Focus: Conquering Faith (Pt.2)

Text: 1Jh.5:4

"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."

The world is the enemy of the person who is born of God. The new birth from God and the world John has in mind share nothing in common. The believer in Christ is engaged in a daily battle with the world. The world seeks to invade the personal space of the Christian in different ways. It seeks to dominate and control the believer. Through its philosophies, belief and value systems it seeks to infiltrate and influence the mental faculties of the man of faith.

Let us consider the world that John is referring to as an enemy of a child of God. The word in the Greek is kosmos, which means arrangement, order or system. Our word cosmos and cosmic stem from it. The verbal form of kismos is kosmeo, and it means 'to adorn, to beautify, to put in proper order, to garnish, to decorate, to trim, to snuff a wick, or to apply the ornaments in order to look elegant.' Our word 'cosmetic' is derived from it. By the use of cosmetics beauty is enhanced, and by it also, so much ugliness, spots and wrinkles are hidden from sight. The world may be looking so good and harmless on the surface, but beneath the costumes, the cosmetics, the plastics, the artificial or the superficial, there's the moral ugliness and spiritual emptiness. The finery we see around us is really unreal - a mere makeup or a make believe.

So the world John is referring to is a world that is Godless, ungodly, powerless and hopeless, a fallen world, and a world system that is hostile to the person born of God.

This world that John is talking about is a system, an order, or an arrangement that is headed by a hierarchy of evil. Three times in the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ refers to the "prince of this world." He says, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the PRINCE of this world be cast out… The PRINCE of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me… The PRINCE of this world is judged" (Jh.12:31; 14:30; 16:11). There is a prince - a ruler - controlling this world. 

Paul says that the believer in Christ is fighting against "the rulers of the darkness of this world" (Eph.6:12). This prince has co-rulers who are ruthlessly running this world with him. Paul calls 'this prince,' "The prince of the power of the air." He says, "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the PRINCE of the power of the air, the SPIRIT that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph.2:2). This 'Prince' is a 'spirit' that lives in "the children of disobedience." Paul, then, comes out openly and says, "In whom the GOD of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not" (2Cor.4:4). The so called prince is both a spirit and the god of this world. 

In the book of Revelation, John tells us his descriptive names. He says, "And the great DRAGON was cast out, that old SERPENT, called the DEVIL, and SATAN, which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev.12:9). The god of this world is Satan himself. He is now unmasked and exposed. He is the dragon, the serpent, the devil, and Satan, and he rules by means of deceit. He is Satan the deceiver. He has in his employment other princes and rulers. Paul says, "Which none of the PRINCES of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1Cor.2:8). Himself and his employees operate with limited knowledge. They are ignorant in so many things. They ignorantly crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and by that historic crucifixion, the new creation in Christ is now a reality.

Satan has a hierarchy of evil. Paul writes, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against PRINCIPALITIES, against POWERS, against the RULERS of the darkness of this world, against SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS in high places" (Eph.6:12). This is a wicked world run by wicked rulers and princes. This world system is a system of evil. John says, "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1Jh.5:19). The new birth separates the believer from the world. The world is evil and wicked; it sits on the very laps of the Wicked One.

Only the person who is born of God can overcome a world that is this evil and wicked - a diabolical cosmos.

Paul describes it as "this present evil world" (Gal.1:4). Every aspect of 'this world' is infected with the viruses of corruption and pollution. Peter says that "having escaped the CORRUPTION that is in the world through lust" (2Pet.1:4). Again, he says, "For if after they have escaped the POLLUTIONS of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2Pet.2:20). This is the world you must constantly, continuously and consistently conquer with the armor of faith.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter