Sermon
The Gift of Salvation and the Eternal Plan of God
February 10, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

I'm going to ask you to take from your bulletins today the notes that we've prepared. Over the years as I study and during the week, I write these notes, and then I give you my sermon notes. Sometimes we cover the first two pages and then I get on another line of thought, and sometimes we stick pretty close to our notes, but at least you have something to read when you go out for lunch today; you have the notes of the sermon that I intended to preach.

If you're going to use your pew Bible today it's page 718. We're reading this morning from John's gospel chapter 6 verses 35 through 40. And as our approach has been over the years, we just select a book. We've been in John now almost two years, and we just move from verse to verse, sometimes from line to line, sometimes just word by word, but our heart's desire is to know the great truths that are embedded in these marvelous scriptures.

And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen Me; and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. Now the emblem is beautifully significant, and like all others used in Scripture it calls for a profound and careful meditation. It is not enough to regard this as simply a beautiful and poetical phrase. Its meaning is deep and spiritual.

First of all, you'll note that bread is a necessary food for it sustains life. It is that without which life cannot go on. But what is life? Real life is the new relationship with God, that relationship of trust and obedience and love in which we enter when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and our Lord. And, it is a relationship made possible only through Jesus Christ.

Peter said in one of his sermons, "Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Jesus: without Jesus there may be existence, but there isn't life. If we were to travel through the entire gospel of John you'll find a major theme, and one of the major themes is the subject of life. Starting at verse 4 in chapter 1; In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. John 5:40 -- But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.

John 10:10 says, I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly. John 14:6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And in John 20:31, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

Without Jesus there may be existence, but not life. Thus, if Jesus is the essential of life, He may be described as the Bread of Life. The hunger of the human situation is ended when we know Christ and through Him know God. The restless soul is at rest; the hungry heart is satisfied. There is no spiritual life or health apart from the Bread of God.

Secondly, bread is food that is suited to all. There are some people who cannot eat sweets; others are unable to digest meats, but bread is a food that all can partake of and receive strength. The physical body may retain its life for a time without bread, but it will be sickly, and soon sink into sickness and ultimate death. Thus, the spiritual application of this truth is that without Christ we shall perish.

Thirdly, consider the process through which bread passes before it becomes food. It springs up--the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear. Then it is cut down, winnowed, and ground into flour, and finally subjected to the fiery process of the oven. Thus, and only thus, does it become fit to sustain life.

Believer in Christ, such was the experiences of the Bread of God. He was bruised for our iniquities. He was subjected to the fierce fires of God's holy wrath, as He took our place in judgment. God forbid that we should ever lose our sense of wonder of what Jesus has done for us. The bread of life, the Holy One of God, was made a curse for us.

It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. And this in order that He might be the Bread of Life to us. So let's feed on Him. Let's draw from His infinite fullness. Let's ever press forward into a more intimate relationship and fellowship with Him.

Now I make the observation that in verse 33 of the chapter which we are studying, Christ had spoken of giving life to "the world"--the world of believers, the sum total of the saved, the church. Now He speaks of the individual--"he that cometh to Me...he that believeth." A similar order is to be observed in verse 37--note the word "all" is followed by "him." There is, no doubt, a shade of difference between "believing on" Christ and "coming to" Him.

To "believe on" Christ is to receive God's testimony concerning His Son, and to rest on Him alone for salvation. But to "come to" Him--which is really the effect of the former--is for the heart to go out to Him in loving confidence. These two acts are carefully distinguished in the Hebrews passage: "Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is; and that He is the rewarded of them that diligently seek Him." I must know who the physician is, and believe in his ability, before I shall go to him to be cured.

Then our text continues: He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. Did Jesus suggest that Christian believers never hunger or thirst in the spiritual sense?

Well in John 4, when Jesus was talking with the woman at the well, He said: "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him, will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

Now remember, Jesus is talking to Jewish people and they often spoke of the thirst of the soul for God; and they often spoke of quenching that thirst with living water. So Jesus is using terms that are not bound to be misunderstood. He is using terms that anyone with spiritual insight would have understood.

In the Revelation passage the promise is: To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life. In Revelation 7: The Lamb is to lead them to springs of living waters. The promise was that the chosen people would draw water with joy from the wells of salvation: Isaiah 12. The Psalmist spoke of his soul being thirsty for the living God: Psalm 42.

God's promise was: I will pour water on the thirsty land: Isaiah 44. The summons was that every one who was thirsty should come to the waters and freely drink: Isaiah 55. Jeremiah's complaint was that the people had forsaken God who was the fountain of living waters and had hewed themselves out broken cisterns which could hold no water: Jeremiah 2. And Ezekiel had a vision of the river of life. And in the new world there would be a cleansing fountain opened: Zechariah 13. And he said, in Zechariah 14, The waters would go forth from Jerusalem.

I gave us just an overlay of a number of verses, but when you go through the Old Testament you'll see that truth. Constantly there's that thirsting for God and the implication is only He satisfies the soul.

Now, down to the bottom of the page, sometimes the Rabbis identified this living water with the wisdom of the Law; sometimes they identified it with nothing less than the Holy Spirit of God. That is why -- On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And so all Jewish pictorial religious language was full of this idea of the thirst of the soul which could be quenched only with the living water which was the gift of God. To the woman beside the well, Jesus went on to make a still more startling statement that He could give her living water which would banish her thirst for ever. The point is that again the woman took this literally; but in point of fact it was nothing less than a Messianic claim. In the prophetic vision of the age to come, the age of God, the promise was: "They shall not hunger or thirst" -- Isaiah 49.

It was with God and none other that the living fountain of the all-quenching water existed. "With thee is the fountain of life," the Psalmist cries. It's from the very throne of God that the river of life is to flow -- Revelation 22. It's the Lord who is the fountain of living water -- Jeremiah 17. And it's in the Messianic age that the parched ground is to become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water.

So, when Jesus spoke about bringing to men the water which quenches thirst forever, He was doing no less than stating that He was the anointed one of God, the Messiah, who the prophets had prophesied about. He was amongst them, and if they would only believe and receive Him, their hunger and thirst for spiritual things would find their satisfaction forever.

On with the text. But I said unto you, that ye also have seen Me, and believe not. I think that sometimes we move across verses and we miss the feeling that must have been deep in the heart of Christ. He had taken the loaves and fishes and blessed them and multiplied them and they had eaten. They had heard His words, they watched Him, and He said you have seen Me, but you haven't believed.

Unbelief -- we'll move on to it in the latter portion of this but I think so much pathos must have been in that sentence. We don't feel it in English; you've watched Me, you've heard Me, you've eaten My bread, but you still don't believe. After He has delivered this magnificent message on 'I am the bread of life', He comes to the end of His lecture in the synagogue at Capernaum, and that the end of our chapter it says they turned to each other and said this is too hard of a saying for us, and they walked out on Him.

And after this glorious message of eternal life Jesus looks at His crowd and it has dwindled to His faithful few, and He says something so deep, will you also go away? Here He is saying you've observed, you've eaten, you've listen, you've watched, and you still don't believe.

Go with me to page 5. Unbelief has tragic and eternal consequences. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but who ever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." -- John 3:36. John 8:24, "I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the One I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins."

John 16, "When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in Me." Hebrews 3:12, "See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God."

Hundreds of years ago Martin Luther was studying this text and in John 16 he was reading, and when He has come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness, and of judgment of sin because they do not believe in Me. and he took up his pen and he wrote this message on the subject of unbelief: the unbelief, writes Luther, as spoken of in the text is not merely that which is planted by Adam in man's nature, but plainly this, that men believe not in Christ. That is, when the gospel of Christ is preached in order that they may confess their sins and through Christ seek and obtain grace, for when Christ came the sin of Adam and the whole human race, that is, their previous unbelief and disobedience was taken away before God by Christ's sufferings and death, and He built a new heaven of grace and forgiveness so that the sin which we've inherited from Adam shall no longer keep us under God's wrath and condemnation; if we will but believe in the Savior.

Believe-unbelief. I often tell you that, I think, the thing that I wrestle the deepest with at times in preaching is to know that sitting in the audience there are those who do not have a faith in Christ, and I try with all my heart to pour out in simple truth the love of Christ and present Him to people, and when I watch them walk out that door still not believing, it's one of the hurtful experiences of preaching.

O that all men would believe is my prayer. We move on in our text. I'm in the middle of page 5. It says, all that the Father gives me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. Now let me pause here. You know, in going through Scriptures as we do passage after passage, verse after verse, line after line, there are some deep subjects which normally we preachers try to stay away from, or at least we avoid them.

If we preach topically or thematically, you can move away from verses, but here is a verse that is extremely important. It says, all that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. Now when we come to this verse we are introduced to one of the most difficult and sublime truths of our Christian faith. The implied is that only those that the Father calls and reveals Himself to are capable of believing in Christ, and if the Father does not call them, there is no possibility of believing. Now in theological language this concept is referred to as the doctrine of election.

When one looks into the theology books this will be the definition given. Election is an act of God before creation in which He chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of His sovereign and good pleasure.

Now let me stop for a moment. One of the things we seek as a congregation is to try to understand some of the great debates that have taken place and why there are so many different denominations and so many different beliefs, which are the result of great arguments in the past of theology. Let me tell you about an argument, or a difference of opinion, that has really affected the church for the last 500 years.

John Calvin, the great preacher, deeply in love with God was so overwhelmed with the sovereignty of God that he began to preach his doctrine and if you should have attended his church you might have heard a sermon with five points. He would have talked about total depravity, that is, man because of the fall has no capacity whatsoever to respond to spiritual things. He's dead -- total depravity.

And then Mr. Calvin would've gone on to his next point, unconditional election. That is, God will make the choice. It's in His prerogative. It's in His sovereign ability. He'll make the choice as to who will be saved. It may include us. It may not.

Thirdly, his point would be limited atonement. And this is where we Evangelicals would come out of our seat and probably leave his church, because he would stand up there and say Jesus died only for the elect. Limited atonement.

His fourth point would have been irresistible grace. Because God is God, whoever He chooses to say it will be saved.

And his last point would have been perseverance of the saints, all who are called will be saved. Now probably if Mr. Calvin came back to life and would walk into some of the churches were Calvinism is preached in its extreme, called hyper-Calvinism, he'd walk out too because they're not preaching what he taught. But man has an ability to take something and just push it clear to an extreme end.

There was a preacher in England by the name of John Gill. He preached it so hard. He stopped his altar services, stopped the missionary activity, closed the evangelism department of the church, and emptied the church with this kind of preaching. And then old Arminian said, John, you've gone too far. In fact you've sacrificed man's freewill on the altar of God sovereignty. Arminian said, what you've got to remember John is that there are verses like, for God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. Whosoever will may come. John, did you miss those verses?

So what you have is this great theological tension. Some who hold way over here and say God makes all the decisions, man simply is a robot. And you go over on this side of the theological spectrum, and say man makes all the decisions and we'll sacrifice God's sovereignty to protect freewill.

Let's go back to our notes. I have to hurry. The first point of view could be Romans 8:28. Maybe this could be enough support. It says, We know that in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom He predestined He also called; and those whom He called He also justified; and those whom He justified He also glorified. It seems like God is in total control.

Then Paul writes to the Ephesians and says, He chose us! He, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace.

And then I give you the Matthew passage, and in that one, dropping down to the bottom of the page, Jesus seems to indicate that those who listened to His teachings and rejected them were people who did not have the capacity to respond because of the judgment of God as prophesied by Isaiah.

In the prayer that Jesus prayed just before going to the cross, as recorded in John 17, the words of Jesus: "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word."

Now remember, I'm on page 7, the words of our text, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out." And the question that Bible scholars have wrestled with for centuries is: Has the Fall so effected man that he has no innate capacity to make any spiritual decisions? Does God make all decisions for man, and thus, eliminate the free choice of man?

Now at the heart of the discussion is the sovereignty of God. The Westminster Catechism of Faith puts it, God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass. The God of the Bible is before all things, beyond all things, creates all things, upholds all things, knows all things, and can do all things. This is what we mean when we say that God is sovereign.

Now perhaps the most difficult thing to understand is that God is in sovereign control of everything we choose, even our salvation. Look at Ephesians 1:11, for in Him we were chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.

Peter said of Jesus to the Jews, "This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross." And then we find in Acts 13:48, all who were appointed for eternal life believed. John opens his gospel with these words: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor will of man, but of God."

Likewise, Paul affirms that "it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy." And then he adds one more difficult words: "God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden."

You say pastor, why did you load that theological side with all these verses, because normally these are verses that we Evangelicals try to get away from? But they are there, and I gave them to you so you can understand why there are those with a different position than most of us have.

Now look at the bottom of the page. God's sovereignty over human decisions includes both those for Him and against Him. Peter, quoting from Isaiah 8:14, writes of Christ: "He is a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for."

Likewise, God destined the vessels of wrath who were prepared for destruction as well as the vessels of mercy, each according to His will. Whatever else may be said, God's sovereignty over the human will includes His initiating, pursuing, persuading, and saving grace without which no man will ever be saved.

There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, Paul writes in Romans. And we love Him only because He first loved us. Now put those verses over here, that's Mr. Calvin's sermon. Go over here and listen to Mr. Arminian and he will say, no, we have capacity. We have been given choice. I say that somewhere between these two theological extremes, is truth. So I wrote this paragraph, and the middle of page 8, and we're almost done.

When talking about our response to the gospel, Scripture continually views us not as mechanistic creatures or robots, but as genuine persons, personal creatures who make willing choices to accept or reject the gospel. Jesus invites everyone, "Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And we read the invitation at the end of Revelation: "The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let him who hears say, "Come." And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires takes the water of life without price."

Not only do we make willing choices as real persons, but these choices are also real choices because they do effect the course of events in the world. They effect our own lives and they effect the lives and decisions of others.

So our personal decisions to believe or not believe in Christ have eternal consequences in our lives, and Scripture is quite willing to talk about our decision to believe or not to believe as the factor that decides our eternal destiny.

They saw Him. They ate of His bread. The listen to His words, and then they walked away and didn't believe. They made a choice. So where we spend eternity is dependent upon what we do with Jesus. Neutral you cannot be. I tell you the song I heard so many years ago. Jesus is standing in Pilate's hall; friendless, forsaken, despised by all. Hearken what meaneth this sudden call, what will you do with Jesus? And the chorus answers back, what will you do with Jesus, neutral you cannot be, for someday our heart will be asking, what will He do with me?

Let's pray. Every head is bowed. Every eye is closed. Today you've come to church. Today you've heard the gospel in song. Today you've been presented a Christ that loves you and forgives. He gives to us the bread which satisfies the hunger of our soul. Do you want to make a decision for Him today? Our eyes are closed and our heads are bowed, if you'd like to decide for Jesus why don't you just raise your hand to Him?

Yes, He sees that hand; so many of them. Just say this prayer as you're sitting there: Jesus, my heart is open. By Your Holy Spirit come live within me now. I receive You as my Savior and my God. Thank you Jesus.

Lord Jesus, thank you for these moments we've had to be together. Thank you for Your presence, and now as we leave the sanctuary, may Your divinest benedictions grace our life -- in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit we pray, amen. God bless you. God bless you.