I’m reminded of this in a literal sense in a story that Brother Jake Roberts used to tell when he talked about one of the churches in Florida where he was pastor in the old days. He was very young in the ministry and they brought an injunction against the church for being too noisy and a lot of other things. They brought them up before the courts.
On the way to meet the court that day he knelt down by an old palmetto bush and began to pray. As he did he dropped his one dollar ninety-eight cent red-letter edition of the Bible and it fell open to one of the pages. He prayed on and then, after awhile, he picked it up.
The passage just seemed to leap out at him. It said, “When they bring you up before the magistrates and the courts think not what you shall say; but it shall be given to you in that hour of the Holy Ghost what you shall say.” He shouted around and around that palmetto bush for a while and went shouting right on into the courtroom.
They opened the case and the lawyer tried all kinds of “shenanigans.” They asked him such questions as, “Are you the pastor of that church where they turn the lights out and everybody gets on the floors and roll?” He said that he didn’t even know it was in the Bible but he quoted a scripture that he had never heard and didn’t know it was in the Bible.
He said, “The word of the Lord says answer not a fool according to his folly lest you come a fool like him.” Well by that time the Holy Spirit fell over the Church of God people in that trial and they began to rejoice and shout. They asked him one more foolish question and by that time the house fell down. The judge grabbed the gavel and started beating the desk and said, “Case dismissed. Get them out of here.”
Well I want to tell you that is a literal illustration of what John is talking about. He says, “The Holy Spirit will minister to you. He will be your counselor and when you need to know the way to go and you need advise especially spiritually, He will be that inner voice within you whispering in your heart. He will still the storm and He will guide you and He will direct you and counsel you. He will be your go between, your advocate between you and God. You will have perfect divine communion. You will be able to pray and touch the Almighty and move into the realm of the spiritual and there receive from God’s own divine hand the strength and the guidance you need.

The Holy Spirit also is to convince the world of righteousness, “Because,” He said, “I go to the Father.” What is He talking about? He is talking about His leaving – His going and the way He will go, by way of the cross. The Holy Spirit is going to make known to the world that the only way to righteousness is through Jesus and the cross. The way to be righteous is not by that legalistic form of the Jews – “If I can just keep nine hundred and ninety nine of the thousand laws so to speak, then I’ve got it made.”
That’s not the way to righteousness Jesus said. The Holy Spirit is going to convince every man who would try to dress up in his own robes of self-righteousness and every man who thinks he’s good enough within himself. It is the work and the power of the Holy Spirit to come and just simply refute such reasoning and say, “it is not so friend.” You’re condemned to die. You’re lost without Christ. There is no other way. There is no other name given among men but through Jesus Christ the Lord.
You know sometimes we preachers get a little upset and a little weary because we preach and we think somehow people should respond and repent. But after all, the Holy Spirit is there and He is doing His work and He’s zeroing in and you can’t force Him and
you can’t force people.
That’s one reason you have great difficulty in trying to get people saved on the spot every time. Because you can’t manipulate the Holy Spirit and it requires the work of the Holy Ghost to convict a man so that he feels guilty in his own heart. You can’t tell a man and help him get saved and tell him he’s lost unless the Spirit convicts him that he is lost.
Oh, it’s easy to get some people to make decisions that don’t last and to make efforts that don’t bear fruit – to make decisions and even to make testimonies that don’t last till next Sunday.
But oh, when a man gets arrested by the Holy Ghost and He comes to him and surrounds him with the light of truth and with the word of God and puts him under arrest and the man falls on his face and he says, “I’m a sinner. I’m lost and there is no other way unless God has mercy” – that kind of repentance and conversion will last and will hold on till death itself comes.
One of the great curses against the work of the church in these days is the lack of real genuine, authentic conversion. If somehow the Holy Spirit could minister in a greater way, there would be more genuine, authentic conversion repenting experiences in the lives of people.

Then He brings to light the fact and truth of judgment. Judgment is not just a day out in the future – although it is that. There is a judgment day. But judgment is a process that goes on in the world continually so that men who shun the truth and who turn away from God are already under the process of being judged by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus said, “The prince of this world is already judged.” His case is come up before the Almighty judge and he is weighed in the balances and found wanting. He is found guilty.
Not only that, but every man’s case is constantly coming before the high court. In that court there is no bribery of the jury because the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Godhead himself, stands as both prosecutor and judge to point the finger of charges and accusations and nobody can escape them.
Each person may offer excuses. He may present his arguments and complaints. He may say what he will. But when the final verdict comes, there is no deviation, there is no turning, and there is no hypocrisy. The light wins out. The truth shines through. The verdict reads pure.
The Holy Ghost is avenged and He stands as judge and prosecutor of all who would reject Jesus Christ and all who would reject the truth and reject the light. You hear me today! Unbelief and turning from God stands under the condemnation of the Lord God Almighty. The process of judgment goes on and on and on. Then on a certain day it just comes to find fulfillment.

Look at these three statements, which also cover three groupings of great gifts and ministries in the church. First of all He said, “He will guide you.” That guiding of the Holy Ghost means the leading and developing and the completing and the making perfect of the whole body of Christ. It is to be equipped with the word and spirit and power and faith in order to do God’s work in this world.
Here’s where He as the great teacher unfolds God’s will and God’s word and equips the saints for their work of ministry. Some of you could have a bright and beautiful ministry unto God if you would pay attention to the Holy Ghost. Oh, I’m glad for the ministry of lay ministers. Every member of the body of Christ should be involved in this great spiritual work and I want to tell you, it is the ministry and work of the Holy Ghost in the church.
If the Holy Ghost has His way and He can pour out as He wills, He’ll have everybody on fire. He’ll have everybody working and praying and believing. He’ll have everybody being a flame of fire and being a teacher and being a preacher and a proclaimer of the truth, hallelujah, on some scale or another.
If He hasn’t started working like that through you, well just don’t quench Him and don’t grieve Him and He will. Just invite Him and welcome Him and He’ll come in and take over and the first thing you know your heart and your mind will explode and you’ll go sailing out somehow in the atmosphere of divine faith.
You’ll be seeing visions like you’ve never seen before, soaring on wings of faith, mounting up with wings as eagles, soaring above the troubles and worries. Your life will take on a new dimension and meaning of God’s Spirit and power.

Jesus also said, “He’ll show you things to come and things about me He will bring to you and reveal to you.” He’s talking now about all those beautiful gifts, revelation gifts that come through the Holy Ghost.
My, I want you to know Pentecostals are far away ahead of any other group in this world because of the simple fact of that divine illuminating power of the revelation gifts of the Holy Spirit – the word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits, and the revelation that is involved in tongues and interpretations and prophesy. All those beautiful things, Jesus said, He’ll show you, He’ll reveal. “He’ll bring of mine and show it.”
Oh, I say in this day when a thousand voices are calling at us and a thousand things are plaguing us, I say, let’s tune them out. Tune in on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and let Him show us Jesus. Let Him show us the word. Let Him reveal to us what to say.

Finally He said, “He will glorify me.” That is to say that He will impart to the church the means, the ability, the gifts that are required to have perfect and pure worship to Christ in spirit and in truth. The deadest thing I’ve ever known is a meeting where people don’t worship God and the Spirit is not there. But the most exciting place in the world to me is where the saints of God gather in fellowship and love, get in the spirit and glorify Jesus Christ and worship Him. That’s where miracles take place.

When Jesus answers He is looking at Nicodemus and all his proud credentials and his proud birth and everything that he stands for and everything that he takes pride in. Jesus sees it all in one glance. He reads the man like a book. There he stands, filled with the pride of a nation and pride of religion and pride of birth and pride of title and all that he is. There he stands! Then Jesus says, “…except a man be born from above, he can’t even see the kingdom of God.”
His message means more than just a man, even though He said a man. It means a whole religious system. It means a whole nation. It means a whole church. It means everything. You see, birth is the way that everything survives in this world–everything in humanity, in nature, even in religion. Without a new birth, religion soon grows old and it dies.
Without the inflow of new life and inspiration, a man’s life dies and withers away and dries up and has no excitement and no beauty. Oh, but thank God for the inflow of God’s Spirit and Grace that can touch a life, or touch a church, or touch a community, or even a nation. Thank God for fruit bearing life that has ability to flourish and produce constantly so that strength is renewed day by day. Hallelujah!
So there stands Nicodemus, proud of his own birth. But Jesus is saying, “You come to me with all that you stand for and you come to me with all the nobility of being born a Jew in this world at this time; you come to me with all the honor and pride and yet unless you are born from above–touched from above–you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
With one stroke of His voice and one real strike of His divine Word Jesus tells us and the whole world that it does not matter what your name is, nor where you come from, nor who you are, nor where you’ve been, nor where you’re going. It does not matter what title you have or what position you have. Unless you have been touched with life from above you have no life in you, no hope for you.

Jesus had to explain. He sort of kidded him with a mild rebuke. He said, “Oh, you mean you’re a teacher in Israel–a theologian–and you don’t understand these spiritual things. You mean that you read the scriptures and you don’t know what’s in the Bible.”
It’s amazing how people can study the Bible and even hear the Gospel all their lives and never come to a full understanding of what it means because they deliberately harden their hearts. They may learn about the Bible but that is different from learning to
know Him who is the author of this Word.
Jesus said that it is the working of the Spirit that comes from above. It is like the wind that just moves. I can almost hear Him and see Nicodemus’ mind flashing back to the prophets. Perhaps he remembered Ezekiel 37 and thinks about how his nation has reached the stage of just being no more than just a dead corpse, a skeleton lying in history.
Then perhaps Nicodemus remembered how the prophet Ezekiel came and said, “Oh, breath of God, breathe upon these slain.” Then, with “thus saith the Lord,” and the preaching of the Word of God and the moving of the Holy Spirit the vision unfolds and a
mighty nation comes alive and stands up as men walking around as a mighty army.
But Ezekiel’s message means more than the birth of a nation. There is also an application that means that the Word of God falling upon your life and the Spirit of God touching your life can breathe upon the dry bones of your worn out existence and can breathe life and strength and power into your life. Then you can stand on your feet and lift your head high and taste of divinity from the power of God on high and walk in this world but not of this world. You can walk through this world singing, “This World Is Not My Home!”
Brother Oscar Bassett, down at the old Rocky Hill Church, used to get up and sing that song, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. My treasures are laid up some where beyond the blue.” He had tape tied around the ear piece of his glasses to keep them from falling off so he could see the words. But after awhile when his face lit up and the spirit touc hed him and he started to glow, he forgot all about glasses and songbook and he got to thinking about that he’s touched with divine life from on high and he’s walking through this world and this world is not his home. He had a citizenship in another world, and the first thing you know, he didn’t care if it was day or night, Sunday or Saturday. He didn’t care who was there or what was there. The glory of God registered
on his face and he worshiped the living God.
Listen! I want to tell you that when God touches us with divine Spirit from on high, suddenly we are elevated from the mundane things of this world and our faith takes hold of divinity and divine power and promise and we are exalted and elevated from the beggarly elements of this world and we are translated into the kingdom of His dear Son where we are heirs of God and joint heirs of Jesus Christ. I want to tell you, this new birth is something miraculous and wonderful and glorious. Hallelujah!
Jesus said it’s like the breath of God that breathed on that skeleton that filled the valley and blows where it wants to. You can’t tell its direction. But so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. The breath of God comes. You see, in the Old Testament many times the word translated Spirit is the word for wind. Sometimes it’s the word breath, sometimes, even the word storm. He’s saying that God breathes, just as God took a lifeless form of a man lying on the ground made of clay and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being. So in the second birth, God breathes upon a man’s life, into his whole being, the breath of eternal life and he rises up and stands up and becomes a living being. He now has eternal life and will live forever.

Jesus rebukes him for being such a confused student now instead of a teacher. He says, “I’m talking about heavenly things. What you’re trying to do is take the metaphors we’ve been using, wind and water and such speaking of birth, and you’re thinking of natural terms with natural things. You’re trying to understand spiritual things from this standpoint, but that’s not the way you come to understanding. You don’t begin with this world and natural things and work your way up to God.”
Paul would expound and sound that theme again and again and again as he writes. Especially to the Corinthians he would say that the world through wisdom knew not God, but it took the foolishness of preaching to save people who would believe (I Corinthians
1:17-21).
You don’t start with human reason. You don’t start with human logic. You don’t start with human analogy or illustration and work your way upward to God. He said, “…no man has ascended into the heavens” (v. 13). “Nobody has been up there to find out about it,” Jesus said.
The way you understand is because the Son of man has descended and has come down and all of a sudden you have visions of that night Jacob saw the heavens open and a stairway and angels ascending and descending and a glorious communication from the throne to earth (Gen. 28:10-22). Now you see here’s the new gateway, here’s the new Bethel, here’s the new entrance into the house of God, here’s the new source of life. It is on Jesus Himself, the Son of man who has come from above (John 1:47-51).
So he says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, the Son of man will be lifted up on a cross and everybody that believes on Him will have everlasting life” (vv. 14, 15).
Then he goes on to let us know that the new birth, divine life, comes first of all, by divine revelatio n from on high. “It is not of this world, but it’s been revealed to us through Jesus.” It comes from above because of love–“God so loved!” (v. 16). You see, God looked at us and He saw us in our fallen state– in our deadness–and He so loved us. He said, “…I want them to have life everlasting,” and it is life everlasting. Those who receive it and believe Jesus receive the power to become Sons of God and they never have to perish, but have everlasting life.

This miracle sign also symbolizes abundance. Here was a new living, unending source. The other day I had a most wonderful experience. I went over a mountain or two past Dayton and got over into what’s called Cane Creek Valley. If you haven’t been there, don’t take a vacation and go to the Smokies or way off someplace else. Just go sixty-six miles right over here to the prettiest valley and the prettiest creek where rainbow trout run and you can see them flash in the sun, and all that.
You know what I did? We fished for a while and then long about lunchtime I had a big sack of sandwiches and stuff. My wife accuses me when I go off on a day like that. She says you just go to eat. You just pack up stuff to go to eat. She’s about right too. But anyway, we took our lunch and we went around the side of the road and there coming out from under the mountain was a spring like you have never seen. A stream of water that was so cold it would hurt your teeth. We drank from that spring and I thought, “Oh my How many people there are in this world who are really dry and shriveled and thirsty and if they could just somehow come to the fountain of living waters and drink then they would find joy and peace for which their life is longing!”
You here me now. Here’s an abundance of God’s grace and power. Jesus, drawing from a living source, turns water into wine. I declare to you there’s a whole river of this water of life that you can drink from. It is an inexhaustible source of supply.
Joel talks about it and how that in the days to come there would be times of great abundance and harvest and the fields would be great and just wine everywhere. He said, “In the last days God is going to pour out of His Spirit.” Not just some little sprinkling. He is going to pour it out.
Amos got so carried away when he prophesied and talked about it he said why the time will come when even the mountains will drip down sweet wine. What he is saying is that the grapes will just grow so big and great that they’ll burst with their luscious goodness and just drip, drip and pretty soon there is little rivulets of fresh new wine running down the hillside.
Abundance! What I want you to understand is that God has an unending source for whatever you need. He has an abundant supply. There is no limitation on the supply. The only limitation is on the receptivity. That’s all, because His supply is abundant.
I say to you that’s the way it is now. That’s the way it is now for you if you’ll just simply go to the right place and if you’ll drink from the Master’s hand and let Him hand you whatever realities of life that may be around you, He can turn it into something beautiful and glorious. He can take the plainness of water and He can turn it into the redness of wine with its sparkle and its beauty and its taste. And, oh, life can be beautiful and filled with blessing.

Then finally, wine is a symbol of suffering and death. Red like blood! Wine testifies of the blood that was shed. In Isaiah, in that beautiful poem of the winepress in Chapter 63, it says, “Who is this that cometh from Edom with his garments dipped in blood? …He has trod the winepress alone.” Here is the picture and here is the vision – the winepress.
You see, it is in the winepress where people place the fruit of the vine, the grapes, and put it under pressure. The grapes themselves, the fruit, lose their identity and they’re turned into something else – into the very essence of what it is to become. It drains into the wine vat and goes through fermentation processes and all kinds of processes and becomes the liquid that brings the celebration of joy.
That’s the way of salvation. It took the blood of Jesus Christ and His treading the winepress alone and walking through until His whole life was crushed. But even when all the weight of the whole world and the weight of all the sins of the world put Him in that winepress of Calvary, from Him flowed water and blood and it gives life and cleansing to every man and every woman that looks to Him and believes.
This is what Jesus wants to do with us, the church. He wants to take your life and the fruit you bear and put that and you in the winepress. He would even like to walk on you with His feet, so to speak, until in humility and love and surrender you’re crushed – until your will is crushed, your life is crushed, and you look up to Him and say, “Lord, be the Lord of life, I surrender it all. I give everything to you. Make any demand on me you want to, Lord, I’ll comply.” That’s how He turns the church into the wine of joy and cleansing that reaches out to bless the world.
One reason why the church has seen difficult days is because we are not taking that cup of salvation and calling upon the name of the Lord and offering drink of the wine of God’s love and grace to those that are about us. We’re not taking that cup of the wine of God’s cleansing blood and power and pouring it in where there is hurt and contamination and sin and iniquity and evil. God help us to get drunk on the wine of the Holy Spirit of grace and go share!
Did you ever see anybody drunk that didn’t want you to take part with them? That’s one of the odd things about people who become intoxicated. I used to have a very good friend that I worked with. He got drunk every Friday evening after he got off from work. He was a building contractor. The n on Saturday night about midnight when I needed to be getting sleep and getting ready for Sunday morning, here he came. He wanted me to pray for him. That went on for months. Finally, one time I told him, “Glen, when you quit drinking it’s going to be when we roll you down the isle of a church with your toes sticking up.” He said, “Oh, brother, don’t talk like that. If the Lord will just help me, which I know He ain’t, I’ll never drink another drop.”
He was never satisfied to be by himself because when he was out partying, he wanted to include a lot of the others. When that was over, he wanted the prayers of the pastor. Oh he finally got saved, thank God, and delivered. It took a long time.
I wish today that somehow the church could once again climb to the upper room and be touched of the Holy Spirit, get drunk in the Spirit of God, intoxicated with living joy and flooded with great peace and glorious outpourings of God’s praise and power. Let us just take us as drink in His hand and say, “Here’s where you can find joy, here’s where you can find cleansing, here’s where you can find a satisfying cup to meet your need.”
That’s what He wants with a church – to put us in His winepress and turn us into the new wine. If Jesus can take the water from a well in Judea and turn it into the best wine people ever tasted, He can take your life regardless of what it’s like now – He can take it and touch it and perform a miracle in your life and turn you into a source of blessing. You want Him to do it? If He does, it will mean first of all, getting happy, full of joy in your own heart.
Let us together join in a prayer. Don’t pray, “Lord take away my burden or help me overcome this trouble or Lord open this door or that.” Rather, pray a kind of a prayer that just says, “Lord, give me a taste of the new wine of God’s love and grace and let me
be blessed that I may have joy.”
I’ve seen it happen – the miraculous. I remember the night when I was in a revival meeting in Mississippi and Cecil Guiles’ father came into a little country church with his overalls on and when he got saved. The man’s extremely emotional and he didn’t know how to contain himself because all of a sudden the burden was gone and he was so happy and delighted he was completely beside himself.
Yes, he got drunk in the Spirit of love. Just let the Lord give you to drink. Let Him fill you with joy. It might cure your nervous condition. It might give you a bright optimistic outlook on life, to be touched with holy joy. Oh, the Bible says, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” Let Him pour His joy in your heart.

It seemed as if the celebration was going so well – maybe, too well. Then, suddenly they were about out of wine to give to the guests. In the background there was some discussion that took place. The Gospel of John is so beautiful in that it is portrayed in many cases almost like the drama of a stage. Out in the foreground you see all kinds of things going on with people, but in the background there are some things taking place that people out front don’t know anything about. This is why John’s Gospel is different. He was in the inner circle. John saw what was going on behind the scenes while others only saw the front stage.
In most cases the real inspiration and faith and excitement of what’s happening is here in the background and some out front are never aware that miracles take place. You know that’s the way it is now. Jesus can be in a place and some people can sit right next to a miracle and never see it. But some people are behind the scenes, so to speak, in their understanding and faith. In their seeing deeper than others and in their looking behind the scenes they see the handiwork of God and see God moving. They’re not so excited or carried away with their own things and what they’re doing that they miss what God is doing.
I would rather stand in the shadow sometimes if that means seeing Him closer. I would rather stand in the background sometimes I think if that means hearing His voice and seeing Him perform in a special way. Wouldn’t you? I certainly don’t want to be so busy until I miss Him. But that’s exactly what happens to us sometimes. We become so busy until we miss out on what He wants to do for us. We talk so much we can’t hear Him speak.

So behind the scenes, His mother comes to Him and says, “…they have no wine.” It’s amazing the things that mothers will do. A few days ago I was visiting with my mother who is eighty-one years old and you know she still says, “Son, do so and so!” And I say “Yes, Mom.” Because that’s the way it is. You know, there’s just something about your mother that when she asks a direct request of you, there’s no argument. So Jesus mother just comes to Him and says, “…they have no wine.” But all of a sudden He turns to her and speaks to her somewhat sharply. He does not call her mother. But He says, “…Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour is not yet…”

We will hear Jesus say in the Gospel of John three times, “…my hour is not yet come.”
Then later on in the time of sorrow and darkness and agony and grief when He’s yielding up His life to the will of the Father and He’s ready to drink the bitter cup, He will say, “…my hour is come, glorify thy son.” Then when He is there in Gethsemane He will pray and say, “…Father the hour is come.”
But three times He will say it as here, “…my hour is not yet come.” The meaning of course is that even though this is His earthly mother and she has come and exerted some human pressure upon Him about a real need, yet Jesus will not be manipulated and He will not be directed by human pressure. He is more aware of the divine will of God.
For when He says, “…my hour is not yet come,” He has in mind the divine eternal will of God that covers His destiny. It causes Him to act strangely at times. Not that He isn’t concerned with human needs and human desires and human requests – not that at all. But when the dominating influence of the divine inspiration and will of God overshadowed Him, it took priority. That ought to be the way with us in this world. Regardless of human pressures that pressure from high, the divine will of God has first place pushing down upon our lives to
direct us and control our wills.
I was amazed when I walked in this place because there was such a relaxed restful peaceful atmosphere and such an atmosphere of worship and praise and oh, you just don’t find that everywhere. I’ve gone into places where immediately you were thrown at attention because you just felt confusion and clamor and it took a while for God even to penetrate and touch the peoples heart but thank God for His holy presence.

Jesus is saying, “…my time is not yet come, woman.” She will lose her son. She will lose him as a son before she gains him as a Saviour. As if by divine hands, divine scissors seem to clip the apron strings from off his life. Because now He is beginning His ministry and He is hearing the voice of God and He will hear that voice and follow it regardless of who presses upon Him.
In each case when He says, “…my hour is not yet come,” it is in response to requests by people who are close to Him, who are pressing their needs and desires upon Him. Here, it’s His mother. In chapter seven, it’s His brothers and they’re saying, “…there is something wrong with your P.R., Jesus. Why don’t you come over here and do some great works so people will believe on you?” And John adds a little footnote and says, “…for his brothers were not believing on him.” Later on it is his close friends of the family of Lazarus that press a need upon him.

In each one of these three cases He does not respond immediately in the way that they want. But later He does respond and takes care of the need and comes back on an entirely different level. He comes in a richer, more wonderful glorious way, in ways that they really do not even understand completely.
Let me just say this to you. Every time you come to Jesus Christ with a human request, and it may be a legitimate and even urgent need, don’t get upset and impatient if the Lord doesn’t hear your prayer immediately. It may be that He wants to teach you something about patience and about faith and how to take hold of His Word and His promises and take hold of His power and hang on in faith. Hallelujah! It may be that He 4 wants to teach you something about endurance and perseverance always coming back later to answer your prayer and move in your behalf in a far deeper more important way than you could imagine.

So His mother just simply turns and says no more to Him and turns to the servants and says now, whatever He says, you do it because she figured he would do something sooner or later. Oh what a marvelous thing that is. What simple childlike faith. That’s all that faith is. Faith is not screwing your mind up in some kind of a supernatural knot where you reach out in some unknown place and take hold of reality, a supernatural. Faith is hearing the voice of Jesus Christ and just simply saying, “Whatever He says, do it.” That’s obedience to His Word.
You see when you don’t fuss with God, you don’t argue with God, you don’t argue with His will but you just simply as soon as He says it without any hesitation you start to move that’s faith and it brings results, powerful, glorious, wonderful results. It would be a marvelous thing in this world if somehow we could get to that place where we say in our own hearts whatever Jesus says, I will do it.
How long has it been since you’ve fussed with Jesus? You’ve said, “No, no, no Lord. Not me! Not that! Somebody else. Surely you don’t mean me Lord.” How long has it been since you’ve quenched the Spirit? I say to you now, whatever He says to you, do it and you will see the glory of God. In your obedience will be your greatest act of faith and that kind of faith will bring to bear on your life the supernatural and the miracles and God will be glorified and His mighty presence will be manifested through you for His glory.

Then He said to the servants, “…now draw out…”– not out of the pots but go back to the well. That seventh source is a living source. Go back to the well. And as they went and started drawing water out of the well and brought it in He said, “…now bear it to the governor of the feast.” And as they did, somewhere between the well and the table, the water turned to wine. The governor said, “…oh my, that’s the best I’ve ever tasted you’ve saved it to the last. What’s this you’re doing? Usually it is customary,” he said, “All these parties I’ve been to they always give you the best first and then after you’ve kind of eaten and talked and you don’t care so much, you’re just eating for the fun of it, and just drinking for the fun of it and you don’t care what you put in your mouth, then they bring the worst. But you’ve turned it around.”
Jesus poured the same thing the Jewish system had used all these centuries – water. In all their ritual and ceremony Jesus took the same thing and poured in His divine blessing and grace and He made it much richer and much more beautiful and brought real life and joy to that party. But I want you to know that Jesus is not just the life of a party my friends. He is the source, the living source, of true joy and victory and grace and power, hallelujah. I think He would have turned the whole well into wine if he had needed to. I think that Jesus wants you to understand that there is a living source from which you can draw to satisfy the longing of your life and will bless you far beyond any expectations that you have ever known.

So he stayed for a while. Then finally He said, “Now let us go and return there.” Some of the disciples said, “Lord, you must not do that because you know that the Jews of late have just tried to stone you to death and you’re going back there under that awful pressure? Why they’ll probably kill you.” And Jesus said, “Well, that’s all right. We must go back. There is so many hours in the day and the sun shines and you walk in the light of it.” He gives them a parable to let them know that God’s light is shining upon His life and nobody can take it and snuff it out until God is ready – until God is ready for Jesus to be offered up.

So He starts to go and Thomas reacts. Here’s one of the first mentionings of Thomas. Each portrait we see of Thomas shows him in an act of reaching out and struggling – somehow trying to understand and trying to believe God and trying to hold on to the reality of God. Here is that first picture where he turns. He wants to be loyal to Jesus and yet he is afraid of what he may find. So here is a kind of loyal despair when he turns to the others and says, “Let us go too that we may die also.”
Thomas is going back all right – in loyalty, and he expects death. But Jesus is returning in His own time and in His own way and He is going back for a reason–for revival, for renewal, for demonstration of divine power. Hallelujah! I want to tell you sometimes when you walk with Jesus, you may not anticipate the greatness of what may happen to you out there. Sometimes when you walk with the Lord you may think you are walking through dark places and may have sort of a loyal despair about you and say, “Well I’ll go on even if it takes my life or it causes me hardship or trouble.” Like Thomas you go on even though you fear death itself.
But hear me! When you walk with Jesus, you can always expect the miraculous. When you walk with Jesus, you can always expect the demonstration of His glorious and mighty power. When you walk with Jesus, never be surprised at what He may do. Hallelujah!
For when you expect the worse, He brings the greatest. When you expect darkness, He brings divine light. When you expect suffering, He brings health and healing. When you expect even death, He brings life and that more abundantly. Hallelujah!

Then Martha went and got Mary out of the house where quite a number of neighbors and friends had gathered to mourn with them. And she said, “The Master has come and He calleth for thee.” Mary left. She was weeping. Martha thought that she would just send Mary on quietly and she would keep the guests there in the house, but they knew something must be astir because when Mary left they started leaving and following her too.
Mary came with a heart of love and yet with a heart of grief and bitterness as well. She just echoed the very same words of her sister Martha and said, “Lord, if you had been here our brother had not died.”
Jesus’ response when He saw her weeping and He saw the crowd around them – His response struck Him so deeply within until the Bible says that He groaned within His spirit and was troubled. He groaned and was troubled. Those two words translated, groaned and troubled, are powerful words from the original text. That groaning meant that He groaned violently. He was shaken in the very depths of His whole being. This kind of groaning is used sometimes in reference to just real snorting of anger and convulsive kind of groaning – overwhelmed with grief but touched also with anger. Grief because people have to suffer. Grief because death comes. Grief because men and women have to face things they do not understand and they suffer separations and trials by death.
But also He was angry. Angry at death itself and angry at the critics who stood by. Angry at the people who would look on and who would falsely accuse Him and try to take His life. In the midst of it all He felt the irresistible claim of the helpless love of Mary compelling Him to act. He said, “Show me where you have laid him.”

Why did He weep? Not because He is sorry for Mary and Martha because He will soon make them glad. He weeps not because of the death of Lazarus because he will soon be restored. Why does Jesus really weep and why is He filled with such emotion and such wrath and such grief all at the same time? I’ll tell you why. Because He knows when He speaks the words of life to Lazarus and He brings him forth from the dead–He knows He will be signing His own death warrant and He will have to die to give life. That’s why He groans violently and shakes within Himself–because He knows the hounds of hell will cause Him to stand at bay when He stands before that tomb and cries, “Lazarus, come forth.” He knows from then on that’s the turning point they will seek to kill Him.

That’s the greatest grief of all in this world. When you know you’re doing the best you can for somebody and you lay your soul and your life on the line for them and yet you know they will not appreciate it and as a matter of fact, they may turn upon you to wrench you and tear you into pieces. When you know that it’s going to cost you dearly to be a blessing to somebody else and yet you plunge on in more concerned that they be blessed than the damage that comes to your own life.
That’s the spirit of Jesus. That’s why some people can lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel and they can lay down their lives for others and they can reach out with a hand of kindness eve n though they may draw it back wounded and bleeding. They can speak forth with a voice of love even though they know that they may be rejected to the face. They can reach out with a heart big enough to embrace the whole world even though they know that some will turn and-wrench upon them. He weeps because He knows the price He’ll have to pay for Lazarus to live.

He said, “Roll the stone away.” They protested and said, “Lord, by now he stinks because he’s been dead four days.” It was the idea of the Rabbis and the teaching of the Rabbis that when a person died that the spirit hovered and waited over the body for three days.
If per chance there might be the opportunity for that body to come to life again and that spirit reenter, by four days it was hopeless. In the eyes of the Jews and in John’s time and according to this Gospel this makes this miracle all that more miraculous and sensational because he is past being revived. Deterioration is already set in his body and by now, “he stinketh” they said. It’s too late because his spirit is no longer close to him. The real Lazarus is gone somewhere. He’s not hanging around. He’s too far away to be brought back now in this tabernacle in this body. But oh listen! I want to tell you as far as Jesus Christ is concerned, one day amounts to no more than a thousand years and just as surely as He can lift a man from the grave after being dead four days, He can just as surely lift a man from the grave if he’s been dead four thousand years. You hear me, there’s no limitation to the resurrecting power of God. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me though he were dead yet shall he live.” Oh, hallelujah! Praise God!

When they rolled the stone away, Jesus stood there trembling and shaking and groaning and snorting out like a great trained war- horse that stands pawing the ground snorting and ready for the signal to go charging into battle. That’s really the picture. Jesus stands at the gates of death and he’s about to crash the gates of death and He’s going to liberate a man who has been bound by the power of death itself. He’s about to crash the very gates of Hades itself to bring back a man who has left this world and he cries with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.”
Oh, if he hadn’t said “Lazarus,” every body in every tomb in that country would have come forth on that day. But let me remind you that the day will come when that voice will sound again with a loud voice.
John said, the time comes when they that are in the graves will hear the voice of the Son of God and they that have done right shall come forth unto life everlasting. Oh, praise His name! I’m listening for the sound of the voice of the Son of God.
Suddenly, suddenly Lazarus stood. Lazarus stood bound in grave clothes, bound around his face but standing there. Jesus said, “…loose him and let him go free.” Listen friend, Jesus is concerned that you be free that you be loosed that you have no fear of death or darkness or sin or this world or the world to come. He has conquered sin, conquered death, conquered hell and the grave. You don’t have to live in fear. You can be loosed and go free.

Without Him, there is no power. Without Him, there is no ability to bear fruit and to be a blessing in this world. But through Him as long as we abide, as long as we remain branches, then we receive divine strength. Divine life that comes from above flows through our being so that we become like Him and we produce what He wants us to produce.

I want to tell you that God will hold it against us if we never reproduce the life that comes to us, if we never bear the fruit. God gives the strength. God gives the power. God gives the source of life. He expects us to allow it to work through us for reproduction and bearing fruit. So He says, “My Father is in charge of the vine. He, the husbandman watches it and every branch that bears fruit, and then He comes and tends to it. He purges it that it will bear more fruit.”
You see, there is a process by which we grow and by which we are made stronger and our life is made more beautiful. It means sometimes pruning and digging and cutting away but it produces real good results.
Where I used to live in Louisville, I used to drive often by a man’s house who raised a vineyard in his yard. I watched him late in the fall after frost had come and after he’d gathered the fruit from those vines and I watched him as he trimmed them back to the very nub it seemed. I thought, “My, that seems to be a little bit drastic.” But every spring those vines returned and they grew with such luxuriant abundance. The fruit was just loaded in beauty and luscious goodness. I saw the principle at work and I understood what Jesus meant.
I want to tell you, whatever it takes friend, whatever it takes, allow the divine husbandman to touch your life and to cut away anything that just takes up space, anything that just wastes divine grace and power, anything that just wastes the Holy Spirit. We as Pentecostal often frustrate the grace of God. We waste divine power. God would turn us in to reproducing agents of His glory and power and beauty and grace if only we would stand up under His pruning and purging and cleansing.
There is a process of purging and cleansing that has to go on constantly. Oh, I know and I wouldn’t dare take away from that glorious experience of sanctification you received on one Memorial Day or night and I wouldn’t minimize that experience for nothing in the world because I realize that is a great and wonderful reality. But hear me! It doesn’t stop there. There is a process of purging and cleansing through the word and the power of the Holy Spirit that will purge and sanctify so as to produce God in this world. When we are pruned and purged so that God life flows through us then we bear the fruit
of God’s own love and power and the world sees it and knows there’s God living in that life.

After that purging process continues finally there’s the stage of bearing much fruit. Jesus said, “Now when you get to that stage that’s when my Father is really glorified.” Oh, you want to do something great for God? You want to do something spectacular and what God calls great? You want to do something to add glory to His name? Then, let Him purge you. Let Him touch you. Let Him develop you. Grow in His grace and spirit and power and bear the fruit and that will glorify God. Hallelujah!

That brings on a solemn thought. You see, you can’t receive God’s blessings without receiving Christ. You can’t have Him as your Saviour without having Him also as your Lord and Master. You can’t receive from God and always just receive. You have to let it flow through you or the God life dies. The moment you become selfish and self centered and you turn your mind and life inward just to contemplate your own self and your own selfish desires, that’s when the God life starts to die.
God is saying through the words of the Son of God, “I have no place in my vineyard for any branch that wants to stay attached to the vine but who refuses to bear fruit.”

You see, if you stay attached to God, you’re going to show it or you will get cut off. If you stay attached to God, you will bear fruit or else He moves in judgment. There are two descriptions of the judgment of God in these verses. The first one is, “If you don’t bear fruit,” He says, “The husbandman just simply cuts it away.” If there is unfruitfulness, take it away!
Then the second aspect of judgment has to do with unfaithfulness. He said, “If any man abide not in me.” This brings on whole doctrine of unconditional eternal security. A lot of people like to turn to this passage to talk about it. Yet some people want to shun this particular verse. God is saying here that if you don’t abide, if you don’t stay attached, if you don’t remain faithful, you will be cut off.
You can’t just have God’s blessings and then do as you please. If you’re going to stay attached to the vine, you’re going to let the nourishing “Godlife” flow through you and produce fruit or else you will be cut off. On the other hand, if you don’t abide in the vine–if you’re unfaithful – then you wither and die and you’re cast forth to be burnt.
One of the greatest troubles the church ever has in the world now is those branches that want to go their own way. They let their own life show instead of God life. As a result they become withered lives, barren and empty losing their beauty, losing their luster, losing their life, losing their power and in the words of Jesus, “then men gather them and cast them in the fire and they are burned.”
So here’s a message of judgment – of being cut off if you don’t bear fruit; and withering up and dying and being cast away and burned as a branch if you’re unfaithful.

(Isaiah 5:1-7) The message that God demands fr uitfulness and faithfulness sinks deep roots back into the Old Testament. I’d like us to take just a moment to go back at least one reference. Psalms eighty talks about it. Isaiah five verses one through seven, that has been called the song of the vineyard, talks about it.
a. The Farmer’s Efforts to Have a Good Vineyard
Note all the things that the farmer did to secure a good harvest of fruit and grapes. He prepared a field. He fenced it. He put a hedge about it. He dug the earth, took out rocks, chose the choicest vine, established it, built a watch tower in the midst so it could be guarded, and hued out a wine vat to collect the harvest. All these things the husbandman did with Israel, that vine, Isaiah said, to insure a good harvest. But he said, “I looked for grapes and there were wild grapes”– meaning, “I looked for the good fruit and there was nothing but shriveled, stinking, bitter fruit from which you could make no
wine.”
b. The Process of Judgment Against Unfruitfulness & Unfaithfulness
He said, “What will I do unto this vine? Here’s what I’ll do.” And here is a picture of the process of judgment that happens to people who want to be unfruitful and unfaithful. He said, “First of all I’ll take away the hedge.” I want to tell you God has a process of judgment that continues on and on at all times.
Anytime you rebel against God and anytime you quit following the Lord and anytime self rises up in your life to take charge and you don’t listen to God and obey Him, the process of wrath and judgment begins. The first thing is He took away the hedge. Then wild beasts of the field could leap over the wall and come in and trample and devour and eat the vine.
Next, He took away the wall that had given protection to the vineyard and then He said, “All other kinds of beasts, rodents, varmints, wild boars and such could come in and destroy and devour and tear up the vine.”
Then He said, “I’ll just cease to care for the vine. I won’t prune it anymore. I won’t correct it anymore. I won’t purge it anymore.” Listen, I want to tell you, the saddest day in any man’s life is when God withdraws His care and His correction and His pruning and His purging power from your life. The greatest day in any man’s life is when He falls on his face and says, “Lord, not my will but your will be done.” But the saddest day in any man’s life is when God says to him, “Thy will be done.”
When God withdraws, when there’s no more pruning, when there’s no more purging, when there’s no more correcting, when there’s no more pruning, when there’s no more purging, when there’s no more cleansing, when you’re left to yourself–then there’s utter desolation and the wild boars of the forest come in to root out and destroy the vineyard.

In the second place, there is the assurance of answered prayer when you remain in the vine. Answered prayer is based on abiding in Him, staying in Him, remaining in Him and His word abiding in us. Hallelujah! I want to tell you, John says a lot about prayer in these chapters we’ve been talking about especially fourteen and now fifteen. We’ve been talking about this Gospel for troubled hearts and here’s where John says the most about prayer. Oh, he tells us of a relationship we can have with God where that our life is attached to the Lord Jesus and we abide in Him. At the same time, His divine word and spirit abides in us. In that process we come to a place where anything we ask in His name He said, “I will do it.”
I want to tell you, here is the blessed assurance of answers to your prayers. I’ve seen people vexed and tormented and troubled because it seems their prayer life was just empty and barren. They didn’t know how to pray. They didn’t know how to wait on God. Here is the secret. Get in Christ. Stay there. Get His Word in you. Keep it there. Grow in your relationship to Him and grow in the Word and then you ask according to His divine will. As a matter of fact, you can throw open the doors of your heart and throw open the gates of your mind and as far as your mind can soar and as far as your heart can believe and receive, God is able to do exceeding abundantly all that we ask or even think according to His power that worketh in us. There is no limitation to God’s provision when we open up our hearts and believe Him.

Then there’s also a process of giving glory to the Father. I want you to know when your life has been lived and you glorify God in this world, you haven’t failed. The devil may torment you and say you haven’t accomplished much. You’re not a big person. You don’t seem to be important. You haven’t achieved some great striking successes. But oh, if you have lived your life and it is a testimony that gives glory to the Almighty, I want to tell you, you have never failed.

Remaining in the vine means having the fullness of joy. If some salesman came to your house and said, “I have here a prescription to make you happy, you’ll never see another bad day,” you’d sell part of your furniture to get it if you knew it was real, if you knew it were true.
Yet, there are some simple things in scripture that teach us how we can have joy. Several of them are in John, like feet washing. Jesus said, “Happy are ye if ye do this.” Oh I know it’s sort of silly in this modern age, but I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen people who have held grudges get down on their knees in front of each other and wash each other’s feet while the other one would put his hand on his head and pray. They got up after awhile with tears hugging each other’s neck, having joy.
But here’s one, Jesus said, “I’ve told you this because I want your joy to be full.” A religion that the world can see and be just simply overwhelmed by is one that makes people happy and one where they enjoy it. One of the vital ingredients of a growing church is a people who have exciting, joyful, happy–worship who really get in the Spirit and get touched from God and they go away soothed and blessed and healed and filled with joy. Jesus said, “The way you keep up your source of joy and strength is to abide in the vine.”

Jesus came into that room with His heart breaking and filled with sorrow. It is the third time that the Gospel of John talks about that “He is troubled in His Spirit.” You see, when there are bickering and jealousy and expressions of selfish ambitions in the lives of the disciples, that causes Him extreme grief. He acted out a parable to demonstrate to them what humility and love was all about and what true greatness was all about.

He disrobed Himself and girded Himself with a towel and washed the disciples’ feet. When He did that He did what no Jew would do because in that day you could not even compel a servant to wash your own feet. Nobody would stoop that low to wash somebody else’s feet. Only if you owned a slave, could you compel him to wash your feet. Jesus takes upon Him the form of a servant and humbles Himself and gets down on His knees girded about with a towel and He washes the disciples’ feet. Out of that we get one of the great ordinances of the church and one of the great doctrines that is still worth a whole lot.

There are several simple reasons why the Church of God still practices this ordinance. In the first place, the Bible says He loved His own and He loved them to the end. Feet washing is an expression of Christian love.
In the second place, it is an act of Christian humility. It is an expression of one’s willingness to be a servant to others and thus a servant to the Lord. Feet washing is an act which follows the Lord’s example.
Thirdly, it follows the Lord’s command and is an act, which adds to Christian joy and happiness. If any of you haven’t been very happy and haven’t had much joy lately, why don’t you get in a feet washing service. It will turn you on to what real joy is when you show expressions of love and kindness and humility toward your brother and sister. Amen!

This action is symbolic of His entire life and what He has done when He laid aside the glories and splendors of heaven and came to this earth. He came in the form of a servant. St. Paul tells us about it when he describes this humiliation/exaltation theme that is so prevalent in his writings as well as in the writings of John. He said, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

The scripture says, “And he confessed, and denied not…” (John 1:20). That’s what it takes to be a real genuine witness for Jesus Christ in this world. One who is willing to confess the Lord and never deny in any sense of the word. He confessed and denied not. They began to question him point blank and ask him in particular who was he and was he Elijah that was come. You see, among the prophets of the Old Testament, as well as the teachings of the Rabbis, there was a great amount of to do about the end time message. Great prophetic figures of the past would come on the scene and announce the day of the Lord and the coming of the kingdom of God and the end time message and set the whole world straight for the Jews once and for all. They looked forward to such prophetic figures.
The only thing is they would always be disappointed and dissatisfied with the true prophets of God such as John the Baptist, such as Jesus the Son of God and the apostles and others who would appear and announce the very message that they looked forward to being fulfilled. So they asked him, “Are you Elijah?” because the scripture has said, “…I’ll send my servant Elijah before the day of Lord.” John said, “…No I’m not Elijah.” 2 John is denying what Jesus will later confer upon him. Later Jesus will say, “…Elijah has come already and they did what they wanted to with him, and he was killed,” referring to John and that great work of his forerunning and coming before Jesus Christ and his coming in the Spirit of Elijah. They said then, “Well, are you the Christ?” “No”, he said. “I’m not the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ of God.” “Well, what about that great prophet?” meaning Moses. “No I’m not that prophet either.” Then they said, “Who are you then?” John’s answer will leave them just as perplexed, or maybe more so, than before they came.

John really did not answer them. He did not give himself a name or a title because he had not come to receive titles. He had come to give titles. He had not come to publish his own name, he had come to call somebody else’s na me and magnify the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
That’s another requirement of a true witness. He does not go with any premature great claims that have to do with himself. He’s not so much interested in titles and positions as he is in bearing the name and the message of him who has sent him. Hallelujah! Oh how wonderful it is to know the authority of God is upon us and behind us and we represent Him. His name is enough. There is something about that name of Jesus. That name is enough, hallelujah.

So all that John will say is, “I am a voice! I’m just a voice crying in the wilderness. I’m not the living Word.” We’ve already talked about the eternal living Word in Jesus Christ. But he said, “I’m not the Word. I’m just a voice that brings the Word. I’m not the anointed Christ. I’m just a messenger who points to Him.”
Later on John will say, “He must increase, I must decrease.” That’s a requirement of a witness, always to magnify the Lord and let the Lord grow in the hearts and minds of people while at the same time we decrease and move out of the way so that people can see the Christ. Oh how I wish we could see Him more fully. Would you say, Amen? “I’m just a voice,” John said. The Lord in these days needs voices. He needs voices that will be trained to speak His name and glorify Him. He needs voices that will carry the beautiful sound of the message of the good news, the musical sound of the message in song. He needs voices that will open up and sound the alarm and give forth the good news. The Lord needs voices.
I know He needs people and all their abilities, but in these days when there is so much clamor and noise and confusion, how wonderful it is to have a clear sounding voice ringing out the message of hope and truth giving clear direction from God’s Word and His Spirit and power. Thank God we can be the anointed voices of Jesus Christ. Hallelujah!

How I would like to preach on about John and his message because John used three figures of judgment: the fan, the fire, and the ax. He presented that side of God’s power and God’s judgment and he said, “the fan is in his hand – the winnowing fork is in his hand – and he will thoroughly purge his floor and he’ll take the chaff and burn it with unquenchable fire.” He said, “…the axe is laid at the unfruitful tree – at the root of the unfruitful tree – to chop it down and everything that does not bear fruit it will be hued down and cast into the fire.” It will be the fire of God’s judgment.

But John also used some metaphors that have to do with the positive side of the message. He will use the gathering power of the Lord to gather his wheat into the garner. Oh, hallelujah. Thank God that he has the power that moving along with judgment, moving along with the Word, there is power that gathers. While some are cast aside yet others are brought in and gathered into the garner. Thank God for the gathering power of the Lord that touched even our own lives.

He said, “I baptize also just outwardly, but the one that is coming after me, he doesn’t use water. He’ll baptize with the Spirit and He has the baptism that will be inwardly. I’m concerned with outward expression of turning to God, but He will be concerned with touching men’s lives completely with the Spirit and power and fire of God that will purge them and cleanse them and equip them for His work in this world.”

Then he will talk about Him as the baptizer, the one who baptizes in the Holy Ghost and with fire and I just mentioned that in a sense. Then he also gives a positive witness to the fact that He is the Son of God. You see, as John said, “I didn’t know who He was but the same one who sent me, oh hallelujah, the same one who told me to baptize said that one day you’ll baptize a man and you’ll see the heavens open up and the spirit coming down upon Him like a dove and that will be the Messiah, the Son of God.

When He came and Jesus was baptized and they went down into the water and came up out of the water all of a sudden the heavens opened up because Jesus was being obedient to the example that God wanted Him to fulfill. Jesus was identifying Himself with John’s message and the Word of the living God. Jesus was identifying Himself with the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus was humbling Himself and saying, “suffer it to be so because it has to be in order for me to fulfill all righteousness.” When He, in complete obedience and humility, identified Himself with God’s work in the world and with God’s prophet, the heaven’s opened, hallelujah. Oh, anytime you obey God, anytime you move with humility, anytime you fulfill all that God wants you to do, anytime you say yes to God, the heaven’s will open unto you and the Holy Spirit will come down to your life.

I think of that great prophet Ezekiel yonder in Babylonian captivity far away from temple and priest and homeland. But the Bible says that the Word of the Lord came to him there, even there; and the hand of the Lord was upon him there, even there; and the heavens were opened up to him there, even there in Babylon. He saw visions of God and the splendor of the glory of God.
You hear me saints of God! It does not matter where you are nor what stress or trouble you may be in – if you’re obedient to the Lord and humble before Him the heavens will open, the Spirit will descend and the glory of God will come to you. The power of the Almighty will touch your life. You’ll see visions of God and have His hand upon you, THERE. Hallelujah! The heavens are opened to any person or any church who obeys God.

The Lamb is a symbol of the suffering servant of Isaiah who is silent as a sheep or a lamb is silent before his shearers and he does not open his mouth. So the lamb is also symbolic of that Suffering Servant who will walk through this world. He will serve and He will suffer and not be the great king at that point that they want him to be. But He will come and be the suffering servant of Isaiah and He will say, “the Son of man has come not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many.”

And finally, the lamb is symbolic of that future apocalyptic prophetic lamb in Revelation chapter five when, “…they sing a new song,” and that song is a song of praise that says, “… worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive honor and glory.” It is because, “…you were slain and you have redeemed us to God out of every nation, kindred, and tongue and people and we shall reign on the earth.” And then it goes on to sing that beautiful song and give a seven- fold praise of worthiness to the Lamb. So here Johns says is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. And He can offer a sacrifice for you day by day.

Whatever you need from the throne, you can get it through Him, as the Lamb of God, day by day. It does not matter how much you may have been loaded with sin, you can come and wash away all those sins in the blood of the Lamb because He bore the sins of the whole wide world. On the cross when He prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” he was not only just praying for Roman soldiers or for hypocritical Jewish leaders. He was praying for all people of the whole world whose sins were driving Him to that cross.
Jesus came and he walked roughshod over the religious pretense and hypocrisy of His day. He laughed at the petty legalisms that held Judaism bound and put people in straight jackets. He walked roughshod over their hypocrisies and He opened the door to the house of David so that all men could come through His blood and have access to the throne. Oh, glory be to Jesus Christ.

When He prayed, “Father, forgive them,” he is saying that “through my death and through my blood there is forgiveness for every man.” So bring on any sin, bring on all sin, bring on the sins of Pilate who will try to push Him aside and get Him out of his way and try to wash off his hands and be innocent with water. Bring on the sins of a hypocritical priesthood and religious leaders of His day. Bring on the sins of a thousand people fallen into the depths of degradation and He will forgive, He will forgive. Because you see Jesus walked right past the proud hypocritical Pharisees and He forgave the ones who were unforgivable and He touched the ones who were the 6 untouchables. Jesus broke down walls and reached through and touched you and me and thank God as the Lamb He redeemed us and bought us unto Himself. My heart rejoices and magnifies His name this very day because of it. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
I love that song that says, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; surely He bore our sorrows, and by His stripes we are healed.”