“Until He Finds It”

"Until He Finds It"

(No. 2821)

A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, MARCH 8, 1903.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
28, 1877.

"Until he finds it." Luke 15:4.

IT was not just anybody who went after the sheep that was lost–it was
the person to whom the lost sheep belonged. Our Savior said, "What man
of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave
the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost,
until he finds it?" The man was not a hunter, looking after wild game
that was not his, in order to make it his by capturing it, but he was a
sheep-master–one who owned the sheep, going out to find what was
already his own property. This is one of the great secrets that explain
the care of the Good Shepherd–in looking for the lost sheep, He is
caring for that which is His own. He says of them, in His great
intercessory prayer to His Father, "Yours they were, and You gave them
to Me." Long before this world was created, or stars began to shine,
even in the eternal ages of the past, God had given to His beloved Son
a people who were then and there His by His Father's gift. In the
fullness of time He redeemed them and so they became doubly His. Yet
they were His, in plan and purpose, from eternity! They were,
therefore, His when they wandered away from Him and His while they
strayed further and yet further off from Him–yes, they were always His
wherever they went! This Truth of God is well put by the writer of the
lines we have so often sung–

"'Lord, You have here Your ninety and nine,

Are they not enough for You?'

But the Shepherd made answer, 'This of Mine

Has wandered away from Me

And although the road is rough and steep,

I go to the desert to find My sheep." That wandering sheep did not
belong to anybody else but that particular sheep-master. If any other
man had taken it into his fold, he would have had no right to do so. If
anyone had caught it and slain and eaten it, he would have been a thief
for it was not his sheep. It belonged to the man who owned the other 99
sheep and it was because it belonged to him that he went after it. He
would not have gone to seek another man's sheep–he sought it because
it was his own. And, in like manner, Christ has come into the world to
seek His own. He Himself said, "The Good Shepherd gives His life for
the sheep." And the Apostle Paul wrote, "Christ loved the church, and
gave Himself for it." The main object and design which He had in coming
to this earth was to seek His own. His great redemptive work has
brought some good to all men, but it was more especially intended for
the benefit of the household of faith. As Paul wrote to Timothy, "We
trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of
those that believe." The great purpose of His coming is in order to
seek His own, whom His Father has given to Him–that none of them may
be lost at the last.

Remembering this great Truth, we shall now consider these four words,
"Until he finds it." "Until" is something like a boundary mark set up
to indicate a turning-point. And we shall first consider the dark side
of this, "until," and then come over into the bright side of it.

I. Looking, first, on THE DARK SIDE OF THIS, "UNTIL," we will try to
answer two questions. First, where is the sheep until the Shepherd
finds it? Secondly, where is the Shepherd until He finds it?

First, then, where is the sheep until the Shepherd finds it?Mark, dear
Friends, the pronoun in our text, "until He [speaking of Christ] finds
it." It is the Shepherd who finds the lost sheep. True salvation comes
to the sinner by Jesus Christ finding him. You and I, if we are very
earnest in seeking the souls of others, may readily find the lost ones,
for they are all around us–perhaps in our own families, possibly they
nestle even in our bosoms. We know well enough where the lost ones are,
for we cannot walk the streets of London, or the lanes of country
villages without discovering them. If we ask the city missionary where
we can find those that are most evidently lost, he will tell us where
they live in whole colonies! He knows where any quantity of them may be
found. Now, our finding of them may be a means to an end, but it is
only a means. The end must be Christ's finding them, if they are really
to be saved. Otherwise, it will not be of much use for the schoolmaster
to find them. Though it may do them some good and be a temporal
advantage to them, it will not be much good for the blessings of
civilization to find them, or for them to be lifted up out of poverty.
All these processes may be useful in their measure, but, as far as the
eternal salvation of the lost is concerned, it all depends upon Christ
finding them. He, the unique Man, the all-glorious God, must come into
contact with them through His Spirit and claim them as His own–for,
until that happens, they will remain in the sad, sad state of which I
am now going to speak. I like that idea of the Chinese convert who,
when he was applying for Baptism and membership at San Francisco, and
was asked, "How did you find Jesus" answered, "I no find Jesus at
all–He find me." It is almost unnecessary to add that he was accepted
upon such a testimony!

Where, then, are lost sinners until Christ finds and saves them?

Well, first, they are in a very careless state. They are here compared
to sheep, partly because of their stupidity, but also because of their
aptness to wander. A sheep thinks nothing of wandering–it is sport to
him to have his liberty. Perhaps he enjoys himself all the more in
being free from the pen and the fold. The sheep does not think at all
about the shepherd seeking him. The shepherd has wide-open eyes for the
sheep, but the sheep, while he is wandering, has no eyes for the
shepherd. The shepherd is pursuing him, hot foot, over hill and dale,
but the sheep is carelessly eating what little grass it is able to
find, thinking only of the present and making itself as happy as it can
without a thought of the future. This is still the condition of the
great mass of our fellow men. Until Christ finds them, they are
thoughtless, careless, indifferent about eternal things. Oh, that they
could but be led to think, for thoughtfulness is oftentimes evidence
that He has found them! But they decline to think. "What shall we eat?
What shall we drink? How shall we be clothed?"–these are the questions
that interest them! Their chief concern is, "to kill time," though,
indeed, they have no time to lose–to hurry away the hours which are
already far too fleet–this seems to be their principal occupation.
Just as the sheep cannot think and will not think, so neither will the
sinner–he will continue in his carelessness, indifference and
brutishness until the Savior finds him.

More than this, the sheep, until it is found by its owner, is very apt
to wander further and yet further away, just as sinners go on from one
sin to another. It is not the nature of sin to remain in a fixed state.
Like decaying fruit, it grows more rotten–the corruption is sure to
increase and spread. The man who is bad today will, to a certainty, be
worse tomorrow. Every week that he lives he adds some new evil habit to
all that he had before, until the chain, which at first seemed but a
silken cord, becomes, at last, an adamantine fetter in which he is held
fast so that he cannot escape. Ah, Brothers and Sisters, it is
impossible to say how far men will wander away from God! If restraining
Grace is not brought to bear upon them, they will certainly go to
unutterable lengths of infamy and guilt. Possibly someone who is here
now is wandering further and yet further away. My Friend, let me remind
you that you can do, today, what you could not have done seven years
ago. You laugh now at things that would have made you shudder then–and
language which made your blood run cold when you first left your
mother's knee, has now become habitual with you. Yes, and certain
tricks in trade, which you oftentimes condemned at the first, have now
become your regular practice. Ah, yes, the wandering sheep keeps on
straying further and further away–it will not come back to the fold of
its own accord, but will continue to wander until the shepherd finds
it.

And, until then, the sheep is in a sad condition all the while. It
dreams of happiness by wandering, but it finds none. A sheep is not a
proper animal to run wild. It is unable to take care of itself as a
great many wild creatures can do. As corn, which is but educated grass,
seems to yield a harvest nowhere but where man sows it, so a sheep
seems to be entirely dependent on man. If it would do well, it must be
under a shepherd's care. A sheep running wild is out of its element–it
is in a condition in which it cannot flourish or be happy. And a man
without God, and without Christ, cannot possibly

be blessed. You may think you can do as well without God as with Him,
but as soon might a lamp burn without oil, or the lungs heave in life
without air–as well might you attempt to live without food as for your
soul to truly and really live without God! The very best of you, if you
are without Christ, are simply great ruins–like some dilapidated
castle, or abbey which you sometimes see–there may be enough of the
ancient building remaining to let us guess what it once was, and what
it might again be if the original builder could come back and restore
it to its pristine glory, but as it is, it is an utter ruin and bats
and owls make their home there.

So is it with you if you are without Christ. Your heart is nothing but
a cage of unclean birds. Your mind is full of doubts and forebodings.
You are often unable to sleep because of your dread of the future. And
when you come to die, then will your desolation be most evident, for,
away from God you are like a fish out of the water, or like a diver,
under the water, cut off from the supply of air which is essential to
his life. The creature cannot do without the Creator! God can be
blessed without us, but we cannot be blessed without Him!

We shall realize that the wandering sheep is in a sad condition if we
only think of the loss to itself through its stray-ing–but there is
far more than that involved in its wandering. There is, also, the loss
to the shepherd. That is the blessed mystery underlying our Savior's
words. The main loss was that of the shepherd–it was that fact that
moved him, as the owner of the lost sheep, to seek after it until he
found it. And this made him rejoice so much when he did find it, for he
could not bear the thought of losing it. To be lost to Christ may,
perhaps, seem to some of you who are careless and thoughtless, to be
but a trifling matter. If the wandering sheep could have spoken, it
might have said, "I do not want to belong to the shepherd. I know that
he values me and that he is seeking me because I am his, but I do not
care about that." No, poor sheep, but, if you had been the shepherd,
you would have cared and, poor Sinner, if you did but know even a
little of what Christ feels, you, also, would begin to care about your
own soul! Oh, it is such joy, such bliss as I cannot describe, for
anyone to be able to say, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want."
It brings tears to my eyes even as I repeat those familiar words and
meditate upon their meaning.

What a blessing it is to belong to Jesus! I do not know a sweeter song
than this, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." To belong to Jesus, to
be one of the sheep in His flock, to know that He is my Shepherd and
that I follow Him because I recognize His voice, oh, this is Heaven
upon earth! This is the beginning of the joy of Heaven itself! I wish
all of you knew it, but, alas, many of you are like the sheep that was
lost to the shepherd. If he counted up the 99 and rejoiced that they
were safe, yet he heaved a sigh as he said, "I have lost one sheep out
of my hundred," and he could not bear the thought of losing even one of
them. In the same way, some of you are, as yet, lost to Christ and lost
to the great Father who is in Heaven–and that is very sad.

There was also another sad thing, namely, that the sheep was in
constant danger. It was away from its natural protector. It was subject
to weariness, drought, hunger, disease–and it was in continual danger
from predators. It might die for need of care. It would, certainly, at
last, perish altogether and be torn by the foul creatures that would
feast upon its carcass. In like manner, a sinner without a Savior is
always in danger–as I have already shown you–in danger of still worse
sin, in danger of death, in danger from the devil, in danger of
"everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of His power." Oh, the terrible danger of every unregenerate man!
If I see a child almost run over in the street, it curdles my
blood–does it not have a similar effect upon you? When you see a man
knocked down in the road, even though he gets up and walks away, you
feel troubled lest he should be hurt. Do you feel like that when you
think about the souls of men that are in a far more terrible danger–in
jeopardy of the wrath of God which abides upon them even now, and which
will abide upon them forever in that dread place of torment, "where
their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched"? Pity the poor sheep
until the shepherd finds it, for its condition is most sad! And, poor
unconverted Sinner, we would also pity you until the Savior finds you,
for your state is terribly sad, too.

Now I turn to the second question– Where is the Shepherd until He
finds the wandering sheep? Ah, Brothers and Sisters, you know well
enough where He is! He is seeking His sheep which is lost and He will
keep on seeking until He finds it. He is very skillful in following the
tracks of the wanderer, just as some shepherds seem to be able to train
their sheep almost as a bloodhound will follow a trail. It is wonderful
how Christ follows the track of some people. I have known them go from
place to place, yet the Good Shepherd has never been far away from
them. When they were children, He sought them in the hymns they
learned, in their teachers' earnest admonitions, in their mother's
entreaties and their father' s prayers. When they became young men and
young women and shook off their former instructors, the Good

Shepherd still followed them by many a helpful book and many a holy
remembrance which they could not shake off. When they went into
business–and neglected the Sabbath and forsook the house of God–the
Good Shepherd still tracked them by affliction, by Christian neighbors,
by the very sound of the church bell, by the death of old companions
and in a hundred other ways.

It may be that some went off to America, or Canada in the hope of
escaping from the influences of religion, but it was no use. You
remember the backwoodsman who had begun to make a log hut and had not
finished before up rode a Methodist minister with his saddlebags? With
an oath the settler said, "Why, I have moved a dozen times to get away
from you fellows, but wherever I move, one of you is sure to come to
me." "Yes," said the good man, "and wherever you go, you will find us.
If you go to Heaven, you will find us there. And if you go to Hell," he
added, "I am afraid that you will find some Methodist preachers even
there. You had better give in, for we shall always be after you." If
you are really one of Christ's sheep, something of this sort will
happen to you and, wherever you may wander, you will find Christ is
still after you! If you go to the uttermost parts of the earth, He will
follow you. If you land at some far distant port where you think you
may indulge without restraint in vice, even there the Divine Love of
Christ will nurse you. I know one who now preaches the Gospel, who was
on board a ship at Shanghai and, that very night, a Prayer Meeting was
being held in the College on his behalf, as his brother was one of our
students. And while they were praying, the Lord struck him down, turned
him from his sins almost without any visible instrument–and he
returned home and confessed his faith in Christ! The Lord Jesus is well
acquainted with sinners' tracks and He will pursue them until He finds
them!

Notice what blessed perseverance the shepherd manifests–"Until he
finds it." There is the wandering sheep, toiling up that steep hill. So
up that hill goes the shepherd. Why does he climb like that? Because
the sheep has gone that way and he must follow it till he finds it. Now
it has gone down the other side and across that green morass where, if
a man should slip, he might sink and lose his life. Yes, but the
shepherd will go after that wandering one till he finds it. Day after
day, from the rising to the setting of the sun and all through the
night, nothing can stop the shepherd's feet until he has his sheep that
was lost, safe upon his shoulders! And how blessed is the perseverance
of the Savior that He will not take our rejection as a final refusal,
but still gives us fresh proclamations and invitations of Grace! Again
and again He sends out His servants to bid the sinner come to the
Gospel feast–not only on the Sabbath, but on week-days as well, the
voice of Wisdom cries aloud, "Turn in here and feast upon the bounteous
provision of redeeming love." There are none so persevering as Christ
is–"He shall not fail nor be discouraged," but shall press on in His
earnest search for His lost sheep until He finds it!

A man who is seeking lost sheep must display great wisdom because it is
very difficult to find the tracks of the sheep. And the Divine wisdom
which was displayed when some of us were brought to God will cause us
everlasting wonderment! It is a marvelous thing that sometimes a man's
sin, though it looks as though it must damn him, has been part of the
very means by which he has obtained salvation. I knew one who never
recollected having told a lie until, upon a certain occasion, he was
caught unaware and said what was untrue. And then he was covered with
such shame and confusion of face that he saw all his boasted
self-righteousness melt away and he went and humbled himself before God
and so found peace and pardon! Some have allied themselves to evil
companions who seemed likely to lead them further into sin, yet, before
long, those very companions have been converted and have been the means
of leading them to the Savior! Christ will have His sheep, somehow or
other. He will lay hold of them and if they will not be brought in one
way, they shall be in another! Some have been found by Him in the
darkest dens of infamy. His all-piercing eyes have been able to see
them even there. Some have been won by gentleness and kindness–others
by terror and distress. But, in one way or another, with wondrous
perseverance, Jesus seeks the lost until He finds them! And He will
never give up the search until the last of His wandering sheep is
brought back to the fold.

Where is the Good Shepherd until He finds His sheep? Why, He is in a
state of discontent, with yearning heart and troubled brow. If you say
to Him, "Good Shepherd, why did You not go home to Your Father when
first the Jews sought to stone You? Why did you not ascend in splendor
from amidst the ungodly throng?" He will tell you that He could not
give up seeking His sheep till He found them by redemption and that now
He must still continue yearning over sinners until He finds them. Do
you not sympathize with Him in this feeling? If you are a true follower
of the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot be at ease while souls are being
lost! I fear that it would not matter in the least to some professors
whether a whole nation was lost or saved! They would be just as
comfortable, whatever happened. But they who have the

spirit of Christ and are in sympathy with Him, have hearts of
compassion so that the loss of any one sinner fills them with
dismay–and the penitence of any one sinner makes their heart rejoice
with exceeding joy! May we always cultivate that spirit!

II. But now I must turn to THE BRIGHT SIDE OF THAT LANDMARK, "UNTIL." I
am going to ask the same questions as before, but will put the second
first and the first second.

First, then, where is the Shepherd when He finds His sheep? I can
answer this question, for I remember where He was when He found me. The
first sight I had of Him was a very vivid one. Where was He then? Well,
He was just where I was! The sheep and the Shepherd stood together–but
Christ was where I ought to have been by reason of my sin. Christ was
accursed because I was cursed by my sin. Christ was made sin because I
was a sinner, that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Oh,
what a sight was that–Christ in my place! I have preached about it
many years, yet it always makes me wonder just as it did at the first.
What an overwhelming thought it seemed, and yet how full of joy! O poor
Soul, if you would have a true sight of Christ, see Him suffering,
dying, forsaken of His God and full of agony because the chastisement
of your peace was upon Him!

The Shepherd was also standing over the lost sheep–not merely near it,
but looking down upon it. How pleased, how delighted, He was to have
found His sheep which was lost! Well do I remember when I saw my Lord
looking down upon me with eyes of unspeakable love. I could hardly
believe He could ever have loved me so–it seemed to be almost
incredible! What could He see in me to love–a poor sheep with torn
fleece, footsore and weary–and not worth the trouble He had taken to
find me? When a queen picks up a pin, it is nothing in comparison with
Christ taking me up and caring for me! For some great emperor to fall
in love with a milkmaid may not be anything amazing, for she may have
as sweet a face as ever graced any empress, but as for us sinners,
there is no beauty in us that Christ should desire us! By nature, we
were full of evil and by practice, too, we became even worse–yet Jesus
loved us and, as a shepherd rejoices over the wandering sheep that he
finds and brings home, or as a father rejoices over his lost child whom
he has found, or as a young man rejoices over his bride, so did the
Lord Jesus rejoice over us when He found us–

"And all through the mountains

And up from the rocky steep,

There arose a cry to the gate of Heaven

'Rejoice! I have found My sheep!'

And the angels echoed around the Throne,

'Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!" We also saw Him, at that
time, as bearing the marks of the toil and travail which He had endured
on our behalf. There are the tokens on the shepherd's face, and on the
shepherd's hands and on the shepherd's garments, of the rough way that
he has trodden. If the sheep could but know, it might read, in the very
look of him, the price that he had to pay for its recovery. And so,
dear Friends, was it with us when Jesus saved us. We looked up and saw
Him with His face stained with the spit of men, His head encircled by
the crown of thorns, His body covered with the bloody sweat and His
hands, and feet, and side all pierced! And as we looked, we loved Him
because He had first loved us, and loved us so won-drously!

One thing more about the shepherd when he found the lost sheep, he was
grasping it, for I guarantee you that there was not a moment between
his getting near it and his grasping it. "No, no," he seemed to say,
"you will not get away from me again. I have caught you, and I will
hold you fast." Do we not remember the grip that Christ gave us when He
first found us? We were apprehended by Him whom we now have
apprehended. We were held fast by Him whom now we hold fast by faith
and love. We felt, then, as if a strange power had seized us–not that
we resisted it, for we rejoiced in it. We were led, with full consent
against our own will–that is, against our old will–but with a new
will which we felt put within us by that blessed hand which had laid
hold of us and which would not let us go!

But where was the sheep when the shepherd found it? Why there was but
an instant and the sheep was on the shoulders of the shepherd! And what
does that indicate but that when Christ finds me, then He bears me and
all that is upon me, upon His shoulders–all my diseases, all my sin,
and all my sorrows are laid upon Him! We rightly sing–

"I lay my sins on Jesus," but I think we ought also to sing–

"I lay myself on Jesus."

All that I am, and all that I have, all is there! Of Benjamin, Moses
said, "The Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell
between His shoulders." That is where we are, between the shoulders of
the Divine Shepherd of souls! Christ underneath us bearing all our
weight–the weight of sin, the weight of sorrow, doubt, fear, and care
and whatever else there may be upon us.

What about the sheep now? Well, it is resting–not as it will rest,
by-and-by, when it will lie in the Shepherd's bosom in yet sweeter
fellowship, but, even now it is resting. It has not to carry itself
back to the fold. It is a long way, but neither the Shepherd nor the
sheep will get weary. It is a toilsome way, full of dangers, but those
boils and dangers are for the Shepherd rather than for the sheep. We
are right in singing–

" 'Safe in the arms of Jesus'"

for now that He has found us, we are under His protection. No wolf can
come near us now, or, if he did, he would be quite unable to hurt us.
The sheep that is found is perfectly secure in the Good Shepherd's
grip. It could not stray away even if it could. If it struggled to get
free, He would grip it all the more firmly. So, Beloved, was it with
us–when Christ took us on His shoulders, He held us fast and He will
not let us go.

On whose shoulders was the sheep? It was on the shoulders of the
rejoicing one who had found it and you and I belong to the Christ who
is glad to find us! I wonder which was the happier of the two, in the
feast, when the younger son came home–the son or the father? I think
the father was and, certainly, of the shepherd and the sheep, the
shepherd was the happier–and yet the sheep, in being found, must have
participated in the shepherd's joy. Do you not remember how, when you
were saved, you nestled down under the wings of the Eternal? I love to
see the little chicks beneath the feathers of the hen, peeping out with
such sweet contentment and a sense of perfect security expressed in
their twinkling eyes. Had they been away from their mother' s wings,
they would have been afraid, but, under their mother' s protection,
they did not seem at all alarmed. So have I cowered down beneath the
wings of God, trusting to that blessed promise, "He shall cover you
with His feathers, and under His wings shall you trust." O Beloved, it
is a blessed thing to know that we are held in the grip of a strong
Christ, with great joy in His heart which is the proof of the value
that He sets upon us, and the love which He bears towards us!

So you see that there is a great deal in these four words, "until he
finds it." Where are you now, my Friend? Are you still lost? What a joy
it is to think that the Good Shepherd is still seeking lost sheep! But,
if you have seen Christ near you, oh, that you may, by His Grace, this
very hour, be caught up by His pierced hands and laid upon His
everlasting shoulders and so be carried to the heavenly fold! The Lord
grant it! This is what you need and what you must have if you are
really to be saved. You must be "saved in the Lord." Christ Jesus must
save you–it must be by His blessed hands and His almighty power that
you must be rescued from danger and saved from going down to the Pit.
May He soon find all of you who are lost and carry you on His shoulders
all the way to the eternal fold above, for His dear names sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 17.

Verse 1. These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and
said, Father, the hour is come. That tremendous hour which was the very
hinge of history–that hour in which He must suffer, bleed and die–to
pay the ransom price for His people–"Father, the hour is come."

1. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You. In the
endurance of the Cross there was a mutual glorification. It was the
time of the Savior's humiliation and yet, in a certain sense, He was
never so glorious as when He died upon the tree. Then, too, He
glorified His Father, vindicating Divine Justice and manifesting Divine
Love.

2. As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He shouldgive
eternal life to as many as You have given Him. Christ, by His death,
had power given Him over all flesh–that is the universal aspect of it.
But there was a special purpose hidden within it–"that He should give
eternal life to as many as You have given Him."

3. And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent Do you really know the only
true God and Jesus Christ, His Son? Have you been brought into such
familiar acquaintance with God as to accept Jesus Christ as your
Savior? Then you have eternal life and you may rejoice that you have a
life like that of God, Himself, which can never die!

4. I have glorified You on the earth; I have finished the work which
You gave me to do. What a blessed thing that our Savior was able to say
this just before His death! Oh, that you and I may be able to utter
some humble echo of this speech when we come to the end of our lives!
This is indeed a life worth living!

5. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory
which I had with You before the world was.. 'Take Me up from earth
again. Clothe Me again with that glory which, for a while, I have laid
aside,"

6. I have manifested Your name unto the men which You gave me out of
the world: Yours they were, and You gave them to Me; and they have kept
Your word. What high praise this was of Christ's disciples! "They have
kept Your word." Poor creatures that they were, they often turned aside
from the right path. They were oftentimes very ignorant and very
willful, yet the Lord knew that their hearts were right towards Him and
that they willed to learn, and desired to believe. So He saw in them
what was often hidden, even from themselves, and He testified to His
Father, "They have kept Your word."

7. 8. Now they have known that all things whatever You have given Me
are of You. For I have given unto them the words which You gave Me.
Every preacher of the Gospel should see to it that this is true
concerning himself. When we pass on to the people the words which God
has given to us, we supply them with real spiritual fool and so we
glorify God. But if we only give them our own words, we do but mock
their hunger and we dishonor God. Our blessed Master, though quite able
to speak His own original thoughts, kept to the words of His
Father–let us be careful to imitate His example.

8. 9. And they have received them, and have known surely that I came
out from You, and they have believed that You did send Me. I pray for
them: I pray not for the world, but for them which You have given Me;
for they are Yours. There was a special request in Christ's prayer, now
that He was nearing the end of His earthly life. He concentrated His
intercessions upon the chosen people for whom He was about to shed His
blood.

10, 11. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified
in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world,
and I come to You. The disciples were going to be left alone and
Christ's tender heart made Him lessen the pain of the separation by
offering this great petition on their behalf.

11, Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have given
Me, that they may be one, as We are. This was as though He had said,
"You have given them to Me, My Father, to become My bride. And now I am
about to die and return to You, I give back this bride of Mine into
Your charge. Take care of her, I pray You, till I can come back again
and receive her unto Myself." There is such holy unity between these
Divine Persons of the Godhead that the Father first gives the elect to
Christ and then Christ commits the elect into the Father's keeping.

12, 13. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name:
those that You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the
son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I come
to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have My
joy fulfilled in them. Are you dull and sad today? Does anything
depress your spirits? It is not according to your Savior's mind that
you should be unhappy. It is His will and purpose that His joy should
be fulfilled in you. Ask for a sip from His cup ofjoy at this
moment–one drop of His joy will make the dullest to be bright and the
saddest to be glad!

14. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. He was a
stranger here and His people are also strangers and foreigners. We are
not so much to be unworldly as to be other-worldly. We belong to
another world, to another Kingdom, even the Kingdom of Heaven!

15. Ipraynot that You should take them out ofthe world, but that You
shouldkeep them from the Evil One. "Keep them in the world to battle
with the Evil One. Make them the salt that prevents putrefaction and
let them not lose their savor, let them not be contaminated by the evil
in the midst of which they dwell."

16. 17. They are not ofthe world, even as I am not ofthe world.
Sanctify them through Your truth: Your word is truth. It looks as
though our Lord almost anticipated that question of Pilate, "What is
truth?" Here is His answer– "Your word is truth."

18. As You have sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them
into the world. Christ was the Sent One and every Christian is also
sent. All Believers should be missionaries, sent forth upon a mission
to bless the sons of men.

19, 20. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also might be
sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on Me through their word. Christ knew
that His Church would grow.

He did not merely pray for the little handful of disciples who were
with Him there, but He prayed for all who, in later years, would
believe on Him.

21. That they all may be one. That is the great prayer of Christ. There
are not two churches, but one Church. Christ is not the Head of two
bodies–He has but one mystical body. There is but one Bridegroom and
there is but one bride– that bride is His indivisible Church. Hence
His prayer, "That they all may be one."

21. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one
in Us: that the world may believe that You have sent Me. Can the world
believe in Christ till His Church becomes more manifestly one? I fear
not, so let us, each one, aim at the true unity of the one Church of
Jesus Christ. There are some who aim at this by separating themselves
from everybody else, but I do not see how they promote unity in that
way. I clearly and painfully see how they increase divisions and
multiply strife wherever they go. But let us, Beloved, to the utmost of
our power, promote the unity of the body of Christ.

22. 23. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them; that they
may be one, even as We are One: I in them, and You in Me. Do you
understand this wonderful union? Jesus Christ in you–"I in them." And
then the Father in Christ–"and You in Me."

23. That they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know
that You have sent Me, and have loved them, as You have loved Me. This
is a wonderful Truth of God–that the Father loves the Church even as
He loves Jesus Christ, His Son. When shall the world ever know this
till the unity of the Church is more clearly seen?

24-26. Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with
Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me:
for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O Righteous
Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these
have known that You have sent Me. And I have declared unto them Your
name, and will declare it that the love wherewith You have loved Me may
be in them, and I in them. Oh, for a blessed fulfillment of that prayer
in our experience this very moment, for Christ's sake! Amen.