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On this Lord's Day, February 9th, 2025, I'd like to continue this message. It's the second part, second section of which we've been looking at in John's gospel, chapter 6. So please turn with me there.
Chapter 6 in John's gospel. Don't you love this wonderful gospel? It underscores the deity of Jesus Christ that He is God in flesh. He is God in flesh, God incarnate. Today I'd just like to read verse 52 to 59 for the sake of time because today we're going to be partaking of communion, coming to the Lord's table, starting and beginning with verse 52 to verse 59.
Hear the word of the living God. Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, murmur basically, grumbling. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. Verse 58, this is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.
He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Please bow with me in prayer as we seek the Lord's face during this hour of worship as we hear His word. Our Father, and our Lord, and our great God, hallowed be Your name.
Lord, I pray that this morning that through Your Word and by Your Spirit You would sanctify us. Sanctify us wholly through and through. By the truth, O Lord. By the truth of Your Word, because Lord Jesus, You said Your Word is truth.
Pure truth. So as David prayed, Father, may this be my prayer this morning as I speak Your Word, Lord. Let the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight. O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer, and I pray this in Jesus' name for Thy honor and glory.
Amen.
I'd like to begin this message this morning briefly by just asking some very pointed pastoral questions to you as you sit and hear the Word of God. The first question that I bring before you is probably the most important question you will ever hear.
And I speak to all ages, children included. And I make this as simple as I possibly can because I believe we're dealing with souls here. And that is my task as God's servant to serve you in ministering the Word of God to your hearts to preach the Word.
But the most important question is this. Do you truly believe in who Jesus says He is? Do you truly believe in who Jesus says He is and all of His claims? The second question is to follow up that question.
And only you can answer this. Only you can answer this in honesty and integrity before the Lord. Second question follows up to that great important question is do you truly understand with your entire heart, mind, and soul what that really means to believe in Jesus and who He is?
That's a follow-up of that question. But you must also understand what that question entails, the significance of that question, the depth of that question, of what it really means to believe in who Jesus says He is.
It's everything. And how you answer that question and how you choose to answer that question is really of great eternal consequences. It's a matter of eternal life or eternal death. And in answering that, and if it's yes to Jesus and following Jesus Christ, we will see what that truly means.
Because there are many people, as you read the Scriptures, claim to be His disciples and follow Jesus Christ and fell away. Now this is so convicting to my own heart as I was studying this text because it really comes right down to the wire of what Jesus is saying of who He really is.
And He said, I am the bread of life. That's His claim. They had problems with it. They had problems with it. They wanted physical bread. They had no understanding of the spiritual significance behind everything that He was saying here in John chapter 6.
From verse 47 to verse 65, we see Jesus teaching in this particular section. He repeats and reinforces the themes laid out in verses 26 to verse 45. Again, believing in Jesus Christ and who He really is leads to eternal life, for He Himself is eternal life.
It's not something we do even though the instrument is by faith, and faith alone, and we believe that, don't we? Because it is by faith, and as we just saw, it was by faith we saw the light of who Jesus is in His work at the cross, but also who He is.
But in of Himself, Jesus Christ is the salvation. He is God's salvation. He is sent from heaven. He comes down from heaven. He is the Lord of glory, the King of glory, and He humbled Himself and became a man, all the way from the feeding trough of a stable, a lowly stable, and humbled Himself to the point of death, to the death of the cross, until His life was taken.
Then He was put down three days, buried, and then three days after that, He rose again, and He lives forever. That's the gospel, and we must believe who Jesus really is. He is that eternal life, and He gives eternal life, because in giving, what does He do?
He gives of Himself. And this is what this chapter is about. He gives of Himself, and He's speaking this to hard-hearted, unbelieving Jews that reject Him. So, believing in Jesus Christ, yes, leads to eternal life, which is of Himself.
He is that life eternal. He is that resurrection. He is that life. It's all in the person and works of Christ. So, believing in Jesus leads to eternal life. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.
Never. Don't you love that?
In other words, it's not a temporary salvation. It is an eternal salvation that is lasting, has everlasting life to it. Jesus repeats the metaphor. And by the way, here, Jesus is speaking in metaphors.
That He is the bread of life. In verse 48, Jesus said it, I am the bread of life. The first of seven I am's. And He heightens the contrast between the manna that provided only physical nourishment and the bread from heaven that provides eternal life, which is of Himself, and which He gives.
It's absolutely staggering that we read this, and here He is, He presents Himself to these Jewish people that reject Him ultimately with unbelieving hard hearts. And yet, He is that bread of life. He says, you've seen Me, here I am.
They've even seen the miracles. But here is the miracle worker Himself, and the miracles was an illustration to provide to them just a supernatural phenomenon, but a miracle that points to who He is. Verse 49 to 51, Jesus says, Your father ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead.
They're dead. Verse 50, this is the bread which comes down from heaven. He condescends in humility. He comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. Verse 51, Jesus says, I am the bread, the living bread, which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give, notice this, such a giving God. He gives of Himself.
He gives all that He has.
I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Here is a clear verse that here the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, was pointing forward to His substitutionary death on the cross.
Any wonder why the apostle Paul said, My message is the cross of Jesus Christ. I preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else. That doesn't mean he excluded the whole counsel of God. God forbid.
He said, I preach the whole counsel of God. But it's all summarized and points to the cross. I remember reading something Spurgeon said of this. He said, and I'll paraphrase it. I don't have it written down here.
But he says, if I were to just preach the cross of Jesus Christ and every message that I preached here on this earth. And by the way, he lived until 58 years old and the Lord took him home. And he probably did more than what we would ever do if we had two lifetimes.
He fervently worked so much for the Lord. But in saying that, he says, if I preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, every time I preached, God would be smiling on me. He says, it's all summed up. My theology, he said, is summed up in four words.
Jesus Christ died for me. Everything that we see who God is and all of His attributes and all of His glory and all of His splendor and all that He is and everything is all seen at the cross. If we missed the cross, folks, we missed it.
A clear verse here that Jesus is pointing toward His substitutionary death. He would give His life as a ransom for sinners. That's why He came, is to seek and save the lost. So, if you don't know the Lord this morning, if you're lost, you're a good candidate.
That's what Jesus specializes in. When we tell people about Jesus and people that are lost in their darkness and they love their sin more than they love the light. And they do, don't they? Naturally speaking, we all come into this world loving our sin.
We cling to our sin. We're natural liars because our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, as it was said in the Sunday school this morning. We're born liars. We're born reprobates. We're born lost.
But the Lord comes to rescue us.
Oh my!
He would give His life as a ransom for sinners. His body would be broken. His blood would be poured out as a sacrifice for sins as the dying Lamb of God. He would go as a substitute as the Lamb of God.
He would go to His death, dying for us, taking our sins, taking your place. He that knew no sin would become sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He would pay the full penalty that our sins demanded.
And why would He do this? The text says, He did it that He may give us eternal life. He did it and He died that all who would believe in Him would have eternal life. John chapter 12. Let me read just a few verses here.
From John chapter 12. From verse 23 to 26. Jesus is referring to Himself as the kernel of wheat. The kernel of wheat. Verse 23, Jesus replied. And Jesus is actually predicting His death here. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Very truly, or truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. Only a single seed. A single seed speaks of His death here. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
If anyone loves their life, will lose it. If anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
And right there in verse 27. Now my soul is troubled, Jesus said. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No. Father, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. And then He lifts up His voice and He says, Father, glorify Your name.
That's how willing Jesus was to go to the cross. I believe the Puritan Thomas Watson said that Jesus Christ was more willing to go to the cross than we are to the throne of grace to pray. How true that is.
And here they are. Jesus' teaching is interrupted again by this misunderstanding of the audience. And verse 52 proves this. The Jews grumbled.
They argued. They quarreled.
They murmured among themselves. And Jesus knew exactly what they were murmuring about. How can this man give us His flesh to eat? They did not get the metaphor. They were just thinking of the physical.
How can this happen? But Jesus is speaking in metaphors. He's talking about something wonderful, spiritual here that will transist and take place. And they failed once again to understand the spiritual truth behind Jesus' illustration.
Pastor John MacArthur notes here, he quotes,. Every time Jesus had given them a veiled saying or a physical illustration, the Jews failed to see its spiritual significance. The Mosaic law prohibited the drinking of blood or the eating of meat with blood still in it, according to Leviticus 17 .10 -14, Deuteronomy 12 .16, Acts 15 .29.
And then the Jews, unable to go beyond the mere physical perspective, were perplexed and answered and were angered. End quote. Therefore, their willful rejection. And that's what they did. They rejected the Lord of glory.
He came unto His own. His own received Him not. They rejected the spiritual truth. They rejected Him. They cannot understand. They could not understand. We see this in verse 60. And by the way, we're heading in that direction, God willing, next week.
And we'll be picking up here. And the text says, Therefore, many, many, underscore that, many. Not a few of them. Many of His disciples, when they heard this, speaking of His eating of His flesh and drinking His blood, this is a hard saying.
A difficult saying. This is hard. And we're going to look at that, God willing, next Lord's Day. Today, we're going to look at verse 51 to verse 59. I'm going to try to pack this in as fast as I possibly can.
But this particular section may be divided up into three divisions. I give credit to Pastor MacArthur for the outline. I couldn't come up with a good outline myself, so I'm borrowing his. If you can't find a good outline, borrow someone else.
It's okay. As long as you give credit. Amen? First of all, in verse 51, we see Jesus' pronouncement. Second, in verse 52, we see the crowd's perplexity. We touched on this a bit last Lord's Day. And third, this is where we're going to look and focus on as much as possible.
In verse 53 to 59, we see Jesus' promises. So, let me say it again. First of all, verse 51, Jesus' pronouncements. Second, verse 52, the crowd's perplexity. Third, verse 53 to verse 59, Jesus' promises.
Wonderful outline. Let's look at the first point. First, we see Jesus' pronouncement. Jesus' pronouncement. And it's found in verse 51. Jesus says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. Awesome, awesome pronouncement. That reiterates actually these verses here. Verse 33, verse 35, verse 47, verse 48.
All ties in together of Jesus reiterating Himself. You know, they say repetition is the mother of learning. Jesus actually knows this because, why? We are such forgetful creatures. We need to be, we need to have the truth repeated to us.
Time and time and time again. And if you hear some of the same things, and I say the same thing time again, time over again, it's because we are forgetful. And Jesus knew this. They were forgetful. And He repeats Himself.
He reiterates Himself. Verse 33, for the bread, Jesus says, for the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
Verse 47, most assuredly I say to you, or truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life. Verse 48, I am the bread of life. Time and time and time again, He repeats Himself. He reiterates Himself.
Jesus gives them the awesome truth of who He is in His personhood, in who He is, that He is the truth. Now, He would not only die just for the Jewish nation or even just the elect, which mainly He does.
John chapter 10 speaks about the elect and the sheep. We're heading in that direction. It's going to be a wonderful study there. But His death would be a sufficient value. Underscore this. His death is a sufficient value for the entire world.
It's efficient to save the elect, but it's sufficient and has enough value behind it to cover the sins of the entire world. And no, we're not universalists. We deny that. It's a false teaching. But what it's saying is that, and we'll look into this, that the power of the cross and the sufficiency of what Jesus did at the cross accomplished much.
And it has enough power behind it that it has sufficient value for the whole world. This does not, of course, again say that the whole world will be saved. God forbid. We don't believe that. The Bible doesn't teach that.
Only a few will.
That was underscored in the Sunday school lesson today that Seth brought out. The straight is the gate. Narrow is the way that leads to life. Very few will find it. Broad is the way that leads to destruction.
Wide is the gate.
So in this world, there is a wide gate. There's only two roads. There's a straight and narrow, and there's a broad, wide gate that opens up a road that you see millions, and I could say literally billions of souls going headlong right into.
Universalists believe this, that ultimately all will be saved. The scriptures do not teach that. Jesus said only few will be saved. Few. Are you among that few, beloved? Rather, you see what he's speaking of here?
Jesus underscores it. The work of the Lord Jesus' death at Calvary's cross would be sufficient to make its value to save the whole world if all men came to Jesus. It has that much power. The power is in the cross.
The power is in the blood of Jesus Christ.
We believe that.
Turn with me very quickly to 1 John 2, and we will see exactly what I'm saying here and the point I'm trying to make of what Jesus is saying about that he gives his life, he gives himself for the life of the world.
What is he speaking of? John makes it very clear. The apostle John follows up on this, and he has no problem with it. He's an apostle. The Spirit of God is breathing upon him. He writes this wonderful letter, and I love the way chapter 2 begins.
How does he begin this? My little children. How warm is that? He's an apostle, but how warm, how pastoral. My little children. My little children. These things I write to you so that you may not sin. Isn't that encouraging?
He's writing this to us that we may not sin. And he says, and if anyone sins, if you do sin, and we know it will happen, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, verse 2, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
Isn't that a wonderful verse? Let me break that down a little bit. First of all, what he's saying, Christians, we must continually to acknowledge and confess our sins, as John 1, 9 says, if we confess, we, believers, as a body, we confess our sins, He, Jesus, is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Isn't that wonderful? That's a promise that you can take to the bank, that he will cleanse us, but there must be a confession of sin, and let me add here to it, confession also means forsaking of our sin as well, to receive mercy, Proverbs 28, 13.
If we cover our sins, we conceal our sins, we will not prosper, but if we confess our sins and forsake them, mercy will be given. That's what the scripture says, but there must be a confession to it, and usually when that happens, this is a daily basis for the Christian, amen?
Every day of my life, I say,.
Lord, search my heart,.
If there's some sins of omission, I don't see, show it to me, Lord. Show me my sin. Help me so I can confess my sin, and then repent of my sin, and forsake my sin. Well, that's what he's saying,.
He said,.
He is basically saying,.
You,.
He says,.
I'm writing this to you so that you may not sin, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father. So we should come and confess and forsake our sins.
Second,.
And when we do, we have an advocate with the Father. Advocate. Isn't that a wonderful word? It means, one that stands alongside, a helper, another helper.
Jesus speaks,.
He is the helper, the paraclete. Remember we were studying R .C. Sproul about this, and he spoke about, Jesus is the paraclete, he is the helper. But that's when he was here on earth, and now he's given us another helper.
But here in this verse,.
He is that advocate,.
With the Father, at the right hand of the Father, on his right side. He is that helper, alongside, and there's another way we could put it,.
Is,.
He is our defense attorney. And he's a good one. And he's a perfect one. And by the way, Jesus has never lost a case. He's your defense attorney. Why do we need a defense attorney? Because,.
Amen,.
According to Revelation, and it's there in the Scriptures. And you know, this is something I really love, if you look at the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God convicts us, to always bring us to repentance, and to restore us.
Satan will always condemn us. And point the finger and say, Aha, you are not saved.
See, I told you.
But we have a defense attorney, that pleads our case. We need Christ, at the right hand, of the Father, to plead our case. And Satan is an accuser of the brethren.
He accuses us,.
Accusations of lies.
He lies,.
Condemnation against us. But the Lord Jesus Christ, pleads our case. And Satan may prosecute the believers, night and day,.
Before the Father,.
Due to sin. But Jesus Christ, being the high priest, the great high priest, in His ministry, guarantees not only sympathy, but He also guarantees acquittal. Aren't you glad? It's glorious. And that's why Paul says,.
There is therefore no condemnation, to those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation. Condemnation comes from Satan. Or it comes from our guilt, of our sin, that we have not repented of. But when we do repent, and ask the Lord to forgive us, He promises,.
He puts away that sin,.
Forever.
And when the scripture says, He cleanses us from all unrighteousness, that means all unrighteousness. First of all, we confess our sins.
We have an advocate, a helper, with the Father, at the Father's right hand, Jesus Himself.
Third,.
We see in this wonderful scripture, Jesus Himself is the propitiation. I love that word too. Matter of fact, this should be one of your favorite words as well. This word means appeasement, or better yet,.
Satisfaction.
I think satisfaction, is satisfactory. Jesus Himself is, the satisfaction. He is the only one, beloved, that has satisfied a holy,.
Just God.
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, has fully satisfied the demands, of God's holiness, for the punishment of our sin. Once and for all. This is how great and glorious, the cross of Jesus Christ is. When Jesus said, it was paid in full, He meant paid in full and finished.
Heard Ravenhill preaching, a message on the cross of Christ once,.
And he says,.
When Jesus Christ cried, it is finished.
That voice went down into the caverns of hell, and every demon trembled, beloved. And Jesus paid it in full. It was complete. Full atonement can it be. Hallelujah, what a Savior. He satisfied the justice, the holiness of God.
Think of that. Jesus gave Himself, as a propitiation, or satisfied God's holiness, God's justice, the propitiation, satisfaction for our sins, your sins, and not ours only, but also for the whole world.
That's what the text says. Again, this is not referring to, all the world will be saved. Only the elect, only the sheep will efficiently come, to believe and repent of the gospel. But the sacrifice of Jesus in Himself, in other words, had unlimited and infinite value, because He is a holy God.
Thus His sacrifice as the Lamb of God, was sufficient to pay the penalty, for all the sins of whom God brings to faith. Actual satisfaction. Actual atonement.
Actual.
Was made for those who believe, and repent. Pardon for the sin, is offered to the whole world. That's why we preach a whosoever will gospel, but received only by those who believe. This is why it's so important, to understand what it truly means,.
To believe in Jesus.
Him dying on the cross is the greatest, because that's what brings us into salvation. That great sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the substitute Lamb of God. He is God's Lamb. And only through the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who is the way, the truth and life, can we come to know the Father, and be reconciled to Him.
That's why Paul says,.
Be you reconciled to God.
And he preaches Jesus Christ, because he knows Christ is the only one to the Father.
No other way.
That's what Scripture says. Well, let me go to the second point, because the time so fast flees away. Second, not only we see Jesus' pronouncement, we see, and I'm not going to spend much time on this, because we focused on this a lot last Lord's Day, the crowd's perplexity.
The crowd's perplexity. The Jews therefore quarreled. They murmured among themselves, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And the reason I'm backing up to this, we've got to understand where this is taking us to the next text and the next text to the very end.
These hard-hearted, unbelieving Jews were perplexed. They murmured. But you know something? Let me give an illustration here. If you jump out of a plane, and you've got a parachute on your back, pray that it opens, right?
There have been some deaths that it does open, but a parachute is there and it opens. And faith, that is a poor illustration I gave there. Faith always precedes sight. It prepares your soul and our soul to understand with your heart, through the Spirit of God, through the truth of the Word of God, to believe the truth, that you will obey the truth, and all the questions of how are answered by yielding allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
We don't get into the details. We know that Christ and what He accomplished at the cross is sufficient. And even a child can come and believe in this everlasting gospel. So we yield allegiance in humble submission.
We come with the right attitude to the authority of Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul did at his conversion when he cried out, Lord, and he was a religious man by the way, a Saul of Tarsus, and when Christ got a hold of him and knocked him down and blinded him on the road to Damascus, and that's a supernatural conversion and he wasn't even seeking God.
Christ came after him.
What did He say?
Lord.
His first words to Jesus was Lord. Lord, what do you want me to do? He was willing to submit to the Lordship of Christ. He just didn't say Lord, Lord. When he said Lord, he was ready to submit himself completely to Christ,.
And he did.
Read about the life of the Apostle Paul all the way through most of the epistles and especially Acts, how God used this man. That's the cry of true faith, beloved, in action. Lord, what do you want me to do?
That should be the cry of every believer here. Lord, what do you want me to do? Jesus tells us. What does He say? You could do a study on all the one another's.
In Scripture.
Love one another. Honor one another. Pray for one another.
Encourage one another.
Constantly one another. Redeeming grace church should be all about loving one another, as Jesus says,.
As I have commanded you.
And it starts with us here. Loving one another. Serving one another. Lord, let us be one another church. The third is what we're going to mainly look at here is Jesus' promises. That's found in verse 53 to 59.
I'm going to do my best to get through this. I don't know if I can finish all this because there's so much here. Once again, Jesus knowing all things because He's God in flesh, He's divinity, He's deity, realized exactly what they were thinking, what they were murmuring about.
So, He warned them solemnly, very seriously, that if they did not eat of His flesh and drink His blood, they would not have no life in them. Think about those words. Jesus told them. He warned them. Verse 53, Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
No life in you. This could not refer to the bread and the wine used at the Lord's Supper, could it? Because He has not instituted it yet. And for that reason, I mean, when the Lord instituted His Supper, it's His Supper.
It's about Him that we want to partake today. But is this talking about partaking of the Lord's Supper? I don't believe it is. On the night in which He was betrayed, His body had not yet been broken at this point, so it was not instituted.
His blood had not yet been shed and spilled out.
No.
What's He talking about then? What is He talking about in context? Well, the disciples partook of the bread and the wine, but they did not literally eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. Did you know many, when this was said of the early Christians, and you can read this in church history, that the church was known as, from the outside, they thought they were cannibals.
They really thought that they were cannibalistic. But Jesus is talking in metaphors. He's giving an illustration here. The Lord Jesus was simply stating that unless we appropriate ourselves by faith alone the supreme value of His death for us on Calvary, we can never be saved.
We can never come to know what salvation is. We must be partaking of that, and it's by faith and believing who Jesus is and what He has accomplished. And what did He accomplish? He died on the cross. He took our sin.
He took our place. The Holy One died for the unholy, the righteous for the unrighteous. And we must believe on Him, and then believing is receiving. When we come to Him, we believe, we receive, we trust.
Then we obey afterwards. And we follow Him with a cost. And we're going to look at that in closing. What does it cost us? We need to tell people, if we present the gospel, beloved, we need to tell these people that's out there that do not know Jesus, we need to tell them about counting the cost.
Verse 54. Notice verse 54. Jesus says, Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day. The last day. We learn that whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life.
Now things equal to the same things are equal to each other. To eat His flesh and to drink His blood is to believe on Him. All who believe on Him will be raised up. What does that mean? A resurrection.
What's He referring to? At the present? No, it couldn't be. He's referring to the last day. The great resurrection day.
In the future.
One day, this generation, even the children, but we're going to all be dead unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes first, right? We say that. That could happen. But we're going to eventually die and the flesh that we have is going to deteriorate and go to the ground and it's going to go back.
It's going to waste away and the worms are going to eat it. What did Job say? Even if the worms eat my body, if I know my Redeemer liveth, then He even believed in a resurrection. At that great last day, it's amazing.
You go way back and Job, the book of Job, is one of the oldest Old Testament books. And he believed and he saw by the Spirit of God breathing upon him a last day resurrection in the future. Jesus, there will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous, but Jesus is here speaking about the resurrection of the righteous at that last day.
In other words, if you eat of me and of my flesh and drink of my blood, and you understand and appropriate what I did on the cross, and they didn't understand it because Christ hadn't gone to the cross yet, but this is what He's predicting.
This is why He came. This was His mission, was to die on that cross. And He says if you believe that and partake of that and appropriate that by faith, one day your body, however it is, and it's been wasted away, it could be burned up in ashes and cremated, God's going to raise it up.
And it's going to unite with your spirit. Now, I used to have a little confusion about that. How's that going to happen? How does this all take place? But you know, when we die presently now, as a believer, absent from the body, present with the Lord,.
If you're a believer.
If you die without Jesus Christ, absent from the body and present in hell. But our spirit goes with God eternally in heaven, with the saints triumphant, with the church triumphant. And right now they wait for resurrection to come.
And this is going to happen, beloved, when Jesus Christ comes back the second time in power and glory. Jesus will raise up the bodies from the grave of those who have died, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and life.
He said that in John 11. What a wonderful chapter we'll be looking at, God willing, in the future. That's our eternal hope. That is our eternal comfort, beloved. Verse 55. The flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ is food indeed, and blood indeed.
Notice verse 55. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. The value of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is eternal, never-ending value. Those who partake of Him by faith receive eternal life.
This goes on forever and ever and ever. Verse 56. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. There's a remaining. There's a continuing. There's the perseverance of the saints, beloved.
Just as the living Father sent me, I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. And then He emphasizes once again to these Jews that did not believe Him, that rejected Him, your ancestors ate manna and died.
And then He says, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. You know, without Jesus Christ, there is no forever and eternity. And again, He is the resurrection and life. He speaks of that, and He demonstrates that by raising Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11.
So much could be said about that. I need to bring this down to a conclusion. Let me give you some comments by J .C. Ryle from a sermon he preached. A difficult passage. A difficult passage. Read this in your devotional time, but I want to just give you just excerpts of it.
He goes into the false view of transubstantiation, concept sensation, the views of formalism, superstition, the Roman Catholics' practice in crucifying the Son of God afresh and literally thinking in that transubstantiation.
I know it's a big word, but they basically believed during the Eucharist, the Eucharist during the Mass, somehow in a miracle is transferred to literally in the body, the flesh of Jesus Christ, and in the wine they partake in literally becomes the blood of Christ.
It's blasphemy. And we know that. He goes into detail on that, but I'm not going to go into all that detail. Let me pick up here. I want to read a little bit to you because he says it in such a wonderful way.
You know J .C. Rowell. He has a wonderful way. He said this here concerning.
Let us consider carefully that these verses, what they do mean. The expressions they contain are very remarkable. Let us try to get some clear notion of their meaning. The flesh and the blood of the Son of Man means that the sacrifice of His own body, which Christ offered up on the cross when He died for sinners.
He goes on to say the atonement made by His death, the satisfaction made by His sufferings as our substitute, the redemption effected by His enduring the penalty of our sins in His own body on the tree.
This seems to be the true idea that we should set before our minds. The eating and drinking, he says, without which there is no life in us means that reception of Christ's sacrifice, which takes place when a man believes on Christ crucified for salvation, it is an inward and a spiritual act of the heart and has nothing to do with the body.
Whenever a man, feeling his own guilt and sinfulness, lays hold on Christ and trust in the atonement made for him by Christ's death, at once he eats the flesh of the Son of Man and drinks His blood, his soul feeds on Christ's sacrifice by faith, just as his body would feed on bread.
Believing, he is said to eat. Believing, he is said to drink. And the special thing that he eats and drinks and gets benefit from is the atonement made from his sins by Christ's death for him on Calvary.
The practical lessons, he says, which may be gathered are weighty and important. The point being, once settled, that the flesh and blood in these verses mean Christ's atonement and the eating and drinking means faith, we may find in these verses great principles of truth which lie at the very root of Christianity.
He goes on to say we may learn that faith in Christ's atonement is a thing of absolute necessity to salvation. Just as there was no safety for the Israelites in Egypt who did not eat the Passover lamb in the night when the firstborn were slain, so there's no life for the sinner who does not eat of the flesh of Christ and drink His blood.
Isn't that beautiful? I love the way he went back into the Old Testament of the Passover lamb. Jesus is our Passover, as Paul said. I'm skipping a lot, but let me give you the last section here. I think it's very good.
Last but not least, we may learn that faith in Christ's atonement is a personal act. It's a personal act. A daily act. And an act that can be felt. No one can eat and drink for us and no one in like manner can believe for us.
Listen to this.
This is so important. We need food every day.
Amen?
Or we die.
We will eventually die. We need food every day and not once a week or once a month. In like manner, he says this, we need to employ faith every day. We feel benefit when we have eaten and drunk and we feel strengthened and nourished and refreshed in like manner.
If we believe truly, we shall feel the better for it by sensible hope and peace in our inward man. And he closes with this. There's so much more to be said on this. J .C. Ryle is such a great writer. He's a gifted writer.
Read this, please, in your devotional time.
But he said,.
Let us take heed that we use these truths as well as known them, as we know them. The food of this world for which so many take thought will perish in using and not feed our souls. He only, he only that eats of the bread that came down from heaven.
Shall live forever.
End quote.
Let me close with,.
And I said an application right along with what J .C. Ryle says concerning this text. Go with me please to Luke chapter 14. What about the cost of being a disciple? We're going to see more of this later on.
Many of them, many of them did not believe. They went away. They went away. It was a hard, difficult saying. Verse 25. Large crowds in chapter 14 of Luke. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus and turning to them, he said.
Now I want to tell you something about Jesus. Have you noticed false teachers and false prophets of our day and days back then? They loved the attention of people. They loved crowds. Jesus ran the crowds off.
Jesus,.
Jesus narrowed it out and made the way so narrow and he presented the truth of himself that people went away. This was at the height of his popularity. And you see this happening in John chapter 6. He preaches a hard message and people start going away.
Did that mean that he turned around and started compromising? God forbid. Not the Son of God. Large crowds were traveling with Jesus and turning to them. What did he say? Verse 26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life.
Listen to this, folks. Such a person cannot be my disciple. Does this search your heart this morning? In other words, he's not saying it's wrong to love your wife and love your husband and love your children and love your family.
He's not saying that.
What he's saying is.
What Sinclair Ferguson said this morning in the lesson.
That he is to be exclusive.
Folks, if he's Lord, that means he's Lord. We don't make him Lord. We submit to his Lordship and we follow him. We count the cost and we follow him to the very end no matter what it cost us. God help us.
Such a person cannot be my disciples. And what does he mean by the word hate? You know what he's talking about, hate, there. He's talking about, in other words, in comparison of our love to Jesus should be so much in comparison.
In other words,.
If you love your wife.
And your husband and your children,.
It should be as hate.
In other words, we should love Jesus so far superior. And you know, we hear cheap talk nowadays, oh, how I love Jesus. Tozer says so many times we sing the hymns and we lie when we sing. But God help us.
If we say we love Jesus, we should love Jesus and obey his commands. In verse 27, and whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Then he talks about it right here. I'm just going to quote the verses here and we're going to close and we're going to go into the Lord's Supper because my time's gone.
But this is what Jesus says, folks, and listen very carefully. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?
It's very practical. For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone sees it and will ridicule you saying this person began to build and wasn't able to finish. Then he gives another illustration.
Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he first sit down and consider whether he's able with 10 ,000 men to oppose the one coming against him with 20 ,000? You see what the message Jesus is getting to?
It must be enduring, long-term. If he's not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up, everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Is that heart-searching or what? It is. Jesus says to be exclusive.
He's Lord of all.
He's the King of glory. He is our Lord and we are His slaves, beloved. Just not servants. Yes, we're servants, but we are His love slaves. Dunamis.
Power. Dulas.
Slave. We receive dunamis, the power of the Spirit of God. And we cannot do this without the Spirit of God, by the way. There's no one can do this within their own power. The Spirit of God must do the drawing.
But we must come to Him, submit to Him. Have you submitted to Him? Have you come to Him to truly believe? And back to my original question. Do you truly believe in who Jesus says He is? And if you do, do you truly understand with your heart, soul, mind and strength what that really means?
And counting the cost.
You know, so many people in the world look at a Christian and says, and this is why so many of them don't come along. They think it's like a hard... Jesus is like a hard taskmaster.
But oh, they're so wrong.
He's so good. He's so kind.
He's so loving.
He's so gracious. He's so patient. Yes, the way is narrow. Yes, the way is straight. Yes, there are hard sayings that convict me to the core. But I'm telling you, what is in my heart is a love for Jesus Christ.
It's undying. It's because the Spirit of God has shed His love in my heart. And it's something that the Spirit of God has done. I cannot get away from it. I delight in my Lord. I love my Lord. And all you have to do is look at the cross and see the evidence.
Look at the cross and see what Jesus did for you and me. And He paid the price in full for His great love and because of our sin.
He went all the way.
May we do so in following Him and count the cost. Let's pray. Our Lord and our Savior, we're so thankful today for the great salvation that you have accomplished by giving yourself for your flesh is food indeed.
Your blood, O Lord Jesus, is drink indeed. Father, thank you for this great gift, unspeakable gift. Father, we thank you for the great value of the death of Jesus Christ. It has enough power to save the whole world.
But Lord, we know those who come, it has efficient power. Thank you.
We praise you.
Help us to glorify you now, Lord, as we continue to go forward here and remember the sufferings and the death of your dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray this in His name and for your glory and honor.