John 6:60-71

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to John

chapter six while you're turning, or you can

look upon the screen, all the verses, of

course, will be up there as we go through this

exposition.

You've heard us reference multiple times, Paul

Washer, definitely treasure to the church

of Jesus Christ, a very gifted preacher, one

of them, one of my estimation, one of the

most gifted preachers that we have right now

in the world.

We are running in Sunday school, his preaching

that he did to the Mississippi State Prison,

and it's fantastically shot.

It is great Christian truth taught to these

men, many of whom will never be getting out

of prison in that setting.

So if you come at 9.45, we just started the

first one today.

We have a number of Sundays, and I guess how

many will it be, Rogedale?

Yeah, like 14 Sundays, we'll be doing half a

sermon each Sunday.

Really commend you to come to Sunday school

and listen to Paul Washer preach to these

prisoners.

It's really some fantastic preaching.

You will be edified by it for sure.

Now for today, we finally come to the last

message of this sixth chapter of John, and

as I alluded to earlier, what a chapter.

I mean, just go back and read it.

Just read the chapter, the whole chapter again

after you leave here today.

Jesus has done things, and he has said things

in this chapter that puts really any honest

reader of this sixth chapter in an all or

nothing position once you read it.

There's absolutely no room.

There's zero room in this chapter for any

halfway pick and choose position when it comes

to who Jesus is and what Jesus said when he

was here.

I mean, it's literally all or nothing.

There's no gray area in this sixth chapter.

There's no middle ground.

In fact, Paul Washer quoted this earlier, but

I'm going to quote it for you that weren't

here.

This was exactly right.

Either Jesus Christ was a chronic liar or he

was completely insane or out of his mind

or he's God in human flesh.

Period.

That's the only three choices you have with

the one man who more affected this world with

his one life than any other figure in human

history.

You cannot come away from this chapter,

especially with any other options.

Not if you honestly read John chapter six and

if you choose to skip it all, you just

not deal with this chapter or any of the other

hard sayings of Jesus in the New Testament

than all that you are accomplishing is misrep

resenting Jesus is all that you're doing if you

skip

these hard things that he has to say.

And guess what?

I would not want to be you on judgment day if

you die with that position about Jesus.

Now we left off last time in verse 59.

And we want to just pick it back up because it

's been so long since we've been here in

verse 60.

You're going to get the gist right back where

we start back up at, believe me.

And I want to read with you together verses 60

through 71.

"Therefore 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 at this said to them, 'Does this cause

you

to stumble?'

What then?

If you see the Son of Man ascending to where

he was before, it is the Spirit who gives life

.

The flesh profits nothing.

The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit

and our life, but there are some of you who

do not believe, for Jesus knew from the

beginning who they were, who did not believe

and who

it was that would betray him.

And 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 words of eternal life.

We have believed and have come to know that

you are the Holy One of God.'

Jesus answered them, 'Did I myself not choose

you, the twelve?'

And yet one of you is a devil.

Now he meant Judas, the son of Simon Ascariot,

for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray

him.

Now, as I've said before, the most notable

statement in this section is found in verse

66.

Look at that in verse 66 where it says, 'Many

of his disciples withdrew and were not walking

with him anymore.'

Now the Greek indicates here that this is a

final decision.

Whatever it was that drew them to Jesus in the

first place, they were now completely

over it.

And again, the response of Jesus in verse 67

to the twelve, 'You do not want to go away

also, do you?'

And I alluded to this the last time we were

here.

This demonstrates you can almost feel this

from Jesus in his humanity, the pain that

he feels in his whole sale, the whole sale

rejection of these people here.

After all that he's done, and we talked about

this a little bit Wednesday night at the

prayer

meeting, the incarnation of Jesus is more than

our brains can comprehend in its fullness.

We talk about, there's a big theological

phrase, the hypostatic union, what that simply

means

is that Jesus is fully God and fully man,

truly God, truly man, a hundred percent of

each.

Well, how can he be a hundred percent of both

at the same time?

Well, I've quoted Thomas Watson many times

with this point, that's heavenly arithmetic.

Don't try to figure that with your human

reasoning.

But in his incarnation, we must teach both the

humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus

with equal force, even though we can't

properly fully understand it and understand.

I love the way R. C. Sproul, when he gets to

this, he says, when he's describing the

humanity of Jesus, when he was here in his

incarnation, he says, touching his humanity.

I love that phrase.

So I say, touching his humanity, Jesus felt

the pain of the rejection of the disciples

who are walking away from him after all that

he had done to prove, he just fed 25,000

people.

He's healing all these people with undeniable

miracles, and they're walking away.

And if you serve in the ministry for any

length of time, you know a little bit of this

kind

of pain.

You experience people in the ministry who come

to the church, they even profess faith in

the Lord Jesus Christ, but at some point they

turn their backs on Jesus, and they walk away

and you don't see them anymore.

There's always a sadness to them.

And it's not rare.

I mean, really, normal.

If you go across the whole landscape of the

visible church, just in our nation even, and

it's very disappointing for pastors and

congregations and church members.

It's disappointing when we see this, and it's

not just because, you know, you don't get

a return on the investment you've made, not

because they forsake the preacher, or not

because they forsake the people in the church,

it's because they forsake the king.

The only hope of salvation.

The only hope of heaven for them.

The certain judgment of hell when you forsake

the king.

And we're not without warnings against doing

this in the Bible, and before we get going

here in John 6, I want to turn your attention

to the book of Hebrews.

And I want you to see some of these warnings.

These are warnings to people who have

identified in some way with a group of

believers, and

they have come to church, they have listened,

they have gotten involved, they have even

stayed for some period of time, they may have

even paid a price in their family for their

association with a biblical church, but they

proved themselves to not have really believed

savingly, and they defect.

Scattered all throughout the book of Hebrews,

there are warnings put in place concerning

this very issue.

Let me give you just a few examples really

quickly.

We're just going to hit a few verses and parts

of verses in Hebrews chapter 10 and verse

23.

Look at this.

We have a very direct statement that launches

into this subject matter where it says, "Let

us hold fast the confession of our hope

without wavering."

You see that word right there?

And it's to wavering people that this warning

is rendered.

Don't let go of the confession of Jesus Christ

that you have made.

This is a warning against the most severe sin

that a person can possibly commit.

It's the sin of apostasy.

What does that word mean?

This is the sin of fully knowing the truth and

then rejecting it and turning away from

it after you have come to know it.

As I've said before, I would suppose that the

hottest hell we think is reserved for the

people who have committed the most heinous

crimes, and that would be absolutely correct.

That's true.

What we don't sometimes understand is that the

most heinous crime imaginable is to have

a full knowledge of the gospel, a full

knowledge of the person and work of Jesus

Christ and

then turn around and reject it and walk away

from him.

That's the ultimate crime.

And that's why these warnings here in Hebrews

are so severe.

If you go down to verse 26, you'll be

introduced to what apostasy is.

Look what it says. It starts out with, "If we

go on sinning willfully after receiving

the knowledge of the truth," and right here

that phrase, "Go on sinning," what that means

is go on sinning by not believing.

The ultimate sin that damns everybody, think

about it, is the sin of unbelief.

I mean, think about it.

Every other sin is forgiven when you believe.

Every other sin is forgiven.

Not the sin of unbelief.

If you die in unbelief, you go to hell.

That sin is not forgiven.

So if you go on sinning by not believing, by

rejecting Christ, that is apostasy, a willful,

deliberate, intentional continuation in living

life for yourself that does not embrace the

truth of Christ.

This is the warning.

If you continually, willfully continue down

that path, here are the results.

First, look at, it says next in verse 26, here

's the results of that.

There are no, there no longer remains a

sacrifice for sins.

In other words, if you reject the only

sacrifice, there is no other sacrifice.

There is no other provision for salvation,

none.

And there is only one name under heaven

whereby anybody can be saved, and that's King

Jesus.

He's the only way.

He's the only truth.

He's the only life which was offered up on Cal

vary, which the Father accepted to perfect

forever those who believe.

This is the only deal we get.

And if you reject him, he persists telling us

there is no longer any other sacrifice

to which you can turn.

No other offerings satisfy the holy justice of

God.

No other offerings.

What happens after that?

You're left unforgiven.

Verse 27, it says, "Nothing else is left for

you."

Look at it.

"Nothing else is left for you but a terrifying

expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire

which will consume the adversaries."

So there is no other sacrifice for sin

available, and you are turned over, Hebrews

says, to

a terrifying judgment eternally.

Now, I didn't write that.

And I'm clearly not making this up, right?

You're looking at it.

You're looking at it up there.

You're looking at it in your Bible.

And what kind of preacher would I be if I

never got anywhere around these types of

verses

that deal with eternal judgment?

What kind of preacher would I be?

There are plenty of preachers out there who

will never discuss these kinds of verses.

But the older that I get, the more I honestly

really struggle to see how, as a pastor, you

don't preach these verses.

You don't make these verses clear.

And then the writer adds something else,

looking verses 28 and 29, "Anyone who has set

aside

the law of Moses dies without mercy on the

testimony of two or three witnesses.

Simply put, you break the law of Moses, you

die.

The soul that sins dies, eternal death."

But then look next in verse 29, "How much,"

ooh, look at this, "severe punishment do

you think he will deserve who has trampled

underfoot the Son of God and has regarded

as unclean the blood of the covenant by which

he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit

of grace."

Notice what you do when you come to know the

knowledge of the gospel in Jesus Christ and

then you turn around and reject and walk away.

Notice "severe punishment."

That indicates degrees of punishment in hell.

There's a severe punishment for those who

apostatize, know the truth, and then walk

away.

And how severe is that punishment?

Well, you're turned over in verse 30 to the

Holy One.

Look what it says, "For we know him who said

vengeance is mine, I will repay."

And again, can't escape this.

Look next, "The Lord will judge his people."

Again, I didn't write this.

This is the Bible, this unbelief, this

rejection of Christ in his gospel, this tram

pling of

the Son of God underfoot is a sin against the

trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You trample the Son of God, you insult the

Holy Spirit, and you so violate God the Father

who said, "This is my beloved Son.

Fear ye him, you will then incur when you die

the full wrath of God."

That's why I look in verse 31.

What does it say?

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the

hands of the living God, apostasy, having a

full

knowledge of the gospel and then rejecting it,

walking away from Christ is the most heinous

crime that can be committed.

As R. C. Sproul used to say, it is cosmic tre

ason.

And we see here in our text for today a group

of people who have done just that.

And we've noted many times in our study of

this chapter, these people had been up close

and personal with Jesus.

They had heard his words, they have witnessed

his amazing works, and he had been all over

Galilee for about a year at this point,

ministering on a daily basis thousands of

people, following

him around.

Literally when you go through the estimates

and history books and you add up all the towns

and the villages of the Galilee region, you

come up with somewhere around 400,000 people

who had been exposed to Jesus because he went

through all the towns and villages.

The crowds got so big later we're told people

were stepping on each other to get to see

him.

That's how it started in the Galilean ministry

, it went on for a while, but that's not how

it ended.

Again, verse 66, look at it, makes it clear.

As a result of this, many of his disciples

withdrew and were not walking with him anymore

.

As I said, there is a dominating finality in

the intent of this verse.

They went on sinning willfully and literally

fell into the full fury of the wrath of God

when they died.

This group right here, every one of them that

walked away, they're in hell right now.

This then is the final word in a sense of the

Galilean ministry of Jesus.

Let's remember our points we went through last

time.

We were talking about, remember the

characteristics of a false disciple drawn by

the crowd, fascinated

by the supernatural, or even the promise of it

, like we see today.

How ridiculous.

Then they're focused on earthly benefits, they

're indifferent to true worship, they

seek their own personal satisfaction.

They have no desire to embrace Christ and

certainly do not find any contentment in

Christ and they're unwilling to embrace the

cross.

And they leave.

And let me tell you, this is an important part

of John 6.

It was not the works of Jesus that made them

leave, it never is.

It was his words, the words of Jesus made them

leave, and it's still that way today.

You really have to be frightened for folks

here in our culture.

We have, especially here in America, a kind of

patronizing of Jesus on a regular basis

in the public square.

People even on CNN, they want to say nice

things about Jesus when they speak of him.

They want to speak of him kindly.

They want to refer to him kindly.

They love the Jesus of their own imagination.

The Jesus of so many in our culture is just

this very peaceful, humble man who he really

loves helping people and he really loves

teaching people how to live right.

And a lot of them don't even mind the stories

of the miracles, whether they believe them

or not.

Okay, yeah, I hear you, but Jesus cares for

the poor and he loves children and he teaches

us the golden rule that we're supposed to live

by.

This is the popular Jesus.

This is the Jesus that everybody likes.

He gets us Jesus of the Superbowl commercials.

It's not his works that push people back.

His works don't offend anybody.

His works make him attractive and there is

this kind of professing Christianity that

allows just Jesus a place on places like CNN

and A&E and all the rest of these networks

when they put up things about Jesus.

They allow him to be the Jesus that they

proclaim, that they present and who would want

to reject

that Jesus.

I mean who can reject somebody who takes care

of little children and the poor and the orph

ans

and the elderly and the sick people and who

teaches us to do under others as you would

have them do unto you.

Who can reject that Jesus?

That Jesus is popular.

He is acceptable.

But just do not let him speak the whole truth

as he does so clearly in his word.

No, we can't have that.

We can't have those parts.

Let's pretend like they're not there.

Let's pretend like John 6 just doesn't exist.

It's the words of Jesus that offend people.

It's his words that alienate people and that

is exactly what happens in this text.

This is the reason why this group walked away.

Think about it.

Were the healings over at this point?

Was the compassion just done with?

There was no reason for them to assume that.

But unbelief is so hard and so resistant to

the words of Jesus and even though they're

walking away from the very stuff that

attracted them in the first place, they have

no reason

to think it's not going to continue free

healthcare, free food, even with that.

They still walk away.

They still reject him.

Let me tell you something.

That's the nature of unbelief right there in

your face.

It presses hard in the direction of its own

will.

So verse 60, it says, "Therefore, many of the

disciples when they heard this said, 'This

is a difficult statement.

Who can listen to it?'

Well, when they heard, 'What?'

Well, you just back up everything we looked at

last time.

There's words in the previous verses about

being the bread of life who came down from

heaven, that he is God in human flesh, that

there's only one way to eternal life and it's

through him as he's standing right there in

front of them, that you have to embrace

him fully and his death and his bloodshed, eat

his flesh and drink his blood."

In other words, come to him fully as we talked

about and they said, "This is a difficult

statement.

This is a hard word.

Who can listen to it?

Who can hear it?"

The word for difficult in the Greek means

stiff, inflexible.

It's used as a word for harsh, offensive,

unpleasant.

It's not hard to understand.

You see, it's hard to accept that Jesus is God

in human flesh who came down from heaven

and that he is the only way to eternal life,

that he shed his blood as a substitutionary

sacrifice for sinners who believe in Christ

alone.

Just that statement, just the reality of the

exclusivity of Christ and his gospel

automatically

means, get ready for this one, that every

single solitary one of the other religions

now or ever has been or ever will be in world

history or wrong or false or damnable lies.

You know how that sits in the culture today?

People don't like to hear that.

You can't escape it though.

That reality alone is a very hard thing for

people in our day and age to even consider

believing.

I mean, these Jews, the Jewish leaders here,

they couldn't get past the fact that he just

said, "I'm the bread that came down out of

heaven."

I mean, he didn't have to go any further than

that because they understood perfectly what

that meant and then the further to just go on

top of that and say that he's the only

way to eternal life, it wasn't incompreh

ensible to them what he was saying.

It was extremely offensive to them.

That's what it was.

This world will always take that Jesus, the

social reformer, that language of social

justice

that we hear so much about in our day, a Jesus

who's just always tolerant of everything and

just loves everybody.

He gets us no matter how you come, no matter

how you live, right?

John 5, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Truly,

truly, I say to you, he who hears my word."

See that?

It's his words.

He who hears my word and believes him, who

sent me as eternal life and does not come

into judgment.

There we see clear judgment again, but has

passed out of death and into life.

How much clearer can Jesus be?

So go back to John 6 and verse 61, "But Jesus

conscious that his disciples grumbled at this,

said to them, 'Is this cause you to stumble?'

This is a mumbling, grumbling conversation of

discontent."

Jesus asked them, "Does this cause you to

stumble?"

And we understand that because 1 Corinthians 1

, verse 23, "But we preach Christ crucified

to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles

foolishness."

He's saying them, "Hey, have I killed your

hopes about Messiah by what I've said here?

You so loved what I did, you came back for

breakfast the next day."

Right?

I mean, you were so fast to embrace my works.

And then the words came, "Have I literally

killed all your hopes about me with my words?

Have I said too much for you to handle that

you grumble and you stumble?"

Verse 62, then he hits them right between the

eyes.

What then if you see the Son of Man ascending

to where he was before?

What if you saw me with your own eyes go back

to heaven?

Would you believe then that I came down from

heaven?

Would you believe that?

And sadly, this group right here walked away

before they could have actually gotten to

see him walk and ascend back into heaven.

What happens in Acts 1?

The disciples who stuck with him, they got to

see two angels appear and escort Jesus

up into the clouds with their own eyeballs.

They had no question about where he had come

from when they saw him go back.

I could promise you that.

So he asked them, "Would you believe if you

saw me go back?"

And then next in verse 63, he makes another

very clear, easy to understand, but wow.

63, it is the Spirit who gives life.

I mean, he just goes right back to what he

said in John 3, "You must be born of the

Spirit."

What is he doing right here as he's facing

this rejection?

Instead of thinking in his mind, "Oh, what can

I say next to try to coast him to come

back?"

No, he leans on divine sovereignty and

salvation.

The Spirit gives life.

He's staring on belief and apostasy right in

the face and realizing they are not going

to come to him in their own power and strength

.

So what does he do?

He just checks off this reality.

The Spirit gives life.

That's what he does.

And then look next, verse 63, "The flesh, your

humanness, profits nothing."

Nothing.

The words, you see it again there, that I have

spoken to you, our Spirit, and life.

So it all comes down to this, believing what

Jesus said.

It all comes down to that.

Believing his words, faith comes by hearing

and hearing by the word of Christ.

The key to having eternal life in heaven,

whenever your part be stops, whenever your

air is done, is to believe the words of Jesus,

period.

Verse 64, "But there are some of you who do

not believe, for Jesus knew who from the

beginning, who they were, who did not believe,

and who it was that would betray him."

That reminds me of what we studied in John 2,

where it says, "Many believed remember

superficially, of course, and he didn't commit

himself to them, remember, because he knew

what was in their hearts."

Because he's Jesus.

He knows what's in everybody's heart, right?

That phrase here in verse 64, "Who do not

believe," tragic, unbelief, folks, unbelief

is the great tragedy of all tragedies of the

human race.

No other tragedy in humanity comes close to

the tragedy of unbelief.

It's the worst word in the theological

vocabulary, unbelief.

It doesn't say they didn't understand.

Do you see that anywhere?

Salvation is not a question of intelligence.

It's a question of faith.

Believing there are some of you who do not

believe.

Very sad.

Very sad.

And remember, they've been associated with

Jesus as disciples for a while.

They were classified as disciples even, but

they had never truly believed.

And this verse says Jesus knew who they were.

He knew who they were that did not believe,

and he always knew who was going to betray

him.

None other than Judas.

This man is such a tragic figure.

As I've said before, think about it, have you

ever in your life met somebody named Judas?

Think about it, what this man did made such an

impact on world history that nobody has

ever named their kid Judas, ever, not that I

know of.

And remember, the disciples that stayed didn't

know it was Judas all the way to the very

end, and even in the upper room when he went

to leave, they didn't even realize it.

Jesus knows who believes, and he knows who

does not.

Later we're going to study the high priestly

prayer where we get that amazing, remarkable

look at the words of Jesus as he's praying

directly to God, the Father, and John 17.

He prays for those who will be his in the

future, us, and then in verse 12, he speaks

directly of his disciples.

Look what he says, "While I was with them, I

was keeping them in your name, which you

had given me, and I guarded them, and not one

of them perished but the Son of Perdition,

so that the Scripture would be fulfilled."

Wow.

What Scripture?

Verse 219, Zechariah 11, Zechariah 12, Zechari

ah 13, all prophecies of the betrayer.

You can look them up for yourself.

As I said, while back, Judas is like the

prototype of all defectors, right?

He was in the ministry of Jesus for what he

could get out of it.

A lot of people go to church for that reason,

you know.

I didn't get anything out of the worship

service today.

Well, you're not supposed to get anything out

of it when you come to the worship service.

You give worship.

You're not here to get.

You're not here to give worship.

You will get if you worship properly.

But the emphasis is what you give, not what

you get.

Judas wanted a place of elation.

He wanted a place of prominence.

Don't forget so did James and John, remember?

They wanted to be on the right hand and the

left hand of Jesus and the kingdom, but what's

the difference between them and Judas?

They were also being drawn to the glory of

Christ.

Everything that drew James and John was

pushing Judas away.

Maybe he figured finally after three wasted

years in his mind, he'd get as much cash out

of the deal as he could.

So he sold Jesus out for the price of the

slave.

I don't know.

We don't know exactly all the components of

the motivations of Judas.

We can speculate on them.

But no wonder Jesus said in Matthew 26, "It

would be better have been better for that

man if he had never been born."

Can you imagine Jesus Christ saying that about

you?

It'd been better for you if you'd never been

born.

So direct.

So Jesus knows those who believe and those who

don't, and yet all who don't are fully

responsible for their unbelief, just as all

those who believe are fully responsible for

their belief.

And look, that's not skirt around it.

That's a tough issue.

It really is.

Those who don't believe are fully responsible

for their unbelief, and yet God ordains all

who do believe and leaves the rest on their

own.

He doesn't have to do anything.

Just leaves them on their own, and they are

responsible.

How in the world do we resolve that?

Well, with your human reasoning, quit trying,

number one.

But let's see how Jesus resolved it.

You want to see how Jesus resolved that issue

of sovereignty and responsibility?

Look at verse 65.

And he was saying, "For this reason I've said

to you, no one can come to me unless it has

been granted to him," wow.

That's how he resolved it.

Jesus just rested his solution to this dilemma

right here in divine sovereignty.

You can't come.

That's ability.

Unless, or see, necessary condition, it's been

granted by the Father.

Does everybody come?

No, because we know there are people in hell.

You can only come unless you've been granted

by the Father to come to Jesus.

You don't have the ability to come unless it

has been granted to you by the Father.

That's what the Bible teaches.

And again, do you see Jesus here trying to

find some kind of middle ground position on

this?

No, there's not a solution, as I just said,

from human reasoning for this dilemma.

The sinner is responsible for rejecting Christ

, and no one can be saved unless he willful

believes.

And yet when it's all said and done, it's all

the outworking of a divine sovereign miracle

in every single case of every single solitary

person that believes me, you, and every other

believer in human history.

And then verse 66, the final word on this

group of false disciples.

As a result of this, everything you just said,

many of his disciples withdrew and were not

walking any more, couldn't handle it.

And what he did, it couldn't handle what he

said.

It was the words.

It's always the words.

It's still happening today when Christ is

accurately preached, when these verses are

not skipped over by the preacher, but are

preached verse by verse.

It's the words that either turn people away or

bring people into the kingdom.

Judas is not a solitary monster.

People did it then, they're still doing it now

.

They come, they hear, they learn, they know,

and then at some point they go away.

Many people have kissed Jesus with a Judas

kiss.

Many people have.

The upside here is that chapter six doesn't

leave us on this note.

We turn next from the defection of the false

apostles of disciples to the affection of

the true disciples.

Look, verse 67.

So Jesus, they've done walked away, this many,

this many, this big group, there's 12 left.

So Jesus said to the 12, you do not want to go

away.

So do you again the sadness you can feel in

that comment.

It shows you the, the genuineness to which

Jesus in his, in his time here, he grieved

over unbelief.

I remember he wept at the grave of Lazarus.

He knew Lazarus was dead before he got there.

He's still wet at the grave, real human

emotion, same here, but at the same time,

understanding

divine sovereignty better than anybody else

has the ability to.

He still feels the pain.

All of that he was asking was for them to

believe that group that left the offer was

free.

He wasn't asking for pennants.

He wasn't asking them to put nails in their

shoes or flagellate themselves.

He doesn't asking, Hey, pull yourself up by

your moral bootstraps and live a life of

morality.

No, no good works.

No philanthropy.

He wasn't asking for any of that.

What did he say?

Just believe.

And if you do, you get eternal life forever.

And Peter steps up.

Sometimes Peter shines.

He's so much like us.

And sometimes he doesn't.

Right.

But here's one of his big moments.

And he's speaking for the rest of them as he

always did in verse 68, Lord, to whom shall

we go?

Well, also we're going to go.

You have the words.

You see it?

The words of eternal life and that that's it.

We accept not only your works, but also your

words is what Peter is clearly saying in verse

69.

We get the collection, collective confession

of the disciples that are left to 12.

We see that have believed and come to know

that you are the Holy One of God.

We have believed.

That's what separates true disciples from

false ones, genuine, saving, faith.

Notice Peter's choice of words.

We have believed and come to know that you are

the Holy One of God.

Now that Holy One of God is a title.

You know who else called Jesus the Holy One?

Demons in Mark 124.

They knew who he was.

They know who he is.

A good angel in Luke 135 called him the Holy

Child.

Here the disciples call him the Holy One of

God, but beyond identifying his holiness and

his deity in that statement, this, this title

belongs particularly to God himself.

Isaiah uses this term for God more than any

other Old Testament writer.

He says the Holy One and the Holy One of

Israel over and over in Isaiah.

The Jews knew this phrase.

Oh, they knew it well.

So when Peter says you, Jesus, are the Holy

One of God, they were affirming his equality

with God right there in that statement.

These disciples had believed and they were

staying put.

They wanted more of Jesus's words.

People leave because they can't handle Jesus's

words, but let me tell you something.

Once you believe, you want nothing more than

to hear more.

You want to learn more.

You don't want to leave.

You want to stay.

And if you're like me, you become insanely

curious about how it really is going to be

when life on this earth is done.

And I am insanely curious about that.

And just to finish this out with what we've

already looked at, let's finish verses 70 to

71.

Jesus answered them, did I myself not choose

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

?

Now he meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot,

for he was one of the twelve that was going

to betray him.

Just like back then, today, Jesus knows who is

true and who is false.

He knows every current pretender right now on

earth who will one day betray him and walk

away from him, everyone.

So what group are you in?

Nowhere in scripture do we have more clarity

on this subject than these verses that we

have just looked at today.

And so that those who have ears to hear, hear

the word of God, this stuff, let's pray.

Father, as always, I feel very small and

insignificant and pitiful preaching John six.

But how will they hear if they don't have a

preacher?

Your word says so you got to have somebody do

it consistently and constantly amazed that

you allow me this privilege to preach these

words of Jesus.

And so Lord, I pray, I really ask you to take

what we've heard today and edify your people,

feed your sheep, give us all a deeper

understanding of the person in Jesus and a

hunger to want

to know more, to want to dig deeper until the

day that we take our very last breath

on this earth.

And as always, if any are here who have not

come to Jesus saving faith, I pray you will

draw them effectually to yourself and add

another to your family.

For your glory, we pray in Jesus name, amen.

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