Bibles this evening to John chapter
15. John chapter 15, three subjects
tonight in this passage of scripture that we are looking at. Hatred,
increased guilt, and the comforter. Beginning in verse 18, John 15. If the world hates you, you know
that it hated me before it hated you. And if you were of the world,
the world will love his own. But because you are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. 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 saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things
will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know
not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for
their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my
father also. 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. But this
cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written
in their law, they hated me without a cause. But when the comforter
is come, whom I will send unto you from the father, even the
spirit of truth, which proceeded from the father, he shall testify
of me. And you also shall bear witness
because you have been with me from the beginning. Hatred, increased
guilt, and the comforter. First, the hatred that the world
has for Christ and his disciples. This passage, if you notice,
it begins with the word if. Verse 18, if the world hates
you. But no uncertainty is implied
or intended. The Lord told these disciples
that because they were no more of the world, that the world
hated them. The world loves its own. And as long as these men, these
11 disciples that our Lord first spoke these words to, As long
as they had been part of the world, the world had loved them
also. Something had changed. Something
had changed, and it wasn't the world. The world remained the
same. The world has never changed,
and it will never change until the Lord Jesus Christ comes a
second time and destroys the world as it now is. The world
remained the same. That's one reason that the gospel,
the gospel that we preach is the same gospel that was preached
by the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. It never changes. I've mentioned this before, but
I would hate to go to a doctor if I was sick who had studied
medicine out of a medical book that was 2,000 years old. But when I hear a man preach
and deal with eternal things, things that concern my soul and
my relationship to God, I want what he has to say to come out
of this book. Come out of this book that is
the product of the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit. The world
hasn't changed. Brother Milton Howard is a dear
friend and pastor in Louisiana, and for 20-some years, he's had
opportunity to go to the federal prison and preach the gospel,
preaches both in English and in Spanish there. And one of
the chaplains told him one night, he related this to me, chaplain
was a younger man, and he said, you know, talking to Brother
Howard, he said, you older preachers, You preach, you preach different. He said, us younger men, said
we, our message is more relevant. That word relevant. I mean, if
the gospel has always been relevant and will always be relevant as
long as men and women are sinners. But Brother Howard asked this
young man, well, what's changed? Has the world changed? Has the
Lord Jesus Christ changed? Have men changed? Has the gospel
changed? And the answer, of course, to
all of these questions is no, no. These men to whom the Lord
Jesus spoke these words and told them, if the world hates you,
and as I said, there was no uncertainty in this, They were no longer
of the world. At one time, the world had loved
these men. Some of them were fishermen,
and I would imagine when they met together in their syndicate
or whatever they had back at that time when fishermen came
together, that they were loved, they were liked, they were appreciated. But something had changed. And what it was that had changed
was the Lord had chosen them. Notice that. The Lord had chosen
them out of the world. Verse 19, if you were of the
world, the world would love his own. But because you are not
of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore,
because of this, the world hateth you. Now this word chosen, chosen
out of the world, this does not have reference to God's eternal
election. Now that was true of these men. They had been chosen before the
foundation of the world. But that's not what the Lord
has reference to here when he says that he had chosen them
out of the world. This is what we normally would
call the effectual call. That is, they had been called
by the grace of God to follow Christ, to know Christ. They
were in the world before this time. They were in the world
like all men, dead in trespasses and sins. But God, as the scripture
says in Ephesians chapter 2, but God who is rich in mercy,
and God's mercy came seeking these men. and calling them out. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love, wherewith he loved them, even when dead
in sins, hath quickened them together with Christ. I'm talking
about these 11 disciples, and I'm speaking about every other
child of God who has been called effectually by God the Holy Spirit. And God uses his gospel in calling
men, doesn't he? He uses his word. Of his own
will begat he you with the word of truth. Not apart from the
word of truth, the gospel. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation unto everyone that believeth. It's the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ that God uses in calling his people. And these men, they had been
called. They had heard John the Baptist,
some of them, not all of them. But they had heard John the Baptist,
and some had been with John when he pointed Christ out and said,
behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.
But not all of them had been John's disciples. Matthew, for
instance, he was head over heels in the world, wasn't he? Making
all the money he could as a tax collector, as a publican. One
day the Lord Jesus Christ passed by, chose him out of the world,
called him out of the world, and said, Matthew, follow me.
Levi, follow me. And isn't it amazing that if
it were not for the gospel of Matthew, we would not know that
Matthew had been a publican. He's named in the other gospels,
Luke and Mark. But he's not called a publican.
But when he wrote his own gospel, inspired by God the Holy Spirit,
of course, he referred to himself as the publican. The publican. In other words, he still recognized
that he was a sinner saved by grace. The publican. They were hated because they
had been called out of the world. They were still in the world.
They were still in the world and most of these disciples,
maybe at the most one or two, died in their beds. But most
of them, according to tradition at least, they were hated, hounded,
persecuted, put to death by the world. They were hated by the
world. The Lord Jesus Christ in his
high priestly prayer In John chapter 17, he prayed, I pray
not that thou shouldest take them out of the world. When God saves a sinner, he doesn't
immediately take that sinner to heaven. Now, he did the thief. He did the thief, didn't he?
But normally, when God saves a sinner, he leaves us here. not taken out of the world. We're
in the world, but we're not of the world. We're not to be of
the world. Yes, we are to be in the world,
to be a light, to be a testimony, to be the salt of the earth. He said, I pray not that thou
shouldest take them out of the world, but then immediately he
added, They are not of the world. They are not of the world. God's
children are in the world, but no longer of the world. All lost
men, and this is something that the Bible reveals. Most people,
they don't accept it. They don't think it's true. But
the Bible reveals that all men hate God and his son by nature. All men, apart from the grace
of God, hate God and His Son. And because of that, they hate
His people. Now, look at these three truths
for God's children to remember when we are hated by the world. Number one, remember the servant
is not greater than his Lord. Notice the words of the Lord
Jesus in verse 20, after he had said, therefore the world hateth
you, remember. The first thing that we are to
remember is that the servant is not greater than his Lord. We do confess as believers that
we are his servants, that he is our Lord and Savior, Sometimes
people want to reverse that order, and they want to say, well, I'll
receive Jesus as my Savior, and then sometime down the road,
I'll make him my Lord. But in the scriptures, he's always
presented first as Lord and Savior. Brother Ralph Barnard used to
say, I'm not so much interested in who your Savior is as I am,
who's your Lord? Who's your Lord? Who's in control? Are you still in control? Or
is He your Lord? He's first your Lord and then
your Savior. So to every child of God, we
should remember that as servants of the Lord, we're not above our Lord. We're
not above Him. Do we have any reason to believe? Are we given any reason in the
word of God that we are going to receive or that we should
expect better treatment from the world than the Lord Jesus
Christ received? Of course not. Of course not. I think of our Lord's words to
those women That day that the Lord Jesus Christ was carrying
his cross, going from Pilate's judgment hall to Golgotha. Look over here in Luke chapter
23, just a moment. Luke chapter 23. And verse 26, the scripture says,
and as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian,
coming out of the country. And on him they laid the cross,
that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great
company of people and of women, which also bewailed and lamented
him, But Jesus turning unto them said, daughters of Jerusalem,
weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming
in the which they shall say, blessed are the barren and the
wombs that never bare and the paps that never gave suck. Then
shall they begin to say to the mountains, fall on us and to
the hills cover us. Now notice, for. If they do these
things in a green tree, and he's speaking of himself as that green,
that fruitful tree. If they do these things in a
green tree, what shall be done in the dry? Remember, first of all, that
the servant is not greater than his Lord. Number two, remember
that the hatred you experience from the world is for his namesake. Notice that in verse 21, the
first part. For all these things will they
do unto you for my namesake. Remember that, that when the
world hates you, when the world maligns you, speaks evil of you,
or yes, even persecutes you in a physical way, remember this,
it is for Christ's sake. for Christ's sake, that the world
hates and persecutes God's people. The Apostle Peter, he experienced
this. He knew something about this,
about the hatred and the persecution that the world had for him as
a child of God, as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
look what he wrote unto believers, you and I, over in 1 Peter. 1
Peter chapter 4, verses 15 and 16. But let none of you suffer as
a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody
in other men's matters. In other words, he's writing
to believers now He cautions them, don't suffer for crimes,
for misdemeanors, for sin, which you're guilty of. That's not
the kind of suffering, the persecution that our Lord is speaking of.
Sometimes believers bring hatred and persecution upon themselves
by their conduct, by their activity, by their obnoxiousness. They
just bring that upon themselves. No, Peter said, let none of you
suffer because of evil deeds and things like that. Yet, if
any man suffer as a Christian for Christ's sake, in other words,
if any man suffers for Christ's sake, let him not be ashamed. Remember Peter and John, they
suffered for Christ's sake. And you remember, they said they
counted it all joy that they were counted worthy to suffer
for Christ's sake. But let him glorify God on this
behalf. We know tonight that there are
believers in this world, not in our country, thank God. physical
persecution is not allowed. And I'm thankful for that. But
there are places in this world where God's people are persecuted. I remember many years ago going
into a village and having a service and a young couple, they invited
me to come back. And I went back and they said,
no, we can't have a service here. And I was so disappointed and
I spoke with him and the young man told me, he said, my grandparents
were burned out of this village. They accepted, they received,
they welcomed some evangelicals, some missionaries to come to
their house and hold a service and they burned their house down. Grass roof, set it on fire and
burned it. And they said, we're afraid.
We're just afraid to have a service here. There are places all over
this world where there is physical persecution of believers. Oh, we should be thankful, shouldn't
we? For the freedom and the liberty that we enjoy in this country. Don't be ashamed, Peter says,
if you suffer as a Christian. And here's the third thing, now
the hatred. Remember this, that the servant
is not above his Lord. Number two, remember the hatred
you experience from the world is for Christ's sake. And number
three, remember that those who persecute you, they do not know
God. They do not know God. Look at
verse 21 again. But all these things will they
do unto you, first of all, for my name's sake, and secondly
here, because they know not him that sent me. Now, they knew
that there was a God. It would be very difficult, I
believe impossible, to find any human being that does not believe
and know in his heart, in his conscience, that there is a God. Now, they knew that there was
a God, but they did not know Him. And it's foolish, my friends,
for anyone to think that it's possible to know God apart from
His Son, Jesus Christ. There is no other way that we
may know God. That's what our Lord said here.
because they know not him that sent me. And the only way that
we may know him who sent Christ is through Christ. This is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou
hast sent. He's the one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I'm thankful for that, aren't
you? I'm thankful there is one mediator, and I'm thankful there's
only one mediator. And I'm thankful by the grace
of God, God has taught me that, revealed that unto me. All right, here's the second.
The increased guilt of the Jews to whom Christ ministered. Let's read these verses again,
verse 22 through 25. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin. But now they have no cloak for
their sin. He that hated me, hateth my father
also. 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. Keep your places here, but turn
back with me to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 49. Isaiah 49,
beginning in verse one. Listen, O Isles unto me. And hearken ye people from far. The Lord hath called me from
the womb. From the bowels of my mother
hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like
a sharp sword. You know, the scripture says
the word of God is sharp. That's a living word. That's
Christ. He is the word of God. Someone one time said, well,
we have the written word and then we have the living word.
No, this is the living word. Christ is the personal word.
This word is alive. It's living and it's sharp. And this is speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ here. But he said, he hath made my
mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand hath
he hid me, and made me a polished shaft. In his quiver hath he
hid me, and said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel. This is Christ. Thou art my servant,
O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. And he was glorified in Christ. He's the only man who's ever
glorified God Almighty. This is my beloved child in whom
I am well pleased. Then I said, now this is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength
for naught and in vain. Yet surely my judgment is with
the Lord, and my work with my God. And now, saith the Lord
that farmed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob
again to him, though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be
glorious in the eyes of the Lord and my God shall be my strength. And he said, it is a light thing
that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the preserved of Israel. I also give thee for
a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto
the end of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke unto
the Jews and he spoke unto them like no man ever spoke. That's what they said themselves.
No man ever spoke like this. That's what those temple police
said when they came back without Christ. They'd listened to him. They came back to the Pharisees
and said, he's not, they said, where is he? We wanted you to
arrest him, bring him to us. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
They said, well, no man ever spake like this. The Lord Jesus
Christ spoke unto the Jews. He was that prophet that we read
about at the beginning of our service in Deuteronomy chapter
18, that God raised up from among them and put his words in his
mouth. How many times in the gospels
do we hear the Lord Jesus Christ saying, my word is not mine,
but his that sent me. He put His word, He gave Him
the words to speak, and He was that prophet that men must hear. The Lord Jesus Christ also did
works among them which no other man did. Now, both Elijah and
Elisha raised two from the dead, one each. We know that the Lord
Jesus Christ raised As far as we're told, three from the dead,
but the difference, remember one of those, I can't remember
if it was Elisha or Elijah, they actually laid on that car, on
that body, put their eyes on that body's eyes and laid on
that body. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ never
did anything like that. Both Elijah and Elisha, they
prayed. The Lord Jesus Christ just took
that girl by the hand and said, said, young girl, I say unto
thee, arise. He touched the coffin that was
bearing the body of that young man and said, arise, young man. And he came outside the grave
of Lazarus who had been dead for four days and said, Lazarus,
come forth. No man ever did the works which
the Lord Jesus Christ did. What was the result? Well, what
did this scripture say here in Isaiah? He said, I've spent my
strength in vain. There was very few gathered of
the nation of Israel. The result was, as this passage
tells us, they were left without excuse. They had no cloak, no
covering for their sin. Here is the eternal Son of God
in flesh speaking and preaching and working miracles like no
man ever did. And what did they do? They cried,
crucify Him. Crucify Him. Listen to these words of our
Lord. In Luke chapter 11 and verse 31 he said, the queen of
the south shall rise up in the judgment and condemn the men
of this generation. For she came from the utmost
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and a greater
than Solomon is here. A greater than Solomon is here. And how did men receive him? What was their reaction? They
hated him. They hated him. He spoke these
words, Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For
if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which
have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented in
sackcloth and ashes. Let me say this tonight, and
let me be as clear as I possibly can be. It is a dangerous thing
to sit under the gospel and not submit to the claims of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let me say that again. It is
a dangerous thing to sit under the preaching of the gospel and
not submit to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why do I say
that? Look with me in 2 Thessalonians.
2 Thessalonians. These Jews that
our Lord is speaking to here in our passage tonight, they
had privileges like no other generation. And they abused those
privileges. Here in 2 Thessalonians chapter
2, verses 10 and 11, the scripture says, and with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish. Now notice. Because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause, because they
received not the love of the truth And for this cause, God
shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. It is a dangerous matter to sit
under the preaching of the gospel and not submit to the claims
of the Lord Jesus Christ. These people, they became gospel-hardened. Their guilt was increased. They
had the greatest of all ministers, the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet
they refused to hear. They refused to bow to him. And in doing so, as our Lord
told his disciples, They fulfilled the scripture which says, they
hated me without a cause. They hated me without a cause.
Jesus of Nazareth who went about doing good works and they hated
him without a cause. Now here's the last part of the
message. The promise of the coming comforter,
verses 26 and 27. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,
and you also shall bear witness, because you have been with me
from the beginning. In chapter 14, the Lord had promised
the coming of the Holy Spirit to His disciples, and there as
here, He gave him the name of the Paraclete, and it is translated
by the translators of our Bible, Comforter. Remember, the disciples
were troubled. Verse 1 of chapter 14, let not
your hearts be troubled, you believe in God. What did they
need? They needed Comforter. They needed comfort. And so,
I assume that's the reason they chose the word Comforter, and
He is the Comforter. But in 1 John chapter 2 and verse
1, or yes, verse 1 or verse 2, they use the word advocate. Jeez,
we have an advocate with the Father. And it's the same word
in the original. But here it's translated comforter. And he is the one who comforts
us. But he is also, our advocate,
God the Holy Spirit, as well as the Son of God. Let me mention, just mention,
four things that are expected of a person's advocate. If you
have an advocate, you have a lawyer, you pay him. Here are four things
that may be expected of a person's advocate. Number one, your advocate
will suggest to you, if you are one of his clients, what might
be the most to your advantage. That's the first thing. An advocate
will suggest to his client what might be most to his advantage. Number two, if he sees his client
in error, to convince and reprove him. And number three, to encourage
his client if he sees him become weak and discouraged. And four,
fourth, to speak in court on his behalf. He maketh intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. All four of those
things may be expected of an advocate. And you and I as God's
children tonight, God the Holy Spirit, he lives in us. And we
may expect him to do the very same four things to us. To suggest to us, and he'll use
the word of God. He'll never suggest to you anything
contrary to the written word of God. To suggest to you what
might be the most to your advantage. And number two, if he sees you
in error, he'll deal with that too. And number three, if he
sees your hands hanging down and about to give up, you know,
to encourage you. And number four, to represent
you and speak on your behalf in court. Well, I pray that God
would bless this word to all of us here this evening and use
it for his glory.