Do You Believe Jesus?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Believing the Text Instead of Explaining It Away

Well, the great theologian, Chico Marx, once said, �Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes That�s kind of the essence of advertising in some ways, right? Who are you going to believe, me or what I�m saying about, or you know, who are you going to believe, your own eyes or what I�m saying about this product?

It�s kind of funny, but it�s true in this sense, too, that when it comes to Christians, there are some texts that they look at, they don�t really like them very much, so they turn themselves really into pretzels to explain that the clear meaning of the text isn�t the meaning of the text.

Essentially, it�s who are you going to believe, the text or what I�m telling you? I want to believe the text every single time. This text is, and I would invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 6, because that�s where we will be this morning as I continue my relentless 20-year march through the Gospel of John.

But some people look at our text this morning, and it can�t possibly mean what it says, therefore, it has to mean something else, and they do all sorts of things to try to prove that it doesn�t mean what it says.

But really, it�s very plain. There isn�t a lot of room for manufactured meanings. So what they tend to do is jump immediately to other books, other places, even the Old Testament, all kinds of places to try to get Jesus to be saying something other than what he says.

Essentially, they�re like illusionists, magicians. What do they do? How do they get you to believe that an entire car has been caused to disappear or whatever? What do they do? They get you to look at something else or they draw your attention to something else and voila, the car is gone.

Well, it�s not really gone or it was never there in the first place, but it�s an illusion, and that�s what you have to do to get this text to mean something other than what it says. Now, the Gospel of John, to me, is striking in that it is relentlessly doctrinal.

John is a very careful theologian, as I like to say, and we see again and again Jesus presented as deity. In fact, in his own statements, he proclaims himself to be the unique son of God. He declares that he is a divine person, that he�s here on a specific mission.

Again and again and again, the relentless pounding of truth and doctrine. My question this morning for you, it was out on the board before you came in, do you believe Jesus? Now, what didn�t I say? I didn�t say, do you believe in Jesus?

I�m not asking if you are saved here this morning, although we�ll get to that, trust me. Do you believe the words of Jesus? Is what he�s saying true? Do you want to explain them away? Or will you agree with the Apostle Paul in a different context when he said this, let God be true though everyone were a liar.

If these things are true, don�t you just want to believe them? If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, you do. And this morning, I�m going to present to you four divine truth claims, four divine truth claims, and ultimately I just have one question for you.

Do you believe Jesus? Now, I�m not here to slaughter a bunch of sacred cows, I don�t want to hurt anybody�s feelings, we don�t even have an altar that I can slaughter sacred cows on. I�m not here to critique people or to try to convince anyone that they should believe me, because it�s not me.

I want you to rest on the words of Jesus Christ. Let�s look at the text, John chapter 6 beginning at verse 37. Our Lord says, �All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

For I 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 him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, �I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, �Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say I have come down from heaven Jesus answered them, �Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

This occurs, this section of scripture occurs during the bread of life discourse, follows the miraculous feeding of thousands, maybe about 20 ,000, 5 ,000 men, plus all their accompanying families, the Sea of Galilee, with just, what, a couple of fish, a few loaves of bread.

And then remember what happens, they're so excited, this Jesus can multiply this food, you know what, this might be the best welfare system ever. What if we just make him king, we can live like this forever, this will be perfect, no more working.

And I think it's important to kind of remember how tough life was. There were no grocery stores, no prepackaged food, nothing. You had to just work to live. Getting food was a full-time endeavor. So this man could just take a few fish, a few bread, loaves of bread, and multiply them and feed thousands.

This man, we want to be king, he's certainly got the power to feed us and maybe the power to get rid of the Romans, wouldn't that be great? Jesus is not ready to be king, so what does he do? We're not told exactly how he does this, but he eludes them, he knows what they want to do, he eludes them, he goes off to pray, but before he goes off to pray, he sends his disciples on the only boat, remember there are thousands of people there, there's one boat.

He sends his disciples on the boat, they cross over the Sea of Galilee at night, storm comes up and you remember the story well, they're getting very frightened because of the temper of the storm, the size of it, and in the midst of this storm, Jesus comes walking across the water to them and they just welcome him right into the boat.

No, they're terrified, they think it's a ghost we would see, I think it was the gospel of Mark or maybe it was Matthew, doesn't really matter at this moment. Anyway, point is, they're terrified, if you remember Peter goes out, tries to walk on the water and what happens, he begins sinking and as soon as they both get into the boat, Jesus and Peter, then what happens?

The boat is instantly on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, the storm's over, they're over on the other side, it's all over, but the crowd is behind, they wanted to take Jesus and make him king. They search for him during the evening, probably at some point they call it off because he didn't get on the boat, he's got to be over here, he's stuck with us.

They get up in the morning and he's gone. Some other boats come up, they get on those boats, they go over Capernaum, they track Jesus down and we begin this whole discourse and Jesus proclaimed himself to be the bread of life.

They weren't very impressed, in fact they said, well some other things that we'll talk about here as we get, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. Let me just give you the first divine truth claim.

The Father Sovereignly Chooses Those Who Will Be Saved

The Father sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. He sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. Now this is a doctrine frankly that many Christians don't like. In fact they dislike it so much that they caricature it.

They turn it into a straw man and then set it ablaze. What is a straw man argument? Some of you not familiar with the terms of logic. It is, the definition of it is, a sham argument set up to be defeated.

In other words you just create this gigantic straw man and then you knock it down. So let me give an illustration. You and I are discussing food. You say, I used hamburger in the first illustration, I'll use pizza this time.

Who doesn't like pizza? You say, well I like pizza. And I say, you can't eat pizza all the time. You eat pizza all the time, you're going to have high cholesterol, high fat, you're going to get obese, you're going to die of a heart attack.

Well did you say you wanted to eat pizza all the time? No, you just said you like pizza. And then I took that little truth and I created an entire argument and then I, you know, just body slammed your foolish argument that you never made.

Well, that's what a straw man is. And you say, well, how's this done to this thing? Well, I'll get there in a little bit. But we will see straw man arguments used to explain the words of Jesus, to make them say something other than what he clearly says.

Now again, look at our text, verse 37. All that the Father gives me will come to me. Note the certainty. All, well, what does that mean? It means all, 100%. It's a future will come, by the way, is a future indicative active, future active indicative, and it indicates certainty, 100 without fail, no exceptions.

Who is in this group that will come? In other words, who will come in faith? Who will come believing? What is it that they do? What condition do they have to meet? Well, it's right there in the text. The condition's right there in the text.

All that the Father gives me. Those are the ones who come. Now, Jesus could have said, all who choose, all who decide, all who put their name in the front of their Bible with a date that they accepted Jesus.

All who are willing, but the Lord doesn't say anything like that. Jesus says that the Father gives, and he speaks of it, he speaks of this group as like a package. It's a gift. It is, well, let's put it this way.

If the Father was to wrap a present and give it to the Son, could he fail to give it to the Son? The answer is no. We would understand that, and that's what's presented here. There's a certainty of the Father giving this gift to the Son.

One man writes this. Here's the fundamental doctrine of the fourth gospel. The approach of the soul to God or Christ is not initiated by man himself, but by a movement of divine grace. We talked about grace in Sunday school.

What is it? It's not enough that it's unmerited or even demerited favor. It's unmerited or demerited favor in the face of hatred, in the face of disobedience. That's divine grace. All that the Father gives will come.

Now, why is that important that it be all of grace, all of God? Well, look back at verse 36. We get a little clue. This is the context. Verse 36, Jesus says, but I said to you, you have seen me and yet do not believe.

Well, they hadn't just seen him. They hadn't just physically observed him. They'd seen what he could do. They'd seen him perform something that no mere mortal could do on his own power when he fed them, fed thousands of them, and yet they didn't believe.

What did they do? They wanted more evidence. In fact, when he said, I'm the bread that comes down from heaven, they said, well, you know what? Moses was better than you. In fact, Moses was able to feed an entire nation of people by calling manna down from heaven.

What you did was nice, don't get us wrong, but you started out with a couple of fish and a few loaves, and you multiplied them and everything. Moses had nothing. Moses had nothing, and he made manna come down from heaven.

Jesus told them, you know what? That manna didn't have human origins. It was from God. And by the way, isn't it interesting how much better Moses appears in retrospect as they look back on him? But anyway, I digress for just a moment.

There was no amount of evidence that was going to bring them to faith. Jesus, they said, you know what? Show us a sign. Give us a sign. What sign do you perform? What miracle will you do now to top the last one so that we might even think that you are, in fact, greater than Moses?

But no amount of evidence would have convicted them. What is the condition? It's not evidence, it's the father must give them. And if they are given by the father, they will come. And notice again that the giving occurs before the coming.

In other words, the grace of the father precedes any human response. Hendrickson wrote, a person cannot be saved unless he comes to Jesus. He cannot come unless he is given by the father. Now, is there an out?

Is there some other explanation? Maybe the father gives everyone to the son. Well, no, because our text tells us that all that are given come. If everyone is given by the father to the son and they all come, then what happens?

Every single person is going to go to heaven. We'll see it. Well, maybe the father sees all who will believe and on that basis gives them to the son. But that's not what the savior says. Again, the text, all that the father gives me.

That's simple enough. It's a gift from the father to the son. Do you believe Jesus? Notice again the result of this gift. Look at verse 37 again. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. This is the promise of Jesus that of all the father gives him, he will never cast one out.

As I explained a few evenings ago, this is a Leviticus. What is a Leviticus? It is an affirmation of a truth by negating the opposite. So when Jesus says, I will never cast out, that's the opposite of the truth.

He's saying, I'm negating that. And what it means is not only will I not throw them out, the truth is I'm going to hold on to them. I'm going to clutch them. I'm going to keep them. That Greek verb cast out means to kick out.

It's ekbalo. It means to remove as far away from yourself as possible. That's not what he's going to do. He's going to keep you as close as possible. Spurgeon wrote this, here we have taught the purpose of God, the certainty that God's purpose will stand, the invincibility of God's will, and the absolute assurance that Christ shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.

Do you believe Jesus? If you do, you will understand that it is by his power and his promise that you're being kept. Our second truth claim, the Father sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved.

The Son’s Mission Is to Keep and Raise Up All the Father Gives

He sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved. Verse 38 is really a familiar preamble, a truism that we see over and over again as he's about to introduce a new truth. Listen, verse 38, for I have come down from heaven.

Christ came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me, the will of the Father. This is directly connected to the promise to never cast any out that the Father has given him.

It is an explanation as to the why. Jesus came here on a mission, one given to him by the Father, which he humbly agreed to carry out. And he performs it without fail. Here's his mission in verse 39. And this is the will of him who sent me.

This is why he sent me here, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me. Perfect tense. A gift with ongoing results, but he won't lose anything. Again, a lie to tease. So quite the opposite, he's going to keep it all.

But he will raise it up on the last day. Notice again how he refers to the gift as all that he has given me. What will Jesus do with it? It'll lose nothing. It's as if he said, I will grasp them firmly.

I will hold them tightly. None will be able to remove them, snatch them from my hand. If the Father has given you to Jesus, it is Jesus' mission, his unfailingly performed work to keep you. You are safe and secure from all alarms.

But that's true if and only if the Father has given you to the Son. All of those chosen by the Father and given to the Son will be kept by the Son and will be raised on the last day. And you say, well, maybe that raising just means to judgment and some of those people are going to go to hell.

No. No, Jesus wouldn't have to keep you for that purpose. And besides that, the idea of being raised on the last day means not to go to hell, means to go to heaven. All believers are preserved to the very end by the power of the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit.

Jesus promises to raise them, to raise this gift, to raise those chosen, to lift them on judgment day. What do we know? There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. They're not going to hell.

It is by his power that you will enter heaven. And again, I ask, do you believe Jesus? First divine truth claim was the Father sovereignly chooses those who will be saved. Second divine truth claim is the Father sovereignly entrusts the Son with those who will be saved.

Human Responsibility and the Unbelief of the Jews

And our third truth claim, those not sovereignly chosen refuse to believe. They refuse to believe. Jesus taught the sovereignty of God and salvation. But we also see here the responsibility of man, the responsibility of men.

Yes, God is sovereign and man is responsible. Jesus teaches both truths because guess what? You don't have to reconcile friends. You proclaim them both. Notice first that God does not believe for us. Look at verse 40.

For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. It doesn't say that God believes for you because he doesn't. Well, how does one perceive or see or look upon Jesus?

It's not physical sight, right? We already have seen that these people had seen Jesus. They had perceived him. They had looked upon him. They'd even seen what he could do, but they did not believe. This is a spiritual seeing.

This is having your eyes unveiled, having the scales fall off from your eyes. It is to be enabled by the Holy Spirit to finally perceive and to understand who he is. You see Jesus, if you love him, not as some king to be mooched from or some wise teacher or philosopher, not a good moral example.

You see him for who he is, eternal God, come to earth, veiled in flesh. The one, the only one who never sinned, who fully obeyed, who died in your place and was raised on the third day. If you see Jesus in that way, you're saved.

Because that cannot happen by natural sight. It's not natural at all, but supernatural. An act of God to deliver you from your spiritual blindness, your inner inability to perceive spiritual things. Some will say that the ability of, or this shows the ability of every person to believe.

After all, it says, you know, whoever says everyone who looks on the sun. So anyone who does that, anyone who believes, but that's not the case. Again, these are participles that show a constant state of being, not an ability necessarily.

Besides that, we'd also know this, that if he was teaching the ability of every single man, woman and child to come to Christ on their own volition, he'd be contradicting himself just a few verses down the road.

And we're going to see that in verse 44. But again, see the promise of the Savior to those who believe. Look at verse 40 again, and I will raise him up on the last day. No mistake about it. This is the promise of salvation, of eternity in heaven, of eternal life.

There's a chain of unbreakable truth in the words of Jesus. The Father chooses, the Son preserves, and those chosen believe unto eternal life. But it's not everyone. As a psalmist wrote, the wicked are not so in Psalm 1 -1.

There is no such blessing. There is no such joy for the unbeliever. Look at the response of the unbelieving Jews. So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven.

They said, is this, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Again, think about the context here. This is one day after he's performed all these miracles, or this miracle, this wonder.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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