Turn to John chapter 16. John 16 has 33 verses. And if I get bogged down and
start talking more than reading, I'll have to cut that back some,
but I'd like to read the whole chapter. Our text this morning
comes out of verses 8, 9, 10, and 11 in John 16. It is the promise of the Holy
Spirit that our Lord Jesus describes before the Holy Spirit ever came
on these Apostles at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. But the Lord
Jesus is promising that the Comforter, as He's called in verse 7, will
come and do certain things. And this work, verses 8, 9, 10,
and 11, is still continuing to this day. And without which,
without the work of the Spirit of God, no man or woman could
ever be converted. Not me, not you, not anybody
else. This is divine work. The apostles couldn't accomplish
this work, and so neither can we. Salvation is not by your
preacher, it's by the power of the triune God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. All right, now before we read
this passage, let's pray together. Lord, thank you for letting us
gather in this place this morning. Thank you for this precious book
of divine revelation. Thank you for our precious Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And thank you for your Holy Spirit
who takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us. He is
the one who accomplishes our salvation by the power of Christ's
blood, by the merit of our Savior's life and obedience, the Spirit of God accomplishes
the work of redemption that our Savior purchased on the cross. Lord, we pray that that might
be true here this day. We beg your blessing upon this
chapter of Scripture as we read it. Grant us in your infinite
mercy grant us the ability, the unction, to understand what we
read. Open our understanding that we
might understand this chapter of Scripture. We ask it in our
Savior's name and for His sake. Amen. Alright, John chapter 16. These things have I spoken unto
you, that you should not be offended. They shall put you out of the
synagogues," and you might want to read that out of the churches,
because I can name a few myself, "'Yea, the time comes that whosoever
kills you will think that he does God service.'" Religion without God is the most
awful thing and curse this world has ever seen. And these things will they do
unto you because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told
you that when the time shall come you may remember that I
told you of them and these things I said not unto you at the beginning
because I was with you And he's now about to leave by way of
the cross and the grave and the resurrection and the ascension.
But now I go my way to him that sent me and none of you asked
me where go you? Where are you going? But because
I have said these things unto you sorrow has filled your heart. He's speaking now to his twelve
apostles. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that
I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send
Him unto you. And when He is come..." A lot
of people talk about the Spirit of God as an it. In verse 7,
our Lord said, "...I'll send Him unto you. In verse 8, when
He is come, He will reprove the world. This is one of the blessed
persons of the triune God, as much God as our Lord Jesus Christ
or God the Father. When He is come, verse 8, He'll
reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. of sin because they believe not
on me, of righteousness because I go to my father and you see
me no more, of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say
unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, there
it is again, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into
all truth. For he shall not speak of himself,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will
show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall
receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things that
the Father has are mine. Therefore said I that he shall
take of mine and shall show it unto you a little while and you
shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me because
I go to my Father. Then said some of his disciples
among themselves, what is this that he says to us a little while
and you shall not see me and again a little while and you
shall see me? And because I go to my father,
they said, therefore, what is this that he says a little while? We cannot tell what he says.
Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and he said
unto them, Do you inquire among yourselves of that that I said
a little while, and you shall not see me, and again a little
while, and you shall see me? Verily, verily, which bears the
translation, Amen, Amen, I say unto you, that you shall weep
and lament, but the world shall rejoice, and you shall be sorrowful,
but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." Speaking of his resurrection
from the dead. A woman, when she is in travail,
has sorrow because her hour has come. But as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembers no more the anguish for joy that
a man is born into the world. And you now therefore have sorrow,
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and
your joy no man takes from you. In that day you shall ask me
nothing? Amen, amen, I say unto you, whatsoever
you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto,
up until now, have you asked nothing in my name? Ask, and
you shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things
have I spoken unto you in Proverbs, But the time comes when I shall
no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly
of the Father. At that day you shall ask in
my name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for
you, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from
my Father, and am come into the world. Again I leave the world,
and go to the Father.' His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speak
you plainly, and speak no proverb. Now we are sure that you know
all things, and need not that any man should ask you. By this
we believe that you came forth from God." Jesus answered them,
Do you now believe? Behold, the hour comes, yea,
is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone. And yet I am not alone, because
the Father is with me. These things have I spoken unto
you, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall
have tribulation, trial, trouble, but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world." All right, we go back to John chapter 16. Our text is verses 8, 9, 10, and 11 in the 16th chapter of
the Gospel of John. Now in verse 8, we have three words of immense importance. They are the words sin, righteousness,
and judgment. Then in verses 9, 10, and 11,
those three categories are dealt with specifically. Verse 9 speaks
of sin. And the grounds on which men
are convinced, reproved, and convicted of sin is because we
believe not on the Lord Jesus Christ. Gospel unbelief is a condemnation that if it
remains that way must last for all eternity. There's no cure. The only cure for sin is the
precious gospel of Christ. The second word in verse 10 is
righteousness, and the ground on which our Lord Jesus said
that the Holy Spirit would reprove, convince, and convict men of
is because Christ said, I go to my father and you shall see
me no more. And the third category is judgment. Judgment. That day is to be the
last day. It is coming. And this book plainly states
that Christ will be the judge on that last day. But look at
the reasoning. behind judgment. Verse 11, "...because
the prince of this world is judged." The devil himself is judged. Christ is his ruler. The devil
is Christ's servant. You may not have heard that version
of it, but that's how it is. That is how it is. All right,
let's work on these three things. Let me give you a definition
first. I took the trouble yesterday sometime, last night, I don't
remember, to look up the word reprove, which is the word we
have in our King James Bibles. Other translations render that
same word as convince or convict. Reprove means to find fault with,
to rebuke, or to blame. Convince is to persuade by argument
or proof, to be persuaded. That's what Paul said he was.
I am persuaded that Christ is able to keep that which I've
committed unto him against that day. The third word, CONVICT. It's spelled exactly like the
word CONVICT. The only difference in the two
words is where the emphasis goes. This word CONVICT, the emphasis
is on the C-O-N. But when you pronounce the word
for CONVICT, it's the same word but applied a different definition. You put the emphasis on the second
syllable. And there's only two syllables
in the whole word. it is to prove guilty or declare to be guilty,
either one. So those are the words that are
key words in our text for this morning and it behooves us to
have some understanding of what they mean. So in these three verses, actually
four verses, eight through eleven, the Holy Spirit is promised to
be with these apostles and of those who came after them to
carry out the same message that they're carrying to the end of
the world to anyone who teaches or preaches the gospel of Christ
this promise of the Spirit of God is given and without the
Holy Spirit we can't do anything we can put on shows we can make
people think how great and wonderful we are But we cannot accomplish
one single divine thing. You can run a church. You can
be the pastor of a church. But you'll do it without God
and without His Spirit. And most churches seem to be
getting along fine without God today anyway. I don't know what
they need Him for. They've got it all figured out. If you do
this, A-B-C, this will happen. If you do this, Who said so? Well, our denomination says so. Well, thank you, but no thank
you. Here's what God says, and that's the Word. And if that ain't My Word, then
I do not know Him, and you need to find out if I do or not. Sometimes
I think I don't. All right, let's use the word
reprove to start with. To reprove men of what? Of sin. That's a tiny word, sin. But oh my, it contains a great
deal. I want you to look with me to
the book of Acts. I've got three references, but
they're all in the same book in our Bibles. the title of the book of Acts. Do you recollect? I'm turning
to chapter 2, by the way, which is the day of Pentecost in which
the Holy Spirit of God came upon these disciples even as Christ
promised that He would in this chapter that we've just read
this morning. And something of note is this,
that the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem is 50 days after Passover. Christ died on the eve of Passover
and He was raised from the dead the third day. He died sometime
Friday afternoon and He was raised from the dead on Sunday morning,
which is why most at least Protestant outfits worship on Sunday. They
call it a Sabbath, but it ain't a Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. But the most amazing thing of
all is that in this period of time, in between the death of
Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and Pentecost, these disciples
just about hid. In fact, at one point they even
went back to their occupation as fishermen. But that day finally arrived,
the day of Pentecost. Now listen to me, the word Pentecost
means 50. It ain't got nothing to do with
this stupid notion of speaking in gibberish. But every one of
these apostles, with a mighty miracle from God, God enabled
them to preach in the language of people that were gathered
in Jerusalem from all over the world. And the Scripture plainly
says they heard them speak in their own native language. The King James Bible uses the
word tongues, but it's talking about legitimate languages. What purpose could it serve?
for a person to say something and nobody knows what it means.
That's an exercise in futility. And there's plenty of churches
that have the word Pentecostal in their name and it generally
means that and they, you know, they think they're pretty special
because they can speak in tongues. Some of them get so holy they
talk about being sinlessly perfect. I don't know one thing about
that. And I hope you don't either. because it's a lie it's not true
let's look at this word reproved and that's what Peter's doing
in the recorded message of Acts chapter 2 he's preaching Christ
to these people who just 50 days before that had yelled out to
Pilate crucify him crucify him and give us Barabbas And we smug
to think, well I would never do that. The only reason we didn't
do that is because we weren't there. Because we're just like
them. We have the same fallen nature,
the same heart that hates God and hates God's Son. Look in Acts chapter 2 verses
27 through 36. I tried my best to
shorten this, but I could not. I just had to put the whole thing
down there. Peter is preaching. He says in
verse 25, in verse 27, let me go to 25, because he says, For
David speaks concerning Him, that is the Messiah, the Christ,
the Lord Jesus, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, For
he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore
did my heart rejoice. These are words now that the
prophet David is putting on the tongue of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And my tongue was glad, moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope. Because God promised that the
Lord Jesus, His flesh could not see corruption. David's did. Because, verse 27, you will not
leave my soul in hell, in the grave, neither will you suffer
your Holy One, that's the title of our Lord Jesus, to see corruption. You have made known to me the
ways of life. You shall make me full of joy
with your countenance. Peter interjects, men and brethren,
let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, literal
David, that he is both dead and buried, and his grave is with
us unto this day. And David's body did then see
corruption. Ah, but not David's Lord. Therefore,
being a prophet, David being a prophet, and knowing that God
had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, David's descendants, namely Mary, would
be the womb in which the Lord Jesus Christ is brought to human
birth in this world. According to the flesh, he would
raise up Christ, the Messiah, to sit on his throne. David,
seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ that
his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption."
This Jesus has God raised up whereof, this is Peter talking
now, whereof we're all witnesses. Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this which you now see
and hear, that is, the various preachers preaching in different
languages to that great multitude that was gathered in the city
of Jerusalem. For David is not ascended into
the heavens, but he said himself, Quote right straight out of Psalm
110 verse 1, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit you on my right
hand until I make your foes your footstool. Therefore let all
the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus
whom you have crucified. God has made him both Lord and
Christ. And He's the lost man's Lord
and the saved man's Lord. He's everybody's Lord. He's America's
Lord, Afghanistan's Lord, and wherever else you want to take
it across the globe. The Lord Jesus rules everything,
everywhere, and everybody. ain't not one exception, not
a one. What about people that don't
want to be? Well, they can just keep right
on wanting, but it's not going to change anything, nothing whatsoever. Now see, y'all are delaying me.
Let's go to chapter 3 in the book of Acts, verse 14, just one verse, Acts
chapter 3, verse 14, Peter tells these people plainly, this is
his second sermon now during Pentecost, "...but you denied
the Holy One and the Just, or the Just One, and desired a murderer
to be granted unto you." Now that's the charge that the Gospel
of Christ levels to every generation of men and women that live on
the face of the earth. All right, our second word is
not only sin, but our second word is righteousness. Our Lord
said in Matthew 5 20, if our righteousness does not exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, we'll surely perish. And they had an outward righteousness
that was hard to beat, but it wasn't any good. It was self-righteousness,
which means no righteousness at all. And that's what all of
us by nature have. Our Lord said in Luke 16, that
which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in God's
sight. In Jeremiah 23, verse 6, coming
to the word righteousness, Christ is our righteousness. There are some seven or eight
titles in the Old Testament that begin with the word Jehovah.
Jehovah-so-and-so. And in Jeremiah 23, verse 6,
though it's not in our translation this way, yet that is the word
that is translated Jehovah Sidkenu, T-S-I-D-K-E-N-U, and it translates
to mean, and it is rendered to mean in our Bibles, the Lord
our righteousness." Christ is our righteousness and that's
what this is talking about in our text in John chapter 16. Then we sang in that chorus 1
Corinthians 1.30, "...of God is Christ made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." I mean you can
find it all over this Bible. It's everywhere. chapter 7 in
the book of Acts. Now we've got to get off this
first point or we're not ever going to get down the road here. Chapter 7 and verse 52. You might want to note something
here as we're looking at these references particularly in the
book of Acts. Currently in religion in America,
we're told that we're not to talk to people about their sins.
We're to tell them about the love of God, how wide the grace
of God is. You know, it encompasses all
men. They tell men that God is the Father of all men, which
is absolutely not the truth. This book doesn't say that anywhere.
he's the father of every center that is brought to him through
the Lord Jesus Christ and that is all so here we are on the
day of Pentecost and now the second message after that and
now a third one in this chapter and I think there's one or two
in between we just hopscotched over them but these apostles
are talking to people about their sin and what's the ground on
which they speak to them? The fact that we put Christ to
death and He charges that to them and when the Spirit of God
is present. Thousands were saved back in
Acts chapter 2 but you trace it a few chapters later and it
worked the other way around. They did their best to kill the
messenger. Let me read you this 52nd verse in Acts chapter 7.
Which of the prophets Before I forget it, I want you to look
this up. Make sure I'm telling you the
truth. In the whole book of Acts, the love of God is not mentioned
a single solitary time. And we got more preaching in
this one book than I can think of in any other, except perhaps
the Gospel accounts in the preaching of Christ. People need to know
what we are outside of God in Christ. How desperately we need
His grace and His mercy. Verse 52, Acts chapter 7, Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? You go to
the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, it'll tell you how
some people left this world. It's not very pretty. One was
sown in half and one has done this and that and the other.
These people were martyred and there's been thousands and thousands
of martyrs since our Lord was resurrected and raised and ascended
from this earth. Which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which
showed before of the coming of the just one, of whom you have
been now the betrayers and the murderers. What is he saying? You're just like your fathers
and your grandfather and your great-grandfather and as far
back as you can go all the way to the Garden of Eden. Verse 53 says, "...who have received
the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it."
Now they're thrilled to hear this. Stephen is grabbed up and
taken outside and stoned to death for saying the truth concerning
Christ and his hearers. But there's a certain fellow
who's like the foreman in charge of this stoning of Stephen. His
name is Saul of Tarsus and he never could get over what
he heard this man say on that day so in the very next chapter we
find him well actually in chapter 9 we find him meeting Christ
rather Christ meeting him on the road to Damascus and he was
never the same again and that's still what it takes to bring
a man to know God who hates God who despises God who loves who
love ourselves with a purple passion and all that has to change
and it does just like that all right let's go back to John 16 In each of these three words, we can use this verb to reprove
when it comes to sin, when it comes to righteousness, and when
it comes to judgment. Now, I'm shortening this up a
whole lot because we'll never make it if I don't. All right?
The second verb that we talked about at first in our definitions
is the verb to convince. to convince. We use this word
all the time, so we know what it means. When you're convinced,
you're sure about something. So when it comes to these three
subjects, sin, righteousness, and judgment, our Lord is saying to His Apostles,
Because of My Spirit that is to come upon you and inhabit
you, you will be able to speak to men of these three things
in regard to sin, righteousness, and judgment." And this word
convince has far more hope than the word reprove. Even the word
after this, the word convict, may or may not end in a person's
being born again, being converted, being regenerated. God can do as He pleases. Men
can know a whole lot of things and not have a saving interest
in the Lord Jesus. They can climb the Baptist ladder,
the Methodist ladder, the Presbyterian ladder, and all the other ladders
and not know God. be a leader of a huge organization,
and not have saving faith in Christ. I've been a part of that. I know. To convince men of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment. I remember this one thing. The
old hymn writer said, A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost
has made him so. Now what I'm trying to tell you
is God in sovereign grace and mercy has to make a sinner a
sinner. We don't make ourselves sinners.
What is Christ telling these Apostles? That the Spirit of
God would come upon them in just 50 days, maybe 51 or 52 from
the time He's telling them, but from the time of Pentecost, 50
days from the Passover, 50 days that the Holy Spirit would transform
these ignorant, unlettered, uneducated fishermen. And they spoke in languages that
they never learned. And it took place all over this
great city. And everybody is struck by that
fact. Oh, it still didn't deter many
from hating and despising Christ and His gospel even more. But
there were thousands who were converted during that period
of time. A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost hath made him
so. Now let me point this out to
you. I did earlier, but I must do so again. In verse 9, on what
basis are we to be convinced concerning sin, of sin because
they believe not on me. Now remember, that is the sin
of all sins, refusing to believe and to trust
the Lord Jesus. Well preacher, I thought you
said everybody was in the same boat. We are! Well, how does
anybody ever trust Him? Because God brings them! Our Lord said in John 6, verse
44, He says, "...No man can come unto Me, except the Father which
hath sent Me draw him." Yeah, but God won't do anything against
our will. If He doesn't, you'll die an
unbeliever and perish for all eternity in hell. I promise you
that! You better hope He does! But
we just make all kind of rules for God to go by and we got no
rules for ourselves. I'm telling you the truth. If we knew how lost a sinner
is by nature, by being a descendant of Adam, we would understand
that if God doesn't do this, there won't be anybody saved.
He tells His Son Again in Psalm 110, I think this time in verse
3, the Father says to Christ, He says, Your people shall be
willing in the day of Your power. So it takes the power of God
to make a man willing. But for us to say that God can't
make me willing, He made the universe, He created this human
body that we live in. We are so stupid when it comes
to divine things. We think we can put all these
parameters that God must honor and He can't come inside this
circle unless I give Him permission. He won't come into my heart unless
I open the door. He doesn't want your heart. When
He comes in, He gives you a new one of sin because they believe not
on Me. then we come to this word righteousness. You'll have to look these up,
we don't have time to go to them. Romans 10 and verse 4, Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to whom? To everyone that believes. So if you think you've got a
righteousness of your own, And then you've got some righteousness
from Christ. You've got something mixed up.
Christ is the END of our search for righteousness for everyone
that believes. So a believer then believes that
Christ is his righteousness. And look at verse 10 in John
16, "...of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and you see
me no more." The only truly, holy, righteous man this world
ever sees is the person of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. And
now He's telling His disciples, you know, in a matter of days
I'll no longer be here in the flesh. So the Spirit of God whom I will
send will show them what righteousness really is. The third word in regard to this
matter of being convinced is judgment. Now make no mistake
about this, you can find this in John 5, Acts 17, a bunch of
other places. the triune God has committed
all judgment to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're told in verse 11 of
John 16 of judgment. Why? Because the Prince of this
world, you know who that is? That's the devil. The Prince
of this world is judged. Judged! Let me quote you a scripture
if it doesn't disappear before I quit talking about telling
you. Psalm 76 10, the wrath of man
shall praise you, that is praise God. Now catch this, the remainder
of wrath you will refrain, you'll keep from coming to be. Whatever of evil in this world,
now you listen to me, whatever evil there is, in religion or
out of religion, doesn't make any difference. Everything that
transpires in this whole universe glorifies God, either His mercy
or His condemnation, His justice. That's just how it is, and there
ain't no exception to it. But look at this! On what grounds
do we believe this? Because the Prince of this world, the Devil himself, is judged. You remember when Bunyan's pilgrim
was approaching a certain place, he saw this huge lion And he
was scared to death. But as he got a little bit closer,
he noticed the lion was chained. The devil is chained. And Christ holds the least in
his own nail-scarred hand. The devil can't do anything without
divine permission. And if that don't help you, I
don't know what could. Well, I made a mess of that.