-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:39 Welcome to the cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here. Another KJV Cafe episode.
00:44 I thank you so much for joining me here today. Hopefully you’re doing well. We’re here at the cafe.
00:51 Just made myself a little pour over coffee. Hopefully you got one too. Just enjoying the day here.
00:57 Beautiful day outside. Amen. Beautiful day inside.
01:02 Beautiful day to praise the Lord. Today we are looking at a valuable topic. One that can help you in your life and help you understand the Bible in greater detail.
01:12 And that is the idea of the overcoming life. Of being an overcomer. We spent several episodes here.
01:18 I think this is the fourth one we’ve done on this in a long series. Could be ten by the we’re done. That’s okay.
01:24 On the overcoming life. Our text verse 1 John 5:4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
01:35 And so the overcoming life is this idea that we’re in a battle. I mean how can you be an overcomer if there’s not a battle? Think about that. So you have preachers out there saying, hey live for God and you’re gonna be blessed.
01:52 Well wait a minute. I mean you’re gonna be blessed. Well how? Oh you’re not gonna have any problems.
01:57 What do you mean no problems? Well you’re just gonna be living good. And yet that’s not the overcoming life. The overcoming life is encountering obstacles and overcoming them.
02:07 And that question that I’ve been asking and answering, hopefully through the study of God’s Word, is what exactly are we overcoming? We’re overcoming the world. The little g-god of the world. That’s the devil.
02:21 We’re overcoming him and his temptations because he is the tempter of this world. He’s the great accuser, right? He is the father of lies, okay? We’re overcoming those temptations. And that is what it means to be an overcomer.
02:36 It’s to, number one, be born again. Be saved. As I’ve outlined in previous episodes, we have to accept Christ as Savior because then we are born of God, right? When we’re born the first time, we are first born or we’re born dead to sin.
02:49 We are born with a sin nature that has not yet had the blood of Christ applied to it. So when we accept Christ as Savior, we realize our sin debt. We realize our need for a Savior.
03:04 We accept Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Then we’re saved, amen? Then we are no longer of this world. The old things pass away.
03:09 Behold, all things become new, amen? And we are now new creatures in Christ and yet we are then, especially then, tempted by the devil through the flesh. So the devil will tempt us with things that are very desirable for us. Things that appeal to the flesh in us like money and security.
03:28 I have a family here staying in our house, a missionary family from the Philippines. And can I tell you how blessed we have been by hosting this family. And I preached Sunday night to our congregation because they were on a missionary trip, so to speak.
03:46 They were presenting at another church in South Carolina, so they weren’t here. And I just bragged on them for 30-40 minutes about how great it’s been to have them here and how blessed we’ve been. And it was dealing with that scripture, Obed-Edom having the Ark of the Covenant in his house three months.
04:03 And the whole family there was blessed from the Old Testament. And we have this missionary family here. And I see their desire to serve God.
04:10 And I see the great patience that they exhibit as they follow God’s call on their life. And if you’ve ever known a missionary, you know what I’m talking about. How they have great patience.
04:23 Because many would say, I have to turn to the security, to the money of this world, to taking things into my own hands, to doing things that God may not want me to do.
04:30 And so I admire them for their courage, and for their strength in the Lord, and for their faith that the Lord is going to provide for them. They’re church planters, by the way, in the Philippines, in villages in the Philippines, where people there are very hungry for the Word of God.
04:47 And there’s Sunday schools. It’s nothing for them to have 20, 30, 50 kids in their Sunday school and have a church house full of people. I love it.
04:51 And they’re on, I believe, their fourth church raising funds for. And we’re so thankful for them here. I was just thinking in my mind, I have to do an episode interviewing Brother Freddy Manzano, that’s the missionary family that’s here, and what they’re doing.
05:06 But I will say this, they’re not giving into that temptation of turning to the world for their security or for money. But many people are enticed by that. Many people are enticed by desires, maybe they’d be sexual desires, or enticed by food, or drugs, or alcohol.
05:19 Many people are enticed by power, or pride, or fame and status, like vanity, the vain things. The common denominator here is these things in life, they bring forth quick gratification, the devil will use it to get the Christian off a track. And the Christian off the track is no good to God.
05:37 And the devil knows that. The God cannot use a bad tree. The Bible says a bad tree does not bear good fruit, and a good tree won’t bear bad fruit.
05:44 And the Bible tells us that he’s not, that it’s not for me, it’s against me, and all these scriptures. So we know that if the backslid Christian can’t be used by God, then it’s greatly in the devil’s interest to get them backslid and get them questioning their relationship with God and get them yoked up with the world.
06:03 And basically, when they’re yoked up with the world, they’re praising the devil, because they’re praising the things of the devil, the perversions of the devil.
06:08 You know, and I won’t go into all kinds of details. But we’ve spent many episodes talking about idols and things that people covet after and the things of this world, and they’re all passing away.
06:18 Yet all of these things, the devil keeps wanting us to think, hey, if you could just have it, you know, I’ll give it to you if you could just have it and get away from God.
06:29 And the devil, how it was so bold as to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. And Jesus had quoted scripture three times to avoid those temptations. And Jesus is sinless and spotless before God.
06:35 But what was at stake? What was the context there? If we look at the idea of being an overcomer, what was at stake when Jesus was tempted? See, if Jesus would have just eaten that food from the devil, right, then that he could have sinned, amen, because he was fasting.
06:51 If he could have had the angels bring him down from the top of the temple, he would have sinned. He would have showcased pride and fame and status.
07:00 He would have showcased his power. He wouldn’t have allowed people to have faith in him because he would have shown something like that. If he had been tempted to be king of over all the kingdoms, he had agreed to do that.
07:10 And he said, I’ll be a ruler in this world. He would have then sinned and all these things would nullify God’s plan for Jesus Christ to be sinless and spotless to die for all humanity so that those that believe on him and his resurrection could and will be saved. You see, that was the context of those temptations.
07:28 If the devil could just get him to slip up, because the devil knew he was God’s man and probably the devil knew that he’s God in the flesh. And so the devil may not know all, but he knows enough to go tempt him as hard as he can with the things that he would desire the most. The things that would bring meaning to him.
07:44 Can you imagine being God in the flesh and being and not eating 40 days and being very hungry? You’d probably desire food. Amen. You made food, you created food, you desire food.
07:53 Can you imagine being God in the flesh and being humiliated in this world and being condescended in this world? You’d probably desire, desire, a little respect, desire, a little bit of adoration.
08:03 And so he would have been tempted to have those angels bring him down from the temple. Imagine being God of this world and rightfully having power over all these kingdoms and that seeding them and coming as a lowly one from Nazareth, one the Bible says of no special report or no good report.
08:18 He was just an everyday average person. There was no room for him in the inn. Amen.
08:23 He wasn’t of any kind of high status. Can you imagine that? And then you’re tempted with power. I mean, the devil is tempting Jesus with powerful temptations so that he could get him off track.
08:31 Well, what’s the devil going to do to us? He’s going to tempt us with powerful temptations to get us off a track. Think about that. If we are falling to temptation by the devil, let’s say the devil tempted you to go rob a bank so that you could never have to work again.
08:47 And you thought that would be great. And I’m going to give a lot to the ministry and so forth. So you went and did it because the devil tempted you and then you get arrested.
08:55 Okay. And now you’re in jail. The world knows what sin you committed.
09:01 Okay. Well, what would happen? Your ministry would be gone. Your ministry would be in shambles.
09:04 You wouldn’t have credibility, right? Uh, you wouldn’t be able to win others to the Lord. And we know that, uh, the wise are those that win others to the Lord. So you wouldn’t be able to be wise anymore.
09:13 You wouldn’t be able to do the things that were called to do as Proverbs 11:30 calls us to do. Uh, you wouldn’t have a pure testimony. Your testimony would be compromised and that would, uh, lead to not having a clear conscience before God and man, as Paul writes about in Acts 24:16.
09:28 So your ministry would be in shambles. Your testimony would be in shambles. Uh, your wards in heaven would be less, uh, because you would, you didn’t endure temptation down here.
09:40 Uh, and we know that those that endure temptation down here are on the throne with Christ. That’s what it says. It says they were literally be on the throne with Christ.
09:47 Those that endure the temptations, those that overcome this life will rule and reign with Christ. That’s Revelations 3:21 and your peace and your joy will be gone.
09:54 You know, the saved sinner, those that are saved in their backslid is the most miserable of all mankind because they know what it’s like to be close to God.
10:04 They know the joy that comes with fellowship with God. And when they’re yoked up with this world, there is nothing worse. Philippians 4:6-7 tells us that, uh, the closeness with God is so important and that’s what brings true joy and rejoicing.
10:16 And so we realize the stakes are so high in this world and that the temptation is so strong for those in the ministry because the stakes are so high and like throwing rare meat to a lion, right?
10:30 That lion is going to just devour that meat. Amen. And we are, if we’re not careful, we can be devoured by the devil who walks like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour with his temptations.
10:42 Another way we can look at temptation is looking at revelation, uh, 12 verse 11, these three parts to overcoming Revelation 12:11, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they love not their lives unto death. The blood of the lamb, Jesus died for our sins.
11:05 And when we, when Jesus dies for our sins and we accept him as Lord and savior, what do we get? We get the comforter, that’s capital C, the Holy Spirit. Amen. The third part of the Holy Trinity.
11:13 And now we have godly power residing within us. And so we don’t endure temptation on our own. Jesus didn’t do it on his own.
11:20 He turned to scripture. He turned to God. We don’t do it on our own.
11:24 Matter of fact, if you look in Matthew four, when Jesus is tempted by the devil, immediately after the angels came and ministered to him. Well, we have a God himself. We can approach the throne room boldly.
11:34 Amen. We have Jesus, the mediator in heaven. It was tempted.
11:41 Like we are tempted to go to as we face temptation and the comforter. That is the one that gives us discernment. That’s the one that condemns the world of sin.
11:47 That is the one that gives us Holy spirit discernment over what’s happening. And so that’s the blood of the lamb. That’s how we overcome all the devil is temptations.
11:53 How about the word of their testimony? You know, God changed us. There’s proof that we are saved and we’re not of this world. If you’ve been saved, you have proof that you’ve been saved.
12:02 You have that comforter living within you. There is, should be a change about you. It doesn’t have to be like you’re completely different after you’re saved and your whole, you know, you live in a cave and used to live in a house.
12:10 It could be that you no longer curse. It could be that your heart is soft towards people. You used to can’t not be able to stand.
12:17 It could be that you feel a call to spread the gospel. All of these things are a clear sign. You’ve been saved because you have the Holy spirit living within you.
12:25 It could be that you’re grieved and convicted of sin. How about the sinner? That’s not saved. They oftentimes have no idea they’re sinning.
12:33 We believe our best life is in heaven with Jesus. So that means that we’re not holding on to our mortal life. We’ve overcome death because we shouldn’t fear death.
12:40 The Bible tells us not to fear that first death, but the fear of the second death where you can be cast into hell, but we’re not going to be cast into hell. We’ve overcome that and we’re going to be in heaven with the Lord. The Bible tells us that when we’re absent from the body, we are present with the Lord.
12:55 I believe it’s like a blink of an eye. When death hits, boom, you blink your eye. You’re with Jesus Christ.
13:03 You’re with the Lord forever. Amen. I believe it’s that instantaneous.
13:08 Amen. And that that eternal security with the Lord gives us peace over. We have victory over the grave.
13:13 We don’t have to worry about death. So we’ve over overcome the devil and his ways and his temptations by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they love not their lives unto death. That’s what I’ve kind of explained here today.
13:23 And for time’s sake, I can’t keep going. I wish I could. But we are looking here.
13:29 I’m gonna give you one more verse. 1 John 5:4. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
13:35 So whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. If friend, if you’ve been born again, if you’ve been saved, then you can and should and will overcome the sin in this world as you turn to God.
13:47 And he gives you power by the working of his Holy Spirit to identify these temptations in your life and to overcome them, to not give in to these lusts, but rather to turn away from them and to take up your cross and to suffer as Jesus suffered here on earth, evaluating or aspiring to what’s greater in heaven than here on earth, as Moses did when he looked at the riches of Egypt and said, no, I’ll take what’s in heaven.
14:13 And he did God’s will. You can do the same. Thank you for listening.
14:17 Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.