The Holy of Holies (Cd Quality) — Leonard Ravenhill

The Gospel of John and the Holy of Holies

When I spoke last week, Paul, and the week before, Irene, did they happen to know they got back earlier? And then they said, ooh, you got back to us on time. It's a terrible long road, and they were only 20 minutes late.

Last time they went, they were four days late. So they picked up a lot of time this time. That's wonderful. John, 14. 17, pardon me, just a little while. It almost bankrupts at least my vocabulary to try to describe this amazing chapter.

I remind you again, it begins in the 13th chapter of this gospel. And as we said, when you go in chapter 13, Jesus reveals the Lord's Supper and the washing of feet. Chapter 14, verse 26, he mentions for the first time the Holy Spirit, a comforter which is the Holy Ghost.

I always think of my old teacher, dear Samuel Chadwick, used to say, remember that word comforter? A Holy Ghost is a comforter, but he's not a nursing mother for spiritually sick people. It's a bad translation.

Actually, that word comforter is a Latin word, comfortis, K-U-M-dash-F-O-R-T-I-S, with strength. Didn't Jesus say when the Holy Ghost is come, he shall receive power or receive strength when the Holy Ghost is come?

Greek Words for Love and the Awe of John 17

It's been called many things, this amazing chapter. You know, we're kind of limited in English. For instance, we've only one word for love. A woman says, I love my dog, and then she says, oh, and I do love my husband.

Maybe it's the same kind of love, I don't know, but anyhow. The Greeks had at least four different words. But we interchange words carelessly in English, don't we? You see an accident, a very horrible accident at the end of the street.

You say, it was awful. It wasn't. It was terrible. This chapter is awful. What do you mean awful? It's full of awe. That's what awful means, full of awe. You want to stand back and survey. And see its majesty.

I think you can liken, or at least I can, because I want to, Matthew, Mark and Luke as being the outer court in the tabernacle of awe. John 17 as being the holy place. No, pardon me, Matthew, Mark and Luke as the outer court.

John as the holy place. And John 17 as the holy of holies. He said again, you go from the 13th chapter, keep going through the book. The book is like going through the river in the 47th chapter of Ezekiel.

Every time we take a stride, the river is deeper. Water to the ankles, to the knees, to the loins, water to swim in. And you can read this amazing gospel, as we call it, the gospel of John, in the same way.

Every chapter gets deeper, deeper, deeper. What's the climax? Well, there's a double climax if you like. See, this chapter is so awesome that so many people have said this is the most amazing prayer Jesus ever prayed.

I don't believe that. It's the longest prayer Jesus ever prayed. That is not so. It is the longest recorded prayer. People have said to me for 50 years, why do you stress prayer so much? Because Jesus did.

Jesus' Prayer and the Necessity of Prayer

Jesus was being baptized in Jordan. As he was being baptized, he was praying when the Spirit descended on him. At the end of his journey on the cross, while the other evangelists tell us that he died, Luke says, as he died, he was praying, Father, forgive them.

Luke emphasizes every event in the life of Jesus with prayer. He went to the Mount of Transfiguration, and as he was praying, he was transfigured. Remember Romans 12, 1 and 2 says, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed.

It's the same Greek word, be transfigured. By the renewing of your mind, the renewing of your personality. If you want a new personality, the best place to get one is in the place of prayer. He prayed.

He spent a whole night in prayer before he chose his deacons. I look to God, every church in the country did that. Had a whole night of prayer, half the boys wouldn't get in. The condition of being a deacon isn't that you own a big business, and this, that and the other, like most places.

It's because they're full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, which is an awesome challenge. But after he had spent a night in prayer, I think I asked you once before, years ago maybe, if you could only relive one day in the life of Jesus, what would you relive?

Nearly everybody says the day he went and raised Lazarus from the dead, that would be exciting. Or when he walked on the ocean, the sea, that would be tremendous. If I could choose one day, I would choose this day.

I may be wrong. I've been wrong once or twice, so what? I've travelled far, I've been preached in the biggest churches in the world, many of them. Met some of the great preachers. I never judge a man by his preaching.

Let me pray with him, I'll tell you what kind of a man he is. A man may be a good preacher because he has a good memory, a good personality. He's loquacious or eloquent, whatever you want to say. I remember Dr. Tozer gave me so much counsel when we were just together, the two of us.

He said, Len, remember one day that we preachers are not descendants of the Greek orators, or of the Roman orators. If we're really God's men, what are we doing? We're in line, if we're really where God wants us, we're descendants of the Hebrew prophets.

It's not, this is my opinion or this is the latest textbook idea, it's thus saith the Lord. To use the word again, it must have been awesome to see Jesus standing there, lifting up his eyes to heaven.

We usually close ours, I don't know why, unless it's to save us from being distracted. But he closed his eyes and said what? Father, the hour has come. Again, lots of people say he was entering the final days, which he was, of his life.

And there's a gloom over him, not in your life, not on your life. Why are you so sure? Well look at the last verse in the 16th chapter. What does he say? Doesn't sound like a man that's overcast and heavy.

In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. It was already settled in his heart. Now will you understand this? It sounds like heresy. If I say Jesus did not die on the cross, he died in Gethsemane.

If he hadn't died to his own will and embraced the total will of the Father, the manifestation of his death was on the cross for sure. What a wonderful moment it must have been. He says Father the hour has come.

The Father, the Kingdom, and Christ's High-Priestly Prayer

Do you know what that meant? It meant you could kind of break that little word Father up for billions of people. The only reason you and I tonight can say our Father, and remember that's the first thing he told them in brain, our Father, what was the second thing?

Thy kingdom, thy will be done. He that doeth the will of God, isn't it? John says, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. I remind you, Abraham never called God Father. Neither did Moses, neither did Joshua, neither did Obediah or any of the major and minor prophets.

He revealed God in a new relationship. Read through the chapter, he calls him Father, he calls him Holy Father, he calls him Righteous Father. It is not true either that the prayer is only for this disciple.

We say he was praying here for his disciples. No, verses 1 to 5, he prays for himself. Verses 6 to 19, he prays for the disciples. Verses 20 to 26, he prays for the world. People say, oh, he wasn't praying for the world.

That's exactly what he was praying for. Wasn't the climax of his prayer, the 17th verse of this 17th chapter, sanctify them through thy truth? Come on, why does God sanctify us? To make us ornaments? No, to make us instruments.

Unless we're not pure, we contaminate the message we give. With our blurred thinking, with our selfishness, with our stupid little opinions. I'm realizing more and more and more that few preachers preach the Word of God.

The Tongue of Fire and the Power of the Holy Spirit

They preach about it, they don't preach it. The Word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. Again, the symbol of the Church of Jesus, this is way out on the limb for some people.

Because you may have one around your neck, or you may have one on your daddy's tombstone. The symbol of the Church of Jesus Christ is not a cross. The cross is Roman, the cross is cruel. The symbol of the Church of Jesus was a tongue of fire on the head of those men in the upper room.

Again, why wasn't it a dove that sat on them? I think they would have been more convinced they would have said, well, that's what we saw on the head of Jesus there in the Jordan. There's a little dove fluttering from head to head to head.

I remember we had a night of prayer in a place called Gillingham. Many of you have read that book, what's he called now? God's Smuggler. In it he mentions a little man there, I forgot the name of the man, but he used to come to a prayer meeting that we had in that little town.

It was an old, old Methodist church. I remember that. Uncle something. Uncle Hoppy, thank you. Uncle Hoppy. He had the most disgusting automobile he ever saw in his life. And he was wealthy. He was a builder.

He built huge buildings. One day he had all the pay packets all worked out in his office, and a missionary came in. And the missionary said, he said, Uncle Hoppy said, are you in need? He said, yeah. Yes, sir, I am.

I believe God sent you to me. He said, well, God, I felt lots. I'd go see Uncle Hoppy. He said, how much do you need? He said, about $40 ,000. Oh, he said, wait a minute, I'll get it. And he opened his safe and he gave all the wages of his workmen away to the missionary.

So when it came to pay time, they said, we're waiting for that. He said, I'm sorry, no money. What do you mean? My wife has to pay rent, buy groceries. What are we going to do? Oh, the Lord will provide.

He did. He knew more about the Lord than he knew about Ledwick and Midway. I'll pay it on Monday morning. And he under-dined. And he paid it Monday morning. It happened a second time. And so because he got away with it once, he tried it a second time.

He misfired. Gabriel forgot to bring the pay packets. You see, we can presume very often on God. Because it works once doesn't mean God wants me to do it every time. But by the same token, that man was a precious man of prayer.

I remember that night particularly. We prayed from about nine till about two o 'clock or later that next morning. An old lady sitting in a wheelchair at the back of the church. She said, wasn't that wonderful, Brother Raynard?

I said, yes. I felt such a release. You know, there were two men there that really had an anointing every time they prayed. And I was so sanctified and selfish that I always got between them. You know, because every time they prayed, there was something spilling out of them.

So I got wedged between them because I knew I'd get blessed. And boy, could they pray. But she said, at half past one, wasn't it wonderful? I said, I don't know. I wasn't looking. I was sitting here. She said, I was watching those men wrestling in prayer.

They had their coats off and they were going at it. And then it happened. I said, what happened? A tongue of fire came. At the far end, it went on every one of them. Didn't you feel it on your head? I said, not particularly.

I felt a sense of blessing. But she said, that tongue of fire went from one head to the other. All through the whole, well, about eight of us. It was a very blessed experience. Why do you think those people winced?

Bless your heart. Those Jews and priests on the day of Pentecost, they got armor-plating on their hearts. And all that happened was that Peter, that ran away from a little girl's finger, was so endued with the power of God, it was like, I was praying with my dear son the other day, wonderful guy.

We were praying about annoying things. Paul said, God, we need these days a tongue like an acetylene torch that will burn right straight through an iron girder. It's not very big. It's not this width.

Maybe it's as wide as my finger, but that guy puts it down that girder like putting a knife through butter. I like this figure of speech. I'll use it sometime. I won't say where I got it, but I'll use it.

I thought, what a picture. Here are these men that choose it. Imagine Peter that ran away saying, you crucify the Lord of glory. And it says they were pricked, they were stabbed. They were burned in their hearts.

Why do you think a little guy standing by a river that has no financial backing and no crowd behind him? He stands there and the soldiers have armor-plated on, armor-plating plumes. They come from a foreign country, didn't know a thing about God.

They listened to this little man, John the Baptist, and they cried out. Again, you don't make altar calls in revivals. Altar calls are made when we sense the Holy Ghost isn't there, so we help him out.

When the Holy Ghost is there, I've seen people crawl down the aisle before we finish preaching. That's going to come back too. Paul was talking about a revival that they had. I think it was in Argentina a few years ago, where a man labored for eight years and preached only to his wife and I think six children.

People said he's crazy. He has a little denomination of his own, a wife, six children. And he has eight of them. One day the Holy Ghost came upon them. He marched down the street with his wife and children and everybody came out of houses and went with him without sounding trumpets or anything.

The Lord just moved over them. Oh, how artificial we are. How we've got everything measured out. Somebody leads the singing so long, and somebody does something else. There's not much room for the Spirit.

Christ's Sacrifice Outside the Camp

Let's jump for a moment over here to the 13th chapter of Hebrews. Verse 13. Or verse 12. Wherefore also Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood. Now look at verse 11. To the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary.

The high priest brought what? The blood of the beast. What did Jesus give? His own blood. Verse 11. The bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin. The bodies are burned without the count.

Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate or outside the gate. If you read Exodus 29, you'll find there that the beast, when it had been killed, its body was taken out to burn.

It was a sin offering. The blood was taken into the Holy of Holies by the priest. But Jesus shed his own blood, presented his own blood. Again, outside of the gate. Do some homework on that. See what it's like.

What does it mean to go outside of the gate? Do you remember when, in Exodus, when the children of Israel offended God? Moses had the tabernacle, the holy part, removed outside of the camp because he said God has forsaken you?

God has rejected you? Well, Jesus goes outside the gate. Why? Because God has forsaken Israel. They thought they were going to cut Jesus off. He beat them to it. Pardon the phrase, but he did. What does it say?

Pilate said, I'll take your life. Jesus said, you can't. I'll lay it down when I want and I'll take it up when I want. But Jesus that he might sanctify the people suffered outside of the gate. I have never in my life, I've heard preaching, I was going to say 75 years, I'm sure I've heard preachers for 72 years anyhow.

All over the world. All kinds, all denominations, what have you got? I've never heard one person talk about the agony that Jesus had in going into that rotten place there outside the gate. There was a hymn in England written by Mrs. Alexander.

She married Alexander, who was at that time the Billy Graham of America. She wrote a lovely children's hymn, There is a green hill far away without a city wall. Which means outside the city wall where our dear Lord was crucified who died to save us all.

Outside the pale, why? What does it say in the 50th chapter of Isaiah? In the 53rd it says he made his grave with what? The rich and the wicked in his debt. It says in the 51st chapter he gave his back to the smiters.

I wish we'd changed this horrible habit. I think it is. I'm going to ask about it anyhow. Of having a communion service at the end of a preaching service. I believe we ought to meditate on the finished work of Jesus Christ for an hour before we partake of communion.

We don't esteem it as we should. What did you sing tonight? You sang Bearing shame and scoffing rude in my place. I mentioned before Barabbas must have looked at the cross where Jesus was and said I should be on that cross.

I know those two thieves I've murdered and stole with them and raped and done every wicked damnable thing. And that holy man never did anything wrong. As the hymn writer says those kind hands that did such good they nailed them to a cross of wood.

And here he is going into the most horrible experience ever. I think there were two. One was Gethsemane where the whole of that 22nd Psalm became real in his life. A young man wrote to me from Canada this past week.

He said there's a popular doctrine up here that Jesus went to hell on our behalf and suffered. The hell that Jesus suffered as far as I'm concerned is separation from God. That's hell. I'm not bothered about temperatures.

Not bothered how big it is. Not bothered where it starts. Hell is separation from God. When you call them there's no answer. When you're frantic and frenzied. For all they sing over and over and over for millenniums is the harvest is past the summer is ended.

I believe every damned person there will feel the tract in his hand that he once took and threw on one side. I believe he'll hear his mother's prayers thundering in his ears for millennia. I believe any time they grieve the Holy Spirit that torment will come to them in perdition.

God is a just, he's a holy God. But let's see Jesus going down there into that horrible pit. What did he do outside the gate? Well that's where the lepers were allowed to go. They weren't allowed anywhere else.

The Humiliation and Suffering of Christ

I remember doing some missionary work there in Thailand. North Thailand. We took a train. And a couple asked me with Worldwide Evangelization Crusade at headquarters now. They asked me would I like to go to a leper colony.

I said sure. I guess we were almost half a mile away. It was a downhill. The wind was coming down on us. The stench was indescribably rotten. Corruption. When we got there there were people with half an arm.

People with or had no fingers. People whose whole cheek was eaten away in a little thread holding their eyeball in. A blind man on the shoulder of a man who had half a leg and he was hopping along on just a branch of a tree with some leaves under.

His arms must have been raw. There was every form of degradation. This was the finality for Jesus in humiliation. Every sin that lashed the human heart lashed him there I believe. He saw corruption in its ultimate.

Here is the most undefiled man the world has ever known seeing the greatest defilement the world has ever known. He's of holy rise and to behold iniquity and yet he sees that terrible mass of corruption.

And he doesn't back off. Bearing shame and scoffing rude. There'll never be a computer that can compute the horror of that situation. I don't understand how Jesus the heaven of heavens couldn't contain him suddenly is pressed into the compressed into the womb of his mother.

How did the ancient of days become the infant of time? It's amazing that God could become man. It's more breathless to think he not only became man he became sin for us. He took the torment of our damnation.

He took the agony of our separation from the Father. And I see somebody advertising Christian comedians. Makes me sick. They've never seen the finished work of Christ when they do that. Or they haven't seen Christ in the other aspect when he's lifted up in Isaiah 6.

But here he is bearing shame and scoffing rude. We're told in the word by one man's disobedience sin entered into the world and because of sin death came. But by one man's righteousness the last Adam not the second Adam as Newman says.

He has a lovely hymn praise to the holiest in the height. Indeed he says O loving wisdom of our God when all was sin and shame a second Adam no no no no. If you have a second Adam you can have a third.

Adam in the garden was the first Adam. Adam in the garden of Gethsemane is the last Adam. He's going to undo all that the first Adam has done. Doesn't matter how many billions of transgressions there are God is going to accept one sacrifice.

Jesus is going to take all our human corruption which was worse than all the filth and impurity. You see the place where he went outside the city wall was the place where all the drainage all the corruption came.

All human filth. Bodies were thrown there. Carcasses were thrown there. There was a gallery all around it. It was a gallery of bodies of men who had been crucified maybe for days and the birds had just about picked their bodies clean and there they were these hideous skeletons all around.

And here is the holy son of God who'd been surrounded with angels in eternity. I don't believe anybody else could have taken that. I believe that was the kind of stuff we were going to see for all eternity except he had redeemed us.

In my place condemned he stood and he sealed my path with his blood. Well that's the first half of the text isn't it? Wherefore verse 12. Wherefore Jesus also in the 13th of Hebrews. Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate.

Bearing Christ's Reproach Outside the Camp

Now what about the other half? Are you ready for it? Let them no let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. Do you remember in the 11th chapter of this amazing book of Hebrews it says about a man that lived 2 ,000 years before Jesus?

God alone could explain this. I can't. A man called Moses he was trained he was going to sit on the throne of Pharaoh he was the son of Pharaoh's daughter he was going to rule the richest most powerful empire in the world and suddenly somewhere somehow he had a vision of Jesus it says Moses what did he do?

He said he saw Christ and far off doesn't he say? What's the verse? I've got it here now. Verse 11 chapter 11 verse 26 verse 24. By faith Moses when he came to years refused here. He is a mature man refusing when you go home read his life story in the 7th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.

He was mighty in word. He wasn't an orator. He stammered. He was mighty in word. He was a lawmaker before ever he got the Ten Commandments. He was mighty indeed. He ordered that government around. He ordered the armies around.

He was mighty in word indeed. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. That must have been something I'd like to have seen him turning his back on Pharaoh's daughter. Nobody ever told me that Moses was a hero.

If you escape from death like he did because that's what they were trying to do. Kill him. Would you run back straight in front of the Pharaoh standing there on his throne. That's one of the most amazing deeds of moral majesty in the whole of the word of God.

He's walking into a death trap. There's a price on your head. There's a contract on you. But he goes fearlessly into the presence of the king. He refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than enjoy the pleasure of sin for receiving esteeming the reproach of Christ.

Come on. Where did this man get his thinking. Where did he get his revelation. Look at the empire. That's the throne you're going to sit on. Look at those people with marvellous poles made of gold and ostrich feathers to find you to sleep at night.

Look at the meals you're going to have. You've gone to the back of the desert with stinking smelly sheep. Only God could calculate what reward this amazing man is going to have. He esteemed the reproach of Christ.

Let's go back to the 13th chapter verse 13 again. Let us therefore go unto him without the count bearing his reproach. I like the translation of Phillips there. Not because it's English but I think it's a good translation.

He says bearing his disgrace. Come on bearing his disgrace. Let's go outside the camp. Bless you. He'd been outside the camp from his birth. Do you remember in the temple one day the wise man there said we know who he is.

In other words he wasn't born of a virgin. He's illegitimate. We know who he is. He was put out of the family. He was put out of the synagogue. He was put out of the city. Yeah it was nice. It was easy singing that lovely hymn tonight.

Wasn't it our sacred head. Once wounded you know I'll give myself. I'll give my life. But what when you get. You start getting shunned. What when your family don't want to own you. Where's your son. Has he gone to university.

No he's at YWAM. What's YWAM. A farming community. I heard somebody say it's called last days. Latter days I said no you got the wrong place there. Mormons are over the hill last days. It's somebody different.

I mean. But it's not a very high brow college. Is it. No it isn't. Maybe it's not much college I went to. I had 35 students. I'm one of the best men. They turned out. They turned me out as soon as they could.

I thank God for that little school. How far are we prepared to go. I'm getting letters from all over the country. And Dave Wilkinson tells me he's getting the same not same letters. Same thing. I've been in this church so long but it's so dry.

I have to leave. I'm going to perish. I'm going to die. I saw where a man said a while ago a preacher. If you've been in your church five years it's time you move. I don't think you move because you get tired of seeing the same altar cloth or the same stained glass windows.

You move when you get fed bread instead of stones and scorpions instead of fish. Well some of us have left our church. And do you know what they call us. Well I can guess dissenters or schismatics. They're lovely words aren't they.

But that's all he got. I don't believe there's a rabbi in town who would talk to Jesus. He did a wonderful thing. He split the whole nation into half of them were jealous of him and the other were joyous.

The joyous ones were those he redeemed. The jealous ones were those who were paralyzed and couldn't do a thing. And so they were envious and scorn. Let us go on to him outside the camp bearing his disgrace.

Counting All Things Loss for Christ

People don't like me. Why. Well I used to go to their house and of course the first thing they did was bring a glass of sherry. And then a little while after they played card a little while after something else.

And suddenly I've lost all my appetite for those things. I don't do it. I remember society girls in England that came to our church. The parents went crazy came to see me. What's happened to my daughter.

She doesn't smoke. She doesn't want to go to dance. Some of them danced at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere. She doesn't want to drink sherry. Oh she's changed her lifestyle. I said. Maybe she hasn't. Oh but she has not.

She oh see mother thought I changed it. I scuffed her head. No I said. She met somebody who did she meet. I said. I can take you to the place where your very beautiful daughter that studied music in the conservatory in Belgium and studied music in Italy.

I can take you to the very spot where she knelt in the sawdust and I had the privilege of leading her to Christ as Christ preached on Isaiah 52 on Psalm 51. That beautiful girl that never had to do anything for herself ended up foot slogging in one of the hardest places in the world.

It wasn't really a hospital. It was a makeshift hospital in Afghanistan climbing those mountains. I've often wondered how those dainty feet and expensive shoes she had. Then of course again she got something more sensible how she struggled through.

But she came back radiant. She came back more enriched. She came back as though she'd been to a wedding with Jesus which she had. She swore her allegiance to him. What we sing so easily love so amazing.

So divine demands my soul my life, my all. My richest gain I count but loss. Something Paul said just the other day before he left he said daddy when you think of it there's nothing round here or anywhere else that has any value.

Hundreds of Christians will find they've been living for sawdust. When they get to the judgment seat. They missed it by a million miles. I didn't look at the scripture. But I thought just before I came in of the word of the apostle.

This man again to me my hero after Jesus. The man with a colossal intellect the best missionary traveler the world ever saw. At home with the intellectuals at home in the gutters. What did he say. What things were gain to me.

You don't sacrifice rubbish. Somebody says I don't believe. God counts what you give to him. He counts what you have left. That would be tough on a lot of people. Wouldn't it. I pay my tithe. That's God's income tax.

You don't give him a dime. All you do is pay your tithe. It's tithes and offerings. A man called me the other day from up north. Oh I'm troubled in my church. They're making such an emphasis about tithing.

Is there any tithing in the new testament. I said not that I know. But what did they do. It says they gave out of their abundance. They gave far beyond the minimum. They gave the maximum. I know when church went in everybody gives 30 of their income.

I know some people give 50 Not because they want a big reward. But they do it out of the abundance. They do it out of joy. They do it out of gratitude. You know at one moment in heaven we'd all wish we'd been more sacrificial.

We'd all wish we'd been more prayerful. We'd all say Lord. Would I trip up over that. Did that thing get me trapped for so many years. Was I so blind. Was I so childish. Did I let those vain things that charmed me most and helped me least clutter my life up.

The Cross, Human Sin, and Christian Suffering

You know I guess I've got a wild imagination at times. I think every demon in hell was watching this man struggle. It wasn't the weight of the cross that was getting him down. It was the weight of human sin that it represented.

That was killing him. I think Jesus was strong and healthy. I think he'd be about 6 feet 2 or 3. I think he was like the first Adam. He was a perfect creature. I think the last Adam was. But Jesus there.

No demon can measure it. That's why demons fought every inch of the way from his birth. They tried to get him to cut short. Or they tried to kill him. They tried to push him over the precipice. He invaded them all but triumphantly.