Kicked Out Of Church – So What! Series

John 16: 1 - 11

Kicked out of church – So What!

1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Do you know of anyone who was asked not to come back to your church? Sometimes the church goes so far which is rare these days to ‘excommunicate’ someone. I have observed these types of action and I found out something significant. The people who have this done to them do not care. These people usually do one of two things. Mostly they do not even worry or bother to seek out any Christian fellowship anymore. The other position that they take is that they just go to another church.

Besides the Temple, the synagogues were the primary and regular place of religious gatherings and fellowship in Jewish communities throughout the ancient world. As these passages in John indicate, to be put out of the synagogue was a very grave issue. People sought to avoid being ‘put out of the Synagogue because it meant that you were outside of the community and without contact with God’s people. Furthermore, because it involved exclusion from the Jewish sacred assemblies, it automatically entailed a loss of access to the ritual sacrifices associated with divine forgiveness and acceptance.

So, people today would say that ‘So you are kicking me out of your church – big deal!’ However, this was a frightening thing to those living in Israel. Suppose the order was given that you couldn’t buy or sell. How would you survive? Well you might say that was then and this is now. Guess what, what goes around comes around as this very same thing will happen to Christians who will not follow the Antichrist. We read this in the book of Revelation chapter 13 verse 7, “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. If you do not comply with what the law imposes then they will not allow you to be a part of their society.

But all of this will be ‘then’ so let us get back to now and take a look at the Gospel of John.

1 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. 3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.

Take a look again at the statement that our Holy Lord told His disciples ‘They will put you out of synagogues.’ They will be rejected and excluded from the nation of Israel. The word was circulated that no one in the nation should have anything to do with them. They would be ostracized from society.

Although this is very intense and harsh against those taking the ‘Good News’ to others, this works out for the furtherance of the Gospel. Remember that our Lord had instructed His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples from all nations. If you remember in the book of Acts they didn’t go anywhere. They stayed in Jerusalem. Our Lord got them moving in their chosen ministries by allowing persecution to come against them. So by being thrown out of their homeland they were forced to do exactly what the Lord wanted them to do.

4 But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.