If you will, let's all open our
Bibles today to the Gospel of John, Chapter 14. We will look at words of the
Lord Jesus Christ this morning. words which he spoke the night
before his crucifixion. In three chapters, chapters 14,
15, and 16, he spoke to his disciples about another comforter. He spoke more about this other
comforter in these three chapters than in all of the other scriptures
where we have his words. If you will, look in verse 16
first. Chapter 14 in verse 16. 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 you know him, for he dwelleth
with you, and shall be in you, I will not leave you comfortless. And then look down to verse 26.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Then in
chapter 15, if you will, verse 26, John chapter 15, verse 26, and
remember this is one discourse of the Lord where all of these
words are spoken. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me. And then in chapter 16, beginning
with verse seven, Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient for you that
I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send
him unto you. And when he has come, he will
reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe
not on me, of righteousness because I go to my father and you see
me no more, of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say
unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Albeit when he, the
spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,
for he shall not speak of himself, But whatsoever he shall hear,
that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He shall
glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto
you. These three chapters we have
our Lord's teaching on the gift of another comforter. You notice
that's the way we began there in verse 16 of chapter 14. I will pray the Father and he
shall give you another comforter. Another comforter. I wanted to
point four things out to us this morning. First of all, I want
us to see the condition of the disciples at this time. the condition
of the disciples, the 11 disciples at this time when our Lord spoke
these words concerning this other comforter. And he was alone with
only the 11 disciples because in chapter 13 and verse 30, we
are told that Judas had gone out and it was night. So our
Lord is alone with his 11 disciples. First of all, what was their
condition? They were troubled in heart. We see that because of his words
in verse one of chapter 14, let not your heart be troubled. They
were troubled in heart. And why? Why, we might ask, why
were they troubled? Surely it was hearing the Lord's
words when he said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto thee,
of you shall betray me." Think about that. Here they are
at the table, and the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking to 12 at this
time, said, one of you shall betray me. They loved him. They had followed him for roughly
three, three and a half years. And now he tells them, one of
you, one of you shall betray me. They
know he spoke the truth. He is the truth. Sure, their
hearts were troubled, hearing that one of them, and the scriptures
revealed to us that each one of them began to ask, Lord, is
it I? Am I the one? Yes, their condition, first of
all, was their hearts were troubled. And secondly, their condition
was their hearts were filled with sorrow. Notice, if you will,
in chapter 16 and verse 6, he said, but because I have said
these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your hearts. Not
only are they troubled in heart, but their hearts were filled
with sorrow. And what was it that caused them
this sorrow? Well, he had just told them that
they would suffer many things, that maybe was part of it, but
I believe the greatest thing that caused them this sorrow
of heart was he told them, I'm going to leave you. I'm going to leave you. Now from
the time that he had called each and every one of them, they had
followed him, they had heard him teaching, and sometimes the
religious crowd, the Pharisees, would come to his disciples and
they would ask them some question that put some problem to them,
and they were nonplussed usually. They didn't know how to answer,
but he was always there. He was always there to answer
for them. to deliver them out of whatever
dilemma it was that they were brought into. Peter told some
people one time, sure, we're going to pay the taxes. He didn't
have a penny in his pocket, and neither did the Lord. But the
Lord delivered them. The Lord said, Peter, go down
to the lake and put your line in, and that first fish you bring
out is going to have a piece of money. An exact piece of money. Let's just say in our money,
it's going to have a quarter in its mouth. Not going to have
a 50 cent piece. Not going to have a dime. It's
going to have a quarter in its mouth. And sure enough, just
as our Lord said, that's what took place. And with that, they
paid their taxes. Oh, he'd always been there. But
now he says, I'm leaving. But you notice he said, I will
not leave you comfortless. Actually, that could be translated,
I will not leave you orphans. I will not leave you like an
orphan, an orphan who doesn't have a father or a mother to
tend and help them and treat them. But here's the point. This is my point I want to make.
When our Lord speaks to them, The most that he does about this
other comforter, it was when they were troubled in heart and
their hearts were filled with sorrow. And I want that to register
on our minds before we move on, because I would ask each one
of you, are you ever troubled in your heart? Are you ever troubled? Are you ever perplexed? With
God's providence, for instance? Why God does what he does? Are
you ever troubled over these things? Maybe over your life
and your situation? And do you ever have sorrow fill
your heart? Well, sure you do. All of God's
children do. You know, I was reading in Isaiah.
one of the chapters in Isaiah recently where a Calamity God
is prophesying great calamities going to come upon the nation
of Israel But God told the prophet say ye to the righteous. It shall
be well with thee and I thought to myself that did not mean that
they were going to escape the calamities of that God was going
to bring on their nation. They lived in that nation. They
were going to suffer also. But yet say to the righteous,
it shall be well with you. It's always well with the righteous.
Always. Can't be any other way. Why? Just because God is in control. That's why, because He is in
control. And if you are one of His, and
only those who are His are righteous, then this is always true of you. No matter what you may experience
in this world, no matter what providence you may be in, say
ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him. Now we have
that verse in the New Testament that Says the same thing, don't
we? Romans 8, verse 28. For we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to those who are the called according to his purpose. Here are 11 disciples. 11 of those that when John saw the
holy city coming down out of heaven, which is the brides of
the lamb, we know that refers to the church, but on those 12
gates, 11 of those gates had the names of these 11 men. And
yet they experienced trouble. You have trouble. I have trouble
in this world. Don't let Satan slip up to you
and say, well, now, if you were a child of God, that wouldn't
happen to you. If you were really following
the Lord, this couldn't happen to you. You must not be saved. You must not be one of God's
children. Do you ever have those doubts? Those thoughts come into your
mind. I don't know if it's Satan or the flesh or whatever it is,
the world. We live in a world, my friends,
that is under a curse. And this world is cursed. I don't care if you're a child
of God and you own a piece of property, your property's gonna
bring up thorns, just like a lost man's property. You're not excluded. No, God's people know trouble. God's people know sorrow of heart. just like these disciples of
our Lord did. Look back with me to Psalm 73
just a moment. I know many of you recognize
this Psalm immediately, but believers have their moments. They do, we do. Here's a man, Many believe this was David writing
under another name. Some believe this was a man named
Asa, but I'm not sure. But I know he was a child of
God. And notice what he said. Truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. Now every child of God
has a clean heart. You say, why? Because you have
a new heart. That's one of the promises of
the covenant, the everlasting covenant. God will give you a
new heart and that new heart is a clean heart. It's a heart
that's not like a stone. That's the kind of heart lost
people have. That's the kind of heart that
all of us had and still have if we've not been saved. We've
got a heart of stone, but when God does the work of grace in
a person's heart. He gives him a new heart and
he writes his law upon that heart. What does that mean? He gives
us a heart to fear God, to reverence God, to desire to please God,
to worship God, to know God, to serve God, to live for God. Truly, Asap said, God is good
to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart, but as for
me, my feet were almost gone. Oh, my feet were almost gone. My steps had well nigh slept,
for I was envious at the foolish. When I saw the prosperity of
the wicked, Well, there are no bans in their
death. You know, people say, well, I know so and so, and he
never had any interest in God. He never had any interest in
the Lord. And he said, I tell you, I'm
not afraid to die. I tell you what, I'm going to
tell God. Well, man can say what he wants
to say, what God lets him say. But the truth of the matter is,
even though there are no bans, in the death of the wicked. There's
a hell waiting to receive them. And men are not going to tell
God anything. How vain, how foolish, how ignorant,
spiritually ignorant, how lost and depraved men are sometimes
to say things like that. Well, I'll tell you what I'm
going to do, and people You've heard him say, well, if I go
to hell, I'm going to have a lot of company. You are. No doubt about it. But there's
no comfort in that. This man, he had his moments. I was envious at the foolish
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for there are no
bands in their death and their strength is firm. They're not
in trouble as other men. Neither are they plagued like
other men. Sin doesn't bother them. They can feast on sin. It doesn't
bother them. Why? Because they're dead. They're spiritually dead. Therefore, pride compasseth them
about as a chain. Violence covereth them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness. They have more than heart could
wish. I don't need God. That's for
sissies. Religion, that's for old women. I'm a man. I don't need God. Oh, my. Oh, my. I just pray there's no one here
this morning who would say something like that. But there well may
be. I don't know. God knows. God may have brought
you here this morning to make you face up to the fact. You're
going to meet God. And all your pride and all your
loud words and what you're going to say and what you're going
to do and you're not afraid and all of that is going to leave
you, my friends, in that moment, in that time. They are corrupt, speak wickedly
concerning oppression. They speak loftily. They set
their mouth against the heavens. If there's a God in heaven, let
him strike me dead. You ever read where men said
that? Sure they have. And because God didn't strike
them dead, they think they've proved a fact. The only fact
they've proved is that they are fools. That's all, that's all. In fact, the scripture says because
sentenced against an evil act, is not executed speedily, the
hearts of the sons of man is fully set in them to do evil. And they say, how does God know? And is there knowledge in the
Most High? You think God really knows everyone? Knows every thought? Knows every word? Knows every
action? Yes. How does God know? They think because they do something
in the dark that they're hidden from God. And is their knowledge in the
most high? Behold, these are the ungodly
who prosper in the world. They increase in riches. And
the psalmist said, verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and
washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been
plagued and chastened every morning. Really? A child of God? In trouble? Plagued? Chastened? Yes. When I, if I say, I will speak thus, behold, I
should offend against the generation of thy children. You see, this
psalmist, and this is important for the child of God, yes, the
child of God experiences trials and afflictions and trouble and
sorrow just like we see here, but he does not, she does not
go around all the time saying, woe is me. Woe is me. No one's ever suffered like I
suffer. Why? Well, the psalmist tells
us here, right here, in verse 15. If I say, I will speak thus,
if I complained and murmured about my situation all the time,
what would I do? I would offend God's people.
And that's the last thing I want to do. I don't want to offend
God's people. I want to be a blessing, not
a discouragement. When I thought to know this,
it was too painful for me. Until, until I went into the
sanctuary of God, then understood I their end. Now, surely thou
did set them in slippery places. Thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation,
as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terrors? As a dream
when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt
despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and
I was pricked in my brains, my heart, so foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee.
Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me
by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there's none upon
earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. Thou hast
destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee. But it is good for
me to draw near to God. I put my trust in the Lord God,
that I may declare all thy works. So my point is, God's people,
God's children do know trouble and sorrow in this world. But
notice back in John chapter 14, if you will, how the Lord ministers
to their need, how he would meet their need, their situation as
it was at that time, troubled and filled with sorrow. Well,
notice he tells them of his work as intercessor. Don't miss that. Here in John
chapter 14 and verse 16. Yes, I'm going to leave. I'm
going to leave you. But notice what he says, first
of all, I will pray the Father. I will pray the Father. He tells
them of his work as an intercessor. You know, he prayed for Peter.
I'm not going to take the time for us to turn here, but you
know, he told Peter that night, Satan hath desired to have thee
that he might sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed the Father. Now, the Lord didn't pray, that
Peter not be tempted. And we know he was tempted, and
he failed. He denied the Lord. But the Lord
said, I prayed the Father, I prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith
not fail thee. And his faith didn't fail him.
His faith didn't fail him. Now, you think about that for
a moment. He didn't pray that Peter not be tested and tempted
by Satan, but that his faith not fail. Don't you know that
Peter's fall, Peter's fall, I don't know him, I don't know the man,
no, no. That that was part of the all
things that work together for good, for Peter? Do you think As he is presented
to us in the scripture before his fall, he seems to be a very
proud, very boastful fellow, doesn't he? Though everyone here,
Lord, everyone, all of these people, all these men, they may
all forsake you, but you can count on me. Not me. But after he fell, His faith
didn't fail him. He repented with bitter tears. And oh, how he was now fitted
to be used, right, to preach the gospel, to be a blessing,
to be a comfort to God's children. Some of the things that we experience
in life, some of the providences that we go through, At the time,
we don't like it. Our flesh doesn't like it. But
we've got to see that these things, too, are part of the all things
that work together for our good. And what our Lord told his disciples
is, I will pray, Father. He reminds them or teaches them
of his ongoing intercession. Now, think of this. Right now. Now. Whatever time it is, right
now, the Lord Jesus Christ is at the Father's right hand, making
intercession for you. He ever liveth to make intercession
for all those that come unto God by Him. Now, I don't know
how He makes intercession, Some people say, well, he's there
praying. Well, I don't know about that. I believe just his presence
there, don't you? He's there before the Father. He's still got the marks in his
hands and in his side. And just his presence there,
he's making intercession for his people. He's praying for
you right now and all the time. Not just right now. He maketh
intercession. What a blessing to God's saints
as we go through this world and we have trouble in our hearts
and sorrow in our hearts and we're cast down. And then we
remember. God brings us to our remembrance. The Lord's praying for me. He's
praying for me. Right now. He's praying for me. He's interceding for me. Now
the third thing, his request granted. The Father shall give
you another comforter. And I want to make two points
about this other comforter. First of all, this other comforter
is the Holy Ghost. If you look down in verse 26, but the comforter which is the
Holy Ghost. Now I prefer to speak of him
as the Holy Spirit only because since the translation of the
scripture, the word ghost in English at least has taken on
a kind of a strange meaning of departed spirits of people that
have lived here upon the earth. It's actually The words which
are translated spirit is wind or breath. Breath. Notice our Lord said there, I
will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter. He
didn't say he might. Possibly he's going to give you
another comforter. No, no. He shall. On the day
of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon these disciples
along with the church, there was no question it was going
to happen. It had been prophesied of, it
had been pictured. We saw that in our Sunday school
lesson earlier this morning. Yes, the Holy Spirit shall, I
will pray the Father and he shall give you another comfort. This was always God's purpose
and plan from old eternity. You know, there are cults, and
I bring this out in every one of these passages we read here
in John at the beginning of the message. Our Lord speaks of God
the Holy Spirit as He, as a person, a person. And I bring this out
to us because most all of the cults, they deny the the person
of the Holy Spirit. They deny the Trinity, first
of all. And they deny the person of the
Holy Spirit. They say that he's just a power,
just the power of God. And of course, when they deny
the Trinity, they deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, he's a God, but he's a little
smaller God. He's an inferior God. No, no! There's one God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Three persons and one God. And each person, each person
has a work in your salvation. Now we talk about Christ the
most, I'm sure, and that's only because the Holy Spirit, when
He comes, He shall glorify Him. And we talk about His sacrifice. Absolutely necessary. We sang
that hymn just a moment ago. When I see the blood, I will
pass over thee. And I thought to myself, of all
of us here this morning, what if God were to pass over us right
now? Would he see the blood? Ask yourself
that question. If he passed over you right now,
would he see the blood? He said, what do you mean, the
blood? I mean what he see, that you're
in union with Christ, that you're trusting in him and in him alone. But the Father sent the Son into
this world to be the Savior. The Son came, was made flesh
that he might give himself a sacrifice. And God the Holy Spirit, he applies
this salvation, this redemption to his chosen people. And that's when every child of
God receives the Holy Spirit. Now don't be fooled by these
people come along and say, well, you've been saved, you've believed
in Christ, and you've trusted in him, but now you need to receive
the Holy Spirit. You need to be baptized with
the Holy Spirit. That's a lie. No one is saved
apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. He's the one who regenerates
a man, or a woman, or a boy, or a girl. And we're passive
in that. He does that. That's His work.
The wind bloweth where it listeth. Everyone who's saved, the Holy
Spirit lives in you. He's come to you, just as our
Lord said here, as a comforter, as another comforter. He lives
in you. Now that's not the first time
our Lord's spoke of the Holy Spirit, but he does speak of
him more in these chapters. And let me hurry on to finish
the fourth thing I wanted to bring out. Here are three truths. Number one, the meaning of the
word, which is translated comforter here. The Apostle John is the
only inspired writer of the scriptures who uses this word. And he uses
it four times in these verses that we've read here in his gospel,
and he uses it one time in his first letter, 1 John chapter
2 and verse 1. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Same word, advocate,
that is here translated comforter. Some people say it's almost impossible,
really, to bring out the meaning of this, this word, this Greek
word. The picture is of coming alongside. Here I am. I'm in a dilemma. I'm at the courthouse. I'm in
the courtroom. And the judge is up there, and
here I am sitting by myself, alone. And here comes my lawyer,
sits down beside me. He comes alongside. That's what
the word literally means, to come alongside. But he comes
alongside. This could be translated as an
advocate, as we see in 1 John 2, as a monitor, as a teacher,
are as a helper. The Holy Spirit lives in every
child of God, in you today, to be a helper, your helper. And
boy, we need help, don't we? I know I do. I know I sure do. I'm so thankful that he lives
in me to help me. And that'll make you shout, won't
it? That God, that our bodies are
the temples of the Holy Spirit, this Comforter, who's come to
live in us, to help us. Help us, we can't. Our Lord said,
without me, you can do nothing, nothing. You wanna live for Christ? Amen, if you're one of his children.
He's come along to help, help. No other way we're gonna do it. Second, he comes as a permanent
resident. I said there are three things
I wanted to point out. The meaning of the word comforter. Second,
he comes as a permanent resident. He may abide with you forever. This is another way of showing
that when a person is saved, he's saved with eternal salvation. The Holy Spirit doesn't save
a person, come to live in a person, and after five years he decides
he's going somewhere else, or you do something to run him away.
No, no. He shall abide with you forever. And the last thing, and look
with me in chapter 15 in verse 26. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me. And I know that's his ministry. And I thought to myself, how
am I going to preach a message I feel led of God to preach this
message on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit's not going to
testify of himself. He's going to testify of Christ. You know what a floodlight is?
Do you? On our building out here, we
have some floodlights. on these posts. And when you
come up here at night, you see the building. You don't see the
lamp, the floodlight. It's over there on a post, it's
over here on a post. It illuminates the building. That's the ministry of the Holy
Spirit. He doesn't speak of himself.
He speaks of Christ. He testifies of Christ. He exalts Christ. If you find a preacher that harps
on the Holy Spirit all the time, you better believe he doesn't
know the Holy Spirit. A man who's anointed of the Spirit
of God, he's going to be preaching Christ and Christ alone. because
that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. One of the ministries,
the main ministry, I should say. Well, I've done my best. That's all
I can say. If you will, let's say an AM
and we'll pray and go home. Number 281.