THEME: LOVE NOT THE WORLD
LESSON: SIX
TOPIC: Overcoming the World
TEXT: 1 John 2:15-16; 1 John 5:4; Galatians 6:14; Psalm 73:1-19
MEMORY TRACK:
By the grace of God, in our last lesson, we saw that the world is not filled with many things rather, all that is in the world has been categorized under three headings by the grace and insight given to the Apostle John (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life) and that all these things described as being in the world are not things that exist outside of man. They exist as the WORLD WITHIN MAN. In truth, even if heaven and earth pass away, as long as these three things still exist within the soul of man, the world is still dangerously active, and the enemy can still claim such a soul. The devil looked for these three things in Jesus at the end of his earthly sojourn but could not find them (John 14:30).
COMING OUT FROM UNDER THE WORLD (2Corinthians 6:17; 2Peter 1:4)
We have since defined the world we are not to love as the life, (order and arrangement of human existence) that became the order of the day after the fall of man. It is the anointed life of Satan that he passed to man as a substitute to the living soul life God originally set as the foundation for man’s earthly existence. There is no man born of a woman since the fall who is not in subjection to the ethos (spirit) of this world (Hebrews 2:14-15). In truth, there would have been no way of escape from the captivating captivity of this world, without the coming of our Lord Jesus in the flesh. A key component of the mission of the Christ of God was to demystify the world and chart the course of escape from its diabolical clutches (2 Peter 1:4).
SELF: THE WORLD IN YOU (Matthew 16:24; Galatians 5:24)
The world is a clever weave of a fallen cherub, intertwined with man’s very existence on earth. However, the deception employed by the princes of the world makes it such that when a saint speaks of the world, he or she typically sees it as something external and not the very definition of life they use their every breath to uphold. In truth, the encounter of Adam with the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil led to the installation of the world in the heart of man. Thus, when the average man speaks of his life, he invariably is speaking of the world. Small wonder that when the savior of mankind walked the earth, he clearly stated that no one could come after him, without first denying oneself.
THE POWER OF THE CROSS (Galatians 6:14)
The cross in scripture does not just refer to the wooden stake upon which the Son of God was crucified for the sins of mankind. Rather, it speaks of the manner of life that a soul would need to engage to be free from the world. The cross is the only means through which the world and its reign can be exterminated in man. The Lord Jesus was the first practitioner of the cross-life and wielded it so well that when the prince of the world came to inspect Jesus, he could not find anything in Him. This does not mean Jesus had nothing in him. It means there was no component of His soul being powered by this world or self. He was so separated from the world that he could boldly say the life he was living in the flesh was purely by the energy of the Father (John 5:19,30). This sounds a lot like Paul’s declaration of how he was powered by the faith of the Son of God for living. (Galatians 2:20).
FAITH OF THE SON: THE TOOL FOR OVERCOMING THE WORLD (Galatians 2:20; 1 John 5:4)
The world is the self or flesh life. The faith of the Son is the life of the Son. The cross is the conduit to access the life of the Son which is the only antidote to the world in men. Jesus came to the earth and exemplified a kind of life that became the key to escaping the snare that is in this world. The world is designed to end. The life of the Son is designed to never end! This faith or life that our Father in heaven sent to the earth in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ and left as a course or curriculum for man to learn is what is known as SALVATION.
CONCLUSION
To follow the world (the self-life) to its end is to arrive in perdition. To follow the faith of the Son to its goal, is to arrive at ETERNAL SALVATION. May we come to the end of faith in the days of our flesh and be crucified to the world and the world to us! AMEN!