to talk about that joy for lots
of reasons because it highlights the starkness of the contrast
of what the Lord is doing in His people. And what the world, and particularly
the world that he's speaking of here, is the religious world. We have no doubt about who they
are. But if we read, turn with me
in your Bibles to John chapter 17 verse 14. I just want to spend
a little bit of time looking at a topic which has been very
poignant and will be poignant in the Lord's life, particularly
that night and in the disciples' lives as they continue all 11
of them, 10 of the 11 will meet with horrific deaths, put to
death as martyrs. John's the only one, from what
the history says, that died of old age. Verse 14, he says, 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 have given them thy word. Back in verse 6 of our text he
says 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. I have given unto them the words
which thou gavest me and they have received them and know surely
that I came out from thee and have believed that thou didst
send me. In verse 14, many times in John's
Gospel and throughout this prayer he speaks of words, but here
in this particular verse when he's dealing with the hatred
that necessarily comes, just look at the text of the scripture.
He says in verse 14, I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them. The giving of the word of God,
and it's a conjunction isn't it? It joins two things together.
If God gives his word to his people, the world will hate them. That's what he's saying isn't
it? That's what he's declaring here in his high priestly prayer. And I've been wondering why the
Holy Spirit and our Blessed Lord would go from the plural of words
to the singular word. And I think so much of it's got to
do with the fact that the Lord does repeat himself often here
and But I think there is a particular distinction in John's gospel,
isn't it? We come to The Word. In the beginning was The Word. and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. When the Lord
Jesus Christ is manifested by God the Father, He's manifested
in words, but the manifestation is of the Word, isn't it? The
Word as He's declared to be in all the scriptures. The Word
as we just looked at, the Word who was rejoicing. He speaks
to those people who do not have his word abiding in them. It's not just the words that
they don't have. So many of these people he's
speaking of knew the words off by heart. They knew the words,
but they didn't have the word abiding in them. What is the hope? It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. How do we know that Christ is
in us, the hope of glory? Because he's promised it to be
so, but also it is the living experience of the child of God,
that the word became flesh and that word that became flesh now,
by his spirit and by him personally, takes up residence in his people. Christ in you, the hope of glory. We know from the scriptures that
there is an eternal union. The Lord Jesus Christ talks about
that union. He says part of the reason for
the hatred and the reason he gives immediately here is because
they're not of the world. They're hated because they're
not of the world. There was an eternal union of
life, of love, of blood, of redemption, of glory from before the foundation
of the world. And it's true because he says
it. But for the child of God, it's a living reality, isn't
it? It's a living reality, the word. He's manifested the word. There are multitudes throughout
this world and multitudes that were gathered in Jerusalem that
next morning who knew the words of God. They knew Isaiah 53 off
by heart. They knew Psalm 22 off by heart. When he says, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? He was, in the manner of Jewish
teaching of the scriptures, he was leading them in Psalm 22,
and there they were as a living witness to Psalm 22, every word
of it. They had all the words, and they
knew nothing of the word. They knew nothing of the word.
The words of Christ become a fire. I love what Jeremiah says. He
is persecuted and he's hated. And there he was, Jeremiah, just
one man with his scribe. One man in the city of Jerusalem
in a nation of Judea, that part of Judah and Benjamin, those
tribes. One man saying, this is what God says. And Jeremiah
complained, he said, I'm not going to make mention of him.
Every time I make mention of him, all I do is I end up in
pit and I end up in the stocks and I have this whole country
mocking me and I write out the words of God and I send them
to the princes of God and the king sits in his chamber and
he cuts off the word of God with a scribe's knife. warms himself
with the fire of the word of God. He says in Jeremiah 20 verse
9, he says, Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor
speak any more of his name. And then he says, But his word
was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones. I was weary, I was weary with
forbearing, I was weary with enduring the pain of it, and
he says, and I couldn't, I can't, I can't but speak the word of
God, no matter what the opposition is. I cannot, I cannot keep it
in, I must speak. And maybe that distinction in
word, he's obviously speaking to his leg, but he's highlighting
that enormous distinction between his people and the people of
the world, isn't it? That it's one thing to know that
there's a fountain opened, for cleansing and uncleanness. It's
another thing to be washed in the fountain and to drink at
the fountain. It's one thing to know that there's bloodshed,
it's another to be washed in that blood. It's one thing to
know Him say, come to me, but it's another to come and be coming
continually. It's one thing to know there
is a command to believe. God commands people to believe. But it's another thing to rest
our souls entirely on Him. God made this Jesus, whom you
crucified, both Lord and Christ. That Word, that Word in all of
those words became the Word that filled the whole universe. We
can't ever plumb the depths of how amazing our Saviour is. Nor can we plumb the depths,
and this is what I want us to look at today, the plumb the
depths of the natural enmity of mankind against God. It's the hardest thing for any
preacher ever to get through to people, and it's an impossible
thing, but not impossible with God, is to get people to understand
that they're real sinners. To get people to understand or
to be taught by God Almighty that their righteousnesses, all
of them, Filthy rags! You have nothing that you ever
done, nothing that you are doing, nothing that you will do that
commends yourself to God. Not my preaching, not my praying,
not my witnessing. The only thing that commends
me to God Almighty is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the place where
we see sin the clearest is at the cross. If you were there
that morning, Well you mightn't agree with me, but if I was there
that morning I would have cried crucify him. I know what it was
like to hate God. To hate the notion of God. To be an open enemy of him and
anything about him. I was the one that cried crucify
him. I was the one that drove the
nails in. I would have plunged the spear Sin is displayed on the cross
and it's displayed in hatred towards God. We're the ones that
spat in His face. We're the ones that plucked out
His beard. And immediately we think, well, I wouldn't have
done that if I was there. You immediately are acknowledging
and openly admitting your own righteousness is the only thing
that caused you to say that. You believe you're better than
someone else. You plucked out his beard. You mocked him as
he died. You mocked him for his faith
in his father. You didn't believe the report
of the faithful witnesses. He came to you in love. And he has to come to you, revealing
himself. He says, I have given them I've revealed who they are, I've
revealed who I am to them. I've revealed. And that's exactly what the preaching
of the gospel, the aim of the preaching of the gospel, isn't
it? Is that you will come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ
yet again. And if you are a sinner, your
immediate response thankfulness and to tell of his
greatness and to tell of his glory and to live for him. The love of Christ constrains
his people. His love for us revealed in the
cross. The world hated them. I have given them thy word and
the world How kind of our Lord to forewarn
us. What comfort in trials to forearm
us. What a shock it is. I don't know about you, but I
remember the first time I encountered hatred for declaring the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it comes as a shock. You
think, this is the best news, here I am, this is the best news
that any human being could ever, ever receive. And those, those
who are so dear to me, those who have known me all my life,
they mocked at me and they rebuked me. And I just was shocked, I'm
still shocked. I want to be shocked. by the
hatred of the world, and I want to be comforted by the promise
of the world. There is a particular hatred
that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking of here, and it comes
when the child of God is revealed as the revealer of the Lord Jesus
Christ. They're not hating you so much
as the fact that they can't get their hands on God Almighty.
The hatred of this world, the hatred of the religious world,
is directed against the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a natural
enmity of man against God and it's exposed by the revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You think of his life. As he
was born, the angels sang, glory to God in the highest and peace
on earth. They sang, the angels came and
sang. And what was the response of
Herod? Let's kill him. Let's kill him. Throughout his life, he had to
live. What a remarkable life he lived.
How remarkable his grace, graciousness. How remarkable his forbearance
in the midst of a people that he knew. He saw their hearts. He saw the hatred of their hearts.
He saw the hatred of my heart. He saw the hatred of Judas, and
he saw what Judas was doing that night, and for three and a half
years he lived before Judas without anyone knowing. Judas included that the Lord
Jesus Christ knew what he was doing, what he was going to do. Our God is gracious, The world hath hated them. In John 15, if you just go back
a page, he says in verse 17 of John 15, he says, these things
I command you, that you love one another. That's why love
becomes so important, isn't it? And so oft repeated. And then
he says in verse 18, if the world hate you, You know that it hated
me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the
world would love his own. But because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they
have persecuted me, they'll persecute you, also persecute you. If they
have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But these things
will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know
not him that sent me. This hatred is the hatred of
the world, but this hatred is the hatred of the professing
religious zealot when confronted with the deity and the glory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's when Christ is revealed
that hatred is exposed. And he's revealed and he was
revealed personally. his people and he's revealed
in the preaching of the gospel. If you go through the book of
Acts, as soon as the apostles had no opposition from any of
the religious leaders for those 47 weeks while the Lord was there
witnessing to them in his resurrection glory, when did the opposition
start? The moment they stood up and
proclaimed the lordship and the days and their opposition continued. You read the book of Acts, the
opposition continued and continued. The opposition was irrational. The opposition was persistent. The opposition to them betrayed
what was beneath their religious profession. Nothing but hypocrisy. Nothing but a hatred of God. religion to be exposed as the
hatred of God. He hath hated. It means it's a continual thing. And in this prayer, and in this
particular statement, the Lord is reminding us there's some
very important things, isn't it? When you encounter hatred
for the gospel, you've got to first remember The Lord promises and the Lord
prays for His people in the midst of it, in that particular situation. So take your rebukes and your
hatred to Him and ask for His grace and His power to keep you,
to keep you faithful. He says to pray for our enemies.
We don't set out to be enemies of the people of this world.
We're no better than them. We don't have anything that the
Lord hasn't given us. We pray for our enemies. We love
them. We try, and we try to witness
to them again and again. Stephen did, and they were stoning
him. And there was a man, Saul of
Tarsus, Remember also that our journey,
as we read in John 15, is going to mirror our Saviour's journey
in this world. The hatred that the religious
world has for us is the hatred that it had for Him, and what
began in the garden is going to continue through our time.
We also want to pray that when men hate us, they hate us because
of the declaration of the gospel that we proclaim. People are
hated and disliked for all sorts of reasons which are just purely
carnal. It's just one worm. in a bowl of excrement having
an argument with another worm in a bowl of excrement, isn't
it? But let's make sure and let's pray that when the world hates
us, they do as he says, you said in Luke 21, 17, you shall be
hated of all men for my name's sake. Let us declare the name
and the glory of God. We need to remember that this
is the journey that God has promised. We do love reading 2 Timothy
1. Just turn there briefly with
me. He says in 2 Timothy 1 verse 8. While you're turning there,
I'll read the verses. The verse before him, for God
has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love
and of sound mind. And then he says in verse 8,
not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, the
testimony of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, the testimony of the
gospel, the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified,
nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions
of the gospel. Listen to what he goes on to
say, according to the power of God. If you are suffering afflictions
for the cause of the gospel, it's according to the power of
God. And this is the testimony that
God's children bring, isn't it? This is the testimony of all
faithful witnesses. This is his testimony. who has
saved us and called us. The saving came before the calling
with a holy calling. It's come as a calling from a
holy God. Not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began, but now is made manifest
by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus
Christ had appeared and gone back to glory years and years
and years, 30 years before Paul wrote this. What happens in the
preaching of the gospel? The appearing of the Lord Jesus
Christ. What happens when the appearing
of the Lord Jesus Christ happens? The religious world is enraged
at these words. Listen to what he's done. Who
hath, don't you love this, he's abolished death and have brought
life and immortality to light through the gospel. Why would you want to hate someone
who says that? Why would you want to hate someone
who does that? The only reason, isn't it? The
only reason is that because when God has revealed their self-righteousness
and their religious righteousness, of Almighty. Hatred in the Scriptures
takes two particular forms. There is just a physical opposition,
an open opposition, and then the hatred which continues in
so many ways in these more sanitized times is the hatred of the corruption
of the Gospel, isn't it? If Satan can corrupt the Gospel,
he has won. You might recall the Lord Jesus
went back to that, went to his hometown of Nazareth and he preached
the gospel to them. And they, if you go and read
the account, it's amazing, isn't it? They were amazed at the gracious
words that proceeded from his lips. And then he says, this
is who God is and this is how God saves and God chooses to
save Gentile lepers. And he chooses not to save people
out of the nation Israel when God is exposed as being God who
has the right. They took up stone. They carried
him to a huge cliff outside that city and they would have thrown
him off. They heard gracious words, but
when the word came, they found the word to be offensive. But
hate in these modern sanitized days has many different forms,
doesn't it? To hate him is to treat him with
disdain. To slander him is to hate him. To not love him is to hate him. To treat him as unimportant and
insignificant is to hate him. To be contemptuous of him and
his people and his gospel To treat anything about Him and
His Word as insignificant is to hate Him. Just briefly, I want to look
at it for a few reasons, but I think we need to look at what
the world is. Once again, we know what the world is because
of what was happening that very night. What was the world doing
in their hatred of Him? They were hating Christ, weren't
they? They hated him when he was there revealing himself to
be God Almighty and declaring himself to be God. They hated
him when his resurrection power was revealed. Those who have been the biggest
haters of the Lord Jesus Christ and his people have been the
ones that have had the closest proximity. Cain hated Abel. Why? Because Abel brought the
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ to God and God declared it righteous. He accepted Abel and his sacrifice. He accepts them both together
and Cain hated him. In the New Testament letters
are written, the world who hates It wasn't necessarily the Roman
world. You don't hear much Roman hatred of the church in those
early days. They certainly did. And it wasn't
the hatred of the idolatrous pagan world. It was the hatred
of those who claimed that they were the true world. the hatred
of those who corrupted the gospel of free and sovereign grace,
and those who said that you must add something of your works to
what he has done. Nothing has changed. Nothing
has changed. The natural man receives not
the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him.
The carnal mind, Romans 8 verse 7, is enmity against God. It doesn't say just acts in enmity. Enmity is at the very heart of
what it is. All the doctrines of the Gospel,
all the truths of the Gospel are God-like and divine, and
they're spiritual, and they're supernatural, and they are received
by the new creation. They are received As Christ comes
in, that's why carnal-minded professing Christians can't receive
the things of the Word of God with love and joy. Their hatred
is irrational. We mustn't think. This hatred
is a spiritual hatred, so let's not try and figure out Let's
not try and figure out what psychological things are happening in this
person's life. They have one solution and that's to preach
the Gospels. Let's pray for them and pray that they'd come and
hear the Gospel. So let's look at the reasons.
The first one that he gives in John 17 is that they're not of
the world. God's children come from another
place. He says, The world has hated
them because they are not of this world. We don't have our
origin in this world. God's children are born from
heaven. God's children have a home in
heaven, God's children have an origin in the very throne of
God, in the very bosom of God Almighty as they were given to
His Son as a precious gift. That's where they came from.
They come into this world as the children of Adam, but they've
never not been the children of God and therefore That's what
he says, they'll hate them because they're revealed to be the children
of God. The children of God love the things of God. The children
of God rejoice in the God who gave them to the Saviour who
loved them. They love their husband, they
love their friend. So the first hatred is because
they are not of this world. The second hatred in John 16,
if you just turn back in your Bibles, we'll just look at a
few of these briefly. 16.2 They shall put you out of the
synagogue, yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will
think that he doeth God's service. And these things they will do
unto you because they have not known the Father nor me. They
just don't know who God is. With all their religion they
haven't got the foggiest notion of who God is. Nicodemus didn't
have a clue who God was. They didn't have the foggiest
notion. That's what God says about them. They didn't know.
They had no knowledge of and they had no love for the Father
or me. The hatred of this religious
world, of religious people, is directed at God's election. He says in verse, if you go back
to chapter 15 verse 18, he says, If the world hate you, you know
that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world,
the world would love its own. That's why all of the religious
world can join together in all of their activities, can't they?
There's an organisation here in this town that sends teachers
out into the high schools and pays the teachers to teach in
the high school. It's called 316. And if you go and look at the
list of all the churches involved, it includes the Baptists and
the Anglicans and the Catholics and the Seventh-day Adventists.
All of them have joined hands together. The religious world
joined hands together. Herod and Pilate became friends
at the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is an enmity,
but there is a fellowship in that enmity. He says, if you're
of the world, the world would love at home, but because you're
not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you. The doctrine of election is the
sweet, sweet doctrine of love. It's the sweet, sweet doctrine
of the deity of our God. It's the comfort of God's people,
and yet, he says, because you preach election, and because
you love the electing one, and you love his election, they will
hate you. You've witnessed it, you've experienced
it if you have proclaimed election faithfully. Verse 25 of that
same chapter, He speaks about this being a word fulfilled.
They hated me without a cause. All of the cause of all of the
hatred is in man. Man is 100% responsible for the
hatred. Man is 100% responsible. Don't blame God. Don't blame
God. To go back to verse 12, Isaiah
had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should
not see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts,
and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said
Isaias when he saw his glory, and he spake of him. He preached
to him, didn't he? Nevertheless, among the truth
rulers, many believed on him. You don't want this sort of belief,
I promise you. But because of the Pharisees,
they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the
synagogue. For, why did they hate him? They loved the praise
of men more than the praise of God. And as we looked at in verse
21, they hated him because of his union and his oneness with
them. We were people who hated him
without a cause. We looked at this some weeks
ago, but one of the glorious things of the gospel, and you
can read it in Revelation 21 and in Romans chapter three, His reason for saving us is without
a cause also. All of the cause is in Him. It means that salvation by merit
and good works is impossible. Salvation is pure, sovereign,
free grace. And let's remember that glorious
promise of God Almighty in Psalm 76 verse 10. He said, the wrath of man shall
praise him and the remainder he restrains. The hatred of men
is restrained and controlled by God mighty. And the hatred that comes is
for our good and for God's glory. And what does that mean? It causes us to know and treasure
how precious the Gospel really is. Our enemies are made to be
our servants in the hand of God Almighty. Amen. May the Lord bless his people.