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I now attempt, gentlemen, to do very little more than point out the major paragraphs in the rest of this chapter and what they are concerned with. We haven't the time to look at all the detail of the verses. So shall we first notice verse forty one? The Jews therefore murmured concerning him because he said, I am the bread which came down out of heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How doth he now say, I am come down out of heaven? The mystery to them of the incarnation. Secondly, verse, um, fifty two. In reply to what our Lord said in verse fifty one, uh and the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Two murmurings, therefore, of the Jews to what our Lord is saying. To be followed by two criticisms from the disciples. They are a rather stri- strict and narrow group. The Jews therefore murmured concerning him about his incarnation. And our Lord replied, murmur not among yourselves, verse forty four, no man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day. Now, these are famous words and have been variously interpreted by serious-minded, um, theologians. Let me not speak with any contempt, uh, for my fellow brothers in Christ, who understand these words to mean that there are some whom the Father draws because he has so chosen to draw them. There are multitudes of other people that God never did intend to draw, and therefore he doesn't draw them. And that is why they don't get saved, because they are not elect. God has decided not to draw them. Whereas others who are the elect, God himself draws. That seems to me, I must say, going beyond what scripture is saying. Our Lord is talking to Jews, highly religious Jews. And can't imagine what our Lord is saying by saying, I can come down from heaven. Not even Moses claimed any such thing, or Elijah, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, let alone Ezekiel, so forth. And what he now says about their coming down from heaven is a great mystery to them. It is indeed a mystery. And our Lord's reply is not by way of discouragement, but he's earning the mystery. No one can come to me, he says, except the Father which sent me. Draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It does take divine initiative. When Peter confessed Jesus to be the Son, Christ, the Son of God, our Lord replied, flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father, which is in heaven, has revealed it to you. It does take divine initiative, divine revelation, divine drawing. Yes? Because that is the, uh, very necessary condition, do you see, doesn't by itself imply that some he draws and some he doesn't draw. It is a necessary condition that the Father draws. We shan't understand the deity of Christ without God revealing it to us in that sense. That is not to say he he God is not prepared to reveal it to a large number of people, just passes them by. It is saying what is necessary for anyone to come and believe that Jesus is the su- Christ, the Son of God. Indeed, it is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. There will come a time when all Israel is saved, all Israel taught of God. Everyone that hath heard from the Father and hath learned cometh to me. Oh Lord, I repeat, is speaking to Jews. There were, of course, multitudes of Jews, even in our Lord's time. Mm, the Marthas, the Marys, the Andrews, and the Nathaniels, the Peter, James, and John, and Philip and Bartholomew. You'll see, as there had always been people taught of the Father in the Old Testament, uh, even before Abraham. And then Abraham, and uh, you think of Moses and and the uh, Samuel and Hannah and David and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Isaiah's disciples. Genuine people of God under Judaism, taught of God. And everybody taught of God when Christ came, came to him. Some of them took a bit longer to come than others, didn't they? But even among those that first shouted away with him at the cross, on the day of Pentecost, three thousand of them got converted anyway. And came to the Son. That is the work of the Father. Who, uh, teaches and, uh, draws people to Christ. Do you see? And Christ is talking, though equal with the Father. He's now trying, uh, not trying to take the place of the Father, acknowledging his dependence on the Father for what he preaches, and for the Father to authenticate his message and explain it to the people that they may be drawn to Christ. Yes. Uh, now he is the bread that is the fulfillment of the prototypes of the Old Testament. Your fathers did eat the manna in the wilderness and they died. Christ is the fulfillment in the sense of now he is the bread to which that manna pointed in its day. Just like Israel were redeemed out of Egypt and protected by the blood of the Passover lamb. There came the time when our Lord fulfilled the Passover by being the Lamb of God. And people who had been instructed as to what the Passover meant would come to see how it pointed to Christ. Your father ate manna in the wilderness, yes, but it was but a pointer, a pro tem thing, a prototype, real in its day. It pointed onward to the bread of which a man eats, he shall never die. Our Lord, the fulfillment in that strict sense of the word fulfillment of the manna. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh for the light of the w- life of the world. Now there comes another objection. Not this time about how does he say he came down from heaven, but what does he mean? How can this man give us his flesh to eat? You might have thought that they could see at once it was a metaphor. They didn't, he wasn't advocating cannibalism to be practiced upon himself. To say, his flesh given for the life of the world. And then he ex- uh, expounds it, his flesh and blood. He that eateth me and drinketh my blood. In other words, vivid expression for saying that Christ not, uh, came not merely from heaven to save us, but Christ comes to be within us, in us. Like our food goes into us. So Christ comes into the believer. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Yes. The life I now live, I live by faith of the Son of God. I live, yet not I, it is Christ who lives in me. Let us think, therefore, both ways of the miracle and the parable we've just read about, and then apply it even at this level, at this point in the discussion. He that eateth this bread shall never die. No, indeed not. Only consider what the bread is. It is the, not only the bread of life, it is the living bread. The manna came down from heaven, but it wasn't alive itself, you know. As far as we're aware. Our Lord is the living bread. It is alive, this bread. When the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand took place, we're told that after the crowds had eaten and were filled, our Lord instructed the apostles to go round and collect up that, gather up the broken pieces of the bread, that is, which remain over, that nothing be lost. That's an interesting remark. That is chapter six verse twelve. And you might say, but if our Lord had the power to multiply a few loaves and fishes to feed of five thousand, what did it matter if a few broken pieces were left over and went to rot? I mean, he could easily make some more, couldn't he? But he gave the instructions, and they had to go, uh, and gather the broken pieces that remained, that nothing of that bread be lost. How much more, gentlemen? You claim that Christ saves you and is your bread of life, and he is in you? Well, I can tell you now that that bread shall never be lost. Shall never be lost. Christ in you. The living bread. Magnificent concept, but even more magnificent reality. Christ come to live in us. Now, of course, this is, these phrases are taken by the sacramentalist church, uh, to apply to the Lord's Supper or to the Mass, as they call it. But you will notice, and it's important to notice, the different terminology. When our Lord took the bread at the Last Supper, he said, this bread is not my flesh, which is given for you, my body which is given for you. The distinction is important, of course. It is worth your while studying where in scripture flesh is used and where body. Flesh and blood is the normal term for humanity. Flesh and blood, not normally body and blood. This is flesh and blood. Constituent parts of our Lord's humanity. It's he that comes to live within us. This is not talking about the Lord's Supper. It's talking about Christ being in In us. us. And therefore, no believer shall be lost. We live as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, verse uh fifty seven. So he that eateth me shall also live because of me. Now Now, for for time's sake, let's come to the final objections, this time from the, uh, uh, disciples, the closer group, but they were not all believers either. They professed to be his disciples, and they said, this bit is a hard saying. Who can hear it? Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said unto them, Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you should s- behold the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and are life. Gentlemen, we have be to be prepared for life in a spiritual, a spirit world, do we not? Our Lord's resurrection body is said to be a spiritual body. That doesn't mean, as some people say, that our resurrection body is, uh, made of spirit and is not really genuinely material, but made of spirit. Any more than if I told you that, uh, this man's car is, uh, uh, uh, has a petrol engine, you would imagine the engine is made of petrol. Petrol is the stuff that makes it go, as distinct from diesel engine or an electrical motor. So the resurrection body of Christ, handle me and see, he said, a spirit has not flesh and bone as you see me have. It was a real, in our sense, physical body, but of a different order. It is a spiritual body. And gentlemen, if you are Christ, you have within you that very power that shall raise you at the resurrection, uh, when the Lord comes, if you have to be raised, or shall transform you when you meet the Lord in the air. For if the spirit of him that raised up our Lord Jesus dwell in you, he that ra- ra- ra- rose up, raised up the Lord Jesus shall also make alive your mortal body through that spirit that dwells in you. It's amazing, that, isn't it? The words I speak, says Christ, you see, are not just words. They are spirit. Listening to the words of Christ and putting our faith in Christ, we are born again of God's spirit. There's a something born in a believer that wasn't there before. It's the spirit of God, imparted by our Lord through his word. And putting in you the potential that when the Lord comes, our very bodies shall be quickened, made like to his glorious body, and we shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. The journey complete, gentlemen. And therefore it is, of course, behoves us, doesn't it, as best we can, to listen to the words of Christ. They are spirit, and they are life. They create what his word is talking about. Then our Lord had to add, does this offend you? What, and if you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? That would be the end of the journey for him who came down from heaven, now ascending back to heaven. He will take us there ourselves one day. But some of them were not believers, and he knew it, and he told them so. For this cause have I said unto you, that no man can come unto me except he be given him of the Father. It takes a work of the Father in the heart of an individual to bring them to Christ. It is not just intellectual conviction. Upon this, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Believers, were they? Hardly. Jesus therefore said unto the twelve, Would you also go away? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? As thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believed and are sure and know that thou art the Holy One of God. Jesus answered, Did I not, uh, uh, choose you twelve? And one of you is a demon. Now he spake of Judas, the son of Simon, for it was he that should betray him, being one of the twelve. Not all who profess to be disciples are genuine believers. It is not elitism to say that. The Father is prepared to draw anyone. The true light lightens every man, but the God who made the light and gave us eyes to see the light with has given us eyelids, and we can choose to shut them if we decide so to do. Thank you for your attention, gentlemen.