Jesus teaches that no one comes to Him unless the Father draws them, illustrated through the selection of the twelve disciples and Judas's betrayal. The speaker connects this to Romans' concept of vessels chosen for God's purpose, exploring the tension between human free will and divine predestination in salvation.
Chapters
All right, end of another day. It's that time, going through John. So grab your Bible if you don't have it already. John 6. Yesterday we're diving into the bread of life, bread of life, a little bit, and today we are gonna continue on the tail end of that. Amen. And hopefully, yeah, we'll finish the chapter today. So chapter 6, verse 60, uh, we're gonna pick up right where we left off yesterday. Again, I'm reading from— well, this one actually tonight won't be the ESV. Tonight it is the CEV. Um, so yeah, CEV tonight. Normally I'm reading from the ESV, but a different one tonight. So many of Jesus's disciples heard him and said, this is too hard for anyone to understand. This is Jesus saying You need to eat of my body and drink of my blood. And people are looking at it going, what do we do with that? This is too hard to understand. Jesus knew that his disciples were grumbling, so he asked, does this bother you? What if you should see the Son of Man go up to heaven where he came from? The Spirit is the one who gives life. Human strength can do nothing. The words that I've spoken to you are from that life-giving Spirit, but some of you refuse to have faith in me. Jesus said this because from the beginning he knew who would have faith in him. He also knew which one would betray him. Then Jesus said, you cannot come to me unless the Father makes you want to come. That is why I have told these things to all of you. Because of what Jesus said, many of his disciples turned their backs on him and stopped following him. Jesus then asked his 12 disciples if they were going to leave him. Simon Peter answered, Lord, there is no one else that we can go to. Your words have given eternal life. We have faith in you and we are sure that you are God's Holy One. Jesus told his disciples, "I choose all twelve of you, but one of you is a demon." Jesus was talking about Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. He would later betray Jesus, even though he was one of the twelve disciples. This is a really hard chapter. You cannot come to me unless the Father makes you want to come. That is what I have told you these. Um, then a whole bunch of people leave. The irony of that, of like, unless God told you to come to me, you're not gonna want to be here. And then a whole bunch of people leave, proving the point that he just said. The interesting thing at the end of this one for me, though, is Jesus saying, I chose all 12 of you. But one of you is a demon. This— and I mean, it'll be a while if we ever get to this, but in Romans there's a passage about God creating vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, and each of them having a purpose. And here we see some of that come to light, where Jesus has just gone through several chapters saying, whoever God gives to me, whoever God sends to me, God has anointed who will come to me. Here again, he's saying, you won't come to me unless God has sent you to me. And now Jesus is going, I've chosen 12 of you. And 11 of you are here to do the work that God has called you to do with me. And one of you is called to do the work that God called you to do, but it's not with me. It's to my destruction. You are going to betray me. You're going to kill me. And he knew this. He, he knew that the person that was going to betray him was right there by his side. Was walking with him all along. All the lessons, all the teaching, all of the things that he witnessed, all of it, everything that Jesus did was right there in front of this person. And Jesus knew all along he was going to betray him. And Judas may not have known, but eventually he did. Eventually he had to make that decision. He had to look at everything that Jesus had ever done with him, for him, around him, everything that he had witnessed, and he still decided against it. He still decided to betray and put up Jesus to be crucified. Pretty crazy. Pretty crazy to think that not only would you walk alongside someone that you thought would cross you eventually, But he chose him. He chose him specifically for that purpose. This isn't like, well, you were here, it's an unfortunate thing. Jesus had purpose and intention. Earlier in this, in this section in chapter 6, he says, I do not do my will, but I do the Lord's will. I do God's will. I do the Father's will. He sent me here to do his will. I do his will. In choosing these 12, he's doing the Father's will. He's choosing Judas for this purpose in this role. It's a really, really hard thing to understand, but it comes out pretty Pretty clearly here in John. You cannot come to me unless the Father makes you want to come. You can't come to Christ unless he— unless God wants you to come. Judas, chosen not to come to Jesus to be saved, for another purpose. But God's purpose is still done. Really hard finish here on John 6. But it is what it is. Sometimes the word is tough like that. That is it for me tonight, folks. I hope you have an amazing evening. We will get into John 7 tomorrow. Take it easy. Thank you.
