In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding the purpose behind our actions. He explains that the word "so that" or "in order that" signifies two ideas in a sentence, with the second idea giving the reason or motivation for the first. The speaker uses the example of a destiny that has not gone as intended, resulting in less visible traces. He also highlights the distinction between having fellowship with an animal versus having fellowship with God. The sermon concludes with a mention of the three prayers of Jesus and the significance of understanding who Jesus is and the impact of his actions.

Good morning everyone, we are at day two of our conference and yesterday we began to introduce our topics and Zaya is doing the conscience and I am thinking in terms of the three prayers of the Lord Jesus. He prayed often of course, he prayed constantly all the time, but there's a period of time that the Bible refers to as the hour and he said the hour has come and that hour isn't sixty minutes, it's something which actually spreads over a period of time and it was the focus of what he'd come upon earth to achieve. And during that particular focus he prayed in three occasions in particular and what I want to do is to look at some of those over the few days they were together. I suppose part of the reason for looking at this first prayer, which is John chapter 17, you can turn to it if you'd like to. Part of the reason for looking at it is a simple thought really, that if I were to say to you that someone had invested everything that he had in a business your immediate question would be, well how much did he have to invest? For some people that wouldn't really mean a very great outlay, for other people it would mean a considerable outlay. If I said to you that somebody gave everything that he had for some ambition in his life it would be important to know who the person was and what they had to give. So if we say that Jesus gave himself for our sins, not just something, but himself the question is, who is he? Because it's a question he asked himself. He said, who do men say that I, the Son of Man am? And they said, well some people say that you're Jeremiah or Elijah or one of the prophets or some people say that you're John the Baptist raised from the dead. And then he asked this vital question that ultimately every single one of us has to answer. Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Who is Jesus Christ? And why is what he did of such vital importance? Well part of the answer to that, I'll try and give you a little bit of information because it can answer the question. And this is John chapter 17 and it begins like this, I'm going to read just a few verses, not the whole of it. We'll need to return to this again. These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, we mentioned last night that this is the instinct of true prayer. Not long, slowing, flowery language that multiplies all the names and the titles of God in great impressive lists and is a wonderful expression of eloquence. This is real prayer that comes from this instinctive rising of the heart which just simply says, Father. Do you know how Malcolm began our meeting this morning? He began to pray and he just said, Father. No great titles, we know who he is and it's right at times to consider his titles but in this simple intimacy of prayer it's just simply, Father. Almost certainly he used the Aramaic word, Abba, which in a sense means my own father. It's a word which speaks of tremendous intimacy and almost exclusiveness. Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son. That's his only personal request in the whole of this psalm. It's the only thing he asks for for himself in the whole of this chapter. Father, glorify thy son. And then he says this, that thy son also may glorify thee. There's a little word that comes often in this chapter and it's just a simple conjunction, it's the word that. And you'll see it there in verse one. In fact it comes in each of the first four verses, although it's become invisible in the fourth verse. These words take Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me, that I should do it. I'll put it back in for you in the fourth verse. That. It's a very simple little word and I don't want to kind of make too much of it, but it's vitally important because this word, that, really means in order that, so that. In other words, it's like having two ideas in a sentence. You've got idea A and idea B, and those two ideas are in the sentence. But if you want to know why A is important, B will give you the answer. B gives you the purpose of A. It tells you what was in his mind, what was his motivation, what it was all about. It gives you the reason. It gives you the purpose for the A. And you'll have it constantly throughout this particular prayer. Here's the first one. I said this was his only petition. Glorify thy son. Here's the question. Why? Why should the father glorify the son? Why should the son want the father to glorify the son? Well, in order that the son also may glorify thee. The only reason he asked any poor thing for himself in this particular sentence was simply so that he would be the better equipped to glorify God. This prayer is for God's glory. His glory is an essential element, it's an essential step in the roots to God being glorified. The father needs to glorify the son so that the son can glorify the father. We use this language, certainly, glorify. Glorify thy name. What do we mean when we say these things? Sometimes it would be really good to kind of stop ourselves in the middle of hymns and say, stop, what do you mean, explain it. Or in the middle of a chorus, stop, what do you mean, explain it. What do we expect to happen when we ask God to glorify himself, to glorify his name? Or when we magnify the Lord? How do you make something bigger, which is already infinite in size? Do you think about this, any questions? Maybe it's just a peculiar way my mind works, but to me it's important. Words are the way in which truth is revealed and communicated. It's the way in which ideas are made real so that other people can share in them. The one that we speak of, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Bible refers to him as the Word because he is the one who reveals what the Father is thinking. He's the one who reveals what the Father is like. It says in the book of Hebrews that in past times God had spoken in different ways, at different times to the prophets, but in these last days he's spoken to us in the Son. That is to say categorically that Jesus Christ is God's last Word. He has nothing else to say that he has not said and is saying in Jesus Christ. Everything he wanted to say he's expressed it. I guess most preachers, although people who listen to preachers think that sometimes they are very eloquent and they find words easy to come by, there aren't many preachers who don't feel the adequacy when they try to preach and speak about the Lord Jesus. It's like the wonderful old hymn of Isaac once, you can join all the names, you can join all the titles, but they're all, if you put them all together they're still too mean to set my Saviour forth. You always feel as though you've failed, you didn't quite express, say what you wanted to say. And I suppose in a measure it was the same with God through all his faithful servants down through the Old Testament period. He was able to say certain things to certain individuals, but there were always things he wanted to say and wasn't able to say because the people didn't have the language, they didn't have the experience, they weren't able to say what he wanted to say. And then he says, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. When Peter wanted to put up three little shrines, tabernacles, one for Elijah and one for Moses and one for Jesus, this voice spoke from heaven and said, this is my son, hear him. All you've got to do is listen to him. This is all I want to say. One of the things that the Lord Jesus refers to later on in this chapter is he speaks about manifesting his name. He says, I've manifested to them your name. I've declared to them your name and I will do it again. Now he doesn't just mean that he's giving sort of secret code words for who God is. This isn't like sort of one of the ancient mystery religions where people believe, and as they do still in something like the Masons, that if you have certain names to God, you can get closer and closer because you've got the name which initiates you into a greater... That isn't what he's talking about. When he talks about manifesting the name, he simply means revealing the character. God's names, we've often said this when we've been together, God's names are not labels. God's titles are not labels. They are revelations of his character. Every single one of them is God showing us something about himself. You know, don't you, that we could know absolutely nothing at all about God unless God had chosen to reveal himself. Can a man by searching discover God? The answer is no. You could go through the book, from page, from the first page to the last and you'll discover nothing unless God is pleased even in the book to reveal himself to us. If he walks through, he says, no one has known him, no one has seen him, only the Son who's in the bosom of the Father. There's only one person who can tell us what God is like. There's only one person who can show us what God is like. There's only one person who can manifest the name, not just one of the names, the name, the whole character of God. That's why the Lord Jesus said to Philip, remember Philip came with a question and he said, just show us the Father and we'll satisfy. And Jesus said, Philip, if I've been with you so long and you've not known me, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Now that is either gospel truth or it's megalomania. The only person who can say that is someone who is off his head or someone who speaks it in absolute truth. And what he says here, I've manifested your name. The only way that God can be glorified is by being revealed. And if God is able to reveal himself in the likes of you and me, he is increasingly glorified because people have an increasing view of what God is like. But there was only one time when God was revealed in all his glory. And it's this period of time that Jesus refers to as the hour. So I want us to have a look at this hour, not just for this hour, but to look at this hour and see in this hour, this period of time that comes from the time when, if you like, the shadow of the cross has fallen upon him. When the events of Calvary are now just within reach. And the cross, and the entombment, and the resurrection, and the ascension, all these show forth the Father's glory. In these events, in this hour, in this unit of time, God is revealed in a way that he's never been revealed before or since. And that's why the scripture says, God commends. And the tense is important. God continues to commend, to demonstrate his love towards us in the while Christ, we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. There is in the death of Jesus Christ, in the resurrection, in his ascension, in his enthronement, there is a revelation of what God is like that you can't touch anywhere else. It's brought strongly into focus at this point. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, authority over all flesh. Then you've got this, this that is there again. Why has God given to the one that we now refer to as the Lord Jesus, why has God given to him all authority over all flesh? Even the people who deny him, even the people who put him to death, even the people who mock him, the people who want nothing at all to do with him, he's given to them, he's given to the Lord Jesus Christ authority over them all. Why has he done that? Well, here's another one of these, in order that. He's praying, thou hast given him power over all flesh, in order that he should give eternal life. Let's pause there for a moment. And I want to kind of focus this right down so that we really do understand he is the only source of eternal life. God has given to him authority over all flesh so that he can give eternal life and no one else can do it. The preacher can't do it, you can't do it, you can't achieve it. You can't work your way into it by living a better life than the one you lived yesterday. Eternal life has to come as a gift. And one of the amazing things that comes out again and again in John's writing is just the wonder of the life they saw in Jesus. It wasn't just his miracles, it wasn't just his teaching. That was amazing and it was profound. But what they saw in him was they saw the quality of a life. They saw in him something that they'd never seen anything like it before and they never recovered from it. Let me read something that was probably written, maybe the best part of 60 or 70 years after the Lord Jesus had no longer been seen on the earth. This is John's first letter. It's almost at the back of your Bible. Then John chapter 1. Now look how he expresses this. This was probably right at the end of the first century or this would be in the A.D. 90s or something like that, almost certainly that John wrote this. So that's 60 years at least since the Lord Jesus had been seen physically by anyone on the earth. Listen how John expresses this. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon at our hands of handle of the wood of life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it. Can you see this? This is a man who is still thrilled and amazed with what they'd seen, with what they'd heard, with what they'd handled, with what they'd examined. And it wasn't the miracles. It wasn't the wonderful teachings. It was something different to that. They touched life. In him, God is talking about light and conscience, but in John chapter 1 it says, in him was life. And the light was the light of the world. In him was light. What is life? What is eternal life? We have a hymn book here, this dark blue one, called Hymns of Eternal Truth. And I know the man who was the first person to call it Hymns of Eternal Length. And I'm not going to tell you who he was. He isn't kind of part of our circles, as it were. But some folks have begun to kind of take it up and they use it as a joke, Hymns of Eternal Length, because they are an unshortened version of Wesley. Anyone who calls it Hymns of Eternal Length is only showing their ignorance. They are only showing that they think eternal has got something to do with length of time. Eternal has nothing at all to do with duration of time. It has to do with quality. It's not quantity, it's quality. It wasn't that in Jesus they saw an eternal length of time, something out of the ordinary in how long it was going to last. What they saw in Him was something out of the ordinary in terms of quality. They saw in Him a life that they'd never seen anywhere else. And it's life. And it says here in Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17 that the reason that the Father gave Him authority over all flesh was so that He could give eternal life. In John's last one, I think it's chapter 5, there's a certain point where Jesus is explaining as best He could in those days He says, understand that as the Father has life in Himself, so the Son has life in Himself. Now, you and I do not have life as an inherent part of our nature, it's a gift. One day God will withdraw your breath, as the scripture says, your spirit will be over. And you cannot survive for one moment without God sustaining you. The Father, the Son, God Himself, He is, to use one of Leslie's hymns and a wonderful hymn, He is the only self-sufficient being. He needs no one. He needs nothing. Perfect in harmony, perfect in self-existence. And from time to time you hear kind of poetic preachers who say, well, He needed fellowship. There's one or two hymns I can think about that speak of Him needing fellowship and so creating the human race, He needed nothing. God complete, entire, satisfied, complete in Himself, in Him with life. Let me show you, I think it's Titus. The letter of Titus and the first chapter. What does Paul mean? Titus chapter one. Paul, a servant of God. I'm not going to get to verse three, so let me read you verse three. We have in due times manifested His Word through preaching. I love that little phrase. You know, that's the whole purpose of preaching. To manifest the Word. To give God an opportunity to reveal Himself, not to display our knowledge and not to try to communicate any knowledge that we may have to people who don't have it. That's not the purpose of preaching. The purpose of preaching is that the Word might be manifest. God who reveals Himself might be manifest. Anyway, that's nothing to do with what we are, it's just a wonderful verse. Verse one. Paul, they're all wonderful. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is according to Godliness. And then he says this in verse two. In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. I'm sure you've read that verse often. And I'm sure you've asked the question, if He promised it before the world began, who did He promise it to? I hope you read and think as you read. If this is a promise that was made before the world began, who received the promise? What you're getting here is a glimpse into eternal counsels. You're getting a glimpse into the fellowship within the Godhead. You are getting a glimpse of a time when a decision was made, and we're right on the edge of anything that we could ever understand here, and the decision was made that eternal life would not just be within the Godhead, but that creatures would enjoy it. Creatures would begin to experience eternal life. And the promise was made in the Godhead, that was made of the Father to the Son, that if the Son would walk the Father's way and do things that the Father had given Him to do, He would be qualified to give eternal life to as many of those as the Father gave to Him. He made a promise. That's why the Father had given Him authority over all flesh, so that He can give eternal life. And I'll say it once more in this way, because I really don't want you to miss this thing. Eternal life is not detachable. This is the record that God has given to us, eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Now that's nearly almost all monosyllables. So anyone who says they don't understand the Bible, it can't get any simpler than this. Eternal life. This life is in the Son. He that hath the Son hath life. How many words is that? I'll do it again. But it's all single syllables. It can't get any simpler than this. God has put life in His Son. He that has the Son hath life. He that has not the Son of God hath not life. It's not a question of whether you've believed the right things, or made the right decisions, or prayed the right prayers. It's not a question of whether you've been brought up in the right circumstances. It's not a question of what other people have done to you, whether they've prayed for you, or promised you, or given you verses. It has nothing to do with any of that. Eternal life is in the Son. He that hath the Son hath life. Because that's where it is. He's the one who has it. And He can't give it by detaching it from Himself. He has to give it by giving Himself. You see, it's important to know who this is we're talking about, isn't it? If He gave everything, in order to make it possible for us to know the love of God, let us go on a little bit. Because it says here, So as many as thou hast given Him. In the first instance, in this prayer of the Lord Jesus, He's really referring to the people that we refer to now as the twelve disciples, or the twelve apostles, who are just eleven still continuing with Him at this time. And He's saying here that He knows the Father has given them to Him. A little bit later on in this prayer, He'll say, Those that you have given to Me, I've lost none of them, except the ones from a tradition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. So He's saying to the Father, The men that You trusted to Me, the men that You put into My care, I've kept them. And He'll say certain things. He'll say things like this. He says, I've given them Your words, and they've received them. You know, that is the key thing about listening to a preacher, or listening to the truth in a hymn, or a song, or in your own prayer, or whatever it is. There's a verse, and I think it's pretty sure it's the Psalms, I'm not absolutely sure, and it says, The entrance of Thy Word, give us life. Notice, the entrance of Thy Word. I could stand up here, and we won't do it, if you say you needn't be worried, but I could read from Genesis to Revelation for you, and it wouldn't do you any good at all. It would be of no advantage to you at all. Unless it enters. It's the entrance of God's Word that gives life. It's not just the knowing of it. There are people who know this group far better than you will appear. And apparently for some of them it has never entered into them, and their lives are quite unchanged. I did three years of theological studies at one time in my life, and had to study lots of kind of modernist theologians, and you can't help but be impressed with their knowledge. You can't help but be impressed with their knowledge very often of the text of the Scripture, but largely they're in darkness. It's not personal at all, because it's never entered. And because it's never entered, they're just as dark now as they were. Ever learning, Paul wrote to a certain group of people, never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Because the truth, again, is not just an object that you can take off a shelf. I am the way, the truth, and the life, said Jesus. Not I am part of it, not I have some of it, I am. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. They are either the sayings of someone who is stark raving mad, and who'd be safer locked up in an asylum alongside the people who cook their boiled eggs or Napoleon or something like that, or what is speaking is absolute and true. There's no other alternative. What was one other alternative? He could be a wicked man. He's either a fool who doesn't know what he's saying, or he's a wicked man who knows what he's saying and knows it isn't true. Or he's the son of God, and what he's saying is absolutely reliable, and you can receive it. And as a consequence of receiving it, you will thereby become qualified to receive eternal life. Notice how carefully I'm choosing my words. I didn't say that thereby you would receive eternal life. I said thereby you would become qualified to receive eternal life. Come back with me to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. I'll read from verse 8. It's referring at this point to John, John the Baptist as we call him. Verse 8, John the Baptist, he was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lights every man that is coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave the authority to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. It's worth looking just briefly at these couple of verses. Look at verse 13 for example. It tells us how we become God's children. Or it tells us how we don't become God's children. It says these are people who are born of God that we're talking about, people who become God's children, but that doesn't happen by blood. That's to say, it's not hereditary. Your parents may have been the most wonderful Christians, but their Christianity does not pass in their blood to you. You do not become a child of God because your parents were a child of God. If that were possible, you would actually become God's grandchildren. And God has no grandchildren. God only has children. People who are related to him without anything, without any other generation in between. So, it's not by blood. It's not by heredity. Secondly, it's not by the will of the flesh. That's to say, it's not by your own personal energy, your determination, by your human effort, that you can become a child of God. Don't think, as some people have said in the past, that Jesus has left us a kind of an example, and as long as we follow the example we will be where he is. It's not by the energies of the flesh. It's not possible through human effort or human energy. You can put all your energy into it for the whole of your life and you will never become a child of God anymore if you wanted to. You can put all your energy for the whole of your life into becoming a carrot. And you will never become a carrot. Do you know how to catch rabbits? You sit in a field and make a nose like a carrot. You can't. I mean, you can't be what you're not. You can't be what you're not. No matter how hard you try. You cannot be God's child by the flesh. Now here's another one. And this is really, this is a sobering warning to all preachers. Not by the will of man. I can't make you a Christian. I can't make you a child of God. I would love to be able to. I would love you to know what God has prepared for you. I would love you to know what you were destined for in many ways. But I can't do it. I can point the way. I can say, this is the one you must come to. I can say, He is the one who can make you a child of God. His life is in Him. By His grace, His life is in me. But it's derived. His life in me is His life in me. It's not my life. I can't give it. His life is His life. He can give it. But He can't detach it. So, if you see what it says. Isn't the Bible wonderfully clear? You know, so often when people, you begin to preach or you begin to ask a question, the first part of your answer is a whole list of it's not this and it's not that and it's not the other. Because very often there are implications built into the question. And you've actually got to say, well, that's a duck question. You've got to sort the question out before we can really answer it. And the answer here, part of the answer is, it's not by this, it's not by that, it's not by the other. Well, how is it then? Well, it says here, verse 12, As many as received Him, to them gave He the authority to become the sons of God. In other words, He authorized them, ultimately, to become the sons of God. Now, there were other things that would have to happen in order for them to become. Notice this does not say, As many as received Him became the sons of God. Please read the Bible carefully. It doesn't, I mean, evangelicals say it says this, but it doesn't. It does not say, As many as received Him became the sons of God. It says, As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become the sons of God. You see, at this point in time that John is captioning here in John chapter 1, there were many things that Jesus would have wanted to do, but was unable to do. Did you know that there were things He wanted to do in heaven? He referred to His death once on that occasion. He said, I want to cast fire on the earth. I have a baptism to be baptized with, but I am straightened. I'm narrowed. I am restricted until that's accomplished. Until certain other things are done, I can't move on to the things that I really want to do. It's part of the significance of Jesus saying, He lifts His face to His Father and says, Father, the hour has come. Can you hear in that this? This hour they talked about in an eternity past. They talked about a time, I'm guessing, I'm using human words to try and explain, that a time past in eternity they spoke about how men and women would receive eternal life. How God would create. How sin would enter into the world. How God would have to deal with that by God Himself becoming a human being. Coming in the likeness of sinful flesh. Paying the price. Going through it all in order to get to the thing that was in God's heart from the beginning. That creatures that He had made would have eternal life. They looked forward to it. But when Jesus spoke of His baptism, He said, I'm straitened. I'm narrowed, I'm restricted. There are things I want to do, but I can't do them until that thing is done. It says here, to those who received Him, for them He gave the authority to become the Son of God. It's almost like receiving a permit to go into an exhibition or a show or something like that. Some of you will know my family, some of you the older ones will know my family. One of my daughters I remember many years ago, she was very excited and she was going to a birthday party. And she had been a bridesmaid, I think, the week previous to this. So she got her bridesmaid outfit and it was all kind of blue, shiny stuff, satin or something like that. With little flowers on it and she got a little bow-tie hat and she really looked so pretty. She was looking forward so much to going to this birthday party. And I got in the car and they set up the door and I knocked at the door. And the lady opened the door and as soon as I saw her face I knew there was something wrong. And I said, are we too early? And she said, you're a week too early. You see, we had our authorization, we had received it, we held it in our hands, you're invited to a birthday party. But you've got to read the whole thing. There's a date coming and until the hour comes you can't use this. It's your authorization, it's yours. As many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become the sons of God. It's His great prayer. You've given Him power over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. And then He sent this into the spring. Another one of those vats had built into this. And this is eternal life. Now what do you think you're going to get next? The definition of eternal life? Now there are many people who will tell you that this is the definition of eternal life. It isn't. This is the definition of the purpose of eternal life. This is eternal life in order that. Tell me, why do you want to have eternal life? Do you want eternal life for the same reasons that God wants you to have eternal life? Do you want eternal life so that you don't go to hell? Do you want to have eternal life so that you can have your sins forgiven? Why do you want eternal life? Well according to this, this is like eternal. This is the purpose of it. You receive eternal life in order that you may know God Himself. Do you know why that is? God, eternal life, God can only be known by people who have the same kind of life. It doesn't mean God can only love people who have the same kind of life. But He can only be known by people who have the same kind of life. I love dogs but I don't understand them. And they don't understand me. We've got one, a very kind of bright creature, the stuff that's a bulldozer as we usually say. It's 99% energy and 1% direction. But it's, there's a kind of a, the dog is curious and you can see at times it's trying to understand why we do things that we want to do. And you have to love to explain it to it, don't you? This is kind of my Dr. Doolittle syndrome. I would love to be able to talk to the animals. But I can't. They can't talk to me because we don't have the same kind of nature. Let me show you a little story. Way back in Genesis. Genesis chapter 2. Can't go much farther back than that. Genesis chapter 2. Do you ever wonder what the man did before the woman was created? No weapons to run? No tusks to get off jaws? I mean, what did he spend his time doing? Well, this is what he spent his time doing. Here it is, verse 15. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, If every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, It's not good that the man should be alone. I will make him help, perfectly answering to him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not an help meet for him. This sort of old English idea of help meet, it doesn't really mean a servant, someone to take the top stuff of jars and do that kind of stuff. It doesn't mean that. It really means someone who is... You see, what you've got in here, God created lots of other kinds of life, all kinds of animal life, and man can have a certain sort of connection with animal life. I hope you'll like animals. I hope you understand that there's something special about the human race and animals. We have some kind of destiny that hasn't gone the way it was intended to go. There are traces of it that are left, or should be. But you can't have fellowship with an animal. You can have tremendous fun with a savage bulldozer, if you've got the strength. Don't mind the scars. But you can't have fellowship with animals. You see, I mean, I used to kind of talk to children like this, and I'd say, well, just imagine you, you know, he's a monk here, doesn't look too dissimilar to us. And you can have lots of fun with it, but you can't have fellowship with him. And, um, look, he's a bear. He's got kind of more strength than you are. You can wrestle with him all morning. You have some great trials of strength that men seem to love to do. So you can't have fellowship with him. He's a parrot, we can pinch it, one or two words. You can't have fellowship with him. Can you see, using the blank word that's come out of this one, can you see the poignancy here of this last one? But for Adam there was no help meet for him. There was all this animal creation with amazing variety, wonderful, wonderful qualities, seeing in this animal and that animal, and animals looking at them means identifying specific things, it's giving them their names. But the end of this little story is, but for Adam there was not a help meet for him. There was nothing that answered to him. There was nothing that shared his life. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and clothed up the flesh thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. You see, he was looking for something, but he wasn't finding... There was kind of dogish kind of life in a dog, and monkeyish kind of life in a monkey, and bearish kind of life, but he was looking for something that was mannish, something that was like himself, something that answered to him, like a reflection in a mirror, something which he was comfortable with every single point, something which could share that that God had given him to do. That's what he was looking for, and he couldn't find it in any of this. And then God takes this wonderful initiative and He calls a deep sleep to fall upon him. And you've got this little phrase here in verse 23, and in my version it says, Adam said, This is now. It's almost as though you can hear the sigh of relief. This is it. This is what I was looking for. This, we can know each other. That's the Bible language it uses, isn't it, later on. We can know each other. Well, that's why God wants to give us eternal life. This is eternal life. This is the purpose of eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God. Isn't that amazing? God wants to do something for you and me that makes it possible for us to have something in common with God. I'm using my words very carefully. We will never become gods, but we will become partakers of the divine nature. God will put his own life into us, something which answers to him in a way that no other part of the creation could, so that God could do things that he has in his heart with this creature that has begun to share his likeness that he could never do with anything else. And that's the purpose of eternal life. It's just a by-product that it lasts for longer. It's the quality that's the key thing. It's what it makes possible. It makes it possible for men and women to know God, not just to know about them. Remember what we said last night, for any who weren't here, that John loves verbs in his writings. And I just commented on the fact that the word knowledge has a lump of something that you can acquire and then pick a box does not appear in John's gospel. John never talks about knowledge. He talks about knowing. John never actually talks about faith as a thing that you can identify and pick another box. He talks about believing. He's always interested in the process. He's always interested in the journey. He's interested in life, because life isn't an event. It's a process, where every part of it touches every other part of it. And God's purpose in giving us eternal life is not so that we would just know Him and know a great series of, a list of facts about Him. This is not knowing about Him. This is knowing God. I was talking at breakfast to a new friend and discovered that he now lives about 200 yards away from where I live for about over 20 years. This is where the story comes to mind. There was an occasion when I and the Queen were together on the Stratford Road. I was on the pavement. She was in a Rolls Royce. I mean, it was, you know, I know what she looks like. I could tell you pretty much how tall she is. I think I could tell you what color her eyes are. Because I like history, I could tell you quite a bit about her family. I know quite a bit about her, but I've never met her. I don't know her. Maybe you know a lot about God. Maybe you're slowly putting together your information. You're getting to know Him. Are you getting to know Him or are you getting to know a list of facts about Him? The purpose of eternal life is not so that you suddenly become an expert, a theologian, with all kinds of information that you didn't have before. It's to give you a nature that can correspond and communicate with God so that you can know Him and Jesus Christ and be His son. You can know Him. And I mean by process. I don't just mean one event where you can say, yes, this happened to me. I mean, you can know Him day by day, morning by morning, moment by moment. You can live in fellowship with Him. This is why He wants to give you eternal life. He wants to give you eternal life because He wants to know you. And He wants you to know Him. And He wants you to fellowship together. And here it is, all in His prayers. And know you the only true God. And He says here, And Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I've looked about five or six times in John chapter 17 where Jesus refers to Himself as the one that the Father has sent. It's interesting. He doesn't use the noun. He uses the verb. If He used the noun, you'd get the word apostle scattered throughout it. He doesn't use the noun. He uses the verb. So you've got sent all the way through. Jesus is the one who has been sent. That's to say, He is not only the one who has this unique relationship with the Father that's spoken of His Father and Son. He's the one who the Father has commissioned. He's the man under authority. That's what the Roman centurion saw. This isn't a man who's doing his own thing. He's not just making it up as he goes along. This is someone who is living his life according to the will of God. And he's going to see it right the way through. It's going to have an almost unbelievable cost that he's going to see it through right to the very end. He's going to see it through so that in his own person, in his own being, in his own personal history, you will see what God is like. There are many others here and I'm not quite sure how far we'll get with this who have been touched by sorrows in their life. We were thinking of that. We were saying that wonderful hymn together of Henry Stafford. I remember the story rightly. He knew that the boat had sunk and ultimately received a telegram from his wife which said, Saved Alone for August. It's a long time ago now and he's been with his Lord for a long time and God has wiped away every tear in his eye. It's worth having a tear of tears. God wipes them away. And yet the comfort that God gave to Henry Stafford has been comforting hearts here this morning. The sorrow was intense and short-lived and now the tears are wiped away but the blessing that came from it goes on and on and on and on. And He'll do that with your sorrows too if you give them to Him. He wastes nothing. There's a lovely obscure verse in the Psalms that says He keeps all our tears in a bottle. That's a peculiar way of saying He wastes nothing. Every tear is precious to the Lord. It says of our Lord Jesus that He cried, He prayed earnestly with tears. We shall come on to that, not my next session but the one after that when we shall find Him in Gethsemane crying with strong tears. But He's counted the cost. This was the purpose. What shall I say? Father saved me from this hour but for this cause I came to this hour. He came to glorify God. He came to reveal God's character. If you want to know what God is like there's a place called Calvary where God has revealed forever what He is like. And you may be confused and perplexed about the things that God allows and I am. But at the heart of my conviction is this that God has revealed what He is like. And I interpret everything else in the light of that supreme revelation of what God is like. I don't start off my say by saying how can God be a God of love? I start off by saying God is a God of love. And I must understand this in the light of that supreme fact that an hour came when God was glorified, revealed in all His amazing love. It's amazing how it says at the beginning of John's Gospel we beheld His glory. The glory as of an only son with a father. Imagine glory. What kind of pictures are you getting? Lights, shining angels, armors. Let's wait a minute. Full of grace and truth. This is His glory. This is who He revealed on the cross. A God full of grace and truth. This is prayer. We will pray. We will leave it until the next time. Let's pray. Father, thank You for this hour. This hour when man was revealed in all his full horror and God in all His glory. Thank You Lord for this terrible hour when man was revealed to be a fear side, a God murderer. Energized by an alien power that had captured his life. And in the same moment God was revealed in all His glory. Truth and mercy kiss. Oh, we thank You. We thank You Lord that in the midst of all our perplexities there stands this unchangeable fact. That God demonstrates His love toward us. And as while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Lord Jesus, thank You. I'll go back a step. Lord Jesus, Father, thank You for Henry Stafford. Father, thank You for giving him the grace to go through and this wonderful him that is now part of our heritage. Father, thank You for all Your servants whose lives continue to touch ours. Father, thank You for him who was supremely. The servant of the Lord who came to do the will of God. Went through step by step. And in a moment of supreme triumph cried, it is finished. Thank You Jesus for showing us the Father's face. Thank You Lord for saying You can come to him through me. Thank You for accepting this awesome commission to come into our world and to take on humanness and to go through all the consequences of it even becoming sin. You who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in You. Thank You for taking away every obstacle and for coming through Lord with the power to give eternal life to all who come to You. Lord Jesus, we come to You now. Thank You for Your continual great love to us. Again Lord, we hold before You and commend all our loved ones. We thank You for Your hand upon their lives. And we know Lord that they are safe in Your hands. And in that our soul is at ease and at peace. After not understanding, then our emotions are shot to pieces for our soul is at peace. Thank You. Amen. Amen.