I invite your attention back
to the gospel according to John. I had an interesting phone call
this week. It was from a woman who was dying.
She was bedridden and full of regrets and anguish. She told me she had spent her
days listening to sermons of gospel preachers like Don Fortner
and Jim Byrd and Greg Helmquist and myself. She read a whole
lot of books and read a lot of Spurgeon. She read all the biographies
of men and grieved that she had no such experience as they set
forth as their experience of conversion. That's why I stopped
reading them many years ago. She told me she had been in useless
religion all of her life. had brought up her children in
it, and had taught them the false doctrines that she believed,
and as she lay dying, she was plagued with heartbreaking regrets
of having believed and taught them lies. She said she was lost, and her
sin was so great that she could not believe that she would ever
be saved. She had listened to the testimony
of these preachers, myself included, and had locked in on what they
experienced because she had not had such an experience as she
believed that she was without hope. I remember reading things like
that in Spurgeon and Mueller and men like that, reading their
testimony of their conversion Mine wasn't like that. Sometimes they used great flowery,
wonderful language to explain the entrance of God into their
lives. Because she didn't have any such
experience, she felt she was without hope. She thought that when men spoke
of salvation by revelation, that some great upheaval must occur. some bolt out of the blue had
to take place in these men's lives. She thought that she must actually
see Christ when men spoke of seeing Christ, and she had not
experienced that. When I would point her to the
Scriptures and explain that seeing Christ was believing, because
believing was seeing that the revelation of Christ was his
word, she would answer, but preacher, and tell of some other preacher's
experience that she had read about. And much of what I told her was
from John chapter six, even quoting several times in our conversation
the words of Christ and the words of Simon Peter here. When we finished talking, I looked
at the phone and we had been talking for two hours and 24
minutes. If you know me and phone calls,
I'm not a big deal on those things. At the end, I told her that preachers,
though called of God, often tell personal experiences as illustrations
of Bible truth, but those illustrations are not to be esteemed as the
Word of God. I told her that the Bible would
shed a great deal of light on everything that a preacher says,
and that's how she should look at all these things. I finally told her that listening
to preachers 12 hours a day was probably too much, probably just
too much, and she should perhaps open the book and measure what
she has heard by the Scriptures alone. I told her to believe the Word
of God. And I told her that all who believe
Christ as He's revealed in the Word are saved. She said, but
preacher, how do you believe? And I said,
Sister, I don't know. One day I didn't, and the next
day I did. But the Scripture is plain. All
who believe on Christ are saved. That's the scripture. She thanked
me for talking with her and the conversation ended. I hope to
see her in glory. She seemed to be a believer who
was looking at the wrong thing for assurance rather than believing
the Word of God. She was looking to herself to
find some kind of evidence that she was a child of God. Since that time, I have considered
my own ministry and have wondered if I have unwittingly made believing
seem contingent upon some experience that I or someone else has had.
I could see where a troubled soul, a person facing the imminent
end of days, might be misled if I spoke of something that
had happened to me without clarifying that my experience was not the
Word of God. The words of Simon Peter and
the words of our Lord came again to my mind, and I couldn't get
them off. And though I preached on this,
I think in 2007, I'm going to preach on it again this morning.
I thought of these words. Peter said, Thou hast the words
of eternal life. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. These are words. Mark it down. These are not experiences. These
are not feelings. These are words. They are the
words of the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are words. And to believe them is to believe
Him, and thus they are words of eternal life. They are words. of eternal life. You've heard
them preached before by me and by Brother Jonathan and many
others. We are all dying. Some are facing
death, it would seem, sooner than others, though none of us
is promised tomorrow. I got a report this week of a
young woman up in Michigan who was 55 years old. I knew her
well. I was talking to her brother-in-law
on the He said, did you know that she died? And I said, no,
I had no idea. She never seemed unhealthy to
me. She sat down and had a heart attack and died, 55 years old. Old Baxter used to say, I preach
as a dying man to dying men. So to hear it again, as Paul
said, it will be profitable for you and me to be reminded once
again. Simon Peter spoke these words
in response to the question asked by our Lord Jesus Christ in verse
67. Then said Jesus unto the twelve,
Will ye also go away? Because many had left him that
day. These words of Simon Peter are
a confession of faith. In verse 69, he says, we believe
and are sure. And that's the order of things,
not the other way around. We believe and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. We believe
and are sure. His answer distinguished himself
from that other group that had left. Many who followed Christ
up to this day have now turned their backs and gone away. And
they left for the same reason that Simon Peter is staying,
because he believes that what the Lord has said, those sentences,
those words, those phrases, those paragraphs, he believes those,
and he believes them to be a description and the substance of eternal
life. I've never seen Jesus Christ. He's been gone from this earth
2,000 years. I've never seen Him with these
eyes. My experiences are many in religion, few in grace. And I was amazed to find out
many years ago that words or spirit in life, if they are the
words of Jesus Christ. I can no more explain that than
I can explain the Trinity. But that's a fact. There's also something about
these words that absolutely convinced Simon Peter that no mere man
could say them. No mere man could originate these
words. They caused Simon Peter to believe
that of all the people that were surrounding the Twelve Apostles,
of all the people that had been and had left, they caused him
to believe and be sure that only the Son of the Living God could
come up with something like this. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. We believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the Living God. This is what Paul said to the
church in Thessalonica. When you heard our word, you
didn't hear it as the words of men. You heard it as the word
of God. That lady spoke to me about the
voice of Christ. She said, I've not heard the
voice of Christ. And I said, yes you have. You've heard the word of God.
The gospel. That's how he speaks to his elect. in this Word. Words. Words of eternal life. These words, when declared today,
will cause some who profess faith in Christ to turn back and walk
away from Him and see Him no more. And it will cause others
to plant their feet here because there is nowhere else to go.
And I say to you this morning, if you have somewhere else to
go, go ahead. Because you will. But if you're like Peter, and
from your heart you say, to whom shall we go? What are you talking
about leaving you? Where else is there to go? That's
the words of eternal life. The Bible says a great deal about
eternal life. Our Lord spoke a great deal of eternal life
and everlasting life. He even said this of Himself
and His Father, He said in John 17, Thou has given him authority
over all flesh, to give eternal life to as many as Thou hast
given him. This is eternal life, that ye might know him, the true
and the living God, even Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. And
I quoted that to her. She said, but preacher, how do you know him? How do you know him? And she
quoted me Spurgeon, who said, you may know this president or
that president or this prime minister or that prime minister,
you may know of them, you may know them by name, you may know
them by sight, but don't know them. She said, what did he mean? I said, you shouldn't listen
to that, that's not the Word of God. That's not the Word of God. The Bible says, you shall know
the truth. and the truth shall set you free,
and if the sun shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." Words, words. Religion counts on stuff you
can see, not believers. And I told her, I said, your
faith believes what God says. That's it. Can't go no further. You can't add nothing to it.
You say, well, you got to have evidence. You ain't going to
have no evidence if you're a child of God. And you ain't be embarrassed
to bring something up that you thought might be evidence or
somebody else thought might be evidence. You don't even want
to talk about things like that because you know that the wonder of your
salvation is this, that God gave you this mysterious thing called
faith and you believed. And what did you believe? The
Word. The words of eternal life. When
one believes these words, he believes and is sure that he
is heard from God. He that believes these words,
believes the One who spoke them, and does so because he has eternal
life. Scripture says, He that hath
the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life.
These words are not about natural life. They are not about the
life you have here in your carnality, in your nature. Though these
words do affect natural life, they affect changes in it. and
new directions of the mind and the heart, but that's not of
the flesh, that's of the Spirit. These words concern another life.
Words that address natural life are about goals and aims and
dreams, and have to do with attaining a better place in life, or a
better station in life, or a better place in the world, or leaving
a mark. Those are the words of natural
life. These are the words of eternal life. These are not words
about family life. These are not words about so-called
Christian life, which involves religious laws or regulations
that are about duties and obligations. These are words of eternal life.
Peter said these are words of eternal life. We believe in Yeshua. Can't go nowhere else. But we
have all these words from Genesis to Revelation. This is about
eternal life, about what it is and the realization of it. And
it's all bound up in words, words that when received cause the
recipients to glorify Christ as the Son of the living God
and to trust Him. These are words that speak of
a life, the life that originated in the originator of life. before
the world ever was and will still be going on when this old world
is destroyed and the new world commences. These are words of
eternal life. Clearly distinguish between this
life and that one. There's a difference. The words
that Peter spoke or the words that Peter refers to as words
of eternal life began back in the earlier part of this chapter,
actually began in verse 29, when the Lord was confronted by men
about this or that, especially about being able to make those
fishes and breads multiply. Our Lord said, after they said,
ìWhat do we do that we can do the work, we can work the works
of God?î In verse 28, Jesus Christ said, ìThis is the work of God.î
What is it? What is the work of God? Is it
you get filled with the Spirit and wave your hands like this?
Is that the work of God? Is it after you finish a song
you raise your hand? Is that the work of God? Is it
running in the back of the pews? Is it running up and down aisles?
Is it acting like a fool in the church? Is it speaking in tongues? What is it? This is the work
of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent. And how in
the world do you believe on him whom God has sent? Words? Is it any wonder that it is foolishness
to the world when a preacher stands up and says the same thing
over and over again? Preaches the same person over
and over again? Reads the same scriptures over and over again?
Tells the same old story over and over again? People say, well,
he's just flapping his gums. That's what he's doing. But he's
saying words. These words. Words that are eternal
life. These are the words of eternal
life. Now when men heard our Lord say
that, that this is the work of God that you believe on Him,
they were unsatisfied with those words. And so they asked Christ
to show them something. This is what this lady wanted.
She wanted something she could touch and feel. I understand
that. I understand where she's coming from. I remember back
in those days when I was preaching and wasn't converted, didn't
know Christ. I'd read about Jonathan Warburton
laying on his bed and waking up at least in a dream that Satan
was at the bottom of his bed and had grabbed ahold of his
feet and was getting ready to jerk him down into hell, you know.
And I wanted to say something like that, but that had never
happened to me. I remember reading Jonathan Edwards saying, you're
hanging over the hell on a spider's web, and God's got the scissors. Well, I'd never hung over hell
on a spider's web. I didn't know anything about
that. I know they were speaking metaphorically. That was the language. But people
hear those things. And it must be told that these
things are illustrations. They are not God's Word. So people
won't look to men's experiences as if they were something. Oh,
I need to see this. I need to have God reveal Himself
to me. And when they say it, they mean
somehow, some way different than anything else that I've ever
experienced. She said, I don't know how. And
I said, you're in your bed, right? You can't get out of your bed.
She said, yes. I said, lay down. Lay back. And I said, how hard was that? The Bible says, rest in Jesus
Christ. I tried my best to give her every word that I could come
up with. It's about eternal life. They
were unsatisfied. They said, show us something.
Show us something. Verse 30 and 31, they said, What
sign showest thou then, that we may see? Show us something
that we may see. That's important because our
Lord addresses that later on in this chapter, that we may
see and believe. We may see and believe. Now,
Simon Peter didn't say we see and believe. He said we believe
and see. Then we may see and believe what thou didst work. Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert. It is written he gave them bread
from heaven. And the Lord answers them with
words of eternal life. Verse 32 and 33. He said, Verily
I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but
my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread
of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto
the world. Those are words of eternal life. But they want something that
is about natural life. Look at verse 34. They said,
Well, Lord evermore give us this bread. They didn't get it. They didn't get it. They don't
believe. They don't believe it. So our Lord confronts them with
words of eternal life as opposed to the life they desire. Eternal
life is Jesus Christ. How do we know that? Words. Our Lord said unto them in verse
35, And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that
cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also
have seen me, and you believe not. You believe not. I am the bread of life. if you
come to Christ. What is coming to Christ? She
said that. What does that mean, preacher? Coming to Christ. I
said, believing. She said, what about seeing Christ?
What does that mean? I said, believing. What about feeding
on Christ? What's that mean? Believing.
What about drinking the water of life? Believing. It's believing. We believe and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And our Lord
lets them know in no uncertain terms that their unbelief does
not frustrate God, as religion would have you think, or affect
the success of His purpose or change anything. In verse 37,
our Lord says after He said, ìDo you see Me and do you believe
not?î He says in verse 37, ìAll that the Father giveth Me shall
come to Me, and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast
out.î If you come to the Father, He that believeth on Me, He that
cometh to Me, He's never going to thirst. And all that the Father
give me is going to come to me. And them that come to me, I will
in no wise cast out. Though you see him and do not
believe, that amounts to nothing. There are many who hear the gospel
all their life, and they can see from the words that they're
talking about Jesus Christ, but they don't believe. All that
unbelief doesn't discourage God, doesn't change His purpose, and
will not affect one of the elect's eternal life. for whom Christ
shall come to die. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. These are words of eternal life. Now, most churches
say, well, I don't want to hear them words. That's because they
don't want to hear about eternal life. These are words of eternal life. All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Words of eternal
life are about election, about eternal election of God, about
God in eternity past giving Christ some people. And they all shall
come to Him. Put words of encouragement. These
are words of eternal life there about faith. Look at verse 37.
All that the Father shall give me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will know I was cast out. Look at verse
40. And this is the will of him that seeth me, that every one
which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting
life, and I will raise him up again in the last day. They shall
come to me. Coming to Christ, seeing Christ,
feeding on Christ, drinking Christ, believing. They are all the same
thing. Words of eternal life are about
assurance. No why is cast out, he said.
No why. Peter said we believe and are
sure. Words of eternal life declare the absolute success of Christ's
work in the world according to the will of God. These are words
of life. I would say that those who deny
these words are speaking words of death. For it says of Jesus Christ's
work, After he says, excuse me, all that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh from Yah shall know I
was cast out. He says, 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 has sent me, that of all which He hath
given me, I should lose nothing but raise it up in the last day,
all of it. This is God's will. Will this
will be done? Absolutely. He doeth his will
in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth,
and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest thou?
All whom God gave to Jesus Christ in election of grace will be
saved. Not one will ever be lost. When our Lord was confronted
in John 18 by the priest and the officers and kissed on the
cheek by Judas, when Judas betrayed Him, they came and He said, Who
are you guys looking for? And He said, We're looking for
Jesus of Nazareth. And He said, Ego, I am. I am. Just the words. Words. Knocked them flat on their back.
He didn't take a stick to them. He didn't do like Benny Hinn,
take off his coat and knock out everybody in the whole outfit.
He spoke words. I am. They fell down. And after they
began to stir and recover, he says, y'all fellas stand up again
and ask me again. I'm going to ask you, who are
you seeking? They said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am he.
But here's the deal. If you take me, these have to
go free. that substitution. Why did he
say that? It tells us, the next verse says,
that the saying might be fulfilled, that of all he's given me, I
should lose nothing, but raise it up again. In the last words,
words, what power, the gospel is the power of God and the salvation
to everyone that believes. Not one will be lost. God has
saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given
us in Jesus Christ before the world began, Paul told Timothy.
Those who were listening at the time, save for Peter and the
disciples, proved to be unbelievers and blind to the glory of Christ
by speaking once again of natural things. In verse 41, they said,
Then the Jews murmured, because he said, I am the bread that
came down from heaven. And they said, Is this not Joseph's son,
Jesus Joseph's son, whose father and mother we know? How is it
then that he saith he comes down from heaven? This is the nature
of unbelief. It believes only what it can
see. It does not hear This was the accusation that the Lord
laid against Nicodemus. You're not hearing what I'm saying. Our Lord says you must be born
from above. How does that work? It means
you ain't got nothing to do with the conception of it or the birth
of it. From above. Nicodemus says, you
mean I've got to go back in my mother's womb and be born again?
The Lord says you're not hearing what I'm saying. You're not hearing what I'm saying.
Unbelief cannot get the fact that salvation has nothing to
do, nothing to do with natural life whatsoever. What we're born
with cannot ever be spiritual. What we're born with cannot ever
move one inch toward God, but it spends its life moving away
from God until God stops that progress. The words of eternal
life reveal this fact. Our Lord asserts that those who
come to Him, those who are given to Him, do not come by their
own power. Verse 44, it says, No man can
come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.
And I will raise him up again in the last day. Same group.
We raise him up in the last day and find out who he is talking
about throughout this book. They are drawn. The word haelcho
means dragged. But this does not mean that men
are dragged, fighting and screaming against their will. Those that
come to God must believe that He is in the reward of them that
diligently seek Him. It rather refers to the deadness
of sin. The same word was used when Peter drew his sword and
cut off Malchus's ear. He drew his sword. They must
be drawn. What does that mean? We're like
dead things. We're like stones. We're like carcasses. Inanimate things. There's no
animation to us. There's no fertility. There's no movement. We're inanimate
things which must be grasped. by a force outside ourselves
and moved from one place to another place, from the miry clay to
the solid rock. Those who come to Christ come
by sovereign power, by the sovereign power of God translating them
from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear
Son. Words of eternal life. Explain exactly how the Father
draws those who are given to Christ. Look at verse 45. It
is written from Isaiah 54, verse 13. It is written in the Prophets.
And they shall all be taught of God. That all is the same
all that is going to come to Christ and not be cast out. That
all is all those who are going to be raised up again in the
last day. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned
of the Father cometh to me. If God teaches a man, what is
he going to teach him? What is he going to teach him? That this book is a self-help
book. That this book is a bunch of
mottos you tag on your wall, a bunch of verses you memorize. This lady laying on her deathbed,
she spent her life in the Southern Baptist Church and religion,
forty-some years, writing down verses and putting them everywhere.
They were in her pockets and in her pocketbook. She really
wanted, you know, in the flesh, as much as I can. And she wanted
to so she wouldn't have to die or she feared death. She told
me that. I did it all because I was afraid to die. I said,
are you afraid to die now? She said, no. I said, well, what's
wrong with that? She said she had them in her
cabinets, in her pocketbook, in her notebooks, in her Bible.
She said she would memorize them. She said, I memorized the whole
books of the Bible that way. And she said, I didn't know God.
I was lost. Didn't know God. What does the Father teach? The
Word of Life. The Words of Life. The Words
of Eternal Life. He teaches the Gospel. He teaches
them the truth. He indoctrinates them. He changes
what is in their minds and thus changes their mind. He causes
them to see a life other than the one they possess and desire
it. He gives them words of eternal life. And having been taught
and having heard the voice of God, what is that? The gospel! They come to Christ. Every last
one of them. And our Lord spoke these words
to the Pharisees. He says, you don't come to me.
You will not come to me that you might have life. You search
the Scriptures. You think you've found God, but
you don't see them as words of eternal life. These words of eternal life reveal Christ. That was another
thing she talked about. What about this? God says salvation
is by revelation. And I said, believing the Word. of God. This is where Christ
is revealed. The words of eternal life are
the revelation of Christ and the Father one and that Christ
is the only God that we can ever see or ever will see in verse
46 and 47. Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily
I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life or
eternal life. I and the Father are one, he
said in John chapter 10. Now, words of eternal life are
only understood by believing. That's the weird and wondrous
thing. They're only understood by believing. That's what he
speaks of in verses 48 through 58, all about eating his flesh
and drinking his blood. And those things are important
because they represent life and death. They represent eternal
life and natural life. They represent eternal life.
They represent the fact that eating is believing and unbelief
is death. All those things are represented
in those words. He said, ìI am the bread of lifeî
in verse 48. ìYour fathers did eat man in
a wilderness, and they are dead.î ìThis is the bread which cometh
down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.î
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 him is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. The Jews therefore strove among
themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except
you eat my flesh, the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his
blood, you shall have no life in you. These are words of eternal
life. Whoso eateth his flesh, and drinketh
his blood, hath eternal life in him, and I will raise him
up again in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. And he that eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth
me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are
dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever. These things
he taught in the synagogue at Capernaum. Words of eternal life. I used to work with an old man
in the service many years ago. He looked like Topper. I don't
know whether some of you are old enough to remember Topper.
He had a mustache and white hair. He was a clock man. He used to
work on magnetic sextants that you stick up to the top of a
C-130 and take an angular altitude of a star and measure your distance
from this place to that place through the stars. He had a clock
mechanism that had to be adjusted all the time and he was a clock
guy. He took that clock out and he helped me. I learned how to
fool around with clocks that way. He said, he used to say,
I don't mind that religion much, but I just think it's kind of
cannibalistic to eat Christ's flesh and drink his blood. I
just don't much like that. These folks didn't like it either.
He said, many therefore of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, this is a very hard saying. They have something to insert
themselves. Who can hear that? Who can hear this? In verse 61,
our Lord says, when Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples
murmured at Him, He said, Doth this upset you? Does this tear
you up? Does this offend you? Words of
eternal life declare that though Christ must be feasted on, must be feasted upon, he will
not be present in the flesh for the feast to be accomplished."
Now here's the weird thing. He says, let me tell you something.
The Son of Man is going to heaven. The Son of Man is going to be
raised up. The Son of Man is going to sit
at the right hand of the Father. The requirement has not changed.
You must eat my flesh, you must drink my blood, or you don't
have eternal life. That hasn't changed. And they said, well,
that's hard. He said, that's hard? I'm not
going to be here for you to do it. How hard is that? You must eat my flesh and drink
my blood, but I'm not going to be here. It gets offensively
harder. What I absolutely require of
you, you absolutely cannot do with the life you now live. I
require what you cannot do. These are words of eternal life,
you see. Impossible to accomplish. even
to perceive with the equipment allotted to the natural man.
The words of eternal life, our Lord goes on to say, it is the
spirit that quickeneth the flesh. Whose? He's been talking about
flesh, hasn't he? Eating his flesh, drinking his
blood. My flesh shall profit you nothing. The words I speak unto you, they are spirit. They are life. The words of eternal life. Words of eternal life. They quicken
and are the means by which faith is given. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on Him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
Him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And how shall they preach except to be seen? And what do
the preachers preach? Words. Words. Maybe you want a felt board up
here that I can put little pictures of lambs and stuff on. Maybe you want a cross on the
wall so you can look at it. Words of eternal life. Words that are sharper than a two-edged
sword. Words that pierce even to dividing
us under the joints in the marrow. Words that discern the thoughts
and intents of the heart. of eternal life. Words of eternal life are things
of the Spirit and cannot be received by the natural man. What must
I do, preacher? Believe the words. These words of eternal life reveal
that if anyone comes to Christ, all glory must be rendered to
God. Many heard and did not believe, but Christ is the author and
finisher of faith. For He says in verse 64 and 65,
But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from
the beginning who they were, who they believed on, who should
betray Him, speaking of Judas. And He said, Therefore said I
unto you, No man can come unto Me except it were given unto
him by the Father. Some people look at those words
and say, Oh, that's restrictive. It is not. Do you want to come? Then you're
on your way. Do you want Christ? You have
Him, if you want Him. You have Him. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. By grace, or you say, through faith,
and that unto yourself. It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. Those who turned back and went
away left at that time because they did not believe the words
could be eternal life. From that time, read verse 65,
you'll know what time it was, from the time he said no man
could come except the Father would give it to him. From that
time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more. But these are the words of eternal
life. I can no more make them real to you. and plant them in
your mind and your heart. But there's no restriction for
you to believe them. With the command to believe comes the
permission to believe. If there is a restriction, it's
you and not God. These are the words of eternal
life. Peter knew that. And there you have it. Simon
Peter proclaimed, To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life, and we believe and are assured that thou art
the Christ, the Son of the living God. It wasn't the first time
he said it. He said it another time. When the Lord said, To
whom do men say that I am? Some said, Well, we believe you're
Jeremiah the prophet. Others believe you're Elijah. Come back
to life. He said, Well, whom do you say that I am? And Peter
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the Lord said, Simon Peter,
you're so blessed. You don't even know Simon Bar-Jonah. For flesh and blood is not revealed
to you but to the Father which is in heaven. Words. Thou hast the words of eternal
life. Believeth thou this? Father, bless it to our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.