'These things I said not unto you from the beginning, because I was
with you.'

Of course there had been in His early ministry hints, and very plain
references, to persecutions and trials, but we must not restrict the
'these things' of my text to that only, but rather include the whole
of the previous chapter, in which He sets the sorrow and the
hostility which His servants have to endure in their true light, as
being the consequences of their union with Him and of the closeness
and the identity of life and fate between the Vine and the branches.
In so systematic and detailed fashion, and with such an exhibition of
the grounds of its necessity, our Lord had not spoken of the world's
hostility in His earlier ministry, but had reserved it to these last
moments, and the reason why He had given but passing hints before was
because He was there. What a superb confidence that expresses in His
ability to shield His poor followers from all that might hurt and
harm them! He spreads the ample robe of His protection over them, or
rather, to go back to His own metaphor, 'as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings' so He gathers them to His own breast, and
stretches over them that which is at once protection and warmth, and
keeps them safe. As long as He is there, no harm can come to them.
But He is going away, and so it is time to speak, and to speak more
plainly.

That, too, yields for us, dear brethren, truths that apply to us
quite as much as to that little group of silent listeners. For us,
too, difficulties and sorrows, though foretold in general terms, are
largely hidden till they are near. It would have been of little use
for Christ to have spoken more plainly in those early days of His
ministry. The disciples managed to forget and to misunderstand His