In John chapter 6, we have been
looking at what Jesus said to these people, and most of those
he was talking to were opposed to him. And that's what gave
rise, it seems, as if that was the catalyst that gave rise to
this long exposition by the Lord Jesus Christ. But it was, of
course, not because of them, but because of his own people
that would hear the gospel through this exposition that he gave,
this declaration of the truth. And I wanna mention this because
of the events of yesterday in Ephesians chapter three, just
in passing, in Ephesians chapter 3 says that, In chapter 3, verse
8, Paul says, I am less than the least of all saints, and
this grace is given to me that I should preach among the Gentiles
the unsearchable riches of Christ, to make all men see what is the
fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world
has been hidden God who created all things by Jesus Christ, to
the intent, this was the reason, that now unto the principalities
and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church
the manifold wisdom of God, and listen to this verse, according
to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our
Lord. Now what that verse is teaching,
and I could just go on and on and read this, is teaching that
God created the world and orders all things in the world for the
sake of his people. to the glory of his son and to
his own glory because of his son. And it just so happens that
the events of yesterday, I know if you're aware of them, have
come on the scene and they create a great stir. And it causes us,
I think, a great distraction when we are taken up by human
events rather than seeing that God's purpose is in the salvation
of his people to the glory of his son. It's common for us to
put our trust in men. And it is obviously the intent
of the political processes to put other people and administrations
in place But the temptation is that people will do that with
a view towards an improvement, at least because of a man. But God doesn't work because
of a man. He works in spite of men to do
his will. And his will is not in the spotlight
of public media, but it is in the little barns of Ireland where
he speaks the gospel. If you were to look at the historical
record, you would see all the things that great men, great
men have done and the atrocities and the greatnesses and the conquering
and the wealth and all this stuff. But if you look in God's history
books, you're gonna see a completely different account. You're gonna
see the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of poor
sinners by him to the frustration and the grinding
of the teeth of all those who attempted to make themselves
important. And so that's what this chapter
is about. And I've entitled today's message, what it says in verse
61. In verse 61, when Jesus knew
in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto
them, does this offend you? That's the title. Does this offend
you? Now, that's a personal question.
Of course, it was asked by Christ of the disciples. The disciples,
if you were to read just before this, In verse 60, many, therefore,
of his disciples, when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? This is too
demanding. This is too austere. This is
too hard. We think that this man is crazy. And so that's when Jesus said,
does this offend you? And these were his disciples,
people who followed him. And you can see from this chapter
that the people who were hearing what he had to say here had followed
him after being fed when he fed the 5,000. Now, I want to talk
to this question, does this offend you from the text of this chapter
that we have already been becoming familiar with, I was also thinking
how in the world, it turns out that sometimes men will spend
their entire lives studying a small amount of information. It seems
like a very narrow focus. For example, someone with a PhD
gets their PhD perhaps in biology by trying to explain and understand
how the cell and the human body works. They basically will spend
their entire life doing that. And they'll come to conclusions
and write papers, and they'll give talks and so on. And you
wonder that they could spend their entire life on something
so narrowly focused. And here we have a chapter of
scripture. And I was thinking, I think someone
could get their PhD on just this chapter. And it wouldn't be nearly
as narrowly focused as that biology PhD candidate. So I just say
that as a passing thought when we look at this. Does this offend
you? Does this offend you? And I think the problem here
is that we don't understand why the gospel is offensive. We don't
understand that if the gospel is offensive to us, then God
is offensive to us. And that's the problem that we
have. In Romans chapter eight, it says
that the carnal mind, that's the way we think naturally, the
way we were born, is hostility, enmity against God. Our minds are the very epitome
of hatred and opposition and enmity against God. Now, that's
not what I would say. I would give myself a much better
assessment than that. I might say, well, there's sometimes
when I mess up and fail, but on the whole, you know, I'm not
that bad. God has a different assessment. He has a completely different
judgment of the matter, and He doesn't speak this about just
one person, but of all of us. And so when we read in John chapter
six, the answers to this question, does this offend you? I think
what it does is it serves to show us how that in the light
of God's goodness, man's wickedness is exposed. so that this should
frighten us, this should cause us to see that and should arrest
us and cause us to see that because God is so good and he's the savior
of sinners that are so bad that we should flee to him. as the
Lord Jesus tells us to in this chapter. Why were these men offended? Well, you remember it didn't
start when he began to speak, but even when he was on the hillside
there and he made the bread for the 5,000 men plus the women
and children, these people had gathered to him. It says in the
background of this in Matthew and Mark and Luke that John the
Baptist had been beheaded by Herod, that wicked king. And
the disciples of John came to Jesus and told Him, and it was
at that point Jesus said, let's go by ourselves into a desert
place alone. And so they did, but the people,
the crowds, had heard that Jesus was going, and they took off
on foot, and they came to the place where He was with His disciples,
and that was the setting of this hillside in Galilee where Jesus
fed the 5,000. And it says in the other Gospels
that when Jesus saw the people who had come to him, that he
had compassion on them because they were like sheep without
a shepherd. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ, according
to his own words in John 10, is the shepherd of his people,
and they are his sheep. And if you know anything about
a shepherd and his sheep, the shepherd is attached to the sheep
all the time, always there with the sheep, making sure they have
water and food and they're protected. and that if they're hurt, they
are cared for. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
looked at this crowd of people, and he had compassion on them
as those who were sheep without a shepherd. They had not been
taught. The truth of God had not been given to them. The bread
of heaven had not been given to them. And so in what follows,
he is expounding to them the fact that he is the shepherd
of his people, and that he cares for them as a shepherd more than
any shepherd on earth ever cared for sheep. And in caring for
them, he provides all for them for their life, and he protects
them. And that's what this chapter
is expounding here in these words. Now there were many on that hillside
and among those who came to him, there were those who didn't believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the people that's
mostly being spoken to by Christ beginning at verse 26. When Jesus
said in verse 26, verily, verily, I say to you, you seek me not
because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the
loaves and were filled. So here we see the first part
of why they were offended. why they were offended. These
people who came and followed Jesus were looking for something
from him that didn't have any lasting value. Here he is himself
sent by God to be the bread of life, the bread from heaven,
to give everlasting life to his people by laying his life down
for them, offering himself to God for their sins, for the sins
of many, It says in Hebrews chapter nine, he offered himself once
for the sins of many. If you wanted to look at that,
we will look at that later. But because he told them this,
that this is the way he would be the bread of life, they're
like, they had no interest in that. The only thing that they
could think of was what they could get from him on a physical
and a temporal way. So they came to Jesus in his
way. The bread of God, the Son of God from heaven, and they
heard His words. He taught His people there then
as sheep, as the shepherd of His sheep, and gave them bread
to eat, and they were fed by that bread in abundance. And
He healed their sick, it says in Matthew 14 and Mark 6 and
Luke 9, where these things are also expounded. All who had need of healing,
he healed them. And they saw it, and they heard
his words. They heard the doctrine that he spoke, the truth that
he taught from heaven. And the only thing they could
think about was, when are you gonna make some more bread? They
were completely spiritually blind. They were not hungry for the
bread that gives everlasting life. And so they were offended.
Come on, come on, do something for us. In fact, it says that
when the people saw that he had made this bread, that they wanted
to force him to be king. That's in verse 15, John 6, verse
15. To force someone to be king means
to make them serve you. Do, they wanted to control him.
And they weren't content to just let him rule as he came to rule
in a spiritual sense, to give his people eternal life, but
to rule now in a way that serves me. And that's what people do. That's what we do naturally.
We have a hostile mind toward God. We want to control God. And so he tells them, you're
not seeking me because of who I am, not because of what I said. Not because I came as the bread
of life, but because you saw the pattern of that when I broke
the bread and gave it to the people. And you're only interested
in the patterns. You're only interested in the
shadows, the things that represent the true, but not the true thing
itself. It's like someone said one time,
you love the picture, but you don't care for the person. And
that's what the Lord Jesus Christ is saying. I'm the true bread.
not that typical bread, not that bread God gave, that manna that
was to represent the Lord Jesus Christ, who would be given by
God the Father from heaven to be the life of His people, in
that He would give Himself for the sins of many, so that He
would take away the death their sins deserve, and give them life,
and in that life give them faith, and faith in Him from which they
would draw from Him their life and eternal life. in believing
him who gave himself for their sins. That was the message of
that manna. Didn't go, didn't sink in. Everything
that God did in the Old Testament, Israel of old completely didn't
believe, they didn't see it, and so when the new came, when
the true came, they weren't interested in that because they had no hunger
for the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore they were offended.
And the book of Hebrews is an entire book written to the Jews,
the Hebrews. And that's what it's about, not
the picture. The substance has come. The Lord
of glory, the expressed image of the Father, the brightness
of his glory, who purged our sins and sat down on the right
hand of God has come. Not Moses, not Abraham, not these
other things. The Levitical priesthood, all
that was only a platform, a scaffolding on which God would display the
glory of his son in the salvation of his people. Sinners who had
no hope until God did this. He sent his son. And so they
were offended at this. And then he tells them in verse
27, John 6, don't labor, don't work for that meat which perishes,
the food that just dissipates and doesn't last and doesn't
give life, doesn't even give regular life, let alone everlasting
life. Don't labor for that. Don't work
for that. And so he's telling them, all of your work is worth
nothing when it comes to this bread of heaven. Your work is
worthless. That's what he's telling them
in verse 27. And they were offended at that.
It's offensive when someone says, everything that you do, everything
you have done counts for nothing because it's full of sin. You're serving yourself. They're
not glorifying God. And so they were offended at
that. Don't labor for that meat. Why not? I like it. But you're
not hungry for the everlasting bread, the bread that gives everlasting
life. And then he says in verse 27,
which the son of man shall give you, because he said, I must
give it to you, and they came to him for the regular bread,
they were offended. Do you have to give it to us?
No, we're going to earn it. God told us that if we do all
of his commandments, then we will live, and then we agreed
to that, and we're going to stick to that plan. And if God doesn't
recognize our works, then he's not our God, because our God
is not like that. He recognizes us. He takes recognition of us. In
fact, when we stand before Him, we're going to ask Him to recognize
what we did, what we thought, what we were doing, our intentions
and our motives. And if it's not enough to keep
His law, we'll bring up other things. We did this in Jesus'
name and that in Jesus' name and these other things in Jesus'
name. And He'll say, I never knew you.
Depart from me. You are workers of iniquity.
Why? Because they trusted in what they did to glorify God. And God says in Romans 3.23,
we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We failed
everything God requires of us. We have failed to do. And the
Lord Jesus Christ is saying in this, everything God requires
is found in me alone. And until you believe me, you
are showing a hostility towards God, a hatred towards His Son,
and a hatred towards God Himself, God the Father. That offended
them. So they said, so we're not supposed
to labor for regular bread? We're supposed to labor for this
other kind of bread? What do you mean? What work should
we do? And he said, this is the work. Believe on him whom he
has sent. The one God has sent is the way
and the only way God's requirements for us are met. We can't meet
them. We can't fulfill what God requires. God had to do it. And all that
God requires is fulfilled in God's provision and what He did
in His Son. And it's fulfilled absolutely,
completely, and perfectly. Nothing can be added to it. And
to walk away from that, pursuing other things in order to make
myself feel like I have some confidence in God. by whatever
religious activities I think to do, whether it be raising
my hand, or making a decision, or getting baptized in water,
or attending church, or going on visitation, or going out and
passing out tracts, or whatever I do. Anything I trust in that
I have done is not just neutral, it's actually in opposition to
the truth. To put our trust in that is laboring
for bread that perishes. And so they were offended. You're
calling everything I did as shameful and worthless. That's because
it is. And that's why God sent his son.
Why would God send his son and deliver him up for his people
and deliver him up to bear the weight of their sins and the
shame of that and the guilt of that and the a weight on his own soul in making
his soul an offering for sin if there was some other way.
Why would he pour out his wrath on him for sinners if there was
some other way? But they were offended at that
because they had this attitude of value in themselves, a value
they demanded God to recognize, a work that they expected God
would reward. And then this is the other thing
too. Look at verse, let me get to
the end here where he really puts a point on this. In verse
61, when Jesus said, it says he knew in himself that his disciples
murmured at it. He said to them, does this offend
you? Everything that I've been saying, does that offend you?
And then he goes on in verse 62. What and if you shall see
the son of man ascend up where he was before? Are you offended now? Well, what
if you see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before? What
is He saying in these words? Well, what He's saying is a couple
of things that need to be pointed out here. First of all, He's
saying that they were offended at Him in His humiliation. When He came from the Father,
He stooped. He stooped, he is equal with
God and yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him
the form of a man and as man he became a servant. And as a
servant he gave his life a ransom for many. And it says in Isaiah
chapter 53 that because of this, because he came to give his life
a ransom for many, listen to these words that Isaiah says
that our attitude towards him was. He says in Isaiah 53 in
verse 3, he is despised. and rejected of men, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief." That's his humiliation. What
did men, what did they think of him? They despised him. Look
at him, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not." Why was he despised? Why was he a man of sorrows? Well, the Jews thought, well,
he's just a carpenter. And we want someone who is majestic. Someone who acts like us, who
wields authority over others with power and serves us because
we're God's chosen people. I mean, after all, God gave us
the oracles, the word from heaven. We've got that. We read that.
We expect we're going to have eternal life because God chose
this nation. We were the children of Abraham,
and they trusted all these things. But the Lord Jesus Christ came,
the one who is the king, and he came not as a majestic king. In their estimation, when they
saw him, he was despised and rejected because he came in humiliation,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And so it says in
Isaiah 53, 4, surely he has borne our griefs. The reason he was
a reproach among men is because he bore the reproaches of us
who reproached God. and bearing that reproach, our
reproach, that we should have borne. Because we reproached
God, He was a man reproached of men, because God laid on Him
the iniquity of us. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the beatings, the stripes,
the chastisement of our peace in order for us to be at peace
with God came upon Him. And with His stripes, we were
healed. You see? They were offended at
that. The one they expected would come
with pomp and circumstance. And he came not that way. He came in humility. But these
men knew nothing of humility. Proverbs 6 says, God hates pride. And you can see this throughout
scripture. God hates pride. Men love pride. If you see someone who's successful
in this world, it's going to be someone who is in the esteem
of men worthy of honor, proud, because of their strength or
their intellect or their wealth or their wit or their achievements. We always recognize heroes. They're
strong and smart and they do things that are noteworthy. But
the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, he made himself of
no reputation. And that offends a proud heart.
It says in Psalm 34, the righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers
them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh, he's near those
who are of a broken heart and save such as be of a contrite
spirit. In other words, people who are
absolutely broken and they can't fix it. They have no value in
their own estimation before God, which is consistent with the
truth. They have no value and yet God
is gracious to them who have nothing. God is gracious to those
who have nothing. That is because God loves, He
takes delight in a contrite spirit and a broken heart. That's amazing,
isn't it? That's not the way we think.
And it offends us when we see someone who is so greatly honored
because of their low condition. It bothers us, especially with
the Lord Jesus Christ. In 1 Samuel 2, Hannah prayed
and she says, Talk no more, so exceeding proudly. Let not arrogance come out of
your mouth. For the Lord is the God of knowledge,
and by Him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken,
and they that stumbled are girded with strength. They that were
full hired themselves out for bread. They that were hungry
ceased, so that the barren has born seven, and she that has
many children is waxed feeble. The Lord kills and makes alive.
He brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor
and He makes rich, and He brings low and He lifts up. He raises
up the poor. Listen to this. God raises up
the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggar from the
dunghill. God is near those who are of
a contrite spirit. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
the lowest of the low. And he was despised and rejected
because of that. And he took this place, he took
this place of poverty in order to make us rich in God's grace. Isn't that what 2 Corinthians
8, 9 says? You know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that you, through his poverty, might be made rich. not rich in this world, not rich
in recognition among men, not rich in intellect, not rich in
accomplishments, but rich in grace, rich in the esteem of
God. And how is that possible? Because
God has put us in the Lord Jesus Christ and found all that He
requires of us in Him. And in Him have given us all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places. And that is true riches. The riches to know God in His
humility. In His humility. These men in
John chapter 6 were offended because they professed, they
followed Jesus from the bread across the sea. And now they
were hearing his words. And he was telling them he's
the bread of heaven. And they said, how in the world
could you come from heaven? We know you. You're Joseph's
son and Mary's son. You came from heaven? No way. No way possible. Look at you. You look like one of us. You're
actually worse looking than us. You're despised and rejected
of men because you're a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
always going around here praying and speaking of things that,
I mean, this shows that you can't be a great person. And they hated
him for that. They hated him for his humility.
And he gave that parable in Luke chapter 18 of the same thing.
This man who was a Pharisee comes into the temple. He stands right
up front. He stands up. He lifts up his
eyes to heaven and he says, God, I thank you. I am not like other
men. I fast twice a week. I give tithes
of all that I have. I'm especially glad that I'm
not like this publican over here. I'm not an extortioner. And then Jesus said, publicans
stood far off, far off. He wouldn't lift up his head,
wouldn't lift up his eyes. He beat up on his chest and he
said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And Jesus said, I
tell you, that man went down to his house justified rather
than the other, rather than the Pharisee. That's humility, you
see. This man, this publican who was
a wicked sinner and knew it and stood afar off from God and asked
God, consider. the sacrifice of propitiation
and be merciful to me. Consider the Lord Jesus Christ
and his sacrifice. He gave his body and his blood
in order to put away the sins of many. Consider him and look
upon me in mercy. I'm a sinner. My heart is the
problem. I can't even look up. I'm not
worthy even of your grace. And God gave it to him. He gave
him everything. He gave him all riches in Christ.
I wanna read that text of scripture I've mentioned in Hebrews chapter
9 with you. Hebrews chapter 9, look at this,
very, very important. It explains what Jesus meant
when he said, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life in you. In Hebrews chapter
9, it says, in verse 24, Christ is not entered into the holy
places made with hands. which are the figures of the
true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence
of God for us. Nor yet that he should offer
himself often as the high priest entereth into the holy place
every year with blood of others, for then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. Christ is not like those priests.
They went in and out every year with blood of others. But now,
he says, once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, so, this is
Hebrews 9, 28, so Christ was once offered to bear the sins
of many. And unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. He took the sins of his people
into the judgment of fire with him. And those sins were consumed
by the justice of God, the pouring out of his wrath that Christ
endured. And then He was buried, and our
sins buried with Him, and they were remembered no more. They
were completely removed before God. The sins that Christ bore
on the cross, in His own body, were completely taken away before
God. And God remembers them no more. Because they're not there. God
remembers them no more because there's nothing more to remember.
Because Christ by himself purged our sins. And then he sat down
on the right hand of the majesty on high. There's nothing left.
No barrier. No sin to be found. The way we
come to God in Christ is that there's nothing left. Christ
has fully removed it all in the offering of himself. Not the
offering of others. He offered himself to God. And
that's what he means when he says in John 6, except you eat
the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no
life in you, unless by faith given by God in Christ crucified
to remove my sins and answer for them too, so that God himself
is satisfied and God is glorified in all of his perfections to
the highest possible extent. trusting that one, that one who
came from heaven and gave himself in this way as the bread of heaven,
the bread of life, the one whose blood and flesh I take by faith
and come to God having no other sacrifice than the one he made
and God accepted for sinners. and say, Lord, this is everything
I have, the only thing I have, and it's all sufficient according
to your word, according to your own justice and righteousness
and truth. So magnified in the person of
your son, and we take it in with a glad heart, and we say, Lord
Jesus, how great you are. And they were offended at that.
They were offended. How could we eat that? That is
repugnant. That's repulsive. We can't possibly
stomach the thought of eating your flesh and blood. He wasn't
talking about a dead Christ. He was talking about a living
Christ who rose because he accomplished our redemption. But they didn't
see it. What they didn't see is, in giving
himself in this way, he was making known the very heart of God. And what was that heart? The
heart of humility. God stooped. God took. He was born. The Son of God was
born of a woman. He came under the law in order
that He might redeem those who were under the law. He bore the
curse in order that He might remove the curse from us. He
bore our sins in order that He might answer God for our sins
and put them away. God did this. That's humility. That's grace. No, the proud heart
of man says, that won't do, that won't do. Because it would be
too vulgar, too offensive to think that what my sins deserve
is what I see in the sacrifice of Christ. The cross is offensive
to men because it tells us all of our work is worth nothing.
And in order for us to come to God, we had to be slaughtered,
but we couldn't be slaughtered. And we had to fulfill a love
to God and to his people that would lay down our life, but
we couldn't lay our life down and we wouldn't do it, but Christ
did. In Galatians chapter six, the apostle Paul says this, God
forbid, that I should glory, boast, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ." Now what is Paul saying here in Galatians
6 verse 14? He's saying he once was a proud
Pharisee. He was that one who stood in
the temple, as it were. promoting himself and boasting
in himself. And now he says, no, this is
what God has done to me. He has shown me in the humiliation,
the humility of Christ and his accomplishment for sinners to
the glory of God. He's showing me that the cross
of Christ is all that I have to boast in. And I'm happy that
it's that way. I'm happy because this reflects
the very brightness of God's glory. God himself made known
in that stoop of Christ for sinners. What a God. What majesty. What honor. How great our God
is because he's so gracious that he would empty himself and stoop
in this way and it offends us. It offends us. If you're a disciple
of Christ and you follow him in this way, you know what it
means? This is what he wants you to do. Let this mind be in
you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form
of God. You see, it's to think of this
way of yourself when you think of others. In Philippians chapter
two, I'll read that to you. I was just trying to quote it.
Let me read it to you in Philippians chapter two. He says there in
verse one, if there be therefore any consolation in Christ, any
comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, we all are part
of the one Spirit, right? The one Spirit of God. God is
in us by His Spirit. And we're joined to Christ in
union and members one of another. He says, if any bowels of mercies,
Fulfill ye my joy, that you be like-minded, having the same
love, being of one accord, of one mind, let nothing be done
through strife or vain glory, not glory to yourself, but in
lowliness of mind, let each Each one of you in the body of Christ
esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this
mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation. Christ's mind toward his father
was that he would stoop, make himself of no reputation in order
to save his people. He loved his father. He loved
his wife. He loved his children. He would
not go out free. He said, put your all here, bore
me through. And he said, I will serve you
forever in love. And that's exactly what God did. As Christ's attitude was to his
father for his people, so our attitude is to be towards one
another for Christ's sake. He thought toward his father
and toward his people, he made himself of no reputation. We
are to think of Christ and his humility and humiliation to save
his people, and we're to think of that way towards one another,
for Christ's sake. It says in Romans chapter 15
in verse seven, he says, let me turn there. He says, receive
ye one another as Christ received us to the glory of God. That's
why he did it, to the glory of God, to the glory that God would
be so gracious to receive sinners by giving his son and receiving
us in his son as his son for the sake of his son. to the glory
of his Son, and therefore to the glory of God." I think what this text of Scripture
is saying is that if we're offended by what Christ did for the salvation
of his people, then we are offended at God himself. Now, there's
an account in Scripture in the book of Esther of a man named
Haman, of Haman in the book of Esther. And if you recall the
account, Haman was the king's right-hand man. And he had the
king's authority. And he would go in and out of
the palace. And one day he was going in and
out of the palace and there was this man named Mordecai there,
a Jew, and he sat there. And every day Haman went in and
out. Mordecai wouldn't bow to him. Haman was furious. So he found out that Mordecai
was of the Jews, and he decided he would work
out a deal behind the king's back and trick the king to get
the king to kill all the Jews. In the process, he built a gallows,
place to hang people, 50 cubits high, about 75 feet tall. He was going to hang Mordecai
on that. And then Queen Esther, who was the niece of Mordecai,
and Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter and watched
over her, she was also loved of the king and made to be the
king's own queen, his wife. And she pleaded to the king for
the Jews because Mordecai told her to do that. It turns out
that in the process of the story, Haman goes in one day to the
banquet that Queen Esther had called Haman to with the king. When Haman is in there, he finds
out that the king was very happy to announce that Mordecai had
saved him because of a plot that had been laid. And the king wanted
to ask Haman, what should be done to Mordecai, to someone
like this? And of course, Haman didn't know
it was talking about Mordecai. And so Haman thought, he must
be talking about me. So he said, well, to someone
that the king wants to honor, he should be robed in the king's
own robe, crowned with the king's own crown, and put on the king's
own horse, and get a great person in the king's kingdom, and have
him brought through the city and pronounced, this is what
shall be done to the one the king delights to honor. And the
king said, great idea. Do that to Mordecai today. Remember
that? And Haman knew right away he
was in big trouble. And so at this banquet, which
Queen Esther called, Haman comes into the banquet. He's really
worried now because he's done this. It caused him great grief
to do that, to take Mordecai through the city and said, this
is the man whom the king delights to honor. And he was like a servant
to him. He had the robe. He had the crown.
He had the ring of the king. And so Haman shows up at the
banquet of wine and Queen Esther tells the king, you know, there's
someone who has been trying to kill all the people of the Jews. and it was unjust and turns out
that she's also a Jew. So this infuriates the king and
says, who would be this man? Well, he walks out of the room
and Haman is begging for his life and the king walks in and
here Haman is begging for his life, happens to be begging for
his life on the bed of the queen and the king is absolutely furious. So mad he can't speak and they
put a cover over Haman's head and they take him out And they
told the king, the servants of the king said, you know, this
guy Haman, he built this gallows out there for Mordecai. And the
king said, hang him on it. And they did. And then the king's
wrath was pacified. I encourage you to read the entire
book. I probably have given a poor summary of it. But let me say
this. When Jesus asked these disciples,
does this offend you? Does it offend you to see the
one God sent into the world to save His people from their sins
by offering Himself to God in humiliation and bearing their
sins and the reproach of them from God Himself and from wicked
men? Does that offend you? How much
more then will it offend you when you see the Son of Man lifted
up where He was before? And here all of the Haman's were
standing around listening to this as disciples who trusted
in their own righteousness. And you can imagine what they
felt when they heard that the one speaking to them They saw
then in humility and they would actually put their hands, their
wicked hands to crucify him. Then they heard Peter on the
day of Pentecost say, you took him and by wicked hands slew
him. But God raised him from the dead
and has exalted him. And what did they say? What shall
we do? And he says, Well, I could read it to you, but he says,
God has made him both Lord and Christ. Repent and believe on
him. And that's what we're to do.
Not bring our works. Turn from all that we formerly
trusted in and lay it all on the acceptance of God, of Jesus
Christ, for his people, for their sins. That's our only hope. And
in doing that, we actually honor Christ and honor God in him. That's it. Are we offended or
are we delighted? Do we say with Peter, Lord, you
have the words of eternal life. We have nowhere else to go and
we're happy to be with you. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your goodness towards us. What great grace you've shown
that you would think upon us by giving us to your son and
putting us in your son and treating us as you treat your son so that
all that he did, we did in him and all that you gave to him
because of what he did. you've given to us in Him alone,
help us to know the words of the Lord Jesus, that we are to
believe on Him, to ascribe all credit and glory and honor and
praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, that He would stoop to save us
from our sins. We have no claim except His word,
to come to Him and look to Him and say, in the Lord have I righteousness
and strength, and I have nothing else to plead. to plead except
the Lord Jesus Christ that he would be my advocate and my answer
and do all the talking in order to make me all that God intended
that he would do for me in his own blood and righteousness.
What a savior. Oh, Lord, our God, thou art very
great. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.