|
|
|
|
The Gospel of John, The Period of Conference, Conference With the Disciples, Part XLIII, John 15:21-24 - Lesson 151
Read Verse John 15:20 for review: 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.
John 15:21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
Knowing God keeps one from persecuting the children of God.
Not knowing God results in one persecuting the children of God.
Not knowing God is living in darkness and in darkness is blindness.
Those who bear the name of Christ are walking on account of Christ.
They do not represent themselves.
They have taken the name of Christ and they therefore represent Christ.
They carry the light of Christ which the world hates because it brings reproach on the world.
The light of Christ points out in complete clarity the sin of the world, the error of the world, the darkness of the world.
So all these things will they do unto you (Christian) because you represent your Lord.
You bear his name.
All the malice of earth and hell is aimed at the Son of God.
Crush those who bear his name and Satan hopes to crush Christ.
If you operate in the name of Christ you must receive opposition from Satan.
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
That is who our enemy is!
Satan is the arch enemy of Jesus Christ and therefore he is to be our arch enemy also.
And as such the more Christ like we are the more persecution we can expect.
Was this not true in Christ our Lord?
Satan hates Christ and he hates those who are Christ like and his intention is to destroy those who follow Christ.
John 15:22-24, 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.
Jesus Christ has removed the cloak that covers, that disguises their sin.
This verse is not meant to say that the Jews had no sin before Christ had come and spoken to them.
It simply means that by the presence and message of Jesus Christ they no longer were covered by their own righteousness.
Now their sin was naked and exposed by the light of the word of God.
This is the same message that Jesus Christ had expressed to the Pharisees and the scribes in:
Mat 23:27,28, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
This is what light does.
We operate by our senses.
We see only the whited walls but God sees the sepulcher within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.
Seeing whited walls the Pharisees and the scribes and those around saw no sin but only the light of the word of God shows what is on the inside of those whited walls.
And once shown repentance for sin is called for.
Once shown responsibility is called for. |