John 6:22-27

There are several major events in this 6th

chapter.

We've already studied the beating of the 5,000

, which is really 25,000 when you count the

women and children.

And then last time we were here in the Gospel

of John, we saw Jesus walk on water and coming

up, there's going to be a really great sermon

by Jesus on the bread of life that starts

in verse 32.

But at the core of this chapter is an issue

that's very important and we've already

started

to look into it, the difference between a true

disciple of Jesus and a false disciple

of Jesus, a true follower of Christ and a

false follower of Christ.

There are those who endure to the end faith

fully, and then as we've all probably witnessed

in

our lifetime, there are those who abandon the

faith before they get to the end of the

race.

They even know a pastor who did that.

We can start in verse 60 actually of this 6th

chapter to get an idea of how this chapter

ends so that we can know where we're going.

And remember this, Jesus's followers are all

called disciples, not just the twelve.

And Jesus here, as we get to verse 60, here in

John 6, and the sermon that I just told

you about, he has just finished, as we get to

verse 60, what R.C. Sproul called one of

the hard sayings of Jesus that we're going to

study later.

But then look as you get to verse 60, and we

'll read through verse 69.

Look at that word, many of his disciples.

When they heard this, said, "This is a

difficult statement.

Who can listen to it?"

But Jesus, conscious that his disciples gr

umbled and said at this, said to them, "Does

this

cause you to stumble?"

But then if you see the Son of Man ascending

where he was before, it is the Spirit who

gives life.

The flesh profits nothing.

The words I have spoken to you are spirit and

are life.

But some of you who do not believe, for Jesus

knew from the beginning who they were, who

did not believe, who it was that would betray

him.

And as he was saying for this reason, I have

said to you that no one can come to me unless

it has been granted him from the Father.

As a result of this, many of his disciples

withdrew and were not walking with him anymore

.

So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want

to go away also, do you?"

Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall

we go?

You have the words of eternal life.

We have believed and come to know that you are

the Holy One of God, an incredible set

of verses here."

But as we went through those, did you see the

distinction between the disciples who

did not believe and the disciples who did

believe?

It's pretty stark.

The disciples who did not believe the claims

that Jesus made and the words that Jesus spoke

and the disciples who did believe the claims

that Jesus made and the words that Jesus spoke

.

The false disciples noticed withdrew as a

result of the words that came from Jesus.

But Peter gives the chief characteristic of a

true disciple there in verse 68.

Look at it again where Peter says, "Notice,

you have words of eternal life."

Now again, notice both groups are called

disciples.

Both were followers of Jesus, both groups,

both were students learning from Jesus.

Some were true, a small minority, most many

were false.

I'll go back to verse 64 and there we find a

prototype of a false disciple first.

It says, "But there are some of you," Jesus

says, "who do not believe?"

For Jesus knew from the beginning who they

were, who did not believe.

And then next is the introduction of the

prototype of false disciples and who it was

that would

betray him.

And there we find the prototype of a false

disciple is none other than Judas.

To this day, I say this every time I go

through this portion or I talk about Judas, "

Have

you ever known anybody that named their kid

Judas ever?"

That's how ingrained the person of Judas is

into our culture.

And verse 20 closes out, I'm sorry, verse 70

closes, Jesus closes this chapter out.

Look what he says, "Did I myself not choose

you the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil

?"

Now just as an aside, again, how in the world

could Jesus know at this point that Judas

was going to betray him and that Judas was a

devil if Jesus was not the God man?

There's no way, based on how Judas had behaved

up to this point, that if Jesus were just

a man only, he could have known that.

And for whatever God's purposes are, there

were times when Jesus purposely restricted

his attributes like when he said, "No man

knows the day or the hour, only the father,

not even the son."

But then there were times when his attributes

of omniscience like here are in play

demonstrating

his deity.

There's no other way that you can explain that

.

The story of Judas is a shocking story, really

tragic, maybe it could be most of all human

tragedies because of, think of how close he

was to Jesus himself during all of the three

years of his ministry in his incarnation here

on earth.

Think about Judas every day during that time

period being with Jesus, eating meals with

Jesus, sleeping under the stars with the group

, seeing firsthand the amazing miracles every

single day, everywhere they went.

But you notice back there in verse 64 that he

's linked with unbelievers.

He's linked with those who reject Christ and

in some ways Judas is absolutely unique but

in other ways, he's not on his own, he gives

us an example of a defecting follower of Jesus

so in that sense he's one among many, many who

follow Jesus for a while and then later

on abandoning him, having had a full

revelation of the person and the work and the

teaching

of Jesus and then later abandoning him and

abandoning the face.

From the big picture perspective, anybody who

has learned the truth followed for a while

and then walked away totally from it, the

truth is in the category of a Judas, anybody.

And this didn't, of course, catch Jesus off

guard.

He's Jesus as I just said.

Again, look at verse 64, "For Jesus knew from

the beginning who they were who did not

believe."

He knew every single one of them in that crowd

that did not believe and who it was that would

betray him.

He gave examples of this in the parables.

And sometimes very directly, he said that

people, there are going to be people who fors

ake

me because of persecution.

There are going to be people who forsake me

because of the love of money.

There are going to be people who forsake me

because they are going to be seduced by this

world system and that's going to become more

important to them than me.

There are going to be others that are

unwilling to sever relationships in their

families

over me.

I mean, there's a lot of reasons like that for

why people walk away from Jesus, but they're

not in play here in this chapter.

This chapter here is much more direct.

The defectors in this situation left simply

because of what Jesus said, because of his

words.

Wasn't about relationships, it wasn't about

the world or the world system, it wasn't

about riches on this occasion, it's amazing,

astonishing.

It's his words that drove them away, words

that we still have to deal with today.

You're going to see some astonishing things

that Jesus says as we go through these verses

that led up to their decision.

He said in verse 63, look at it, the words

that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

And the words that he is referring to there

are the words in that great sermon on the

bread of life that starts in verse 32 and runs

all the way down to verse 59.

He said those words are spirit and life.

In this sermon he talks about his death, he

talks about his resurrection, he also condemns

their false works religious system, the person

and work of Jesus Christ offended them as

it does so many people today, the powerful

declaration that Jesus makes about the

necessity

of believing in him as the Holy One of God and

his death and his resurrection and the

necessity to abandon their false religious

system of Judaism and then he gives this

crazy illustration about eating his flesh and

drinking his blood and no man can come

to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,

all of that that he said triggered their

defection that day.

Again, for many reasons people abandoned Jesus

, but in this case it was his words and

inevitably eventually it always comes down to

that when it comes to Jesus.

These Jews were warned, he told them, believe

and you will have life, reject and you will

be condemned and the vast majority of them

rejected and they still do today and in

American

culture there has been a theology that has

developed that has, we've got some really

and we've talked about this before some really

wrong thinking about the Jewish people.

You have Christians today politically will say

well the Jews are God's chosen people

so you don't mess with the Jews, that's God's

chosen people, well no.

Just to blanket the Jews and to say that from

an ethnic standpoint or to say that from a

religious standpoint is not true.

The only chosen people that God has today are

believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and

Paul goes to great lengths to teach us in the

New Testament that the church now is God's

chosen people made up of Jews and Gentiles.

So make sure you understand that, that when we

're talking about the Jews you can be talking

about ethnically Jewish people who may or may

not be believers.

The ones who are not believers but are ethn

ically Jewish are not God's chosen people and

that's

the majority of ethnic Jews that are living in

Israel right now.

That's a fact, you can check that out and then

there are people who may not be ethnically

Jewish but subscribe to the religion of

Judaism.

Those people, all of them reject Jesus as the

Messiah and they are certainly not a part

of God's chosen people whether they live in

Israel or here in America or anywhere else

in the world.

The only chosen people that exist on planet

earth from now until Jesus returns are people

who have repented of their sins and placed

their saving faith in Jesus Christ as Lord

alone.

That's it.

No matter what their ethnicity is, every tribe

, tongue, creed, doesn't matter.

That distinction is out now.

It's everyone who believes.

So don't be confused about the Jews and the

chosen people and we've got a lot of confusion

in that area.

And today and even then, when you look at

these people that Jesus is talking to that

are ethnically Jewish, especially back in that

day, when they were rejecting Jesus as

we see this group, many of these disciples

they left, they didn't want anything to do

with Jesus anymore.

They didn't turn from Jesus and go become athe

ists like most of the ethnic Jews are

in Israel today are atheists.

You can look that up and they weren't turning

from Jesus to become agnostic.

They were retreating from the gospel back to

the comfort that they found in the externalism

of this very corrupt form of Judaism that

existed then that still exists today that

is a works righteousness religion.

That's what it is.

And all of that takes us back to our text and

looking into the context of those people

that day when they walked away from Jesus who

they just had witnessed perform incredible

miracles.

Think about that.

And that really wasn't some kind of unusual

event really.

Their spiritual defection is a pattern that's

gone on throughout all of the history of the

church, even the early church.

That's why Paul wrote to the Corinthians "Ex

amine yourselves whether you be in the faith.

Examine yourself.

Take a self test.

Go down the checklist as you know even

bringing up that subject of examining yourself

in

many circles of the church is thought of as

being very offensive.

I dare anybody question the legitimacy of

anybody else's salvation.

Who are you to judge, right?

Have you ever heard that before?

I mean, the fact is this, we can't see into a

person's soul, can we?

I mean, you come down and take the Lord's Su

pper and you're making a public profession

right there that you have placed your saving

faith in Jesus Christ, but I can't look into

your soul and see, oh, that's a regenerate

soul, I can judge your fruit and all the rest,

but I can't be perfectly observing what's on

the inside of you and your soul.

But the fact is beyond that the Bible warns

over and over and over about the importance

of not being deceived or self deceived about

your own spiritual condition.

Only you know with 100% certainty, Jesus

himself said, what, the way is narrow and few

there

be that find it.

How many go in on the Broadway?

Many, many there be who go in there at.

How do they have these warnings in the Bible

if they are not things that we need to be

concerned about?

People run from this like the plague, but we

should run to it.

These are things we should talk about.

These are things we should study about.

These are things we should discuss amongst

ourselves.

You can get too over introspective and that's

wrong as well, but this is not a subject that

we should avoid.

Only the reality is unavoidable.

There is an extensive history of false

discipleship all throughout the history of the

church

and is up until this day.

So this is an issue.

And generally speaking, I think it's fair to

say that very often people are driven away

by the truth itself.

No different today than it was back then.

The true gospel in all of its particulars is

really offensive to people.

So stumbling block, foolishness as the Bible

says.

And so whenever the message of the gospel is

made very clear, there is an opportunity

to discern between the true and the false.

There are a whole lot of people who call

themselves Christian.

I go through my Twitter feed and I see these

examples of things that are going on in the

church in America.

Crazy stuff.

Santa Claus, skyrocketing across the top of

the church in a sleigh, just wildness.

But they would listen to me describe

Christianity, many who profess to be Christian

.

They listen to me describe the Christian faith

and they would say, "Well, I don't believe

like that."

Which is usually followed by, "My God is like

this."

To which I always say, "You're exactly right."

I'm sure he probably is like that because he's

a figment of your imagination.

He's someone that you have made up in your

mind.

We talked about relativism earlier in Sunday

school.

So think about the sheer arrogance of a person

who can see with natural revelation that there

is a God, no question, who knows inside them

because God, as Romans tells us, planted it

inside of them that there is a God for that

person to say, "I think God is like this."

Making themselves their own authority as to

define the God who created all this that our

eyes can see.

Think of the sheer arrogance of that.

And so I simply say to people when I'm talking

to people about this, I try to understand,

"Well, how do you define God?

Well, who do you think God is?"

I always say, "Well, somebody's got to have an

authority that you can appeal to to define

God."

And look, we all get one life to figure this

out.

And I just happen to be one of those people

that believes that God has defined himself

in the pages of this book.

I'm just one of those people.

That's what I believe.

I don't look to myself to define who God is or

how He operates.

I look to this book and wonder of wonders, I

don't know, maybe it's a coincidence, that

it's the number one selling book in the

history of literature.

Wouldn't you think that if God revealed a book

to man that it would be the number one

bestseller?

Well, lo and behold, it is.

And so you come down to the point of, really,

with this idea of relativism, in that idea,

you can make God whoever you want him to be,

and that's true for you.

Or you can say, "No, I reject that."

I'm definitely not smart enough to define who

God is out of my own feeble brain.

I have to appeal to an authority.

And that's what it comes down to with what

Jesus was saying this day.

Do you believe His claims?

Do you believe who He is?

So in this situation here, false disciples

have collected around Jesus in this situation.

And last time we started into an outline, do

you remember, you might remember as I start

to give it to you, that gave us the

characteristics of a false disciple.

You said, first of all, false disciples are

attracted by the crowd.

Remember I said that?

I gave you that illustration.

There's a dynamic in the crowd.

A crowd attracts a crowd.

You just want to see what's going on for

anything else.

And this crowd that collects around Jesus,

here in John 6, was drawn in by His miracles.

And they were astounding.

They would draw anybody in if you saw one of

them.

And secondly, we learned that the false

disciples are fascinated by the supernatural.

These crowds came together, massive crowds.

Remember tens of thousands of people because

of the prospect and the promise that there

is going to be something today that is

miraculous, that's fixing to go on with this

man.

My neighbor just told me about it.

He saw it yesterday.

And so now I'm here today to see if what he

said is true, supernatural.

It's crazy.

This even still works today, even when the

people who promise it can't really deliver

it.

There's going to be a healing service tonight.

Bring your crippled family members, right?

Why does that attract people?

Mostly because people are so desperate on a

multitude of levels, either physically or

spiritually, emotionally.

Thirdly, we saw how false disciples think of

only the earthly benefits immediately

after the miracle of the 25,000 people.

Do you remember?

What was the people's response?

They tried to take Jesus and they wanted to

force him to be a king.

Remember?

There was nothing about spiritual reality in

their response, nothing about salvation.

What did they want?

They wanted free food, the best health care

that could possibly be had, and oh, by the

way, conquer the Romans while you're at it,

Jesus.

We'll have those three things, please.

They only had a carnal enthusiasm for worldly

things.

They wanted freedom.

They wanted fulfillment.

They wanted satisfaction in their lives.

But all of those things only on an earthly

level, there was no interest from these people

in the eternal, the spiritual, the theological

, and what kind of things attract people of

Christianity in our day, like this.

I mean, we don't have Jesus here doing

miracles.

Well, sadly, it's much more shallow.

Things like Christian diet programs, have you

ever seen this?

Oh, yeah.

I'll get them in.

As they're only interested in temporal things,

I kid you not, one of the bestselling

contemporary

Christian books is a Christian diet plan, from

a Christian perspective.

There's nothing wrong with a diet.

You know, hey, you need to lose some weight,

no problem.

But what I'm saying is if that is a big deal

in the church, that it's one of the best

selling

books coming out of the Christian faith.

That is another example of how the church

collects false disciples, because here are

people who are only looking for temporal

solutions.

Oh, I want to lose some weight.

So I'll go on a diet in Jesus' name and read

some Bible verses while I'm doing it.

I mean, that was Judas.

Why was Judas in the group?

He wanted to be in on the benefits of the

kingdom of Jesus.

He saw the miracles.

He knew they were real.

And toward the end, when he started to kind of

figure out, because Jesus is saying it

now, that Jesus was going to die and he wasn't

going to conquer the Romans, he tried to get

out with as much money as he could get.

As everything was falling in on him.

You remember that money burned in his hands

and his soul, and he created so much guilt

for himself.

He wound up committing suicide, right?

He was driven the whole time by the love of

money and the desire for prestige and power

and elevation.

Oh, when Jesus conquers the Romans, I want to

be in the inner circle of the group, was

what Judas was wanting.

And then, fourthly, false disciples have no

interest in true worship.

No desire for that.

Remember last time when we went through verses

16 and 21, Jesus walked on the water and we

combined John with Matthew and Mark to get the

full account, and what was the immediate

response of Jesus is believing 12, "Truly,

this is the Son of God," and it says next,

and they worshiped him.

That was their response.

True disciples are worshipers of Christ.

They're like Thomas, doubting Thomas.

What did he finally wind up saying?

My Lord and my God.

He called Jesus God.

But what these false disciples, there's no

humility as we've been learning about in

Ephesians.

There's no meekness.

There's no holy awe of God or Jesus.

They come for the external.

They come for the show.

They come for the promise of some kind of

temporal fulfillment.

There's no longing for the glory of God in

their life.

There's no seeking to exalt Christ in their

life, and that brings us to a fifth

characteristic.

False disciples seek personal prosperity, and

this is really just a nuance on what we've

already been looking at, but it's going to be

helpful to see this.

Look at verse 22.

Let's now get into the text.

It starts out the next day, and that's the day

after the feeding of the 25,000, the crowd

that stood on the other side of the sea.

You know what that means?

They're still there where the feeding took

place.

They haven't moved.

They're still on the eastern shore, and it

says next, "They saw there was no other small

boat there except one, and that Jesus had not

entered with his disciples into the boat,

but that his disciples had gone away alone."

So when the previous day ended, after Jesus

fed everybody, remember, he told the disciples

,

"Y'all go."

Remember, they got in the boat and they left,

and Jesus wasn't in the boat, and the crowd

knows that.

They know he didn't leave.

That's why they stayed all night.

This massive crowd, 25,000 people, as good of

a meal that they ate, that they were going

to need to see what was on the breakfast menu.

So they stayed all night, but Jesus was not

there for breakfast, to give them breakfast.

Verse 23, "There came other small boats from T

iberius near to the place where they ate

the bread after the Lord had given thanks."

So you know what happened?

The word had spread around the lake about what

happened.

I mean, can you imagine?

Wouldn't you want to have told somebody about

what you saw, what you experienced, the food

that you ate?

So now you have more people coming from the

western shore in these little boats.

And again, put yourself back in this time

period, the battle for food was daily.

I've told you many times, there's no grocery

stores.

We don't have any idea what it's like to

struggle for you to get your next meal.

That was daily life for all these people,

especially the common folks.

So here come the little boats.

After they got word from Tiberius, they're

coming to the location where the miracle

happened of the feeding of the 25,000.

They want to see words going around that lake

overnight.

And now you got even more people.

Look at verse 24.

"So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not

there, nor his disciples, they themselves

got into the small boats and came to Capernaum

seeking Jesus."

So they get over there, Jesus isn't there, the

disciples aren't there.

And it seems that maybe what happened is those

people got back into their boats and they

took these other people with them.

They all packed in these little boats for this

little flotilla that's going back across

the lake to Capernaum.

As they knew, Matthew tells us this, that

Jesus had established himself in the town

of Capernaum back on the other side.

And you could be real sure that what's on the

majority of these people's minds is one

thing, food, free food.

And for sure, they've still got it on their

minds.

We're going to take him by force.

We're going to make him a king.

Free food, miracle health care, no more Romans

.

That's the plan here, okay?

So they head back across the lake to Capernaum

and they arrive on the shore, verse 25, when

they found him.

On the other side of the sea, they said to him

, "Rabbi, what did you get here?"

You know what that implies?

How did you get here, right?

Peace.

Jesus never answers their question, not for

one second.

He ignores it.

He doesn't say, "Well, what happened last

night is I walked out on the water in the

middle of the lake and I met up with the

disciples and then I willed us to instantly be

back at

the dock in a moment of time."

And now here I am, though, he doesn't say that

.

If he had say that, that wouldn't have

convinced him of anything if he had said that

because

they had just been the participants in one of

the most amazing miracles that ever has

been and they still didn't believe in who he

was, so it wouldn't have mattered if they

had known that he instantly willed them back

to the dock or that he had walked on the water

.

Verse 26, here's how Jesus responds to what

they ask him.

And again, that's repeated throughout John to

emphasize, look at it, truly, truly.

Here comes his answer.

And that's repeated over and over to emphasize

critical statements Jesus makes.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not

because you saw the signs, but because

you ate of the loaves and were filled."

And what he means there, of course, is you

seek me not because of what you saw in that

miracle feeding and the healing, also remember

that he did that day, and that those things

have driven you to acknowledge who I really am

.

No, you're not here because you followed the

signs that clearly point to me as Savior

and Lord, you're here because you're hungry.

You're here because you ate a meal and now you

want another free meal.

These are the first candidates of the

prosperity gospel, the social gospel.

Jesus wants to feed you.

Jesus wants to fulfill all your desires.

They want to have their needs met.

They wanted Jesus to give them whatever they

wanted, and everything that they wanted was

temporal.

Everything they wanted from Jesus was in the

here and now.

Still happening today, isn't it?

This is being offered as the genie in the

bottle who fulfills all your temporal needs.

But that is a total misrepresentation of Jesus

for which all false teachers will be held

eternally accountable.

As verse 27 makes clear, look at verse 27,

Jesus says, "Do not work for the food that

perisheth."

He's saying you are pursuing completely the

wrong thing.

Anything that is temporal, temporary,

superficial, earthly, physical, big picture,

don't spend

your time and your effort on the things that

are going to perish.

Look next what he says, "But for the food

which endures to eternal life which the Son

of Man will give to you, for on him the Father

God has set his seal."

What a profoundly important verse that is.

So many people who go to church regularly

today in our culture desperately need to

understand

the point that Jesus is making right there.

Stop seeking what perishes.

Stop seeking the earthly stuff, the wood, the

hay, the stubble.

Eat the food that endures for eternal life.

And what is that food?

It's him.

Look what he says in verse 35, same chapter, "

I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me will not hunger, and he who

believes in me will never thirst."

In verse 41 he says, "I am the bread that came

down out of heaven."

It's him.

Notice how he says back in verse 27 at the end

, "For on him, Jesus, the Father God has

set his seal."

That means has authenticated.

And that was Peter's message on the day of P

entecost when he stood up in Jerusalem that

day and said, "Men of Israel, listen to these

words, Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested

to you by God with miracles and signs and

wonders."

God put his seal, authenticating Jesus, by

empowering him to do the miracles and the

signs and wonders to point to himself as to

who he is.

And Jesus is telling these folks, "You ignore

the signs.

You ignore what they point to, and what they

demonstrate is for you, you're just hungry."

He wants some more food, and that's all you

can think about.

Stop working for the food that perishes, he

says.

Work for the food that endures to eternal life

, which the Son of Man will give you,

he says.

And again, what is it?

He says later in this great sermon we're

fixing to study, look down in verse 51, "The

bread

also which I will give for the life of the

world is my flesh."

He's making his terms clear.

Believe in me, believe in who I am, and why I

came.

I came to die.

I came to rise again according to the Father's

plan, believe the gospel.

The terms have never changed, they're still

the same today as they were then.

You can always get a crowd to get their needs

met, to get their desires fulfilled.

But folks, I want you to see out of this

section of verses that that is never, ever

what Jesus

offers, never.

Churches today who follow the man-centered

growth plan are collecting false disciples

by the droves, tens of thousands.

It really is a tragedy.

They come for the temporal benefits that they

are told Jesus is ready to give you, even

peace and purpose and fulfillment.

When you say that's what Jesus is going to

give you, but you don't give them the gospel,

you're giving them a false hope.

They watch the show, they love the music, they

get all caught up with trying to fulfill

their own earthly satisfactions.

In Jesus' name, of course, in Jesus' name, and

they come away sometimes even feeling

good about themselves, all of that except for

the fact that they really have no interest

in the bread of life, really.

Only what these false teachers are claiming he

can gift them.

If you preach narrow is the way, few there be

that find it.

No man who puts to his hand to the plow and

looking back is fit for the kingdom.

You have nothing to offer God but your sins,

so repent, acknowledge your spiritual

bankruptcy,

put all your focus into the person and work of

Jesus Christ as your substitutionary atonement

in his person and work.

God is holy, we deserve his wrath, hell is

real, death is certain, eternity is forever,

and it's coming very soon for every one of us

preach that message right there and watch

what happens with the crowd.

Sometimes, sometimes when God wills, that'll

attract a crowd, sometimes, but I'm here to

tell you it's not an exaggeration for me to

say that if you sent me next Sunday to preach

that message that I just quickly gave you in a

large majority of churches in our area,

in our community, I would never be invited

back.

We got proof of that right down the street.

I was 17 years ago, I was asked to preach down

at the largest Baptist church in our

community.

I've never been asked that.

They don't even think about it.

And that's really sad, isn't it?

And listen, I've told you this before, this is

what I'm repeating.

We shouldn't look down on those churches.

For sure we shouldn't look down on those

people.

There are Christians in those churches that

are starving to death and they don't even

know it.

Instead, what we should do is pray for them.

Pray that God would send somebody with the

courage to stand up and open the book and

preach the words of the book that are

uncomfortable for people to hear, to preach

the truth without

compromise, and that God would grant the

people ears to hear it.

That's what we're lacking today.

So many cases is simply courage.

The gospel is offensive, hell is offensive,

God's wrath is offensive, but you can't escape

it in his book.

Well, we've only gotten about half of the

characteristics of the false disciples in

this chapter.

Now, next time, it's really crazy.

We get into the reality that false disciples,

one of their characteristics is they make

demands on God.

Can you imagine that?

They think that they should control what he

does and he should do what they say.

That's very popular today as well as I'm going

to show you.

So come back next time and we'll study all

about it.

Well, we are humbled by a section like this.

And Lord, the makeup of our church is one that

has not been affected by the pragmatism

of today to do whatever works to get people in

, but simply here to just preach the truth.

That should never be an occasion for us to

have pride.

Instead it should provoke the opposite

reaction in us, not pride that we know more

doctrinally

and we're more doctrinally straight with the

truth than in other churches know it.

It should bring about the greatest sense of

humility that we can have because truly we

know that we believe this way because of your

grace, and that there but for your grace would

go us.

But for whatever your purposes and your

reasoning is, you have brought us a different

path to

the whole fast to the authority of your word,

a whole fast to your truth, every ounce of

your gospel, all of your word, the parts that

make us comfortable, the parts that make us

uncomfortable, it doesn't matter.

It's all your word and you have brought us to

the place of believing that Lord, not only

all we can say is thank you, but the only way

we can really say thank you is an expression

of giving our lives to you and whatever you

would have us to do to live out this truth

that you have brought us to.

I pray that for every Christian in this room,

Lord, I pray for all of our church family,

for those who are out sick and the rest, lift

them up to you that you would heal them and

bring them back more than, and for any that

come here on a regular basis that does not

matter, Lord Jesus Christ, in saving faith, I

pray for you to draw in, and for the rest

of us, Lord, I pray that today and each Sunday

when we study your word, we would go out

of here with a deeper understanding of who you

are, what the Christian faith is all about.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

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