Kashrut and Famine — Jacob Prasch

Hello, dear friends. This is Jacob Taft coming to you today. Come with me, please, to the book of Leviticus, Chapter 11. Leviticus, Chapter 11. When the Lord spoke again to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them, Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, These are the creatures which you may eat from all of the animals that are on the earth.

Whatever divides the hook, thus making split hooks, and chews the cud among the animals that you may eat. Nevertheless, you are not to eat of these animals, among those which chew the cud, or among those which divide the hoof.

The camel, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof. It is unclean to you. Likewise, the rock badger, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hook. It is unclean to you. The rabbit also, for though it chews cud, it does not divide the hook.

It is unclean to you. And the pig, for though it divides the hoof, thus making a split hook, it does not chew cud. It is unclean to you. You shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their carcasses, they are unclean to you.

These you may eat, whatever is in the water, all that have fins and scales, those in the water, in the seas, or in the rivers, you may eat. But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that do not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you, and they shall be abhorrent to you.

You may not eat of their flesh and their carcasses, you shall detest. Whatever in the water does not have fins and scales is abhorrent to you. These moreover you shall detest among the birds, they are abhorrent not to be eaten.

The eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, and the kite and the falcon in its kind, every raven in its kind, the ostrich and the owl, the seagull, the hawk in its kind, the little owl and the coromant and the great owl, and the white owl and the pelican and the carrion vulture and the skork, the heron in its kind, the hoopoe and the bat.

All the winged insects that walk on all fours are detestable to you, yet these you may eat among all the winged insects which walk on all fours. Those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth, these of them you may eat, the locust in its kind and the devastating locust in its kind, and the cricket in its kind and the grasshopper in its kind, but all other winged insects which are four-footed are detestable to you.

By these, moreover, you will be made unclean. Whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, and whoever picks up any of their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening.

Concerning all the animals which revive the hoof but do not make a split hoof or which do not shoot cud, they are unclean to you. Whoever touches them becomes unclean. Also, whatever walks on its paws among all the creatures that walk on all fours are unclean to you.

Whoever touches their carcasses becomes unclean until evening, and the one who picks up their carcasses shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. They are unclean to you. Now these are to you the unclean among the swarming things which swarm on the earth, the mole, the mouse, the great lizard in its kind, and the gecko, and the crocodile, and the lizard, the fan reptile, and the chameleon.

These are to you the unclean among all of the swarming things. Whoever touches them, when they are dead, becomes unclean until evening. Also, anything on which one of them may fall when they are dead becomes unclean, including any wooden article or clothing or skin or a sack, anything of which use is made.

It shall be put into water and be unclean until evening. Then it becomes clean. As for any earthenware vessel into which one of them may fall, whatever is in it becomes unclean and you shall break the vessel.

Any of the food which may be eaten on which water comes shall become unclean, and any liquid which may be drunk in every vessel shall become unclean. Everything moreover on which part of their carcass may fall becomes unclean.

An oven or a stove shall be smashed, they are unclean and shall continue as unclean to you. Nevertheless, a spring or a cistern collecting water shall be clean, though the one who touches their carcasses shall be unclean.

And if a part of their carcass falls on any seed for growing which is to be sown, it is clean, though if water is put on the seed and a part of the carcass falls on it, it is unclean to you. Also, if one of the animals dies which you have for food, the one who touches its carcass becomes unclean until evening.

He too who eats some of its carcass shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening, and the one who picks up its carcass shall wash his clothes and shall be unclean until evening. Now every swarming thing that swarms on the earth is detestable, not to be eaten.

Whoever crawls on its belly, whatever crawls, and whatever walks on all fours, whatever has many feet in respect to every swarming thing that swarms on the earth, you shall not eat them, for they are detestable.

Do not render yourselves detestable to any of the swarming things that swarm, and you shall not make yourselves unclean with them, so that you become unclean. For I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy.

You shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God, thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.

This is the law regarding the animal, and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters, and everything that swarms on the earth, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.".

Kashrut and the Fulfillment of the Dietary Laws

Notice, we are to make a distinction. This is known as kashrut, kashrut, from the Hebrew word kosher, the Hebrew dietary laws. Kashrut. What does this mean for a believer? We know these laws are fulfilled in the New Testament in the Lord Jesus.

Novum testamentum in veterae latet, if you like Latin, the new is in the old concealed. It points to him in some way. But first of all, for the Jewish people of its own day, it had some very practical meanings.

Jewish people had far less infectious disease communicated by food. They had far less botulism, which would be transmitted through pork products, or far less things like trigonosis. Again, the hot climate of the Middle East would have made eating things like shellfish and pork quite dangerous in that climate.

So, because of the Torah, the Hebrews had a much higher standard of public health, and one aspect of this was their diet. God protected them from infectious disease through eating kosher. We're told that anything, anything unclean shall be abhorrent to you.

The Hebrew thought and document is that it would inordinate you, that it would actually make you sick even contemplating it. But once again the question comes, since the law is fulfilled in Yeshua, Jesus, what does it mean for us as Christians?

Peter’s Vision and the Gentile Mission

To begin to look at this, let's turn to the book of Acts, chapter 10, and we'll see where these animals appear. At the house of Simon the tanner, Peter goes up to the roof to pray, and God is preparing for salvation to come to the Gentiles.

And we read that a kind of tablecloth comes down from the sky, and in it, verse 12, were all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. And a voice came to Peter three times, telling him to kill and eat.

Peter said, I only eat what's kosher, I never eat anything unclean. But God tells him, what the Lord has called clean, don't call unclean. We therefore read that these animals in the Old Testament are types of different kinds of people.

They are shadows of different kinds of people. People who were not Jews. Now I don't mean not Jews in a racial sense, or an ethnic sense, simply that they were Gentiles, but not Jews in the sense of their faith, of their belief.

They believed things that were not fitting to believe. For instance, when the Lord Jesus was asked by a Syro-Phoenician woman, a Gentile woman, to heal her daughter, who was demon-possessed, Jesus told her, it's not fit to give children's bread to the dogs.

Now in fact, in the Greek text, it uses the diminutive term for dogs, puppies. It's almost a term of affection. Jesus wasn't calling her daughter a dog. He wasn't suggesting he didn't love that Gentile girl as much as he would have loved a little Jewish girl.

What he was saying is, your religion is unfit for human consumption. What you believe, what you are eating is only fit for dogs. Thus, these unclean animals are people who ate unclean things. They believed for doctrine.

Spiritual Nourishment and Christian Maturity

Let's understand this idea of eating in terms of the teachings that we believe. Metabolically, what we eat, we are. That's true physically, organically, but it is also true spiritually. Turn with me, please, to the Epistles to the Hebrews, chapter 5.

This is what we read, commencing in verse 12. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness he's obeyed. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

Therefore, leave the elementary teachings about the Messiah. Let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead work and of faith toward God, of instruction about washing, laying on of hands the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And this we shall do if God permits. What Hebrews tells us is, there's basic teaching, basic biblical teaching about Jesus and about the gospel and about repentance and the resurrection. That's baby food.

Baby food is fine, it's good for babies. Baby food is milk. Milk is high in calcium and necessary for calcification of bone tissue. A bone tissue, the skeleton system, is the framework upon which the meat goes.

Now, if you have a baby and you give babies meat, they'll choke. Meat is unhealthy for babies. It needs milk to develop its bone tissue. Once the bones are in place, however, you have to begin weaning the baby onto solid food.

So it is with the Christian. Milk, milk, milk. When you have a church that gives nothing but basic teaching, they're only giving people milk. People will never properly grow. They'll have the basic truth, they'll have the basic structure, they'll have the skeleton of the Christian faith, but they're not going to be a healthy body.

Just look at these terrible pictures we see in the newspapers and on the news of these starving children in Central Africa and the Sahel. All you see is skin with bones popping out. There is no meat. They're not healthy.

This is not good. Now, look what it says about a baby. Solid food is for the mature, who can discern good and evil. A little baby crawling on the floor, an infant or a toddler, he will put anything in his mouth or her mouth, they can.

Anything that fits in a baby's mouth, a baby will try to eat. If the mother has to take things that the baby can reach and make them inaccessible. A baby cannot discern good or evil. It'll eat anything.

So it is with the baby in Christ. A new Christian will believe any kind of doctrine that comes along. But it's not to be like that. The epistles of the Hebrews lament when this is the case. But you know, it's so much the case of many Christians today.

The only thing they know is baby food. They can't discern good and evil. So they'll believe any kind of doctrine that comes along. False doctrine, false teaching. Faith prosperity teaching. Various kinds of ecumenical and interfaith teaching.

They'll believe kingdom now teaching. Latter day reign. Manifest sons of God teaching. Things which are simply not scriptural. Let's look at this further in 1 Corinthians 3. Here St. Paul goes on, complaining even more.

And I brethren could not speak to you as the spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as to babies in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food. You were not yet able to receive it. Solid food, meat, is deeper doctrine.

Milk is baby doctrine. When people only have milk, they will not be able to discern what is edible and what is inedible. Now you know secular anthropologists tell us that in a famine, when people are hungry enough, they will eat anything.

In fact, even the most civilized of human beings in dire situations have resorted to cannibalism. When people are hungry enough, they will eat anything. In the book of Amos, chapter 8, verse 11, we read about a famine.

A coming famine that would take place in the last days. It is prefigured by the period between Malachi and John the Baptist, when Israel had no prophet for over 400 years, only the Maccabees. And it says in verse 11 of Amos, chapter 8, Days are coming, declares the Lord, I will send a famine on the land.

Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for the hearing of the word of God. There will be a famine for right doctrine, for right teaching, for right preaching in the last days. And when people are hungry enough, as anthropology tells us, they will eat anything.

So we begin to see then that milk is baby food, it is basic Christian doctrine. Meat is deeper Christian doctrine, and those who only have a continual diet of milk are not healthy and cannot discern what is edible and what isn't.

What is not good and what is not acceptable and what is. But Leviticus tells us it shall be abhorrent to you, it shall make you sick. Anything that these unclean animals even touch, you shall have nothing to do with.

False Prophets as Unclean Animals

Let's look more at this idea of clean and unclean animals, and of eating in terms of it being doctrine. Turn with me, please, to Matthew 7, verse 15. Matthew 7, verse 15. Here Jesus tells us the following.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Wolves are false prophets trying to look like sheep, trying to look like Christians. Jesus tells us, keep away from them.

Watch out for wolves who come into the church teaching false doctrine and predicting things that fail to happen. Don't eat it, keep away, it shall be abhorrent to you. The early Christians understood this idea of eating and how it meant doctrine.

There was a document in the early church called the Letter to Barnabas. Now they had some things wrong, they made the mistake of saying God never intended the Jews to actually eat kosher. They only looked at the symbolic or typological meaning.

This was wrong, God didn't intend the Jews to refrain from these kinds of foods. However, they understood there was a spiritual meaning on the back of it. For instance, Jesus said, I will make you fishes of men.

Well, fishing is a picture of evangelism in the Bible. There are good fish and bad fish. They kept the good fish and threw the bad ones back, being left with 153 fish. Shellfish, however, are fish that are totally closed.

They're closed up in a shell and they live at the bottom of the ocean. Thus, we begin to look at something. I recall a visit to an aquarium that you walk through in Cape Town, and it had a chunk of the continental shelf of the African continent with all the kinds of marine life that live off the shores of Africa in it.

And I noticed at the very bottom were shellfish. Totally closed up at the very bottom of the sea, and they ate garbage. They ate refuse. They ate anything. What you eat, you are. I'll make you fishes of men.

There are good fish and bad fish. But a shellfish represents someone who is so far into the world, and so closed, and so filled with the garbage they eat and believe that they're not going to get saved.

That's what a shellfish represents. Thus, the Hebrews were not to eat shellfish, for its meaning in Christ are the fish who have no prospect of being caught. The Hebrews were not to eat chameleons. Now, a chameleon in the Hebrew language is called savua.

It is also the Hebrew word for a hypocrite. In Matthew chapter 23, the Lord Jesus called the religious hypocrites of His days treacherous people to avoid. Keep away from chameleons. Keep away from hypocrites.

Watch out for a savua. Look out for people who come preaching and teaching one thing, but their lives don't match what the Word of God says they should in such a way as they mislead others. The Hebrews were not to eat vultures.

Why not? Let's look at Matthew 24. Jesus tells us what will happen in the last days when the church comes under supernatural attack and it has a special meaning for Israel and the Jews as well. We're told in verse 28 of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Vultures prey on the dead and the dying. There are Christians that will come along, claiming to be Christians anyway, so-called brothers, and they will find weak believers, they will find weak and dying churches and prey on us.

Look out for vultures. We're told not to eat serpents, not to eat snakes. Satan has two modes of attack in the Bible, the dragon and the serpent. Now, Leviticus 11 says don't eat the great lizard. I have no doubt whatsoever that those were not yet extinct species of some kind of giant lizard, dinosaurs.

I don't think that dinosaurs necessarily lived millions of years ago at all. There are legends of dragons in every culture from China to Mexico. These were obviously species who were around and people saw them and did artistic representations of them.

You couldn't eat a dragon or a great lizard and you couldn't eat a serpent. In the book of Revelation we read the dragon and serpent are cast down to you. The dragon is Satan the persecutor, but the serpent is Satan the seducer.

The serpent beguiled or seduced the woman. He's representing Israel and by incorporation of the church. Hence, in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus called the religious leaders of his day, who were bringing the people into spiritual seduction, he called them a generation of serpents, a generation of snakes.

Watch out for false religious leaders. Don't follow them and don't believe their doctrines. In Matthew 23, snakes were not kosher and they still are not. Another animal that was not kosher that we all know Jewish people don't eat was swine, pigs.

Why were pigs not kosher? Pigs swallow anything, no discernment. They don't chew the cud. They're very unclean, yet they're quite intelligent. Pigs are about as intelligent as a dog. What was the problem with pigs?

Remember the Lord Jesus said, Cast not your pearl before swine. Swine are people who mock and make fun of the gospel and the word of God. We can only pray for people like that. We really can't waste our time witnessing to them.

They're just not open. Don't go with anything. Don't shampoo your pearls under their feet. Watch out for pigs. This is what happens in Matthew's gospel when the two demoniacs come and Jesus casts the demons out of the demoniac into the swine.

And the swine run off a cliff into the lake, the Sea of Galilee being basically a medium-sized lake. Well, this area was Galilee of the Gentiles, where there was a hill in the region of Genterim. What you have here is the Jewish Midrash.

The lake represents the lake of fire in the book of Revelation. And the pigs are those who reject the gospel. The demons go into the pigs and the pigs go off the cliff into the lake. It is a picture of the judgment in the book of Revelation.

Go to the place prepared for Satan and his angels. Pigs, people represented by pigs, swines, people who mockingly reject the gospel and shampoo our pearls under their feet, and demons go to the same place.

They go to the lake. It's a picture of the judgment of Gehenna. Don't eat shellfish. Don't eat wolves. Don't eat chameleons. Don't eat dragons. Don't eat snakes. Don't eat vultures. Don't eat pigs. Don't eat dogs.

Again, it's not fit to give children's bread to the dogs. In Psalm 23, what do we read? Sorry, Psalm 22. An Old Testament picture in Hebrew poetry, prophetically outlining the crucifixion of Jesus. And we read in this psalm about what happens to Yeshua, or Jesus, on the cross.

In verse 16, Dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierce my hands and feet. I count all my bones. They look, they stare at me. They divide my garments among them for my raiment.

They cast lots. Well, these dogs are surrounded with the Romans, who have the pagan religions of the Roman Empire. Jupiter worship, etc. Things basically adopted from the Greeks and then remodified. Dogs.

Don't eat dogs. Don't eat pigs. Don't eat vultures. Don't eat snakes, dragons, chameleons, wolves, shellfish. But neither were the Hebrews to eat lions. As Peter tells us, Satan goes around like a roaring lion, seeing whom he can devour.

Clean Animals as Pictures of Christ and His Ministers

Now, there were animals that the Hebrews could eat. While the unclean animals were to be abhorrent to them, the animals that were not abhorrent, that they could eat, were types of either the Lord Jesus or His ministers.

For instance, the Hebrews could eat lamb. Once again, in Latin, Agnus Dei Quetolus Peccata Mundi, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. The Passover lamb was a lamb without blemish.

It was a type or a picture of the Lord Jesus. You can eat that. That's kosher. The young kids were scapegoats. We call it in Hebrew, Hasa Erez Hazel. The high priest would lay his hands on the scapegoats and put the sins of the people on the goats.

They would lead the goats through Jerusalem. The people would spit on the goats, kick them, beat them with sticks, curse them for their sin. One would be released to the wilderness, the other sacrificed.

These goats were pictures of the Lord Jesus. You could eat goats. There were certain kinds of birds you could eat. Remember when Mary bought the sacrifice of the turtle doves? That was a poor person's offering.

Jesus' family was poor. There was a money-oriented preacher from America who came to England, teaching Jesus' family was rich. And someone I know asked him, and how come Mary bought a poor person's offering and he had it thrown out of the meeting because she asked the wrong question?

When these birds, these doves, were sacrificed in the book of Leviticus, they had to be sacrificed under running water, symbolizing being washed with the blood. You can eat doves. There were also, of course, a picture of the Holy Spirit.

You could eat oxen. Why oxen? Quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 25, St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9, not to muzzle an ox while he's threshing. Now, the text of 1 Corinthians 9 tells us that the ox is a faithful preacher, a teacher of the Word, those who teach life doctrine, who work hard at preaching and teaching the Word of God.

You can eat oxen. You can eat lamb. You can eat doves. You can eat goats. You can eat the animals that represent the Lord Jesus, God's Spirit, God's ministers. But beware of that which is unclean. It shall be abhorrent to you, detestable to you.

False doctrines should make us sick. False doctrines should make us run away. And there's many false doctrines going about today, being taught by many people. Those who come in the character of chameleons, those who come in the character of vultures, those who come in the character of serpents, those who come in the character of pigs, and perhaps above all, those coming in the character of wolves.

They shall be abhorrent to you. Keep away. Yet when people are hungry enough, they will eat anything. Kingdom. Now, name it and claim it, interfaith ecumenism, manifest sons, man-child, post-millennialism, people will eat anything.

Eating the Word of God

Let's understand more about this particular subject. Let's look at the issue of transubstantiation, about eating flesh. Turn with me, please, first of all, to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 15. In Jeremiah 15, we read something very, very curious.

It says the following. Verse 16,. Thy words were found and I ate them, and my words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart. Eating the words. Turn with me, please, to the book of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel, chapter 2, we read the following.

Verse 8,. Now you, son of man, listen to what I'm speaking to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I'm giving you. Then I looked and behold, a scroll was extended to me, and he spread it out before me, and there were woes and judgments and lamentations and mourning and woe, and he said, eat the scroll and go speak to Israel.

And he said, son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with the scroll I'm giving you. Eating means eating the words. Let's look also at the book of Revelation, chapter 9. In Revelation, chapter 9, we read the following.

John is having these incredible visions, and a fifth angel blows a trumpet of sound, and he sees a star falling from heaven. And all these judgments begin to manifest and take place. He's seeing the same kinds of woes Ezekiel did in chapter 2 of Ezekiel.

And this continues then throughout chapter 9 into chapter 10 when he has a celestial vision, vaguely similar to some of the visions of Ezekiel. But at the end of chapter 10, we read this in verse 9. And I went to the angel telling him, give me the little book.

And he said, take it and eat it. It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey. And I took the book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and it was in my mouth sweet as honey.

But when I'd eaten it, he made my stomach bitter. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the book of Revelation, both testaments, the Tanakh and the New Covenant, both tell us eating the Word of God has to do with believing it, taking it into ourselves.

The Logos and the Incarnation

Now, let's take this Jewish background of eating the Word having to do with believing what it is represented by actually eating. We take doctrine into ourselves. Don't eat the pigs. Don't eat the vultures.

Don't eat the wolves. It's false doctrine. Those people teach things false. Eat the lamb. The lamb is right. Eat the goat. The goat is right. Eat the oxen. The oxen is right doctrine. But the doctrine has to do, of course, with the Word.

The doctrine, what people believe. Take the scroll, take the book, and eat it. This is continuous throughout the Bible. With this background in view, turn with me, please, to the Gospel of St. John, chapter 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. En arche kai ho logos. In the beginning was the Word. The Greek word was logos. Its Hebrew equivalent was dwar, and in Aramaic it would have been known as mamre.

The Greeks and Hebrews both knew about this logo. Only to the Greeks, the logo, because it had divine properties, it wasn't passable. It couldn't change. The Greeks had this dualistic philosophy of spiritual belief, where everything physical was bad or fallen, and everything spiritual was good.

That was not the case. Everything physical and everything spiritual was created by God. In the Hebrew way of thinking, only sin has painted it. But now, let's look. In verse 14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That word for dwelt in Greek is katathino. It comes from the Hebrew word mishkan, meaning dwelling or tabernacle. Mishkan, in turn, comes from the Hebrew word shekinah, the cloud and the pillar of fire.

What it's saying is that same God who was present in the Holy Spirit, harakha kodesh, the shekinah, and the shekinah glory in the Old Testament ark and in the temple, would now become incarnate. He'd become flesh.

The Word became flesh. So, the Word of God is, of course, God's truth, God's teaching, God's doctrine. Jesus said, I am the way, but he also said, I am the truth. And because he was the truth, he was also the life.

Now, the Greeks, they were these radical dualists. Today, we see a rebirth of this Greek dualism coming into the church, influenced by a kind of Gnosticism falsely pretending to be Christian. When you see people saying things like, confess your healing, my body's lying to me, I don't have a fever, it's my body lying.

This is very, very dangerous. It comes from ancient Greek dualism. There was a lady called Mary Baker Eddy, and she founded the Christian science movement. She had these beliefs that sickness is an illusion, death is an illusion, old age is an illusion.

These things are not illusions, they are realities. But much of this thinking has now come into the church. There was once someone called William Branham, and another person who came along was called E .W. Kenyon.

These people were influenced by these same kinds of beliefs, this radical form of dualism. With Mr. Kenyon, he admitted he was influenced by the founders of Christian science. So today, when you see these people saying, I don't have a fever, your body's lying to you, and all this kind of stuff, it's this idea that the spiritual only matters, not the physical.

Again, this is Greek dualism. It comes from Gnostic heresy. It is not biblical. The word became flesh. God becomes a man. His truth, his spoken word, what you have in the Torah of the Jews, would now become incarnate in a man.

The Logos was a person. But now, with this idea presented to us in John chapter 1, let's understand this controversy of transubstantiation in John chapter 6. I'm going to read the story of John 6, beginning in verse 33.

For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore, give us this bread. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. Notice that eating the bread has to do with belief. Eating has to do with belief. With Jeremiah, eating was belief. He ate the scroll.

He ate God's word. With Ezekiel, eating meant believing God's word. He ate the scroll. John, in Revelation chapter 10, eating was believing. He ate the book. The same idea. The word becomes flesh, and you eat the flesh.

Eat equals belief. But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. I come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me.

And this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all He has given, I lose nothing, but raise Him up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who believes, beholds the Son, and believes in Him may have eternal life.

I myself will raise Him up on the third day. Notice how Jesus repeatedly says that belief is the way to eternal life. Now, what He's saying here is this. That the manna that fell in the wilderness in the Old Testament was a picture of Himself.

It was the type of Him. The bread of life that came down out of heaven. Well, so too, those who believe in Him will have the same kind of sustenance supernaturally from God. In verse 41, we continue. The Judaeans, therefore, were grumbling about Him because He said, I am the bread that came out of heaven.

And they were saying, is not this Yeshua, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He say I've come down out of heaven? But Jesus answered them and said, 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. It is written in all the prophets that they shall all be taught of God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.

Notice, once again, it's focused on belief. Not that any man has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. The key to eternal life is belief.

You eat the Word. The Word becomes flesh. You believe in Jesus. You believe His teaching. The Gospel is the way to eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

This bread, which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread also, which I shall give for the life of the world, is My flesh.