Yielding And Blessing

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? I trust that you’re doing all right at your house.

Aren’t you glad you can be in the world but not of it? You don’t have to be tarred with the world the world’s brush, don’t have to be smeared with the world’s paint, don’t have to live like the world to be in it. “You who are kept”, says Peter, “You who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”. You can live so close to God that you’re ready any minute to meet your Lord.

Days before he was snatched from us in a what the world would call a drowning accident, Dr. Arlton who was a beloved professor at the college, had said just days before this happened he had said to one of his students, “You better live so close to God that when your time comes you won’t have any unfinished business”. Pretty good idea wouldn’t you say? And that’s the background of our little greeting, how in the world are you? Well, I trust everything’s okay at your house.

Come with me then to Mark chapter 6. We’re talking about what happened when the Lord Jesus Christ was confronted with a hungry crowd and disciples who had a burden for the benediction, who wanted to get rid of the crowd because it represented a need they had no way of meeting, humanly. Now He said, “How many loaves have ye”? Always remember that when you’re confronted with the human need, Jesus places the responsibility for it squarely on you. You say, that isn’t fair. Oh yes it’s fair if you’re dealing with Almighty God. If you’re by yourself it wouldn’t be fair, but, “Ye are laborers together with God”, the Bible says. “Ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building, ye are laborers together with God”.

You and God are the winning combination and so it’s fair that way and you have to remember that when you’re confronted with the human need or burden or trial or problem, our Savior says, “How many loaves have ye”? He puts the burden for meeting the needs squarely on my shoulders and thank God on His as well. Well now, the last time we got together the thing we were talking about was that when you give something precious to your Lord, blessing follows. It says, “When He had taken the loaves in the fishes, He looked up to heaven and blessed”. He blessed.

That act of yielding leads to blessing. Do you know the secret to many a dried-up life is that there has been no yielding of anything to God for so long. Faith in Christ has cost the individual nothing, service for God has cost the individual nothing. There has been nothing yielded in consecration and sacrifice to the Savior and as a result the soul is dry and barren and isn’t any blessing. You want to think about that as a life principle, that blessing follows giving something to Christ to use. “When He had taken the loaves and the fishes he looked up to heaven in blessed”. The blessing of the Savior follows your action and mine in handing something over to Him for Him to use.

I called my sister the other day to wish her a Merry Christmas and I said, “How are you”? Oh, she said, “I’m fine”, she said, “I got a word from the Lord and I obeyed Him and I always feel good when I obey God”. Of course she did. Blessing follows obedience, blessing follows consecration, blessing follows sacrifice, blessing follows giving. Then it says, “He broke the loaves”.

I don’t like the breaking part, do you? Now, what do you do about this? Well, you let God be God in your life. There are experiences that humble me, that, that crush me, that hurt me, that leave me devastated or discouraged. There are experiences in life that break me up, aren’t there? Some of you are going through experiences like that this very time as were speaking, and you say, “Brother Cook you don’t know”. Of course I don’t. I don’t live inside your skin, but God knows and cares, “Casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you”.

Jesus knows how you feel. “We have a high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, He knows how you feel better than any loved one or friend or person such as myself who might speak with you from time to time. You’re going through it. What does the breaking mean? The breaking means that your usefulness is multiplied. It’s that simple. The breaking means that your usefulness is multiplied.

The crowd could not have been fed if the loaves and the fishes had not been broken up and divided. Oh, let me learn that, let me learned afresh in my own soul. I have to learn all these lessons as I go on. Seems like you have lived a few years and you know it but I have to learn the lesson again.

The breaking means that your usefulness is being multiplied. Yes, because some of us have gone through times of sorrow, we can help to comfort, because some of us have gone through times when testing seemed to threaten, to overthrow all our plans and efforts, we can help others to trust God in the face of the impossible. Yes, because we’ve seen miracle answers to prayer under great pressure, we can help other people to believe God for miracle answers to prayer, as they too are under great pressure. Paul says, “Blessed be God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father mercies and the God of all comfort who comfort of us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trial, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God”.

God dries your tears so that you could dry somebody else’s. Have you ever thought of that? The blessing and the breaking, and then the giving. “He gave them back to His disciples, not now for them to eat, but for them to give to somebody else”. “He gave to His disciples to set before them and the two fishes divided He among them all”.

First, you give to Jesus what you have. Second He blesses. Third, He breaks and multiplies. Forth, He gives it back to you to give out. There is nothing so precious in all the world as the experience of being completely broken before your Lord and then going out and finding that you have indeed something that speaks to people’s hearts.

I recall one campaign which before I began it, found me in a very and downcast and spiritually dry state. I had gone through a number of experiences that had drained me and now I was facing a couple weeks of evangelistic crusade in a western city, and I just, I was so down and so low. Happily, I was in the town a day or so before the meetings were to start, and so I just locked myself in a motel room that they had provided for me where we would stay, and I just locked myself in the room and I got down before God and began to cry out to Him. The first thing that God led me to do is to confess my sins and shortcomings and failings before Him, and the more that I told Him the longer the list seemed to be. Finally after the hours of past, I was enabled to trust God for complete cleansing and strengthening and forgiveness of my failings and to look up in love and trust, and tell Him that I did love Him and that I did want to yield myself completely to Him, and out of that time of breaking and out of that time of weeping and waiting on God, there came a remarkable ability and in the in my preaching, and I didn’t preach any new sermons per se, I think I may have gotten one or two new messages as the couple weeks went by, but for the most part I used messages that God had given me some other time, and so it wasn’t that I had brand-new thoughts or words or phrases, it was that the person who was speaking had been in the presence of the Lord’s and His words seem now to have power, and night after night, people by the hundreds, would come seeking Christ. Oh what a blessed experience that was.

Beloved, when you yield to Christ and you give Him your loaves and fishes, and He blesses in He breaks, He gives the same thing back to you to give to others, and now there’s power, now their spiritual life, now there’s multiplication of blessing because you’ve given it to Him. No, I can’t tell you what that specifically means in your case. Someone has a beautiful voice, you need to yield it to Christ, someone has business ability, you need to yield it to Christ, someone has some of this world’s goods, you need to put it to work for your Lord, someone can write, you need to begin writing for His glory, someone can manage you need to put your management skills to work for the Lord. I don’t know.

Someone’s a teacher, you need to put your teaching abilities in His hands so that He can use you day by day, whether in the public schools, God knows we need born-again teachers in the public schools more than ever, or in the private Christian school somewhere, give what you have and give what you are beloved, give the loaves and fishes, the stuff of which life is made. If they hadn’t had any food they would die. Food was pretty vital to them. Give the stuff of which your life is made beloved, over to your blessed Lord. Put whatever it is into His pierced hands and let Him bless and break and then give it back to you for His glory. Good idea? Now there is one other thought that comes to me here. It says, “The two fishes divided He among them all”. Now, why would that be added? Simply because God wants you to know that there is an equity in the way God works. He doesn’t play favorites.

There is blessing for everybody that you meet and to whom you can minister. God will make you a blessing to anybody He brings across your pathway. No one is too difficult, no one is too far gone, no one is too preoccupied with his own matters, no one is too sophisticated and hardhearted and scornful. God can make you a blessing to anybody that He brings across your pathway, “The fishes divided he among them all”. Everybody was included and in God’s ministry through you beloved. Oh, get hold of this for yourself today, it will thrill your heart. In God’s ministry for you my beloved friend, there is room to minister to anybody and everybody that God brings across your pathway, regardless of the circumstances. Don’t flinch and drawback simply because things don’t seem to be propitious and set up properly. Let God use you and He knows how to bring His message through to needy hearts.

Well it said, “They did all eat”, there’s another all. “They did all eat and were filled, they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fishes”. Fragments of bread and pieces of fish twelve baskets full. Well there were twelve apostles and it would seem that our Savior was saying, you fellas thoughts you were giving up your lunch, well there is a basket for each of you, help yourself.

God always sees to it that there is enough, not too much, but there’s enough. Oh beloved, give what you are, give what you have and give your possibilities over to pierced hands to handle, to bless and to break and then to give back to you, to give out people. You’ll have plenty, don’t worry about that. In the meantime, God will use you to satisfy the hungry hearts of people everywhere.

Dear Father today, take us into pierced hands and use us for Thy glory, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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