Address—Josh Stewart
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Can we begin the meeting this afternoon with number 76 in the appendix?
#76 in the back.
Dying Jesus, thine no more, This heart of mine shall seek its joy apart from thee. The world is crucified to me, and I and thine, thine, thine alone, my joy, my hope, my crown. Now earthly things may fade and die. They charm my soul no more.
For I than thine alone.
Thine ever, thine forever to recline on love, eternal, fixed and sure. Yes, I am thine forevermore, Lord Jesus thine #76.
I'd like to read a couple of verses before we pray. John chapter 17.
Verse 11.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee, Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the Son of Perdition.
That the scripture might be fulfilled? And how come I to thee?
And these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou should just take them out of the world, that Thou should just keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.
Our God and our Father as we open this meeting with prayer.
We pray, each one of us.
Holy Father.
Not here we trust to do our own will.
But here to do Thy will, we look forward to that coming day, and we'll be free from every earthly care.
Free from those things that draw us down.
To be completely free.
In that relationship that we are already in now.
For all eternity to enjoy the Father's love.
But we just pray for help as we're not there yet, that we might have deliverance from those things that would distract us, that would turn our eyes and our thoughts and our hearts away from the Lord Jesus. We pray for help in this meeting, help for the speaker and those who listen, that the result of this meeting would be that our hearts would be fixed more.
Importantly, on the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray this our God and Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Well, the subject I want to speak on this afternoon, with the Lord's help is the subject of overcoming the world. It's the subject that I've had on my heart recently. I have to say if something I've struggled with, but I'm encouraged to speak on the subject because I feel that it's a subject we need.
You know the Believer has three enemies.
We have that great enemy of God, the devil. We also have the enemy from within.
The flesh.
But there is another enemy, the world.
You know, to meet the devil, God has given us the whole armor of God. That's an Ephesians 6, that we might be able to stand against the devil and his power to deal with the flesh. We have the wonderful truth of deliverance outlined so beautifully in Romans.
But how do we overcome the world?
That's what I want to talk about a little bit this afternoon.
You know, one of the difficult things about having three enemies is that it's easy to lose track of them.
I've got four children and they like after supper to have a little wrestle. So we get down and Russell, did you know when you're wrestling 1 opponent it's really pretty straightforward to keep track of where they are. When you add 2 into the mix, it's more difficult. But when you have 3 opponents?
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It's very easy to lose track.
Of where they are, and I believe, at least for myself, but maybe it's true for you too, I can tend to lose track of that third enemy. The world is the forgotten enemy.
And I believe the Lord would have us not to lose track, not to be.
Overcome.
And not to be discouraged by what we face either. I really don't want this meeting to be a discouragement because it says in first John chapter 4 that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
We have no need to be discouraged. In fact, the opposite is true. We have every reason to be encouraged.
And even to be full of joy in spite of what we face.
Well, the word world is used a number of different ways in Scripture.
Maybe you might say three different senses. Paul says in Romans chapter one the creation of the world, and by that he means the world in the sense of the physical place. We might call it the world place or the world planet. But then it says in John 316 that God so loved the world. So we can tell from from the context of that that he refers to the people.
God loved the people that were living on the planet, so the world in that sense is the world people.
But we have, so we have the world place and the world people. But there's another sense, Jesus said in John chapter 15, If the world hates you.
He's referring to something other than the place and something other than the people.
We might say it's the world system, maybe the world program, but I like the word system.
There is something that is all around us that we are in, and everyone who's alive on the face of the earth is in it.
It's a system that's set up by man in independence of God.
And Satan is its head.
And each one of us is in that system. You say, well, how do you, where do you get that?
Well, the Greek word for world that's translated into our English word world is cosmos.
It means a vast ordered system.
So to understand that system a little bit more.
You know, hopefully when we want to understand a subject from God's Word, we know that it's good to go back to the beginning.
You know, we can read about the world in many different verses, and we'll turn to a few this afternoon, but it's helpful to go back.
I feel that the beginning of the world.
It's back in the book of beginnings.
So I just want to read from Genesis chapter 4.
Genesis chapter 4, as you know, reports the history of Cain and Abel.
And how Cain brought a bloodless sacrifice to God and how he.
Killed his brother Abel.
And then in verse 16 it tells us what happened with Cain, says in verse 16. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.
And then in the middle of verse 17 it says and he builded a city.
What we find here with Cain is that he leaves the presence of the Lord to build something.
And he builds something great, a system.
Why does it say that King went out from the presence of the Lord? I mean, God is omnipresent, He's everywhere.
How could Cain leave the presence of the war? It means that he went out and did something in independence of God. When he built this city, he was setting up something, an independence of God. And that is what this world takes its character from, independence from God.
We look down on this chapter that the family of Cain and we'll see what characterized that family and that city we might say that he built. Let's look at verse 20. It says here an ADA bear Jabil. He was the father of such as well intense and if such as have cattle and his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all such as handle the harp in the organ.
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And Zilla? She also bare tubal cane, an instructor of every artificer of brass and iron.
So we find here that the descendants of King, the one who built that city, they become experts in all sorts of things, you know, business, industry.
Music. Entertainment.
Technology, all these things, all these things were developed out of that system. That city came built outside of the presence of Jehovah.
You know, one of the myths I think that we can tend to believe is that the world is only things that are positively evil.
But I don't think that's true.
Because, you know, is there anything positively evil about having cattle?
How about the harp in the organ? Of course not. What about building things of brass and iron? Of course not. You know, we read about the labor being made of brass, and you know, the other instruments of the Tabernacle made of different metals, the musical instruments. Think about the harp that David built, or that David played and so on. None of that.
There's nothing wrong with those things in themselves.
We must see that there is something greater.
There is a system.
A system cleverly architected and designed to keep us independent from God.
If there is something you need.
The world can provide it.
If there's something you want.
The world can provide it. You might be interested in some very strange things, and there are people that are, but I guarantee you the world can provide it. There's enough in this world to keep you occupied for your entire life. Going from one thing to the next now can't satisfy. The world cannot satisfy you, but it can keep you.
Occupied so you never turn to God. The world takes the place of God.
In the hearts of men, the world takes the place of God and the hearts of men.
So what we have here?
Is the birth of civilization without God turnover Now to first John you know John and his ministry speaks of the world to a very great extent and we'll read probably a number of verses from John's writing but.
John First John chapter 2.
In verse, let's see here verse 15 love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.
So here we find something additional. Not only is the world a great system, but the world has.
An ally. The ally is our fallen nature.
You see, the things that are in the world are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
In the world system is tailored to to cater to our fallen nature.
So the world presents to us things that are nature are followed. Nature desires. There's a there, there's an alliance there between those two enemies. And enemies, as we know, get stronger when they form an alliance. But you know these things that are in the world, the lust of the flesh, the desire for pleasure.
The lust of the eyes possessions, the pride of life.
Position and power, those things.
We have a nature that desires those things.
Those are the things that he calls here, the love of the world, but they're not of the Father.
You cannot have the love of the Father and the love of the world.
We find in Scripture that the world and the Father are opposed. I mentioned earlier that we had three enemies. We have the devil, and the devil and Christ are opposed. We also have the Father and the world and they are opposed, and then we have the flesh.
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And the Spirit is opposed to the flesh.
Again.
The devil is opposed to Christ, the world is opposed to the Father, and the flesh is opposed to the Spirit.
You know, we cannot have the love of the world and the love of the Father. These two things are mutually exclusive. And if we go over to chapter five, first John, chapter 5, we'll see in verse 19.
And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth and wickedness or lies in the wicked one. In other words, the whole world is under the influence of Satan.
So now we have our third enemy, and now we have a triple alliance. We have the world, the flesh and the devil all allied together.
To steal our hearts, to blind our eyes, to distract us and turn us away from God.
I think that's something we need to remember, that ultimately the one who is behind the changes.
Behind the systems of this world is the devil. It is him. The whole world lies in the wicked world. He is. He is the one on top of the hierarchy.
God allows the devil who is not sovereign. Only God himself is sovereign, but God allows the devil and permits him to have his way over this, over this system.
And we need to remember that because sometimes we think that we can have something in this world and we can get away with it. But we have to remember that we are dealing with an adversary that is far stronger than we are far stronger. We need to remember.
Who it is that's at the top of the hierarchy that is behind the system of this world. It's the devil. But remember, greater is he that is in you than he that is in this world.
We and ourselves are no match for the devil. He is called the Prince of this world in John chapter 12. He is called the God of this world in Second Corinthians chapter 4. Politically and religiously, he is its head.
Well, the world is progressing.
The progress of this world is really the world system better adapting itself to do what it does to fill our minds, to steal our hearts, to blind our eyes.
That is the progress of this world.
This is the thing that's really on my heart.
So much of the time I feel that.
I'm unaware.
Maybe this is true of you too unaware.
Of the progress.
Very carefully. Very skillfully.
The world is adapting to take more and more of our time, of our lives, of our hearts, of our children.
You know the access to the various departments of this world system and it has many departments.
It's better than it has ever been before. You can access anything you want with a touch of a finger.
With the device that we carry around with us in our pockets.
You know, it's amazing when you consider the progress of the world. What do you want that you can't get?
Pleasure, entertainment, even religion. Yes, the world has religion.
But what do you want that you cannot get with Amazon?
You can get almost anything you want and often with one or two day shipping.
The world will provide it. The world will provide a lot of things too, that are far more sinister than what you find on Amazon.
We mentioned from first John 2 verse 16 that the world is opposed to.
The world and the Father are on opposite sides of a battlefield.
And the point of contention between the world and the Father is the Son.
Why? Because the father loves the son, he loves him and the world hates the son, and you cannot have fellowship with the world and with the father. They are completely opposed to each other and it all comes down to the issue.
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Of what the world did with the Lord Jesus.
John chapter 12, you know, we won't take time to turn there, but in John chapter 12, the Lord Jesus referring to the cross, said, now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the Prince of this world be cast out. Now is the judgment of this world, the world cast out the Son of God. And so there is a state of enmity between God and the world.
And that has tremendous implications for you and for me as Christians.
What is our place in all of this? Well.
Back in John 17, you know those verses we read at the beginning of the meeting, we find that the Lord Jesus said of His disciples as He was praying to His Father as He went to the cross, He said they are not of the world even as I and not of the world. Well, in what way was the Lord Jesus not of this world?
He came down from heaven.
He had a nature that was completely different, completely different from the love of the world and all the things that are in the world, the lust, the pride in all of that. He had a nature that was totally separate. He kept himself unspotted from the world. Now, not isolated, he was in the world, but he kept himself from those things. And he says, just as I am not of this world, so they are not of this world.
You and I are different.
We are not of this world at the very root. We are different, if you're a true believer.
You're not of the world. We might try to make ourselves comfortable here, and sadly sometimes we do. But ultimately, if we are real, we don't belong.
We will not fit in again. You might try. Go to all the functions, be part of the conversation, laugh at the jokes, do all the things, but at the root, At the root you are different and you know it.
And if you're a true believer?
They are not of the world, and so it is our responsibility and our privilege. Young people are privileged to walk as those who are not of this world because we follow someone who is cast out of this world and who has been glorified in heaven at God's right hand, and he is now the center of another world altogether.
And so laying hold of that fact draws us up. He draws us up from the temptations of this world and delivers us. I'm getting a little ahead. But you know, Paul says in Romans 12 That we should present our bodies a living sacrifice and that we should not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. There's a, there's a contrast there between conform and transform. To conform is to change by outward pressure, like pushing a mold.
On us to change us into what the world would have us to be.
Now God wants the changes too, but he wants to transform us now. A transformation is an inside out change, and God does that by the Spirit of God.
We have that in Second Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 18.
So as the world is seeking to conform us, there's a danger that we might be conformed to the world.
God now is trying to transform us, and the way it begins is by renewing our minds, by having our thoughts constantly reset with what God tells us in this book.
That's how our minds are renewed.
But it's not just our minds, it's our heart.
We're going to talk a little bit about that.
Yet there's something for our conscience too, and that is the cross. Let's go over to Galatians 6.
Galatians chapter 6 in verse 14. But God forbid that I should glory.
Saving the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Now the cross has come in and separated us from the world.
When we think of what this world did with our Savior, it brings us to a point where we have to decide, are we on His side? You know, if it wasn't for the cross, we might almost.
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You might almost forgive the world.
Because of the cross, a believer can never forgive the world. They crucified our Savior.
They put Him on a cross. They said we will not have this man to reign over us and we love him. We love the one the world rejected. How can we then have a vested interest in this system that cast out our blessed Savior?
So Paul says that by the cross the world is crucified unto me, and I into this world. I know I cannot glory in anything except for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May God preserve us from from the world, from the love of the world.
You know, there is so much damage that the world can do to us. Worldliness we might call it. It produces emptiness in our soul. Jeremiah 2 Says how they have viewed themselves out cisterns, broken systems that can hold no water.
The world cannot satisfy you. It produces emptiness in your soul. Worldliness can rob us of our appetite for the Word of God, for the things of God. In Numbers 11 it speaks about the foods of Egypt. You can take up that subject maybe a little bit later.
It can rob us of our effectiveness in service. You know, there's a number of types. I already mentioned Egypt. There's a number of types of the world in the Old Testament. But think of law and Sodom. He wanted, he wanted that system, although he was a believer. And when the time came to preach to his sons, his sons in law.
He was as to them as one who mocked.
They didn't believe him. He had shown by his by his own life that he loved the things of the world, and so they wouldn't listen to him when he warned them to flee.
What about our discernment? Hosea Chapter 7 and verse eight? You know, we don't have the time to turn to all these verses, but there it says Ephraim is a silly dove. You know, Ephraim turned to idols. That's the 10 northern tribes, the 10 tribes to the north of Israel. They turn to idols. And the result was that they lost their discernment. They became silly doves.
You know we too will lose our discernment if we go after the things of this world.
And we take what the world offers to us instead of being unspotted from this world, as James tells us. Communion. What fellowship?
Light with darkness, What Concorde hath Christ with filial? 2 Corinthians, chapter 6.
We cannot walk in fellowship with God and have fellowship with the system that we just talked about. It has cast out His son. We just can't do it. So we won't be able to walk in communion, daily communion.
In a relationship with the Lord Jesus, the most important relationship, but there's other relationships too, and the world will destroy those relationships with one another as well. You know, the world is changing more and more rapidly, and when people are tied into that as it's changing, it produces real problems in families and assemblies. Generational divides are a result many times of worldliness.
Because we're tied in at different points in the progress.
Of this world. So we can't get along with those that have a different generation because we're too tied in with a system that is changing at an ever increasing pace. I don't know if that makes sense.
I could maybe draw it on a whiteboard, but I'm I'm probably not able to explain it but.
These are some of the results. And so our prayer is our prayer is that we would realize what the world is first of all.
But not to leave it there. How do we overcome the world?
Let's go back to first John chapter 5. I want to leave you with three closing points as to how we can overcome the world.
Maybe a young person here.
If you're a child.
Maybe older, maybe you're 12 or 10 years old. You haven't been out into the system of the world yet, but someday you will.
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And I hope that what we've talked about today will be a help to you.
First John chapter 5, verse 4.
Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
The first key to overcoming the world is faith.
And if you're a true believer, you have it.
Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?
What can the world offer you that compares with that? They can't offer you anything that can hold a candle to who he is. And the more our hearts are are occupied with him as the object that's above this world, the center of a of another world altogether will be able to overcome the world around us. There's another thing that's the cross.
We need to be reminded.
To keep the cross before us, we cannot forget.
What happened 2000 years ago? Nearly.
As I mentioned before, if the cross hadn't happened, Satan would still be the head of this world.
And we still couldn't love it. But in a sense, we could maybe more easily forget what the world really is.
But you know what? If you love Jesus. If you love the Lord Jesus.
The cross makes it.
You cannot forget what this world is really like.
You know, Moses in Egypt, another type, I encourage you to, you know, to look into that. Egypt is a type of the world. And then Moses in Egypt, he was raised in that system. He was raised in Pharaoh's household. He had every worldly advantage.
And their team a moment when he rejected all of that when he turned away from it. And it tells us what happened. You know, it says in Hebrews Chapter 11 verse 24 by faith, Moses when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense. You know there came a day when Moses looked.
And he saw what the Egyptians were doing to his brethren. He saw the abuse. And it clicked in his mind.
This is what the world is. And he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
You know, Pharaoh's daughter might represent to us the warmth of the world, and the world is warm in a certain sense. It has love, not true love, but it has love and it will. It will wrap its arms around you and draw us in.
But what God wants us to do is to remember what the world truly is, and as Moses saw, what was happening to his brethren.
He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.
And we too, we need to look back to the cross and remember what the world really is. It will help us to be free of it.
Nay, world, I turn away, though thou seem fair and good.
That friendly outstretched hand of mine is stained with Jesus blood.
How can we, as James says, be friends with the world?
For friendship with the world is enmity with God.
But you know, there is something more.
That's what I want to leave you with, that I believe is more important than all that I've said. And it's what Jude writes at the end, at the end of his epistle. Keep yourselves in the love of God, because I said before, the love of the Father and the love of the world are mutually exclusive, as we saw in first John.
Chapter 2 maybe, you might say in the more negative sense.
That if we love the world, we cannot enjoy the love of the Father. And that's true.
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But I think it's a circle.
That the more we are in the enjoyment of the love of the Father, the less we will crave the love of the world. So keep yourselves in the love of God. And I believe that is the greatest antidote to the love of the world. You know, it's a matter of the heart. But you know Daniel in Babylon, you know, another picture of the world he purposed in his heart.
And you and I can too.
And we can have the victory.
The victory that overcomes the world.
You know, Jay and Darby gave an excellent example of this, He said. Let's say there's a boy in an orchard and he's eating rotten fruit.
And next to him, there's a tree with beautiful, delicious apples. And you say he must not know that the apples are there. I mean, that's the only reason why he's eating the rotten fruit.
Is because he doesn't know about the good. And that is how it is with you and with me. The delicious good apples, that's the love of the Father. The rotten fruit is the love of the world. The more we learn, the more we enjoy of the love of the Father. Then we will have no appetite.
For the rotten fruit. For the things of this world.
So.
These three things, the faith that we have, the cross of Christ and the love of the Father, the faith that we have in the Son of God is the center of another world altogether, and by renewing our minds in that faith through the Word of God.
Then the cross which makes it so we cannot forget what the world really is.
And finally, keeping ourselves in the love of God. Well, I hope that this could be a help to some of you.
And now let's close in prayer.
For God and our Father, we think of this subject that we've had before us.
How it was prayed earlier in the prayer meeting that we were are in a spiritual conflict.
We just pray as those who have been given to the Son out of the world, that we would walk in a way that would be in keeping with that. Think of the things of this world around us.
That would draw out our hearts and our desires in a way that would be ruinous to our Christian pathway.
That we would remember what the world truly is, That our faith might have its object in the One.
Who is glorified in heaven today? That we would keep ourselves in the love of God, that we might know what it is to overcome the world. So we just pray that we would keep ourselves in the enjoyment of the Father's love. We pray this Lord Jesus, in my worthy and precious name, Amen.