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.
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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