Hard Sayings

“But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him. And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.” From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”” ‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭64‬-‭69‬

John 6 describes how the Lord uses "hard sayings” which are one of the key ways the Lord winnows out the true believers from the rest of the disciples (disciplined followers). "Hard sayings" (John 6:60) are not just Bible truths that are difficult to understand but those that have an element that offends our religious and human sensibilities.  

The Holy Spirit purposefully had Christ say "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink HIs blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53) which is deeply offensive to the Jew who correctly understood from the Law that all blood is sacred (Genesis 9:4), especially human blood. Why would Jesus say such an impossibly hard saying without immediately qualifying it by saying it was figurative, not literal? God offends the mind to test the heart so only those with true faith can survive the harsh testing. The reason is that faith is not in the mind based on understanding of Bible teachings but faith is in the heart based on revelation from God. Jesus asked HIs (twelve) disciples, "Do you also want to go away?" and Peter answers by faith: "Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life...we have come to believe (faith) that you are the Christ, Son of the living God."  Peter didn't say, 'we totally get what you're saying about eating flesh and drinking blood’. He said 'we believe in you' despite being offended and not understanding.
 
Those with true faith can struggle, sometimes greatly struggle, with Biblical truth or a difficult personal command from the Lord, and their faith will help them reach a place where they can accept the hard saying even when it's distasteful or they don't fully understand it just yet. The American Church largely teaches a gospel that is easy to believe by leaving out all the things that can offend thereby inoculating everyone to the true Gospel and the true Christian life that the Lord purposefully made offensive. The American gospel isn't “we're rebellious sinners who cannot possibly please God by our good works”, it's “we're basically good people who've made a few wrong decisions  in our past and 'we'll get by with a little help from our friends.'"  The true gospel doesn't have a few hard sayings, it is filled with impossible sayings for sinful man to achieve so that we understand just how amazing God's grace actually is.  

In the same way, the End Times has been purposefully designed to be filled with difficult things that will offend human sensibilities. It will look like the good guys are losing and the bad guys are winning, at least on the outside, in the natural.  But on the inside, in the spiritual, the Elect will be going from glory to glory and will come through the fire of testing with a faith more precious than gold refined in the fire (1 Peter 1:7). No fire, no refined gold.   May the Lord strengthen our hearts that we may walk by faith through hard sayings and the hard circumstances in all that we do today.