God’s Sovereignty in Micaiah: Imprisoned - Faith in All Circumstances with Derek Thomas

SPROUL: We continue this morning with our  study of the gospel according to St. John,   and this morning we will begin our study of the  sixth chapter, which is one of the most important   chapters of the entire gospel. And so our lesson  this morning is from John chapter six, verses   one through fourteen, and here we have John’s  record of the feeding of the five thousand. “After these things, Jesus went over the Sea  of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberius,   and then a great multitude followed Him because  they saw His signs, which He performed on those   who were diseased. Jesus went up on the mountain,  and there He sat with His disciples. Now the   Passover feast of the Jews was near. And then  Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great   multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip,  ‘Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?’   But this He said to test him, for He Himself  knew what He would do. And Philip answered Him,   ‘Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not  sufficient for them that every one of them may  

have a little.’ And one of His disciples, Andrew,  Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, ‘There is a   lad here who has five barley loaves and two  small fish, but what are they among so many?’ “And then Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit  down.’ Now there was much grass in the place,   so the men sat down, in number about  five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves,   and when He had given thanks, He distributed  them to the disciples, and the disciples to   those sitting down – and likewise of the fish –  as much as they wanted. So when they were filled,   He said to His disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments  that remain so that nothing is lost.’ Therefore   they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets  with the fragments of the five barley loaves,   which were left over by those who had eaten.  And those men, when they had seen the sign   that Jesus did said, ‘This is truly the  prophet who has come into the world.’”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let them  hear it. Let us pray. Again our Father, as we   turn our attention to this extraordinary sign  given by Jesus during His earthly ministry,   we ask that we may see the significance  of it for His people and for us today.   For we ask these things in His name, asking that  the same Spirit who inspired this text in the   first place may now illumine its application to  our lives. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen. In this portion of John’s gospel that I’ve just  read, we have a record of a miracle of Jesus,   which is the only miracle that is reported in  all four of the gospels. That in itself should   call attention to its importance for us, and of  course one of the reasons for that is that John   spends most of his time focusing attention on  Jesus’ ministry in Judea, and this event occurs   in Galilee, in the northern part of the nation,  along the shores of the Lake of Tiberius or the  

Sea of Galilee, or Genereth – whatever you find  it called various times and various places in   the Scriptures. The lake was renamed early in the  first century when Herod Antipas dedicated a city   on its shores to the reigning emperor of the time,  Tiberius Caesar, and so when John is writing his   recollection of these events he makes reference to  the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberius. There are some details that one might  consider minor that are included in   John’s record of this event that we  don’t find in the other gospels. I’ll   mention them when we come to them, but we  are told here, as in the other gospels,   that a great multitude was following Jesus after  He went over the Sea of Galilee; and the reason   they were following Him was because they saw  the signs that He had performed on those who   were sick and afflicted. They had witnessed His  miracles, and so that attracted this great crowd.

Now we read that the Passover was near.  There are several times in John’s gospel   when John indicates that what he is reporting  takes place during various feasts of the Jews,   and three times, I believe, he  makes reference to the Passover.   And that becomes significant in  a few moments, as we will see. So in any case, it was near to the time of the  Passover, and Jesus went up on to this mountain,   and sat there with His disciples, and He looked  up, and He saw this tremendous multitude that   was following after Him; and when He sees  this crowed approaching He says to Philip,   “Where will we buy bread, that these  people may eat?” This is one of those   times where the Scriptures tell us that  Jesus was putting His own disciples to the   test. There’s a problem – a logistical problem  that they’re encountering here – and a serious   problem, sort of similar to that which the steward  of the feast faced at the wedding feast of Cana,   when Jesus performed His first miracle when  they were running out of wine. Here you have   this huge throng of people pressing up toward  Jesus, and presumably Jesus instructed them   for quite some time, and now they’re hungry, and  they have no food to eat. So Jesus says to Philip,  

“Where are we going to buy enough  bread to feed all of these people?” We’re also told that Jesus knew  exactly what He planned to do,   and He really wasn’t worried about coming up  with enough money for to buy provisions for   this huge multitude. But listen to Philip’s  great response of faith. Philip, who had been   present in the other miracles of Christ, said  that, “Two hundred denarii of bread is not   sufficient for them that every one of them might  have a little.” Now denarius was the standard,   daily wage for a laborer in Israel at this time,  and so what Philip is saying is, “Eight months   salary of a normal employee is not going to  be enough money to buy enough food so that   each person assembled here can just get a little  taste.” So Philip flunks the test. Jesus said,   “Where are we going to get the provisions to  feed these people?” and what’s Philip saying?   “Beats me. I mean it’s going to cost  more than two hundred denarii in order   to feed this mass of humanity. I have no idea  where we’re going to get that kind of money.” Now into the picture comes another disciple,  the one for whom our church is named, Andrew,   and Andrew, who was Simon’s brother,  said to Jesus, “There’s a lad here who  

has five barley loaves and two small  fish.” Now if it stopped right there,   we would be excited about this projection of faith  by Andrew – Andrew, who’s always found bringing   somebody to Jesus. And Jesus is looking around  for provisions for the multitude, and Andrew says,   “Well I’ve spied out the land, and I found one  little boy here. He’s got five barley loaves and a   couple of fish.” If he stops right there, then you  can say, well, that he’s indicating, “Well I know,   Jesus, you can take of this and make more than  enough for everybody,” but instead he says,   “What is that among so many?” His faith isn’t  any greater than Philip’s at this point. Now here’s one of those details. John is  the only one who tells us that they’re   barley loaves. The other gospels leave out that  particular descriptive term, so we have to ask,   “Why barley loaves? What’s the significance of  that?” Some people say, “Well this draws attention   to a smaller miracle that is recorded in the book  of Kings, that was performed by Elisha in the Old   Testament, where he multiplied the loaves of a  servant boy that brought to him in order to feed a   lot of people – not nearly as many people as were  assembled here – and that there was a connection   there because that boy had barley loaves.” Whether  that’s in John’s mind or not is pure speculation,   but one thing we can learn from the significance  of the fact that they were barley loaves was that  

this boy was carrying the lowest quality  of bread available to people at the time.   Only those who were living in poverty, for the  most part, would eat bread made from barley. Now also, just another little detail to get  it straight. It’s not like Andrew goes over   and finds this little boy with five big loaves  of bread and some fish. He’d have to have had a   knapsack or a bushel basket to be carrying around  five loaves of bread and these fish. No, no,   no. These barley loaves were small cakes, almost  like a Twinkie, if you would, made out of barley.   And the fish were small fish that were used  just to give some flavor to the barley cakes,   sort of like sardines or smoked herring,  or something of that size. So really it’s   not even five big loaves of bread and a  boatload of salmon here. The provisions   are more meager than we would assume just  by reading the words here in the text.

Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Another  detail – there was much grass in the place,   which squares with the description that this  was near the time of Passover because where they   are is, they are situated in what would today  be described as the “golden heights,” and when   summer comes, it burns away the grass and leaves  scorched earth. But here it’s still grassy. Jesus   makes them comfortable, sitting them all down  in the grass. Now ladies and gentlemen, it says   there were five thousand men – not five thousand  people. It’s five thousand men, not counting the   women and children, and estimates have ranged  anywhere from a total crowd of ten thousand to   fifteen thousand people who were assembled  on this place that Jesus is about to feed.

“Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given  thanks, He distributed them to the disciples,   and the disciples to those sitting down –  and likewise of the fish – as much as they   wanted. So when they were filled, He said to His  disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments that remain,   so that nothing is lost.’ Therefore they  gathered them up and filled twelve baskets   with the fragments of the five barley loaves,  which were left over by those who had eaten.” So Jesus not only multiplies these barley cakes  that this little boy brings, and multiplies the   fish to feed fifteen thousand people, but  He feeds them to their fullest satisfaction;   and after the feast there are twelve huge  baskets in which the leftover provisions   are filled up. Some think that the reason for  the number twelve is that it represents the   twelve tribes of Israel and the complete way  in which their covenant God meets their needs   and meets their provisions. This is the God  of providence at work, the God who provides   for His people. And it certainly echoes the  wilderness experience of the Old Testament,   when God’s people were nurtured daily by the  bread from heaven that appeared as manna.

Now we also see the strategic placement of this  particular event where, as we will see in weeks   to come, Jesus follows it up with the bread of  life and bread of heaven discourse – that God   miraculously meets the needs of His people through  His appointed Son, who multiplies the loaves and   the fishes. And what we have here is a narrative  that without ambiguity purports to be a miracle,   and it is miracle accounts like this that  vex higher critics of Scripture. In the   nineteenth century there developed a school  – an academic school called the Religious   Historical School – that sought to reinterpret  and revise the biblical record to strip it of   all supernatural elements and reduce the  biblical record to natural events around   a man who distinguished himself as a great  ethical teacher, namely Jesus of Nazareth.

I grew up in a church where the minister was  described by the dean of one seminary as “an   unreconstructed nineteenth-century liberal,” and  that’s what I learned in Sunday school when I was   growing up. And I’ll never forget the occasion  of studying the feeding of the five thousand and   how our minister dealt with that. And he  said, “Well here’s how it really happened.”   He said, “This crowd of people obviously included  thousands, who had had the foresight before they   went out for the day to pack lunches for  themselves. But there were also those who   neglected to make provision for a long day  on the mountain, and so when we have this   huge assembly coming together, and it’s time  to eat, and people are hungry, what you have   in that collection are those who are the haves and  those who are the have-nots. And so what Jesus did   was that He found a little boy who was willing  to share His lunch with others; and using this   little boy as an example, Jesus persuaded those  who were assembled who had brought provisions   with them to share with those who hadn’t. And  so the real miracle was an ethical miracle.”

Other interpretations were even less sanguine.  One of the scholars of the nineteenth century,   trying to understand what really happened  there, came up with this scenario:   that prior to the event Jesus and His disciples  had found a cave nearby, and they had stored a   huge cash of bread and fish in this cave. And  you’ve seen magicians on television who wear   clothes like mine, and they pull sausages  or scarves endlessly out of their robe.   Well what happened was Jesus had His disciples  lined up, forming a bucket brigade in the cave.   And Jesus stood out there, and they’re shoveling  all this bread and fish into behind His robe,   and He’s pulling it out of His sleeve until He  feeds all of these people. Do you know how many   loaves and fishes a magician would have to have up  his sleeve to feed fifteen thousand people? That   was the most prodigious magical act in the history  of the world if that’s actually what happened.

I also noticed a little detail that part of the  narrative is that when Jesus distributes the food,   He distributes it first to the disciples,  and then the disciples distribute it. So   I don’t know where He found enough  extra disciples to hide in the cave   to make – but this is the extent to  which people like the Jesus Seminar   folks and the Higher Critics in Scripture go  to remove the miraculous from the Scripture. Now there’s one event, for example, in the  Old Testament – I was reading about it this   week – that is not given to us as a miracle story,  but it is extraordinary. Those who were in Sunday   school this morning know that we spent an entire  hour doing a profile on the life of David, and we   made reference, then, to his battle with Goliath.  And the Bible says that Goliath was a giant and   that he was nine feet, nine inches tall. Now that  in itself stirs the bile of critical scholars   saying there can’t be anybody walking around that  tall. “Certainly we can’t believe that. This is   an exaggerated account of battle.” And this young  boy, without armor, comes out and hurls this stone  

at the giant’s head, and with one fell swoop kills  him, knocks him down. Then he takes his sword and   cuts off his head. And somebody reads that and  says, “See, the Bible’s filled with fairytales.” Just this week I was reading some literature about  that. One of the articles was about some of the   results of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which much of the  information of the scrolls has been kept secret   for many decades, and now it’s being revealed. And  one of the points of one of the texts of the Dead   Sea Scrolls has an account of this confrontation  between David and Goliath. And this account,   that dates from more than one hundred years before  Christ, and about a thousand years earlier than   the Mesaretic text, which is the surviving Hebrew  text that we have for Old Testament records,   has a different number for describing the  size of Goliath. Instead of describing him   as nine feet – nine foot nine – this ancient  text describes Goliath as six foot nine. See   six foot nine you can believe. Nine foot nine  makes, you know, Andre the Giant seem like a   shrimp by comparison, and this man would tower  over Shaquiel O’Niel if he were nine foot nine.

And that may disturb you that you have a  discrepancy between an ancient first century   text and an eighth century AD text, but one of the  most common forms of discrepancies in the copies   of the ancient Scriptures are errors of numbers.  As meticulous and as careful as the scribes were,   even they would make mistakes copying  from time to time, such as you might   do when you’ve incorrectly written down  somebody’s telephone number or address.   I would give anything to find Hebrew scribes  to work at Ligonier Ministries to get people’s   orders straight so we wouldn’t have any customer  complaints about getting the wrong order. I mean   every organization struggles with that – how  easy it is to make a mistake with a number. So if that text is correct, then Goliath is  only six foot nine. He’s just shrunk by three   feet. That’s a yard. A little problem  I have with that is that remember Saul,   who is the commander-in-chief and the king of the  Israelite forces that are challenged by Goliath,   is himself “head and shoulders” above  everybody else in the community,   and it makes his cowardice all the more severe  if Saul – let’s say he’s six three, six four,   maybe six five – that he’s frightened  by four or five inches of a guy taller.

But again, what about nine foot nine? A  couple of weeks ago I was watching one of   the history channels on television, and they had  a special report on twentieth century giants. They   were men who had an anomaly in their brains,  which caused their development to run amuck,   and two of the men that they showed on the  television were over nine feet tall. I mean   you think of the Watoosies in Africa as  being seven feet tall – that’s tall. But   over nine feet tall? Most of these men  lived until their early twenties and then   would die by complications, but they have  documented in our world today that strange,   extraordinary – but not miraculous –  reality of men who grow over nine feet tall. Now, so I don’t have any problems with the Bible  teaching that Goliath was nine foot nine. Maybe   there is a textual variant that makes him six  foot nine. Either way, I’m comfortable with it,   and I don’t have to go and try to find a way  to escape the sober teaching and declaration   of holy Scripture. Ladies and gentlemen, every  gospel writer in the New Testament attests that   Jesus miraculously fed this huge multitude.  And this miracle reveals to the masses that  

He is sent from the one who provides our daily  bread, who provided the manna for the people of   Israel in the Old Testament, and quickly let me  finish by looking to the reaction of the crowd. In the first instance, they say  – when they saw this, they say,   “This is truly the prophet who was to have  come into the world.” Now we look to verse   fifteen. “Therefore when Jesus perceived  that they were about to come and take Him   by force to make Him king, He departed again  to the mountain by Himself.” Is not Jesus the   anointed King of kings? Is He not the King  of the Jews? Why would He leave, when after   this miracle these people press on Him because  they want to take Him and make Him their king? Here’s another reason why, I think, perhaps John  mentioned that this is taking place near the time   of the Passover. Remember that at this time  in Jewish history is not just an exciting and   important religious festival, but it is the  supreme celebration of national pride during   the occupation of Israel. Our celebration of  July fourth isn’t worthy to be compared with   the excitement that the Jews experienced on  Passover, when they reaffirmed their hope  

that God would deliver them from the tyranny  of Rome. And so while this frenzy is going on,   and while the people are looking desperately  for somebody that would rescue them from the   yoke of Roman tyranny, now the perfect political  candidate appears on the scene. The thing that   wins political votes everywhere – a chicken in  every pot, a loaf and a fish in every lunch.   It doesn’t get any better than that.  “This is the kind of king that we   want – one that will care for us  from the cradle to the grave.” And Jesus read their hearts, and He knew that the   kind of king they were looking for  had nothing to do with the kingdom   that He had come to inaugurate. They  were looking for the kingdom of man,   and He came to bring the kingdom of God. And the  spiritual import of that event, as I said, becomes   central to the subsequent discourse that follows  soon thereafter that we will look at in the weeks   to come. For now, let us celebrate the providence  of God, remember that the word “providence” means  

“the one who provides” – that Christ is our  provider. He is the one who is the bread of   heaven. He is the one who more than duplicates  the manna that is spread in the wilderness. This   is our King, who gives us all that we need and  enough left over to fill a multitude of baskets. Let us pray. We thank you, O God, for the lavish  way in which you provide for your people – that   where we are uncomfortable you give to us comfort;  where we are hungry, you fill is; and where we   are thirsty you give us to drink. You give us  food that we have never paid for, by which we   are sustained. We thank you for this event that so  clearly bears witness to the superiority of Jesus,   that this sign signifies that He is  our Messiah. In Him do we trust, amen.