Well, let's go to John chapter
6 once again this evening, and we'll finish our studies this
evening, the Lord willing. In John chapter 6, this is our
subject, the Savior asks, will ye also go away? This is a question he put to
his disciples after there was a mass exodus of those who had
been listening to this discourse as our Savior spoke to them in
the city of Capernaum. In John chapter 6, the Spirit
of God has given to us several powerful truths about that one
who is the bread of life. Let me give you these seven things
briefly. The bread is identified in verse
48. Our Savior said, I am that bread
of life. He is the great I am and He is
God's bread to us, the bread of life. When He says I am, He
is signifying His self-existence. He is the being of all beings. When he says, I am, he is saying,
I am immutable. I am unchangeable. I am faithful. I am always constant. I'm the everlasting God. say
that He is the I Am is to say that He is Jehovah, our God. God who saves. This is the bread
identified. And then the Spirit of God gives
us the origin of the bread. Several times we read that this
is the true bread that came down from heaven. It was God who gave
the bread in the wilderness to the children of Israel. And it's
God who gave His only begotten Son to be the bread for our souls,
the nourishment of our souls, for the life of our souls. Our
Savior is the fulfillment of that man that God gave to His
people Israel during their wilderness journeys. Our Lord Jesus is the
true manna given from heaven to be the savior of folks like
us from our sins. He did not originate in this
world. The Spirit of God has Him say
several times that He is the bread that came down from heaven. This bread is identified. We
find out the origin of this bread. Thirdly, the bread was sacrificed. You notice in verse 51, he said,
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. He said, 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 bread must be sacrificed.
That is, Christ Jesus must sacrifice himself. This is a sacrifice
offered not to us. It's not a sacrifice offered
to the devil. It's a sacrifice offered to God. He was that great sin offering
presented to the Father in order to establish righteousness in
order to remove the sins of all of his people. And fourthly,
this bread from heaven is the substitute of sinners. In verse
51 again, down at the end, he says, I will give, the bread
that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world. He is the substitute. We've often
said this, and we shall say it many times, if you would know
the gospel of God's grace, the gospel of salvation, you need
to know these two truths, that our Lord Jesus was sacrificed,
He's the sacrifice, He's the satisfier of God's justice through
His sacrifice, and He's the substitute. He's the substitute for his people.
He didn't substitute for everybody, otherwise everybody would be
saved. But he did take the place of
his elect. He took the place of his people.
He took the place of his sheep. He says in John chapter 10, we'll
be there in a few weeks, He said, I am the Good Shepherd, the Good
Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep, the substitute for
the sheep. If He died for the sheep, then
the sheep won't die. And this is the Savior here,
He says, I gave the flesh, the bread that I will give is my
flesh and I'll give it for the world. What world? The world
of His elect. the world of those that God gave
Him in the covenant of grace. Which brings me to also say that
the Spirit of God shows us that this bread was given for a great
multitude. He uses this expression that
His flesh was given for the life of the world. And those words
must have really stung the Jews because they thought they had
cornered on God's grace and God's mercy, that God had no love for
anybody outside the borders of Israel. They certainly didn't
love or have any grace or salvation for the Gentile dogs. But you
know, God's grace, it crosses the boundary lines of race and
nationality and it reaches to every kindred, tribe and tongue
and nation under heaven. Our Lord Jesus redeemed all kinds
of sinners. We're redeemed out of the world. It's what He says in Revelation
chapter 5. He's redeemed many, many people. Many people. Sixthly, John says,
or he writes, and the Savior says, this is the bread that
must be eaten. Don't miss this. Don't miss this. Look at verse 50. He says, this is the bread, he's
speaking of himself. He just said in verse 48, I am
that bread of life. And now he says in verse 50,
this is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may
eat thereof and not die. If you don't want to die, I don't
want to die. I don't want to die forever.
I don't want to perish in my sins. The bread of the gospel
is set before me. The bread of Christ Jesus in
His glorious person, in His wonderful work, work of substitution and
satisfaction. Here's His blood. Here's His
righteousness. It's set before me. What am I
to do? Well, am I to just be amazed
at it? Well, I am amazed at it, but
I've got to do more than that. Am I just to try to seek to understand
it? Well, I do seek to understand
it, but I've got to do more than that. I've got to eat. I've got to
eat. The Israelites in the Old Testament,
there they were hungry, They were griping about how it'd be
better if they were back in Egypt. God gave them manna. Every morning it's out there.
They went out and gathered it. At least six mornings a week
they gathered. They brought it in and prepared
it, fixed it. Here's a mom, a wife, she prepares
it. She sets it before her husband.
There's just one way that bread will do him any good. He's got to eat it. There's got
to be a reception of the bread into the body. And this is our responsibility
to eat the bread of life. Oh God, give us a hunger for
the gospel. Give us a hunger for salvation. Give us a hunger for the Lord
Jesus. He is the bread of life and the
only way He will satisfy or that we will be satisfied with this
great salvation and this wonderful Savior is to eat. There's got
to be a reception of the bread. And this doesn't go against God's
divine predestination because God has predestinated that all
of His people have a hunger and a thirst and they eat and they
drink. And we drink of the water of
life and we eat of the bread of life and we're nourished.
We live. You can cross all the T's and
dot every I in theology and all the doctrines of the gospel,
but unless you eat, unless you eat, you don't have
any life. He says, notice it again, He said, that a man may
eat thereof and not die, which means if you don't eat, you're
going to die. And the Lord said to the house
of Israel, oh, why will you die? Why will you die when food is
prepared for you? There it is set before you, a
Savior, salvation, mercy, grace. It's set before you. Why will
you die? And if you don't eat, that's
your fault. That's your fault. Oh, that God
would give us a hunger. that can only be satisfied by
feasting on Christ Jesus. And then the Spirit of God tells
us that this bread sustains everybody who eats it. Again in verse 50, This is the
bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof,
and not die. You're not going to die. Those
who eat this bread, they're not going to die. Wait, so I'm going
to die physically? The Savior said of Lazarus, he
fell asleep. He fell asleep. There's no death
for the people of God. There's just life for the people
of God. Life. This bread sustains us. Because you see, this bread is
life Himself. He is the bread of life. And
when we feast on Him, it's because He's already given us spiritual
life. He said back in John 5, 24, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth
on Him that sent Me, he's already got everlasting life. Having everlasting life, we have
a life that will never end. This bread sustains us. Poor old hungry Israelite took
that man and said, I'm starving to death. And there's the wife
prepares it and says, here it is, honey, eat. And he eats. He says, oh, this is good. This
is good. This will sustain me. Something
about that manna in the wilderness, it had everything in it they
needed. Every vitamin, every mineral,
every necessity of life was in the manna. And everything we
need is in Christ Jesus. We feed on Him. We are nourished
by Him. He's the bread. Now notice in
verse 59. It says, these things, this great
message on Him being the bread of life. These things said He
in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. It's some valuable
information, this message on Christ being the bread of life.
He taught this in the synagogue. It doesn't say on the Sabbath. And I doubt He was on the Sabbath.
I think the Spirit of God would have informed us of that. But
we also know they had services on Monday and Tuesday. And the
Savior, having fed all of these people, He goes around the lake.
He makes His way to the city of Capernaum. And then He goes
in the synagogue and He begins to teach. The meaning of this city, Capernaum,
the meaning of the name is City of Consolation, City of Comfort. Our Lord was born in Bethlehem. He spent his early days, his
days of youth, in Nazareth. But then he began his public
ministry And he was in the city of Capernaum, which in Matthew
9.1 is called his own city. This is where he made his headquarters
in Capernaum. A couple of us were talking back
in the office about how many miracles our Lord performed during
his public ministry. People have tried to count them
all and of course if every miracle that he performed had been recorded
as you read, it couldn't be contained in this book. Estimated about 39 to 40 public
miracles were performed by our Lord that are identified specifically
And you know, about 20% of them, they were performed in the city
of Capernaum. More than in any other city. Oh, how blessed they were. Here
are the people of Capernaum. Many of them, probably all of
this group, they had been fed by the Savior the day before,
and now they're listening to Him. And I can imagine the synagogue,
it was well packed. as He began to teach, and people
were outside, and our Lord had the ability, apparently, to project
His voice, and thousands of people were listening to Him. What a
great privilege. Go back to Matthew chapter 11. But with this great privilege
came great responsibilities. And the Spirit of God is very
specific to identify exactly which city it was in which He
gave this discourse on the Savior being the bread of life. It was
the city of Capernaum, where He set up His headquarters. for
his evangelistic ministry. I suppose it would be okay to
call it that, for his public ministry. During those three
years or so of his public ministry, this is where he made his headquarters.
And it says in Matthew chapter 11, look at verse 23 for the
sake of time. I'll just read this. And thou
Capernaum which art exalted unto heaven, in other words, You've
had so many privileges. As I said, about 20% of our Lord's
miracles were performed in this city. He preached great messages
in this city. He would be in the city, came
back to the city, He would leave, He'd come back again, go somewhere
else preaching, and then come back to Capernaum. That was His
headquarters. That was the very center of His
ministry. He says, you've been exalted unto heaven. Oh, how
greatly you've been blessed by God. But you'll be brought down to
hell. For if the mighty works which had been done in thee had
been done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day.
And I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable, more bearable,
more endurable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than for thee. Do we believe in degrees of heaven?
Absolutely not. Because all of us are washed
in the same blood. We're robed in the same righteousness. We're saved by the same grace
of God. We're all selected in the same
election of grace, redeemed by our Lord Jesus, the same Savior,
the Spirit of God, the same Spirit has given us life. We have nothing
of which to boast when we labor in the very cause of God and
truth. We're just God's servants doing
that which we ought to do. We shall inherit all of heaven.
The Lord Jesus Himself is our everlasting portion. And having
the Savior, we have all that God can give any sinner. There
are no degrees of heaven, but I do believe there are degrees
of hell. And I don't know how that's going to be, but this
passage is one of those that I believe teaches this. Because to whom much is given,
much is required. Here's a city that the Lord Jesus,
He was in and out of that city all the time. Preaching there. Healing there. Giving abundant
evidence of His identity. They wouldn't believe Him. They wouldn't believe Him. Over
here in John 6, all of this mass of people, they leave Him! They
leave Him! They said, we want more evidences
that you're the Messiah. And I'll tell you, they're without
excuse. They're without excuse. And you! You who have listened to the
Gospel, people watching tonight, you've listened to the Gospel
of free grace, the Gospel of Christ Jesus. There's life in
Christ, forgiveness in Christ. There's heaven in Christ. There's
forgiveness of sins and iniquities in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
acceptance in Christ. Come to Him. Believe Him. Receive
Him as Prophet, Priest, and King. Bow to Him. Worship Him! Believe Him! And if you don't,
oh my, oh my, you've been exalted to
heaven as it were. God's given you a Bible. God's
given you somebody to tell you the truth. He's given you people
who pray for you, who care about you, who love you. Maybe your spouse, maybe your
mother, your dad, your child. He's blessed you in an abundant
of ways. And still you're hard against
the gospel? The Lord says it's going to be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah. Those filthy, filthy
cities. Be more tolerable for them than
for those who've had all these privileges. Oh, may God wake us up. Wake
us up. I can't think of anything worse
than just go to hell with a Bible in your hand. Wow! And the gospel in years. But you die in unbelief. The
Savior said, when you die in your sins, where I am, you're
not coming. You're not going to come where
I'm at. Well, we know in this Scripture
many cease to go after Him, cease to follow Him. Verse 60, many
therefore of His disciples, when they heard this, when they heard
all He had to say, they said, this is a hard saying. This is
offensive. This is so intolerable. Who can hear it? I'm not going
to listen to it anymore. That's what they mean. I remember
several years ago, I was preaching in Rocky Mountain.
I had only been pastor there For about a year, one of my Sunday
school teachers came up to me after the Wednesday night service
and I preached on God's electing grace. She was a Sunday school
teacher and she came up to me, just a little lady. I was standing
down front, greeting people. Her husband was there. And she
said, I'll tell you right now, I am not going to teach that
in my Sunday school class. And I thought to myself, yeah,
you're right, because you're not going to be teaching anymore. But that's what she said, I'm
not going to be teaching that anymore. She said, nobody's going to listen
to that. And she said, I'm not going to
listen to this. She said, I'm not going to listen
to you anymore. And you know what she did? She
and her husband left. moved down further south somewhere. Too hard to say. Will you hear
what God has to say? Or will you say, hey, this is
a hard saying. I'm not going to hear it. I'm
not going to listen. I don't have to listen to that. I was preaching another time and a man sitting on this side
about halfway back, not here, somewhere else. I was preaching
and he stood up and he said, I don't have to listen to this.
And out the door he went. No, you don't have to listen
to it. Nobody's got you in handcuffs. Nobody's got you in chains. Nobody's
going to force you to stay. But it's the mercy of God that
you get to listen to the gospel of His grace. That's God's mercy
to you. And I tell you, God have mercy
on you if you don't listen, but He won't. He won't if you don't
listen. Because faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. These people say, it's too hard,
we're leaving. So they left. And our Lord Jesus, verse 61,
He knew in Himself that His disciples murmured. They were grumbling
over what He said. So He said, does this offend
you? Does this offend you? And I would
ask the same question to each of you. Does this offend you? Does sovereign grace offend you? Does unconditional election offend
you? Does particular redemption offend
you? Does irresistible grace offend
you? Does perseverance of the saints
offend you? He said, if this offends you,
Well, what if he was to see the Son of Man ascend back up where
He was before? That would really offend you. He said, it's the Spirit that
quickens, the flesh profiteth nothing. In the things of God
and salvation, know this, it's the Spirit of God that quickens. Our flesh makes no contribution. Not your goodness, not your works,
not your gifts, not your charitable contributions. The flesh profited
nothing. It just gets in the way. He said, the words, the words,
words. Oh, words are important. Especially
His words. He said, the words that I speak,
their spirit, their life. And then He said, but there are
some of you that believe not. He said, I know you. I know who
those are here that don't believe. Why? It says, for Jesus knew
from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should
be trained. And He said, therefore said I
unto you that no man can come unto Me except it were given
to him of My Father." He had said essentially the same thing
before this back in verse 44. And now He says, you can't come
to Me unless it were given to you of My Father. And so verse
66 says, from that time, many of His disciples went back
and walked with Him no more. They went back. They didn't go to the right.
They didn't just go to the left. They didn't just veer off a little
bit. Why, they just turned around
and went the other way. And I was thinking about it today,
it's like the opposite of repentance. What is repentance? It's an about
face, right? That's what repentance is. It's
a change of mind, a change of heart. And these people, they
have a reversal of that. They have a change of mind, and
they have a change of heart. We're not following you anymore.
And it isn't that we're just going to kind of veer off a little
bit. We're just going to go back, back to our works religion. back
to Judaism, back to doing whatever it was we was doing before we
started following you. They went back to those things
which they had left for a little while. Like Jeremiah 11.10 says,
they are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refuse
to hear my words. And like it says in 2 Peter chapter
2, as a dog goes back to its vomit, to a sow, to a hog, to
a wallowing in the mire. As it says in Proverbs 26, 11,
as a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returns to his folly. That's what they did. They left
that one who is the truth and they went back to foolishness.
And understand this, every religion except the religion of God is
just religious foolishness. That's all it is. Religious foolishness. Doesn't matter what name of the
religion, doesn't matter what denomination, doesn't matter
what church it is. If it's not the truth, it's just
a bunch of foolishness. Foolishness. Well, when they left, then the
Savior said to the Twelve, will you also go away? Will you also go away? Boy, what
a question. The Apostle Paul said, demons
hath forsaken me, having loved this present world. Will you
also go away? Paul said a couple of men, Hymenaeus
and Philetus, they fell away. He said, concerning the truth
they've erred, and they overthrew the faith of son. Here's the
thing about defection. About people leaving the gospel.
The defection of one usually leads to the defection of others. That's the way it works. One
writer said, it's like a big tree in the forest. When it falls,
it brings some little ones down with it. That's the way it usually
works. One leaves, and others say, hmm,
I think I'll just leave too. The old dragon. The dragon fell,
Satan himself. He fell and with his tail, he
knocked out a third of the angels, just like that. He wasn't content
to go by himself. Will you also go away? That's
what he said to his disciples. Simon Peter then answered him.
He said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life. To whom shall we go? Shall we
go to the scribes and the Pharisees? They're just blind guides. That's
all they are. Well, to whom shall we go? Shall we go to the heathen philosophers?
Their foolish hearts are darkened. Shall we go to Mary? She was
a sinner and she said, my soul doth rejoice in God my Savior. Shall we go to the law? The law
thunders out the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Shall we go to
the world? Well, it's proved itself to be
deceitful. Shall we go to the ways of iniquity? The end therein is death. Shall
we go to morality? There's none good, no not one. You see, Simon Peter understood,
and the other believing disciples understood as well, the insufficiency
of the creature and the all-sufficiency of the
Savior. To whom shall we go? Where should
a sinner go? Go to Christ. Go to Christ. There is no other refuge. There
is no other Savior. There is no other salvation except
Jesus Christ. He is the prophet whose teaching
you need to hear. He is the priest who offered
God the acceptable sacrifice for the removal of sin. He is
the King who has gained the victory over all of the enemies of our
souls. Sin, Satan, death, hell, and
the grave. Peter said, Thou hast the words
of eternal life. After all, He is life. He is life. Psalm 16.11, He's
the path of life. Psalm 36.9, He's the fountain
of life. Several times in the scriptures,
Proverbs 3.18, for one, He's the tree of life. Here in John chapter 6, He's
the Bread of Life. John 8 verse 12, He's the Light
of Life. Acts 3 verse 15, He's the Prince
of Life. 1 John 1 verse 1, He is the Word
of Life. His book in which our names were
inscribed before the world began is called the Book of Life. He's the water of life. Peter
said, we're not going anywhere else
because you've got the words of life. He says in verse 69,
we believe, we're sure, thou art that Christ. That Christ
prophesied in the Old Testament, predicted in the Old Testament,
promised in the Old Testament, pictured in the Old Testament.
We believe and we're sure. You see, this is a sureness that's built upon faith. And
faith is built upon the Word of God. And then Jesus answered them,
because you see, Peter, he thought he was speaking correctly. When
he said, we believe and are sure, Speaking for all the disciples,
but really, He wasn't speaking for all the disciples. Because
there's one who didn't believe. So our Lord Jesus corrected him.
Jesus answered them. Boy, this must have really got
their attention. Have not I chosen you twelve,
and one of you is a devil? That shocked him. He spake of
Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. For he it was that should betray
him, being one of the twelve. Will you also go away? And I say, Lord, By Your grace,
I won't go away. I'll stay. I'm staying. I'm here for the long haul. Aren't
you? By His grace. By His grace. Well, let's sing the closing
song here.