Lars Larson Live Stream

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I asked if we would forego reading Mark 14, it's a long chapter. We'll read it next week,
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Lord willing. And instead, he's going to read the passage we'll be considering this morning, and that's
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John chapter 6, verses 41 -51. John 6, 41 -51.
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And then Jason will pray. Thank you. John 6, verse 41.
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So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.
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They said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say,
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I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves.
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No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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It is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the
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Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God.
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He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
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I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
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This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
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I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.
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And the bread that I will give him for the life of the world is My flesh. Let's pray.
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Our God and our Father, King of kings and Lord of lords, we are so thankful that we belong to You.
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We're thankful, Lord, that You drew us, that You called us from eternity past. We're thankful,
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Lord, that we responded in faith because of the work that the Spirit had done in our hearts already.
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Lord, we rejoice at Your sovereign grace. We rejoice that You are over all things, that nothing happens outside of Your control.
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And Lord, I pray that we would trust in You, knowing this truth, that this truth would be real in our actions, and in our attitudes, in our thoughts, in our motives.
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Lord, help us to recognize You as God over all. And help us to live in this truth.
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Lord, as we behold You in this passage, we pray that You would teach us exactly what we need to hear.
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Lord, take the word that Lars preaches, take it from our ear to our hearts, plant it deep within us, and change us,
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Lord. Help us to be obedient to the truth we hear this morning. Thank You, in Jesus' name,
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Amen. He just read that passage for us, and he read out of the
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ESV. And what we're going to be working through is a new King James Version.
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It says the same thing, of course, in a little different expressions for translators thinking of clarity or accuracy.
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And there's a few points that we may emphasize in this. This is a teaching discourse, of course, of the
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Lord Jesus. It began with verse 26 in John 6, and it continues all the way until the last verse of John 6, which is verse 71.
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And today is the fourth Lord's Day that we've given attention to this discourse. And when we began considering this episode a few weeks ago, we proposed an outline of the contents to break it down somewhat for us.
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And we've been using this each Sunday. And so here it is once again. You have it in your notes before you.
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First, doing the work of God. Secondly, God the Father sent Jesus to give eternal life to his elect.
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And today's emphasis is on this third point. The Father gives eternal life to the one who believes on his
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Son. Fourth, no one has eternal life except through feeding upon Jesus Christ.
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What does that mean? And fifth, only those enabled by God's sovereign grace will believe on Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
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So the sovereignty of God is set forth through the teaching of the Lord Jesus throughout this passage.
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Again, we've already worked through the first two divisions of this outline. And today we want to address verses 41 through 51, these 11 verses.
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The Father gives eternal life to the one who believes on his Son. There are some extraordinary statements in these verses that we've just read.
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They're very important. Certainly there's no greater subject that we could ponder, that we could consider.
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There can be no greater truth to understand and embrace wholly than what the Lord Jesus has set before us here.
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This literally is a life and death issue for us, even an eternal death, an eternal life issue for us.
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From our vantage point as fallen, sinful human beings, the issue set before us in these verses is the determiner of your eternal destiny, humanly speaking.
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In these verses we'll consider today we have more clearly and fully set before us the full identity of Jesus as God incarnate,
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God becoming man, that he is one person in two natures, divine and one human nature.
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Again, the incarnation, of course, is a great mystery to us. It's one of those inexplicable teachings of Scripture that we believe, we do not doubt, and we'll see later one of the reasons is that is because the
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Father has taught us this truth himself. We don't doubt it. But we may have difficulty understanding it, let alone explaining it.
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But again, understanding and believing that Jesus is both God and man in one person is one of the essentials of the
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Christian faith. This matter is the great portal to enter everlasting life, life within the kingdom of our
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Lord Jesus. Every true believer embraces this truth.
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If you don't believe in the person of Jesus Christ as set forth in this passage, indeed throughout all
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Scripture, you're not a Christian, regardless of what you claim. God the
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Father himself has taught every soul that truly comes to him to believe this truth and embrace it.
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One cannot be a true Christian if he or she does not believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, that he is both
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God and man in one person. The revelation of Jesus as a person with both divine and human natures is one of the major themes of John's Gospel, and it certainly is the clearest, fullest theme set forth here in this discourse of John chapter 6.
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Now again, Jason just read the passage, so we won't read it at this time, but as we work through the verses, we again will be using the
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New King James Version. The theme set forth in this passage that Jesus Christ came down from heaven, that God the
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Father is sovereign in bestowing salvation, that faith in Jesus Christ results in the gift of eternal life, are themes already introduced in this passage.
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We've discussed them already in a measure. What we have in these verses before us today, however, clarifies and enhances these themes, these doctrines within our thinking.
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And as a result, these truths may be pressed more strongly upon our conscience. If you have not yet believed on him, this is what the
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Holy Spirit will do if he's working upon your soul. Or these truths may enhance our understanding of our
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Lord and Savior more firmly, if you've already come to know him savingly. This is important.
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Here we are reminded and reaffirmed that we are the objects of God's loving, powerful work of grace toward us and in us.
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So let's consider this matter. The Father gives eternal life to the one who believes on his
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Son. Verses 41 -51. Last Lord's Day, we concluded with the words of our
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Lord in verses 35 -40. Let's read these again in order to give us our context.
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Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst.
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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. All that the
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Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out.
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Again, a very strong negation. It cannot happen, will not happen.
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You come to Jesus, you're in everlastingly. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me and this is the will of the
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Father who sent me that of all he has given me I should lose nothing but raise it up at the last day.
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And this is the will of him who sent me that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day.
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The final day of the resurrection, general resurrection of the dead, saved and unsaved on the last day.
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Well, now we come to verse 41. Again, having set the context and here in verses 41 and 42 we see how the crowd reacted to Jesus due to his claim of his preexistence in heaven.
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They understood what he was claiming. And so in response to the words that Jesus had spoken to the crowd here is the reaction against Jesus.
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It was a rejection of his claims and so we read in these two verses. The Jews then complained about him because he said,
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I am the bread which comes down from heaven. And they said, is not this
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Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says
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I have come down from heaven? The crowd actually confirmed
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Jesus' accusation of their depraved condition by their reaction to him. He declared that in spite of the very clear and undeniable evidence that God had laid before them they had failed to believe in him.
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He had said to them, but I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. In verse 36.
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And their reaction to him bears this out. Here we see and we may conclude that being an eyewitness to the person of Jesus even being in the presence of him performing miracles such as the miraculous feeding of the five thousand which took place the day before this will not produce true believers in Jesus Christ.
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Miracles that people see do not convert sinners into believers, into saints. Yes, it will gather a crowd.
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It gathered five thousand men plus women and children on this occasion. It will fascinate that crowd and cause them to wonder at what they see.
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It may even result in them becoming quite enthusiastic. But superficial followers, not true followers.
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Followers for a time, but again, even though the sinner may see
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Jesus perform a miracle outside of him, that is outside the sinner, he sees it visibly, that will not produce true faith in him.
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It takes an inward work of grace, a work of the Holy Spirit, a calling of God the
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Father to bring a sinner to become a believer in Jesus Christ.
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True faith in Christ is the result of God doing a miracle of saving grace within a person, not of him doing a miracle outside a person.
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All the signs and wonders crowd, you know, that are advocating come here. Come to a
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Benny Hinn conference and you'll really see God at work. Does not produce a single true believer in Jesus Christ.
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It's the gospel. The Holy Spirit applying the word of God to a sinner, the
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Father calling that sinner to faith in Jesus Christ, that is the only way of salvation.
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Yes, we could produce all kinds of followers if we pretended in fashion so -called miracles to take place.
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We could fill this building in no time at all, but we would not be filling them with Christians.
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We'd be filling them with people who think they're Christians because they're enamored with our Jesus. But that's not what salvation is all about.
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A sinner needs God to create new life in him whereby God draws that sinner to faith in Jesus.
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Now, if you look at verse 41 carefully, I want to call your attention to a subtle modification of how
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John relates this story to us. And, of course, the Holy Spirit superintended
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John's writing of this gospel. The Holy Spirit moved
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John to enhance the teachings of Jesus more clearly to his readers even as he sought to intensify the opposition to Jesus within the narrative.
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And he does so in subtle narrative ways. And I just want to point out one here in verse 41 that I suspect none of us recognize.
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I didn't until I read it in a commentary and it was forwarded out to me. John does so in a subtle way here by describing the crowd, which he has been discussing throughout this passage, and using a new term.
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In verse 41 he describes them as the Jews. You notice that? There's a shift there in the narrative.
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It's no longer the crowd, no longer the people, but now it's the Jews. Why is that? Well, up to this point,
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John had, again, been writing about the people and the crowd that had gathered and were listening to him.
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That's how it's expressed in the English translation, but now it's the Jews. Here's a word, perhaps, explaining the slight change in the narrative.
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An interesting change also occurs in the narrator's title for the character that had been called the crowd.
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It's like a single character presented in the story, in the narrative. For the first time in this pericope, in other words, episode, almost out of nowhere, the narrator calls
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Jesus's interlocutors. That's the word for the day, folks. The Jews.
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Interlocutors are just those who are in dialogue with Jesus. And now the narrator calls them the
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Jews. No longer the people, no longer the crowd, but the Jews. And will maintain this title throughout the rest of the dialogue.
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There is no evidence of a change of scene or historical situation. In fact, quite the contrary. The dialogue attends to details and issues rooted in the earlier parts.
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There's nothing new here being presented. The change in description must be viewed as having a literary or rhetorical function for the narrator.
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The gospel frequently uses the title the Jews, and we've seen this earlier in John's gospel, for leaders or spokespersons who are hostile to Jesus, very much fitting the tenor of this social challenge.
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But what is the specific nuance here? What does this convey to us? Well, what
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John, of course, actually the Holy Spirit suggested is that by John describing these
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Jews as murmuring or grumbling, in verse 43, he was drawing a parallel between these unbelieving
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Jews and the unbelieving Jews in the former days of Israel. He'd been drawing a parallel between Moses and Jesus, providing bread for the people, and whereas the
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Jews in the Old Testament times murmured and grumbled against Moses when they got tired of that manna, now these
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Jews are grumbling and murmuring after Jesus and against Jesus, the true bread from heaven.
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These Jews refused to believe on Jesus, and they were as guilty as those former Jews in their rebellion against Moses.
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And so, just as those Jews failed to enter the Promised Land due to their unbelief, so these
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Jews, due to their unbelief in Jesus, would forfeit the joy and blessing of entering the true
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Promised Land, even eternal life, the true rest for the people.
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So he's drawing a literary narrative parallel here from Old Testament to New Testament.
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Now, verses 41 and 42 reveal the real nature of the unbelief of these Jews. They refused to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was actually
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God incarnate. They denied the incarnation. They refused to believe that he was the true life -giving bread that God sent to them.
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They had understood well what Jesus was claiming for himself. When Jesus declared that he came down from heaven, they knew what he was claiming and proclaiming, that he was proclaiming his preexistence to being born into this world.
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He came down from heaven. And so this is actually a claim of Jesus, that he is
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God himself. He came down from heaven. But their reaction was not one of faith when he declared that he was the true bread that came down from heaven, but one of unbelief, as seen in their murmuring and grumbling.
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They complained. It's as though they were saying among themselves, how could a man with whose family they were well acquainted make such a claim as he did?
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How could he provide much less be the food of immortality? How could he be the bond of heaven and earth?
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They rejected it totally. They reasoned among themselves, is not this
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Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says,
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I have come down from heaven? Calvin wrote, I think, a good word about this.
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The Jews, therefore, murmured concerning him. The evangelist, that would be
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John, of course, explains the cause of the murmuring to have been that the Jews were offended at the mean, and what he meant by that was the simple and humble condition of Christ's human nature, and did not perceive in him anything divine or heavenly.
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And yet he shows that they had a twofold obstruction. There were two things preventing them from seeing the truth.
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One, they had framed for themselves out of a false opinion when they said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
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And another arose from a wicked sentiment that they did not think that Christ was the son of God because he came down men clothed with our flesh.
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In other words, in a humble, rather debased manner. But we are guilty of excessive malignity if we despise the
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Lord of glory because on account he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant.
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For this was rather an illustrious proof of his boundless love toward us and his wonderful grace.
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And besides, the divine majesty of Christ was not so concealed under the mean and contemptible appearance of the flesh as not to give out the rays of his brightness in a variety of ways.
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But those gross and stupid men wanted eyes to see his conspicuous glory.
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They refused to believe on him for who he was. They denied the incarnation.
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If they had seen his glory rightly as the son of God incarnate, they would have rejoiced and even celebrated his condescending love and that he humbled himself to take upon himself human nature so that he could reveal
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God to us and redeem us from sin through his suffering and death. But instead they derided him and rejected him in their unbelief.
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They refused to believe him for who he was because they refused to believe both his words and the signs that the
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Father had done through him. By the way, when they responded, and again it's like a single character, the
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Jews, the crowd, the people, it's not like they all in unison said these words like we were talking in unison earlier, but this is a sentiment, the idea that they were being expressed, being expressed by them, is not this
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Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? This does not mean that Joseph was still alive at the time of this event.
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We might wrongly conclude that. This simply shows that the people of Capernaum knew who his parents were, they were
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Joseph and Mary. But in their justified reasoning, how then could he claim for himself preexistence?
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As one wrote about this, the audience's language need not imply that Joseph was alive, it means we know who this man's parents were, how could he have come down from heaven?
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John and his readers understand that the Capernaum congregation had no inkling of the mystery of the incarnation, of the fact that Jesus, while he entered human life by a real birth, was at the same time the eternal word.
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And so there is a sense of a firm denial and rejection of Jesus' claims by these
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Jews. Again they said, is this not Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know?
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By the way, in our English translation, the way the question is stated, the we know in that question is said at the end of the question, isn't it?
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But in the Greek text, the Greek words for we know is actually put in a position within the sentence to give emphasis.
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We know. They were convinced. It's an impossibility. What he's claiming for himself is wrong.
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It's error. It's not true. And they were convinced of it. And so they do not stop to question their assumptions that because Jesus was lowly and because he was well known to them, therefore he could not have been from heaven.
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They fasten their attention on his claim to have come from heaven and not on that to give life.
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Had they understood this and believed this, they would have received eternal life. This just reflects the sinfulness of man, doesn't it?
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The depravity of man. You can throw out all the miracles, all the claims, all the teaching, but if people don't believe in the incarnation, if they don't believe
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Jesus Christ is eternal God who took upon himself human nature, as the God -man, you cannot have salvation.
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You're going to die in your sins. In spite of the fact that everlasting life was right at the door there.
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Right there. If you would have embraced it, if you would have believed it, lived accordingly, you'd be granted the gift of everlasting life.
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You refuse, you're damned. And I think one of the greatest punishments in eternal hell will be a sense of regret, a forfeited opportunity, reflecting on why didn't
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I hear? Why didn't I understand? Why didn't I believe? Why didn't I embrace it?
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And now there's no hope for me. This is one of the greatest obstacles that we have when we try to bring a person to hear carefully and seriously our claims that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation.
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There's nothing about these Jews that's different from any other people that we try and reach with Christ today. Society with its so -called education system has shaped people's thinking, value system, and beliefs, which along with the limitation of personal experience results in people rejecting out of hand the things that do not coincide with their present perception of things.
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They were thinking logically, or at least they thought they were. This couldn't be. His claim cannot be true.
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And then when you couple this with their spiritual ignorance and central resistance to admit error and the out -and -out infidelity of their hearts, it results in them immediately dismissing your witness when you try and speak of Jesus Christ as God, who became one of us in order to save us from eternal death into everlasting life.
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And so when you speak to them, they discredit your claims because they have entrenched beliefs and values that are the bedrock of their souls.
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And this is how they interpret things, see things, value things. This is how they make assessments as to what's true and false.
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And so the only possible way that we'll see victory in these matters is if we resort to the message and means that the
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Lord has appointed for us. And there's only one way that will penetrate that kind of thinking and feeling so as to bring people to salvation through Jesus Christ.
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And so ultimately, of course, if a breakthrough is to happen, the Father himself, through Jesus Christ, must break through and cast down those false understandings, those errors of thinking and believing until they embrace
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Jesus Christ as he's presented in the Gospel. It's a work of grace. And it's not going to happen apart from God acting.
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God the Father acting. And this is what the Lord Jesus is declaring in this passage. Paul argued that this is what we do, in effect, by proclaiming
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Christ. Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
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We don't try and manipulate people, persuade people by telling half -truths, winning them over to our persuasion.
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And then they hear about it down the line. Why didn't you tell me the truth about these matters? I don't want any part of this.
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No, Paul said no. We attempt to cast down arguments, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, attempting to bring every thought and activity to the obedience of Christ.
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And so the fact is, as Christians, as a church, as a pastor, we labor in the realm of ideas and words, speaking the truth of God's Word even as we try to identify that which is false and errant in people's thinking and practice and attempt to correct the content of their faith so that true faith may be placed solely and wholly on Jesus Christ our
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Lord. And presently when we come to them, it's placed on other things and we have to dismantle those, discredit those, cast those down with the truth of God's Word so they see
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Jesus Christ and Him alone as He's set forth in the Scriptures. And there are many today, many in churches who do not desire this kind of gospel ministry, however.
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We only want to accentuate the positive. We only want to win them with love and acceptance.
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Love will win them in the end. But this is not the ministry of the gospel. This does not describe the ministry of the apostles and certainly not of the
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Lord Jesus. Now granted, we don't want to alienate people by caustic speech and bad attitudes, harsh attitudes.
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It was foretold of our Savior in Isaiah, He'll not quarrel or cry out. We don't do that.
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We don't insult people. Nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets.
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A bruised reed, He'll not break. A smoking flax, He'll not quench. The Lord Jesus was tender with people in speaking to them who truly had an interest and concern, had doubts and struggles.
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He always welcomed the sincere inquirer and apparently most everybody thought
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Him to be approachable, even children. But even while we witness to others of Jesus Christ with genuine concern and sincere persuasion, we realize that we're not capable of converting a soul to Jesus Christ.
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Through all of our appeals, all of our arguments, all of our persuasive speech, it will not do a thing.
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For the scriptures tell us it's our impossible task to win the day against this opposition of unbelief that stems from one who has no spiritual life within him.
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One who is in addition held captive by the devil and yet out of our concern for their souls and our desire for the
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Lord to be glorified, we persist in speaking with that one we know needs Jesus Christ as His Lord and Savior over perhaps
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His objections and His resistance and His reaction because we care about their souls.
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And as we do speak to them, we pray and trust the Lord to win that soul to Himself. For unless God acts, it's not going to happen.
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But again, thankfully, God has purposed to save His people, His elect, as John talks about repeatedly in his
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Gospel, by means of the message we proclaim. As Paul wrote of our message in Romans, I'm not ashamed of the
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Gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew and to the
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Greek. And so when the Gospel is proclaimed rightly, with content, in fullness of truth, and the
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Lord Himself blesses that message, God Himself, while we're giving that message, creates life in that dead center.
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Clearly illustrated in the Valley of Dry Bones back in Ezekiel. I've got a lot of stuff here
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I can't divert myself. But, you know, Ezekiel, can these bones live? You know,
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Lord. Preach to them, Ezekiel. And so I stood and prophesied to that Valley of Bones.
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And as I proclaimed the Word of God, they came together. They stood up a great and mighty army, but there was no breath in them, no life, no spirit within them.
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God says to Ezekiel, prophesy to them, Ezekiel. And as I did, the spirit came upon them, the wind came upon them, the breath of life, and they lived a great and mighty army.
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And that's what happens when people are converted to Christ. There's something that superintends us.
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The words we speak are used by God to convert people. And so, you know, we don't go around looking for seekers.
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There's none that seeks after God. We go to every creature and we proclaim Christ as clearly and fully as we can, every opportunity we have, as fully as they'll allow it in their presence.
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And we pray, even while we do, that God will bless His work. But at the heart of our message that we proclaim of Jesus Christ is this matter of the incarnation.
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Jesus Christ is God who is also fully man. And if people don't come to understand this and believe this, they cannot have salvation.
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And clearly that's one of the emphases of our Lord Jesus. The work of sovereign grace in saving sinners is attested to everywhere in the
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Holy Scriptures. When Peter was writing to Christians, he detailed the grace of God that had been operative in their souls.
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He writes to Christians, Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth of the Spirit and sincere love for the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.
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And then he describes really what caused this change within them. Having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible through the
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Word of God. The Word of God is that seed, life -giving seed that's infused and implanted in a soul and life springs forth from that seed of the
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Word of God. And this Word of God lives and abides forever because everything else is faulty, futile, temporary.
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All flesh is as grass, all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withers, its flower fades away, but the
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Word of the Lord endures forever. And now this is the Word which by the Gospel was preached to you.
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And so the Gospel is the very instrument that God uses to save sinners.
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And He's a great Savior for great sinners. The only way God's going to be greatly glorified is if He goes after great sinners and saves them.
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Yes, He saves little sinners too, but He's greatly glorified by saving great sinners.
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Paul also wrote of the power of God working through the Gospel to create spiritual life in dead, unresponsive sinners in his epistle to the
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Corinthians. Therefore, having this ministry, by the mercy of God, we don't lose heart.
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Paul says we don't get discouraged, we don't feel defeated, we're not going to give up. We've renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
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He's talking about sophists who are going around and convincing people of their ways through the ability to speak and persuade because their speech was so polished.
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We've renounced disgraceful, unhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word.
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We don't just pick out some truths that we think will be palatable to sinners. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everybody's conscience and the sight of God.
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And even if our Gospel is veiled, even if they're clueless and they don't understand, they don't hear it, the reason it's veiled is because they're perishing.
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And the reason this is the case is because the God of this world, the devil, has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the
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Gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. See, they can't see the Incarnation. A fallen, unsaved person cannot see it.
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They don't want to see it, but they can't. The devil has blinded them to it. They don't see it.
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How can anyone then be saved if they're blind? They can't see the truth. They respond to the truth.
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He goes to reason with them. For we proclaim not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
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For God, the same God who in Genesis 1 said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
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And so we pray, we preach the Word of God, we teach the Word of God, and yet we know everybody's blind to it.
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But the devil has blinded them to it. They have an aversion to it. But when God turns on the lights, you can't hold them back.
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They see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. They see that He is God who took upon Himself a human nature.
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He's the God -man, and there's salvation in Him. And so God shines this understanding and knowledge within the soul of the sinner.
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He or she sees it, understands it, embraces it, and trusts it, and has wonderfully, gloriously converted and transformed new life.
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Again, this is all through the instrument of the Word of God. It's our responsibility to teach and preach the
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Word of God as it is in truth, without curving and apologizing for cutting the corners because we think it's going to be offensive.
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Now, the Lord Jesus went after the juggler with everybody He ever talked to. Again, tender -hearted to the adulterer, you know, the prostitute.
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Tender -hearted toward her. But when He stood up behind it before a crowd that were murmuring and grumbling and wouldn't hear, went at it.
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And He went at it with any individual. He didn't just kind of creep in and try and persuade along the side to make some kind of appeal to the desires in the flesh.
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He would go to the point of greatest obstruction within that sinner's soul or thinking, and He'd nail it.
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And that's what we're to do with the truth of God. We try and assess what it is a person thinks, what they've been taught, what they believe.
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This stronghold, it's like a castle, and we assault it with the truth of God. And if the
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Holy Spirit is blessing His Word, He's going to take it down. And these people that were full of obstinacy, error, and ignorance, all of a sudden, why didn't
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I see it before? God turns on the lights, and they're transformed.
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It's all a work of the grace of God. So Paul can tell the church at Thessalonica, those Christians, He called you to salvation by our
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Gospel. And that's why we, again, as a church, I certainly do as an individual, attempt to declare and proclaim the
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Gospel as clearly and fully in as many different ways, opportunities, everything that affords us.
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Disseminate that word. It's seed you're sowing like a farmer, and we're going to see a crop. And the more you sow, the more crop you're going to see.
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It's a truism. And thank the Lord that He blesses
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His work. Well, we see in verses 41 and 42, the
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Jews reacted to Jesus of His claim to preexistence. And so following this, Jesus reacted to the
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Jews, rebuking them for their unbelief while exalting the role of His Father in bringing souls to believe on Him.
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Jesus, therefore, answered, said to them, Do not murmur among yourselves. Stop your complaining. No one can come to Me unless the
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Father who sent Me draws him. I'll raise him up at the last day. It's all of grace.
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The Father has to do it. Jesus was basically telling them that they were entirely wrong in the way that they were assessing what was true of the spiritual realm.
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You're clueless. Do not murmur among yourselves. You know what's harder than attempting to win a single individual to Christ is trying to win a gathering of unbelievers to Christ.
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Because they're all in agreement. You're nuts. But they've got the truth. And this is how these
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Jews thought on this occasion. They were all wrong in their understanding of Jesus, but they were all in agreement with one another that they were right in dismissing
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His claims. And by the way, this is one reason why cults are so dangerous.
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And it's difficult to win a person out of them. Because you're not just winning an individual. You're trying to pull an individual out of a group of which they have all in agreement about their error and their doctrine.
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And so that individual stands in opposition to the truth. And together they murmur against the truth when they're together agreeing with one another why our truth claims from Scripture are irrelevant or errant.
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And it takes great grace for the Lord to pull someone out of that setting and bring him to reject his former understanding and those that he may have known when he grew up.
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I talked to a young man yesterday and he told me his testimony. He and his wife were raised in the
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Adventist denomination up in Maine. And he and his wife were converted three years ago.
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She was teaching school in the Adventist school. And they heard the gospel and were gloriously converted and they're attending an evangelical church now.
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And so I inquired of him, well, what did you know? What did you hear when you grew up in that setting? Did you ever hear the gospel?
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Never once. I never heard the gospel in all my life growing up in that movement. It was all in my mind, you know, works of the law.
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And he says, I picked up and read the book of Galatians one day and it just destroyed all that. And he came to salvation in Christ.
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Now I am of the persuasion that there are some Adventists that truly have been wrought upon by the grace of God in salvation, even though they may have a lot of problems and error in some things.
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I've met some that I truly believe were born again. But it wasn't necessarily because they were taught by Ellen G.
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White. She's a heretic. But they were reading the scriptures and God in his mercy and grace revealed the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and they embraced him and only him, not their works for their salvation.
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That individual, however, has to stop his ears to all the calls and the cries of his, maybe even, family members and maybe longtime friends.
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I've got to seek the truth. Nothing but the truth. Jesus Christ, reveal yourself to me. And when thinking about this,
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I thought of how Bunyan, John Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, described
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Christian who was known as graceless when he lived in the city of destruction.
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Then when he started reading the Bible, he became convicted of sin and then the evangelist, the character, came to him, instructed him to flee to the celestial city.
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And we read Bunyan's description of this man who had not yet come to faith in Christ. So I saw in my dream that the man began to run.
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And now he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return.
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But the man put his fingers in his ears and ran crying, Life, life, eternal life.
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And so he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain. And that's a depiction of like Lot and his wife fleeing out of Sodom.
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He knew the city was going to be overthrown and destroyed. And then the neighbors also came out to see him run.
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And as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, some cried after him to return. And a lot of times you'll have a family member or someone within a community of this faith that's not a true faith, not truly gospel -centered, really not focused on Christ, but rather Christ, and then he's obscured with all these other things added.
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And then they start hearing of Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone. And they have to stop their ears as they're being told differently by their friends and their family.
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But they do so because they're compelled to do so. God has revealed himself to them. They know they cannot deny it.
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And he's calling them and drawing them unto himself. And so they flee. Well, again,
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Jesus told these ones, we're at the top page seven now, that they needed to stop murmuring and complaining among themselves.
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This attitude exhibited by them all would not bring benefit to any one of them. Their collective unbelief and resistance was unreasonable and damnable.
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Don't listen to the world. You can find a thousand arguments why you shouldn't believe the
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Bible, why you shouldn't believe on Jesus Christ. They're there. They're all over the place. And they'll help damn your soul because what they say is going to resonate with you, at least your fallen nature and your thinking, too, because your thinking isn't clear about these matters.
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God the Father has to reveal Himself. They're murmuring about these matters as aggravating their condemnation.
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Stop your murmuring and your grumbling, Jesus says to them. But then again, our
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Lord said further, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up at the last day.
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Here the Lord Jesus spoke about the inability of fallen man to come unto Jesus Christ in faith.
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No one can come to me. They are unable to come. And the reason of their inability is their unwillingness to come.
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God doesn't condemn them for their inability. He condemns them for their unwillingness to come.
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We offer Christ to sinners. Come to Him. Anyone, any one of us can have eternal life if we come to Jesus in faith, believing on Him for our salvation.
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But there's something perverse in our thinking and our souls that will convince us to do something else, to do something other, or to postpone coming to Jesus Christ.
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J. C. Ryle wrote of the meaning and implication of verse 44. The general lesson of the sentence apart from the connection is one of vast importance.
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Our Lord lays down the great principle that no man whatsoever can come to Christ by faith and really believe in Him unless God the
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Father draws him so to come and incline his will to believe. The nature of man since the fall is so corrupt and depraved that even when
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Christ is made known and preached to him, he will not come to Him and believe in Him without the special grace of God inclining
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His will and giving Him a disposition to come. Moral persuasion and advice alone will not bring
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Him. He must be drawn. See, the Father has to draw Him. This is no doubt a very humbling truth, one which in every age has called forth the hatred and opposition of man.
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Spurgeon preached the sermon, you know, sovereign grace hated by religionists, and they do.
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The favorite notion of man is that he can do what he likes, repent or not repent, believe or not believe, come to Christ or not to come, entirely at his own discretion.
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In fact, man likes to think that his salvation is in his own power, and such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us.
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The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable and cannot be explained away. They can't get past John 6.
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Take note closely of the statement again in verse 44. Here we read of the work of salvation that's carried out by both
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God the Father and by Jesus Christ, His Son. First Jesus declared, No one can come to me.
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And yet this is the great need of man, isn't it? Of mankind to come to Jesus. But no man can come to me.
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This means coming to him in faith, depending on him alone for the work, entire work, of securing our salvation.
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No one can do that. It's because we're sinners. Everyone and anyone, however, must get to him.
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But you can't. You won't. That's the issue. But then
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Jesus said, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Clearly the
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Lord Jesus is setting the difference between people who come to salvation and those who don't or fail as due to the grace of God the
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Father operating in their souls. We must get to Christ. But the only way that will happen is if God the
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Father who sent his Son to be our Savior draws the sinner unto Christ. And that's a calling.
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And he calls us through the Gospel. And then the Lord said, Of that one who is enabled by the
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Father to come unto him in faith, I'll raise him up at the last day. In other words, he'll come into the resurrection of life, everlasting life.
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Well, then Jesus called upon Scripture to substantiate what he was saying regarding the sovereign grace of the
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Father and bringing sinners to salvation. This is what we have in verses 45 and 46. It's written in the
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Prophets. And he uses plural Prophets because they were all probably collected together. The Prophets.
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Specifically, he's quoting Isaiah 54. It's written in the Prophets. And they shall all be taught by God.
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He's referring to everybody who comes to salvation. They shall all be taught by God. And therefore, everyone who's heard and learned from the
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Father comes to me. Not some of their own free will. Everyone that learns from the
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Father of this Gospel message comes to him.
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Truly learn from the Father he calls them. Not that anyone has seen the
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Father except he was from God. He's seen the Father. So the Lord called upon the
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Holy Scriptures, Isaiah 54, to substantiate this. We won't read the entire passage, but here it follows immediately after that fourth servant song.
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Talk about the suffering servant who dies for his people. And then he's raised, of course, and then
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Isaiah 54 speaks about the great expansion of the Gospel into all the world. Isaiah 54 is prophetic of this church age.
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And within this passage, talking about all these believers in this Messiah who are bought by his death on the cross, his suffering and death.
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All your children shall be taught by the Lord. All Christians are Christians because God himself has taught them and drawn them through the
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Gospel. And so it's a prophecy of God restoring Zion, bringing his people unto himself.
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It's a promise of the worldwide expansion of the Gospel. And all of these children, all that are redeemed by the
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Lord are taught by the Lord. And in John 6, 45, Jesus calls upon this verse to substantiate what he said.
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None can come unto me unless the Father draws them. As the Scripture says, they'll all be taught by God himself, the
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Lord. Here we see the authority of the Father to save everyone he's chosen from eternity to be saved from sin and damnation.
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He will teach that sinner to come to faith in Jesus Christ. How does the Father teach a sinner in this way?
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Well, the Father reveals to the sinner the truth of the person of Jesus. The Holy Spirit gives them an understanding and not just an understanding intellectually, but an understanding and an embracing of it as true, as true.
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And embraces the promise that's in this. I believe on him as my Savior. And I have everlasting life.
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God gives it freely to me. It's a work of the Father. You remember what
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Jesus told Peter when he first pulled that confession out of Peter? Who do people say that the
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Son of Man is? Oh, you're one of the prophets, you know, whatever. Yeah, now who do you say that I am?
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Peter, you're the Christ, the Son of the living God. Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, bar
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Jonah. Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. You can only understand and believe so as to impact your life that Jesus is
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God and man as the Father teaches you it so. It's an act of sovereign grace within the soul that we come to embrace this.
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And so this drawing and teaching of the Father speaks of this effectual call of the Father unto salvation.
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They will come to me. The Father draws and teaches, resulting in them coming.
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The Father is sovereign in this, otherwise they will not come. John 1 declares this too, as many as received him, to them gave he the authority, the power to become sons of God.
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But they were born not out of the will of the flesh, not out of the will of man, but they were born of God.
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God caused them to be born again, and that's why they received Christ. They didn't receive
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Christ and become born again. They became born of the Father, and therefore they received
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Christ. And Jesus is saying the same thing here in John chapter 6. No one can come unto me unless the
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Father in heaven has drawn him. And when he draws him, he will come.
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And the Lord made this curious statement here. I know we're running out of time here, but I really want to get to the last, because I really want to finish this today.
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Please bear with us. This is important. Jesus said not that anyone has seen the
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Father except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. This is one of the strongest claims to the deity of Jesus Christ that we have in the
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Scriptures. People come to the Father by Christ drawing and teaching, not through them seeing the
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Father, for that's not possible for finite human beings. No one has ever seen the Father except Jesus Christ.
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Well, how can that be? We read through the Scriptures. A whole lot of people saw God. Isaiah saw
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God. Isaiah 6 -1. I was caught up into heaven. I saw him sitting on the throne. His train filled the temple.
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You have the parents of, who was it, Samuel, who saw the angel. We saw
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God. We've lived. How could this be? Jacob wrestled with God. We read there at Peniel, back in Genesis.
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Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the garden. We read of the manifestation of God's presence on the throne in Revelation 4.
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How can Jesus say no man has ever seen God? Well, what he's declaring, of course, that no one has seen
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God in his essential glory. That's not possible because we know from the
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Scriptures that God is spirit. He's invisible. Without body, parts, or passions, as our confession states.
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Dwelling in light which no man can approach. Nobody has ever seen God. Well, all these manifestations of God that people saw throughout the
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Bible, therefore, are really limited manifestations of God that he reveals to people so that they can know him.
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But there's never been any full disclosure of God to any human being. You cannot see me and live, he told
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Moses when Moses wanted to see his full glory. And so all of these manifestations of seeing
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God throughout the Bible are really very limited representations of who
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God is and what he's like. The one person accepted, Jesus Christ. He alone has seen
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God. How can that be? How can a finite human being see the infinite
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God? It's not possible. Only an infinite one can see an infinite
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God. Jesus Christ himself is God. Infinite God, the Son of God, who himself saw fully and clearly the infinite
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God the Father. It's a clear statement of his deity here.
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There's no other explanation. We really don't have time to go into that in great detail.
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Let's just turn to page 11 at the top and here we see Jesus declared that the one who believes in him has everlasting life.
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We want to conclude emphasizing this matter. Jesus said further, Most assuredly
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I say to you that he who believes in me has present possession, everlasting life.
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I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die.
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I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever.
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And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.
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Let's look closely at the statement of verse 47. He said, Most assuredly
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I say to you he who believes in me has everlasting life. When Jason read it out of the
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ESV I think it said truly, truly, is the ESV translation.
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It is another example and it's only found in John's Gospel and there's 25 occasions and I forget which one this is.
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But it's Jesus literally saying amen, amen, or amine, amine. Verily, verily, is the
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King James translate. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life.
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First understand what Jesus was not saying that a lot of people wrongly read into this.
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Jesus was not teaching that if a person puts forth a single act of faith that he is then granted eternal life.
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That is not taught in this verse. And this is important. What then was he saying?
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He was declaring that the one who is continually believing has everlasting life.
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The error of decisionism is a gross error but a common assumption believed in practice by most evangelicals.
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It goes something like this. People are told if they but place their faith in Jesus in a one -time decision for Christ they are then and there given everlasting life.
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This manner of teaching and preaching really began with Charles Finney who was a heretic by the way. He didn't believe in justification by grace and faith alone back in the 19th century.
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And it's continued to this day among evangelicals promoted in crusade evangelism. Gospel tracts popularized to well -meaning but errant soul winners.
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If you make this decision for Christ it's hard to find a good gospel tract because they all end in the sinner's prayer.
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If you make this if you express this act of faith this one act of faith you can have the gift of everlasting life.
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The Bible never presents that. Clearly the Bible tells us when we begin believing at the very first moment you believe you become justified by God once and forever through faith alone.
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But it's a wrong conclusion to say therefore all you have to do is exercise a single act of faith and then you're a
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Christian. This verse doesn't say that. It's all in the present tense. He who is believing has everlasting life.
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Frankly it doesn't matter what you believed twenty years ago or thirty years ago. What are you believing today? That's the question posed to you.
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Are you believing that Jesus Christ whom we set forth before you in the word of God today is eternal
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God who became a man assumed to human nature became the God man. Are you embracing him and trusting him solely and alone for salvation?
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Are you believing on him? I assure you by the promise of God you have everlasting life.
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Not will have one day. You have. In John's Gospel it's a present quality of life.
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You have everlasting life if you're believing. Doesn't matter what you once believed.
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God doesn't promise salvation to temporary believers. He promises salvation to believers.
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And he assured us here. He who believes on me has everlasting life.
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And everywhere in the scriptures it says that. John 3 16 is so misrepresented. For God so loved the world that whosoever did once believe on him whosoever believes on him has everlasting life.
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Shall not perish. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.
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Again, not a one time act a one time decision. But it's a life long faith.
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And here he says most assuredly I say to you he who believes in me has everlasting life.
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And so the question we would pose today to you as we close. Are you a believer in Jesus Christ?
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Do you believe on him now as we've said before him in the Holy Scriptures? Are you presently trusting him alone as your
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Lord and Savior for who he is? Then I assure you by God's promise by the Lord Jesus' promise most assuredly
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I say to you he who believes in me has everlasting life. You may not understand that.
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You may doubt it and what not. But based on the Lord Jesus' promise if you believe on him if you're believing on him you have everlasting life.
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That's a truism. Most assuredly verily verily I say unto you this is an important matter.
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Why doubt it? He tells you so. And the
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Lord Jesus in driving this matter home tells his hearers once again I am the bread of life.
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He's repeated what he said earlier. The one who feeds on me. There's the idea of continual feeding too.
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Not a one time. But we feed upon Jesus and he's talking about believing on the
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Lord Jesus. That's the imagery presented here. As they ate the manna over 40 years and died we eat the manna continually the true bread from heaven and we have everlasting life.
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We'll never die. That's what the promise of scripture is. Because he is the true bread that comes down from heaven.
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And again he underscores his divine nature once again. I am the true bread living bread which what?
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Which came down from heaven. And so to feed on him rightly is to believe that he is God who took upon himself our human nature and we have faith in the one who's both
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God and man to save our souls. And that's our only hope. Nothing in here
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I'm going to cling to. You know it's on him. I'm believing on him and only on him.
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Well this last statement to the Jews gotta rise from them. You know. You gotta eat me?
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He's telling us we gotta eat him? That's cannibalism in these Jews' minds. Can you imagine anything more offensive?
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There's something very comforting to the believer. There's something confrontive to the unbeliever here. And the opposition just grew intense against him even as those few that believed on him must have certainly been assured by what he had to say.
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And he declared further if anyone eats of this bread he'll live forever and the bread I give is my flesh which
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I shall give for the life of the world implying his death upon the cross his crucifixion.
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Well the question again we pose in conclusion today do you believe on the Lord Jesus? Do you believe on him as he himself claimed to be and proved to be throughout scripture?
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Well then tell somebody. Tell somebody. I'm a believer.
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Jesus Christ is Lord. But more than that Jesus Christ is my Lord. I'm believing on him alone for salvation from my sin and for the gift of eternal life that he has given me.
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And I would argue if that's true of you that you shouldn't just confess that to somebody else. But you ought to stand forward and confess it in baptism because that's the way
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God would have you most confess Christ openly through that obedience to that command where the
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Lord Jesus declared believers should be baptized. And he gave this blessed promise even accompanied with a dire warning whosoever confesses me before men him
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I will also confess before my father is in heaven. He's talking about judgment day. But whoever denies me before men him
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I will also deny before my father who's in heaven. Let us confess
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Christ not only to ourselves to the Lord but to one another as well. We're believing on him and only on him for our salvation.
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And he's promised that we have it now. And we give evidence that we belong to him because we're believing on him.
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We wouldn't have done so if it were not for the Father drawing us and teaching us to do so.
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And many of us can remember a time when it wasn't that way by any stretch of the imagination.
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But we are today and it's because God has done a work of grace in our souls. Amen. God gets the glory for all of this and yet we get a lot of comfort in return if we believe it and embrace it.
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Amen. Let's pray. Thank you Father for your word. And we pray that you would help us to declare
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Christ fully and openly before others in all the truth in which he reveals himself in your holy word.
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And we pray our Father that you would draw many to your son. They must get to him and yet it's impossible apart from your grace.
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Bless your word. Bless the gospel that we proclaim and we distribute. And we pray the
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Holy Spirit Lord would summon and call and impart spiritual life to those that are under the hearing of the instrument of your gospel.
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we'll give you the glory for all of it our Father for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.