Address—Bill Prost
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My guess I didn't need this.
Before we start, I'd like to tell a couple of stories, if that's all right. This is to be an address to Christians, but I think that includes every Christian, whether children or young people or middle-aged or older ones.
I can remember probably about 25 years ago now, being asked to take a meeting at a Bible conference. And as I was walking up to the podium, an older brother, older than I anyway, and I knew him fairly well. I'd stayed in his home and he set out in a he said in a fairly loud voice.
Everyone heard it, but if I could use the term, a kind of a plaintive voice, he said.
Have you got something for the heart?
I appreciated that.
We need.
Ministry for the heart and we need ministry for the conscience, and it's good to have both.
But this afternoon I proposed to speak a little bit more to the heart.
I'd like to sing hymn #225.
But before we sing it.
I'd like to tell you a bit of the story behind it.
Makes it come alive.
You know, back in the late 1700s, there was a man born in the United States here by the name of John Howard Payne.
Payne.
And he was involved in acting in an opera work and that kind of thing, and spent much of his time in Europe.
And in 1823 for one of the operas which he was involved in.
He wrote that well known worldly song Home Sweet Home.
Mid pleasures and palaces, though you may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. A charm from the skies seems to hollow us there, which seek through the world is not met with elsewhere, and so on.
An Englishman by the name of Henry Bishop wrote the tune to it, and it became instantly popular.
They tell me that it was the most popular song sung by the soldiers on both sides, the North and the South, in the American Civil War.
Sometimes they would.
Sit on either side of the river and see who could play it the loudest.
But if you look in the back of our hymn book, well, we'll stop. We'll say it. We'll say a little more about John Howard Payne.
His life didn't always go very smoothly. It seldom does, or did anyway in those days for actors and actresses. And many times he found himself in very difficult circumstances.
And I remember reading a story about him, how that one day he found himself in London, England, in the Hampstead area, the wealthy area of London, and he had no hope, Imagine no home, no place to go, and he was huddling under the bushes in the garden in front of one of those well to do homes.
In that Hampstead area.
And while he was there, suddenly he heard the strains of music coming from the.
Living room of that home. He was sitting right under the big Bay window. He heard the piano playing and then people singing. And what do you think they were singing?
The song that he had written Home sweet home and the chorus goes home, home, sweet, sweet home.
There's no place like home. There's no place like home.
Very, very sad and I don't know that he ever got home. He ended up being buried abroad, I think later on the American government.
Exhumed his body and brought it back to America, but I don't know that he ever knew the Savior or knew what it was. Took forward to that home in heaven.
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If you look in the back of your hymn book beside this number, you will see the name Denim DENH AM Denim David Denham.
He lived almost exactly at the same time as Howard Payne, was born almost the same year, lived almost the same time on into the 19th century.
And he was a bit of an outcast too, but for a totally different reason.
He could not bring himself to belong to the Church of England, and in those days, if you weren't part of the Church of England, you didn't count. In fact, they weren't even allowed to be buried in the regular cemeteries, had to be buried in the cemetery for dissenters.
Just as a little aside, he's buried in what's called Bun Hill Field Cemetery in London.
And there are all kinds of excuse me?
All kinds of hymn writers buried there. Joseph Hart who wrote How Good is the God we adore, Joseph Stennett, who wrote some of our Little Flock hymns as well as this man John Bunyan was buried there or is buried there. Missus Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, and a number of others. If you're ever in London, it's worth a visit.
But back to David Denham.
He knew the Lord, and he wrote this hymn as the spiritual counterpart to Home Sweet Home, set to the same meter.
Made to be sung to the same tune.
And it has a chorus too, that we don't have in our hymn book.
I already quoted you the course from Howard Payne's hymn or song.
David Denham's course went like this.
Home, home.
Sweet sweet home.
Prepare me, dear Savior, for glory, my home.
Beautiful.
That's what we're going to talk about this afternoon.
Let's sing this hymn together though 225. I'll try and start it and the rest of you can pick it up.
It seems of confusion.
And priceless, sustained.
I cannot see these.
We.
Are.
Seeing.
Glory.
The glory.
Where all high reading.
From the earth, from the truth.
To commit to my grace.
Let's say and say ignore.
Let's look to the Lord for His help.
Blessed God our Father, we thank Thee that we can sing with confidence concerning that whole, that home, Lord Jesus, which Thou hast gone to prepare for us.
We thank thee for that blessed hope.
As we open Thy word today, we pray that Thou make it more real to our hearts.
Fill our hearts, bless Savior, with a sense of thy love, a sense of the Father's love.
A sense of all that thou hast prepared for us.
And all that Thou art giving us to enjoy in our hearts and souls, even now.
We commend our time together to Thee, then, seeking Thy help, our God, and the leading and guiding of Thy Holy Spirit. For we ask it, Lord Jesus, in Thy alone, worthy and precious name, Amen.
I'd like to turn to John's Gospel chapter 14.
It's already been referred to once today, and we'll probably spend most of our time in it. We won't move around very much. We may make reference to a few other scriptures.
John 14 and verse one. Let not your heart be troubled.
Ye believe in God, believe also in me.
And here's the verse In my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am.
There ye may be also.
And whither I go, ye know, and the way ye know.
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Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
And from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.
Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
And how sayest thou then?
Show us the Father.
We'll stop there for a few moments.
What a beautiful expression that is the Father's house.
I don't know of any other place in the Word of God where we get that exact expression. Many references, of course, to that home, many references to where the Lord Jesus is going to take us and His presence there. But this, as far as I know in the Word of God, is the only reference to the Father's home.
And there's a reason for that, and we'll get to that in a few moments.
But what an expression the father's house.
I suppose pretty much everyone here has a place that they can call home.
And we enjoy being at home as we sung in that hymn and as John Howard Payne.
Brought out so vividly in the song he wrote.
Home has a special place for us.
I can still remember, long after both of our children were growing up and married, that one of them came home and I wasn't surprised. She didn't ring the doorbell, she didn't knock on the door, she just walked right in.
Wasn't her home, properly speaking at that point? No, but she felt at home. She didn't need to knock on the door. She didn't need to ask to come in. She knew that she would be welcome.
What a home the Lord has gone to prepare for us. Have you ever tried to imagine what it will be like to be there? I must admit that I have tried. I will remember when I was about 5 years old having a conversation with my mother about it. I was brought up in a Christian home and heard the gospel.
Right from the younger my youngest years and I was saved as a small boy.
So at this point I was truly saved and I remember having a conversation with my mother about heaven.
And she didn't say very much about what it would be like to be there, except that she emphasized it's where the Lord Jesus is. Isn't that beautiful? And throughout the Word of God we don't read, at least not very often, about a believers being taken home to heaven.
Yes, it is heaven and there is no question about that.
But what will make that heaven a home are two things. Two things. One will be the presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as a man, as a man. Turn over a little bit here and we'll go down a little further in the chapter.
It says there.
Oh, here we are. Later on in the chapter verse 28.
Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away.
And come again unto you.
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Now here it is, If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said I go under the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, he might believe.
I wondered for a while why the Lord Jesus said that. Why does He at this point in time emphasize my Father is greater than I?
In one sense, if we could say it with all reverence, the Father is not greater than the Son. Both are Co equal, both are fully God.
Both.
Are part of the Godhead, and in that sense there is no superiority or inferiority in the Godhead. But there are different things to do with each one in the Godhead. And what the Lord Jesus, I believe is emphasizing here is when he says my Father is greater than I, He emphasizes that He will be there.
In that glory, as a man.
For all eternity.
Why? So that he can enjoy your company and mine.
What will it be like to end up in that hole?
I've often tried to imagine it and I haven't gotten anywhere and it reminds me of the Apostle Paul how that when he was caught up to the 3rd heaven he did not try to describe.
What he saw, he doesn't say that he didn't see anything, but he says I heard things that were not, that wouldn't be lawful for a man to utter. What did he mean by that? He meant that the things up there were of such a dimension, and there was such glory there that he couldn't begin to describe it in the.
Time scene of this world.
The Lord Jesus will be there as a man for all eternity, and I have no doubt I say this. Perhaps I hope it's OK for me to talk like this. But dear brethren.
Sometimes you and I and not at, and it can happen at any age. We may think to ourselves, well, it's going to be kind of strange to be up there in heaven. Things are going to be so different. Am I going to feel right when I get there?
I have been in some rather fancy homes in this world from time to time, sometimes invited there as a guest, sometimes simply there is a tourist going through them and I could marvel at the many rooms in that home, the way they were decorated, the pictures on the walls and everything that.
Made that home what it was for the individual who either owned it or had owned it.
But I felt strange in most of them. I felt this just doesn't feel like home to me.
And you would, I think, feel the same. But I have no doubt that when you and I, whether through death or the coming of the Lord, are suddenly taken to that heavenly whole.
I have no doubt that instantly you and I will feel perfectly at home. We will immediately feel I am whole. And for the sake of some of the children here who may wonder and perhaps not be able to relate to what I'm talking about, in a few minutes I'm going to tell you a couple of stories.
About a couple of children that saw clearly into that hole.
What else will characterize that hope?
Ah, it's the Father's house. And Philip here was a little confused. He could say, well, Lord, show us the Father and we'll be satisfied. And going back a page, we find that Thomas could say, we don't know where you're going, Lord, and how can we know the way? And the Lord gives that wonderful verse that is so often used in the gospel.
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I am the way.
The truth and the life and it's right to use it in the gospel, but I'd like to use it in a little different sense this afternoon, if I may. I am the way. The way to what?
The way to the Father.
With away to the Father. Have we been able to see the Father? Yes we have. How and where? In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as he walked this earth. And he could say so clearly, He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father, how beautiful I am the way.
The truth. The truth, O Pilate could say to the Lord Jesus what is truth?
The Greeks were always searching for truth in that day, and they discovered a lot of things in this world.
But they could never discover anything that could only be known by divine revelation.
What takes place after death? Will reason tell me no? Will philosophy tell me no? What? What will tell me what happens after death? Only the revelation in this precious book.
How do we know how this world came into existence? Man has invented all kinds of theories, but we can know it only for sure from divine revelation.
But the Sun has revealed the Father, and it's the Father's house.
The Lord Jesus could say to his disciples in another place, The Father himself loveth you.
I've tried to think of that in relationship to God as my father.
We all in one way or another, had earthly fathers. Some people here may have not had a very good upbringing. Maybe you didn't have a father that loved and cared for you the way he ought to have done. But many here I know grew up in loving homes and had fathers. But is there anything to compare having God as our Father?
Many years ago, back in the 19 century in a Bible reading.
The question was raised by someone. Well, when we get up there in that glory, will we actually see the Father?
Good question, isn't it? Will we actually see the father and the answer given by a brother and some will recognize the source of this?
I thought was beautiful, he said. I know of no scripture that actually says that we will see the Father. But then he went on to say, but I cannot think of being in the Father's house without being very much aware of his presence. Isn't that beautiful? Will we enjoy the Father's presence? Indeed we will.
And that home is going to be characterized by the presence of the Father and the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ as man.
But what else is going to characterize it?
What will heaven really be like? Oh, I suggest one thing that it will be.
It will be the continual unfolding for all eternity of the glories of Christ connected with the love that exists between the Father and the Son, that love that existed from a past eternity.
Look at a verse in the 15th chapter, I said. We'd refer to one or two other verses.
To me this verse.
This verse is beyond our understanding. Verse 9.
John 15 and verse 9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.
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A brother under whose ministry I grew up, Harry Hayhoe, used to tell us young people, he said. Memorize that verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life.
I can't say that I have fulfilled his exhortation, but I can remember when I was in my final year of high school and I had a good friend in the class who was a true Christian, not gathered to the Lord's name, but I invited him to come with me for a day to the Bible Conference in Toronto, ON. He gladly came.
Very much enjoyed himself and after the gospel meeting that evening, and I cannot even remember who took the gospel, I remember walking out of the auditorium and the two of us bumped into Harry Hayhoe. I'll never forget what he said. He recognized me, of course, but he didn't recognize my friend. That didn't matter. He burst out right to the right into our face as he said.
I'll be singing in the Father's house.
I will. I'll be singing in the Father's house.
What made it even more interesting to me was that in this life, he couldn't sing.
Couldn't carry a tune that was well known.
But he looked forward to the day when he'd have a voice, when he'd be singing in TuneIn, the Father's house. The gospel had been a particularly solemn one, but also a very heartwarming one, with the love of God brought out. And it reminded him that there was coming a day very soon when the Lord would take him home and that he would be able to sing in the Father's house.
Well, our time is going. Let's go on because there are some other things we want to talk about here.
Perhaps, you say, and I'll tell another. Well, I was going to tell a couple of stories for the children. I don't want to forget about that. And there's at least one family here that has heard me tell this story before, and I'd ask them to bear with me.
What is it going to be like to be in the father's house?
Reminds me of a true story, and I don't know whether I can tell it without choking up, but many years ago, back in the 19th century, before medical treatment was what it is today, there was a family that had several children and the youngest was a little girl about two years old. Beautiful little girl apparently, but then she got very, very sick.
And she was so sick that it didn't look as if she were going to make it.
And the mother, not understanding completely the truth of the Word of God, was terribly distraught.
Because the little girl had never been baptized. And in her simple mind, as she thought about it, to her that meant that that little girl, if she passed away, was going to go into a lost eternity, going to go to hell. And she worked herself into an awful state, thinking that her beloved little girl was probably going to die and going to go to hell.
Well, the father was more intelligent.
He knew the Lord, he knew that wasn't going to happen, but all his attempts to console his wife were totally fruitless.
Finally he looked up to the Lord, and he said, Lord, you'll have to show her meaning his wife. You'll have to show her the reality of the father's house.
The little girl didn't die an easy death, she ended up with convulsions and that sort of thing. An awful thing to witness. I seen it a few times and thankfully had medication able to control it, but there was nothing in that day that they had, and she had to watch that poor mother, that little girl, go through awful convulsions as she neared the end of the journey.
Was the Lord going to answer the Father's prayer? Indeed he was right. At the end of the journey, just as she was about to pass out of this life, suddenly the convulsion stopped.
The little girl's body became totally normal as far as you could see from the outside.
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Big smile came into her face.
She reached up her little arms like this and looked up with the brightest mile.
And was gone.
Anyone here that knows children at all knows that if a strange adult goes to pick up a very young child, you better be careful.
Our daughter was the kind of a girl that would go to anybody, didn't care who it was. It was almost dangerous. But most little children of that age are.
Not too careful with strangers, but did that little girl feel that way? No Why? Because it was the arms of the Lord Jesus that she was reaching out for.
Another little girl.
Lovely story took place back again in the 19th century.
She was a little older, maybe 7:00 or 8:00, and she was truly saved.
And not too long beforehand, someone had read to her the 21St chapter of Revelation about the holy city coming down from heaven, out of heaven, from God, a picture, no doubt, of the church. But the little girl had grasped the truth of that, that this to her, was what heaven was going to be like.
She got very sick too.
And she wasn't going to make it either.
But she told her parents on her deathbed. She said don't cry for me.
I'm going to be in that heavenly city that we read about.
And right at the very end and you and I can't understand this.
Suddenly her face flashed with a bright smile, and she said, Oh, she said.
I see the heavenly city, the wall that's made of Jasper, just like the Bible says.
And she was gone.
How did she know at that age what Jasper looked like? I don't know.
What did she see? I'm not sure, but all I can say to you is.
The Lord tailored His vision of coming glory.
To suit what that little girl knew.
Is there going to be any different for you and me? Most of us here know much more than that.
But the simplicity of it all is wonderful.
But now let's go on. It says the second part of the chapter, beginning with verse.
15.
Gives us two other aspects of Coming Glory. Number one, it says.
Verse 15 If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father.
And He shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth him, but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you. That is, He was dwelling with them in the person of the Lord Jesus.
And shall be in you that's looking on to the day of Pentecost.
I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.
I remember well meeting a couple on the streets of Toronto when I was handing out tracks.
And I spoke to them clearly about what lay beyond death and what.
They needed to do in order to be sure of where they were going.
And the man's response was well, that's all well and good Sir, but I need something right now. My wife and I are in trouble. I need something right now.
Does God give you and me something right now? Yes. He wants us to have the enjoyment in our hearts of that home before we get there.
Always say. How can that be?
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Well, it tells us right here, it's by the power of the Spirit of God that the Lord wants that home, the Father's house.
To be a present living reality in your heart and mind. And I believe that's why Brother Harry Hayhoe said to say that verse in the 15th chapter, the ninth verse over every day of your lives. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. Why did he say that?
Because the present enjoyment of heaven down here.
Is through the enjoyment of the Father's love and the Lord's love and in that home throughout all eternity, we will enjoy not only the glory that will be wonderful. We will celebrate the grace that brought us there that will be wonderful, but will what will also be wonderful will be.
To see God the Father and God the Son.
Each one fully satisfied. Satisfied with what?
Satisfied with having you and me there with them.
Isn't that something hymn #64 in our hymn book expresses it rather well. Our God whom we have known well known in Jesus love.
Rests in the blessing of his own before himself above.
That is what God is going to rest. And can God rest now? God can't rest. Can the Lord Jesus rest now? In one sense, yes, because the work has been done. But sin still exists. It exists in this world, it exists in this whole universe. And God will not rest completely. Until again quoting another hymn, all taint of sin shall be removed.
All evil done away.
Shall dwell with God's beloved through God's eternal day.
Pardon a personal note. That was my father's favorite hymn. We sung it at his funeral.
And it's dear to my heart.
He rests, God rests in the blessing of his own, and he's going to rest up there because you and I are there, fully conformed to the image of His Son, fully enjoying all that He is, all that the Son is, and His love flowing out unhinderedly.
But does it not flow out now?
What will we have up there that we don't have now? Think of it for a few minutes.
Our glorified bodies, yes, but not much else.
Do we have new life in Christ? The title to be there. It's ours today. We have eternal life. Do we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us? Yes, we do. And this chapter tells us that He's going to be with us forever. When the Lord comes, the Spirit of God leaves with us. And just think, the Holy Spirit will be there for all eternity to minister to.
Heart and mind, the enjoyment of Christ and the glories of Christ.
But does God want that to begin down here? Indeed He does, and that's why He has sent the Holy Spirit down.
I say it looking around the room, is it a present living reality in each one of our souls? You know, we can be truly saved and we can truly be indwelt with the Holy Spirit, and yet at the same time we can live at a distance from the Lord. And the Spirit being grieved is not able to minister Christ to our souls. He has to take us, has to occupy us with the waywardness, the sinfulness.
The worldliness in our lives.
But God wants us to enjoy that now.
That home but then there's one other thing here verse 15 if he loved me, keep my commandments.
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What would you think if someone offered you a beautiful home?
Sometimes it happens. Sometimes people get a beautiful home offered to them.
And suppose the individual that offered that home to you were to say. But there are just a few things that I'd like you to do for me.
In order to be able to enjoy that home and I've given you the new life that wants to do those things.
And I've given you the Holy Spirit as the power of that new life, God says.
Would anyone of us here want to say?
Oh, I don't know. I'd like the home, I'd like to enjoy it, but I'd rather have my own will. I don't want to do.
The commandments of the one who is giving me that home.
And yet I speak to my own heart how often that happens in our lives. And I say to your heart and mind going back to the first verse of our chapter.
Let not your heart be troubled. And later on in the chapter we have the same expression.
In verse 27, middle of the verse, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
The world is in trouble today and we scarcely want to take a look at the news.
Because of all the trouble in this poor world.
We're pretty secure in North America.
Our brother who gave thanks for the food today, expressed it well. How many there are in this world today who can't look down at a nice plate of food and enjoy it, or who perhaps are living under very difficult circumstances? Is that going to change? It may well change, it may well change, and we may well suffer some persecution even in these favored lands.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Whether it's the Covic pandemic with all the ramifications of it, or whether it's the war in the Ukraine, or whether it's trouble in government with all kinds of things going on and everyone throwing up their hands and saying I don't know what's going to happen to this country. Whether it's Canada, whether it's the United States, and we could name a few others where it's just seeming to be one thing after another.
Let not your heart be troubled.
Why? Oh, because the future is bright and God wants us to live in the good of that now.
But it means keeping his commandments and you and I need that.
Admonition. I certainly do, but it does say in another place, His commandments are not grievous. His commandments are not grievous. God does not give you anything to do for Him.
That the new life that you have in Christ doesn't want to do.
Sometimes we have a hard time with that, but remember talking to a young man my own age many years ago and he was truly saved, I have no doubt about it.
But he was living for this world.
And we talked about some things at one point, and I asked him, I knew him well. And I said, you know, which nature wants to do that, which nature is wanting to do that when you talk like that.
Well, he said I don't get this about two natures. He said I want to do something, I want to do it. I don't have any 2 natures.
Ouch.
Did he have a new life in Christ? I know he did. I heard him confess Christ and I know it was real.
But that new life had been pushed so far into the background.
By the allowing of the old sinful self to take its place in prominence in his life. That for all practical purposes I wouldn't have blamed anyone if they said I don't think that he is a Christian.
While our time is going, keeping his commandments is important.
Very important if we want to have the enjoyment of that home.
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And what an enjoyment it is in your soul and mine.
Sometimes, perhaps as we get to the ward, the end of the journey. I've talked to a few people at the meetings here, and I guess it doesn't hurt to say we've shared a few of our physical problems that come upon us when we get older, some of them worse than others.
And it reminds me of a story.
Again, of my late father-in-law, about whom some of us talked a little bit at the dinner table today.
Albert Hayhoe and I remember his telling us he was in years gone by. We used to have a Bible conference at in the assembly where I grew up in Hamilton, ON and it was a nice facility.
Had very good a very good kitchen so that we could make our own meals. Beautiful auditorium with good good sound projection. You didn't need mics at all. And there was only one drawback. There were two long flights of stairs to get up and down from the auditorium to the dining room. And of course, as a young fellow in those days, I sprinted up and down and thought nothing of it.
And my late father-in-law apparently was doing the same thing, being relatively young in those days. And as he was sprinting up the stairs, he passed a couple of elderly sisters who were going up just slowly, one step at a time. He knew them. And he stopped beside them and kind of with a grin on his face, said.
Don't you wish you were young again and could Sprint up these stairs the way I'm doing?
Well, he got an answer that I don't think he was expecting, but he appreciated it. The one sister looked at him with a smile and a twinkle in her eye and she said.
When we're this near home. When we're this near home.
You want me to turn back the clock when I'm this near home?
Oh, she was living for the glory, for the future. That's what animated her heart.
I guess it's all right to tell this story another one.
My wife's late aunt Ruth Smith of Ottawa, ON and I always called her Auntie Ruth too. When to be with the Lord a few years ago at the age of 96.
And she had lived all her life in the one home, been born in the home, lived in it as a girl growing up.
Married. Her husband came to live with her on the ground floor of the hall, and when her parents, Harry and Irene Hayhoe, went to be with the Lord, they took over the whole home. She lived in that home all 96 years of her life.
The house was built a couple of years before she was born.
She had to go into Hospice care and the Hospice was only about 5 blocks from the house.
And as she was being taken to Hospice care by ambulance.
Her nephew met her, her sorry. Her grandson Matthew, who is a paramedic, was in the ambulance with her and as they were going from the hospital to the Hospice.
He said Grandma, would you like to drive past the house one more time?
Was a nice thought, wasn't it?
Would you like to drive past the house one more time?
Later on I found out what her answer was. Beautiful.
Oh no, Matthew, I'm not looking back. I'm looking forward.
Imagine.
She was fully clear, right to the end. I'm not looking back. She wasn't thinking of that home, with all its memories, right from her earliest girlhood.
I'm not looking back, I'm looking forward. One more small point, back to verse 27, John 14 and 27.
00:55:09
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.
Without dwelling on it, I believe the first piece is peace with God as to our sins through the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the second piece is the peace in which our blessed Savior walk through this world.
Accepting everything from the father and taking everything to the father.
But then in the 28th verse, which we've already referred to, I'd like to refer to something else there, because there is an expression here the likes of which I don't know where to find in the whole Bible.
The nearest that I can come to it is in 2nd Thessalonians 3 and if you read the verse in the Darby translation.
It reads like this. Now the Lord directs your hearts into the love of God.
And into the patience of the Christ.
He is waiting for us with far more, what shall I say, love? Far more wish to have us with Him than we are waiting to be with Him. But notice what He says here in verse 28.
Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. Now notice this, If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go under the Father, for my Father is greater than I. What is the Lord Jesus saying ye would rejoice?
If he loved me, ye would rejoice because I said I go under the Father. You know God likes us sometimes to get right out of ourselves and see things from his point of view.
The patience of the Christ, our King James says. The patient waiting for Christ, and that's true. But the patience of the Christ, think of his patience.
In waiting for us. And what is it saying here if you really loved me?
If the response of your hearts were right, instead of being troubled, you would be happy for my sake, because I'm going back to the Father.
He had left that home, that home of uncreated glory, in order to come down into this world, to make you and me fit for that glory. All that the Lord Jesus had done, and now He counts on the response of our hearts.
Are we ready to think of his happiness? His happiness up there now with the Father, But it won't be complete until he has you and me with him.
I know our time is gone, but can we sing one more hymn? Somehow it just seems to fit so much him 100 and 27127.
Maybe I tell too many stories about hymns, but I love. If you look in the back of the book you'll see.
The author of this hymn, Mrs. JA Trench.
Mrs. JA Trench.
I've read a little bit about her. They came into fellowship later on, after some of the early ones like JN Darby and JG Ballot and others like that. But there was a tremendous interest in the things of the Lord. And she was a very, very godly woman. She had a very pretty name. Her first name was Jeanetta, Jeanetta Trench.
Her married name?
And look at the expressions in this hymn. Just amazing. Verse three. Oh, what a hole.
Their fullest love flows through its courts of light. The sun's divine affections flow throughout its depth and height and full response the Father gives to fill with joy the heart beautiful.
01:00:03
Let's sing it together #127.
How blessed a whole world.
Father's heart.
Is.
Gone.
And change us our swathes.
Hey, Cortana, Make.
US.
All our hearts abortion.
Again the boy shall.
I'll hurt murders towards someone.
Let's just go on to the fourth verse. Thank you.
And all it's all creature.
The power of yourselves.
Love our sorrow.
One more short story. There have been others who have seen very clearly.
Into that heavenly home.
And I can only think of one that comes to mind.
Thomas Edison was a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, accustomed all his life to scientific.
Experiment and careful looking at what he saw.
On his deathbed, as he lay there quietly waiting for the Lord to take him home, all he said was.
It's very beautiful over there.
Let's pray.
Our God and our Father, what more can we say in Thy presence as we realize that Thou didst send thy beloved Son down into this world in love to us?
01:05:11
In order that we might enjoy thy home and thy love.
We pray that it may become a more living reality to us, Lord Jesus, as Thy coming draws near. But if thou shouldst tarry, blessed Lord, we thank Thee for Thy Holy Spirit that can make these things good to our souls, and perhaps even more so as the days grow darker. We commend ourselves to Thee in Thy word.
Praying that it might have its effect on each one of us.
For we ask it, Lord Jesus, in thy precious and worthy name, Amen.