The Empowerment Of The Holy Spirit (part 1) - [John 16:1-11]

The Coming Storm: Apostasy, Social Pressure, and Persecution

Sometimes our circumstances seem overwhelming, like there's no way out of them that all is lost, like it's hopeless, like there's nothing we can do. Why is that? Why is it that we feel like that? I'm going to suggest that it's because we've forgotten who God is.

This morning I think it even got mentioned in Sunday school, but if you think about Adam and Eve, they sinned. Now according to what God had told Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, what should have happened to them right away when they sinned?

They should have died. That should have been it, right? They were in a hopeless, from a human perspective, they're in a hopeless circumstance. There is no chance for them. Notice I can use chance in that sort of illustration.

But God graciously clothed them, told them of their future redemption, and then he expelled them from the Garden. When the Israelites, famous scene in the Ten Commandments and also in the Bible, by the way, Israelites are trapped, right?

They've got the Red Sea behind them, the Egyptian army in front of them. It's hopeless. There's nothing for them. They're going to be slaughtered. They have no chance. Instead, God miraculously opens the Red Sea and they cross, and then the Egyptian army is destroyed.

I could give example after example, and I got one more. The Assyrians come up against Jerusalem, 186 ,000-man army. Now Israel had known about this for a number of years, and they'd made some provisions, but I'm going to tell you something, militarily, they had no chance.

None. But the angel of the Lord, Yahweh, intervened and struck down the Assyrian army. Our sinful tendency is to look at our circumstances and think they are determinative. In other words, our circumstances determine how we feel about our situation.

Let's look at John 16. We're going to read verses 1 -11, and I'll deal with 8 -11 next week. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 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. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.

I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Now in the second half of chapter 15, Jesus had warned the disciples that they would face persecution.

Then he explains why. Because the world hates God. The world hates Jesus himself and the Father. Unbelievers are not neutral. They hate God and everything he loves. And since they cannot reach God, they'll settle for what they can reach.

And of course, the Jews in particular ought to have loved God. They said they did. However, they had developed a religious system that in effect had seared their consciences and turned them from loving God to hating him.

To having an outward appearance of righteousness, but inwardly they hated God as evidenced by their rejection of his Son. Last week we saw Jesus was calling the disciples to testify of him. He told them that that's what they would do after he left.

He also told them that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, would testify of him. What does it mean to testify of Jesus? It means to tell people about who he is and what he has done, and that's what they would do.

And then if you'll recall, we went to Acts 2, and we read much of the account there, including Peter's sermon, and we saw both these men and the Holy Spirit testifying to Jesus' person and work. And the result is reported in Acts 2 .41, So those who received his word were baptized.

And there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls. 3 ,000 converted souls in one sermon. That's not bad. This morning we will see three stages of preparation as Jesus readies the disciples for what is coming.

We will also see that our feelings should not, cannot, ought not to be allowed to rule over the truth. We know what is objective, what is true, what is right, and our feelings should not undermine that.

These three stages of preparation, really, when I was putting them together, I just thought these kind of sound like lame chapter titles, so bear with me. The first stage of preparation is the coming storm.

See what I mean? It's a chapter title, the coming storm. You know, it's like building Tom Clancy novel, I don't know. The coming storm. And the first aspect of this is the temptation of apostasy. The temptation of apostasy, the Greek verb, will be familiar to you as we have a word, scandalize.

So the Greek word is scandalizo. That's the verb. Listen to verse one, he says, I have said all these things, all these things back in chapter 15, preparing them to keep you from falling away. And that word falling away, it's actually one Greek word, and it is the word scandal, scandalize.

But I want to back up just a minute here, because I don't, I'm not a huge fan of the translation here, and most of the translations are similar, so I had to dig into one called the New English translation, the net translation, because there's a purpose clause here, a hinnah clause, as we so often say.

And it's translated here just to, and it's to keep you, and I prefer it was translated something like this, I have told you all these things so that, to just kind of underscore the fact that he's telling them for this reason, to keep them from falling away.

He really has a major purpose. There is a danger of them falling away. There's a danger of them falling into apostasy. There's going to be a temptation to leave the faith. The reason that Jesus spoke of in chapter 15, of abiding in him, of producing fruit, of obeying the commandments, of having a love for him and his love for them, and the world's hatred for them, and the work that they were even called to do, was because scandalizing themselves, and that's the idea, because it's not, it's something that they would ultimately do to themselves.

Allowing themselves to either accept false teaching, or to walk away from Christ altogether was a threat. They didn't quite know it all, although they would understand it here shortly, that this is exactly what Judas Iscariot did.

He scandalized himself. He fell into apostasy. He permitted himself to be drawn away from a right understanding. He had Jesus with him all the time, and instead of listening and believing to Jesus, what did he do?

He had this idea in his head of what a Messiah should be, what he should accomplish, and when Jesus said, I'm not going to do that, he betrayed him, he sold him out. Now, I want to make plain, Judas was not saved.

I don't want anybody to leave here thinking, Pastor Steve said, Judas was saved, and then he fell away from the truth. That's not true. You can't unsave yourself, but what you can do is sit under the right teaching, hearing the truth, and then just walk away from it.

Why? Because you fall away believing wrong doctrine. I had a friend who was a professing Christian, and then converted to Mormonism. You know, how does that happen? It's because you weren't a believer in the first place, and you wandered away.

You went after something that sounded right to you. So there was going to be this temptation to apostatize, to be drawn away because, well, here's why. Because there was also going to be social pressure, a lot of social pressure.

Look at verse 2. They will put you out of the synagogues. For a Jew to be unsynagogued was a brutal sentence. I mean, if we put somebody out of the church, that's rough. We don't like to do that. But it's nothing compared to what would happen to them.

If you were kicked out of the synagogue, that meant no employment, no trade, no nothing. You were not only not welcome in church, you weren't welcome in society. If you were single, you wouldn't be marrying any other Jew.

You wouldn't be doing much of anything other than trying to eke out an existence. And if you recall, that's what happened to the man born blind. And the Pharisees come, and they confront him, and they want him to say something negative about Jesus.

And when he won't, they become so angry that they unsynagogue him. They kick him out. And it was Jesus who then hears of this, tracks him down, and has compassion for him. When you were unsynagogued, let's put it this way.

If you were kicked out of the synagogue, they would have more compassion, more empathy for a pagan than they would have for you. So there would be social pressure. There would also be physical danger.

Again, look at verse 2. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. That word, indeed, is a word normally would be translated, but it's Allah. And it's meant to show, typically, a strong change in tone.

In this case, it doesn't so much change the tone as heighten it. It's really showing the increased risk to the disciples. He's like, listen, you think being unsynagogued is bad? Well, just wait. They're going to be trying to track you down and kill you.

Now, does that sound familiar? Well, of course it does. I mean, it's not like Saul was the only person doing this, but this is exactly what Saul was doing before he was saved. Listen, a part of Philippians 3.

As to zeal, which is a good characteristic, supposedly for a religious person, a persecutor of the church, talking about himself. He is somebody who would, you know, basically, I mean, it's almost I get into this policeman mentality.

He would get warrants from the religious authorities and then go try to arrest the Christians. In other words, it was a good thing for the religious Jews during the time of the early church to persecute Christians.

And some of the early, some of the Jewish writings from that era reflect this. How about this one? This is a quotation from one of their writings here. Whoever sheds the blood of the wicked is equal to one who brings a sacrifice.

And a Jew who worshiped Christ would be seen as a wicked person. In his trial before Agrippa, Paul said in Acts 26, listen to this, again, just get this kind of mindset here. I myself was convinced that I had to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth against Christianity.

And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. In other words, I was in favor of putting them to death for being Christians.

And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and enraging fury against them. I persecuted them even to foreign cities. And then he goes on and he's talking about Damascus and the meeting he has with the Lord.

But in the early days of Christianity, the chief persecutors of Christians were Jews, which is natural because this occurred right in the heart of Israel, in Jerusalem. However, throughout the ages, throughout the time since then, the church has been persecuted by the false church in Rome, by pagans, by Muslims, by Hindus, by atheists, and many other groups.

As one writer said, Christians were the nonconformist par excellence. They were the best at nonconforming to social norms in antiquity, and they had to pay for that. You don't want to worship our gods?

You want to worship this Jesus? We'll teach you a thing or two. Those who hate the gospel hate the God of that gospel, and therefore they assault God's people. I don't know if you saw the news, but it's hard to even keep up with all the terrorism and all the things that go on in the world.

But just a few days ago, a story caught my eye in the Christian Post, where in Nigeria, a pastor, his wife, and three children were burned to death by Muslim terrorists. And we think about that, and I mean it's almost unimaginable to do that to somebody, to anybody.

And then you just think about children, and you think who could do such a thing? Who could hate somebody that much? And the cause for the hostility of the Jews to the Christians is explained in verse 3.

And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. Is ignorance of the law an excuse? No. And it's not an excuse here. These people had not known Jesus in a saving way, but they saw His words, they saw His miracles, and they rejected Him.

He's already said that the jury was fixed in essence when we walked through that. But as I said earlier, the Jews professed love for the Father. They said in John 8, 41, We have one Father, even God. He is our Father.

We claim Him as Father. But the truth was, salvation for them was more a matter of birthrights and obedience to rules and regulations. If you talk to a Jew now, even if they're not religious, most likely they'll say they think they're going to heaven.

Why? Because they're a Jew. But these people did not know God at all. They didn't trust in the grace of God, but sought to justify themselves before Him. And if we think about Hebrews 11, the theme of that is what?

It's faith. It's the faith chapter, the hall of faith. Over and over again, by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. That's in the Old Testament. Old Testament saints were justified by faith. No one was ever justified by their works.

Their religion was effectively the same as every other false religion. Even as they professed faith in the God of the Old Testament, they promulgated these regulations to prove their own righteousness and really to show themselves to be more righteous.

They were like the Pharisee in the temple saying, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like that other man, like that tax gatherer. Everything was on a sliding scale and as long as you were high enough on that scale, you were all right in the sight of God.

That's what they taught. As the Lord said to Isaiah in chapter 29, verse 13, this people draws near to me with their mouths and honors me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. And their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.

They have no respect for me, but they have a respect for these regulations and rules. And it's ever thus, right? It's a battle of ideas. It's a spiritual warfare. It's error versus truth. Truth versus error.

The gospel versus false gospels. All these pressures were going to come upon the disciples and now they were warned. Look at verse 4. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.

Now, what is their hour? What does he mean when he says their hour? Well, what he's talking about is that moment when everything seems to be going the enemy's way. And when do you suppose that moment is?

I think it's while Jesus is on the cross. He's crucified. He's dead. This is the goal of Satan is to destroy Jesus, to put an end to Christianity. So just consider it. Jesus is dead. And what are the disciples do?

We learn this from Mark 14 verses 48 to 50. And Jesus said to them, this is when he's being arrested. Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me, right? They've got this armed entourage to arrest him.

Verse 49. Day after day, I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me, but let the scriptures be fulfilled. And listen to verse 50. And they all left him and fled. All the bold words, all the teaching really that Jesus did.

And when he gets arrested, they're just going to leave. In addition to not wanting them to fall into apostasy, Jesus wants them to remember. He told them these things were going to happen. Well, why would he want them to remember?

You know, is this some kind of I told you so moment? No, no. When they happen, after these things happen to them, it's going to strengthen them to know that Jesus had known this ahead of time. Let's think about it for ourselves.

There is great comfort. Is there not in knowing that nothing is happening to us? That God wasn't aware of that. God is never taken by surprise by our circumstances. We might be surprised by them, but he never is.

Romans 828, which was not written then, but it's always true, right? God is working out all things together for good to those who love him and called according to his purpose. And also, if Jesus told them this and then it happened, in other words, he foretold these circumstances and then they happened, well, he's also telling them that the Holy Spirit would come to their aid.

And if he was right about the negative side, if he was right about the persecution, if he was right about the pressure, if he was right about all the bad things that were going to happen, then he was surely right about the good thing as well.

So it would be a comfort to them. So that's the coming storm. Our second chapter or our second stage of preparation is the current clouds. I told you, they sound like chapter titles. From speaking of the future, Jesus turns to the present.

Look at verse four, the second half of it. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. Well, why did he wait to tell them about the great persecution that was to come until now?

Well, the truth is Jesus had often told them that following him was going to be difficult and costly, right? He said it would cost them everything. But here he was really getting into some detail about it.

He went into some depth about the type of persecution that they would be facing. And it's now just a few hours from when he'll be arrested and he'll no longer be with them. He will no longer, Jesus, that is to say, will no longer be the target of the anger and the hatred of the Jewish leadership.

They will be. He had, in effect, shielded them from persecution by being persecuted himself. After all, they were not teaching in the temple. They were not claiming to be God in the flesh. They were not performing the mighty miracles that Jesus had performed.

And surely if you think about it from the Jewish perspective, the Jewish leaders, you would have thought about it this way, and we'll even see this kind of frame for us in a little bit, that by removing the head of Christianity, by taking Jesus out, the little band, because it was small, right, would begin to dissolve, would wither away.

But think about how that would change this philosophy, this theory, when they thought they had solved their Jesus problem by crucifying him. And then what happens on the day of Pentecost? 3 ,000 people believe.

That was attention-getting, right? They would notice that. There would be discussions about that in the halls of power. And Jesus then asks a question that seems odd on first examination, if you look at verse 5.

But now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you asked me, where are you going? It's a complaint almost, right? But if we think back about it, we think, well, wait a minute. Jesus has been asked that.

In John 13, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going when he says that I'm leaving? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now?

I will lay down my life for you. Now, it's clear by the context that Peter did not understand that Jesus was going to sacrificially die in Peter's place. Otherwise, he wouldn't say, I want to go with you.

I want to be crucified next to you. Peter's concern was about his future. And maybe for the other disciples, too. But he was really worried about, okay, what about me? What's going to happen to me? You can't just leave me here.

In their current collective funk, not one of the disciples had even asked for a clarification, was even trying to understand what was going on, where he was going. Hendrickson says this was the proper moment for questions, questions to what the return to the Father would mean for him, for Jesus, and for them.

But there were no questions. Well, why not? Because they're steeped in their emotions. They're just wallowing in their grief. They're just consumed by selfishness, by concerns about their own fate. Well, what about Jesus?

What's going to happen to him? They're not really focused on that. They should be, but they're not. Look at verse 6. Jesus says, but I have said these things to you, but because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

And it's interesting because the has filled is a perfect tense verb, meaning typically that would be a one-time event with ongoing consequences. And I think those ongoing consequences went all the way until the resurrection.

They were just consumed by this grief, totally put off their game. Logic fled. Panic consumed them. In fact, they were so incapable of focusing on what was right, that I think one of the reasons why Jesus told them, he said, listen, when the Holy Spirit comes, what's he going to do?

He's going to tell you about all the things that I've said. Why? Because they weren't even listening. These were just words just bouncing off their head because they're just trying to figure out what is going to happen now, because in their minds, their own circumstances cannot possibly get worse.

The Promise of Empowerment Through the Holy Spirit

So we've seen the coming storm, the current clouds, and our third stage of preparation is the promise of empowerment, the promise of empowerment. And look at verse seven. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. Jesus said, told him he was leaving to prepare a place for them, right?

To enable them to do greater works. And if we think about it this way, 3 ,000 believers in one day, we never saw that many believers. We saw him do miracles before greater numbers of people, but we never saw the number of believers in one day that resulted from Peter's sermon to grant them greater understanding of the relationship between them and himself.

They would certainly understand it better once he was gone and to establish an even closer relationship with them. He tried in several ways to tell them about how leaving would be an advantage to them, but they persisted in their sorrow.

Whatever the feelings of the disciples, Jesus was telling them the truth. And I thought this is a good lesson for us, right? Which is more valuable? God-given truth, the revelation of God, what is objectively true or what we subjectively believe about our circumstances.

Do you ever fall into what I'm calling the tar pit of feelings, you know, where you just kind of, you're stuck, your feet are stuck and it just starts dragging you down and it feels like there's nothing you can do.

It's like quicksand. We know objectively in our minds, we know what the truth is, but we don't care because our feelings are in control. There's no like override switch where we could just throw and kind of make things the way things are supposed to be.

We just focus on our feelings. And I want to ask this question. Can I just gently tell you that that's sin? And then I'm going to boldly tell you that it's sin because it's sin. These men have the Lord of the universe in front of them.

And they were wallowing in their feelings. We have the objective truth of God available to us. And yet sometimes we still wallow in our feelings and I'm just going to say it because it's still true. Jeremiah 17, nine says what the heart is deceitful and wicked.

Don't listen to your heart. Don't listen to your feelings. What's true is true. And what you feel is not the truth. And then the marvelous providence of God, that phrase that he uses in verse seven, it is to your advantage.

He says it's to your advantage, the disciples advantage that he leaves. And it's those exact words in the Greek, what the high priest Caiaphas had said to the Jewish leaders after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

You remember that in John chapter 11, I don't want you to turn there because we're going to go somewhere else in a minute and I don't want to, I don't want to take the time to go there. But in John chapter 11, verse 47 to 50, after, after this, and they're really concerned because these people had seen, they'd seen a lot of miracles, but now Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

They've got a real problem on their hands because word is going everywhere that Jesus has done this and verse 47. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council. This is like an emergency meeting, you know, get everybody out of bed and let's talk about it because this is an emergency.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, what are we to do for this man? This man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year said to them, you know, nothing at all, nor do you understand, listen, it is better for you or the way it's translated in chapter 16. It is to your advantage that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.

When Caiaphas used that phrase, he meant it for evil. When Jesus used that phrase, he meant it for good. Caiaphas saw in Jesus death, the end of the movement, the solution to all their problems. Jesus saw the true beginning of this movement, the true beginning of the church, as it were.

Well, how could it be to their profit or advantage that Jesus leave? As long as he remained with them, they would not have the full presence of the Holy spirit. We don't know exactly why, but suffice it to say that in the providence of God, as long as Jesus was with them, the Holy spirit would not come in his fullness.

So what does that mean for them? If we just think about what Jesus has told them, you guys need to testify about me. Well, they could testify about his ministry that they'd seen. They could tell them about the words that he'd spoken, the miracles that he had performed, but they could not speak of Jesus, the redeemer, Jesus, the savior, unless he left and went to the cross, the fullness of the spirit would only come when their sins had been atoned for, which again could not happen until he left.

So Jesus promises that if he leaves, he will send the helper, the comforter, the paraclete, the Holy spirit. And this was ever the sovereign plan of God. Jesus was to train these men, prepare these men, steal them, not S T A L, but steel, as in put in steel in them, rebar, give them reinforcement, tell them what they were to do.

But then he was to leave them to the ministry of the Holy spirit. As he went to the father's side, why to intercede for them as Louis Johnson said this, he said, is it possible that we have a God who loves the world enough to give Christ to die for it, but not enough to give the Holy spirit to bring them to Christ.

And that's the Holy spirit's function, right? Is that the kind of God that we believe in? Well, I must speak for myself. No, I don't believe in that kind of God. I believe in a God who is not a frustrated deity, but sovereign and who accomplishes his purposes.

Well, could things have gotten worse? Jesus is going to die. Persecution is coming. The Jews hate them. They will put believing Christians to death and they will think that they are doing a service to God.

The Roman world is going to hate them and they are going to persecute them without mercy, right? They're going to use them as torches and inflict all manner of suffering upon them. And they're sitting there and they're thinking all is lost and it would be except for God intervening for his people as he does.

And in this case, he does it by sending the third person of the Godhead to them. And next week we will see exactly what the Holy spirit does. And we will discuss what he does not do. But I want to close by again, going to the book of acts, turn to acts chapter four.

Now, as I was reading this, I just thought, I just can't, I can't go without doing this. Acts chapter four, right at the beginning of the chapter. And this is after another, well, after a work that they do a miracle that they do after Pentecost.

You know, we say, well, what exactly is going to happen with these men? We see it in the book of acts, acts chapter four. And as they were speaking to the people, the priest and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead.

And they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day for, for it was already evening. But many of those who heard the word believed. And the number of the men came to about 5 ,000. That's just the men.

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem with Annas, the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and all who were of the high priestly family. And when they had set them in their midst, they've got them all right in front of them.

They inquired by what power or by what name did you do this? Then Peter filled with the Holy spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders. If we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed.

Let it be known to you or to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead by him, this man is standing before you.

Well, this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone and there is salvation in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, these were not sophisticated men, common men. They were astonished and they recognized they meaning Peter and John and these men had been with Jesus, but seeing the man who was healed, standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition, but when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men for a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Israel or of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it, but in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name, in the name of Jesus.

So they called them and charge them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge for we cannot, but speak of what we have seen and heard.

And when they had further threatened them, they let them go finding no way to punish them because of the people for all were praising God for what had happened for the man on whom the sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old.