Theological term
Stumbling Block
3 sermons · All terms
The Persecution of the Apostles and the Church
Christ's warning in John 16:1–4 that the apostles and the church will be expelled from synagogues and killed is not given to produce fear but to prevent stumbling. The sermon works through two movements: the purpose of Jesus' instruction (verse 1) and the nature of the church's enemies (verses 2–4), showing that persecution is religiously motivated and theologically driven by a denial of the Trinity. The world's hatred of Christ's servants follows necessarily from its hatred of Christ Himself, and remembrance of His warnings equips believers for preparation, encouragement, perseverance, and pity toward those who persecute. The sermon closes in 1 Timothy 1:12–17 with the apostle Paul as the supreme exhibit of divine mercy toward the chief of sinners — the former persecutor who became the persecuted.
The Prediction of Desertion and Denial
Matthew 26:31–35 records three predictions Jesus makes on the night of His betrayal: that all the disciples will desert Him, that Peter in particular will deny Him three times before the rooster crows, and that He will be raised and go before them to Galilee. The passage demonstrates both the sovereignty of Christ, who is not caught unawares but walks toward the cross in accordance with Zechariah 13:7 and the eternal decree of the Father, and the weakness of even the most zealous believers, who prove incapable of standing in their own strength. Peter's brash self-confidence — his flat contradiction of Christ's word and his lofty assessment of himself above his fellow disciples — stands as a warning against pride and self-reliance. The sermon calls believers to kill pride, cultivate dependence upon God, embrace Scripture's honest assessment of indwelling corruption, and rest in the grace of a Savior who, despite foreknowing every act of betrayal, still promises to meet His scattered sheep.
The Objection to the Divine Plan
Peter's rebuke of Christ in Matthew 16:22 is not merely a disciple's well-intentioned blunder — it is an alignment with the adversarial agenda that Jesus had already confronted in the wilderness temptation of Matthew 4. This sermon expounds the divine necessity of Christ's suffering and death as grounded in the eternal Covenant of Redemption, and presses the point that to object to a suffering Messiah is to object to the only ground of sinners' salvation. The response to Peter — 'Get behind me, Satan' — exposes the disease-at-the-heart nature of any theology that removes the cross from Christianity's center, and the sermon closes by pressing listeners either to embrace the crucified Christ or to reckon with the inescapable judgment of that same Christ.