The Hatred of the World

John 15:18–16:4 (ESV)

The Hatred of the World

18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

(This is not the end of verse 4, but it seems to be a good place to divide Jesus’ thoughts)

The Love that we have for Jesus and for one another defines us as His true disciples.

But it is that same love that brings hatred from the world.

if the world hates you. The Greek tense indicates that this condition already exists.

Jesus is saying, “Look, I need to warn you that the world already does hate me. And because the world already hates me, it already does hate you, my followers”.

My question is, “why?”

WHY DID THE WORLD HATE JESUS AND WHY DOES IT HATE HIS FOLLOWERS?

Start of the Anabaptists

During the time of the Swiss Reformation in the 1500’s, there was a man named Conrad Grebel.

Grebel was a devoted believer and a firm supporter of Ulrich Zwingli, the main leader of the Swiss Reformation. However, Grebel, along with some other men disagreed with Zwingli on some key points.

The main one being baptism.

Zwingli refused to break with the Catholic church in their practice of infant baptism.

Grebel and other like him believed passionately that baptism should be for adults, or those who were old enough to make the choice. Those who had believed.

This was a major point of contention between Zwingli and Grebel.

So on January 21, 1525, Grebel and some other men met at the home of Felix Manz in Zurich, and George Blaurock asked Grebel to baptize him.

After this, Blaurock baptized some of the others who were present.

This was the start of a group of believers who became known as the Anabaptists, or “re-baptizers”.

We probably know this part from our history lessons.

And we probably know that the early anabaptists suffered intense persecution.

I knew that they were persecuted, but I didn’t understand why. I thought it was just because they dared to believe and practice something different.

But the main reason that the anabaptists were persecuted was because of their evangelistic and missionary zeal.

You see, they weren’t content for their little group to believe what they believed and go on with life.

No, they immediately spread out into neighboring cities and towns, provinces and even other countries to preach the gospel and to promote what they understood as being a more biblical vision of church.

They weren’t happy to just see the church reformed. They wanted to restore the church to the vigor and faithfulness that it had at the beginning.

In short, they upset the established system.

Zwingli and the Catholic Church were at odds with each other about various things, but they did agree on this:

The Anabaptists were dangerous.

The Catholic Church and the Reformers were used to being in control and dictating how church was supposed to be done

the anabaptists were dangerous. They weren’t playing by the established rules

and had to be stopped.

And they began to persecute the anabaptists heavily.

Thousands of them lost their lives

Some, like Michael Sattler suffered horrible torture, and were burned at the stake.

Some, like Felix Manz, were drowned.

Many of them saved their lives by recanting their faith.

Some of them took on strange beliefs and practices.

Such as in 1534, a group of Anabaptists who were expecting the Millenium took refuge in the city of Munster.

The Episcopal bishop of the area gathered his troops and besieged the city.

These Anabaptists took up arms to fight him.

But as the seige progressed, things started to get wacky. Some new leaders gained control of the Anabaptists and they started to claim authority to receive new revelations

The claimed that OT ethics still applied and they started to practice polygamy.

They even crowed a “King David” in the city of Munster.

Unfortunately, the persecution began to have the desired effect.

The Anabaptists were scattered and they took refuge wherever they could find it. Some in neighboring countries.

READ PASSAGE FROM BOOK

The story of our ancestors strikes me because I find in it some indication as to the “why” and the “what” of the hatred of the world and of persecution.

Why does the world hate and persecute Christ’s followers?

Because Christians upset the system of the world.

They challenge the status quo of the world

That’s the way we are as people, isn’t it?

We get uncomfortable when someone comes in here and is a little bit too....different

You know, the world does too. The world gets testy and uncomfortable and downright hateful when it is seasoned by Christians who

live differently

Act differently

People who are defined by love, not revenge or hate

People who are self-sacrificing and not out for what benefits them

People who proclaim Jesus,

The One who is called The Cornerstone

The Cornerstone that those who disbelieve or disobey smash their shins on and stumble over.

When the world is seasoned by people who live like this, who proclaim a message like this, a message that makes them stumble, they react.

What is the effect of the persecution?

The intended effect of persecution is to split and isolate Christians.

Because when they are divided, split apart, and isolated, they become ineffective. At least not nearly as effective

Look what happened to the Anabaptists

At first, their message spread like wildfire.

And they weren’t all a like

The early Anabaptists were diverse.

They were from different towns, provinces, countries, with different languages.

They didn’t all believe the exact same thing

But they had evangelistic zeal and they weren’t scared to proclaim their message

But then the persecution came. They fled for their lives.

They lived in caves, in the hills

They moved to other villages, more friendly kingdoms.

They formed closed, isolated communities

They became the “quiet in the land”.

They became relatively ineffective, in comparison to the first Anabaptists, and certainly in comparison to the early apostles who inspired the Anabaptists.

You know, I’ve asked the question, and heard others ask the question, “Why isn’t the American church persecuted today?”

Maybe because we don’t really need to be.

Maybe we’ve already done to ourselves what persecution is intended to do.

Maybe because we aren’t upsetting the world’s system that much

Maybe because we are already split apart and isolated into little groups.

This church here

That church there

this denomination

That denomination

Little sub groups within denominations.

Rough estimates are that there are around 200 different Christian denominations in the U.S. alone! And more than 45,000 world wide!!

And that probably doesn’t count the little subgroups within the denominations

And that maybe wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t all claim to have a piece of the truth that we want to hang onto and not be contaminated by the other group down the road.

And I know that this is a hard subject to talk about. We don’t want persecution.

We do our best to avoid persecution. But Jesus says pretty plainly that it is unavoidable.