I'd like you to turn in your
Bibles with me to John chapter 17. I've been wrestling with
how to deal with this because it's such an extraordinary passage
of scripture. This is the Lord's prayer and
it begins with his prayer for himself and then his prayer for
those who will preach the gospel and then his prayer for those
who will believe the gospel. So this is a prayer that first
reaches into heaven and then reaches to this earth and reaches
to the end of time itself. And it's the prayer of Lord Jesus
Christ that we can be assured is being prayed and answered
in heaven right now. I plead with the Lord for myself
and for all of us that we would go back to John chapter 17 again
and again and again and the Lord God himself would write these
words on our heart. That these words would not just
be black ink on a piece of paper but they would be words of spirit
and life to us and that we would be made by the grace of God to
bow and adore this God that's proclaimed here. John 17, if read and truly believed,
would be rejected by almost every church in this land. I promise
you that's the case. The world says, the religious
world says, God loves everyone. And the religious world says
the proof of God's love for everyone is that he was going to die for
everyone. The world says that God wishes
and wills for everyone to be saved. John 17 says all of those things
are lies from Satan. If you have heard them, you have
heard from Satan. And Satan's great task in this
world in deceiving people, lying to them about the Lord Jesus
Christ and then murdering their eternal souls, his work is done
in the pulpits. I met with five or six pastors
yesterday. And when you do as I've done
for 30 years and you stand before people and you read the Word
of God and say something about God, you end up with all sorts
of people, religious people especially, come to want to talk to you.
And it's interesting the conversations that ensue. But John 17, is just
such a glorious description of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I
want us to look at that here. But I want us to know that those
things that the world says are a lie. If you read with me in
John 17, verse 9. Just read what the Lord Jesus
Christ is praying on the night. Within an hour, probably, or
less than that, his blood would begin to be shed on the earth
of this world. And he says in verse nine, I
pray for them. He's praying for a particular
people. He's praying for a people that
God the Father gave him from the foundation of the world.
And that's what he says six times in this prayer. He says, all
that the Father gave me, all the Father gave me, all of those
those that thou hast given me. You gave them to me. In verse six it says, I've manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. They
were yours, he says. Thine they were and thou gavest
them thee and they have kept thy word. But in verse nine he
says, I pray for them. He's praying for a particular
people. Can his prayer not be answered? Well, people say it
can. Can his will be thwarted? Can his desire of his heart,
can this glorious communication between God the Son and God the
Father on this particular night not be heard with deep affection
and affirmation by God the Father? He says, I pray for them. I'm
praying for a particular group of people. I'm dying for a particular
group of people and I'm not praying for the world. And yet the common
declaration of the gospel is that God loves everyone, and
God wishes to save everyone, and God sent his son to the cross
and crushed him under his holy wrath to save everyone. And then they add, if you do
something. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
praying for everyone. So to say that on this night
he's not praying for people, but on the next day he's shedding
his life's blood under the wrath of God for all their sins, what
is it? Everything ultimately is black
and white, isn't it? He calls His Father, I wanted
to just look briefly at these first five verses again, but
He calls His Father the only true God in verse three. If we're going to be saved, we're
going to be saved by belief in the truth. Paul thanks God. He says in 2 Thessalonians 2.13,
I thank God for you. You can turn there and read it
with me. This is what we ought to be thanking God for. Is this
what I thank God for? He says, we are bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. And this is a description of
those who are loved of the Lord. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth. What is the truth? He is the
truth. The gospel is a person. We are
declaring, as the Lord will give us the grace, we are declaring
the truth of who the truthful one is. He who is the truth. He calls his Father the only
true God. He says, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me. How do you get into heaven? In
the Lord Jesus Christ is how do you get into heaven. How do
you get into heaven? With the Lord Jesus Christ, because
that's what heaven is and that's how you get there. That's what
he was saying in John 14.6, but by me. So I just pray, I just pray, And I've been praying and looking
at this remarkable passage of scripture and as the more you
look at it the more remarkable it becomes and the more glorious
it becomes and the more serious it becomes as we work our way
through this world and we tread the paths of what lies before
us under the providence of God, what a remarkable thing it might
be if God gives us a love of the truth. There are two groups of people
in this world according to 2 Thessalonians 2. We were there just a minute
ago. Maybe you still have your Bibles
open there, but in 2 Thessalonians 2, there are two groups of people
described. There's one group of people described
who have a love for the truth. There's another group of people
who, according to this, He talks about Satan with all his lying
wonders and powers and signs in verse 9, and with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish. This is what, what a
shocking word it is, perish. Perish. I found in one of my,
the fridge in my office, I found some avocados that had been there
for about four or five months, a long, long time, and they had
perished. And not only did I throw the
avocados out, but I threw the bag out and then spent half an
hour trying to clean the refrigerator because perish is a shocking
word, isn't it? They perish. God says they perish. Listen to what he says. Because
they have received not the love of the truth that they might
be saved. There's a group of people in
this world, by the grace of God, who love the truth, who love
the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth, and love everything
about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth. For these people,
the deceivableness of unrighteousness, the work of Satan, deceiving
people, in them that perish, they receive not the love of
the truth. It is always just God's judgment on people. And
verse 11 says, And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion
that they should believe the lie. What do you reckon happens
when God deceives someone? Do they stop being religious? They stop going to church. They
stop proclaiming their Christian works and activities and all
of the so-called blessings they have. The lie is free will, man-made,
works religion. Any religion that raises man
up and causes him to think that his salvation has got something
to do with what he's done. What he's done in the past, what
he's doing now, or what he'll do in the future. The Lord Jesus
Christ Within hours he's going to be
exposed on the cross at Calvary, hung there naked before all humanity
to declare and display in the fullness of God's glory who God
is and how God saves sinners. Peter says that this blood is
precious blood. So I want us to read these first
five verses again and I want us to try, as the Lord might
allow, for us to actually see the gospel. If you go through
John 17 and say, Lord, help me to believe everything that you
said here and write down all the words, you will have the
most glorious description of the Lord Jesus Christ, the most
glorious description of his father, the most glorious description
of his promised finished work in the lives of his people, and
the most glorious description of the prayer that is being prayed. Let's read. These words spake
Jesus, John chapter 17, verse one. And he lifted up his eyes
to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy son,
that thy son may also glorify thee. As thou hast given him
power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as
many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest. And now, O Father, glorify Thou
me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was. There is a glory that the Lord
Jesus Christ has as God Almighty. It's that glory that he had with
his Father before the world was. He's equal with God the Father
and he's equal with God the Holy Spirit. And this glory belongs
to his person. And he was there eternally in
the presence of God. And we know from the scriptures
what he was doing when he was in the presence of God Almighty. of love and grace and mercy. And God the Father entered into
a marriage covenant with His Son. He betrothed a bride to
His Son. He gave a bride to her, to Him,
into His hands. And the Lord Jesus Christ took
that bride, betrothed to Him, to Himself. And that eternal union can never
be dissolved because it's an eternal union between God the
Father and God the Son. And all of God's children are
the recipients of all of the grace and love that was embedded
in that. That glorious covenant, we know
what they were doing. God, Isaiah 46.10 says he declares
the end What is the end of all of this
creation and everyone in it? There are two big ends, aren't
there? There is the glorious end, isn't there, where all of
the children of God are resurrected to be made like Jesus, because
to see him, 1 John 3, verse 1, to see him as he is, we have
to be made like him, we have to be a new creation. the children of God, the believing
children of God, the people who go to John chapter 17 and say,
Lord, what does the Lord's people say and cry when they hear of
election? Lord, make me one of those. It
doesn't make them proud, it just humbles them. They will live
in a new creation. What a glorious creation that
will be. Resurrected bodies. better than Adam ever could have
imagined it could have been. Living in the presence of God
where it is impossible to sin, where it is impossible for Satan
to come creeping and crawling as a deceiving lying snake around,
where it is impossible for us to be troubled by anything ever
again. To live physically in his presence, have every sight and every thought
of our minds pure and holy and glorifying God. I can talk about
that. I don't have the foggiest notion
of what that's like. I know what it is like to live in this body
of flesh and I know what it cost Him. And this prayer in John
17 is such a Because it gives us so clearly
the object of faith and the reason why those people are there. They're there 100% because of
His work. That's what the covenant is about.
"'I will, and they shall,' is the great declaration of the
covenant. "'I will be their God, and they shall be my people. "'I will write my laws on their
hearts, "'and they shall obey me. "'They shall hear the word
of God say, "'Come, and they'll come. "'They will hear the word
of God say, "'Believe, and they will come.'" Just as Norm spoke
about the people of Nineveh, they heard a word from a king,
as a word from a king. not some pathetic wimp who tries
and fails. The other destination of humanity
in resurrected bodies is so deeply, deeply travelling that the one
person who is enabled of God to declare what it is in Hell
is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The best thing you can do is
go to the scriptures and say that's exactly what God says.
Amen. Lord, don't let me go there.
Don't let anyone that I love, anyone I have any contact with,
please, please, please make us agents for proclaiming a gospel,
knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ will save all of his people.
But hell is eternal. Hell is utter darkness. Hell is indescribable physical
pain forever. If you want to know what hell's
like, you go to the cross. If you want to know how powerful
these words of John 17 are, you go to the cross. If you want
to know what it is to know God, you go to the cross and you pray
that God would send you the truth about His dear and precious Son.
Our God is not like us. It's the best description of
holiness there is. His accusation against mankind,
one of his accusations of the many against mankind is in Psalm
51. He said, you thought, you thought
that I was altogether like you. That's what man does, isn't it? We are continually in this flesh,
in the business of reducing the glory of God, and it's like a
huge steel beam. As we reduce the glory of God,
we elevate the glory of man. And you meet people in religion
and immediately they want to tell you what they've done, and
what they've done, and what they've done, and what they're doing.
And as if they're putting a shield up between themselves and God,
and between themselves and self-examination of their personal righteousness.
And they've done some amazing things. Listen to what it is
like to meet God. I wanted to read a couple of
passages about the glory of God because that's the prayer of
the son before his father, the glory that you gave me with thine
own self and with the glory that I have before the world. He says
I've glorified thee on the earth. God in reality. And when you meet God in reality,
you meet yourself in a place of humility, which is a wonderful
place to be. Because he only meets his people
in this way, to reveal himself to them. He met Isaiah in the
temple and condemned a nation. to destruction and separation
from God. And he said to Isaiah, you just
keep preaching. And Isaiah said, how long do
I keep preaching? Until there's nothing left. Until there's nothing
left. Ezekiel, I love reading the opening
chapters of Ezekiel, but I just want to read some verses, a few
verses out of Ezekiel chapter one, verse 26. from verse 26, and above the
firmament, this is talking about the throne of God hovering over
Jerusalem, above the firmament that was over their heads was
the likeness of a throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone,
and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness. as the
appearance of a man above it, and I saw as the colour amber
and the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance
of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins
even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire. It had
brightness round about. the appearance of a bow of the
bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain so was the appearance
of the brightness round about us about it this was the appearance
of the It's extraordinary, isn't it?
The closer the people in the Scriptures get to the very presence
of God, the less adequate our language is to describe things,
isn't it? It's the likeness of the appearance
of the glory of God. And what happens when you meet
God in His glory? When I saw it, I fell upon my
face and I heard a voice of one that spoke. in Daniel chapter 10 verse 5.
Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain
man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with the fine gold
of Uphaz. His body was also like the barrel,
and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as
lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished
brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of multitude. God, our Christ, has an essential
glory. When they saw him on the Mount
of Transfiguration, just for that brief moment, and only for
those three people, there was the shining of the inherent glory
of God through the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. His raiment was made whiter than
the sun, such was his purity. And I love how Peter describes
it, for he received of God the Father. He talks about being
an eyewitness of his majesty. One day you will He received from God the Father
honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the
excellent glory. There's a voice that comes from
the excellent glory. And what did he say? This is
my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Our God is glorious, extraordinarily
and infinitely glorious. I keep praying that people would
be enabled of God to meet Him and to bow, even the saved saints. John, a long-term apostle, one
who walked with God, one who leant upon the breast of the
Lord Jesus Christ on the night of this prayer in John 17. And
he met him, and he saw, he turned in heaven, and he saw a voice
that spoke with me, and he turned, I saw the seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the seven lampstands was one like the Son
of Man, clothed with a garment down to his foot, and girt about
the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white
as wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire.
What's it like to meet him? And his feet like unto fine brass,
as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of
many waters. And he had in his right hand
seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.
And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell." That's what repentance is, isn't
it? It's falling, isn't it? It's falling and believing. I
fell. at his feet as dead. We have
no creature strength, even an apostle, with all of his extraordinary
credentials and privileges. I fell at his feet as dead. And
what happens? He laid his right hand upon me
and said unto me, fear not, I am the first and the last. and he
lifted him up. He lifted him up and proclaimed
himself. Our God is glorious. Our God is glorious in all that
he does. Our God is glorious in all of
his works. We have on our pulpit, and we've
had it for a long time, The Greeks, the Gentiles came
to the apostles and said, we would see Jesus. We would see
Jesus. I want to see Jesus. We see Jesus through the eyes
of faith. Eternal life in John chapter
17 verse 3 is knowing Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom He has sent. So I just want us to look very
briefly before we close at these first five verses and see the
glorious declaration of the Gospel. The Gospel is a person. The Gospel is a declaration of
a Saviour who really saves. The Gospel is a declaration of
a Saviour who says, Come unto me, all you who are weary and
heavy. Come. The Gospel is a declaration
of one who says, Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Believe on this Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on Him as He declares
Himself to be. and don't move a muscle. May
the Lord grant us that. Firstly, he says at the beginning
of this prayer, he says, Father, the hour is come. He says, Father, he speaks as
being a son who had eternal glory with the Father. He speaks as
a son whom the Father had sent. He was sent by God the Father
into this world This is the will of God, John
6, isn't it? That all that the Father has
given me will come to me. And all that come to me, not
one of them can be lost, not one of them can be cast out.
Now listen to what he goes on to say. This is the God that
we proclaim. He says the hour has come. He speaks of God being in sovereign
rule over all events, and all events in all of human history
culminate on this one event. The Lord of glory going willingly
to the cross. The hour has come. Father, the hour has come. What's
the hour about? What are all the hours about?
What are? He says, what's this particular
hour about? Glorify thy son. You glorify thy son. There is
one supreme purpose in the heart and mind of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the glory of his father, the glory of himself, the glory of
God. Glorify thy son that thy son
may glorify thee. All of the glory of God is seen
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of the attributes
of God are seen in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. If
you want a description, a declaration of any attribute of God, His
absolute sovereignty, His holiness, His justice, His faithfulness,
His love, His grace, His mercy, His wisdom, You think of any
attribute of God that you can come across in the scriptures
and you take it to the cross and you will see it hung there
naked and exposed in glory. This is what it is to know him.
You have to know him. Salvation is knowing him. There
is one purpose, there is just one purpose in his mind, there's
one purpose in his father's mind, the glory of God. And what's
heaven about? Seeing the glory of God, every
look, every glance, every thought is going to glorify God, isn't
it? Why? Because there is no sin. There is no sin. And we will
see him in his glory. We'll see him as he is. And you'll
see him as glorious. May he be made glorious to us
now. Listen to what he goes on to
say. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, Who's sovereign will rules? Man's free will or God's will? Listen to what he says. Thou
hast given him power over all flesh. Does that mean he has
power over the will of all humanity? Don't you reckon that's wonderful?
I love to think of the fact that God is absolutely sovereign over
all of the events that happen all of the time, that happen
all around God is the first cause of all
things. You've given him power over all
flesh. There's not a single piece of scripture that allows people
to believe in man's free will. He's given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life. Eternal life is the gift
of God. Aren't you grateful that it's
a gift and not something I earn? It's not something, God's not
looking to me and my works to give me eternal life. He's looking
to his son and his son's works. And what does he find in his
son's work? He's satisfied. He's satisfied. You'll see the
travail in his soul and he'll be satisfied. God is satisfied. The joy that the Lord had before
him took him to the cross. The joy of all of these glorious
things here. Eternal life is a gift to as
many as thou hast given him. There is no proclamation of the
gospel without an open and clear declaration of election. He is
the elect one. He is the electing God. And so
where election is not proclaimed, the gospel is not proclaimed.
No election, no grace. No grace, no salvation. No glory,
no gospel. And this is eternal life, that
they might know thee, the only true God. God is only ever known
by revelation. I can't do it by my perspiration. I can't do it by my theological
studies. You must reveal yourself to me
as you did to Ezekiel, as you did to Isaiah, as you did to
Peter, as And then he says, I have glorified
thee on the earth, all of the works and all of the words, all
of the acts of the Lord Jesus Christ glorified the Father.
And he says, I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do. Finished the work, he's accomplished
it. So if he's finished it, is there
anything left to do? That's the rest that God's people
enter into. We strive to enter into his rest. which means we strive to keep
away from thinking that our salvation has got something to do with
what I do. It's got to do with what He's done. He's gloriously
finished all those works. And then He says, It's the glory
of union, the glory of communion, the glory of covenant promises
fulfilled, the glory of being with His bride. the glory of embracing his bride,
the glory of living with his bride forever, where he will
have her in his care and no harm will ever, ever befall her. All
this brought his blood to stain this earth, to stain the place
where heaven and earth meet in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a body prepared by God,
a body to be prepared to be crucified, a body prepared to bear the sins
of all of the children of God, all of the elect children of
God. All of God's glory is compressed,
God's eternal glory is compressed into this one man. Christianity
ultimately comes down to something extraordinarily simple. on one cross, on one day, which
he calls one hour. And that's what all of the scriptures
are talking about. From Genesis 1-1 to Revelation
22-21, that's what all of the scriptures are talking about.
That's what all of the gospel is about. All of God's glory is in that
one event. When Moses and Elijah met him
on that glorious time when his divinity shone through his humanity
and men who knew him well were left absolutely speechless. Moses
and Elijah had one thing they were talking about. All of this
book says one thing. The deceased, he should accomplish
in Jerusalem. And that's what he's praying
here, isn't he? That word deceased means the exodus. The going in
to a superpower who held the children of God captive. And
God saying, they are mine. And I'm taking them out. And
not a hoof will be left behind. I'm getting them all out. Not
one single one will be lost. Do you know God? Do you love
God? Has God come and revealed himself
to me? Has God come? Has this Christ come and dwelt
in you? That's the hope of glory, this
Christ dwelling in us. Do I have eternal life? Do I know him? I just am amazed at the glory
of the gospel. And I'm so amazed that he says,
come. He doesn't say come and do, he
says come and believe. May the Lord move our hearts
to come, to embrace, and to love. May he give us the simplicity
of believing. These are not complicated things
that are in here in John 17. There's not a complicated word
or a complicated thought if we just believe God. And yet they
are infinitely glorious. I pray the Lord would work in
your hearts that you would go to John 17 in the quietness of
your time and you would just engage and meet with God on the
basis of his prayer to his Father and his prayer for his people.
It gets more glorious towards the end of the chapter than ever
over time. So let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that you would be merciful. We thank you that you have promised
that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And
we praise you, Heavenly Father, that our faith rests in a whom
that we have believed. Heavenly Father, strengthen our
faith. Grant us the simplicity of just
believing. Grant us the joy and peace of
believing. Cause us in the trials of this
life, Heavenly Father, to be turned back to the great high
priestly prayer of our great and glorious Saviour. And may
he come out from his work in the holy of holies and say, the
Lord bless you to shine upon you and give you
peace. May we, Heavenly Father, who
know Him, eat and drink worthily, simply believing, simply believing
who He is as He is declared. Your Son is now glorified, Heavenly
Father, and one day all of your people will find themselves We thank you that that is the
present reality of all of your children. What a saviour! What a saviour! May he come and
work his sovereign will and grace in our lives again, Heavenly
Father. We pray for his glory and in
his name and for the good of your people, our Father.