Welcome to our program. Today
I'm going to be preaching from the book of John, chapter 15.
The title of the message is Love and Hate. Now someone once said
there's a fine line, a thin line, between love and hate. But when
you look at the reality of the Bible, of the true spirit of
love that Christ has given and promoted throughout the Scripture,
you find that there is a great, great chasm between what is called
in the Scripture and defined and described as godly love,
love of the brethren, and then what is described and defined
as the hatred of the world. Now Christ is here speaking to
his disciples in the upper room just prior to the time of his
crucifixion. He's about to be arrested. He's about to suffer. He's about
to bleed and die on the cross of Calvary for the sins of his
people to make satisfaction to God's law and justice and enable
God to be just and justified. The first thing we need to understand
about that whole transaction concerning the the death of Christ
for his people is that it is the product of God's love to
his people. And God's love is not conditioned
upon the object. You see, when God loves his people,
it is unconditional love. It is not a love that they deserve,
it is not a love that they earn, and it is not a love that is
inherent in them. It is unconditional love of God
to his people. The Bible says in 1 John chapter
4 and verse 10, herein is love, not that we love God, but that
he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Now, that word propitiation means
a sin-bearing, bloody sacrifice unto death that brings satisfaction. So it was the love of God that
sent Christ into the world. You see, Christ didn't come into
the world to get the Father to love His sheep. He came into
the world because His Father loved His sheep. And He loved
them. The Bible says in John 13 and
verse 1, He loved His own until the end. Now, when Christ died
on the cross, it was to answer the demand and the qualifications
and the conditions of the salvation of God's elect, his sheep, his
church. You see, God is holy, and though
he is a loving God, the Bible says God is love, not just that
God loves, but God is love. But the fact that God is love
does not cancel out his justice and his holiness. So what we
see is this, in the love of God towards his people, that in Christ,
God's love provided what his holy law and justice demanded,
and therefore God can be both a loving Father as well as a
righteous judge. He can be honorable. He can be
true to his nature as God. Now, when the Holy Spirit comes
in the new and impart spiritual life and knowledge and the gifts
and graces of the Spirit within each and every one for whom Christ
died on the cross and established righteousness, the Bible says
that one of the great works of the Spirit is to shed abroad
within the hearts of his people the love of God." In other words,
not only do they see that God loves them in Christ, and my
friend, that's In Christ is the only place a sinner can find
God's love. Outside of Christ there is no
love from God. He's the Son of Love, you say.
So not only do they see, we who have been born again, not only
do we see God's love towards us, but He draws out our love
towards Him. And that's the love that's shed
abroad within the hearts of God's people by the Holy Spirit in
the new birth, in regeneration, in conversion. We love him,"
1 John 4 says, because he first loved us. So that God's love
is the first cause of all things. Now, what Christ says here in
verse 17, he'd been teaching them concerning the issues of
salvation, the issues of fellowship, and he says in verse 17 of John
15, he says, these things I command you, that you love one another. Now, whenever the Holy Spirit
sheds abroad that love in the hearts of God's people, in their
mind, in their affections, in their will, and he draws out
their love towards God and towards Christ, he also binds them together
in love for one another. And it's a fellowship of love.
Christ said it. He said, I'm telling you these
things that you love one another. God's people, Christ's sheep,
are to love one another. And that love that they have
is not just emotion. It's not just a feeling. It's
not just a mutual admiration society for themselves. It's
not mutual likes and dislikes. It's not some kind of a club
mentality or a clique mentality. That love begins, first of all,
with love to Christ. And it's love of the truth. You
cannot love Christ and not love the truth that describes him
and identifies him and distinguishes him. For example, God's people,
in whom the Spirit has done his sovereign work, love the fact
that Christ is God. For his name shall be called
Immanuel, which being interpreted as God with us. because they
see that it took this kind of person, it took God in human
flesh to save us from our sin. You see, without a Savior who
is himself God, there is no salvation. The fact that he is God is my
hope. And those who would deny his
deity do not love him. They love their idea, they love
their notion, they love a counterfeit. But those who know Christ who
is God incarnate, God the Son in human flesh. They love the
truth of his deity. They love the truth of his humanity.
And those who love God love the truth of his sovereignty. Now,
people today don't know much about God's sovereignty because
it's not being preached, but it's all through the Bible, from
Genesis to Revelation. God is in control. God chose
a people before the foundation of the world. God elected a people. Now, many people hate that truth.
They don't love God. Listen, if you don't love the
God of election, you don't love the God of the Bible. And the
reason that we love the God who chose a people is because if
he hadn't chosen us, we would have gone to hell. We would never
have chosen him. God's in control. God's people,
Christ's sheep, love the fact that God's in control. If man
was in control, where would we be? What would our end be? It would be destruction. It would
be terrible. If Satan was in control, where
would we be? But you see, God's in control.
And therefore, we can say with Joseph of old, even against all
of the sin that his brothers did to him, all of the bad things,
he can look his brothers in the face and say in love to God that
even though you meant it for evil, God meant it for good. We can say with confidence that
all things work together for God's purpose to those who love
God, who are the called according to his purpose. All things work
together for good. We can say that. We can know
that God is in control and he has our best interest at heart
and in mind, and he will fulfill his purposes. And then those
who love Christ love the truth of his finished work on the cross,
the fact that it is his blood alone that washes away all our
sins, the fact that it is his righteousness imputed, accounted,
charged to our person that enables God to be just and justify and
entitles us to the whole inheritance of grace and glory. We love that
fact because we know our frame. We know our depravity and our
sinfulness. We know that if salvation were
conditioned on anything done by us, through us, in us, or
of us, we'd be lost forever. Our salvation is Christ and him
crucified, and God forbid that we should glory save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ. We love that fact. We love the
fact that the work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth is a
sovereign work of God and not of the free will of man, because
we know, according to Scripture, that if it were based on the
free will of man, nobody would be born again. You see, the Bible
teaches in John chapter 1 that those who are born of God are
born not of blood, it's not of physical heritage, nor of the
will of man, not of free will, nor of the will of the flesh,
not of free will, nor the will of men, not because other men
will, but of God, born of God. It's a sovereign work of God.
And then God's people love the fact, love the truth, that salvation
is preserved. and maintained by the sovereign
work of God in Christ. Because we know, as I said before,
we know our frame, we know our impotence, we know our sinfulness,
that even as believers, sinners saved by the grace of God at
our best, we're still sinful men and sinful women, and we
cannot keep ourselves. Christ said, I will never leave
you nor forsake you. He said, no one can pluck them
out of my Father's hand. And my friend, we love that.
We love the truth of His glory. So you see, this is a love of
truth. It's a love of fellowship. It's
a bond of union that causes us to stand together against the
world who opposes Christ and His church. And listen to me.
It causes God's people, Christ's sheep, to stand together even
against their own shortcomings. Now, we may offend each other.
We may do each other wrong, but this bond of fellowship cannot
be broken. We're going to stand together
with Christ against the world. But what about hate, then? Well,
look at verse 18 of John 15. Now, this love of the brethren,
this love of Christ, this love of the truth, is what brings
out the hatred of the world against Christ and the gospel. Christ
says in verse 18, he says, if the world hates you, You know
that it hated me before it hated you. Now, this hatred of the
world is something to be seen and to be understood only by
the testimony of Scripture. And this hatred comes out in
different forms and to different degrees. Sometimes it comes out
in persecution, just like the apostles of old in the early
church and many of the evangelists, many of the believers suffered
physical torture suffered being jailed and imprisoned, in bonds,
suffered losing their job over their identification with Christ
and the gospel. The world hated them, he said.
Many of them were martyred, killed, shed their own blood because
they would not deny Christ. And my friend, I know that that
takes the grace of God. Now, it's not that people cannot
die for a lost cause. People have done that. There
have been martyrs for false religion. But this is a specific hatred
of the world that is directed toward the people of God, the
people of Christ, over what they preach, over what they believe,
over the truth, you see, because the hatred of the world comes
out against the truth of the light of Christ. Now, sometimes
that hatred comes out in just opposition by words. Many people
will argue against the gospel. They'll argue against the gospel
of God's grace, and they'll want salvation by works. Many people
will argue against the truth of God's sovereignty, God's electing
grace, and they'll just debate that. And that's a hatred of
the gospel now. Don't let that fool you. Just
because they don't pull out a gun and shoot you or grab a knife
and cut your head off, that doesn't mean they don't hate this word.
Listen, Christ said this, He that is not with me is what? Against me. You can't ride the
fence here. Sometimes this hatred of the
world comes out just in indifference. People don't want to hear it
and they don't care to hear it. They're not interested. That's
a hatred. But what is this hatred of the
world? What is it that the world hates? Well, Christ said in verse
18, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before
it hated you. The reason the world, the ungodly,
unbelieving world hates the Church, the true Church now, is because
they hate Christ, who is the head of the Church. And Christ
is saying here, look at verse 19, He says, 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." In other words, if you were connected
to the world, if you were in fellowship with the unbelieving,
ungodly, idolatrous world against Christ, the world would love
you. You'd get along just fine. But
he says, you're not of the world. I've chosen you out of the world.
Now, you see the language there? He didn't say, You're not of
the world because you came out of the world of your own free
will. He says, You're not of the world because I've chosen
you out of the world. He chose his people, and he redeemed
them by his blood, and he justified them on the cross of Calvary.
And he called them out of the world by his Spirit in the new
birth. And he says, Because of that, the world hated you. But
here's the point. Look at verse 20. He says, remember
the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than
his Lord. If they have persecuted me, they
will also persecute you. If they have kept my same, they
will keep yours also." Now, my friend, Christ's sheep, his church,
his ministers, are ambassadors for Christ. They do not stand
on their own word. They do not stand on their own
authority by their own power. They stand as ambassadors of
Christ, who is the power, whose word is truth, and whose glory
is our goal. And the world hated him. Now,
that world there refers to fallen humanity, represented in Adam
in opposition to Christ. That's all of us by nature, sinful,
fallen human nature. That's all of us, you see. And
therefore, if he chose us and redeemed us and justified us,
what's the cause of all that? Grace. Unmerited love. What makes the difference between
a true believer who loves Christ and loves the brethren and one
who is of the world who hates Christ and hates the brethren?
I'll tell you what makes the difference. It's the grace of
God that makes you different. You don't have anything to brag
about. You don't have anything to boast of. You don't have anything
to be proud of except Christ and him crucified. For it is
by the grace of God that I am what I am." So he says here,
as ambassadors of Christ, you're not speaking of yourself. You're
not speaking for yourself. You're preaching in the name
of a higher power and a higher authority. And therefore, if
they hear you, if you're preaching Christ now, if you're preaching
the truth of of the grace of God and the love of God in Christ,
he said, when they persecute you, it's because they persecuted
me. They can't get to Christ, but
they can get to you. And he said, if they hear you,
if they believe it and submit to Christ, you see, he said,
if they kept my saying, they'll keep yours also. In other words,
the person who comes to believe the gospel that I preach, you're
not following me. You're not submitting to me,
you're submitting to Christ, and you're following Him. Now,
how can I know that? Because I'm preaching His Word.
It's His Word. Now, He says in verse 21, He
says, But all these things they do unto you for My name's sake,
because they know not Him that sent Me. Now, the reason they
do these things, when they show their hatred, it is for Christ's
sake. Now you know, sometimes, even
believers now, we can have hateful attitudes, we can have bad personalities,
we can make bad decisions, we can bring other people's hatred
on ourselves for no good reason. And we ought to be ashamed of
that. We ought to repent of that. It's like Peter said, if you
suffer for evil doing, that's what you deserve. But if you
suffer for righteousness sake, that is for the glory of Christ.
Then, he said, it's not for evil doings. You know, Christ said
in the Sermon on the Mount, he said, blessed are you when men
shall persecute you and say all manner of evil against you for
my sake. You see, when we suffer in the
cause of Christ, we're suffering, we're identifying with him. When
we suffer because of our own bad behavior, it's because of
sin, and we ought to be ashamed. But he said, these things they
do unto you for my namesake. And he said, because they know
not him that sent me. When the world hates you or hates
Christ's sheep for his namesake, it's an evidence that they do
not know the Father. Now, that's really significant
here in John chapter 15, because the very one who were so zealous
in going after Christ and his people were men and women who
claimed to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They were men and women who claimed to know and love the Father.
But Christ told his disciples, when they go after you in hatred,
when they come after me, they don't know the Father. They don't
know the Father at all. They don't know God. You see,
God the Father is a just God and a Savior. God the Father
is one who is both a righteous judge who must punish sin and
who at the same time is a loving, merciful Father. And the only
way that he can be both is in Christ, based on his blood and
righteousness, so that when they deny Christ, they don't know
the Father. When they hate Christ, they hate
the Father. Now look at verse 22. Now here's
a real significant verse, and you don't want to miss the truth
of this. Christ says in verse 22, he says, "...if I had not
come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin. But now they
have no cloak or excuse for their sin." Now what does he mean by
that? He says, if I hadn't come and
preached to them, spoken to them, they wouldn't have had sin. But
now, because I've come and preached and spoken to them, they have
no cloak, they have no excuse, they have no concealment for
their sin." Well, what does he mean? Well, back over in John
chapter 3, we're told exactly what this means. It says in verse
19 of John 3, Christ said, and this, he's talking to Nicodemus
here, a religious man, a religious Pharisee, one who was trying
to be saved based on his works. And he says, and this is the
condemnation, that light is coming to the world, and men love darkness
rather than light, because their deeds were evil. Now, the deed
there refers to their religious works, their attempts to keep
the law. And it says in verse 20, for
everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deeds be reproved or discovered. Now,
what he's saying there is this, the light of the gospel of Christ.
Christ himself is the light, and his gospel is the light.
And light does two things. Number one, it exposes reality. And here are these religious
people going about doing their religious duties, thinking they're
pleasing God. But the gospel light comes about,
and they hear it preached. And the gospel reveals, that's
the second thing the gospel does, it reveals truth. It exposes
the lie, but it reveals the truth. And the gospel truth exposes
the lie of false religion and shows sinners that the only way
that a sinner can be saved and recommended unto God is by the
goodness, the works, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. that
men and women cannot be saved by their works under the law,
that their very attempts to please God, their very attempts to be
saved and recommended unto God by their works of the law are
evil because they deny the glory of God. And men hate that truth. You mean to tell me I've been
working hard all my life to be saved, to earn my reward, to
be recommended unto God? I've been trying to do the best
I could do, trying to avoid this and to do that. I've been dedicated.
I've been zealous. I've been going to church all
my life. I've been baptized. I give my tithe. I've taken the
Lord's Supper. And you mean to tell me that
none of that recommends me unto God? Not only that, but none
of it recommends you unto God, but if you think it does, it's
evil. Because, see, then you're setting
it up against Christ and what He did in His obedience unto
death. And that's what He said. He says
in verse 23, He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. You can't
love the Father and hate Christ. These people who say, well, just
different religions, going to God all different ways, no. And
he says in verse 24, "...if I had not done among them the works
which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have
they both seen and hated both me and my Father." You see, they
thought that they were not sinners. But Christ, in the light of the
gospel, shows them that they are. And they have no hope of
salvation without Christ. He says in verse 25, "...but
this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that
is written in their law, they hated me without a cause." Back
in the Old Testament, Psalm 35 and Psalm 69, that's what it
said, the Messiah would be hated without a cause. The religious
world, the unreligious world, would all hate him, that there
be no just cause. And then he mentions the Comforter,
verse 26, "...when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, that truth which
exposes and reveals, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me. And you shall also bear witness,
because you have been with me from the beginning." Now, he
mentions the work of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter here,
who proceeds from the Father. He's the Spirit of truth, and
he will testify of Christ. He will bring forth the light,
the light that the world hates. and refuses against the darkness
that the world loves. We're going to talk more about
the Holy Spirit in the next lesson, the next message. But what he's
showing here to these disciples is this, when the Holy Spirit
comes and empowers you to preach the gospel out into the world
and to testify of the glory of Christ, the finished work of
Christ, the blood and the righteousness of Christ as that which alone
will save sinners, will keep them and bring them to glory,
then you'll suffer the same hatred, the same persecution that Christ
himself suffered. And you'll bear witness because
you've been with Christ from the beginning. You'll bear witness
of the things that you've heard, you'll bear witness of the things
that you've seen, and you'll testify of the glory of Christ.
in a dark, lost world. I hope that's been helpful to
your understanding of the Scriptures. And if you'd like to get a copy
of this message, listen to the announcer. He'll give you the
details. The title of the message is Love and Hate. And I hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word.