NTEB SUNDAY SERVICE: The Importance Of Showing Up-OCT 13 2024
In any dispensation, in fact in all dispensations, we see a biblical principle of the importance of simply showing up to wait upon the Lord. Anyone can do it, age, physical fitness or economic status have no bearing on showing up. One of the greatest miracles in the Bible, and they are all great, aren’t they, is the miracle of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes. You will notice that this lad is not named, the accounts in Matthew 14 and Mark 6 don’t even tell you there was a lad! He is anonymous – BUT – the work he does for the Lord Jesus, his tiny, little step of faith, redounds to his credit for all eternity!
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00:00One day Jesus is coming. You may be at church, you may be at work, you may be
00:14asleep. God grant that you will be ready when he makes his personal appearance.
00:24My God! What if his appearance occurs on a Sunday morning? My prophetic word to you this morning is get ready! Get ready!
00:55Yevarechecha Adonai ve'yishmerecha. Ya'er Adonai panayv eylecha ve'yichuneka. Yissa Adonai panayv eylecha ve'yaseym lecha shalom.
01:09The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be
01:17gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
01:29Okay, we're all a little discombobulated today, but you know what? We're here and
01:34we're here to praise the Lord and we have a lot to praise the Lord about in
01:39the midst of tremendous sorrow and people who have died in Helene and the
01:45devastation in Asheville, the devastation in South Carolina, Tennessee
01:50and Georgia, and absolutely in Florida. Pastor Joel over at Suncoast Baptist
01:57Church told me they just got power late last night. He still didn't have power at
02:02his house this morning. He said, I'm weary, I'm tired, but praise the Lord. I'm gonna
02:07give myself a cold shave, jump in the pulpit, and he said to the fight. And
02:11that's exactly what we are called to today. And the fight is not only with
02:18guns and bombs and bullets, and in fact, if you look at the whole of human history,
02:23the very smallest part of the fighting has been with guns and bombs and bullets.
02:29It's a spiritual battle. It's spiritual warfare. Let's go to the Lord in prayer
02:34and ask for his blessing. Father God, we thank you today that, like Brother West
02:40said, the doors of this place are open, and open to whosoever will and whosoever
02:46can get here. And we thank you, God, for these that you've brought here today. We
02:50pray for the ones that could not make it, that are far away, the ones who are going
02:55to medical situations and emergencies. And Lord, we pray for Tim and Carol, Kevin
03:03and Carol, and his dad Tim. We pray for Sandy and Richard. Richard had a heart
03:09attack on Friday, Father God, and we just pray that you be with him and be with
03:14Sandy. And West's friend Jim's daughter was killed up in Jacksonville. And Father
03:20God, the prayer needs have never been higher, stronger, or more passionately
03:26held. And we just come to you today, God, and we thank you for the open doors of
03:31this church and the open Bible before us. And we ask you to lead and guide, protect
03:36and provide. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. We had quite the week at Now the End
03:44Begins. I was telling Lori as we were driving here this morning, in 2020, God
03:50took our tiny little free Bible program that we had had for a couple of years, and
03:55it became an actual program that has become global over the last four years. And
04:01in 2022, God opened a door for something that became Bibles Behind Bars. And tens
04:08of thousands, 100,000, 200,000, almost 400,000 Bibles, New Testament, scripture
04:16portions, and gospel tracts going to the jails and prisons all across America. And
04:22now, this week, something brand new yet again, the NTEB Relief Convoy. And we
04:32spent all week working on that. That was a joint effort between Now the End
04:37Begins and Grace Baptist Church in Ekron, Kentucky, and other people from First
04:43Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. And supplies, six truckloads of supplies were
04:49brought up to the people of Asheville last, not last night, Friday night. And the
04:55Bibles were handed out on the ground yesterday morning. So far, Pastor Sluder
05:00told me, hundreds of those Bibles that we sent, we sent them 1,000 Bibles, about
05:0720% of those Bibles have already been given out. And we are going to wherever
05:14the Lord opens the door, wherever the Lord leads, and the need has never been
05:20greater than it is right now. And my message today is a simple message. I like
05:27practical messages. I love messages, don't get me wrong. I love messages that go
05:32deep and prophetic and pull out all the little nuggets. I love that stuff. But
05:38you don't live with nuggets. You live with sag, bag, and drag. You live with the
05:44alarm clock going off for the 54,000th time and getting up and doing a version
05:51of the same thing, and working hard to put food on the table, and sometimes we
05:56have to fight for every inch of ground that we get, and other times God just
06:01opens the door and dumps it all on us. But this life, somebody once said, is a
06:06veil of tears. And if you've lived long enough, you know that that's true.
06:13John 6, the title of my message today, and I think, well, I know the Lord gave it to
06:20me in the midst of all this chaos with Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton and
06:26all the suffering that's going on over on the West Coast. They have huge devastation.
06:33Did you know that more people died this week in the tornadoes that were raised up
06:40from Hurricane Milton than in the hurricane itself? A couple of people died in Hurricane
06:45Milton. So far, 17 people have died in the tornadoes. 130 tornadoes were raised up
06:53by that hurricane. 15 of those tornadoes touched down on the East Coast, and so far,
07:00the death toll is 17 people, not from the hurricane, but from the tornadoes. And I have
07:07been in touch with Pastor Joel for the past couple of days, and he said, most of you know
07:13that he has a podcast called The Soul Trap, and he does a great work there. Well, the entire
07:21Soul Trap studio washed down the street. All of his offices for the church and for his deacons
07:27and all his men washed away down the streets. I am assuming that they saved the equipment,
07:34but the physical buildings have got to be gutted, have to be redone. Praise the Lord that the church
07:41was spared, and as of 10 30 this morning, they are tired. None of his people have power in their
07:49homes. They're all living on generators. They're all living on supplies that people drop off,
07:55and we've been praying about how we can help them, and we want to be a blessing
07:59to Suncoast Baptist, so please keep Pastor Joel and his entire church, very large church, about
08:06350 people, and they suffered a lot of loss, and a lot of families over there are really,
08:13really hurting. My message this morning, John 6 9.
08:21John 6 9. There is a lad here which has five barley loaves and two small fishes, but
08:31what are they among so many? Heavenly Father, I just pray for this message that I know you put
08:37on my heart, Lord. Hinder the devil. Don't let him stop my tongue this morning and bring to my
08:43memory everything, Lord, that you talk to me about for this place, for this time, and for these
08:48people, and we just thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. The title of my message today
08:54is a simple one. It is called The Importance of Showing Up. The importance of showing up.
09:01There are people in this world who want to do a great thing for the Lord,
09:06who think about becoming a missionary to some foreign country, and that's great. We support
09:11missionaries, and they're a blessing, and they're necessary for the gospel to go out into all the
09:16world, but not everybody's called to be a missionary. Not everybody's called to be a pastor,
09:21or a preacher, or a deacon, or a Sunday school worker. Definitely not everybody is called to be
09:26a street preacher. That is crazy ground. If you do that long enough, you see some wild,
09:33crazy things out in the streets, but everybody is called to do something, and in our lives,
09:40sometimes we get a fixation on what we can't do and what is stopping us, so what do we do?
09:49We don't do anything for the Lord, and here we have in John 6, we have a boy. What's his name?
09:56Nobody knows. His name was not recorded, and if you go to the corresponding passages in Matthew
10:03and Mark, they don't even mention that there was a boy, but there is something that is preserved
10:10in this passage that is for each and every one of us, including me today. Let's start in verse 1.
10:17Let's get the context. Let's get the context.
10:23After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias,
10:28and a great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were
10:34diseased. They're getting something out of it. It's not this great spiritual exchange that's
10:41happening. They're seeing the miracles. People are sick. They want to get in on the action.
10:48They're looking for free health care. How do they feel about Jesus? It doesn't say,
10:56but they're following him because of the miracles. You know what? If Jesus was to walk through this
11:01door physically right now, I wouldn't want anything from him other than I would throw
11:06myself at his feet and say, Lord, take me with you wherever you go. I don't care what we do. I
11:12don't care what heaven looks like. I don't care what my John 14, Revelation 20 mansion looks like.
11:18You're here. I'm here. I would wrap myself around his legs or his arm or his shoulder,
11:24and all I would want to do is just to be with him for who he is. And why do I feel that way
11:31about Jesus Christ? Because he found me in a pit 33 and a half years ago. That was so deep. And
11:39that was so dark. That was everything you hear about Hollywood. And it was, I was on the verge
11:45of suicide. There were so many things going wrong and on in my life. And then one day I opened this
11:52book, this old book, this dusty old archaic King James Bible that is so weak and so impotent that
11:59it needs to be updated every six months for the last 50, a hundred years. No, this book where the
12:06word of the King is, there is power. I read one verse, John 3, 16, for God so loved me
12:16that he gave his only begotten son for me. And that if I would believe that I would have
12:23everlasting life and I would never perish. I took that offer. And you know what God has shown me
12:29over the last 33 and a half years. And my Christian life has been like this. I'll be honest.
12:37I have struggled. I've had a battle, the world, the flesh and the devil, but mostly myself.
12:43It's always the man in the mirror, but here I am almost 34 years later. And I know whom I have
12:50believed for. I am persuaded that he is able to keep that, which I have committed to him
12:55against that day. What have I committed to him? My entire life, my sin. That's what he went to
13:02the cross to pay for. He doesn't want your heart. You can open up your sin-filled heart and say,
13:08Jesus, come on in. He says, no, no, no. I can't come in there. You give me that sin.
13:14That's what I paid for. Now give me what's mine. And it is a voluntary action of you giving up
13:21your sin to the only one who can pay for it. And that's New Testament salvation. That is the
13:27purpose. We always...and it's become like a knee-jerk response. What's the gospel? 1 Corinthians
13:3415, 1 through 4. But what's the point of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
13:40to make a payment for your sin? And he rose from the dead on the third day, according to the
13:45scriptures, to prove that he had the power that you could trust in him. And you get to
13:53John 10. He says, no man taketh my life from me. I have power to lay it down,
14:01and I have power to take it again. That's a man who raised himself from the dead.
14:08You think he can get you to heaven? He absolutely can. You think he can keep the food on your table?
14:13He absolutely can. You think he can keep you sober-clothed and in your right mind? He absolutely
14:19can. Now why would he do all that? There is a reason, and there is a purpose, and that is the
14:25subject of my message today. And after these things, John 6, 1, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee,
14:32which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles,
14:38which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a high mountain,
14:43and there he sat with his disciples in the Passover. A feast of the Jews was nigh.
14:49When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming unto him, he saith unto Philip,
14:58whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? Jesus knows exactly how he's going to feed them,
15:05but he wants the disciples to start thinking about how do we solve this problem? There's 5,000 men,
15:12and then there's women, so let's just assume there's 10,000 people, and then it also says
15:17that there's children. Well, so approximately 12,500, 13,200, right around there. Can you imagine
15:28if you were walking by the fort in downtown St. Augustine, and I've done this, can you imagine
15:36what it would be like to turn around and see 10,000 people behind you? I did that on a 4th of
15:41July about 10 years ago. Took the kids down to the Lion's Bridge to watch the fireworks,
15:47and if you go to the island side of the Lion's Bridge, they have these concrete embankments,
15:55and it's beautiful. You can slide down, and then it straightens out, and it makes a perfect seat
16:01to watch the fireworks, and so that's what we did, and we got there about, I don't know,
16:06the fireworks start about 8.30. We got there about 7 o'clock, and there were hundreds of people,
16:12and we went down, and we sat in that thing, and you can't see behind you. Now all you can see
16:18is the water, and you can see the bay, so we watched the fireworks, and then I got up when
16:23it was done, and I turned around. I got up to the top, and there was no blade of grass. There's
16:30no concrete that you could see. It was nothing but people, and I read in the paper the next day
16:36that approximately 10,000 people had gone to downtown St. Augustine to view the fireworks.
16:44This is about 3,000 more people than that. That is a lot of people.
16:50So Jesus asked this funky little question,
16:55Hey, Philip, where do you think we could go to buy this bread that all these people
17:00may eat, these 12, 13, 14,000 people? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he
17:07would do. Obviously, he's the Lord. He knows the end from the beginning. Philip answered,
17:12and he's trying, Philip is trying to reason this thing out in his human brain,
17:18reason this thing out in his human brain. 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them
17:25that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,
17:30saith unto him, There is a lad here which has five barley loaves and two small fishes,
17:38but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass
17:46in the place, so the men sat down and number about 5,000. You know what they did? They sat
17:54down on the green grass. You get to the book of Revelation, what gets burnt up? All the green
17:59grass. There's no place for the saints to sit. Every word of your King James Bible means something.
18:05It's all interconnected. So he makes them sit down on the green grass, and it acknowledges that
18:11there's 5,000 men, and there's a lad, there's a boy. In my mind, he's about Liam's age. He's about
18:1911 or 12, and he steps up, and he has his little action figure lunchbox, and he opens it up for
18:28the Lord, and he says, Hey, not much, but this is what I got. And Jesus says, That's good enough.
18:36Three things I want to point out to you about this passage, which you have heard preached many,
18:41many times before over the years, but three things that I want to point out about this lad.
18:49The lad obviously wanted to see and hear Jesus for himself. He was a young boy. He was a lad.
18:59He was 12, 13, 14. He had heard about the hubbub, and he wanted to go see Jesus for himself.
19:08Maybe he's there with his parents. Maybe he's not. The Bible doesn't say. But we know this,
19:14that it is the lad that is brought forward to Jesus. The father is not brought forward.
19:20The mother is not brought forward. Why? And a little child shall lead them. It's all woven
19:27together. It's all interconnected. So you have this little lad who is there, not by chance or
19:34happenstance, but he had a plan, and he wanted to hear or see or both Jesus for himself.
19:44Something about the townspeople talking about what was going on. The Bible says this,
19:50the fame of him spread abroad. Jesus was a very famous person, and everybody wanted to
19:57touch the hem of his garment. Everybody wanted to be in his presence. Some people wanted to
20:02be in his presence, like the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the scribes, so they could kill him.
20:08Other people wanted to be in his presence because they wanted to get the free health care
20:13and the free food. And then there's a third class of people who wanted to be in his presence
20:18because they wanted to be in his presence. So the first thing that you need to know about this lad,
20:24he had a plan. It wasn't a big plan. It wasn't a huge plan. He was a young kid, 12, 13, 14,
20:34and all he knew is that he wanted to go see Jesus. He didn't say he was a believer,
20:40but he's obviously there because he wanted to be there.
20:44The second thing I want to point out, the lad doesn't come empty-handed.
20:50He prepared what was available to him, and he took it.
20:57First, he comes up with a plan, then he prepares to execute that plan. He's a lad. He's a young kid.
21:06He has a plan. He is preparing. And then the third thing that he does, the lad shows up,
21:13and because this lad is there, his plan brought him to that place and that time.
21:19His preparation caused him to have a lunchbox with five loaves and two fishes,
21:27and he presented that to the Lord. Didn't say that they took it from him.
21:32He said, there is a lad here, and he has five loaves and two fishes.
21:36He probably, with that childlike innocence, here you go. Would this help?
21:43I mean, he's probably about four and a half feet high, and he can't even see the end of the crowd.
21:50He can't see over the tops of the heads of all the big people. And can you just picture,
21:55he just comes before the Lord and says, here, will this do any good? Five loaves and two fishes.
22:04And you know what the Lord did with those five loaves and two fishes? He took the plan that the
22:08kid had. He took the preparation that the plan caused the kid to create, and then he prospered
22:17the people. Look at how much food came out of five loaves and two fishes.
22:24Verse 10, and Jesus said, make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place.
22:30So the men sat down and number about 5,000, and Jesus took the loaves. And when he had given
22:36thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were set down,
22:41and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. And when they were filled,
22:45he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
22:53Therefore, they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley
23:00loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had
23:05seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth, that prophet that should come in to the
23:13world. Now, I don't know about you, but I sure wish I could have seen a miracle like that. I
23:20would like to see just the physics of what does that look like? Five loaves, two fishes. Where
23:29did the baskets come from? But let's just assume they had baskets. And now there is so much food
23:35being generated. What would that have looked like? I've thought about that many, many times.
23:41It was bottomless. It was endless. Does the Bible say that the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand
23:48hills? He says, the gold is mine. The silver is mine. The world is mine. Everything that we see around us
23:59is here because the Lord put it here. And this little kid, this little lad, he had a plan.
24:08He was prepared. And because of that, Jesus blessed what he offered. And he caused 12 to 14,000 people
24:19to be fed till they were full, till there were 12 baskets of fragments left over. There were 12
24:27disciples go into all the world and preach the gospel. What does that bread represent? And the
24:35fish. It represents the gospel, the endless gospel in every different gospel, different
24:43dispensation. We understand that. But Jesus says, go out into the highways and the hedges and compel
24:49them to come in that my house may be full. Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. And as you're
25:00turning there, I told you earlier, Matthew and Mark don't even mention that there was a lad.
25:08It just says that the five loaves and the two fishes were just there. And in John, we find out
25:15that there was a lad and we can kind of backtrack what he did. And we can understand where all that
25:22came from, that he had a plan that he prepared and all those things. We get that. But I want
25:30to point out to you that there's a reason, I believe, why the lad is not mentioned.
25:412 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 15. Paul says, for all things are for your sakes,
25:48that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God.
25:55That's an old-fashioned King James word, which means reflect back, is what it means.
26:02If you do good works, it redounds unto you in eternity, and it redounds unto God,
26:08because he's the one who gave you the means by which to do the good work.
26:16For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving
26:20of many, redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man
26:26perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is
26:34but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
26:41While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen,
26:45for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
26:53Now I want you to think about this lad, this boy. He had a plan to see Jesus.
27:02It doesn't say what his gifts and talents were. How many times do we say to ourselves,
27:08well, what gift did the Lord give me? What talent did the Lord give me? Well, guess what?
27:14Maybe He didn't give you any talents. Maybe He didn't give you any gift outside of salvation,
27:19which is His unspeakable gift because of the price He had to pay to get it.
27:23But what if you didn't have any gifts? What if you didn't have any talents?
27:29Here's a boy, 12, 13, 14. Doesn't say anything about his heart. Doesn't say anything about
27:36his motivation or desire. It just says that he has five loaves and two fishes.
27:42He has come to hear Jesus and he is prepared with what God put in front of him to do.
27:49He looks around his house and says, hey mom, what time are we leaving to go hear Jesus?
27:55Can we bring something to eat? This is what it, five loaves and two fishes. It's all he had.
28:02He had a plan. He was prepared. And then when he showed up, God prospered him.
28:10Now I want you to think about that in your life. I want you to think about what you have been called
28:16to do for the Lord Jesus Christ. I said in my sermon last week that we're ambassadors for the
28:23Lord, that we have been given the ministry of reconciliation and every single one of us has
28:29been given that ministry. If you're saved, you have been called to the ministry of reconciliation.
28:37You have been called to go out and give lost people the gospel and to encourage the saints.
28:43That's what we are here to do. That's why he didn't take you when he saved you. He left you
28:49behind to do a work. So I submit to you today that this lad with the five loaves and two fishes,
28:56the reason why we don't know this lad's name. Now at the end of Sunday school this morning,
29:03I mentioned Mary of Bethany with the alabaster box. We know all about Mary. We know her name.
29:10And when we get to heaven, we'll be able to pick her out of a crowd.
29:14And her name attached to her as a specific person is memorialized in the gospel for all eternity.
29:23This lad gets no mention. If this was a movie, he gets no screen credit of any kind.
29:33But what is in view here, what is in view is the work that he did. It wasn't much.
29:42It was five loaves and two fishes. And I'll even go so far as to say that he was just thinking
29:49about himself and maybe his mother and father. Maybe they just brought what they had for
29:54themselves. We don't know what his motivations were, but we know this, he showed up with something
30:01and out of 13,000 people, there is no listing of anybody else having anything.
30:07Could it be possible that this little kid is the only kid who shows up prepared to see the Lord
30:14Jesus? Sure looks that way. Now, how does this apply to me and you? This applies to me and you
30:22when we look at our own lives and we get a right estimation of who we are before the Lord.
30:30And that is nothing. We are absolutely nothing before the Lord. He doesn't need us. He doesn't
30:37have to have us. What did in the book of Esther, when Mordecai says, hey, you've got to do this
30:45thing, you've got to go in and see the king. And she's like, well, I don't really want to do it
30:51because he hasn't given me the golden scepter for the last 30 days. And if I go in and according to
30:57the law, if he's not in the proper mood, I could wind up swinging on the gallows.
31:03And Mordecai looks at her and says, yeah, well, that's true. But if you don't do it,
31:11God is going to knock you off and he's going to raise up somebody who will do it. Now you
31:18tell me that that is not a humbling moment for the queen. She's the queen and Mordecai,
31:26her family member, he's her uncle. He says, hey, you got to do this thing and you know,
31:33you have to do it. And who knows, but you're here for such a time as this.
31:41And then he says, but if you don't do it, you and the whole family wiped out and deliverance
31:47shall come from another place. God is not dependent on you doing it. The work will get done.
31:56Jesus says, it must be that offenses come into the world, but woe by whom they come.
32:05People are not predestined to do bad or to do good. We live in a world that is pre-configured
32:12under the curse of sin, where bad things happen and bad things take place. And Jesus says,
32:17you're always going to have the poor. You're always going to have bad things. You're always
32:21going to have these horrible things, but woe unto whom, by whom those things come.
32:27Don't let it be you. And here in John chapter six, the reverse is true. You have a lad with
32:35five loaves and two fishes, and he has a plan and he's prepared and he shows up and his food
32:42is what is given to the Lord to feed all these thousands of people. You know what great
32:49theological and prophetical thing that that boy did? He showed up. He showed up.
32:57How many times in our life do we want the Lord to work and to move, but we are not showing up.
33:04And no, this is not a pitch to give. This is not a pitch to come to church. This is not a pitch to
33:10come to Wednesday night Bible study and prayer meeting. It's not a pitch for anything other
33:16than the biblical principle of showing up and making yourself available.
33:24That is what Chris, this is, this is, this is what the passage is all about. And too many times
33:32we want the deep theological things. We want to be dazzled with this prophetic insight and people
33:38go to prophecy conferences and do all this stuff. And they spend, um, there's, I don't have to
33:44mention names, but there's people, you know, if you'll make a donation of, of $250, you'll get the
33:5110 hours of these DVDs from this prophecy conference. And all that is a big bunch of
33:56hooey is what all that stuff is. You know what the Bible says? The Bible says, Hey,
34:04God doesn't need you, but he's given you a chance to get in the game.
34:09You don't have to be the star quarterback. You don't have to be the lightning fast,
34:14wide receiver. You know what you have to do? You have to show up. And you know what people have
34:20who show up, they have a willing heart. They show up and they say, okay, Lord, I got nothing.
34:27I am nothing, but I'm going to show up and let's see what you can do with that.
34:33One of the greatest stories about that, that I ever heard DL Moody back in 1871, 1872,
34:41he had done what he thought was his life's work. He built this church in Chicago and he was,
34:51he was never ordained, but he was the default pastor because he started the church and he was
34:56the preacher. And he thought that this was what God had called him to do. And it was,
35:04but it wasn't all that God had called him to do. And then one day, one afternoon in 1871,
35:11the great Chicago fire took place and it burned down three quarters of the town.
35:16And people who were sitting in his pews Sunday morning were dead Sunday night with no warning,
35:25no time to prepare, no time to put a plan in place. And he got so depressed about that.
35:31He didn't give an altar call that morning because he said, you know what? I'll do it later.
35:36There was no later. Many of those people were dead later. The church did not exist.
35:41His house did not exist. Nothing was left. So he goes to Europe and he's just going there to hear
35:48some preaching, to have some fellowship, to get away from Chicago because he is just so
35:53wracked with guilt and, you know, how he failed. And he is just overwhelmed with sorrow and God
36:03gives him some time to go hear some good preaching. And then God says, okay, time to get back in the
36:08game, Moody. And by the time he comes back two and a half years later, it was what we call the
36:14first of the great awakenings in the 19th century. And the entire continent of England was set on
36:22fire because of what God did with Moody. And in one small church, there was these two sisters
36:31who lived by themselves and the one sister started to pray that D.L. Moody would come to their town.
36:42And she prayed and she prayed. She was an invalid. She couldn't get out of bed. There was nothing she
36:46could do. She couldn't even attend church. Her sister would have to go to church and tell her
36:52what the pastor had said. And so she prayed and she believed that God was going to bring D.L.
36:58Moody to her town. Lo and behold, as part of his journey during that great awakening time,
37:09Moody went to her town and he went to her church and he went to her house.
37:17He wanted to meet the woman that had prayed him all the way to this tiny little church that nobody
37:22knew about that didn't even make a blip on the map. You know what that woman did? She didn't have
37:28a strong body. She couldn't get out of bed. There was nothing she could do. She didn't have a lot of
37:33money. It was just her and her sister living by themselves. She did what she could. She had five
37:40loaves and two fishes. She said, Lord, give me something to do. And she started to pray and her
37:45prayers led D.L. Moody to her doorstep. Now you think about that. This is what God is telling us
37:54in John 6. The young lad whose name that we won't know until we get to heaven and maybe we'll never
38:02know it. But the thing that is in view is the work that was accomplished through his plan and through
38:10his preparation. And his plan, his great master plan, was to show up where Jesus was.
38:21Every single person in this room can do what God has put on them to do. Everybody.
38:31And maybe it's only going to be five loaves and two fishes and from a mathematical perspective
38:37the appetites of 13,000 plus people against five loaves and two fishes. I don't even know if there's
38:44decimal point small enough to show the disparity between what that would feed and how many people
38:51that there were. But there was the glue that held it all together. And that was the young boy who
38:58showed up and he had a plan and he was prepared and Jesus used his five loaves and two fishes
39:07and he prospered those people with exactly what they needed during this time period.
39:14You've heard me talk about Charlton and he's been an NTEBer for a long time. And last weekend
39:22God put on our hearts to contact him to see if he would be, he's a professional truck driver,
39:29if he would have the time to join a convoy of people who would go and bring six truckloads
39:37full of food and diapers and clothing and Bibles and all sorts of stuff to the people who were
39:42displaced after Hurricane Helene in Asheville, North Carolina. And he said, let me check my
39:50schedule. I have to make sure that I can go. And he went and we had stops for him to make along the
39:56way. He had to pick up 500 of those Bibles in his own trailer. And then he worked about 12 hours a
40:03day, six days this past week. They got the stuff there. I did an article about that late Friday
40:10night and it was just when you see what was on the ground, what those six trucks brought to those
40:16people, it would just bring a tear to your eye. And when it was all done and he got back home,
40:23he sent me a text message yesterday. And I won't tell you the details of the text message,
40:28but there was something in his life that he had been praying about for quite some time
40:35that he wanted God to do. And for whatever reason, God wasn't doing it,
40:42but he stayed faithful and he kept this as an unspoken prayer.
40:47And months went by, a couple of years went by, and he texted me yesterday.
40:55He said that he was crying, he was so overwhelmed. And I asked him
41:04what had happened. And he said, this thing that I had been praying for for years,
41:09God did it. And he did it in a way that I never anticipated. You know how that thing got done?
41:19Because people watched him doing what he did this past week. He doesn't have a lot of money.
41:27In fact, he lost his job. He's been cutting lawns and driving an Uber. And he's been really trying
41:34to hold things in place. And when we asked him if he could show up and if he could do this thing,
41:41he said, yeah, I can do it. And there were people who were watching him do it.
41:47And they caught that fire and they said, wow, I can't believe that I'm watching this.
41:54And the thing that he had prayed for, God did because Charlton showed up.
42:01That's all he did, is he showed up. He said, hey, I have a trailer, I have a pickup truck.
42:06I can go get those Bibles. He had to go to Johnson City, Tennessee.
42:11And then he had to drive those Bibles from Johnson City, Tennessee to Ekron, Kentucky.
42:17And then he met, he got there Wednesday, and then he met with a group of about 13 other men.
42:23And they had a staging ground at the church. And then they loaded up six vehicles, which included
42:2920 pallets of water. You know how much water 20 pallets is? It is 34,583 bottles.
42:38It is 44,000 pounds of water and 35,000 pounds of food and clothing and diapers,
42:45almost 100,000 pounds of supplies. And you know what Charlton's job was?
42:51He showed up and he made himself available. And because of that, we wouldn't have had
43:01those 500 Spanish Bibles to go to Asheville if Charlton wasn't available to drive to Johnson
43:07City, Tennessee, throw them in the back of his trailer and put them on the convoy.
43:13He didn't do any great and unbelievable lofty thing. We asked him if he could show up. He said,
43:21I can show up. And he did what anybody asked him to do for the last six days.
43:28And miraculous things happened because of that. Something that was one of his most
43:35treasured and closely held prayer requests to the Lord got answered because he showed up.
43:44Are you starting to see how the Lord works? You know what he's asking each and every one of us
43:50to do? To show up. To say, Lord, whatever you have put in front of me, whatever I can get my
43:58hands on to give for your service, whatever it is. There are people who have a lot of stuff.
44:06There are people who have a little amount of stuff. But guess what? From the Lord's perspective,
44:11everybody is equal because having a lot of stuff, what happened to the rich young ruler, right?
44:20You know, I've kept all these 10 commandments from my youth up. What have I lacked? What do I still
44:26have to do? He said, you see all that baggage that you call your treasures? You got to unhitch
44:31from that baggage. Give it away to the poor. Come follow me and I'll give you treasure in heaven.
44:39And he didn't want it because he didn't want to show up. He didn't want to make himself
44:44available to the Lord. And you know where revival comes from? Revival comes when people show up.
44:52When everybody looks in their own life and says, what has God given me that I can do?
44:59And I'm going to give God this little gift, whatever it is, and ask him to do something
45:06with it. Now, if that lad hadn't given away those five loaves and two fishes,
45:13nobody would have seen a miracle that day. Maybe Jesus would have found a, maybe he just would
45:18have dropped manna from heaven, but maybe not. Maybe the lesson would have been persevering
45:24through hunger. I don't know. I don't know, but I know this. I know that that lad gave what he had
45:31and he was able to give it because he was there when it was needed and he showed up.
45:37This is the type of, now this is a principle that is true in every dispensation.
45:46If you show up and make yourself available to the Lord, God will give you a work to do.
45:52I talked earlier about our free Bible program and we have given away lots and lots of free
45:59Bibles, but you know where that program started? That program started six and a half years ago
46:05where God said to me, you have a lot of people listening to your radio Bible study who can't
46:10afford a Bible. Why don't you give them a Bible? And the early days of the free Bible program was
46:16just me cashing my paycheck, buying Bibles and me paying to ship it out. And whoever had a need,
46:25if I could, I sent him a Bible. Now that program is global, hundreds of thousands of Bibles going
46:32out. And what did I do? Nothing. I showed up. God asked me to do this tiny little insignificant,
46:41seemingly thing. Are you willing to do it? Sure. I'll do it for you. And I showed up.
46:50You want answer to your prayer. You want God's blessing. You want the Lord to do something in
46:58your life that you have asked him for years and years and years, then show up and make yourself
47:05available. Lay it at the Lord's feet and ask him to do something with it. That's exactly what this
47:14lad did. And that's why that tale is preserved in the gospel just as much as Mary of Bethany
47:25for all eternity. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you, Lord. We thank you, God, for your goodness
47:32and your mercy. We thank you, God, for these that were able to show up today. Many, many people
47:37weren't able to show up today, Lord. And we pray that you get him back here soon and get him back
47:43here safely. Lord, we pray for everybody who's hurting after the two hurricanes. Show us how
47:49we might be a blessing to them. And Father God, show us about the power of showing up.
48:00And Lord, we just pray if there's one listening today who doesn't know you as Savior, that
48:05something was said and done to lead that lost soul to you. And Father God, we pray for those
48:10of us that are saved, that something was said and done today that would set us on fire for you to
48:17show up and to give you whatever it is, Lord, that we can to put it before you and ask you to
48:23do something amazing with it, God. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.