God's Compassion — Leonard Ravenhill

Lord, we are evidence of the wonderful hymn that we have sung. We know it's two centuries old, but your love is longer than that, older than that. We are the proof that Jesus, thou art all compassion, and pure unbounded love thou art.

When there was no arm long enough, and no arm strong enough to lift us, we thank you that your arm reached us. As the old hymn says, from sinking sands he lifted me. With tender hands he lifted me, from shades of night to days of light, O praise his name he lifted me.

How blessed we are to be here tonight. What if thy form we cannot see, we know and feel that thou art here. We're never sure when we come here who will be here except yourself. Circumstances often hinder our best desires, but we thank you that you never break your promises, you've no reason to.

We thank you for your amazing track record, if we dare use that phrase, that never in the history of the world have you failed to keep a promise. You've never let your people down, whether they were individuals in prison or a million coming out of Egypt, wandering through the wilderness.

You led them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. We thank you for the pillar of fire you've given us your holy word. A servant of yours in the Old Testament said, your word is like a fire that burns in my bones.

The Authority and Permanence of God's Word

We thank you for this book. We know it's not of human construction. We know there's no alternative to Jesus Christ. We know there's no alternative to your word. It's not a book of imagination, it's a book of inspiration and revelation.

Holy men of God, some wore very poor clothing, some were shepherds, some were kings. Some were colossal intellects like the Apostle Paul. Others were very ordinary men, but they wrote under divine inspiration, never dreaming that 2 ,000 years after, men and women all over the world would be reading their writings.

I think just now of the day when Voltaire, a contemporary of Wesley, said that within a hundred years from the day he said it, the Bible would not be found except in museums. Now he's buried and gone to ashes.

And we thank you your word is indeed a mighty fortress. Change and decay in all around we see, but we thank you your word is incorruptible. You've already guaranteed it. Thy word, O God, is forever and ever.

Just like your kingdom is an eternal kingdom. Just as our king cannot abdicate, his kingdom cannot be destroyed. He cannot be overthrown. He cannot die. We thank you tonight that the head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now.

The cheek that once was smitten, the face from which the hair was pulled, the face into which some ungodly rascal spit, that face is shining in eternity brighter than a noonday sun. We think of the revelation that Isaiah had centuries before Jesus came, when he said he saw him in all his majesty, in all his glory, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

Even the cherubims used their wings to fill to the blazing glory of the king on his throne. We come to worship you tonight. We come to hear your voice through your word, through the simple expression of the preacher.

We would be still and know that thou art God. We come from a world of turmoil. Speak peace in this meeting, particularly to any heart excessively troubled. Speak a word of comfort to that person who's been wounded and grieved.

We thank you there is a balm in Gilead. There is a physician there, beyond all human physicians, a miracle working God. Whether you work visibly or invisibly, we care not. Again, we thank you for this word which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

We've sung, finish then thy new creation. May this service help to finish that new creation in us. You have begun a good work in us. You know we won't give us up. We may stumble and stagger. At times, maybe we rest too long.

Maybe at times we rush too quickly. But we bless you for the Holy Spirit who's given to us to be our guide. Open your word, we pray. And open our eyes. And then open our mouths to tell what great things God has done for us.

We give you praise in Jesus' name. All right, we're going to look at the gospel as recorded by John in one of the best-known chapters, chapter 17. Since I only live inside my own personality, I don't know how you think.

And I guess there are some things which are very common to us. And one to me is that how often I read the word of God and suddenly it explodes. I wonder why it didn't explode 50 years ago. I was too dull.

Well, the fact was I knew so much then that nobody could teach me, you see. But a lot of that story, I've put it in my head, so I've got it in a nutshell, you see. It will be correct to say that this 17th chapter actually begins in the 13th chapter.

In this 13th chapter of the gospel, this same gospel, we move into a new dimension. Jesus is speaking particularly to his disciples. Now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

Now, then there's a gap, actually. And we could really pick up the story here in this 17th chapter. I say the 13th chapter is the introduction to the 17th. I was reading that story in the 46th of Ezekiel today.

You remember the man with the measuring line? There's a river of water, take it as a type of the Holy Spirit. He measures a thousand cubits and there's water to the ankles. He measures another thousand and there's water to the knees.

I take that to mean this, or it's my interpretation, the river is a type of the Holy Spirit. If we've water to our ankles, we must be walking in the Spirit. We can't walk in the Spirit very long before we get to our knees and start praying in the Spirit.

That is, praying with the wisdom of the Spirit and the authority of the Spirit. Then the next measuring line, he measures a thousand cubits and it's water to the loins. Now if you've been a wrestler, you know that the strength is all here in the loins.

Remember when Jacob wrestled with the Lord, what did he get for wrestling? You may say, I want to pray life. You really do? Really sincerely want to pray life? You mean you'd like the Lord to cripple you so you have to pray?

What did Jacob get? The Lord touched him where he was too strong. He hung on to the angel, the angel hung on to him. But then he wrestled until the angel touched him in the hollow of his thigh where he was strongest.

And ever after that he dragged a withered leg. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but I do know people who have actually ruined their physical lives and some who have actually ruined their business lives because they asked for a life of prayer and God took them at the word.

Jesus' High Priestly Prayer and the Journey to Gethsemane

Sometimes this is called, has been called, the longest prayer of Jesus. If you do your homework and go through the New Testament, you'll discover there are 19 prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know through the Bible there are 650 prayers?

They'd make an interesting study, wouldn't they? This is not the longest prayer of the Lord Jesus, I don't believe it is anyhow. It's the longest recorded prayer. Someone said it's the most beautiful prayer, I disagree.

I believe the longest prayer Jesus prayed was in Gethsemane. I believe it was the most awesome prayer. So awesome that no one heard it. These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father.

I heard Paul talking to somebody a few days ago and he said, my father. He didn't know what a kick I got out of it, that was so lovely to me. Sometimes my wife calls me the old man, but I still love the old lady even if she does.

But when I thought my son said, I heard someone say, my father. Have you ever really tried to digest this or think of it? I've confessed to you I haven't. I've read the Bible for 70 years. And just this week this thought came to me, meditating on this chapter which shows how new things can come.

That Jesus began his life without a father and he ended his life without a father. He started his life without a physical father and on the cross he said, my father, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Think of all this amazing history between those two awesome events. These words spake Jesus, lifted his eyes to heaven. Now we always close our eyes. I don't know why, I think I do know why. Let me save myself there.

To save us from distraction. I remember walking to Dr. Tozarowicz one day. He always came out with something that leveled me to the ground anyhow. One day he said, Len, remember, none of us will go up to Jesus at the judgment seat and look him straight in the eye.

Not one of us. You know, people talk as though we're going to say, oh, Jesus, oh, I love you. You'll be so terrified when you see him, you'll be speechless. Oh, I've only seen one portrait of Jesus as given in Revelation.

His eyes, pardon me, his hair as white as snow. Mary Antoinette, you may remember in history, was a young lady at 21 who got the heart of the king of France. And she manipulated him. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, they said.

But she grieved him and he put her in the Bastille. It's been destroyed now. The walls were 30 feet thick, nearly, I guess, about the length of this room. They put her there one night with this fantastic hairstyle she had.

This face that looked as though it was enameled. Those flawless blue eyes. They put her there in a cell. Told her she would die in the morning with the executioner's, you know, that horrid guillotine chopping her head off.

They put her in that cell. Smiling when she went in. Gorgeous. She heard the bell at Notre Dame Cathedral toll out night, hour after hour. Five, six, seven, and then at eight they took her out to chop her head off.

When they went in the prison cell, that gorgeous young lady was 100 years old. Her skin had all shrunken, her hair was as white as snow. Why? Because she'd been living in terror. Remember, these were straight Jesus, lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

I believe, I didn't check today, I'm working on memory here, but I think this is the seventh time that John mentions the hour. Do you remember Jesus came to his, the mother of Jesus came to him and said, Perform a miracle here at the marriage in Cain of Galilee.

He said, My hour is not yet come. Remember in the seventh chapter of John, He said to his disciples, You go up to the feast, I'm not going up. But three verses after it says, He went up. He was saving time.

It's one thing that you young folk have to beware of. I think you should have a clock in your room, in every room, in every college, in every house, redeem the time. It won't forgive you. The Lord will forgive you, the clock won't.

People say faith can do anything. If you believe that, I'd like to kneel there and you pray over me and say, It'll change him from 77 to 27. Wouldn't I get up joyful? I don't believe any of you have faith to do that.

Faith can't do anything I want, it can do anything God wants. But God isn't there to manipulate it. Mary Antoinette was a hundred years of age in the morning. She'd gone through hell and torment. She'd heard that bell tolling.

Say, would you like somebody to bring you a prophecy your grandmother made when you were, say, six weeks old? And she said, When you're 17, you're going to have a major accident that will cripple you.

Would you like to read your future? I believe Jesus had been reading his future for many, many years. As far as I remember, he's the only person that came in the world with a specific intention of dying.

His hair was as white as snow. His feet like burnished brass. That's why Dr. Torser said none of us would look him straight in the eye. I was reciting to myself one of the great hymns of Charles Wesley today.

Lo, he comes with clouds descending, ones for favoured sinners slain. Lo, the tokens of his passion, though inglorious, still he bears. When he was resurrected, what did he do? He showed them his hands and his feet.

How prosaic! Why in the world didn't he go down the street and shout over the cemetery wall and raise the dead as he said he would do? Why didn't he go to the river or the lake and turn it into blood and show his majestic power?

No, he showed them the tokens of his passion. Lo, the tokens of his passion, though inglorious, still he bears. Calls of endless exultation to his ransomed worshippers. Hallelujah, Christ the Son of God appears.

Christ's Supreme Desire to Glorify the Father

I say Jesus had been, let me say this, what was the supreme desire of the Lord Jesus? What did he say? Lo, I come to do thy will. In the volume of the book it is written of me. He's saying here he wants to glorify the Father.

Glorified? Crucified! I think he mentions glory about seven times in this chapter. Again, I didn't read them today. The only way God can be glorified is when he's crucified. And all the things that follow after, of course.

His supreme joy, he said, was I always do those things that please the Father. Never once in those 33 years did he back off from the will of God. He was never intimidated. Go back for a minute here into the seventh chapter of the gospel of Luke.

Or go back, yes, okay, into Luke. Let's go back into the second chapter, sorry. His parents had been to the feast, remember, one of the greatest feasts in the history or in the record of that marvelous people, the Jews.

Verse 43 says, when they had fulfilled their days, they returned. The child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew of it. That's the most incredible story in the New Testament.

Incredible why? That they'd been given the privilege of escorting Jesus out of a womb right to the cross, to the tomb, womb to the tomb, and they lost him. I thought they'd have had a bodyguard there day and night.

When did they lose him? They lost him immediately they came out of church, just like you'll do Sunday morning. You'll have forgotten the sermon before you've gone 100 yards out of church. Particularly if the Cowboys were playing.

I think that's the greatest religion in Texas, football. They lost him. Why? They supposed he was in the company. He wasn't there. Remember the resurrection morning? She supposed it was the gardener. She thought he wasn't there, and he was there.

They thought he was there, and he wasn't there. Some people think if you build a gorgeous church and put stained glass windows, have a big pipe organ, and all the trimmings, that the Lord is there. Not so.

Not necessarily. They supposed he'd been in the company. And they sought him among their kinfolk. And they turned again. Three days. You know, you do pretty good. If you backslide and you make a recovery in three days, you're doing pretty good.

Because don't backslide anyhow. They lost him and rediscovered him in three days. Where? In the temple. I imagine they searched every room. It was an enormous place. One part was the upper room. There were other rooms.

They sought him with despair. And his mother went to bed. What do you think she did the first night? What would you do if you lost a 12 year old boy? Would it justify? You think he'd do it the next night too?

And the next night too? He's not here. Or maybe those men that, you know, come every time down by the pool of Ceylon selling goodly pearls, they've taken him away. Stolen him. Finally they found him where?

I imagine Joseph pushing the door of the sanctuary open saying, He's there. Where? Isn't it amazing a 12 year old boy is up on the front row asking the wise heads questions? It says hearing. Does that imply he answered?

Hearing and asking them questions. If you don't have a 12 year old, you haven't yet discovered how ignorant you are. Oh heaven, you people need to pray for extra wisdom. I mean your boy's going to have a computer.

You don't know what that means anyhow. It's like buying your husband a sewing machine for Christmas. I would have loved to have been eavesdropping to what questions he was asking. It would be very wonderful.

They'd be very wise questions I'm sure of that. Do you think those wise heads ever forgot that youngster? Say that's the boy that came in the temple that day and had us all puzzled and embarrassed us.

I wish they'd lose him. I felt like that about some church members too. Sorry, I've lost it. Go from that incident to another incident just as embarrassing, more embarrassing, in the fourth chapter. Verse 16.

As his custom was, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. Why? That wasn't his job. It was the rabbi or the chief rabbi or one of the best of the priests. They delivered up to him the book of the prophecy Isaiah and he found a place.

He found a place. I like that. He wasn't going to read anything, you know, that would not mean anything. So he wrote from the 61st chapter. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Do you wonder it closes the verse by saying, and the eyes of everybody there were upon him.

I don't know what his voice was like. I'm sure it was majestic. Maybe it was even at that day like the sound of many waters. What did he say? The Spirit of the Lord, verse 18, is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

Something they didn't do. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering the sight to the blind and set at liberty them that are bruised. You know, that upsets a lot of people today.

Oh, they're saying one pious phrase, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. You mention healing, they think you're an idiot. Well, I happen to think that Jesus isn't crippled. I happen to believe that Jesus Christ has more power and authority now than he had in the days of his flesh.

And he had dominion over death, he had dominion over lunatics, he had dominion over palsy. Do you wonder he embarrassed them? Oh yes, they said very piously, you know, they read the 35th chapter of Isaiah, When he is come, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped,.

Then shall a lame man leap as a harp, the tongue of the dumb shall sing. He didn't read it, he did it. So he embarrassed them. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. You know, there's no greater thing this side of eternity.

I'm sure Paul, you believe in that too. Then a man can say the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. I won't give you two hoots for all the degrees the preachers have. You can have 32 and still be frozen anyhow.

I'm glad money can't buy this. There's no man can lay hands on you and give you the spirit of wisdom. I don't believe so. You can't buy it. You can't get it by climbing the intellectual ladder of education, getting some great degree in a university.

God Almighty doesn't happen to read diplomas, and I'm not facetious in saying that. If you're going to be a preacher, covet this, whatever it costs you. If you have to fast one day a week, if you have to miss two nights in prayer, so what?

When I was in my twenties, many times I wouldn't go to bed for three or four days. Stayed in the church after Sunday night service. Went to church Saturday night, had a street meeting till midnight. Went to the church wrapped up in a cloth and lay at the side of my books, my library there, to wait on God.

Some of you have read, I'm sure, old Dr. Jowett. He was a good Englishman, of course, but anyhow. He coined a phrase I've thought of thousands of times, you have to bleed to bless. You have to bleed to bless.

If the Son of God couldn't be a real true blessing, as God wanted, without bleeding, how can we? He came to do the will of his Father. A century back in Scotland, there were three famous brothers. One was Andrew Bonner, and the other was, what was he called?

Horatio Bonner. He wrote this lovely hymn,. Go labour on, spend and be spent,. Thy joy to do the Father's will,. It is the way the Master went,. Should not the servant tread it still? Toiling on, and in thy toil rejoice,.

For toil comes rest, for exile home. Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice,. The midnight cry, behold I come. Men die in darkness at your sight. I don't care if you live at work in one of the most fashionable up-to-date computers.

The men across the other computers, dying without God and without hope, as much as the heathen up the Amazon. It's much more stirring to see stark naked people, and Indians, isn't it? Dying in some rotten, uncivilized country.

People in the Waldorf Astoria are dying without God tonight. They can't spend their millions. People in Washington, trying to solve problems for the world, can't solve their own marriage problems. Can't solve their own drinking problems.

Can't solve their own gambling problems. We're led by idiots. This world will never be put straight till the Prince of Peace does it, you can be sure about that. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering the sight of the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable years of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and gave it to the minister, and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened upon him. I don't wonder. Well, if the ungodly people said he speaks with authority and not as the scribes, preaching can be as empty as beating a drum.

A man needs authority. Define it if you like as unction. Define it if you like as anointing. As the old colored preacher says, I don't know what it is, but I know when it isn't. When I don't have it, he said, I know when I haven't had it.

It's that mysterious something that God is pleased to put upon those who will travel and wait for that anointing. Without which preaching has no power and has no authority. I'm going to read this again.

The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Power, and the Supernatural Church

The Spirit of the Lord. No, I'll read the first of 17, chapter 1. Chapter 17, verse 1. These words spake Jesus, and lifted his eyes to heaven, and said, Father. I say, when I heard my son Paul say the other day to someone he didn't know I was listening, he said, My father, I felt such a joy.

I don't know what kind of a son I have. An anointed man, a preacher, a pioneer in one of the most difficult fields in South America. Doesn't look so old, but he's been there about 25 years anyhow. Can you remember Isaiah looking up into the face of God and saying, Father?

Can you remember Jeremiah looking up into the face of God and saying, Father? Or any of those stalwart giants we think of? Take all the men, if you like, in Hebrews 11. Any one of them ever call the crates of heaven and earth?

Isaiah doesn't do it. He calls him the high and lofty one who inhabited eternity. He sits upon the circle of the earth. He falls speechless before God. Here Jesus has come through this long, long period.

I'll suggest to you tonight, disagree if you like, that right up to this point Jesus had been in training for what's coming. As I say, would you like to read your own biography before you die? Knowing it was accurate?

That little fellow who sat there puzzling the high priests and the distinguished people there. It was possibly like some of the Jews that there are in New York today, and I have great admiration for them.

There's a sect there, I don't know what you call them, Hasidic, is it something? They wear flat hats and they have big black curls coming down to their shoulders. And I understand every one of those men can recite the first five books of Moses.

Isn't that right? Pardon? Oh, I see. Thank you. Now you got that straight. I don't know what it was, but it's straight. Can you imagine Jesus reciting all those books? Can you imagine him reading again about the virgin should bear a child?

Can you think of him reading through Isaiah 53? Who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? He should grow up before him as a tender plant. He should be like a root out of a dry ground.

There's no beauty about that. There's no beauty that we should desire of him. I say Jesus up to this time has been preparing for this awesome thing that lies ahead of him. We can break this chapter up into many areas, I don't want to do that.

I want you to notice, if you will, when you read through John, I think about 33 times he mentions the world. You know, one of the tragedies of the world today is the early church, the world couldn't get on with the early church, it can get on with us.

We're not a thorn in its side. We don't cause it any trouble. If we displayed some of the power of God, they might take some notice, but we don't do that. Ours is all theology, it's all paperwork. I looked up these things today just to go quickly through them.

In 1 Corinthians and chapter 1, the apostle Paul talks about the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God. Do you think God's interested that we've got a thing floating up in the sky right now, a machine full of technology and it can spy on the Russians?

Do you think that troubles God in eternity? The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. Friendship with the world is enmity against God. How friendly are you with the world? What secret society do you belong?

Some of you guys Masons? Wesley used to kick the Masons around a lot. I clashed with one in Ireland. He said, it's not a religion. I said, well, why do you go to a temple? They meet in a temple. Who meets in a temple except the folk that go to worship?

The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. 1 Corinthians 7 says, the fashion of this world passeth away. John in his first epistle says, if you love the world, the love of the Father isn't in you.

You forfeit God's love as soon as you get fascinated with the love of the world. I read an article recently where the preacher was saying, you know, so many people lose their first love. That's not what the Bible says.

The Bible says, thou hast left thy first love. You don't lose it. I've got an old coat. It was about 20 years, I lost it this week. Boy, was I upset. It's out of style. But it's good to me. It keeps me warm.

I was glad when I found it. I lost it. But the address to the people there in the book of the Revelation is to people who left their first love. Something else got them, and they gave all their consuming passion and desire to that one thing that they got hold of again.

Love not the world, neither the things of the world. It's all about the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, which all belong to this world. What I'm wanting to say now, really, which has been in the back of my mind for days.

I haven't got hold of it as I should. I'm sure of that. Chapter 13, where Jesus introduces his disciples to the Lord's Supper. Then immediately he introduces them to the washing of feet, which has gone out with most people.

That's chapter 13. Chapter 14. In verse 26, he mentions there for the first time the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost. That always reminds me of my dear old teacher in England, old Samuel Chadwick. He said, remember, he's the comforter, but he is not.

These are his exact words, because I heard them say so many times, and I've quoted them many times since myself. The comforter, which is... But the comforter, the Holy Spirit is not a nursing mother to spiritually sick children.

That word comforter in English, in Latin, is comfortis, K-U-M-dash-F-O-R-T-I-S, with strength. What did Jesus say? When the Holy Ghost has come, what? Ye shall receive what? In other words, ye shall receive strength, the Holy Ghost coming upon you.

Back in the 1600s, one of the giant stalwarts of that day, that was the period of Puritans, like John Owen and all that crowd. John Owen was maybe the greatest of them. He said the sin of men in the Old Testament was against the Father.

The sin of men in the New Testament was against the Son. Well, I think we can say nowadays the sin of the Church very much is against the Father, the sin of the Church against the Son, and the sin of the Church against most churches is the Holy Ghost.

They want the Holy Ghost if they can lay a track, and he'll run down their theology, but he says forget it. Now, this may be a pretty stiff yardstick. You can beat me up next time you come back. I'm going to say it anyhow.

I believe every church is either supernatural or superficial. I don't believe in any middle ground. I'm not interested merely in seeing healings. I've seen many, and I thank God for them. Seen blind people get their sight, seen people leap out of chairs.

I've not any compassion for that. But the least emphasis that's put on the Holy Ghost today is that when he has come, he convinces the world of sin. The Church is comfortable with sin. I hear of churches now that have special classes for young couples or young divorced couples.

Fifty years ago, you never heard of a divorcee in the Christian Church. You never heard of marriage counseling in the Christian Church. The meetings were so breathed upon by the Holy Ghost, I dreaded to go in some meetings even when I was 14 or 15 years of age.

In those days, if you went to a healthy, spiritually healthy church, if it was a holiness church, preaching the baptism of the Spirit as purity, sanctification, or whether it was Pentecostal, preaching the baptism of the Holy Ghost with gifts.

Whenever you went to either of those churches, Sunday night, if the service started at 6 o 'clock, at half past five, the altar was filled with people. Praying the power down. We had one old boy, took his coat off.

Boy, did he shout as though the Lord was dead. Come down tonight. I used to tremble. I was scared. I'm not facetious. I imagine the Lord would come down. I'd be terrified if he came. You hear people say in church, Lord, you're welcome.

If the Holy Ghost came to some churches, there'd be a stampede to the door. David Wilson was telling me not long ago, he said, Len, you know, I know God has given me certain gifts, but they work more in the open air, in the street meetings, and in churches.

Last year in New York, he pointed to a big fellow, 350 pounds. Boy, you'd better be watch what you're saying. He said, you're running away from your wife, and he ran away from David up the street. Came back 15 minutes after with his, well, I won't say anything about the wife, but anyhow, he was about 350 pounds, and she was a little less.

And all the piccaninnies were running after that. There were about five or six children coming. He said, I was running away from my wife. I've been living an evil life. When he went this year, that man met him and told him how Christ transformed his life.

Pointing out people in the crowd like that, doesn't make church too comfortable, does it? We'd rather go to the church, you know what it says, as you enter the door, it says, everybody keep silent, and they sure do.

If you said amen, they'd turn the fire hose on you. So John 13 is, well, let's say it again, repetition's good. John 13 is where he introduces his disciples to the Lord's Supper, then he washes their feet.

14, he says, let not your heart be troubled. Verse 26, he tells them about the Holy Ghost coming, come forthish with power. Chapter 15, the incomparable story of the vine. Chapter 16, the marvelous introduction of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 17, this marvelous, marvelous prayer. Then you go into chapter 18. I will say this is disastrous. I said, Jesus has been in training up to this point, for the most horrendous experiences that a human being could ever know.

When Jesus has spoken these words, let me go back a minute and think of this. So many people say that Jesus spoke this 17th prayer, this prayer in the 17th chapter with a sense of gloom and doom. I don't believe that for a moment.