EXPECT BAD TIMES

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed My teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of My name, for they do not know the one who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both Me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated Me without reason.’”

John 15:18-25

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or Me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.

John 16:1-4

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Yesterday’s message was centered on love because it was Valentine’s Day, a day which is fully focused on the subject.

As we see in today’s scripture passages, Jesus is talking about anything but love as He provides final guidance to His disciples, guidance that was nothing short of harrowing. For the message from Jesus was crystal clear:

Expect bad times.

Jesus certainly knew that bad times were coming and coming fast for Him. Within hours, He would be arrested, brought before an unjust court, convicted, and taken to the Romans who first brutally beat and abused Him before nailing Him to a cross to be crucified. Death would happen in less than 24 hours and it all started with hatred, a deep hatred for Jesus by the Jewish religious authorities who saw Jesus as a threat. These religious leaders were so blinded by their hatred that they refused to even consider that Jesus was exactly who He said He was, the very Messiah predicted by the prophets. Further, Jesus testified that He was one with God but His statements were brushed off as blasphemy, even though Jesus displayed a power to drive out demons, resurrect people from the dead, and heal all forms of illness, disease, and injury. None of these miracles caused the Jewish religious leaders to have a change of heart and their rejection of Jesus amounted to nothing more than a rejection of the God who had sent Him. Indeed, as Jesus stated from the law, He was hated without reason.

This is why Jesus was warning the disciples. He was yet to suffer the worst outflow of the Jewish religious leaders' hatred and He fully knew that after He had died, the target would move from His back to the backs of His faithful followers. Emboldened by their assumed success in eliminating Jesus, the Sanhedrin and its members would fix their attention next on eradicating all of Jesus’ influence and therefore eliminating the Christianity movement altogether. A well know military strategy was to try and kill the leader of an army because if you could take out the leader, it would be easier to take out the followers. This was the strategy the Jewish religious leaders were deploying and Jesus wanted to get out in front of it.

And so He warned His disciples to expect bad times. If Jesus was hated, then they would be hated also. No servant is greater than their master and in this case, the disciples would have been foolish to believe that they would go unscathed after what Jesus would endure. We need to keep this in mind today as Christian persecution still happens every day in our world.  

Note here that Jesus removes any room for absolution of what the Jewish religious authorities were about to do. They had encountered Jesus first-hand and chose to disobey His teaching. They decided to reject Jesus and hate Him instead which was the same as hating the very God they professed to be devoted to. They had seen His acts of power, a power that could have come from no one except God Himself, and yet they still shunned Jesus and so the Jewish religious leaders were absolutely guilty of sin, a sin they would continue to commit as they persecuted the disciples long after Jesus died. In fact, the scriptures tell us in the Book of Acts that the persecution in Jerusalem became so intense after Stephen’s stoning that the disciples fled and scattered into the regions of Judea and Samaria. Those killing Christians actually thought they were doing something that honored God, unable to see the sinful nature of their actions. They murdered Jesus’ followers because they didn’t know God or Jesus in their lives.  

In the end translation, the Jewish religious leaders thought they would wipe out Christianity but what they really did was play a part in it spreading and becoming a major world religion.

Today, we still see Christians being mistreated, singled out, and discriminated because they are no more of the world than Jesus and His followers were in New Testament times. Those in Christ belong to Him, not the world and this is why the world rejects them, a rejection that will always be in place until the day when Jesus returns. In fact, when you read about the end times, you find that there will be widespread persecution of Christians on a global scale. Indeed, the worst is yet to come before Christ comes back.

So there should be little surprise about how Christians are often hated in the world today. Jesus was hated and He warned us that the same would happen to us. He told us what to expect and we know that everything He speaks is truth. And so be encouraged and stay the course brothers and sisters as you carry out the work of our Lord and Savior. Your victory over death and guarantee of eternal life is set, and no one can take it away from you, no matter how much they hate they bring.  

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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