I'll do something tonight that
I've not done in the five family conferences that I've been privileged
to share in by way of ministry, in that I will not be directly
touching the subject assigned to me, and my reasons are very
briefly this. I came away to the conference
unsettled about the form of the last message, the precise focus,
and a number of general thoughts and directions floating around
in my head and on paper. And the time that I had purposed
during the conference to spend in finalizing the last study
was rather given over to very real pastoral problems, and people
have come under distress of soul, and I have felt constrained to
give myself to their needs. And I do not feel qualified to
handle the final message on union with Christ in a way that would
be to your edification, and so I'm going to deal with the subject
that I feel more qualified to deal with in terms of an organization
and grasp upon the material. It's very fresh in my mind since
I preached on the subject just this past Lord's Day, and it
is not totally unrelated to the matter of union with Christ.
But if I were to give some kind of a structural relationship,
it would be a little artificial, somewhat like that illustration
I gave you on my feet with the tie and the hair last night,
that was sort of walking on half a leg the more I thought about
it. And so what I wish to do tonight is to speak to you on
the very practical subject of helps to dealing with remaining
sin. Helps in dealing with remaining
sin. And for a scriptural background
to the thoughts that I will share with you, I would ask you to
follow as I read tonight from Romans, the sixth chapter. Romans, chapter 6. And I shall read the entire chapter.
again reading with grotesque emphasis upon certain phrases
that recur again and again in order that they might stand out
in your own mind. Romans chapter 6. The Apostle, having expounded
the great truth that sinners are accepted before God as righteous
solely on the basis of the work of another, the work of Christ,
and they come into vital participation of that work, or a vital appropriation,
perhaps would be the better word, by faith and faith alone. Now, human logic goes to work
on that grand doctrine and says, all right, if I'm saved by the
work of another, and I am saved by faith that confesses I have
nothing to bring to God, but I simply lay hold of that which
is provided, then let us continue to sin in sin that grace may
abound." And so the Apostle addresses himself to that objection and
says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin
How shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that
all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
His death? We were buried therefore with
Him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might
walk in newness of life. For if we have become united
with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the
likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man
was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done
away, that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. For he that hath died is justified
from sin. But if we died with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ,
being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death no more hath dominion
over him. For the death that he died, he
died unto sin once. But the life that he liveth,
he liveth unto God. Even so, reckon ye also yourselves
to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body. Ye should obey the lusts thereof,
neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness,
but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your
members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have
dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid! Know ye not that to whom ye present
yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey,
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
But thanks be to God that whereas ye were slaves of sin, ye became
obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye
were delivered. And being made free from sin,
ye became slaves of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men
because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye presented your
members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity,
Even so, now present your members as servants to righteousness
unto sanctification. For when ye were slaves of sin,
ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that
time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end
of those things is death. But now being made free from
sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification,
and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. As I address myself to the very
practical subject of helps to dealing with remaining sin, I
wish to do so with three broad, fundamental biblical and theological
propositions forming the base upon which these practical exhortations
will be given. The order of scripture is always,
You are, therefore be. This is what you have, and in
the light of it, therefore, do. Doctrine is always the basis
of exhortation unto practice, and all exhortations to practice
are rooted in the realities of Christian doctrine. The doctrine
is unto practice, the practice is rooted in the doctrine. And so very briefly I wish to
state three biblical propositions, each of which is taught in this
sixth chapter of Romans and throughout the entirety of the Word of God,
which will be the platform upon which the exhortations will be
sent forth. And the first proposition is
this. All men, by nature, are under the dominion of sin. When the Apostle writes to the
Roman Christians, he generalizes their pre-converted state and
says it was true of each one of them that they were the bondslaves
of sin. And this concept occurs in the
strong language of verse 17 and verse 18. But thanks be to God that whereas
ye were bondservants, ye were slaves of sin. You were, as it
were, the property of another. Sin is personified into a living
master, and all of these Roman Christians are called, as to
their pre-converted state, the very bondslaves of this master
called sin. Again, in verse 18, the same
concept is used. Again, in verse 22. Our Lord
Himself said in John 8, 34, Whosoever committeth sin is the slave,
the bondservant of sin. And so the relationship of all
men by nature to sin is one of servitude. We are under sin's
dominion. And this servitude is a very
practical servitude. The Apostle says in verse 13
that you were presenting your members as instruments of unrighteousness
unto sin. He repeats it in verse 19. Ye presented your members as
servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity. In other
words, the doctrine of bondage to sin is not some kind of a
detached theoretical description. It is an accurate statement of
the case as it is. Sin, as it were, speaking through
depraved lust and unregulated passion, says, give me your eyes
to lust, give me your ears to receive false witness, give me
your feet to walk in forbidden paths, give me your hands to
touch forbidden objects, give me your affections to covet inordinate
objects, and we presented ears, eyes, hands, tongue, feet, and
all of our faculties without and within as the very instruments
of servitude to sin. The servitude then was practical. The servitude was pervasive. When you were the slaves of sin,
he said, you were like free men in regard to righteousness. You
did not recognize the claims of righteousness, as a free man
does not recognize the claims of a slave owner. He's a free
man, the apostle says. You regarded yourselves as free
men in regard to righteousness. So this servitude is not only
practical, but pervasive, and it is perpetual. For he says
that ye were continually the slaves of sin. This was your
constant state, eating, sleeping, drinking, waking, Every aspect
of life was but an expression of this servitude. And that's
the condition of everyone in this building tonight who is
not savingly united to Jesus Christ. What do you need to do
to become a slave of sin? You need do nothing but be born
a son or daughter of Adam. That's all. We were by nature,
the Apostle says, children of wrath, even as the rest. All
right? The second proposition, and it's
here in Romans 6 and elsewhere in Scripture, some men by grace
are no longer under the dominion of sin. All men by nature are
under its dominion, but some men by grace are no longer under
its dominion. The Apostle says in verse 17,
but thanks be to God that whereas ye were, that condition no longer
exists. Whereas ye were the slaves of
sin, ye became obedient to the heart, from the heart to that
form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered. And being made
free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. Some men are
no longer slaves of sin. They are, in the words of this
text, the slaves of righteousness. And of course, verse 22 repeats
the same sentiment. But being now made free from
sin and become servants to God, You are no longer the slaves
of sin. You are the servants of the living
God. And verse 14 is the most explicit
statement of this principle, that some men by grace are delivered
from sin's bondage. Sin shall not have dominion over
you, for ye are not under law, but under grace. The moment a
man or woman, boy or girl, comes into the orbit of the effectual
operations of grace, they are out of the orbit of sin's dominion,
and no one exists in both orbits at the same time. All men by
nature are within the sphere where sin is lord, but when grace
becomes operative grace unto free justification, that same
grace delivers men from that sphere of bondage to sin and
brings them into the state of freedom from that bondage. And so the second proposition
is clearly taught. Here, it is taught in Romans
8, verses 5 to 9. It is taught explicitly in Galatians
5, 19 to 24, and in 1 John, chapter 3, 1 through 10. These are the
most powerful statements in the New Testament demonstrating this
second proposition, this second assertion, some men by grace
are delivered from sin's dominion. But now there is a third proposition.
All saved men, though delivered from the dominion of sin, have
the remains of sin and corruption with which they must reckon to
the end of their days. All saved men, though not under
the dominion of sin, have the remains of sin and corruption
with which they must reckon to the end of their days. Now, don't ever start any view
of the conflicts and struggles and responsibilities of the Christian
life with Proposition 3. Start with 1, go on to 2, and
then and only then will you have a right perspective of the third
proposition. And it's interesting that the
chapters which most forcefully declare the believers' emancipation
from bondage to sin most explicitly assert the reality of the present
aggravation of remaining sin. Emancipation and aggravation
are put together in the closest of contexts. Here is Romans 6,
Ye were, but ye now are. ye once were, but this is your
present experience. But in the midst of that, he
says in verse 12, let not therefore sin reign, that ye should obey
the lust thereof. Though I have been delivered
from sin's dominion, I have not been delivered from the actings
of lust in my members. And I have a responsibility that
there will be no usurping of sin in my life. He goes on in
verse 13, in a way of exhortation. As you were voluntary and cooperative
in presenting your members' instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,
now there must be the same conscious, voluntary, cooperative yielding
of your members' instruments of righteousness unto God. Though the people envisioned
in Romans 6 are delivered from sin's dominion, there is still
remaining corruption. Furthermore, Romans 6 is followed
very closely by Romans 7. And what is the cry of the last
part of Romans 7, verses 14 and following, in spite of the fact
that certain well-known are not certain, but a well-known minister
in recent days has taken a position on this disputed chapter that
contradicts the historic understanding of it. May I just suggest that
the Apostle Paul was not careless in the use of tenses. And whatever
Romans 14, Romans 7, 14 and following teaches, it's interesting that
everything he says with reference to this problem is in the present
tense. The previous thirteen verses
deal with what we would call in English the past tense. They
are a description of something that happened historically in
the life of the apostle. But verse fourteen and onward
deal with a present reality, and that reality focuses on the
words of verse twenty and twenty-one. For if what I would not that
I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in
me. I find then the law that to me
who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
under the law of sin which is in My members, here is the man
who is fully cognizant of the great truth of Romans 6, that
some men by grace are delivered from the dominion of sin. And
he speaks of the great emancipation in chapter 6, but here in chapter
7 he speaks of the agitation of remaining sin. You have essentially
the same thing in the other great chapters of emancipation. Galatians
5, 19-24, you have the statement, here's the realm of the flesh,
19-21, verses 22 and 23, the realm of the spirit. And then
Paul says, they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with
the affections and the lusts thereof. There's been a basic
emancipation from the realm of flesh into the realm of spirit.
But verse 17 in that same chapter says, the flesh lusteth against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. And these two are
contrary, the one to the other, so that ye may not do the things
that ye would. Take again 1 John, great book
dealing with the emancipation. Chapter 3, whoever practices
sin is not of God. He that is born of God does not
make a practice of sin. But that's the same John who
says, if any man say that he have no sin, The truth is not
in him. These things I write unto you,
that ye may not sin, but if any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Likewise, in Romans
8, another great chapter of emancipation, having stated in verse 9 that
we are no longer in the flesh as the dominant sphere of spiritual
experience, but we are in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit
of God dwell in us, He goes on to say in verse 13 that we must
by the Spirit continue to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Though
we are delivered from the flesh as the realm and domain in which
we live and move and have our being, there is still the problem
of remaining flesh, remaining corruption, sin in our members
with which we must reckon to the end of our days. Now, in the light of those three
fundamental principles, I should like to exhort you, as time permits,
in the way of some practical directives assisting us in this
great conflict with remaining sin. Now, some may question the
very thing that I'm doing and say, is it right to give rules, Should we not simply just pray
every day, Lord, fill me with the Spirit, lead me not into
temptation, and deliver me from evil? Is not that enough? No,
my friends. The whole concept of warfare
is so patent in the word of God that we must learn spiritual
logistics in this warfare with the world, the flesh, and the
devil. And all of the principles that
I will set before you are ones that just bristle through the
pages of the New Testament and are wonderfully illustrated in
many portions of the Old as well. And there's no significance to
the Order except the first and last focus upon Christ, and any
consideration of this matter must have the focus there. So
the only significance is in what forms the beginning and the end,
and there is no real significance in what lies in the sandwich
in between. First of all, then, if by the
grace of God, when we leave this place, to go back into the mundane,
into the humdrum, into the place of duty and responsibility, how
are we to make progress in dealing with the problem of remaining
sin? Well, first and foremost, we
must—and here's the first exhortation—we must keep our hearts well supplied
with gospel motives. We must keep our hearts well
supplied with gospel motives. Now, what do I mean by those
words? Well, when I use the term, keep
the heart well supplied, I'm speaking in terms of such statements
as we find in Proverbs 4.23. Keep or guard thy heart above
all that thou guardest, for out of it are the issues of life. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. And if we may liken the heart
to a garden, a garden that grows weeds if it is not nurtured and
cultivated and cared for, but a garden which under proper care
can produce luscious, nourishing food, we then must keep the heart
well furnished. well-weeded, well-cultivated,
so that holy fruits may spring forth, not innately from our
hearts, but from that virtue which is in Christ and which
becomes our portion because we are united unto Him. We must then keep the heart well-furnished
with what? Well, with what I'm calling gospel
motives. And I'm using the term gospel
motives in contrast to legal motives. Legal motives and principles
would be such things as the fear of hell, the fear of the consequences
of our sin, perhaps even the fear of the chastening rod of
God. But as Owen has so clearly demonstrated
in Volume 6 of the complete works of Owen dealing with this whole
subject, These legal motives are conquered in sinners day
after day. And though they may for a time
be a barrier to some sins, in many people they are nothing
but a paper barrier. And in the heart of the child
of God there must be found flourishing, not legal motives, but gospel
or evangelical motives. And what do I mean by evangelical
motives? those motives that flow from
the genius of the gospel, those motives that flow from a present
sight of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. those
motives which flow from a trustful reliance upon and confidence
in the Lord Jesus Christ in all the beauty of His person and
in all the perfection of His work. Let me give you an example
of gospel motives working in the heart of a man to keep him
from sin and to spur him on to duty, one in the New Testament
and one in the Old. The Apostle Paul, of course,
is the great example in the New Testament. We read in 2 Corinthians
5 and verse 14, a text referred to last night and again this
morning, For the love of Christ constraineth me. The Apostle
describes the motivating power in his life as the love of Christ. that is, a believing, intelligent
apprehension of Christ's love to him. Now imagine that you
were privileged to follow the Apostle Paul through one full
day of his arduous labors. Suppose you could be with him
in the motel where he stayed between preaching engagements.
And you were awakened in the morning by the muffled tones
of his intercession as he rose early to seek the face of his
God. And then you followed him. as
he spent some of the morning hours in the local marketplace
button-holding people and seeking to accost them in the name of
Christ and lay before them the gospel in all of its majesty,
in all of its tender entreaty, and in all of the overtones of
divine urgency. And then you watched him as he
went back to his motel, and he prayerfully composed letters
that he asked you to take down to the post office, letters to
go to a church here and a church there and a church in another
place. And then you beheld him as perhaps he skipped the supper
hour to spend time gathering around him some of the leaders
in the local assembly and exhorting them to go on in the faith and
warning and charging them as a father with his own individual
children. And then you saw him go to some
public meeting hall and there he preached as a man who had
spent the day resting or relaxing. He preached with such energy
that some even thought he was demented and that he was beside
himself. And after seeing him through
such a day and following him back to the motel as he flopped
his weary bones upon his bed, you say, Paul, I've watched you
all this day. I've heard the urgent, fervent
pleading in your prayers. I've beheld you in your tender,
loving, consuming zeal for the conversion of sinners. I've seen
you pour your heart through your pen as you've taken the concern
of the churches upon you. I've beheld you preach with energy
and power and in demonstration of the might of God. Boy, oh,
what is it that drives you with that which borders almost upon
madness? What is it that drives you from
your bed to pray, drives you from the place of a recluse into
the peculiar dangers of the marketplace and the public ministry and back
to the secret place to yearn over the church's pall? What
is it that drives you? What is it that impulses you? The Apostle would answer, the
love of Christ constrains you. In my eye continually is this
awesome, this blessed, this glorious reality that the Son of God loved
me and gave Himself for me. And because of what He is and
what He has done, all of my debts to divine law have been paid. All of my forfeited privileges
of communion with God, all of those forfeited privileges have
been restored. And it's the believing sight
of the love of this Savior to me that constrains me, constrains
me to keep under my body constrains me to say no, even to the innocent,
that would impede my progress in grace and in usefulness. Here is a man moved by gospel
motives. In the Old Testament you have
the example of Joseph, the young man by strange providence deposited
in Potiphar's house. And in that situation, A woman
casts her eyes upon him and taunts him day after day, seeking to
seduce him, until one day in her frustration, when the scene
is set for his fall, she lays hold upon him physically, says,
lie with me. And his response is what? No, I dare not. What will happen
to my reputation? What will happen to my present
station? No, no, none of these things
are foremost in his mind. Whatever place they may have
played, the Scripture is careful to record that the answer of
Joseph was, how can I do this thing and sin against God? This God who had graciously preserved
him when his brothers sought his ruin, This God who had delivered
him, this God who had brought him into this place of position
and usefulness in Potiphar's house, this God before whose
eye he knew all of his life, was constantly lived. Here was
a man furnished with gospel knowledge. Now let me say by way of application,
If you are to keep your heart well furnished with gospel motives—and
you must, or you will make little progress in dealing with remaining
sin—there are three exhortations, one positive and two negative,
that I would lay before you. The positive is this. If you
are serious about dealing with remaining sin, then you must
seriously employ all the means of grace, public and private,
in order to keep your heart well supplied with gospel motives. If I'm serious about keeping
the garden in my backyard free of weeds, specific steps must
be taken to keep it free of weeds. If I'm determined that the plant
leaves shall be lush and green, then specific steps must be taken
to keep them lush and green. And so we've organized the children
into a band of many farmers who have their weeding chores every
morning, and if we go a few days without rain, one of them has
the watering chores and I have the fertilizing chores. And specific
Calculated steps are taken to keep that garden well furnished
with all that is necessary to have a good crop of vegetables.
No one ever has a heart well furnished with gospel motives
by sitting back and just hoping it will be so. For God has ordained specific
means in order to keep the heart well furnished with gospel motives. Some of those means are public,
some are private. Those public means, of course,
are the preaching of the Word. For in all true exposition of
the Word, Jesus Christ, in one way or another, is set before
us, the glory of His salvation, our need of that salvation and
its many dimensions. When the law is preached, it
is preached that we may discover its perfection fulfilled in Christ,
and our imperfections, that we may be driven to Christ. And
so the whole end of all true law preaching is to produce gospel
motives in the heart. The true end of opening up doctrine
is that we may see Jesus Christ as the lodestone of all truth,
and the end of opening up duty is to show us how we may demonstrate
our gratitude to the Son of God. And the opening up of the promises
is to ravish our hearts with the realization that how many
so ever are the promises of God, in Him is the yea, and through
Him is the amen to the glory of God. And I say to my dear
preacher friends, are you preaching the Word as you ought? Is Christ
Himself coming through, if I may say that without irreverence?
Is the Lord Jesus the great throbbing heartbeat of your preaching.
I do not mean do you sentimentally parrot the name of Jesus fifty
times in a sermon. I don't mean that at all. But if He is the great theme
of the Scriptures, you cannot be rightly expounding the Scriptures
and not have Jesus Christ and Him crucified as the great comprehensive
theme of your preaching. Perhaps the little progress that
some of your people are making in the area of dealing with remaining
sin is reflective of a ministry that does not have enough of
Christ in it. And it's the question I must
continually ask myself as a preacher. Can it be that the crippled walk
of my people is a reflection of their own spiritual starvation? Their hearts are not being irrigated
with that water of life that flows, not from Mount Sinai,
but from under the throne of God and of the Lamb. The irrigation of the heart must
come from that source. And the blessed privilege of
coming to His table, where there we have set before us invisible,
tangible emblems the heart of the gospel, my body broken, my
blood poured forth. And you see, the whole goal of
that table is not that you might come and while you sit take a
rake and just go through the muck and the corruption of your
own heart. Perhaps few texts have been more
misunderstood than the text in Corinthians, let a man examine
himself. And we think of it as though
it were written, let a man examine himself and so let him stew in
his sense of unworthiness. That's not what it says. Let
a man examine himself and so let him eat and let him drink. For that which I discern when
I examine myself is the more readily or that which I see is
a more clear view of my own corruption and need, and therefore all the
more my desperate need of Him who loved me unto death and poured
out His blood on my behalf. And there are fresh actings of
faith upon Him, the pouring forth of devotion to Him. And that's
the end of the private means of grace. To tell a young convert,
now that you're a Christian, read your Bible. No, that's poor
advice. Proper advice is, seek the Lord
in His Word. Seek the Lord in His Word. Don't be content to tick off
your McShane's calendar and say, I've read my chapter for the
day. I've been a good boy. Now I must
really stand. That's a legal perspective. For
if you read the Word, seeking Him in the Word, there will be
the realization that without Him I can do nothing. And you
spread your helplessness before Him as He is demonstrated in
His glory. The commands are not isolated
precepts. They are the words of your heavenly
Shepherd. What a difference when you read
the Bible that way. My sheep hear My voice and the
commands, whether they be in the area of the home, husbands
love your wives, wives be subject to husbands, children obey your
parents, employer-employee relationships, and all of the other definitive
instructions on ethical conduct. Let's never look at them as isolated
Christian regulations hanging out there in some kind of an
independent relationship from the Son of God. No, no. They
are the voice of the shepherd, the one who loved us, the one
who gave himself for us. And so if the heart is to be
kept well furnished with gospel motives, we must be diligent
in the use of the means of grace, not only public but private,
seeking the Lord in His Word, seeking the face of our Lord
as we pray. And the other means, I'll not
go into them. This is not meant to be exhaustive.
I just want to point the direction. The second exhortation, this
is a negative one, If you would make progress in dealing with
remaining sin, there must be the heart well furnished with
gospel motives. That means you've got to use
the means calculated to keep it well furnished. Secondly,
beware of anything which bleeds away the vigor and reality of
gospel motives in your heart. Beware of anything, no matter
how innocent it may appear, if it bleeds away the vigor and
reality of gospel principles in your heart. Whatever shrivels
your love to Christ and the believing apprehension of His love to you,
flee it like death itself. Some of you young men are starry-eyed,
and this rite has come across your path. Some of you young
women, everything's going flitter-flutter and flip-flop. Mr. Wright has come across your path,
and you've been praying very earnestly that God would bless
this relationship. And you've just about convinced
yourself that it's of God. I challenge you to ask this question,
is this relationship increasing? The vigor of gospel principles
in my heart Or is it bleeding my heart of gospel motives? Don't you tell me God gives you
a gift that in turn steals your affection to Him. Either it's
not His gift or you're abusing the gift. Either there must be a severance
of the relationship or a drastic alteration of what's involved
in that relationship. You apply this to the use of
your television, the literature you read, the exercise of Christian
liberty. I urge all of you, if you were
not here last year, to obtain the tapes of Pastor Chantry's
two messages on Christian liberty and self-denial. With the resurgence of understanding
of Reformed truth and one element of Reformed tradition as the
doctrine of Christian liberty, there is a subtle move abroad
to turn that blessed and holy truth into a license for sin
and spiritual carelessness. And when a man says, I'm rejoicing
in my freedom in Christ, and indulges in practices that bleed
away his love to Christ, something's wrong. For the appreciation of my liberty
in Christ, rightly understood and rightly implemented in practice,
will deepen my devotion to Him and my believing apprehension
of His love to me. Beware of anything which bleeds
away the vigor and reality of gospel principles in my third
exhortation, another negative, Beware of falling back under
legal principles. You see, the human heart by nature
is either an antinomian heart or it's a legalistic heart. It
either says, if I'm saved by the doings of another, it doesn't
matter what I do, or it says, since what I do is important,
what I do must be foundational to my standing with God. And
left to itself, the human heart will drive a man down the path
of antinomian lechery or into the cold lifeless legalism and Phariseeism. The New Testament
Church early needed the book of James and 1 John to counteract
antinomianism, and it needed desperately the book of Galatians
and Romans to counteract legalism. You will not make progress in
gospel holiness in dealing with remaining sin if you allow yourself
to come back under legal principles. Now, how does it work? It works
like this. If I've been a good boy or a good girl and I haven't
fallen before my besetting sin for two or three days, then I
don't need to come In the words of the hymn, saying, Nothing
in my hands I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling. When I've
just fallen before some area of particular weakness, When
I've been tripped up in some area of remaining sin, then I
have nothing, no pedestal upon which to stand as I appear before
my God. I come groveling in the acknowledgement
I've sinned. I have nothing to commend myself
to God. I must look wholly out of myself
to Christ if I am to find any access. My friend, if a few days
of relative victory over some specific lust or corruption makes
you assume any other posture than that which you had the moment
after you sinned, as far as your approach to God. You've fallen
back under legal principles, and it won't be long before you'll
fall again. For the way we are led into sin
is by being led away from gospel motives. And when it is some sense that
we've attained, the Scripture says, Let him that thinketh,
he standeth, tait heed. Blessed be God. So that's the
first and perhaps the most essential exhortation. The others I will
move through much more rapidly. In the second place, if you and
I would make progress with remaining sin, and it will be with us through
all our days, We must keep our consciences sensitive to the
guilt and danger of our sins in general and our peculiar areas
of weakness in particular. We must keep the conscience sensitive
to the guilt and to the danger of our sins. The battle against
remaining sin is difficult enough when we regard our enemies as
enemies, but if you begin to look at your enemies either as
friends or neutral observers, the battle is lost. Once in a
while, I watch an old gun smoke program with my son on a Monday
night. If the TV guide indicates there's not going to be too much
bloodshed or barroom scenes, And it looks as though it's something
that can be watched without the relinquishment of areas of Christian
integrity. And one of the scenes that always
is impressed in my mind is when the villain comes to town and
old Matt Dillon comes strutting out of the saloon to have a shootout. And the camera zeroes in on Matt
Dillon's eyes. And his eyes are fixed on one
spot. He's not looking around at Doc
Adams and tipping his hat, saying, how you doing, Doc? He's not
even winking at Katie. No, no. His eyes are fixed at
one spot. It's the gunman's right hand. That's where his eyes are fixed.
Because as he looks at that spot, he said, that thing is my enemy.
That thing on that man's hip And that hand that lays hold
of it, that's my enemy. And I'll watch every move, for
the moment I cease to do so, I'm vulnerable to death. My friend,
every remaining lust in you and me, if it could have its way, would
slay us. And the moment you begin to look
at any area of remaining sin as innocent or neutral, You're
endangered, terribly, frightfully endangered. And how are we to
keep the conscience sensitive, both to the guilt and the danger
of our sins in general, and our particular areas of weakness
in particular? We must bring our sins again
and again to the light of God's law in its full purity. not bringing our sins to the
law to come back under its condemning power, but to the law in its
purity as a revealing power. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. The Apostle says in 1 Timothy
that the law is good if a man use it lawfully, knowing that
the law is for, and then he describes the functions of the law. But
he goes on from showing how the law unveils outward gross sin,
and he closes with this phrase, and if there be any other thing
contrary to the sound doctrine according to the gospel of the
glory of the blessed God. In other words, the law is God's
instrument to reveal sin wherever sin exists. from the gross sins
of the flesh to the refined sins that are a contradiction of the
holiness demanded by the gospel. If you want a profitable Lord's
Day exercise in the afternoons, you take the larger catechism
in the section on the Ten Commandments, and you take one a week, praying,
O God, I bring my whole life to the searchlight of your holy
that you would reveal in me anything that is a contradiction of the
holiness demanded by the gospel?" And then read those questions.
What duties are commanded? What sins are forbidden? And
then you look up the Scripture references and allow the Word
of God, exposing the heart to that burning light of the Lord,
and you see something of the enormity the extent of your remaining
sin. But, oh, you must not only bring
those sins to the light of God's law again and again, but you
must bring those sins to the light of the gospel in all of
its glory. See your sins in the light of
the self-emptying of Christ. Say to that particular sin that
seems to have almost magnetic power in your life, it seems
to cling and adhere to you with an unusual force, say to that
particular sin, is it this sin that caused my Lord to leave
the ineffable glory of the Father's presence, to come to the confines
of a virgin's womb? Is it this sin that caused Him
to breathe as His first heir upon earth? the acrid smell of
a cow burn, the holy nostrils of the Son of God seared with
its first breaths. By the stench of a barn, is it
this sin that when my flesh yields to it or I yield to it, Bring
such delight to me for the moment. Is it this sin that caused him
who was the object of the adoring wonder of the angelic host to
become the object of the rude stare of dumb beast in a manger? Is it this sin that demanded
that mysterious humiliation? Bring those sins to the cross
of Christ. Hear the voice of the Son of
God, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Name your sin. Bring it to the
darkness that was expounded this morning, the darkness of Calvary. Bring the sin to the blazing
light of that awful darkness, for there is no light like the
darkness of Golgotha, to show sin in its true color. O dear child of God, keep your
conscience sensitive to the guilt and danger of your sins by bringing
them again and again to the light of the law in all its purity
and to the gospel in all its glory. Thirdly, if we would make
progress in dealing with remaining sin, We must not only keep the
heart well furnished with gospel motives, keep the conscience
sensitive to the guilt and danger of sin, but we must avoid all
the known occasions of sin except where duty demands otherwise. We must avoid all the known occasions
of sin except where duty demands otherwise. Our Lord said in Matthew 26,
41, Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit
indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. It is not prayer detached
from watching that will see us overcoming in temptation. It is not watching divorced from
prayer. We are to watch and to pray. And watchfulness demands the
engaging of all our faculties in the most intense observation
of where the enemy lies, how I am susceptible to his subtleties,
and avoiding those occasions at all costs unless duty demands
otherwise. John Owen said, he that dares
to dally with occasions of sin will also dare to sin. He that
dares to dally with occasions to sin will also dare to sin. He that will venture upon temptations
to wickedness will also venture upon wickedness itself. And I'm amazed again and again
in pastoral counseling how this simple principle is either not
understood or willfully ignored by so many of God's people. Here's
the person who bemoans the problem of irritability, and yet this
person knows that most of the succumbing to irritability comes
on the heels of a lack of normal sleep. And it was not duty that
caused you to cheat on an hour or two of your sleep. It was
an inordinate involvement in innocent social relationships. And the devil isn't concerned.
What keeps you from getting your necessary rest, just so long
as your sin rises to the fore and the name and testimony of
Christ is jeopardized because of you. Maybe some of you need
to stop groaning and moaning before God about the problem
of irritability and start disciplining your time schedule to get adequate
rest. Some of you mourn the fact that
Sunday mornings your minds are so distracted, your minds are
so dull that you have to go home and ask God to forgive you for
the kind of lame worship that you brought to Him. And all the
while the problem is you've not disciplined your Saturday night
use of the television. But about you young people, and
older people as well, single and married people, are you serious in praying, O
Lord, keep me pure in a lecherous age? Are you serious in praying,
O Lord, keep me from the sins that are slaying the thousands
on the left hand and on the right? Then you better avoid all the
known occasions of those sins. The Scripture says in Paul's
letter to the Corinthians, flee fornication! Flee sexual impurity! He didn't say pray about it,
he said flee it. Flee it! That means you don't
put yourself in physical surroundings that make fornication possible,
that make adulterous relationships possible. You don't begin the
innocent bantering with someone of the opposite sex who is joined
to another. You avoid the occasion. When
you find that in the presence of certain men and women there
begins to be, as it were, the untying of that holy veil cast
over your heart and your thoughts, avoid that person. Flee fornication. Dear young women, if you're concerned,
if you will never be the unnecessary provocation to impurity in a
man, you'll recognize that your clothing is not an amoral issue. And though we would shrink in
horror from a legalism that would legislate with inches skirt lengths
and other styles, the Scripture does say, let a woman dress as
becometh a woman professing godliness. Let her dress in modesty. Well, you can't tell me what
to do. My friend, if that's your attitude,
nothing would convince you. Till you go down before God as
a man or woman, saying, O Lord, my dress is not a matter of indifference,
it's a matter of gospel obedience. Lord, make me sensitive to what
is modest in terms of my station and calling in life, and my position
and relationship before and with other men and women. Avoid the known occasions of
sin. If we are to make progress in
dealing with remaining sin, we must learn to strike at the first
risings of sin. You see, the first proposals
of sin are often very modest. And we reason, I can go thus
far in compliance with its proposals, but no further. But remember,
whatever the first proposals of sin may be, its ultimate end
is always the same. Look at James 1, verses 14 and
15. Each man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own lust
and enticed. Then when the lust hath conceived,
it beareth sin. And the sin, when it is full
grown, bringeth forth death. It's a picture of conception
and birth, and then another generation. What happens? A man is tempted,
drawn by his own lust and enticed. Then when he consents to lust,
there is conception. Lust conceives and then gives
birth to sin, and the child which sin bears is death. And the two
generations are inherent in the first modest proposals. No matter
how modest those first proposals may be, the ultimate intention
is death. Like the lecherous man whose
hobby is seducing women, His first encounter always begins
with modest banter, but he has one end in view, the stripping
of that woman's virtue upon the altar of his own lust and ego. Do you believe that every sin
that comes to you saying, indulge me this little bit, give me a
little quarter here and a little bit there, do you really understand
its true intention? Christian, do you believe that
every stirring of envy, if it had its way, would lead to murder
and destruction? Every doubt of any phrase of
Scripture as to its authority, if it had its way, would lead
to ultimate denial of every word of Scripture? Do you believe
that every breathing of pride in its first stirrings, if it
had its way, would run and tear the crown from off God's head
and put it on your own? Do you believe that every unclean
thought, if it had its way, would lead actually to wallow in the
filth of lechery and immorality? Christian, if you believe that,
you'll start striking at the first risings of sin. And I've had occasion just this
day to know that this is not abstract theory. It's people
walking over these grounds that come and bared their hearts.
and had to shake their heads as if to say, how could it be?
How could this be? How could I or this one ever
be involved in such areas of sin and declension from God? The first proposals were modest,
almost blushingly modest. O dear Christians, strike at
the first horizons of sin. And then I close with the focus
with which we began. If we are to make progress in
dealing with remaining sin, we must look continually to Christ
for the killing of our sin. Mortification is to be done in
the strength and power of the Spirit, according to Romans 8.13.
If ye by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, and the
work of the Spirit is always in conjunction with and inseparably
joined to the objective work of Jesus Christ, the Spirit is
given in the context of the preaching of the gospel. Paul says to the
Galatians, Receive ye the Spirit by the works of the law or the
hearing of faith. And as the first communications
of the Spirit are given in conjunction with the gospel, the objective
realities of Christ and the glory of His person and work, so all
subsequent communications of the Spirit are given in the context
not of Spirit-centeredness, but of Christ-centeredness. He shall testify of me. He shall
take the things of myself and reveal them. And so, if we would
by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, it is a call to
look continually to Christ for the killing of our sin. Hebrews
12 is the great passage, and I would ask you to turn to it
as we close our study. Hebrews chapter 12. Therefore, let us also, seeing
we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses, lay aside
every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and
let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and
hath sat down on the right hand of God. For consider him that
hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that
ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls. Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin." Do you see the exhortation? There is a race before us. The
impediment to running the race well is sin, and there must not
only be the laying aside, but the looking, not only putting
aside the weights, but the considering of Him. And if we are to make
progress, we must look to Him of whom the Scripture says, Thou
shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins. all the saving from all the sin
and all the aspects of that salvation are attributed to Him. He shall
save His people from their sin, not only in providing the atonement,
the appeasement of divine wrath and anger, that there might be
a just basis of declaring those who believe in Jesus to be forgiven
and accepted But He shall save them from their sins in the remaining
aspects of that salvation, progressive sanctification and ultimate glorification. And therefore we're to look unto
Him. It's in the virtue of His death
and resurrection and our union with Him that we walk in newness
of life. Romans 6 and verse 4. And so if we are to make progress,
dear fellow believers, we must look unto Christ, the mighty
victor, the one who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. We are to look to Him as the
one in whom the virtue and the power resides, by which we may
overcome. But we must also look unto Him
as the great example in the great struggle with sin. That's the
emphasis of verses 3 and 4. Consider him that endured such
gainsaying of sinners against himself. Ye have not yet resisted
unto blood." He did. He resisted unto blood to bear
an aspect of sin that you and I as believers will never have
to bear. He swallowed up the full measure
of God's wrath against the sins of His people. Whatever agony
sin brings to us, whatever inward disturbance and agitation, whatever
throes of conviction and humiliation and repentance, we shall never
know one dram of what sin brought to our Lord, the fiery anger
of the righteous Judge of the universe. We may know His fatherly
frown, We may know, as the subsequent context indicates, His loving
fatherly rod upon our back to chastise us, but the glistening
rod of judgment was broken on the head of the Son of God, never
to be mended. Broken and cast away upon Him. You get weary of the conflict,
Christopher. Aren't there times when you say, Lord, if I could
just have one day when I served you with an unsinning heart?
Are you weary in the conflict? What about some of those pockets
of resistance, some areas of sinful patterns and attitudes? It's as though they were swept
away by the rising of the Son of Righteousness in your heart
when you were first drawn into union with Him. things that held
you in vice-like grip for years. The chains were broken and they've
never been a real problem, but oh, there's some other areas.
You wonder if you've made an inch of progress. You got those
areas? inward corruption, stirrings
of remaining sin and uncleanness that plague you and at times
torment you, and other times cause you to wonder, am I ever,
ever going to see release? Am I even a child of God? You grow weary? You're ready
to quit? Look unto Jesus. Look unto Jesus. You have not yet resisted unto
blood striving against sin. And why did He give Himself to
the pouring out of His blood, not just to turn away the wrath
of God? He loved the church and gave
Himself for it that He might sanctify it, purify it, present
it, a holy church. He died to make us holy. He died to make us good, that
we might go at last to heaven, saved by His precious blood. Dear child of God, when you grow
weary and quit, and as it were, just throw up your hands in despair,
you are denying the very intent of the death of Christ. Oh, look unto Him. in whom the
virtue resides, and who pours forth by the Spirit into our
hearts ever-increasing measures of that virtue, look unto Him
as the great example, and then finally look unto Him as the
One who will complete that work in the day when we shall be like
Him and see Him as He is. What strengthened our Lord in
the prospect of Golgotha, and I think Mr. McLeod's suggestion
was not just a rhetorical device. There is something sweet and
sugary about Calvary. There is something of the horror
bound up in Golgotha. What caused our Lord to move
resolutely to that awful place? The Scripture says, who for the
joy that was set before him endured. Dear child of God, Fix your gaze
upon Him who at His appearing is going to do something to you
and to me that will be nothing less than making us into His
own moral light. Every last stain of sin gone
and gone forever and more than that. Every virtue that we saw
in just seed form while here below will then begin to come
to its full and perfect fruition as we are ushered into His presence.
Oh, may the Lord help us as we live to the end of our days with
this problem of remaining sin, that in the conflict we may know
something of the grace and overcoming power of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Ah, but you say, Pastor Martin,
what do I do when I fall? My friend, your fall is within
the orbit of the gospel. Don't jump out into the orbit
of the law. And when you fall as a Christian,
rather than let that keep you from Christ, go quickly, go immediately
to Him. And as your sins are confessed
and there is a fresh application of the blood of Christ, you go
forth fragrant with that fresh knowledge that Jesus Christ is
indeed the Savior of sinners. And filled anew with gospel,
you are nerved again for the conflict. Amen.