Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2757
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world— our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:4,5.
WHAT is this “world” that we have to overcome? Did not God make the world and did He not see “everything that He had made and, behold, it was very good”? Yes, He did. But after sin entered this world, men came under its power and, now, by “the world” is meant all mankind who remain under the power of sin and are enemies of God. “The world” means the whole corrupt mass of human society out of which God has taken a people whom He has chosen for Himself, whom He quickens by His Divine Spirit and whose business it is to overcome the world. They will find that the world— the power of evil—will war against them and they also must war against it! And the issue of the battle must not long be doubtful. There remains for us only one of two courses—either the world must overcome us and we must yield to it—or else we must overcome the world and cause it to submit to us.
The Apostle helps us to understand what he means by “the world” by what he says in the third verse. “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not grievous.” Now, anything which makes us think that God’s will is grievous is of the spirit of the world, against which we have to fight. If, for instance, we are tempted to think that the restrictions of God’s Law—His commandments and precepts are too stringent, it is the spirit of the world which tempts us to think so, for, “His commandments are not grievous” to those who truly love Him. It is only to the rebellious world that the restrictions of God appear to be too stringent, or that the commands of Christ become burdensome. If we are suffering pain or poverty, or whatever form of trial we may be called to endure, if we are tempted to say, “God is dealing harshly with us, He is unkind to us,” that, also, is manifesting the spirit of the world against which we are to contend until we conquer it.
For God’s wil1 is always right and if we really love Him, we shall acknowledge that it is right and though, for a while, we may have to fight against the spirit of rebellion, yet if we are, indeed, God’s children, we must get the mastery over that spirit of evil and, so, the will of God, even when it involves pain, weakness, shame, or death, itself, shall still be perfectly agreeable to us because it is the will of God! We have not completely conquered the spirit of the world until we can truthfully say that the commandments of God, so far from being grievous to us, are acceptable simply because they come from Him.
Now I propose, as God shall help me, first, to speak of the conquest itself. Then, of the conquering nature. “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.” And, thirdly, of the conquering weapon. “This is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith.”
I. First, then, concerning THE CONQUEST ITSELF. What is it to overcome the world?
Certainly it is not to go about the world blustering and bullying everybody until they all lie prostrate at our feet! If we could accomplish such a feat as that, the world would, in such a case, have overcome us and we would not have conquered it. We would have displayed a spirit and temper betokening the pride of power, the desire to rule over others— and this love would have mastered us. Alexander the Great, when he was master of the whole world, was the greatest slave within it, for he was discontented even with his victories. The pride of conquest held him in captivity by its iron chain. No, he who aims at the highest greatness in this world may only be more greatly selfish than the rest of mankind—and what is that but to be really little? He is truly great who is the most unselfish! And he is the least of all who lives for himself alone.
Neither is it overcoming the world if you try to get out of it and to live by yourself so as never to be tempted to sin. I have seen a man on his knees by the hour, together, reading some pious Latin book, living in a monastery where he never spoke—he had evidently conquered his tongue because he gave no answer to anybody who ever spoke to him. He was reckoned, by his brother monks, to have overcome the world—but had he really done so? Ask any soldier whether a man who slinks away in the day of battle and hides among the baggage—and does not fight at all—is a conqueror! That would be a very easy way of winning a victory—just to escape from the fight—to be of no service in the battle between good and evil, but just to hide away in your own little snuggery over there, in the monastery, or the convent, or the hermitage! It might be an easy way of believing that you had conquered because you had ceased to fight—but that delusion would not make the victory yours. No, Brothers and Sisters, you and I have to roll up our shirtsleeves and go into the world and work like other people—we have to mingle with our fellow men and, as the Lord God said to Adam—in the sweat of our face have we to eat our bread.