Turn with me to the gospel of
John chapter six, please. John chapter six. In 1986, when the Lord first
began to deal with me, with my sin, when he first began to reveal
his mercy and his grace, and his forgiveness for my sin, when
he began to show me who Christ was, I began to rejoice in what
Christ had done for a sinner like me. The rumor among my friends
and acquaintances at that time was David Edmondson has found
religion, but that's not so. I had found religion many years
before that, as a young boy, matter of fact. This was something
much more than religion that I had found. Let me rephrase
that, that it found me. Brother Mahan once said that
religion is as much a part of man's nature as any other emotion. Religion is as common an emotion
as fear and hate and love and jealousy and even hunger and
thirst. Religion is no different. It's
an emotion. All men and women everywhere
are religious to some degree about something. Religion is
defined as a belief or practice forming someone's thoughts about
worship. Well, men worship everything
today, men and women alike. Religion can entail worship of
a divine being or it can entail worship of a tree stump. And
I'm not trying to be cute because I know a man that says that he
heard from God standing next to a tree on a golf course. That's now where he goes to pray. He made that tree an object of
worship. That's what I'm saying. Folks
can be religious about anything and everything. They can make
a God out of ridiculous things, and when they do, they imagine
God to be altogether like themselves, and they begin to worship that
object religiously. Now here in John chapter 6, the
Lord Jesus is conversing with the Jewish people, and in verse
32, John 6, 32, He tells them, he said, verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread, speaking
of the manna that fell in the wilderness. He said, Moses gave
you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the
true bread from heaven. You know, there was a lot of
Jewish people that worshiped Moses, that worshiped Abraham. The Lord's saying, Moses didn't
give you that bread. My Father in heaven gave you
the true bread. I'm that true bread. Listen to
what he said. Verse 33, for the bread of God
is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the
world. And then said they unto him,
Lord evermore give us this bread. And the Lord 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
I say unto you that ye also have seen me, and believe not." Now
a man can know something that he doesn't believe, but he can't
believe something that he doesn't know. Here the Lord says, you've
seen me, I am the bread of heaven, but you don't believe. You don't
believe that I am He. You don't believe that I am who
I claim to be. They wanted the bread from heaven
that gave life. They wanted the bread from heaven
that would fulfill their hunger and their thirst forever. But
they didn't want Christ. In verse 37, the Lord gives us
the first use of the word all. There's three times in this passage
or in this portion of Scripture where the word all is used. And
the first use of the word all in this passage is, this all
speaks of all the ones that God is going to save. Verse 37, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and he that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. All, not everyone in the
world, not everybody in the world, but all that the Father gave
me, the Lord said. The Lord gave Christ a people
before the foundation of the world, and all of them, every
one of them, is going to come to Christ and be saved, and they
will not be cast out. All who the Father gave, Christ
came to save. All the world? No. all the Father gave to Christ,
all that come to Christ, and they all will, all who will never
be cast out. This is the will and purpose
of God. Verse 38, for I came down from heaven, not to do mine
own will, but the will of Him that sent me. What's the Father's
will? Look at verse 39. This is the
Father's will which hath sent me, and here's the second use
of the word, all, that of all. which He hath given me, I should
lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. What's the Father's will? Pretty
plain and simple right here on the pages of Scripture. All which
the Father sent me to save are gonna come and be saved. Verse
40, and this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone,
all that the Father gave to Christ, which seeth the Son." They're
all going to see Christ. They're going to believe on Him
that they might have everlasting life. And he said, I'll raise
them up at the last day. I love the certainty of the Gospel. It's for sure. It's for certain.
Paul wrote that the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God. Our Lord said, Let another come
in his own name, and him you'll receive. That's always been the
case. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are what? The ways of death. Man's natural religion is based
on logic. Man's religion's based on natural
understanding. The carnal natural mind, Paul
said, is enmity against God. You know what the word means.
It means hostile. Man's natural mind, man's natural
opinion, the logic of man is hostile against God. The ways thereof are death. The carnal natural mind, it's
not subject, it's not submissive to the law of God and neither
indeed can it be. And man says, I see it this way.
This is how I see it. How many times have you had somebody
tell you that? Well, this is how I see it. And you tell someone
the truth from Scriptures and they say, well, that's not the
way I see it. But that's not what my church
believes. How about that one? You ever
heard someone say that? What God says in His words is
all that matters. It doesn't matter what you think.
It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what your church
believes. What does God say? Verse 41, the Jews then murmured
at him, because, this is why, he said, I am the bread which
came down from heaven. And look at what they said. They
said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How is it then that he said,
I came down from heaven? So you see the natural logic
in their thinking. And we can't be too hard on them,
because we'd have done the same thing. How did He come down from
heaven? Well, He's from Nazareth. This is Jesus. He's the son of
Joseph. His mom knows my mom, and my
dad knows his dad. His father and mother we all
know. How is it that He said, I came down from heaven? How
can that be? That's what's wrong with man's
logical thinking. It's based on man's logic, man's
thinking. Naaman, you remember Naaman?
The great war hero. He came to the prophet of God
to be healed of his leprosy, Elijah. And Elijah, the prophet
of God, he wasn't impressed. God's not impressed with men.
He came to the prophet of God. He didn't even come out to see
this man. He rode up with all his mighty horses and chariots
and big to-do. I'm telling you, it was a parade
out to Elijah's house. And Elijah told his servants
to go out there and tell him to go dip in the River Jordan
seven times. And boy, that made man and man.
Because he was somebody. He was an important man. He was
special in man's way of thinking. But not God's. God's not impressed
with men. Elijah sent his servant out to
go wash in the river seven times. And Naaman got mad. And I'm sure
he thought, doesn't he know who I am? Oh yeah, he knows. Naaman said, remember what he
said? He said, I thought. We're in trouble right there.
That's where we go wrong, we think. He said, I thought, to
me it's logical that he should come out and make a big to-do
over me. I thought he'd come out and stand
before me. I thought he would show me a little respect here.
I thought that he would lay his hand upon me. I thought that
he would call on his God in my presence. I thought he would
perform some ceremony. I thought. Doesn't have anything
to do with what you and I think, what man thinks. Salvation and
deliverance has nothing to do with our sinful logic. Abraham
defeated the kings of the plains and their mighty army with 318
men. Is that possible? Well, it's
certainly not logical. Israel brought down the mighty
walls of Jericho with trumpets, people marching in a shout in
unison. Logic says that's impossible. Not with God, it's not. Shamgar, as we've seen in our
study of judges, defeated 600 Philistines with a farm tool. That's all it was, ox gold. It
was a piece of wood with a little blade on the end of it that they
used to move livestock and get them to go where they wanted
to go, lead them in the gate and that type of thing. Defeated
600 Philistines with it. Well, what about Samson? He killed
a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Gideon with 300 soldiers defeated
120,000 Midianites with trumpets, clay pots, and lanterns. Now that's illogical. That's
impossible. That's invalid. That has to be
incorrect. Well, let me tell you, things
are not as we think they are. God's thoughts are not our thoughts,
are they? God's ways are not our ways. God's ways are past
finding out. We can't logically understand
the things that God does. With God, all things are possible. Nothing impossible with God.
Things are as God says they are. Verse 43, Jesus therefore answered
and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. You doing exactly
what dead men do. You're using your natural reasoning.
You're responding to these things with the logic of a natural man.
With God, you can throw your logic out the window. God is not understood with human
reasoning. He's not explained with natural
explanation, and he can't be fathomed with human rationality. It just can't be. Verse 44, God
says, now look, you know this, no man can come to me. Man reasons,
well, I can come and go as I please. Jesus Christ said no man's able,
no man can come, no man has the ability to come to me. Man says, well, there's a will,
there's a way. The Lord says you cannot come
to me for life because all men by nature are dead. No man can
come to me, no man will come to me because man is dead in
sin. Man doesn't have the ability
to come and man doesn't have the will to come for one simple
reason, he's dead. Only one way a dead man can come
to Christ, there's only one exception. He said, no man can come except,
here's the exception, that the Father which sent me draw him. Whatever his natural ability,
his natural heritage, tradition, race, age, no man, no woman can
come to Christ to believe on Christ, can't do it. God must
give a man life in order for that man to come. You know, if
a dead man could take the first step, he could walk all the way
to Frankfurt. But it's taking that first step,
and a dead man can't take it. God has to first draw that man,
and he does so by giving that man life. And then he gives them
the ability, and then he gives them the will to come. But it
all begins with God's doing. God initiates the life. Verse 45, it's written in the
prophets, and they shall all, that's the third all, they shall
all be taught of God. You know, I've thought about
that a whole lot lately. All that the Father gave to Christ,
none of them shall be lost. All of them are gonna be saved.
And now we see that without exception, all of them shall be taught of
God. Every man and every woman, all
of them, therefore that hath heard, he says, hath learned
of the Father, and what do they do? They come unto me. If you're
taught of God, if you learn of God the Father, you're gonna
come to Christ. How do I know I've come to Christ?
I've been taught of God. How do I know I've been taught
of God? I've come to Christ. Everyone that hath heard, he
that hath the ears to hear, let him hear, our Lord said. How
shall they hear without a preacher? The Lord said, blessed are your
ears, for they hear. All that hath learned of the
Father, all that's been taught by Him, all of them, every single
one without exception, will come to Christ. It's written in the
prophets, that's what the Old Testament teaches and declares.
It's God who teaches His people. Let me read you a few verses
here, Isaiah 2, 3. Come ye, and let us go up to
the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob,
and He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His path.
Who does the teaching? God does the teaching. What do
His people do? They follow Him, they come to
Christ, they walk in His paths. Isaiah 54, 13, and all thy children
shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace
of those children. Who teaches God's people? God
does. And they have peace, the peace
of a child who's under the care of his father that loves him.
Jeremiah 31, 33, 34. After those days saith the Lord,
I'll put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their
hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall no more teach
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord, for they shall all know me. Who taught them? God
did. Micah 4.2, come and let us go
into the mountain of the Lord and to the house of God, the
God of Jacob, and He'll teach us His ways. And we'll walk in
His paths. Jesus Christ is the path, Jesus
Christ is the way, and He's the Good Shepherd, and all His people
do what? Follow Him. Christ and Him crucified. That's the message of the gospel
and salvation that God teaches sinners. You see, mankind by
nature is ignorant. Now, I know that's offensive
to some folks. That offends many people, but
it shouldn't because the word ignorance just simply means a
lack of knowledge. It means a lack of awareness.
It means to be uneducated in a particular thing. Now, I've
gotten on an airplane before and flown to California. Not
recently. But I don't know how an airplane
flies. I couldn't tell you all the ins
and outs of an airplane flying, but I know they fly. So you could
say that I'm ignorant of how airplanes fly. It means, ignorant
means to be unknowledgeable, uninformed. I'm unknowledgeable
on those things. I'm uninformed as to how airplanes
fly. You can't know everything about
everything. Now there's some that think they
do, but they don't. And in some way, all of us are
ignorant about something. And all of us by nature are ignorant
of God and His righteousness. So God must teach us. The Lord
said, you go about to establish your own righteousness. You're
ignorant of the righteousness of God. You can't obtain righteousness
by something you do. God's got to teach us that our
righteousness is found in Christ. He was made sin for us, and we
were made the righteousness of God in Him. No other way. All
of us by nature are ignorant of God and His righteousness.
Turn back a page. You may not have to turn. John
chapter 5. Look at verse 40. You know this verse well. We've
already alluded to it. He says in John 5 verse 40, and
you will not come to me that you might have life. Now listen,
men and women will not come because they cannot come. They don't
have any ability to come and they have no will to come because
they have no life to come. They can't take that first step
until God gives them life. The Lord told the religious,
In His day, you search the Scriptures for in them, that being the Scriptures,
you think that you have life. But friends, God has to teach
you that the Scriptures testify of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a book about Him. It's all about Him. From where
the Lord said, the seed of the woman, until the end of the book,
the end of this book in Revelation. Made that perfectly clear. This
is a hymn book. Men by nature, look at verse
42. The Lord says, but I know you
that you have not the love of God in you. You see, men by nature,
oh, they love titles, pastor, elder, doctor, reverend, rabbi. Christ told the Pharisees, He
said, you love the praise and the recognition of men. It's
a sure sign that you have not been taught of God. Our Lord
told the Pharisees, you love to be seen of men and you seek
not the honor that comes from God, but the honor that comes
from men. You're religious and you're ignorant.
You claim to know everything, but you don't know nothing. And
this is the root of the problem, ignorance, spiritual ignorance.
Paul told Timothy that men are ever learning and never coming
to the knowledge of the truth. They have a need of being taught
of God. And a sinner cannot come to Christ
until they are. It's written in the prophets,
they shall all be taught of God and every man that hath heard
and learned of the Father does what? Comes to me. No man can
come to Christ in saving faith unless he's been taught of God
and learned of the only one who can teach us. So, who's salvation of? Is it of me or is it of God? I have a friend who's a state-recognized
and award-winning educator. He's been Teacher of the Year
many times. He's since retired. But he can
only teach. A good teacher he is. I had him
in school. He's a good teacher. But he can't
give anyone the ability to learn. See what I'm saying? God has
to do that and only God can. Only God can give life to the
dead and give a dead sinner the ability to learn and understand
because men by nature are without understanding according to Romans
131. Speaking of the Gentiles, who
were without Christ, Paul wrote, having their understanding enlightened,
or having their understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that's in them, because of the
blindness of their hearts. And after the Lord resurrected,
He met with His disciples by the seashore. Remember that?
And He said, these are the words that I have spoken to you while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which
were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the
Psalms. That's the Old Testament concerning Me. They're all concerning
Me. Then opened He their understanding. that they might understand the
scriptures. You'll never understand the scriptures until God opens
your understanding, until you're taught of God. If you're sitting
here this morning and you nodding your head, it's because God's
taught you and God has opened your understanding. We must have
the eyes of our understanding enlightened that we may know
what is the hope of His calling and what is the riches of the
glory of the inheritance and the saints and what is the exceeding
greatness of His power to us who believe according to the
working of what? His mighty power which He wrought
in Christ. Today we have men and women who
desire to be teachers of the law, understanding not what they
say, 1 Timothy 1.7. That's a real problem, a real
problem. They need to be taught of God.
They call themselves teachers, but they need themselves to be
taught of God. The world by wisdom knows not
God. It pleased God by what? The foolishness
of preaching. What the world calls foolishness
to save them that believe. This is how sinners are taught
of God. What we're doing this morning. And there's nothing
special about me. Matter of fact, Mike and I were
talking about this earlier this week. I can study until I can't
sit in my chair any longer, and I can come up with what I think
is a brilliant outline to bring to you, but if God doesn't bless
it, and if God doesn't give you ears to hear, and if God doesn't
give you life and a heart to believe, the words are just empty
words that come out of my mouth and fall right here on the pulpit,
and nobody is saved. sends those words forth with
His power and gives life to those words. That's when men and women
are blessed, because they're taught of God, not of me. I don't
have the ability to make you understand anything. Our Lord said, and everyone that
hath learned of Me, or heard of Me, and learned of the Father
will come to Me. In closing, I want to ask you
three or four quick questions. How does God teach us? Well,
I've got a three-part answer to that, but I'll be brief. God teaches us by His Word, just
what we've just said. These things are written that
you might believe on the Son of God, and believing you might
have life through His Name. That's how. Through the Word.
How does faith come? By hearing. And hearing by what?
The Word of God. That's how. Isaiah wrote, if
they speak not according to the Word, the Word of God, it's because
there's no light in them. Isaiah 8, 20. Friends, if you
are ever to hear from God or to be taught of God, it will
be in and by and through this Word. Either the preaching of
it, the studying of it, the reading of it, but it's going to be through
this Word. That's what God said. He sent Philip to the eunuch.
He sent Peter to Cornelius. He sent Ananias to Saul. God's
going to send His people a preacher. God reveals divine things through
human instruments. That's amazing. That's amazing. It was God who gave some prophets
and evangelists and pastors and teachers. For what? The perfecting,
the maturing of the saints for the work of the ministry. His
ministry. I don't have a ministry. Somebody
asked Brother Montgomery one time, I've told you this. He
said, what do you attribute your ministry to? He said, my ministry?
I don't have a ministry. This is the Lord's ministry.
He's just made me an under-shepherd of a handful of people. And it's
all I can do to watch over them. We're not building in our ministries. This is the Lord's ministry.
And only those that are taught of God will ever see it. It's
God who gives prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Oh, for
the edifying of the body of Christ, Ephesians 4, 12. How about this? Of His own will, speaking of
God, beget us, He beget us, God beget us, with what? The word
of truth. That's how you're gonna be saved.
That's how you're gonna have new life. God teaches thirdly, by His Spirit. When He, the Holy Spirit, has
come, He'll convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. When God's Spirit comes, He's
going to glorify Christ. He's going to take the things
of Christ and He's going to show them to His people. He's going
to teach these things to God's children. He's not going to speak
of Himself. He'll speak of Christ. You know,
I hear men and women alike all the time talking about the Holy
Spirit. being filled with the Holy Spirit,
being baptized in the Holy Spirit, doing miracles and wonders by
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was sent of God
to guide sinners unto truth. He shall not speak of Himself.
He'll speak of the things of Christ, His person, His incarnation,
His life, His teachings, His death, His resurrection. His ascension, His return. God
teaches sinners by His Word, by His ministers, by His Spirit. A man's always talking about
the Holy Spirit. I don't believe he knows the
Holy Spirit. I don't believe he knows the God of the Bible.
Because if he did, he'd be speaking of Christ, as the Holy Spirit
did. Second question, what does God
teach those that He saves? Well, He teaches us something
of His holiness, His glory, His majesty, His sovereignty, and
His power. You know, six times in Isaiah
chapter 5, Isaiah said, Woe unto them. Woe unto you. Woe unto
them. Woe unto you. Woe unto them.
Woe unto these that do this, woe unto them that don't do that.
And then in chapter 6, verse 1, Isaiah said, in the year that
the king Uzziah died, I saw also, he saw something. And I don't
have time to go into what he saw, but he saw that his king
was the king of kings, not king Uzziah, because king Uzziah died. And he said, I saw the Lord sitting
high and lifted up on His throne and His train filled the temple.
And he said, the seraphims, the angels, covered themselves in
the presence of this holy God. And the angels cried, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God of all the earth, full of glory. And do
you remember what he said then? He didn't say, woe is them anymore.
He said, woe is me. That's what sinners will cry
when they see the holiness of God Almighty. They'll see their
sin and they'll cry, woe is me. You know, the older we get, the
longer we walk with this old nature, the more we'll see how
holy God is and how sinful we are. That's why you ask an older
saint that's been around a while, Well, things are getting better. Oh, I'm not seeing. I see clearer
than ever that a sinner is what I am. You know, after the Lord
taught and saved the Apostle Paul, he said, I'm not worthy
to be called an apostle. And then as he got a little older
and he walked a little longer with the Lord, he said, I'm the
least, I'm less than the least of all saints. And then, as he
walked on a little further and a little longer with the Lord,
and he's approaching death now, he said, I'm the chief of sinners! Oh, wretched man that I am! You
know, I don't think I'm getting better. Do you? No, no I'm not. But I do see more clearly how
holy God is, and more clearly how sinful I am. Our understanding
of sin is in direct proportion to our understanding of the holiness
of God. When you see God to be perfectly
holy and righteous, the more wickedness that you're gonna
see in yourself. We truly see our sinfulness and
the certainty of death because of our sin. The wages of sin
is death. Sin is going to bring about death,
not just physical death, but eternal death. And when we see
the certainty of God's judgment and judgment against sin, by
God's grace, we're going to desire to have Christ the only substitute,
sacrifice, and Savior for sin. I shall call his name Jesus for
he shall save his people from their sin. Third question, why
must I be taught of God? Because I can't come to Christ
if I'm not. A dead man can do nothing and we're spiritually
dead. We got to be taught of God because no one else can give
us life so that we can come to Christ. We must be taught of
God because no one else can give us the understanding and the
life, that being eternal life, so that we can come to Christ.
We gotta be taught of God because He alone is able to save us to
the uttermost that come to Christ by Him. Everyone, all that have
heard, and everybody, all that is taught of God is gonna come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the question is, have you
been taught of God? Have you come to Christ? Well,
let me throw in one more question. How do you know if you've come
to Christ? You're gonna take of the water of life freely.
The only ones that'll freely take, without attempting to do
something to pay for it, to earn it, or to deserve it, are those
that are thirsty. You won't have to beg a thirsty
man to take a drink. If a man is thirsty, you hand
him water, and he'll say, well, I need dew for it. No, sir. He'll take it and drink it. He'll
lap it down like a dog, won't he? You better believe he will.
A man's thirsty, he'll drink. Let him that is a thirst come,
and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.
Have you taken of the water of life freely? Have you been taught
of God? May God be pleased to make it
so, for His glory, our good, and for Christ's sake.