Peter said, and he spoke for
all the group, he said, we believe and we're sure thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. And he said, we're not going
anywhere else because we believe you've got the words of eternal
life. And he did then and he does now. And we believe that. And here
he is ministering to these men. And it's a wonderful thing that
the Lord Jesus ministers to people who who are just sinful, and
that's all of us. That's the way it was with these
disciples. And like I said, there was a
lot they didn't know, there was a lot they didn't understand,
even about His death, about the necessity of His sufferings and
His death, but He bore very patiently with them. Isn't it great and
wonderful that the Lord Jesus is quite patient with us? He
was with these men. And now He has them together
and He's just speaking only to them, but while His immediate
words were spoken just to these eleven men, God the Spirit had
John record these words so that the Lord Jesus, He's also speaking
to us. And to all of those who love
Him, who've read these Scriptures down through the years, and this
is what He says to us, they hated Me. Who's the they? The religious
leaders, the leaders of Judaism, those who taught that the way
to God is by works, by keeping the Ten Commandments, by duties,
and so forth. He said, they hated Me. They
hated me without a cause, as is said in the scriptures. He talks about in their law there
in verse 25. And of course, the word law is
another word for the Old Testament. And he specifically says in the
first part of verse 25, but this comes to pass. In other words,
all of this that is going to come to pass, their hatred of
me, my arrest, my crucifixion, all of this is coming to pass
to fulfill that which was written of me. Now, they did hate him. Remember,
he has already indicated his disciples, he said, now, they're
gonna hate you because they hate me. And then he said, they hate
me because they hate my father. That's the order. The first hatred
of their hearts is a hatred against God. Well, they can't get to
God. They don't like the way God is
presented in the scriptures, but they could get to Jesus of
Nazareth. So he said, they hate God, and
therefore they hate me, and because they hate me, they're gonna hate
you too. That's the order. Now, though
the religious world hates the people of God, we don't want
that hatred to be on account of us being hard to get along
with. or being kind of ornery. You
know what ornery means. We don't want to be that way.
We want to be like our Lord Jesus was. And of course, He's the
perfect pattern. He wasn't hard to get along with.
He was the meekest of all men. He was so tender-hearted and
full of mercy. And that's the way we want to
be, just like I read there in Matthew chapter 5. We understand naturally what
it means. Earlier in that message, when
he said, you heard it said in the law, an eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth, and we understand that kind of dealings. Hey, you
mistreat me, I'll get you back. That's natural. But he said,
that's not the way to be. That's not the way to be. An
enemy hates you? We know our natural response
is hatred toward them. But that's not the right response.
Our Lord Jesus, He was hated. He was despised by these people. They wound up killing Him. You
know what He did? He healed their sick. He healed
their family members. Quite honestly, I wouldn't have
done that, would you? I knew how they treated my family
members and how they hated people in my family. No, I'd give it
back to them just like they gave it to me. That's only natural. But see, our Lord Jesus is not
natural. He isn't carnal like we are. He's spiritual. But He was a
real man. And he loved his enemies. That
which he instructed us to do in the Sermon on the Mount is
exactly what he did. Earlier in the Sermon on the
Mount, he said, if they compel you to go a mile, go two miles. The Jews were in bondage to the
Romans. And a Roman soldier could come
up to you and say, hey you, carry this box a mile. The natural
response is, carry it yourself. And let me add a little weight
to it. That's a natural response. But our Lord said, you tell him
this, hey, I'll carry two miles for you. I'll carry two miles. You see, this is the way our
Lord Jesus was. He didn't dish out. like we would
an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Someone said this, to give back
evil for evil, that is manlike. That's the way we are. To give
back evil for evil is manlike. To give back good for evil, that's
godlike. Now you think about that. To
give back good for evil, that's God-like. But to give back evil
for good, that's devil-like. And that's the way these people
are right here. And these, I remind you, are
religious leaders. Don't think that these people
who just despise Jesus of Nazareth, don't think they're the scum
of society, the adulterers and the drunkards and people like
that. No, these are the most respected religious leaders of
the day. These are the so-called experts
on the Bible. And they hated the Lord Jesus,
and he says, as it is written in their law, they've read this,
they know this, they hated me without a cause. And without
a cause just means for no good reason. For no good reason. Our Lord Jesus was the perfect
man. He never did any harm to them. He rebuked them, but He rebuked
them in response to their vile attitude toward Him. Now, if
he had cowered down to them, if he had bowed to their authority,
the presumed authority that they thought they had, if he had done
that, if he had said, listen, would you men mind if I preached? Could I go to your Bible college? If he had had that kind of attitude,
they'd say, well, that's okay. They'd say, well, who are you?
We didn't teach you. Where did you get your education?
Where did you get your learning? Where did you get your theology?
And he said, I come from the Father. From the Father. And
they hated him because he said God was his Father. Because they
understood He was saying, I'm equal with God. And we know He
was and is. Because if Jesus of Nazareth
was not God, if He is not God, He can't help any of us. If He's
just like us, if He's weak, if He's mortal, If he can't have
his will, if he can't do what he wants to do, if he's just
like us, we're of all men most miserable. And we're wasting
our time here tonight. The one we worship, the one we
adore, the one we believe is God of very God. And he's also
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. That's why he's qualified
to be our savior. He's so magnificent. He's so
perfect. And here He humbled Himself. And here He is meeting with His
eleven disciples, knowing full well what awaited Him. All the sufferings of the cross. All the mockery. All of the lies that would be spoken against
Him. And he kept his mouth shut. He
didn't say a word. He's led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her sheriffs,
he didn't open his mouth. because He knew this was the
will of God. You see, the Scripture says here
that the Word might be fulfilled. The Word of God has got to be
fulfilled. The purpose of God has got to
be fulfilled. He's got to die to save us. God ordained His death. And He
knew and we know all of these things had to be fulfilled. The
word fulfilled means to fill to the full, to complete. And so our Lord Jesus, he's following
the path that God ordained for him to follow. And every step,
every step of his life, all the way up to and including the cross
of Calvary, with all of the bearing of the wrath of God in His own
body, all of the payment for our debt of sin, all of that
God ordained it before He made the world. And our Savior knew
this. This is a fulfillment of the
Word of God. And He tells His disciples, this
is all coming to pass. to fulfill the word, which is,
they hated me without a cause. They have rewarded me with absolute
hatred and rejection, though I have shown great kindness and
mercy to them. Our Lord was full of compassion,
full of tenderness, Anybody who was sick and they brought them
to Him, He healed them. He never turned anybody away. Never. It didn't matter who brought
them. It didn't matter who the person
was. In fact, it wasn't even conditioned. The healings were not conditioned
upon them believing unto salvation. There were a lot of people who
were healed by the Lord Jesus who didn't really believe Him
from their hearts and were converted by the grace of God and the Spirit
of grace. But He healed them anyway. He
never met a disease that He shied away from. He never met anybody
who came to Him for help that He turned them away. This is
our benevolent Savior. even as He doesn't turn anybody
away who comes to Him now. So if you need mercy, if you
need grace, if you need forgiveness, you need acceptance with God,
you need righteousness, you need this great salvation, come to
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's never turned anybody away
and He never will. That's the way He is. This is
our wonderful Savior. And they hated him without a
good reason. Without a good reason. The words, without a cause, are
also in the Bible translated as freely. So he's literally
saying, they hated me freely. Freely. That is, there was no
reason for it. No reason whatsoever. I'll tell
you the first usage of the word freely in the Bible is in the
book of Genesis chapter two, and you need not turn there.
If you want to write the reference down, you can. Genesis chapter
two and verse 16. God said, of every tree of the
garden, thou mayest freely eat. In other words, without condition,
without cost, It's just yours. He had one tree, they must not
eat of the fruit of that tree, but all of the rest of them,
he said, you can eat of them freely. It won't cost you anything. No conditions attached. No conditions. Let me show you a couple of scripture
verses. Let's see if you can find the
book of Hosea. You know where Hosea is? You
know, you find the book of Daniel, and then go to the last chapter
of the book of Hosea, because Hosea is right behind Daniel. Go to the last chapter of Hosea,
and we know, I think most of you know, the story of Hosea. Hosea was a prophet of God, a
very godly man. And the Lord said, go into a
land of whoredoms and marry a woman who grew up under the influence
of harlotry. Her name is Gomer. Fall in love
with her, court her, date her, marry her. And Hosea did that. And things went good for a while.
They had three boys and then Gomer went back to her kinfolk
and back to the people she came from and she became a harlot
herself. She became a prostitute. And
she got in debt and lost her good looks. Hosea never stopped
loving her, but she left. In fact, he would even take groceries
to her. He provided for her and she would
go to the door and see these bags from Kroger's or wherever
they had back then. It wasn't Kroger's but somewhere
other. And she said, my lovers have
been good to me. And all along it was Hosea who
was taking care of her. Just like the Lord in our days
of rebellion, He's the one who's been taking care of us. He's
the one that's been leaving groceries at your door. He's the one that's
been providing for you and for me when we wasn't giving him
thought. Well, Gomer, she fell on the
hard times and she got deep in debt and then the law came after
her, justice came after her because she owed a debt she couldn't
pay. and she had to be auctioned off. She's on the auction block
and she was put out in public in her shame and back then with
slaves they just stripped them and there she was naked. Her
good looks and beauty and figure and all that that had allured
the men, all that's in the past. Now she's rough looking, she's
old looking, she's wrinkled looking. There she is in her nakedness
and her shame, and they're auctioning her off. And Hosea says, how much does
she owe? And they told him, and he said,
I'll pay it. And he paid her debt in full.
And he went up to her, and he took his robe and covered her
with it, and he said, you're mine. I never stopped loving
you. Not for a moment did I stop loving
you, even when you left me. Even when you brought shame to
your family. I kept on loving you. Now you're
mine. And see, that's the way it was with us. We fell in Adam. And we've done some stupid stuff. We have. All of mankind. But
the Lord never stopped loving His people. And He came and divine
justice held us for ransom. And as it were, Christ said,
what's it going to cost to get these people? I love these people. I'll save these people. What's
it going to cost? And divine justice said, here's
the price of redemption, your blood, your death. That's why Christ died for our
sins, to pay our sin debt. And then we find out by the grace
of the Spirit of the Lord, it was our great Hosea, our great
Lord Jesus Christ, who's been providing for us all along. And
a verse here in chapter 14 in verse four, here's what the Lord
says, because he likens Gomer to spiritual Israel, those people
Christ came to save. And he says here in chapter 14
verse 4, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them without a cause,
freely, without condition, without a cost. For mine anger is turned
away from him. I'll be as the dew unto Israel. and he shall grow as the lily
and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. You know how God loves us? Freely,
without condition. You don't do anything to earn
the love of the Lord. He loves freely. There's nothing
you could do. How could you get the Lord to
love you? You and me and our sinfulness,
we're not lovable. We're like Gomer after she'd
wasted her body and her good looks were gone. We're like Gomer. We're shot to pieces. There's no goodness in us. There's
nothing lovable about us. The Lord says, I love them freely. Without condition. And that's
the way he loves us now. He doesn't say, now, if you'll
do thus and so, I'll love you. No, that's not what he says.
He said, I will love them freely. It won't cost you a thing. This
is without condition. It's all on the Lord's part.
That's why this is gracious. This is a gracious salvation.
A gracious salvation. God's election of us unto salvation. It was because he loved us freely.
God's redemption of us in paying our sin debt was because He loved
us freely. God's effectual call of us in
conversion was because He loved us freely. And then watch this. Here's another reference. Look
at Romans chapter 3. Look at Romans chapter 3. I took you to the Love of the
Lord. He said, I'll love them freely.
That's the source of our salvation. What's the source of our salvation?
What's the headwaters? You know what the headwaters
of something is? That's where it first starts. What's the start of our salvation? The love of God. That's where
it started. That's behind it all is the love
of God. The source of salvation is free. The method of God's salvation,
it's also free. It's justification by grace. Romans chapter three, verse 24,
being justified freely. Again, think of how our Lord
said, they hated me without a cause. That's what the word freely means.
And so here we could read this being justified without a cause. That is, there's no cause in
us. Now let's be honest. There's every cause in us for
God to damn us. That's right, isn't it? There's
every cause in us for us to go to hell. There's no question
about that. But if He's gracious to us, if
He forgives us, if He receives us, it cannot be because there's
some kind of good cause in us. Because He justifies us freely,
there is no cause in us for this justification. Which brings up
this question, what does it mean to be justified? Well, it means to be righteous
in the sight of God. To be righteous before the Lord. The Lord has made us righteous
in the Lord Jesus, who is the Lord, our righteousness. Here's a verse of scripture,
you know it well, 2 Corinthians 5 and 21. For he hath made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. We're justified freely. God says
you're justified. You're righteous in my sight.
Well, Lord, what do I do to get that? Well, you don't do anything. This is without a cause in you.
You see, all the cause, all of the reason for this is to be
found in the depths of his grace. Of his grace. being justified
freely, watch it, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. This grace comes to us freely
because somebody else settled the debt. Somebody else satisfied
God on our behalf, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
watch this, just turn over a page or two to Romans chapter eight.
All of the mercies of God are given to us freely without a
cause. All of the mercies of God are
given to us freely without a cause. Romans chapter eight and verse
32. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? Freely, without a cost, without
condition. See, if you listen to preachers today,
a lot of them, they put conditions in here. But all the conditions
were met by our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we need to understand.
Everything God demanded in His holiness, in His righteousness,
and in His justice, He looked to His darling Son for satisfaction. And the Lord Jesus satisfied
Him. And so all of the mercies of
God, they come to us with Christ Jesus. Notice the reading of
the scripture very carefully. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all. That is for means in the stead
of us all. How shall he not with him? Let me emphasize those two words. How shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? Everything we need for life and
everything we need to eternity, God gives us when He gives us
Christ Jesus. But understand this, without
Christ Jesus, you get nothing. It's all with Him. All of God's
mercies, all of God's blessings, all of God's salvation, all of
God's righteousness, all of the good things that God gives to
poor, undeserving sinners, He gives them in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And outside of Christ, God's
got nothing for you but death and judgment. That's all He's
got. But with Christ, He gives you
all things freely. I like that because everybody
likes something free. Free! And most of the time when
you see a sign that says free, there's some conditions attached
and you find out it's not really free. It's going to cost you
some way or other. But this salvation, hey, it is
absolutely free. Absolutely free. And watch this,
let me give you two more references, and this is in the last book
of the Bible, Revelation. I give you these two references.
Revelation chapter 21 and verse six, and then Revelation chapter
22 and verse 17. First of all, chapter 20, Revelation
chapter 21 and verse 6. These words are spoken to John,
and this is what he says, and he said to me, that is, this
one who's speaking, which is the Lord Jesus, and he said unto
me, it is done, it's finished. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning
and the end. I will give unto him that is
a thirst of the fountain of the water of life without condition."
Freedom. Without cost. Without a cause. You say, I'm such a sinful woman. I'm such a sinful man. I couldn't
ever do anything to merit God's salvation. You don't merit God's
salvation. He gives it freely. And He gives
so freely that there are no strings attached. And that only which
is required is the reception of the gift. That's all. And
He even gives you the will for that. He couldn't be any better. We
have all things in Christ Jesus and He even gives us faith and
repentance. And I'll tell you, if you're
a thirst, if you're thirsty for this salvation, for this Christ,
for this forgiveness, drink freely, just take it in, just believe
what God said without condition. He didn't say, no, you gotta
promise to do this and promise to do that. No, because we know
how our promises are. We tend to break them. So don't
come making promises. And here's one last verse, 22,
17. Revelation 22, 17. And the spirit
and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say,
come. And let him that is a thirst,
come. And then he says this. And whosoever will, Let him take
the water of life freely, without condition, without cost, without
a cause, without a cause. And I said, are you thirsty?
Well, there's that glass of water. Thank you, Bill. Bill filled
up this glass for me. It's not going to cost me anything. You're not going to charge me,
are you, Bill? Not today. It's free today, okay? Without
condition, without cost, without price. And that illustrates the reception
of Christ Jesus in salvation without cost. A singer closes