Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to the chapter we read, Romans
chapter 7, and reading from our text, part of verse 13. Part
of verse 13. Sin, that it might appear sin. The whole verse reads, Was then
that which is good made death unto me? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear
sin, Working death in me by that which is good, That sin by the
commandment Might become exceeding sinful. Romans 7 verse 13, particularly
the clause that is in the middle of this verse, sin that it might
appear sin. And we would immediately ask
ourselves this question, does this then mean that sin can be
before us, presented to us, and yet it does not appear to be
sin. And that is exactly what is implied
here. And that work that the Apostle
Paul was subject of was a work of God that made sin appear what
it really was. We are told in the epistles of
John what the definition of sin is. In 1 John chapter 3 and verse
4, whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law. For sin is the
transgression of the law. A very concise definition of
what sin is. And we may add that that law
that it is a transgression of, or goes over the line and breaks,
is the holy law of God. That is the definition of what
sin is. Now in this chapter, the apostle
is writing to brethren. He says, know ye not brethren? And then he puts that Christ
speak to them that know the law. He's writing to brethren. And yet even amongst brethren,
we can become so hardened and so used to the way the world
refers to sin that we no longer view it as sin. It may be that
we are very familiar with speaking of gospel terms, that is, the
Lord Jesus Christ, for he shall save his people from their sins,
and referring to ourselves even as sinners. And we may be used
to that, accept that, accept that we are sinners. But when
it comes to the actual transgressions, those things that we do in our
lives, how often we view them not as sin. We do not see them
as what the apostle says in the end of this verse, that they
are exceeding sinful. Those that tell lies refer to
them as white lies. Those that fall where they've
just had a slip or a lapse. Those things that are done that
are so contrary to the law of God. They are passed over subconsciously,
looking upon them as if they weren't really that bad. And after all, aren't we under
the gospel? How easy it is to become an antinomian
or without law. How easy it is. that we should
walk in that previous chapter, and because we believe in grace,
that we continue in sin, that grace may abound. And again,
we may be very familiar with that chapter as well, with all
the doctrine that it speaks and sets forth, but if we fail to
take an individual sin, an individual act, an individual thought, those
things that we're actually doing, and we do not label them as what
they really are, or see them as the sin that they really are,
then the doctrines that we hold, the truths that we articulate,
are meaningless as far as we are concerned. Because we are
not being brought in guilty, occasion by occasion, day by
day, hour by hour, the court of our conscience is not registering
that actually what we have done is a most heinous, vile and evil
thing. It is sin. And we become accustomed
to calling sin by other names or not registering at all what
it is. And so the apostle here speaks
of a work of God that makes sin to appear sin. You know a fisherman, if he is
fishing with line, a hook and a bait, he makes that hook not
appear to be a hook. He makes the bait to appear most
innocent and that there is no harm in it at all. And of course
the fish, if deceived by it and takes it, then soon finds that
there is harm. that the hook snares it and their
life is taken. We have Satan that lays his baits. He makes sin to be not sin, a
very small thing. And we think of how it was with
the fall of man, how sin entered into the world And it came by
Satan tempting our first parents coming to Eve and challenging
the law of God. God had set a prohibition that
Adam was not and Eve was not to take of the tree of the knowledge
and of good or of evil. and that if they were to take
of it in that day, they would surely die. And Satan questioned
that. Ye shall not surely die. God
doth know that when thou dost eat of it, thou shalt be as God's,
knowing good and evil. He blackened the Lord, he made
that transgression of the law to be not bad. We read that our
first parents, they saw that the fruit of that tree, it was
good for meat, it was pleasant to the eyes, and it was good
to make one wise. The lust of the flesh, the pride
of life, the desire of the eyes, those things that are really
the whole picture of what sin is and what it goes after. And when sin then entered into
the world, and death by sin, and part of that death by sin
is that we do not even know what sin is. Immediately man began to die,
and though he lived many hundreds of years in those first days,
in the end it is, and he died, and he died, and he died. Why? The consequence of sin. Sin entered into the world and
death by sin. And we are used to death. We
have a gravestone outside this chapel, the first pastor that
ministered here. We're used to them around our
churches and in the graveyards. Our loved ones, those that we've
known and those that worshiped here, they've known what death
is. We've seen it. They're no longer
in the land of the living. Yet how often do we think of
death as being because of sin and relate that to what we do
in our lives. The reason why there is death,
there is suffering, there's illness, all of those things that are
not perfection here below all come because of sin. The whole creation, Paul says
later on in the Romans, groans and travails with pain because
of sin, because of death. The land, thorns and thistles,
the animals, the beasts, they die also. They have pain, they
have afflictions and sicknesses too and all because of man's
sin. Man's sin has affected the whole
creation and yet man himself does not look upon sin that is
still being committed and still being done and still walked out
as of that same nature, that same exceeding sinful thing that
is the means of all of the suffering and all of the sorrows in this
world and the means of the eternal banishment to the torments in
hellfire of a countless millions that never know the Saviour,
never know a way of escape from sin. They've gone through life,
not realising that they are sinners or what an evil thing sin is. But the apostle was like this
and every one of God's people are like this until the Lord
deals with them and works in their own experience so that
sin It is no use speaking of being
saved if you're not lost first. There's no use speaking of the
Lord as the saviour of sinners and the demeaning of his name,
for he shall save his people from their sins, that's why he
was called Jesus. If we do not know our sins, Nebuchadnezzar said a very true
thing to the wise men of Babylon when he'd had a dream and he
couldn't remember what that dream was. He knew he had one but he
couldn't remember it and he wanted them not only to interpret that
dream but to tell him what that dream was. And he accused them of preparing
lying words to him If he told them the dream, then they would
just make up an interpretation that had a long time in being
fulfilled. And by the time it came to that
time, then the king would have forgotten what it was and they
would got away with their deceit and their deception. So he said this, you show me
the dream. And I will know that you can
show me the interpretation thereof. And we can apply this in a spiritual
way. You show me a God that is able
to show a sinner that he is a sinner and what sin is and how evil
that sin is. And I will show you the same
God that saves from sin. And if you show me one that has
been shown by God that they are sinners and what a terrible thing
sin is, then I'll also show you one that has hope that the Lord
will not stop there but lead them on to Christ and show the
Saviour of sinners and the way of escape from the wrath to come
that they know is their due and that they are worthy to enter
into because of their sin. They justify the Lord in their
condemnation. We need as much the power the
sovereign grace and mercy of God to show that we are sinners
as to show us the saviour of sinners. How does this word find us, dear
friends? When we look at the things that
we do in our lives, when was the last time you said, within
yourself, I cannot do that, that is sin. Or having done that, come before
the Lord and say with David, I have sinned. I have transgressed thy law,
that we have registered what we have done. and are calling
it by the right name? Or are we so hardened that we
go through a day and we're constantly transgressing and sinning and
yet we never lay it to heart, we never really realise it? Our text says sin, that it might
appear sin. The Lord working a work and using
the law and the apostle speaks of it in his own experience. So I want to look with the Lord's
help this evening. Firstly, sin appearing to be
sin by the law. which is what the Apostle is
setting before us here. Secondly, sin appearing to be
sin by the Lord's chastening for it, by us reaping what we
have sown. And then thirdly, sin appearing
to be sin by that sin laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ and we
seeing it laid there and what it cost him to save us from our
sins. But firstly, sin appearing to
be sin by the law. Because sin is the transgression
of the law of God, God is pleased to use that law to convince of
sin. The Apostle here shows by the
illustration of marriage in the first part of this chapter that
a law only has dominion over man as long as he is alive. When we die then the law does
not have dominion over us. In one sense it does, you may
say, because when someone dies and that person needs to be buried,
then the law of the land does have laws that cover that, that
the relatives have to cover. But that person personally is
outside of the realm of the law and especially this is the case
with marriage which we're very familiar with the marriage vows
and the term till death us do part and that is what the apostle
sets forth here. But then he sets forth the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ and that in a spiritual way For a
believer, they become dead to the law by the body of Christ. When one is baptised, they're
baptised into his death, that they are buried with him by baptism
into death and risen again in newness of life. And he says
it is by this that we become then dead unto the law. But first there is to be a falling
under that law and to be convicted by that law. He says in another
place that the law is a schoolmaster unto Christ. The law is good
if it be used lawfully. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. He gives this as the reason why
the law of God was given at Mount Sinai when the children of Israel
were formed into a nation. He says in Romans 5 that death
reigned from Adam until Moses. And of course, the reason why
death is raining, why they died, was because of sin. There was
a law. It wasn't written. But then the
apostle says, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Now governments, they make laws
all the time. And our policemen, they enforce
those laws. But if there's not a law, they
cannot enforce a law. And if a law is not broken, someone
cannot be brought before the courts of our land and brought
in guilty. They need the law first. And
then they need to be convicted of breaking that law. And then
the force of that law, the penalty of breaking that law, falls upon
them. All of those that are saved are
brought to know that not only Adam, but also all his descendants
are under that law, that they also have sinned in Adam, that
the sentence against the broken law is also upon them, and that
they themselves in their own lifetime are sinners as well. We don't just look back to Adam
and say, well, he was a sinner and we are his descendants, we
die because he sinned, but we are not partakers of that, we
don't sin, we do. And it is through the conviction
of our own personal sin that the Lord brings about a personal
salvation So the apostle here speaks of this in his own case. He says that he himself, in verse
7, had not known sin but by the law. And the Lord was pleased
to use one particular sin that he was convicted of and that
was the sin of thou shalt not covet. He says, but sin taking
occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,
that's evil sexual desire, for without the law sin was dead. And he says of himself that once
he was alive without the law, In other words, he thought, and
he was a Pharisee, he was right for heaven, he was doing everything
right, serving the Lord right. He didn't view himself as a sinner,
as one that was broken the law of God, until the Lord brought
one law into his heart and convicted him of it, that he was guilty
of that sin. And you know there's such a difference
between just reading about the law and reading about sin and
having one sin being brought into your heart and being utterly
convicted that you are guilty of that sin. And if the Lord
brings that in, you won't get out from underneath it. You won't
be able to shake it off, you won't be able to just excuse
it, you won't be able to go long without that returning again
with a piercing arrow into the soul, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. Now Paul only mentions one for
those Ten Commandments. No doubt all of us, we have broken
all of them, but the Lord has been pleased to use very often
one commandment. Sometimes it has been the commandment
concerning the one day in seven. Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy. Those that despise that and they
say, well, God has given us seven days for all of our pleasure
and our work and everything. But no, God has given six days
and one day he's given for his worship. It was hallowed at the
day of creation. It was sanctified and changed
to the first day of the week in the rising of our Lord from
the dead. But whatever day may be observed,
the principle of six days for ourselves and one day for the
Lord remains through the scriptures. And those that do not give that
day unto the Lord, they are sinning in that way. They transgress
the law of God. It may be in particular ways
throughout that day. Maybe we've been brought up under
the sound of the truth and we say, well, we do keep the Sunday,
we keep one day for the Lord's day, but the Lord is pleased
to bring as a convicting power into our hearts that really,
we do not keep it wholly, we just keep it how we think it
should be kept, not how the Lord would have us to keep it. We
don't keep it for worship, we don't keep it for the Lord, but
for our own pleasure and our own ways. A day of rest, but
not a day of rest under the word, but a rest of pleasure. And that
is spending it on ourselves and not on the Lord. We think of
how the Lord, when he was upon earth, he magnified the law and
made it honourable. He said, the law says thou shalt
not kill. But if you are angry with your
brother without a cause, then we have committed murder in our
hearts already. The law says thou shalt not commit
adultery. But the Lord says, our Lord Jesus
says, that whoso looketh after a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery already with her in his heart. He is guilty
of that sin. Thou shalt not steal. We might
say, well, I've broken into no homes. I have not stolen anything. But have you falsified a timesheet? Have you not declared income
to the Inland Revenue? Have you taken those things which
really should belong to another and you've appropriated them
to yourself? Thou shalt not bear false witness
against thy neighbour as everything that we have said and about our
neighbour being true and being right. When we think of the holy law
of God, the first table of it, is towards God himself. Thou
shalt have no other gods before me. How many things do we worship?
How many things do we make as idols that we are forbidden to
make as idols? And how many times do we take
the name of the Lord in vain, speaking the name of the Lord
and yet with no reverence No fear, just as a swear word, we're
taking his name in vain. The Apostle Paul in our text
says that God uses this law, his holy law of God, and he brings
it into the heart, he brought it into his heart and brings
guilty. Who so offendeth in one point
is guilty of all. There are many that with just
a generalising way say that they are sinners and that they've
broken all the commandments. But it doesn't touch their heart,
cause sorrow or distress at all. But if you have one sin, that
the Holy Spirit of God fastens upon your heart so that you see
and know that that is sin, then that will appear sin. And by that commandment, the
commandment making it to be really what it is, it becomes exceeding
sinful. We may ask ourselves, is and
has a sin appeared to us as sin? Has by the commandment of God
one sin become to us exceeding sinful? Or is it that we've never
experienced what sin is at all? Conviction of sin is that vital
work of God to prepare a soul to need a saviour to be saved
from their sins. May we be really aware that a
soul that is born into this world is dead in sins It's like someone
having a deadly illness, but they don't know they've got it.
How often do we hear of those that suddenly are taken with
a cancer? Then we find out actually they'd
had some symptoms of it for years, but never realized it was serious. Never realized that there was
death on the road. It was ignored until too late. A solemn thing, if that is how
we are viewing sin. One of our hymns says, and is
a prayer to the Holy Spirit, convince us of our sin and lead
to Jesus' blood. The law then of God, which is
never meant to give life, it cannot give life, it can only
condemn, is still vitally necessary. And it's necessary right through
our lives that we know what sin is and call it by what it is
and that we view it as exceeding sinful. The Lord has another
way that he makes sin exceeding sinful to his people when they
have been quickened into life, when they are brought to know
the Saviour, to believe in him, and that is that he would chasten
them and correct them for their sins. No child that goes against
the commandment of a parent If they don't listen to the words
and warnings of that parent, then the parent will chastise
them, whether withholding some privileges, whether laying on
the rod, or some other way that is painful to the child, that
they know then that not only what they have done is against
the parent, but the parent has abused that, as a correctable
offence, an evil thing, and that child then feels the evilness
of it by what they suffer because of that sin. We read in Hebrews 12 that every
one of God's children are chastised. He chastiseth every son whom
he receiveth. If ye are not chastised, then
are ye bastards and not sons. Ye do not have a father, ye are
not part of the living family of God, if ye escape the chastening
hand of God. And we are told that no chastening
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, Nevertheless,
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them
that are exercised thereby. And again, I would say, if we
are under the chastening hand of God, and the Lord may use
many things in this way, whether it be sickness, affliction, things
going wrong in our family, enemies, adversaries, The Lord hiding
his face, withholding his blessings, leaving us in darkness, not answering
our prayers. There are those things that he
does for his people that they will feel because they know the
privileges and blessings of a child of God that those that are of
the world would never know and feel. But there are some things
that even the world will notice and feel. when the Lord withholds
the protection and care and help that we otherwise would have
had, takes down our hedges like he did to Israel, and their enemies
triumph over them. And by that they were to understand
the way of their sin and the evils that they were walking
in. The way of transgressors is hard. Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap. And we read a solemn word that
because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
the heart of man is fully set in him to do evil. If we get away with something,
then the likelihood is we will do it again. And if we get away
with it again, we'll do it again. And then eventually we feel that
we will always get away with it, and really it's not too bad
anyway. And the conscience is dulled,
the heart is hardened, and we go on in that way, unless the
Lord in mercy touches us and brings us again to see that sin
is sin, and that it is exceeding sinful. and the Lord for his
people will do it by means of the rod, by means of chastening,
and it is in love, it is in mercy, it is kindness of the Lord to
do it for his people so that they are not left to sin and
not realise and not feel that what they are actually doing
is sin. Sin that it might appear sin. Well, there is a third way that
the Lord works with his people, and that is to lead them to the
Lord Jesus Christ, who himself was made man, was born of a woman,
made under the law, and that he might redeem them that are
under the law. And it is through the Lord Jesus
Christ and through his death, not because he had to die because
of his own sin, but because he could die by a freewill offering
and laying down his life. No man taketh my life from me. I lay it down to myself. I have
power to lay it down. I have power to take it again,
this commandment have I received of my Father. And the Lord Jesus
Christ had laid on him in the garden of Gethsemane the iniquity
of all of his people. We see him pressed down, amazed
with the great amazement of the great weight that was laid upon
him. We read in Isaiah, they laid
on him the iniquity of us all. And we have a very vivid account
of that, how he felt it, how he bore that, how he endured
that. We read, they shall look upon
him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him and
be in bitterness for him. To see what our sins have done
to the Lord. You know, David, when he sinned
with Bathsheba and then murdered Uriah, the Lord, when he chastened
him for that, he had to see the son that was born of Bathsheba
die, and he had to see Absalom die. The sword should not depart
from his house. And he knew that the reason why
these things were happening was because of his sin. And though
his sin was pardoned, yet he was given a daily or an ongoing
experience of the bitterness of sin, lest he should forget
what it was, lest he should think that it was not exceeding sinful. And how much more when we have
set before us the Lord Jesus Christ, In the ordinances of
the house of God, we mention baptism before the Lord's death. We are to view the Lord's death,
view the rite with understanding, Jesus' grave before you lies. We think of the ordinance of
the Lord's Supper, as oft as you do this, you do show forth
the Lord's death till he come. Why did the Lord die? Why did
he suffer? Why had he the hiding of his
father's face? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Because of the sins of his people. He did not become and was not
made a sinner. that he was made sin for us. It was laid upon him and he bore
the weight of it and he bore the wrath of God due to it and
he bore all that was due to us as sinners in our place. When Isaac was taken off the
altar and the ram put in his place and he saw his father slay
the ram with the knife, and then saw the flame consume it, he
would have realised that that would have been him. That was
his place, his position, except there be a substitute. And it is in this way that the
people of God are to look upon the Lord. And this is why the
ordinances of the Lord's house, they point those that have been
saved so that they do not forget what sin costs the Lord. They do not forget the cost of
their redemption. They're not saved to sin. They're saved to be free from
sin. They're saved to be delivered
from sin. Saved to live holy lives, upright
lives, godly lives. Saved to live to the honour and
glory of God. And as they view their Lord,
that sin might appear sin. May we view these ordinances
from now on, shall we say in a different way if we have not
already been viewing them, as showing us what a sinful thing
sin is. What an evil thing it is to transgress
the law of God. Blessed be God, a believer is
not under the law under the condemnation of that law. We read in the very
next chapter, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus who walk Not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit. In other words, not after those
sinful things. To be kindly minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life
and peace. And sin is to remain for the
people of God, exceeding sinful, but they are to know that the
just wrath of God that was due to them has not fallen on them. is fallen on Christ, that a believer
is not under the law as a condemning condemnation. And they're not
under the law really in any sense, because the gospel is the rule
of life for a believer. All of the precepts All of the
incentive to walk in the ways of the Lord are by love, the
constraints of love. That is what draws us. Law and
terrors do but harden, all the while they work alone, but a
sense of blood-bought pardon soon dissolves a heart of stone. And it is not the one that walks
by the law, but the one that walks by love. If we had an employee
and we gave them what the law was that they should observe
in our employment and they did it to the exact letter of that
law, what a difference it would be to have an employee that knew
what that law was but all that they did was out of love. They
went the second mile and they did it willingly, cheerfully,
lovingly, with no thought that the reason why I do this is so
I am not condemned, but the reason why I do it is because I love
my master, and I want to serve him, and I want to do that which
is right. Those that are under the law
will serve in a very different way than are under the gospel. But where we transgress the law,
then the law is not for a righteous man, but it is for a transgressor. And that that transgressor then
is got to know that sin is sin. And the Lord will again, through
his chastening, correcting hand, make him to see and to know that
sin is sin. And you know when the Lord brings
us to view it in his beloved Son, that brings tears of godly
sorrow and repentance and grief and the pouring out of the heart
like we have in Psalm 51. That godly sorrow that worketh
re-repentance. Repentance is an evidence of
forgiveness. Turning away from sin is an evidence
that those sins are forgiven. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. The Lord help us, day by day,
hour by hour, to confess our sins to Him. to call them by what they are,
and to hasten unto the sinner's friend, the saviour of sinners,
the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered to put away our sins on Calvary's
tree, and who has lifted up, that we might be saved unto the
uttermost, that believe in him, and believe that he did die,
to put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. God cannot demand
two payments, one at Christ's hand and another at ours. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, But may we prove it, may we know
it in our lives, by not walking after the flesh, but walking
after the Spirit, desiring those things which are above, and through
the Spirit mortifying the deeds of the body. Sin, that it might
appear sin, by the law, by the chasing hand of God, And by the
soul being led to Calvary and viewing the Lord Jesus Christ
suffering there, have we been led in that path? And do we view
sin as it really is, as shown us by God? Sin that it might
appear sin. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.