Our text for this morning I take from verse 44 of John chapter 6, the passage we have just read. Verse number 44, hear the word of God with me. No man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. Let me read it again. No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. May he add his blessing to the hearing, the reading and the preaching of his word again this morning. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ gathered here with me in this place or on the parking lot or via live stream. The chorus of a well-known Christian hymn ends with the words, whosoever will may come, whosoever will. Send the proclamation over vale and hill that whosoever will may come, whosoever will. The theme is a biblical one. The words are lifted almost literally from Revelation 22, verse 19, where we read, and the spirit and the bride say, come, and let him that thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take up the water of life freely. So we can safely say then that that statement, whosoever will may come, is biblically correct. It is indeed clearly taught us in our Bible that whosoever is thirsty may come and drink. Whosoever is hungry may come and eat. Whosoever is in need may come to Christ and ask and it will be given. Whosoever desires salvation may come and seek it in Christ and he shall find. Whosoever is weary and burdened may come to Jesus for rest. Whosoever will may come. According to the scriptures, never will it be possible that on that final day of the Lord that someone will be able to say that he eagerly longed, earnestly desired, willed with all of his heart to come to Christ, but was refused. Indeed, all those who come to Christ will be received by Christ and will taste of his healing mercy. That biblical truth needs to be emphasized also today. However, we would Although we may freely proclaim over royal and over vale and hill that whosoever will may come, we would be guilty of presenting an incomplete gospel if we failed to add the rest of the biblical truth, which states that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him. And I want to repeat that. No one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him. Modern-day evangelicals have been so influenced by the errors and even heresies of Arminianism and fundamentalism and dispensationalism that the cardinal truth of God's electing love in Christ as a precursor to coming to Christ has been all but lost. According to scripture, no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him, and yet And yet within the covenant community, we regularly see people coming to Christ. We see children born and raised within the covenant community, maturing in the faith, and we see men and women being evangelized, also coming to Christ. How do we explain that? No one can come to Christ, and yet many do come to Christ. How do we explain that? Well, the simple answer is that we confess that they have come to Christ not by making a decision to join the church or not by choosing to become a Christian, but they became Christians because it pleased God to draw them unto himself through Christ. In other words, then when the new Christian is welcomed into the fellowship of the church, we welcome those new members. We shake their hands, perhaps we even hug them and we wish them God's blessing upon their spiritual journey, but we do not congratulate them for their decision. We do not praise them for coming to Christ, no. We shake their hands and with them we thank and we praise God for the decision that God made for them. It's an important distinction. However, although God needs to draw men and women unto himself before they can come to him, that's not to say that man is totally passive, or that man is simply a robot, or as our canons of Dort put it, men are not simply stocks and blocks. No, no, no. God is sovereign in matters of salvation, but at the same time, man has an obligation towards sanctification. It's like the two parts of the covenant. We see God's sovereignty, but we hear also of man's responsibility. God makes promises, but he holds before us our obligations. And so I want to administer God's word to you this morning, using as my theme, coming to Christ, coming to Christ. We're going to see, first of all, what is implied in coming to Christ. Then we want to learn how it is made possible to come to Christ. And finally, we want to consider the benefit of coming to Christ, what is implied in coming, how it is made possible to come, and then the benefit of coming. People of God, it is one of the surest facts of Christianity that when the doctrines of man's natural spiritual condition and the need for God's grace in Christ is preached, there will be instant resentment and rejection by many who hear those doctrines. The sinful nature of man resents being confronted with the fact that he's not the captain of his own song or the master of his own fate. Rejection and opposition in response to the preaching of the true gospel has always been the natural reaction of the natural man. And we ought not to be surprised then to find Jesus' teaching and preaching in this chapter of John was also immediately followed by an outbreak of resentment and protest by the leaders of Israel. We read that when Jesus told them, I am the bread which came down from heaven, we read, and the Jews began to grumble. We see there in our text numbers of people who had come to Christ. In fact, throughout all of the New Testament, we read that there were masses of people who came to him. They came to hear him preach, they came to listen to his teachings, and they came to witness his amazing miracles. And yet, and yet, and yet, not all truly came. For we read, they began to grumble or murmur among themselves. The Jews murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. These Jews, they were inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea, and these Jews were murmuring. And it's now a significant thing in our text that the word used here for the murmuring is the same word used to describe Israel's unhappiness in the wilderness. There too they murmured, they grumbled, they were not satisfied. And in the wilderness they lamented their lack of leeks and onions. And here the Jews were murmuring against Christ because he had said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. That statement offended them. And that doesn't surprise us when we understand that these Jews were completely blind to Christ's divine glory. These Jews of our text, they were ignorant of the fact that this very one whom some of them had seen grow up before their eyes in that humble home of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, that he now claimed to be who he was, the very son of God. These Jews were far too self-satisfied and too self-righteous to see any need for one to come down from heaven to them, much less for that one to die upon the cross to meet their needs and thus become their savior. Their case, as they thought it, was by no means as desperate as that. The truth is, first of all, that these Jews, they had no hunger for the bread which came down from heaven. The men of our text had understood Christ's words when he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. They understood precisely what he said. They understood those words as signifying that he was of divine origin. And in this, they were quite right about what they thought they heard him say. But these Jews were totally ignorant of Christ's divine origin. They supposed him to be the natural son of Joseph and Mary. We know his father and mother, they said, but in actuality, they did not know his father. And that was the whole problem here. And in that context, Jesus offers the words of our text when he said to these Jews, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me unless the father draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. But now we need to be careful and understand precisely what Jesus did say and what he did not say in these words. It's not at all unusual to hear someone explain this text as saying that a man simply has to wait to see if God will open heaven's portals for them. You see, they say, you see, you can't come to God. But that's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus spoke here so as to address their human responsibility. Jesus' words were not designed to repel the Jews, but no, to humble them. Jesus was not slamming the door in their faces. No, rather, he was showing them the way, the only way by which they could enter. His words were not intended to suggest that there was no possible hope for them. No, no, no. The very opposite was true. Jesus was showing them that there was hope. There was a way in which they could enter the kingdom. And we need to be careful, then, not to read into this verse something that's not there. Jesus said, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him. And he used those words to demonstrate, first of all, the depths of human depravity. You see, his words expose the stubbornness of the human will. His words explain the murmuring of these, the grumbling of these Jews. Understand this with me. Jesus turns to these murmuring Jews of our text and he says, by your murmuring, you make it clear that you have not come to me. Your murmuring is evidence that you are not disposed to come to me, and in your present self-righteousness you will never come to me. Before you come to me, you must become converted and become as little children, and before that can take place, you must be the subject of a divine operation. Follow this with me. You see, the Jews in our text, they flocked to Jesus. They came to Jesus in large numbers. But they had no ear for the gospel. No, they had witnessed Christ's miraculous feeding of the 5,000. And they saw in him qualities that would make him an able leader in their time of oppression. They sought to make him their earthly king. In other words, they were motivated by concerns of a commercial or an earthly consideration. And therefore, we read, When Christ held up before them that the only way to God was through him, they grumbled. They found him to be a stumbling block, an offense, and they left him and they followed him no more. People, God, gird up the loins of your minds with me for a moment and follow closely. What we learn from the words of our text this morning is that it is indeed true that many people will come to Christ, but it is equally true that not all people truly come to Christ. Many people believe it to be advantageous to have Jesus Christ, but they want him for all the wrong reasons. I saw that repeatedly personally in many people whom I had opportunity to minister to. You see, while serving a church in British Columbia, there were two large federal prisons in our town. And I had opportunity to establish Bible study classes in both of these institutions. And I was in there regularly. And I was surprised and greatly encouraged initially by the numbers of men who regularly attended However, in time, to my great disappointment, I discovered that most of these inmates had no ear for the gospel at all. No, they attended my Bible study because they wanted to put on their record that they had found Christ while they were in prison. And they believed that to be conducive to achieving early parole. They had no interest in the gospel and their motives were terribly wrong. And that's the spirit we see evidenced by the Jews of our text. And that kind of coming has nothing in common with a true coming to Christ. And so what must become very clear to us today, therefore, is that it is of the utmost importance that we have a correct understanding of precisely what is implied in that true coming to Christ. My dear people of God, the Bible tells us that not all Israel is Israel. Not all in Israel who claimed to have Abraham as father also had God as father. In other words, not all people who considered themselves to be children of the promise really were children of the promise. And the same is still true today. Still today, many people who call themselves Christian in reality are not Christian at all. It's sad but true that not even all people whose names are recorded on the membership rolls of the Christian church truly belong to Christ. Not all those who outwardly would appear to belong to Christ have genuinely come to Christ. You see, the drawing power of the Father is not necessary for someone to simply maintain a formal relationship to a church. You see, you can belong to a church, a good church, even a true church, and yet not belong to Christ. And as we see here in our text, it is indeed possible for people to externally evidence a Christian commitment, but in reality, internally, they do not yet know him. And so it's crucial for us even today that we clearly understand what true coming implies. To truly come to Christ implies much more than simply, for instance, making a public profession of faith and joining the church, as important as those things are. Follow this with me. The men of our text had indeed come to Christ, but they came because they had seen him multiply the loaves. And they marveled, and they stood in amazement at his wondrous ability, and they were impressed by his miraculous power. And so they sought his help for their cause, but they did not seek him because they had been convinced that he was the Christ. To them, he wasn't the Son of God. and that unbelief was evidenced by their grumbling and their murmuring. Whatever else they may have thought about him, that he was the Messiah who would make it possible for them to enter into the kingdom of God, that idea had not entered into their minds. In fact, when he finally identified himself as such, they accused him of blasphemy and they crucified him. Oh, they would receive him as king of the nation to deliver them from Roman oppression, perhaps, but, but, but Lord and master of their hearts and their lives and savior of their souls. No, that was completely unacceptable to them. Understand this well. These men were not prepared to deny themselves or to take his yoke upon themselves. The men of Artax were not willing to forsake all and to trust in him alone and to follow his leading in love and obedience regardless of the cost. That was not the condition of their hearts. They had not understood Christ's call, nor were they able to do so as they were men and women who were still in their natural state. A supernatural act was still required before their hearts and minds could be illumined. According to the Bible, a further work of God would be necessary before they could hear and see the Son of God in all of his splendor. Does not the scripture teach us that it must be so? In 1 Corinthians 2 we read, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can they know them, for they are spiritually discerned. And inasmuch as he is a natural man, it is not in his power to discern the things of God. My dear people, throughout all of the Bible, We see only two kinds of people. We see those who meet the Christ, they embrace him in their own way for the wrong motives, and then they grumble when he lays his claims upon their lives and their lifestyles, and then they leave him and they walk with him no more. And we see men and women who came to Christ, not because they had heard he was able to feed them with bread that perishes. No, rather, they had become convinced by the grace of God that only the Christ of God could offer the bread of life. And that's what they were after. Listen to the testimony of some of those whose hearts had been made receptive to the calling of Christ. In Matthew 16, we read of Jesus questioning Peter. We hear Christ asking, Peter, who do men say that I am? And Peter first reveals to Christ public opinion. Well, some say one thing. Some say something else. Some hold you to be a prophet or some other great leader. But the general public does not hold him to be the Christ. And then Jesus presses him further. But Peter, who do you say that I am? Then we hear that beautiful confession of Peter's faith. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Read also a little further in this same chapter in which we found our text of this morning. In the verses 68 and 69, we read that in response to Jesus' teaching, many disciples rejected him and no longer followed him. And at a certain point, Jesus turned to the 12 and said, will you not also leave me and listen carefully once again to Peter's confession on their behalf? And this time, his confession was in two parts. First of all, he once again confesses Christ to be the Holy One of God. But then he goes on to acknowledge that Christ and Christ alone can obtain the necessary salvation for man. Peter responds to Jesus's question with words, Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. Congregations still today, multitudes come to hear and see Christ. Some stay, some leave. Those who stay, by God's grace, have truly come to Christ and are marked by these same two characteristics as we saw in Peter. They will recognize Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God, and they will see their own need of redemption through his blood, and they acknowledge that it can only be found in the Christ of God, who has the words of eternal life. So then, people of God, if it is incumbent upon us to come to Christ, and it is, and if it is crucial that we truly and rightly come to Christ, and it is, the question then has to become, how is it possible for us to come to Christ? And the answer is given us in the text. It's not possible at all. It's not possible at all. Jesus says, no one can come to me. unless, unless, unless the Father draws him. Notice that our Savior calls it an impossibility. Coming to Christ, though declared by many people in contemporary Christianity as being the easiest thing in the world, claimed by many to require a simple decision or a choosing for Christ on the part of the sinner, is here in our text declared to be an utterly and an impossible thing. Congregation's Bible wants us to know that men and women cannot come. Men and women cannot choose to become a Christian. Away with that foolish, unbiblical notion of an altar call. Men and women cannot choose. They lack the power. They have neither the inclination nor even the ability to do so. Unless the Father draws them, unless God divinely intervenes without His prior work, it is impossible for man to be reconciled to God. Unless God exercises His sovereign choice and influence, it is impossible for men and women to inherit eternal life. My dear precious saints of God, think carefully with me. You remember the story. Man, as he came from the hand of God, that is, as he was in the beginning, as he was created, he was good, in fact, very good. He reflected the very image of God. But that one act of sinful disobedience in paradise by the first Adam had the most devastating consequences, not only for Adam, but for all of mankind. In Adam's fall we sinned all, and throughout all of the Bible we're taught that as a result of that fall in paradise, man is dead in sin and trespass. Listen to the Lord's Day 3 of our Heidelberg Catechism as it explains so clearly and so poignantly what the Bible teaches about the condition of man and his ability to choose for Christ. After it is explained to us that God created man good and in his image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, the question is then raised, but then where does man's corrupt nature come from? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve in paradise. And this fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners, corrupt from conception on. The next question, but are we so corrupt? Are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil? Yes, yes, yes! Unless, unless, unless we are regenerated, born again by the Spirit of God. That's what the Bible teaches about our natural inclinations. According to Jesus' own words, no man, no man with an unchanged heart and mind will ever embrace God's salvation. Why not? Because the condition of the natural man is altogether beyond human repair. To talk about exerting the will is to ignore the state of the man behind the will. Man's will has not escaped the general wreckage of his nature. When man fell, every part of his being was affected, just as truly as the sinner's heart became estranged from God, just as his understanding was darkened, so was his will, enslaved by sin as consequence. To say then that man has the power within himself to either reject or to accept Christ is to repudiate the fact that he is the captive of the devil. It is flatly to contradict this word of the Son of God, no man can come to me except the Father has sent me, draws him. You know the story. Every single man and woman in the world comes into this world dead in sin and trespass. Dead men and women cannot respond to the gospel. Dead men and women cannot hear the gospel. Dead men and women cannot move. Dead men and women cannot hear Christ's call. Dead men and women cannot choose to make themselves alive. Dead men and women cannot choose to make themselves Christian. spiritually dead men and women cannot come to Christ unless they are born a second time by the Spirit of God. By nature we are inclined to hate God and our neighbor. What comes to us naturally is that we have neither the ability to hear Christ's call nor the desire to come to him. Our nature has become a sinful nature. Our nature as consequence of the fall has become so poisoned, so corrupted, that as a result it has become an utter impossibility for us to turn ourselves to God or to even prepare ourselves to meet Him. According to the Scriptures, no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him. No unregenerate sinner ever did or will believe. The unregenerate sinner ought to love God and love him with all of his heart. In fact, he is commanded to love God, but he does not, and he will not, because he cannot until divine grace gives him a new heart. And so he ought to believe, but he will not, until he has been quickened unto newness of life. And therefore we say that when any man does believe, When any man is found believing, it is proof positive that he is already in possession of eternal life. He that believeth on me hath, hath already eternal life. Man's only hope, then, lies outside of himself in divine help. That's what I meant when earlier I explained that Christ's own words were not intended to close heaven's door but to show the way to heaven. If it be true that our whole being is depraved and therefore at enmity with God, if it be true that we are powerless to reverse the tendency of our fallen nature, what then can we do? And the answer, the answer is to fall on our knees and to cry for divine help. If these murmuring Jews had believed what Christ had told them about their helplessness, that's what they would have done. And if the unsaved today would only believe God when he says that the sinner is lost, he too would call out for a deliverer. If I cannot come to Christ except the Father draws me, then my responsibility, your responsibility, is to beg the Father to draw us. Have you done that? Have you begged the Lord to take possession of your heart? Or are you just sitting back waiting to see if maybe God will call? It's an important question and it demands an answer. Have you pleaded with God to remove that heart of stone that you inherited from your first parents? Have you asked God to replace it with a heart beating and pulsing with a living faith? While we think about that, let's sing psalter number 394. 394, I will extol thee, oh my God. And we'll sing all three of the stanzas. Our text continues, Jesus makes it so clear that no one can come to him unless the father draws him, but, but, but. The opposite is also true. It is also impossible not to come to Christ if the Father draws. The Father's work must come first. His drawing must precede man's coming. A certain power or influence must be exerted upon man by God. And the consequence of that supernatural act is that man now is miraculously and for the first time and able to hear the sweet voice of Jesus. And at the same time, he is now empowered to come to Christ. My dear people of God. when one is born of water and the Spirit, then not only does he now come, but his heart, in fact, leaps for joy within his bosom in the knowledge of the conviction that he personally has been drawn to Christ through the love of the Father. And this drawing of men is effected by a spiritual force which only the Father can perform Only God has the power to enter into the innermost recesses of the hearts of men. Only God is able to work in such a way that all resistance is taken away. Only God changes man's heart and mind and will. That's the drawing which is needed to come to Christ. where previously sin had reigned, where there was once resistance and opposition. Now, by the operation of the Holy Spirit and by the grace of God, there is acceptance and, in fact, a great desire. It's now a pleasant thing. It is now a great delight to come to Christ and to be one with him. The Spirit of God opens the eyes of man's understanding so that he can behold the Christ of God in all his glory, and at the same time enables him to see himself in his desperate need. My dear precious people of God, Just as there is no human power which can stop the rising of the morning sun, just as man is helpless and powerless before the power of huge hurricanes and tornadoes and tsunamis, in the same way there is no power which can prevent those drawn by the Father from coming to Christ. Nothing can hinder or prevent that operation of God in the hearts of His elect. Does Christ not teach us that it would be so? Did we not hear the words of our Lord in our text? All those given by the Father will come. In other words, all that stands between a chosenly elect sinner and a gracious Savior, God will overcome. all those given me will come. If there be hardness of heart, if there be spiritual blindness, if there be spiritual deafness, if there be spiritual death, all of that will be swept away by God, for all those given to me will come. If there be thousands of miles between one of God's elect and the bearer of God's gospel message, God will get that message out, because all that are given me will come. And those that come experience indescribable blessing. That too is given us in their text. Christ speaks of a complete salvation, salvation of body and soul. I am not my own, but in body and soul, in life and death, in body and soul, I belong to Christ. Perfect salvation through Him. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. What a foretaste of glory divine, air of salvation, purchased of God, born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. People of God, listen to what Christ is promising to us here. At death, even the death of a Christian, the body descends into the grave. And we stand at that grave site, and we see it happen, and we see that body being lowered into that dark, cold belly of the ground, and we experience the pain of the parting. The soul ascends to heaven, this we believe from our scriptures, but at the grave site of a loved one, it would seem to the human eye that death has won the victory over one of Christ's own. One of God's children would seem to be under the power of the enemy, death. Death and not Christ would seem to be the victory. But here Christ assures us that in reality it is not so, for I will raise him up on the last day. He himself has won the victory over death and the grave. That body shall not remain in the power of death and in the grave? The body of the child of God will not lie forgotten in the grave? No, no. Here Christ teaches us that salvation is of the entire man, body and soul. The two belong together and both shall be fully redeemed. Ultimate and complete victory in Jesus Christ is promised us here in the text. Consider now once again. the contrast between those who come to Christ and those who do not. The one is promised and assured that he will be received by Christ and that on that last day, his body and soul will be reunited to enter into mansions of glory. The other receives his just reward, a second death and an eternity in utter darkness. People got the words of another well-known hymn of the Christian church tells us that Jesus calls us over the tumult. It's true, Jesus still calls us today. Over the tumult, the mayhem, the confusion, and the uncertain noises of a sin, darkened, fallen humanity, the call of the gospel goes out into all the world. All men and women everywhere are commanded to hear and to respond to that call. All men, all women, all young adults, all teenagers, even our children, they are commanded to repent and to believe in him who has the words of life. And yet we know from the scriptures and we learn from our own experience that some men respond and some do not. Some may change. They joyfully believe the covenant promise and begin to honor their covenant obligations. Some hear the voice of Christ. They embrace his gospel promise in faith and obedience and begin to order their lives accordingly. Others do not believe. Some harden their hearts. They reject the Christ. They commit their lives to the world and its empty pleasures. What now is the reason that some respond and some do not? The gospel call goes out equally to all. It can only be one of two things. Either there is something different in the people to whom the call comes, or there is something different in the God who sends the call. In other words, there is either something better or stronger about those men and women who choose for Christ, Or there is something different within the God who has already chosen. And here in our text, Christ teaches us that the difference is not to be found in us. For in and of ourselves, we are dead in our sin and trespass. Left on our own, we would not, we could not come in order that we might have salvation. But praise be to God, who by the power of His Holy Spirit accompanies that gospel call and effectually changes the hearts of men and women and drives them to their knees at the foot of Golgotha's cross. The power is not to be found within ourselves. Oh no, that could not be. It is not that I did choose thee for Lord, that could not be. This heart, my heart, would still refuse thee. Hast thou not chosen me? No one can come to me unless the Father draws him, and him I will raise up on the last day. My dear precious saints of God, gather dear with me this morning. when you have learned to know Him, when you have been taught by the Spirit of God to say, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, and when you have believed that He is the Holy One of Israel who has the words of life, then you can only sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, for you have come to Him, not because of your choosing, but only because you have been chosen and you have been drawn by the Father. In other words, if you know yourself to be a child of God, it can only be because the Father has drawn you unto Himself in Christ. And inasmuch as you have come to Christ, God has drawn you. And further, inasmuch as He has drawn you, it is proof positive that He has loved you with an everlasting love from before the foundations of the world. The decision to draw you, the decision to save you, was made by God before the world's foundations were even laid. He wrote your name on the palm of His hands only because of His love for you. And that love of the Father shown to you is an everlasting love. Oh, let your hearts then leap within you. You are one of His. Your own name was already written on His hands when they were pierced. with those nails on the cross of Golgotha. God says to you, and God says to me, and God says to all true Christians everywhere, rejoice in the Lord and shout for joy, for you have been drawn by the Father and you've been brought into a secret place of safety in Jesus Christ. You have been chosen by a sovereign God electing in Jesus Christ and you shall be kept in His love by the power of God through all of this life and finally you will be raised up with Him on that last day to praise His name for all eternity in glory. So then, when we see men and women, when by God's grace we see our children truly coming to Christ, how did they come to him? They didn't come. They were brought to him by God the Father. May it be so for each of us and for our children, shall we pray. Father, what a glorious gospel we heard again. We heard that it was impossible for us to come, and yet we did come because of the love of the Father. Oh, Father, with all Christians everywhere, we confess, I know not why God's wondrous grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love redeemed me for his own. I know not how this saving faith to me he did impart, nor how believing in his word brought peace within my heart. I know not how the spirit moves, convincing men of sin, revealing Jesus through the word, creating faith in him. I know not what of good or ill might be reserved for me, of weary ways or golden days before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day.