The Holy Spirit Convicts the World, Part 1
John 16:1-7
John 16:1 to 11 which is the next in our series of passages in the gospel of John. Beginning in verse 1, our Lord speaks: "These things have I spoken unto you that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues. Yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father, nor Me. But these things have I told you that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you. Now I go my way to Him that sent Me and none of you asketh Me where goest thou, but because I have said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for You that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart I will send Him unto you. And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on Me, of righteousness because I go to My Father and ye see Me no more, of judgment because the prince of this world is judged." May God bless to our hearts this portion of Scripture as we shall study it in a moment.
Let's bow together in prayer.
Father, as we approach Your Word now we ask that our hearts might be lifted up to the heavenlies, that we might see Your truth. We thank You most of all that we belong to Jesus, what it is to know Him and love Him and to sense His love, companionship, to know His salvation. And, Father, as we look at this passage in the Word of God, we pray that the Spirit might be our teacher, that we might be thrilled with what we learn and that we might apply it to our life. We pray in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16 verses 1 through 11. In our continuing study of the gospel of John, we come to a very, very classic passage, that which deals with a very, very important ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Now you'll recall that in the gospel of John, John is presenting Jesus Christ. His detail in each chapter surrounds the person of Christ. And John's concern is that Christ be seen as God in human flesh. He is concerned with the deity of Jesus Christ, that Christ is in fact God in a body.
Also, however, he is concerned with presenting the record of the life of Jesus Christ with particular emphasis on certain details that do reveal His humanity. And we have seen this interwoven as we've gone through the gospel of John, majoring on deity and then minoring on the issues of His humanity.
Now as we come to the sixteenth chapter, it is still the last night before the crucifixion of the death of the Christ...the crucifixion and death of Christ. He is spending that last night with His eleven disciples, Judas being dismissed to carry out his betrayal. And He is giving them the instruction they need to face the world without Him.
Now for several weeks we have been studying the fifteenth chapter and we have learned that the disciples will have to face a world that is intensely hostile, that they will be facing a world that will hate Christ and hate Christians and hate them who represent Christ. The disciples will be facing a world that is in rebellion against Christ. And if they cannot find Christ upon whom they can vent their hatred, they will vent it upon those who represent Christ. And so we're going to see, even continuing this morning, this very obvious hostility and hatred of the world.
But in our last study in 15, we not only saw the hatred of the world but we saw that how the hatred of the world is opposed by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. How that Christ will send the Holy Spirit who will testify of Me, verse 26 of chapter 15.
The Spirit will then confront the world face to face. And He will do it in the believer. John has told us the words of Jesus that the Spirit is with you but shall be...where?...in you. And that the Holy Spirit will come to dwell in the disciples and in all believers, Jesus predicts this, promises it, and it came to pass just as He said in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost.
The Spirit would dwell within them and within them the Spirit would witness through them to the testimony of Jesus. And we said then that all Spirit‑controlled testimony is about Jesus Christ. It majors on Christ.
All right, then, in chapter 15 in the last part of the chapter the world will hate the disciple but the Spirit will confront the world with the testimony of Jesus through the disciple.
Now as we come to chapter 16 verses 1 to 11, we find almost a parallel passage. For Jesus again details the hatred of the world and again presents the work of the Holy Spirit in confronting the world. Only this time He gets more specific about how it is that the Spirit confronts the world. He does not only testify about Jesus, but He convicts men of sin. So it is not only a testimony ministry, it is a conviction ministry. And by the double conviction and testimony ministry, the Spirit of God seeks to turn the hostile heart of man away from rebellion against God to believing in Jesus Christ and receiving Him as Savior and Lord. That's the message the Holy Spirit preaches and teaches and does it through the life of the Christian who is faithful.
So, the world then can be confronted, even though it's hostile, even though it hates Christ, hates those who name Him.
And if you're a Christian who really lives for Christ, you live godly in this world, Paul says you will suffer persecution, you'll feel the hostility of the world. Even though the world is hostile, the Spirit of God has the power and energy to confront the hostile world, break its hostility, smash down its wall of resistance and bring to the heart of a man conviction of sin, the testimony of Jesus Christ so that that man gives his life to Christ and is redeemed.
Now in chapter 16:1 to 11, we see this pattern. And we see how the Holy Spirit breaks down this resistance by the tremendous work of conviction. And it's an obvious thing that before anybody can ever be saved, that before anybody can ever come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ, he has to have a sense of his own sin, doesn't he? He has to be made aware that he has a need for a Savior. He has to come to grips with the problem of judgment and righteousness and sin in his life. And that's exactly what the Holy Spirit does. He brings to light those three areas of sin, righteousness and judgment. Convicts of those, then gives the testimony of Jesus which is the answer to those problems and by that a man can trust Christ and be redeemed.
So you see then it's all of the Holy Spirit. Christian witness is all of the Holy Spirit. We're still reviewing a little bit. He's the one that does the witnessing in us. He's the one that does the conviction. We can't do it on our own strength.
Now as we look at this passage in chapter 16, I want to break it into three simple categories that really are...they're unique in themselves and yet they lead into the next one very very simply. We're going to see three things...the killing of the disciples by the world. This is the first little area Jesus talked about. Into the comforting of the disciples by the Lord.
And then the convicting of the world by the Spirit. Now these three separate themes blend into each other and we see the narrative here as Jesus presents it. And it's a fantastic thing culminating in the Spirit's ministry to the unsaved man...the ministry of convicting him of sin, righteousness and judgment so that he feels a need for Jesus Christ. And then giving testimony to Christ so that the need can be met.
But first Jesus begins by repeating the warning that a disciple in this world is going to feel hatred, persecution and maybe even death. And point one we call the killing of the disciples by the world...the killing of the disciples by the world. And it's verses 1 through 4...your outline says 3, it's 4.
Verse 1, Jesus speaks, "These things have I spoken unto you that you should not be offended." Now the key thing that we want to understand to begin with is what is the word "things" refer to. What are these things? One word in the Greek, two words in English, "These things He has spoken," what things? The things that He has just said in chapter 15:18 through 25. That which deal with the hatred of the world. Jesus is saying I told you about the hatred of the world because I don't want you to be surprised when you get it.
In other words, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I want to equip you to go into the battle with your eyes wide open. I want you to realize that you're going to get it when you get into this world. That when I leave it's only going to begin, the hostility the world has directed at Me is going to be directed at you who represent Me, so be ready for it, anticipate it. These things have I spoken unto you that you shouldn't be offended.
And the word "offended" is a very interesting word. In the Greek, and I'll say it in the Greek because that will help you to realize what it means...the word is skandalizo from which we get our word "scandalize" which is kind of a long process of etymology away from what it originally meant. It comes from a noun skandalon. And the noun meant a stick...now watch this...but a special stick, a stick that held up a trap. You'd set a trap and you'd put a stick there, some kind of a stick, and you'd put the bait on the stick and when the animal hit the bait, the stick went down, the trap came down and that was it. The skandalon then was a trigger that pulled the whole trap down.
And Jesus is saying that to these disciples. He is saying, "Men, I'm telling you this that you might not be trapped unaware, that you might not find yourselves in the world jumping around without any kind of sensitivity to the fact that there's a trap set for you. I don't want you to get trapped without knowing it.
Realize, men, the world is going to be after you. They're going to hate you and persecute you because they did it to Me and the servant is not greater than his lord. Don't get trapped unawares, men, you got the information, you know it's coming."
And so, Jesus gives them full information. His disciples are totally aware of what's going to go on. They know the meaning of discipleship. They know all the heart and painful parts about it as well as the joyous parts. They know that there is a trap awaiting them out there that the world is going to try to catch them, the world is going to try to persecute them and they are to be aware of that and not to be caught unaware.
It's kind of an interesting thing to realize that even with all this information that they had, and even though Jesus said I don't want you to be offended, it turned out that they were. You say, "Well why?" Well, just look at it, backing up for a minute, from this angle. Can you imagine what would have happened to them if they were offended when He told them this, what would have happened to them if they hadn't known this? It would have been infinitely worse. I mean, they hadn't known anything about the hatred of the world. And all they had to go on was chapter 14 and the first part of chapter 15, and all the promises, love, joy, and peace and all this kind of stuff and promises that you can do anything in My name and I'll give you power to do greater works than I did. And I'm going to give you a comforter and He'll energize you and empower you and they'd be like a lot of little kids running through the park with balloons, you know.
Just..."Oh, oh...life is really terrific, just one big ball...happy go lucky Christian life," see and all of a sudden the world will start to persecute them and all of a sudden their thoughts would go..."Wait a minute...wait a minute...what is this...what is happening?" And they would become disillusioned with Christ, they would become disappointed with Him. Their whole faith would begin to falter and become undermined. Jesus needs to warn them so that they understand that this is all part of the plan so they don't go racing into this whole area of discipleship with a misguided kind of glee, unaware that there are going to be obstacles. The Lord says expect it, it's going to come. And He's not trying to discourage them, He's trying to fortify them so when it does come they're going to be ready for it.
And it's really the tenderest kind of concern that causes Him to do this. In fact when it did happen, when the persecution came, they should have, you know, said in their minds..."Oh, yeah, that's what He said, didn't He? Fulfilled prophecy." And it should have strengthened their faith.
But the first time the persecution began, they were offended. And who was the first of them that was persecuted?
Well it was Jesus Himself. This very night, this very night, they came to get Jesus. The disciples should have known it was going to happen, but look what they did. Matthew chapter 26 verse 31, just listen. "Then saith Jesus unto them," now listen to this, "All ye shall be offended because of Me this night for it is written I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad."
Jesus says, "Men, you're all going to be skandalizoed, you're all going to be offended, trapped, caught, you're going to blow the whole thing, men." Now this presents to us a very interesting theological dilemma and I'll share it with you because I want you to suffer the same dilemmas that I suffer.
Jesus says in John 16, "I don't want you to be offended." In Matthew 26 later on the same night He says, "You will be offended."
You say, "Well, if He knew they were going to be offended, why did He bother to say I don't want you to be offended?"
That's a good question, I'm glad you asked. The answer is the same answer that's throughout all Scripture. The answer is this...God knows everything, Christ knows everything but it's a man's responsibility as to how he responds. Let me show you what I mean. Jesus says to them, "You don't need to be offended, you don't need to be. I'm going to give you all the ingredients...all the promises, all the warnings, all the information to go into the world and not be offended and not be trapped unaware...you don't need to be." And yet He says you will.
You see, from a divine side they had all the equipment. But it boiled down to a personal will, didn't it? To a personal choice. In other words, there's a tremendous principle here.
The principle is human responsibility. A man has his own personal will as to whether or not he applies the truth and the promises of God. Did you know that? Did you know that? God knows everything. And God gives man the information he needs to live his life, He gives him all the instruction and yet a man can either take it or leave it.
They had sufficient warning. They had sufficient information. And yet when it came to the hour, they rejected what they knew to be true and in fear they ran away. You say, "Boy, that was pretty bad of them." Yeah, well it's a lot like us. We aren't much different. The Bible tells us we have all knowledge. We have all the wisdom that we could possibly ask for. And God doesn't hold back any of it. We have all the resources that He could possibly give us, we are complete in Him, Colossians 2:10. And yet we run into a problem and immediately fear...we're afraid...begin to doubt our salvation. We fall into sin. We stumble. We neglect this. We neglect that, etc., etc., etc. It's not that we don't have the ingredients, it's not that we don't have the information and it's not that we don't have the Holy Spirit who is the power to conquer everything, it's that we have not been willing to apply our personal will to that which we possess.
It's the same thing here. Jesus says you don't need to be offended, I'm telling you all this so you don't have to be offended but you will be because that's the way you are. Instead of calling on your resources, you'll fall back on your human fears. Christ had done all that He could do. He positionally had, as to us, given them everything. They knew what they needed to know. They had everything. So do we. We have the Holy Spirit to overcome. It boils down to whether or not we want to claim the power, the love, the strength, and the wisdom that He's put at our disposal or whether we not...or whether we want to cower in fear. It's a personal will that's involved.
And so, Christ is saying I don't have any...anything to hold back, I'm going to tell you the whole thing because I don't want you to be trapped unaware. But they didn't fall back on what they knew. In fear they ran. Boy, that's a tremendous principle. You see, that's why...and watch this one, this is really critical...that's why whatever you do in your Christian life is not the responsibility of God because He's given you all the ingredients to conquer in every situation...it's a matter of personal will as to whether or not you take those resources or not.
All right, then having said that, that I don't want you to be offended, and knowing in His mind that they would, He describes for them the kind of persecution they're going to get.
And this adds detail to chapter 15. He just told them the world would hate him, He didn't give them these kind of details, but look at this in verse 2. This is what they can expect. "They shall put you out of the synagogues," that's the first thing, "yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service." Isn't that interesting?
He says, first of all, you're going to get unsynagogued.
Now that's a very important thing. To be a part of the synagogue in a Jewish situation was to be a part of the entire culture.
All the social life, all the economic life and all the religious life surrounded the life of the synagogue. That was everything.
That was the place where they were together. That was their whole world in the synagogue. And if you got unsynagogued, you became a moral outlaw. The jewish law said you were worse than a pagan Gentile. You were dropped to the scum of the earth when you were put out of the synagogue. And, boy, they feared this...they feared it.