Turning our backs on Jesus
John 6v66-71
18th July 2025
We read last week in John 6v60-65 that many of Jesus's disciples disliked some of the things He said. They complained, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" Jesus responded to their negativity by saying "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life." He then told them, "there are some of you who do not believe." There were many people that day who were disciples - followers - of Jesus, who listened to His instruction but refused to accept parts of it. Had they truly believed in Jesus, they would have welcomed every word He said, because they would have known that Jesus always speaks the truth.
In our churches today, there are many people who come, sing the songs, pray the prayers, and listen politely to the sermon, but who don't believe all of the Bible. They refuse to accept Biblical teaching that is contrary to their own previously-held views. They won't let God's holy word change their minds. Either they haven't accepted that to inherit eternal life we must repent and believe, or they don't understand what repentance is. To repent is literally to "change ones mind". It's not just about our conduct but also about our thought lives. In the Biblical sense, to repent is to accept that God is always right, and that when I disagree with the Bible, I'm in the wrong and must alter my thinking to bring it into line with the Bible.
If we truly have faith in God, if we truly believe in Jesus as our Lord, then we will trust what He says. Many churchgoers don't. They think they're Christians, but if they haven't truly repented of their own opinions, then how can they claim to trust and follow Jesus?
John 6v66
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
This is what happens when people accept Jesus as Saviour but don't accept Him as Lord. They stick with God and the church until they find something they don't like, and then they walk away or, worse, they change the church's doctrine to suit themselves. They're no longer accepting Jesus as their leader.
Jesus turned to the twelve to ask them what their response would be to teaching they didn't like:
John 6v67-69
"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life.
We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God."
Peter took it upon himself to answer for the whole group. What he said was true for eleven of them, but not for all of them. He replied with the rhetorical question, "To whom shall we go?" He knew that there is no alternative. There is only one Jesus. As Peter would say later:
Acts 4v12
"Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to
man by which we must be saved."
Peter knew that Jesus, and only Jesus, has "the words of eternal life". He'd been paying attention when Jesus said "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life." When others had doubted Jesus's words, Peter simply accepted them, because he trusted Jesus to speak the truth. Peter and ten others among the Twelve had "come to believe and to know that [Jesus is] the Holy One of God."
Some of the disciples knew who Jesus was,and some didn't. Eleven of the twelve knew and one didn't. Some churchgoers know and some don't. Those who truly know who Jesus is don't turn their backs on Him.
John 6v70-71
Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!"
He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later
to betray him.
God chooses different people for different purposes. Jesus had chosen every member of the twelve. He'd chosen eleven of them to be saved, and one of them to betray Him and to be lost for all eternity. God chooses some churchgoers to be saved, and others to be lost. He has a purpose for everybody, but it's not always the same purpose.
How can we tell who is saved and who is lost? We can never be certain; only God sees the state of each human heart. But Jesus did say:
Matthew 7v16-21
"By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or
figs from thistles?
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but
only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
We read last time:
1 John 2v19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they
had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going
showed that none of them belonged to us.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote, "To me, the great test that differentiates between those who are Christians and those who are not is the place of Christ in their lives. Is He central, is He essential, is He absolute?"
Let us examine ourselves. Do you accept Jesus as your Lord? Then you will accept what He says in the pages of the Bible. And you will persevere in the faith until He calls you home. You will not turn back. You will not cease to follow Him.