EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/11/2025 9:35 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Part 7 “How to Recognize an Overcomer”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 5:1-5
Message of the verses: “1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe
His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments;
and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God
overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world — our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
I
continue quoting from John MacArthur’s sermon in this Spiritual Diary.
“Let’s
do something to wrap this up that takes us to another passage of Scripture. I
want to talk, thirdly,
about the delights of
overcomers. Now that we know we’re overcomers, and we know who the
overcomers are – John, by the way, isn’t finished with that subject, we just
have to go to the book of Revelation to pick up the rest of it. So turn to
Revelation. And what we find here is the delights that are provided for
overcomers, the blessings, the special gifts that God gives overcomers. And
it’s in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation that you have the seven letters to the
seven churches. And of course, you have sort of summed up in these seven
letters promises to the church in general.
“And
at the end of each of these seven letters there is a promise, and there is a
promise to the overcomers. Now churches are not just composed of overcomers. We
would like to think that they’re mostly overcomers, that maybe 95 percent of
the people in the church and certainly in this church are overcomers. And we
would have to admit that in some churches that call themselves Christians it
might be one percent of people who are really Christians, really overcomers.
But in any church in any circumstance, whoever the overcomers are they are
given promises. These letters are written to seven churches and in these seven
churches there were true believers and the promises to these true believers in
these churches are expanded and extended to all believers throughout all time
since the promises were given. They are then the universal delights that the
Lord gives overcomers.
“Let’s
look at the first church which was the church at Ephesus in the opening seven
verses of Revelation 2, and you go down to verse 7. In the church at Ephesus,
you remember, there was a serious problem. They had left their first love.
Right? They had grown cold. And obviously there were people in that church who
were not true Christians, but others were. In the middle of verse 7, “To him
who overcomes” – to the overcomers there, the ones who have sustained faith,
manifest love and obedience – “I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is
in the paradise of God.” What is that? What’s that promise? Well you remember
when Adam sinned; God drove man from the Garden. He drove him from the paradise
called Eden, sent him out from His presence and didn’t permit him to eat of the
Tree of Life. The Tree of Life caused someone to live forever, and once man had
fallen into sin, God did not want him to live forever in that condition. The
Tree of Life then symbolized eternal life. The paradise of God symbolizes
heaven. And so what you
have here is the promise that all overcomers will live forever eating the Tree
of Life in the paradise of God.
“Eden
was quite an amazing paradise, of course. We know that. There was a magnificent
watering system from four rivers going in all directions in the paradise of
God, watering that incredible garden. But the heavenly paradise is even
greater. Turn to Revelation 22, and if we look ahead into heaven, verse 1, John
has a vision of heaven, “And He showed me a river of the water of life, clear
as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” In this paradise
there’s also a river, as there was in Eden that split into four. In the final
paradise, there’s a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from
the throne of God and the Lamb. “In the middle of its street.” This river goes
right down the main street of heaven, the eternal capital city of the New
Jerusalem. And, “On either side of the river was the Tree of Life.” The Tree of
Life going all the way down, beautiful symmetry on either side of the river, “With
twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree
were for the healing.” A better way to translate that, for the therapy, the
well-being, or the enjoyment of the people.
“When
you get to heaven there’s going to be Tree of Life. I don’t know exactly what
that means. People always say, “Well are we going to have a digestive system in
heaven?” I don’t know about that. I doubt that seriously, because we are
eternal, and because there will be no corruption and no decay. We will have
nothing in our glorified bodies that would cause anything to be decaying or to
be processed in that direction. So that’s not going to be a part of heaven. But
there are going to be in heaven elements of heaven which symbolize the
eternality of our life there and the joy of that place. So the first delight for an overcomer is eternal
enjoyment of God’s presence in the paradise called heaven. There where
God lives from His throne will come the river, on both sides the symbols of
eternal life, which we will all enjoy forever in the paradise of God.
“And
then the second letter of the seven letters is written to the church at Smyrna
and to the true believers in that church, verse 11, “He who overcomes shall not
be hurt by the second death.” He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second
death. What’s the first death? Physical death – physical death. The fruit of
unbelief, the fruit of rejection, the fruit of sin. God, you remember, said to
Adam, “Eat that tree, the fruit of that tree and you’ll die.” The first death
is physical. But the second death is far worse, it is spiritual and eternal. “But
the man or the woman who is an overcomer dies physically to never die again
forever.” The overcomer dies only that he may or she may live forever. We will
die physically; we will not die spiritually; we will not die eternally. That is
His promise to the overcomers.
3/11/2025 9:48 PM
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