I forgot to mention earlier,
but I did another Bible study with John and some friends of
his. And I don't think we got to John
3. And they joined along and they were so excited because
they were just reading what God said out of His Word. And then
they started to find it offensive. And then they found it more offensive.
And then they finally found it so offensive that they said,
no more. May that not be our portion this
morning. Why don't we just read these
words and I want us to then look at why they are so extraordinarily
significant to all believers. What's the difference between
a saved person and a lost person? What's the difference between
Judas, who was still alive that night, and with a bunch of people
who were rejoicing in their religion and rejoicing in their knowledge
of the Word of God and rejoicing in all of their activities? What
was the difference between Judas and Peter? Both of them behaved
with the most extraordinary wickedness that night. The answer is a really simple
one in Luke's account, isn't it? Satan's asked to sift you
like wheat, and you'll be sifted like wheat, Peter. But what's
the difference? I have prayed for you. That is the difference, brothers
and sisters in Christ. This is the most remarkable high
priestly prayer. These are glorious, glorious
words. And I don't know, won't it be
wonderful to be in heaven? Won't it be wonderful to hear
him speak? What's his voice like? We have
so many pictures of it in the scriptures. What's his voice
like? What's his face like? The only things we know about
his body is it's marked. It's marked with the wounds of
our sins being dealt with by God Almighty. What's it like
to be embraced by him? What's it like to hear him say,
come you blessed of my father? There's an inheritance prepared,
an eternal, infinite place for you. To feel his touch, to feel
his embrace. Song of songs. leads us to see
in the Gospel accounts of the Lord dealing with people, leads
us to see that there is a sweet and glorious and powerful and
intimate union between the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride. And John 17 expresses these words
in the most remarkable way. I just wanted to read it And
I want to ask and I pray that the Lord would just allow us
to enter into the beauty and the wonder of this extraordinary
prayer. He prays in the first five verses
for himself. He prays in the next 14 verses
for the apostles and the ministry and the witness and the testimony
that we have. You cannot believe and you cannot
be saved without hearing the apostolic gospel proclaimed. And so that's extraordinarily
significant. And then he prays for us. This
is a prayer that's being prayed for his people until he comes
back again. So let's just read it quietly
and see if the Lord might allow us, as I've prayed, to just enter
into the wonder of this. Let's just find ourselves like
John, leaning upon his breast and hearing him breathe these
words out to us. John 17 verse 1, these words,
all of those words, I've overcome the world, all those words of
comfort, these words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven
and said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy son. that thy son also may 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 me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto
the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they
were. And thou gavest them me, and
they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all
things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given
unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they
have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them. I pray not for the world. but for them which thou hast
given me, for they are thine. All mine are thine, and thine
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And thou I am no more
in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine
own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one
as we are. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I
have kept. None of them is lost, but the
son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now I
come Now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world,
that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 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 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 which shall believe on me through their word,
that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and
I in 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 in them, and thou in 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, that 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 will declare it, that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. I just pray the Lord might allow
us to enter into the wonder and the beauty of those words. Eternal life, eternal life is
wrapped up in this man. Eternal life is wrapped up in
him. who was before the foundation
of the world. Eternal life is wrapped up in
him glorifying God Almighty. Sinners are called to come. Sinners are called to believe. Sinners are called to look and
be saved. It's interesting, at the beginning
of the scriptures, in the garden, there were, in the midst of the
garden, was the tree of life. And in the midst of the garden
was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and when man
ate from the knowledge of the tree. You see, he was never instructed
not to eat from the tree of life in the garden. He was told not
to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the day he did, he died,
and Adam and all of his posterity were spiritually dead. They did physically die, but
they were in spiritual death. But I love how the book of God
finishes. It begins with that garden and
that tree and the glory of the gospel shown there. But at the
end in Revelation chapter 22, and he showed me the pure river
of the water of life as clear as crystal proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the
street of it, And on either side of the river there was there
the tree of life, which bared twelve manner of fruit, and yielded
her fruit. Every month you can eat from
this tree all the time, all year round. And the leaves of the
tree were for the healing of the nations, and there shall
be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall
be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. And they shall see
His face, And his name shall be in their foreheads, and there
shall be no night there. They need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they
shall reign for ever and ever. And he said unto me, These sayings
are faithful and true. And the Lord God of the holy
prophets sent his angels to show unto his servants the things
which must shortly be done. Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the
sayings of the prophecy of this book. And I, John, saw these
things and heard them. And when I had heard and seen,
I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed
me these things. And he saith unto me, See thou
do it not, for I am thy fellow-servant of thy brethren the prophets,
and of them which keep the sayings of this book. Worship God. And he saith unto me, Seal not
the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at
hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still. He that
is filthy, let him be filthy still. He that is righteous,
let him be righteous still. He that is holy, let him be holy
still. And behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me to give
every man according as his work shall be. I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates
into the city. For without, outside of the gates,
are dogs, but not to think of physical dogs. The dogs in the
scriptures are those who take the people of God and put them
back under the works of the Mosaic law for obedience and sanctification. Then sorcerers and whoremongers
and murderers and idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a
lie. I, Jesus, have sent my angel
to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root
and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star, and
the Spirit and the Bride, say come. Let him that heareth say
come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let
him take the water of life freely. For I testify unto every man
that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any
man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues
that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away
from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city
and from the things which are written in this book. He that
which testify these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. When man fell, the Lord
promised the gospel, the seed of the woman, shall crush the
seed, crush the serpent's head. In the process his heel will
be bruised. This land, this earth that we
live in will be cursed and by the sweat of your face shall
you eat your bread until you return to it. But the Lord both
preached the gospel And he showed the gospel as he
brought that lamb into the presence of Adam and Eve and slit his
throat in the garden, having gathered them out of the darkness,
having gathered them out of the darkness of their hiding and
running from the very voice of God, having gathered them out
of the darkness of their attempting to cover
their shame by their own works. And the Lord, unto Adam and his
wife, verse 21, did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothed
them. Verse 24, And so he drove out
the man, and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims
and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of
the Tree of Life. You can't live unless you have
access to the tree of life. When they built the tabernacle
according to the pattern that Moses had seen in heaven, the
pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified, that great
curtain that separated the holy of holies from the holy place,
that great curtain through which only the high priest could go,
only with blood to atone, only with the holy anointing oil,
Only with the holy incense could he go. And he went once a year. And on that curtain were the
cherubims. On that curtain was a glorious,
glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The blue of heaven, the red of
the earth, and the purple. and the cherubim there. Everything in the scriptures
from that moment of sin on says you only come into the presence
of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot come into the presence
of God with anything of yourself. You cannot come into the presence
of God with your own works. And he, as we stand here in his
presence today, He is still, as he's promised, saying to the
many in Matthew 21 to 23 who come to him boasting about their
religious activities, he said, depart from me, you lawless ones. I never, never knew you. But
there is in the Gospel, and there is in this glorious picture,
a way to the tree of life. It's the way of righteousness,
it's the way of truth, it's the way of peace, it's the way of
life. It's the narrow way, it's the
constrained way, but it's the way open. There's a fountain
open for sin and uncleanness. There's a door The hour has come,
this hour has come when all of these glorious pictures and promises
are going to be sealed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Great High Priest is
offering this prayer and reciting this prayer to us. And that Great
High Priest went in that day with all, all of the names of
the children of God. He had them on his heart. And he went into the Holy of
Holies and he came out having that sacrifice accepted. Accepted by God Almighty. And this is the words that he
said, the high priest. And these are the words that
should ring in the ears of God's people when they come to a passage
of scripture that's so full of the glory of God. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord, number 624 and following,
you know, I can't believe it. They sang it down the road when
I was so-called christened in the Presbyterian Church many,
many years ago. And they used to sing it so beautifully.
It was the one thing in there that really struck me at how
sweet it was. The Lord bless thee and keep
thee. The Lord make his face to shine
upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon
the children of Israel, and I will bless them. That's the work of
the great high priest now, isn't it? In the preaching of the gospel
to his children. He comes now with words of comfort
to us. Seven times in this prayer, he
speaks of glory. 50 times he speaks of his bride. And he has a name for her, or
he has a description of her again and again and again throughout
this prayer. He says, as many as thou hast
given him, the men which thou gavest me, them which thou hast
given me, of whom thou hast given me, those who thou gavest me,
those who thou hast given me. all again and again and again
he keeps defining his people as the gift of the father to
his son what a gift what a gift given before the foundation of
the world what joy and what holiness and what extraordinary anticipation
there was in that, in the lamb slain from the foundation of
the world, took those people to himself and became united
to them in a holy communion, a holy union that cannot be divided. And that, my friends, is the
reason for him coming. It's the reason for this hour.
Someone said that this, when he says, the hour has come, glorify
this. On that hour is the keystone
of the arch of all history. You know what a keystone is.
You build a stone arch and you support it and you prop it up
and you make it really strong. And then finally, up at the top,
you put in a keystone. and soon as the keystone's in,
all the scaffolding can be taken away. Everything is held together
by the keystone. The reason this universe exists,
as I want to be reminded myself, I want to remind, the reason
this universe Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree.
The reason for it still existing is because of the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree and the fruit that must
necessarily flow from his glorious, glorious work. This prayer is
answered. What hinders this prayer from
being answered? He told us in the previous chapter
that if we want to find comfort in troubled times, we go back
through those previous three chapters and we will find our
hearts in troublesome times and troublesome circumstances. We'll
find them comforted as he's promised. And that's why he begins these
words, spake Jesus, all of those words that he had just said,
all of the words that he'd said through our time. And he lifted
up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, the hour is come. Glorify thy son, that thy son
also might glorify thee. And I just want us to briefly,
as we close, look at the fact that he's a giver. He came as
a giver. He didn't come as a rewarder
of good works, he came as a giver of eternal life. The first one
I want us to look at, I just want to look at them briefly
and I want you to go away contemplating and pondering this prayer and
I want it to be something that becomes more and more precious
to us and more and more real in our lives. Fifteen times in
this prayer he speaks of giving. The father has given a son and
the son gives these glorious gifts and some of these gifts
are wrapped up in the very being of who he is. Listen to what
he says in verse two. It's all about the glory. The
essence of it all is the glory of God. The hour has come, glorify
thy son that thy son also may glorify thee. Thou hast given
him power over all flesh. that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him. The first thing is that
we are given a glimpse into the majesty of God Almighty. What a loving rule he has over
all of this creation. He has power over all flesh. He has power over all humanity.
He has power over all the circumstances of all humanity. He's given him
power over all flesh as the glorious mediator. Everything in the circumstances
of life are purposefully designed and ordained by God Almighty
for His glory and for the good of His people, the spiritual
good of His people. He's given Him power. In verse
six, He has manifested His name. He's given us, He's given us
to see In His incarnation and in His words and in the glory
of what happened on the cross, He's given us to see all of the
glory of God, all the manifestations of the name of God, all of the
attributes of God, all of them are seen in the Lord Jesus Christ
in Him crucified. His holiness is seen there, His
justice is seen there, His wisdom is seen there, His love is seen
there, His righteousness is seen there, His absolute sovereignty
is seen there. They're all, they're all seen
there. He's manifested thy name. Do you love his name? Do you
love his loving rule? Do you love his name? That Bible study that we were
talking about fell apart, both of them fell apart because of
the name of God. They'll have a God of all sorts
of names, and they'll have a God, people will have a God of their
own construction and their own attributes, but they just don't
know who He is. They found him, as he declared
himself to be, offensive, just like the men did, who were plotting
his death while he was proclaiming these wonderful words. He's manifested
the name, verse 14, he has given them names. He's given to his people. I want
us to be reminded again and again that when God speaks of giving
all throughout John's Gospel, always there is a giving and
there is a receiving. There is no giving without there
being a receiving. He's given them his word. His
people have his word and the world hates them because they're
not of the world. Their origin is not of the world,
even as I am not of the world. They've given his word. In verse eight he says, I've
given them the words which thou gavest me and they have received
them. God's children receive them. He's given his people to understand of the Incarnation. In 1 Corinthians
chapter 2 he speaks of the glory of this revelation. And without
him birthing us from above and without him sending his Spirit
into our hearts we'll never ever understand. We'll understand
a whole lot about God but we won't understand who he is. We speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the
world, unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world
knew, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified
the Lord of glory. But as it is written, I have
not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto
us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of man, save the Spirit of man which is in him? Even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. He's given us his word, he's
given us to understand. He's given us himself, he says
in verse 17, sanctify them. There is just one sacrifice,
the sins, that sanctifies all of his people. In verse 22, he's
given his people the glory. And the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them. What do you do when you receive
a gift? You rejoice and thank the giver. We are bound, 2 Thessalonians,
and I'll close with this. We are bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation. through sanctification
of the spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, glorify thy name. The glory that he has been given,
he's given to them. Father, I will. Verse 24, that
they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am. What's
heaven? Heaven's to be in his presence.
to be with me where I am, that 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
has not known thee, but I have known these, and these have known
that thou hast sent me. I have declared unto them thy
name. Our God, our Saviour, is a preacher
and a declarer. I have declared unto them thy
name, and will declare it, that, this is the purpose of it, this
is the culmination of this prayer, that the love wherewith thou
hast loved me may be in them, and I in him. If he has declared his name,
your love will be in him. coming. Your love is giving. May that be our portion and may
the Lord cause us to rejoice in the things that our Saviour
rejoices in. Amen.