The Gospel of John (96)The Hatred of the World toward God

Please be seated.

For us and then pray. 1st John chapter 4. Beloved do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see whether they are from God for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this, you know the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. In every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist which you have heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Little children you were from God and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them.

We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us by this. We know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved let us love one another for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love in. This the love of God was manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him in. This is love not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved if God so loved us. We also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God if we love one another. God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit and.

We have seen and testified that the father has sent his son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as he is so also are we in this world?

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother.

He is a liar for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen. Cannot love God whom he has not seen and this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Let's pray our father.

We thank you so much for this very rich passage of Scripture. We thank you for what it says about Jesus Christ that Jesus Christ indeed came in the flesh and he was the propitiation. For our sins. He was the Wrath absorber for us.

The punishment that we deserve fell upon him. And Lord, we rejoice in that truth. We're thankful for the sacrifice of Christ. We're thankful for the work that he accomplished on our behalf for your glory.

And Lord, we pray that we would love one another as you have loved us. Help us Lord to be sacrificial in our love for one another. Help us to be giving of our love for one another. We pray Lord that we would look to the needs of those around us.

To those in the church. But also Lord to those in the world who desperately need to hear this message. We pray Lord that we would be bold that we would Present the truth in love that we would be gentle and yet we would be firm.

We pray Lord that we would have this reputation that when people think of First Baptist Church They think of men and women who love one another and thus we pray Lord that you would be glorified. Help us now Lord as we continue our worship through the preaching of the word.

We pray that we would be attentive. Help us to be focused Lord on what your word says. We pray that the Spirit would teach us exactly what we need to hear. Help us Lord to apply these truths to our lives so that we might live for your glory and honor.

Thank you Lord in Jesus name. Amen.

Let's turn in our Bibles to John 15 As we continue our study of John. I see today is the 96th Lord's Day that we've been in this gospel for a little over two-thirds of the way through. And today we'll consider the matter of the hatred of the world toward toward God and toward God's people Just a reminder.

We of course we didn't take a public offering and we aren't because of the virus situation but there'll be ushers at the end of the service at the back doors if you care to be involved in that All right in this section of John's gospel That we've been considering for some time.

We have a lengthy farewell Speech or word from Jesus to his disciples it actually begins with John 13 31 and continues through the end of chapter 16 and Here's a description of this farewell discourse surrounded by a prologue and An epilogue the beginning and end the farewell discourse can be divided into six significant and developing thematic statements of by Jesus with each offering comfort and consolation for the disciples Befitting the nature of a farewell discourse.

These six statements within the farewell discourse offer one long exhortation to stay the course and encouragement that their efforts will be matched by the Trinitarian God himself and so we have Before us if you have your notes, we have these sections Identified and again, you notice there's the prologue and the epilogue and then there are these these six statements of Jesus that Are in this discourse in which Jesus declared I am the way the truth and the life.

I Will give you the paraclete the comforter. I am the true vine. I Have also experienced the hate of the world. I Will empower you by the paraclete the Holy Spirit. I will turn your grief into joy and Then of course the epilogue Now before us today is the fifth of these eight sections are actually the fifth Fourth of the six saints of Jesus in this farewell discourse and it's in John 15 18 through 27 and here we read of the great enmity that exists between the world and the Son of God and Therefore also between the world and his disciples.

We also read of the danger persecution that his dust disciples would encounter as they bear witness of him. But they may be assured that they're not helpless for the Lord. Jesus will send the Helper even the Holy Spirit who will give them power and give them success in their witness.

These words of Jesus may serve to exhort us to be confident and faithful Witnesses of Jesus Christ in today's world Which continues to be hostile to the Son of God when he and his kingdom? Are presented clearly and proclaimed rightly.

We may not be characterized by fear that it might mute or modify our witness but let us in the power of the Holy Spirit be bold in our proclamation of Jesus Christ our Lord and To this fallen world in which he has placed us and let's take Heart to our Lord's warning whoever is ashamed of me and of my words of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and the holy angels.

So let's read this Word of Jesus found in John 15 18 to 27. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world the world would love its own yet because you're 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 has 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 verses press upon the disciples of Jesus Christ to see and acknowledge their decisive break from the world. From which they had been separated by their Savior as one. Wrote from an evangelistic perspective these verses demand decision.

Because the issues are of ultimate importance. Following Jesus costs something and May cost life itself and yet not following Jesus means one is siding with a lost and hateful world. To warn prospective disciples of these unyielding reality serves to discourage furious conversions in name only and to foster true ones just as Jesus told these things to the first disciples in order to ensure stability until the time of faith truly dawn.

Now we may consider this passage these verses. Using the following outline first, we'll consider the cause of the world's hatred of disciples of Jesus verses 18 through 21. And then we'll Consider the culpability of the world for its hatred.

Verses 22 through 25. And then we'll read of the promise of Jesus of the Holy Spirit. Who will sustain his disciples in their conflict with the world? And so let us first consider the teaching of our passage.

The cause of the world's hatred of disciples of Jesus verses 18 through 21. Of course, the Lord Jesus had been encouraging his disciples in the face of his impending arrest. Trials and crucifixion and burial which would take place and he'd be arrested in just a matter of perhaps minutes from now.

Maybe an hour. I don't know but very short order. The Lord had given great attention and emphasis of the love relationship that he and his father had for his disciples but here he transitions in. Addressing the hate relationship between the world and himself and his people.

Love relationship between them and God hate relationship between them and the fallen world. Of course what our Lord was about to experience was the greatest act of injustice. It was ever perpetrated in the history of mankind.

It was born out of hatred toward him. Which would also fall out toward his followers his disciples. Jesus said they hated me. They're gonna hate you also. And here the Lord described the fact of this hatred of the world toward him and toward them.

And so we read in verse 18 if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. So let's consider these words. First Jesus said if the world hates you. It's important to define terms.

A single word may have the capability of a variety of meanings. Certainly the word world Falls into that category. But the definition of a word will be more narrowly defined by the context in which you find it.

How do we define the word world in this context? Well, actually in the Gospel of John this word world has special significance and that it may have any one of seven possible meanings just in the Gospel of John and We've listed them here.

The world may refer in the classical sense to the orderly universe the cosmos all of creation. Secondly, it may be restricted to the earth itself the world. Thirdly the human inhabitants of the earth by metonymy.

That's just another word for the people of the earth. Fourth mankind under the Creator's judgment alienated from his life in the ethical sense. Fifth the public gatherings who were about Christ. Jews in particular.

The whole world has gone after him is what some Jews declared. Six the kingdom of evil forces angelic as well as human as related to the earth. And. Then seventh men out of every tribe and nation, but not all tribes and nations as a whole.

The world.

In other words the term world may refer to all that God has created or to the earth and sphere upon which mankind dwells or to mankind as a whole or to the Palestinian contemporaries of our Lord the Jews in particular or to all evil forces related to the earth and in rebellion against God or the person selected out of every tribe and nation upon the face of the earth and.

So it's important to look at the context in order to more narrowly determine the nuance of the meaning of a word and here World is a reference to all non-christians those who do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.

The world is commonly in John refers to the created moral order in active rebellion against God. The world hates Jesus. The world hates Jesus's father. The world hates Jesus's disciples. The fallen world.

Notice our Lord stated this in a conditional sentence. He said if the world hates you. He in no way was suggesting that possibly it doesn't. Doing just the opposite he was expressing the fact that it does and the way that the Greek language is Set forth here.

Technically, they call it a third-class Conditional sentence in Greek and what that simply means is is he's implying that this is the reality. In other words if the world hates you and it certainly does Know that it first hated me.

There's no doubt about it the world hates him. Of course the Word of God teaches us that all mankind until they're reconciled to God through salvation That Jesus Christ provides are born haters of God.

Paul wrote of mankind in general in Romans 1 we won't read though all those verses. But right in the middle of it you see this description of mankind who do not have salvation. Who are estranged from Jesus Christ?

They are haters of God. Mankind hates God. Because as Jeremiah Burroughs long ago once wrote the workings of sin are always against God and Burroughs expressed how sin shows itself against God as. The nature of sin is opposite of God.

So in the workings of sin, there is a continual working against God a sinful heart that is always stirring and working is always working against God and Therefore you shall observe these several expressions of the Holy Ghost.

Has concerning sin first the Holy Ghost calls it enmity To God. Romans 8 7 the wisdom of the flesh that is the best part of flesh is enmity against God. Second, yes, the Holy Ghost says it sin is walking contrary to God Leviticus 26.

Third it is fighting against God. Sin is fighting against God in these two places. Rejecting the gospel is called fighting against God for in Acts 7 51 You do always resist the Holy Ghost. There is a company of men who naturally walk contrary resisting and fighting against God.

We see that we must take heed of opposing the ministry of the gospel for while you do that you fight against God. You think you only oppose such and such men but opposing the gospel is not fighting against us men, but against God.

And Fifth sin in Scripture is called striving against God. Isaiah 45 9 woe unto him that striveth with his maker. Let the potter strive with the potter's of the earth. As far as sin prevails in your heart or life so far.

You are guilty of striving with your maker. And Six it is also called rising against God. By sin the soul rises against God and for that you have an expression Micah 2 8 even my people of late are risen up as an enemy and As Burroughs wrote these are strange expressions enmity walking contrary striving fighting resisting rising against God and yet these are all in sin and This is how we should understand sin.

It's presented in the Bible as a manifestation of our hatred toward God. And yet mankind is so ignorant of his sin. He would protest against this assertion. That he is a hater of God. Arthur pink Wrote of this enmity is a principle which expresses itself by opposition against its object.

It contends with what it loathes as in the regenerate the flesh lusts against the spirit. That is in the part of the Christian. So in the unregenerate the non-christian it fights against God. Enmity is the energy behind every sinful act.

Though in all sins there may not be an express hatred of God. Nevertheless in every sin there is an implicit and virtual hatred of him. So deeply rooted is man's enmity that neither the most tender pleading nor the direct threatening will abate it.

God may entreat but men will not heed. He may chastise. But as soon as he lifts the rod, they're like Pharaoh or as defiant as ever. But so far from owning that they hate God the vast majority will not only vehemently deny it.

But they affirmed that they respect and love him. Yet if their imagined love be analyzed it will be found to have respect only to their own interests. While one concludes that God is favorable and lenient with him.

He entertains no hard thoughts against God. So long as he deems God to be prospering him. He bears him no ill will. He hates not God as one who confers benefits, but as a sovereign lawgiver judge. He'll not yield to his government or take his laws the rule of his life.

And therefore does he dread his that is God's tribunal or judgment? The only God against whom the natural man is not an enmity is one of his own imagination. The deity whom he professes to worship is not the living God.

For he is truth and faithfulness holiness and justice as well as being gracious and merciful. The soul of man is a complete stranger to holiness even when his head be bowed in the house of prayer. But God is not deceived by any verbal Acknowledgements or external homage.

This people draws near unto me with their mouth and honors me with their lips. But their heart is far from me is what Jesus himself expressed. It is a God of their own devising and not the God of holy writ of Scripture.

They believe in it is an awful delusion to fancy. They admire God's character while refusing his son to reign over them. And so they would deny vehemently. No, I don't hate God. I love God. No, not if you're if you're not submitted to him sin is a manifestation of a soul's hatred for God.

However, because people are haters of God, they're also haters of God's Son. Again Jesus declared if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. The Jesus that the world claims to love is a different Jesus than who he's revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

Paul warned of some who come and proclaim another Jesus. 2nd Corinthians 11. This past week we were treated to the reading of Scripture by politicians who claimed they were speaking on behalf of Jesus.

Do you watch some of that? Incredible. They were trying to up one another quoting reading the Bible and calling upon Jesus as if He was endorsing their beliefs and practices. But if we're to proclaim our Jesus of the Holy Scriptures before them.

They would reject him straightway. And us who proclaim him for they hate him who is true. The Lord Jesus told his disciples that the world hates him because they were no longer. Because the disciples were no longer of the world.

Verse 19a. If you were of the world the world would love its own. Throughout human history there have been two peoples that have existed in the world which are opposed to one another and these of course the people of God and the people of the world and the people of the.

Devil.

There has been hatred and persecution of one people against the other throughout history and this persecution has been one-sided true. Christians Do not hate the people of the world. For they desire their well-being and their salvation.

There's a general benevolence that we have we really desire good for people. Mercy to be extended as it's been extent to us. But the people of the world only love their own those of the world. Those who think like they think value the things they value strive for the things they long for are regarded as their friends.

For the world loves its own. But we are no longer part of the world. For if we were of the world the world would love us. But the primary reason the world does not the world hates Christians is because it hates Christ their master.

As one wrote Christ followers will be hated by the same world partly because they are associated with the one who is supremely hated and Partly because as they increase in the intimacy love and obedience and fruitfulness depicted in the preceding verses.

That is Christians. They will have the same effect on the world as their master. They too will appear alien. The world loves its own. This is not a sociological remark about inborn suspicion of strangers, but a moral condemnation.

The world is a society of rebels and therefore finds it hard to tolerate those who are in joyful Allegiance to the king to whom all loyalty is due. Christians do not belong to the world. Not because they've never belonged but because Jesus averse.

I have chosen you out of the world. Former rebels who have by the grace of the king been won back to loving allegiance to their rightful monarch are not likely to prove popular with those who persist in rebellion.

Remember after I was converted I had Actually got kicked out of junior college in California for poor grades back when it was all free State paid for everything. All you had to be was 18 and breathing.

But the Dean called me in and kicked me out of college because I had such poor grades. And I went home two hours away two and a half hours away and within a handful of months. I was converted transformed.

And my old friend Norm Thurston looked me up one day. He came into the store hadn't seen him in months and months and Wanted to go out and party that night and I whole hummed. I didn't know what to say to him and he looked at me strange and he found out from my other friends later.

No, no, he's he's got religion now and so I Was alienated castigated. This is what happens. You just can no longer run with them. No longer. They don't they no longer regard you as friends. Christians cannot think of themselves as intrinsically superior.

There's never there should never be a spirit of arrogance or self-righteousness on our part. They are ever conscious that by nature they are as all others objects of wrath. But having been chosen out of the world have you been drawn by the master's love into the group.

Referred to as the Messiah's own who are still in the world. The world the world of rebels. The Lord called us out of the world. And then we read in verse 19b yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world.

Therefore the world hates you. Simply stated the Christian is no longer from the world. That's a Prepositional clause in Greek to Cosmo and it describes to whom that disciples belong in the nature of their identity.

You're from the world. They used to be from the world. They will continue to be in the world. Another prepositional phrase that Christ himself note the emphatic first person. Pronoun I is what he's referring to shows them out of the world.

Christ disciples are now a foreign entity in the world and the world's Antibodies he's describing it like a body that has some kind of foreign principle in it virus in it. The world's antibodies will naturally respond to them in force with intent to destroy.

This is the way this is the way a body reacts to some but something that's alien and foreign. I want to eject it. The world hates God the Father. The world hates God the Son. And. The world hates the disciples of the Son of God and this is how it's been throughout all biblical history.

God had declared after the fall that God himself put enmity between these two peoples. His people and the people of the devil. Genesis 315. God declared to the serpent. I'll put enmity between you and the woman between her seed and your seed and and your seed her seed.

This is an ultimate reference. Of course to Christ as a seed of the woman. The Lord himself put this enmity between the fallen world and his son Jesus Christ. But this verse also speaks to the hatred of the fallen world.

Toward the people of God through history. God put that in place to keep us separate from the world distinct. There's enmity between these two people. For one is identified as the people of God the other is the people of the devil and there can be no peace between them when their distinctions and differences are manifest.

And It's always been the seed of the serpent that has hated and persecuted the seed of the woman. The people of God as Matthew Henry wrote note from Christ Blessed the world whom Christ blesseth. The world cursed.

The favorites and heirs of heaven have never been the darlings of this world. Since the old enmity was put between the seed and the woman and the servant. Why did Cain hate Abel but because his works were righteous.

Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing. Joseph's brethren hated him because his father loved him. Saul hated David because the Lord was with him. Ahab hated Micaiah. Because of his prophecies such are the causeless causes of the world's hatred.

It's biblical history. Now a few verses earlier than the passage before us our Lord declared that he had chosen them. Verse 16 you did not choose me. But I chose you appointed you that you should go and bear fruit that your fruit should remain.

Whatever you ask of the Father my name he may give you. Christ favored them. God the Father favored them. He chose them and Therefore the world hated them. J .C. Philpott once illustrated this dynamic by citing the hatred of toward Joseph by his brothers.

It was due to their knowledge of their father's favor of Joseph over them that caused them to have such enmity toward Joseph. Here Philpott's words in which he describes the hatred that the world has for the true Christian.

However, various sects differ from themselves. They all unite in condemning him. That is the Christian who believes and follows the Bible. All other religion is right. His alone is wrong. Everyone else's faith is genuine.

His only is spurious of Him alone the charitable augur uncharitably. Universal salvation has cut off him alone from salvation. Those that pity the heathen have no pity for him and Those who come to see and land and make one proselyte pronounce his case alone as past recovery.

And what is this trespass? What is his sin that they so hotly pursue after him? Does he live in sin? No. Is he buried in the world head over ears and politics heaping together dishonest gains or eaten up with covetousness?

None dare say so. Does he neglect prayer reading the word hearing the truth? Contributing to the necessities of Saints and living peaceably with all men. No, why then this universal bane at him from every dog of the pack for the same reason that Joseph's brother brethren Hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.

The father loves him. Jacob loved Joseph his son and has clothed him in a garment of many colors and given him revelations. That his dreams which he had denied them. You and I are Christians ultimately because of course the Lord chose us to be the recipients of his salvation.

We were of the world as one's opposed toward God hating him. Refusing to believe on him and submit to him. What set us apart from the world? Why was it that we came to love the true God and his son in the way that he is revealed to us in the scriptures?

Was it not the antipathy toward him resident in our own hearts. It is because the Lord chose us and called us unto himself. That's what makes us different. And we must describe the change in us due to the grace of God only.

The grace of God so richly poured upon us through the Holy Spirit Who caused us to become born anew if you're following along in your reading chart? I'm thinking the one I'm you I'm using today. We're reading Acts 26.

Maybe maybe you're not if you're following the different chart we read about King Agrippa and.

How.

The Paul described who he had been and what he had been like. Indeed I myself thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This I also did in Jerusalem. Many of the Saints I shut up in prison having received authority from the chief priests and when they were put to death I cast my vote against them and I punished them often in every synagogue compelled them to blaspheme being exceedingly Enraged against them.

I persecuted them even to the foreign cities. Paul hated Jesus. He hated the disciples of Jesus and he knew it but something changed. Paul recounted his conversion three occasions in Acts and here's one of them.

He'd formerly been a hater of Jesus Christ a hater of his people. But suddenly doing an act of God's grace in Christ. He became a Christ promoter and a lover of Christ's people. While thus occupied filled with hatred enmity Intention as I journeyed to Damascus with authority commissioned from the chief priest at mid-day.

Okaying along the road I saw a light from heaven brighter than the Sun. Shining around me and those who journeyed with me and when we all had fallen to the ground I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language perhaps Aramaic Saul Saul.

Why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goats. And so I said, who are you Lord? He said I am Jesus whom you're persecuting. The rise and stand on your feet for I have appeared to you for this purpose to make you a minister and a witness.

Both of the things which you have seen the things which I will yet reveal to you. I'll deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you. To open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light from the power of Satan to God.

That they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in.

Me.

So he was a promoter of the kingdom of Satan destroying What he thought was the cause of Christ and his people. But once he was delivered by Jesus Once the Lord Called him. He became a Christ promoter and he would bear that message to the Gentiles of the world Seeking to turn them from the power of Satan on to God.

The only reason we're not still Enemies of God and haters of God is because of the grace of God Which was initiated by him. We were as Paul mining in our own business Going to the world, you know aiding what we hated loving what we love.

But he intervened wonderfully marvelously Transforming us. It was the Lord who put love for himself within us because he first loved us. His love for us is not his response to us because we loved him rather our love for him is the result and the response of his love for us as Jason pastor Jason read a little earlier.

We love him because he first loved us. As one wrote and you he made alive. Or this is from Ephesians you he made alive who were dead and trespasses and sins in which you walk. According to the course of this world.

We were just like everybody else according to the prince of the power of the air the devil was in charge and he's in charge of those by Tempting them and leading them to please themselves and do what they want to do do their own will.

Among whom also we all conducted ourselves and the loss of our flesh. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh of the mind were by nature children of wrath. Just as the others everybody else, but of course verse 4 declares but God God took the action took the initiative.

Who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Even when we were dead in trespasses. He made us alive together with Christ by grace. You've been saved and raised us up together made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ.

That means we're enthroned with Christ. We're in his kingdom with him. For the purpose verse 7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us Christ Jesus will never fully Comprehend and know fully the grace of God that he has shown to us in Christ.

When we became aligned with our Lord and Savior We were no longer ones belonging to the world and then the world began to hate us because it hated him returning to John 15. We read that Jesus then declared that we would experience similar things to what he experienced Because of our association with him as his servants and he is our Savior our Lord.

We read in verse 20 Remember the word the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me. They will persecute you the people of the world persecuted Jesus. They'll also be Persecute you because you're his servant.

We see this played out in the book of Acts In a manner that the world treated the Apostles of Jesus. In fact, there's a lot of literary parallels particularly in Luke's gospel and Luke's record in the book of Acts and It's been demonstrated.

For example, the people's treatment of Stephen very much parallels the treatment of the people of Jesus in Luke's gospel and Similarly with with the Apostle Paul there seems to be an effort Inspired by the Spirit but of Luke to set forth What the Lord Jesus encounter and experience his disciples encounter experience, too.

They hated Jesus. They hate his followers. But thankfully we also read there will be those that do respond favorably to the message of the gospel. That the disciples will bear to the world. Jesus said if they kept my word, they'll keep yours also.

And so we see that our Lord's words to his disciples are within the context of mission. To declare him and his word to the world. This is a missionary passage. Two reactions can be expected and they are far different from one another.

There'll be those who persecute us for doing so Proclaiming the gospel, but thankfully by the grace of God. Which is operative there will be some who keep his word just as we've kept his word. I have a little booklet of a biography of an evangelist in the early 20th century Mordecai Ham.

He looked like an accountant frankly, he looked like a little mousy guy with I'm not decrying any accountants. We have some in our church, but this is this guy look the part Shall I say and you you wouldn't you wouldn't think him being very dynamic, but apparently he was so bold.

It says wherever he went and preached there was either a riot or revival and. And I've read Billy Graham was converted under his ministry. I don't know. But oftentimes when the Lord is really, you know working Bringing revival that you'll get extremes in reaction, you know Whitfield preaching to 20 ,000 and a guy standing there with a long pole 20 feet long hitting them on the top of the head as he's preaching.

You know to the crowd so we'd get cats at him. You know while people were weeping. Repenting of their sin. The you had these varied reactions extremes as it were. This is what happens when the Lord is at work and the Holy Spirit is operative blessing his work.