“YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION!”

 John 16:29-33                     (ESV)

“[29] HIS (JESUS’) disciples said, “Ah, now YOU are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! [30] Now we know that YOU know all things and do not need anyone to question YOU; this is why we believe that YOU came from GOD.” [31] JESUS answered them, DO YOU NOW BELIEVE?  [32] Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, WHEN YOU WILL BE SCATTERED, each to his own home, and WILL LEAVE ME ALONE. Yet I am not alone, FOR THE FATHER IS WITH ME. [33] I have said these things to you, that IN ME YOU MAY HAVE PEACE. In the world “YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION”. But TAKE HEART; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD.”

John 17 is one of my favorite passages Scripture in the whole BIBLE!  In the passage of Scripture above, JESUS is just about to pray the HIGH PRIESTLY PRAYER  in John 17.  The RIGHTEOUS SON OF GOD is awesomely close to completing HIS earthly purpose, to REDEEM the sins of the world!  But humanity has the tendency to try to act as though the verse prior to John 17 was written!!

But regardless of what some people think and say, JESUS never promised that HIS CHOSEN wouldn’t experience TRIBULATION!  As a matter of fact, in verse 33 above HE PLAINLY states “…IN ME YOU MAY HAVE PEACE. In the world “YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION.”  But TAKE HEART; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD!”  The pain that lay in the next few days was something that HE, the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSES, had NEVER EXPERIENCED!  Being separated from HIS FATHER was something that had never happened!  

In the final phrase of the sixteenth chapter of John JESUS says I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD, even though death, hell, the cross and the grave was still in HIS future.  But JESUS KNEW that HE had come to “this world” for a PURPOSE, so HE PROCLAIMED something that ONLY HE could say!!!  

The disciples weren’t “super-beings” who were living above sin!  Within a few verses EVERY ONE OF THEM would FLEE from even knowing JESUS!  Were they WEAK and timid?  Or were they simply doing what HE said they would do when HE said YOU WILL LEAVE ME ALONE???  When JESUS said “YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION” HE might have said that to inform me that my sins are made to prove that JESUS can LOVE even the WORST of people!! JESUS CHOSE ME BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD (Ephesians 1:4), but “YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION” is a PROMISE in Scripture that most people want to ignore???  “YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION!!!”