[Note: This is Part A of the sermon on John 15 and abiding, delivered 20 February 1983, Montreal. The series is titled "Regeneration and Renewal." Part B continues directly.]
Let me read to you 1 John chapter 2, verse 19, to show you the dangers of having only one of these two connections — external and internal — without the other. Reading from verse 18: "Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might be plain that they are not of us."
Now, what has this to do with what we are talking about? It has a lot to do with it. Antichrists are not coming from among unbelievers. The Antichrist and the antichrists who already exist were all of Christian origin. They went out from us — they were at one time associated with the Church, they had a definite external connection. But their internal connection with the Church was dangerously weak. And if that is your condition, not only may you one day fall away from grace, but worse than that, you may end up being one of the antichrists. Many of the people most hostile to the gospel are not unbelievers but people who once attended Christian schools, once were in Christian families, and once were so-called Christians. Because they know something about the Church, they are the most dangerous to it. Unbelievers are no danger to the Church; these who were once in it and then went out are.
You also notice in a church that those with weak internal connections to the Lord and to his Church are the people who become murmurers, grumblers, slanderers, and malcontents. Because of the weak internal connection, they live a defeated life. And because they live a defeated life, they breathe all kinds of dissatisfaction and take it out on the Church. The Church takes the brunt of their discontent. They become the troublemakers, the weak links, and finally, when they drop out altogether, they become the antichrists. So this problem is a very serious one, as John warns us. If you have a weak internal connection, if you are not truly abiding, not only will you not bear fruit — you could one day become one of these antichrists.
Now let us proceed quickly to understanding more about the internal relationship. We have understood at great length that the internal relationship is what the Lord wants to stress in this term abiding. But what does it consist of? What is the nature of this internal relationship? How do we communicate with the Lord? For clearly, to have an internal relationship means that we can communicate effectively with him. But how do we do this?
When you pray to the Lord, do you feel that your prayer is more or less one-way traffic? All the arrows point one way, and you wonder when anything comes back the other way. You pray and pray and it all seems to be a monologue. Your headphones seem to have gone out of operation — only the transmitter works but nothing comes back. And you wonder, what's the use of this kind of Christian life? It seems to be all one way. For this to work, there has to be two-way communication.
Now let us turn to verse 7 of John 15 and see how this two-way communication works: "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you." Several times it says "you abide in me and I in you," and suddenly here we find something different: "my words abide in you." This concept of the word of Jesus is vital to the whole matter of abiding. In verse 3 he already spoke about the word: "You are made clean by the word." Twice in these seven verses he has spoken about "my word."
What does it mean for a word to abide, to live in you? This only makes sense if the word is conceived of as something alive. Colossians 3:16 says: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" — using precisely the Greek word katakaino, to inhabit, to live within you. And John 6:63: "My words, they are spirit and they are life." The words of Jesus are living things. I recently bought a theological book by a distinguished North American scholar, and in one reading I drained it — I exhausted its content, and a second reading wouldn't help me much. But when I come to John 15 — I have read it since I was a young Christian, and every time I read it, new depths of meaning come forth. You cannot do with the Bible what you do with an ordinary book. The scripture is something where understanding has nothing much to do with intellectual grasp but with spiritual vitality. It seems to grow bigger and bigger all the time.
Consider John 15:15: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I call you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Do you understand the sentence intellectually? Probably yes. But do you understand it spiritually — do you actually know what it means that he has made known to you everything the Father has shown him? I think not, for most. That is why this word cannot be exhausted intellectually. It speaks of levels of spiritual content and experience that you do not understand until they become true for you. When Romans 6 says "you have died" — if you haven't died, you can read it and intellectually seem to understand it, but you don't understand it spiritually. When you have died, suddenly: now I know what Paul is talking about. In the same way, "abide in me" — do you know what it means? Not until you have this inner connection.
So how does the Lord speak to us in this internal relationship? He speaks first and foremost through the word that he has already taught. John 14:26: "But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." While you are praying, the Holy Spirit is communicating to you and bringing his word vitally to your mind. All that you need to know for your daily Christian life, he has already told you. But you can't remember what you never knew in the first place, so it is important to have studied the word — and then the Holy Spirit brings it to your remembrance. And "remembrance" in John's usage means not just refreshing your memory but bringing the significance and relevance of what he said to your present situation. What you didn't see before now suddenly comes alive to you.
Of course this is not the only way the Holy Spirit speaks to us, but it is the first step. You cannot go to the second step until you have grasped the first. The second step is when he speaks to you about things which are not a specific passage in scripture — when he tells you about this or that event. Like Agabus, who knew through the Holy Spirit that a famine was coming to Judea and was able to prepare the Church. Or the Apostle Paul, comforted directly by the Lord in prison. Or what happened to me this very morning: I woke up and the Lord was communicating with me, warning me that our time for the Church generally in the world is drawing rapidly to a close, that serious things are going to happen in the world very soon. The words "wars and rumors of wars" were before my eyes in a very vivid dream or vision. So much so that I found myself almost beginning to sweat at the sight of these things that were shown to me. The warning to me means: press on, your time is getting short, these peaceful circumstances we enjoy right now are not going to last all that much longer. This is very much like the warning God gave to Agabus about the famine — that the Church should prepare.
So learn to abide. First and foremost learn to listen to the Holy Spirit as he brings alive what the Lord Jesus has already said. If you don't hear what he has already said, if you are not listening to what applies to your present circumstances, then he has no use to tell you about things which are to come. As verse 13 says: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come." Learn to abide. Learn to speak to him — but much more, learn to listen to him. What the...
[Continues in Part B]
# Abiding in Christ (1983-02-20)
Chapter 2, verse 19. Let me read to you 1 John, the first letter of John, chapter 2 and verse 19. To show you the dangers of having only one of these two connections. I read to you from verse 18, so you see the context. Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. Verse 19. They, that is the Antichrists, went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might be plain that they are not of us.
You say, what's this got to do with what we are talking about? Well, it has a lot to do with it. You see, Antichrists are not coming from unbelievers. Did you ever realize that? The Antichrist is not going to be somebody from the non-Christian group. The Antichrist and the Antichrists that already exist were all of Christian origin. Bear this deeply in mind. And John goes on to say, they went out from us, but they were not of us. Well, what do you mean? But when you have understood these two connections that I've talked about, you have no great difficulty in understanding. All these Antichrists, at one time or another, were associated with the church. They have definitely an external connection with the church. But their internal connection with the church was dangerously weak. And if that is your condition, not only one day may you fall away from grace, cease to be a Christian, but worse than that, you may end up being one of the Antichrists.
I have many times noticed that some of the people most hostile to the gospel were not unbelievers, but people who once were so-called Christians, who once went to Christian schools, who once were in Christian families. These are the people who once they turn away from the gospel become the most hostile and the most dangerous to the church, because they can boast of a certain connection to the church. "I once was a Christian." Familiar phrase, isn't it? And because they were once so-called Christians, they know something about the church, they know something about the life of the church, and they are most dangerous to the church. Unbelievers are no danger to the church. But these who were once in the church, they went out from us, but they were not of us.
You see, you often notice in a church, and those of us who have pastored churches for some time become very familiar with this problem, is that those who have weak internal connections with the Lord and with His church are the people who become murmurers, grumblers, slanderers, and malcontents. Why? Because they live, because of the weak internal connection, they live a defeated life. And because they live a defeated life, they begin to breathe all kinds of dissatisfaction. And they take out their dissatisfaction with their life in relation to the Lord, they take it out on the church. So the church takes the brunt of their discontent. They become the troublemakers, the weak links, and finally, when they drop out of the church altogether, they become the Antichrists.
Therefore, having defined to you these two relationships, I want to stress to you that this problem is a very serious one, as John warns us. It's a very serious one. You can say, well, I have an outward connection, that's good enough. That's not going to be good enough, because one of these days, you could well turn out to be an enemy of Christ and of His church, one of the Antichrists. So, that is a position not to stay in. If you have a weak internal connection, if you are not abiding, not only will you not bear fruit, but one of these days, you could become one of these Antichrists.
But now, let us proceed quickly to understanding more about the internal relationship. Alright, we have now understood at great lengths that the internal relationship is what the Lord wants to stress in this term, abiding. But what does it consist of? What is the nature of this internal relationship? How do we communicate with the Lord? For clearly, to have an internal relationship means that we can communicate and communicate effectively with the Lord. But how do we do this? When you pray to the Lord, do you feel that your prayer is more or less a one-way traffic? Where all the signs of the arrows point one way and you wonder when does anything come back the other way? It seems all the streets of your heavenly city point in the direction of going that way and nothing seems to come back. And so you pray and pray and then it all seems to be one-way traffic. Maybe your headphones have gone out of operation so only the transmitter works but nothing comes back. And you wonder at this monotonous monologue becoming even boring for yourself, what's the use of this kind of a Christian life? It seems to be all one way. How can we abide? How can we know this abiding? How can this life flow into me and bring forth fruit in me, the fruit of the Spirit? It's all going to be one way. Clearly it's not workable. There has to be two-way traffic, two-way communications.
Now let us turn to verse 7 and see how this two-way communication works. Several times it says "you abide in me and I abide in you," and suddenly we find verse 7 saying something different. "If you abide in me and my words" -- what does that mean? My words abide in you. Ah, you say that's easy. What do we do? We read the Bible. Read the Bible, memorize scripture passages, read my words. Well, that is only very, very partly true. In fact, that is hardly near the center of what we are talking about. Look at these words. "My words abide in you." The Lord spoke earlier about his word already. In verse 3, you are made clean by the word. Now clearly, this concept of word is very important to abiding. Twice in these seven verses he's spoken about my word. In the Greek, these are two different words for word, but I shall not go into the technicalities of this right now. But suffice it to say that the word, the word of Jesus, is vital to this whole matter of abiding. And you will not understand this two-way communication with the Lord unless you understand the significance of word in this context.
First of all, to speak of my word abiding, living in you, you can see immediately how steadfast continuance becomes a problem here. How can a word be steadfast continuance in you? I mean, what does that mean? If my word lives in you, that begins to make sense if the word here means something that is living. The word of Jesus is something living. Not just something on print here, but words of Jesus are living things. Compare this with Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, where the word of Christ is again seen to be alive. Colossians 3:16, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you, live in you richly." Now here, the word that is used in Colossians 3:16 is precisely katoikeo, the word that Hastings has mentioned. To inhabit, to live in you. Let that word live in you, inhabit you, reside in you, but this is only meaningful if the word is conceived of as something alive.
In John chapter 6 verse 63, John 6:63, the Lord says, "My words, they are spirit and they are life." The words of Jesus are living things. Did you know that? I recently bought a book during our trip to Ottawa. In fact, I bought two books. One on archaeology, another theological book. And this technical theological book has to do with prophecy and hermeneutics in the early church. Now I tend to read some of these more recent theological writings to keep abreast of New Testament scholarship so that I keep well informed of latest writings and developments in New Testament scholarship. And I found this book quite interesting, especially with a title called Prophecy and Hermeneutic. Hermeneutic, of course, means the interpretation or exposition of scripture as practiced in the early church. Now I read through this book and I think it is fair to say that in one reading I have drained the book. That is, I have exhausted the content of that book. I do not really need to read that book a second time because in one reading I have fully familiarized myself with what the writer wants to say. In other words, I have taken the book and squeezed it like an orange and drank the juice, as it were, and there is nothing left. And what do you do? You squeeze an orange a second time? Well, you could get a few more drops out of it but you might find yourself poorly rewarded for your labors.
You see, what I am getting at by this illustration is that the works of man -- if I read a book written by a scholar or any writer today, I am able to exhaust the content of that book quite quickly. And if I read through it a second time, I do not feel that I know much more than I did the first time. You see, it is something that is completely different from the Bible. I read the Bible for 20, 30 years and there are continuing riches coming forth. And I think to myself, I know this passage, John 15, I know it, I have read this thing since I was a young Christian. And yet every time I read it, oh, new depths of meaning coming forth from it. You see, you cannot do the same thing with the Bible as you do with an ordinary writing. Now the scholar who wrote this book is a very learned gentleman, this book that I just mentioned, who studied in Germany and in the States and England elsewhere, a very learned gentleman, a theologian, a professor in one of the seminaries, one of the more distinguished North American scholars. Yet, one reading is enough. In fact, I can't say that I learned all that much from the one reading either. But what there was to learn, I have already seen. But suddenly a second reading doesn't help me much. And imagine, if I were to read that book for 20 years, I don't know what I'm supposed to learn from that book. You see, one reading has exhausted it. What will you do if you have to read that for 20 years, every day reading another page of that book? I'll be utterly worn out, you see. But when you come to the scriptures, hey, strange, you read it and you thought you saw something, and next time, oh, some more riches and some more riches. "My words, they are spirit and they are life." It is not like a human book at all. This is the remarkable thing about it. Most of us have reasonable intellectual grasp. We don't have to go over the same thing another time. But strangely enough with the Bible, it is not a question of intellectual grasp. It is something to do with spiritual content. It is alive. It seems to grow bigger and bigger all the time. And you see, amazing, this word. Inexhaustible.
But there is another aspect to it. You see, the scripture is something that you understand or don't understand has nothing much to do with intellectual grasp. It has to do with spiritual vitality. Let us just look at this very same chapter a little bit further on. In verse 15, the Lord Jesus says, "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I call you friends. For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Let me ask you at once, do you understand the sentence? I am sure with average knowledge of English, you have no trouble understanding the sentence. But when I ask you, do you understand the sentence not intellectually, which I trust you do, but when I say do you understand the meaning of this spiritually, do you understand it? I doubt very many here would be able to say I understand. You do not understand it. "All that my Father has shown me I have revealed to you. For all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you." Is that true in your experience? Do you know what that means? Has the Lord Jesus made known to you everything that the Father has shown him? I think not. I think I will not be off the mark if I say no, for most, anyway. You see, that is why this word cannot be exhausted intellectually. It is not like a human book at all. It speaks of levels of spiritual content and experience that you do not understand until it becomes true for you.
Well, let us go to something more elementary. In Romans 6, Paul says, you have died. Have you died? Now, if you haven't died, you can read Romans 6, you intellectually seem to understand what he is saying, but spiritually you don't understand what he is saying because you haven't died. So what sense does this passage have for you? It has no sense for you because you haven't died. When you have died, suddenly the meaning opens up. Ah, now I know what Paul is talking about. Yes, I have died. I know what he is talking about. You see. So in the same way, when it says "abide in me," do you know what it means? I can take you through a dictionary definition of it, but do you know what it means? Not until you have this inner connection. His words are living, and if those words live in you -- do they live in you? You see? There is where the exegesis stops, because if they don't live in you, it comes to an end as well.
But our time is running fast and let me try to come to the point, because I am not entirely sure if I can communicate this point to you. The Lord speaks to us first and foremost through the word that he has already taught. And how to say this? When we pray to him, we commune with him, we speak to him, he speaks back to us. How? By the word that he has already spoken. He has already spoken his answer to us if we have ears to hear. I am not sure I am communicating to you. Let us picture yourself in a quiet time to try and illustrate this point.
I sit there before the Lord, and I often sit, as I say, because if you are in a very uncomfortable position, you won't be able to stay in prayer for very long. If your knees start aching and your back starts aching and your head is going into the pillow and you are suffocating, it's rather hard to continue fellowship with the Lord. So much better is that you sit comfortably, because the Lord is not one who delights in torturing you. I mean, you might like to torture yourself, but that's not what the Lord likes to do. He would like you to be comfortable, just as you like to say, "Are you comfortable? Are you listening to what I'm saying?" Many English radio programs begin with BBC 1 or 2 or whatever it is, and then the program begins, "Now, are you sitting comfortably? And then we shall begin." Why? Because they know you can't concentrate if you're not comfortable. So why twist yourself into a knot in prayer and then find yourself aching all over and after three minutes you can't continue anymore? Very elementary point.
But alright, you're sitting comfortably and you start communing with the Lord and then you talk and you talk and you talk and you talk, and if you are like me who is not normally very wordy -- surprising as that might be to you -- I don't know what to say after a while. Well, we can always continue in intercession and say, pray for this brother and that sister and so on. But after all, there's still a limit to how long you can go on like this. And after a time you find you're getting very tired of talking. "Lord, do you mind if I take a breath? Do you mind? Would you like to say a few things to me? Because I'm getting rather tired of listening to myself talking." Is that your experience? I'm sure if you're honest, that's been your experience, if you're even so much as seriously trying to pray. And finally you say, "You're quiet. So Lord, how about it's your turn now?" Silence. "Well, Lord, aren't you going to say anything to me? I mean, you happen to like my voice, I've been talking so long and you don't say anything." I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. So you might then wonder to yourself, is the Lord ever going to say anything to me or not?
Well, amazingly, he has already spoken. Before you call, the Old Testament says, I have answered. Oh, so where is the answer? So the answer is there. All the time it has been there. What does the Lord want to say to you that he hasn't already said? That is the point you should ask sometime. Everything that he needs to tell you, he's already told you there. So what do you do? In other words, I'm just going to be reading my Bible? I pray and then I read, right? I keep reading. The point is not in the reading. The point here is -- let us look at the previous chapter, chapter 14. The Lord has already dealt with this point, in chapter 14, verse 26. Verse 25: "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." And bring to your remembrance all that I have already said to you. All that you need to know concerning your daily Christian life, concerning discipleship, whatever you need to know, I have already told you. But you say, "Well, where do I begin?" Ah, there is where the Holy Spirit is. This whole context has to do with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance what I have said to you. That is to say, while you are praying, the Holy Spirit is now communicating to you and bringing his word vitally to your mind.
Well, there is so much scripture. Where do you begin? What is applicable? What is the answer for this particular prayer that I am making? The Holy Spirit will take his word and bring it to your mind. Now, that of course implies the importance that you know what he has said. Clearly, if you don't know what he said, there is nothing to remember. You can't remember what you never knew in the first place. So therefore, it is important to have studied the word, to have looked at it. And then the Holy Spirit brings it to your remembrance. But more than that, the word remembrance is not just to refresh your memory. The word "remember" here, as it is used in John, means that he brings its significance and its relevance for this particular situation to your mind. Now, maybe when you go home, you would like to look at how "remember" is used. For example, in John chapter 2 verses 17 and verse 22, chapter 2:17 and 22, John chapter 12 verse 16, John chapter 15 verse 20 and 16 verse 4. Now here the word "remember" is constantly used. And when you look at the way the word is used, remember doesn't just mean refresh your memory. It means that what you didn't see as to its meaning before, now suddenly comes alive to you.
That means that in the communication with God, in the very practical question of abiding, you communicate with him in this internal relationship. Make sure you understand it's internal, that you're not just talking externally. Inwardly, from the depths of your being, you are communicating with God. And then you will find that the Holy Spirit is taking his word and applying it to you. Now, as I say, I'm not sure that I'm communicating very well. But if you apply this sometime, you're going to be amazed how God speaks to you. Because the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God who dwells in us, whose temple we are -- he lives in us, literally lives in us, not just steadfast continuance, but actually living in us -- he will take the words here that the Lord Jesus has spoken and apply it to you. It suddenly comes alive to you. It is no longer the letter that is on the printed page. But the spirit of that message is coming alive to you. And suddenly you get very excited. I do, anyway. Many times I'm listening to the word of God and I'm listening and the Spirit of God suddenly opens it up to me. He shows me how this word applies to my present situation. It is not a piece of memory work on my part because if I remember the passage I still don't understand it. The Holy Spirit suddenly takes the inner meaning of that passage and makes it clear to me.
That's what it says also on the other side of John 15, chapter 16, verse 13. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth." Now guiding -- I'm sure you know what guiding means. If you go to a museum or to some scenic spot you have a guide and the guide takes you and explains to you. "Now this is what it was." Now before you look at the thing you saw nothing. But when the guide explains it to you, you say, "Oh, now I know what it is. Now I understand." The guide takes you progressively step by step along the way and explains what this means. Before you could have walked through the place and you see nothing. But now the guide has shown you and suddenly the whole place is alive with meaning. This is what guide, what remember means. It means he brings the whole thing alive to you. What you didn't see before now becomes meaningful to you. And there is a progressive nature also in verse 12. "I have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now." That is, you are not ready for them now. But when you will be ready for it, the Holy Spirit will take you into it. I wonder so far if you know what I'm talking about.
So what is he talking about? The internal communication in which you speak to him and he speaks to you through what he has already said but which you never understood before. Now the Holy Spirit opens it up to you and applies it to your present circumstance. Of course this is not the only way in which the Holy Spirit speaks to us. But that is the first step. We cannot go to the second step until we have got to the first step. What's the second step? Well, maybe you cannot bear it now. The second step is when he will speak to you without reminding you of any particular passage in scripture. He will tell you this and he will tell you that. But by that time you are accustomed to hearing him speak to you by the Holy Spirit. You are accustomed to being led into the truth. You are accustomed to being taught all things. That is the meaning of all that you have heard before but didn't understand -- the Holy Spirit now makes alive to you. That second stage is something further along the road. It is for those people whose ears have become accustomed to hearing his truth, who have been accustomed to being led by the Spirit.
What will happen as you go further along is the Lord will tell you things which are not in scripture. He will speak directly to you about this or that event. Like Agabus. Agabus knew and was able to tell through the Holy Spirit that a famine was going to come to Israel, to Judea, and that the church must prepare for the coming famine. The Holy Spirit is now able to communicate through certain persons who have become sensitized to his word. Or the Apostle Paul was able to be comforted directly by the Lord as he was locked up in prison. You remember the Lord appeared to him in a vision and spoke to him and comforted him. He said, "There are many people in this city who know me and I'm going to use you to build them up and to speak to them. So don't be discouraged for this short time that you'll be in prison." Or the Apostle Peter who was taught the significance of things clean and unclean. So by this time the Spirit of God is able to speak directly to you, either through a vision, through a dream, or simply directly through the speaking of his Holy Spirit.
This very morning, I woke up for some time and the Lord was communicating with me and warning me that our time for the church generally in the world is drawing rapidly to a close, that serious things are going to happen in the world very soon. And I sat up in bed and pondered the things that the Lord was showing to me. Suddenly the words, "wars and rumors of wars," were before my eyes in a very vivid dream or vision, whatever it was. So much so that I found myself almost beginning to sweat at the sight of these things that were shown to me, which I would rather not go into now. But the point here then is this: that when we learn to let the Lord speak to us and communicate with us through the word that he has already spoken but now addressed specifically to us through the Holy Spirit, then in due time we will become accustomed to hearing him speak to us on other matters. And in this case, as I said this morning, the warning that events in the world are going to change very soon, very rapidly. And this warning presumably to me means press on, your time is getting short in the world, the time for the church is getting short. These peaceful circumstances that we are enjoying right now are not going to last all that much longer. Press on hard with the work that is before you because wars have a way of very much hindering the work of the Lord. And that is why the Apostle Paul once said to pray for peace. But peace is not something that will abide long in this world. We are enjoying a period of peace. And I think the Lord was warning me that time will not be long when we ourselves will be affected in some very particular ways through changes in the situation in the world. And so the warning to me, the exhortation to me, was very much like that given to Agabus, which came immediately to my mind. The warning of a famine in that part of the world that was going to affect the activities of the church. So Agabus was able to prepare the church to face the oncoming famine.
So then let us learn to abide. And I feel in a sense that I may not have been able to communicate very effectively what I desire to say. All I can say is go before the Lord. Learn to speak to him but much more learn to listen to him. First and foremost let the Holy Spirit bring to your mind what the Lord Jesus has said which is relevant. Because if you don't hear what he has already said, if you are not listening to what he has said before which applies to your present circumstances, then there is no use for him to tell you about things which are to come. Which is also in verse 13. Let us read verse 13 again of chapter 16. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak." And notice these words: "And he will declare to you the things that are to come." That is exactly what the Lord did to me this very morning. Declare to me the things that are to come.
So then let us enter close into our walk with the living God. Learn to abide in him. Learn to have this two-way communication with the living God. And those who abide in him -- why did I stress this message today? What has it got to do with renewal and regeneration? What it has to do with renewal is this very thing: that those who abide in him do not sin. So long as you abide in him you do not sin. The moment you stop abiding in him you may well be into sin and deep into it too. Abide in him. Communicate with him in this internal relationship with him moment by moment. And you will find that you have neither the mind nor the inclination to sin. You cannot sin as you abide in him. And his power is constantly flowing into you and bringing forth much fruit. Let us be quiet before God in prayer.