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Newington Three Angels Church

Eric Walsh

The Trouble With Trouble

Our scripture reading comes from the book of John, the 16th chapter.

John's chapter 16, starting at verse 33, says, These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled, The Trouble with Trouble.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

I pray now, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would be poured out upon this place in double and triple portion.

Father God, fill us and this place with the person of the Holy Ghost.

Father God I ask that you make me just a nail on the wall, a rusty sorry nail Lord, but upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Let me not be seen or heard instead, Father.

Let us hear a word from the throne room of grace.

So we're going to start in the book of John, the 13th chapter.

I'll give you a little bit of background.

We're just talking about communion, and communion was given to us, in a sense, at the Last Supper.

Jesus had just talked to his disciples and warned them of the troubles that were coming.

He told them that they needed to love each other and told them that he was going to have to go away.

In John 13 and verse 21, the Bible says that after Jesus told them all of this, he was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that 1 of you shall betray me.

Then the disciples looked 1 on another, doubting of whom he speak.

Now there was 1, there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, 1 of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

When Jesus announces to his disciples, the 12 of them are there, and he says that 1 of them is going to betray him, I would imagine the room broke out in pandemonium.

3 and a half years, they'd walked with Jesus, worked miracles, even the disciples worked miracles.

They watched 5, 000 men, not including women and children, fed from 2 loaves, from 2 fish and 5 loaves.

They watched all the miracles the deaf could hear, the blind could see.

They watched Lazarus get out of the tomb and walk?

The scripture says in verse 23 that 1 disciple is leaning on Christ's bosom.

And I love how this disciple is described, it is the 1 whom Jesus loved.

Now, the only person that kind of writes that is John when he's writing about himself.

He never says his own name, he's too humble for that, So he just says the 1 whom Jesus loved.

It is John who is writing this great gospel.

In fact, when people ask me where they should start reading the Bible, my response is always start in the book of John.

Once you understand who Jesus is, the rest of the Bible makes a whole lot more sense.

In fact, I want to show you a little bit of the seating.

We often think that they would have been sitting at tables with chairs like we do, but in fact, they would have been sitting around a table like this.

They would lay kind of sideways on the floor or sit with their legs folded under them around the table.

So it makes sense when you say that 1 of them would kind of be in his bosom if they were lean and 1 of them actually could.

In order for our story to make sense, Judas would have been on 1 side of Jesus, Jesus here, John here, Peter would have just been away here.

They would have been sitting having this supper.

John 13 24 says, Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.

He then lying on Jesus' breast, John, saith unto him, Lord, who is it?

Peter's kind of a, maybe a little bit of a gossip.

So he whispers over to John, ask him who's going to betray him.

John is right there and just asks the Lord, who is it?

Jesus answered, he it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.

And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.

You would think the secret was out of the bag, but the disciples don't get it.

They think, you know, maybe something else is going on.

But verse 27 says this, And after the sop Satan entered into him, entered into Judas, then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest, do quickly.

If you understand prophecy, there is a reason, there's urgency in this verse of scripture because there is a 490 day, a 70 week prophecy, and in that last week, in the middle of the week, the Messiah is to be cut off.

The prophecy is so precise that there is an exact hour and day that Christ is to be sacrificed as the lamb, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

He's basically telling Judas, we are on a clock.

If you are going to be the 1 to do it, hurry up.

Scripture says that he then having received the sop, went immediately out and it was night.

Judas goes into the night on the clock, he goes into the night spiritually into darkness.

Little children, yet a little while, and I am with you.

You shall seek me, And as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye cannot come.

So now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love 1 another as I have loved you, that ye also love 1 another.

By this all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love 1 for another.

So after Judas gets up and walks out, Jesus is telling them, listen, you've gotta love 1 another.

And let me tell you something, I'll just stick this in here.

1 of the reasons churches do not succeed in the modern era is because there is often more fighting in church than loving.

There's often more jockeying, more envy, more jealousy, more difficulty, more strife.

If we really come to a place where we can move into love, and I don't mean us here, I mean globally as a church, powerful things begin to happen.

Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou?

Jesus answered him, where I go, you cannot follow me.

Not now, but you shall follow me afterwards.

Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now?

Peter then says, I will lay down my life for thy sake.

Clear if Peter understood what happened with Judas, but here he wants to make the point to Jesus that he will go the full length for him.

Jesus said unto him, will thou lay down thy life for my sake?

Verily, verily, I say unto you, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.

The cock shall not crow, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me 3 times.

I can only imagine the way Peter felt when he heard these words.

Peter was a very confident, cocky disciple.

In fact, Peter, in my opinion, spends the entire 3 and a half years before the cross trying to figure out how he can be vice president when Jesus takes over the kingdom.

To hear these words was difficult for Peter.

And we're gonna see that Judas goes in 1 direction, Peter fails and still fails, but goes in a different direction.

In fact, Luke gives us a little more color.

He says, and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.

I wanna submit to you, church, that every day, before we get up and go about our business, the enemy is plotting our demise.

In fact, the spirit of prophecy tells us that if we could see the battle that was going on between the good angels and the evil angels over our souls, we would never leave our houses.

In fact, the enemy is so slick that even today, he is plotting the demise of our children for 10 years from now.

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The Trouble With Trouble

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