Turn with me again to John chapter
15, and look again at verse 18, if you would. John 15, verse
18. The Lord Jesus here says, if
the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated
you. And if you were of the world,
the world would love his own, but because you're not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. The very first reason that our
Lord gives as to why the world hates believers is that it first
hated Him. And secondly, the second reason
is because of divine election. The Lord told us that right here
in verse 19. He said plainly and simply so
that none can misunderstand. He said, I have chosen you out
of the world, therefore the world hated you. In other words, this
is why the world hates you, because I chose you out of the world.
Hold your place here in John 15 and turn with me, if you would,
to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. This is when the Lord Jesus came
back to his hometown of Nazareth. And in verse 16, Luke chapter
four, we see that when he came to Nazareth where he had been
brought up and as his custom was, this is what he did. He
went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for
to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written. The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. And he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering
of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And then he
closed the book, as we're told in verse 20, and he gave it again
to the minister and he sat down. And every eye in the place was
upon him. All of them that were in the
synagogue, all of their eyes was fastened upon him. And he
began to expound and saying to them, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears. In other words, these verses
are talking about me. This passage of scripture in
Isaiah is talking about me. and all that bear him witness,
verse 22, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
out of his mouth. And they said, is this not Joseph's
son? And he said unto them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. They weren't interested in just
preaching. They wanted to see some miracles. And he said unto
them, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in His
own country. And our Lord, knowing all things,
He knew what was gonna happen this day. Just because He was
from Nazareth did not mean that He would be accepted of Him.
Men by nature hate the truth, even if it comes from one of
their own. You know, I have some in my own family. They haven't
come right out and told me, but I can just tell by their contempt
of things that I often say, that they hate the truth that I believe
and preach. Now look closely at verse 25.
Our Lord continues and he says, but I tell you of a truth. Many
widows were in Israel in the days of Elias when the heaven
was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was
throughout all the land. But unto none of them None of
the widows in Israel was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta, a city
of Sidon, and to a woman that was a widow. God passed over
all the widows in the land of Israel, and he sent his prophet
Elijah to save and preserve the life of a Gentile woman, a woman
of Sarepta, a city which was in Sidon. But he didn't stop
there, look at verse 27. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elijah the prophet, and none of them was cleansed,
saving or except Naaman the Syrian. There were many lepers in the
land of Israel in the time of Elijah, but none, he said, not
a one was cleansed. God had mercy on none but a Syrian
man named Naaman. You see, God has mercy on whom
He'll have mercy, and God has compassion on whom He'll have
compassion, and God hardens whom He wills, and He only has to
just pass by and pass over a sinner in order for them to be hardened,
just to leave them to themselves. Oh, I pray God never leave me
to myself. Deliver me from myself. They
harden themselves apart from God's mercy and grace. And what
was the response that our Lord received from those in whom he
told these things? Those of his own hometown. Look
at verse 28. And all they in the synagogue,
how many of them? All of them, when they heard
these things were filled with wrath. And they rose up and they
thrust him out, not only of the synagogue, but out of the city.
And they led him into the brow of the hill, wherein the city
was built, that they might cast him down headlong." They ain't
gonna throw him off the cliff. But he, passing through the midst
of them, went his way. It's the same today. Nothing
stirs up the enmity and the hostility of the carnal fleshly mind more
than to hear of God's absolute sovereignty choosing some and
passing by others. It still infuriates men and women. It's how ironic that it was in
the synagogue of Christ's hometown where they sought to murder the
Savior. I heard someone say a long time
ago, and at the time, I really didn't know what they meant,
but they said religious people are some of the meanest people
in the world. I know what he means now. But not believers,
ought not be. Things today haven't changed
for the better, I'll tell you that. You expound and preach
today the truths of divine election and God's predestinating mercy
and grace in Christ, and you'll be hated and ridiculed by the
very people that claim to be Christians. You let your lives
show your calling, let your walk make it known that you're not
of this world, that you travel a more narrow path, a road less
traveled. that you've been chosen out of
the world and the enmity of the ungodly will show itself most
of the time in hostility towards you. That's exactly what Christ
said in our text back in John chapter 15. He said, therefore,
the world hated you. They don't hate those who are
mere professors of faith. They don't hate those who take
part along with them in man's free choice and man's free will. No, they love them. The world
and its religion loves its own. That's what the Lord's saying
here. But those who follow a rejected Christ will know something of
what it means to enter into the fellowship of their Lord's sufferings. Paul said in Philippians 3 verse
10, he said, for all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall
suffer persecution. But we rejoice in the words of
Matthew. Do you remember what he wrote
in Matthew 5 verse 10? He said, blessed are they which
are persecuted for righteousness sake. He said, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven belongs
to you. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute
you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. That's hard to do, isn't it?
It's hard to do when somebody obviously hates you. For great
is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. You're in good company. Now back
here in John chapter 15, verse 20, the Lord says, remember the
word that I said unto you. The servant is not greater than
his Lord. If they've persecuted me, they
will also persecute you. And if they've kept my saying,
they'll keep yours also." I love the thought here of the fact
that our Lord is not gonna let his people forget any of his
words spoken by him. He presses upon the elect here,
the mark of genuine discipleship when we encounter the hatred
of this world. When you run up against this
kind of persecution, remember this. The Lord said, if they
persecuted me, they're gonna persecute you. And if they've
kept my saying, they'll also keep yours. And that little two
letter word, if, becomes a very big word. It's the same word
found in verse 18. Look back at verse 18. If the
world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.
The same with verse 19. If you were of the world, the
world would love his own, but because you're not of the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world
hated you." He says, if you are my followers, if you are my friends,
then you must have fellowship in my sufferings. It's just a
fact. If they persecute the Lord, they'll
persecute His servants. That's when God's choosing of
His elect people manifests itself, and our election becomes a reality. They'll hate you the same as
they hate your sovereign Lord. For everyone that doeth evil
hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deed should
be reproved. And as long as we proclaim the
truth and preach the truth of God's gospel, men in general
are gonna reject your message. in general, not all. Why? Because there are some sheep
that are not yet of the shepherd's fold. And he said, them I must
also bring. There are gonna be one here and
there that believe what you say. And boy, we rejoice when that
happens. That's what John said in his
first epistle, 1 John 4, verses five and six. He said, they are
of the world, therefore speak they of the world and the world
heareth them. He said, but we are of God. And
he that knoweth God, heareth us. And he that is not of God,
heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. Look at verse 21 here in our
text. But of all these things will
they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him
that sent me. Getting down to the nitty gritty
here. Here we find the real reason why the Lord's disciples will
be hated by the world. He said, for my name's sake.
That's why. All those who represent Christ
and truth as ambassadors for God, men will persecute them. And what a high privilege it
is to share in His sufferings. I'm convinced that I haven't
shared much in His sufferings, but the time very well come.
And I can only pray that I rejoice in that because it brings glory
to His name. Peter said as much when he said
in 1 Peter 4, 14, if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy
are you. For the spirit of glory and of
God resteth upon you. On their part, he is evil spoken
of, but on your part, he's glorified. And it's the true confession
of Christ in His name that arouses the hatred of depraved hearts.
That's what the writer of Hebrews said. He said, may we like Moses,
esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures
of Egypt, the Egypt of this world. Our Lord says that they'll hate
you. They'll despise you. They'll desire to kill you because
they know not Him that sent me. They don't know God. And that's
the reason for their hatred. It's ignorance that excuses the
inexcusable. Now look at verse 22, and I'll
tell you before I read this verse that I struggled with this verse
for a long time. Didn't really know how to deal
with it. But I believe the Lord's given
me some revelation and understanding of it. When the Lord here speaks
of the Jews, He says, they had not sin. Look at verse 22. He said, if I had not come and
spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no
cloak for their sin. When he says they had not had
sin, he doesn't mean that they were without sin. It's not what
he means. What the Lord is saying here
is in a comparative sense. Compared with the immeasurable
guilt of rejecting Christ, the Lord of glory, Their personal
sins were nothing compared to that. They had been in sin because
sin is what they were. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. But as evil men were by nature
throughout the history of mankind, the coming of Christ to this
earth brought man's sin to a head. Now I want to be careful here
so you don't misunderstand what I'm endeavoring to say. Sin is
sin, and all sin will be punished. And sin is a horrible, despicable
thing. But all the sin of mankind that
had gone before the coming of Christ was relatively trivial
compared to the monstrous evil of rejecting God in the flesh. We live in a land and in a day
and in a time where there are Bibles in almost every home.
They've got them in every motel and hotel and resort that you
would ever vacation at. Folks have the Bible on their
cell phones anymore. I do. There's no excuse for men
being ignorant of God's word, except for the inexcusable. To
have divine truth and the divine instruction that we have and
to reject it, to have no interest in it, leaves men and women without
any cloak, without any excuse for their sin. I believe that's
what the Lord's saying here. Our Lord said, for unto whom
much is given, of him shall much be required. Look at verse 23. He says, he that hateth me, hateth
my father also. And here the Lord Jesus furnishes
the very proof that the sin of hating and despising Christ was
a sin of great magnitude. The words of Christ were not
only his, but the words of his father also. That's what he's
saying. He and his father were one. The
idea of some that they can acceptably worship God the father while
rejecting God the son is a deception of man's depraved heart and deception
by Satan. The Jews profess to love God
and yet they hated the Lord Jesus. There's something wrong with
that. And we have the same today. Men claim to love God, but they
hate the Christ of the scriptures. They do. And the Lord exposes
their sin by saying, he that hates me hates my father also.
The Lord had just taught his disciples that the world would
hate them because it hated him. And that was because of his people's
oneness and their union with him. He said, they hate you because
they first hated me. And now here the Lord shows us
that the reason why the world hated him was because of his
oneness with the Father. After all, Christ is the express
image of God. After all, in Christ dwells all
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He that saw Christ saw the Father
also. That's what he told his disciples.
If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And Christ's doctrine
was the truth of God. His life revealed the perfections
of God. His laws expressed the will of
God. And to hate Christ proved that
they hated God, whom they said they loved. And it's a truth
most clearly revealed in scripture that men in their natural state
are haters of God. You read Romans 1. And we know
that natural men's minds are enmity against God, Romans 8,
7. The carnal mind is enmity against God. It's this hatred
that causes people to reject and hate Christ and His people.
Why? Because we're all one. I and
them and them and me, we're all one in Christ. I guess a way
to say it would be that rejection by men is a fruit of men's hatred. Men reject Christ because they
hate Him. And that's why the question of all questions is
this, what think ye of Christ? Man, that's where the rubber
meets the road. Whose son is he? Boy, you figure that out
and you found salvation. And God's got to reveal it to
you. It ain't no sitting down and figuring it out. God's got
to show it to you. And that's the test of every
human heart. When that question is honestly
answered, it reveals whether a man is Christ's friend or foe,
his friend or his enemy, whether he loves him or hates him. Just
as faith gives birth to love, unbelief gives birth to hatred.
Look at verse 24. He said, if I had not done among
them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. There's that terminology again.
But now have they both seen and hated both me and my father.
Now first notice how the Lord here places Himself above all
God's messengers that came before Him. The words again here, they
had not had sin, is along the very same lines as verse 22. The Lord is not saying that they
had no sin, that they weren't sinners. What he's saying is,
is if Israel or the Jews had not enjoyed such privileges of
having Christ in their presence, God in the flesh before them,
doing wondrous miracles, signs and wonders, they would have
not had such guilt as they had. If they had not heard Christ
speak as never a man ever spoke, if they had never witnessed the
works that the Lord Jesus did, that no man ever did, if they
saw Him do these miracles and wonders that no man had ever
performed because they saw them, their crimes in the sight of
God in comparison to what they did do would seem as nothing.
Not that their sins were less, but again, in comparison. If
Christ had not done among them the works that no other man did
or could do, their sin comparatively would have seemed mild compared
to what it was by rejecting Him. Well, that's the sin that'll
send you to hell, and that's unbelief, to reject Christ. The
presence, the testimony, and the works of the Lord Jesus brought
about the worst possible results for those who would not bow to
Him. It proved that they hated both the Son of God and His Heavenly
Father. And it's no different today.
What proof that apart from God's divine justice, through His mercy
and grace in Christ, that there's none righteous, no, not one.
Everything that we have, we've received from God as a gift from
God. What proof there is that there's
none that doeth good, no, not one. Therefore, every mouth has
to be stopped and the whole world must become guilty before God.
The presence of Christ brought out not only failure to meet
the obligations of God's law, but it brought out the actual
hatred of God's divine goodness. Nothing shows our depravity more
than the rejecting of the one who loved us and gave himself
for it. The rejection of Christ proves our total depravity. Now
look at verse 25. This will be our subject next
time, the Lord willing, but I want you to be thinking about it.
But this cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that's
written in their law. They hated me without a cause. What a terrible, terrible indictment
against Israel that was. They hated him who was perfect. They hated him who had no sin
and knew no sin, and they did so without a cause. That's what
the word freely means. They hated him freely, without
a cause. There was nothing in Christ to
provoke such hatred. Absolutely nothing. He was perfect.
He went about doing good all the time. Nothing in his character,
nothing in his doctrine, nothing in his laws. The Lord said, but
this cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that
was written in their law. They hated Christ without a cause. They hated Him freely, no cause
for it and no excuse for it. It can only be attributed to
their desperately wicked hearts. That's how such hatred is possible. Well, you might ask, why does
the Lord permit that? Well, first of all, it's the
fulfillment of God's word. And quoting here from their law,
the law that they claim to love, the law that they claim to keep,
Christ is showing that not all in Israel who claim to be God's
people are true spiritual Israel. Well, Lord willing, we'll explore
that topic more next time. Aren't you thankful that the
Lord has revealed himself to you? He's revealed himself to
you in spirit and in truth. My, my. He didn't have to. He could have passed me by. I
could still be wrapped up in religion or this world, but God
in mercy and grace snatched me out of it. And now the world
hates me because of it, but that's all right. That's all right.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making
me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me your great salvation, so rich and free. Thank you, thank you,
Lord.