'Come on in!'

John 14:21-22 says, “ He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”

Jordan explains, “The last thing there about manifesting myself to him. How is he going to do that? He’s going to go away. You remember Thomas said, ‘If I can’t put my finger in his hands in his side I’m not going to believe.’ So what did Jesus do? He stood in front on him and said, ‘Okay, Tom, touch me. Here, put your hand in.’

“But there’s going to come a time when Jesus is going to go away and He won’t be there to do that. He’s not going to appear to them in visions. But His Spirit is going to be there and the Spirit is going to reveal Christ to them; He’s going to be (verse 17) the Spirit of truth. And it’s going to be through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that He’s going to communicate some words to them that will reveal some things that He has for them that He hasn’t yet been able to say to them.

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“You can see from verse 22 that Judas isn’t getting what He’s saying. Don’t be surprised, though, because we’ve already seen some other guys in this chapter who weren’t quite getting it! And Christ is giving them some information now that, later on, they will get. At this point, He’s just putting it on the record for them here so that later on, if you look down at verse 26, ‘But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.’

“They’re later on going to be able to remember back to these things and that He did say it to them and then they’ll have that in their understanding. So Judas is asking Him the obvious question. What Judas missed is there in verse 21: ‘He it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.’

“But He’s not going to manifest Himself to the world and He’s already told them that in the verse before that so Judas is saying, ‘Lord, how is it you’re going to manifest yourself to us and not the world? Why aren’t you going to manifest yourself to the world and you’re going to do it just to us?’

“What Judas is missing here is the fact Christ is making a distinction. There’s a division going on. There’s a separation. It’s for those ‘born of God.’ How do you get ‘born of God?’ Chapter 3 says you’re born of the Spirit.’ So the Spirit’s going to come. There’s some people in Israel born of the Spirit and they’re going to be different from other people who aren’t born of the Spirit and there’s a distinction there.

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“It’s interesting that there’s more than one apostle named Judas. There’s Judas Iscariot (which means a ‘man of Carioth’—that is he’s someone who came from the southern kingdom) but the other Judas (Luke 6:16) is the brother of James.

“Now if you contract the name Judas down, what do you think it would sound like? Jude. Jude 1 says, ‘Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.’ Judas, the brother of James, is the one who wrote the Book of Jude. So again, not every book in the New Testament is written by an apostle. For example, Luke was not an apostle. But most of them are.

“Judas the apostle missed the point that there’s got to be a separation: ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’

“And I’ve said to you all the way through the Book of John, the issue in the Book of John is He gave power to become. The focus is on God communicating to the believing remnant in Israel the spiritual qualifications to be His people. It takes more than just the physical to be related to God. Israel had that. They were His chosen nation in the earth as no other nation could be.

“But it wasn’t enough to physically be a descendant of God’s man, Abraham, because he was also a descendant of Adam. With Adam there came a spiritual problem of alienation from God. With Abraham the Gentiles were alienated from God and one nation kept relationships, but that nation still had a spiritual problem and needed to be spiritually qualified.

“So that spiritual issue of having the spiritual capacity and power to become the sons of God is what the book of John focuses on in particular.

“Jesus said in verse 23, ‘If a man love me he will keep my words.’ Commandments are instructions given by words. By communicating in talk. ‘If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him. And we will come unto him and make our abode with him.’ They’re saying, ‘We’re going to come and have fellowship with him and we’re going to abide with him.’ Someone who makes their abode with you—that’s someone you welcome into your home!"

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“There’s an illustration of that in Revelation 3. I use this because this verse is so often misused. The Lord Jesus Christ sends messages to these seven churches listed. The last church is the church of Laodicea. Each one of these churches represents a special problem that the believing remnant in Israel will face in ‘the last days.’ Not just the problem--the solution to the problem is given.

“Rev. 3:20 says, ‘Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.’ James said the Judge is at the door. He’s coming. He’s standing at the door and knocking. He wants to come in.

“There’s a famous painting of this verse with Jesus Christ standing at the door of a cottage. Now the painting is by one of the Renaissance Italian painters where you have a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus standing in front of you. The painting is the artist’s rendition and it’s not very true, but there’s a significant thing about the painting.

“If you look at the door, you’ll see there’s no door handle on the outside. The door has to be opened from the inside. And there’s a great truth in that. Because the way Jesus comes in is when the inhabitants open the door. And that’s what’s going on here.

“ ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice AND open the door.’ He doesn’t barge in, snatch the door off the hinges and stomp in. He has to be invited in. It has to be opened.

“ ‘I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me.’ Now when He comes in, and then He sups with him, you see how He says, ‘I will come into him’? He just told them that in John 14: ‘I go away and yet I will come again. And when I come, I’m going to come and receive you unto myself. And when I come I will sup with you.’

“That word ‘sup’ is shorthand for the word ‘supper.’ Luke talks about how after they supped, He took the cup. The idea is, ‘I’ll come in and when I come in, I’m not just going to sit there; we’re going to have a meal! I’m going to fellowship with you. I’m going to enter into a fellowship ‘and he with me.’ We’re going to enter into a mutual fellowship!’

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“ ‘To him that overcome my throne his throne.’ Jesus goes away, sits at the Father’s right hand until His enemies are made His foot stool, then He comes back, sets up His kingdom, ‘sit on His throne with all the holy angels with Him (Matthew 25:31) and shall sit upon the throne of his glory.’

“Then what’s going to happen with the 12 apostles? In the regeneration, they’re going to sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. They’re going to go into that kingdom with Him and rule and reign and have a fellowship—a communion sitting around the table .

“When you sit around the Father’s table, the idea is we communicate but there’s a family relationship. I don’t know about you, but most of us don’t have family meals at the end of the day every day and talk about what went on. There’s a deep bond in that.

"That’s the idea of sitting at the table, fellowshipping, delighting in what one another’s doing. Delighting in being able to tell the events of the day. There’s fellowship together with one another!’"