Save America Ministries

Guest (Male): This is Viewpoint with attorney and author, Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is a one-hour talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. And now, with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Crismier.

Chuck Crismier: If, as the Scripture replies to us, we must be overcomers, what then does it take to be an overcomer? Will we be overcome or be an overcomer? What then must be overcome? We want to talk about those things here today on Viewpoint, and I'm glad that you've joined us. This conversation is always with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms. What we talk about today is going to be extremely important for you, for your family, your kids, your church, everything that you're involved with, because if you are a true follower of Jesus Christ, you must be an overcomer.

You say, well, I thought everybody who believes in Jesus Christ was, by definition, an overcomer. Well, I think what is really meant by that is to be born again in Jesus Christ is to give you the potential to be an overcomer if you walk in the Spirit of Christ according to the Word of Christ. But what if you don't? What if you choose not to walk in the Spirit of Christ? If we're not walking according to the Spirit of Christ, are we actually one of His?

Well, we're not here to discuss some sort of eternal security or anything like that here today. We're here to talk about the issue of being an overcomer, because the book of Revelation is primarily about becoming an overcomer and being an overcomer. If we really are interested in being an overcomer, we should understand a little bit about what that means.

And so, I actually took the liberty to go to the great AI overview through Google, and I asked the question: "Who are the Christian overcomers?" And here's what it said very simply: "In Christian theology, overcomers are believers in Jesus Christ who conquer the world, the flesh, and the devil through their faith. And it originates from the Greek word Nikao, which means to conquer or prevail."

That's what it means to be an overcomer. You're a believer in Jesus Christ who is there, by definition, if you're truly a follower of Jesus Christ, to conquer the spirit of the world, the flesh, and the devil through faith. And that's why the Bible says that it is through faith that we become more than conquerors. We're conquerors through our faith, not by claiming that we believe that Jesus is the Christ, or that we believe that God exists, or we believe in certain religious facts. No, faith is acting on the Word of God. It's acting as if you actually do believe what you say you believe. That's the Hebrew version of what it means to believe.

So today on Viewpoint, we're going to sort through some of this, and I'm glad that you've joined us. It's conversation with ever-increasing conviction, talk that transforms. Now, in order to get a bigger picture on this, a much bigger historical view on this, we're going to go back before Jesus ever showed up on the scene. We're going to go back to the time when God, in His mercy, showed up on Mount Sinai before Moses and the people that God had taken with a mighty hand, by His grace and through His mercy, out of Egypt.

Out of the iron furnace, out of the bondage of Pharaoh, who was akin to Satan and who had said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?" And so now they're out there in the wilderness, being prepared to enter the Promised Land. And God delivers them through a message with the sound of the trumpet, just like we hear in the book of Revelation and in the book of Second Corinthians 15, with the sound of the trumpet and also with fire coming down from heaven and a great cloud. All of those things to be repeated in the end of the age when Christ returns.

And so, God shows up before Jesus comes and displays His glory and His truth. And He calls the people to be His people. He marries them. It's called the great betrothal. And God says, "If you will do these things and if you will follow My word, My will, and My ways—in other words, if you'll be overcomers according to My standards—then you will be a holy people unto Me, and I betroth to you. Now, will you do that?" And their answer was, "We will." In other words, they gave the traditional marriage answer: "Yes, I commit myself to You as my bridegroom."

So, did they do that? Well, the answer is no, they did not. They said, "Yes, we will," but they didn't. So were they believers? Well, yes, they were believers. They were believers in God, and they were believers that they had made that confession, they had made that statement of commitment, but they didn't follow through.

And so, 740 years later, through many dangers, toils, and snares, through many opportunities to follow the Lord when they didn't, having had judges that were brought to them by God through His mercy, having brought prophets to them through His mercy, God says, "Okay, enough." And so He has them taken by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, who was said to be the head of gold in that great statue that the prophet Daniel sees in the great dream and image. Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold, who is used as the servant of the Lord to judge Israel.

Now, why would God do that? Because they were not overcomers. They were overcome. And they were given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to be overcomers, but they said, "Yes, but." They refused. In one way or another, they decided to embrace the ways of the world, the ways of the flesh, and the ways of the devil. And so God said, "What more can I do with you?" So He sent them away to Babylon for 70 years to get their heads and hearts straight.

Now, I'm sharing that with you as a precursor to a piece that just came today from a friend of mine, Jerry McLaughlin. He had written a piece that came out in Israel National News. I was surprised to see it come out in Israel National News. Now, I've known Jerry for about 25 years, and he's written this tremendous piece. It's called "Don't Wait for Babylon: Why Christians Should Examine Our Own Backsliding Before Condemning Israel or the Jewish People."

Now, in presenting this piece to you today as we open up the program, it's for two reasons. Number one, to somehow get our minds and our hearts straight about our response, our position with regard to Israel, which has become front-row center among so many politicians, including people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and other people. They're mixed up concerning this matter of Israel.

So we're going to lay this out here, and I think it's a very straightforward understanding to help us then deal with, okay, if these things happen to Israel who were so imperfect and so, well, disobedient, rebellious, even reprobate oftentimes, then how about us? How about you and me? How about professing Christians? How about the Gentile world that professes to be followers of Jesus Christ as Savior and Messiah? Where do we stand? And that, having shared all of that, we're going to go back and take a look at what is this thing about overcomer? Overcoming. What does it require of you and me?

"Don't Wait for Babylon: Why Christians Should Examine Our Own Backsliding Before Condemning Israel or the Jewish People." Jerry McLaughlin presents this, and I share it with you in this segment of our program today.

Throughout the Tanakh—that's the Old Testament—a painful pattern appears again and again. God blesses His people, they prosper, become comfortable, forget Him, compromise follows, and eventually judgment comes. So the Scripture says, "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built goodly houses and live in them, then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God."

The rinse-and-repeat pattern plays like a skip in a vinyl record through Israel's history, he said. It appeared in the wilderness generation that witnessed God's miracles yet longed for Egypt—in other words, the world, the culture. It appeared throughout Judges, where rebellion is followed by oppression, repentance, and deliverance, only for the cycle to begin again. It appears in the divided kingdom as kings and nations repeatedly move between faithfulness and rebellion, more often, by the way, to rebellion. Reading the book of Jeremiah can almost make us want to warn Judah ourselves: "Have you not learned from your history that you don't learn from history?"

But before Christians look at ancient Israel and shake our heads, we should examine ourselves. Are we repeating history too? The Bible does not present Israel as a model of human perfection; it records failures honestly—idolatry, rebellion, injustice, and unbelief. Yet it reveals something equally important: God's faithfulness. Israel's story is not only about falling away; it's about repentance, restoration, and God keeping His promises.

God declares in Jeremiah 31 that only if the fixed order of creation disappears will Israel cease to be a nation before Him. That truth should shape how Christians think about Israel today. Israel's failures should not produce Christian arrogance; they should produce gratitude and humility.

And so Jerry goes on to say: Believers were grafted into the Jewish olive tree. That means we should be humble because we were grafted into the Jewish olive tree. What part of "grafted" do we not understand? A graft is not the tree; it's a branch taken from somewhere else and joined to a root it didn't grow from. So who among us should be eager to cast stones at Israel or the Jewish people?

The Tanakh—that is, the Old Testament—preserves Israel's failures in remarkable detail. They record Abraham's weaknesses, Jacob's deception, Moses' disobedience, David's sin, Solomon's idolatry, and the repeated rebellion of Israel and Judah. Yet Israel preserved that record themselves. Israel preserved that record. The Tanakh does not hide their ancestors' failures or portray them as flawless heroes. They tell the truth about human sin while continually pointing toward the faithfulness of God, not their own faithfulness.

Christians need that same humility today, writes Jerry McLaughlin. In recent years, influential conservative voices, including Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, have re-evaluated America's relationship with Israel. Legitimate criticism of Israel's leaders, government policies, or military decisions is not automatically anti-Semitic. But Christians should be extremely cautious when political criticism crosses into contempt for Israel or the Jewish people, whom God called the people after His own eye and called His chosen people, the elect.

We must not become so preoccupied with Israel's failures that we forget our own. The New Testament repeatedly exposes failures within the church. Corinth struggled with division, immorality, and pride. Galatia faced serious doctrinal error. Jesus warned churches in Revelation about abandoning their first love, becoming lukewarm, and appearing alive while spiritually dying. Christian history likewise contains extraordinary faithfulness alongside deeply troubling failures. Christians have served the poor, defended the vulnerable, and sacrificed their lives for others. Christians have also participated in persecution, injustice, division, anti-Semitism, and sexual promiscuity.

The lesson is not that Israel should never be criticized. The lesson is that Christians should never criticize Israel from a position of spiritual superiority. Israel's history should therefore lead Christians toward humility, not pride. The same God who recorded Israel's failures also preserved the Jewish people through thousands of years of conquest, exile, persecution, and dispersion, even though millions and millions suffered judgment as a result of their disobedience.

This does not mean every action taken by Israel or every decision made by its leaders must be defended. Nations can be judged, governments can be criticized, individuals can be held accountable. But Christians must not confuse legitimate criticism with contempt or political disagreement with the belief that God has abandoned the people through whom He gave the world His Word.

Jeremiah's warning was never merely about Israel; it was about the human heart. Human beings tend to forget God when life becomes comfortable. Israel experienced it. Christians experience it. Nations like America experience it. Churches experience it. Individual believers experience it. Even rockstars and superstar athletes experience it on steroids as they move beyond comfort into entitlement. Prosperity may be one of the greatest spiritual tests. It's easy to seek God during crisis. It can be much harder to remain faithful when everything seems to be going well.

That's why Jeremiah's message still speaks today: "Don't wait for Babylon." Don't wait until everything falls apart before turning to God. Do not spend so much energy identifying someone else's failures that you become blind to your own.

And by the way, that's one of the dangers in writing the kind of books that I write, because every time I do, I realize I've got to deal with the issue before it goes to anyone else. It's very serious.

So Second Chronicles gives the remedy: "If My people who are called by My name would humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their own wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven." In the Sermon on the Mount, the warning was against hypocritical judgment: "First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's." Israel's story reveals both the seriousness of human rebellion and the greatness of God's faithfulness. Christians can tell the truth about Israel's failures, but we must also tell the truth about our own, including our country's. The ultimate biblical lesson is not that one group of sinners is better than another. It's that God remains faithful when we human beings are not faithful.

The question facing every generation is exactly the same: Will we remember God while the sun is still shining? And if not, Babylon may be closer than we think.

A fascinating piece and right on point. I give great kudos to Jerry McLaughlin for writing that piece and for it appearing in Israel National News—a message both to Israel and to the US, to us as professing Christians in this country, as the wars go on, not so much with Iran, but in our heart and attitude toward Israel, which also involves our heart and attitude toward God.

Who is this God, anyway? If God remains faithful, does that mean He's going to continue to bless when we don't remain faithful? Who are those that He blesses? Who are those that He's committed to? Was it all of the Jewish people that He was committed to ultimately, or was it only those who did His will? Why is it that only two men out of all of the 600,000 men who came out of Egypt were allowed into the Promised Land? Why? Because they were the only two overcomers of all of the adults, the adult men who God delivered from Egypt. Only two.

Now, that's a very slim minority, isn't it? Now, let's compare that with what Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven. He said, "Strait is the gate and very narrow is the way and precious few there be that find it. But broad is the way that leads to destruction and most, many there be that go in thereat." What does that mean? Is that talking about unbelievers or is that talking about people who pretend to be believers but really aren't, like Israel, who were given all of the ability coming out of Egypt, they were given the right to enter the Promised Land, the calling to enter the Promised Land? They were called the elect of God, but they didn't receive the benefits of the election. Only two did. Only two out of all the adults 20 years of age and older that came out of Egypt.

Now, that having been said, in the same passage in Matthew chapter seven, Jesus said this: "Not everyone who says unto Me 'Lord, Lord' is going to inherit the kingdom of God. Only those who do the will of My Father." What does that mean? What do you think that means? Jesus said, "I came to do the will of My Father." Why? Because Israel never did.

So God in His mercy and by His eternal grace, in the fullness of time, sent forth His only begotten Son, born of a virgin, to give opportunity to Israel to have one man who would be faithful. One man who would be an overcomer. One man who would overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. One man who would do the will of God by intent, no matter what the consequences, including crucifixion. That was Yeshua, Jesus. He became the only obedient Israelite who ever lived.

And by God's mercy and salvation through Him, you and I as Gentile believers, and Israel as Gentiles who would put their faith and confidence in Him, would be saved. But that implies something. It's not just an intellectual belief. It requires a way of life. It requires that belief be demonstrated in behavior, attitudes, and practice. And that's where the word "overcoming" comes in. That's why the book—the New Testament—concludes with the message to become an overcomer. It is the principal message of the book of Revelation.

Everything else between the first three chapters and chapter 21 is basically just information. It's not transformation; it's information. It tells us a lot of things about the end times, which are fascinating to people, while we ignore the principal focus of the book of Revelation, and that is to be and become an overcomer. And that's why I had to write the book, *The Power to Overcome*, because we're in that situation right now. We're on the near edge of the Second Coming. We really are. We're there. We're there in the very scenario that the book of Revelation was written for. It wasn't written primarily for the people then to make them feel better amidst persecution, like some theologians try to say. That it was written in code. If it's just written in code for them, then why should we pay any attention to it?

You see how theologians try to get us to avoid dealing with the real issues that Scripture deals with? It's really a shame. The real message of the book of Revelation is "To him that overcometh, to him that overcometh, to him that overcometh, to she that overcometh." And whoever has the ear to hear, let him or her hear what the Spirit is saying to believers, to the church, not to the pagans.

So that's where we go here on the program today. I hope if you don't already have a copy of my late book, *The Power to Overcome*—in fact, it is just now going public in a week or so, it is only available immediately right now on our website, saveus.org. *The Power to Overcome: How to Triumph in Troubled Times*. My wife was reading it again today and she says, "Chuck, this is just so amazing. How is it that you write so clearly and even almost poetically, but you write so clearly? Nobody can read this and not get it." She was so excited about it. And she has a completely different outlook and personality than I have, so I think you will get it as well.

And so, $25 will put it in your hands. It's on the website saveus.org. You can give us a call, 1-800-SAVE-USA. That's 1-800-SAVE-USA, or write to us at Save America Ministries, PO Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255, writing a check add $6 for postage and handling.

You see, if we're truly overcomers, we will not cavort with the culture, dance with the devil, or fraternize with the flesh. We just won't. But the flesh demands to be satisfied. Have you not noticed that? And that's why our principal battle is a veritable war between the flesh and the Spirit. But if we put it in simple terms, it's a battle waged between our ears in the deepest recesses of our minds, and we're called to overcome.

I'm so glad that you've joined us here on Viewpoint today. Day after day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, for 31 plus years, we've been confronting the deepest issues of America's heart and home from God's eternal perspective. And with every year that has passed, the ante has been increased. The ante has been upped in order to prepare God's people for the times that we're in.

Do you think that's not an expression of God's grace and mercy? That He would give us that kind of opportunity over 30-some years to be exposed to a message because we're so difficult to turn? We're like the Titanic, facing the icebergs but not ready to turn. We're still going full speed ahead, just like the captain of the Titanic, until all of a sudden, he was told "iceberg square ahead." Then in desperation, he called for the ship to turn. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" And then the report: "I believe we've hit it, sir. I believe we've hit it." And he says, "Dearest God, impossible."

That's how we're going to see all of this, friends, if we don't get the message. If we don't understand what God is trying to say in His mercy. You see, it's not about just His truth, it's about His grace and His mercy. Mercy is provided when we're guilty. You don't need mercy if you're not guilty. Israel has been guilty and needs God's mercy. We have been guilty and need God's mercy. Our country has been guilty and needs God's mercy. The church, the professing Christian people in this country, have been guilty and need God's mercy. Our pastors have been guilty and need God's mercy. In a sense, we've all been guilty and need God's mercy. Mercy drops around us are falling, but for the showers we plead, right?

But somehow we just don't get it. We're just not willing, somehow, to see our real condition. But God sees it, and He knows that the message has never changed: "To him that overcometh, to him that overcometh, to him that overcometh."

So in reality, there are three things that are to be overcome in broad terms: the flesh—the world, the flesh, and the devil; the culture, the flesh, and the devil. But what does that mean? We can say those words and they spin off of our lips so blithely and we say, "Yeah, I know, I know, I've been there, I've heard that, I know that." No, we don't know that, because if we did know it, everything would change. We're being overcome, not being overcomers. And with every week, every month, every year that passes, we are becoming more and more overcome by the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we have a way of rationalizing it all.

So we're warned that our faith lies not in only believing but in obeying the Word of God as our primary defense against both the spirit of the world and of the flesh and also the devil. So Jesus' brother, you remember James? He said, "But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." In other words, you've got to do and be what you say you are. You don't just say that I have the ability to overcome in Christ because He wants us to be overcomers; no, you have to be an overcomer in Christ. That's the whole point.

You say, "I'm supposed to do something?" Well, if you're not supposed to do something, then why would God hold us accountable for not doing it? You see the point? Some people have such a strange view of the sovereignty of God that they believe that God's going to do everything, including making you overcome. So then why would God hold you responsible for not overcoming? We've got some very foolish and short-term kinds of theology out there that just don't fit with the totality of Scripture.

And so, rather than being an overcomer, we have unwittingly become overcome. We have allowed our own flesh to become co-conspirators with the world against the Kingdom of God, choosing incrementally the alternative ways of the world from which Jesus sought to deliver us. So in a sense, we've set a life trajectory contrary to the word, the ways, and the will of God and become a kind of traitor to His truth. And the carnal nature of fleshly spirit is so deeply rooted in our natural being that spiritual discernment is demanded if we are to be overcomers.

Now, I hope you understand this, and if you want to understand what it really means to be an overcomer and translate this into real understandable terms that you can be the person you say you are and aren't, but think you are because you're a—you profess to be a Christian. You see, remember Jesus said, "Not everyone who says unto Me 'Lord, Lord' or professes to be My follower is going to inherit the kingdom. Only those who do the will of My Father like I did."

So Jesus said, before His ascension back to the Father, He said, "As the Father has sent Me"—in other words, to do the will of the Father—"so now I send you to do the will of the Father." How can we say we're doing the will of the Father if we're being overcome by the world, the flesh, and the devil? That's why we're engaged in spiritual warfare. And if you're not engaged in spiritual warfare, you do not understand the nature of what it means to be a Christian in a world like today and how more increasingly it's going to become difficult to live for Christ.

Now, all that having been said, I want to shift away from anything I might say concerning this subject and go back to some things that were written concerning this minister—ministry of what it means to be an overcomer. Here is one from Koinonia House: Overcomers are those victorious ones who have learned how to master the flesh, prevail over the world, and conquer the devil only through Christ's life in them. So if Christ isn't in us, there's no way for us to do this. That's the threshold, friends; that's not the end of the game. You're not an overcomer fulfilled just by naming the name of Christ. It's Christ in you being lived out faithfully in you, just like Jesus said, "The Father is in Me, and so I am here to do the will of Him that sent Me."

So if you say that Christ is in you, then by definition that means you are here to do the will of Him that sent you, Jesus Christ. But we don't see it that way, not really, because if we did, we'd stop justifying the world, the flesh, and the devil increasingly encroaching upon every one of our lives and in our families. The choices we make, the entertainment we engage in, the way we use our time, the values that we have, and so on. Even the messages that we teach or don't teach in our congregations or in our families. How can we say as parents that we're overcomers when we don't teach our children how to be overcomers in Christ?

We're playing a game. We're just playing a religious game. Are you not convinced that your children are going to have to be overcomers? It's not overcoming racism, friends; that's not our chief sin in the world as it's being made out to be. That's merely a symptom of a certain problem in the heart, whether you be black, white, brown, green, or purple, it doesn't matter. The whole idea of racism is a symptom of another problem in the heart. It's not the problem itself.

So that's not the critical sin. The critical sin is our listening to the authority of the culture, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So it's not that the devil makes you do it. The devil doesn't make you do anything. The devil didn't make Jesus do anything. The devil didn't make Eve in the garden do anything. All he did was ask her a question, and she responded, and then he gave a spin on what she said, and the rest is history. He didn't mandate her doing anything. He gave her the choice, and she chose the devil's viewpoint.

Are you? Don't answer too quickly, because the church is answering "yes, but" to exactly the same questions that Satan asked Eve in the garden: "Hath God said?" And what is our answer? It depends on what we want. If we want to agree with what God said, we say yes. If we don't like what He said, we say yes, but. And so we're overcome, not overcomers.

So let's go back to what Koinonia House has to say about this, Nancy Missler: Overcomers are those victorious ones who have learned how to master the flesh, prevail over the world, and conquer the devil through Christ's life in them. In order to love as God would have us, we must overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil in our personal lives. Being an overcomer so we can love as God desires is what the Christian life is all about. Overcomers are the ones who will inherit the future kingdom because they are able to produce the works of the Spirit in their lives here and now.

Many of us have been taught that if we were true believers, we're automatically overcomers. And people will use as a proof text First John, where he says, "For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" That's true. If you don't believe that Jesus is the Son, you can't be an overcomer. But that doesn't mean that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God is an overcomer. And there's the problem with the interpretation of that passage. Positionally because of Jesus' death for us on the cross, it's absolutely true that we, as believers, are positionally—in other words, potentially—all overcomers. God gives us the power and the ability to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The problem is that experientially—in other words, in truth—many of us have no idea how to become overcomers and don't even care. In fact, daily overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil is often just completely foreign to us because we say, "Well, I confessed Christ 30 years ago at that rally or at that whatever." The Greek word for overcomer is Nikao, which means to conquer or gain the victory over something. It occurs 20 times in the book of Revelation alone and means to have victory over hostile powers. The world, the flesh, and the devil, friends, are hostile powers, and we must gain victory over them if we're going to be overcomers.

I cannot think of any more important subject to discuss with professing believers than the issue of what it means to be an overcomer and the necessity of being an overcomer. Because Jesus made it an absolute essential.

So we have pastors who will say, "Well, that's not an essential; the only essential is that you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that you're a sinner, and you're saved by His blood." Well, that is—those are essentials, but Jesus said it's essential to be an overcomer. So who say you? Where do you get the authority to say that's not an essential? You see our problem? We find ways to excuse the things that Jesus said because we don't like them, don't agree with them, and we want the easy way out. Whenever seems the easiest way, that's the way we're going to go. Well, that's what a gas does; a gas always looks for the easiest way to find a release, right? Water does the same thing, always looks for the easy way out.

But we're not called to live according to a gaseous state or water. We're not called to take a natural trajectory, because the natural man's mind does not look at the things of the Spirit of God; they're foolishness unto him. Neither can they be discerned because they're only spiritually discerned. So this matter of overcoming is of immense seriousness, importance, victory. If you want to be victory, we used to sing a song "O Victory in Jesus My Savior Forever." I love that song. We used to sing it every Sunday night, Gospel hour: "O victory in Jesus, my Savior forever. He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood." Yes, we do have victory in Jesus. Victory requires a battle, my friends. Jesus said if you're not willing to take up your cross daily, you can't even be My disciple. Whatever happened to that phrase as an essential for the Christian life?

You see what's happened to us? We've done the same thing that Israel did. We've sanitized God's calling in our lives to be a unique, holy people and made it something else, cavorting with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and then claiming to be God's elect or chosen. Doesn't work that way. And there is going to be a day of reckoning. There's going to be a day of reckoning. And I don't know with you, I can't save myself, you can't save yourself. To be an overcomer doesn't mean you can save yourself; it means that Jesus Christ has given us by His mercy and His grace the salvation of sin through His blood, requiring that manifestation of that be that we live according to His word, His will, and His ways. And if we don't, then are we really His people?

Just asking. So overcomers are those victorious ones who have learned how to master the flesh, prevail over the world, and conquer the devil through Christ's life in them. They're not perfect by any means, but they're always willing to choose God's will over their own will again and again and again, and that's why they're called overcomers.

So it's always a personal choice that we have, and those personal choices are every day, sometimes every five minutes, have you noticed that? The question so many people ask is, do we have the authority to choose to do something we really don't feel or even want to do? Is this a legitimate choice? Can we override our real feelings in order to do this? The answer is absolutely. If you can't, then everything that God requires of us is a moot point, and God was wrong, Jesus was wrong, the apostles were wrong, and we can write our own Bible.

We not only have God's authority to make choices we don't feel, but we also have His strength to implement those choices in our lives. The Word of God is what gives us the authority, and the Spirit of God gives us the power. Whether we use them or not, that's up to us. Therefore our constant prayer should be, just as Jesus prayed, "Not as I will, but as You will. Not my will, but Yours, Lord." That's when we become an overcomer.

Now, you might be familiar with the Overcomers Project that we've talked about now for a month, that for your gift of $250 to Save America Ministries—and I do mean donation, I'm not talking about a purchase of books, I'm talking about a donation—we will provide to you 10 copies of the new book, *The Power to Overcome*. And that is a true donation, which means it's tax-deductible. From our perspective, you're not buying books; what you're saying is, "I want to participate in this Overcomers Project because I want to be an agent of the Holy Spirit to get the word out to people in my sphere of influence as far as I can within the means that I have available. I want to be one of those people. I want to do what I can and trust God to do by His Spirit what I can't."

So how do you do that? Well, you go to the website, right there on the homepage saveus.org, and where it says "Donation," there's a place there when you click that for you to sign up for the Overcomers Project. You can either do it that way or you can give us a call at 1-800-SAVE-USA, 1-800-SAVE-USA, and we'll take down your information that way and you'll indicate to us that you want to be part of the Overcomers Project. Or you can write to us at Save America Ministries, and when you write, you can on your check for $250, write in the bottom "Overcomers Project" or write a note that you want to participate in that and get it off to us right away. Save America Ministries, PO Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia 23255.

Now here's the deal: That Overcomers Project closes on the 15th of this month. So if you want to be part of the Overcomers Project, I urge you to act right away. Don't wait. Act right away. And I believe that you will be a blessing. God will reveal to you the people that, from His perspective, you should put that book in, and certainly perhaps the hands of a pastor. Because they need to be encouraged to teach their people to be overcomers, and they're just not doing it. They're afraid. They really are, they're afraid. Unfortunately, you may not think so, but they are. I guarantee you they are, because they're human beings just like you and I are. They're afraid, and they're afraid of losing their congregations. They're afraid of people reacting to them.

So another response here to this issue: What does the Bible say about being an overcomer? It has a lot to say. The term overcomer is especially prominent in the book of Revelation, where Jesus encourages people to remain steadfast through trials. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God and then acts accordingly according to that belief? Overcomers are followers of Christ who successfully resist the power and temptation of the world system. An overcomer is not sinless but holds fast to his faith in Christ until the end. Notice the words: "until the end." He does not turn away when times get difficult or become apostate. Overcoming requires complete dependence upon God for direction, purpose, fulfillment, and strength to follow His plan for our lives no matter what's going on out there and the threats against it.

The Bible teaches Christians to recognize that the world is a battleground, not a playground. God does not leave us defenseless. He describes the armor of the Lord available to every single one of us through the admonition to stand firm. It sometimes takes all to overcome temptation just to stand firm and refuse to be dragged into it. An overcomer is one who resists sin no matter what lures Satan uses. No matter what lures Satan uses, or our flesh uses, or the culture and the world uses.

I'm so grateful that I was raised in a Christian home. Not just a Christian home, but a home where my parents saw the nature of how the world, the culture, the flesh, and the devil work. And so within our home, there were things that we did not do and areas we didn't participate in as a family or as individuals. Even if it was in our school classes that did those things, we didn't do them. I remember in the fourth grade, there was something going on in that particular class and my parents had said, "You know what? We don't want you to be engaged in that kind of behavior, not because in and of itself it looks so bad, because of where it leads."

So when the class was engaged in that behavior, that practice, I didn't. I had to stand aside while they were doing it. At the same time, the daughter of one of the most prominent pastors in the city was engaged in that behavior. Now, I didn't look down on the person, but I knew why my parents did not want us to participate. I have never ever held it against my parents why we did not participate in certain things. I don't want to list what they were because many people would just mock at it, mock it, because we've already so embraced the ways of the culture, we don't even recognize them as the ways of the culture anymore. They've been so received in the church.

But there are reasons why. Back in the 1950s and earlier, there were reasons why Christians did not engage in certain kinds of behavior or activities. Because they were of the world. They were endemic in the ways and heart and mind and attitude of the world. And they paved the way, even though in and of themselves in private they may not have been wicked in and of themselves, they were agents to lead, open the way to engaging with the world. And that's exactly what's happened.

And so I'm so grateful to my parents. You can call it legalism, you can call it whatever you want, but they understood the nature of spiritual battle, of warfare. They understood it. Were my parents perfect? Absolutely not. Was my father perfect as a pastor? Absolutely not. None of us are. But what we have to do, friends, is be aware of how we open the gates to deception, how we open the gates to us becoming voluntary participants in the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And it's very, very easy. Sometimes it's subtle and sometimes it's just outright blatant.

So in writing the book, *The Power to Overcome*, I haven't even mentioned those things, by the way. I'm leaving it up to you and the Holy Spirit through the Word of God to decide what those things are going to be. I'm not here to try to control your life. I'm having a difficult—enough difficulty myself being loyal to the Lord in every single way, in spirit and in truth. The true worshippers are those who worship God not only in truth, but in spirit. Not only in spirit, but in truth. Not pretense, not playing a game.

So the question hovering over our program today is, are you an overcomer or overcome? Are you an overcomer or overcome? I urge you to get a copy of the book, *The Power to Overcome*, even if you don't become part of the Overcomers Project. *How to Triumph in Troubled Times*. These are troubled times, aren't they? You know that. Get a copy of the book. It will help to flesh out, make these things apparent. You see, it's not just expressing a general idea; we have to flesh that out so that it actually means something transitive, active in our lives.

$25 will put the book in your hands. On the website saveus.org, call us 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us at Save America Ministries. Add $6 for postage and handling. And become a partner, friends. I hope you'll do that. Some people are passing away and so on; we need those of you who are new joining with us. Thanks for joining with us.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Crismier. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church, declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home.