The Bread We Eat — Roy Hession

Returning From the Far Country Through Repentance

I wonder have you sometimes felt the marked contrast between the joyous hymns we sing, such as we've sung this morning, and your own experience. Sometimes the contrast can be puzzling and even painful.

The hymns are saying one thing and giving one testimony, but your heart isn't really saying it as well. And this seems to be characteristic of the hymns. They speak so positively, so joyously, and yet, though we try and sing them heartily and mean it, it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference.

I was especially thinking this when we were singing our first hymn, A Shelter in the Time of Storm. Ashaved by day, defenced by night, a shelter in the time of storm. No fear's alarm, no foe's fright, a shelter in the time of storm.

And how confidently we sang, the raging storms may round us beat, a shelter in the time of storm. We'll never leave our safe retreat, a shelter in the time of storm. And it came back to me a thought which I want to share with you that may be of help.

This isn't the message, this is just the porch, as we heard. Sometimes I've started with the porch and never left the porch, and I've given out what I was going to say. What you've got to realise is this.

This is the thought of a man who's been in a far country and returned. And this is how he's found things in Jesus, now he's repented. The thing is, you see, we're in some sort of a far country, not necessarily the far country of original sin, but some minor far country into which we've got ourselves.

And we try and sing the songs that can only be true of us when we're back in the Father's house in the far country. These songs are expressive, what it's like when you've got right. But we try and sing them before that's happened, and the thing seems terribly unreal.

You see, the songwriters don't often tell you how you got there. I mean to say, if a person's got back, they're full of what they've found. And it is possible for a testimony to fail to tell you that they didn't feel like that yesterday, that they've been a real bad way.

But they repented, and they got back to Jesus and the blood, and they found the quick way back after the long way out. And oh, how wonderful it is. But what helped me, what helps me is to hear that it wasn't like that yesterday, and how he got back.

Now the songwriters, well, they're poets, and they're full of the new vision, and they write. In the nature of the case, and I don't criticize them for it, of what it's like now they've got back. There are some songs which tell you how they were far from sin and how grace brought them back.

Not many songs tell you how the Christian can be when he can get wrong with God. You're not supposed to get wrong if you're a Christian. You're not supposed ever to be down when you're a Christian. It's a shameful thing if you're not bursting with praise.

Is it? The great thing is to see it doesn't shock Jesus. It's no surprise to him. If it were otherwise, why he says he made such tremendous provisions for the saint of God, if he never has his problems, if he never gets into the dark.

Why is all this elaborate, gorgeous provision of the blood of Christ shown us in the tabernacle? Entrance into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Why is that made if we never get out of the holiest? And so it helps me to say this is how I find it when I get right with the Lord.

And I think when the storms do come, invariably you adopt the wrong attitude. And you do have fear. And you do have alarm. But for how long? It didn't be there for any longer than it takes you to get to the cross.

And then you're back with him. And all that you are singing here is really true when you're doing that. But please don't think by trying to sing a hymn heartily it's of itself going to make any difference.

It's after you've got back that this becomes expressive of your experience. It's very interesting how in the psalms invariably David or the other psalmists because they weren't all written by David it tells you who was the writer at the top of each psalm.

You know Moses wrote one psalm. Did you know that? So it's true that David wrote most of them. Invariably he puts the end at the beginning. He's had a real bad time and he's cried to the Lord and the long arm of grace has reached him and put him on the rock.

So he starts with that. How good God is invariably. Truly God is good to Israel he says in one psalm and to them that are of a clean heart. That's the end. He says but it hadn't always been nice to tell.

He says truly my steps were well my God. I began to doubt whether you were good to those who are of a clean heart. And he tells you of his deep need and how he found his way back to peace as he cried to a God of grace and he comes out where he begins at the end of the beginning and then having told you the testimony he tells you how.

Now I just share that with you because it's good to know it and it helps me. Well this is how it is when I'm walking with Jesus. I know I'm not always the happy life but I can get back and then he is indeed found to be a shelter in the time of storm.

Faith in Ministry and Ordinary Christian Living

Now Brother Manley mentioned a conversation we were having this morning and I want to pick it up a bit from there. He said that I said that faith doesn't only operate of course in the realm of the supplies necessary for God's work.

It does. Nor does faith only operate in the great crises of adversity such as sickness and the like. It operates there. But for me the ministry of the word is as much by faith as anything. I tell you to go ahead a man might go ahead as our brother perhaps has with a building project by faith with not very much in the bank at all but he's going to trust.

I tell you when you go to preach the gospel you go as empty of matter and ability as the bank balance may be empty of contents. And we venture out into the seeming void but with Jesus and we find a rock beneath.

I can't tell you what I go through in this ministry. Sometimes there's nothing I want to do less than the next piece of service. I give anything in the world to quit and when I feel like that I say hallelujah there's a great time coming round the corner I know from experience.

But I much rather not have these experiences and I just ought to be so confident that faith why it doesn't come other than through exercise of heart. And so this principle of faith is not only for the bigger things as the outward part of service not only for adversity not only for ministry but in the straight forward living of the Christian life.

Jesus as the Bread of Life

And with that in mind I want to turn you to John chapter 6 and we're going to look at verse 28. Then said they unto Jesus John 6, 28 What shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he has sent.

They said therefore unto him What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert as it is written he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said unto them Verily I say unto you Moses gave you not the true bread from heaven but my father giveth you the true bread for the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world.

Then said they unto him Lord evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them I am the bread of life. That often happens you're asking Jesus for something and he surprises you by saying I am that something.

The woman at the well said we know that when Messiah cometh he will tell us all things. When Messiah cometh I that speak unto thee am he. We've got to see that Jesus himself is the end of the struggle for whatever it is we need.

You could be asking him for the very thing and he says I am that thing. Possessing me you've got it. I am the bread of life. And then in verse 49 he continues Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.

This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live forever. And the bread that I give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.

The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying how can this man give us his flesh to eat? And rather than mollify and minimize the imagery he makes it even worse from their point of view. Verily, verily I say unto you except you eat the flesh and drink the blood ye have no life in you.

Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed. My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.

As the living father hath sent me and I live by the father so he that eateth me shall live by me. Jesus is of course referring us back to that daily miracle by which the Israelites were sustained for 40 years in the wilderness.

And they never knew really what it was. That's why they called it manna. Manna or manhun was the first thing they saw when that morning they walked on the wilderness and they saw after the dew had gone up a small brown thing everywhere a small brown thing.

And they said what is it? Manhun. And so as that was the first word they uttered when they saw that thing it became manhun or manna to them. And manna simply means what's it? What is it? And for answer they were told that that unlikely insignificant small round thing this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.

And so they found it to be. And they always called it as I say what's it? It was the new cereal on the market what's it? Mother would say we'll have some more what's it? Isn't the what's it good today?

And there were all sorts of various ways in which it could be served. But to their dying day they never understood it and yet it worked. And yet it worked and sustained them. Now when you were saved and were brought out of Egypt you found yourself in a desert.

Living on Christ in a Hostile World

You didn't know much about the desert in this sense before. The world was no desert to you in the old days. There was fun there was friendship there was money there was what you called a good time. But grace laid hold on you convicted you of sin and brought you out with a mighty hand out of that old life only to find yourself in a desert.

The world which had been so attractive before to you became a desert. That's one of the evidences that you've been drawn of God that this world is a desert. The things that once gave you pleasure in it no longer give you pleasure.

The friendships which meant so much to you they no longer mean that to you. And you look at the whole thing. It's a waste howling wilderness as far as any satisfaction to the child of God. Now the problem was for how in the world they were going to live in that desert.

Two million people it is thought comprised that company who came out men, women and children. And they just went out with joy just with a few provisions which were soon gone. And there they had this great wilderness to go through.

How were they to be provided for? And of course they murmured, doubted first but grace had it all ready planned. And here was this small round thing and they were told this is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.

You've been brought out of Egypt into a desert but doesn't matter what the desert is. It doesn't matter that it's unfertile. You're going to be fed with this mysterious miracle to the rest of your days.

How am I to live in a world which is no friend to grace? In a world that's at enmity with my Lord and opposed to me where all its attractions attract me in the wrong direction. And for answer it shows you a small round thing in a stable.

You say, what's that? This is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. And it becomes even more irrelevant it would seem when you see that one not welcomed as a Messiah by everybody but left to die as if he were a criminal on a cross.

You say, what's it? And God says, that is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. The only means by which you're ever going to live through this alien world. Then we see him risen from the dead. That looks a little more impressive but even then we don't quite know how that's going to relate to us.

God says, I'll tell you what that is. That, one, is the bread given you to eat. And not only himself but the word that he gives us sometimes doesn't seem relevant to our needs. The great need of the church for revival and there are those who have the grave responsibility of leadership in their churches and they long for the moving of God and for revival to come into their midst and they're trying as it's right to be concerned in all sorts of ways that this might happen and all they hear so often is a very simple elementary message.

You say, what am I listening to? I'm only listening to the gospel. That was my problem when I first heard the message that the missionaries and the African leaders brought back to England from revival in East Africa I first heard what they had to say in 1947 and my first wife said to me well I don't think much of it they're not much preachers why she said you're a better preacher than they are doesn't seem relative.

I mean I had a very well developed deeper life message and it had helped me no end at one time true it had died on me but I could always give it but this was so elementary and I in effect said what is it?

And God says I'll tell you what it is this is the bread the Lord had given you to eat this message this elementary message of grace which we were first heard when we were saved this is the message this is the bread this is the revival by which the church is going to live.

So this is quite an accordance characteristic of deity to confound us to stumble us with the simplicity of this and yet that which we sometimes tumble over is the bread the Lord has given you to eat and I had to pass my well developed deeper life message.

I didn't hear anything much about Romans 6, 7 and 8. Those brothers said they've come to share with you what we've learnt in revival. And the first message they gave was a message on Cain and Abel. Cain the man who came by work and Abel the man who came by the blood.

You preachers know that. Well like me I preached it, you preached it and especially as an evangelistic message and they gave this message and they said you know we discovered that we were Cain coming by the way of our being initially and doing so much but nothing real happened in our lives and God didn't move until we began to repent and come as Abel came with nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Well I said that's simple. I actually said that's the way of work, the way of faith. We know that. And yet I had to learn that this was the bread the Lord had given me and given the church to eat none other than Jesus known in stark elementary simplicity.

From Self-Reliance to the Blood of Jesus

And I began to see that I was a Cain. I was a tiller of the ground. Was I a tiller very interesting out in East Africa there was a great saintly African. He was one of the first to be blessed in the revival when as yet there were only two men for several years who had found the answer.

Remember God's spiritual movement had beginnings as little trickles and there it began with two men and it crossed the colour line at the very beginning. One the missionary doctor another an African civil servant who admitted to one another.

They were both beat as Christians and spent two days over their Bibles seeking God for the answer. And this dear man, this African he was very active in the early years of God's moving then became sick and then just lived a retired life in his little home, working in his garden.

But he became the prophet of the revival. I don't mean prophet in any special supernatural way but men sought his advice. And when one of them the other Africans who were active when one of them who had come to England would return to Uganda he'd always go and see this brother Sibambi was his name and he'd inquire diligently about various people he'd heard tell of.

He'd been praying for every step he said now tell me you know when you were there before you told me of a man what was his name. Roy Hanson. How is he. I had the impression as I prayed for him that he's always striving how right he was.

I was trying to get by my efforts what was already in Jesus' gift to me. I was a killer of the ground bringing the result of my efforts to God. And going back to that first sermon slowly I began to see that I wasn't an able I was a cancer.

Oh I was saved by faith. Yes, not by works. But when it came to everything else it was works. And God helped me to take Abel's place. He showed me wherein I had to repent and in repenting what could I do but come by the way God had appointed the blood of the Lamb.

And I know in history that small round thing it meant a new chapter for me. If it didn't mean revival for England it meant it for me. So of course it was an awful lot to learn and I made many mistakes in those early years and still do.

But this for me that which we cannot understand that seems perhaps irrelevant to our present needs. This is the bread the Lord has given us every country every nation has its characteristic diet. In India they live on rice in Italy.

Well rumor has it. They live on spaghetti in Germany which I often visit, I know for a fact they live on something they call Wurst every day, sausage every day. It's Wurst in English in England. Rumor has it over here that we live on fish and chips.

We're not quite so monotonous as that but certainly it's much appreciated. And in America hamburgers tell me what does a Christian live on? He lives on Christ. He's not only saved by Christ. He's got to live on Christ.

He lives on pure unadulterated Jesus Christ. And where that's been the diet where there have been godly wise ones who've seen where the saints have been trying to supplement their diet and add something to it and introduce works of some sort rather than grace and where they've maintained that this was the bread, that's where the Spirit of God has gone on continuously in revival.

And those as individuals are prepared to live on Christ not on methods, not on wonderful schemes of outreach not on the latest fad that's going around among evangelicals, whatever it may be the last thing we've got to do is on Jesus.

New life goes on. I would say every spiritual movement that's petered out has petered out for lack of good law, additions to Jesus have crept in and I only know the spiritual movement that I've had has had such close touches.

All the things that have tried to come in the Oxford group tried to capture it. The Pentecostals tried to capture it and special forms of legalism have tried to capture it. But some of those Africans if it was left to the missionaries there would have been all sorts of diversions.

We're so used to them. Any new emphasis produces a new denomination in our country. But they spotted it. Some would travel hundreds of miles to put something right in the group who were inclined to divert off to this, off to that and to this day this is the bread and that's enough.

Jesus Christ is made to me all I need. He alone is almighty. He is all my need. Wisdom, righteousness and power, holiness this very hour my redemption, full and sure he is all I need and I've had my temptations to be diverted.

I was in touch with a movement of revival in Canada some time ago and it seemed so much along the line that I most desired. And I went and spent some time with the brothers there and true enough God was working.

They had their own way of doing things different from what I'd been used to. I said why doesn't God usually be like that way. And so I began to try and imitate them in the matter of their message not necessarily in their message.

That wasn't very different from what I was trying to do and you know it only had the effect of disturbing my brothers. It nearly upset the whole conference of which I was I won't say leader but one of the team and I said brother, what are you doing putting on the pressure on us trying to get us to respond in a certain way.

You're striking and I thank God he gave me the grace of repentance. He said you're right brother. God's right. I'm wrong. And I came back content to just have Jesus and this walk in the light with him, finding it all in him and the blessing went on.

Appropriating Christ by Faith

Now Jesus in calling himself the bread of life says we've got to eat it. It's a daring expression. And when the Jews found it difficult to receive he went on and made it worse and said you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

Well obviously that's a picture. What is it. A picture of. It's a picture of what brother Manley was talking about faith but especially of faith that appropriates that which is offered food with regard to you and me goes through two stages.

First it's on our plate. You say it's my food. Mum puts it on your plate. It's yours. But there's a further stage to which it goes. When you put it in your mouth then it really is yours. No one wants it after it's been in your mouth.

You've made it yours. What was potentially yours. You've made yours when you eat it. Now Jesus is on the plate for the sinners. He's on the plate for the weak failing saints. He is yours. He belongs to you.

Did you know that he belongs to the sinners. He belongs to the failing saints just because you are that these are the ones in whom he specializes. I'm yours. I'm for you. Not even your worst failures can alienate me.

For what is yours. I am yours. But I've got to go further and see that and sing these wonderful hymns for me, for me, for me. I must appropriate this. I must say that which is offered of me I take to be mine and I make it mine by the appropriating faith.

And I think that is what eating is meant to symbolize. Could you have a better symbol of that which makes, that which is offered yours than eating it. And I am to appropriate I say thank you Jesus. You offered to be this to me.

Then I'm counting on you as that mine and that one comes in and becomes the life of your life as food becomes the life of our body. Now the interesting thing is that Jesus divides himself into two my flesh, my blood.

And for me I can see two distinct stages, though I'm not going to say it must be the same stages distinctly two for you. But I did have to learn how to eat his flesh and then I also had to learn how to drink his blood.

His flesh is that which he gave for the life of the world. And I've got to appropriate that life of his to be mine. Not only my forgiveness not only a place in heaven but the life that I now live. I must be lived by faith in the son of God who lives in me.

I'm not to expect my life to be improved. There's a chorus that years ago the famous gypsy evangelist taught everybody let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me very sweet one, and he went on to say O thou spirit divine all my nature refers to the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

Well I'm not sure that's quite correct though I love the chorus. It might be better written and some people have tried to put it this way O thou spirit divine make all his nature mine. There's only one beautiful thing about the Christian that's Jesus who lives in me and I've got to learn in despair of what I am to count on the fact I have him facing needs beyond me confessing that fact.

I have to add nonetheless for this need I have Jesus and that's the way to go through. And if people wonder at the way you're going through say oh thanks to me, you don't know what I'm like how I did begin to react the wrong way.

But what you see is not me it's Jesus the life which I now live. I live by faith in Jesus who I have made mine now. It was an important time for me when I made this discovery. I remember the morning when I saw it there written in Galatians 2 .20 that the eye that was jealous of many other things was judged at the cross, ended, not mended and I appropriated Jesus to live my life.

I put the onus on him and as I dared to believe it and count on it I had every evidence that he was there. I never won any souls for Christ or hardly any until that became and it was on the head of that experience that God called me from a London bank into a full time evangelistic work and Jesus, as I trusted him was the evangelist, that he knew how to bring people to himself.

There wasn't that easy truthfulness that I'd known before. Prayer was a struggle. Preaching was a chore. I think I gave up for a moment as I said last night I tried to make up for what was lacking about my own efforts and there I was there and I was virtually back where I was, and then it was the dose of revival came across my heart and whereas they didn't give me an advanced teaching they gave me something more elementary the message of the blood of Jesus and of the grace of God to save me and I got to call things to it.

Repentance and the Cleansing Power of Christ's Blood

And if things weren't right it was because of sin. I quit seeing sin. Perhaps after I'd prayed I had a sense of good heart and conscience but I wasn't a repenting Christian and had I been I wouldn't have known what to have done with that which I repented of because I'd not yet really seen the power of the blood of Jesus in the life of a believer and God said he'd be meeting a friend.

You've now got to learn to drink the blood. And so there was a stage when I enjoyed eating the flesh appropriating that life. But that's not the whole picture. In spite of all that you being a child of Adam there will be all various things from time to time in which the old man would express himself.

It's alright to say wrecking yourself dead to sin. But what happens, what do you do when you haven't. And when things have gone wrong and relationships have been spoiled because you haven't. No going back to Roman 6 will help you there.

Roman 6 is not a gospel it's a principle when things have gone wrong I don't need a principle how they shouldn't go wrong. I need a gospel. That sweet message of grace that Jesus came to give as the old hymn says remember, I'm the sinner.

That Jesus came to save and how glad I was to be able to go back to that small round thing and find it utterly sufficient for my needs and my emptiness and my wrongs.

And I learn to drink the blood appropriately. I want to tell you there's one thing in the deity that really belongs to you his glory doesn't belong to you his majesty doesn't belong to you his world-wide authority doesn't belong to you.

Shall I tell you that in Jesus it does belong to you his blood his blood. It belongs to you by virtue of the fact that it does. And Francis Ridley Havegood has that wonderful hymn precious, precious blood of Jesus.

In the chorus he says.

Precious, precious blood of Jesus ever flowing free. Oh, believe it oh, receive it. Oh, you can't appropriate the blood for cleansing.

For forgiveness for restoration for boldness to enter the holy save as you call sin, sin. But calling sin, sin isn't worthwhile in our business. You can feel worse rather than better after that, in seeing this beautiful provision in which God has anticipated every last thing before I ever committed it and said it and I began to drink the blood.

I know no other way of living because it isn't merely being restored to where you were before, how do I get boldness and freedom? I have liberty, boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, I the weak, failing man and I hallelujah, Lord and so this is the way and this is where faith comes in another aspect of faith that makes life what grace offers and does not see in our lacks and failings a disqualification, thus it honestly confesses that those things that make us can be weak to grace.

Grace can be defined in many ways, here's one good news, the bad people no matter how bad they are and when you're humble enough to admit it the bells of heaven ring out good tidings of great joy and that man he has liberty by the power of the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus to walk into the holiest holies of God's presence as if the place belonged to him which it does, the blood made it yours dear one now normally you would think that you would begin by drinking the blood and then going on to eating the flesh.

Yes first of all the blood for the cleansing of sin and then risen life but it didn't happen that way. Did it? The other way around someone has said ideally the Christian life should begin with repentance and go on in faith.

Ideally but nearly always it begins with faith you're told open your heart, let Jesus come in, don't worry, take it by faith and that's how I began or there was a surrender because I was fighting God up to that point but faith was the thing only later did I see if I was going to go on I had to go on by faith.

So in practice it's often as you begin by faith, if you go on you've got to go on with repentance so faith is always associated with repentance is it to bring the blessing into you the praise of God. This is the praise.

Every contingent is of that. Nothing is too strong for you. For you, yes, not just for me I can tell you.

Of the attitude that Christ shares for Christ's life and you know if you only think of Christ living in me that's just fine but I say again it's a principle there is an element of gospel you're weak, hallelujah, you can have Christ living in you, but what if you fail to let him live in you and things get wrong and the old Adam is expressed and the harmony of the whole is foiled.

Going back to Galatians 2 .20 or Romans 6 we're going to go back to Jesus Christ but elementary simple dread that you first have when there's a fountain open for sin and uncleanness and you've yet to experience the full magnify of that life when you take that oath.

Amen. I think we've got five minutes until this meeting ends. Well then I'm going to ask my wife if she will add a little bit. She's the most sensitive person in the world about taking a meeting on too long.

She dies a thousand deaths when she hears me speak as long as I do preach. But you heard him who knows. And who's word goes saying it doesn't matter so pray.

Testimony of Deliverance From Legalism

I hope they're not too tired. I was just looking at another verse in this passage that Roy's been speaking about where it says the disciples said this is a hard thing and Jesus knew that they murmured.

He said this is a ten year and then some of them from that time went back and walked with him no more and then Jesus said unto him twelve will you also go away. And Jesus said Lord whom shall we care.

You've got the word for that and in a way that sums up how all this came to me this message of the power of the blood of Jesus which I think has been well absolutely life giving to me as a Christian and I didn't see it for so many years.

I sang about it I prayed about it I read about it but somehow it never really got home to me until these missionaries came to our church well back in 47 as Roy was saying well Roy and I we've only been married twelve years he and his first wife were going up and down the country as evangelists as he's been telling you I was just a very ordinary church member one of the older young people and they came to our church and I can remember what an impact it had on my life because I had been saved for ten years I'd been brought up as we say I think we say raised into all these different practices putting things in a home that really had the things of God and yet there was a great emptiness in my life and God in his mercy took me to Switzerland to a pastor young people and there I heard about Jesus and it was there that I met him and he met me and saved me.

Then I went home and I joined this evangelical bible based very sound church and for ten years I thought to live out my Christian life and it was really hard work and you know not having that background I looked at people and I thought oh yes that's what a Christian is but somehow it's that I got disillusioned.

I found that wasn't what a Christian was not as I read it here and then we had fellowships in our church again I felt disillusioned that that wasn't what I read there but it wasn't the other people chiefly it was myself that I was disillusioned about and I used to read books on the victorious life.