Gospel—Doug Buchanan
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Tonight we're going to talk about bread.
No, last night.
Someone gave me a loaf of bread.
I never did anything to deserve that or asked for it or anything. Somebody was kind and thoughtful.
Of grace.
I don't want anybody to go on concrete.
Not just for bread for our stomach, but.
Let's say #35.
Over the state here that he died for me.
From condemnation we have made me free. He had. He that believeth on the Son and said he had.
Everlasting life #35.
Let's rise.
Give us give it up on the sun that day.
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Nsnoise.
We are thankful for the message you have sent to this world.
We are thankful to the Lord Jesus Christ who came in person to bring down a message of love.
A mercy of forgiveness.
To those who needed it most. We're thankful for each one here who has a desire to hear Your Word. We ask Lord, as we open up the scriptures, which we believe is inspired by Your Spirit, we ask Lord that You would speak to us.
Open up our hearts. We're thankful our God and Father for the love and freedom have been shown through Him, and we ask that I speak to us now.
Tonight.
I want to thank you for having us sitting here and listening.
Well, we're going to have before our souls tonight, I trust.
This book This book came to us from God, inspired by different writers over a long period of time.
And it is God speaking to you and to me, and we want to read from its passages and get a message for you and for me.
To get to know our God.
It tells us about a savior that we were singing about.
A Savior who came down from heaven. God's beloved Son.
When he saw the desperate need of mankind. We're in.
And tonight, he sees you.
Where you're sitting.
And He knows the need of your soul. And I pray to God that that need would be met tonight. And if you do not know the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior.
You would come to have a full assurance.
That he died for you.
I stand up here because I am fully persuaded of these things.
I have based my life on what is in this book.
It's not the opinions of men.
We have a creator God and he speaks to us and He has spoken to us in many ways.
But this is the best way. This is the complete fullness.
Of God's word to us.
We go to school.
And we hear opinions, thoughts of men, many of them good, many of them.
Have no basis.
And they change from year to year.
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This book never changes.
Last week.
I was down in Florida.
I went down the beat, go for a walk on the beach.
And I met a man.
We went for a walk together on the beach.
This man.
Was a.
Ex military man.
It had a hard life.
But in time, he had a family.
God gave him a.
Family.
As the years went by, trials came in.
And that day, this man.
Soul was burdened for his family.
Things had come in to tear up and ruin a family.
And he tried with all his power to help his family, and he didn't know what to do.
You know.
Seeing is an awful tyrant and it destroys people, it drags them down.
Some of you may be feeling this now.
Even in spite of being in a Christian home, you may feel these things.
Maybe some of you young people are at a hard spot.
Place a decision.
I've walked a few years, been through a few small trials.
This book has the answers.
We were walking down the beach.
We were noticing all the turtleneck.
It's the it's the season for the sea turtles to come in and lay their eggs.
All down that coastline, about every 10/15/20 feet, you can see a excavation.
Where a sea turtle has come in dug a huge hole.
Deposited its eggs in that hole.
Covered this and back over the eggs up to 100 of them.
All during the night.
And then go back out to C for another year.
We were walking along the beach and we noticed these turtle nests and in some of them you could see where the turtles had hatched.
And you could see the little shells, soft shells about the size of a golf ball, where the turtles had hatched out.
A creator God.
Made that turtle.
That way.
But he made you and I different.
In a different way.
As we were walking along the beach.
Some of these problems of life.
Entered into our conversation and we stopped.
The waves were coming up on lapping our feet.
I looked down on the beach there and I thought I saw a little baby turtle. Oh, it looked like it was dead.
This friend that I had met reached over and picked it up.
And they were still alive.
Poor little thing.
About half dead.
He looked at me. I looked at him.
And he started walking out in the water.
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He carried that turtle over the Breakers as they were rolling into small ones, but too big for a little turtle.
He got his legs all wet, he walked out in the water and he carefully put that turtle.
Out in the water where he needed to go to find food.
Walk back up to the beach.
Didn't say a word to me.
I didn't say a word for a little while either. We just thought.
Hello Turtle.
It had no mother that cared for it.
His mother had come up two months approximately previous, laid the eggs and gone back, gone out, back out in the ocean. And every one of those little turtles was left on its own. From that day on, the day they hatched, they're all on their own.
Now their children and young people.
That's not true of you and me.
We were a lot more dependent.
And that little turtle was.
There's not a single one of us that ever made it in life.
If we'd have been left up to our own the day we were born.
Of all God's creation.
Little human beings that are born.
Are probably the most helpless and dependent of all God's creatures.
Why did God make us that way to start out?
As we grow up, we don't like to think of ourselves as having that kind of a weak.
Beginning.
Place of dependence.
Most of us had a mother or someone who cared for us.
Brought us up.
You know God is interested in you and me in a special way.
Every young family that has had a child has learned the joy of parenthood and of taking a precious little infant.
And caring for it.
And it's.
Huge need.
God made us that way.
Why did God make you that way and me that way?
I beg leave.
Because he wanted to develop a relationship with us.
He wanted us to be dependent on him and he wanted to meet that need.
Whether it's food or clothing or fellowship or love or correction or whatever.
It's a wonderful thing. I wouldn't trade places with any creature.
From being a human.
God made me.
But yet.
How sad it is as we look out on the world and see independence and no recognition of God.
It's a joy to Washington to sit down in a restaurant.
And look out and see somebody bowing their heads and thanking their God for the food.
Boys and girls learn to do that.
God made you.
For that reason, he wanted to hear your voice.
He wanted you to be dependent on Him, and He has the resources. He has the provision for us. Let's look in the Word of God and see a little bit of it. Open your Bible to the first chapter of Genesis.
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Genesis chapter one.
Verse 27.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them. And God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed.
Which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you. It shall be for me.
Very simply stated, here we have God making the world and then putting as the head of the creation, making man in his own image and likeness, and setting him up as the head over it, to rule it, to control it, to order it, and to enjoy it and to be God's representative before all the creation as His image.
Now we're living. Approximately 6000 years later, it's going on.
And we see a lot of things, they're out of order.
When we were walking down the beach.
Concerned about the little sea turtles? They're called loggerheads.
We discussed some of the point, those things.
Do you know?
That.
Those sea turtles, the loggerhead and the leatherback and some of the others.
They come in to the same place where they were born to lay their eggs many many years later and apparently navigate by the stars or the moon to find the same spot.
Where they were born or where they were hatched?
God put that instinct in those little animals.
They needed it. They didn't have, they don't have a mother that cared for them like some of the other creatures and like we.
Wonderful.
Now God has made us a different way.
He made us in his own image and likeness.
Because he wanted to have a relationship with us.
And how many men live their lives today as if God did not exist?
How must our Creator God mourn as he looks down on this world and he sees people going out and doing their own thing and living and even denying the existence?
Of a creator God.
You children and young people will be taught some of these things about evolution and so on.
Possibly in school.
How to say?
How deprived our creator God is being made by his creatures. The one of the highest ones that he made are the ones that have deviated the farthest.
Cubans do far do far worse things than any turtle ever did.
How about you?
What are you gonna do with your life?
Your creator God wants a relationship with you.
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Have you formed a relationship with Him? Have you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and own Him as your Lord and Savior?
Have you thanked him for what he's done?
Here we have in Genesis 1.
The wonderful place that God made for man, and I put him in and he gave it God, man everything. And yet people today blame God for all their problems.
Whose fault is it?
That we're in the situation we are now.
Why are there wars out there?
Why is it that man can't govern himself?
Turn their back on God.
They departed from the order God set them up in.
Chapter 3 of Genesis.
We'll read about the cause.
Genesis 3, verse 17 And unto Adam God he said, Because thou has hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. And thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
Thou thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, For dost thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
We said we were gonna talk about bread tonight.
Here we have the first mention of bread in the Bible.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat breath.
Chapter one, no sweat.
All abundance. What had come in in between?
Believe the lie of Satan more than the provision of God.
That's really what sin is.
It's.
Unbelief of God.
Turning from him to some other source.
For sustenance, God had provided it all.
And he still does.
Yep, let's turn over to Isaiah.
The book of Isaiah, the middle of our Bible.
Chapter One.
Verse 2.
Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and that his master's crib, but Israel does not know My people does not consider.
Verse 718.
Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be.
As white as snow.
Though they be red like Crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken in.
After sin came in.
Sweat, sorrow, thorns and thistles. And I'm a farmer and I'm still dealing with them.
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And every one of us is dealing with the consequences of sin.
And the Lord sends a message.
Come now, let us reason together.
He never told a turtle to do that.
Nor is someone of the other animals.
But he calls you and me to this.
Reason.
He put a head on our shoulders. He gave us the capacity to think and to reason.
And we ought not to use it to reason against the man that gave it to us, the creator God who gave it to us.
Here he's speaking to Israel.
We're seeking to do that tonight in the gospel meeting.
We need breath.
We need food to sustain us.
And were under the.
Judgment of sin and death.
How are we gonna get free?
Where does life come from?
Now let's turn over to the New Testament.
John's Gospel, chapter 6.
Verse 33.
For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth his life unto the world.
Then said they unto him, Lord Evermore, give us.
This breath Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. He that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Many, many years have gone by now since Isaiah wrote and since the book of MO uh, big book of Genesis was written and we have now God sending his Son to give life.
You see the history of man and the bread and the food of this world.
No one was able to recover what had been lost from the very first sin.
And death, sin and death have been destroying men ever since. And God waited in patience to see if someone could liberate and bring in obedience.
And life through obedience.
And no one obtained it.
No one found the fountain of life. No one found the bread that gave eternal life.
They sought it in the wrong way.
Israel sought it by the law. The other nations had given up God altogether. They were even farther away and ruined. They didn't even acknowledge the true God. They were in idolatry and other things.
When the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.
Jesus Christ came into this world.
To give life.
To give us the bread of life.
To live.
To overcome sin and death.
And give us everlasting life.
Oh dear.
Once to 9.
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The Lord Jesus invites you.
To take him.
As your Lord and Savior.
To believe on him.
He brings life, not just a temporary renewal of the atom life that all his creatures receive from his hands.
There in the Garden of Eden, not just a prolongation of life here.
In the midst of a world where sin is so rampant and all its consequences.
But He came to deliver us from the ******* of sin and death.
And the slavery to them.
Through the.
Work of the enemy of our souls, Satan.
Who deceived Eve in the very beginning and tempted her to depart from the path of obedience.
And to believe a lie rather than the word of God.
Let's go back.
And notice a little bit earlier in chapter 6 of John.
The Lord Jesus in this chapter had multiplied bread. It's interesting to consider the subject of bread in the New Testament all for the Gospels many, many times mention bread.
Let's go back to Matthew's Gospel and notice the first mention of bread.
In chapter 3.
Or four Chapter 4.
Matthew 4 verse one.
Then was Jesus LED of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward a hungered, And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
These 4 verses.
Peak volumes concerning the Lord Jesus.
It was necessary that this perfect man be tested to prove who he was.
And to be able to enter into the stronghold and bring life and blessing in the midst of a world of cursing and sin.
And so.
This blessed man, the Lord Jesus.
In order to prove the point, subjected himself 40 days without bread food.
A perfect time of testing. This was gonna be the test.
And it was.
Same test that Adam and Eve had failed in.
But this man.
The Son of God.
Proved.
Who he was.
And that he would not be drugged down in disobedience.
As a man to his God.
And so when the 40 day 40 days without food were there.
I expect he was pretty hungry. Very few people have fasted that long. Perfect test and so.
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The tempter comes.
If thou be the Son of God.
Command the stones be made bread.
The right answer was to go back.
To what God had said.
We're always right in going back to what God says.
We're secure there.
It is written obedience.
Is not that part of what growing up as a human being is all about?
Learning how to obey.
If we don't, we could not make it through life at that young age. But somehow or other, as we grow up, we think we're independent and we can do it on our own.
That is foolishness.
Now the Lord Jesus, he could have, He was the Son of God. He could have commanded the stones. It wasn't a question of that. The question was obedience to God.
And he was obedient.
Man shall not live by bread alone. Just because there's bread there or you need bread doesn't mean you take it.
Did God give it to you?
Or did it come from another source?
That's basically what sin is.
Taking it from the wrong source is sin.
And that's what we do so often.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
God who created that man and set up the world the way it is.
Purposefully made us the way he did so we could be in relationship interdependence upon him and prove his thank his provision and give him thanks for it afterwards.
Have you thank God for what he's given you?
And start out with bread.
And so we learn.
Of a man now who is overcoming the power of Satan.
The Lord Jesus Christ was coming down into this world to bring deliverance for those who were enslaved in sin.
And we present him to you now as the one who can give you deliverance and me deliverance.
And provide food.
And bread, and not just material bread, but bread for our souls.
Now I'd like to turn over.
The Luke's Gospel Chapter 15 Notice another case about bread.
It would have been nice to notice in all four gospels, but we're going to just, uh, skip on to Luke's Gospel Chapter 15.
Henry, that little portion of a well known story.
About the prodigal son.
Luke 15.
And.
Verse 11.
And he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said unto his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto him them his living.
Not many days after, the younger son gathered altogether and took his journey into our country, and there wasted his substance with righteous living. And when he had spent all, there rose a mighty famine in the land, and he began to be in want.
And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the fields to feed swine.
And he would vain have filled his belly with the husk that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.
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And when he came to himself, he said.
How many hired servants of my father's have bred enough and to spare?
And I perish with hunger.
I will rise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy Son. Make me as one of thy hired servants, or we're just going to stop there. I know you know this story.
Now we find a different use on the lack of bread.
We see a typical example of a young man who has come of age in the energy.
Of his.
Youth.
And he wants to go out.
And enjoy life.
With what he thought God owed him or what he thought his Father owed him.
You know, that happens to us, especially seems like the guys.
We're getting a certain age.
We feel we can handle life. We're ready to meet life.
There's a lot to enjoy out there, and Satan has dressed up his world more than when this man lived in it, but it's the same principle.
He forgot how dependent he was.
His father gave him.
A good portion and he went out and enjoyed it for a while till it ran out.
And that'll happen every time without exception.
You go out in the world, the things that God has created, even even without the without indulging in the wrong de degraded, sinful things, but even the good things. If you try to satisfy your life with those, you'll come to a point where you're hungry.
If not literally, your soul.
We'll be tired and famished.
You know God in his wisdom.
Let these things happen to his chosen one sometimes.
Back to the walk on the beach as we were walking along.
Some of the hardships of life coming out.
Trying to comfort each other and give hope and encouragement.
Two of us guys walking along the beach there.
Could share some of the things the way God?
Passes us through trial affliction.
Scarcity of this for that.
And there's two ways to face it.
One is to accept it as from God and seek to learn by it.
And the other way is to go it on your own without God.
Which way you're gonna do it, young people?
Oh, I believe as I look back on my life.
I wasn't any better than this son.
I can see.
Wonderful mercy and grace of God breaking down my soul, humbling me and bringing me where I would bow before Him.
And repentance.
And say yes, Lord.
What were you?
What do you want with my life?
What's it gonna take young person to bring you to surrender?
To God's way, a blessing in your life.
Some nuts are harder than others to crack.
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The good thing is that this sun.
Came to himself.
And it was scarcity of bread that brought him to his knees.
That's happened many times.
This, this boy wasn't the only boy that went through that.
What's it gonna take for you? Are you gonna go have to have to go down along how far down that road are you gonna have to go in waywardness and departure from God?
Before you turn around.
And recognize.
God's plan is best for your life.
Well, this is this. This story has a wonderful ending.
They go into the Father's house and their feasting.
This is a picture of the delight of God the Father.
And having one of his repentant children, wayward and lost, come back to him.
And the way is open.
Through Jesus Christ.
To do that very thing today.
The Lord Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. And moreover, He has proven it to us by going up there to the cross and taking that punishment that the Sinner deserved.
So he could bring us into the banqueting house where there's bread a plenty.
The longer you go down that path.
The more you learn about what it costs God to give us bread.
That is the everlasting bread, the bread of life.
That the Lord Jesus spoke about in the 6th chapter of John. We're going to turn to those verses before we close.
The more we learn about what it cost him.
The more it opens up to our hearts.
Appreciation for what God our Father has called us to as dependent creatures that start out so feeble and weak in our childhood and infancy, and are brought along to enjoy such rich wonders of His thoughts towards us that we can sit down and enjoy together with Him.
Won't you give God the pleasure of having your fellowship? Won't you turn your life over to Him?
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and start walking down the path of obedience and faith in Him and enjoy the bread of life.
So going on to the 6th chapter of John again in closing here.
Just another detail or two here in John 6.
Verse.
50.
The Lord Jesus here, in anticipation of his going up to the cross and giving his life, he speaks about it, and he says, This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my life is meat, and my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in Him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live.
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By me this is that bread which came down from heaven.
Not as your Father did eat men and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever. This is a spiritual bread that gives us everlasting life for our souls and the Lord Jesus in laying down his life on the cross.
Shedding His precious blood to wash our sins away, then figuratively speaking, He is the one to take and appropriate as your Lord and Savior.
And you do it by believing on Him in your soul, in your chair where you're sitting, or wherever He calls you. But don't wait until too late, because there's coming a day when, as our brother said last night, there will be a day of hunger, of not hearing the word of the Lord anymore.
Let's close with a him.
Number one.
Phones persuade.
How do we leave?
Almost.
Way.
To greasy.
And now?
Don't go to the same.
We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ who came from flesh and blood to give his life in order that we might be saved, in order that we might have life through faith in him. We thank thee for all that you went through in order to bring it to us. To us. We thank you for extending the day of life and grace fell tonight and we think of.