OVERCOMING IN GOD, IN CHRIST AND IN THE BELIEVER
[p. 444] OVERCOMING IN GOD, IN CHRIST AND IN THE BELIEVER
Romans 3: 4; Luke 11: 21, 22; Revelation 12: 10, 11
The word “overcome” in these scriptures is important; first as to God, then as to Christ, and then as to the believer. The first scripture refers to God overcoming rebellious sinners by His goodness; He is not yet casting them into the lake of fire, as He will do with the beast and the false prophet, as we read in Revelation 19: 20. They have no formal trial, but are taken and cast alive into the lake of fire. They are sons of perdition, and there is no salvation for such. That there are sons of perdition there can be no doubt. Judas is called “the son of perdition”, the Lord speaks of him as “perished”, John 17: 12. There is no salvation for such. Someone here may be saying in his mind, ‘While there is life there is hope’, but there is no hope at all for sons of perdition, the very name indicates that. They go to their own place. It is said of Judas that he went “to his own place”, Acts 1: 25; this is a most solemn fact, and the Spirit of God records these things for our serious consideration, not for mere historical reasons, but in order to challenge everyone who reads, as to whether he is facing this matter of salvation, or whether he will possibly come under the heading of a son of perdition.
If the Lord Jesus were to descend from heaven now and take His own away, as He is about to do, these sons of perdition would come to light. It is one of the most dreadful things to ponder upon, that there would be those left for perdition. They will clamour then for salvation, without possibility of their finding it; they will knock at the Lord’s door, asking Him to open to them, but He will say from within, without opening the door, yet making His voice heard, “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity”, Luke 13: 27. They were sons of perdition before, but then it will be manifest that they are outside the realm of salvation. They may not be just like the beast and the false prophet, who will be cast alive into the lake of fire, but still the lake of fire will be their doom also. Let no one doubt this, whether old or young. There may be persons on earth now, who will never be saved, and it is a challenge to every one of us here. God alone knows who they are. The apostle John tells us that “even now there have come many antichrists”, persons of that character, but the antichrist is yet to come; he has not yet appeared, but he is one of the sons of perdition, and as we read, he will “go into destruction”, Revelation 17: 8.
Then another thing that is very solemn in this respect is the word, “Let him that does unrighteously do unrighteously still; and let the filthy make himself filthy still”, Revelation 22: 11. That is very solemn; it is a word for persons who think it is optional whether they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, or whether they can take their fling in the world, and then at their own time believe on Him. Nothing is more false than that; for if you are doing unrighteously, God may say to you, ‘Keep on at it’. “Let him ... do unrighteously still”. There is no hope for you. You may question what I am saying, but read it for yourself in the last chapter of the Bible, where these words are found very significantly; they refer to persons who are just trivial, light-hearted, who think they can do as they like in believing or not. But remember you are having to do with God, and He is not mocked. If you disregard His claims, He may mock you, as it says, “He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision”, Psalm 2: 4. If we think divine things are optional, God may say, ‘If that is your mind, things must remain as they are’; for He has a right to say something in this matter, as well as you.
[p. 446] The apostle Paul, when writing to refractory christians in Corinth, where some among them were false apostles, deceitful workers, not saved people at all, says, “If any be ignorant, let him be ignorant”, 1 Corinthians 14: 38. God is showing to us that He is not to be mocked; He has to say to us in these things, and if people decide to remain in ignorance of Him and turn their backs on Him, He reserves the right to say, ‘It shall be that way!’ How terrible it is! So that we are to wake up to these things; we have to do with God, and one of His ways of overcoming is by what He says to us.
The passage in Romans 3 occurs in that section of the epistle which treats of men being convicted of sins and of sin. God goes to great pains to accomplish this. One of His great moral triumphs is to bring men, women and children to repentance. That is the point in the word ‘overcome’ in verse 4, “that thou ... shouldest overcome”. It is quoted from Psalm 51, one of the most important in the whole book of Psalms. David, who wrote it, had been a great sinner, but he had been overcome by God, in the sense that he was brought to acknowledge his sin. God triumphed. King David sinned a great sin; it was deep-dyed sin, a double sin. How Satan jeered, as it were, when he found himself overcoming, for the moment, a great saint. For David was undoubtedly a great saint; he was outstanding in that sense, and yet he was overcome by the devil. Let nobody think himself immune from the devil’s machinations. David was a great king, a great saint, a prophet and the sweet psalmist of Israel, and yet he was overcome by the devil. But God had overcome him before, and now He will do it again. David is one of God’s chief men, I might say, as convert, as king, as prophet, as saint, and as the sweet psalmist of Israel, and yet Satan overcomes him; but God, who had overcome him before, will do it again. How did He do it? He did it by a prophet. We are living in a time when prophecy is taking a great place, and one is [p. 447] hoping it may become more effective; it enters into the preaching of the gospel; the gospel implies prophecy, for according to the prophecy of Joel, the Holy Spirit would come from God, and God says, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy”, Joel 2: 28. It was going to be a great part of the service of God. Why should it be so? Because prophecy brings God to men’s consciences; it is one of God’s great weapons for overcoming men in a moral sense.
So God sent Nathan to David; he was specially a prophet for David. So great, so important was David in the mind of God, that we might say, God detailed one of His prophets specially to look after him. When he needed him, he was there: he came to David after he had sinned. Why did he not come before? You say, ‘Why did he not prevent David from sinning?’ The solemn side of it is that God allowed David to sin, and Nathan the prophet came to him and spoke to him about his sin. He was very respectful, for David was a great monarch; he spoke a beautiful parable, which I cannot go over now, but it is one of the most touching of parables, showing how skilful Nathan was. He went over the ground of David’s guilt; he portrayed it as though it might be anyone who was guilty, and not David; and David being a monarch, and a righteous man as a king, declared that the guilty person should be put to death. Then Nathan replies, “Thou art the man!” 2 Samuel 12: 7. He did not stop at that word, he went over the ground again to bring out the heinous character of the sin, for God loves us too well to hide from us the full bearing of our guilt. Romans 3 is for that purpose; it brings in everybody as “under judgment to God”. Everybody, after having had a fair trial, is brought in before the bar of God as guilty, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (verse 23).
Verse 4 is quoted from David’s great penitential Psalm 51, where it is written, “That thou mayest be [p. 448] justified when thou speakest, be clear when thou judgest”. Nathan’s name is at the head of that psalm, as if God would say, ‘Nathan is always present’. The prophetic word is always near. God is not far from any one of us, to bring us to self-judgment, to convict our conscience when guilt happens. He was not far from David. He allows the guilt and then He overcomes the guilty man. He could have destroyed him, but no, He overcame him on moral lines, and if you look at the psalm you will see what David says, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is continually before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done what is evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest” (this is the passage quoted by Paul), “be clear when thou judgest”, Psalm 51: 3, 4. David is showing thus how God has triumphed. David himself had triumphed in many a battle, he never lost one that we know of; he was always victorious, but now he says, ‘God has triumphed’. How, and by what weapon? By a prophetic weapon, that is, by Nathan. Nathan says, “Thou art the man!” God’s finger is pointed at David. God is accusing him, He is convicting him.
One may be accused and not convicted; the idea of conviction is that the thing is brought home to my conscience. In legal terms a man is convicted if the jury passes judgment upon him as guilty, but he may not be convicted in his own conscience, whereas the thought in scripture is that the sinner is convicted in his own conscience; he is a guilty man and God effects repentance. It is a moral triumph and God thus secures a great victory. He loves to do it. He has secured a man for Himself. Need I say it is far more to Him than that He should take a man like the antichrist and cast him alive into the lake of fire? Such a man is not secured for God; he is put out of the way; he will not trouble the world again; he will not lead great armies against others. David in Psalm 51 is saying to God, ‘You have overcome me; I was a rebellious, sinful man for a time, but You have triumphed’; “I acknowledge my transgressions”. Maybe there is somebody just like that now, some secret guilt, some wilful course never yet faced, perhaps known only to yourself and to God, not even known to the brethren, for we need not do things that are regarded as criminal to the natural mind to make us sinful.
When king Saul went against the Amalekites, in 1 Samuel 15, he doubtless thought he had done an excellent piece of work; he had slain the Amalekites, he had destroyed them, but he brought their king back alive with the best of the cattle and sheep. He thought he had done well, but the real truth was that he was wilful all the time, and there are people like that among the people of God. They say, ‘What have I done?’ It is a matter of what you have not done. Samuel says to Saul, “Self-will is as iniquity and idolatry” (verse 23). It is as bad as David’s crime, or worse; for nothing of the character of David’s sin was attributed to Saul, yet self-will was written on his whole course, and so it may be with some of us here. You may challenge anybody and say, ‘What am I doing?’ But maybe it is what you are not doing. Maybe your will is at work, and you are refusing to bow, and God is now facing you in order to overcome you as He will. The word says, “That thou ... shouldest overcome when thou art in judgment”. Romans 3: 4. God is sitting in judgment now in a moral sense. He is not casting men into the lake of fire now. He is doing a very different work, a work which is pleasant to Him. He is overcoming men through their consciences by prophetic means. He is doing it every day, and woe be to the man who holds himself aloof. May the speaker and those who hear face this matter as to whether God is overcoming him. It is a great triumph on God’s part to overcome the sinner by leading him to repentance, and it is a great triumph for the sinner, too.
[p. 450] Think of Job, for instance, one of the best examples of what I am saying. We have a book of forty-two chapters written to show how this matter of God triumphing over one man can come about, Job was a great talker; men who follow their own wills in the things of God are usually of that type; they have plenty to say, but in chapter 31: 40 Job’s speeches come to an end. It says, “The words of Job are ended”. That is one step in God’s triumph. Job says, ‘I am going to stop these speeches’. It is not that he did not talk again, but he is speaking of his words. I suppose if you were to consult with a Job of these days, he would call your attention to some of his speeches; they are masterpieces. People are very proud of their ability to speak, and of course naturally it is a great art. But God can speak, and when “the words of Job are ended”. He will do so. There is some little headway being made if a brother who is showing his own will in the things of God, or in other ways, is brought to this; for his speeches are sure to vindicate himself, and do it eloquently, with tears, it may be. But when the man says, ‘I am not going to say any more’, well, there is some headway. The time came when Job’s words were ended, but God had not yet overcome him. Elihu has to say to him, and he speaks well, too, but even he does not overcome Job. Then God takes him in hand and says to him, as it were, ‘Now Job, you can make a speech, make the best one you can and I will listen to you’. That is God, He will let you turn out all you have on your mind and tell it to Him, “Gird up now thy loins like a man”, Job 38: 3. He challenges him to do it, but Job did not do so. God is overcoming him. It is not a question exactly of preaching the gospel of His grace, but God speaks to Job and directs his attention to this creature and that creature; pointing out features in this one and that one which He has made. It is not only a matter of what God says, but He comes near and impresses you with Himself so that you are affected. Job says, “I will lay mine hand upon my mouth”, Job 40: 4. God is doing the work. He did it with David, and He is doing it with Job. Maybe He is doing it with somebody at this time. It is not simply the terms of the gospel, the words of it, but it is God Himself doing the work necessary. God comes near, the word of God is living and powerful: it is God Himself, and so Job says, “I will proceed no further”, Job 40: 5. He had darkened counsel by his words; how much of that we see; someone may try to give counsel to another to encourage him on the right line, but it is met perhaps by a multitude of words which weaken the counsel, so that it is darkened. Job says, ‘I am finished with that’. God is about to overcome him, so that Job says finally, “I abhor myself”, Job 42: 6. He said that to God. Do not let us be afraid to face this matter; let us have done with our arguments and face the thing as it is. Listen to God. You know you are guilty and God knows it, and wants to overcome you. It will be a great triumph for God and great blessing for you when you are brought to repentance. Job became much better off than he had ever been, after God overcame him, he says, “I ... repent”, a very real repentance, “in dust and ashes”. Well, that is what is meant by this verse. One would challenge one’s own self as to how ready one is to really justify God, rather than oneself. “So that thou shouldest be justified in thy words, and shouldest overcome when thou art in judgment”.
The apostle goes on to point out that if God does not overcome in this way, how can He judge the world? He must overcome; He must judge the world; He is entitled to do it, and He will yet do it, but He is judging us now, overcoming us through our consciences, and every victory is a triumph for Him and for the repentant sinner, for there is joy in heaven over it. It is God’s own work to bring about repentance. He is the blessed God, and He creates happiness, holy happiness above, and also among His people, as He brings about [p. 452] repentance in guilty souls. So that we come into repentance when we have the sense that we have sinned, or if we have never believed at all, and there is joy in heaven. “And the Holy Spirit also bears us witness of it ... their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”, Hebrews 10: 15 - 17. That is what is going on every day; God Himself in the Holy Spirit witnessing to you that on account of the death of Jesus, your sins and iniquities will be remembered no more for ever.
Now I turn for a moment to Luke 11, to show how the Lord Jesus overcame Satan. The Lord says in verse 21, “When the strong man armed keeps his own house, his goods are in peace; but when the stronger than he coming upon him overcomes him, he takes away his panoply in which he trusted, and he will divide the spoil”. This is a very interesting parable, and in all the annals of war, there is hardly one like it. David foreshadowed it in the valley of Elah in 1 Samuel 17. He was just a type of this parable. The Lord Jesus, a divine Person, never other than “God blessed for ever” (Romans 9: 5), yet as Man here, met Satan, the devil, and overcame him. It was the One who was “stronger than he coming upon him”. The Lord credits him with having a palace and being armed, but He is stronger than he. Some of you may say, ‘The world is a very pleasant place, it is very attractive, I would like to have my fling in it for a while, I would like to roam about this palace of the strong man, for it embraces all the pleasures of this world’. Satan has been a long time in this business. The arts and sciences came in very early, and took hold of Cain and his family, and Satan uses them to build up his world, its music and dancing, its pleasure-halls and theatres. He has been a long time at the business, and he has palaces, and he is armed so as to keep them.
As the Lord Jesus was baptised, the heavens were parted asunder, and the Spirit descended upon Him [p. 453] and the voice out of the heavens saluted Him, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, and then we are told, “Immediately the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness” to be “tempted by Satan”, Mark 1: 11 - 13. The Holy Spirit would not drive any of us into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil: we could not stand it. But this One could, and God would display this to the universe. It was there He took away all the armour of the strong man. The devil took the Lord up to a high mountain and said, ‘There are all the kingdoms of the world, they are all mine’. Of course he is not concerned about the truth, for he is the father of lies. The Lord said, “He is a liar and its father”, John 8: 44. He would decoy you by the world’s glory; that is a weapon which he has. The Lord took up this conflict single-handed. The whole Roman empire of that day could not do it; neither could all the armies of the world do it today, but Jesus did it alone, He was the Stronger than Satan. Let us, believers, understand that there is “the stronger than he”, that is Jesus, and by extension the Stronger is in us, for “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4: 4. The Lord pictures Himself here in Luke, and says, “When the stronger than he coming upon him overcomes him, he takes away his panoply in which he trusted, and he will divide the spoil”. The spoils properly belong to a victor, and Christ is the Victor over the strong man who had held the world in thraldom. In fact we are told that Christ annulled “him who has the might of death, that is, the devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”, Hebrews 2: 14, 15. Christ has done that. What I am speaking of now is what He did in the wilderness, but He went further than that. He annulled him that had the might of death and delivered us. The expression here, “He will divide the spoil”, means that He has secured the saints, that is, those who believe, out of the enemy’s palace. Is there any man, woman or child who would like to go back into that palace? You are professedly out of it; do not go back! The Holy Spirit is here to keep you from going back; the Spirit is the power by which we are kept out of the world, and the Lord Jesus dividing the spoil means that He has the whole matter under His hand. We read in Hebrews 11: 16 of some who went out as seeking “a better, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God”, and we are told, “for he has prepared for them a city”. What touching words are these, and they are intended for all of us who are believers, so that we should not go back, nor return from whence we came out.
Finally, we have the thought in Revelation 12 of the precious blood of Christ, that is the blood of the Lamb, as that by which certain ones overcame the devil. This is one of the most precious thoughts and we should take account of it: “And I heard a great voice in the heaven saying, Now is come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren has been cast out, who accused them before our God day and night: and they have overcome him by reason of the blood of the Lamb”. This actually has not happened yet, but in applying it to ourselves one thinks of the blood of Jesus who is now in heaven, and as the scripture says, “If any one sin, we have a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”, 1 John 2: 1. So if Satan entices you to sin you repent and you get forgiveness, by the blood of the Lamb, through faith, you overcome the devil. The devil comes back again next day, but you say, ‘No, not again! I have overcome that sin: the blood of the Lamb is my shelter, I am clear of the effect of that sin, I am not going to yield myself again’. That is the way it works: Jesus Christ is our Advocate up there. If any saint sins, Satan would make the worst of it, he is skilled in it, he omits nothing, and his thought is to [p. 455] weaken my conscience, so that I continue in sin, that I do it again and again. But that will not do; the Lord says, ‘I am here with the Father for you, an Advocate for you in the best possible place’; so that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”, 1 John 1: 9. He is there “a patron with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”, and “the blood of Jesus Christ his” (i.e. God’s) “Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7. So that Satan has no advantage over us. He will say to you, ‘See what you have done!’ Yes, I am grieved over it, but I am not confessing it to Satan, but to God. Do not fail to confess, for if you fail in confessing your sin you are exposing yourself to another onslaught of the wicked one. Confess it at once, for God has the means by Him of settling the whole matter at once. It is confessed sins that are forgiven: “He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. That is what is going on, and we are defeating the devil in this way, every time; we are overcoming him by the blood of the Lamb.
Then the scripture goes on to say, “And by reason of the word of their testimony”, that is their confession; that is another thing that baffles the devil. In the school, the workshop, wherever you are talking to people in this world, say something for Christ, something about the things of God, and you will baffle the devil with that. But if you join in with people and laugh and talk about things in the world, the devil has the advantage over you.
Finally, we read, they “have not loved their life even unto death”, that is, you will be reproached. You may suffer bitterly if you pursue that line, but it is victory after victory. They loved not their life unto death. Well, certainly we shall be persecuted, but then we are victorious over the devil. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they were ready to die if necessary. That is victory!