THE VICTORIOUS CHRISTIAN LIFE

The subject of the victorious Christian life deals with practical
matters of Christian life. After conversion the heart cry is for
holiness, to be like Christ. Any born-again child of God wants to
overcome sin and live above the world. Sometimes people hear
testimonies of missionaries and preachers who, after years of
failure, attend a good Bible conference where the word of God is
preached and suddenly come into a blessing of a higher walk with
Christ. Many Christians try and try, and when they don't succeed,
they sink down to a lower level of Christian experience, living
on a standard lower than they desire, but helpless to advance,
and fearful lest they should make fools out of themselves by
trying. Other Christians, having never heard of the victorious
life, continue sinning and confessing, sinning and confessing,
and they wonder, "Is this all that Christ has to offer?"

Are there such things as apprentice Christians and journeyman
Christians and master Christians, and if there are, should there
be? Undoubtedly there is the possibility of the victorious life.
There is no possibility of a sinless life, but there is the
possibility of living above sin, and overcoming sin, and not
letting sin dominate your life.

The Bible teaches victory over sin for every believer. "For
whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4).
John is not speaking about victory in heaven, which is absolutely
certain for any believer, but victory on earth, daily victory
which is only possible to the Christian who obeys what the Bible
says about daily victory.

The Christian who spends his time in the psychological mishmash
of modern devotional broadcasts and telecasts will always have an
up-and-down experience because he is never rooted to anything
stable. These unstable people, who have no final authority, have
no sure authority to correct school teachers and Greek and Hebrew
professors. After all, if your authority is your Greek and Hebrew
professors, then when it comes to overcoming sin, you will have
to run to them for the final authority, and they may not know
anything about it. The Bible is the word of God, and to the
Christian who is unwilling to submit to the Bible as the final
authority and insists on having twenty translations that
contradict each other, I will tell you frankly, sir, you will
never have victory over sin, so don't look for it. With the root
sins of pride and unbelief in your life and thinking your
education equips you to correct the word of God, there isn't any
possibility at all that you will overcome ten percent of your
sins.

Satan will do his utmost to keep the knowledge from the Christian
that he can have a victorious life. The devil doesn't mind an
intellectual person or a religious person, as long as he is a
powerless Christian, but he surely fears the power of a
triumphant life. The devil isn't worried about high standards of
double, secondary separation that make you like a monk or a nun,
just as long as the power of God is not manifested in your life.
The devil doesn't care how many gifts you have that make you look
like a conceited smart aleck, just so long as your life is
fruitless and barren of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 6).
After all, the gifts can be counterfeited; the fruit cannot.

There are promises of the victorious life. In John 7:37-38 Jesus
stood and cried that out of the man's belly shall flow  "rivers
of living water." This is Jesus' own promise to the believer. He
said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't want Christians to have just a little bit of life in
victory, but abundant life in victory. Paul says, "For sin shall
not have dominion over you" (Rom. 6:14). That is strong language.
That is what God said to Cain when Cain messed up. God said,
"Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him"
(Gen. 4:7). The Lord told Cain he had no business letting sin run
him, that he could run sin.

Paul said, "Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to
triumph in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:14). Always, not just sometimes, but
always ours is the victory through Christ. First Corinthians
10:13 is a great promise to the believer, showing him that under
any set of circumstances, in any temptation he can claim a
promise that God will answer, for the Holy Spirit has written, 
"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man:
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above
that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to
escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Or, as Paul says, "Nay,
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him" 
(Rom. 8:37). That is, not just victory, but abundant
super-abounding victory over our enemies: the world, the flesh
and the devil.

The principle of the victorious life is faith. The victorious
life is a gift received from God by faith, and it rests in the
finished work of Jesus Christ. Our salvation was a gift; we
didn't deserve it, and we didn't earn it. Our victory is also a
gift; we cannot attain it by our own strength; that is
impossible. "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17). The
believer is saved and begins a new life in the Spirit, but most
Christians are like the foolish Galatians who try to continue in
the flesh by works (Gal. 3:3). These foolish Galatians were
always worried about outward appearance and never inward
condition. Victory is the work of the Saviour in us and not our
accomplishment in the least. That is, Christ's finished victory
on Calvary's cross is His victory over sin, which we appropriate
by faith exactly as we appropriate salvation by faith, and it is
Christ's victory in us. "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col.
1:27). Or, as Paul used to say, "I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I [not I, not I, not I], but Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live
by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself
for me" (Gal. 2:20).

As we confess our inability to gain victory and we yield to the
mighty power of the Lord Jesus Christ, He gains the victory in
us, or, as the Lord told Paul, "my strength is made perfect in
weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). The drunkard that gets saved and gets
immediate victory over liquorÄthat is not the victorious life.
The dopehead who gets converted and immediately has victory over
dopeÄthat is not the victorious life. The reprobate who gets
saved and immediately begins to blabber in tonguesÄthat is not
the victorious life. The victorious life is when respectable
people get victory over pride, jealousy, envy, stubbornness,
exaggeration, laziness, ambition, and egotism. Faith does
nothing. Faith lets God do it all. Dr. C.G. Trumbull said, "One
qualification that you must have for the victorious life is the
broken pinion, the broken nature, weakness." God couldn't bless
Jacob and give him a new name until he had busted his hip, tore
his thigh muscle and Jacob limped all the rest of his life (Gen.
32:24-32). Paul couldn't know the power of Christ's resurrection
until he knew the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10) and
was smitten in the flesh with a thorn in the flesh by Satan which
caused him to carry a medical doctor with him all his life (2
Cor. 12:7-9). With all this gas about "faith to be healed" and
"having faith" and all that nonsense, Paul remained sick until
the day he died and had a registered physician with him in jail
when he died (2 Tim. 4:11) whom he called the beloved physician
(Col. 4:14). The secret of victory is the indwelling of Jesus
Christ. Victory is in trusting, not trying.

The secret of the victorious life is our identification with
Jesus Christ. The great chapter on this is Romans 6. In this
chapter we learn two important truths. First of all,
substitution: Jesus Christ in our place. Next, identification: us
with Jesus Christ. To the sinner we teach substitution: look and
live. To the saint we teach: look and die. We have to identify
with Christ's death and burial, identify with Christ's
resurrection and present triumphant life to have victory over
sin. All this is found in Romans 6. First of all, there is the
great truth that I died with Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:3). Secondly,
there is the great truth that I arose with Jesus Christ (Rom.
6:4). Thirdly, there is the great truth that I share Christ's
present life (Rom. 6:8).

1. I died with Christ: "planted together in the likeness of his
death" (Rom. 6:5); "our old man is crucified with him" (Rom.
6:6); "I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2:20).

Absolute identification. Since death frees a man once and forever
from the power and dominion of sin (Rom. 6:7), we are dead to sin
and free from sin by the fact that we are identified with Jesus
Christ's death.

It is the Holy Spirit who puts you into Jesus Christ, and once in
Him, you share His life. If you share His life, then you share
His eternal life. If you share His eternal life, as you live and
brcathe and are reading this book, your life goes back to the
open tomb, up on the cross, and is nailed there with the Saviour,
dead with Christ and buried with Christ. I was buried with Him. 
"Therefore we are buried with him" (Rom. 6:4). Dead things ought
to be buried, so we are buried with Christ.

Our water baptism is only a picture of that, so, when the unsaved
Campbellite makes Romans 6 water baptism he takes you to hell
with him by giving you a burial that is not a real burial and a
baptism that is not a real baptism, but only a figure.

I dicd with Christ. I was buried with Christ. I arose with
Christ. "We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" 
(Rom. 6:5); "even so we also should walk in newness of life"
(Rom. 6:4); "that henceforth we should not serve sin" (Rom. 6:6);
"we shall also live with him" (Rom. 6:8); "but in that he liveth,
he liveth unto God" (Rom. 6:10).

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). Do you see? You
are dead with Him. You are buried with Him. You are risen with
Him. You are walking with Him, if you have the victorious life.
The secret is that the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ lives in the
heart and body of every believer for the purpose of becoming Lord
and Master of that life. Not Christ in your life; Christ in your
body, Christ in you. Never your life: that is the way to run
Christ out of your body, so that He only shares in certain things
that you do, and that road to hell is as good as any other. It is
never Christ in your life anywhere in thc Bible. In the Bihle,
Christ is your life (Col. 3:4), and Christ is not in your life.
He is in your body. The carnal Charismatics of Corinth who wcre
bragging about their gifts didn't even know their body was the
tcmple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19). Why, thc poor fools
thought they were letting Christ into their lives. Every saved
person reading this has the Lord Jesus Christ in his body, or, as
Paul said, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels" (2 Cor.
4:7).

"Christ in you, the hope of glory." I am dead, and the living
Christ lives and rules in my yielded body and gains constant
triumph and victory for me as I yield to Him. In my body at any
one time there is one person on the throne. In the throne of my
heart. either the Lord Jesus Christ reigns, or I reign. If I am
on the throne, He is at the foot of the throne. If He is on the
throne. I am kneeling at the throne. I'll give you one guess who
should be on the throne. If you are on the throne, sin is
reigning because you still have sin in your mortal body, and you
are born dead in trespasses and sin, and your body is subject to
the laws of sin because it rots and the worms get it. There is a
worm-eaten dictator on the throne of your heart, if you are
running your life. If Jesus Christ is running your life, He is on
the throne and you are at the foot of the throne.
Two Requisites for the Victorious Christian Life

What are the requisites for the victorious life? Two things
absolutely, which are both found in Romans, and that is why
unsaved heretics and carnal rebels are always in the Book of
Acts. The reason why these carnal Christians, these spiritual
babies, are always in the Book of Acts is because they know
nothing about the powerful Christian life. The requisites are
found nowhere in the Book of Acts. They are found in Romans 6,
and-here they are:

Yield: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those
that are alive from the dead" (Rom. 6:13).

Reckon: "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom.
6:11).

The requisites for a victorious life are yielding and reckoning.
First, you have to take your body and yield yourself to God as a
man who is alive from the dead. Secondly, you have to reckon that
you are dead because God said so, even though every member and
every limb in your body will cry out that they are not dead but
very much alive and they have certain needs that need to he
satisfied. God says our rnembers are dead. God said they are
nailed to the cross. The fact that they move, the fact that they
breathe, the fact that they want this and want that is immaterial
in God's sight. Theologically and doctrinally, you are dead. With
Paul you can say, "I am crucified" (Gal. 2:20), and if your Bible
says, ''I have been crucified," you are reading the work of a
liar who is trying to get you to miss the overcoming life. It is
not enough to say, "I HAVE been crucified,'' because that doesn't
solve the problem. You are crucified at this present moment, if
you are saved, and your old man is nailed, though still active,
like a body hanging on the cross dying. It is dead and buried and
put out of God's sight, as far as God's official sight is
concerned, and the new man is risen to walk in newness of life.

Therefore every Christian in his present state has three things
that are true about his body:

1. As far as the movements of the physical body of the child of
God are concerned, they are the work of a man who is slowly
dying, nailed to a cross.

2. In God's sight, that old nature and its ability to bring forth
good works or its ability to sin, the Lord has reckoned it
neuter, non-effective, a nullity, dead. He has abrogated it and
doesn't count it one way or the other.

3. As far as the new man inside the Christian is concerned. "he
that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). The
new man is risen and walking with Christ, and this new man can
have victory daily over sin.

If it is true that you are dead to sin with Christ, then there is
only one thing for you to do and that is to yield yourself to
God. Paul says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies [your bodyÄnot your
life. Never mind all that psychological, humanistic, socialistic
stuff the fundamentalists are using. Never mind the party line.
YOURBODY] a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service" (Rom. 12:1). That is, assume your new
position by faith. Reckon yourself to be dead, and reckon
yourself to be alive from the dead. You are now living on
resurrection ground, on the victory side of the cross. Sin and
the world will have no hold on you according to God. Don't fight
sin; you can'tÄyou will lose the battle. Instead, yield to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Yield to the power of the resurrected Christ.
In your fight against sin, your greatest weapon is yielding to
Christ and reckoning yourself dead. Those weapons of our warfare
are said not to be carnal but mighty through God (2 Cor. 10:4).

For Christian people there is a choice, either victory or defeat.
As a Christian. you still have your own free will. If you choose
victory, you can certainly have it as a gift from the Lord,
providing you yield yourself to Him and reckon yourself dead. If
you reject this gift of victory, you will continue to live a
defeated Christian life. Paul says, "Know ye not, that to whom ye
yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto
righteousness?" (Rom. 6:16). So, the choice is yours: you either
yield to righteousness. or you yield to sin. Your will
determines.

Frecdom is yours for the taking: ''Being then made free from
sin'' (Rom. 6:18). Then you have a warning in Romans 6:19. If you
choose uncleanness, it will lead down from iniquity to iniquity.
Then you are told since you are free from sin you become a
servant to God (Rom. 6:22).

Thc choice then is ''To whom will I surrender myself and my
members?'' The logical man who thinks rationally will realize
there is only one choice to make. If you are a servant of Jesus
Christ, then you are a bond slave, knocked down on thc block. or
as Paul says, "ye are not your own. . .ye are bought with a
price"
(1 Cor. 6:19-20). Is there really any argument or debate in your
mind as to whom you should yield? Did the world pay for your
sinÄand buy back your soul? Did the flesh pay for your sins and
buy back your soul? Did the devil pay for your sinÄand save you
from hell? Did sin die for you that you might get to heaven? Or
did Jesus Christ? Then what is the choice to make?

Obviously, the choice is found in Romans 12:1-2. Obviously. I
have been askcd to do a rcasonable thing which is not in the
least unreasonable. I am to take my body and present it to God as
a living (there's the resurrection) sacrifice (there's Calvary)
as those that be alive from the dead (there's the burial). This
is my "reasonable service," so that I might prove "what is that
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2).

The great catch is this: the thing that prevents ninety percent
of the Christians and makes them waste their time talking about
the gifts, and the Holy Ghost, and peace, and love, and all this
turtledove clap-trap, is the fact that these Christians still
want to conform to the world. There is no way under God's heaven
you can present your body to God as a living sacrifice unless you
are transformed in the renewing of your mind and cease to be
conformed to the world (Rom. 12:2). This explains why ninety
percent of the Christians in any age never find the will of God
for their lives and bluff through with all these translations,
giving relative opinions because they don't know what they are
talking about, having never found the will of God to start with.
They are simply in money-making rackets like any unsaved man, or
they are in feeling and emotional experiences like any unsaved
person on the Johnny Carson show. In short, they are
pious-talking hypocrites because they are not transformed by the
renewing of their mind. They are conformed to this world.
Christians who are conformed to this world cannot find the will
of God, and the victorious life is absolutely out of the
question. This is why most of these Christians are plagued from
morning to night about thoughts of losing their salvation or
committing the unpardonable sin, because they are shallow,
Bible-rejecting, relativistic, peace-loving, love-loving,
humanistic, socialistic sheep. They have never grown up into the
fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ, the full and perfect man
(Eph. 4:13). They are still conformed to this world in their
opinions, their thinking, their friends, their dress, their
habits, and their amusements. May God help you to cut loose from
this bunch. Drop off fellowship from them and become separated.
Know what it is like to walk day by day on the mountain plateau
with the Lord Jesus Christ, or as the old song says, ''Living on
a mountain in Beulahland.''