Upper Room No.1 Why Testify

Let's go back to John's Gospel. I want to have a fresh look at the passage that I drew your attention to last week. I felt I didn't quite get across all that needed to be said, and I'd like to have a fresh approach to those verses.

They're not easy ones. John 15, verse 18. Our Lord is speaking to His disciples, just 11 men, and He's entrusting them with fearful responsibilities.

And because we're His disciples and His Word is timeless, what is written here applies to you and to me. Whether we live as natives here in Worthing, or whether we are visitors from afar, like London. If the world hates you, John 15, verse 18.

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong 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 the words I spoke to you, no servant is 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.

Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me, hates my father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.

But now they have seen these miracles, 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.

When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who goes out from the father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you, so that you will not go astray.

They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is 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 the time comes, you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first, because I was with you. Now, we are focusing in especially on verse 27, but we shall have reference to the context before that verse and just after it.

Jesus speaking to us. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. Have you ever thought how interesting it is that the words of the Lord God to Adam in the world that he had freshly created were these, go forth and multiply.

In other words, reproduce what you are. Help in the bringing about of others who are similar to yourself. And Lord Jesus, almost the final words that he gives his disciples as he leaves this world, go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples of all men.

Carlos Ortiz, a rather colorful Latin American preacher, says this, the making of a disciple means the creating of a duplicate. The making of a disciple, the creation of a duplicate. Matthew Henry says, wherever we go, let us not fail to take our religion along with us.

And here's an Anglican, J.A. Mortier from Bournemouth. He says, our secrets are for sharing. Now here's our Lord.

Eleven disciples, eleven true men. The faulty one has gone, at least the one who was full of deficiencies. Judas has left and our Savior is on his way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's got his disciples with him for the last few hours. They're hanging spellbound onto every word. That's not a pulpit exaggeration, I could prove it.

Our Lord has compressed teaching to give at this most crucial time in their experience. And they will be reflecting on what he had to say in the same fashion I suggested to you as someone who loves a dying person hangs onto and allows later on the final words that they let loose go round and round in the mind of the hearer. Our Lord is fortifying, is strengthening his disciples for all that is to come.

You see, after Gethsemane and after Calvary the disciples are still going to be around, not so? And when our Lord is taken back into heaven the disciples will still be here on earth and there's a great deal for them to do. That's the reason, those of you who are in the know in regard to the opening verses of this chapter that's the reason why our Saviour puts up the parable of the vine and the branches. I am the vine, you are the branches.

The branches are going to continue to grow and to develop when the Lord Jesus, who is the life of the branches is no longer visibly present. In other words, the branch continues the work of the vine because as I've taught you you know so much about vine growing at the moment I'm wondering whether we can't produce our own communion wine here at the town. The branch is a duplicate, an exact replica of the vine.

It's smaller and it's got no life in itself but it is a copy of the vine. Now, that's why Carlos Ortiz was quite correct in saying that as far as discipleship is concerned a disciple means the creating of a duplicate. Now, what did our Lord do when He commenced His public ministry? Mark's Gospel will tell you in the opening chapter He came preaching.

He was a preacher. Preaching is God's means, ordained means of communicating His truth. When the Lord Jesus is removed from the world the disciples will continue to do what He commenced preaching like the vine going along the trellises, the branches like Joseph who is likened by his father to a fruitful vine the disciples will be running along on Judea, Samaria, Galilee and ultimately their tendrils, their branches will go to the uttermost parts of the earth reproducing what? The ministry of our Lord Jesus the character of our Lord Jesus drawing strength from the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so here He pulls together a great deal of His burden and in summary fashion He gives this command to the disciples, you also must testify. Now, first of all as we take in this context let me address you on the premonition Jesus has. The premonition Jesus has, what is it? Well, basically it comes out several times in the verses from the 18th onward contrasting the use of the word love in the previous section it's the word hate.

Jesus has a premonition that those branches are going to be despised by people who are not part of the vine. Let me translate that into more understandable terms that people are not going to be very easily convinced by the disciples' message. Some are going to be violently antagonistic.

That's the premonition that Jesus has. Now, the Lord never makes a statement unless He can logically justify it because our Lord never abandons His intellect. Our intellect is something given us from God and you are not to abandon it my Christian friend.

The word of God comes through the mind and it affects the emotions. Now, why does the Lord Jesus have this premonition? Well, not because He has though He had in full measure the gift of discernment but it's a logical thing that He who has known such opposition Himself when He leaves the world will take His leave of the disciples who are still in the same context. Were they violent to Christ? Did they abuse Him? Did they slander Him? Did they mock Him? Indeed they did that.

And as I showed you last week the extraordinary thing was that though persecution hit the Lord Jesus during His three years of public ministry it didn't affect the disciples. Did you think that one through last week? It didn't affect the disciples. It started to be really costly to be a follower of the Lord Jesus when He was away from the world and the hostility of the world was directed not to Him, He's not present but to those that the world can get at who are in a faith relationship with Him.

And so it was as though all hell was let loose in Jerusalem. Not so? You think of Stephen, the first martyr. You think of some of those religious leaders they were like a pack of wolves as they snarled over against those early Christians endeavouring to tyrannise and terrify them reduce the Christian community of Damascus to nothing.

That was the intention of Saul of Tarsus, you recall. Now our Lord Jesus He says that this will happen if the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me. Latter half of verse 20 if they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

Verse 23, they will treat you this way because of my name. Now obviously persecution is a variable factor down the centuries but in literal fashion this came true in the experience of the disciples. You may say well, you know in Gunnersbury, London we're not exactly persecuted for righteousness sake no, they're not here in wording actually in fact they probably have an easier time in wording than you do have in London because only less than 1% of people in London attend church did you know that? whereas here we're about 9% less than Manchester but at least we're higher than London.

If you took a trip to Bangladesh if you went to Nepal if you went to the Middle East you would discover this sort of situation day by day, hour by hour convert to Christ as a Muslim and your life is in jeopardy. And for some of you here it's quite true that when you made a commitment to Christ you ran into difficulty professionally. I've got great sympathy sometimes for gynecologists and nurses in the medical profession who take a Christian stance on the whole business of abortion they can do so very much to the detriment of the advancement of their profession.

There are many, many ways in which persecution shall break out and the Lord Jesus, he has this premonition that to testify for him, to live for him will bring hatred and scorn. Now there's three things that you can say about our Lord Jesus' argument as you reduce it to summary fashion. First of all the allegations that they made against him and the allegations they make against his disciples will be baseless.

They'll be baseless. Drop down your eyes to verse 25, the last part they hated me without reason. You see, it would have been to the credit of man if when they placed Jesus on the central cross and hoisted him high if they could have in any way justified their activity but they couldn't.

They did something without reason. As a group of policemen did something without reason. In London some four years or so ago and brought disgrace to a police force which I think is second to none in our world.

Baseless. That was how Jesus saw the way that treatment would be of an unpleasant kind would be meted out towards him and to his followers. You see, he was a perfect man and when a perfect man speaks he ought to be listened to.

They put Jesus, if you like, in a furnace heated seven times more than it normally ought to have been in order to discover whether there was any dross or inconsistency or blemish in his life and he came through absolutely clear and pure. To change the metaphor our Saviour remains unsullied in his righteousness as a lily in a dung heap. They hated me without reason.

It's baseless. What's more, it's senseless. Verse 23.

He who hates me hates my Father as well. That a part of verse 24. But now they have seen these miracles and yet they have hated both me and my Father.

You see, it's senseless to hate God, isn't it? But man is the natural hater of God. That's what Paul says in Romans 1 right at the end of the chapter. Why is this? Well, you see, God, if you acknowledge his existence will place upon your life various restrictions which at the natural level you chafe against.

So there are these tensions. It's easier not to believe in God and to do as you please. A great thinker in the 1930s by the name of Huxley.

And he said in at least an honest passage in one of his writings from our twin universities of Oxford and Cambridge, I didn't believe because if I had to believe I would have had to have conformed to an ethic that I was not prepared to submit to. He's talking about Christianity. See, man has a natural hatred against restrictions that may be placed upon him by this God, if this God exists.

But it's senseless to argue against the existence of God, the very natural world that's created testifies to it. So this hatred is baseless, it's senseless and what's more, it's relentless. Look at verse 19.

If you belong 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. Present tense, keeps on hating. See, the extraordinary thing about the Lord Jesus in relation to his disciples is this.

He selected them. That was most unusual. See, our Lord in the Jewish level is a rabbi.

If you like, a professor. A wandering teacher. Now, wouldn't it be nice if at Gunnersbury or in Worthing, those of you who are still at school, at college, you could actually choose your teacher.

I wonder who you'd go for. I wonder who you wouldn't go for. Maybe that would be a more interesting line of approach.

But you see, in those days, when the Jewish youngster, young man, wanted to advance his religious education, he would choose his teacher and he'd hang on, so to speak, to the coattails of the rabbi. But it would be his doing. But with Jesus, the practice was reversed.

He chose them. He selected them. And in a very wonderful fashion, my friend, if you understand the whole gamut of Christian revelation, the Lord Jesus chose you.

He drew you to yourself. I was most impressed to listen to a couple of testimonies down at Goring Gap when our youngsters were having a time of fellowship together last evening before a sausage sizzle. Interested to hear one of the youngsters from London, one of her own folk, testify to how they came to know the Lord Jesus as Savior.

He was the prime mover, though. He gave you the desire. Now, as a result of being part of his entourage, part of those who follow him, there may be great difficulty.

That's what the Lord Jesus says. One preacher comments, Jesus Christ promised the disciples three things. One, they will be completely fearless.

Two, they will be absurdly happy. And three, they will be in constant trouble. I think that sums it up quite neatly.

But I can cope, I think, with the latter if I've got the other two. Don't you? Completely fearless, absurdly happy. Isn't that a marvellous description of Christianity? Does it sort of register true to yours? Joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Thank God for Kitty Spencer. A lady who had that irrepressible joy that came from the Lord even when she was well on in her eighties. Well, let's move on quickly.

The premonition Jesus has, the world would hate his disciples. The reason, because they'd hated him. The provision, however, that Jesus makes when the counsellor comes, verse 26, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

That is one of the neatest, as the Americans would say, verses in Scripture about the doctrine of the Spirit. So much is compressed in that that we could have a few Bible studies spanning a number of Sunday mornings. But sufficient to point out at this juncture that the Holy Spirit is someone who comes as a result of the will of the Father, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

Look at verse 15, the preceding chapter. Chapter 14. If you love me, you will obey what I command.

Verse 16. And I will ask Father and he will give you another counsellor. Look at verse 23.

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. Verse 25.

All this I have spoken while still with you, but the counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. See how the Holy Spirit there is promised to come as a result of the initiative of the Father and the Son. Now the disciples have got a problem, haven't they? If you've read through 14, 15 and 16, these chapters, these marvellous chapters, which have the gist of the Paschal discourse, you will see the nature of the difficulty set out like so.

Our Lord's going away. Now the disciples love the Lord Jesus. I hope you love the Lord Jesus.

They loved his visible presence. And yet they've got the drift of the message that he's going to be taken away from them. That's the burden of the 14th chapter.

Don't let your hearts be troubled trusting God. I'm going away. If I go away, nonetheless still hold faith because I'll come back.

Do you know, I still remember the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach when the girl I was in love with who promised to marry me had to sail back to South Africa some 20 or so years ago. I watched that ship go into the horizon from my vantage point on the quayside of Southampton docks. See, she's gone away.

In six months or a year or however long we'd be apart, it seemed an eternity. Now, here is our Lord Jesus and the love his disciples have for him is even greater than that. And that was pretty powerful.

And there's a measure of heartbreak and worry. How will they cope if he's not there? Well, the logic of his reasoning, back again to that word logic, did you notice? The logic of his reasoning, the drift is this. Look, I've got to go away because it will be better for you.

Now, what does he mean? How does he tie this together? He doesn't usually speak in conundrums, not at least to his disciples. Well, you see, when our Lord was physically on earth he could only be in one place at the same time. Now, that is quite a problem, isn't it? I mean, if you're a father and you've got two or three active kids and an active wife as well, to only be in one place at the same time can be an acute disadvantage.

If you've got 30 kids in your class at school, the problem is even greater. God bless you as you try to cope. I don't know how you manage, particularly if they're youngsters.

Now, in one sense, our Lord, I speak with reverence, has a difficulty when he is with his disciples on earth in his incarnate form. He's only in one place at one time. He's not in Jerusalem and also in Galilee.

And so he withdraws from the scene, so to speak. He goes back to the Father. And when that happens, he releases the power of the Holy Spirit.

In his own particular person in the Godhead, the Spirit comes down and he takes up residence in the hearts of the disciples and the Holy Spirit can be anywhere at any one given time. So here as I preach to you in the center of Worthing, one of my brothers is preaching in the heart of Belfast. Men that I know are preaching in Cape Town.

Others that I know are preaching in the United States of America. Is it only myself who has, hopefully, something of the power of the Holy Spirit in ministry? No! Around the globe is the ministry of the Spirit. Now this is what Jesus was teaching the disciples.

It's good that I go away. To put it theologically, that my corporeal sense, my presence physically with you will be no more after my death and resurrection, at least for many, many years. It's good because I will release my Spirit and my presence and my power will be known by everyone wherever you are in the world.

Now that was very beneficial for the disciples for if legend is correct, one of them went to India. Another of them went to Spain. One legend says, I'm not suggesting that it's accurate, that they sort of split up the globe and said, hey, you take one eleventh and someone takes another eleventh and so on and so forth.

But one thing that they were assured of was the same power as was operative in the life of the Lord Jesus so that as He spoke and as He performed miracles, they too should know the same pulsations of divine power. That only comes through the Holy Spirit residing in the heart and life of the individual. So that's what our Lord was saying.

He was making this provision. Now all that was a tangent. It took five minutes of my time and I've lost the three points that I wanted to get through but we'll skip those.

Let's go back to Bishop Ryle. The universal invisible presence of the Holy Ghost in the church is better than the visible bodily presence of Christ with the church. Christ's body could only be in one place.

The Holy Ghost can be everywhere at the same time. Whatever the disciples might think it was far better for Christ to go up into heaven and sit at God's right hand as their priest and send down the Holy Ghost to be with the church till He came again for Christ to tarry with them as He had done. Now that's basically a summary of what I just tried in an impassioned fashion to teach you.

It was necessary for the Lord Jesus to go away that the Spirit might come. Come amongst the disciples who would live out their lives in this hostile world. Now remember I taught you a few moments ago when the Spirit came it was a superb experience for the disciples.

They were caught up in an ecstasy of worship which again involved the intellect as the emotions. But it also created and are you aware of this great cost a great price. Immediately a crowd gathered round and it seemed marvellous.

Peter preaches to the thousands and some respond oh yes but the devil the prince of this world to whom Jesus makes reference two or three times in this paschal discourse he still is alive to the situation and then he starts to pounce on the disciples and they know the same sort of abuse and hostility as was poured out amongst towards our Lord Jesus Christ. But you see if you've got the Holy Spirit then you can be completely fearless. If you have the fullness of the Spirit you can be abundantly happy even though you will be knowing constant trouble.

That's what Jesus teaches isn't it? The premonition Jesus has the provision Jesus makes finally the propagation Jesus wants. Now this is tied in to the provision that he makes. Look again at the latter part of verse 26.

The Father will send the Spirit He will testify about me and you also must testify for you have been with me from the beginning. The propagation Jesus wants. I use the word propagation not because it's posh and technical but it happens to link in to the horticultural reference at the beginning of the chapter.

You see what does the vine do? It propagates. Not so? If you're not getting fruit if you're not getting fresh branches then the vine itself is achieving no objective whatsoever. Now our Lord Jesus who is the vine wants the branches to propagate to create more growth to bring more fruit.

Now the main ministry of the Holy Spirit is evangelistic. He will testify about me and you also will testify. Both concepts are brought together in Acts 5 and around verse 32 if I can just locate it for a moment.

Acts 5, 32 We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. Now it's the disciples who will testify. The disciples who will be filled by the Spirit.

You see the idea of testimony is involved in the word witness, isn't it? Now who was better qualified to be a witness for the Lord Jesus than the disciples? There are 11 of them. Jesus said they'd been in from the beginning last part of verse 27. He means by the whole of his three years of ministry they'd taken in.

Time and time again, at least three or four times in John's epistle, he uses the words that we were with the Lord Jesus from the beginning. They saw what he'd done. They heard what he'd said.

Their minds are made alive by the power of the Spirit and they go around the world and they tell people about the Lord Jesus. They were good witnesses. They qualified to be witnesses.

They knew of the perfections of our Lord Jesus Christ and they told men and women about what they had learned. This is the propagation Jesus wants you to see. He wants you and me to be a witness.

No use calling this worthy tabernacle evangelical church if evangelical just refers to the doctrines we espouse. I'd rather get rid of the title tabernacle in any case but I've let you have that thinking for many a year and nobody's suggested that we shift it. It's only because it's so confusing to people in these days.

And I don't particularly like the word evangelical if all that does is relate to a body of doctrine. I like the word, but I like the word evangelistic. It's an evangelistic church.

You see, I know many churches that are evangelical but not evangelistic. The evangelistic business, it puts power into the evangel. It means taking to others that which you believe.

Now if you don't do that, my friend, then you're not a witness. You can listen to sermons by the cartload and they may help you as an individual but it's not propagation as far as your own development is concerned. Now that doesn't mean that you're all going to be Billy Grahams but it does mean that you in your small corner and me in mine can do something to show that this Lord Jesus means a great deal to us.

Not only in the words that we say, words that's very easy or can be very easy, but in the way that we live. It's the fruit of the Spirit, not just verbal communication about Jesus, but physical illustration that there's something different, my brother and sister, about you since the Gospel of Christ was received in your mind and His Spirit was received in your heart and life. That's what the disciples knew.

They were qualified witnesses. They'd taken on board so much about our Lord Jesus. And then as witnesses they knew our position.

Oh, and how terrible it was. Verse 1, chapter 16, All this I've told you so you'll not go astray. Literally the Greek, not be offended.

Go to Matthew's Gospel, the parallel statement. Jesus knew that the disciples would be offended by Him that very night. They would be scattered as sheep without a shepherd.

But when they came to their senses in Jerusalem, when the baptism of the Spirit was received by them, when they recapitulated, when they thought through of what the Lord had spoken to them, the words of the dying man, then they got fresh strength. Then they were filled with greater purpose and determination to go and live for the Lord Jesus Christ to the end of their days. See, our Lord didn't tell them all that at the beginning, did He? That's what it says at the end of the fourth verse.

I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. See, when the bridegroom was there, there was no reason for them to be in a mournful condition. And when you're just a babe in Christ, you can't chew on a steak, can you? On a lump of cooked meat.

You have to be given milk. So the disciples had to be given milk, you see. But gradually, as they were with the Lord Jesus for a long time, they began to realize the enormous responsibilities that would be theirs.

And now they're becoming very much more mature men. They've still got tremendous difficulties to get through, but nonetheless, they're stronger in the Lord at that point than they were three years back. And so He tells them more, as I'm telling you, my friend, that there are things for the Lord Jesus that He's challenging you to do.

You see, some of you are offended with the Lord Jesus, aren't you? You know, certain things have not panned out as they ought to in your life, and here you are, you've got a grudge against Him. You're scandalized as a result of what He's allowed. But basically what He's allowed can be encompassed by you in the power of the Holy Spirit to the end that your very trials can enable you to live for the Lord Jesus as a far more mature and convincing person.

I'd better close. The Lord has not drawn us into His kingdom to be lawyers. He's called us into the kingdom to be witnesses, witnessing to something that you know.

You can't testify to something that you don't, can you? A Christian is the world's Bible, says someone, and some of them need revising. Does your Bible need revising? Is it authorized to fossilize the illustration that you give of the Lord Jesus in your life? Martin Lloyd-Jones once said this, If I had to put the Holy Spirit in a textbook on pharmacology, that means a handbook on chemistry, I would put Him in the stimulants. You see, there are certain drugs that stimulate.

There are others that sort of hold you down. And what the disciples were to discover at Pentecost and from then on was the constant stimulus of the Spirit, that they needed it so much. They needed His empowering so much, that's what I mean by it, the very power of the Spirit, so that they could fall in with what the Lord Jesus had taught them in this part of His discourse.

You see, there was the premonition that He had, You'll be hated. There was the provision that He made, The Holy Spirit will come and enable you to work for Me. There was the propagation that He wanted.

Testify and reproduce yourself amongst others as you communicate the Gospel. That was the burden of the Lord. That was 2,000 years ago.

But I tell you the truth, it's the burden of the Lord for us here in Worthington in 1987. And as a preacher, I can do no more than discharge the message. The follow-through is over to you.

Let's sing 495. Lord, speak to me that I may speak in living echoes of Thy tone as Thou hast sought, so let me seek Thy erring children, lost and lone. Let's sing the remaining six verses from the second as a prayer of response to what I tried to share.

Lord, speak to me that I may speak in living echoes of Thy tone as Thou hast sought, so let me seek Thy erring children, lost and lone. Let's sing the remaining six verses from the second as a prayer of response to what I tried to share. as Thou hast sought, so let me seek We really didn't mean them.

And if we meant them, help us through the provisions of the Spirit and the Word to live them out. Bless every dear person who came here this morning, even in the inclement weather. Be with our young friends from West London.

Bless them. Be with those who gather for the prayer session for the holiday club later on this afternoon. Bless that time.

And as we come around Your Word again later in the sanctuary this evening, bless us. But in the interim, during these next few hours, Lord, just be with Your people. Bless our older friends who, perchance, can't get out this evening.

Be with them and bless them. And we ask, Lord, that You will use us all for Your honor and for Your glory and just draw very close to us during these next few days and help us to live as Jesus wants us to live, for His honor and for His glory. Amen.

Good morning. God bless you.