THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN - Chapter 5 - Verse 5
Verse 5. Who is he, etc. Where is there one who can pretend to have
obtained a victory over the world, except he who believes in the
Saviour? All else are worldly, and are governed by worldly aims and
principles. It is true that a man may gain a victory over one worldly
passion; he may subdue some one evil propensity; he may abandon
the gay circle, may break away from habits of profaneness, may
leave the company of the unprincipled and polluted; but still, unless
he has faith in the Son of God, the spirit of the world will reign
supreme in his soul in some form. The appeal which John so confidently
made in his time may be as confidently made now. We may ask, as
he did, where is there one who shows that he has obtained a complete
victory over the world, except the true Christian? Where is there one
whose end and aim is not the present life? Where is there one who shows
that all his purposes in regard to this world are made subordinate to the
world to come? There are those now, as there were then, who break away
from one form of sin, and from one circle of sinful companions; there are
those who change the ardent passions of youth for the soberness of middle
or advanced life; there are those who see the folly of profaneness, and
of gaiety, and intemperance; there are those who are disappointed in some
scheme of ambition, and who withdraw from political conflicts; there are
those who are satiated with pageantry, and who, oppressed with the cares
of state, as Diocletian and Charles V. were, retire from public life; and
there are those whose hearts are crushed and broken by losses, and by the
death, or what is worse than death, by the ingratitude of their children,
and who cease to cherish the fond hope that their family will be
honoured, and their name perpetuated in those whom they tenderly
loved—but still there is no victory over the world. Their deep
dejection, their sadness, their brokenness of spirit, their lamentations,
and their want of cheerfulness, all show that the spirit of the world
still reigns in their hearts. If the calamities which have come upon them
could be withdrawn; if the days of prosperity could be restored, they
would show as much of the spirit of the world as ever they did, and would
pursue its follies and its vanities as greedily as they had done before.
Not many years or months elapse before the worldly mother who has
followed one daughter to the grave, will introduce another into the
gay world with all the brilliancy which fashion prescribes; not long
will a worldly father mourn over the death of a son before, in the
whirl of business and the exciting scenes of ambition, he will show
that his heart is as much wedded to the world as it ever was. If such
sorrows and disappointments conduct to the Saviour, as they sometimes do;
if they lead the troubled mind to seek peace in his blood, and support in
the hope of heaven, then a real victory is obtained over the world; and
then, when the hand of affliction is withdrawn, it is seen that there has
been a work of grace in the soul that has effectually changed all its
feelings, and secured a triumph that shall be eternal.
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