Speaking for the help of the
Lord, I'd like to continue this evening with a series on questions
asked in scripture. And draw your attention to the
portion we read, the gospel according to John chapter six, and reading
from our text from verse 67. Then said Jesus unto the 12,
will ye also go wild? That is our text, the question
of our Lord to his 12 disciples, when many others had gone away,
will ye also go away? And this then was answered with
a question, as it were, implying an answer from Simon Peter, who
said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. and we believe and are sure that
thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Will ye also
go away? What a division there was amongst
the disciples, and a disciple is a follower of the Lord, those
that were following the Lord at this time, through our Lord's
preaching and teaching, there came to be a division between
many and then the twelve disciples of the Lord. And even amongst
them were reminded twice in this passage that our Lord knew that
even amongst the twelve there was one that would betray Him,
that wasn't really a believer, Judas Iscariot. Many of the Lord's
dear people have been very tried with this searching question.
When we realize the worth of our souls, when we see others
that do go away, some that have been very high profile people
that have written books, Christian books that have been followed,
that have been recommended, and then they give up all of their
faith publicly, renouncing it, and then turning away and going
back and walking no more with the Lord or His people. And it is a searching thing. Will that also be us? And really,
unless we are kept, we shall also fall and also go away. But we would remember that the
Lord has said that His people are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation. And faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. And we should always remember
the ordained means whereby the Lord keeps His people, that it
is through the faith that He has given, and through the Word
that He has given. So may we pay much attention
to the Word, and I draw your attention this evening to this
Word. Firstly, in the thought to go
away. What does that mean? How can
we apply that today? Our Lord Jesus Christ in the
text here, He was there. They could see Him. They could
physically walk away from Him. But how do we apply it today? And then secondly, why those
that went away did so? Are we not kept ignorant as to
the reasons why they went away. And so we look at that in the
second point. And then thirdly, why the twelve
did not go away, we are told the reason for that as well. But firstly, the going away,
how would we apply that today? Some people would just apply
it in almost a party spirit, just looking at the externals. If someone was in their assembly
and they went away and they went to another denomination, however
sound, however right that one might be, and they would look
upon them as losing their faith or as going away. But that is
not how it is set forth here. The Word of God does not give
a whole list of possible denominations or groups of people at all. It speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ,
His doctrine, His teaching, His disciples, His way. And really
the Lord Jesus Christ is the key centre in this matter, literally
they were going away from him, away from Jesus of Nazareth,
away from him that had been speaking to them. They were turning away
from him. And, but in the simplest way,
that is what it is meant here, will you also go away Will you
go away from Jesus as the only name given among men whereby
we must be saved? Go away from the Lord Jesus Christ
to something else, to look some other way. Our Lord said, if
you believe not that I am He, you shall perish in your sins. There remains no other way of
salvation if we turn away from Jesus. There is no hope for anyone
that turns away and goes away from the Lord Jesus. But how
can we understand that in perhaps a more, in a practical way? Well, it is going away from the
Word of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ here was
speaking to them And His Word was the Word of God. It is the
inspired Word of God. It's that which we have the record
here. And as they went away from Him,
they were not hearing that Word anymore. They were turning away
from His Word. And that is what is going away,
going away from the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word that
I speak unto thee, they are spirit and they are life. And the Lord said to, and it
was said to the rich man and Lazarus, the parable there, if
they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, even
if one did rise from the dead. And the emphasis is on the word
of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ has
been the written, the incarnate word, the written word all the
same. To go away is to turn away. If you and I turn away from the
words of the Lord Jesus Christ, blocking them out, resisting
them, not obeying them, not believing them, then in effect you are
going away. from the Lord Jesus Christ. To go away also is to go away
from the disciples of the Lord, away from the true disciples. In John's epistles, we read in
the first epistle general of John and chapter two, of those
that went away and went out from the apostles. And we read that
they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had
been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. But they
went out that they might be made manifest, that they were not
all of us. And these are the apostles of
the Lord. They are those that had been
given the word directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. And our
Lord said, he that receiveth you, receiveth me, and he that
receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. So to not receive the
word from the apostles, again, that which is part of the inspired
word of God, or from those that are walking in the word of God,
that are true disciples and followers of the Word of God, it is going
away from them. And in that sense, it can be
applied, where a person would leave an assembly where Christ
is faithfully preached, where the Word of God is read and preached,
and they go to somewhere where it is not read, not preached,
not believed, not followed, not esteemed as the inspired Word
of God, that is the same. as going away, going away from
the Lord Jesus. So it can be seen in that way
separating from the people of God. John, when he speaks in
his second epistle, he is very clear in that little epistle
about those that bring not the doctrine of their Lord, In verse
9 of 2 John, we read, Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not
in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the
doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there
come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not
into your house, neither bid him Godspeed. For he that biddeth
him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds. It's very clear the
doctrine is that which sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ as the
true and eternal Son of God. So it is going away as well from
sound preaching of the Word, depriving oneself of the means
of God's grace, separating from the people of God and not sitting
under the sound of the truth, forsaking the assembly of ourselves
together. It is in that sense we would
look at it as going away. We could also extend it to the
path of prayer, restraining prayer, ceasing to call upon God, one
of the marks of the disciples, of those that converted like
the Apostle Paul was, Behold he prayeth. And men began to
call upon the name of the Lord in the days of Enos. And so the
other way around, when men who have prayed, have called, have
made a profession in that way, stop praying, stop asking of
the Lord, stop seeking Him, they're going away. away from the throne
of grace, away from the only source of power, of help and
of blessing. So we need to think of it in
a clear way, as applying today, as applying to ourselves. Very
often those that do go away, they go away gradually. Here
it seems to be a very sudden thing. But often today it is
a gradual thing, a gradual reducing the amount of time that they're
seen in the house of God or reducing the time that they spend in prayer
or neglecting a family worship or private worship. And there's
a just slowly going back from any of the ways of the Lord that
were once begun in and walked in. Of course, our Lord spoke
of the parable of the sower, where three of those hearers,
they at first did receive the Word and continue a little while,
at least two of them did, but then because of the pull of the
world or because of temptations and the persecution because of
the Word, then they went back and there's no fruit to perfection. So it should be They concern
with us, same as their disciples. When the Lord told them that
one of their number was a traitor, then they were asking, is it
I, is it I? And it should be for us to be
careful and watch, and watch over ourselves that we don't,
in these ways, go away or go back from following the Lord
Jesus Christ. I want to look secondly at the
reasons why, why those went away, why they did so. Now, there's
many other reasons that we can find in other parts of the Word
of God, but I do want to just confine it to what is in this
passage that we have read in John chapter 6. The first is
that those that were seeking And they were seeking after the
Lord with a wrong motive. Now, the Lord says in verse 26,
when they came, of course, the Lord had done the miracle of
the loaves and the fishes the day before. He'd done the miracle
of walking over the water, which is why they couldn't work out.
He hadn't got into a ship and yet was the other side. He'd
brought those miracles and They had taken the food and the bread,
miraculously given it, fed their bodies, they'd been sustained
by that way. And the Lord said to them, ye
seek me not, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled. Labour not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, For him hath God
the Father sealed. Now they're many that will start
in the way of the Lord, following the Lord in Christianity, taking
it up. And their secret thought is that
it will profit them in this life. It'll give them food to eat. It'll give them a house, a home,
a good job, a wife, a husband. It will benefit them. in this time state. And if that
is the expectation, when we begin to seek the Lord and begin to
associate with Him and His people and go to His Word, then we are
going to be disappointed. The Apostle Paul said, if in
this life only we have hope in Christ, with all men most miserable,
If we were to go through life, and He gave us everything that
we have for this life, then when we come to die, we have nothing. We have no new nature, no eternal
life, no hope beyond the grave, only earthly, temporal things. And many are like that. Most solemnly, even in the ministry,
we'll deceive people and give them the expectation that if
they only but follow their church or their way and their teaching,
then they shall prosper. It's a prosperity ministry. And
if that is your motive, if that is my motive, and we can ask
ourselves, how much of our expectation from the Lord is that He is in
debt to us. We followed Him, so He must reward
us, He must give us good things. Or how much do we really realise
that we are sinners, and that we're seeking for mercy, and
we're seeking for eternal life, and we're seeking for that which
is beyond the grave. And so one of the things right
at the very start here There was a people, even before they
heard much of the teaching of the Lord, they had a wrong expectation. And that followed them through
in other things as well. They were men that were uncalled,
unquickened, and they only knew natural things. We'll come to that in a moment.
But a second thing, that was a very evident reason as to why
they went away. They were looking for signs,
not only for temporal blessings and temporal things, but for
signs. In verse 30, we read, they said,
therefore unto him, what sign showest thou then that we may
see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Their fathers
did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, he gave them
bread from heaven to eat. And they're asking for a sign. And we need to go back, have
a look at Matthew, and a couple of portions in Matthew, but we
just look at one in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 39. the scribes and the Pharisees
again were asking for a sign. They said, Master, we would see
a sign from thee. And this is what the Lord said
of them. But he answered and said unto them, an evil and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign. And there shall no sign be given
to it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was three
days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And he calls them looking for
a sign as an evil, an adulterous generation. Really, the Lord
had given the sign. He'd given the wonderful miracle
of the loaves and the fishes. He had given them the miracle
of the walking on water and going the other side when he didn't
get into the ship. But they looked completely over
that, only taken up with having had the food. And now they're
asking for signs. And may this be a real warning
to us. Sometimes we can be like this.
And in our prayers we like to say, Lord, give me a sign. Give
me a sign that I'm one of thy people. And as you might say
with a hemorrhoid, it says, show me a token, Lord, for good. The
Lord does give tokens, but not to rely upon signs, not to rely
upon something that is supernatural apart from the word and God's
blessing to be upon the word. Number one, the minister spoke
of someone that said, well, if I am a child of God, and they
said it in prayer, and it was raining outside, then it stopped
raining. It did. It didn't prove them
to be a child of God. And there's some that rely on
signs like that, that are totally inconsistent with the signs and
evidences of the new birth and of the indwelling of the spirit
and the quickening operation of God in the soul. The Lord gives a true evidence
of the child of God, my sheep, they hear my voice and they follow
me. That is a true sign, a true evidence,
not just a sign, but something that profoundly affects one's
whole life, not just for a moment, but right through their lives.
So they're looking for signs. They didn't get signs, so away
they went. They stumbled at his claims.
He claimed that he was divine, that his father was in heaven,
and they stumbled at that. How many have done that? When the people of God have taught
and opened up the Word of God and set forth the very truths
that are here, that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man in
one person, without any confusion. He has a divine nature and a
human nature, one person. And that God is one God in three
persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And clearly set forth that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. He
ever was, He ever will be, but He is made flesh and dwelt among
us. There were those that stumbled
at that idea of His divinity, the precious truth of Emmanuel,
God with us, God manifest in the flesh. They stumbled at His
teaching, that He was doing His Father's will and speaking that
which of His Father. I came, verse 38, I came down
from heaven, not to do mine 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 at the last day. This is
the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the
Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I'll
raise Him up at the last day." They rejected those claims of
our Lord to be doing His Father's will and to be that those that
are saved are dependent upon the Father drawing them, in verse
44, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me
draw him, and I'll raise him up at the last day. All that
the Lord was telling them about himself, about his doctrine,
about the way that he converts sinners, they found offensive
to that. They couldn't abide these things. They could not receive spiritual
things. They were natural men. They started
off wanting the loaves and fishes, natural things. When the Lord
says that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, they say,
how can this man give us his flesh to eat? They interpret
it in a natural way. It's like with Nicodemus, when
the Lord first came to him. He must be born again. Nicodemus
said, how can that be? That a man enter into his mother's
womb again and be born again? No, those are born of the Spirit. Those are quickened by the Spirit,
a spiritual birth. That's what our Lord was saying.
And so you have the interpretation as well here of what the Lord
is meaning the words that I speak unto you. They are spirit and
they are life. It is the work of our Lord Jesus
Christ, his broken body, his shed blood, that which is set
forth in the Lord's Supper. That is what the Lord was speaking
is absolutely vital, that it be the life of a Christian, Jesus
Christ and him crucified. They couldn't receive it, because
they were only looking at it in a natural way, not a spiritual
way. They were stumbling at the Word,
and so they went back. They didn't continue in the ways
of the Lord. They say in verse 16, that many,
therefore, of His disciples, when they had heard this, said,
This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? We should always
be warned when we find hard sayings in the word of God, or things
that we cannot understand, that there are many that are offended
at that word, they rest it, they twist it, and it is to their
own destruction. And yet on the other hand, what
an encouragement, when we think of the account of Philip and
the eunuch, when Philip was sent to preach to the eunuch, The
eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 and he couldn't understand it,
but Philip began at the same scripture and preached unto him
Jesus. And that word was really blessed
to him. And that should be a real encouragement
to us. Whenever we come to the word
of God and there's a part we can't understand, to think it
may be that the Lord will bless that very verse, that very passage
to our souls, and we'll ever bless the Lord that he caused
us to not go away, but to inquire after him and to hear the preached
word and to be blessed through that word and come to know what
it means and to embrace that word and that hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So really as one is set forth
in verse 63, they run reason why they went away was because they rejected the
words of the Lord, and they rejected the spirit of the Lord. Our Lord
says, it is the spirit that quickeneth, or makes alive, the flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit, and they are life. And so we have through
this passage the things that are identified as the reason
why Those that at first were willing to hear the Lord, and
when He said that He was the bread from heaven, in verse 34,
they said unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And they
went from saying that to saying, these sayings are hard sayings,
and they went back and walked no more with them. People can
have a willingness at first to have a Bible, to receive the
Word, But when they hear what the Word says, and when they
hear the words of the Lord, then they don't want to hear them
anymore. And they stumble at them, they go away. And as we
said in the beginning, to go away from the Lord Jesus Christ
is to go away from the only name that God has given whereby we
can be saved. To go away, to reject the Lord
Jesus Christ, is to perish eternally. There's nothing that we have
to wait for then, but eternal destruction after death. And so this passage and the reasons
why they're going away, you might say, so close they were, so close
to the Word, so close to the Lord Jesus Christ, hearing His
Word and then turning away from it. What a solemn, solemn thing
that that should be. the case. So this very searching
word, will ye also go away? Will ye also not hear my word
again? Will ye not receive my teaching,
my instruction, these words of eternal life? Well, the Lord
asked this of his twelve disciples, those that were very close to
him. Will ye also go away? They'd
seen all these others going away. Are you going to be the same
as them? Or are you going to be different? Is there any difference with
you than them? Or are you going to follow them? And Simon Peter, he had an answer
to the Lord. And so I want to look in our
third place of the reasons why the twelve did not go away,
and Peter, he articulates those reasons why. There are three
main reasons. Firstly, he says, Lord, to whom
shall we go? Another question, implying an
answer that there was no other one than the Lord. They were
convinced of that. There was not any option. There was not another one that
was beckoning to them. There was not another one that
had the words of eternal life. They were convinced of that,
the Lord Jesus Christ only. And that's a blessed thing for
us to have that persuasion as well. We've not got something
lingering in the background that, well, if this doesn't work out,
we'll go to that. If we can't be saved by God's
mercy, then we'll do a bit of charitable works and we might
be saved from that. Or if we can't be saved through
the word of God, we'll go on a pilgrimage and maybe God will
accept us that way. Or if we can't be saved in the
Christian faith, well, there's a mosque down the road or there's
a temple down the road, but we'll see if we can be saved that way.
Well, Peter was very, very clear on this. To whom shall we go? There was not even a hint, not
even a thought that there was any other. Indeed, as we said
at the beginning, our Lord testified, if ye believe not that I am He,
that is the Christ, the eternal Son of God, ye shall perish in
your sins. So bless the Lord and may the
Lord make it so clear to us that we have none other name given
among men whereby we must be saved. God has given the name
of Jesus as a name which is above every name, that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow. It is the name that was given
him at his birth, before he was born, named by the angel, Thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins. There is a second reason, and
that is the Lord had the words of eternal life. Now this is
in direct opposition to the reason why many of them went away. It was the words of our Lord,
what He was saying, what He was teaching. They were offended
at, that Peter is the other way. He said, no, it is the words
are the reason why we remain and why we stay. They are not
just words of man, they're words of God. They're not just words
for this life, they're words for that which is eternal, eternal
life. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. And again, may we ever be. persuaded
of that. Every word of God is pure. And our Lord said that heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. The words, as we read here before,
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing
by the word of God. It hath pleased God through the
foolishness in the eyes of man, of preaching to save them that
believe, preaching the Word of God. In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. God created
this world by speaking it into existence, and He forms anew
in the hearts of His people by the Word. They are quickened
by the Word of God, made alive by the Word of God. how we should
so value the Word of God. What a blessing to have it in
our own tongue, to understand it, to have it in our hearts,
to feed upon it as our bread from heaven. The Lord said to
Satan, man shall not live by bread only, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And when the Lord sent
Peter, he said, feed my sheep, feed my lambs. and that is feeding
them with the word of God. That is the manna from heaven. And Peter, he is persuaded of
that. The Lord had the words of eternal
life. Now if the Lord has blessed his
word to us, like Jeremiah, he said, thy words were found and
I did eat them. They were to the joy and rejoicing
of my soul. If we found the Word as a lamp
unto our feet, a light unto our path, inspired Word from Genesis
to Revelation, then that will be a solid reason why we will
not turn away from the Lord. The Lord deliver us from being
selective in the Word of God, from being critical of the Word
of God, from being wise above the Word of God, and bring us
to humble ourselves under the Word of God. and to bow before
the Word of God. Let that be our instructor, our
teacher. You know, the Lord says a very
blessed word in verse 45 of this passage. It is written in the
prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me.
It's a great blessing to be taught of God. to hear the Word, to
preach, to read the Word of God, and the Lord open our understanding,
to understand the Scriptures, to be instructed by it, to be
taught by it, to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. When in chapter eight of this
Gospel, there were Jews that believed in the Lord, they believed
that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, and the Lord said
to them, If ye continue in my word, then shall ye be my disciples
indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free. And so he directs them to his
word, and those are the Bereans. When Paul preached to them, then
they searched the Scriptures, that is the word of God that
they had, the Old Testament Scriptures, daily, whether these things were
so, wherefore many of them believed. Maybe in this reason why they
did not go away, and Peter did not go away, be a reason for
us as well that we have very high views of Scripture, very
high views of the Word of God, and esteem every Word of God
to be right and true and pure, and be those words that the Lord
uses to save a soul. The third reason was that they
were sure that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living
God. We believe and are sure that
they are that Christ, the Son of the Living God. How vital,
how necessary. If we're going to trust our whole
salvation upon the Lord Jesus Christ, He must be truly God. The sacrifice that He offered
at Calvary, the blood that was shed there, the wrath of God
that fell on him instead of his people, the payment that was
made. It can only be that Jesus was
not just an ordinary man, but the divine man, the God man,
the one that the dying thief appealed to. Lord, remember me
when thou comest into thy kingdom. He believed that Jesus was the
son of the living God. And to believe in that way, with
the heart man believeth, with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. In Acts chapter 9 we read of
the, or chapter 8, we read of Philip requiring of the eunuch
before he baptized him a profession. If thou believest with all thine
heart thou mayest. And his answer was, I believe
that Jesus is the Son of God. It is absolutely vital that our
trust, our hope for heaven is not on man, but on God, on God's
provision, and on His beloved Son. Not what we have done, but
what He has done. Not our good works, but His good
works. Not our payment of the debt,
but His payment of the debt on our behalf. not our life, but
His righteous, holy, spotless, pure life, imputed or imparted
to us. Our belief that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Son of the living God is a reason why we will not
go away from Him. Peter encompasses just in a few
words, a few reasons, But they are so powerful reasons. So powerful
reasons. And may the Lord give us that
same resolve, that same answer. And if we come into situations
as well, where it may mean we have many of our friends, many
of our acquaintances, many of those that may have begun to
hear the Word with us, and they go away, and they say, come on,
come with us. Don't go along with that foolish
things anymore, but that we remain and we stay. Many accounts have
been told of those who have been separated in that way and who
have cleaved to the Word, and the Lord most sovereignly has
shown a difference. And it is the Lord that makes
the difference. He makes a believer and gives
him his crown. And maybe some of us, we can
think, whether we've been brought up under the Word or whether
we've heard it later on in life. And the Lord has made this difference.
Difference, not between the ungodly and the godly, but even amongst
those that have, by attendance of the means of grace, have a
profession of some sort. They hear the Word of God, and
yet the Lord has made a difference. He has bid us live spiritually
alive. It's not just to be a follower,
we can go away as it were, just sitting in the pew, with no desire,
no feeding upon the Word, no belief at all, trusting in our
own works and our own ways. But may we be kept by the power
of God through faith, May the Lord Jesus Christ be the one
thing needful, we've sung of it, and if that is the case,
then we won't go from Him. No, the very thought of being
parted from the Lord here, parted eternally, will fill us with
dread and with fear. I meant you to say if there is
a canxious concern with us, then we are not the ones that will
go away and go astray. We value our souls too much. We need eternal life. We're sinners. We need a saviour. We need the
redeemer. We need our debt paid. We need
that which is set before us in the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ that is found in nowhere else. One was asked once, what
has your religion got? that others haven't got? And
the answer was an empty term. The Lord Jesus Christ died and
rose again and ascended up into heaven. That is the way the Lord
has given assurance unto all men. He hath raised our Lord
from the dead. The debt is paid. What a question
then. Will ye also go away? May the answer be clear, clear
in our own minds and clear as a testimony before God and before
men. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.