THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
SPIRITUAL FOOD
DR. JIM DIXON
NOVEMBER 8, 1987
JOHN 6:25-35
In the year 1794, a man was born whose name was Sylvester. Sylvester was a charismatic man and he was a great leader of men. He was called a preacher (although he had never been ordained) and he was called a doctor (although he had never been to medical school and never been licensed). He was a nutritionist. He was a health food enthusiast. Sylvester preached against four great evils in the world. He regarded these four evils to be red meat, sexual excess, what he called “demon rum,” and white bread. Now, Sylvester also preached against tea and coffee and feather beds. You see, the problem with feather beds was that they were bad for the posture, he said, but they were also bad because they tended to bring out the more base nature from within the human heart. Now, you need to understand that when Sylvester spoke of sexual excess, he wasn’t talking about sex before marriage or sex outside of marriage. He wasn’t talking about fornication or adultery. When Sylvester spoke of sexual excess, he was talking about married people who had sex more frequently than once a month.
Sylvester formed boarding houses all over what was then America. It was more to the east and did not include the full nation as it does today, but he formed boarding houses across the East Coast and, incredibly, thousands of people flocked to these boarding houses. At these boarding houses, Sylvester offered special food that he regarded as spiritual. It was physical food, but Sylvester said that this food was able to help people spiritually. And all Sylvester’s followers also believed that his food was spiritual. And at these boarding houses, food was prepared based on recipes by Sylvester and there was special bread and special flour. Sylvester claimed that this food could keep children from temptation and keep adults from sin. And he claimed that somehow this food would minister to your soul and spirit and make you more holy.
Incredibly famous people from all over the country came to these boarding houses. Horace Greeley and William Lloyd Garrison, two famous abolitionists, were there frequently. One of the boarding houses was actually run by John Kellogg (of the Kellogg family of the breakfast cereal empire) because the Kellogg family believed that Sylvester really did have spiritual food, food which was able to benefit the soul. All of you have partaken of Sylvester’s food. That is, you’ve eaten his food if you’ve ever had a graham cracker, because Sylvester’s last name was Graham. Sylvester Graham. He made graham bread and he made graham flour and the graham cracker came from him. He claimed that his food was spiritual, but of course we know today that graham crackers aren’t spiritual. Even if you melt marshmallows and Hershey bars on them, they are still not spiritual.
We know as Christians that there’s really only one source of spiritual food, and that source is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger. He who believes in Me shall never thirst.” They said to Him, “Give us some of this bread that we might eat always.” Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” He said, “Do not labor for the bread which perishes, but for the bread which endures to eternal life.” So in light of this, this morning I have two teachings regarding spiritual food. I have two teachings regarding two feeding places where Christ might feed you.
The first teaching concerns the word of God, the Bible. Jesus Christ is the bread of life, and He wants to feed you through this book called the Bible. Throughout history, men and women have acknowledged that spiritual food comes from God. And throughout history, men and women have looked to the word of God that their souls might feed upon it. In the 1960s, many Eastern religionist gurus came to the Americas—came to the Western world—offering enlightenment and what they called “truth.” They were offering to feed the soul and the spirit. In the early 1970s, a guru came the United States who was perhaps the most famous of all the Eastern religionist gurus. His name was the guru Maharaj Ji. He was very young. You might remember him. He was called the puberty prophet by some. His followers simply called him the perfect master. Like most gurus, he came from India. He had hundreds of thousands of followers here in the United States, and he formed the Divine Light Mission. It continues to this day. And of course he had millions of followers in other parts of the world.
In 1973, he came to the Houston Astrodome and he put on an event which was called Millennium 73. Thousands of people filled the Houston Astrodome to hear this guru speak that they might find spiritual bread. He stood before those people and he told them how they could find what he called the word of God within them. He told them that they needed to get under a blanket and they needed to take their fingers and press their fingers against their eyeballs so that they might see divine light. He told them that they needed to press their fingers against their eardrums so that they might hear divine music. And he told them that they needed to take their tongues and push them against the roofs of their mouths or grab their tongues with their fingers that they might taste divine nectar.
It sounds strange. Gordon Lewis, a professor at Denver Theological Seminary, told Bob that he was at Millennium 73. When the guru said that, he couldn’t help but think of post-nasal drip. This guru actually said that this was a source of spiritual food. He said you just need to touch your eyes, touch your eardrums, and touch your tongue. He actually said that if we could get 7,000 people to levitate at one time there’d be peace on the Earth. Now, that makes a lot of sense. But you see, this was food. It was food for the soul. And why not? Because really that’s about as good as the world has to give. That’s about as much as this world has to offer. Touch your eyes, ears, and tongue. That’s the source of spiritual food. But of course, as Christians, we know that the true word of God is found uniquely in this book called the Bible.
The Bible is a feeding station where the Son of God, Jesus Christ, offers to feed the world. If you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of life, then you can come to this book and your soul (which has been made alive through Christ and through the indwelling Holy Spirit) can now be fed through the words of scripture. But of course, if we do not read the scriptures this book avails nothing.
In the year 1265, a man was born whose name was John Duns Scotus. He was a Scottish-born theologian. He was a Roman Catholic divine. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages. Today, historians claim that he was second only to St. Thomas Aquinas theologically in his age of the world. John Duns Scotus was ordained in 1291. In the year 1301, he graduated in advanced studies with honors from Oxford University and he became a professor of theology at Oxford, which was and is one of the great universities of the world. John Duns Scotus wrote commentaries on virtually every book of the Bible, and he was a man who deeply loved Jesus Christ. He was deeply committed to Jesus Christ. He died in the year 1308 at the age of 43.
Then a strange thing happened. Thousands of people began to follow him. They began to follow his writings, and these people believed that the writings of John Duns Scotus contained the summation of all truth. The centuries passed and the 16th century came, and it was then that these people, these followers of John Duns Scotus, decided that they no longer believed in education. They no longer believed in learning. They no longer believed in growth. They didn’t think they had any need of any additional food because they believed they already had everything. So they stood against learning, they stood against education, and they stood against growth. The masses began to refer to them as dunces, from the name Duns Scotus.
Of course today the name “dunce” refers to a blockhead or a fool, and we speak of dunce caps. But you see, originally it referred simply to people who didn’t want to grow, didn’t want to learn, didn’t believe in education, and didn’t believe they needed to be fed. There are a lot of dunces in the church of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of people who seem to think they don’t need to grow. They seem to think they have everything they need and that they don’t need Christian education—they don’t need food for their souls. But Jesus Christ has offered this book to the world and He’s offered this book to you and to me that we might find food for our souls.
In 1631, the King’s Printers in London, England, printed a translation of the Bible made by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas. This translation of the Bible had a few mistakes in it. One particularly bad mistake was that the word “not” was left out of the seventh commandment so that it said, “Thou shalt commit adultery” instead of “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This was a problem, and King Charles I feared that this particular translation of the Bible might be received with too much enthusiasm by some of the people in the outer regions of his reign. And so he called all copies of this particular translation of the Bible back and he fined the King’s Printers in London, England.
In a book called The Book of Failures, this translation of the Bible is listed as the most unsuccessful translation of the Bible ever. But the truth is that every translation of the Bible, including whatever Bible is in your lap or whatever Bible you have at home, is unsuccessful if it’s never read. Whatever translation of the Bible you have is a complete failure if it’s never read. It’s like a meal never eaten. God has given this book to us that we might partake and find food for our innermost beings. I think sometimes, as Christians living in America, we are perhaps spoiled just a little bit, maybe even a lot. Many Christians in other parts of the world would give almost anything for a Bible—for the privilege of being able to read the Bible.
Chuck Swindoll in his book Living Above the Level of Mediocrity tells a story (a true story) that took place in the underground church in Russia. There are many Christians in Russia who go through their entire life and never see a Bible. They go through their entire Christian life and never see a single copy of the Bible and never read a single verse from the Bible. Now, this particular group of Christians in the underground church had come across a copy of the Gospel of Luke. They didn’t have the whole Bible, just a copy of the Gospel of Luke. It’s hard for us as American Christians to imagine how precious that was to them. These Christians took that copy of the Gospel of Luke and they tore it apart, page by page, and they gave a page to each Christian who was in that particular underground home church. They all received a page. They were told to go home and memorize it. They resolved that they would memorize their page from the Gospel of Luke, and then they would come back together and they would redistribute the pages and they’d each get a new page and memorize that. Eventually, as time went by, the whole underground church there in that particular home church would’ve memorized the entire Gospel of Luke.
That’s what they were committed to do. And so they came together to redistribute the pages. They came secretly because they were afraid of the KGB. They were assembling against the law. As they were gathered in one of their homes, suddenly the door was open. Two KGB officers came into the room with automatic machine guns and they told these Christians to line up against the wall. And they said, “Any of you who are ready to renounce Jesus Christ… if you’re willing to renounce Jesus Christ, you can leave.” There was silence and a very tense moment, but after a while two of these Christians left the room. They said again, “If you’re willing to renounce Christ, you can leave.” A little more time went by and another Christian left, and then two more. But finally, there was a group of Christians who had resolved that they would not leave, no matter what. And it was then that these two KGB men took their machine guns and put them on the ground. They smiled and told the Christians that they too were Christians, but they had learned that they could only trust those who were indeed faithful to Jesus Christ.
Chuck Swindoll tells that story to illustrate the incredible commitment that Christians must have in some other parts of the world. But it seems to me that it equally illustrates the incredible love that Christians in other parts of the world have for the word of God. Can you imagine a commitment so great that you’re willing to memorize any portion of the Bible that you could have so that you might hide it in your heart, that you might have it always so that nobody could take it from you? You see, to them the word of God was like an oasis in the desert. To them, the word of God was like a spring of fresh water in a dry and parched land. It was food for their souls. The psalmists felt that way. You can’t read the Psalms without realizing how precious the word of God was to them. To the psalmists, it was a delight to meditate upon the word of God. It was food for the soul.
Is the word of God precious to you? Do you spend time in the Bible regularly, every day? Jesus Christ said, “If My word abides in you and you abide in My word, you’ll bear much fruit.” The Bible says that if we meditate upon this book we’ll be like trees planted by rivers of living water to bring forth fruit in season. We believe that “All scripture is inspired of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the person of God might be complete and equipped for every good work. So Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. He who comes unto Me will not hunger. He who believes in Me will never thirst.”
Well, there’s a second feeding place, secondly and finally, that I would mention this morning. That is a feeding place called prayer. Prayer is a pause in the midst of each day where our soul can be fed with the food of heaven. I’d like to tell you this morning about what has been called the greatest construction project in the history of the world. In the year 1517, Vasco de Balboa dreamed of building this wonderful thing. He dreamed of building it, but he didn’t have the power and he didn’t have the means. And for centuries, people all over the world dreamed about building this.
Finally, in the 1840s, the United States of America and Great Britain resolved that they would build it. They almost went to war over the right to build it, but they did not go to war and they did not build it. The time was not right. Then in the year 1878, a Frenchman named Lucian Napoleon Bonaparte-Wyse decided that he would build it. But he failed because, like Balboa, he didn’t really have the power and he really didn’t have the means.
Then in 1881, a very wealthy French company decided that they would build it. This company was headed up by a Frenchman named Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps. He was a very, very wealthy and talented man. They were going to build this wonderful thing that the world had dreamed about for centuries. Now, they had to build it in the jungle, in the midst of a vast, dense, and thick jungle. And for eight years, de Lesseps and his French company sought to build this wonderful thing. They labored in the jungles and they removed 70 million cubic yards of earth. And incredibly, 20,000 of de Lesseps men died just trying to build it. But finally, de Lesseps failed and this famous, wealthy French company failed. They had spent $320 million—an amount that is incredible today and was incomprehensible in the 19th century—but they failed. They couldn’t build it. So the world still dreamed and de Lesseps, company—once proud, once great, once invincible—became bankrupt in1889.
15 years later, in the year 1904, the United States of America resolved once again that they would build it. And so for the first three years, before we even started to build, we cleaned the jungles. We went into the jungles and we began to clean them. We drained swamps, cut down shrubs and bushes, and stripped fields of grass where mosquitoes swarmed and bred. We resolved that we would remove malaria and yellow fever from the jungle before we built. We removed all the rats that carried the bubonic plague. Finally, in the year 1907, we were ready to build. President Roosevelt established a special commission, and at the head of that commission he placed Colonel George W Goethals to build this great project.
The first thing we did was build an artificial lake, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world. It was 163 square miles. The second thing we did was dig through the mountains and through the jungles. In one stretch, we dug through eight miles of jungle mountains using 43,000 men. Every day, 300 railroad cars carried dirt away, each car carrying 400 tons of earth. It has been said that we moved 10 billion tons of dirt. And it cost us many, many lives. It cost us 5,000 lives. And then finally, of course, we built the locks.
We built the Pedro Miguel Locks, the Miraflores Locks, and the Gatun Locks. And finally—more than nine years after we started, after the death of more than 5,000 men and after we had spent more than $320 million—on April 14th, 1914, we completed the building of the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal is not the largest canal in the world. It is not the longest in the world. It is not the deepest. It is not the widest. But it is the most important. It’s the only canal on the earth that connects two oceans of the world. It was the dream of the world, the dream of centuries. The Panama Canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today, every year, 13,000 ships make that 50-mile journey across the Panama Canal. It takes them eight hours, but they save 8,000 miles that would’ve been necessary to circumnavigate the South American continent.
The Panama Canal has been called a miracle. It has been called the dream of the world. And it was costly. It actually cost more than 25,000 lives. But you see, there’s another passageway. There’s another canal that is more important and more costly. And this is a passageway that connects heaven and Earth. It connects men, women, and God. It is a passageway that connects your soul with the food of heaven. It is a passageway called prayer. It was costly. We were separated from God. We were alienated from God. It didn’t cost 25,000 flawed lives. It cost one perfect life. He gave His life to build and complete that passageway. He took your sin—my sin, the sin of the world—upon Himself. And now through this passageway we have access to the throne of God through a privilege in the name of Christ. It is a privilege called prayer.
Do you realize what a privileged prayer is? When you think of prayer, maybe you think of petition, things you ask for. Maybe you think of intercession, other people that you want to see God bless. Or maybe you think of praise, or maybe you think of thanksgiving. And prayer is all these things. But most of all, prayer is feeding.
Prayer is an oasis in the desert. It’s a place where you can be alone with God and commune with God and He can feed your soul. The president of the Southern Baptist Conference once was quoted (or perhaps misquoted) as saying that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew. That statement is not true. God does hear the prayers of a Jew. God hears all prayers all over the world because God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Before Him, no idle word is spoken. God surely hears all prayers everywhere and can answer any prayer He wants to. But you see, as Christians, we have a special passageway to God in the name of the Son of God. We have an advocate with the Father who intercedes for us. Our prayers are effectual through Him, and as Christians we alone can have our souls fed through prayer because only the soul of a Christian has been made alive through faith in Jesus Christ. And Christ now offers to feed our soul with the food of heaven if we would but pray.
Do you pray? How often do you pray? Do you really spend time alone with God and let Him feed your soul and spirit? You know, most people eat three times a day. They eat 1,095 times a year and more than 80,000 times in their lifetime. Oh, perhaps we would skip a meal here and there, but then again, we snack between meals too. Most of us wouldn’t go very long without feeding our bodies. How long are we willing to go without feeding our souls? Sometimes our souls within us are hurting. We wonder why we have so much despair or depression or lack of meaning or lack of joy in our life. We don’t know what the problem is, but the problem is that we need spiritual food. We need it bad. We just don’t know it. And that’s what prayer is for. It’s a feeding station, and God wants to feed you.
So Jesus Christ said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not hunger. He who believes in Me will not thirst. Do not seek the bread which perishes, but the bread which endures to eternal life.” Let’s close with a word of prayer.
Lord Jesus, You are indeed the bread of life, and we come to You and we thank and praise You as Christians. Lord, we thank You and praise You that You’ve come into us through Your Holy Spirit. You live within us, and You have indeed given us eternal life. You’ve quickened our souls and You’ve made us alive. Now You want to feed us and You want us to grow, and You’ve come that we might have life and that we might have it in abundance. You want to feed us every day. Lord, we’ve all heard these things before. We know these things are true. We’ve heard about the Bible and we’ve heard about prayer many times, and we’ll hear about them many times again. In Your word, You’ve asked church leaders to repeat, time and again, the basics of the faith. Nothing’s more basic than Your word and prayer. Lord, help us to be faithful. Feed our souls. Give us joy. We love You, Lord. We pray these things in Your great and matchless name. Amen.