In order to advance God’s Kingdom on earth, we must recognize prophetic signs in our day and learn how to gain revelation from them. The best way to learn how to do this is to look at some of the prophetic signs Jesus used to teach us disciples. One such example is the miraculous feeding of the 5000 men besides women and children that is recorded in all four gospels. Shortly after this event, a similar miracle occurred when Jesus fed 4000 men, plus women and children. The latter is recorded only in the gospels of Matthew and mark.
To fully understand these miracles, we need to study the details as presented in the various gospels and then seek God for his revelation. In marks gospel, Jesus who referred to both of these miracles while traveling in a boat with his disciples on the sea. He particularly mentioned the number of people who were fed and the number of loaves and fishes that were used in each case. He also made note of the vast amount of food and the number of large baskets full of uneaten fragments leftover afterwards.
Mark 8: 11 then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven, testing him. But he sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation. And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he parted to the other side. Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. Then he charged them, saying, take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, it is because we have no bread. But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the 5000, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up? They said to him, “12”. Also, when I broke the seven for the 4000, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said, seven. So, he said that then, how is it that you did not understand?
Jesus marveled at the spiritual blindness of his disciples because they did not understand the deeper significance of these miracles and of the various numbers involved.
Avoiding bad leaven
In the mark 8: 11-21 passage, Jesus used the analogy of making bread, an example with which everybody would be familiar. He spoke of two bad forms of leaven, or yeast, that can contaminate the whole dough of the Kingdom. If received, they poisoned the minds of the people who mixed them into the true bread of eating him and really knowing him with deep intimacy. As a result, they cannot see or understand the Kingdom properly. Although, in this and other places, Jesus referred to four kinds of leaven and one good kind, discussed below:
1-The leaven of the scribes and Pharisees was religious legalism.
They turned their religious lives into a practice of meticulously observing a multitude of rules and regulations concerning clothing, eating habits, and many outward things that they could or could not do. They were only concerned with the outward life and how they appeared before people and were not at all concerned with the condition of a person’s heart.
2- the leaven of Herod and the Herodians was political correctness and diplomatic expediency
This was expressed in the lives of the Roman and Jewish politicians in Jewish religious leaders. they were full of diplomatic expediency and political correctness. They were also greedy for money and practiced manipulation to gain increased political power and influence.
Herod, who would do or say anything that would further his political career, was the epitome of this. He had worked hard for many years to complete the new temple in Jerusalem. However, his motive for building it was not to glorify God; he did it to gain favor with the Jewish rulers. At the same time, he had built several temples around the Roman Empire that were dedicated to the worship of Augustus Caesar. These were built to gain him favor with the Roman emperor. He was first and foremost a political animal with no true knowledge of God and no unwavering standards of truth, morality, integrity, or righteousness.
No one can serve God and be politically correct at the same time. When there is conflict between the clear commandments of God and secular laws that have been passed, then we must always obey God, who is the higher authority, even if it means breaking a secular law that is contrary to his word- Acts 4: 17-20.
3 – the leaven of the Sadducees was humanistic rationalism.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus warned of the leaven of the Sadducees as well as that of the Pharisees- Matthew 16: 6-12. The Sadducees were famous for their intellectualism, rationalism, and liberalism; they were unable to believe anything they could not understand with the rational mind. Jesus spoke of this several times. The Sadducees had great difficulties with Jesus and his teaching; they had even more problems dealing with the flow of miracles that he did.
The Sadducees rejected all of the stories of miracles and anything supernatural recorded in the Old Testament scriptures because they could not understand them intellectually. They especially did not believe in the possibility of anyone being raised from the dead, and they were regarded even these Old Testament biblical stories as myths invented by people. They did not regard the scriptures as the infallible word of God, like the Pharisees and scribes did. As a result, they were greatly offended by Peter and later by Paul preaching Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. But even more, they were offended by the apostle’s growing popularity amongst the people. So, they attacked them and caused them to be arrested and thrown into jail -Acts 4: 1-3, 23: 6-10.
The leaven of sin
Elsewhere, in a number of scriptures in both the old and new testaments, another type of bad leaven is described: the practices of the sinful nature within our human flesh. For these reasons, at the beginning of the feast of Passover, all leaven had to be removed from the house. All Jews had to eat unleavened bread during the eight-day feast of Passover, which began with the sacrifice and eating of the Passover lamb. This signified the putting away of all sin through the power of the slain Lamb of God. All this pointed prophetically to the cross and even more to the glorious power of the resurrection life of Jesus that enables us to live free from the power of sin.
5- one good leaven: the Holy Spirit leavening God’s Kingdom.
In Matthew 13: 33, in the midst of Jesus teaching of many parables of the Kingdom, he mentioned one good leaven, which he said was an essential part of the Kingdom. This leaven had to be added in such a way that it leavened the whole lump of the dough. This leaven allegorically represented the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit must truly come into every part of our being and leaven us throughout, infusing all our being-including the way we think-with his presence and the power of Jesus resurrection. Then the things we do can truly be part of the Kingdom.
It is interesting to note that at the Jewish feast of Pentecost, unlike the feast of Passover, the rules regarding eating leaven were totally different. The feast of Pentecost coincided exactly with the barley harvest, and at this festival, all faithful Jews were commanded to eat leavened bread, not unleavened bread. This bread would probably have been barley bread; it is a powerful picture of our need of the Holy Spirit in all his fullness, especially as we come into the Kingdom- Leviticus 23: 15-18.
When the day of Pentecost had fully come- Acts 2: 1, it came as usual, at the time of the barley harvest, It was on that very same day that the Holy Spirit first fell upon the church in the upper room. As a result of that mighty anointing, the disciples burst out of that room full of the Holy Spirit and were able to powerfully preach and demonstrate the Kingdom of God with all its power had indeed come.
The allegory of the blind man
Now let us return to Mark 8: 22-26. After Mark had recorded all of the questions Jesus asked concerning the numbers of loaves involved in the two miracles of feeding the multitude and the number of baskets leftover in each case, Mark immediately continued with the story of the blind man who was brought to Jesus at that moment. This is the only example in scriptures where Jesus healed someone gradually, in two stages.
I want you to see that this man was an allegorical picture of the spiritual blindness of the apostles at that time. They did not understand the true significance or the allegorical meaning of these two great and very similar miracles.
They could not see the significance of the loaves , the fish, and the fragments leftover or the numbers that Jesus deliberately mentioned. This blind man was brought to Jesus from Bethany, which means house of fish; they pleaded with Jesus to touch him. Jesus deliberately did to the blind man physically what he was about to do to the apostles spiritually. Like him, they would progressively receive their sight. There were five phases to this healing:
1- He took them out of the village. Just like this man, the apostles and probably all of Jesus’s disciples had to be released from a village way of seeing things. This is true of most christain leaders and believers today. They can only see and be concerned about their own needs, their own local church, and their own immediate situation. As a result, they do not really see the Kingdom in terms of cities and nations that have to be reached.
2- At first the man only saw vaguely shadowy shapes. He saw men like trees, walking- Mark 8: 24. Something definitely happened when Jesus had spit in his eyes and laid hands on him. He was no longer totally blind, but the healing wasn’t complete. Instead of total darkness there was now some light, but things were not really clear.
3- The man was honest about how much he could see. After spitting in his eyes (a picture of the power of God’s creative word) and laying his hands on the man (a picture of the power of impartation). Jesus asked him if he saw anything. He told Jesus exactly what he could now see-vague, shadowy images like men as trees walking. I believe that if the man had exaggerated and pretended, he could see more clearly than he actually did and had said, oh yes, now I can really see, the healing process would have stopped there. He would have gone away still severely handicapped with only partial vision.
It is easy for Christians, when the Kingdom is being preached, to learn some of the language and to learn to sing some of the songs of the Kingdom without really seeing the Kingdom clearly. If we live lives of “Kingdom talk” and pretense, if we claim to see more clearly than we actually do, we will never come to a full revelation and understanding of the glorious Kingdom of God.
4- Jesus touched him again. The man looked up and focused his attention as Jesus touched him again. Now he saw everything clearly. The man really wanted perfect vision, and he persisted until he got it. We must behave the same way and have the same attitude as we seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, then everything else will be ours as well- Matthew 6: 33.
5- Jesus warned him not to go back to the village again. If he did, he probably would have lost his sight again. Back in the environment of the village, he would soon be persuaded to return to his old ways of thinking and seeing in the smallness of village life.
If God opens your eyes when you are attending a great conference or reading an enlightened book or having some great experience and you come to see the Kingdom much more clearly, take care not to return to your local church or village way of seeing and thinking, thereby losing the vision that God has supernaturally given you. Mentally, you must come out of the village and stay out of it!
Getting ready for the multitude
According to Matthew 9:35-38, Jesus was overwhelmed with a great multitude and their tremendous needs. He earnestly said, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few- Matthew 9: 37. Immediately afterward, because of his great compassion for the people, he appointed the 12 apostles and sent them out- Matthew 10: 1.
Many gathered to him in those days to get their needs met, but only a few became his disciples. The largest number of actual disciples of Jesus that was ever mentioned in scripture was the 500 who saw him at one time after his resurrection. There were only 120 disciples who literally obeyed Jesus’s command and we’re still waiting in the upper room on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit fell. Where were the rest of them?
When Jesus was preaching and healing the multitude, there were tens of thousands present; But in his more private, intimate times of teaching his disciples the numbers were always quite small, most often it was only the 12.
Feeding the 5000-it’s deeper meaning and purpose.
In the 6th chapter of John’s gospel, the rich allegorical purpose of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 is explained by Jesus at a much deeper level.
A multitude had gathered to hear Jesus teach and to be healed. They had been with him for some time and were becoming hungry. We are told in the various gospels there were 5000 men besides women and children. That would probably mean a crowd of at least 20,000 people.
They urgently needed feeding, so in John 6: 5 Jesus asked Philip a test question about feeding the crowd. Jesus wanted to see what his disciples would do. Philip could only respond naturally and realized he was facing an impossible situation. How could even a little food be obtained for so many? Even 100 denarii, which was 100 days wages for a skilled workman and probably equivalent to about $15,000 today, wouldn’t go very far among 20,000 hungry people. But Jesus already knew what he would do.
This miracle took place just before the feast of Passover, one year before Jesus was crucified. It was performed by Jesus so as to be a powerful example of the kind of church that these Apostles would soon be leading. Its purpose was to show them how they would have to be organized in order to feed the great harvest that would soon be ready once the day of Pentecost had come.
Jesus first determined what resources they had. There was one lad with five small barley loaves and two fishes. This lad himself was an allegorical picture of the individual apostles who’s spiritually we’re still like immature children in the eyes of Jesus. This was a term which Jesus officially used several times when addressing the apostles. He literally called them lads. It was used partially to show his affection and partially to underline their immaturity and lack of spiritual understanding until the Spirit came. For example, see John 21: 5, where Jesus appeared to the apostles for the third time after his resurrection. He literally asked, children have you any food?
The five loaves and two fishes were intended for one little boy’s lunch, and the loaves would have been very small, like biscuits. I believe that these five barley loaves represent the Ephesians 4: 11 fivefold ministries; The fishes, which gave flavor and protein content to the food, allegorically represented the new converts whose joy and freshness would add a delightful meaty, spicy flavor to church life. Without a steady flow of such new converts, church life can quickly become very stale and dull.
Barley was normally grown to feed cattle. Only poor people would buy barley and make it into bread for human consumption. This speaks of our need to be poor in spirit in order to see the Kingdom. Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven- Matthew 5: 3.
As we have already seen, barely was closely connected to the feast of Pentecost. It was the first of the several grain harvests which were reaped consecutively during the summer months.
As we have already seen, barley was closely connected to the feast of Pentecost. It was the first of several grain harvests which were reaped consecutively during the summer months. Barley was reaped at exactly the same time as the feast of Pentecost. For these reasons, barley is often an allegory, or type of the Holy Spirit, and there are many delightful examples of this in scriptures, which we cannot fully cover here.
Jesus then told the apostles to instruct the multitudes to sit down on the rich grass in companies of 50 to 100 men, with their families. There must have been about eighty such companies, with 100 to 400 in each, including women and children, making up one large multitude of about 20,000.
The apostles came to Jesus, and he broke each of the first five loaves into small pieces, along with tiny fragments from the two fish, and put a small piece of bread and fish into each of their hands. He then told them to go to each company and begin to distribute the food.
Jesus deliberately made the obedience of the apostle’s part of the miracle and so enforced them to act in faith. As they went from Jesus to their first company, all that they had in their hands was one small fragment of bread and one tiny fragment of fish. It must have seemed totally inadequate to feed even one person, let alone this vast multitude.
It wasn’t until they began to give out these little scraps in faith that the miracle of multiplication began to happen before their eyes, probably to their utter amazement. They kept on giving out the fragments, which were multiplying as they gave them out. Everybody kept eating, and the fragments kept on multiplying until all the people were full. When the remaining uneaten fragments were gathered up, there were many times more left over than they had started with.
What the disciples didn’t know then was that in just over a year from the day that Jesus performed this miracle, they would begin spiritually feeding the first city church in Jerusalem. Incredibly, the numbers would rapidly increase to about the same number of 20,000 people within approximately 2 years.
It would be one city Church of many congregations with the apostles moving amongst these many companies of believers, who would meet in many different places in various ways. The apostles would train and release Ephesians 4: 11 ministries as fast as they could in order to feed all these hungry people spiritually. On that day, they would be doing spiritually what they had done physically the year before-and it would be equally miraculous. The vision Zechariah saw would be literally fulfilled in Jerusalem! The miracle which Jesus performed was a prophetic parable of what was about to happen to the church in Jerusalem.
The significance of the numbers
One more thing we must know is that everything about this miracle was in fives and twelves. Numerology is a topic which needs to be kept in balance. It can be taken to such extremes that it can become very unbalanced and even erroneous. However, we must recognize the fact that certain numbers in scripture have special significance and some definite allegorical or prophetic meanings.
Everything to do with the Jewish scriptures, which we now call the Old Testament, is in fives and twelves. We have 5 books of the law, 12 books of history, five books of poetry, five major prophets, and 12 minor prophets, making up 39 books of the Old Testament. There are other examples of this.
It seems to me that it was very fitting that the first city church, a Jewish church in Jerusalem, should be portrayed in terms of fives and twelves. It’s primary sphere of industry was to first reach Jerusalem and then reach out to Jewish communities everywhere in the world and proclaim to them the coming of their long expected Messiah and his glorious Kingdom.
Much was accomplished by Barnabas and Peter as they went to Jewish communities all over the Roman Empire. In addition, we know from other, biblical records that Matthew went to the Jewish communities in Ethiopia and other parts of North Africa, and Thomas went to similar Jewish trading communities in southern India-in Kerala and in Tamil Nadu around the city now called Chennai. This all took place within a couple decades of the church being born on the day of Pentecost. They made many converts from the Jewish residents and also some local native proselytes as they established churches there.
In the feeding of the 4000 men, 4 loaves were used to feed 4000 men besides women and children, compromising another multitude of about 16,000 people. Seven large baskets full fragments were leftover. Everything in this miracle was fours and sevens. What does this mean?
I want to suggest to you that four is widely accepted as the universal number symbolizing the four corners of the earth. Seven is the number of perfection. By the 2nd miracle, I believe that Jesus was prophesying the formation of a second mighty city church and Apostolic center at Antioch which would be raised up among the gentiles, to send the gospel to the four corners of the earth. To Jesus this would be the perfect, complete fulfillment of his heart; It was what Jesus had commanded his disciples when he told them to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.
The gospel is for all nations.
Within in a few years, the gospel of the Kingdom ran all over the wall from Judea, first into Samaria, and from there into the gentile world beginning in Antioch. This was where Barnabas brought the newly established apostle Paul to teach for a whole year. This was also where believers were first called Christians. Meaning “little Christs”. The name developed because they so clearly replicated the life of Jesus-and everybody in the city would see it-Acts11: 19-26.
Here in Antioch, 2nd grade city church was established with a powerful well to our racial group of apostles, profits, and teachers. These leaders were made-up of Jews, proselytes, and gentiles, some of who were black north Africans, arabians, and Europeans. One was called Simon of Niger literally the black and another was named Lucius. Both men came from serene, a city that was located in present day Lydia, in North Africa.
Here in Antioch, a second great city church was established with a powerful multiracial group of apostles, prophets and teachers. These leaders were made up of Jews, proselytes, and gentiles , some of whom were black north Africans. Arabians, and Europians. One was called Simeon the Niger (literally “the black” and another was named Lucius. Both men came fromCyrene, a city that was located in present day Libya, in North Africa.
From Antioch, apostolic teams went out under Pauls leadership To Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth and many other places. In several of these cities, additional city churches were established that in turn became powerful Apostolic centers reaching out to their whole region and planting many new churches.
Ephesus, a major city in the Roman Empire, was the home of the great temple to Diana, the Pagan goddess mentioned earlier who dominated the spiritual darkness of the Roman Empire. As we have seen, the spirit had been in Paul’s spiritual gun sights for some time, but he had to go through a special process of preparation and training before he was ready for that level of conflict. Paul was the apostle the Lord chose to go take the gospel to the gentiles; Ephesus was one of the foremost of the Asian churches apostolically led by Paul.
In in these days, we must have eyes to see beyond the physical and into the spiritual realm to discern what the Spirit is saying. The best way to learn how to do this is to look at what Jesus did in his day.