SWEET PEACE FOR TRIED BELIEVERS – Charles Spurgeon
SWEET PEACE FOR TIRED BELIEVERS
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” — John 16:33.
THIS most delightful passage occurs at the close of the last of our Savior’s sermons before He went to the Father. Let us treasure it as we lay up a man’s last words. Wonderfully full is that sermon—it is of a piece with His last prayer—and that rises above all other pleadings of men! This farewell discourse may occupy but a short space in Scripture, but the thoughts suggested by it are so many that I suppose that the world itself might hardly contain the books that might fairly be written upon it. It took our Lord but a moment to speak some of its sentences—it will take us a lifetime to fully understand them! Perhaps we never shall understand some of these gracious sayings till we have put away all childish things and shall have come to the fullness of the stature of men in Christ Jesus. We shall never see all the richness of the Grace of this sermon till we have risen beyond these mists and clouds into the clearer atmosphere of the unclouded skies. In that Happy Country, being ourselves raised to a nobler condition, we shall be better able to comprehend the deep things of God, concerning which our Savior spoke in His supreme discourse. Meanwhile, let us apply our heart and mind to the consideration of these last Words of the greatest of all Preachers, the dearest of all Teachers, and may the Spirit of our God open them up to us!
The Preaching of Jesus Christ: Practical and Focused
Observe concerning the preaching of our Lord Jesus how eminently practical it is. You never find in the Master’s speaking a single sentence spoken for what orators use to call “effect.” He never introduces a pretty bit here and there to let men see how poetical His mind could be. He never goes a little aside to introduce something which was quite unnecessary to the display of the subject but very necessary to the display of the orator. Nothing so little, so self-seeking, ever governs the mind of Jesus. Far from it! His soul goes with His subject, and He has no second objective—He would convey His meaning to His hearers, and His mind is concentrated on that aim. He keeps hard at it, steadily driving at His point, and He always speaks with the one desire that the Truth should go home to the heart and should be blessed to the hearer. Hence He adopted the method in this instance of summing up and doing what the old divines used to call “making the improvement” at the end, when the Truths of God which they had spoken were turned to practical account, and the uses of the topic were enlarged upon. We might have found out, perhaps, by diligent study, what the practical drift of the Savior’s discourse was, for it is never difficult for a spiritual mind to perceive His drift, but He meant not only that we might possibly see what He was aiming at, but that we should be sure of seeing it—and so He puts it into the plainest language and says, “These things have I spoken to you, that in Me you might have peace.”
If this was our Lord’s objective, I do not doubt that He had fully accomplished it! All that He had said tended to produce peace in His disciples’ hearts, but He knew that their minds were dark—that they had but slight capacity as yet, and so, in His infinite tenderness, He told them, as one might tell a child, what He intended His address to produce. We thank Him for this and herein would we endeavor to emulate Him. We hope that our friends will always bear with us when we try to be very plain and simple—and spend much of our strength in pointing out what is the practical bearing of the Truth which we are teaching. It will be better to be considered needlessly explicit than to miss the end we have in view.
The Purpose of Christ’s Ministry: Bringing Peace
Let us greatly prize this conclusion of the Savior’s ministry! It is all the more endeared to some of us by the fact that our Lord finished as He began. He is our peace. He came to bring it, and He left it behind Him as He went away. Even before He had commenced His life-work, it was announced of Him that He came to bring “peace on earth, good will toward men.” And before He is taken up, His last Words must necessarily be, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.” It was meet that He should close the service of His life wherein He had preached peace, by pronouncing this as His benediction. “These things have I spoken to you, that in Me you might have peace.”
I. The Believer in Christ: Peace in Him
First, you have THE BELIEVER IN CHRIST spoken of in reference to his peace. Jesus says—“That in Me you might have peace.” It is worthy of careful consideration that in Jesus, Himself, there was always an abiding peace present. He had peace. If He had not, Himself, possessed peace, we could not have had peace in Him. But what a holy calm there was upon the spirit of our Divine Master! Read His life through and dwell upon any one delightful characteristic, and you will find Him perfect. But if you study it carefully in order to remark upon His manliness, His self-possession, His calm and peaceful bearing in the midst of turmoil and provocation, you will find Him to be a master of the art of peace. Truly in patience He possessed His soul! Never man had more to disturb Him, but never man was less disturbed! He could not be turned aside from anything which He had resolved to do, for He set His face like a flint and, in the doing of it, He could not be excited or discouraged, for His spirit was not of this changing world. Men might oppose Him, but He endured great contradiction of sinners against Himself with marvelous long-suffering.
The Holy Presence of God in Christ
The background of the life of Christ is the Omnipresence of the Father. Wherever you see Him—if you see Him quite alone when every disciple has forsaken Him—you see this text expounded, “You will leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” Now, this fact that He felt the Presence of the Father and did not occasionally speak to God, but dwelt with Him— that He did not resort to God as a make-shift in time of trouble, but abode with God at all times and so kept His spirit above everything that would draw it down—this it was that filled Him with an unbroken peace. Even Gethsemane did not break that peace! Covered with the bloody sweat, He still cries, “Not as I will, but as You will.”
Peace in Christ: The Believer’s Rest
Now this is the peace that Christ offers us. Christ has peace enough and to spare! He is, Himself, personally, the deep well-spring of an endless peace and, therefore, we can understand why we always find peace in Him. One calm and quiet man has sometimes spread peace through what otherwise would have been terrified company. One Paul standing in the sinking ship saves all from ruin by the majesty of His immovable courage. And one Christ—such a Christ as ours—in the midst of a Church turns a horde of cowards into an army of heroes! His infinite peace breathes peace into our vacillating spirits. We rest because we see how He rests.
II. The Believer in the World: Tribulation
Now, let us briefly consider THE BELIEVER IN THE WORLD. Jesus says, “In the world you will have tribulation.” That is, first, you are not screened from any kind of trouble. You are in Christ, and the Savior saves you from your sins, but He has not promised that you will have no sorrow. He has not promised to screen you from poverty, toil, sickness, slander, or any of the common ills of mankind. Some of the very best of His beloved have been enriched and indulged by being permitted to undergo much secret discipline of pain, sorrow, and need. Your Lord, among the treasures that He gives you, grants a cross. You start back and say, “Not that, Lord!” but He answers, “Yes, this, My child. This and no other.”
The Cross and Tribulation
The cross is the best piece of furniture in your house, though you have sometimes wished it was not there. It shall always work your good—it works it now. Some of the comforts allotted to you in Providence will be questionable in their effect upon you, by reason of your sinfulness and weakness. But the cross which the Lord appoints you has no result but your good! It is a bitter tree, apparently, but it is a healthful medicine. Take it, child of God! Plant it and let it grow—and its fruit shall be sweet.
III. The Believer in the World and in Christ: Victory
Now, lastly, let us view THE BELIEVER IN THE WORLD AND IN CHRIST—and this means victory! I call your special attention to the words of our Lord Jesus in the text— “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Our Lord was, all that time, still in the world. Do you know where Christ was when He said that? Why, He was on the edge of Gethsemane! He was at the foot, so to speak, of Golgotha—where He was to die! He had not then borne the scourge and the Cross. But I dare not lay my hand upon my Master and say, “Good Lord, You have made a mistake. You have not yet overcome, for the worst part of the battle has not come to You.” He knew what He said and made no error in saying it.
Christ Overcame the World: The Victory Belongs to Us
He spoke in the Prescience of faith. He took for granted that He would overcome the world, for the Father was with Him! But up to that point, it was assuredly true, as it was even to the end, that He had really overcome the world. Its blandishments He had overcome. Its temptations He had overcome. Its terrors He had overcome. Its errors He had overcome. Everything in the world that had assailed Him, He had put to the rout. He was tempted in all points like as we are, but He remained without sin. He had overcome everything that had come to attack His holiness, His patience, His self-sacrifice—He had been victor at every point!
The Victory in Christ: Assurance for the Believer
Now, here is a matter of joyful consideration—our Lord says, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The cheer lies in the fact that He is one with us and we are one with Him. He does as good as say, “I have overcome the world and you are in Me, your Head. My overcoming of the world belongs to you. I, your Leader, have overcome the world for you. I have led the way in this dread fight and conquered the adversaries which you have now to fight with. And thus I have virtually won the battle before you begin it.”
Conclusion: The Believer’s Victory and Assurance
We derive, then, from the fact that Christ has overcome, the assurance that we shall overcome, since we are one with Him, members of His body and parts of Himself! O Brothers and Sisters, you must fight your way through. You cannot quit this conflict. You have to cut your way through a solid wall of difficulties—there is no other course! But you are going to do it. You will do it! A great commander commences a campaign. Does he desire that there shall be no battle? If so, how is it a war? How is he a soldier? He certainly can send home no reports of victory if there is no fighting.
Onward, then, you Christian soldiers! Let your drooping hearts be glad; march in heavenly armor clad. Let not the brightness of your armor be stained by the rust of fear! You shall overcome as surely as your Lord has overcome. If you commit yourself to His keeping and abide in Him who is All in All to you, no defeat can possibly befall you. I have this last word to add. There may be some here who will say, “Look, look. These Christian people have plenty of trouble.” That is quite true, but they are not the only ones to be pitied—“Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.”
The wicked shall find that there are special sorrows for them—whips of scorpions for them, especially when they get farther on in life—and their youthful fires burn down to a black ash. Woe unto sinners when they have to reap the fruits of their evil deeds! O Sirs, I would not go through life without a Savior, as you do, no, not if I might be made an emperor! To have to fight this life-battle without Christ is sure defeat! What a discovery it will be when, having struggled through one life of sorrow, you shall find yourself beginning another life of greater sorrow which will never come to an end!
Final Call to Salvation
It is an awful thing for a man to go from Hell to Hell—to make this world a Hell and then find another Hell in the next world! But it were a blessed thing to go through 50 hells to Heaven, if such a thing could be. It is glorious to struggle on through poverty, sickness, persecution and to hear, at last, the word, “Well done!” That will be glorious! Who aspires to it? God help each one of us to labor after it and give us strength to carry on the holy war and fight it through, even to the end! But if you are wrapping yourselves up in these poor joys, these wretched rags of earth—and are living to make money, or to get drink, or to enjoy yourselves in the hurtful luxuries of lust—God have mercy upon you and save you! Hear the Gospel, each one of you! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” The Lord lead you to do so, for His name’s sake! Amen.
Charles Spurgeon