John 6:35-59 | Dr. Albert Mohler

Dr. Albert Mohler preaches from John 6:35-59 at The Lord's Day Service at The King's Chapel, Sunday, April 19, 2026.



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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It was my privilege to introduce to you our guest preacher this morning, Dr. R. Albert Moeller Jr. Dr. Moeller has been the seminary president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary since 1993. He came to the seminary in the midst of the conservative resurgence with the task of turning the seminary around. And by God's grace and with God's help, the school has become really the leading conservative confessional institution in the world. Many of you know him as a theologian, an author, a cultural commentator. He does a daily radio podcast called The Briefing, in which he analyzes culture and events from a Christian worldview. He's authored numerous books, The Conviction to Lead, The Apostles' Creed. He just came out with a new book this year, or maybe it was last year, Prophet, Priest, and King on the Threefold Office of Christ. Number of books. But personally, I would say my first interaction was with Dr. Moeller was as a college student at Tech St. M University. My sophomore year, Dr. Moller came down from Louisville to uh college station and did an event for men and taught men. And and uh I came to that event and I remember him saying afterwards, he said, We are doing something special in Louisville at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I've assembled the finest faculty in the world, and he said, If God's called you to ministry, I would ask that you consider joining me in Louisville. And God used that to plant the seed in my mind. Would later go on to serve in the Marine Corps. But God used that moment to one day lead Grace Anna and me to move to Louisville in 2012, where I was a student. And then I also had the privilege of serving on staff as the student life director under Dr. Moeller. And Grace Anna and I got to know him and Mary, and we saw that they live what they preach. They are kind, warm, and convictional. And we just cherished our time serving under your leadership, Dr. Moeller. And I'm personally so thankful that you're here this morning to preach God's word to us. So thankful.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Well, good morning. I greet you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Uh what a privilege to be here at the King's Chapel this morning. And I want you to know that I have felt right at home. Uh by God's grace, I was born to uh two wonderful Christian parents who raised me in the nurtured admonition of the Lord. My mother was a Baptist from the beginning. Some of you know how that works. I have in my office my pre-cradle roll certificate from the Southside Baptist Church in Lakeland, Florida. Cradle roll, one had to be born into. Pre-cradle roll, just a promise. They didn't know back then if the baby was a boy or a girl, so all the name is Baby Moeller. That's it. My father was uh a Methodist. He uh he decided that it was his responsibility as soon-to-be husband uh to think these things through theologically. And his testimony was really simple. He looked for every example of infant baptism he could find in the New Testament, and finding none, decided he was a Baptist. I am so thankful for the heritage I received. I am I'm thrilled to be here this morning. I appreciate so much the music we've been singing. Jesus shall reign. The theologian in me wants to correct that just a little bit. It's right, it's absolutely right. But let's not forget that Jesus reigns right now. He reigns in his church, he reigns in the preaching of God's word, he reigns in the preaching of the gospel, he reigns in the hearts of his people. But this is right because we're looking forward to that day when every knee shall bow, when every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. I love singing those hymns. I just want to encourage you. Uh, there are all kinds of wonderful Christian songs, and the New Testament acknowledges and tells us to sing all kinds of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, but the metrical hymns have a very special place in the hearts of Christ people because in a time even of crisis, even when my mother's mind was leaving her, she could sing the hymns because they were so much in her heart. What a delight to sing them here together at the King's Chapel. I'm thrilled to be here. I want to tell you that uh as I grow older and that and that happens, there are two oil portraits of me in one room at Southern Seminary. Now that's that's just a tradition, but there are two. And every once in a while I have teenagers in the room, and I just point to portrait one and portrait two and point out what they may have missed, and that is it is the same man. Because that's what happens. So the younger man did not know what the older man knows in so many things. But I will tell you that the great satisfaction in my life, the great joy the Lord brings into my life is when I see men who have graduated and gone out from us and are rocks of conviction and leaders of conviction and preachers of conviction, um, leading churches of conviction. So Dr. Grant Castleberry is very high on that list, and what an honor it is to be here uh with him and with all of you, with Phil Webb, we have sung, well, you sang mostly, and I preach all over the place. And uh what a what a wonderful thing. I just I this is a unique moment. I just want to encourage you. Uh, this is a unique moment in the in the life of this church and uh savor it. Bring your children, have them sit in worship and participate and learn these hymns and hear these messages, let their hearts be shaped and formed with Christ's people in this room together. I can still remember my home church, same color pew, same color carpet, so familiar. And I believe that all those hours, many, many hours, in those services shaped my life in ways and shapes my heart in ways that are invisible to me, for which I'm just unspeakably thankful. So, our great privilege this morning is to hear Jesus reign through the inerrant and infallible Word of God, and to invite you to turn with me to John chapter 6. You know, in the New Testament there are four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are often referred to as the synoptic gospels because they follow roughly the same outline. The Gospel of John, written by the disciple whom Jesus loved in a very special way, is different, and it is particularly theological. Of course, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very theological, but John helps us to see the symphonic wholeness of the revelation of God in Christ. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory. Glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. By the time we get to John chapter 6, Jesus is in the full power of his earthly ministry, and things are happening. You look in the beginning of John chapter 6, one of the most famous of the miracles of Jesus and the feeding of the 5,000. And uh my Sunday school teacher got it right. That's 5,000 men and unnumbered women and children. It was a mass beyond our calculation. You know, the little boy that had just a few loaves and fishes, and through the multiplication, the miracle performed by Jesus, the entire crowd was fed, and there were symbolically, typologically, twelve basketfuls left over. The twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve disciples. It's an abundance visible, a miracle visible. Right after this, Jesus walks on water. He does this with his disciples, not with the larger crowd. By the time we get to verse 22, we're told on the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. The crowd's looking for Jesus. Don't you love that? Wouldn't you be? I mean, you go to hear this teacher yesterday, and out of this little boy's loaves and fishes is an abundance of food that feeds thousands. Who can do that? Only the Son of the Living God can do that. Only God in human flesh can do that. That was yesterday. The next day they're looking for Jesus. And they're looking for him with a particular purpose. Jesus knows that they are not coming to him in faith. They're coming to him to test him. Now, just imagine the audacity of that. I would like to think of myself. Let me just say, I would like to think that if I had witnessed the feeding of the 5,000, I wouldn't ask something stupid like, is this real? You just ate the food. I I I wouldn't come back the next day and say, Jesus, that was really nice, but what's today? I'd like to think that. They come to Jesus with suspicion, and Jesus just shoots right back at them, as you see in verse 26. Truly, truly, I say to you, you're seeking me not because you saw signs, John's word for miracles, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. You're bought off so easily. Just a little bread, just a little fish. All right, for the sake of time, I want us to pick up and where the tension between these who come to find Jesus, where it comes, look at verse 33. Jesus says, For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. So Jesus says, Look, I didn't perform the miracle yesterday so that you would be so monomoniacally focused on bread. You ate it, you were full, you're not full anymore. That's not why I came. I didn't come here so that day by day I would take loaves and fishes and multiply them so that your stomachs could be full. That is not why I came. That miracle, that sign is pointing to me and who I am and why I came. In the Gospel of John, there are these I am statements, and Jesus had told them, He said, But in fact, look how it comes now. They say, Okay, there's this bread that you'll give us that will live forever. This bread in us will cause eternal life, it will make us live forever. What a diet plan. What a deal. Jesus responds to them, as you see, and this is where we pick up with the text. In verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 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 I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. So the Jews grumbled about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I have come down from heaven? Jesus answered them, Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone who has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father. Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him, as the living father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as the fathers ate and died, whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. Wow. You know, every once in a while, I think we're all tempted to believe that if we could just erase the distance between 2024 and go back roughly 2,000 years to Galilee and be a part of this crowd, we'd like to think we would get it. Doesn't it astound us that someone could see Jesus perform that miracle and think it was about food? I mean, w we see it necessarily automatically, as about the gospel, as about Christ, about his substitutionary atonement, about salvation coming to those who eat his flesh and drink his blood. But let's just pause for a moment. This is radical stuff. I mean, if there's anything that's going to divide the room, this is worth dividing the room. And you'll notice what Jesus does. Jesus has those who come to him and they're testing him. We don't have to make that inference. It's told to us explicitly in the text. They've come to Jesus to test him. And Jesus knows what they're doing, he knows why they are coming. And he basically has two responses to them. Response number one is you're hard-hearted and you're coming for the wrong reason. Number two is you like the bread and you want more. Jesus doesn't say you shouldn't want bread. He says you're bought off too easily. I didn't come here to bring you bread. I am the bread of life. Brothers and sisters, this is one of the most powerful pictures of the gospel. And by the gospel here, I don't just mean the great good news of salvation that has come through Jesus Christ our Lord. I mean the substance, the content of the gospel, the person and the work of Christ. By this I mean substitutionary atonement, blood atonement. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've gone each one to his own way. But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, in order that in him we might become the righteousness of God. This is the very heart of the gospel. It's not just a picture of the gospel, it is the gospel. Because in this case, Jesus is speaking of what he himself will do, what he himself will suffer, the death that he will die, and the atonement that will be thus accomplished through his substitutionary death. And he's blunt about it. He's graphic. I live a complicated life. I try to uncomplicate the complicated, it keeps getting complicated. On the way here last night, I realized I've got to finish two written pieces that have to go to the publisher on Monday morning. It's a bad feeling. So I uh I I wrote them in the car. It's not the best way to write. But you know what? The dashboard I was not I'm not driving. Let me let me say so. Just in case you're worried, I had a wonderful intern who was driving me. No, no, no, no. I wasn't driving, but I could turn the entire dashboard into a desk. Filled with heresy. Intentionally. I'd love for you to visit my library sometime. It is filled with orthodoxy. But I have a hallway of heresy. You want to know what you're up against. I was writing last night about the controversy in the 1920s between conservatives and liberals, and I was pointing at the man who made the classic liberal argument. His name was Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the Riverside Church in New York City. I mean, if you're looking up Heretic, his picture. Harry Emerson Fosdick, in the piece that I was citing, he says, you know, we're past this. We're over this. What we need to do is to salvage out of this kind of language something that's spiritually useful. We don't believe in blood atonement. We don't believe in substitution. We don't believe that the cross was the accomplishment of God's saving purpose. We have to find something in it. So what we're going to find in it is the love of God demonstrated to us in this remarkable way. Jesus is not reigning from the cross as king of kings. He's not on the cross shedding his blood for the remission of our sins, but it's still a pretty picture. Rudolf Bultmann, very famous German liberal New Testament scholar in the early 20th century, said, you know, people who turn a switch and turn on lights don't believe that bodies rise from the dead. Some don't. But that is the truth. And that is the gospel. And if Christ be not raised from the dead, we are still dead in our sins and trespasses. We're here this morning because Jesus rose from the dead, was raised by the Father as the vindication of his substitutionary atonement, a blood atonement. His blood was shed for the remission of atonement. Our sin. And you'll notice how here, right before he's heading for the cross, he says exactly what's going to happen. And not only that, he says, I'm the bread of life. But then he goes on to say that salvation is pictured by eating his bread and drinking his blood. And you know, there are a lot of uh squishy evangelicals who think, yeah, that's true, but let's not talk about it. Last thing we need right now is squish. This is exactly how Jesus Himself described his person and his work. This is who I am. This is why I've come. I have come to die on the cross, my body broken, so that you may have the bread that leads to eternal life. My blood is shed for the remission of sins, so that in drinking it you may find salvation. And you say, well, that is just grotesque. Eating his body, drinking his blood. That is exactly what we celebrate. When one single sinner comes to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are feeding on him. They are drinking in his salvation. When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, the bread and the blood, the flesh and the blood. We declare his atonement and we declare his resurrection. We declare salvation in his name and in his name alone, and we do so until he comes. Alright. John chapter 6 is loaded. You know that already. It's just loaded. We don't have time to ponder this, but I'm not going to fail to point you to it. Look at two verses here. I think R. C. Sprohl had it exactly right. The first verse is the universal positive statement of the gospel. The second verse is the universal negative statement of the gospel. You better read them both. You better read them together. First, the universal positive statement of the gospel, verse 37. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Is that not the sweetest expression of the gospel? Who's going to come to Christ? All the Father gives him. All. All. Christ's saving purpose will be fully accomplished to the glory of God the Father. All the Father gives me, every word's important. How do we come to Christ? It's because the Father gives us to his son. Isn't that sweet? The Father sovereignly gives us to his son. All the Father gives me will come to me. And then the second part of this universal positive statement of the gospel the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. No one who comes to Christ by faith is rejected. All who come to Christ by faith are received. All who come to Christ by faith are kept eternally. Alright? That's the universal positive statement of the gospel. In the same text, the universal negative statement of the gospel. Verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Wow. Read the two together. Let's just put the positive and the negative together. So we're going to look at verse 37, then verse 44, as if they're just collapsed together. All the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. This is informative to us about how we should pray when we share the gospel. When we share the gospel, when we present Christ, whether it's in a one-to-one conversation or it's in the context of the preaching of God's Word, whatever the opportunity to declare salvation in Christ's name, we need to be very clear that the one who comes to Christ is the one the Father draws to Christ. But we also need to know that if the Father is not drawing them, they can't come. Now Jesus tells us this in other ways, like the parable of the soils, where Jesus both tells the parable and then explains the parable. There is soil that is like a hard asphalted road. The gospel doesn't penetrate it. There's some that's uh weed-infested, life's choked out of it. There's some that's uh shallow soil and shows immediate signs of life and then it withers and dies. But there's there's good soil in which the seed falls, and some produces a harvest 30, some 60, some 90. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And by the way, if you are here as a blood-bought believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are that good soil. And you deserve absolutely no credit for that at all. It is because the sovereign God of the universe cultivated your heart so that when you heard the gospel, you would be drawn to Christ, and being drawn to Christ, you would believe. Believing, you would confess. Confessing, you would repent. You'd receive the gift of eternal life. Those whom the Father is not drawing are like those who came to Jesus the day after the feeding of the 5,000 and said, What's next? That negative statement of the gospel is just very important because the first one is where a lot of people are ready to hang their hat. They're ready to declare this all the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. They don't want to get to verse 44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And then listen to the promise, and I will raise him up on the last day. I unexpectedly found myself a few days ago at a funeral for a man I thought was healthy. He thought he was healthy. Everybody thought he was healthy, and he was healthy until he was dead. Not healthy. How in the world do we gather together after the death of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who's been so instrumental, so faithful, who's got leaving so many behind? How do we handle this? It is because of our absolute confidence that the Lord will raise him up on that day. We shall all be raised. Those who are in Christ, what an incredible promise. Oh, all right. So you would think that would settle things. I mean, if you saw the miracle, the feeding of the 5,000, and then you you came to Jesus the next day, and just in case you missed the point, because you obviously missed it, Jesus spells it all out. I mean, he doesn't he doesn't perform the miracle again. He explains it, he defines it. This wasn't about bread. It was about pointing to the fact that I am the bread of life. It wasn't about feeding on the morsels of bread yesterday, it's about feeding on me, a beautiful picture of salvation. But they don't want any of that. That's not what they're looking for. Not only that, but they begin to grumble. And that we read this passage. They begin, is that don't how could he say, I am the bread of life? Well, let me just point to the obvious. They go on and say, isn't this the son of Mary and Joseph? Isn't we don't we know this? Well, the the obvious is if that's all he is, how do you idiots explain yesterday? I mean, for crying out loud, wouldn't you like to think that if you saw the miracle, the multiplication of bread and fish so that 5,000 people were filled with 12 basketfuls left over? Do you think you'd come back the next day and say, do it again? Who are you? No, you would wouldn't you wouldn't think. But again, you have that separation. Some who have eyes to see and others who will not see. They come to Jesus and the intensity becomes very high. The disputation, the division, it's very clear. And the disciples are watching all of this. And uh, and we we need to have sympathy for the disciples because we don't recognize often what it means that we are Christians who are reading the scripture. We are reading what they were living. And we're often struck by what they don't see and what they don't understand, but let's not follow the conceit that if we had been there, we would have understood it better. We understand it better because we have the New Testament to explain to us the entirety. They didn't have it. They're living it day by day. And what a day yesterday was. Well, today the intensity is not going down. Today, the intensity is going up. I am the bread of life. As the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not what you ate yesterday, not what the fathers ate in the manna and died. Whoever feeds on this bread, his substitutionary atonement on me, whoever feeds on me, he will live forever. Then John gives us this little reminder. Jesus said these things in the synagogue as he taught at Capernaum. That's not where we're ending. All of that was to get where we're going. Because the stage is now set for one of the most remarkable conversations between Jesus and his disciples. Look at verse 60. When many of his disciples heard it, this is Jesus saying, Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it? But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him. And he said, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. Jesus says, I told you already. All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will by no means cast out. No one can come to me unless the Father draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. All these people who just walked away, all of those who just left, do you not understand? That's exactly what I told you was happening. They're leaving. They went out from us because they were not of us. But here's the hard thing for us: some of the disciples of Jesus walked with him no more. Now we're not talking about the twelve, so you have to think of it concentric circles. There were those who just were attracted to Jesus, they followed Jesus. They are they even treated him like a rabbi claimed to be his disciples, but this was too much. So they walked with him no more. This is a decisive break point in the Gospel of John. You've got all this larger group, not we're not talking about the twelve, but Jesus even knows one of the twelve who's going to betray him. His sovereignty is made clear. But no, that this larger group of people who, when it was popular, when Jesus is multiplying bread and fish to feed 5,000 people, it was popular to be standing with him as his disciple. When Jesus says, I am the bread of life, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, those who will not have no life in them at all. At that point, some of them are thinking, you know, I think it's time to go home. That's exactly what we're told him here. Some walked with him no more. And Jesus said to them, This is why I told you. No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. Jesus said, I told you already, I mean, just a few verses ago, just a few minutes ago, I told you this is what is true. This is how it happens. And it's happening. Didn't I just tell you it was gonna happen? All right, can you imagine being there under this circumstance? Imagine the tension between Jesus and the twelve. So look at verse 66. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. They're gone. But that's not the end of chapter 6. It continues verse 67. So Jesus said to the 12, Do you want to go away as well? And let me just pause here for a moment and say, there's places in the New Testament where, in my own sense of devotional and reading and preparation for sermons and writing about the Gospel of John and thinking about these things, there are moments when I just feel just uh intuitively, I I wish I had been there. Let's be honest. Wouldn't you like to have been there when Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes? I mean, when I was a little boy, I learned Sunday school songs about the little boy and his loaves and his fishes. I would love to have been there. This day, not so much. I mean, how would you like to be among the disciples of Jesus? Let's just say among the 12, those whom Jesus has called himself. How would you like to be in that crowd and see the larger group of disciples say, I'm done. This is too much, this is too far. They walk with him no more. And then Jesus turns to the 12. This is why I told you. I've already told you, this is why I told you, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. Again, verse 66. Let's follow it through. After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the 12, Do you also want to go away? Okay, who's going to answer? You know. You have biblical instincts, you know who's going to answer. Simon Peter answered him. Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God. How astounding is this? Jesus turns to his own and says, Do you want to go away also? Do you also want to go away? You leaving me? They just left me. They're heading out into the horizon. They're gone. No one can come to me unless the Father draws them. They're gone. I told you this. Do you want to go away as well? I can't imagine that question, honestly. Except I can. Because I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is asking his church this question in every age and every generation. I believe this is a perpetual question from the Lord Jesus Christ to his church. Surely you've noticed what's going on. I mean, some sociologists will say the phenomenon is the secularization of the age. And they're not exactly wrong, but there's a lot more to it than that. There used to be a lot of people who went to church, they don't go to church anymore. There used to be a lot of people who identified as Christians. They don't make that identification anymore. It used to be that claiming, at least associating, with a Christian identity was a part of what was uh, well, kind of defined as being a good neighbor. Nowadays, having an evangelical family next door can scare a neighborhood to death. Table's been turned. And you might put this another way. What we are experiencing is now well developed, and that is the disappearance of cultural Christianity. I mean, it's just gone. And I can look around this room and I can tell you it's more gone than you think. I'm just looking at you, I just want to tell you, the picture's worse than you think. Alright? So when you come to the King's Chapel, you're coming to an oasis in the midst of an increasingly sterile desert. Alright? So know that, celebrate that. But understand the vast majority of people here in this area are driving past on the way somewhere else. Alright? So what used to be gaining cultural capital by going to church in a city like Raleigh, in a state like North Carolina, there are still some small towns where it matters a little bit, but nowhere does it matter much. And generationally, it matters less and less the younger you go. Alright? Secularization is just part of it. The other is the departure from the faith, once for all, delivered to the saints, on the part of those who actually claim to be Christians. I spent my entire adult lifetime in this particular dynamic. I was uh on the Larry King show, I can't tell you how many times. I actually could tell you it's a lot. All kinds of things were happening. I was very thankful to be on his list. I got called a lot, got to know him. But I was never on as the Christian. I was on as the conservative Christian. He also had on a liberal Christian. It's an oxymoron, I know, but go with it. Just to understand what we're talking about here, okay? And so, you know, that we would be into a debate. I I did debates with people like Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong. He's now dead, he knows better. But he denied everything. I mean, I mean, he he really wrote best-selling books on heresies, and he ran out of heresies, which is a frustration to a heretic. You're making your money writing new books on heresy, so you gotta deny. So he just wrote more comprehensive books like The Entire Christian Faith, why it's mythological and all the rest. I've I've been involved in these things. You know, I tell people, you know one of the most interesting things about theological liberals in the United States? I mentioned Harry Emerson Fosdick earlier. And that that's that's exactly what's going on. What you see here in this text. They don't want to stand with Jesus. They don't want to stand with the virgin birth. They don't want to take their stand on the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture. They they want to see the Bible as a human witness, a fallible human witness when it comes to the Old Testament, a violent human, fallible witness. They they have all this is just what they thought they were doing, however, was saving Christian morality by ditching Christian theology. How did that work out? They're the very same churches inside with uh, well, I'm not gonna say what I'm thinking. Okay, I will. Many of them are turning into like lesbian enclaves because it just turns out that's what they are. And uh out front's a rainbow flag, you know, and that rainbow flag declares their commitment. They've departed the faith once for all, delivered to the saints. And you know what? The old liberal conceit that we're gonna ditch the theology in order to save the morality, it doesn't work. Because if God is not the living sovereign God who created the heavens and the earth and created human beings in his image, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his mother and father and shall cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. If that is not coming with divine mandate, then guess what? It is oppression, it's repression, it's uh prejudice, it's unconstitutional. What I want to say is it's very easy for us to look at a passage like this and think, you know, number one, it had to be intense to have been there on that day when Jesus asked, Do you also want to go away? I think you can see exactly where I'm headed. Jesus is asking that question of us Do you also want to go away? And you know what? Jesus asked his disciples that question when they just seen it happen with their own eyes, right there in their own midst. They'd seen those who walked with Jesus walk with. Them no more. And Jesus turns to them and says, Do you also want to go away? Do you also want to go away? You gonna put the gay pride flag out front? You're gonna substitute the preaching of the gospel for some kind of uh, you know, slightly spiritual encouragement? The first step is not denying the bodily resurrection of Christ, the first step is not talking about it. I mean, there are a lot of kind of establishment churches in which it's impossible to commit heresy because they don't ever say anything theological. No, you don't you don't start out there, and all these mainline Protestant denominations, they didn't start out with John Shelby Spawn, they end up there. I just think it's good for us to hear the question, it's good for us to feel the force of it. Do you also want to go away? I I also know where I am, and so I want to tell you, I'm thankful to be in the company of a church, a congregation, and you encourage me so much. I just want to tell you, I know you're not going to go away. But you also understand, I'm telling you, you can't go away. You dare not go away. You must not go away, and we must not hear and feel the question every day of our lives. Those the Father gives him will come to him. And the one who comes to him, he'll be faithful. He will by no means cast them out. Let me just tell you the bad news. You can't keep yourself to Christ. Here's the good news Christ will keep you to himself. Alright? Christ will have his church, one way or the other, one place or another, one language or another. The Lord will have his church. And on that day, he will raise those who are his in the church eternal. And not only will we live with him in his reign by the promise of the gospel, we will reign with him as his. So this morning I just want to make certain we hear the force of this question: Do you also want to go away? And just like the disciples had just seen the going happen, every once in a while we just need to say we can look down the street and see the going happen. But it's also good to hear Christ turn to the twelve and say, Do you also want to go away? So that together Christ's people will say, Well, let's don't you admire the fact that Peter asked a question? Lord, to whom would we go? We got nowhere else to go. Isn't that a good predicament to be in? Isn't it good that we look each other in the face and say, you know, we got nowhere else to go? There is no other name given under heaven and earth whereby we must be saved. There is no other savior, there is no other salvation, there is no other God than the one true and living God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We've got nowhere to go. You have the words of eternal life, and become this. Beyond this, we've come to know that you are the Holy One, the Messiah. You're the Messiah, you're the one God has promised. Don't you love to see the disciples connect the dots? You are the Messiah, the promised one of God. If you're here this morning and you've never connected those dots, I'm going to pray that you may have the experience of the Holy Spirit connecting those dots for you. You are a sinner desperately in need of a Savior. Christ is the one and only Savior who taketh away the sins of the world. Salvation comes to those who come to Christ by faith and trust in Him and in Him alone. And if you have never experienced that salvation, understand that the way you experience that is that for reasons you can't even explain, you're being drawn to Christ. And I guarantee you there are folks in this church who just can't wait to talk to you about how you can know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. To those who are believers, we just need to hear the question, and we better learn how to answer it. Let's just together celebrate the fact that we've got nowhere to go. Nowhere. And we've come to know that Jesus has the words of eternal life. That He is the Holy One of God. I'm thankful for every single word of scripture. I have to tell you, I think this is one of these texts that just nails the predicament of the hour. I think the Lord would ask the Southern Baptist Convention, do you also want to go away? The Lord would ask every Christian denomination, congregation, institution, do you also want to go away? Many have. And we know it. Let's pray. Father, we are so thankful. For how in this passage you have so distilled the gospel, the atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, the power of the gospel, the promise of the gospel, and you have also revealed to us the predicament of the gospel. The gospel draws sinners to faith in Christ. It repels those who want no such thing. Father, we pray you will do a work to your own glory and your own glory alone. It is in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. And all God's people said, Amen.