We Can Overcome...

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I had the following dream in the early 1950s, when we were living in a trailer on the grounds of the tent in which Pastor J. O. Dowell was holding services. The tent was located on the border of National City, just before you come into San Diego.

(5/29/2011). I was on a ship. The ship was foundering in the waves. Many of the passengers were jumping over the side.

I also jumped over the side, and was paddling around, keeping my head above water. I had done a lot of swimming while I was growing up and am at home in the water.

I could see the shore in the distance, maybe a hundred yards away. I could make out the sailors standing on the beach. Perhaps they got there in the lifeboats. They had joined hands and appeared to be playing "Ring Around the Rosy," or some other childhood game such as that.

I looked back toward the sinking ship. I could see the passengers in the water. They were thrashing about and drowning in their terror.

I suddenly noticed that my feet kept touching the bottom. So I stopped thrashing and stood up. The water was only waist deep. The passengers were panicking and drowning in waist-deep water!

I looked again at the shore. The sailors still were playing their game.

I turned back toward the passengers to tell them to stop struggling and stand up straight. Then I awakened.

I wondered what the dream meant. I knew it was from God.

After about three days the interpretation came to me. "Although the churches (the sailors) do not always tell us so, it is entirely possible to overcome sin and live righteously."

God's people remain bound and guilty when it is not necessary to live in such a condition. They have not been taught how the new covenant operates. They do not understand that the same grace that forgives their sin has the power to set them free from sin.

When I got out of the Marine Corps I went to Bible school, because the Lord had called me to preach while I was in the service.

Although I had several Christian friends while still in the Marine Corps, the Berean Bible Institute in San Diego on South Boundary Street was my first immersion in the contemporary Pentecostal culture. I had not been raised in a Christian home.

The teachers and students of the Bible institute were good people and sincere Christians. But I heard the same idea expressed in different ways: "As long as we are in the world we have to sin. We will keep on sinning until we get to Heaven."

Some go so far as to say we keep on needing to be saved by grace (forgiveness) after we are in Heaven. How's that for preaching victory in Christ? We already are defeated, so why try?

As I think about it, it must have been God who put it into my heart to decide that we do not have to sin. Through Christ we can overcome sinful bondages.

I can't remember what I did or said about this decision, except I repeated the vow to God I had made while in Bible school that I would do his will whatever it proved to be, provided he gave me the grace (wisdom and power) to do it.

When I had the dream about the sinking ship, which occurred a couple of years after Bible school, it came to me that God's people are ignorant of the victory over sin we can have through Christ. We can overcome sin!

So I have been preaching ever since that through Christ we can overcome sin each day. We can be perfect one day at a time. Finally, if we do not stop somewhere along the way, we will be perfected—fully redeemed from sin. Then we have eternity to grow into the image of Christ.

It may be noted that the promises we ordinarily associate with salvation, such as ruling with Christ, are reserved for "him who overcomes."

I have never in my sixty-five years as a disciple of the Lord heard a sermon on what it means to overcome, or a discussion of the rewards to the overcomer.

Someone said recently that every person who makes a profession of belief in Christ is automatically an overcomer. But stop and think. The second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation are addressed to the seven churches of Asia Minor. It can be assumed, I believe, that most of the members of these seven churches professed belief in Christ.

If this is true, then all the members of the seven churches were overcomers by virtue of the fact that they had made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. In this instance, the two chapters do not make any sense at all. Every day of our Christian experience we have the choice of yielding to sin or not yielding to sin. Every day we choose either to do what is right or to disobey God.

I would like to add two thoughts. First, when Jesus next appears, only the victorious saints will be raised from the dead, receive their new bodies, be caught up to meet him in the air, and descend with him to participate in the work of installing the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Second, there will be a tremendous victory that will occur prior to the return of the Lord Jesus, a victory that will prepare the way for the Lord's appearing and the coming of the Kingdom. The victory I am referring to is the hurling to the earth of Satan and his angels from their vantage point in the heavens.

There will be victorious saints in the last days. Christ will have been formed in them and they will be living by his Life. As a result, God will empower Michael to drive Satan and his angels from the Heavens. This victory shall have been made possible because some of the believers will have overcome Satan by resting in the authority of the blood of the Lamb; by cooperating with the Holy Spirit until their mind, speech, and actions conform to the Scriptures.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they have chosen to love not their own life to the point of death. Because it is not they who are living but the obedient Christ who has been formed in them and is dwelling in them, the accusations of the Accuser, Satan, no longer are regarded as valid by the Father. Thus the Father feels justified in empowering Michael to drive from the heavens the ancient cherub and his followers.

You can be one of those who is raised when Christ appears. You can be one of those who overcomes the Accuser by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of your testimony, and by loving not your own life to the point of death.

I am here to say that each day you can choose to do what is right, and the grace of God that is given to us through the Lord Jesus Christ will enable you to do so.

You can overcome through Christ

You can live in victory over sin.

Stand up straight and fix your eyes on Christ.

The water is only waist deep.

He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (Revelation 21:7—NIV) (Taken from "We Can Overcome," an excerpt from The Theology of Robert B. Thompson. Copyright © 2011, by Robert B. Thompson.)

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