If you'll turn with me in your
Bible is to John chapter 6. John chapter 6. We'll be looking at verses 34
through 40 this evening. John chapter 6 verses 34 through
verse 40. The title of the message tonight
is the bread from heaven. The bread from heaven. John chapter 6 and verse 34,
the scripture says, And they said 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 ye also have seen me and believed 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 am come 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 again
at the last day. 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 will raise Him up at the
last day." The bread from heaven. The first thing I see in these
Scriptures before us tonight is the bread that men desire. The bread that men desire. Look at that in verse 34. Then
said they unto him, Lord evermore give us this bread. Now, these people who are speaking
here are the same ones that the Lord fed over across the sea
in Tiberias of Galilee. This is the 5,000 men besides
women and children that the Lord fed with five loaves and two
little fishes, a little boy's lunch. He took a little boy's
lunch and he fed 5,000 men alone, beside the women and children.
And this feeding was not just to whet their appetite. This
was not an afternoon snack. These people were full. Have you ever been full? Have
you ever been full to where you've been miserable? These people
were filled so much. They were filled so that there
was leftovers. They couldn't even eat all that
was there. There were 12 baskets of fragments
left. The Lord had performed a great
miracle in their eyes. And the Scriptures tell us that
these people desired something from Him. They desired to make
Him their king. They said, hey, we want this
fellow to rule over us. Hey, this guy, he's got something.
He fed us with that and we are full and there's still leftovers. We want this guy as our king. He surely must be the Messiah
to do such a wonderful thing as this. But Jesus did something
that modern religion would not even think of. They wouldn't
even think of it. If they had such a group captive,
they wouldn't let them out the building. But Jesus did the unthinkable. He left them alone on that seashore. He left them. He got up in the
middle of the night, told His disciples, boys, get in the boat
and go on. I'll meet you on the other side.
And sure enough, He left them where they were. And so when
these people woke up, no doubt they were surprised that He was
gone. No doubt they were surprised that He departed from them. And
they were so enthroned with Him, they were so excited about this
miracle that they left their homes. They left their families. They left their jobs. And they
paid money to get on ships and go across the sea to find Him.
That took a lot of effort, didn't it? They must really have wanted
Him to be their King. And they went across the sea
and they found him. And in verse 25, look what they
said, verse 25. And when they found him on the
other side of the sea, they said unto him, Rabbi, teacher, when
comest thou hither? When did you leave us? Why did
you leave us? We were ready to make you our
king. We had already decided that you would be king. Isn't
that wonderful, Lord? We want You to be our King. Aren't
You just blessed that we would let You be our King? Jesus showed these people kindness. He showed them compassion. But
friends, He did not commit Himself to them because they were not
of His fold. They were not His people. These men only desired one thing. Bread. Bread. They only desired the physical
bread that Christ could provide for them. They believed Him to
be the Messiah. They wanted Him to be King. Because
they thought Messiah was come to deliver them from the Roman
Empire, and that's it. They thought Messiah would come,
and they would live on this earth, and He would bless them with
all the physical blessing they could stomach. And when they
found Him, they saw Him, they said, Hey, that guy, he's going
to be our king. Why don't you leave us? We were
going to make you our king. We sincerely wanted you. We sincerely believe that you're
the Messiah. They even called Him Lord, didn't
they? Lord, evermore give us this bread. What bread? What are they talking about? But in verse 26, Jesus tells
them plainly exactly what they wanted. You know, it's great
that the Lord can look on the heart, because I can't. And you
can't either. But He does. He does. And what did He see in their
heart? Verily, verily, I say unto you,
you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because you
did eat of the loaves and were filled. These men wanted what all natural
men want, to be filled with the bread and pleasures of this world. These people, they labored, they
sacrificed, they left everything for Jesus to be their King. Not because they had a need of
a Savior. Not because they had a need of
forgiveness of sins. They wanted Him to be King because
He could provide their physical bread. Their physical food. They did not want life. They had no need of spiritual
life. Religious people have no need
of spiritual life. Why? They think they already
have it. They think they already have
it, and all they need is a helping hand. All they need is for God
to give them a pat and a push, and they can make it on over
into glory. You see, they've already decided
to make him king. Lord, if you'll just give us
some bread to make it through this life, we'll keep you as
king. If you'll just supply our physical needs, we'll make you
our king. Religious men have no need of
mercy, even because they don't have any guilt of sin. Only dead, guilty, Unrighteous,
vile, lifeless sinners need a Savior. Everyone else just wants Him
to provide their physical needs. Therefore, many a depraved sinner
has seen the miracle of God's grace in others. They may have heard the gospel
of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Tell you the truth, they may
even desire Him to be their King. They may even believe Him to
be the Messiah, the Christ. But their only motive is that
Jesus give them the blessings of this life. Natural men only desire what
they can see and feel. They have no desire for spiritual
things that do not profit the flesh. They have no desire for
those things. They desire to claim his king
so long as he makes them healthy, wealthy, and happy. If I'm not
happy, They don't want to be their king. If they're not happy,
if they're not got money, if they don't have all their possessions,
ah, we don't need Him. Friend, God truly is good to
all men. Even though men only seek and
desire the things and pleasures and lusts of this flesh, God
is still good to every man. He's good to every man. If all men were to honestly count
the number of good times and good things that they have, they
would far outweigh the evil things that happen to them in this life.
I know that we don't usually think about all those because
when those are gone, we only think about the bad stuff. We
only think about the stuff that causes us grief. And those seem
like they're abundant. But I know that the joys and
the things of this life, God has blessed us more with those
things than with troubles. I know He has. We just don't
know it. We don't see it. We're not thankful for it. Scripture says that God makes
His Son rise on the just as well as the unjust. His reign descends
on the just as well as the unjust. Let me ask you this, were the
Muslims fed this morning? Who did that? God did. And they still hate it. Were the Catholics fed this morning?
You bet they were. Who did that? God did. God feeds
everyone that gets fed. Everyone that gets fed, God fed
them. If the sun rose on you today,
God did that. If the rain fell on you today,
God did that. God is faithful to give men good
things in this life, even though we
are by nature sinners and haters of God. Self-righteous religious people
of this world will pray. They will believe on Christ.
They will desire Him to satisfy all their physical needs, but
have no need of spiritual things. that do not excite or please
the flesh. We do not do programs and plays
and musicals. Why? Do we not like music? Yeah, we like music. I love music. But I'll tell you what, we're
not here to excite the flesh, to make the flesh all riled up.
These words that we hear Sunday and Wednesday, they are spiritual. We who are God's people desire
a spiritual message, not one that just excites the flesh.
If it just does that, you'll walk out the door and it'll be
gone. But if it speaks to the spirit,
you can walk out the door to stay with you. It'll stay with
you. Jesus departed these people because
they had no need of life. They only had need of the things
of this world. Even so, will Christ depart from
all free will works religion? He's not in it. Don't look at
the excitement on the outside. That's tempting to the flesh.
That's tempting to the flesh. Hear their message. What are
they saying? Is salvation of works or is it
of grace? If it's of works, leave them
alone. Why? Christ did. He left them
alone. He left them alone. Number two,
I see the necessity of the bread of heaven. Look at this in verse
35 of our text, 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. In this passage of scripture,
No less than four times has Jesus referred to himself as bread.
As the bread from heaven. As the bread from God. As the
bread of life. Bread. The bread or physical desires
and necessities of life, how long do they last? Now, I ate breakfast this morning,
didn't you? How long did that last? Because I'll tell you what,
I had a hamburger before you came in. I was hungry. That didn't
last. It only lasts for a minute. It
only lasts for a moment. The bread of this life, the things
of this world are fleeting and they're passing and they go by
so fast and the joy is only for a moment and then it's gone. It's gone. The bread of this
life doesn't last. It has no real value, does it? It has no real value. If you remember Jesus when he
spoke to that woman at the well, That woman was coming out for
water. She came out to draw water. And she was drawing it at the
hottest part of the day because no other woman would have anything
to do with her. She was a wretched woman. She was a sinner and nobody
wanted to be tainted with her. So they made her go out in the
afternoon. And that's the time that the
Lord had appointed to meet her. And He met her and what was His
words? He said, if you drink of this
water, you'll never thirst. again. That sounds interesting
to a woman that's thirsty, isn't it? She was out in the heat of
the day. See, she still thought that he
was talking about this. He wasn't talking about physical
water, was he? He was talking about spiritual
water. A water that will cause a person
never to thirst again. What kind of water does that?
You see, Jesus was talking about Himself. He said, I am this water. He began to tell her who He was. He was the Christ. He showed
her who she was, the sinner. And she began to have a thirst,
didn't she? She was a sinner in need of life
and righteousness. And He was the only one that
could provide it. And when she saw that, she believed, dropped
her water bucket and ran to town to tell everybody. About what? About the water she found. She
found real water that lasts forever. And Christ says, I am the bread
of life. This bread is a lasting bread. It's valuable. It's valuable. You know, friends, the Lord knows
that we have need of bread, doesn't He? Everyone here needs to eat. And the Lord uses this because
it's simple. It's not complicated. You have
to eat. You can't live unless you eat. And he's pointing out, unless
you have Christ, the bread of life, you have no life at all. You have no life at all. This is the true bread that came
down from heaven. You see, those Jews that Jesus
was speaking to, they knew about that bread that came from heaven.
It was manna. Remember in the Old Testament
how the manna fell from heaven. I've never seen bread falling
from the sky. I haven't seen that. They woke
up one morning and there was bread all over the ground. Every
morning for 40 years they woke up and ate bread. You see, that's
what these people wanted. But Christ said that was just
a picture of me. I am the bread of life. If you
don't have me, you don't have life. Jesus is God's bread, and this
bread gives everlasting life, because this bread came from
heaven. It came from heaven. Verse 32,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God he that
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." He is speaking
of himself. Where does bread come from? Where
does bread come from? Comes from the ground, doesn't
it? They come up, the wheat comes up, they take the wheat, they
bring it in, they mash it up, they make bread out of it with
the strength of a man's hands, they put it in the fire and they
bake it. It comes from a cursed earth. And it's produced by the hands
of cursed men. This is why Cain's sacrifice
was not accepted. His sacrifice came from the earth.
His sacrifice came from his own hands. And God says, I've rejected
that sacrifice. And friends, God will reject
any sacrifice that we give to Him that's of our own hands or
of the things of this world. Things of this world cannot satisfy
us. How do we expect them to satisfy
God? If you give God all the bread you have, if you give God
all the things you have, how much is that going to profit
God? It's His anyway. It's His anyway. Much less how much would it please
God if we offered even our own lives which are cursed, which
are sinful. The works of religious actions
and of the flesh cannot give life. But Christ came down from
heaven to give life. This bread comes from an incorruptible
source. An incorruptible source. A sinless
source. It came from heaven. It came
from God. And God the Father has sent down
this bread to give life to all his children. Look at that in
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. Jesus tells here of his father's
election. of His Father's sovereign love
and mercy to choose a people. You know, you can know that God
elected a people because Christ came down. He came down from
heaven. If there were no elect, God would
not have sent His Son to give them life. But Christ says, all,
all that the Father giveth Me. shall come to me." They shall come to this bread
and eat by faith of Him. They will eat by faith in Christ
and be satisfied. How many of them? All of them.
Every one of them. Christ came down from heaven,
and He came for this specific purpose, to do the will of the
Father. I came down, verse 38, for I
came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will
of Him that sent me. He came down from heaven to do
the will of God. Christ came from heaven to fulfill
all righteousness. as a representative man. As a
representative man. Jesus, as a man, became subject
to God's law and did what none of Adam's race could have done.
He obeyed God's law perfectly. He honored God. He exalted God's
glory by His every thought and every action. This is what He
came to do. He came to fulfill righteousness
by His own merit and by His own hands. And friends, He has done the
will of the Father. He has completed the will of
the Father. I like this picture of Christ
in the Old Testament at Passover. You remember He was the unleavened
bread sprinkled with bitter herbs. Is that not a picture of His
life? The sinless Son of God sprinkled with bitterness in
this world. He suffered in this life. He was rejected of men, hated
of men, And yet he deserved no one's
hatred. He was the sinless son of God,
the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Your grief, my friends,
and my grief, it's great to us. But it is in no wise to be compared
with his grief. He suffered more than all of
us could ever endure. We could not endure one day of
his suffering. I know that. We could not endure
men to reject us that much. We couldn't do it. We would crack. But he didn't. Praise God, he
didn't fall in the midst of that suffering. He bore it all. He
came down from heaven not only to provide righteousness at the
will of the Father, but also to offer a blood sacrifice for
sins. This was the will of God, that
sin be punished. That's the will of God. God cannot
be God unless sin is justly dealt with. People have a mistaken idea that
God's love will somehow overrule His justice. That's a lie. God's love never overrules His
justice. He will never show mercy at the
expense of His justice. He must be just. And yet, He
must be merciful. This is God. It's who He is.
Therefore, in order to save a people that He had given to Christ,
He must have saved them by a blood offering. Blood offering. His justice must be satisfied. And so when the bread of heaven
came down and was put into the oven, the fires of God's wrath,
because God imputed our sins to Him, and He bore the guilt
and the shame of them under the wrath and justice of God. Now
He did that because that was the will of God. That was God's
will, that He pay for all the sins of His people. All the sins. And as the suffering
substitute, He did the will of the Father. Go to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse
14. For He by one offering hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Jesus Christ by His one offering
perfected His people. He redeemed them. He accomplished
what the Father had sent Him to do. And God, being pleased with his
sacrifice, raised him from the dead. And this bread that came down
from heaven. He did the father's will. Because
he would lose none. Of those that were given to him. In our text, he says, and this
is the will of him which sent me, that of all which he hath
given me I should lose nothing. How many will die in their sins that Christ died for? How many? Christ said none of them. Christ
said none of them. Why? He's the bread of life. He came down from heaven to do
the will of God. The will of God was to obtain
righteousness for them. The will of God was to suffer
for their sins. And He said, I won't lose one. Not one will suffer under the
wrath of God's judgment. Not one of them. He would lose
none of them, but would raise them up at the last day. Friends, this is the eternal
sovereign will of God that Jesus accomplish salvation for His
people. Salvation that is of the Lord.
Does this offend you? It doesn't offend me. I'm so
glad for it. I'm so happy that salvation is
all of grace and none of my works. I'm so glad that Jesus Christ
has obtained all of my righteousness and all of my justification.
I'm so glad that He sent His Spirit to save and to quicken
me from my dead spiritual state and give me life. Because I know
this, I never would have chosen Him. had He not chosen me." Salvation
is something that God does for us, not something that we do
for God. This is why Christ came down
to be the bread of life from heaven, so that His people might
eat of Him. What is it to eat this bread?
What is Christ talking about? Unless a man eat my flesh and
drink my blood, what is he saying? He's not saying we have to eat
his physical body or drink his physical blood. You see, that's
what the world thinks. They always want something tangible,
something physical. He said, my words, these are
spirit and they are truth. These words are spirit. The flesh
profits nothing. To eat Christ is to simply believe
on him. That's it. What happens to your food when
you eat it? Becomes one with you. And that's the point Christ is
making. I am the bread of life and he that eateth me, I'm with
him and he's with me. And so then, believer in Christ,
take comfort in this bread. Feast on this bread. This is
for your comfort. This is for your joy. We feast daily on this. Not just
once a week. Feast daily on this. Rest in
His perfect salvation. There's nothing left for us to
do. This fills us, satisfies us, makes me happy. It makes me happy. Is He not a wonderful Savior?
Does that bread not taste good to your souls? It should. I pray that God blesses to you.
The stand will be dismissed.