SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/4/2022 10:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Continuing
in Matt. 15:29-39
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
15:29-39
Message of the verses: “29 And departing
from there, Jesus went along by the Sea of Galilee, and having gone up to the
mountain, He was sitting there. 30 And great multitudes came to Him, bringing
with them those who were lame, crippled, blind, dumb, and many others,
and they laid them down at His feet; and He healed them, 31 so that the
multitude marveled as they saw the dumb speaking, the crippled restored, and
the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel. 32
And Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said, "I feel compassion for the
multitude, because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing
to eat; and I do not wish to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the
way." 33 And the disciples said to Him, "Where would we get so many
loaves in a desolate place to satisfy such a great multitude?" 34 And
Jesus *said to them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said,
"Seven, and a few small fish." 35 And He directed the multitude to
sit down on the ground; 36 and He took
the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started
giving them to the disciples, and the disciples in turn, to the
multitudes. 37 And they all ate, and were satisfied, and they picked up what
was left over of the broken pieces, seven large baskets full. 38 And those who
ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And sending away the
multitudes, He got into the boat, and came to the region of Magadan.”
Before
we get started in looking at these verses today I want to again pass on the
information of a podcast that I listen to each week since it came out a couple
of months ago. I know the person who is
conducting the podcast and in the one that I listened today I also knew those
who he was talking to and have a great deal of respect for them. The podcast is “Send 938 Podcast” and is a
part of Baptist Mid Missions from Cleveland, Ohio a missionary agent that began
102 years ago this year. The podcast I
listened today was on medical missions and as always it was great to listen
to. Those who take the time to listen to
this I believe will be blessed.
I
think that it is interesting that we are talking about our Lord healing many,
many hundreds, if not thousands of people in this section of Scripture and
that is what the podcast is about as these medical missionaries are the hands
and feet of our Lord, doing, through His power work like He did. Now these people are using medical technology
in helping others, but none the less they are working for the cause of Christ
using the skills that He has given to them.
One of the things that these people have is compassion for those they
work with both in physical and spiritual needs, just as Jesus did when
ministering to the people found in this section. Jesus had compassion for their physical
afflictions, which were often lifelong in their effect. “But He also had compassion in regard to
their food which sustained them from day to day. In His model prayer the Lord tells us to ask
our heavenly Father to ‘give us this day our daily bread’ (Matt. 6:11), because
He cares about the practical needs of our daily lives.”
We
know that the people who were healed by our Lord, and of course those who
brought them to this place where the Lord was were greatly excited, but it does
not seem like they had much to eat, perhaps nothing for those three days, and
this became a concern for our Lord as Jesus therefore did not wish to send them
away hungry, lest they faint on the way.
As we look at the word faint it means to collapse. I remember the first time that the Lord was
leading me to go on a fast, as He was preparing me to do this after I was about
to retire from my job, and I really wanted to know what His plans were for me
after I retired. I did some studying on
fasting and went from three meals a day to then two and finally one and after
that I was not at all hungry. I was in a
kind of remote place and only brought water with me to drink. I wanted to stay longer but the loneliness
caused me to want to go home. It has
been a bit over a week since I had eaten and as I was packing up my things to
put into my truck I noticed it took me a lot longer than if I had eaten on a
regular basis. I think from that
experience I understand what it was that Jesus was talking about when He said
that He did not want them to faint.
Fainting was probably what would have happened to them.
Now
we want to look at the response that the disciples had and it was very similar
to what kind of response they had when Jesus feed the five thousand, which may
seem to be a bit strange, as it was to me until I listened to MacArthur’s
sermon on this section. I will quote
what he says in his commentary at this time.
“At
first glance the disciples’ response seems to be essentially the same as it was
when He asked them to feed the five thousand near Bethsaida Julias
(14:16-17). Because in Decapolis the
disciples appeared to act as if this were the first time Jesus had requested
such a thing of them, many liberal commentators have maintained that Matthew
gives two accounts of the same feeding, with differing and even conflicting
details. But as a former tax collector,
who was used to keeping accurate records, Matthew was much too astute to have
missed the contradictions, and it would make no sense to fabricate them. He was with Jesus throughout His ministry,
and it is inconceivable that he would be so confused about such a dramatic
event that he thought it happened twice instead of only once. Nor would the Holy Spirit, who inspired the
Gospels, have allowed such feedings not recorded in the Gospels (cf. John
21:5).” “So
Jesus *said to them, "Children, you do
not have any fish, do you?" They answered Him, "No."
The question then is why did the disciples again ask
Jesus "Where would we get so many loaves in a desolate place to satisfy such a
great multitude?" This kind of sounds
familiar, don’t you think? It seems that
they would have known when He asked that question that they would have said
something like “the same way the five thousand were fed, as You did it.” We know that they could not have possibly
forgotten what happened before. After
all they were the ones who passed out the food.
Here is what MacArthur writes”
They were saying, in effect, ‘Lord, we are no more able to feed this
crowd by ourselves than we were able to feed the other one. This group is smaller, but four thousand men
and their families are just as impossible for us to feed as five thousand.’”
The
place that these miracles took place was probably a more desolate place than
the area near Bethsaida Julias, and if they could not have food there, they
could certainly not find it here. I
believe that the disciples did not doubt that Jesus could also miraculously
feed this group, nor had they forgotten the previous feeding writes
MacArthur. “The first idea is totally improbable
and the second is impossible. Rather,
their reply to Jesus emphasized that they knew the Lord could satisfy such a
multitude but that they could not. He
had no less power than before, and they had no more.”
Lord
willing we will continue talking about the feeding of these four thousand in
our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful for the examples that come from
our Lord and also thankful that I wrote this SD after listening to the Send 938
Podcast as the Lord brought things together for me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to take care of the daily
battles that I face.
8/4/2022 11:39 AM
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