Overcomers

2 Peter 2:18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.

The Apostle Peter tells us that in the last days there will be powerful false teachers who will have such power that they will be able to lead believers astray and actually "overcome" that person.   The word "overcome" is defined as: "to defeat, beat, conquer, trounce, thrash, rout, vanquish, overwhelm, overpower, get the better of, triumph over, prevail over, win over."  The late Minister Derek Prince said, "we will either be overcomers or we will be overcome." We will live our lives overcoming obstacles, false teaching, false prophecies and other forms of spiritual warfare or we will be ourselves overcome.  

Jesus said in Revelation 3:21 "To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne."  Again in Revelation 2:26 Jesus said, "And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—"  It has been said that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint.  They don't give trophies for those who start a race.  They only give rewards for those who finish.  Jesus says we must overcome to finish.  That means we will be challenged, even attacked.  We must overcome the temptations, challenges and attacks.  It is a war in which we are engaged.  In war there is a phrase called "the fog of war".  Regardless of the training in objective and tactics, once the bullets start flying and brothers in arms start falling, the fog of war sets in.  Confusion seems to be the only thing that is certain.  D Day was a prime example.  Almost everything went wrong that could go wrong.  Yet, in the midst of the fog of warfare people who overcame stabilized themselves and returned to the truth of their training.  They didn't allow themselves to be overtaken by all the "what ifs and yeah buts."  They made a decision to believe in and practice their basic training.

We are in a spinning world of chaos and confusion.  It may even look as if what we have learned as foundational Christian teaching isn't working.  It's all the fog of war!  For centuries and centuries the Church has been bombarded.  It has looked bleak time and again.  Yet for those who chose to believe and live by the Truth of God's Word regardless of circumstances, they overcame and gained their place among the overcomers that have spanned the ages.