The devil does not want people to know the peace and joy of God. He wants to keep people bound in sin. In the New Testament, Jesus spent hours healing the sick. He gave sight to the blind. He opened the mouth of the dumb. He cast out devils. So many people were blessed with healing. They were liberated from the bondage they had been in. Jesus often spoke of the spiritual healing that He provided with the physical healing.
In Mark 2 we read the account of the men who carried the man plagued with the palsy, to Jesus. The house where Jesus was in was so crowded that these men could not bring the man to Jesus. They were not deterred. They went on the roof and removed some of the tiles that were up there and lowered the man right in front of Jesus. Jesus saw their faith and He immediately forgave this man his sins. This man was still a cripple, even though he was now forgiven of his sins. The religious fools immediately started murmuring about what Jesus had said. Jesus knew their thoughts. He confronted them with their unbelief and He then turned to the paralytic and told him to take up his bed and walk. There was a path made for this man to exit this crowded house with his bed. He was walking without assistance. We do not know how long this man had been unable to walk. However, he did not need any assistance to relearn how to walk. He could make his way through that crowd without assistance. That is just one example of the physical change that Jesus Christ made in the lives of many. This is a picture of the spiritual change that God makes in the heart of the repentant sinner. The repentant sinner is now an overcomer.
It is imperative that pastors teach the truth about salvation. The blessings of salvation are of such greatness. It is true that we do not often see those blessings today. We have been deceived into thinking that those who are miraculously saved, are still cripples to sin. They just cannot gain the victory. Their sin has such a hold on them, that they just cannot be set free. How small has our God become?
John was told to write about the victory that the true child of God receives from God. This victory is due to the fact that true saints have their faith in the God who can do anything but lie. We teach children a chorus that talks about this fact. We teach them these words and when we were younger the tune that went with this chorus was God-honouring. One of the sins of the older generations for some time now is that many assume that we need to change the music standards in the churches in order to keep the young people coming.
Some years back I attended a Bible conference where one of the speakers publicly admitted to liking some of the raunchy ungodly music. This was not at a N.E. conference. This was at an Independent Baptist Conference. This preacher insisted that all those in attendance still were hooked on some of that ungodly music. He had no way of knowing that, but he assumed that salvation cannot provide the means to actually live a holy life. He was not helping those in attendance to know the peace and blessing of God. He was admitting to being crippled in his own heart, but he was not called of God to tell us that we cannot be freed from the bondage of sin.
A Godly preacher needs to remind people that sin is crippling, but the true saint has been given the power to overcome sin. Temptation is still real, but the true child of God has been given all he needs not to yield to temptation.
In verse 5 we are reminded again who is the overcomer. Who is able to say no to the world and yes to God? Does it say, there are some elite few people that are chosen by God and the rest can never reach that place? It says any person that believes that Jesus is the Son of God is an overcomer. Jesus Christ faced all the different types of temptations that we will ever face. He never sinned. He never gave in to any of the temptations. He overcame them all. He demonstrated His deity in that He never fell for any temptation.
He is the Saviour. The true Saviour is the Son of God. He is well able to save. That salvation is so great that no born again Christian ever has any reason to sin. We can imagine many excuses, but the fact is that we have no reason to sin. We sin when we take our eyes off the prize. We walk in the flesh and that is when we sin. God told John to write the facts. God wants His children to know that we can enjoy that sweet fellowship that He talks of in chapter 1. We can overcome any and all temptations. We need to humble ourselves and follow the truth. We do not need men who want to try to convince us that it is acceptable to choose a bland diet of Christianity. We need men who walk by faith and understand the blessing of confessing sin and being forgiven and who want to challenge others to enjoy the blessings of being an overcomer.
Pastor Bartel