Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – John 15:18-16:4

Sermon text for today is John 15 beginning at verse 18 going through 16 verse 4. Our subject is the world’s hatred. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you’re of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world. Therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent me.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.

But when the helper comes whom I shall send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father, he will testify of me and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. These things I have spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me.

But these things I have told you that when the time comes you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. Help us, Lord God, to understand this word. Give me clarity, Father, of speech and thought. Open ears to your people to hear your word, to hear Jesus speaking to us through your word. And may this word transform us in Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I know the version we sang of Psalm 149. We sung it probably three or four times. That was the processional today. I like the version because it doesn’t edit out the tricky stuff in Psalm 149 where we talk about the sharp two-edged sword. The immediate context of praise to God. We have a reference to the sharp two-edged sword of the saints who bring judgment upon the nations. And that really is very pertinent to what we’re going to talk about today based on John 15:18-16:4. Our subject is the world’s hatred. And this is where God and his providence has brought us on this particular Sunday.

Every year for the nearly 20 years RCC has been in existence, we have had in direct connection with the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade legalizing the murder of pre-born infants a service of malediction. You know, you get a benediction at the end of the service, a good word, an empowering word from God to you. But God also speaks maledictions, you know, words that bring judgment to people. And we’ve had a service every year where we ask for God’s particular judgments upon those who commit the horrible sin of murdering the unborn.

And so in this context, we come to what we do today here in John 15 where our savior speaks of the hatred of the world for his people. Now we—many churches have a service somewhat like this service. It’s become known this Sunday, although this year there are two Sundays, the 19th and the 26th that are both kind of legitimate to celebrate. The people that kind of organized human life Sunday have declared all week a declaration of remembrance about the unborn. This is the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and this is also somehow this Sunday is connected to the celebration of Martin Luther King day.

And so they decided to make it all week as opposed to a particular Sunday. You could choose the 19th or the 26th and we chose the 19th. We call it anti-abortion day of the Lord.

And just a brief explanation, you know, the scriptures are not indiscriminately pro-life and it’s in its common sense of that term. We’ll look at today’s text and see that hatred and love really don’t mean anything apart from the objects of hatred and love. We’ve gone into a concept of Christianity that thinks that all love is good and all hatred is bad. And clearly that’s not the case according to the scriptures. We’re told in the text today, we’re not supposed to love the world. So the objects of our love and hatred are everything.

We’re not indiscriminately pro-life either because the anti-abortion movement decided to get on the positive side of things as opposed to opposing something. A number of years back they adopted this terminology pro-life. The implications though of words are rather enormous. And what’s happened in the last say half dozen years, for instance, in lobbying in Salem or in the nation’s capital is pro-life lobbyists are being pushed to consistency by their enemies to have be consistent in their message.

So they’re now lobbying against the death penalty, for instance. They’re lobbying in favor of more welfare benefits, yada yada, because they’re kind of trapped in this terminology that whatever enhances the physical life of people is what we’re for. But we’re not, you know, particularly the scriptures clearly say that certain people should be executed for their crimes. And that is Deuteronomy 17 tells us a proper retardant on evil in a culture.

So we’re anti-abortion. We’re anti the killing of pre-born infants. We’re against that. God’s law is negative. God’s law says what you can’t do. And people, it is illegal according to God’s law, which is the ultimate law to kill pre-born infants to murder them. We call it anti-abortion day of the Lord to remind ourselves at least once a year if we don’t mention it in the rest of the year that the Lord’s day is the day of the Lord.

Now, we read in the New Testament that John is in the spirit on the Lord’s day. The Greek translated Lord’s day in Revelation 1 is the exact same as if it’s saying day of the Lord. So, the New Testament Lord’s day is really a bringing forward into an understanding of the worship of the church what the day of the Lord is from the Old Testament. The day of the Lord has dawned and we understand that from John’s gospel. The day of the Lord has begun.

But that day of the Lord pictured for instance in the prophets is a day when God comes to be with his people to bring judgment to them. The initial day of the Lord was the day the Lord came, you know, at the beginning of the Sabbath to Adam and found Adam in sin and pronounced judgments. So the day of the Lord is when God comes to meet with his people in a particular emphatic sort of way to bring judgment first to the church to sort and sift us, to use his two-edged sword on us that we might go forth using the two-edged sword on the nations through our prayers and through our actions and our words.

So the judgment begins at the house of the Lord. It doesn’t end there it goes out into the culture from here. God comes to the top of the mountain. We go out the fiery stream from God taking his message with us and God goes into the rest of the world. So this is anti-abortion day of the Lord.

And I need to say something right at the beginning here. What we’re going to see in the text today is the hatred of the world for Jesus Christ and for God reflected in hatred for the people. The people that profess Christ that open their mouths and do deeds empowered by the spirit. Those people receive the hatred of the world. But Jesus tells them explicitly here that he has called them out of the world. They’re not of the world anymore, but they were.

You see, so we’re going to talk about, you know, abortion, the need to blow the trumpet that God’s word says it’s sin. And there are some people increasingly every year more people in the context of the worship services of the Christian church, a greater percentage will be those people who have had abortions because you know, God works on the conscience of people and brings them to repentance for that sin.

The two main proponents that produced the Roe v. Wade decision and there was another case involving a woman who was known as Doe. Both Roe and Doe were pseudonyms. They were not the way to keep secret the identity of the two people involved. Both of those women have become Christians. McCorvey became a Christian quite some time ago. But the woman who is known as Doe in the legal briefs that were filed, she became a Christian just a couple of years ago.

Carolyn Hangarner gave me an excellent article out of I think on the family’s publication on 30 years of the lie where both of these women were sort of tricked into making deceitful statements. Doe didn’t even know what she was signing. She went into a clinic or a legal aid society looking for a way to get her children back from her husband and to divorce her husband. And they sort of tricked her into signing these papers that she didn’t know she signed saying she wanted to challenge the state’s abortion laws.

So neither of these women actually had an abortion ever. McCorvey by the time the had been decided, had already had her child, gave her up for adoption. But what McCorvey realized was that by her being willing to go along with the deception of the lawyers that used her to implement the Roe v. Wade decision, that as a result of that, abortion was made legal across the entire country and millions, you know, many babies were being aborted and killed in the womb.

And this played upon McCorvey’s conscience and she tried to kill herself because of, you know, the impact of what she had done in her own mind. Now, then came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ knowing that her sins have been forgiven and you know we need to say at the beginning of our service of malediction that God forgives sinners who have repented that each and every one of us have been saved out of the world so to speak in the Adamic nature we’re memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism question 16 and 17 and Adam’s fall we sinned all that’s the New England Primer summation of the matter we’re all in that state nobody here is better or worse than anybody else in our in our fallen state we’re all hateful toward God.

But God has brought us out of the world. And if you’re one of those people that have participated either directly or indirectly in abortion, if you know people or friends that you’ve encouraged or at least maybe closed your mouth and didn’t tell them it was wrong, as you repented those sins, God forgives you. You need to forget what lies behind and press toward the mark accepting the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, we begin the service now with a call to worship, a song of worshiping God, and then we have this salutation. And some people are wondering why we do that. You know, why is it that we say in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit, amen, and the one we’re using right now, the Lord be with you and with you. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Day of the Lord. Praise the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

Jesus after the resurrection and his resurrection appearances, you know, almost always what he says to people that come upon him as disciples is peace. Don’t fear. That’s something that’s translated all hail in the King James version, it means don’t fear. Jesus is telling his disciples over and over again don’t be fearful it’s all right so when we come into the presence of Christ to worship father son and holy spirit the reason we placed the salutation forefront like that and the call to worship in front of the confession of sin is to remind a fearful people who are properly fearful to come into the presence of God that God accepts them come it’s all right Jesus is saying don’t be fearful be at peace we’re here in the name of the father son and the holy spirit so the salutation is meant to remind us that we’ve been called out of the world.

And while we’re cognizant of our sins, we have to recognize that God has forgiven us our sins. We won’t want to come to this place. Now, we then move to a specific confession of those sins, but it’s very important that we recognize that we have been saved out of the world. And so, please, please, may this service not be one that brings you false guilt. If you’ve confessed your sin and repented of it, leave it behind in the past and be like McCorvey or be like this other woman named Doe who are now actively petitioning the court as the original claimants of this case to have it overturned which you can do legally.

Now it probably won’t work but it’s an interesting legal device that God has provided our legal system where they can go back now and they are saying we were deceived. We didn’t know the facts. We didn’t know that abortion leads to breast cancer. We didn’t know that abortion leads to suicides and depression and just horrible guilt upon women. We didn’t know the actual facts of our case originally. So this case should be thrown out of court and its decision overturned.

Now they can do that and that’s what they’re doing. You see? So if you’ve, you know, God is still kind of touching your heart in terms of conviction, you know, get involved in doing something positive relative to that. Let the thief who stole steal no more, but rather let him labor so that working with his hands so he may have to give to the people he stole to. You see, so you know, maybe some people that have been involved in the past in that kind of sins are like McCorvey or Doe now it’s time to work to warn women about that or to minister to women who are being tempted and lured by the church and state to abort their babies.

All right. So, we’re going to talk specifically about John 15. I want to go briefly through the text first. And again, I’ve got the outline here where we I want you as we continue to work through the upper room discourse, which is the whole second half really of this, you know, he goes to those who don’t receive him, but to as many as receive him. So, the whole disciple thing is happening in 13-17, the upper room discourse.

And so, I want us to get this structure down and helps us to understand what’s happening here. We see that this troubling encounter with the world from John 15 on your outline. Now, the folded sections in the middle, the E and E prime sections. Remember, we said the very center of what we’re doing in the upper room discourse is an exhortation to abide in the father’s love, to abide in the word of Christ, and to abide in loving one another the way the father has loved us.

But now he moves from love to hatred and an improper love, a love for the world that is not proper. So it’s in that context and the context is a mirror of what happened in verse chapter 14:27 through 31 where Jesus warned his disciples don’t be troubled, don’t be all upset. And at the time it wasn’t really sure what he was saying, don’t be troubled about in 14:27, although he did remind them that the ruler of this world is now coming who has nothing in me.

So it seems like what Jesus is warning them about just before he gave them the exhortation to abide in his love, to abide in his word, just before that he’s warning them that the ruler of this world is coming and they’re going to get trouble. They’re going to have a troubling encounter with the world. And now here after the abiding section, the same thing is said. Jesus says, “Now, if the world hates you, here’s why. And by the way, this hatred, as he gets to the last part of the text, they’re going to excommunicate you and they’re going to kill you.” That’s what’s going to happen here. But don’t be troubled.

So, we have a troubling encounter with the world. And in both sections, he assures them. He brings the father into the picture to tell him that the father is more powerful than the world. And the father is superintending all these things just like he superintended the hatred of the Jews for Jesus and his coming crucifixion for the well-being of the new creation. He’s doing the same thing with the hatred of the world toward them. So the discourse moves in that sort of a way in order to deal with the troubling aspects of the hatred of the world.

We must abide in the Savior and the love of the father. Remember that always abide in his word and abide in self-sacrificial love one to the other. That’s the context for John 15:18 and following.

All right, let’s briefly look at the text then and just sort of explain what it means. Now the way I’ve structured your outline here is I think he begins and ends this the actual text itself by talking about the world’s hatred explaining it to a certain degree and this explanation of the world’s hatred goes on and then he moves to a discussion of the next section I believe.

I believe in verse 21 he begins to say why what’s the triggering event that he did that prompted the world’s hatred toward him and then he’s going to explain the triggering event the advent of the spirit testifying to Jesus and empowering us to be witnesses that will trigger the hatred of the world so he talks about the hatred of the world he says what triggered this hatred of the world then he says what’s going to trigger the hatred of the world for you and he explains the hatred of the world some more.

So, it’s, you know, it kind of goes in and out. And I’ve decided at the very center to put this citation from the Psalms, Psalm 35 specifically, they hated me without a cause. I’m putting that kind of at the middle of the outline. Could do it different ways, but it’s a way to sort of sum up the whole thing.

Okay. So, first he explains the hatred of the world. A, its existence. It’s a given. He says that the world hates you. And the point is the world is going to hate you. So, we have this reality that he’s now going to speak to the world’s hatred. He says that its source the source of this hatred that we’re going to experience is the world. And you know here we have to bring a correction to what most of us are going to think about this text. You know again I remember Jay Adams years ago saying the church has a problem. We have these plaques verses taken out of context. We don’t really know what they mean.

Well here if you just take this verse out of context the world’s going to hate us. So okay that what that means is that these pagans all around us are going to hate us. That’s what Jesus is talking about. But it’s not what he’s talking about. If we see this mirror structure, very explicitly is that hatred of the world toward us is explained at the last portion of the text in the first few verses of 16. What are the manifestations going to be? They’re going to kick you out of not the supermarket. They’re going to kick you out of the synagogue and then they’ll kill you. So specifically here, the world is not referring to the pagan world around us. The word world here is referring to the false church.

Remember, he’s just told them, “I’m the true vine, but there’s a false vine.” And he’s now referring to that false vine by describing that the source of this persecution will be the world. And we see that as we get into the triggering mechanism, we’ll see that it’s Jesus’s words and his works to the Jews that produced the world’s hatred. So the Jews, the false church is the source of this hatred. And this is very instructive to us. You know, the two ditches here are most people fall into the ditch and think the world means something other than the religious community. Wrong. Jesus clearly says it’s the false religious community that’s the world.

But the other ditch would be to say all he’s talking about are is the false church. That would also be wrong because he uses the word world or cosmos. Now the understanding of this, the proper understanding is the church is representative of all the ordered existence of the cosmos. You see? So the church leads the charge. But the world outside of the church follows in its hatred of the Christian as well.

So the Jews lead the charge on Christ, but they also drag along the mechanism of the Roman government. The Roman government is not the big enemy in the gospel of John or in any of the gospels or in the epistles. The big enemy is the false church. That’s what is going on here. The world’s hatred refers to the Jews hatred for Jesus. Remember Jew is that name given Judah. Praise God. At a particular part of covenant history and these are people who are religious but refuse to move into the new covenant administration of the savior.

So the church is representative of all the world and so the church is the specific source the false church of the hatred being described here.

See its root cause of course is hatred of Christ and the humanity. He says if you were of the world the world would love its own. See they have an improper love. They love the world and its own. Yet because you are not of the world but I chose you out of the world therefore the world hates you. True. Know that it hated me. In other words, before it hated you. A servant is not greater than his master. It persecuted me. They’ll also persecute you. So the source, the root cause of the hatred of the world is hatred for Jesus Christ. They’re the servants. He’s the master. They can get confused thinking they’re doing something wrong. No, they’re hating you because they hated me first.

In Luke 19:14, we read in the parable that Jesus describes that the citizens hated him, the ruler of the city sent a delegation after him saying we will not have this man to serve or to reign over us. So the hatred of the Jews is a hatred of the imposition of Jesus’s reign over these people and it falls right in with one of the first two introductory psalms to all the also where the peoples take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. Ultimately the world’s hatred is not for the church or individual Christians. Ultimately the world’s hatred is for Jesus Christ and as we’ll see in a few minutes the father who sent him its motivation is the suppression of the truth of God in unrighteousness.

He goes on you know to say that they hate me and the reason why they hate him is because he is the representation of the way the truth and the life. Romans 1:18 the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress who hold down the truth in unrighteousness. So their motivation is the suppression of the truth of God.

John 3:20, everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deed should be exposed. So there’s a secondary reason. He the pagan, the fallen man, even though he may be religious and in the false church, wants to suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness to the end that we go out as the light of the world. The world responds against that light because it wants to suppress the truth of God. It doesn’t want knowledge of God. And we bring the knowledge of God. There’s a deepseated psychological revulsion on the part of fallen humanity to the reality, existence, and proclamation of God.

Everything, you know, it’s I think Van Til or someone once said that, you know, if man could have a button, if he pushed this button, then the knowledge of God would go away for a moment. He’d be pushing that button the rest of his life. That’s all he wants really is he wants God out of his thoughts. He doesn’t want to acknowledge God. He wants to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness because the light of God’s truth to pagan man to fallen man brings a revelation of his own sin.

You see, their deeds are evil and so they do not want the light. John 7 and 8, the wicked cannot hate you, but it hates me. Remember, he told this to his brothers as they wanted him to go to the feast. Can’t hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. So Jesus says that it is testimony to the evilness of the works of the world that produces their reaction of hatred as they desire to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness.

And what Jesus tells the church here is that they hate me because they hate the one who sent me. You cannot love God and hate Jesus. Okay? And any religion that attempts to do that is really demonstrating that it’s part of this false church. It exists in the hatred of God. Even though it may acclaim, you know, submission to Allah or to the God of the Old Testament. To hate Jesus, he makes quite clear, stems from their hatred of the one who sent him.

You can’t love God if you hate Jesus. You cannot love God if you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says that they hate my father as well. And as Rayburn in a sermon that he preached on this text said, there is an enormous. There is a hatred toward God himself that animates the human heart in sin. So the human heart is filled with this hatred for God that moves it in its context of oppression and the hatred for his people as well.

The sinful mind, Romans 8:7 says, is hostile to God. It is hatred against God. And as Rayburn says, there is a native natural deep-seated rebellion against God in the heart of man. It expresses itself in a thousand ways. But that’s what it is. At every turn, it refuses to submit to the knowledge of God. We cannot overstate this. This is the reality of the human condition. A hatred for God, an attempt to suppress him.

And that’s the motivation of the world’s hatred, a suppression of the knowledge of God. Again, to quote Rayburn, there is if there is a theological hatred in the heart of man. It’s a hatred of God. It’s a desire to eradicate God and all messages of the true God. The world does not hate Christians. It doesn’t hate us first and foremost for what we are and what we do. They hate us because of our association with Jesus Christ.

Because with the uncanny power of the unreborn nature, they can smell Christ on us. You know, Paul says that we’re a we’re an aroma of life to some, but an aroma of death to others. And as we go out imaging the Lord Jesus Christ as Christians, the world ends up hating us because they can smell Christ upon us. And the one thing they do not want is the knowledge of the truth of God in their lives.

The result of this, Jesus says, is they’re going to persecute you. This hatred with its deep-seated motivation of an attempt to suppress the truth of God in righteousness produces persecution in the context of the church.

He then goes on to talk, I think, about the trigger for the world’s hatred of Jesus. So, what triggers this hatred that he’s explaining to us? And he says in verse 22, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my father.”

So he says that the triggering factor for the hatred of him is centered on his mission from the father. Right? And on either side of it, he talks about his words and his works. What he did, what he said, all based upon the mission of the father. So the trigger of the world’s hatred of Christ is first of all his words. He says second of all the fact that he goes on the father’s mission. That’s why he speaks the father’s words and his works also sent as a result of the father’s mission. So when Jesus fulfills the father’s mission by speaking his word and engaging in works representing the truth of god in the context of where he lived then that triggers this animus of the false church who wants to suppress truth of God in unrighteousness.

By the way, you know, we may touch on this again, but recognize the deep kind of psychological makeup of fallen man. It is the religious community that Jesus is talking about. You see, when we say that pagan man hates God and wants to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness, we assume by that all they want to do is go live at some nightclub or something, you know, or go live on the street away from any church.

That’s not true. Fallen man is trickier than that. He is more selfdeceived than that. He is not as obvious about his hatred to God to himself. His hatred for God takes on a religious cast. And Jesus is talking here about the hatred of the world as representational in the hatred of the false church. So this is a representation of all the world. The world typically does not move in terms of an outright atheism and paganism.

People move in terms of some form of religiosity, some form of devotion to God. But Jesus takes the takes the curtain back of this facade of attempting to please and honor God on the part of the false church here or Islam in our day or Mormonism or Wicca or whatever else form of spirituality it exists in. He rolls back that curtain and says what these people really are doing is engaging in the suppression of the truth of the true God.

He’s the one that sent Christ. So this is the way fallen man works. He works in the context of religion and he uses the very religion itself to suppress the truth of God in righteousness. He needs to do something with his conscience. You see, he’s under the guilt and judgment of God. And if he can go to church and worship a false god who assures him that everything’s okay as long as he kills Christians, you know, then he’s okay.

So, so this is the way the world works. And then I broke it out as I said, verse 25. Jesus says, “This happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.” They hated me without a cause. So this is a citation from Psalm 35. And I kind of use this citation as kind of the summary of the whole thing he’s talking about. They hated Christ without a true cause because he is God incarnate.

They’re going to hate you without a cause. It’s going to find itself expressed in persecution, excommunication, and death. This is the sum of it. Now, it’s interesting because Jesus is quoting here from the Psalms, maybe Psalm 3, maybe 69 people differ on which particular psalm. Could be a couple of them. We’re going to look at Psalm 35 here in a minute. But he calls it their law. Did you notice that? So he refers to the Psalms as the law.

Now he’s saying their law, not that it wasn’t his law. Clearly he identifies himself with the very psalm that this might be fulfilled. He attaches the Psalms to himself. They speak of him. But he’s saying their law to bring home their responsibility. These are not pagans who have rejected supposedly the word of God. The very word there they’re hearing judges and condemns them. And we’ve seen Jesus do that over and over again in John’s gospel.

He uses their standard to condemn them because it’s the right standard. They’re just not walking in conformity to it. Turn to Psalm 35, though. We’ll look just a little bit at this citation beginning in verse 18.

Psalm 35:18-26. I will give you thanks in the great assembly. You know, the easy thing about easy way to find the Psalms is just open your Bible in the middle. And there it is, the song book that means so much to us right there in the middle. I will give you thanks in the great assembly. I will praise you among many people. Let them not rejoice over me who are wrongfully my enemies. Nor let them wink with the eye who hate me without a cause.

So there it is. There’s the citation and Jesus is saying this psalm is about him. But look what else he brings into the text. You know Jesus hums a little bar of this psalm expecting us to know it well enough to or to be able to look it up and bring its content, I think, into what he’s saying in John 15.

They do not speak peace. They devise deceitful matters against the quiet ones in the land. See, this is what abortionists do, right? They devise it’s been all built upon a lie with these women. They’re plotting against the quiet ones in the land, those that don’t have defenses, children in the womb. But ultimately, this is speaking to Christ. Of course, they also opened their mouth wide against me and said, “Aha, our eyes have seen it. This you have seen, oh Lord.”

So Jesus says, “All these problems are happening. They’re going to send me to the cross. You have seen.” And then the prayer is, do not keep silence, O Lord. Do not be far from me. Stir up yourselves and awake to my vindication. This is a raw petition. This is a Hebrew imprecation. This is a prayer asking for the father in heaven to bring temporal judgments against those who strike out at Jesus.

And this prayer will be answered 40 years after the writing of this gospel. Will have the answer to this prayer. It’s the judgment of the false church of the world so-called in the book of Revelation. The subject of the book of Revelation is not the Roman Empire first and foremost. It is the false church that John who wrote the Revelation is speaking about here in the context of the persecution of Christ.

So Christ says to God his father, “Do not keep silence. Do not be far from me. Stir up yourself and awaken to my vindication to my cause my God and my Lord vindicate me oh Lord my God according to your righteousness or justice. Let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts, ‘Ah, so we would have it.’ Let them not say, ‘We have swallowed him up.’ Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion who rejoice in my hurt. Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who exalt themselves against me.”

This is the typical in the Psalms end result of the sort of prayer we do today against abortionists. The end result that we’re praying for, God brings temporal judgments upon people who are striking out at the innocent, the fatherless, other groups of people, the church of Jesus Christ, ultimately suppressing the truth of God in righteousness, hating life and loving death as Proverbs says.

Ultimately what we pray for is that those judgments produce dishonor and shame to those who engage in these actions. So we pray for temporal judgments to the end that they become dishonorable and have shame on their faces. And so Jesus at the center of this text reminds us that the hatred of the world is against him without any cause. And specifically by bringing in the context of Psalm 35, he tells us that it is proper to seek for judgment and justice against those who would strike out at Christ, strike out at his church or in the case of today’s sermon, strike out against the unborn.

It is proper to do that.

Okay. Then he goes on to talk about the trigger of the world’s hatred of the church. What his words and his works triggered the visible persecution of himself by the religious leaders and the false church. And then in verses 26 and following, he talks about the trigger for our persecution. When the helper comes, who I shall send you from the father, the spirit of truth. Again, the abortion situation is built upon the lie.

Men hate lies or hate the truth and go in lies. They hate life and move to death. Here the spirit, the strengthener is the spirit of truth who proceeds from the father. Mission from the father again. He will testify of me. I will do it. You also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. We have a spirit empowered witness to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. This matches the triggering actions of the savior.

Mission from the father. He comes, speaks words, does works. The spirit comes from the father to empower the church in mission. Remember what we talked about from our strategy map? The first thing we want our worship service to produce is a sense of mission as we go into the world. Mission, the spirit empowered mission of the church that we might testify and witness to the truth of Jesus Christ. That we might by our words and our works bring the reality of Christ to those who will as a result of this hate us.

The end result of this is the triggering of the world’s hatred for the true church. The strengthener, the spirit of truth witnesses to the savior and through the new humanity’s witnesses Well, we have words and works matching up with the Savior’s words and works earlier. Our testimony, the spirit testifies, and the word witness of the church. The word witness, the church’s witness that’s talked about here, you’ll bear witness to me, is the word that is the same Greek word is the root for our word martyr.

So, it has the implications of suffering, works of suffering that we do, receiving the hatred of the church. And the testifying of the spirit has this context of vocalization. Does the spirit speak through God’s people as they speak forth the truth of his word and that’s accompanied by the suffering acts of the church the way the savior suffered so that’s what triggers the world’s hatred and then we have an explanation of the world’s hatred again as the text moves to its conclusion in 16:1-4.

Its existence is again a given. These things I’ve spoken to you that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. So resistance is a given.

Its manifestations are excommunication and murder. And its justification for the acts of hatred of the world to the church. Its justification is the service of God. And this gets back to what I said earlier. You know, the Islamic terrorists who kill Christians and this is intensifying in the last year around the world. Their motivation is service to God. They say in their own deluded state that they are doing God a service.

And that’s what happened in the context of the martyrdom of the church. The Jews killed Jesus saying they were doing God a service by killing him. The early church suffered persecution at the hands of the Romans, but also at the hands of the false church, the Jews, because they were doing service to God for killing him. You know, Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake. And the day he was burned at the stake, before they burned him, there was a Christian sermon preached in preparation for the burning at the stake.

We read Fox’s Book of Martyrs and we read about, you know, Christians killing other Christians in the Reformation and post-Reformation period and we think something’s gone radically wrong here. But you see, that’s because we don’t understand that the way Jesus says it worked then is the way it’s normally going to work in history where the false church strikes out at the true church. And so Cranmer speaks forth the truth of Jesus Christ, a spirit empowered witness, spirit empowered work.

Where he celebrates the supper in the way he thinks the scriptures tell him to. He teaches reformational doctrine and the false church at that time burns him at the stake. This Jesus is I’ve warned you about this. Don’t let it cause you to stumble. But it does. The world says people outside the church say, “Well, see those Christians, they kill each other and they can’t get along.” See, and we’re tempted to believe that.

But we know Jesus has already warned us this is the case here. The motivation or the specific justification rather for the excommunication and killing of church members by the false church is service to God. It’s been like that always. It will always be like that. That’s what happens. The battle line takes place not between the church and the world outside of any visible religion, but between the true church of Jesus Christ and those that would espouse false religion.

You know, the battle goes on over at the high school that maybe some pastors in Oregon City were thinking about buying a house and having Bible studies for Christians next to the Oregon City High School. Because the Mormons have set up a seminary next to the high school. They’re offering a thousand men to move the high school of Morgan City. Mormonism hates Christianity and they’re what they’re involved with is a suppression of the truth of God and unrighteousness through a false religion.

And I guarantee you that when we do what we’re going to do, there’ll be opposition from the Mormons to what we’re trying to do. It is a false church. Now, it claims to be Christian, but it’s one of these. It’s not the true vine. It’s a false vine because of its rejection of the Trinity, the true person of Jesus Christ, and it persecutes the true church. Wicca, you know, spirituality of witches, very active in the Oregon City high schools.

Where are the enemies of the church? They’re frequently in the context of other religious groups. Islam, as I said, they think they’re doing God a service when they kill you. See, because that’s the pagan mind at work. In its attempt to suppress the truth of God in righteousness and deal with its conscience, it devotes itself to a different God. It preaches a different gospel. The Jewish church preaches a different gospel.

And I think that many Christian churches as well today preach a different gospel. And the hatred for the sort of things that we do today on the part of other Christians is a reflection I think of this persecution of the church as we open our mouths to speak for the unborn and to ask God for his judgments to fill the land. So we suffer persecution. You remember after 911 couple of men I think Falwell and maybe Pat Robertson for 911 maybe this is the judgment of God for abortion.

They had the audacity to say that God still judges that he judges reference in relevance to the sins of the people and he judges Christian nation. But do you remember it probably some of you didn’t read all about that but there was a howl of protest from one shore to the other in this great Christian country. Church leaders were you know going on the airways and denouncing these men for saying it. And unfortunately they backed off the hatred of the world.

They didn’t expect the hatred of the church itself for it. I guess They’ve sort of been taught like most of us in evangelicalism that we’re all supposed to get along together. Kind of a Rodney King version of Christianity. Can’t we all just get along? And gee, love is really the important thing. And boy, I don’t think a loving God would bring judgments upon innocent people. Well, you see that persecution of the church upon members of the true church who spoke the truth that God judges abortion by bringing national judgments and again dishonor and shame.

The psalm citation, that’s the conclusion. The United States says, “Shame put upon it through that judgment.” Yes, absolutely. God is judging the nation for her sins. We’re not saying he judged those specific people that died. Many of them were probably Christians. You know, that’s it’s not the point that God will in that judgment was fairing out particular individuals. He was bringing shame to us. And when he kills us, when he martyrs people for the faith, you know, it’s not for their own sin that they’re being killed.

It’s for a witness to him. So, we never want to get them that way of thinking going on. But clearly this could be seen at least as bringing the nation back to a sense that we need to get back to our roots and it has effect. When 911 happened, divorces went down in this country for six to nine months. Now they’re headed back up. I know in this church, I know in my home 911 happens, family worship every day.

Time passes, no judgments are evident. Family worship tends to tail off. You see, judgments are efficacious by God to bring a sense of his existence into our lives and to bring us to repentance. So their justification is the service of God and its prediction then Jesus says that he’s told them this he’s predicted that this will happen that they might comfort the disciples so when it does happen they won’t be caught unawares the prediction is to bring them comfort and he’s guaranteed them that he has overcome the world he’ll continue to say that in this gospel in the high priestly prayer particularly so he guarantees them of the efficacy and power of the father in the midst of this troubling hatred of the world.

It’s a repetition of the gospel that in Luke 1:71 Mary’s the Benedictus rather we that we should be Jesus has come we might be saved from our enemies from the hand of all who hate us you know Psalm 57 that we sang earlier you know he goes through oh they’re going to kill me oh but God is going to rescue me and so we end you know not being unaware that persecution hatred of the world comes but recognizing that God has given us victory through Christ and that victory will take place even as we go to the hand of martyrdom if necessary.

All right. So let’s now make a few short statements of application to this particular day lessons for today from this text.

First we have a requirement to witness to certain truths. Jesus says it’s going to happen. Hatred of the world’s going to come but for many people in the church, it never comes. If we keep our mouth shut and if we keep fairly invisible in the context of the world and the religious community in which we live, well, we’re probably not going to get much hatred.

You see, the first thing we say in response to this text is that if Jesus’s words and works are the trigger for this hatred and he tells us the church will have hatred, that it says the true church, the true vine will speak words and will engage in works that produce or trigger the hatred of the world. We have a requirement to witness to certain truths. We have a requirement to witness to the truth and to the fact that abortion is murder.

I’ve given you Exodus 21:22-25, the case law implications that the baby comes out and is has died, then you know, life for life is the penalty for that. Psalm 139, we’re all familiar with these texts. We know that God knows us in the womb. Psalm 139 talks about that. We have an absolute obligation to witness to the truth of the fact that abortion is murder. It is the murder of pre-born infants.

See, it’s the outworking of the suppression of truth of God in unrighteousness in a sense. Mark 9, the demons attack a young boy. He’s been attacked since he was a child. The demons seem to be particularly animated in their hatred toward children. And Jesus says that in our fallen estate, remember I talked on this a couple years ago, the lost have kind of a oh he’s got kids again. I’ll get them out of here will you? They don’t have a regard for children. They have a callous disregard for children.

And Jesus says no no no suffer the little children come unto me for such is the kingdom of heaven. Children are the future. Children are the statement of God’s blessing upon the family. Psalm 127 and 128. Children are to be rejoiced in. And the church as it apostatizes as becomes the false vine increases in an ambivalence toward child rearing and even a disregard for child rearing. I know I hear stories from people that come to this church of other churches where if you have too many kids, it’s not too good.

You know, you’re taking too much of the world’s resources. There are churches in, you know, many liberal churches that think that large families are sinful. The scriptures tell us, God says in Proverbs 8, “He who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death.” And so this hatred of God that the pagan that the fallen man has can and will left to its own devices lead to death. And so this abortion, this killing of pre-born children, this taking of innocent judicial life is a picture of what we is a reality that it is murder that we need to witness to that fact.

We need to witness to that fact to the church, right? You know, I wish next year, well, next month when I go to the Oregon City Pastor’s prayer meeting. I intend to bring this issue up. It would be good for all the churches in Oregon City that meet together for prayer once a month to come together with a joint declaration that abortion is sinful and it’s the murder of pre-born life. Now, as we move to try to accomplish that in the context of a group of churches, there will be opposition to that, of course, because many churches today are leading the charge in at least allowing for abortion or promoting it.

The problem today is that when girls turn to the civil state or to their pastor. All too often they’re told, “Well, we don’t know if it’s a life or not. Probably isn’t a life. Just a piece of tissue now. Aborted early.” This abortion is murder. And it leads to more murder. I saw a statistic a couple months ago that the most dangerous age for a child in terms of being murdered for the first 16 years of life is the first year of life.

In other words, if you’re a zero to one year old child, you have a much higher likelihood of being murdered than if you’re two or three or four or five or six or even 15 or 16 with all the drive by shootings. And the most murders occur within hours of the delivery at the hands of mothers. Now, we knew this. We said this 20 years ago that what abortion would inevitably lead to is infanticide. How can we tell a woman it’s okay to abort the baby to have it taken out the day before she gives birth and not and it’s not okay the day after the child is delivered?

How can we logically to scientifically make that case. We can’t. And so the deceitfulness, the bands of delusion that we wrap around women’s heads as pastors and judges, school teachers, Planned Parenthood, and parents tell their children it’s not really a baby. That delusion is getting so bad, they’re getting so insane, these mothers, that they’re now killing their children on the day of birth. And we’ve seen it.

See, various accounts and you know it’s very rarely prosecuted with any kind of intensity because the law sees the ridiculousness of it. So we need to open our mouths and that’s what we try to do today. We need to set this as a pattern for our church to open our mouths to call the church the visible church of Jesus Christ to make declarations that abortion is murder. This is a requirement for our church.

This is what we engage in today you know and it’s it produces is hatred because what we’re telling Christians is, you know, it’s like the six day creation debate. You can’t do that very well in the OPC or PCA anymore because as you try to make the case in favor of six literal days, you’re attacked you’re seen as attacking the guy who no longer believes in it and that’s most of the seminary grads. Now, the evangelical churches having been silent on this issue in large part for most of the last 30 years, our churches are populated with women who have had abortions, people that counsel people to have abortions.

So now when we take make this message we are telling people in the context of the Christian church that they are in deep sin that they have done something horrific and you know the mind of the woman does not want to admit that because the implications are horrendous. Now God can we ought to quickly tell them of Jesus Christ forgiveness of sins and that we’ve all been called out of this world system out of this sin.

Paul killed Christians implicitly at least and yet God brings him out of the world and saves him for a tremendous purpose to the church. You know, McCorvey engaged in this massive deceit, but God has used her now for many years to speak forth the Christian truth that the child is a person in the context of the woman to fight Roe v. Wade. But the first response is going to be the hatred of the visible church for us.

The false church will speak out against such churches that declare abortion sin as it did against Robertson and Falwell.

We need to witness to the fact that the Gospel means that God judges sin. You know, people think that Old Testament is a God of wrath, New Testament God of grace. Now, it’s not so bad anymore. Now, God doesn’t judge sin the way he judged sin in the Old Testament. The scriptures say just the reverse.

The gospel is not the message of justification by faith. That was true in the Old Testament. There’s nothing new about that in the New Testament. What’s new is Jesus Christ has come and all the pagan and false religious practices that man has been allowed to exist in under the prophet of God. These are all going to be judged. Now, the fourth book of the psalm or the coming of Jesus, Psalm 98 that we love to sing, the whole point is he’s come to judge the world.

And the church makes it sound like the whole point is he’s come so the world doesn’t have to be judged anymore. Pastors say this today. How can they say it? It’s nonsense. Paul says just reversed. He tells the men at Mars Hill in Acts 17:30, truly these times of ignorance in the past, he talking to Greeks here. These times of ignorance of the past, God overlooked, winked at in some of your translations, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.

He’s overlooked it in the past. There’s a sense in which up to the coming of Jesus Christ, the judgments of God have been mollified. They’ve been focused on Israel and the world has there’s been some judgments, you know, Jonah and the whale and all that stuff. But what Paul says is with the coming of Christ, King of Kings. Judgments now intensified the world. Jesus isn’t going to put up with it anymore. For 4,000 years, God overlooked many matters.

But now, no, now Jesus is reigning in an active sense, and his judgments fulfill the world. He has this ministry of redemption, but he’s also has this ministry of vengeance till all his enemies. He made his footstool. Again, in Acts 14:15-17, you know, Paul and Barnabas are amongst some pagans and they start to they kill somebody and the pagans think they’re gods or something and they start to worship him.

And Paul says, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways.” So again, Paul says the same thing here when he goes out to the pagan people who are worshiping him as a god.

He says, “In times past, the wasn’t so powerful, but now it is. The coming of Jesus Christ does not mean that judgment is done away with. It means that judgment intensifies. All enemies are being made his footstool. We’ve got various New Testament verses here on imprecation. I won’t go through them all. Let me read a couple. Imprecation prayers that God would judge particular people in a temporal fashion.

Revelation 6. Here we have glorified saints in heaven. Here we have people that have been martyred for the cause of Jesus Christ. Here we have members of the New Testament church, right? And what do they say in this text? He opens the fifth seal. I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they had. And they cried with a loud voice. What is their prayer to God?

How long, oh Lord, holy and true, until you judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? They call out they a prayer of imprecation that God might judge those who shed their blood on the earth. And God doesn’t say that’s a bad prayer. Rest of Revelation shows that temporal judgments will come forth. Jerusalem will be judged in AD 70. The temple will be destroyed and the blood will flow in the streets.

You see Galatians 1:7-9. Paul says if somebody preaches a different gospel, let him be accursed is what Paul says. And he says it twice. Let him be accursed. Paul is praying and stating that God will curse those people who preach a different gospel. Any Christian church today that says that Jesus Christ thinks abortion is a good thing. Those pastors are under the judgment of God. They’re preaching some kind of Jesus that is not the Jesus who speaks the word of the father and who speaks in consonance in inconsistency with the revealed word of God.

It is a different Jesus they’re proclaiming. It is a different gospel and we should pray for God’s judgment upon such men and women to the end that they would repent. 2 Timothy 4:14 Paul said that Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm. May the Lord repay him according to his works. New Testament Paul the Apostle of grace using Old Testament language lex talionis the law of the talent hand for hand tooth for tooth.

This is what Paul is saying. May Alexander the coppersmith be repaid according to his works. May God’s judgments come upon him. 2 Thessalonians 1:6 Paul says it’s a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. I’ve got many texts there. The New Testament knows of God’s temporal judgments upon people in response to their hatred and persecution of the church. God brings down temporal judgments upon them.

It is proper for Paul. It’s proper for the saints perfected in heaven. It’s proper for Jesus Christ to bring in Psalm 35 and seek God’s justice against his enemies. All of those things are a proper expression of the truth of Jesus Christ that the church today must open its mouth to witness to this fact. We bear a spirit empowered witness to the truth that God’s judgments is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.

See, we have a responsibility to testify to the fact that some love is bad and some hatred is good. As I said earlier, it’s objects that make all the difference. God himself hated Esau. Same word as used in our text today from John 15. In fact, the very exaltation of the Savior excuse me, is premised upon his hatred. Did you know that Hebrews 1:9 says, “You loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions more than your companions.” The very exaltation of Christ is because not just that he loves righteousness, but he hates lawlessness.

There is a proper hatred that must we must engage in. There’s an improper love of the world. The world loves its own and there’s a proper hatred for the Christians. Paul said that the very essence of Christian sanctification comes about as a result of our hatred of the sins that we do. This is good for us to hear. Paul said this, you know, he said this about his ordinary life. He says, “What I am doing, I do not understand.

What I will to do that I do not practice. But what I hate that I do.” See, there’s a proper hatred. You know that it’s rooted in God, rooted in the Savior who hates lawlessness. Finds itself hating our own sinfulness. And in Jude 23 it says we’re to hate even the garments defiled by the flesh. We’re to have an aversion to evil and lawlessness. Revelation 2:6 says the very commendation of the Ephesian church.

The thing he says that they really had going for him good is that they hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans which I also hate. Same thing in Revelation 2:15. Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate. God hates certain things. He hates certain people who do wicked things and he wants us to hate them and to pray for his judgments upon them to the end that they would stop their awful murder of the pre-born that they would repent of those things that they be McCorveys and Does who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ or that they be removed off the face of the earth and his justice be vindicated in that way.

You know abortions are going down. We pray for this end. We think nothing’s happening, but things are happening. God works slowly but surely. And the indications are in the last couple of years particularly, places that offer abortion services have shrunk down. I don’t know if another clinic reopened, but about six months ago, there’s a story that the only abortion clinic in Eugene closed down. It’s not profitable.

All the difficulties lawsuits, linkage to breast cancer, many factors are moving to close down abortion clinic and access to abortion across the land. Women are coming to realize the great risks that are involved with abortion. We’re to pray to that particular end. We’re to make these statements that there’s a proper thing. It is good to hate abortion. Make no doubt about it. And to hate those people who try to trick mothers into offering up the children from the safest place that’s supposed to be in the entire world, the womb of the mother, to offer up that womb to an abortionist.

Yeah. Those people They’re supposed to hate with a godly hatred. Now, like I said, we know that we’re just like him. Apart from the grace of Jesus, Paul killed Christians, by his consent, at least, but we must have a reaction to them that demonstrates clearly that they reside under the judgment of God. That’s the way to show them grace. That’s the way to bring them to repentance is that God’s judgment is upon them.

To pray to that end, and to speak forth words of that truth. Psalm 97 Psalm 15. Well, actually in the gospels, Jesus says that we’re supposed to Luke 14:26, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, not worthy be called my disciple. Now, it doesn’t mean you’re all supposed to hate your parents, but to love your parents more than God is wrong. By way of, you know, comparison, to put our parents in front of God is a very awful thing to do.

Psalm 15, an entrance psalm. This is required to get into worship. Who gets to worship God? The person in whose eyes is a vile person is despised. See, we’re not supposed to all just get along. See, we’re supposed to despise the vile person, but honors those who fear the Lord. Psalm 97:10, you who love the Lord hate evil. It is our requirement to hate evil, to speak forth the hatefulness of evil in the context of the Christian message.

Secondly, we have a requirement to witness to certain parties desiring their repentance. First, the institutional church. And I’ve already made this point. 1 Peter 4:17. It’s time for judgment to begin with the house of God. The message goes first to the church. Jesus went to the Jews, the disciples that have a spirit empowered witness to the Jews who would kick them out of the synagogues and kill them. Our message, this message were to speak must be spoken to the particular parties in order of priority.

And judgment begins with the house of God. The church needs to hear this first and foremost. And then we’ll see where the true churches and false churches are. So, Secondly, the civil state. Psalm 82 is God’s psalm of judgment against the gods, the rulers of a culture who are supposed to guard the fatherless. And when they don’t do it, Psalm 82 calls for implications against civil justices. The civil rulers of our day must be told.

We have a requirement as a church to witness not in a nasty kind of a way, but in a truthful way that abortion is murder, that God is judging this nation because of abortion. We have a requirement to bring that witness and that love and hatred are only understood in terms of their objects, not as abstract concepts. The civil state is to receive that message. Romans 12 tells us, “Don’t take vengeance yourself.” He’s provided a civil government to restrict abortion.

And we have an obligation. Praise God for the people that support the Parents Education Association, Right to Life, Family Council, other groups in this state who for 20 years have carried the testimony to the Oregon legislature that abortion is sin and should be made illegal. And now we’ve got a 35-25 pro-life majority in the House, 16-14 pro-life majority in the Senate. It wasn’t that way 20 years ago, folks.

It’s come about as a result of Christians in various political groups saying that part of our mission is to speak to the civil magistrate and tell them what the truth of God’s word says about abortion. And the end result of that witness to the civil government has been the election of more and more pro-life candidates. And we’ll be able increasingly to pass restrictions on abortion because of that. And that’s good.

And then finally, the wicked themselves. In Psalm 10, the wicked are the way they are because they don’t think God’s judgments are there. Over and over again in Psalm 10, the wicked man that plots against the poor, those in secret places. The abortionist does this because he doesn’t think God’s judgments are there. And we need to speak the truth of the fact that what these abortionists are doing is murder and God’s judgment rests upon them.

Now, we want to bring them to repentance in Christ. We must speak the truth of that. There’s a rally at 2:30 today at the state capital. There’s a rally sometime this week at Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinic. These are good things to do to bring the message of God’s word that this is murder and to bring it to these parties. But most importantly, what I’ve tried to demonstrate from the text is the hatred of the world means the hatred of the false church.

That’s the target for the message first and foremost and secondarily the civil magistrate and then third those that are engaged in the actual sin.

Third, we have a requirement to joyfully suffer the world’s hatred as a result. You know, in the Beatitudes, you know, blessed, you know, count yourself uh don’t be surprised when people persecute you. In verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice. Be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

You’re the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be salted? It’s then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You’re the light of the world. City that set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

You know, the reformers knew when they suffered trials, tribulations, and persecutions. When they went to the gallows or to the prison, they knew they rejoiced in those things, knowing that indeed they had fulfilled their requirement to open their mouths to speak the truth of Christ in a relevant way in the context of their culture, the Christian church, and then to suffer if need be the martyrdom that they suffered for speaking forth those words and for doing the works of Christ.

It is a joy to enter into the persecution, the sufferings of our savior because the savior suffered to the end that he might reign. He believes for the world and then rules the world. He brings about victory in the way that the world hates. The world hates Christ because the world wants to affirm its own life and hold it forever. But in doing so, it ends up loving death. Jesus Christ calls us to let go of our lives, to give it in service to him and in service to our fellow man.

And then we find our life and the world progresses as a result. Jesus has populated the world with his new humanity. Those who by faith are made part of his body. That humanity rules the future. And in that the way that rule comes apart is by us suffering joyfully the world’s hatred when we fulfill our requirements to open our mouths and speak the truth of his word to the church, to the state, and to those who had murdered the unborn as well.

When Rutherford was taken away from his patch, pastor in an exile to Aberdeen. He wrote in a letter to a friend of the honor that I have prayed for these 16 years. He suffered the hatred of the church and saw it as an honor for which he had been praying 16 years. We should desire to see the hatred of the world against us and persecution because that means we’re doing our job for the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’re opening our mouths and speaking the truth. When Bunyan was falsely accused and by the enemies of the gospel, thrown into prison. He said, “I bind these lies and slanders to me as an ornament.” This is what Jesus was telling the disciples. Don’t be confused. Don’t think that you’re not as winsome as you could be. That’s what the world would have you say. That’s what the false church would tell you. The reason people get mad at you Christians when you talk about abortion and 911 and the CRA, saying the judgments of God are upon our country, the reason why God doesn’t the reason why the world doesn’t listen to you is because you’re not winsome enough.

You’re not nice enough. You don’t put it in a nice enough way. President Bush, it’s his fault, right, that Korea is maybe going to throw nuclear bombs around because he called him an evil empire. Was it true? Absolutely. But see, he’s the one to blame because