Seeking the help of God, I would
ask your attention this evening to the chapter that we read in
the epistle to the Romans, chapter 7, at verse 21. Paul's epistle to the Romans,
chapter 7, at verse 21, that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. I find then a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me." Those of you that were
here this morning will perhaps remember that we considered the
Christian life as a battle. In the twelfth chapter of Hebrews,
we read that verse that the apostle wrote to the Hebrews when he
said, you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against
sin. The Christian life is a life of striving. We're all familiar
with the 23rd psalm and we might think of the psalmist as he wrote
that psalm in a pleasant and comfortable situation and certainly
it seems that he looks back to times when that was the case.
He says, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me
to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. As we read through the psalm, we see that the psalmist's
life was not a life of complete peace and lack of trouble. He
speaks of walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
He speaks of being comforted by the rod and staff of God.
He speaks of being in the presence of his enemies. So even in that
psalm, which is a psalm full of comfort, there is a recognition,
there is an acknowledgement that the Christian's life, even the
life of a man like David, was a life that was troubled. It
was a life that was sometimes full of difficulty. And sometimes
these troubles lie outside ourselves, don't they? You think of a man
like Paul. He wrote this epistle to the
Romans. And as you read through some
of the other epistles, you find him speaking of the situation
in which he was found in outward things, especially when we turn
to the second epistle to the Corinthians. So often as we read
through that epistle, we find him describing how he is living
the troubles that he's facing in his life. Look in the first
chapter of his second epistle to the Corinthians, and at verse
8 you'll find him saying this, he says, we would not brethren
have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia that
we were pressed out of measure above strength insomuch that
we despaired even of life. The pathway that he was walking
through during that time that he looks back to it was not an
easy pathway. Again later on in the 7th chapter
he speaks of the time that he spent in Macedonia Chapter 7,
verse 5, he says, for when we were coming to Macedonia, our
flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Without
were fightings, within were fears. You can read about his experience,
can't you, as you go through the Book of Acts. And so often,
his life was a life of trouble. But it's striking, isn't it,
that there's only one place that we find him speaking of himself
as a wretched man. Though his life was so full of
difficulty and outward things, though he so often faced tribulation
from his own countrymen, was occasionally stoned by them,
though he was there shipwrecked at least twice, I think we read.
A day and a night, he says, I've been in the deep. You can read
about his time during that storm. But you never find him speaking
in this way. He never says, O wretched man that I am, until you come
to this seventh chapter of Romans. And what is it that leads him
to speak in this way? Well, it isn't the problems that
he's facing in an outward way in his life, is it? When he speaks
of himself as a wretched man, he's not saying, well, I'm in
such a difficult situation outwardly, and there's so many problems
in my life, so many things I have to sort out. So many responsibilities
I've got the churches to care for. All these letters to write. All this preaching to do. No,
these are not the things that he complains about in this chapter,
are they? He complains about a much greater problem. Surely
it would be no exaggeration to say his greatest problem. That
problem is his own self. That problem is the sin that
dwells in him. Some have supposed, haven't they,
and it's a chapter that's often been discussed and debated, some
have supposed, well surely the apostle is talking about his
life before he was converted in this chapter. Some have looked
at this chapter and they've said, well surely this man was a Christian,
surely he shouldn't be speaking of himself as a wretched man.
He'd had that remarkable and blessed experience on the Damascus
road where he'd come face to face with the Lord Jesus. And
he'd been taught and instructed by God himself, led about, helped
in preaching. A man that had been much blessed
with a great understanding of the Word of God. Surely, they
say, he shouldn't be speaking about himself as a wretched man.
And so they have to interpret this entire passage which is
written in the present tense. They have to say, well, he's
talking about the past. then there are those who have
said, well, in some way that Paul was kind of in between being
unconverted and converted at this time. I remember hearing
a sermon by a man who I very much respect and he came to this
chapter and he seemed to be reluctant to conclude that Paul was a converted
man. But he read things like this, he read Paul saying, I
delight in the law of God after the inward man. He realised that
an unconverted person could never really say that. And it was remarkable. He started
saying, well, Paul was not fully regenerate. As if there's a situation
in a Christian's life where he's neither a non-Christian or a
Christian. He's somewhere in between. There is no middle ground. There
is no third way between those two situations. Paul at one time
was an unconverted man. Then he was converted. There
was no time in between the two for him to sit down and write
this seventh chapter in his epistle to the Romans. No, Paul was a
converted man. Paul was an experienced Christian
when he wrote these verses. He wasn't looking back to a time
before his conversion when he was a proud and obstinate Pharisee. He was talking about himself
as he was then. And he doesn't hesitate to describe himself
as a wretched man. This was his greatest problem.
The sin that dwelt in him, it still dwelt in him. It wasn't
something that had departed from him when he came to that situation
on the Damascus Road. No, it was still there. The law
is spiritual, he says, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that
which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not.
But what I hate, that do I. He's talking about himself as
a Christian. This was his greatest problem.
Not other people, not outward things, but his own sin, his
own heart, his own self. Well, surely then the question
is, what is our greatest problem in our lives? If we were to be
asked that question, if someone was to come to us and say, well,
right now, at this moment, at this situation in your life,
what is your biggest problem? What is the thing that makes
you complain the most? What is the thing that upsets
you the most? Well, often we'd often be instinctively thinking
about other people, wouldn't we? We might think, well, it's
so-and-so, he's so difficult. Or it's that situation, so hard
to deal with, that situation at work, that colleague that
I have to work with every day. And we might say, well, if it
wasn't for them, life would be easy. Well, Paul would not have
said that, would he? Paul was very ready to recognise
that the greatest problem in his life was his sin. It was
the sin that dwelt in him. I see another law in my members,
he says, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. He's
not without hope, is he? It's not that he calls himself
a wretched man and then says, well, there's no hope for me.
He knows where that hope is to be found. He says, I thank God
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. In himself, he is a wretched
man. but he knows where the answer to his problem is. He knows that
his own righteousness is not good enough, but he knows where
to find a righteousness that is good enough. In Jesus Christ,
he says, our Lord. And in this 21st verse, he summarizes,
doesn't he? I find then, he says, he's already
spoken a great deal, really from the 8th verse, or from the beginning
of the chapter, he's speaking about the place of the law, isn't
he? and he looks back to that time in his life when he says,
I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died, and he describes how he's found life
since then. Again he says, he speaks of that
sin that dwelleth in him, the good that I would, I do not,
the evil which I would not, that I do. I find then a law, he says,
that when I would do good, evil is present with me, How did he
find this law? He says, I find a law. Well,
he found it by experience, didn't he? It wasn't that he'd read
it in a book. It wasn't that someone had told
him that when he would do good, evil is present with him. He
found it from experience. That's the only way to learn
this. That's the only way that we can really understand what
Paul speaks of here. And surely that's the whole point
and purpose of our experience is to show us things. Sometimes we come across people
and they're very ready to talk about wonderful and amazing experiences
that they may have had. They write about them in books.
They speak about them. Well, it's not wrong to speak
about experience, but surely the question that ought to be
uppermost in our minds is, what's it taught us? And if someone
comes to you and speaks to you of an amazing experience which
they claim to have had, well, the question is, what's it taught
them? That's the question we ought to put to them. What's
it shown you? This was what Paul's experience taught him. He found
a law that when he would do good, evil was present with him. He
wasn't speaking theoretically. And if we can only say this in
a theoretical sense, if we can only say, well, of course, we
know from the Word of God and we've read about it that there's
a law that when we would do good, evil is present with us. If we
only know it because we've read about it, or if we only know
it because other people have said it, well, we haven't really
learnt it as the apostle learnt it. We talk about an intellectual
faith, don't we? The Bible has a lot to say about
a faith that is dead. There is such a thing as a dead
faith. And it's perfectly possible for a man to believe intellectually
that what the apostle says here is true. It's even possible for
a man to confess this and to say, of course, yes, it's true,
when I would do good, evil is present with me. It's possible
to believe this because we have read about it. But that's not really true belief,
is it? That's not really the way in
which Paul learnt it. That's not the way in which Paul
speaks of it. No, he found this by experience. God teaches us
by our experiences, doesn't he? That's the whole point, as we
noticed this morning, of that twelfth chapter to the Hebrews.
Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. He brings us into situations
where we learn the things that we need to know. Just as we do
with our children, we don't just leave them to get on with their
lives. No, we teach them. The father chastens the child.
Well, even so it is with God and his children. He uses the
things that we pass through to teach us. It's so often spoken
of in the hymns. There's a hymn by John Newton.
And it's a remarkable hymn really, he says, I ask the Lord, this
is hymn number 295, he says, I ask the Lord that I might grow
in faith and love and every grace, might more of his salvation know
and seek more earnestly his face. These were all good things that
he was asking for. And God answers his prayer, but it
was in an entirely different way to the way that he expected.
What was he hoping? Well, he was hoping for really
a miraculous revelation of some kind. He says, I hoped that in
some favoured hour, at once he'd answer my request. It's almost
as if he thought, well, if I pray this, if I pray for this increase
in faith and love and grace, It's almost as if he's thinking,
well, perhaps I'll just wake up one day and I'll just have
these things, and I'll find myself with more faith than I had yesterday,
and more love than I had yesterday, and more grace, and knowing more
of his salvation, and seeking more earnestly his faith. Well,
that wasn't how the Lord answered his prayer, was it? He goes on
to say, instead of this, instead of what I expected, he made me
feel the hidden evils of my heart. Far from answering his prayer,
it seemed to him as if the Lord was doing the exact opposite.
He said, I suddenly seemed to see that I had less faith than
before, and less love than before, and less grace than before, and
everything seemed to go wrong. He has to pray, doesn't he? He
speaks in the sixth verse, he says, Lord, why is this? Will
thou pursue thy worm to death? And he says the Lord replies
in this way, it's in this way says the Lord that I answer prayer
for grace and faith. These inward trials and outward
trials too sometimes I employ from self and pride to set thee
free. Well that was very true in the experience of the apostle
wasn't it? How did he come to see himself as a sinner? Well
it was by the experience that he speaks of earlier in this
chapter. The commandment came. Suddenly he understood something
about the law that all the teaching that he'd received as a child
had not been able to tell him. He was an expert in the law,
wasn't he? He was a Pharisee. He'd sat at the feet of that
famous teacher, Gamaliel. And there was now no doubt much
that he knew about the law. He could probably have quoted
it to you, chapter and verse. But suddenly he realizes something
about the law that he hadn't realized before. The law is spiritual. He realised the truth of that
first and greatest commandment that I mentioned this morning,
that concerns not so much what we do with our hands, but the
situation and the condition of our hearts. Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God. Suddenly he saw that despite
all his conformity to the ways of the Pharisees and the traditions
of his fathers, he didn't love God. He didn't love him with
all his heart, or with all his mind, or with all his soul. Suddenly
he saw that though he was very right in an outward way, his
heart was full of lust. It was full of desires after
forbidden things. Suddenly he sees things about
the law that all his teaching has not been able to teach him.
I'm sure that if you had gone to Paul before his conversion
when he was Saul, a proud Pharisee, If you had said to him, do you
realize that there's a law that when you would do good, evil
is present with you, he would have said, well, that's not true
at all. You think of that Pharisee that we have in the parable.
He goes up into the temple to pray and what does he do? Well,
he doesn't really pray, does he? He lists all the things that
he thinks he's done. He lists all the righteousness
that he thinks he's accumulated over his life. And really he's
just parading himself in front of God. That is the very essence
of sin, isn't it? We think of sin and we think
of a drunkard in the gutter or we think of someone who's in
great outward sin. Well, that's not really sin at
its essence. You want to see sin at its essence, you look
at that Pharisee. And if we're honest, we'll realise that we
are not immune from that state of mind. We're all subject and
we're all prone to the condition of the Pharisee. I find then
a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Well,
he found this by experience. He realised that even in his
best moments, evil was present with him. That's why he calls
it a law. What does he mean when he says
it's a law? Well, earlier on in the chapter he's talking about
the law of God, isn't he? The law has dominion over a man
as long as he liveth. He talks about being delivered
from the law. He talks about being alive without the law.
In all those places he's talking about the law of God. And some
have interpreted this verse in the same way. William Tyndale
did. William Tyndale, if you look
in his translation, he says, I find by the law that when I would
do good, evil is present with me. It's not usually a good idea
to disagree with William Tyndale. But surely the translation that
we have here is the more accurate one. It's not really talking
about the law of God. It's talking about a law, something that is
fixed, something that is certain, something that is permanent.
We talk about the laws of nature, don't we? What do we mean? Well,
we mean the things that don't change. When we throw something
up, it comes down. We say, well, that's the law
of nature. We talk about Newton's laws of motion. We learn about
them at school, don't we? Those things that are fixed,
those things that are always true. Surely that's the sense
in which Paul uses the word law here. I find then a law, it's
something that is always true. That when I would do good, evil
is present with me. What does he mean when he says
I would do good? Well, of course all men, pretty much all men
think that they do good. and all men have their own idea
about what good is. All men really desire to do what
they think is good, don't they? But when we come to the Word
of God we see clearly that what is good is not a matter of opinion. Isn't that so much the way in
our modern age? You go to most people and you
say to them, well, how do you work out what is right and what
is wrong? How do you discern what are right
things to do and which are wrong things to do? Well, they'll say
to you, well, really you just go by your feelings. If something
feels right, it probably is. That's why we have so much perversion,
isn't it, in the world today. People think, well, I have a
desire in this direction, I have a desire, it must be right. I'll
go and do it, I'll go and fulfil that desire. It feels good, it
feels right. That's not what the apostle means when he says,
I would do good. How does he judge what is good and what is
not good? Well, he uses the law of God, doesn't he? His delight is not in his own
mind. He doesn't think that his own mind is an infallible guide
to what is good and what is bad. No, he says, I delight in the
law of God after the inward man. It's only there that we have
an infallible guide to what is good and what is wrong. We have a conscience, don't we,
and that is helpful, but it's not infallible, is it? Or at
least it's not always easy to discern what our conscience is
telling us and whether it's reliable. You may have someone brought
up in a certain way and they're taught from their childhood that
something is wrong. Well, it's very difficult for them to get
out of that, isn't it? And you can reason with them and you
can say, well, look, it doesn't say it anywhere in the word of God,
but they might say to you, well, my conscience tells me. My conscience
tells me. Well, the conscience is useful.
The conscience is a right thing to listen to, but surely the
ultimate touchstone, the ultimate guide to what is right and wrong
isn't the conscience. It's what it says in the book.
It's what it says in the word of God. If your conscience tells you
that something is wrong and it's not mentioned in the Word of
God, well, you're very right to ask searching questions of
that. And, of course, the opposite
is true as well. The conscience sometimes fails to tell us that
something is wrong, even though the Word of God outlaws it. You
go to some people today and you say, well, doesn't your conscience
condemn you for your adultery? And they say, well, no, not really.
Everyone else does it. It's just normal, isn't it? The
Word of God outlaws it, but their conscience is defiled. Their
conscience isn't perfect anymore. It's faulty. It's a help, but
it's not an infallible help. Paul says, when I would do good.
His delight is in the law of God. I delight in the law of
God after the inward man. This is the delight of the Christian,
isn't it? Well, we have him described,
and I think we looked at it this morning in the first psalm. Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. Paul
says, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. That's
not natural, you know. We don't, as we're born into
this world, delight in the law of God. It's quite the opposite.
We have it described in the second psalm, don't we? The first psalm
is about the blessedness of the man that delights in the law
of God. But when we come to the second psalm, we see a different
set of people. And the psalmist says, why do
the heathen rage? And the people imagine a vain
thing. The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers
take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed,
saying, let us break their bands asunder, cast away their cords
from us. That's the natural man's attitude
to the law. Well, they say this law, this law of God that's given
to us, it's holding us down, it's keeping us back from our
happiness. We don't want this law of God, we will not have
this man to reign over us. Not interested in these commandments.
Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from
us. What is your attitude to the law of God? Do you recognise
it as Paul recognises it? The law is holy, he says. The
commandment holy and just and good. There's nothing unreasonable
in the law. Isn't it a good thing? When we read those 10 commandments,
aren't they all exhorting us to good things? Thou shalt not
kill. Isn't that a good thing? Thou
shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not bear false witness.
Thou shalt not covet. We know these things are wrong.
The law is holy, the commandment holy and just and good. By nature
we hate the law. By nature we say that we're not
interested in it, we're not going to listen to it. It's almost
instinctive to us, isn't it? As we're born into the world
we have almost an instinct that when we're told not to do something
we immediately want to do it. Very obvious with children, isn't
it? You take a child, you say, don't touch that. Well, it immediately
makes them want to touch it. Don't look out that window. They
want to look out the window. We have a reaction in us to the
law of God. We hate it. It exposes our failures. It shows us that we're sinners
and we don't like that by nature. Well, can you say what the apostle
says here? I delight in the law of God after the inward man. I find then a law that when I
would do good, he wanted to do good. He had
that within him that wanted to do good. He speaks of it, doesn't
he, the good that I would. To will is present with me. For
that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. He had that within him that delighted
in the law, that wanted to keep the law. He saw the law of God
not as something that was standing as a barrier between him and
his happiness. He saw that it was only by walking in God's
ways and being obedient to God's commandments that he could ever escape from this cycle of sin
and death. I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
He wanted to keep the law. It wasn't because he was scared
of the consequences if he didn't. This was a man that knew his
sins were forgiven. This was a man that was very clear on
the doctrine of justification by faith. It wasn't that he wanted
to keep the law because he was expecting to earn forgiveness
or to earn a place in heaven. Again, and again we said this
this morning, when the writer to the Hebrews is exhorting those
Hebrews to strive against sin, He doesn't say to them, well,
if you don't do it, you'll be punished. What does he point them to? No,
he says, you've got to look unto Jesus. You've got to consider
Him. What's the Christian's motive
for striving against sin? Well, it's the fact that they
realize what sin has cost. They realize what sin has done.
They realize the effect of sin. They realised the burden that
he laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the suffering that he went through
to atone for the sins of his people. I delight in the law
of God after the inward man, but I find a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. Really, it could be
translated, evil is near unto me. If we were putting it in
modern language, we might say, evil is right there. Evil is
right there with me. When I would do good, evil is
right there. And again, the hymn writers, they so often realise
this, don't they? In that 287th hymn, Joseph Hart
wrote it, it's really talking mostly about the sin of pride.
What does he say about pride? Against disinfluenced prey, it
mingles with the prayer. Even while we're praying against
pride, it's subtly there, right near unto us. against it preach,
it prompts the speech, even if a man is standing up preaching
against pride, still it's there, still it's there in the back
of his mind, near unto him. In every outward act, in every
thought within, the heart it draws to seek applause and mixes
all with sin. That's not just true of pride,
that's true of so many sins. Even in our best moments, sin
is right there. This is what the apostle realised.
Well, have you realised this? Do you realise that sin is not
just something that troubles you when you fall in an outward
way? Do you find it there when you pray? When you're on your
knees, do you suddenly realise that sin is right there? It may
be even prompting your prayers. It may be sin that's driving
you to pray in the way that you are. When you read the Word of God,
often we find, don't we, when we take up the Word of God, we
so often find ourselves, our attention wanders, doesn't it?
You may be reading another book, and you have no trouble reading
that book, but when you turn from that book and you take up
the Word of God, suddenly you may begin to feel tired. You weren't tired when you were
reading the other book, but when you take up God's book, suddenly
all these things start to come in, these thoughts start crowding
into your mind. I find then a law that when I
would do good, evil is present with me. And we're all very ready
to acknowledge sin when we see it outwardly, don't we? And we're
all very ready to condemn sin in others when we see them falling
into sin in an outward way. But do we realise what the apostle
realised? That even when we are doing good, even when we would
do good, evil is right there. Sin is right there. Well, this is what the apostle
realised and this grieved him. This troubled him. This is why
he described himself as a wretched man because he saw that no matter
what he did, no matter how determined he was to set himself against
sin, he looked away for a moment and then suddenly sin is right
there. When I would do good, evil is present with me. He still
carried about that heart that was enmity towards God. We have that within us, no matter
how long we have been in the Christian life, we have that
within us that is an enmity to God. Our hearts are enmity against
Him, our natural hearts are enmity against Him. Surely that's the
explanation as to why, when we take up His book, we suddenly
find so many distractions crowding in that weren't there previously.
When we turn to Him in prayer, we suddenly find that our minds
are elsewhere. Yes, we may be on our knees.
Yes, we may have our eyes closed, but we're not praying. Or even
if we're praying, so often we find that we're praying for things
which really we know are not the right things to pray for.
When I would do good, evil is present with me, evil is right
there. But this troubles Him, doesn't it? This is the thing,
that this troubles Him. Oh, wretched man that I am, he
says. He's not content with this situation. He doesn't just say,
well, of course, it's inevitable. Of course, there's nothing I
can do about it. He doesn't just shrug his shoulders and say,
well, I suppose I'll have to put up with this. No, he says, I'm a
wretched man. This is something that grieves
him. Now when he thinks of sin, he
doesn't think of other people. Now when he considers what sin
is, he doesn't have to look outside of himself. He speaks of himself, doesn't
he? In one of his epistles as the chief of sinners, he wasn't
just exaggerating just to appear humble, that was what he felt. He says of sinners, of whom I
am chief, the worst sinner, the foremost sinner, the most terrible
sinner. You can see the change, can't
you? Think of how he would have reacted if you had gone to him
before his conversion. There's Paul, that saw that proud
Pharisee, heading for the very top of the Jewish church, exceeding
all his peers in his learning and in his understanding. You
go to a man like that and you say, are you the chief of sinners?
Of course he'd say, of course I'm not. He would be insulted
even if you asked the question. See the change that this new
understanding of the law has brought to him. He would have been very ready
to talk to you about who the chief of sinners was beforehand, wouldn't
he? Perhaps he would have said, well, it's the publicans, or
it's the harlots, or it's the gentiles, or it's the Sadducees. He would have no doubt written
you a list. You want a list of sinners, he would have said,
well, here's a list. He wouldn't find his own name on it. Very
different with him now, isn't it? I find then a law that when
I would do good, evil is present with me. He doesn't look at others. No, he says, I am the chief of
sinners. It's the only part of Paul's
writing, isn't it, that it's safe to disagree with. Someone once said, didn't they,
they said, you know, I don't agree with all the epistles. And of
course, it's a shocking thing to say, but they explained the
only bit they disagree with is where Paul says this. It's where
Paul calls himself the chief of sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom I am chief. Well, do you find the
same thing in your own experience? Have you learnt the same thing
that Paul learnt? Have you found this law that
he found, that when you would do good, evil is present with
you? It's not natural, is it? We like to divide our lives up
and we say, well, these are the evil things, these are the good
things. Perhaps when we were children we think, well, of course
when I steal something that's evil, but now I'm going to chapel.
Now I'm going to read the Bible. This is good. Now I'm doing good.
Paul found it wasn't so easy to divide things up so neatly
anymore. Even when he would do good, evil is present with him.
There's a hymn, isn't there, that points to the only solution
to this problem says, do any feel the plague
of sin, Satan and death at work within? That's what Paul felt.
That's what Paul found. Jesus can quell the mortal strife.
Only Jesus can quell the mortal strife. What did he say? All power is delivered unto me
in heaven and in earth. There's the only man that strove
against sin and was victorious, that fought against sin and was
never beaten. Look at him there in the Garden
of Gethsemane. Being in an agony, it says, his sweat was as it
were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. It's quite
wrong to think that his life was an easy life. Sometimes we
think of the Lord Jesus and it is very mysterious, isn't it?
The Bible tells us that he was tempted in all points like as
we are. We don't understand that, do we? Because so often when
we talk about being tempted, what we really mean is we've
already fallen. When you say, when I saw something
and I was tempted to take it, that's already a sin, isn't it?
Jesus Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without
sin. Jesus can quell the mortal strife,
for Jesus says, I am the life. Do you find this? Do you realise
that evil is right there? It's even right here, right there
beside you now as you're sitting there in the pew. I find then
a law that when I would do good, Evil is present with me. Well,
who can deliver us? Paul asked the question, who
should deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God. Through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. He knew there was a time coming.
He knew there was a place that he was moving towards, where
sin, his worst enemy before, would vex his righteous soul
no more. There's no sin in heaven. There's no sin in heaven. Surely
that's what makes it such an attractive place to the Christian. It's not the streets of gold
and it's not the harps and it's not the angels. It's the fact that Christ is
there. It's the fact that when we appear there we shall see
him as he is. We shall be like him. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Perhaps you think
that this battle is something that can never be solved. Perhaps
you find sin so ingrained within you that you think it can never
be removed. But he is able to do it. He is able, as the Apostle Jude
says, He is able to present you faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. Would you say that sounds too
good to be true? Well, most things that sound
too good to be true, they are too good to be true and they're
not true, but not here. And to him that is able to keep
you from falling, says Jude, and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, nothing is
too hard for him. The things that are impossible
with man, they're not even difficult for him. Paul realised what his sin was.
He realised that it was right there, even when he would do
good. Surely he would have recognised
the spirit of that hymn. It's not in our book, but there's
a hymn, isn't there, that says, I bring my sins to thee, the
sins I cannot bear, that I now cleansed may be in thy once opened
fount. I bring them, Saviour, all to
thee. The burden is too great for me. It's too great for me. It's a fight that I cannot fight.
It's a battle that I cannot win. Even when I would do good, evil
is present with me, it's right there. Well, if we feel this, if we
realise this, we're ready to hear the Gospel then, aren't
we? The Gospel will be a joyful sound to us if we're in this
place that Paul was in. It won't be something that we
can just listen to and think, well, that sounds very nice.
Perhaps I'll pay more attention to it later. Though the man in this condition,
the man who has given that sight of what his sin is, the gospel will be a joyful sound
to him. I think we sang it this morning,
that 45th hymn, which talks about the law and the vain hope of obtaining
salvation by the law. But the hymn writer, he doesn't
stop there. Fly then, awakened sinners, fly. Your case admits no stay. The
fountain's opened now for sin. Come, wash your guilt away. That's
the watchword of the gospel, isn't it? Come. It doesn't just
speak to us of sin and then leave us in despair. They're almost
the closing words of the Bible. Let him that is a thirst come.
This is what will make a man thirst. If he finds a law that
when he would do good, evil is present with him, then he'll
thirst for this water of life, this purifying water. Whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely. This is what
the law is for. In the epistle to the Galatians,
Paul describes the law as a schoolmaster, doesn't he? To bring us unto
Christ. Well, has the law led you unto
Christ? Have you found this principle,
this certain truth that when you would do good, evil is present
with you? Well, there is a saviour for
sin. There is a way for man to rise to that sublime abode. A Holy Spirit's energies, an
offering and a sacrifice, an advocate with God. I find then
a law. But when I would do good, evil
is present with me. Amen.