May it please God to bless us
together as we meditate in his word this morning. Let us turn
to the Gospel of John, chapter six, and we'll read verse 35. The Gospel of John, chapter six,
and reading verse 35. And 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. Well, you young people, especially
this morning, to think that we read part of this sixth chapter
of John, and it really speaks to us the words of Jesus and
he brings before them the wonderful analogy of manna and himself
as the bread of life. And the reason that he did that
was very clear. I'm sure most of you, perhaps
all of you know that manna was the food that God provided for
the children of Israel when they journeyed through the wilderness
for those 40 years. As you may know, they'd come
out of Egypt and they'd come across the Red Sea and obviously
any food they would have brought with them would have been used
up and therefore they had a great need of food. And God miraculously
provided this food which He referred to as manna. You can read about it in Exodus.
It tells us exactly what it was. It was a very small food, a very
small round object. We don't know exactly the size,
but probably if you know what an aniseed ball is, something
like that, a very small ball. And it came down upon the ground
every night, apart from Saturday night, because on Sunday they
weren't allowed to go and pick anything up and therefore it
was just the six days, the six nights that they were able to
go and gather this manna and they were told not to gather
more than enough because it would come every day and some people
obviously didn't believe what God had said and they gathered
more than enough but by the next day it had all putrefied and
bred worms. So they had to prove that God
was faithful and he brought this food for them every day for those
40 years. They travelled through the wilderness
until they came into the land of Canaan and were able then
to eat once again the fruits of the land. Now then, that was
a food which was provided for the Israelites every day We know
that one or two occasions when they wished there was a bit of
a change, they wished they could eat flesh, but generally speaking,
they were totally satisfied with this food that God provided for
them. Well, I guess you young people
might not be very happy if you had to have the same food every
day with no variation, and yet you say it was sufficient for
them And we understand, although the Bible doesn't actually physically
tell us that, but we understand from writers that the food when
they ate it, it would suit whatever they fancied. If it was a flavor
here or a flavor there, then that suited that flavor. So it
was a wonderful provision for the children of Israel. Now the
Lord Jesus now points them to that fact and he tells us our
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness as it is written he
gave them bread from heaven to eat and therefore they had this
food which they were able to eat but then Jesus goes on to
tell them He said, very, very I say unto you, Moses gave you
not that bread from heaven. It wasn't Moses that had provided
it, although Moses was their leader, but my father giveth
you the true bread from heaven. Well, they had the bread of heaven,
which was manna. And now, of course, he was speaking
about the true bread from heaven. And the true bread, of course,
was himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. For he tells us, for the bread
of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto
the world. And then he tells us in his 35th
verse, I am the bread of life. Now, He reminds the Israelites
in the 49th verse, he says, your fathers did eat manna in the
wilderness and are dead. They'd eaten it, it didn't keep
them alive, they died. But he says, this is the bread
which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and
not die. Well, you and I know, I'm sure,
that we do die. All of us die physically. We
may live to a hundred years or more perhaps, but the time will
come when we will die. So what, we may ask, is Jesus
speaking about? and it's important for us to
realize. And what he's speaking about here is our spiritual life. Because all of us have what is
referred to as a soul, a never-dying soul. And if we then partake
of this spiritual food, and this spiritual food is the bread of
life, and the bread of life is the Lord Jesus Christ, then we
shall not die spiritually, but we shall live spiritually and
that eternally with God in heaven. So this really is the great thrust
that the Lord is speaking to these people. this great company
that are gathered to hear the Word of God, Jesus spells out
to them very clearly the need there is to eat of this spiritual
bread which is the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's not in a physical
way. It's not to physically eat of
the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is to eat by faith believing
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we have these words
in this 35th verse that I read to you this morning, where the
Lord says, I am the bread of life. Then he says, he that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. So the great need that all of
us have is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is
the saviour of sinners, that he is your saviour and my saviour. All of us need to be saved, to
be delivered from our sins, because we've all sinned. And because
we've all sinned, we therefore deserve to be separated from
God and to spend eternity in hell. That's a terrible, terrible
position, terrible, terrible thought. And therefore we all
need to be blessed, to be a partaker of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. It's not something physical,
but it is a spiritual believing and it is a spiritual undertaking,
a spiritual blessing. The Lord Jesus said to them in
a spiritual way, although he refers to it in a natural way,
in the 53rd verse of this same chapter, he says, I say unto
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his
blood, ye have no life in you. That means that we need to spiritually
understand and believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came into this
world and died in order that our sins might be all taken away. And if God gives us that grace
to believe this great truth and to look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
then we shall be saved. And it's a great blessing. And
it's a very important consideration that we are saved. And if we
are saved, the Holy Spirit will bring us to that place where
we truly repent of our sin, are truly sorry for our sin. It won't be just something of
no consequence. We shall realise that we need
forgiveness and we need therefore to come to this great and glorious
saviour of sinners and find and know that he did die to take
away our sins. Now the Word of God is very encouraging
for us today. And this is what it says. He
that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst. So the Lord has spoken about
hungering and thirsting and partaking of his body for food and for
his blood to quench our thirst. So we have the analogy before
us in these words. And it's very necessary that
you and I today understand the great importance of these truths. You young people may think that
it's very difficult to understand it's very difficult to believe
well it is but that's why God has given us this analogy of
this manner so that we can comprehend the necessity of it and the glorious
provision of it you see Israel they didn't work for this manner
But it was sent down. God sent it down. And it's the
same in a spiritual sense. God sends us this spiritual bread,
this bread of life, as we are directed to the Saviour, to that
One who has gloriously given His life, that we might possess
the great gift of eternal life. You know how important this is
and yet how little we really concentrate on such truths as
this. That's why perhaps we may have
thought as we read this chapter or part of it, surely this point
is really being laboured by that, I mean spoken of again and again. But it is so important that we
realise in a spiritual sense that Jesus Christ is living bread. Naturally, the Israelites had
to eat. If they didn't eat, they would
die. God sent them manna. You and
I today, spiritually, need to eat. And God has given us himself
as this living bread. We need to partake of Him as
our great and wonderful Saviour. Because the Israelites would
have died without manner, with no hope, and my friends, you
and I would die without this living bread, without believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ as our great and wonderful Saviour. We read about Jesus, don't we?
We hear about Jesus. Not so much today, sadly, as
we did years ago. But nonetheless, we do still
hear about Jesus. And the Lord Jesus came into
this world, as the Apostle Paul said, to save sinners. of whom
I am chief. Now this morning, I wonder whether
you and I recognise that before a holy God we have sinned. We have sinned. None of us are
without sin. We've all sinned. And because
of that sin, we are condemned before God because we have disobeyed
God. All of us. And all of us need
that forgiveness. And if we receive that forgiveness,
it's through what the Lord Jesus Christ has done in dying in our
place. He gave his life That's an amazing
thought and I hope you can think about it, you young people especially. Well all of us really, we all
need the same salvation. But realize that we have sinned
and we need forgiveness. And we cannot, we cannot take
away our sin ourselves. We need it to be taken away. We need to be cleansed. We need
to be purified and we're told this, the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin. And that means that you and I
need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only one that can
deliver us, the only one. who can save our soul. And as
God gives us faith to look to him and to believe and then to
have the evidence therefore that we are a new creature, to know
that we have been born again of the Spirit of God and we can
therefore truly rejoice in that great work of salvation. My friends,
Jesus Christ came into this world, as I've said, to save sinners. And the Apostle Paul said, of
whom I am chief. My friends, when the Holy Spirit
convinces and convicts us of sin, we stand guilty before a
holy God. And we realize we need a savior. and we realise we cannot save
ourselves. However we may try, however good
we may endeavour to be, to realise we cannot save ourselves. That's why we need to be found
indeed looking to this great and glorious Saviour. And this
is why we have such wonderful words as this, He that cometh
to me, Well, if the Lord's brought us to see our need, to be able
then by his grace to come to him, the hymn writer says, I
came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad. What a blessing,
isn't it? When the Holy Spirit works in
our heart and directs us the Lord Jesus Christ. There was
no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock
the gate to heaven and let us in. My friends, there's only
one Savior. There's only one way of salvation and that's through the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's why the Lord here beautifully
sets before us this great and glorious invitation. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger in a spiritual sense, remember.
It's also true, of course, in a natural way, but in a spiritual
sense is the most important thing. And if we come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, truly hungry and thirsty, destitute. We need heavenly food. We need heavenly drink. We need, as the Lord Jesus Christ
so gloriously tells us, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. What does that
really direct us? It directs us to this. to the
life of the Lord Jesus Christ and to his sin atoning death. My friends, this is what you
and I need to have applied to our hearts, to be able to come,
to look to him and to believe. Because the Lord says, you see,
we are to come and that we are to believe. And if the Lord gives
us that grace to do, then we shall never hunger and we shall
never thirst. And the words of the Savior are
very, very positive. There's no doubt about it. It's
good, isn't it, to have a solid foundation. And you and I have
a solid foundation in the Word of God in the Bible, which spells
out to us very simply and very gloriously the way of salvation
and the certainty of it. And so here it is set before
us here. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. The shells of God are true. The shells of God are certain. What a wonderful blessing it
is therefore, this morning, if we can come into this condition
and realise. So, really there are two statements
here which we need to ask ourselves, are we hungering after the truth
of the Gospel? Are we longing to have applied
to our hearts that the glorious Saviour Jesus Christ came to
save our soul. And my friends, you and I need
to know this personally, a personal application of the Word of God. You see, you and I can read the
Bible, you and I can come and worship God, come and go, and
there'd be no application of the truth of God, and we die
without hope. But my friends, what a mercy
when God comes and applies the truth of the gospel to our hearts
to realize that we stand a guilty sinner before God and we need
to be saved from our sin and the only way that you and I are
saved is through that which the Lord Jesus Christ did when he
came into this world to accomplish that which his father had gave
him to do. And my friends, what a wonderful,
what a wonderful work it was. He finished the work that his
father gave him to do. He lived that perfect life and
he died on that cross, that death, to take away the sins of his
whole church. My friends, let us never go away
from the simplicity of the Gospel. Man makes it complicated. My friends, the Gospel is gloriously
simple. And oh, that the Holy Spirit
may really apply the truth of it to our hearts. The Word of
God speaks from Genesis to Revelation. about sin, disobedience to God,
and that we all have sinned, as the Word of God tells us,
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So all of
us need to be saved from our sins. Well this morning, where
do we stand? Where are we before God? Has
the Holy Spirit come and convinced us of our sin and made us perhaps
cry out. Remember those words of the jailer,
he's referred to as the Philippian jailer because he was the jailer
of Philippi and the Lord came and brought that great earthquake
when Paul and Silas were in prison And he thought that they'd all
escaped, but they hadn't. And the apostle was able to preach
to him the gospel. And he came and asked that great
question, what must I do to be saved? I wonder this morning,
I wonder if you and I have all come to that place. You young
people, you children this morning, You come before God and said,
what must I do to be saved? Because I am a guilty sinner
and I need to be saved. Well, the Apostle Paul was able
to tell the jailer in no uncertain terms the way of salvation. He said very simply, believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. So we see,
my friends, the necessity of believing. What an important
position it is. You and I, today, are wonderfully
blessed with the Gospel, the Word of God, of preaching the
Word. There are millions, billions,
perhaps in the world, who never hear the Gospel, who never read
the Bible, Never see a Bible. And yet, what a wonderful privilege
is ours. My friends, we don't want to
ignore it. We don't want to be found coming
to the day of our death and never have come to the Savior and pleaded,
what must I do to be saved? and to have that gracious word
spoken to us. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And then we give in that faith
to believe. Now you this morning, you know
where you are. I don't. But God looks into your
heart as to whether you are a believer or not. whether you do truly
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you do truly believe that
the Lord Jesus Christ did come into this world to save your
soul, to deliver you from the wrath to come. This is the wonder
of the gospel. And that's why we have an account
like this this morning, where Jesus speaks to the people and
speaks to us today in the word which you have and I have to
read, where he comes and tells us so very simply and very wonderfully,
I am the bread of life. I've said naturally, we must
eat to live. Spiritually, we must receive
the Lord Jesus Christ as the bread of life to our souls and
to have a spiritual understanding of the great work of salvation
and to believe the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to
save sinners and to know that you and I are one of those sinners that Jesus came to save. And what that means is, very
simply, the Holy Spirit applies His Word, His truth to our hearts,
to our souls. So that we truly come and praise
and thank God for the glory of the Gospel, for the wonderful
life that Lord Jesus Christ lived, for His wonderful death, for
His wonderful resurrection, for his wonderful ascension and today
for his intercession the right hand of the Father so that as
you and I pray to God sometimes I like to express it as the Word
of God expresses you and I cry to God I love that word really
because it's very simple and it really expresses us as a little
a child and a baby You know, when they want attention, what
do they do? They can't speak a long sentence
of words. What do they do? They cry! And the parent realises the child
has a need. Well, that's the same in a spiritual
sense. We may say pray, but it may be
just a cry to God. for mercy. And you see, God hears. What a blessing if you come and
pray in faith, believing that Lord Jesus Christ will save. You see, this word we've had
here this morning, as I've said, is very positive. Let me just
read it again. He that cometh. He that comes
and prays. He that comes and cries. in faith. To me, to the Lord
Jesus, not to anyone else, to Jesus, he that cometh to me shall
never hunger. We shall receive spiritual food. What a blessing it is then, because
that means that you and I will be led and directed to the saving
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It won't just be an historical
account. It will be, but you and I will
rejoice in it, because there we will have our hope fixed upon
what Christ has done. To believe, therefore, that our
soul is washed. We're clean. Just God. I'm clean. Not because of what
I've done, but because of what Jesus did when he gave his life
for such a sinner as me. You see, it's a wonderful, wonderful
gospel, isn't it? And you see, I hope you understand
the simplicity of it. Yes, as we come to the Savior,
He that cometh to me shall never hunger. Well, you know, God knows
this morning whether you and I have really come to the Lord
Jesus, believing in faith, believing that He's the only one that can
deliver me, the only one that can save my soul, the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a wonderful God we have. What a wonderful Saviour we have.
When you think that He left His home in glory to come down in
a sinful world and to live those 33 years in this world and never
sin and suffer and bear the consequences of our sin What he had to endure. Try and put yourself in that
position. You can't do it, but just try
in some way to realise what a great, glorious God we have. Who was willing to pay the price that our sin
deserved for our eternal freedom. And the cost, the payment required
was the life of the Saviour, the life of a perfect man. The
only one was the Lord Jesus Christ. Although very late, God also
took on himself our human flesh and nature so that he could stand
in our position be condemned in our position and pay the price
for our sin so that we are set free. Well, Jesus said unto them, I
am the bread of life. Now that means then that you
and I have eaten, you and I have fed, upon what Christ has done. It's been filled for our souls.
Our souls have been strengthened, have been blessed indeed, as
we've been able to partake of Christ as our all-sufficient
Saviour. Well today, let us ask the question
What does Jesus mean to you and me? What does he mean to us? You may say, well, I know, of
course, he was a great man in history. Yes, he was. But what
does he mean to you and me? I'll tell you what you and I
need to know. We need to know this, that we
can say He is the bread of life to me. I praise God for what he's done. I praise God if my eyes have
been opened to behold the glorious plan of salvation and God has
given me that grace to lay hold of such glorious words to come
to him in my time of need. And as we read here, and he that
he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst. And then two verses later, we
read this. All the father giveth me shall
come to me and Him that cometh to me, I will
in no wise cast out. That means that no one can be
too bad, can be too evil, could have lived a terrible life and
yet be saved. The Lord Jesus tells us here,
Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. And that means when it says, no wise. Well, what a great blessing
it is and how humbling it is to think that you and I are privileged
to hear the gospel. And greater blessing is if you
and I receive faith to believe the great truths of the gospel
Lord Jesus Christ did come into this world to save me. My friends, the situation is
between your soul and God. Your soul and God. It's what
you know. It's what God has shown you. What God has blessed you with. And if He has shown you the great
and blessed truths of the Gospel, so that you really hunger and
thirst after spiritual knowledge, it's that which God has given
you, not something which you produced yourself. And you will
have to say, by the grace of God, that means the free unmerited
favour of God, By the grace of God, I am what I am. Well, what a blessing it is this
morning. It's that we've read this account
and the analogy of manna with the great glorious Savior who
gave himself to realize that your hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. based on his finished work on
Calvary and to realise today your Saviour is now in heaven,
who hears your cry and answers as these words tell us this morning.
He that cometh to me shall never hunger, And he that believeth
on me shall never thirst. Well may all of us come within
this verse for his honour and glory and the salvation of our
soul. Amen.