Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
What it means to be initiated into the secret of the mystery. Part 98. The antagonism of the world system toward believers and Bible doctrine.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
“Abiding with Christ” - the keyword or the key term is abide; it appears 10 times in the first eleven verses.
Verses 12-17 - the relationships of the believer with believer and the key word is Love.
It appears 4 times in these 6 verses.
Through a love relationship there is communion; we have communion with one another because we have union with our Lord.
The key word is hate; it appears 8 times in 10 verses.
That is what we can expect from a world that is out of touch with God and out of union with TLJC, because there is disunion between the believer and the world.
There is union with Christ and union with fellow believers, but because of this hate there is disunion with the world.
Jesus says something regarding position, in verses 1-8, and then He says something regarding production, in verses 9-17, and they are not the same, they are mutually exclusive.
You are placed in Christ, you are made a branch of the vine at salvation, you are in Christ, and thereby a new creation built from within to without a whole new creature.
You are to abide so that fruit naturally flows; one has to do with position if you are in Christ, the other has to do with fruit bearing.
“Ho kosmos” = “the world.”
“The world” is not the word ge - the earth’s surface, the structure of the earth.
Kosmos = an organized system.
“The world” = a system of thought.
It is a system of thought designed by Satan himself, who is the greatest creature genius, of all creature history.
It includes everything from religion, to systems of government, political thought, concepts of life.
1. The kosmos or the world = a system of thought, an organized system of thought.
2. The world = a system of organizations.
Organizations, like international organizations, religious organizations, and so on.
3. The kosmos or the world = a system of people, or a category of people.
“World” - used for the unbelievers, Joh 17.
Worldliness = when a believer continues to go negative toward doctrine, and then creates scar tissue on the left bank of the soul, the mind, and then you open up the mataiotes, a vacuum in the heart, and through mataiotes comes human viewpoint, and human viewpoint in the soul is exhaled out the right bank, the heart is worldliness.
a. A system of thought, satanic.
b. Organizations, satanic, like international organizations.
c. The world of unbelievers.
1. Verse 18 - the kosmos system hates Christ.
If - conjunction ei [first class condition] - “if, and it does” + “world” - kosmos = “if the world hates you, and it does” = there are systems of thought in the kosmos that are antagonistic toward your way of thinking when you think like TLJC.
2. Satanic organizations that are antagonistic to Jesus Christ.
3. People who are antagonistic toward Jesus Christ.
He is the ruler of the world, and because God knew that Satan would be the ruler of this world, God designed certain things to protect the human race in Satan’s rule.
Under this God must protect the human race, so that it can go from creation to the end of the world, and still have a human race.
In order for the angelic conflict to be resolved, certain increments of history must be fulfilled.
O.T. dispensations, the cross, resurrection, ascension, session, glorification of Christ, the intensification of the angelic conflict in the Church-age, in the tribulation, Second Advent, and Millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
There is another restrainer in the world during the intensification stage of the Church-age - the ministry of the Holy Spirit, 2TH 2:7.
There are two counter actions to Satan’s rule, as far as people are concerned:
1. The divine institutions.
2. The whole concept of the spiritual life.
a. Volition, human freedom and privacy.
No two people have the same abilities; we are not born equals, we do not live equal, and we do not die equal.
There is no equality in the human race except in Christianity; there is unity with the Lord Jesus Christ at the moment of salvation when equal privilege and equal opportunity are given.
When you are born again, as a priest, you also have privacy from your priesthood.
b. Marriage - the framework for category two love, and it becomes a basic stabilizer of the human race.
c. Family - the basis of protecting the human race.
The moment a member of the human race is born, category homosapien, he is the most helpless, the most useless of all the born creatures of any kind.
d. Nationalism.