If you have your Bibles and want
to turn to my text, you'll find it in John 6. The Lord Jesus had crossed the
Sea of Galilee after feeding 5,000 with just a few loaves
and fishes. And these men followed Him across
the sea. He came over and they were searching
for Him. And this is a message He preached
to them when they found Him. I want to read it. Two of the
greatest messages I think our Lord ever preached is the Sermon
on the Mount and this one. And I imagine everyone has their
favorites, but I think I like this better than any of them
He ever preached. Let's begin reading in verse 26. John's Gospel,
chapter 6. In verse 26, they came over and
they said, Rabbi, how did you get here? When did you come here?
were seeking you. And in verse 26, the Lord begins
His message to them. Jesus answered them and said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, You seek me not because you saw
the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves and were
filled. Labor not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endeareth unto everlasting
which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for him hath God the
Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered
and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe
on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him,
What sign showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee?
What doest thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven
to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is he which comes down from heaven and gives
life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord
evermore, give us this bread. Jesus said unto them, I am the
bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. But I say unto you that you also
have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And
this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which
he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him,
because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father
and mother we know? How is it then that he saith,
I come down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, Grumble not among yourselves, murmur not. No man
can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,
and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the
Prophets, And they shall all be taught of God. Every man,
therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, he
cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save the Son, save he which is of God, he hath seen
the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness, and they are dead. This is the bread which
cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not
die. 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 shall give for the life of the world." The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give
us his flesh to eat? Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, he hath eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread
shall live forever. These things saith he in the
synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, This is an hard saying. Who can hear
it? When Jesus knew in Himself that
His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth this
offend you? What, and if you see the Son of Man ascend up
where He was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth.
The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you
that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed not and who should betray Him. And
he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come to
me, except it were given unto him of my father. From that time
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will you also go away? Then Simon
Peter answered him and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that
they are that Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered
them, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is the devil?
He spake of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. For he it was that
should betray him, being one of the twelve. He says here in
verse 66, Many went back. Many went back. I think every
pastor knows something about the grief of that. To preach
to people. and then have them to go back,
to have them to leave the truth. It's heartbreaking. It's happened
to all pastors, I imagine, at one time or another. It happened
to the Apostles. The Apostle John said they went
out from us. It may have been some of his
relatives, some of his dear friends. They went out from us, he said.
Paul had it to happen to him. He said, Gamath hath forsaken
me. having loved this present evil
world. All that be in Asia have turned
away from me. And he tells us that the Spirit
speaketh expressly that in the latter times, and that's our
times, some shall depart from the doctrine of faith. And we've
seen that happen, haven't we? We've seen that happen. We've
seen Dad's depart. You see, moms, we've seen children
depart. They went back. All of us have
witnessed it to the breaking of our own hearts, and it's made
us afraid. And our Lord Jesus witnessed
it here, and I'm sure, brothers and sisters, of all men, He was
the most tender. And I'm sure that His heart was
heavy when He saw all these disciples going back. He complained about
this in the Old Testament. Here's what he said in Isaiah
49 and 40. He says, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for
naught. He didn't spend his strength
for naught upon the cross. That's where he obtained eternal
redemption for his people. But how often did he preach to
no avail? It's a laborsome thing to warn
people, to encourage people. to instruct people. And when
you've labored to help those people, and they go back, it
makes you fearful for them. You feel like, I've labored in
vain, and I've spent my strength for naught. And the Lord Jesus
here has labored in this message to instruct these people, to
encourage them, and to warn them. And yet He says there in verse
36, You don't believe Me. You have seen Me, but you don't
believe Me. In verse 42, they didn't know him. They said, is
this not Joseph's son? Of course it wasn't Joseph's
son. And in verse 52, they didn't understand him. They said, this
is a hard saying. And in verse 60 and 61, they
were offended in him. And finally in verse 66, we're
told that they went back to walk no more with him. So he bestowed
labor upon these people. And then he watched them leave,
and I'm sure that his heart was grieved. But these disciples
here, the Scripture calls them disciples, but you know they
were disciples in name only. It's obvious from reading about
them being offended in the Master. Why were they seeking? Of course
they sought Him. They crossed the sea to find
Him. But why did they do that? They
were seeking for the loaves, and they were seeking for fishes.
Aren't there not many people that do that? If you ask them,
why are you seeking the Lord? They'd probably be bold enough
to tell you that they want good health. Or they want wealth. They want some things of this
world that they trust that Christ will give them. But that's not
true disciples, is it? They don't seek Him for the salvation
of their souls. And that's why they went away.
That's why they went away. Peter needed food. He needed
health, just like these did. But boy, he had a different attitude
about Christ, didn't he? When the Lord said, Why don't
you go away? He didn't say, Lord, because you're going to feed
me again tomorrow. I expect to have good health.
I expect you'll give me things. The earth is the Lord's. But
no, that's not what he said. He said, this is what keeps me
from going away. You have the words of eternal
life. I tell you, when we feel our
need of eternal life, and when we know that the source of that
life is Jesus Christ, We can't leave him, can we? Here's what Job said. He said,
I have not gone back from your commandment. I have esteemed
the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food. He said, Lord,
I can't leave you. I just can't leave you. And John
said this about those that went out from him. He said they went
out from us But then he has to confess, they were not of us. They didn't have the conviction
that we had. They didn't have the conviction
of life, where it is, life eternal. They didn't have conviction of
eternity and judgment to come. They didn't have the conviction
about these things. So they went out from us, but
they were not of us. If they had been of us, what
would they have done? No doubt they would have continued
with us. Many of His disciples went back,
but not Peter. Not Peter. Not those that had
his conviction. Oh, they did some seeking. We
are told that in the first part of this sermon. Why do you seek
me? They sought Him for many reasons.
But they went back because they were disciples in name only.
They didn't know Him. They didn't understand Him. Many,
we're told here in our text, many went back. Many. A lot of them. A bunch of them
went back. John says it like this. Paul says it like this.
Many walk, of whom I have told you often that they're enemies
of the cross of Christ. Many. Oh, I don't want to be
one of them, do you? I don't want to be a Judas in
my heart. I don't want to be a disciple that has sought for
a while, and sought Christ for the wrong reasons to the boot,
and then go back. Well, there's a precious word
in Hebrews 10, verse 38, that's got to be comforting to all of
those who are living by faith. Paul said there in verse 38,
the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, draw
back, If any man goes back, my soul shall have no pleasure in
him. But we are not of them who draw
back into perdition, to destruction. We are not of them. But we are
of them that believe to the saving of our souls. There are two things
that these disciples stumble over. Two things, and you'll
see them. I want to show them to you here
in the Scriptures. The first one is found in verse 60. They stumble over two things.
This is why they went back. These two things. Look here in
verse 60. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they heard this. When they heard this. They heard
something that disturbed them. When they heard this. They said,
this is an hard saying. Who can understand this? Who
can hear this? When they heard this, what did
they hear that made them stumble? Well, they heard this. If a man
is going to be saved, if a man is going to obtain eternal life
and be raised in glory at last, he must be saved in a way that
he did not understand until the Lord taught him. If these Jews were ever to be
saved, they were going to have to be saved in a manner that
they had never dreamed of, that they had never thought of before,
that they did not understand, all together by Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. The Lord Jesus kept making this
statement. He said, I'm the bread which came down from heaven.
I'm the bread which came down from heaven. And He tells them
about this bread that it's His body. Just as you take upon a
bread and break that bread, He said, this is My body which is
broken for you. You cannot be saved but by My
body. By My life laid down upon the
cross. That's the way he says it there
in verse 48. I am the bread of life. Your
father's eight men in the wilderness, they're dead. This is the bread
which comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world.
If you eat thereof, you'll have life. I am the living bread which
came down from heaven. He kept saying that. If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And now he tells them
what that bread is. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh. my broken flesh." And when he
says flesh there, he simply means his humanity. Not just the members
of his body, but his soul, his life. I laid down my life for
my sheep. This is the way they were to
be saved. But brothers and sisters, did
they understand that? Why, no, they didn't understand.
They'd never dreamed of such a thing. They'd never heard of
such a thing. They said there in verse 32,
who can hear such a thing? Well, let's be honest, brothers
and sisters, did we understand it? Did we understand the way of
salvation when we were lost? How many ways did we think that
we could be saved by it? How many ways did all of us here
try to save ourselves? Most of us tried to save ourselves
by different ways. Why? Because we were really just
as ignorant As these people were. I'd heard of Jesus Christ. I'd
read the Bible concerning Jesus Christ. But I had no idea that
I had to be saved wholly by Jesus Christ and His doing and dying
upon the cross of Calvary. Oh, no doubt to me that was a
part of it. But I had no idea that was the
whole of it. That was the whole of it. No man understands the way of
salvation until the Lord teaches him. That's the thing. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Neither
can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Now somebody says, Bruce, I've
knew right from wrong all my life. But we're not talking about
morality, are we? Most people do know right from
wrong. But we're not talking about that.
We're talking about salvation. How is a man redeemed? How is
a man justified before God? How is sin atoned for? How can
I have eternal life? And they didn't understand that.
And my contention is that nobody understands that until the Lord
God teaches him. Oh, Bruce, I was raised in your
church. You taught me. And I know, if I was the only
one that taught you, you still don't know. And that's the truth. That's the truth. Every man that
hath heard and learned of the Father, he comes to me. It takes
God to teach a man. This is so contrary to the natural
man. He does not like it. He cannot
receive it. He cannot understand it or believe
it. It's too foreign to him. It's
too far. Our carnal minds and our natural
reasons are sure to err. Looking back on our lives before
the Lord saved us, we see how ignorant we were, and right here
is what we were ignorant about. Christ and Him crucified is all
in our salvation. His grace alone, His mercy alone,
that's all in our salvation. We had a whole bunch of educated
Jews. They came from all over the known
world to Jerusalem to worship. They were devout worshipers.
They read the Scriptures. They kept the feast days. And
Peter began to preach Christ to them. And when he finished preaching,
you know what those men said? Now, these were Jews that were
trained in the Jewish lifestyle, all their lives they were brought
up in it. Peter preached Christ in them,
crucified them, and you know what they said? They said, Brother,
we're ignorant. We don't even know what to do.
We don't know what to think. We've heard something we don't
know about. You preach Jesus Christ to us. We confess our
ignorance. What must we do? But weren't
we all there? Looking back on your lost life,
can't you relate to this? That you had to be saved in a
way that you did not understand at that time? It's not a matter of just making
a decision for Christ, or going forward in a worship service,
or praying the sinner's prayer, or being baptized. That's not it at all, is it? It's about one way of salvation.
It's about one way of life eternal. And that's by the cross of Jesus
Christ. That's by the broken body and
the shed blood of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. And the only way to lay hold
upon it is by faith. That's it. That's it. The Lord
goes one step farther in verse 53. He gets just a little bit narrower.
He says here in verse 53, Then said Jesus unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And
He adds this word. He makes this so narrow. Except, he's been telling them
he came down from heaven. He's the living bread and his
flesh is that bread. His life laid down upon the cross
is that bread. And now he says, except you eat
this flesh and drink this blood, you have no life in you. In other words, he excludes all
other ways of salvation. Except. That's the narrow gate,
ain't it? That's the straight way that
leads to life. Except. It's by me. It's by my merit, my work, my
life laid down. Except you say this way, you
have no life in you. By me. Your fathers did eat man in the
wilderness and they're dead. And these Jews were dead in trespasses
and sin. They'd been going to the temple
to worship. They'd been participating in
all these outward forms and ceremonies. And He says that's done you no
good. The only way you can have life is by Me. By My sacrifice
upon the cross. By Me and Me crucified. They never understood it, and
therefore they rejected it and said, this is a hard say. And
you and I live in our day, 2014, and we look at all the religions
of the world. We look at Islam, a growing religion. We look at all the cults and
the old cults. We look at Mormonism. We look
at Jehovah Witness-ism. All of Protestantism and Catholicism
and all that goes along with that. We look at the world and
its religions. And we say, here is what you
must do if you are ever saved. You must forsake that. And you
must find life in Jesus Christ and Him crucified alone. And accept you find life in Him. Then you have no life. You have
no life. Eternal life. Where is it? In
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Not just in Jesus. The flesh
profiteth nothing. His flesh doesn't profit as long
as He's alive. It's His broken body. It's His flesh upon the cross
that saves us. Christ in Him crucified. To be
saved wholly by the merits and worth of another is still a hard
saying for this world. They still say that, do they
not? And God has to reconcile a man to this message. He has
to give a man a heart to fill his need of Christ in Him crucified. He has to give him a heart of
grace to love it and believe it and bow to it and live there
upon him. He that eateth me, even he shall
live by me. But God has to prepare the heart.
All that is taught of God, they come to me. Paul talked about the offense
of the cross, didn't he? If I yet preach circumcision,
why do they yet persecute me? Then is the offense of the cross
ceased. The natural man will take that
which is his best thing and make it a curse upon himself, the
cross. The only hope of any sinner is
a bleeding Savior, and he has offended Him. Isn't that amazing? Listen, verse 54, Whosoever eateth
my flesh and drapes my blood, He hath eternal life. Oh, what
a blessing. Eternal life. What a blessing. He that eateth my broken body
and drinks my blood hath eternal life. What greater blessing could
you have? What else is worth having in
the light of that? What temporal things in the light
of that? He that eateth my flesh, he hath
eternal life. And look at this. I will raise
him up at the last day. What a glorious hope. Who could
ask for more than this? Life now and glory hereafter. I will raise him up at the last
day. And what's this world's opinion
of such good news? This is a hard saying. Who can
hear it? Who can hear it? If we're going
to preach this message, then we might as well get ready
for rejection by the world in general. Don't get your feelings
hurt when you see people frown at you, when you say salvation
and life is in Jesus Christ alone. And don't be surprised when people
go back And don't listen to you. They did the master. When they
heard this. Salvation in Christ alone. Christ
in him crucified. When they heard this. And when
he got more narrow. When he said, except, except
you eat my flesh, you have no life. Well, then they went back. Then they said, this is a hard
saying. That's the first thing. That's the first thing that had
to do with them going back. When they heard this, they said,
this is a hard saying. We can't understand what you're
talking about. Your flesh, your blood. And then the second one was this.
The second thing that he said is found here in verse 65 and
verse 66. Here is the second and final
principle that finally turned these Jews away. This is the
reason they went back. Verse 65, he says this, Therefore
said I unto you that no man can come unto me, except it were
given unto him of my father. From that time they went back. From that. The first thing in
verse 6, they heard this and they were offended. Now they
hear this. They hear something else. And
they say, now we can't take it any longer. We're out of here.
And they go back. What did they hear? Well, in verse 65, they
heard this. The Lord had been saying, I'm
the way and me only. My body, my blood. At the exclusion
of all other ways. And now He adds this to it. Not
only salvation in Him, but nobody can even come to Him. and understand
Him and believe in Him except it were given to Him of the Father. Not only is He salvation, but
if you ever obtain an interest in Him, oh, here's the greatest
gift there ever was. He comes down from heaven. The
Father gives you the true bread from heaven. What a glorious
gift! But here's another gift. If you
ever come to believe on Him savingly, God must give it to you. God must give it to you. Verse 65, what's it
teaching us? Well, that's that old doctrine that's repulsive
to natural man, distinguishing grace. Unless the Father gives
it to you, you can't obtain it. It's a gift of God. I imagine
if Christ had said, no man can come to me and stop there, they
would have accepted that. They would have just said, well,
none of us have any ability to come. So okay, none of us can
come. But oh, when he adds this, unless
my Father draw him, they can't take that. They'd rather the
world go on and be lost as some saved. at God's distinguishing
grace, you see. The world in general would be
far happier if God sent everybody to hell as opposed to saving
anybody by His distinguishing grace. Save us all or don't save
anybody. But don't distinguish. Don't
distinguish. Lord, don't this get the natural
mind? This gets the natural mind. If the world loves to hear you
profess Christ, in this sense, if you go out and tell your neighbors,
your lost neighbors, I came to the Lord. The Lord saved me.
I'm a saved man. And if you go ahead and tell
them, it was my decision. It was my choice. I came by my
own free will. They won't say a thing. That's
wonderful. Wonderful. But you go ahead and tell them,
I came because He drew me. I came because He taught me.
I came because it was given to me. You know they don't like
that. It seems to shove them out of
hope. It seems to tie down their free will. If they hear you have
free will to come, okay, then I've got free will. Someday I'll
come. Someday I'll exercise my will and I'll come. But when
you tell them it was the gift of God that brought you. It was God teaching you and drawing
you and persuading you. And you could have not have came
except God had given you. They don't like that because
they say, well, you mean I can't come any time I want to? I can
come when I will. It's not my will. You go and tell your neighbors
tomorrow. You tell them why you came to Christ. You tell them
why you have believed. And give God the glory for it
and see how they react. No man can come to me except... except... That's distinguishing
grace, isn't it? That's distinguishing grace. Give Him the glory. These Jews
had two problems. They thought too highly of themselves
as one of their problems. They were a privileged people. Nobody was like the Jews. They
weren't like other men. They just weren't like other
Gentiles. They had a glorious lineage. How far can you trace
your family tree back? I can go back to my great-grandmother
and that's it. And I can't go back past her
because my great-grandmother was a whore. She had 10 or 12
kids between 10 or 12 men. You think I'm going to glory
in that? But boy, they did. My father is Abraham. My father
was a friend of God. God spake to my father. I've
got kings in my lineage. I can trace my lineage back to
David, the great king. I'm a Jew. God gave us the law. He didn't give the law to any
other nation but us. He gave us His presence, His
temple, His priesthood, His sacrifices. We're not like everybody else. We're different and we're better.
And here Jesus of Nazareth was telling these people, you can't
even come to God except you come by me. And you can't even come
to me except my Father gives it to you as a gift. And oh,
it humbled these people. They couldn't believe what He
said. We're better than that. You tell the Gentiles that, but
how dare you tell us that? Oh, this distinguishing grace
is a humbling thing, isn't it? When you tell somebody, you cannot
come to Christ. And the first thing, you don't
even want to come, you never will come. And you cannot come
except my Father which sent me to draw you. Except He give it
to you. See how much pride you have then,
boy. The pride will raise its head then. It will raise its
head. The second problem they had about
this thing was this. They thought they knew Jesus
of Nazareth. They thought they knew Him. They were familiar
with Him. They said, is His dad not Joseph? They said, I think in Matthew's
Gospel, don't we know His brethren? And they named them. And they
said, He's got sisters. They're all with us. He's the
carpenter's son. We know Him. Here's a very dangerous thing,
brothers and sisters. To be so familiar with one you
think is Christ, and he's really not Christ. To think you know
somebody, to think you know what he's like, and after all, you
have a false notion of him. That was their whole problem. You telling us Here you are telling
us, you Jesus of Nazareth, a carpenter's son from a poor place up in Galilee,
don't even have any place to lay your head. Women minister
to your needs. And you're telling us, you're
so exalted yourself that you're telling us nobody can come to
you to be saved except God give it to them. Who do you think
you are? He wasn't who they thought He
was, was He? You know our whole problem today, brothers and sisters,
we don't know who Jesus Christ is. We don't know who He is. We've got this concept of Him
that's just wrong. And we can't know Him as the
Lord of glory until the Holy Spirit reveals Him to our hearts
through His Word. No man can say that Jesus is
Lord. Who? Jesus is Lord? Who ever thought that? Is Jesus
Lord? What is it to be Lord? What is it to be Lord? That's
it, ain't it? He's the Lord. It means everything
to be Lord. It means you're nothing and He's
everything. It means whether you're saved
or lost is determined by Him, you see. And boy, that's what
they could not endure. Oh, they said, we know, we know
that you're not completely like us. I mean, it's evidence. You just fed 5,000 with just
a few loaves of fish. We've seen these miracles. But
nevertheless, you took it too far. You've exalted yourself
too high. You have humbled us. You have
brought us down and just offended us. And we won't bow to it. We're leaving you. And that was
their problem. That was their problem. They
thought too highly of themselves. They had no idea. They thought
they knew Jesus Christ. But they didn't. I've often talked
to people. You go to the hospital or nursing
homes or meet somebody out and you talk to them and they're
lost. And one of the most dangerous concepts that they can have is
this. Well, I know how to be saved. I know how to be saved. And the
Lord has to begin to teach them, and humble them, and strip them,
and bring them down to nothing with their mouths in the dirt,
ignorant, poor, perishing sinners. And that's what He must do to
save them. And these fellows said, we're not going back. We're
not going back. We're leaving. We're going back
to our temple worship. We're going back to offering
sacrifices. We're going back to our feast days, but we're
not going to seek for mercy from you. We're not going to humble
ourselves at your feet. I know how you feel, guys. I
bark a lot myself. Now, let's read verse 66 again.
I'm going to close here in just a minute. From that, many of His disciples
went back. From that, they walked no more with Him.
Now you notice that? You notice how the Holy Spirit
put that in there? From that, from what? What we've been saying.
Salvation is in Jesus Christ and Him crucified alone. That's
the only place life is. From that, they went back. Salvation is a gift of God. By grace are you saved through
faith, not of yourself. It's the gift of God. From that
they went back. No man can come to me except
it were given to him of my father. From that they went back. Well,
what happened when they went back from that? They left him. When they heard that, they went
back and walked no more with Him. When you leave that, you
leave Him. Somebody said the gospel is not
that important. You can't have the gospel without having Christ.
You can't have Christ without having the gospel. Let a man rebel against Christ
and Him crucified, he don't have Christ. Let a man leave that,
he's left Christ. Let a man say, well, I don't
believe salvation is by the grace of God and the free gift of God.
OK. Believe that. But you've left
Christ. You've left Christ. You can't have one without the
other. You can't have His person without having His truth, can
you? One man told me one time, he said, I don't preach doctrine.
A preacher told me that. I don't preach doctrine. I don't
know really what he meant by that, so I won't say much. But
you can't have Christ's doctrine. without having Christ. When they
heard that, they went back and walked no more with Him. If we're
going to walk with Jesus Christ, we must walk with Him in His
Word. That's the only way to walk with
Him. What these men did not understand
and believe and were offended by were words of life to other
men. Will you also go away? What did
Peter say? Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the words. Thou hast the words of life. When the Lord Jesus said, My
body, my broken body is meat and deeds. Boy, that went home
to Peter's heart. When he said, My shed blood is a fish-up atonement
for your sins, Peter said, Oh my, that's words of life to me
because I'm a poor sinner. And when he says, If you come
to me, God has given you grace to do it. Peter said, Oh, I love
that. That's my life. Is that not your
life? Is Jesus Christ and Him crucified
not your life? Is He not all your righteousness? And when you think about distinguishing
grace, if He hadn't called you, if He hadn't set His love upon
you, would you have ever come? Isn't distinguishing grace your
life? Is that not your hope? Of course
it is. It's everybody's hope. Not all
of us understand it to the degree that we should. But if you have
life in Christ, you know you have it because He gave it to
you. Here's the only hope and only
help for any person sinner. Listen to this. No man can come
unto me. Oh, that cuts our hope off, doesn't
it? No man can come to me. All right then, let's go to hell.
We can't climb, let's go to hell. Hopeless, perishing sinners.
Oh, but listen to this. This is hope. Accept. Accept. Unless, my father, give
it to Him. Fannie Crosby wrote that blessed
old hymn, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior, Hear My Humble Cry. While on others Thou art costly.
Call Him. Do not pass me by. Oh, Lord, draw me, call me, teach
me. You know the gospel is not for
the strong. The gospel is not for the self-sufficient. The
gospel is not for the stout. The gospel is for the weak. The
gospel is for the poor. The gospel is for the broken.
Those who have nothing. Those who tremble. The gospel
is for those who tremble. Let God and they pass them by.
That's who the gospel is for. You've got no objections to it,
have you? The gospel you believe has put your mouth in the dust,
and it's stripped you of any and all objections to it. You
love it. Because it's your only hope of
salvation. Let's pray.