessing will be extended to the nations, that his blessing will be extended to the Gentiles. Already seen in the previous two miracles in which Jesus ministered to this Syrophoenician woman and probably also the deaf man and with speech impediments that we saw last week. God's ultimate intention for His church, purchased by the blood of Christ, is that it is composed of the nations, those redeemed by His blood from every tongue, tribe, kindred, and nation on earth. One of my favorite passages on this is in Exodus 19 that expresses it in terms of a road going all the way from Assyria to Egypt and from Egypt to Assyria as the nations become one under the banner of the cross. And we read in Ephesians 2.14, for he himself is our peace, that is Christ, who has made the two, that is Jew and Gentile, believing Jew and Gentile, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. His purpose was to create in himself one new man of the two, thus making peace. Or consider Revelation chapter 21 as we come to the end of that great book in which we read, and I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their God. They will be his people, it says. But you know that word people there in Revelation 21 three, they shall be his people is really a plural. in the Greek New Testament. It's peoples. Why? The reason is because it represents the many peoples that constitute the one redeemed people of God. Don't you begin to see when Jesus did this feeding of the 4,000, when he indicated that he would bless the nations, he meant you who are sitting here today. He meant you. that he would save from your sins. Let the nations be glad, we read in Psalm 67. Now, if this means little to you, if it doesn't move your heart, then we need to adjust our thinking and adjust our hearts in line with scripture, because this is God's heart, to send his own son into the world to redeem and save from every tribe and tongue and nation on earth. those for whom he would shed his blood. R.T. France, who was an evangelical Anglican in modern times, who also was a missionary to Kenya at one point, who certainly thought in terms of missions, he says this about this narrative. The narrative thus fills out Jesus' discussion with a Syro-Phoenician woman about allowing the dogs a share in the children's bread. And in this incident, the bread is quite literally shared. That discussion accepted that the Gentile share might be only scraps, and perhaps it is for this reason that Mark so carefully records a different set of statistics for this feeding. Fewer people, 4,000 instead of 5,000, fed with more loaves, seven instead of five, and a few small fish, but with less food left over, seven baskets instead of 12. The numbers are meant to be noticed. Now, I'm sure that he's right in what he observes, but the point to be taken is that this is no longer the case that Gentile believers share in the scraps from the table of the children. We are the children. We have been brought by God's Spirit into the kingdom of God. It is not that occasionally Gentiles enjoy the scraps. We are now incorporated into God's own church. What is significant about this feeding? It points to the great Eucharist. The gospel come to people of all sorts. all sorts of nations, all sorts of races, all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of needs, people from all over the world, all sorts of ethnic groups, from all walks of life, people like you, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And we shall join in the eschatological feast when Jesus comes again. And in this feeding, and in the Lord's Supper, is anticipated the day in which we will be overwhelmed to see what God has done in the redeeming of the nations through Jesus Christ our Lord. May we have a heart for that as God himself does. But now as we move on in this passage, we have another attitude toward Jesus' ministry than gladness. And that's the attitude of the Pharisees. And that sets up a further discussion with his disciples about this bread. So the second thing we see is the Pharisees require a sign. And it takes place here in verses 11 through 13. They want to test him. They want a sign from heaven. They wanted something beyond himself. to demonstrate his divine authority and something beyond what Jesus has already chosen to give. He is in his miracles shown himself to be the son of God already by many infallible proofs. All that he has done, all that he has said speaks of the fulfillment of Isaiah 35 and other passages that he is the Messiah that was to come, but they are spiritually blind. And they cannot see him for who he is. They cannot see the truth in these miracles and in his teaching. And that attitude is still with us. No sign shall be given, he says to them. I will give you no sign. I will give you no sign. Except, as we read in Matthew, the sign of Jonah, which is his resurrection from the dead. This is still the case, people of God. Who Jesus is as revealed in scripture is completely adequate to bring people to Christ. We need no additional signs. Scripture is completely sufficient. The scriptures teach us that to fail to believe in Jesus on the basis of his own authority is inexcusable. So don't wait for more. More will not be given. More cannot be given than the crucified and risen Lord So how does Jesus respond? Well, did you notice here in chapter eight, after the Pharisees ask him about this, in verse 12, chapter eight, verse 12, and he sighed deeply in his spirit. And said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation. And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side. Now we saw this last week. We saw that when he was healing the deaf man, that he sighed. And here is an intensified form of the same verb. Jesus, in his deep emotional life, sighed or groaned, you can actually translate it. There he is, healing the deaf man, sighing because of all of the evidences of the fall around him. And here, he is sighing because of the hardness of their hearts. You want a sign? I will give you no sign, such as they sought, that is. And in verses 12 and 13, he gets into the boat and he leaves. Can you imagine the tragedy of this? Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of sinners, is there He has already manifested himself to be the one who would come. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall the lame man leap as an heart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. They've all seen it, they've heard his gracious words, and yet they want another sign from heaven. And he says, I've given you what I came to give. You will not receive it, and he leaves. You see, you come to Jesus on His terms. You do not make demands of Him. You do not come with pride, show me a sign and I will believe. And you bring nothing but your sin to the table when you come to Jesus Christ, else you do not come. There is no honest rejection of God's revelation of Himself. God's revelation of himself is clear. Now, I certainly do not make light of intellectual questions that people have that seem to hinder them from coming to faith in Christ, and we should labor to clear those hindrances as best we are able, but at some point we need to understand that the issue is ultimately moral. One of the great thinkers of the church in the Middle Ages, Anselm, thought through this problem and has given us a stock phrase for the issue, fidens quarens intellectum, faith-seeking understanding. You will never really understand without faith. Only as you have faith will you understand. I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand. The Pharisees then, what kept them from believing? pride and absence of love and a heart that was fortressed against God, not open to His Word, not open to His revelation. They do not want to help people toward God. That is true love. They wanted to fortify their hearts against the God who is love. Now, I must say there's too much of the attitude of the Pharisees within my own heart. How about you? Can you still say that of yourselves? The question is, does it drive us to the gospel when we see that heart? Does it show me, does it show you your real need? And when we come face to face with our heart's sin, we do not need counsel. We do not need advice. We need the forgiveness of sin. And this is something quite different from attempting to live a godly life by willpower. It is saying the truth about our hearts, removing our masks, and asking God to forgive us of our pride, our lovelessness, and from fortifying our hearts from grace. Now the Pharisees clamor for a sign. will open in the remainder of the text another opportunity for further clarity on Jesus' teaching about bread. So the third thing we see is discussion about bread. And I find verse 14 to be, in a certain way, humorous. Now what has Jesus done? Two chapters back, he has fed the 5,000. In this chapter, he has fed the 4,000. And in verse 14, now they had forgotten to bring bread. And they had only one loaf with them in the boat. Oh, they must have said, we forgot to bring a loaf of bread. And this leads to a discussion of the bread of life in verse 15. And he cautioned them saying, they mentioned bread. Jesus says to them, watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. What is the leaven of the Pharisees? All the disciples heard here was a reference to bread. They were being much like the Pharisees here who do not see beyond their faces the truth that is before them. So what is meant by this yeast or leaven of the Pharisees? Well, yeast or leaven in the scriptures, in most, not every, but in most instances is a symbol of that which slowly pervades and takes over with wicked intent. Most often it is a symbol of evil. And it is here. The yeast of the Pharisees is the yeast of unbelief, the yeast of those who desire to sign, the leaven of those whose hearts were hard and fortified against grace. And so there's a slowness to understand. Verse 17, and Jesus aware of this said, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? And then he begins with a series of penetrating questions. Look again at verse 17 and following. Note the questions. Did you notice them? And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, do you not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said, 12. And the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, seven. And then the final question. And he said to them, do you not yet understand? They did not understand what Jesus' presence meant for him and for his people. Calvin rightly says, from these words we infer that all who have once or twice experienced the power of God and distrust it for the future are convicted of unbelief, for it is faith that cherishes in our hearts the remembrance of the gifts of God, and faith must have been laid asleep if we allow them to be forgotten. Had the disciples understood the miracles, they would not have been self-preoccupied, unable to perceive what Jesus was saying. The whole question, which bread comes up, It comes up again and again here. Upon whose bread do you rely? What feeds your soul? Jesus is saying to them. What sustains your life daily? He is saying to them. What do you rely upon for strength? Upon what do you rely for future hope? Do you not understand yet? I am the bread of life. And in verses 19 and 20, what did I do in this feeding miracle, essentially, he asks. You're concerned with one loaf. When I fed over 9,000 people with 12 loaves, leaving 13 baskets full, didn't you see my compassion? Do you not understand my provision? Don't you see that these things point to me? Shouldn't you see that I am the Messiah, that I am the Lord? And do we see this? Do you see this? Does your heart recognize this? Do you see that this Jesus who gave His bread on these occasions. He is the Son of God coming to this world who gave His life on the cross for you and calls you to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Do you perceive it and perceive it by grace more and more deeply in your Christian walk? Because for us too, there's a warning that Jesus gives against the leaven of the Pharisees. We must be careful of the leaven that is around us that would pervade our lives and would crowd out our commitment to these things that are true. We must not adapt our lives to the message of the caprice of the modern world in which we live. And we are prone, I think, Look at verse 18. You see in verse 18 what Jesus says, having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear, and do you not remember? What does he mean? Do you not remember that I fed 5,000? Do you not remember that I fed 4,000? Do you not remember these things? Which says to you and to me, we are prone to forget the basics. to forget the foundation, to forget what the Lord has done for us, to forget the great promises of his word, to forget that Jesus is coming again. And I say to my heart and to your hearts, labor to remember. All through scripture, the Lord stresses to his people, remember, remember, remember, remember, remember, because in our fallen natures, we are prone to forget. prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, as we sang at the opening of our service today. Now let's think for a few minutes about this bread. I can't say everything I would like to. Let me say a few things. Do you perceive the Lord as the bread from heaven who feeds your soul? How do I perceive him, you may ask, when there is so much to contradict his provision? So much in my own life, so much in the lives of other Christians, so much in the world that seems to contradict his provision. Does God really give bread? Really? Does he really sustain us when cancer is in the picture? Does He really sustain us when the finances are broken? Does He really sustain us when we're on our deathbed? Does he really sustain me in the broken emotional state in which I have found myself? Does he really sustain his children? Does he give bread? Does God give bread? I ask you that question. I'm asking you a question because I think it arises from the text. Does God give bread? Do you know that God gives bread? Do you know that he sustains you in the midst of these things? Does he always provide for his children? Can we see that Christ is Messiah and Lord? When I taught theology at Westminster Seminary, I had a student, his name was Dustin. And Dustin was excited about the things he was learning in the Christology course. And later, when Dustin went on from one ministry to another, he became the RUF minister at Furman. And he hadn't been there long until one day he was out riding bikes with his boys and he fell backward off of his bike and he sustained trauma to his head. The details are sad and tragic. I could enumerate them to you. Tracheotomy, in the midst of it all, his grandfather dies. one thing after another, and then after a while, the Lord called my former student home to himself. Now, did God give bread? Did God sustain this man? Did God give bread to his wife and children? Did God give bread to the church by taking a promising minister of the Word of God from our midst? Does God give bread? I know what Dustin would have said to you, because on the Sunday prior to his fall on the pavement, when he sustained those head damages, he preached a sermon on the providence of God. telling the people of God, you can entrust yourself into the hands of God, no better hands. I tell you that even though there is much in life that seems to contradict the promise of God, he is sustaining his people and he does keep his word. I think of Martin Luther, and here's what Luther said. If you are not ready to believe that the Word is worth more than all you see or feel, then reason has blinded faith. So the resurrection of the dead is something that must be believed. I do not feel the resurrection of Christ, but the Word affirms it. I feel sin, but the Word says that it is forgiven to those who believe. I see that Christians die like other men, but the Word tells me that they shall rise again. So we must not be guided by our own feelings, but by the Word." That's it. The Word, the Word, the Word, the Word, under the authority of this Word, all the way through our pilgrimage to our heavenly home, God gives bread, God sustains His people, God keeps His promise. Luther did not mean by that you shouldn't have Christian feelings. Luther didn't mean by that that you shouldn't have thoughts and ideas about things that recognize from time to time that we are risen in Christ even though I don't feel it. He didn't mean that at all. He meant by that despite feelings. Feelings cannot be the basis of your Christian walk. Our perceptions the world cannot be that which determines our Christian walk. What determines our Christian walk is the Word, the promise of God in His Word that is ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ. So we have needs in our congregation and they are deep. We think of Andy and Laurie Dan, and we think of Jerry, and there are so many, the list is so long. Is God providing bread? Yes. And Donna takes a fall, and she's taken in the ambulance yesterday, and what does she do? She sings the doxology. My wife says to me, they're gonna get some idea about covenant Presbyterian people. And that's exactly what we want, don't we? We want to bear witness as people of God that in the midst of my fall and the pain in my head, God provides bread. He does sustain his people. He really does. And children, the older you get in Christ, the more mature you come in Christ, the more you'll be able to say, yes, all through my days, in things that I couldn't calculate, I never figured would happen, in problems that have come my way, God has shown himself to be faithful. Because where do we find God? God has found us. Where do we continue to find the seeking God? Not in your works, not in your efforts, not in your service, not in your feelings. God has promised to be found. Indeed, he finds us in his self-revelation, the written word of God. And there he speaks his word of forgiveness. And there he shows us that he is a gracious God. Be anchored here in his word. Here in his word, we find a God who says, my word is not about perceptions. but about bringing you to the cross and bringing you to your heavenly home. My love for you is such that I will demolish, even through suffering, I will demolish the old structure of your life to bring you up in Christ. Because people of God, there is no Easter without Good Friday. Suffering and death are the places where God is so often found in the word of his gospel that is spoken to us. One of my favorite passages in all theology is found in Louis Burkhoff's Systematic Theology when he speaks of union with Christ as a transformative union. And listen to this biblical summary. When he says, by this union, union with Christ, Believers are changed into the image of Christ according to his human nature. What Christ effects in his people, listen to this, what Christ effects in his people, can you hear me? What Christ effects in his people is in a sense a replica or reproduction of what took place with him, with Christ. not only objectively but also in a subjective sense. They suffer, bear the cross, are crucified, die, and are raised in newness of life with Christ. They share in a measure the experiences of their Lord. That is what God is doing. And in all of that, he's giving his bread because he's drawing within your heart and within your life something of the character of your savior who suffered, bled, died, and rose again. Does God give bread? You see, the answer is yes. And to so many here that have and do and will endure hardship, he's found you in Christ who came to seek and to save the lost. And so the question that comes to us this morning is that at the end of verse 21, do you still not understand? And that question is an invitation to fellowship. because God will see to it that his people understand. He will see to it because he loves us. His goal for us is that we eat bread. His goal for you, child of God, in all of the struggles, in all of the trials, in all of the hardships, through all of the joys, his goal for you is communion with himself that he may feed you himself. who is himself the bread of life. Amen and amen.