“Great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all” (Matthew 12:15)

Imagine the crowds of sick and diseased sufferers who followed Christ. At one point He fed 5,000 men, plus women and children, so the number of people seeking healing must have been huge. There were many in that multitude that received healing and food, and had a general idea they wanted to be saved, but abandoned Christ when He challenged their faith.

After he fed 5,000 men, plus women and children, He tells them, “‘Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.  Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him’. Then they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’. Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent’” (John 6:26-29).

What followed, separated the saved from the unsaved. “Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day’ ... Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can understand it?’ ... 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” (John 6:53-66). 

Follow-up statistics reveal the terrible fact that ninety percent of the people who make a “decision for Christ” exhibit no Biblical evidence of salvation. “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5).