Chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. And let me back up just a little
bit into chapter 4, back up to verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. That is,
considering our whole lives on this earth, the sum of it, the
sin that was exposed in us, our shortcomings, all of those things. Considering all these things,
how can we have any boldness in judgment? Now listen to this,
herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment. Because as he is, so are we in
this world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casteth out fear. Because fear hath torment, he
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first
loved us. If a man say, I love God and
hateth his brother, he's a liar. For he that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth
God loveth his brother also. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Everyone that loveth him that
begat loveth him also that's begotten of him. By this we know
that we love the children of God when we love God and keep
his commandments. For this is the love of God that
we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. And here's my text for this morning.
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our pain. Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Our fathers, we gather here this
morning, we pray once again for your presence to be with us, to take these words which we've
prepared and give us the liberty, give
us the illustrations, give us the words, give us the passion
to preach these things as they ought to be preached for thy
name's honor and glory. Forgive us this morning. Forgive
us of our sins, our complacency. Oh, how little thought and how
little energy we put into preparing for worship. Forgive us. Forgive us. These things are precious to
us. And if we see these things being
limited, It breaks our hearts. Teach us to take advantage of
the day. We've got no promise of tomorrow.
We have today. And seeing these things so precious,
let us take advantage of it for Christ's sake. Amen. All right. For him this morning,
let's turn, keep your Let's turn to hymn number 78 for a hymn.
Hymn number 78, and we'll sing, My Soul Consider. We'll sing
it to the doxology. My Soul Consider. Hymn number
78. My soul, consider this great
thought, The wondrous works which God has wrought, His works from
all eternity. My God has done them all for
me. God's special love for all His
own directs the power of His throne. Elect and precious to
my God, All things predestined for my good, Redeemed by blood,
preserved by power, Unto that great appointed hour When God
in mercy came to me He gave me life and set me free My God has
never, never failed His grace and power have prevailed My heart,
my soul, my life He holds By sovereign grace within His fold
And so, my God, I'll praise Your name Exalt your grace and spread
your fame, Eternal sovereign love and grace, Compel my heart
to sing your praise. You'll turn back with me now
to 1 John 5 and verse 4. I have for several weeks wanted
to say some things to you concerning what's now being called
a world crisis. This viral pandemic or whatever
they like to refer to it as. It seems to have crept into every
nation on the planet and people are scared. They're shocked. They're panicked. It's easy to
see when you look around. I've never seen in my lifetime,
I've never seen these things. Have you? Stores being shut down
only 20 or 25 people allowed in a grocery store at one time. They're panicked. They don't
know what to do, they don't know what to say, they don't know
what to think. Many places there's restrictions in place forbidding
public gatherings altogether. What a catastrophe. Overnight. One day you're meeting,
Church is full, next day the church is sitting empty. And the only way they can have
any worship at all is to stream on the internet. People are buying out the stores,
many of the grocery items being limited. And older folks and
people with infirmities are isolating themselves as best they can.
We have Three families in this church who can't come back and
attend with us because of physical problems. If they were to get
this, it's going to be devastating. And therefore, they can't come
back until after this thing is over. And that's not even to speak
about the economic impact of all this and what it's going
to be on our country. You can't shut all the industry
down and then tomorrow turn it back on I would be afraid to
even speculate how many billions or trillions of dollars a day
is going down the tubes with these places shut down. So to say the least, it's a frightening
time for folks. So how should believers deal
with these things? We want to deal with everything
that comes along. We want to deal with it in a
way that's honoring to God that's consistent with faith in Christ
and consistent with his love for us and our love for him.
How should believers deal with these things? And just briefly,
let me say this, the same way you deal with everything else. The exact same way. You see,
we go through, we get used to things. We get used to, we got
our routines, and we got our things that we do every day.
We get up, we get ready, we go to work, take a lunch, work so
many hours, come home, we start planning way out there what we're
gonna do, and we get comfortable with it. But the truth of it
is, you can't go through one second in this world without
the preserving power of God. You'll get swallowed up. You'll
get swallowed up. He preserves us every hour. It says, well, let me read it. I don't want to misquote it.
It's over here in Ephesians chapter one. He says down here in verse
11, in whom, talking about Christ. in whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him,
now listen, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. What things does he work? All
things. Well, that don't have to do with
the everyday affairs of my life. Oh, yes, it does. Well, that
don't have anything to do with my affections. That don't have
anything. Oh, yes, it does. That don't
have anything to do with our president or these kings or these
monarchs in these foreign countries. Oh, I beg your pardon. The heart
of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turneth it whithersoever
he will, just like he does the rivers and waters. They're not
These things are not accidents. If I thought this virus was an
accident, if I thought it was just a circumstance, an unknown
thing that just, it's out there at random and it's just running
wild, well, I'd go crawl in a hole somewhere. But I don't believe
that. I believe the word of God, and
God said he worketh all things after the counsel of his own
will. Everything. and not a sparrow's gonna fall
to the ground, and he numbers every hair of your head. You
think he don't control what's going on out here? My soul, if
you believe that, you don't know God. He controls everything. He's Lord. He's Lord of heaven,
he's Lord of earth. He's Lord. Believers should deal with this
crisis the same as they deal with everything else, by faith.
by faith. We are by no means the only generation
who's had to deal with these dreaded diseases. We act like
it's just been a long time, that's all. Some time, some water run
on the bridge. We just haven't been dealing
with them lately. There have been plagues and flus
and viruses almost from the very beginning. How did believers
deal with them? They went through them then.
How'd they deal with them? The Black Plague, that was a
plague of days gone by, the Black Plague. You know how many people
died from the Black Plague? One third of the population of
the earth. You think this is a bad disease?
My soul. One third of the population of
the earth, or the Bubonic Plague, or the Yellow Fever, smallpox,
cholera, and on and on and on it goes. All of these things,
far worse than what we're facing. And without question, believers
have gone through these things many times in the past. So how
did they get through it? How did they react to these catastrophes? The same way they live every
day of their lives, they walk with God by faith. You know what
these catastrophes do? They awaken you to the fact that
God's controlling all that. We're out here runnin' around
like sheep, you know. The Lord said he calls his sheep
and he puts them out before him and they run out there eatin'
grass but pretty soon wanna wander off somewhere. And then a wolf
pops its head up over the corner. You know what that lamb does?
Man, he runs for the shepherd. Huh? That's what these catastrophes
do. It gathers you back in. It concentrates
your vision back on Him. Because He's the only one who
can do anything about it. Now I'm telling you, man's been
deceived. He thinks he can fix anything,
and he ain't been able to fix anything concerning this virus.
And he's not going to. This thing is sent by God, and
when it has accomplished God's purpose, He'll take it out of
the way. Or he may give one of these unbelieving scientists,
he may give them the cure for it. But until he's accomplished
his purpose, this thing gonna keep right on going. Right on
going. What I'm trying to tell you is
this is not an accident that's going on. This is an act of God.
And we ought to walk just that way. This is an act of God. Our God is God. You believe that? He's God. Now He either is or isn't. There's
no in between. He's not part God. He's not God
when we let Him be God. He's God. And Jesus Christ is God. He's
God our Savior. And He rules over all things.
He controls all things down to the most minute detail. Our Savior
sits upon his heavenly throne, arranging all things, directing
all things, and controlling all things. He worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. And in this pandemic, we're not to look at it like
an accident. God sent it. Were you saying believers are
immune to these things? No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm saying that he's in control
of it. He has a purpose behind it and
there's nothing you can do to stay the hand of God's purpose.
Nothing. We just obey the laws and we
obey what people tell us and we walk by faith and trusting
in Him. There's no comfort in this world
except the sovereign mercy and grace of God. I used to like
to watch those, I forget what it's called now, but they were
storm chasers and things, and they go around, and I saw one
day a guy, he had it on film, and he stopped his car, and you
could see this big tornado coming at him, He run up on the bridge
and got up between the beams that span the bridge, and he
crawled up there in between them. And that tornado just went right
over top of that bridge, through his car, way out in the middle
of the field, and went on down, hitting traffic. But he survived. Everybody that watched that thing
had that in mind. If they was anywhere near a bridge
and they seen a tornado, they're going to run up there and hide.
And sure enough, a family saw one come. And a man pulled his
car over, got his whole family, went up there in between them
beams, and sat there. But this tornado hit at a little
different angle. And it sandblasted their image
onto the concrete, and they were gone. Sucked them out of there.
I don't even think they ever found them. But we ain't got
any control over these things. We just think we do. We think
we do. Let me tell you something. If
God wants to take you out of the world, there ain't enough
tiles, there ain't enough bomb shelters, there ain't enough
anything to keep you here. He don't need anything, and he's
proving it right now. All he needs is a virus. Just
put a little virus out. I've chosen to text this morning,
which I'm sure somebody's going to tell me doesn't apply to our
situation. But I'm telling you, I'm sure
it does. My subject today is overcoming this world, 1 John
chapter 5 and verse 4. And here's where it begins. Whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith. Now the immediate
context or general context of this verse has to do with overcoming
our adversary the devil and the religion that he spawned and
these false witnesses and false prophets and false faith. That's
what this whole book of 1 John is about. But Satan and antichrist religion
are by no means the only dangers imposed on us in this world.
It's the major danger. It's the eternal danger. There's
eternal danger here for your souls. But Paul suffered shipwreck,
he said, three times. Now he listed that. He listed
that as a danger in this world. He suffered shipwreck three times. He was in perils of water. He was in peril of robbers. Perils
in the wilderness. He suffered weariness, sickness,
hunger, painfulness, cold and nakedness, wars, imprisonment. And then what about this? What
about all these wars, drugs, alcohol? This world's full of
dangers, all kinds of dangerous things. And while they can't
touch your soul, they can touch your body and take you out of
this world. And contrary to popular belief, we have very little we
can do about any of it. We can try to teach our children.
We can try to warn them about these things. I told my kids
years ago, I've been down the road. I can tell you where every
hole is, because I fell in every one of them. I can tell you where
they're at. But if you want to go down the road and find them
for yourselves, I'll let you. You don't want to listen to me,
I'll let you fall in the hole. I don't know what else to do.
I don't have any power over anybody, not even my own children. And
all you can do is teach them, teach them, teach them. That's
why I encourage you to bring them here so we can teach them.
Tell them. Tell them about the dangers.
Tell them about these things. A beautiful picture of this life
as a believer is the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and their
journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Oh, my
soul. Nothing out there, brother. Nothing.
Nothing. Oh, they saw it. When they first
started, they saw it as deliverance. Then they got out there in it,
and they said, God should have let us die in Egypt, brought
us out here in this wilderness. The journey was through a wilderness,
and though they murmured all the way, yet God made provision
for them and shut them up to faith. By faith, the scripture
said, they forsook Egypt. And by faith, they kept the Passover. And by faith, they passed through
the Red Sea. So let's talk a little bit about
this walk in this world and the victory he speaks of here and
the means whereby this victory is accomplished. Our text begins
here in 1 John 5, verse 4, saying whatsoever is born of God. Now there's times, and I dealt
with this in the first message this morning, there's times when
earthly language just cannot communicate fully a heavenly
work, and this is one of them. He didn't say whosoever is born
of God, he said that in verse one of chapter five. Now he said
whatsoever is born of God. What do you call this work in
you? How do you describe it? You have
that work done in your heart and you can't describe it. We
can, you know, utter bits and pieces of it. I can tell you
a little bit about the fruits of it. I can tell you some of
the motives that God has given us, but I can't fully describe
what's in us. And generally people who do try
to confine it down and just define it as if they're wrong. And so
here the Holy Ghost, to communicate to us, uses the word whatsoever. Whatsoever. Something has been
created in you. Been created in you. Whatsoever is born of God. Scripture
uses several terms to describe this work in us. He calls it
a new creation. Nothing like it from the beginning
of the world. It's a new creation. Nothing
else in the world to compare it to. A new creation. It's not born of any sort of
natural seed producing after its kind. It's not a product
of procreation. It's a new creation. And sometimes
it's described as a new man. There's a new man. You know in
Romans chapter 7, he keeps saying, I. And one of those I's does
evil, and one of those I's believe God. There's a new man. A new man. He's a man indeed, but he's a
new man. He has nothing in common with
the old man, yet a man in a certain sense of the word. And whatsoever
the terms we use, the end is the same, being born of God. Being born of God. Some of the
old writers want to apply this to faith as a grace and not to
a person, but that's not in keeping with the context of the chapter. He's talking about us. He's talking
about this man whosoever is born of God, whatsoever you want to
call that which is born in him. And there's no faith without
a new birth and no new birth without faith. Wherever this
new birth is, whatever it is, it is vitally joined with faith. Peter said this, who by him,
that is by Christ, do believe in God that raised him from the
dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be
in God. Man hears the gospel, And he's
born of God and he's enabled to believe. Whatsoever is born
of God, whether this is in men, wherever it is, in men,
it enables them, now watch this, 1 John 5, 4, to overcome the
world. Whatever is in this world, This
world is a mystery to me as I read about it in the word of God.
Sometimes it's talking about time itself. There's a sense in which just
a drop in all of eternity is the existence of time and is
the existence of this world. There's coming a day when he's
gonna destroy this place. Elements are gonna burn, they're
gonna melt with a fervent heat. It'll be instantaneous. It'll
be in a fraction of a second. It'll be over. It'll be over. And this world will be gone as
we know it. And yet we look at this world,
and I know that God in His purpose has allotted a little fraction
of eternity in time to show His glory and to manifest His purpose
and grace. And this is what He's doing.
We need to realize it, we need to take advantage of it, we need
to be sober concerning these things. This is actually God's
purpose of being carried out as I speak to you this morning.
Your being here, my being here, our understanding, our faith,
all of these things, what's going on in the world, all of these
things, this is the purpose of God being carried out. And that's the second thing I
want to talk about, overcoming the world. That's a broad term. Sometimes
we call it a fallen world. Scripture calls it this present
evil world. But mostly we're talking about
its population, evil men and seducers. Antichrist, wicked,
immoral rebels who have determined to go against even their own
conscience. That man, that woman who's born
of God, who knows God and believes in Christ, he'll overcome this
world. He'll overcome those things.
He won't be taken in by them. He won't believe them. He won't
go that direction. And all of the provisions of
salvation, all the provisions to sustain them, and all the
means declared to bring it to pass, and all the authority to
arrange it and to make it happen is already in place and active
in our salvation. Beloved our God and Savior has
purchased our salvation. He's redeemed us with his precious
blood and clothed us with his righteousness and justified us
by his glorious person and work at the resurrection. And now
he's seated in glory, having all power over heaven and earth
in his hands. to arrange all things, to make
intercession for us, and to bring to pass that which he's promised. He's entered into heaven itself
by his own blood and obtained eternal redemption for us. We're
seated with him in glory right now. Right now. God's mediatorial king, he's
arranging all things, working all things for his glory and
our good. Believers are overcomers. Read Hebrews 11. Not one defeated
by anything or anybody. Not one. He said, I give unto them eternal
life, and they'll never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. We're left in this world as fellow
laborers with God. We're left here for a purpose,
and when that purpose is complete, He'll take us home. We're immortal
until that day arrives. We're children of God and heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ. The eternal spirit has taken
up a boat in our hearts and he worketh in us both to will and
to do of his good pleasure. And so he tells us whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world. The so-called God of this
world, the lust of this world, the false prophets and their
proselytes and all the temptations and snares and threatenings and
situations in the world. This new creation daily overcometh
this world. How does it do it? How does it
do it? Well, here it is. This is the
third thing. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith, even our faith. Faith, this divine and heavenly
gift, dictates our attitude and conduct. You'll walk according
to your faith. What you truly believe, that's
what you'll do. You truly believe. You're up
here three stories in the air, man lays a plank down, tells
you it's safe. If you believe it, you'll walk
across it. If you don't, you ain't gonna
step out on it. That's right. What we truly believe, that's
how we walk. That's how we walk. The new creation daily overcometh
all kinds of adversity. And the victory is our failure. I believe in the sovereign, omnipotent,
all-wise God. Walk that way. Walk that way. We believe that? Huh? Why do we run and hide every
time the sky clouds up? I'll tell you what. Do you panic
every time a newsman cries the world's coming to an end? I like
what one man said, I read the book and this ain't how it ends. Why do we cower down when we
see things out of our control? We ought to know that everything's
out of our control all the time. So how is it that faith is a
scribe to victory here? Because faith looks to its victorious
object, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's already overcome the
world. All we got to do is fix our eyes
on him and keep our eyes on him. The old Peter, he said, bid me,
Lord, to come out there and join you out there on that water.
Boy, he wanted to walk on that water. Golly, he seen his master
out there. He wanted to go out there. And
the Lord said, come on. And Peter, for a second, stepped
out on that water and didn't sink. Had his eyes fixed on his
Savior, and there he stood on the water. I can just imagine
what was rushing up through his heart and mind. My soul, I'm
standing on the water. And then he looked up at them
waves. Down he went. Fix your eyes on him and don't
take your eyes off of him. That's how you get through it.
Keep your eyes on him. He already has the victory. Faith looks to its victorious
object, the Lord Jesus Christ. Back up in 1 John 4, 17, he said,
herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in
the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. We're already victorious in him. And he's given us the means,
he's given us everything that we need, every provision we need
to be seated with him at that last day. Well, how is he? as he is. How is he? He's victorious. He's accepted. He's beloved. He's blessed. He's overcoming
all of his enemies. He's sitting down. He ain't pacing.
He's sat down expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. So are we in this work. He's our federal head and representative,
he's our lord, he's our protector, he's our counselor, he's our
shepherd, and he's our king. And I hope you don't think I'm
trying to shame you because of our own belief. We all share
it equally, I guarantee it. I'm trying to encourage you to
believe. What do you see down here that
you're ready to just rest in? Huh? Medical science? I don't think so. Politicians,
news people, what do you see out here to put any trust in?
Put your trust in Him, and you'll have peace. You'll have peace. We've been given faith, so feed
it. Grow in it. Walk by it. Rejoice
in it. But what happens if our worst
fears come to pass? What happens if we catch this
virus and we die? What happens? We get what we
wanted anyway, don't we? If you're a believer, you're
ushered out of this place of pain and fear and torment, temptation. You're ushered right out of here.
To be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord.
If our worst fears come to pass, and there shouldn't be any fear
at all, but if our worst fears come to pass and we die from
this virus, if we're believers, instantly we're gonna be plumb
well. No virus will ever touch you
again. No enemy will ever touch you again. No temptation will
ever befall you again. You'll be in the presence of
the Savior. and not forever. It just would usher us into glory,
and that's where we wanted to be anyway. Whatsoever is born
of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. May the Lord teach us
not only to have this faith and what this faith is, but to walk
in it, to use it. It's been given to us for that
purpose, for that purpose. And I'm as sure as I'm standing
here that that's exactly why this virus has been turned loose
on this world. It's to cause his people to look
to him. And it's working, ain't it? Yes,
it is. It's working. All right, thank
you.