1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. We do not live long before we come to understand that it has pleased God so to order things in this life, that no worthy end can be attained without an effort — without encountering and overcoming opposition. It is difficult to do anything that is good; and the Christian life is in keeping with all things around it. If we would live the Christian life, if we would reach the Christian's home — there is no other course — we must "overcome the world!" And, first, this world is an obstacle, needing to be overcome — it exerts, that is, an influence which we must every day be resisting and praying against — just in this: that it looks so solid and so real, that in comparison with it, the eternal world and its interests look to most men as though they had but a shadowy and unsubstantial existence. The supreme importance of the life to come is the doctrine on which all religion rests: but though we often hear and repeat the words, that "all on earth is shadow, all beyond is substance" — how fast this world of sense grows and greatens upon us again — while the unseen world and all its concerns seem to recede into distance, to melt into air, to fade into nothing! And what is there that shall "overcome" this materialising influence of a present world: what is there that shall give us the "victory" over it; — but Faith — Faith which believes what it cannot see, with all the vividness of sight? It is too much, perhaps, to expect that the day should ever come when, for more than short seasons of special elevation, we shall be able to realise the unseen and eternal as plainly as we do the seen and temporal: we cannot look to be always so raised above worldly interests, as to feel that not what we grasp, but what we believe, is the true reality: it will be enough if we carry with us such a conviction as shall constrain us to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" and if we ever do so, this must be "the victory which shall overcome the world, even our faith." Next we remark that the world is an obstacle in our Christian course, because its cares, business, interests, tend strongly and directly to choke the good seed of religion in the heart — to fill up our minds so completely as that they shall have no room for thoughts of eternity and salvation. How many a time have you knelt down in your closet to say your evening prayer; and in a little while found that some worldly anxiety or trouble was coming between you and your God. Only the "faith that overcometh the world" can save from this. Only that child-like confidence in our Saviour's love and wisdom and power, which trusts everything to Him — which "casts all our care upon Him" — and so feels the crushing burden lifted from our own weak hearts! Give us that faith; and we have "overcome the world": it is our tyrant, and we are its slaves, no more! Give us that faith, not for isolated moments of rapture only, but to be the daily mood and temper of our hearts: and then we shall engage without fever in the business of this world, as feeling that in a few short years it will matter nothing whether w, met disappointment or success. There is yet another sense in which the world is an obstacle to our Christian life, needing to be overcome by faith. As you know, the phrase the world is sometimes used in contrast with the Church. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Taken in this way, the world means all human beings who are without the Christian fold: who are devoid of Christian faith, and of Christian ways of thinking and feeling. And you know well that on the most important subjects there is an absolute contrariety between the doctrines of the Church and of the world: and many a believer has found the world's frown or the world's sneer something which it needs much faith to resist and to overcome. How cheaply and lightly will that man hold ridicule and mockery of him and his religion, who realises to his heart that the all-wise and Almighty God thinks upon that subject as he does: who realises that God approves the course he follows, whether man does or no. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. |
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