Hard Sayings or Hard Hearts?

Sermon
Hard Sayings or Hard Hearts?
March 3, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

In my studies this last week I ran across this beautiful poem that is one of my favorites. Would you like to reach into your bulletin? It's an addendum, an additional page beyond the eight pages of your sermon notes, and I'd like to read this to you. I wanted you to have it. You can tuck it away in your Bible. I think you'll enjoy this as much as I do.
'Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin
But held it up with a smile.
"What am I bid, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?
A dollar, a dollar--now two, only two--
Two dollars, and who'll make three?
"Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
Going for three" --but no!
From the room far back a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow:
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet.
As sweet as an angel sings.
The music ceased, and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: "What am I bid for the old violin?"
And he held it up with the bow.
"A thousand--and who'll make it two?"
Two thousand--and who'll make it three?
Three thousand once and three thousand twice
And going and gone," said he.
The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand---
What changed its worth?" The man replied,
THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER'S HAND.
And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and torn with sin.
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd,
Much like the old violin.
A "mess of pottage," a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He's going once and going twice,
He's going--and almost gone!
But the MASTER comes, and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul, and the change that's wrought
By the TOUCH OF THE MASTER'S HAND.

Isn't it a beautiful poem? And now we come to the closing lesson on chapter 6 in the gospel of John. I counted it up the other day and I think we've had 10 or 11 lessons from this one chapter. This is our last one; chapter 6.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying; who can understand it?" When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, "Does this offend you?
What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.
And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
Then Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also want to go away?"
But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.
Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?"
He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve."

Now we'll follow the notes for little bit, but time hurries along so we'll not cover them completely. The passage before us is one full of pathos. It brings to the conclusion of our Lord's ministry in Galilee. If we were to look at a map the little nation of Palestine is about 70 miles wide, and about 130 miles long. The upper portion is called the area of Galilee. The southern portion is Judea, which would include the city of Jerusalem. So He's been up north, Galilee, and it shows us the outcome of His ministry there.

He had performed some wonderful miracles and had given out some gracious teachings. It was here that He had turned the water into wine. It was here He had healed the nobleman's son without so much as seeing him. It was here that He fed the multitude. Each of these miracles plainly accredited His Divine mission, and evidenced His Deity.

None other ever performed such works as these. Before such evidence unbelief was excuseless. It is indeed pathetic to find that here in Galilee Christ met with no better reception than He had in Judea, and it's striking to see how closely one resembled that of the other. His success there, judged by human standards, seemed all that could be desired. Crowds followed Him; and many seemed anxious to be His disciples. But it soon became evident that the crowds were actuated by motives of an earthly and carnal character. Few gave evidence of any sense of spiritual need.

So as it was in Judea, the same as it was in Galilee the response was identical. Human nature is the same wherever it is found; that is why history so constantly repeats itself. When one understands the full requirements of following Christ, when one begins to count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus, then for most, the interest fades, and they drop away.

You might write down some Scripture verses out on that personal notes column, because I went through the sayings of Jesus and realized that His requirements were exceedingly stringent to be a disciple. In Matthew 16:24, just write the passage location, Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

In Luke 14:33; In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything -- everything -- everything he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26; If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters -- yes, even his own life -- he cannot -- he cannot -- he cannot be my disciple.

John 15:18 says; If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet, because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than His master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.

What's Jesus saying? He is saying if you're going to follow Him it's a life of self-denial. He comes first and you take up His cross, you bear His shame. He said if you're going to be My disciple everything else must become secondary. I must become primary. If you're not willing to give up everything for Me, don't waste your time trying to be a disciple. Now those are strong words.

He is saying if you're not willing to make your family, those closest to you, your wife, your husband, your children, even your own life -- they must take a secondary position to Me. I'm either first or I'm not at all. And then He said if you're going to be My disciple, the world is going to hate you. And the reason why they're going to hate you is because your value system, your lifestyle, is going to bring them under such condemnation for their sin they're not going to want you around. They're going to hate you.

Now you can understand when the disciples, those who listened to the words of Jesus, and He takes it a little further; if you're going to be My disciple you're going to have to participate in My life -- eat My flesh, drink My blood, which He meant that in a spiritual sense.

So back to our notes. If we are to profit from this section of the Gospel, we must be very clear in our understanding of why those who had appeared to be disciples dropped away. John says, "On hearing it, many of His disciples said, 'This is a hard saying. Who can accept it?'" And he adds, "Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, 'Does this offend you?'"

Now the reason lies in the fact that Christ's teachings were "hard" to accept. The Greek word is (skleros,) and it clearly does not mean "hard to understand." We went over this last Sunday. Some of those very difficult portions of Scripture, some of those things that Jesus was saying, they understood because they had a mindset in the sacrificial system, which we don't.

So what that really means, "these words are too hard", what they're saying is we don't tolerate them. They're too hard for us to accept. We're not going to tolerate that kind of teaching. Your demands are too hard. We're not going to tolerate it.

So long as Christ's followers could not understand Him, they stayed around and asked questions. It was when they did understand Him that they went elsewhere. They left because what they heard was so contrary to their own views that they would not accept it.

Our text says that the grumbling took place with the disciples. A 'disciple' means one who is a learner. These 'disciples' were carefully distinguished from "the twelve." They were made up of a class of people who were, in measure, attracted by the person of Christ and who were, more especially, impressed by His miracles. But how real this attraction was, and how deep the impression made, we are now going to be able to see.

When Christ had presented Himself not as the Wonderworker, but as the Bread of God; when He had spoken of giving His flesh for the life of the world, and of men drinking His blood, which signified that He would die, and die a death of violence; when He insisted that except they ate His flesh, and drank His blood, "they had no life" in them; and, above all, when He announced that man is so depraved and so alienated from God, that except the Father draw him, he would never come to Christ for salvation: with these words they were all offended.

It will be seen, then, that we take the words, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it? "as referring to the whole discourse which Jesus had just delivered in the Capernaum synagogue.

We would agree that some of the sermon is not easy to comprehend, but the real difficulty does not lie there. As Calvin put it, "The hardness was in their hearts and not in the sayings." They had their own ideas about the way to God and they were not going to be shaken out of it. Jesus wasn't going to change their mind.

Leon Morris, in his little commentary, tells the following story: A little boy went off to Sunday School. When he came home his mother asked what he had learned. "Well," he said, "we had a story about Moses. God sent him behind the enemy lines to rescue the Israelites from the Egyptians. When they got to the Red Sea, Moses called for the engineers to build a pontoon bridge to get them across. When they were all over, Moses saw the Egyptian tanks coming. Quick as a flash he sent headquarters a message on his walkie-talkie radio, asking them to send dive bombers to blow up the bridge. They did and the Israelites were saved." His rather dazed mother inquired, "Is that really the way your teacher told the story?"
"Well, not exactly mom, but if I told it the way she did, you'd never believe it." (Congregation laughs)

We are all inclined to be a little bit like that. We have a firm idea of how God should act, and we persist in seeing His actions the way we imagine them instead of listening to what in fact He has chosen to do. That was the way it was with Jesus' hearers that day in Capernaum. They were sure of the way God acted. Were not they and all the Jews the people of God? Had He not sent His prophets to their nation? Did they not have fine official interpreters of His word? Jesus, they thought, could not possibly be believed when what He said contradicted their understanding of the way God acts.

They did not say all this openly, but "muttered" to themselves. But Jesus knew. So He said, "Does this trouble you?" It's an interesting word. It's a word picture taken from the trapping of birds.
The trap would be set with a stick (called a SKANDALON) propping it open. When the bird sat on the stick and moved it, the trap was triggered off and the capture made. Much like a mousetrap, isn't it?

The verb SKANDALIZO means "to trigger off the trap," and it is this verb that is used here. It means -- to cause to stumble, to offend. Now Jesus perceived that what He had said meant trouble, not enlightenment, to His hearers. They would not accept it; they could not imagine that Jesus was in fact the one way to salvation. So they did not accept what He was saying. They found His words unacceptable, offensive and intolerable.

Now remember, the words were not hard, but their hearts were. In verse 62 Jesus poses a question for them, and there is a problem for us in that He does not complete it. If we were reading the original Hebrew text, all we would find in verse 62 would be these words: what then if then you see? Now our other translations have filled in words such as the King James: "What then and if you shall see?" But in the original it leaves His hearers to work out for themselves what would be the result of their seeing.

He speaks of the Son of man "going up where He was before." This must refer to His going back to heaven, for Jesus has made it clear in the discourse just ended that He came down from heaven. What He is saying is this: You find it difficult to believe that I am the bread, the essential of life, which came down from heaven. Well then, you will have no difficultly in accepting that claim when some day you see Me ascending back to heaven. It is a forecast of the Ascension.

Here's His point: you're offended, you won't believe, your heart is hard. I'm going to give you just, in the days to come, one more proof of My deity and that proof will be that some of you will see Me go back into heaven. It's recorded in Acts 1:9 and it says that as they were standing on the Mount of Ascension, all of a sudden Jesus began to disappear into the skies. Two men dressed in white said, "Ye men of Galilee, why do you stand there gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus that you have seen go into heaven will come back in like manner as you have seen Him go.

Paul adds an interesting comment in 1 Corinthians 15 where he's talking about the evidence of Christ's resurrection. He tells about the folks who saw Christ between His resurrection and His ascension. He adds one little phrase, and at one time there were over 500 that saw Him at once.

Most Bible scholars try to find a moment when 500 people would have gathered to see Christ, and many conclude that it must have been around that Mount of Ascension. So what Jesus is saying is listen, I've talked to you; I've poured out My life; you've evidence the power; you have watched the sick be healed; you have seen bread multiply to feed thousands; you've still got a hard heart. But the day will come when I will ascend back to where I came from then you'll believe. And I think what Paul must of been referring to in that Corinthian passage, many of those folks who sat and listened there in that Synagogue in Capernaum that day must have heard, must have watched, as Jesus ascend back to heaven.

Now let's go back to our notes. Time is away from me today, so let's go back to the front page and I'll just quickly go over the verses now so that you'll understand them. He said, What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before? We've talked about that. It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. You see, they had literally understood this drinking of blood and eating of flesh. Jesus said that's not what I have in mind. It's not the flesh; that profits nothing. What I'm talking about are My words. They are life and I'm asking you to absorb them into your very being and allow them to transform your lives.

He said it's the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing. It's the words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. So He clears the misunderstanding of the literalness. And for those who have, down through time, tried to make this whole matter of the communion time a literalization of the body and blood of Christ, Jesus already here said, look at, it's not the flesh that profits anything, so don't make an issue of it. It's the words that I speak; they are life.

He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father." Jesus reviews what He had said in verse 44. Jesus is simply saying salvation is all of God. You didn't choose Me. I chose you and ordained you.

In the Ephesians passage, in the eternities past before the foundation of the world He chose us in Him to be His. Jesus said, you have an arrogance, a religious arrogance, that you think you're all going to get to heaven. You abide by all of these man-made rules and regulations. In fact, religion in Jesus' day made Him sick to His stomach. He didn't care for religious people. And He said, look at, I want you to know that all the religion you've got isn't going to get you anywhere; if you get to heaven, it's because God, My Father, has selected you to be there. Now that got to them. That was all they could take.

Look at the next verse. From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Now get the picture, we followed it throughout this chapter; He feeds the multitude, He goes up to pray, sends the disciples back across the lake, He meets them walking on the water, all of this mob that He's fed get in boats and head towards Capernaum trying to find Him. So He's got a crowd.

I mean, that Synagogue must have been jam packed to the doors, and He's given them this message and with that last word -- none of you will make it into heaven unless it's the determination and the decision of My Father who is in heaven; they started walking out, and only in a few moments time the crowd is gone. And all He's got left is 12 people.

I've told you that I've thought about that moment. I wonder what it would be like if I preached a sermon and all of a sudden all of you got up and walked out on me. Can you imagine the pain in the heart of Jesus? He's poured out His life, demonstrated His deity, fed them, and given them the opportunity to enjoy life eternal, and they turn and walk away from Him. It's almost too hard to believe, isn't it? But it wasn't the hardness of the saying, it was the hardness of their hearts.

Paul sits down to write his closing notes before going off to heaven in 2 Timothy chapter 4, and as he's writing his manuscript he gets to verse 10 and he makes this comment: for Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world. Now that must have hurt him. I think he must of written that line with tears, but it's the next verse that gets to me. Verse 11 says: only, only, now remember this is the greatest apostle of all times, only Luke is with me. And here as the great apostle Paul gets ready to finish his journey and everybody's walked out on him.

Jesus is there at the cross and already He's been told by Peter and all the rest of them -- I'm not going to forsake You. All the rest of them chimed in and said we're not going to forsake You either Jesus. And then we find that one line -- and they all forsook Him and fled, and He went to the wine press alone.

You know, you may, as an individual, have those in your family who walk away from Jesus, and it hurts you deeply. But I stand here Sunday after Sunday, year after year, decade after decade, and I see people who come and give every indication that they're a disciple, and then I watch them walk away. And I have to tell you, that it hurts me deeply. You folks mean very much to me.

I got an e-mail letter I wish I had never gotten two weeks ago. It was from a man who served in this church years and years and years ago as a pastor. We sent that pastor out to touch his world, which he did. He circled the world. Thousands came to him. His ministry was international.

From time to time he sent me reports rejoicing, and I rejoiced along with him. But the letter advised me, as well as hundreds of others, because it was on the Internet, he made his decision -- walked out of his house, left his wife of 40 years plus, three beautiful children who are in the ministry, renounced his ministry, had his wife close the books, notify everybody he was done, and today he's out serving the devil.

I haven't stopped crying inside since I got that letter, because I don't like to see people walk away from Jesus. And Jesus stood there. Now I think the silence has filled the big Synagogue, just 12. This is the reason why I started our lesson today by saying it was filled with pathos. He turned to the 12 and said: Do you want to go away too?

And I thank God every day for Peter. Don't ever say anything bad about Peter to me. He gets kicked around by so many Christians because he failed. He made these big promises and failed. That's all of us. We all do. But I'll tell you, when the chips were down, Jesus could count on Peter. It was old Peter who spoke up and said, "Lord, to whom can we go?" Can't you hear his old voice just echoing through that old Synagogue? "Lord, to whom can we go? Only You have the words of eternal life.

Old Peter said, Lord, I'm not going back to those fishing nets. I'm not going back to my life of sin. I'm not going back to that emptiness. I'm not going back to that darkness. There's no where to go to find life but only in You, dear Jesus.

Ladies and gentlemen, there is no other source. There is salvation in none other save Jesus Christ. And I don't care wherever you go, to whomever you look, if you're looking for satisfaction that solves the problem of your searching soul -- you'll only find it in Jesus. And old Peter was right. Lord there's no place else to go, because You're it, for time and for eternity. What a declaration. It must have thrilled the heart of Jesus to hear old Peter say that.

And Peter said I've got one more thing to say Jesus, we now believed and we know -- now notice how he put it. He didn't say know and then believe. He made it right. You've got to open your heart and believe before the divine knowledge of God fills your being. You've got to believe and then you know. And Peter said we believed, and now we know that You are Jesus the Son of the living God.

I can see those folks, the 12, and Jesus leave the old Synagogue. I can see them walking down the street in Capernaum. I think they've got their arms around each other, and I think most of all they're trying to encourage Jesus. Jesus, we're behind You, keep going.

Ladies and gentlemen, I end this lesson today by asking you to make a commitment. God knows we're weak, God knows we will fail, God knows we'll wander, but let's make it our commitment. Say to Jesus, Jesus You can count on me. I'm sticking with You. With Your help and Your precious Spirit flowing through me, Jesus you can count on me. I'm going nowhere but to You. Amen?

Lord Jesus, we've caught the picture today and all of us sitting here are aware of people who once called You their Lord, and who gave every mark or at least it seemed an identification that they were Your disciple, and then today they're not walking with You anymore. We pray for them today, the backslider, the one who is living in rebellion, the one whose heart is hard. Soften their hearts O God, and bring them back to You. Jesus, with everything inside me, I want to tell You that I don't want to go anywhere but to You, because You're everything I need. Thank you for being my Savior. And everybody said, amen. God bless you folks.