Morgan, J Phillip: A Table In The Wilderness

The Lord, the feeding of the, the four and, uh, taking up of seven baskets of fragments. There's a similar account, you remember, and the Lord fed, your Bible says, five thousand men, and it suggests that there are women and children beyond that, so perhaps the feeding of the five thousand really ought to be called the feeding of the fifteen thousand or the feeding of the twenty thousand. but any rate, we're concerned with the feeding of the four thousand here in the gospel by Mark chapter number eight. I'd Like to talk about impossible situations, and the Lord gives an impossible situation to the disciples to try to correct it, and they get a little bit irritated with the Lord for putting them into this impossible situation and then expecting them to do something about it. Anyway, here it is, Mark chapter number eight. It says, in those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way, for divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him, from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and break and gave to his disciples to set before them, and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes, and he blessed and commanded to set them also before them, so they did eat and were filled, and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand, and he sent them away. One of the things we have to remember in Christian work is to try to capture this feeling that the Lord Jesus Christ had here about folks who needed to be reached. In verse number two, he says, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. Now that's Mark eight. You turn back a page or so to Mark chapter number six and, uh, in verse number thirty four. Uh, Mark chapter six and verse number thirty four. And Jesus, when he came out, saw many people and was moved with compassion toward them because they were a sheep not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. There is a threefold or a fourfold formula, all contained in this one verse, about what the Lord did and how he reacted to people and how we ought to deal with people as well. The Lord Jesus Christ came out, he saw many people, and he was moved with compassion. These are days when you and I can see problems everywhere. You can read your newspaper and see problems. You can see what's going on in your town and you see problems, and you can see problems in government and every sort of s- situation, but there are things about which you and I can do something. Now, I find many Christians today worry about things that they can't do anything about, and they worry about Saddam Hussein, and they, and they worry about whether or not the Kuwaiti oil fields are going to catch on fire again. And I find many Christians worry and fret and work themselves up into an awful state, worrying about things over which they have no control. Now, there's no use worrying about things like that, folks, and things that you don't have any control over other than through prayer, you might as well put them out of your mind. Furthermore, I find Christians today worrying about things that are God's responsibility, and I find young folks who say, I feel the Lord would have me go into missionary work, but I don't have the money, and my folks don't have the money, therefore I can't go. Now, we don't serve a God like that. And if the Lord wants you to do something, then he provides you with the tools and the necessities to do that job. But it's been my experience he doesn't supply you with those things beforehand, because we walk by faith, not by sight. I remember when I went to work for General Motors, and the only thing they said was, Phil, I guess they called me Mr. Morgan because my father was there, and my uncle was there, and my grandfather was there, and they didn't want to ruin a dynasty, I guess, of Morgans in General Motors. But at any rate, they said, Mr. Morgan, be here Monday morning at seven o'clock, and that's the only thing they told me. And I didn't say to them, well, how much money should I bring? And they said, well, I don't know, if you want to eat lunch in the cafeteria, bring enough money for lunch. I don't know. Well, I want to contribute to the cost of the electricity here in the factory and the cost of the water and the cost of gasoline for the trucks and the tow motors and things, and they say, you don't, you don't have to do that. That's our responsibility. The only thing you have to do is to be available. The only thing you have to do is show up for work, but I'm going to need tools to do my... We'll supply you with the tools. We'll give you the rubber apron, we'll give you the rubber boots, we'll give you the needle nose pliers, we'll give you the solder, we'll give you those things. But, you know, they didn't have them delivered to my house Friday afternoon by federal Express. I didn't get that stuff until I showed up for work at seven o'clock Monday morning. Now that's the way the God works, and we find folks today stuck in neutral. I feel God wants me to do this, but there's no way I can do it, so I can't do it. You and I don't serve a God like that. What kind of a capricious God would that be to to tell us to do something, and if we don't do it, we're disobedient, and then make it impossible for us to do it. We don't serve a God like that. But I know this, he doesn't give you the things ahead of time. And you find that someone said that when you put your foot out there, God's going to slide a rock under it. Now, that's the way God works. And not only did the Lord see these problems, but he was moved with compassion. His heart was stirred about those things, and says, because they were a sheep not having a shepherd, and so he started to do something about, he started to teach them many things, this verse in, in Mark chapter six tells us. I may remember in John chapter nine, there's a fellow sitting there, and he was born blind, and his disciples knew that he had been born blind. And they entered into philosophical discussion or a theological discussion. And they said to the Lord, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? They saw the problem, but they didn't do anything about it, you see. They entered into a philosophical discussion, and the Lord quickly dismissed them. Neither this, this man nor his parents, none of them sinned, but that the glory of God should be made manifest in him. And the Lord seemed to say, now let's do something about the problem. And sometimes we brethren, especially, we gather together and we have all kinds of conferences and committee meetings and seminars and this sort of stuff, where we talk about the problem, and nobody ever seems to get around doing anything about it, you see. I can remember several years ago, maybe Brother Curtis was there too, and the topic was how can we increase attendance at the Sunday school? And and one brother stood up and he said, well, we we have a problem in our Sunday school. We can't get the kids to come. And and so he he sat down, and the chairman of the meeting said, all right, now now who's got an answer? Who's got a solution? And a hand was raised over here. Now, yes, brother, you can stand up, and well, we've got a problem in our Sunday school. We can't get the kids to attend. Yeah, we know what the problem is. Now, who's got a solution? Oh, here's another hint. We have a problem in our Sunday school. We can't get the kids to attend. And the only thing we did for an hour and a half was to hear the same question over and over and over and over again. Nobody had a solution. Nobody had a solution. But the Lord has solutions, praise God. And not only does the Lord see the problem, but he has the desire and the ability to do something about it. Still keeping your finger here in Mark eight, go back to Matthew chapter number nine. Matthew chapter number nine. and here's the same sort of a scene, if you will. Matthew chapter number nine, back here in this place. Matthew nine verse number thirty six. Matthew nine thirty six. Here's the same scene. But when he, the Lord, this is Matthew nine thirty six. but when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them. And here's something we didn't read before, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Because they fainted. They didn't faint or lie down because they were exhausted, but simply because they were discouraged. That's, that's the root meaning of the word here. They, they didn't, they didn't lie down because, because of, because of tiredness or the weariness or whatnot. It was, it's just discouragement. That's the picture given here. And, and they lay down, they fainted because there, they felt there wasn't any hope. There was no one that cared. There wasn't any solution to the problem. So they said, why go any farther? We might as well die here as to go someplace else and die, you see. And that's the picture that you have here in Matthew nine thirty six. And there's people today that you and I rub shoulders with almost every day, and they have this feeling. There's no hope in the world. Nobody can save it. Nothing can save it. Sometimes you talk to the individual person so discouraged and so despondent, literally had just laid down and saying, there there's no help, there's no help, there's nobody in the world today who loves me. And what a joy it is to get out your New Testament, if you've got it with you, and turn to John three sixteen. Oh, my friend, there is somebody that loves you. And not only does he say he loves you, but look what he did because he loved you. He gave his your, his only begotten son to die on the cross of Calvary for you. Don't say there isn't anybody that loves you, you see. And so we come back here then again to Mark chapter eight, and we find that the Lord not only sees people, he not only sees problems, but he undertakes to do something about those problems, even if he works miracles to meet the needs, and I believe he does that in nineteen ninety two. Well then, what, what is he waiting for? He's waiting for us to trust him more. He's waiting for us to pray concerning these things. I talked to a man, no, that's not right. A man talked to me. A man talked to me a while back, and, and he said, boy, do I have a problem. And I said, well, do you want to tell me about it? You don't have to if you don't want to. No, I don't mind sharing it with you. And and it was a terrific problem, a horrendous problem. And I said, have you prayed about the thing? And he said, no, I haven't. I said, seemed to me that'd be a pretty good thing to pray about. And he said, well, I thought about it. I thought with, I told him, well, thinking about praying, you don't get any answers if you do that, you see, you have to really pray. And he said, well, I'll tell you, Phil, why I, why I didn't. He said, I didn't want to embarrass God that maybe it was beyond the scope of his resources to fix the problem. I said, well, I'm sure God appreciates that. But you see, do you suppose he got the answer to the problem? No, because he didn't give it to the Lord, you see. I didn't want to embarrass God that maybe he couldn't do anything about it, and God would be embarrassed and humiliated, and and so I didn't want to put God into that spot, you see, this sort of a thing. And there's people today that believe that, that the only things you can pray about are things that maybe you could fix yourself, or that your neighbor could fix, or that your friends could fix, this sort of thing. Very few people today pray for miracles. Now, maybe because we hear and see things on radio and TV and read books about people who only talk about miracles, you know, don't miss your miracle and all this sort of thing, maybe we sin in the opposite direction. We don't pray for miracles at all. And I get sometimes tickled down our way. It doesn't happen, uh, here in Rens, but down our way, uh, we'll have prayer meeting, and of course the chairman of the meeting say, now we've got prayer requests here. Are there any ad- added prayer requests? Maybe there might be one or two or three, you know. And then maybe two or three weeks later, the chairman of the meeting said, now, do we have any notes of praise, uh, do anything you'd like to share with us of a good night? And, and, and maybe this brother will, will stand up and say, remember three weeks ago we prayed for the salvation of so and so? Yes, yes, we all remember that. Well, you know what? He got saved. And we all go, no, he's saved. You mean God answered a prayer? Yeah. Well, then why have prayer meetings? Well, because we've been used to having prayer meetings. We've been having prayer meetings since the day of Pentecost, I guess, you see, and you do certain things, you have prayer requests, and we pray about these things, but do we really expect God to answer prayer? And remember, the Lord says, when you pray, you give thanks. Now that's faith. It doesn't take any faith that when the Lord answers a prayer that you give thanks. I mean, that's just being polite. Somebody does something for you, you say thank you. But it takes faith that when you pray, say, Lord, and I thank you right now for the way that you're going to answer this prayer. Now, that's faith. That's praying in faith, and that's what the Lord tells us to do, you see. So here's the Lord. He sees the problem. His heart goes out to these people. He has compassion on them because they're so discouraged, and they've just given up, and they just collapse, and they say, oh, what's the use? Nothing matters anymore, and they've just given up. And then he proceeds to do something about it. He begins to teach them, or he begins to heal all their diseases, or whatever the case might be. Now, in this case here in Mark chapter number eight, he, he wants to feed all these people. And, uh, he says, uh, they, in verse two it says, these people have been with me three days, and I've been teaching them all these days, and we haven't stopped for anything to eat. If I send them away, they're going to faint by the way, because many of them came from a long ways away. And so the Lord gives the problem to his disciples, and his disciples answered him and said, from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? That's the expression we want to see, bread in the wilderness. And these disciples of the Lord are irritated with the Lord because they are implying, whose fault is it we've gotten into this predicament? You are the one who has been teaching for three days. You could have taught for one day, sent the people home, and then come back and say the conference is going to end, is going to continue two more days. Lord, you see, see, you have been responsible for this, and maybe the disciples have been in the background and saying, you know, I'm, I'm getting a little hungry myself, and I think these people are getting hungry. What's he doing now? He's continuing to teach. And so the disciples, in the, the sh- the word shows that they're irritated. Lord, we didn't make this problem, you made this problem, but now you expect us to, to solve the problem, and Lord, how can we solve the problem because we don't have the wherewithal to solve the problem, and that is, Lord, you're just being unfair to us. You're being unfair to us. How can we satisfy men with bread here in the wilderness? You see, this sort of a thing. Is it Christ's fault? Well, it could be. Over in the Gospel by Luke, chapter number nine, one of my favorite verses over here. It's one I read quite a bit, even though I know what it's going to say. But Luke chapter nine and verse number twelve says, when the day began to wear away. That's, that's the way most of our days go. They don't go out very glamorously, you see. They don't, not with a great burst, not with great fireworks. We just have certain things that we have to do every day, and if we didn't get them done, we would know it, and most everybody else would know we hadn't done it too, but there's no particular thrill in the doing of it. And even the Lord himself, the Son of God, had days like that. As the day began to wear away. You go to bed at night and you're tired, but you can't see where you've accomplished an awful lot that particular day. Been busied about a hundred things, but no great spectacular victory, maybe in any of those things, and the day just wears away. And then the twelve came to him, you see, in verse twelve, and said unto, unto him, Lord, send the multitude away. They need to go into the towns and country round about and lodge and get victuals, for we are here in a desert place. They're saying, Lord, we can't do anything about the situation. Lord, the crowds overwhelm us, and the crowds have all of these needs, and we don't have the wherewithal to satisfy the needs of this crowd. Lord, we don't have the wherewithal, but somebody else has the wherewithal, and someplace else has the wherewithal, and Lord, send them away. And sometimes, if you deal very often with people, you feel this way yourself. You feel mighty, mighty low, you see. And that's just the time when somebody will call you up or come to your house and say, I need some encouragement. And you feel, if you're like I am, you feel hypocritical because you say, I'm the one that needs the encouragement. And I feel hypocritical by trying to encourage this person when I feel as if I need to be encouraged. But here's a person who has a need. The word says, be instant in season and out of season. And most of the time somebody needs you, it's going to be out of season. I have been in the Lord's work full time now since nineteen fifty one, which, what, forty one years, and never have I sat in my study, all neatly dressed and powdered and coiffed and all the rest of it, with my Bible open on my knees to the exact middle page of the Bible, and said, all right, Lord, I don't have a thing to do. I'm ready now to counsel anybody. You might send them along now, Lord, you see. That's never happened. It's in the middle of the night when the alcoholic calls you because he's been thrown out of the bar and he filled, he's filled with remorse, and you get that phone call two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning. I find that heart attacks don't occur from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. Heart attacks occur in the middle of the night. Young couples come by. We want to get married right now. Right now? Can't you wait till tomorrow? No. I said, how old are you? Twenty six. How old are you? Twenty five. You've waited a quarter of a century. Why don't you wait a few more hours? No, that doesn't seem to enter. Gotta get married right now. Gotta get married right now. And most of the time somebody needs your dear friends, it's going to be out of season. And you're going to sometimes get frustrated, and you're going to sometimes say, why doesn't this thing arrange itself in, in more of a scheduling, and so on and so forth, and this type of thing. And that's, that's the way, that's the way it occurs. And so the disciples said, here you see, we, we send them away in Luke nine, send them away. We, we are here in a desert place. But then the Lord says, you give unto them to eat. Lord, how can we give them? We don't have it. We don't have enough for ourselves. How are we going to have enough for them to eat, you see? And it's a frustrating sort of a thing, and sometimes it seems to be an unfair sort of a thing that the Lord would even suggest that we can do something that you and I know that we can't do. But isn't it the Lord who is trying to do something through us? Two young men came to me a while back, and they said, the elders have come to us, and and they want us to take over such and such a department of the chapel. And I said, and you feel panicky, don't you? Oh, we feel as if they've gotten us mixed up with two other guys, you see. There's no way we can do this. And I said, that's right, that's right. But if the brethren have confidence in you, you do it. But very often God throws you into water that's over your head so you'll trust in him, not in yourself. And this is a common experience that God does with his people. And you, you're given a job either by a human being or by the Holy Spirit, and you feel panicky. There's no way that I can do this. And I said to those young fellas, I said, I bet you're praying more now than you've ever prayed before. Boy, are we. I bet you're reading the word of God more now than you ever have. Boy, I bet, I bet you're running to everybody and say, put us on your prayer list. Oh boy, are we. I said, good, that's good for you. That's good for you. And I didn't stay there long enough to see whether or not they took up that, but I, I like their attitude, and I like the feeling that we can't do this. We are in a desert place. We are here in the wilderness, and we can't provide bread for these thousands of people. And that's exactly the place that the Lord put his, his folks in. That, that's what you have in Mark eight. Now, back here, you don't have to turn to it if you don't want to, but back here in the book of Psalms, Psalm number seventy eight, it goes even beyond that point. Psalm number 78 and verse number 19. Psalm 78 and verse number 19. Psalm seventy eight nineteen speaks about folks who complained about God. Psalm seventy eight nineteen says, yea, they spake against God. They said, can God furnish a table in the wilderness? Now, we're not talking here fast food. We're not talking here about a person who doesn't even shut the engine off, grabs a sack of something or other and runs off to eat it. We're speaking about a deliberate action here. It's in the wilderness, just like you have in Mark eight. It's in the wilderness, but it's a table that's been set up, table that's been set up. I had a chance one time to go to Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania, and I was invited there by a trustee of, of Penn State College and, and was shown around that some of you football fans would have killed for. But at any rate, the part of what we had to do is you have to park in the parking lot and have a tailgate lunch, you know. Well, I was amazed because the parking lot wasn't there. It was a hay field, and nobody bothered to cut the hay, so I was knee deep in hay. Imagine short people, how they were overwhelmed with it. I was knee deep in hay, and we didn't have a tailgate. We had an Oldsmobile ninety-eight, so we had a trunk party, you see. And and with my analytical mind, I kept, I kept poking fun and criticizing the fact, how can you have a tailgate party if you don't have a tailgate? And after a while, everybody in the party ignored me, which is usually the way my life goes. And as I balanced my iced tea or my soda pop on the top of the spare tire in the trunk, I looked over and big, huge motorhomes came in. And out into this vast hay field, they began to unload stuff. They unloaded the most magnificent tables you'd ever seen. And they came out with very, very fancy, and I expect antique tablecloths, lace tablecloths, and then they came out with the finest china, and I thought, big deal, I got a, I got a, I got a paper cup balanced on top of a spare tire. Look at the way those people are faring, you see. And, and out they came with this stuff and the finest cutlery and the silverware and the china, and then they came out and they put silver candelabra on the table, still in the midst of the hay field. And I said to my host or hostess, I said, boy, some folks really go all out. And they said this has become a status symbol. The, the football game is almost, is almost secondary, you see, but you have to try to outdo your neighbor with all the fancy stuff that's put out. And I said, well, that reminds me of this verse over here. Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? And of course, the obvious answer is yes, he can do that. And there is a, there is a set sort of a thing there. There's an unhurried condition that's mentioned here. Wilderness, yes, but there's a table in the wilderness, you see. A table in the wilderness. Now, do you remember from the story of Gideon? Gideon threshing out a few grains of, of grain there in the, in the wine press, and every once in a while the stops, you know, and you see the black, two black eyes come out over the top and looks around, no Midianite raiding part anywhere around, and it goes back to beating the grain again. And the Lord, you remember, comes and stops underneath that oak tree and says, Hail thou mighty man of valor. So wonder Gideon didn't say, shh, I'm trying to maintain a low profile here. People aren't supposed to know about it. And the Lord quite placidly sat down underneath that oak tree. Now, Gideon, you see, was all flustered and all hurried and all impatient, but the Lord wasn't and never is. He never is, you see. And there was the Lord sitting under the oak tree. The Lord didn't care about raiding parties, you see. And bless your hearts, that's the way the Lord can operate in your life. Who gets upset? Who gets impatient? Who gets frustrated? We do. The Lord doesn't. The Lord doesn't. And the Lord can provide a table in the wilderness. Isn't that what Psalm twenty three says? Thou preparest a table before me where? In the presence of mine enemies. You prepare a table for me, Lord. Oh, that sort of thing. So we come back here to Mark eight and we say, how can we satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? Bread in the wilderness. The Lord said, don't you have anything? Or more, more readily he says, what do you have? Because he knew what they had. Well, we don't have anything, but we've got seven loaves and just a few fish and so forth. And of course, the Lord multiplied these, and and all the four thousand people were fed, and they took up of the fragments, your Bible says, seven baskets. Now someone has pointed this out, says when you think of feeding seven thousand people with multiplied food, isn't it a wonder that they didn't have more than seven baskets of fragments? How the Lord plans things, but he's the God of abundance. He always has something left over. Where, where sin did abound, grace did much more super excessively abound. Out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. We are more than conquerors through him that loved us. God is a God of abundance, you see. He's a God of abundance. And so he had these baskets of fragments left over. When he fed the five thousand plus, he had twelve baskets of fragments left over. Isn't it interesting, he had one basket for each of the twelve disciples. I don't think that's coincidental, and I would like to think, and don't, don't press me about this for a chapter and a verse afterwards, because I go off duty at eight thirty. but I would like to think that the Lord m- made each one of those twelve disciples carry a basket of fragments to show them that he could do it. Now, what they did with the fragments, we don't know. Probably gave them to poor folks down the road somewhere, but anyway, that's what's done. Keep that in mind. Bread in the wilderness. Now you can leave Mark eight, go back to the Old Testament if you want to, Isaiah chapter thirty five. Here's something else. Isaiah chapter number thirty five. Isaiah thirty five verse number one says, the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. And you and I have seen that prophecy fulfilled in our own lifetime. Skeptics used to say there's no way this verse can come to pass because you can't make desert stuff grow. It just, it, there's just no nutrients in the soil. Sand is sand, and that's the way it is. But we have seen in our own lifetime, since the Jewish folks got back to the Holy Land again, and they found some wells of water over there, and there have been many pumps supplied by the United States of America, and they have literally made the, the desert blossom as a rose. And you can go over to some places where Israel and Jordan come up together. Jordan is still desert, and Israel is green, and it produces citrus stuff like you wouldn't believe. If you were over there in the morning, you could see rows and rows and rows of, of Bedford trucks and Mercedes-Benz trucks carrying citrus, and you couldn't see from one end of that caravan to the other end of the caravan every morning carrying citrus out, this sort of thing. And we have seen this verse of scripture come to pass in our own lifetime. The desert, literally, is blossoming as a rose. And it says it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are fearful heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense, he will come and save you. And the eyes of the blind shall be open, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, which happened when the Lord was on earth, didn't it? Then shall the lame man leap as a heart. There, if you will, is Acts chapter number three. The tongue of the dumb sing, for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and ah, here's the expression, and streams in the desert. So, Mark eight speaks about bread in the wilderness. Isaiah thirty five speaks about streams in the desert, but bless your heart, you know, the minute you get a stream, you don't have a desert anymore. It transforms the desert, you see. The desert shall blossom as the rose. Streams in the desert. In the first, first Psalm, you remember, it speaks about the, the godly man there. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. And we've seen our Sunday school art pictures, and there's a river, and there's a tree beside it. I think we missed the whole point of the thing. I think probably that river is underground, and the tap root of the tree has gone down, and it has sought out that, that stream of water underneath the ground. And you look at the tree and you say, that, that tree doesn't have any right to be healthy. It doesn't have any right to have dark green leaves. It doesn't have any right to produce, uh, flowers and or fruit, you see, because there's no water anywhere around. The tree would say, oh, I have a source of refreshment and water that you don't know anything about. And the world can look at a Christian and say, you don't have any right to be happy. You don't have two nickels to rub together, and your family's in shambles and this sort of thing and that sort of thing. You don't have any right to be joyful. And you can say, I've got a source of strength that's not apparent to you. It's way down there, and the taproot of my life is secured, you see, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is the refreshing water to me. But the world can't see that, and so they write you off as some sort of a nut, you see. You believe in pie in the sky by and by, but they don't know that the taproot has has sought out that refreshing water, you see. And that may be what we're talking about here, streams in the desert, streams in the desert. The stream completely eliminates the desert. Also, in the first part of verse seven, it says the parched ground, parched ground shall become a pool. Sometimes that's translated as glowing sand, and it may, may have the idea of a mirage. The man lost in the desert, he sees a mirage, and there's an oasis and palm trees and date palms and, and rest and shade and refreshment and water, and he struggles and he struggles and struggles, and the closer he gets, first thing you know, poof, it's all gone, you see. Lord says, I won't fool you that way. Your mi- your mirage will come true, and the thing that you desire in your heart, peace and rest and joy and satisfaction and refreshment, these things I will see to it that your mir- your mirages come true, he said, in this particular sort of a way. And, but you notice the word is, that last phrase again, streams in the desert. I like it because it's plural. The Lord can bless every facet of the human life, not just a stream in the desert, which has to do with spirituality, and when life on earth is over, I'll take you home. He says, I'm interested in every phase of your life. Would to God more Christians might see that. And again, somebody's talking to me and said, Phil, do you pray about everything? And I said, well, I feel I can pray about everything. I don't know as I do, but I feel as if I can. Man said, I ca- I don't feel that way. And and I said, well, why don't you feel you can pray about everything? And he said, well, I feel there's some things in your life that God just isn't interested in. And I said, well, what kinds of things do you think God is interested in? Well, things like missionaries and and and little babies and flowers in the springtime and things like that, you know. Don't you believe that God is interested in your whole fiber of your being, those times when you don't feel good and you don't know why you don't feel good. Those days when you don't feel spiritual and you don't know why you don't feel spiritual. The things that may be troubling you, but they're nebulous things you can't put your finger on, as well as other things in your life. Lord, it's time for us to get a car. Lord, lead us to the right car that we can afford and that is nice car and be a dependable car and this sort of a thing. I'm telling the folks at Waynesboro this week about a Christian friend of ours who lives up in the New York area, and every morning he prays as to what clothes he ought to wear to the office. And people would say, oh, I wouldn't bother God with that. God's got more to do than to... But if you knew the clothes that our friend wear, you, you would agree that he needs all the divine help he can get. He has no sense of colors, no sense of fabrics, and he's as apt to go off to the office with a striped tie on a paisley shirt or vice versa as, as I almost said nothing at all. He certainly put something on, but but it's this sort of a thing, you see. And he says, Phil, this is the reason I pray about the clothes, because I have a witness in the office. And if I go garbed out by like some outlandish clown, people are going to say, see, religion makes you nuts, you see. This sort of thing. And I don't want to do anything that'll reflect in a negative way upon the Lord Jesus Christ or the testimony that I hope I have for him. And so he says, this thing has become a spiritual thing with me. Lord, don't let me put on the wrong clothes today. And it's an important thing with him. It's an important thing with him. Maybe I've told you about Trammel in some previous millennium when I was here. Trammel was born in the panhandle of Florida, and he had the longest drawl of anybody in the South that I've ever spoken to. And, and if tr- if it was, if it was morning and Trammel said good morning to you, by the time he finished saying it, it was afternoon. I mean, he had a terrible long drawl, and, and he tried to witness to people, and people wouldn't listen that long. And he'd start out, and he could take, he'd take a word like grits, and he made a four-syllable word out of it, garayats, you know. And he said, Phil, people won't listen to me long enough for me to tell them about the Lord. And it was a real problem with Trammel. It was a real spiritual need with Trammel. I'm supposed to witness to people. I'm supposed to tell them about the Lord, but I can't talk any faster, he said. And he said, I was sitting on my back porch one night and, and, and, and thinking about it, and, and I looked over, and there's my boat, motor, and trailer. And he said, nah, now that's the devil trying to get my mind off thinking about my problem onto, hey, let's go fishing, you know. So he turned his head away. He said, Lord, what am I going to do about this problem? And his mind went back to the boat, motor, and trailer. No, no, no, devil, get thee behind me, you know. And, and he said, my mind kept, maybe it's the Lord talking to me, not the devil. And the Lord seemed to say, you got a boat, motor, and trailer, take unsaved men fishing. Well, every man in Florida likes to go fishing, you see. So Trammel would zero in on some unsaved fella and say, you want to go fishing with me sun- uh, not Sunday afternoon, Saturday afternoon? Said, I'll provide the boat and the gasoline and the lunch and the soft drinks and the bait and the tackle and the whole, all you have to do is go. Well, who wouldn't jump at that chance, you see? And he'd get him out in this boat out in the intercoastal waterway, and they'd be fishing, and he had all afternoon to tell them ab- about the Lord, you see. And he said, when the guy began to look a little panicky, like he might jump over the side and swim ashore, he'd say, now I want to remind you there's sharks in these waters, there's sharks in these waters. And I don't know how many people trample one to the Lord because he had literally a captive audience, you see. And he had all afternoon, and the guy couldn't get away, and the guy liked to be fishing, and I said, I'd like to know how many men Tramo won to the Lord. But you see, he had a real problem that the rest of us might snap our fingers at and say, well, if you can't talk, pass out tracks. No, Tramo wanted to tell them about the Lord, and the Lord was interested in it, and the Lord gave him the answer to the situation. He made streams, you see, in the deserts, and in the plural, in all thy ways, plural, acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths, plural. The Lord is interested, my friend, in every phase of your life. Trust him for it, you see. Don't think you're bothering God. Don't think he's only interested in this thing or that thing or something else, but he's, he's interested in all sorts of things. Well, we, we close with this, and that is there's one more, we won't look at it, but it's in Acts chapter number sixteen. and that's when Paul and Silas got in trouble with the authorities, ended up in jail, and your Bible says there in Acts chapter sixteen, and at midnight they sang songs in the night. Songs in the night. They have bread in the wilderness, and and you have streams in the desert, and you have songs in the night, and you thought, well, now if there's any any time when prisoners should not have sung, it should have been in the night, in the middle of the inner prison, they'd just been beaten up, their feet had been put in stocks, and here they were singing praises to God, undoubtedly that they were counted worthy enough to suffer for him. And you know what happened. Boy, did that start a miracle. And the, the old jailhouse, the walls came tumbling down, you know, and the jailer came in and he was ready to commit suicide, and Paul had to call out, do thyself no harm, we're all here. Someone has said that was the first sacred music concert in Europe and it brought the house down, you see, literally so, literally so. Songs in the night. Sometimes there are many times when we have pain in the night, we have problems in the night, and we can't sleep in the night because of the pressures and the problems, but try some songs in the night. But, but do you notice in all of these things, bread in the wilderness, dreams in the desert, songs in the night, do you notice that pronoun never changes? We would say, Lord, I would be a happier, victorious Christian if I'd be out of the desert, if I'd be out of the jail, out of the night. But very often the Lord leaves his people in those situations because that's where he needs a missionary. But he gives you blessing, and he gives you strength, and he gives you grace. And you know people as I do who s- who are suffering right now in almost untenable conditions, situations, maybe they're the only saved people in their whole family circle, and they suffer a great deal of abuse from the folks who aren't saved. Or there's people who have continuing illnesses or continuing pain. They're in some sort of a terrible situation, and probably they would say, Lord, if you, if, if it was left up to me, I would be out of this situation. But Lord, if you need to have me in this situation, I'm willing to stay. Just like Paul besought the Lord three times that the thorn in the flesh be removed, and the Lord said, no, I'm going to leave it there, going to leave it there, but I'll give you grace to endure it, you see. And so the Lord says, I'm going to leave you in that situation, but I'll give you victory, I'll give you grace, I'll give you joy, I'll give you the satisfaction of knowing that your life is counting for me in that situation. Dear friend, this may be your life tonight, and maybe sometimes you and I don't know what some of our Christian brothers are going through, because a lot of times you and I lie to each other. And we'll come in the meeting house, you know, and you say, well, brother, how are things tonight? Oh, fine, fine. Oh, just great, just great. Wonderful, wonderful. And maybe our heart is aching. And very often a smiling face covers up a, a heart that's just ready to break, you know. A lot of times we lie one to another. My mother, who had arthritis, I think, in every joint in her body and a weak heart beside, it was a real chore for her to come to meetings, and she would just barely make it to the front door, and she'd be popping nitroglycerin pills because of the chest pains that she had. I said, Mother, are those nitroglycerin pills? And she said, yes. And I said, don't drop any of them. Don't drop any, and you'll blow the roof right off this place, you see. And she would rest there for a while in the back, and then after a while she'd be able to get up and come down here to the Morgan Pew, you see. And people would say to her, Carrie, how are you this morning? Oh, fine. I said, Mother, don't lie to people. You just barely made it to the meeting. You're hurting every joint in your body. Your chest is pounding. You got all kinds of chest pains, you see, pains in your neck, pains down your arm. Don't lie. And she said, everybody's got problems. Besides, she says, if people listen to my problems, then I got to listen to theirs. We Morgans are all a very practical bunch, you see. But you and I very often, and you don't have to spill out everything to somebody says how, you just say, well, brother or sister, I've got a need, would you mind praying for me? And if you ask somebody to pray for, you have a responsibility to let them know when God answers that prayer. Someone said to me a while back, said, Phil, I bet you pray for dead people. I said, what are you talking about? I thought about what the New Testament says about people who are baptized for the dead, and he said, I bet that people have said, pray for my brother, sister, mother, father, whoever, they're sick, and you've prayed for these people, and you've prayed for them, and in the meantime, the Lord's taken them home, and those people haven't told you that the Lord has taken them home, and you're still praying for those sick people, but they've been healed, they're with the Lord in heaven. Phil, I bet you pray for dead people. I bet I do. If you ask somebody to pray for some need or problem that you have, you have a responsibility to them to let them know how God is answering the prayer. That's your responsibility to them, and that's their joy to know that something or someone they prayed for, God has worked on that behalf and strained the whole thing out. Well, these are just a few little things, but we had bread in the wilderness, and we had streams in the desert, and we've got songs in the night, and these are impossible situations, but sometimes the Lord asks us to go through these things. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father and our God, we would pray now for the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit to take the words of God that we have read and noted tonight and apply them to our individual hearts as we have need. We know, Father, that probably as our faces differ here tonight, so do the needs and conditions of our hearts and lives. But Father, we thank you that you are more than sufficient for all of our problems. Help us, Father, to commit these things to you, and then, Father, look anxiously and eagerly for the working out and the answering of these needs and problems. Thank you, Father, again for this assembly and for the folks that have come here tonight. Richly bless their hearts, Father, we pray thee, and tell them often of your love for them. Meet their needs and the needs of their marriages and their families and those, Father, who are satellites around their lives. Bless, Father, to this extent as we continue to give you praise, all in Christ's name and for his sake alone. Amen. Amen. Yeah.