Priesthood of Christ — Leonard Ravenhill

Christ as the Holy and Eternal High Priest

Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such an high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.

What a wealth of words. Is there any priest amongst men now or in the past from Aaron right down to this day, whether he is a priest in the Episcopalian or the Roman Church or in the any other church, wouldn't it be blasphemy to put all these tags on him?

That he is a great high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Well now tell me something. You people have gardens. How do you perfume a rose? How do you increase the luminous power of the Sun?

Don't you think it borders on impudence and impropriety? To take our human words that seem to me very often they're stained. And apply those words to these words which were uttered not by the Apostle Paul.

There's a disputed authorship of this epistle to the Hebrews. And you know it never worries me a bit. People argue about who wrote the epistle. Well I don't care whose hand wrote these words, because the hand that wrote these words, that moved over a page, that hand that moved, was moved by a heart which was moved by the Holy Ghost.

Because this is not the word of the Apostle Paul or Peter or anybody else. It's the Word of God. Paul may have been the pen. I don't care if he was or he wasn't. All I know is this is God's description.

It is beyond a man to make this description. Now very often the commentators say you see in this, in this epistle, which again the epistle to the Hebrews is a commentary, a commentary. It's a commentary on the first five books of Moses.

On the book of Psalms. On the wilderness journey of the children of Israel. Again it has no word at all. Not, not, not even when he's able to say to the uttermost, this is not a word. This is not a word to sinners.

It is a word to believers. And very often the preacher says you see what, what, what, what the writer here is trying to do, is to show us the excellence of our Lord Jesus Christ above Aaronic priesthood, or above the priesthood of Melchizedek.

Now that is partly true and only partly true. Again the supreme office of the Holy Spirit right now is not to make me feel glad, or give me a good ministry, or give gifts unto men. They may come in but they're the, they're the satellites as it were.

The supreme office of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus. That's his supreme office. Everything else falls into place round about. But this is a supreme ministry of the Holy Spirit right now, to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Supremacy of Christ Over Aaron and Melchizedek

And therefore he is not showing just the excellency of the Lord Jesus. He's showing the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this 26th verse again it says we have such an high priest. But if you go a little further back you'll discover, or let's look into this chapter.

Who is all this redemption for? Well we find it in the middle of this verse. At verse 25 he is able to say to the uttermost, them that come unto God by him. Now that is the only person for whom this ministry operates.

Again you have the Aaronic priesthood. You have a priesthood that superseded that in one sense, the Melchizedek priesthood. You see the, this letter is written to the Hebrews. It is not written like the epistle of Paul to the Romans.

It is written in the third chapter, verse 1. Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession Jesus Christ. Now in verse 17 of the seventh chapter it says, oh pardon me, let me go back a minute here.

And say about this high priest, this great high priest as he is called, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it says at the end of verse 24, because he continueth ever. There's a distinction between his priesthood, that of Melchizedek, and that of Aaron and his sons.

That the Lord Jesus Christ, he liveth or he continueth ever. And he hath an unchangeable priesthood. In verse 25 he ever liveth. In verse 28 at the end of it says he is consecrated forevermore. In verse 17 of the previous chapter he testified thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek, not of the order of Melchizedek.

Now who is this Melchizedek? Well it tells you in chapter 7, the first verse, that Melchizedek is the king of Salem. Priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.

To whom also Abraham gave a tenth of all, part of all that he had. First by interpretation Melchizedek is what? He is the king of righteousness, he is the king of Salem, and he is the king of peace. Now think of that.

He is the king of Salem, he is the king of righteousness, he is the king of and he is the king of peace. And yet Jesus Christ is exalted above the king of righteousness, the king of priests, the king of peace, and the king of Salem.

Verse 3 says he's without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life, but is made unlike unto the Son of God, and he abideth forevermore. Or abideth a priest continually.

Considering Jesus, the Priest Above All Priests

Now consider how great this man was. Go back to chapter 3 verse 1 please here. Wherefore holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and high priest. You see that word consider there in the Greek is ponder deeply.

Don't rush here, stop. Lay things on one side, concentrate, meditate. Try to saturate yourself in this. Consider. You see again Jesus is the par excellence. He stands above every priest. We often say he's king of kings and Lord of lords.

But we seldom say that he is priest of priests. We're told to consider him the Apostle and high priest of our faith. Now we're told, let me go a little further in this for a minute here in this seventh chapter.

In the verse 26 he says for such an high priest, chapter 7 verse 26, for such a high priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Verse 16 of the previous chapter, oh pardon me, of the same chapter says he is made not after the law, the carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.

You see every other priesthood terminated with the man who was in office. But he as a perpetual priesthood, it is the power of an endless life. Verse 17, he testified for us a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

You see they they stood by the Levitical priesthood. Now these converted Christians, or converted Jews, found it very difficult to push on one side the Aaronic priesthood. And maybe more difficult to say that this Christ that they begun to worship, superseded Aaron and he superseded Melchizedek.

Melchizedek, Abraham, and the Order of an Endless Priesthood

Now who was Melchizedek? Well he certainly wasn't of the tribes of Levi. Verse 5 of the 7th verse, or verse 4 of the 7th chapter rather says, now consider how great this man, that is Melchizedek was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of his spoils.

And verily they who are of the sons of Levi, who received the office of priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham.

That he whose descent is not counted from Abraham, received tithes, pardon me, he whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. He whose descent is not counted from the tithes of Abraham.

And the scripture says his descent is not counted, the margin says his pedigree is not counted. Verse 11, now it's a bit tedious, but listen to this. Verse 7 of the 7th chapter says,. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better.

And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them of one of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as it may so say, Levi also who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham, for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

Now when Melchizedek met Abraham on the road, Abraham was coming back from the battle of the five kings against four. He was coming back from the time when he rescued his nephew Lot. He didn't need to go to the help of Lot.

Lot was a bad lot here, as far as that goes. And Abraham out of compassion, he roused his living servants. He did not go hire mercenaries. He took men that he had trained, and he went and rescued his nephew Lot out of the hand of the enemy.

But as he comes back, he meets this majestic, mysterious, marvelous man by the name of Melchizedek. And immediately Abraham offered tithes to him. Now who is Melchizedek? Well the next verse says he's without beginning, and he's without ending.

There are those who say very clearly, well this could only be one person, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, in what is called a Christophany. He appeared there before he appeared in permanent flesh.

It's the same person that appeared to Abraham sitting in the door of his tent, when he called him Lord. This is a temporary ministry. And you notice he's only known to do one thing, and that is he offered bread and wine, we're told, if you go back in further in the Old Testament.

Christ’s Once-for-All Sacrifice Compared With Aaron’s Repeated Offerings

Now you see here is the difference between the Aaronic priesthood, and the priesthood of Melchizedek, and the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Melchizedek, as far as I know, never offered a sacrifice.

Melchizedek, as far as I know, never went into a temple. Melchizedek, as far as I know, had no pedigree, had no sons. As far as I know, he never made an offering for sin. But Aaron did. Aaron went in, and he first of all, he offered for his own sin.

And Jesus supersedes him, because Jesus had no need to make an offering for his own sin. He was sinless. Aaron brought the body of a beast. Jesus offered it himself. He was priest, and he was sacrificed.

Aaron had many sons, not too many. Jesus has millions of sons. Because it says in 1st Peter 1 there, that he has made us, or two, he has made us a kingdom of priests unto God. So you see the difference.

And then Melchizedek passed out of the picture. Abraham, pardon me, Aaron, he offered another sacrifice. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice. Aaron went in again, and again. Jesus did it once. Aaron never made a perfect offering.

There was no really perfect beast. Jesus comes in all his perfection and glory. What does it serve him? Aren't these almost superlatives for us? He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the heavens.

The Incarnation and the Burden of Our Sin

Do you know what astonishes me? The thing that astonishes me is this, that we're not astonished with his redemption anymore. If you got down on your knees, and you read no other scripture, but you read this a dozen times on your knees, he's holy, harmless, undefiled.

And yet that undefiled, spotless, holy being came the most corrupt, detestable thing. Well God wouldn't even look at him. He became man. Nobody understands that. Again I ask you, how does the ancient of days become an infant of time?

How does he whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, how do you press him into the matrix of the Virgin Mary? He came to bear our sin. There came a moment when the Word of God says he became sin. You think of every vile, loathsome, rotten, moral, little, reckless, unclean thing that man has ever had.

And it was all writhing in him. It was as though you dug up a body that had been in the ground. And when you open it, it's full of worms and creepers. And you get off and it stinks. And you say, get that thing out of here, I'll die.

Again nobody ever has, ever will, or ever can measure the grief of God, over the sacrifice of his Son. And yet he is willing to take your sin and mine. Do you wonder that we sing rapturously in that hymn, it is well with my sin, all the bliss of this glorious thought.

We sang that the other night in a crowded church. And I thought about you all, because we like this hymn here. And I saw people brushing tears away, and men brushing, just my sin, not in part, but the whole, is nailed to the cross.

They've been doing this for 1 ,500 years. They've been taking sacrifices. Don't you think they ever got worried of doing it? Don't you think they got worried of chasing animals? Don't you think they got worried of slitting their throats?

Don't you think they said, this is vain repetition, this is idle. He became sin for us who knew no sin. That that sacrifice might give us boldness. We are, listen, listen, we better be very careful about what we say.

Christ’s Access to Heaven and Continual Intercession

The fourth chapter says in verse 14, seeing then we have a great high priest. And what did the priest do in the Old Testament? He passed out of the outer court, into the inner court, into the holy place.

But listen, Jesus hasn't done that. Our super high priest has done what? Seeing then we have a great high priest. He has passed into the heavens. He's gone where the priest could not enter. He's right in the heavenly places.

Verse 19 of the 6th chapter says, which hope we have an anchor of the souls, both sure and steadfast, which entereth into that within the veil. Wherefore the forerunner is for us entered. Even Jesus made a high priest.

This is a declaration. The forerunner goes and he holds a flag and he says, listen I declare, the King is coming, I declare this. He is the forerunner it says in this verse. Jesus has made the preparation, has made a preparation.

So it's only, not only a declaration, it is a preparation. He has entered heaven for us. He has entered into the veil. Occupation. He's staying there. I don't know how you pray. You don't know how I pray.

But very often I'm praying, I thank God he has no office hours. Because I happen to be an awkward person. I want to pray at 2 or 3 o 'clock in the morning. I prayed this morning at between 2 and 3. Don't say that, boasting.

I say because I wake up, I'm getting old and your life patterns break up. I'm always glad that I can't wake at any hour and find God off duty. Find Jesus is busy doing something. And I say Lord you're living to make intercession at this moment.

I need you now. America may sleep. The other side of the world may sleep. I need you. You need him. He has already entered into the veil. There is no more sacrifice for sin. This is why Damascus blasphemy.

He appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice. But look at our high priest in verse 14 of chapter 5. Seeing then we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens. Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession.

Christ’s Sympathy for Human Weakness

For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Isn't that nice? The other high priest lived very separate from the people. He lived in a separate little colony.

He was of the tribe of Levi. He couldn't even soil his hands with work. That's one thing the preachers have carried over till now anyhow. And he couldn't sweat. That's another thing they've carried over.

He could not work. He could not sweat. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities. But was in all points tempted like as we are. Ah there's a difference.

They were shut off from the toil and the trial. Will you remember that right from his infancy he was opposed? Before anybody knew his name they tried to put him to death. Those were those were the civil people.

The uncivil people were the religious people of the day. They tried to put him to death. And the Romans managed to put him to death. But he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmity.

Oh I like that. One hymn. I tried to find it. Come find it. It's one of Wesley's hymns I know. But part of the hymn says this. Of Christ who every grief hath known that rings the human breast. Rings the human breast.

Not rings it this way. It rings it. When you feel you're almost as it were being put between the rollers of the ringing machine. And you feel my God when's it gonna stop. And he's known every part of it.

Grief. Why this epistle to the Hebrews says that he was heard with with strong crying and with tears it says. He was heard in that he was submissive and obedient. It says he learned obedience by the things which he suffered.

Now what does that mean? There's not a man on earth knows. How many times would he tempted to take a shortcut. Lead them let them perish anyhow. They've had Moses. They've had the Lord. They've had the prophets.

They've had Isaiah. They've had Jeremiah. This people that are very wonderful people. You see here is the excellency of Jesus Christ again. Aaron only offered for one nation. Jesus died and offered for every nation where man will come.

Salvation Through Christ Alone

That if they'll obey what this word says. Here in this 25th verse. If they'll come unto God by him. Now you tell a Buddhist that. You tell a Jew today that. You tell a priest of the order of Confucius or so much or a Roman Catholic priest.

That there is no way that we can come to God Virgin Mary notwithstanding. There is no way to God except through Jesus Christ. He's been touched with a feeling of our infirmity. Repeatedly in magazines both scriptural and secular magazines.

I've been watching during the last few weeks. How many magazines have been reporting this wonderful woman. I think they call a Saint Teresa. I don't know Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa in India. Even the famous Muggeridge who used to be the editor of the famous punch magazine in England.

He went. Billy Graham went and said he was staggered and amazed. She's got shrunken jaws. Her eyes are down here. Her skin is yellow partly because of India I suppose. And all she does is go around the street.

I've been down those streets in India and honestly you want to throw up every yard you go. There's a woman who's skinny. She's hardly anything on and she's trying to feed a babe and she hasn't strength to feed herself.

And you'll see a keel over and the baby rolls away and she's dead. And Mother Teresa picks up the bodies. She goes to leprous people. She sits with 10 to 20 people in the gutter every day and just puts them in her arms and they die cradled in the arms of that woman.

And she's haggard and she's warm. She says to the church you live on that level there. Your master went around like this. Rescue the perishing. Who chose that this morning? One of you. Good. I thought you did.

Rescue the perishing and care. Snatch them in pity. I thought of this Mother Teresa again. You can't spoil her. You can build her a house. She won't inhabit it. You can ask her for a big dinner. She won't eat it.

I literally want to do what the master did. He went around. He got sore feet too. When he saw the multitude he was moved with compassion. How can you walk down the street and see a withered mother there that never should be having a child anyhow.

Or a girl shrunken and dying with a babe that's shrinking and dying. And you see the very grief that there is there has entered into a spirit. Oh she doesn't go around with a big smile. I'm sure her confidence isn't in the fact that she's done so much good.

Confidence in Christ’s Intercession, Not Human Achievement

I think we're in grave danger. Spiritual attainments to become the ground of spiritual attainments. To become the ground of our confidence. There's a danger in that. Look how long I've served God. Look what gifts I have.

And this becomes the ground of my confidence instead of reckoning again that unless he ever liveth to make intercession I have no access. I have no strength. I'm going on my mental strength. I'm going on my own initiative.

I'm going on my zeal. I'm going on my courage. And they're good but they're not enough. And just as I thought of Mother Teresa and she goes around seeing the leprous and the helpless and the sick. And people say to her, look you've done your share.

You're so old. Why don't you retire. Get out of it. I wake up and I see their misery. I see them. I hear them crying. I look at their loathsome diseases and helplessness. Well all due respect to the precious woman.

That I'm going to suggest to you that Jesus looked around with eyes more acutely than that. And he saw more than human misery. And as I think of this word he's able to say to the uncles. Just as the Lord said to me this morning.

Remember this. That the man who misses salvation is not missing something. He's missing everything. You may bury him in a golden casket. You may put a mausoleum around him. You can put a great big monument over his head and say he did that.

And he gave to the poor. And he did something else. He did something else. And he was a scientific genius. But when he missed Christ, he missed everything. And so we have the supremacy of Jesus the Son of God.

The Greatness of Salvation and the Meaning of “So”

Offering not every year but making one supreme offering which pleased the Father. I can never forget the words again that Spurgeon knew so very often when he said. You know it says again again in the scripture that the Father said this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased.

And he said when I read that I always say this Father if he pleased you he surely pleases me. He surely pleases me. Now he says he is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him seeing that he ever liveth to make intercession for us.

How great is this salvation. In verse 3 of the second chapter and again it's written to believers. Please remember this. In verse 3 it says how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation. We neglect.

Notice it does not say how shall we get on if we deny or ignore. To neglect is not to deny. To neglect is not to deny. And to neglect is not just to ignore. To neglect is to recognize something and just postpone it for the time being.

I'm gonna do it a little while after when it's more convenient. It's to know something and fail to do it. It's to know there's something there and fail to grasp it. Fail to realize it. And again here he's talking to believers.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation. You know that little adverb is such an amazing word isn't it. Have you ever wondered how often you how many times you use that little word so. And supposing one of your children come up and somebody says hey mummy what does so mean?

What would you say? You mean what so so no no no so in the garden no so so so so what does it mean? You see it's an acknowledgement that you can't you can't get words and and shape them to put around this situation.

I'll tell you what it occurs best. It's best known in that marvelous John 3 16. God so loved the world. It's beyond the height that we can understand and the depth and the length and the breadth. You say to somebody did you see the sunlight set last night?

You say no what did I say? Oh it was it was so wonderful. And somehow you think that by saying so that they they grasp all that you mean. All you understand. So great. God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Scope of Redemption: From the Guttermost to the Uttermost

Now how do you explain this so great salvation? The word occurs many times in this epistle. So great salvation in verse again in the in chapter 4 verse 14 it speaks about our great high priest and it speaks about the great tabernacle and then it speaks about us enduring a great affliction for his testimony there in chapter 9 verse 32 and it says our suffering has great recompense of reward in chapter 10 and 35 and then it says we're surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses in the 12th chapter in the first verse and then it says that this same wonderful man in the 13th chapter in verse 20 he is the great shepherd of the sheep.

Now again how how do you describe this great salvation? Well let's say this it's great in its scope because again in verse 25 he says he is able to save to the uttermost. Somebody annotated that by saying not only the uttermost but the gutter most.

Not only the gutter most but the uppermost. I've not been in Westminster Abbey too many times I've been a number of times and I like to walk down the main aisle and just before you get to the high beautiful altar there there's a big flat stone and there are the remains of David Livingstone incidentally.

You know the natives cut his heart out when England said we want to bury him with great honor in Westminster Abbey they said take him but you leave his heart here and they cut his heart out and buried it under a great tree because they said this is where his heart is.

His heart was in Africa and he's going to stay here take his body but they buried him there and then right up between him and the high altar there are the remains of Sir Isaac Newton the great scientist and then you see placards here and there of other people as the same in St. Paul's Cathedral.

You know it's always lovely to think that men with colossal intellects like the Apostle Paul or Sir Isaac Newton or other great men. Well somebody will say well Charles Darwin was great but he gave us a theory well as long as you stayed there it was a theory and he repented of it before he died too.

He gave us the theory of evolution but it's great to think that men with colossal intellects because after all the need of man centrally is a spiritual need it is a moral need he needs cleansing he needs purity he has no access to God there is no way I can come to the Father but by him and all this redemptive work of Jesus is so great a salvation.

Christ’s Preexistence, Incarnation, and Humiliation

You know I just thought now as I did this the other in my mind I was saying it's so great a salvation you know God loves round things maybe that's why so many of us are round but he he loves round things.

Some he said Amen but anyhow this is why we like round things maybe. Do you think the Sun would look a bit odd if it was square or the moon? After all if the earth were square we'd fall off the end you couldn't rotate as it rotates the earth is round the Sun is round the moon is round the trees are round so they won't catch any wind.

The wind gets round the stalks on the flowers and so forth are round and you know God loves that because you see if you take a circle like that you think here this is where Jesus started. Now I remember the first time I heard an American.

I was a little boy and we went to church and it had a very high pulpit and there were not too many going to the meeting so this American did what to us was sacrilegious. He ordered the communion rail to be boarded in and he brought a piano and he played instead of using the pulpit he used that platform to preach.

His name was Henry Barrowclough. As far as I know he wrote only one hymn and the hymn was out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe. And you know we sang that hymn every night for about eight nights and I never forgot it.

I don't think he wrote another hymn and if I'd written that I wouldn't care if I wrote any others either out of the ivory palaces into it into a world of woe. Only his great eternal love made my Savior go.

My Lord has garments so wondrous fine and murder textures fill. And so he goes on. Well here he begins in the eternal glory with the Father. I'm going to tell you that I believe this. I can't prove it maybe a yet from John 17 that Jesus had a continual ache in his spirit to get back to the glory he had with the father.

He's come down to manure heap. He's come out of the eternal presence. He's come where there's no sorrow no sighing no strife. He comes into a military world. He comes to into a world of cruelty and hatred.

And and they name the name of God but only with their lips. It's form. It has no life it has no power. It irritates it hurts him. And maybe a hundred times he said father I'm longing to get back with you with a glory I had before the world was.

I'm in a dump here. I'm in a dunghill. They violate your laws every day. Do you think God doesn't feel like that today. About America and England and these countries have had all the light and we profane this day.

And it's a sports day. It's not Sunday. It's fun day. And we call it I trust the Lord's Day. Not even Sunday. That's a pagan title. He laid his glory by says Wesley. And he he wrapped him in our clay out of the ivory palaces into a world of wall.

He never smelled anything that was rotten. He never seen anything was rotten. He never seen anybody do anything that was rotten. It was all holy and righteous up there. And every time he opens his eyes he sees unrighteousness and holiness and truth and cleanness.

Don't you think that irritated is holy. He was holy and he was undefiled. And he was separate from sinners. And yet he has to walk amongst the filthy bunch. Well I don't know about you but I'll tell you I made up my mind.

Christ’s Sinlessness and Obedient Life

I'm gonna have a little time and I'm gonna read this text every day for a long while anyhow. And I'm gonna thank him that being so holy he came down to an unholy bunch like us. But being undefiled he came down in the middle of all this stinking manure heap in which we live.

I'm gonna thank him that though he was blameless and spotless he took our sin. He took our curse upon himself. What a great salvation that he left the glory had with the father. It was great that he turned his back on it.

It was great that he that could not be contained by the heaven of heavens is shut up in the dark room of a woman for months and months and months and then has to go through all the tribulation of a child.

He was very God of very God. He was very man of man. He had to limp a hold of his mother's breast to be fed. He maybe fell over and hit his head on a chair or something. He was a child and the word says he learned obedience as a man by the things which he suffered.

He didn't make a sudden jump to stardom if you like. He didn't suddenly leap from being a little boy to next morning coming out a mature wonderful perfect priest. He's here for our example. He's here to leave us without excuse.

He's here to show us every step we put our feet in his way because Peter says as he was so we in this world. And how was he. He was blameless and it was undefiled and he was separate from sinners. He did no sin neither was evil found in his mouth.

Christ’s Sacrifice and the Mystery of His Priestly Ministry

Do you think that Jesus is gonna play this exorbitant price. I've been shut off from the father for 33 years. I'm having his ears filled with vileness. Every time he walks through the bazaar even going to the temple I see fat priests who don't care a hell of beans about the people that for 400 years they've left the people in isolation and darkness and never cried to God for a profit.

Do you think he walked like that without pain and anguish and suffering. Isn't it wonderful he left the glory. Isn't it wonderful that he became a babe. His pre-existence what we call his incarnation and then his life amongst men.

I'm smiling or not smiling as I said to the preacher boys the other week. It would be hard for many of us if God said I'm going to send you to school for 30 years and you're going to preach for six months.

That would kill them. I don't know how many men came to me after the meeting and said brother Raider I'm gonna have to leave seminary. I said leave it but don't mention my name. They put a price on my head.

Some of those fellows I well I can't go on. There's no life. There's no vision. I've lost. I've lost my devotional life. I I'm leaking all the time I'm there. It's so stale there. There's no anointing.

There's no quickening. There's nothing that urges me in my spirit. The vision of Jesus never dimmed. Isn't it amazing. Can you can we grasp it. No no no no no. I'll excuse you. You can't. I can't. Can you can you grasp it.

I don't know when it happened in his life. When did he know that he came into the world to die. He's the only man that ever did. He came into the world with the express purpose of dying from the foundation of the world.

This had been planned and he knew it. He sat down in the council chambers of eternity with the with the father and with the Holy Spirit. And they worked on this. And Jesus again said look you put Adam in a perfect environment.

He fed you put me down in that hellhole called the world where there's nothing true or clean or holy. And I'll go live there as you intended Adam to live. And I'll come out spotless and blameless because again he has the power of an endless life.

And then not only his amazing incarnation not only his amazing walk not only his amazing courage in ministry his amazing death. It must have been pretty agonizing to look from the cross and not be able to see one of your disciples.