Teaching Resources International

“Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

When these words were spoken our Savior was about to leave his disciples to go to his death for their sakes.  His great anxiety was that they might not be too much cast down by the trials which would come upon them.  He desired to prepare their minds for the heavy sorrows which awaited them, while the powers of darkness and the men of the world wrought their will upon him.  Now observe, beloved, that our Lord Jesus, in whom dwells infinite wisdom, knew all the secret springs of comfort, and all the hallowed sources of consolation in heaven and under heaven, and yet in order to console his disciples he spoke, not of heavenly mysteries nor of secrets hidden in the breast of God, but he spoke concerning himself.  Doth he not herein teach us that there is no balm for the heart like himself, no consolation of Israel comparable to his person and his work?  If even such a divine Barnabas, such a first-born son of consolation as the Lord himself must point to what he himself has done, for only so can he make his followers to be of good cheer, then how wise it must be in ministers to preach much of Jesus by way of encouragement to the Lord’s addicted, and how prudent it is for mourners to look to him for the comfort they need.  “Be of good cheer,” he saith, “I” — something about himself — “I have overcome the world.”  So then, beloved, in all times of depression of spirit hasten away to the Lord Jesus Christ; whenever the cares of this life burden you, and your way seems hard for your weary feet, by to your Lord.  There may be, and there are, other sources of consolation, but they will not at all times serve your turn; but in Him there dwelleth such a fullness of comfort, that whether it be in summer or in winter the streams of comfort are always flowing.  In your high estate or in your low estate, and from whatever quarter your trouble may arise, you can resort at once to him and you shall find that he strengthens the hands that hang down and confirms the feeble knees.

A further remark suggests itself that the Lord Jesus must be more than man from the tone which he assumed.  There are certain persons who deny the godhead of our Lord and yet think well of Jesus as a man; indeed, they have uttered many highly complimentary things with regard to his character: but I wonder it should not strike them that there is a great deal of assumption, presumption, pride, egotism, and all that style of folly in this man if he be nothing more than a man.  For what good man whom you would wish to imitate would say to others, “Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world.”  This is altogether too much for a mere man to say.

The Lord Jesus Christ frequently spoke about himself and about what he has done and commended himself to his disciples as one who was only a man and of a lowly mind could never have done.  The Lord was certainly meek and lowly in heart, but no man of that character would have told others so.  There is an inconsistency here which none can account for but those who believe him to be the Son of God.  Understand him to be divine, put him in his true position as speaking down out of the excellency of his deity to his disciples, and then you can comprehend his so speaking,  Yea, it becomes infinitely seemly and beautiful.  Deny his Godhead, and I for one am quite unable to understand how the words before us, and others like them, could ever have fallen from his lips, for none will dare to say that he was boastful.  Blessed be thou, O, Son of man, thou art also Son of God, and therefore thou dost not only speak to us with the sympathizing tenderness of a brother man, but with the majestic authority of the Only Begotten of the Father.  Divinely condescending are thy words, “I have overcome the world.”

If you look at this claim of Jesus without the eye of faith, does it not wear an extraordinary appearance?  How could the betrayed man of Nazareth say, “I have overcome the world”?  We can imagine Napoleon speaking thus when he had crushed the nations beneath his feet and shaped the map of Europe to his will. We can imagine Alexander speaking thus when he had rifled the palaces of Persia and led her ancient monarchs captive.  But who is this that speaketh on this wise?  It is a Galilean, who wears a peasant’s garment and consorts with the poor and the fallen!  He has neither wealth nor worldly rank nor honor among men, and yet speaks of having overcome the world.  He is about to be betrayed by his own base follower into the hands of his enemies, and then he will be led out to judgment and to death, and yet he says, “I have overcome the world.”  He is casting an eye to his cross with all its shame, and to the death which ensued from it, and yet he saith, “I have overcome the world.”  He had not where to lay his head, he had not a disciple that would stand up for him, for he had just said, “Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone;” he was to be charged with blasphemy and sedition and brought before the judge and find no man to declare his generation; he was to be given up to a brutal soldiery to be mocked and despitefully used and spat upon; his hands and feet were to be nailed to a cross, that he might die a felon’s death, and yet he saith, “I have overcome the world.”  How marvelous, and yet how true!  He spoke not after the manner of the flesh nor after the sight of the eye.  We must use faith’s optics here and look within the veil, and then we shall see not alone the despised bodily person of the Son of man, but the indwelling, noble, all-conquering soul which transformed shame into honor, and death into glory.  May God the Holy Spirit enable us to look through the external to the internal, and see how marvelously the ignominious death was the rough garment which concealed the matchless victory from the purblind eyes of carnal man.

During the last two Sabbath mornings, I have spoken of our Lord Jesus Christ: first, as the end of the law; and secondly, as the conqueror over the old serpent; now we come to speak of him as the overcomer of the world.  Addressing his disciples he said, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

Now, what is this world that he speaks about? and how has he overcome it? and what good cheer is there in the fact for us?

I. WHAT IS THIS WORLD WHICH HE IS REFERRING TO? I scarcely know a word which is used with so many senses as this word “world.”  If you will turn to your Bibles, you will find the word “world” used in widely different significations, for there is a world which Christ made, “He was in the world and the world was made by him” — that is, the physical world.

There is a world which God so loved that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish.  There are several forms of this favorable signification.  Then there is a world, the world here meant, which “lieth in the wicked one,” a world which knows not Christ, but which is ever” more opposed to him: a world for which he says that he does not pray, and a world which he would not have us love — “Love not the world, neither the things which are in the world.”  Without going into these various meanings and shades of meaning which are very abundant, let us just say that we scarcely know how to define what is meant here in so many words, though we know well enough what is meant.  Scripture does not give us definitions, but uses language in a popular manner, since it speaks to common people.  “The world” is very much the equivalent of the “seed of the serpent,” of which we spoke last Sabbath day.  The world here means the visible embodiment of that spirit of evil which was in the serpent, and which now worketh in the children of disobedience; it is the human form of the same evil force with which our Lord contended when he overcame the devil; it means the power of evil in the unregenerate mass of mankind, the energy and power of sin as it dwells in that portion of the world which abideth in death and lieth in the wicked one.  The devil is the god of this world, and the prince of this world, and therefore he who is the friend of this world is the enemy of God.

The world is the opposite of the church.  There is a church which Christ has redeemed and chosen out of the world and separated unto himself, from among men, and of these as renewed by the power of divine grace, he says, “Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” and again “Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”  Now, the rest of mankind not comprehended amongst the chosen, the redeemed, the called, the saved, are called the world.  Of these our Lord said, “O, righteous Father, the world hath not known thee;” and John said, “The world knoweth us not because it knew him not.”  This is the power which displays a deadly enmity against Christ and against his chosen; hence it is called “this present evil world,” while the kingdom of grace is spoken of as “the world to come.”  This is the world of which it is said, “He that is born of God overcometh the world.”

You will see that “the world” includes the ungodly themselves, as well as the force of evil in them, but it marks them out, not as creatures nor even as men who have sinned, but as unregenerate, carnal and rebellious, and therefore as the living embodiments of an evil power which works against God; and so we read of “the world of the ungodly.”

Perhaps I ought to add that there has grown up out of the existence of unconverted men and the prevalence of sin in them certain customs, fashions, maxims, rules, modes, manners, forces, all of which go to make up what is called “the world,” and there are also certain principles, desires, lusts, governments and powers which also make up a part of the evil thing called “the world.”  Jesus says “My kingdom is not of this world.”  James speaks of keeping ourselves “unspotted from the world.” John says, “the world passeth away and the lust thereof;” and Paul says, “not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed.

“Moreover, I may say that the present constitution and arrangement of all things in this fallen state may be comprehended in the term “world,” for everything has come under vanity by reason of sin, and things are not to day according to the original plan of the Most High, as designed for man in his innocence.  Behold there are trials and troubles springing out of our very existence in this life of which it is said, “in the world ye shall have tribulation.”   To many a child of God, there have befallen hunger and disease and suffering, and unkindness, and various forms of evil which belong not to the world to come, nor to the kingdom which Christ has set up, but which come to them because they are in this present evil world, which has so become because the race of men have fallen under the curse and consequence of sin.

Now the world is all these matters put together, this great conglomeration of mischief among men, this evil which dwelleth here and there and everywhere wherever men are scattered — this is the thing which we call the world.  Every one of us know better what it is than we can tell to anybody else, and perhaps while I am explaining I am rather confounding than expounding.  You know just what the world is to some of you — it is not more than your own little family, as to outward form, but much more as to influence.  Your actual world may be confined to your own house, but the same principles enter into the domestic circle which pervade kingdoms and states.  To others the world takes a wide sweep as they necessarily meet with ungodly men in business, and this we must do unless we are to go altogether out of the world, which is no part of our Lord’s plan, for he says, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world.”  To some who look at the whole mass of mankind and are called thoughtfully to consider them all because they have to be God’s messengers to them, the tendencies and outgoings of the human mind towards that which is evil, and the spirit of men’s actions as done against God in all nations and ages — all these go to make up to them “the world.”

But be it what it may, it is a thing out of which tribulation will be sure to come to us, Christ tells us so.  It may come in the form of temporal trial of some shape or other; it may come in the form of temptation which will alight upon us from our fellow-men, it may come in the form of persecution to a greater or less extent according to our position: but it will come.  “In the world ye shall have tribulation.”  We are sojourners in an enemy’s country, and the people of the land wherein we tarry are not our friends, and will not help us on our pilgrimage to heaven.  All spiritual men in the world are our friends, but then, like ourselves, they are in the world but they are not of it.  From the kingdom of this world whereof Satan is lord, we must expect fierce opposition against which we must contend even unto victory if we are to enter into everlasting rest.

II. Now this brings me to the more interesting topic in the second place of HOW HAS CHRIST OVERCOME THE WORLD? And we answer, first he did so in his life: then in his death: and then in his rising and his reigning.

First, Christ overcame the world in his life.  This is a wonderful study, the overcoming of the world in the life of Christ.  I reckon that those first thirty years of which we know so little were a wonderful preparation for his conflict with the world, and that though only in the carpenter’s shop, and obscure, and unknown to the great outside world, yet in fact he was not merely preparing for the battle, but he was then beginning, to overcome it. In the patience which made him bide his time we see the dawn of the victory.  When we are intent upon doing good, and we see mischief and sin triumphant everywhere, we are eager to begin: but suppose it were not the great Father’s will that we should be immediately engaged in the fray, how strongly would the world then tempt us to go forward before our time.  A transgression of discipline may be caused by over zeal, and this as much breaks through the law of obedience as dullness or sloth would do.  The Roman soldier was accounted guilty who, when the army was left with the orders that no man should strike a blow in the leader’s absence, nevertheless stepped forward and slew a Gaul; the act was one of velour, but it was contrary to military discipline and might have had most baleful results, and so it was condemned.  Thus is it sometimes with us, before we are ready, before we have received our commission, we are in haste to step forward and smite the foe.  That temptation must have come to Christ from the world: many a time as he heard of what was going on in the reign of error and hypocrisy his benevolent impulses might have suggested to him to be up and doing, had it not been that he was incapable of wrong desires.

Doubtless he was willing to be healing the sick.  Was not the land full of sufferers?  He would fain be saving souls — were they not going down to the pit by thousands?  He would gladly have confuted error, for falsehood was doing deadly work, but his hour was not yet come.  Yet our Lord and Master had nothing to say till his Father bade him speak.  Strongly under an impulse to be at work we know he was, for when he went up to the temple he said, “Know ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”  That utterance revealed the fire that burned within his soul, and yet he was not preaching nor healing, nor disputing, but still remained in obscurity all those thirty years, because God would have it so.  When the Lord would have us quiet we are doing his will best by being quiet, but yet to be still and calm for so long a time was a wonderful instance of how all his surroundings could not master him not even when they seemed to work with his philanthropy; he still remained obedient to God, and thus proved himself the overcomer of the world.

When he appears upon the scene of public action you know how he overcomes the world in many ways.  First, by remaining always faithful to his testimony.  He never modified it, not even by so much as a solitary word to please the sons of men.  From the first day in which he began to preach even to the closing sentence which he uttered it was all truth and nothing but truth, truth uncolored by prevailing sentiment, untainted by popular error.  He did not disguise his doctrine, but he came out with plain speaking and set himself in opposition to all the powers which ruled the thought and creed of the age.  He was no guarder of truth.  He allowed truth to fight her own battles in her own way, and you know how she bares her breast to her antagonist’s darts and finds in her own immutable, immortal, and invulnerable life her shield and her spear.  His speech was confident, for he knew that truth would conquer in the long run, and therefore he gave forth his doctrine without respect to the age or its prejudices.  I do not think that you can say that of anybody else’s ministry, not even of the best and bravest of his servants.  We can see, in looking at Luther, great and glorious Luther, how Romanism tinged all that he did more or less; and the darkness of the age cast some gloom even over the serene and steadfast soul of Calvin; of each one of the reformers we must say the same: bright stars as all of these were, yet they kept not themselves untarnished by the sphere in which they shone.  Every man is more or less affected by his age, and we are obliged, as we read history, to make continual allowances, for we all admit that it would not be fair to judge the men of former times by the standard of the nineteenth century.  But, sirs, you may test Christ Jesus if you will by the nineteenth century light, if light it be; you may judge him by any century, ay, you may try him by the bright light of the throne of God: his teaching is pure truth without any admixture, it will stand the test of time and of eternity.  His teaching was not affected by the fact of his being born a Jew, nor by the prevalence of the rabbinical traditions, nor by the growth of the Greek philosophy, nor by any other of the peculiar influences which were then abroad. His teaching was in the world, but it was not of it, nor tinged by it.  It was the truth as he had received it from the Father, and the world could not make him add to it, or take from it, or change it in the least degree, and therefore in this respect he overcame the world.

Observe him next in the deep calm which pervaded his spirit at times when he received the approbation of men.  Our Lord was popular to a very high degree at certain times.  How the people thronged around him as his benevolent hands scattered healing on all sides.  How they approved of him when he fed them; but how clearly he saw through that selfish approbation, and said, “Ye seek me because of the loaves and fishes.”  He never lost his self-possession: you never find him elated by the multitudes following him.  There is not an expression that he ever used which even contains a suspicion of self-glorification.  Amid their hosannas his mind is quietly reposing in God.  He leaves their acclamations and applause to refresh himself by prayer upon the cold mountains, in the midnight air.  He communed with God, and so lived above the praises of men.  He walked among them, holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, even when they would have taken him by force and made him a king.  Once he rides in triumph, as he might often have done if he had pleased, but then it was in such humble style that his pomp was far other than that of kings, a manifestation of lowliness rather than a display of majesty.  Amid the willing hosannas of little children, and of those whom he had blessed, he rides along, but you can see that he indulges none of the thoughts of a worldly conqueror, none of the proud ideas of the warrior who returns from the battle stained with blood.  No, he is still as meek and as gentle and as kindly as ever he was, and his triumph has not a grain of self-exaltation in it.  He had overcome the world.  What could the world give him, brethren?  An imperial nature like to his, in which the manhood held such close communion with Deity as is not readily to be imagined, what was there here below to cause pride in him?  If the trump of fame had sounded out its loudest note, what could it have been compared with the songs of cherubim and seraphim to which his ear had been accustomed throughout all ages?  No, allied with his deity, his manhood was superior to all the arts of flattery and to all the honors which mankind could offer him.  He overcame the world.

He was the same when the world tried the other plan upon him.  It frowned at him, but he was calm still.  He had scarcely commenced to preach before they would have cast him from the brow of the hill headlong.  Do you not expect, as they are hurrying him to the precipice, to see him turn round upon them and denounce them at least with burning words, such as Elias used?  But no, he speaks not an angry word; he passes away and is gone out of their midst.  In the synagogue, they often gnashed their teeth upon him in their malice, but if ever he was moved to indignation, it was not because of anything directed against himself; he always bore all, and scarcely ever spoke a word by way of reply to merely personal attacks.  If calumnies were heaped upon him he went on as calmly as if they had not abused him, nor desired to slay him.  When he is brought before his judges, what a difference there is between the Master and his servant Paul.  He is smitten, but he does not say like Paul, “God shall smite thee, thou wilted wall;” no, but like a lamb before her shearers he is dumb and openeth not his mouth.  If they could have made him angry, they would have overcome him; but he was loving still; he was gentle, quiet, patient, however much they provoked him.  Point me to an impatient word — there is not even a tradition of an angry look that he gave on account of any offense rendered to himself.  They could not drive him from his purposes of love, nor could they make him say anything or do anything that was contrary to perfect love.  He calls down no fire from heaven: no she bears come out of the wood to devour those who have mocked him.  No, he can say, “I have overcome the world,” for whether it smile or whether it frown, in the perfect peace and quiet of his spirit, in the delicious calm of  communion with God, the Man of Sorrows holds on his conquering way.

His victory will be seen in another form.  He overcame the world as to the unselfishness of his aims.  When men find themselves in a world like this, they generally say, “What is our market? what can we make out of it?”  This is how they are trained from childhood.  “Boy, you have to fight your own way, mind you look to your own interests and rise in the world.”  The book which is commended to the young man shows him how to make the best use of all things for himself; he must take care of “number one” and mind the main chance.  The boy is told by his wise instructors, “you must look to yourself or nobody else will look to you: and whatever you may do for others, be doubly sure to guard your own interests.”  That is the world’s prudence, the essence of all her politics, the basis of her political economy — every man, and every nation must take care of themselves: if you wish for any other politics or economics you will be considered to be foolish theorists and probably a little touched in the head.  Self is the man, the world’s law of self-preservation is the sovereign rule and nothing can go on rightly if you interfere with the gospel of selfishness so the commercial and political Solomons assure us.  Now, look at the Lord Jesus Christ when he was in the world and you will learn nothing of such principles, except their condemnation: the world could not overcome him by leading him into a selfish mode of action.  Did it ever enter into his soul, even for a moment, what he could do for himself?  There were riches, but he had not where to lay his head.  The little store he had he committed to the trust of Judas, and as long as there were any poor in the land they were sure to share in what was in the bag.  He set so little account by estate, and stock and funds that no mention is made of such things by either of his four biographers.  He had wholly and altogether risen above the world in that respect; for with whatever evil the most spiteful infidels have ever charged our Lord they have never, to my knowledge, accused him of avarice, greed, or selfishness in any form.  He had overcome the world.

Then again the Master overcame the world in that he did not stoop to use its power.  He did not use that form of power which is peculiar to the world even for unselfish purposes.  I can conceive a man even apart from the Spirit of God rising superior to riches, and desiring only the promotion of some great principle which has possessed his heart; but you will usually notice that when men have done so, they have been ready to promote good by evil, or at least they have judged that great principles might be pushed on by force of arms, or bribes, or policy.  Mahomet had grasped a grand truth when he said, “There is no God but God.”  The unity of the godhead is a truth of the utmost value; but then here comes the means to be used for the propagation of this grand truth — the scimitar.  “Off with the infidels’ heads!  If they have false gods, or will not own the unity of the godhead, they are not fit to live.”  Can you imagine our Lord Jesus Christ doing this?  Why then the world would have conquered him.  But he conquered the world in that he would not employ in the slightest degree this form of power.  He might have gathered a troop about him, and his heroic example, together with his miraculous power, must soon have swept away the Roman empire, and converted the Jew; and then across Europe and Asia and Africa his victorious legions might have gone trampling down all manner of evil, and with the cross for his banner and the sword for his weapon, the idols would have fallen, and the whole world must have been made to bow at his feet.  But no, when Peter takes out the sword, he says, “Put up thy sword into its sheath, they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”  Well did he say, “My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight.”

And he might if he had pleased have allied his church with the state, as his mistaken friends have done in these degenerate times, and then there might have been penal laws against those who dared dissent, and there might have been forced contributions for the support of his church and such like things.  You have read, I dare say, of such things being done, but not in the Gospels, nor in the Acts of the Apostles.  These things are done by those who forget the Christ of God, for he uses no instrument but love, no sword but the truth, no power but the Eternal Spirit, and, in the very fact that he put all the worldly forces aside, he overcame the world.

So, brethren, he overcame the world by his fearlessness of the world’s elite, for many a man who has braved the frowns of the multitude cannot bear the criticism of the few who think they have monopolized all wisdom.  But Christ meets the Pharisee, and pays no honor to his phylactery; he confronts the Sadducee and yields not to his cold philosophy, neither does he conceal the difficulties of the faith to escape his sneer; and he braves also the Herodian, who is the worldly politician, and he gives him an unanswerable reply.  He is the same before them all, master in all positions, overcoming the world’s wisdom and supposed intelligence by his own simple testimony to the truth.

And he overcame the world in his life best of all by the constancy of his love.  He loved the most unlovely men, he loved those who hated him, he loved those who despised him.  You and I are readily turned aside from loving when we receive ungrateful treatment, and thus we are conquered by the world, but he kept to his great object — “he saved others, himself he could not save;” and he died with this prayer on his lips, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Not soured in the least, thou blessed Savior, thou art at the last just as tender as at the first.  We have seen fine spirits, full of generosity, who have had to deal with a crooked and perverse generation, until they have at last grown hard and cold.  Nero, who weeps when he signs the first death warrant of a criminal, at last comes to gloat in the blood of his subjects.  Thus do sweet flowers wither into noxious corruption.  As for thee, thou precious Savior, thou art ever fragrant with love.  No spot comes upon thy lovely character, though thou dost traverse a miry road.  Thou art as kind to men at thy departure as thou wast at thy coming, for thou hast overcome the world.

I can only say on the next point that Christ by his death overcame the world because, by a wondrous act of self-sacrifice, the Son of God smote to the heart the principle of selfishness, which is the very soul and lifeblood of the world.  There, too, by redeeming fallen man he lifted man up from the power which the world exercises over him, for he taught men that they are redeemed, that they are no longer their own but bought with a price, and thus redemption became the note of liberty from the bondage of self-love, and the hammer which breaks the fetters of the world and the lusts thereof.

By reconciling men unto God through his great atonement, also he has removed them from the despair which else had kept them down in sin, and made them the willing slaves of the world.  Now are they pardoned, and, being justified, they are made to be the friends of God, and being the friends of God they become enemies to God’s enemies, and are separated from the world, and so the world by Christ’s death is overcome.

But chiefly has he overcome by his rising and his reigning, for when he rose he bruised the serpent’s head, and that serpent is the prince of this world, and hath dominion over it.  Christ has conquered the world’s prince and led him in chains, and now hath Christ assumed the sovereignty over all things here below.  God hath put all things under his feet.  At his girdle are the keys of providence; he ruleth amongst the multitude and in the council chambers of kings.  As Joseph governed Egypt for the good of Israel, so doth Jehovah Jesus govern all things for the good of his people.

Now the world can go no further in persecuting his people than he permits it.  Not a martyr can burn, nor a confessor be imprisoned without the permit of Jesus Christ who is the Lord of all; for the government is upon his shoulders and his kingdom ruleth over all.  Brethren, this is a great joy to us to think of the reigning power of Christ as having overcome the world.

There is yet this other thought that he has overcome the world by the gift of the Holy Spirit.  That gift was practically the world’s conquest.  Jesus has set up a rival kingdom now: a kingdom of love and righteousness; already the world feels its power by the Spirit.  I do not believe that there is a dark place in the center of Africa which is not to some extent improved by the influence of Christianity; even the wilderness rejoices and is glad for him.  This moment the stone cut out of the mountain without hands has begun to smite old Dagon, it is breaking his head and breaking his hands and the very stump of him shall be dashed in pieces yet.  There is no power in this world so vital, so potent as the power of Christ at this day.  I say naught just now of heavenly or spiritual things; but I speak only of temporal and moral influences — even in these the cross is to the front.  He of whom Voltaire said that he lived in the twilight of his day, is going from strength to strength.  It was true it was the twilight, but it was the twilight of the morning and the full noon is coming.  Every year the name of Jesus brings more light to this poor world; every year hastens on the time when the cross which is the Pharos of humanity, the world’s lighthouse amid the storm, shall shine forth more and more brightly over the troubled waters till the great calm shall come.  The word shall become more and more universally true, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”  Thus hath he overcome the world.

III. Now, lastly, WHAT CHEER IS THERE HERE FOR US? Why, this first, that if the man Christ Jesus has overcome the world at its worst, we who are in him shall overcome the world too through the same power which dwelt in him.  He has put his life into his people, he has given his Spirit to dwell in them, and they shall be more than conquerors.  He overcame the world when it attacked him in the worst possible shape, for he was poorer than any of you, he was more sick and sad than any of you, he was more despised and persecuted than any of you, and he was deprived of certain divine consolations which God has promised never to take away from his saints, and yet with all possible disadvantages Christ overcame the world: therefore be assured we shall conquer also by his strength.  Besides, he overcame the world when nobody else had overcome it.  It was as it were a young lion which had never been defeated in fight: it roared upon him out of the thicket and leaped upon him in the fullness of its strength.  Now if our greater Samson did tear this young lion as though it were a kid and fling it down as a vanquished thing, you may depend upon it that now it is an old lion, grey and covered with the wounds which he gave it of old, we, having the Lord’s life and power in us, will overcome it too.  Blessed be his name!  What good cheer there is in his victory.  He does as good as say to us, “I have overcome the world, and you in whom I dwell, who are clothed with my spirit, must overcome it too.”

But then, next, remember he overcame the world as our Head and representative, and it may truly be said that if the members do not overcome, then the head has not perfectly gained the victory.  If it were possible for the members to be defeated, why then, the head itself could not claim a complete victory, since it is one with the members.  So Jesus Christ, our covenant Head and representative, in whose loins lay all the spiritual seed, conquered the world for us and we conquered the world in him.  He is our Adam, and what was done by him was actually done for us and virtually done by us.  Have courage then, for you must conquer; it must happen to you as unto your head: where the head is shall the members be, and as the head is so must the members be: wherefore be assured of the palm branch and the crown.

And now, brethren, I ask you whether you have not found it so?  Is it not true at this moment that the world is overcome in you?  Does self govern you?  Are you working to acquire wealth for your own aggrandizement?  Are you living to win honor and fame among men?  Are you afraid of men’s frowns?  Are you the slave of popular opinion?  Do you do things because it is the custom to do them?  Are you the slaves of fashion?  If you are, you know nothing about this victory.  But if you are true Christians I know what you can say: “Lord, I am thy servant, thou hast loosed my bonds; henceforth the world hath no dominion over me; and though it tempt me, and frighten me, and flatter me, yet still I rise superior to it by the power of thy Spirit, for the love of Christ constraineth me, and I live not unto myself and unto things that are seen, but unto Christ and to things invisible.”  If it be so, who has done this for you?  Who but Christ the Overcomer, who is formed in you the hope of glory: wherefore be of good cheer, for you have overcome the world by virtue of his dwelling in you.

So, brethren, let us go back to the world and its tribulations without fear.  Its trials cannot hurt us.  In the process we shall get good, as the wheat doth out of the threshing.  Let us go forth to combat the world, for it cannot overcome us.  There was never a man yet with the life of God in his soul whom the whole world could subdue; nay, all the world and hell together cannot conquer the weakest babe in the family of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Lo, ye are harnessed with salvation, ye are panoplied with omnipotence, your heads are covered with the aegis of the atonement, and Christ himself, the Son of God, is your captain.  Take up your battle cry with courage, and fear not, for more is he that is for you than all they that be against you.  It is said of the glorified saints, “They overcame through the blood of the Lamb;” “and this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith,” wherefore be ye steadfast, even to the end, for ye shall be more than conquerors through him that hath loved you.  Amen.

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth 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 “every thing 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 to 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 so to think; 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 will is always right; and if we really love him, we shall own 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: “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world;” and, thirdly, of the conquering weapon: “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even 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; because, if we could accomplish such a feat as that, the world would, in such a case, have overcome us, and we should not have conquered it.  We should 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, brethren; you and I have to roll up our shirt-sleeves, 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.  It may be our occupation to have to add up those long columns of figures, or to measure up those bales of goods, or to talk to our fellow-men on various matters; but, whatever our employment may be; we have to be in the world, and we have to conquer it; to be in the world, yet not of it—as much separated from the rest of mankind as if we belonged to an alien race—conquerors of it wherever we go, not by getting out of it, but by mingling with the men and women in it—doing all that is lawful and right, and all that is expected that a man should do to his fellow-men; yet, all the while, being conquerors over the evil spirit of the world.

Now, having shown you what this conquest of the world is not, let; us turn to the positive side of the question, and see what it is.  The first thing that is necessary with many who are seeking to overcome the world is, to cut themselves loose from the world’s customs. They were born into the world; one man has his own little world and another man has another little world; but every man, sooner or later, finds himself in a world of sin.  There are ungodly companions with whom he is linked—evil associations to which he is bound.  There are some men who, in their unconverted state, give themselves up entirely to the pleasures of the world, the amusements and frivolities of what is called “Society.”  Now, if such men ever expect to overcome the world, the very first thing they must do is to cut their old connections altogether, to sever all the bonds which unite them to those who lead them into sin.

Such a thing has often happened as for a man, who has been the best of company, and the choicest of good fellows among worldlings, to sit down in quietness for half an hour, and God the Holy Ghost has wrought so mightily upon his heart that he has said to himself, “What have I been doing but playing the fool to make other fools laugh?  How am I spending my time?  I must honestly say that I am doing no real good with it.  What am I making of my manhood?  Here it is—well-nigh six feet of it, and it will soon lie in six feet of earth—what am I doing that is really worth the doing?  Am I not really wasting my time?  This style of living will not do.” Ah! the blessed Spirit has begun working in the man, and he has wept before his God as he has thought over his wasted life.  Further, he has, by faith, looked to Jesus on the cross, and he has said, “Thou, blessed Savior, hast redeemed me; so, henceforth, I will be thine.  As I live by thee, I will live for thee, and for my fellow-men.”

After arriving, by God’s grace, at that decision, he has become a different man from what he used to be.  His old companions could not get him back to his former haunts, however much they might try to do so.  Even if he should go there, they would not long want him with them, for he would not be any longer of their way of thinking or their way of acting, for he would be a changed man altogether.  There are many of you who would like to come to that decision, but you never appear willing actually to decide to serve the Lord; you are always going to do it, yet you never do it.  You hesitating people are the most unhappy folk in the whole world, for you neither get comfort out of your present condition, nor out of that better condition after which you sometimes aspire, but which you have not the courage resolutely to seek after until you find it.  Some men have just enough conscience to make them miserable, but they have not enough force in it to make them determine that things shall be altered.  Their religion is very much like the experience of certain boys who, professedly, go out to bathe in the early morning.  They put their toes into the water, and shiver all over with the cold; but the brave swimmer takes a header, plunges right in, is soon in a fine glow and comes out praising the delightful bath he has had.  I would urge every man who is just now upon the point of deciding—and I pray God the Holy Spirit, with his almighty energy, to back up my urging—that he may now say-

“‘Tis done,—the great transaction’s done,

I am my Lord’s, and he is mine.”

I pray that he may henceforth be, a changed man, that he may forsake his former evil ways, and live wholly unto God.  That is the first part of overcoming the world—breaking loose from its bonds, so that one can say, “I am not tied down by it any longer; by God’s grace, I am a free man in Christ Jesus.”

But that emancipation is merely a beginning.  Overcoming the world further consists in maintaining that freedom. Oh, what a work is this!  It is no child’s play for a man to say, “No, I will never again be the slave that I used to be.  By God’s eternal grace, I have broken off this fetter and that, and never again shall those chains be fastened upon me.  Great God, by thine almighty love, thou hast loosed my bonds; I am thy free man; I am free indeed, and I will fight for my freedom, and under no possible circumstances will I go back again to my old slavery.”  Ay, but that fight is the difficulty; and I shall have to show you that nobody can be victorious in that fight unless he is one of a peculiar race—-those who are born of God, born from above.  This is a stern battle—when the world surrounds us everywhere,—when pleasure tempts us,—when gain tries to corrupt us,—when poverty assails us,—when evil company seeks to sway us,—it is hard for us to come right straight, out of all our former associations, and then to keep out—remaining conquerors over the world throughout the whole of the rest of our life; and being conquerors even in death, having vanquished the world even on our dying bed.

Part of the overcoming of the world consists in our being raised above circumstances. Remember how the apostle Paul had conquered the world.  He sat in prison shivering with the cold; but he said, “I know how to be abased.”  He went, by-and-by, into the houses of some of his friends, where they gave him all that he could desire; and he said, “I know how to abound.”  It is not an easy thing to be such a master of the world that the utmost poverty cannot make you miserable; yet God can give you grace to say, “I can be poor, but I will be upright. I can lose every stick that I have, but I will stand fast by Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior; and while I have him, I cannot be cast down.”

I say that; the fight against poverty is a very stern one; but the battle against the seductions of wealth is a far sterner one.  Perhaps some of you think that you would like to fight that battle; I daresay you would, but you do not know what you are wishing.  I see many men who are very gracious under all sorts of want; and I see many other men who, in proportion as they grow rich in worldly things, grow poor as to spiritual things.  Very often, just in proportion as men get high in earthly position, in that proportion they cease to do any thing that is of any particular service to anybody.  I do not know what would become of any of us if we were made peers of the realm.  It is, I have no doubt, a great trial to anybody to be so exalted; but there is scarcely a person here who could wear a coronet and yet faithfully serve the Lord; and probably there is not a man or a woman among us who could endure the trial of being made a king or a queen.  It needs more than a world of grace to overcome the world when the world makes much of you.  When God does give us piety in high places, as, blessed be his holy name, he sometimes does, we ought to be most grateful for it, for it is a plant that does not grow well in such a situation as that.  The old couplet is still true,—

“Gold and the gospel seldom do agree,

Religion always sides with poverty.”

It has been so from the first, and I suppose, it will be so to the last.  But the true conquest of the world is, to be indifferent about all such things—to be grateful for abounding mercies, and to be grateful even for straitened circumstances.  They used to say, “Philosophers can be merry without music,” and, certainly, Christians can be happy without having their cup perpetually full.  “I have learned,” said the apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”  Happy are all they who have learned the same lesson, for this is overcoming the world.

Once more, dear friends, to overcome the world is to be above its threats and above its bribes. You working-men, who are Christians, often have a hard time of it; but when your work-mates mock and jeer at you, and call you ill names, never mind them.  Overcome the world by patiently enduring all the persecution that falls to your lot.  Do not get angry and do not become downhearted.  Jests break no bones; and if you had any bone broken for Christ’s sake, it would be the most honored one in your whole body.  Still, you need not wish to have the friendship of this world, and you must not expect to have it, for the world loves not God’s people.  Look how it served them in ages gone by; hanging was thought to be too good for them, so it roasted them alive.  The world would have exterminated the saints if it could have done so; and, today, what does the world say of Christians?  “Oh! they are either fools or fanatics, or else they are a set of canting hypocrites.”  If a man preaches the gospel, and many are drawn to hear him, cavillers cry, “Oh! He is a mountebank.”  If any Christian man is very precise, and particular, they say, “Ugh! He is one of the sniveling Puritans.”  They never know anything bad enough to say of genuine Christians.  They do not like us; it were a pity that they should, for they did not like our Master, and they do not like our Father.  If we will consent to hide our doctrines or to daub them over with the philosophical luminous paint of the present period, they will put up with us; but if we bring out pure gospel truth, straightway they will be down upon us.

Yet there are some of God’s people that the world does love, when they do the world a good turn.  If their love to man leads them to a high philanthropy, and if the world can get anything out of them, it does not mind loving them.  It has a cupboard love even to saints; and if there is any profit to be made out of them, the world will love them, though not their saintship.  They like Mr. So-and-So as a politician; but when it, comes to his religion, they say, “That is his weak point.”  They do not care to interfere with that.  They admire another man because of his care for the poor—the widow and the fatherless; but they have the doctrine of the cross which he delights to preach and which is to him the very joy of his heart.

On the other hand, when the world cannot frighten us by frowns, it often tries to woo us by smiles.  “Oh!” it cries to us, “you really are righteous overmuch, you are too good.  You need not be so precise; come just a little way with us, yield only an inch, that is all we ask.”  No, brethren, yield no inches for all the smiles on this Jezebel’s painted face; but stand out just as boldly against her blandishments as against her thunderbolts.  Care nothing for her opinion or hear action either way; for, if you do, you will not have overcome the world.  God help us, by his gracious Spirit, to be conquerors in that sense!

To overcome the world, further, means to be above the influence of the world’s example. As I said before, we have, each one of us, our own little world; and we all are, to a certain degree, subject to the influences of those who surround us.  The young man, in business, who begins as a Christian, is too often influenced by the pernicious maxims and customs of the trade with which he is connected.  Men mingle in society and each one to some extent affects the others.  How often is a pious child grievously affected by an ungodly parent!  How frequently a gracious servant is ill-affected by an ungodly master or mistress!  But if you really overcome the world, you will live above its influence.  You will be like one, who is obliged to go where the air is foul and disease is rife, but who has such a healthy constitution that he does not catch the disease and is not polluted by the impurity.  There is no seed-plot within him for the disease to grow upon.  Blessed is that man who is himself an example to his fellows—who does not so much come under the influence of others as cast his own influence over others.  God make all of you, beloved, such true leaders of mankind in the right direction because you have yourselves overcome the world!

If you want to see, the portrait of a man who overcame the world, look at Abraham.  He was at home with his father in Haran, and God said to him, “Come forth;” and away he went, with Sarah, and Lot, and their flocks and herds.  The well-watered plain of Jordan lay before him, and he might have settled in it, as Lot did; but it did not tempt him, he dwelt alone, with his flocks and his herds, where God had bidden him go.  The king of Sodom, and Abraham’s nephew, Lot, were carried away captive; and, for the sake of Lot, Abraham went with a band of men, smote the allied kings and delivered the prisoners.  The king of Sodom said to him, “Give me the persons and take the goods to thyself.”  Now, according to the rules of war, the spoil were all Abraham’s; but, oh, how grandly did he behave!  He was not going to be conquered by the world, so he said to the king of Sodom, “I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich;”— which was as much as saying, “I have a right to it if I like to take it, but I waive my rights, I act from higher motives than the ordinary rules of men can supply; the Lord Jehovah is my Helper and Provider, and I live upon what he gives me.  He can make me rich without the help of the king of Sodom, so take your goods, and go.”

See also how nobly he overcame the world on that memorable day when God said, “I will now see whether Abraham really does love me best of all.  He has one boy—the child of his old age—and I will tell him to offer him up in sacrifice.”  And grandly did the patriarch, in that fiery trial, overcome the world; for Isaac was, practically, all the world to him on that day when he unsheathed the knife and proved that his love to God was superior to everything else; and this is the kind of conquest to which you, beloved, are also called.  May God grant that you may be well equipped for it and be truly victorious in it!

II. Now, secondly, I think you will be prepared, after my giving this explanation of what it is to overcome, the world, to hear about THE CONQUERING NATURE: “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.”

Do you all know what it is to be born of God?  I do not think I can tell you, in so many words, exactly what it is, though I know for myself.  It is not simply to be improved and reformed.  It is a grand thing when a man, who has been degraded, lives in a better fashion; but a cobbler might take an old shoe, and mend it, yet that would not make it a new one.  Being born of God is also more than being made anew.  It includes that, but that is not all that it includes.  For God, Who makes all things, can new-make them when he pleases; yet that does not make them to be born of him.  We all know what it is for one person to be born of another; you were all born of your father, and of your mother, and so you became partakers of your parents’ nature.  In like manner, only in a far higher sense, regeneration is more than creation, for there is in it a kinship with God.  So, being born again makes us something more than God’s creatures; we are God’s children.  You know that blessed truth of adoption, by which God takes men and adopts them into his family; but regeneration is a great deal more than adoption.  A man may have an adopted child, but yet it is really no child of his; there is nothing of himself in it, and he cannot put his nature into it.  But we are not only God’s adopted children; if we are indeed born from above, we are God’s newborn children.  The divine nature is actually put into us when we are born of God; is not that a wonderful thing?  And that miracle of mercy must be wrought in all of us who are ever to overcome the world.

For notice this, no nature but the divine nature will ever try to overcome the world. By nature, we are of the world; and that which is of the world will not fight against the world, it will not even think of doing so.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh;” and flesh will not fight against flesh.  Our Lord Jesus said to the Jews, “Ye are of your father the devil;” but the devil will not fight against the world or try to overcome it, for his course is the course of this world, he is the prince of it.  But where the divine nature comes, it comes to fight against the world.  The holy nature of God never enters into a man but what that man cries, “Now will I be wholly free from sin; now will I shake off every fetter of it.”  “Now,” saith he, under the power of this divine inner life, “I do scorn the thought that I, who am born of God, should be a slave to sin—that I, who bear within me something of the Deity—I, who am a twice-born man, begotten again by God the everlasting Father, of whom I here become a child—I loathe the very idea of yielding to sin.”  That is the kind of man to overcome the world because of the divine nature within him.

For, see, the regenerated man is sure to overcome the world, when he goes to fight against it, because, first, he has the Spirit of the Father in him. Now, God the Father is the world’s Creator; so the world can never be a match for its Creator.  He made it, and he can destroy it whenever he pleases to do so.  It is not possible that sin should overcome God, for, as the apostle James tells us, “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”   He is by nature perfectly holy and when this divine nature is put into a man, it is still holy, and it cannot sin, because it is born of God.

This new nature is also akin to the nature of Christ; and you know how the second Person of the blessed Trinity—the Christ of God, dwelt here among men, and the world could never overcome him.  Men could kill him, and they did; but they could not make him sin.  They could drive him from place to place; but they could not make him angry, they could not provoke him to speak any word that he might afterwards regret.  They could never get anything from him which, was worthy of reproach or of rebuke.  They called all the witnesses they could to testify against him; but even the false witnesses could not agree together, for he was “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.”  And even on the cross of Calvary, when they hung him up to die, his dying pangs could extort from him nothing but a prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  And thus he conquered the world, for the human nature in him, blended with the divine, could not be conquered by the world, it was not possible.

Further, we become akin to the Divine Spirit by being born of God, and the Holy Spirit cannot be conquered by the world.  It is he that doth convince the world of sin.  It is he that shall yet win this world for Christ.  He is omnipotent; so, when the Spirit of God dwelleth within us, as he does when we receive the divine nature, it is not possible that he should be conquered, or that we should be conquered by the world.

Now, men and brethren, harken to these words.  Do you not see that you must overcome the world, or else you will perish?  But you cannot overcome the world as you are.  You must, therefore, be born again.  Your only hope lies in your being born of God; and this, if it is even to take place, must be God’s work.  It is God alone who can do it; so you are like ships on their beam-ends, you cannot “right” yourselves.  Cry, therefore, with your whole heart unto God, and ask him to work this miracle in you.”

Salvation is of the Lord.”  He can save you.  He can take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh.  He can breathe upon the dry bones, and make them live.  Ay, he, the mysterious Father of our spirits can create in us a new spirit that shall be begotten of himself and be like unto himself; and this we must have, or we can never overcome the world.

III. Now, thirdly, and lastly, I have to speak of THE CONQUERING WEAPON WHICH IS USED BY THIS NEW NATURE: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

It never entered into my head that most professing Christians would ever overcome the world.  I do not think they ever will, for the world has, to a large extent, overcome them.  You may hear some of them asking, “How far may we go in worldly amusements?”  You really want to go, do you not?  Then go; for it does not matter much where such people as you are to go.  “Oh, but we should like to go as far into the world as we might!”  Would, you?  Then, my Lord’s message to you is, “Ye must be born again.”  It is quite evident that you have not the nature of God in you, for the divine nature in the soul makes it start back, and say, “How far can I get away from anything that looks like wrong?  I hate the very appearance of evil.”  The Christian man does not deny himself this or that, merely because he feels under an obligation to do so, or because he dreads the lash of God’s whip.  No; if he could indulge his new nature to the full, he would continually swim in the sea of perfection.  If he could be what he wishes to be, he would never think a wrong thought, much less speak an evil word.  Now, the divine nature that is in him fights against sin, it cannot help doing so; and it clings to that which is good, and craves after that which is right.  Just as the ox longs to drink water, and stands in a pool of it on a hot day, and drinks and drinks again, so does the Christian seek to drink in the life and purity of God—not because he is told to do so, or because some outside force operates upon him; but because the new nature is within him, and he longs, therefore, to indulge it to the full:; and that new nature, being the nature of God, longeth after that which is pure, and lovely, and of good report.

The instrument with which this new nature fights against the world is faith; and faith conquers, first, by regarding the unseen reward which awaits us. The world comes and offers pleasure as the reward of sin; but faith says, “There are greater pleasures to be had by abstaining from sin.”  The world says, “Take this gain today;” but faith says, “No, I will put what I have out at interest; there is something infinitely better to be had hereafter.”  In its beginning, faith generally works in that way; it despises all the treasures of Egypt and values far more the eternal rewards that Christ has laid up for it in heaven.  But do you not see that there is a measure of selfishness there in both cases?  The sinner sins in order to be happy, as he thinks; and the newborn man abstains from sin in order to be happy.  Well, that is a good thing to do, though the motive be not the most commendable; and there is a measure of faith about it, for faith is looking for the future rewards, and believes in the heaven which God hath prepared for them that love him.

But as faith grows, it attains to something better than that; for it recognizes the unseen Presence which is with us. The world says, “Come with us, and go our way.  We will pat you on the back and say that you are a good fellow; and you will have a fine time if you come with us.”  But faith says, “I do not trouble about how I appear to your eye, for there is another eye which I can see, but which you cannot see, for God is looking at me, and I am most of all concerned to be right in his sight.”  Faith realizes that the newborn nature is in the divine presence, and thus makes God’s presence to be just as real, and just as vivid as the presence of men; and that presence of God altogether outweighs the presence of men, and the believing soul says to the world, “To please you, I dare not do that which is wrong in the sight of God; for who are you, compared with the Most High God?  I will not do wrong in order to escape your frown; for, by so doing, I should receive the frown of God, and I must maintain my integrity before him.”

That, you see, is a higher position than the one I first mentioned; for faith not only regards the unseen reward which awaits the believer but faith recognizes the unseen presence of God, and is moved by an all-constraining desire to please him.

That was a very striking incident in the life of our dear brother Oncken, of Germany, when the burgomaster of Hamburg said to him, “I hear sir, that you have been baptizing at night.”  “I have, sir,” he replied, “because the law will not permit me to do it by day.”  “How dare you immerse these persons?” asked the burgomaster.  “I dare to do it,” answered Mr. Oncken, “because it is the law of God”  “And you have done it in defiance of the law of the land!  Now, sir, do you see that little finger of mine?”  “Yes,” replied Mr. Oncken, “I see it.”  “Well, sir, as long as that little finger lives, I will keep you down, for I am determined to put an end to this movement.”  “But, Mr. Burgomaster,” said Mr. Oncken, “not only can I see your little finger, but I can also see a great arm, which you do not see.  That is the arm of the eternal God; and as long as that arm can move, you will not be able to put me down, for I am only doing the will of Jehovah.”  Years after that stormy scene, I went to Drench in Hamburg in connection with the opening of my brother Oncken’s chapel; and among the notable gentlemen who helped to honor that occasion by their presence was that very burgomaster.  He still had his little finger, but he was not there to put Mr. Oncken down.  He came to contribute to Mr. Oncken’s work, and to show that the great arm of God had beaten the little finger of the burgomaster.  That kind of experience has been many times repeated in the world.  The men of the world resolve to put us down, but it cannot be done.  If we were simply of men, we might be put down; but we are of God, and the divine nature in us must conquer in the long run.

When faith rises still further, it feels that the soul so loves God: and so wishes to delight in him, and becomes so closely united to God, that it takes treasure in all that in which God takes pleasure. It is true faith that believes that God takes pleasure in the humble actions of poor creatures such as we are; but our faith has that confidence.  It believes God to be a kind and tender Father, delighting in what his children do; and, therefore, faith says, “I cannot grieve him; so, begone from me, sinful world!  Away with your gold, and your silver, and your smiles, and your frowns; I dare not be influenced by any of these things, and so grieve my God.”  And, daily, as faith grows stronger and stronger, it tramples the world more and more under its feet, and altogether abhors it.

To the genuine Christian, Christ is life’s one aim.  He sets that mark before him, and shoots at it. I once saw a colonel shooting at a target.  There were two targets near each other, and he made a center at one of them.  The attendant called out, “Which target was that gentleman shooting at?”  “The one on the left,” was the answer.  “I thought so,” said the man, “for he hit the one on the right.”  There are some people who are always shooting at the world, and it seems to be their great aim to hit it; but the Christian man is ever aiming at Christ; and if he has not made the center yet, he will shoot again and again until he does for his great desire is that he may live for Christ alone, and be found in him, not having his own righteousness “which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith,”

So, I hope you see that, if faith be the conquering weapon, and we intend to be conquerors, we must become believers in the invisible God; and in order to exercise faith in the invisible God in Christ Jesus, we must be born again; for, until that new nature comes into us, we never do believe in Christ.  We may believe a great deal in ourselves, we may believe in worldly society, in its threats, or in its bribes; but we do not believe in Christ.  But how blessed is that man who, at the last, will be able to say, “I have faithfully served my God.  I have turned neither to the right hand nor to the left.  I have not considered myself; I have courted no man’s praise, I have not sought self or gain.  What I had to spare, I gave to God’s cause and to the poor.  What I could gather, I distributed according to the necessities of my fellow-men.  I have lived for God, and for Christ, and for the truth; but I have not lived for myself.”  The man who can truthfully say that is a saved man.  Whether you know it or not, my friend, that is salvation—to be saved from sin and from self; and there is no getting salvation from the groveling meanness of selfishness except by being born again; for self clings to every man until he is born again, and it is not always gone even then.  Satan spoke the truth when he said to the Lord, “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.”  He will not be ready to part with life itself until he gets a higher life, and a better one imparted to him by the Spirit of God.

Again I say that this truth throws us on our beam-ends.  If we are to be saved, we must look to God; we must seek salvation at his hands, we must ask him for faith; and what a mercy it is that he waits to give it!  You be nothing and God will be everything to you. Get to the end of yourself, and that will be a proof that God has already begun with you.  Cease to believe in your own merits, or your own virtues; put away all trust in yourself; and come and trust in God as he is revealed in his Son Jesus Christ; and you have received that salvation, which will keep on progressing until all sin shall be driven out of you, and you shall dwell for ever where Jesus is—as unselfish as Jesus is,—as pure, as blessed, as glorious as he is.  God grant this to us all, for Christ’s sake!  Amen.