Well, I was waiting for it, but it
didn't come, the menu at Augustine, so
you'll just have to go by faith.
You don't know whether it's Chinese or buns.
Very good.
Let us turn, please, this evening, if you
will, to our chapter.
And once more, I would like to read
it through with you.
And I hope we may catch something of
the breathings of the Savior as He stood
with His own that faithful night so long
ago.
It's on chapter 17.
These words begged Jesus and lifted up His
eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour
has come.
Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may
glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him power
over all flesh, that He should give eternal
life to as many as Thou hast given
Him.
And this is life eternal, that they might
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent.
I have glorified Thee on the earth.
I have finished the work which Thou gavest
me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with
Thine own self, with the glory which I
had with Thee before the world was.
I have manifested Thine aim unto the men
which Thou gavest me out of the world.
Thine they were, and Thou gavest them me,
and they have kept Thy word.
Now they have known that all things whatsoever
Thou hast given me are of Thee.
For I have given unto them the words
which Thou gavest me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came
out from Thee, and they have believed that
Thou didst send me.
I pray for them.
I pray not for the world, but for
them which Thou hast given me, for they
are Thine, and all mine are Thine, and
Thine 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 Thee.
Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those
whom Thou hast given me, that they may
be one as we are.
While I was with them in the world,
I kept them in Thy name.
Those that Thou gavest me, I have kept.
None of them is lost, but the son
of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.
And now come I to Thee.
These things I speak in the world, that
they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I have given them Thy word, and the
world hath hated them, because they are not
of the world, even as I am not
of the world.
I pray not that Thou shouldst take them
out of the world, but that Thou shouldst
keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as
I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through Thy truth.
Thy word is truth.
As Thou hast sent me into the world,
even so have I also sent them into
the world.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that
they also might be sanctified through the truth.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for
them also which shall believe on me through
their word, that they all may be one,
as Thou, Father, art in me, and I
in Thee, that they also may be one
in us, that the world may believe that
Thou hast sent me.
And the glory which Thou gavest me I
have given them, that they may be one,
even as we are one.
I in them, and Thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and
that the world may know that Thou hast
sent me, and hast loved them as Thou
hast loved me.
Father, I will that they also whom Thou
hast given me be with me, for I
am, that they may behold my glory which
Thou hast given me, for Thou lovest me
before the foundation of the world.
O Righteous Father, the world hath not known
Thee, but I have known Thee, and these
have known that Thou hast sent me.
And I have declared unto them Thy name,
and will declare it, that the love wherewith
Thou hast loved me may be in them,
and I in them.
It is very difficult to find a passage
of Scripture, even by divine inspiration, comparable with
this one, which was the Lord's prayer on
the night of his betrayal, the night of
his arrest.
And I was thinking today that when we
come into the presence of God to pray,
there is that which lies closest to our
heart, that which we not only express, but
it kind of bursts out from us because
it is of the greatest importance to us.
And perhaps you have noticed that there are
different things which our Lord repeats in this
prayer, and that which was closest to his
heart, evidently, were these of whom he makes
mention seven times in this prayer.
It isn't all that long, but it is
deeply fraught with some of the things that
lay dearest to his heart.
And what I want to notice with you
tonight, I think some of you were expecting,
because of what I said last night, that
we were going to take up the various
glories of chapter 17 tonight.
But I'm going to leave that until tomorrow
night, because, you see, I think, I don't
know, I have no inside information on this,
but I thought maybe we'd have the choir
here tomorrow night, so we'd have more to
talk to, you understand.
That appears to be the attracting body here,
I notice, if my numerical computations are correct,
at least it appears that way from here.
No, but I did want to close our
meditations on John 17, not having exhausted it,
not by a long way, but with the
theme of glory, and the various kinds of
glory which are mentioned here in chapter 17.
I said to you last evening that this
is one of the most difficult, if not
the most difficult word to define, as we
have it found in chapter 17, as well
as elsewhere in the scriptures of truth.
But did you notice while we were reading
that seven times in this chapter, the Lord
repeats the statement, starting off with verse 2,
speaking of his own, he speaks about those
that thou hast given me, he says, or
thou hast given him, and then again in
verse 6, twice in verse 6, he speaks
about the men that thou gavest me out
of the world, and thine they were, and
thou gavest them me, and they have kept
thy word.
Now, seven times in the chapter, you will
discover the Lord mentions his own as those
who had been given to him, those whom
the Father had bestowed upon him, those who
were the nearest to his heart, and here
he is on the last night of his
earthly pilgrimage here, before he goes to the
cross, or even before he goes into Gethsemane,
and these are they of whom he has
the deepest thoughts and the greatest consideration, and
these are they whom he mentions seven times
in this chapter.
Now, I want to look at briefly some
of the things which we may glean from
these seven times which our Lord speaks of
there.
We have noticed before, and we will not
repeat on this, from verse 2, that he
is speaking about his authority, his universal and
eternal authority over all flesh, and the purpose
of that is, as stated here, that he
should give eternal life to as many as
thou hast given him.
Now, that's the first time he mentions his
disciples as having been given to him by
the Father, and I say to you again,
the very fact that he mentioned this characteristic
of his disciples, this feature about them, seven
times in the last night of his life,
and the only really long prayer, if we
may consider it to be long, that we
have extant of the Lord when he was
here, the very fact that he does this
draws my attention.
It attracts me immediately, and I look to
these occasions to see what I may find,
what is characteristic about these, in addition to
the fact that these are they whom the
Father had given to him.
He cherishes them very dearly, they lie very
close to his heart.
He could have been occupying with other things
yet to come.
He could have been occupying with the betrayal
that has already taken place.
Remember he said in John chapter 6, when
they said, Thou speakest of plainly, and speakest
no parables, now we know for sure that
thou art the Christ that shall come into
the world.
And he said, Do you believe now?
But do I not know that I who
have chosen you, that one of you is
a devil?
This spake he of Judas Iscariot, for it
was he who was to betray him.
But Judas is God.
He has warned Peter regarding the trial that
was yet to come, the supreme test that
was to be made upon them all, and
it is also stated before this that he
has prayed specifically for Peter.
But as he stands on the edge of
the garden, that mysterious garden, those difficult to
understand, for the depth of them prayers that
he uttered in the garden, as he's looking
forward to the cross, the shame, the disgrace
that is going to befall him, which he
has enumerated to his disciples on those various
occasions already mentioned, and in which he has
added detail after detail, now it's drawn so
close to him when he has said, Father,
the hour has come.
But still, still, lying very close and very
deeply in his affections, are these his disciples.
Did he not spend all night in prayer
in Mark's Gospel, chapter 3, before he made
the decision as to whom he would choose
to be his disciples?
And it seems from the very outset, the
very beginning of his relationship with these disciples,
he has had them very much in his
concern.
He sent out ten on one time, you
remember, and another time, you remember, he sent
out seventy, and they came back rejoicing and
so on, you recall that in Luke's Gospel,
chapter 10.
But these, these are very special to him,
and while they are not the only ones
that are included in this prayer, I feel
very deeply that they have a very special
place in the Master, because of the situation,
because of what is lying before him, because
of what he knows is going to happen,
and because he could anticipate already in the
sensitivity of his heart, and in the quivering
of his flesh, what he was about to
pass through, and yet, seven times, he speaks
about his disciples as those whom the Father
had given to him.
So you see how deeply embedded they were
in his heart.
You can see what a very, very close
place he has given to them.
And this is before he leaves the eight
and takes the three into the garden.
So he is including them all when he
makes these comments, and the first thing about
the fact that they had been given to
him, he says, was that he should give
them eternal life, and that eternal life was
to be their unending consideration for all the
ages yet unborn, and that was that they
should know God.
He says to his Father that they might
know thee, thee, the only true God, and
that they might know Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent.
Now, watch that expression, because it comes up
three or four times in this chapter, and
as I've already suggested to you, it comes
up thirty-six times in the Gospels by
John.
And even now, he's going to say it
over and over and over again.
So he says, I have given to them,
and thou hast given them to me, that
I might give to them eternal life, that
they might know thee.
And I did suggest to you the other
evening, I believe, that this is the first
and prime object and purpose for which God
has blessed us with eternal life, that we
might know God.
And not only that we might know God,
but he says here, and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent.
Very important to him.
He keeps it always before his heart that
he was the sent servant steward.
So that is the first thing he says
about these whom the Father had given to
him.
And then we come down to verse six,
and he says, I have manifested thy name,
and we noticed this last evening, unto the
men which thou gavest me out of the
world.
This is an additional expression now that he
uses regarding these disciples.
The Father gave them to him, and he
took them out of the world in order
to give them to his steward son.
And he says here, in this matter, he
says, Thine they were.
I was reading again this afternoon, in John
chapter six, those difficult passages at times to
understand.
Remember, our Lord said, No man can come
unto me except the Father draw him, but
him that cometh to me I will know
I is cast out.
Remember, he says, Everyone that has heard and
learned of the Father comes to me, and
no one can come except the Father draw
him.
Now he is saying, Thine they were.
There had been a work already by the
Father in the hearts of the disciples before
he turned them over as a very specific
and special trust to his son.
He says, Thine they were.
And that was the preparation for them coming
into this close contact, and this very constant
and deep experience of walking with the Master
those three years.
They were Thine, he said, and thou gavest
them me.
You see the connection, you see what is
behind this.
They were the Father's, and of course they
would always be the Father's in a certain
sense, but the Father has entrusted them to
his son.
He has taken that which was of his
own, and he has given them into the
hands of his son.
And then we see as we go down
the chapter, the son in turn turns them
back into the safekeeping of the Father.
And this close relationship of the Father with
the Son is going to come out tomorrow
in our study regarding our Lord and ourselves,
and there is a distinct transferable glory in
that matter.
All right, we come down to verse 9.
I pray for them.
I pray not for the worlds, but for
them which thou hast given me, for they
are Thine.
Again you will see that the ties that
bound them together expressed as we noticed in
our first study of this chapter when he
said, Father, the hour has come.
To this point we have come together.
To this point we come again as he
stands here on the edge of the garden,
and he says, Thine they were, I am
praying for them, for they are Thine.
That which is Thine is of greatest importance
to me.
And he says, I don't pray for the
worlds, but I am praying for them which
thou hast given me, for they are Thine,
and all mine are Thine, and Thine are
mine.
That's going to explain something to us when
we come down to that transferable glory.
And I am glorified in them.
Why was he glorified in them?
Because, he says himself, they had believed that
the Father had sent him.
This was very, very important to the Lord.
Let me underline it.
Thirty-six times in the Gospel by John,
he mentions over and over and over and
over again that he was sent of the
Father.
He did not come of himself.
He came from, and by, and because, and
for the Father.
And he mentions that again here.
And he says, they have believed that I
came from thee, and thou hast sent me.
And because they have believed this, he says,
I am glorified in them.
Have you noticed that in the Gospel by
John particularly, when we read so often about
believing on Christ, believing on the Son, there
is one particular preposition that is always used
for the English prepositions in and on.
When John says, believe in, or believe on,
he uses one preposition, and it's a preposition
of motion.
It's a preposition that indicates we are moving
somewhere.
He that believeth on the Son is that
special preposition that John always uses which can
be perhaps better translated, in or towards.
And what it means is this.
This is not a mental assent to a
given doctrine regarding the person of Christ.
This is a movement of the heart.
This is a movement of the whole person.
This is a motion towards something, and that
something is the Son.
And every time when John says this, he
that believeth in the Son, he that believeth
on the Son, every time he says it,
he uses that word, and it means that
you and I are not statically placed in
a situation where we have accepted a doctrine.
As I heard one preacher say, I like
to see people get saved in cold blood.
I don't know how you possibly can do
it.
And having endeavored over the years to move
hearts to faith in Christ, I have found
it many times a very difficult contest to
move someone, not to repeat words, but to
move someone in the affections of their soul
towards, and constantly towards.
It isn't something, well, do you believe in
Christ?
Yes, of course I believed in Christ.
I believed in Christ when I was eight
years old.
I believed in Christ when I was eleven.
I believed in Christ when I was forty.
That's not the idea of it.
The idea of it, of believing on the
Son, and believing in Christ, is a constant,
unceasing, ever-ongoing motion of the heart towards
Him.
That's the preposition John always uses, and I
like that, and I'm sorry that, oftentimes in
our translations, we don't get that thought in
that little two-word preposition, in or on,
but that's what it is.
Now, let's look on to verse eleven, and
I'm no more in the world.
I think you readily see that that was
something of the problem that existed in our
consideration of this chapter last night.
You remember when we were looking at the
first opening verses, I have glorified thee on
the earth, having finished, or I have finished,
the work which thou gavest me to do.
And we said that has always presented a
problem.
How is it when the Lord hasn't been
to the cross, He can say, I have
finished the work that thou gavest me to
do?
And, if you were with us last evening,
you will recall that we arrived at the
conclusion that the Lord's not talking about the
cross.
He's not talking about the work of the
reconciliation of all things.
He's not talking about having made purgation for
sin, as Hebrews 1 tells us.
He is talking about having completed, having glorified
his Father while he was on earth, having
completed the work that the Father gave him
to do.
And the work that the Father gave him
to do, he has done, and it is
a completed work, and there's nothing left to
do in it.
And then we notice the other details in
the chapter that told us clearly, I hope,
what that work was.
Now, he said something similar here.
He says, in verse 11, I'm no more
in the world.
Well, where was he?
Well, that depends, of course, what you understand
by what he has said.
And farther down he repeats this.
And farther down he gives us the explanation
of this.
He says, I am no longer in the
world.
But these are in the world.
He's talking about his disciples.
He says, I'm not in the world.
But they are in the world.
And then he goes on to say farther
down, while I was with them in verse
12, while I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name.
Those that thou gavest me, I have kept.
And then he goes on farther into verse
18, as thou hast sent me into the
world, even so have I also sent them
into the world.
I'm no longer in the world.
What did he mean by that?
Well, especially when he adds, these are in
the world.
Let us go back to those early verses
again.
I have glorified thee on the earth.
Finished.
Completed.
Work.
I have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do.
Now, he says, I'm no longer in the
world.
What does he mean?
He says, they are in the world, but
I am not in the world.
Now, when he speaks of being of the
world, or out of the world, he says,
I am not of this world, and they
are not of this world, even as I
am not of this world.
Remember when he was before Pilate?
And Pilate said to him, art thou a
king then?
Because Pilate said to him earlier, don't you
answer me, don't you understand that I have
power to crucify thee and power to deliver
thee?
And the Lord said, thou couldst have no
power at all against me, except it were
given thee from above.
Therefore, he, not they, he that delivered me
unto thee has the greater sin.
And Pilate had said to him, well, what
have you done, your own nation?
And the Jews have delivered you unto me.
Who are you?
Art thou the king of the Jews?
And the Lord said, thou say'st it.
But my kingdom is not of this world,
because if my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight that I should
not be delivered to whom?
To the Jews.
And I say to myself, wasn't he a
Jew?
He says to Pilate, if my kingdom were
out of this world, if it were the
product of this world, if it were of
the principles of this world, if it went
by the philosophy of this world, if my
kingdom were part of this world, then my
servants would fight that I should not be
delivered to whom?
To the Jews.
My servants would fight that I should not
be delivered to the Jews.
That's an interesting statement, isn't it?
Then he went on to say that they
who had delivered him to the Jews were
not the one who had delivered him to
Pilate, because he said, he that delivered me
unto thee has the greater sin.
Well, who delivered the Lord to Pilate?
It was not Judas.
Judas put the master in the hands of
the chief priests and the elders of Israel.
The Pharisees who had sought to kill him
for a long time, the Sadducees who had
sought to undermine his confidence in the resurrection
by their hypocritical and hypothetical case of the
woman with the seven husbands.
Who was it turned the master over to
Pilate?
It was the high priest.
Because he did that, he ceased to be
the high priest.
You remember, he said to the Lord, I
put thee under oath that thou tellest whether
thou art the Christ or not.
And the Lord said, thou sayest it.
And the high priest, what did he do?
He tore his clothes.
Now, that's a gesture which meant several different
things in the Old Testament Scriptures.
Sometimes surprise, sometimes dismay, sometimes shock, or symbolically,
it often represented or did represent major events
that were going to take place.
Now, when the high priest tore his clothes,
what did this indicate?
Well, this was symbolic.
It indicated the secession of the Aaronic high
priesthood.
God never had another high priest after the
night in which Caiaphas tore his clothes.
That's the end.
And there never, ever will be another high
priest after the order of Aaron, because, consequent
and subsequent to our Lord's resurrection, he was
saluted when he went through the heavens, a
high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
And there is never, ever going to be
another high priest after the order of Aaron.
And even when you come to the book
of Ezekiel, and you see the establishing of
the Levitical order system under the sons of
Zedok in the Millennial Kingdom, have you noticed
there's no high priest there?
Because that's when our Lord shall come forth
as the Melchizedek high priest to Israel.
But this high priest, Caiaphas the high priest,
became the one who annulled, who destroyed, who
caused to cease the Aaronic high priesthood.
He, it was, who turned the Lord over
to Pilate.
And Pilate said, well, I don't understand.
What have you done?
And finally, you remember, he was so convinced
that he was the king of the Jews
that he was going to release him, because
three times he told the Jews, he said,
I find no fault in this man.
I will therefore scourge him and let him
go.
And then finally they cried, away, away, we
have no king but Caesar.
And Pilate said, shall I crucify your king?
And they said, we have no king.
And finally, you remember, Pilate gave Jesus over.
By the way, there's a word there that's
used in three or four different ways in
those passages.
Judas betrayed him.
The word is to deliver up.
The nation, said Pilate, delivered you up unto
me.
Caiaphas delivered the Lord up to Pilate.
It's the same word every time, whether it's
betrayal or turned over.
It's the same word that's used.
And this is how our Lord came into
the hands of Pilate.
And finally, Pilate turned him over to the
will, it says, of the people.
And when he went outside to his cross,
outside the city, you remember what Pilate did?
Pilate wrote the saying, and he put it
over the cross in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
That's interesting, isn't it?
Why those three languages?
And what does each language mean?
In Hebrew and Greek and Latin, Pilate wrote
and put the sign on the cross, this
is the Jesus of Nazareth, the king of
the Jews.
The chief priests went to Pilate and said,
don't write he is the king of the
Jews, write that he said he was the
king of the Jews.
And in the bitterness and resentment of having
been forced to do something he didn't want
to do, Pilate said, what I've written, I've
written.
As far as I'm concerned, he is the
king of the Jews.
He was determined, Peter says later in the
Acts, to release him, to let him go.
And they forced him, they made him do
something he did not want to do, and
he was convinced he was the king of
the Jews.
And he put the writing over there.
Now, what our Lord said was, he said,
my kingdom is not of this world.
He said something very similar here, doesn't he,
about his disciples.
They are not of, out of, part of
this world.
But he says, they're in the world.
But he says, I'm no longer in the
world.
What's he talking about?
What's he referring to?
He says, and I think this is the
key, as thou hast sent me into the
world, speaking with his father, even so have
I sent them into the world.
What is he saying?
The father sent him into the world with
a work to do, with a mission to
accomplish.
And he says, I'm no longer in the
world.
That work is finished.
That work is done.
But he says, as thou didst send me
into the world, so have I sent them
into the world.
They are in the world with a commission.
They are in the world for a specific
purpose.
But he has fulfilled his purpose of coming
into the world and being amongst them, as
the earlier verses indicate.
So he says to the father, as he
goes down this chapter, while I was in
the world, I kept them.
He says in the middle of verse 11,
Holy Father, keep through thine own name those
whom thou hast given me.
There it is again, that they may be
one as we.
While I was with them in the world,
you see, he's no longer in the world
regarding that task.
He's fulfilled his commission.
The steward's son has given the count of
the fact that his work is finished.
And he says, while I was with them
in the world, I kept them.
I guarded them.
I watched over them.
I protected them.
And I did it because those that thou
gavest me, I have kept.
None of them is lost.
And then he goes on farther on, because
our time is moving, and he mentions them
once more.
Let's look down to verse 24, although it
pertains considerably to our study tomorrow night.
He speaks about the glory, and then he
says in verse 24, Father, I will that
they also whom thou hast given me be
with me where I am.
This is one of the very few occasions
which I suggested to you last evening when
the Lord Jesus expressed his own will.
One of the very, very few times the
Master ever said, well, we would say, I
want.
I want this done.
I want that done.
And he uses the word, the verb, to
will to do something.
He says, Father, I will those whom thou
hast given me.
There it is again, those whom thou hast
given me.
He has turned them over to his Father
for safekeeping.
And look what he says.
He says in verse 17, after saying they
are not of the world, even as I
am not of the world, in 17 he
says, Sanctify them in thy truth.
Thy word is truth.
Thou hast sent me into the world, even
so have I also sent them into the
world.
Now, look at this.
And for their sakes I sanctify myself.
How do you understand that?
He says to the Father, keep them, separate
them, make them holy, preserve them in thy
truth.
I have kept them.
Now, he says, you keep them, because they
were yours anyway.
But then he adds this mysterious touch.
For their sakes I sanctify myself.
What did he mean by that?
How could the Lord sanctify himself, and how
does it relate to his disciples whom he
is leaving behind and committing into the care
of his Father?
He says it's for their sakes.
Holy Father, he says, sanctify them in thy
truth.
Thy word is truth.
I have given them thy word.
I have given them the sayings that thou
gavest me.
Now, keep them in that truth, and preserve
them as I have watched over them.
And then he goes on to say, but
for their sakes I sanctify myself.
What did he mean, I sanctify myself?
His work with them physically is done.
What the Father gave him to do is
done.
He's kept them, he's guarded them, he's preserved
them.
But his heart goes out to them.
He longs for them.
And he says, even as he's leaving them,
I sanctify myself.
And I link this, in my mind at
any rate, with the last chapter of the
Gospel by Luke.
Remember, the Lord leads them out as far
as Bethany, and he lifts up his hands
in blessing.
You've noticed, I have no doubt, the way
the four Gospels end, what the last words
of each of the four Gospels were, and
related them to that time when the Master
had to leave his own.
He lifts up his hands in an act
of priestly blessing, and as he goes up
into heaven, he goes up with upraised hands.
And from then until now, my friends, we
have lived under the blessing of the upraised
priestly hands of the Lord in heaven.
He is going to sanctify himself.
He is going to dedicate himself, even though
he's gone back into glory.
He's going to dedicate himself as their high
priest, with uplifted hands, to bless them, to
watch over them.
He's going to make that his particular office,
and his heartfelt work.
While, as I say, he's finished his work
on earth amongst them, he's going to sanctify
himself.
He's going to put this first and above
everything, as he passes through the defeated ranks
of all the enemy who tried to hold
him back, as Colossians chapter 2 tells us.
They did their best to make it impossible
for him to ascend up to heaven, but
he's going through the ranks of the hosts
of the enemy, past the principalities and powers
and might and dominion and everything in that
name.
And when he arrives there, the Father salutes
him.
And he says, Thou art my son, this
day have I begotten thee.
Sit on my right hand until I make
thine enemies thy footstool.
And he sits down to be the high
priest of his people, with the uplifted hands.
And he has set himself apart to do
that.
He's dedicated himself, and in his heart and
in his service, while he's gone, we benefit
day by day, night by night, from the
upraised hands of our priests in heaven.
He says, For their sakes I sanctify myself,
unwearying, unfailing, unflagging and inexhaustible.
This is the dedication of the Master for
his own, even as he leaves them and
puts them back into the care of him
whose they were before they were entrusted to
him.
Isn't it marvelous?
In this last prayer, so many times he
gives expression to the fact that, for him,
they were everything.
They were everything.
He holds them close to his heart.
He cares for them.
He's concerned about them.
He says, Father, sanctify them, keep them, preserve
them, and I'm going to set myself apart
to serve them as well.
What a glorious Savior and high priest we
have.
Shall we pray?