So when I read, I just want to remind you the setting here is what we've been talking about. We've really been talking about the disciples and how absolutely confused they were and they're wondering what's going on. And so today I'd like to transfer the thoughts and the objectives of the disciples and apply it to us. and ask the question, are there disciples today? And we're gonna look at that. So let's go to John chapter 16. Let's pick up in verse 23, read verse 28, and see where the Lord leads us. And in that day, ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs. But the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day you shall ask in my name. And I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you. For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father and am come into the world again. I leave the world and go to the Father." Well, when we talk about having an adult Sunday school class, Pastor Olson has talked many times about how important they are. And it's very easy, as we look around us and we see churches and we see what's going on, that Sunday school class really has become very, basically, minimalized and it's been very, like, deflated. I've always held it to a very high esteem because I think it's very important. The reason that I bring this up is because in the Sunday school class you are not required really by any type of real church government or anything to have full sermons being preached expositionally. I like to do it expositionally because I don't like to leave anything out. But you can go through certain courses And we can come up with topical messages, we can come up with correspondence, and that's the difference between an adult Sunday school class and a Sunday morning worship service. During a worship service, you can't sit there and interrupt the pastor when he's worked and he's presenting the message and talk to him, but you can in the Sunday school class. And so what I wanted to do here is going back from John 13 to 17, we're going to go all the way to the end of 17, It's going to be expositionally, but we're going to be talking about it. But what I love about what you can do with the Sunday School class is no matter where you're at in Scripture, you can go other places in the Scripture. I don't like to Bible thump and just go from one thought to another and just say pretty much anything out there, which a lot of pastors do. I've heard that. That bothers me. I like everything to be cohesive and everything, so they're building blocks in how we learn together. And so we're going to look at other verses, as we always do throughout Scripture, but the main hinge point that I want to show this morning, and I want to talk about, it's like the very question that came up in this Christmas Eve service, the first question, are you waiting for the Messiah? And if we can answer that question, and that's a really loving, wonderful, warm part of our heart, these verses, as a Christian, will mean a lot to you. Because these are Christ's extremely, very specific, personal, physical words, and he's laying out what's basically going to happen. So here we see in verse 23, he says, in that day you will ask me nothing. What does he mean by that? When he says, truly, truly, I say unto you, whatsoever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it you. Here, Christ promises a relationship with Him, He, and the Father. It will remain perfectly intact. The Holy Spirit will be in the hearts of the disciples, will be carrying them through, walking aside. And remember, what's that Greek word for the Holy Spirit that we've talked about all these years? Anybody remember? Starts with a P. Thank you. That's it. And the word parakletos in the Greek, it means very specifically the one that walks beside you. So if we know the Holy Spirit's walking beside us, what a blessing to know that I think if we know that that's a standard in our life that'll keep us away from sin. Horrible sin. Speaking horrible things. Laughing and talking about horrible things. Horrible filthy jokes. Watching filthy things on the television. Going to places that we know we're not supposed to go to. Going out of our ways to go to these horrible bars and all these places around us where we shouldn't be. Making sure that we're in the Lord's house. if we know and we feel in our hearts that the Holy Spirit's walking beside us, and we really believe that, we're going to look over our shoulders, and it's going to keep us from sin. It's not going to make us perfect, and we certainly are going to falter, but the Holy Spirit will lift us up. And that's what I love about this. So, when it says here, Christ is talking about His disciples, and He talks about at the end of chapter 16, you will all be scattered, you all don't understand quite yet what's going on, We have an obligation to understand what's going on because we're not there with Him right now. We're way past that, and we have the New Testament to read this to understand that. So the question is, are there disciples today? Are there disciples today? Of course. All a disciple is is a student. Well, there's not apostles today. See, a lot of people confuse discipleship with apostleship, and that's a problem. Because there are no apostles today. And you see all these churches around, and bands, and you see churches. Oh, Apostle Debbie will be here today. There's a lot of women apostles now today. And apostles, I see it all over. Apostle Joanna, that's another one in the city. All these apostles. Yeah, I've seen some of those too. You can see it, and the church are called, this is the apostolic church of a certain commission, you know. It sounds like a VFW hall with a bunch of apostles or something. No! Apostles were the extension of the Old Testament prophets that the Lord, they literally had spoken to Christ, they saw Christ, they were with Christ, and they had incredible power. They could heal people from the dead. And that one went and said, I wish I had it in front of me now. I may even have it on my notes. Remember when that demon was supposed to be cast out? And the disciples at the time, the Lord had given the... He was training them to be apostles. He gave them the power to cast out the demon of that woman's son, and they didn't do it. And they told Jesus. They said, well, we can't do it. He goes, why? Why didn't you do it? I've given you the power to cast out demons and all these things in my name. Why didn't you do it? Wouldn't you love to have that power right now? To cast out demons? I can tell you right now, in this country alone, if the Lord gave me that power, and I'm just talking as a fool, as Paul would say, I would never be home. Because it would be a 48-hour-a-day job casting demons out of the people in this country. That'd be a big job. But if they had the power to do that, that's what an apostle could do. So yes, there are disciples today. And there's disciples today, you go back to John 6, many disciples follow Jesus, and they say, this is hard saying Jesus. How can we know this? They're gone. They're not even hearing these words, and he's sitting there telling them about redemption and salvation right here. So when we see this, and Christ says, ask in my name, and I will answer it. What does that mean? Does that mean that he's basically our cosmic kazoo sitting on our shoulder and then we can flip our fingers and say, I want a brand new Mercedes SUV today and I expect it to be in my driveway when I get home. Is that what we do, Dave? Exactly. Every day's Friday, right? You know, that's a great point. And this is your best life. And what did John MacArthur say, that this is your best life? Well, then that's it, because you're going to hell. Because this shouldn't be our best life, right? That's a great point. But is that what we do? I remember Jimmy Swaggart. He had a whole ministry. You tell God. There's this new guy out here. I mean, he's not actually new. I've never heard of him. I can't remember his name now. His last name starts with a P. But he literally, this is old. He's an older fellow now. He's got two Gulfstream jets. It's not him, but it's another guy. None of us have really heard of him, I don't think, because we talked about it before. I can't remember his name now. I'll find it. But anyway, he literally talks filthy to his congregation and he says I literally have to pull myself away from the spirit and make myself sin and go around with other women and do all these other things because I am the Holy Spirit is with me so I've got to pull myself away to sin to remind myself that I've done that I'm not he just because because he says because I'm prosperous and he holds his hand out and he goes touch my hand and then you'll be prosperous and he has people touching his hand I mean, that's what you got out there today. And he's literally blaspheming the Holy Spirit, talking about... I can't even mention the filthy things that he wanted to do that he told his congregation that had to do with women. I can't even talk about it. And that's what you have out there. And this prosperity message today, this is what people are hearing, and they're being led, and they believe in telling God what to do. These first two verses, verse 24 says here, There's two questions that come up here that I'd like us to address. Everybody get involved here, let's talk. Number one, what does it mean to ask in his name and I'll give you the desires of your heart? As a Christian, how are we to reverently understand that and to receive that, to make sure that we are honoring the Lord through this and not making fun of him or blaspheming him? Anyone? Amen. Amen. Right. That's right. Right. Right. Amen. That's right. Right. Amen. That's right. Right. It's an effect, right? It's an after effect. That's it. And that reminds me of something really, really important. That's great. Greg. Do you have your hand up? I thought I saw a hand go up. I'm sorry. But that's a great point because... Oh, Jerry, go ahead. And that's right. And the Bible says faith without works is dead. And when we work, we obey Him. It's an action. and we do the work that the Lord gives us to do, what we learn is here is one of the keys to asking, and that's a great point. One of the keys to asking the Lord in His name is we have to go back to what happens to us when the Lord comes into our hearts. One day we had no interest in the Lord. then all of a sudden we had a conversion, a regeneration. And both of them seem to be the same, but actually they're not. The conversion is the actual work of the Holy Spirit. The regeneration is the effect of that. And what happens after that transformation when we're saved? All of a sudden, we're not looking through a glass darkly. When we learn that the Lord has lifted the scales from our eyes and we're not blinded anymore, we're now looking through life through His eyes. And here is what the Bible You want to know how important Bible reading and prayer is. I want you to remember this because this is a great way to remember this. I've been listening to another great pastor, Michael Reeves, and he says this, he's British, English, and he says it with such passion. Remember how Ezekiel ate the scrolls. What did he have to do to eat the scrolls? He had to basically inhale the scrolls and eat them and bring them in. And as Dr. Sproul said, the word of God came out of his pores. Metaphorically speaking, it went all through his veins and through his blood in essence. It came out of his pores. So, when we read the Bible, we are basically, we are inhaling, we're breathing in the life of the Bible, and we read it, and as we're breathing it in, how does it come out of us? It comes out of us, we breathe it out with prayer. You breathe in, you absorb, and in essence, you vacuum, and you pull Scripture in, and you love it, and then it comes out of your mouth, because the effect of reading Scripture then gives you that relationship with Christ, and you want to talk to Him about it. And one of the kind of things you can be asking him in his name, Lord, what did you mean by this verse? What did you mean by what happened with King David in Psalm 51? What did you mean with what happened to Belshazzar when there was a hand on the wall? What did you mean by really being in the absolute fire with the three Hebrew boys? And he loves that. His word doesn't return to him void. You ask in his name, you are now asking him things that you know he loves. You don't patronize God, and you don't lie to him, and you don't ask him for stupid things. I want a new Mercedes. I want a new house. You didn't give me it. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Lord, I promise you, if you let my loved ones stay alive, I will serve you the rest of my life. No, you won't. If he hasn't converted you, and he hasn't regenerated you, you don't have the capacity to do that. And a lot of people do that kind of stuff. There was a famous singer. He died many, many decades ago. that basically asking the Lord to bless him because he wanted to participate in all religions because he said, I do not want to miss heaven on a technicality. That's evil. We are not, John MacArthur, I love what he says, we are not supposed to ever, ever ask the Lord in his name something that's against his law, never. There are ways we can really blaspheme and it could be almost like in communion, what's called the menducio indignorum, which is taking communion under your own destruction if you're taking it in horrible sin. We can actually do that with our prayers if we're praying irreverently and when I see these pastors and I see what they're praying on television and I turn on Rick Warren and I've heard that and I don't even think he's on anymore but I remember turning I didn't even know who he was at first and I started hearing him pray and I hear Joel Osteen with Dave was talking about and years ago Jimmy Swagger was on there tell you don't ask the Lord you tell them you want this and you want that and you want this Don't do that. That's not how you do it. That's not what this is about. Here in verse 24, basically, once again, I want to read it again. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name, and ye shall receive that your joy may be full. John 16, verse 24. Your joy may be full if you're asking the Lord things that are things that the Lord would ask the Father. Like in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here's the kind of things you ask for. Obviously, grieve around you for those that aren't saved. You can grieve for them. And that grief brings you to your knees and you pray for their souls. When you are praying for the things that you're supposed to be praying for, you won't have time to pray for anything else. Because I'll tell you right now, I get up in the morning and I start praying and I think of all the things that come into me all during the week. I mean I only have maybe 45 minutes and it's nothing like to pray for an hour and I'm just getting started. Praying for this one's in the hospital, this one has cancer, this one turned their back on Christianity. That's happened many times and they want to go into these other areas and you pray about that and all of a sudden you start quoting scripture in your prayer. then you pray for your family and your lost loved ones. On unspoken prayer requests, you're praying that somehow, someway, the Lord will put it in your heart to get you on your knees. Pray that the Lord will put you on your knees and pray. Pray that the Lord will give you the desire in your heart to be in his house on the Sabbath day, I mean, on the first day of the week, on the Lord's day, because it's not natural for us to want to do that. It's not. Look at the churches. Look at Bible-believing churches, they're hanging on by a thread. If it was natural for people to want to hear the Scriptures and want to hear the Lord's Word, these churches, we would have to have police at the end of the driveway directing traffic. It's just not natural. And so you pray for that. The Lord will answer that prayer. He'll answer that prayer. And you may ask, alright, and hey, you're feeling bad about something? Pray for it! He said, you haven't even asked these things in my name. And I'll tell you why. Let's just say you're having a health issue. And let's just say you pray and He doesn't do it. Thank Him twice for that. You thank Him more for that. Because what He's doing is He's refining you. And He's bringing you to more prayer. And He's bringing you to pray for other people. And He's using you in ways that you can't even see. And when He does that, You'll come out at the end thanking Him. You go to Him and you beg the Lord to heal your loved one or to heal yourself, and He doesn't do it, and you say, forget you, Lord! This is all a bunch of absolute smoke and mirrors, and there are a lot of people that do that. Let me tell you something. You don't know what you're messing with. You have no idea what you're messing with. But I'm just saying, I think it's important for us to talk about, number one, we already spoke a little bit about how do we pray in the Lord's name? How do we do that? The other question we asked earlier on in the message today, in the classes, are there disciples today? And yes, you are all disciples. You're students of the Word of God. You're not apostles. You're not prophets. I believe we all have the gift of prophecy to a certain degree because we have Scripture. And Scripture has never, ever backed out on a prophecy, ever. So we know what's going to happen in the end times. We know that Christ is coming back a second time. We know what He expects of us, and we know how to tell other people about that. So there is a degree of prophecy that we do have, and on that level, we have a certain degree of prophecy. But we're not apostles, we are disciples, and the Lord tells the disciples, you haven't asked in my name. So the question is this morning, have we asked anything in His name? Have we? We have so many ways of fixing things and having remedies for things, but do we take the time to ask in His name? So that's verse 24, and we see that your joy may be full. You want to know how your joy is full? To know that if the Lord doesn't answer you, you can still have joy in your heart amongst having sorrow. You can. Many people can't even begin to... You can't even begin to fathom that. He said, you shall ask nothing, I'll do everything. Well, wait a minute. You'll do everything? You haven't done everything so far. I asked for my health to be back, it's not. I asked you to heal my mother who had cancer, and you didn't. And so we just sit there and forget about the Lord? What does that mean that He says, I'll give you everything? What does that mean? I think it's very simple. I think it's very easy to talk about. He has certain things He does not want to show us until we're off of this earth. I've heard that many, many times from many messages. I've seen it infiltrated in beautiful scripture that there are some things the Lord waits and we will give us everything when we leave this earth. It's waiting for us and it's so close we could just about touch it. Oh, we sit here and think, oh, maybe I have 20 years, maybe I have 30 years. You may not have five minutes from now. You might not. You might be gone by the time you go out in that parking lot. I'll never forget. I mean, Jacob and I, we were up years ago, and I'll never forget this. Very strong guy comes walking in. He comes walking into Beller Athletic Club. He gets right on a treadmill. His whole life was fine. He didn't have any problems. He was on a treadmill. Two minutes later, he goes, wow, and he was on the floor dead. And we saw him. It was a horrible thing to see, too. And this poor man, I felt horrible. I went and I prayed with people. I went up to his church later on and I told them that people were around. I found out that his family, they were really upset. I actually found out who the guy was. And I went up to his church and told the pastor that he had people around him praying when he died because the family was distraught because they couldn't be there when he died. And nobody identified him for hours. It was horrible. He was only 58 years old. That's the kind of thing that can happen. I mean, if you look at the last few weeks, all these people, I mean, look at all the death and look at all the murders and all these accidents and all these horrible things that happen. Sometimes I think we deceive ourselves when we think we got plenty of time. We have all the time in the world. Life is very quick. It's very fleeting. And if we ask the Lord, He says, he, he said, you've asked nothing in my name. What he's doing is he's knitting the relationship together with he and those who he has called. Here we see the disciples, their hearts, are being guarded by Christ himself. And he's protecting them. He's trying to show them and give them a comfort zone and to show, I am going to put you in autopilot mode and I am going to send you the Holy Spirit. I am going to be with you so no matter what happens, don't forget that. That's the only answer that I can give you. That when Pastor Coleman is speaking about Paul, and he's in that jail, and he speaks about godly contentment is great gain. Boy, that's a tough one, isn't it? Godly contentment, I love that. That's a great bumper sticker. Godly contentment is great gain. How? No, Paul speaks many times. Nobody was even coming to visit him. And here he's shackled in a prison where there are soldiers watching him all the time. And he says, do all things without complaining and murmuring. How else could he do that unless he was literally thinking about what Christ has said and about how the Lord is with him and has the Holy Spirit with him? How else could he say something like that? What we see here, You know, I see the bumper sticker around many times. You've all seen it. It says, and I hate it, God is my co-pilot. Oh, I hate that. I do like the one that says that if he's your co-pilot, you're in the wrong seat. That's kind of a good one. But that was the rebuttal to that. Now you've got bumper stickers that talk to each other. He's not just the pilot, but he's the creator of the airplane, of the pilot that flies the plane, of the one that creates everything. He's the creator of the universe. And now they're sensing something. I think this is fascinating because, you know, maybe you could look at this condescendingly and you could say, well, what were the disciples thinking? Where were their heads? How could they be questioning the Lord? And all I think to myself is, there go I. Because it scares me to death to think of how I would have reacted when Christ was here on this earth. I'd like to think that I know enough that I would love to have followed him, but you know how we are. And I can imagine all of the things that he's done at this point, the disciples have seen him grow arms back, heal eyesight, raise the dead. Do all of these incredibly calm the waters? I mean, you know, you know, there's so many wonderful miracles and and I think in a sense a miracle to me I like what came out of his mouth Because some of the things all of the things that came out of his mouth just blow me away when you he rate We're going to be talking next week about how basically the Lord says now you I don't speak to you in Proverbs anymore. I We have a whole book called Proverbs, and it's very parabolic, and it's brilliant. And if you can love the Proverbs, when you understand Proverbs, you go and you read the parables of Christ, you can understand them. And let me tell you something, I think that's a real important mark of a Christian. to love and to understand the parables that Christ gave us and to show us what He was talking about in reference to heaven. You know, the seed cast on thorny ground, the seed cast on stony ground, and all the parables of the oil lamps. You bring all that together, the prodigal son. What an incredible life lesson the prodigal son teaches us and what happened there. And then all of a sudden, all of this is now winding down, and now he's speaking plainly, and the disciples say, now you speak plainly to us. Which means that there were some things that they were not understanding. What do you think some of the things were? This is kind of a general question. What do you think they didn't understand? I mean, basically, it's very actually, if you've been reading this, it's very actually, very fundamental, Lisey. Right. Yeah, that's a good one. Excellent. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, what do I have to go back in my mother's womb? What does it mean to be born again? He said so many brilliant things. And maybe they didn't understand fully. I mean, they trusted him. I believe there were 11 that trusted him. And I believe, I mean, I heard, actually, I've heard this more than once. Some say that Peter had no understanding and didn't understand any salvation until after the resurrection of Christ. But if you go back to John 6, you see it very prominently how he declares that Jesus was the Christ and that he's the only one that had the keys to eternal life. Remember Caesarea Philippi. They're up there in this little mountain. It's not the same as Caesarea. Remember we were watching some of the slides or the videos with Pastor Olson and he was showing us Caesarea. Well, there was another little town way up higher, Caesarea Philippi, that they fled to because Christ was being pursued. And you can imagine them huffing and puffing up the hill trying to, and the Lord knew just where to go to hide. Not that he had to hide, but he was defending the disciples and he did that because he loved them. And you could see him all out of breath. Christ probably wasn't out of breath, but they were all out of breath. And he goes, who do they say that I, the son of man, am? And then one of the disciples says, well, some think you're Jeremiah, some think you're Moses, and all, and they think you're a prophet, John the Baptist, and all. And then he goes, well, who do you say I, the son of man, am? You know the story. And Peter says, thou art the Christ of the living God. He knew. He knew. But he fought the Lord a little bit there afterwards, saying, not so, Lord, about him going to his hour coming. And the Lord got very upset at him, and he said, get thee behind me, Satan. But he knew. He knew. Teresa. That was the road to Emmaus. Remember Cleophas? He was his friend. And all of a sudden, Christ vanishes. He goes, oh, our hearts burn within us. And then all of a sudden, boom! That was Him! He was with us. And then all of a sudden, He vanishes. He totally vanishes. That was Him. You know, that's what we should be saying in our hearts as Christians when we read this. That was Him. And their hearts were burning because they had the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was there and it was burning because they loved Him. It was a burning love that they had. And the sorrow was everywhere thinking that this Jesus, they were even thinking, many people, how can that be Him? If He's eternal, if He created the universe, how could He let Himself be so humiliated and dying on the cross? Well, there's some things from the Old Testament that they weren't paying attention to. Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, Genesis 3.15, Deuteronomy 15.18, all of these messianic prophecies all the way down the line that said he would be humbled. And Christ, here's another thing, Lisey says, I love that, to Nicodemus, he must be born again. Three days in the belly of the whale. three days I will lift the temple up." These were all doctrinal things that the Lord said and they were wondering, what was he saying? He's not speaking to us plainly. And then the one thing, here we're talking about Caesarea Philippi confession and all these other things, my hour has not come. How can you predict your hour coming? How can you even say such a thing? You'd think I was a nut if I said that. Well, my hour hasn't come yet. I know exactly what's going to happen 10 years from now at 730. You'd think I'm a nut. Or Howard Camping or whatever comes first. The bottom line is that he knew. He knew what was coming and he says now, what's the first thing he says in John 17, which we're gonna look at? These words speak Jesus and lifted his eyes to heaven and said, Father, mine hour has come. Glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou hast given him power over all flesh that he might give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. We don't know who he's given him and it's our job to reach out definitely. So we see they're sensing something. Do we fear Christ not being with us? Or do we not care if He is with us? You know, what I love about this is the disciples cared enough to ask about God's Word. Jesus is telling them Scripture. And they had just said back in chapter 16, verse 18, they said, therefore, what is this that he saith? A little while, we cannot tell what he saith. You know, I've always found that great learning of Scripture comes from asking questions. That's what I love about the Sunday school class. I really wish people that visit this church and people that are struggling, I've told many, many people, And it's not in order to gain a venue or to fill the seats. You know, the Lord will do that when he's ready. But I've told them, whatever you do, I can think of them too, so many of them. Come to the Sunday school class. It's our spiritual intervention. It really is. And guess what? It doesn't cost you $200. You don't have to file it with the state. You can come in and talk about it. Ask questions. And sit down and talk about it. We'll talk about it together. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's something I'm going to be wrong about. And somebody can help me make it right. I've asked many times when pastors were here to help me out. There were some questions that came in. And I think we all work this out together. And it's a great thing to be able to do that. Come in and talk about it. And I love that with the disciples. They were asking questions. They wanted to know. And I think that's really what gets me digging in Scripture when I have questions. I see things all the time. When you're watching all the stuff that's been happening in the news, people bring up this thing about annihilation. That put me right back in Scripture. It's not that I was changing my tune at all. I was like, How can somebody talks to me and asks me about this? how can I respond to them and give them the verses that they need and and and give them the The artillery that they need to fight this because there's so many questions about so many things out there Verse 25 these things have I spoken to you in Proverbs But the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the father. I Think the reason why the Lord I think, I believe the reason why the Lord had spoken to them in parables and proverbs, it was a test. I believe He was testing, because those that loved what He said and wanted to hear what He had to say, they dug, and they talked to Him, and they stuck with Him, and they wanted to know. And I think that's a wonderful mark of a Christian disciple following the Lord, and it's a wonderful blessing of our Savior that He spent that time and He was training them. It was a training ground. And the parables were basically like going into the textbooks and digging out the formulas, digging out some of the important ingredients and definitions and things in order to be able to make sure that it was emboldened inside of them. And when he speaks to them plainly, Basically what he's going to do is he's going to speak to them plainly not just here on this earth But what's he going to do next? He is going to inspire his very word to them and they're going to write it and they're going to make it plain They're going to understand it so that we hear thousands of years later that we can read it as well That's how he speaks to them plainly so that we can understand it We see here Our Lord knows every thought in our mind. He knows our fears. He knows our questions before He asks them. He knows our thoughts before we ever consider them. So we need to stay very close in touch with Him. Psalm 42, verse 8. Maybe, Dave Heater, could you look up Psalm 42, verse 8 and read that here in a minute? Here, our Lord promises that He will answer their questions. He promises comfort, and He promises the kind of comfort that we need. It may not very well be the comfort we always want, because we want a different type of comfort. It's more of a pleasurable, non-stop, happy, kind of a lazy kind of comfort. But the kind of comfort that He gives is so far greater than anything that we can ask. That is why we trust in Him. Psalm 42.8, if you have that. Isn't that beautiful? Boy, isn't that worth memorizing. He says, Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime. You know, what's it in Psalm 35, I believe it is, there may be tears at night, but there'll be joy in the morning. The Lord can bring that, can't He? Sometimes the joy comes in the morning when we're on our deathbeds. There's tears at night. It's very dark, isn't it? We could be on our deathbeds and all of a sudden we love the Lord. We wake up in the morning in heaven and there's joy in the morning. That's what's joy in the morning with the Lord's talking about. Isn't that incredible? Isn't it incredible this week? I just think it's incredible. Somebody cared enough to go to an elderly loved one and to pray and be with them as they were getting ready to die. Somebody here in this church did it. It was Teresa. And that's not the first time. That's not the first time I've heard of this. You love the Lord Jesus Christ and He draws you to be with Him. You're bringing them joy in the morning. That's what you're doing. You're showing that somebody cares. You're bringing them the love of Jesus Christ. And when you do that and you pray with them and you read them scripture, I just, the Lord loves that. He says that He loves it. I'm not making it up. He says He loves it. He says that's what true religion is. And joy in the morning comes from Christ doesn't come from the things of this world. You know, I think of the I Am statements. You know, I have to, I love to remind myself who Christ is because some days, you know, I just have to be kicked in the head because I can be such a bullhead. And when I, when I get like that and I have a problem, I just sit and I'll pull off and pray and just remember the I Am statements of Christ. And there's so many more than we've already talked about. There's, I love, I just, John chapter, John chapter 13, John chapter 15 verse 13 says, you call me Lord and Master. And he says, therefore, I am. That's another great I am statement, Lord and master. Then he says, I am from above. I am not of this world. I am not alone. David knew that whenever he was alone by himself, he loved if you read Psalm 119, you get kind of halfway through. He speaks about how he was never alone. And then he speaks about the time when he was the least alone, when he was alone, because that gave him time to be with the Lord. And he would pray seven times daily. He didn't go off, especially in his prime years. He spent every extra moment praying to the Lord, singing praises to the Lord. He says here, And in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. Here's the king of the most important, powerful king of the world saying, I will pray unto the God of my life, not saying I'm God. Well, all the other kings said they were gods. He says, my God is my Lord. God Almighty is my God. You know, there's two ways of asking things already. Two ways of asking things. There's an inquiry, E-N-Q-U-I-R-Y, and there's an inquiry. And here the disciples are asking the Lord. Asking by way of inquiry, which is by asking of the uninformed. or the ill-informed, or unknowing, trying to learn the unfamiliar. That's a way of learning by asking questions, by inquiry. I mean, thinking about actually one of the statements from the Merriam-Webster dictionaries, asking in an ignorant way. And isn't it, maybe we can bring this together by saying, isn't that what we can learn by the old tabloid, the National Enquirer? Remember that? People wanting to learn things ignorantly? Isn't that incredible? You know, that's basically learning by inquiry is learning by a lack of knowledge and a lack of research. And that's basically kind of what the disciples were doing. They not only had the research, they had the physical presence of the incarnate God right in front of them, and they're still asking Him. I still love it. I think it's great because if you're asking the questions, the Lord is putting it in your heart to ask those questions, and you're pounding, you're chipping away, you're looking for that treasure, and I think we all should do that. but way by inquiry, it's questioning from ignorance. It's not uncommon, as we have seen this before at the Great Tempest in Matthew 8, verse 27, but the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? What a brilliant question! But they're asking, What kind of man is this? Well, you know what kind of man it is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe. He could put his, stretch his hands out and say, peace, be still, and the storms would be completely gone. That's power. You've seen some of the storms that are out there. I've seen some of the footage of some of these waves that came into Ocean City and up Atlantic City here in the last few months when that great big Nor'easter hit. And those waves literally, people were standing up in Collingswood, I mean below, no, not Collingswood, Cape May, that would have been tough. That would have been a tidal wave. Cape May, they were standing on one of these really high wall kind of like bulkheads so you can like, you look at those little site things out and see the ocean and all. And then when this Northeaster hit, there was a video coming way back from a building, a wave came over and hit every one of them. And I mean, can you ever think of that? You ever stand there like, oh, that's pretty scary how big that ocean is. And then it came over and it hit them. It didn't hurt them. It was real quick and it came back. But that's incredible. You can see the tempest and Christ had the power to put his hands out and just calm that tempest and make it perfect. And so the question comes, it's a question of inquiry. What manner of man is this? Who is this guy? In essence is what they're saying. And here the Lord's showing them. Remember, the Pharisees questioned Jesus, why the disciples do not wash their hands and defile the tradition of the elders. And Christ rebukes them, and He defies them, and He basically shows them for the fifth commandment, you're worried about defying the elders? What about you defiling your parents? by, he says, by dishonoring your mother and your father, by not listening to them. And some of their mothers and fathers were Christians, and they wouldn't listen to them, and they would listen to the law, the Torah, over their parents. And he said, what's the matter with you? Matthew 15, 12 through 16. Matthew chapter 15, verses 12 to 16. Let's read that. Maybe I'll ask, say, Matthew, could you read that? Matthew chapter 15, verses 12 to 16. We can look at this real quick, and we'll have to finish here soon. Then came the disciple and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard the saying? But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up, but that below them there be blind leaders of the blind, and the blind in the blind both shall come to the edge. Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also Thank you, Matthew. Did you see that? Did you see what he says? He's declaring to them in parables. And he says, are you without understanding? And he let him go with that for a while. He let him think about that. See, our Lord is patient. He said, are you without understanding? And he left that burn into their heads as if to say, think about what we just talked about. What does it mean that the blind lead the blind and they both shall fall into the ditch? Well, we now can understand that because it's explained to us. They didn't have the New Testament. We can see that now. We can watch what's going on out in Minnesota right now. The blind leading the blind. You take Omar, you take Tim Walsh, you take Governor Whitmer and Neuse. They're all the blind leading the blind and we sit back and oh well, oh I can't, I hope this doesn't happen. I used to do that. I don't anymore. I pity them. They're exactly what Christ is talking about here. Their blind are leading the blind, and they're all going to fall into the ditch. It's just a matter of time. That's what the endgame is here. All of these things that we're seeing. They're getting ready to pass a bill. I guess you all don't know this, because we're not supposed to know this. Even those of us here that work for the government and all, we're not supposed to know this. Sheriff Gaylor came out last week and he gave a proposition last week and he's furious. They're now trying to pass House Bill 292 again down at the Senate and it's coming up in February. Does anybody know what it is? You're a Marylander, you don't know what it is? Isn't it funny how it hasn't been on any of our news stations and it hasn't been put up anywhere for us to understand what it is? It's what it is. No, that's not reparations, but that's coming up too. That's a good point. 292 means that the Harford County Sheriff's, this is focusing on Harford County and Baltimore County. The Harford County Sheriffs will not be allowed to pull people over anymore if they have bad registrations. How are they going to find illegals? If someone takes trash and dumps it out in front of them, they literally have a video, they literally, Sheriff Gaylor has a video mocking this law, did you see it? And where the police officer has to sit back and watch somebody dump trash out of his window and literally he can't give him a ticket. This is the kind of stuff, this is the blind leading the blind. We see it right here in our state. And they're not supposed to do anything. These are the kind of things that we have to deal with. And when I see them and I think of the blind leading the blind, I mean, it's incredible how it's like everywhere. It's now here in Maryland. And what they're trying to do is make it so these sheriffs don't have any power, that they can't do anything. So the bottom line is when Christ says, but the blind, let lead the blind so they both can fall into the ditch. What is he saying? Don't be blind. It's that simple. And now he's telling the disciples, we get into John, we finish up here in John 16 verse 25, he's telling them, I'm not going to speak to you in parables anymore or proverbs, but I'm going to tell you plainly. Because now, he's basically, they have been actually, for those little bitty years they've been with Christ, he's been taking them to college, he's been schooling them. Now he's going to have them translate this, and he's going to have them write these beautiful words for us to read here today and to study them together. All right, we're going to have to finish. It's getting late. Heavenly Father, I thank Thee and praise Thee, Lord, for John 16, verses 23 to 28. And Lord, as we pick up with verse 25 again next week in 26, Lord, embolden our hearts to know, Lord, what a loving, beautiful, wonderful, consolatory discourse Thou gave us in John chapter 13 to 18. And to tell the disciples that Thou would send the Comforter, that He would judge those that don't believe, judge those that are sinning, and judge that the prince of this world is already judged. And Lord, as we learn together, I pray that Thou would just bless our hearts and prepare our hearts for the service this morning. For it's the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.