Why Did Jesus Feed the Multitudes?

Tom:

We are going through the Book of John.Right now we are in chapter 6.Last week we were discussing the miracle Dave, the incredible miracle, and I’d like to talk, before we go on with this, I would like to talk about that miracle.What did it really mean?Jesus takes five barley loaves and two small fish and he feeds 5000 people.It’s an incredible miracle, but why?

Dave:

Well, he’s showing what he can do.Somebody would say well then why doesn’t he do it all the time?We’re supposed to do a little work ourselves.It’s not miraculous some people say if you are a real Christian and you say you have faith, then you should never be sick.You just would be healed instantly all the time.It hasn’t happened.I don’t know any indication that Christians have lived longer than anybody else.There ought to be at least some of these people who have lived to 150 or maybe 200 years at least.But no, they die the same ages as everyone else.So God is—

Tom:

A little wealthier than some.

Dave:

Yes, generally, you and I don’t have our own airplane and drive some pretty—my Buick Century I think is 12 years old, but anyway it still runs.

Tom:

It still runs, gets the job done.

Dave:

It still runs very well.It’s the only car Ruth and I have because it’s the only one we need.But he’s not saying, or that the purpose of this miracle was not to show people that now you just trust God, you don’t have to work, he will just feed you.It has happened on occasions like Elijah was fed out of a canister of oil that just maybe had enough in it to make one little cake.That wasn’t much, a few tablespoons full and it never ran out, but it didn’t happen all the time.Why do these things happen?Well for one thing, to show that God is God.He can do this.But he’s not going to do this to perpetuate evil on this earth and if he did this, you know if there were no death, if there were no consequences for sin and we just continued to live—if Adam and Eve had stayed in the Garden, God didn’t throw them out of the Garden, he didn’t bring death upon them because of their sin, Tom you cannot imagine how evil this world would be.But Jesus is showing that he is God.That he is the Bread of Life.It’s a picture that we get later in the chapter.They pursue him to the other side of the lake because they want to make him king and they talk about Moses had manna in the wilderness and so forth.

Tom:

Dave you are jumping too far ahead.Let me back up because— Verse 14: “Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.”So they are recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.

Dave:

Wait a minute now, you are being facetious now.Not as the Messiah,[but] as the prophet.He was the great prophet, see?

Tom:

Well they recognized this man as something very incredible from God.

Dave:

Right, like Nicodemus a few chapters earlier said, “We know that thou art a teacher come from God.No man can do the miracles that you do unless God is with him,” but Nicodemus didn’t know that he was the Messiah.Furthermore, they have a wrong concept of the Messiah.They don’t know that the Messiah must be God, that he must die for their sins and so forth, but yes, they recognize that there is something miraculous here.

Tom:

Right, which you might suspect that is why Jesus—one reason why Jesus performed the miracles.That he WAS from God, fulfilling Isaiah.

Dave:

You couldn’t deny the miracle, okay?These are men right there at the site when it happened, not the Jesus Seminar guys voting on whether it happened or not.

Tom:

Right, verse 15: “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.”Now here’s what I kind of want to wrestle with.It’s amazing that—get on my case for this Dave, but it’s amazing when we read some things in the Bible, we say to ourselves, “Lord why did you do that?It’s just created so many problems for us.A good example would be the bronzed serpent put on a pole.Scripture says that not only did those that looked upon him, they were healed.Looked upon this bronze serpent and that was a type of what Christ would do.He became sin for us and we’re to look upon him for our salvation.Now that’s great.The problem part is how men take what Jesus does and distort it, corrupt it, turn it into something almost evil, to the point where with regard to the, as I remember it, the bronze serpent.They had to destroy it.God was—

Dave:

They were worshipping it.

Tom:

Right.Now here’s a case in which Jesus does something that is benevolent, a blessing and so on, but men are going to turn this into something else.

Dave:

Well, it’s almost a joke.They’re going to take him by force to make him a king.Now I thought you obeyed your king.Now how are you going to obey a king when you make him be king?

Tom:

He’s going to be their puppet king.They’re going to pull the strings.

Dave:

Yes, right.Why do they want him to be king?Not because of his teachings, not because they are convicted of their sin and they’re willing to believe that he would die for their sins.No, because any time they get hungry, he’s going to feed them.Any time they get sick, he’s going to heal them.Tom, unfortunately many people who call themselves Christians today, that’s what they’re interested in and they follow the signs and wonders workers, who if you check up on it, they don’t really do signs and wonders.Numbers of people have died at Benny Hinn crusades, knocked down and somebody fell on them, broke a hip or whatever. You know things like this have happened.These miracle workers—I wonder why none of them predicted this great disaster in New York and WashingtonD.C., or why they didn’t go there and miraculously heal people?Why Pat Robertson—I’m not trying to be mean, but he’s gone on record saying that he has stopped hurricanes.We still have hurricanes, so and these people are looking back to an event—a miraculous event when God brought manna for them.But he did that for a purpose in the wilderness, but he doesn’t do that today for anyone.

Tom:

Dave, that’s a really good example, because as God fed the Israelites manna in the wilderness, they said well what else can you do for us.They tired of it, they wanted to go back to Egypt.So my point here is that when men try to take hold and thinking that it’s a really good thing to have miracles, to have all of these things, it doesn’t satisfy.Because men are doing it, there’s not truth in it, and they keep asking the question, I’ve seen this time and time again, go to miracle services and so on.Or go talk to people who are very much into signs and wonders.The mentality is not just bless me, there’s that, a “bless me” mentality, but what have you done for me lately?They want to keep upping the anti.

Dave:

Yes, Tom, let’s make it very clear, I believe in miracles, you believe in miracles.

Tom:

Amen.

Dave:

God is the same as he ever was.There were unusual things that happened during the life of Jesus to demonstrate who he really is, that he is God who became a man, but you don’t make God do miracles when you want him to.You don’t advertise, put up a big sign, “Miracle Service Tonight,” and then God has to show up and do miracles.If you’re really a Christian, he’s there; he lives in our hearts, so we don’t have to invite him to come in and so forth.But this is one of the problems— remember the so-called miracle workers that Jesus refers to in Matthew 7.What is their emphasis?Signs and wonders.Didn’t we prophesy in your name?In your name we cast out devils; in your name we did miracles.Jesus says I will say I never knew you.What is the big emphasis today on TBN for example, or with Benny Hinn, or what it used to be with Oral Roberts, or with various ones.It’s miracles, signs, and wonders and Paul foretells, and I’m not trying to criticize these people.I’m saying wait a minute!Let’s get our priorities right.When we know that Jesus is God we want to worship him, we want his will for our lives.We don’t want him to always feed us and David said, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.”He didn’t say, “Oh Lord, you’re not going to allow me to go through the valley of the shadow of death, you’re going to give me a detour around it.There are trials and tribulations in this life that will draw us closer to God.Jesus is God, he fed them on this occasion, and yet in spite of that they crucified him.

Tom:

Dave, Jesus said these things testify of me, but the mentality out there which has a penchant for this is not him.It’s the things that he did, that they could have them themselves, not him.

Dave:

Tom, many dear people who are sincere, I know they love the Lord, and they see his power and they believe in this way and they want to worship him, but let’s be cautious and careful in dealing with them.