Derek Prince - Overcoming Evil Is A Lifestyle
This final talk I want to deal with The Church’s Victory. I have tried to briefly define the main enemies we face with the purpose of showing how we can obey God and overcome those enemies by the means that He has provided. The first thing I think we need to understand is this: All the promises that close the Bible, all the promises in the book of Revelation, the final revelation of Jesus to His church, all the positive promises are only for those who overcome. There are no promises for the defeated.
Paul said, "Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil by good." I believe we have only two options, in the last resort: we either overcome or we are overcome. There is no third ground. And there are no positive promises of God whatever for those who allow themselves to be overcome. In chapters 2 and 3 of the book of Revelation we have a word that Jesus sent to each of seven churches and every final promise to each of those seven churches is to the one who overcomes. There are no promises to the ones who do not overcome.
We need to face this very seriously. God has made it possible for us to overcome. He expects us to overcome. That is really summed up in one verse near the end of Revelation in chapter 21 and verse 7: He who overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. So the overcomer gets everything. And the one who does not overcome gets nothing. It is either... It is total, one way or the other.
I think one of the great deceptions that the devil foists upon the Christian Church is to somehow convince us that there is some middle ground. I’m not really an overcomer, but I don’t want to accept the fact that I am overcome. I don’t think the New Testament indicates there is any such middle ground. So we are talking now about overcomers. Every now and then some new group emerges within the church who claim to be the overcomers. In the course of my Christian experience, which has lasted nearly 50 years, I could name two or three different groups. I want to tell you this: If you ever encounter a group who tells you that "If you want to be right you’ve got to join us," you can be sure of one thing: if you join them, you are wrong. No one has a monopoly on overcoming. It’s not a label, it’s not a doctrine, it’s a life.