Charles Spurgeon take on John 16:33

John 16:33 (ESV) … “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.”

So, brethren, let us go back to the world and its tribulations without fear. Its trials cannot hurt us. In the process we shall get good, as the wheat doth out of the threshing. Let us go forth to combat the world, for it cannot overcome us. There was never a man yet with the life of God in his soul whom the whole world could subdue; nay, all the world and hell together cannot conquer the veriest babe in the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lo, ye are harnessed with salvation, ye are panoplied with omnipotence, your heads are covered with the aegis of the atonement, and Christ himself, the Son of God, is your captain. Take up your battle cry with courage, and fear not, for more is he that is for you than all they that be against you. It is said of the glorified saints, “They overcame through the blood of the Lamb”; “and this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith,” wherefore be ye steadfast, even to the end, for ye shall be more than conquerors through him that hath loved you. Amen.[1]

What was true when Spurgeon preached this passage so many years ago, is still true today. Furthermore, it is as true today as it was on the day that Jesus gave us this promise.

[1] Spurgeon, C. H. (1876). Christ, the Overcomer of the World. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 22, p. 684). London: Passmore & Alabaster.