For the help of the Lord, I direct
your prayerful attention to Romans chapter 8, and reading from our
text, verse 13. For if ye live after the flesh,
ye shall die. But if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Romans 8 verse 13. Now this morning
we spoke of God's way of salvation, the only way through our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. What is upon my spirit this afternoon
is God's way of dealing with sin in our members and in this
world. God's people, however blessed
and favoured they are, however close they may live with the
Lord, they are still sinners. And they will still sin. And
it is very evident from these passages that we have read of
the existence of sin in our members. Paul says in verse 24, chapter
7, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? A number of years ago, when I
first came over here, working in a nearby office that I had,
was a person from another church. And they were saying, well, this
passage, this was before Paul was converted. I said, it never
was. Before Paul was converted, he
didn't even know he was a sinner. He didn't feel his sins. This
is the language and feeling of a converted soul. This is one
who's enlightened. This is one who sees and knows
of those sinners. We really need to remind ourselves
on this. It is not, the world is not,
the unconverted is not the unquickened that groan over sin. They may indeed smart with the
consequences of it, they do. And they may regret things that
they've done, or blame others for what they've done, or blame
God for what is happening, but they cannot know sin as a child
of God, no sin. They know sin as it really is
against the Holy God. They come in with David, against
thee. The only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sign. You say, but you've sinned against
Israel, you've sinned against Bathsheba, you've sinned against
Uriah. No, against thee the only sin
is the transgression of the law of God. and we are sinners. We would remember how the Lord
was given his name, his name shall be called Jesus, for he
shall save his people from their sins. And that is not just saving
them from the just condemnation due to their sins and to bring
them to heaven, it is saving them from sin here below, from
the power and dominion and defilement of sin in their members. And
it should be the concern of us each as to how we are to live,
how we are to live when we have this body of death. You know,
we didn't read the whole portion, but we left off where he was
speaking then of the creature made subject to vanity, And we
have the situation here below in our soul that is converted,
they have the two parts that we have, we have the flesh and
we have the spirit. And that spirit that is born
above is perfect, it is pure. It's not a regeneration of something. It is the new birth and it is
holy right from the start, it is pure. And all the time, It's
contradicted and fought against by the flesh, the fallen animal
instincts and anti-God of the flesh. We think of this in the
resurrection, then there shall be the body resurrected pure,
and in heaven we shall have a body like we have here, glorified,
and the soul and no conflict between them. We cannot even
think about what that must be like. Because all the time here
below there is that wrestling and that conflict between the
two. But in heaven that will not be so. The conflict is here. And the Church of God needs to
know how will the Lord have me to walk here below in this situation
God has appointed it. He hasn't said it's going to
be different than this. No, He has said man has got a
body and a soul. I'll quicken that soul into life. But while they're here below,
they've still got a body of sin and death. But I will so deal
with it. I will so order it in such a
way that I'll be able to get safely through this world. and
to glory, even though they've got all of this opposition from
within and they're grown within. One of our hymns says, sinless
perfection we deny, the chief of Satan's wilds. If there are
those of you that think, well, if I am to be a Christian, I
need to be sinless. That lust, that evil thought,
those evil desires, those are going to be completely gone before
I can be a Christian. That is not going to be the case. We have right to our dying day,
that opposition, but how we deal with it, how we act under it,
that is what is very important. And that we deal with it in God's
way, not in man's way. We deal with it according to
the Word of God, not according to our own thoughts. You know,
Paul here, he speaks of the experience of sin in his members. He's been
brought by converted so that he says, I would do good. But
then he says, when I would do good, that evil is present with
me. And the evil that I would not, that I do. You say, Paul,
if you don't want to do it, just don't do it. But those of us
who know the opposition, we know the strength of sin, how it rises
up. He says, but if I do that which
I would not, there's no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. Sin that dwelleth in me. Just
rising up, just defiling the whole person. This is his experience
after conversion. He says, when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. The law was made the means of
showing him to be a sinner, and it wasn't everything, it was
one point. Whoso offendeth in one point
is guilty of all, and that was the sin of lust, of evil concupiscence,
evil sexual desires. That was what brought him in
as a guilty sinner. And he knew then that he was
a sinner in every aspect. We said this morning, the law
is a schoolmaster unto Christ. And we set forth the Lord Jesus
Christ as the only name given among men whereby we must be
saved. The only savior. Our hope not
in our own works and not in our own efforts, but solely in Christ. But then, What are we to do? Are we to try and use our own
willpower? Are we to use our own efforts
in that way? If we were to succeed, it wouldn't
bring glory to God and wouldn't necessarily bring us close to
God at all in that way. If it's independent from the
Lord and independent from His grace, and independent from His
help, but God has got in His Word, and especially in these
portions here, the directions in how we are to act. I may have said this morning,
but it's very important we stick very closely to the Word of God,
because man has all sorts of his own ideas. that he thinks
are better than the Word of God. But they're not better than the
Word of God. And perhaps to give one example,
one discriminal habit, the brother some years ago, it wasn't in
our denomination, but he was fighting for with one of our
articles of faith. One of our articles says that
the invitations of the gospel, they are to characters, they're
not just invitations just spread out, they're the characters.
So when you read that whosoever thirsteth, let him come to the
waters and drink, the character is one that thirsts, and the
invitation is to a thirsty sinner. Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness. Well, this person said, well,
if there was a race outside of my house, and if I put some water
and put a sign, free water. Then people running along, if
they were thirsty, they'd stop and get some water. But if I
put, free water if you are thirsty, he said people would come and
they'd stop and they'd say, I don't think I'm thirsty enough, we'll
leave that for someone else. And he said, so you're putting
up a barrier all the time for them to take that water, because
they've got to think, am I thirsty enough to take it? And it sounds
good to reason, doesn't it? It sounds good, a good theory,
but it's not Scripture. It's not what the Lord has said.
The Lord has put the label of those that are thirsty. And if
you and I are made to hunger and thirst and to desire, then
long for the things of God. Like the woman at the well of
Samaria, the Lord led her on. Lord, give me of this water to
drink. She thirsted for it, she wanted
it. And the Lord gave it to her.
Strange way, wasn't it? Go call thy husband. That's the
way the living water started to come to her, convinced of
sin. I have no husband. The Lord says, Thou said truly,
thou hast no husband. Thou hast had five husbands,
he that thou hast is not one husband. And the very thing he
touched was the thing she knew about Messiah. When he cometh
he shall tell us all things. So it is vital we stick close
to the Word of God, not just thinking, well, our theories
are better than the Word of God. And God will own what he has
put in his holy inspired word. So I want to look at three points. Firstly, what is our incentive
to not want to sin? And what is our motive that is
wanting us to not sin? And then secondly, a warfare. I want to really highlight this,
that the battle with a sinner, with his own sin, it is not just
a smooth and easy path, it is a warfare. And then thirdly,
God's Word, the way that also brings us to Him, His direction
to dealing with sin. So firstly, what is our incentive? First, we might even ask this
question. Does sin trouble us? And do we
want to be rid of it? Do we want to cease from sin?
Are we perhaps like some of us, so falsely teach that we can
sin that grace might abound? Paul deals with that in Romans
6. He says, God forbid. How shall
we continue in sin? Are we mindful that sin is actually
working in our members? Remember before I was called,
I used to indulge in sin and never viewed it as that, never
troubled about it, never wanting to cease from sin, not mindful
at all of it. It does us good to ask this afternoon,
where are we? Are we mindful of sin? Do we
come to the end of the day? Do we view the day and view our
actions, our thoughts and what we've done and identify that
there's those things that we are crossing the boundary, we're
transgressing the law of God. And we don't want to continue,
we don't want to, continue in sin. But what is our incentive
to do it? Now those of you that may have
been studying at school, if you want a good job, if you want
a place at the university, your incentive for being diligent
in your studies and for passing those grades is that you know
that at the end you're going to get a position in that university. We're used to, in life, to having
something that drives us towards an end, an incentive to do it. And so regarding sin, what is
our incentive? What is at the end of it? Well,
it's not to merit heaven because if we were by our own works to
achieve even sinlessness. That would not, is not possible,
but that is not God's way of attaining heaven. The way to heaven is through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for his sacrifice. So it's
not by works of righteousness which we have done. So then what
is the incentive? And what is the motive? If we are born to love the Lord
Jesus Christ, then that which He has suffered for, bled for,
how can we harbour that? How can we carry on in that sin? We know that the sins that the
Lord bore upon the cross are those sins that His people had
in Adam, original sin, They're the sins that they shall commit
in their lifetime, in their unregeneracy, and when they have been called.
All of those sins He has borne. And shall we just go on adding
to that sin, adding to that amount, to that account? One of the effects
of calling is not only that we want heaven, and that we want to be saved,
but we want to be free from sin itself. We hate sin. And our
incentive is that we shall have that fellowship with the Lord. How can two walk together except
they be agreed? How can it be that we serve God
and serve Heaven? How can we go and be like Israel
of old, that serve the Lord and in turn their backs and they
serve idols. That one moment we're feeding
upon the word of God and the next we're feeding upon anything. We're feeding the soul one moment
and feeding the flesh the next. Without the soul grieving over
sin, mourning over it, there's really not an evidence of being
quickened into divine life and to, like the hemorrhoid, I hate
the sins that made me mourn, that drove me from my breast. We are not to grieve the Holy
Spirit, whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption. And
it is the joy of the child of God to have fellowship, union,
communion with the Lord Jesus Christ here below, to walk together. And while walking in sin, the
Spirit is grieved and we will not walk together. Our motive
for being free from sin isn't that we just want to be self-righteous,
to be pleased with ourselves. I remember a spot in the road
in Australia where they're driving along and I was praying to the
Lord, and I said, Lord, I'd be a much better Christian if I
hadn't got all of these evil thoughts and lusts and all of
my old nature. If I was only to take that away,
I'd be a much better Christian. And I believe the Lord showed
me I wouldn't. I wouldn't have anything to do
with the Lord, I wouldn't need Him, I wouldn't seek Him, I wouldn't
pray to Him, I'd be good enough without Him. We need to think, what is it? Why do we? And do we want to
be free from sin and why do we? What is our motive for it? Has
the Lord given us His love? Has He shown us what sin is and
what it costs Him to redeem us, and the sufferings, and the hiding
in His Father's face? We need to think of this, what
is actually moving us, what is actually making us to mourn over
sin and to really want to think, well, this afternoon, preacher,
I'd like to hear how I am to deal with that, can you give
me an answer, can you give me some help, how I can get through
a day and through a week, how I can live as a Christian should
live, while in this body and in this world, so that I do that
which is pleasing in thy sign, and have thy presence and thy
blessing and answer and good conscience before God, even though
I still remain a sinner. It's a good thing to have that
desire and come to the Word of God, Lord, teach me. I want to look then secondly
at the warfare. It is a warfare. I want to just
bring before you some of those texts that really show this. In Hebrews 12, the Lord says
this, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against
sin." I've often been very thankful for that verse. Striving against sin. That is what we are called to
do. That's not an easy thing. It's a hard thing. And it doesn't
mean to say that we actually succeed. There's another illustration
as well that I found helpful in that same way. In the law,
in the five books of Moses, you read a law which concerns a woman
that is raped, as it were, forced in the field. If she is found
in the field and she wasn't able to overcome her attacker, she
is not guilty. She cried out and there was none
to hear her. But if one was found in the city
and forced in the city, she was guilty because she didn't cry
out. The implication is if she had
have done, then there were those who would have come to her help
and would have stopped her from being violated. Now I've been
encouraged in this, the Lord sees when we are like that woman
in the field and we cry out and we resist, but we still fall
and we are still wounded. The Lord doesn't hold it against
us. because he has sinned. He sees
the struggles that prevail, the hymn writer says, between the
powers of hell and sin, between the soul, and may we remember
this, and it's not an easy path. It is a path where we resist. We're told, resist the devil
and he shall flee from We say, what power have we against the
devil? We have none at all. But we have
God's word that says you are to resist. As seemingly useless
we might say as it is, because we have the authority of the
word of God, then we can do it, we must do it. And it is God
that sends him on his way. Another interesting example from the scriptures,
I've often been very encouraged with as well, is in the book
of Esther. In the book of Esther, there
is the sentence of death that Haman managed to get upon all
the Jews. And there is distress, there
is sorrow because of that sentence of death. Then the Lord had raised
up Esther, she made intercession, Haman was killed, but then there
was still this sentence. And of course, the rule of the
Medes, the Persians, they couldn't change that law. They couldn't
just say, well, forget it, we'll just scribble it out and there
won't be that day, there won't be that sentence. No, that had
to stand. It's like this entombs them in
the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That's
statins. We are sinners and we are under
condemnation and separation from God. But in that case, the king
made another law. And that law was that the Jews
had the authority to stand against those that attacked them. And
even before that time came, there was joy and gladness with those
Jews. They rejoiced. You say, why are
you rejoicing? You're still going to be attacked.
And they would have said, but we have the authority of the
king to resist. And that was so real that even
those that weren't Jews became Jews because of the fear of the
Jews. Now you think of that in the
gospel day. God has given us Weak as we may feel to be, He
has given us His authority to resist the devil and to strive
against sin. Though we may feel to have no
power nor might, because He has given that authority, we should
rejoice like those in Esther's day. It's a blessed thing to
realize The secret, the blessing, is in that beautiful word describing
our Lord, His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins. And it is through His word and
through His blessing upon the Word and upon them following
the directions that He has given to do. Not reasoning it out,
but walking according as He has said to do. And each one that
the Word directs us to, then that glorifies God, it magnifies
God. Doing our own way doesn't, but
doing it the Lord's way does. You imagine if you were an employer
and you'd got an employee that was doing a specific work or
job, and you gave them a list of directions what to do. And
after a while you went out to see them doing it, and they weren't
doing it. And they said, oh, we thought
of a better way, we've got a different way, this is what we're doing.
Wouldn't that employer be upset? Wouldn't he think, well, this
employee is saying I know better than you? And what if God sees us and we
say, well, we don't worry about the Word of God, we're going
to do it a different way. We're going to do it our way.
The world has lots of ways of psychology and ways of dealing
with things and mind training and all that sort of thing. We'll
go and mow those things. But that's not God's way. And
so it's important we stick close to it. We think of that in to the Ephesians, where he exhorts
in this to take on us the whole armour of God. Again, it has
that emphasis that this is a warfare, this is not something that is
easy, it's not something that doesn't require effort, but the
Lord has given his people that armoury, if you like, that we
have in Ephesians 6. Finally, my brethren, be strong
in the Lord and the power of his might. See how the Lord is
getting the honour and the glory. It's not strong in ourselves.
Put on the whole armour of who? Of God. And what is that armour? Why is it given? That we may
be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. And of course,
the devil stirs up all of the sin that is within us. We wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto
you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in
the evil day, having done all to stand. The first thing he
says, God says through Paul, having our loins girt about with
truth, a breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace, and as a shield, the shield of faith,
that is quenching all the fiery darts of the wicked. That's what
our Lord did in the temptation in the wilderness, every time
Satan came, tempted him to do wrong, command these stones that
they might make bread, it is written, it is written, man shall
not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God. When he then, Satan takes the
word of God, and he says, cast thyself down from this pinnacle
of the temple, In his written, he shall give his angels charge
over thee. No, says the Lord, he's written
the game. He compares scripture with scripture. Thou shalt not
tempt the Lord thy God. And all the time what is being
used is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, or
the truth of God as a shield quenching those darts. It's good to be armed with scripture
that you memorize and that you know, and is able to come, and
stops the devil in his tracks, and is blessed that the Holy
Spirit brings to our remembrance in those times. I mentioned it
years ago, I was working for Australian over here one month,
I hadn't done enough work, when I came to put my invoice in, You just put your full amount
as if you'd worked it and you can make it up the next month.
In other words, falsify your invoice. And that thought came
in so quick that before I ever put pen or could process it at
all, immediately the scripture come to mind, a poor man is better
than a liar. And it just stopped it like that.
Now I don't know when before that I'd read that scripture.
But the Lord brought it and it immediately stopped entering
into that sin. I've never forgotten the time.
And we need, we need the Word of God in that way. Take the
helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word
of God. Pray always with all prayer. And this was said before
us here, it's God's Word. of dealing with sin, of dealing
with Satan, of dealing with those temptations to sin. It is a battle, and it is a fight,
and that may be a real helm to some of you that find it like
that, to find that the Word of God actually tells it exactly
what you're finding. Your experience is backing up
the Word of God. It doesn't say that you're going
to so conquer The next day you won't have this battle. We're
the children of Israel, there were many times, they had many
battles, didn't they? The Lord gave them conquest,
but then the enemy rose up again, and they had him fighting again,
and we'll find that as well. There'll be those happy times
when we have conquest over sin and death and hell, but then,
again, we have another Another trouble, another difficulty. And then that also sets it before
us, not just as a warfare, but as a painful part. Our Lord Jesus
Christ was crucified, which is a slow and a painful death. And we're exhorted to also crucify. to take up our cross, that we
are crucified with Christ. The Hymn writer says, crucify
this self, that I no more may live but Christ in me. And sin
will be, it'll be a painful death, dying unto sin. Our Lord speaks of it, as if
thine eye offend thee pluck it out, thy hand hath found in thee,
cut it off." Not literally, but illustrating how hard it is,
how painful it is to deal with sin. Because our old nature loves
it, it goes after it, it wants it, and it remains the same. It doesn't, as we get older,
it doesn't get less, as we know the Lord more, it's still the
same. but the remedies, hopefully we have tried them, we've proved
them, and we have recourse to them again and again. In our text here, it sets forth
one of these. If ye live after the flesh, ye
shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds
of the body, ye shall live. Mortify the deeds of the body. If there were two children in
a family and the family said, well where do you want to go
for your day off, your holiday? One said you want to go to the
beach, the other one said you want to go to the zoo. You can't
go to both the places. So they made the decision which
one they go to and the other one who doesn't get their way,
they feel mortified. They feel they've got to go along
with the other one, they've got to be dragged along with them,
but they'd rather be doing something else or going the other way.
It's a dent in pride, a way to do something which you don't
really want to do. And if we are mortifying the
deeds of the flesh, the flesh is saying it's being dragged,
kicking and screaming into the ways of the Lord. to reading
the word of God, to attending upon the means of grace, instead
of going what it wanted to do, to indulge the flesh, or going
the ways of the world, instead of thinking upon evil and meditating
upon that, to be meditating upon the word of God. And the flesh
doesn't give way to evil, easy, it's mortified, it doesn't like
it. We must not think, if we are
walking in the way God would have us to go, that the flesh
just takes it lying down and is just happy with it. No, it
hates it, it resists it all the time. And a good thing in prayer,
to come before the Lord and say, Lord, I'm asking, I'm seeking
for help to deal with these sins, but really there's a lot in me
that wants to do them, and doesn't want me to pray against them,
It wants me to pray a lot, but not about that and that, because
it wants to be still going on in that way, wants to still look
at those things, it wants to still spend time doing that,
it wants to still think in those patterns, and we need to confess it before
the Lord and say, Lord, this is the struggle that I have,
and I'm making a very poor do of it, and I need thy grace and
I need thy help, to be delivered from it. Now I really want to
emphasize this second point. It is, it is a warfare. It is not an easy path, and may
we be able to say this, it is God's purpose, it is God's will
that it should be a warfare. It's not because you're a failure
of a Christian, not because you are not upholding the faith,
is God's purpose, that His people hear, this is not your rest,
this is enemy's ground, this is not the time of peace, that
is in heaven, here below it's fighting. And you see what a
seal to the work of God, all the time the world is there,
all the time it's beckoning, the old nature is still the same.
What a triumph is grace, what a triumph is the work of God.
who should bring that sinner to be fighting against the world,
against the devil, against the flesh, because of the faith and
the life of God that God's given in the soul. The grace of God will surely
be tried, and all of these things round are trying it, are testing
it. And then in some, sadly, like
Paul said of Demas, ye have forsaken me, having loved this present
world. Those who have gone back, those
who have rather than fought, they've given away and gone with
it. Well, some, like dear David, he fell, but then was brought
to repentance and brought back. But sin is a bitter thing. And
when we spoke about the incentive, when you think of those like
David, the sword shall not depart from thine house. He was forgiven. He was pardoned, but while Psalm
51 shows his real repentance and the consequences of sin,
you think of Jacob. He deceived his father once,
and then he was deceived by Laban in the thing that pierced like
anything when he thought he was marrying Rachel and he was given
Leah. Laban changed his wages 10 times
during that 20 years. Deceived 10 times. And then his
sons deceived him regarding Joseph. A beast has devoured him, but
he was alive all the time. If anyone thinks that sin is
a light and easy thing, you look at those characters and their
lives, and it has consequences. Though we might be saved, though
we might be forgiven, yet sin, we will reap what we sow, we
do. I want to look thirdly at God's
way, the Word of God, and that brings us to Him. I want to really think especially
of this Romans 8, because this is where Paul follows on He answers
this question, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? He says that the spirit of life,
the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me
free from the law of sin and death. And how then does he speak
of it? And it is walking. He says in
verse four that the righteousness of the Lord might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Can
you picture these two people walking along? And one person's
walking after that person, another person's walking after that person.
That's what it's like, you're following. The Lord Jesus says
when he puts forth his sheep, he goes before them and they
follow him. And this is the picture here.
We have the flesh, and we have the spirit, and we have a following
after either one or the other. We're to follow after the spirit. They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. Here's another picture. Minding. What are we minding? What are
we thinking of? What's our thoughts and affections
on? It says in verse six, to be calmly
minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life
and peace. And those are two ways that are
directed in our minds, our thoughts. Nearly every sin, it begins in
our thoughts, our minds, our affections. Paul says that in
verse 25 of chapter seven, I thank God through Jesus Christ our
Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God. I think
we mentioned this morning about repentance. Repentance is never
perfect in this life, but it is a change of mind. It is a
wanting to change, a wanting to turn, and desiring to turn,
and the Lord sees that. There is joy in heaven over one
sinner that repented. And the Lord Jesus is exalted
to give repentance and remission of sins. And so we have the directions
in this text, in the mortifying, and then in verse 14 after, the
being led by the Spirit of God. Well, the Spirit of God is the
Word of God. We don't want fresh revelations. Some says, I need a word for
this or a word for that. But as to how we are to act in
this life, it is to the law, to the testimony, to the word
of God. David says, thy word is a lamp
unto my feet, a light unto my path, wherewithal shall a young
man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto unto thy word. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way that thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine
eye, with the people of God. Commit thy way unto the Lord.
Trust also in him, he shall bring it to pass. He shall give thee
the desires of thy heart." And he sent those desires directed
by grace, by the Lord Jesus Christ. The fear of the Lord. By the
fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. It is vital for us
to have the fear of the Lord. One of the hymns speaks of all
the benefits, I think 2-5-4, of the fear of the Lord. It is through that that men depart
from evil and from the snares of death. We read in the New
Testament church, we have the case of Ananias and Sapphira,
we have the case of the Apostle Paul who was converted And we
read there that the churches then were edified, and they were
walking in the fear of the Lord. That the Lord is a real reality
to us. He is our Heavenly Father, that
we desire to, like a child that loves their father and their
mother, they desire to do that which is good in their sight,
to have fellowship, friendship, one with another, and peace together. And we walk in that fear that
the Lord sees us. He will correct us, He will chasten
us, He will deal with us when we sin. We read in, again, as
we began with Hebrews 12, that the Lord corrects or chastens
every son whom He receiveth. The Lord will deal with us with
our sin and will bring us back. But He uses those things to make
us willing then to forsake our sin and to strive against it
and to walk in His ways. But each way of God's way always
directs us to Christ. We are not to forget His sufferings.
We are not to forget His death. His putting away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself was painful, terribly so. It was long. It was a death as a spectacle
to all those round about, and it is so with us as we walk through
this world. May we have a clear view of what
a redeemed, saved, washed sinner is. They are not perfect saints,
but they are those whose life, struggle and efforts not to go
in heaven by their works, but to walk and do in that way that
is pleasing to God. They hate sin and love righteousness
and seek to walk in the ways of the Lord. Peter says, be holy
for I am holy. The Lord is a holy God and have
his dear people to walk in those holy ways, upright ways, godly
ways. And may we be encouraged and
help them that God has given that plan and way for us, here
below, in this world, as sinners, to live to His honour and glory. May the Lord add His blessings.