There were many people. Who saw
the Lord in the days of his flesh? And they did not love him. They
saw the works that he did the miracles that he performed. They
saw him heal the sick. They saw him give sight to the
blind. Some of them ate food. That he
created. But they did not love him. They
heard his preaching. Preaching unlike anything that
any of them had ever heard before. They heard it. Yet they did not
love him because of what they heard him say. They loved a lot of what he did. They loved the fact that he healed
the sick, especially if they were one of the sick that were
healed. They loved that fact. And they probably mistook that
as love for him. They saw him as someone who could
make their life better. Whether it be that Maybe he could
heal some disease he had. Or maybe he could fix some difficulty
they had gotten themselves into. But that's what they saw him
as. Simply a problem fixer. And they loved what he did, but
they didn't love him. So long as his words or his works
profited them, they loved him. Like many of the religious people
of our day, so long as it seems that God is making their lives
carefree, removing the obstacles in the way of their happiness, they think they love him. But the moment his works seem
not to be in their behalf, the moment that God's providence
takes a turn toward the unpleasant, they prove that they really do
not love him. For they'll begin to say things
like, why me? They should have been saying,
why me, when God was doing pleasant things for them, when God was
heaping his blessings on them. Then is when you and I should
be saying, why me, Lord? But instead, it's in the nature
of man that when God's. Providence is pleasant. They'll go and they'll go to
church and they'll Sing praises and all that, but let God's providence
become unpleasant. And they are cursing. Many of them listened to his
teaching, and so long as his teaching made them feel good,
so long as his teaching rebuked the people that they thought
should be rebuked, They thought they loved him,
and they would express their love for him and devotion for
him, and they followed him around. But the moment his teaching was
found to rebuke them, they were no longer interested. I'm reminded of when they followed
the Lord because he fed them with the five loaves and two
fishes, and they followed him all the way across the sea. They
call it the sea, I suppose the Sea of Galilee. I can't remember
the Sea of Galilee or the Dead Sea, but either one. It's not
like the Atlantic Ocean, but it was an obstacle to them. But
they did what was necessary to get near Him, and our Lord said
to them, you follow me because of the loaves and fishes. And
that got some of them upset. They didn't like having their
motives called into question, and they left. But some others
still stayed behind and listened to what He had to say. And in
John 6, we find that He begins to turn his words to where they
not only rebuke the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious
uppity-ups that were making it tough for everybody. You know,
everybody loves the Lord when He's talking like that, when
He rebukes those self-righteous Pharisees, when He rebukes those
Sadducees who were so sophisticated and elite. Yeah, give it to them,
Lord. Let them have it. Both barrels. And when the Lord says, no, I've
got to save a barrel for you, then we get upset. Don't wait. And he began to preach in such
a way that his message proved that even those simple folk,
as we might call them, whose self-righteousness wasn't so
evident, Yet his preaching probed their hearts and proved that
really they were no better than the Pharisees whom our Lord was
rebuking. And in John 6, he goes on and
the basic message there toward the end of John 6, he sets himself
up as the one and only one through whom a person may come and find
eternal life. He sets forth the sovereignty
of God and salvation that God saves whom He will, when He will. He sets forth the absolute success
of His work. He says that every one that the
Father gives to me, I won't lose any of them. I'll raise every
one of them up in the last day. In short, the Lord Jesus Christ,
by His teaching there in John 6, is pointing everything to
himself. And it revealed in the hearts
of the people that were listening that really it wasn't him they
were in love with. They were in love with themselves.
And it says from this point on, many of the Lord's disciples
no longer followed him. Now, we must assume that in using
the word disciples, He was not speaking simply of that crowd
that followed him from where he fed 5,000 plus their wives
and children, that group that followed him over to the other
side. It wasn't just them. These were people that had followed
him for some time, enough that they were known as disciples
of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the 12, maybe not even the 70
that were at one point sent out to preach. But nonetheless, there
was a group who were known to be followers of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But when he preached that, they
couldn't take it anymore. And they left. You see, they didn't love him.
They loved themselves. Even though they saw him, even
though they heard him, even though they touched him, they did not
love him. And there were many in that day
who saw the Lord Jesus Christ But they did not believe him.
They believe much of what he said, but there's a difference
between believing what a man says and actually believing the
man. You may come up to me and say,
you know, the sun rises in the east. Well, I'm going to believe
what you say, because I know that to be true. That doesn't
necessarily mean I believe you. I don't believe that fact because
it's you that said it. You see, when we believe someone,
it means we've come to a point of trust in them that pretty
much whatever they say, we'll accept that as the truth. That's
the difference between believing facts and believe in a person.
And our Lord Jesus Christ preached many things which rang true to
people. After all, it was almost exclusively
Jews to whom our Lord preached in the days of His flesh. And they had been brought up
in their synagogues, reading the scriptures, and doubtless,
they believed some of those true things. And our Lord didn't come
and overturn anything that was in the Old Testament. He affirmed
everything that's written in the Old Testament, so they could
agree with him. They could certainly agree with him, as he pointed
out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. That wasn't any trouble for them
to agree. They believed him on that, or they believed what he
said. But as soon as he would say something
that didn't agree with them, they ceased to believe what he
had to say. Before we go any farther, let
me ask you a question. You're the only one who can answer
it, and maybe you won't even be able to answer it. You search
your own heart and see if you can discover an answer. Is it
Christ you believe, or is it simply Christian doctrine that
you believe? There's a difference. You say, well, tell me how I
can tell the difference. I don't know. I'll be honest, sometimes
I question my own heart in the matter. Because to me, Christian
doctrine is so obviously true. It makes sense to me. It agrees
with me, so I agree with it. But is it simply the doctrine
I'm agreeing with, or do I actually believe Christ? And believe the
doctrine only because it's He that said it. You see the difference? One of the lessons we learn from
this, that people could see Christ and not love Him, see Him and
not believe Him, one of the lessons we learn from that is that the
natural sight of the Lord Jesus Christ produces no love for Him,
nor does it produce any faith in Him. Nothing that our Lord did, now
you think about this a minute, nothing that our Lord did, which
was visible and understandable to the natural senses and natural
wisdom, none of those things ever produced love or faith in
anyone. And it's certainly not guaranteed
to produce faith in anyone, because it didn't produce faith in most
of the people that sought it. We might think, you know, wouldn't
it be wonderful If this weekend, instead of our beloved brother
Wayne Boyd, the Lord Jesus should come down here and preach. Yes,
it would be wonderful, but I want you to understand something.
The effect wouldn't be any different in terms of bringing unbelievers
to faith. Because people all over Israel
heard him preach, saw him do his works, and they still didn't
believe him. The Lord Jesus Christ could come
to Rock Valley. We could hold a rally. We could hold some kind of special
meeting and people could gather over there in the park, and our
Lord could wave through that crowd, healing the sick. He could
go to our hospital over there and empty it. He could go to
the rest home and restore youth to everyone there. And I tell
you this, not one who did not believe at the beginning of the
day would believe at the end of the day. Because these things
do not produce love. They do not produce faith. It's not the Lord's fault. I
mean, I'm not saying this is all the things our Lord did and
said are of no consequence or value. I'm simply saying this.
It is not in a fleshly display of the power of God. and of the
message of God that men are made to love Christ and trust Him. It takes something more than
that. And if they did not come to love
Christ and believe in Him when Christ Himself was the miracle
worker and the preacher, what shall it be when men such as
me stand up and preach? And if I were enabled to if I
could work a miracle. Would that make anybody believe
Christ? Since I have been here. These
24 years and a little in a few months. We've seen a few people
come to Christ. And I believe this with all my
heart, I didn't bring one of them. I hope it was not me that brought
you to Christ, because if I brought you to Christ, you're going to
leave. If it was my preaching that brought
you to Christ, you're going to leave. It takes something more. Thank God, while many saw him
yet neither loved nor believed Him, there were many, and there
are many, even in our day, who have never seen Him, but they
love Him. They've never seen Him and don't
see Him now, but they believe Him. And for all the contrary
evidence They continue to believe Him.
Despite everything that wars against their love for Him, despite
all the other seductions of this world, they continue to love
Him. Despite the many times that their love got buried, actually,
and they didn't act in a loving way towards Him, yet they still
do love Him. And even though they've not seen
one scintilla, whatever a scintilla is, I've just read the word,
but I don't know what it means, but one scintilla, one tiny part,
they've not received or experienced in a sensible way the very least
of the Lord's blessings in Christ. Yet they continue to believe
him. They believe that he shall save his people from their sins,
even though in their own experience, their sins still seem to cling
to them like so many barnacles on a ship. And they can't get
rid of any of them. They believe that in time and
to come, he shall save them, even though their understanding
of how he's going to do that is pretty cloudy. They believe
He's going to save them even though their faith in Him is
a very weak thing and they wouldn't trust the least thing to their
faith, let alone their souls. Yet they continue to believe
in Him. They believe in Him even though the world in all its sophistication,
in all its elitism, which says that trusting Christ,
that's a superstition. That was something for the infancy
of the human race. We've grown beyond the need of
a God to explain the things that go on around us. We've grown
beyond the need of rules and regulations. We've grown beyond
the need of someone to put away our sins. We're the top of the heap. That's
what science tells us. We're the top of the heap. We're
as far as evolution has gotten so far. We don't need God. But despite
that particular lie from the world, God's people keep right
on believing Him. Despite the fact that they are filled with doubts,
they believe. Despite the fact that sometimes,
maybe many times, maybe most times, they don't feel like they
believe, yet they still do. Here these people are, they are
called the elect of God, whom God has scattered throughout
the known world of that day. These elect of God were going
through serious trouble It's no wonder that people don't believe
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's because they've
been told so often that the good news, and that's what the word
gospel means, the good news of Jesus Christ is that He's going
to make your life good. And so they sign on the dotted
line, so to speak. They make some kind of profession
of faith, and then they go out into the world and life's pretty
much the same as it was before. They're still struggling with
the same old thing. They're still having the same old difficulties,
the same old trials. And they just keep coming back.
Let me ask you, does that ever bother you that things just haven't
gotten better? Most of all, you haven't gotten
any better, so far as you can tell. Doesn't that ever kind
of war against your soul make you say, well, you know, if this
business of the gospel is true at all, certainly you're not
involved. Because if you were involved,
Things would be better now. But he says you're going through
all kinds of trials. Agonizing trials. Grief. And what was this for? So that
faith. And brethren, believing God is
worth more than all the gold in the world. Even if that gold
has been purified to 100 percent by fire. If you can believe God even a
little bit. It's better than if you owned
all the gold reserves that men have collected over the thousands
of years we've been here. Now we can say that. I wonder
how much of us live as though we value faith more than we value
gold. But let me tell you something.
If you can believe God, thank God that you can believe Him.
If you can only believe Him a little bit, even if your faith is mixed
with such doubts and such confusion, you say, Lord, help my unbelief. I do believe, but help my unbelief.
Even if that's the level you're at, thank God you can at least
say, I do believe. I don't live like I ought to.
I don't live like somebody who believes. At least not that I can tell. But yes, I believe. I'm full
of fear. But I believe. I'm full of doubts. But I believe. All faith is worth
more than anything else in this world. To believe God. It is written
of Abraham, Abraham believed God. And what did God do? God imputed righteousness to
him. What does that mean? That God
said, OK, God said, all right, you're a righteous man. Now,
he didn't say Abraham was a righteous man because he believed. In other
words, it's not belief, it's not faith that makes us righteous. Rather, it's simply this. For
every believing person, there is this promise. God shall deal
with you as a righteous man. God will not give any blessing
at all to the sinful. And everybody here, if you're
the least bit honest, you'll have to confess you're sinful. Some of us recognize it more
than others. None of us recognize it as as it is in truth. Folks will say things like, well,
you know, before you can really call upon the name of the Lord,
you've got to understand how sinful you are. There's nobody
in this world that has a clue as to how sinful they are. Nobody. I guarantee you this. Not that
my guarantee means a whole lot, but I still nonetheless guarantee
you this. When you are made like Christ, you child of God, when you are
made to be like Christ, and you can see yourself in this life
as the eye of God can see you, you will be even more amazed
that God gave you a second thought. We don't know how sinful we are
because our ability to see and detect sin isn't very good. We only can see the worst outbreaks
of it. But God tries our faith. And we believe God in the teeth
of all our sin. Though we've not seen him. Now,
if anybody ever comes to you and says, I saw the Lord saying,
well, I don't know who you saw, but he wasn't the Lord. It says the Lord shall be revealed
in time to come, but he's not not now. There was a time when
God did speak to men that way in the days of the Old Testament,
when he come to the fathers and the prophets and all those. And
he revealed himself like that, and then the last one that I
am aware of. that ever saw the Lord Jesus
Christ. Was the Apostle Paul. To my remembrance
in the record of Scripture. Jesus Christ, well, Jesus Christ
has not appeared since then. And certainly the next time he
comes to reveal himself in a general way. Well, that's going to be
the end of it all. So if anybody ever tells me preacher
says I saw the Lord, you say, no, you didn't. I don't know
who you saw, but you didn't see the Lord. You haven't seen him, I haven't
seen him. We haven't felt him. There may
be emotional experiences that we have as the
Lord brings to bear his truth upon our hearts. But those emotions we feel, that's
not him. That's just the response we have
to the work that he's done. And there are people in false
religions who have similar emotions. So we can't rest on our emotions
as much as we might enjoy them. Can't rest on them. I had someone tell me they went
to a certain church and said, I could just feel the Holy Spirit. I said, what does he feel like? Nobody's ever felt him. Haven't seen him, haven't heard
his voice. But it says, though you have
not seen him, you love him. Every believer loves the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you why. It's because
Christ did something for him more than heal his broken leg or clear away the cobwebs out
of his mind. Did something more for him than
fix the troubles of his life. They love him because he first loved them.
and gave himself for them. That's why. James read to us
from Isaiah 53. And it's always got to be a little
amazing to a believer to read that second verse. I'm remembering
it as it appears in the King James Version, but it says there
is no beauty. In him that we should desire
him. What? There's no beauty in Christ,
no glory, no splendor. There's none in Him that causes
a natural man to love Him, to esteem Him, to
desire Him. You say, you mean that when our
Lord was here, He didn't do anything? He didn't carry Himself in a
certain way? that made people just cling to
him, oh, for a minute or so, but then they'd let go. For you see, it takes an ability
to see something that the natural eye cannot see in order to make
a man love the Lord Jesus Christ. There were people there on Mount
Calvary on that day. who saw what they did to the
Lord Jesus Christ, who saw His shredded back, who saw that head
with thorns pressed into it, who saw His hands and feet nailed
to that cross, who heard every word of His.
Father, forgive them. They know what they do. Today
you'll be with me in paradise. I thirst. My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? Into your hands I commend my
spirit." They heard all those things. And they did not love
him. Why? Because they did not understand
what he was doing. And they had no grace. God had
not given them grace. to see that it was for them that
he did it. Returning again to what James
read to us. We esteemed him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. We saw all these sufferings.
That is, the people that were there saw them. And you know
what they said? He's getting what he deserves. We said he
was a blasphemer. And sure enough, he must have
been. Because look at what God's doing to him. We said he was a phony, and sure
enough, he was. And God's pointing it out here. They didn't love him. They rejoiced
in his sufferings. They were happy that he went
through such misery. But the prophet Isaiah there
in chapter 53 goes on to reveal something, and it says something's
got to be revealed. And may God be pleased to reveal
that he said he was stricken of smitten of God and afflicted.
Yet he opened not his mouth. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was on him and by his stripes we are healed. You've never seen
him. But many of you here love him.
Why? Because God made you see something
that you can't see with the eyes that are stuck in your head. The eyes in your head can learn
about the sufferings of Christ, but only the eyes of faith are able to see that that suffering
was for you. When do I love the Lord Jesus
Christ? In some sense, I may say at all
times. But when do I know that I love him and believe him? When
I see him suffering for me. Not just when I see his suffering,
not just when I can go over those glorious doctrines of grace.
But when in my heart I see that the suffering Lamb was suffering
for me, then I love Him. I love Him so
much I love nothing else. I love Him so much that neither
mother nor father, brother nor sister, daughter or son, or even
spouse, can rival the love that I have for Him. When do I believe
Him? Do I believe Him when I study
this book, preparing sermons? Do I love Him when I ponder on
His many works that are described in Scriptures? No, I really believe
Him when by grace I'm able to see that His work on the cross
was done for me. And then there is not a legalist
that can shake my faith by trying to heap guilt on me. There is
not one elite sophisticate in all the world who can make me
feel embarrassed that I believe such a simple. The old word was vulgar. Plain,
everyday truth. The songwriter put it this way,
this is my hope, this is my plea, that when he died, he died for
me. Oh, I hope you love the Lord Jesus
Christ, but I know exactly when it is you'll come to love him.
When God is pleased to reveal the work of Christ, Not simply
as something he did, but as something he did for you. When will you
believe him? When he reveals that his work
was for you. And you see, I can't reveal that
to you. I can't make you see that. Only God can. If I could transport you back
in time, And you and I could stand there together on Mount
Calvary and watch the events of that day. If we could stay
for three days more and you and I could sneak into the garden
where the tomb of the Lord was and stand there and watch it
as the angel rolled that stone away and see our Lord come forth
out of that tomb alive again. If we could walk with Him for
40 days, and stand there with Him as He
ascended into glory. I could not by that make you
believe any of this or love Him. But if God the Spirit will touch
your heart and make you see Him with the eyes of faith, you'll love Him. You'll believe Him. You say, well, what can I do?
So that God will give me those eyes of faith. Nothing. But if I felt is that I did not
believe, and there's often times that I feel as though I don't
believe, I tell you what I would do by telling you what I actually
I do when I feel I don't believe. At that time, I call upon the
name of the Lord. I do. I say, Lord, save me, save
me from my unbelief. Save me from myself. I'm desperate. I'm desperate. Do you want to believe the Lord? An old hymn, we sing it once
in a while. One of the stanzas go, let not conscience make you
linger, nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires
is that you know your need of him. And usually we stop singing
there because the tune we use doesn't have long enough for
all the words. But that stanza goes on to say,
This he gives you, it's the Spirit's wakening being. If this morning
you know that you need Christ, be glad. Not many people know
that. And whether or not you realize
it, knowing that you need him is the very beginnings of faith. For until you know you need Him,
you're trusting yourself. And the moment you realize that
you need Him is when the pivot starts to swing. Oh, may God give you an understanding
of your need and of His supply in Christ Jesus.