3461. The Welcome Visitor

A Sermon Published On Thursday, June 3, 1915.

And when she had said this, she went her way, and called Mary, her sister secretly, saying, “The Master is come, and calls for you.” As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came to him. Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, “She goes to the grave to weep there.” Then when Mary had come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” {Joh 11:28-32}

For other sermons on this text:

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 1198, “Master, The” 1189}

   {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3461, “Welcome Visitor, The” 3463}

   Exposition on Joh 11:1-44 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3236, “Gospel Cordial, The” 3237 @@ "Exposition"}

   Exposition on Joh 11:27-46 {See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3386, “Christ Our Peace” 3388 @@ "Exposition"}

1. It seems that Martha had heard of Christ’s coming, and Mary had not. So Martha rose up hastily and went to meet the Master, while Mary sat still in the house. From this we gather that genuine believers may, through some unexplained reason, be in very different states of mind at the same time. Martha may have heard of the Lord and seen the Lord; and Mary, an equally loving heart, not having known of his presence, may, therefore, have missed the privilege of fellowship with him. Who shall say that Martha was better than Mary? Who shall censure the one, or approve the other? Now, beloved, you may be tonight yourselves, though true believers in Jesus, in different conditions. I may have a Martha here whose happiness it is to be in rapt fellowship with Christ. You have gone to him already and told him of your grief: you may have heard his answer to your story, and you may have been able by faith to say, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world”; and you may be full of peace and full of joy.

2. On the other hand, sitting near you may be a person equally gracious as yourself who can get no further than the cry, “Oh! that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat!” Dear Martha, do not condemn Mary. Dear Mary, do not condemn yourself. Martha, be ready to speak the word of comfort to Mary. Mary, be ready to receive that word of comfort, and, in obedience to it, to rise up quickly and, in imitation of your sister, go and cast yourself, as she has done already, at the Saviour’s feet. I must not say, because I do not have all the joy my brother has, that I am no true child of God. Children are equally children in your household, though one is little and the other is full-grown, and they are equally dear to you, though one is sick and the other in good health — though one is quick at his letters and another is only a dull scholar. The love of Christ is not measured out to us according to our conditions or attainments. He loves us irrespective of all these. Jesus loved Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus. He loves all his own, and they must not judge him by what they feel, nor measure his love by a sense of their own lack of love.

3. Hoping that the Lord will now bless the word to all of us who are his own people, I shall speak of two things — a visit from the Master — a visit to the Master.

4. I. Our first point is: — HERE IS A VISIT FROM THE MASTER. Martha came and said to Mary, “The Master is come” — or as we might read it truly, “The Master is here and calls for you.” “The Master is come.” “The Master is here.”

5. Beloved friends who are just now without the present fellowship with Christ, which you could fondly desire, permit me to whisper this in your ear. “The Master is here! The Master is here!” We cannot come around and whisper it secretly as Martha did, but each one of you take the message for yourself — “The Master is here.”

6. He is here, for he is accustomed to be where his word is preached with sincerity of heart. He is accustomed to be wherever his saints are gathered together in his name. We have his own dear word for this — the best pledge we can have — “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We have met in his name, we have met for his worship, we have met to preach his gospel; and the Master is here. We are sure he is here, for he always keeps his word; he never fails to keep his promise.

7. He is here, for some of us feel his presence. Had Mary said to Martha, “How do you know that the Master is come?” she would have answered, “Why I have spoken with him, and he had spoken to me.” Well, there are some among us who can say, “He has spoken to us.” Did we not hear him speaking when we were singing that hymn just now?

   My God, the spring of all my joys,

      The life of my delights,

   The glory of my brightest days,

      The comfort of my nights.

Did we not perceive him to be near some of us, when we were singing: — 

   Oh! see how Jesus trusts himself

      Unto our childish love,

   As though, by his free ways with us,

      Our earnestness to prove?

I, for one, did, if no one else besides; I can bear good witness to you who are languishing for his company, “The Master is here.”

8. And notice, he is here none the less surely because you have not, as yet, found it out, for a fact does not depend on our cognisance of it, though our comfort may be materially affected by it. The Master was at Bethany, though Mary had not heard an inkling of the good news; there she sat, her eyes red with weeping, and her whole soul in the grave with her brother Lazarus. Yet Jesus was there for all that. Make the case your own; though you may have come here troubled with all the week’s cares — though while you have been sitting here the thought of something that will happen tomorrow has been depressing you — though some bodily weakness has been holding you down when you would lift up your spirit towards God, yet that does not alter the fact. “The Master is come”; the Master is here. Oh! there was Mary sighing, “If only Christ had been here! Oh! if only Christ would come!” And there he was! And perhaps you are saying, “Oh! that he were near me!” He is near you now. You sigh for what you have, and pine for what is near you. You do not think, like Mary Magdalene, that he stands in this garden. You are asking, “Where have you laid him?” While your joy and comfort seem dead to you, he, whose absence you mourn, stands present before you. Oh! that he would only open those eyes of yours, or rather that he would open your heart, by saying to you, “Mary!” Only let him speak one word straight home to you personally, and you will answer with gladness, “Rabboni!” The Master is come here, though you as yet have not perceived him.

9. That word “The Master” has a sweet ring about it. He is the Master. He who is come is earth’s Master. What are your cares? He can relieve them. What are your troubles? He can overcome them, and sweep them out of the way. The Master has come. “Cast your burden on the Lord: he will sustain you.” He is hell’s Master. Are you beset with fierce temptations and foul insinuations of the arch-fiend? The Master has come. Oh! lift your head, you captive daughter of Zion, for your bands are broken. The Breaker is come up before them; their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at the head of them. He who has come is no menial servant, but the very royal Master himself. The Master is come. Even though your heart now seems cold as a stone, and your spirit is cast down within you? Even though death has set up its adamantine throne in your heart? The Master has come, and his presence can thaw the ice, dissolve the rock, bring you all the graces of the Spirit and all the blessings of heaven that your soul can possibly require. “The Master is come” — does that not touch your soul and fire your passions? Whose Master is he but your own? And what a Master! No taskmaster, no slave’s master, but such a Master that his absolute sovereignty inspires you with sweetest confidence; for he binds you with the bonds of love, and draws you with the cords of a man. Master he is indeed! Indeed, Lord and sole Master of your soul’s innermost core if you are what you profess to be; the Master whose sceptre is the sceptre of reed which he carried in his hand when he has been made a scorn and scoffing for you; the Master whose crown is the crown of thorns which he wore for our sins when he accomplished your redemption. Your Master. You shall call him no more Baali, {my master} but his name shall be called Ishi. {my husband} He is only Master in that same sense in which the tender loving husband is the master of the house. Love makes him supreme, for he is Master in the art of love, and, therefore, Master of our loving hearts. How sweetly does “my Master” sound! “My Master.” Why, if nothing else might bestir us to get up and run to meet him it should be the sound of that blessed word, “The Master is here: the Master has come.”

10. But Martha added — and it is a very weighty addition (may the Holy Spirit make application of it to your heart) — “and calls for you.” “But is that true?” one says; “does he call for me?” Dear brother, dear sister, I know that if I say he does I shall not speak without his warrant, for when he comes into a congregation he calls for all his own. He speaks, and he says to all whom he loves, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” I know he does, because love always delights in fellowship with the object that is loved. Jesus loved you even before the earth was created. His delights were with the sons of men from old eternity. He loved you so well that he could not stay in heaven without you, and he came here to seek you and to save you. And now it gives his heart joy to be near you. He says, “Let me hear your voice; let me see your face: for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is beautiful.” I tell you it is Christ’s lower heaven to hear the voices of his people. This is why he left heaven — so that he might give them voices with which to praise him. Do you think he loved you so much, and will live without you? No, he calls for you.

11. What is his Word, indeed, all through, but a call to his own beloved to come to him? What are Sabbath days but calls in which he says, “Come away! come away, my beloved, from the noise and turmoil of the city, and come into the quiet places where my sheep lie down and feed”? What are your troubles but calls to you in which, with somewhat of harshness as it seems to you, but with an inner depth of love, he says, “Away my beloved, from all earthly delights, to find your all in me”? What is the Communion of the Lord’s Supper but another call to you, “Come to me”? The bread which you shall eat, and the wine which you shall drink, these are for yourself, and the call which is encompassed by them as by symbols is for each one of you. The Master is here, and calls for you — for each one. “Oh! but” says Mary, “my eyes are bleary with weeping.” He calls for you, you red-eyed sorrower. “No, but my heart is heavy with a sad affliction.” He calls for you, you burdened sufferer. “No, but I have been full of levity all the week, and have forgotten him.” He calls you so that he may cleanse you yet again. “Ah! but I have denied him.” What does he say but “Go, and tell my disciples, and Peter?” He calls for you, so that he may forgive you yet again, and may say to you, “Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me?” I do not care who you are, if you are one of his, the Master is come and calls for you. “Why,” one says, “no Christian has spoken to me for a long while.” But the Master calls for you. “But I seem so solitary in this great metropolis, and though I know my Master, I do not know any of his people.” Never mind his people: “The Master is come, and calls for you.” “No, but I think if I am one of his I must be at the very tail-end of the list, and the last one of all.” He calls for you — for you. Oh! may that word now come home, and may each one feel, “If he calls for me, there is such condescension in that call, such tender memories of my weakness, such consideration for my distance and my forgetfulness, that I will loiter no longer. Is the Master come? Lo, I am ready for him. Does the Master call? Lo, my spirit answers, ‘Come, Master, my heart’s doors are flung wide open. Come and sit on the throne of my heart. Enter in and dine with me and I with you, and make this a glad time of intimate fellowship between my soul and her Lord.’”

12. II. Turning now to our second part, let us talk for a while about: — A VISIT TO THE MASTER.

13. It follows on the first as an appropriate sequel. We never come to Christ until Christ comes to us. “Draw me: I will run after you.” That is the order. It is not, “We will run after you: Lord, draw us.” Neither is it this. When a soul is saying, as we sang in the hymn just now: — 

   If thou has drawn a thousand times,

   Oh! draw me yet again,

 — then, beloved, he is drawing us. When we are praying to be drawn, we are being drawn all the while.

14. In answer to the Lord’s visit, you will notice the conduct of Mary. She rose up quickly. She bestirred herself. Oh! let each one of our souls now say, “Has the Lord called for me? Why, then, should I loiter or linger for a single moment? I will get up this very moment; I will say, ‘My Lord, I am come to you. You have called me, and here I am.’” Oh! for grace to shake off the sorrow that makes some hearts sit still! Mary’s dear brother was recently laid in the tomb, but she rose up quickly to go and meet her Master. Dear mother, forget for a few minutes that dear unburied child still in the house. Forget for a while, dear husband, that sick wife of yours towards whom your heart so naturally flies. Forget, beloved, just now, all that you have suffered, all that you expect to suffer, all that you have lost or may be losing. The Master is come, and calls for you. Rise up quickly. Do not let these things constrain you to inactivity of spirit, but rise up now, and by his grace come away from them. She bestirred herself; she put on her best efforts, so that she might not delay when he called.

15. And then she went, we find, just as she was. She rose up quickly, it is said, and she went: she came to him. No sooner said than done. She arose and she came. Well, but should she not have washed her face? Tears add very little beauty to the maiden’s visage. And that hair of hers, I do not doubt all dishevelled — might she not have arranged that a little, and prepared her dress, and made herself trim for the Lord? Ah! that is a temptation for most of us: “I cannot expect to have fellowship at the table, because I have not come prepared.” Brother, you ought to have come prepared, but, at the same time, if you have not, rise up quickly and come to the Master as you are. The Master had seen Mary with tears before, for he had felt her tears on his feet. He had seen her with dishevelled hair before, for she had wiped his feet with the hairs of her head. If you are out of order, it is not the first time Christ has seen you like that. I do not think a mother’s love depends on seeing her child in his Sunday clothes. She has seen him, I warrant you, in many a trim in which she would not wish anyone else to see him, but she has loved him none the less. Come, then, you unprepared one. Come to him who knows just what you are, and in what state you are, and he will not cast you out; only be bold to believe that, when Christ calls, his call is a warrant to come, however unfit we may be.

16. And oh! how promptly she left all other comforters to come to Christ. There were the Jews who came to comfort her. I dare say they did their best, but she did not wait for the rabbi to finish his fine discourse, nor for the first scholar of the Sanhedrin to complete that dainty parable by which he hoped to charm her ear and assuage her sorrow. She went immediately to the Master then and there. So I would have you forget that there are other comforters: forget your joys as well as your griefs: leave everything for him, and let your soul be only taken up with that Great Master of yours who calls for you, for all your faculties, for all your emotions, for all your passions, for your entire self. Come right away, by his help, from everything else that would absorb any part of your being. Rise up, and draw near to him.

17. But it seems, beloved, that when Mary had reached the Master’s feet she had done all she could, for it is said that she fell at his feet. Ah! you remember she had knelt once at his feet when she washed his feet: she had sat once at his feet when she heard his words; this time she fell at his feet. She could neither kneel to do him service, nor sit to pay him the reverence of a disciple. She fell almost in a swoon, life gone from her. She fell at his feet. Never mind, if you are at his feet, if you only fall there. Oh! to die there — it would be life itself! Once get to Jesus, and you may say, like Joab at the altar when Benaiah said, “Come away, for Solomon has sent me to kill you.” “No,” said Joab, “but I will die here”; and he died there at the horns of the altar. And if we must die, we will die there at his feet. Fall down at his feet. Beloved, if you do not feel you have strength for communion tonight, never mind: it does not need any.

   Oh! for this no strength have I:

   My strength is at his feet to lie.

18. Some of us do know what it is to be scarcely able to get together two consecutive thoughts — not to be able to master a text or lay hold of a promise; still we could say, “Though he kills me, yet I will trust in him”; we could lie down at the feet that were pierced, and feel how sweet it is to swoon at the Saviour’s feet. Only go there. Let your will and heart be good to go to him now, for the Master is here, and calls for you. Come, though in the coming you should utterly fail to get enjoyment, come and fall at his feet. Do I hear any of you saying, “Ah! but I have a heavy thought pressing on my heart, and if I come to him it is not much that I can say in his honour. I feel very little love, and gratitude, and joy. I could not pour out sweet spikenard from the broken box of my heart.” So be it, only pour out what you have; for what did Mary do? She said — and the Master did not chide her, though he might have done so — “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Oh! it was half cruel, for she seemed to say, “Why were you not here?” It was unbelieving in part, and yet there is a great deal of faith in it — a sweet clinging to him. Martha had said the same; and it shows how often those two sisters had said to each other, “Oh that the Master was here.” When the brother was very sick and near to death, they were saying to each other, “Oh! if we could get the Master here!” That had been the great thought with them, so they pour it out. Beloved, when you are at Jesus’ feet, if you have an unbelieving thought, if you have something that half chides him, pour out your heart like water before the Lord: — 

   Let us be simple with him then — 

      Not backward, stiff, and cold;

   As though our Bethlehem could be

      What Sinai was of old.

Tell him the weakness; tell him the suspicion; tell him all the sin that has been, and all the sin that is haunting you. Tell it all to him; and at his feet is the place to tell it. You will be eased of your burden then.

19. Beloved, you know how Mary received consolation. It was a great day for her when she got to Christ’s feet, and then the Master began to do wondrously, and very soon Lazarus was restored. So now, your first business, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, is to get to Jesus. “Oh! but Lazarus is dead.” Never mind Lazarus. You get to Jesus, and he will see to Lazarus. “Oh! but my business fails me.” Never mind the business just now. Get to Jesus. “Oh! but there is sickness in my house.” Leave the sickness for a while now. The one thing is to get to Jesus and to his feet. “Oh! but my own heart is not as it should be.” Forget your own heart, too, and remember Jesus; he is to you all that you can need. He is made, by God, to you, “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”; and come to him quickly, and you shall have all you need. “Ah!” one says, “I cannot bear to think of God, for I do not love him.” “Ah!” another says, “but I can bear to think of him, for though I did not love him, he loved me.” And now you may say, “I cannot bear to think of coming to Jesus, for I do not love him as I should.” Ah! but think of him, for he loves you. His grace to you is boundless. Now let your entire self be put aside for a while, and remember this “faithful saying, and; worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners.” Come, then, in the strength of that!

20. I must close by saying a few words to those whom so far I have not addressed. Perhaps there are some here to whom this message has never come — “The Master is come and calls for you.” If it were to reach them tonight, it would be the first time they ever heard it. Oh dear heart, I pray it may come to you, so that this may be the beginning of days with you. The Master has come. This is certain. From the highest throne in glory to the manger, to the cross, and to the grave, the Master has come. That he calls for you, this is also certain, I think. Let me give you a text in which, I think, he calls for you. “Whoever wills, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” “Whomever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.” Does he not call for you, too, in this text, “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn to the Lord, for he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon”? Does he not call for you in this verse, where he invites all who labour and are heavy laden to come to him, so that they may rest; or in that other, “‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as wool; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as snow.’” He calls for you. Do not reject him. It is certainly matchless grace, but he is a God and no one is like him. “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are his thoughts above your thoughts.”

21. But does your heart say, “Why, if I thought Jesus called for me, I would come?” Then he does call you; that speech of yours, “I would come,” proves it; it is he who makes you feel willing. Do you long for him? Oh! he is putting his hand in at the door of your heart, and making your heart yearn for him. Does a tear drop on the floor, and do you say, “It cannot be that such a one as I should ever live and be saved, and be Christ’s”? Why, your very admiration of his grace shows that some of his grace is at work in you. Trust in him! Trust in Jesus whether you sink or swim. Trust that his arm can save: trust that his pierced hand can grasp you; trust that his heart that was gashed with a spear can feel for you. Entrust yourself entirely to him. “Go your way; your sins which are many are forgiven you.” If you have trusted him, you are saved. Come and cast yourself at Jesus’ feet tonight. Is there no young man here to whom this shall be Christ’s voice? You say you cannot believe, and cannot repent, and cannot do anything. Then fall as dead at Jesus’ feet and look up to him — to him alone, and you shall have life. Is there no young woman here burdened in heart, to whom the Saviour’s feet may become a place of refuge from all her fear? I trust there is. And if I speak to someone far advanced in years, who imagines that he, at least, must be given up by mercy, it is not so. You have only a few days more to live, but the Master calls for you. Rise up quickly! May tonight witness your forsaking of your sins, and your clinging to his cross; and one day you shall see his face in heaven without a veil between.

22. May the Lord bless you, beloved, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

Exposition By C. H. Spurgeon

1. “I have spoken these things to you, so that you should not be offended.

That you should not be surprised when you are made to suffer on my account — that you should not dread the offence of the cross, and turn aside because of it. How considerate our Master is! It seems as if he might be angry with us if he suspected that we could be offended by anything that he did or suffered, or that we had to suffer for him; but he knows the weakness of our flesh, and, therefore, he speaks with so much elaboration of comfort.

2-4. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yes, the time comes, that whoever kills you will think that he does God service. And they will do these things to you, because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have told you these things, so that when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them.

When you encounter rebuke, and slander, and jesting, and jeering against you for Christ’s sake, he has told you about them.

   Temptation or pain — he has told you no less;

   The heirs of salvation, you know from his word,

   Through much tribulation must follow their Lord.

4. And I did not say these things to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

While they had his presence, he was like a wall of fire all around them. They did not need to be protected then from dangers which had not come. And the Lord has not told us yet some of the things which he will reveal to us eventually, because the trial has not come. You feel as if you could not die at peace just now. You who dread death. You shall have dying grace in dying moments. Do not be questioning yourself concerning whether you have dying grace now. You do not need it yet. You shall have it when the time comes.

5, 6. But now I go my way to him who sent me; and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

It often happens, that if we were to enquire a little more into the sorrow, it would vanish. They did not ask him why he went away. They fretted because he was going. Now he tells them why he was going.

7.Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I depart I will send him to you.

It is a better thing for us in this world to have the Holy Spirit in us than to have the bodily presence of Christ with us. We are better helped by the Holy Spirit than we would have been if Jesus had remained on earth.

8-12. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: Of sin, because they do not believe in me: Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see me no more; Of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

Partly because their sorrow incapacitated them for hearing any more; partly because their spiritual infancy did not permit them as yet to learn the deeper doctrines which are rather solid food for men than milk for babes. Oh you who are teachers of others, imitate the prudence of Jesus. Do not teach people too much at once. Do not try to make a little child understand all that an advanced and experienced saint knows. Say, as your Master did, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

13, 14. However when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatever he shall hear, that he shall speak; and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me:

Now that is a sure characteristic of the Holy Spirit. If there is any spirit which does not glorify Christ, it is not the Holy Spirit; it is not the Comforter. If you hear any doctrine which detracts from the dignity of Christ’s nature, from the glory of Christ’s person, from the perfection and the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice, you may depend on it that it is not the doctrine of God. Reject it at once. It may poison you. It cannot build you up. “He shall glorify me.”

14, 15. For he shall take of what is mine, and shall show it to you.

The things of the Father are Christ’s. We learn them as Christ’s. The Spirit brings them to us as Christ’s, and so Christ is glorified, and we are comforted.

16-19. A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father.” Then some of his disciples said among themselves, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me’: and ‘Because I go to the Father’?” They said therefore, “What is this that he says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what he is saying.” Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him.

And that is a very sweet thing. Sometimes we are afraid to pray; sometimes we feel as if we could not bring ourselves to the prayer. But it is so sweet. “Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him.” There is the essence of prayer in the desire to pray. There is really a request which Jesus Christ can read in the heart that longs to make a request and scarcely dares to do it.

19, 20. And said to them, “Do you enquire among yourselves of what I said, ‘A little while, and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

Not merely shall your sorrow be taken away, but it shall be transformed. Just as the alchemist thought that he turned baser metal into gold, so in very truth by a heavenly alchemy Christ turns the sorrow of his people not in this case only, but in many others, into joy.

21-24. A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she has delivered the child, she remembers no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And you now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and no man takes your joy from you. And in that day you shall ask me nothing. Truly, truly I say to you, whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. So far you have asked nothing in my name.

They had asked so little that it came to nothing, and they had not yet learned the art of using his name in prayer; and a great many Christians have not learned it yet. Often they say, and they say very properly, “for Jesus Christ’s sake.” That is good, but there is something better than to ask in his name. Suppose a person calls at my door and asks me to relieve him, out of love for some friend of mine. That is very good; but suppose he says, “I come from that friend of yours, and he told me to use his name, and to put whatever you did for me on his account.” Why, that is a stronger plea altogether. Happy are those who know how to use the name, the authority, the claims, the rights of Jesus as an argument with which to back up their prayers.

24. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.

You have some joy, but there is room for more. Brethren, has your joy ever been full yet? Full? Could you not be more joyful? Oh! there have been times with some of us when we could not be more joyful than we were. We have asked, and we have received, and we have been so glad, that we hardly knew how to live under the blessed delirium of gladness. We have seemed to be carried away with an intense delight because God has heard our prayers. “That your joy may be full.”

25. I have spoken these things to you in proverbs:

In short, parabolic sentences.

25-27. But the time comes, when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall tell you plainly about the Father. At that day you shall ask in my name: and I do not say to you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

That is a very precious truth. While Jesus prays to the Father for us, yet we are not to look at that as if Christ’s prayer made the Father love us. No. Not only is it not Christ’s prayer that makes the Father love us, for it is not even Christ’s death that makes the Father love us. Often we repeat that verse: — 

   ’Twas not to make the Father’s love

      Towards his people flame,

   That Jesus, from the realms above,

      On the kind errand came.

   ’Twas not the pangs that he endured,

      Nor all the woes he bore,

   That God’s eternal love procured,

      For God was love before.

It is an exposition and display of the Father’s love; and the prayer of Christ, though blessedly useful, does not make the Father love us, or willing to grant the request. “For the Father himself loves you.” Notice the blessed condescension of Christ that he should mention his people’s virtues. He says to these men who had been with him, who really do not seem as if they had loved him very much, and certainly were not very strong in faith, but were often in such a state of unbelief that he had to say, “Where is your faith?” Yet he says, “The Father himself loves you because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.”

28-31. I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” His disciples said to him, “Lo, now you speak plainly, and speak no proverb. Now we are sure that you know all things, and do not need that any man should ask you: by this we believe that you came out from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

Are you at this moment full of faith? Do not trust yourselves. Do not begin to boast in the strength of your faith.

32. Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

Oh! you who say you believe tonight, beware lest tomorrow you should be scattered in unbelief and fear. Whatever faith we have is God’s giving, and if it remains with us, it will be because God keeps it there. But there is not one among us who has any faith to spare. We do not know if the very hour is come, even now, that will try us and make us ask whether we have any faith at all.

33. I have spoken these things to you, so that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.”

There is a blessed word of good cheer for us, everyone!

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