Turn with me again to John chapter
6, if you would, continuing our study there. So good to have
Moose and Sandy with us today. Looking forward so much to hearing
what the Lord's given him to preach. You know, I was thinking
this morning, this religious world in which we live are always
talking about what they're doing for God. But men and women by
nature are dead in trespasses and sin. Isn't it amazing how
few folks know that? Not just wounded by sin, not
just lightly affected by their iniquities, but dead. And as
we say in the South, plum dead, plum dead. I don't suppose there's
a chapter really in all the entire Word of God that shows man's
deadness any clearer than John chapter 6. In the first 13 verses
we saw the feeding of the multitude, and immediately the deadness
of man's heart is seen even in the Lord's closest friends and
disciples. They walked with the creator
and yet doubted that he had the ability to make something out
of a little, even though he'd made the world out of nothing. Just amazing. Philip said, where
shall we buy bread that these may eat? Well, first of all,
you can't buy what the Lord intends to freely give. He said, 200
penny worth of bread is not sufficient. It is when it's the all sufficient
one who's standing before you. So he needs nothing from no one
to accomplish his work, power, purpose, and providence, nothing. Andrew then steps up, as you
remember, and he said, I found a lad with five loaves and two
small fishes, and it seems that the emphasis is on small. And then he adds, what are they
among so many? The real question is, who is
Christ among so many? He's the sovereign God of heaven
and earth and nothing is too hard or too difficult for him. The scripture's so clear, he
can do anything. He can do everything. The Lord
Jesus with, I love these words that our Lord said, with power
and authority, even without reproving his disciples' unbelief, he simply
said, make the men to sit down. He's fixing to give them a front
row seat to a display of his sovereign power and deity. Oh,
I would have loved to have been among that multitude that day
and seen the feeding of 5,000 plus. As only God can do, he provides
what is needed with little or nothing. And in the end, there's
always more than what was in the beginning. In verses 14 and
15, we saw the dead state of the crowd that was fed that day. They would have taken him and
made him their king, not because they saw him as the king of kings,
but because they sought a life of ease from one who might provide
for them materially. And then verses 16 through 21,
again, the disciples proved their lack of faith when they saw their
Lord walking on the sea and drawing near unto the ship. And these
experienced mariners, who a big portion of them were commercial
fishermen, they didn't fear the storm on the sea. They feared
what they thought to be a spirit of some kind, an apparition of
night approaching them on the water. And it wasn't until the
Lord said, it is I, be not afraid, that they willingly received
him into the ship. I'm telling you, by nature, we're
so full of unbelief. We have trouble believing God,
don't we? Lord, help thou our unbelief.
In verses 22-25, we see how the folks followed Christ to Capernaum. And when they found Him, they
said, when did you come here? Didn't you know that we were
looking for you? And in verse 26, the Lord answered, and he
said, 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 endureth unto
everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. That's
a key word right there, give. He's got to give it. It can't be earned, merited,
or deserved. It's got to be given. And yet
again, their spiritual state was exposed for they desired
to do something that they might be saved. That's man's thinking
in his natural fallen state. What must I do to be saved? Verse
28, and they said unto him, what shall we do that we might work
the works of God? And the Lord simply, plainly,
and directly said in verse 29, this is the work of God. that
you believe on him whom he has sent. And I just love the simplicity
of the gospel. I'll tell you this much, it causes
us to lean on God alone because we can't even believe if God
doesn't do a work of grace in our hearts. We just can't even
believe. We by nature cannot believe God apart from divine
revelation and divine intervention. And again, the nature of man
is exposed, as if the Holy Spirit here is gonna make sure we understand
our inability. They say, show us a sign that
we may see and that we may believe what work you do. How blind can
a man be by nature? Totally blind, totally blind. Can't see a ray of light. Then they credited Moses for
the giving of the manna and the wilderness to their fathers.
And the Lord let them know real quick that Moses wasn't the one
that gave that bread, but it was his father in heaven which
did. And then again, to further expose their hearts, our Lord
said, my father gives you the true bread from heaven. And they
said, give us this bread. And as we saw in detail last
time, Christ in verse 35 says, I am the bread of life. And he
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth
on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye 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 mine own will,
but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's
will which has sent me, that of all which he hath given me,
I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last
day. What a successful Savior we have. Verse 40, and this is the will
of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life, and I'll raise him up at the
last day. And surely upon these gracious and powerful words from
the God-man they believed. That catches us up to where we
left off last time, verse 41, where we read, the Jews then
murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down
from heaven. Why did they murmur? That word, you know what it means,
it means grumble. complain, gripe, moan. Why did they do these things?
Because of who Christ claimed to be. They were completely blind
to the Lord's divine glory. Do you remember, I believe it
was in John 10, where the Lord Jesus said, I and my Father are
one? You remember what the Jews did
then? They picked up stones to stone him. Matter of fact, the
scripture says they took up stones again. It wasn't the first time
that they had done that. And the Lord Jesus looked them
straight in the eyes. He said, for many good works
have I showed thee in my Father's name. For what good work do you
stone me? And they said, for good work
we stone thee not, but for blasphemy. And because thou, being a man,
makest thyself God. Same thing here in John 6. They
didn't believe that Christ was the bread that came down from
heaven. And that's so obvious by what
we read in verse 42. 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 came down from heaven? This don't be too
hard on them. See, they saw him grow up before
their eyes in the humble home of Mary and Joseph. Perhaps they'd
seen him at the carpenter's bench working. Possibly he had built
a man a table or repaired a chair for another. How could they be
subject to one so lowly? You see, they were far too self-sufficient,
self-satisfied, and self-righteous to see any need of a Savior.
And that's the key to this. Men and women have no need. No
need. God's got to show you your need
before you'll ever have any desire of the Savior. And it was, and
it still is now, the pride of the human heart to keep sinners
from seeing their need of Christ. They had no hunger for the bread
of life. Plain and simple, no hunger.
for the bread of life that came down from heaven. And how well
this explains the common treatment that our Lord still receives
today. And he receives it from the hands of lifeless sinners. You know, men would rather feed
upon the husk that swine eat, having no appetite for the true
living bread. Isn't that amazing? But God's
got to give you the appetite for Christ. The bread of life,
they questioned. Why? He's the son of Mary and
Joseph. We know this man. We know his
mom and dad. How did he come down from heaven?
Well, you see, beloved, when Christ said, I am the bread that
came down from heaven, you know what he was saying? He was saying,
I'm God. I'm God. I'm the lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. I'm the one mediator between
God and me. I am the divine substitute, the
only just one. I am he who can justify the ungodly. I'm the perfect man who kept
the perfect law. I'm the scapegoat that can satisfy
divine justice. When he said, I came down from
heaven, that meant that he had personally existed in heaven
before time ever was. And all they can see is the natural.
Well, I remember when he was just a young lad growing up. I remember when he was helping
his dad in the carpenter's shop. John the Baptist had testified
to such. Matter of fact, hold your place
here. Turn back to John chapter three with me just for a second.
Look at verse 30. John said, he must increase,
but I must decrease. And then he says this, he that
cometh from above is above all. And he that is of the earth is
earthly and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is
above all. And what he has seen and heard
that he testified. And sadly, no man receiveth his
testimony. Why? Cause they're dead in trespasses
and sin. Dead. Men and women by nature
have no ability to believe God or receive Christ's testimony.
These Jews could see no further than the nose of their face if
they could see that far. And they saw Jesus, the son of
Joseph and Mary, but Jesus was the son of God. You know, a supernatural
being, must come into the world in a supernatural way. And our
Lord did. Christ's incarnation required
the miracle of a virgin birth. And they were totally ignorant
to what had taken place some 34 years previous. The Holy Spirit
of God overshadowed the Virgin Mary and she became with child. It was a mystery to the world. None saw it or knew it. Mary
did, Joseph did, a few did. God the Father fathered the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we say it all the time, but
we say it because it's true. Salvation, the truth of the gospel
through preaching, God's ordained means, comes only by divine revelation
and it has to be revealed. Did you know that the word reveal
or revealed in the original Greek language interpretation means
to take the cover off? I can relate to that. I bet we
can all visualize taking the cover off of something. A lot
of times when they go to veil a statue of someone famous or
something, they've got it all covered up and then you take
the cover off to see what it is. We say, things in our daily
lives, take the cover off that paint bucket and see if there's
any paint in it. We've all taken the cover off
something, but you and I are incapable. We have no ability
whatsoever of taking the cover off our darkened understanding. We can't do it. Can't do it. It has to be taken off for us.
Why, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. Our understanding
is darkened from being alienated from the life of God. How do
we get alienated? By our sin against God. And God only have we sinned and
done this evil in thy sight. We're alienated from God. Far
from God. Through the ignorance that is
in us, Paul said, because of the blindness of our heart, dead,
dead. The Lord had to take the cover
off our eyes for us to see. He had to take the cover off
our ears for us to hear. He had to take the cover off
our hearts for us to believe. Well, he's got to take the cover
off our mouths to even preach. Salvation is of the Lord. The
Lord Jesus plainly said, no man knows the son but the father,
and neither doth any man know the father but the son, and he
to whomsoever the son will reveal him. To whomever the son will
take the cover off their eyes and ears and heart. God's gonna
expose our natural ignorance, and the Lord's gonna show his
people they have no ability. And they're not going to fight
and argue and grumble and moan about it. They're going to take
sides with God against themselves and say, yay, Lord. That's true. I have no ability. I'm dead in
trespasses and sin. But with the command to live
comes the power to live. That's just the way it works.
But when it pleased the God who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me by His grace, When He called you, you came
because His call is always effectual. And He said He called me by His
grace to reveal His Son in me, to take the cover off these eyes
and enable me to see. Isn't that exactly what the Lord
told Peter when he confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the
Son of the living God? He said, Peter, you're blessed.
You're a blessed man. He said, flesh and blood hadn't
revealed, hadn't taken the cover off your eyes? No, sir. He said, but my Father, which
is in heaven, he took the cover off. He revealed these things
unto you. And back in John 6, look at verse
43. Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I'll raise him
up at the last day. And I suppose the strongest evidence
of man's depravity is his murmuring. We're all guilty of it. All guilty
of it. The Jews with their murmuring
made evident their deadness. And isn't it strange how men
and women love to talk about their free will? And when in
reality, their will is in bondage. In bondage to their nature, in
bondage to their sin. They're dead in trespasses and
sin. Don't miss this simple truth. It's so impossible apart from
God's grace for men and women to admit that they're dead. Folks don't know they're dead.
Folks don't understand that their sin has offended God. They don't
know what the Bible says about them. Men say things like, I'm
not perfect, but I'm just as good as the next guy. And when
they do so, they expose themselves. The issue's not about being just
good. The issue is you've got to be
as perfect and as holy as God. And there's no greater example
in all the scripture than that rich young man who came and said,
good master, what good thing must I do? It's all about being
good. And the Lord said, if thou will
be perfect. That's the issue. Not good. A lot of good people going to
hell, friends. I'm sorry. It's just so. He said,
if thou be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the
poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. Can you imagine asking
one who is physically dead if they'd like to join you for dinner?
Huh? If you did, folks would think
you'd gone mad. But it's no different, no different
at all than asking a spiritually dead man if he or she would like
to come to Christ. No different. You can't come.
No man can come. No man, no woman, no sinner has
the ability to come. God has to first give you life.
God has to reveal his son in the gospel to you. Now, let me
just close giving you a couple, three little points here. Man's
inability does not lie in a physical defect. What I mean by that is if coming
to Christ involved the moving of the body or the moving of
the feet, then certainly man has the ability to come to Christ.
If salvation has anything to do with a man getting up and
walking down an aisle and coming to the front of a church, then
he can come to Christ. But our Lord said no man can
come, so that means that it can't have anything to do with physical
movement. And you can sing all the verses to just as I am over
and over and over again until everyone comes down front and
it would not save a soul. Take it from somebody that knows.
That's not coming to Christ. Secondly, if coming to Christ
involves an utterance of prayer. I can't tell you how many times
I've been at a funeral back before I even preached At the end of
the preacher's service, he'd say, now if there's anyone here
that wants to be saved, raise your hand and say this little
prayer. If coming to Christ involves an utterance of prayer, then
you can be saved, but it doesn't. Why? Because no man can come. And I'm telling you, you can
speak blessings just the same as you can speak blasphemies.
But you cannot come to Christ by praying because the Lord said
no man can come to me. Now, we ought to pray that the
Lord would save us, but I'm telling you, if you have a desire to
pray that the Lord save you, there's already been a work of
grace done in your heart. Why? Because you did in trespasses
and sin until God gives you life. Thirdly, if coming to Christ
involves some mental capacity or mental consent and acceptance
of God, His Christ, and the gospel, then unless you have some handicap
or deficiency of the mind and intellect, you can certainly
come to Christ. I can believe the Bible is true
the same as I can believe a history book is true. Giving mental acceptance
to the gospel is not coming to Christ. For several years I loved
the doctrines of grace, but I didn't love Christ. Christ said no man
can come to me that he might have life. So mental acceptance
of Christ and his gospel cannot be coming to him because I can
give mental consent and acceptance to the truth and still perish.
I don't know of a single person that attends this local assembly
that is so unlearned and ignorant that they can plead a deficiency
of intellect as an excuse for rejecting the Word of God. The
defect in men and women and sinners is not these things. Our defect
lies deep, deep into our nature. Our defect lies in spiritual
deadness. I had a man tell me that he understood
that no sinner could come to Christ without the assistance
of God. And I asked him real quick, what
do you mean by assistance? That sounds good at face value.
Assistance means help and support and cooperation and collaboration. That's not a good word when it's
talking about our inability to come to Christ. We need much
more than assistance. We need life. Life from above. We need to be born again. Oh my, salvation is not a cooperative
effort between the sinner and God. Salvation is not a collaboration
between the one who sins and the one who saves. Salvation
is of the Lord, period. A period is a punctuation mark
added at the end of a statement to indicate that no further discussion
is possible or desirable. Salvation is of the Lord, closed
subject, period. I need no other argument. I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. That's it. That's it. Redemption is much more than
God assisting us to save ourselves. Why? Because no man can come
to me except, and that's the biggest exception in all the
scripture, The exception of me going to hell is the father which
hath sent me. Draw me." And he said, I, not
we, but I will raise him up at the last day. What a great exception
to our spiritual deadness. And did you know that the Greek
word for draw actually means to drag? Now I know that God
doesn't drag sinners to heaven against their will. I'm not saying
that. But he is going to give them
life and he's gonna make them willing in the day of his power.
So in that sense, he drags us to bow and submit and worship
him, making us by his power willing to come to him that we might
have life. That's just how dead we are. We gotta be drug in that
sense. So what is this drawing? Why
is it needed? Well, the unregenerate sinner
so dead that without an unchanged heart and mind, he'll never come
to Christ. And the change which is absolutely
essential is one that only God can produce. So we're shut up
again to the mercy and grace of God. And it's then by divine
drawing that one comes to Christ. That's the only way. What is
this drawing? Well, we answer it's the power
of the Holy Spirit overcoming the self-righteousness of the
sinner and convicting them of their lost condition. Has God
convinced you of your sin? It's the Holy Spirit awakening
within the sinner a real sense of need. Has God shown you your
need? It's the power of the Holy Spirit
overcoming the pride of the natural man so that he is ready to come
to Christ as an empty-handed beggar. If you come to Christ
that way, in my hand no price I bring. I have nothing to offer
God. Offer Him your heart to God.
Please don't. It's deceitful above all things
and desperately weak. He's got to give you a new heart.
What is this drawing? It's the Holy Spirit creating
within a sinner a hunger for the bread of life. By God's grace,
this sinner that stands before you, and I'm still amazed by
it, I'm telling you I am, because I have to live with myself. I
know what I am. But I see that Christ is the
bread of life that came down from heaven. I see that Christ
is God. I see what God had to do for
me in order to save me. He had to die the just for the
unjust to bring me to God. That's how horrific my sin is,
and that's how great His salvation is. Do you trust and rely upon
that which He's done for sinners? If you haven't, may God enable
you to do so now.