Gooding, David: 1 - The School of Holiness

When the blessed Lord Jesus began to teach his disciples in the school of holiness, he began by enacting two parables, the one after the other. The first parable was the washing of the disciples' feet. And in our first session, we thought of that washing and the lesson our Lord drew from it. The need for the once and for all bathing of regeneration, that to be followed by the constant rinsing of the feet. So then, if we have followed the Lord so far and understood what he meant, and if, more importantly, our experience is keeping pace with what the Lord Jesus is saying, and we have been born again, and we have the life of God, and we know what it is to allow the Lord Jesus constantly to rinse our feet. Now we are ready for the next lesson, and the next lesson will be concerned with defining for us what holiness is. For sometimes we can be very zealous and keen to be holy for the Lord, but not altogether understanding exactly what holiness is. And unless we have clear in our minds what we are aiming at and what the Lord Jesus is aiming at, we shall not make good progress in his school. I was brought up by godly men and women, and I praise God for every memory of them. Faithful they were indeed, and gave me a tremendous heritage so that I cannot remember a day in my life when I didn't know how to be saved. They taught me endless reams of scripture even before I knew the Lord, and I praise God for them, for their faithfulness to me. But when it came to holiness, and they were very holy people, sometimes in their speaking they put an inordinate amount of emphasis on the color of women's stockings. I'll explain to you how that, uh, came to be, you'll see. When I was a youth, and that was a long, long time ago, of course, as you see, all ladies, that's all respectable ladies, wore black woolen stockings, you'll see. That was the fashion. And because every woman would be wearing black stockings, woolen stockings, or sometimes a permitted shade of brown. When these other kind of stockings came in, I don't know how you call them, you know, these sort of light things you see through stockings, uh, flesh colored stockings or something or other, and some Christian women began to wear flesh colored stockings. The old patriarchs and the matriarchs lifted up their hands in horror. Just look at their worldliness. It was shocking. But presently, of course, you couldn't get black stockings anymore because nobody made them. And little by little, all the ladies came to wearing these see-through, light-colored straw stockings, you'll see, until it became the fashion and nobody noticed. Until one day, fashions changed. And there came down from the great city of London to our little country town of Ipswich a bright young thing, right straight from the city, and she came to the Lord's Supper that Sunday morning, I vividly remember it, dressed in black stockings. Oh, said the patriarchs, did you ever see such a bold hussy and a worldly woman? Daring to come in black stockings. From that I perceive that concentrating on the color of stockings isn't necessarily a good guide to somebody's holiness. It isn't, is it, that we can afford to neglect what scripture says about the way we dress. Saint Peter would remind us that it is a part of our Christian testimony, isn't it? To dress in such a way as commends the Lord Jesus and commends the gospel, and does not follow worldly and unseemly fashions. But the color of stockings cannot be the heart of the matter. Then what is the heart of the matter of holiness? Now our Lord Jesus is going to demonstrate it to us by a very vivid enacted parable. He is about to expose the sin of Judas. And as we watch him expose that sin and perceive what that sin was, we shall perceive what the opposite of holiness is, and then, by contrast, we shall see what true holiness consists of at its heart. So then, first, what was Judas's sin? Put simply, it was this. He was prepared to take the material gifts that Christ gave him. As Christ put it, one of you has eaten my bread. Pretend to be his friend, sit with him at meal, talk pious language to him, even perhaps discuss the Bible with him. He was prepared to take, be treasurer of the Christian group and hold the money bag. And when his wife wanted a new fridge, he was prepared to dip his hand into the bag too and take the money out to buy a fridge. He was prepared to take all the gifts, the material gifts that Christ could give him. And at his heart he had no love for Christ, nor time for him either. Given the choice of the possibility of making a fat sum of money on the one hand, or being loyal to Christ on the other, it didn't take him two seconds to decide. Money was the important thing. And he took his thirty pieces of silver and sold the Savior. That is the stark opposite of holiness. Taking all God's gifts. No time for God himself, nor for his son. If that is unholiness, then holiness is its direct opposite. It is not to be found in its heart a matter of keeping of rules. It is personal and intense and undeviating and loving loyalty to the Lord Jesus. That's holiness. A following after God with all my heart, my mind, my soul, my strength. Loving him. That's holiness. We might define it thus. Holiness is devotion to the divine persons. But next, let us notice how exactly Christ chose to expose Judas's sin. For the way he did it is exceedingly instructive. Halfway through that final meal, our Lord Jesus to began to be very distressed in spirit. He said, you know, one of you shall betray me. Hitherto, nobody in the party except the Lord had been aware that the Lord knew. But when our Lord said that, one of you is going to betray me, then Judas became aware that the Lord Jesus knew. How would the Lord expose him? When our Lord said it, of course, the other disciples began to wonder who it was. Who is this that's going to betray him? They could scarce believe their ears. And Peter beckoned across the table to John, who was reclining at table next to the Lord Jesus. And because they were reclining at table in the ancient manner, John just leant back and looked up into the face of Christ and said, tell us, Lord, who it is. And our Lord said, this is how I'm going to expose him. How? How would you have exposed Judas had you been there? You'll say, what a nasty thing he was about to do. All pretence of being friends with Christ, and in his heart prepared to sell him. He that has eaten my bread, says our Lord, has lifted up his heel against me. It's a vivid metaphor, isn't it? You'll see, none of you ladies will ever feel like kicking anybody, I'm sure, but some of us men do sometimes. But if you are ever thinking of kicking anybody, the honest way to do it is to kick them face on, you know, to lift up your foot and kick them. Yeah. Judas didn't do that. He did the nasty thing. And the nasty way to kick somebody is that when they're coming up the road, you see, you say, good morning, Mr. Smith, I am delighted to see you. Isn't it a lovely morning? And he thinks you are his friend. And just as he's got by, you lift up your heel, kicking him in the back. And that's what Jesus has done. He was at all the meetings pretending he loved the Lord. But in secret, he didn't love the Lord at all, and was prepared to kick him in the back. Rotten, despicable, hypocrite. How would you have exposed him? Well, I know how I would have exposed him, and that I can't tell you because that wouldn't make profitable hearing. But I remember how the Lord exposed the Pharisees, and I shouldn't like to have been a Pharisee when Christ exposed them. You generation of vipers, he said. Because these men were oppressing widows and orphans with their pretended religiosity. Would our Lord then begin witheringly to denounce Judas? No. He said, to whomsoever I shall give the sop when I've dipped it in the dish, the same is he that betrays me. And he took the piece of bread, and he dipped it in the dish, and he offered the sop to Judas. What was he saying? It was more than just pointing the finger at him, wasn't it? You see, amongst ancient Orientals, the code of hospitality was exceedingly strict. If a man invited you into his home or his tent, and as the host entertained you and personally reached for a piece of bread and put it in the dish and offered you the sop, the man was not merely entertaining you, he was setting up a friendship between him and you, a friendship to which he would be loyal. Hereafter, he would stand up for you if you would accept his friendship. What a tense and eloquent and poignant moment that was, therefore, when faced with the traitor and now about to expose him, the Lord Jesus took the sop and he offered it to Judas. There you are, Judas. Judas knew that the Lord knew, and the Lord knew what Judas was going to do, about to betray his sacred friendship. Judas, he says, you've ate my bread, haven't you? And you're about to betray me, Judas. Here's some more bread, Judas. Won't you have it? God's own son, about to betray- be betrayed by this miserable little man. The transcendent Lord of glory, and he's selling him for thirty pieces of silver. The Lord replies by offering the man his friendship, if he will have it. That becomes a symbol, doesn't it, of what God himself was doing at Calvary. To a world that God had given all his great gifts in creation. A world that had no time for God or for his son. And instead of burning it all to a cinder, at Calvary, God offered men and women the sop of his personal friendship. And oh, if we take that sop meaningfully and truly, God will be loyal to his friendship, to the end of an endless eternity. Why didn't Judas confess his sin? Why didn't he say, oh Lord, you make me feel a rotter. I do want your friendship. I got this cursed love of money, but Lord, save me from it. Christ would have been loyal to him and saved. No, he took the sop. But he didn't want the friendship. And he went out and says, John, it was night. I'm afraid he's gone. Where there is no friendship. Where there is no loyalty, and where daylight never comes. Loyalty to the Lord Jesus, loyalty to the divine person, devotion to, not just in word, but in deed, in heart, and in truth. This is holiness. And who wouldn't seek it? Well, Peter did. And when Judas went out, it appears that Peter was feeling, uh, considerably relieved. Well, we found out, I thought for an awful minute it was going to be me, said Peter, but then on, on reflection I said, no, it couldn't be me, it could have been John, of course, and uh, any one of these others, some of them are doubtful, but it wouldn't have been me. When our Lord interrupted and said, Peter, you know, Lord, in most things you get it right, I have to admit that. But this time, Lord, just this time, you got it wrong. Deny you. Of course I wouldn't deny you. I would go to prison and to death for you, Lord. Such is my devotion to you. And he meant it, didn't he? Poor old Peter really meant it, and wasn't aware as he stood there contradicting the Lord that he had a psychological weakness in him that was going to lead him to this disastrous mistake. And why didn't he turn around to the Lord and say, Lord, this comes as a shock to me, Lord. I never knew I was that type of a man, you know. I didn't realize I got that weakness. I thought I was a bold man. But if you can see a weakness in my heart, Lord, such that at one stage I would deny you. Well, Lord, this is fearful, but help me, Lord. How do I get rid of this weakness? No, foolish man. He wouldn't let the Lord diagnose and point out his hidden weakness. So the Lord had to let him learn the hard way, which becomes a lesson to us, doesn't it? Holiness, devotion to the divine person. There isn't one of you ladies, surely, is there? But what if the Lord Jesus came and asked you, do you want to be holy on these terms? You would say, with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind, I want to love the Lord Jesus. I want to live for the Lord Jesus. Of course I do. I follow him to prison and to death. And you mean it. We all mean it. But if we're going to be realistically holy, we shall have to let the Lord Jesus do for us what he did for Peter. We all have our weaknesses, don't we? Big weaknesses. Flaws in the marble, so to speak. Places where the nice facade of our spirituality can sometimes crack up. And there's no good being unrealistic. Starry-eyed, is it? We are fallen creatures. And put under test, how long would our love and devotion to the Lord Jesus necessarily last? Oh, how wise we are when we say to the Lord, Lord, I do need you to wash my feet. And it's not only, Lord, the things that I've done wrong in the past, but the things that are still underneath wrong with me and wrong with my attitude. You'll say, good ladies, I must know, standing here before you, that I'm not yet in heaven, am I? I know it theoretically that there must be about me wrong attitudes. My friends can see it, and sometimes they're not quite friendly enough to tell me. And the Lord tries to tell me through his word, through the preaching of the preacher, through the pastoring of my elders and friends. How wise I am to listen and say, Lord, show me. So that any weakness I have that would betray you, Lord, can, by your grace, be removed. And if we are serious in our holiness, we shall say it constantly. We shall not wait until some disaster overtakes us and show us we have weaknesses we never thought we had. But that said, what an amazing sequence of thoughts strikes us as we pass from chapter thirteen to fourteen. The cock shall not crow, uh, until you have denied me thrice, says the Lord Jesus. Then adds, let not your heart be troubled. I don't know if a lot of conversation passed between those two statements, but as far as the Holy Spirit's record is concerned, he follows the one statement with the next. For the blessed Lord that offers us the sop of his friendship. If we are genuine, like Peter was, for all his mistakes, the Lord will be loyal to us. He knows we have weakness, and he has provision for our weakness, so that we may attain this goal of holiness that is devotion to the divine persons. Therefore, he says, you'll deny me, Peter, but for the moment, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God? Well, now I ask you to believe me when I tell you certain things. And in chapter fourteen, Christ outlines his provision for us. For if holiness is devotion to the lo- to the divine person, following them wherever they go, so to speak, and never leaving them. Listen to the provision that Christ is making for us so that this will be possible. Says he to his disciples, you know, in my father's house there are many abiding places. Just where, like there were in the temple at Jerusalem that our Lord referred to as his father's house. There was one big temple, and all around the temple were all sorts of side rooms where the priests and the Levites, uh, did their work, and the women who made the showbread and the candlesticks and the incense. Each of them had a little room that they could be in and do their work in. In his father's house at Jerusalem, there were many rooms. Using the illustration, he says, in my father's house in glory, there are many rooms suited to your personalities, and I'm going to prepare a place for you. Oh, what a delightful thought. So confident that his shall be successful in making us holy, he's gone to prepare rooms for us in the Father's house above. I wonder what your room will be like, don't you? Can you imagine yourself sitting there? Oh, what a day it will be when the Lord Jesus comes and takes us to the Father's home above. We shall never go out again, you know, in the sense that we shall never stray from them. Then shall our loyalty be perfect, always to be with them. They shall not go out anymore. Going to heaven. The great provision to make us permanently holy. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that so you will have a marvelous time. Uh, tell me, my good friend, you going to heaven? You say, of course I am. Mm. Why are you wanting to go to heaven? You say, well, it's the rheumatism, you know. I got the rheumatism badly in my knee, and it's painful to walk, and oh, I am looking forward to going to heaven so I shan't have any more rheumatism. Well, God bless you. You certainly won't have any more rheumatism up there. Is that your chief reason for wanting to go to heaven? Of course it isn't. You will say, don't be so rude, young man. My reason is as given here, says the Lord Jesus, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. What comforting words in this context. Peter was saying, I'm going to follow you wherever you go, to prison or death. I'm afraid you won't, says our Lord. You're going to deny me, but don't let your heart be troubled. There's coming a day, Peter, when you'll be with me, and you'll be with me forever. These follow the Lamb, says the book of the Revelation, whithersoever he goeth. Oh, what a lovely prospect. Courage as you fight the battles of life and strive against sin. There's coming a day when the Lord shall take you to be with himself. You shall never wander anymore. The Father's house above. But then the other provision that the Lord Jesus shall make for us while we are still here is this. Our Lord talks of it in verse twenty three. If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our dwelling place, our room with him. That's the opposite side of the story, isn't it? The Lord Jesus one day will come and take us to a room, abiding place in the Father's house, that we shall be with him. Meanwhile, he asks that we make him a room in our lives. And that's fair enough, isn't it? If we're expecting and wanting to be with him in his room, in his house, it's not unreasonable for him to ask that we make him now a room in our house. So once more, there are two things, aren't there? Just like there was the big thing, the washing all over, done once and for all, and then the constant repeated washing. So here there's the big thing. The Lord is coming to take us to glory, to a house in the, to to a room in the Father's house. And then there's the other thing now. Daily making him a room. In our hearts. It interests me very much to watch the Lord Jesus as a teacher. A delightful teacher he must have been. But he began to expound these things, and I think he talked slowly somehow to, and watched the apostles to see whether they'd really taken it in. And when he saw they hadn't, and a frown came over their faces, you know, a preacher sees all sorts of sights from a platform, uh, you'll see, uh, perhaps he paused and let them interrupt. And he said, you see, I go to prepare a place for you, and whither I go, you know the way, don't you? And his eye caught Thomas's eye. And Thomas, all listening, of course, said, no, we don't. Excuse me, Lord, he said, no, we don't. What's the good of your standing there and saying we know the way? Of course we don't know the way. You don't know where you're going to start with, and if we don't know where you're going to, how could we know the way there, Lord? Explain, please. Our Lord was talking about taking us to the Father's house. Suppose the Lord said to you, you know the way, don't you? To the Father's house. What would you say? Oh, yes, Lord, I know. Would you? Well, give me some directions then. How do you get to the Father's House from Vancouver? You say, young gentleman, you start with your feet on the ground and you ascend up there, hmm, five million light years perhaps, uh, when you come to a big door, Father's House. You say you just have to go up. What do the Australians do then, poor dear souls? Which way do they go? What is the way to the Father's house? Do you know, really? What would you have said if the Lord had stood there and said, you know the way, don't you, to the Father's house? I think I should have to have joined in with Thomas and said, sorry, Lord, I... this beats me. I, I, I don't know the way to the Father's house. Please tell me. So our Lord explained. He said, you see, Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, but by me. Did you notice how significantly he had changed it? He didn't say no one comes to the Father's house except by me, but no one comes to the Father. There's a difference between coming to the Father's house, isn't there, and coming to the Father. In England, we have many stately homes owned by the blue-blooded marquises and duchesses and things of that order, you see. And when I have nothing better to do, sometimes I like to go round these houses, you see, and some servant admits me in the front door, and in you go and walk over the common old carpets and all the rest of them are held back, and you see the beautiful rooms and the bedrooms and the silver and the paintings and that what have you. But never once, when I've been taken round by a guy, has the lord of the place come out and said, oh, hello, Gooding, come and see me and have dinner with me. No. I've been to his house, but I've never got to him. The difference between coming to the father's house and coming to the Father, isn't it? And s- talking strictly, what would be the use of coming to heaven if we never came anywhere near the Father? Would you want to go? What is the way to the Father? So that's what holiness is all about, isn't it? It's being devoted to the Father, not being obsessed with the golden streets of the New Jerusalem, but the Father. Where is the Father? I want to come to the Father. Know him. Listen, said our Lord. I am the way to the Father. I am the way. Philip was listening. He said, Lord, that that's the thing. Stop there, Lord. He said, stop there. Uh, now I- I- I've got a suggestion. You keep talking about the Father, Lord, says he. I tell you what to do. Why don't you show us the Father here and now, and that would be enough. Then we should understand, Lord, he says. Lord, show us the Father. Says the Lord, Philip, have I been so long with you, and you have not known me? What's that got to do with it, said Philip. Well, Philip, said the Lord, you see, he that has seen me has seen the Father. I don't get that, says Philip. What do you mean, uh, uh, we've seen the Father? Well, Philip, he says, man, how do you suppose I do the miracles that I do? I don't know, says Philip. Well, I'll tell you, says Christ. The works that I do, I do not from myself, but the Father abiding in me, he does his work, Philip. And I wonder, did there come a sudden glow of glory in that little upper room? As the awesome wonder of it suddenly flooded Philip's heart and Peter's heart. For in the man that sat the opposite side of the table, there dwelt the transcendent Lord of the universe. The Father was in him. And Peter was thinking of going a long, long, long way off up into heaven to meet the Father, and he found the Father was sitting the other side of the table. In the Lord. That was staggeringly marvelous. What next was said was almost incredible. I'm the way to the Father, Philip. And I'm telling you what. You see, if you will, you can have myself and the Father dwelling in you, like the Father dwells in me. Oh, dear ladies, if that's possible, if that is anywhere near the truth, if the Blessed Lord is prepared to come and dwell in my heart, that kind of makes a beginning of a heaven here on earth, doesn't it? So that we shall have the very heart of heaven in our hearts before even we get there. I am the way to the Father, for he shows us the example of his own life and the secret of it. Said he, not only I am the way, but I am the truth. Nobody comes to the Father except by me. What do you mean I'm the truth? What's that got to do about it? I am the truth by which you come to the Father. Well, you see, if we're going to be near to the Father, really near, we need to know the truth about the Father, don't we? And there's a difficulty with us that sometimes we don't realize, because we are fallen creatures, we have been tarred with the brush of Satan's lies about the Father, haven't we? I know I have. When things go swimmingly and well, I'm glad to say how the Lord has led me, you know, uh, because everything went well. And I see in that the Lord's blessing. Oh, how the Father loves me. But suppose the Lord allow me pain, days of pain, weeks of pain, years of pain. Suppose the Lord allows some colossal bereavement. And then you'll see what I really believe about the Father. I said, why did God let that happen? Why does God let that happen to me? And it isn't fair. And Satan snarls cynically, doesn't he, and says, you see, you see all that chorus singing and getting excited about Jesus and saying how you loved him. It was mere excitement, wasn't it? He doesn't really love you anyway. And this is a heartless universe. And if I weren't careful, I should be tempted, shouldn't I? To doubt the Father. You say, is that serious? Well, of course it's serious. You see, a God who loved me yesterday and doesn't love me today doesn't exist, does it? And if it is true that God could love me today and forget to love me tomorrow, then I would be very well adri- uh, advised not to go to heaven, wouldn't I? Imagine being in heaven. And God welcome you with all the love of his heart. Marvelous, enjoy this city. I prepared it for the faithful like I did for Abraham. Walk about it and enjoy it, my friend. And half a week into heaven, he forgot to love you. That would be the end of heaven, wouldn't it? The very enjoyment of heaven depends upon the fact that we shall trust God. And we shall need to trust him, can't we? Because there's such marvelous things up a loft, you know. So marvelous that if we met them for the first time without help, we should be scared. I remember an aunt of mine, she was very well-intentioned, but she didn't know much about children, and she devised a beautiful present for one of the young infants. It was a Jack in the Box gollywog. Cost a lot of money, I might say, and to an older child it would have been, uh, very enjoyable, but, uh, when she took it to this little infant and s- touched the spring and the lid opened and this, this gollywog came out, the s- the infant burst into tears of fright at the gollywog. What are you going to feel like when God unveils some of his glory to you? Oh, galaxy, my dear child, for you here. You'll be able to cope. Heaven will depend on our trusting God. How then shall I come to know the Father. I had a friend in Scotland. He was a Sunday school worker, probation officer, and so forth. And he had a Sunday school class in one of the city's homes for battered children. One day he walked in, and the nurse had a child, a boy of about eight years old there. And when the boy saw him, he burst out shrieking in terror. And the nurse had to ask my friend to go out. When she'd pacified the child, she brought him in again and stripped the child, and he got wounds all over his body. And the little lad said in his Scots language, Mi feather e burns me, meaning my father always burns me. The man used to get a red hot poker and beat the child with it. You just imagine trying to tell that child that God is a father. What mixed up ideas he would have of fathers, wouldn't he? What is God Christ to do for us, to get rid of our false ideas of God? He said, I am the truth, and I'll give you the spirit of truth, that he may be with you. Lovely spirit of truth, pouring out God's love for us in our hearts, not only in our minds, but our subconscious hearts as well, till God's love for us gradually penetrates every old nook and cranny and gets underneath the old neuroses and the wounds of past years. Till the love of God is like a mighty ocean, a very anchor of the soul. We can trust the Father. Oh, that's the way of holiness, isn't it? And our blessed Lord's provision for it. I am the truth. I give you the spirit of truth, that you may come to the Father. I am the way, said he, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. I'm the life, and because I live, you shall live also. Why do I need the fa- the life to come to the Father? Well, you'll see. I wouldn't be rude, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, there is a gentleman up there, you see. There is one. Ah. But let me tell you about, uh, my dog. Don't have one, but still, suppose I did. Fido, we'll call him. Now, there's this about Fido. He knows a lot about me. So when he sees me eating a beef steak, he comes wagging his tail. He knows the experience I'm going through, you see, because he's got a stomach like I've got a stomach, really. Mine is a superior stomach, please remember that, but he's, uh, he has a stomach too, you see. So when he sees me eating a beef steak, he knows.