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Education #212 Called from above and heavily met by Bird.
212.
Tell me.
A joke, all right. So great.
Boston, Massachusetts.
Ah, bless my Lord shall be.
Always.
All hands.
Always.
We see in the incarnation.
Of Father's Day.
All thy were sweeping.
1 2/1.
Church.
We hear the sound.
Long every glory which thou knowest.
No. Well.
No cursive love.
And he wants a.
Marijuana.
Enjoy the wonders and.
Unlocked.
To sea.
The grass just flames.
00:05:04
Of water.
Nsnoise.
Restaurant.
Size so freely.
Flown.
What comes from every state and brought.
Last night.
Three star hot.
Stranger.
Hear me.
Earthquake.
Yay the.
Grace.
Ties which bound us near.
Thyself our treasure.
In a variety.
Sphere.
I would suggest we take up John's Gospel chapter 14.
Bob this morning when he was speaking.
Spoke about.
We don't have much about heaven.
There's not much description of what heaven's gonna be like.
And I think the answer to that is found in the two words with me.
With me, With me is the essence of what heaven is going to be. And what heaven means to us is very directly connected with what the Lord Jesus means to us in our hearts. And so the thought is, if you love me, you want to be where I am.
And our whole attachment as heavenly people or earthly people, if we're worldly people, whatever is very directly connected with the present strength of enjoyment of our personal individual relationship with the Lord Jesus. And so here we have the Lord brought out in 14th of John and his relationship with his disciples. And for example, verse 6.
I am the way the truth and the life is most generally connected with giving a gospel message, but in truth, it's very much connected with us as a believer.
As to whether he is truly in our lives in a practical way, the way.
The truth and the life to us. So with the desire that the Lord might help us be attracted to Himself and to heaven, our heavenly calling, I suggest we take up John 14.
However much you want to read.
Gospel of John chapter 14, beginning at verse one. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you I'd go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.
That where I am, there ye may be also, and whether I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas sayeth unto him, Lord, we know not whether thou goest. And how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If he had known me, he should have known my Father also.
00:10:20
And from henceforth ye know him and have seen him, Philip saith unto him.
Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then show us the Father. Believe us, thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself.
But the Father that dwelleth in me, he doest the works. Believe thee that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me the works that I do, shall He do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father.
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. If He loved me. Keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive.
Because he seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know him.
For He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more. But ye see me because I live, ye shall live also at that day ye shall know that I am in my father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, He it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved on my father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Judas saith unto him, Not the scariest.
Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loved me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings, and the word which he hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent Him, which sent me.
These things I have spoken unto you.
Being yet present with you but the comforter.
Which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name. He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance. Whatsoever I have said unto you, peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away.
And come again unto you, if ye love me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it is come to pass, you might believe hereafter I will not talk much with you. For the Prince of this world cometh and has nothing in me, but that the world may know that I love the Father. And as the Father gave me commandment, Even so I do.
Arise, let us go hence.
Verse one of this chapter refers to God.
The rest of the chapter.
I don't know, I haven't counted it, but 2530 or more times it's the father.
This is very significant and very important in entering into what the Spirit of God would have us benefit from.
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A man in the world thinks of God, but he has no thought in any personal sense of relationship to God as a family, as Father.
But it's in one sense, it's everything to the believer.
To be brought into a relationship with God, to know Him as Father.
And to be brought into that family relationship and have the love of the relationship. We know John 316, the most famous verse in the Bible for God so loved the world, and it's the love of God for the whole world.
And every man in it and the work that he did in sending his son.
But for those of us in this room that have been brought into that relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, we now have a God, the God.
Who we know as Father and the Lord Jesus is emphasizing with them in this chapter that relationship with himself, my Father. And as we know later in John on the resurrection day, when the truth of it was made good to them to marry, I rise unto my Father and your Father, my God and your God, but.
Relationships.
Form and become the most important really aspect of our lives.
Uh, we use the expression, well, it didn't matter what we ate or where we were or what we were doing. We were together. And the greatest fellowship that we have and appreciate, it's important to us in our lives is the love of relationship of love that we have with others. And this chapter brings that out. Why do I want to go to heaven?
What difference does it make to my soul? While the what it makes difference is the one that I love says I want you to be with me.
He doesn't talk about heaven really much. Almost every place in the Bible where the Lord Jesus speaks of his coming for us.
His words have to do with that. They may be with me.
They may be with me, and brethren, that's what will draw our hearts out of the world and the things of the world to look forward to. Heaven, if you will, because He's there and we will be with him and like Him forever. So may the Lord help us as we meditate on it to have our hearts drawn to Himself, because that's what will control our lives.
The hearts of the disciples were troubled because he said he was going away. He had been with them for his earthly ministry and he was always there in every need, and now he's going away and he says don't let your heart be troubled, and I think it is.
The heart is the place of confidence, brethren, and it's important to be careful to guard our hearts as to where we place our confidence. I must say for myself that often times my confidence has been probably more in myself and my ability to encounter situations than I realize. Because our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We don't understand it, and so the Lord.
Deals with that, but it's so important that we have our confidence.
Unconditionally in our God, we trust in Him whom we have not seen.
Now the Lord Jesus is going beyond their vision, and he says you trust in me as well.
That's so important, I'd like to go back to the three previous chapters and read a verse in each chapter that makes this exceedingly precious to my own soul. Look in John Chapter 11 and verse 33.
00:20:11
The Lord Jesus is enroute to raising Lazarus from the dead.
Lazarus, the one he loved, had died, and his sisters were weeping. Notice what it says in verse 33 of Chapter 11. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, that's Mary and the Jews also weeping, which came with her. He groaned in the Spirit and was troubled. And that beautiful brother.
Here is the glorious Son of God.
The one who created all things, and he comes into his creation and finds it marred with the results of sin, and he's troubled.
Chapter 12.
And verse 27.
He's been speaking in verse 24, he says.
Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die to bite it alone. But if it die.
It bringeth forth much fruit he is referring to.
His own death and he says in verse 27 now.
Is my soul troubled? What was it that troubled his soul?
Thought he says, And what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour.
O his soul was troubled when he contemplated the Cross. What lay before him that awful moment when he was to settle the question of sin?
His soul was troubled.
John 13.
And here it's in connection with.
Judas Iscariot.
And is going to betray the Lord Jesus. And notice what he says in verse 21.
And Jesus had thus said he was troubled in spirit and testified and saying, said, Verily, verily, I send to you that one of you shall betray me. So there was that which he knew about in this world that troubled him. But now going on to chapter 14 and verse one.
Let not your heart be troubled. I find that exceedingly precious, brethren, seeing that he came into this world where we're passing through and he was troubled, but he says to us, let not your heart be troubled down in verse 20, verse 27 of this chapter, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
It's interesting to me follows him telling Peter that, uh.
That he would fail.
In his temptation. And he also had reminded him at one time that I have prayed for these that thy faith fail not. He tells them not to be troubled. Believe in you, believe in God, believe also in me.
They may have reference to our failure as well as being in this world.
It does trouble our consciences when we do fail.
It's important to to.
See that the statement is based upon.
The relationship between himself and his disciples.
Why would they be troubled?
If he went away.
Because of the love of the relationship between them.
And he recognized there was love in their hearts toward himself and.
And he had love in his heart toward them and he recognized that the very fact that they're going away is going away was going to trouble them because of that love of the relationship.
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We know what it's like. Probably most every adult in this room has experienced it. When somebody went away, some situation in our life and where we troubled, no, we were probably relieved.
Why, because of the at that point in time, at least, the character of the relationship was, did not have the active ingredient of love in it for some reason or another. And consequently there was relief rather than sorrow or something that would have characterized it if there was love there. And so the Lord Jesus in this chapter, in the previous chapter, his being troubled about Judah.
Was particularly the very fact that that love of the relationship was missing in Judas. It was in the heart of the Lord Jesus, but it wasn't in the heart of Judas. And he could see the end result for Judas of not having the relationship and and where he was headed and it troubled his soul. And so it is, brethren, you sit in this room, I sit in this room and the Lord Jesus.
Counts upon and draws upon the love in your heart toward himself to respond to himself.
And his instructions that come in these chapters are based on that. If there isn't in your heart a drawing toward his person in love, then what's said isn't going to matter much to you or me. But in the measure in which the heart is drawn to his person, then what he has to say is based on that.
And our souls are benefited because we will respond to it. He also speaks elsewhere about things that would hinder the flow of the enjoyment of the fellowship that comes with it. But he begins here. He says, I know you believe in God. Believe on me too. And, and even though we're going to be separated from each other for a time, umm, our love.
Will keep us together in heart and spirit.
Really.
Important that we keep our hearts from trusting in others and don't let anything come between the confidence that you have in the Lord. Don't let anything interrupt that it is what really is called in the.
6th of Ephesians, the shield of faith, trust in God. You may have questions about me, you may have questions about all the rest of the brethren, but don't let anything bring.
Any question mark about your faith, your trust in God, there's anything that brings in a question mark there, it's from the from Satan.
And that's the way Satan works is get us to mistrust God.
Trust him. You don't understand what he's passing you through, but trust him. He knows quite a bit more about things than you do. Trust him. So tremendously important.
And just to give a verse from the Old Testament that we all enjoy a lot, Isaiah 26.
And verse three and four, Thou wilt keep him.
In perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, To stay on it is trust, because he trusteth in thee. Trust in the Lord. How long? Forever. For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength of the margin says is the Rock of Ages. Trust him.
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So important that we don't give up that trust. Satan came to Eve and put a question mark in her heart.
As to the truth of what God had said.
Yeah, hath God said.
Is that really true?
And she gave place to his suggestion, and she ended up falling. And so how important it is, brethren, to be careful about any suggestion that calls in question that trustworthiness, the faithfulness of our God. He is God.
He can be nothing less than God and He is worthy to be trusted even though we don't understand what He's allowing. Trust Him so important.
Connected with that, we don't.
Generally question the power of God.
We generally have the sense that we're.
Which is true that God can do anything consistent with his own character.
Where we have difficulty, though sometimes, is trusting the heart of God.
And that's why I'll keep emphasizing it. Umm.
That's why the aspect of the Father is so important, because it brings out his heart.
For God so loved. God is love.
But we enter into it often in its practical aspect is if our hearts are in the enjoyment.
Of his heart it helps us immensely not to question.
Not to wonder.
About what God is allowing to take place in the circumstances and the trials of our lives. My Father knows, my Father loves, my Father's wisdom is perfect. And so on are things that need to be rooted in us so that when something comes up we can't understand, we can go on. And what we do understand have learned to understand, if you will. And that's the heart of God.
Our Father.
This is the first time that the Lord Jesus here speaks distinctly.
About the relationship of them with the father and with himself.
And he even says in my father's house are many mansions. So they are distinctive places for those who have given, have been given to him by his father.
It is not just a building, it is a big house. It is a place where all have room and where all are very welcome and where there's a special place for everyone.
He tells them. If it were not so, I would have told you. Now he is telling them and he says that he personally goes to prepare a place for everyone of his disciples there. Of course, that includes all believers. Judas isn't wisdom anymore. He went to his own place, but all those who were saved.
They are welcome to be.
With him in his father's house.
And he will be there to receive them.
He will receive all believers and to himself, he says myself.
That where I am, there ye may be also. That should make every believer. That should make us very comfortable to know that we would be.
00:35:08
There, where he himself is.
He will be there.
The most important person he is now, but then he will be seen as such and it will make his own very comfortable.
Helpful to see that the word mansions in verse 2 is really abodes, the same word as you have in verse 23 for the Lord Jesus says if a man loved me, he will keep my words and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. That's the thought. Same word as is used in verse two of mansions, it's abodes.
Really, it only speaks of one house in heaven is the Father's house, but it has many abodes as we get the picture of all the streets and many mansions built on those streets separately. But it's really only the Father's house that it's talked about. And I love to think of that, that each one of God's children is special in a different way.
And there is a special place prepared for each one. When you have the church, it's more the unity of God's people, baptized by 1 Spirit into one body. But when you have the Father, it's more the family, and that's more John's ministry. And each one has a special place. I like to ask sometimes a father that has numerous children.
What's your Which is your favorite child?
If the family is a normal family.
They'll often say and they do. They're all my favorites, but in different ways.
The brother in the Dominican Republic I knew who went to be with the Lord at 101 years old. He had had 31 Children in his life and I don't know how he kept them all straight, but I didn't ask him that question but because I didn't know many of his children. But it is true, brother. And think of all God's children and each one has a special place in his heart. And I think that's the thought of.
My father's house are many abodes. Think of the millions and perhaps billions of the redeemed.
Down here we get feeling lost in a crowd. Sometimes there are people that are lonely in the midst of a crowd of people.
Brethren, it's not that way there. There's a special place for you that no one else can fill. It's the one that's prepared for you and I. I love to think of that the Father's house is the place of the enjoyment of the Father's love. It was the place that the Lord Jesus enjoyed for all eternity. You remember in John chapter one it says.
Umm, no man hath seen God at anytime. The only begotten Son which is.
In the bosom of the Father he hath declared him. In other words, there is the place where He enjoyed from all eternity the Father's love, and now he wants us to enjoy that same place. We sometimes sing that hymn, 127 and it says in one of the verses, There dwells in his bosom.
Knoweth all that in that bosom lies, and came to earth to make it known.
That we might share his joys. So here's the place in heaven in the Father's house, the place of the enjoyment of the Father's love. We have a place prepared for us, each one.
He says if it were not so, I would have told you I'd go to prepare a place for you.
Sometimes a child will or a young person will say, oh, come to my house.
00:40:04
That says two things about them.
1.
Their confidence and relationship to their parents.
That they can, if you will, invite somebody to come with them there and also their own enjoyment of it.
And here we find it perfectly in the heart of the sun.
His home, his heart was in his father's house.
And he had perfect confidence in his father's heart that those that he loved.
He wanted there too. And so it is brethren, the heart of the Lord Jesus towards you and toward me is with a perfect knowledge and confidence in the Father's heart, His Father's heart. Our Father's heart is perfect enjoyment. Where is a better place? Where is a happier place? That's where I want us to be. I want you to be with me and we want to be there together. Make a comment on the end of verse two. I go and to prepare a place for you.
It's true. It's absolutely necessary to prepare us.
For that place he had to go to the cross and die for us so that there might be a place there for us. But I don't think that's the primary thought here.
It's more.
Before when he came into this world as a man.
There had never been.
A man in heaven in a body.
The earth was man's place. Heaven's was God's place.
God prepared the earth for us, and he dwelt in his own place in.
In heaven. But in order to redeem us, in order to make God known to us, in order to bring us into the relationship with Himself, he became a man.
And dwelt among us.
And in becoming a man, it was of God that he remained that for eternity.
And so he will be a man for eternity. So it's incomprehensible that heaven wouldn't have a man in it.
When He rose from the dead and returned home to the Father's house, He returned there as the Son who always had dwelt there in the bosom of the Father. But He also in a new way really for mankind, if you will. He enters there as a man, and in doing so it prepares for us a place there.
He having entered there and we having been prepared through redemption, then he could say, I, I, I go to prepare a place for you. I go there. And once I'm there, if you will, then it'll be a suitable place for you to be as well. And uh, so that's our destiny now. We don't have a future connected with this earth for those of us who belong to the Lord Jesus and our members of the body of Christ.
We have our there will be an earthly people, but those being addressed here, which we know later on, it comes to include us from the 17th chapter. We say that's our place, that's our destiny is to be with him, the man in glory in the Father's house. And so he goes back and in that way he prepares the place for us as well.
Progressive. Progressive. Kind of to know.
Whither he goes?
And would I go, Ye know, and the way he know?
Of course they knew where he was born and that he had four brothers and sisters.
In Nazareth, and that's where he came from, and they were still pretty much earthbound. So he has to guide them into a heavenly sphere now.
And that is Thomas. He asked a very natural question. He says to him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?
00:45:10
There's many people today who asked what's the way to heaven? They're looking for a tangible place, a place that they can relate to as through the earthly dwellings where people dwell here in the world. They really would like to know what heaven is like. And they ask.
And then he asked, how can we know the way?
And now he dri he introduces himself to them as a way.
But not only the Way, but the truth and the life. So their whole being has to be connected with himself to get onto the way and to know what he is talking about and to know what eternal life is.
Like to mention, uh, before we go any further in connection with verse 2, the father's house that it is kind of a beautiful picture in first Kings chapter 6 in the Old Testament when the.
Temple was built by Solomon, what he did there, and it's a picture of what we have here.
In first Kings chapter 6 and verse five says and against the walls of the house, that's the Lord of the House of the Lord, the temple. He built chambers round about against the walls of the house, round about both of the temple and of the Oracle, and he made chambers round about. The nethermost chamber was 5 cubits broad, in the middle of six cubits broad, and the third was 7 cubits broad.
For without in the wall of the house, he made narrowed rests round about, that the beam should not be fastened in the walls of the house, and the house when it was in building was built of stone.
And then later on it talks a little bit more about those chambers, but there were three sets of or three stories of chambers round about the House of the Lord for the priests that were doing the service of the House of the Lord as it was in courses. And there they stayed while they were doing the service of the House of the Lord. That's a picture.
Of what we have in verse two, my father's house are many abodes.
Pictured in such a way that there was common nearness.
Some people, if you want to talk about downtown Chicago, some people live pretty far. We're not very close to downtown right here. We're at a distance. And if you see the children of Israel and the way their camp was laid out for them, among the 12 tribes, there were those that were close to the center where the Tabernacle was, and there were those that were at a greater distance.
But we have these pictures like Bob just presented.
To give us the sense that we will all enjoy the nearness. Heaven isn't going to have the near and the far or the ones that are close and the ones that well, they're second class and are at some distance. But it's presented to us as a brother used to say, God has no favorites in his family.
He loves every single one equally and perfectly. There's no one in this room that's loved by God more than anyone else.
Were all loved as he loved the sun and he can't love more than he loves the sun. But he said, I have loved that he wanted, uh, the Lord Jesus wanted them to know that the father loved them as he loved his son. And so it's, it's an important part of that relationship. But I, I'd like to add one more thought.
It's very precious to my own heart.
00:50:01
In the end of the first third verse, he says.
That where I am.
There you may be also.
If you said are we gonna be happy in heaven, we would answer, of course. If you said are we gonna be ecstatic in heaven, I suppose we would answer, of course. Couldn't be otherwise.
But is that the most important thing?
I don't think it is.
What's most important?
Is he going to be happy?
Is he going to be satisfied?
And He assures our hearts of his own heart toward us. I want you.
To be with me.
In the end of Isaiah 53, when we are collectively assembled around himself, it says he shall see of the fruit.
Of the travail of his soul.
And shall be satisfied.
That's for us what will make heaven, Heaven he shall have.
The desire fulfilled of his own heart of love.
And our enjoyment will be the response to His satisfaction, to rest in His love and in the Father's heart as well.
The most important statement.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
Though he personally.
Here's these three things.
There there's a big organization in the world today that says.
Only those who come to our church or place can be saved.
And and and.
That's a very general thing, but here we have a specific answer, namely himself.
I am the way, so if we want somebody to get to know how to.
Go to heaven and to be accepted in heaven.
We have to mention the name of the Lord Jesus.
Because it's only himself that brings people to the Father and to heaven.
There are some people, they say, well, my church will bring me there and we have somebody he's called the Vicar of Christ.
But that is a lie.
He himself needs nobody.
To bring.
People to him, he is the one who.
It's a direct way and there's no one else.
That would take a place closest to him. Some say Mary is now in heaven, his mother. Nobody knows when where she died and when she died through a naturally being the mother, his mother, she must be in heaven. And then they deceive many people by saying that because she isn't having she in in.
Makes her son, who is also connected with having to do things for her.
Well, these are all false teachings. It's only himself and his name.
And the truth that is thought about himself.
00:55:05
That brings people to God the Father and into heaven.
Spoken of at the beginning of the meeting for sports as whether I go, you know and the way you know.
Whether, uh, Don brought before us that very little in this chapter is spoken of heaven is spoken of very little. Heaven is not really the object of the Lord's, umm, discourse with his his disciples. It's, as it's been said, it's relationship.
And so when the Lord Jesus answered.
Thomas Thomas in his.
Umm in his growth in the appreciation of relationship with with the father wasn't very far along.
And so when the Lord Jesus said, you know where I'm going, he didn't enter into.
Umm, the fact that what was precious to the Lord's heart was he was going to a place where he would enjoy the relationship with his father.
Heaven for the Lord Jesus was to be in fellowship with the Father and so.
When in verse 5.
When, uh, Thomas answers the Lord Jesus, Thomas says unto him, Lord, we don't know where you're going.
And how can we know the way Thomas didn't understand?
That the Lord Jesus was speaking about relationship, not a place in that sense.
But the Lord straightens him out in the next verse, he says.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, so he's going to tell him how to get there first.
And then he's gonna tell him where he's going.
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. He doesn't say here, no, no man gets to heaven except by me. Because that really wasn't what the Lord Jesus was occupied with. That wasn't what was dear to His heart about where He was going.
What was 0 to his heart was he was gonna go and enjoy the company of his father. He was gonna go to, he was gonna go home to his father. Uh, just a little example of this a while back, umm, 1 of my kids had been away for a while.
And, uh, as he got closer to home.