Be Overcomers Of Evil

WESTSIDE BAPTIST CHURCH

PASTOR: TERRY VAUGHAN

SERMON TITLE: BE OVER COMERS OF EVIL

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

VERSE TEXT: ROMANS 12:21 “BE NOT OVERCOME WITH EVIL, BUT OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD.”

We’re faced with a lot of things in our life and we’re going to go through some things, some growing pains and sometimes their hard to face. Sometimes when we go through things and we start to think that we’re really defeated. The devil wants us to think that tonight. The devil wants us to think that we’re on the losing side rather than the winning side. But I’ve got news for you tonight. If you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you’re not on the losing side. Paul said this in ROMANS 7:21 “WHEN I WOULD DO GOOD, EVIL IS PRESENT WITH ME.” Evil doesn’t come when you’re doing bad. You’re already into evil. Evil comes around when you’re trying to do something right or good or trying to work for the Lord. Anytime I think about that word Evil, I think about the devil. He’s always around trying to being us down but we can overcome the evil with the good. I thought about that song Joyce and I sang, “Sheltered in the Arms of God”, and it goes right along with what I’m going to share with you.

PSALMS 23:4 “YEA, THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL: FOR THOU ART WITH ME; THY ROD AND THY STAFF THEY COMFORT ME.” God’s not going to leave us. He’s always here with us. We’re sheltered in the arms of God. There’s only so many bad things that can happen to you. Once all those happen you’ll just go on home to be with the Lord. Nothing can stop us from getting to where God wants us to be.

I want to share some verses with you tonight. I want to share two things that we need to be overcomes of Evil and overcome the evil with good.

NUMBER (1)......FAITH

1 TIMOTHY 6:11-12 “BUT THOU, O MAN OF GOD, FLEE THESE THINGS; AND FOLLOW AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS, GODLINESS, FAITH, LOVE, PATIENCE, MEEKNESS. FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH......”

He said fight the good fight of faith. Our faith is very important for us Christians to trust in God with anything and everything that we need no matter where we’re at in life and no matter what we’re going through. Have faith in God. The Bible says that without faith it’s impossible to please God. Let me tell you what Jesus told the woman who had an issue of blood. She said if I can just touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made whole. She touched the hem of his garment and Jesus said, “according to your faith, be it done unto you.” I wonder where your faith is at tonight. He said according to your faith it shall be done and you can mark it down in your book that God’s taken care of it, it’s complete and you can scratch it out of your books. You want to overcome some of the evil things in your life, just put all your faith in God. Then you’ll quit worrying about all the bad things and you’ll start hallelujahing all the good things. There’s always going to be bad things but the good things always outweigh them.

NUMBER (2)......PRAYER

MATTHEW 26:41 “WATCH AND PRAY, THAT YE ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION: THE SPIRIT INDEED IS WILLING, BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK.” Prayer will overcome evil every time. Last night I was sitting at home and I was getting a little bit depressed and I picked up my Bible and felt like I just couldn’t get into the reading and that made me more depressed. I like to read the God and study. I told myself I needed to go out to the garage and get down on my unworthy knees and just call on the heavens like Daniel did and say God I need you! That’s what I did and God lifted me up. Prayer works. There’s a lot of lost people that don’t pray, can’t pray and don’t know how to pray and we’ve got to pray for them, for one another and for ourselves. There’s power in prayer. The best I ever felt in this world was right after a talk with Jesus. Good always overcomes evil. The scriptures say do not render evil for evil unto any man but do good to them that hate you and spitefully use you. Our human nature always seems to want to look at the bad before we look at the good. That’s why Paul tells us to watch and to pray so that we do not enter into temptation.