Now shall we open our Bible again, please, to the fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel. John chapter fourteen, and we'll read this time from verse seven. Just a few verses, verse seven. If he had known me, he should have known my Father also. and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him. Philip says unto him, Lord, show us the Father. Now he just said that you've seen. Philip says, Show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet has thou not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father. And how sayest thou then show us the Father? Believeest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me. He doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father. and the Father in me, or else believe me, for the very works sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do, shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto the Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the sun. May God bless those verses from his precious words. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we bow before thee now to praise thy name for bringing us together this morning. We thank you for the peace and quiet in which we live. And we thank you for this blessed book, the Bible, which we have in our hands. We thank you, Lord. Here we have revealed thyself, God revealed in the sun. We thank you for this, and we thank you for the Holy Spirit of God who takes the things of Christ and reveals them to us. So we pray that this morning the Holy Spirit might take these words from this remarkable chapter, these tremendous words of the Lord Jesus on that night of suffering, before he left the upper room and apply them to our hearts for thy glory. We ask in our Savior's precious and worthy name. the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. It seems to me that the verses I have read this morning are a little John's Gospel, all on itself. The great truths of John's Gospel are all compacted into these few verses. John wrote his gospel. We've quoted it many times here, and you know it. John twenty, verse thirty. And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this gospel, in this book. But these are written, that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing he might have life through his name. That is the the reason of the Gospel of John that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And all through these wonderful chapters we've been studying now for so many months here, all through these chapters, the Lord has been revealing one thing, that he and the Father, he and the Father are one. I don't do anything on my own. He says I only do what the Father tells me to do. And now he's come to the last night his last night on earth. Now he's come to his last talk to his disciples. He's been teaching them for three and a half long years. And their hearts were so slow. I don't suppose we can say one word about them because the Lord's been teaching some of us for fifty years and our hearts are just as slow to comprehend and realize and understand the deep truth of God's word. And here they came to the last night. This is the last chance in their time they'll hear his voice teaching them. How important then are these tremendous words of the Lord Jesus? As we have seen in our previous two or three talks, Judas had gone out. Judas went out and it was night, the deepest, darkest night in the whole history of the world, the night when the Son of God was betrayed. And here in the upper room, alone with his own, he gathers them around himself, and he talks to them. And we've been talking for a week or two now about the things that he said to them on this occasion. As we said last week, there are four questions. In chapter thirteen, verse thirty-six, Simon said, Simon Peter said, Where goeth thou? In chapter fourteen, Verse five, Thomas said to him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest. How can we know the way? Verse eight, Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Verse twenty two, Judas said to him, not his carot, of course his carot already gone out. Judas said unto him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us? and not unto the world. And the Lord is answering these questions. The question comes up now about the Father and the Son. And I would say that would make a very good title for my talk this morning. The Father and the Son. Thomas said to him, verse five, We know not whether thou goest. And he just told them where he was going. He says, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I'll come again and receive you under myself. And he said, we don't know where you're going. They say, and I believe it's true, they say that we only comprehend, we only understand one tenth of what we listen to, you know. I once heard a man lecture when I worked in Birmingham. We had what we called a management club, and once a month we had a meeting, and all the... All those people in any managerial position there, from the lowest to the highest, were all there. We had dinner together and we used to get a speaker. I think my brother Tom was the best speaker I heard there. He spoke on two occasions and I just enjoyed it. I'm sorry to say I've got no tape recordings of any of Tom's talk. He never spoke here. That's why I didn't get him. But he gave a couple of good talks. But there was one man, a young man, came from the University of Louisiana. And he gave a talk, which I will never forget. It was the shortest talk we ever had at those meetings in that management club. The shortest talk. I don't think he lasted more than fifteen minutes, but he told us things I've never forgotten. He took a blackboard, or rather he had a chart. And he showed us one person there. He said, that person is you. And just above, he showed two people. He said, no, three people. He said, that's the people you work for. And the one right above you is the actual one you work for. And above those three, there was one more. That's the top, top management. And then down underneath, there were about ten people all in a line. He said, that's the people that work for you. And you're right in the middle. Now, he said, that top manager... He's got to make his decisions and pass on to the top management echelon, then they pass it on to you, and then you've got to pass it on to those ten people down under. And I'll tell you something, he said. They will only comprehend and understand ten percent of what you told them. And you will only comprehend ten percent of what your man above you told you. And you only get ten percent of what the man above him told him. So he says, how much will they get down the line? That's where we get all the mistakes and misunderstandings from. I think there's something in it. That our brains, I've noticed, if you're trying to lead a soul to Christ, and you're trying to show some soul God's simple, easy, active plan of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. When you're doing this, you'll find their minds are so made up, they have their own ideas, and you're trying to get something over, but it doesn't get in there because they've got so much of their own ideas. And their mind is running along on one track way all the time. I remember once in Philadelphia some years ago, maybe over twenty years ago, I had a series of meetings, just one week meetings, and during the week there was a couple there, the name was Greer, Mr. and Mrs. Greer. And every night the brethren prayed for Mr. and Mrs. Greer. They said they have been coming to this meeting twenty years and they're not safe. And they prayed. that God would save me. And I preached the gospel every night. And on the Friday night when Mrs. Greer came into the meeting, I said, you're saved. I could see in her face. He said, yes. God revealed it to me last night. And her face was beaming. I went, that was in December. Oh, must have been in the beginning. And I went back again in January, the night in the first day of meeting. And I'm sure Ms. Moffat must have been at the meeting. And on that occasion, I baptized the lady who was saved, but her husband was not saved. And he sat there by the baptistry, weeping. And we came to the Friday night. Not the Friday night, but Thursday night. I had one night to go. And We prayed for that man. We prayed for him. And I talked to him. Talked alone with him till eleven o'clock that night. And tried to show him how to be saved. But his mind was so made up. His mind was so made up. that he couldn't understand what I was talking about. He knew the Bible as well as I did. He knew it as well as our good sister, Mrs. Anson. So I fear she knows the Bible better than I do. She quotes all the verses. And he knew the Bible. Every verse I quoted, he quoted in front of me. For years he'd been listening. His mother and father were Christians. And he couldn't get it. He couldn't. I said, now listen, Brother Greer. I can't do any more. There is only one person that can reveal to you the way of salvation, and that is the Holy Spirit. And I am going to pray that the Holy Spirit of God will open your eyes because you've got it in your head if God would only open your eyes to speak. And we prayed together. And next day, I was at dinner at somebody's house, and he phoned me when I was at dinner, a phone call. Brother William saved. And this is what happened. He got up next morning and he was the manager of a big grocery store, a food mart I think, something like that. And he went down in the basement and he said to the Lord, I won't eat any food today until he saved me. I'm going to be saved today and I won't eat till he saved me. He had no breakfast. He prayed. went back and worked all the morning. He went lunchtime, went downstairs in the basement, said, Lord, I'm not eating. I want to be saved. And somebody had given him a little tract and he pulled that tract out of his pocket and as he read it, the light came. And God saved him there and then he had his lunch. And he was really saved. When I was up in Wilmington a few months ago, There was a young couple there and he said, I want to talk to you because you led my wife's mother and father to Christ. I said, well, I don't know and I don't remember it. But this was Mr. and Mrs. Greer. That was his mother-in-law and father-in-law. And sure enough, I led them to Christ. But what I'm saying is this. Our minds are so made up. We don't understand. And here's Philip. He says... Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe in me. Also, I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come again. And whither I go, ye know, and the way ye know. And some of us say, we don't know where you're going, and how can we know the way. I'm telling you, the human brain doesn't get it. That's why every now and again when we read the scripture, we read it over, a chapter over and over and over, and over. Somehow, you don't see it. And then suddenly one verse seems to come right up and hit you, and you get something out of that chapter you never saw before. That's how our brains work. And the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, and they deal these things to us. Now, I've been reading these verses all this week. I've read them over and over and over. My brain has been just like I've been talking about. I couldn't get an outline. I've read it and read it. And I suppose I got eight or nine commentaries on the Gospel of John, and I read several of them this week, and they're beautiful, but something never dawned until late last night. I was reading Henry Harry Ironside commentary on John. I love Ironside because he talks a simple language, a language I can understand so well. And... At one time, for a very short period, I had a secretary who was a teacher at the King's College at Newcastle, Delaware, and a part-time, she wanted a part-time job, and I needed a secretary, and I got her to come. She was a very, very clever lady. Her name is Dr. Dorothy Braun. She's got a PhD now, and she's teaching over in Viola. But she was for a little period, six months or so, a secretary for me. And she is a person, when she was in Moody Institute, took down, by shorthand, Dr. Ironside's talks, many of them, in the Moody Memorial Chapel, and John Gothel and many others. She took that down and edited that book and made several of Ironside's books, and she was a very clever lady. And I love reading Ironside. And last time I was reading, he gave... seven points. Now, I don't like copying other people's notes and headings and so on. I like to have my own. But this gave me life. He said, I want to tell you seven things about these verses. The first one. The Father is only known through the Son. Verse seven. If he had known me, he should have known my Father also. From henceforth he know him and has seen him. Our subject is the Father and the Son. First point, the Father is only known through the Son. You will never know God except through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now look at Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one and verse one. God with sundry times. Verse one. God with sundry times and in different manners. faith in times passed unto the fathers by the prophet has in these last days spoken unto us by his son. Now really in the Greek the word is not by but the word is in. Has spoken unto us in his son. And the his is not there. He's spoken to us in son, the eternal son of God. God was in him speaking to us. And he says, the Lord Jesus said, If he had known me, he should have known the Father also. And the first point is, the Father is only known through the Son. You cannot know God except through his Son. That's why he came here. In these last days he's spoken unto us in his Son. God was in the Son speaking to the world. So Jesus Christ is the only way of getting to know God. The Father is only known through the Son. If he had known me, he should have known my Father also. And he doesn't waste any time. He says, from henceforth you know him and have seen him. The Lord says, if you look at me, you see the Father. Now we cannot understand the mystery that God has. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three eternal beings, all in one eternal being. How can we understand it? The human intellect can take it in, but we're saved by faith, and we take the Word of God by faith, and we believe what God says. And God says there are three persons in one, and he says, if you see me, you see the Father. The Son was the express image, the express image of God's person. The Father is only known through the Son. And the Lord Jesus on this deep dark night is getting these eternal truths home to these slow-hearted disciples. This seems to drop all everything else, he says. And let me now in these last minutes, let me tell you, and of course John's Gospel wasn't written at that time, but let me tell you all that John's Gospel is about. No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father. John one, verse eighteen, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him. He's told him out. The Father is only known through the Son. Now, Ironside's second point was Christ is the exact expression of the Father. Verse nine. Because verse eight, Philip said to him, Show us a Father. And he just said to him, From henceforth he know him and have seen him. And slow-headed Philip said, Show us the Father. He said, Boy, you're looking at it. Show us the Father. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me? That's the thing. If you know me, you know the Father. Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me? He that has seen me has seen the Father. And how says, Thou then show us the Father. Christ is the exact expression of the Father. He is the expression of God. He is the expression of God. What he did, the Father did. And he says, I only do the things the Father tells me. So Christ is the expression of God. And when we see him, we see God. Thirdly, the question of the unity of the Father and the Son. Now verse nine, Jesus said unto him, I have been so long time with you, and yet I shall not know him, Philip. He that has seen me, has seen the Father. How saith thou then, showeth the Father? Verse ten, Believeth thou not, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The unity of the Father and the Son. I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you. I speak not of myself. But the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work. I don't think we will ever Understand we finite beings. We will in the glory when we get to heaven. But we will never understand on earth the great mystery of the incarnation. How can God become a man? Can I understand it? How can the eternal God be born and come like all of us had to come through the womb of a woman into this world? How can it be? That's the mystery of the incarnation. How can we understand God being in the form of a man? How can we understand that he was a man and yet he was God? I can't understand it, but I have to take it and believe it. That Jesus Christ was the eternal Son of God. And he says then, I and the Father are one. Believest thou not. I am in the Father, and the Father in me. The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me. He doeth the works. Now the fourth point. His works, his works were the testimony of this truth. Verse eleven. Believe me. that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very work's sake. Now here we go back to where we started. Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, and were not written in this book, for these are written, that he might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. John selected seven miracles. And he related and told us about these miracles with one purpose that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. And the Lord is putting this in a nutshell in these few verses. The whole of John's gospel, as I said before, condensed into these few verses. And he's saying, just what John is trying to say, if you see the miracles, or the very miracles proves that he is the Son of God. And he says, if you don't believe me, if you don't believe that I'm in the Father, Then believe me, for the very work's sake, you have seen the mighty work that I have done, the great miracle. The Lord Jesus brought Lazarus from the dead. Who could do that but God himself? Nobody else could give life to the dead. And the Lord Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth, and he came forth. Alive. That is the proof that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Who could stay a storm on the ocean? You go down the seashore and I see the gray waves coming in and we're absolutely weak and powerless. What can we do against the strains of the ocean? And the Lord Jesus says, peace is still, there was a gray town. He said, believe me for my very work's sake, didn't you? If you can't believe me by what I say to you, believe by what I've done. And that's why the miracle of forgiveness that we might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So it works with a testimony of the truth. And then he makes a wonderful promise and the... Ansai calls this the fifth thing in these verses. A wonderful promise. Verse twelve. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than thee shall he do, because I go unto the Father." Have you ever thought about this verse? Who could do greater works than the Lord Jesus Christ? Who could possibly do greater works than he did? The great work, I think, of the Lord, the great work, it wasn't so much the miracles. The miracles were a means to perform the great work. The great work was to reveal the Father. He came here to declare who God was. That was his work. It was a spiritual work more than a material work. True, he healed the sick. True, he gave sight to the blind. True, he made the dumb to speak. He cleansed the leper, yes, but His great work was His spiritual work. The Lord Jesus came here with one great purpose to reveal the Father, yes, and the great purpose of building a church. He was going to break down all the traditions of Judaism. They hated the Gentiles and called them dogs, but He was going to show them that Gentiles are going to be saved, as well as Jews be saved, and He's going to build one great church. And that is the great work of this present era of grace. The two thousand years of the era of grace, God's great work is building a church. What success did the Lord... Oh, I don't like to say this about the Son of God. Who was so successful of the Son of God? Ten thousand times ten thousand are going to bow in adoration at his feet. He is the mighty victor. But when he hung upon the cross, what success did he get? He wasn't crowned and sitting on a throne. He wasn't riding through the streets and all the people cheering and... No, no. He sang this morning in our hymns, one of our hymns, about the loneliness, the loneliness of the cross. And he died alone in shame and pain and nakedness and torment and agony on that cross. Is that success? And looked like it did. Where are all his disciples? If he came to set up a kingdom, where is the kingdom now when he sang in shame upon a cross? I think of what Pilate said to him. It says Caiaphas, I mean, or rather Anas, the father of Caiaphas. He asked him about his disciples. You ever thought about that? He asked him about his disciples. And at that very moment, he could say, listen, look through that gate there, listen. And Peter was saying to the woman, Woman, I never knew him. He said, What do you think of that, disciple? Peter, what do you think of him? He's just saying he never knew him. And when he hung upon the cross, they all pursued him and said, What has he done? He got twelve men, twelve men, and they're all gone. One's a traitor, betrayed him, gone out and hanged himself. Peter has denied him. The others all ran away. Doesn't look like success, does it? Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye that believeeth on me the works that I do, shall he do also, and greater works shall he do. Now let me turn over the pages a little bit to the wonderful day of Pentecost. After the Holy Spirit was given, and Peter gets up to preach the gospel on the day of Pentecost, and it clearly says, three thousand souls were saved. I say that's greater works than the Lord did. How many were saved when the Lord was here on earth? Well, it tells it in Acts one that they were having prayer meetings continually, waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit. And it says in Acts one and verse fifteen, in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, And the number of their names together was about a hundred and twenty. That was the net result of what the Lord had done. A hundred and twenty? Well, let's go a little further. There were some that weren't gathered in that upper room waiting in prayer. First Corinthians chapter fifteen, it says in the resurrection, it says in verse five, after that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren. So there must have been five hundred brethren. This is before Pentecost, mine, before he ascended. That's the highest number I can find in the Bible. The net result of three and a half years witnessed here and thirty long years here on earth. The net result was that there were five hundred followers, five hundred brethren that saw and knew and loved the Lord Jesus. Don't you think this is what he means? The greater things are these spiritual things that when we become, when the disciples were to be induced with the Holy Ghost, he would give them such power that when they preached, Three thousand would be saved. And in one day, more work done, more disciples, than in all the thirty years the Lord Jesus spent on earth. Again, I bow at his feet in adoration and say that he's king of kings and he's victor and he's won the great mighty fight without his death and his triumphant cavalry. We couldn't win souls to Christ. And all the glory is his. But he says, you're going to see the results of my cross. You're going to see the results of my suffering. you're going to see the results of my death when the Holy Spirit comes. And then you go out and do the work that I've been teaching you do for the last three and a half years here. His wonderful promise. Now the sixth point is promised to hear our prayer, verse thirteen. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Listen to this promise. answer our prayer, whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it. Now, I believe there are certain things that we might ask in his name, and he's not going to do it at all. I believe if I went to the Lord and said, Lord, I want to be a millionaire. Make me a millionaire. I don't think it even here. It's also good of being a millionaire. That wouldn't do anybody in this meeting any good this morning to be a millionaire. No good at all. Only he without headaches and heartache and worries and troubles and wouldn't be able to sleep at night. That wouldn't be anything. The Lord didn't promise to make us millionaires. He promised to supply our every need. And he'll do that. And we many of us have proved it. And our proving is day by day. If we ask in his name, he'll do it. But I don't believe, again, that this applies to much about material things. Of course, we come to Him with all our material needs, and some of us have needs, and we come to Him. I could tell you story after story of our God as anxious prayer and supplied material needs. Wonderful. And guidance in our lives, and let us, so we can say, we were in the way, and the Lord led us, and we know we've been in the path that He planned for us, you know. I know this when I try and do things on my own. and go off and try it myself. It's going to turn out to be a failure and be a miserable mess if I try and do it myself. If He shall ask anything in my name according to my will, He's going to do it. But I believe it's something more. You know, I had a great experience of this verse once. I was living in Greece. I didn't know the Greek language well enough to preach, although I was studying it. But I had a great friend, and he was the... a kind of a, I suppose he would call him the pastor of the second evangelical church in the port of Piraeus near Athens. And he called me one day, he said, Bob, I would like you all next month. There are five Sundays in the month. I would like you to come and preach the gospel here in the evangelical church of Piraeus. And he said, I'll interpret for you. You preach in English and I'll interpret. five Sundays. And I went down to Sunday after Sunday. And I spoke, and the pastor that got the words out of my mouth, he said them. Now, whether he said the exact right thing, I didn't know enough about it in those days to check on him, but he was an enthusiastic gospel preacher, and he got it over. And each week there were more and more and more people. And this... chapel down there was the last night was filled, filled right up. And there was a spirit of expectancy now, never in Greece do they ask people to come to the front or put their hands up or do it. That's an American way of doing it. They don't do it over there at all. They don't do it in England very much either. In Great Britain. I was amazed when I first time I heard an American priest, he got a chair out and stood in the front and said, now come to the Lord and stood up and waved his hands about. I've never seen that over there at all. I've seen it since I came here. But He didn't do that. And that night, before I went to preach, I had a little study in our home, and I knelt down there, and I put my hand, my finger on this word. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do. And I said to the Lord, you made this promise. And I believed what you said. Now, Lord, I said... Give us souls tonight. Give us souls tonight. And with my mind and my finger on that verse, I went down and preached. And I preached on the twelfth chapter of Exodus. I remember redemption. And at the end, I turned around to my friend Paul to find these. And I said, Paul, should we let down the net? He said, go ahead. And then I made this appeal. I said, now, you could have heard a pin drop. I said, God is here tonight and God is speaking and souls want to be saved. If you want to be saved, come in this room. There was a large room at the back. Come into this room. And twenty-five people went into that room that night. And when we got in there, Paul said to me, now, you know enough about the Greek language to tell them in their own language, how to be saved. And for the first time in my life, I preached the gospel in Greek. And in their own language, I told them how to be saved. and twenty-five souls accepted the Lord Jesus that night. And many of my know went on, and many are in glory now. And I trace it all back to the revelation God gave me of John fourteen, verse thirteen. What service shall ask in my name? I will do. I believe that it is spiritual things. There are souls around us dying out of Christ. Oh, may we put our finger on this verse and claim some of these souls. They might be won to the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't think it would be fitting to us when we're nearly eighty years of age and life's journey is done and we're worn out to say, Lord, restore this person. How can you do that? We can only live so many years, but I do believe we can ask for spiritual things and ask for souls. Ask for Camp Gilead. Ask for Camp Horizon. Ask for souls and put our fingers on the verse, the grave promised. the Lord promised to hear our prayer. And now finally, and this is the seventh point, the Lord's purpose, at the end of the verse, this is the Lord's purpose, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Why do I ask something in His name? For my glorification? No. Why do I ask something in His name? For my good? No. Do I ask Him for us? beautiful car or a beautiful home? No, I don't ask Him for that. I ask Him that the Father may be glorified. That's why I say these are spirituals. And I believe when we ask for a blessing on this work here at Park of the Palm, why? That the Father may be glorified, not that we might be glorified. That the Father might be glorified. Let's put our finger on the word and let us go on asking in His name. He said, whatsoever he shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we bow in thy presence now. We thank you for this wonderful book. We thank you for this wonderful revelation of thyself in the person of thy Son, and that the Lord, in that dark night of sorrow, trying to get this tremendous truth over to his disciples. Grant, Lord, that we in some measure might have understood this this morning. Maybe, Lord, there's some here that don't even know, thee is Savior. We ask in the closing moments of this meeting, there may be a desire in these hearts, a desire to be saved. And grant, Lord, that as they close the meeting, they might be able to meet such and talk to them and lead them to thee. We seek thy parting blessings in our Savior's precious name. Amen. And I would like to say, should there be one here out of Christ this morning, all you've got to do is you go out and say, will you help me? I'll be glad to sit down by your side and show you how to be saved from this wonderful book. Thank you.