I want to try to work on a particular
verse this morning. And I'd like to read roughly
half of our reading now and then the second half after our hymns. And so let's let verse 45 divide
the two readings. We'll read it both times. Let
me read it to begin with. John chapter 6 verse 45. This is one of the most amazing
and interesting readings in all of the Bible. Nowhere else does
the Lord speak any more plainly than in this chapter. Alright,
verse 45. This is where we're going to
camp out a little bit later. It is written in the prophets namely
Isaiah 54, I think maybe verse 13, I can't, I don't remember
the verse. It's written in the prophets, and they shall be all
taught of God. Now who are these people that
will be taught of God? Here it is. Every man, every
person, therefore, that has heard and learned of the Father has
this mark of identification, comes unto me." Everybody that
God teaches in this school of grace come to Christ. Now, you teachers, you have to
teach whoever comes to your class, but this is a different class.
God chooses and brings to this class those that He intends to
save, so that the result is infallible. If He teaches you, you come to
Christ. My wife is always after me about
a title, so I thought I'd give her a doozy this morning. The
Divine E-O-G. And if you don't know what EOG
is, where have you been living? The divine end of grade test. Here it is, John 6, 45. All right,
now let's go back to verse 22 so that we'll understand what
brings us to this statement in verse 45. My wife thought I had
some kind of secret meaning for EOG. I mean, she just couldn't,
she looked at me really strange. Verse 22. The previous day, the
Lord Jesus took one little boy's lunch and fed 5,000 men, not
counting women and children. And a certain group of those
persons, I don't know that the scripture does not tell us if
all of them or if it's some of them, but a vocal group of them
Even just after the miracle and the teaching of Christ on the
mountainside across the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum, these
persons were already beginning to fashion in their minds, we're
going to take this guy and make him our king. We get free lunch
every day. And our Lord, who reads the minds
and the hearts, excused himself and went up into a mountain to
pray. and the disciples head back across the Sea of Galilee
in a boat. And the storm comes up and our
Savior comes walking on the water and so forth, you remember. And
these people are mystified. They saw the Lord Jesus go one
way and the disciples go another and they cannot figure out where
He went. So they also take boats and go
to Capernaum. We pick them up here, the 22nd
verse, the day following. When the people which stood on
the other side of the sea, where the miracle of the feeding the
5,000 took place, saw that there was none other boat there except
that one wherein to his disciples were entered, and that Jesus
went not with his disciples into the boat, but that his disciples
were gone away alone. Explanatory statement in verse
23, howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias near unto
the place where they did eat bread and fish as well for that
matter, after the Lord had given thanks. When the people therefore
saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also
took shipping and came to Capernaum seeking for the Lord Jesus. You don't think you could add
two and two and come up with four if this man took a handful
of food and fed thousands upon thousands. And you're worried
about how he's going to get across the Sea of Galilee? You missed
something. And we're about to learn what
they missed. Let's see, we finished with 24. They come to Capernaum
seeking for the Lord Jesus. When they had found him on the
other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, teacher, master,
when did you come here? Jesus answered them and said,
now here's the motive. That's carefully distinguishing.
Amen, amen, I say unto you. Now here's the Savior's own analysis
of why they're doing what they're doing. You seek me not because
you saw the miracles. They were not overly impressed
with the miracle, but because you did eat of the loaves and
were filled. And my dear friend, how many
people we could not imagine whose religion is to get what they
can get from God, but not heavenly things, not spiritual things,
but earthly blessings. Our Savior goes on in verse 27,
labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which
endures unto everlasting life. which the Son of Man shall give
unto you, for Him has God the Father sealed. Then said they
unto Him, they're disappointed now, that He won't do for them
every day what He did for them yesterday. So they say unto Him
in verse 28, What shall we do that we might work the works
of God? And that, my friend, is the mindset
of every human being by nature. We care not whether it's a work
of God. We think ourselves equal to it,
that we can do it. You just tell us the secret,
the mechanics, and we'll do it ourselves. If you won't do it,
teach us how to do it. Jesus answered and said unto
them, this is the work of God that you believe on Him whom
God has sent. Now that statement says, and
a lot of people don't like what it says, and I mean religious
people and I mean people who claim to believe grace, do not
like this statement because they are still hanging on to one particular
work that they will not let it belong to God, it must be their
own. And that's faith or belief in
the Lord Jesus. Christ answered and said unto
them in verse 29, this is the work of God that you believe
on him whom God has sent. And if you and I are believers,
it's God's work long before it's our work. If it is truly our
work, then it will not last and it cannot be eternal. But it
is the blessed work of God. And now they blame the Lord Jesus
for their not being able to believe on Him. In verse 30, they said
therefore unto Him, what sign show you then that we may see
and believe you? What do you work? You mean feeding
5,000 plus with one little small boy's lunch is not enough. Our fathers did eat manna in
the wilderness, in the desert, as it is written. He gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Amen,
Amen. I say unto you, Moses did not
give you that bread to eat. Now how, whatever they said in
verse 31, Like the word, he gave them bread, it is not, we lose
that in our translation. They are not talking about God,
they're talking about Moses. And so our savior says, Moses
gave you not that bread from heaven, but my father gives you
the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which
comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world. Now, when
our Lord came to this earth, He had already made this earth
and everything in it. But when He came to this earth,
He brought life everlasting, because He is everlasting life. Then said they unto Him, Lord,
evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life. He's not talking about physical,
human, earthly life. He's talking about the life of
God in the soul. He's talking about everlasting
life. He that comes to me. Let me start
35 again. Jesus said to them, I am the
bread of life. He that comes to me shall never
hunger. And he that believes on me shall
never thirst. But I said unto you that you
also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father gives
me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I'll in no wise
cast out. For I came down from heaven not
to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he
hath given me, What do you mean he's given them already to Christ?
In the covenant of grace in old eternity, the father gave to
the son a people. Christ came to this earth as
their representative, their federal head, and their substitute, their
surety in the covenant of grace to redeem them. All which he's
given me, I should lose nothing, not a one, not a one, but should
raise it up again at the last day. Anyone who speaks of Christ
dying for someone and they not actually being in heaven When
this thing's all over with down here on this earth They do not
know God. They do not know Christ. They
have no understanding of the grace of God You cannot cheat
the Savior out of what he purchased on the tree Even the justice
of God demands that they must go free Verse 40 and this is
the will of him that sent me that everyone which sees the
Son and believes on him may have everlasting life, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured 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, whose father
and mother we know? How is it then that he says,
I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can come to
me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Now the verb
there is no man can. But the reason that we can't
is because we won't. We will not. Therefore, we cannot. Verse 45. It is written in the
prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every person,
therefore, that has heard and has learned of the Father comes
unto Me." We begin now at verse 45. We could read that a dozen
times in verse 45. never exhausted. Let's pray together. Lord, we have your word in front
of us this day. We have statements almost everywhere
we look in this chapter that defy human reasoning that are
both wonderful as well as terrible. If by your grace and the work
of your Holy Spirit and by being born again by the new birth.
If we could lay hold to what is put in front of us in this
conversation of our Savior with those that were upset with Him
because He would not continue to provide their meals for them
and make their boast that they are the descendants of those
that ate the manna that fell from heaven, and yet at the same
time They have no interest in your son, the Lord Jesus. Lord,
before a man saved and every person unsaved is exactly the
same way. We begin our life in this world
just like these folks. Oh, we pray this morning that
you would visit us in this place. We are not much. In fact, we
are nothing. We have nothing and can do nothing,
but You are the God who does all things well. Nothing is hard for You. Lord, may Your blessing be upon
Your Word as it is read and preached. Save Your elect. Bring us according
to Your will, each and every one of us, to the feet of the
blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus. Beggars for pure, free, sovereign
mercy. Help us, we beg. Alright, back
to verse 45. Now I can't stop long here on
anything because I'm going to be really against it if I'm not
careful. Verse 45, John chapter 6, it
is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Well, preacher, don't you need
to insert something like, they shall be if they're willing.
If we wait for ourselves to make ourselves willing, we won't ever
go to this school. God makes us willing in His Son
in the power of His grace. The Father tells the Son in John
110 verse 3, your people shall be willing in the day of your
power. Let us pray that this might be
that day, at least for some, at least for some. They shall
be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that has
heard and has learned of the Father comes unto me. Not that any man has seen the
Father, except he which is of God, that is, the Son, he's seen
the Father. Amen, amen, I say unto you, he
that believes on me has. That verb is past tense. Believing
is the result of being saved, not the cause. He that believes
on me has everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. And
our Lord means more there than just physically dead. Believers. except for that final generation
on this earth when our Lord returns, all believers must die physically. You know this. You can't be of
much age and not had to attend the funeral of a relative or
someone even closer. We know this, but we read right
over this stuff and we don't even stop to think what our Lord
is actually saying. Your fathers which did, this
is verse 49, which did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. Now that was real, actual, literal
manna. But our Lord is speaking of Himself
as the bread of life. Look at verse 50, speaking of
Himself. This is the bread which comes
down from heaven that a man may eat thereof." And what? Not die. Not die. Those of you that were here Wednesday
night, the second death. Everybody's going to die the
first one. You can't get out of this world without dying unless
the Lord comes back. Verse 51, I am 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, which I will give for the life of the world. So
he's talking about spiritual bread, the very life of the Lord
Jesus, His flesh. The Jews therefore strove. They
debated, they argued among themselves saying, how can this man give
us his flesh to eat? Now, does anybody here have that
hang up that the Lord Jesus is talking about his own corporal,
physical body? Of course not. He's talking about
divine, spiritual, eternal things. Verse 53. Then Jesus said unto
them, Amen, Amen, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you."
Now some of you have got a little more religious experience than
others. And some of you in your backgrounds
have experienced this while some of us country, eastern North
Carolina, deprived folks like me, we've
never actually witnessed it, but a great many parts of the
Christian world, supposedly the professing Christian claim that
the elements on the Lord's table, which is unleavened bread and
wine, when the priest consecrates it, it is transformed into the
actual flesh and blood of Christ. And when you take of that cup
or of that bread, you are literally eating the body and blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if you can believe that,
I've got some property I want to show you. It's underwater
down in Florida. Can you believe anything more
absurd than that? It's even got a name, the doctrine
of transubstantiation, that the bread and the wine are transformed
into the literal body and blood of the Lord Jesus. Most absurd,
ridiculous thing in the world. Where did we get to? Let's start
at 54. You probably don't know either,
so some of you younger ones might. Whoso eats my flesh and drinks
my blood has eternal life. So, physical eating and drinking
is here representing spiritual eating and drinking. Now, do
you know the difference between Eating food and consuming medicine,
we use a peculiar expression when we talk about medicine.
We say we take our medicine. But you don't say that about
food. Now, when we get downstairs in a little bit, I'm going to
watch you eating, and I'm going to see if I can tell the difference
between if you think it's medicine and if you think it's food. And
if you want to, you can watch me. This is important for us. We eat food. Why? I know the
doctor says, do you eat to live or do you live to eat? Well,
I'll tell you one thing. When I go to the table, I expect
to enjoy myself. I eat because I want to. And
it's wonderful that by eating, we keep ourselves going and give
a little energy sometimes to do the things we need to do.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and
I'll raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh and drinks
my blood dwells in me and I in him." Now what did he just say?
Here's what it means to spiritually eat the flesh and drink the blood
of Christ. It means that, let's see, let
me get it right here. He that eats my flesh, verse
56, and drinks my blood dwells in me. And I, that is Christ,
in them. That's what that means. It is
to spiritually, in the soul, eat and drink Christ. Verse 57,
as the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father,
so he that eats me, even he shall live by me. Christ is our life. Verse 58, this is that bread
which came down from heaven. He's still talking now to the
same persons. This is that bread which came down from heaven.
Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eats of
this bread shall live forever. How many times have we read that
already in this one little passage? These things said he in the synagogue
and where was he? As he talked in Capernaum. And when our Lord in Matthew
11 pronounces judgment on the cities, Capernaum gets the heaviest
judgment. He was in this little town more
times than any other place on this globe, frequented this synagogue
more times than any other, and yet they remained, for the most
part, unbelieving. No doubt performed more miracles
in that little town than any place else, and yet they continued
just as these people are in this chapter. Okay, let's go back
now to this little test up here in verse 45. Here's the test. They shall be all taught of God.
Every man or woman, therefore, that has heard and has learned
of the Father comes to Christ. Comes to Christ. This is the
divine test. The school is the school of Christ,
or if you like, the school of grace. Here's the first thing
that it shows us, this teaching, this divine teaching, this end
of grade testing. You can take this test at the
beginning, in the middle, and anywhere else you want to because
it's all the same. The subject of the last day of
school is the same as it is the first day of school. The subject
is Christ and Him crucified. And it's unchanging. And yet,
to the believer, it never gets old or stale. It's still the
most wonderful thing he's ever heard. Christ died for sinners,
of whom I am chief. All right, the first thing this
lesson teaches us, this statement in verse 45, it actually shows
us what faith is. Do you know that most folks don't
know what faith is? Do I know what faith is? That's
the question. All right, you got to look at
verse 45. Coming and believing, coming to Christ and believing
on Christ are one and the same thing. As we say, there's not
a hill of beans of difference between them. They are all speaking
of the same subject, the same event. This is one of the first
lessons in the school of grace. It is a simple and glorious truth. The Bible everywhere speaks in
this double language, coming to Christ and believing on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 35, for example.
Jesus said to them, I'm the bread of life. He that comes to me,
there's coming to Christ, shall never hunger and he that believes
on me shall never thirst. And you can turn those statements
around and they will still be the same, just as plain as plain
can be. Coming to Him and believing on
Him are one and the same thing. All right, here's the second
lesson. Here is the reasonableness of faith. If we could see without
our prejudices blinding us, we could see this absolutely clearly. Faith comes how? By divine teaching. Is that not our Lord's lesson
to these persons that are so interested in him teaching them
the secret of doing God's work so they can just gratify their
own selves whenever they wish. And our Lord takes that one event
back in verse 29, and all of the rest of this flows out of
that. And all that he has to say is the same. I was going
to quote you a verse of scripture, I didn't want to show off, so truthfully it just left. Here's
how Paul said it, I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded
that he, Christ, is able, three, to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. Now that, my friend, is a believer,
a believer. A lot of people know what, some
of them even think they know how, but that's not the question. We must know whom, whom we have
believed and be persuaded that He's able to keep us and commit
that, our entire soul, unto Him in a certain hope of everlasting
life. All right, the third lesson.
Here is the absolute importance of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
doesn't give you a list of do's and don'ts. No, sir, not at all. The whole Bible, the entire book
is designed for this purpose, to make us feel our need for
Christ. And it takes the whole book.
It takes the whole book. Now, our Lord, with utmost patience
in this chapter, teaches the same truth over and over and
over again. And if we had read the rest of
the chapter, it truly would have been said. These people were
so disappointed that Christ would not be their servant at their
beck and call. they left off following him.
So much so that the Savior turned and said to the apostles, will
you also go away? And Peter speaking for them all,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life, and we're sure that you're the Messiah, the Christ, the
Son of the living God. Number four, here's the rule. for preachers, our subject is
Christ and Christ alone. Our subject is not Moses, and
it's not the law, and it's not you, and it's not me. It's Christ. It is Christ and Christ alone. Why would you take people to
Moses? We're already condemned, and that's what that would do
for us. Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believes.
Romans 10 verse 4, I think it is. Finally, here is the test. Verse 45, one more time. This
is the test, the whole test, and nothing else. And they shall
be all taught of God. God is the teacher. Christ is
the lesson. And we're the pupils. They shall
be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that has
heard and has learned of the Father comes unto Me." Comes
unto Me. Now, I don't mean to say that
once you come to Christ, you won't learn anything else. But
you'll still learn it in Him. And it will be closely associated
to Him. It will have to do with His glory,
His honor, and so forth. All right, here's the test. Am
I taught of God? Has God taught me who Christ
is, what Christ did, why he did it, to enable God to be just
and justify the ungodly? Where Christ is right now, seated
on a throne in glory, are we taught of God? Second question
is, have I heard and learned of the Father? Because the Father
has but one lesson, and that lesson is Christ. So how do we
stand with regard to the Lord Jesus? If you'd like to turn,
I'm going to go to Philippians 3 for a second. I fudged on you. I've got a marker. But I'll wait
for you if you'll turn. Verses 7, 8, and 9, Philippians
chapter 3. Now here is a person many years after what
we're reading in John 6, whom God has wonderfully converted
and made an apostle and a preacher of the gospel of Christ. And
here's what this man says about Christ and about his old religion. But what things were gained to
me, those I counted lost for Christ, yea, doubtless, And I
count, verse 7 is in the past tense. The word count in verse
8 is in the present tense. I count all things but loss.
For the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them
but dung, manure, that I may win Christ. That word win means
to gain Christ. and be found in him, not having
my own righteousness, which is nothing but a legal righteousness,
which ain't no righteousness at all, it's all imaginary, not
having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that,
that is, that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith. That, my friend,
is the divine EOG. Take that chapter home with you
and carefully mull it over. It is full of jewels and gems.