you would please go ahead and turn in your Bibles to John. Like usual we have John chapter As usual, we have overlap in the various gospels. I believe this is another one where we find all four gospels contain this account, which means if God repeats it, it's important, amen? So we're gonna read the passage out of John. For no other reason than it's my favorite, and we can't read all of them, so we're gonna read John chapter 18, verse one. And it says here, when Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Hedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place, for Jesus oft times resorted thither with his disciples. Judas then, having received a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? This is why we read the John passages. I love this section. They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto him, I am he. If you're reading in a King James Bible, he is italicized. If you have a King James Bible, they put implied words in italics. But the actual words in this case, the Greek, are in regular. So, for our understanding, they add the italics in there, but they left them in italics so we would know what was written and what was there to help us. So really, in the Greek, it says, they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus saith unto him, I am. Pretty interesting. And Judas also, which betrayed him, stood with them. And look at verse six, as soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backwards and fell to the ground. I love that part. It's not in our outline today, I just love it. Just the power of God. Verse seven, then asked he them again, whom seek he? And apparently they had already gotten back up and they said Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled which he spake of them, which thou gavest me have I lost none. Then Simon Peter, this is gonna be what our message is gonna be mostly about. Verse 10, then Simon Peter having a sword drew it and smote the high priest servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath, the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? Then the band, and the captain, and the officers of the Jews took Jesus, and bound him, and led him away to Annas first, And he was father-in-law to Caiaphas, which was the high priest this same year. Now Caiaphas was he which gave counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should die for the people." Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get into the lesson today. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we do need you today. I need you. Your word is just so powerful, and sometimes I don't always know exactly how to say things, but Lord, I ask that you would empower the words spoken here today. Would we be open to your word, and would we learn? Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Now if you've been going to church for very long, you know the story. Partly because it's action filled, it's fun to preach, it's a good lesson. But here, our lesson is titled, A Lesson on Forbearance. And I have to be honest with you, I had to look this word up. I had an idea of what it was. The word is found in the scripture, in the New Testament, pretty often. I'm gonna read several passages to you. But I looked up, in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, forbearance means a refraining from the enforcement something, such as, this is in parentheses, such as a debt, right, or obligation that is due. So, basically this is implying there are times when ill is due to people we interact with, and forbearance is not giving that ill to them, I should say, forbearance. You say, oh, well, that's pretty simple, and I would say it's easier said than done, amen? Have you ever acted impetuously We're using a lot of big words today. Maybe you haven't, but maybe somebody else has. I hear, and I've seen this, that they have things online at these online stores. I don't remember exactly, I think they're called Quick Buy or something like that, where you're in a store and you don't even have to click on the item online. and then add to cart and then check out. But you'll just be scrolling and you can press a little button and it automatically adds it to your cart and you can check out. What would we call that? Impulse buying, right? And stores that know how to use that against us, right? Impetuous or impetuosity is not exactly impulse, but it's a result of impulse. In Psalm 27 verse 14 it says, wait on the Lord. Now we have plaques that say, wait on the Lord. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles and so on. And there's an idea out there that waiting is going to your lazy boy and propping your feet up. But that's not the case. We're going to look at the opposite of waiting. We're going to go to the opposite. I want to go to our first point. It's the betrayal. But the betrayal. B-E-T-R-A-Y-A-L. The betrayal. God gives us a great example in His own person. of how we should act. Now, I know personally, maybe this isn't for everybody, but I know personally that I don't always like to compare myself with God. You know why? It makes me look really bad. It's that simple. I feel completely inadequate, but what does God say? Humble yourself, where? In the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. God gives an example, Psalm 86, verse 15, it says, but thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. He set the example. James 1 chapter 1 verse 19 through 20 says, Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. My teachers in elementary school would say it this way, God gave you two ears and one mouth. You should act accordingly. Right? Proverbs 16, verse 32, he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Now, I have to admit, I grew up on watching some John Waynes. I'm sure you guys know, I hope you do. I was talking to some Gen Zers, they had no idea who John Wayne was. No idea who John Wayne was. I thought, you don't know? But there's this idea that if you're gonna be a man, nowadays, men are not exactly manly enough. Maybe they could use little John Wayne, right? But there was an idea back in the day that if you're gonna be a man, you're gonna be like John Wayne. Let me ask you a question. Was John Wayne really a man? Oh yeah, I mean, he exhibited manly features. I think it wasn't all bad. But what was he constantly doing? Getting in bar fights? Swearing, you know? The Bible says here, he that is what? Slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he that ruleth his spirit, then he that taketh the city. I'm still listening to the same book, because it's like 126 hours. I'll probably be listening to it for a very long time. But it's called The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's very interesting. But it reminds me of the last stand, I think it was of the Maccabean Revolt. This is in, I think, the first century AD. if I'm remembering, around that, maybe before Christ, maybe a little after. The dates are messing up in my mind. Well, anyway, there was a Roman general, a Roman, who was besieging a fortress. And I believe the fortress was named Masada. You guys have visited it, right? And I've seen pictures of this fortress. And I remember saying, oh, well, why would it be very hard to get in this fortress? There's this huge earthwork that works all the way up to the top. And it's like, couldn't you just drive up there? I go, that's not very good. And then my parents explained to me, he goes, the Romans built that. They had this fortress where the Jewish revolters were hiding in there, they were holding out. Mind you, I'd be on the side of the Maccabeans. But they wanted to conquer them. They wanted to put down the rebellion. So the Romans literally built this huge earthwork all the way to the top and they conquered the fortress. That is somebody that takes a city. It took a lot of work, especially without Caterpillar machinery, amen? Yeah. But who is stronger than that? Somebody, an individual that can rule his spirit. We have a lot of power plays going on. Now I'm not gonna get into whether they're right or they're wrong. Trust me, I'm a Whitaker, I definitely have an opinion. But I'm gonna try to refrain from expressing it. But friends, you want power? Rule your spirit. I'm preaching to myself. Do you know how you rule your spirit? Submit. You say, oh, I've tried to, I grit my teeth and everything. How many guys have tried to resist temptation by gritting your teeth? Yeah? Me too, I've done it. And I fail every time. I do. It's not I don't like that I do, but I do. Submitting to the Holy Spirit is how you see victory. That's how you rule your spirit. Betrayal. We see Judas here. He definitely didn't rule his own spirit. It's a really sad situation. Some say it's the darkest part in the Bible. Someone, an individual who followed Christ the entire time that Peter, James, and John, all of these apostles followed him, he heard the same messages, he was there, he saw the miracles, and yet he did what he did. He did what he did. It's interesting how Jesus responds to him in this. Judas comes to him and, I never thought about this, but yeah, it was in the middle of the night, so it had been pitch black. They didn't have streetlights or anything. They came to him with torches and lanterns and clubs and whatever else. It was dark. And apparently he had told the mob with him, a mixture of probably rabble and also some of the priestly soldiers, he told them, whoever I kiss is Jesus. Now obviously this is, I liken it to maybe the Latin American culture, right? It's not what we think of today. It was more of a greeting. But here, Judas used probably one of the most personal things you could do to betray Jesus. Jesus even mentions this. Jesus says, do you betray me with a kiss? He called Judas a friend. Letter A here is the kiss of Judas, and letter B is the kindness of Jesus. We have to remember what happened to Judas. Judas chose not to follow Christ, but in John chapter 13, verse 27 through 30, it says, and after the sop, Satan entered into him. He wasn't just possessed, and I know it's an uncomfortable topic, literally Satan entered into Judas. I'm not making excuses for him, but Jesus was facing the pinnacle of evil through Judas. Then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest do quickly. My dad uses this as an example for context in the Bible. And it's a funny example, it's kind of a little side thing. But we believe in interpreting the Bible in context, amen? There's a context there for a reason. And my dad uses the example, he goes, you ever heard of Judas? He goes, now what if I told you that? There's a passage in there that says, that Judas went and hung himself, right? We know that he did that. And then he goes, well, there's another passage that says, what thou seest, do thou. And then there's another passage, this one right here, it says, that thou doest, do quickly. So, should we go out and hang ourselves really fast? No! He goes, now that's kind of a dark, humorous example, but you can make scripture say whatever you want it to say if you do not include the context. We can take words and cut them up and, you know, turn them into ultra-processed foods, you know. That's a big thing now, all the health people. They take starch from here and sugar from here and they turn it into Twinkies or something. It's not good for you, that's the point. It's not truth. Brutus was a trusted friend and official under Julius Caesar, but he turned against Caesar and joined a band of conspirators bent on Caesar's overthrow. The assassination plot was carried out as Caesar arrived at the Roman Senate on March 15th, 44 BC. At first, Caesar resisted the attack, but when he saw Brutus among his assailants, he covered his face and resigned himself to death. Why? Brutus was a friend. In Shakespeare's famous play, he has Caesar say, et tu, Brut? Or, you too, Brutus? Betrayal is very difficult. Jesus was demonstrating his love. What was his response to Judas? He called him friend. Friend, Matthew chapter 26, verse 50. Of course, Jesus says that he's a friend of sinners. While we were yet in sin, Christ died for us. If he weren't a friend for sinners, we'd be in trouble. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 2 says that we are to forbear one another, forgive one another. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 through 3, this is great. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, what? Forbearing one another in love. But there's a semi-colon there. What does that mean? There's more to the sentence. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. What did Lincoln say? A house divided shall not stand. And Jesus knew, God knew, so much about our human passions, and our desires, and that somebody steps on our toe. You know, it's kind of funny, I had a young person, I won't say his name, but I was on the bus and he was stepping all over my nice dress shoes, on accident, you know? Hilarious, because literally that afternoon, he comes up to me and he goes, Mr. Zeke, would you like me to shine your shoes? And I was like, well, you need to learn a lesson here. If you want people's business, don't step on their shoes, right? You say, okay, well, that's a good principle. What's the point? People have accidents. We're flawed. We're going to have to forbear with people. We're gonna have our toes stepped on. We're going to be offended. But friends, it's how you respond to the, proves your relationship with Christ. What does the Bible say? They that love thy law shall what? Never be offended. There should be some things that should be an offense to you, like sin. But personal slight, Hardship? Yes, it's hard. That's the point. There's a reason why we have to show forbearance. Because we're all flawed. Not only do we make mistakes, we sin. It's a fact, and that includes everybody. Includes me, includes Christians that have been saved for 50 years, and Christians that have been saved for 50 minutes. But our response proves, do we love thy law or not? The Bible says that they that turn their ear from God's Word will not get their prayers answered. Friends, we have a world to reach, don't we? You say, well what's forbearance? Is that really important? A hundred percent. A hundred percent. with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. Why? Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. A house divided will not stand. Colossians 3 verse 12 through 14 says, put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, what? Forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also ye do. Today in junior church, I'm telling the Bible, I call Bible stories, I always tell them it's a Bible account. You know, I don't wanna bore them, but I'm like, this actually happened, kids. It's not just a story that we made up, it's in the Bible. So I try to stress that. But do you remember the time when Jesus went over to Simon the Pharisee's house, and they didn't wash his feet? You know, it was a custom there, it was dirty, and they normally had a servant do that. And there was a woman called a sinner. We're not really sure what she was. There are some people that speculate. All I know is what the Bible says and called her a sinner and people despised her. And she came up and she was so broken over her sin. She was so broken because of her condition and she went to Jesus and she knew He was the Savior and He could wash her sins away. And what did she do? She took, she cried. Tears of repentance. And you know what? She washed his feet with her tears and her hair, and she poured ointment on his feet. And Simon, Jesus read Simon's thoughts. You know, Simon was going, if he was a prophet, if he was really of God, then he would know what kind of woman that is. And Jesus responded without even Simon speaking. Isn't that interesting? And he goes, Simon, let me tell you a story. There was a man that owed 50 pence, basically 50 days worth of labor. And there was another man who owned 500 pence, or 500 days worth of labor. And the same lender came to both of those men and said, I forgive both of your debts. Which one would love the lender better or more? Well, Simon responded, well, the one that had the larger debt, relieved. He goes, exactly. Those that have been forgiven of much, love much. And that was the case with this lady. Don't forget, friends, we should not dwell on our past, but we should not forgive how much God forgave. We should not forget it. Think about all the sins that God forgave in your life. He died for. Think about it. Every misdeed, every sin, and God, Jesus, forget, he died on the cross, he shed his blood, he had, in 1 Peter, it talks about the fact that in his body he bore all the sins of eternity. Past, eternity, future, every sin. In his body, on the tree. For you. Friends, we are not the 50 pence people. I know I'm a 500 pence person. I was forgiven of a whole lot. What does that mean? What should our response be? Roman numeral two, the battle. The battle, this is where things get a little bit more action-packed, amen? B-A-T-T-L-E, I'll give you both of them. A, the sword of Peter. S, of course the S is there, W-O-R-D. the sword of Peter, and then be the sympathy of Jesus, S-Y-M-P-A-T-H-Y, the sympathy of Jesus. Last week, remember I told you our passages were a little broken up because we have Peter Failing, right? Later on, he denied Christ, and then there was this gap, and before there, we talked about he was claiming he was gonna stand with Christ and everything. This is the story in between that. This is the event. So this is prior to Peter denying Christ, okay? Following Peter, claiming that, oh, the rest of the disciples, they'll deny you, but I won't. So some people say, oh, he just got caught up in the moment, right? But again, context is king, okay? And I believe that Peter, because Peter had boasted about his eventual defense of Jesus, he was on the spot to prove it. He was like, I told the rest of the disciples, the rest of the disciples have run away, but I knew I'm gonna stand with Christ, so here I go, and he pulls his sword out, right? Now, there's speculation, okay? There's a little speculation. Why did he cut off Malchus's right ear, right? Some people say he was left-handed, For whatever reason, when he cut down, he got the right ear or whatever. I have no idea. It's not in the Bible. It just says it was his right ear. It doesn't say Peter used his left hand. It's just interesting. But he decided, well after all this tumult, but you know what's interesting? Another interesting thing about John's account is that Peter tried to defend Christ after all the entire mob fell back on their backs. Do you think, maybe he should be thinking, oh well, if Jesus could do that to them by just saying I am, maybe he can defend himself without my sword. What do you think? I think so. It's found later in the passage. Let me turn back to it. Here, in John, John chapter 18, verse 7, 6, verse 6, then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backwards and fell to the ground. And then verse 10, it says, then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and smote the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Do you know what? You say, what kind of application is that? I've never seen Jesus throw people on their back. Have you ever seen God do something special in your life? I know those of you that have been at this church have seen people's lives transformed. You have seen miracles and all of that is by the grace of God. It's wonderful. It's so good. But do you know what? Even after we can see miracle after miracle after miracle, our flesh is so lowly that we can still think we need to defend Jesus in our own flesh. That we need to get out there and we need to get in a fight. even after we see the miracles of God. Number three, I'll give you this quickly. Like usual, normally I give you the last point pretty fast. Number three, the binding, B-I-N-D-I-N-G, the arrest, A-R-R-E-S-T, of Jesus, and the ascent. I don't know why it's spelled this way. I looked it up, but this is what it said, A-S-S-E-N-T. Something tells me there should be a C in there. If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. The Bible says that we should love your enemies. Now, we hear this preached to us by a lot of churches on the left, you know, the rainbow flag churches. But I want to say something. Sometimes we can view people as enemies and we treat them as enemies instead of potential children of God. Right? Now, do we believe what we believe on purpose? I hope so. This church preaches, if the Bible says it, we believe it. And if it doesn't say it, we don't believe it. That's awesome. That's great. That's hard to find sometimes, but sometimes we can go, well, that other denomination, now, they're wrong. We should point out what, but we go up to them, and when we're trying to witness to them, what is the first thing? You have this wrong, and you did this wrong, and you did this, and this, and this, and you're wrong here, and you're wrong there, and is that being forbearing? Let me ask you a question. If you were to be won by somebody What would work better? Just in a pragmatic point. We aren't to live pragmatically, we're to live by faith, amen? But just, let's think pragmatically for about 30 seconds. If you were to be won by somebody, not necessarily to another faith or be converted, but just to be a friend with somebody, if they came in, the first thing out of their mouth is, you do this wrong, and you do this wrong, and this is how you're wrong, and you're horrible, and you're aggressive with them, is that a way to build a relationship with them? Of course not. We all know that. That's super simple. If you don't, well, we have some work to do. Amen? It's like little kids on the playground. What's the first thing they do to build a friendship? Here's a piece of candy for my lunch, right? The Bible says we have to love our enemies. Sometimes we put people in our scope. We say they're our enemies. They're horrible. They did this to me. Read the rest of verse 44, Matthew 5, verse 44, it says, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. There was one time, and I'll be brief with this, I was in college, I was a peer tutor. So I tutored for electrical circuits, applied mathematics, and so on. So any students that needed to come, I would get paid through the university to help them with their students. Well, anyway, I decided to tutor this young man. And he didn't seem like he really needed it. I was like, well, this is strange. And he was kind of asking me, well, how do you do this? And how do you do this? Then he went to my boss and got a job. And then I noticed a bunch of my students disappeared. I thought, well, that's strange. And then I put two and a together. Every student that he took away from me was his religion. And everybody that stayed with me was the extras, the variety. Now you say, oh well that isn't a big deal. No, at the first part I go, oh that's really annoying, why would he do that? But would you call that despitefully being used? Or being used despitefully? Yeah, that's underhanded, that's crooked. What am I supposed to do? Love them. And there are people that will mistreat you, period. Remember how they treated Christ. Remember, they bound him. We have the binding, the arrest of Jesus. All the disciples forsook him. All of them fled. None of them stayed. But Jesus faced Jerusalem. He faced Jerusalem. Why? Not because he loved pain. It wasn't that way. He agonized over it. Why did he go with this mob? Obviously he could control them. He could knock them out. He knocked them over in John's account. Why did he go with them? Why did He forbear? Why did He not just say, enough with you people. You don't deserve to crucify me. You don't deserve to treat me. Why did He do it? Because of us. Because He had you in mind. Because He loved you. And friends? Our love for people's souls has got to be bigger and broader than our disdain for their malpractice. That's easier said than done. We cannot see people as, oh, well, they did this to me. We have got to see people as, where are they going to spend eternity? And what will my actions do to put them on the path to heaven, to put them on the path to truth? That's forbearance, friends. Long word, short meaning. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for forbearing with us. Thank you for loving us even though we're sinners. God, I ask that you would touch our hearts. Would you empower the preaching today in the morning service? Would we forbear those in this church? Would we love the people we're trying to reach out to, Lord? Please empower us to be good children of yours. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.