Transcript

Three sisters, ages, 92, 94, and 96, lived together. One night the 96 year old drew a bath. She put one foot in and then paused and yelled out to her sisters, “Was I getting in the tub or out?”

The 94 year old hollered back, “I don’t know; I’ll come and help.” She started up the stairs but stopped on the first step, shouting out, “Was I going up or coming down the stairs?”

The 92 year old was sitting at the kitchen table having tea, listening to her sisters. She shook her head and said, “I sure hope I never get forgetful like you two,” and knocked on wood for good measure.

Then she yelled, “I’ll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who’s at the door.”

When you read the Gospels, it makes you wonder if the Lord’s disciples were suffering from memory loss.

Just months prior to the feeding of the 4000, a very similar miracle took place in the feeding of the 5000, but they forgot, and they had a case of spiritual and faith amnesia.

When the Lord spoke of the people needing food after not eating for 3 days, their response shouldn’t have been, as it was, “Where are we going to find so much bread in the wilderness to fill so great a crowd of people?”

But instead, “Lord, just multiply some loaves and fishes like you did the last time!”

The disciples had already seen Christ feed an even greater crowd, but they still doubted Him when this problem arose. But we can’t be too hard on them, because we do the same thing. We forget what the Lord has done for us in the past, and we doubt, and our faith gives way when difficult circumstances come into our lives.

Matthew 15:29-31: “And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.

“And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them:

“Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.”

The feeding of the 5000 which is recorded in all 4 Gospels is often confused with the feeding of the 4000, which is only recorded in Matthew and Mark.

But they are not the same; they are separate and distinct miracles. There are similarities with these 2 miracles and there are also differences.

The similarities are that both miracles involved huge crowds. Both miracles took place in a location where no food was available, in the wilderness, on a mountainside.

In both miracles, the disciples doubted the Lord’s ability to meet the need, and Christ asked the question, “How many loaves have ye?”

In both miracles, the people were instructed to sit down, and Christ took what was given to Him, thanked the Father for it, and broke it. In both miracles Christ multiplied a small amount of food to feed a lot of people, and both involved the use of bread and fish.

In both miracles Christ used the disciples to distribute the food. In both miracles, the crowds were entirely satisfied and full, and a large amount of food was left over.

While there are many similarities, there are also several clearly distinguishable differences between this miracle and the first. The feeding of the 5000 took place in Galilee, on the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee, near Bethsaida. The feeding of the 4000 takes place in Decapolis, on the southeast corner of the Sea of Galilee.

The number of people fed in this miracle is different. In the first miracle 5000 men were fed versus 4000 men the second time.

The amount of bread used in this miracle is different: 5 loaves were used the first time versus 7 loaves in this miracle. In the feeding of the 5000, 2 fish were multiplied; in the feeding of the 4000, a “few small fish” were used, so at least 3 fish were multiplied.

The amount of food left over in this miracle is different; 12 baskets the first time, versus 7 baskets the second time. The first miracle took place after one day of teaching and healing. This one took place after three days of healing.

The first miracle was performed using food from an outside source, from a young boy who gave it to the Lord. In this miracle, Christ used what the disciples possessed.

Coming from the cities of Tyre and Sidon, north of Israel, the Book of Mark tells us that the Lord traveled east then south around the Sea of Galilee, then to the area called Decapolis on the southeastern shore of the Sea, and He then went up into a mountain.

Here a massive crowd comes to the Lord, bringing people with all kinds of injuries, infirmities, and diseases.

And they then cast them down at the Lord’s feet for Him to heal them. The Lord healed every single person who came to Him for healing. No person, no infirmity, no problem, was beyond His ability to meet that need.

People who couldn’t see went away seeing. People who had never spoken a word began speaking, people who were lame and had never been able to walk were walking. And this was going on en masse.

People couldn’t look fast enough to catch them all. They “wondered” and were stunned at one miracle seeing them made well, hearing them rejoice, and then another person walked by, jumping up and down in excitement at their healing. Over and over this took place.

The people there were struck with absolute awe at this scene of healed people everywhere. As a result of it all, the people learned to glorify “the God of Israel” through Christ’s ministry of love and care.

This is a picture of Christ’s care and provision for physical needs within His earthly millennial reign. Out of His compassion, the Messiah will heal the sick, give sight to the blind, make the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and cause the mute to speak.

This went on for three days. All day long each day, the Lord healed all who came to Him. And then at night, they didn’t go anywhere. The crowd continued with Him for 3 days.

Matthew 15:32: “Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.”

One author put it well, “Life is messy and hard. People are needy and demanding. We are called to lives of sacrifice and service. How do we pull it off? We follow the One with all power and compassion. We look to Him.

“We listen to Him. We follow His heart. Ultimately we trust Him to work through us. Such a life is scary and uncertain. We will be tested and pulled. But in the end our faith will grow and the needs of others will be met.”

Ministry and service for God by the Body of Christ must be carried out in the divine strength of Christ, as well as with the heart of Christ toward the spiritual and physical needs of others. We are to live with eyes wide open, with Christ’s sensitivity and compassion toward those who need our help and service, like we see in these verses.

After the third day of these healings, the Lord then called His disciples unto them, and He said to them, “I have compassion on the multitude.”

“Compassion” speaks of “a yearning of the bowels or the heart.” It’s a term used to express feelings of emotion, affection, sympathy, pity, kindness in your gut and in your heart.

Christ is God. By this statement, “I have compassion,” Christ is declaring that God feels compassion, that compassion is an attribute of God. How glad we should be for this. This sets the true God apart from every other dead, false god and idol on the planet.

Satan, who has no compassion, doesn’t invent gods that are compassionate. You will not find the false religions of the world any god by the invention of Satan that is compassionate by nature. Instead they are fierce, angry, wrathful gods.

But compassion is a distinctive attribute of the God of the Bible, the true God. Psalm 111:4 says, “the LORD is gracious and full of compassion.”

All Christ’s healings and miracles, and this relief in feeding the 4000, stemmed from divine compassion.

Christ is compassionate not only over our physical needs, but most importantly over our profound spiritual needs. By the Cross, we see Christ’s compassion for peoples’ eternal spiritual need. In His compassion here, Christ satisfied three days of hunger, but by the Cross we see how He also satisfied the needs of the soul for all eternity.

We find insight into the heart of God here, as we see that out of the tender mercies of God, just to know that someone is hungry moves and stirs God’s heart. The compassion of God extends to the small fact of our daily physical needs, even our food.

This crowd had been lingering for three days. They’ve slept on the ground. There’s no large city nearby. These people have come a long way. They haven’t eaten. They had put hunger aside.

They had been so overwhelmed by what is going on, they hardly paid any attention to their need to eat until three days had passed.

But our Lord knew that as soon as they started to move back toward their homes they would feel the effects of not eating for 3 days. And this concerned Him.

The Lord told His disciples that if He sent them away hungry to their homes, they’ll pass out along the way. “Faint” is a word that means “to collapse, or to come unstrung like a bow.” They’ll drop like a bow string when you pull it off one end.

Christ didn’t want them to go away hungry, and He didn’t want them to faint on the way home, because some of them had come from a great distance.

So the Lord’s compassionate heart would not permit Him to send the people on their way hungry. This miracle was primarily about simple concern by Christ for people’s need of food, so they had the strength to make their journey home.

It conveys the humble love and care of our Lord. He did this miracle because He didn’t want something bad to happen to people.

That teaches us about the heart of our Savior. Because out of this kind of care, Christ came to this world so that something bad wouldn’t happen to us: dying in our sins and spending eternity paying for our sins in the torments of the lake of fire. He came to set us free for our sins, so that we might be saved and have eternal life and a home in heaven.

Our spiritual weakness and needs draws out Christ’s love and compassion, and so does our physical weaknesses and needs. We never have to wonder if God cares. Never. He cares all the time, about everything in our life.

To say or think something like “God’s got bigger things to deal with than my little problems or issues” just isn’t true. That conveys a poor understanding of God. His compassion and care embraces every dimension of our need.

Matthew 15:33-34: “And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes.”

When the Lord spoke of the crowd’s need for food, you’d hope they would say, “Lord, simple, just do that miracle again with the food that you did last time.”

Instead they say, “Could anyone find enough bread in this wilderness? Where could we possibly go in this desolate place to find food to satisfy all these people?”

They’re immediately frustrated at the impossible task of feeding such a multitude. They told the Lord, what He knew, that this was a barren area. Cities were far away. There weren’t villages nearby. Finding food for this many people just wasn’t feasible or realistic.

They had to be taught and learn the same lesson all over again of recognizing their own insufficiency in an impossible situation, and their need to depend on Him in it. We often get faith amnesia and are thick-skulled like this, and we too have to learn the same spiritual lessons over and over before it gets through to us in the Christian life.

In verse 34, Christ asked them the same question that He asked them the first time He miraculously fed the multitude, “How many loaves have ye?”

In the first feeding miracle the disciples went into the crowd to see how much food was available. In this miracle, the Lord asked the disciples to share what they have.

They quickly scrounge around looking and checking amongst themselves, and then answer “Seven, and a few little fishes.” Like last time, this amount of food was useless in comparison to what was needed.

In 2 Kings 4, we also learn about a miraculous provision of bread through the ministry of the prophet Elisha. At that time, there were 20 loaves of bread to feed 100 men. And Elisha’s servant stated that this was nowhere near enough.

If 20 loaves wasn’t enough for 100 men, then 7 loaves was definitely not enough for 4000!

The disciples’ resources were inadequate in feeding such a massive crowd. But they were going to be taught again, as the old hymn goes, “Little is much when God is in it.”

Matthew 15:35-39: “And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

“And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children. And he sent away the multitude, and took ship, and came into the coasts of Magdala.”

Like in the feeding of the 5000, the Lord commanded the multitude to sit on the ground, because again, it was time to eat. The Lord had them all sit because the distribution of the food was to be done in an organized manner.

And then taking that small amount of food in His hands, the seven, small, flat disks of bread, and the few small, seasoned, sardine-like fishes, Christ prayed and gave thanks to the Father for the meal they were about to all partake of together.

And then He broke the bread and gave the loaves and fishes to the disciples. And the miracle went from Christ’s hands to the disciples’ hands to the peoples’ hands.

The disciples again became waiters and servers and carried the loaves and fishes and distributed them to the crowd. Christ relied on the labor of the disciples in both miracles.

He could have created bread and fish in the pocket or bag of every person, but He didn’t. Christ deliberately chose a method that brought the disciples into His work.

And likewise, Christ uses us and our labors and involves us in His work in the world. As Paul told the Corinthians, “For we are labourers together with God” (1 Cor. 3:9).

The disciples would return and the Lord kept multiplying and giving bread and fishes to them, and the disciples kept making trip after trip into the multitude delivering the food.

Again, He created it all in His own hands. Those were loaves that never came from grain, that never grew, that never was in the dirt. The fish that were created were fully grown, but they never were born, never lived, never swam, and never died.

For those in Bethsaida in the feeding of the 5000, it was the same here for the 4000 in Decapolis, for the people at both feedings, this was the best meal they ever ate.

Made by the Creator Himself, those were perfectly made loaves, and the freshest, best tasting fish they ever had.

Verse 37 says all the people were “filled,” or happily and totally full and contented. The Greek word for “filled” is also used of fattening cattle.

Everybody got all they wanted. The Lord never left any people half full in either of these feeding miracles. They were all stuffed and happy. I know I’m happy when I’m full!

The supply again was not minimal, it was more than enough. They were fully satisfied.

And that’s what we find in Christ: full supply for our salvation. Christ is more than enough, and life’s meaning, fulfillment and satisfaction are found in Him alone.

The disciples then gathered the surplus that was left over. After the feeding of the 5000, the Lord told them to “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost” (John 6:12). But at this feeding, they aren’t told to do this, because they remembered now.

They knew to do this because they had done it last time. And this time, they picked up 7 large baskets full of what was left over of the loaves and fishes.

The word used for “baskets” in verse 37, is the same word used in Acts 9:25 for the large basket the Apostle Paul was placed in when he was lowered down the wall of Damascus.

These baskets were large containers. They were big enough to put a whole person in it. So there was again a large amount of leftovers.

God is the God of the more! He has more than enough love; more than enough mercy and grace; more blessings; more of everything than we will ever need! He is the God of abundance, and when He gives and blesses, He do so generously and abundantly.

Verse 38 tells us how many were there and were fed and completely filled that day: four thousand men, beside women and children. Four thousand heads of households is how they counted them. There were 5 thousand men the first time, beside women and children, which was approximately 20,000. This time it was around 15,000 or more.

This again was a massive creative miracle. It takes a lot of loaves and fishes to feed 15,000 people, and also to fill up that many people who hadn’t eaten for three days!

After dismissing the crowd, our Lord and the disciples went by boat to Magdala, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Verse 33 says the Lord fed the 4,000 “in the wilderness.” This miracle was to demonstrate that the Lord could and will feed His people in the wilderness during the Tribulation.

At that time, believers will flee into the wilderness to escape the persecution from Satan and the Anti-Christ, and the Lord will nourish and feed them for 3 1/2 years.

Revelation 12:14 reads, “And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the WILDERNESS, into her place, where she is nourished for a time (or 1 year), and times (or 2 years), and half a time (or half a year), from the face of the serpent.”

Mark 8:14-21: “Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.

“And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?

“Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember? When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve.

“And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?”

A good friend of mine from Indiana told me one time that his memory is so bad he can hide his own Easter eggs. The disciples continued to struggle with a bad memory here.

Days after the Lord multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed the four thousand, it gets even more amazing and somewhat humorous.

After leaving the area around Magdala to cross the Sea of Galilee again, the disciples realized that they had forgotten to take bread with them, and they only had one loaf.

On this journey across the Sea, the Lord warned them to beware of the leaven, or corrupting doctrine, of the Pharisees and of Herod.

Then these same disciples, who had barely gotten done handing out the multiplied bread to the four thousand, started worrying and whispering among themselves, saying that the Lord spoke of leaven because they hadn’t brought enough bread.

They didn’t relate it to the spiritual idea that the Lord intended. All they could think of was the bread that goes in the stomach, not the bread that goes in and feeds the soul.

Perceiving their discussion and thoughts, in Matthew’s account, the Lord incredulously asks, “O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?” (16:8).

He then asked them, “Don’t you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?” They sheepishly replied, “Twelve.”

The Lord asked, “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets full of leftovers did you pick up?” They awkwardly admitted, “Seven.”

So He said to them, “How is it that ye do not understand?” (Mark 8:21). Or, “How is it that you don’t get it yet? You don’t have to worry about bread! Just trust Me.”

God had intervened miraculously and worked in their lives, but when the next difficult issue arose, their current situation and problem overwhelmed them, and the past goodness and working of God in their lives were then forgotten.

They struggled with the idea that Christ could supply their needs and provide for them. They struggled with remembering what God had done for them in the past and that He is willing and able. They simply struggled with just trusting Him.

And truthfully, we too all struggle with these things at one time or another in our Christian lives. Admitting that our faith always has room for growth is important for God, by His Word and the circumstances of our lives, to “perfect that which is lacking in your faith” (1 Thes. 3:10).

May we have the same honesty of the man who pleaded for the deliverance of his demon-possessed son: “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24).