I take your Bibles and turn back
with me to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. I've entitled this message, Our
Law and Our Warfare. Our Law and Our Warfare. Look at verse 16. Paul says, I say then, walk in
the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary
one to the other. And here's the result of this
contradiction. You cannot do the things that
you would. But if you are led of the Spirit,
here's the joy. Even after the conflict, here's
the joy. It's going to give you some hope because this conflict
is violent. This conflict is constant. This
conflict is ferocious. But here's our hope. in the midst
of your conflict, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are
not under the law. That's our hope. Now, it has
been abundantly clear in our study that our justification,
our sanctification, our redemption in whole, our salvation, was
only accomplished by the faith of Jesus Christ, and by the power
of the Spirit, it is applied by faith in Jesus Christ. That's
abundantly clear. And any man who claims his salvation
has any part by his obedience, Paul declares, you are fallen
from grace. If you are to take one thing
you have done and apply it to the work of Christ, you have
nullified the work of Christ, Christ shall profit you nothing. This is abundantly clear. So,
we who have been made free by Jesus Christ, He encourages us
to hold fast to Christ by one way, faith. Hold fast to the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free. And so as we must run a race,
he tells us they were running a race. In verse 7 he said, you
did run well. Every believer in Christ is running
a race. We begin this race by faith,
we continue to run this race by faith, and we end this race
by faith. That's how we run this race. And by no means are we to return
to the law for help or guidance. But what law then is the believer
to be under? What guidance and what rule of
life is ours? We do not deny, and I'm going
to explain why we don't deny this. We don't deny that we need
a guide. We don't deny that we need help.
We don't deny that we need a law by which to live by. We don't
deny that. Every believer knows his need
of a law and a rule of life simply because of this, because of sin. You look in the mirror, you know
you need this. You know you need someone to
guide you, to help you, to sustain you, to care for you, to forgive
you, to pardon you. You know you need these things.
And all who believe in Christ have been justified. We've been
justified, we've been sanctified, we've been redeemed by Christ.
We through the power of the Holy Spirit have been born again.
And I've told you this last time we were together, being born
again means that He has made in us a new nature. A new nature. Listen to what Paul says about
this new nature inside of you, believer. He says that we are
to put on the new man. He's exhorting us. He says, first
of all, take that old man and put him off. Put on the new man. And he's going to describe him.
He says, which is created in righteousness and true holy,
which is after God, after God, after the pattern of God. After
the nature of God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So every believer in Christ is
perfect in the sight of God. This is astounding. This is absolutely
amazing. But it is so that our sins have
been removed from us. This is a glorious truth, isn't
it? Our sins have been removed to us. And where were they? He
didn't just throw them behind His back. He didn't just ignore
them. They went somewhere. Where did they go? They were
charged to Christ. It became His own. And it was
there in His body that God exacted a perfect justice. He punished all our sins of all
His people, of all time. You know, when you leave here,
you're going to have some sin. You know, you still haven't filled
that cup full, have you? You still got more. If God's
going to let you breathe, you'll have more sin that you haven't
even committed yet. He's already taken that sin that you have
not yet committed and charged Christ with it. And what is the result of this?
The result of his death is final, it is perfect, it is complete. Justice is satisfied. God's justice
is satisfied. I don't care about man's justice.
I don't care what men think is just or not. I care what God
thinks is just. And God said this in Hebrews
1-3, He had by Himself, listen to this, purged our sins. That's past tense. You know that?
He's already done it. Already purged them. He already purged our sins. And
then what did he do? He sat down. You know, when you
work and you're done, what do you do? You sit down. That's
what he's telling us. He's done it. He sat down on the right
hand of the majesty on high. In Hebrews 9 verse 12, he said,
having obtained Obtained, he got it. What did he get? Eternal
redemption. That's what he got. He obtained
it. By his offering he obtained it
for us. So what? We've been redeemed. Our sins have been purged. Behold
now by faith the perfection of his one offering that he has
so far removed our sins from us. Now listen to this. that
God himself cannot find them. Now I'm not saying that, I wouldn't
dare say that if the scripture does not say it, and it does.
Plainly tells us. You mark this down for your later
study, and if you've got guilt, because man, we're going to deal
with this, the guilt of our souls, that we feel the weight of our
sins, we're not ignoring the fact that we have sinned. But
listen to this, Jeremiah 50 and verse 20 says, In those days,
and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for, and there shall be none. Who's searching? God's searching. And what does He say? None. The
sins of Judah, and they shall not be found. Why? Because I
pardoned them. The only one that can justly
pardon sin is God. He's the only one really offended
by sin. He's the judge of all men, and only He can pardon sin. And He has determined how He
will pardon sin, and that is by the offering of His Son, by
the death of His Son. And now seeing that the word
concerning Christ's one offering, seeing that we are justified
by it, we are sanctified by it, we are redeemed by it, Therefore
He now by the power of the Spirit has called us and given us a
new and holy nature." Again, I can't emphasize this enough.
When God created in us a holy nature, that nature that is created
of God is perfect. That nature is without sin. Pastor, that's just unbelievable. You're right. You're right. There ain't gonna be any... I
thought about this today. You could follow me around and
you'll never see it. You know what? You will see sin,
but you won't ever see this perfect nature. That doesn't make it
any less so. Because God testifies that it's
perfect. John said, that which is born
of God sinneth not. 1 John 5, verse 18, that which
is born of God, that which is created of God after God in true
holiness, it sinneth not. Well, if that's true, Christ
purged our sins, right? They're gone. God cannot find
them. He gives us a new nature that
is absolutely holy and cannot sin, then why do we need a law?
Why do we need a God? Even because the old man still
lives in us as well. The old man, that which Paul
told us in Ephesians to put off, he's still here. We still have
the old man of flesh that we are born with. When God gave
us a new nature, holy and without sin, He did not improve the old. He did not modify it. This is
false religion's idea, is that God gave you something partial
inside of you and that you're going to get better. You can
better yourself. That's no doubt true in carnal
things. You can get a good education
and get a better job. You can get a better car. You can get a better house. You
can better yourself physically. You can go out and exercise.
You can better yourself. What you can't do is better that
old nature. You can't make it any better. All you can do is kill it. That's all it's good for is to
die. It's not good for anything else. Therefore, this surely
is the greatest trouble of every believer, even this, our spiritual
warfare within ourselves. Spiritual warfare within our
own selves. We believers are men and women
of two distinct and separate natures residing in one body.
Two distinct and separate natures. And I'm going to clarify this.
A lot of people say, well, I don't believe it's nature. I believe
it's a principle. Principle? Is a principle going to heaven?
No. My nature is. My being is going
to heaven. Not a principle. So when God
created, He didn't create a principle. He created a nature. A nature
has a mind, a will, and a heart. That defines a nature. God gave
me a new mind, a new heart, and a new will. Therefore, I have
what? A new nature. I don't see the problem with
this. I know this. I've heard this
many times. Well, nature is not necessarily there. You believe in Trinity, right?
Okay, where's that? No, it describes it for us. And so we use the word Trinity
because it sums up what, I say nature because it sums up what
it is, a new person, a new being that is created. And so in our
text, Paul here describes this. He says in verse 17, he says,
let's read verse 16 again. For I say to them, walk in the
spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the
flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,
and these are contrary," listen, one to the other, two, one and
another, two, the flesh and the spirit, contrary
one to another, completely opposite one another. The mind of the
religious legalist is that the man Man's fall was not so bad. This is the mind of the legalist,
that it was a bad thing, Adam's fall, but it wasn't totally,
completely a fall. It was just a bruise. He still
maintained some of that godly nature that he was born with.
And all he needs is a pat and a push. Religion, we'll tell
you, that's all he needs. He just needs an incentive. We
just need to make it palatable to him so he'll receive it, and
then when he receives it, we'll just kind of pat him along, tell
him how good he is and how better he's going to get, give him a
little hope in himself. God tells us our nature we inherited
from our father Adam is not bruised, it's dead. There's a difference,
isn't it? Isn't there a difference between a bruise and being dead? Romans 5 and verse 12, wherefore
as by one man sin entered in the world, and what's the result?
Death. Why? By sin. Well that happened to Adam, but
what does that do with me? Therefore death passed upon all
men. Why? Because everybody sinned
in Adam. He was a representative man.
We died. And so the flesh naturally then
is opposed to God. In Romans chapter 8, it tells
us that the flesh is contrary to the law of God. It's at enmity. Well, the carnal mind is at enmity
against God. Well, I don't hate God, preacher.
Well, do you obey His law perfectly? Well, that's a demonstration
of your hatred. Carnal mind is enmity against
God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. Can't be. It's dead. The flesh,
all the flesh can do is sin. There's no amount of strength
or resolve or determination to be good or righteous or holy
that can make my flesh holy. Scripture says there's none righteous,
no not one, there's none that understandeth, there's none that
seeketh after God, they are all together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. Now the flesh, I'm going to preface
this, the flesh can paint the tomb but it can't give life.
You can paint the tomb. Isn't that what the Lord said
about those Pharisees? You are painted tombs, beautiful on the
outside. The inside is dead. See, this is what we are by nature.
Religion can paint you up, but it's just painting a corpse,
not giving life. Now consider the absolute ruin
of man's fall that if God If God gave you the best of preachers,
consider this, you put a man on earth and he's ruined, and
God gave him the best preachers in the world, clearest preachers
ever existed. Put him in the best environment
possible. Give him everything he needs,
everything he wants, and let him live a million years, and
he will never have life unless God gives it to him. This is
our ruined condition. This is who we are. This is who
we all are by nature. None of us escaped this. So then if salvation were left
up to man's will or an act of obedience, no one would be saved.
Jesus said no man can. No man can. Even little children
in the back understand what the word can means. No man has the
ability. You can't do it. No. You can't,
don't, you can't, you can't, impossible. No man can come unto
me except, oh, except the Father do something. The Father which
has sent me draw here. That's the only hope. We who
are called to life and faith, we rejoice and give praise to
God that he has given us and applied to us this salvation.
Otherwise, we could never have it. We praise God that he drew us
to Christ. When I was dead, he came to me
and gave me life. He came to me and opened my understanding
to see the deadness of my nature, the inability of my flesh, and
by his power gave me The ability to come to Him. I did come to Him, did you? I'm not going to disagree. I
did. I was willing to come to Him. Were you willing to come
to Him? You bet you were. Now why? You were made willing.
See, you don't get the glory in that. You don't get any glory
in this. I'm hoping this is coming through.
You're not getting anything. You're not getting any glory
in this. It's all God, and it's all his glory. He gave us spiritual
life that we could never earn by our works. And praise God,
he has called us and made us partakers of what Peter says,
the divine nature. That's what he's made us partakers
of. a new creation in every believer. And because now listen, because
there is no change in the flesh, there's no change. When God created
in us a new nature, he did absolutely nothing to the nature of the
old man. He subdued it, but he didn't
change it. He didn't change it. Now, do believers act differently
than non-believers? Yes. Yes, they do. But make no mistake, your flesh
is still flesh. What they are prone to, you are
prone to. The only thing you can't do is
leave Christ. You can do any of those things. Isn't that laid out in Scripture?
You can see the Old Testament saying, Would anybody want to
be Lot? Anybody want your life laid out
in Holy Scripture like Lot's was? We're all prone to sin because
the old man hasn't changed. Now the new man, he cannot sin. He loves God. He longs to be
righteous in the body, in the heart, in the soul, in the mind,
yet the old man still only constantly longs for sin. Two contrary natures
at warfare with one another. And what's the result? Well,
look what your text says. In verse 17, he said, You cannot do the things you
would. Isn't that true? Is that not true? The spirit
wants to be like Christ. The flesh wants nothing to do
with Christ. A constant, perpetual warfare
has now begun. When God saves you, there's only
one discharge from this warfare, death. You're never going to
get out of this warfare. It is a daily, second-by-second
warfare. The Apostle Paul gives us a very
inward description of his own warfare. Go to Romans 7. I've heard men try to twist this
and say, well, this is Paul before he was saved. Don't... Okay,
I don't have time to deal with that foolish nonsense. I'll just
go on Romans 7, look at verse 18, for I know that in me. Now let me clarify this, he says
that is in my flesh. He's not talking about his skin,
not talking about the physical matter, he is talking about his
nature, his fleshly nature. What? What did he find out? Dwelleth
no good thing. Lost men know that. Can a lost
man know that? Absolutely not. A lost man still
thinks he has something to give. A true believer understands this. He has nothing in himself. For to will is present with me,
but how to perform that which is good I find not. Is that a
lost man? Does a lost man will to do good,
but doesn't find out how? No, he thinks he's still doing
good. He thinks he has something to do good. This is a believer.
For the good that I would, I do not. And the evil that I would
not, that I do. Isn't that exactly what he's
saying in Galatians 5? The things that you would do,
you can't. Paul's telling you, this is my experience. I find
then a law. A principle that when I would
do good, here's a maxim that you could just take this to the
bank every day of your life. That when I would do good, what? Evil is present with me. And
that's your confession that whatever I do, sin is still mixed with
it. It is. For now, if I do that which I
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me." He said, this is my nature. This is the old nature that's
in me. The new nature would not do this. The new nature has no
desire to do this. But what? He said, there's this
other one that dwelleth in me. I find then
a law, a principle, when I would do good, he was present with
me. For I delight in the law of God, After the, what, inward
man. In the law, I mean, the law of
God, when we're talking about the law of God, isn't all God not
good? Of course it is. I mean, would you not desire
to have all those things that are written in the law be naturally
done? Our Lord Jesus, when he walked
in this earth, everything he did was natural. It was just natural
for him to obey the law. It was his nature. We look at
that and we go, that's what the inner man wants. He wants to
obey God completely, perfectly. But I see another law, another
principle in my members, warring against the law of my mind and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is what?
In my members. And what is the conclusion of
this? Oh, wretched man, that I was. No, that I am. And the longer we engage in this
warfare, the more that rings true to our hearts and minds. Ten years ago, I was a wretched
man. I know now I am more of a wretched
man than I was. I was the same wretched man,
I just didn't know how wretched. When Paul come to the end of
his life, he said this at the beginning of his ministry, he
said, I am the least of all the apostles. Later on in his life, he said,
I am the least of all the saints. At the end of his life, he said,
I am the chief of sinners. See the progression? That's the
progression of the believer's growth. You want a measurement
of growth? That's it. Not how good you get. The measurement of our growth
is to realize the wretchedness of our own nature. Why? Because this magnifies the glory
of His perfect offering and love. It magnifies Jesus Christ. If
you are abased, Christ is exalted. This is what happens. If you
are exalted, Christ is abased. And so we grow in the Spirit.
What? Christ becomes more exalted. I need him more than I did yesterday. That's what we grow. We need
him. So who among God's saints cannot
identify with this struggle? We all do. It is our warfare.
And surely, if you do If you don't have this
warfare, it's because you've only got one nature. John said this in 1 John chapter
1 and verse 8, he said, If we have no sin, if we say we have
no sin, I just told you the new nature is without sin. Preacher,
are you saying we're without sin? No. If we say we have no
sin, what? The truth is not in us. We've
made him a liar. But if we confess our sins, isn't
that what we do? I confess my sins. He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins. But later in John, he says this.
Go to John, I want you to mark this down, 1 John chapter 5.
Again, looking at the new nature, we're seeing the two opposites
again. 1 John chapter 5, look at verse 18. 1 John chapter 5
and verse 18. And I like this, we know. We know. This is something, this
is not a debatable thing, something we know. We know that whosoever
is born of God sinneth not. But he that is begotten of God
keepeth himself, and the wicked one toucheth him not. Is that a contradiction then?
John said in chapter 1, he said, if we say we have no sin, we
make him a liar. And in chapter 5 he says, that
which is born of God sinneth not. Look at chapter 3 and verse 8,
he says the same thing in another place. I'll just give you two
illustrations here. Chapter 3 and verse 8, he that
committeth sin is of the devil. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that
he might destroy the works of the devil, which he did and he
completely destroyed them. What's the work of the devil?
Sin. He completely destroyed it. Whosoever is born of God
doth not commit sin. Why? For his seed remaineth in
him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. See, both are true. If I say
that I'm without sin, I'm making a liar, and the truth's not in
me. I do not deny that I have a nature that is only continually,
constantly sin. But I also confess, by the grace
and power of God, I have a new nature that cannot sin. And yet both of these reside
in one body. Pulling at each other in opposite
directions. Constantly. This is our warfare. Believer, is this not the bitter
truth of our journey in this life? That we desire to be without
sin and yet confess that that's all we do. Todd said it like this, I cannot
not sin. Sin is mixed with everything
I do. But we long to live in perfect
conformity to Jesus Christ our Savior. We delight in the law
of the evil man. But when I would do good, what
evil is present with me? So it's mixed with everything
I do. So we cry, O wretched man that I am. Now, you see why then
we need a law. Isn't that right? There's a struggle,
a warfare, we need guidance. We need guidance. And we see we need a guide so
that we should not fulfill the lust of the flesh. At the end
of verse 16 he says, so that you should not fulfill the lust
of the flesh. Isn't that your desire? That you should not fulfill the
lust of the flesh. That's the desire of the spirit. That's
the desire of the new man. That you should not fulfill the
desire of the old. How can I do that? Because that's what I long to
do. I need a guide. I need something
to guide me by which I may not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
What is it? Look at verse 16. Walk in the
Spirit. This is how. Walk in the Spirit
and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. What then is our rule is to walk
in the Spirit. The law can only stir up sin,
it can't suppress it. This is the truth of the law.
When the law says thou shalt not, what is the first thing
you want to do? You want to do what it says not
to do. Wet paint, don't touch. Now if you hadn't put that there,
I probably wouldn't have even thought about touching the paint.
But now that you put it there, I'm tempted. Is it really wet? This is what law does to us.
It stirs up. One time, David wrote this. I can't remember exactly which
psalm it's in. I'll look it up later. He said, I determined
not to say anything evil with my mouth. He determined to shut
his mouth. And the scripture says that it
was like a pressure cooker in him until it exploded. Now with
you, you try to determine, do something, and you're just saying,
only hang on so long. I'm just not going to gossip. And man, some juicy gossip comes
along. I got to tell somebody. It's
just nature. It's our nature to do that, and
it's going to explode on us. Why? Because law stirs up sin. The law of Moses. It stirs up
sin, but the believer, as we walk in this life, listen to
our law, listen to our God. It is simply this. Behold the
Lamb of God. There's your law. Look by faith to Jesus Christ. Look by faith to Jesus Christ. We are to walk this life by faith. I've got so many illustrations
of all those Old Testament saints before the law ever came in,
before Moses ever lived. We have myriads of believers
that lived before him, and they, like Abraham, all had a testimony.
They believed God, and it was counted to them for righteousness.
Think about that man Enoch. Enoch, the seventh from Adam.
Scripture says this, he walked with God and was not, for God
took him, translated him, didn't see death. What was it about
that walk? What a wonderful walk he had. What did Paul say about that?
He says in Hebrews 11, by faith Enoch was translated, that he
should not see death. and was not found because God
translated for before his translation, he had this testimony that he
pleased God, but without faith, it is impossible to please God.
You see how pleasing it is to God? How do we please God? While
we're struggling in the flesh, while we're at warfare with ourselves,
how shall we walk in this world? By faith. Why? Because that pleases
God. Your obedience to the law does
not please God. You know why? Sin's mixed with
all you do. Why would it please God? What pleases God is his
Son. That's what pleases God. And
by the grace and power of the Spirit, we believe in him. We
too, then, are pleasing unto God. And so Paul, in Romans 8, he
says the victory over this body of death. That's the conclusion
of what he experienced in Romans 7 and Romans 8. What is the glory
that he experiences with this wretchedness of himself? He says,
There is therefore now no condemnation of those who are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after what? The Spirit. They walk by faith. They don't
walk by law. They don't walk by their works
or their obedience. They walk by faith. For the law
of the spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. When we look by faith to Christ,
we have to see that. This is how we live. We live by looking at that offering,
by looking at the greatness of what took place at Calvary. Consider
the greatness that God hath made Him who knew no sin to be sin
for us. The greatness of that statement
I don't think can be overemphasized. God made him sin. Could God actually condemn an
innocent man and be just God doesn't deal in false weights.
Matter of fact, false weights are an abomination unto God.
But God did something that no human could ever do. Listen to
this. If you committed a crime, I could pay your fine. I could
stand in your stead. I could be punished for you.
What I could not do was make you innocent. You committed the crime. You
are guilty of the crime. Now you may escape punishment,
but that doesn't remove your guilt. Listen to what God did.
By making Him to be sin for us, He actually removed our guilt
and transferred it to His Son. It's an astounding thing. Listen. Who knew no sin. When he was
made sin he still knew no sin. Felt no sin, thought no sin,
did no sin. Yet he was so much made sin that
God in justice could execute him. He was made guilty. I can't understand
that because we can't do that in human None of us can do that. I can't transfer guilt. We can't. This is something God did. It's
a miraculous thing. And so consider as we walk and
have this struggle, consider what he did. By faith, we look
to him. That struggle we have with sin
that brings us so low. This is the hope that we have
is that sin that brought us so low has already been sentenced
to death and punished. Christ bore our sins. Where? In His own body. Such love cannot be measured that my sin was condemned in
his flesh for this reason, that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled." Where? In us. The righteousness of the law
is fulfilled in me. By transference of guilt I also
have transference of righteousness. Again, when you looked at Christ
when he was made sin, could you see sin? When he was on the cross,
could you find any sin? Couldn't. Look at it the other
way. In me is the righteousness of
God, and yet you follow me, you'll never find it. You'll never see
it. How do we know this? We know
this by faith, because God said it. What does it matter how I
feel or what I think? What does God say? Faith believes
God, regardless of what circumstance tells me or what the things of
the world or my own flesh tells me. What do we say? Let God be
true and every man, including this one, a liar. And so then to walk after the
Spirit is to walk by faith, is to walk by faith. Therefore the law cannot be our
guide, but the Spirit is. The flesh will never get better, but by walking in the Spirit
we may not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
We may subdue these lusts by walking in the Spirit. Now I
want to preface this by saying that It does not stop the thought
of sin, or the feeling of sin. Luther said you can stop the
birds from nesting, but you can't stop them from flocking. They're
going to flock together, but you can't stop them from nesting.
That's what sin is. Sin is always flocking. It's
always coming in. How do we stop it from nesting?
Looking to Christ. Looking to Christ. beholding
what love and grace He has accomplished for us. And it is by this great
love of Christ our sins are subdued. Believer, no amount of self-denial
or self-discipline or striving to obey the law will perform
this, but only by looking constantly to Jesus Christ looking again
and again at his perfect obedience and blood of his perfect love
and grace. It is by beholding his love our
sins are subdued. So then do you feel this warfare
like I do? Do you not need this constantly to be reminded how
I may subdue this old man? How I may put him off like I'm
supposed to? How I'm supposed to put on the
new man? It is by this law. It is the law of faith. It is the law of faith. It is
by looking to Christ. And as God, by the Holy Spirit,
causes us to see this, it is then we are subdued. I think of that
in Romans 12. He says, Brethren, I beg you. I beg you, because of the mercies
of God, present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto the Lord, which is what?
It's reasonable service, isn't it? See, it's only reasonable
if you've got Him in view. How many times have we used liberty
as an occasion to the flesh because we're looking here? We're justifying it. Because
that's what we want to do. How do we stop? Look to Him.
Stop looking to yourself. Look to Him. And the second law is like this.
It is love. This first law always produces
the second one. Love. Go to 1 John. 1 John chapter Let's see if I can find it. 1 John 3, verse 22. Look
at this. It says, For whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him, because we keep his commandments. Oh, wow!
Isn't that something? We keep his commandments. How do we do that? That's the
new man, isn't it? It cannot sin. We keep his commandments.
Listen to this. And we do the things that are
pleasing in his sight. Isn't that something? You feel
like that? You walk down the street and
say, man, I am pleasing God. Look how pleasing I am. Oh, I
must smile on me. He must be so happy to have me. But you are pleasing in his sight.
And this is his commandment, just in case you missed it. I
want you to know what commandments he's talking about. This is his
commandment. That we should believe on the name of his Son, Jesus
Christ, and love one another. There it is. Isn't this our God? Isn't this our law? Faith and
love. Faith and love. Faith generates
what? Love. Law never generates love, it
generates pride. If you think you did it, and
you're better than somebody else, I tell you this right now, you're
better than me. You want that? Go ahead. You can be better than
me. That'd be true. But this is our law, faith and
love, and faith always generates love. Therefore, what strange creatures
are we? Aren't we strange? We are strange
creatures, teachers of two natures in one man, constantly at warfare,
given a law by which we should look always to Christ, and, you
know, the flesh is always pulling us to look something else. This
is what Philpott said, he says, strange creatures. We cannot
live without sinning, yet we cannot live in sin. We cannot
live without prayer, yet for days we cannot pray. continually
finds religion a burden, and yet would not part with it for
the world. Lusts after sin as a delicious
morsel, yet hates it with a perfect hatred. Esteems Christ the chiefest
among 10,000, and yet is at times tried and doubts whether He's
my Savior at all. "'Tis a point I long to know,
oft it causes anxious thoughts. "'Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I his or am I not? "'When I look within, all is
vain and wild. "'Isn't this true with you? "'How
can I deem myself a child?'' Don wrote this. He said, we are
like that Shulamite woman. The Lord said He looked upon
the Shulamite and she is as a woman with Two armies. Two armies. That's a picture of what? Inside
of me is two armies. Don wrote this, he said, Two
armies, war within my soul, both flesh and spirit seek control.
Both grace and sin resolve to reign, and daily war within remain. Grace bids me to seek the Lord
in prayer, though sin would drive me to despair. Sin drags me downward
to the earth, and grace uplifts me, my heavenly birth. Spirit
truly loves the Lord, his house, his people, and his word. But
still my heart with sin is tried. My flesh will never step aside. Oh, what a paradox I feel. My heart of flesh, a heart of
steel. In love with sin, with sin at
war, myself I love, myself alone. It is true with you. It is true with every believer
in Jesus Christ. We are at constant warfare. Nevertheless, though you may
feel the guilt and shame of your sin constantly, Though you struggle
daily to look by faith to Jesus Christ and utterly fail, miserably
fail, here is my hope. But, Paul said, regardless of
this warfare, regardless of your success or your failure, but, If you be led of the Spirit,
you are not under the law. What are you under? Grace. Free pardon, free forgiveness,
constant, perpetual cleansing of your unrighteousness. May God give us grace to walk
in the spirit and constantly look to the offering and righteousness
and look to the glory of Jesus Christ. Where is he now? The
one who died for you? The one who obtained your, where
is he? He's on the throne of God. He's moving all things after
the counsel of his own will to bring you to himself. And nobody's gonna stop him from
doing that. Not even you. Not even you. Isn't that something
to be praising God about? Say it, it's finished. Did he
say that? God helped me to believe and
trust in that. I believe! Lord, help my unbelief. That guy knew what it was to
warfare, right? He knew what it was to struggle. So does every
believer. I pray God will bless this. This stand be dismissed. Glenn, dismiss it, brother.