Peace: A By-Product of Faith, Hope, and Love, Part 1
John 16:25-27
Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 16, verses number 25‑33, in this particular portion Jesus Christ wraps up His conversation with His disciples the night before His death. He pulls it all together‑‑this is kind of a summary of all that He said from chapter 13 on to this point on His last night with His disciples. And the theme of what He says in these verses is faith, hope, and love, and the result of those‑‑peace. And thus it becomes a very classic passage, not on the surface, but as you dig into it you find out how deeply it really unfolds the tremendous possessions of the believer, which are faith, hope, and love, and how knowing that we have these things brings peace. It's a bleak world that we live in. I suppose it's very much obvious to all of us how really sad and sick our world is. It becomes more obvious to me all the time. As I mentioned to some of you on Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to speak on the free speech platform at Cal State Long Beach last Wednesday before hundreds and hundreds of students, and they warned me before I spoke there that there was always some hassling and some harassment and some verbal abuse and all kinds of problems when you tried to confront a whole group of people on an open platform type thing, but it was amazing how that as I stood up there and I talked about the despair of man, the lack of love, the lack of something to believe in, the lack of hope that from the beginning to the end of my talk, which lasted about 45 minutes there was not one single statement made toward me, there wasn't one moving of the crowd, I only saw, I think, one person leave within 45 minutes. It was as if, in contrast with so many other things that have gone on in a similar situation, it was as if in talking about the hopelessness and the bleakness of life I struck the major chord in everybody's mind, and people just kept gathering around to hear this, this identified with them. And it's a truism, it's a truism if anything is true, that men today are desperate for love, they are desperate for something to believe in, and they are desperate for something to hope for. There must be some value in a man. A man must be worth something to somebody, and that's what love is. Love is merely a value system that sets a certain worth on an individual. That's what love is. Love says, you are worth this much. Certain love. Other love says you are worth that much, and the supreme love that says you are worth everything. All the mentions of love are merely a valuing system by which we are assigned a certain worth. Your neighbors may love you in a certain value, your wife loves you in perhaps more or less value, depending upon your own situation, and they're all varying areas of love, and they are merely evaluations. The person you love most in the world is the one whom to you has the highest value as an individual. And people today want to know that they're valuable. They're desperate to know that. They want to know they mean something, they want to know they're not part of a cosmic machine, they want to know that there's something about them that's worth something to somebody. They want love.
Secondly, they want something to believe in -‑ desperately. In a world where you can't put your faith in anything. They want something to believe in, and then they want something to hope for. There's got to be a better world. There's got to be. There's got to be a world where the inequalities become equal. There's got to be a world where injustice becomes justice, where wrongs are put away and rights are substituted. There's got to be a world where all the things that are bad are turned around and there is good and there is a world. There is a new world coming. It's going to be created by Jesus Christ‑‑it's called the Kingdom. There is something to hope for, but the world doesn't know that. And so people in our world are looking for someone to love them, someone they can love. They're looking for someone to believe in and something to hope for. And they're not finding it, and it's a sick sad world, and it's a despairing world, because they can't find it.
The anti‑hero of Sartre's great novel; the first novel that Sartre wrote was a comment on man, and the name of it is "Nausea", so you get a little idea of what he thinks. And in his novel "Nausea" the main character, who is the anti‑hero, describes existence like this. He says, "Nothing happens while you live. Scenery changes, people come in, go out, that's all, there are no beginnings, days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, and interminable monotonous condition." Why just nothing? Why just meaningless? It's a series of disconnected events. There's no purpose, and man desperately looks for purpose, he desperately looks for a reason to be alive, for something that makes existence meaningful. He looksin science. He thinks that maybe science has the answer, but science doesn't seem to make it, because science is a two‑edged sword‑‑it discovers wonderful ways to keep him alive, so the longer he lives the more he pollutes and over‑populates. He figures out wonderful ways to harness nuclear energy not only to create energy to run man's machinery and to make life more comfortable but to blow himself to bits. You see, science can only deal with what it observes. It has no morality. Science can't even give him any origin answers. Science doesn't know what happens before and what happened, happened. That's why science gets into such problems when it starts talking about where it all came from, and the best they can do is say once there was a puddle with a piece of protoplasm in it, And then and where did the protoplasm come from? "Don't ask me that." Science can't talk about origins and it can't talk about destinies. It's a study of the observable, and science doesn't give him any answers as to why he exists and where he came from and where he's going and what his meaning is. Somebody says, no it's experience. The only way you can every find meaning in life is to get on the bandwagon of whatever's happening‑‑get in the revolution. Be a part of where it's at. And people have lived like this for centuries. Adventurers‑‑get on the causes, jump on this, join this, join that, better man, sociological ... whatever way you want to do it. Be a part of the cause. This is a classic example of this is Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Hemingway did this ... went all over the world. Years ago Playboy Magazine ran an article (I wrote a comment on the article in Christianity Today) (Laughter). I've got to be sure and protect myself. (Laughter) No, I believe it was Eternity magazine, come to think of it‑‑another Christian Magazine‑‑but anyway, and this particular magazine was commenting on an article in Playboy Magazine which had reference to Ernest Hemingway. And it was evaluating him, this Playboy Magazine was evaluating him by saying that he was one that you could cheat sin, that you could do whatever you wanted and get away with it because Hemingway had been all over the world, he'd fought in all revolutions, held killed people, he'd tumbled women, and he'd done this and that and it went on and on and on and on about all of his exploits and how he had proven that the old Christian adage that the wages of sin is death doesn't make it. And ten years later to the month that that article was written in Playboy glorifying Hemingway he took a gun and blew his brains out. No, he didn't make it. He found out that the wages of sin was death. The answer's not an experience, not an adventure.
Somebody else says, the answer is humanism. Ultimate humanism. But you know, you got aproblem in humanism, because if man is a piece of the cosmic machine then he's worthless to begin with. So to worship man is the height of idiocy. To be a humanist has to be the dumbest possible position that a man can evertake because if a man is worthless anyway, why worship the worthless? I mean, if there's nothing outside man that says he's valuable and his problem is he thinks he's not valuable, then what is he doing worshipping himself if he's not valuable. Humanism doesn't offer any answers. Man can't handle his own world, he can't kid himself into thinking bets something more than he is.
So Sartre's main character in his novel "Nausea" comes to this conclusion he says, "I dreamed vaguely of killing myself, to wipe out at least one of these superfluous lives." No reason to live. Nothing to love, nothing to believe in, no hope, oh, coming and going, bits and pieces and hope and love and faith, but nothing concrete, nothing lasting, nothing meaningful, no wonder man has no peace, no wonder he lives in a state of existential shock, no wonder he's in a state of trauma. He hasn't figured out what he is and why he is. But you see, it is to this point that Jesus speaks. That man is because God is. And because God wanted man to be, because God has wonderful things in store for man. This is where Jesus moves in, the things that man is looking for‑‑love, faith, and hope, are exactly the things that Jesus gives. You see, in I Cor. 13:13 it says, "and now abideth faith, hope and love; these three." Why does it say these three? Those are the big three, neighbors. Those are the big three. And the greatest of these is what? Is love. In I Thess. 1 when Paul was stating that the Thessalonians were saved people, he was kind of presenting them as real believers in chapter 1 in the first 5 verses, and in verse 3 he proves their salvation by saying this: "I can remember your work of faith, your labor of love, and patience of hope." Now anybody that has love, faith, and hope is a believer in Christ, and that's the next phrase, "in our Lord Jesus Christ." And if you read through I Thessalonians you'll find in chapter 4 in verse 9 he talks about their love he talks about their love, chapter 4 verse 13‑18 he talks about their hope, chapter 4 verse 13‑18 he talks about their hope, chapter 1 verse 8 he talks about their faith, chapter 5 verse 8 he says now you've got them all now use them. Faith, hope and love, all come from a relationship to Jesus Christ. Under the three big things that every man desperately needs. He cannot exist without them. Now those three are what bring us to our passage in John 16. Because those three are the features that Jesus talks about in this final paragraph. And they are really, really important to us.
Now if you were to read this passage superficially you might not even see these three. Because they are not portrayed as such, but in the discourse between Jesus and his disciples when you get into the nitty‑gritty of what he's saying these three things literally explode in your face. And we'll only be able this morning to see the first one which is love, because it's so rich in verses 25‑27 but we must take the time to be careful with it. So these verses, verses 25‑33 then deal with the three cardinal virtues of salvation, did you get that? The three cardinal virtues of salvation, faith, hope, and love. And they are the summary of all of Jesus' discourse beginning in chapter 13. This has been a great discourse, hasn't it? There's nothing like it anywhere in the Bible‑‑fantastic. And really from 14 through 16 is a transition. You don't hear anything about Judaism anymore, everything's about the new age‑‑the dispensation of the Spirit; this is the bridge that Jesus is building to the new age. It's all about the great Holy Spirit age, it all deals with the Christian's position and practice, and Judaism is faded from the scene by the time you come to chapter 14, and Jesus is building the bridge to the new age. And the offer to his disciples in this discourse, and to every man who comes to him, love, faith t and hope‑‑the three things that make meaningful existence.
First of all, let's notice love. And we're going to sneak up on it a little bit. Beginning in verse 25, Jesus says, "These things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs, that the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs but I shall show you plainly of the Father. Now I want to talk about that for just a minute. First of all He says, these things have I spoken unto you in proverbs. The Greek word is "peroinia". There are two words in the New Testament that are used commonly, concerning the veiled statements of Jesus, "parabalas", from which we get parables, and "peroinia". Now peroinia is here translated proverb, but that perhaps is not the best translation. Because when we in English think about a proverb we think about some kind of a clever little saying like we read in the proverbs, as this word indicates. Peroimia means a "veiled, pointed statement". A veiled pointed statement. That is a peroimia. The Hebrew equivalent is "mashal", and a meshal is the same thing‑‑it is a very important sort of pregnant with meaning statement‑‑it's like an iceberg, you know, you get the top of it and you miss the real shot that's underneath the surface. And Jesus spoke continually in meshals, continually in these peroimias, and He by doing that eliminated totally the unbeliever from understanding. Totally. I mean the wise and the prudent (quote) of the world never got anything‑‑I mean they didn't even know what was going on. But He also limited the sense in which the disciples understood. They understood some of the basic things that he was saying, and really that's all he cared that they understand. But the real depth of it He left for us on this side when the Spirit comes and begins to unlock all of these things, you see? I mean He wanted to leave more than was there on the surface, you understand that? Jesus just didn't want to say this is it and this is it and then everybody would say oh year, we all get it. They would have read it once, got it and then chucked it, right? And so He left a wealth of unseen information that needs the Spirit of God's teaching to untie and to unfold.
And so He spoke in peroimias, both by sovereign design to limit them and also because they couldn't understand more than they got anyway. We know that, right. All right, so Jesus spoke to them in veiled statements. All along. For example, back in chapter two, He said, in three days, you know, destroy this temple and in three days I will build it again. And they're all scratching their heads and saying, good night, how will He ever do that? Because they understood not that He spake of His body. You see, they didn't get it until clear on later on afterwards, did they? Post‑cross. Oh, hey. They probably went back to their notes, you know? Look at that, look at that‑‑see. I mean it just unfolded later on, but they didn't get it at that point. But don't you see, Jesus had to say these deep things, because that was proof. It was all there‑‑they just got a little of it. And the world got none of it, see. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world," they didn't get that real clearly. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life", He talked about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, and they didn't really get that, and the Jews, they didn't get it at all. They were saying, oh that's ridiculous, there's not enough of you to go around in this town let alone all over the world, you know. They were thinking pure physical. And He spoke to them, He said things like "Before Abraham was I am," and you know they didn't understand that. So many of the times that Jesus had spoken to them all through John He had spoken to them in meshals, or peroimias, veiled statements. Fortunately there was always enough proof to make it meaningful. But there was enough truth left to make it rich for the rest of the era of the dispensation of the Spirit, you see? He gave them the top and then when the Spirit came He began to unfold all the wealth of things that were hidden. The expanse of knowledge. There was enough informationso that a man waswithout excuse‑for rejecting Christ, but there was still enough left unsaid so that the Spirit of God could spend a whole age of Grace unfolding it to us.
Now you'll notice that in the beginning of verse 25 the first two words, "these things", one word in Greek, "These things have I spoken in peroimia." What things? Well, could be many things, could be everything that He said in peroimias, and I'm sure that does have a general reference to that. All of the meshals were veiled in a sense, particularly, if you'll notice at the bottom of verse 25 the last three words, of the Father, particularly the things that He said regarding the Father. You see, He had talked about coming from the Father and going to the Father in veiled statements and they were still trying to figure out what He was talking about. We won't take the time to go all through them but there are many places in John that we've already studied where Jesus had hinted at the fact that He had come from God and was going back to God, in kind of veiled statements in context and they hadn't been able to figure them out and so held been saying to them all these things that I've been telling you in parables and particularly those that have to do with my relationship to the Father. This was the biggest mystery of all. Divine origin and the return of Christ to that divine place.
Now it's all been veiled‑‑he hasn't really given them a complete and simple statement of His connection with the Father. And may I quickly add that footnote that I hinted at that it was not only that Jesus designed a veil, and it was that they couldn't handle them anyway. You know? If you look back at chapter 16 verse 12 you'll see that that's true, because in 16:12 Jesus even said "I have yet many things to say unto you but you cannot bear them now." They couldn't handle what they had, let alone any more. They were doing real well to see the tops of the iceberg, let alone the rest of it. And so they were veiled not only by sovereign design of Christ but they were veiled also because of the disciples spiritual ignorance and their inability to understand at that point, and it's not really so much that we blame them, because they did not have the resident Holy Spirit who would be the truth teacher, do you see? And the same statements that confused the disciples when we read them they don't confuse us. They are plain to us. We understand them. When the Bible says Jesus came out from God and went back to God we understand that, we who know Christ. That does not confuse us. And so Jesus at this time is prevented from speaking to them in open and closed statements not only by His own design but by their ignorance, but He promises them, remember in chapter 16 verse 13 that the Spirit would come and guide you in all truth, He will not speak of Himself but whatever He shall hear that will He speak, and over in chapter 14 He says He will take the things that I said and He'll show them to you and He'll teach you regarding them. Bring to your remembrance whatsoever I said unto you. So until the man of sorrows actually suffers, until He actually dies on the Cross, until He's risen again, until the Spirit comes, the superhelper the teacher, they cannot understand fully Christ's teaching nor His relationship to the Father. But the great new age is coming, and age with no parables, no peromias, no veiled statements, no meshals, in the dispensation of the Spirit He will speak plainly of the Father.
Now notice the little phrase, the time cometh, in the middle of verse 25. The time cometh can be connected with verse 23 in that day, verse 26, at that day, what day is it. The day of Pentecost. It's the day and the time when the Spirit of God comes and indwells them. In the new age, in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, you remember after Christ died, about 50 days later the Spirit of God descended and indwelt the believers, and continues to indwell believers throughout all the Grace age, and in all that period of time the Spirit of God is in them. Jesus is saying, at that time in that hour on that day when the Spirit comes then you'll know all of these things simply, because we'll begin to clarify all the mystery. And it's true. You read Paul, and Paul doesn't speak in parables. Neither does James, neither does Peter, neither does any other New Testament writer. There aren't any parables. The closest thing to mysterious truth is Revelation, and the reason it's mysterious is because we're back on the other side of it again, see. We're where the disciples were before the death of Christ in reference to Revelation, that's all stuff that hasn't happened yet. That's why it's difficult for us to understand it. But in terms of the epistles, all the epistles are designed to do is unfold the teaching of Christ to us. They are to remove the veil, to remove the mysteries, to eliminate the parables and to teach plainly the truth. And so from the time that the Spirit of God comes on Pentecost the teaching will be clear, and the coming age the meshals will be over and it's true. In fact, in verse 23, look at the first statement of verse 23, chapter 16,"and in that day you shall ask Me (what?) nothing." Your questions will be answered. That's one of the meanings of that statement. We saw that last week. You're questions will be answered in the new age. You know sometimes we say to ourselves well those stupid disciples, what a bunch of clods. I mean this stuff isn't that tough. I mean they should have gotten a lot of that stuff. But remember whom you have teaching you, friend. Remember who lives within you‑‑the Holy Spirit of God, and let's face it without the Holy Spirit of God you'd be a dodo. You'd be worse than the disciples, because they at least had Christ around, they could ask Him. You wouldn't know anything. In case you don't believe that, I want to read you something out of the Bible that will tell you that. I Cor. 2:9, "but as it is written, eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him." We can't know it by our senses, can we? We can't know what God has for us just by our eyes and ears. You can't know it by that human understanding. Watch this. "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit." The only reason you know anything is by the Holy Spirit. People say I don't know whether the Holy Spirit's within me. I know one way you can answer that and I often do that is to say well do you know anything about the Bible, Yeah. Well who do you think taught you? God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit for the Spirit searches all things, yeah the deep things of God. He's the one that knows the deep things of God and teaches them to us, for what man knoweth the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him, even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. We don't know these things. God's Spirit teaches us. "Now we have received not the spirit who is of this worldbut the Spirit who is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak; I know what I know because the Spirit teaches me and so I tell you about it. Not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And then He goes on to say and the natural man understandeth not the things of God. They are spiritually discerned, so he can't know them. Realize where your knowledge comes from. The only reason you know anything is because the Spirit of God is your teacher, and He's the only one who knows the mind of God. He's the only one who searches the deep things of God and reveals them to you and to me. So what we know about spiritual truth we know from the Holy Spirit, either directly as He teaches us or indirectly as He teaches you through me, see. But it's all the Spirit of God's teaching. We know nothing apart from Him.
Now I want to show you how this works in the transition by having you go with me for a minute to 11 Cor. 3, and I wish you'd turn there, because there are enough verses here to make us stay for awhile. II Cor. 3:4, and I'm not going to take the time to tear this whole thing apart but I'm just going to hit some highlights. Forgive me for the part that we pass. Verse 4, "And such trust have we through Christ toward God." All right, we trust God. Through Christ we've come to God. We've got that. Now watch 5. Picking it up. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves but our sufficiency is what? Of God, II Cor. 3:5: "our sufficiency is of God." We don't know anything by ourselves. Now watch this. Talking about God some more, God is the key to this next verse, God who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life. Always comparing the New Testament with the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the letter, the law, and the law kills. You know that the law would kill? Because you can't keep it, can you? You break the law and death is the result. The law is a killer, God's law. Verse 7, it even calls it, but the ministration of death. You see that's the name of the law. The name brings death. Written and engraved in stones, let me read again verse 7, if the ministration of death written and engraved in stones was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of His countenance which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be more glorious? Now what he's saying is this, if there was some majesty and glory to the Old Covenant which was deadly, how much more glory to the New? Right? And if the old law was a good thing, and it was, if the Old Covenant was goodenough to put a glow on Moses' face and bring glory to God because of it then that's great, but how much more glory in the New Covenant. Now we'll see what that means, verse 9. For if the ministration of condemnation be glory much more doeth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. All the law could do is condemn you, right? The law can't save anybody. The only way you could be saved by the law is to keep it all, can you do that? No. so the law could only condemn. If a law that can condemn is glorious, how much more glorious is a New Testament that can give righteousness? You see? And how much more glorious, see. Verse 10, "for even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." In other words, when you compare the two the old law looks like it's unglorious. Now, we re going to get down to the nitty‑gritty. Verse 11, "for if that which was done away with is glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great what? Plainness of speech. The old thing is gone, the old thing with all the pictures and types and all the parables and peroimias and all the meshals and that's what the Old Testament is full of are the types all over the Old Testament, you know there are. Pictures and all different kinds of views of Messiah, and all this that you had to kind of unscramble. And it's very difficult, and Paul says that's all over‑‑the old one is gone and the new one is hear and we speak with great plainness of speech, see. Not like Moses who put a veil over his face, verse 13, and the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was fading away. I don't want to go into this too long but Moses had the glory of God on his face when he came down with the tables of testimony, the law, and he put a veil over his face to veil the glory, see. Because it was fading away. He wanted to veil that glory. Verse 14, and that's just a hint at the Old Testament, because the Old Testament was kind of veiled glory, that's something to illustrate, but their minds were blinded, for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. Did you get that? There is this, and I'm not going to give you every little meaning here, but the whole general passage is saying this, the old covenant was a veiled covenant. It was a covenant of parables and pipes and pictures, and it did not have the plainness of speech.
Jesus even said on the Road to Amaeus, if you'd really known the Old Testament you'd have known all about this, remember? Because they didn't understand even their own Old Testament. The Jews certainly didn't understand it. So much veiled statement. and here Paul says this, their minds were blinded verse 14 and until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. Do you know the Jews today still have the same veil on? 2,000 years after the veil was taken away they still have it on. One‑half block down the street they all have the veil on. They do, and it's a sad thing. They're veiled. Their minds are blinded. They get up every Sabbath and they read the Old Testament but they haven't got the faintest idea what it's talking about. They cannot untable the parables or the types or the meanings or the prophecies. They're veiled. Look at the end of verse 14. No wonder, which veil is done away where? In Christ. In Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart; that's a commentary, on Jewish worship today in 1971. They read the law of Moses, there's a veil on their hearts. Oh, look at this. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away. Then the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. All of a sudden the freedom to know and to understand. And then what happens in verse 18, we all with unveiled face, don't you love that now? You know what it means to have an unveiled face? You can read the New Testament and under stand it. Why? Because the veil was taken away when you received Christ. You behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and you get changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord. That's the whole economy of the New Testament in a nutshell, verse 18. The veil is removed, and as you gaze into the unclouded glory of Christ in the New Testament the Spirit changes you into His image. That's what Christianity is, did you know? It's becoming like Christ, isn't it? And the only way to become like Christ is to gaze into His glory, unveiled, while the Spirit changes you into His image.
Now, the reason I took all that time with that is that I want you to understand what we're saying here. The old age veiled, darkness, parables, peroimias, types, prophecies. In