I remember when we were in the
firehouse one night, we had a service in the dark because electricity
went out. We may do that again tonight.
That was the first time I realized how many people used their phones
and tablets because I could see little lights out there once
the lights went out. All right, let's go back here
to John 7. I want to read this again and
make a few comments, but it says here, After these things Jesus
walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Jewry, not amongst
the Jews, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews' feast
of tabernacles was at hand, and his brethren, this is sons of
Mary and Joseph, Christ was the firstborn, he was born of a virgin,
but these are brethren born after him. according to the flesh. And it says, his brethren therefore
said unto him, you see it says, his brethren therefore, that
feast was going on and they were saying, since this big crowd
will be gathered up there, depart hence, leave this Galilean countryside,
leave this rural area and go into Judea, that thy disciples
also may see the works that thou doest. They're saying this mockingly. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If
thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For neither did
his brethren believe in him. And then Jesus said unto them,
My time is not yet come, but your time is already ready. The
world cannot hate you, but me it hateth. because I testify
of it that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this
feast. I go not up yet unto this feast,
for mine time is not yet full come. When he had said these
words unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren
were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly,
but as it were in secret. We're going to see at another
time. He's going to end up preaching
there. But he didn't go up with the whole caravan openly and
publicly. He went up secretly. And then
the Jews saw him at the feast and said, where is he? And there
was much murmuring among the people concerning him. They were
whispering in secretly. And some said he's a good man.
Others said no, but he deceived the people. Howbeit no man spake
openly of him, for fear of the Jews. Now there's three groups
of people here, three groups of people, and they make up a
good cross-section of the people in the world. And they have one
thing in common, they would not identify with Christ. They wouldn't
identify with Christ. The Jews, spoken of here, the
religious leaders, they sought to kill the Lord Jesus. They
wanted to kill The Lord's brethren, after the flesh, they mocked
him. They said, if you really are
doing these works, that if is an important word, they didn't
believe him. They said, if you're doing these works, show yourself
openly. They were mocking him. And then
there was the religious people of Judea and from around the
countryside that had gone to Jerusalem. Now some of these
were maybe religious, some maybe not, but they were murmuring
secretly, quietly concerning him. And Christ said here, he
said to his brethren, he said, the world hates me. He's talking
about the unregenerate world. He's talking about all natural
unregenerate sinners. He said, the world hates me.
And that's what we see in all three of these groups at this
time. They hated Christ. There may have been some born
again in that religious multitude that believed on him, but we're
talking about just these we're looking at here in our text.
These all hated Christ. They didn't identify with Christ.
They wouldn't confess Christ openly and they didn't follow
him. Now there's three things in this passage that show why
the natural man, the natural world hates Christ, hates his
gospel, hates his people. There's three things that our
Lord says here. First of all, it's because they
don't believe in Christ. There's no faith in Christ. He
said there, verse 5, here's why his brethren said what they said,
for neither did his brethren believe in him. None of these
three groups believed him. The religious leaders didn't,
his brethren didn't, and the unregenerate religious folks
observing that feast, they didn't believe in him. They said he's
a deceiver. And then secondly, Here's why
the world hated Christ. Christ's testimony concerning
their works. He said in verse seven, the world
cannot hate you, but me it hateth because I testify of it that
the works thereof are evil. And then thirdly, a fear of man
rather than God. He said there in verse 13, these
folks were murmuring quietly, but no man spake openly of him
for fear of the Jews, fear of those religious leaders. So I
wanna look at this subject of why the world hates Christ. We're talking about unregenerate
sinner, natural sinners as they come into this world. Why does
the world hate Christ? Well, first of all, natural man
has no faith in Christ. It says there in verse five,
neither did his brethren believe in him. The Jews, the religious
leaders, they had the oracles of God. They had the law and
the prophets. The oracles of God. They studied
the scriptures. The Pharisees were zealous for
the law, meticulous about the law, and they had seen him heal
an impotent man. Remember, he healed the impotent
man. Been lame 38 years. They saw that. They heard him
declare he's one with the Father. And yet, they did not believe
on him. They did not believe on him. They sought his life.
They wanted to kill him. They thought he broke the Sabbath
day, the law of the Sabbath, and they said, because he said,
I'm one with the Father, they said, you're making yourself
equal with the Father. That's blasphemy. They wanted to kill
him. Well, what about his own brethren? Now, these are brothers
in his family, his nearest family relations. They grew up with
him. You know that from a child, they knew he wasn't like others.
You think about him, he wasn't like others. And they saw his
miracles too. But even his nearest family said,
if thou do these things. They thought he was doing something
magic or something. They say, if you really do these
things, go up there and show yourself. They thought he wanted
to make himself known openly and that he was trying to get
a following. If you do these things, go up there, because
they didn't believe on him. And then the multitude at the
feast, some religious, some probably irreligious, some probably just
there to set up a stand to make some money of the religious folks
that were there. But they didn't believe on him
either. They said he's a deceiver. You
know what a blessing it is to believe on Christ? That's a blessing,
to believe Him. When you think about believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. There's folks in this world today
that don't even believe this book is His Word. They don't
believe there is a God. They say they don't. But to believe
on Christ, that's a rare and precious blessing of God to believe
on Christ. No sinner born of Adam can make
himself be born of God and believe on Christ. It's impossible. We
see here, you got these religious leaders, you got his family members,
you got these religious hosts. Back in John 1 11, he said this,
John 1.11, it says, He came unto His own, and His own received
Him not. 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, which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
You have to be born of God. Later He tells some, He says,
You seek to kill Me because My Word has no place in you. We
have to be born of the Word of God. Where all flesh is grass,
it's just dying, withering grass. Man at his best state is altogether
vanity. Adam in the garden, before he
fell, was vanity. That's the best state man's ever
been in. And that was vanity because he was mutable and able
to fall. What about you and me? Man at
his best state is altogether vanity. And we have to be born
again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. And that's
by the Word of God, which liveth, it's a living Word, and abideth
forever. And this is the Word whereby
the Gospel is preached unto us. You remember back there in chapter
6, as Peter spoke up for the 11,
in verse 68, he said, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. The words that gave us life and
the words that keep sustaining us life. This is our food, this
is our nourishment. We believe and are sure that
Thou art that Christ, the Son of the Living God. You know what
He said over in Matthew 16, 17? He said, Blessed are you, Simon
Barjona. Flesh and blood didn't reveal
this to you, but my Father which is in heaven. He doesn't reveal
it to everybody, but He revealed it to Him and to them. What a
blessed gift to have spiritual life and faith in Christ. That's
a gift. By grace, by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of yourselves. Grace, salvation,
faith, it's not of us. It's not of ourselves. It's the
gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. because we're His workmanship,
we're God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus on two good works
that He foreordained and His people are going to walk in every
good work He ordained. This is the gift of God. So why
does an unregenerate man, when they hear the gospel and they
hear this message and they hear about Christ, why does an unregenerate
man hate Christ and hate the gospel and hate hate those that
declare it to them, because they don't believe in Him. They don't
believe in Him. Now look at this next thing.
The unregenerate world hates Christ because Christ testifies
that man's works are evil. He says here in verse 7, the
world cannot hate you. His brethren at this point, there's
some indication that they may have been born of God and believed
after the resurrection, but here they didn't. Here they didn't.
And he says, therefore the world cannot hate you. You're one with
the world. But me it hateth because I testify
of it that the works thereof are evil. Now the very fact,
you think about this, the very fact that the Son of God came
down and took flesh to work the works of God for his people testifies
that all our works are evil. That testifies that our works
are evil. That He came down, the Son of
God had to come and work the works of God. It was a must that
the God-man work the works of God. The sin nature only produces
evil. When we fell in Adam, we really
broke the whole law of God and became under condemnation, and
being born of Adam, our sin nature only produces evil. It only produces
evil. Our Lord, when He was speaking
to His disciples, remember? And He was talking about how
the Lord gives good things to His people. He said, if you being
evil, know how to give good things to your children. How much more? The Father. Nothing comes of
us, of our flesh, but evil. The religious leaders' works,
all that they were doing, evil. His brethren's works, they were
going up to the feasts, evil. unregenerate religious folks
that were at the feast and the irreligious folks. All the works
evil. From the vilest immoral sinner
to the Pharisees who were looked upon as the most righteous of
all. Our Lord is saying all their works are evil. What then? Are we better than they? Paul
said in Romans 3, 9. He said, Are we better than they?
No, in no wise. We've before proved both Jews
and Gentiles. That takes in everybody. All
are under sin. As it's written, there's none
righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. They're together become
unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. That rich young ruler came to
the Lord and called him good master. And he said, why do you
call me good? There's none good but God. None
good but God. That's an all-encompassing statement. Christ crucified testifies the
fact that Christ went to the cross and was crucified testifies
there's nothing a sinner can do to make ourselves righteous
and accepted of God. Absolutely nothing. He said in
Jeremiah 13.23, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard
his spots? He said, then may you also do
good that are accustomed to do evil. Christ is the way. He's the way. He's the way, he's
the righteousness of God. That's what Paul said in Romans
10. He's the way, he's the righteousness
of God. He came down to fulfill the law
and the prophets and he is the very righteousness of God. The
righteousness of the law is love. God is love. Christ is God. He is love. He is the righteousness
that fulfilled it. And He did it in perfect love
to the Father and perfect love to His people. And that perfect
love, you know what it made Him do? Look upon you and me as foul
sinners, those He came to save, and lay down His life for us. He said, I must work the works
of him that sent me while it's day. The night cometh when no
man can work. I must work the works. Now you
think about this Feast of Tabernacles. It's called the Lord's Feast
over in Leviticus 23, 7. But here it's called the Jews'
Feast of Tabernacles because it had been corrupted. Everything
that was taking place there was evil. It was all evil. They dwelt in these little huts
for seven days. And they cut some tree limbs and made
little huts. And they dwelt in these little
tabernacles for seven days. The Lord ordained this. He ordained
it. And what it was to remind them
of was how He redeemed them out of Egypt. And that pictures Christ,
our Passover, our Redeemer who redeemed us by His blood out
of Egypt. And then they dwelled in these tabernacles for seven
days. And it pictured how that God
provided for them and sustained them the whole pilgrimage when
they went through that wilderness. The shoes didn't wear out. They
never lacked. He fed them manna from heaven.
He gave them water out of the smitten rock. He provided for
them the whole way. The cloud led them. The pillar
of fire led them. He protected them. He sustained
them. He carried them the whole way through the wilderness. And
that pictures Christ Jesus our Lord who provides for his people
and preserves his people all the way through this pilgrimage.
This is a temporary tabernacle we're dwelling in. And He's leading
us the whole way. There's a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens, and He's leading us there. Now
on the eighth day of this feast, it was a special day. Because
the eighth day, this was done when they had gathered all the
harvest, and they were praising God for this harvest. And on
the eighth day, It pictured how that Christ is coming again and
he's going to gather together all his people. You know, once
they went through that wilderness, he delivered them into the promised
land. And Christ is coming again and he's going to deliver us
into the true promised land. And when he does, he's going
to present us to the Father without spot, without blemish, and God
will tabernacle among his people. He said John saw the New Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven and he said in Revelation 21.3 I
heard a great voice out of heaven saying behold the tabernacle
of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall
be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their
God. Now that's what this feast of tabernacles pictured. They
also called it the tabernacle of booths because they built
these little booths you know. Now that's what it all, it all
pictured Christ, just like all the law pictures are Lord Jesus
Christ. Now also while they went through those seven days, they
made continual sacrifices to God with lambs and everything,
picturing how that Christ is our high priest and our lamb
who's perfected his people forever and how that This is how we worship
Him as we go through this pilgrimage, is in Christ. Now get this, Christ
is the one in all picture. He gave them the law at Sinai,
Christ the mediator did, He's the one that typified, and now
here He stands. Here He stands. And without faith in Him, without
faith in Him, all their observance was evil. Every bit of it. whatsoever is not of faith is
sin. Every bit of it. As a regenerated
believer, Paul said, in me that is in my flesh dwells no good
thing. I labored, he said, yet not I but the grace of God that
was with me. Every good work performed by
his people in faith is good only in and by Christ. Every good
work, it's by Christ and it's only in Christ that we're accepted. He's our righteousness. We are
not trying to be accepted by anything we do. They are produced
of God the Holy Spirit who sent by Christ. Any work that we do,
produced by the Spirit of God, the fruit of the Spirit, cleansed
in the blood of Christ. And the Hebrew writer said, therefore
they are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So our righteousness
is seated in heaven. He is a person. And anything
we do pleasing to God is of Him, by Him, and through Him, and
to Him. And He gives us the glory. But
whatsoever is not of faith is sin. This is why folks hate Christ. This is why folks hate Christ.
This is why folks hate His gospel. This is why folks hate His people.
They'll hear it so long, and usually not long. It doesn't
take any time. But what men hear is, as it goes
forth, they hear this. They hear Christ testify that
all works outside of Him, apart from His shed blood and the power
of His Spirit, is evil. That's what it testifies. The
Gospel testifies this, of us, outside of Christ. It's all evil.
We need Him. Now lastly, let's look at this.
reason that natural man hates Christ, this last reason is a
fear of man rather than God. Now I'm just giving these in
order as they are in our text. This is where everything really
begins is a fear of God when he comes to us experimentally.
In John 7, 13, they were speaking about him, but no man spake openly
of him for fear of the Jews. They feared these religious leaders.
And this is natural man. Natural man fears man. Natural
man fears man. That's how come ever so often
in society, society just makes a hard turn. You know, something
becomes a little popular and it catches on and it catches
on and next thing, it's unpopular not to go that way because that's
the way everybody goes. Natural man fears man rather
than fearing God. Remember Isaiah? In Isaiah 8.12,
I showed you this not long ago, but Ahaz was making a confederacy
with a foreign nation. The Lord came to him through
Isaiah and he said, ask a sign of me. And Ahaz pretended like
he didn't want to see a sign. I don't want to tempt God. Really,
he just was going to make a confederacy with men. And he said, Emmanuel
is coming. God with us. He's coming. Born
of a virgin, He's the everlasting Father, the Almighty God, the
Counselor, the Prince of Peace. He's coming. And He said this,
Say not a confederacy to all them to whom this people shall
say a confederacy. Neither fear ye their fear. What's
man afraid of? He said don't fear what they're
fearing. Don't be afraid of what man's afraid of. but sanctify
the Lord of hosts Himself. Behold Him as He is. He's the
Lord of hosts. Everything is at His disposal. Everything is used of Him. Everything
He's working Himself on purpose. And He's doing it for the good
of His people. Everything, brethren. Everything. Just know He's on
His sovereign throne. And know He's ruling and reigning
for His people. And so he says, sanctify him
himself, let him be your fear, let him be your dread, and he
shall be for a sanctuary for you, a refuge for you. He tells
us when he's bringing things to pass in his life and it looks
troubling to us, he says, my children, enter into your chambers.
Where's that? That's Christ. That's our sanctuary. Enter into our refuge, enter
into your chambers until the indignation be overpassed. wait
in Him, look to Him, just know He's going to work good for His
people. He's working all things together for the good of them
that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
Why? Because who He foreordained, He predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ. And who He predestinated, Him
He also called, and whom He called, Him He justified, and whom He
justified, Him He glorified. And if we know these things,
brethren, and we truly believe Him, what are we going to say
then? If God's for us, nobody's going to be against us. No matter
how it looks out of these eyes, trust Him. Just trust Him. Just
trust Him. Christ formed in a sinner. When
He's formed in us, brethren, we're given a fear of God in
our new man. And He sustains it and He strengthens
it. And it makes us willing to confess
Christ before men. confess Him before man. When
you start preaching in His name, you start getting a lot of arrows
shot at you. But He makes you confess Him.
He makes you believe on Him and confess Him. And when you are
a lamb starting out, He gives you that fear to confess Him. And He makes you unite with His
people under His gospel. And He makes you stand with Him
under His gospel and He makes you give Christ all the glory.
And that's so in these services. We want Him to have glory. We
want to do what we do with fear and reverence to Him. It makes
you want to do it amongst one another and in our lives. What Brother Adam just read,
he said, as you've always obeyed, much more now in my absence,
work out your own salvation, your own daily affairs with one
another. with fear and trembling. Why? Because God's working in you.
He's working in each of your brethren. He's working in our
midst. And He's doing His goodwill and
His pleasure. His pleasure. That's what He's
doing. And so, work it out with fear and trembling. Now, that
being said, do we put confidence in our fear of God? We don't
put confidence in our faith. We don't put confidence in and
any good works that we do, we don't put confidence in our fear
of God. Because we still have a sin nature
that makes us fear man. Don't we? Peter boasted that he wouldn't
deny the Lord. They might deny you Lord, I won't
deny. I'm standing with you Lord. And the Lord told him, he said,
Peter, Satan's desire to sift you is weak and he's sifting
you. And you're going to deny me three times before the rooster
crows. And that's what Peter did. That's
what he did. Why did he do that? He feared man. And that's still
in us, brethren. But it was Christ who preserved
him. It was Christ who sustained him. It was Christ interceding
for him. That's why his faith didn't fail. It was Christ that
restored him. And that's what he's going to keep doing for
his people. Where then is perfect fear? Where's perfect fear? Christ Himself. He's the perfection
of faith, just like He's the perfection of righteousness,
and He's the perfection of fear. He is. You consider this. Consider this now. As God, He
knows. He knows all things. And as God,
he knew that these Jewish leaders sought to kill him. He knew that.
He didn't walk in Galilee and not go up and walk in Jewry because
he was afraid of them. He did it because he knew his
time had not come. It wasn't time yet, the time
set by God that he and the Father and the Spirit had agreed upon.
It wasn't set yet. He knew that entire mob that's
up there, he knew that in a very short time they're going to be
crying crucify him, crucify him, crucify him and spitting upon
him and everything else they did. He knew that. What would you and I do in that
case? I'd be with that group right there that said that they
didn't speak about him openly for fear of the Jews. Wouldn't
you? Without his strength in us, that's
exactly what we'd do. Just like Peter, but not Christ. As a representative of His people,
as a man with a perfect fear of God, without any sin in his
heart, he believed God that now is not the time. Now is not the
time they are going to crucify me. And so he obeyed the will
of his father. This feast was one of those feasts. There were three feasts that
the father required all males go up and observe this feast
three times in the year. And this was one of them. And
just like he had observed the Passover, he obeyed the father
and he went up and he observed this feast. Our Lord did. Because
he came to fulfill the law. He was made on the law to fulfill
it and redeem his people from it. And he went up there and
he ended up even preaching the gospel to them, even though he
knows everybody there hates him. Everybody there wants to kill
him. Why? He feared God. This is what God
sent him to do. He went there. He went there. And it was that same perfect
fear, brethren, that same perfect fear, when the hour came. He
said, now's the time. He crossed that brook Kidron,
and when they came to arrest him, he said, this is your hour.
That same perfect fear. He believed God, he feared God,
and he trusted that God would, he would bear the sin of his
people, he would bear the shame of the cross, and the cursing,
and the spitting, and he would bear the wrath of God, being
forsaken of God, and he would die. But he believed God, that
God would raise him from the dead. And so he set his face
like a flint, and he went to the cross for his people. That's
perfect fear. That's the perfect fear of God. Right there, brethren. And by
doing it, he declared God just, he honored his law, he declared
God is the justifier of his people. And Hebrews says, being made
perfect, being perfectly consecrated, he became the author of eternal
salvation to all them that obey him. Now you think about this. Christ is the author and finisher
of our faith. We're talking here about three
things. Why does the world hate Christ? They don't believe Him,
their works are evil, and they don't have a fear of God in their
heart. Now where is this perfection for His people? Number one, for
faith, Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. He's the
perfect servant of God who believes God perfectly. You and I, we
still have much unbelief, don't we? We have to pray, Lord, help
my unbelief. We have a lot of it. And the faith He gives us,
sometimes it's very small, sometimes it's just a mustard seed. But
brethren, by Him, we believe Him. We believe He's the author
and finisher of our faith. We believe He is the perfection
of faithfulness. He is. And He keeps us trusting
Him. He won't let our unbelief overcome
us. We trust Him. Alright? The world hates Him
because their works are evil. Where is our perfect righteousness?
Christ is our perfect righteousness. He perfectly fulfilled the law
and everyone that He represented are complete in Him. Perfectly
righteous before God's legal code. Before the law, we're perfect. We've died and our old man's
been crucified and we're perfect in Christ. Now brethren, our
flesh doesn't produce anything good. There's nothing good in
our flesh. Not at all. But Christ does produce some
good works in His people. He does produce some good works
in His people and He makes them accepted of God. But where is
our perfect righteousness? It is Christ only. Christ only. Christ only. There is still a
lot of sin in us. Any works that we do in this
world, they are of Him. But our perfect righteousness
is Him. Now what about fear? Where are we perfect? This fear
has to do with perfect sanctification and perfect holiness. Where's
our perfect fear? Seated at God's right hand. He
perfectly feared God. He's our perfect holiness in
whom we're perfectly holy and perfectly sanctified. That's
true of every one of His people. Now, He gives us a fear of Him
and a reverence for Him and our new man and He sustains it, but
there's still a whole lot of fear of man in us, isn't it?
He gives us a fear of God And He sustains it, and He keeps
us reverencing Him, and trembling, and makes us not want to offend
Him. But there's still a lot of fear
of man in us. He has to strengthen us to stand
with Him. He has to strengthen us to stand
for Christ, come what may, and see what He does, wait to see
what He does, and stand with Him. Stand with Him. And He does
that. This is what He said. He's teaching
us to believe on Him, teaching us to rest in His righteousness
alone, and He's teaching us to fear God. That's what we'll do
by His grace. He told us this, fear not them
which kill the body, that they're not able to kill the soul, but
fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Fear
Him. No matter what men do to us,
brethren, Man's not going to separate us from Christ. They're
not. Fear Him. And He said this, He
said, two sparrows are sold for a farthing. And He said, and
one of them won't fall to the ground without your Father. The
very hairs of your head are all numbered. That's how protected
you are by God's grace. The very hairs of your head are
numbered. So fear ye not, therefore, you're of more value than many
sparrows. And he said, whosoever therefore
shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my
Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before
men, him also will I deny before my Father which is in heaven.
Believe him, trust his righteousness alone, and fear him. He's our perfection of all three,
him alone, amen. Father, we thank you for this
word. Thank you for your mercy, your grace. Lord, give faith
to one of your lost sheep. We ask you in fear and make them
trust Christ our righteousness. And Lord, would you keep us in
faith, keep us fearing you, keep us trusting your righteousness
alone. Don't let us, don't let us fear man, don't let us, Keep us looking to you and trusting
you, Lord. How we do thank you that you're
ruling everything in our midst, that you're in each of our brethren,
that you're working good for your people. Help us to see you
with the eyes of faith and trust you. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.