The Believer Not An Orphan
(No. 2990)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.
"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." John 14:18.
You will notice that the margin reads, "I will not leave you orphans: I
will come to you." In the absence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
disciples were like children deprived of their parents. During the
three years in which He had been with them, He had solved all their
difficulties, borne all their burdens and supplied all their needs.
Whenever a case was too hard or too heavy for them, they took it to
Him. When their enemies well near overcame them, Jesus came to the
rescue and turned the tide of battle. They were all happy and safe
enough while the Master was with them. He walked in their midst like a
father amid a large family of children, making all the household glad.
But now He was about to be taken from them by an ignominious death and
they might well feel that they would be like little children deprived
of their natural and beloved Protector. Our Savior knew the fear that
was in their hearts and before they could express it, He removed it by
saying "You shall not be left alone in this wild and desert world.
Though I must be absent from you in the flesh, yet I will be present
with you in a more efficacious manner. I will come to you spiritually
and you shall derive from My spiritual Presence even more good than you
could have had from My bodily Presence, had I still continued in your
midst."
I. First, here is AN EVIL AVERTED.
Without their Lord, Believers would, apart from the Holy Spirit, be
like other orphans–unhappy and desolate. Give them what you might,
their loss could not have been recompensed. No number of lamps can make
up for the sun's absence–blaze as they may, it is still night. No
circle of friends can supply to a bereaved woman the loss of her
husband–without him she is still a widow. Even thus, without Jesus, it
is inevitable that the saints should be as orphans. But Jesus has
promised in the text that we shall not be so– He declares the only
thing that can remove the trial shall be ours–"I will come to you."
Now remember that an orphan is one whoseparents are dead. This, in
itself, is a great sorrow, if there were no other. The dear father, so
well-beloved, was suddenly smitten down with sickness. They watched him
with anxiety. They nursed him with sedulous care, but he expired. The
loving eyes are closed in darkness for them. Those active hands will no
longer toil for the family. That heart and brain will no longer feel
and think for them. Beneath the green grass the father sleeps. And
every time the child surveys that hallowed hillock, his heart swells
with grief. Beloved, we are not orphans in that sense, for our Lord
Jesus is not dead! It is true that He died, for one of the soldiers
with a spear pierced His side and forthwith came out blood and water–a
sure evidence that the pericardium had been pierced and that the
fountain of life had been broken up. He died, that is certain, but He
now is not dead! Go not to the grave to seek Him. Angel voices say, "He
is not here, for He is risen." He could not be held by the bands of
death. We do not worship a dead Christ, nor do we even think of Him now
as a corpse. That picture on the wall which the Romanists paint and
worship, represents Christ as dead, but oh, it is so good to think of
Christ as living, remaining in an existence real and true, none the
less living because He died, but all the more truly full of life
because He has passed through the portals of the grave and is now
reigning forever! See then, dear Friends, the bitter root of the
orphan's sorrow is gone from us, for our Jesus is not dead! No
mausoleum enshrines His ashes, no pyramid embalms His body, no monument
records the place of His permanent sepulcher!
The orphan has a sharp sorrow springing out of the death of his
parents, namely, that he is left alone. He cannot now make appeals to
the wisdom of the parent who could direct him. He cannot run, as once
he did, when he was weary, to
climb the parental knee. He cannot lean his aching head upon the
parental bosom. "Father," he may say, but no voice gives an answer.
"Mother," he may cry, but that fond title which would awaken the mother
if she slept, cannot awaken her from the bed of death! The child is
alone, alone as to those two hearts which were its best companions. The
parent and lover are gone! The little ones know what it is to be
deserted and forsaken. But we are not so–we are not orphans. It is
true that Jesus is not here in body, but His spiritual Presence is
quite as blessed as His bodily Presence would have been. No, it is
better, for supposing Jesus Christ to be here in Person, you could not
all come and touch the hem of His garment–not all at once, at any
rate. There might be thousands waiting all the world over to speak with
Him, but how could they all reach Him if He were merely here in body?
You might all be wanting to tell Him something, but, in the body He
could only receive some one or two of you at a time.
But in spirit, there is no need for you to stir from the pew, no need
to say a word–Jesus hears your thoughts talk and attends to all your
needs at the same moment! There is no need for us to press to get at
Him because the throng is great, for He is as near to me as He is to
you, and as near to you as to saints in America, or the islands of the
Southern Sea. He is everywhere present and all His beloved may talk
with Him! You can tell Him, at this moment, the sorrows which you dare
not open up to anyone else. You will feel that in declaring them to
Him, you have not breathed them to the air, but that a real Person has
heard you. One as real as though you could grip His hand and could see
the loving flash of His eyes and mark the sympathetic change of His
Countenance.
Is it not so with you, you children of a living Savior? You know it is!
You have a Friend that sticks closer than a brother! You have a near
and dear One who, in the dead of the night is in the chamber, and in
the heat and burden of the day is in the field of labor. You are not
orphans–the "Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting
Father, The Prince of Peace" is with you–your Lord is here and, as one
whom his mother comforts, so Jesus comforts you!
The orphan, too, has lost the kind hands which always took care that
food and raiment should beprovided, that the table should be well
stored, and that the house should be kept in comfort. Poor feeble one,
who will provide for his needs? His father is dead, his mother is
gone–who will take care of the little wanderer now! But it is not so
with us! Jesus has not left us orphans. His care for His people is no
less, now, than it was when He sat at the table with Mary, and Martha
and Lazarus, whom "Jesus loved." Instead of the provisions being less,
they are even greater, for since the Holy Spirit has been given to us,
we have richer fare and are more indulged with spiritual comforts than
Believers were before the bodily Presence of the Master had departed!
Do your souls hunger tonight? Jesus gives you the bread of Heaven! Do
you thirst tonight!? The waters from the Rock cease not to flow–
"Come, make your needs, your burdens known." You have but to make known
your needs to have them all supplied! Christ waits to be gracious in
the midst of this assembly. He is here with His golden hands, opening
those hands to supply the needs of every living soul. "Oh," says one,
"I am poor and needy." Go on with the quotation. "Yet the Lord thinks
upon me." "Ah," says another, "I have besought the Lord thrice to tear
away a thorn in the flesh from me." Remember what He said to Paul? "My
Grace is sufficient for you." You are not left without the strength you
need. The Lord is still your Shepherd. He will provide for you till He
leads you through death's dark valley and brings you to the shining
pastures upon the hilltops of Glory! You are not destitute? You need
not beg an asylum from an ungodly world by bowing to its demands, or
trusting its vain promises–for Jesus will never leave you, nor forsake
you!
The orphan, too, is left without the instruction which is most suitable
for a child. We may say what we will, but there is none so fit to form
a child's character as the parent. It is a very sad loss for a child to
have lost either father or mother in its early days, for the most
skillful preceptor, though he may do much–by the blessing of God, very
much–is but a stop-gap, and but half makes up for the original
ordinance of Providence that the parent's love should fashion the
child's mind. But, dear Friends, we are not orphans! We who believe in
Jesus are not left without an education. Jesus is not here, Himself, it
is true. I daresay some of you wish you could come on Lord's-Days and
listen to Him! Would it not be sweet to look up to this pulpit and see
the Crucified One, and to hear Him preach? Ah, so you think, but the
Apostle says, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now
henceforth know we Him no more."
It is most for your profit that you should receive the Spirit of Truth,
not through the golden vessel of Christ in His actual Presence here,
but through the poor earthen vessels of humble servants of God like
ourselves. At any rate, whether
we speak, or an angel from Heaven, the speaker matters not–it is the
Spirit of God, alone, that is the power of the Word and makes that Word
become vital and quickening to you. You now have the Spirit of God. The
Holy Spirit is so given that there is not a Truth of God which you may
not understand. You may be led into the deepest mystery by His
teaching. You may be made to know and to comprehend those knotty points
in the Word of God which have hitherto puzzled you. You have but humbly
to look up to Jesus and His Spirit will still teach you. I tell you,
though you are poor and ignorant, and perhaps can scarcely read a word
in the Bible–for all that, you may be better instructed in the things
of God than doctors of divinity if you go to the Holy Spirit and are
taught of Him! Those who go only to books and to the letter and are
taught of men, may be fools in the sight of God, but those who go to
Jesus and sit at His feet, and ask to be taught of His Spirit, shall be
wise unto salvation! Blessed be God, there are not a few among us of
this sort. We are not left orphans–we still have an Instructor with
us!
There is one point in which the orphan is often sorrowfully reminded of
his orphanhood, namely, in lacking a defender. It is so natural in a
little child, when some big boys bully him, to cry, "I'll tell my
father!" How often did we use to say so, and how often have we heard
from the little ones since, "I'll tell Mother!" Sometimes, the not
being able to do this is a much severer loss than we can guess. Unkind
and cruel men have snatched away from orphans the little which a
father's love had left behind and, in the court of law, there has been
no defender to protect the orphan's goods. Had the father been there,
the child would have had its rights, scarcely would any have dared to
infringe them. But, in the absence of the father, the orphan is eaten
up like bread and the wicked of the earth devour his estate. In this
sense, the saints are not orphans. The devil would rob us of our
heritage if he could, but there is an Advocate with the Father who
pleads for us. Satan would snatch from us every promise and tear from
us all the comforts of the Covenant, but we are not orphans. And when
he brings a suit-at-law against us and thinks that we are the only
defendants in the case, he is mistaken, for we have an Advocate on
high! Christ comes in and pleads, as the sinner's Friend, for us–and
when He pleads at the Bar of Justice, there is no fear but that His
plea will be of effect, and our inheritance shall be safe! He has not
left us orphans.
Now I want, without saying many words, to get you who love the Master
to feel what a very precious thought this is, that you are not alone in
this world–that if you have no earthly friends, if you have none to
whom you can take your cares, if you are quite lonely so far as outward
friends are concerned–yet Jesus is with you, is really with you,
practically with you, able to help you and ready to do so! You have a
good and kind Protector close at hand at this present moment, for
Christ has said it, "I will not leave you orphans."
II. Secondly, there is A CONSOLATION PROVIDED. The remedy by which the
evil is averted is this–our Lord Jesus said, "I will come to you."
What does this mean? Does it not mean, from the context, "I will come
to you by My Spirit?" Beloved, we must not confuse the Persons of the
Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not the Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God,
is not the Holy Spirit. They are two distinct Persons of the one
Godhead. But there is such a wonderful unity and the blessed Spirit
acts so marvelously as the Vicar of Christ, that it is quite correct to
say that when the Spirit comes, Jesus comes, too. And, "I will come to
you," means–"I, by My Spirit, who shall take My place and represent
Me, I will come to be with you." See then, Christian, you have the Holy
Spirit in you and with you to be the Representative of Christ! Christ
is with you now, not in Person, but by His Representative–an
efficient, almighty, Divine, everlasting Representative who stands for
Christ and is as Christ to you in His Presence in your souls.
Because you thus have Christ by His Spirit, you cannot be orphans, for
the Spirit of God is always with you! It is a delightful Truth of God
that the Spirit of God always dwells in Believers–not sometimes, but
always. He is not always active in Believers and He may be grieved
until His sensible Presence is altogether withdrawn, but His secret
Presence is always there. At no single moment is the Spirit of God
wholly gone from a Believer. The Believer would die spiritually if this
could happen, but that cannot be, for Jesus has said, "Because I live,
you shall live also." Even when the Believer sins, the Holy Spirit does
not utterly depart from him, but is still in him to make him smart for
the sin into which he has fallen. The Believer's prayers prove that the
Holy Spirit is still within him. "Take not your Holy Spirit from me,"
was the prayer of a saint who had fallen very foully, but in whom the
Spirit of God still kept His residence, notwithstanding all the
foulness of David's guilt and sin!
But, Beloved, in addition to this, Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, makes
visits to His people of a peculiar kind. The Holy Spirit becomes
wonderfully active and potent at certain times of refreshing. We are
then especially and joyfully sensible of His Divine Power. His
influence streams through every chamber of our nature and floods our
dark soul with His glorious rays as the sun shining in its strength.
Oh, how delightful this is! Sometimes we have felt this at the Lord's
Table. My soul pants to sit with you at that Table because I remember
many a happy time when the emblems of bread and wine have assisted my
faith and kindled the passions of my soul into a heavenly flame! I am
equally sure that at the Prayer Meeting, under the preaching of the
Word, in private meditation and in searching the Scriptures, we can say
that Jesus Christ has come to us. What? Have you no hill Mizar to
remember–
"No Tabor-visits to recount
When with Him in the holy mount?" Oh, yes! Some of these blessed
seasons have left their impression upon our memories so that the
remembrance of those blessed seasons when Jesus Christ manifested
Himself unto us as He does not unto the world will mingle among our
dying thoughts! Oh, to be wrapped in that crimson vest, closely pressed
to His open side! Oh, to put our finger into the print of the nails and
to thrust our hand into His side! We know what this means by past
experience.
And now, gathering up the few thoughts I have uttered, let me remind
you, dear Friends, that every word of the text is instructive–"I will
not leave you orphans: I will come to you." Observe the, "I," there
twice over. "I will not leave you orphans–father and mother may, but I
will not. Friends once beloved may turn stony-hearted, but I will not.
Judas may play the traitor and Ahithophel may betray his David, but I
will not leave you comfortless. You have had many disappointments,
great heart-breaking sorrows, but I have never caused you any. I–the
faithful and true Witness, the Immutable, the unchangeable Jesus, the
same yesterday, today and forever–I will not leave you comfortless: I
will come to you." Catch at that word, "I," and let your souls say,
"Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. If You had
said, 'I will send an angel to you,' it would have been a great mercy,
but what do You say, 'I will come unto you'? If You had bid some of my
Brothers and Sisters come and speak a word of comfort to me, I would
have been thankful–but You have put it thus in the first person, 'I
will come unto you.' O my Lord, what shall I say, what shall I do but
feel a hungering and a thirsting after You which nothing shall satisfy
till You shall fulfill Your own Word, 'I will not leave you
comfortless: I will come to you'?"
And then notice the persons to whom it is addressed, "I will not leave
you comfortless: you, Peter, who will deny Me. You, Thomas, who will
doubt Me: I will not leave you comfortless." O you who are so little in
Israel that you sometimes think it is a pity that your name is in the
church book at all because you feel yourselves to be so worthless, so
unworthy, He will not leave you comfortless, not even you! "O Lord,"
you say, "if You would look after the rest of Your sheep, I would bless
You for Your tenderness to them, but I–I deserve to be left! If I were
forsaken of You, I could not blame You, for I have played the harlot
against Your love, but yet You say, 'I will not leave you.'" Heir of
Heaven, do not lose your part in this promise! I pray you say, "Lord,
come unto me and though You refresh all my Brothers and Sisters, yet,
Lord, refresh me with some of the droppings of Your love! O Lord, fill
the cup for me! My thirsty spirit pants for it–
"'I thirst, I faint, I die to prove
The greatness of redeeming love,
The love of Christ to me.'
Now, Lord, fulfill Your word to Your unworthy handmaid, as I stand,
like Hannah, in Your Presence. Come unto me, Your servant, unworthy to
lift so much as my eyes toward Heaven, and only daring to say, 'God be
merciful to me, a sinner.' Fulfill Your promise even to me, 'I will not
leave you comfortless: I will come to you.'" Take whichever of the
words you will and they each one sparkle and flash after this fashion!
Observe, too, the richness and sufficiency of the text–"I will not
leave you comfortless: I will come to you." Jesus does not promise, "I
will send you sanctifying Grace, or sustaining mercy, or precious
mercy," but He promises you the only thing that will prevent your being
orphans, "I will come to you." Ah, Lord! Your Grace is sweet, but You
are better! The vine is good, but the clusters are better! It is well
enough to have a gift from Your hands, but oh, to touch the hand
itself! It is well enough to hear the words of Your lips, but to kiss
those lips, as the spouse did in the Song, this is still better! You
know, if there is an orphan child, you cannot prevent its continuing an
orphan. You may feel great kindness towards it, supply its needs and do
all you possibly can for it, but it is still an orphan. It must get its
father and its mother back, or else it will still be an orphan. So, our
blessed Lord, knowing this, does not say, "I will do this and that for
you," but, "I will come to you."
Do you not see, dear Friends, that there is not only all you can need,
but all you think you need wrapped up in a sentence, "I will come to
you"? "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell," so
that when Christ comes, in Him "all fullness" comes! "In Him dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily," so that when Jesus comes, the very
Godhead comes to the Believer!–
"'All my capacious powers can wish In You do they richly meet'–
and if You shall come to me, it is better than all the gifts of Your
Covenant. If I get You, I get all, and more than all, at once."
Observe, then, the language and the sufficiency of the promise.
But I want you to notice, further, the continued freshness and force of
the promise. Somebody here owes another person 50 pounds, and he gives
him a note of hand, "I promise to pay you 50 pounds." Very well. The
man calls with that note of hand tomorrow and gets 50 pounds. And what
is the good of the note of hand now? Why, it is of no further value, it
is discharged! How would you like to have a note of hand which would
always stand good? That would be a right royal present. "I promise to
pay evermore, and this bond, though paid a thousand times, shall still
hold good." Who would not like to have a bond of that sort? Yet this is
the promise which Christ gives you! "I will not leave you orphans: I
will come to you." The first time a sinner looks to Christ, Christ
comes to him. And what then? Why, the next minute it is still, "I will
come to you." But here is one who has known Christ for 50 years and he
has had this promise fulfilled a thousand times a year! Is it not done
with? Oh, no! There it stands, just as fresh as when Jesus first spoke
it, "I will come to you." Then we will treat our Lord in His own
fashion and take Him at His word! We will go to Him as often as we can,
for we shall never weary Him–and when He has kept His promise most,
then is it that we will go to Him and ask Him to still keep it! And
after ten thousand proofs of the truth of it, we will only have a
greater hungering and thirsting to get it fulfilled again! This is fit
provision for life and for death, "I will come to you." In the last
moment, when your pulse beats faintly and you are just about to pass
the curtain and enter into the invisible world, you may have this upon
your lips, and say to your Lord, "My Master, fulfill to me the word on
which You have caused me to hope, 'I will not leave you comfortless: I
will come to you.'"
Let me remind you that the text is at this moment validand for this I
delight in it. "I will not leave you comfortless." That means now, "I
will not leave you comfortless now." Are you comfortless at this hour?
It is your own fault. Jesus Christ does not leave you so, nor make you
so. There are rich and precious things in this promise, "I will not
leave you comfortless: I will come to you, I will come to you now." It
may be a very dull time with you and you are pining to come nearer to
Christ. Very well, then, plead the promise before the Lord! Plead the
promise as you sit where you are– "Lord, You have said that You will
come unto me; come unto me tonight."
There are many reasons, Believer, why you should plead thus. You want
Him. You need Him. You require Him. Therefore plead the promise and
expect its fulfillment! And oh, when He comes, what a joy it is! He is
as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber with his garments fragrant
with aloes and cassia! How well the oil of joy will perfume your heart!
How soon will your sackcloth be put away and the garments of gladness
adorn you! With what joy of heart will your heavy soul begin to sing
when Jesus Christ shall whisper that you are His and that He is yours!
Come, my Beloved, do not tarry! Be like a roe or a young hart upon the
mountains of separation and prove to me Your promise is true, "I will
not leave you orphans: I will come to you."
And now, dear Friends, in conclusion, let me remind you that there are
many who have no share in the text. What can I say to such? From my
soul I pity you who do not know what the love of Christ means. Oh, if
you could but tell the joy of God's people, you would not rest an hour
without it! Remember that if you sincerely desire to find Christ, He is
to be found in the way of faith. Trust Him and He is yours! Depend upon
the merit of His Sacrifice–cast yourselves entirely upon that and you
are saved–and Christ is yours!
God grant that we may all break bread in the Kingdom above, feast with
Jesus and share His Glory! We are expecting His second coming. He is
coming personally and gloriously. This is the brightest hope of His
people. This will be the fullness of their redemption, the time of
their resurrection. Anticipate it, Beloved, and may God make your souls
to sing for joy!
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON:
www.spurgeongems.org
The Believe Not an Orphan JOHN 15.
Many of you know the words of this chapter by heart. You could repeat
them without a mistake. May the savor of them abide in your hearts even
as the letter of them abides in your memory!
Verse 1. I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. We thank
You, O Savior, for this blessed answer to the often-repeated question,
"Which is the true Church?" Are you one with Christ? Then are you a
part of the true vine. If we have a real, vital, personal, saving
connection with Christ, to whatever section of the visible Church we
may belong, we are part of "the true vine." And we are told, in the
next sentence, who is the great Caretaker of the Church. Some of us are
much occupied in Christ's service and there is a tendency with all of
us to get like Martha–"cumbered" in serving for Him. We are apt to
fancy that the burden of all the churches lies upon our shoulders, but,
Beloved, this is a great mistake. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and
My Father is the vinedresser." He will take the utmost possible care of
it, for it is very dear to Him. There is not a branch in that vine
which the Father does not love with Infinite affection and, as for the
majestic stem, even Jesus, He loves Him beyond measure.
2. Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away. This
operation is always going on. God is continually taking away from the
Church, in some way or other, non-fruit-bearers. We know that these do
not truly belong to Christ, for fruit must come from vital union to
Him. But it is a trial to the Church to have non-fruit-bearing
branches. These are taken away, sometimes by death, sometimes by
judgment, sometimes by the open discovery of their secret sin– the
culmination of their backslides in overt acts of transgression. "Every
branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away." But side by side with
this action another process is constantly going on.
2. And every branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring
forth more fruit. Is this, then, dear Friend, one reason why you are
being chastened–because you are a fruit-bearing branch? If you bore no
fruit, you would be left unpruned because the knife would do its
sterner work upon you by taking you altogether away. If you really do
bring forth fruit to God, you must expect to have trial, trouble,
affliction–and that full often.
3. Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
That was a "word" which had sorely grieved them and cut them to the
quick, so that the Savior had to say to them, more than once, "Let not
your heart be troubled." (See the 1st, and the 27th , verses of the
preceding chapter). They had felt the sharp edge of the pruning-knife,
so Jesus said to them, "Now you are clean (purged or pruned) through
the word which I have spoken unto you."
4. Abide in Me, and I in you. The main thing is not restless activity,
running here and there, and doing this and that, and the other
thing–it is abiding in Christ, persevering, constantly cleaving to
Christ by virtue of a vital union with Him–"Abide in Me, and I in
you."
4. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the
vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me. You may hurry, and
flurry and worry, but you will lose by it. Keep close to Christ. Never
let your heart be dissociated from intimate communion with Him. So
shall you bring forth fruit, but no way else.
5, 6. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I
in him, the same brings forth much fruit: 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. The vine is of use for nothing but fruit-bearing and if it
does not bear fruit, it is good for nothing except to be burned. In the
social economy of life, a man may be of some use however bad he may be,
but a man who is in the nominal Church of Christ and yet does not bring
forth fruit unto God, is of no use whatever! There is nothing to the
done with him but to gather him up with the sere autumn leaves and the
decaying stalks of vegetation, to be burned in the corner outside the
wall. How trying is the smoke that comes from such a burning as that!
We pastors sometimes get it into our eyes and it fills them with bitter
tears. I know of nothing that is more grievous to us than this putting
out of the unworthy, this casting the fruitless vine branches into the
fire that they may be burned.
7. You abide in Me, and My words abide in you. You see that doctrinal
vitality is necessary to true union to Christ. Some, in these days,
talk about a spiritual attachment to the Person of Christ, while they
shoot their envenomed darts against the dogmas of Christ. But that will
not do. "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you"–My words of
doctrine, precept, or promise–"then"–
your fruit should remain." Let us accept all God's Words as He has
given them to us and keep up the due proportion of the whole. Note that
Christ is not speaking here of spasmodic piety, the religion that can
only be kept up by popular preaching, great meetings, much excitement
and all that sort of thing–but of the religion of principle that bears
its clusters to-morrow as well as today, and even months and years
hence! The religion that bears its fruit every month and the leaf
whereof does not wither! May we be such branches in the true vine that
our fruit shall thus remain.
16. That whatever you shall ask of the Father in My name, He may give
it to you. For, where the fruit remains, power in prayer will remain.
If we are constantly living unto God, we shall find ourselves
privileged to have the ear of God and when we pray to Him, He will
grant us the desire of our hearts.
17. These things I command you, that you love one another. Our Lord
repeated the command, for He knew how prone even His disciples would be
to disobey it.
18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated
you. It is no new thing for the ungodly to hate the godly, so let us
not be surprised if that is our portion.
19. 20. 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. Remember the word that I said
unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My
saying, they will keep yours also. It ought to be quite sufficient for
the servant if he is treated as his Lord was–what higher honor than
that could he wish to have?
21. But all these things will they do unto you for My name's sake,
because they know not Him that sent Me. They professed to know God and
some of them even thought that they were rendering acceptable service
to God when they rejected His Son, whom He had sent to them!
22-24. 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. If I had not done among them the works which no other man
did, they had not had sin: but now they have both seen and hated both
Me and My Father. Our Lord did not mean that they would have been
sinless if He had not come to them, but that His coming and their
rejection of Him had enormously increased and intensified their
sinfulness.
25. But this came to pass that the Word might be fulfilled that is
written in their Law, They hated Me without a cause.They fulfilled what
had been written long before, even as they afterwards did when they put
Christ to death.
26, 27. But when the Comforter is come, 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. The witness of the Spirit of
Truth still continues and Christ's disciples are still privileged to be
co-witnesses, even with the Holy Spirit, Himself. Let us take care to
avail ourselves of this privilege whenever we can.