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John Chapter 16
Notice how Jesus prepared His disciples because He knew everything they would be facing in the future. He made sure that when they went out to preach the gospel in the future, they wouldn't be surprised if their words were rejected. They were not to allow rejection and persecution to cause them to doubt the Lord or to blame the Lord for the consequences which comes when the gospel is preached. If Jesus had not have prepared them, they might have quit at the first rejection of the gospel.
I grieve continually that not only did the heathen persecute those that brought the true gospel, but the religious Jews and the apostate part of the church, persecuted people also and even thought they were doing God a service. The heathen didn't know any better but those that thought they were doing God a service did know better. First of all, we should love and respect our church leaders and those that went before us to preach the gospel. I thank God for the brave reformers who reminded us that we are saved by the mercy and grace of God. Yet, saying that, I see also that we tend to esteem them a little too high and do not realize that they were human subject to roots of bitterness and temptation. As great as Martin Luther was, he had serious flaws according to historical records. He and others before him brought the church out of much that was very bad like the sale of indulgences which supposedly bought souls out of purgatory. When others read the scriptures and pulled father away from church tradition and tried to live by the scriptures, the first reformers thought the newer reformers were heretics and began to do the same thing to them that the Catholic church did to the first reformers. That is if the historians got things correct. I know we are at the mercy of historians here but if in fact the stories of the reformers are true, John Calvin meant well I'm sure, but got into serious error and allowed the root of bitterness to cause him to use his influence to put a so-called heretic to death by burning at the stake. So many esteem Calvin and Luther as great men but they had problems. That doesn't mean that we cast them aside and assume the Catholic church or any religion was in the right because they were not, but it does mean that we must not put any human being on so high a level that we assume every word they write or say just has to be truth. We must search the scriptures ourselves and not take the whole word of any man or woman.
Those that do those things do not know the Father and do not know Jesus. Listen up church of today. Jesus said if we persecute, kill and destroy other human beings who try to bring us the truth, we do not know the Father or the Son. We are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. We may assume we possess all truth like the Pharisees believed they did, like the Catholic Church believed they did or like the Reformers believed they had the monopoly on truth, but we are human and are subject to falling away, roots of bitterness and error. We must never be high minded and boast against others assuming they are wrong and we are right. Does it make sense to hate someone who rejects Christianity? We can't make a sinner, born again by our own efforts or words. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to change the inner soul and spirit of a person. We will never win a soul to Jesus Christ by hating them. We may force them to outwardly acknowledge Jesus but we can't make them "born again" or "saved". Some in the past made that mistake. True salvation or true Christianity cannot be forced by law. True conversions are always through willing hearts, not by force. Jesus did warn against false prophets though but we must be careful to have discernment but with love and patience so that we don't harm the innocent who truly may be bringing the word of God. To be the one that does the persecution is a bad sign. Our government has to punish those that murder, steal and commit crimes that rob the innocent of their lives but we as a church are not to harm one hair on the head of a dissenter. We can rebuke, exhort, correct, love, teach and comfort but we are never to harm any one of their freedom to live unmolested on their own property. Neither do we rob them of their free will to choose our way or refuse our way. God will judge them in His own time. We are to preach the gospel and love them. Whether they be Jews, Muslims or even who we think are heretics, we are to show them love. Jesus said to love our enemies and do
good to them that hate and persecute us. Is condemning someone to
burn at the stake love? Is taking the property of someone who is a
heretic, love?
A sign of true faith is loving one another. Jesus said though in another place, that we are to love our enemies also or who we think is our enemies.
One sign of a true believer is that we desire the physical presences of the Lord and desire His return. He is with us by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit now, but we should rejoice in the hope of His return visibly and physically. I can't wait.
Jesus left and sent the Holy Spirit which can be within each and every believer in Jesus Christ. He is not limited to one place, one group of people or one individual. He will come to anyone who is born again by the spirit of God. The Holy Spirit then will abide with us forever and continually. We are never alone. However, we need to ask and seek for the indwelling Holy Spirit. Seek to walk in the Spirit at all times being fruitful.
When a group of believers are gathered together in worship, there should be the presence of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin if there is anyone who is among the believers that has not repented or turned from sin. If there is someone one who does not believe, the Holy Spirit should be present to convict them of sin and bring them to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Here is what the Holy Spirit's presence in the body of believers actually does to the world around us: He reproves, teaches, convicts of sin and brings in the power to change lives around us.
I noticed that when a neighborhood has true believers living within it; those who live holy and obey the word of God, not those that are in name only believers, the evil in the neighborhood is suppressed. When the people move out, the neighborhood will become corrupt. We can be a godly influence if we stay full of the Holy Spirit and do not allow our prayer life to diminish.
The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus and will never lead anyone astray or to depart from the already written word of God. He does not operate separate from the Father and Son. There have been times when I write or think about something; that a scripture will come into my mind concerning the subject I'm thinking of. He is the teacher as well as the one who reproves sin.
He glorifies Christ, not the messenger.
This could mean that He would be in the grave three days and then they will see Him before He returns to the Father but I think it means that they will not see Him after He ascends to the Father but will see Him at His return. To God this would be a short time. To us it seems like a very long time. Then also this could refer to the receiving of the Holy Spirit and they will see Him by the spirit.
Here we have a hint that Jesus will go away but they will see Him by the spirit when the Holy Ghost is poured out on the day of Pentecost. There was joy at the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Whenever the Holy Spirit is poured out on believers both then and now, there is joy. I've seen this myself through the years. I've seen the Holy Spirit move in such a way that one will go across the room and be reconciled to a believer they formerly had problems with. Perhaps one reason that many of us have problems loving the brethren is that we reject the infilling of the spirit and and do not receive all that God has for us to equip us to resist roots of bitterness that come to try to destroy brotherly love. When we first receive Christ we are usually full of love. When one is first baptized in the Holy Spirit, he will have love. If we do continually walk in the spirit but allow the things of this life to keep us from prayer and fellowship with God, we may be tempted to yield to those roots of bitterness and things that defile us and cause us to lose our testimony before the world. I say all this, not because I've arrived and have overcome these things but because I've been through some of these things. I've felt the beginnings of roots of bitterness. I know it can happen. There is talk in recent years of Martin Luther's ranting against the Jews which gave Hitler justification for the holocaust. Again I repeat, we are at the mercy of historians to be telling the truth. Let's suppose that it is true for the sake of making a point. First of all Luther did the world a great favor by reminding us that we are saved by grace but Luther was not perfect and everything he said or did is not to be taken as gospel. At first Luther supposedly had compassion on the Jews and wanted to preach the gospel to them. Let's say that the Jews rejected the gospel and rejected the words of Luther. Humans do not like it when someone rejects them. It is human nature to strike back. I know we as Christians sometimes get angry when people reject our message but Jesus has commanded us to love our enemies and do good to them that hate or reject us, but it is not easy. Luther may have allowed that old enemy of our souls to place within him that root of bitterness against the Jews causing him to rant and rave against them long enough for someone to write it down or repeat it so that those awful words later could be used to justify the holocaust. It only had to happen one time to do the damage. I would hope that before his death Luther would have repented of this deed but the damage was done. Again I repeat that this may turn out not to be true. This may be one reason the sign of tongues accompanies the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It could be that the tongue can do so much damage that God used tongues as a sign that we need to give that over to Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. We must allow the Holy Spirit to control our tongue so that we don't say things we later regret. I'm just speculating here though, the sign of tongues can also means that the gospel is to go to all, no matter what tribe, language or background they are. We should never reject tongues though because it did show something very different was happening, something wonderful and powerful for us today as well as in their day.
Now we see that because of Jesus, they can ask the Father in His name and receive.
This we can rejoice in. Before Jesus came, no one could expect to go directly to the Father and petition Him in prayer unless he or she was a special chosen prophet of the Jewish faith. Now because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus which broke down the barrier between God and man and took away the sins that separated us from God, we who believe can pray to God directly in the name or authority of Jesus. Even Gentiles are included in this if they turn to God and believe in Jesus as savior.
We have to be careful of our boasting. They boldly made the statement that now they believe and know that He came from God. Jesus knew their human weakness though and warned them that they would be scattered with fear when He (Jesus) would be captured by the officials and taken for trial. That truly did come to pass. Through yielding daily to the spirit of God, He can help us overcome the world. We must recognize our limitations and our dependency upon Him. DC
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