In Dr. John Snyder's sermon titled 'He Who Overcomes,' the focus is on the biblical call for Christians to be overcomers. Dr. Snyder begins by referencing Colossians 1:13-23 and Revelation 2-3, highlighting the promises made to those who overcome. He emphasizes that only overcomers, those who persist in their faith despite internal and external battles, can claim the promises of eternal life. Dr. Snyder argues that the Christian life is a battlefield, both internally and externally, from the moment of spiritual birth until the end of earthly life. He connects this idea to the notion of spiritual war, which began in Genesis 3, and explains that every Christian is enlisted into this battle. The sermon stresses that grace is not a passive state but an empowering force that equips believers to fight against sin and temptation. Dr. Snyder addresses potential theological concerns, assuring that overcoming does not imply a works-based salvation but is a natural outcome of genuine faith. Throughout, he encourages believers to hold fast to their faith and continue striving, using grace as their strength and guide.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Colossians chapter 1. I want to begin reading in verse 13 and we're going to end at verse 23. To end at verse 23 Colossians 1 verse 13 to 23. When I grow up I want to have a voice like Ash. Man, what an accent, you know?

Proper. I hear myself on a podcast, I think, who put Mickey Mouse on the podcast? It's true. I still get people at McDonald's drive-thru say, yes ma'am do you want anything else? I'm like, I'm a man, I don't want anything else.

All right, you got it? You're in Colossians now, right? Okay. For he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church, and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross. Through him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach. If indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I Paul was made a minister. Well I read that passage because I hope it will kind of set the stage for what we want to look at this afternoon. Now I think this afternoon would probably try not to be quite as long as this morning but I often fail at that. So your pastor did give me a time limit so if I go over it's not his fault.

All right. But I want us to kind of just hone in on one question. Earlier this morning the question was have you finished with the seven letters that the king has given you. But this afternoon our question is this Are your letters missing any pages Now sadly because of one, you know one of the negatives of having email and everything so easy We get lazy and we probably rarely Handwrite a letter to people. You might still do that.

But I, my wife and I, still have some of the letters, I think she kept more of mine than I kept of hers. When we were living on one coast, she was actually in North Carolina, and I was in Washington State, and we were engaged to be married, and we would write letters, because back then there was no cell phones, so long distance was quite high. My parents were quite surprised at how much I loved her when They got the bill, right? And then it went to the stamps after that. But you might have letters that you've treasured from someone from a long time ago.

And just occasionally, you know, as you're going through things, you see the little box and you think, I haven't looked at those in so long. And you get them out. Now what happens if you get them out? And these are really precious letters to you for some reason. And you begin to read through them.

And you notice that as you read through the first letter, it just doesn't really end right. And you realize the last page is missing. I mean, what would you do? You would scour the box. You'd think, did it get stuck with another letter?

Is it, did I lose it? Is it in the closet where the box was? So I want to ask you, when it comes to the seven letters your king has written you, Have you got all the pages? Did you lose the last page of the letters? Maybe, maybe I should ask it this way.

We have some different translations of the Bible, probably in our room today. Does your translation of the Bible miss out any of the verses? Does it leave any of them out? Can you imagine buying a Bible that on the front of the Bible there's an advertisement, you know the front box, doesn't contain difficult to apply or understand passages. I mean, would you buy that and say, that's a great Bible, like Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson, our third president, used a razor and scissors to cut excerpts from his Bible. This is what one historian says, using his clippings the aging third president created a New Testament of his own. One that most Christians would hardly recognize. The Bible was focused only on Jesus, but none of his miraculous works. It did not include any of the major scenes like the resurrection, or his ascension to heaven, or his miracles.

Instead, Jefferson's Bible focused on Jesus, a man of morals, a teacher whose truths were expressed without the help of miracles or the Supernatural power of God anybody use Thomas Jefferson's Bible which you can buy today anybody use that for your quiet time this week I mean it offends us doesn't it? What man has a right to do that? But listen in practice we might all have to write on the front page of our Bible Thomas Jefferson's Bible if we're not careful. It is easy to read through the letters and to get to the last statement of each letter, which almost each one you know kind of starts the same way. To him who has ears to hear, let him hear.

What the Spirit is saying to the churches. To him who overcomes, and then there's the promise. That final statement does your Bible contain it well yes let me ask you this in practice in practice not on the page in practice would hope church look any differently at the end of studying those letters? Would it look any differently if your Bible did not contain those final statements at the end of each letter? Would you be just as good a church?

Could you be satisfied with the Christianity that has everything the scripture offers, but doesn't include the final statement to each of those letters. This afternoon, I want us to make sure that we have the last page of each letter. Now, just for a quick recap, turn to Revelation and look at chapter two, and I'm just gonna read the final statements to each letter. So you remember, kind of just refreshing our minds what we're really talking about. Let me read the final lines of each letter.

So Revelation two verse seven. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God." Chapter 2 verse 11. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.

Verse 17, he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death. Verse 17, he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, To him I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone Which no one knows but he who receives it Verse 26 he who overcomes and he who keeps my deeds until the end To him I will give authority over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces as I also have received authority from my father and I will give him the morning star. Chapter 3 verse 5, he who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments and I will not erase his name from the book of life and I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.

Verse 12, he who overcomes I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it anymore and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God and my new name. And the final one in verse 21 of chapter three, he who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with me on my throne as I also overcame and sat down with my father on his throne." Now those are the, in a sense that's the last page of each of the seven letters. So in practice would you be okay with a Christianity that did not include those statements. Well I want us to think about some things regarding those statements and the first is this. One thing that becomes painfully clear and there is no theological argument that can get around this and nor would a Christian really want to get around it.

And that is this, that the only kind of person that Jesus Christ gives eternal life promises to is the overcomer. The head of the church, Having made so many wonderful promises, has the right to limit his gifts to whom he wishes to give, and in every one of these, the common element is there is a person who overcomes, and there is no other person given the promises but the overcomer. Now to help us be overcomers we're going to look this afternoon at the necessity of overcoming and why and then this evening at the provision that Christ gives. Overcoming or pressing on faithfully to the end doesn't just show up in the book of Revelation. I mean, I read that section from Colossians 1, all those wonderful statements about Christ's rescue and His person.

And then Paul writes that he has reconciled you in His fleshly body through death. He will present you before God, holy and blameless, beyond reproach. And then there's the word if. If, if you continue in the faith, firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you've heard. Hebrews chapter 3 verse 6, Christ was faithful as a son over his household whose house we are, he says to the Christians, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm to the end.

Hebrews 3 verse 14, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. Revelation ends with this picture. Revelation 21 verse 6, Jesus said it is done. I am the alpha and the Omega he who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son. Now I think that we'd have to be honest.

That kind of talk tends to go against our theological grain as evangelicals or as Protestants. And we kind of had these tiny red flags rise up. I mean I have them when I say them. Am I saying that we're saved ultimately on a grace plus works foundation? And the answer to that is no.

Am I implying that a Christian who has what who has been purchased by Christ and has received The the down payment, you know the earnest of what yet to come can lose all of that and the answer to that is no But when we come to passages that don't match our systematic theology, it's always good to just kind of back up and get the big picture to make sure that we're holding all of our theological truths in balance and not picking and choosing which one we want to emphasize. I remember reading John Newton talking about what he did when he came up to a theological problem where on one side there was this truth on the extreme edge and then there was another truth on that extreme edge And he felt that if he grabbed both of them, he's about to be pulled in two as a theologian. And he said, well, what do you do? Well, some people just let go of one and say, well, I'm just going to emphasize this one. And the other group lets go of that one.

But he said, the only thing to do is to ask God for help and reach out and hold both. So let's think a little bit about the requirement for the Christian to overcome and the fact that is implied there that that is in we are in a war. You're in a war with enemies. The enemies are internal and external. You're in a race with hurdles and impediments, internal and external.

And there's no way to avoid that. Therefore, only the overcomer is the Christian. So let me give you a few things that kind of the big picture and then we're going to talk about some applications. We could call this kind of a biblical theology of war, not geopolitical conflicts, but spiritual conflicts. Well, the first is this, that the war that a Christian finds himself in, which requires him to overcome.

It's the reason. Begins way back in Genesis three, not merely in God judging fallen humanity, but in God's extraordinary mercy. You go back and you read the account and Adam and Eve prefer to believe the liar above their creator to live for themselves instead of to live for God and in that hope that they would be like God's they fall from that extraordinary pinnacle of being the chief of God's creation and now they're worse than animals. They're against their Creator and their soul is stained and they're going to be removed from His presence and of course there is a wonderful promise of the seed of the woman Christ who will come and he will deal with the serpent the enemy but in the midst of that there is a statement made about a war God declares a war and it is an extraordinary mercy Genesis 315 we read this I God speaking I will put enmity between you and the woman Between your seed and her seed that is God himself has set up Life in this fallen world in such a way that There is an unending strife between the seed of Eve, that's Christ and those who belong to Him, and the seed of the serpent, the enemy of our souls and all that follow Him.

And never again, though a child of God can sin, never again can you really feel that he, the enemy, is your friend. You can never be at peace with his way of living again. When you're brought out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, there is no way to go back. Romans chapter 6, you may sin, you may listen to the old master at times, you may even present, sadly, this body as an instrument of selfishness again, but you can never move from the new realm to the old realm. You can never rightfully be under his authority.

And part of that is because of Genesis 3. I will, God says, I will make an enmity. It is an expression of God's mercy that there is now a war. And when God rescues you, you are brought into that war, and you can never be at peace with the enemy of your soul Rutherford Samuel Rutherford wrote from prison Not to be surprised by this war He said because God intends to bring you into a conflict with sin that will never have a ceasefire in this life. Let me give you a second thing.

All who are born into the royal family of heaven, every adopted child of God, you are, the moment you are born into the kingdom of heaven you are enlisted into the army of Christ Psalm 110 that picture of Christ triumphant He's about to take the field at the end of the psalm and he will lay his enemies in heaps before him It's quite a startling picture, But before that it says in verse 3 your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power in Holy array we see the same picture in Revelation 19 Christ is coming the heavens are opened There's a white horse the one that sits on it is faithful and true. He comes to judge in righteousness and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire. On his head there are many crowns. He has a name written on him which no one knows but himself.

He's clothed with the robe dipped in blood. By the way, this is not the blood of the cross, but of his enemies and his name is the word of God. And then listen, the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. That's the adopted children. Strangely, we find an illustration of this in the British royal family.

I kind of actually like the Queen. I remember preaching a couple summers ago with a Scottish fella, a young guy. And so it was close to presidential time and make America great again. He said, I prefer make America Great Britain again. And I'm like, actually, I'm okay with the queen.

I mean, I like her. I'll go back, but nobody else will follow me. When we think of the royal family do you know that it's expected that every male in the in the British royal family will serve in the in the Armed Forces. But did you know that Queen Elizabeth served in the Armed Forces? It was World War II.

She was I think 17. She got special permission from her dad, the king. She said, I don't want to not serve. So he let her serve in basically what was the National Guard. She became a truck mechanic and driver in World War II in Britain.

In the heavenly royal family, royalty never exempts you from military service. Royalty guarantees you have a place to take on the battle line. Every adopted child of God must fight, must actually overcome. When you think about adoption into the royal family, it's not just guys, is it? It's girls.

And in this army, women fight too. So do children. I remember reading a big two-volume biography on Churchill. And this is when things were really bad and it looked like the Germans would invade. And so he gave a stirring speech again.

And he comes home and his daughter-in-law said to him, Dad, what could I do? I mean if the Germans invade London, what can I do? And his response was wonderful. He said, you have a kitchen knife? She goes, well, of course we have kitchen knives.

He said, then pick one up and take one with you. Meaning a German soldier. Take him to death with you. If he shoots you, kill him. It's kind of a shocking statement for your daughter-in-law, but it's a wonderful statement for the Christian.

Ladies, you're not allowed to say, men, because they're heads of the families, they go to war and we'll sit back and knit bandages. You have a place. You have an enemy. If you don't overcome, you will not receive the promises. The royal family.

Let me give you a third picture of the war. When we come to the New Testament, not only do we see in the book of Acts evidences of this constant opposition of God's people and the constant temptation within that we have to overcome. But we find this in Paul's explanations, probably the most popular, easily recognizable, is Ephesians 6 where he talks about the armory of heaven and how we're to put that on to fight. How do you think of the of the statement that comes in Ephesians six, that description of the armor of the Christian? Because how you think of it, how you consider its connection with the rest of Ephesians really is important.

Do you think of it as an appendix? You know what appendix is to a book, right? It's not necessary. So you could read the book and not read the appendix, not read the post log, not read the extra bit at the end, and you'd be okay. You don't think that way do you?

You don't think that Ephesians 1 is essential and 2 is essential. Of course 3, 4 and 5 and the first 9 verses of 6 those are essential, but that war thing with the armor, that's just like an encouraging appendix. Do you think of it as just the final part of a series of practical? Applications if you don't remember Ephesians in chapters 1 2 & 3 Paul gives us a lot of doctrine in chapters 4 5 & 6 Paul talks about the Christian life that flows from that doctrine. So he's going to talk about how to live in the world, how to live in the family, how to live in the church, and then he gets to this section in verse 10 of chapter 6 and talks about battlefield.

Is it just one of, let's say, seven or eight major areas of application it just happens to be the last I don't think so it doesn't really follow verse 9 it's not a logical connection I think what we have in the armory section of Ephesians 6 is Paul's kind of exit door You've been sitting in the classroom and the apostle Paul has been teaching you about the Christian life, and then he says, okay, do you see the things you really need to believe? These are life and death. And you say, okay, I've got it, Paul. I've got that doctrine. And Do you see the things that you're going to need to do?

This is life and death. You say, I've got the duties, Paul. Then Paul says, okay, one more thing. We're going to walk out of this door together into real life, but you need one more thing. All that I've been saying now culminates in this.

You're going to live on a battlefield. You live in a war zone internally externally. It's true. Every doctrine Paul gives in Ephesians has to be believable while you're being attacked. And every duty that he gives in Ephesians has to be doable in a war zone while the enemy is shooting at you.

That means every event in the Christian life has lived on a battlefield. Every child born here, that's a lot of you, a lot of you guys are young, you were born on a battlefield. Everyone that was married here exchanged vows on a battlefield. Every visit you've made to a hospital, that person in the hospital, that hospital was built on a battlefield. Every prayer meeting you've attended has been prayed in a war zone.

Every place on earth. Now you think of it. Do you have Civil War? Like monuments and protected region like this was a battlefield. You can't do anything here I mean, I don't know I don't know what you call them But you know what I mean where the government sets aside a plot of land and it's it's now like a national park like here was a famous battle.

We have some of those in Mississippi. Can you imagine if you as a church went to a very famous battle site that's protected by the government, you know, it's set aside and you said you know what, Hope Church we want to move the location of our building. We're gonna build right, it's so pretty here, we're just gonna build our church right here. I mean you would all go to jail. You cannot build a church on the protected battlefield.

It's state property now. But you did build your church on a battlefield. And you built your house on a battlefield. And your kitchen is on a battlefield. Every place that any Christian goes is on a battlefield.

So you must overcome. Think of the battlefield inside of you. I mean we are duty bound. For love of Jesus Christ we want to avoid temptation to flee it. But no matter how well you flee And no matter how isolated you get, you will still live on a battlefield.

My wife and I, you know, we homeschooled our children. You know, we homeschooled our children on a battlefield. Those of you that homeschool know that is absolutely true. Doesn't require any explanation. Homeschooling sometimes feels like a battlefield.

We homeschool our kids on a battlefield. The enemy lived in our house. The enemy is in the heart. Every stage of life, battlefield. Do you know that the youngest Christian here, the one that was born again most recently, so whatever you are in physical years, I'm talking about spiritual age, the most recently born again believer here immediately was given a suit of armor and put on a battlefield day one.

And the oldest Christian here still wears a suit of armor. You can't say to the younger group, it's time for you to battle now. In every age of the history of the church, the church was on a battlefield. It's foolish to look back at other centuries and say, and I know we do it, I do it. It's wrong idea to say, if only I lived in the 18th century during the great awakening with Whitfield and Edwards, now that would be a Christian life.

But that was a battlefield. The New Testament was a battlefield. Read those letters again and see how much battlefield there was. When we come to these letters, we have evidence of a battlefield. Think of it.

Ephesus. I mean, these are New Testament churches. Ephesus is on a battlefield and the battle rages over their love for Jesus. Their love is cold. Smyrna is persecuted.

Pergamos is falling in love with the false friendship of the world. Thyatira is hearing cunning lies, not from people outside the church and the culture, but from people who have gotten into the church, leading them to self-indulgence. Sardis is on a battlefield. They are falling asleep while everybody talks about what a great church they are. Philadelphia, they're doing well, but they're on a battlefield.

They have to endure in the midst of a culture where the church is so small and the task seems impossibly large. And Laodicea is obviously on a battlefield because of its proud, self-satisfied, smug religion that makes them lukewarm to Christ. Every believer must reach the finish line. Colossians 1, keep holding on to the faith and you will reach that having overcome countless obstacles and enemies. Now what about salvation by grace alone through faith alone?

Does this unravel that theology? Well, I hope it certainly does not. Let me ask you though what you think of grace, because if we don't have the right idea of grace, the undeserved favor of the king that has been so active from eternity past and will never end. Think about grace. Is your picture of grace, if I said to you, draw a picture of grace, it'd be kind of hard, wouldn't it?

I mean, I guess we could draw a picture of the cross. But if you can't use the cross, how would you draw a picture of God's undeserved love? Some of you might draw a mule. Anybody have that in their mind? No, probably not.

I get that from Samuel Rutherford. When he was in prison, he wrote a letter back to his church members and he warned some of them that were using grace as an excuse to be okay with sin in the life. And he said this, Christ will not become your pack mule to carry you and your favorite sin to heaven together. I know a lot of people, I for many years thought grace was a mule to carry me and my favorite sins to heaven. I don't think you think that.

What about a pillow? Is grace a thing that says to you, all right, now that you're saved, you just need to take a nap, you know, just rest in the fullness of Christ and go to sleep right here and there's nothing more to do until Jesus comes back and gets you. Is grace a pillow? Or is grace a pair of running shoes? That's more like it.

Or an armory. Grace animates you. How? It brings you to life. Now your, you know, spiritual life means responsiveness.

I am alive to God and dead to the old voices. And now having been brought to life, I want to take up the armor and live for the king that's loved me. Grace does not put you to sleep and tell you, you can be passive. Grace does not indulge and forgive draft dodging church members. When grace, when the undeserved favor of a king grabs you and you really feel it's undeserved for the first time ever and washes you and calls you by his name.

Can you imagine as a Christian saying to God, really I would prefer not to stand with my King? I mean the heart of the believer as as fearful as it may feel at times, we say to him, if you will help me, I will stand with you. And I will stand against every false lover that once lied to me. I cannot imagine that the happiest life for the Christian would be spiritual neutrality like a Switzerland, equally at peace with religious stuff and selfish stuff, holiness and pollution. Jesus is beautiful humility and my arrogant pride.

Now we do have to be careful. Because of what Christ has done in you, you want to fight. Because of what he's begun, you will complete the race. But you will have to do it by overcoming enemies and obstacles. But that does not mean that your efforts to overcome them are in any way meritorious.

That is, fighting the enemy that you were so treacherously in love with all those years, no matter how hard you fight, can never pay the rightful king.