Yield Your Portion

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right today? Well, this your friend Dr. Cook and I’m so glad to speak with you once again, and just share from the Word of God. I have before me, my good old Thompson Chain Reference Bible. I use that often times, I just got a new addition of the new King James Bible from my good friend Sam Moore, of Nelson Publishers, and I’m going to use that as I preach and study and pray. Great to have the Word of God available to you, isn’t it? I learned to read out of my mother’s Bible. She had what was known as a teacher’s edition of the Bible. Great, big, thick book. It was two and a half or three inches thick, I guess, bound in leather and so I learned to read out of that, and I’ve been a fan, you may say, of the Word of God ever since. Well, that’s how it is, and I’m glad to be with you and we’re looking at the sixth chapter of the gospel of Mark. Our Lord Jesus is confronted with a group of disciples who have what we call, a burden for the benediction. They said, it’s late now, the service’s been pretty long, better send the people away, send them away, “That they may go into the country round about and into the villages and buy themselves bread for they have nothing to eat”. Now, stop you’re just for a moment to meditate upon the fact that, the fact of human need can produce any number of different responses. They have nothing to eat. Five words that describe 5,000 men, beside women and children, who are hungry. They have nothing to eat. Now, the first response of the disciples was, get rid of them. We can’t do anything about it. Not our problem, but turn them over to the social worker, then turn them over to the United Way, turn them over to welfare, turn them over to the police, turn them over to somebody, but send them away, get rid of them. Now, the human nature, the good old, fallen human nature response to somebody else’s need is, get him out of my sight so he doesn’t bug me, so he doesn’t bother me, and so that’s what they were saying. It’s been a long service, everything is over, people are hungry, let’s get them out here. Now, I’m sure that I would be out of line if I suggested that anyone of you who listen to these broadcasts, had that response, and yet knowing my own heart, I must say that it is probable, it is probable, that it sometime or other in your own life, you have had that to response to somebody else’s need or misfortune. Well, it isn’t my fault, you can’t blame me for what he did, he’s got himself to thank so you, that’s sort of a thing. Can you recall anything like that offhand? Well, I think some of us can, I know I can. Now, what is the answer to that? Well, the answer is what the Lord Jesus gave. See, “They have nothing to eat”. Well, He said, “Give ye them to eat”, which teaches me that my blessed Lord fastens the responsibility to somebody else’s need, squarely on me because I’m there. When I face somebody else’s need I am responsible to do what I can to meet that need. Well immediately they said, He, really? You’ve got to be kidding. Should we go and buy 200 pennyworth of bread? That’s 200 days wages Master. You know we haven’t got anything. Well He said, you have something, what do you have, “How many loaves have ye?”, and they said, “And when they knew”, they had to count it up you know. Somebody had one little loaf and somebody else may have had two or three, whatever, you know, so they counted up and they said we got five and two fishes, they weren’t very big they were small, and wasn’t enough even to feed the disciples, and that’s what bothered them. They were hungry.

Often times, my response to somebody else’s need is predicated on the fact that I’m not too happy about things myself, so they were hungry as well, and they didn’t have enough for themselves, let alone feeding somebody else. Well it says, “He commanded them to make all of the people sit down by companies upon the green grass”. God is the God of order. They sat down in ranks, by 100’s and by 50’s”. God is the God of order. Don’t let anybody tell you that the wildfire, hysterical, wild eyed kind of religion is something that God has ordained. No He’s the God of order, He’s the God of reverence, He’s the God who said to Moses, “Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the ground whereon thou stand this is holy ground”. He is the God of Isaiah who, when he caught a vision of God’s glory cried out, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips’, When he heard the Seraphim proclaiming holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty”. So He’s the God of order, He is the God of reverence, He’s the God of worship and He’s the God of methodical procedure in solving a problem, and now the word of God is often times spoken to me as I read it. I’m in the company of people who say, “I read my Bible and prayed about it and God gave me something from His word. There I am”. At the same time, I know that God blesses methodical procedure in meeting a need or solving a problem. A red-hot prayer meeting is no substitute for common sense, and so the combination it seems to me, is trust in your Lord and at the same time a sensible approach. This is what happened here. The Lord Jesus said, I’m going to be in control here, I’m going to meet this need, you do the next thing. You get the people organized in groups so that we can handle them. Sensible and organized procedure is not incompatible with good religion. You can have good sense and good business methods and organized procedure and at the same time have your blessed Lord in control of things and honor Him. You follow that? That’s a good insight have it seems to me. So He said, make them sit down, and they sat down. Now verse 41, here’s the key, “And when He had taken the five loaves and two fishes”. There has to be a point beloved, at which I hand over to God what I have to meet somebody else’s need. Oh, I tell you, that bites deeply because often times, if you’re going to try to meet somebody else’s needs it’s going to cut right into your own possessions, your bank account, your wallet, and your checkbook, your time, your strength, your abilities, your schedule. I suppose we resent the most, when people’s needs cut into our plans and our schedules and we have to see the well laid plans of mice and men going astray. Well, I think we better face it. I’m the face it with you. That if I’m going to help to meet anybody else’s need, it is going inevitably to impinge upon I, me, and mine. The loaves and the fishes were there’s, how many fishes have ye? The loaves and the fishes were there’s at one point, but now it says, “When He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes”. Yes, I have to hand them over; have to hand them over to my blessed Lord. When He takes them, they’re no longer mine. I’m sure that some of the disciples may have thought is as they handed over these five .they weren’t very big loaves, you know, they were flat, round, brown pancake looking things, that a been baked on hot stones probably. Weren’t very big, but as they handed them over one by one, and the dried fish with them, somebody must’ve said under his breath, well there goes our lunch. You can just see it, can’t you? When He had taken. Now, beloved friend, tell me something. What is there that you ought to hand over to the Lord Jesus Christ and let Him have it? You know, if you’re going to meet somebody else’s need, you have to be a person who has given something to Jesus to use, given it away that is. There wasn’t any guarantee that they would ever see one bite of that food for themselves. Of course they did, they had so much there was leftovers, but there was no guarantee at that point, that they would ever see one crumb, one bite, one morsel, of what they were giving to the Savior. Can you face that truth? I know it’s a rough one. I know it’s demanding, and I know this whole matter is not very comfortable to contemplate. I’m right there with you, but at the same time the truth is there, you’re going to meet somebody else’s need, you and I have to hand over to our Lord, that is give away to Him without any thought of ever getting it back, something that is calculated for Him to use meeting somebody else’s need. Now, I can’t begin to specify what that is because I don’t know you that well, you see. But, you know you, and God know you, and the two of you can get together on what it is that you ought to place by faith into pierced hands today,

Someone wrote long ago a little cuplet, only part of which I can remember, “Bind your Isaac to the altar, bind him there with many a cord, oh my brother do not falter, can’t you fully trust your Lord”? Of course, that’s a throwback to the story of Abraham as he was ordered by God to offer up his son Isaac, and then stopped with the knife in midair when God said, “Now I know that you fear God”. God had provided a sacrifice instead, beautiful story with a tremendous lesson for you and for me, “Bind your Isaac to the altar, bind him there with many a cord, oh my brother do not falter, can’t you fully trust your Lord”? What is there that you and I should place in pierced hands today, so that our Lord Jesus can multiply? Well, said, “When He had taken the five loaves and the two fishes He looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave them to His disciples to set before them and the two fishes divided He among them all”.

Time will run out before we finish that verse, but let’s start on it. What does the verb taken, when he had taken the loaves. You’ve given it away to Him now. What does that lead to? The first thing is blessing, “He looked up the heaven in blessed”. I have never in all my life obeyed God about something without getting blessed for it. This is axiomatic, if you yield some portion of your life to God and let Him use it, there will be blessing for you in the doing. We’re going to think about that again when we come back together, “When He had taken”. What is there you going to give away to Jesus for Him to use today? When you do be very sure that they’ll be blessing attached to it.

Dear Father today, help us to place those precious possessions in pierced hands for God to use, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!