Shall I Be an Overcomer?
By A. M. Lindsley
THIS question has, no doubt, presented itself to every believer in present truth. Looking forward to the hour of temptation, and the time of trouble that looms up in the near future, with a correct sense of the straitness of the way, and knowing our own utter powerlessness to overcome without divine aid, it truly becomes a matter of anxious thought. Could we, by some art of reading the future, see ourselves safely landed on the sea of glass, even this might tend to slacken our efforts to overcome. God has wisely hidden the final denouement from us, and so related us to the blessings of eternal life, that it is by patient continuance in well-doing that we shall obtain the prize. But, shall I be an overcomer? again and again forces itself upon us with renewed importance. Is there any rule by which we can find an answer? any criterion by which we can judge of the result of our efforts? In working a problem in mathematics, we know that if we start from right premises and follow the rule, we shall, if we make no mistake in our reckoning, reach a correct answer. But if only one small mistake is made, it greatly deranges the work, and forces us to go back to the place of error and do our work over again. The plan of God for our salvation has such a system, and his word imposes upon us such rules, that, if correctly followed, will as surely bring us to the end for which he has predestinated us, as that two and two make four. It is often said that “figures will not lie.” So it is a matter of fact, as sure as mathematical demonstration, that those who are standing in the light of God, obeying his word in the love of it, willingly taking upon themselves its obligations, will be the overcomers in the true sense of the word. The importance that we give to the great preparation for the coming of the Lord will be a guide to an answer. Does it have the first place in our hearts? and do we have the victory over our own ways, bringing them into subjection to God’s ways? Are we making all the sacrifices necessary in our several spheres, with the love of God abiding in us, and Jesus in our hearts? If so, we need take courage and feel that we fight certainly, not as one beating the air, but as those who shall obtain. In the shaking time, upon which we are entering, such will stand firm, and, with the excellent spirit that Caleb and Joshua possessed, will deem themselves, in the strength of God, well able to go up and possess the land.