Well, we've had a break of a
couple of weeks and we're coming back to John's Gospel and in
John chapter 6. These really are the most profound
words, they really are. I know, where do you, how do
you make the distinction between Scripture. There are places where
the truth of God is rich and lying on the surface. There are
other places where you need to dig for it. But it is all the
Word of God. But this is particularly rich,
particularly rich. We saw in John chapter 5, the
miracle at Bethesda, the miracle of the healing of the man that
was impotent for 38 years, just lying beside the pool, waiting
for somebody to put him in that pool when the angel of God came
down for healing. And he performed that miracle,
and you know the hard-heartedness of the Jews, all they could complain
about was he healed a man on the Sabbath day, and to them
that was breaking the law of God. But he followed it, the
Lord Jesus Christ followed it, with seven assertions of his
own deity. They're quite clear. You know,
you say, I don't see it in black and white that Jesus says he's
God. Oh, of course it is. It's there absolutely as clear
as daylight for anybody. who is not blind deliberately
to look away from it and not see it. He made seven assertions
that he is God in flesh walking this earth. And then he followed
it up by five confirming witnesses, you know, as in a court of law,
the witnesses, present their evidence before the judge and
the jury, and on the basis of the evidence of the witnesses,
the case is decided. And he presented five witnesses
to the fact that he is God in flesh. And the conclusion is
that Jesus, the man, Jesus born of Mary, Jesus born in Bethlehem,
raised in Nazareth, Jesus, the man, is God incarnate. As Paul wrote to the Colossians,
in him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You know
Wesley's hymn, God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made
man. This is what we're dealing with
when we're dealing with these ideas. And eternal life, why
does it matter? Because it's the difference between
life and death. It's the difference between true
eternal life and eternal death. That's why it matters to you
and me. That's why it's so important. And eternal life is in union
with Him alone, with the Lord Jesus Christ alone. If you're
in union with Him, you have eternal life, everlasting life. You will
die in this body, or you will be taken directly to be with
him, but you will not die in your soul, your soul will live
immortally. And the Gospels, the Gospel accounts,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, testify to the truth of, firstly,
who the Christ is. Who is the Christ? What does
it matter? Who is the Christ? What think
ye of Christ? Jesus asked the Pharisees. What
think ye of Christ? It's key, this is absolutely
fundamental. He is the promised seed of the
woman from Genesis chapter 3, from the fall. He is the promised
seed who is going to crush Satan's head. He is the promised seed
who is going to reverse the effects of the fall for the multitude
that the Father gave to him. that fall in Adam wherein we're
all dead, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive. He is that promised seed. The
thousands of years have gone by, and in the midst of time,
when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who
were under the law. Why? That they might receive
the adoption of sons. What a blessing. to be in the
family of God, to be qualified for citizenship in the kingdom
of God. He is the Messiah. This is who
the Christ is. The Gospel accounts tell us,
they show us, they demonstrate to us that He is the Messiah
promised of God. Messiah is the Hebrew name, Christ
is the Greek name. He is the Messiah that God promised,
because in Him the offended justice of God is put right. I can't
grapple for better words. It's put right. He does it all.
He is the servant of God, the suffering servant of God. He
who is God in flesh is the suffering servant of God. Come for that
purpose of redeeming his people from the curse of the law. He
is the substitute. Oh, sinner, you need a substitute. Because if you stand in your
own strength before the justice of God, you must be condemned. But here is one who is perfect,
and he is the substitute for God's chosen people. That's what
the Gospel accounts testify to, who Christ is, and secondly,
what he accomplished. What did he accomplish in satisfaction
of divine justice? It's what he accomplished that
matters. It's what he accomplished. This
is the point. I was listening to somebody speaking
the other day saying how we ought to really love and honor Christ. Well, yes, yes, yes, but why?
Why? What did he do and what does
it matter to me? This is the key thing. You know,
I've quoted it before, that verse at the end of John's Gospel in
chapter 20 and verse 31. These are written, he said, there's
so much more I could have written, but these are written and recorded
by Holy Spirit inspiration. Why? That you might believe that
Jesus is the Christ. You know what Paul went around
preaching? Proving, proving, again and again, this man is
the Christ of God. This man is the promised seed.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And that believing, ye might
have life through his name. That in believing, you possess,
you apprehend the life of God in your soul. In believing, you
have the life of God in your soul. And so we come to John
chapter 6, and here we have 71 verses. It's a long chapter of
divine truth. 71 verses of divine truth. Two miracles. attesting the divine
import, the importance of the words which follow. Two miracles,
the feeding of the 5,000, the walking on water, they attest,
they confirm, they give evidence that the words of this man are
true. That they're words not just that
he thought and his opinion was better than anybody else's, but
these are words from heaven. These are the words of God. to
people in general, and to his people in particular. So let's
have a look at the miracles, first of all, the miracles themselves,
and then the bread of life. The miracles, the miracles of
the feeding of the 5,000, you know it so well, and the miracle
of walking on water, you know that one well. You know, John
gives one of the shortest accounts of the walking
on water, Matthew's much more comprehensive, but they all speak
of it. But what is a miracle? What is
a miracle? You say, oh, you believe in miracles?
Why? How can you do that? Surely,
we only believe in things that are rational and that make sense
to our materialistic minds. What is a miracle? A miracle
is the suspension, for a short period, of the natural law, the
laws of science, the laws of physics that govern everything
that flies and falls and swims and everything around us. The
suspension of natural law for a purpose. It's visible. A miracle is a visible suspension
of natural law. It's an instant thing. When Jesus said to the man at
the pool of Bethesda, take up your bed and walk, he didn't
have to go for physiotherapy for weeks on end. He stood up
and walked. He who had been impotent for
38 years, and you say, oh, you believe that rather easily, don't
you? Dozens and dozens of people saw it. And the Pharisees who
could only say, you've broken the law by not keeping the Sabbath
day, surely they could have disproved it, couldn't they? Surely they
could have put this man to flight. They could have blunted his ministry
immediately by saying he didn't do it. But no, absolutely not.
None of them could deny what he had done. It was visible.
It was visible to many, many people. It was instant. It was
completely inexplicable by natural processes. Completely. There are people who try to rationalize
the miracles. They say that when Israel crossed
the Red Sea, it wasn't a miracle, it just happened to be a very
low tide that day. No, no, no, no, no. God intervened
with gravity and with hydrodynamics. God intervened. God, who controls
all things, intervened. It was undeniable. Miracles were
seen in some cases by a few, in other cases by thousands.
And what the miracle did was to attest, confirm, the miracle
worker's words as being from God in heaven. So in the Old
Testament, prophets, occasionally, God's choice performed miracles. People were raised from the dead
in the days of Elijah and Elisha. Christ himself performed miracles. The apostles later on in the
Acts of the Apostles, they performed miracles. The signs of the apostles
were with them. Now, you say, I find that very,
very hard to believe. You know, you're asking me to
stretch really beyond what is reasonable. Listen, think of
it this way. Given that the normal order is,
as the scripture says, it is God who, as Hebrews 1 verse 3
says, upholds all things by the word of his power. Whose power? Answer, Jesus Christ. He upholds all things by the
word of the power of Jesus Christ, who is the word of God, who is
the manifestation of the unknowable, unseeable God. given that that's
the normal order, that things are not just sort of falling
into place because that's what they do and it doesn't need anything.
No, He upholds all things by the word of His power. Then it's
not hard, is it? For any who are given faith to
see it, sight of the soul to see it, to see the truth, to
accept that Christ performed miracles. If things hold together,
if your chair doesn't collapse now because He is actively upholding
it, then it's in His power to change it for His purpose. And
He did, with these miracles. It's not hard for faith, soul
sight, to see the truth and accept that Christ performed miracles.
Why did he do it? To show off? No, of course not.
But to underline his credentials as the authoritative word from
heaven, with the gospel of grace from heaven, with the truth of
God from heaven. That's what he came to do. So
we come to the feeding of the 5,000 in the first few verses
from verse 5. Your great crowd came and they
were following because of the miracles that he did. Why was
the crowd there? They'd seen miracles. They'd
seen miracles that were inexplicable by any natural process or any
natural order. There was the feeding of the
5,000 then, this crowd comes, men, women and children. You
know the Albert Hall in London, the Royal Albert Hall, seats
about 6,000 when it's absolutely packed full, about 6,000 people. This gives you an idea of the
numbers that are there. Anybody that's ever been in the
Albert Hall when it's been full, you know that you're in a sizeable
crowd. But that was just the men. Maybe there were 10,000.
Maybe there were 20,000 actually there on this day. And how did
they all hear if there was such a big crowd? You know, in an
auditorium like the Albert Hall, the sound echoes around, and
you can actually hear, you know, somebody without amplification.
It's not very easy, but you can hear them. But could it have
been miraculous that all those people were able to hear his
words, If God gives you faith to see the import of this account,
the weight of it, the strength of it, it will stop you dead
in your tracks. You know, you've all heard of
the feeding of the 5,000, and you can become blasé in your
thoughts about it. But if God gives you faith to
see how important the feeding of the 5,000 is, it will stop
you dead in your tracks. Your path of life will change
forever. You know, like the Apostle Paul,
when he was Saul of Tarsus, was going to Damascus because he
was persecuting the church. And in a moment, that man that
was filled with anger and venom against the church of Christ,
he was going to stamp it out and destroy it. And in a moment,
Lord, what would you have me to do? His life was changed irreversibly
that day, in that one moment. In verse 5, Jesus lifted up his
eyes and he saw this great company come to him. And so he tests
Philip. Philip, one of the disciples,
maybe he was a local man who knew where the local places were
that you could buy bread. Where are we going to buy bread,
Philip, to feed all of these? He knew what he would do. It
says that in verse 6, that Jesus said this to prove him, for he
himself, Jesus himself, knew what he was going to do. Philip
may have thought that he was asking him for local knowledge
about where were the shops where he could buy bread. He'd seen
Jesus display divinity before. Philip had. You know when Philip
went and got Nathanael in John chapter 2? Or was it John chapter
1? I think it was John chapter 1, wasn't it? Right at the end.
And he brought him, and he'd seen divinity on display. When Jesus said, when I saw you
under the fig tree, you know, Nathanael, how do you know who
I am? When I saw you, Nathanael immediately
said, you are the son of God. You are the son, because I've
just said that. He said, you see greater things than this.
They'd seen mere water. They all went to the wedding
at Cana of Galilee in John chapter two. And they'd seen four great
pictures, great, jars, stone jars, filled to the brim with
ordinary water. Draw out the water, he said to
the servants. And it was the best wine that
the head of the feast had ever tasted. Mere water was turned
into wine. He knew that this man had divine
power. He'd seen him raise the man at
the pool of Bethesda. And yet, how weak is the flesh,
and how insensitive to divine truth. Do you know that in yourself,
that is, in your flesh, there dwells no good thing, as Paul
said? Do you know that in your flesh, you will never, by human
reasoning, by natural reasoning, deduce the truth of God? The
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him. How can he know them? He can't.
The only way he can know them is by divine revelation. that
God, you know, you've not chosen me, I have chosen you. It's not
of him who wills or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
And then Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, Andrew clutches
at straws in verses eight and nine. He says, well, hold on,
yeah, we can't buy bread for all these, but look, There's
this little lad here, maybe this little boy had been selling food
to try and earn some money, and all he had left was a couple
of little fishes and five barley loaves, that's all he had left.
But what are they among so many? They're not going to feed, what,
five, ten, twenty thousand people? They're not going to feed all
of those. All that there is here is one
tiny little drop in a great big bucket, compared with what was
needed. There was a large crowd, and
the large crowd was filled. The large crowd had a full, substantial,
nourishing meal. They were fed for a day, and
there was so much food. What was this? Think about this.
This was an act of creation. Here is God, in flesh, creating
from nothing. Ex nihilo, as the theologians
say, out of nothing. He created food that wasn't there
before. Enough food to feed thousands
of people, and feed them well, such that when they'd all had
enough, and eaten everything that they'd been given, there
were still twelve baskets full of bits and pieces left over.
It's such undramatic words in this account that Stephen read
to us before, of this miracle, of the feeding of the 5,000,
but it's such an awesome happening. You know, you can tell, this
is the words inspired by the Holy Spirit, written by John,
but inspired by the Holy Spirit. You know the authors of this
world would have flowered this up, they would have, made it
sound so impressive there would have been adjectives bubbling
over from it. But he just says he took the
five loaves and the two fishes and he gave five, ten, twenty
thousand people a substantial meal. Creation of food. No doubt, like the wine at Cana,
this wasn't just, oh well, stale old bread. I can believe that
this was absolutely superb food, that that fish was the best that
they'd ever tasted, that that bread was the loveliest, softest,
nourishing bread that they'd ever had. and it was seen by
thousands. It was not only seen, it was
ingested by them. They had their hunger satisfied. It nourished them in their bodies.
It was no conjuring trick. It's recounted by all four Gospel
writers. You could make a case that this
feeding of the 5,000 is the most impressive miracle recorded in
the Scriptures. There were plenty No end of opportunity
for witnesses to deny the record, but none ever did. This really
did happen. This really, really did happen. If this really did happen, how
does that affect your view of the world and your life in this
world? You might say, so what? Is it not showing what the people
saw? The people that were there, many
of them said this in verse 14, look, then those men, when they
had seen the miracle and tasted the food and been filled that
Jesus did, said, what was their conclusion? That was a good meal,
let's come again for it. No, no, this was their conclusion.
This is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world.
What's he talking about? Deuteronomy chapter 18, when
God said to Moses, to the people via Moses, he said, the Lord
thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee,
of thy brethren, like unto me. And to him shall ye hearken.
This is the prophet. God is going to send his Christ,
his Messiah, to redeem his people from the curse of the law. They
saw this miracle, and knowing the scriptures as they did, being
Israelites, having been taught it, they said, well, we've never
ever seen anything remotely like that. Who else could this be?
This is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world.
It can't be anybody else. But why had he come? These Israelites
there, having just been fed, why had he come? No doubt many
of them thought it was to make the world of Israel a better
place by overthrowing the Roman occupiers. You know, they were
under subjugation to the Roman Empire. They'd come in and they
were limited in what they could do by what the Roman Empire said
they could do. So maybe this man has come to
make the world of Israel a better place. You know, God had looked
after Israel down the centuries. Maybe he'd come to make the world
of Israel a better place by overthrowing the Roman occupiers. No doubt
many of them thought that. In verse 15, Jesus knew that
was what they were thinking. When Jesus therefore perceived
that they would come and take him by force to make him a king
in the place of the Romans, he departed again to the mountain
himself alone. That's what the majority thought.
But in God's grace, there were some, no doubt, who saw this
as that prophet who should come. The Messiah, the Christ of God,
the promised seed of the woman. The promised seed of the woman
to undo the effects of the fall on the people of God that they
might be qualified for His kingdom. The Messiah, the Christ of God,
to satisfy divine justice for the multitude that God had loved
from before time in eternity, and give them eternal life, and
make them citizens of God's kingdom. This is what some of them saw,
and by God's grace, oh, that you might see it too. It's not
the immediate food that they were fed with, the bread and
the fishes, but Christ himself was the gift from God to accomplish
salvation from sin, to uphold God's perfect holiness, and yet
justify sinners. You know, God is holy, God cannot
sweep sin under the carpet. His justice was upheld, Christ
perfectly obeyed the law to show that he was the fitting Passover
lamb, the sacrifice for sinners. But in that giving of his life
and pouring out his life blood, as the redeemer of his people,
as the substitute for his people, as the surety for his people.
The justice of God was upheld. It wasn't violated in any way.
And yet, those people that God had loved were justly justified. They were justly confirmed as
fit for his kingdom. And that's what we cling to.
That's the truth of the Gospel of Grace. Now the majority wanted
to force Jesus to be their leader in overthrowing the Romans, but
that wasn't the purpose for which he had come, so he went away
alone. And then we saw that miracle
in verses 15 to 21, where he comes to the disciples, and I'm
going to say very little about that for the sake of time, but
here he is, again, the normal laws of physics and gravity and
of hydrodynamics and Archimedes' principle, They were all suspended
for a moment. He walked on water. It's the
account of it in the other Gospels. He speaks a word, and the storm
of the Sea of Galilee, which is about to overflow the boat,
and they're fearing that they're going to die in this great storm,
and it's got ever so choppy, and they say, who can this be?
They'd been with him a long time, but they say, who can this be? He speaks a word, and the wind
and the waves obey him and stop doing what they're doing. If
this man is who these miracles clearly show him to be, the conclusion
is, The implication is, you had better listen to his words. So
having fed a crowd with physical food, and having demonstrated
who he is by walking on the water, having done that to sustain their
bodies for a day, he now goes on to speak about spiritual food,
to sustain their souls not just for a day, but for eternity. Many of the crowd, sought and
found him. They went, look in verse 25. When they had found him, they
went chasing after him, trying to find him. They had the most
incredible experience. Thousands of them were fed, and
fed well. And they found him on the other
side of the sea. And they said unto him, Rabbi, when camest
thou here? We lost you, but we found you
again. Isn't this good? When did you
come here? A reasonable question, you might say. And Jesus answered
them and said in verse 26, Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto
you, ye seek me not because ye saw the miracles and the implication
of the miracles, but because you had a good feed. you had
a good meal. You did eat of the loaves and
were filled. That's why your perspective was
purely material. You were only bothered about
physical food. Verse 27, look what he says. See, what they were striving
for in life Anything of a material, physical nature, which makes
this life feel better, that's what they wanted more of. Food,
comfort, ease, political safety, freedom from authoritative constraint
by the Romans. If we get these things, we'll
have a happy, contented life. Isn't that what everybody around
you thinks in these days? More so than ever before, such
a materialistic age that we live in. Such a materialistic age. We'll have a happy, contented
life. Yes, you might enjoy things when you obtain possessions and
a good job with decent money. And yes, you no doubt will have
a better life than if you didn't have those things, you might
conclude. For how long? Well, until my health starts
to go. I tell you, as you start to approach older age, and you
become aware of other things that start to fall apart in your
physical bodies, you realize something of your own mortality,
and of how time creeps on, and how you're not going to live
forever, and how the material things that make you happy are
soon going to feel like they're not worth very much. Because
you see, If you keep asking the question, and then what will
you do? And then what will you do? Oh, I'll do this. And then
what will you do? I'll have a happy retirement. And then what will
you do? Oh, I'll fall ill, I suppose. And then what will you do? I'll
end up in a home, in a care home. And then what will you do? I'll
die. And then what will you do? Because? Because it is appointed
to man to die once, and then the judgment. Is that not what
the Scripture says? It is appointed to man to die
once. To you and me, we're going to die. It's appointed to man
to die once, and then the judgment of God for our sins. for our
offense to the justice of God, to the law of God, to the righteousness
of God. So Jesus gives them some advice,
and this is it in verse 27. He is the Son of Man. What's
he saying? Labor not for the meat which perisheth. What's
the meat which perisheth? It's the bread that they'd had,
the fishes that they'd had, it's the food, the material things.
Labour not for the meat which perisheth. Labour not for the
meat which has a use-by date upon it. You know, the things
that we buy, we put them in the fridge or the freezer, but even
so, they still have a best-before date or a use-by date, because
they're all perishing. The meat which perisheth. No,
don't labour for that. Don't make your life priority
getting the things you think will make you happy for this
life. No, don't do that. Man shall
not live by bread alone, says Deuteronomy, and Jesus quoted
it to the devil. Man shall not live by bread alone. It doesn't say man doesn't need
bread to live. He says man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth
of God. No. Make your priority labour
for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life. Make your
priority, he says somewhere else in the Beatitudes in Matthew
5, make your priority seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these other things as
you need for this life will be added to you. Seek first that
food which doesn't go past its use by date. Seek that food,
that sustenance, that soul sustenance, that life sustenance, that the
Son of Man shall give. Because who is the Son of Man?
It's Him, it's Jesus who's speaking. He's the Son of Man. He's the
Son of God in human flesh, as a man. And the God the Father
has sealed Him. How? the voice from heaven this
is my beloved son in whom i am well pleased this is my beloved
son hear ye him okay You miraculously fed a large crowd, and we were
nourished for a day. But verse 28, this is what they
say. Okay, I see your point. You miraculously
fed us, and we had a good meal, and that was very impressive,
and we were nourished for a day. But they said to him, what shall
we do that we might work the works of God? What do we have
to do to please God? so that he looks after us as
that nation of Israel that he's looked after us down the centuries. Natural man, you see, you and
me in our natural state, always think that our works can change
God's judgment of us. That's the vast majority of religion. That's the vast majority of religion
that calls itself Christianity. It is legalistic. It thinks that
the things we do change God's judgment of us. The things we
do prepare us for heaven by making us more sanctified. The things
we do count in God's record for how good we are or not. We always
think that. The natural man always thinks
that. But what does the scripture say? It is not of works, lest
any man should boast. It is not of works, not of the
things we do. The meat that endures is not
of the things we do. Look what he said. Which the
Son of Man shall give you. The Son of Man shall give it
to you. It's the gift of God. It's not the reward for your
works. It's the gift of God. By grace are you saved, through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It's unto
good works that God has prepared beforehand that we should walk
in them, but it's His work, it's His work. Work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. It's the gift of the
Son of Man. In his high priestly prayer in
John 17 and verse 2, he says, "...as thou hast given him,"
speaking of himself, the Son of Man, Jesus the Messiah, "...as
thou hast given him power over all flesh." He, the Son of Man,
Christ Jesus the Lord, Jehovah Jesus, our God, Our God incarnate
has power over all flesh. Power to do what? Read on. That He should give eternal life
to as many as thou, the Father, hast given to Him. That He, He
has power to give that life. So, they say, verse 30, they
say, therefore unto Him, well, show us a sign that what you're
saying is true. Can you believe that? Isn't that
staggering? The day before, they'd been fed
along with thousands of others. They'd had a really good meal.
They'd seen the most stupendous miracle performed that has ever
been performed in this creation. And they have the nerve to say,
well, show us a sign, because we're not going to believe you
until you show us a sign that we may see and believe thee.
They'd already seen, but they didn't believe. What dost thou
work? They say, you know, you talk
about a miracle, that feeding of the 5,000 yesterday. Well,
our fathers did eat manna in the desert. How long did they
eat manna in the desert? Shall I tell you? Do you know?
40 years. In the 40 years of wilderness
wanderings, they ate manna. What was the manna? They didn't
know. Do you know what the word manna means? It means, what is
it? They called it manna because
they didn't know what it was. It was like a sort of a sweet
fungus, I guess, that was very nutritious and it fed them for
40 years in their wilderness wanderings. They said, that's
a real miracle, verse 31. Our fathers, basically they're
saying Moses did that. Who are you? Who do you think
you are? He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Moses is what
they're implying, but Jesus said to them in verse 32, truly, truly,
I say unto you, it wasn't Moses that gave you that bread from
heaven, but my father giveth you. The father gave that bread
from heaven, but the father gives Not that which was just a picture,
but that which is the true bread from heaven. What are you talking
about? The true bread from heaven? Who is the true bread from heaven?
The bread of God, the bread from heaven, verse 33, is He which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. It's Him. It's Himself. Then said they
unto him, Lord, evermore, give us that bread. Oh, we'll have
some of that. Do you remember the Samaritan woman at the well,
when he said, the water that I shall give will be welling
up forever, a refreshing water. And she said, forevermore, give
me that water. Is it not just the same? The
flesh thinking that it needs this thing for satisfaction,
for removal of the drudgery of everyday life. Give us this bread
and Jesus said unto them, verse 35, I am the bread of life. The bread of life. Not the bread
that you eat with your mouth and you digest into your stomach
and it nourishes your body. I am the bread of life. Soul
food. I am the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger. If you come to Christ you shall
never hunger for what your soul needs. When you're in that moment
at the end of your life, whether it be sudden or whether it be
gradual, when you're in that moment of facing eternity and
passing from this life into eternity, oh you need this bread of life.
You need this bread that your soul shall not hunger, shall
not feel a sense of being inadequate or of having not that which it
really needs. He that believeth on me shall
never thirst. But he says, I said unto you
that ye also have seen me. They had seen him. They had seen
what he'd done, but they didn't believe. But this is the thing,
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. You see, This is electing
grace. It's of the grace of it. You
say, I don't like that. It's the way it is. It's how
God has ordained things. The father has chosen a people
in Christ before the foundation of the world. He gave them to
his son as a bride. He betrothed them to his son
for that marriage supper of the lamb, which will be at the end
of time. And all that he gave will come. Everyone will come. Everyone will hear the preaching
of the Gospel of Grace, and every one of them will come, because
the call is irresistible. When the Holy Spirit speaks to
you, you cannot resist His call. Oh, I'll decide about that later.
No, you won't. You'll decide when He calls you,
because you won't be able to resist. And your believing is
not the cause of your having the life of God, but it's the
evidence that you have that life of God, that you're numbered
with that multitude that the Father gave to Christ before
time in electing grace. But if you want him, what does
it say? Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Come
and welcome. You say, oh, I don't know, I
need to settle this issue. Am I amongst the ones that the
Father gave to Christ before the beginning of time, and then
I'll come? No, he says, if you want to come, come. If you have
that desire in your soul, come, and I will in no wise cast out.
Because he came to accomplish the will of the Father, which
is that his heaven will be populated by redeemed sinners who are qualified
to be there. This is the will of him that
sent me, and that's what he came to do. This is the Father's will,
verse 39, which hath sent me. Of all which he hath given me,
of that multitude, that I should lose nothing. Not one of them
will be missing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which
seeth the Son, not lives a perfect life and earns righteousness
before God. No, no, no. Everyone which seeth
the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And I, this is a promise from
God, whose promises cannot fail to come true. I will raise him
up at the last day, meaning you will be in heaven, you will be
in his kingdom forevermore. everlasting life. Oh, that God's
Spirit would draw you with that irresistible call to come to
Christ and experience what all true believers experience. And
we'll sing about it now. Peace like a river, the peace
of God, the blessed peace of God in your souls. When peace
like a river attendeth my way. We'll sing that hymn now. When
peace like a river attendeth my ray, When sorrows like sea
billows roll, Whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, It
is well, it is well with my soul.