Mark 6:35-44 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came to him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed:… My brethren, the difficulty urged by the disciples is one not of bygone times only. I. It is a difficulty arising from numbers, and it is a difficulty arising from place. When from any unhappy cause, such as that terrible and most wicked war which is at this time raging in the new world, the supplies of trade and commerce are suddenly cut off from a large portion of our countrymen, how sad a meaning is given even in a literal sense to the inquiry in the text! What a burden is thrown upon private charity, what a burden is thrown upon the public resources, by a cry for bread, for the food of the body, going up from destitute thousands! And are there not some among us capable of feeling the same weight of difficulty in reference to things spiritual? And when our thoughts take a wider range, and pass to towns and cities in our own laud where the population is counted not by hundreds, but by tens of thousands; when we think of that aggregate of ignorance, ungodliness, and sin, which a population of a hundred thousand or of a million of souls must present to the eye of a holy and heart-searching God, and then compare with it the few faithful ministers and servants of God who are set to dispense the bread of life amongst that mighty multitude. The least we expect of the disciples is their own faith, their own obedience. If the prospect is discouraging, it must not be made more so by the faithlessness of the faithful: they at least must eat of Christ's bread, and assist Him in the distribution (so far as it will go) to others. II. We have to think also of the difficulty arising from the place; from the disparity between the scene which was before them and the food which was wanted. Bread here in the wilderness. When we apply this to spiritual things, two remarks will suggest themselves. There is an apparent contrariety between heavenly supplies and our earthly condition. We are here in a wilderness. There is an incongruity between the place and the promise. Rest in a changing world, happiness in a troublous world, the ideas are inharmonious and discordant. I appeal to some of you, my brethren, to testify that, though there may be contrariety in the ideas, there is no contradiction. Some of you have found that, though all else changes, God changes not; that, though all else is unrest, in Christ there is peace. You can already attest the truth of His words, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: |
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