The Lord's Hand, Heart, House

Turn please to the Gospel of John chapter 10. John chapter 10 and go down to verse 27. John 10 and verse 27.

My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give on to them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all and no man or no one, nothing, is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Now go to chapter 13, please, just for sake of time. Verse 22. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he speak.

And there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who it should be of whom he speak. He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.

And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Now another verse, chapter 14, another couple of verses. Verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also. Now we know that God will bless the reading of his word with what we have already heard at the conference and here this afternoon.

There are three little things I want to consider with us to encourage us. We all need to be encouraged. We've been encouraged to keep the traditions, but this is a little different.

And first of all, I want to remind you all that we're in the Lord's hand. That's a wonderful thing to know, isn't it? That we're in the Lord's hand. And we have read that he's in the Father's hand, so we have double security.

But I'll call it protection. He protects us and he's going to protect us unto the end. He'll never let us go.

We're in his hand. Thank God. Now I think you could tell when you read the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus had a great love for individuals.

And the previous verses to chapter 10, we have the Lord dealing with many individuals, and they're so different. Just think, first of all, they were the disciples, but I was thinking more of a man like Nicodemus, a religious man. Think of the woman at the well, a sinful woman.

Think of the nobleman's son. Think of the man that was lying at the pool, unable to do anything. It's interesting that he was there for 38 years, and we're told that from the time the law was given to the brazen serpent was lifted up was 38 years.

It showed the condition of Israel, not only the condition of the man. But then we find there's a woman taken in adultery right in the very act. There's a man that's born blind, and the Lord Jesus had a heart for each one of them.

And I thought when I look around, there's not so many of us maybe here now, but we're all so different, aren't we? Good thing we are. Likely it wouldn't be too good to have many like you or many like me among the Lord's people. But the Lord had a heart for each one.

Do you think the Lord having such a heart for them, going to the cross at Calvary, that he's going to ever let them go? But you see, but they were linked with Judaism in some measure. But you know, in chapter 10, the Lord talks about a fold, and there are certain ones in that fold. That fold represents Judaism, the law, the confines of the law.

And he said, I'm going to bring some of them out. And then it's interesting that he says, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again. This commandment I will receive from the Father.

And after he said that, after speaking of Calvary, he said, other sheep have I that are not of this fold. That's you and that's me. Them also shall I bring, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Now that you know the difference between a flock and a fold is this, that in the fold, people are confined. It's a perimeter without a center. But when we think of the flock, there's a center without a perimeter.

So they're drawn to him, and God has drawn each one of us to him. And it costs his life's blood. I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.

Not all without exception, but all without distinction. And think of the variety, even in a meeting like this. And the Lord has drawn us all to himself, because he loves us.

And since he loves us, do you think he's ever going to let us go? He never let us go. We're too valuable to him. We may not be all we should be, but when it comes to salvation and the Lord saving, we're valuable to him.

Now of course you know there's another side to this as well. I remember when I wasn't very long saved, I had some meetings with some of my old Irish friends. I won't describe them, but anyhow, we had meetings with them once a week.

And one time I took Mr. Crawford with me, introduced him to my friends, and they all liked Mr. Crawford. You couldn't help but like him, you know. Actually, they thought he looked like a Mormon.

That was a compliment for them. He was well dressed and nice, and after that we called him Norman the Mormon. But anyhow, he came, and there was one lady there, her name is Charlotte Scroggie, and her husband was in jail.

And he had professed to be saved. I've never seen the Lamb's Book of Life, I don't know, but he professed to be saved. Well Charlotte, she was indignant.

Once you're saved, you're always saved. Well that's true, that's what we've been reading. But Mr. Crawford said, there's another verse here I'd like to show you.

My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. So there's two sides to the story. We're safe, thank God, but if we're really his, we're going to follow him.

So we're in his hand, that's protection. All different, but all precious to him. Now when we come to John chapter 13, there's a, I would say, a closer place than the hand, and that's the heart.

We're all in the heart of the Lord Jesus. Now chapter 13, I believe, is a priestly chapter. You say, does John ever speak of the priest? Well he speaks of the advocate, we know that.

In 1st John chapter 2, of any man's sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous, or the Righteous One. So we know he's an advocate, but I think John, although he doesn't mention the priest here, I think that the shepherd and the priest are very similar in many ways. It's not here like Hebrews where he takes us in, but he comes out to help us, just as he went out and saw these people all saved and brings them into the flock.

But now you know, not only do we have protection brought before us, but we're on his heart, or maybe we could say even in his heart. But you see, the high priest had two onyx stones on his shoulder, and the names on the onyx stones were written according to their birth. And it represents the new birth, and the Lord spoke about that here in a different way.

He said, if you're washed all over, you don't need to be washed all over again. That's the new birth, born into God's family, that's the bath. But then he says, now there's something else.

There were breastplates, stones on the breastplate, and they're in the order of their traveling through the desert, through the wilderness. And you know, we're all in his heart. What a wonderful place to be.

I don't know if we all appreciate it. We all should appreciate it, but we're all near to his heart. And here's the Lord Jesus.

And in this chapter, we find that the early verses, he knows everything. He knew he came from God and was going back to God. He knew who it was that was going to betray him, and so on.

And the gospel of John is the gospel of the greatness and of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. It begins way back, at least in the early chapters, Nathanael. How do you know me, he said, when you're under the fig tree, I saw you.

And when we come to the end of the gospel, what does Peter say when the Lord says, Lovest thou me more than these? Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee. And it's a good study to go right through the gospel and see all the things that the Lord knew.

And in spite of all his greatness, and in spite of the fact that the cross was looming right in front of him, it says, having loved those that were in the world, he loved them on to the end. He loved his own little group. Isn't that wonderful? And it shows here he loved them because he washed their feet.

That's very important. The Lord's a perfect servant. If you were to go to Jeremiah chapter 13, you remember John 13, Jeremiah 13? Jeremiah was told to take a girdle.

And he said, you take it to the river Euphrates, and you bury it in a hole in a rock. And then he told him to go back again and bring it out, and it was marred. Wasn't useful for anything.

That was Israel's service, was marred. Wasn't anything perfect at all. But the Lord, he girded himself with a linen towel.

Mr. Darby tells it was linen, just like the linen girdle that Jeremiah took. And the Lord, he girded himself. You say, but you, you, you, you, the brethren have been preaching that he veiled his glory, not laid it aside.

The hymn writer says he laid it aside. But what, what, if you want them to lay anything aside, Mr. Vine puts it this way, the outward insignia, insignia, isn't it? Insignia, the outward insignia of his glory. Didn't change the person.

Veiled his glory is a good expression. But he laid aside his garments here, and he took a towel. Why did he wash their feet? Why would the Lord wash the feet of the disciples? Well, we know it was a tradition of the people.

We've heard about traditions. This was a tradition. For us, it's not a tradition where we actually wash one another's feet.

But the Lord said, what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. So he's not just speaking about washing a person's feet. It's something they didn't understand right then.

What he's saying, I believe, is this, I love you so much that I want you to be in a place of nearness to me. I can't bear to be separated from you. You're my little group, despised and rejected in the world.

But he said, you know, I have you all in my heart. They all weren't enjoying the place John was. And John, it was on his bosom and on his breast.

And it's often pointed out that the bosom is receptive love. And the Lord said, I want you to be close to me. You can't be close if you're defiled.

So I want to wash your feet, and I want you to be in that place of nearness to me. And when we think of the breast, that's love going out. And it's so wonderful to know that this should be true of each one of us.

It is true, but are we appreciating it? That's the point. He wants to receive us unto himself. And the love of the Savior comes out.

Loving loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. Doesn't mean he ceased to love them or would cease. He loved them to the extreme.

Couldn't love them anymore. And there they are. Even the one that betrayed him, the Lord gave him opportunity to repent.

Who is it that will betray you? Who got the answer? Peter didn't get it. He wasn't close enough to the Lord to get the answer. But John was.

You see, not only were the stones on the shoulder and those precious stones all different and precious on his breast. I should mention maybe, you know, Psalm 133 speaks about Aaron, the priest and the garments and the anointing oil going right down to his garments. And I thought even though the stones are all different, they're all united by the anointing oil.

That's by the Holy Spirit. So we're all different, but I hope we're all pulling together. That's what we're talking about.

Not doing things on your own and doing it your way. That's only going to ruin God's assemblies. It's not my way.

Some people, it's my way or the highway. They don't want to listen to anything, but we'll go according to the Word of God. Where did they get the answer from? You remember there were other stones.

We're not told what they were or what they were like. You can, there are lots of ideas, but they were, it was called the Urim and the Thummim. The lights and perfections.

And somehow the priest got an answer from God. If there was a question, I suppose, which way will we go? Well, some people think maybe a black stone and a white stone and a pouch and right close to the heart of the priest. That's where they got direction.

Right from close, right from the heart of the priest. And if they got a black one, they didn't do it or a white one, they did. A man in Hong Kong, was it? I think it was, taught me.

He thought there might have been four. Two white and two black. I don't know, but he had the right idea, I think.

He said if two black come out, don't do it. If two white do. If you get a white and a black, what do you do? He says, wait.

I don't know if that's the correct way. There's no one I don't think knows for sure. Maybe you do, but if you do, you can let me know.

But anyhow, that's the hardest thing to do is wait, isn't it? We don't always get an answer right away. And we're so impetuous. Peter was like that.

But Peter wasn't close enough really to get the answer. I wonder, are we? I think we would have more answers if we were closer to the Lord. Can we bear to be parted from the Lord? And then he said, you know, I've left you an example.

So this is a priestly act, I believe, that the Lord did. But he said, this is what you need to do. Peter didn't understand.

He said, you're going to know later on. And he knew when the Lord dealt with him after the resurrection and told him to feed the sheep and so on when he was restored. He knew something about it then.

But anyhow, we have the Lord and his love, his affection for the saints. I want you to be close to me. I want you to enjoy that place of nearness.

Now, when we come to chapter 14, it's in the house. We're in his hand. We're on his heart.

Soon we're going to be in the house. That's anticipation. When do you think the Lord's coming? People have set dates, haven't they? And it didn't take place.

But nobody knows the date. And if somebody set a date, you can be sure that they have no idea when the date is. But he says, let not your hearts be troubled.

It would be a word for Peter, wouldn't it? But it's a good word for us as well. Your heart troubled about anything. You believe in God, believe also in me.

The Lord was leaving them. They weren't going to see him anymore. They had seen him.

But he said, you believe in a God you've never seen. Believe also in me when I'm unseen. To me, that's the idea.

I'm going to leave you. But we know he left, but he sent the Holy Spirit. And we could go into a lot more details, but we won't do that.

But here's the anticipation of his coming. I go to prepare a place for you. It wasn't that he's going to build a place.

You know that. He said, in my father's house are many mansions or many abodes. They're there.

He wasn't going to build the place. He went by going into heaven itself as a forerunner. That's how he has made the place for us there.

There's a man in the glory. I wonder, do we really grasp that? Or does the truth really grasp us? There's a man in the glory. And we have his own word for it.

He said, I'm coming again. And the Lord is coming. We anticipate his coming.

That's the truth that revolutionized the Lord's people a few hundred years ago. I'm not saying it wasn't always believed, but it was lost to most for a while. And that's what they discovered.

And that's when missionary activity started in the preaching of the gospel. That we've been reminded that we need to keep at it. You say we don't see many results.

That's not our responsibility. We keep preaching the gospel, the plain, simple gospel, and we don't have to try and make it palatable or accompany it with other things that are not in the Word of God. There's no minister of music, I find, in the New Testament.

Just not there. We don't need all those things to draw people in. I remember as a young Christian, maybe that wasn't my place, but I stood for that.

A we should have more hymns and more music. And I said, well, we could have baseball games too. When I was first saved, there was an old couple in Ferndale Assembly, Mr. and Mrs. Dague, a German background.

And he said to me, you know, he said, people say, what's wrong with having a piano in the hall? And he said, well, I said to them, no, he said, he said, they say the Bible doesn't say you can't have it. They go the negative way. When he said it, it doesn't say you can have an organ grinder and a monkey either.

But you're not going to have something like that in the gospel hall. We go by the truth. We're not going by what it doesn't say.

We're going by what it says. But the Lord says, I'm coming back. It's been a while, but we're not giving up.

It's still true. The place is ready. Maybe in chapter 13, sometimes we preach that people are ready, washing their feet, wash their feet, have them clean and ready to go.

I wonder, are we ready to go? Well, he said, I will come again and receive you unto myself. And just as the father's house on earth at that time had cubicles in it for the priests when they were fulfilling their course, he said, there's a place for you. This is the future of the father's house.

The present enjoyment of the father's house would be Luke chapter 15, wouldn't it? We have a right. We have the best robes, robes of righteousness and garments of salvation. We have a ring in the hand, all the authority of God behind us, shoes on our feet, a right to stand in the presence of God.

And soon the Lord will come and we'll all be caught up with those that have gone before and we'll be forever with the Lord. So I just want to encourage your heart. Remember you're in his hand.

He's not going to let you go. You're too precious to him. You're on his heart.

He wants us to be near to him and surely he's precious to us. I've often thought, you know, the verse, I'll never leave thee nor forsake thee. I wonder, could we say that to the Lord? I'll never leave your forsake you.

Now we don't know what lies ahead, but may the Lord give us that desire to enjoy the place of affection, the place of nearness to the Lord until the time when he comes, he could come at any moment and then the anticipation of his coming and we'll be at home in the father's house.