WWUTT 2182 Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand (Mark 8:1-9)

Jesus fed a crowd of 4 ,000 with seven loaves. And just as these miracles point to how

Jesus meets our physical needs, we also see how he meets our spiritual needs as well, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast. That we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are on to Chapter 8, where Jesus feeds the 4 ,000.

Not the 5 ,000, but the 4 ,000. And this leads to a conversation with his disciples, which we won't get to today, but I at least want to read that far.

So to keep it all in context, let me read Mark 8, verses 1 through 21 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. In those days when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat,

Jesus called his disciples and said to them, I feel compassion for the crowd, because they have remained 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 a great distance.

And his disciples answered him, where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?

And he was asking them, how many loaves do you have? They said seven. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground and taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks and broke them.

And he kept giving them to his disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the crowd.

And they also had a few small fish. And after he blessed them, he ordered these to be served as well.

And they ate and were satisfied. And they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.

Now about 4 ,000 were there, and he sent them away. And immediately he entered the boat with his disciples and came to the district of Dalmanutha.

And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven testing him and sighing deeply in his spirit.

He said, why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.

And leaving them, he again embarked and went away to the other side. And they had forgotten to take bread and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them.

And he was giving them orders saying, watch out, beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

And they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? Having eyes, do you not see?

And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember that when I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?

They said to him, 12. When I broke the seven for the 4 ,000, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?

And they said to him, seven. And he was saying to them, do you not yet understand?

And we'll get to that part tomorrow, what it was that the disciples did not understand.

And from there, which we'll get to next week, we read about Jesus healing a blind man,

Peter confessing that Jesus is the Christ, and then him telling his disciples to take up your cross and follow me.

And all of this stuff goes together in Mark 8. I mean, we've seen that as we've been going through the Gospel of Mark, how there seems to be this continuous thread and how one event connects to the next.

But all of this, Mark has placed here in this way so that we would have eyes to see and ears to hear and understand.

So let's come back to the beginning of the chapter with the feeding of the 4 ,000. In those days, there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat.

And Jesus called his disciples and said to them, I feel compassion for the crowd because they have remained with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

Now the feeding of the 5 ,000 wasn't that long ago. We read about that miracle in Mark 6.

Just the other day, I was having a conversation with somebody online. This was a public conversation on social media, and I made the comment about how

Jesus would preach long sermons. This actually came in the context of a statement that the

Pope made. This had hit the news last week. I used the quote for the beginning of my sermon because I've been preaching sermons that are 50 to 55 minutes long.

But Pope Francis said this. This was the quote that made the news last week. He said, the homily must be brief.

A homily, meaning a sermon, it's another word for a sermon. He said, the homily must be brief, an image, a thought, and a sentiment.

The homily must not go on for more than eight minutes because after that, with time, attention is lost and the people fall asleep and they are right.

Yeah, so according to the Pope, you shouldn't be preaching for longer than eight minutes because the people will just get tired and fall asleep.

You know how long it takes you to read the Sermon on the Mount out loud? Even if you're going at a brisk pace, it takes about 15 minutes to say the

Sermon on the Mount out loud. I've done this several times when I've preached through the Sermon on the Mount. I've read the whole thing out loud to my congregation before.

And so Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which the sermon was probably longer than that. We've talked about that when

I did a teaching through the Sermon on the Mount. But even the way that Matthew records it and puts it in his gospel would not be permitted under the

Pope's rules because it would be just too boring for people and they would fall asleep.

Anyway, I was having a conversation about that with somebody online, and I pointed out that in Mark 6, when

Jesus was feeding the 5 ,000, he had preached to them so long that they were hungry.

He tells the disciples that they needed to dismiss the crowd so that the crowd could go to nearby towns and be able to get something to eat.

And when I said that, I said, Jesus preached so long that the crowd got hungry. There was somebody that jumped in and said, that is so wrong.

It's not even in the text. You are inserting something into the text that is not there. And I said, how do you get that I'm inserting something into the text that is not there?

It even says in Mark 6, 34, he began to teach them many things.

And the person responded to me, well, he says he taught them. It doesn't say he preached to them.

So I took him back to Mark 1, 38, where Jesus said, let us go elsewhere to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what

I came out for. So where it mentions Jesus teaching the crowds, he's preaching to the crowds.

He would preach to them so long that they grew hungry and weary. The people are hanging on his every word.

They are certainly there to see Jesus perform the miracles, but they are also amazed at his teaching.

We've seen those statements in Mark. Here is one who teaches with authority. He doesn't teach like the scribes and the

Pharisees. So here the people are with him for three days in the feeding of the 4 ,000.

We're just a couple of chapters later now. And Jesus says, I feel compassion for them because they've remained with me for three days and they have nothing to eat.

Whatever food they would have come with if they packed a lunch, many of them probably didn't. They were just going out to the place where Jesus was.

But here they've come to that place. They've exhausted their rations. Nobody has anything left to eat.

And so Jesus says, if I send them away hungry to their homes, they'll faint on the way. And some of them have come from a great distance and his disciples answered him.

Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?

I remember having a conversation with an atheist a number of years ago, and he found this account in Mark eight to be completely unbelievable.

I mean, of course, he didn't believe in Jesus. He didn't believe Jesus was the son of God. He didn't believe that he did miracles anyway, like feeding the 4 ,000 with seven loaves of bread and a few fish, as said here.

And so I said, well, what do you find so unbelievable about it in what Mark says here? And this was his answer.

It wasn't just that. Oh, I just don't believe the Bible. Anyway, this was the reason he gave for why he did not believe this miracle, because the disciples did not believe that he could do it even after they just saw him feed 5 ,000 with five loaves and two fish what we had in in Mark six.

So just a couple of chapters earlier, the disciples have seen him do this. So why are they now baffled at the fact that Jesus thinks that he can feed this whole crowd with seven loaves?

Shouldn't they know that he could do this because they've seen him do it once before? That was the atheist answer.

He did not believe that this miracle was real simply because the disciples did not believe that he could do it or were not expecting him to do it, even though he had just fed 5 ,000 with even less food than what he has here.

I pointed out to the atheist, though, that Jesus does rebuke them for that. Why? Why don't you understand?

So, yeah, you can say that the disciples should have known that Jesus would have been able to do this.

Sure, we can say that. Would we have been any better, though? I mean, if we put ourselves in their sandals, would we have been in that situation and thought that, oh,

Jesus can just feed 4 ,000 people here? I know it's easy for us here 2 ,000 years later with the whole

Bible and knowing that Jesus rose from the dead. Yeah, it's easy for us to say, well, why didn't they believe him?

Why didn't they expect that he could feed 4 ,000 just like he fed 5 ,000? He could have made the bread come out of nowhere if he wanted to.

It's easy for us to make that criticism. But would we have been any better? Humbly asking that question, would you have really known that Jesus could have done this?

And so Jesus surely rebukes them because they don't understand what it is that they have seen and what it means.

But here they're asking Jesus, where are we going to send them in this desolate place to find enough bread that it's going to satisfy this whole crowd?

And Jesus asks them, how many loaves do you have? And they said, seven.

And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground and taking the seven loaves, he gave thanks and broke them.

And he kept giving them to his disciples to serve to them. And they served them to the crowd.

He keeps giving them bread. He doesn't just have seven loaves. He keeps providing over and over and over again.

And just like with the feeding of the 5 ,000, this here demonstrates to us that Christ is able to give more and more and more.

And the word is going to go out and it is going to multiply. And many people are going to be fed with just a little.

Jesus feeds a lot. And this is going to be symbolic of what the disciples will do because he's going to send them out.

And it's just going to be, it's going to start off with just the 12 of them because Matthias gets added into Judas's place.

So you got 12, 12 apostles in the upper room in Acts 2 when the

Holy Spirit comes upon them and they go out into Jerusalem and they're preaching the gospel there at Pentecost. That is the very first evangelism in the history of the church.

It begins with those 12 men right there at Pentecost in Jerusalem.

And Jesus is going to begin with 12 of them and they're going to preach the gospel. 3 ,000 on that day are going to come to faith and be baptized and many more are going to continue to be added as the next several chapters of Acts will go on to say.

You got a megachurch right there meeting in Jerusalem with thousands of people. That was the first church plant.

And so Jesus, as he's demonstrating here the way that he can multiply bread out to so many people.

So he is going to multiply the gospel out to so many people and it is going to spread throughout the

Roman empire even within the apostle's lifetime. It will get from one end of the

Roman empire to the other. And in that part of the world at that particular time, that was considered the world.

That was the gospel getting out to the whole world. We've seen in these miracles how

Jesus is able to do these physical things and that is supposed to be a demonstration of what he does spiritually.

Jesus makes this connection. We saw that early on in Mark. Mark makes that connection very early in his gospel so that you see the spiritual connection in every miracle that's performed after that.

He heals the paralytic right at the start of Mark 2 and Jesus healing the paralytic.

The Pharisees say, how can this man forgive sins? Remember that the, that Jesus said to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven.

The Pharisees are saying, how can this man forgive sins? And Jesus says to them, what is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven or to say, get up and pick up your mat and walk.

But so that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. And then he says to the paralytic,

I say to you, get up and pick up your mat and go home. It's easier to say your sins are forgiven, but you can't prove that you've forgiven somebody's sins.

You can't demonstrate spiritually that you have had the power or the authority to forgive someone else's sins.

But if Jesus has the power and the authority over a lame man, a paralyzed man can't get up and move at all.

And he's got enough authority to say to that man, get up and walk. And he gets up and walks, then, you know, he's got the authority and the power to even forgive sins.

So through these acts that can be perceived with the senses, there's some spiritual connection to that as well.

It's indicating that something spiritual is also going on or that Jesus is capable of doing something on a spiritual level, even beyond what people are observing with their eyes that he's doing physically, the physical miracles that he's performing.

So here he feeds 4 ,000 with seven loaves, just like Jesus is going to feed the world with the bread of the word.

Jesus saying that he himself is the bread that has come down from heaven. John 1 saying he is the word who put on flesh and dwelt among us.

And so as the message of Christ, the message of his gospel goes out to the world, it will feed the world with bread that leads to eternal life.

Something else Jesus says in John 6. That's outside of the context of Mark 8, but you see the spiritual connection that Jesus is making between feeding 4 ,000 and feeding the world.

So Jesus directs the crowd to sit. They're fed. Verse seven, they also had a few small fish, and after he blessed them, he ordered these to be served as well.

And they ate and were satisfied. That's a good meal. That's fish and chips right there. Bread and fish.

Yeah. And they were picked up in seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.

I always wondered what they did with that. I think I asked this question when we did the feeding of the 5 ,000 as well.

They picked up 12 baskets full after feeding the 5 ,000. And here after feeding the four, they pick up seven baskets full.

And what do they do with those baskets? Because after this, they have to travel all along. Surely they're not carrying those baskets somewhere.

I'm guessing they either gave them to the neediest of those who were in the crowd, or maybe they gave them to the people and said, hey, in the towns that you're going to take this back with you and make sure that it gets distributed among the people there.

I don't believe that Jesus and the disciples took them, right? Because here a little bit later on, they say, we brought no bread.

They use the seven loaves of bread that they had to feed the 4 ,000. So they didn't grab any bread. They didn't grab any of the stuff that was left over.

And so they think when Jesus is saying, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, that they're going, well, we should have grabbed some bread,

I guess. And that wasn't what Jesus was referring to. We'll get to that tomorrow.

Jesus warning to them about the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, along with the rebuke that Jesus makes of the

Pharisees about only a wicked generation seeks for a sign. Well, he doesn't say that.

That's in Matthew's account. He says, why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.

So we'll talk about that tomorrow. Why does Mark read it a little bit different than Matthew? And what was it that the disciples didn't understand when

Jesus said to them, beware the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod? Again, as we understand this, as we see the miracle here, we see what

Jesus is able to do miraculously through feeding the physical hunger of people.

So we can take this and understand how Jesus is able to perform miraculously the spiritual hunger that is in every single person.

Everyone is spiritually starving, and it is only Christ that can feed and satisfy.

In John 6, 35, Jesus said, whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Coming to Jesus and believing in him is being fed by him and quenching one's thirst.

As Jesus had said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4, the water that I give will well up into a spring of water that gives eternal life.

And so when we drink from this well, when we drink the water that Christ gives, the

Holy Spirit always being equated with water that quenches our thirst, then we are satisfied in a way that even food can't do it.

Remember the words that Jesus said to Satan, quoting from Deuteronomy in Matthew 4, 4, man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Here's some fascinating statistics for you. I just saw this the other day. In fact, I was trying to find a way to put it in my sermon this past Sunday, but I couldn't do it.

So here's where I'll do it. I'll share it right here on this episode. How much do you think that you will eat in a single year?

It is estimated that the average person in the United States consumes around 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 pounds of food per year.

That means you will consume 187 ,500 pounds of food in your lifetime.

If you live to be 75 years old, it is estimated that it takes 1 .3 acres of land to feed one person for a year in the

United States. You will eat this year. This is the average meat eater in the

U .S. You'll eat 27 chickens, one turkey, half a pig.

I kind of think I eat more pig than that. This is the average meat eater in America in a year.

You'll eat about a fifth of a cow. You'll eat 22 fish.

I don't quite eat that much fish in a year. 218 shellfish. That's a lot.

I know I don't eat that many shellfish in a year because Becky is allergic to shellfish.

But anyway, you kind of get the gist of it. Here's how much food that you're going to eat in a year or even in your lifetime.

Yet, what you consume from the Bible is even more beneficial than all of that that was listed in those statistics.

Because that food will sustain your physical body, but only God's word can sustain your soul.

And your physical body will die, but the soul lives forever. And only those who have faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf, is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

Only those who believe in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Food can't do that for you. Physical food can't do that for you. But the spiritual food that Jesus gives will last forever.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here with regards to Jesus feeding the 4 ,000.

And we understand that we are fed by the word of God. The gospel that was preached to us has given us life, sustains our life, gives us everlasting life.

So knowing that it is the gospel that gives life, that saves, then may we have boldness and compassion to go out into the world and preach the gospel to others.

Jesus had compassion on the crowds. So we need to have compassion also that others may hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and live.

Give us the courage to speak. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.