35 Our Lord's Power Over All Flesh

XXXV OUR LORD’S POWER OVER ALL FLESH

John 17:1-26 Our Lord’s power over all flesh is far too high for us; we cannot attain unto it. His complete power over all men, and the far-reaching purpose of that power, is such a majestic thought that our minds give way under it. When we would think of it we fall down in amazement and in adoration before His feet. Even His ministering angels, who desire to look into these things, cover their faces with their wings before the blinding glory of these things. Even those elect saints whom the Father has given Him, and to whom He has given eternal life, even they can but cast their crowns at His feet as they sing, and say, "Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints! Who shall not fear Thee, and glorify Thy name?" Why, then, has all this been written, if we cannot attain unto it? Why has all this been put into our hands if we cannot understand it? Well, Holy Scripture was not written to enable us to be God’s counselors. It was written and it is put into our hands in order to make us wise unto our own salvation. And this majestic Scripture is put into our hands this night in order that we may take comfort and look up and say, "My times are in Thy hand; make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant. Save me for Thy mercies’ sake." We are not asked to wade out into all the bottomless and shoreless seas of citation and providence and grace here and glory hereafter. What we are asked and commanded and enabled to do is, to apply this stupendous truth to our individual selves, so as to have our own faith sustained, and our love and our hope and our peace of mind and our adoring obedience, and all issuing in our everlasting blessedness--in our eternal life, as the text has it.

"Dialogue-wise," as an old divine of mine has it, let us go back for a moment to the first original of our salvation. It is an high day in heaven. For it is the day of the first drawing out and the first subscribing of the eternal covenant of our salvation. The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost Their co-equal Secretary, are all taking counsel together concerning us and concerning our salvation. Putting our eternal predestination before the Son, the Father asked the Son whether He would from that day undertake both the creation of the children of men and then their redemption from sin and their everlasting salvation. At that great offer and opportunity the Son stood up and looked forward till He saw the end from the beginning. And foresaw at the same time all that would take place between the beginning and the end.

"On one condition," He said, "will I subscribe with my hand to this holy covenant. But that condition being secured, I shall delight to do Thy will. When, in the fulness of time, a body has been prepared Me, and taking it I descend and dwell among men, wilt Thou then and thereafter give Me power over all flesh so that I may give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Me?" On hearing His Son’s one stipulation, the Father at once and joyfully assented to His terms, till the Three in heaven all put their hands that day to the great covenant of our redemption. And from that day the Eternal Son of God became the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. "And I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like unto the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought the Son of Man near unto Him. And there was given unto Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, and nations, and languages, should serve Him. And His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." Our Lord was looking back to that day in a past eternity when He said in the upper room that night, "And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory I had with Thee before the world was."

Now, since all that is true as nothing else is true, what are we, each man for himself, to learn to-night out of all that? First, this: that the Father, to whom we all belong, has given to His Son all power over each one of us; has given into His hand all things whatsoever that in any way touch us, or in any way influence us, for good or for evil. All the things concerning each one of us that passed between the Father and the Son in the beginning, if they should all be written, the world itself could not contain the books. "This is such an undertaking," said the Son, "that, if I am to carry it out, I must have put into My hands the most absolute, unrestricted, and unchallenged power over all those whom Thou hast given Me. The most absolute and undivided power over everything, great and small, that will in any way affect or influence them. I must have it in My hands in what age of the world’s history they shall be born. Who their forefathers shall be, and especially who their fathers and mothers shall be. Whether they are to be rich or poor, high or low, learned or unlearned. Their tutors and their schoolmasters also. All their companionships also. All their lovers and all their friends. Their husbands and their wives, with their sons and their daughters. The furnishing of their table, and the fulness or the emptiness of their cup. All the crooks in their lot, and all the thorns in their flesh. All their hopes and all their fears, and all the fulfillment’s of their hopes, and all the shipwrecks of the same." -And it was so. All power was put into the hands of Jesus Christ, till He was able to offer that intercessory prayer on that night of our redemption. And we all know that all that has been so in our own experience. You have discovered all that in your own experience, have you not? You have seen His hand in your father, and in your mother, have you not? in your lover, and in your friend? In all the situations and in all the stations of your past and present life; step after step, circumstance after circumstance, house after house, city after city, friendship after friendship, relationship after relationship, preacher after preacher, author after author; His hand has been conspicuous to you in all these things, has it not? Your evil hearts, also, and your evil habits; the temptations into which you willingly walked, and the temptations into which you were suddenly surprised; with all the doors of escape that were so wonderfully opened to you by no other hand than His? If you would number them, they are more than the sand. And still they are new every morning. For He has promised that where He has once begun a good work He will Himself see to its being finished. Till we are justified in comforting our anxious hearts, and in saying that the Lord will perfect that which concerneth us, and that His mercy endureth for ever, and that He will not forsake the work of His own hands. And then, expounding His own words to us He says, "This is life eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." He does not say in as many words that He holds His power over us, and administrates His power upon us, that we may come to know ourselves. He does not actually say that, but He most certainly and most profoundly means it. And more than that, I feel sure that some of you are sometimes tempted to think that He is not at all employing His power over you to enable you to know either His Father or Himself, but only more and more to thrust upon you the dreadful knowledge of yourself. But then while that is most true, you must remember that truly and dreadfully to know yourself is the only possible way by which you can ever come to know either the true God or His Son Jesus Christ. You must know and you must remember that in the manner and in the measure that you know yourself, in that exact manner and in that exact measure will you ever know the Father or the Son, or one single syllable of the Gospel of the Son. You are quite right therefore. You are absolutely and incontrovertibly right. He is determined upon your knowledge of yourself first, in all its heart-breaking experiences. But then through that, and immediately following that, you will have the most sure and certain knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent to give you the true knowledge of the true God. The true and experimental knowledge that is, of the electing love of the Father, and the justifying righteousness of the Son, and all the spirituality and true holiness of your sanctification by the Holy Spirit. And, therefore, thus saith the Lord, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty man glory in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he under standeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things do I delight."

Now, my brethren, you know best yourselves how you look at all these things, and what you think about all these things, as also whether you ever think about them at all. You know best yourselves what you are seeking after as your chiefest good, and as your heart’s one desire out of this present world. But whatever your chief end in life may be, your Savior’s chief end concerning you is clear: it is so published in a thousand Scriptures that it cannot be overlooked or mistaken. It is nothing less than your eternal life; it is nothing less than your personal knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. He here makes it as plain as plain can be what His whole end and design toward you is, and will always be. He looks on you, and on all your affairs, in the light of your eternal life. He holds all His divine power over you and over all your affairs for one end only, and that is to give unto you eternal life. If that miscarries in His hands--none of them are lost, He says, but the son of perdition. He looks on you in the light of eternal life alone; and He refuses to let any of His dealings with you, or any part of His rule over you to be judged, to be either praised or blamed, till that day when you will either enter on your eternal life with Him for ever, or will be for ever shut out of His presence. And more than that, you will never understand either Him, or any single one of His appointments concerning you, or of His administrations over you and your affairs, till you begin to look at all these things in the same light that He looks at them. But then, when you begin to do that, in His light you will see light clearly. Your eternal life is the true key to all the Father’s secret counsels concerning you; to all the Son’s deep administrations over you; and to all the Holy Spirit’s secret operations within you. Be like that wise and deeply experienced psalmist then who said what is recorded in his psalm for our learning: "As for me," he said, ’my feet were almost gone: my steps had well nigh slipped. For all day have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. When I thought to know this it was too painful for me, until I went into the sanctuary; but then understood I God’s end with me. So foolish was I hitherto, and ignorant, till I went into the sanctuary. But now I see that I am continually with Thee. Thou hast holden me by my right hand, and Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.