The Problem of the Age

The Problem of the Age

(No. 1885)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 7, 1886,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And His disciples answered Him, How can a man satisfy these men with
bread here in the wilderness?'" Mark 8:4.

I HAVE been, for a while, lying outside the crowd, unable either to
feed the multitude or to bring the sick to the Master. Here and there I
have helped one, as opportunity has occurred, but I have been called to
rest rather than to serve. Yet all the while I have never ceased from
constant thought about the perishing multitudes–this great city and
its sad estate, this country, Ireland and continental nations are all
under a cloud of deep depression. One can remove his body from the
turmoil, but his heart is still in it. If ever there was a time when
there was a call for the deep sympathy of all Christian people with the
perishing multitudes, it is just now. If ever the Church should gird
herself to do her Master's service, it is today. Never forget that the
Church is the Spouse of Christ. She is His chosen Bride and she is,
therefore, to unite with Him in His great enterprise among the sons of
men. The work is salvation and that work is to be worked by means of
Divine Truth, carried to men, externally, by human hands and,
internally, through the Spirit of God. The Church will be false to her
heavenly Bridegroom if she does not sympathize with the tenderness of
His heart and enter into His gracious labor of love.

The question before us is certainly unique if we remember that those
who asked it had seen a former miracle of feeding the multitude. It
would seem that those who had seen 5,000 fed would not ask concerning
the feeding of 4,000. "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
in the wilderness?" Inasmuch as on one memorable occasion they had seen
the Master multiply loaves and fishes, they might have expected Him to
do the same again. I grant you to the fullest that it was an
inexcusable question. I will not offer the slightest apology for it,
but yet it is a very natural question– natural, I mean, to that fallen
and depraved human nature which is our daily grief. He that knows what
human nature is will be astonished at nothing evil that it produces! I
do not mean human nature merely unrenewed by Grace, but I mean that
carnal nature which remains even in the disciples of Christ. This is of
such a character that it shamefully gives way to unbelief.

You ask me to give an instance–I point to you! Have you not often seen
the hand of God? And yet the next time you have needed Divine help, you
have been in anxiety and doubt. Remember how Israel saw the Red Sea
divided and yet the people feared that they would die of thirst? When
the riven rock had relieved them, they were next, afraid of hunger! And
after the heavens had rained them bread, they became alarmed at the
size of the giants who dwelt in Canaan. All that God had done seemed to
go for nothing with them–they relapsed into their old unbelief. Are
you and I much better? Alas, we may here see ourselves as in a mirror!
Those who have a smooth path often boast of a vast amount of faith, or
what they think to be faith. But those who follow a wilderness way must
often confess to their shame that after receiving great mercy they
still find unbelief creeping in.

This is shameful to the last degree and should cause us bitter sorrow
and great fear lest we should provoke the Lord to anger! Before us must
often rise the example of those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness
because of their unbelief. All this makes us fear that had we been with
our Lord in the desert, we would not have behaved better than Peter and
James and John! We, too, might have forgotten the former miracle of the
loaves and have anxiously enquired, "How can a man satisfy these men
with bread here in the wilderness?"

The question, although it is thus surprising and inexcusable, may,
however, be used this morning for our profit. It may at least do this
good–as we shall not be able to answer it on any human lines, it will
show us our inability–and that is what our Lord would make most clear
before His power is revealed. I should not wonder but what He drew
those

people into the desert on purpose that there might be no suspicion that
when they were fed, they had not been supplied from fields or gardens,
or by the charity of inhabitants. It was a barren spot, out of which
nothing could be grown! The disciples had to feel this and recognize
this and state this–and then the Lord had a clear platform for working
His miracle. He wants to clear you out, Brothers and Sisters! He wants
to make you see what a weak, poor, petty, miserable thing you are! And
when He has brought you to that, then His own arm shall be revealed in
the eyes of all the people–and all who behold it shall give Him the
Glory due unto His name.

Let us come, then, to our question with the hope that it may be
sanctified to holy ends.

"How can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?"
First, this is a pressing problem–how to meet the needs of the
multitude. Secondly, press as it may, it is one of tremendous
difficulty. But thirdly, and cheeringly, it is capable of a very
glorious answer. There is a Man who, from His infinite resources, can
satisfy the countless myriads of our race even in this wilderness!

I. First, then, IT IS A VERY PRESSING PROBLEM. What is to be done for
the perishing multitude? What is to be done to satisfy men's souls? I
confine the question to spiritual matters at this time, though I, by no
means, slight the dreadful social and material questions which are also
especially urgent at this hour.

At this present moment myriads of souls are in present need. We
sometimes think too exclusively of salvation as having reference to the
world to come, but it has an urgent, all-important reference to this
present state. A man who does not know Christ is a wretched man! A man
who has never been renewed in heart, who lives in sin and loves it, is
a pitiable being, a lost soul over whom angels might weep! If there
were no Heaven to miss and no Hell to merit, sin is a curse upon this
life. It is Hell to live without a Savior! If there were no poverty in
London, it would be quite enough to break one's heart to think that
there is sin in it reigning over the ungodly.

That grievous side of London life which raises "the bitter cry," is
not, after all, the worst side of it–it is, to a great extent, the
outer disease which marks a secret cancer at the heart! If drunkenness
brought no consequences, if vice involved no misery it would not be
better, but far worse, for our race. It is a more horrible thing when
wickedness wraps itself in scarlet and fine linen and when vice, by the
help of an abominable protectorate, is enabled to escape Scot free. Sin
rampant without check would be even worse than the present woe! It is
an awful thing to think that masses of our fellow men have never turned
to their Creator with obedient hope, have never confessed their sin
against Him and have lived without thanking Him for His mercy, or
trembling at His justice! Great Lord, You know better than we do what
horror dwells in the ungodliness of men! Brothers and Sisters, the
multitudes are without the Bread of Life! Shall we not distribute it
among them at once?

The multitudes are, also, in awful peril as to the future. When our
Savior looked with compassion on the multitude, He not only noticed
their present hunger, but He foresaw what would come of it. "If I send
them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for
many of them came from far." Their immediate hunger touched the Savior,
but He did not forget its consequences–they would go back to their
mountain dwellings and, in the attempt to climb their terraces, one
would fall by the hillside from need of food, and another would drop in
the sun from sheer exhaustion. Perhaps a mother carrying her babe at
her bosom might find it dead for lack of nourishment, or the women,
themselves, might faint and perish by the way. This our tender Lord
could not bear to think of. Thus, when we look into the future of a
soul, we start back aghast from the vision!

In these times, my Brothers and Sisters, many attempts have been made
to represent the condition of impenitent sinners in the world to come
as less dreadful than the plain Scripture declares it to be. I cannot
see what practical result can arise out of such teaching except it be
the hardening of men's hearts and placing them more at ease than they
are, now, in their indifference with regard to their fellow men. I know
that at this hour a master argument with my heart in seeking to save my
fellow men is the intolerable thought that if they die without a
Savior, they enter upon a fixed state in which they will continue in
sin and consequent misery without hope of change. I am anxious to save
men from Hell, at once, because I see no other day of hope for them.

Since these things are so–and I am assured they are–every man who has
a spark of humanity and a grain of Grace is bound to cry mightily unto
God concerning the vast multitude of men who are passing away from
under the sound of the Gospel and rejecting it–who are living in the
land of Gospel light and willfully closing their eyes to it and so are
choosing endless darkness! If you are not awakened to action, O
Christian, by the twofold belief that sin in this life is an

intolerable evil and that, in the world to come, it involves endless
woe, what will bestir you? If this does not awaken your compassion for
men! If this does not bring you heart-break, are you not hard as
stones, unfeeling as savage beasts?

The case of the multitude is laid upon the Church of God. The Lord
Jesus Christ took up all the hungry thousands and laid them at the feet
of His disciples. These were His own words, as He commissioned them,
"Give you them to eat." It was a great honor to them to be taken into
co-partnership with their Lord–a high privilege to be workers together
with Him in relieving this far-spread hunger. It was a great honor, but
what a responsibility it involved! If one of them had quietly stolen
into the background, whispering to himself, "this is a Quixotic
notion." If another had hidden behind a rock and said, "I shall pray
about it, but that is all I can do"–why what a disgrace it would have
been to them! Instead of which, they were found true-hearted to their
Master and, the burden being laid upon them, they took up that burden
in a fashion–and their Lord enabled them to carry it with joy. They
had the special happiness of handing out the bread to the vast host who
gratefully received the gift. The 12 were very popular men that day, I
guarantee you, and they were looked upon with great envy by all who
surrounded them! Was it not a high privilege to distribute food among
so many hungry men, women, and children? They must have been flushed
with excitement and filled with delight! I know I would have been. To
go among a crowd of eager, hungry people and to feed them to the full
is a work an angel might covet! I am sure that many generous hearts
here are already devising ways of feeling this delight. Are you not? I
mean literally! Will you not help to relieve the present distress by
gifts of food and clothing?

Returning to the spiritual aspect of the matter–the Lord has called
His Church in these days to this work–onerous and, indeed, impossible
without Himself! But with Him, honorable, simple and easily
accomplished. He calls His Church to the great task of feeding the
multitudes of London, the multitudes of our empire, the multitudes
throughout the whole world! And since He is present to multiply our
loaves and fishes, the pressing problem may not be abandoned in
despair.

Brothers and Sisters, we cannot put aside this work! We that are
Christians cannot escape from this service! The Master has laid it upon
us and the only way to get out of it is by renouncing His leadership
altogether! To attempt to be a Christian and not to live for your
fellow men is hypocrisy! To suppose that you can be faithful to Christ
and let these multitudes die without an effort is a damnable delusion!
He is a traitor to his Master who does not enter heart and soul into
the great life-work of that Master–and His life-work was–"that the
world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). If you will say good-bye
to Jesus, you may run away with your own loaf and your own little fish
and eat them in secret selfishness. But if you mean to be with Christ,
you must bring your loaf and your fish here and contribute it–you must
bring yourself and be the personal dispenser of the multiplied bread
and fish–and you must persevere in the distribution till the last man,
the last woman, the last child shall be filled! Then Jesus shall have
all the Glory of the feast, but to you will be the honor of having been
a servitor at His royal table in the august banquet of His love.

So you see where we are this very morning. We are called to work out a
very pressing problem–"How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
in the wilderness?" Let us not sleep, as do others, but let us awaken
ourselves to work side by side with those dear and faithful Brothers
and Sisters who are toiling manfully to hand out the Bread of Life to
the millions of this city, the teeming myriads of this world!

II. But now secondly, IT IS A PROBLEM OF TREMENDOUS DIFFICULTY. The
difficulty of feeding the 4,000 was enormous, but the difficulty of
saving the multitudes of the human race is as high above it as the
Heaven is high above the earth! After all, this miracle only gave a
single meal to a few thousand who soon grew hungry again–the work
needed is to feed myriads so that they shall not hunger again, forever!
Think of this!

For first, what a thing it is to satisfy the needs of a single soul! I
would like those who think the salvation of souls from sin to be easy
to try to convert one person. Sunday school teacher, did you ever
attempt to bring one girl to Christ, yourself? She shall be one of the
sweetest children in the whole school, but if you have attempted her
conversion without seeking Divine aid in prayer and without looking to
the Spirit of God to influence that little heart for good, you have
made a miserable failure of it! If you had to save a soul, where would
you begin? The introduction of a holy thought into carnal minds is a
miracle as great as to get a beam of light into a blind eye, or a
breath of life into a dead body! How hard it is to deliver a man from
brutish carelessness and make him think of his soul, eternity and God!
As to renewing the stony heart, as to quickening the dead soul into
life, who can do it? Here we enter into the region of miracles! Can you
create a fly? When you have created the most minute creature, then talk
about making a new heart and a right spirit!

To "satisfy," says the text–"how shall a man satisfy these men?" To
satisfy a soul is a work which only God can accomplish! Open your
mouth, O man of ambition! We put the round world upon his tongue and
when he has swallowed it, he cries, like Alexander, for another! He is
no more satisfied with the whole world than with a pill of bread! As to
the spiritual cravings of men, how can you satisfy them? Pardon for
sin, a hope of eternal life, likeness to Christ–these are necessary to
satisfy–how can we give them? The world has no such food in all its
stores! The work is impossible at the outset, when only one claimant
appears! How can a man satisfy the spiritual hunger of a single soul? I
should like every Christian man to be laid low with this thought, that
he may be driven entirely out of conceit of himself and may at once cry
to the Strong for strength and use the simple weapon of the Gospel in
the power of the Holy Spirit–and not in his own strength.

But, Brothers and Sisters, what am I talking about? One soul! What of
that? Think of the numbers who need heavenly bread! We have not only
one soul, not only one million souls, but hard upon five millions of
immortal beings in this single city! In this huge world what myriads
have we? A thousand millions would not compass the countless army now
encamping on the globe! Would we deliberately exempt one of these from
hope? Would we desire one of these to be willfully left to perish? Must
not all be fed, if possible? Shall not every man, woman and child, as
far as our desire can go, partake of the feast? Well, then, where are
we? We are altogether at sea! Why, we have not a notion of what a
million is! It will take a very, very long time even to count to that
number. Think of this City of London–why, you shall ride through it,
or you shall traverse it on weary foot for a year–and at the end you
shall only wonder more at its incalculable vastness! To supply this
great metropolis with gracious influences is a labor worthy of a God!
The Church of God is called to feed all these with the Bread of
Heaven–and all those out yonder in the heathen world! O Feebleness!
What can you do alone? Yet, O Feebleness, how gloriously God can use
you for the accomplishment of His Divine purposes! There is the
problem. Said I not truly that it is one of tremendous difficulty?

What seems to have struck the disciples was the place they were in–it
was a desert place. Perhaps you might see, here and there, a little
bitter herbage which a goat would disdain to browse, but for the most
part it was bare ground. Our Evangelist, in describing the first
miracle, is quite graphic in describing the green grass, but in this
case he says that they sat on "the ground"–the ground bare of green
grass. There were no corn fields, nor fruit-bearing plants. There was
literally nothing to turn to account. If the stones could have been
turned into bread, the people might have been filled, but the ground,
itself, yielded absolutely nothing. I may be supposed, perhaps, to
croak when I say that the present period is as bare of all help to the
Gospel as that ground was barren of help to the feast. The world has
never known a period less helpful to the Gospel than the present! We
read in the Revelation of a time when "the earth helped the woman," but
it is not so now. I see no element favorable to the conversion of the
world to Christ, but everything is in array against it.

The people are not so attentive to the Gospel as once they were–the
masses do not care even to enter the House of Prayer. In London they
have, to a very large extent, ceased to care about the preaching of the
Word. They are to be reached–blessed be God, they shall be
reached–but the tendency of the times is not towards religion, but
towards unbelief, materialism and sordid selfishness. A current, no, a
torrent, of unbelief is roaring around the foundations of society and
our pulpits are reeling beneath its force. Many Christian people are
only half-believers now–they are almost smothered in the dense fog of
doubt which is now around us. We have come into cloud-land and cannot
see our way. Many are sinking in the slough and those of us who have
our feet upon the Rock of Ages have our hands full with helping our
slipping friends.

Standing before God with a child-like faith and trusting in Him without
question, it does not matter to us, personally, if the surrounding
darkness should deepen into seven midnights black as Hell, for we walk
by faith and not by sight. Though the earth were removed and the
mountains cast into the midst of the sea, we would still hold to God
and to His Christ in a death grip of unshaken confidence. But the mass
of professors are not so. I constantly meet with Brethren who are
reeling to and fro and staggering like a drunk and are at their wits'
end! And, rejoicing that I have been given my sea-legs, I have to cheer
them and assure them that we are not shipwrecked after all. The good
ship is not going down! The everlasting Truth of God is as sure as
ever! The day is not far distant when the Lord shall send us a great
calm. It will, before long, come to pass that the infidel philosophies
of the 19th Century will be exhibited to little children in our Sunday
schools as an instance of the monstrous folly into which wise men were
allowed to plunge when they refused the

Word of the Lord! I am as sure of it as I am sure I live, that the
present wisdom is foolery written large and that the doctrine which is
now rejected as the effete theory of Puritans and Calvinists will yet
conquer human thought and reign supreme! As surely as the sun which
sets tonight shall rise tomorrow at the predestined hour, so shall the
Truth of God shine forth over the whole earth! But this era is a desert
place–in pulpits and out of pulpits, in social morals and in politics,
it is a dreary wilderness. "How can a man satisfy these men with bread
here in this wilderness?"

The Lord has often suffered the multitude to be in straits that He
might work gracious deliverances. Take a modern instance. One hundred
and fifty years ago or so, there was a general religious lethargy in
England and ungodliness was master of the situation. The devil, as he
flew over England, thought that he had drugged the Church so that it
would never wake again. How deceived he was! A student at Oxford, who
had been a pot-boy down in Gloucester, found the Savior and began to
preach Him. His first sermon was said to have driven 19 people mad
because it awakened them to true life. Certain other scholars in Oxford
met together and prayed–and were dismissed by the university for the
horrible iniquity of holding a Prayer Meeting! Out of the same
university came another mighty evangelist–John Wesley– and he, with
Whitefield, became the leader of the great Methodist revival! Its
effects are with us to this day. The archenemy soon found that his
hopes were blighted, for the Church awoke again! Poor miners were
listening to the Gospel– their tears were making gutters down their
black cheeks, while seraphic men told them of pardoning love. Then
respectable dissent awoke from its bed of sloth and the Church of
England began to rub her eyes and wonder where she was. An evil time
brightened into a happy era! Shall it not be so again? Have no fear
about it! All things shall work together for good. The Lord brings the
people into the wilderness on purpose that there it may be seen that it
is not the earth, but Himself, that feeds the people!

The sting of the question before us, however, I have not quite brought
out–it was human feebleness. His disciples answered Him–"How can a
man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?" How can a man
do it? We are only men. If we were angels! Oh, if we were angels! Well,
what of it? If we were angels I am sure we would be quite out of the
business, for, "Unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world
to come, whereof we speak?" The angels are not in the field. But how
can a man or a woman do it? How shall a man feed this multitude? "Why,
see," says one, "what I am! I am no great orator, I have not ten
talents, I am a weak creature! How can I feed this multitude? What can
I do?" This is the sting of it all to earnest hearts. "Ah," says one,
"if I were So-and-So, what I would do!" You may thank God you are not
anybody but yourself, for you are best as you are, though you are not
much to speak of now. "But if I were somebody else, I could do
something," which means this–that since God has chosen to make you
what He has made you, you will not serve Him! But if He will make you
somebody else–that is, if your will may be supreme, then, of course
the house will be rightly ordered. You had better be what you are and a
little better–and get to work and serve your Master and no longer talk
about, "How shall a man do this or that?"

The possibilities of a man are stupendous! God with a man, nothing is
impossible to that man! Give us not the power of gold, or rank, or
eloquence, or wisdom, but give us a man! Our Lord thought so when He
went up to Heaven. He meant, as He entered the pearly gates, to scatter
a Divine largess among His people down below–and He reached His hand
into His Father's treasury and He took out of it–what? He took men!
"And He gave some, Apostles and some, Prophets and some, Evangelists
and some, pastors and teachers." These were His ascension gifts to the
sons of men!

Though we speak thus of what God can make of us, we are in and of
ourselves poor creatures. We do meet with a perfect Brother, now and
then, and I always feel inclined to break that bubble. The
imperfections of the perfect are generally more glaring than those of
ordinary Believers! Alas, we are all such poor, frail creatures, that
we are driven away from all confidence in ourselves and we ask with
emphasis the question, "How can a man satisfy these men with bread here
in the wilderness?"

III. I am happy, therefore, to come to a blessed conclusion in the
third head of our discourse, by saying that, laying the emphasis on its
weakest word, "How can a man?"–THIS QUESTION IS CAPABLE OF A VERY
GLORIOUS ANSWER.

I might almost say, as John the Baptist did, "There stands One among
you, whom you know not." Though He has stood a among us all these
centuries, yet His people scarcely know Him. Who knows Him fully? "Oh,"
says one, "I know Christ." Yes, in a sense, but yet He passes
knowledge. "I believe in God," says one. Are you sure you do? I
remember reading of a certain minister who spent many days in wrestling
prayer because he was tempted to doubt whether there

was a God. And when he came into the full conviction of it, he said to
his people, "You will be surprised at what I say; but it is a far
greater thing to believe in God than any of you know." And so it is a
greater thing to believe in Jesus than most people dream! To believe in
the notion of a god is one thing, but to believe God is quite another
matter. One said to me when I was troubled, "Have you not a gracious
God?" I answered, "Certainly I have." He replied, "What is the good of
having Him, then, if you do not trust Him?" I was sorely struck by that
reply and felt humbled in spirit. We do not fully know what Jesus is.
He is far above our highest thought of Him. He stands among us and we
know Him not.

But what I want you to think of is, that this wonderful Man can feed
this people with bread this day–and in this wilderness. I hope to make
you believe it by the power of the Spirit of God. Therefore I ask you,
first, to listen to what this Man says. I read to you just now this
narrative as we find it in the 15th of Matthew. Turn again to the 32nd
verse–"Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and said–"Stop a moment.
Prepare your ears for music"? No, He said, "I have compassion on the
multitude." Oh, the sweetness of that word! When you are troubled about
the people, troubled about Ireland, troubled about London, troubled
about Africa, troubled about China, troubled about India–hear the echo
of this word–"I have compassion on the multitude." If Jesus spoke thus
to His people while here, He equally says it now that He is exalted on
high, for He has carried His tender human heart up to Heaven with Him!
And out of the excellent Glory we may hear Him still saying, in answer
to His people's prayers, "I have compassion on the multitude." There is
our hope! That heart through which the spear was thrust and out of
which there came blood and water, is the Fountain of hope to our race!
"I have compassion on the multitude."

Hear Him speak, again, and I think you will grant that there is much
sweetness in the utterance. At the end of the 32nd verse we read, "I
will not send them away fasting." We do not wish to judge Peter and
James and John, but it seems to me that after hearing the Master say,
"I will not send them away fasting," they hardly ought to have said,
"How can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?"
They ought quietly to have replied, "Good Lord, You have asked us a
question which You must, Yourself, answer, for You have distinctly made
the promise, 'I will not send them away fasting!'"

Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ means, after all, to leave this
world as it is? It is written that, "God sent not His Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be
saved." Will He forego His purpose? The chronicle of time's history
will not wind up with this horrible state of things. The loom of
Providence will not leave its piece of cloth with its edge so fearfully
unraveled–it shall be finished off in due order and yet be bordered
with threads of gold! The Glory of God shall yet illuminate history
from the beginning even to the end. All flesh shall see the salvation
of God and all nations shall yet call the Redeemer blessed. "I will not
send them away fasting." The people must, therefore, eat bread from the
Lord's hands. Great Master, the task is far too much for us, alone! But
if You have said, "I have compassion on the multitude, I will not send
them away fasting," then we will feed them at Your command. Your humble
servants are waiting to do Your bidding, whatever it may be, assured
that You will be with them in it all.

I beg you, also, to think for a moment of what the Lord did not say,
because He was speaking about common bread; but of what we know to be
true of Him concerning His spiritual supplies for men. The greatest
spiritual need of man is the pardon of sin by an Atonement. Brothers
and Sisters, if the question were now standing, "Where shall we find an
Atonement?" it would indeed stagger us! Blessed be God, that question
does not remain, for the Atonement has been presented, completed and
fully accepted! Jesus has said, "It is finished," and the real
difficulty is over. The Cross has rolled away the stone from the
sepulcher and hope has arisen! The application of the Atonement may be
difficult, but it must be a small labor compared with the making of the
Atonement. The well has been dug–the drawing of the water is an easier
task. If Jesus died, there must be life for men! If He has prayed,
"Father, forgive them," there must be pardon for the guilty! If Jesus
has risen into Glory, our race cannot perish in shame! We argue from
the Cross a millennium of Glory! This Man can satisfy the people
because of the rich merit of His blood!

Next, remember that this glorious Man is now invested with Omnipotence.
His own words are, "All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.
Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them." Our Jesus is
Omnipotent. It is He who, by the infinite wisdom of God, made the world
and without Him was not anything made that was made. Is anything hard
for the Creator? Is anything impossible, or even difficult to Him who
rules all things by the power of His Word? Courage, Brothers and
Sisters–the grand question is answered! Since there is a full
Atonement and there is an exalted Savior with all power in His hands,
what remains to dismay us?

Listen once more. The Spirit of God has been given. Better than
Christ's bodily Presence among us is the Presence of the Holy Spirit.
It was expedient that Jesus should go away that the Holy Spirit might
abide with us as a greater blessing for the Church! Is the Holy Spirit
gone? Has the Holy Spirit left the Church of God? Is the Church
appalled by her difficulties though the Spirit of God is poured out
upon her? What is she thinking? Has she forgotten herself? Has she
become insane? Brothers and Sisters, with Jesus Himself slain as an
Atonement–Jesus exalted as a Prince and a Savior at the right hand of
God and with the Divine Spirit abiding with us forever–what is there
impossible to the Church of God?

So I close by one more point, which is this–As I have made you hear
our Lord's words and also led you to remember the infinite resources at
His disposal, I now want you to anticipate His working. How does the
Christ work among men? How will He proceed when He gets fairly to work
among the masses? There are varieties of operations, but there is a
continuity of law running through them all. The Divine line of action
is much the same in all cases.

The way of the Christ was, first of all, to find out what there was
which He could use. The little provisions provided by His followers
consisted of a few loaves and fishes. Is it not wonderful how the Lord
sometimes finds out little matters which have been hidden away and
makes much of them? Scotland was once under the sway of unbelief and
formalism– how was it to be delivered? Thomas Boston went into a
shepherd's hut and found a book which had become extremely scarce. It
was Fisher's, "Marrow of Modern Divinity." Boston rejoiced in the Light
of the Gospel which flashed in upon his soul and he began to bear
witness to it. A great controversy followed and, what was far better, a
great awakening! The lovers of the marrow of the Gospel soon broke the
bones of error! See what one book may do? Sweden, too, was greatly
blessed by the discovery in a country house of an old copy of Luther on
Galatians. See how one voice may wake a nation?

Brothers and Sisters, who knows what may come out of seven loaves and a
few small fishes? Yes, the enemies may do what they like–they may
preach what they please–they may take away one pulpit after another
from the orthodox. They may even bury us under the rubbish of evolution
and false philosophy–but we shall rise again! These small clouds will
soon blow over. There may not remain one single sound expounder of the
Gospel, but as long as God lives, the Gospel will not die! Its power
may slumber, but before long it shall awake out of sleep and cry like a
mighty man who shouts by reason of wine! As long as we have one match
left, we can yet set the world on fire! As long as one Bible remains,
the empire of Satan is in danger! Only barley loaves and a few small
fishes were in the possession of the Apostolic company, but Jesus found
them and began to work with them!

The next thing was a secret and mysterious multiplication. The bread
began to grow in the disciples' hands as before it had grown in the
ground. Peter had a loaf in his hand and he began to break off a
corner. To his amazement, it was just as big as before! So he broke off
the other end and gave that to another hungry person and lo, the loaf
was still intact! He kept on breaking as fast as he could and the loaf
continued increasing till everybody had received his full! Wonderful
hands they were, were they not? No, they were not–they were only the
rough hands of weather-beaten fishermen. Those other hands which first
took and blessed, and broke, were doing the deed all the while! It is
wonderful how God works by our hands and yet His own hands do it all.

Apart from human agency, the Lord can impress the minds of men and
women and so multiply His Truth. I heard of a woman in the Isle of
Skye, when there was very little Gospel preaching, there, who all of a
sudden felt God was not working in Skye. She journeyed till she reached
the ferry and then she crossed to the mainland. She asked those she met
where she could find God. At last she met with a good woman who said,
"I will tell you where you will find Him." She took her into a place of
worship where Jesus was plainly set forth. She heard the Gospel and
went back to tell others about the Savior!

The devil's work is never done–but it is undone, again, in five
minutes when the Grace of God is at work. Even in our ashes live our
little fires–a breath from Heaven shall kindle them into a flame! God
is never at a loss for agents. He could turn the Pope into an
Evangelist, a cardinal into a reformer, a priest into a preacher of the
Gospel! The most superstitious, the most ignorant, the most infidel,
the most blasphemous, the most degraded may yet be made the champions
of His Truth. Therefore let no man's heart fail him–the bread shall be
multiplied and the people shall be fed!

It was done by everybody distributing his portion. Peter was dividing
his loaf and many people were specially pleased to be fed by Peter. It
was quite right that they should be. If Peter fed them, let them be
satisfied with Peter. Yonder was John with the same bread, breaking it
with less impetuosity and more graciousness of manner. And yonder was

James working away very steadily and methodically. But what of the
difference of distribution? The bread was the same. So long as the
people were filled, what did it matter which hand passed them their
bread and fish? Dear Friends, do not imagine that God will bless one
preacher, only, or one denomination only! He does bless some preachers
more than others, for He is Sovereign, but He will bless you all in
your work, for He is God.

I shall never forget one day, when my dear old grandfather was alive, I
was to preach a sermon. There was a great crowd of people and I was
late, for the train was delayed and, therefore, the venerable man
commenced to preach in my place. He was far on in his sermon when I
made my appearance at the door. Looking at me, he said, "You have all
come to hear my dear grandson and, therefore, I will stop that you may
hear him. He may preach the Gospel better than I can, but he cannot
preach a better Gospel, can you, Charles?" My answer from the aisle
was, "I cannot preach the Gospel better, but if I could, it would not
be a better Gospel." So it is, Brothers–others may break the bread to
more people, but they cannot break better bread than the Gospel which
you teach, for that is bread from our Savior's own hands!

Get to work, each one of you, with your bread-breaking, for this is
Christ's way of feeding the multitude! Let each one who has, himself,
eaten, divide his morsel with another. Today fill someone's ear with
the good news of Jesus and His love. Endeavor this day, each one of you
who are Christian people, to communicate to one man, woman, or child,
something of the spiritual meat which has made your soul glad. This is
my Master's way, will you not drop into it? You cannot propose a
better! None can contrive a method more likely to be successful, more
honorable to your Lord and more beneficial to yourself! Bring your
barley loaf, bring your little fish and put your provision into the
common store. Take it back again from the great Master's hands filled
with that blessing which makes it fruitful and multiplies it–and then
feed the multitude with it! So shall you go forth with joy and be led
forth with peace. So be it. Amen.