The Culture of Death

They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me (John 16:2-3).

In John 15, Jesus gave warning to the disciples of the coming oppression they were to face after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. His warning to them was in general terms. In John 16, Jesus becomes more specific in terms of the persecution they would face. He spoke of two specific threats: (1) they would be rejected by their own people [banned from the synagogues], and (2) they would be killed. The first speaks of the mental anguish they would suffer, the second speaks of the physical anguish they would suffer. He also revealed the cause for which this persecution would come: because they have not known the Father nor Me.

Jesus said to the Pharisees concerning Satan (John 8:44), You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Through his successful tempting of Adam and Eve in Eden, the devil became the first murderer and the murderer of the entire human race. Sin caused humanity to fall out of fellowship with God. As a result, every human born from Adam and Eve on has been born spiritually dead. (Genesis 5:1-3) This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 

David affirmed this condition (Psalm 51:5), Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me, as does the Apostle Paul (Ephesians 2:1,5) And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins . . . But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). Death is Satan’s ultimate goal for mankind, and he uses anything and anyone as instruments of death. The 20th century saw some of the most hideous and despicable examples of Satan’s work among men, using men to carry out his work: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi 3rd Reich, Josef Stalin and the Communist Purge, Pol Pot and the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, the Islamic conquest, the slaughter of the African peoples, even in our own country Satan has been active in destroying lives through alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, suicides, homicides, and abortions (which number in the multiplied millions of infants killed since 1973). Why are there such people who rise to power through death and destruction? Jesus made it clear, these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. To know Jesus Christ is to know life. To not know Jesus Christ is to know death, of which Satan is the chief architect. The world is blind to this because the world has rejected Jesus and embraced His enemy, the devil. God help us all to help our lost and dying world to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. Amen.

Pastor Martin