Does not save natively

When Jesus heard of it he left there. The verse just before said that Jesus just had news that John the Baptist had been killed and beheaded by the king. So when Jesus heard of that he left by ship to a quiet deserted place and when the people heard about it they followed him on foot out of the cities.

Jesus went out and saw a great crowd and was moved with compassion towards them and he healed their sick and when it was evening the disciples came to him saying this is a deserted place and the time is now late. Send the crowd away that they may go into the villages and buy themselves provisions. Isn't that great to be called of God to do the work of the ministry? I think so many of us dream what it would be like just to go into full-time ministry not to hold down that old job and go and work with your boss every day.

What would it be like to be in full-time ministry? To be a pastor of your own church, to rise up to be a prophet or even an apostle. Also to rise up in ministry. But I think very often we don't realize what is fully involved or the price that we would need to pay to rise up into that ministry.

And I believe this particular incident was a typical example of where Jesus began to show his disciples kind of price you can expect to pay if you want to work for the Lord. There are two situations that we often face in ministry. Number one, people make demands on us when it's not convenient.

Number two, people expect things of us that we're not capable of giving. Have you done any ministry? You know what I'm talking about. This passage describes both of those situations and Jesus showed us exactly how we should handle it.

Let's look at the inconvenience that Jesus faced in ministry. You see, Jesus had just got some bad news. Somebody was very close to him.

The guy who actually launched him into ministry there when he baptized him and actually also a relative of his. Their mothers were cousins. John the Baptist was very special to Jesus.

And Jesus hears the news that that horrible king has gone and killed this man. This great man who Jesus considered the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. And Jesus may have been one of God.

He may have been the very son of God in human flesh, but he was still human. Jesus faced what we all face when somebody close to us and that's important to us dies or even worse is killed. There's a devastation, a grief that comes on you.

And your first impression is, I just want to get away. Get away from the people. Get away from the crowds, from the ministry.

Just to go and be alone somewhere and deal with my grief. That's the way Jesus felt. He wanted to go and be alone.

Every day he was out there ministering to the people, the crowd. But this is one time he just wanted a bit of time by himself. Have you ever been in ministry? Well, no, there comes a time when you've had enough of preaching and counseling and praying with people and ministering to people.

But you have just so many needs of your own. And you just want to get alone with the Lord maybe. Just get alone with your family and say, just enough of the ministry.

Let's cancel all the meetings this week. Just take a break. Just have a holiday.

Maybe for a couple of days. Just go away somewhere. Nobody knows where we are.

Otherwise, sure as nuts you're going to bump into somebody and say, Oh, can you minister to me? That is the way Jesus felt. And he said to his disciples, let's get into a boat. Let's go find a deserted place.

That's where there's no people. I heard of the country maybe. I'm not sure of the geography of the place.

And so he got in the boat and went. And all the people saw him get in the boat and they knew where he was headed. And they made their way there on land.

And when Jesus arrived to have his little time of rest and refreshment, there was this crowd of people waiting. Hey, we need you. We need you.

We need ministry. Well, if you've ever faced this, you know, you don't feel like it. And you know, you might even get angry with these people.

They are so selfish. Can't they just leave me alone to grieve? Just give me one day's break. But you see, this is where you face the expectations of the people.

They wanted their sick to be healed. And you know, if Jesus died while doing it, that was fine as long as they got healed. You know, if you've got a healing ministry and you yourself are sick, they don't care.

Come and pray for me. You know, but I'm really sick. I can barely talk.

I'm choking. I need to be in bed. I've got a fever.

Yeah, OK. Perhaps you should know how to deal with that yourself. But the point is, you're in a position where you need some healing yourself.

And people, please, can you pray for me? Please, can you pray for me? You know, it's late at night. I'm tired. I want to get an early night tonight.

Oh, you know, one of the most fateful things for me to say to my wife, tonight we're going to have an early night. Sure as nuts, something's going to happen. Somebody's going to call.

Somebody's going to come. Somebody's going to want their needs to be met. It's the expectations that you can expect from people when you try and do the work of the ministry.

Not only did they want their sick to be healed, they wanted to get free Bible school. So they just came and waited for him to teach. And he taught.

And he healed their sick. And though he was so full of grief, scripture says his heart was filled with compassion toward them. And he reached out.

But you know what? Not only did they come and demand that he heal their sick and that he teach them, they just stayed. They just stayed. See, now we decided we're going to get an early night tonight.

Somebody arrived just as we were about to go to bed. And they sit there. And they talk.

And they talk. And because you want to be polite, and because you are in ministry, you minister to them. And you meet their needs.

And then you wait for them to say, thank you very much. We're going home now. And they don't go home.

Even if you say, well, maybe we should make them a cup of tea or something. Maybe after you give them a cup of tea, they'll go home. But they don't.

They stay. They stay. And you know what? It's getting now to supper time.

And you don't have food to feed them. But they stay. You've got to go see what you can find in the cupboards and the fridge to feed these people now.

Because they're not going home. You've been there. I've been there.

How did Jesus handle this? See, here is our model. Because if you want to be in ministry, you are going to face this from people. They will suck you dry and spit out what's left, as long as they get their needs met.

It's human nature. Well, how did Jesus handle this? Firstly, instead of viewing them through natural eyes, he viewed them through the eyes of the Father. He looked at them in love.

He looked at them in love. And you know, love is sacrificial. Agape love is when you give and give and give, no matter what it costs you.

He put all of his personal feelings aside. He's right. He gave up his right to be alone and to have his time of grief.

And he allowed the Father to take his emotions and channel it towards the people. And that doesn't tell us this, but I think he had one more motive. You see, Herod had killed John the Baptist, but it wasn't Herod that was the enemy, is it? It was the one who inspired Herod.

Satan and all of his hordes. They were the ones who were responsible. And I think Jesus looked at this and he said, OK, I can't deal with Herod.

But you know what? I can deal with the real enemy. I can deal with the enemy that makes people sick. I can deal with the enemy that discourages and blinds their eyes.

And I think Jesus had this new oomph that came up within him. And he said, I'm going to hit the devil and I'm going to hit him hard. I'll heal everybody that's here today just to get back to the devil.

And sometimes that's a good motivation in ministry. Don't get mad at the people. Get mad at the devil.

You get mad at the devil, it gives you kind of a new burst of energy. You know, that's why God gives us anger. Anger is actually a gift from God.

You know, we always think anger is a real problem. I really deal with my anger. You don't need to deal with your anger, you need to use it right.

Anger is actually a gift from God. Because actually, anger gives you the energy to do what you didn't feel like doing. Come on.

Come on. You have this argument with somebody. And you're the kind of person who doesn't normally like to push and say what you think.

Doesn't a husband and wife get into anger? You get into a fight. You say all the things you've been wanting to say for the last 10 days. You've been building up inside of you.

But you didn't want to say, you didn't want to stir, you didn't want to cause problems. But when you get mad, out it comes. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

You deal with the problem. See, God gives us anger to give us the energy to deal with problems. Well, Jesus dealt with the problem.

Instead of seeing it as these people making demands on him, he saw it as these people who were in bondage to the enemy. And he was going to hit back at the enemy that had killed John by ministering to these people. So if you can't get compassion and at least feel something for the people, get mad.

Get mad at the devil. And you know, it might just inspire you to get out there and do some real powerful ministry. Might give you some energy that you didn't have otherwise.

And then, not only do we have the inconvenience of ministry, but we have what I call the impossibilities of ministry. When we are required to do something that we're not capable of doing. Okay? Firstly, the things that God demands of us.

Do you know what God never ever asks us to do what we're capable of doing? He asks us to do what he's capable of doing. Jesus said to them, they don't need to leave. You give them something to eat.

And Jesus will say to you, stand back and wait for me to do all the work. I called you to the ministry. You meet the needs of the people.

Oh, Lord, here's somebody that needs a miracle of healing. You know, Lord, I don't normally move in healing. You know, Lord, I don't have the faith to believe this person's going to heal.

Lord, please, I'm going to stand back. And heal them, Lord. Heal them, Lord.

And the Lord says, you heal them. How can I do that? You heal them. You feed them.

You meet their needs. You counsel them. You set them free.

Time's going to come and you want to work for the Lord. God's going to do just that to you. If you give me, like the father takes his son, who can't swim, he throws him in the swimming pool and he steps back and says, now swim.

Can you see how quick you learn to swim in circumstances like that? You say, but that's unfair. What if the child drowns? No, the parent's not going to let the child drown. You're just going to give him a chance to learn properly how to swim.

And if it's too much for him, he'll step in and help. But if you want to move in ministry, the Lord is going to continually give you things to do that you're not comfortable with, that you're not capable of, that you've never done before. And that is the only way you will grow in ministry.

Expect it. If you want to work for God, it's coming. It's coming when you least expect it.

Out of the blue. You feel that. Say, but I'm not capable of that.

God doesn't need your capability. He doesn't need your natural abilities. He works only in the supernatural.

In my teaching on, in the twin set that we have, where I deal with spiritual, using your spiritual gifts, your ministry gifts, I share there how we have natural abilities in our body, and in our soul, and even in our spirit. Sometimes you think that a spiritual ability is from God, but it's not. It's still a human ability in the human spirit.

And we can still have natural abilities from our spirit. And people think, well, yeah, these are my spiritual gifts. No, they're not.

They're just your human spirit. But it takes God's supernatural power to do the work of the ministry. It takes the gifts of the Holy Spirit added to your spirit.

And that is why God does this to us. That's why he throws you in the deep end and says, okay, go and minister to this person. And you say, well, you know, Lord, I've been able to handle other problems before.

Here you could handle the other situations before with your natural abilities. With all your study, and your intellect, and your little knowledge of the word, and your experiences in life. You could handle most of those.

He's going to put you in a situation that you cannot handle with all of your natural gifts and abilities. So that you have to say, okay, I can't do it. And then he can say, yeah, but I can.

I can. And Jesus knew what he was about to do. But he threw it on them first.

Just to give them that little taste. Well, what did the disciples say? Well, Lord, you know what? You want us to feed this crowd? All we got here is a little bit of food. They said to him, we have here only five loaves and two fishes.

And they thought that would get them off the hook. Well, obviously, yes, quite clearly, we can't feed this crowd. We'll have to send them home.

That's our defense. Well, Lord, you know, all I've got is five loaves and two fishes. And Lord, I don't need anything more to give them that.

And he says, well, that's all I need. Well, all of it, all of it. He commanded the crowd to sit down on the grass.

And he took the five loaves, the two fishes. And looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke them. He gave the loaves to his disciples.

And the disciples gave them. What did we do? We take what we have, our natural gifts. We offer it up to him.

Lord, this is yours. It's no longer mine. I give it totally to you.

And the first thing he does is he purges him, takes that bread. It was baked so nicely and formed into this beautiful little loaf. And he breaks it in half.

Oh, that hurts. Takes your wonderful abilities that you're so proud in. And he says, this is what I think of them.

Oh, that's not nice. He purges it first. If you want to go through ministry, you're going to face death.

Let's not get away from it. He's going to bring all of your natural abilities to death. He's going to bring brokenness, brokenness.

Do you come to the place where you felt incapable before? Now you're even worse. Do you come totally to the end of yourself? He's like, I have no solution whatsoever now. I can't solve this problem.

Once he's broken that bread and purged it and made it more suitable for him to use, he'll give it back to you again. He says, OK, now you can give it out. Now you can give it out.

Now you can take your ministry and your abilities. Now you can use them for me, but not until I put them to death. Broken them and taken away all your boast in yourself.

He hands them back, but not until he's held them up to the father and blessed them and caused his anointing to come upon them. Only then, after he's purged us and anointed us afresh, and he says, now you can use it. Now you can take those things anointed by my spirit, and now you can use it to feed the people.

Oh, what are the five loaves of bread speak about? They're a symbol, aren't they? Come on, any guests? Five loaves of bread. What's the number five speak about in scripture? And what does it speak about, especially when ministry is concerned? It's the fivefold ministry. You say, well, God's called me to be a pastor, a teacher, an evangelist, a prophet, an apostle.

Bah! Break! Smash! Get ready for it. Get ready for him to take that ministry of yours and purge it and prepare it. Give it back to you.

Okay. It's not ready until it's been fully offered up to God. Jesus took that bread, broke it, and held it up to the father.

Held it up to heaven and spoke the blessing. Okay. So the first thing you must do if you're going to be used by God is to bring these things to him and say, Lord, I ask you, I give it to you.

I ask you to bless it and anoint it with your spirit. And then he did the same with the fish. Oh, what is fish a picture of in scripture? What is fishing a picture of? It's a picture of soul winning, isn't it? Jesus said to Peter, Peter, follow me and I will make you fishes of men.

We know that fishing is a beautiful picture. Of winning the last. And there were two, there were two different fishes.

Two fishes. But surely there's only one kind of soul winning. Only one kind of evangelism.

What is the two fishes referred to? See, I'm trying to prompt your minds here so you can sing. Well, it could mean many different things. And when it comes to allegories, you can do all sorts of things.

Okay. I'd like to suggest. But like this, okay, firstly, the fishes are a picture of ministry to the last.

Interestingly, added to the five bread, we now have the number seven. Which is God's number of perfection. Now, I'm not into numerology.

Okay, it's just a few little illustrations of small numbers that can be useful like that. Seven is God's number of completion or perfection or maturity. You say, well, you know, I really don't have a ministry to unbelievers.

Because God's called me to the five fold ministry. Have you heard that? Have you made that excuse? Not really called too much to the evangelistic soul winning ministry. See, I'm called to believers mostly because I'm in the five fold ministry.

But you see, five loaves by themselves are incomplete without the two fishes. If you want to leave out a ministry to the last, you're not going to do anything that's going to build the body of Christ. If you want to build your natural family, somebody's going to have to have babies somewhere along the line.

Or the human race will die out. And God's spiritual race, the body of Christ, the church, is also going to die out if we're not reproducing ourselves and bringing the last in to the kingdom of God. So without soul winning, ministry is incomplete.

And that's what I believe this picture is here. Now, the two fish are not as big a part as the five. Some people, that's all they know is soul winning.

But you see, when you get into the five fold ministry, the five fold ministry is actually not just called to soul winning. They're actually called to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. It's correct, the five fold ministry is effectively to the body of Christ.

They're Jesus' gifts to his church. So let's not forget that side. It's just evangelism.

That's all that counts. Let's go out and reach the last. Let's go and reach the last.

We bring him into church. And we run off and go and get some more. And while we're off, they disappear.

And they're coming in, going out, coming in, going out, coming in, going out, coming in, going out. Well, you know, I want 100 souls to the Lord this month. Where are they? I don't know.

I didn't have time to take care of it. But I'm an evangelist. I'm a soul winner.

I'm going to win the last. See, balance, very important. Two out of the seven.

Two out of the seven is involved in winning the last. Let's not leave it out. But by the same token, it's not the most important of all.

Now, there are two aspects to soul winning. And I believe that's the picture of the two fish. Okay.

Fishing is a beautiful picture of soul winning. That's why the fish is used. Because the way you win a soul is the same way you catch a fish.

Now, it's been many years since I did any fishing. You should try and get back to it again sometime. Sure, there must be places in South Africa where you still catch fish.

I loved it when I was younger. And I learned that there's two important things about catching a fish. Firstly, you're going to have to provide some kind of bait that the fish will want to come and take.

And secondly, once the fish takes the bait, you have to do something more than that. You've got to pull them out of the water. There's two actions involved.

See, now, sometimes people try and do what they call a foul hook. You just cast the hook in and you pull it in really quickly. Somewhere along the line, you might just accidentally hook a fish and out he comes.

You see, it happens. But it's not a good way to fish. It's not a very effective or guaranteed way of catching anything.

See, you've got to get the right kind of bait. You've got to get that twirly little worm that's going, I can stick it on the hook, you know. Throw it into the water.

You've got to attract the fish first. Oh, what's that mean? What is that a picture of? I believe it's a picture of approaching people with a positive message. It makes them want to come to the Lord.

A lot of people have this idea that the way you win the lost is to say, you're a lost, you're going to hell because of your sin. God is going to judge you and if you don't accept Jesus, you're going to die and go to a lost eternity. We scare the death out of them.

I never ever saw a fish take the bait because it was frightened of it. You just don't catch fish that way. You might be able to chase them away from that and get them into something, go into a net or something, I don't know.

But you don't attract fish by scaring them. In fact, you know, if you've done your fishing, what noise? Sitting there nice and quietly and then some person, like your wife or somebody who doesn't know anything about these, comes and ta-da-da-da, talks a big noise and scares the fish off. Don't scare the fish off, we want to attract it.

And there's lots of kinds of baits and we can make a whole message just out of the bait that we need. But I think the most powerful bait of all is the love of Jesus. To reach out to people and say, God loves you, Jesus loves you, I love you.

If you accept the Lord. No, unconditional love. Unconditional love.

Well, I love you if you become a Christian. Otherwise, I want nothing to do with you. You're ungodly, worldly.

Christians are like that. A mix of nice people at church because they're Christians. People at work, they're unbelievers who have nothing to do with them.

They're the ones who need the love of God. They're the ones who need to see you showing true love and care and consideration. Not with an ulterior motive that you want to get them saved, but because you know the Lord loves them and because you want to show them that unconditional love of the Lord.

And then they will come and they will take the baits. And it's an exciting moment when you see the float going under the water or you feel that tug of the fish on the end of the line. Wow, that's so exciting.

It's a sudden moment of surprise. And sometimes at that point, you're not quite sure what to do. You know, and if you're inexperienced, you might drop the rod.

I got a fish! I got a fish! No, no, you haven't got him yet. And then you get those who are so zealous. The first little bite, they go.

And out comes your hook and sinker and everything out and no fish. Or again, maybe a foul hook and you accidentally bite. And there's this tiny little thing like this.

And it goes flying through the air. It lands with it. See, it's not trying to win souls like that.

You don't just yank them. You say, no, be gentle. Give it time.

You play the fish a little bit. Let him bite, give him a bit more. Let him bite, until you know that he's taken it fully.

And then just gently reel him in. Oh, you'll snap the line. And he gets caught in a rock or something, it's gone.

No, you just reel him gently in and then you pick him up with the net. You take him out. See, that's how we win the loss.

It's actually really so easy. Just give him the bait. What happens if the fish doesn't take the bait? You don't catch him.

You say, but can't I sort of make him want to take the bait? You know, can't I just sort of push it down his throat a little bit and let him have a taste? I've never caught a fish that way, have you? I've only ever tried to catch unbelievers that way. Push the gospel down their throat. You need this.

You need this. Okay, this is just a whole side issue, this bit. I just want to emphasize that.

I've learned a long time ago that if I come in confrontation with an unbeliever, anywhere, anytime, I try and drop a piece of bait. Just make a little statement, say something. See if they pick it up.

See how they respond. If they ignore it, I'm not catching a fish today. If they begin to nibble on it, I might catch a fish today.

Provided I don't yank it too quick. Take it slowly. Take it slowly.

Keep offering them a bit more of the bait until you see that they definitely want this and they're going to take it. Then gently reel them in. Okay, I've done a whole seminar on soul winning.

Trying to explain this in detail, so I'm not going to go through it now. But I believe these are the two aspects of the two fishes. The one that we must draw them with love.

And the second one that we must pull them out. We must pull them out. We can't just leave them.

So, you know, I really had a good time witnessing today. I shared with the girl at work. And I told her all about the Lord.

And I feel so good. And so did she get saved? Well, I didn't really ask her. I thought I'd just leave that to the Lord.

You know what, a fisherman goes and dumps his bait in the lake just to make the fish happy and hope that sometimes some fish is going to come jump out of the water because he's so thankful for the bait. He's not going to catch anything. See, so we need boats.

A lot of people don't have the courage to follow it through, push it through. And as I said, we've taught on all of that. But I believe these are the two aspects of soul winning the two fish.

And then finally, we see in this story the results of our faithfulness and obedience doing what the Lord tells us to do. Though it comes at inconvenient times. Though he asks us to do what may seem impossible.

Though the death process that he puts us through when he breaks us is just painful. It's a reward. It's a reward that comes with this.

At the end of the day, there was a blessing. It says, and they all ate and were full. And they picked up from the fragments that remained 12 baskets full.

And those that had eaten were about 5,000 men besides women and children. All the needs of the people were met simply because they were prepared to give what they had to the Lord and let him do with it what he wants to do. All the needs were met.

Thousands of people had been fed by the time they were done. So, you know, I really can't see myself accomplishing that in ministry. You know, it'd be great if I could lead one or two people to the Lord.

Maybe I could do a little bit of ministry. Maybe I could do a bit of Bible studies or something like that. But to reach crowds like that, I don't know if I could do it.

Well, here's the news. You can't. But here's the good news.

He can. And you'd be amazed if you'll pay that price and give everything to him to see what he accomplished through you. And in time in the future, you'll look back at all the lives that you've touched.

And maybe you can't even remember them. Maybe only one day when we stand in the presence of the Lord and people come and say, do you remember that day you spoke to me? You really ministered to me. It'd be nice to stand there in heaven and have all these people come to us one at a time and say, hey, thanks.

You really blessed me. You know, I don't want to be one of those standing there all by myself while somebody else is standing there. The Lord is coming to them and saying, hey, thanks.

You did a great job. And then you're saying, um, how about me? Did I help anybody? Did anybody get ministered to by me? I don't want to be there. How about you? You see, the wonderful thing is not only that the Lord used them to meet the needs of the crowds, God gave them back in abundance to meet their own needs.

You see, while they were busy feeding all the other people, they weren't feeding themselves. I don't know, maybe they took a munch along the way. I don't know.

But sometimes you can get so busy giving out and giving out and giving out to others that you never get time to get your own needs met because nobody's ministering to you. But you know, if you'll do it faithfully and give out, the Lord will give back to you more than what you gave out. When it was all over, they went and picked up the food that was left.

People hadn't eaten. And there was exactly one full basket for each disciple. Full basket.

I don't know how big the baskets were those days, but I guess it was at least more than enough food for one day. They walked home with picnic baskets full of food. When they started out and Jesus said, feed the people, but Lord, we've only got five loaves and two fishes.

They were finished and probably each had their own five loaves and two fishes and more in their own full basket of food. See, when you give what you have to the Lord, he multiplies it. When you give out what you have to others, he replaces it.

But he always gives us more than what it cost us. So do you love the idea of rising up in ministries and having other people look to you? You're ready to do the work when it's inconvenient. Are you ready to do the work when people make demands on you? And they don't ask you, they demand.

Well, you're the preacher. You're supposed to be there to minister to me. I expect you to do it now.

And that will, are you ready to work when it seems like the Lord's asking you to do something that's impossible? You say yes, yes. Then get ready to get tested, because you will be tested. And if you obey, you get ready to be abundantly blessed in every way.

So my challenge to you now is make a commitment to the Lord. Right now. Right now, make your commitment.

Promise him that you'll do whatever he asks you to do. Promise him that you will pay the price, no matter how big that price is. And then get ready to be tested, because it will surely come.

Do not be surprised. He will test you to see whether you mean business, whether your commitment is real. When you pass that test, you'll be lifted up to the next level.

You'll be promoted into the kingdom of God. Oh, that means I'm going to become a big name. I like the way one preacher put it.

He says, you know, the Lord works this way. He says he gives you a row of beans, and he says, go and hoe those. And you go and do it faithfully.

And you say, dear Lord, I hoed the row of beans that you gave me. And he says, great job. Here's another five.

See, that's the whole reason for promotion, is you can do more. Your promotion is going to mean you're going to be tested more. Your promotion means more is going to be expected of you.

But the great thing is, you're going to get more back. Are you ready to make that commitment? Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for your word. I believe it's challenged us, each one of us.

And as we stand before you now, we commit ourselves afresh to you. Lord, I'm prepared to do what you tell me to do. I'm prepared to make myself available to meet the needs of the people.

Even when they make demands on me. Even when it feels like you ask me to do something I'm not capable of doing, Lord. I'm still going to say, here I am, Lord.

Take what I have, and break it if necessary. Purge it. And then anoint it, and make it suitable for your use.

To myself, to you, and I ask you to do that. Thank you. Thank you that I have the privilege of being your servant.

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