Talk 12 – How Can I
Resist Evil?
Duration 30 Minutes
HTB Transcripts
Key:
P – Personal story that Nicky Gumbel tells in his Alpha talk. These may be replaced with a live
speaker’s personal story or the speaker may tell the story about Nicky in the same way Nicky tells
stories about others.
S/S* – Story that Nicky tells about someone else (about a friend or a story he heard or read about).
Stories marked in the margin with a * symbol are key stories and should not be omitted from the talk.
Q/Q* – Quotes are key to the talk to emphasise a point and to enable guests to engage and relate the
material. We acknowledge that some of the people quoted may not be well known in your local
context, however, please be mindful of the value of what is said in the quoted material; not just the
guests’ knowledge of the person being quoted. If you choose to replace a quote, it should be replaced
with something equally effective to maintain the balance of teaching, story, and references to other
information sources. In general, we encourage you not to omit or replace quotes unless absolutely
necessary. Quotes marked in the margin with a * symbol are key quotes and should not be omitted
from the talk.
Key Bible Passages are identified and you may wish to display these visually for your guests.
Red type identifies a part of the key teaching text that could be removed or altered for
contextualisation.
Text left untouched is the standard key message content of the Alpha talk.
Talk summary:
● Following the Alpha Weekend, some guests experience spiritual attack. The purpose of this
talk is to make them aware of the spiritual battle and equip them to fight it
● Why Believe in devil? (Scripture ‘deliver us from the evil one’, tradition, reason)
● Devil’s purpose (to destroy)
● Devil’s tactics (doubt, temptation, deception, condemnation)
● Our Position (transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Jesus)
○ But we are in a process, which won’t be complete until Jesus returns.
● Our defence
○ Resist the devil and he will flee
○ The armour of God
○ The sword of the Spirit – the Word of God
○ Pray
● Our attack
○ ‘Overcome evil with good’
NOTE: Parts of the talk may need to be contextualised for other contexts or cultures but make sure
you maintain the key elements of humour and personal testimony. Notice how quotes, and stories
are used throughout to add emphasis to the main points of the talk (theology and testimony).
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
OPTIONAL VOX POPS (English Language only): If you wish to play vox pops (street interviews related
to the subject) as a way of introducing the theme of the talk.
For this talk the questions asked were: Do you believe in the existence of evil? Where does evil come
from? Why do bad things happen? What tempts you?
They can be accessed via the following link: Talk 12 Vox Pops
P*
Adapt to reflect your own
experience.
You may wish to illustrate
these common images of the
devil and of God using the
following images or
something similar:
Cartoon devil
Cartoon God
I was an atheist, and I found it very difficult to believe that there
could be a God. Then I became a Christian, and obviously I came
to believe that there was a God. And then somebody said to me
that there’s a devil, and I thought, ‘Come on! It’s hard enough to
believe there’s a God, let alone to believe that there’s a devil!’
And I think part of the problem is, before, I’ve had a false image of
God. I had a kind of picture of God as an old man with a beard
sitting on a cloud. And similarly, I think many people’s image of
the devil is kind of like a devil with horns, a tail, cloven hooves and
a pitchfork. And obviously both those images, of God and the
devil, are both not only unbelievable but they’re also unbiblical.
WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE THAT THE
DEVIL EXISTS?
Talk
Point 1
WHY SHOULD
WE
BELIEVE
THAT
THE
DEVIL EXISTS?
WHY
SHOULD
WE
BELIEVE
THAT THE DEVIL
EXISTS?
What the apostle Paul speaks about is spiritual forces of evil. And
actually some people find it easier to believe that there are these
forces – easier to believe in the devil – than they do believe in
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
God.
Q
William Peter Blatty, who wrote the book The Exorcist and the
screenplay for the film The Exorcist, said this: ‘As far as God goes,
I’m a non-believer. But when it comes to the devil, well, that’s
something else! The devil keeps advertising. The devil does lots of
commercials.’
S
I remember a guy called Bruce Streather, who came on the Alpha
course: absolutely argumentative lawyer atheist, and nothing
convinced him. None of the talks convinced him, the Weekend
didn’t convince him, and then it came to this talk on ‘How Can I
Resist Evil?’ And I remember at the end he came up to me and he
said: ‘I’m a lawyer, and in my practice as a lawyer I see so much evil.
I’ve always believed in the power of evil. Now I realise that if
there’s a power of evil, it’s only logical to believe in a power of
good.’ And that night he became a Christian.
Adapt text in red to
generalise this story or
replace with a similar story.
So where does evil come from? The New Testament talks about a
kind of triple alliance: the world, the flesh and the devil. The world, if
you like, is the enemy around; the flesh is the enemy within; and
the devil is the enemy above. The world is all the kind of bad stuff
that is around us, the world that has shut God out. The flesh is not
the body – there’s nothing evil about the body – but it’s the evil
desires that come from within. And then there’s the devil.
And why should we believe in the existence of the devil? First
reason is that Jesus clearly believed in the existence of the devil.
He taught us to pray, ‘Deliver us from the evil one.’ And he himself
was tempted by the devil. And then down the ages Christians have
always believed in that. And some of you may have had this
experience: sometimes, particularly if you’ve had a powerful
experience of the Holy Spirit on the weekend away, sometimes you
suddenly find, ‘Oh, there seem to be all kinds of things coming
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Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
against me: temptations that I wasn’t aware of before.’
So there’s Scripture, the Bible, tradition, and then there’s reason.
How do you explain so much evil in the world? You only have to
open the newspaper, look at the news, and these evil regimes.
Institutional torture and violence. Mass murders. Brutal rapes. The
physical and sexual abuse of children and old people. Where does
this come from?
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire was part of the UN
peacekeeping force in Rwanda, and he watched the genocide
there in 1994. And because he had only a small number of
officers, he was unable to stop it. After it, he wrote a book called
Shake Hands with the Devil. He wrote this: ‘I know that there is a
God, because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I’ve seen
him. I’ve smelled him. I’ve touched him. I know the devil exists.
And therefore I know that there’s a God.’
Q
Personalise or omit the text
in red.
And there are two equal and opposite dangers in this area. One
danger is to disbelieve and the other is to have an unhealthy and
excessive interest. You know, stuff like Ouija boards, tarot cards,
horoscopes, palm-reading, all that kind of stuff. I used to dabble
with that kind of stuff before I was a Christian. I think often people
who are on a spiritual search do do this kind of thing. It’s not the
‘unforgivable sin’, but all I would say to you if you have been
involved in that sort of thing: turn away from it. Repent of it. Get
rid of any books or videos that are anything to do with it. Because
we’re not supposed to have an unhealthy interest in that kind of
thing.
Talk
Point 2
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
WHAT ARE THE DEVIL’S TACTICS?
WHAT ARE THE
DEVIL’S
TACTICS?
WHAT ARE THE DEVIL’S TACTICS
What are the devil’s tactics? He wants to destroy our lives. Jesus
said this: that
John 10:10
‘The thief’ – he describes the devil as like a thief that wants to rob
our lives – ‘The thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy’.
That is his ultimate aim. It’s the opposite of the aim of Jesus for
your life. God loves you. Jesus loves you.
John 10:10
Jesus said: ‘I came that you might have life, and have it to the
full.’
That’s what God wants for your life: fullness of life. The devil
wants the exact opposite: he wants to destroy your life. That’s the
path he wants to take you on. And it’s never obvious at the start
where he’s trying to take you.
P
Replace this story of your
own trivial example to
illustrate how, the devil’s
attempts to destroy us often
start with something small /
seemingly harmless and it’s
never obvious at the start
where it will take us.
Let me use a really trivial and silly example, taken from my
university days – so from ancient history! I shared rooms, as I’ve
told you, at university with Nicky Lee. We had rooms next door to
each other. And Nicky Lee’s mother is an amazing cook. And she
used to make him these fantastic fruitcakes. And one time she’d
given him this fruitcake, and he was then away for the weekend,
and I had some friends up for the weekend.
And we looked at this fruitcake, and I just noticed that it wasn’t
totally rectangular. And I just thought if I trimmed off the edge,
KEY:
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Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
that would square it up. So I trimmed off one edge. But then I
noticed that that made it slightly unbalanced the other way. So I
trimmed off another edge. And then it looked odd, because two
edges were cut off and two edges weren’t. So I cut off the other
two edges as well. But it still wasn’t rectangular, so I had to keep
on cutting it, and eventually it was down to about that size.
And then I thought it wasn’t really kind to Nicky, because, you
know, to come back and see that would be very disappointing.
And I thought, ‘Better out of sight, out of mind.’ So we finished it
off. As we explained to him afterwards, it was really an act of
kindness!
But the point is we never intended to do that. We just intended to
start with a very small thing.
And when people take heroin, they don’t realise where it may
lead. When people start looking at internet porn, they don’t
realise what it’ll do to their neural pathways. And what the devil
wants to do is take us on a path that leads ultimately to
destruction.
And very often he starts with doubt. There’s nothing wrong with
having doubts. In fact, doubt and faith are two sides of the same
coin. You can’t have one without the other. Two plus two equals
four, no doubt about that. But you don’t require faith to believe it.
Love, there’s always a doubt, but it requires faith. All the
important things in life require faith and therefore are open to
doubt.
The devil wants us to doubt our beliefs and believe our doubts.
God wants us to doubt our doubts and believe our beliefs. And the
way that temptation often starts is with doubt. So in the Garden
of Eden, in the opening chapters of Genesis, we’re told that – in
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
this exposé: this is a brilliant exposé of how evil works – the devil
comes in the form of a serpent, and his opening gambit is:
‘Did God really say...?’
When the devil comes to Jesus in the wilderness, his opening
gambit is:
‘If you are the Son of God...’
In other words, if the devil can get you to doubt who you are, your
identity: ‘If you’re a Christian... Because if you’re not a Christian,
does it really matter if you do that?’ It starts with doubt.
And then, after doubt comes temptation. There’s nothing wrong
with being tempted. Everybody’s tempted. You can’t go through
life without being tempted. Jesus was tempted by the devil. The
devil came to him as the tempter. In fact, Jesus was tempted in
every way, just like us, except he was without sin.
And it’s very important to make this distinction between
temptation and sin. Because sometimes we have a thought that
comes into our head. We think, ‘Oh, where did that come from?’
That’s not sin. Only if we adopt it is it sin. But what the devil says
to us is, ‘Oh, look at you thinking like that! You’ve really messed
up, haven’t you! Now it doesn’t matter what you do, because
you’ve already fallen.’
And then comes the deception. All sin is a form of deception. And
the way we see this exposed in the opening chapter of Genesis is
that what the devil says in the form of the serpent is: ‘It won’t do
you any harm.’ He says, ‘You will not surely die if you disobey
God.’
And that’s the way he works today. He says, ‘Look, it’s not going
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
to do you any harm!’ And then he says, ‘Actually, God doesn’t love
you. The reason God doesn’t want you to do this is because he
actually doesn’t want you to have the best in life.’ And that’s so
opposite of the truth. The truth is that Jesus wants you to have life
in all its fullness.
God loves you. He wants the very best for you. The reason he says
‘Don’t do stuff’ is because he doesn’t want us to experience evil;
he only wants us to experience good.
And then he condemns us. One of the titles of the devil is ‘the
accuser’. There’s a big difference between conviction and
condemnation. Conviction means that we know exactly what
we’ve done wrong, and we can repent of it, turn away from it and
receive forgiveness. Condemnation, we just feel really bad. We
don’t even know why we feel bad. And we’re told there is no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
James 4:7–8, NRSV
James says: ‘Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw
near to God and he will draw near to you.’
WHAT IS OUR POSITION?
Talk
Point 3
WHAT IS OUR
POSITION?
WHAT IS OUR
POSITION?
So, in this battle what is your position? Well, the apostle Paul puts
it like this:
Colossians 1:13, RSV
KEY:
‘He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves.’
In other words, you were in the dominion of darkness, where in a
sense the devil was in control; we were addicted to stuff; our life
was under the dominion of darkness. And through the cross and
the resurrection of Jesus, the moment you invite Jesus to come
and live with you in your heart, he transfers you from that
dominion to the kingdom of Jesus, where Jesus is in control,
where there’s total freedom.
We experience God’s love. And this is the kingdom of God, and that’s
where you are. And that is the place of freedom and fullness of
life. And that’s what God wants for your life. You say, ‘Well, if
that’s happened, why do I still struggle with this stuff? Why do I
still struggle with temptation? Why do I still struggle with evil
forces?’
Let me use an analogy.
S
In World War II, the decisive moment of World War II was D Day.
It occurred on 6 June 1944. And essentially the war was won on
that day. And you could say that’s the equivalent of the moment
of Jesus’ death and resurrection – the moment that you invited
Jesus to come into your heart, if you did that. That is the decisive
moment. And that’s the moment where victory is won.
But the war didn’t end then. There was a whole period of months
of the mopping-up operations, until VE Day, Victory in Europe, on 8
May 1945. And in a sense we live between D Day and VE Day: the
victory’s been won, but we’re still in this period of the mopping-up
operations, which will only be complete when Jesus returns, when
we meet him.
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Adapt to personalise this
text in red.
So if your experience is anything like mine the moment I
encountered Christ, I was set free from a whole lot of stuff in my
life. But other things, it’s been a much longer struggle, and I
continue to struggle with them.
P
I bike around London. I love biking! But I never wear a clerical collar. I
am an Anglican vicar, in case you didn’t know! But I don’t wear my
clerical collar and dog-collar when I’m on my bike, because I feel it
would slow me up: I would have to stop at red lights, pedestrian
crossings, couldn’t go on the pavement! It would just be such a
nuisance.
Replace with your own
example to illustrate that
you are in a process of being
set free, which won’t be
complete until Jesus returns.
This example should be
trivial and funny so that the
talk doesn’t become too
heavy.
So one time I was biking down Oxford Street, and I kind of bike a
little bit towards the middle of the road – particularly in Oxford
Street, because there are all those people who are milling around,
and you never know where they’re going to walk. Anyway, that’s
my excuse! So I was in the middle of the road, and I didn’t realise
that there was a taxi behind me who was clearly getting a little bit
impatient. And suddenly he moved out, hooted, came right next to
me and shouted at me, ‘Move over!’
And something within me – and I don’t think it was the Holy Spirit!
– said, ‘Right, I’m going to get him!’ So I biked after him as fast as I
could, and I caught him at the traffic lights. And he shouted at me,
‘You’re in the middle of the road. You should move over!’ So I
said, ‘WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER?’ – because I know they don’t like their
number taken, because they’ll be reported, and so on.
And he went, ‘MY NUMBER?’ And at that moment the light changed
to green, and he drove off. So I thought, ‘Right, I really am going to
get him!’ So I started biking after him, and I just thought, ‘I’m
going to learn the number on the back of his cab: 58815.’ And I
could see he was looking at me in his rear-view mirror. And I
caught up with him, and as I caught up with him I heard him say:
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
‘Nicky, you should keep to the rules!’ I thought, ‘Did I hear that
right?’
And then he repeated it: ‘Nicky, you should keep to the rules!’
And this time he got out his Alpha manual and waved it out of the
window like this! So I went up to him and I said, ‘Have you done
the Alpha course?’ He said, ‘Yes. I became a Christian on Alpha
two months ago.’ So he hadn’t had much time for the fruit of the
Spirit to emerge in his life! I said, ‘Er, what’s your name?’ He said,
‘My name’s Dean.’ I said, ‘Oh, how nice to meet you!’ I said, ‘I’m
so sorry!’
And at that moment the passenger in the cab was looking totally
mystified. He’d expected us to have a fight. So he turned round to
him and said, ‘This guy runs the Alpha course. It’s totally
inspirational. It changed my life!’ So as I biked off I thought, ‘Oh,
I’ve got a long way to go! I’m in this process, and it’s not yet
complete!’ And it won’t be complete until Jesus returns.
HOW DO WE DEFEND OURSELVES?
Talk
Point 4
HOW DO WE
DEFEND
OURSELVES?
HOW DO WE
DEFEND
OURSELVES?
So how do we fight this battle? Well, Paul writes that we need to
‘be strong in the Lord’. We want to ‘put on the whole armour of
God’. Effectively, he says: ‘Look, get rid of the bad habits in your
life and replace them with good habits.’ And I really recommend
these habits to you. They’re very simple. Here’s the first one:
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12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
He says: ‘Stay close to Jesus. Focus on Jesus.
Ephesians 6:14–18
Put the belt of truth around your waist.’
What is truth? Truth is in Jesus. Jesus said: ‘I am the truth.’ It’s the
opposite of hypocrisy. It’s authenticity, integrity, openness in your
life, focused on Jesus.
Second, the breastplate of righteousness.
In other words, keep your relationships right. Keep short accounts.
If you mess up, as we all do, just ask God to forgive you, and get up
quickly. Get your relationship with God back again. And the same
with other people. If you fall out with someone else, quickly deal
with it. Ask forgiveness. Get it sorted out.
Thirdly, he says, ‘Get involved in service with your feet fitted with
the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.’
Adapt to suit your context,
or add some examples of
ways of serving linked to
your local church.
In other words, don’t just sit around doing nothing. Get involved!
Serve. You know, maybe come back and help on Alpha. Maybe
host a group on Alpha. Maybe help with a homeless shelter. Get
involved in active service.
And then trust God in difficult times. He says, ‘take up the shield of
faith, with which you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil
one.’
In other words, the devil is going to throw stuff at you: doubt,
fears, anxieties, lusts – all kinds of things will be thrown at you.
And just take the shield of faith: in other words, in the difficult
times keep on trusting. Don’t give up your faith.
And then win the battle of the mind. He says, ‘Put on the helmet
of salvation.’
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Story
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12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
That salvation means freedom, the freedom which Jesus brings.
All these temptations, they tend to start in the mind. It starts with
a thought, then it becomes an action, then it becomes a habit,
then it becomes a destiny.
And then, know your Bible. Soak yourself in the word of God:
‘take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’
I really encourage you to get to know this book, to read it daily if
you can. When Jesus was tempted, every time he replied with a
verse from this. He really knew his Bible, and he used it as a
defence against the attacks of the enemy.
And then he says: ‘Keep praying: pray in the Spirit on all occasions
with all kinds of prayers and requests.’
Keep close to God through prayer.
HOW DO WE ATTACK?
Talk
Point 5
HOW DO
ATTACK?
HOW DO
ATTACK?
WE
WE
So how do we attack? There’s no piece of armour for the back.
We’re most vulnerable when we’re running away. St Paul says:
Romans 12:21
‘Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’
It is so exciting to be a Christian! I cannot tell you how amazing the
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
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12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
life is that Jesus brings when he says: ‘I came that you might have
life in all its fullness.’ It’s so amazing to be able to see people’s
lives being transformed. I find it so thrilling.
I think of someone like Gram Seed. Gram Seed is a giant of a man.
He must be – well, he is – six foot five, and he weighs eighteen
stone. And he said: ‘I spent most of my life in jail. I was a skinhead,
I was a football hooligan, I was on the rave scene, I was charged
with murder. I was searching for love all my life, and I couldn’t find
it. My mother gave up on me when I was twenty-one. She said,
“You are the son of Satan!”’ This was a guy totally in the dominion
of darkness.
S
‘She said I was evil like my father, who I’d never seen. He used to
rape and beat my mum up, and he went to prison. She said,
“You’re more evil than your dad, and I don’t want nought to do
with you. You’re dead as far as I’m concerned.”
I grew up with my nana and my granddad. My nana was drinking
and taking drugs all the time. I lived in the roughest part of
Teesside. I didn’t have hope. I didn’t know what it was, but I was
always trying to fill this hole inside me’ – like so many people – ‘this
hole inside me with things: drugs, alcohol, sex and violence. Drugs,
alcohol, sex and violence went round and round and round, a
vicious cycle. Prison and outside. Prison and outside.’
And he ended up, for several years, living on a bench outside on
the streets. And then eventually he fell into a coma, a six-day
coma, and it looked as if his life was over. His mother was
summoned to the hospital by the authorities to sign the papers to
switch the ventilating machine off that was keeping him
breathing. His kidneys had failed. He was critically ill: he had
septicaemia, hypothermia and liver damage.
KEY:
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12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
And there were these guys who had been speaking to him on the
streets when he was living on the bench, and they heard about
the fact that he was dying, and they came to the hospital and they
asked whether they could pray. And before the mother switched
the machine off to allow him to die, they prayed for him in the
name of Jesus. And as they prayed he woke up and started
breathing. And he was told that they’d prayed to Jesus, and he
said: ‘What does Jesus want to know a scumbag like me for?’
But they invited him to an Alpha course at their church. He
attended, and he went on the Holy Spirit Day that they had. And
during that time he said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real, come into my life.’
And he held out his hands like this, and the Holy Spirit filled him.
And he fell backwards, and he started just weeping. He said he
cried more than he’d ever cried in his life.
He said: ‘That day I was totally transformed, and I had a desire to
tell people about Jesus.’ And he went out on the streets – he was
very well-known on the streets – and he took with him every day
eight copies of Why Jesus? and he didn’t return until he’d got eight
people to pray the prayer at the back inviting Jesus into their lives!
And then he started to be invited back into the prisons. He said, ‘I
spent ten years trying to get out of prison, and now I was trying to
get back in!’ And he went back into the prisons and he started
running Alpha courses in the prisons. He’s now run 112 Alpha
courses in prisons around the north-east of England. And he met a
lovely young person called Natasha. He described her as ‘a dream
come true’. And their first son was born eleven pounds and two
ounces, two foot long! The consultant held him up and said, ‘Do
you know, Gram, this isn’t a baby – it’s a toddler!’
He’s written this book about his life called Once Step Beyond. He’s
started a ministry. His name is Gram Seed, and he started a
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
ministry called Sowing Seeds. And it’s had such an impact on
thousands of people.
A man came up to me three weeks ago at the end of one of the
services here. His name was Chris Andrews. I said, ‘Tell me your
story.’ He said, ‘It’s like this.’ He’s a successful businessman from
the Northeast. He said, ‘I was a boxer, and we used to box in this
gym. And from time to time this tramp’ – that’s how he described
the man – ‘this tramp would walk into the gym, and he was
addicted to cider. He used to drink twenty-eight pints of cider a
day. And we all laughed at him. And then this guy was totally
changed. I met him, and I saw what had happened.’ This was
Gram Seed.
And he said, ‘What’s happened to you?’ And Gram told him about
Jesus. And this man’s life was totally transformed. He introduced
me to all his family, and they talked about how Jesus had changed
their life. He’s just one of the many, many people that Gram Seed
has led to faith in Jesus.
If you change the story
above, ensure the text in red
links back to the story.
Why do I tell you a story that’s as extreme as that? Because if
Jesus can do that for Gram, he can do it for me and for you. This is
the amazing thing: he has transferred Gram from a path that was
leading to destruction – now he’s on a path that leads to life. He’s
taken him from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of his
Son, Jesus.
You know, what John writes is that ‘the one who’s in you is greater
than the one who’s in the world’: in other words, the Holy Spirit
who lives in you is far greater. We’re not talking about two equal
and opposite powers; we’re talking about the power of God
against something infinitely smaller.
And the amazing thing is you’re a child of God. You have the Holy
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages
Spirit living within you. You can make a real difference! Just as
Gram is making a real difference to the lives now of thousands of
people, you can make a real difference to the lives of thousands of
people. You can overcome evil with good.
You can do like Gram, who put on his feet the gospel of peace,
taking the good news of Jesus out to other people. This is the
most exciting thing to be involved in. Look at what other people
have done in the past. Look at how Shaftesbury, in the name of
Jesus, changed the whole social condition of this country in the
nineteenth century. Look at Wilberforce, how he led the campaign
to abolish slavery. Look at Martin Luther King, how he broke down
this division between black and white in America.
These are just examples of what you can do. We’re not supposed to
just sit around and say, ‘I’m not going to do anyone any harm.’ Your
life can make a real difference. Your life has a purpose. You can
leave a legacy of transformed lives.
‘Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good’, in Jesus’
name. Amen!
The Alpha Transcripts are taken from Alpha with Nicky Gumbel filmed 2014–2015, which are based on Questions of Life by Nicky
Gumbel.
© Alpha International 2015
Prepared by:
Alpha International, HTB Brompton Road, London SW7 1JA.
Email: publications@alpha.org
Website: alpha.org
Acknowledgements:
Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible,
New International Version Anglicised
Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society
Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company
All rights reserved
‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica
UK trademark number 1448790.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations [marked RSV] taken from The Revised Standard Version of the Bible copyright © 1346, 1952 and 1971 by the
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches in the USA. Used by permission. All Rights Reserved.
‘Cartoon Devil’, courtesy of 123RF [www.123rf.com]
‘Cartoon God’, courtesy of 123RF [www.123rf.com]
KEY:
Personal Story
Story
Quotes
12) How Can I Resist Evil? - Nicky Gumbel - HTB Alpha
Key Bible Passages