John 16:5-11 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. Back in the Gospel of John this morning, John chapter 16.

[0:11] Last week, those of you that were here, we got, if you'll recall, we got through the first four verses of John 16. And I was shooting for the first seven verses and I failed to get that far, but that's okay.

[0:27] So today I'm shooting to get through verse, to the end of verse 11. Whether we'll get there or not, I don't know. But last week in verses one through four, we see Jesus now, we need to recall him, chapter 15.

[0:44] There at the end of chapter 15, the last passage, Jesus is giving warning, giving stern warning, as what the disciples can expect from the world, their reaction to the, the world's reaction to the Gospel when it is presented. And that kind of continues on in to chapter 16. And Jesus begins that chapter with a, with the statement that he has said these things to the disciples so that when they happen, when they come to pass, when they come to be, that they would not be offended.

[1:23] And I explained last week that that word offended there means that they wouldn't fall away, that they wouldn't doubt their own faith, that they, they, they wouldn't backslide in other words.

[1:37] These are the reasons Jesus gave that he, that he said the things that he did. They're not, not only in the immediate context will be the last passage of chapter 15, but really everything the cross was saying up to that point, cross was telling them those things that they wouldn't, would not be offended. He gives them the warning, he says, you know, some of these people, they're going, they're going to cast you out of the synagogues, they're going to kill you. And for all of these things, they're going to think that they're doing God a service.

[2:12] And we talked last week about how, what kind of news that would be to the disciples ears and how being cast out of the synagogue wasn't just a physical reprimand, if you'd like to call it that.

[2:26] It was physical, it was spiritual, it was, it tied right into family. I mean that was a social cutoff to be cast out of the synagogue. But there, at the end of verse four, he, Jesus says, of these things I said not under you at the beginning, because I was with you. We talked about that a little bit last week. Now I read that because there's some folks out there, and there's some very well-to-do scholars that I have a lot of respect for, and some commentators that I have a lot of respect for that say that this last part of verse four is connected to verse five. And I, I agree with that.

[3:13] I agree with that wholeheartedly. Now there's some out there that go a little bit further, and they say the end part of verse four should actually be within verse five, or verse five should be within verse four.

[3:25] Now whether it goes that deep or not, I don't know, but it is definitely connected. I mean one follows the other, so there's no getting around that. But again, the end of verse four, he says, and these things I said not under you at the beginning, because I was with you.

[3:43] Verse five, where we'll pick up this week, John 16 verse five, he says, but now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you asketh me whether it goeth thou. He says, but now again the end of verse four, and these things I said, I said under you at the beginning, because I was with you. He says, but now I go my way. Now it's very, very important to notice how this is phrased here. He says, but now I go my way. I go the way that's been set before me, and we know that that was the way of the cross. That was the way to Calvary. You all have heard me quote several times that when Jesus was headed up to Jerusalem, he knew exactly what he was going there for. There was no doubt in his mind, there was no question.

[4:37] It was something that was decided before the foundation of the world, was ever laid, was that Jesus Christ would lay down his life on behalf of sinful man, and he was well aware of this. That's why the Bible says he set his face toward Jerusalem like a flint. He knew what he was going for, and there was no turning back for him. It never crossed Jesus cross's mind to turn back. He says, now I go my way. His way was to the cross, yes, but that's not what he's talking about here.

[5:10] He says, but now I go my way to him that sent me, but to get to him that sent him, to get to the Father, he had to go through the cross to do that. Cross was not going back to the Father until the mission, if you would like to phrase it like that, until his mission here on earth was complete, and that mission was to shed blood for the remission of sin, to give his life a ransom on your behalf and on my behalf, on everyone who would believe the gospel and who would repent of their ways. He said, but now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you ask with me whether go us now. This is one of those verses that people that contend the Bible, atheists, and people who just hate God and hate the gospel and hate his word, this is one of those verses that they will use trying to disprove the Bible, trying to show contradiction within the Bible because it was just a couple of chapters before this in chapter 13 that Peter asked the very question, where are you going? And here Jesus says, none of you ask with me whether go us now. And I said in John chapter 13 36, Peter asked the question after Christ tells them that he had to go away. Peter asked that very question, so is the Bible contradicting itself in that? Absolutely not.

[6:42] Peter was doing what Peter does best when he said, when he said that Peter was opening his mouth before he really thought about things. Peter was being very emotional with what he said, and Peter had a lot of pride about himself because just after that Peter said, Lord, I'll give my life for you. I'll lay down my life for your sake. So what's the context here? Beginning in chapter 14, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Let not your heart be troubled. That's the context because the disciples were grasping the fact that Christ was going away.

[7:20] Peter hadn't grasped it there at the end of chapter 13, and it was obvious in the things that he was saying, it was obvious that he did not understand what Christ was saying. But here, Peter and all the rest of the disciples would have had a much better understanding of what it was for Christ to go away, and they were gripping that.

[7:42] And that's why Christ was spending so much time trying to console the disciples here, telling them, you know, it's got to happen, and he gets into that in the next few verses.

[7:53] He says, it's expedient that I should go away. But he's explaining to them, here he says, but now I go my way to him that sent me, and none of you ask of me whether they'll go. Christ was rebuking them with this. It was a soft rebuke. He wasn't, I'm convinced that he didn't yell at him. He didn't scream. I don't even think he's so much as gridded as teeth when he said that. But he was rebuking them for what? Because they'd done exactly what you and I do.

[8:24] They were letting the earthly concerns, they were letting temporal concerns and temporal circumstances get in the way of the big picture of things. And I do that, and you all do that. They ain't a personal lie. That's a child of God that does not do that.

[8:44] When hard times come our way, whether it be a death in the family, whether it be sickness, whether it be financial issues, no matter what it is, when hard times come our way, we will let that over cloud, overshadow, I should say, everything else in our life. We will magnify our bad circumstances above Jesus Christ. And that is exactly what the disciples had done here. All that was on their heart was Christ is going away, regardless of how much Jesus had told them that it had to happen, regardless of how much He had warned them about it over the past three plus years that they had spent with Him, regardless of any of that, they were acting so surprised. And they were placing that above the big picture of things. What was the big picture of things? One, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission that Christ had to die.

[9:38] He had to be given over in the hands of sinful man. He had to be handed over in the hands of the Gentiles. It must happen that way. And why? So that they could be forgiven of their sin. Had Christ not gone to Calvary, had Christ not died, had Christ not bled, had Christ not done all of these things, including the ascension to the Father, you and I would still be here in our sins. These Jews would have still been living under the law of Moses and still been in their sins. We would all be blind and we would all be on our way to hell. It had to happen this way. And that's the big picture that they were refusing to see, that they wouldn't see, because of the temporal thing that was in their mind.

[10:23] Christ is going away. What shall we do? Folks, Christ has been ascended to the Father for 2,000 years now and the church is thriving. The church is alive. There is nothing that can sink that ship. There is nothing that can stop the church. This is something that was foreordained of God from the beginning of time that the church would survive. The church would go on.

[10:45] And one of these days I read in the back of the book, in the book of Revelation, we are going to have a grand supper with Jesus Christ and we are going to live with him forever. We're going to be glorified with him.

[10:56] We're going to be glorified through eternity. We're all going to have glorified bodies. We're going to live with the glorified one that saved our souls. That's the big picture that we need to concentrate on. Not the temporal problems that we have down here. And like I said, I'm just as guilty of that as the rest of you all are. We let these lot afflictions, as Paul calls them, a lot of afflictions getting the way off the big picture. But the big picture is so much greater and is so much better, so much grander if we take that in consideration. Magnify Christ above all. Place Christ above all, including the problems that may be in your life. So again, verse 5, but now I go my way to him that sent me and none of you ask of me with or go astide. But because I have said these things under you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Because I've said these things, sorrow hath filled your heart. Well again, at the very beginning of chapter 14, he says, let not your heart be troubled.

[11:57] And he continues with that thought through this entire discourse that he is giving here, what's commonly called the farewell discourse, that they should not let their hearts be troubled. And folks, we should not let our hearts be troubled either. We should be glad that Jesus Christ ascended. We should be glad that his way was to the way was the way of the cross and that his way was to go back to him that sent him. For when he went back to the one that sent him, getting ahead of myself as far as this lesson goes, but when he went back to the one that sent him, that that give way for the next step and the process that had been in place forever for the comforter to come, for the comforter to come and to be with us. Because I've said these things under you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Verse 7, nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is convenient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the comforter will not come to come unto you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. And this isn't the first time during this discourse that Christ has brought up that the comforter was going to come. He said, I will go to the Father, I will pray him that he will send the comforter. And here's Christ again saying, nevertheless I tell you the truth.

[13:14] In other words, listen to me. I have no reason to lie to you. In fact, this was Jesus Christ, this was God in the flesh. He couldn't lie to him. It's not that he would not lie to him, it's that he could not lie to him because of his righteousness and because of his holiness, because he was and is God. He says, he says here, nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away.

[13:39] And some people misinterpret this word expedient. They misinterpret it to mean necessary. And listen, it was necessary that Christ go for the comforter to come.

[13:51] I'm not saying that it wasn't at all, but that's not what the word expedient means. You don't see this word very often in the New Testament. It's actually used twice in the Gospel of John. Caiaphas used this word back in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. He said, it was expedient that one should die for the nation, that the nation not perish.

[14:15] But we read it a couple of times in Acts, but we read it some in the letters that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. But we read it in other places where we don't realize that we're reading it.

[14:25] There's a Greek word for expedient called Simpharaoh. And we read that just to give you all an idea of what it means. We read it twice in the fifth chapter of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount. Once where Christ says, if you were right to offend you, to pluck it out, he says that for it is profitable that one of your members perish and not for your whole body to be cast into hell. Very next verse. He says, if you're right hand offend you, cut it off for it is profitable.

[15:00] For it is profitable, that same word Simpharaoh is used there, for it is profitable and is expedient. In other words, what he's saying is it's to your advantage that I go away. Now, what news would this have been to the disciples' ears? What do you mean it's to our advantage?

[15:18] You're our comfort, you're our God, you're our Rabbi, you're our teacher, you're Messiah. You're the very one that told us to follow you and now you're going away. How? How could you stand here and say it's to our advantage where it's profitable for this to happen?

[15:37] And it's because the comforter would come and he says here, the comforter will not come. He doesn't say may not. He doesn't say might get halfway here, turn around, go back home.

[15:49] He says the comforter will not come if I do not go away. And I say praise God for the comforter. Praise God for the comforter. Just a couple of chapters ago, Jesus had told him, he said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. He says, I will not leave you comfortless. And when we read that couple of chapters back, I explained then that word comfortless there is the word of Orphanos in the Greek, which means orphaned. I won't leave you as orphans is exactly what cross was getting at. And then he says, I will come to you. We know that the Holy Spirit was poured out on all of mankind. We know that this happened in Acts chapter two. We know this because we have the full closed canon of Scripture.

[16:40] But when the comforter came, this is how it's possible where two or three are gathered, there is Christ in the midst of them. That's how it's possible for that to happen. That's how it's possible for when I leave church today, Christ is going home with me to Bluff City and he's going home with you to wherever you live, whether it be Johnson City, whether it be here in Kingsport.

[17:05] That's what makes that possible because when Christ was here physically, he could only be in one place at a time. Not that he didn't know what was going on in other parts of the town or other parts of the region or other parts of the world for that matter, for he was God.

[17:20] But he could only be in one place at a time. But when the comforter came, when the comforter came, he was able to endow on each and every believer, everyone that believes the gospel and repents of their ways, the comforter lives and abides with them.

[17:42] And if the comforter is he being the Holy Spirit, then Christ is living on the inside. And if Christ, the Son is living on the inside, Christ or God the Father is living on the inside.

[17:56] Praise God that we have this comforter. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient. It is expedient. It is to your advantage. It is advantageous to you that for you that I go away for if I go not away, the comforter will not come under you. But if I depart, I will send him unto you. Folks, this is so comforting. The way that Christ says this here.

[18:22] Just the way that he phrased it, I will send him to you. I promise you, if you are a believer, anything that Christ sends to you is for your benefit. And anything that Christ sends to you is out of pure love. We know from the book of James in chapter one that every good and every perfect gift coming down from the Father of life. If it is good and it is perfect, it came from God.

[18:48] And it was not meant to harm you. It was not meant to destroy you. It was not meant to hurt you. It was meant to help you. And it was meant to glorify God. Everything that we receive from God.

[19:00] We should use to glorify God. Verse eight, when he is coming, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. There's a lot of weird stuff about these next few verses that you'll find in commentaries. A lot of weird stuff. There's a peller that I have much respect for as a Bible commentator that gets plum out and left field with these next few verses. I won't go into everything that he says, but we're talking about the comforter. We're talking about the comforter being sent to the disciples. But somehow this fellow makes the comforter Christ advocate. And that's not the context that's given here.

[19:44] Once again, if we go from the end, from the last the last passage of John 15, on up to where we're at right now, and we keep it in context of evangelism, and we could actually do that, while we're talking about talking through these verses that we're in right now, the comforter is for our benefit. He says it's not it's not advantageous for the disciples to continue having the physical cross here and the physical cross must go away, but he's going to send the comforter for who? For them.

[20:20] So y'all be careful with what I'm saying is be careful what commentaries you might read. Be careful what study material you might read, and compare it with scripture when you do. Don't toss it all to the side and don't throw it all in the trash. Ain't nothing wrong with commentaries, ain't nothing wrong with study bibles, nothing wrong with those things, but if it ain't lining up, use caution. Use caution with what you're reading. Anyway, when he is coming he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. What is it to reprove something? It's just what it kind of intimates. That you're you're you're proving it, really you're you're proving it with evidence.

[21:03] You're showing with evidence when you reprove something. Some people will use it as a as to be synonymous with the word rebuke, and it can be, but that's not the main gist of the word reprove. To reprove something is to do just that it is to reprove. It is to show something, it's to bring something to light. Now that being said, verse 9, of sin because I'm sorry, of sin because they believe not on me.

[21:36] Now he just said in verse 8, when he is come, when who is come? The comforter. When the comforter is come, well we're talking about the comforter being comforter to whom? To these disciples, these 11 here in the immediate context, but that extends on to you and I. He is my comforter.

[21:56] He is your comforter. He is our our paraclete or paracletos in the Greek. He's our advocate. He's our help. He is our council. He's the one that helps us. He's the one that guides us. He's the one that instructs us as we read the scripture. He is our teacher. The Holy Spirit of God is all of these things, but he says when he comes, continuing to talk about the comforter on your, yours and mine, my behalf, if we're born again children of God, when he comes, he's coming to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. He says of sin because they believe not on me.

[22:36] We've gone from how he's our comforter to what he's going to be doing with the world. He's coming to reprove the world of sin. What does this mean? He's coming to show the world their sin and he does that. Folks, the very presence, the very presence of the Holy Spirit of God, reproves sin to the world.

[23:02] Before I was saved, before I was saved, one of my favorite things to say was I don't need a book to tell me how to live. I know what's right and what's wrong through my conscience, through my conscience. God's given everyone of us a conscience. All of us know right from wrong.

[23:22] Everyone of us know good from evil. Everyone of us know if we should do something or we shouldn't. Everyone of us knew when we as kids and our parents asked us if we'd done something that they told us five minutes before not to be doing and we said no, I didn't do that. Everyone of us knew better than to lie but we did it anyway.

[23:42] There was consequences to it but we did it anyway. We lied. We would cheat, we would steal, we would do all kinds of things knowing that we shouldn't. Here, Christ says when the when the comforter who is the Holy Spirit, when he is come, he will reprove the world off sin.

[23:58] He tells us why because they believe not on me. Folks, that is the root. That is the very stem where all other sin comes from is unbelief. You all have heard me say it and other other places I've taught and priests have heard me say it.

[24:19] They, one person goes to hell because they're an adulterer. There is not one person goes to hell because they're a fornicator or because they're a murderer or because they're a liar or anything else.

[24:31] They go to hell because of unbelief. That is what lands people in hell. When Jesus Christ says in John 13 that who's believed in him should not perish but everlasting life, there's a flip side to that coin and that intimates that if who's believed in him should not perish, that anyone who does not believe in him shall perish. It is unbelief that will cause every other sin that is out here. Unbelief and people will say what about pride? Pride stems from unbelief. Every sin that you can think of it will go back to pride and to unbelief. They says that he will that he the Holy Spirit will reprove the world off sin because they believe not on me. He will show them their sin and he shows them for a reason because they believe not on me. Verse 10, of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see me no more. He says I'm going to reprove the world of righteousness. Folks, this tells me in a few more words than what John uses here. This tells me that when the Holy Spirit is reproving the world of sin, he is also reproving the world of righteousness and in the very next verse, reproving the world of judgment, what better way to reprove the world of their sin than to show them what true righteousness is. Like I said, the Holy Spirit, his very presence here on this earth, in this world in which we live, his presence shows the righteousness of God. But Jesus says here at the end of that verse, he said because I go to my

[26:27] Father and you see me no more. Jesus's presence while he was here showed righteousness. It personified righteousness. It was the perfect revelation of God, the presence of Jesus Christ here, and when he spoke, when he preached, when he taught, when he done miracles, when Christ done all of these things, they were all perfect revelations of God who is righteousness. That's right. God is righteousness. Just like when we went through the Sermon on the Mount a while back and we got to the to the little part that says, bless her, they are hungry and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. What good does it do for us to hunger and thirst after something that we don't know what it is?

[27:22] If we don't know what righteousness is, righteousness is Christ and Christ is righteousness. Righteousness is God and God is righteousness and these Jews that he was talking to here, these 11, they would have understood that here in verse 10, he says of righteousness because I go to my Father, I go to righteousness, I go to the epitome of righteousness. He's going to rebuke the world of righteousness because I go to my Father and ye see me no more, but just because they would see him no more and and thankfully this wasn't completely the case from this point onward because they had a little span of time where they actually communed with Christ, did they not? After Christ was buried three days later, he rose again, praise God for that, but then there were 40 days there that he was showing himself to people that he was communing with the disciples, that he was having fellowship with them, but then and Luke's account gives it wonderfully,

[28:31] Luke says that they went out a little ways just past Bethany, he says he raised his hands and he blessed them and just before he ascended, he blessed his disciples and he went up into the clouds and it says that they worshiped him, so this sorrow that was in their heart right right now that we read about just a couple of verses ago, this sorrow that was there, it did not last forever and we know that because of the account there at the end of Luke's gospel account, but we also know this from the account that we have in Acts after the Holy Spirit was poured out, after Peter preached his message, people come under conviction, they were shown their sin, they were shown righteousness, they were told about judgment, the Spirit proved all these things and reproved the people for them and what did they say?

[29:27] What shall we do? What shall we do? In that day, three thousand people were added to the church, hallelujah of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more, one more verse of judgment because the prince of this world is judged, of judgment, then he gives us the that's the what, they're going to be reproved of judgment, then he gives us the why because the prince of this world is judged and I promise you if the prince of the world, if the prince of the power of the air, if Satan himself, if Lucifer, if he is judged and he is judged, the death, the burl and the resurrection of Jesus Christ sealed his fate, it was complete victory over Satan, it was complete victory over hell and death and the grave and if his fate is sealed, anyone that follows him, an unbelief of Jesus Christ, anyone that follows him in belief of a cross that they have concocted in their own minds, not the cross of the scriptures, anyone that follows him is condemned as well and his judgment will fall upon them and we know that his fate is sealed, we know this from Revelation in chapter 20, I can read in the Bible where Satan is thrown into the lake of fire and he's going to burn forever and ever and ever and I refuse and I will not shed one tear over that scripture, I am tickled to death that that's going to happen one of these days, the same one that's the reason that man is in the shape that man is, the same one that deceived mankind, the same one that talked Adam and Eve into eating of the forbidden fruit that caused them to doubt the word of God, now listen man's responsible for his own sin, I get that, we can't point the finger completely at Satan but I'm tickled to pieces to tell you that his judgment is sealed and one of these days it will be delivered but anyway that brings us as far as I wanted to get today, anybody got any questions or comments on any of that?

[31:47] God bless y'all, I appreciate you.