Why so much hatred?

“The Church in an Age of Trouble:

Standing Firm in Christ”

(John 16:1-4, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 29, 2009)

¹ "I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. ² They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. ³ And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. ⁴ But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

Why does the Lord give us His Word regarding the trouble that the church will face?

A: “… to keep you from falling away.” (John 16:1)

Don’t fall away (1)

We do not live in an environment of intense persecution where a Christian knows that his life might soon be taken away by those who are against the message of Christ. There are others in this world who do face real danger. The large majority of those people are living in what people call the 10/40 window. This area extends from North Africa all the way to South East Asia, from the 10^th latitude to the 40^th latitude. It contains 60% of the world’s population and 97% of the people that are classified as “unreached,” that is, that there is almost no expression of the Christian church. I am sure there are many places in the 10/40 window where it is very safe to be a missionary, but there are other places that are not so safe. Perhaps some of the people serving in situations like that could easily relate to the dangers that the first disciples of Jesus faced. I can only imagine. My life is a very peaceful one.

That does not mean that people in our part of the world do not face pressures to fall away from the Lord. There is no place on this earth that is so safe spiritually, that people do not need to hear the words of Jesus warning us not to fall away. We all need to give some serious thought to the question of how this warning applies to our lives. In fact, the 10/40 window has this one advantage, that you are more likely to be aware of the spiritual challenges that you face in a place where the opposition to the faith may be violent. When Mackey Hooper decided to go to Rahab’s Rope in Bangalore, an organization providing Christian guidance and practical assistance to young women escaping the commercial sex trade, I am sure that there were many people that sounded all kinds of alarms about that plan. The truth is that we have to have our eyes open to the opportunities for both beauty and ugliness in every environment. In every environment there is need for us to see the beauty of the Lord every day and to stand firm in Him. In every land we need to hear the tender plea of a Savior who knows our name saying, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.”

A hatred that is ready to kill (2)

In the case of the eleven remaining disciples who would be so foundational to the life of Christian community that would begin after the ascension of Christ, there would be no denying the dangers that they would face, seemingly from every direction. First, there were those within the Pharisee-dominated synagogues who were ready to dis-fellowship anyone who claimed any association with Jesus as the Messiah. This opposition would not go away after the resurrection. Then there would be the danger that would come from within the new churches that would be formed, as some former Pharisees would be even more subtle and difficult opponents of the message of grace from within the church in Jerusalem. Also, as the message would eventually go out into the larger Gentile world, it could prove threatening to the power structure of cities where life was built around the worship of Greek and Roman gods. That would be Gentile persecution. Finally, the gospel always faces its most formidable enemy in our own souls, as we continually think of reasons as to why we don’t have to listen to and follow the grace of God.

In any case, that first danger from angry Jews was very obvious. As Jesus warned, not only would strong local religious leaders want to force Christians out of the synagogues, but more than that, “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” The whole book of Acts is part of the historical evidence that Jesus was absolutely correct about all this. In the most amazing twist in this story of persecution, one of the worst persecutors of the church, Saul of Tarsus, was found by God in the midst of traveling to Damascus to cause more trouble, and was chosen by the Lord to be a messenger of Christ to the Gentiles. That meant that for the rest of his life he was destined to face the pain of the kind of persecution he used to bring upon others. The people who wanted to kill Paul were sure they were right about many things, and there can be little doubt that they were “offering service to God,” just as Paul once thought he was doing when he was arresting and persecuting Christians.

Does this kind of murderous hatred against religious enemies make any sense to you? Does it make any sense that Jesus could tell a paralytic to take up his mat and walk, and that some people would want to kill Him because He did this on the Sabbath? Does it make any sense that the rulers of a synagogue removed a man from the synagogue to whom Jesus had given sight, a man who had been blind from birth? They wanted this man to speak against Jesus, and to call him a sinner. He said, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” But think about this contrast between this one man who could now see and the Pharisees that were looking for a way to accuse Jesus concerning this amazing miracle:

John 9:35-41 ³⁵ Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" ³⁶ He answered, "And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?" ³⁷ Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you." ³⁸ He said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him. ³⁹ Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.

A hatred that does not know the Father or the Son (3)

If your religion makes you so mad that you want to kill someone, that’s a good sign that it is the wrong kind of religion. If your encounter with Jesus gives you the kind of humble joy that says, “I once was blind, but now I see,” that’s a good sign that you are on the right track. If your religion makes you think that you know everything and that everyone else is hated by God, that’s a good sign that you have the wrong kind of religion. If your encounter with Jesus leaves you with wonder, and makes you think that the Lord might just do some completely unexpected great things against your own advice, that’s a good sign that the real God has come near to you.

Where does this religious hatred come from both inside and outside the church? Jesus, speaking of those who would soon be mortal enemies of the disciples, says of those who will want to kill the first apostles, “They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.” They know plenty about God, but they don’t know Him.

Some years ago, J. I. Packer wrote a book called, “Knowing God.” That’s a very mysterious and important topic. Can God be known? If so, how can we know Him? Listen to this word of invitation from Jesus, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” You know what is most amazing about that verse? The Jesus who speaks those words was not the pre-cross Jesus talking to His disciples about the Last Supper. He was not even the resurrection-appearance Jesus who invited some of His disciples to eat breakfast with Him on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Jesus who spoke those words is the Jesus who is ascended on high in heaven right now. Those words were written long after the Lord had gone home to heaven. He wrote them through one of these 11 remaining apostles, John, the author of this gospel, then an elderly man, who was imprisoned on an island in the 10/40 window because he was preaching the Word of God and some people hated it. It is this ascended Jesus who says to you today, “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Jesus is saying, “You can know Me.” Remember what He said in John 14 to Philip, another one of the eleven, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” And the Apostle Paul, who was once a Jesus-hater himself writes these words about the Son of God in one of his letters, “He is the image of the invisible God.” But when we are filled with hatred and only want to kill, we are far from the Father and the Son. Only the Lord of glory Himself can find us and bring us home when we wander so far away into the way of hate or apathy.

Remember, and don’t fall away (4a)

Meanwhile, the world is the world. It is a place of great opportunity. There you meet amazingly kind and generous-hearted people in the most surprising places. But it is a place that needs resurrection. It has been badly hurt by sin, and only God can fix it. It is a place where you can easily hate and be hated.

Through it all, through the opportunities you experience and the disappointments you encounter, you will do well to remember the words of the man who was so near the cross in John 16. He was traveling there for you. The thing that He warns His disciples about, this dangerous hatred of the true God, this dangerous religious venom, He is just about to feel that hate in His own hands and in His own feet. His side will soon be pierced for you. He will be mocked, spit at, punched, stripped, laughed at, and generally will take all of what hell is for you. Won’t you remember His suffering for you when you face the hatred of people who hate you because they hate Jesus?

These things about which Jesus has been speaking, these evil things do come. Their hour comes. That’s why Jesus says, “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” When you remember His warning, also remember His cross, and remember His love. Do not despise Him, and do not fall away. Remember the Word that you have learned, remember Jesus, and stand firm in Him, and in His love.

1. How does the Word of Christ help the church in the midst of persecution?

2. Why would the enemies of Christ be moved to murder messengers of the gospel?

3. What do the enemies of Christ know about God and the faith, and where are they ignorant?

4. How is our memory of the Word of God helpful to us in an age of trouble?