SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/13/2016 10:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Review of John Six
We are
going to be doing things a bit different in our Spiritual Diary for today and
it comes about because of a sermon that I listened to this morning on the next
section that we will be looking at which is John 6:51-59. Now one of the things that I like about John
MacArthur’s preaching is the fact that he takes the time to review some of the
things that he has just gone over. Now
we have to understand why he does this and as we look at a couple of reasons we
will better understand it. For one thing
he does a lot of traveling as evidenced in the fact that I had the privilege to
listen to him personally last night near my home as he was at a church not far
from me and so my wife and I got to listen to a very wonderful sermon from the
15th chapter of Luke. We live
in Ohio and he was ministering in Kentucky and come up from there for the
evening to preach at a church near us.
He lives in California some 2500 miles away from us so when he returns
to his church after being gone for a while he will have to review some of the
things that he has been preaching about.
Another thing is that I have the opportunity to listen to as many of his
sermons in a day as I want to or have time to so there is no gap and if I
listen to his reviews they don’t mean as much as if I had to wait a week to
listen to the next sermon.
Now as we look at this sixth chapter
of John and the sermon that Jesus is preaching we see that even Jesus mentions
that He is the bread of life a number of times and mentions that He came down
from heaven a number of times, so even Jesus reviewed in this sermon. Now what we will do is quote the review
portion of MacArthur’s sermon to remind us what we have been studying in this
chapter and then in our next SD I plan to do and introduction to this portion
of Scripture, verses 51-58, and then we will look at the different sections in
these verses.
MacArthur begins this sermon
talking about what different people have said about who Jesus Christ is, but as
we have been studying the entire book of John we have stated over and over
again that the reason that he wrote the book if found in John 20:30-31 “30 Therefore many other signs Jesus also
performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;
31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing you may have life in His name.” Now we will pick up on his review from this
point on:
“All of those are fine, but none of them are
sufficient. He is no mere man. He is not the best of men, He is God in a body,
God incarnate in human flesh. He is none other than the divine Creator and the
divine Sustainer and the divine end of all creation. He is either God in a
body, or He is the sickest mind or the most diabolical fraud that ever lived.
Jesus, says John, over and over again is God in a human body. And week by week
as we have studied John's gospel, we have heard that same message over and over
again. He states his purpose, for example, at the end of his gospel in chapter
20 verse 31 when he says in reflecting on the whole gospel of John, he says
this, "These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God. And that believing you might have life in His name, or
through His name."
“In other words, the theme is the deity of Jesus
Christ that He is God a very God, the essence of perfect deity. And John has
for now six chapters in our study brought forth witnesses to declare that this
is so. First of all, he used the testimony of men. John the Baptist, for
example, said, "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the
world." Then Andrew said, "We have found the Messiah." Then
Philip said, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets
did write, even Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Then Nathanael
chimed in and said, "Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of
Israel." Then we heard from the mouth of Nicodemus, "Rabbi, we know
that Thou art a teacher come from God."
“Then the woman at the well said, "Come see a
man who told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?" And
then the Samaritans themselves having seen said, "We have heard Him for
ourselves and know that this is the Christ, the Savior of the world." And
of the Canaan nobleman it was said, "He himself believed and his whole
household."
“And so, John has called the testimony of men to
corroborate the fact that Jesus is indeed God. And he didn't even stop there.
He called on the testimony of the miracles of Christ. Nicodemus said, "We
know that Thou art a teacher come from God because no man can do the things
Thou doest except God be with Him." We saw Him make wine at Cana. We saw
Him make bread and fish at Galilee. We saw Him raise a nobleman's son. We saw
Him beside a man 36 years impotent and He gave that man new life and he stood
and walked and carried his bed. We saw the miracles that He did in Jerusalem.
We saw the miracles that He did that day on the shore of the Galilee Sea. And
miracle after miracle has been echoing the statement of John, Jesus is God,
Jesus is God.
“And added to that is the testimony of Jesus Christ
Himself. For He claimed to be God. Back in John 3 verse 14 He claims to be the
definitive character of history. He says in verse 14 of John 3, "As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up." Why? "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have
eternal life." In other words, Christ is the determinating factor between
life and death. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life." Then He says, "For God sent not His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And he that
believeth on Him is not condemned but he that believeth not is condemned already
because he hath not believed." In other words, Jesus says I am the
deciding character of history.
“Then
to add to that statement you look at chapter 4 and verse 25, "The woman
said unto Him, 'I know that Messiah comes who's called Christ, when He is come
He will tell us all things.' Jesus said unto her, 'I that speak unto thee am
He.'" What a claim. Then you go to chapter 5 and He's doing the same thing
again. In verse 17, "Jesus answered them, 'My Father works hither to and I
work.'" In other words, they criticized Him for working on the Sabbath. He
said, "That's all right, God works on the Sabbath and I can to,"
implying that He was God. In verse 18, "The Jews sought the more to kill
Him because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His
Father making Himself equal with God." What a claim. Over in verse 39 of
the same chapter He says, "Search the Scriptures for in them you think you
have eternal life and they are they which testify of Me." And over in
verse 46, "For had you believed Moses you would have believed Me, for he
wrote of Me."
Christ
makes monumental claims. And then moving in to chapter 6 He claims again, verse
32, "Verily, verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven. But My Father gives you the true bread from heaven for the bread of God
is He who comes down from heaven." And in verse 34...35 He says, "I
am that bread."
“And
that brings us to where we are today. Christ has said to those Jews who were
fed the day before, "You don't need to worry about physical food,"
they had followed Him to Capernaum because their stomachs were growling and it
was morning and time for breakfast. And He says, "Don't work for that kind
of food, you need to call to attention the fact that your souls are hungry and
you need that food that satisfies the soul." Then He says, "God sent
that food and I am that food." So in this sermon He's really got three
good points...your souls are hungry, God sent you food, I am that food. That's
the message of this sermon on the bread of life. Tremendous claim to being from
heaven, claim to be deity. He says, "I am the only soul food, the only
nourishing, lasting food."
“Now
we've studied a great part of this sermon already. We're going to come to the
climax this morning. And it's very strange because as I read over this so many
times, I began to think, "Boy, Christ really belabors the point. He says I
am the bread of life. He waits a few verses, I am the bread of life. A few more
verses, I am the bread of life." He repeats Himself almost as if He's
laboring with the point. And then I began to think about who He was talking to
and you know it's very obvious why He belabored the point because their minds
were so thick with ignorant unbelief that He couldn't get through. Christ has
already spent from verses 30 to 50 saying one thing, your souls are hungry, God
sent food, I'm that food. And He said that two or three times. They still don't
have the message. You say, when God gives a message that many times and a man
refuses that message, I'd hate to be in that man's shoes cause great revelation
implies great responsibility. To whom much is given...what?...much is required.
So Jesus says, "I am that bread."
“Now
the Jews have reacted in their normal way, verse 42, they said, "What do
You mean You're from heaven, we know You, You're the son of Joseph from
Nazareth." Again showing their ignorance in the situation. But instead of
explaining all the little things that they had in their mind, Jesus never
condescends to unbelief. He'll condescend to ignorance, He'll condescend to
misunderstanding, but when its caused by unbelief, He avoids it. He never
caters to unbelief. And they were unbelieving. But as we come to our verses
today, Jesus moves ahead and explains this doctrine in more detail, and this is
thrilling. This is the climax. You're going to see some things this morning
that are going to thrill your heart, I promise you that. This is exciting.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “A woman of Samaria” (John 4:7).
Today’s Bible question:
“How many chapters are in Isaiah?”
(A clue: Same amount of chapters
in the entire Bible.)
Answer in our next SD.
4/13/2016 11:08 AM
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