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  EXPOSITORY THOUGHTS ON JOHN - JOHN 16:1-7
  by J.C. Ryle
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"I have told you all these things so that you will not fall away. They
will put you out of the synagogue, yet a time is coming when the one who
kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these
things because they have not known the Father or me. But I have told you
these things so that when their time comes you will remember that I told
you about them.

"I did not tell you these things from the beginning because I was with
you. But now I am going to the one who sent me, and not one of you is
asking me, ‘Where are you going?’ Instead your hearts are filled
with sadness because I have said these things to you. But I tell you the
truth, it is to your advantage that I am going away. For if I do not go
away, the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to
you.

The opening verses of this chapter contain three important utterances of
Christ, which deserve our special attention.

For one thing, we find our Lord delivering a remarkable prophecy. He
tells His disciples that they will be cast out of the Jewish Church, and
persecuted even to the death--"They shall put you out of the synagogues
--yes, the time comes, that whoever kills you will think that he does
God service."

How strange that seems at first sight! Excommunication, suffering, and
death, are the portion that the Prince of Peace predicts to His
disciples. So far from receiving them and their message with gratitude,
the world would hate them, despitefully use them, and put them to death.
And, worst of all, their persecutors would actually persuade themselves
that it was right to persecute, and would inflict the cruelest injuries
in the sacred name of religion.

How true the prediction has turned out! Like every other prophecy of
Scripture, it has been fulfilled to the very letter. The Acts of the
Apostles show us how the unbelieving Jews persecuted the early
Christians. The pages of history tell us what horrible crimes have been
committed by the Popish Inquisition. The annals of our own country
inform us how our holy Reformers were burned at the stake for their
religion, by men who professed to do all they did from zeal for pure
Christianity. Unlikely and incredible as it might seem at the time, the
great Prophet of the Church has been found in this, as in everything
else, to have predicted nothing but literal truth.

Let it never surprise us to hear of true Christians being persecuted, in
one way or another, even in our own day. Human nature never changes.
Grace is never really popular. The quantity of persecution which God\

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/jc-ryle/expository-thoughts-on-john-john-161-7/
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