All right. Turn to John chapter 6. Staying in the book of John today. John chapter 6. I want to read the portion of
scripture that I'll be speaking from. I'll start in verse 41
and I'll read down through 65. The Jews then murmured at him
because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
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? 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. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me.
Not that any man hath seen the Fathers, save he which is of
God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread
of life. Your fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness and they are dead. I wrote out from that verse,
no life, no life in types. There was no life in the types.
Life is in Christ. The types pointed to him. This
is the bread which cometh down from heaven. that a man may eat
thereof and not die. I am the living bread, which
came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give
us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. He has it.
And I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat
indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the Living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. These things said he in the synagogue
as he taught in Capernaum. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying. Who could hear
it? When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at
it, He said unto them, and this is the title of my message, Doth
this offend you? Doth this offend you? The gospel
of substitution. Doth this offend you? What and
if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before?
It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profits nothing. The
words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. But
there are some among you that believe not, for Jesus knew from
the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray.
And he said, therefore said I unto you that no man can come to me
except it were given to him of my father. Let us pray. Our father. We pray that you will enable
us this morning to give unto you the glory due unto your name.
Enable us to worship you, Father, in spirit and in truth. Enable
me to rightly divide the word of truth. Make me a blessing
to thy people here and make thy word a blessing. Enable us to
leave this place this morning rejoicing in God our Savior with
our hearts set upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Enable us this
morning To be, Lord, to be obsessed with Christ. Get our attention. Lord, arrest our attention. Give
us a hearing ear. Enable us to hear the voice of
the Master and the message. God direct us, forgive us our
sins for Christ's sake. And Lord, those who hear may
be hurting, under heavy trials, pray for them. Thy grace is sufficient. In Christ's name we pray, and
Amen. Our Lord, it is said in the scriptures,
was meek and lowly. He said, I am meek and lowly
of heart. Easy to talk to, easy to approach. You know, when I read that scripture
now, and He says, I am meek and lowly of heart, I not only see
a man there, I see God. This is God speaking. This is
the character of God also. Approachable. Approachable. But when our Lord spoke, when
He spoke, He offended. He offended many people. The religious people especially.
He offended them. He did not dignify the flesh. Not at all. He gave unto God
the honor and glory due unto His name. He preached the truth. He spoke the truth about God. They thought they knew God. They
didn't. They didn't. They said, God is out. We have
one Father, even God. He said, no, your Father is the
devil. They thought they knew God, they
didn't. When he preached the truth about
God, he preached the truth about himself. I am the bread which
came down from heaven. Sin of God. I came from heaven. And he preached the truth about
us. He told us who and what we are. The scripture says there's
none good, no, not one. And you can write out by that
verse, even me. including me. None good. No, not one. Well, surely there's
somebody good. I know some people that's no,
you don't. You see our definition of good and God's definition
of good are polar opposite. It's polar opposite. When God
speaks of good, he means absolutely perfect. That's what good means. That young man came to the Lord
and he said, good master, and he said, hold up now. There's
none good but God. And if I'm good, I'm God. There's
none good but God. So he told the truth about God,
himself and us. And we naturally, now we naturally
find truth to be offensive. This is a testimony to human
depravity that truth would upset us. You wouldn't think that truth
would upset us, but truth upsets us. We naturally think we are
better than we are, don't we? We naturally think we are smarter
than we are. You can ask any man in here how
tall he is and then subtract at least an inch. You can. You can at least subtract that. I'm not even going where the
ladies are. I've got enough sense not to
do that. But we just naturally think we're better. We naturally
think we're smarter. We naturally think we are just,
we just got to get, no. No. We're not. When the Lord speaks, He tells
us just as it is. And I tell you, be thankful.
Be thankful that the Lord tells you just as you are, tells you
what you are, who you are, tells you the way it is. I want the
Lord to tell the truth this morning. Give us the truth. Give us the truth. And when he spoke the truth,
they took up stones to stone him for telling the truth, telling
him the truth. They wanted to take his life.
Now on this occasion, Christ had been with these people throughout
the day, in the earlier part of the chapter. He had healed some previous to
this, and he had fed some. He had fed 5,000, fed 5,000. And then they left, and they
went over to Capernaum, and these people followed him. A multitude
left, and they followed him the next day. And he told them the
truth. He said, I know why you're following
me. Look over in verse 26. Well, look at verse 25. And when
they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto
him, Rabbi, when camest thou hither? And Jesus answered them
and said, see, he doesn't just get into just a conversation.
Well, I came over last night about six o'clock. He's gonna
speak the truth. Every word that comes out of
his mouth is truth. And he said, verily I say unto you, you seek
me. I know why you're after me. I know why you're seeking me.
He knows why I'm here this morning. If I'm here to worship him or
if I'm here because it's Sunday. You seek me not because you saw
the miracles. That's not why you're seeking
me. You're seeking me because you got a free lunch. You did
eat the loaves and were filled. And that's why he says to him
in the next verse, don't labor for that. You put forth a lot
of effort to find me. This is important. You put forth
a lot of effort to find me because I fed you yesterday. And now
you're following me because your bellies were filled. Now you're
looking for that again. Don't look for what fills the belly. Don't look for that. Don't labor
for the meat which pairs you. Don't put out your life to what
I'm gonna eat, what I'm gonna drink, what I'm gonna wear. That's
what he tells us in the earlier part of Matthew chapter five
and six there, seven. But for that means which endures
to everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you,
for him hath God the Father sealed. He's it, he's the one. Everything
is vested in Him, everything. And He said, I know why you follow
Me, because I fed you. While He was healing and feeding
them, they loved Him, didn't they? They loved Him. They were
going to take Him and make Him a king at one point. It says
over in verse 15, when Jesus therefore perceived that they
would come and take Him by force to make Him a king. He said, I know what you, I know
what, I know you, I know you, I know you. They loved him when
he was healing and feeding, but when he spoke the truth, when
he began to speak the truth, they turned on him. That same
crowd that said, cried, Hosanna. When he came into town on that
donkey, they said, Hosanna, and praising him. That same crowd
turned on him and crucified him. That same crowd cried, crucify
him, crucify him. And many of them walked off and
followed him no more. This is a hard saying. Who can
hear? They didn't want him after that. They didn't want his message.
They were offended because of his message and his person. He
didn't look like somebody that would come from heaven. This
is the Messiah. This is the Savior. This is the
One. This is the Son of David. He
looked like a peasant. look like a peasant. We know
you. They said, We know you. We know your mother and father.
You're the carpenter's son. No, he's God's son. He's God's
son. In another place, they called
him, they said, We know your brothers and your sisters, and
they named them. They had no notoriety. They were nobody.
They were offended at His person, they were offended at His message,
they were offended at His pedigree, His family, and you say you came
from heaven? I tell you what, if the Lord
walked into this room looking like He looked then, and God
did not give you eyes of faith, you'd be disappointed. He would
look like just a common ordinary poor man. He only had one suit. He only had one suit of clothing,
one dress, a robe, that's all he had. Had no place to lay his
head. Could this be God? Could this
be God? You want me to believe this is
God? This poor... Is there any good thing that
comes out of Nazareth and you want me to believe this is God?
This is the Savior? This is the one I'm going to
commit my whole life to? This is the one I'm going to
trust to bring me before God? He's it? They were offended at
it. What did our Lord say that offended
them? What did He say that offended
them? Well, first of all, he spoke of God's sovereignty and
salvation. Look at verse 38 and 39. Let me read verse 35 with it.
And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that comes
to me shall never hunger. He that believes on me shall
never thirst. But I said unto you that you have also seen me
and believe not. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I'll
know why I was 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'll lose nothing. The Father has given me a people,
and I'm going to save them, and not one of them will be lost.
I'm going to raise them up again at the last day. When He spoke
of God's sovereignty in salvation, let me show you some other place,
over in Luke chapter 4. Look over in Luke chapter 4. While this is on my mind, let's
turn there. In Luke chapter 4, verse 24,
I tell you the truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias when the heaven was shut up three years and six
months, when great famine was throughout all the But unto none
of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,
unto a woman that was a widow, a Gentile woman. And many lepers
were in Israel in the time of Eliseas the prophet. And none
of them was cleansed. Not one leper was cleansed in
Israel. But God did cleanse one leper, Naaman the Syrian. God did cleanse one, God did
save one, a Gentile. Now, you would think
that that would make us happy, that God would save one, that
God would save one. But look in verse 28, and all
they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, they were
filled with wrath. And they rose up and thrust him
out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon
their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong."
I'm telling you this, there is no one meaner than religious
people without Christ. There's absolutely no one on
this earth any meaner, any more vile than a religious person
that does not have Christ. God creating doesn't upset anyone. But God saving, and I've ran
into this, anyone who's preached grace runs into this, preaches
the gospel. God saving whom He will offends
the rebel. It offends the lost. Salvation,
the scripture says, is of the Lord. God saves whom He will
and God passes by whom He will. That's what he says. I have mercy
on whom I have mercy, and whom I will, I'll harden. He said in one place, if the
works that were done in Capernaum and Bethsaida, he said, if the
works had been done in Sodom, that had been done in you, they
would have, listen, they would have repented a long time ago
in sackcloth and ashes. Well, why didn't they? He said, if I had done the same
things there that I have done here, they would have repented.
Well, Lord, why didn't you do that? Well, first of all, He's
not going to give me that answer. He doesn't answer to me. And
secondly, it's His sovereign will and right to do as He will
with His own, when He will. And it all belongs to Him. It
all belongs to Him. The earth is the Lord's, the
fullness are of it, they who dwell therein. You know what
amazes me? When we preach the sovereignty
of God and salvation, that God saves whom He will. I've had
people get, and one of them's in my family, just getting mad,
I mean mad, upset. But you know, I've never heard
him or anyone else get upset over the angels who don't have
a Savior. God left them alone. The angels
of Phil do not have a Savior. God left them alone, but I've
never heard anyone get upset about that. But letting God's
sovereign right come into my house? That makes men mad. And here's
what's just It's just baffling. We send men
and women to the battlefield to die for our right to choose,
don't we? We do that. And then turn right
around and deny God who created all things the same right to
choose. Isn't that amazing? He created
it. We belong to Him. He's the potter. We're the clay. Where's the clay? Oh, the potter exercising his
rights over the clay just offends the clay. Makes him mad. When we take the crown, when
we take the crown off the head of man and put it on the head
of Christ where it belongs, it's upsetting. It's upsetting. I tell you this, that's when
you'll find out who loves God and who loves self. Who's getting
the glory? Who gets the glory here this
morning? It better be Christ. Or we're in a mess. We're in
a mess. In heaven, in heaven they cast
their crowns at His feet. I want to be able to do it here.
I want to be able to cast everything here at His feet now. Now. Now. Here is what offends man. God's will being done. God's
will being done. Our Lord spoke of the sovereign
will of God. He says, when you pray, when
you pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy
name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. That's how you pray. When He
was in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He was in agony, I mean agony,
agony that you and I would never know and don't want to know.
God's dealing with him overseeing. He said, Father, if it be thou,
if it be possible, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, but as I will,
as I will. He said back in John here, this
is the Father's will. This is the Father's will, verse
39. This is the Father's will. He came to do the will of the
Father, and this is the Father's will of all that He's given me.
I won't lose anyone. There's no vacancies there. Everyone whom He's given me,
I'll save. Now listen, if He didn't, no
one would be saved. If it was left up to us, I'm
telling you, not one person would be saved. We naturally hate God. We have a natural enmity, the
scripture teaches us, in us toward God. God is light. We are darkness by nature. Darkness. God has to make us children of
light. He has to give us a new heart, a new nature, in order
for us to love Him. in order for us to do that. Sovereignty and salvation just
makes men mad. It's written over in the book
of Job. He gives no account of any of
his manners. Lord, why did you do this? He's
not accountable to me. He's not accountable to me. In
the book of Job, in Job 30, I think it's around 37 or 38, when God
speaks, He tells Job, to gird up your
loins like a man, and I'll demand of thee, and you give me the
answers, if you can. Of course he didn't, he couldn't
give one answer. He didn't say, Job, I'm sorry, Job, this is
why I did this, this is why I took, this is why, no. He didn't say,
he couldn't understand that if he did. His thoughts are higher than
my thoughts, and his ways higher than my ways. You know what you
and I are to do? Trust Him. Trust Him. Trust Him. James said to say,
if you're going to go to a city to buy and do business, if you're
going to do something tomorrow, say, if the Lord will, if the
Lord will, what you have planned tomorrow,
I know we all have plans on doing something tomorrow. I plan on
getting up and going into work and But I do know this, if the
Lord will, I will. If the Lord will, I will. It
says in Romans 9, 21, Hath not the potter power over the clay?
Does he not have the right to make one lump a vessel of wrath
and one a vessel of mercy? Does he not have that right,
is what Paul says? He has the right to do as he will with his
own. And then secondly, Christ preaches man's inability to come
to Him. We don't naturally want to come
to Him. We don't have the ability to come to Christ naturally now,
naturally, any more than a dead man has the ability to get up
out of a casket. I don't know why we can't comprehend
what dead means when we talk about spiritually dead. If I
get a phone call today and it says someone has died, I know
exactly what that means. I don't have any trouble understanding
what that means. They're dead. They're gone. They're
dead. They're not going to come back
here. They're dead. But we just can't comprehend, natural man
cannot comprehend what spiritually dead means. You don't have the
life of God in you. You can't comprehend the things
of God. Nicodemus, a ruler in Israel, a teacher, one who had
studied and studied. He read the Word of God more
than you and I have read it. I mean, he studied it and studied
it and studied it. And missed it. Missed it. He started to come
to the Lord. He came to the Lord and he was
going to ask some questions. And the Lord just stopped him.
Except a man be born again. He cannot see the Kingdom of
God. He can't see it, he can't understand it, he can't comprehend
it. And he told Nicodemus this, if the man be born again, and
what did Nicodemus say? Well, how can a man enter his mother's
womb the second time? That's not what he's talking
about. Just like these, just like over in this chapter. He
said, he that eats my flesh, he's not talking about cannibalism.
He's talking about faith. He's talking about exercising
faith in Him who is the substitute. Christ's death on the cross is
very real. Christ's death on the cross,
putting away sin, is very real. His blood for atonement is very
real. It is my drink indeed. He is
my bread of life. He is my life. He's it. He said here, no man can come
to me, and that is no man can come to me in faith, genuine
faith, except the Father who sent me, draw him. Draw him to
me. And then Christ spoke of the
regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in verse 63. He said,
it's the Spirit that quickeneth the flesh profits nothing. The flesh profits nothing. It's
the spirit that quickens. You must be born again. You must
be born of God. You have to have a heart to believe.
You have to have faith to receive the truth. And it's a work of
God. Faith and repentance is a work
of God. When I was under Arminianism,
I was under the impression that I would go up front, and I did. Except Jesus is my personal Savior,
and I did. I did what they said to do. Asked
God to forgive me, and then God would save me. And my understanding
was on those grounds, God would save me. If I did that, then
He would apply all that Christ did. If you believe God, it's because
God saved you. If you have repented, it's because
God has granted you faith and repentance. They are the gifts
of God. They're not the CAUSE of salvation,
they're the EVIDENCE of it. It's the EVIDENCE of salvation. He that eateth me HATH eternal
life. He's got it now. Christ spoke of the necessity
of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and he's talking about
exercising faith. Exercising faith in me. I had
a lady tell me one time, this has been some years ago, my aunt. And she said, she said, John,
she said, I asked the Lord for forgive me, I prayed that he'd
forgive me, but I don't get anywhere. She said, I just don't, and I
know what she's looking for, a feeling. I know exactly what
she's looking for. But she kept talking about asking
for forgiveness and I said, but the scripture says repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They go together.
If you don't believe Christ, what are you repenting for? You've got the wrong motive for
repentance. They were more when they looked on me whom they pierced.
Repentance has to do between me and God. It's my relationship
to Him. It's what I am, it's who He is,
and it's what I've done to Him and His Son. David said this in Psalm 51,
after he committed adultery, after he had Uriah murdered,
he said, And thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.
Did his sin hurt others? It sure did. It sure did. The family of Uriah, if his parents
were living, if he had brothers and sisters, I mean all that.
David premeditatedly had that man killed. But David, when he
faces up to his sin, He says, AGAINST YOU, FIRST AND FOREMOST,
MY SIN IS AGAINST GOD. It's against God. It's against God. They could take Christ living
forever. They could take Christ telling
them the future. They could take Christ healing,
feeding. They could take Him and deliver
Him from the Roman rule, but to eat my flesh and drink my
blood, they couldn't comprehend that.
He was talking about faith. He was talking about exercising
faith in Him. They couldn't comprehend it. When the cross is preached
in truth, its purpose, its message, how
God can save a sinner and be just in doing so, the humiliation
and the shame, the reproach, and how that's what I deserve. It's offensive to natural men. What does the cross say about
me? What does it say about me? When
you look at that mutilated flesh hanging on that cross, When you
look at that one that was forsaken of God and mutilated, his visage it
said was so marred more than any man. What does that say about me?
When I look at the cross, when I look at Christ and I see what
He had to go through, And I see how God dealt with him in my
place, taking my place, my substitute. Do you know what a wretch that
says I am? Do you know how vile that says
I must be before God for God to deal with His Son in my place
like that? Paul said, O wretched man that
I am. He put it right, didn't he? He didn't live like a wretch.
God saved him. But he's still a wretch. You
know, the tenor of your life is after godliness if you believe
God, but I tell you what, you're still a wretch. I'm still a wretch.
O wretched man that I am. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. That which I would do, I don't
do it. That which I would not do, I do it. Be glad someday when we get to
lay this body of flesh in the ground and leave it there. Leave it there. And then last
of all, a life committed to Christ. A life committed to Christ. Jesus
Christ is not a religion. He's not a religion. He's a living
person. He's our living Lord seated on
the throne ruling and reigning over everything right now. Absolutely
EVERYTHING! Not just the big things, EVERYTHING! From the molecules in the air
to the thrones on this earth. He overrules and rules all of
them. That's our Lord. Now, I can sleep
at night. I can sleep at night not because
I've been duped or because I just don't want to deal with reality.
I can sleep at night because Jesus Christ is on the throne
and He rules this thing. It's under His authority. When Satan stood before God and
they had this conversation on Job, Satan said, you put a hedge
about it. You bless the work of His hands,
I can't touch Him. I can't do anything to Him. When Christ speaks in verse 57,
I close. In verse 57. In verse 56, He that eats my flesh
and drinketh my blood And that's continually, eateth and drinketh. It's not something I did one
time. That's something that's continual.
Eateth my flesh, drinketh my blood, dwells in me, and I in
him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father,
so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. The just shall
live by faith. We live by Christ. We live upon
Christ. He's our life. Paul said, for
me to live is Christ. What is it for you to live? Think
about it. What is it? What is it that really
motivates you throughout the day? What is it that just enables
you to get up and look ahead and find some real joy in it
and some excitement in it? Paul said for him it was Christ.
Christ. Does this offend you? Does the
gospel of substitution offend you if you fall in love with
it? I know this. Naturally, I know
naturally it offends us. Naturally it does. But when God
saves us, He doesn't. No, we love it. We love it. The
gospel of substitution. I give my life. He said, I give
my life. I give my flesh. I'm going to the cross, I'm going
to die, and he that eateth my flesh, drinketh my blood, exercises
faith in me, lives by me. The Jews, the religious Jews,
the ones that went to meeting every week, they're the first
ones that show up. They're the first ones at every
Bible conference. They're the ones that show up. And they were offended. When
he spoke the truth, they were offended. I thank God, I thank God, that
I'm not offended anymore. I'm not offended. Truth, Lord,
that Syrophoenician woman, when he called her a dog, he called
her a dog, and he said, it's not right to give the children's
bread to the dogs. She said, truth, Lord, truth.
You're right, I am a dog of a sinner. I am a dog of a sinner, but I'm
your dog. I'm your dog. He said the puppies
get to eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. Isn't
that the place to take? Oh, that God would give us that
kind of spirit. Lord, just let me have some crumbs
of mercy that fall from your table. I'm a dog, you're right,
but I'm your dog. I'm your dog. All right.