Did he do it? Is he doing it
right now? Is there one of his children
who is being presented before the throne of glory by the Lord
Jesus Christ, holy, unblameable, unapprovable in his sight? He's
doing it for all of his family all of the time. He is the head
and all of his people are the body. So where the head is, the
body is. And at this very moment, the
Lord Jesus Christ in heaven's glory is presenting himself. holy and unblameable and unapprovable
in his sight. Did he do it? God says he did. That was a great cry from the
cross, isn't it? It is finished. I'd like you to turn with me
to John chapter 6 and we'll just read some of these verses that
we are, Lord willing, going to look at a bit more closely this
morning. We have been going through John chapter 6, following the
footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ and drawing these people to himself. and then revealing who he is,
which is why I asked Tom to read Colossians 1. We continually
need to be reminded of who the God is. Who are we speaking about? Who are we coming to? This is
the glorious Lord Jesus Christ. Let's start reading in verse
33. We looked last week at the bread, the manna, which is. The bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. Then said
they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. 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. But I said unto you that you
also have seen me and believe not. And this is the verse that
I want to spend some time looking at this morning. All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. Not for any reason at all will
they be cast out, because 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. You don't have to question what
God's will is. He tells us as plainly as you
could possibly have it, isn't it? This is the Father's will,
which has sent me. that all of 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 everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on him
may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. The Jews who had seen these remarkable
things then murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which
came down from heaven. And they said, so that's what
happens, isn't it? That's the problem that we all
have, brothers and sisters, not just these Jews, it's us here,
isn't it? Is that we look through the eyes
of flesh and we never see clearly. We look through the eyes of faith
and then we'll see clearly. The Jews murmured at him. They
murmured at him. People still murmuring exactly
the same things, aren't they? They murmured at him because
it said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they
said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How is it then that he sayeth,
I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. 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. As it is written in the prophets,
they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh to me. That last verse is the most comforting
verse for any preacher of the gospel in all of this world,
isn't it? It's written in the prophets,
that's what all the Old Testament is saying. They shall all be
taught of God, and every man that hath heard and learned of
the Father, been taught by the Father, comes to the Lord Jesus
Christ. While you're in John chapter
six and before we sing again, there's a verse that I want us
to have before us as we examine these words of the Lord Jesus
Christ to this crowd of people who at the end of this chapter
will go away. They'll all, every single last
one of them that heard this remarkable sermon left, except the 12, and
one of them was a devil. And the Lord said, there's the
door, you can go as well. And Peter says, to whom shall
we go? See, coming is to whom? Peter
had no one else to go. He had plenty of places to go.
He could have gone fishing, as he did later on. He could have
gone back to the world, but he had no one else to go. Verse
63 of chapter six is such a significant verse. If you want to understand
anything of the scriptures, this verse is absolutely essential.
It's the spirit that quickeneth, the spirit that gives life. The
flesh profiteth nothing. Dear oh dear, if the Lord would
teach us just those few simple words, we would be amazed, wouldn't
it? Because that's what our life here is, isn't it? We think that
the flesh is profiting things all the time. Our fleshly wisdom,
our fleshly understanding and our fleshly activities. The flesh
profits nothing. Then he says, the words that
I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. It's the words of this sermon,
but also it's the words that begin, in the beginning, God. And it's the words that finish,
the Spirit and the Bride say come. The Spirit and the Bride
say come. Surely I come quickly. So the whole Bible is a spiritual
book. All the pictures are spiritual
pictures. They happen in real time history,
they're happening in history right now, but it's a spiritual
reality that we are hearing the Lord Jesus Christ describe here.
And so, and throughout the scriptures, and particularly in John chapter
six, and in the rest of John's gospel, and all the other gospels,
and from Genesis one right through to the other, we have all these
synonyms of coming, don't we? Just in this short passage of
scripture, to come is to believe on. To come is to believe into.
To come is to eat the bread of life. To come is to see the son. To come is to be drawn by the
father. To come is to hear and listen of the father. To come
is to come to the manor that you need in the wilderness, the
manor that you came and gathered and lived in the midst of the
wilderness. God grew an army that conquered
those nations on manor. God grows an army today that
conquers, overcomes this world by faith. I have nowhere else to go. So
my prayer is that I would come. My prayer is that you would come.
My prayer is that if you have come, you'll keep coming. My
prayer is that if you haven't come, you'll come. You'll come
and hear the shepherd speak words of love, grace, and peace. We're
going to sing number 19, thank you. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. is singing. He shall. Let's turn in our Bibles back
to John chapter 6. What remarkable promises our
Lord Jesus Christ makes. Aren't they stupendous? A great
promiser and a great deliverer. Coming to Christ is my topic
this morning. It's the topic that the Lord
has led us to at this particular juncture in our journey. Verse
35, Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life, him that cometh
to me shall never hunger, and him that believeth on me shall
never thirst. And then he said those challenging
words that we spoke about earlier, but I said unto you that you
also have seen me and believe not. And then, The Lord reminds
us that he's not troubled by the unbelief of this world. And
people do all sorts of surveys. We've just had a census in Australia
and everyone's saying the Christian church is failing and all of
these things. The Christian church cannot fail.
The Christian church is triumphant. The Church of God is always perfectly
secure. The Church of God is always triumphing
in this world. The Lord Jesus Christ had this
crowd of maybe 5, maybe 10,000 people. I don't know how many
got to be in the synagogue and got to be in this audience, but
the end result of this sermon was that they all went away and
the Lord Jesus Christ is completely and utterly untroubled whatsoever.
And the reason is, of course, of what he said here, isn't it?
Verse 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. So this is a sermon that was
delivered to an unbelieving crowd and all we have to know is that
amongst that crowd were 11 people who did believe. And yet the
Lord Jesus Christ goes to those people and he gives them issues
of Christian life and doctrine. He gives them a fundamental description
of who he is. He gives them a fundamental description
of how he saves sinners. And he's completely and utterly
untroubled in his declaration of He not only created all these
people, but he created all the circumstances. And they are 100%
responsible for their unbelief and their wicked rebellion against
him. But nevertheless, his command is to come and his command is
to believe. So I just want us to look at
some things regarding this verse, and I want this to be simple. My little Miltie was down from
Wollongong, he's two, he just turned two a little while ago,
and Miltie's learning to count, and he's doing particularly well,
he's very, very pleased with himself. He says, one, two, three,
four, nine, 10, and then he cheers himself on. John chapter six. is the 1, 2, 3, 4 of mathematics,
as is John chapter 10, and as is the rest of the scriptures.
These verses people find controversial, and yet the Lord gives them to
a group of people who are walking away. He gives them to babes.
He gives them to babes. Yes, it is the glory of the Lord
to declare himself as the electing, choosing God. All that, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. So coming to the Lord
Jesus Christ is the evidence of divine election. It's the
act of a divine life. And it is the continuing activity
of all of God's children, as I read earlier from 1 Peter 2,
to whom coming We're always coming. We're always
in need. We always need a saviour and
never get beyond being a saviour. Always need a mercy seat to go
to. Never get beyond being needy. All of God's people are just
like that. The Lord Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the
life and no man cometh to the Father but by Him. See, coming
to the Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to come to the Father. It is the declaration of the
Church. In Revelation 22, 17, the Spirit
and the Bride say, come. They don't say, go and do. They
don't say, go and prepare yourself. They don't say, go and join a
religious organisation or come to a doctrine or some historic
position. They say, come to Him. Come to Him. Christ and all that
He is revealed in the Scriptures. Not go away, but come, come to
Him. All that are weary and heavy
laden, come. And so I want us, as the Lord
would enable us, just to look at what these verses say about
the coming ones and what it is for us to come. And the glorious
assurance for those who have come that these verses contain. And at the very beginning, we
need to be reminded of what John 6.44 said, as we read earlier,
no man can come. No man can come, except the Father
which has sent me draw him. The real coming to the Lord Jesus
Christ is to be drawn by God the Father, just as Peter drew
his sword from his scabbard to cut off the man's ear. Did the
sword have any power in the coming? That's what it is. Drawn. Drawn
by God the Father. And no wonder the church in Song
of Solomon and throughout the scriptures says, draw me and
we will run after thee. The King has brought me into
his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in
thee. We will remember your love more than mine. And the drawing we must never
forget is the drawing to the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified.
That's what John 12, 32 says. He says, if I'm lifted up from
the earth, I will draw all men to me. And they are the all men. that he speaks of here in these
verses that are before us. See, to come to Christ is to
be drawn by God the Father. To come to Christ is to have
Him revealed. See, you can't come until you
find out that coming is all of the work of God. And you can't
come until you actually find out who He is. And if you see
who He is, you'll come to Him. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. So divine election, the divine
glory and solid will and power of our God is necessary to be
preached in the preaching of the gospel. It's his name, isn't
it? It's his title that his father
gives him, the elect one of God. So notice there at the beginning
of our verse, he describes the people that come as the all that. All that. All that, that's all
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the all that, that in verse
39, he'll lose nothing. All that which he's given me,
I shall lose nothing. It's the all that, that shall
be in verse 45, thou shalt be all taught of God. It's the all
that, that in verse 44, are drawn to God the Father. It's the all
that, that are raised up in John 6, 40, raised up at the last
day. They are all that. They are pictured
as an individual in verse 35. He that cometh to me. All of God's children are coming
ones. Come, come is the message that's
repeated again and again and again throughout John's gospel.
That's what the Samaritan woman, when she was converted, she says,
come and see a man, come and see a man who is the Messiah.
And he's told me all things whatsoever I have done. Come, the Lord says,
come. His disciples say, come and see,
come and see. If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink. Faith throughout the scriptures
is described as coming to the Lord Jesus Christ. You come to
the manor in the desert. You come to the smitten rock
in the desert and you drink. You eat and drink upon those
things that represent the Lord Jesus Christ. into the Ark and
then the Lord shut them in and that Ark bore all the wrath of
God that fell on the rest of the world and it was what destroyed
the world carried that Ark above all those things and it came
to rest on a high mountain. The Lord called Adam and Eve
out of darkness to himself. He calls his people to himself.
So saving faith is the topic that's before us in these scriptures
that we've read earlier. And there are some absolutely
essential things about what it is to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ that are just here set before us. As I said in Milton's
language, that's the ABCs of mathematics, isn't it? These
are just fundamental to what it is to know who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. To know the one coming is to
whom coming, to whom coming. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Obviously the coming begins in
the purpose of God, like everything else. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God. In the
beginning of your salvation, God. In the beginning of the
revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, God. In the beginning
of the revelation of you being a sinner in need of a saviour,
God. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. When were they given? When were they given to the Lord
Jesus Christ? Well, the Scriptures is so abundantly
clear about that, aren't they? They were given to the Lord Jesus
Christ before the foundation of the world. They've always
been His. And what a remarkable thing to
ponder, isn't it? That the Church of God was the
gift of God the Father to His Son before the foundation of
the world. He's a very, very good giver.
And when he gives to his son, he gives that which is precious
to him. The church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is precious to God the Father. He gave them to his son,
and he gave them into the care of his son. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, before the foundation of the world, took absolute responsibility
for them. presented that bride to his son. What was the son's response?
Similar to Adam's in the garden, when he first laid eyes on Eve,
isn't she glorious? And the Lord Jesus Christ, before
the foundation of the world, became the surety of the eternal
covenant for those particular people. And that's what the scriptures
say again And again, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the surety. He was made a surety of a better
testimony. He's made the surety of the eternal
covenant. That's when they were given to
him by God the Father. Were they secure? Were they secure
in his arms when he was given them? Are they secure now? Was there ever a moment in all
of history that then follows necessarily from that eternal
covenant transaction? Was there ever a moment where
there was anything other than perfectly secure? Did God the
Father and God the Son know that they would fall in their father
Adam? Did God the Father and God the
Son know that they would come forth from their mother's worm-speaking
lies, that their natural habitat in this world is darkness rather
than light? The natural response to God is
to run from Him rather than run to Him. Have you been bushwalking?
Some of you go bushwalking quite regularly. You know what it's
like when you turn over a stone or move a log in the bush. All
those little things that are hiding in the darkness. What
do they do? They immediately scurry back into the darkness.
That's what man's doing. Did God know that that's what
we were going to do? Did He know that there was going
to be a time of love when He would come? to each of them and
say, you are mine. See why? Why didn't he destroy
them in the garden? Because before the foundation
of the world, God already had them saved in the
arms of his Son. It's the Lamb was slain from
the foundation of the world, which is why Adam and Eve were
able to come out into this world and reproduce all of that offspring. All that the Father gives me. They were given before the foundation
of the world. They were given as a gift to
the Father, to the Son. and they became his responsibility.
The Lord Jesus Christ took absolute full responsibility, which is
why we read Colossians 1, isn't it? It is his role to present
them back to his Father, holy, unblameable, and unapprovable
in his sight. He takes full responsibility
for all of their sins of all the wickednesses
that you can possibly imagine, he takes responsibility. That's what it is for them to
be the coming ones, isn't it? For those who find themselves
sinners, these words, that all that the Father hath given me
shall come to me, are the sweetest words in all We were given before
the foundation of the world. Everything begins with God. So
coming to Christ doesn't begin with the will of man, but the
will of God. Coming to Christ doesn't begin
with the decision of man, it begins with the decision of God.
What's God doing right now? exactly what he purposed in all
eternity? Is this world out of control?
Is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ one tiny little bit less
or more trouble than it's ever been? Of course these times are
difficult, these times of despair, in these times, the times where
the people of God call out to God and we are often asked, along
with the people in Revelation, why? Why? And yet our God says, So the big question of coming
to Christ, and the big question of faith, is not what I'm going
to do with God. The big question is, what's God
going to do with you? That is the question, isn't it?
So spiritual realities, as we read in John 6.63, supersede
created realities. What's set in eternity will come
to pass. We need to hear, believers, we
need to hear again and again that all that the Father gives
me will come to me, because the sin, one of the sins that so
easily entangles us is just our unbelief, and unbelief is always
dethroning God. Unbelief is always looking at
the things of this world rather than the things of heaven. Unbelief
never sees the Lord Jesus Christ enthroned in heaven, reigning
and ruling over all things. What's God doing? Everything
that he purposed, everything that he's purposed. That was
the problem with the Jews, isn't it? They looked at the Lord Jesus
Christ as his, he's just a carpenter. They looked at John the Baptist,
said he's an ordinary man, there's nothing special about him, we
can go back to Jerusalem and back to our religion. There's
nothing here for us. There is for sinners, there is
for those who come. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. No man can except the Father
which has sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last
days. They shall be all taught of God,
verse 45, every man therefore that has heard and learned of
the Father, they come. So it's God, the Father's work.
It's God the Father's work to bring His people to Himself.
All that were ordained to eternal life, believed. All that were ordained to eternal
life, believed. See, it all begins with the will
of God. Coming to Christ begins with
His will. And so we've got to stop, if the Lord will have us,
to look in outside of ourselves, to look at our abilities, our
inabilities, our adequacies, our inadequacies. We just have
to look. If you're a bitten sinner, you
look up to the brazen serpent. You don't look to yourself and
you don't look to anyone else around you. You look up to him.
You look up to the cross. We look up to heaven. We look
up, look unto him and be saved, all you ends of the earth. You
don't look to others, you look to Christ. You don't look to
your intellect in that of others, you don't look to what is esteemed
amongst men, you look to Christ. Coming to Christ is coming to
Him. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. See, saving faith is coming to
Him. You don't come to anything else,
you come to Him. You don't come to Him by a physical
activity, you come to Him by a spiritual work. You come to
Him in your heart without moving a muscle. Men have constructed
all sorts of religious schemes to try and both mimic and enhance
what God has promised to do, hasn't He? And people have all
these traditions that they've created, that people walk an
aisle and they say a sinner's prayer and they make a decision
and they sign their name in John 3.16 and they write the date
so they can go back and look at the date again and again.
True saving faith is coming to Christ by revelation of God's
Spirit. It's coming to Him. It's seeing
Him. It's seeing Him as He is. To
come to Him is to have an understanding, as 1 John 5.20 says. It's an
understanding that's given us, that we may know Him, that is
true, and that we are in Him. That is true. And you ask people
how to explain that. We can't explain that. I can't
understand that. All I can do is believe it, can't
we? How can we believe that we're in Him? Except by believing. It's not a physical activity
coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, it's a spiritual activity coming
to Him. We come to Him. when we see him,
as I said earlier, high and lifted up. We come to him and see our
sins being borne by him in his own body on the tree. We come
to him and see how God can be just and the justifier of the
ungodly. We come to him and we see through
the eyes of faith, which multitudes have never seen, when the Lord
Jesus Christ was on that cross, when he was shedding his life's
blood, when he was bearing the sins of all of these that will
come to him, bearing their sins of unbelief, bearing their sins
of rebellion, bearing all of the sins that you and I are committing
right now. He was bearing all those sins
in his own body on the tree. But in him and him crucified,
we see all of the character of God magnified. That's what we
see, isn't it? John continually has these long
discussions in John's Gospel and it's always about the character
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes a particular situation,
a miracle, and he uses the response of men and the questions of men
just to describe himself yet again as God and Saviour. The
religious world mocked him, and the religious world mocks him
to this day. But the character of God is revealed
in Jesus Christ and him crucified. If you want to know what the
sovereignty of God is all about, you look to the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's the determinate counsel and full knowledge of
God that's put in there. If you want to see the sinfulness
of your own sin, you look to the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified. If you want to see what the love of God really is
like for his people, you look to the Lord Jesus Christ and
you'll be crucified. If you want to see what grace
is, you look to the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be crucified.
If you want to see what salvation is, you look to the Lord Jesus
Christ and you'll be crucified. The world is absolutely littered
these days with how-to books, aren't they? Christian how-to
books. You know, how to do this and how to do those things. There
is one simple book, isn't there? And this one's been written.
And what's it say? Look to Him. Look to Him if you want to be
a better husband. Look to Him if you want to be a better wife.
Look to Him if you want to be a better giver, if you want to
be better in everything. You don't need all the books,
the rubbish. because what the books are saying is you look
to yourself, aren't they? They're saying you look inside
and then we can polish up the inside and all of a sudden out
will pop something that's honouring to God. God's children are perfect
brothers and sisters in Christ. They have no sin in his sight.
The comfort of believers is coming and looking to him, looking to
him, looking to him. They're all taught of God, the
one's coming, are taught of God, and when God teaches, His children
get the lessons. They'll get them in 1, 2, 3,
4, 9, 10, and cheer. They'll get them in simple terms,
aren't they? These are simple, simple pictures that the Lord
Jesus Christ is painting here. Every man that has heard and
learned of the Father comes to me. Coming is a learning process,
isn't it? To be a disciple is to be a learner. When you get beyond being a learner,
you get beyond being a beggar. You get beyond being someone
who's needy. If you are like me and have walked
with the Lord, you'll find yourself still a learner, still a learner. We never cease learning. We still
go to this book and we find things about the Lord Jesus Christ that
just cause us to say, like me, I'll do you one, two, three,
four, nine, 10, wow. Isn't that remarkable? I've never seen that
before. It's just there. They learn of the Father and
they come to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the learning, isn't it?
The learning. The end result of the learning is not for someone
to be a wise and intellectual theologian and walk around in
robes and be fancy. The end result of the learning
is you just come, isn't it? Have you learnt? Just come. Just come. The natural man cannot
come, and the natural man sees the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ as foolishness. This is the will of him that
sent me. Everyone that seeth the sun and believeth on him
may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last
day. See, faith sees in the Son what the world could never see.
We see in a crucified Saviour what the world could never see.
No wonder the world is continually modifying the character of God
on the cross to actually establish something that they can exalt
in themselves. But see, true saving faith sees
the truth of God, because God the Father's been the teacher,
hasn't He? True saving faith sees the way to God, there is
no other way to God. True saving faith sees life,
eternal life's in Him, and outside of Him there is only death. Faith
sees Him as the light of God when everything else is darkness.
Faith sees Him as the Word of God, the living Word of God,
the Word that creates reality. Think about that for a second.
God creates reality by speaking. God creates reality. He creates
the reality about who I am in Him by speaking a word. Faith sees the grace of God. We're justified freely by His
grace and it's not of ourselves. Let's read on in our text. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. The longer you go
on in your life here, the more you'll come to love the shalls
and wills of God. I just love the shalls and wills
of God. Every time you read them you say, yep, that's done. You
can put a done beside every single will and shall that God ever
has in the scriptures. All that the Father gives me
shall come to me. Not might, if they do something. You're not coming to an offer,
you're coming drawn by the power of God, the Father. God gives
the gift of faith, and it's never thrown away. Whenever God gives,
you read John's Gospel, every time there's a giving, there's
a receiving. Every time there's a giving, there's a receiving.
When he gives, there is a receiving. God's work is effectual. As I said earlier, The Lord Jesus
Christ is speaking to a crowd of thousands of people who have
seen the most stupendous miracles that they've ever seen in his
life. And the miracles continued and continued. And the Lord Jesus
says to the unbelievers, he says, you believe not. don't believe,
because you are not of my sheep. John 10, 26. My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. No one, not any man, not any
man in this world, but particularly not this one. get away from him. They shall
come. They shall come. God issues a general call to
all humanity, but he issues a particularly effective call, doesn't he? This
is the good work that he has begun in you. God works, intervenes. He intervenes on your road to
hell, and he says you're mine. and you're coming and you're
going to hear and I'll keep you until the end. God intervenes
and he continues that work. And as Micah says in chapter
7, that Micah, even though I fall seven times, God will lift me
up. Seven is the number of perfection
in the scriptures. Even though I am falling all
the time, and continually falling, don't rejoice over me when I
fall. God will pick me up yet again, and again, and again,
and again. We have, many of us, been through
some really tough times just lately, and some of it very raw
and fresh in our memories, but every single last little part
of that was just God at work, wasn't it? And he will cause
his people to cling to him. They shall come. We are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation
through sanctification of spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto
he called you by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of
our Lord Jesus Christ. of God's people. That's possession. Coming is always effectual. They shall come. How do you know
you're one of God's elect? You come to Christ. What's the
evidence? Faith! In Him, as He describes
Himself, Him that cometh to me. See, God's children, God's elect
in this world, are not identified by what they have done, but what
they are doing in the Scriptures. It's an ongoing activity. Are
you coming now? Come now, He says. Coming is
always present and effectual. It's not a decision of religion. It is a process of coming. Grace reigns. The grace of God
that causes His people to come. You see, for religion, it's an
isolated act. You write your name down on something
and you remember the time you came forward and say the sinner's
prayer. Coming to Christ is a living
principle. principle in the hearts of God's
children. God's children are brought to
him and they stand. It's an active living work. It's a new birth, a new creation
which is alive to God. They come to him because they
have life. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And let's look at the results
of coming. And to him that cometh to me, I spoke about this last week.
Isn't it remarkable the wonderful things, the extraordinarily powerful
things the Lord Jesus Christ can say in the simplest words?
It's a seven-letter sentence, isn't it? One one-letter word,
two two-letter words, three three-letter words, two four-letter words.
I will in no wise cast out. What's at the end of that sentence? Religion would tell people there's
an if there. This notion that we sort of polish
ourselves up God starts a work and then we
begin a work of polishing. It's called progressive sanctification.
We get better and better and better and we get more and more
holy. And finally, at the end of the thing, we're a piece of
ripe fruit and God can pick us and take us to heaven. Where
on earth do you ever find that in the scriptures or in the life
of David or Saul or Tarsus or any of them? You don't find it
anywhere in the scriptures. Why do we mess up? What God says
is simple. I will in no wise cast out. All
that the Father gives me shall come to me and I will in no wise
cast out. What if he has periods of unbelief?
I don't have any time when my flesh is not living in unbelief,
brothers and sisters. It's the new creation in us that
believes. Thank God for a new birth. What a dishonour to the name of God for people
to imagine that he can possibly start something and fail. If you're like me, you love those
verses in Isaiah 42. He shall not fail nor be discouraged,
ever. And so, what are the results
of this coming? I will in no wise cast out To the one who sins, he's saying
come. To the doubting sinner who can't
see, can't see in himself for any reason for Christ to be merciful
to him. We come to him for life. We come
to him for sins forgiven. We come to him. The dying thief came, didn't
he? On the last and glorious acts of the Lord Jesus Christ,
be glory cried out, it is finished. He says to that man, you'll be
with me in paradise today. He came, didn't he? He came to the Lord Jesus Christ. I will in no wise cast out. To the weak believer, to the
Bruce Reed and the smoking flax, he says, I will know why it's
cast out. Why won't he cast him out? Let's go back to the beginning
of the verse and see why he won't cast him out. All that the Father
giveth me. All that the Father giveth me. That's why he won't
cast him out. Because God has purpose to save him and he has
purpose to save him in such a way that he saves into the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He saves him in such a way that
he gets all of the glory and God's people get the rest in
who he is and what he's done. It's the Lord Jesus Christ's
work to take. our sins and bear them away, and to give us the
robe of his righteousness. He reigns, our God. I will in no wise cast out. I will in no wise cast out. What an encouragement to come.
What an encouragement to keep on coming, brothers and sisters
in Christ. What an encouragement it is that
we have a glorious, glorious God who signed these promises
with his blood on Calvary's tree. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you cause your people to come. And we thank
you that we have such a glorious one that draws us with cords
of love and cords of sovereign power. And we are just simply
called upon to come, we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would
take your commands and turn them into promises and into a living
reality in the lives of your people here. Bless your word,
Heavenly Father, magnify your son, for we pray in his precious
name, amen.