Thirty-Ninth Meeting
(March 8, 1964 A.M.)
Reading:
John twelve, verses twenty to twenty-six:
"And
there were certain Greeks among them that came up
to worship at the feast: the same came therefore to
Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired
him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and
telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that
the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto
life eternal. If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and
where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man
serve Me, him will My Father honour."
In order
to appreciate the meaning of these verses, it is
necessary for us to see their setting. If you will look
again, you will find that these words were said at the
time of the Jewish passover. The great Jewish passover
was about to be celebrated in Jerusalem, and Jews from
all over the world were gathered in the city. Jews out of
every nation were represented there at this time. But
there was something special about this particular
passover. It was the last passover in the earthly life of
the Lord Jesus. It was the last time that He would keep
the passover on this earth. If you read on in this
Gospel, you will see that it was not long after this that
Jesus kept the passover with His disciples in the upper
room. That is what He meant when He said here, "The
hour is come that the Son of Man must be glorified."
This was one of the greatest hours in the history of
this world. So that everything that was happening carried
a very special significance for the Lord Jesus.
Among
the many peoples who had come to Jerusalem for this
passover were these Greeks. We do not know why they
wanted to see Jesus. But that does not matter very much.
Jesus was being talked about everywhere. Everybody was
speaking of His miracles and of His teaching, and no
doubt His fame had gone far and wide. When these Greeks
came to Jerusalem, they found that everybody was talking
about this Person called Jesus of Nazareth. So they
thought that they would like to see Him, and they came to
one of His disciples and they said, "Sir, we
would see Jesus." They wanted an introduction to
Jesus.
Let us
say again that all nations were represented in Jerusalem
at that time. These particular visitors said, "We
would see Jesus." Jesus did not say, 'Well, bring
them to Me,' or 'I will come out to them. I will grant
them their request, and let them see Me.' He did not go
to them and say, 'Now what is it you want to see?' He
said something that did not seem to have any connection
with their desire. He immediately uttered these
remarkable words, He said, "The hour is come that
the Son of Man should be glorified." "Except a
grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth
by itself alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much
fruit."
What did
Jesus mean by saying that, at that time? Men said,
"We would see Jesus." Jesus answered,
"Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and
die." Is that any answer at all? It does not look
like an answer to their question. It almost looks as
though He is ignoring their request. It seems as though
He is talking about something else altogether. He did not
seem to take any notice of these Greeks. He did not say,
'Well, they want to see Me. I will go out and show Myself
to them.' He did not say, 'Bring them to Me.' And when
they came He did not say, 'Well, here I Am, now you can
see Me.' He said, "Except a grain of wheat fall
into the ground and die, it abideth by itself
alone." And yet, in those words, He answered
their question. He answered their question in a much more
wonderful way than ever they expected. What Jesus really
meant was the way in which they wanted to see Me is not
the true way. They will only see Me as Jesus of Nazareth.
They will only see Me as an object of their curiosity.
They will only see Me as Somebody about Whom people are
talking. They will only see Me as Someone Who is of
interest here in Jerusalem at this time. And that is not
the true way to see Jesus. And so He said this seemingly,
mysterious thing.
What He
meant was this: It is not the historical Jesus, it is not
the physical Jesus. But it is the Jesus of death and
resurrection. The only way in which you will see Jesus
will be as THE RISEN LORD; the One Who has gone into
death and has triumphed over death and Who Lives for
evermore as the conqueror of death. And we, here today,
know that He was right. We are a company of several
hundred; but all over this world today, there are
millions of people like ourselves, people who know that
the Lord Jesus is alive, people who have the experience
of the living Christ, people who know that although He
became dead, He is alive for evermore.
I say
there are millions of such people on the earth today. How
many more millions there are in Heaven since Jesus was
here, we do not know. John, in the Book of the Revelation
describes it in this way, "A great multitude, which
no man could number, of all nations - ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands" (Rev. 7:9;
5:11). Now I expect there are some mathematicians here
today, but here is something that goes beyond your best
mathematical ability. John finds it quite impossible to
describe. Thousands and ten thousands and thousands of
thousands, and a great multitude which no man could
number. Out of every nation and kindred and tongue, and
they all came from one little grain of wheat. One grain
of wheat which fell into the ground and died, and then
was raised from the dead by God Almighty. When you see
that great multitude on earth and in heaven, then you see
Jesus.
These
Greeks said, "We would see Jesus." But Jesus
said, 'This is not the way to see Me. If you really want
to see Me, you will have to see Me in Resurrection with
My Life distributed into a great multitude which no man
can number. That is the way,' says Jesus, 'In which you
will truly see Me.' All the nations were represented in
Jerusalem, but Jesus is saying, 'I shall be seen in men
and women out of every nation.' Now that is the great
truth that is set forth here. It is a very wonderful
thing, but of course it is a great challenge. What does
it say to us? It just simply says this, that if we are
united to the Lord Jesus, He is to be seen through us!
He has
His Own personal existence in Heaven, but so far as this
world is concerned, and so far as eternity is concerned,
He has got to be seen in His Own people. Do you see what
a challenge that is? If anybody in this world says,
"We would see Jesus," they ought not have to go
to Jerusalem, or to any part of the world. Their question
ought to be answered by us. They ought to see Him in us.
It ought to be possible for people to say in that man and
in that woman, 'I have seen Jesus. In that company of
Christians, I have seen Jesus.' I used to say, 'I would
see Jesus,' but I have come to see Jesus in His Own
children. Jesus has no other way of showing Himself to
this world, but through you and through me. And the only
purpose for which we are here as the Lord's people is to
show Jesus to the world, that if anybody wants to see
Jesus, they can see Him in us.
Do you
notice that Jesus here passes immediately from Himself to
other people? First, He is saying that He is this grain
of wheat, "The hour is come, that the Son of Man
should be glorified." - I am the grain of wheat.
Then, He immediately passes to others and He says,
"He that would save His life shall lose it." He
brings us into this matter. He is not alone. He brings us
alongside of Himself to show Himself to the world. Having
said that, we must look at this law of manifestation,
because what was true of Him, has got to be true of us.
And if He says that the way of true manifestation is
through death and resurrection, that is what He means by,
"He that keeps his life, will lose it. He that loses
his life for My sake, shall keep it." He is only
saying that we have got to go the same way as He went. We
have to go the way of death and resurrection in union
with Him. This is the law of manifestation: What was true
of Him, has got to be true of us.
Now I am
not speaking about the death of our bodies, and I am not
speaking about going into the grave of the cemetery, and
some day when the trumpet sounds, we shall be raised from
the dead. That is not what is meant here. This death and
resurrection is a spiritual experience. It is the
experience which has to come into the life of every true
believer. Many of you know what the Apostle Paul wrote in
the sixth chapter of the Letter to the Romans. He said,
'We were crucified with Christ, that is, when Christ
died, we died in Him, we were buried together with Him.
When He was buried, we were buried in Him. We were raised
together with Him, and we walk in newness of life.' That
is a spiritual experience. It all has to lay right at the
foundation of every Christian life, and believe me, dear
friends, Jesus will never be seen until we have that
experience. Only as we go THAT WAY will we
be a revelation of Jesus Christ. It is through crucified
men and women that Jesus is seen. The law of the true
manifestation of Christ is the law of death and
resurrection union with Christ.
Let us
come back to this grain of wheat. Jesus said that He was
that grain of wheat, and it falls into the ground, and it
dies. What does it die to? If you were to open the ground
after a week or two, and look for your grain of wheat,
what would you find? You would find that nine tenths of
it had gone. You would not be able to find the greater
part. All that you would find would be just a little
germ, a very small part of that grain of wheat. All the
other has gone. What is it that has gone? Well, all that
which was capable of seeing corruption has gone. And that
which cannot die remains, and it is that which is raised
again. What are these nine tenths that had to go? Now if
you know anything about yourself, you know quite well
that that describes you. The greater part of us is
ourselves. "The self-life," what the New
Testament calls "the flesh," and in the death
of Jesus, the self-life has to go. In order that that
true Life of Christ may be raised from the dead. So to
die with Christ, to be crucified with Christ, just means
that the self-life has been put to death. The self-life
has been buried in the grave of Jesus.
We know
what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, "I have
been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that
live, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20; ASV).
"No longer I, but Christ." I have died with
Christ, and now it is just Christ Who lives in me. And if
Christ lives in you and in me, other people will see
Jesus. So that the law of seeing Jesus is union with Him
in death and resurrection. It is death to all the
self-life. Now what happens to this little grain of
wheat? It has surrendered a great deal of itself, but
when that has taken place, the life that is in that
little germ is released. It is no longer in bondage to
things here. No longer in bondage to this world. No
longer in bondage to all the limitations of this life.
Through death, this Life is released. It is like a
prisoner set free.
You
remember on the Mount of Transfiguration, it says that
Moses and Elijah were speaking to Jesus, and it tells us
what they were speaking to Him about. Perhaps you have
not noticed that. You know about the transfiguration. And
you know that it says that Moses and Elijah were there
speaking to Him. And perhaps you have not noticed what
they were talking about, but it tells us what they were
speaking to Him about, and here unfortunately our
translation does not have it. In the original language,
it says they were speaking to Him about the EXODUS that
He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. Everybody who
knows the Old Testament knows what the exodus is. There
is a book in the Old Testament that goes by the name of
Exodus. It is the book of the story of the deliverance of
Israel from the bondage of Egypt. God broke their
bondage. They went out a free people, and they sang a
great song of deliverance. They were able to say, 'We are
out at last. We have had our exodus, we are free.' They
can sing about their deliverance from bondage. Now that
is exactly the same word as is used here on the Mount of
Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah were talking to Him
about the exodus which He was going to accomplish in
Jerusalem. His Cross was going to be His exodus, His
deliverance from all bondage. In His Resurrection, He
would be free. The Life which was in Him would be
released.
So we
come back to our grain of wheat. It falls into the ground
and it dies, and then its Life is released, and up that
Life comes. You see a little green shoot coming through
the earth. It grows and it grows, and then there begins
to form the whole wonderful combination of that grain -
what we call the ear of corn. Let us take this ear in our
hands. What have we got here? Not one grain, there may be
fifty in one ear, or it may be more than that. Then we
take every one of these, and we let them fall into the
ground and die. And if it is fifty grains, we are going
to have fifty times fifty. If you go on like that, this
thing will spread all over the world. All this worldwide
testimony has come from the release of the Life of one
grain. If you look into every one of the millions of
grains, you will find the Life of the original grain. So
it is not only a case of multiplication of Christians, it
is a case of the re-embodiment of Christ's Life in every
one. In His death and resurrection, His wonderful Life
was released, and that Life has passed into every true
believer. Jesus said, "I am come that they might
have Life, and that they might have it abundantly."
He came into this world for that special purpose. So that
it is His Life in us, which reveals Him to the world.
But let
us look still more closely. The law of seeing Jesus is
the law of sacrifice. Jesus said, "He that keepeth
his life" - there is such a thing as keeping your
life to yourself, of holding on to your own life, of
saying this life is mine. This belongs to me, I keep it
to myself. Jesus said, "He that keepeth his life
shall lose it." "He that loses it" - or
lets it go - "shall find it unto Life eternal."
The law then is the law of sacrifice. The law of letting
go our life for Christ. Do you want to find your true
vocation in this world? Do you want to find the true
purpose for which God created you? Do you want to find
the true purpose for which Christ died for you? Do you
want to know what God wants to do with you? And God does
want to do something with you. He has called you
according to a great purpose, and every one of you has a
place in the thought of God. There is some purpose
relating to your life in God's will. There is a vocation
with which you are called in Christ. Do you want to find
what that is? Do you want to know what Christ has called
you to? Well, here is the law. While you hold on to your
life for yourself, you will never know. Jesus says,
"He that loses his life shall find it;" that
is, whoever will give up his own life for My sake shall
find the purpose of his life.
Now the
disciples of Jesus had great ideas for their own life.
They had their own ambitions in life. Sometimes they said
to Jesus, "Grant that when Thou comest into Thy
Kingdom, we may sit one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy
left hand." And we read that they had a quarrel one
day. Think of the disciples of Jesus quarreling. They are
having a really hot dispute. One is saying no, and the
other is saying yes, and what is it they are quarreling
about? Who shall be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
See,
they got an idea of the Kingdom as being something of
this world, and of themselves as being very important
people of that Kingdom. They had ambitions for
themselves, and their lives. They had their own ideas of
what they wanted to be and wanted to do. But look at them
after the Cross of Jesus. That Cross has struck a very
heavy blow to these disciples. All those old ideas are
gone, all their own personal ambitions are gone, and now
it is only for Christ that they want to live. So
disciples became apostles: From something just local,
they became worldwide; from something just of time, they
became eternal. After two thousand years we are still
reading about them. We are still getting values from
them. If the world goes on for another two thousand
years, it will be the same. Of course, it may not go on
for another two thousand years, but as long as this world
does last, the values of these men's lives will be going
out to people everywhere.
They let
go their own ambitions for Christ. They died to their own
thoughts and plans for themselves in order to have
Christ's plan. They found their true life's work when
they put themselves wholly into the hands of the Lord
Jesus. When they said to Him, 'Lord, not my way, but Your
way; not my will, but Your will, not my plans for my
life, but Your plan; not my ambitions, Lord, but what You
want for my life.'
So we
pass from just being ordinary people living a life for so
many years and then going into the grave. There comes
into our life this wonderful thing. Jesus is seen. Jesus
lives through us. There is no greater thing to live for
than that, and if anybody in this world is hungry to see
Jesus, if there is anybody who is really in their heart
saying, "I would see Jesus." Do
you know what the Spirit of God will do? Jesus will not
come down out of Heaven to that person. He will not say
personally, "Here I am." He will lead that
hungry soul to you. He will bring those who want to know
Him to you. He will bring you to them. You know, the New
Testament has a lot about that.
There
was a man, once, who was traveling in his chariot across
the desert. He had been up to the feast at Jerusalem, but
his heart was hungry. All the religion in Jerusalem, had
not satisfied his heart. He had heard the priests
talking. He had seen the sacrifices being offered. He had
seen all the crowds filling the temple, but he was going
away, back to his country, a disappointed man. His heart
was still hungry. All that religion had failed to satisfy
his heart; and as he was sitting in his chariot, going
back to his far away country, he was reading the Old
Testament. And he was reading the Prophet Isaiah, he came
to chapter fifty-three. He read that chapter. And he
said, "I wonder what that means. I would give a lot
if only I understood what this prophet is talking
about."
And as
he traveled with his heart toward God, God knew about
that hungry heart, and God had a man some distance away.
He said to that man, 'Go down to the desert, I have a
piece of work for you to do there.' He did not know what
he was going for, but he obeyed the Lord, and he traveled
all the way from Samaria down to the desert. And as he
was wondering what it all meant, he saw this chariot
coming along. And the Lord said, "Go and join
yourself to that chariot." And as he got near, he
heard this man reading the Scripture, and he said to him,
"Do you understand what you are reading?" The
man said, "How can I understand it if no one teaches
me? Who is the prophet speaking about?"
And
Philip opened his mouth at the same Scripture, and
preached unto him Jesus. And the man saw; and when they
came to a certain water; and he said to Philip,
"Here is water; what does hinder me to be baptized?
What does hinder me from being united with this Christ,
in death and burial and resurrection?" Philip said,
"If you believe with all your heart, thou
mayest." The man evidently said, 'Yes, I believe
with all my heart.' And both of them went down to the
water, and Philip baptized him. The end of the story is:
"And the man went on his way rejoicing" (Acts
8:26-39). God knows where there are hungry hearts. God
needs to have people who know the Lord Jesus. And God
will bring them together.
Perhaps
you are a hungry heart. Perhaps religion has not
satisfied you. Perhaps you are still wanting to see
Jesus. Well, the Lord will bring somebody across your
path. He will arrange that your heart does not remain
hungry. He will bring you into touch with that which
helps you, which will lead you into a real experience of
Christ, and you will go on your way rejoicing. That is,
if you do what this man in the chariot did, believe with
all your heart and surrender your life wholly to the Lord
Jesus, and then the world will see Jesus through you.