Our senior pastor, Ben Andrus, was back at it this Sunday preaching from his favorite book in the Bible, the book of John. I really enjoy Pastor Ben's approach to preaching. He selects a book and goes through it chapter by chapter. That way, the verses are kept in context of what is being said. I think it took us about two years to get through the book of Romans!
Anyway, we are now walking our way through the 16th chapter of John and specifically focused on verses 5 through 11.
Jesus is telling his disciples that he had to go away, but that in His absence, the Holy Spirit would come. Why? Well, we know from other areas of scripture that the Holy Spirit was sent as a Comforter to believers, but that is not what Jesus speaks about in this portion of Scripture. Rather, he states another purpose of the Holy Spirit and that is to convict the world of guilt regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment.
Pastor focused (due to time) on judgment and made some interesting points. The first is that we, as Christians, should not sugar coat the pending judgment. To put judgment in perspective, we can look at our court system. A person must be found guilty prior to the judgment phase. Judgment is one of the final acts, other than paying the penalty, that the guilty person must go through. In verse 11, Jesus states that the prince of this world, a.k.a. Satan, already stands condemned.
Secondly, the world, meaning those who do not accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, is condemned as well because they have rejected Jesus and the free gift of salvation. It is not about how evil you are. It is not about how good you are. It is about accepting Jesus, focusing on Him, and becoming 'not of this world'. The world will be judged by God. Here are some verses that reinforce this point:
Isaiah 13:9-13, John 15:19, John 18:36, Romans 3:19-20, 1 John 2:15-17, 2 Corinthians 4:18
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