Devotion from John 16 by Pastor Herb Pinney
All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. —John 16:1
Ralph Edwards on his program, “Kids say the darndest things,” asked a five-year-old girl, “How much money do you need for the rest of your life?” The girl thought for a minute and then said, “I believe if I had Ten dollars, I would be just fine.” We laugh at the naivete of a five-year-old, her shortsightedness, yet in my 82nd year I find at times to be just as short-sighted.
John is exposing a group of men who are shaking in their sandals this night of the full moon, the segue into the Passover. This is supposed to be a night of religious celebration, the victory over Egypt, Pharaoh, and the evil of slavery; the night God took over.
Instead, Their leader that they hoped would be the anointed one, was not talking about taking over, but of going away. They are in shock, they are afraid. Jesus had sensed it and said, “Do not be afraid. You believe in God, believe also in me….” It hadn’t helped they were confused and bewildered.
“Where are you going that we can’t see you, and where will you come from so that we can see you again in a little while?” They were confused.
Jesus said, “You are filled with grief, but I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I go.”
No one in the room believed him. They had been brought up in the Synagogue to know Isaiah, the chief of their prophets of hope.. They knew, just as every American Sunday School boy and Girl, mamma and daddy knows, Isaiah 9, A child is born….A son is given… He shall reign on the throne of David…His kingdom will be for everlasting….Almighty God will bring this about…” They were sure Jesus was the one. They were right in the midst of a five-year-old sense and understanding.
That night of the full moon, the opening of the Passover, the walk away from slavery and bondage, they were sure that Jesus would drive out the Romans, take the dusty throne of David, impeach the High Priest and his co-hort and all their cronies and declare it the glorious day of the Lord. If, not what was that colt, the hosannas, the quoting of Zechariah 9 all about last Sunday?
This was their 5-year-old understanding for the rest of their life, their $10.00 answer, the limit to their dreams and life’s fulfillment. They were spiritually immature and totally disconnected from God’s worldview; or as Jesus had told Peter as recorded in Matthew 16, “Get behind me Satan, you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of man.”
The Godly prophet Zechariah had it all right as recorded in 9:9, and Prophet John the baptizer in John 1:29. Zechariah had said, First “Salvation”, and John said, “Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.”
Zechariah and John knew the Isaiah 53 Suffering Messiah must be pierced, and take away completely, that is die as the substitute for our sins, for Adam and Eve’s sins, and sins through all history for those covered by the blood of animals, washed with water by John and Jesus’ Apostles, and the billions washed in the pool of the church by the blood of Christ. That is the only way to the kingdom that God wanted.
The completely false five-year-old view of the kingdom was a few hundred square miles of territory, Jesus on a war torn throne in a war torn city with James and John on his right and Left, Peter as his war lord, and a few “scattered Jewish sheep.”
Jesus was smiling under his deep concern for their grief, “My little children, you can’t even in your fondest dreams imagine the kingdom bought by the blood of the Lamb, in his mind he fast forwards to the Throne room of the Father in Paradise and the words that his dear young Apostle, his personal scribe, John would prophetically write as a broken, frail old man some sixty years hence:7 He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. 8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. 9 And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:7ff)
Jesus again is looking past the tight knit group of men and from 30,000 feet sees the whole world in a couple of millennia and there is the cross planted in over 220 nations, with dozens of races, and in 6,000+ languages and men and women opening the Book, and sharing that God so loved the world….His vision suddenly shifts to mount Moriah, a crag called Golgotha and nine inch spikes through the hands and feet of a beaten, whipped, disgraced, abandoned man that is nearly unrecognizable except for his words, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”
A shiver and harsh pain comes over him in preparation for the next 24 hours. He knows it will be worth the 9 inch spikes, whips, punches and rejection, it is the purchase price of the kingdom, the throne and the reign. He shakes himself back to now. That task is way to big for fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and followers, it really will be good for them for me to go away, I must explain.
“Again, I say to you my companions, It is good for me to go, unless I go the Counselor will not come to you.” He realizes that he is having a hard time getting past their grief, fears, preconceived notions and their own desires and wants, yet he must try.
“I have a promise for you, and a promise is a debt unpaid, I will fulfill my promise, I will pay my debt. I will send you my Comforter that will live inside of every one of you and will guide you, strengthen you, and protect you.” He pauses to make sure everyone of them are looking at him and seeking to understand. I have a fantastically large and difficult job for you, I will share the details with you after I am the lamb and die and rise again. That seemed to float right over their heads.
But you will need help in doing that job, The Comforter will come and I promise, he will help you, dwell in each of you, guide you and lead you in all truth. Now he has their attention.
Jesus goes on to explain, that he has taken a human body to be one of them, but that body limits him in space and time. When the Comforter comes, he is the Holy Spirit, a God just like me, the same make up, and he will be able to dwell in each one of you, and in all your converts worldwide, and will be there to guide each of you just as well as I do and can.
“He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin, righteousness and judgment. In regard to sin, because men do not believe in me, in regard to righteousness because I go to the Father, and in regard to judgment because the prince of this world now stands condemned.”
He continues talking to them as the full moon rises higher and higher in the Passover night sky, it turns the Garden of Gethsemane into moon lite prayer garden awaiting the next hours with the Lord. He has a little more to share with them before he goes to the garden to pray the beautiful prayer John records for us.
“When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He will guide you into all truth… He will not speak on his own, but will only speak what he hears and will tell you what is yet to come… He is going to bring glory to me by taking from me what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine and I am making it known to you….” Again he speaks of his death and resurrection and it goes right over their heads.. He tries to explain.
He uses the example of the pain of child birth and the joy that a child is born, “now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice…”
Now he makes more promises that only he can keep, “I tell you the truth, my Father will give you what ever you ask in my name.” I am not sure they have more than a 5-year-old understanding of that. Like a child standing at a bakery window, their eyes can be larger than their tummy. At that moment they might still be dreaming of right and left seats of power and Jesus knows to the right and to the left within a dozen hours will be two thieves on crosses. Jesus is thinking ahead to Troas and the midnight prayer meeting and Bible study and the sleepy disciple falling out the third story window and dying as he hit the ground, and Paul running down and calling in Jesus’ name and the man sitting up alive and well and the Bible study continues to dawn; or, perhaps impetuous Peter and dear sister Dorcus and life flowing back into her body at the touch and prayer in Jesus name of this big fisherman. The mature response to that promise, is I am not afraid to go any where, speak to anybody, and seek to do for Jesus the impossible, he says, “go to it lad, lass, I am with you all the way.”
He goes on the explain, I do not have to be there, you can go directly to the Father in my name and the Father will respond, please understand, the Father loves you, because you have loved me and our relationship. You ask in my name and you believe I came from the Father. Now I am going back to the Father for your good, so the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the inhabiting God in all the children of the kingdom, giving each one from pole to pole from ocean to ocean from city to country, from palace to prison, from savage to college professor; giving each one direct power, access and blessing from the Father in my name. We can retake our world from Satan. You are my disciples, my guerrilla force to accomplish this impossible task, you have the power, it will be placed solidly within you, when you receive power from on high.
Jesus is watching their eyes and the expressions on their faces, he sees it, the dim light is coming on. He knows they will not fully understand till they see the tongues of fire and hear the sounds of mighty blowing wind and face a couple hundred thousand Jewish men in the temple and by the power of the Spirit shake their fist at them and say, “By the hands of crooked and unlawful men you did by the predetermined counsel of God both condemn and crucify this Jesus whom God has raised from the dead and made both Lord and Messiah.”
There the down payment on the universal kingdom of 3,000 souls is deposited in the watery grave of forgiveness and from there on it is “Onward Christian Soldier, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before….” They had a world to win to Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit… Two thousand years later we have picked up the sword, we have become blood partners with Peter, Paul, John and the whole crowd of witnesses that have gone on before. We have been the recipients of the promise, we have the direct line to the Father, we have the power of the Comforter, Holy Spirit leading in all truth, fighting for us, giving us a direct line to the Father. Not just in Las Cruces and Guatemala, but in hundreds of nations, in thousands of languages, with victory in places and persecution in others. The victory gives glory to God. The blood, chains, jail cells of the persecuted is the inflammable fuel to ignite the flames of evangelism with even more heat and intensity. It is good he went home.
