The Bread of Life Part 1 Bread from Heaven

Well, let's take our Bible this morning. Let's turn to the Gospel of John, John chapter 6. Now, our verses this morning will be verses 30 on down to verse 40. Now, we are still in chapter 6, and you should know by now, in this fabulous two-day event in the ministry of Jesus. Now, so far we have seen quite a few wonderful miracles from Jesus. You should know that we saw Jesus feeding the 5,000 out of John chapter 6 verses 1 through 14. We saw that that night, that first day, Jesus walked on the water there in verses 16 through 20.

We saw another little small miracle because Jesus caused the boat to be immediately at the seashore there in verse 21. But also, if we look at Matthew's account of this miracle, we will see that Peter, he walked on the water, and when Jesus got into the boat, immediately the storm subsided. Now, what am I showing you? There are lots of miracles in this two-day ministry there with Jesus. But now, we are going to make a transition into the second part of this event, and that is the preaching portion of this two-day event.

Simply put, day one and end of the night of day one, you have the miracles, those wonderful miracles, some public and some semi-public. And then with day two, you have the preaching of the teaching ministry of Jesus. Now, I think sometimes we fail to realize that Jesus was a fabulous preacher and teacher of the Word of God. To some, I think that the miracles of Jesus might overshadow his teaching and his preaching. I give you an example or two examples of some of his fabulous preaching and teaching. The list is long, but I singled out two that really spoke to me.

I'm thinking about Jesus and his teaching in Matthew chapter 5 all the way to chapter 7. When he is teaching that famous sermon on the Mount, what is he doing? He's teaching about true Christian living, the nuts and bolts about true Christian living. Also, I think about Jesus teaching in Matthew 13. Those are those kingdom parables. In those kingdom parables, he illustrates the parable of the soil, the parable of the seed, the parable of the sower. The soils represent the different types of human hearts. The seed is the gospel, and the sower is the one who preaches and teaches and proclaims the Word.

And Jesus illustrates man's response to the gospel seed that is teaching and preaching on kingdom work in people's lives. What I'm showing you is those are two examples of fundamental teaching times where fundamental truths are taught by Jesus. Now, as we move into Jesus' teaching portion of this event, we need to see the importance and the priority of the miracles. Remember that the miracles were to be signs which directed people to Christ as deity, the promised Messiah, the Son of God. And we must realize that we cannot stop at the miracles. We must move on to Jesus and Jesus' teachings that the miracles happen to set up.

I like how MacArthur states it. Speaking of this, he says, "While his miracles reveal his divine power, it is Christ's words that correctly define who he is." It's extremely important for us to see his teaching and preaching ministry. And that is what we have here this morning. This miraculous feeding of the 5,000. We know it was 5,000 men. We can speculate as to how many people. But this wonderful miracle of Jesus feeding that multitude sets up the teaching and the preaching which we will study for the remainder of this chapter, chapter 6. Now, this morning, we're going to look at the bread of life, part 1. The bread of life, part 1.

And we will look at bread from heaven. That will be out of verses 30 on down to verse 40. Now, we're going to hold on to this theme, the bread of life, all the way through the remaining verses there in chapter 6. Because that is the constant theme through these verses, although Jesus makes some different emphases all along. So this morning, we're looking at the bread of life, part 1. Bread from heaven. You have the truths that we will explore on the screen. We're going to look at Jesus, the true bread from heaven, out of verses 30 through 33. We're going to look at Jesus, the great I am in verses 34 through 36.

And then we're going to see the work of the Father in verses 37 through 40. Now, I trust that you're taking notes. I challenge you to take notes. I challenge you to be disciplined to study your notes. Maybe to listen to the messages again so that you would retain and learn all that the Lord wants to give you. So let's look at our verses this morning, starting in verse 30. And we'll go down to verse 40. Now, they said, these are the crowds, therefore to him, what then do you do for a sign that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness as it is written.

He gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Jesus therefore said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. Verse 34. They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall not thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe all that the Father gives me shall come to me.

And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out for I have not come down from heaven, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but I raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day. So we see some very powerful teaching here and lots of truth that I hope that we can digest and receive this morning. So let's look at the first main truth out of these verses.

That is Jesus, the true bread from heaven, starting in verse 30 to verse 33. Now go back with me to verse 30 and I want you to notice that there is a question here. They said therefore to him, what then do you do for a sign that we may see and believe you? Then there's another question, what work do you perform? See, we see they are interacting with Jesus in his teaching. And then he goes on down to say, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you this bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you, and here's where the title comes, the true bread out of heaven.

Here in these verses, these Jews were demanding another sign to prove his previous claims. In verse 29, he had told them that the true work of God was to believe in him, and their response revealed again their superficial, and I called them users, their superficial user hearts. Now in looking at these verses and exploring this truth, Jesus, the true bread from heaven, I want us to notice two things. First, the Jews, they still wanted physical bread. They wanted physical bread. Isn't that what we see out of verses 30 and 31? They were arrogantly demanding another sign to prove his previous claims and to call and call to believe in him.

Jesus had called them to believe in him. Jesus had made claims, and they are arrogantly and rudely asking for another sign. The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 was not enough. They wanted more. But they also referenced the Old Testament story of their forefathers receiving manna from heaven. I hope you know your Old Testament, but during their forefathers days of wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, God provided them manna from heaven or bread from heaven. Now we see this in Exodus 16, verse 4, and as a matter of fact, this quotation that they are giving here, there in verse 31 is a quotation of this verse.

Listen to what the scripture says. "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day." This was the very verse that they quoted to Jesus. And what they were saying was, "Moses gave our forefathers bread. Why don't you give us more bread?" They were wanting this miracle as a proof to his claims and to meet their physical needs, their superficial selfish, arrogant needs. So they still wanted a physical sign, physical bread. Then the second thing out of these verses is Jesus is the true bread. Look at verse 32.

"He said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down of heaven and gives life to the world.'" Now, here we see Jesus again uses familiar language. "Truly, truly, we know that that corresponds with our Amen, Amen." In the life of the church, if we hear someone say "Amen," they are simply underscoring and agreeing with truth that has been declared. And what Jesus is doing, he is emphasizing what he is about to say.

And in these verses, Jesus teaches several key truths, specifically four things that I want you to see and hear. First, it was God who gave the Israelites bread and not Moses. Do we not see them making that mistake? This was an arrogant and terrible mistake by the Jews here. Remember, they did revere Moses. But they are reading the story incorrectly. They are insinuating that it was Moses who gave the bread when actually it was God who gave the bread. Second, manna was not the true bread from heaven, but Jesus is the true bread from heaven. Now, there is a key word here in verse 32. Go back to the verse.

"Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who," and this word gives. That is a key word. This word is in the present tense, meaning that the true bread was not given in the past, but it is being currently given in it. That is Jesus. "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given in the past you bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives," present tense, "you," what? The true bread out of heaven. So this manna was Jesus spoken of here in verse 32. Third, manna met a physical need while bread from heaven meets spiritual needs.

We see this communicated in verse 32 and verse 33. They were speaking of physical bread. They wanted physical bread, and Jesus is speaking of spiritual bread. And this manna himself was spiritual in nature. And then fourth, this bread from heaven gives life to the world. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. What we see is God is offering salvation to all those who would believe. And we know this is a reference to all peoples of all of the ages, both Jew and Gentile alike, those who would believe. Now, what do we see here?

We see that the Jews were revealing the condition of their heart again. They're explaining and proclaiming their superficial user-friendly heart by saying we want a physical sign, and Jesus is explaining that the bread they're looking for is physical bread and they need spiritual bread and he is that true bread. Now, not only do we see their superficial user hearts and asking for another sign, but we see their fundamental error in misunderstanding the manna given to the Old Testament Jews. It was God who gave that manna to their forefathers and it was God who was giving Jesus in that day. They totally missed the point.

They totally missed the point of the Old Testament and they totally missed the point of what was going on before their eyes. And that is why Jesus had to distinguish between himself and the Old Testament manna. So we see in this truth out of these verses Jesus the true bread from heaven. Now, what can we see and learn that can be applied to us today? There are some people in the life of the church today, they worship the physical instead of the spiritual. Let me explain that. Let me reiterate that. There are some people in the life of the church today, they will worship the physical instead of the spiritual.

And this almost sounds like we're splitting hairs, but I want you to see there are some people who worship the Bible, they worship their theology, they worship doctrine more than Jesus. There are some people who worship missions, they worship the ministry of the church more than Jesus. There are some ministers who worship their ministry and worship their music and worship their sermons more than Jesus. And what I want you to see is there is always the trap that is there for us to be caught up in the physical. And the physical many times is the vehicle for our true worship. You see, we must realize that we worship Christ and Christ alone.

And there are a lot of people in the life of the church, they will fight you for the physical, they will sacrifice their lives for the physical, they will do wonderful and great things for the physical, and all along they will miss Jesus. That's why sometimes in the life of the church you'll have an individual who will be terribly ignorant of the things of God and many truths of God, but they will be converted and they will fall wonderfully in love with Christ and their walk with God will stand out.

I'll never forget years ago I had the opportunity to minister to a man, a man that came out of drugs and alcohol, although he had been raised in the church, but yet he didn't stay in the church very long. And I'll never forget after he was converted, he did not know a lot about doctrine, he did not know a lot about theology, he did not know a lot about practical Christian ministry in the life of the church, but yet when he came into the life of the church, he bombarded the life of the church with what? A wonderful love for Christ. He was not caught up in theology, he was not caught up in doctrine, although those are good things.

He was not caught up in missions, he was not caught up in his Sunday school class or a particular ministry in the life of the church. He was not caught up in the physical, he was caught up in Christ, and Christ alone. And the challenge for you, the challenge for me is this, to never fall into the trap of worshipping these physical things that are supposed to be a vehicle to Christ. I'm all for missions, I'm all for the ministries of the life of the church, I'm all for preaching sermons and studying books, and I'm all for studying theology and doctrine, but if that is our end road, we are falling into the trap of these Jews.

They missed it, because they were caught up in the physical. Truth number two, I want us to see Jesus, the Great I Am. Jesus the Great I Am. Now, there's another interruption here of Jesus' words by them speaking, starting in verse 34. And they said therefore to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall not never thirst. What do we see? In verse 36, "But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe." Now, here in these verses, we see some of the same.

The Jews, listening, still did not understand the spiritual matters. And again, they revealed more spiritual blindness. But here we see that Jesus reveals more of himself to them. Now, notice three things out of these verses. First, the Jews, they still wanted physical bread. I mean, they couldn't move past this, could they? They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. They're still thinking about the physical. They're still seeking Jesus to meet their physical needs. This is indicative of their physical user faith again.

Jesus keeps giving them spiritual truth, and they still refuse to believe, and they reveal their condition all along the way. Truth is revealed, they reveal themselves. Also, I want you to notice a word out of here. This verse, I want you to notice this word "Lord." Go back to the text. They said therefore to him, Lord, evermore. Now, I want you to see some things in some translation. The New American Standard, the King James, reads "Lord." Actually, the English Standard Version is more accurate, because the English Standard Version reads "Sir." "Sir" from the original is a better translation. Now, listen. Why do I bring that up?

It indicates their view of Christ. You see, they're not even calling him Lord or Master or Teacher. They're calling him Sir. That still shows us all the more the condition of their heart. They still wanted physical bread. Second, I want you to notice Jesus, the bread of life. Now, this is a famous verse. We should know it. Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." Here we have the first of the famous "I am" statements from the Gospel of John. As we proceed, we'll know and we'll see that Jesus makes several "I am" statements.

I'll give these to you quickly. He stated here that he was the bread of life. He states that he is the light of the world in chapter 8, verse 12. He states that he is the gate in chapter 10, verse 7, verse 9. He states that he is the Good Shepherd in chapter 10, verse 11, and verse 14. He states that he is the resurrection of the life in chapter 11, verse 25. He states that he is the way, the truth, and the life in chapter 14, verse 6. He states that he is the true vine in chapter 15, verse 1 and 5. And then we'll see that there are also two minor variations of this statement found in chapter 8, verse 18, and verse 23.

Now, what are we seeing here? I'm bringing these to the table, and if you had trouble writing them down, I'll give them to you because this is the first of the "I am" statements, and we will see what this means. Their confusion and their spiritual blindness cause Jesus, now notice, to emphatically declare that this bread was referring not to literal bread, but to Himself. You see? Notice His bold reaction. It is important to see that there are some who say and believe that this "I am" is a direct connection to God's "I am" statement to Moses in Exodus 3. You see?

A lot of people connect the two because what do we see when God reveals Himself to Moses in Exodus 3? Moses comes to that burning bush, and God says, "I am." And many connect the two because what do we see? He says, "I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection of the life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the true vine." And it is important for us to see. And let me tell you, the Jews would have heard this plainly just like earlier in Chapter 5, Verse 17, when they heard Him claiming that God the Father, what God was His Father. You see?

Again, He is emphasizing His deity, and He is saying, "I am the bread of life." Now, I want you to notice out of Verse 35, two more things. Go back to the Verse. "But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet," excuse me, Verse 35, "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life, who comes to Me shall not hunger, and who believes in Me shall never thirst.'" I want you to see, out of this Verse, with Jesus declaring, "I am the bread of life," I want you to see man's responsibility. There are two words in this Verse. There's the word "come," and there's the word "believe." Go back to the Verse. What does He say?

"I am the bread of life, He who comes to Me shall not hunger, and He who believes in Me shall never thirst." This speaks of their responsibility, man's responsibility, in the work of salvation and conversion. One of the Bible commentators that I read said it like this, "Faith in its active aspect and its resting aspect." In other words, when one comes and one believes, there is an active faith and a resting faith in Christ. Also notice the results. "Those who come and believe never hunger and they never thirst." They are satisfied. You see what He's teaching here? Jesus is the bread of life.

He says, "I am, I am God, and our forefathers had manna from heaven, but I am the manna from heaven because I am God." And then tucked away in there, He shows us man's responsibility and the results of what takes place in a man's life. Now the third major truth is we see the reaction. Look at Verse 36. "But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet you do not believe." Plainly here, Jesus declares that they did not believe in Him. They had seen His miracles, but they did not see what the signs were pointing to. We know by now that the signs were to point to Christ. This was a plain rejection in the face of His plain revelation.

His revelation through the miracles and His revelation through His teaching. But I want you to see this word "but." Go back to the verse, Verse 36. All of the translations have this word "but." This word here denotes a sharp contrast between the crowd's response to Him and His desired response. See? This denotes a sharp contrast. And we see this heart from Jesus, this contrast between their response and His desired response. We see this from the heart of Jesus in Matthew chapter 23, Verse 37. What does He say? "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you are not willing." What do we see in Matthew? He has desired response from these people. They responded by rejecting Him, but He had a desired response that He did not receive. The Bible commentator D.A. Carson says, "This crowd has witnessed the divine revealer at work, but only their curiosity, their appetites, and political ambitions have been aroused, not their faith." You see? He declares that He is the Great I Am. And not only did Jesus reveal Himself as the Great I Am, but He reveals the crowds again for who they are.

Jesus' desire was that they believe, but His teaching Father alienates them because of their lack of desire to believe in Him. You hear that? His desire was that they believe, but His teaching Father alienated them because of their lack of desire to believe. Now, I want you to see some truth here that must really be applied. I think that we do need to really take home with us the fact that Jesus is the Great I Am. He is God in the flesh, and He was the manna that came down from heaven. But I want us to see their response and Jesus' desired response. Jesus desired with all of His heart that they receive Him.

But yet what we see is that Jesus would not alter that message to make it easier for them to come. Jesus' message, now notice, Father alienated them. Father pushed them aside. Father pushed them away and revealed them more and more for who they are. It's almost like every time they tried, they dug a hole deeper and deeper and deeper. They revealed themselves more and more and more. They stuck their foot in their mouth more and more and more. And we must see. We must follow Jesus' example. We must never placate people. We must never alter the message. We must never alter the life and the ministry of the church to accommodate people.

We preach the truth of the Word of God, the Gospel. We elevate the truth, and there will be those who will come because of the work of the Father, and there will be those who will reject. And if we continue to preach the truth and continue to preach the truth, we will see there are certain people that will be alienated. Father and Father and Father and Father. It's their rejection. It's a revelation of who they are. And so our job as the church is to declare Jesus the Great I Am, the Son of God.

And I'm afraid there are so many churches today in their efforts to try to reach the masses, in their efforts to try to meet needs in the lives of people, in their efforts to truly minister to people, there are some churches who alter the message ever so slightly. And that altered message will never save. That altered message will never change. See, it's a scary thought when we look at this. It's a scary proposition to look at the fact that there will be some people that we know and love. They will be alienated, and they will literally walk out the door because they reject the message. But it's not our job to make people happy.

It's our job to please Christ. And that's exactly what Jesus did. He pleased the Father. And we will see that here as we look at our third main truth and we see the work of the Father. Look at verse 37. We see a transition here. Verse 37 all the way down to verse 40. Notice what Jesus says. "All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." So now he starts talking about the Father. Verse 38, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." Talking about the Father.

"And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, for everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day." Now here we see that Jesus, right after he plainly declares himself the bread from heaven, he explains how the Father works in this belief of him. See earlier we saw, he says, "I am the bread of life, and if you come to me you'll never hunger, you'll never thirst, but there are some of you who do not believe." But now Jesus explains what takes place here.

Jesus explains that he was fully trusting, now listen, in the sovereignty of God, in his earthly ministry, and in people coming to him. Three things out of these verses. First, the Father gives. Look at verse 37. "All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." Now it is important to see this word "all" in the text. Now all of the translations that we look at and study together, they use this word "all." This word is, in its construction, it is a neuter. It's not male, it's not female, meaning that it is referring to a mass body or a collective group who will come to Jesus.

This collective body of peoples are a gift from God, a love gift, that according to Jesus' words, they will never be cast out. This phrase "I will never cast out" is in a strong double negative, which emphasizes that Christ will never reject anyone who comes truly trusting in him. And we must see something very important here, and that is order. You see? The Father works drawing the sinner to Christ, we see that in John 6.44, and in this verse, "and the sinner trusts and demonstrates faith in Christ." That is the order, and that is what Jesus is explaining. The Father gives. Let me go back to the text.

"All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out." And we must see the order here, and we must see the great mystery here, and that is the workings of a sovereign God working alongside the responsibility of man. You see? Earlier, he is talking about the responsibility of man, belief and rejection, but now he is talking about the sovereign work of God. The Father gives, and that is this great paradox, this great seeming contradiction of the working of God the Father, and the working and the responsibility of mankind. So we see the Father He gives.

Second, I want us to see the will of Jesus. Look at verse 38. "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me." Here Jesus is simply stating that His will was to perfectly fulfill the will of His Father. We've seen this beautifully stated in other places in the Gospel of John, John chapter 4 verse 34 and John chapter 5 verse 30. Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work." Chapter 4 verse 34.

Then He goes on to say in chapter 5 verse 30, "I can do nothing on my own initiative, as I hear a judge, and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who sent me." So we see the will of Jesus was to perfectly do the will of the Father. And then notice verses 39 through 40, we see the will of the Father. Notice what He says. "And this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me, that He has given me, I lose nothing. But I'll raise it up on the last day.

Again, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day." Now, in looking at the will of the Father, I want us to see three things. Here he speaks, these verses speak of what many call and deal with what many call eternal security. Notice some things out of these verses. Verse 39, "Christ will lose none whom the Father give him." Again, this word "all" is in verse 39.

Go back to the verse, "And this is the will of Him who has sent me, that of all that He has given me, I lose nothing." Verse 39 says that, "Christ will lose none that the Father gives Him." And this word "all" again speaks of a body of people. This is a collective body, and none will be lost that the Father gives to the Son. Then also notice that they will be raised up on the last day. We see that in verse 39. This is speaking of the judgment seat of Christ for all of the believers. MacArthur says this is an ironclad guarantee of eternal salvation. Also, we will see that this truth is repeated in verse 40, and verse 44, and verse 54.

And what is that? That they will be raised up on the last day. And then notice, they will have eternal life. Look at verse 40. "For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him may have eternal life, and I myself will raise Him up on the last day." This eternal life is life with Him in glory. This is never-ending life, for eternal life by nature is never-ending. And notice again that Jesus refers to man's responsibility of believing in Christ for eternal life. So here, we are seeing this wonderful work of the Father in giving His own Son Jesus, this crowd, this body of people.

We see Jesus lay out the tension between the Father's working to bring sinners to the Son and their responsibility to believe and trust in the Son. And I want you to notice something about this tension between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Notice Jesus does not try to explain it. He just declares it. You see? Because mankind cannot understand this. This is a seeming contradiction. What we do is we declare it and we believe it and we trust in it. So Jesus declares this working of the Father, and all intermingled in these verses and the previous verses, we see the responsibility of man.

And I want you to see for you, for me, these are truths that must be understood. Because if we violate these truths, we violate true Biblical salvation. There are churches and even denominations today who ignore the sovereign work of God in conversion, and therefore they produce their own conversions. There are certain churches and ministers who step over or ignore or they are ignorant of God's sovereign work in salvation. So therefore, to get results, they lead people in cheap sinners' prayers. They lead people to go into the Babish tree prematurely.

And what they do is they violate the sovereign work of God in conversion, and it becomes man-centered. It becomes man-energized, and it will not save. But then there are some on the other extreme. They declare the sovereign work of God in salvation, and they never look people in the eyes and command them to believe by faith and put their faith and trust in Christ. See, to error on either side is to error. And this is a great mystery, but yet we declare it and we understand it. And like I said earlier, we must see the order.

Your sons and your daughters, your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your neighbor, your friend will never be converted. Now listen, unless God the Father draws them to Christ. Isn't that what we see here? The Father gives. And if you have eyes to see, you will see this work around you. You will begin to see a change in people's lives and their attitudes towards church. You will begin to see law centers' attitudes towards the Word and your Christian witness change. You will begin to see certain people come to church and certain families come to church. And it's not a coincidence. It's not you. It's God using you.

But behind that, that is a work of the Father drawing people and moving people to Christ. And see, God works prior to conversion and during conversion and after conversion. And I tell you, I have seen God the Father draw people and work in people. And listen, draw and work them to Christ. That went on in my life when God saved me. I didn't know it until after I looked back, but after I looked back, I began to see how God was using circumstances in my life, using people in my life to do what? To bring me to Jesus.

And then after God saved me, and by faith I trusted and I repented and I believed, with spiritual eyes, I was able to look back and see how God used the circumstances of my life to bring me to Jesus. So how does that hit us? If you have a lost friend, a lost neighbor, a lost loved one, you better hit your knees because they will never be converted unless God does the work. We are utterly and totally dependent on God the Father. And listen, I can declare on the authority of God's Word, I believe God loves the world. For God so loved the world. And I don't know who he's going to save. I don't know what they look like.

But I'm challenged and commended by God to go declare the gospel and the truth and the love of God. And we go out and we preach and we go out and we love and we hope and we pray and we pray and we hope, waiting on God the Father to do what only God can do. And I'm not going to get in the middle and I'm not going to try to lead and I'm not going to try to do a cheap trick to get someone to say words and run them through the baptistry. Because I know and I've been thoroughly convinced that it is a work of the Father. You see?

And I have seen with my own eyes that those that the Father saves will open up their mouth and say, "Oh God did what only God can do." And I'm so glad I had the opportunity to repent and trust and believe and receive. Listen, those who are converted by God, they will never get the cart before the horse. They will always acknowledge the work of God to bring them to that point. You see? And we must understand the work of the Father. And this would do so many churches good.

It would enable so many churches to repent of bad methods and it would prevent so many people from receiving false assurance and false senses of security about their eternal destination if people would get to the place where they realize that it is a sovereign work of God that brings people to conversion. Now as I move towards conclusion, I think we need to step back and we need to see how the Old Testament story of God giving manna to the people of Israel, His chosen people, and how it illustrates what God did through Jesus.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that these were Jews who knew these Old Testament stories, looking at Jesus, declaring the truths of God. In that story we know that the nation of Israel, God's chosen people, were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. And God literally fed them. You can start in Exodus chapter 16 and go on over into Numbers chapter 11. God literally enabled and caused bread to rain down from heaven to feed them. But I want you to notice some similarities. First, you have a people. Israel was dependent on God in the wilderness, hungry, and no means, no way to provide their own means.

And so you have a people, God's people, who were dependent on God. And isn't that what we see today in lost humanity? Isn't that where your lost loved one is? They're within that group of people without Christ, hopeless and no way to attain eternal life. Second, you have a terrible need. We do not understand fully the terrible need that was in the lives of the Israelites. Not only did they need bread, but they needed to see the hand of God in that bread. They lost sight of that time after time, time after time.

And they had a terrible need because God put them in that position so that they would depend on Him and know Him and walk with Him and be obedient to Him. And today we have all of those people, those people around us, and they have a terrible need. You know what their need is? Eternal life. Because they're on their way to a devil's hell. They're on their way to an eternity without Christ, and they are in a position of a terrible need. And then third, you have a loving Father. God the Father was so loving that He led the nation of Israel into the wilderness, but He provided. And the bread was supposed to show them how loving and good God was.

And see what we need to see is that there is a loving God, a loving Father who is on the throne, and He still desires that lost people come to Christ. And then fifth, those people in Israel, they had a responsibility. Remember they had specific instruction as to how to gather it, did they not? They had to go gather their daily needs, and then the day before the Sabbath, they gathered that daily need. And then the needs of the next day. They had a responsibility. Some did it willfully, and some did it grumbling. And see what we need to see is that we have a responsibility, and lost humanity has a responsibility.

We are responsible to tell people about the bread that has come down from heaven, the true bread, Jesus Christ. And I want to ask you this morning, are you in a position where God is showing you that you are lost and without Christ, and you are beginning to feel the weight of your responsibility? Are you in that position where you see yourself hungry and thirsty and destitute and without Christ, and you are seeing afresh and anew that Jesus Christ came down as the bread of heaven, and He went to the cross in your place? Are you seeing the responsibility that you have to repent, trust, and believe by faith, and commit your life to Christ?

Because if you are hearing these words, and you are without Christ, that is your responsibility. I will make this declaration, and then we will close. If you live your life without Christ, your hunger will never be satisfied, and your thirst will never be quenched. Never. It is only in Christ. You may seek otherwise, and you may try hard all of the years of your life, but you will never be satisfied. Lord Jesus, I thank you for this message. I thank you for the truths that we learn here.