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John 17.
Well, let's start from verse 14 again.
I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world.
Even as I am not of the world, I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word.
Is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, Even so have I also sent them into the world.
And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also. It shall believe on me through their word.
That they all may be one, as thou Father art in me and I am thee, That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I am them, and Thou and me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.
Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me, for I am.
But they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.
For thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee. And these have known that thou hast sent me, and I have declared unto them thy name.
And we'll declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Having the opportunity to listen in on a prayer for one who loves us, Praying for us to the Father on our behalf.
Just reminded of the verse in James 516. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
When the Lord Jesus was here in this world, in his pathway, he was hated, wasn't he?
In fact, he was hated without a 'cause it says they hated me without a cause. He was one and the only one who went about in a perfect pathway. Did the will of God His Father dispense blessing on every hand?
And they hated him. And we can't expect any better treatment than the Lord Jesus got.
If we're going to live for his glory here in this world, so often there's this thought amongst believers that we need to try to fit in and be accepted. And we want that acceptance. Sometimes said to young people, it's not wrong to be to desire to be accepted, but who's acceptance do we really want? And so the Lord Jesus says to the disciples, they'll they'll hate you, they've hated me, they'll hate you, said another place. The servant is not greater than his Lord.
And brethren, in the measure in which you and I live for God's glory here, reflecting something of the glories of Christ in our lives, in the measure in which where we walk as a heavenly sanctified people they are the world is going to hate us. They're not going to understand. We can't expect better treatment than the Lord Jesus got here. And so he in the end of the first or the middle of the 14th verse, and the world hath hated them.
They hated the Lord Jesus. Now, are you and I looking for any better treatment? Not that we go out and look for opportunities to be hated, or we look for opportunities to be persecuted or reproached, but in the measure I say, in which you and I are faithful and reflect something of our Savior in our lives, the world is going to reject us.
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John and his epistle explains this a little bit more.
Let's turn to it. It's in first John chapter 4.
First John chapter 4 and verse 9, Whoso is born of God does not commit sin.
For his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin.
I'm sorry first, thank you first John chapter 3. I'll start over first John three and verse 9. Whosoever is born of God does not commit Sid for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
And this is the message that ye have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him, because his own works were evil, and his brothers righteous. Marvel not, my brethren, if the world.
Hates you.
That is, while it's not so apparent on the surface.
There's two systems in this world today, and only two really. There's that which has Satan behind it, and there's that which has God the Father behind it, that which has Satan behind it. As it says the whole world in the chapter 5, the whole world lieth in the wicked one.
The Lord said to some to whom he spoke, who hated him, Ye are of your Father, the devil. That is the source of that hatred within them which was in them, but it was instigated by Satan. And that system of things that we keep calling the world is that system which has Satan behind it, which stands in all that opposes what is of the Father, whose delight and glory is to magnify and honor His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And consequently Cain as the picture who was really the 1St man that belonged to the world. The world began with Cain. He was one who saw his brother righteous and he wicked and it caused him to hate him. Sad isn't it? But I mean the world has a saying misery loves company and consequently.
Saint Cain looking at a righteous brother.
Knowing what he was in himself, he couldn't stand it. He said I hate him and it caused him to rise up in murder against him. And in reality the world has said to God, we will not have your Son away with him, and consequently that which he represents and that which speaks of righteousness.
Condemns what's wicked to live a righteous life in an unrighteous world speaks to the conscience of people, and they don't like it in reality. And so they want to get rid of or have a hatred, whether it's seen or not, outwardly it's there. I don't really like they might use that word. I don't really like that person. Why not? Because that person's life.
Stands in a condemnation of their own.
But if you, as it's been also said, the world likes the fruit, but it doesn't like the root. That is if people do nice things to other people and from a Christian that fruit of is OK, but if it connects itself with its root, which is the Lord Jesus, then it's no, we don't want it.
Chapter 15 it says in verse 19 if you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world that I have chosen you out of the world.
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On account of this, the world hates you.
They want what, 4 words, their agenda, and it's directly contrary to God and His Word. So it is characteristic of the believer in the Lord Jesus that He is.
Heavenly.
We are not of this world, and that's something that we need to live in the enjoyment of. Brethren. We are in this world, but we're not of it.
Just seems like there's been a real push on the part of Christians at large to get involved in political process.
And so often you say you don't get involved in that. They really look down on you. It's really looked on as your Christian duty to get involved into political affairs.
But we if we understand our position, we are ambassadors. An ambassador is never to take part in the politics of the country where he lives. He is only there to represent the country from where he comes. We are men of heavenly birth and we are to represent heaven and represent Christ. And like has been said, if they rejected the Lord Jesus.
They're going to reject and hate us as well.
We need to be careful not to make ourselves hated, but like Jim said that to live.
Uh, as representatives of the Lord Jesus, just think how he passed through this world dispensing, blessing everywhere he went, dispensing, blessing, and yet he was hated. That's what we need to do too. You need to be occupied with good works.
Good work, Sir, very much a part of the Christian life.
But that doesn't mean that they will like us.
Paul spoke of himself as an ambassador in bonds. Interesting expression, isn't it? Because usually an ambassador has diplomatic immunity, and if it, if he does something he shouldn't, usually there's a reprimand or whatever, but he has diplomatic immunity. But Paul didn't have diplomatic immunity, did he? He was hated for his testimony and the truth that he presented, and he ended up in prison as a result.
Maybe I could just say this too about an ambassador. It's often been pointed out that there are three things that characterize an ambassador.
If we send an ambassador from Ottawa to Washington, like Bob said, he is to represent, to portray to the American people the image that we as Canadians desire to portray to the American people. And if he doesn't do that, we reserve the right to recall him after remonstrating with him. That's really what the sin unto death is that John speaks of in his epistle. It's really the recalling of the ambassador.
A Christian may act in such a way to sow disgrace, Christ in heaven that he may be recalled, he may be taken home to heaven. But the other thing, two things that an ambassador does is, one, he takes up the interests of his own people in that country that he's representing. If I go to a country where there's political and civil unrest, I'm encouraged to register at the Canadian consulate or embassy. And if there's a problem while I'm in that country.
I can go to the embassy or they will try to ferret me out wherever I'm in trouble, and they take up my interest because I'm a fellow citizen. Brethren, we're here not to just to represent Christ, but to take up the interests of our fellow citizens, other members of the family of God. We ought to have a care one for another. And the other thing an ambassador does is he tells the requirements of becoming a citizen of his country.
If I want to become an American citizen, I can go to the American Embassy in Ottawa and they will give me the instructions, the paperwork, maybe help walk me through the detailed of applying for American citizenship. We're here to tell others how they can be citizens of heaven, but that's all we're here to do. We're not of this world. Suppose our ambassador showed up at a polling station in Washington on Election Day. Why they laugh at him.
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They say, they say you're not a citizen of this country. You're here, but you're a citizen of another country. And to take up interests of other of your own citizens, they wouldn't let them vote for one moment. Brethren, why do we become so entangled with the things of this world? It's because we forget that we are citizens of heaven. They are not of this world, even as I am not of this world.
Now notice the Lord doesn't pray that we'll be taken out of the world, but that will be kept in it. I want to just in that regard, notice a well known portion in the book of Titus.
Because we talk about, we've talked about not being of the world and that which we ought to be involved in. And maybe I hear someone say, well, how do we get through then? What is our responsibility left here? And I've got to go to work, I've got to go to school, I've got operate in the community where God has placed me and so on. But there's some good instruction for us in Titus chapter 2. I'll start reading at verse 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared to all men.
Teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. Now notice this, We should live soberly, righteously and godly. When brethren in this present world or this present age, you know, we might say, well, it's pretty bad. The world system is so bad today and things are true, are darkening morally and spiritually over the Western world every day. And it is a difficult day.
But brethren, we can left here in this world with the resources we have in Christ, we can on the one hand deny that which is unholy. We grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.
And then grace teaches us to live soberly, righteously, godly. When right now, in this present age, right at the end of 2009 and of 2010 dawns in a few days, there will be the resources to live in this present age, in this present system of things, no matter how bad or how dark it has become. We don't have to compromise. You say it's a different day from our fathers and grandfathers.
It's a different day from the early brethren. It's a different day from Paul and John. Yes, it is. But the resources are the same. And wherever we find ourselves in our history, we can live in this way. And then he adds something. Looking, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing, looking beyond the present evil world, the the present world, the present age. We have to work. Someone, I think it was Nick quoted that verse earlier. Where there is no vision, the people perish or cast off restraint.
Why is it we get so entangled in the world? Why is it we settle down here?
Because we don't have the future in view. There's another world, brethren.
And we can live for God's glory now with that other world in view.
With the looking for the Lord's coming and looking for the glorious appearing in the Kingdom and all that is ahead.
When Christ has his full exaltation, if we have that before our souls and a sense of grace, we're gonna live in this way now. Not because he takes us out of the world, but because we have the resources to live in this present world.
And so we have the Son's place before the Father, but we now have the Son's place here in the world. Tell me, well, that's what defines our place here. If we could just turn to a couple of verses. Romans 15 is to elaborate the character of the world's hatred of the believer.
Romans 15 and verse 3 quoting the 69th Psalm.
For even Christ pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee.
Fell on me.
We know there was enmity in the heart of man toward God, but if we can say respectfully, man couldn't get at God, the enmity that lay within his heart. But when the Lord Jesus came into this world as that dependent and perfect man, all the enmity of man's heart vented itself against the Son of God. They now had one in whom they could heap every insult and every indignity against, and he felt it perfectly. All the hatred of man's heart against God, indeed against the Father, was felt.
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By the sun, and now with the sun going on high as we have in our chapter, we are left here.
In his place here in this world, and Paul takes up this place that reproaches now that would fall on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who's now gone on high are directed towards his own that are left here in this world. If we could also turn to a verse in Proverbs chapter 16, a well known scripture, but we might say, well, how do we reconcile this verse with everything that we've heard with respect to the world's enmity?
Proverbs 16 and verse 7.
When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Perhaps the keyword here in this verse is His enemies. That is, there's things that you and I can do.
They can bring the wrath of man upon us. Perhaps it's our unkindness, our rudeness, our lack of consideration, whatever it might be, that will heat to ourselves. Enemies. I can create enemies on my own.
And if my ways were in fact pleasing to the Lord, there are many things that I would not feel the ire and disdain of man about because my ways are pleasing to the Lord. And so in that case, we can ask ourselves when there's opposition, whether it's from a fellow believer or some in the world, maybe there is something in my life that is not honoring to the Lord. And the way I know that is because of this opposition that I'm getting. But that's quite a different thing from being here in the sun's place and having that enmity of the world against me.
Because I'm not of the world, because I'm not part and parcel of the agenda of this world. So I just mentioned those things to distinguish. This has already been alluded to, those that might be opposed to us or to me with respect to our ways. But here it has to do with us being in the son's place in his absence here in the world.
Verse 15 That thou shouldst keep them from the evil. Here we have the Son as a man praying to the Father that we might be kept from the evil. How does the Father do that? How are we kept from the evil that is in the world? I'd like to comment on that in the last few verses of John's first epistle and 1St John chapter 5.
It says at the very end of the Epistle, verse 18.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and the wicked one touches them Not. Just gonna comment as we go along in these verses.
What he's saying is God has given to us a perfect life in nature, and just as the Lord Jesus as a man in this world could not be touched by the evil because there was nothing in his life that responded to it, the evil one could not touch him. So in us there is a life that cannot be touched by the evil because it does not respond to it. And so that provision.
Has been given to us. Then he goes on to say, and we know that we are of God.
And the whole world lieth in wickedness. It's important. We've had it before us. We might suspect that the world is not so bad. It's uh, yeah, it's got its problems, but it's. But God, if we're listening to what he's saying to us today, he's telling us the world is bad. In fact, it's controlled by the wicked one. And so we need that knowledge to be kept, uh, there keeping.
And God keeping us involves understanding and attachment to the Lord.
So then in verse 20 he says, And we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding.
That we may know him. That is true. Satan is the father of lies.
We have to have the truth to be kept from the evil of what is presented to us. That's really a lie. And the world is just one big lie. It's just one big lie. It promises what it can't deliver, and it promises in a way that appeals to the fallen nature that is within man. And so it appeals. Satan uses the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life.
To keep his goods in peace and in *******. And so the world is really a place of ******* that man is in. And yet it says of us, we know him that is true. We are in him, is true even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. And then I particularly want to notice the last verse. Little children or just children, keep yourselves from idols. What draws this into the world?
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We have a fallen nature still within us that is attracted.
By its character, what's in us to something or other that this world has to offer us, and behind it is evil. And so we are given this final exhortation. Keep yourselves from idols. A brother at home likes to make this statement.
Christ will keep you from the world, or the world will keep you from Christ.
That is, if I allow something to be more important to me that the world has to offer.
In effect, Satan uses it to make an idol out of it and draws my heart away from the Father and the Son. On the other hand, the Father draws my heart to the Son and to Himself.
In a way that will spoil the world for me. And so the Lord Jesus was that perfect man who was always drawn by the Father. Nothing that the world had to offer was an attraction to his heart, and there was no idolatry there.
When he speaks of sanctification here, this is practical sanctification.
To read Scripture, God would have us to, to distinguish the difference between, uh, what is positional sanctification? What is practical sanctification? Talking to somebody before the meeting and of these two things, I said, actually a scripture does have three different aspects of sanctification. There is first of all absolute and a positional sanctification and we've already spoken about that. That's.
What God does when we are saved, we are set apart for Him. But then practical sanctification, which is what our chapter has before us, is a perfecting of holiness in our lives, and God uses various means to accomplish that. There's about seven different places that I found in the New Testament that emphasize practical sanctification. It's also called progressive. So if you've read the various books and wonder what these different words are.
Sometimes.
Will use different words to designate the same thing and it can be confusing, but just remember that positional or absolute sanctification is one and the same. Then progressive or practical is the working of setting ourselves apart from evil in this world through having an object before our souls. But then as as I said, there is also in the New Testament the mention of a couple times where there is what we might call relative.
Or external sanctification. And what I'm talking about now is when a person is set apart, but not by a work of God, but he set apart because he's in a clean place, he is looked at as being sanctified in an external way. And the example that I could point to would be in First Corinthians Chapter 7, when there is a mixed marriage, husband or wife is saved and the other is not the unbelieving husband, it tells us there is sanctified.
And then in Hebrews 10 we have it again with regard to the nation of Israel, that is, those who had taken Christian position by profession, but there was not reality if they were to go back against it. He warns them there that they could, that they were sanctified by the blood of the covenant, but not by any inward real work of faith.
Only because of the position that they took in meeting with the Christian company if they were to return to the.
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To the temple and all of its order, they would be apostasy, apostatizing. So I just mentioned that because when you read Scripture, you kind of need to know the context that you're looking at and and understand.
Which aspect of sanctification is before you here? As I say, is is the is practical sanctification.
Would that be the case in verse 19 as well?
Yes.
I believe so.
It's interesting in verse 19 when he says, for their sakes, I sanctify myself.
What he was referring to is that he was going to return to his father. He would no longer be with them. He was going to set himself apart from them.
And go on high to carry on his intercessory work as a high priest. But it is interesting if you go back to chapter 10, that you'll find that, uh, he sanctified himself to come into the world.
Let's read that now, chapter 10 and verse 36, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world.
And so on. So the Lord Jesus was set apart to come into this world for a purpose, to to act and to live for to display the heart of God the Father and to accomplish redemption. But now having looked at least taking the position that he is in this chapter, as if the work has all been done, He now speaks about sanctifying himself and going back to His Father and leaving the disciples here. And the purpose for it was to give them an object for their hearts.
To be occupied with that would draw them away from this world. So He uses His Word and Himself as the two great means to affect practical sanctification in the life of the believer. His Word would exercise us with regard to things that may be in our lives. And as we read it it, it lays bare the heart and the conscience and the motives are laid bare, and we see things in ourselves that we never realized before. And God, of course, manifest these things as we handle the Word.
To bring us to a judgment above that, but also outside of ourselves, the Lord Jesus.
Is now on high in the glory as an object for our hearts, and the more we are drawn after Him.
And taken up with his beauty, the more the world will grow strangely dim. So these two things are used to accomplish practical sanctification in our, our lives. Bruce, would that explain, uh, Romans 5 verse 10 for it when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son that set the cross. Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
That's his life and.
As our intercessor in the presence of God, his life on high, isn't it?
What would you do without that?
I was just going to say, what would we do without that? We're saved by his life. We can't do without that. Intercessing one in the presence of the Father on high.
But we're not isolationist to be sanctified or set apart doesn't mean that we go up and live in some on some mountain as an isolationist or in some monastery or something like that. Because it's interesting that the Lord Jesus is the sanctified one was sent into the world and who was more accessible than the Lord Jesus in his pathway here? They could come, parents could bring their children and he took them up and blessed them. He could sit at meet with different ones. He touched the leper and healed them and cleanse them and.
The years of the death, and he sat in the House of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and so on.
He wasn't. He didn't walk a path of isolation, he walked a path of separation.
But they're two very different things. And it's interesting in this prayer that on the one hand he speaks of them, of them being sanctified, and he speaks of practical sanctification, but he says he's sending them into the world.
As the Father sent me into the world, he's sending them into the world. And so, brethren, we're here to walk a path of separation.
From evil, But we are also here as sent into the world to be a testimony to represent Christ, to take up His interest all the things that we have been Speaking of.
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So there is a path of separation for us. We need to walk in practical holiness and sanctification.
But it's not isolation. He doesn't speak of being sent into the world.
On his behalf, in the way of testimony, until he has spoken first of practical sanctification through the truth. I think that order is significant.
Will be no testimony for the Lord at all if we're going on with some evil.
There needs to be the working of practical sanctification, and then the the testimony that we will render, of course, will be bright and powerful and strong as a bright and shining light.
That word in the end of verse 17 I find helpful. Thy word is truth.
There you have truth.
Absolutely.
Uh, the Lord Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life there it is in his absolute quality as well in first John chapter 5.
It is interesting that you have it there.
And then, uh, Mr. Darby's translation at the end of the verse, it says for the spirit capital S is.
The truth there it is absolute as well.
And it's interesting in UMM.
Jeremiah 1010 in the Old Testament.
I'm gonna read it in the Darby translation as well. It says but Jehovah Elohim is truth.
God is truth. It's the true God. He's known as the true God.
It's interesting all those places you have the truth used in its absoluteness.
That, but beyond which there is no appeal. It is the Absolute, It is the final word. There is such a thing as truth in US, brethren, but we cannot.
Say that that's absolute in umm John chapter or third John, the apostle speaks to gas and he says, uh, in verse 3. For I rejoiced greatly when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee. Thank God if the truth is in us, that's what should be the case.
But I think it is important when we speak, sometimes we use that word, the truth.
And sometimes I fear we make ourselves a reference point in connection with it, and people look at us and they say the truth. What is that I see?
And there are things that don't relate to the truth in US, brethren.
So it's important when we speak of the truth and it's absoluteness to.
Now we're referring to the Word of God, to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our God is the true God.
I thought that the definition of truth is just simply God's viewpoint.
But he has expressed it, he has spoken, so we know his viewpoint and that's what we have in front of us here, says what we're doing.
Looking at the truth of the Word of God.
And then you can't get it anywhere else.
That's an interesting verse in 2nd Corinthians 13, isn't it? Uh.
Maybe we can read it because it's an important verse.
2nd Corinthians 13 verse eight. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.
If a man lives as a transgressor, he's going to prove the truth that the way of the transgressor is hard. He will just prove the truth of God. You live according to the truth of God. You're going to prove the blessedness of it too. So whatever way you go, you only prove the truth of God.
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Why are we told?
Alright, valuable Freddie, Gold or silver?
Why the truth of teleconference? Valuable thing we've got down here.
Rich and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Still have grease, you still have truth. The Lord Himself is up there and He abides the truth, and he words the truth, and the Spirit is truth. You can't lose the truth if we want it.
I remember in high school one time my UH math teacher said that the Lord Jesus stood before Pilate and he asked him what is truth?
And the Lord didn't give him an answer, so we don't know what truth is.
It just, I was young and I, I sure wish you'd ask that question now. He had truth standing before him because truth is the exact representation of what is.
We don't say God is truth, but we say that the Lord Jesus could say I am the way, the truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me it wasn't. It wasn't really the Lord Jesus on trial, was it? It was pilot on trial. He condemned the truth, and in doing so He condemned Himself. To receive the truth takes a state of soul, which Pilate didn't have.
So why answer him? And sometimes we'll get in a position like that in dialogue that there's no use carrying on the conversation.
Sometimes people will leave the Lord's table and they think that they've taken the truth with them. What can you say? They they go out ridiculing the very essence of truth.
That there is no truth. It's up to my choice.
I mean, somebody could read John one verse 14 of the Long Blessings said.
Go ahead.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
The glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And it's singular too, isn't it? We speak about truth and we understand what we mean, various aspects of the truth, but we find that the truth is singular because it rises and falls together. If a person rejects one statement of the word of God, they really bring into question the whole truth of God. If you question one thing that I tell you, you have every right to question another thing. And so we need to take the truth as as a as a whole. That's why it's such a serious thing to add or take away from the word of God.
If you add to what has been what God has said, well, you're questioning the truth. Has God really presented it all?
In its fullness, if you take away from it, as I say, you're really undermining the very foundation.
It's like a man came to a reading meeting one time and umm, he was.
Asking some questions in that connection. And he was saying, I think they were reading in First Corinthians and they were talking about the head covering. And he said, oh, that was just Paul's opinion and that was just what Paul thought. And so an older brother who was at the reading meeting very wisely said to this man, what do you base your salvation on? And the man said, I base it on Acts 16. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
And this older brother said to him, if that if it was just Paul's opinion as to a head covering in First Corinthians, how do you know it wasn't just Paul's opinion there in Acts 16?
And he made the point, I believe, that if you bring into question one statement or one word.
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You brought it all in. You brought everything into question. And when we talk about the truth, we need to realize that it is the truth in its entirety. And that's why it's important to earnestly contend for the faith again. It's the truth of God that was once delivered to the Saints, and we need to tenaciously hold on to the whole truth of God that He has revealed to us.
That would be the truth as it is in Jesus.
John One verse 17 had it before, but I'm going to read it again. And Mr. Darby's translation for the law was given by Moses. Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ. When we're talking about the truth this afternoon, we're really not talking about what?
People call facts on things that man discovers.
Water is composed of two elements, hydrogen and oxygen, and so on. Those are facts, those are knowledge. But man is not able in himself ever to discover by himself truth. Man learns, he discovers more, he knows more.
And but he's ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. He's not. It's not in man to be able to discover truth by himself. And so this verse tells us that in the history of man, truth had never been fully known or made known to mankind until Jesus Christ the sun comes into the world.
It's the word subsist, that is, in its reality, for the first time ever, truth from God as a revelation had been brought into the world and made known to us and maintained in His Person, as was already said it. Truth is the perfect expression of what is, and the Lord Jesus Christ is for us the perfect.
Revelation and expression and maintainer of that which will be and is for all eternity.
And without him, we would never know it. We would never have that knowledge of what is.
It is as God reveals it to us. Was saying to somebody earlier. There's really only two ways to know anything.
Either by your own experience or by the testimony of someone else, those are the only two ways that we know things. And so every one of us has learned certain things that we have experienced. And so it's within us to say, well, I know that. Do we know it as a universal? No, We only really know it with respect to ourselves and somebody else or some other people around us, and we may share it.
But when it comes to other facts as we call them, or truth as we use that expression.
Who in this room knows that Abraham Lincoln ever existed?
Not one of us can say we know he existed by personal experience. The only way we know that such a person ever existed is if we choose to accept what others have said to us, and thereby we know well what we know as truth that is before us is what God has chosen to tell us.
And to reveal to us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And man in unbelief chooses not to accept what God says, and therefore he accepts the lie of Satan. And he never knows truth, but we know it absolutely in our from God, and we can rest in that which is say I know what truth is, I know the truth.
I know the Lord Jesus Christ and it will never change. And that Do I know God? Yes, I know God. How do I know him?
I have him fully expressed to me in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that way we have a, a foundation, a bedrock of certainty. Uh, make one other comment that God also uses concerning his truth to us. Suppose a brother says something in this room this afternoon and a moment or two later another brother says something else. And if they don't quite align with each other.
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And it's happened this weekend. Whether we all noticed it or not, things have been said that aren't perfectly the same or consistent with each other.
What does the Spirit of God do? The Spirit of God will confirm in the soul that which is from God as truth, and will not confirm it.
If it is not the truth, and so if we are subject to the the Spirit within us, then we don't have to contend for truth. The Spirit of God is that which makes it good in our souls and gives us the certainty or the inward conscious knowledge that what it is is true.
And so, brethren, God has made a wonderful provision for us to know Him.
And to know Him with certainty, not hoping that maybe we have a right idea of God or all the things that this world never knows anything with certainty. Science never discovers anything with absolute certainty. Never. It is always subject to re examination and evaluation and new viewpoints and so on. And the world has come to believe that everything is relative and nothing is absolute. And so they say, the truth is what you make of it or what you perceive it to be.
That's all the lie of Satan. It is not. Truth is, and truth is revealed, and truth is that which sets us apart from all that is a lie.
And so you have to start with God, don't you? Otherwise you are lost.
So it says even connected with truth knowledge in proverbs it says the fear of the Lord.
Is the beginning of knowledge. It also says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. No one puts knowledge in its right or has wisdom unless it begins with giving God his right place.
And respect.
You'll never have anything as you should have it. You'll never understand anything. You'll never walk in anything I say you. I'm of course including myself. None of us will walk in anything rightly or even understand anything rightly, if it does not begin with putting the Lord in His right place of respect before our souls as well as recognizing our relationship to Him.
The Lord is that which puts us into a relationship one with another, and that is the beginning of knowledge.
We have 15 minutes, brother, and, uh, let's see if we can get down to the last portion of the chapter 2. Uh, so precious, these things, so important, so necessary.
I don't mean to curtail you, Brother Don.
We don't want to miss, as Bob said, the last section of this prayer which is really from verse 22 to the end. Maybe we can just reiterate what was said as to this prayer in three different sections. In the first section, the 1St 5 verses we had, we said the Father glorified in the Son. I have glorified thee on the earth and finished the work which thou gave us to me to do.
In verses 6 through 21 we have Christ glorified in the Saints and we spent a great deal of time talking about that and how the Lord Jesus is not here in this world the way He was when he walked to the glory of God the Father.
But He's left us behind, so that they, those glories might be, might shine out in our lives now. But in this last section we have the the Saints glorified with Christ. Not to skip over, but just let me read the 24th verse. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou gavest me. For thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.
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Isn't it wonderful, brethren, to think that just as the Father is perfectly set forth in the Son?
So there's a day when Christ will be perfectly set forth in his people.
He's coming to be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that are about Him in that day.
We don't always reflect now the glories of Christ like we ought to. There are things that come in to hinder the outshining of Christ in our lives. But the day is coming, brethren, when we're going to fully reflect unhinderedly.
The glories of Christ and that ought to encourage and thrill our hearts because the glory given to Christ as a man.
He has secured and will share with His own for all eternity. And we need to dwell on this a little bit. At the end of this meeting, we're going to go back home from these wonderful meetings. Going to be a lot of difficulties, a lot of things to discourage, to distract us, to cause shadows and shades to come into our lives. But to think, brethren, that there's a day coming when we're going to be there with that glorified man, and we're gonna be have bodies of glory like unto his body of glory.
And then the day's gonna come when we're gonna appear in glory with him, and when he appears, we're gonna be with him and we're gonna be like him and we're gonna see him as he is, and so on. I think it's a tremendous encouragement at the end of these meetings.
Before we leave verse 21, just like to.
Share a thought that I have enjoyed very much. Talks here again about the oneness of the Lord's people, that they all may be one, as Thou Father art in me, and I in Thee communion. But it's for testimony that they also may be one in US, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.
I really enjoyed thought that Brother Chuck Hendricks used to give in the book of the Acts at the beginning of the church's history. There was a fulfillment of the Lord's Prayer this way, and I think it's in the 4th chapter of the book of Acts.
And, umm.
Verse 32 it says and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. So there was a fulfillment for that moment of the Lord's Prayer and of course it's going to be fulfilled in glory again, wonderful brethren, to see that that's His desire for us and we should act in consistency with.
That desire, we live in a day when there's a lot of religious confusion amongst those that, uh, are called by the name of the Lord Jesus. And we need to, even though there is that confusion to go on in view of the truth of God, that's his desire for us and the time is going to come when we will all be one.
You have to look at her either in her beginning.
In the Axe, as you pointed out, or at the end of John's ministry in Revelation, he presents her there.
In a future day in the her millennial glory as the city reigning with Christ, and coming down over the earth, and there every gate with several was every gate was a Pearl, and every Pearl several Pearl was one Pearl.
And so you see her in her unity and her beauty again. But what's in between what you read to us in Acts and what John presents to us at the end, isn't always a oneness. It isn't always, as we would say, a pretty picture.
Lot of failure has come in, and brethren, we have to hang our heads and admit that we are part of that failure and ruin that has come in and the outward disunity that we see in Christians in different pockets and fellowships of Christendom. But again, brethren, to look on to that day, we're going to be there with the glorified man and we're going to be in a glorified state. And when the church is presented to this world in a future day, she's presented in all her beautiness.
And all her oneness and unity.
We have both sides of that in verses 21, two and three.
Verse 21 The oneness is that the world may believe In verse 23 the oneness is that the world may know.
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In verse 21, the world may believe that he was sent of the Father when it sees those that are his in oneness of testimony and expression. And so does the world believe or does it not Well, when it's a matter of failure, we might say no, the world doesn't believe. It looks at the people of God as a whole and it says I don't know that I want that stuff. I don't there there's is it where it's not a clear statement.
That the Son was sent of the Father into the world, and as to result. But in verse 22 he then says, the glory which thou hast given me, I have given them that they may be one ease. And as we are, one looks onward to the millennial day. And when we are taken home to heaven, then we shall be brought into that safe place of glory with him and association. And then it results in verse 23.
Uh, that the world may know and the world will know. That is when the world sees the Church or the heavenly family, when the world sees that heavenly family in glory and association with himself, there won't be any matter of believing then it will be such a perfect and complete and proper testimony of the truth of the oneness of themselves with himself that the world will simply say we know.
We know. And the world. The coming day, the world is gonna know, and it's going to know when it sees us in that associated glory with himself.
We're not there yet. The prayer, this part of the prayer hasn't come to its answer. It's still future answer to the prayer that was is recorded here for us. But God isn't going to stop short of giving the full answer to what the Lord has asked for absolutely everything that he asks for.
Is according to the will of God and it will have its perfect end result as these verse 23 will be.
We were speaking earlier in the chapter about the different glories of the Lord Jesus. Here in verse 22 it speaks about the glory which thou gavest me. I have given them. Here is an acquired glory which He shares with us.
And then in verse 24 is.
A glory, he says, that they may behold my glory, which thou given me.
For thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. Here is the glory that is given to Him.
An acquired glory, but that W uh, it doesn't say that He will share it with us, but that we will see that glory. I'd like to hear some thoughts about the difference between those two verses. I'm not sure that I understand.
Verse 24 is to tell us about something that is in our future.
That the Lord Jesus gives us one reason why He wants us to be with Himself.
Rather than the scriptures. Doesn't always when it talks about the Lord and his desire, it's always that we might be with Him. He doesn't express it. Oh, I want them to be in heaven.
Heaven wouldn't be heaven if he wasn't there, and his own desire is very personal. It isn't that we live in the same place where he lives.
His desire for us is very intensely individual and collective in this glory sense of it, but it's always to be with Christ. Father. I will that they may be with me.
Is always the primary focus of his own heart, but since he is there where he is, he's saying Father. I want them to be with me where I am.
That they may see that glory which you have given to me. We don't see it now. It has not been made known to us. We're not. It's a family.
Special treasure that is still future for our hearts to look forward to and say, oh the Lord when we're in his presence, then we're going to see something that right now we can't. It's not known to us in its detail, but it is an expression of his own heart as one of the reasons given why.
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He wants us to be with himself.
It's precious to our hearts to think that God has given him a glory that is we haven't seen yet. We've seen some of them. We see some of them by faith. But this one is still future and still special. And we will get it when we are with Him.
Get it? It's not the right word. We will get to see you and enjoy it. As Bob said, it's not for it's not our glory, it's his personal.
Acquired glory.
They are like him. We shall know as we are known.
Three things at the end of this chapter that he shares with us. That is very sweet.
In verse 22, he shares redemption glory that his Father gave him with us.
Then in verse 23, he shares the Father's love. Then in verse 24, he shares the place that he has in the Father's presence. That's going to be ours for all eternity.
What a wonderful destiny we have to look forward to.
#18 is the appendix.
And it is so I shall be like thy son #18 is the attendant.
Chapter 3.
2nd Corinthians, chapter 3.
Glass verse.
But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
And then just over in Deuteronomy.
The last chapter.
Moses and uh.
Verse 10.
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
And then up in verse seven, and Moses wasn't 120 years old when he died. His eye was not dimmed, nor his natural force abated. This prey, our loving God and our Father.