33
John 6:35-37 GODS FOREKNOWLEDGE OF WHO WOULD BE SAVED
Introduction:
In
our text last Sunday Jesus declared to a great
multitude that He is the true Bread From
Heaven. Our text
today repeats the last verse of that last
and goes on to
place emphasis on God's foreknowledge of
who would come to
Jesus for salvation.
I.
A more detailed explanation of Jesus as the Bread of
Life
In
this message I want to go into a more detailed
explanation of the manner in which Jesus
speaks of Himself
as the Bread of Life. V. 35, "And Jesus said unto them, I
am the bread of life..." It is common knowledge that man
gets his life-sustaining energies from the
food that he
eats.
He eats the food, his body digests the food and the
nourishment that he derives from the food
furnishes energy
for his body.
All of man's energy to be active is from the food that
he eats.
His ability to work or play is from his food. His
ability continue to live is from the food
that he eats. If
he stops eating, he will soon stop
living. Food is man's
source of physical energy.
Bread
is the main item in the diet of man. It
is the
chief food. It has often been called "The staff of
life."
Bread is the staff of life for man
physically.
It
is in this sense that Jesus uses bread to illustrate
what He does for man spiritually. Just as bread is the
staff of life physically for man, even so,
Jesus is the
staff of life spiritually for man. That is, Jesus is the
Bread of Life from the spiritual point of
view.
Now
in order for man to get the benefit of bread
physically, he must eat it. I have heard Sister Davis say a
number of times, "I didn't get this
size just by looking at
food." You have to eat it for it to
do you any good.
Even
so, if one is going to get any benefit from the
Lord's power to save his soul, he must
believe in the Lord.
He must believe in Jesus that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son
of God, the Savior of the world. Men cannot and will not
call on a Savior whom they do not believe
exists.
In
order to get the benefit of the Lord's saving power,
he must believe that Jesus can save his
soul. He must
believe the gospel message that God has
sent His Son here to
this world to be the Savior of men and
that He is able to
save those who trust in Him.
Then
in addition to believing that Jesus is real and
believing that He really can save lost
sinners from their
sin, one must realize that he is a sinner
and that he needs
to be saved. He must want to be saved. He must be hungry
for salvation. He must want it.
Finally,
he must call upon Jesus asking Jesus to save
his soul and make sure that he will get to
heaven. Just as
one must eat bread to get the benefit of
its energies, even
so a lost sinner must place his faith in
Jesus in order to
get saved.
He must believe in Jesus.
Once
one places food in his mouth and eats it, he will
get the temporary benefit which food
gives. Even so, when
one places his faith in Jesus, he get the
permanent benefit
of God's saving grace. (V. 35), "...he that cometh to me
shall never hunger; and he that believeth
on me shall never
thirst."
Jesus
does not save a man one day and then turn him
loose to go to hell the next day. When He saves a man, He
saves Him forever. Jesus satisfies the need of the soul on
a permanent basis. He will never hunger again. He will
never even thirst again because he will
never be lost again.
II.
The unbelief of the multitude of people
V.
36, "But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me,
and believe not." The problem with the great majority in
that multitude of people to whom Jesus was
speaking was that
they had never trusted in Jesus to save
their souls. They
had come oh so very close! They had seen the Savior with
their own eyes. They had heard Him with their own ears.
They had witnessed His great power in a
way that most people
only get to read about. They had witnessed as Jesus took
the five loaves of bread and two fish and
feed all that
great multitude. They had personally eaten until they were
full.
They had done all this, but they had never eaten the
true bread from heaven. They had not yet partaken of the
Bread of Life that gives the salvation of
the soul.
That
is, at least, most of them had not.
There were a
few exceptions, but the most of them had
never been saved.
Now
keep in mind that food does not do you any good just
by looking at it. You have got to eat of the food before it
does you any good. These people had seen the Bread of Life.
They had seen Jesus. But the most of them had never partook
of that bread by placing their faith in
Jesus to save them
and take them to heaven. It was by their own choice that
they did not believe in Him. Just as some, by their own
choice, do not eat food which is place before
them.
III.
A clarification concerning this verse
V.
37, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me;
and him that cometh to me I will in no
wise cast out." Let
me caution you about one thing right
here. Some people
interpret this verse of Scripture to mean
that God has
picked out certain people to be saved and
that they are the
only ones who can possibly ever get
saved. They say that if
God had wanted anybody else to get saved,
that He would
picked them also. They say that God does not want anybody
else to get saved.
Let
me say to you unequivocally that this is not what
the Bible teaches and, therefore, this is
not what Jesus is
saying in this verse.
Never-the-less,
Jesus does make it clear that God the
Father has given certain people to Him and
that they will
come to Him for salvation.
The
question is: What people did God the
Father give to
Jesus?
That question is not hard to answer, once you stop
and think about it. In fact, Jesus Himself in John 3:16-17
helps to answer that question. "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. For
God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world,
but that the world might be
saved." God sent Jesus into
the world for the purpose of saving
everybody in the world.
God did not eliminate anybody from the
opportunity to be
saved.
Note
also that God requires that one place his faith in
His Son Jesus Christ in order to get
saved. "...whosoever
believeth in him...") God purposed for every man to have a
choice.
One could chose to believe in Jesus or he could
chose not to believe in Jesus. His salvation depends on
that choice.
However,
Romans
Scripture.
God knew beforehand who would chose to believe
Jesus and who would not. Therefore, knowing this with
absolute accuracy, God the Father had
already given certain
ones to Jesus that they might be
saved. Listen to Romans
8:29, "For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of his
Son..."
So
out of that great multitude of people, God had
eliminated nobody from being saved. God had sent Jesus for
the purpose of saving all of them if they
would only trust
in Jesus.
But God did know in advance which ones of them
would trust Him and be saved. All that Jesus is saying here
in this verse is that all of those whom
God knew would be
saved did believe in Jesus got saved. All whom God had
given to Jesus based on His foreknowledge
of who would trust
Jesus, did come to Jesus and trusted in
Him just as God knew
they would.
All
of them saw Him. All of them heard
Him. All of
them had been miraculously fed by
Him. All of them had
heard Him say that He is the Bread of
Life. All of them
heard Him explain that if they wanted to
be saved they could
be saved if they would trust in Him. But not all of them
did trust in Him. Many of them were not saved on that
occasion and, no doubt, many of them were
never saved.
IV.
About people today
God
also foreknew about people who live today.
Psalm
147:5 says that God knew the end from the
beginning. That
is, He knew every detail all the way from
the beginning to
the end.
He knew who would live. He knew
who would repent
of their sins and trust Jesus Christ as
Savior.
He
knew about us. He knew about you. He knew when and
where you would be born. He knew what your name would be.
Unlike most people, He knows your full
name. He knows how
old you are right now. If you are already saved, He knows
that.
If you are unsaved, He knows that.
He knows all of
the things you do and all that you say or
think. If you are
unsaved and you would like to be saved, He
knows about that,
too.
There
is one thing of which I am sure. I am
sure that
He loves you and that He wants you to be
saved. That is why
He sent Jesus into the world. He wants you to be saved. He
wants everybody to be saved.
Right
now there is nobody more interested in seeing you
turn to Jesus Christ for salvation than
God the Father in
heaven.
God is the one who sent Jesus to the cross to die
for us so that we would have an
opportunity to be saved.
God is the one who sent the Holy Spirit to
inspire the
writing of the Bible so that we would know
how to be saved.
God is the one who called me to preach so
that I would
preach the gospel to you this
morning. God is the one who
arranged for the
be organized in this community many years
ago. God is the
one who is watching right now from heaven
waiting for you to
turn to Jesus and put your faith in Him as
your Savior.
God
already knows in advance what you are going to do
about Jesus. If you are going to reject Jesus, He is
already sad about that. Nobody regrets it more than God
does.
He still loves you.
If
you are going place your faith in Jesus Christ this
morning He already knows about that,
too. He is ready. He
is waiting. He is anxious to save you. He is excited about
it.
He can hardly wait for you to turn to Jesus so that
Jesus can save your soul.
Let
me give this personal advice to you. If
you will
turn to Jesus today and trust Him to save
your soul, you
will never, never, never regret it. If you do not trust
Jesus Christ, you will forever regret it.
Now
is the time. Now is your
opportunity. Now is your
chance to come to Jesus and place your
faith and trust in
Him to save your soul.
Conclusion:
I
am going to call for the musicians to come forward and
lead this congregation in a hymn. I am going to ask that
you all stand. I am going to ask that if there is anybody
here who is unsaved who wants to be saved
that you come
forward and place your faith in Jesus to
save you. Who will
come while we stand and sing?