Well, I want us to turn, I just
want to look at the phrase in John chapter 15 verse 25. It's a phrase which is the indictment against all
human It's the crime for which we stand
accused unless God is merciful to us. They hated me without
a cause. They hated me without a cause. And he speaks of this being something
that comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled, which
is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.
And this is several times written in the Old Testament, but the
particular verses he's referring to are Psalm 35 verse 19. Let them that are mine enemies
wrongfully rejoice over me. Let not them that are my enemies
wrongfully rejoice over me, neither let them wink with the eye that
hate me without a cause. Psalm 69 verse 4. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would destroy
me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then, this glorious
description of our Saviour, then I restored that which I took
not away. Throughout the Old Testament,
all the prophecies of the Lord Jesus Christ in some way or another
speak of the fact that when he does come, exactly as the scriptures
fulfilled, he would be, as Psalm 22 says, a reproach of men and
despised of the people, Isaiah 53.2. "'He shall grow up before
him as a tender plant "'and as a root out of dry ground. "'He
has no form of comeliness. "'And when we shall see him,
"'there is no beauty that we should desire him. "'He is despised
and rejected of men. "'A man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief, "'we hid as it were our faces from him. "'He was
despised. And we, this religious world,
this human religious world, thinking they worshiped, we esteemed him
not. The second-to-last book of the
Old Testament, Zechariah, says in 6, Chapter 13, And one shall
say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then shall
he answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. This Night of All Nights we know
about the reality of this hatred. Mankind hates God. This hatred began at his birth,
and obviously it had been there in the Old Testament. Cain began
the treatment of all God's messengers. It began at his birth, you might
recall, that Herod sought to destroy him. and to make sure
that he finally did really destroy him, he killed all of the children
in that region. This hatred was reignited as
his temptation. This hatred was followed throughout
his public ministry. His hatred led to the crucifixion,
which is the day following these words that we're reading. This
hatred continued with his apostles. No doubt when they stoned Stephen,
they went home and prepared their sermons, praising God that they
had rid the earth of a man like him. They persecuted the apostles
Peter and John. That persecution continued in
various forms. It's remained to this day unchanged. Hatred is such a destructive
force, isn't it? It's such a strong word, isn't
it? It's not a matter of just dislike, it's hatred, it's what
he says again and again and again. It's such a destructive force,
it's so self-delusional, it's so self-destroying. Have you
ever seen anything positive come from hatred? I know David says
that he hates them with the perfect hatred, those that despise the
name and the glory of God, but hatred can isn't it? And what is the origin
of hatred like the origin of all things that began in the
garden? It's the outworking of human pride, isn't it? You shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil. Man is born believing that
he's on a throne. We will not have this man reign
over us. Man's hatred of other man is based on man's pride about
himself and who he is. Man's hatred of the Lord Jesus
Christ is without a cause in him. All of the cause of man's
hatred is man's responsibility fully. Is this a crime to which
you plead guilty? So many people say, I've loved
God all my life. I'm sorry, that's way, way too
long. It's so opposed to love. In fact, God says in 1 Corinthians
16.22, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be
anathema, cut off from God and cursed. Maranatha, the Lord is
coming. Do you reckon that's a just sentence
from God? To hate his son? deserves that
punishment. I love what Ephesians 6.23 and
4 says, Peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God
the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. To love God is a work
of God in the hearts of His people. To love Him who we had hated
is a sovereign work of grace. He says in verse 24, Grace be
with them all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Love and grace and faith. As I said, he says, I'm just
repeating his words, this hatred is without a cause. There is
nothing in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's altogether
lovery. Every attribute of his is glorious. Every action is full of truth
and love. His great desire is the Father's
glory. His great desire is his bride's
well-being. Every act is full of grace and
truth. He loved God from his heart. of his existence, and he loved
man perfectly. Men had three and a half years
in the presence of God Almighty in human flesh, dwelling among
them, and they had the opportunity to watch him 24-7. They saw him
tempted, they saw him challenged, they saw him hated, but never
a man perfectly submissive to the will
of his father, tempted in all parts as we are, and yet without
sin. Not one, not one thought. Those people in Nazareth that
took him out to cast him down over a hill and murder him, had
never heard or seen anything in all of the 30 odd years, 20
odd years that he was with them, there was anything other than
perfect. That shows you how little understanding
man has of holiness. How little understanding we see. Men did not object to his miracles
of feeding, of healing, of raising the dead, of calming the storm.
They hated him because of his words. They hated him because
of what he claimed about himself, what he claimed about his mission
in this world. They hated him when he claimed
sovereign rule over all. This hatred today, as we saw
earlier, is a hatred that's generated by his electing love. He's choosing
his people out of this religious world. And this particular night,
where was their hatred? What was the focus of their hatred?
How can we kill him? in the most humiliating and demeaning
way possible. How can we kill him and him be
declared by the law of God to be cursed of God so that we can
go back to our religion and get this man who interfered with
their religion out of their lives and they could continue their
own religion? I have to destroy him because you take away our
name and our place. See, hatred leads to the cross. And where is the hatred of the
religious world now? It's in what happened at the
cross. His declaration of who he died for, his declaration
that in his life and in his death, when he declared, it is finished,
brothers and sisters in Christ, When he died, his declaration
in his resurrection is that he has justified all of his people. They have no sin before God. God cannot put the sins of his
elect people on the Lord Jesus Christ and leave them on you. and still be just and holy and
righteous. So perfect and complete is His
work, so precious is that blood. So when men speak of progressive
sanctification, what are they saying? His work. is incomplete, and
you can, by a cooperative activity of your life, make his blood
effective for you and make yourself more righteous in his sight,
and live, as it were, more obedient to his law. By faith, we live
by faith. We rest and trust in him, I pray. This hatred today comes when
we stand opposed to the modern notions, not so modern notions,
Cain believed in it, in progressive sanctification, in legalistic
righteousness, that you can measure by your activities and your progress,
somehow you improving in your standing before men and before
God. The hatred today is directed
at the electing love of God. The hatred today is directed
at the progressive sanctification that the legalistic righteousness
brings. The hatred today comes from those
who say, I will not compromise the glory of God. Saviour to
join with you in your religion. That's why they hated him. When
God takes his people out of, chosen them out of this religious
world, hatred rises up. This is why people still today
hate the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and hate those who proclaim
it. It may always be as we began
our time today with us declaring and praying the words of Psalm
109 verse 4, for my love they are my adversaries. But I give
myself unto prayer. It is possible, of course, amongst
people to be hated, and it's possible amongst even professing
believers, and I trust it's not us, to be hated because we're
proud and self-righteous and we look down our noses at those
who don't see eye to eye. May the Lord grant us the grace
to love much because we've been forgiven much. May the Lord grant
us to love much because we've been in the presence of he who
is love. May our hearts be reaching out. May our prayers be reaching out
to others. May the door of our hearts in
the church be open to welcome home wandering sinners. They've
wandered where we've wandered, brothers and sisters. They've
sinned the sins that we sin, and the Lord's mercy is all that
separates us. It's not because of anything
in us or anything that we have done, it's just God who has separated
us. May that glorious communion and
union in John 15 be our delight, our desire, our hope for all
we witness to. The Spirit and the Bride say,
come. Hate says, go and leave. Shut your mouth and speak no
more of that Christ. Leave me to my own righteousness
and leave me to my own religion and leave me to the esteem of
those who applaud it. Leave me alone. To not love is
to hate. Hatred is expressed in all sorts
of different ways, isn't it? To be disdainful of someone is
to hate them. You can murder people according
to the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 5 by being angry with
them. To view him as unimportant is
to hate him. To treat him as insignificant
and irrelevant and unnecessary is hateful to him. You hate him
without a cause. When God comes close and reveals
Himself clearly, then men are exposed for what is in their
hearts. And the cloak, as I keep saying,
that cloak of man-made works, religion and man's righteousness
is only revealed when Christ is revealed in His glory. A compromised
Christ You compromise any of the glorious
attributes of God Almighty as declared in this word, and you
will have lots and lots of friends in this world. This is a crime
for which we are guilty. This is a sad truth of what is
going to happen to the children of God in this world. Thank God,
he says, that in the midst of all of that, your testimony will
be of the association of the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth
with you and in you and speaking by you. There are, in this world,
lots of nice people. Lots of good people. You keep
hearing it all the time. There are such good people and
there are such nice people. Our God looks at the heart of
people and we need to be mindful that that's where God sees and
we don't. Samuel didn't know. Paul didn't
know. Christ alone sees the hearts
of people. Christ alone exposes the hearts
of people. Our task and our glorious opportunity
is that he's left us here to bear witness to him. You want
to see how sinful man is, you just need to go to the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to see how fickle man
is, you just go to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those
crowds that were saying, Hosanna, glory to God in the highest,
just a few days later were saying, crucify him, crucify him. May
the Lord have mercy upon us all. that we'd be not found in their
company. To not love God as he is, is
to hate him. To love God, truly love God,
is to love everything about him, to love everything that he says,
to love everything that he does. They hated me without a cause. They hated me without a cause. Listen to what the scriptures
say about the mind of the carnal man, what we are by nature. Romans 8.5, for they that are
after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. Isn't that typical
of what goes on in this world and particularly in this religious
world? They're looking at the external things all the time.
But they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit, For
to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. Because, listen to what God says,
there's a great article in our bulletin about it. Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God. is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because
they are spiritually deserved. The natural man can understand
and accept religion. The natural man can understand
and believe Calvinism and Arminianism and Reform Theology and Works
Righteousness and Progressive Sanctification. Look at me, what
I'm doing. Look how I've improved. But the
carnal man can never understand the grace of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says, you will not come to
me that you might have life. You'll go everywhere else and
to anything else that your heart desires, you will not. That's
an expression of man's crime. They hated me without a cause. Light has come into the world.
Men loved darkness. Religious men loved darkness. They hated me without a cause. The religious world will squabble
and fight and then join together in enmity against the Lord Jesus
Christ. We have seen it in our town and
seen it again and again and again. I remember one memorable Bible
study evening. We sat around the table and we
looked at the statement of faith of the local organisation evangelised
us, for want of a better word, all the high schools in the district,
and it raised us lots and lots of money, and we all went round
that table, maybe a dozen of us, and everyone looked at it
and said, this statement of faith is blasphemous. Everyone said,
this is blasphemous. This is not true. This is telling
lies in the name of God to children. This is telling lies to raise
money and employ people to tell lies about God. And I thought,
well this is going to be very interesting, we'll see what happens
next week. I came back there and one of the leading people in a church said, well I know
they're telling lies about God, But at least they're getting
the Bible into the hands of children. Why don't we just fly an airplane
over this district and get the Bibles out? What was the result
of that? He went back to a religion and
became an elder in a church where he God. They hated me without a cause. They'll unite in enmity against
the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to, in the few minutes
we have left, I want us to draw some conclusions from all this
and I want us to be sent away with a note of rejoicing. My
task is to comfort the children of God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is writing these words and declaring these things that His joy might
be in them and that their joy might be fulfilled, that they
might abide in His love and in His words. And so these are words
that we are to abide in and words that we are to love. I think
the first thing is that we need to weep and cry out and ask the
Lord to have mercy upon us and continue his work of grace, if
he has begun a work of grace in us, that we are guilty of
this crime. But the comforting thing that
I want us to take away from this is that if that's what we are,
hating God without a cause, our mind's enmity, hatred towards
God, then salvation, salvation is entirely of God's doing and
God's free and sovereign grace. And what God does, He does forever. and to come to a place where
we have been taken from enmity to love this particular God and
stand with His people here and throughout this world and through
time. It's a glorious work of grace,
brothers and sisters. We know that if our hearts are
enmity against Good works are not going to save us, and good
works are not going to keep us, and there are good works ordained
for us, and those good works are the declaration of the gospel
and to love one another. You can't say you love the Lord
Jesus Christ and not love his people. What a remarkable thing
that hatred, natural hatred, is turned into love. God must
do it. He must do something in us. He
must do something to us. He must put a whole new nature
in us. We are a new creation, created
in righteousness and true holiness. the righteousness of He who is
righteous. Holiness loves the holiness.
He creates as only a Creator can create. So therefore when
we look around this world and we think of where the Lord has
taken us, when my friend Gabe goes to Africa,
lands in Africa in the next couple of days, what an exciting prospect,
what an exciting thing for us to be involved in, in prayer
and in giving for that, that the Lord has his people there.
And through the preaching of the gospel, a stony heart will
be removed and a heart that was not there. It's not a reformation
of the old nature, it's a new creation that loves God perfectly. They hated me without a cause.
Salvation, therefore, in its entirety is without a cause. All of the cause of all of our
salvation and all of our keeping is entirely in Him. The Lord must do it all without
finding a reason in me. All He makes with us is enmity. and yet he creates love. The election, that's why election
is such a glorious doctrine, isn't it? It's a reflection of
this free and sovereign grace. We're chosen out of, we're chosen
before the foundation of the world, we're chosen in him. That's why he draws us out of
this world, he draws us to himself. 14 times in those first chapters
and verses of Ephesians, in him, in him, all the cause is in him.
Thank God. Thank God that we're not down
the road worshipping some stupid statue that tells lies about
God and tells lies about us. Why are you here? Because you're
better? Because you're wiser? Because
you've studied more? It's the grace of God. It's the
grace of God. We did nothing. We did nothing
to cause God's election. to cause God's redemption. We
didn't merit Him dying for us. He didn't die because of something
we did. He died because of who He is. This whole business of salvation
from beginning to end is all of free and sovereign grace.
And I want us, turn with me in your Bibles to a couple of passages
of scripture and I'll try and be brief, but I want us to know
where this word without a cause is used. And the word is often
translated freely. And so one of these glorious
descriptions of this is in that amazing passage of scripture
in Romans chapter three, and I'll read from verse 19. For
now we know that what things soever the law saith, that saith
to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped. Wouldn't that be a wonderful
thing? Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? That's how they ought
to be. that all the world may become guilty before God. Guilty
with a mouth stopped, Romans 3.19. Therefore, by the deeds
of the law, by the deeds of you doing anything, there shall no
flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge
of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus
Christ. This translation of ours is wonderful
in declaring that the faithfulness is the faithfulness of Christ.
The faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe,
for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Listen to this, being justified
freely, that means without a cause. The cause is not in us. Being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. whom God has set forth to be
a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness
for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. To declare, I say at this time,
his righteousness. And listen to this, that he might
be just, that our God might be just. He must be just. And the
justifier of him which believeth God to have no sin. We must preach justification
as the scriptures declare it to be. The sins are gone, brothers
and sisters in Christ. They are gone. They can never
be raised against us again. The justifier of him that believes
in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but
by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude, we here
conclude, I trust, that a man is justified by faith without
the deeds of the law. You are declared by God Almighty
to be without sin, without your deeds adding to it. Is he a God of the Jews only?
Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing
it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and
the uncircumcision through faith. Do we then make void the law
through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. We establish the law of God.
We declare the law of God to be righteous and holy and just
and good, and we love the law of God, and we love it particularly
in the hands of our Saviour who perfectly obeyed it. Justified
freely. All of your justification before
God is without a cause in you. All of the cause is in Him, that
He might be the just God and the Saviour. Okay, just two more. Let's turn with me to Revelation
chapter 21. without a cause. They hated me
without a cause and yet this is what he does in the lives
of his children. Revelation 21.5, He that sat
upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he
said unto me, Right, for these words are true and faithful.
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega. I'm the beginning and the end
and I'm everything in between. I will give unto him that is
athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely, without
a cause. Are you thirsty? If you're thirsty, you cannot
quench thirst by something inside of you. You have to go outside. Revelation, while you're in Revelation,
turn over the page to Revelation 22, 17. And the Spirit and the
Bride say, come right now. Don't wait till you get better.
Don't wait to improve yourself. Don't wait to make yourself more
knowledgeable. Come now. Let him that heareth
say, come. Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water from life freely, without a cause, without a cause. What a glorious gospel we have. Are you thirsty? Are you needy? Ask. Whosoever will, are you
willing to be saved by this electing, sovereign, glorious, gracious
God? willing to be saved by His righteousness
alone, willing to be saved by His blood washing you clean,
willing to be saved by Him who's promised to present His people
faultless and blameless and holy in the sight of God Almighty.
Come now, says the Spirit and the Bride, if the world hates
you, remember rejoice love him love his brethren love his word
let's pray our heavenly father we pray that you would cause
us to be people that are crying out in expectation and thankfulness
and coming continually to the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you,
Heavenly Father, that you cause your people to be athirst, and
you cause your people that are thirsty to be satisfied in the
finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father, we pray that
you would cause us to look upon Him whom you look upon as we
speak here now, and that we would find ourselves rejoicing in the
glorious finished work of your Saviour, our glorious God and
Saviour, who sits on the throne of eternity. Our Father, rule
in our lives and hearts in such a way that it would be our honour in this
world to suffer for the glory of His name. us of your work done without
a cause in us, and all the cause is in him. Bless your word to
the hearts of your people, heavenly Father, and glorify your Son
in your work in our lives, we pray.