Jesus’ Prayer for Us: Victory, Promises and Glory

The disciples are listening to our Saviour. They were listening to the One that had breathed upon them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” He had given them power to cast out devils, He had given them power to perform signs and wonders, and with rejoicing hearts, they had reported to Jesus the victory. They had reported to Him the things they had done in His precious Name.

It is the same with us tonight. We gather together in Jesus name, and we should have ringing testimonies of what He has done for us. These are the days we should be preparing for what lies out ahead of us. It will pay for us to act now in His name. We should be strengthening ourselves, for there will be no time later on to do it.

I thank God for prayer. It will launch us out into the deep. We will look back over these days, as the disciples looked over those days that they spent with Jesus.

When He was preparing to leave them, He told them He would send the Holy Ghost. And when He came, He would reveal all things unto them. There were things the disciples might have forgotten, but when the Holy Spirit came, He brought them to their remembrance.

I praise God for the wonderful power there is in the Godhead: God the Father sending forth His Son, Jesus finishing the work and going back to the Father, and then He sent the Holy Spirit. What concerns me is each one gathered here tonight. What concerned Jesus just before His crucifixion, just before His awful death on the cross, was those disciples before Him.

There is nothing more wonderful or beautiful than the prayer in the 17th chapter of John. This prayer was prayed by our Lord of glory, our Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, for the eleven He had before Him. As he prayed—“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that they Son also may glorify thee.” Oh, just think what this meant. It meant the time of departure was coming.

The time was coming when He was to leave the few He had gathered upon the earth. We wonder why He didn’t have a crowd or multitude, but He was pleased with the eleven. Just before He went to the cross, in that hour before His terrible test, He prayed not for Himself, but for those eleven disciples, and not only for them, but for us today. “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” That makes us know Jesus loved us, too. As He loved the eleven—that seemingly few—that part of His prayer includes us, and makes us feel closer to Him tonight, realizing His love not only concerned the eleven, but also concerned us.

“As thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” The glory He once had with His Father in heaven, He gave it up, that men might see His Father’s glory. But here He is asking for His glory back again. He had finished the work and was asking the Father to glorify Him once again with the glory He had before the world existed.

“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me: and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou has given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”

“I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.” I praise God for that. Jesus said, “Now Father, I give them unto thee, and unto thy care. You gave them to Me first, but now I give them back to you.” So mutual was this love. “I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.” That is where He got His glory. He said, “I am glorified in them.” They were praising Him; they were magnifying His Name; they were showing forth His glory.

I praise God for those disciples. I wish tonight we could have just as much victory as we should have. God is going to have a people with victory, and you can be among that number if you want. If you don’t have victory today, what will it be when the days of testing comes? Back here you can be gathering some food, you can be learning your lessons, and then when the real test comes, the Spirit will bring to your remembrance that which you have learned. Perhaps it will be in a time of severe testing; or when you are on the battle field alone.

Then you will be like these disciples. When they were alone they would probably say, “If only Jesus were here, He could tell us what to do.” But He knew that, and He sent the Spirit so He could call to their remembrance what Jesus told them right there in the hour of need.

“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”

He was so concerned about these few. “So concerned about such a few,” you say. Yes, for He loved them because through them the world was to know about Him. Through them, the world was to see Him. The world was to know that there was a Jesus, and that He had died for them.

“I leaned on His breast,” John said.

“I walked and talked with Him,” Peter said.

“Even though I was like one born out of due season, yet haven’t I seen him?” Paul said. I praise God that these few absolutely knew Him and walked with Him.

“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” Praise God, that takes in us tonight.

Jesus prayed for them that they in turn might pray for others, and that is where we come in tonight. That part seems to me to be the most wonderful part of the prayer. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed not for Himself, but for those disciples and for us. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

Oh my! We haven’t seen that prayer answered yet. Those disciples were one but as they went from time went on, division came. One would say, “I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos; and another, I am of Cephas.”

And Paul had to call them down: “Whether of Paul, or Apollos, or of Cephas, we are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.”

Praise God, He is going to present a Church to His Father that is without spot or wrinkle. A Church lacking in -isms and schisms. That which the palmer worm and canker worm destroyed shall be restored. That prayer is going to be answered.

“And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Hallelujah! “And I have declared unto them they name, and will declare it; that ” He loved me. He loved you. My! Such love.

The love wherewith God loved His Son. Oh, the love of the Father. We think of the love of a natural father for his son, but the love of the Father for His Son surpasses it by far. “The love wherewith thou hast loved me… I will declare it unto them…. And I in them.” Jesus Christ in them.

I praise God for this wonderful promise we have tonight. I praise God wherewith He loved His Son, that we might have this love in us. It is true. Our God is a miracle-working God. This same love that He put in Jesus, He can put in our hearts if we will let Him.

Many times our hearts are like a sunken garden, and when the Spirit of Jesus comes down and wants to walk through it, He finds stones and weeds there. Don’t they grow quickly? If you have a flower garden at home, you know how the weeds come to choke out the little seeds and plants. Many times the Lord wants to give us faith, and love, and the other precious fruits of the Spirit. But we allow the weeds of unbelief, doubt, fear room, and they grow so high we have to ask God to tear and root out every one of these tangling weeds. For with this in our hearts there is no room for the faith and love He would give us.

Just think, if our faith were as small as a mustard seed, it would move mountains. That little bit would mean so much. If you have any weeds of doubt, or unbelief, in your hearts, ask Him to root them out. Let Him put those things in your hearts, ask Him to root them out. Let Him put those things in your hearts that He wants to put there. I praise God, He will do it if you will let Him. It is possible.

As you trust God to pull them out, the first thing you know you will have a shoot of faith coming up; then a shoot of love that you hardly realized was there until it manifested itself. You will be surprised at what starts happening in your life. Just a seed of promise, just a seed of faith, will grow into a strong plant, and when the words of doubt, or fear, or unbelief sweep over your soul, it will stand firm and steady. When it is put there by God, it will be deeply rooted.

It seems the other night in my sleep, God gave me a shoot of faith. It seems like it started springing up before I knew it. I dreamed I was in a room, and a woman entered that was possessed with devils. I didn’t bother about her entering the room, but she came towards me like she would tear me to pieces. I didn’t move but just said, “The blood,” and when she came towards me again, I said, “I am under the blood.” With those words she was like one shot, and for a minute she couldn’t move. Those words, “I am under the blood” seemed to paralyze her, and make her helpless. Again she came towards me and this time I said, “A wall of fire is about me,” but those words didn’t have the desired effect. She came within a quarter of an inch from me, but again I said, “I am under the blood,” and that was all. She just had to leave me.

I thought, “My God, I never realized what the blood meant before. I knew it was wonderful and could do wonderful things, but I never realized it could paralyze the powers of darkness like that.”

I praise God, of the little shoot of faith He gave me even while I was asleep. He showed me all the tangles and vines that were in my heart, but I asked Him months ago to do the work in my heart, and He has done it. Even in sleeping hours He can have us grounded in faith, that when we wake up in the morning, we have something that is worthwhile. “There are many rooms in your heart I haven’t possessed yet,” He told me, and as I asked Him to possess them. He did.

There was a wall of doubt; a wall of fear; a wall of unbelief, and some other things. He came in and knocked those walls down, and instead of the wall of doubt, He put in a pillar of faith. You take an old house that you want to improve, the first thing you do is knock down the walls. You knock down the walls, and in place of them, you put up two pillars. The rooms are wider and larger. But, when the walls are knocked down there is a lot of old rubbish on the floor. There is old plaster, wallpaper, nails, and etc. You must clean them away. It is the same with my heart. God knocked the walls down, but the old debris, the old wallpaper; all the rubbish is in a heap. I am crying out, “Oh, my God, you have come in and torn down the walls, but take out the old rubbish heap.” Praise God, as we ask him, He not only tears the walls down, but He takes out the rubbish heap as well.

I pray God we will each one get before Him, and let Him not only tear out all the walls of doubt and fear, but that we will let Him knock down the walls of unbelief, and let Him tear out the weeds. Let Him do what He wants to do, and when the winds of fear and doubt come, you will be safe. No fear of the enemy can destroy or tear up what He has done.