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Uh, shall we begin to read this morning in John chapter fourteen and verse twenty five? John chapter fourteen verse twenty five. These things have I spoken unto you while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful. Ye heard how I said unto you, I go away and I come unto you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced because I go unto the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye may believe. I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in me, but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh it away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it that it may bear more fruit. Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, so neither can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit, for apart from me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and so shall ye be my disciples. Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you. Abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, she shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, than that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if you do the things which I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known unto you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye may love one another. The Lord give us good understanding of his word. Now, if there is one thing beyond another that I would like to do in these sessions, is to get across the basic idea that in these chapters fourteen, thirteen to sixteen of St. John's Gospel, our Lord is giving us a series of graded lessons on sanctification. Being the perfect teacher that he is, he has put first things first and second things second. Therefore, we do well to keep fixed in our minds the idea that the lessons start where the lessons should start, and they proceed by the logic of spiritual necessity, uh, uh, in a progression of spiritual progress. So let's go over the main lessons that as we have found them. In chapter thirteen, the first great essential that a man be bathed all over, the washing of regeneration. There is no, uh, progression in sanctification until we have taken that first step that we have been regenerate by God's Holy Spirit. We don't merely become holy by doing holy things. The first step in becoming holy is to be given a new life by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. After that, there needs to be that constant rinsing of the feet, allowing of the Savior himself to take his word by the power of the Holy Spirit and apply it to us. And as we react wrongly to this wicked world and become defiled thereby, he may be able to cleanse us so that, uh, we may have part with him in active fellowship, in his work of, um, washing other people's feet, for he has given us an example that we should do to others as he has done to us. And then we saw the next great lesson, the giving of the sop to Judas, was the exposure of Judas as the traitor and his treachery. We saw in Judas, writ very large, an extreme example of the sin that does easily beset us, is the sin against which sanctification, uh, must work. The sin is to take the gifts of God, but have no time for the giver. Worldliness is just that. Instead of, uh, taking the gifts and letting those gifts of God, whatever they be, s- material or spiritual, lead us ever more closely to the Lord. It is the spirit of worldliness to take God's gifts but have very little time, if any, for the giver. And Satan is a past master at doing that. He'll not, he'll not trip us up merely by leading us into gross immorality or open wickedness. He will use the very kind gifts of God, of home, of children, of business, of abilities, of physical strength, a whole host of things, lovely, good gifts of God, to get us in heart away from the giver. That's where we are. So that if we are to make progress in the path of sanctification, we shall have to allow the Savior to diagnose the complaint. We shall have to open our eyes wide to have a look at it, to recognize the trouble for what it is, and be prepared to see that trouble in our own hearts. For sanctification is not a kind of a feeling that comes stealing over us when we're cozy in bed or singing comfortable choruses. Sanctification is a battle. We saw on the first occasion the background contest, context of this. It is a battle against the prince of this world who will ever be at us. And one of the first steps in overcoming is to have a clear concept of what the real enemy is. Conversely, of course, if that is worldliness, if that is the basic trouble, then sanctification may be defined as devotion to a person. Isn't primarily the keeping of this rule or that rule. Sanctification has at its heart the devotion to a person, the person of Christ, the person of God. So the next great lesson that we saw on Saturday was the provision of Christ for us that we might be with him now and forever. And as always, in this matter of our, uh, increasing holiness, the biggest things are done by Christ. He, by his spirit, regenerates us. He, by the rinsing of water through the word, cleanses us. And now he has gone away that he might prepare a place for us in the Father's house, that he might come again and take us to himself, that we shall forever be with him in the Father's house, in that heavenly temple, that we may forever be priests to God and to the Lamb and be forever devoted to him. Here's the work to prepare the place to come and take us thither. And not only to take us to the Father's house, we saw, but to bring us to the Father, ever more closely to the Father. He, the way, the truth, and the life. The way to the Father because he himself has brought the Father right up against us, so that he that's seen me has seen the Father, and shown us how, as he lived, with the Father in him doing the works, so we may learn to live with Christ in us doing his works. The truth about the Father, therefore sending us his Holy Spirit, that he might not only be with us, but in us, not imparting information from the outside only, but within us and coming up from the other direction, showing us the truth about the Father, that we might lose our fear, that God's perfect love might cast out all fear, that we might come to trust the Father, implicitly. I am the life, he said, no one comes to the Father but by me. In the great matter of maintaining our spiritual life, this, thank God, is in the hands of Christ. He who gave the life gives himself to maintain that life. But then we notice on Saturday, and I want to stress it now because I didn't get time to stress it heavily then, and I want to stress it heavily, that if devotion- if sanctification is devotion to a person, Christ has made the provision that we shall one day be with him eternally, with him. He asks us to make the provision that now he and his father may come and abide with us. For the father and the son to come and abide with us, this is a conditional thing. If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. I wonder sometimes, do we forget this side of our salvation? Paul prayed, did he not, for his converts, witness the epistle to the Ephesians in chapter uh three. He prayed that God would strengthen them by his spirit to the end that Christ might take up his abode in their heart. You say, but surely the moment they trusted Christ, Christ was in them. Oh, so he was. But Paul is saying now at night, I've heard you're believers. Christ in that sense is in you. There is this further thing, that Christ take up his abode and come to dwell right through us. That is a process. And on our side, there are conditions. If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. We will come and make our abode with him. Saying that, our Lord was answering Judas Iscariot's question. What has come to pass that you'll manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Well, this is the answer. You see, how is it that you can take your dog into your study and show him your book of higher mathematics, and he hasn't got a clue? Show him the stuff, doesn't see anything in it. How is it you can take your Bible to an unconverted man and he can read the words, he's learned his ABC, knows that AND spells and. I can't see much in it. You sit in your room and you are reading Holy Scripture, and the Lord manifests himself as he manifested himself to the two on the road to Mass, and you feel your heart burn. The unconverted man can't see anything, can he? You see the Lord. The answer, of course, is in part what our Lord here said. He's given us the Holy Spirit that we might understand the things that are given us of God. There is the other side to it, isn't there? If a man love me, he will keep my word. What do you think they were doing on the road to Emmaus? Why are you so cast down? Oh, because they couldn't live without the Lord. This was their perplexity, and they loved him, and as they journeyed, they were talking of him. They hadn't got the sums right, but they were talking of him, and life was unbearable without him. And it was when they were talking of him that he drew near and talked to them. You mustn't expect visions out of the sky when you're roller skating. They may come then if you happen to be roller skating and thinking about the Lord. It is as we are keeping his word, storing it up in our hearts, that we give him the opportunity to begin to talk to us. How did he manifest himself to Mary, and why? Well, Mary came to the tomb, didn't she? She wasn't quite with the same logical bent as Peter and John. She saw the gravestone, uh, grave clothes lying there, and she listened to those learned bebearded men making their deductions from the evidence, and that was all marvelous. Apparently it went a little bit beyond her logical powers. Uh, John and Peter saw everything there was to see and went home. They didn't see the Lord that time, did they? They just saw the external facts. Mary stood at the grave still weeping, and you might have said to Mary, but Mary, it's no good looking, you see, there isn't anything more there, Mary. That's that. Ah, but that was no good telling Mary that. She knew she hadn't seen the Lord until she got the Lord, then she couldn't be satisfied. We would entertain the Lord if we would give the Lord the conditions in which he may appear to us. We shall have to love him with that kind of love that says, no, it's no good. I come to Holy Scripture. It's good to fill my mind with the same. I mustn't expect that every time I open this holy book, I shall have visions of rapture bursting on my sight, as the hymn rather facilely says. But at least I know what it is to come to Holy Written and see all the facts and yet not see the Lord. Well, the Lord in that sense, uh, doesn't immediately manifest himself, does he? He lets us seek. He lets us read. He lets us study. He lets us pray. He lets us work. It's those that are prepared to go on seeking him, keeping his word. It's to them that he manifests himself. They were their disciples, were they not, by the sea. What a lot of trouble and criticism they got themselves into. Phew, they ought to have gone fishing. They'd given themselves to the Lord's work, they oughtn't have gone fishing. No. The Lord had said, go to Galilee and wait there, so up to Galilee they went and waited. They were obeying his word, weren't they? And what would you have done? Sat down and twiddled your thumbs? No, hungry and they wanted some food, so Peter says, let's go and get some food. They didn't expect five pound notes to fall down out of heaven. Job of work to be done, and did it. And that morning, Christ manifested to him, that him to them, himself to them. When and how? He manifested himself to them in the way of fishing. Said, cast the net on the right side, and now they cast and it was full. But they were already in the boat and they'd already fishing, weren't they? If we would know the Lord appearing to us in our work for him, in our fishing for him, we must get started fishing. Why, if we sit down in our comfortable armchair and keep on praying for the Lord to give us a marvelous experience of fishing for souls and, uh, and seeing him at work, well, we shall wait a long while. Let's go out and fish. We may have to fish a long time before the Lord is pleased to break through and manifest himself. Of course, he was on the shore a long time before they knew he was there, wasn't he? In fact, they had already got the miraculous draft of fishes before they recognized it was the Lord who had been guiding them. And so it was. There is nothing magical about it, but it is conditional. And I wonder sometimes if this is the reason why our lives lose that kind of quality that you mark in men of God, having given the Lord this practical chance of manifesting himself to us. But our Lord not only gave us the teaching on this, in the verses that follow, he gave us now an example. He said, these things I spoken to you while yet abiding with you, and I'm now going. The Holy Spirit will come and bring to your remembrance the things that I have told you. Warrant here, incidentally, for our belief in the inspiration of the New Testament. You listen to some people talking, you'll think the New Testament were made up by the church. That's how the church viewed him, they say, with a tinge of, uh, suggestion that, of course, that ne- didn't necessarily be absolute, absolute facts. But you see, the Lord said, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit for the express purpose of calling to mind my earthly teaching. It's not left to a fallible church to reconstruct the words and teaching of our Lord on earth. The Holy Spirit brought it to their memory. But now he said, I leave, I, peace I leave with you. I'm going away. They were soon to see him betrayed, condemned, crucified, and put to the tree, and it was going to shake their faith. I'm going to tell you before it come to pass, says Christ, so that when you see it come to pass, you may believe. This hasn't taken me by surprise. This doesn't upset my teaching. To see me who have taught you these things, sorrowing in the garden, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood, to see me nailed to a cross and in the end put in a tomb. This doesn't ruin my teaching. We need to to to observe it then. What is the teaching? Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. What does that mean? That mean we should never get, uh, ruffled, never feel sorrowful, never feel a bit anxious? Oh, come, look at the context. By the grave of Lazarus, our blessed Lord groaned in the spirit and troubled himself. On the streets of Jerusalem, he said in chapter twelve, now is my soul troubled. A few moments ago, as he sat and began to hand the sop to Judas, he, eh, we read when Jesus had said this, he was troubled. Do let's notice that the peace that Christ enjoyed was not a peace that meant he was never troubled about anything. Of course, he couldn't, he needn't have come near the grave of Lazarus at all, maybe. That was a rather unpleasant experience. He could have kept away in his heaven. He needn't have come near Calvary, maybe, humanly speaking, he needn't have, uh, felt the thorn and the bitterness of betrayal. He could have tried to have avoided trouble. He would have gone in for nice experiences. And some of us try to seek peace that way, don't we? By avoiding the troubled experience. Not Christ. You see, his kind of peace is perfectly consonant with facing trouble and enduring trouble and being troubled and deeply troubled. And I say it and I stress it because some folks get it into their heads, don't they, if they feel troubled and distressed, somehow they must be unspiritual or something. They think that if they had the Lord's peace, they would never know a moment's anxiety or trouble. That's not true, of course, nowhere near true. In fact, it is very often a mark of spirituality that a man is prepared to go into situations where he'll know the tear and the sweat and the trouble and the frustration and the anguish of trying to preach to a world lost to God, and trying to shepherd Christian sheep that will forever run astray. Wherein was his peace then? He said this, I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of this world cometh, and he has no foothold in me. And then, but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given me commandment, even so I do Arise, arise. let us go ahead. His peace. You know, I had it pointed out to me once, and I've never forgotten it since. Someone said to me, do you know how many times in in the Bible our Lord is found saying, I love the Father, I love God? How many times would you think he did love God, didn't he? He loved the Father perfectly every minute. How many times do you have you said, I love God? How many times have you sung of your love for the Lord? Dozens of times. My Jesus, I love you. You know how many times Christ is reported as saying, I love the Father? Well, he said it here. How many other times are you to count? Oh, he talked of the Father's love for him. Oh, many, many times. But his love for the Father, this wasn't the topic he very often spoke. For love is better shown not by words, but by deeds. And on this occasion, that the world may know I love the Father. Righto, come on, let's get on. And it had been so cozy in that upper room, and heaven had seemed so near. Talking about the Father's house and the many mansions and being there, the lovely fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with the believer. Oh, how cozy, and wouldn't we love to stay upstairs in that lovely, cozy room? That says Christ, no. I want to show the world that I love the Father. How do you do that? By carrying out the commandment he's given. That's how you love the Father. You see? Prince of this world has nothing in me. He can come along and tempt me with all the kingdoms of the world and say, thine will I give, thine shall they be if you'll fall down and worship me. We never move Christ. If his father said, now in my will I want you to live a life of poverty and no permanent home, my will for you is but the hard rock of Gethsemane and the nail. All right, said Christ, all right. I love the father, you say. There's peace. When God can ask a man to give everything, and that man so loved the Father, he says, all right, Father, that'll do. That's peace, you say. And how shall we follow him down those stone steps out into the cold, dark night of Jerusalem, unless we're prepared to brace our hearts to this secret? The world, the prince of this world comes, and how often he does find a foothold in us, doesn't he? Keeping us back from where the Father's will would take us, and he gets us to think that we're avoiding trouble, and that is the sure and certain way to wreck our peace, to let anything come between us and the Father, and keeping his commandment, all my Father will love him and make his abode with him. So down the steps they go. And now you will sense as you come into John chapter fifteen and sixteen an altogether different atmosphere, as I say. They had been up in the cozy upper room, thinking of heavenly things. That's only half the story. Now they must come outside. This is a different world, this. This is Jerusalem at night, dark, with nip in the air at this time of year, and with a bigger frost around the place. You could almost feel it, couldn't you? They were after his blood. Jerusalem was utterly hostile. In fact, it was so unsafe for him to be in Jerusalem that every night he had, he had left Jerusalem for the last week and gone out, because it wasn't safe for him to be in Jerusalem at night. This night he had kept the supper in Jerusalem only by dint of the kindness of an unnamed man, perhaps it wasn't safe for him to be named anyway, an unnamed man who had made a secret arrangement with the Lord that he would hand over his house and his guest room to the Lord so that he might keep the supper in this hostile Jerusalem. And we come to the end of the chapter, in chapter sixteen. we, we learn something about the hostile atmosphere. They hate me, they hate my father, they hate me without a cause. If they have hated me, be sure they'll hate you. The time shall come when they shall be so perverse as to think they do God's service by killing you. Certainly they'll cast you out of the synagogue. It's going to be rough, gentlemen. So what shall the conversation be about now? It'll be about growing grapes, says Christ. They walk down the side of the temple mountain, down across the Cape. Growing grapes. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman, and you are the branches, and I want you to bring forth fruit. Now let's think about this matter, growing grapes. I am the true vine, the word true indicating not that he's the true vine as distinct from the false vine, but true in the sense of the complete, the real thing as distinct from all symbols. In that temple where they had just crossed through and now had left, in the temple there was a beautiful golden vine, worth I don't know how many thousands of pounds, made of gold, beautiful vine. There was a symbol, of course. The symbols may be all right, you know, but golden vine, golden vines and golden grapes, they may look nice, but they're not very good to taste, and they're not much use. He was the true vine. He was the real thing. You know, this world is looking for the real thing, isn't it? Not just the symbols of religion, the outward show. The world's looking for real, genuine grapes. I am the true vine, he said. What is a vine? That was God's idea in the first place. Do you know God? fabulously wonderful. What good ideas God has. God wanted to show the world what he's like. So he invented a world, threw a few planets and things around the place, made a world, and uh, created a vine. When old Adam first came along with the vine and uh, munched the grape, hmm, that's lovely. Yeah, I wonder whether God was standing behind the tree and watching. What, Adam? Adam was discovering a little bit about God. Bright idea it was. Luscious, beautiful grain. Vine shows us something about God, even at his physical level. The book of Judges, we come across a gentleman called Jotham, who's in, uh, full flight giving a parable. He's talking about the trees, and he comes to the vine, and the vine is asked to leave its job and go and be king, and the vine says, I shouldn't think of doing any such thing. Shall I leave my sweetness by which, my wine, by which I make glad the heart of God and man. Wine there to bring joy and gladness and refreshment. These things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. That's what you have vines for, don't you? To promote people's joy and gladness. I am the true vine, says Christ. For there had been other vines before. Israel was a vine. Do you remember God says in the, uh, through the prophet Isaiah chapter five that, uh, God made Israel a vine? And like you have to do, you know, vine growing is a very specialized art. Says God, I got out a piece of ground and I built a wall round it, and I sheltered it because so many things can spoil vines, wild animals, goats in particular, and bears and whatnot will go trampling over them, and you've got to shelter the vine, build a wall around it, and then you put a tower in the place to protect it from its enemies, so you can folks see that folks don't come and steal the grapes, and so on and so forth. And I protected you, says God to Israel. I gave you the most favorable conditions. I put you in my land. I guarded you. I defied the nations to touch you. I blessed you. I gave you milk and honey and everything else. All my lovely good things I showered on your land. And I was looking, says God, for some grapes from you to make my heart glad. Wine that makes glad the heart of God. Grapes inform of behavior, love and devotion, pleasure to God. And I was looking to you, Israel, says God, that you, having been blessed through me, might in your turn pass on my love and my goodness to other folks, so that when men came along to Israel, they should say, ooh, marvelous bit of love that is. Where they get that on? Oh, they say God, you know. That's what makes them behave like that. Oh, the wealthy nation they are, always got forgiveness, always got kindness, always got willingness to serve. Where else do they get it from? They get it from God. And men coming up to Israel should have tasted the grapes and found God through Israel. And I looked for grapes, says God, and all I got was a bunch of sour grapes.