Christ as the Branch

I want to look at the subject of the branch. The Lord Jesus is a branch, but we'll first look at Ezekiel chapter 34. Book of Ezekiel chapter 34.

We'll read from verse 29. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the Lord, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. This word, the plant of renown, the word renown is translated elsewhere in your Bible, in your authorized version, as the name.

And I want to think of the branch as being the Lord Jesus, and here it's the plant of the name. Before we go on to the name, just to point out where we're going, we're going to look at Isaiah chapter 4, and we'll see the branch of Jehovah. We'll go to Jeremiah 23, and we'll see the righteous branch.

We'll go to Zechariah, and we'll see in chapter 3, my servant the branch, and in chapter 6, the man whose name is the branch. And we trust that our hearts might be encouraged and refreshed as we look at the person of the Lord Jesus. In Ezekiel chapter 34, we learn that he's a plant of the name, and I was thinking of the name.

It's a wonderful thing concerning the Lord Jesus. There's an interesting statement given in Exodus chapter 23, and God speaking to Moses says, I will send before you an angel, the one that's going to be bearest my name. And he makes a statement, he will go before you, and he will not forgive your iniquities.

An angel who's given his name. I wonder who the angel is. Who would you think it is? Well, I want to give you the picture how it looks.

You remember in chapter 25, God is sitting, the glory of God is between the cherubim and the most holy place. And in Psalm chapter 99, we read concerning Jehovah that he sitteth between the cherubim. Now here's the picture I have in my mind.

Think on it. When Israel are moving, the ark with the cherubim is taken, and over it is put the veil, and then over that there's a cloth of blue. The ark is taken up, and the staves are put on the shoulders of priestly men, and it's conveyed along the journey.

Now, I want to just give you a little picture of how the ark is situated. Most pictures you see with the staves on the long side are wrong. And I can show you from the Bible.

Read 1 Kings 8, and you'll understand that the staves were on the short side. So as the ark went along, the cherubim were facing inward. The staves would be on the bottom side of the ark, not the top.

And so we were lifted up high above the people. Now get the picture. Between the cherubim is the throne of God.

His people are being led out along the wilderness, and God is between the cherubim. But up high before them is the angel of Jehovah, who I believe is the Lord Jesus, and he's going before them. What a beautiful picture, the one who bears his name.

Can we be encouraged today to know that as we go along our Christian pathway, we're being guided by divine persons. The Lord Jesus says in John 14, if you love me and keep my commandments, I and my Father will love you and make our abiding place in you. Ephesians 1, you're indwelt by the Spirit of God.

John 14, you're indwelt by the Father and the Son. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks of in John 14 that I am in the Father and he in me and I in you. We have a link with divine persons, and we are guided on our pathway.

The pathway of the Christian, though, is not one of luck and chance. You believe that, don't you? There's no such thing as luck. Sidney Maxwell was having some meetings, and he came home, and one of the brethren says to him, did you have any luck, brother? Well, Sidney was still laughing about it the day he told me that.

But there's no luck in our life. Everything that happens to you is not by chance. But if we are willing, God will lead us and guide us.

Mr. Darby gives a nice expression in John chapter 17, verse 11. The Lord Jesus is praying to his Father, and he says, thou hast kept them in the name that thou gavest me. You're authorized as those whom thou hast given me.

But Mr. Darby says, in the name that thou hast given me. The Lord Jesus prayed for his own. He did an exercise for their welfare.

They were just about out of water here. If someone can refresh it. I'm very nervous, and my throat gets very dry.

Oh, thank you. It's just amazing. You can sit and talk in the house for an hour, and you don't need a drink.

And you get up here, and your throat gets so dry so fast. If you think I'm not nervous, don't you believe it. And my throat gets dry very quickly.

So the Lord Jesus is praying that they might be kept. And he makes another statement. He makes a few statements in John 17.

He prays that they might be one as we are one. Now speaking concerning the disciples, but I think that we can take that thought, and we could expand it. The Lord Jesus, his great desire was for a unity among the people of God.

The great exercise of Paul to the saints at Philippi was the disunity that characterized them. And his desire for them that there might be one soul. There might be that oneness amongst them.

That they would work together, and live together, and pray together, and worship together, and witness together in the things of God. So the Lord Jesus is praying for those who were given in his name. Before I go on to Isaiah 4, just a remark about the Lord keeping us, which I like to pass on from time to time.

In Luke chapter 21, the Lord Jesus says to the disciples, Satan hath desired to have every one of you, that he may shake you around and cause you to lose direction. That's the meaning of the word sift. That he may sift you as wheat.

That he may cause you to lose your sense of direction. Similar word is used in your Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew in Amos chapter 8. And it's the thought of ships wandering in the sea. It's used in chapter 9 of actually wheat being sifted in a sea.

But I have prayed for you, Peter, that your faith fail not. Now we just heard from John 21, the continuation of what the Lord is saying to Peter in Luke chapter 21. Says, when you are turned around.

They say, where are you getting all these words? I'm just the meaning of the words that are there. When you are converted, strengthen your brethren. When you are turned around, what does Satan want to do? He wants you to lose your sense of direction.

Now watch it. The Lord is crucified. The Lord is gone.

He's risen. And Peter says, I go fishing. The Lord had told them when he called them in Luke chapter 5, that he wanted them to be fishers of men.

Peter says, I'm going back to be a fisher in the lake. He'd lost his sense of direction. The Lord says, when you get your sense of direction again, Peter, you work on your brethren, you encourage and strengthen them.

You know what Paul says to the Philippians? Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Look not every man on his own things, but every man on the things of others. Child of God, we have a responsibility, not only for ourselves before God, but for others.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who has the name and it's a name that's above every name. I don't know what the name in Philippians 2 will actually be. There are many discussions on it.

I would like it to be Jehovah, but I'm not going to get into that today. Isaiah chapter 4, please. And so we've got that, that plant of renown, the plant of the name.

The Lord Jesus is looked upon in Isaiah 53 as a tender plant. He shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. And so the thought of the Lord Jesus as a plant is not unique to the scriptures.

He's looked on in John 15 as the vine. I am the true vine and ye are the branches. And so here we're going to look at the picture of the Lord Jesus as the branch.

And then verse 1, verse 2, sorry, we'll read verse 2 of Isaiah chapter 4. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are that are escaped of Israel. And if we read on, you would see in verse 6 how it would be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and a place of refuge and for a cover from the storm and from the rain. There's much you get in the book of Isaiah that takes us on to a future day.

But I don't want to get into too much detail because the time I cover four scriptures that will be sufficient. He's going to be the branch of Jehovah. What's characterized about the branch of Jehovah? Beauty and glory.

That's what we have in in verse 2. Shall be beautiful and glorious. It's going to be fruitful and it's going to be outstanding in the earth. You know, when we come to deal with the Lord Jesus, we're going to see something of beauty and glory.

When we think of the branch of Jehovah, that would take us to John's gospel. Now John's express teaching is that we might learn that Jesus is the son of God and that believing we might have life through his name. So John's going to teach us something about the Lord Jesus as being the son of God.

And if you pick up your concordance and go through John's gospel, you'll see that in 75% of the chapters you get the relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ to the father. He's the wise son, as Proverbs says, that made glad the heart of his father. And there's a relationship between the Lord Jesus and the father that's expressed solely in John's gospel.

It's in John's gospel that you read continually. Chapter 3, the father loveth the son. Chapter 5, the father loveth the son.

Chapter 13, as the father hath loved me, so as I, he says, as I have loved you, so ye to love one another. Chapter 15, as the father hath loved me, so have I loved you. And so on and on he goes, speaking about the love of the father to the son.

It's only John, by the way, that tells us that God loves the world. You knew that, of course. There's no other gospel tells you that God loves the world.

That's unique to John. John's taken up with the love of the Lord Jesus. That's why five times John's leaning on Jesus bosom.

And he's the disciple whom Jesus loved. And you get that expression five times. He speaks of himself as being the one who was unique to the Lord Jesus and his love.

Not that the Lord Jesus loved him better than Philip or Andrew or others. John says, I've learned that he loves me. You know, that's what Paul says, doesn't he? He says, the son of God who loved me.

Paul looks at the world around him and he says, John, I want you to know this. The Lord Jesus Christ loves me. Have you done that? Have you recognized that the Lord Jesus Christ, he loved you and he gave himself for you.

And so we learn that there's a glory associated with the branch of Jehovah. Now, before we go on, I just want to say very expressly for those young believers here that the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ is one of these major doctrines in your Bible that we must accept. There are those who teach that he always was part of the Godhead, but was not always the son of God.

And they get that from Psalm 2, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And don't look on it as an expression, a public declaration of sonship, rather a fact of when he was born. Let me say this, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal son of God.

Think of Isaiah 9, 11. Unto us a child is born. That takes us back to chapter six.

Unto us a son is given and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. And there's a glory around the Lord Jesus that stands unique because he is the eternal son of the eternal God. And John is declaring his sonship.

We heard today about one of the problems that John the Apostle deals with, with this word knowledge. You've got this word gnosis, which is the thought of full knowledge, and from it you've got the gnostics. And John has got that problem when he's writing about those who taught that the Lord Jesus was not the eternal son of God, but he was an emanation from God, taking the form of a man or inhabiting a man.

There was nothing real about him. The Apostle Paul writes the Colossian epistle that he might combat that teaching concerning the deity of the Lord Jesus. And he says, in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Young man, young woman, you grasp this today, that Jesus of Nazareth was the eternal son of God. That the one who we see in glory in Isaiah chapter six is the Lord Jesus. We've a dear brother, genuine brother in the and he quite often in his prayer, he will speak of the father asking, who shall go? Who shall I send? And the Lord Jesus says, hear him, I send me.

So I got a bit exasperated one day. I get that way. And my wife will tell you, don't have good patience.

And I brought my wife down this time for the first time. And some of you have known her, so talk to her and let her know she's happy to be here. And so I said to him, dear brother, I said, you know, Isaiah, John chapter 12 would teach us that that's the Lord Jesus Christ that's being sent.

It's Isaiah, sorry, that's being sent. It's the Lord Jesus Christ that's speaking. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Two weeks later, same thing. He'd never got it. But listen, grasp this, grasp this.

That the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of in Isaiah six as Jehovah. He's eternal in his character. And Paul, well the writer to the Hebrews says, and he says, we beheld his glory.

No, that's John one, sorry. He was the brightness of his glory, Hebrews one. He was the express image of his person.

Now you'll understand that you think your revised will say the express image of his substance. You've maybe heard some brethren speaking about the, I don't know how to pronounce it. It's called the hypostatic union, but the word for substance in Hebrews one in the Greek, I would pronounce it hypostasis.

I'm not good on that stuff, so don't worry. But it's this, it's the link between the father and son. Now you will understand that sometimes in a book, and I have a lovely book at home, but it speaks about the God man.

How does that sound to you? Well, I've heard about the bird man and the lion man and all kinds of things that mythical mythical characters make up. The Lord Jesus was fully God. All that God is, he is.

He was fully man. He was never any less God at his birth as a man, and he took upon complete humanity. We're going to look at the humanity of the Lord Jesus in a little while, so I won't go into it.

He was the image, says Paul, of the invisible God. In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And John says in chapter one that we just about started to quote from Hebrews.

I don't know how it happens, you know. And we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

There's a glory about the Lord Jesus. Now Joseph says to his brethren, you go back and you tell my father about all my glory down here in Egypt, the child of God. When last did you tell the father of the Lord Jesus about his glory? When last did I extol the blessed person of the Lord Jesus? Not in public, but in the privacy of my mind, of my heart, did I delight myself in the person of Christ before his father.

Now there's nothing God loves more than to hear about his lovely son. There's a beauty and a glory about the Lord Jesus. You know the great high, the high priest in the days of the tabernacle wore garments of glory and beauty.

He was outstanding from every other one. The Lord Jesus, one day we're going to see him. You know, I have a feeling, and I may be wrong, but the son of man in Revelation 1 is the character we're going to see the Lord Jesus Christ in, in a future day.

There's a glory about him. There's a beauty about him. There's that which stands unique from anything else that we have.

He's the branch of Jehovah. And this would speak to John's gospel. You know, John, just before we go on, I'll just point out a couple of things about John.

I'm not going to do it with all the gospels, but John is speaking about the love of the Lord Jesus. By the way, it's only in John's gospel, John chapter 14, that we learn that the Lord Jesus loves the father. I was quite old in years before I read that, at least before it sunk into my mind that what I was reading was a unique statement, but that the world may know that I love the father and as he has given me commandment, let us go hence.

Now that's the end of John 14. And the Lord Jesus in his life, he demonstrated his love for the father. In John, and I'm debted to my brother, Alec Driver, for bringing this to my attention, the Lord Jesus does a lot of things himself.

Now you have to go to Mr. Darby again in chapter 6, but you'll find the Lord Jesus is distributing the loaves. Isn't that interesting? In chapter 10, he takes his life again. I have the right, I have the power, the authority to lay down my life and I have the right to take it again.

And he did that. He's risen. And he says in John 14, because I live, you shall live also.

The wonder and the triumph of the resurrection. In chapter 12, he goes and he finds the ass. The other writers tell us that he sends the disciples to find the coat, the fall of an ass.

He goes and finds it himself. In chapter 19, we read that he bearing his cross, and it's the only John tells us this, he bearing his cross went forth. Wonderful things in the gospel of John.

Isaiah chapter 23, please. We better move on. Sorry, Jeremiah chapter 23.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. Now, you'll get the same statement almost in chapter 33. In chapter 33, verse 15, in those days, at that time will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.

So, here we have the righteous branch. Now, the righteousness of God and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus would be identical, wouldn't you agree? The Lord Jesus is called Jesus Christ the righteous. The apostle Paul takes 16 chapters, at least in 15 of them anyway, to write to us a declaration about the righteousness of God.

Do you know what book I'm talking about? All of the book of Romans is dedicated to this, the manatee, and he does it in chapter 3, a manifestation of the righteousness of God, and he deals with it when he shows in the first three chapters the character of sin before him, and sin is condemned, and in chapter 3, the whole world is guilty before God. In chapter 4, he gives us a wonderful example of faith in Abraham and goes on in chapter 5 to show us the great truth of justification, coming on in chapter 6 to show us the great truth of sanctification, speaks about the law in chapter 7, and all of it is based on the righteousness of God, and read through the book, and you'll find it's the righteousness of God that's in view. In chapter 8, he takes us on to glory, and it's the culmination of the manifestation of the righteousness of God.

In chapter 9, we're going to see chapter 9, 10, and 11. I'll give you just a quick division of Romans, a little bit aside. The first eight chapters are what we call doctrinal.

The next three chapters, I don't call them parenthetical. I looked at the definition of parenthetical, and that's not chapter 9 and 10. It's dispensational.

It's a fundamental part of the book. It's not placed in there to make things clear. I think the rest of the book is there to make chapter 9, 10, and 11 clear.

In chapter 12 through 15, it's practical, and then chapter 16 is, you know, in Samuel, you've got David's mighty men. Here in Romans 16, you've got Paul's mighty woman, and it's a salutation to those who are his own, and he's showing the righteousness of God in dealing with the Gentiles, in dealing with the Jews, and then in chapter 9, he shows his absolute righteousness in Deuteronomy 7, in taking Israel for himself, but he points out the righteousness of God is seen in that, and through the Old Testament scriptures, the Gentiles are shown to have a place. In chapter 10, you find that Israel's unbelief, and the Gentiles exercise faith in Christ, and it's all in accordance with the righteousness of God.

In chapter 11, there's a remnant. There's a promise of God for them, and through the blessing of the Gentiles, the Jews will get jealous they're brought in to the provision and mercy of God, and through the mercy of God in the millennial scene, they, upon Israel, the Gentiles will be, the whole world will be brought into favor and blessing of God, and it's all in accordance with his absolute righteousness, and so when we think of the righteousness here, we learn it's to do with the king, and we read here, a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute judgment. A king shall reign in righteousness.

That's a millennial scene. Now, the Lord Jesus, he was a king who was rejected and despised, and yet we hear the statement from Pilate in John 19, behold your king. If we go back to Zechariah chapter 9, we read this, behold thy king cometh, meek and riding upon an ass.

What's he doing? Well, we go to Matthew chapter 21, and we find he's coming into the city, and it's quoted again from Zechariah 9 in Matthew chapter 21, the Lord Jesus is coming into the city, and the people are strewing fig leaves before him in their garments, and they're crying, Hosanna, king of the Jews. You know, it's not long before the fickle crowd are saying away with him. We will not have this man to reign over us, but child of God, can I take a little step further? You go back to Zechariah chapter 9, you read it carefully, read the context.

I don't find Matthew 21 there. I find it takes me to a day of manifestation, a day when the Lord is coming to establish his kingdom, and I personally would, would, the spirit of God links it now with Matthew 21, but I think, I think there's many prophetic scriptures of, of twofold outcomes, and I think it links very nicely with Psalm 24, when the Lord is coming riding into the city. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be a lift up ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is the king of glory? Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory, and a righteous king is going to come in, and he's going to establish a reign in righteousness. A millennial scene, you know, you get so much about a millennial scene through the book of Isaiah and other scriptures, and it's a wonderful thing to learn about this righteous king.

But you'll understand that in a millennial scene, sin will take place. It's not a sinless place. Where do you think the, the probably billions that are going to follow Satan at the battle of Gog and Magog at the end will take place? Where will they come from? Because I personally believe, according to the, if you read Zechariah 13 carefully, that all who go into the millennial scene will be saved.

What a wonderful thing. It's going to be peace and harmony. It's going to be a lovely place.

The sower will follow the reaper. It's going to be a place where the Lord is king. But there's a little verse in Zephaniah that goes like this.

The just Lord is in the midst thereof. He will not do iniquity. Every morning he bringeth his judgments to light.

He faileth not. And I would judge, if I'm told that a child will die being 100 years old, that sin will be dealt with in the millennial scene. And the government of sin might be death.

I don't know. There are many things we're not told. And so we'd learn of the righteous branch, the absolute righteousness of the Lord Jesus.

I'm not going to deal with the sinlessness here. I want to touch that when we look at Zechariah. Turn to Zechariah please, chapter three.

I've like to go too long in time. Zechariah chapter three, verse eight. Hear now, O Joshua, the high priest thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for their men wondered that.

For behold, I will bring forth my servant, the branch. I don't want to get onto too much here in Zechariah. I want to speak about the Lord Jesus as being the servant, the branch.

Now the Lord Jesus in Philippians chapter two is spoken of as the bondservant. He's found as the servant of Jehovah. The Lord Jesus was never the servant of men.

He ministered unto men, but was never the bondservant of men. In John 13, he washed his disciples' feet. But he says, if I your Lord and master, wash your feet.

The Lord Jesus was always the bondservant of Jehovah. But what a servant he was. Listen again to Isaiah.

Behold my servant, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. He was the that delighted his master. And God was well pleased.

He was well pleased with the Lord Jesus as his son. And he was well pleased with him as his servant. In the life of the Lord Jesus, he always sought to please the father.

He delighted to please him. Listen to what he says in John chapter eight. He says, I'm not alone, but the father which sent me is with me.

Now listen to this. I do always those things that please him. Do you get that? Now, we've all been children to parents at one time, that right? And a lot of us have worked for an earthly master.

And as children, one of your great ambitions for a normal child is to please mom and dad. But only when they know. There are times when we do things that if they knew we were doing them, they wouldn't be pleased.

But we know that they don't know that we're doing them. So we're happy to do them. That right? Isn't that the character of the flesh? That's what we do.

There are some have got an abnormal trade and have no desire to please period. And that's a sad thing. But the Lord Jesus, as every step of his pathway, remember the works that he did, the father has showed him before.

Remember his teaching. My teaching is not mine, but the father which sent me. Listen to what the Psalmist says in Psalm 40.

Lo, I come in the volume of the book that is written of me. I delight to do thy will. Oh my God.

Now, I always like to put in a plug for Mr. Newberry and you've got Bibles here. And if there's a new brain, you don't have a Mr. Newberry. It's worth getting.

It's probably $150 or $200. But hey, it's worth spending. Mr. Newberry, in his marginal note in Psalm 40 says this.

Listen to it. I just love it. I delight to do thy pleasure.

Isn't that beautiful? The Lord Jesus, as he moved through the scene, he says, I came not to do mine own will, but the will of the father which sent me. Look to I must be about my father's business. And whether it's in the form of a son or a servant, he's seeking to please the one that sent him.

He was ever conscious that he was sent of the father. John says the father sent the son to be the savior of the world. And primarily in the life of the Lord Jesus was the satisfying of the claims of his father.

What a wonderful thing. He's a servant. He's a servant who was submissive in everything that he did.

He didn't act with his own will and his own thing. You know, child of God, if the Lord Jesus set the example like that, he wants us to follow him. He wants us to serve like he served, to work like he worked, to teach like he taught, to live like he lived, to be holy like he was holy.

He wants us to be like him. And as we, I think we mentioned it already, let this mind, Philippians 2, be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so the branch would speak here of the servant.

That would speak of Mark's gospel. Now there are some words you get in Mark that are most interesting. It's immediately.

It's forthwith. The Lord Jesus is moving in just almost right away. He comes into many conflict scenes, as you'll see around chapter 3 and 4. You'll see that he leads a very busy life.

You'll see that there's not so much teaching given in Mark like you do in Matthew or you do in John. But Mark's giving you the activity and the life of the Lord Jesus, which was a busy life from rising early in the morning to being found on the mountain with God till at night the crowds are gathering around him. And the Lord Jesus, he lived his life three and a half years of almost constant moving, constant exercise, constant dealing out love and affection and care, healing to those all around him.

And Mark presents the lovely picture of the servant of Jehovah. Chapter 6, and then we'll sit down. Verse 12, And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.

Even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon his throne. And he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the councils of peace shall be between them both. Behold the man whose name is the branch.

There is no doubt in the context here we're into a millennial scene. We're dealing with that temple that will be built. But I just want to spend just a moment about the Lord Jesus as the man, the branch whose name is the man.

Now, if we look at Matthew as the king, and we'll look at Mark as the servant, and we'll look at John as the son of God, there is no doubt you will agree as you go through the book of Luke, and you see the character of the Lord Jesus in his governmental dealings, it's the son of man that is in view. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall the coming of the son of man be. But I don't want to think of the Lord in his judicial character.

There's some nice pictures of the Lord sitting upon his throne. Hebrews chapter 1, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of thy kingdom.

There is loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness upon his fellows. Here he's upon a throne of government, and that's what he's going to do one day.

He's going to sit upon a throne of government. Just for your interest, you'll understand, you'll remember in chapter 4, we've the throne of grace. And we'll come to the throne of grace.

What do we find? We find help in time of need. In chapter 8, he's sitting on a throne of majesty or a throne of glory. And there he is resplendent in all his glory and the wonder of his person.

And finally, in chapter 12, he's sitting at the throne of God. This is the man. I think the last time I was in the cross, I spoke on Jesus sitting in John's gospel.

Is that right, Brother Kyle? Do you have a good memory for the few things? I don't remember too much, but I remember the odd thing. Anyway, the Lord Jesus was perfect man. We pointed out already he was God complete.

He was never any less God. I remember a brother once saying at the meeting that the Lord Jesus had laid aside his deity. Do you believe that? I don't find that in my Bible.

The Lord Jesus never laid aside his deity. In fact, a brother wrote a book. His name just escapes me.

A dear brother. I knew him too. Glimpses of his deity.

Come on. What's his name? Pardon? Fisher Hunter. Fisher Hunter wrote a book, Glimpses of His Deity.

He looked through the scriptures and he looked for just little glimpses that showed the deity of the Lord Jesus. And there's many that show his absolute power and majesty. You know, he could be sleeping on a boat in Luke 8. What does he do? He stills the storm, wind and the waves.

He could walk out on the water in John 6 to the disciples. That's a picture of his deity. And what does he do when he gets in the boat? He moves the boat five kilometers immediately.

You wonder how you're going to get to heaven? No problem. The Lord could move a boat with over half a dozen men in it, five kilometers and less in a second. And also your Bible, you find pictures of the deity of the Lord Jesus.

But in his manhood, he displayed perfect humanity. Never less God, but never less man. He knew what it was to be weary.

Remember John 4, the Lord Jesus being weary with his journey. Now, he didn't have to go through Samaria. Probably he may have went another way, but the Spirit of God records this.

He must needs go through Samaria. But when he meets that woman, the need for a drink of water at the well, his weariness all disappears. And some of you brethren who work as evangelists in the area, you'll have experienced that many times.

At the end of a busy day and you come and there's a soul and they're looking to know God's salvation and all your weariness disappears and there's a freshness and there's a life about you as you point one to the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. The Lord knew what it was to be weary, knew what it was to weep. Remember in Luke chapter 19, he's standing and he's looking over the city and he's weeping.

And that's the thought of loud, loud noises. The Lord is vocal in his expression of grief as he looks at the city and what's going to happen one day to them. And there's a sorrow and there's a sadness there.

The Hebrew writer speaks of, in chapter 5, speaks of loud cryings and tears. And that would take me to the garden scene where the Lord Jesus began to be sorrowful and very heavy. And in that garden, the Lord Jesus experienced extreme sorrow, extreme heaviness.

As there in spirit, he went forward as it were, I believe to the cross, him being made sin. And the psalmist says, deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy water spouts, all thy waves and billows have gone over me. And he felt in his soul the weight of what he would pass through.

Now there's a lovely hymn book, we're speaking about it in the house. It's called Remembrance Hymns and it's used in two or three assemblies in Scotland, not too many. But I see it quoted in some books sometimes, but there's a lovely, a lovely verse about the garden and the tears of the Lord Jesus.

See if I can quote it. Garden of tears that never, mortal could ever weep, not of the common river drawn from a deeper deep, drawn from a depth unsounded, coursing toward the sod, telling of love unbounded, sourced in the heart of God. The child of God, before he comes to the garden, in John chapter 11, he's outside the village.

He's standing on the pathway and Mary comes to him and the Jews are with her. And the Bible says this, Jesus wept. Now there's different words for weeping used in your Bible.

And here is the word for shedding tears. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't make a noise.

Jesus shed tears. He knew what it was to weep. He knew what it was to be alone, to be lonely, to be alone.

And yet he could attest to the Jews in John 8 that he wasn't alone. But the father testified about him and the father was with him. He knew what it was to be thirsty.

He knew what it was to be hungry. All these characteristics of his absolute perfect humanity. He knew what it was to love.

Listen to what they said in John 11. He whom thou lovest is sick. Now the Spirit of God then records or John records through the Spirit.

Now Jesus, and he uses the filial, the agape word. It's interesting. One uses the filial word and the other uses the agape word.

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister in Lazarus. He knew what it was to love individuals. Now have you ever thought of the love of the Lord Jesus? Not only loving his father, not only loving the world, not only loving his own that were in the world, John 13, but he loved the family at Bethany.

He loved individuals. He loved the apostle Paul, the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He loved the rich young ruler.

Jesus, looking on him, loved him. And child of God, he loves you and me. And so we have in very simple form, the Lord Jesus Christ is the branch.

He's the branch of Jehovah. He's the righteous branch. He's the servant who is the branch and he's the man whose name is the branch.