Do you think that the Lord Jesus found it hard to give the Father’s word
when He was on earth to represent the Father? Do you think He found it hard? Do
you think He was ever embarrassed? Do you think -- Let me use a coarse
expression. Do you think the Lord Jesus thought it cramped His style to give the
word of the heavenly Father?
No Christian ever feels cramped; no Christian ever feels he’s in a
straight-jacket when he gives “thus saith the Lord.” That’s the only real
freedom, that’s the only real confidence we have.
Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge,
that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou
mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee? Proverbs 22:20
and 21.
Eighth verse:
“For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have
received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me.”
You remember? Is it the 15th or the 16th chapter,
that He said, the world will hate you? The world will hate you because I have
chosen you out of the world. The world will hate you because I have chosen you
out of the world.
I’ve spoken on that a good many times in the hearing of some of you. It’s
still a living and a very precious truth to me. When I would tell people that I
was a Methodist pastor, or the director of religious education at the Trinity
Methodist, under Bob Shuler, just a lot of people had compliments for me. “Oh, I
know Bob Schuler. He’s a great fellow. I didn’t meet him, but he’s an able
fellow. So you assisted him. Well, I’m glad to meet you.”
And I could tell people that some big concern on earth had chosen me. You
know, whether it’s the boot-black, I could say I was the boot-black at the
courthouse or they had chosen me or something. I wasn’t altogether nondescript.
I wasn’t a nobody, (using two negatives).
But when I began to say with love and with biblical confidence and
clarity, the Lord has chosen me; I’m just a minister of Christ. “Oh, well, I
know, but ugh,” and then that hateful attitude began to be manifest. Because
people do not want authority. That’s why some of you rebel against some of the
truths that I give, for instance, on unionism. You don’t want ---. You rebel
against authority and you get false comfort out of saying, “That’s Maurice
Johnson.” Well, don’t let the devil kid you any longer.
I don’t want to have authority over anybody but my wife, not even my
children now, except in a secondary manner. They are married. And I don’t want
to have dictatorial authority over my wife, only the authority that love and God
given position gives, headship. That’s all. And God knows that I do not want in
any since at all to have a one of you regard me as anything other than a
minister of Jesus Christ. Don’t get any false comfort about bowing your neck
against me. That just proves you have let the devil deceive you ---. What about
the truth involved? What about the truth involved?
Eighth verse again:
8. For I have given them the words that thou gavest me; and they have
received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me.
9. I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou
hast given me; for they are thine.
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in
them.
I pray not for the world. Because He was going to die for the world, and
the world was going to be absolutely hopeless until they individually received
Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, and thus became His own. That’s
the man that became blood-bought and became family. I pray not for the world.
That, of course, was consistent with the priest, back in Israel, for he, in a very definite
since, was the anti-type priest. The priest back in Israel as most of you know,
didn’t pray for the Malikites and the Hivites and the Jebusites when he had the
breast plate on when he went into the holy of holies once a year. He had only
the names of the people of
Israel
that had brought sacrifices. He prayed for God’s people. --- And Christ is the
high Priest here beginning His priestly work in a since. Christ was praying only
for them that believed on Him. I pray not for the world but for those that thou
hast given me.
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