Take Two Miracles & Call Me in the Morning
Tom Shrader walks through two miracles in John 6 - the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on water - showing how these signs point to Christ's divine identity. He then addresses Jesus' hard teaching about being the bread of life and the doctrine of election, explaining that no one can come to Christ unless drawn by the Father.
“Jesus is not only telling them who will be saved, he's telling them why they're saved.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life (2003)
Recorded: 2003
Duration: 44 min
Themes: faith, miracles, identity, belief, provision, power, salvation, surrender, questioning faith, new believer, doubting salvation, seeking purpose, spiritual hunger, unbeliever, mature christian, pastor
Scripture: John 6, John 20:30-31, 1 John 1, Mark 4:36, John 14:6, 1 Corinthians 2:14, John 6:44, John 6:65, John 3:16, John 8:12, John 10:7, John 10:11, John 11:25, John 14:6, John 15:1
Theological Themes: christology, divine nature, election, predestination, signs, biblical miracles, sovereignty, eternal life
Full Transcript
Today marks week 4 of what will be 12 weeks in the Gospel of John. I'm sure every week we'll say exactly the same thing by way of introduction: 12 weeks is so quick to get through this material. We literally could spend much more time. When we taught at a church, we spent 4½ years in the Gospel of John. Hopefully this piques your interest.
Let me remind you of some really important information found in John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, where John tells you why he's writing. He says he's writing that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you would have eternal life. This Gospel that John writes is designed for you to read and to understand who Jesus is and to embrace that, to believe that. John's very straightforward. That's the point, that's the purpose in His writing.
"Believe" is an operative word, and John says he's selected these signs or these miracles. John tells us that Jesus did a lot of other things, a lot of other signs, a lot of other miracles, a lot of other things in Christ's life. Obviously not everything Jesus did is recorded in the Gospels, and clearly not here in the Gospel of John. But John said these were hand-selected so that you might believe that Jesus is who He said He was.
John as an Embedded Reporter
A Sunday for Easter, and Easter is always an interesting time. I have no idea how other guys in other churches handle it, but I try each year to take that time to address the people that we don't typically see, mostly unbelievers. You're always looking, or I'm always trying to figure out how you do this. I had an Easter message outlined, and I tore it up one day and came up with what I thought was really good.
I went down the idea that there are two terms that we are all familiar with, that we use absolutely all the time in our language now, that six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, we never heard of them. One was "shock and awe." Well, if you want to see real shock and real awe, you look to the resurrection. The other term was "embedded reporter." I'd never heard of an embedded reporter until six or seven weeks ago.
What an embedded reporter is, is a person who's on the front line, who is giving you an eyewitness account. Not necessarily an accurate account of the whole that's going on, but everything that he can see or she can see. Presumably at that point, we're getting the facts right from them. It's the most reliable source we could get. We don't have a Pentagon spokesman telling us what's going on - he could slant it one way. We don't have that guy from Iraq who's saying, "There's no problem, no problem at all," while the lights are blinking and the bombs are dropping. It's an embedded reporter.
All of a sudden, it occurred to me, and this is significant I hope, that that's what John is. John's an embedded reporter. In 1 John chapter 1, John says this: "The things that I saw, the things that I heard, the things that we ourselves witnessed, I share with you." That seems to me to even take this stuff to a deeper level. Understand this isn't John saying, "Here's what the word on the street is." This isn't John saying, "Here's what I've heard from other guys." John's saying, "No, I'm telling you, this is what we saw. This is what we heard."
The Ultimate Test of Truth
Ultimately, this is what those apostles died for. I think it is, although it's not a rock-solid argument, a persuasive argument to say not many people are going to die for a lie. When these guys come face-to-face with death, they say, "There's no way we can recant on this stuff because it's true." John's an eyewitness reporter. John's there, and he sends to you a message.
Today, if you have your Bibles, you can open them to John chapter 6. Today we're going to look at a couple of miracles. I'm afraid that's a word that we just throw around, certainly in secular language. "The miracle of television." Well, television's no miracle. It's simply using laws of nature and physics and all the other stuff that goes with it, and that's how you get television. I can't explain it, I just know it's there.
In 1969, I was a huge New York Mets fan, and if you know a little bit of sports, you know that was a big year for us. I actually went up to Chicago for four or five games at the very end, in September, when the Mets were making a race. They were racing against the Cubs at that point, and I watched them beat the Cubbies, then went down to St. Louis for four or five games. They were, if you remember, the "miracle Mets." Well, they weren't miracle - they just got really fortunate and played some great baseball.
True vs. False Miracles
Even in spiritual language, I'm afraid we use that word "miracle" a little loosely. There is a television show, which through God's grace is now off the air, that was titled "Expect Your Miracle Today." You can turn on television almost every night, and they'll tell you at what city they'll be in, and what date, and what time, and they'll say, "Come and receive your miracle."
That is so presumptuous, it seems to me. To think that the God of the universe is going to reverse the laws of nature on your demand seems silly to me. And even larger than what I think is, it's not biblical. If you're sick, there is no evidence that God will necessarily heal you. I mean, that's just preposterous. It sells, and it packs coliseums, and it'll buy you a jet. But it's not biblically true.
Having said that, God still does miracles. When we're sick, we still pray and say, "God, would you heal me? God, this is what I want. This is our desire. But you're not under any obligation to do this. God, you can kill me and be just, but could you take this away?" We've said this a billion times. These things you see around aren't miracles.
There's somebody with a backache, and it's gone. Or there's somebody out there, I see somebody out there, and they're hurting. Here's what you want. You want to see a miracle. Have a guy come up there with one leg and a stump. Have a guy all of a sudden go, bam! That's a miracle. Now we've got another leg. Or bring a dead guy in and he raises him.
This idea you see in Scripture all the time: when Jesus heals, it says, immediately, immediately, immediately, immediately. It's not this "well, listen, you're healed," "well, I'm still sick," "yes, but go home and claim that healing." That's all extra-biblical, and they're either very poor teachers or hucksters, one of the two. Neither alternative is very complimentary.
The Pattern of Miracles
Now we'll show you some real miracles today. You'll see a pattern. We'll look at some background, then we'll look at the miracle, and then we'll look at the result.
The first miracle that we look at is one that's familiar to many people, I would think. It's the only miracle that's recorded in all four Gospels. It's the feeding of the 5,000, John 6, verse 1.
"After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and a great multitude are following Him because they were seeing signs which He was performing on those who were sick. And Jesus went up to the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples."
There are people who are around, which begins by saying, "after these things." We really don't know the time gap. The time gap between the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 6 may be as long as a year or as short as four, five, six months. But there are people all around, and what we now see, verse 4, is that the Passover feast is near. So the area would be filled with pilgrims. You'd have as many as a million pilgrims in Israel and Jerusalem at this time.
The Setting
Jesus is crowded. There are people all around Him. He's doing miracles. The word spreads. It draws a crowd. Jesus gets away with the disciples, and He sits down.
Now again, I mentioned this to you before, especially when we're doing stories like this. When I say stories, I don't mean matters of fiction. They're accurate accounts, but when we're looking at these, it's very easy to take liberty with these. I don't want to read too much into it, but I do think it's fair to just let our imagination wander a little bit.
Jesus has the disciples together, and He sits down. We're going to see in a second that He gives them a test, and I wonder if perhaps they were having a little small group study. Many of you are in small groups. Can you imagine being in a small group study where your discipleship leader is the Son of God? We don't know what they're talking about. We just know that they're talking.
The Challenge Appears
The Passover is at hand. "Jesus therefore, verse 5, lifting up His eyes, saw the multitude that was coming to Him." Jesus looks up, and here comes what we've identified as 5,000. Now, many of you know that would be 5,000 men. We also have women and children, and that number could swell to as high as 20,000 people.
Imagine what that looks like. Here they are in a relatively isolated area, and here comes 20,000 people. I love the practical side of this, because logistics begin to kick in, "and He said to Philip, where are we to buy bread that these may eat?"
Jesus, being practical, says, "You know what? How are we going to feed these people out here?" Can't cater it. No fast food. No take-out. What do we do here?
Verse 6 tells us something: "He said these things to test Him, for He knew what He was going to do." "And Philip answered and said, 200 denarii worth of bread is insufficient for them, for everyone to receive even a little."
He said, "Listen, we've got issues. We may have an inventory problem. We may not have any bread, but we've got a resource problem. We don't have any money. Let's say they had a bread factory right here. It wouldn't make any difference to us. We don't have any cash. What are we going to do?"
The Beauty of Inadequacy
Now I think there's something beautiful about being in that situation. It's uncomfortable. It's not something we choose, but what we see there is our absolute inadequacy. You begin to see how absolutely inadequate you are.
I will tell you, at least from what the Scripture says, that's the beginning of any personal relationship with Christ. In fact, I can't come to Christ unless I come out of my inadequacy. I don't come boldly to Him for salvation. I come humbly. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," Jesus says. Literally, blessed are those who are spiritually bankrupt. Not until you come to the point where you understand that there is absolutely nothing you can do, then God begins to work.
It seems to me that God loves to have us at a place where we understand that we're inadequate. Through us, He begins to do things that become probably the most efficient and effective of all the things we do.
A Story of Inadequacy
I remember an incident. I love to tell the story because in this particular one, I'm not the victim - Larry is. Larry had come back from San Antonio, and I met him on Tuesday morning, and he just looked awful. I said, "You look awful. What is wrong?"
He said, "Oh, Sunday, I'm teaching in this church, and this guy stands up, and he leaves. He's agitated. He comes back, and he says, right in the middle of it, 'I don't believe any of this.'" And Larry says, "Well..." He said, "All of a sudden, this guy said this thing, and if I would have planted somebody at that point to say this, to set me up, I couldn't have done it better."
"And this guy says this thing, and I look at him, and I said, 'Well, that's just what you believe.'" He said, "I am pathetic. That had me bothered. I don't know that I should be a teacher. If you can't handle something like that, you're absolutely pathetic. I am so inadequate."
I began to laugh. He said, "What are you laughing at?" I said, "Larry, you've spent three years..."
Trying to convince me of that very thing in my own life, that we're inadequate. I thought that's the basis for what we do. I thought that's what we thought we were was inadequate. Now, God uses inadequacies, and He tends to, and the Scripture seems to indicate this, especially Paul in 1 Corinthians, He tends to use the people that aren't necessarily the PhDs. He tends to use the men and women that aren't necessarily the CEOs, and He tends to use those who are not particularly in a position of power and influence.
Why? I'll give you my reasoning, and I think it's accurate, is because then there's no doubt who did it. I see this all the time. A few years ago, I flew into somewhere, and this guy picked me up. I was speaking at some conference or something. And this guy just looked, I don't know what he looked like. He just didn't look impressed. I said, "Is there something wrong?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Well, something, what's wrong?" And he said, "You're not very impressive. I expected more, I expected something more." And I said, "Well, this is all there is, my friend."
But I acknowledge that, and I'm okay with that. But I've been in places where you get a guy who's got a stage presence and a voice and extraordinary knowledge. I'm telling you, I've seen it, I know. When he's done, here's what they say: "Wasn't he something?" When I'm done, they say, "God is good." That's exactly how that goes. And that's good. And if they didn't do it that way, I'm sure I'd have issues.
Andrew's Small Offering
And they're absolutely helpless. And then in the midst of this, along comes Andrew, Peter's brother, and he said, "Listen, here's a lad, and he's got five barley loaves and two fish. So what are these for so many people?" So there's the background.
And here's what Jesus does. Jesus says, "Have the people sit down." Remember, I said that this miracle is reported in all four Gospels. Mark tells us that they sat down in groups of 50, 100, 150. And again, if you could, for a moment, just imagine the visual of what that area looked like, these bright colors, all sat in these squares. It had to be a magnificent sight as you look at perhaps as many as 20,000 people seated there. And when they sit down, there is an anticipation here that something's going to happen, that they're going to be fed.
The Miracle of Multiplication
He says, "Have them sit down." And Jesus, therefore, took the loaves and gave thanks, and He distributed those to those who were seated, likewise also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they were filled, He said to the disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost." And so they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five loaves that were left over after everyone had eaten.
A couple of things. That word "filled," it's so inadequate to leave it like that. It means overflowing. If you're talking about you eating, here's the picture I would ask you to get in your mind. Fill yourself on Thanksgiving Day right after you've eaten that huge meal. Thanksgiving full is what we're talking about. "I can't eat one more thing." "All right, I'll have one more piece of that pie." But I eat that pie. You're so full that you're on the couch and not even sure you can flip the clicker to the Lions game. You can't even get it to the Lions game. That's how filled you are.
These people are absolutely filled. They're stuffed. Jesus didn't just meet their need. You know, you've been hungry. You can grab a little something to eat, maybe a little snack, and it kind of tides you over. That's not what He did here. They're filled to capacity.
Twelve Baskets of Remembrance
And when He's done, and again, I don't want to take license here, because you can preach this thing 48 different ways and just talk about how God comes along and fills you up in blessing and all that stuff. I don't know that that's fair. What is fair is to deal with what it says, and that is when they're done significantly enough, there are how many baskets? How many apostles? It's just like you say, "You know what, guys? I want you to remember this lesson. So here's a little take-out, home-cooking memento for you to take with you. Take this basket from that day. Maybe that'll remind you. Maybe all of a sudden, you'll understand what happened."
The Wrong Kind of King
Here's the result, verse 14: "When therefore the people saw this sign, which He had performed, they said, 'This is of a truth, the prophet, who is coming to the world.' And Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were intending to come and to take Him by force and to make Him a king, withdrew to the mountain by Himself."
Jesus is understanding what's going on. And again, make sure you see this. They're looking for a prophet. They're looking for a Messiah. They're looking for a king, especially at Passover time. That would be fresh in their mind. They're looking for this Messiah. But they've got a Messiah that fits their idea of what the Messiah is supposed to be. They're not looking for a suffering Messiah. They're looking for a triumphant Messiah. They're looking for a Messiah that will come and release Him from the shackles of Rome and will prosper him financially. That's what they're looking for. They're looking for a Messiah made in their own image, their own desire.
Creating God in Our Image
Boy, did we do that today, huh? The philosopher Voltaire said it this way: "God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since." Meaning here's what we do. We get, in fact, you know this, because you talk with people and they'll say something like this: "My God would never..."
I don't know how many of you saw Larry King Sunday night, but it was, again, just a triumph of truth over goofiness. You had a Muslim, a rabbi, the rabbi that wrote "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People," Deepak Chopra, a Catholic priest, and John MacArthur. And in the midst of this discussion, immediately, it was about war and religion and all that, but immediately...
They go to salvation. King knows—King's been through this with Mac a thousand times—he knows what's going on. So he says, "John, what do you think about these things? What do you think about heaven and going to heaven if you don't believe in Jesus?"
He says, "Are you telling us that the Muslim and the rabbi are going to hell?" And John said, "I'm telling you that according to the New Testament, if you do not believe that Jesus is who He said He was, then you're going to hell." That just threw these things in a tizzy. Deepak Chopra couldn't handle this thing. He's going crazy, and he's talking.
King said something that's really sharp. He said, "You know what, guys? Don't you believe what you believe is true? If John believes this is true and this is right, isn't it true and right?" A Catholic priest—and you may have Catholics here in the room, but I'm telling you, this guy was pathetic. He was awful. To think that he's a representative remotely close to that doctrine, you've got serious issues here. He's saying, "Yeah, you know, Jesus is all right for me, but we've got to understand all these other things and all these other religions."
You know what King said? "The math doesn't work, guys. The math doesn't work. Either you're right and everybody else is wrong, or there's some sort of universe—the math doesn't work." So what do we do? We just get a Messiah in our own image.
Walking on Water
We'll come back and tie this together for you. Look at another miracle. It's the fifth of the miracles that John records.
"When evening came, His disciples went out in the sea, and after getting into the boat, they started across the sea to Capernaum. It was already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come. The sea began to stir up because of a strong wind that was blowing. When, therefore, they had rowed about three or four miles, they beheld Jesus walking on the water drawing near them, and they were frightened."
That's the background. They're going. They're into the boat. These are fishermen by trade. They've seen a lot of scary things out in the water. They're rowing. If you wanted to do license, you could do license with this. They're rowing as fast as they can, but they can't get anywhere. Then Jesus comes along. The boat's on the other side. I don't think that's the point here. They see Jesus, and He's walking in the water.
"And He said to them, 'It's I. Do not be afraid.' They were willing, therefore, to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going."
The Creator's Control Over Creation
There's the miracle. Mark tells us—and we're not going to turn there, but you might make a note of it—Mark 4, verse 36 is another account of these guys. Remember that? They're on the boat. Maybe you thought that's what this was going to be. They're on the boat. The storm comes. Where's Jesus? He's asleep. This storm is so violent, they are petrified. They wake Him up, and they said, "Don't you care about us at all?"
He says to the seas, "Hush!" Immediately it's silent. It's like glass. Do you remember their response? It's interesting. When that boat was rocking and rolling, the Scripture says they were afraid. When it was still calm, they were very much afraid. They were afraid before. They're petrified now. Why? We don't have to guess. They said it: "Who is this guy?"
What's Jesus doing here? Well, all He's doing is demonstrating that He created the world, and He has control over it. You understand that, don't you? There's nothing that happens in this world outside the jurisdiction of God Almighty. Everything that happens in this world—and if you want to personalize it—everything that happens to you is either caused by or allowed by God.
You mean the cancer in my life? Absolutely. The deal closing? It's funny. We want to praise Him when the deal closes, but we never want to go, "Hey, how come this one didn't make?" He either caused it or allowed it. Why? He's got control.
What's the result here? The result really quickly is they are terrified by all of this. They're petrified.
The Dialogue Begins
Now, there's another miracle that launches us into a dialogue. According to the official Priority Living timepiece here, I've got 17 minutes, and I'm going to give you some stuff that literally takes years to unpack. You are, in the next few minutes, going to be—some of you will be very frustrated, some of you will be encouraged. Let's start positively. Two or three of you will be encouraged. Some of you will be very frustrated, some of you will be very confused, and some of you are going to get angry here in a minute, because there's another miracle that takes place, but it leads us into some extraordinary teaching that Jesus does.
Let's work our way through it real quickly. Look at verse 24: "When the multitudes, therefore, saw that Jesus was not there, nor the disciples, they themselves got into the boat, came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found Him on the other side, they said, 'Rabbi, when did You get here?'" Again, they're looking for signs and wonders and miracles and all that goes on.
Missing the Point of Signs
"Jesus answered and said, 'Truly, truly...'" Now when you see that phrase, what do we know? We know from studying when He says, "Truly, truly," He's saying to you, "I'm telling you the truth. This is the absolute truth. Don't miss this." This is like a giant exclamation point.
"'I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw a sign, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.'"
Isn't that an odd sentence? "You seek Me not because of the miracles, but because of the miracle." That's what it sounds like it's saying, doesn't it? "You don't seek because of the sign, you seek because your belly's full." That's what He's saying. You want all these benefits, but you're missing the point of a sign. What is the
The Purpose of Signs
The whole entire function of a sign? If you drive down the freeway today and you see a billboard and it says Coca-Cola on it, what is the point of that sign? The point of that sign is not to have you go and sit and gawk at the sign. It's to run somewhere and get a Coke. The whole point of these signs was not to have you eat and get your belly full. It was to point you to the guy that's doing the sign, doing the miracle. It's to validate who this is. It's Jesus Christ, God coming to earth.
That's the whole thing. He's saying you missed the whole thing. "Do not work for food which perishes, but for food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal." Very similar to what we saw last week, so I'm not going to spend any time on it.
Missing the Spiritual Point
But they're thinking, get this, this is a crowd. They're thinking physical. He's doing spiritual lessons to them. And they said, "What should we do that we may do the works of God?" Now they're talking about going out and doing miracles like this. They're saying, how is it that I become God-like? And by that they mean, by one of the followers. What do I have to do to be saved, we might ask?
"This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He sent." There it is again. What's the purpose of this book? John said, I've written these, selected these miracles, that when you see them, you would believe. That's the whole entire point of what he's trying to do. Believe this.
They said, "Therefore, what then do you do for a sign that we may see and believe? What work do you perform? Our Father ate manna in the wilderness, and it was written, He gave them bread out of heaven."
Jesus Corrects Their Understanding
And now Jesus begins to teach them. Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it's not Moses who gave you bread out of heaven, but it's My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world."
And all of a sudden, they begin to see this, and they said, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." That's an extraordinary miracle. Here's what He's saying: God becomes man, dwells among you. The woman at the well, remember what she said? He said, I want to give you water you'll never thirst again, and she said, bring it on, because I don't want to have to haul this pot out of here and drag the water out of this well every day. And they're saying, listen, bring it on, we'll be happy to eat and never be hungry again.
The "I Am" Statements
And now Jesus does some teaching. Here's what He says, verse 35: "I am the bread of life." Now let me get, because some of you, I know, take these studies really seriously in terms of your own personal studies, so let me just give you the references.
There are eight "I Am"s that we find in the Gospel of John. I'll give them to you real quickly. I'm the bread of life, 6:35. The light of the world, 8:12. I'm the door of the sheep, 10:7. I'm the good shepherd, 10:11. I'm the resurrection, 11:25. I'm the way, the truth, and the life, 14:6. And I'm the true vine, 15:1.
So let me give you the references again: 6:35, 8:12, 10:7, 10:11, 11:25, I'm waiting to hear bingo here in a minute, 14:6, 15:1. And what He's saying, and the Jews got this, is I'm God. When He said I am, I am, I'm God.
The Exclusive Claims of Christ
"I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall not hunger, he who believes in Me shall never thirst, but I have said to you that you have seen Me, and yet you don't believe."
Now make sure you understand what Jesus is saying. Jesus says, I am the singular way. Grammar is important here. John 14:6, I think makes this point best of the passages we looked at. Jesus didn't say, I am a way, and a truth, and a life. If He had said that, He would be saying, I am a way, but there are many other ways. I am a truth, but there's other truth. No, He's saying, I'm THE way. It's the definite article.
A Story About Contradictory Claims
I had a lady who called me one day at church, and she had, I don't know, been through a study or heard tapes, or I don't know what it was. But she said, you know, I just thought this was hard for me to believe. And I said, well, what do you believe? And she said, well, I believe that it's like this. God is the hub of a wheel, and then religion are all these spokes. And all these different spokes, although they may be very different from one another, lead us to the same hub. And that's what I believe. And she said, what do you think of that?
And I said, that's stupid. That doesn't make any sense at all. You can't have all these spokes going to the same hub. You can't have things that are contradictory being equally true. Two plus two can't be four and six. It's either four or it's six. Or maybe it's neither and it's five, but it's something.
And she said, well, that makes me feel very good. And I said, well, you know what? If I'm sick, morphine makes me feel very good, but if I go to the doctor, they're probably going to want to deal with the root cause.
The Doctor's Credentials
Here's what she said. I'm a physician. I said, really? What kind of doctor? Where are you? Where's your office? And she said, well, I'm downtown. And I said, oh, really? Where downtown? And she said, well, I'm down on Third Street. And I said, well, do you know Hans down there? Dr. Hans? She said, yeah, just a little south of there. And I said, a little south of there? And she said, yeah, just a little further south.
I said, well, my doctor that I go to, my internist, my doctor's down a little south from there. And she said, really? I went over. She said, maybe I know him. And I said, well, and I gave her the name. And she said, well, he's retired and I'm your new physician. And I said, I don't believe that's going to happen, ma'am. I don't think you'll be doing any of these tests on me. And she said, are you uncomfortable with that? And I said, yes.
So that was the end of the discussion. And she came in and I gave her something to read. And I don't know that I've seen her again.
The Question of Authority
What I tried to do was point out to her that there has to be an authority. In that discussion on Larry King the other night, here's what the rabbi said. He said, "I believe that God created a hell, but His compassion does not allow anybody to go there." Well, here's the problem with that, and MacArthur was all over it for the obvious reason. That might have been something that somebody said to you over breakfast at the Good Egg. What's the authority for that?
See, we've got a serious crisis here of authority. We've got all these opinions going on. Everybody's got an opinion, and it's fine to have an opinion. But I know—I've done this now since 19, what have I done, 15, 16 years—there aren't a handful of you that give a rip about my opinion. I want to know what this baby says.
It's not me who says the way is narrow. That's not something that Jerry Falwell dreamt up. That's not something that somebody in the back room said. Jesus said it. Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."
Biblical Truth vs. Popular Opinion
I want to keep my mind open. I've said this to you before. I want to be open-minded. I want to be as open-minded as the Bible allows. The Bible doesn't allow us to sit in a room and say everybody's okay, I'm okay, you're okay. The Bible does not allow us to say we're all praying to the same God. We aren't.
It doesn't say everybody's going to go to heaven. It doesn't. Jesus said the way is narrow, the way is hard, and there's few that are on it. It doesn't matter—there's a bumper sticker that used to bug me: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." I hated that bumper sticker. A third of the ink is a waste. God said it, that settles it. It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. God created this earth and everything in it. Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant to the fact.
Jesus' Hard Teaching on Election
Jesus is about to give Him some real hard teaching here. He said, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out." What Jesus is explaining to these people now are some very difficult truths.
At the absolute risk of total misunderstanding, because the words have taken on such meaning that are so distant from what they meant originally, what Jesus is talking about here is predestination and election. Jesus is not only telling them who will be saved, He's telling them why they're saved.
You live at a time when those words—predestination and election—they're like fingers on a chalkboard for people. And I know this because I've been on the front line for the last few years dealing with all of these different things. Those of you that would go, because just a minute ago, I know what you're doing. You're sitting there saying, "Yes, yes, Jesus is the only way. Yes, He's the truth. Yes, He's the life. Get him, get him, get him."
The Father's Drawing
Let's stay with Him now. "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him"—verse 44. Now, we better deal with some hard truths. Who's going to come? Only those that He draws.
All of a sudden, our minds are going, and we're coming up with all sorts of reasons. "Well, well, well, you've got to understand. Everybody is drawn. Everybody is being wooed." That's not what it said. Didn't He just say, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me"? So everybody that the Father gives Him will come? Do you believe for one second that everybody in the world is saved? No. Well, then He isn't drawing everyone.
You should see your faces. It's tough stuff. But you know what? It's true.
Historical Orthodox Teaching
The sad thing is, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, this was the fundamental orthodox teaching of the church. Those giants of the faith that we have come to revere—Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon—that's what they taught.
Now, you may have drifted out and say, "What difference does this make? It doesn't matter at all." It matters a ton. If you believe that you chose God, it will absolutely affect your view of Him and your view of yourself.
Man-Centered vs. God-Centered Faith
Here's what happens, and you see it in the world around you. The church that we have today, the churches around us, are more and more and more and more and more man-centered, more focused on man, more focused on man's problems, man's sins, man's remedies. Twelve steps to this. Five steps for this. A support group for this. Man, man, man, man, man. That's all they talk about is man.
What God is saying is, "No, it's not about man. It's about Me."
Resources for Further Study
Here's what I believe the Bible teaches. Let me give you two resources first. There's a book that's a very helpful book called *Chosen by God* by R.C. Sproul that will help you in this area a great deal. And there's just a lot of other resources, but that will get you started.
At the risk of sounding absolutely presumptuous, and I don't want to do that, I did a tape series titled *God's Plan for Salvation*. That's not through Priority Living. That's through the church, so they charge for it. It's not about getting money, because it's a nominal fee for five, six tapes or whatever it is. If you really want to pursue that, that tape series is really helpful. You can call the church and they'll mail it to you. 632-2220 is the church number.
The Doctrine of Total Depravity
Here's what we believe. We believe that man is depraved and lost in his sin. He's totally helpless. No one is good. No, not one. No one does good things. Left untouched by the Holy Spirit, man will continue in that state forever.
I can preach the gospel to him. Have you had that experience? Haven't you? You sat down with a friend, somebody—
You really love and care for someone, and you sit down and have a cup of coffee, and you take him through all this stuff, everything that's there. You take him through everything. Then you've got this trump verse, this trump verse that goes right to his story, that has absolutely touched your heart and broke your heart, and it means so much to you. You share this with this person, and that person just gets this glassy-eyed look, and they don't respond.
How come? Because at that moment, God hasn't opened their eyes. It's not because they aren't smart enough. It's not because you didn't do a good job. It's not because the gospel isn't true. It's because they're not going to get it, because at that point, they can't get it. That's what 1 Corinthians 2:14 says. Natural man cannot understand spiritual things.
The Reality of Human Inability
Let me give you this one more time. "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). "For this reason, I have said to you, no one can come to Me" (John 6:65). Now what's important there is that word "can." It speaks to ability.
We are very comfortable saying, "Whosoever will comes and they'll be saved." And we say this with absolute integrity. Whoever comes, whoever believes, will be saved. Isn't that true? You know it is. The question is, who's going to come? And this deals with ability.
From a small child, we learn the difference between ability and permission. You're sitting in the classroom in the third grade and you put up your hand and the teacher says, "Yes, Tommy, what is it?" "Can I go to the bathroom?" And she's going to say, "Well, Tom, that's a function of you and your body. You may go and give it a try if you'd like." There's a very important difference, isn't there, between permission and ability? What Jesus says is, everybody has permission, but no one has the ability unless the Father draws them.
Wrestling with Hard Truth
Time is out. Let me just tell you something. It's so unfair to take seven, ten, twelve minutes and just let that drop right in the middle of this thing because it raises just infinitely more questions than it answers. Here's what I can tell you. That's what the Bible teaches.
When you wrestle with this, and if you don't like that teaching, you know what? If you don't like John 6:44 and you don't like John 6:65, here's what I suggest you do. Study them. Don't study them until you can endure them. Study them until you love them because it's as inspired as John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son."
The Problem with Man-Centered Thinking
You know why this doesn't work so well, this kind of teaching in our society? It's because we've become so man-centered. We're so into democracy. We're trying to figure out how we're going to take these Iraqis and turn them into Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in a month. I don't know that that's going to happen. But that's the highest idea. Vote on everything. That's what you get.
You've got churches voting on everything and everything is a vote and everything is a poll and everything is an opinion. We're so man-centered in everything we do and so worried about man that we forget that salvation is of God.
You Already Believe This
In fact, let me just point out to you, most of you believe this. You just haven't connected it yet. Most of you would say if I said, "God saves sinners," you would say, "Amen. God saves sinners."
Well, when we put a little meat on that bone and we find all of a sudden it's God who does everything. It's the Father who chooses or predestines you before the foundations of the earth. It's Jesus who dies for you and the Holy Spirit who draws you. And all of a sudden we say He did everything and you didn't do anything. All of a sudden you're going, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."
Boy, spend the time on this. I will tell you, and I know we have to go. I will tell you this. If you want to fast start your spiritual life, if you want to see your understanding of God and your worship and everything associated with it deepen, I'm telling you, you grab this truth. And you work on this truth. The first time it was presented to me, I rejected it entirely from the person, but I couldn't get away from what the Scripture said.
Closing Prayer
We've got to pray. We've got to go.
Father, thank You for this truth. Make us students of Your Word. And God, we give You all the praise and all the honor, all the glory. Father, when we think about those of us who are Christians today, it's not because we saw a miracle and that convinced us. It's because Your Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see this Word, gave us a heart to desire it, ears to hear it, and we believe it today. It's a gift from You. God, stamp that on our heart. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.