Continuing through our Exposition of John's Gospel...

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After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little." 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?" 10 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost." 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, "This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!" 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Is there anything too hard for the Lord? We see from the text that Jesus tests Phillip, so what was the answer He was seeking? Is there anything too hard for the Lord? There were probably well over 10,000 people when you factor in women and children. Jesus presents Phillip with an impossible scenario within our carnal understanding. So, He still does today as well with us. What I want to focus on here is the signs and wonders. The absolute miracle that is feeding 10,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish. As the kids say today, that math just doesn't math. All the people were fed to the full and there were twelve baskets of food left over. Modern Charismania have cheapened signs and wonders to be absurdities and outright deception. Bethel and others have long sold the notion that things like manifestations of gemstones and gold dust are "miracles" or as Bill Johnson stupidly refers to them - signs that make you wonder. Yeah, it should make you wonder how anyone could be so easily deceived. I saw Johnson once tell a story about how angel feathers started randomly falling all around him while at a diner. To who's glory? Bethel is also famous for manipulating their ventilation system to pretend there were "glory clouds" descending upon the gullible churchgoers. These are not miracles. They are not signs nor wonders. They are schemes and tricks designed to wow you but provide nothing miraculous. We serve the God who fed 10,000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread and we think we can pawn off fake angel feathers and dust clouds as comparable miracles?

If not outright absurdities, there is also the phenomenon of deceptive miracle practice. Now, I have seen genuine miracles. I have seen people miraculously healed. Unfortunately, I have also witnessed countless lies disguised as miracles. I think back to the heretical Holy Ghost movies from Darren Wilson and how fake healers would stalk random people in other countries in public parks who claimed to have some generic back pain that was then "miraculously" healed. I think of Benny Hinn waving his magic suit coat and pretending swaths of people were healed. I remember the example from a local church that had a traveling evangelist visiting. My friend went down to have hands laid on him because he was facing hip surgery. He danced up and down the altar and thought he was healed. The following week however he was still limping and still in need of surgery. Thankfully his faith was strong enough to not be shipwrecked. I remember around the time of the Asbury faux revival there was a woman at a service that Bill Johnson was visiting I believe. She claimed that her amputated toes were miraculously grown back. Something that is easily verified but she refused to provide any proof. Someone started a website called - show us the toes. The way of Christ is mocked. I did a podcast recently reviewing a video from Kap Chatfield who was amazed at a video from a pastor claiming a little boy was healed from liver cancer. Once again, no proof provided but imagine if there was! What a fantastic testimony to the healing power of God! Can God heal? Absolutely. Does He still provide the miraculous? Absolutely. What we see instead throughout the apostate church system are cheap knock off imitations. Where are we to buy bread? We do not need to!

16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles,[b] they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. 22 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. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. 25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" 26 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." 28 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" 29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent." 30 So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" 32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."

They were seeking Jesus not because of the miracle but because of the carnal result of eating their fill. Think about that for a minute. They got into boats to pursue Jesus, but He cuts them to the quick by exposing their motives. He had just fed over ten thousand people with five loaves of bread and two small fish. Think about the scale of that miracle. They should have been pursuing Jesus because of the miracle, not for the lunch. Do not work for food that perishes but rather food that endures to eternal life. How does this correlate to today? The apostate churches across this country specialize in selling you the bread of carnality and not eternal life. When you see precious pulpit time wasted on carnal politics, carnal prosperity and carnal gimmicks, what suffers is the eternal gospel. We talk often about Joel Osteen because he is on record as saying he thinks his job is to motivate people to feel better about themselves and their lives. In doing so, he is filling his congregation with people seeking the lunch and not the miracles. When Bethel sells the fake miracles discussed earlier, they do so at the expense of the gospel and the truly miraculous. We still ask today what shall we do in order to be doing the works of God. The answer is not found in decreeing and declaring, our voting patterns, or speaking things into existence. It was not found in false authority paradigms. It was not found in nonsense like financial anointings, which was a three-hour teaching recently from Kap Chatfield. The work of God is in believing in Jesus! The gospel is not nearly as complicated or convoluted as the apostate church makes it out to be. Churches today are rowing into the storm without Jesus. When He shows up walking on the water, they are frightened because they do not know Him, nor understand what to do with the truly miraculous.

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. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 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. 40 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."

This is the gospel. That all who believe in Him shall have eternal life. Not those who vote Republican. Before this past election you had prominent apostate preachers like Mario Murillo and Greg Locke write that unless you were planning on voting as they ordered you to, you were going to hell. Literally. Jack Hibbs took it even further by saying even if you chose to not vote at all, you were hell bound. Even the recently disgraced Dr. Michael Brown wrote that he saw no way a Christian could not vote Republican. What this does is flip these verses on their head. The gospel is simply he who believes in Him, not he who votes for Donald Trump, or any political candidate. Likewise, the gospel is not all of the other things we make it in this country. It is not about my authority, my power, or my money. The truly sad verse here is when Jesus says - you have seen me and yet do not believe. The path that leads to destruction is broad because there are a lot of people on it.

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. 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. 45 It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me-- 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 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." 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" 53 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. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 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. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread[c] the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." 59 Jesus[d] said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. 60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, "Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 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.) 65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father." 66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?" 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." 70 Jesus answered them, "Did I not choose you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil." 71 He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.

The bread of life. Yet one of the saddest verses in the bible is verse 66 - After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. How profoundly sad. The exclusivity of Jesus Christ will always drive people away because we like being our own god. They had just seen the feeding of the five thousand. They had seen the miracles. They had heard the teaching. One tough lesson and they turned back and no longer walk with Him. The reason why hundreds and thousands of people follow a Joel Osteen is because there are no tough lessons. The reason why so many are trapped in Hillsong, Bethel or Elevation is because there are no tough lessons. It is always a blessing chasing, stupidnatural, God wants to bless your socks off theology. The very first word Jesus spoke in His ministry was repent, but most preachers today will never say that word. Or they will pay the purpose driven life lip service to it. Seven words and a cloud of dust followed by arrogantly welcoming them to the family of God. They are promised heaven in exchange for ten percent of their money, service in a ministry, and a promise that they never have to actually change anything. No tough lessons to speak of.

What do we say to that then? Jesus is saying to us all, do you want to go away as well? We need to remember Simon Peter's answer. When the prosperity hucksters try to sell you all the wealth of this world, our answer needs to be why would we go away from Jesus since He has the words of eternal life? When the dominionist charlatan tries to sell hate and the division of carnal politics, we need to respond, why would we go away from Jesus since He has the words of eternal life? When Bethelites and their ilk try to sell us false signs and lying wonders we need to respond, why would we go away from Jesus since He has the words of eternal life? When the NAR heretic tries to sell us on false authority paradigms and lofty titles, we need to respond, why would we go away from Jesus since He has the words of eternal life? The sugar-coated gospel saves no one. When Paul said goodbye to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, he said he was innocent of their blood because he did not hesitate to declare to them the entire gospel. The inference is clear. Less than the entire gospel results in the opposite of eternal life. Jesus gave us the words of eternal life. Yet we abandon the gospel so quickly chasing the carnality of this world brought to us by false teachers preaching a false Jesus contained in a false gospel.

Do you want to go away as well?

Where would I go?

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.