Turn back to John chapter 6. I realized in reading those scriptures
this morning that those of you who believe, you've been given
understanding, just the reading of those scriptures enough You
understood what I was reading. As I started reading that, I
thought, this is all I need to do for the church. The Lord has
given you an understanding. Now, I titled this message, Eating
His Flesh and Drinking His Blood. To those who do not understand,
that's offensive. In fact, it's gross. It's gross. And this is what they were thinking
as he was talking to them in that day. Cannibalism. drinking his, eating his flesh,
drinking his blood. It was forbidden of them to drink
blood. They were not allowed. You know,
that's strictly forbidden in the Old Testament. They were
not allowed to drink the blood of the sacrifice. But the Lord
says, except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have
no life in you. None. So here our Lord in verse
48 continues His message on being the Bread of Life, and in these
verses He speaks of the necessity of faith. The necessity of faith,
and it's set forth as eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He's talking about faith. The words I speak to you are
spirit and life. They're not carnal. They're spiritual. The Jews interpreted what he
was saying as literal. They interpreted his message
in a literal sense, and it became a stumbling block to them. It
was a stumbling block, as it says in Isaiah 8, 14. And he
shall be for a sanctuary, that is for his people, Christ Jesus,
is a sanctuary for me and you. Is he not? Is he not a hiding
place? Is he not the sanctuary in which
we worship God? Do we not worship God in Christ?
He's the sanctuary. We worship Him in Christ. But
now listen, but he's a stone of stumbling and for a rock of
offense to both the house of Israel and for a jinn and for
a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They stumbled over
His message. They did not stumble over His
miracles. No man can do this except God
be with him. But when He opened His mouth
and He told the truth, it made them mad. It made them mad. Listen to 1 Peter 2, 7 and 8.
Unto you therefore which believe, He is precious. Jesus Christ
is precious, but unto them which be disobedient, that is, they
are disobedient to the gospel, they don't believe, the stone
which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of
the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, even to
them which stumble at the word. They stumbled at his word, his
message. Who hath believed our report,
Isaiah said, in Isaiah 53? Who hath believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord
been revealed? They stumbled at the report. Now, our Lord identifies Himself
here as the Bread of Life. Nobody has an excuse. He says, I am that Bread of Life. verses 48 50 Christ makes a contrast
between the manna in the wilderness and the true bread from heaven
he's teaching here he said he's instructing but they don't want
to hear the instructions they don't like what they hear their
fathers in verse 48 their fathers ate manna in the wilderness that
they made so much of of course their fathers in the wilderness
called it like bread they got tired of it And he says they
are dead. Showing to them, there was no
life in the types, there was no power, there was no life in
that manna. Life is in Christ, there's no
life in the bread we eat. If life was in the bread we eat,
it would not mold. The bread we eat is dead bread.
There's some nutrients in it that our body draws out of it.
But basically, it's dead bread. It's crushed dead bread. And that's why it molds. Christ
said, I'm the bread of life. He doesn't mold. He's life. He's life. And He's telling them
so plainly, and us, there's no life in tithes, there's no life
in ceremonies, there's no life in baptism. There's no life in
anything but Jesus Christ who is life. He's not just a giver
of life. He is the life. If you have life,
you have Christ. If you have eternal life, you
have Christ. He is eternal life. That's what
He's saying. And He's saying here that your
fathers ain't man in the wilderness and are dead. They died physically
and they died eternally. That's what it says over in Hebrews
3, 17 and 19 in Jude verse 5. He says they died. They did not
enter in because of unbelief. Over in Jude, it says they died.
They're dead. The ones he's talking about are
dead. The ones he's saying, your fathers, the ones that didn't
believe, they're dead. They perished. But in verse 50,
he tells us there is life. Oh, I could scream this out.
There is eternal life. and we're not talking about how
long it is everybody's gonna live forever now once you come
into this world you're forever you are forever but there is
eternal life the life of God in the bread from heaven and
here's why the bread from heaven is God incarnate life now listen
life incarnate Jesus Christ is life incarnate that's who he
is And this is how Christ can be and is the Living Bread. He
is the Life Incarnate. He is the Living God. Therefore,
He is Eternal Life. And this Bread came from Heaven,
unparalleled in nature. Unparalleled in nature. This
is God. This is God. Now, if a man, he
says here, if a man, man or woman, Young person, any person, any
person. The door is wide open to any
person. If a man eat of this bread, he shall not die. What's
the number one thing everybody on this earth is trying not to
do? Die. I mean people are trying not
to die. They will save money forever.
They'll save their bank accounts, get it fat, fat, fat. And doctor
says, you got cancer, you're going to die. Then they spend
it, spend it, spend it, spend it. Try not to. But you're going
to die. You're going to die. This ought
to get to our attention because everybody on this earth does
not want to die. And he says here, he will not
taste of death. He'll not die. And here's what
he's saying. He will not taste of that second
death. You know, there is a second death.
There's more than one death for something. I'm going to read
you one, two, three, four scriptures. I'm going to read you four scriptures
out of revelation in revelation to 11. Listen, he that hath an
ear, let him hear And this morning let him hear what the Spirit,
the Holy Spirit, saith unto the churches. He that overcometh
shall not be hurt of the second death. Revelation 20, verse 6. Blessed and holy is he that hath
part in the first resurrection. On such the second death hath
no power. Has no power. But they shall
be priests, those who are in the first resurrection, they
shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him
a thousand years. They'll reign with Him forever
and ever. In Revelation 20 verse 14, And death and hell were cast
into the lake of fire. This is the second death. But the fearful and unbelieving,
and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,
and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the
lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second
death." What is that second death? It is the final judgment when
God reunites the body in that grave to that soul, and he casts
body and soul into hell. When the rich man lifted up his
eyes in hell, being in torment, his soul, I mean, his body is
still in a grave. You can go up, go dig his grave
up, and there's his body. It's still laying there. But
one day that body is going to be united to that soul, and then
they're both going to be cast into the lake of fire. That's
the second death. And he says here, if any man,
if any man, this is how free it is. Any man, any woman, any
young person listening this morning, if you eat by faith of this bread,
you will live forever. The second death has no power
over you. You will not experience that. He shall live forever and
you'll live forever in paradise. There is such a place. Christ
said to that thief on the cross, today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. Today. It's a place without sin. It's a place without sorrow.
It's a place where death is gone. It's never mentioned. Eradicated. Eradicated. And the bread that
I will give, he's telling them, the bread that I'm talking to
you about and that I'm going to give is my flesh, my flesh. And he's speaking of himself
as the sacrifice for sin. That's what he's speaking of.
I'm going to give my flesh, my body, as he said, a body has
thou prepared me. A body has to prepare me to live
in, now listen, to keep the law in as a man, as a human being,
to keep the law perfectly and to die in sacrifice. An animal
is not going to die for the sins of a man. A man is going to die
for the sins of a man. Our sins were put, imputed to
him. They were laid to him, laid on
him, laid on his shoulders. He was made to be sin for us.
And he says here, that the bread I will give is my flesh. Only
in Christ crucified do we have eternal life. And he's to be
received by faith for the sacrifice of our sins. We receive him. It's set forth here as eating.
And he says, eateth. You know what that is? Continually.
He continually eats of me, just like you're doing this morning.
Some of you have been doing it for years. You've been continually
feeding and eating the flesh of Christ. You've been feeding
the eating upon Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's it.
That's it. That's what you're feeding on.
And you're receiving Him by faith as a sacrifice of your sins.
Eating is faith receiving Him. As it says in John chapter 1
verse 11 and 12, he came down unto his own or he came unto
his own and his own received him not. But as many as received
him, you received him. I thought this morning when I
was reading this scripture And I know all of you have seen this.
You've seen a nest of little baby birds, and that mother bird
flies onto that nest with that food in her mouth, and they're
standing there with their mouth just wide open like that. They're
just wide open. What are they doing? What kind
of work are they doing? Nothing. Their mouth is wide
open and they receive from their mother the food. That's what
faith does. It just receives the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not a work. But as many as receive Him, to
them gave He power, or the right, to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on His name. That's what it is to receive
Christ, is to believe on Him. Uneaten bread will not do us
any good. It will not do us any good whatsoever. You can sit down at the table
this afternoon, and the food represented by bread can be spread
out in front of you. You can say, oh, that's so nutritious.
That's so good. But if you get up and you don't
eat of it, you'll starve to death. You'll eventually die if you
don't eat. You'll die. Uneaten bread will not do us
any good. It's bread eaten that nourishes the body. It's believing on Christ continually,
feeding on Him continually that nourishes the soul. All you all
do is preach Christ. That's what nourishes the soul,
that inner man. You know, I know there are some,
and I thought about this, there are some who believe that election
is salvation, that whether you believe or not, you're saved. No, it's not. No, it's not. Everyone whom God's chosen, he
brings to faith in Christ. Everyone of his sheep will believe. And I have scripture for it.
2 Thessalonians 2.13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief, belief of the truth. Now in verse 52, we see the effect
of the truth on unregenerate men, unregenerate hearts. In verse 52, after he said this,
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this
man give us his flesh to eat? That's gross. It was offensive. It was offensive. Here we see the offense of the
gospel. Let me tell you this. If the gospel is not offensive,
it's not the gospel. If it's not offensive to human
nature, if it's not offensive to your natural way of thinking,
if it's not offensive, it's not the gospel. Because the gospel
is offensive to the way we think. It offends our intellect, it
offends what we think of ourselves, how we think of God, it offends
everything about us. It's offensive. If you preach
the gospel. If you just preach this health
and wealth religion, that's not offensive. Everybody wants that.
That's how the lottery got stolen. Here we see the offense of the
gospel, like Nicodemus here, the Jews were interpreting spiritual
truth in a carnal sense, and it doesn't work. It doesn't work.
How can these things be? That's what Nicodemus said when
he talked about being born again. He said, how can a man enter
when he's old again to his mother's womb and be born? The gospel is offensive to the
carnal mind that is enmity against God. They strove among themselves.
They were offended by his message of eating his flesh and drinking
his blood. They didn't understand. They
did not understand that he was speaking of spiritual matters,
not fleshly. How can this man give us his
flesh to eat? Our Lord doesn't even answer
their question. You'll notice that 53, He doesn't answer that
question. Christ does not answer this question.
Faith doesn't come by explaining everything to you. It comes by
proclaiming the truth. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God, by preaching the Word of God, by God giving
you a hearing ear. That's how faith comes. It doesn't
come through me explaining. Now you see this, you see this,
and you see this, you understand this? Now would you accept Jesus
as your personal Savior? That's not faith. Faith comes
while you're sitting there, and the Word of God is being preached,
and you hear it. You hear it. You begin to understand
it. It becomes very clear to you.
Very clear to you. And I'm going to show you this.
I wrote this down. Turn over to Psalm 8. Chapter
8, Psalm chapter 8, not Psalm, Proverbs, I'm sorry, Proverbs
chapter 8. In Proverbs chapter 8, let me
read verse 9. Or, yeah, verse 9. Or verse 8. All the words of my mouth are
in righteousness. There is nothing froward or perverse
in them. They are all plain to him that
understandeth, and right to them that findeth knowledge. Is the
gospel plain to you? God's given you understanding.
They are all plain to him that understandeth. This is plain
to me. This is plain, I understand it.
By God's grace, I understand it. Verse 53, Then Jesus said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except unless you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have
no life in you. It's impossible to have eternal
life apart from Christ, and Him crucified. And whoso eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath present tense. eternal life
and i'll raise him up at the last day those who eat my flesh by faith
this is christ crucified drink my blood you have eternal life
right now you have it right now you're not going to have it you
have it you have it faith is the evidence of spiritual life
faith is the evidence of eternal life And here's the result. I'll
raise him up at the last day. The whole man is saved. Body,
soul, and spirit. There'll come a day when all
those bodies will come out of the grave. All those bodies of
the saints. And it'll be a new body. It'll
look, it'll be like me. I mean, it'll look like me. But
it'll be new. It'll be new. You see, when Christ
died, he died for the whole man. The whole person. Not just my
soul, but everything about me, my body, my body, soul and spirit
be saved. He said, I'll raise him up at
the last day. You and I will stand before the throne of God's
grace complete. You are complete in him. And
he says in verse fifty five, for my flesh is meat, indeed
food for the soul, the inner man is Jesus Christ, not food
for you this morning. Is this not food for you this
morning? And my blood is drink indeed for the soul. This is drink this morning. This
is drink for the inner man, that new man. This is something that hit me
when I was reading this. God made our bodies to need food
and water as pictures of what our Lord is saying spiritually.
all that we see naturally all these things in this that's been
created have a spiritual implication they lead us to christ they speak
of christ and thank god when you're able to see that today
when you sit down to eat when you after this service you sit
down to eat and you're taking that bread or that food whatever
it is you're eating you're taking it and you're taking it into
yourself and you're eating it and it's nourishing your body
that's a picture of what our lord's talking about He's talking
about this. Boy, you can just see that. It's
just so evident. And I want to make something
very clear here. The power, the power lies in the food eaten. Not in the act of eating it. Not in the act of eating it.
It lies in the food that you eat. When it goes into your body,
the act of it doesn't nourish you at all. It's the food that
you eat and digest. It goes into your system. That's
what nourishes you. Faith is not salvation. Faith
is not salvation. Jesus Christ is salvation. Christ
in you is salvation. It's not the act of faith. It's
the object of faith. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. Today's
false religion places the power of salvation in the act of faith.
They've led in the act of faith. If you'll do this, if you'll
just believe, if you'll just, God will save you. The power of salvation is the
one that we feed upon. It's in Jesus Christ alone. It's
in the object of faith. And then our Lord points out
this union. And it's so, boy, I tell you,
He couldn't make this more more simple couldn't make this more
simple verse 56 he that eateth my flesh drinketh my blood dwells
in me and i in him if i drink water right now that water is
in me that water's in me isn't it and if i eat that water that
food is in me this is the union between christ and his people
This is how we are one with Christ. Christ in me, I in Christ. It's
through faith, it's through this eating of Christ, this receiving
of Christ. Christ in us, it's a very real
union is what it is. Salvation is eternal life is
Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now listen. In receiving Christ,
I'm not receiving a system called Calvinism. This is important. You can call me a Calvinist.
That's fine. You can call me a Calvinist. If that's what you
want to call it, that's fine. But I'm not receiving a system
called Calvinism or any other ism. It's receiving Jesus Christ,
Son of God incarnate. It's living upon Him. That's
what it is. And he says in verse 57, as the
living Father has sent, I'm not going through all these verses. Just so you know. As the living
Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. We don't live by religion. We
don't live by ceremonies. We don't live by traditions.
We live by the Son of God. He's saying here, the Father
sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, Jews and Gentiles.
He says, I live by the father. As a man, as a mediator, he lived
in dependence upon his father. He trusted his heavenly father
to provide and protect him in this ungodly world, and so do
we. So do we. This is that bread which came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna
and are dead, he that eats of this bread shall live forever.
That true bread. The Bread of God, the Bread of
Life, the Living Bread is Jesus Christ Himself. He said, you're
not looking at a type, you're looking at the True Bread from
Heaven. These things said He in the synagogue as He taught
in Capernaum. These things said He in Spring
Lake as He taught at Bethel Baptist. Can we take it that way? The Lord's speaking this morning. Our Lord said in Matthew, I want
you to listen to this. He said in Matthew 11, 23, In thou Capernaum,
which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell.
For if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been
done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. They
saw many miracles, yet they believed not. The message was so clear,
yet they believed not. I'm going to say this, and I
thought about it, and I'm not saying this to be humorous, but
I'm going to say this. You'd be better off going to
hell sitting on a bar stool than a church pew. Am I right? You'd be better off going to
hell with a Bud Light in your hand instead of a Bible. That's
the truth. That is the truth. Don't carry your own condemnation
around with you. Don't do that. He said, what
I speak to you, they are words of life. They are truths and
are words of life. They had the gospel preached
to them clearly, clearly, and they rejected him, turned their
back on him. I leave you with this. Do you
have an appetite for the bread of life this morning? Do you
have an appetite for the bread of life? Then come and dine. And I hope you are able to sit
there and dine on the bread of life. Life has been set before
you. Life has been set before you.
If any man eat, he'll live forever. Cannot be plainer than that.
Alright.