John 15:25

John 15:25 says, This cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause.  What was to come to pass that Jesus spoke of was His betrayal and His death. This included His mock trial, because as He said, they had no cause to hate Him.  He was again preparing the disciples for what was to come.  He again made reference to a scripture, Psalms 35:19.  There, David made the statement not only about himself, but about the Messiah to come.  We need not be surprised that Jesus would know the Scripture, but that He would also know its complete interpretation.  Though Jesus was not marking off a checklist of what must happen to Him on earth, He was nonetheless quite familiar with what was to happen.  As we await the return of Jesus, we do not need to attempt to check off things that have transpired that say His return is immanent. There is only one thing that I understand must happen before the return of Christ, and that is that the Gospel must be preached to all nations.  Since we are commissioned by Christ to witness to the whole world, this should be our focus.  If we truly feel the return of Christ is so close, we need to be busy about witnessing, because we are responsible to reach out even to those who hate us with the Gospel of Christ.  Verse twenty-six adds, But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which preceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me.  The first disciples looked ahead to the coming of the Holy Spirit, but we today have Him with us from the moment we accept Christ as our Savior.  We are told that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.  When we are confronted with a question of right or wrong, we need to ask the Holy Spirit, Who indwells us, what the truth is.  At times, we may attempt to make facts conform to what we want the truth to be, but the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth to us.  Verse twenty-seven continues, And ye shall bear witness, because ye have been with Me from the beginning.  Though Jesus was speaking to His disciples that day, as His disciples today, we have the same task.  We were not with Jesus during His earthly ministry, but He is with us through the Holy Spirit once we accept Him as our Savior.  We have the same task presented to us, and that is to bear witness to Jesus.  We are not called to condemn a lost and dying world, but instead to bear witness to Jesus.