00:00Hello everyone, my name is William Chambers. It is good to be with you all the time. Our God is
00:05awesome. Our God is great. Let us dive right in. Today I want to talk about how to defeat evil
00:13without becoming evil. Oh, we live in a very cold world, a sin-filled world, where when people can
00:24do us wrong, and it can harden our hearts. We can become callous, but in the text I'm reading today,
00:31the Bible gives believers a different strategy. Let's look at the text. Be not overcome of evil,
00:39but overcome evil with good. Now our text is saying there's a danger in being overcome with evil. Have
00:50you ever met somebody and they were bitter about so many things? You could tell when you talk to
00:55them that bitterness would just come out of them. Oh, they were overcome by evil because so many
01:02things happened unto them. And sometimes in our own hearts, there are some areas that need to be
01:07healed because we have allowed ourselves to take on the strategy of the world. What do I mean by
01:12that? Sometimes when someone throws mud at us, the first response that we want to do is throw
01:18mud back. And all that does is make both of us dirty people. This text tells us to refuse to
01:26throw
01:26mud back and that will end the fight. What do I mean by that? If we refuse to throw mud
01:33back,
01:33though you threw mud at me, I did not let myself become overcome by evil and retaliate. And it might
01:41just make you feel a little guilty. It might make you soften a bit. Oh, so that you are not
01:47as hard
01:48either. So we're both not guilty. It just might redeem the situation. I didn't become hardened and
01:54you might soften up too. And that way we're overcoming evil with good. So this text is telling
02:02us that evil is contagious. When people hurt us, we want to hurt them back. When people lie to us,
02:08sometimes we want to lie to them back. We want to retaliate and have a reaction and have revenge.
02:14And in this way, bitterness spreads. One person got hurt and then they hurt another person. And
02:19that's two people. Both people hurt each other and it spreads throughout our country. So this
02:25scripture is giving us a different strategy to approach life. Scripture teaches us to bless those
02:33who curse us. Scripture teaches us to pray for those who persecute us. It tells us to return kindness
02:41for cruelty. This is a different strategy. There's a spiritual strategy. These are spiritual weapons.
02:46We have to use spiritual weapons against evil so that evil don't spread all over us. So I'm not
02:51overcoming and I become a man of bitterness and a man, a man of hatred because of the things that
02:57are happening. You cannot live too long without things happening to you in this world, but we do not
03:01have to let it overcome us and become just like it. God is introducing his radical strategy.
03:07This is not a strategy of weakness. This is not a strategy of surrendering. This is not a passive
03:12strategy. This is spiritual warfare with goodness. I will come at you with good. Oh, we're going to
03:18need prayer for this. This doesn't just happen. We're going to need to be before God's word on this
03:23one. We're going to be having to ask God, help us, oh God, to forgive. Help us to let go
03:27and
03:27continually doing this so I can return evil with good. So I can fight the spiritual warfare with
03:35goodness. Oh, this is going to be, I'm going to need God for this. You're going to need God for
03:39this. The Christian has weapons. This text does not tell us to ignore evil. It doesn't tell us to
03:46accept evil. It don't tell us to pretend it's not there. It tells us to defeat evil. We are to
03:52have
03:52victory over evil for we are victorious. It did not make me evil. I did not get bitter. Oh, my
03:59heart
03:59is still soft and, and you might soften as well. What do I mean by that? Light always defeats darkness.
04:06When you have a room of darkness and you put light on, it expels the darkness, but darkness can expel
04:13light. So light always defeats darkness. Darkness cannot extinguish light. Light expels darkness. So we
04:20are to turn the light on. Lord, help us to turn the light on. What do I mean? When evil
04:26strikes,
04:27Lord, help us to respond with righteousness. When hatred appears, help us to respond with grace.
04:33When lies are spread, help us to respond with truth. Help us, Lord, to not multiply evil by becoming it.
04:41Help us, oh God, not to mirror evil. Oh, when we were mirror evil, we are being overcome by evil.
04:47I don't
04:47want to mirror it. I want to move differently than it. Ah, help. This is the kind of love that
04:54overcomes the world. The believers' weapons are not anger, not revenge, not hatred. Our weapons is
05:02goodness. Goodness disarms hatred. Kindness exposes cruelty. Mercy shames injustice. When someone does
05:14good to you after you've done them bad, that is a pretty bad feeling. You've been exposed. Your
05:18weapons have been disarmed. They're being good, though you're being evil. Oh, I know what this is
05:24that I don't want you to be good to me after I've been evil to you because it exposes me
05:28and it convicts
05:29me. And this is the love of Christ. When Christ was struck, when Christ was mocked, when Christ was
05:34criticized, Christ endured it all and he forgave. Forgive him, Father, for they know not what they do.
05:41While they were nailing him high, he was saying, forgive them, Father. While they were casting
05:45locks for his clothes, he was saying, forgive them, Father. He was praying for them. Believer,
05:50we need to be in prayer because these are spiritual weapons. They're not of our own. We need God to
05:55empower us to use these weapons. Help us, Lord, when the world comes at us with evil, to strike back
06:01with good. Ah, help us. In Jesus' name I pray and say, amen.
06:11Amen.
06:12Amen.
06:13Amen.
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