By W. Easton & S. Ridout, at Plainfield Meeting, July,'89).

By WM. EASTON (Jno. 17:)

I have read this chapter, beloved friends, not with the idea of expounding it, but just to set forth a few thoughts about it, in order to make the Lord Jesus "Christ Himself a little more precious to us. We can never make too much of Him. I shall never forget the remark of a dear old servant of God many years ago, when he asked me on one occasion to supply a pulpit for him. As I was leaving the house, he said,-

" Remember, now, God delights to hear any one speak well of His Son."

I have never forgotten that, beloved friends, and through God's mercy I try to the best of my abilities to speak well of His Son. And I want so to set Him before our hearts to-night that the very youngest Christians in this tent shall find that the Lord, in however feeble a measure, has been endeared to their hearts; and if we succeed in that, it will be an immense thing.

And here let me say another word before going further. It is not God's gift to us that we are to speak about. Were we speaking of that, and unfolding that, we should turn, in all probability, to the third chapter of John's gospel, where we read that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is God's love-gift to the world. Blessed one it is, surely. Would to God that every one in this tent knew it! Would to God that every one in this tent could say, "I have got that; I have stretched out the hand of faith, and have taken hold of that gift, and now I can say, ' Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift;' I have eternal life. I know the Father, and I know the Son of the Father; and my heart is acquainted with both." What a thing to say! Many times I am positively astounded, in preaching the gospel, at some of the simple truths-truths that we call elementary-that we almost feel ashamed to talk about before a company of saints, because of their simplicity, and yet how profound their depths ! The sacrifice of the Son of God ! or the love of God ! what do we know about them, beloved brethren? Next door to nothing. There is a depth in such themes that our souls have never yet fathomed. There are heights we have never yet reached. May the living God give us to enjoy more even the so-called elementary truths, such as " God so loved the world." Beloved brethren, we have never exhausted that theme, therefore we need not be ashamed to preach from it. We have never got to the bottom of it yet, and all true-hearted saints will be delighted to hear it, and to pray for it.

We commence, then, with this:God has not only been pleased to give a love-gift to us, but He has been pleased to give a love-gift to His Son. He has given something to Christ, as well as given Christ to us, and therefore our theme is not, " God so loved the world, that He gave His Son; " but it is, God so loved His Son, that He gave the saints to Him. What a wondrous thought! And beloved brethren, that is just what I want to set forth tonight, so that even the youngest Christian here may have larger and grander thoughts of the Saviour, and be able to enjoy Him more than ever.

I want, then, to get fastened in our minds this blessed thought, that God has given us to Christ. " Oh," you say, "we knew that years ago." I know that, my friends, but remember you haven't sucked all the honey out of it yet. God has been pleased to take hold of you and me; and, to show the fullness of His heart's love for His beloved Son, He has given us to Christ. Tell me, how does such a thought affect your soul and mine? Can you estimate the value that the Lord Jesus Christ puts upon
you as the Father's love-gift to Him? Can you tell what the thoughts of His heart are toward us? What must He think of us? This is the way to look at His love. And, dear young Christians, never let us forget this :every thing depends upon the person who gives the gift. It is not a question of the value of the thing itself. It may be very trifling and insignificant-any thing but a costly thing; but the question is, who gave it ? I can tell you, I carry a little thing in that pocket-just a tiny little thing, yet money won't buy it. Another person perhaps wouldn't give ten cents for the thing itself. All the cents in America could not buy it from me. Why ? Simply because of the giver. How blessed, then, to think that the eye of the Lord rests upon every saint in this wide world with affection and delight, because they have been given to Him ! Yes, that blessed One looks down from the heavens into this tent to-night, and sees and values and loves even the feeblest of His own. Beloved brethren, it is the most wonderful thought imaginable ! God has given you and me to His beloved Son ! What a revelation this is to us ! It was the gift of the Father to the Son. It was just as though He said to the Son, " You see how I love You, and I am going to give You something that I know You will value." Thus the thoughts and feelings of the Saviour toward us are molded, if we might so speak, by this blessed fact, that we are the Father's love-gift to Him.

Now if you take and read this chapter at your leisure, you will find that the words, " give," " given," and "gavest" occur seventeen times,-the same number as the chapter. They give a character to it. And it lets us see that the Lord Jesus Christ looks upon the saints with this thought in His mind. Just as though He said, " This is the gift that My Father in His love has given to Me, and now I will tell out My heart, so that they may hear what the thoughts and the feelings and the desires of My heart are about them." He might have whispered that prayer into the ear of His father about us without letting us know, but the blessed Lord would not do that. That would not satisfy His loving heart; hence we hear Him saying, "These things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves (5:13). He would have it communicated, He would have it written down too, so that you and I might listen to the breathings of His heart into the ear of the Father, and learn the wondrous fact that they were about us-He was praying for us. What a wonderful thing! Beloved brethren, do we enter into it ? Oh, does it not endear Him to our hearts? It is occupation with Him that endears Him to our hearts, as we sometimes sing,-

" I look to Him till sight endear
The Saviour to my heart."

Oh, what a blessed thing it is, just to get the eye of faith upon that blessed Object, and drink in the revelation there unfolded to us in this seventeenth of John, and listen to the breathings of His blessed heart, and to put ourselves in the midst of that hallowed circle that He calls " His own." Just think of it, and take it home to your own heart. Me, a poor, weak, worthless thing in myself, perhaps just converted, and to think I am dear to the heart of the Lord! Who could express it but Himself? No one. But He has made it all known to us in this chapter, that we might have the enjoyment of it all now, and be with Him forever and forever by and by. How true is that word, " Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end "! (Jno. 13:1:)
Now what is the first thing He gives us when He thinks of us as the Father's love-gift to Him ? Well, He says, the first thing I will give them is eternal life, "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him" (5:2). He knew that our poor wretched hearts could never understand these things unless He gave us a new nature capable of understanding and enjoying them, therefore He says, "I will give them eternal life;" "and this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (5:3). Now do not let us forget that the Lord is not here defining what eternal life is,-He is not giving us definitions of eternal life ; He is telling us the characteristics of it. The man that has it knows the Father and the Son:" That they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." I understand human life because I am a human being myself, and have the same life that every man has. In like manner I understand and am able to enjoy, according to my measure, the Father and the Son, because I have the same life in me-eternal life. Isn't that a wonderful thought, beloved friends? Isn't it a marvelous thing to begin with ? He says, " I will give them eternal life." Every child of God has it; they could not be children of God if they hadn't it. They never did any thing for it. It was the pure sovereign act of God in giving it to them. The Lord says, "I will give them eternal life." We have got it, thank God. We are not putting it far away over yonder, and hoping that some of these days we shall get it. No ; we have it, and enjoy it now. Then there is another thing:"I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world." Here there is relationship, and knowledge of it. I am not speaking of how far they entered into it, but merely of the fact itself; for all through, the Lord was revealing the Father. Isn't it a wonderful thing to know the Father,-to know the heart of that One that gave His well-beloved Son to us, and gave us to His Son ? And that is what all young Christians know. Even the babes know the Father (i Jno. 2:13). The Lord Jesus is here speaking of His disciples, but the application is equally true to us, as He says further on in the chapter, "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word " (5:20); so that all believers come in, and may have the enjoyment of it. And it seems as though the Lord knew that Satan would try to steal that away from us, and that some long-headed individual would come in with his reasoning, and say, " Oh, that was only for the disciples," and. He put that little word in for our comfort, " Neither pray I for these alone, but for those that believe on Me through their word." Oh, what a blessed thing it is to know the Father! There are many of the dear children of God who seem afraid to say, " Father." You hear them speak about God, and sometimes in their prayers they address Him as the Great and Holy, and Almighty Lord God, and use all those great and glorious titles of God;-titles which are all true in their place, but which are not the familiar but reverent utterances of a child to its Father. Ah, it is another thing to know God as Father ! To be able to say that the Father's name has been revealed to my heart, and I know that He is my Father. That gives the boldness-the affectionate and holy boldness of the child. And such a thought, beloved brethren, does not give license, but it keeps us steady and sober; for we know that while that One who is up there is our Father, we know that our Father is God. What an important thing that is ! Never let us forget it. That blessed God is our Father, but He who is our Father is God. This gives Him His place, and keeps us in ours. It is well for us to keep these things clear and distinct, beloved brethren, especially in these days, when people are attacking the Word of God on every hand, and taking or leaving just what they please; and when some are making every thing of the universal Fatherhood of God, without the new birth, and various other notions which men spin out of their own brains.

Again, you find Christians speaking about the blessed Lord, and calling Him their Elder Brother. This is a shocking thing ! I hope none here will ever do it. If the Lord Jesus, after having borne all our sins, and the penalties due to us because of those sins, upon the cross, and having been raised by the glory of the Father, and ascended to His right hand,-if He in grace associates us with Himself in resurrection, and deigns to call us brethren, let us adore Him for the grace that could do it; but never let us seek to bring Him down to our level, and call Him "Brother." Thomas did not say, "My dear Elder Brother;" but " My Lord and my God." Oh, see to it that we give the Lord His true place. Let us not use language that even unintentionally lowers Him.

Then there is another thing:the Lord's care for His own comes out here so beautifully. "While I was with them in the world, / kept them in Thy name; those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled " (5:12). And then in the ninth verse, " I pray for them:I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine." And in the eleventh verse, " Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are." Is it not blessed, beloved friends, to see the value that the Lord Jesus attaches to us, and the interest He has in us ? He gives us eternal life, makes known the Father's name to us, and then, in view of His going away, makes the fullest provision for our being kept, by putting us into the care of the Holy Father. It is just as if He said, "These poor things are so precious to Me that I couldn't intrust them to any one else, so I will hand them over to the care of the One who gave them to Me, for I know His heart, and He will look after them:' Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me.' (5:ii) 'While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name'" (5:12). And in the ninth verse, " I pray for them . . . which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine." Isn't that a wonderful thought ! Think of our being put into the care of a holy Father! Sometimes we forget this, beloved friends. Sometimes we forget the character of the One that is looking after us. It is well to bear it in mind, and to walk in the sense of this solemn but blessed fact:my Father is the holy Father, and as such, He would have His children in keeping with His own character; so I must think of that, and seek to act accordingly. It is not, beloved friends, that it makes us melancholy. I don't believe that having the sense of the Father's love makes us pull long faces. I don't believe that God ever meant His people to pull long faces and appear miserable. I believe that holiness does not tend that way at all. That is legality, and, alas ! many of the saints of God are legal to a degree; but legality is not liberty, and liberty is not license. There is holy reverence when we approach the presence of God, but there is a freedom without levity. God means us to be natural and real. We are not all cast in the same mold, so we need not try to imitate each other in any way; only let us be real, and keep before us the fact that our Father is God,-that He is the holy Father. And if we know this, do not let us seek to get out of it in any way, but let us seek to be consistent with it, and at the same time to be joyful and real in our hearts before Him. God looks for reality, and He will have it. Let us therefore beware of assuming any thing.

Well, He is keeping us, caring for us. What should we do if He wasn't ? I am not speaking now of the Lord looking after us as the High-Priest, etc., but of the care of the holy Father. May our hearts enter more into it.

But there is another thing, beloved friends. The Lord is going to have us with Himself. He has given us eternal life; He has revealed the Father's name to us; He has put us into the Father's hands while He is away; and now He says, " I am going to have these poor things, that I love so much, with Myself up there;" and He says, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory" (5:24). Isn't that a beautiful thought, brethren ? that there is a glory which the Lord Jesus Christ cannot give to us, but He knows we shall be delighted to behold it. He counts, as it were, upon the affections of our hearts. He knows we shall be delighted with the thought that there is that which is His which He never could communicate, but which we shall be delighted to behold, while we worship and adore. And that corrects some strange thoughts that are going about to-day. People are getting into serious errors in this connection. Some are saying that the saints are on an unqualified equality with the Lord; others, that everything that the Lord Jesus is and has as man, the Christian is and has; and others, that all His acquired glories the Christian will share with Him. Beloved brethren, I deny it. To me, it is an awfully solemn thing to make such statements. Yet I have even seen such a statement in print, and handed round to meet supposed current errors, that "all that Christ is and has as man, the Christian is and has." I say again, I deny it. It is false. Will he who made that statement have the bride ? Christ as man will have her. Will he sit upon the throne of David ? Christ will sit upon that throne. Will he have the glories of the first and second of Hebrews ? Never. Yet Christ has them. Yes, He has glories peculiar to Himself, even as man, which we can never share. Blessed be His name forever and ever! But there is one thing absolutely certain, that there is not one single thing that the heart of the Lord can give to us or share with us that He will withhold from us-not one. He will give us everything His loving heart can give. But let us beware, and not rob Him to exalt ourselves.

And when it is a question of seeing Him, and being with Him, He says, "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." How is that going to take place? Is He going to send for us? No. Is it the angels that are coming? No, not even the highest of them. He will not even send Michael or Gabriel. The saints are so precious, so valuable, that He says, as it were, " I must go after them Myself." When, therefore, the time comes that He must have us with Himself, (and this verse is to have its fulfillment,) it is Himself who comes. As the apostle beautifully puts it, "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven," etc. (i Thess. 4:16.) It is not another Jesus:it is the "same Jesus." The One who "bore all our sins in His own body on the tree" (i Pet. 2:24); who bears all our sorrows on His heart on the throne. Yes, it is the same Jesus. The One whom God "raised from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is His body." (Eph. 1:19-23.) Far above what? Name any thing you like, or any name you like:He is far above every one and every thing. And it is that Jesus whom we know and love. We have not lost Him because He has gone in there. No, no; blessed be His name ! By faith we have seen Him go up to the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, and take His seat there. There is where Jesus is tonight. Don't we know Him ? Surely, we do ! And He occasionally pays us visits, in ways so marvelous that all we can say is, you must experience it for yourselves:it cannot be explained. He says, " I will manifest Myself to him" (Jno. 14:21). You must know it for yourselves. It is so wonderful, you cannot explain it. People may say, "I don't believe it." Well, be it so. But when once you have tasted it, my friends, you will believe it then, and you will want others to taste of it likewise. Peter speaks of it when he says, "We rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified." It is not fanaticism either, but the sober teaching of God's Word. Would that we all had more enjoyment of it! And that is the One we are going to see. We are going to be with Him and like Him forever.

He has expressed His will about us, and that will shall have its accomplishment soon.
Beloved brethren, He is coming Himself. Who is it we are waiting for? Jesus. He might be here to-night. "I will come again, and receive you unto Myself," He said. How shall we go? Shall we fly? No! though we sometimes sing, "Then as we upward fly." We shall be " caught up." The same mighty power that raised the blessed Lord, and took Him up there, will be that by which we shall be raised, and we shall pass into the presence of the Lord that has loved us so long and so well;-loved us with a love that is inexpressible, because He has taken us from the Father's hand as the love-gift of His Father's heart to Him. Dear young Christian, isn't He a blessed Saviour? Don't you feel that your heart is drawn out to Him more, through this brief glance at His love? And if you should feel inclined to say, "O Lord, how very little do I love Thee, in view of such a display of Thy love to me !" take courage and comfort from this fact, that there is One who loves Him perfectly. "The Father loveth the Son;" and remember, the more we see of His love, and the more we are occupied with His love, the more will our love flow forth to Him. "We love Him because He first loved us." May the Lord give us a greater enjoyment of these things, and make them good in our souls.