And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
Jesus spoke the words with sorrow as well as authority as He exposed a desperate spiritual condition, while His hearers received them with anger, speaking them to the multitude when He saw Satan's deceiving power at work and saw that the wrongdoing of evil workers must be met. The very reason His hearers did not believe Him was because He told them the truth, and His truthfulness did not make the Jewish leaders and Pharisees believe, even when the truth was plainly told. The telling of truth itself became the cause of unbelief.
They disbelieved because they could not hear His word and therefore did not understand His speech, though they heard Him outwardly they misinterpreted and did not understand. Their refusal revealed that they were not of God and would not hear God's words, for he that is of God hears God's words. Jesus spoke the truth given Him by God, and if God had been their Father they would have loved Jesus whom God sent.
Their rejection exposed bondage to sin and allegiance to the devil rather than to God, for they had turned from God and followed the devil their father. That father is a liar and murderer and the father of lies, who abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him and who speaks lies of his own. The truth was not palatable to them and offended their self-righteousness because it exposed their errors and condemned their teachings and practices, and rather than admit they were wrong they rejected the truth and treated it as falsehood.
Their response belonged to the conflict between truth and evil, in which Satan's lies and wrongdoing opposed Christ's truth. Disregard of God's injunctions regarding righteousness and true doctrines makes evil almost indistinguishable from good. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, and darkness does not come from God but from an intruding object between the soul and God that blocks the light and casts shadow, as shade comes by the sun but is caused by obstruction.
Followers of Christ will meet just such misunderstanding and rejection as Jesus met. The truth is to be proclaimed amid evil as well as good report, with meekness and earnestness rather than a human spirit or manner of speech that mars its power. The same blindness remains now, so many true things must be left unsaid because people are not filled with the Spirit of God to receive them, and only a view of God's infinite majesty and holiness brings a deep sense of deficient spiritual understanding, while institutions need plain, direct, decided testimony just as much as the people in Christ's day did.
The same spirit Satan stirred in the unbelieving Jews, who treated God's word as the enemy's word and declared Christ's words and works to be of satanic origin because He told them the truth, is repeated when God sends special warning messages to churches and individuals and they are called faultfinding and accusing and darkness. Those who close their eyes to light and their ears to evidence close the door of their hearts so whatever God sends cannot be received. When correct statements about Satan's workings still leave them unconvinced the Spirit of God can do no more for them, since further light and evidence would only bring more stubborn resistance, placing them just where Pharaoh stood.
Jesus spoke the words with sorrow as well as authority as He exposed a desperate spiritual condition, while His hearers received them with anger, speaking them to the multitude when He saw Satan's deceiving power at work and saw that the wrongdoing of evil workers must be met. The very reason His hearers did not believe Him was because He told them the truth, and His truthfulness did not make the Jewish leaders and Pharisees believe, even when the truth was plainly told. The telling of truth itself became the cause of unbelief.
They disbelieved because they could not hear His word and therefore did not understand His speech, though they heard Him outwardly they misinterpreted and did not understand. Their refusal revealed that they were not of God and would not hear God's words, for he that is of God hears God's words. Jesus spoke the truth given Him by God, and if God had been their Father they would have loved Jesus whom God sent.
Their rejection exposed bondage to sin and allegiance to the devil rather than to God, for they had turned from God and followed the devil their father. That father is a liar and murderer and the father of lies, who abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him and who speaks lies of his own. The truth was not palatable to them and offended their self-righteousness because it exposed their errors and condemned their teachings and practices, and rather than admit they were wrong they rejected the truth and treated it as falsehood.
Their response belonged to the conflict between truth and evil, in which Satan's lies and wrongdoing opposed Christ's truth. Disregard of God's injunctions regarding righteousness and true doctrines makes evil almost indistinguishable from good. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, and darkness does not come from God but from an intruding object between the soul and God that blocks the light and casts shadow, as shade comes by the sun but is caused by obstruction.
Followers of Christ will meet just such misunderstanding and rejection as Jesus met. The truth is to be proclaimed amid evil as well as good report, with meekness and earnestness rather than a human spirit or manner of speech that mars its power. The same blindness remains now, so many true things must be left unsaid because people are not filled with the Spirit of God to receive them, and only a view of God's infinite majesty and holiness brings a deep sense of deficient spiritual understanding, while institutions need plain, direct, decided testimony just as much as the people in Christ's day did.
The same spirit Satan stirred in the unbelieving Jews, who treated God's word as the enemy's word and declared Christ's words and works to be of satanic origin because He told them the truth, is repeated when God sends special warning messages to churches and individuals and they are called faultfinding and accusing and darkness. Those who close their eyes to light and their ears to evidence close the door of their hearts so whatever God sends cannot be received. When correct statements about Satan's workings still leave them unconvinced the Spirit of God can do no more for them, since further light and evidence would only bring more stubborn resistance, placing them just where Pharaoh stood.