Hello, I'm Dr. Kylie Fisher. Welcome to heavenly harmonies.
You know, when Jesus was here on earth he performed many miracles and each of the miracles that he had performed had tremendous spiritual significance. One of his most famous miracles was to feed a crowd of over 5000 people. So what is the spiritual significance of this miracle? All well, today we're going to look at the lovely hymn break thou the bread of life and find out what it has to say to us.
So stay with me. As we discover how this hymn can draw us nearer to the heart of God. In our programmes we have been looking at different hymns that are really prayers.
And our hymn for today is once again another beautiful prayer. And so as we realise that this is a prayer, it can help us to understand the meaning of the words better. So let's think about this beautiful hymn, break thou the bread of life.
And let's begin with the first verse. Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me as thou didst break the loaves beside the sea beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord. My spirit pants for thee, o living word.
So let's have a look at what this song means. And so I think the best place to start is actually with the second line of the song which speaks about Jesus breaking the loaves beside the sea. So this is referring to a miracle that Jesus performed when he was here on earth.
This miracle actually was more towards the end of his ministry and we may speak more about the significance of that because every one of Jesus'miracles has tremendous significance, tremendous spiritual significance. But this is one of the really key turning points in the life of Christ and in his ministry. Let's just have a bit of a look at what the gospels have to say to us about this miracle.
So this is one of the few miracles that is recorded in all four gospels and we're mainly going to be looking at it in John, chapter six. So Matthew, Mark and Luke, you might have heard them referred to as the synoptic gospels. They have quite different content to the Gospel of John and.
Yeah, so Matthew, Mark and Luke, they're all quite similar in their content. John explores probably more deeply than any of the other gospels, the spiritual significance of the acts and the words of Christ. So it's quite different.
But each of the four gospels makes a contribution to our understanding of the ministry of Christ. So without each of the four, we wouldn't have a complete picture of Christ and his mean, even as it is like John at the end of his gospel, says that Jesus did so many other things that were not recorded in the gospels. But what has been recorded is given to us that we can have salvation.
So that's the really key point. So, yeah, let's have a look at the count of this miracle in John, chapter six. So.
And it says, after these things, Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberius. And a great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And jesus went up into a mountain and there he sat with his disciples.
And the passover, a feast of the jews was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him. He saith unto Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And so on.
And it goes through the process of how they brought five barley loaves and two small fishes to Jesus. And so let's just have a look at what jesus did in verse ten. So verse ten says, jesus said, make the men sit down.
Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down in number about 5000. Verse eleven says, jesus took the loaves.
And when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were set down and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. So this was the tremendous miracle that Jesus performed. He not only fed 5000 men plus women and children.
But then John chapter six and verse twelve says that when they'd all had enough to eat when they were filled, jesus said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost. Therefore, they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. So this was a tremendous miracle.
And that is what this song is talking about when it says, as thou didst break the loaves beside the sea. So Jesus performed this miracle that, as I was saying before, each one of Jesus miracles had a particular purpose and it had spiritual significance. Now we can see this from the book of Mark, chapter two.
And this was another miracle that Jesus did. Right at the beginning of the chapter is recorded a miracle where there was a man that had palsy. So he was paralysed.
And so his friends, actually, the house was so crowded where Jesus was that his friends actually removed the roof tiles from the flat roof and they let this crippled man down right at Jesus feet. And so Jesus healed this man. And just before he healed the man, he said something really, really significant.
So mark, chapter two and verse ten says, well, let's actually pick it up. In chapter nine. Jesus said, whether is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, thy sins be forgiven thee.
Or to say, arise and take up thy bed and walk. Then verse ten says, but that ye may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. He saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise and take up thy bed and go thy way into thine house.
So here we see that Jesus healed this man that was sick, and it was designed to teach a spiritual lesson. And the spiritual lesson of this miracle was that Christ has power to forgive sins. So we can see from this that every one of Christ's miracles had tremendous spiritual significance.
And we can see also, particularly from the account in John, we see we get some real insights into the spiritual significance of Jesus feeding a multitude from five loaves and two fishes. And so this song actually really explains beautifully the significance of this. It says there the beginning of verse one.
Break thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me. And that's sort of a little obscure. And I think the meaning of this song and the meaning of this miracle becomes more apparent as we go through the song.
But line three of the first verse, I think, sort of explains a little bit more, break thou the bread of life, because it says there beyond the sacred page, I seek thee, Lord. So what would the sacred page be? Well, clearly, that's talking about the pages of the Bible. And even in Old Testament times, the word of God was spoken of as food.
It was spoken of as bread. So, yeah, there's a few plays in the Old Testament, actually, that speak about this. The first one is, or the first one that we're going to look at is deuteronomy, chapter eight and verse three, which says that it's referring to when the Israelites were in the wilderness.
God miraculously fed them with manna for 40 years while they were there. So, referring to that, it says that God fed the Israelites with manna, which thou knewest not. Neither did thy fathers know that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
So that was the spiritual significance of just even this miracle in the wilderness, which obviously didn't happen during Jesus life on earth. So, yeah, this miracle that God worked for the Israelites for 40 years had a spiritual significance. And it was to teach the Israelites that we don't just live by physical food, but we need the life of God to sustain us.
We need God's power just even to live and to survive, and his power is in his word. Let's look at another verse about this. Jeremiah, chapter 15 and verse 16.
So, Jeremiah, chapter 15 and verse 16. And so that says to us, thy words were found and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. For I am called by thy name, o Lord, God of hosts.
So, yeah, here we see clearly that God's word is likened to bread. And so, of course, we do not literally eat the pages of the Bible. That is not what it means.
But it means to think about the word of God, to assimilate it into our lives and to live by the word just as we live by physical food. So, yeah, beyond the sacred page. I seek thee, Lord.
My spirit pants for thee, o living word. And so, yeah, my spirit pants for thee. That sort of has a reference to psalm, chapter 42 and verse one, verses one and two.
It says, as a heart or the deer panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, o God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? So, yeah, I think this is really beautiful because we have spoken in other programmes about how what God calls us to is not just a formal relationship, where we're just doing rites and ceremonies.
There are ceremonies in the christian religion, I guess, going to church, just even praying in the morning, these are sort of, I guess, rituals in a sense that we do. In the sense that we do them every day or every week on a weekly basis, we go to church. And then there's other things like baptism and there's communion service and various other things like this that are their rights, but as in R-I-T-E-S.
But God is not just calling us to just participate in these things as a formal thing. My spirit pants for thee, o living word. So God is calling us into a personal relationship with him and he wants us to experience a relationship that's as, in a sense, as a real intangible as eating food.
And that's how real our relationship to him should seem. That's how necessary our relationship to him should seem. Even if you're a bit late for a meal, especially if you've been working hard, you really start to get hungry and you're just really longing for food.
That's how it should be. When we're studying God's word, we should just be longing for and looking forward to that time to spend with him. If we don't feel that longing in our hearts, we can pray and we can ask him for that.
Okay, so let's keep going with the second verse of this hymn. Bless thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me as thou didst bless the bread by Galilee. Then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall and I shall find my peace, my all in.
You know, when we come to study God's word I think this verse is saying to me that we really need God's help. And yeah, this is conveyed in the miracle that Jesus did. So as we were reading before John chapter six and verse eleven Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed to the disciples.
And as I said, this is this miracle. I think I said that that is recorded in all four of the gospels. Let's just have a look in Matthew.
Matthew, chapter 14. And so Matthew chapter 14 and verse 19 says, jesus commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fishes and looking up to heaven he blessed and break.
So there, that's got the like. In John it says he gave thanks. In Matthew it says that he blessed the bread.
And so in the same way we need Christ to be with us to help us to understand the Bible. It's just so, so vital that before we do study God's word that we spend time in prayer and that we just constantly, as we're studying through God's word that we do have an attitude of humility and pleading with God to understand God's word. Because sadly the Bible shows that Satan actually knows the Bible really well and he can misquote it as actually we were speaking last episode about the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness.
In the second temptation the devil quoted the words of scripture but he misapplied them. And so the same thing can happen even if we're studying the Bible. If we do not have the help of Christ we will misunderstand and we can misapply the word of God.
So we need to have constant attitude of humility pleading with God to understand his word. And so, yeah, if we're praying this hymn as a prayer or if we're singing it I think that that's such a really important attitude to have as we're thinking about it and as we're approaching it. So let's go on then to the third verse because I think this brings out still more plainly the spiritual significance of this miracle that Jesus did the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 plus.
So verse three says, thou art the bread of life, o Lord, to me thy holy word. The truth that saveth me give me to eat and live with thee above teach me to love thy truth for thou art love. Now, in order to understand this miracle and the response of the jewish people in Christ's day to it, it is really helpful if we understand circumstances at that time and a little bit about the history of the jewish people.
Now, the jewish nation, we know from the book of Exodus that they actually became slaves in Egypt for a while. That was because of their unfaithfulness to God. But God miraculously delivered them from slavery and he brought them out, he brought them to Mount Sinai, and there, amidst fire and thunder and amazing display of God's power, he declared his law to them and he offered that he would be their God and that they were to be his people.
And Israel, they promised to serve God, but sadly, they were not faithful to their promise. And so, because they departed from God, as we were reading in a previous programme, Amos three, verse three, can two walk together? Except they be agreed, because Israel departed from God, God could no longer help them. And so they came again, time and time again, into slavery to other nations.
And finally, by the time of Christ, they were under the rulership and under the government of the ancient empire of Rome. We know from history, we also know from the Bible, Rome was a cruel power, represented in Daniel chapter two by legs of iron, because Rome was just a power that crushed all other powers under its feet. And actually, in Daniel chapter seven, it says that it trampled the whole earth under its feet and it just devoured the whole earth.
So it was a terrible time to be alive. And the jewish nation at the time of Christ was groaning under the heel of roman oppression. And so the people had lost sight of their purpose, that they were on earth, and that their purpose as a nation was to reveal the character of God.
They hated their roman rulers and they thirsted for revenge against them. And so what they were expecting, as they saw in the Bible, promises of a deliverer, sadly, they misunderstood the word of God and they misapplied the word of God. And they thought that the deliverer, the saviour that was coming, the messiah, that he was going to drive out the hated Romans and he was going to make them the rulers of the whole world.
And so you can imagine the feelings of these people as Christ performs this amazing miracle, feeds a whole crowd of people. And already they had seen other miracles that he did. As we were reading in John chapter six, the reason why people followed jesus was John chapter six, verse two, says, because they saw his miracles, which he did on them that were diseased.
So when, yeah, he was this amazing person that could heal all of the sick. If anybody was hurt in this battle with Rome, he was a leader that could heal all of the sick. He could provide an army with food.
And they thought, this is the deliverer. This is the one that is going to drive out the Romans and he is going to make us rulers over the world. That was what they were hoping for.
So that's just what it says in John chapter six and verse 14. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that jesus did, said, this is of a truth. That prophet that should come into the world, verse 15 says, when Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.
So jesus did not come to earth to establish an earthly kingdom. The Bible does speak about that there will be a new earth and that God will recreate the earth. But that's not what jesus came to earth to do the first time.
He came to set up the kingdom of grace in our hearts and to change our hearts and to change our lives. And so the day following this tremendous miracle, jesus tried to explain this. He did explain it to the jewish people when he said they came looking for him.
John chapter six and verse 35 says it most plainly. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
But sadly, we can read in John chapter six and verse 66, it says, from that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. So they were not interested in this spiritual kingdom that Christ offered. But the person singing this song or praying this song, hopefully it's you.
Hopefully this is a prayer that you would like to pray. Thou art the bread of life, O Lord, to me thy holy word, the truth that saveth me. So when so many of his disciples went back and chose not to follow Christ, Jesus said to the twelve, the twelve disciples, he said to them, will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and assure that thou art that Christ, the son of the living God.
So, yeah, once you've tasted of the love of Christ, sometimes you are tempted, is it really worth it? But when you stop and think about things, you just start to realise, where else can we go? And, yeah, that's certainly been my experience. I hope that that will also be your experience. And, yeah, that you can really make the words of this song your own.
So then the final verse. Spirit and life are they words thou dost speak I hasten to obey but I am weak thou art my only help thou art my life heeding thy holy word I win the strife so it's through the word of God that we can win this battle against evil, this battle against sin and, yeah, so that final verse, I think, is full of confidence. So, yeah, just a beautiful hymn.
So let's listen now to fountain view singing this lovely song. Break thou the bread of life break thou the bread of life dear Lord, to me as thou did break the Lord age I see the Lord my spirit pants for the O living word bless thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me as thou is the bread by gal and and I shall find my peace my holy know thou art the bread of life O Lord, to me thy holy word the truth that saved me give me to eat and live with the above teach me to love thy truth for thou art love, spirit and life for me words out of speed I hasten to obey but I am weak thou art my only help thou art my life eating thy holy word I win the stride do you believe, as Peter did, that Christ is the son of the living God? Do you want to say with Peter, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Let's say a brief prayer that God will help us to make the experience of this song our own.
Dear Lord, we're so grateful for the life of Christ and for what he has to offer us, and that he offers us something far better than what we ourselves could ever long know. We might be tempted to long for things of this world, dear God, but Christ offers us things that will never fade away. Eternal peace, eternal joy, eternal love.
Dear Lord, I just pray that we can realise these amazing blessings through our relationship with Christ and that we can find the words of the Bible and the life of Christ himself to be spirit and life to us. So, yeah, pray that that may be my experience and the experience of all those listening to this broadcast. In Jesus name.
Amen. So thank you so much for joining me today on heavenly harmonies. Remember, you can email us at
[email protected] me again next time to discuss another lovely hymn. Until then, goodbye and God bless.
