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.
Those are the only two things that God showed me that we need to do to be over comers of evil. Just have faith and pray. Look at what Jonah did in the belly of the whale. He prayed and told God he needed him and that he was ready to do what God asked of him. Look at Paul and Silas in prison. They didn’t look at the circumstances of where they were at, they praised God and prayed and the place began to shake and the guard came in and got saved and they were freed.
Now we’re going to look at these other five things that Jesus will take care of. But we need them from him.
NUMBER (3)........LOVE
In ROMANS 8:35-39 “WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS, OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE, OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? AS IT IS WRITTEN, FOR THY SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER. NAY, IN ALL THINGS WE ARE MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUGH HIM THAT LOVED US. FOR I AM PERSUADED, THAT NEITHER DEATH, NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS, NOR PRINCIPALITIES, NOR POWERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR HEIGHT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CREATURE, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.”
The love of God will always over come evil. Greater love hath no man that a man would lay down his life for his friends. If you’re saved by the grace of God, God loves you. If you’re lost and undone, God loves you. It don’t matter if you’re good or bad: God still loves you. You can win the battle by trusting in the love of God.
NUMBER (4).....GRACE
2 CORINTHIANS 12:7-9 “AND LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE THROUGH THE ABUNDANCE OF THE REVELATIONS, THERE WAS GIVEN TO ME A THORN IN THE FLESH, THE MESSENGER OF SATAN TO BUFFET ME, LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED ABOVE MEASURE. FOR THIS THING I BESOUGHT THE LORD THRICE, THAT IT MIGHT DEPART FROM ME. AND HE SAID UNTO ME, MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR THEE: FOR MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS...” We don’t deserve any of these blessings from God. But because of the Grace of God we’re able to be over comers. We’ve already won the battle. Because of his marvelous Grace.
NUMBER (5)...THE WORD
In PSALMS 119:11 “THY WORD HAVE I HID IN MINE HEART, THAT I MIGHT NOT SIN AGAINST THEE.” That’s the next things....the word of God. When you don’t know where to go or where to turn; just pick up the blessed book of God. There’s nothing any better than the preached word of God. The word will overcome evil. If the word of God ain’t good enough, I don’t know what is. If you allow it to, evil will over come you.
NUMBER (6) .......TRUST
PHILIPPIANS 1:27-28 “ONLY LET YOUR CONVERSATION BE AS IT BECOMETH THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST: THAT WHETHER I COME AND SEE YOU, OR ELSE BE ABSENT, I MAY HEAR OF YOUR AFFAIRS, THAT YE STAND FAST IN ONE SPIRIT, WITH ONE MIND STRIVING TOGETHER FOR THE FAITH OF THE GOSPEL.”
You know why a lot of people are over come with evil? Because they don’t trust in God. Sometimes, things may not go the way you want them to but if you’ll follow the spirit of God it’ll work out for his benefit. If it works out for his benefit, it’ll work out for our benefit. If he’s going to get glorification, we’ll get blessings from it.
There’s nothing any better than being in a church service like we had tonight. We could go home now saying it’s been good. There’s churches out there that you won’t see them getting up like ya’ll do and hugging one another. Every preacher that has ever visited this church has called me and told me that we have the most lovingest church they’ve ever seen. Even Bob Wardlaw whose been preaching for forty years has told me they can’t find another church like Westside. It’s not what I’ve done, it’s what God has done in us. We need to recognize that we have something special and we need to share it with everybody that we can. Just follow the spirit of God.
NUMBER (7)....... POWER OF THE LORD
EPHESIANS 6:10 “FINALLY, MY BRETHREN, BE STRONG IN THE LORD, AND IN THE POWER OF HIS MIGHT.” I want to say that we need to trust in the power of God. I preached one time at revival Baptist Church at a brotherhood meeting on the Limited power of man and Unlimited Power of God. His power is unlimited. God does not do things because of what level we’re at. He does things because of what level he’s at. I can tell you this....he’s at the top. If I trusted in my power, you wouldn’t even see me half the time at Westside Baptist Church. Ya’ll remember that scripture where Jesus when he was talking to Simon Peter and he said, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my church.” He wasn’t talking about building his church on top of Peter. He was saying he would build his church on the way that Peter believed in what he got from God the Father. He didn’t see Peter just for who he was but for who Peter could be by following the spirit of God. God looks at us for what we can be in Christ and not who we are now.
That was the seven things and I want to end with this verse here: REVELATION 12:9 “AND THE GREAT DRAGON WAS CAST OUT, THAT OLD SERPENT CALLED THE DEVIL, AND SATAN, WHICH DECEIVETH THE WHOLE WORLD: HE WAS CAST OUT INTO THE EARTH, AND HIS ANGELS WERE CAST OUT WITH HIM. AND I HEARD A LOUD VOICE SAYING IN HEAVEN, NOW IS COME SALVATION, AND STRENGTH, AND THE KINGDOM OF OUR GOD, AND THE POWER OF HIS CHRIST: FOR THE ACCUSER OF OUR BRETHREN IS CAST DOWN, WHICH ACCUSED THEM BEFORE OUR GOD DAY AND NIGHT. AND THEY OVERCAME HIM BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB, AND BY THE WORD OF THEIR TESTIMONY.....”
We can overcome evil tonight by everything God has given us. God has given us all the necessary tools we need to be the Christians that he wants us to be. Our problem is sometimes we don’t utilize them. Sometimes we forget to pray. Sometimes we forget to read. Sometimes we forget to call or visit someone when the spirit leads us to. If things don’t happen in our lives, it’s not God’s fault, it’s our fault. There’s no limits to God’s love.
May God Bless You
