Cheering Words
(No. 2444)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY, DECEMBER 22, 1895.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you: continue you in My
love." John 15:9.
THE Savior was about to leave His disciples and this was the hardest
trial which they had ever experienced. As there could be no trial to
them like the loss of the Savior's Presence, it was at this time Jesus
brought forth His richest consolation. He seems to have kept the best
wine and the most potent cordial till the time when their spirits most
required to be comforted. He said to them more fully than He had ever
said it before, "Take this for your comfort–live upon it while I am
absent from you. Live upon it always–that as the Father has loved Me,
so have I loved you."
But what is this richest of all cordials? What is this marrow and
fatness? It is the assurance of His love to us and surely there cannot
be a more delightful thought that can fill the soul of a mortal than
this–"The Son of God loves me." Did you ever sit down for half an hour
and try to masticate and digest this thought? That God should pity me,
I can understand, being so far inferior to Himself and so full of
misery. That He should be generous to me, I can comprehend, from the
liberality and bounty of His Nature and from my great necessities. But
that He should love me is amazing! I cannot see anything lovely in
myself and there are many who see that there is much ugliness about
me–and I do not doubt that there is–and yet He who knows me better
than I know myself and is not unmindful of my infirmities and
weaknesses says He loves me! He does not put me at arm's length and
then feed me from His bounty–that would be gracious–He opens wide His
bosom and takes me into His heart! He closes the golden doors and takes
me in to dwell forever, that in the ivory palaces I may be made glad
with the cassia and the aloes of His delightful Presence!
Man, did you ever get this into you soul? Then though you may be
clothed in rags, you will feel as though you were wrapped about with
imperial purple! Although you may dwell in a very poor and lonely
cottage, when this thought shines upon you, you would not change your
cottage for a palace! Unto which of the angels did He ever say this? I
believe angels are the subjects of Divine Love in a certain sense, but
I have never read of Christ saying to them, "As the Father has loved
Me, so have I loved you." This is the special privilege for the sons of
Adam who have fallen which angels never have. How marvelous! And is it
not more than marvelous, that God should have selected me out of the
sons of Adam? Perhaps there is nothing in any of you which you can look
upon as a reason why God should love you. Did I say, "perhaps"? Why,
there are 10,000 things about every one of us that might have won for
us the Almighty's hatred! Instead of this, He says He loves us, His
people! Surely, if I were to say no more, but sit down and leave you to
think over the fact that God loves you and that your name is dear to
Jehovah, your souls might be satisfied as with marrow and fatness!
The text, itself, clearly contains two things–a declaration and an
exhortation.
I. THE DECLARATION is like a door on two hinges and on these the text
swings. The hinges are, "as," and, "so"–"As the Father has loved Me,
so have I loved you." What if I call them two diamond pivots upon which
the pearly gate of Love turns to shut in God's people?
These words may be viewed in four lights. The word, "as," is used here
for the sake of affirmation. The Savior does as much as say, in the
most solemn manner possible, to His believing people, "I love you and I
love you as surely as My Father loves Me." There are a great many new
doctrines starting up, nowadays, and perhaps tomorrow morning there
will be another. New opinions are constantly coming up, but I do not
remember ever hearing anybody say that the Father does not love the
Son. Whatever new heresies there may be–and there will be plenty of
them–I do not suppose that this will ever be the subject of heresy. It
is so firmly believed, that I never heard a sermon preached to prove
it–it is a doctrine taken for granted and laid hold of as being an
elementary Truth of the Christian system. Jesus Christ, then, says,
"You do not doubt that the Father loves Me. Now, just as surely as the
Father loves Me, I say, solemnly and truly, that I love you." He says
this to each of us who trusts in Him–to all of you poor, troubled
Christians who have so many cares that you would not like to count
them–you to whom it was whispered, the other day–
"The Lord has quite forsaken you–
Your God will be gracious no more." "No," says Jesus, "you do not think
that the Father has cast Me off, or ceased to love Me? Then do not
think that I have cast you off, or ceased to love you. You are the
purchase of My blood and as surely as the Father loves Me, so do I
still love you."
This, "as," may not only be regarded as an affirmation, but also what
is very near akin to it, a confirmation. In order to strengthen their
faith, God has been pleased to give His people not merely His Word, but
tokens and signs to confirm His Word. When Noah had been delivered from
the flood by means of an ark, he might still have been very timid at
the first shower of rain and have been afraid that the world was going
to be drowned, again. But to remove any fears he might have had, lo,
there appears in the heavens God's rainbow, a bow of many colors,
illustrating the joy which there should be in the hearts of those with
whom God had made a Covenant! Not a black bow as though it were bent on
destruction, nor a crimson bow as though it were dipped in blood–but a
rainbow of many colors, a bow turned upwards, not shooting the arrows
of vengeance upon mankind, but hinting to us that we may shoot our
prayers up to Heaven–a bow unstrung and a bow without an arrow to show
that God had ceased from warring with His creatures and had made peace
with man. As soon as Noah saw that rainbow, he said, "I shall not be
drowned, the world will not be destroyed by a flood!"
God also gave His servant, David, a sign when He told him that as long
as the sun and moon should shine in their places, He would not break
His Covenant with David. The rainbow is a very sweet sign, but we
cannot always see it. And the sun and moon are not always visible, so
the Lord has been pleased to give to His people a sign which is always
visible, a symbol which is good by day and by night, and which is not
dependent upon raindrops and sunbeams. The Christian, by the eyes of
faith, can always look up to Heaven and see Christ in the bosom of His
Father! You have no doubt, I am sure, that Christ is the object of
Divine affection. You can see it clearly and there is no doctrinal
error at all clouding your view of the love of the Father for His Son.
Now this is, to me, the token that Jesus Christ loves me! I look up and
see Jesus resting in His Father's heart–and I, a poor sinner, resting
upon Jesus and finding all my help in Him–know that
I am in Christ's heart and that nothing shall ever pluck me from it. I
know this because I have the sign that, "as" the Father loves the Son,
"so" Christ loves me. May God give us Grace to see and rejoice in this,
"as," of confirmation!
But perhaps the fullness of this meaning lies in the fact that this is
an, "as," and a, "so," of comparison. I think the text means that in
the same way as the Father loves the Son, just in the same way Jesus
loves His people. And how does the Father love the Son? He loved Him
without beginning! You meet with strange people, sometimes, but I do
not recollect ever meeting with anyone who thought that God the Father
did not, at some time or other, love the Son. It is commonly and
currently believed among all who accept the Bible as true, that from
everlasting to everlasting the love of God is set upon His Son. We
believe that long "before worlds were made or time began" the Lord
Jesus Christ was dear to His eternal Father. Now, as the Father loves
Christ, so Christ loves us and, therefore, He loves us without
beginning! Long before the lamps of Heaven were kindled, or the stars
began to twinkle in the sky–when as yet all this world slept in the
mind of God as unborn forests sleep within the acorn–we were in the
heart of Christ!
When we rest upon Christ, we may be infallibly certain that His
foreseeing eyes beheld us and that His foreloving heart loved us when
as yet we had no being! In the book wherein all His members were
written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there were
none of them, there He read our names, our forms, our lineaments. He
saw our characters and knew our sins–
"He saw us ruined in the Fall, Yet loved us, notwithstanding all." You
can go back to the beginning of human affection–you can easily go back
to the beginning of your love to God, but God's love to us is a deep
which has no bottom–
"The streams of love I trace up to their Fountain–God! And in His
mighty breast I see
Eternal thoughts of love to me."
And I suppose we all believe that the Father loves His Son without end.
You have no idea, I suppose, that at any time the Father will cease to
love His own dear Son. You cannot suppose such a thing–your mind can
hardly conjure up such a blasphemous thought as that there should ever
be a division among the Persons of the Trinity and that Jesus Christ
should be driven from His Father's heart! "Now," says Christ, "as the
Father has loved Me, so have I loved you," that is, without end–
"Once in Christ, in Christ forever! Nothing from His love can sever."
This is a great and precious Truth of God, but I know some people who
use it very badly, for they say, "I was in Christ once and, therefore,
I must be in Christ now." But that is not the question! If you were
once in Christ, you are in Christ now–but can you really and truly say
that you are in Christ now? Are you now resting upon Him? Are you now
walking in His ways? Are you now reflecting His image? Are you now
trusting that His Spirit dwells in you? If not, I do not care what you
say about having been once in Christ, for I do not believe that unless
you are in Christ now! This Truth, which you use as a buttress for your
presumption, should rather be used as a stimulus to self-examination!
Remember, it is written, "But if any man draws back, My soul shall have
no pleasure in him." And if you have drawn back, you have given clear
proof that His soul has no pleasure in you, for they who are in Christ
Jesus are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation–they
are preserved by Christ Jesus–they are sanctified by His indwelling
Spirit and their path, according to Solomon, "is as the shining light,
that shines more and more unto the perfect day." God grant that we may
prove our calling by our perseverance!
Let us, just for a moment, suck in the Truth of this very precious
doctrine that, as surely as the Father will always continue to love
Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ will always continue to love us. Some of
us, perhaps, look forward to old age without expecting any great
delight in it. There are times when the grinders fail because they are
few and they that look out of the windows are darkened. But, Saint, you
need not fear the loosing of the silver cord, for your God shall never
change–His eyes shall not wax dim–His natural force shall never
abate! If you should be bowed double with infirmity, yet remember that
the everlasting God faints not, neither is weary and His love for you
will never cease! Perhaps at times we look forward to death with a sort
of shiver. I know that there are seasons when even the very best of
God's servants do not find death the sweetest possible subject for
contemplation, but I do not think that any of us who believe in Jesus
have the slightest reason to be afraid to die. On the contrary, we may
rejoice in it, for our Savior will not leave us in the hour of death.
Still is He in the Father's bosom and still shall we be there even when
the chill floods are about us and the crashing of the eternal waves
shall be sounding in our ears! Rest confident, Christian, that even
down to the grave, Christ will go with you and that up, again, from it,
He will be your Guide and your Companion to the Celestial
Hills!
I am sure you are all perfectly agreed, too, that God the Father loves
Jesus Christ without any change. You do not believe, as instructed
disciples, that the Father loved Jesus Christ more, at one time, than
at another. It is our belief that when Christ said, "My God, My God,
why have You forsaken Me?" He was still as dear to His Father's heart
as He ever had been. There was a hiding of His face from His Son, but
not a turning away of His heart! Can you suppose that His Father loved
Him the least when He was most obedient? When He was obedient unto
death and fulfilled His Father's will at all hazards in the awful
darkness, do you think that, then, the Father's heart was cold and
stony towards Him? Oh, no! It was but a change of manifestation, but
His inward love was still the same!
Now, Christian, take this for your own comfort, that there is never any
change in Jesus Christ's love to those who rest in Him. Yesterday you
were on Tabor's top and you said, "He loves me." Today you are in the
Valley of Humiliation, but He loves you just the same. On the hill
Mizar and far away among the Hermons, you heard His voice which spoke
so sweetly with the turtle-notes of love. And now, on the sea, or even
in the sea, when all his waves and billows go over you, and deep calls
unto deep at the noise of his waterspouts, He is just as loving to you
as ever He was! He does not change one whit. If you lived in certain
lands, you might look up and see on the mountain some glorious old peak
lifting its snow-white head into the clouds. When you look up the next
morning, can you see the mountain? No, you see nothing but fog. Is
there no mountain? Oh, yes–
"The mountains, when in darkness hidden, Are real as in the day."
So is it with you. You look up today and see your Father's love and
rejoice in it–tomorrow you may not see it so clearly, but it has not
gone, for it abides fixed and stable–and never changes. Gourds may
grow and wither, but God's love neither grows nor withers–it knows not
the shadow of a change! As the Father loves Christ without change, so
does Christ love us without change.
Once more and then we shall entrench upon another interpretation of the
word, "as." I think it also means that the Father loves the Son without
any measure. I was going to say that this is an, "as," of degree, but
it is a degree without any degree, or rather, it is a degree which
cannot be measured! You cannot say of the Father's love to the Son that
He loves Him up to such a point and there stops–and you cannot say of
Jesus Christ's love to His people that He loves them so much, but does
not love them any farther–
"Oh, no! Christ loves His Church,
His glory 'tis to bless
He cannot love her more,
He will not love her less."
The whole heart of Christ was emptied into His people's hearts! You say
His people's hearts could not hold it all? Very likely, but that is no
reason why Christ did not give us all. If I cannot hold all the sea,
yet God may give me all the sea. The Christian is filled with all the
fullness of God. He has as much of Christ in him as he can hold. He is
in Christ and Christ is in him. He dwells in God and God dwells in him.
Both of these are Scriptural expressions. There is no conceivable limit
to the love of God to us in Jesus Christ and if you need proof of it,
go to Calvary and see, there, how He gave Himself for us–how He was
stripped naked to His shame that He might clothe us! How He spared
neither hands, nor feet, nor head, nor back–no, He spared not even His
own heart–but poured out from it blood and water! "Greater love has no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for" those whom He loves.
There cannot be greater love than that of Christ! He went as far as
infinity could go in love and do you know how far that is? No–
"Imagination's utmost stretch In wonder dies away"
at the thought of Infinite Love stretching its wings and putting itself
forth to its highest pitch. Such is Jesus Christ's love to you!
What was that you said the other night? That you were afraid you would
exhaust the patience of God? A little fish said, once, he was afraid he
would drink the sea dry, but there was never any the less water in the
sea for all that he drank, for he was in the sea and all he drank was
still in the sea! So all that we get from God is still in God, for, "in
Him we live, and move and have our being." If you could give to a poor
man in the street any quantity of money and still have just as much in
your own pockets, no, if you could still have the same money in your
own pockets that you had given to him, the man would say, "Well, giving
does not impoverish you, restraining does not enrich you and, therefore
you may well give freely." Oh, there are some of us who have such large
appetites for Divine Love! I have sometimes felt such hungering after
my God that I thought my soul could never be satisfied. I have thirsted
after Him till I have felt like behemoth, who trusts that he can drink
up Jordan at a draught! But there is enough in God to satisfy all our
soul's needs. We sometimes sing what is strictly true–
"All my capacious powers can wish, In You do richly meet."
Come, then, Beloved, you have a full Savior, a precious Savior, one who
loves you without measure, without any degree, even as the Father loves
Him! There is much food here for those who know how to feed upon it.
May the Holy Spirit help us to do so!
II. Let me now ask your patient attention while I speak upon THE
EXHORTATION OF THE TEXT–"Continue in My love."
"What, what?" asks one, "does He love us with an everlasting love and
yet thus admonishes us, 'Continue in My love'?" Yes, yes–the certainty
of the thing does not at all weaken the force of the precept. This is
God's plan, to work out His own purpose by an exhortation. Diligent
students of God's Word must have noticed that the very things which in
one part of Scripture are spoken of as unconditional gifts, are, in
other parts spoken of as blessings to be anxiously desired and eagerly
sought after. The two things are correct and consistent, one with the
other, only some people get one of their eyes bound up so that they are
not able to see two Truths at the same time! I am thankful if you can
see one, but I
should be still more glad if you could see two because I think that
then you would be more like the perfect man in Christ Jesus who enters
into life with both eyes! You find in one place that God is exhorting
His people to good works as if their good works were all their own–and
yet in another place He tells them that their good works are the gifts
of His Spirit! In one place He tells the saints that they shall hold on
their way and in another place He exhorts them to hold on their way.
This is not at all inconsistent because the exhortation, by God's Grace
applied to the heart, ministers to the fulfillment of the decree. My
good old grandfather, I think, was quite right, when he said, "I rest
my salvation upon the finished work of Jesus Christ as if I had never
performed a good work in all my life. And then I endeavor to do good
works as if everything depended upon them." This is what the Savior
seems to say to His disciples, "Continue in My love, continue in the
path of obedience, in the path of faith and, by your keeping of this
exhortation shall My purpose be fulfilled, and you shall be preserved
in My love."
Not that this is exactly the meaning of the text. Although this may lie
on the surface, it seems to me rather to suggest such counsel as this,
"Continue to exhibit to others the love which I have exhibited to you."
Some professed Christians never get into Christ's love at all in this
sense of it. It strikes me that one of the truest signs of Grace in the
young Christian is his love to others. As soon as ever he is, himself
saved, he wants to have other people saved! I do not believe that
Heaven is a place into which, if I get there, I shall be eternally
happy at the thought of other people being shut out. On the contrary, I
look forward to it as the place where Christ shall see of the travail
of His soul and shall be satisfied–and it is not a little that will
satisfy Him!
If you ever get any comfort from the thought of others being shut out,
you may keep your comfort to yourselves. My comfort is and I hope it
always will be, to labor to be the means of bringing others in. Oh, to
bring sinners to Christ! Oh, to feel the same love beating in our
hearts which Christ has beating in His–not to the same degree, of
course, but the same kind of love. Oh, to be baptized into that same
river of love in which Christ was baptized, and to come out of it to
continue in the same sort of love, so as to have the same love to
others which Jesus Christ had to us! Do not be afraid of having too
much love for precious souls. Do not think that you will ever go beyond
the love of Jesus Christ in that matter. Poor cold hearts as we are,
how shall we warm into anything like His affection?–
"Did Christ over sinners weep, And shall our cheeks be dry?"
Ah, there are some cheeks that were never wet with the tears for
others, yet! And there are some hearts that never were ready to break
for the conversion of others! "Well," says one, "every tub must stand
on its own bottom." Yes, Sir, and if you trust to yourself, it will be
to your everlasting ruin! If you have found honey, your first desire is
that another should taste of its sweetness and, having found Christ,
yourself, your first instinct will be to turn round and say to others,
"Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world." I find
that when I preach the Gospel without tenderness, I do not get such a
blessing as I do when it melts my own soul. It is a good thing when the
preacher finds his own heart breaking. Heart-broken ministers are very
soon made heart-breaking ministers! Love to others has a kind of
sympathetic influence and under the blessing of God the Holy Spirit,
when men see that we care about them, they are often led to care about
themselves. May all Christians here get fully into Christ's love and
learn to look at sinners as Christ looked at them in all their awful
danger–and weep over them even as Christ wept over Jerusalem!
I think, however, that the Savior meant even a little more than this.
Sometimes we get into Christ's love and enjoy it in our own hearts. It
is the sweetest thing this side Heaven to know and enjoy the love of
Jesus Christ, to have our head lying on His bosom so that we can feel
His heart beat, and then to hear Him say, "I have loved you and given
Myself for you." You know this, don't you? Then I know your prayer will
be like that of the spouse, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His
mouth: for Your love is better than wine." I do not know how it is with
you, but I find it rather more easy to get into this state than to stay
there. I can get up the mountain, by God's Grace, but the difficulty is
to stay there. Peter said, "It is good for us to be here; let us build
three tabernacles." Yes, but it is not so easy to build one tabernacle
upon the mountain. Christ's love-visits are so often like those of
angels–few and far between! But yet we cannot blame our Beloved.
Forbid it, my tongue, that you should ever say a word against Him! No,
He would never turn me out of doors. The fault is my own–it is I who
leave the table and refuse to stay with Him any longer. Oh, may His
love bind us so fast to the altar that we may never stray from it, but
may continue in His love!
"Well," says one, "I do not think that any man could stay long in
communion with Christ if he had as many troubles as I have." Did you
ever read about Enoch? We are told that he lived 365 years and walked
with God. And if Enoch walked with God so long, do you think that you
cannot walk with Him for the few years of your short life? "Oh," you
say, "but Enoch was differently situated from what I am." And yet it is
written, "Enoch walked with God and begat sons and daughters," which
seems to say that the common engagements of life and the ordinary cares
of a family need not break off our walking with God! "But," you say,
"he did not live in such times as these." No, he did not live in such
good ones, for he lived before the rising of the Sun–he lived in the
twilight, in the dim, dark ages before the great Sun of Righteousness
had arisen with healing beneath His wings! Enoch walked with God nearly
400 years, but there are some of us who cannot walk with Him for 400
hours!
Oh, may the Lord grant us more Grace, for that is where the mischief
lies! The most of God's people, I am afraid, are in the condition of
being just barely alive. Sometimes a man is washed up on a rock and you
put your hand to his bosom to see if there is any heat left in him, and
hold a mirror to his nose to see if he has any breath. You look for
signs and evidences and, at last you say, "Yes, he is alive!" And this
is just like a great many of you! You have to look for signs and
evidences to know if you are alive! You are just washed up on the Rock
and that is all. But look at many of us here–we do not need signs and
evidences! We are alive, by God's Grace, and we know that we are! We
can talk and laugh, and eat and drink, and engage in business. We are
perfectly sure that we are alive because we are in good health! And so
it is with Christians when they get to be in good sound spiritual
health and are enabled, by Divine Grace, to do much for their Master! I
would not be satisfied with being merely alive if I were lying
stretched upon the bed and someone should say to me, "Well, you know
you are alive," I would tell him that I was not satisfied merely with
that–I wanted to be healthy and well! God grant that we may not only
know Christ's love, but that we may get into the soul of it, into the
marrow and fatness of it–till we live in it–and then may God's Grace
help us to continue in it!
But there are some poor souls here who have never got into this love at
all, nor do they know anything about it. Perhaps, dear Friends, you
desire to know it. Well, there is only one place where you can see it.
The window through which you can look into God's heart is the Cross of
Christ! If you want to read the love of God, go and look through the
wounds of the Savior! And as you stand looking through those wounds,
you will, if you listen, hear a voice saying–
"Love's redeeming work is done! Come, and welcome, Sinner, come!" I
have never heard of Jesus Christ shutting the door against a sinner.
There is a notice that is put in some gentlemen's parks stating that
they do not allow beggars or dogs there. But Jesus Christ puts up a
notice that He does allow beggars! In fact, there are none but beggars
who ever go to Him–and even those who are such beggars that you would
not pick their clothes from a dunghill, Jesus Christ receives into His
house, into His heart, into the bath of His blood and wraps them in the
robe of His perfect righteousness! O poor Sinner, come and try Him, and
He will not cast you out!
EXPOSITION B Y C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN15.
Verse 1. I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Husbandman. Not only
the Mosaic Law, but the whole of creation is full of types of Christ.
All the vines that we see in this world are only, as it were, typical,
but Christ is the substance–the substance of Nature as well as of
Grace. "I am the true Vine," and the real Husbandman, who watches over
everything, who has the whole Church, yes, the whole universe, under
His care, is the great Father. "My Father is the Husbandman."
2. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away. It has no
right to be there, for it is not there by a vital union–it will only
harbor mischief if it is allowed to remain. Therefore let it be taken
away and taken away it certainly will be by the Husbandman who makes no
mistakes.
2. And every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring
forth more fruit. So there is taking away for the fruitless branches
and pruning for the fruit-bearing branches! Are you suffering under the
pruning-knife just now? Accept it joyfully! How much better that the
knife should cut off your superfluities than that it should cut you
off! The mercy is that although God will purge and prune His vine
branches, He will not destroy them!
3. Now you are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you.
Christ had so dealt with His disciples that He left them like a pruned
branch, ready and prepared for fruitfulness.
4. Abide in Me, and I in you. The pruning is nothing without the
abiding in Christ. You may suffer again and again, but no good can come
of it except you have vital, continuous, everlasting union with Christ.
You cannot take a branch away from the vine for a little while and then
put it back again–its life depends upon the perfect continuity of its
union. So is it with us and Christ–the branch is in the Vine, and the
Vine is in the branch. The very essence and sap of the Vine are in the
branch even as the branch is part and parcel of the Vine.
4, 5. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the
vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are
the branches. You are not the Vine–do not think that you are! And if
God blesses you and makes you of some importance in the Church, yet do
not dream that you are the Church, that you are the very root and stem
of it. Ah, no, at the utmost, " you are the branches"!
5. He that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much
fruit. Oh, what a searching word is this! Are we bringing forth much
fruit? I trust, dear Brothers and Sisters, that we are bringing forth
some fruit, but, oh, what a test is this, "He that abides in Me, and I
in him, the same brings forth much fruit." Christ expects much from
those who have this doubly high privilege of having Him in them and of
being, themselves, in Him!
5, 6. For without Me you can do nothing. If a man abides not in Me, he
is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned. And are there enough of
them for that? It is enough to bring tears into one's eyes to think
that there should be enough fruitless, unabiding–merely nominal
members of Christ's Church–for men to gather to make a fire! Oh, sad,
sad thing is this! It is the grief of the Church! It is the sorrow of
God's ministers! It ought to call for great self-examination in our own
hearts that mere professors–those who apostatize after having made a
profession of religion–do not seem to have been thought by the Savior
to be here and there one, but to be so many that "men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
7. If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what
you will, and it shall be done unto you. Power in prayer is dependent
upon full enjoyment of union and communion with Christ! It is not every
man who can ask of God what he wills and get it–it is such a man, and
such a man only–as shall be found abiding in Christ and having
Christ's Words abiding in him. If we do not take notice of what Christ
says, can we expect that He will take notice of what we say? If we do
not obey Him when He asks this and that of us, how can we reckon that
He will give us this and that when we ask it of Him? No, this is the
condition of power in prayer, "If you abide in Me, and My Words abide
in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you."
8. Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall
you be My disciples. You shall be known to be the disciples of the much
fruit-bearing Savior! He was no moderately good Man. He was not One who
was only a little useful in the world. Our blessed Master was perfectly
consecrated! He abounded in every good word and work and, unless we are
the same, how shall men think that we are His disciples?
9. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Matchless,
matchless Word of God! The love of God the Father to the Son is the
immeasurable measure of the love of Christ to His people–without
beginning, without end, without change, without bounds! As the Father
loved Christ, so has Christ loved us.
9. Continue in My love. Abide in it, live in it as the fish lives in
the stream, enjoy it–do nothing contrary to it.
10, 11. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; even
as 1 have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love. These
things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and
that your joy might be full. When Christ cannot rejoice in us, you may
rest assured that we cannot rejoice in ourselves! But when His Grace so
operates upon us that He sees that in us which gives Him contentment,
then it is that we shall feel a blessed contentment ourselves.
12. This is My commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved
you. I am sure you will never love each other too much. You cannot go
beyond this rule–"Love one another, as I have loved you."
13. Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for his
friends. What more has he that he can lay down when, having given up
all else, he gives life, itself, for them?
14. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. You cannot be
His friends if you are disobedient to His commands. An act of
disobedience is unfriendliness. Yes, and the omission of obedience is
unfriendliness to Christ. I wish we would always remember that every
sin, either of omission or of commission, is an unfriendly act towards
our best Friend.
15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what
his lord does: but I have called you friends; for all things that I
have heard of My Father I have made known unto you. The Law made man do
this and that, but it communicated very little of the secret counsels
of God. But there is a holy familiarity between Christ and His people,
a sacred confidence which Christ has manifested towards us in revealing
the very heart of God to us and, therefore, we are put upon a very high
standing, not as servants, but as friends. O friends of Christ, show
yourselves friendly by your entire obedience to His gracious will!
16. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained, yes,
that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should
remain: that whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may
give it to you. Fruitfulness, perseverance, and power in prayer–these
are the priceless gifts that come to us through our being one with
Christ!
17. These things I command you, that you love one another. As if there
were many things in that one command. It is but one command, but it is
so comprehensive that all the commandments are fulfilled in this one,
"that you love one another."
18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated
you. So you need not be at all surprised if the world hates you.
19. If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because
you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. Therefore expect it, in some form or
other, for you will be sure to meet with it! The seed of the serpent
never will love the seed of the woman.
20,21. Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is not greater
than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute
you; if they have kept My sayings, they will keep yours, also. But all
these things will they do unto you for My name's sake, because they
know not Him that sent Me. "If I had not come and spoken unto them,
they had not had sin"–as if all the rest would scarcely have been sin
at all in comparison with that sin against the Light of God which men
committed after Christ had spoken to them! What an amazing thing it is
that the very Word of God which is the creation of all good should,
through the perversity of men's will, become, also, the creation of
evil!
22, 23. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin:
but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hates Me, hates My
Father, also. There is a hatred of God in all hatred of the Mediator!
Men may say that they love God, and yet despise Christ, but it cannot
be so. Christ is so truly God and so clear a manifestation of God that
if men knew God, they would certainly hate Him if they hate Christ!
24-27, If I had not done among them the works which no other man did,
they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and
My Father. But this came to pass that the Word might be fulfilled that
is written in their Law, They hated Me without a cause. But when the
Comforter comes, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of Truth, which proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of
Me: and you, also, shall bear witness, because you have been with Me
from the beginning.