John 16:31-33 (NKJV) 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
I want to begin looking at another section of scripture, this time in John’s Gospel. In John 15-17 we find some of the last things Jesus said to his disciples. In the rest of this chapter, Jesus has been telling his disciples some of what is coming. He tells them of persecution that will come against them. He tells them he must go away to the Father who sent him. He is going to send them another comforter who will teach them and comfort them and tell them things to come.
In verse 17 we see that the disciples did not really understand what he was telling them. In verses 18-32, he speaks more plainly to them. He makes it clear to them that he came from God and now must go back to God. He also tells them that this process is going to bring them into a different and better relationship with him and the Father because of the Spirit of Truth that he will send to them.
In verses 29-31 I see the response most of us have given the Lord at one time or another. “OK, Lord. Now I get it!” In truth they did not get it at all. They could never understand these things on their own. In verse 4 he told them, “I told you these things so you could look back on them and remember.” In verse 13 he tells them that they will need the spirit of truth to understand what he really needed to communicate. Nevertheless, they thought they had it.
In the verses above, we see Jesus response to their perceived understanding. “You think you have it do you? There are times coming when you will be scattered. You will question everything. You will be challenged in ways you cannot possibly guess right now.” I do not know about you, but before 2020, I thought I had many things figured out. I have been saved 50 years and in ministry more than 40. I have studied the Word of God my whole life. More than that I have built my life around knowing God and serving him. Yet I have to admit, I knew something was coming in 2020, but I did not see what happened coming. It has caused me to reevaluate and, at times, shaken what I thought I knew.
If you consider all the bad news the disciples had gotten in this chapter, what he says next is very interesting. I said all these things to you so that you will have peace in me. How could they have peace knowing that he was going to be leaving, they would be persecuted and something they did not understand, the Spirit of Truth was going to help them? In his next words he reveals how and why. Can what he revealed to them help us as well? I think it can.
First he gives us all a promise we do not want to claim. We do not have to believe for this promise, we just have to be alive in this world. If we are, we will have tribulation. That is a fact. How can this help us as we face the current situation? Let us look a little closer at what he is saying.
The Greek word used here is revealing. It is translated in various places as affliction, anguish, distress, distressed, tribulation, and trouble. There is nothing there that is good. The English definition of tribulation is distress or suffering resulting from oppression or persecution, also a trying experience. I do not need to go into detail. I think we can all say we have had some tribulation, not only this past year but in life period. I think if we read what was coming to the disciples, we might be willing to say that they were facing more difficult times than we are experiencing now. The fact that he says tribulation will come is the first thing that should bring us peace.
The reason I say that is how we usually react to times of pressure. We may feel someone, or something is “out to get us.” We may feel we have done something so wrong that God has forsaken us. We may feel that nothing works out for us. Let me quote Jesus again. “In the world you will have tribulation.” There is someone out to get you. He is called Satan and he is out to get the whole church. Other than him, it will do you no good to look to blame someone else. They are not our enemy.
Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV) 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
People are not our problem. That does not mean the devil never uses people, but they are not the root of the problem. When we understand that, we can focus on the real enemy while loving and at times forgiving the people around us. This will make us more effective in overcoming whatever it is we may be facing and doing it more quickly.
The second thing that will help us in times of trouble is to realize it is not because we are unworthy, or because God does not love us or that things just never go our way. That is a lie. The truth is no matter who you are, tribulation will come to you as long as you live in the world. That is just the way it is. If we eliminate the possibility that we are just unworthy, undeserving or unlucky and if we understand that God still loves us, we can have peace even in the trial. In our study of being more than a conqueror we saw what Paul had to say in Romans 8 even when he was facing tremendous difficulties.
Romans 8:31 (NKJV) 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:37-39 (NKJV) 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul was simply responding to what Jesus said in John 16. Yet there is something more in verse 33 that will give us peace. Not only is the devil the problem but he makes it clear that the world is the problem. He says in the world you will have tribulation. What is the world?
God created the heavens and the earth. He still owns them. When God created the earth, he gave dominion over it to man (Genesis 1:26.) In Genesis 3 we read about the fall of man. When man fell, he submitted himself to the Devil. Man’s dominion became the devil’s. Both Jesus and Paul called him the god of this world. He is not the God of the universe, our Father is. Our Father still controls everything that happens in the universe. He is the God of time as well. There will come a day when this age will end and “all things will be brought together under Christ (Ephesians 1:10)
In 1 Corinthians 10:26-28 Paul tells us that the earth is the Lord’s with all its fullness. The World is not the earth. The world is the system that controls the earth at the moment. The original design was that Man was to have dominion or control through his relationship with God. The fall of man caused the control to change hands. Today, the system that controls what happens on the earth in the natural is ruled by the devil. He set up the systems that produce what we see today. He influences governments and people. He has always had a plan to dominate God’s family and he uses his control of the world to do it. That is why what Jesus says in John 16:33 is so important. We can be of good cheer right now because he has, not will, overcome the world. We are going to look at what thet means to us and how to walk in the power of Jesus’ statement.
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