Alright brethren, let's go back
here now to John chapter 6. We saw Sunday how the Lord worked
this mighty miracle and He fed this multitude of people. We
know there was upwards of 20,000 to 30,000 people in this multitude. So after He feeds them, we read
in verse 14, then those men, when they had seen the miracle
that Jesus did, they saw the miracle He did, said, this is
of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world. When
Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him
by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain
himself alone. The other, one of the gospels speaks about
how that the Lord sent the multitude away and he also sent his apostles
and his disciples away, sent his apostles across the sea.
And then he went up into a mountain alone to pray. Now, he performed
this miracle and they got excited. They said, this is that prophet,
this is that prophet that was to come, that should come into
the world. They're taking this from Deuteronomy 18.15. where
Moses said, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet
from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him
shall you hearken. Now these natural children, they
were all the natural children of Israel, they were all looking
for this prophet. They knew this prophet was coming.
And they even called him Messiah. But they had no spiritual understanding. The Pharisees, remember, sent
to John the Baptist. And they came to him and they
said, are thou that prophet? They were looking for this prophet.
Are thou that prophet? He said, no. The Samaritan woman
knew that Christ would be the prophet. She said, I perceive,
sir, you're a prophet. And then she said, I know that
Messiah cometh, which is called Christ. And when he's come, he'll
tell us all things. She knew about this scripture
of Moses. Later, in John 7, they kind of
got into a dispute over it, talking about, is this the prophet? Some said this is the Christ,
and then they said, well, he can't be, he's supposed to be
the seed of David, and he's supposed to come out of Bethlehem, be
born of Bethlehem, and they got into a disagreement over it.
They knew the prophet was coming, they knew he was the Messiah,
but they didn't have spiritual understanding of who he was.
Now, what jumped out at me about this verse, is this verse, there's
salvation in our Lord rejecting this multitude. We see our salvation
in this. In our Lord rejecting this multitude,
we see the faithfulness of our King. This is by whom we're saved. I want to show you four things.
I want to show you His faithfulness concerning temptation. I want
to show you His faithfulness concerning the covenant, His
faithfulness concerning His office as a high priest, and then His
faithfulness in saving His people. Now, first of all, let's see
His faithfulness concerning temptation. Now this is a great multitude
of people. A great multitude of people.
And they desire to take him by force and make him king. But
our Lord refused this. He refused it. Now the devil
had already tempted him in the wilderness. Go back over to Matthew
4 and look there. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 8. It says again, the devil taketh
him up into exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms
of the world and the glory of them. One of the gospels says
in a moment he showed him all the kingdoms of the world beginning
to end and all the glory of those kingdoms. And he said to him,
all these things will I give thee if thou will fall down and
worship me. And then saith Jesus unto him,
Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And then the
devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. The
devil's temptation in the wilderness was to have the Savior worship
him rather than God the Father. He only had power as the devil
temporarily while the Lord came to save his people
and that was only by the sovereign will of God. He was allowed to
come in and begal Eve and so Adam fell through her as a figure,
as a figure, as a head for when Christ would come and save his
people. Strictly for the glory of God that he was given any
power but the devil knew Christ is coming to crush his head.
and he's going to save his people, he's going to deliver us from
our sins and by that take away all the power the devil had to
accuse us. And so he wanted to see the Lord fall down and worship
him and he tempted him with all the kingdoms all in a moment.
And our Lord said, thou shalt worship the Lord. It's written,
thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve.
This right here is just another attempt by the devil, and we're
not told that, but you know he's still trying everything that
he brought before our Redeemer. He's trying to make our Redeemer
falter. And our Savior rejected this
because he's faithful to the Father. He was not going to have
this multitude make him a king. He's the representative of his
people and he came to faithfully serve the father for his people. He said, I must be about my father's
business. And here we see his perfect obedience
to what to us would have been a great temptation. And to those
apostles and those disciples, it would have been a great temptation.
And our Lord faithfully rejected that. He faithfully looked to
the Father. Now, you think about this, brethren. It's only by the faithfulness
of Christ as our King in whom we have perfectly resisted temptation
in Him. All temptation, we resisted all
temptation. Just looking at this right here,
Him rejecting this multitude, think how tempting that would
be to you and to me. But in Him, we've perfectly been
obedient to the Father and He's laid down His life and paid for
the sins for us sinning when we've been brought into trial
and our sinful flesh has led us away in temptation. But you
think about it, how often we fail when we're tempted. You
think what a temptation this was for the apostles. 20,000
or 30,000 people are wanting to take their master and make
him the king and they're in the inner circle with him. They're
like his you know, his inner circle, and they want to come
and make him a king, that would be tempting for them because
they were, at that time, they were looking for an earthly kingdom
too, the apostles were. They didn't understand fully
what Christ was doing. You know, you take the Lord and
I've seen the Lord move, I saw him move my pastor, and sometimes
that happens, but you see so many tempted by you know, a larger
congregation and it's going to make it easier on their life
and it's going to give them some ease and maybe there's some past
glory attached to it or whatever. What's going to keep his people
being faithful to him? You see a promotion and prosperity
come and people are taken away from the gospel. What's going
to keep you from that? He is. He's the one who is faithful
to keep his people, but he's also the one, you know, even
thinking about it is covetousness. And he's the one who faithfully
served the Father so that in him we've resisted temptation
perfectly. Perfectly. And he paid for our
sin for where we have it. And this is why we pray, lead
us not into temptation. He taught us to pray this. Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Why? For thine
is the kingdom. He did this as the King. That
is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. And so we
see His faithfulness in temptation. And thankfully He keeps us by
that same faithfulness. Now, secondly, look here. We
see His faithfulness in rejecting this multitude because He is
remaining true to the everlasting covenant. Before this world was
made, God the Father already made Him the King. He entered
covenant with Him in an everlasting decree saying He will be the
King. And that He would bless His seed
in Him. And that He would raise Him as the God-man to sit on
the throne forever. Go over to Psalm 89. And so He
is not looking to any man to make Him a king. He is being
faithful to the covenant of the Father. Psalm 89 verse 1. I will sing of the mercies of
the Lord forever. With my mouth will I make known
thy faithfulness to all generations. This is what we are seeing, his
faithfulness to the covenant of the Father who made him a
king, rather than these men that want to make him a king. For
I have said, shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt
thou establish in the very heavens." This is God the Father and God
the Son. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I've sworn unto David my servant. That's Christ he's speaking about.
God's speaking about Christ. I've made a covenant with David
my servant, Christ. Thy seed will I establish forever. That's you and me who are his
elect. Thy seed will I establish forever and build up Thy throne
to all generations." See how he's talking about a throne?
He promised him the throne. He said, Selah, think about that. You and I should look at this
and say, that's our salvation. Because that covenant, him being
faithful to that covenant to be the king appointed by the
father, that's our salvation. Look at verse 5, The heavens
shall praise thy wonders, O Lord, and thy faithfulness also in
the congregation of the saints. Look down at verse 29, His seed
also will I make to endure forever in His throne as the days of
heaven. That's speaking of Christ and
His elect. And He says there, And if His
children sin, I'll chasten them as a father. Because He does
that because the stroke of justice fell on our Redeemer. And thank
God for that, that He will chasten us and save us from us. But look
at verse 33. He says, Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
will I not utterly take from Him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that's gone out of my lips. Once I've sworn
by my holiness, I will not lie to David. Do you see that in
this verse? I see in this verse first his
faithfulness in rejecting any temptation. And that's our salvation
from all temptation is in him. And then you see his faithfulness
here being true to the covenant because the Father has decreed
He's made an everlasting covenant with Him. And so Christ is faithful
to the Father because He's fulfilling that covenant for His seed. You
know, you read over there when Peter stood up on the day of
Pentecost and Peter said, David was speaking of Christ. It's His throne, it's forever.
And our Lord has raised Him and He's both Lord and Christ, He's
the King. And so he was faithful, and that's
our salvation. That is our salvation, because
he was faithful to that covenant. Now look at this third thing.
Just by him rejecting this multitude of people that want to make him
king. That just struck me, brethren, because that would be tempting. That would be very tempting.
You know, a church gets a new building, That's very tempting
to lift you up in pride. You know, these things so easily
sway us. What's going to keep us? He does.
And here's his faithfulness now. I want to show you this third
thing. As the high priest. See, he had a work to do before
he ascends to the throne to be the king and be consecrated as
the king publicly as the God-man who is our king. He's got a high
priestly work to do. He couldn't have these people
take him and make him a king and announce it to the world,
because he's got to be consecrated by God, but only after he's fulfilled
his high priestly work. He wouldn't ascend to the throne
in heaven as king to accomplish that work for his people. Over
in Hebrews 2 verse 17, He came to honor the law and
he came to redeem his people. And he came to do it as the high
priest who is himself the Lamb. And look at Hebrews 2.17. It
says, Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for
the sins of the people. Now, some of the commentaries
point out that after he sent the multitude away, and after
he sent his apostles away, and he went up into that mountain
alone, the other gospels are pointing out other characteristics
of our Redeemer, but John's talking about him as the king and as
the priest, and all that he accomplished as God, and he doesn't say he
prayed. He's gonna talk about him and
John 17 praying, but that's as a high priest. And so they point
out that him going up into that mountain alone is a shadow of
Leviticus 16, 17. Let me read this to you. It says,
there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation
when the high priest goes in to make atonement in the holiest
of holies until he come out and has made atonement for himself
and for his household and for all the congregation of Israel.
And so they're saying that picture of him going up into the mountain
alone is a foreshadowing of how he had to go and perform this
high priestly work alone. Nobody could help him. He had
to suffer on the cross alone, he had to enter into the Holiest
of Holies alone, and it had to be by his own blood. And so when
he did that, and he accomplished that, now where is he? Did he
do it by himself? Hebrews 1.3 said he by himself
purged our sin. And then what does it say? And
then he sat down where? On the right hand of the majesty
on high. Hebrews 8 and verse 1 says, We
have such a high priest who sat on the right hand of the throne
of the majesty in the heaven. They want to make him a king.
He had to fulfill this high priestly work first, but he did it. Now,
where is he? He's sitting in the throne as
our high priest and our king priest. He says there, back in
Hebrews 1 in verse 8, he says, unto the son, Unto the Son, He saith, Thy throne,
O God, is for ever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is
the scepter of Thy kingdom. So He's, by doing this, rejecting
men making Him king, He went and did this high priestly work.
Accomplished redemption for us, and He's entered in now, and
He's seated in the throne in glory, and it's by His blood
and by His Spirit that He makes us king priests. He's the king
and the high priest, and he makes us king-priests, because in faithfulness,
he rejected what they tried to do. Now, lastly, I want to show
you how we see his faithfulness in rejecting this multitude.
While he rejected them, he called sinners like us who are no different
from them. Absolutely no different from
them. And I thought this applied to what's going on in the world
today. By nature, we were like this multitude. They called him
a prophet. They called him Messiah. And
there's a lot of folks who regard the Lord Jesus Christ as a prophet,
like Buddha and like Muhammad, a teacher. And they teach his
precepts. but they despise the fact that
he actually came and accomplished redemption for a chosen people
and that he alone is the righteousness and the holiness and the redemption
and the wisdom of his people. But that's who he is. He's not
just a teacher. But here's the thing, you and
I who he saved were no different than those folks. We were no
different than that multitude. And the multitude was looking
for somebody to be their king in this life. They were looking
for somebody to give them blessings in this life, give them ease
in this life, free them from the Roman Empire that they hated,
and they thought this was the one to do it. That's no different
than what's going on in our nation right now. Men looking for earthly
deliverance, earthly ease from an earthly king in an earthly
nation, earthly kingdom. That's us when we were dead in
our sin. Why did He reject them and call us? They would have received Him
as long as they made Him king by force. They are going to come
into Jerusalem crying, Hosanna! praising Him as the King anyway.
And a few days later they are going to be crying out, crucify
Him, crucify Him, crucify Him. But they would have taken Him
if He would have let them make Him King by their force. What
a boast is it for sinners to say, I made Him Lord of my life. He already is King. They came
to Him when He was born. They said, where is He that is
born King of the Jews? Were you different? I wasn't
any different from that. This is the sin nature of every
fallen sinner. This is our sin nature now. What
are we trying to do? We want to take Christ by force
and put Him on the throne for selfish gain. That's what we
wanted. That's what our sin nature is.
That's what the sin nature of man is. We'll put Him on the
throne when we need some blessings. But if we want to rule things,
let's take him off the throne and put ourselves in the throne.
That's the nature in each of us. But our king is God all-knowing. And he says here, when Jesus
therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force
to make him a king, he knows every heart. He knows every single
heart. He knows the hearts of the regenerate
and the hearts of the unregenerate. Everything is just naked as can
be with Him. He sees everything, knows everything,
hears everything. And it says back in John 2 and
verse 24, the Lord Jesus did not commit Himself unto them
because He knew all and He needed not that any should testify of
man for He knew what was in man. He knew what they were coming,
what they were doing. So if there is no difference
between them and us, what made the difference? Why did He reject
them and call you? It's nothing but the grace of
God. That's it. The grace of God. That's the
only thing. He knows His sheep that He chose,
that He came to lay down His life for. He sovereignly calls
His sheep and He makes us know Him. He knows us all. And our king-priest makes his
child see we're sinners. He makes us know we're sinners.
And He won't let us stop knowing we're sinners. There was going
to be no No broken heart in this. There will be no falling down
before His feet in this thing. They will just come and make
Him a king. But He is going to make His child know we are sinners.
And He doesn't let us stop knowing we are sinners. He brings us
to cry for mercy at His feet. And He keeps us at His feet.
He keeps us like Mephibosheth looking down and saying, Lord,
what is it that you would have mercy on a dead dog like me?
Like the publican who is on his face saying, Lord have mercy
on me the sinner. That is constant. He is going to keep us there. He
is going to make us know His kingdom is spiritual, His salvation
is eternal. It is not an earthly thing. He said in John 18.36, My kingdom
is not of this world. If my kingdom was of this world,
then my servants would be out here in the street fighting,
trying to make political change. And it's not. They're not. Because
my kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of God is within
you. If you've been born of the Spirit of God, the kingdom of
God is Christ our King. And if Christ has been formed
in us, the kingdom is within us. That's why it comes without
observation. This is how He makes us know He's the King. He wields
His scepter of righteousness in our hearts. And He doesn't
stop. He doesn't stop. It's a scepter of righteousness,
of power. And He wields that in the hearts
of His people. This is how He makes us believe
He's the Priest and the Lamb in whom we're complete. He rules
this world and He rules the lives of his people for the sake of
his people. He purchased us with his blood. I believe him. You believe him?
He purchased us. He bought us. And he's ruling
everything in the whole world and in each of our lives and
in our lives collectively to keep us knowing that we're his. He chastens us for our good if
He has to strip us of everything we have. He's going to break
us. And He's going to bring us to
cry out to Him. And He does that only to those
He loves. Only to those He loves. We can
be so cruel about that. And He only does it to those
He loves. Why? To keep us partaking of His holiness. not trusting ourselves for anything,
so that we're not judged with this world. That's mercy, that's
grace, that's what he does as a faithful king for his people.
And he uses us through this gospel to call out all the other fellow
citizens of this kingdom. This is the weapon. It's not
a carnal weapon, this is it. He's doing this for that purpose.
He said in Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at
my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. Every
enemy is going to be made his footstool. Every one of them. Those that are His by divine
election, they are going to come down to His feet by His grace.
And those that are not are going to bow and confess He is King
of kings and Lord of lords. But all are going to be made
His footstool. And how does He do this? The Lord shall send
the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst
of thine enemies. And the result be, thy people
shall be willing in the day of thy power and the beauties of
holiness from the womb of the morning, because thou hast to
do with thy youth. The Lord has sworn it. He will
not repent. You're a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. Our king priest is doing this
through his gospel. He's the same yesterday. He hasn't
changed. He's the same today. He'll be
the same tomorrow. And He is ruling His kingdom.
He is ruling the hearts of His people. And everything that is
coming to pass in this world is happening right on track,
exactly according to His purpose. And His people are going to worship
Him. They are going to worship Him. Yea, all kings shall fall
down before Him. All nations shall serve Him.
Are there any poor and needy? Anybody poor and needy? I mean
poor and needy. For he shall deliver the needy
when he crieth, the poor also and him that hath no helper.
He shall spare the poor and needy and shall save the souls of the
needy. There were some people he came
in contact with that weren't poor and needy. But everybody
he came in contact with is poor and needy. We don't ever stop
being poor and needy, do we? He don't ever stop saving us.
What about the enemy? Look at Revelation 17. Look at verse 14. These shall
make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them. Why?
For He is Lord of lords and King of kings. And they that are with
Him, they are called and chosen and faithful. He said every knee
is going to bow, every tongue is going to confess. He is Lord
to the praise and glory of God. And He has made us a royal priesthood,
Peter said, to show forth His praises. And He is going to keep
chastening His people He's going to keep saving us from the lusts
of our flesh that war against our soul. And when He does this,
as He does this, He's going to use us to preach His Word. He's
going to keep on purifying His people, cleansing His people,
making us walk in the good works He's ordained for us to walk
in. He's not going to fail in that at all. And so He tells
us there, He says, while the world is rebelling against authority,
He says for us to submit to all the magistrates that He has put
in place. You know why? Because He is the
King. He is calling the shots. He is ruling it all. And there
is nothing out of His power, nothing whatsoever that is not
accomplishing His purpose, every bit of it. This is the faithfulness
of our King. Look one more time over there
at Revelation 3. I want to show you this last verse. He is going
to make us overcome by His blood. By this testimony we have that
He is our all. And He says here in Romans 3.21,
He says, And to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in
My throne even as I also overcame and have sat down with My Father
in His throne. That salvation, that is our whole
salvation in the rejection of them trying to make Him a king.
The perfection of every temptation we enter into is Christ. He's
faithful as the King to the covenant of the Father by whom we're saved
by His everlasting covenant. He's faithful as our high priest.
He had to accomplish that work before He ascended to the throne
and He did it. And He's faithful, it's by the
faithfulness of our King that He called us, keeps us, keeps
teaching us, keeps chasing us, keeps growing us. And one day
we're going to be with Him and cast it all before Him and praise
Him as King of King and Lord of Lord. That's the faithfulness
of our King. I pray you bless it. Father,
we thank you. We ask you to make this word
speak to our hearts. We ask you for that. We ask you
to rule in our midst with that Word and humble us and keep us and strengthen
us. Lord, work Your will. We're thankful,
Father, that we know that Your King's on Your holy hill and
that everything is coming to pass in this world right now.
He's ruling it, and it's all accomplishing Your purpose for
the salvation of Your people. Lord, thank You We can be confident
in this and know that you're going to keep your people, protect
your people, teach your people. Lord, keep us ever mindful that everything you're doing for your
people is for our good. Keep us knowing that everything that we encounter
is to save us from our sins. to help us to be helpers of others,
to help to point to Christ and edify
with Christ and strengthen with Christ. Lord, make us truly be servants
of your kingdom. Rule in our hearts, rule in our
midst. Lord, thank you for mercy. Thank you that covenant says
you'll keep mercy forever for your people. We ask you for Christ's
sake, Lord, please be merciful. We thank you for, for your mercy
and your forgiveness in Christ's name. Amen.