An old prospector came into a saloon in frontier California & ordered a glass of milk with a shot of whiskey in it. While the bartender was fixing his drink, the old prospector wandered over to speak to some of his friends.
Before he came back, a man came in wearing a black threadbare coat. He walked up to the bartender & timidly said, "Sir, I'm a poor traveling Baptist circuit rider. I've just made it across the desert. I'm bone dry. Could you let me have that foamy glass of milk I see you've just poured?"
"Take the milk," said the bartender with a twinkle in his eye. "We're glad to have you in our town. Take that glass of milk & drink it up."
The preacher drank that milk real slow savoring every drop. Then he looked up towards the ceiling & with a smile on his face he declared, "Lord, that cow was really different!"
I hope nobody's offended by that little piece of humor, but this evening we want to talk for a few moments about the bounteous goodness of God. And we want to say, "Lord, what a bounteous God!"
Our text tells the story of the feeding of the 5,000. It is a marvelous story of God's provision for human need. The focus is on bread, but the lesson is about all of life.
You know the story well. A multitude of people had come out to hear Jesus teach. Many had probably come hoping for a miracle of healing. Some came, doubtless, out of curiosity. "How shall we buy bread for all these people?" Jesus asked his disciples. For he knew that though we cannot live by bread alone, we cannot live without bread either. The disciples were able to scrounge up only 200 denarii--not enough to even begin to feed this mob.
Andrew came to the rescue. "There is a lad here who has 5 barley loaves & 2 fish," he said, "but what are they among so many?" Jesus said, "Make the people sit down."
WE EXPERIENCE THE BOUNTY OF GOD, FIRST OF ALL, WHEN WE TAKE TIME TO SIT DOWN.
Mother Theresa has said that the biggest problem facing the world today is not people dying in the streets of Calcutta. She says the biggest problem is what she calls "spiritual deprivation." She describes this as a feeling of emptiness associated with feeling separate from God and from all our brothers & sisters on planet Earth. There are people within the shadow of this church who know about that kind of emptiness.
Nels Ferre once wrote of a Christian missionary convert from Hawaii. This convert spoke on prayer to a seminary audience here on the mainland. "Before the missionaries came to Hawaii," she said, "my people used to sit outside their temples for a long time meditating & preparing themselves before entering.
Then they would virtually creep to the altar to offer their petition and afterward would again sit a long time outside, this time to `breathe life' into their prayers. The Christians, when they came, just went up, uttered a few sentences, said Amen, & were done. For that reason my people called them haolis, `without breath,' or those who failed to breathe life into their prayers."
It may be that the reason many of us live such barren lives is that we rarely set aside time any more to breathe life into our prayers. We are so busy doing, so caught up in the rat race, so pressed for time, that we have cut out that which gives us the strength, the courage and the vitality we need to strive successfully.
You may know the famous story of Jean Henri Fabre, the French naturalist, & his processional caterpillars.
He encountered some of these interesting creatures one day while walking in the woods. They were marching in a long unbroken line front to back, front to back. What fun it would be, Fabre thought, to make a complete ring with these worms & let them march in a circle.
So, Fabre captured enough caterpillars to encircle the rim of a flowerpot. He linked them nose to posterior & started them walking in the closed circle. For days they turned like a perpetual merry-go-round. Although food was near at hand & accessible, the caterpillars starved to death on an endless march to nowhere.
That seems to be the story of many people today. They are on a march that leads to nowhere. We need to stop for a moment, & sit down in the presence of Jesus.
THEN WE NEED TO RECEIVE WHAT CHRIST HAS TO OFFER US, JUST AS THE MULTITUDE RECEIVED THE LOAVES & FISH.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan went to visit a member of his church. He was saddened to learn that she was to be evicted from her house because she couldn't pay the rent. That was on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday Campbell Morgan told his congregation that he wanted enough money from them to pay the woman's rent. They gave it to him. First thing Monday morning he went to the woman's house with the money. He could hardly wait to tell her the good news. He hammered on the door, but there was no answer. What a disappointment! He knocked again, but still no answer. He went away feeling dejected.
Some time later he discovered that the woman had been at home all the time. She had been afraid to answer the door, for she thought it was the landlord who had come for the rent. All the time she cowered in fear, it was her minister bringing her the money she needed.
When we shut God out of our lives, we, too, shut out the very One who can meet our deepest needs. For you see, His greatest wish is to provide. His very nature is to give. He is love. Love is always giving. If we are not receiving from Him, the problem may be on our end, for He is a giving God.
Sometimes we are simply blind to His wondrous bounty. We are like the tragic residents of one of America's first villages. During the winter of 1610, the population of Jamestown went from about 500 people to about 60. While disease & Indians took some, most of the settlers simply starved. There were plentiful supplies of fish, oysters, frogs, fowl, & deer; but these settlers from the city were not accustomed to obtaining food from the land. Hence, they starved!
We sometimes act the same way. God comes to us continually in the person of the Holy Spirit to guide us. As a loving Father He awaits the opportunity to meet our needs, but we are not accustomed to receiving from His loving hand. Nor does it occur to us to pray. So we wander blindly from problem to problem, a sort of picture of those early settlers who starved in a land of plenty.
"Make the people sit down," Jesus commanded his disciples. Then he took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed these loaves and these fish to all who were seated, as much as they wanted. So also do we receive God's blessings when we sit and wait and when we receive what he has to offer.
Notice, finally, how John concludes this story: "So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, `This is indeed the prophet who is come into the world!'"
WHEN WE SIT AND WAIT UPON THE LORD AND WHEN WE RECEIVE WHAT HE HAS TO OFFER US, WE DISCOVER THAT GOD IS INDEED A BOUNTEOUS PROVIDER FOR HIS CHILDREN'S NEEDS.
One of the lessons Christ tried to teach us was the extravagance of God. He is the God who provides in abundance --who sets before us a table in the midst of our enemies--who fills our cup to overflowing. Who when wine is needed for the wedding feast tells us to fill the water pots, & fill them to the brim--who when the Prodigal returns home kills the fatted calf & throws a big party.
Most of the worries that beset us would disappear in a moment if we could lean back & rest ourselves on the extravagance of God's provisions for His children's needs. All of nature testifies to God's bounty.
Consider our universe. Did you know that if you could bore a hole in the sun & somehow put in 1.2 million earths, you would still have space left over for 4.3 million moons. The sun is 865,000 miles in diameter and 93 million miles away from earth. Pluto, still in our solar system but in the opposite direction, is 2.7 billion miles away. And there are billions of such solar systems. What are they there for? As best we can determine, they have no other purpose than our enjoyment & perhaps to serve as a challenge to humanity to keep moving ever outward & upward.
Galileo once put it this way, "The sun which has all those planets revolving about it and depending on it for their orderly functions can ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the world to do." And it doesn't! God has brought into being a magnificent creation with the sole purpose of providing for His children's needs. Isn't that mind-boggling? But why such extravagance, why such bounty, why such seeming waste?
Generations ago John Spencer offered an interesting theory on this matter. He noted that the Jewish rabbis taught that when Joseph, in the times of plenty, had gathered much corn in Egypt, he threw the chaff into the river Nile. His purpose was to convey by means of the flowing river to cities & nations more remote the good news of the abundance laid up, not for themselves alone, but for others also.
"So God," writes Spencer, "in his abundant goodness, to make us know what glory there is in heaven, hath thrown some husks to us here in this world, that so, tasting the sweetness thereof, we might aspire to his bounty that is above, & draw out this happy conclusion to the great comfort of our precious souls--that if a little earthly glory do so much amaze us, what will the heavenly do?
If there be such glory in God's footstool, what is there in his throne? If he give us so much in the land of our pilgrimage, what will he not give us in our own country? If He bestoweth so much on his enemies, what will he not give to his friends?" Perhaps this is the reason for God's extravagance. He wants to prepare us for the greater extravagance of Heaven.
It reminds me of 2 fellows who died recently & were walking the golden streets of God's celestial realm. There was more beauty & more splendor & more joy there than they had ever dreamed imaginable.
One of them turned to the other and said, "Isn't this wonderful?"
The other replied, "Yes, and to think we could have gotten here 10 years sooner if we hadn't eaten all that oat bran."
God has so many blessings to pour out on all of us. He asks us to sit down and receive what He has to give. What He has to give, He gives with extravagance. As the Apostle Paul once wrote, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him." (2 Corinthians 2:9)
