Sermon notes of Pastor Mark Downey
August 21, 2016
Scripture Reading: I John 5:4-5
In 1989 I attended the Scriptures for America Family Bible Camp in Colorado hosted by the late Pastor Pete Peters, along with approximately 400 other Identity Christians. This is back when our movement was burgeoning with new converts and unfortunately fringe elements. It was the first time I was introduced to the salient implications of the Christian overcomer. Peters started his message by asking the audience “Do you want to be an overcomer?” Prior to giving his evening sermon, I remember that day, questionnaires were handed out asking, “What do you have to have more than anything else to be an overcomer?” And he played a tape recording of people trying to answer that question also. A lot of people said faith or trust or Christ, but that evening Peters said “Nobody got the right answer.” That may have been because the question was asked tongue in cheek because his answer was so rhetorical in his sphere of sophistry. Then, as if he received lightning bolts from Heaven, he yelled out his answer... “You've got to have something to overcome!!!” Well, duh... yeah. I remember at the time, that after Peters embarrassed so many people, who did get it right with I John 5:4, that he needed to overcome his self-serving attitude. But, I'm grateful that he broached the subject, which decades later has become a spiritual imperative for the serious Christian. Obviously, it has not been taken seriously by churchianity, otherwise we wouldn't have the excessive amount of egregious problems to overcome compared to 1989. A deeper understanding of the overcomer is certainly racial in nature and the first thing you need to be, to be an overcomer, is that you need to be White. As I recall, I put down 'Israelite' on the questionnaire... crickets. That's what you need, your identity.
In my initial research, I googled 'overcomer' and the first website I went to had a book that was published in Nigeria. Evidently, a black Nigerian found something to overcome; maybe it was the White man and he dreamt of a Nigerian Jesus. Can a Nigerian change his skin or a leopard its spots (Jer. 13:23)? I modified it from Ethiopian, but it's the same principle. But, for our purposes, it's intriguing that the rest of the verse is wildly translated as to whether the negro can do good with such a track record of being evil. I'll give you two poignant examples of what I'm talking about; the first is from the KJV, which reads ...
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I'm going to talk about this unknown cowboy, who, judging by his saddle, side arm and rifle1 was riding the trails circa 1870 or 1880. On the back of this early photograph is simply inscribed “Indian fighter.” The more I look at this young man, the more I can see the disappearing manhood from our heritage of the Aryan warrior, the rugged individual or even the Phinehas priest. His boyish look of a young King David should not be confused with youthful indiscretions. To the contrary, I see a determined lad living a fearless life of Joshua, with faith in his bloodline, boldly running through his veins. He was fighting the Canaanites of his day, in a wilderness-turning Promised Land.
