Certain Curious Calculations About Loaves and Fishes
(No. 1822)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1885,
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON OCTOBER 30, 1884.
"When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets
full of fragments did you take up? They said unto Him, Twelve. And when
the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did
you take up? And they said, Seven. And He said unto them, How is it
that you do not understand?" Mark 8:19-21.
THE disciples had come on board the vessel and had forgotten to bring
bread with them–good men's memories sometimes fail them. For that
reason they were greatly disturbed in mind and they supposed that Jesus
was also disquieted and that He had shaped His speech so as to give
them an indirect rebuke when He mentioned the leaven of the Pharisees.
How little they understood His mind, though they had been so long a
time with Him! His thoughts were not occupied about bread for Himself
and neither was there any carking care in His heart about bread for
them. His mind was at perfect rest about all secular things and, even
as to all spiritual things, He was by no means tossed about.
Notwithstanding all His trials and His sorrows, I suppose that there
never was a serener mind than that of Jesus Christ our Lord. His heart
was great as an ocean and though visited with terrible tempests, yet it
was the Pacific Ocean, still. They might be troubled about bread, but
He was resting about that and all things else. The winds which tossed
the little lakes of their little minds into boiling cauldrons did not
suffice to create a ripple upon the surface of His mighty soul!
Is it not well for us at this hour that it is so? We are fluttered and
dismayed, but the mind of our great Lord is fearless and undisturbed.
"He will not fail nor be discouraged." The child cries because the ship
rolls, but his father at the helm smiles at the storm–and what a mercy
it is for the child that father can smile, for if the captain were
weak, where would the vessel be? If the father's heart failed him,
where would his boy look for comfort? Calm face of Jesus, we look up to
You and we are quieted!
The Master wishing to comfort His servants had them consider what they
already knew and review what they had already seen. Usually the eyes of
the Christian should be directed forward–it is foolish to try to live
on past experience–it is a very dangerous, if not a fatal habit, to
judge ourselves to be safe because of something that we felt or did 20
years ago. Yet, for all that, we may look back to gain practical
lessons for times of service and comfortable lessons for hours of
trial. Like the archer, we may draw the string back that it may shoot
the arrow onward with greater force.
The Master asks His followers whether they had used their eyes. "Having
eyes, see you not?" They had seen two wonderful miracles, by which
thousands of persons had been fed–had they really seen them? Had they
been satisfied just to look at the bread and the fish–and at the
feasting multitude–and then to let the whole scene melt away from
them? Had they really heard the voice of what the Lord had done?
"Having ears, hear you not?" Had they missed the message altogether?
Then He adds, "Perceive you not yet, neither understand?" Do you not
know what My action meant when I multiplied the loaves? Do you not see
how it reveals My all-sufficiency? Have you not read between the lines,
this Word of God–that God feeds all things–that He opens His hands
and supplies the needs of every living thing? Have you not yet
discovered, by those two miracles, that there is nothing impossible
with your Lord?
May we not also have missed our Lord's meanings full often? May we not
have walked through a palace of wonders without observing the gleams of
Glory, the flashes of Eternal Light? Our unbelief is the undeniable
evidence that we have not learned all that we ought to have learned,
for the outcome of spiritually seeing, perceiving and understanding is
faith. He that believes little has learned little. He that doubts and
is troubled, is but a baby, still needing to learn the rudiments of
holy scholarship!
The Lord further asks them that tender question, "And do you not
remember?" Brothers and Sisters, we remember much that we ought to
forget–and we forget much that we ought to remember! Down the stream
of memory floats trash from the city of Sodom and we diligently gather
it! But down the same stream descends costly timber from Lebanon and we
suffer it to drift by us! Our sieve holds the chaff and rejects the
corn. It ought not so to be. Let us look back upon the whole of our
past lives at this hour with a careful, leisurely glance, and see
whether there is not enough in our diaries to condemn our doubts and
bury our cares–or at least to shut up our anxieties in a cage made of
the golden bars of past mercy and fastened in with jeweled bolts of
gratitude! "The Lord has been mindful of us; He will bless us." Let us
glory in what the Lord is going to do and magnify His name for His
mercy which is yet to be revealed!
Let each one of us sing with David, "I will go unto the altar of God,
unto God my exceeding joy: yes, I will praise You, O God, my God." Then
has memory performed her part aright when, from the altars of the past,
she has snatched a living coal with which to set on fire the incense of
today. Not being able to read your own personal diaries, for these are
only known to yourselves, I shall endeavor to take you back to the
records of the Apostles' memories and we will think of the text as it
brings before us the two great miracles of feeding the hungry. May we
learn what the Spirit designs to teach us by them!
I. And the first thing I shall want to bring to your recollection is
THE DARING PROJECT, YET UNAVOIDABLE. This was the daring project–to
feed 5,000 persons in the wilderness. Two hundred pennyworth was the
calculation of one of the ready-reckoner of the hour. Some men are
always very ready at counting the pennies which they have not got.
Whenever there is a holy deed to be done, our mathematical-minded
unbelievers are prompt with their estimates of cost and their prudent
forecasts of grave deficiencies! We are great at calculations when we
are little at believing! How can the necessary amount be raised? It is
so much a head among so many members. Unfortunately the heads do not
yield the poll tax and the money does not come–and confidence in man
leaves us weeping by the broken cistern. This is the way in which a
large part of the Church's thought boils up, evaporates and is wasted.
Alas for those calculations about pennyworths!
Or else it is, "From where can we satisfy these men with bread, here in
the wilderness?" "From where?" as if there could be any "where" but
one! Where comes everything by which man lives? Comes it not from God?
It goes round about in different channels, but it knows only one
source! When any of the channels fail, the fountain is still flowing
and he that has faith to go to it directly shall not want! But it did
seem, to the disciples, a very preposterous idea that with nothing but
sand, stone and rock round about them, they should make a banquet for
5,000 men! Is it not much more preposterous that the Christian Church
should have to evangelize such a city as London? It may not seem so to
you, but if you lived in the midst of the extreme poverty of the East
End, you would think it the problem of problems–how to reach the
sunken multitudes! We little dream on what a volcano we live. The
pent-up misery and the seething sin of London may yet produce a second
edition of the French Revolution unless the Grace of God shall
interpose!
The people are famishing bodily, mentally, morally, spiritually–and we
must feed them. I marvel not if in the presence of these dying millions
you cry–"From where?" But then, London is only one out of many cities.
Our whole nation is a small fraction of the myriads of our race! China,
India, Africa are yet to be fed. The command is, "Go you into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature." The proposal is that
the knowledge of the Lord shall yet cover the earth as the waters cover
the sea–and I repeat the keynote which I sounded just now–it is a
daring project! It is startling to the thoughtful, impossible to the
calculating–difficult, even, to the believing!
But then, you see, in the case of the Apostles in the wilderness, it
was an inevitable project. However strange the proposition might seem,
it pressed upon them. They could not avoid it, for the people had no
food with them and were fainting. Many of them had come from far. If
they attempted to seek their own homes without refreshment, they would
die by the way and, therefore, it would not do to send the multitude
away. They must be fed. "How is it to be done?" is the question and
whether they can answer it or not, the necessity is there, all the
same!
With the Savior it was an unavoidable necessity. It would break His
heart to see them fainting and famishing. He could not endure it. At
the very thought of their destitute condition He was moved with
compassion. His whole Nature was stirred, convulsed and filled with
excitement at the sight of hunger, pallor, weariness and faintness. The
Great Shepherd
must feed these hungry sheep! It is not with Him, "Can it be done?" or,
"Can it not be done?" but it must be done. One of the imperial
necessities which sometimes took possession of the royal heart of
Christ had entered into His soul and "He had to" do its bidding. He,
Himself, took their infirmities and carried their sorrows. He was such
an all-comprehending Man that he included them within His own Manhood.
If they hungered, He hungered; if they fainted, He fainted and if they
died, He, Himself, seemed to die and, therefore, by the intense
sympathy of His Nature, He was driven to feel that the multitude must
be fed.
Just imagine that they had not been fed–that they had begun to faint
and die of hunger all over those hills to which they had followed
Jesus–how it would have marred His ministry! Why, surely, the
disciples who had said somewhat flippantly, "Send the multitude away,"
would have been oppressed with a lifelong sorrow if their wish had been
carried out! They never would have forgotten that dreadful dreary day
and the starvation, the fainting and the death which followed it. Think
of what mischief it would have done to Christ's cause! The rumor that
He led the people into solitary places and that there they died of
hunger would have been greatly derogatory to our Lord, for what Prophet
ever did this? What capital the Pharisees would have made of it! How
exultingly they would have cried, "Is this Man, after all, a Prophet
like Moses, who fed the people with manna in the wilderness?" They
would have cried, "He said that He was the Son of God; He claimed to
have raised the dead–but if He had really possessed this power, He
would have fed the hungry multitude who had spent their strength in
following Him." No, the Christ cannot have it so. He has come to save
men's lives–He cannot let them die. He must feed the crowd.
Now, imagine, Brothers and Sisters, that we never carry out the
commission which Christ has laid upon us today, that of teaching the
multitude–imagine that from now on we never labor to win souls–that
we give up London as a forlorn case–that we abandon the heathen world
as assuredly given over to destruction like a vessel driven by a
hurricane upon an ironbound coast–imagine it, I say! Can you endure
the imagination? I cannot abandon the drifting boat. Let us man the
lifeboat! I know that some quiet themselves into a kind of despair as
to the possibility of the Lord Jehovah ever being King over this whole
earth–will you try the wretched experiment? So these people must be
left to die, for how can so many be fed? But the project of love shall
be executed–to that hope we cling and to that end would we spend and
be spent! If things look not so and Christianity occupies as yet but a
mere corner of the world, it matters not to our faith–we still
believe! Faith counts no odds. One man with God on his side is in the
majority if never another thinks as he does! Therefore, in feebleness
of numbers we are yet omnipotent in the might of the Most High!
Had not the multitude been fed, our Lord would have missed a grand
occasion for the display of His Grace. Grace is sovereign, but it is
abounding! Wherever it finds the occasion, it displays its power. A
hungering, fainting crowd! What space for compassion! What vantage
ground for benevolence! It could not be that the Lord of Love should
let such an opportunity slip by–His love was too eager to display
itself to lie quiet at such an hour! But, Brothers and Sisters, what an
occasion for revealing the splendor of Divine Grace does the present
age present! London is a brave canvas on which to paint a master
picture of mercy, of power, of wisdom. What a block of marble the great
world presents for the Infinite Sculptor! What a monument of Grace will
the human race become when it shall rejoice in God the Savior! I am
persuaded that the Lord has permitted the present sorrow that He may
produce from it a greater glory! I am sure in my own soul that He
suffers the multitudes to hunger in this terrible wilderness simply and
only that He may feed them and thus prove to all the universe His power
to bless.
I hope I have brought before your minds very clearly that amazing
project which seemed most daring and even preposterous, and yet was
necessary and even inevitable.
II. Brethren, hoping for the help of God's good Spirit, I would take
you, secondly, to another sight–THE BAFFLED DISCIPLES AND THERE SERENE
MASTER. The Master has consulted Philip about supplies in order that
the difficulty of the case and the insufficiency of mere means might be
seen of all. Philip found that all that was available was a lad's
breakfast of five barley cakes and a few small fishes and, he anxiously
added, "What are they among so many?" The prudent counselor had done
his best, but it did not come to much. He left this problem unsolved,
"What are they among so many?" As for the rest of the disciples, they
looked in Jesus' face with astonishment and blank despair and said,
"Where should we have so much bread in the wilderness as to fill so
great a multitude?"
But all the time that they were thus fall of fidgeting and worries,
there stood the Master, calm as a sweet summer's evening, not in the
least disturbed or troubled. What a difference between the feebleness
and unbelief of the disciples and
the mighty confidence of the Lord Jesus! How much need that we be
changed from glory to glory as by the image of the Lord, for we, also,
are very far, as yet, from being like He in our tone and spirit! We
have not yet entered fully into His rest, nor shall we, till we learn
His faith in God. Why was Jesus Christ, our Master, so calm? I have
upon my mind the savor of a word the Lord once gave me for you upon
that text, "Jesus knew what He would do." [See No. 1,605, Volume
27–Jesus Knew What He Would Do] It is in great part our ignorance
which puts us into such a quandary. We do not know what is going to be
done; we are in suspense and suspense eats into the soul as an acid
eats into metal. "From where? How? When? Where?"–all these questions
prick us like so many daggers and each prick kills a joy. "Our thoughts
are all a case of knives," as George Herbert puts it, and every knife
in that case destroys a hope.
But the Master had no suspense–He knew what He would do! We shall get
peace, Brothers and Sisters, when we also know what we shall do. "Oh,"
you say, "I thought you were going to say when we know what HE will
do." Oh, no! We probably shall not know that till He does it. It is
enough for us to know what we shall do. "But," says one, "that is what
we do not know." I answer–that is what we ought to know. We ought to
know that we mean to leave everything with our Lord. If we once settled
it in our minds that we would trust and not be afraid, what peace we
would enjoy! If we will leave God's work with God and simply trust, we
shall drink into the peace of God!
Besides that, our Lord was thus calm because He had faith, while they
had nothing better than mere sense. Here they were, as I have said
before, counting the loaves and numbering the fishes. Hear them saying,
"Here are only five loaves, and they are of barley, and the fish are
not only few, but small." They took care to record that fact and to lay
stress upon it! And they are equally clear as to the greatness of the
hungry multitude and the barrenness of the wilderness around them. They
are all going on in that style, judging by the sight of the eyes and
the touch of the hands. But the Son of God has another and better
sense–He trusts His Father. Jesus, a Man like themselves, has
confidence that in the hour of His need the Godhead will not fail Him,
but will fulfill His needs.
We have no Godhead in unity with our humanity, but yet we have more
than Jesus had. "Oh," you say, "that cannot be!" you will agree with my
statement when I remind you that we have all that Christ had and then
we have Christ, Himself, in addition. He has given us all that He
has–so we have that. And then He has given us Himself, so we possess
the double. We ought never to doubt, but to rely upon the
Godhead–Father, Son and Holy Spirit–in every time of our need. "In
the mount it shall be seen"–Jehovah-Jireh–the Lord will provide. Oh,
for Grace to cast all care away; to be baffled and worried no longer,
but to rest and be still!
Moreover, one thing, I think, which made Christ so calm was that He
really acted while they only questioned. He said, "How many loaves have
you? Bring them here to Me." He came at once to practical action. The
people who do not believe in conversions are those who never convert
anybody, but as soon as a man is led of the Spirit to turn men from
darkness to Light and God blesses him in his work, he believes in it!
He that has something to do has less temptation to doubt than the man
who has nothing else to do but to doubt. Heresies in the Christian
Church come never from the city missionary, never from the faithful
pastor, never from the intense evangelist–but always from gentlemen at
ease–who take no actual part in our holy war. Those literary fops who
criticize religion in reviews and have nothing else to do except to put
their hands to their heads and press whimsies out of their brows–these
are the men that trouble us.
Our Lord Jesus Christ gave way to no sort of doubt, for He speedily
took the bread and the fish in His hands and began blessing and
breaking them, while promptly upon His own action followed the Divine
energy which multiplied the little store. If you and I would but serve
the Lord in earnest, we might end our calculations as to how much is to
be done and how it is to be done–and where it is to be done and all
that. Get to your work, my Brother, and your doubts shall fly like
chaff before the wind! The baffled disciples and the calm and quiet
Master make up an instructive picture–we shall have profited by it to
the fullest if we, also, become calmly reliant upon God and are no more
carried away with unbelieving amazement.
III. Thirdly, and briefly, I want to set two more matters before your
mind's eye for your comfort. In the miracles
where we see the multitudes fed, we see MEANS USED, BUT CHRIST
CONSPICUOUS. You perceive that our Lord
says of the loaves, "Bring them to Me." The means were used. When He
has multiplied these very loaves and fishes, He gives them to the men
that are round about Him and of these the multitudes partake. Whatever
men in their folly may talk as to neglecting the outward means and
sitting still and doing nothing because God will do His own work, we
hear
nothing of the kind from Jesus! He used the loaves and He used the
fishes–and He used the men–though He could well enough have done
without them. He was Omnipotent and did not need them. But He was wise
and He would teach us the lesson that by instrumentality God's great
work is to be done. Therefore, despise not means and, at the same time,
do not rest in them.
But observe how the fish, the loaves, the men and all the means were
made to sink. In that picture you see the great crowd–I do not think
the painter needs to lay his colors on very vividly. He can draw the
people as a kind of luminous haze if he likes. The one figure that
stands out like the sun at noonday, hiding all else by the brilliance
of His light, is the Master, Himself. Only Jesus is glorious in that
outdoor banqueting room! Where are those few fishes? "Here," says one.
"Here," cries another. "Here," shouts another. But those few and little
fishes cannot be in the hands of all those five thousand! Where has the
bread gone? "I have a loaf," cries one. "I have a loaf," says another,
and they are all feeding as voraciously as they can! What has become of
the original five loaves? Bring them here, Brother–at least go and
make a diligent search for the original five loaves and those little
fishes–that we may preserve one of them as a relic!
What? Can you not find one of them? You do not know where they are?
They are all gone? Of course they are! Whenever God blesses a man very
greatly, that man sinks to nothing in his own esteem. If Peter's boat
is full, Peter's boat sinks. If we are plunged in blessing up to the
hilt, self is hidden under the weight of mercy. A little blessing,
fancied and imagined to be something extraordinary, elevates the little
man–but a great, all-swamping blessing comes like a torrent and bears
the man and his littleness away–and nothing is seen but the Lord and
the blessing! I am sure that it is so when the Lord uses any one of us
as the means of doing good to others–we are humbled and He is exalted!
And after the miracle is over, when they go round to gather up the
fragments in their 12 baskets or 7 baskets, Peter has a quick eye but
ask him whether he can find one of those original loaves. He may go
from basket to basket and he cannot find one. It is lost in the
creation which God has made out of it! And can he find, in all those
baskets, the original fishes? They must be there, for it is out of
those fish that all the meat came to feed the people! But you cannot
discover them. So it shall be if God will bless us, my Brothers and
Sisters! People will gather about us and say, "What is there in this
man? We perceive no superlative talent. What is there in this woman to
make her so useful? We see nothing special about her."
Never you mind. Let them pick at any bit of fish which they think they
can see in your native talent or vigorous character! But as for
yourself, you know that if any of the multitude are fed, the provision
came from the Master's hands when he took your little and blessed and
broke and multiplied it so as to make it sufficient for the occasion. I
believe that means are honored by Christ's using them, but I am quite
sure that before He has done with them, the means will sink into the
uttermost obscurity and Jesus Christ will be All in All–and that not
because the means are unblessed, but because they are blessed in so
gracious a degree!
IV. Furthermore, we see in the miracles of feeding, WORK ACCOMPLISHED
OF A MARVELOUS KIND, BUT POWER UNEXHAUSTED. Look at those 5,000 men and
the women and the children! They are all fed. It is a proverb that
there never was a feast yet from which someone did not go away
unsatisfied. But there is no rule without an exception. Here are two
exceptions to that proverb. "They did all eat and were filled," upon
two occasions! It did not matter how many thousands there were, not one
of them was overlooked by the ever-blessed Host. It did not matter how
hungry they were, they all ate till they were full.
But this is the point I want to show you–the power that multiplied the
bread and fish and fed the thousands had not come to an end. Their
power to eat was exhausted, but not Christ's power to feed, for when
they had received to their utmost capacity, there was yet more to
follow! The people were sharp set that day, the mountain air made their
appetites keen and their long fasting put a razor-edge upon them. Yet
when they had all eaten to the full, great baskets were brought and
these were filled–in the one case 12, and in the other seven of them.
There is enough for each, enough for all, and still enough remaining
for future needs! The infinite Worker reveals His infinity by His
unstinted bounty, His unmeasured liberality!
I cannot understand, from the Greek, of what size these baskets may
have been. The second set, the seven, have a name which shows that they
were tolerably large, for Paul was let down in such a basket from the
window when he escaped from his enemies in Damascus. The first sort
which were used when there were 12 of them, appear to me to have been
still larger. They give you an idea of a coffin, or a coffer. They were
large baskets of which it is said that men could
sleep in them. Yet these baskets, whatever their size may have been,
were filled–12 and seven–and if the Lord had willed to do so, He
could have filled 12,000 baskets, or 70,000 baskets! His power was
running over–it could not be contained in earthly vessels any more
than a river can be held in a cup! It was still flowing in a copious
stream when every mouth and every basket had been filled. Some seem to
fancy that the Lord does everything by the inch and the ounce, keeping
to stint and quantity, but this is rather the manner of men than the
fashion of the Lord!
We know that the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed His elect from among men
and therefore, some will have it that the merit of His Atonement must
be limited. No such thing. "He gave Himself for us," and there can be
no measure to the value of such a gift. "He died for our sins," and not
for our sins, only, but for the sins of the whole world! His objective
was definite, but He achieved it by an agency which cannot be limited.
He not only did that which He mainly aimed at, but He did more–just as
in this case He not only fed the thousands, but filled baskets with the
fragments. The power of God and the merit of the Sacrifice of Christ
are among the infinite things–let us bow before the Lord and rejoice
in that which surpasses measure.
Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, whatever the Lord has given to you, He
has still far more to bestow upon you. Whatever you may feast upon in
this public service, there is yet a portion for you to take home with
you in the basket and lay up in the store. However God may have blessed
you in your work for Him in the past, He is yet able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that you ask or even think! However much the
Church may have been increased by a true revival, God has never done
according to the fullness of His ability in the Church as yet–even
Pentecost was but the Firstfruits. I hear a voice from Heaven, saying,
"you shall see greater things than these." "And greater things than
these shall you do, because I go unto the Father."
We have been far from reaching the Ultima Thule of sacred possibility!
Still "the arrow is beyond you." We have never seen the best of our God
as yet. We may go forward with the supreme faith that Pentecost has yet
to be outdone– that all the mighty preaching of the fathers, when they
turned nations to Christ, shall yet be exceeded in the triumphs of the
Cross in the latter days! We are approaching nobler ages and God's
great acts will not dwindle into trifles. Remember that all that you
could see and all that you could know would be but a minute portion of
His glorious power! All that you could apprehend would only be a
manifestation of the hem of His garment! What Omnipotence is and,
especially, what it is in the Kingdom of Grace, none know except God,
Himself. Let us not limit the Holy One, nor bound the Infinite. In our
Father's house there is bread enough and to spare, even after millions
have been satisfied from His supplies!
V. I am going to finish by observing that THE DETAILS OF THESE MIRACLES
WERE DIFFERENT, BUT
THEY WERE EQUALLY INSTRUCTIVE. Kindly listen to what I am now saying,
not as to anything of remarkable weight, but still as to a matter of
interest in which there may be more instruction than at first sight
appears.
Concerning our Lord's great free dinners, remark, first, that the
remainder after the feast was greater than the stock when these
banquets began. They began with five loaves and two fishes. They began
on another occasion with seven loaves and a few fishes–but they left
off with 12 baskets full in the one case and with seven full baskets in
the other! Never was this done at any ofyour tables, I am sure, when
your children have gathered for their meals. But these did all eat and
were filled–and yet there was more left than when they began!
This seems impossible, and yet it is the rule in the Kingdom of Grace.
I have often found, when I have come with a very small stock to feed
you, Brothers and Sisters, that I have gone away with more than I came
with. You have been refreshed and I have been more full than when I
handed out your portions to you. You have gone to the class, dear
Friend, and felt that you were scantily supplied for feeding your dear
ones, but you have given them your all and, under the Divine blessing,
there has been enough for the class and a double portion for you! You
went out with five loaves and you came back with 12 baskets heaped up.
Strange!
We may so give for God as to get in the giving; so spend as to increase
in the spending; so die for God as to live more than ever! If this is
fact, what a wide field it opens to our hope and how it banishes our
fear! It shuts the door of the counting-house where we calculate
according to human reason and it opens the doors of the treasury where
we may draw ever-growing supplies! Go, Brother, and scatter your
handful of seed, for you shall come, again, rejoicing, bringing sheaves
with you! Give of your meal and oil to the Lord's servant and your
barrel and cruse shall be replenished in the giving! Remember Bunyan's
rhyme is true spiritually as well as providentially–
"There was a man and some did count him mad,
The more he gave away, the more he had." Next, learn that care is
always taken by Christ of all the broken pieces. The Lord
All-Sufficient is yet the God of economy. Since Jesus could create as
much food as He pleased, you might have thought that it was hardly
worth His while to gather up the fragments–and yet He did so. Waste is
of Satan, not of God! God is not lavish of creation, nor prodigal of
miracles. Though the Lord can raise up in this place, if He pleases, 50
ministers in an instant, He may not do so. But what He would have us do
is to make use of such powers as we have. If we are only fragments, our
place is not the ground, but the basket. We must not allow ourselves to
be thrown away, or to be consumed by an animal passion, or to be left
to decay–we must be in the Lord's store, ready to be used when the
time comes. We shall be of some use, one of these days, if we are
willing to be used.
If you, my Friend, are not a whole loaf, you are a crust, and no crust
may be wasted. If you are not a slice of bread, you are a crumb, and
even crumbs are dear to hungry men. If you are not a big fish, yet you
may be a little fish, and you must not waste yourself, nor must the
Church of God allow you to be wasted, but use must be found for you
somewhere. But what a wonderful thing this is–Omnipotence picking up
crumbs! God All-Sufficient, to whom the cattle on a thousand hills are
as nothing–who could make a whole sea of fishes, or 10,000 worlds of
bread by His bare will and nothing else–and yet He sets His disciples
to gather up broken pieces that nothing may be lost! Surely it ill
becomes us to waste a penny, an hour, or an opportunity! Let us be
severely economical for the Lord our God!
Notice a rather curious thing–there was most left when there was least
to begin with. When they commenced the dinner with seven loaves, they
gathered up seven baskets full, but when they had only five loaves they
filled 12 baskets with the fragments. I suppose the baskets to have
been of the same size, for I do not discover that the second set of
baskets were any larger than the first. However, from a stock of seven
loaves, after all expenditure, there came seven baskets as a remainder.
But when there were only five loaves and a greater expenditure, there
were 12 baskets full left for the waiters. This is amazing! The more
they begin with, the less they end with–and the less they begin with,
the more they have when the feast is concluded!
Yet I have often noticed that this does occur. Have not you? When you
and I have begun rather grandly and God has blessed us, we have had
great reason to thank Him. But when we have begun very feebly, He has
frequently blessed us far more and we have ended by praising Him upon
the high-sounding cymbals! We have gone away wondering–"Five loaves
and 12 baskets! Why, the other day, when I had seven loaves, I had only
seven baskets!" Yes, let the rich rejoice when he is brought low, for
he, like Job, shall be richer than before! Do not begin to sink in
spirit because you seem to have declined in ability–but just be
confident in God that in your case, also, there will be most reward at
the end when there was least capital to work with.
Note, again, that there was less visible means when there was more
done. There were only five loaves, but they fed 5,000–but when there
were seven loaves they fed only four thousand. The most was done when
there was the least to do it with. And so it shall happen to you, O
worker for Jesus, for the more God blesses you, the less you shall see
of any adequate reason in yourself why you should be blessed. With your
five loaves you shall feed your 5,000, while somebody who had seven
shall do less than you.
Another curious thing is that when there was most eaten there was most
left. When 5,000 besides women and children ate as much as they could,
they left more than the 4,000 did. The smaller number could not eat as
much as the greater, yet their leftover food uneaten was less than when
5,000 filled themselves to the full. It is a curious inversion of all
our regulations. We suppose the larger our company, the less will
remain. But here it seems that when the company was larger then that
which was left was largest–and when the company was fewer–less was
left. It is so with us–the more we have to draw from us, spiritually,
the more will remain for our own portion. We shall make no saving by
reducing the number of those whom we serve, but the reverse.
One other thing learn and that is that where there is the most work for
Jesus, there will be the most remuneration. It is not so elsewhere, for
men are often paid best for doing least, but in our Lord's case every
man's reward shall be according to his service. Those who waited on the
vast crowd of people could not get much to eat, themselves, during the
meal, for they were fully occupied in handing the bread to others. But
when all was over, the Master said to them, "So you have had a great
company today, there were 5,000 at the least. You must need
refreshment, yourselves. Yonder are 12 baskets full of that which
remains over, divide them among yourselves." Another day their work was
hard, but not quite so labo-
rious. That extra thousand that always brings in the excessive labor
through overcrowding had not been there and they had supplied four
thousand pretty pleasantly. Then it was that they received only seven
baskets for their share–a liberal allowance, but still not so large as
on the former occasion.
If you will work for Christ, give for Christ and labor for Christ, you
shall have a rich return of present joy from Him and this shall have a
proportion in it. Many people will always be poor because they never
give to the cause of God. Poor people should give in order that they
may not be poor any longer–and the rich should give that they may not
become poor. I mean not that these are to be the chief motives, but
they may have their place. You that have little ability should work
hard with that little ability that you may increase it. And you that
have great ability, of course, should do so, because you have so many
talents entrusted to you. The Lord will allow no service to remain
unrecompensed. And work done for the poor and needy shall win its wage,
not of debt, but of Grace.
Satan said, "Does Job serve God for nothing?" Suppose he had done
so–the devil would have gone his way and said that God was a hard
master, whose service brought no sort of reward with it! Either way,
Satan would have made mischief and, as we have no wish to please him,
we admit that we do not serve God for nothing, but that in keeping His
Commandments there is great reward! When the multitude have done
feasting, your Master will let you sit down to meat and you shall have
abundant joy with Him!
The chief point for all of us is to get at the blessed work! In the
name of the ever-living God, let us feed, each one, the man that is
nearest to him till the whole company shall be fed, for the Christ is
behind us, the Son of God is working with us–and the bread is not our
bread but His bread! And the feeding of the multitude is not our work,
but His! And the power is not ours, but all His own and to His name
shall be all the glory! Amen.
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