The Drawings Of Divine Love

The Drawings Of Divine Love

(No. 2386)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1894.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 26, 1888.

"No man can come to Me, except the Father who sent Me draws him and I
will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And
they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore, everyone who has heard,
and has learned of the Father, comes unto Me." John 6:44,45.

THERE is something here which troubles many seeking souls. They hear
the Gospel preached in this manner, "Look and live," or, "Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." This comforts them and
they say to themselves, "This is a way in which we can run. We delight
to be told of salvation by faith in Christ." By-and-by, they hear a
discourse upon our Savior's Words, "You must be born again," or they
listen to descriptions of the inward experience of a child of God. They
are taught that there must be a brokenness of heart before there can be
a true binding up. There must be a stripping before there can be a
clothing. There must be death before there can be resurrection and then
they say to themselves, "This, we fear, is true. But how different it
is from the message we heard the other day! Are there two things
equally true–salvation by simple faith in Christ–and yet the
necessity of a new heart and a right spirit?"

They are equally true, and they ought to be preached with equal
clearness, and equal earnestness! But I would say to every seeker, "You
will find it very injurious to get worrying yourself with such
difficulties as these. As a rule, you had better leave those questions
for another day." Suppose that you were puzzled concerning specific
gravity, the weight of a body in water? if you were a drowning man, I
would recommend you to waive the consideration of such a subject till
you were safely on shore! It is hardly the time, I think, to enter into
difficult disquisitions while you are in grave peril. And, in like
manner, you may leave many theological questions until, by faith in
Christ, you are saved. Then, going into His school, you may ask Him to
teach you these other more advanced lessons.

Now, for your help, I desire to say that these two doctrines of
Salvation by Faith and the Inward Drawing of the Spirit of God are
equally true and, unless they are proclaimed in due proportion,
mischief may come from the preaching of either the one, or the other. I
think that when the preacher only says, "Believe, believe, believe,
believe, believe, believe," mischief may come of that imperfect
declaration, for it is a one-sided form of the Truth of God, and other
important Truths of God may be forgotten, and men may get into a
superficial habit of imagining that they believe when they hardly know
what it is that they believe–and their faith is not the living faith
of God's elect which works by love, purifies the soul and sanctifies
the life!

On the other hand, I am quite sure that you may preach the need of
inward experience and preach it very thoroughly and continually. But if
this other matter of faith is left out, you may preach some of your
hearers into despair, many of them into indifference and others of them
into a kind of self-righteousness of feelings! I have met with persons
who were certainly trusting in their feelings and who went so far as to
condemn others because they had not endured the same amount of misery
and passed through the same conviction of sin, or indulged in the same
agony of despair. Truths of God are preached, we shall not stop to
reconcile them–there is no need to do so, especially if they reconcile
themselves to you while we preach! If the two doctrines are preached,
they will act as a balance, the one to the other, and while men hear
our Savior say, "He that believes on Me has everlasting life," they
will not misunderstand what He says if they also hear as the deep bass
note of that musical scale the equally Divine utterance, "You must be
born again."

The text gives us good help upon this subject. I do not believe that
there are any practical difficulties in the matter at all. I say,
practical difficulties, for there are philosophical difficulties. Is
there any subject about which there are not phi-

losophical difficulties? Can you not, if you think of anything–be it
the most commonplace fact in natural history, very soon surround it
with a cloud of obscurity which nobody can remove? A fool can set a
stool where a wise man will tumble over it and you can soon raise a
difficulty if you want to. Here is one. There is a bullock in the
meadow and there is also a sheep in the same pasture. They will both
eat grass and on the bullock that grass will turn to hair, and on the
sheep it will turn to wool. How come? Can you tell me? No, and I do not
want to know. It may be a very interesting point for discussion, but,
practically there is no difficulty about it. Those who tan the leather,
or those who dye the wool are not hindered in the least degree in their
handicraft by the philosophical difficulty I have mentioned! So, there
are philosophical difficulties about this matter of simple faith and
salvation by it, and of the Spirit's work and the necessity for it,
but, practically, there is no difficulty at all, for the man who
believes in Christ Jesus is born again! And every man who is born again
believes in the Lord Jesus Christ! The two things come together, live
together and are perfected together!

However, for the help of some sincere seekers after Christ who may be
in perplexity, I will speak about this matter that troubles them. Let
me read the text again–"No man can come to Me, except the Father who
sent Me draws him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is
written in the Prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'
Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes
unto Me."

I. Our first observation upon this text is that THE ALL-IMPORTANT
MATTER OF FAITH IS A VERY SIMPLE BUSINESS. Twice is it mentioned here,
and the only definition of it that is given is coming to Christ–"No
man can come to Me." And, again, in the 45th verse, "Comes unto Me."

Faith in Christ is simply and truly described as coming to Him. It is
not an acrobatic feat–it is simply a coming to Christ. It is not an
exercise of profound mental faculties–it is coming to Christ. A child
comes to his mother. A blind man comes to his home. Even an animal
comes to his master. Coming is a very simple action, indeed. It seems
to have only two things about it. One is, to come away from something,
and the other is, to come to something.

In coming to Christ Jesus as our Savior, we first come away from all
other trusts. We leave all other confidences right behind us and come
away from them altogether. My own works? I must come away from all
trust in them, to Christ! My own feelings? I must come away from all
reliance upon them, to Christ! Ceremonies, forms, rites, yes, even such
as God has given, I must come away from all confidence in them and I
must come to Jesus, quitting and leaving them all! You cannot come to
Jesus and yet hold on to your old trusts. You cannot come to Jesus and
yet cling to your old sins. You must come away from righteous self as
well as from sinful self. To go to a place, I must go from a place. If
you would come to Christ, you must bid, "good-bye," to your old sins
and say, "farewell," to your old confidences. Are you ready to sue for
a divorce between your soul and sin, between your soul and
self-confidence? That is the first essential thing in coming to
Christ–leaving all other trusts.

Then the other part of coming is drawing near to Christ to obtain
everything we need. When we truly come to Christ, we draw near to Him.
We do not any longer neglect Him, we do not look away from Him–on the
contrary, we begin to think much of Him, our hopes center in Him and,
having thought of Him, and so having come mentally to Him, we trust in
Him. We come to Him for what He is. Is He a Savior? We come to Him that
He may save us! Does He wash away sin? We come to Him that He may wash
away our sin! Does He heal spiritual diseases? We come to Him that He
may heal us of our diseases! You know what is meant by coming to such
and such a physician. You must, in that same sense, come to Jesus
Christ, the Divine Physician, for sin-sick souls.

This expression, coming to Christ, is so simple that I do not know how
to make it any plainer. I am afraid that if I were to try to explain
it, I might be like Thomas Scott when he wrote his notes to Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress. Going round his parish, he found a woman who had
The Pilgrim's Progress with his notes. "My good woman," he asked, "do
you understand The Pilgrim's Progress?" "Yes, Scott, I understand The
Pilgrim's Progress very well and I hope that, one day, I may be able to
understand your explanation of it." I will not attempt to explain any
further what coming to Christ is, lest I should not succeed any better
than Mr. Scott did! It ought to be clear to everybody that coming from
something, and coming to something, or someone, constitute the act of
coming. Quit, then, both sin and self by determined resolve, and come
to Jesus–rest in Him, take Him to be everything to you–and then
believe that you have everlasting life, according to His declaration,
"He that believes on Me has everlasting life."

Yet our Savior does, in close connection with this text, give us
another illustration of what faith is. Faith is coming to Christ. It is
also eating or receiving Christ. A man has a piece of bread in his
hand. He does not know where the wheat

grew, nor in what mill it was ground, nor in what oven the bread was
baked, but he knows that it is bread and that he is hungry. Nature,
especially living nature, abhors a vacuum, so the man determines to
fill the vacuum within with that piece of bread! What does he do, but
eat it? You do not have to teach children how to eat. I said to a
little boy this afternoon, "Why don't you put your bread and butter in
your ear?" Of course, he knew better than to act like that, so all he
did was to laugh at me! And you never yet met with a child who took to
putting the bread and butter in his ear–he puts it in his mouth and
eats it. So, there really is, if you would but use it, sense enough
within you to understand what faith in Christ is. If you were not so
ready to confound and confuse yourself, my dear Friend, you might know
what faith is!

You tell me that it puzzles you. I think that it is you that puzzles
yourself, not faith that puzzles you. When you get bread, you put it
into your mouth, you eat it and let it go down into yourself. You may
not know much about the processes that are going on within you and you
need not want to know. If you do not understand anything about them,
the bread will feed you just as well. Now, in that way take the Lord
Jesus Christ into you, spiritually, and feed upon Him. Say from your
heart, "Lord, I live upon You. I believe You to be God. I believe that
You did take our nature. I trust You as the Incarnate God. I believe
that You did suffer in the place of guilty men. I believe that You have
put away the sin of all those who trust You, and put it away forever so
that they can never be condemned. I trust You to be my Savior,
altogether and solely my Savior." If you really do that, you are saved.

"How do I know it?" says one. Because Christ says it–is not that
enough? "He that believes on Me has everlasting life." "But I have not
felt any strange sensations! I have had no wonderful dreams." What? Are
you asking for such signs as those? Is not Christ's Word, "He that
believes on Me has everlasting life," enough for you? Lord, I believe
on You. Therefore, I have everlasting life. Your Word is enough for me!

That is my first point, faith is a very simple matter.

II. But, secondly, TO THIS FAITH MEN ARE GREATLY DISINCLINED. He who
knew most about men says of them, "No man can come to Me, except the
Father who sent Me draws him."

Men are grievously disinclined to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their unwillingness is so great that it amounts to an inability of this
sort, that, as there are none so deaf as those that will not hear, and
none so blind as those that will not see, so there are none so unable
as those who are unwilling! And the Savior thus puts it, "No man can
come to Me, except the Father who sent me draws him."

But why are men so unwilling to believe in the Lord Jesus? In Christ's
lifetime on earth, their unwillingness arose partly because He was of
such lowly origin. They said, "We know Joseph, and Mary, and the
brethren of Jesus. How can we believe in Him as the Messiah?" He was so
poor, so obscure, He came of a family that was not notable in Israel as
far as they knew. Besides, He came out of Nazareth and they asked, "Can
any good thing come out of Nazareth?" He was a Galilean and they could
not look up to one who came from that despised region.

In addition to that, all His teaching was opposed to their proud
notions. If He had come as an earthly king, to overthrow the Roman
power, they might have believed in Him, but, as He was, they regarded
Him as a root out of a dry ground. They could see nothing illustrious
about the Man of Sorrows, so they would not believe in Him. And numbers
of people, to this day, do not receive Christ because faith in Him is
not fashionable. True godliness is not held in high repute in the upper
circles of society. O simpletons, to lose your souls for the sake of a
little worldly grandeur! God save us all from such insanity as that!

The more common reason why men are not saved by faith in Christ is
because they do not see any need of a Savior. I know you very well, my
dear Mr. Good-Enough, and my dear Friend, Mr. Too-Good! You do not
believe that you need saving–you think that you have as much as you
ought to have of everything that is good, and even some to give away!
Oh, yes, you hope to enter Heaven with all sails up. What will you do
when you get there? The redeemed ones are all singing that they have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. But
you will have to go up in a corner, by yourself, and hold your tongue,
because you had not anything that needed to be washed and you were,
yourself, perfectly clean! You would not be happy in Heaven, for the
very Glory of that blissful place is the Lamb of God and His precious
blood is the theme of continual thanksgiving! I pray God to bring you
out of your miserable delusion, for it is no better than that. You are
not the good man that you think you are–you are stained with sin from
head to foot–and unless you are washed in the Divinely-provided bath,
even in the atoning blood of Jesus, you will perish in your sin!

But many do not come to Christ and trust Him because they will not
receive the doctrine of Substitution. Christ's dying in the sinners'
place, the Just for the unjust, to bring them to God, they will not
have–they kick at it! I assure you that you will never have rest and
peace till you accept that blessed soul-saving doctrine, for other
foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ
the Righteous, and there is no Jesus Christ to trust in except the
glorious Substitute who bore our sins in His own body on the tree! Oh,
that men would not be so foolish as to reject God's plan of salvation
by the vicarious Atonement once offered on Calvary!

Many also refuse the Savior because they are occupied with other
things. They cannot come to Christ because their farm, their
merchandise, their newly-married wife, or something or other, keeps
them back. Oh, how long some of you have been waiting–some of you who
have attended the Tabernacle, too, all the time! If anybody had said,
20 years ago, that you would be sitting in your pew an unconverted man,
tonight, you were not willing to have believed it! You will probably be
sitting in that pew, an unconverted man, in 20 more years' time, I
fear–you will either be saved, or you will have gone the way of all
flesh! Oh, that the day would come when there shall be no more
hesitation, no more postponement, but when you would, from your heart,
say, "I must have Christ. I will trust Him!" Say even now what we have
often sung–

"I do believe, I will believe, That Jesus died for me! That on the
Cross He shed His blood, From sin to set me free."

There are many more who do not exercise simple faith in Christ because
they do not like the consequences of it. "Why," says one, "if I become
a Believer in Christ, I shall have to give up my old ways." You will.
"If I become a follower of the Lamb, I cannot go where I now go." Quite
right! I am glad you see that. I hope that you are not such a hypocrite
as to imagine that you can trust Christ to put away your past sin and
then go on living in sin as you have done. That will never do! Christ
has opened a hospital for the sick, but it is that He may heal them! He
receives sinners, but not that they may remain sinners–it is that He
may make saints of them and deliver them from sin! You will never come
to Christ as long as you are in love with sin. And you are so much in
love with sin that you never will come at all except Omnipotent Grace
shall draw you! And so says our Lord Jesus Christ, "No man can come to
Me, except the Father who sent Me draws

him."

There are many others who cannot trust in Christ and cannot come to Him
because they wish for certain feelings or emotions. You want to
experience amazing changes that you may know that God is at work in
your soul, do you? Well, I do not wonder at that desire, but please
notice what is said in the 46th verse, "Not that any man has seen the
Father." The work of God in the heart is not seen by the soul until,
first of all, the soul sees Jesus Christ! You must not think that you
can deal with an absolute God. Apart from Christ, you cannot approach
God, and God operating upon your heart, without faith in Christ, will
not be the ground of any comfort to you. Whatever God may be doing in
you, or may not be doing in you, is not the thing that you are to look
to as the foundation of your hope! Your trust is to be in Christ's work
on the Cross, and in nothing else! You shall see plenty of evidences,
miracles and signs, by-and-by, but, to begin with, the

Gospel for you is, "Believe, believe, believe." "I could believe if_."
Oh, yes! I see, the ground of your confidence is

that, "if," not God's Word. "Oh, Sir, but I could trust God's Word if
I_." Ah, that is the same thing, over again!

You see, it is not God's Word that you trust–it is that rotten, "if,"
to which you cling! Now, away with it, away with it, I pray you! Either
call God a liar, or else believe Him. It must be one of the two! But do
not pretend that you would believe Him under certain conditions that
you would like to impose. If a man said to me that he would believe me
under certain conditions, I would understand at once that he did not
really believe me at all. That, in fact, he could not believe me, but
he would believe somebody else, and perhaps trust me under cover of
that other person. That would not be faith in me at all and, I pray
you, deal not with the Lord in such a fashion!

So, you see, dear Friends, my text plainly teaches us that men are
greatly disinclined to come to Jesus.

III. Therefore, THE OPERATIONS OF GOD ON THE SOUL ALL RUN IN THE WAY OF
LEADING MEN TO

COME TO JESUS. That is clear if you read the text, "No man can come to
Me, except the Father who sent Me draws

him."

You see, first, the Father inclines us to come to Christ. "It is
written in the Prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.'" What
are they taught? "Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has learned of
the Father, comes unto Me." It is

clear that the drift of the Divine operations in the heart of man is
towards Christ. The Lord draws us, but all His drawings are towards
Christ. If you think that you have experienced the work of the Holy
Spirit in your heart, and yet it does not draw you towards Christ, you
have made a mistake. The Spirit always draws away from self and away
from sin, to Jesus Christ, alone! If you are drawn that way, it is the
Lord who draws you, for all His drawings are in that direction.

Then, next, the drift of all God's teachings is this way. Whatever the
Spirit of God teaches a man, the end and objective of that teaching is
to get him away from self and draw him to Christ. All the teachings of
affliction are intended to make us sick of self and fond of Christ. All
the true teachings of the Christian ministry aim at putting down self
and exalting Christ!

All the drawings and all the teachings, then, that come from God, are
towards Christ. By this test you may try everything that professes to
be a Divine operation. If any man says, "I am the subject of the work
of the Spirit of God," and he does not exalt Christ, tell him that he
is not the subject of the Spirit's work at all. If he comes to you with
some fine idea about himself, making out that he is some great one, say
to yourself, "It is no part of the work of the Spirit to set up any man
as a great one. His work is to take of the things of Christ and show
them to us." The Holy Spirit addicts Himself to the glorifying of
Christ, so He withers our false hopes and gives us true hopes! He does
this in order that Christ may be lifted up and that we may be drawn to
Him.

I believe that this is the test of all kinds of preaching. Does a man
come with a Divine message to my soul? I will try him by this test.
Does he lift up Christ? Does he draw me to trust in Christ? Does he
draw me to love Christ? Does he draw me to be like Christ? Well and
good! I will hear some more of what that man says, but if, Sunday after
Sunday, I have to say, "They have taken away my Lord and I know not
where they have laid Him," I say, "Good-bye, Sir, other people may
listen to you, but you are not the man that I want to hear." I must
have Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ first, last, Alpha, Omega,
beginning, middle, end and all through, or else I cannot believe that
the teaching is of God, for the Father draws to Christ and teaches
concerning Christ.

Further, He makes us to hear and to learn that we may come to Christ.
Come, then, my dear Hearers! I think that I have now brought you a
little into the Light of God. You say that you must be the subject of a
Divine operation. Are you looking to Christ? Then you have had that
Divine operation performed upon you, for it makes you look to Christ,
alone! "Is believing an easy thing?" asks one. It is the easiest thing
in the world! It is as easy as coming, or as eating. "Well, but why is
it so difficult for me?" Probably it is difficult because it is so
easy. I believe that faith is a hard thing to many because it is not a
hard thing. It is just like Naaman's washing in the Jordan–if the
Prophet had bid him do some great thing, some difficult thing, he would
have done it. But when he said nothing but, "Wash, and be clean,"
Naaman felt that he was too great to go to the River Jordan and too
clean to go and wash. He is a nobleman and a gentleman–is he to go and
wash like any pig?

Yes, he is, and only so can he be cleansed, for his leprosy makes him
as foul as any swine could be and he must, therefore, wash if he would
be clean! You, though you are the queen of morality, must trust in
Christ just as a harlot must trust in Christ! And you, young man,
though you are, in all things, noble and excellent, you must come and
believe in Christ just as a thief must do, or else you can never come
where that dying thief, is, who passed with Christ into Paradise! There
is but one door–will you bow your head and enter? There is only one
way of salvation–will you run along it? If not, if you will put your
goodness before Christ, it shall become as bad as a crime or infamy,
itself! God grant that the operations of the Holy Spirit may lead you
up to simple faith in Jesus!

IV. So, then, I finish with this fourth point. IF WE HAVE COME TO
JESUS, WE NEED NOT QUESTION OUR

SAFETY. Christ says, "He that believes on Me has everlasting life." He
who has come to Jesus is saved! You need not question your safety, for
you could not have come to Christ without having been drawn to Him. "No
man can come to Me, except the Father who sent Me draws him." You could
not have come if you had not been drawn! Well, then, if you have come,
you have been drawn, and if the Father has drawn you, you have come the
right way! It all lies in a nutshell. If I have come to Jesus and have
put my trust in Him–my nature is, in itself, so averse to this way of
salvation that, if I have really and from my heart accepted it–there
must have been upon my heart an operation from God to bring me into
this condition! That operation could not have been badly performed, for
God never works amiss or ineffectually. I am, therefore, in the very
fact of being brought to Christ, assured that God has been at work with
me!

"Oh!" I have sometimes heard poor souls say, "I came to Christ, but I
am afraid that I have come the wrong way." You cannot come the wrong
way. "Oh, but I heard of one who came to Christ so quickly!" Yes, and I
have heard of one who came to Him very slowly. But as he came, it did
not so much matter how he came! When the whole world was drowned, a
pair of greyhounds found shelter in the ark. I do not suppose they
started very early. But there was a pair of snails that went in with
them–I wonder how soon they started? They certainly must have started
a long while before the ark door was opened or the ark prepared. Come
along, then, you poor crawling snails, come along! If some of you have
the greyhound's speed, come along, bound and leap to Christ–the
quicker the better! But if you are a man of slow action, remember that
the snails in the ark were not drowned. Though they were slow in coming
in, there they were, as safely preserved as the rest of the living
creatures that were with Noah. "Well" says one, "I feel as if I could
only creep to Christ with broken legs and an aching back." Then creep
to Christ, only come to Him! Come anyway–leaping or limping. If you
shall come, He has said, "Him that comes to Me , I will in no wise cast
out," and that includes any coming in all the world if it is but a
coming to Him. If you trust Him, you are saved! That Truth of God
ought, I think, to give some consolation to any who are troubled about
their faith and about the inner life of the soul.

Yet again, remember that all teaching that is absolutely necessary to
salvation concerns Christ. "Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has
learned of the Father, comes unto Me." If there were any right
teachings that would lead you beyond Christ–I do not know any, but if
there were such–you can do without them. The only teachings that you
need are those that lead you to Christ. Let this comfort anyone who
says, "I understand no theology. I am only a beginner in the study of
the Word. I could not even explain the plan of salvation to another
person, but I am trusting in Christ." Well, rest satisfied with that
glorious fact!

To close, the best sentence in the whole text, to my mind, is that with
which the 44TH verse finishes, "I will raise him up at the last day."
Is not that glorious? The Savior does not merely say that he that
believes is drawn to Him by the Father and that he is now saved, but He
says, "I will raise him up at the last day." It is as good as saying,
"I will take that man's case into My own hands." He does not mention
all the intervening circumstance, but He finishes up with the last
victory, "I will raise him up at the last day." "This man is a sinner,
Lord." "I will forgive him." "He has a black heart." "I will change
it." "He will be very fickle." "I will keep him." "He will be much
tempted." "I will pray for him." "He will have many afflictions." "I
will sustain him." "But Lord, he will die." "I will be with him." "But
he will be buried, Lord, and laid among the worms, dust to dust." "I
will raise him up at the last day."

It is as good as saying, "I will go through with the business for the
whole of the man," for if He takes care of the poor body, and raises it
up, depend upon it that He will take care of the soul that shall be
forever with Him! If this rag of a robe that I wear is yet so dear to
Him that He will not leave it in the grave, then the man within the
robe will be all right! Christ will take care of him, depend upon that!
He who will preserve the casket will not lose the jewel. "I will raise
him up at the last day."

The Lord bring every one of you to trust in this mighty Savior, for His
great name's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: John 6:41-71.

We shall read, tonight, part of that blessed sixth chapter of John's
Gospel, beginning at the 41st verse.

Verses 41, 42. The Jews then murmured at Him because He said, I am the
bread which came down from Heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus,
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that
He says, I came down from Heaven? Familiarity breeds contempt. Because
the Jews knew Jesus and His kindred after the flesh, therefore they
would not believe that He came down from Heaven. Let us beware of
foolish prejudices and let us not judge after the flesh. Why should
Jesus not have come down from Heaven even though these men knew His
reputed father and mother?

43. Jesus, therefore, answered and said unto them, Murmur not among
yourselves. It was a murmuring that was scarcely audible, but Jesus
heard it and He checked it. The Lord cannot take any delight in
murmuring. "Murmur not among yourselves."

44. No man can come to Me, except the Father who sent Me draws him: and
I will raise him up at the last day. You did not expect the Savior to
say just that, did you? He always speaks the Truth of God, even though
He has to lay the axe at

the root of the tree of self-confidence. He does not seem to be
encouraging His hearers, but rather to be repelling them. He was trying
to show them the state in which they really were. They had not been
drawn to Himself. They were alienated from Him and they would continue
to be at a distance from Him unless God should interpose and draw them
to

Him.

45. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they shall be all taught by
God.' Therefore, everyone who has heard, and has learned of the Father,
comes unto Me. This was as much as to say, "The Father has never taught
you. You have learned nothing from Him, or you would come to Me. And in
your rejection of Me, you prove that you are strangers to the Grace

of God."

46. Not that any man has seen the Father, save He which is of God, He
has seen the Father. Christ is "of God" in a very peculiar sense. He is
not God's creature, but God's Son. He is of the very essence of God
and, therefore, He knows what God is as we never can know.

47. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on Me has
everlasting life. This is a grand saying! Can you not catch the Truth
of God it reveals? Whatever deficiencies there may be in you, if you
believe on Christ, you have everlasting life–not a life which you can
lose, or which will die out, but everlasting life! And we are not among
those who clip the wings of that great word, "everlasting." We take
this verse to mean just what it says–that is, if you believe on
Christ, you have within you a life which will last forever and ever!

48-50. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the
wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from
Heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. Christ is the Bread for
the soul, the Bread of immortality, the Bread which will fit a man for
Heaven and sustain him till he arrives there. Oh, that we may all eat
of this Bread of Life, and so live forever!

51-54. I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will
give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews
therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this Man give us His
flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood,
you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh, and drinks My blood has
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. How necessary it
is to have a spiritual understanding of the Scriptures! These metaphors
have a sort of cannibal meaning about them to a man who goes no further
than the letter. But the spiritual man knows that the soul feeds upon
the doctrine of Christ's Incarnation and drinks in the truth of
Christ's Atonement. This is feeding, this is drinking–this is being
nourished upon Christ's flesh and Christ's blood!

55. For My flesh is meat, indeed, and My blood is drink, indeed. Meat
and wine are, after all, only shadows–they feed the shadow-life of the
flesh. Christ and His precious blood are the great realities–they
nourish the true life of the spirit. Blessed are they who know what it
is in spirit to feed upon these spiritual things!

56-58. He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, dwells in Me, and I
in him. As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father: so
he that eats Me, even he shall live by Me. This is that bread which
came down from Heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead:
He that eats of this bread shall live forever. The Savior goes over the
same ground several times. There is a variety in His utterances, but in
essence, the meaning is the same. He wants to get it into our minds
that we are to live upon Him–that He, not self, He, not works, He, not
our feelings–is the real food of the soul, by which that soul acquires
and retains immortal life.

59, 60. These things said He in the synagogue, as He taught in
Capernaum. Many therefore of His disciples, when they had heard this,
said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? Preachers must not be
astonished if they stagger their hearers when they proclaim the Truth
of God! They must not retract what they have said, nor tone it down
because so-and-so is offended by it! Truth is hard, especially to hard
hearts. Every great Truth is hard to a beginner in the school of
Christ– but it is, none the less, to be taught, for that which is
difficult, today, may become delightful, tomorrow, or whenever we are
better educated in the things of God!

61, 62. When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it,
He said unto them, Does this offend you? What and if you shall see the
Son of Man ascend up where He was before? He that is offended at any
Gospel Truth may expect to be still more offended, for there are higher
and deeper doctrines than Jesus had then uttered. If you stagger under
the elementary lessons, what will you do when you get into the grammar
school of Divinity, and begin to learn the loftier

lessons of the Truths of God? Oh, for a faith that never staggers when
Christ speaks, and that believes whatever He reveals!

63. It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. Do not
look at them as dead words! Regard them as full of life and understand
them in their living spiritual sense.

64. But there are some of you that believe not. Some of Christ's own
disciples, some who had kept Him company– believed not! This was a
very sad statement for Jesus to be obliged to make, but it must be made
today about many professed Christians–"There are some of you that
believe not."

64. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not,
and who should betray Him. He is not deceived by hypocrites. If we have
crept into the Church unworthily, He knows all about us. He knows us
better than we know ourselves! Oh, that we might be very careful,
watchful, jealous! May we abhor hypocrisy of every sort! It is
impossible to continue in it without being detected, but if it were
possible, we ought not to practice it, but with such an eye as that
which is in the Head of the Church, even Christ, we cannot
deceive–therefore, let us not attempt it.

65, 66. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come
unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father. From that time
many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. It often
happens, in the ministry of a faithful preacher, that he has to say
unpleasant things. And there are some who withdraw because of his
preaching of the Truth of God. Should he break his heart when they do
so? Certainly not! They did the same with his Master. They acted the
same with the Apostle Paul. It will be so to the end of the chapter
and, indeed, it is part of our work to separate between the precious
and the vile. Truth is like the fan which drives away the chaff and
leaves the wheat the more pure. Yet it is sad to read that many of the
disciples of Christ went back and walked no more with Him because they
could not endure the faithful Words He spoke to them.

67, 68. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will you, also, go away? Then
Simon Peter–Who was always to the front, ever ready to speak, "Simon
Peter"–

68-70. Answered Him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life. And we believe and are sure that you are that Christ, the
Son of the living God. Jesus answered them, have not I chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a devil? Our Lord often surprises us by the
way in which He speaks. He does not say what we would have expected to
hear from Him, but He says something that is very startling and even
discouraging! It is the way of our Master, because He sees further than
we do–and He often replies, not to the question as it lies in the
words addressed to Him–but to a belief in the heart at the back of the
words. He did so here. Peter may have thought that "the twelve" were
all steadfast and sincere, so Christ says to him, "Have not I chosen
you twelve, and one of you is a devil?"

71. He spoke of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that
should betray Him, being one of the twelve.