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If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified that you bear much fruit, so shall ye be My disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for their servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth.
But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you that you love one another.
If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now.
They have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other men did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and hated both me and my father.
But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated me without the cause. But when the comforters come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me. And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.
I wonder if I could ask a question.
In the 24th of Luke there were two disciples that went to Emmaus, and when their hearts were stirred they said to the Lord, abide with us.
And immediately after the Lord disappeared for me.
And I was just wondering about the difference between.
Inviting the Lord to abide with us, or we abiding with Him.
Seems like it's there's quite a difference, isn't there? The Lord's desire is that we would abide with Him. We would be where he is in the 14th chapter he speaks of.
That where I am, ye may be also.
So abiding with the Lord.
It's not a question, is it of?
We're going our own way and inviting the Lord to come with us and to be with us in a position we choose to take. But it's the Lords invitation for us to abide in the path of his choosing and where he is, isn't it?
Good answer.
That's just what I was thinking too. You did it. You gave us a very good answer to your question, Cecil.
Seems to me the two on the way to Emmaus, once they recognized who the Lord was and once they recognized all of the scriptures that he brought before them. It seems the Lord is saying, and now if you want further communion, you have to retrace your steps because you're on a path that I didn't send you on. And that's often true in our own lives, isn't it, if we want communion with the Lord.
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It's true in grace He may go with us.
Not that you and I have that right, but the Lord has the right, and He may go with us.
Even going so far as to extend grace to us in a wrong path. But then there comes a point where He makes us realize that we're on a wrong path, and then it's a matter of our taking the action in obedience to do what He has brought before us, isn't it?
Their hearts were warmed and they did return back to where they came from. And so it had the desired effect and that the Lord was the Lord. The focus needed to be from the Lord, and He's the one that chooses. And we follow, don't we? But when we do follow, there is communion there, and then we abide there.
So then there's common thoughts and we can we we think about the same thing and.
The Christian who dwells with the Lord is the only person in the world who can have everything he wants.
So it's a wonderful thing that our prayers and we can ask for what we want because we are abiding in Christ and we want the right things and he gives us those right things.
I was thinking that the turning point of those two, in the way that they may ask, is when they got their eyes opened as to who he really was. And so often souls stray.
Because there's questions and they get involved with thinking about this person and that person.
Brethren, what we need is to have Christ before our souls. And immediately when they realize who it was, they knew where they belonged and it wasn't too far that walk to go all the way back to Jerusalem and they're needless to disciples. And there he appeared to them again.
So I really think that's a good remedy, brother, to think sometimes we try to answer all these hard questions.
What we really need is to have our eyes open as to His glorious person.
I.
Just like to read and in the French translation, Mr. Darby's French translation, he uses this word dwell. And our brother Dawn touched upon it in the previous meeting. So you could read it this way in verse seven, chapter 15 of John verse seven. If he dwell in me, and my words dwell or live in you, he shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. And so throughout in this chapter, he uses this word in the French translation as well or to live.
And it's the same word in Luke chapter 24 that you refer to. Abide with us means dwell or live with us, dwell with us. They wanted the nearness of that beloved person. They didn't perhaps recognize exactly who it was at the moment, but there was something that attracted their hearts. They wanted him to dwell with him, with them. And so here the Lord Jesus invites them, invites his disciples to that relationship, to enjoy that relationship.
And of nearness and closeness, if he abide or if he dwell in thee. And so there's responsibility on our part. There's every provision made from the heart of the Savior. He does want us to dwell in his presence and with a conscious sense of His approval of our walk in our ways. And so we will know, it says, if my words dwell or abide in you.
And so he brings it back to the Word of God. We're going to know, we're going to have a sense of his approval and a sense of that which is right and that which is meets with his holy approval if we know His word and it dwells within us.
Wonderful thing that a holy God wants to have communion with us and that's not long after being Israel and bringing them out of Egypt, we were to build a Tabernacle well amongst them.
Come to me and not well, bringing in the land of the building permanent temple, but no before that as soon as possible they're mentioned and then we think of eternity where Tabernacle God is just a minute well with them and they shall do this and God himself shall exist to your God. I think that is all through this portion we're taking up the Lord wants more than our works of service.
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He wants us, he wants fellowship meeting with us and we could be still right outwardly against so long and we're out of fellowship with him and that's the all important thing. He wants our fellowship.
In this verse seven, though, it's interesting how it puts it, brother, and I think it's to meditate if ye abide in me. And notice this next part.
And my words abide in you.
Doesn't say if you read the Bible.
My words abide in you. That's why we need meditation. It's not only reading the word, but it's meditating until that word that we read becomes a part of us. It's there. It's abiding. And that's so important in our Christian lives, if we're going to.
The fullness of what life really is in Christ.
Let his words abide in US.
I just wanted to touch on something.
Back in verse five too, that I think is beautiful too, because it talks about abiding there. I'm the vine, year, the branches, He that abideth in me, and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit.
Or without me, he can do nothing.
Like the link that with another verse in the gospels that says.
With God.
All things are possible.
Without me you can do nothing.
And it really depends on our focus, brother. It's not what we can do, it's what he does. He may use us as instruments, but it's abiding in him so that if he does want to use this, we are ready as an instrument for him to use. It's his work without me. So often I experience my own life.
Have a thought to do something?
And so often in a day's.
Living it seems like I'm just spinning my wheels not getting anywhere.
How important it is at the beginning of the day.
We take quiet time to be in His presence, to let His Word sink into our souls, to realize our portion of being in Him. And it's His work, His eternal purposes, that are going to be fulfilled, Brethren, not my purpose so much as it is His. And then there can be fruit, then there can be.
Positive.
Going forward in the things of Christ. And so in verse seven it is you shall ask what she will and it shall be done to you. Like Doug was saying, and we asked the right things and he could give them to us because that's his will.
And Adam all die.
Because in Adam.
Sinful Adam.
Not a single act of anything that comes from that life in nature which brings fruit to God or glorifies God.
So the only possible way there can be fruit in our lives is if we have a life that can produce it. And the only life that produces fruit for God is the life of Christ. And so God has given to us to share in that life.
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He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life. We read in first John 5. And so God has given to us, and we have in US the life of Christ.
But let's look at it for a little minute further. When you think of a natural child, that child is born with the capacity.
To know and do its parents will, but it doesn't know their will. It has to be received from them. Communications which explain and express the will of the parent. And we're assuming a willingness, not a rebellion here in the child. Then they can say, oh, I know what my dad wants and they can do it. We receive the life of Christ. And so we have the capacity to be fruitful and to do as well.
But at the same time, we need to listen to him. We need to learn his mind, his words, his thoughts. We know what it's like when something comes up and someone says, well, what's what'll so and so think. And then what we're saying in that is we don't know their mind completely. Or we say we'll ask their wife or ask their husband or do this or that. Somebody that can I say knows them. When Peter wanted to know what the Lord was thinking at the Last Supper, he said to John, what's?
You asked him, he recognized that John was dwelling, if you will, closer to the Lord than he was, and therefore can enter into his thoughts and his word in in a practical sense. And so it is with us when we walk in the what the Lord gives us, then he gives us more and we can grow in the knowledge of his will and his word and and live it.
Why did the Lord Jesus never pray an improper prayer? Because every single request that He ever brought before the Father was in keeping with the Father's mind and will. And God would want us to grow in that same way. As it says in first John, two of the Father, you have known him, which was from the beginning. That is, they had come to know the Father.
And as and they had gone so that you might have gone to them and said, well, what's the father thing? Well, this is what his mind is on this matter.
Just kind of like we prayed this morning. We had a prayer meeting.
And we tend and properly, I suppose we go to the Lord and we're sort of saying, Lord, we're worried about this person, please make them better or please come into their life or please save them.
But as we had a little earlier this afternoon, turn it around.
Let's take Dirk.
In Tasmania.
Who's more interested in Dirk Salvation?
Us or God?
God is more interested by far than we are. It's a privilege for us to share a little bit in God's interest in that persons salvation and we can express.
Our fellowship with the God in something that He is infinitely more interested in than we are. Is somebody sick? Is the Lord more interested in that sick person? Or are we?
The Lord is. And so when we come to the Lord and ask something, we come to one who is far, far more interested and more deeply interested in the well-being of that person than we are. And yet God in his goodness would say to us, I want you to enter in. I want you to ask as one that you might say is in fellowship with my mind and what I'm doing.
And what I think about this matter, and if we were fully in the mind of God, we would always ask, and it would always be fruitful according to His will.
And as you see, Don, there was only one that did that perfectly, wasn't there? There was only one who never needed, we say it with all reverence, a thorn in the flesh. There was only one who never tried to go anywhere, as Paul did a say, to go into Bathinia and the Spirit suffered him not. We're thankful for a Paul that was responsive to the preventiveness of the Spirit.
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And so we have to realize, although we don't.
Shall we say plan to fail in it?
But John speaks, as we have often heard in the ads for abstract and in the perfection.
Of what God sees in His beloved Son. We carry out this seventh verse imperfectly, but that's the desire that God has for us, that we might abide in Christ, that His words might abide in US, and that our prayers might be in keeping with the mind of God.
We can come in the spirit of it, even if we don't always have the intelligence.
I think it's good for us to recognize too, that this brings us into confidence where we have confidence if we abide or we dwell in Him and if His word abide in us, there's confidence that says in.
First John, chapter 5.
And verse 14, this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know, or since we know that you hear us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. And so there are those desires that we have in our hearts, and we have the confidence to go to the Lord if we walk in obedience to His Word and we have a conscious sense of His presence.
There's a brokenness he desires to respond to that state or that that state that we have. I just suggested in this way is a father and a son. A son that walks in obedience to his father has confidence to go to his father to ask for something, perhaps to ask to buy, to borrow the car, to go out for the evening or something. That's that confidence if he walks in the love of his father.
He understands the heart of his Father. And so in this way we ask as we abide closely with the Lord and we want his will. Paul as soon as he was saved could say, Lord, what wilt thou have he to do? He didn't want his own way. And that's where we stray is when we want something that God doesn't want. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? We need to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ that we are bought with a Christ. You're not your own. You're bought with a price. And so if we recognize as those that are members of the family of God.
Here and we walk with the Lord if we want what he wants, we're going to get the best thing.
And that confidence can be pretty bold at times. It's beautiful to see illustrations and scripture of that. I think Robert of Elijah, who prayed that it would not rain for 3 1/2 years.
That's pretty old.
And it didn't rain the 3 1/2 years.
Where did he get that idea?
Have the windows of heaven shut.
Was that something that just popped into his mind?
No, that was the word of God. God himself excited. His people would forsake him and go after other gods. He would shut the windows of heaven and Elijah pray. He prayed the Scriptures. Really. He simply asked God to do what His Word had said He would do all the time. And God responded and there were real results, positive results.
So it can be very bold and I don't know, rather than it really seems to me that this is an area we need to be exercised about in our lives. I, I don't know if you do, but I, I find prayer real work.
It's not easy.
It takes concentration. And it's not only prayer that Scripture speaks about. It talks about.
Supplications. Do we know what that means to get into God's presence and supplicate?
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To really get into his presence and sense his thoughts about it in the light of scripture, really think this is an area we need to.
Be exercised in all of us younger people as well. You can be a real blessing.
By cultivating fellowship with God.
In reading of his word and prayer. Oh what a blessing it is to see young people that are exercised in this way. There's real profit in it and the person himself generally doesn't notice any change. Others around will.
But let's be exercised. Let me encourage our young people to be serious with God in prayer. Is it just getting down on our knees and kind of saying a few words every day kind of keep things going Normally, that's not what God is interested in. He's interested in real serious relationship in these areas of reading the Word and prayer.
My brother Bob did.
Elijah, pray earnestly like that.
And then, after the time was up, he prayed it rained.
Go ahead.
Well, I was just thinking that God.
Delays to bless his people and its judgment is his strange work. And I think Elijah shared in the thoughts of God that he didn't. He didn't want to stop the rain. It was necessary for the work in the hearts of the people of God. He prayed earnestly because he knew the devastating results that it could have on the people of God. He loved them, but God is so ready to bless them.
It was time for the rain to come. He just prayed and God sent the rain.
But he prayed 7 times, didn't he?
And then the 7th time his servant said there's a little cloud about the size of a man's hand. That's it.
And before he got to was it Israel?
It was.
Full of them.
Of lightning and Thunder.
I'm saying it right, but full of rain. Yes, God does one of us.
The 7th and the 8th verses are connected.
Talking about the second seventh verse and asking.
And in the eighth verse we have herein is my Father glorified, and he names two things in which the Father is glorified in one, that we bear much fruit, and the fact that they would be his disciples. That is, it's always good to keep in mind in our souls with God that when He's going to do something, He will do it according to his own glory.
And if we're going to ask him for something, we can ask ourselves in our own soul, as Bill says, we don't enter in perfectly, but it is well for us sometimes when, as Bob said, his prayers kind of work. Sometimes at times we have to stop and think before we make a request. And when we stop and think about what we're going to ask for, it's well for us to say in our souls, is God going to be glorified?
And what if the result comes out as asked?
Will God receive glory from it? Does he honor himself in it? Well, we look at man. Man's a fruitless creature in himself, but one who is in the vine and Christ and has the life of Christ now can be fruitful for God. And when that fruit is produced in that life, God is glorified in it when there's a person on earth who is a follower.
Disciple God is honored, God is glorified in that we can.
Properly always pray for the salvation of every person and every soul that we may individually pray for, because we have no doubt that as God wants their salvation and so on, that we might pray according to what would glorify Him.
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It's interesting that the discipleship is the result of the fruit bearing we sometimes.
Think of it as the rapper's order. We think of ourselves as disciples and then because we're disciples and we want to be bear fruit, glorify the Lord. But here the the it's what makes us disciples is very proof glorifying the Lord. So I think that's wonderful to look at it that way.
I've enjoyed that very much, Doug. I believe that.
The whole essence of being a disciple is to walk in communion with him, isn't it? And as the Lord was saying to his disciples here, he was going to go away from them. He was going to leave this world. But then what? They would be left here. Left here as a witness to what He was, and to walk before this world and to show them what Christ was. And so if you and I are going to be disciples.
The essence of that is a walk in communion with Him. It's not merely, as we said earlier, holding on to a certain set of principles or truths, although that's included very definitely. But it's the abiding in Him. It's The Walking before Him. It's having confidence in prayer and.
It's glorifying the Father, which is the essence of what Christ did down here, didn't He?
Verse 9 The Father, I mean the Lord Jesus lived his whole life in the perfect and complete confidence.
Of being the object of the Father's love.
As a son in relationship to his Father, as the Father hath loved me.
He went through his whole life perfectly, enjoying the love of the Father to him the Son.
And.
He says to us in that verse, continue ye in my life, that is, I want you to feed on my love for you.
I want you to walk in the conscious enjoyment that I love you perfectly, completely, 24/7 in your life. That's what it is to continue in His love and connected with it with us is don't allow anything in our lives that would stop us from being able to enjoy that love.
That would keep us from the enjoyment of it by our own actions, by our own willfulness.
As another is said, don't try to love the Lord more than you do.
Don't try to produce that love in yourself, but be occupied with His love for you.
Want to go back in the same connection to something that was in the morning reading about food, and in that connection we were talking about reading the word of God.
The.
Food, the physical food, is for our bodies.
But the Word of God is the food of our souls.
And you can starve just as much in your soul as you starve in your body if you don't continue to eat. And I think it was Bill that said even if you don't want to eat or read the word of God, eat anyway or read the word of God anyways. It's been said that a person who is starving after a while loses the sense of hunger, as amazing as that may seem.
And what can happen to us if we don't feed on the word of God? We're starving, but we don't feel hungry. We're not conscious of the fact that we are starving and one more along the same line of things and and abiding in his love and so on. And that is.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the essential food of our new life.
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The Lord Jesus himself is the essential food.
Of our new life, not only now, but for eternity.
You have some people and they say, well, I don't know. If you took an unsaved lost person to heaven, they want to get out. They would not be happy there because they have nothing in them that is satisfied with Christ as the food of the new man. And so the whole atmosphere is contrary to their will and desires. And such a person would say, how? Where's the door? Let me out of here. There's no life there. There's no satisfaction, there's no food there.
But for us, the anticipation of being with the Lord Jesus is a wonderful thing because at least in measure we have a sense that he is the one that when we're occupied with him, satisfies our hearts and will do so without tiring of it or getting saying, oh, what else do you have for me?
It's wonderful to think from how the Lord Jesus perfectly represented the love of the Father to him. To us. That is, He did not just appropriate some of that love for himself. Selfishly, we're often guilty of that. We take the love of God, enjoy it for ourselves, but we don't pass it on.
We don't represent it to others, we don't show up for it to others. And I believe that's what the Lord is saying here. He he was getting ready to live, to leave and he wanted that flow of love to continue. He had represented it perfectly. And he tells the disciples that the measure that the Father loved me. So if I loved you and I say now you do the same. And the next verse tells us how.
So it's a it's a wonderful thing and we've had already reminded that this is really the secret to the Christian life and that this verse needs to be read frequently.
Being reminded of the of that love that has been shown to us is to give us that power, to pass it on and to show it to others and they.
We are the only Bible, as it's been often said that some people read and sadly maybe they don't get a very good representation of the Bible if we don't live with right.
It's beautiful to connect this verse nine with verse in chapter 16.
In verse nine of our chapter it says the Father hath loved me.
In that nature, he says, so have I loved you.
Now in chapter 16 and verse 27.
He says for the Father himself loveth you.
Because ye have loved me.
In that beautiful brother, the way that that love is shared for one another, and a true believer is one who loves the Lord Jesus Christ.
And because we love him, the Father loves us.
Beautiful the the way they relate together.
I think it is so important to grasp it. Continuing ye in verse nine of our chapter, he says continue ye in my love.
We often is that hymn that says love with love that knows no measure.
Save the Father's love to thee, blessed Lord. Our hearts would treasure all the Father's thoughts of thee. O brotherhood, what a rich portion it is.
You and I are loved, I've been saying, preaching the gospel and present.
You may go to a lost eternity.
That you will never go unloved. You will never be able to say.
Lost Eternity.
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That you, no one ever loved you He loves. And how can you put on a measure in God's love? It's eternal. There is no way to measure it.
And it's the enjoyment of that love that is really what will keep us.
Christianity is based on that.
I was thinking of a verse in first John chapter 2 and like to share it in connection with this too.
In the exhortation to the young men.
He says.
In verse 15.
Love not the world.
Neither the things that are in the world.
Now notice this part.
If any man love the world.
The love of the Father is not in him.
So what's put in contrast here is the love of the world on one side.
The love of the Father and as has already been expressed, the Lord Jesus was one person who passed through this world.
Always in the consciousness of the love of the Father.
Did this world have any attraction for him?
Absolutely nothing. Why?
Because he had something so much more supremely blessed, the love of his Father, He walked from the consciousness of it always. Now you and I are in this world, and we have that same life.
This world attracts you.
You know what? It's going to keep us from the love of the world.
The enjoyment of the love of the Father.
The Lord help us these things become a reality in our hearts.
So they enjoy. Excuse me, The enjoyment of that love is conditional on our obedience, isn't it?
And that's what it says in verse 10.
If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love well.
We'll never be able, I suggest, to walk the Christian life in a proper way unless we have a sense.
Of the Lord's love in our souls.
Doesn't matter how much truth I have before me, how many principles of God's word, how intelligent I may be in the things of God.
But I will run out of energy unless my affections are engaged. And that's what distinguishes, if we could say it, Christianity from every false religion. Christianity presents to me a person that not only brings before me.
What He is as far as His Holiness and his life, but also brings before us his love and what God looks for in you and me is The Walking in the good of his love. Well, the world has turned this around and made it into a hesitate to use the term, but made love out to be a fuzzy warm feeling if I might use that expression.
That ignores truth and that ignores principle. Is that true love? Not at all, not at all. That is just glossing over all that is wrong in order to pretend that everything is all right. It doesn't work even in worldly things, and man knows that.
Was very interesting. A week or two ago, I was reading about a young man who was not a believer by any means and not writing from the vantage point of a believer. But he had been living an immoral life and going out with this girl and that girl and as we would say, having the good life. He had plenty of money and so on. And it was recorded in a secular article that finally he said it would be so nice to come home at night.
And have my own wife to come to and know that she would be there every time I came home waiting for me. What did he long for? And established abiding relationship? He longed for what the Word of God would have told him clearly was right. But he thought that he could improve on God's wisdom.
Then there are others that separate the commandments from the love of God, but the Word of God always brings them together. We can't separate commandments. We can't separate truth from the source of them, from the person. And so it's not a question of saying here is a code of do's and don'ts and this is what you want to do and this is what you can't do and so on. It's a matter of saying, as it says here, if you keep my commandments.
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Ye shall abide in my love, no more blessed place than that.
And then what are those commandments? Are they irksome as we've had brought out? Are they something that galls on me because I say, but I don't want to do that? No, they're the happy, joyful response of one who says, this is the blessed will of the one who died for me.
His commandment is life everlasting. This is the way of life. His commandments, they're not the Old Testament commandments, are there? They are the New Testament commands I liked.
What AC Brown used to say the difference between the commandments of the Old Testament and the commandments of the new is Simply put as this.
Commandments of the Old Testament were. Do this and you will live.
And the commandments of the New Testament are.
Live and you'll do this.
Think about it. I think that really sums it up. First He gives us the life in Christ and then he gives us the divine directives for that life, His commandments. You can't ignore them. Young people, Scripture says be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, young people, if you're thinking of a relationship, a serious relationship towards marriage.
Don't go with unbelievers. Scripture is very clear about that. Don't let your heart get entangled.
The command is clear. Don't do it. He wants you to have a happy life, and you're not going to have it in ignoring his commandments. So there are many commands of the New Testament. Pay attention. They're there for your own good.
And welfare.
I think it's important to see the connection between verse 9 and 10, and unfortunately the King James Version somewhat obscures this. The word continued in verse nine, and the word for abider, verse 10 is actually the same word in Greek.
In other words, first our Lord tells us of this wonderful infinite grace of God. This love of God is beyond conception. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. And I agree with the brother who said that's a birth to consider every day, his mother so wonderful. And then the thought should be about every believers crime. How can I enjoy this? How can I abide in and continue with it? The same word and verse 10 answers that thought of the latter half of verse 9. How can we continue or abide in this love?
If you keep my commandments, you shall buy you my love and.
Just like that Sunday school him that is so simple and yet so profound trust and obey. There's no other way to be happy with Jesus but depressed ovation. So God's love is grace. It's it's unconditional, it's unmerited but now to enjoy that love. There's a responsibility on our part to be keeping God's commandments and if we're not doing that, we certainly are saying, but we're not going to be enjoying that salvation. There's got to be an obedience if we're not obedient that shows that we really don't trust the love of God doing. We don't need to have some area of our soul and we haven't allowed.
The love of God to really penetrate.
And if you don't have the confidence in this love that you should, we're out acting in discipline. So the love of God is unconditional, but the enjoyment of that is very much conditional on our needs.
Like to read a few verses in first John 4, three and four in action was like before us.
First John, chapter 3.
Verse 7.
Little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil.
For the devil sinneth from the beginning.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin.
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Where his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. And then.
Down in verse in chapter 4.
Verse 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God, and he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.
Everything has a source.
And it's important for us to know the source from which something comes.
And God is the source of what?
The statement God is love, and if that love abides in US and comes in US, God is the source of it.
And it's pure, it's holy, it's according to God's own nature.
And if it's in US and it abides in us, it will manifest itself as we have in First John and as we have in our chapter in.
Its love for the Lord, for the Lord, particularly for us, for our brethren.
And yet to put the contrast on it.
There's a lot, the source of which is Satan. Satan is a deceiver. Satan is lives in enmity of God and he would constantly seek to put in the minds and hearts of people that which is from himself as a source.
Which is a hatred of God and all that is of God.
So sometimes it does come into the heart, as the Lord said to Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. That is what was coming out of Peter. The Lord recognized its source, and it had to be judged. And so it can be easily with us that we not have thoughts at times, and we stop and we say to ourselves, where did that thought come from?
Whatever made me think that way?
Sometimes, just by repetition, by what the world puts in us, we tend to hear and hear and hear, and the first time we hear it, we don't think about it in any way or not. But if we just listen to it enough times, that can easily form the habit of the pattern of our thinking, and it can often be in reality a pattern which is not of God.
As Bob read the verses in chapter 2, Love Not the World.
Things that are in the world. Why? Because in the end it says for it is not of the Father.
That is, of the world. In other words, the source of it is wrong.
The world stands in opposition to God, and if I love it, then I the source of what I'm loving is that which can't come from God's heart.
Because it is opposed to him and what he is in love. And so the final comment, a brother in my youth, some of us here have heard him say it many times, but he kept saying read the word of God until your very thoughts are formed by the language of Scripture. We need to feed on this word because our very thoughts need to be formed by it so that the source of our thoughts.
Is consistent with God who is light and God who is love. Not consistent with the newspaper or the radio or the television or anything else. It has to be formed by the right source if we are to dwell in the daily practical sense with God and enjoy fellowship with Him.
If we could make one more practical remark.
Never take a step in your life.
That involves clear disobedience to the Word of God. Now that might seem to be an unnecessary statement.
But how many times, and I speak to my own heart, when there are difficulties and there are difficulties in the Christian life. And where we contemplate some kind of a step that might seem on the surface to be going to take us out of that difficulty. And either we see it ourselves or someone else brings it before us that involved in that step, whether it's an association or whether it's something we're going to do.
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Is clearly and definitely contrary to God's Word.
And how many times I speak to my own heart have I heard, dear soul say.
Well, but I feel, I feel the Lord, I feel clear, I feel comfortable before the Lord in going, going down this road, or I feel that it's the mind of the Lord for me to do that at this time and so on.
Many times I say to my own heart, I have had to sit back and say well.
Can I say anymore?
But it is not going to result in our abiding in the Lord's love, even if it might seem feasible and plausible at the time.
If we fly in direct disobedience to the Word of God, if we're planning to do that, to use the world's term, we need to go back to the drawing board. We need to go back into the Lord's presence and say Lord.
Somehow I am using my thoughts as Dawn says there's a source here of the plan or the thought that I have in mind that is not coming from the right source.
And I need to deal with it.
You need to have a right attitude to the Word of God as well, don't we? Yeah, I think exists in connection with the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, just a little phrase in verse 8, the voice of my beloved. Is that how I read the Word of God? When I read the Word of God, do I say this is a commandment for my wife? When she says something to me, do I say, no, this is this a commandment? I say when she speaks to me, this is the voice of my beloved and the attitude that I ought to have in connection with the Word of God. The preciousness of it is that this is the voice of my beloved.
And he's giving me instruction here as to a path that will lead to joy. And he wants me to have a path of joy, a life of joy. The enemy is a destroyer, as our brother has said. I'll just point this out in Revelation chapter. I think it's chapter 20.
The enemy is it says in Revelation chapter 20 and verse two. This verse is quoted twice in Revelation. It says in Revelation 20 and verse two that he laid hold on the dragon that old surface which is the devil and Satan and bound in 1000 years. And he uses 4 words to describe the enemy here. And so the dragon first is really his character is a.
Destroyer, and that's Revelation 9, verse 11. He's spoken there as a bad and and Apollyon. He's a destroyer and then he's the old serpent, an old deceiver and its subtlety, it's really his character in Genesis chapter 3.
And then you have his work as Satan. The name means an adversary. And then?
I skipped the devil here. It says the devil and he's a tempter that's really he's desiring to tempt you and I. His work is to destroy and his work is to deceive and attempt and to be an adversary. And so he's going to be an adversary in that way as to what the plain teaching of the word of God is. And so our brother.
Bill pointed out that sometimes you and I can be deceived by our own thoughts. And if we set aside the Word of God and we don't think of it as the word of my beloved, and we want to, we don't have an earnest desire to abide in His love and keep His commandments, keep His word, then we leave ourselves open to be deceived. And we have an enemy that is looking for a little change, just a little gap, just a little departure from the truth of God, just a little setting aside of the Word of God.
And he's an experienced old serpent, and he wants to destroy.
In connection with the source here, we on our versus 9 in 10, we started, we noticed starting out that it's the Father loved the Son, the Son loved us and then they will eat the past of obedience that follows for us as approving of that love. Our obedience proves that we do love him. Then it comes full circle around to where it started.
And notice the last half of verse 10. Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love, I think this is beautiful to see. You know, sometimes we obey and then we just stop thinking about our obedience, and we stop at that point and don't go any farther. But here the Lord brings a full circle around.
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Speaks of His keeping His father's commandments and abiding in his love. So that brings us right around to occupation again with His love.
Like to connect verse 10 now with verse 11 as the Lord says, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love, and then he brings in joy in verse 11 These things that I've spoken unto you that my joy.
Might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Speak about the Lord's joy and obedience.
It's a wonderful thing and a wonderful principle.
But it brings in the will, the matter brings in our will, and we'll start with a child. A child.
Learns what his parents will is. It has a will of its own and it would at times like to have its own will and exercise its own will. But the parents will is different than its own, and it submits to its parents will. If it's obedient. It doesn't always make that child happy.
And we've known what a child says when we're adults too. But I'm using a child an example the.
An adult says, well, or child, I don't want to, but OK, I will. I know I'm supposed to obey, so I will obey. And there's no joy because the will of the child is not the same as the will of the authority over it. And so it does it painfully and not very willingly, but yet it cements. And so we say it's obedient. That has been called legal obedience.
But the obedience of Christ, which Scripture speaks about, is different.
And it's an obedience that only comes from the right source, which is having the life of Christ.
And the obedience that we have the capacity now as having Christ as our life is that obedience of Christ where he says to his Father, I delight to do thy will, Oh my God. That is, he found his joy in obedience and not in his own will. He didn't say to the Father, I have a will.
But I come so that I can be a perfect person. I will do your will, and I will be perfectly obedient to you. Rather, the Father's will was the motive of his own heart. There are two things that go together, obedience and happiness. They go together, and especially if it's the obedience of Christ, that character of obedience.
There can't be happiness without it, and that obedience requires that sense of having, can I say, not exercising any will of my own, but rather finding the motivation to act or not act was the will of the Father.
So the Lord Jesus when tempted of Satan and Satan said, well, you're hungry, take some bread.
You have the power to do it. Make these stones into bread. And his answer was, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which cometh out of the mouth of the father. That is, if the father didn't give him a word, he had no will to act. And when the father, as it were, would say to him, he, he ate, it wasn't matter whether he was hungry or not, or whether his, his natural soul would say an annuity was hungry.
But it wasn't a motivation to action. It wasn't a will to say I need Eve. And so that's the obedience of Christ. And that is the obedience that brings happiness in the soul. Not as we would say, oh, I better obey the Lord Jesus because I'm supposed to, because that's what the Bible tells me. And if I do, then I can abide in God's love. Doesn't really work that way. It is necessary that the obedience come from the right source.
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And the right source is the love of Christ, active in our new life.
So that oblivion springs what is called in verse 11 my joy that talk about your joy.
If I find my joy is the same as his joy, my joy is going to be really good. It's going to be full, overflowing.
In other words, he's teaching them about what made him happy, what his source of joy was. And he said, if you follow me, if you listen to me, if you do as I am teaching you, your joy will be full. It will produce in you the same joy that it has produced in me.
I enjoy connecting that down with the verse in Hebrews 12 verse two that we often read where it says the Lord Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the Christ what has been so often.
Suggested that that Joy was going back into the Father's presence.
And saying, Father, I have finished the work that thou gave us me to do. What a beautiful.
Joy was there in that. Oh brethren, we do have been given to do something here in this world. None of us will be able to say in the same way as he did. I have finished the work Thou hast given me to do.
But the apostle Paul perhaps found the closest, he said. I have finished my course. It's a little different.
Is given something for you to do, young people?
Those of us who are older need to feel it too. Soon we're going to be called in His presence.
And we're going to stand at the judgment seat to give an account of our lives.
How's it going to be rather than that day? Our joy then will be in any measure.
There has been something that corresponds in our life to what was in his life.
And it's interesting, Bob, and very searching that in that Scripture in Hebrews 12.
The Spirit of God uses the most extreme example, doesn't it? Who for the joy that was set before Him did what endured the cross? I don't believe it's the atoning sufferings that are in view there. I believe, as you say, it's presented there as an example for us. And so He endured the cross, despising shame with joy. Yes, because it was the Father's will.
Just like to mention another thought that I found extremely precious. Brethren, in John's gospel especially, you often have mentioned the love of the Father for the Son.
Only once. I believe it's the other way around, the love of the sun for the Father, and it's in the end of the 14th chapter.
Right on the same page.
But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, Even so I do.
That beautiful. The only mention, I think of the love of the Son for the Father is connected with obedience to the Father's commandment.
How does that reflect in our lives, brethren? Is our life characterized by obedience?
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Lord, of course, always did the will of the Father from.
Very moment he was born in this world, but I was thinking about when he was 12 years old at the temple.
Eight years old, 12, excuse me, 12 years old, he said. I must be about my father's business.
Well, I think our young people.
Think about that, 12 years old. I must be about my father's business. I thought you had to wait till you were older to be the Lord as well.
How old?
Just a little more.
Perfect example is.
That, yeah.
These words verse 11 should certainly touch our heart, especially when you think with our Lord uttered them that it was on the night he was to be betrayed and he faced suffering, bodily suffering such as.
Almost inconceivable, but then he was also prepared that suffering of the statement of God, of our sins. And he's looking beyond his own pain. He's looking beyond his suffering. He's looking towards us, the disciples, and to us and how we can experience joy.
This needs to touch our hearts, particularly when we seem to find that joy, that happiness in this world's things and self indulgence. You know that's not the place where we don't have to use. The place to find joy is in the one we love so much.
Verse 12 he says this is my commandment, that you love one another.
As I have loved you.
We manifest what we have as a life.
We have the life of the Lord Jesus.
Then we can manifest the love of the Lord Jesus.
Independence, not in independence, but the Spirit of God would seek to bear fruit in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and if that is the true source of our life and it displays itself as God would have it displayed, then there will be a love for one another.
As the love that Christ has to us.
But I would just say we, if we stop and reflect on it, we realize we have a good way to go before that's going to be realized in perfection.
When I don't mean to be funny by this, but it brought before me how far short we really come up displaying his life, we said earlier in this meeting.
Don't be occupied with your love for the Lord.
That be occupied with His love for you. Don't try to love the Lord more than you do, but be occupied with His love for you.
To just turn it around to make us realize that we don't always manifest that love. If it was perfectly seen on us, then the statement might be true. Never be occupied with how much you love your brethren, but just be occupied with their love for you.
Well, when we think about it, we recognize that our own love for our brethren isn't perhaps what it should be. That means that the fleshiness is often at work. And likewise we recognize an occupation with our brethren that that doesn't work either, because often their love for us is not a perfect expression of the life of Christ in them, so it ought to humble us. But God doesn't change the standard by our failure to measure up to it.
The Lord didn't change that standard because they didn't fully live it, He says to them in that verse. This is my commandment. This is what I want you to do. I want you to love one another in the same character with the same kind of love that I love you.
He doesn't say if you feel like it.
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It's something that is, like you say, a command, and I think it helps.
To understand that that word love, it's the agape love.
Is a love that loves not because of the object, but because of the source. It helps to understand.
We have another word in the New Testament that's called brotherly love. It's a different word.
Belayo. And it's the mutual appreciation.
Love of attachment to one another.
I've known Don for quite a few years and I think I can say I love you brother. Thank you.
In that way, I trust your love is towards me as well.
But that's not what we're talking about here. This is love that loves when there's nothing lovable.
And if that should ever happen to my brother.
Will you still love me?
That's the love that we're talking about, isn't it? And notice a verse in First Thessalonians chapter 4.
Because both of those words are used.
And I found it very helpful to understand this.
Verse nine, First Thessalonians 4 and verse 9.
But as touching brotherly love.
That's the filet O word.
The mutual appreciation one of another you need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God.
To love one another. That's the agape word.
One other place in second Peter chapter one.
Where Peter is talking about the things that are to be added to our faith.
And at the end of the list in verse seven, he says.
And to godliness.
And brotherly kindness. That's the Phileo. Brotherly love. And to brotherly love.
Charity or agape love?
There might be times when there are misunderstandings between brethren and you don't feel the mutual brotherly love that there ought to be. Hebrews 13 says let brotherly love continue. That's proper.
There should be that cultivating to that brotherly love.
But if there's not that, then add to your brotherly love, love the agape divine lies, love that loves because of the source, not of the object in this world. Like it was mentioned, you mentioned, Bill, that's kind of like a people say is love is kind of a fuzzy warm feeling.
But it's because they love for what they can get out of that person. That's not divine love in line love is love that loves, and there's nothing lovable.
That's the love we husbands are to love our wives with.
That same love. Oh brother, what a challenge to us. And like Don was saying, we're not asked If we would like to do it, then we can do it. We're commanded. And to me it's searching. Brother, in John's gospel, three times we have the command.
And John's epistles. I think it's four other times we're commanded.
Why so often?
I thought we had a nature that loved. Why does he command us to do it?
He commands this because we have that nature that responds to it and that nature does love. And I earlier we were we had before us about it reading in connection with the reading of the Scriptures, the need to read it even when you don't feel like it. What happens when you read the word of God if you're a true believer?