Again this evening, it's good
to see each of you out. This is our last service of the
year together. And trust that God will be with
us as we meet, worship, and be instructed in the things of Christ Jesus. We seek to magnify
our Savior and we'd like to be blessed as well as we meet together. This evening I want to talk to
you about hard sayings. From the scripture we have in
John chapter 6 a kind of an ongoing controversy. It's between the
Lord Jesus and these rebellious Jews. Our Lord fed these people
the day before, at least the day before the passage we're
going to look at this evening, 5,000 men plus women and children,
and yet they still refuse to believe Him. Oh, they were ready to take him
by force and make him a ruler, a king to overthrow Rome, run
the Romans out of town. But they wouldn't worship him
as that one who is God and man. They had no need of his salvation
that he was going to accomplish. At least in their own estimation,
they didn't have a need of it. They didn't need a Savior. They
wouldn't acknowledge their sinfulness. They wouldn't acknowledge He's
the bread come down from heaven. They wouldn't admit that they
were needy people. They wouldn't believe Him as
God's Son. They weren't pictured and set
forth in the Old Testament that one appointed as the sacrifice
for sin. They had no interest in him.
Their interest was a selfish interest. What could he do for
them physically and in a fleshly way? They saw in Jesus of Nazareth
just a a good man, or some of them, they saw him to be an evil
man because they said that he did the miracles that he did
by the power of Beelzebub. And therefore they weren't about
to receive him, they weren't about to believe him, had no
interest in that salvation he came to accomplish, They didn't
see themselves in bondage to Satan, in bondage to sinfulness,
in bondage to God's law, God's justice. They needed no Redeemer
like the Lord Jesus, in their own estimation that is. We know
the Savior said this to them in verse 36 of John 6. But I said unto you that ye also
have seen me, and believe me not." They wouldn't believe him, and
the fact of the matter is nobody will ever believe him unless
God the Spirit does a work of grace in the heart. That's what
we need. This is the great necessity of
of everybody in the building, everybody watching. We need the
Spirit of Grace to give us life, to do something for the inward
man. Make us new creatures in Christ
Jesus. Give to us the gift of repentance. Repentance of our idols, repentance
of our dead works, and give us the gift of faith. Now, these people were followers
of Jesus. They were disciples of Jesus. And the word disciples just means
students. They were His students. He was
their rabbi. He was their teacher. They listened
to Him and He was teaching them. Those things that our Savior
taught, though they were excellent, Scripture says that no man ever
spake like this man. He taught the very truth of God,
for He is God. He taught the way to God Himself. But even though the Lord Jesus
gave these words to them, There was no reception of the words
and there will never be any reception of the words of Christ Jesus
even though he speaks only the truth. There will never be any
reception of his word apart from the work of the Spirit of Grace.
This is our great need today and every day. You'll notice
that the Savior, He knew what these people were all about. He says to them in verse 26, He says, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, you seek Me not because you saw the miracles, but because
you did eat of the loaves and were filled. He says, I know
what you're all about. I know what you're thinking.
I know what your motive is. You just want breakfast. That's
all you want. You want breakfast. I fed you
supper late yesterday evening and you've made your way to see
me again. It isn't because you've seen
miracles and you've said, this man must be God in the flesh. This man must be the Savior.
This man must be that Messiah that all the prophets in the
Old Testament spoke of. No, that's not why you followed
me, the Savior said. It's just that you want another
meal. They didn't follow Him. because
they needed Him to save them. They followed Him because of
what they thought they could get out of Him. This is the way
Jesus is presented today. He's presented by most preachers,
by most religions, as the one who can heal your marriage. If
you have marriage problems, come to Jesus. If you have financial
issues, come to Jesus. Are you sick? Come to Jesus. He's presented in every which
way possible, except as the sovereign Savior of sinners. The Lord knew these people, and
He knows people today. Because really, things are no
different today. Men refuse to worship Him. They're
not interested in blood atonement. They're not interested in how
God can be just and justify the ungodly. They have no desire
to cease trying to establish their own righteousness and submit
themselves to the righteousness of God. And yet, notwithstanding their
continual unbelief and the rejection and the rebellion The Lord still
provides for His creatures out of His vast storehouse just like
He provided for these people bread and fish. You say, well, these were unbelievers.
That's right. Well, why did He do this? Because
He's full of mercy. He gives to everybody. All of
us receive from Him daily. The billions of people across
the face of this earth, they receive from God every day, even
though most of them don't believe Him, most of them don't rest
in the Lord Jesus Christ, have no interest in His gospel, have
no interest in His glory. And yet, He keeps on providing. That's mercy. That's mercy. He keeps giving. And though men
waste their lives in pursuit of vanity, in pursuit of things
that are not lasting, in pursuit of fleshly things, He keeps on
giving. Every day. Every day. Until at
last, most people will wind up perishing in their sin, and all
the daily mercies that God gave them, they didn't soften their
hearts. You see, all of those mercies never will. And I'm being
very careful. He doesn't give grace to everybody,
but He is merciful to everybody. There is a really big difference. God doesn't give grace to everybody
of our race. He's merciful to everybody. But
His grace is reserved for His people, for His children. We're the recipients of His grace. That's God's favor. God's everlasting
love to us. But His mercy extends over all
of His creation. And there are people today, maybe
some people here this evening, maybe someone watching tonight,
you've been receiving God's mercies throughout all the years of your
life, and yet you still have no interest in the Gospel, you
have no interest in Christ Jesus, the things of the Word of God,
the things of the Lord really mean nothing to you, and yet
God keeps on giving. He keeps giving you breath. And
you may use that breath to curse His name. Many do. You may use your strength in
the pursuit of things that don't matter. You may be like that
man who In the Scriptures, the Savior set him forth. He sought to get more stuff.
He said, I'm getting so much stuff, what am I going to do?
I'm going to tear down my barns, build bigger barns so I can put
my stuff in it. And then the man comes down to
die. And the Lord says, your soul
is going to be required of you. Then who shall these things be? in your pursuit of the things
of the world, temporal things. May God interrupt you and interrupt
me and give us a saving interest in Christ Jesus. That is who
He really is. The Lord is good to all. Look
with me in Matthew. Let me show you a verse in Matthew
chapter 5. The book of Matthew chapter 5.
Look at verse 44. A lot of kind of coughing. There's
lots of congestion going around and that kind of stuff. And I'm
like the rest of you. We're all choked up together,
I suppose. But be that as it may, look at
Matthew chapter 5. Look at verse 44. And of course, this is our Lord,
His Sermon on the Mount. He says, but I say unto you,
love your enemies. Well, that takes grace, doesn't
it? Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. And pray for them which despitefully
use you and persecute you. That you may be the children
of your Father, or that you may be like, that you may resemble
your Father which is in heaven. You don't do things to become
the children of God. You're adopted into God's family. You're born again of the Spirit. Now watch this. For He maketh
His Son to shine on the evil and on the good. Whose son is
it? It's His son. You read, what
is it, Psalm 19? It runs its race. The Son runs
its race every day. Every day. We've got to have
the warmth of the Son. We've got to have the light of
the Son. And though men despise God, though
men hate God, guess what? God still has His sunshine. The sunbeams, they still come
down and warm them. That's how merciful God is. You
may have your fist in the face of God. He still sends His rain
to water your crops, to water your grass so that you can drink. It's His sunshine, it's His rain.
Notice, He sends the rain on the just And on the unjust, those
who are just, justified by grace, justified by the bloody sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus, justified by imputed righteousness, justification
received by faith, He sends His reign on the just. And He also
sends it upon the unjust, those who are unrighteous, those who
despise Him, And over here in John chapter
6, here are people, and the Lord knows all about them. Listen,
their actions, they didn't shock Him, they didn't surprise Him.
He knows all things. He knows that in the end, they're
going to leave. Look over toward the end of John
chapter 6. Look at verse 60. John chapter 6 and verse 60.
Go back to this. Verse 59 says, these things said
He in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. Now, many therefore
of His disciples, of His students, guess how many? Thousands. He had thousands of them. He
just fed them the day before. They followed Him around the
lake. Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard," the word this
you can see is italicized, when they heard all that He had to
say. This has been a lengthy discourse.
He's spoken to them about the bread come down from heaven.
When they heard all that He had to say, they said, this is a
hard saying. This is the word. Hard means
offensive. Literally it goes back to, it
means like a tough piece of leather. Boy, that's tough sayings. We can't handle this. This is a hard saying. The word
saying is doctrine. And He doesn't say hard sayings,
because all that He has to say really is one message. You see, the gospel of God's
grace is one gospel. Now it has several facets, but
really it's just one gospel. It's one message, and they say
this is a hard saying singular. Everything you've said, this
is tough! And we don't like it. It's offensive
to us. They said, who can hear it? And it's interesting this word,
who can hear it? It's exactly the same word used
in just a few chapters over in John chapter 10, where the Savior
said, My sheep, They hear. They hear my voice. Hear all
these thousands of people that say, we can't hear this. This
is hard doctrine. This is so dry, it's so tough. Who can hear it? Well, nobody
can hear it by nature. But there are some folks who
can hear it and will hear it and love to hear it. They're
His sheep. You remember in that same passage
over there in John chapter 10, He said, you believe not because
you are not My sheep. And these people right here,
why didn't they hear it? They weren't His sheep. They
weren't His sheep. The Scripture says, He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear. They didn't have ears to hear.
Do you? Do you have ears to hear? Will
you hear the hard saying? Will you hear the Master's doctrine? Or will you like these go away? Who will hear the hard saying? These difficult words. Words
too tough for them to take. What was this hard saying? Remember, and I'll just repeat
this, our Lord takes everything that He has said, these people,
at least they understood this, it's all one doctrine. You know, sometimes people will
say, do you believe the doctrines of grace? And I'm not going to
jump up and down and say, oh, you shouldn't say that. Because
I understand what they mean. But in the Scriptures, except
for once, whenever you read doctrines, it's false doctrines. Because
God's doctrine is singular. It's just one truth. It's just
one gospel. Now, like I said, it has many
parts, many segments. We look at it this way, we can
look at the Father's electing grace, we see the Son's redeeming
grace, we see the Spirit of God in His regenerating grace, we
see God's preserving grace, God's sufficient grace. There are many
aspects to this, but really, it's just one doctrine. It's
God's doctrine. We've been studying for the last
couple of Sundays and the Lord willing we'll finish up this
Sunday in our Bible class in Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah said,
Lord, who hath believed our report? How many reports? Just one. It's just one report. And you
know in that sense it isn't complicated. It isn't a message for this group
and another message for this group over here, and then a message
for the Jews, and then a message for us Gentiles. Oh no! It's
one saying. It's one report. It's one gospel. And in fact, in Galatians chapter
1, the Apostle Paul says, if anybody comes preaching any other
gospel than the gospel I preach to you, let him be accursed. He said, I mean, even if an angel
comes down here and starts preaching something else. Why is that,
Paul? Because there's just one saying
of God. There's just one report. That
is the report of God's grace to unworthy sinners through the
doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this passage
of Scripture, let me real quick just touch on Some of the things
that make up this hard saying. First of all, his message concerning
himself. This was to them a hard saying.
Look at verse 48. He said, I am that bread of life. He often used the words, I am,
with reference to himself. He is the great I am. He is the
one who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush in Exodus chapter
3. He is divine. Several times as you read down
through John chapter 6, you'll see that He asserts Himself to
be that One who came down from heaven, that One who descended
from above. This is a hard saying to them.
They refuse to believe the deity of Jesus of Nazareth. And what
did they say? Look at verses 41 and 42. The Jews then murmured at him.
They grumbled 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? Remember, they are in Capernaum. Our Lord grew up in Nazareth.
Not very far away. So many of these people apparently
knew Joseph and Mary. They said, He's the son of Joseph
whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He said,
I came down from heaven? When He said, He's the I Am,
When He said, I came down from heaven, that offended them. Because they knew He was saying,
I am the Son of God. I am God's Son. Now let me ask
you this, does that offend you? Does that offend you? When we
say Jesus of Nazareth is God in the flesh, God joined to humanity. Is that an offensive thing to
you? Is that a hard saying to you? I find it to be delightful,
don't you? The One who took upon Himself
the responsibility to rescue me from sin and shame is God! Over all, blessed forever. It
doesn't offend me. You can preach that to me all
day long. Watch this. Secondly, His message
about divine sovereignty offended them. Verse 37, All that the
Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me
I will unknowwise cast out, for I came down from heaven not to
do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. Here's the
sovereignty of His grace. You see, here's what we do. When
we preach God's sovereign grace, we take the very crown off of
man's free will and we put it on the head of the sovereign
Christ where it belongs. And that offends people. Preacher,
are you saying that I don't have anything to do with this? That's
exactly what I'm saying. You mean my decision counts for
nothing? For nothing, that's right. Are
you saying it's by grace alone? Through Christ alone? Exactly! You're getting the message now.
And some people say, oh, that's a hard saying. Who can hear it? Can you hear it? Will you hear
it? I'll tell you, the saints of
God say, Amen, we'll hear it. Because if He hadn't chosen me,
I wouldn't have chosen Him. If He hadn't called on me, I
wouldn't have called on Him. If He hadn't put me in the family
of God before the world began, I would have never been in the
family of God if it had been left to me. Thirdly, this message about Him
coming down from heaven to give His life? Look at verse 51. Verse 51. He said, I'm 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. I'm going to give My flesh. I'm
going to die. I'll give it for the life of
the world of God's elect." And then he begins to speak about
his blood. His blood. Except you eat my
flesh and drink my blood. He talked about blood. Boy, religions
today don't want to talk about blood. We don't want what is
called slaughterhouse religion. Well, if you don't want to talk
about blood, we can't talk about salvation then. Because without the shedding
of blood, there's no remission of sin. There's nothing to put away sin
if Christ didn't shed his blood. If you have no interest in His
blood, have no interest in His sacrifice, then you have no interest
in that which God Himself ordained as a means of putting away sin.
You just shut yourself off from everything that is everlasting
if you have no interest in the blood. His blood is the blood of atonement. It's the blood of redemption.
His blood is divine blood. It's God's blood. That's what
Paul said in Acts 20, 28. His blood was innocent blood. His blood was justifying blood. His blood is saving blood. Now,
does that offend you? Does that offend anybody here?
Salvation by the blood of Christ alone? Now we say, just keep preaching
that. Just keep preaching up substitution. Just keep preaching
up the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood, the
blood, it makes atonement for the soul. God said, when I see
the blood, I'll pass over you. And then fourthly, His message
about man's inability, they found that to be part of His Hard saying. Look at verse 44. He said, no man can come to Me
except the Father which has sent Me. Draw him, and I'll raise
him up again at the last day. Look at verse 65. He said, and
He said, therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto
Me except it were given to him of My Father. There's sovereign
grace right there too. His message about man's inability
they found to be a very hard teaching. And when the Savior
says, no man can come to Me except the Father which has sent Me
to draw him, that just shoots down the idea of man's free will. And you can say man can come,
Christ said he can't. He said back in John 5.40, and
you will not come to Me that you might have life. He said
you won't come and you can't come. Now if you want to say
He will come, man will come and he can come anytime he wants
to, well you put yourself on a collision course with God's
Word. Also, Paul said in Romans 9,
it's not of him that willeth, it's not of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth the mercy. Well, aren't men willing to come
to Christ? They have to be made willing.
And that's in a day of His power. Now, does that offend you? Does
that offend anybody? I hope it does. Because you'll
never come to the Lord Jesus Christ unless Almighty God gets
a hold of your heart with His hand of grace and brings you
to the Savior. And you'll be thankful forever
and ever that He brought you. And you're never going to brag
on your will. You'll never brag on, well, I'm
glad I made my decision for Jesus. You'll be bragging on God's sovereign
will, God's sovereign grace, God's saving mercy to you, a
rebellious, old, hell-deserving sinner. He lifted you up out
of the miry clay and washed you in His blood, robed you in His
righteousness and set your feet on a rock, Christ Jesus. And
you'll say, Hallelujah, bless His name. I'll praise Him forever
and ever. Oh, this don't offend God's people.
And one more, His message that there must be a believing reception
of Jesus Christ that offended them. Verses 53 through 57, He talked
about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. What is it? That's
receiving Him. Coming to Jesus Christ. Believing the Lord Jesus Christ. I know there are those who say,
well, if God has ordained certain people unto salvation, they're
going to be saved whether they believe or whether they don't
believe. Let me say this just as simply
as I can say it. God's eternal purpose of grace
toward certain sinners, It does not make the reception
of Jesus Christ unnecessary. It guarantees that they will
receive Him. Isn't that right? It guarantees
they will receive Him. We receive Him as Prophet, Priest,
and King. Does that offend you? Is that
a hard saying to you? that there must be a reception
of Jesus Christ? Tell you what, there was a Philippian
jailer one time. He was all afraid that the prisoners
were going to commit suicide. He had heard Paul and Silas singing
and praising God, talking about Christ Jesus, talking about the
blood, talking about righteousness, all night long. There was an
earthquake and the prison doors fell off. Then he was afraid
everybody was going to escape. Paul said, hey, we're all here.
He brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, believe. Believe,
not work, not labor. not keep the Ten Commandments,
not strive to do better. Believe. Believe on who? The Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord. He's the Lord. He's Jesus. He's
the Savior. He saved sinners by His substitutionary
death. He's the Christ. He's God in
the flesh. He's the Messiah. Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou Now, you, me, shall be saved. And if your house believes, they'll
be saved too. That's what He said. That doesn't
offend you, does it? I tell you, I compel people to
believe on Christ Jesus. Believe this gospel. And I'm
so thankful somebody's going to believe it. The Lord's people
are going to believe it. And if you believe the Gospel,
you're one of His people. Yes, indeed. Well, let's look
at number 11.