"King and Country: the King's Final Victory" by Sam Baer

Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

It is going. It's a blessing to be gathered together here, and welcome to everyone, um, from wherever you are. Um, welcoming—we're welcoming Sam Baer from, from Alberta, Canada, and it's 4 o'clock in the morning there, like he said. And so, yeah, good to have you on, and really looking forward to your sharing here this morning on The King's Final Victory. So this is the final episode of our King and Country series. Looking forward to wrapping this up with this. I'm sure this won't be the last, uh, discussion or teaching on here on Jesus and His Kingdom, but it's good to put the capstone on this series here this morning.

So let's, let's, um, let's have a prayer to get started here this morning. Father in Heaven, we thank You for Your goodness. Thank You for this privilege to connect this morning with people from, um, various parts of the world. And I just pray that You would, um, in Your, in Your goodness and Your grace this morning, Your, um, Your mercy that You would just bless, bless this time together. And we just thank You for the way that You have sent Your own Son as King. And we just want to, want to worship and acknowledge Him this morning in His, in His power.

You say You have given Him a name that's above every name. And we want to bow in our hearts this morning to You, and, and may what comes forth from our lives be, um, in recognition of Your kingship. God, I just pray for Sam as he shares this morning, inspire him, and I pray that You would use him to inspire us, uh, to further—to, uh, more fully give our lives in service to King Jesus, the final conqueror.

Praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay. Well, Sam, I'll let you, um, introduce yourself any further. I'm haven't—I haven't met you yet, but I'm really looking forward to it soon. Um, and, and go ahead. God bless you. All right. Thank you, brother. Good morning, everyone.

Um, I'm Sam Baer. I live in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada. And for many—for a couple of years, um, it seemed like we were by ourselves here. And I can kind of relate to Mark in saying, you know, there wasn't any close—or in our community anyway—Anabaptist fellowship. Um, recently, there was a family that's moved here, which has been a blessing from God and an answer to prayer.

Um, so we're excited about the work of the kingdom, um, that's going on here, and we seek the will of God in, in becoming a part of it here in Cochrane. So if you think about us, say a prayer.

Our topic this morning, as was mentioned, is the final victory of Christ. And I have to say, when I was first assigned this, um, my thoughts went to Revelations, and I read it and I reread it, and it was hard to put my finger on a moment that could be considered a final, uh, final victory of Christ. Now, Revelations is a bit of a tough book, and it's difficult to say which events have happened, which events are coming. There's prophecy, um, and history, and during the time of its writing, um, things that were written specifically for that time itself.

Um, I talked to numerous brothers about this to get their opinion on what the final victory of Jesus Christ would be. And I was amazed at the ac—the, uh, their answers and how that they, you know, different brothers from different backgrounds all, all came up with the same, same answer as to what the final victory of Christ was. Um, in thinking about victory, we have to think about a conflict. And I realize that the things that I'm going to share today will overlap a lot of what has been shared so far in this series. Um, we will be reviewing some of the things that were covered.

This series has been a tremendous blessing, um, starting off with the, the foreshadowings of Christ in the Old Testament and going on to His coming and His life here and His constitution and, uh, um, His stories. There's, there's so many rich truths that came out, uh, in this series, and it was a tremendous blessing. And I hope that—and it's my prayer that, um, what I share this morning will also be a blessing.

In Revelations 20, I'm going to read verses 10 to 15. It says, "The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophets are, and they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose faith face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their work by the things which were written in the books.

The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

So in my readings of Revelations, this seems to be a last scene in a warfare.

And that warfare of the ages was between God and Satan, is between God and Satan. This scene seems to be more of a finalization than a victory won.

It's not really a last battle. Um, it's more of, you know, an end statement, I guess, to something that had been—has been going on. Um, and after the Second World War, they held the Nuremberg trials, where all those who had participated in the atrocities of the Third Reich were brought to justice. And I would say this scene in Revelations would be more along the lines of something like that than the actual final battle itself.

So in thinking about the final victory of our King, Jesus, like I said, um, victory, you know, it's a conflict. And so we're going to step back in history through time, um, into eternity and establish the conflict that was started.

Um, like I said, some of this going back to the beginning, um, will overlap some of the things that we've covered so far in this series. But I think it would be good to go back over it again. And we're going to go back to the fall of Satan. This seems to have been a conflict in heaven.

Um, in Isaiah 14, verses 12 to 15, he says, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart, 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation in the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.'"

In this, we see the pride, the lifting up of Lucifer, as he was known then, and which created a conflict. And, uh, other places in scriptures talked about a war that happened in heaven. And Jesus said He saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, so He was cast out of heaven.

Um, there's not a lot about that conflict or, or what happened, but we know that at some point, an angel, Lucifer, lifted himself up, said he was going to be like the Most High, and he ended up being cast out of heaven for it.

Now we're going to go back to Genesis 1 and 2. Now, these first two chapters of the Bible, um, tell a beautiful story about a majestic, all-powerful God who creates a vast universe out of nothing. And when it was complete, it was good.

It's a spectacular narrative, and we are in awe of the results of that today. Seems like the more we learn, the more, um, the greatness and infinitude of God is shown to us. And in this creation, God creates man.

That's where we come into the picture. Um, Genesis 2:7, this verse has is a beautiful thing to me. It says, "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."

It touches my heart that man was formed by the hand of God Himself and received breath from His mouth and became a living soul, an eternal being. It seems like an intimate experience.

I bring this up because it seems like God shared some of Himself in the creation of man. He shared His image, His breath, His eternal nature. There are similarities that can be drawn here with the birth of a baby. A baby who is born, um, to his mom and dad, he'll have his mom and dad's DNA.

Um, they can have their features and some of their characteristics, unfortunately.

In Genesis 2:7, I see that we are created to be the children of God. And in Genesis 3, it sounds like God would walk in the garden that He had placed these humans in, and He would commune with them.

I know Leo touched on that in his talk about the communion and the relationship that was, um, that man had with God in the garden.

But it seems like, you know, we have this beautiful creation. Um, the world, mankind, everything was good. God said it was good Himself, which means it was perfect. And it seems like the devil couldn't resist. So he had been cast out. There was a conflict between him and God, and he couldn't resist this, um, this jewel, this beautiful thing that God had created. And Genesis 3 starts out with an account of the serpent asking Eve a soul-crippling question, "Yea, hath God said?"

And this question planted a seed of doubt and turned into disobedience and sin. Genesis 3 paints a picture of a broken relationship between God, the Creator, and what He created. Mankind was marred by sin. He bore the mark of sin. And in this, we see the vertical relationship of man would never be the same. And if we read the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, we can see that the relationships that the fall also created a problem for the relationships of man to each other. So not only was the relationship with God marred, sin brought a problem between the relationships of humans as well.

I see this as setting the stage for the conflict. God's crowning creation had been separated from him and could no longer commune with him as was intended. The devil seems to have gained a foothold in creation, and the battle between God and Satan had a new battleground, which is the hearts of man.

And it seems like the odds were in the favor of the devil. I mean, I say that, um, carefully because I know that God is all-powerful, but, um, in the instance of man, every person born since the fall has had the nature of sin in him from birth. David says in Psalms 51, "Behold, I was brought forth an iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

And in, uh, Galatians 5, it says, "For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do." There's something in our flesh, in the senses and drives that God has created us with, that is militant against the working of the Spirit.

Although it was man's choice to sin, and which caused this rift between God and man, the involvement of the devil in this makes it impossible for man to make, to make the move to reinstate this relationship. It's not like after the fall, Adam and Eve could just say, "I'm sorry, you know, we made a mistake," and have that relationship brought back.

Um, through the fall, like I mentioned earlier, the devil gained a foothold in creation in a sense that every child born after this would have this sinful nature. Romans 3, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now, the rest of the Old Testament contains stories of God's dealings with man. These stories, um, they show His love and His desire to commune with them, His mercy, um, His providing a way for them to, um, deal with the sin that mankind had fallen into. But they also paint a bleak picture of man's response to God. It seems like the heavy burden of sinful desire was almost too much for God's people sometimes, and they turned from God over and over.

Until at one point in Exodus 32, He wanted to wipe them out. And if it wouldn't have been for Moses stepping in and interceding for them. But the Old Testament has another purpose. It's not just a collection of stories about the back and forth between God and His creation and His people.

There is the purpose of the Old Testament. I mean, we heard about this in the first segment of this series, but you can't read that narrative in Genesis without reading that promise that God made that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

Now, the entire Old Testament is rich with prophecies and pictures and types of Jesus Christ Himself. So it was appointing forward to the coming of a king that would bring a major change.

So Jesus is sent to earth, and He is the first man to never sin. Um, Peter quotes a prophecy in Isaiah when he says, speaking of Christ, "Who committed no sin, nor was the deceit found in His mouth."

In Hebrews 4:14-16, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may be, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

In this, we see the sinlessness of Christ, but we can also see a contrast from the Old Testament to the, or from the Old to the New Covenant. Under the Old Covenant, there was a lot of preparation and fear around the yearly entering of the Holy of Holies. Something changed through Jesus regarding our relationship with God and how we can approach Him.

In thinking about the sinlessness of Christ, as I was, um, meditating on this, now, since the first two people sinned, giving the devil, um, an upper hand in using humanity against their creator, every person was born with a sin nature. And you, I think that, you know, this is what the devil was accustomed to working with. Now, with Jesus, not sinning once, He disrupted this. His sinlessness was, uh, an attack, uh, pushing back of that sinful nature. Every time He was victorious over temptation, He pushed back the powers of darkness. Every time He healed sickness, which had come about because of the fall, He was defying the hold that Satan had.

And every time He cast out a demon, obviously He was thwarting the, the powers of the evil one.

He began His ministry with a resounding victory in Matthew 4, and immediately after, He began to teach the kingdom. I find it interesting that the devil shows up and tempts the first Adam in the beginning, and when the last Adam, as Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians 15, when he's about to start his ministry, guess who shows up and tries to trip him up? And I think he knew that if he could get Christ to fail once, even one sin, he could disrupt that plan. Now, the life of Jesus is a narrative of victory.

He lived in power over the flesh. He also lived in close communion with His Father.

The way we were created to live, He was a man that did everything differently than any man before had ever done.

After three years of His pushing back the powers of darkness, um, disrupting the way, um, mankind had lived up to this point, the devil was, we can imagine he was frustrated with this, and he wanted to get rid of him. And through the frenzied scheming of the religious leaders of the day, he gained a death sentence, and he unwittingly set the stage for the greatest victory of all.

In going to the cross, we see the extent of the change in this new man. His total surrender and willingness to sacrifice himself for the whole world shows a level of love that the world had not seen to this point. In his death, he dealt a crippling blow to the work of the devil. And when he rose from the dead, he robbed death of its power. The fear of death seemed to be a weapon of the devil, and he was robbed of that in the resurrection of Jesus.

Paul quotes something very similar to the prophet Hosea in 1 Corinthians 15:55, when he says, "Oh death, where is your sting? Oh Hades, where is your victory?"

Not only was Jesus' life and teaching a total disruption of the course of man, but he also established his kingdom on the earth and provided a way for mankind to have the Spirit of God with them.

Jesus' coming, his sinlessness, changed everything as it had been from the beginning. The New Testament, or the Old Testament, pointed forward to this time, the king that would come and that would start a new kingdom here on the earth that would have a power that could push back the powers of darkness, that could undo, in a sense, what the devil had done at the beginning.

Now, in talking about the final victory of Christ, it seems like the work of Christ is done, that his victory was completed in his life, in his death, and his resurrection. But there is a, there is a sense where that work is being carried on, and that is in the establishment of his kingdom here on the earth and through his church.

And it's interesting, the first time Jesus mentions the church in Matthew 16, I'll just read verses 18 and 19, and he says, "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Up until the arrival of Jesus, the presence of God could only be found in the tabernacle or the temple. And if you're thinking about this in the terms of a conflict or a warfare, that battlefront would have been relegated to a specific place where the presence of God is. And I know the Holy Spirit did, um, rest on men in the Old Testament occasionally, but through the coming of Christ, through his sinless life, um, through his power over the sin nature, um, the foothold that the devil seemed to have, uh, with mankind, he established a new way of moving forward. And if we're using terms of conflict, it seems like the battlefront went from being in one place to the Spirit coming and dwelling in the hearts of man, and now it's spread out through all nations of the earth.

The victory that Christ brought through his death and resurrection and through sending the Holy Spirit changed the course of history. And through the church, the victorious church, the meeting of the kingdom, which he says he gave the keys to the kingdom of heaven, so we have the authority of Christ, we can take the battle to places that it seems like it could never go before.

Paul talks about, um, I'm just going to read 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 to 6.

He says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we don't war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled."

I guess that there's, um, times in my Christian life where I've thought that my battle against sin was offensive. You know, the devil was going to come to me and tempt me, and by the grace of God, I would receive the power to overcome that.

The way Paul talks about this battle is more of an offensive.

He says, "We have the weapons, we have the weapons we need, we have the, um, the powers of heaven at our disposal, but they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds."

I guess the idea that I would like to bring forth is Christ finished his work here on the earth, but in a sense, he set up, well, not in a sense, he set up a kingdom that we can be a part of that will carry on the victorious work that he began when he came.

And I know he established the new humanity that, uh, Brother Leo talked about in the last segment, but we carry on this victory.

Amen, brother.

We have the authority given to us by our king. We have the weapons. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the presence of God. And in thinking about bringing the battle to the powers of darkness in our communities, in the places we live and where we serve, we can be mighty in pulling down strongholds. Strongholds, I mean, if you think about it in the sense of a war, um, you know, the enemy comes in and establishes a strong, formidable fortress or something where it seems impenetrable. But if we think about it in the spiritual sense, um, you think about the places in your community that would be strongholds of the devil, um, in people's hearts, in the things that they're doing.

This is, this is our battle. And according to Jesus himself, this is our victory.

And in our, I would also like to add that each one of us helps to build and strengthen the kingdom through his own personal victory over sin, just as Jesus did through his sinless life. And I'll admit, um, I've always would have thought as building the kingdom as bringing people into the kingdom or strengthening the kingdom. But there's a very, very personal aspect to this.

Our own victory over sin is a victory of the kingdom. And it's, um, it's through our personal victory over sin that the kingdom can grow in our lives and in our communities. And each battle we fight ourselves, we are pushing back the powers of darkness, just as Christ did with every victory he won over temptation.

I was going to read a verse in Hebrews, and I can't see that I have it on here.

Oh, I did read that. Hebrews 4.

He talks about, "For we don't, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin."

Jesus' sinless example is something for us to follow, to strive for, to press toward.

I realize I'm probably wrapping up here a little too quick, but I guess that gives us more time for discussion after. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. So in summary, there's a conflict between God and Satan, which started a long time ago. Satan was cast out of heaven. God created man in his image for his glory, for his relationship. And sin came, broke that relationship. But Jesus lived a sinless life, showed us a power that no human had ever known.

And his life was a powerful victory. He won a resounding victory on the cross and through his resurrection. But he didn't just stop there. He established a force here on the earth through the kingdom that he established here, through the church. And in Revelations 3, I think it is, he says, I'll just find it and read it.

He was talking to the church at Laodicea. Revelations 3:21 says, "To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat with my Father in his throne."

I guess the, to me, I mean, the work of Christ himself was done. He sat down at the right hand of God. Um, Stephen witnessed him sitting there, and that, um, shows a completion of work. But his work is carried on the work through the work of the kingdom and through us. And he promises that if we overcome to the end, we will also be able to sit down in his throne with him.

I would like to read in Revelations 19 to wrap this up. I'm going to read, uh, maybe verses 1 through 16. After these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments, because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged in her blood, in her the blood of his servants shed by her." Again, they said, "Hallelujah!" Her smoke rises up forever and ever. And the 24 elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, who sat on the throne, saying, "Amen, Hallelujah!"

Then a voice came from the throne, saying, "Praise our God, all you servants and those who fear him, both small and great." And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thundering, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord God omnipotent reigns. Let us be glad and rejoice and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

Then he said to me, "Right, blessed are those who are called to the marriage, supper of the Lamb." And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God." And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "See that you do not do that. I am your fellow servant and of your brethren who have test, who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns.

He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword that with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself treads the wine press of the fierceness and the wrath of the Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

I want to be at that marriage, the marriage supper, but that's for overcomers.

All right, turn it back to you, Wendell. Well, amen. Thank you, Brother Sam.

Yeah, that this talk took a different turn than what I was expecting, and like you said, than what you were expecting at the beginning. So that's fine. That's good. I really, yeah, that's a very thought-provoking thinking about how in our personal lives and also in our communities, how we have the privilege of being part in our own, yeah, our own taking, participating in this final victory and living one of our lives. So I guess my question, one question that came to me as I was thinking about this is, is if this, if Jesus, Jesus is our King and he is victorious, we see him, I especially, I think of Philippians 2, Jesus is the one who is, I think I referenced that earlier, God has given him a name that is above every name, the name of Jesus every knee will bow, every tongue confess, Jesus Christ is Lord.

So in our lives as Christians, why do we so often find ourselves failing and falling short, whether personally or corporately, that we, yeah, the King has won the final victory in us? What's the problem? Maybe we could have some discussion about that. Maybe you have some thoughts, Sam.

That's a good, a good question and something that we should be, should be wrestling with daily. It's something that I've been discussing with a brother quite a bit is, you know, how we wrestle with sin.

I guess the, my thoughts on that would be, we have the provisions, our leader has conquered, but we are still in the flesh.

And, you know, if we could, I was reading in 2 Peter, 2 Peter 2, or is it no, 2 Peter 1, he talks about having divine power pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ, which we have been called by glory and virtue.

He's given us great and precious promises and that through these we can be partakers of the divine nature. I mean, we talked about the sinful nature this morning and then Christ had a divine nature, which he was sinless.

And having escaped corruption that is in the world through lust. And then he says, we got to be diligent, adding to faith virtue, virtue knowledge, knowledge, self-control, and he lists all these things. And in reading this chapter, if we, it seems like a roadmap to victory over sin and partaking of the divine nature, but it seems like we forget to be diligent in these things. The, the, the fault of our lacking in victory, if we lack in victory, isn't in the King or the victory that he won. The fault lies with us and our lack of diligence. And at the end, close to the end of that chapter, Peter says, "I'm going to remind you of these things."

And he says, "I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things, even after I'm gone."

And then earlier on, he says, "For this reason, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things." So the fault lies with us in forgetting the victory of our King and the power we have. But I would be interested in hearing any of your other thoughts on that.

Yeah, well, thank you. That's, I think that's, that's, that's good. I realize the King, our King has won the victory and the power is available. Too often we don't claim that power. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Anyone else that has some comments? I'm sure you've thought about some questions for Sam. And I don't think I warned you earlier, but if you've been on here before, you know this is how we do this, question and answer time. So yeah, let's have some discussions. Let's have some questions. What are you thinking, brothers, right now?

Sam, thank you for sharing. And as you tie together, you tie together the beginning where Satan shows up and then God's Son coming to earth, beginning his ministry and Satan shows up. You know, I've never, it just, it stood out to me in just a whole new way.

And Jesus was victorious in that, in that temptation. And wow, I mean, that, that's, that's, you know, remember Brother Ken, he challenged us to, we should be thinking about our motif, our theme should be Jesus is risen. And it could almost be like Jesus is sinless, right?

Like that, that's the victory. I mean, he was dealing, he was crushing. Genesis 3 was real. Oftentimes we say Genesis 3 is real when we think about sin and struggle in the church. But here, Genesis 3 is real. Jesus is crushing the head of the serpent.

Hallelujah.

And then now we're, we're, our family is memorizing Romans 8, as many of us are from KFW. And just last night, you know, we're, we're running behind as always. And we're, we're here in verse 31 of Romans 8. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? And then verse 32, my children could wrap their minds around what Paul is trying to say. I tried to explain this thing through some different illustrations, but verse 32 is really powerful. He, speaking of God, he who did not spare his own, he who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for a saw.

How shall he not with him? How shall God not with Jesus also freely give us all things? It ends in a question like, it's like Paul's like, look what God just did. He gave Jesus. And what a better, what a, I mean, that's the best gift, his only begotten Son. And so because of that, he's going to freely give us all things. Everything else is less than that, and he's going to give us these things.

And also I appreciate it too, your focus on to be victorious. You know, yeah, we often tend to think, we often kind of look out the battles we're trying to conquer and seeing other people. But you brought us back to that we are our own worst enemies.

We are our own worst enemy. And in the advance of the kingdom, we are. And so Lord, help us overcome our flesh and conquer through Christ and be like Jesus. Thank you for sharing.

Amen. Someone else? Go ahead. Yeah, I've been studying Ephesians 6 and the armor. And the thing that stood out to me there was, and having done all through stand, like you can do it. This isn't like, oh, we wish we could and we fail. But no, it is possible. Like this can be done. We can live a sinless life.

However, then we are human. We remember that part because we are human and we fail or we forget or even just in our ignorance, we do things we shouldn't do. But it is possible. And that's just been a blessing to me.

Amen. That's a discussion I've been having a lot with a couple of brothers. And it strikes me how we say, you know, this is, we want to follow the example of Christ. We have all the provisions for power over sin, but we always add this, but you're going to fail.

And it seems to be the tagline of the modern Christian churches is, you know, you're going to fail. You know, we're just going to live in sin anyway. I know most of us wouldn't say it that strongly, but I know a lot of Christians that would say we're just sinners on the way to heaven. And that's not the case. And it's really the only place in our lives where we add that we're going to fail.

I'm a concrete finisher and I shoot for perfection every time I do a project. I know that my projects aren't going to be perfect, but that doesn't keep me from going for perfection every time. And when I'm going to do a project, I don't say, well, guys, let's do this, but we're not going to make it perfect. Let's just do what we can.

No, we say, you remember what we did wrong last time? You know, let's go for perfection. So it amazes me that in the most important thing in our lives, our relationship with God and overcoming sin, we always set ourselves up by saying, but you know, we are going to fail.

And athletes will say that if they go into a game against a formidable opponent with the idea that they might not have a chance, they already set themselves up to lose. And I wonder if how much of our losing and our failing is because we set ourselves up by saying, well, you know, I'm going to fail instead of shooting for the perfection of Christ. And at the end of the day, looking back and saying, well, this is where we fell short. Father, forgive me. And I hope I learn from these mistakes so that tomorrow morning I can face the day and head into it as a conqueror instead of setting ourselves up for the weakness.

Yeah, amen to that.

I have a question along that same line.

In 1 John 3:9, it says, "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin." So how does that tie in if we believe and still sin?

That's a good question. I can't say I have the answer to that.

Does anyone else have some insight on that?

So I haven't done a lot of deep study on that in that passage. I think that Brother John Dee has some teaching on this on 1 John and the difference between failing and living in continual sin. Like there's a difference between just giving up, like you're saying, you know, giving up the battle and not even trying and living in a state where you're, where you've basically lost. And then there's a difference to someone who is fighting, makes the wrong move, or that's the enemy pushing back. And I think, as you're saying, this victory, I think to see the victory in those terms, I think it's helpful for me. I think about, we're in a battle.

That's a thought that I have. I don't know if maybe someone else has some light to shed on that.

I've always looked at that passage of scripture in light of willful sin, where we premeditate and we make a move in the direction of sin, knowing full well the consequences of it and the repercussions and all of that.

Maybe that's not quite a valid interpretation. I'm not sure, but I forget where it is. Romans, I think, where he says, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" And that might be more the type of sin he's talking about there.

Okay. Thanks for the input. Questions. Someone else have some thoughts or question for Sam?

That we're all talking about. I hate to do this, the peanut gallery thought. I'm finding when I'm trying to figure out how to do this without being all over the place. Many times I've started things and if I listen to the voices around me, what happens is if I link into what they're telling me, I'm going to fail before I start.

There's a group of brothers in Chambersburg. What they've done is they've banded together and they're being brutally honest with each other about what they suffer with. You know, the unfortunate thing, who really wants to sit and talk about what their plague is and what they fight about? And unless we break it down to where it's like hand-to-hand combat and be brutally honest with what's going on. Like I suffer from pornography.

That's just one thing. But the other thing is I like pleasure, food, cigars. Unless I tell you guys what I struggle with and, you know, and be brutally honest about it, I'm never going to get victory. If I'm nice, if I'm polite, if I do it in such a way where I hope you get the inference of what I'm talking about, I'll fail.

And maybe I'm off point here, but you know, I struggle. I struggle because I don't get encouragement to the level of what I think I need.

Thank you for bringing that up, Patrick. The necessity of each other. And when we say that, you know, Christ established the church to carry on his victory here, and I think that is a very important part of that, is how much we need to depend on each other to gain victory in our lives over sin. And that's something that I've been learning more and more in my own personal study is we have all these provisions for us to overcome sin, but Jesus didn't, he wasn't talking to us personally. He was talking to the church, like to a body of people. When he said the gates of hell would not prevail against it, he wasn't saying that one person can prevail against the gates of hell, that it was a body.

And I think that that's important that we remember that. This isn't a solo mission. Satan was a corporation of one. Yeah. That's his problem. He thought he could overcome it. When he was in the body, he was strong.

That's what this thing right here we're all talking about. Each day that the COVID thing went on, I got weaker, weaker, weaker because I don't have the discipline to sit there and read the Bible for 18 hours, 35 days, 55, 75 days.

I lack community. That's what I did here in Harkins. I started a community of misfits.

You know, and I need a community of misfits to make me fit in correctly. I'm a sinner. I'm sorry I overtalked you, sir. Thanks for that, Patrick. I think we need, yeah, need to hear different other people's experiences. And as I'm thinking about this, I think what is the scary part about this talk here is thinking about how I was expecting a really upbeat talk about how Jesus has won the victory. And, you know, and in reality, Sam, what you're saying is Jesus won the victory and now he's handing the battle weapons over to us. And now it's our responsibility to fight. And that's really scary because it means that I am responsible in the incredible reality that Jesus terms the reputation and the, yeah, really the possibility for defeat or victory over to his people.

And I have to think of when Jesus left earth, when he ascended and he leaves his disciples behind just like gaping open mouth in the clouds. And he's like, "It's up to you now." And he doesn't leave them to do in their own power. He says, "You will receive power."

And we're in that. That's where we are today. But really, he's looking back at our own hearts, both personally and together. It's up to us now. Jesus has won the final victory. But yeah, you carry on. Here's an upbeat thought. Christ thought we could do it. Amen. Right. Amen. Absolutely.

He knows that we can do it. That's right. Like we isolate, we get into that reputation. Oh, if I tell somebody this, oh, what will they think? Who cares what they think? Hell is eternal. Flames are hot. And down there, do you think there's going to be a hierarchy?

Well, you know, the reputation needs to go.

I like the term fool for Christ.

Yeah. Very good. Anyone else have some thoughts yet?

Yes.

There is victory over pornography. My battle with it was very, very private. But I don't, I'm not bound by it anymore. Praise the Lord.

Don't give up. Right. And I had it bad. I had it really bad.

Yeah. Thank you for that encouragement, Dan. Keep going. In preparing, sorry, Wendell, in preparing for this, the song "Faith is the Victory That Overcomes the World" came to mind. And you know, that's a pretty strong statement. I mean, we can overcome. How do we overcome? It's through faith in the provisions, the work of Christ, and in the provisions that he gave us. And one of those provisions is a body of believers that we get to work and labor with and press each other on to victory.

Yeah. Amen. Well, I'd say we can wrap this up if it's about seven o'clock. And thank you so much, Sam, for bringing this challenging, yeah, Jesus' final victory. You want to lead us in closing prayer, Sam? Sure.

Holy Father, we're so grateful for your love and your mercy to mankind, even though it seems like we are so persistent in pursuing our own ways and forgetting the things that you've done. I can't imagine, you know, looking at it from your perspective, where you have laid out this beautiful plan. You sacrificed your own Son who came to earth to die, that we could live. And through all the gifts of love and the promises you've given us, so many times we seek our own way. Forgive us, Lord.