Love, Shine, Whisper

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, it’s your friend, Bob Cook. I’m back again and I’m glad. I hope you are too. [laughter] I look forward to these times when we can get together around the Word of God. We’re looking now into the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, such a rich and wonderful portion of God’s Word where we are allowed to listen in to the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ as He approached His darkest, but His finest hour on Calvary. He said the hour has come and just as we went off the air the last time, I was reminding you that when He said that, wrapped up in those few words is the immense awareness which He had because He’s God. He knew it all. The immense awareness which He had of everything that He was facing: The agony of prayer in the garden, the betrayal by Judas, the forsaking of Him by all of His disciples, the mock trials, the scourging, the sending to Herod to be further made sport of and then back again to Pilate, the cry of the crowd, “Crucify him.” Some of the same voices doubtless that had been shouting, “Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” during what we call His triumphal entry just a few hours previous.

He knew what was coming. He knew the feel of the spikes in His hands and feet and the thud of the hammer upon the metal and the piercing agony of all of that then being suspended in space where every breath required that He flex His leg muscles in order to lift the body so that He could breathe. Oh, when we talk about Christ crucified for us, I don’t think any of us have the remotest idea of even the physical agony through which our Lord Jesus Christ went, let alone the Bible says, “All thy waves and billows have passed over me.” All the sin of all the world laid upon him as God’s slain lamb. John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” Paul said, “Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.” And Isaiah, speaking in prophetic tone, said He was wounded for our transgressions. “He was bruised for our inequities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed.”

My Lord Jesus, thank you for taking my sin on the cross. There He was, He said the hour has come. This is it. There’s no turning back. I get so impatient with these secular attempts to blaspheme and to downgrade the image and the character of our Lord Jesus Christ: Films, and books, and all that sort of a thing. In our culture, the heathen have just as much right to speak as have we. But we have just as much right as they to say we don’t believe a word of it. Jesus is God. And there never was any slight moment, no split second of indecision in him. He said, “The hour is come. This is it. Let’s go.” Oh, how grateful I am for a wonderful Savior. Aren’t you? Well, that wasn’t in the sermon, I just got blessed. [laughter]

Now he says, “Glorify thy Son that thy Son may glorify thee.” There’s a spiritual principle here that I want you to see. We oftentimes ask God to use us. I recall many a prayer meeting with young people. I’ve dealt with young people all my life, and Youth for Christ, and then college work, and all that. And I recall hearing many pray from time to time, “Lord use me. Lord use me.” What we fail to realize is that usefulness is a by-product of the shining of God’s presence and the touch of his Spirit upon our lives. Someone says you have to be made useable before you’re useful to somebody else. Paul had the same reasoning when he spoke to Timothy, he said, “If a man therefore purge himself from these,” that is these sins and faults that hindered God’s work. “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified.” The word sanctify simply means set apart for God’s special use. “Sanctified, and meet for the master’s use.” And that meet for the master’s use is a word, a Greek word ‘euchrestos,’ easy to use.

I sometimes have used the illustration of my favorite wrench when I was a garage man back in college days. When I came to Moody Bible Institute from high school I was already in business in fixing cars and selling them. That’s the way I made an extra dollar through those school days. And every mechanic knows that you have certain tools that are your pets, you like them, you guard them, you don’t loan them out to anybody. I remember I had a half 9/16 wrench that was especially made. It had a curved neck on it so that it enabled you to get around into tough places and I put it in the side of my coveralls always, there’s a little pocket on the right side about at the knee in many a coverall garage uniform. And I kept it there and I watched over it and I never loaned it out because that was my special wrench, I liked it cause it was easy to use.

Now that’s the word that is used in the Scripture, meet for the master’s use, easy for God to use. What made it easy? If a man therefore purge himself from these things that hinder God and grieved the Holy Spirit. You and I have to go to Calvary and bow there and let God cleanse our hearts. Let Him light the fire of divine love on the altar of our souls, let Him whisper His own love and His divine purposes to us, until in that holy moment we are reflecting something of His own glory. Paul said in second Corinthians 3, “We all with open face beholding.” See, that’s not a glance, that’s a gaze. “Beholding, as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image.” What image? His glory, shining, reflected in your life and in mine from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. And our Lord Jesus had it right he said, “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee.” In that prayer he was saying, “Lord, Father you work in me so that what I am will honor you.” And I think that’s a basic spiritual principle that everyone of us needs to get a hold of and by which we need to order our lives everyday.

Spend time with your Lord, let Him love you, let Him shine on you, let Him whisper His truth to you and then write down the things that He whispers to you so that you can think about them afterwards and they won’t be gone in forgetfulness. And after you’ve been with your Father in prayer, then you’ll be shining and you’ll be useful and what you are will provide opportunity for others to be blessed, what you are, not what you try to do necessarily but what you are will provide opportunity for other people to be blessed. “Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” “As thou hast given Him,” this is verse 2, “given Him power over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him and this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Eternal life, that He might give eternal life and this is life eternal that they might know thee.

Now how does He give eternal life? If the essence of life eternal, that’s not duration merely, that’s a quality of life. Eternal life is a kind of life, a slice of deity implanted in your very nature. If eternal life consists in knowing God and if Jesus is the one who gives that then this makes credible the Christian assertion that to be saved, one needs to trust Jesus Christ as Savior and that there is no other way. Jesus said it, our Lord said it, “I’m the way, the way, the truth and the life, no man,” there’s no side exit there, “no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” He should give eternal life and this is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. What is the human side of experiencing eternal life? He said the human side of it is that people might know God the Father and Jesus our Lord. And that word no is not the mental knokw, it’s the get acquainted know. Greek verb ‘ginosko’ which means, “Have a personal experience of.” That’s what that means.

Jesus our Lord said, “This is life eternal that they may have a personal experience with God the Father and with Jesus our Lord.” Oh, has that been true of you? This is not something you can work up, this is not something that depends upon an emotional explosion, a volcanic eruption of your soul that’s brought about by some kind of circumstances. Oh, no. This is the quiet working of the Holy Spirit of God who makes the Lord real in your life as you open your heart by faith to Him and it comes when you make Jesus your Lord. “That every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Your entree into the courts of heaven depends upon whether or not Jesus is Lord of your life. I have to tell you this, this is God’s truth, it isn’t Bob Cook talking, this is what Jesus said must be your entrance into the courts of the heavenly Father depends upon whether or not Jesus is Lord of your life. Make Him that today, would you? I’m talking to somebody who may have argued it, and fought it, and wobbled around trying to find some other answer. Right now, wherever you may be, it’s just whisper a prayer say, “Lord Jesus, be my Lord and Savior. I give myself to thee. I turn it all over to thee.” And He then will introduce you to that blessed relationship with God the Father which is not only happy, and satisfying, and fulfilling but dynamic. You will know what it is to have in you and in your life, eternal life. The quality of God in the everyday routines of life.

Dear Father, we’re thankful for the rich and satisfying truth of Jesus our Lord as found in this wonderful Book of John. Apply it to our hearts I pray in His name. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!