What Does it Mean to be an Overcomer?

SPEAKER A You once to every time in the sight of the good or evil sky don't break on you that I choice of life forever with that darkness. And. SPEAKER B The Bible assures us in Ephesians two, verses eight to ten, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Welcome to faith to faith Here are your hosts, Ettienne McClintock and Braedan Entermann. SPEAKER C Dear listener, greetings and a warm welcome. Thank you for tuning into the program again today. Braedan and I are delighted to have your company. And just as we start our study today, we just invite you to join us for prayer. Gracious Father in heaven, we just commit ourselves to you. We thank you for your word. We thank you that we can open it and study it, and we just pray for a fresh anointing of your Holy Spirit to lead us in our study and understanding, our love and appreciation for you. May this grow, Father. May we grow in grace as we see your goodness and your love for each one of us is our prayer. In Jesus name, amen. SPEAKER D Amen. SPEAKER C Now, last time in the program, we spoke about the Apostle Paul and the difficulties and provations that he went through. I mean, this man suffered so much for the word of the Lord and preaching the Gospel, but he wrote there in Romans chapter eight and verse 37, that through Jesus Christ we are more than conquerors, that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We also have an example in the Reformation, this mighty man who wrote this song, A Mighty Fortress, and I'm talking about Martin Luther. This hymn was written around 1520 715 29, somewhere around there. And I just want to read the words because this is also an anthem of victory. It is it acknowledges our mighty foe, but at the same time it acknowledges that we are conquerors through Christ. And it talks about God being a bulwark, a fortress for us. And the first verse there says, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark, never failing our helper, he amid the flood of mortals ills prevailing, for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe. His craft and power are great. He doesn't play down the power of the enemy, but he puts the enemy's power in the right context in comparison with the power of Christ. And of course, there's no comparison. It says, for still our ancient foe does seek to work as woe his craft and power are great. And armed with cruel hate, we preach the love of Christ, but he is armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal. And then verse two said did we in our own strength confide? We certainly did not. Our striving would be losing. We're not the right man on our side. The right man, of course, is Jesus Christ the man of God's own choosing. Thus ask who this may be christ Jesus, it is he, Lord Sabah his name from age to age the same he must win the battle. Now looking at verse three and though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear. For God hath willed his truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness, Grim. We tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for, lo, his doom is sure one little word shall fail him. And then, looking at the last verse, that word above all earthly powers no thanks to them abideth. The spirit and the gift are ours. Through Him who with asideth let good and kindred go his mortal life also the body they may kill. God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever so. What a beautiful hymn of victory and triumph over the enemy of God and our enemy. SPEAKER D I love that song. I've actually memorized all of the lyrics. SPEAKER C I should have had you read it. SPEAKER D It's a beautiful, beautiful song. And if we understand a little bit about the time in which he was living we appreciate it all the more. He was living in a time where the plague was taking people that were near and dear to him from his life. It was a life threatening disease. He was also being prescribed and condemned and vilified by the political and the religious leaders. And so often his life was in danger. People were wanting to kill him. So this is a man who knows what it's like to face persecution and privation and just general hardships. But he says, and I love what you pointed out there he doesn't play down the fact that the devil's powerful but he puts his power in context. And I've got an analogy to explain this. When I was in high school, we were living at this house in Queensland and our neighbors got a bulldozer in to clear some property. And we came over and we actually asked them to come and do some clearing on our land. Just a little bit of some scrub we needed to push back. But as we went over to ask him, we found that he just ran over the big bulldoze. A huge, big I don't know, was it D eight or something like that, but ran over a big brown snake. The biggest brown snake I've ever seen. It would have been over 2 meters long. And it pinned it on its tail, the end of the snake. And this snake, is it powerful? Is it dangerous? Absolutely, yes. But it could do nothing with this massive, massive bulldozer parked on top of it, right? So we had no fear of that snake because there's no way in the world it's going to be able to get out from under the massive power and weight of this huge bulldozer and it was powerless. And if we see the devil's power in that know he's the serpent, that serpent evolved called the devil and Satan he is powerful but God's grace is like a bulldozer. SPEAKER C I mean yeah there's nothing that can. SPEAKER D Stand in its way. God's love is powerful to transform lives and to conquer this world, to conquer hearts and parked on top of the devil like that that's how we should see the devil. We want to stay away from the sharp end. SPEAKER C That's true. SPEAKER D Yeah. SPEAKER C But ultimately the crushing is not just the tail is it? It's the crushing of the head of the serpent. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C Yeah. SPEAKER D And that's the powerful thing. Yeah I'm really excited about we're going to be looking at today wonderful. SPEAKER C Well look we've talking about the power of the devil. We know that the devil is very powerful. It says that there is no equal on this earth to the devil so we don't want to undermine that by any means. But at the same time we also know that Christ conquered the devil at the cross. He was cast out of heaven, he was cast to the earth and now there's a woe upon us. We are to be careful on this planet but at the same time God has not left his church without any power or authority. If we go to Matthew chapter 28, jesus said there that all authority, all power is given to me in heaven and in earth, therefore go and make disciples of all nations. And then it says baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and then teaching them all the things that I've commanded you. Then he also says lo, I'm with you always even unto the ends of the earth. Now when Jesus said those words he'd already gone to the cross, he'd already been raised from the dead and he had now given this authority and under the authority of Christ he was now sending out his disciples. Now we know that Jesus prior to that if we look at the book of Luke, Luke chapter nine had sent out the twelve disciples and he says there Luke chapter nine and verse one. Then he called these twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons. Wow. There's no exclusion there even Satan over all demons and to cure diseases and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Now the word power there is the word dunamis. He says he gave them power dunamis and authority. The word authority there's exhusia. Sometimes it's translated power, sometimes authority. But that's the same word that Jesus says all authority is given to me in heaven and in earth exhusia. So he's given that to his twelve disciples well, we can say, well look, the apostles demonstrated that in their lives, but what about us? What about the other believers? Now we see the same thing happen when Jesus, in the next chapter, in Luke chapter ten, sends out the 70. And he appointed 70 others there in verse one, and he sent them out two by two before his face into every city and place where he sent them. And then he tells them all the things they would do. Verse nine, for example, heal the sick and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. Now they come back. Now what is the report they bring back after they've been sent by Christ and return from this missionary trips that they've been on? And verse 17 we read, and this is Luke, chapter ten, verse 17. Then the 70 returned with joy, saying lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Wow, isn't that incredible? So these are not the twelve apostles, these are not the twelve disciples. We're talking about 70 more. So these are other believers. And then Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Then he says in verse 19, and this is what we want to focus on behold, I give you the authority that's the word exhusia again to trample on serpents and scorpions. Now the serpent obviously represents Satan and over all the power of the enemy. Now the word power, there's dunamis, god has dunamis power as well. But it doesn't say that the enemy doesn't have power. He does have power. He has dunamis power as well. But here God delegates authority to his church over the power of the enemy. And it says, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Then he says, nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you. So God through his power has made the spirits who are powerful subject to us, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. So our connection with Christ, the fact that our names are written in heaven, in the Lamb's book of life, who was slain from the foundation of the earth, enables us to have that power and authority over the power of the enemy. How do we receive that power? By believing the word. By believing do we believe it? And if we do, we receive that power. SPEAKER D In our last study together, we were looking at this anthem of victory that runs throughout scripture and especially in the book of Revelation. This anthem of victory, it's so powerful, it says, to the one who overcomes, to him who overcomes, the one who overcomes will inherit all things. And there's this beautiful tone of victory. And really what we're doing today is we're asking, okay, what does it mean to have victory? What does it mean to be an overcomer? And we've started our presentation today and we've realized that we can by God's grace overcome the devil and his angels. So many people are afraid of the devil, and God wants us to know very clearly, I'm calling you to be an overcomer. You can be an overcomer and even the devil himself will have to fall by the wayside. SPEAKER C That's right, yeah. He will flee from you. You know, we read that text in the previous program. In James chapter four and verse seven, it says, submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. SPEAKER D He will flee from you. SPEAKER C So these people, when they came back, the 70, they said that even the devils are subject to us in your name, in the name of Jesus Christ, no other name given among men under heaven whereby me must be saved. SPEAKER D It's interesting. In Psalm chapter 18 and verse ten, it says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they're safe. SPEAKER C A bulwark never fails. SPEAKER D That's right. It's beautiful, the power of God's name. SPEAKER C When it talks about Christ going out conquering and to conquer. We know that Satan was defeated at the cross. He was trying to kill Jesus. But what he was trying to do is put so much torture and pain upon him that he would actually abandon the cross and then save himself. But he couldn't save himself and save mankind at the same time. So his love for us, god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God's love for us was the reason why he stayed on the cross. He'd rather die himself than have humanity die eternally and be separated eternally from God. SPEAKER D Wow. SPEAKER C So that incredible crushing of the serpent's head, the conquering took place there, but there's more conquering that takes place now. I want to read just from Romans chapter 16, and just look at the tense, the tense as we read this, romans, chapter 16, verse 20, it says, and the God of peace so who it's? The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. Paul writing to the church in Romans says that God will shortly crush Satan under your feet. Now, it's not the church doing it by their own strength, it's God doing it through the church. And it says, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. So the conquering and to conquer, the to conquer still happens in the church today, and it will happen right through to the end until Satan is finally even crushed under the feet of God's believers, God's faithful. SPEAKER D Isn't this interesting? The God of peace will crush it's a very interesting thing here. We have to maybe go back a few of our studies and the way that God conquers so the God of peace will crush the weight of his goodness and grace revealed in the life of his church. It's a weight that just crushes all of the evil, selfish, evil in the world and brings the Devil to an end. And I think sometimes we forget that as God's people we're part of his strategy to defeat the Devil. Sometimes we and though it's true Christ came to save the world, we sometimes forget that he's asked us to be a part of this whole conquering of the Devil. And when Jesus lives inside of our. SPEAKER C Lives. SPEAKER D We live the life of Christ and we do the works of Christ and we actually participate in the conquering of Satan. What does that look like? It's not going around beating people over the heads with Bibles, that's for sure. It's laying down our lives in selflessness under all circumstances, putting God's word above everything else. SPEAKER C Amen. SPEAKER D And loving people even though it may cost our lives. And when we do that, the message that just emanates from our life is it defeats the Devil over and over again. All of his accusations that he's made. He says, Braedan doesn't serve you for the right reasons. And then God transforms my life and selflessness is seen in my life. The devil's arguments are crushed. His power, his influence is crushed. And it comes to the place where he's got no power over us anymore. He can change our circumstances. He may take loved ones from us, but nothing can shake our relationship with God. And at that point he's got no power. SPEAKER C His power is crushed. Because we got to see this in the light of the great controversy and I think you're bringing out that theme there, where we have an alternative government, an alternative way of living, being presented by Satan versus what God said. God's law is a law of self sacrificing love. Lucifer became selfish. He became egocentric. He wanted to be like God. He wanted to be like the Most High. He wanted to sit where God sat. And of course the law of selfless love did not permit him. You cannot have any other gods before the God who is the creator of heaven and earth. So he then masks his motives and he says, well look, the beings are holy. They don't need a law. The law will actually arbitrarily restrict their freedoms and their liberties that they've had up till now. We need to get rid of the law. Why does he want to get rid of the law? Because he wants to be God as well. And the law doesn't allow him to do that. So he wants to overthrow the government of God. And if we read there in Revelation chapter twelve, it says there was war in heaven. The word for war there is Polemos. It was a political war. It's a war of different ideologies. It's a one that attacks God's kingdom. There was nothing wrong with it. It was a perfect kingdom of love. And as we now demonstrate, this law of love manifest in our lives through the Holy Spirit which is given to us. It says that the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We actually unmask the Devil because we demonstrate the fact that we can be loving, lovable, happy Christians who have the peace of God on our hearts. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And that unmasks his lies and deception. We actually demonstrate the fact that we don't feel restricted. The Bible talks about this law of God as the law of liberty. The Devil says no, it's a law that's like a cage. It shuts you in, it takes away your liberty. No, God offers us freedom, freedom of choice. There was a song written in the think. It was the Think. It's called Hotel California, which is talking about the start of the Satanic Church in San Francisco. And there that song says, you can check in anytime, but you can never leave. And the Devil wants to keep us captive, but God has come to set us free. If you come to the Lord as you are, you know you can choose anytime you want to walk away from God and God will honor your decision. If you are on the Devil's side and you want to leave, he will do everything in his power to restrict your liberty to say, no. I want to choose Christ and I want to follow Him because he loved me and gave Himself for me. SPEAKER D This is such a very important thing for us to look at here. And I think there's a verse in Two Corinthians, chapter Ten, which really highlights this. We've got two very different governments in operation. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D And we are called to be conquerors. We're called to be conquering evil in the world. But think about the different ways that people have gone about that in history. In Martin Luther's time, the religious and the political world of that time, they would resort to burning people to death, tying people between horses and tearing them limb from limb, trying to oppose what they viewed as bad. And that is a terrible, terrible thing. They're resorting to carnal weapons. They're resorting to the Devil's tactics to accomplish the goal. And whenever Christians start picking up the Devil's weapons to accomplish God's goals, we are in a world of hurt. And a lot of the time we scratch our heads. Christian history is just littered with terrible accounts, as is pretty much any history of just abuse of power and just doing things the wrong way. And why is that? Is because these people are trying to achieve God's goals with the Devil's means. And there's a beautiful verse here in two corinthians ten. It says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. So they're a different type of weapon. They are weapons, but they're not carnal weapons. It says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. So these are effective weapons? Yeah, but they're different, different weapons. SPEAKER C So these strongholds, what would they be? SPEAKER D We could apply them to several things, I guess, but in the context of this verse, it's strongholds of lies, strongholds of fear, strongholds. Any stronghold that the Devil has that locks people down. SPEAKER C So the lies of the Devil, basically. SPEAKER D The lies of the Devil. So just like in Revelation chapter twelve, there was Polemos in Heaven. There's war in heaven. This is a war of ideas. SPEAKER C Yes. SPEAKER D This is not swinging lightsabers around. This is a war of ideas, truth versus lies. And so here we have the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. What are these strongholds? Casting down arguments. SPEAKER C Okay, so the arguments of the Devil and those who have been influenced by the concepts and the thoughts and ideas and ideologies of the Devil. SPEAKER D That's right. And every high thing or every proud thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, okay? SPEAKER C So he misrepresents God to the people, and this then actually counters that this brings that true knowledge of what God is like, who he is, and why we'd want to love him. SPEAKER D And it says here, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. So it's interesting, we've looked so far that we've got an external battle. We've got the Devil and his angels that are working to destroy us. But I tell you what a greater battle is the battle within it's, the battle inside of our minds. And the battle against self is the greatest battle that ever was fought. And I just remember a quote that Martin Luther himself said. Yes, because if you know anything of history, you'll know that Martin Luther had some big conflicts with the religious leaders of his day. They wanted tradition to be on the platform of exoneration, but he wanted the Bible to be on the platform, and the Pope actually wanted to kill him. But one thing that Martin Luther said, he says, the biggest Pope that I have is my own selfish heart. So he basically realized the greatest enemy, the greatest opposition to God's truth is not this man down sitting on the papal throne in Italy. The greatest problem I have is my own heart. And so here we have that. Every thought can be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. That's how extensive God's victory is. So extensive, it even can bring our thoughts into subjection. SPEAKER C So what you're saying there, that it can cast down arguments and things, so it can do it externally, but it can also do it internally anything that within us that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. So this could even be us taking the throne of our own lives, saying, I'm in control. I'm going to decide what I'm going to do, how I spend my money, where I spend my time, who I associate with. Instead of asking God, Lord, what is Your will for my life? We can actually be exalting ourselves against the knowledge of God because as we've said in previous programs, to know God is to love God, and to know God is to trust God. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER C And that's where faith comes in. And then even when it comes back to our mind and our thoughts, we can actually surrender that, and we can bring those thoughts into captivity to the beings of Christ. I quite like that thing. But that's a willing captivity, isn't it? SPEAKER D It's a willing captivity. It's held by the chains and cords of love. It's interesting. Paul himself said, for the love of Christ constrains us. The love of Christ compels us. So this is the only thing that God used to influence us. It's his love. No means of coercion. SPEAKER C Okay, so there's an external battle, but there's also the internal battle. And we're in the book of Corinthians. But let's go to the first book of Corinthians, one Corinthians, chapter nine and verse 27. We read these verses. Paul says, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. So here it talks about that personal battle. You're saying the biggest battle ever fought will be the battle with self. We have a egocentric nature which is contrary to the constitution and government of God, which is based on self sacrificing love. Our love is egocentric. I like you, Braedan, because you make me feel good when I'm in your know, you sometimes tell me know, I did well in this, or I did well in that, or I've got a talent in this, and because I feel good because you tell me all that stuff, I actually like you as a person. That is actually an egocentric motivation for me to like you, isn't it? It is. Yeah. But if I like you simply because of the principle that God loves you, he created you. He redeemed you. You are his property, and I've got to treat his property with respect and love. That's a different motivation. SPEAKER D It's a totally different yeah. SPEAKER C It's not one that comes from what you can do for me, but rather what I can do for you. And the Bible talks about that. We have to have this mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. That's Philippians, chapter two, verse five. But in Philippians two, verse three, only two verses back, it says that we are to esteem others better than ourselves. That is not natural to us because we are egocentric. But when the love of God is poured out in our lives, when we see the love of God for us, then we can start by that same principle, live and demonstrate the love of God for others. SPEAKER D Absolutely. I love that. This verse that you've just brought up here, it says, I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. And that the word there, discipline. I think the Greek brings out this imagery of beating black. And, you know, that happens on the streets of most cities where people get unfortunately beaten up, and some people get knocked unconscious. Paul identifies his enemy. He recognizes that his own body, his own thoughts and self, he's got a problem there, and he actually does not let his body tell him what to do. How often does our body tell us what to do? We've got so many cravings. All these different things we want, they can be just our appetites, sexual cravings, all these different things. And the worst thing in the world to do is just to follow what our body says. For Paul, he recognized that even his body and all of its cravings, he recognized that that doesn't need to be in control. And he can. SPEAKER C Yeah, that is beautiful. So the issue we have is to bring discipline to our body. Now, there's some things we cannot do for ourselves. For example, can someone that is unclean bring something clean out of it? Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard change his spot? Then you who are accustomed to do evil likewise, then you go and do good. Well, we can't, but there are some things that God has given us natural ability to do anyway. We look for example, you look at people who are athletes, who maybe want to compete in the Olympics for that crown of glory. They want to have the gold. They will go through incredible disciplines, which has got nothing to do with the spiritual matter. Incredible disciplines in diet, in exercise, in sleep, to obtain that corruptible crown, as Paul puts it. So there are some things that we can make a decision on for ourselves, and we have the power to choose. Is there sometimes a temptation there to want to let God do the things he's already given us the power to do? SPEAKER D Yep, absolutely. Sometimes we want God to do what we can do, and we want to do what God alone can do. And that's where our confusion comes from. SPEAKER C Okay, well, I think we're going to have to unpack that in our next program. So, dear listener, we pray that God bless you today just with this thought and concept of Christ going to conquer and conquering and how he can do the three church by us surrendering and submitting our will to Him that we yes, we do have a powerful foe. He does seek to work us woe, but his power and might, although it's great and he's armed with cruel hate, he will not win the battle. So we pray that God will bless you until we meet again next time. SPEAKER B Thank you for joining us on Faith. To Faith. If you would like more information about today's program or if you have any questions, please contact 3ABN Australia Radio by Phoning. 02 4973 3456. 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