turn in your Bibles if you have them or follow
along on the screen. John 6, last time we were
here,
we ended with verse 47. And so I want to pick
back up our study in 48. And we're not going
to get to
all these verses today. This is just such
really rich material. But I want to read in 48
to 71.
And let's read that together beginning in
verse 48. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness,
and they died. This is the bread which comes
down out
of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not
die. I am the living bread that came down out
of heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live
forever. And the bread also which I will give
for the life of the world is my flesh." Then
the Jews began to argue with one another
saying,
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I say to
you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink his blood, you have no life in
yourselves.
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the
last
day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood
is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks
my
blood abides in me, and I in him. As the
living Father sent me, and I live because of
the Father,
so he who eats me, he also will live because
of me. This is the bread which came down out
of heaven,
not as the Father's aid and died. He who eats
this bread will live forever." These things he
said in the synagogue as he taught in Caperna
um. 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 grumbled at this said to him, "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 are 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 said to you,
that no one can come to me unless it has been
granted from 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 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, there is a lot in that
passage.
There is an amazing portion of Scripture. The
back end of this chapter here is the culmin
ation
of everything that has been going on in this
very long chapter. And in its heart, as you
know,
the heart of it is about spiritual defection.
It's about apostasy. It's about turning your
back on Jesus and walking away from him after
having been discipled by him. And we don't
have
time to review the whole chapter, but let me
just go back to the gist of what we studied
last time
we were here in John, just to get us back up
to speed. Jesus has been ministering in Gal
ilee for
about a year up to this point. Miracles, ast
ounding miracles, constant healings, just jaw-
dropping
miracles, feeding, as we saw in that one
miracle, upwards of 25,000 people, men, women,
and children.
And for the most part, as you remember, the
response of the majority of Galilee is unbel
ief,
defection. And as I said, that is painful for
Jesus. You can feel it in what he says to the
12. Look again there in verse 67. He looks at
him and he says, "You do not want to go away
also,
do you?" Now remember Jesus, truly God, truly
man, 100% God, 100% man, heavenly arithmetic,
as Thomas Watson said. You're not going to be
able to comprehend that with your mind,
but truly human, weeping at the grave of Lazar
us, tempted in all points as are we. And so you
can
feel that in his humanness that the rejection
of the people, the majority of the people in
Galilee,
think about it, after all that he had done,
after all the healing of hundreds of people,
all the clear evidence of his deity and his
Messiahship and the majority reject.
This affected Jesus. As we studied last time,
where then did Jesus go to find his balance
in the face of this rejection? Well, he goes
to the same place as I said before that we
always go
to. You're witnessing to that family member.
You're witnessing to that coworker. And they
just
absolutely reject the gospel. They reject
Christ. They don't want anything to do with
your Jesus.
And you only have one place you can go, right?
The sovereignty of God. It is God who is
sovereign
in salvation. All I can do is bring the
message to them and then it's up to God as to
whether or
not he's going to save them. That's exactly
what Jesus does here in this chapter, in the
face of
this massive rejection of all these Galileans.
He leans hard on the sovereignty of God and
when
he does, he doesn't pull any punches. He gets
very straightforward. He gets very direct. And
when you
put it together in the order I'm fixing to
give it to you, I want you to listen carefully
to these
words. There's no wiggle room out of this when
I put these verses together. Look at verse 44.
He says to them, "No one can." Remember, no
one has the ability. No one can come to me
unless the Father who sent me draws him. Now,
that, unless you're a universalist and you
believe
everybody goes to heaven when they die, which
we don't and the Bible doesn't teach that.
So those who are drawn by the Father who can't
come unless the Father draws them
has to be the particular group of people that
he calls. It has to be. And then look at verse
65.
"No one can come to me. No one has the ability
to come to me unless it has been granted him
by the Father." Again, that's a very
particular group of people that have been
granted the ability
to come to Jesus by the Father, that have been
given the ability when drawn by the Father to
the
Son. That's a particular group of people. That
's the church. That's all Christians. And then
look
at verse 37. "Out of that particular group
that are drawn by the Father, that are granted
by the
Father." How many of them come to the Father?
Verse 37. "All that the Father gives me will
come to me." That's absolute certainty. And to
add for good measure, the one who comes to me,
I will certainly not cast out. That's an
extraordinary set of verses right there.
Words have meaning. And the meaning of those
words is so very clear. I remember when I
first
got into John 6, James White has a great
little booklet called "Drawn by the Father"
that specifically
deals with these, the meaning of these words.
It's unmistakable. The Father, God the Father,
is the final decider of whether or not a
sinner comes to faith in Jesus Christ. He
decides that.
He draws. He grants. It's unmistakable. If you
're basing your understanding on the meaning of
the
words and those verses, you cannot get around
that conclusion. To do so completely warps the
meaning
of those verses. And so in the face of massive
rejection, what does Jesus immediately do?
He goes big picture. Biggest picture. The
Father will draw who the Father will draw is
basically
what he's saying to these rejecters. He will
call who he wills to call. That's what he's
saying to
these Jewish leaders. And it's so interesting
to take note of in verses 60 to 71 in response
to the
words of Jesus, the false disciples are
exposed. They grumble and then they stumble as
we're fixing
to see. And then at the very end, they
completely defect. But out of the same group
of disciples
in verses 67 to 69, lo and behold, we find
some true disciples and their response to the
exact
same words of Jesus is absolutely they will
not leave. They will not go. And who takes to
lead?
Good old Simon Peter takes to lead verses 68
through 69. Look what he says. "Lord, to whom
shall we go?
Where else are we going to go? You have the
words of eternal life. We have believed and
come to know
that you are the Holy One of God, obviously in
that group drawn by the Father, obviously in
that
group granted by the Father to the Son." And
it's no different from today. Not in
whatsoever. Different
people hear the same words of the message of
the gospel and some reject outright. Some
follow
for a little while and then at some point they
turn and they defect and they walk away. But
some
believe and endure to the end just like Peter
did. Where are we going to go? Where are you
going to go? Besides Jesus. We believe Jesus
that you are who you say you are is what Peter
is saying.
Now, we've been working our way through this
outline and it goes many Sundays back,
especially
when you factor in Ephesians. Sorry about that
. But I just want to go back through these
points
that we've studied so far to put it together
to where we are today.
And if you remember, the heading we've been
working under is the characteristics of a
false
disciple. We saw first, they're, remember,
attracted by the crowds. Still happens in
false religion today. They're fascinated by
the supernatural. I mean, even these guys that
can't
deliver the supernatural, just the fact that
they're saying something supernatural is going
to happen,
they people go and they're attracted to it.
Thirdly, they're focused on the earthly
benefits.
Fourthly, they have no interest in true
genuine worship. Fifthly, they seek only their
personal
satisfaction, the group that was fed in their
miracle. Remember, they were just there for
more food the next day. Sixthly, false
disciples make demands on God. They see God as
a bank.
They see Him as a genie and that He's oblig
ated, actually teaching that He's obligated.
Some
of them, if you say the right words, He's
obligated to give you what you want. And then
seventh,
we looked at last time, false disciples are
not satisfied with just Christ alone.
Having Christ alone for them is not enough.
They want all these benefits, all these
temporal
benefits. And that brings us to number eight
today. And it's just staggering when you sit
and think about this. False disciples do not
understand, do not comprehend divine
revelation.
And I'm going to show this to you. Back in
verse 32, Jesus started talking to them about
bread.
He said at the end of verse 32, "It is my
Father who gives you the true bread out of
heaven."
Verse 33, "For the bread of God is that which
comes down out of heaven and gives life to the
world." And then verse 35, he says, "I am the
bread of life." And we studied what he's
meaning
there. For one thing, he's talking about his
pre-existence. He alone is the one who comes
down out of heaven. Jesus alone has come down
into time and space from heaven to fulfill the
divine
purpose of the Father, and that is to provide
salvation for his people. So he comes from
heaven with a purpose, salvation, eternal life
, for all who come to him on his terms of
repentance
and faith. But note this clearly. As he says
this, they are not able to comprehend what he
's saying.
They don't understand this. It doesn't fit
into their minds. Look at verses 41 and 42 in
response.
"Therefore the Jews were grumbling about him
because he said, 'I am the bread that came
down
out of heaven.'" They were saying, "Is this
not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother
we know? How does he now say, 'I have come
down out of heaven.'" And remember from last
time,
it's complete mockery in that. It's ridicule.
Isn't this Joseph's boy from up there in Naz
areth?
And they mock because they cannot grasp with
their minds the truth of what he's saying. You
have to
remember about false disciples. You have to
keep this in mind about all unregenerate
people.
They can't understand divine revelation. They
're always on the outside looking in.
We quoted this many times, but you have to go
back to it. This is such a stark,
amazing verse, 1 Corinthians 2.14. I don't
know how the Bible could be any clearer about
this
subject right here. "But a natural man that is
an unregenerate human being who has not come
to
saving faith in Christ does not accept the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to
him," and here's the phrase, "and he cannot
understand them because they are spiritually
a praise." It's so clear. Now, in the case of
false disciples across the spectrum of the
church,
they may be some who sow some kind of feigned
interest in the truth that this is why false
teachers don't need to feed people a true
presentation of God because false disciples
don't have any capacity to grasp the Word of
God. They really don't have any hunger for it,
and Jesus was so descriptive with his words
about this. Let me give you another example,
John 8, to just sink this in because it's so
astounding. John 8, here we find Jesus,
back with the Jewish leaders. Look in verse 42
. "If God were your Father," he tells them,
"you would love me, for I proceed forth and
have come from God, for I have not even come
on my own
initiative," but he sent me. Then he says in
verse 43, "Why do you not understand what I am
saying?" And here's the staggering answer that
he gives. "It is because you cannot hear my
word."
Wow. You can't. You don't because you can't.
This is not just unwillingness. This is
inability,
and then in verse 44, "Jesus says something
that I doubt any of us in this room would
really be
willing to publicly say to any unbeliever that
we would be witnessing to." Look in 44, he
says,
"You," to these Jewish leaders, "you are of
your Father, the devil, and you want to do the
desires
of your Father." He was a murderer from the
beginning and does not stand in the truth
because there is no truth in him. Whenever he
speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature,
for he is a liar and the Father of life. I
really, I just don't know how much more
shocking
and provocative Jesus could be than with that
characterization of these lost Jewish leaders.
I mean, what he says there just takes the cake
. Just picture yourself in that scene.
These are the religious elite of Israel. I
mean, would you tell somebody that
when you're witnessing to them and they reject
? "Well, you're of your Father, the devil,
your Satan's child." Would you tell anybody
that? I mean, it sounds wild to even say that,
doesn't it? But it's true. And as far as false
disciples go, they're very comfortable with
lying.
You wonder why so many people follow the false
teachers that are out there?
For the reason is, that's their family. They
live in a world of lies.
Their Father is the devil from Jesus' own
description right here in the Word of God.
And they are the children of Satan. And I
realize how wild a statement that is. And if
people outside of our church are watching this
on Facebook, they're probably turning off that
guy's
nuts. But guess what? That didn't come from me
. I didn't make that up. I didn't say that
originally.
I'm just telling you what Jesus said. The same
Jesus that we celebrate his
birth all across the world on December 25th
said, "If you're an unbeliever, your Father is
the devil.
You're a child of Satan. You cannot understand
divine revelation." Look at verse 45.
He says it right here. "But because I speak
the truth, you do not believe me."
And then again, with great clarity, he says in
verse 47, "He who is of God hears the Word of
God.
For this reason, you do not hear them because
you are not of God." It is that simple.
The demarcation line is clear. If you belong
to God, you believe God, you're part of the
family,
and you hear his Word, and you understand it
when you hear it. In fact, you really want to
hear it.
I mean, you long for it. You study it. You
embrace it. You get it. And then you
understand why it is
that people... Jesus tells people, "You're of
your Father, the devil." You hear that. Yeah,
it's still
wild to you, but you say, "Yeah, he's right."
And I know why he's right, because I've
studied him,
and I've studied his Word, and I know exactly
what he means when he says that. So it's
really
not that wild, because it's the truth. We see
the same situation later in John 10. It's so
amazing
how often Jesus brings us up. He's with the
Jewish leaders again, and he says to them,
and I hope one day in heaven, we get some
video of what happened. I just want to see it.
Verse 24,
this is what they say to Jesus. "How long will
you keep us in suspense? You are the Christ.
Tell us plainly," which, of course, he's
already told them plainly many times. Verse 25
, here's
his response. "I told you, and you do not
believe the works that I do in my Father's
name. These
testify of me." So you have the evidence from
my words. You have the evidence from my works.
Verse 26, "But you do not believe." Why do you
not believe? Because you are not of my sheep.
You are not of my family. Verse 27, "My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me, and I give eternal life to
them, and they will never perish,
and no one will snatch them out of my hand."
The clarity that Jesus gives us on this
subject
throughout this Gospel of John alone is
overwhelming. You just have to dig into the
meaning of the words. Now go back to John 6
and pick it back up with verse 41 with these
grumbling
Jews. They're grumbling because of what he
said in verses 32 to 40 about the bread of
life. Remember
verse 35, "I am the bread of life. He who
comes to me will not hunger, and he who
believes in me
will never thirst." And of course, when he
talks all through here about being the bread
of life,
just like when he says, "I am the door,"
clearly he is speaking in metaphoric terms.
You don't have
to be an English major. Even I can figure this
out. He's talking in metaphoric terms about
himself
being the only provision for the soul, and he
's using bread, the only one who can provide
eternal
life, and he provides it, he says it over and
over and over, only to those who believe in
him.
He will not ever lose them. He'll raise them
up on the last day, and what is their response
?
Verse 41, "And remember, these are the elite
religious leaders of Israel. Therefore the
Jews
were grumbling about him because he said, 'I
am the bread that came down out of heaven.'"
Again,
verse 42, they were saying, "It's not this
Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know.
How does he now say, 'I have come down out of
heaven.'" They don't get it. It doesn't
register.
It's so cool. Jesus doesn't argue with them.
There's no argument he puts up. Verse 43, "
Jesus
answered and said to them, 'Do not grumble
among yourselves.'" Now next, does he want to
get into
it in more debate with them? Does he want to
explain any more what the issues are? Oh boy,
he goes straight. Verse 44, where does he go
straight to? "No one can come to me unless the
father who sent me draws him, and I will raise
him up on the last day." He goes right to that
,
and he's talking about them. Jesus finds
comfort in the doctrine of divine sovereignty
in salvation.
They don't understand the truth. On the other
hand, at the same time, in verse 45,
for anybody who does understand the truth,
look what it says. "It is written, and they
shall all
be taught of God. Everyone who has heard and
learned from the Father comes to me." And we
looked at this.
The only way that you can possibly come to
Jesus, you're drawn by the Father, the Father
begins to
teach you when he draws and he combines the
Word and the Spirit and the illumination of
his Word
to instruct your soul. Look at verse 46, "Not
that anyone has seen the Father,
except the one who is from God, he has seen
the Father." Nobody goes to heaven and gets a
private
lesson from God. God instructs us through
Christ, through his Word. And even though
these people
here in our text do not understand the truth,
Jesus next reminds them there is eternal life
available. Then he spreads it out to anyone
who will believe. Look at verses 48 through 50
. "Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who believes has
eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your
fathers ate
the manna in the wilderness and they died.
This is the bread which comes down out of
heaven so that
one may eat of it and not die." And so Jesus,
of course, understands both sides of the coin.
Sovereignty of God on one hand, responsibility
of man on the other. And just to reinforce
this
eighth point in our outline. False disciples
cannot understand divine revelation unless
the Father is drawing them and transferring
them, as the Bible says, from the domain of
darkness
into the kingdom of his dear son through the
miracle of regeneration. Otherwise,
they can't hear his word. In fact, really,
they're happy to live in the world of false
teachers.
They're happy to sow their seed, hoping to get
their financial breakthrough to
give the preacher money. Maybe this time when
I drop the money in the pot, this will be my
big
breakthrough. They're happy to live like that.
Wherever you find false teachers who are
successful,
they are successful. Why? Because they have
false disciples that are following them.
That's why. Now, all that brings us to the
next point.
False disciples have no interest in embracing
the cross. Look next in verse 51.
Jesus says, "I am the living bread that came
down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this
bread,
he will live forever. And the bread also which
I will give for the life of the world is my
flesh."
Now, that last part is new. Verse, he goes on
with the metaphor of bread.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live
forever. So, clearly, believing is eating.
In his example, that's pretty easy to see,
right? You must eat. You must believe. Same
thing. Anyone
who eats, anyone who believes will live
forever. But then at the end of this verse, he
adds a
whole another dimension. "And the bread also
which I will give for the life of the world
is my flesh." What in the world? My body. And
this, of course, is a reference to his death,
his sacrifice of his body on the cross. "I
will give my flesh, my body, for the life of
the world."
What does it mean of the world? Does it mean
that the whole world is going to be saved by
the
death of Christ? Well, no, we know that's not
true. What it means is,
is that the world only has one savior. He says
, "The bread also which I will give for the
life
of the world is my flesh." This is only one
offering in the whole world, for the world,
that can bring salvation. The world has no
other provision for salvation, for eternal
life. You
can go all over this world. You can look to
Allah. You can look to Buddha. You can look to
new age
spirituality. You can look to the God that you
make up in your own mind. But the reality is,
there is no salvation in any other specific
name. Save the name of Jesus Christ. And Jesus
says,
"I will give my flesh for the life of the
world." And you must eat my flesh. What kind
of language is
this? I really have to stop here, because
there is a great deception that has been
fostered upon
this world for centuries, where the terrible,
corrupted system of the Roman Catholic mass,
which I was raised in, has been inked into the
world. This passage right here
is where the Roman Catholic system devised the
meaning of the mass, their church service.
And at the heart of it is the Eucharist, the
host, communion. There is just no other way to
say this.
The mass is a heretical corruption that
somehow the priest can turn the bread and the
wine
into the literal body and blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and
wine.
I got it right back there in that catechism,
Roman Catholic catechism, on that I can show
you
exactly the pages where this is taught in the
catechism. It's called transubstantiation.
And as the catechism teaches under the
appearance of bread and wine,
it's a real, true, listen to me now, re-sacr
ifice of Christ right there on that altar.
And the people literally eat his body and his
blood under the appearance of bread and wine.
And it is called in the catechism a propiti
atory sacrifice. What does that mean? James
White just
had a debate with a Roman Catholic scholar. Is
the mass a propitiatory sacrifice? Propit
iation.
If you don't know that word, you need to go
home and write the definition 10 times until
you memorize
it. It deals with the appeasement of the wrath
of God. A propitiation was made. It's a
biblical word.
God's wrath was appeased when his holy justice
was poured out on Jesus as a substitutionary
atonement. His wrath was appeased. Satisf
action for that holy justice was made. We
deserved it.
Jesus took it in our place and the Catholic
Church teaches that again and again and again
and again
and again over and over, thousands and
thousands, like millions of times now over the
centuries,
the mass, when the when the priest goes
through the miracle of transubstantiation,
a propitiatory sacrifice where Jesus is re-sac
rificed again and again and again. Every time a
mass is
said, let me tell you that is a severe, sad
misunderstanding of this text right here.
And I don't care how much people get mad at me
for saying this. It's the truth. What it does,
every time that's done, it denies the su
fficiency of what Hebrews says is a one-time
offering of
Christ on the cross that is all-sufficient
when it was made and it never needed to be
made again.
So it's directly contradictory to the meaning
of the cross. Every time the mass is said and
I know
people lose their minds to hear me say that,
but it's the truth. There's no way you can get
around it.
When you put the words of Scripture up against
that teaching, you have so totally diametr
ically
opposed teachings that they both cannot be
right. And you have to choose which one it is
if you're making the choice between the two.
So let's be clear about what this really means
,
what Jesus is saying here. If you said to
somebody, I have something I need to tell you,
and it's really important for your life. And I
know it's not going to be easy,
but you're going to have to swallow this what
I'm fixing to tell you if you want to get
to the next level. When you hear me say that,
you're going to have to swallow this,
you understand when I say that that I'm not
asking you to eat something literally, don't
you?
I'm not asking you to eat some donuts, am I?
No. If you can't swallow this that I'm fixing
to tell
you you're not going to get to the next level
is obviously, very simply, a metaphoric way of
me
saying to you, you have to swallow this, you
have to embrace this, right? You have to
acknowledge
this, what I'm saying to you. Is that not so
clearly what Jesus is saying in this passage?
So again, either I'm right about that, or the
Roman Catholic Church and its teaching
is right about the way they're interpreting
this, but we both can't be right. It's
impossible.
So it isn't just that you have to, Jesus is
saying, accept me as the pre-existent bread
that came
down from heaven and accept me as the
provision of the Father by His will and accept
me as the only
one who can supply eternal life. You also have
to eat my flesh, meaning you have to accept my
sacrificial death and the fullness of all that
my death on Calvary's tree means. That is what
He's
saying. This was way, way over the top for
these Jews. It's why the gospel was such a st
umbling block
for them. They had no room in their minds for
a crucified Messiah. And that's why when Jesus
was
on the road to Emmaus with those disciples
that day, He had to tell them, look, from the
Old
Testament, let me show you why it was
necessary that the Messiah had to suffer and
die because you
haven't been getting it when you've been
reading it. So it's a simple metaphor, is all
it is here.
You have to be able to accept my death. And He
piles it on without really advancing this
statement.
In fact, He just repeats it, but verse, verse
52. The Jews begin to argue with one another
saying,
how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And
again, that's really more mockery. And how
does
Jesus respond? So Jesus said to them, truly,
truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh
of the Son
of man and drink his blood, you have no life
in yourself. Now, on the surface, does that
not
sound crazy? I mean, Leviticus 17, they knew
it forbids drinking animal blood, let alone
human blood.
Right? Why is He saying this? Listen, remember
this, too. They weren't confused. These are
rabbis.
They knew He was speaking metaphorically.
Unfortunately, as billions don't understand,
rabbis talk like that all the time. He's
giving them the divine truth that you have got
to be
willing to fully embrace my substitutionary at
onement on the cross. He says it again. Next,
He just keeps going. He repeats it again in
verse 54. You think these guys weren't wound
up?
He Jesus says to them, he who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I
will
reckons him up on the last day. And then He
hits them again in verse 55. He doesn't stop.
And my
flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
And then again, verse 56, he who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood abides in me and I and him
. I mean, can you just imagine at this point?
What was happening? What was the looks on
their faces? And what He means is you come
into union
with me. That's what it means. In order to
come into union with Christ, you have to
understand
what His atoning death is about. And you have
to accept it as He offered His body, His flesh
,
as a sacrifice for sin. And He shed His blood,
the one who was executed in our place. And the
blood is simply a metonym for His death. Death
, the shedding of blood. Without the shedding
of
blood, there's no remission of sin. It's
talking about death. The penalty wages of sin
is death.
And He's saying to these Jews, "You first must
accept the person that I am and the death that
I die and the fullness of what all of that
means." And then in verse 57, "As the living
Father sent
me," and again, back to His preexistence, "and
I live because of the Father,
back to the Father's will, so he who eats me
will also live because of me." Verse 58,
"This is the bread which came down out of
heaven, not as the Father's ate and died."
Talking about
the Jews in the Old Testament times, "He who
eats this bread will live forever."
And so the bottom line here is false disciples
have no real interest in embracing the cross
of
Jesus Christ. And that's all that it means.
Now, they might want to wear a cross around
their neck
on Fox News to show that they're a Christian.
They might want to put a T-shirt with Jesus on
it. They might want to put a fish bumper
sticker on their car. But a false disciple
doesn't really
embrace the fullness of the gospel and the
substitutionary atoning work of Jesus on Calv
ary.
That's what He's getting at. That's the point.
And the evidence here is very clear. Verse 59,
"These things He said in the synagogue as He
taught in Capernaum." And again,
that's where we are. That's where He's talking
to these Jews. In the synagogue, the center of
all
Jewish life of every village in every town was
the synagogue. Again, can you imagine their
reaction?
Just think about the words He's been saying.
Well, verse 60,
therefore, many of His disciples, when they
heard this, said, "This is a difficult
statement.
Who can listen to it? I mean, I guess so. Eat
my flesh. Drink my blood. Live forever."
Then they grumbled. Verse 61, "But Jesus
conscious that His disciples grumbled at this,
and then they stumbled," said to them, "Does
this cause you to stumble?" Later down in
verse 66,
look at it. Man, they're out of there. This
guy's nuts. As a result of this, many of His
disciples
withdrew and were not walking with Him any.
The false disciple is not interested in the at
onement
because the false disciple is not concerned
with having a righteousness that can make him
right
with God, which only Jesus can provide. The
false disciple doesn't understand the absolute
desperateness of his own natural condition,
and so thereby the false disciple is not
hungry for
God's forgiveness. The false disciple is not
feeling at all the weight of impending divine
judgment over his head because the false
disciple already has all the answers.
The false disciple is satisfied with whatever
the world has to give in Jesus' name, of
course,
and you've met him. You know him in your life
right now. Being the big man upstairs had a
conversation. "I'm okay with the man upstairs.
We're going to be all right."
False disciples concerned with his own will
being fulfilled in his life, not Christ.
Jesus said he didn't come to call the
righteous. You know why? The righteous don't
come.
They're not hungry for true righteousness
because they think they already have enough
righteousness. They think the good works are
going to outweigh the bad works and everybody
's
going to go to heaven when they die. They
think they're all right with God. Everything's
good.
As we've learned here in John 6, it's only
when the Father
sovereignly draws, sovereignly teaches a
person through Christ and his Word and through
the
miracle of regeneration that a person becomes
aware of and broken over their own sinfulness
before a holy God. In this process, a person
becomes aware like they never had before of
the void
that they have in their soul and then they
have a longing to be right with God, a longing
that they
never really had before and to have peace and
joy and hope to escape what they know now that
they
deserve, God's wrath and God's judgment. Let
me tell you, that person comes and eats. That
person
comes and drinks and people have Christ
presented to them and they may have him
presented in all
his glory. They may respect Jesus. They may
admire the grace of Jesus and the love of
Jesus and the
kindness of Jesus. They may be awed by his
power. They even may go to the passion movie
and shed
tears over the way he was mistreated
physically, but it's only when they see him as
their only hope
in this life and the next for the forgiveness
of their sins through the sacrifice
specifically of
himself on the cross that they truly, really,
savingly come to him. False disciples don't
come on those terms. True disciples do. And
the primary question of the day is what kind
of
disciple are you? You attend 10 church every
Sunday. There's no greater question that you
can possibly be asked. Examine yourself. That
's what Paul said. Am I a true disciple? Nail
it down.
If you answer those list of questions that I
always give you about being a true disciple,
nail it down. And you know what? Give yourself
another burst of assurance as you walk out of
church. Yes, indeed, I'm adopted by grace. I
don't deserve any bit of it, but God by his
grace
drew me, called me, granted me the gifts of
repentance and faith, miracle of regeneration.
I believe and I'm trusting in Christ's
righteousness, not my own. Or you need to
repent
and say to yourself, I need to get this
straight and I need to get it straight today.
You only get one life to get this straight.
And as those 32 people across multiple states
found out yesterday, you have no idea of how
many days you have left.
Today is the day of salvation. A repent,
believe, or come a true disciple. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you. These are intense words
in Jesus. I have no earthly idea how
anybody could just glaze by these words
without deep investigation of the meaning
of this. It's incredible to me. The supreme
boldness of Jesus is something that should
just
leave everyone with their mouth open and
amazed. But this is God in human flesh,
speaking
God's truth. Lord, help us all to have a
deeper understanding today of the person of
Jesus,
the work of Jesus, than we did when we came in
the door. And as we go out, may that deeper
understanding motivate us to live even more
deeply a life that brings you glory. In Jesus'
name,
we pray. Amen.