Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: John 16:29-33
## Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Every Lord’s day he gathers us together to speak peace to us. The tune we just sang is Molina—that’s the tune of the words that I sent out on Thursday in the email suggesting a possible form for use in family worship. In today’s text, the Lord Jesus Christ declares that he has conquered the world. This text is pertinent, as we’ll see at the end of our sermon, to the events ongoing in Iraq. And certainly, the song that was distributed via email this week, sung to this tune, would be a very good one for us to sing this week as we think about the soldiers of the United States doing what our president has commanded them to do.

Please stand for the reading of God’s word as Jesus speaks peace to us today. The text is John 16:29-33.

*This is the conclusion of the upper room discourse. His disciples said to him, “See now you are speaking plainly and using no figure of speech. Now we are sure that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question you. By this we believe that you came forth from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 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. 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.”*

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for these tremendous words of gospel to us today—that Jesus has overcome the world and that as a result of that we can have peace even in the context of tribulations. We can be of good cheer. We pray particularly for the men and possibly women who are suffering even now at the hands of their captors in Iraq, that you would grant them this peace that Jesus has overcome the world and all enemies to his kingdom. Grant that they would be of good cheer, Father, even in the midst of great trials and tribulations and facing their own death. And for those who are believers—their martyrdom at the hands of evil men—we pray that you would cause their families as well to be of good cheer, knowing that Jesus has conquered the world.

We pray now, Father, that you would cause us to rejoice, to be encouraged and comforted in the midst of the tribulations that our nation faces, or the tribulations that we face, all coming forth ultimately from your sovereign hand, all redounding to our well-being and to the establishment of the peace of the world. We pray now, Father, that your spirit would speak to us, that the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ may be heard in the preaching of the word, and that it might transform us and give us deep peace that no man can take away.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

There are outlines available today. They were under the orders of worship on the stands. I apologize for it being feast or famine—no outlines for two weeks and a double-sided outline this week. You know, as you watch the events unfold in Iraq, sometimes they have these views on certain television stations where they zoom way out and then they zoom in, zoom in. You can see the countryside, and then right down to the very neighborhood or house that is being talked about. Amazing technology we have today in terms of that kind of thing. And again, like I did last week, I want to just make sure that we understand the context for the specific statements that we read in God’s word today.

This is the conclusion to the upper room discourse, and so there’s a large context for what goes on here. And the reverse side of the outline is basically what I talked about last week. I won’t belabor those points, but I would recommend that if you’re keeping any of the outlines from this sermon series on the Gospel of John, this would probably be a good one to keep. This overview of the Gospel of John has been distributed before here, but you may not have kept it. It’s good to keep in whatever files you keep for your own personal study of the scriptures.

And it reminds us of where we’re at in the context of John’s gospel. That will help us to understand this culminating section of John’s gospel—a final comparison between Jesus, the one who is faithful, and the rest of the disciples, and then finally, his concluding words. You know, last words in the Bible are important. They’re recorded for us in several places: Paul’s last words to the Ephesian elders, Joshua’s last words. These are, in a sense, Christ’s last words as he prepares to go to the cross shortly—within the next day. And so what we’ll see in the last couple of verses of the text we read this morning are the last words, the culmination of this message from the savior and a point back to everything that’s been said in the upper room discourse.

So we have this context, this greater context. Every time we prepare for worship and we read, for instance, responsibly from the Psalms and speak of righteousness and truth shall meet and shall kiss, the earth shall flourish. God will speak peace to his people. That’s the broad context for these words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the gospels themselves are this declaration that this long-promised event has now come to pass. There is a new creation in existence. John’s gospel particularly gives us that perspective. This gospel involves the creation, the new creation, the new humanity, a complete transformation in the world.

Our savior speaks of it in the past tense here. Even though he’s still looking forward to the cross and his resurrection and ascension, his incarnation is the assurance that now this time has come and the world will never be the same again. And I would like to say that this is gospel today. The concluding message of this upper room discourse in John’s gospel is this good news—not the good news of justification by faith. That is part of the gospel, but that is not new news in the New Testament. That was true in the Old Testament. Not just that it’s been accomplished for us individually—they knew that in the Old Testament. The thing that’s changed dramatically with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is that the new creation has been birthed. And that means that the old creation will be destroyed. All other kingdoms of men are in the process of being shaken so that the only thing that cannot be shaken will be left standing, which is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s the gospel: that Jesus Christ rules in the power of the spirit from the right hand of the Father until all his enemies be made his footstool. And so the events going on in Iraq are an integral part of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ—the good news that Jesus Christ is conquering evil men and governments and establishing his kingdom in the context of this world. That’s the overarching context for what we read today.

And then, as I said on the reverse sheet, you have this progression: the two kinds of humanity in the world, the antithesis restated, Jesus dealing differently with them. And now we come to the end of this discourse. So we’ve gone through that heavenly furniture, so to speak, that brings us up to the golden altar of incense where our savior begins his high priestly prayer in next week’s text. And we’ll then talk about that, and then his death at the bronze altar, so to speak, outside of the Holy of Holies, outside of the city—his death for sinners—and then the application of that in the Holy of Holies and the new creation that’s affected by all these things.

So John’s gospel is this picture of these heavenly realities now taking place in the context of the world, in the earth and the history, the facts of the Lord Jesus Christ and his incarnation, his death, and his resurrection.

Now, let me zoom in a little bit in that context. And we remember that the structure—a chiastic structure—of the upper room discourse itself is what we’re talking about in today’s events, today’s verses rather. Very clearly, it reminds us, if we’ve been paying attention, if we’ve read the upper room discourse, of what Jesus said to Peter. You know, Jesus told Peter that they’re to love one another, and he said he would follow Jesus anywhere. And Jesus asked Peter a question: “Well, is that really true? I tell you, you’re going to deny me three times.”

And so, in both of these highlighted portions on your outline now—on the first page that says “He Has Conquered the World”—you see that both the B and B prime sections are bolded. The B prime section is also italicized. That’s what we’re talking about today.

And so this upper room discourse has moved from a gathering of the disciples together. We’ll end with the gathering in prayer. It’s moved past their own sinfulness and a prediction of that and the Savior’s assurance that he is in control. And nonetheless, he encourages us in our sinfulness. Then we move to a consideration of the advent of the Holy Spirit, the relationship with the Father. The very center of this whole discourse is this abiding in Christ. We see that reiterated in the text that I read with a little bit of emphasis. I hope you heard it: that Jesus didn’t say just that you have peace. That’s not the word. He doesn’t just speak peace to you. He says that *in me* you have peace. So again, he brings us back at the conclusion of this narrative to the very center of the narrative—this wonderful gift he’s given to us of abiding in him as the conditionality of all the peace and blessing that has been unfolded in the context of this discourse.

There is a transition in any one of these structures. We always look for a sense of transition, and there’s been that transition. You remember the Holy Spirit, for instance, and I’ve got some notes that indicate this on your outline. Remember the section of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the first half of the discourse. His basic job is to come and strengthen the disciples—the comforter or strengthener—in the context of persecution. It’s kind of a defensive position, so to speak. But then in the last half, the matching section that we talked about two weeks ago, the Holy Spirit is a conqueror. He’s going to bring conviction to the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. All through a focal point is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The words of his disciples will be used to bring conviction to the world.

So not only does he strengthen and establish new people, but he also actively wages war against the kingdoms of this world, through primarily the mouths of his disciples, to shatter kingdoms and empires and to bring the old world, the dying world, to its conclusion through a conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So there’s this progression in any of these structures. It’s not simply a mirror. It’s a mirror, but other things are going out as we progress through a structure, based upon the centrality of abiding in Christ—the very center of the structure for us.

We’ve seen some corrections as we’ve gone through this, and we do today as well. We saw, for instance, that the Holy Spirit is not just some sort of comforting—you know, trying to make everything okay even though things are not okay—sort of person. We’ve seen that the spirit is a warrior in the wars of the Lord. Using Rushdoony’s terminology: the spirit actively wages war. It brings a correction to our minds of what the Holy Spirit is.

And on the other hand, our typical way to think about in today’s evangelicalism of the Father is this implacable foe of the Old Testament. And maybe Jesus can plead with the Father now for us perpetually, who maybe starts to maybe not frown at us so much. And as I said last week, this is the origin of Mary olatry. We needed a kind mother to bring us even to the savior. But this text that we are in the context of right now—the more immediate context for the text we read—assures us that Jesus says, “I won’t have to plead with the Father for you because he loves you as a father loves his children.” He has that *phileo* love for you—emotional, we can think of it that way. Not just covenantal obedience and faithfulness of the covenant, but the covenant is one of a kind consideration of us by the Father.

So the ideas that we have, that the first age was this age of the Father where he’s angry, the second age is the age of grace of Christ, the third age the age of love of the spirit—all that gets confounded by the simple presentation of John’s gospel here in the upper room discourse. The spirit is a warrior as well as being a strengthener. The Father loves us with the *phileo* love toward us. And everything that Jesus does has been this demonstration of the love of the Father for his people.

And then finally, in today’s text, you know, we don’t see a Jesus who is meek and mild in the sense of meek being weak. We see Jesus who culminates the entire upper room discourse by saying that he is a conqueror. “Overcome” is a little soft in the English translations. We have some translations translate “conquer.” That’s a better word. Catch the meaning of the Greek here. Jesus declares himself to be the conquering Son, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, going forth to conquer.

So this text has helped us to correct our understanding of the Trinity itself—the three persons of the Trinity—and corrects our view of ourselves then in relationship to all of this.

Now, the immediate context. I’ve got a brief review then under the immediate context of the verses we’re going to consider. The disciples say, “Well, now you’re speaking plainly.” And if we don’t remind ourselves of the verses that led up to this, we won’t understand that. So I’ve got a brief review there, four parts.

There were these historical facts stressed in the verses leading up to this: the discussion of the Father’s love. Remember that “a little while” was mentioned seven times in a couple of verses. “Go” was mentioned six times—two different Greek words. There was a progression being described by our savior that we would discern or understand him better because of the events that would happen in a little while, which is the death and resurrection and ultimately the ascension, or the giving of the spirit. But the historical facts of the death and resurrection of Christ were focused on in the context of the section just preceding this one, as well as this growing understanding of the savior.

And then Jesus, marking off a section by saying “Amen and amen,” told his disciples that while they did have sorrow now, that would be turned to joy. The world’s joy will be turned to sorrow. The savior’s disciples—their sorrow would be turned to joy. And so there is this idea that there is a permanent joy coming that cannot be taken from us. And this is to produce endurance for the disciples in the context of the difficulties that they will face the rest of their lives.

And so by application to us, the historical acts of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross and his resurrection are key to us then having endurance and knowing of a certainty that what’s happening is a movement in our lives and in the life of the world from sorrow to joy. And that gives us endurance in the present trials that we have to face as well.

And then, third, the Father’s gifts were talked about again. Jesus set off a separate section saying “Amen,” and he then talked about answered prayer. And he said that the time is coming when I will be able to speak to you plainly. This is what the reference in today’s text is to. “I’ve spoken to you in figures, enigmatic sayings, proverbs—whatever word you want to use. I’ve had to use somewhat veiled language. But now, as the spirit comes and I complete my work, everything will start to become clear.”

The gospels tell us that the disciples did not yet, even at this point, know the need or know the factuality of the death and resurrection. They still hadn’t understood these things. Jesus will, after those events, speak plainly to them, and they’re going to say “you’re already speaking plainly to us”—and that’s the context for it. But the important thing there that we learned was again that ultimately Jesus’ task is to restore us to the Father and to restore us to his love—that he loves us. *Phileo*, again, not *agapao*—not unconditional electing love, which is true enough—but this love is a fatherly affection toward us.

And you know, if this is so important for us to understand: that this is how the Father looks at us. You know, I watched “Road to Perdition” this last week—another one of those father-son movies. You know, it’s redemptive not because we identify with the murderer, which if you’ve seen the movie, but rather it’s redemptive because the murderer wants better things for his son. And the son has to recognize the Father’s affection for moving him ahead. The heavenly Father is working through sinful, disobedient, often unloving fathers in your life, but those fathers nonetheless in the Lord are trying to see you progress and move forward and be better fathers to your children.

And you must know the affection of the Father in heaven is being mediated to you through the affection of your parents. Maybe you don’t believe your parents have any affection for you. But I guarantee you, in this church, in the church of Jesus Christ, your fathers have that kind of fatherly love, concern, and affection for you—often bogged up and bottled up through sin of various types and difficulties, but it’s there, and it’s a representation to you. The Father in heaven is transforming fathers in this process so that we might more correctly show love and affection—the proper kind—to our children.

So we saw that, and it’s so important for us when we come to worship the Father through the Son and the Spirit, that we think of the Father as always loving us. When bad things happen this week, you’re going to be tempted to think that the sovereign Father of all things doesn’t have this kind of love for you. Put on the breastplate of faith. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and his word. Know of a certainty that the good news is that the Father loves you very deeply, and that’s the basis for him hearing and answering their prayers.

And then there was a return to the historical facts at the end of that section last week, where Jesus, through a chiastic thing, said: “I came forth from the Father, from the right hand, from the rib of the Father, and I came into the world, and I leave the world now, and I go back to the Father.” And this is the specific statement then that the disciples are responding to in our text.

And this text basically can be seen in two sections. First, as I got on your outline, a final contrast between the disciples and their lack of faith and Jesus having to walk the road alone. And then concluding remarks about the entire discourse, which help us to see the point of the whole thing.

Okay. So, first, this final contrast. We have in summary form the disciples can be seen as somewhat overconfident and maybe even contradicting what the savior just said. They have immature faith. We’ll see that the savior then asks them a question to bring them to an understanding of their own inability to know what’s going to happen. And this is frequently what parents should do and what we should do to one another—not a direct onslaught to one another, but to ask probing questions. And our savior does this. He gives a probing question and then he gives a demonstration of his sureness, of his knowledge, which they ascribe in their statement.

He gives an assurance to them of his omniscience, and the assurance comes in the form of a prediction of their abandonment of him, just as it did with Peter. And so our savior does that to draw contrast between him and them. And then finally, in this section, is unity with the Father: “You’ll leave me alone, but I am not alone. I am with the Father. The Father is with me.”

So the idea is: the disciples don’t really know what’s going to happen. Jesus does. The disciples assert belief and faith, but Jesus is the utterly faithful one who goes to his own death, to the cross, for us. The disciples will abandon Jesus, but Jesus will have relationship still with the Father. The disciples will forsake community. The society will be broken. The fellowship will be broken. But Jesus is the core of fellowship with the Father, and that fellowship is never broken—apart from that moment on the cross when he takes the Father’s full brunt of his wrath for us upon himself. But Jesus says that even through that, somehow there is this unity that’s maintained in the context of that heavenly society that we are now brought into.

So there’s this contrast drawn. Let’s go back over it a little bit slower now then.

First, this contrast involves the disciples’ overconfidence and their immature faith.

So the text tells us: “The disciples said unto him…” And let’s just pause there. So the text wants us—it could have said “they said”—but the text is telling us that these are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it puts them in the context of relationship that we can identify with. This is not just some apostles. These are disciples. They’re not some unnamed men. Their relationship to Christ is talked about. We’re disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why you’re here today. You’re trying to learn from the Savior’s words, walk in his path, et cetera. So this brings us immediately into this text. And it says that what’s going to happen will be in spite of their being disciples, so that we can identify with our own sinfulness as well.

So the disciples say, “Lo, now speakest thou plainly and speakest no proverb.” Now, he had just told them that the time will come when I speak to you plainly, and they immediately say, “Well, it’s already here.” They’re always trying to get ahead of the savior.

I mean, I don’t want to read this too negatively about them because they do come to belief here. They believe the historical facts that he has just recited: “I came forth from the Father. I’ve come into the world. I leave the world to go back to the Father.” They believe that. It’s an immature faith, but it is faith. It’s like our faith—immature. You know, the man who told Jesus, “I believe; help thou in my unbelief.” That should be a constant prayer of ours, or at least a frequent prayer of ours: “We believe; help us in our unbelief.”

They had to some degree contradicted the savior by saying this time is now. And then they enter into overconfidence: “Now are we sure that thou knowest all things and needest not that any man should ask thee? By this we believe that thou camest forth from God.” They’re stating their fidelity to him. They’re saying we’re going to hang in there with you now. Now we really know things. Our problem was that we had things spoken enigmatically, but now you’ve made it quite clear. You’ve given us these historical facts, and you’ve given us a knowledge of things in this upper room discourse that no man could know apart from your omniscience.

So they’re declaring his omniscience, and they’re declaring his divinity. Okay? And they think that because they come to an intellectual attainment of these truths, that that is what belief is. And as a result, they have overconfidence. And our savior will kind of knock them down a peg. He’ll tell them, “Well, you know, you think you believe. You don’t believe yet—not fully. You have an immature faith.”

So they have a degree of overconfidence of their own abilities here. And as I said, this is drawn in deep contrast to the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s drawn in such a way as to make very obvious application to us.

Calvin says that “we never are fully aware of what we want and of our great distance from the fullness of faith till we come to some serious trial. For then the fact shows how weak our faith was, which we imagine to be full.”

You all know this. Well, no, you don’t. The older ones of you know this. You think you have saving faith in Christ. I’m sure you do. You think you have a faith that will maintain you in times of tribulation and trials or temptations. And yet, you fall and you wonder why. Well, our faith is common with the disciples. God uses those very events to cause us to grow in faith, to cast ourselves at the foot of the cross, confessing our sin, and asking that he strengthen us in our unbelief.

Christ recalls the attention of the disciples to this matter and he declares that they will soon forsake him. That’s what he’ll tell them. “For persecution is a touchstone to try faith. And when it’s tested, the smallness of faith becomes evident. They who formerly were swelled with pride begin to tremble and to draw back.”

So these trials come upon us to test our faith. But we should always recall that this text contrasts us with Christ. And so our trials, which cause us to be knocked out of our overconfidence, also cause us to turn to Christ and look for him to be our confidence, the author and finisher of our faith. And so it drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, you know, there are some of you here today, and I don’t want to make these characterizations in toto, but at times in your life—there are some of you here today who are probably overconfident like these disciples. You assume you can do things, and when the trials come, you will stand firm and you’ll be okay. Maybe you imagine yourselves in the affair, the difficulty, that the young soldiers who were taken captive today and apparently some of them summarily executed in brutal fashion. Maybe you think if that was you, you would do okay. But the point here is that’s overconfidence.

That overconfidence tends to cause us to look negatively on people who fail in times of trials and tribulations. It’s easy for us to sit in the calmness of our living room, to make assertions of what we would do, and then when we read of people not being faithful to Christ in times of trials and tribulations, to hold them in a state of no esteem. This text tells us something that we should hear—that we all should be very careful of overconfidence and a prideful assessment of what our faith in Jesus Christ is.

In Reformed circles, our pride tends to take the form of intellectual arrogance. We tend to think that doctrinal formulations are what the covenant of Jesus Christ is all about. Therefore, if we don’t think a person has the right doctrinal formulation of justification by faith, we don’t think he’s really justified—as if an understanding of doctrine or theology was the basis for our salvation, apart from the work of Jesus Christ. It’s simple faith, dependence in Christ that’s the basis for our salvation. It’s God calling us into covenantal relationship. And we can doubt salvation to people because they don’t have the same intellectual attainment of Reformed systematic truths that we do.

Now, we thank God for them. It’s important. I don’t want to demean them. But you see, I do think that there’s a sense in which the disciples here have equated somehow belief with intellectual understanding of what Jesus is telling them. And Jesus, when he says, “Well, do you really believe?” draws their attention to something different.

Jesus asks a very probing question of them. He says, “Well, do you really believe now? Do you now believe?” And as I said, this is just what he basically did with Peter. Peter said that he would lay down his life for Jesus in John 13. And then in verse 38, Jesus answered him, saying, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, I say unto you, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”

But just like with Peter, our savior asks a question and reveals to us our weaknesses through these probing questions.

Now, our savior says, “Do you believe?” He doesn’t say, “Do you have belief?” Now, belief is used as a noun in some portions of scripture, but not in John’s gospel. In John’s gospel, the word translated “belief” here is used—I don’t know, 80, 85 times. Every time it’s used as a verb. Belief is an action. True belief is not intellectual ascent to something. It’s a faith that acts. It’s a faith that engages in works. The Bible is clear that our works justify us—in the gospel of James, or the epistle of James, rather—not in the sense of earning our relationship to Christ, but our works are part of faith. Faith is not some kind of abstract intellectual ascent.

Here it takes the form. Our savior says, “Do you believe? Are you going to act in such an accord with that belief?” And the point is, they’re not going to act that way. And so our savior corrects this understanding of us—that somehow we think of belief as something abstract and intellectual ascent. No, it’s actually 98 times this particular word is used. And every time in John’s gospel, it’s action. It’s action-oriented.

I would ask you today: now you make statements. You confess your sins. The worship of the savior is a worship in which you profess your belief. You profess your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You did it last Sunday. Now my question to you is: what did you do this last week that was an action? Did you believe in the sense of working in the context of this relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ?

And very specifically, as we’ve seen throughout this gospel, to abide in Christ—at the center of the discourse—is to abide in the context of community. It’s contrasted with the false church, the world, which is the Jewish church representing all the world, but it’s the church, right? You’re going to abide in the true church even when trials and tribulations come. It has to do with community. And as this text will show, Jesus is going to predict that they’re going to destroy community. They’re going to go everyone to his own place. They’re going to scatter.

You see? So my question for you is: what action did you take this past week to serve Jesus Christ by serving somebody who is part of Christ’s church? What action did you take of service, acting out your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ—that he came down from heaven, he performed his work, he came to the right hand of the Father, he went back to heaven? You would believe the basic facts of the “little while”—that Jesus died and was resurrected and then ascended, and that the Holy Spirit has been sent to empower you for victory. What service did you perform this past week?

And you know, some of you, it’s pretty laid out every week. You know, you’ve got jobs that you engage in. You have families that you engage in. You have parents or children. There are specific, very set instances in your life. But the point is: do we actually exercise faith in Christ by actively serving in those capacities in a way that is consistent with the profession of faith we make on the Lord’s day?

Did you serve anybody this last week? Or were you just into it for yourself? You see, were you just into it for your own well-being, the well-being of just your family, perhaps? Even did you serve the body of the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s action in John’s gospel. It’s action. What did we do? What did we commit to? Will you commit to some sort of action of service to the Savior today? Will you follow through on that kind of belief?

Now, if I make us all a little uncomfortable with how well we perform, it’s because Jesus makes these disciples very uncomfortable. He tells them that “behold the hour comes, yet now is, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone.”

And this is our tendency. You see, whenever God requires us to do something, it’s always hard. It’s a hard thing because in our Adamic nature, we want to serve ourselves. The whole Adamic fall is reflected in Adam and Eve being scattered from one another. Their relationship to God is broken. Their relationship to each other is broken. The relationship to the created world is broken. Everything gets scattered and isolation is the result.

And so the text reminds us of that when it says that every man takes care of his own, every man to his own. They’re scattered and society is broken. God says that true belief in Christ is to move in the other direction. It’s to move to the assertion of community, to community in the context of service to God. Every time we do that, it requires us to not love ourselves but to love God and our neighbor as we love ourselves. It requires us to say no to ourselves and yes to Jesus by saying yes to somebody else in terms of service. That’s always hard for us to do.

Our tendency is the same one the disciples had. Our tendency is to be scattered, to go everyone our own way, determining for ourselves what is good and evil. Right? Or in Judges, every man does what’s right in his own eyes since there’s no king present with us who is presently involved in a visible manifestation. We tend to throughout the week, everyone to his own ways. No king in Israel. Jesus is going to assert here in a moment that there is a king in the world, that he is it, to remind us that this scattering is what he has come to deliver us from. But still we’ll engage in this kind of activity.

Jesus, and it’s interesting because they have asserted that he has no need to ask anyone anything, ascribed his omniscience and his knowledge—his omniscience now—his knowing all things. That he declares to them. But it’s a twist, again, like so much in John’s gospel. Yeah, you’re right. I know everything. And here’s something I know about you: you’re going to sin. Jesus tells us the same thing today.

I mean, this is a dramatic single event. These are historical facts and can’t be taken out of that context totally. But the application is clear. Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. All the overconfidence and pride we have in our ability to serve Christ—Jesus knows us better than that. And Jesus tells us today, I believe he tells us the same thing he told these disciples: “There’ll be some point this week when you’re going to go out on your own. You’re going to do things not for me but on your own. Not for the purposes of my kingdom. You’re going to scatter. You’re going to sin. Just like Peter denying Christ, just like these disciples scattering and leaving him alone.”

I believe that we can say that every Lord’s day, part of the message that Jesus has for us is that there’s going to be times this week when we sin—either by acts of omission or actual acts of commission. And this sin is placed here, as I said, as the—as this discourse reaches a conclusion in terms of a scattering of community. This is fulfilled. Matthew 26:56 says that all the disciples forsook him and fled.

So again the emphasis: the disciples forsake the center, the core of community, Jesus, and they flee. Now this is the exact reverse of what our savior said you had to do to be blessed—in the middle of the discourse—which is to abide in Christ. The fact is, we don’t abide in Christ. The fact is that we flee. Every man to our own house—if not in a literal way, in a figurative way—by acting for our own self-interest instead of the interests of the kingdom of God.

Now this is all under the sovereign disposition of God. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus directly quotes from Zechariah 13:7, which says: “Awake, sword, against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow,” says the Lord of hosts. “Smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little ones.” Ultimately, see, again there’s an assertion of the sovereignty of God working through the sin of men to affect his purposes.

Now, the Father smites the shepherd, so to speak. Now the people of Israel, in concert with Rome, does that, but ultimately this Zechariah text tells us that ultimately it’s the Father bringing his wrath and judgment against sin upon the savior. This meditation that we have in Lent season—the sufferings of our savior—and the song we sang and we’ll sing again: “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted.” It’s a consideration of sin, and the strongest blow against our savior is the one that the Father delivers. Like that is his taking upon himself the just punishment for our sins, the justice of God. So that’s being alluded to here in this text.

So Jesus draws this contrast, and he says that they’re going to leave him alone, yet he is with the Father.

Now, this, as I said, has application to us. The text of scripture reminds us of that because in Acts 8:1, we read that “Saul was consenting under the death of Christians, and at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad.” So this is not just forsaking, but it is a scattering abroad in the context of persecution.

2 Timothy 4:16-17 is more overt, showing the same theme as in our text today, when Paul said, “At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.” So Paul takes up the same refrain as our savior—that in his proclaiming the gospel of Christ, everybody forsook him, he says. But what he says next is: “I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.” Isn’t that interesting?

“Notwithstanding, the Lord stood and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”

So, see, Paul is clearly picking up the refrains of our savior. All men forsake Paul. He doesn’t lay it to their account. Our savior, from the cross, “They know not what they do,” he says. “I pray that God would not lay this to their charge, right? And then he says, “Notwithstanding, even though every man abandoned me, the Lord was with me.” And the purpose of the Lord being with him was to strengthen him to proclaim that gospel to the Gentiles.

Very similar to our text today. So God prepares us with a contemplation of the events of 2,000 years ago, but also their application to us. If we see it happening with the Lord, if we see it happening with Paul, we can assume that the same thing may be true of us.

And I know there are young men and women in this church—I know them personally—who are growing up. At some point in their past, they had to stand with the Lord Jesus Christ when all their friends forsook them in the cause of righteousness. Even in the context of the community here, these things happen. You know, in any church, young men and women can fall into sin. And it takes someone who understands the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ, the strength of the Apostle Paul, to stand up and say, “This is wrong what you’re doing. We have to go this way.” Or to stand up and say, “Well, I know we’re all kind of frightened to go out and speak about Jesus at the college, but I’m going to do it nonetheless.”

We all have to face that time when all of our companions abandon us. And God assures us that the answer to that is that the Lord Jesus will never abandon us. After his resurrection, before his ascension, he said: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

So, there is a call to live in community. But there’s also a realization that at times in the history of the church, in the history of any Christian, community will be shattered and our faith will be tested by our cleaving to Jesus Christ in the context of difficulties.

Jesus knew more about his disciples than they did. God knows us better than we can know ourselves. We don’t know ourselves very well. So, we should be very cautious about what we say about what we’ll do in the context of a trial.

I don’t remember where in the prophets it is, but at one point a man says, “You know, let not him boast who puts his armor on like him that boasts after he’s taken it off.” In other words, in your preparation for war, don’t boast. Then when you’ve done what you thought you were going to do and did it well, then you can say, “Praise God that he strengthened my hand to do this thing.” God would have us at that kind of seriousness of approaching our lives as well.

He knows them better. And the amazing thing about Jesus here—and see, this is the point of what the transition’s going to be next—the next thing that our savior says here, after he declares his unity with the Father. The amazing thing about Jesus is that he knows these men. He knew Peter would deny him. He knew they would be scattered. He knew that they had little faith. He knew they were overconfident and boasting and maybe even contradicted his words.

The amazing thing about Jesus is that he loves them through all of that. Remember, he said many months ago, when Jesus calls Peter and calls him Cephas, he sees potential in Peter that God is developing and will bring to pass—that Peter will become a rock. He knows this better than ourselves and he treats us that way. He doesn’t, you know, disdain us for our sins. You come together today to confess your sin before God. And Jesus doesn’t say, “Get out of here. You were faithless to me. Go away. I don’t like you.” Jesus loves through that because he has purposes and plans for you. And he loves you. And through all of that, he comes to today to remind you of your sin, but then also to tell you, “Be of good cheer.”

Because the message to Peter and the message to these disciples didn’t end with a prediction of their sinfulness. He immediately went on, in the text with Peter, to tell them to be of good courage. And he immediately goes on to the disciples, after asserting his unity with the Father, as the core foundation of what’s about to occur. He immediately goes on to talk about his purposes in bringing all of these things to pass.

So verse 33, and we’re now on outline number two. Now we come to the upper room discourse summarized in the last words, the final words. So these are the last words. This is the concluding summary of everything else in this discourse. And I’ve tried to give you some kind of sense of the flow of it as we’ve gone along for a couple of months—three months—in this discourse. And this text really summarizes what our savior was going to say.

His purpose, he’ll say, is peace for his people. A peace that is in him. The means will be encouragement in the context of trial. And the certitude of his accomplishment is that he is indeed the conqueror.

His purpose for his people.

Verse 33: “These things I’ve spoken unto you that in me you might have peace.” So in other words, he told them they’re going to sin. And he comes together, and he tells you, “Confess your sins today as you come before me to worship me.” He doesn’t do that to knock us down. He does that to build us up. These things—the prediction of our sin, the declaration that we have sinned, coming from the word of God every week—these things he speaks to us to the end, to the goal, that we might have peace.

Now, peace is that broad definition of the manifestation of the presence of God with his people, without sin, in the context of getting in the middle of all that. It’s not peace in the sense of the cessation of hostilities. It’s the kind of peace that we’re trying to achieve in Iraq. Peace is not “no guns being shot.” Peace is the presence of God. Guns aren’t being shot, but business is going on. Liberties are flourishing. People are coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. People are worshiping. And a regime is in place that reflects the fatherly care of God the Father in the context of the civil state. That’s peace. And this is what Jesus says he’s come to accomplish.

Now, there’s an inner peace that’s being spoken of here—there’s the assurance that our sins are forgiven us. And so in the case of Peter and in the case of the disciples, he immediately follows the conviction of sin with the statement that we can be of good courage, that he’s come to bring us peace. And so the goal of all these things is peace. He’s the Lord’s summation of this discourse: that he comes to bring peace for his people.

But again, as I said earlier, he says that in him we have peace. Our peace is not abstracted from the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn’t accomplish it, give it to us apart from abiding in him. He returns to the central theme: that peace is experienced only as we abide in him.

John 14:27 earlier in the discourse, the same theme had sounded: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives. Give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

Psalm 85, that we just read responsibly and sung, says: “He will speak peace unto his people.”

And now the great climactic moment of history has arrived, and the Lord Jesus Christ says that all of those prophecies of the new creation, the new world, the world now moving in the context of a visible manifestation of the kingdom of Christ—this has now come to pass. And he now comes to the earth, not to judge the world, not to bring destruction ultimately, but rather to speak peace unto his people, to say that the new world has begun and nothing will be the same ever again.

Micah 5:5 says that “this man shall be the peace.” Jesus is peace between man and God.

Philippians 4:7 says, “The peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Peace is central to the affirmation of the gospel of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:16, the benediction is, “Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you.” Peace in Christ, abiding in him in the context of his people and his word.

Hebrews 13:20: “The God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep.” And this God, the benediction says, will make us perfect in every good work to do his will. The purpose and goal of the upper room discourse, the purpose and goal of our savior’s advent, the end result of the suffering that we meditate on during the season of Lent, is that God speaks peace to his people.

Now, this is a message that needs to be heard. Needs to be heard every Lord’s day. Because we don’t have this experience of peace at all times. Things trouble us. The war is troubling many people. Families directly involved, friends of families directly involved. It’s anything but peace that goes on in the context of the emotional state of those that are directly involved in the conflict in Iraq. But it doesn’t take that kind of global event.

What it takes is a difficult relationship with one’s children, a difficult relationship with one’s siblings, difficult relationship with one’s mate, difficult relationship with those that should be our friends in church. Remember, we said that the great despair that reaches across the Christian culture from pole to pole in our day and age is the fear that communities simply cannot be entered into and lived in, that ultimately everybody will forsake us and be a Judas Iscariot, that ultimately we can’t build solid Christian marriages that look like we want them to look, and that ultimately the relationship to our Father is never what we want it to look like. And we’re agitated by these things. We’re emotionally upset. We don’t have the experience of peace.

But our savior tells us that this is the fact. This is what he has accomplished. This is his goal for us, that he has put into place is this peace. And this peace is accomplished through this means of encouragement in these very times of tribulation.

“I’ve spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation. Don’t we know it?” We know that in the world we shall have tribulation.

That song we sang earlier, “Let thy congregation escape tribulation.” Well, escape in the sense of going through it in a proper way, yes. Escape it ultimately and forever, no. Jesus tells his disciples—and then, in the world, you’ll have tribulation. He tells us throughout the New Testament that sufferings and trials and tribulations are part of our lot—not the only part. But in this world, we will have tribulation. We won’t have the experience of this peace that he said is his whole purpose for coming. But in the midst of these tribulations, he wants us to be of good cheer.

He gives us the encouragement and exhortation of this good cheer statement: “Take heart,” he says. The word, maybe more literally translated, is “be courageous.” “Be strong.” “Good cheer.” “Take heart in the midst of the problems in Iraq. Take heart. Be of good cheer in the context of family situations. Be of good cheer tomorrow when you go to the workplace and there’s great problems in the context of your relationship with fellow workers. Take heart when you can’t go to the workplace tomorrow and want to go to the workplace but you don’t have a job. Take heart when you go through the trials of having a vocation that isn’t satisfying like you’d want it to be. Take heart when people malign you and speak evil against you.” The Bible says, “Be of good cheer.” Jesus says that the goal of this whole statement to us—of the upper room discourse—the reason these things have been spoken to us is to cause us to abide in him and in him to have peace. And he knows that in this life, in the context of the world not being fully reborn, so to speak, we’ll have trials and tribulations. And he wants us to keep his gift to us of peace in mind as we go through those things, that we can be of good cheer in the context of difficulties.

So Calvin says, “We ought to attend first to this admonition: that all believers ought to be convinced that their life is exposed to many afflictions, that they may be disposed to exercise patience. Since therefore the world is like a troubled sea, true peace will be found nowhere but in Jesus Christ.”

Jesus tells us to fight against the feelings of a lack of peace, anxiety, struggles, trials, and tribulations. He tells us to positively grab a hold of our mental attitudes and the temptations to depression, fear, or worry. To grab a hold of those and to engage in an active assertion that we might be of good cheer in the context of these difficulties. He wants us to fight against these feelings that we have that plague us in the context of trials and tribulations.

And we know that this is what happens in Acts 5:41. The disciples were going through great persecution at the hands of the Sanhedrin. It says “they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Again, Lent is a season of meditation on the sufferings that we go through. And if you’re suffering today and are prone to depression, to anxiety, to fear, or to worry about the events of the day—whether they’re international or right in your own kitchen—Jesus tells you today, “Be of good cheer. Grab a hold of yourselves. Be courageous. Be strong. And look to the future confidently.”

The basis for this—the certitude of the accomplishment of this peace and the maintenance of good attitudes in the face of trials and tribulations—is the concluding statement of this discourse. “Be of good cheer. Why? I have overcome the world.”

This is the last words of the last words, right? The last words of the last words. This is the ultimate statement of what is going on. And he tells us that 2,000 years ago, in his incarnation, and then in the “little while” that was going to happen, he has overcome the world. An accomplished fact. Our being of good cheer is not a mental exercise in optimism apart from realities. It is the extension of the belief in the reality that Jesus Christ has indeed conquered the world.

We are not to be ones who back down in the face of trials and tribulations, whether they’re interior to our own sin and difficulties, whether in our family or in the world or in Iraq. We don’t look at the events that transpired this morning with the capturing of some of our prisoners and their brutal execution. We don’t back down from the mission that God has called us to do. We be of good cheer and courageous in the context of that because we know that history moves in accordance with this simple fact: “I have conquered the world.”

Now, this Greek word is “Nike.” We know the little shoe with the little arrow. It means victory. It means conquering. It was the word that the Caesars used. It was the word that the Greeks used in terms of conquering enemies. This is not some kind of getting us by in the world through the solace that Jesus affords us. This is a statement of radical victory accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ in this world. And this is the basis for the peace. This is why we can be of good cheer because of the historical fact that Jesus Christ has conquered the world.

This is a word of triumph to us. And it’s not a triumph that we fail to share. The scriptures are quite clear that we share in this triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1 John 5:4: “Whatsoever is born of God overcomes”—has victory over—”the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.” That active belief that takes actions in the world is the faith that overcomes the world. This is the victory that overcomes and conquers the world, even our faith. The Lord Jesus Christ has ascended to the Father. He has sent us the spirit to minister Christ to us. We walk as Christians, and Christians are to be conquerors, winners, defeaters of enemies. That’s who Jesus is. And 1 John 5:4 says that’s who we are.

The letter to the seven churches in Revelation says over and over: “He that overcomes, he that conquers both his own sin and those that sin and attack the church of Jesus Christ and attack the honor of God in the world—we’re to overcome those people. We’re to be victorious. We enter into this combat of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Our Lord does not intend that our minds shall be cast down, but rather that we shall fight keenly. Which is impossible if we’re not guaranteed of success or victory.

As Calvin said, “If we must fight while we are uncertain as to the result, all of our zeal will quickly vanish. When therefore Christ calls us to the contest, he arms us with assured confidence of victory. Though still we must toil hard, the victory is ensured.”

This is what the context of the world is all about: the victory of Jesus Christ being played out in history.

2 Corinthians 13:11: “Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace. The God of love and peace shall be with you.” Peace is the result of the conquering of Christ. The disintegration of the old empires so that the new one might be raised up, that is obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is a victor and conqueror, and he expects us to be as well.

There’s a nice picture of this in 1 Samuel 17:51-52. It says, “Therefore, David ran and stood upon the Philistine and took his sword, drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him and cut off his head therewith. Okay, so David goes out to do combat against the representative of the Philistines, conquers him, stands on him, cuts off his head.

And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. And the men of Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines until they came to the valley and to the gates of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Sharim, even unto Gath and even unto Ekron.

See, this is a picture foreshadowing what would happen. Jesus Christ has come and done definitive battle with the prince of this world. Remember the references to that earlier in the discourse. He has overcome the world by overcoming the prince of the world, and then by overcoming the false church, who represents the prince of the world. Which means the whole world is conquered by Christ. David has come—the greater David has come. Dealt with the greater Goliath. We’ll see him standing on the place of the skull here in a few weeks as we go on in John’s narrative of the crucifixion.

Jesus has crushed the head of the prince of this world. And he expects us not to sit back and say, “Isn’t that nice?” He expects us to actively walk in the same way that he walks, to rush forward into the battle ourselves, conquering our sins and the manifestations of sins in the context of our culture.

This is the great climactic verse of this upper room discourse, of Christ’s sayings to his disciples. Let me read Lenski’s commentary on this. The great Lutheran commentator. “Serene and majestic is this final word in the last discourse. Jesus has conquered all the powers of evil, as centered in the hostile world. All his last words pulsate with this victory and triumph. This fact stands. The disciples believe that fact. All they need is to get the power, courage, and joy of it into their hearts, to be of good courage. In trying to achieve this for them, Jesus is not working merely for immediate results. He knows all things, also the limitations of the present power for his disciples, which however shall soon pass. Then the full peace and joy shall fill their hearts when they realize indeed that Jesus has conquered the world.”

He’s going to look like he loses, but Resurrection Sunday, they’ll see that he wins. And that is important for us. It’s the basis for our victory. It’s what motivates us to work against the trials and tribulations, the lack of feelings of peace that we have.

See, Jesus didn’t come to assure us of our sinlessness. He came to convince us that we’re like Peter and the disciples. We’re going to fall in some ways. We’re going to fail in some ways. Every failing will be an abandonment of Christ. A failure to do as Peter said he would do, to lay down his life for the savior. That’s what our sins are this week. When we sin this week, it’s because we’re not laying down our life for the life of Christ. It’s an abandonment of him and his people. It’s a going our own way to our own home instead of seeing all these places as his places.

He knows that we’ll fail. But he tells us that in spite of all of that, his victory over the world doesn’t rest on our shoulders. It rests on his shoulders. The good news is that victory has been won. And that victory is victory over your sin as well. He’s going to make you more steadfast in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As time goes by, he has overcome the world. Simple fact. This discourse concludes on his great statement: “He has overcome the world.” He has the victory, and the victory is ours in Christ.

Now, I want to say a little bit in closing here about this victory and how it relates to the events in Iraq. And this won’t be long. I’ve mentioned several times now that this gospel, this good news, is the outworking of something that’s changed. The gospel is news. Something new has happened in the world. And it is wonderful news.

And the gospel, I think here—the gospel of John and its message to the disciples and its message to us—is summarized in this statement: “Jesus Christ has conquered the world.”

When the early disciples, when the apostles in the book of Acts would go places, they wouldn’t tell them, “Well, I know things used to be bad and God used to punish sin, but now we want you to know the message of the mercy of Christ and no punishment’s going to come.” That’s not what changed. In fact, the apostles said it was exactly the reverse. Paul told pagans that in the past, God winked at these sins. He overlooked them to a degree. But now, because Jesus has come, he will not overlook evil in the world the way he did prior to that coming. If anything, the gospel is not about the movement away from judgment to now grace and mercy. It’s because of the grace and mercy extended by Christ that judgment is now increased in the world. And that’s why the Holy Spirit comes and is described as a warrior—to bring conviction to the world.

The gospel is that men like Saddam Hussein are being eliminated by God in history. The gospel is that most nations now are not like Iraq. The gospel is that while nations used to rape women and torture people and rule by overt power and persecute anybody that didn’t believe them—that’s the way the world used to work in tribal periods. Now, the way the world works for the last 2,000 years is that those kind of evil men are being destroyed from off the face of the world.

There was a little discussion on the BBS this week. One of the men quoted President Eisenhower. Let’s see. Eisenhower said, “When people speak to you about a preventive war, you might—you should go and tell them to go and fight it.” After my experience, Eisenhower said, “I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.” That’s what Eisenhower said.

Burke Shade wrote a response to that. He said, “Well, you know, I—he didn’t say this, but from one perspective, we understand that from one perspective, we know that physical might is not the way that kingdom ultimately progresses, right? We sing that song, you know: ‘Not with Lord’s wars loud clashing or sound of stirring drums, but with deeds of love and kindness, the heavenly kingdom comes.’ And there’s certainly a truth to that. And there’s somewhat of a truth to what Eisenhower said. But but I think we fall into a real problem when we think that way.”

Burke said this: “I don’t think we ought to stand behind this kind of statement because it seems to undermine God’s uses of war. War does settle things.” Burke wrote, “Yet won back Lot from the hands of Chedorlaomer, who was wrongly stolen from Sodom. So Lot was stolen from Sodom. It was war that restored him back to Abram. It cleansed the land of Israel of God’s enemies, punishing them for the sins they had accumulated. It killed Saul, enabling David to come to the throne. It established peace during David and Solomon’s rule so that every Israelite could sit under his vine and fig tree. It ended wicked Samaria’s life and punished Judah for her idolatry. It ended the old covenant decisively in A.D. 70 so that the church was left standing in all her glory and even helped build this nation.”

Burke said, “So I think Burke is right.” In the scriptures, we want to be very careful that we don’t fall into this trap of saying that in the Old Testament, there was this two-edged sword that was used in Psalm 149 to bring vengeance against God’s enemies. But in the New Testament, the two-edged sword is simply the proclamation of the gospel and the physical sword is now not in place. No. God uses two swords in the context of the world. He uses the sword of the civil state to bring his justice upon evildoers. That’s the whole purpose of the civil magistrate. The primary purpose is given to us in Romans 13: to judge evildoers, to exercise a physical sword against them.

Now, the sword of the church does have acts of mercy and kindness, but certainly its use of the sword is to speak about the grace of Christ to men who have been properly chastened by the sword of the army.

I guess what I’m saying is that when Jesus says he’s overcome the world, I interpret the events of the day, the events of the last week, as being a reflection of that victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a nation, our nation—whether we know the men directly in control of this war are applying good, solid biblical principles the way we would or not, whether we know their state of regeneracy or not—but we have a nation formed by Christian values and principles. And you see that at work in this war. I praise God for the decapitation strategy.

Remember when someone came and preached to us about the text with Saul and Agag? The way pagans wage war is to let the other king live because he’s royalty. He’s a strong leader, and he’s to be respected because of his strength and his ability to wage war. That is pagan war. Christian war attempts to cut off the head. That’s what Jesus says he has done. He goes for the head, the prince of this world. And he expects us to do the same thing in war. We don’t want to wage war against the Iraqi people. We want to wage war against the head who has led that nation in the wrong direction into attacks upon us. And so he cuts off the head. Praise God. That’s Christian warfare.

And Christian warfare was reflected by the kind of precision way we’ve conducted this war. You know, it’s almost as if God is omniscient and God is omnipotent. He brings his knowledge and his power together to affect his decree in the world, to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior. And American might has reached a degree of technology that’s been wedded to its power to enable them not to kill innocent civilians. That’s biblical warfare—to not kill non-combatants. And we make multi-billion dollar efforts to attain the well-being of citizens, non-combatants in conflict. That’s Christian warfare.

And when we go in there, we don’t rape women. That’s what they do. That’s what the evil regime in Iraq does. And that’s what other evil regimes have done for the last 6,000 years. You know, in Judges, we had that movie seminar, and the man spoke about some of the actual way some of these verses should be translated. In Judges 5, in Deborah’s song, they’re kind of mocking Sisera’s mother because Sisera’s mother is crying out, “A maiden or two, a damsel or two,” it says in the King James version, “for every warrior.” Sisera’s men went in to conquer Israel, thinking that every man, every warrior could have a damsel or two of Israel for his pleasure. And that’s what it means. And literally in the text, it is more graphic than that.

That’s the way evil men conduct warfare. This country conducts warfare by bringing not rapists along but rather bringing deeds of love and kindness. The ships are already there to unload humanitarian aid for that nation. Now, that’s biblical warfare—to try to extend both swords, as it were.

Jesus says that he’s overcome the world, and for 2,000 years, godly Christian regimes have engaged in the proper use of warfare to extend the manifestation of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The gospel in its application to today is: may America win, and may she win quickly, and may the evildoers in Iraq be brought to either repentance or to their knees in repentance or brought to the grave, that their evil heads may be smitten high and neck. That’s the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The end result of military victory in these kind of affairs is a financial relationship being able to develop. Our businessmen can engage in commerce, which is biblical. They can bring justice and righteousness to the economic sphere, which is a further manifestation of the reign of Christ. The gospel will flow in a very deliberate way through mission activities—and has already through the chaplains and the men that are there. And the gospel will penetrate that region.

Another sign of Christian warfare is we’re not forcing people to convert to Christianity or face the sword and get their heads locked off. No, physical warfare cannot affect ultimately the manifestation of the kingdom. It is used by God as part of that means. But the gospel grows through the proclamation of the truth of Christ. And what happens is when God judges evil men and evil nations, he makes way for prosperity, for the gospel by providing the kind of well-being in the culture, of equity and justice in civil and economic spheres, that allow for the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We have a text before us here then that has application once more—as the text of scripture always does—to very specific problems that we deal with on a daily basis: anxieties and difficulties. “Be of good cheer.” That’s the gospel message for you today. Christ has overcome your sins and all the sins of those that you contend with. And this text applies as well to the geopolitical matters going on. We can say we should be of cheerful countenance and courageous countenance in the face of this war because God’s kingdom is being extended.

The victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over his enemies is being portrayed on international television. The deeds of a Christian nation are being broadcast, and Jesus Christ is waging war in his providence against men who have horribly perverted the image of God that they have as men. And we can say that this text brings us confidence and assurance in the small affairs of our lives, and it brings us confidence and assurance in the large geopolitical affairs as well.

Jesus Christ is now King of Kings and Lord of Lords in a way that he wasn’t for 4,000 years. In a way that is now more visible and more manifested in the context of his victory over the prince of this world and over the world itself. Jesus has assured us with his coming: all things have changed. He assures us that his victory is ours. He tells us we’re going to have trials and tribulations. We’re going to have difficulties in the war. We’re going to have difficulties in our homes and in our families and in our workplace. But he tells us today: the gospel is “be of good cheer.” He has overcome the world. He has defeated your sin, and he has defeated men who refuse to turn from their sins. This is goo