You Are My Friends — Leonard Ravenhill

The Gospel According to John and the Depth of Scripture

Gospel as John recorded it, the 17th chapter. The 26 verses in this chapter, I won't deal with them all this morning, but whenever I handle it, I think of Dr. Kozer who preached for 52 Sunday mornings on this remarkable chapter, obviously taking half of a verse every Sabbath morning for a year.

Someone told me that my good friend Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones in London preached for 52 Sunday nights on John 3 .16 without repeating himself. I don't know if you'd like to copy that, I'm sure I wouldn't, but again it shows us how much there is in the Word of God.

The Bible teachers often refer to the four Gospels, and obviously that's not true. There are not four Gospels. There's one Gospel told by four different men. They all have different emphases. Matthew reveals the Lord Jesus presented in the area of kingship.

Mark reveals him as a servant. Luke reveals him as the Son of Man. If you want to study the full life of Jesus, you would read the Gospel as Luke has recorded it, because he gives us the full accent in every crisis in the life of Jesus.

Jesus’ Prayer Life and the Gospel Portraits

While others record the fact that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, Luke says that it was while he was praying that the Spirit descended upon him. And then he records that while Jesus was hanging on the cross he was praying.

In between he says that Jesus spent a whole night in prayer before he chose his disciples. I often wonder what would happen if a church spent a whole night in prayer before it chose its deacons. They might not get in.

But that's what Jesus did. He spent a whole night before he chose his disciples. And then again Luke emphasizes the fact that it was while he was praying that Jesus was transfigured. And there is nothing more transfiguring than prayer.

There's one great hymn writer, I think Montgomery said, prayer is the sole sincere desire uttered all unexpressed. The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breath. Prayer is so simple that a child can do it, and it's so vast it exhausts our vocabulary.

Whenever I pick up the biography of a great man, or autobiography, I always search for the center of his life, and I always read first his prayer life, if it's recorded. I insist again that no man is greater than his prayer life.

In the pulpit a man can reveal his knowledge of the Word of God. In prayer he reveals his knowledge of the God of the Word. In the pulpit a man can stretch, and often they do. But no man stretches in the place of prayer.

If anything sets us down to fly, surely it is that when we get alone with God. And we need to pray continually, I'm sure, the great prayer, Lord Jesus to pray. Now in John 17 we have again the Lord's prayer.

Often you hear people say, let's recite the Lord's prayer. They begin to say, Our Father which art in heaven. Obviously that is not the Lord's prayer, that is the disciples' prayer. Jesus could not pray the Lord's prayer, the disciples could not pray what is the Lord's prayer.

That is the 17th chapter again in the gospel as recorded by John. The unique thing about John is this, that of course you've got to remember this, the epistle of John was written by an ignoramus. He didn't know very much.

I can prove that from scripture for the simple reason that after they'd done the miracle, remember Peter and John went up to the temple at the hour of prayer. I don't know why they went to the temple at the hour of prayer.

They didn't believe in the formula of the temple, the temple didn't believe in what they were doing, but they still went to the prayer meeting, maybe hoping they could revive it. But anyhow, as they went you remember that they healed a man of the beautiful grace of the temple.

I learned something new about that. I'm not very smart, I pick things up very slowly. I just went to school, I never went to a high school. Well I did go to a high school, it was on top of a hill. But apart from that, I didn't go to college except for a little bible college in England for a few months.

But you know I pick things up very slowly I guess. And so often the things that I should have observed I think years ago, strike me now. Peter and John went into the temple at the hour of prayer. And the thing that impressed me about that is the timing facts in it, because Jesus had passed that man down in the temple a hundred times.

And Peter and John had passed it a hundred times. And when the seventy were sent out to minister, they too had passed it, but Jesus didn't heal him. There came a crisis moment, a particular time, when it was glorified by the Father for that man to be healed at that precise moment.

The Healing at the Beautiful Gate

Now you remember the man was there all withered crippled. You know he's a type of the world outside, distorted, defiled, doomed, damned. And yet the church had nothing to offer to him. That is the system of religion of that day I think.

Well as soon as he saw Peter and John he knew that evangelism was a racket anyhow. So he said they must have a lot of money. And he asked for alms. Well semantically that sounds like these alms. A little girl said why did he ask for alms when he needed alms.

But don't we often pay for things we don't need? I don't think he needed money at all. But Peter and John were there at the out of sight. Peter said silver and gold I have not. That's amazing that John said I had a shirt off a few days ago.

I don't know what he did with it. Gave it his mother maybe. But Peter said silver and gold I have not. Now in his diary Peter said look on earth. And isn't it great when you can say that. When we have the resources needed for that particular situation.

And then afterwards when the crowd came around and wanted to kind of dramatize their ministry, Peter said don't look on earth. Boy that's a long way off from where we are today isn't it. Do you know how many radio stations we're on?

Do you know how many pamphlets we give out? We're always spitting ourselves. That's the thing God doesn't like. It's unacceptable. But you remember after the miraculous curing of that man. You know we were in a meeting the other night in a stately, well I tell you it's a sudden Baptist church.

The Lord graciously moved we were there for two weeks. It was packed every night with about fifteen hundred people. And there's a man there who was explosive. You know suddenly the Lord would hit him.

He'd jump four feet off the ground and run across where I was preaching and yell at the top of his voice, glory hallelujah. And the people sat there and looked him up first and said no this isn't the thing to do.

And I said would you keep your feet please, you're not allowed to do that except when Alabama's playing football. Oh you can go to the football match. But it isn't kind of steamy you know. Do things in order.

Only when God's chosen people and his chosen people. And you're not expected to be demonstrative. But you see that man had been to hell and back. He had the most sordid story ever heard in your life. And one day Jesus met him, he cured him.

He broke his fetters, he cleansed him, he's come to enjoy him. He sold his home, he sold the fine china that they had. He lives in a battered old bus and he spends most of his time with the Navajo Indians out in the west there.

But you see the man has had such a transforming experience. Well the man sitting at the beautiful gate of the temple, I guess he'd given up all hope. He said the high priest comes in and he gives you gold and the junior priest comes in, he is not as rich usually, and he gives you silver and I'm going to be sitting here all my life.

They carried him every day of his life. He was carried but not cured. He was helped but he was never healed. And one day these strange men came along and miraculously Peter says I don't have what you think you need but I do have what you don't need.

And immediately he touched it. He said he'd been touched with about 10 ,000 volts of electricity and he left and prayed and magnified the Lord. Well that upset the big boys. You see the Lord didn't like that.

So they called Peter and John to account and they tried to get round it and one fellow says listen why do this silly thing? The man's been healed. There he is leaping, shouting, everybody in Jerusalem knows about it.

And these fellows are going to get big crowds you know. And so finally they said well this is our summary. You know we've been stretching our vast intellect and coming to some profound decisions. And the decision is that this fellow Peter and this fellow John, well they're not collegiate, they have no certificates to say they're authorized preachers, they should really go back to fishing or doing their job.

Well this is our final summary, that I'm wrong and ignorant. Well that ignoramus wrote this book, you see the Gospel of John. Which Dr. Coffman says is the most profound thing in literature. And someone else says that the 17th chapter.

John Brown the great commentator says this is the most profound section of the most profound book. So Peter John wrote this wonderful epistle. And then he wrote three other best fellows. He hasn't picked up his royalties yet, but he wrote the Gospel of John, then he wrote the first epistle, the second epistle and the third epistle.

And then just to prove his ignorance so we never forget it, he wrote the Book of Revelation. Which baffles all the wise men. So it is a baptism of ignorance, I hope you lay your hands on me after the meeting, I'd like it.

Christ as the Eternal Word

I mean if you get such profound knowledge that this man had of God. Now if this Luke again is emphasizing Jesus Christ as the Son of Man totally dependent upon God, therefore he kind of enlarges on his prayer life.

But here John is revering Jesus as very God of very God. He's not the Son of God. In the first verse of the first chapter, remember what it says? In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God.

In the beginning eternity. The Word was with God equality. The Word was God deity. And he goes right through and shows us the marvelous power of the Lord Jesus Christ. I was looking up there in Ezekiel 47 this morning.

You know Ezekiel is a wonderful book. Somebody said that whenever you go to a Bible conference somebody is going to preach on Romans or Ephesians. Nobody ever tackles Ezekiel or some of the minor prophets.

The Valley of Dry Bones and Progressive Spiritual Life

Ezekiel has a lot to say. In fact one guy says he can have flying saucers. But he has a lot about wheels and other things. But everything is done in sections. Remember there's a pile of bones sky high and he goes and prophesies to the bones.

I do this constantly, even this morning. But he prophesies to the bones and he didn't say bones now become an army. He spoke to the bones and there was a rattle. Well we like rattle. We mistake rattle for revival and commotion for creation and action for ancient.

And there's a great noise. Well that's what we like, noise. It isn't power but it's effective. It stirs you a bit emotionally. It may not feed your intellect, your spirit. But he spoke to the bones and they began to fly.

Now that must have been great. I'd like to have seen that. You know a bone trying to find where it matched somebody's backbone and tibia. No I better not tell you because Kathy is listening. But all those bones you have in your body.

And instead of a stack of bones you now have a valley full of skeletons. Then he spoke again and sinew came on the skeletons. I always think they must have looked like violins. But they had all the sinews attached to the bones and you've got a valley full of skeletons.

And then he speaks again and flesh comes on the sinew and then he speaks again and then there's skin comes on the flesh. It is not done in one act. It's done in different acts, different sections, different tests of faith if you like.

Finally you have a valley full of beautiful corpses. Well they're not much good. They can't sight, they can't see, they can't talk. What can they do? So he prophesies the final time. And the final time that one shapeless, hideous mass of bones is now symmetrical, beautiful, attractive.

And he speaks the final time and the final time life comes into them. I remember Mr. Chadwick telling us about the difference between breath and life in the church he had in the slum area. He went in one day, the lady said to him, my husband died, he's lying upstairs and it was a little house with one room downstairs, one room upstairs.

And he said he hasn't been shaved for a long while and I don't want to bury him like this. Could you go to the barber to come and shave him? He said sure. He said he won't come until it's dark tonight.

He won't leave his shop. But he came. The man in the old days, you know when men were men, their shaves were I mean later, with a big open blade like this, you know, and he lathered the corpse and he couldn't reach over the other side of the corpse.

The corpse was a big hefty guy, big tummy on him. So he took the candle that he had, and I know that edit of Leeds where this actually happened then. And he put the candle on the chest of the dead man.

And he thought, well she's downstairs, she doesn't know. So he took his shoes off and he climbed over the corpse, one of those old beds with a low spring, you know, and he put his knee between the chest and the tummy of the man and he put his, he pressed it down and the corpse came up and went, blew the candle out.

And Chadwick said that man left the race and everything, he was running down the street, he's alive, he's alive, he's alive. Chadwick says no, he had winned, but he didn't have birth. You see an offering mistake helped win for birth.

Well in this case there was no such mistake. They stood on their feet in exceeding great armour. I told you that to tell you this. So from there, you remember that he's a man just as in the case of the bones becoming skeletons, becoming corpses and so forth.

Deepening Waters in Ezekiel and John

In the 47th chapter he says that the hand of the Lord is upon him, he led him out by the north gate, then he led him east, and there's a man with a measuring line. He measures a thousand cubits for his water to the ankles, he measures another thousand water to the knees, another thousand always water to the loins, another thousand water to swim in.

When I think of that, I think also of this gospel, I'll say the gospel as recorded by John. When you start at the 14th chapter, if you like, there's water to the ankles in each chapter, 15, 16, 17, they get deeper, 18, 19, right down into 20.

You get into deeper, deeper, deeper areas. Now again, this is the prayer life of Jesus. It throws me back to something that completely baffles me. Supposing you could have lived one life, one day in the life of Jesus, which day would you have chosen?

Well, I guess the sermon on Isaiah might have liked the day he preached the Sermon on the Mount. The greatest message ever preached by the greatest man ever. Phyllis would like it more excitable. I'd like to have been there when he said to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth.

Somebody else says I'd like to have seen him walking on the water. If I could have been just one day in the life of Jesus, I would like to have been here on the occasion when he prayed what I want to call here this masterly prayer.

Jesus’ Prayer, Gethsemane, and the Call to Pray

The thing that stuns me about it is this. The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. Many of them didn't say, Lord, teach us to preach. I think they must have been fascinated when he preached the Sermon on the Mount.

They must have been startled when he stood there and said, well, first of all, you throw the stone away. No, we want God to do everything. Jesus says, no, I'll raise him from the dead, you move the stone.

I'll turn the water into wine, I won't put wine in those vessels, go do some work yourself, and then when you've done your share, I'll do my share. And he said, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.

Campbell Morgan said he said Lazarus because if he'd said come forth all the cemeteries would have come. There wasn't time for them to come, so he said Lazarus come forth. It must have been exciting to see him.

Even maybe a good church member today came forth like this, you know, bound hand and foot. Couldn't walk, couldn't talk. He said, loose him and let him go. Now he was alive. How do you think he walked if he wasn't?

He got up, he was alive all right, but he was bound hand and foot, like millions of believers are today, I believe. That would have been exciting. But the disciples didn't say, Lord, teach us to do miracles.

I read that when Jesus went into Gethsemane, or just before it, he sang, I'd like to have heard Jesus sing, I'm sure he sang more than once, I'm sure he sang some of those majestic songs. They didn't say, Lord, teach us to sing.

They didn't say, Lord, teach us to do miracles. They didn't say, Lord, teach us the science of homiletics of exposition. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. People say that God isn't selective. I think he is.

I think he always was. I think he always will be. How many disciples were there? If you've been at Bible school so long and don't know that, all right, be a priest. How many did he take unto the Mount of Transfiguration?

You don't know that? Well, they took three. They said, Lord, teach us to pray. I kind of think maybe he was transfigured every night when he prayed. But on this occasion they were allowed to go into one of the most awesome experiences Jesus had.

There he was transfigured on the Mount. They had said, Lord, teach us to pray. What did they do? They fell asleep. Well, I can excuse them for that. But the same three men that were always with him in the most exceptional periods of his life, when he raised the dead and did other things, the three men that fell asleep were allowed to go into the most awesome experience that Jesus had, I think.

You know, if you talk about the greatest battles that were ever fought, men start searching all over the history of ancient Rome or something, and trying to find statistics. No, no, no. The greatest battle ever fought was fought by one man in the place called Gethsemane.

We don't know much about it. I remember one day going down the street in England, and I was in a hurry, and a lady opened the door, and as I passed the house she said, Oh, hello, would you drink some tea?

I said, No, thank you. I'm in a hurry. I have to be home in five minutes. She said, That's not the reason. You won't come in my house, because I'm the poorest person that comes to your church. Well, that wasn't the reason either.

She was the dirtiest woman that came to the church. She commonized on salt more than anything else, both on herself and in the house. The house stunk. But I realized if I didn't go in and talk with that woman and have some tea, I was sunk.

So I went in the house. It's the kind of house you don't like this, you know, otherwise. And we sat down and said, A kitchen sink full of dirty dishes. There must have been there for months she lived by herself.

She said, Do you drink tea? Well, all intelligent people do. She should have known that. But I said, Yes, I drink tea. All right, she said, and she reached in the sink and she took a cup that was all outside.

It was covered with, you know, she hadn't drunk it and let it slip down. And as she tilted it that way, there were dirty tea leaves in and something at the bottom of the cup. And she took a teapot and she poured it out.

It was as black as your shoe. I don't like tea like that. It's all right for tanning weather, but not me. And so she filled the cup up with this horrible black tea, almost cold, isn't that terrible? In civilized countries they don't drink cold tea.

But anyhow, she decorated it with black cold tea. You take sugar, yes, don't have any. You take cream, yes, don't have any. I think the maids were in mourning, or else you'd pass a patoot around them or something.

There's thirty old things out there with a dirty hands, stinking house, a dirty cup. And she passed this horrible black solution, without milk, without sugar, over to me. And as she got in halfway over with that strongly dirty hand of hers, somehow I lost sight of the whole thing.

I thought of something that happened two thousand miles away from England, two thousand years ago. When a man was offered a cup that had all human degradation and filth and sin in it, the purest, holiest man that ever lived, so revolting that he said, if it be possible, let this cup pass.

I guess that one of the discussing things about teaching is this, we don't know how far people observe that we say, or understand, or believe, or practice it. I don't believe after three years those disciples understood that much about Jesus.

On the Mount of Transfiguration they fell asleep. In the Garden of Gethsemane when they needed them, he prayed and he came, and they were sleeping. He went away and came back, and they were sleeping. He went away and came back, and they were sleeping.

In our language, forget it, he said. You think he looks from heaven right now and sees the church occupied with so many things, except the greatest ministry that's ever been offered to it. I rejoice when I go to churches, and I discover a number of them there, that have a twenty-four hour prayer program.

The church here in Notre Dame, a bunch of men get up every Lord's Day morning, whether I'm there or anyone else, and immediately the preacher, or the choir finishes, this bunch of men go out to a back room, and they pray and hold up the arms of the preacher.

Every Sabbath day morning, every Sabbath night, the women said we can't leave it to the men alone, we're going to do it. So at night a team of women go out. That church has moved just like that in the last two or three years.

That auditorium is crammed. They fill it twice every Sabbath morning with fifteen hundred people. They're thinking maybe now they'll build another auditorium, seating four thousand people. They're not just in the numbers game.

They discover that since they got into the real energy of praying, into a place where again the things of earth, pardon me, have become strangely dim. They got into a vital living relationship. They've entered into a new depth in prayer.

Resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the Kingdom

What do you think Jesus felt like after he found them all sleeping? Let me prove my point, at least I can prove it to myself again. They didn't believe him. You know we sing, and we should do. I think so often, I've preached so many times, and all of us, either Mr. Hegler, particularly in a certain area where the Rockies, Lord comes up to me.

We sing a hundred hymns on the blood of Christ, to the death of Christ, for every one hymn we sing on the resurrection. I've tried to hold it up balanced. And you see people almost shudder when you say we're not saved by his death.

Who is this heretic? Well Paul, he wrote 14 epistles, if you're good in Hebrews, and then he turns them all over like a pyramid he's built, and then he turns them, and he balances them all in a fine point, and he says, listen, the whole thing hangs on one thing, the resurrection of Jesus.

We're not saved by his death, we're saved by his life. If he doesn't live this morning, we're sunk. So now we don't get the excitement that's all of it. If the disciples had believed the teaching of Jesus for three years, they would have been lined up that resurrection morning and there wasn't one of them there.

And we get excited about his resurrection. I think in one sense it was the most disappointing day in the life of Jesus. Not one of them was there. He had told them over and over again, oh the Pharisees wouldn't understand it, the Sadducees didn't understand it.

The Pharisees believed in the resurrection, Sadducees didn't. That's why they were Sadducees. But they didn't believe in a physical resurrection. Jesus comes out of that experience, he died, he had led captivity captive.

And I say sometimes to people, teasingly, there are no gifts of the Spirit. The only gifts there can be are those purchased by Jesus. There's an old hymn that says, the purchase of thy death divide give me with all the sanctified the heritage of works.

He died, and what did he do? He led captivity captive, and he gave gifts unto men, and the Holy Ghost bested you, it's what was made possible through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, as Dr. Toews used to say, we kind of think of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as though he's a junior partner in the garden. It's this way. It's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

They're equal in majesty, they're equal in glory. And the supreme task of the Holy Spirit is not to make me a good preacher or make you a distinguished person with gifts. The supreme task of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Jesus.

That is one office. And he does it in so many ways through so many ministries. You know, God's going to get glory for his Son. He's going to elect the whole world system to do it, but he's going to do it.

I like Philip's translation of Ephesians 2 in which he says that God has designed that all history is going to be consummated in Jesus Christ, and he's going to have full control over the world. Then he says in a kind of whisper after it, and you know what?

The message now continues at this point on side 2. Do not fast wind the recorder in either direction. And he's going to have full control over the world. Then he says in a kind of whisper after it, and you know what?

We're going to have a share in it. That's great. May not encourage you very much, but it encourages me a lot. To think that his kingdom will have no end. He's going to reign forever and ever as the King of kings and of the Lord of lords.

The Comforter, Christian Joy, and the Indwelling Spirit

Okay, we come right down into the deepening, deepening, deepening sections of this gospel as recorded by John, and then we come to this great, marvelous prayer, which I won't get into this morning, I'm sure.

But you know, I discovered another thing in reading the 16th chapter. You see, the 17th chapter, to me again, is the most profound chapter here. But it's preceded by the most comforting chapter of maybe in the whole, at least of the gospel of John, or maybe the whole of the New Testament.

Look at verse 20. Thenly, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Their sorrow is going to be turned into joy.

Jesus says, I'm going to leave you. Somebody else is coming greater than myself, and as Chadwick said, love in tears is apt to be petulant. Oh, no. Oh, no. We're not buying that. Somebody coming greater than you are?

That's not possible. Jesus says it is. Because I have to be here in this place geographically, I can't be there. But when he has come, there's no place that he cannot be. Well, they weren't too satisfied with that.

But Jesus says, the comforter, the Holy Ghost, in verse 26 of the 14th chapter. I can think again of Mr. Chadwick saying, remember, the comforter is not a nursing mother for spiritually sick children.

That word comforter comes from two Latin words. Comfortus, with strength. With strength. You shall receive power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you. Not to nurse and comfort you and help you just when you stumble, but he comes with strength.

To be witnesses? Yes, but not witnesses in the sense of testifying, but to be martyrs, to die. That's the strength of it. The comforter, the Holy Ghost, shall come upon you. And then we have again the 15th chapter, the incomparable chapter of the 15th chapter of John.

After all, there's no parallel of John 15 in Matthew, Mark or Luke. There's no parallel of the 14th chapter in Matthew, Mark or Luke. There's no parallel of the 16th, no parallel of the 17th. 92 of what is said in the gospel as recorded by John is original, it's new, it's entirely his.

He introduces us to new characters like Nicodemus, the woman of the well, new miracles and so forth. It's an entirely different aspect of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. But again, the Holy Spirit has been given.

Again he says at the end of that 20th verse, in the 16th chapter, your sorrow shall be turned into joy. In verse 22, and ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy, listen to this, no man taketh it from you.

Verse 24, hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name, asking it shall be given, that your joy may be full. Now he says, look, I'm going from you, your joy has all been round my ministry, round my personality.

The Holy Ghost has come. And one of the great things about the Holy Spirit of God in the gifts again is, the fruit of the Spirit is love first of all, pardon me, and then joy. And he says your joy shall be full.

Now he said joy, notice that? He didn't say happiness. Happiness comes from the word hap, chance. You know if everything goes right, you're as happy as can be. We go up and we go down, don't we? When I see that lovely snow.

You don't think it's lovely? Well I think it's lovely anyhow. And when I see that snow, and when I, we were coming up, driving up from Texas there, and they said it's 44 below in Minnesota. I think one of the boys said that was really cold.

But anyhow, 44 below. I look out of the window and there's a thermometer on the wall. Poor thing. There it is with it's nose down there like that. A few weeks ago it was up there at 104. That weather kicks the thing around up and down, up and down.

Over here there's a thermostat on the wall. You put it at 72 or 70 whatever else you want. You open the window. What does it do? Down or up? No it says you do what you want. I'm going to stay here. I'm in control here.

I'm not, you've got mistaken. I'm not a thermometer, I'm a thermostat. Now I think we're all in one of two categories. Are you a thermostat this morning or a thermometer? I mean do you go up and down with every change in emotion?

Do you get so sad and heavy? Do you know why a lot of people get so bored and they get so heavy? Because a situation comes and they concentrate on it and they concentrate on it and they feed themselves on it.

But when some ecstatic experience comes or some experience of joy, they don't dwell on that to the same degree. Now Jesus says your joy shall be full. You're going to lose everything. You're going into the darkest period of your life.

I'm going into the darkest period of my life. But I want to tell you something. You can lose everything else, but you do not have to lose your joy. Happiness in the sense of emotions you may lose, but your joy may be full.

Remember a hymn that says, Go labor on, go labor on, spend and be spent by joy to do the Master's will. Jesus who saw the joy that was set before him. What was the joy? You know they give us pictures of the crucifixion.

Nobody ever saw it in the truest sense of the word. Not even God. It was too awesome. God blew the sun out. I do not understand. No theologian does that. I'm not a theologian. I do not know how the high and lofty one who inhabited eternity could be compressed into the matrix of the Virgin Mary.

I do not understand it. I do not understand how God became man. I do not understand how the ancient of days became the infant of time. I do not understand that he who created all things has to be hung on the breast of his mother in order to survive as a babe.

I do not understand it. I do not understand the virgin birth. If I believe it, I do not understand it. If I can't understand that, less and less do I understand how the God who became man, that that same man became sin for us.

Not like it, he became sin for us. That's baffling. Now Jesus says your world is ending, a new chapter is starting. My world is ending. Here, a new chapter is starting. I can't be with you. My spirit will be with you and you can have joy, you can sing in the storm.

I believe one proof of being filled with the Holy Spirit, you sing when you're in jail. Now I don't mean, you know, the jail that they have down the road there, though I'm quite sure maybe many of you should be in there, the times you've been breaking speed limits and all the rest, but it's not about, when you're hemmed in by circumstances.

You know, we sing rapturous hymns of, what's his name, who wrote When I Surveyed the Wondrous Cross, Isaac Watts. Yeah, he wrote that. But he also wrote, if I remember right, a hymn that Wick used to sing a lot.