This sermon delves into the life of Jacob, highlighting the various chapters and trials he faced, emphasizing the importance of overcoming challenges as preparation for reigning with Christ. It explores the privilege, prerequisite, position, power, promise, and conquering aspect of overcoming in the Christian walk, drawing insights from biblical teachings and personal anecdotes to encourage believers to embrace spiritual warfare and faith in God's victory.

Let's pray. Now Lord, we have really been going through a lot of things in Jacob's life, and I just ask you to direct us if you want us to sort of take a little bunny, a big bunny trail off of what we've been learning, and so I just ask in the Holy Spirit to guide in Jesus' name, amen. We don't want to maybe run Jacob right into the ground. I'll just give you an illustration of something that we're in chapter, where'd it go? An outline here somewhere. We're in chapter, there it is. We're in chapter 35 of Jacob's life, and there are things about Jacob for 15 more chapters. And you might be getting tired of all this, because from 35, 1 through 6, God tells Jacob to go back to Bethel. This outline I have. 7 through 15, God meets with Jacob at Bethel. 16 through 21, Rachel dies. 22 through 26, Jacob's sons are listed. 27 through 29 of chapter 35, Isaac dies. And then chapter 36 is Esau. It's Esau. His, about him, 37, 1 through 11, then Jacob's son Joseph has his dream. And 12 through 36, Jacob loses Joseph. And this is the first of three tests that he goes through in his latter days, and the deception that he gave came back with his sons being deceptive of him. And then basically 38 through 41, Jacob is silent. And we're in on to Joseph's life, and get a whole new section of things to learn there. You can actually, I was asked to focus in on spiritual warfare, but actually we can take somebody's life like the life of David. I've got his life. I worked on it years ago. And you can look at another aspect of living. But we have been asked to, or I was asked to focus in on spiritual warfare, so it's been the focus there. Joseph's life is a very interesting life of the life of Christ, because there's so little anything, you can hardly find anything about him that was wrong. The closest I've ever found about Joseph doing anything wrong was when he was in prison, he asked somebody to speak for him. But it didn't work until, but finally it did work, and he was remembered. 43, 1 through 14, well 42, 1 through 28, Jacob sends his sons into Egypt for food. 29 through 38, Jacob's second test of giving up a son, not willingly either. So he gave up Jacob, now he's going to have to give up Benjamin. And then 43, 1 through 14, Jacob's willingness to give up Benjamin. He didn't want to, then he finally had to. And then 45 through 28, Jacob learns that Joseph is alive. Then in chapter 46, he goes to Egypt, he encounters God at the altar. And 1 through 7, and 29 through 30, he meets Joseph. And then 47, 7 through 10, there's lessons all through here. You can move into, maybe not so much warfare lessons, but some lessons of God working in his life. So he's taken care of by Joseph, he's given a charge. Then he gives a charge to Joseph on his burial, and he gives some interesting things in 48. Jacob's blessing to Joseph and his two sons, there's some interesting things in there. Jacob's blessing to all his sons, and these blessings, these interesting things come out of his past. But there's a lot of stuff in his life. But the Lord had asked me to work on Jacob's life, and there's something I want to do now. I want to take, since we've been talking about hares, bunnies, I think we should take off on another tangent for a little bit, and do some application, doctrinal application of some of these things in a little bit deeper way. And Joseph ends up, given his blessing and his death and his burial, 40% of Genesis, as I said, covers his life. But I do want to say something about him before I move over to the New Testament a little bit the rest of this morning. And that is, out of the will of God, you're going to lose three things. First of all, it's a very important thing, you're going to lose discernment. You say, how do you know all these things? Don't ask. But we lose discernment. When we disobey, we lose discernment. And things just, you know, Jacob, you know, he just, he's got some beautiful principles for us, some hard things. But here's something else, you can lose time. How many of us guys, we're traveling around, we will not stop for directions. Okay, the wives are being very cautious here. But we lose time. You know, we're just not quite sure and, you know, stop and put in your GPS and things. And then you can lose your testimony. And you went into these things here. So, Jacob's life has been very interesting. Now I want to take you into something a little bit different. And that was, God was preparing Jacob for not only to be a man in authority, but to be, as a type of Christ, to be reigning, to ruling. And he had his kingdom and he reigned and he ruled. And now God is working in our lives like he does Jacob's life, to bring us to the point to where we will be overcoming. He wants us to be overcomers. And I want you to turn to 1 John chapter 5. Now we're going to do some, a little bit of doctrinal application to things we've been learning in his life. And we may come back and say a few more things. This afternoon we've got these three messages. And this one, probably to be short. But we'll see. When you get into battles, and if you're going to be an overcomer, there's one principle that's very difficult to learn, and that's to be quiet. One time I was in a very fierce battle in a church situation. And I haven't shared a lot of things on some of these things in the past. But I lost the battle by not being quiet. And that's, the Lord came back later and he said, if you'd just been still, these guys that were trying to do things would have destroyed themselves. But you had to jump in there. And they were attacking you. They put out letters, four letters. And they were lies and all kinds of stuff. Had some truth, you know. But the lies and stuff. And he said, when you begin to fight back, you moved into my position. He said, vengeance is mine. When you begin to defend yourself, you begin to lose ground. And you were overcome. Of course, you'd never do anything like that. But trying to defend yourself, it's very difficult to be quiet. And so Joseph is the product of, I hope my children would come out better than me, and father ahead than me. But Joseph is the product of all the years of God putting into Joseph's life. And then, you know, we hope our children can avoid a lot of the mistakes that we've made, and that they can avoid the garbages of this world and the pollution and the immorality and all the stuff out there, and that they can then live a purer life. The sad thing, though, the homeschooling movement, especially among the Christians, a lot of the young people are going back to where we came out of. We talk to people all over the country, working with Keith Daniel. I have contact with people all over the country now. And not only is the church situation very difficult, hard for people to find a place, but they're finding the battle with their children is being lost. It's a very grievous thing. Now, 1 John 5, verse 4. Let's do one, verse 1. 1 John 1. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. I'll mark my passage here so I can come back. And everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, we're looking at the area of warfare. We're talking about overcoming. In Ephesians, we have the armor. We put on our armor. We put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness. We have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We take the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the weapon of prayer, which we haven't even really talked about that weapon a lot. There are several different weapons. I have several weapons that we use. But we have the weapon of prayer, and then we are told to stand. In 13 of Ephesians, we're told to withstand in the evil day. This is how we get the victory. We have to stand against evil. So after you put all the armor on, again, in Ephesians 6, Paul said, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints, for me that utterance may be given unto me. But when he had started in verse 11, he said, put on the whole armor of God, and the purpose is so that you can stand. If you don't have your shield of faith, you're going to get hit. If you don't have the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, any place the armor is not applied, the enemy is going to come in and hit you. This is why we're to take captive every thought to the obedience of Christ. The armor is to guard us from the attacks of Satan. He may not take out something and beat you physically, but he throws these darts at you, and they may come through somebody else, may come into your mind. And so we have to be disciplined as soldiers to overcome. Now, why does God want us to overcome? Why did God put Jacob through all of this stuff? I believe it was for this reason. And I believe this is a reason that God allows us to have suffering as Christians. For unto you is given in the behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but what? To suffer. To suffer with him, Philippians 129. Why does God let us go through all this stuff? He doesn't do it without a reason. He's got a purpose. Some of you have probably... You can go through serious physical suffering. By the time I'm 17 or 18 years old, I'm wanting to die. I felt like I'd had so much come upon me, and as I look back, I can see aspects of the enemy just trying to destroy my life all along. I don't know if you ever felt like that. But I just wanted to die and start over. I didn't know nothing about reincarnation, but I just had felt like life had been pretty hard. I mean, it started off hard. I've worn glasses for 68 years. Not 68, but 66. I'm 68. I'm actually older than Keith. And sometimes I have to pull rank on him. And get him to say, you are going to do this. He just sometimes... They're so humble. But we're going to do this for you. Do you know we... When they come, I've done this for years. I trust God to provide, and we take them shopping. You know, you don't have much shopping here in this town. But we'll take them and let them buy clothes and things like that. And say, now God has provided the money. And you are going to do this. And I know that they probably have supplied missionaries and things for food. Not food, but just needs that they have. Now, they've gone through a lot of suffering. And you go through suffering. I went through suffering. I started wearing glasses when I'm two. I had to wear corrective shoes when I'm six. I get polio. I'm paralyzed from the waist down. I can't walk anymore. And stuff like that. And because of polio and stuff, I was slow in getting going in school. In my first grade, I told Dad, I think I had six teachers. He said, you didn't have that many. But I had probably at least three or four teachers. So I didn't learn much in the first grade. So in the second grade, I didn't learn what a lot of kids already learned. So I'm always behind. You kids, probably most of you are homeschooled. You bless God for that. I didn't have that. Out there in that world, in the public school, I don't mind saying this. It's a bad world. It's not good. But I spent 12 years going to summer school every summer of my school life. And why I went on to college, I don't know. I didn't like school. But it was hard. And I grew up thinking I was dumb. And these things come in there. And I could figure out math problems in my head and come up with this. My dad's amazing with math. I mean, you ask him, what's 1,600 times 2,000? He'll crank it out like that. He remembered my phone number from 40 years ago and stuff. But I could come up with the instrument. But I didn't know how to do the process. And so I had a hard time with grades and stuff like that. So it was hard. And I felt inferior, which is just a form of pride. Those that have a superior complex are proud. Those that have an inferior, because both are focused on yourself. And so Satan would take you down either way, which way you want to go. He said, I'll do it to you. And so we're supposed to be overcomers in Christ. We've got to overcome the past that we have. In our church, what I've figured out many times is that when somebody comes in, they've got some baggage. And we need to let go of our baggage. That's weights. So we can move on with Christ. So the process of being discipling, my goal is, all my men, I disciple them. So they can disciple their families and whatever. I was discipled. I had three major discipling men in my life. They had three different aspects of my life, which I'm grateful. So I try to disciple men. Have you ever looked at the discipleship methods of Christ? If you try doing that, the ways of Christ with other men, they don't understand. Just like the disciples did not understand when Christ was training them And what he was doing, he was training them to reign. And that's what God was doing in Jacob's life. He was training him to be reigning. And so that's what I want to talk to you about. And so when he would take them out and they got this crowd of thousands of people. Some of these crowds, you know, you say there's 5,000 men or whatever. You figured out there could be 15,000 people. And he looks at Philip and, hey, how are we going to feed all these people? Philip grabs his calculator. Lord, you know how much it would cost to feed all these people? We're going to wipe out Walmart. He didn't say that, but he had calculating faith. And Jesus is discipling him to come over to move into a different realm of faith. Watch me work. He feeds all these people and then they get out in the boat and they're arguing over something. And he said, didn't you get the lesson on the miracle of the loaves? And he's always trying, he's always bringing some hard things into their life. So that they could be discipled and be prepared to be reigning. And that's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes here. Suffering is training for overcoming. And overcoming is training for reigning. God expects us to reign. What are you going to do for all eternity? We have really no concept. Eye had not seen, ear had not heard. You know, all the things that the Lord has prepared for us. Maybe he's got some world he's going to create for you to go out there. And who knows? But I believe this suffering that we're going through is our training to be overcomers. And this is why in this passage here, in 1 John, in chapter 5. And especially, let me flip over here, to verse 4. For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, we have sometimes so many seeming failures. So many things that happen in our life. And we say, Lord, why? Why? Why did you allow this to happen to me? Or why did you allow this to happen to so and so? And it comes back, especially in believer's life. God is preparing you to be a victor, to be an overcomer. And so, I want to just share with you six things about overcoming to reign. Number one, I want you to understand that if you're a Christian and God allows some suffering, not all of us have to suffer. But if God allows you to go through some suffering, that is a privilege. It is a privilege. I mean, we're not worthy to be saved. And then he'd save us and he'd come along. I want you to do something for me. I want you to be born blind. You got a Helen Keller, comes out. You got a Fannie Crosby, comes out. I'm going to give you this privilege to suffer for me. And those that will say, yes, Lord, will be the ones that are overcoming. Is there something in your life that you have not said, yes, Lord, about? You know, I'm thinking, I'm inferior, and I got all this thing. I'm in the fifth grade, and my dad cuts my hair. And he always cuts my hair, puts this little plastic clipper on there. One time he didn't put the plastic clipper on there. Zipped right up the middle. I had an inverted mohawk. And I knew something was wrong when Dad said, uh-oh. I'm already shyer than, you know, whatever. And he said, oh, well, might as well cut it all off. And all of a sudden, I'm a baldy. Oh, I looked in the mirror. Oh, my life is ruined. And so I go to school. Any of you kids have them little aviator hats? You come on, and they pull the flaps down over your head. I wore that thing to school. I didn't wear it one day. I wore it a month. I drew more attention to myself. Wearing that hat, if I just went to head, and the kids would probably, hey, man, that's cool. I'm going to get my hair cut off, too. But I wore that thing because I didn't want to see the embarrassment. Talk about stupid. After two weeks, my fifth grade teacher could not stand it anymore. And so she finally said, let me see. Let me see. You promise not to laugh? I promise I will not laugh. She said, please let me see. She wanted to see what's going on under there. And so we went out in the hall, and I took off my hat, and she laughed. And I died. Oh, stupid kids. Years later, years later, many years later, I heard that she died. And this thought came to my mind, okay, now God has got you back. She died of cancer, and God has got you back. A bitter seed went into my heart. Bitterness. I was bitter against her, but it came out. It came out. That's terrible. Horrible. God wouldn't give her cancer and just kill her just because she laughed at me. You see how damaged we can be? You see what God wants to do in your life today or somebody else's life? If you're very busy, if you're very busy and you've got children, you need to be very careful that your busyness doesn't take away from your children the time that they need you. Because they could grow up being bitter that mom or dad was too busy for me. We've got a rebellious child that basically lost ten years ago because I think I got too busy. And then the fruit has come out, and we've got a battle here with this. We're not exempt from the struggles like you, but I'm just giving you a piece of advice. Make sure you're not too busy with your children. How many missionary kids were put off into a missionary school, and they are bitter. They don't want nothing to do with pastors' kids, elders' kids, or whatever. Mom and dad are too busy for them. May not have their hair all cut off or whatever, but they may feel like that they were not that important. And you can overcome in all kinds of areas, but if you lose your children, you just lose the battle. It's just something. So why is God allowing us to go through these things? I believe He wants us to overcome, to be preparing to reign with Him. Number one, it's a privilege. It's given to you. That word given in Philippians 1.29, that Greek word means actually to grant as a favor. Wow, I never did think that if I'm handicapped, and I would go through, and I'd obviously overcome the polio, you know, I was paralyzed, couldn't walk. As God healed me up, I guess I had a light case of it or whatever, and Mom worked on my legs. I mean, I'm in the hospital, a six-year-old. I can't see my family unless they come to the window, and a nurse carries me over there. That's a horrible thing to be almost a month away from your family and stuff, to go through all these things. But it's for a purpose. Now I look back and I see everything that I went through, every hard thing, had a purpose for it. It was to help me to be an overcomer. There are things that you can do to minister to other people in their lives that I could not even get close to. So it's just like in Corinthians. We go, we're allowed to suffer these things so that we'll be able to help somebody else that's suffering. So don't pass by your privilege, the honor that's given to you. I thought, wow, God, what an honor. I'm done. Actually, that's a dart that was thrown into me because I actually did go on to overcome that somewhat. Some of my teachers might be quite surprised what all happened later on. They said, no, not you. I thought, you're the least one that would have ever succeeded in anything in the educational area. By the way, this thing is a high tower, this education. I grew up in the South. Education is a big deal down there to go get you a degree and all this stuff. And if you're going to do that, it's okay, but make sure God's in on it and that you need it. Because one time I was preaching down in a church, down there, after I'm done with all that stuff, and I'm in this little country, actually a small-town church, and I was called to fill in for some important person from a seminary. And what I got me, actually my pastor would get me into churches and things down in the South after I graduated. And so I'm preaching in this little church, and after I'm done, I usually don't go back to the back. If somebody wants to talk, they can come up. These two little ladies come waltzing up to the front. Here they come. And they said, Oh, Dr. So-and-so, that was so wonderful. That was so good. Oh, God has just blessed us so much. We're so grateful. That was so good. Well, ladies, I'm glad you were blessed. But I'm not Dr. So-and-so. He couldn't come, and I was asked to fill in, and they both said, Oh, and they turned and walked out. And I'm there looking at them. But wait, I might be a Dr. So-and-so. Respect to persons. And I thought about that many times. So what? They were trying to get something for themselves. They lived in their little world or whatever. So many are like that. Oh, man. And so that's become a real problem. One of the problems in our churches is that we will go for those that have the degrees instead of those that have the power of the Spirit of God on their lives. And we will bypass God's man for us in many of our churches because we want our man and whatever. My folks had a pastor one time. He was trying to get the church convinced to let him go on and get his doctor's degree. He said it would be good for me, and it would be good for the church. We've got all of these concepts that we've got from the devil and not from God about church. And I've got a whole series on church and how Satan destroys the church. And so we've got these things, and we say, oh, it's terrible that this happened in your life instead of coming out well. What is God going to use you for with this great trial you've got in life? We've got this position, and we've got this, not position, but this privilege that he's given to us. A second thing about overcoming and preparing for reigning is if we're going to reign with Christ, it is a prerequisite that we have some kind of suffering. And I don't like it. But I've never known anybody that had the power of God upon their life that hasn't had some kind of a trial to go through or a burden to bear. Maybe you can find somebody, but usually most everybody I've seen that God is using in power, they've had some kind of a burden. And many of them you may not know what they've got in their life. But God brings them to that, and verse 5 there says, Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? The reason that they are being used is because they believe. They believe. One man said, the devil doesn't bother me. The other man looked at him and said, try resisting. He's not going to bother you if you're not bothering him. So our business is to be overcoming him. And we don't go looking for trouble because he's always going to make sure we've got enough trouble. This is the victory, Nike in the Greek. This is Nike. This is the victory. What is the victory? In every battle you have, the victory is by faith. Nothing is ever won in a battle, in a spiritual battle, without faith. Without faith, he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. You've got to, every time. And so this is why we have the shield of what? Faith. And we will overcome every time. So this is the victory. Believing precedes overcoming. And so the devil, he's going to be working on you. We're talking about the area of spiritual warfare. He's going to try to knock. Hey, just drop your shield for a minute. Take a look around, you know. Dark comes right in between the eyes. The just shall live by faith. That is a command. The just shall live by faith. And so God is going to let us have all this stuff because he is training us to be reigning with him. Not just here, but there's some things out there beyond that we don't know. So Paul, he told the Corinthians, don't you know we're going to judge? Wow. What do you mean? I don't know where he got some of this stuff, but he understood some deep things. You know, we're going to be judging. You're going to judge angels and all this stuff. So, here's the third thing. First of all, it's a privilege. Then it's a prerequisite. And then the third thing, overcoming is a position. In Ephesians, I think in a minute I'm going to take you through, I'm going to show you in Ephesians several things about our position in Christ. But it's a position. You know, battles. We have our civil war. Getting a position is very key in winning battles. The generals, they move their troops around. Because being in the wrong position at the wrong place in the wrong time or whatever can be devastating. So, our overcoming is a position in Christ. He said we are overcomers. For whatsoever is born of God, if you've been born again and you're a believer, you're an overcomer. No matter what the battle is, God intends you to overcome it. And He wouldn't let it come to you to destroy you. He will let it come to you for you to overcome it. Even temptations and trials, there's no temptation taking you, but such is common to man. For God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted above that you're able, but will, with the temptation, make a way to escape. So, He intends on you being an overcomer. Now, you need to confess to God your sin of unbelief right now. If you got a battle and you hadn't believed in God, He'd give you the victory in it. Right now. Reliable can be pretty uncomfortable because it deals with sin, it deals with our unbelief. So, it's a position. And it's in Christ. Think of that verse in Romans 8, 37. Tremendous book of Romans. That chapter 8 is something. I'll see if I marked it. I just want to read this one verse. 37. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors. Not only are we conquerors, but we're more than conquerors through Him that loved us. So, God let my dad cut off my hair. I mean, He could have stopped him. Dad said, I can't seem to get the clippers up to your head. Oh, well, yeah, look, Dad, there's no plastic thing there. But God said, do it. I didn't like it. But God used it in the area of bitterness to show. I've been prone to bitterness. Because so many bad things happen to you. Why me? Why not me? You know, why not you? So, this is the victory. And it's a position that we have in Christ. Colossians 3, 3, you can go to that one. Somebody said, I said, I don't know. You don't overcome in yourself, but through Christ. We don't overcome through ourself, but through Christ. And let me say some things about this position now. In Ephesians, and you can write these things down, or you can go there. But I want to just show you some things that we have in Christ. Because all of these things, God was building into, He's trying to build into Jacob's life. In a sense, for our learning, these things are written for our examples. But in Ephesians 1, 3, excuse me. Let me just sort of bump through some of these things. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. I mean, there's enough for you to feed on there for years. But in 4, he says, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy without blame before Him in love. He's chosen us before the foundation of the world. Ah, this blows my mind. But if we don't receive Him as our Savior, we can miss out on all the blessing that He had. I believe a man has to make a choice. A girl, a boy, a woman has to make a choice. God's given us volition, free will to choose Him or to reject Him. But anyway, it goes on in 5, let me read 6. To the praise of the glory of His grace. I want you to see this. And wherein He had made us accepted in the beloved. He makes us accepted. These are all the things that we have in our position in Christ. He's made us acceptable by the blood of Christ. And then 13, this is one of my favorite verses. He's sealed us. He's sealed us. And whom we trusted after we heard the word of truth, the gospel, your salvation. Whom after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. These are our things that we have in Christ. We're sealed. Let's see a few more. I think in 17, I'd notice that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. So in Christ, we have wisdom and knowledge. And we've got all these blessings. 2, 5, let's just pick out a few more. Even when we were dead and sins had quickened us together with Christ. By grace, you're saved. So we're quickened. These things we have in Christ. He's raised us up in verse 6. Has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places with Christ. Where are we Christ? See with Christ. But yet we live down here. And the devil wants to get us out of our spiritual position of seeing with Christ because we can beat him. We can beat him. I challenge some people, take your town for Christ. You pray. You've got principalities and powers over this town. You resist them. If you go against them, it'll work. But it's a battle. You've got to go against it. A couple more. We've been made nigh in verse 13 and 2, 13. 18, we have access. 2, 18, we have access. Wow. For through Him, we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. The Father himself loves you. We've got all these blessings. 3, 9, let's pick out another one. To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in Christ who created all things. We've got fellowship with the Father in 11 according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Apostle Paul gets way over our heads on these things. But we can try to grab a little something here and there in Christ. And so this is the position. And let me tell you something else about your position. Romans 8, 1 says, There's therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And this is how you can tell the devil's working on you. He's going to condemn you. God's going to convict. The devil pushes and God leads. How many times have we got in trouble because somebody's pushing us and pushing it, okay, we'll do it. I've got in trouble because I've let people push me. Galatians 5, 1, Stand fast therefore in the liberty where Christ has made us free. Here you've got the Galatians, they're finding Christ, and then the Judahites are coming in trying to get them back under the laws and all this stuff, back into bondage. The battle is there. Here's the fourth thing. We have power. We have power in Christ. This is Jacob. We covered all kinds of stuff. We have power to overcome the world. Just 5, 4, 1 John 5, 4, and also to overcome the wicked one in 1 John 2, 13 and 14. So we have power. Ephesians 1, 19, you've got verses there. Fifth thing, about overcoming and God allowing these things to happen. Go back over again. It's a privilege. These six things about overcoming to reign with Christ. It's a privilege. It's a prerequisite. It's a position. It's to have power. But it's a promise. It's a promise. 1 John 4. Resist and he will flee from you. That's a promise. It's a promise. These are promises. Ephesians 6, 16. Ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the... So, it's a fifth thing. It's a promise. And the sixth one, last one, to overcome is to conquer. It's to conquer. Conquer means to carry off the victory. Oh, there it is. That's six. There were no six. Do I have to make one up? Because I said there'd be six. But overcoming, let me just say this one and go through this on the promise. He's promised us to conquer. In conquering, when he's talking about conquering and overcoming, he's talking about carrying off the victory. But to overcome 24 times and all these different things. Sixth one. Overcoming, and this is the main thing, I think, that God is wanting to do in Jacob's life and your life and mine. Overcoming is preparation. It is what? Preparation for what? For reigning with Christ. For reigning with Christ. Training for reigning. So, we're about out of time here. Oswald Chambers said, an average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble. He says it is in trouble, which is very different. Life without war is impossible, Oswald Chambers says, in the Christian life. The basis of spiritual life is antagonism. Jacob and Esau. In the womb. And there it goes. And he also says the strain is the strength. Just like the butterfly in this. So, do we want strength? Do we want strength in our life? You can't sail in a sailboat without the wind and these different things. Well, I'm going to give you some quick lessons here. Number one, Satan has defeated Calvary legally, and it's up to us to enforce it. It's up to us to enforce it. And that's the way it is. There is actually the 18th Amendment sat, I think, for almost two years before they enforced it. You know what that was about? The liquor issue. And it sat there, but they had to finally bring it up to the final thing. But it sat there. It wasn't enforced. Two, prayer is training for reigning. When we reign and overcome, we glorify God. And we know all these things. John Wesley said, God will do nothing but in the answer to prayer. So, this is a, it's our main business as a church and whatever to make sure we're praying on everything. And when we're praying, we're taking authority. Third thing, if we don't overcome with him here, what makes us think that we will reign with him there? There's some that are probably going to just get in smelling like smoke. I just barely see a hell. And there's all kinds of things there that we haven't seen. And fourth thing, overcoming is taking a position of faith. We have to do that. All these things God's working in his life. Unbelief is the undoing of victory. And the victory is already won at Calvary. So, he gave it all to us, but we won't believe. You know, there's a song. Faith is a victory. You know. Cæsus Barnea. There's the thing that went right up. Wandered around for 40 years out there. Went right up. But had it all laid out there for them, and they wouldn't take it. Because of the unbelieving committee that was sitting in there. And they come back with a bad report. All the believers there had to wander around for another 38 years. And so, I think I'm going to just shut down right there. Let's pray. Now, Lord, I just sort of went through some things here on overcoming. Making some biblical applications from the life. We've been doing a lot of this, Lord. We've gone through a lot of messages in this area. So, help us. Hope we're not just getting oversaturated on these things. But help us to apply these things. These are important things. These are key things. I ask your blessing now in Jesus' name. Amen.