Dougal, Neil: Christ's High Priestly Prayer-04 ~ John 17:15

John seventeen, I'm reading verse fifteen. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but thou shouldest 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. Now, supportive verse, please, in the light of the baptism this afternoon, to the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Acts chapter, rather, right, Acts chapter eight and reading verse thirty seven. Acts eight and thirty seven. Philip said, if thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. Again, the Lord will bless these areas of scripture to our hearts. We continue our meditation on the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus. We saw there were seven pleas that he made on behalf of himself, and then he makes seven pleas to the Father on behalf of you and me. The other evening, we saw the first plea was that he prayed for their preservation in verse eleven, their preservation. And then we concluded on Tuesday evening by looking at the liberation in verse thirteen, rather their jubilation in verse thirteen. And now I pr- I come to thee, and these things speak I in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in them, their preservation and their jubilation. Now, this morning, just for a few moments, the third prayer that he makes is the prayer for their liberation. In verse fifteen, once again, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but thou shouldest keep them from the evil. He prays for their liberation. Now, you and I, the day we were saved, the Lord could have taken us right to heaven. But that was not the purpose, that's not the ultimate for your conversion and mine, just to be taken out of the world, but that we should be kept in the world and there to testify for the Lord Jesus. But he prays particularly that you and I might be kept from the evil. There were three men who prayed that they might be taken out of the world, and the Lord did not grant them that request. In Exodus chapter thirty two, when Moses came down from the mountain and he saw Israel worshiping the golden calf, he was absolutely infuriated, and eh, he desired that God would forgive the nation, but since he had sinned, that he would be removed from this earth and his name taken out of the book of life. God says, no, those who have sinned will I punish. And so Moses' prayer to be removed from the scene, taken out of the book of life, he can never be taken out of the Lamb's book of life, but out of the book of life, which deals with death, that prayer was not answered. It was God's intention that Moses remain. The second person that prayed to be taken out of the world, you remember, was Elijah. As he'd been pursued by Jezebel and Ahab, he prayed, he said, I'm no better than my fathers. He says, take me out of the world. But God did not answer that prayer, and Elijah remained until he went to Jordan. And the third person that prayed that he might be taken out of the world, you remember, was Jonah. Jonah prayed that he might be taken out of the world. It is better for me to die than to live. What a difference from the Apostle Paul. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. So these three men prayed that they might be taken out of the world, but God did not answer their request. So the secret is that we must abide in the Lord Jesus. Today, Satan is out to destroy, and he uses every kind of agency in order to destroy the Christian, and he dangles just like a piece of bait, sin and pleasure in order to ensnare the people of God. But how gratifying to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is praying for us that we might be preserved from the evil. That indeed is liberation at its very best. So he prays for the preservation, he prays for their jubilation, and he prays for their liberation. Now down, please, to the next verse, seventeen. And now he prays for their sanctification. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. Sanctification has a uniform meaning in the Bible. It means to separate, to be separated, and that is what the Lord prays for here, that you and I might be set apart for his glory. He prays for their security and unity. He prays for that sanctity. Sanctify them through thy truth. And you and I are a sanctified, separated people. First of all, we are sanctified, separated by God the Father. In the epistle by Jude, Jude says that he was a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Now you see, friend, that is the work of the Triune God. In every great activity, there is the involvement of the Triune God. If it's the work of creation, we see the involvement of the Triune God. We attribute the creation to the Father, and the Spirit moved upon the waters, and we attribute the creation work to the Lord Jesus, for apart from him there was nothing made that was made. If it's the incarnation, it's the work of the Triune God. If it's the crucifixion, it's the work of the Triune God. Christ, by the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God. But likewise, the sanctification for you and for me is again the work of the Triune God. So we are, we are sanctified by God the Father, and we are preserved in Jesus Christ and called by the Holy Spirit. So Jude reminds us, in a day of apostasy and departure, that we are sanctified, we are set apart by God the Father. We are his peculiar treasure. The Epistle to the Hebrews also reminds us that not only are we sanctified by God the Father, but we are sanctified by God the Son. In Hebrews, eh, chapter thirteen, we are reminded there that we are sanct- rather chapter ten— that we are sanctified by Jesus. We are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. For every priest stand the daily offering of times, the same sacrifices that can never take away sin, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down at the right hand of God. So the writer to the Hebrews reminds us that we are sanctified by the Lord Jesus. But Peter takes up his pen, and he reminds us that we are also sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered abroad through Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God, and sanctified through the Spirit unto the obedience and splintering of the blood of Jesus, grace be multiplied. So you see, we are sanctified by God the Father, we are sanctified by God the Son, and we are sanctified by God the Spirit. Now, this sanctification is positional and absolute. Nothing can alter that setting apart. You and I are set apart in the purposes of God. Again, it is positional and absolute. That will never change. But the Lord's praying for us that we might be sanctified through the word. So not only is sanctification positional and absolute, but sanctification is practical and progressive. In Jude and in the Hebrews and in Peter, it's sanctification from the divine side, but here the Lord is praying for our sanctification from the saint word or the human side. You and I ought to be a people separated, set apart for the glory of God. And that's why we read in view of the baptism this afternoon. Much more could be said along that line, but in the interest of time, we go back to the Acts of the Apostles, where we see this practical and progressive sanctification from the human side, from the manward side. So here, the Ethiopian eunuch was traveling back, having been in Jerusalem, the divine center. He'd come fifteen hundred miles. I remember World War II, eh, I was an officer aboard a British ship, and our captain came from Glasgow, and I came from Edinburgh, and the rest of the crew came from Wales and England, so him and I were pretty close because we came from the same neck of the woods. And he was, oh, he was so overwhelmed to think that his wife had traveled in a jeep from Addis Ababa up to Haifa, eh, on the coast in Israel, in a jeep. So I was happy to tell him that I knew of a man who traveled fifteen hundred miles in a chariot, and he got very interested. But this man did not find what he was looking for in Jerusalem. He saw the priests, and he saw the ritual and the ceremony. He saw the sheep gate and the animals coming and going to the sacrifice, but he did not find what he was looking for in the religious system of Judaism. And you will never find anything in a religious system to fill the void in your heart. He discovered on the way back to Ethiopia that, that real satisfaction is found not in a system, but in a person, and that person is the Lord Jesus. So he had obtained a copy of this valuable document. It was very evident he was a very rich man because he was in charge of all the treasure of Queen Kandisi of the Ethiopians. The man of authority, a very distinguished man indeed. And so he secured a copy of Isaiah, and going down toward Ethiopia, he's reading about a man who was cut off out of the land of the living. Cut off in death. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep done before a shearer, he opened not his mouth. Of whom speaketh the prophet this? As he spoke to the evangelist, who was the first hitchhiker in the Bible, he was hitchhiking as he was going down the Gaza Strip on the chariot alongside, he joined the chariot, and then the dialogue. Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Himself or some other man? And beginning at the same scripture he preached unto him Jesus. And as he was traveling along in the chariot, he saw a body of water. And he said to the, to the evangelist, here is water. What does hinder me to be baptized? Philip said, if thou believe this with all thine heart, thou may. So you see, friend, the candidate for baptism is a believer in the Lord Jesus. And that is the only demand from God to those who are being baptized, is that they believe in the Lord Jesus. And he said, I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So, it's only believers who are baptized. And it's a glorious experience indeed to be able to fulfill the request of the Lord Jesus for us to identify ourselves with him. How old must you be? As far as the Bible is concerned, there is no age standard or category if you believe with all thine heart. Up in Aberdeen, Scotland, a dear evangelist friend of mine told of an experience that he had. A twelve-year-old girl went to the elders and said, now look, I'm a believer in the Lord Jesus, I would like to get baptized. Oh, they said, we think that you should wait a little longer, maybe six months, and prove yourself and come along and see us then. So she noti- no- noticed the date, and six months to a day she's been. Now she said to the elders, it's my desire to be baptized. Well, they said, we think you should wait a little longer. So she said to the, the ch- the spokesman of the group, I'll accept your decision on one condition, gentlemen, that you baptize me before the Lord comes back. They got into action that day, and they baptized that little girl. Believers in the Lord Jesus. So there are seven baptisms referred to in the Word of God, seven in number. First of all, there is the baptism of Moses. The children of Israel leaving the land of Egypt, they, Paul writing to the Corinthians said that they were baptized in the sea and in the cloud. That was the baptism of Moses. Now, the sea was what separated them from Egypt, and the cloud was what sanctified them, set apart as a peculiar people for God in the wilderness on their way home to Canaan. The baptism is the baptism of John. In Matthew's Gospel, chapter three, John says, I indeed baptize you unto repentance, not for repentance, but unto repentance. But there is one that cometh after me who is mightier than I, whose shoe latches I am not worthy to unloose. He will baptize you with or in the Holy Spirit and with fire. And so John reminds them that the Lord Jesus would be a divider of people, whose fan is in his, in his hand, and he will purge his floor. He will gather the wheat into the gardener, and he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. It's sad to see the charismatic movement misinterpret that scripture. The baptism of fire has nothing to do with the Christian. The baptism of fire is for the chaff, is for those who are not believers, those who are unsaved. But the Lord Jesus will gather the wheat into the gardener, that's his believing people, and he will destroy the chaff with unquenchable fire. So the interpretation by them is wrong, that you can receive the fire of the Holy Spirit after you're a believer in the Lord Jesus. The baptism of John. And they had to repent of their sins, which was a tremendous experience in view of the Sanhedrin and all the system of Judaism, and there to come to that man who was as a lone voice crying in the wilderness, the preparatory messenger of the Lord Jesus, the preeminent messenger. And John, with his extraordinary garments and his mannerisms, they came and they were baptized of John in the River Jordan. The baptism of Moses and the baptism of John. The third baptism in the Bible is the baptism of Jesus. That John was baptizing at the River Jordan, along came the Son of God in solitary grandeur, walking with an air of dignity that men had never seen before. John, seeing Jesus as he walked, said, behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. And so impressive was the bearing of Christ. You remember two of John's disciples left him that day, John and Andrew, and they followed Jesus, and they spent the night with him on the hills of Judea. Master, where dwellest thou? Come and see. And they were never the same again. But what a moment when Jesus came to John and said, John, I want you to baptize me. And of course, John was momentarily stunned. I need to be baptized of thee. Why you, Lord, the perfect Lamb of God? But the Lord Jesus said, suffer it to be so. And there, in sovereign grace, the lofty one who became the lowly one voluntarily went into the waters of baptism. He didn't have to be baptized because he was the sanctified one. He was the one who was separated to God and for God as a Nazarite. But he was willing to identify himself with that faithful remnant who confessed their sin and wanted publicly to declare to the Sanhedrin and the priests and those looking on that they were now a committed, sanctified people to God. What a moment that was when Jesus went down into those waters. The Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him in a dove-like shape, and abode upon him. He was the only one who could retain unhindered the full supply and energy of the Holy Spirit because he is God. And so it descended like a dove, the emblem of peace and purity. And then God's heart was pulsating with an unprecedented joy. He opened the heavens. Matthew says, he said, this is my beloved son, in whom I find all my delight. But Mark says that God says, thou art my beloved son. The gospel of the servant. God was encouraging him to press on to Calvary as the untiring, indefatigable servant of Isaiah forty two. Behold my servant, whom I have full many left, in whom I saw the light. That was a special baptism, the baptism of Jesus. Number four, we have the baptism of the cross. The Lord Jesus said in Luke's Gospel, chapter twelve and verse fifty, I have a baptism to give up ties with, and how shall I be straitened until it's fulfilled? This was not a baptism of water, friends, this was a baptism of fire. The Lord Jesus Christ went to Mount Calvary, and there the fiery indignation of God made him the target for judgment. There he was completely, just as the baptisms are involved and enveloped in water, he was enveloped in the fire of judgment. His heart melted like wax. Were we not moved this morning? Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The enigma of eternity. The baptism of the cross. The sixth baptism is the baptism of the Spirit. In Acts chapter one we find that the Holy Spirit tarry at Jerusalem till you be, till you receive the Holy Spirit. And the baptism of the Holy Spirit was a glorious reality once and for all. Because Pentecost was a culmination of ages-long dispensational preparation. Way back in Edenic days, we have God and God with man. He walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and there was God walking in cloudless communion with Adam and Eve as they walked with him, the benign creator. God with man. And then Adam sinned that God did not abandon our first parents, but he made special visitations through men. And carried the message to those who were in need. And then in the wilderness, we have God among men. When Moses completed the tabernacle through Bethany and the Holy Land, we read in chapter forty, and God dwelt in the midst of his people, God among men. That gratifying, isn't it? With men, through men, among men. But when we come to the New Testament, we have God as man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. With men, through men, among men, as man. But Pentecost is God in man. The sovereign spirit, co-equal, co-eternal. The moment we put our trust in the Lord Jesus retroactively, we are baptized to that event at Pentecost. We were baptized, says Paul to the Corinthians. You don't get a fresh baptism of the spirit every week. Once and for all, at Pentecost, the baptism of the Spirit. And then there's a baptism of judgment. He will thoroughly purge his floor, gather the wheat into the gardener, but will destroy the chaff with unquenchable fire. There's a baptism of judgment awaiting this world. As it was in the days of Noah, the judgment day. As it was in the days of Lot, the judgment day. And so the Lord says, as it was in the days of Noah, and as it was in the days of the Son of Man, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Friend, this world is about to be baptized in an avalanche of judgment. And any holocaust or nuclear explosion that man can generate will be as nothing compared with the judgment that's about to descend on this universe. And the day is already on God's calendar. God has appointed the day in which he will judge this world in righteousness by that man who he hath ordained, the man Christ is. Much more could be said about these six baptisms. In the second epistle by Paul to the Thessalonians, the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Friend, if you're here today not saved, I appeal to you. You come to Christ today because the judgment is around the corner. And the seventh is the baptism of believers. That's what concerns us today, is the baptism of believers. Now, first of all, believers' baptism is an act of declaration. Our dear friends who shall be baptized soon, publicly, to the church and to the unsaved in the area, will declare their affection and their allegiance, their sanctification to the Lord Jesus. Brother Boyd Nicholson, Senior, and I had a very productive gospel effort crusade in, eh, Waterloo, Ontario a number of years ago. The first night, a lovely lady got saved from a very wicked background, and eh, the last eh day of the crusade, she went to the elders in the morning. She said, I would like to be baptized this evening. She said, I want to declare to my family and to all who will be present that I love the Lord Jesus. So we had the joy, I had the joy of putting her down that evening in the waters of baptism. It's an act of declaration that we are a sanctified people set apart from the world for the service of the Lord. A young Brahmin in the land of India went into the baptistry one evening, and he had round his neck a sacred cord called the Yagnopavito, which was a sacred cord or necklace of the Brahmin. And when he was down in the water, he snapped the cord and he came up without the cord. He was finished with the old religious system, and he was declaring his love for the Lord Jesus. An act of declaration. It's not something to be taken lightly, but it demands faith and also demands control. Paul says, and he looks at some negatives, he says, cast off the works of darkness. But he gives us some positive things, and he says, and put on the armor of light. He says, put off the old man, things pertaining to the flesh, put off the old man and put on the new man. Now, you remember when the prodigal came back from the far country, they had, first of all, to get rid of the old man, the rags of the far country, and then the father put on him the best robe. So we put off that which is distasteful and disgusting, things pertaining to the flesh and the old man, and we put on the new man, which is Christ. And if we are not living for Christ the way we should, we are the, we are really defying the very, eh, reason why we have been born again. Those whom I have created, he says, I have created for my glory. Put off and put on. Put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man, which is Christ. Quickly to conclude, it is also an act of personal identification with Christ. There are, I believe, three great areas in a man's life. One is when he's saved, and the second when he's baptized, and the third is when he gets married to his wife. Well, my wife and I were both baptized, the only two baptized the same night back in Scotland when we were thirteen years of age, so I've known my wife for a long time. Thirteen years of age. What a moment. They almost had to break the ice in the baptistry. It was so cold in the March in Scotland. I was baptized with her, but it was my personal identification with the Lord Jesus that was paramount. Paul said, I am, I am, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loveth me and gave himself for me. It's a personal link today. So how wonderful, there'll be several baptized, but it's the personal link and the outcome that really counts. Also, it's an act not only of personal identification, but it is an act of commemoration. We go back in retrospection to the day that the Lord Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again. That's what baptism, sanctification is all about. We are baptized. To rise, to walk in newness of life. We should really exhibit to all around us that we are a different kind of people. That we're a people saved from hell and a people that are bound for heaven, and we should live it by our lives. Well, I don't like to shop, but out of patience, I went down to the store market with my wife yesterday. And I stood there, and viewing the people going by, and I saw a gentleman, a young lad with a Washington Redskins, eh, outfit on his, on his chest, but he had a happy, smiling face. And I went over, I said to him, are are you a born-again Christian? He says, I sure am. One that loves the King James Version. That was the introduction. I said, well, you're a man after my own heart. What a lovely time Peggy and I had talking to this lad with his wife from Washington, from from Virginia Beach, actually, in Virginia. But he reflected it in his countenance that he was a Christian, and that's what it should be all about. An act of personal identification, an act of commemoration, and it is an act of participation. Just as the Lord went down into the water of death and rose again, then our dear friends today will go into the water, and we trust that they'll rise to walk in newness of life and be a tremendous testimony in the world, and also to be very effectual in their se- in their service for the Lord, identified with this local church. May it be so, for his name's sake, shall we pray. Father, we thank thee again for this high priesthood prayer of the Lord Jesus, praying again for the liberation and for the sanctification of us as the people of God. Bless these dear ones today as they pass through those waters, and make them outstanding Christians. So Jesus come, we pray, in his precious name. Amen.