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John 15:18-27

 

The World Hates the Disciples

 

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.  Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.  They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.  Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.  If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.  But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

 

The Work of the Holy Spirit

 

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

 

*******  

 

Jesus has been preparing his disciples for what is about to happen.  One of the things that is about to happen is that the disciples will be persecuted for the sake of Jesus Christ. 

 

Jesus makes 3 statements here about persecution. 

 

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”

 

“As it is, you do not belong to the world… That is why the world hates you.”

 

“If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”

 

Why does the world persecute Christians? 

 

Why are Christians persecuted today?

  1. A recent Newsweek article says that Christian persecution and genocide is worse now than at any time in history.

  2. Christians in China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey have suffered exponentially and increased types of persecution over the last few years. Many were hanged or crucified just because they were Christians.

  3. In Iraq, during 2014, ISIS expelled all the Christians from their homes in Mosul.They did the same in Sinjar.

  4. Saudi Arabia was the only middle eastern country where it didn’t get worse because it couldn’t get any worse.

    • 2 years ago, a Christian online friend of mine that is from India and works in Saudi Arabia related a story of another Indian working in Saudi Arabia that was jailed because 2 Saudi men conspired to take his business away from him.They did this because he is a Christian.They falsely accused him of witchcraft.My online friend and I prayed for this man.After several months of prison, this man convinced his jailor that Jesus is God only using the Quran.The jailor took sympathy on him, and released him from jail and worked for his appeal.

  5. The Sudanese government ordered all Christian churches destroyed.

  6. In Nigeria, Boko-Haram has instigated many attacks on Christians, and even kidnapped Christian girls and forced them to convert and marry.

  7. In Pakistan, Christian girls are routinely kidnapped, forced to convert and forced to marry.

  8. 1 in 12 Christians live where Christianity is “illegal, forbidden, or punished.”

  9. In North Korea, which is rated the most persecuting country by some, 50,000 people are in labor camps – many for their faith in Jesus Christ.

  10. Afghanistan recently demolished the last Christian church in the country.

  11. This year, Vietnam started a new law on religion that put religion under the law of the state and deeply restrict the activities of the churches.

  12. Al-Shabaab has committed several mass atrocities against Christians in Kenya.

  13. In Turkey, a pastor is being held on false charges because he is a Christian.

  14. Christians in Egypt are facing unprecedented levels of persecution, with attacks on churches and the kidnap of girls by Islamist extremists intent on forcing them to marry Muslims.

  15. The Muslim Brotherhood planned the systematic burning of over 70 Coptic churches in Egypt, in August 2013, just weeks following the popular overthrow of the ruthless, sharia-based government of Mohamed Morsi.

  16. And there is persecution of Christians here in the United States.People that call themselves ‘Progressives” do not tolerate religion, most of all they do not tolerate Christianity.Christians are kicked out of public schools or universities because of their faith in Jesus.Christians in public schools are given failing grades because of their faith.Christians are shamed in public because of their faith, and told that their mentioning of their faith is not politically correct.Recently I had an experience after posting about this Bible Study on the Next Door website.Some local residents said that I was shoving Christianity down their throats and that this wasn’t the place to post about Bible studies.Well, excuuuuuse me!I didn’t force them to click on the link to go to the message & there is a category on the web site called events!If I’m not interested in a desk for sale, I just skip the post.By the way, the Nazi’s used the same tactics against the Christians under the Third Reich.

 

Jesus also makes 4 statements about why they will be persecuted.

 

“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.”

 

“They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”

 

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

 

“If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.”

 

So, who persecuted Jesus?

  1. The Jews.

 

How can Jesus say the Jews were guilty of sin when the Jews were trying to keep the Law? 

 

  1. The problem the Jews were having is that they were worshipping the Old Covenant more than God.

    • The first part of the first commandment is “I am the Lord your God.”

    • The Law is not God.

    • The Old Covenant is not God.

      • The Old Covenant, which included the Law of Moses and the 10 Commandments.

        1. Exodus 24:7, “Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”

      • The Covenant was conditional.

        1. Exodus 19:5, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”

        2. Deuteronomy 30:17-18, “But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”

      • The actions of the Israelites may break the covenant, nullifying it.

        1. Deuteronomy 31:16 “And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them.”

        2. Deuteronomy 31:20 “When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their ancestors, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.”

      • The Breaking of the Old Covenant was prophesied in Deuteronomy 29:22-29, “ Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it.  The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.  All the nations will ask: “Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”   And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.  They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them.  Therefore the Lord’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book.  In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”  The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

      • The Israelites did indeed break the covenant.

        1. The Israelites started going astray with King Solomon.1 Kings 11:4-6, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.  He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites.  So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”

        2. From that time it is recorded in the books of Kings and Chronicles that the nation split in 2.The Kings of the Northern kingdom continued to worship false gods.The kings of the Southern kingdom alternated between worshipping false gods and only worshipping Yahuweh, till 2 kings in a row worshipped the false gods.

        3. The Northern Kingdom was finally defeated and deported by Assyria in 2 Kings 17:6-10, “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.  All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.  The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns.  They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

        4. The Southern Kingdom was also defeated and exiled.2 Kings 24:8-14, “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.  He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done.  At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it,  and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it.  Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.  In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner.  As the Lord had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace, and cut up the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the Lord.  He carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisans—a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.

        5. So, at this point the fact that the Old Covenant was broken is certified.God punished the Israelites as he said he would.

      • During all this time that the Israelites went astray, the Lord was right there.They could have consulted with the Lord, and found him to be pertinent to their lives.It wasn’t about just the Law of Moses.

        1. God appointed a time and a place for him to continue giving revelations to the Israelites.

          • Exodus 25:22, “There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the Ark of the Covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.”

          • Moses used this in Numbers 7:89, “When Moses entered the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the atonement cover on the ark of the covenant law. In this way the Lord spoke to him.”

          • This was still in use in the days of Samuel.1 Samuel 3:1-11, “The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place.  The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was.  Then the Lord called Samuel.Samuel answered, “Here I am.”  And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”And the Lord said to Samuel: “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle.”

      • Now, Just because the Israelites broke the covenant, does that mean that God is done with them, or for the whole human race for that matter? No.God intended to have a continuing Revelation to men despite their response to him.God spoke his voice to Samuel, even though his predecessor, Eli, was not right with God.

        1. After the Old Covenant was broken, God Promised a New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-32, “31 The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
              “when I will make a new covenant
          with the people of Israel
              and with the people of Judah.
          32 It will not be like the covenant
              I made with their ancestors
          when I took them by the hand
              to lead them out of Egypt,
          because they broke my covenant,
              though I was a husband to them,”
          declares the Lord.”

        2. After the Old Covenant was broken, God promised a Messiah as in Daniel 7:13-13, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

        3. After the Old Covenant was broken God promises salvation to the entire world through the Messiah, as in Isaiah 49:6, He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

      • The Jews should have been looking for the Messiah, who would bring the New Covenant and salvation for all.But were they?They were still trying to re-institute the Old Covenant.They were not listening to God.Were any Israelites looking for the Messiah?

        1. Some were.John 1:45, “Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

        2. So, the ark was no longer available for God to speak from there.So God took on human flesh so he could speak to some, and then they could speak to others, and then others could speak to more.

        3. John 10:4 – The sheep know his voice.

        4. John 15:15, Jesus says, “everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

        5. In John 15:12, Jesus says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

        6. And that is how the New Covenant is fulfilled where it says in Jeremiah 31:33,

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.”

 

Now that the New Covenant is established, what happens next?

 

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.  And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”

 

So the Holy Spirit came, and the disciples testified, and those they testified to spoke, and those ones that they spoke to spoke to other, and so on, and now it is down to us.  We must testify also.  We are called to testify right here in Mechanicville, USA.  How are we going to do that?

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