Alright, turn with me first of all to John chapter
6. John 6, and then also I want
you to find the book of Exodus chapter 16. Exodus 16 and John chapter 6. I want to talk to you this morning
about the true bread. The true bread. I don't know if you remember
or not, but in the Ark of the Covenant, which was that box
made of wood and covered with gold that was in the Holy of Holies
in the tabernacle, it contained some things. It contained those broken tablets
of the law. And God said also to put in it
Aaron's rod that budded. And there was also a golden pot. And in that golden pot was an
omer of tiny grain-like things called manna. And we know, as the Apostle tells
us in the New Testament, that all these things that we are
given and shown and that were recorded in the Old Testament
Scriptures, they were written for our admonition. He says, for those of us upon
whom the end of the age shall come." When our Lord came into
this world, it says in Scripture that that brought about what
is called the last days. God has, in these last days,
spoken unto us by His Son. And he does so through such portions
of Scripture that we find so closely related in both the Old
Testament and the New Testament. You see, when you come to John
chapter 6, there is a clear demonstration of the true condition of every
one of us by nature. These Jews that confront Christ,
they demonstrate the spiritual deadness and spiritual blindness
of every son and daughter of Adam. They possess only a natural
desire. Look down in verse 26. And Jesus answered them and said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye seek Me not because you saw
the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were
filled. They had a natural desire for
the things concerning their own flesh And they had no desire
for the things of God in Christ. That's the way it is to this
day. And that's why religion in our
day offers men and women just what they want naturally. Don't you want to be happy? Well,
sure. Don't you want to be healthy?
Yes. Don't you want to be wealthy? Yes. And so what is naturally
desired, though a man or a woman can have all those things and
still perish, this is what is offered. And not only that, these
wanted an outward sign. Look down in verse 30, "...they
said therefore unto him, What sign Show us, thou then, that
we may see and believe thee. What dost thou work?" But the
truth is, He had already shown them a miracle, shown them an
outward sign, and they did not believe. And neither will you
or me. If the most miraculous things
were done, if God outwardly did such glorious things, we would
be no more inclined to believe on Him than they were. And not only that, they thought
that Christ's miracle, glorious as it was, they thought that
it was less than Moses. If you can imagine that, they
thought that what Christ did, what He said, and who He was,
was less than Moses. And also, they attributed the
gift of manna that we read about in Exodus 16, the gift of manna,
that was given to the nation of Israel in Exodus 16, they
attributed it to Moses rather than God. Verse 32, Then Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you
not that bread from heaven? But my Father gives you the true
bread from heaven." And they saw only a need for nourishment
and not life. They saw what they desired to
satisfy their bellies while allowing their eternal souls to perish. And I'm afraid that's still the
case at this hour. If you look down in verse 34,
it says, "...then said they unto him, Lord evermore, give us this
bread." In other words, all they saw was the type and they had
no understanding of the truth. But the Lord Jesus Christ here,
as He did on a number of occasions, He declares Himself here as the
I AM. I AM. And that would be nothing
less than the God that revealed Himself to Moses, and He contrasts
Himself with the type that they have just mentioned, the manna,
and this is what He says. Look in verse 33. For the bread of God is He. Do you see that? The bread of God. Not just any
kind of bread, not just the kind of bread that you'll eat today
and before the day is over you'll want to eat it again, and tomorrow
you'll need it again. He says, for the bread of God
is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the
world. Look on to 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. Now that is a tall promise. If you look down in verse 48,
he says, I am that bread of life. And then in verse 51, I am the
living bread which came down from heaven If any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." And the manner that we hear them
speaking about here on this occasion This is the manner that we read
about in Exodus 13, which was simply just a picture or a type
of Christ. You see, this Bible is altogether
about Him. When He speaks in Luke 24, it
says that those people, He opened up their understanding And it
was to see that in all the Scriptures they spoke about Christ. Every one. But these Jews were
just as unbelieving as their fathers were, and just as unbelieving
as you and I are, if God leaves us to ourselves. And here in our text, the Lord
Jesus Christ, He equates believing on Him to eating of this bread
of life, this real manna. He says believing on Him is what
eating or taking unto yourself this true bread is all about. But I'm afraid that here these
men and women, just like their fathers before them in the wilderness,
regard Him as less than they want or need. As a matter of
fact, When they first, in that wilderness place, saw the manna
that God had caused to fall from heaven, they murmured, not only
as they had before, but even the more, and they spoke with
great dissatisfaction, and that's what the name represents. In other words, manna, simply
means something like this. What in the world is this? It's as if to say, here we have
this great need. Here we are in this great problem
and situation. Moses, you've taken us out here
in this wilderness to die of hunger, and this is what God
sends us? What is this? compared to what
we need? What is this compared to what
we had?" And so they looked on that occasion just exactly the
same as they do for God's provision of salvation, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And they say, what is this? Or
who is He compared to what we need or want? As a matter of
fact, in Numbers 21, it says, and the people spake against
God and against Moses. Wherefore have you brought us
up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread,
neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light
bread. Look back. Hold your place here
and look back in Exodus 16 and verse 15. And when the children
of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna, for
they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This
is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat." Now, you stop
and think about it. If we have any understanding
of the situation that we are in, in our weakness, and any
understanding of the power and the ability and the wisdom and
the knowledge of God. What ignorant beings we must
be if we think we know better for ourselves than He does. The Lord knows. He is the omniscient
all-knowing God. And I promise you that He knows
far better what is good for you and for me than we could ever,
if left to ourselves, know for ourselves. He knows what we need. And when we look back at this
bread that they called manna, we see if the Spirit of God will
show us the many ways that it pictured Christ, the true bread. That's who He is, the true bread. All right? Notice this about
that bread. It was the gift of God in His
grace and mercy." All you have to do is read just a few chapters
here around Exodus 15, and you will find that not only did they
not merit, did they not deserve it, they deserved to be left
to themselves to perish and die, not only in the wilderness, but
in Egypt. So everything they received,
they never received it because of their goodness or their obedience
or because they were called by a certain name or because they
had this or that or the other. Everything they received from
God was the gift of His grace. Look here in Exodus 16 and verse
1. And they took their journey from
Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came
unto the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on
the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out
of the land of Egypt." And the whole congregation. And the whole congregation. of the children of Israel murmured
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the children
of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand
of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,
and when we did eat bread to the full, for ye have brought
us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with
hunger." You see any thanksgiving to God there for their deliverance
from slavery? You see any thanksgiving to God
for their deliverance through the Red Sea or their preservation
or any of these things? Do you see any thanksgiving there
to God for what He had blessed them to have all their days,
preserving their life? Do you see any attributing any
of their problems to their own sin and rebellion? No. They are just like every one
of us from that first day that Adam fell in the garden, every
one of his descendants is just like him in this fallen state
as he did, Lord, the woman you gave me, she caused me to do
it. So anything they get, any food
that they are given by God, any means to the preservations of
their being that God gives them, it is the gift of His grace. They ought to have had, just
like we ought to have had, and just like some have had, fire
and brimstone to rain out of heaven on them and destroy them. But he rained bread out of heaven
to feed them. He sent Moses to deliver them. He sent Moses as a mediator to
speak to them. to stand before Pharaoh on their
behalf. Moses, who himself is a type
of Christ in these things, he sent Moses to speak to them face
to face the things of God. And they murmured against Moses. They murmured against Aaron.
And Moses and Aaron said to them, you're not talking against us,
you're talking against God. So what did he do? He gave them
grace. He showed mercy. Verse 4, it
says, "...then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain
bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather
a certain rate every day, that I may prove them whether they
will walk in my law or no." I'm going to rain bread from heaven. They've not asked for bread from
heaven. But he sent bread from heaven.
And that's the way it is with us in the matter of Christ. Christ is not said in Scripture
to be the one sent for by sinners. But he's the one sent from heaven. He's the bread that came down
from heaven. He's the gift of God's grace.
He's the demonstration of God's mercy. He's God's salvation. He's sent. He came down from
heaven to save His people from their sins. If you look in verse
15, And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one
to another, Its manna, for they wist not what it was. And Moses
said to them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you. You can't earn it. You didn't
deserve it. You can't buy it. Nothing can
be done in any way to add merit on your part whatsoever. This
is the gift of mercy and grace, and that's what Christ is. You didn't grow it, and it came
in such a supernatural way, whether it was winter or whether it was
summer. Not only did it come, but it
fell and was to be found in the morning on the dew in a desert
place. And that's the way Christ is.
In this desert of sin. This was called the wilderness
of sin. And that's what this world is.
The wilderness of sin. And there is one gift of God's
grace. There's one salvation. There's
one true bread. And that is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look back in John 6, John 6 and verse 32, Jesus said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not
that bread from heaven. It wasn't Moses. Now here are
these people, and they are going to rather attribute what was
given to Moses. But he says, but my Father gives
you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of heaven is he
which cometh down from heaven and gives life unto the world. He comes. He's given. He's the
gift of God's grace. And there is none who can earn
it or deserve it. There is none who can do. Paul
says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God. You ask a lot of people what
they believe about salvation. Well, we believe salvation is
by grace. We believe salvation, eternal
life, is the gift of God. But you have to do this, and
you can't do that. And there's so much works attached
to what they believe about salvation that Paul says that works and
grace are so contradictory to each other, it has to be either
by works, and if it's by works, it has to be perfect works by
the sinner, which none can do, or it has to be all of grace. a gift. For the wages of sin
is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord." Speaking of Christ, he said in another place,
thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. You see, in love, God gave
the Lord Jesus Christ And in love, Christ gave Himself, and
He is given, just as the manna was sovereignly, to His people. Who was the manna given to? Well, it was given to this undeserving
people, but who God had singled out as His people. That's it. Let me read this to
you in Exodus 16 and 4. He said, "...I will rain bread
from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather
a certain rate every day." No man have fell in Egypt. And I
do not know how many places in the world then as it was later
and as it is right now when there was famine in the land at this
very time. But God caused bread from heaven
to fall for these people. That's who Christ came for, His
people. There is one verse that I have
tried to teach you and show you again and again and again. And if God enables you to see
this, it is so amazingly a blessing. And that is when the command
was given as to what Jesus was to be named. Mary and Joseph were told Thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sin." He is not trying to save everybody.
Just like on this occasion when the manna fell, it fell for a
people, a gift of God's sovereign grace and mercy to them to preserve
them, to save them. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins." And they woke up in the morning,
and there was the gift of God's free grace. There lay mercy sprinkled
on the ground. There lay life. to the natural
eye so unappealing, and to natural thinking so far from what they
needed or wanted. But there is grace and mercy.
It's on the dew. That's just where grace is today.
It's in the water of the Word of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Alright? Note this also about
it. But it was outwardly about as
unimpressive as it could be. Yes. Here you are wanting what you
think is a feast. And what falls on the dew in
the morning, the gift of God, bread from heaven, is like a
little seed. Just a little seed, unappealing
to their eyes. They called it that light bread. Manna. What is this? It was said to be white to signify the pure and sinless
one it represented. And the Jews here in John 6,
just like all men by nature, they regard a salvation by one
man in one time, in one place, and by death totally, totally
insignificant, unimpressive. But when the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is nothing less than the Son of God, when He came into
this world, He appeared in the first in a lowly birth, and He
lived in what would be described as a very obscure life. in a carpenter's shop in Nazareth,
and he had little favor as far as nature is concerned with people
and no rank in society. But he's the true bread. As a
matter of fact, this is what the prophet Isaiah was led to
write about him. He said of the Messiah, for he
shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a
dry ground. That's not very appealing, is
it? A root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we
hid, as it were, our faces from him. He is despised,
and we esteemed him not." Now, all around us there is a
Jesus. Paul warns about Him. He describes
Him as another Jesus. And He is a Jesus that men have made up so He'll be more appealing. But there's one thing about it.
The Jesus of this book, he has no appeal to the natural eye,
to the natural mind. Why do you think there are all
these pictures of Jesus? When it says plainly in this
book that we are not to make unto God any graven image. But why is this very handsome
fellow with the long golden hair pictured and presented to men
and women as Jesus? Because he is more appealing. And because all these things
they say He'll do for you, if you'll do for Him, that's what
appeals to our flesh. These same people, they were
always saying to Moses, first of all, you just tell us what
you want us to do and we'll do it. But they never did. Everything
they received, they had to receive as a gift. And that's the way
it is with you and me. If we have what we deserve, or
if we have what we can merit and earn, we'll die in our sins. The Ark. Noah's Ark. Storybook picture. Here's Noah's
Ark. It looks like a fine vessel. Not the one in the Bible. The
one in the Bible, if you follow the dimensions and the description,
it looked like a giant shoebox covered with tar. That's right. The tabernacle that went and
sat in the center of the camp of Israel, everywhere they traveled,
that tabernacle or tent, the outside of it was covered with
badger skin. Don't you imagine when those
people in the countries that they travel through look down
over that mountain and saw that weird looking camp all in order
and right in the middle of it is a tent that is black and weathered
and dark and covered with badger skin. Not very appealing, is
it? Not very appealing at all. And
that which is descriptive of Christ in His sacrificial and
redemptive glory, He's what? He's the Lamb slain. That's not
a very pretty sight, is it? A Lamb covered with blood? You see, this manna was not impressive
at all. They didn't get all excited about
it at all. They didn't see anything of it beneficial. But it was
the preservation of their life. And when you hear about Christ,
here is a man who was born in Nazareth, who was a Jew himself,
and he's God? Here's a man who died on a cross,
and he's the Savior? Here is one book that alone reveals
the mercy and grace and salvation of God, and there's no other?
You've got to be kidding me. I'm not kidding you. There's one message. One message. There are not many faiths. There
is only one faith. There are not many ways to God. I don't care what big evangelist
says that. There are not many ways to God.
There is Christ the way. Paul said, the preaching of the
cross is to them that are perishing foolishness. Nothing but foolishness. Why? Because the natural man receives
not the things of God. And God has to give us spiritual
sight. He has to give us the seeing
eye of faith. He has to reveal the glory of
Christ to us, or we'll never know it. Do you remember what Isaiah said?
He said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high
and lifted up. Because a lot of people claim
they've seen Jesus. I can tell by the way they talk
about Him, they've never seen Him. And the only way anybody
will ever see Him in our day until he comes again is if God
gives him faith to see him in this book. They'll see him as
he is. Job said, I've heard of you with
the hearing of my ear, but now I see you, and I abhor myself,
and I repent in dust. and ashes. Paul said, I was a Pharisee,
I was a moral man, I was a teacher, I represented God to men. But when I saw Christ, I knew
I was before a blasphemer. A blasphemer. And then I hope you'll notice
this. Just like Christ, this man was necessary for them to
live. To live. He's the bread of life. I'd say that bread is the staple
of life. was this bread. They didn't have
several to choose from. It was eat and live, don't eat
and die. I've been in some places, especially
down in some of the islands, to preach and stay there a few
days. And I would be offered and served
things that I just really couldn't do much with. I remember in Jamaica
once sitting there at a table and being served some kind of
goat stew and looking out the back window and there were the
goats in the pen. That's just a little more than
I could handle on that occasion. And then I remember one time
in St. Kitts a woman brought in a pot of boiled fish. with the heads on and the eyes
just looking up at you. I just didn't really appeal to my taste buds. But
you know, in almost every place I've ever traveled, they always
have good bread. In St. Kitts, there was a woman
who every week baked loaves of bread in a stone oven outside. And boy, was it good. I've survived
many times on bread. I know I look it, but I've just
made meals off of bread. They could eat this bread and
live, and they could not eat it and die. this business of our relationship
to Christ a little more serious than is represented. Well, you
need to make your decision for Christ. You'll have a better
life if you do. Or you need to exercise your
so-called free will and choose this which is better for you.
No, it's not that at all. It's eat and live. Don't eat this bread and die. Believe and live. Don't believe, perish. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. There is no middle ground here.
He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth
not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name
of the only begotten Son of God. He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall
not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." Christ said, I am the bread of
life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. This is the bread which comes
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die." It's life or death. But it isn't
just life or death physically, it's life or death spiritually.
And spiritual death is to be separated from God for all eternity
and to perish worlds without end in hell forever. Who said that? Christ did. Some have the notion, well, if
you just die, that's it. No, that's not it at all. That's just the beginning. The Apostle says, for it is appointed
unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment. Christ said, ìI said therefore
unto you that ye shall die in your sins, for if you believe
not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.î Eat and live. Donít eat and die. John says, and this is the record,
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. This manna had to be received
personally. In verse 16 of Exodus 16, it
says, "...this is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather
of it every man according to his eating, and Omer for every
man according to the number of your persons. Take ye every man
for them which are in his tent." Everyone individually had the
same thing, or they died. Do you notice it doesn't say
that the Lord invited them to eat? It doesn't say that the Lord
just said, well, here it is if you want it, here it is if you
don't want it. It says that the Lord commanded them. And that's what He does in the
gospel. This is not all up to you or
me. The Gospel says, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's a command. That's a command. They had to gather it for themselves,
and to do so, they had to stoop down to get it. It's like we
have to bow down in heart and mind to the Lord Jesus Christ. And believing on Christ is described
as submitting to the righteousness of God in Him. And none do that, none receive
Christ until they see and know themselves to be sinners. And only the Spirit of God can
bring us to know this. They had to eat it daily. It
was their daily bread. And believing on Christ, and
coming to Christ, and trusting in Christ, and eating of Christ
is continual just as what we do naturally to live. Well, I
believe. You're not a believer unless
you're believeth. As a matter of fact, where you
find believeth and cometh and all these words in the New Testament,
they are given in a tense of a continual action presently
going on. You couldn't just look at it
and live. You couldn't just take it up
in your hand and examine it and live. It couldn't be stored up where
it rotted and stunk. It had to be eaten. And likewise,
God gives us faith that we might believe on Christ and eat of Him. And then notice this, it was
also satisfying and sustaining and lasting. They ate this manna
forty years. No way you could live on this
little light bread grain. They did. Humanly speaking, all
the nutrients, all the vitamins, all the things that were needed
to sustain their life was in this manna. And Christ, the true bread, He not only satisfied God, But he satisfies every believing
sinner. And the reason he satisfies a
sinner who believes on him is because he satisfied God. He paid the sin debt for his
people. He satisfies the soul. And those who've eaten of this
bread, this gospel of Christ crucified, they never tire of
it. It's sweet. It's sweet. But let me point this out to
you in closing. How did it become their bread
and life? Well, like Christ, who is described
as the true bread, it came down from heaven, the gift of God. But it underwent a process. In
Numbers it says, And the people went about, and gathered it,
and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it
in pans, and made cakes of it, and the taste of it was as the
taste of fresh oil." I'm afraid in our day there are
not many younger people who really have any understanding of how
the food that goes into their mouth actually came to be that. We'll go to the grocery store
and buy a loaf of bread. We'll call the pizza shop and
have a pizza delivered. There it is. But bread, just like that bread
that is made from wheat, that wheat, those grains of wheat
that grow up on a little tiny stem, multiplied thousands of
them, have to be harvested and shaken and separated from the
chaff, and that wheat has to be ground and then baked to make bread. This manner they had to gather
it up and it had to be ground or beaten on a stone mortar until
it was a powder mixed with water and then baked in the fire, which is nothing less than the
way that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true bread of His people. The Bible says
that he was bruised for our iniquity. You see, our sins require the
just judgment of God against them. And that's what Christ
is doing on the behalf of his people on that cross, hanging
on that cross, paying the debt of sin for which God says, the
soul that sinned shall surely die. And he is undergoing there at
the hand of God, not by accident, not merely by the hand of man,
but at the hand of God. The wrath of God for all the
sins of all of his people is brought to bear on him. That separation from God that
we are due because of our sins, He bears it and cries out, My
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He bleeds and His life flows
out of Him in His bleeding. He dies, what is described as
the death of the cross. He suffered the fire of God's
wrath. The punishment we're due for
our sins. And in His death, we have life. Isaiah again, he said, Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand." He suffered the just for the
unjust to bring us to God. It says he's made a curse for
us. that He's made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. It says that He bore our sins
in His own body on the tree. Because you see, the true bread
came down from heaven like this manna to come under the hand of justice,
to suffer as a substitute in the place of His people, of each
and every one of these that are brought to believe on Him and
trust only Him and plead only His righteousness before God. So that when we identify with
Him and confess Him first, what do we do? We go down into the
baptismal waters, which picture His death and burial and resurrection
and ours in Him. And when we take the Lord's table,
we take that which represents His body that's broken and His
blood that's shed for us. And He's the bread of life. He's already come. He's already
suffered. He's already died. And He's the true bread. Eat of Him and live. Don't and die. In John 6, it goes on, and when these people begin to
find out that there won't be some more bread, he begins to talk about them
saying things like, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
you have no part in me. The Bible says that most of them
walked away. Most of them just walked away. But there were a few that remained. And Christ said to them, will
you also go away? And Simon Peter answered, Lord,
to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. And we believe and are sure that
you are that Christ, the Son of the living God. We believe
you're that true bread. You're our life. and there's nowhere else to go. God help us, enable us to trust,
to rest in Christ and His finished work, and to cast off all hope
in religion, in our experiences, in what we thought we knew, in
all these things, and to say like the Apostle Paul, when God
saved him, I now know that I was a blasphemer. But I'm looking to Christ. He's
my life. He's my salvation. He's my only
righteousness. He's the true breath. God fill my soul and feed my
soul with the true bread. Our Father, this day we give
you thanks for the true bread which you sent down from heaven to such poor and unworthy sinners
as we are. who have left to ourselves we
don't even have an appetite or a hunger for the true bread. But all we know that blessed
is he that hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for he shall
be filled. Grant to us that hunger of soul
for the Lord Jesus. for that soul-satisfying bread,
who lived and who suffered and who died in our stead, that he
might bring us to you, who put away our sins by the sacrifice
of himself so fully and completely that you are just in giving to
those who believe on Him life, everlasting life. We thank you
and we pray that you would be with us. Do not allow the adversary of
our souls to steal away the precious seed, but bring us unto yourself. and
honor yourself in your Son, in whose name we pray, Amen.