Our Lord is here, under most solemn circumstances, expressing His mind as to three things:Himself; His people; the world. As to Himself, that He should be received back into the same place He left when He came into this world, in answer to God's love for it:As to His people, that they might be kept from the evil:As to the world, His solemn refusal to ask for it, because it hath not known the Father. Within the brief space of five verses He expresses His desires as to Himself, while the remainder is occupied with His thoughts as to His people, the world, and their connection with it. If we take up the last two first, how short and simple withal the story ! "I have given them thy word ; and the world hath hated them " (verse 14). The witness of Jesus here is His last witness of the world before the Father; and what a character He gives it! For, no matter how we regard it-whether as that system of things in which men find their occupation and pleasure, or over which Satan is god and prince -the Lord declares its character:that of hatred of God's work and of those to whom He has given that word. If therefore you have it hidden in your heart, that fact only brings out against you the world's deep-seated enmity.

The reason of this is, man hates God and everything connected with God. In the fifteenth chapter for all from chapter 13:to 17:is one discourse) here are three things in prominence :abiding in Christ, hated by the world, and witnessing for Christ.

Abiding in Christ is not position in Him before God, far out of reach of law and condemnation, but carrying in" my soul an abiding remembrance of what once was-a sinner under sentence of death-and of what I am now-a sinner saved by grace. It was the Samaritan leper that returned to give thanks. Having no earthly priest to go to, to distract his mind by religious ceremonies, and in the deep sense of defilement that shut him out from God's presence, he could now

"Fall at His feet, and the story repeat,
And the Lover of sinners adore."

Hence, to abide in Christ is to remain in this place. There it is God communicates the secrets of His love; and without the knowledge of deliverance from one's defiled condition by sin, there can be no worship. Judah's prince was Nahshon. Judah means praise. Nahshon-a diviner-one that can divine the mysteries of heaven, and in the knowledge of heaven's mind about Jesus can worship Him.

This is what our Lord assures us of-that the man who has this will be hated. What is it we are speaking about ? It is the thorough hatred the world has for the man abiding in Christ. So that in John 15:the three characteristic words are " abide," found in the original thirteen times in the first sixteen verses; "Hate," found seven times in verses 17 to 25; and "witness"-"ye shall bear witness" (verse 27). And He prays they may be taken not out of the world, but kept from the evil. Beloved brethren, let us, then, rather than touch the defiled and the defiling thing, realize the Lord's own awful judgment of its character. He passed through it; gave full proof to it of His eternal divinity; and yet His final word concerning it was:" O, righteous Father, the world hath not known thee." How, then, can we who have been redeemed from it find our delight in it, or in those who are of it?

As to Himself:He desires to be received as man back into the same place of glory He had with the Father before the world was. Who here would withhold Him from that place ? Is He not worthy of that place ? Were there a place higher still, would we not exalt Him there ?

God only knows how to play upon our affections. Who else could do this ?-who win our love as He ? W. H. J.

December 16th, ‘94

[The beloved writer of these lines fell asleep the day after their writing-absent from the body, present with the Lord.