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Well, the great theologian, Chico Marx, yeah, I'll wait for a second, you go ahead and laugh that out, once said, who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes? That's kind of the essence of advertising in some ways, right?
Who are you going to believe, me or what I'm saying about, or, you know, who are you going to believe, your own eyes or what I'm saying about this product? It's kind of funny, but it's true in this sense, too, that when it comes to Christians, there's some texts that they look at, they don't really like them very much, so they turn themselves really into pretzels to explain that the clear meaning of the text isn't the meaning of the text.
Essentially, it's who are you going to believe, the text or what I'm telling you? I want to believe the text every single time. This text is, and I would invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 6, because that's where we will be this morning as I continue my relentless 20-year march through the Gospel of John.
But some people look at our text this morning, and it can't possibly mean what it says, therefore it has to mean something else, and they do all sorts of things to try to prove that it doesn't mean what it says.
But really, it's very plain, there isn't a lot of room for manufactured meanings. So what they tend to do is jump immediately to other books, other places, even the Old Testament, all kinds of places to try to get Jesus to be saying something other than what he says.
Essentially, they're like illusionists, magicians, what do they do? How do they get you to believe that an entire car has been caused to disappear or whatever? What do they do? They get you to look at something else or they draw your attention to something else and voila, the car is gone.
Well, it's not really gone or it was never there in the first place, but it's an illusion and that's what you have to do to get this text to mean something other than what it says. Now, the Gospel of John, to me, is striking in that it is relentlessly doctrinal.
John is a very careful theologian, as I like to say, and we see again and again Jesus presented as deity. In fact, in his own statements, he proclaims himself to be the unique son of God. He declares that he is a divine person, that he's here on a specific mission, again and again and again, the relentless pounding of truth and doctrine.
My question this morning for you, it was out on the board before you came in, do you believe Jesus? Now, what didn't I say? I didn't say, do you believe in Jesus? I'm not asking if you are saved here this morning, although we'll get to that, trust me.
Do you believe the words of Jesus? Is what he's saying true? Do you want to explain them away? Or will you agree with the Apostle Paul in a different context when he said this, let God be true though everyone were a liar.
If these things are true, don't you just want to believe them? If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you do. And this morning, I'm going to present to you four divine truth claims, four divine truth claims.
And ultimately, I just have one question for you. Do you believe Jesus? Now, I'm not here to slaughter a bunch of sacred cows. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. We don't even have an altar that I can slaughter sacred cows on.
I'm not here to critique people or to try to convince anyone that they should believe me because it's not me. I want you to rest on the words of Jesus Christ. Let's look at the text, John chapter six, beginning at verse 37.
Our Lord says, all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out for I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I'm the bread that came down from heaven.
They said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
This occurs, this section of scripture occurs during the bread of life discourse follows the miraculous feeding of thousands, maybe about 20 ,000, 5 ,000 men plus all their accompanying families, the sea of Galilee with just what a couple of fish, a few loaves of bread.
And then remember what happens. They're so excited. This Jesus can multiply this food. You know what? This might be the best welfare system ever. What if we just make him king? We can live like this forever.
This will be perfect. No more working. And I think it's important to kind of remember how tough life was. There were no grocery stores, no prepackaged food, nothing. You had to just work to live. Getting food was a full-time endeavor.
So this man could just take a few fish, a few bread, loaves of bread and multiply them and feed thousands. This man, we want to be king. He certainly got the power to feed us and maybe the power to get rid of the Romans.
Wouldn't that be great? Jesus is not ready to be king. So what does he do? We're not told exactly how he does this, but he eludes them. He knows what they want to do. He eludes them. He goes off to pray.
But before he goes off to pray, he sends his disciples on the only boat. Remember there are thousands of people there. There's one boat. He sends his disciples on the boat. They cross over the Sea of Galilee at night.
Storm comes up. And you remember the story well. They're getting very frightened because of the temper of this storm, the size of it. And in the midst of this storm, Jesus comes walking across the water to them and they just welcome him right into the boat.
No, they're terrified. They think it's a ghost. We would see, I think it was the gospel of Mark or maybe it was Matthew. Doesn't really matter at this moment. Anyway, point is, they're terrified. If you remember, Peter goes out, tries to walk on the water and what happens?
He begins sinking. And as soon as they both get into the boat, Jesus and Peter, then what happens? The boat is instantly on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The storm's over. They're over on the other side.
It's all over. But the crowd is behind. They wanted to take Jesus and make him king. They search for him during the evening, probably at some point they call it off because he didn't get on the boat. He's got to be over here.
He's stuck with us. They get up in the morning and he's gone. Some other boats come up. They get on those boats. They go over to Capernaum. They track Jesus down and we begin this whole discourse. And Jesus proclaimed himself to be the bread of life.
They weren't very impressed. In fact, they said, well, some other things that we'll talk about here as we get, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. Let me just give you the first divine truth claim.
The Father sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. He sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. Now this is a doctrine, frankly, that many Christians don't like. In fact, they dislike it so much that they caricature it.
They turn it into a straw man and then set it ablaze. What is a straw man argument? Some of you not familiar with the terms of logic. It is, the definition of it is a sham argument set up to be defeated.
In other words, you just create this gigantic straw man and then you knock it down. So let me give an illustration. You and I are discussing food. You say, I used hamburger in the first illustration. I'll use pizza this time.
Who doesn't like pizza? You say, well, I like pizza. And I say, you can't eat pizza all the time. You eat pizza all the time. You're going to have high cholesterol, high fat. You're going to get obese.
You're going to die of a heart attack. Well, did you say you want to eat pizza all the time? No, you just said you like pizza. And then I took that little truth and I created an entire argument. And then I, you know, just body slammed your foolish argument that you never made.
Well, that's what a straw man is. And you say, well, how's this done to this thing? Well, I'll get there in a little bit. But we will see straw man arguments used to explain the words of Jesus, to make them say something other than what he clearly says.
Now, again, look at our text, verse 37. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Note the certainty. All. Well, what does that mean? It means all, 100%. It's a future will come, by the way, is a future indicative, active, future active, indicative.
And it indicates certainty, 100 without fail, no exceptions. Who is in this group that will come? In other words, who will come in faith? Who will come believing? What is it that they do? What condition do they have to meet?
Well, it's right there in the text. The condition's right there in the text. All that the Father gives me. Those are the ones who come. Now, Jesus could have said, all who choose, all who decide, all who put their name in the front of their Bible with a date that they accepted Jesus.
All who are willing, but the Lord doesn't say anything like that. Jesus says that the Father gives. And when he speaks of it, he speaks of this group as like a package. It's a gift. It is, well, let's put it this way.
If the Father was to wrap a present and give it to the Son, could he fail to give it to the Son? The answer is no. We would understand that, and that's what's presented here. There's a certainty of the Father giving this gift to the Son.
One man writes this. Here is a fundamental doctrine of the fourth gospel. The approach of the soul to God or Christ is not initiated by man himself, but by a movement of divine grace. Talked about grace in Sunday school.
What is it? It's not enough that it's unmerited or even demerited favor. It's unmerited or demerited favor in the face of hatred, in the face of disobedience. That's divine grace. All that the Father gives will come.
Now, why is that important that it be all of grace, all of God? Well, look back at verse 36. We get a little clue. This is the context. Verse 36, Jesus says, but I said to you, you have seen me and yet do not believe.
Well, they hadn't just seen him. They hadn't just physically observed him. They'd seen what he could do. They'd seen him perform something that no mere mortal could do on his own power when he fed them, fed thousands of them.
And yet they didn't believe. What did they do? They wanted more evidence. In fact, when he said, I'm the bread that comes down from heaven, they said, well, you know what? Moses was better than you. In fact, Moses was able to feed an entire nation of people by calling manna down from heaven.
What you did was nice. Don't get us wrong. But you started out with a couple of fish and a few loaves and you multiplied them and everything. Moses had nothing. Moses had nothing and he made manna come down from heaven.
But Jesus told them, you know what? That manna didn't have human origins. It was from God. And by the way, isn't it interesting how much better Moses appears in retrospect as they look back on him? But anyway, I digress for just a moment.
There was no amount of evidence that was going to bring them to faith. Jesus, they said, you know what? Show us a sign. Give us a sign. What sign do you perform? What miracle will you do now to top the last one so that we might even think that you are, in fact, greater than Moses?
But no amount of evidence would have convicted them. What is the condition? It's not evidence. It's the father must give them. And if they are given by the father, they will come. And notice again that the giving occurs before the coming.
In other words, the grace of the father precedes any human response. Hendrickson wrote, a person cannot be saved unless he comes to Jesus. He cannot come unless he is given by the father. Now, is there an out?
Is there some other explanation? Maybe the father gives everyone to the son. Well, no. Because our text tells us that all that are given come. If everyone is given by the father to the son and they all come, then what happens?
Every single person is going to go to heaven. We'll see it. Well, maybe the father sees all who will believe and on that basis gives them to the son. But that's not what the savior says. Again, the text, all that the father gives me.
That's simple enough. It's a gift from the father to the son. Do you believe Jesus? Notice again the result of this gift. Look at verse 37 again. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. This is the promise of Jesus that of all the father gives him, he will never cast one out.
As I explained a few evenings ago, this is a lighted tease. What is a lighted tease? It is an affirmation of a truth by negating the opposite. So when Jesus says, I will never cast out, that's the opposite of the truth.
He's saying, I'm negating that. And what it means is not only will I not throw them out, the truth is I'm going to hold on to them. I'm going to clutch them. I'm going to keep them. That Greek verb cast out means to kick out.
It's ekbalo. It means to remove as far away from yourself as possible. That's not what he's going to do. He's going to keep you as close as possible. Spurgeon wrote this. Here we have taught the purpose of God, the certainty that God's purpose will stand, the invincibility of God's will, and the absolute assurance that Christ shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.
Do you believe Jesus? If you do, you will understand that it is by his power and his promise that you're being kept. Our second truth claim, the Father sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved.
He sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved. Verse 38 is really a familiar preamble, a truism that we see over and over again as he's about to introduce new truth. Listen, verse 38, for I have come down from heaven.
Christ came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the will of the Father. This is directly connected to the promise to never cast any out that the Father has given him.
It is an explanation as to the why. Jesus came here on a mission, one given to him by the Father, which he humbly agreed to carry out. And he performs it without fail. Here's his mission in verse 39. And this is the will of him who sent me.
This is why he sent me here, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me. Perfect tense. A gift with ongoing results, but he won't lose anything. Again, a light a tease. So quite the opposite, he's going to keep it all.
But he will raise it up on the last day. Notice again how he refers to the gift as all that he has given me. What will Jesus do with it? It'll lose nothing. It's as if he said, I will grasp them firmly.
I will hold them tightly. None will be able to remove them, snatch them from my hand. If the Father has given you to Jesus, it is Jesus' mission, his unfailingly performed work to keep you. You are safe and secure from all alarms.
But that's true if and only if the Father has given you to the Son. All of those chosen by the Father and given to the Son will be kept by the Son and will be raised on the last day. And you say, well, maybe that raising just means to judgment and some of those people are going to go to hell.
No, no, Jesus wouldn't have to keep you for that purpose. And besides that, the idea of being raised on the last day means not to go to hell, needs to go to heaven. All believers are preserved to the very end by the power of the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit.
Jesus promises to raise them, to raise this gift, to raise those chosen, to lift them on judgment day. What do we know? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. They're not going to hell.
It is by his power that you will enter heaven. And again, I ask, do you believe Jesus? First divine truth claim was the Father sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. Second divine truth claim is the Father sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved.
And our third truth claim, those not sovereignly chosen refuse to believe. They refuse to believe. Jesus taught the sovereignty of God and salvation. But we also see here the responsibility of man, the responsibility of men.
Yes, God is sovereign and man is responsible. Jesus teaches both truths because guess what? You don't have to reconcile friends, you proclaim them both. Notice first that God does not believe for us. Look at verse 40.
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. It doesn't say that God believes for you because he doesn't. Well, how does one perceive or see or look upon Jesus?
It's not physical sight, right? We already have seen that. These people had seen Jesus. They had perceived him. They had looked upon him. They'd even seen what he could do, but they did not believe. This is a spiritual seeing.
This is having your eyes unveiled, having the scales fall off from your eyes. It is to be enabled by the Holy Spirit to finally perceive and to understand who he is. You see Jesus, if you love him, not as some king to be mooched from or some wise teacher or philosopher, not a good moral example.
You see him for who he is, eternal God, come to earth, veiled in flesh, the one, the only one who never sinned, who fully obeyed, who died in your place and was raised on the third day. If you see Jesus in that way, you're saved because that cannot happen by natural sight.
It's not natural at all, but supernatural. An act of God to deliver you from your spiritual blindness, your inner inability to perceive spiritual things. Some will say that the ability of, or this shows the ability of every person to believe.
After all, it says, you know, whoever says everyone who looks on the sun. So anyone who does that, anyone who believes, but that's not the case. Again, these are participles that show a constant state of being, not an ability necessarily.
Besides that, we'd also know this, that if he was teaching the ability of every single man, woman and child to come to Christ on their own volition, he'd be contradicting himself just a few verses down the road.
And we're going to see that in verse 44. But again, see the promise of the Savior to those who believe. Look at verse 40 again. And I will raise him up on the last day. No mistake about it. This is the promise of salvation, of eternity in heaven, of eternal life.
There's a chain of unbreakable truth in the words of Jesus. The father chooses, the son preserves, and those chosen believe unto eternal life. But it's not everyone. As a psalmist wrote, the wicked are not so in Psalm 1 -1.
There is no such blessing. There is no such joy for the unbeliever. Look at the response of the unbelieving Jews. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I'm the bread that came down from heaven.
They said, is this, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Again, think about the context here. This is one day after he's performed all these miracles, or this miracle, this wonder, where they want to proclaim him king, and now they're like, wait a second.
He says he's better than Moses. He says he's the bread from heaven. He says he's the key to eternal life. And now what do they do? They deprecate him. They put him down by saying what? This is Jesus. We've known him since he was knee high to a grasshopper.
And now he's going to come up and say these things? And they had challenged him. They challenged him back in verse 30 to prove that he was better than Moses. He said, so they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you?
What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Jesus deflated that. He said, you know, he didn't say I'm not going to do any signs, but he didn't do any signs.
This isn't like deity on demand. You don't get to decide when God is going to do a miracle. But he told them that, you know what, that manna out there, you think it was wonderful because Moses fed a nation for 40 years, and you think that's better than what I did?
The truth is that manna kept them physically alive. Spiritually, it had no value whatsoever. What I am offering you is infinitely more value because I'm offering you eternal life. Now, if you ever want evidence of the sinfulness of sin or the inability of sinful men to believe, this passage is it.
After Jesus taught on the sovereignty of God and salvation, the surety of salvation, their response was not what we would want to see from believers or from anyone, really. We'd want them to say, hallelujah, that's right, amen, you know, bust out the hallelujah chorus.
That's not what they do. Again, look at the text. So the Jews grumbled about him. They said, well, you know, he says, I'm the bread come down from heaven. And they started talking about him just being a regular guy.
Who's this guy? This man makes bold claims, but come on, we've known him his whole life. How dare he claim to be greater than Moses? To offer something better than the manna Moses called down from heaven, and it really is remarkable, right?
Hundreds of years afterwards. I mean, if we think about how Israel responded to Moses, right? When they're trapped up against the Red Sea and they've got the mountain and here comes the Egyptian army and they're stuck and they're done for.
And they say, what, you just brought us out here to die? And then the Red Sea opens up. They walk through, they get to the other side, and they're happy for about a couple of minutes before they start worshiping a calf and then grumbling about how they're going to die because they have nothing to eat.
And it's just one grumble after another. But in retrospect now, hundreds of years later, Moses was awesome. Never did anything wrong. And the manna, by the way, was the best thing ever. Even though they eventually grumbled about that too, right?
But for these folks, manna was the best. The manna was the best. They understood this much. They knew Jesus was claiming to be greater other than Moses and greater and other than them. He said he came down from heaven.
They didn't like that. They're grumbling. And really, the picture here is of a bunch of unbelievers pooling their ignorance and trying to discern exactly what it is that Jesus is saying. What happens when unbelievers get together and start pooling their ignorance?
They come up with all kinds of ideas. Maybe God is a woman. Maybe God is this. Maybe God is that. Certainly God loves everybody too much to condemn anyone to hell. If there was a God, he would never allow anything evil to happen.
This is what happens for the unbelieving mind. It could be summarized this way. This is how they were perceiving themselves. Who does he think he is? He's no one special. Certainly not better than Moses.
Now he's grown up. He thinks he's sophisticated. He thinks he's so smart. He's making these extravagant claims. Does he actually expect us to believe him? The answer is no. They don't believe him. Divine truth claim number one.
The Father sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. Number two. The Father sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved. Number three. Those not sovereignly chosen refuse to believe. And they had plenty of evidence.
Divine truth claim number four. The Father sovereignly changes wills. The Father sovereignly changes wills. As a response to their grumbling, the Lord merely commands them to stop. Just stop it. Look at verse 43.
Jesus answered them. Do not grumble among yourselves. He didn't say, you know, what's up with all this grumbling? He said, stop it. Gave them a command. Why? Because what he was saying was true. And the truth needs proclamation.
They were a group of unbelievers unable to discern spiritual things. And he was not going to put up with it. He was going to tell them the truth no matter what they wanted to hear. God and the flesh stood before them and they rejected him.
But Jesus doesn't even blink. Look at verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. Now this is the flip side of the coin from verse 37.
In verse 37 it said, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And here, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Gives, draws. Flip sides of the same coin. They're both true.
All will come whom the Father draws and none are able unless he draws them. All will come who are given. But none are able unless they are given. Someone will say, well, that's not fair. Those who are not chosen or those who are not drawn don't have a chance.
Let me just put it bluntly. Apart from the sovereign work of God, no one has a chance. And the plan of God is not subject to chance. It's not like a 47 probability that when certain people hear the gospel they will believe.
It is a 100 chance, which is not chance. It's a certainty. All who the Father gives me, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
This is a plan that is not subject to chance or change or the whims of man. One Christian author said of this verse that it can't mean what it says. Because there are literally hundreds of verses that show we make choices.
Because see what he says, no one can come to me. So no one has, well, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. No one has the ability to do that. No one can. But we make choices, so certainly people can come.
That's what I referred to earlier. That's a straw man. Jesus does not say that unsaved man makes no choices. He doesn't say that. He says there's one choice they cannot make. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
That's the condition. And unsurprisingly, that Greek word can, right there in your Bible in verse 44, means what? To have the ability. It's the same as the English. It means to have the power to do something.
It is from the Greek verb dunamai, which means to have the power. It's the same word we get dynamite from. Let me put it to you this way. Apart from a sovereign working of the grace of God, unbelievers are like automobiles without gasoline.
They have a lot of potential. They can really go fast. They can take you places, but they have no gasoline. They can't go anywhere. You have the potential, but without the drawing power of God, you're not going to come.
You can't. It's impossible. Now, as for the drawing power of God, I'm going to give you the dictionary definition of the Greek verb. Listen. This is the raw literal meaning. To move an object from one area or another in a pulling motion, with the implication that the object being moved is, listen, incapable of propelling itself, or in the case of a person, unwilling to do so voluntarily.
In either case, with the implication of exertion on the part of the mover. There is a mover in salvation. That mover is the father. It says, unless he draws, unless he pulls, unless he, in other places, the same verb would be defined this way, is to drag.
The apostles were dragged out of a specific place in Acts. That's the verb. And that's us before God works. Incapable and unwilling. It takes a mighty work of God to make us willing. Think about what the Bible says about it.
It talks about removing a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh. Jesus himself in John 3 said that, what, to Nicodemus, you must be born again. We know from Acts that the Lord opened Lydia's heart so that she would believe.
We know that Paul describes us in Ephesians 2 as dead in our sins and trespasses, and then says, but God made us alive. Charles Spurgeon said this. He said, we declare upon scriptural authority that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ.
Over and over again, scripture describes salvation as something accomplished for us, not by us. Every person... Well, let me say it another way, and you're going to think I'm trying to be tricky here.
Every person who is willing will believe. You say, well, that's contrary to everything you just said. Well, no. Every willing person will believe, and every willing person will be saved. Go back to that word, draw.
The Father never fails to drag, draw, propel someone to believe in Christ. We are creatures. He is the Creator. He bids us come. We don't say no. He takes us as clay and molds us and fashions us as He will, and the notion of somebody refusing the grace of God is absurd.
God draws, but some man somewhere who is given by the Father to the Son resists that, rejects it. Well, then Jesus is wrong. Because He said what? That all that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will raise them up, and the last day I will take them to heaven.
Let me put it another way. You ever wrestle a small child? I like to because it's fun. I always win. You know, maybe I should try this with January. Just get her up, you know, and we'll just go at it.
Now, what do we do with little kids? We make them feel good, and we do this, you know, and we let them win. But the idea of God setting His affection, working, drawing someone, and failing to accomplish what Jesus says He will accomplish is more absurd than thinking that some four-year-old is going to beat me in an arm wrestling contest.
It's not going to happen. If it could happen, Jesus would be wrong. Again, I ask, do you believe Jesus? One man wrote of this passage, none of these verses says that God's grace will be irresistible on the unwilling.
I say, well, that's true, and I say that's another straw man. Jesus didn't say that. Let's look again at the text. All the Father draws will come. It has no indication of their choice or their will or anything else.
In fact, the verb makes it plain that an immobile object upon which force is exercised will be moved. And I would suggest to you that it's not that God drags the unwilling, but that He so inclines the will of the unwilling that they become willing.
We talked about Saul this morning in Sunday school, and it's such a great picture, because not only does he not ask Saul what his free will response is to the offer of the gospel. Not only does he tell Ananias that he's eventually going to have to suffer, but the response of Saul, then Paul, is this.
He's blinded for three days. He doesn't drink or eat. He prays. Ananias comes and restores his vision. What's the first thing he does? He hasn't had anything to eat or drink. I'd probably go straight to the refrigerator.
Saul says, first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to be baptized. The church that I persecuted, now I want to be identified with. The people that I hated, I want them to know that I love the same Lord they do.
That's the grace of God. That's the sovereign grace of God in action. Grace that merely wishes or wants or desires to draw, but can't actually draw. That's not what this passage teaches. Now, some again might think, well, then why doesn't God just draw all men?
Why aren't all men pulled? And again, it comes back to the potter and clay thing. That's an impertinent question. It is the grace and mercy of God that brings him to act on any. He owes us nothing. We are rebels.
We are God haters before grace converts us. We are enemies, the Bible says. Well, does he draw all, but maybe only some choose to come? Again, that's just wrong. Look at verse 44, second half of it. And I will raise him up on the last day.
All that are drawn will come. And I will raise him up on the last day. And that is not, again, to hell. It is to heaven. They will not perish. They are kept by Jesus until that last day. Now, is this a hard teaching?
Yes, it is hard. Why do I say that? Because I have contextual evidence for it. In verse 65, in this same chapter, after he gets through with this whole discourse, and he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.
Verse 66, after this, many of his disciples, those who had been following him, not the inner circle, but those who had been following him, those who wanted to learn from him, turned back and listened and no longer walked with him.
They couldn't take it. It's not a question of whether this is difficult or easy to accept. The question is, is it true? Was Jesus in error? Heaven forbid. Now, what's the benefit of this? Think of the security of this passage.
Think of what it promises you. If you are given, if you are drawn by the Father, you will come to faith, and the Son will keep you, will hold you, will not let you go, and you will dwell for all of eternity in his presence.
That's what he's saying. Now, there's a long list of men, a long line of faithful men who believe the teaching of this passage. Some of them, I'll just list a few. Obviously, Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, R .C. Sproul, James Montgomery Boyce, Steve Lawson, B .B. Warfield, Al Mohler, Mark Dever, George Whitfield, and the list goes on and on and on.
But I'm going to tell you something. It doesn't matter what they believed. It doesn't matter that I believe this. It's important that you believe it. Why? Because it's what Jesus said. People say, well, I don't really like that.
I don't know what to tell you. Do you believe Jesus? Listen to what Spurgeon said, and this is how I hope we think. The universal confession of all true believers is this. I know that unless Jesus Christ had sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God, I would to this very hour have been wandering far from him, at a distance from him, and loving that distance well.
With common consent, all believers affirm the truth that men will not come to Christ till the Father who hath sent Christ doth draw them. Do you believe in Jesus? I hope so. Do you believe the words of Jesus?
Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for the words of our Savior, even as we look at them and we think, this is hard to swallow, that you are so sovereign that we are unable, incapable of responding independently to you, to believing in Christ.
But that's what he said. All that you give to the Son will come. All that you draw will come. Father, there are many here who have been drawn, who have been pulled, who have had their wills transformed, and Father, we praise you for them.
Lord, if there are some who have not yet been visited by your power, Father, we pray that this would even be the day of salvation for them. For any who struggle with this, Lord, I pray that you would impel them, compel them to study, to see if the words of Jesus are true and right, and if they are not the sweetest comfort a believer can possibly have.
To know that our salvation doesn't rest on our own efforts, on our own imperfect, fallen, sinful will, but on the will of the perfect God, the perfect Creator, the perfect Savior, who died in our place, was raised on the third day, and leads us, holds us, guides us, and will keep us until that day.
It's in the name of Christ we pray, amen.