Defeat Won

09.11.12

1 John 5.4 4 For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. NLT

This morning I watched the news for a few brief moments – just long enough to see that indeed our world is evil. Ahmedinajad is vowing to annihilate Israel and keeps marching toward the development of nuclear weapons with which to do so. There were at least two brutal killing reported in the Portland (Oregon) area. Teachers have gone on strike in Chicago. And that doesn’t scratch the surface of what is going on all around us everywhere else.

There are many evils in this world: there is oppression, aggression; there is depression, and regression. There is poverty, sickness, starvation; there is financial difficulty, corruption, greed, and the list goes on and on. You don’t have to wait very long or look very hard to see just how evil our world truly is. But as bad as it is, the chiefest of all sins is this: unbelief. Of all the things man can do (and has done) to himself and his neighbor the worst of the worst is this: he doesn’t believe in God. Unbelief is the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, but unbelief is the root of all evil.

When man is a god unto himself, watch out – he’s dangerous; when man has no moral compass, watch out – who knows where he’ll end up. And when man has no belief in God, watch out – his arrogance will drive him to do almost anything. We’ve seem that a starving person will do anything – including cannibalism – to survive. Man’s unbelieving arrogance is to blame for all of the evil ever done upon this globe. Every act of violence and disobedience can be traced to the arrogance of man wanting his own way.

The Apostle John says there is a cure for such evil; there is a remedy for such behavior: faith in God. Faith is the only cure for unbelief. (Unbelief is the only unpardonable sin.) And faith in God through Christ His Son is the faith that frees a man from the unbridled evil of this world in its compass-less moral morass. If we are to ever escape what goes on around us the only way to do it is by faith in God through Christ. The battle against the world always is and has always been – the battle against unbelief.

The victory is a moral compass – the knowledge of right and wrong and the power to do right. The victory is love (again, not that sappy, syrupy, sentimental crap); true love elevates others in their need above our own. True love, true care, true fellowship, true companionship. It is all found in the victory of faith in God through Jesus Christ. It was under attack in John’s day and it is still under attack in ours. But the alternative is to give in to the pressure to conform to this world and all the evil it has to offer.

My faith and yours, if rightly placed and properly founded, is the way to defeat this world with all of its creative cleverness and dreadful dealings with one another. Rightly placed faith is faith in the Almighty. Properly founded faith is that which is built on the Life and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. All other ground is sinking sand…