Now will you please carefully
follow in your own Bible as I read from the sixth chapter of Romans,
Romans chapter 6, verses 15 through 23. Romans 6, verses 15 through
23. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under law but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye present
yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey,
whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But thanks be to God that whereas
ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that
form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered. and being made
free from sin and become servants of righteousness. I speak after
the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh,
for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and
to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as
servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when you
were the servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that
time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end
of those things is death. But now being made free from
sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification,
and the end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now it should be obvious to anyone
who has listened just to this reading of the passage without
any comment that to introduce a study of this portion with
the question, whose slave are you? is not to find something
that is hidden under the surface of the obvious sentiments expressed
by the Apostle. For the very clear teaching of
this passage is that no one within the sound of my voice tonight
is a free man, a free woman, a free boy, or a free girl, but
that each of us is a slave. The word servant in the translation
that I read in your hearing, should properly be translated,
slave. In all the ugliness of the connotation
of slavery, and the teaching of this passage is that no man,
no woman, no boy, no girl is free. We are either the slaves
of God and of righteousness, or we are the slaves of sin leading
to death. Tonight, as we come to the second
of our expositions and meditations in this portion of the Word of
God, I would remind you very briefly of the ground that we
covered last Lord's Day evening. We noted that the basic thread
of the Apostle's thought in this passage is one in which he is
answering the objection that is based upon what I call the
devil's logic. having established in the previous
chapters that guilty sinners are saved not by what they do,
that is, the works of the law, but by the doings and the dyings
of another, even Jesus Christ, and that the benefit of his doings
and dyings are received by faith alone, Why the objection might
come, well, since salvation is free and gratuitous, and where
sin abounds, grace does much more abound, let's continue in
sin that grace may abound. The objection delineated in verse
one of the chapter. Well, the apostle answers that
objection with one unit of thought through the first thirteen verses.
And then he introduces an expansion of that thought in verse 14,
for sin shall not lord it over you, since you are not under
law but under grace. Well, the devil's logic comes
along again and says, what then? Shall we sin because we are not
under law but under grace? And then the apostle answers
again, God forbid, and then introduces this whole analogy of the servant
and the master. So if we were to distill the
essence of chapter 6, it is the divine answer to the devil's
logic to this perversion of the truth of justification by faith
alone apart from the works of the law. In the first 11 verses,
the answer is our union with Christ forbids that we should
continue in sin. And the passage read in your
hearing tonight, verses 15-23, is an indication that our servitude
to righteousness precludes our servitude to sin. Well, it's
in this imagery then of the slave and the master that we are seeking
to discover some of the richness of the thought given to us through
the inspired apostle. And last Lord's Day evening,
we considered only what the Roman Christians were by nature. And we noted in that description
that their former condition was asserted in verse 17, they were
the slaves of sin. Their former condition was described
in verses 19 and 21 as consisting in a voluntary obedience to the
demands of sin. They presented their members
And they regarded nothing of the demands of righteousness,
verse 21, and the end of that condition is described in the
word death. So this was true of all the Romans,
and as we noted last week, it is true of every unconverted
man, woman, boy or girl upon the face of the earth. Each one,
without exception, is a slave of sin by nature. There is that
expression of that slavery and the voluntary obedience yielded
to sin, the total disregard of the demands of righteousness,
and as such, each one is in the path which leads only to death. Now tonight, we move to the second
major area of thought in the passage, namely, what the Romans
had become by grace. Last night we looked at the before
picture, tonight we look at the after picture. Having seen the
ugly sight of man as he is by nature, we now come to the beautiful
sight of what man becomes by grace. And we'll follow basically
the same outline as we did last week, since it seems to be a
convenient teaching model or framework, and we will consider
first of all their new condition asserted, and then their new
condition described, and then the end of their new condition
given to us in the passage. First of all then, What is the
Apostle's assertion with respect to their new condition? Well,
he says two things by way of assertion. He says, first of
all, that it is one of liberation from sin, and secondly, it is
one of servitude to righteousness. Notice the vigorous language
now in verse 18. and being made free from sin,
or more literally, or I should say more vigorously translated,
and having been emancipated from sin. For the word emancipation
speaks more to our ears, and it is an accurate embodiment
of the thought of the Spirit in the word that was used. He
asserts that their new condition is to be understood in no less
a vigorous imagery than that of the emancipation of a slave
from the claims of his former master. The former master in
the passage is sin, personified into the image of a cruel master
who demands the full engagement of all the faculties of his slaves,
and when they're all done, he pays them nothing but the wages
of death. He takes them to hell with himself. Whereas now the apostle says,
since the grace of God has come, the new condition is one of liberation,
emancipation from that cruel master who no longer has the
sovereignty over them. Verse 14, as real as was their
slavery to sin is their emancipation from sin. But then he says, by
way of assertion, that their new condition is also to be understood
as one of servitude to righteousness. We might literally translate
verse 18 in this way. And having been emancipated from
sin, ye became enslaved to righteousness. And the word he became servants
simply means to become enslaved. So here is an assertion indicating
a very real enslavement which attended their liberation. And we may say, though it seems
paradoxical, it is true. It was liberation and emancipation
by enslavement. What a strange thing, to be emancipated
by becoming enslaved. But that's precisely the teaching
of this text. Being emancipated from sin ye
became. Upon that emancipation, you came
into another form of slavery and of bondage. You came into this slavery to
righteousness. Now you see, righteousness is
personified into the person of the new master. And what does
it mean in this context? Well, it means that which conforms
to the law and the will of God. Righteousness is that which is
in conformity to the law and the will of God. You remember
last week we noted from verse 20 that in their former state
they regarded themselves as free men in the presence of righteousness
as a master. You remember Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith,
master analogy, you who are here. And he says, when righteousness
would speak its demands in your former state, you said to righteousness,
who are you to tell me what to do? I don't belong to you. You're
not my master. I do not acknowledge your headship
or authority or lordship. He says you were free. You regarded
yourselves as free men with regard to righteousness. But now he
asserts that in their new condition, they have come into a servitude
to righteousness. But now notice it is not righteousness
in the abstract, just a principle or code of conduct, but he uses
another phrase in verse 22 which shows that it is righteousness
in conjunction with servitude to God himself. Look at verse
22. but now having been emancipated from sin and become enslaved
to God, you have your fruit unto holiness. You see how he uses
the two things interchangeably? All who have become enslaved
to righteousness have done so as they have become enslaved
to God Himself. And these two things are inseparable,
not only in fact, but in the teaching of the Apostle Paul.
He goes on in the 8th chapter to say concerning the carnal
mind, he says this in verse 7, the carnal mind is enmity against
God, his person, and is not subject to the law of God, the standard
of righteousness. And the Apostle joins the two
things here, as he did in the previous chapters, when he speaks
of men's opposition to God, it is always in terms of their opposition
to the law of God. The two cannot be separated,
for the law is the transcript of the righteous character of
God as it impinges upon man the creature in his circumstances
as dictated by God. And so he asserts that the new
condition is one of servitude to righteousness, but not righteousness
in the abstract, but righteousness as the standard of the God to
whom they have become enslaved. And yet by saying, you are enslaved
to righteousness in the practical expression of the standard of
right and wrong, he delivers them from any kind of mystical
notion. Oh yes, I am the bond slave of
God. Isn't that wonderful? I have
such warm thoughts about God now, and I just feel all... No,
no, he says, if that bondage, if that servitude is real, it
will be practical. It will be servitude to righteousness,
to a practical, tangible standard of right and wrong. But if it
is true conversion, it is not an empty legalism in which you
get converted from one way of life to another, in which you
merely give up one set of standards for another. No, no. It is servitude
to God. There is warm, living, pulsating,
person-to-person relationship. But that never degenerates, you
see, into mere mysticism. In the most intimate recesses
of that one-to-one, person-to-person intimacy, there is always the
recognition that I am the creature under solemn obligation to obey
the law of Him who is my Creator and my Redeemer. And so the apostle
then asserts the new condition in these simple terms, and I'm
so glad for verse 19 in which he said, I speak after the manner
of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. I find the whole
doctrine of sin and the liberation of the gospel concrete. so beautifully
in this whole matter of the master-slave relationship, and it takes it
out of the realm of abstract thought and gets it down where
we can touch it and feel it and look upon it in all of its sharp
delineation. So the new condition then of
every Roman Christian is, number one, emancipation from the sovereignty
of sin, number two, servitude to righteousness. Now before
we pass on, I just want to underscore, I'm not applying now, I'm simply
expounding, that the Apostle asserts that this new condition
is present in every true Christian at Rome without exception. Notice
how sweeping, how general is the language. God be thanked,
verse 17, that whereas of sin, all of you without exception.
That was your former condition. When the gospel came and you
were cast into the mold of the gospel, that will be our exposition
for next week, God willing, how this change occurred. What happened? He says, having been emancipated
from sin, ye became enslaved to righteousness. How many? Every
single Christian at Rome without exception. There was no middle
class who had simply trusted Jesus and were now saved and
on their way to heaven, but who had not had this radical emancipation
from sin's dominion and this fundamental subjugation to God
and to righteousness. The notion of a class of Christians
in whom there has been no radical breach with sin in whom there
has been no transfer of government is utterly foreign to the teaching
of the word of God." Well, we pass on now to consider
in the second place the new in its acting. You see, the apostle
asserts what the new condition is, but then he's not content
with that. He goes on to describe the new
condition in its acting, and he says three things. Number
one, this new condition in its acting is characterized by constant
shame with respect to their former life. Look at verse 21. We go
back up to verse 20. When ye were the slaves of sin,
ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that
time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? You see, the emphasis is between
then and now. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now, and he uses a present tense verb,
whereof you are now continually ashamed. And there the apostle,
as it were, touches the deep inner springs of the heart of
the Roman Christians, and he says, when you open up the springs
of the heart, you will find this new condition manifesting itself
continually in a sense of shame with regard to the life lived
in obedience to that old master. Now the word shame, though it's
difficult to give a formal definition, is obvious in its meaning. You
children know what it is to be ashamed. If you had a father
or mother, who dressed shabbily and never bathed or washed, and
all the kids in the neighborhood were bringing their moms or dads
to a party of some of the kids in the neighborhood, you'd feel
ashamed to bring your mom and dad. What would that feeling
of shame mean? Well, it means you didn't want to be seen with
them. You'd rather disown them in that situation. You could
not, as it were, bring them to the front and say, hey kids,
here's my pop, and then bust your buttons while you do it.
Or here's my mom, and be proud of it. You see, shame is the
opposite of feeling that sense of pride and wanting to be identified
with something or someone. Now the Apostle says, concerning
the past life of these Romans, As they think of that lifestyle
and all that it involved, he said, every time you think of
it, you feel deep pangs of shame. That's the new condition described
in its actings. Shame for the past life. embarrassment, a sense of spiritual
chagrin in the presence of every memory of what they were. But then, in the second place,
he says the new condition in its acting is marked by this,
a voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness.
Verse 19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity
of your flesh, as you presented your members, servants, to uncleanness
and to iniquity unto iniquity. Even so now present your members
slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. Verse 16, Know
ye not that to whom ye present yourselves slaves to obedience,
his slaves you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or
of obedience unto righteousness? You see what he is saying? He
is saying the new condition manifests itself in this voluntary and
practical obedience to the demands of righteousness. The slavery
to sin was not theoretical. When your master sin spoke, Paul
says, you gave your members as instruments of unrighteousness
to do his bidding. You gave your eyes to lust and
your ears to gossip and your tongues to vicious speech. You gave your feet to walk in
unholy paths and your emotions to feel unholy thoughts. When
sin dictated, you gave your faculties, your members, instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin. Now, he says, because the emancipation
is not theoretical but real. This transformation, which he
has already asserted, that involved liberation from sin and servitude
to righteousness, it is not a theoretical concept. He said, as surely as
it manifests itself in the constant sense of grief for what you were,
it manifests itself in the voluntary and practical yielding of yourself
to the demands of righteousness. When God exerts His demands in
terms of His word and His law, as surely as the hand was given
to do forbidden things in the in the ears to perform forbidden
acts. So now, when he calls upon us
with our eyes to look upon men for what they are and let the
eye be the inlet of compassion and grief, he says, you now present
your members instruments of righteousness unto instruments of obedience
unto righteousness. As the ear was once given to
listen to gossip and to drink it into the soul, so now the
ear will refuse to be presented unto gossip, and will seek to
listen to that which is good to the use of edifying. And as
the feet walked in paths that were in direct violation to God's
law, so they now walk in paths of righteousness for his name's
sake. He said this is the manifestation
of the new life in action. And then he said the third thing
that characterizes it is this, there is the practical fruit
of sanctification. Verse 19, you present your members
as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. Verse 23, verse 22, I'm sorry,
now having been emancipated from sin and becoming slave to God,
ye have your fruit unto holiness or unto sanctification. You see
what the Apostle is doing? He is again undercutting any
thought that this transformation is just a flight of mystical
feelings, some kind of a nebulous Jesus experience to be felt and
known only in the closet of prayer, tension of a religious gathering. No, no, he says, there was actual
fruit that resulted in a life of separateness unto God, for
that's the essence of the concept of sanctification or holiness,
that which is set apart unto God, and therefore being set
apart unto Him is marked by those things that are pleasing in His
sight. You remember the contrast? He
said your former life was characterized by that uncleanness within. You presented yourselves, verse
19, as your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity
unto iniquity. So now, he says, this practical
involuntary presentation of your members results Not in uncleanness
as in your former life, but in sanctification of heart. That
is heart holiness. Sanctification of life. Holiness
as it touches conduct and our demeanor before God and before
men. Now let me simply underscore
again, there is not a hint of a suggestion that the apostle
is in any way inferring that this transformation, both as
asserted and described, is something exceptional. He is saying it
is universal, it is general, it will be found wherever you
find a true Christian at Rome. All right, then very briefly,
the end of this new condition is stated in verse 22. But having
been emancipated from sin and having been enslaved or become
slaves to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification and the end,
eternal life. In other words, he says, all
in whom there has from sin and his servitude to righteousness,
and then the practical manifestations of that new standing before God
and the power of sin, he says, such a one is in that narrow
road that leads unto life. And of course, the contrast in
the passage is with death. The former master and all that
he demands, he says, the end of those things is death. Verse 21. Again in verse 23,
the wages of the sin is death. You see, the picture is still
that of the personification of sin into a master. And when you've
served him all your days, and it comes payday, what does he
give you? Death. all the horrors of hell and of
outer darkness. Whereas here, the person who's
experienced that radical cleavage with sin as his master, who has
become enslaved to God and to righteousness, he says, having
his fruit unto holiness, the end is eternal life. Now is he suggesting that that
eternal life is that which they earn because of their holiness? No. Look at the next words in
verse 23. The wages of sin is death, but
though you get what you deserve, if you end up in hell, the free
gift of God is eternal life. No, it is gracious all the way
through, but now follow. It is grace that breaks the dominion
of sin, not grace that takes us to heaven, whether sin's dominion
is broken or not. There is no such grace taught
in the Word of God. So it doesn't bother the apostle
at all to say that eternal life comes at the end of a life of
holiness and then turn right around and say eternal life is
the free gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. And it's only when we add the
devil's logic to the gospel that we find any difficulty in moving
very easily and naturally from verse 22 into verse 23. It didn't
seem to jangle the apostle's mind in theology one bit. And
if it jangles ours, ours needs to be adjusted to the Word of
God. Well, that very briefly is an opening up of what I understand
to be the teaching of the Apostle in this portion of the Word,
what the Romans became by the grace of God. Now, as we did
last week, I want to take that exposition. Having, as it were,
opened up the text, now let's put the text on. And I want to
press the question upon the conscience of every person in this building
tonight. As we look at this passage and the description of the transformation
which grace brought to the Romans, I would ask you as you sit here
tonight, is this passage a graphic description of you? In other words, If everyone were
to make an exodus from this room, and you were left sitting right
smack down there in the middle all by yourself, all alone, no
one else, and the Apostle Paul were given momentarily If the
insight of God is as to the true condition of your heart, could
he pen these words to you personally and say, Whereas ye were the
bond-slave of sin, you have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching
unto which you were delivered. And having been emancipated from
sin, and having become enslaved to righteousness, you You are
having your prudent holiness and the end everlasting life."
Could he write that of you? If not, my friend, you are yet
a slave of sin. You are yet in the way that leads
to death. You are yet in bondage to your
sins. Let me then briefly apply what
we've seen in the text. as we work our way back through
the lines of thought open to us in this passage. If you are a Christian, you have
been loosed from sin's lordship, and you've been made a slave
of righteousness and of God. Now, is that true of you? Is that true of you? Has sin's
dominion over you been broken? I am not asking you, are you
sinlessly perfect? For I have no grounds to ask
that question of any but an angel or a glorified saint beyond our
Lord himself. And anyone else lays claim to
it, God says he's a liar. But though we turn in horror
from the false teaching of sinless perfection, we must face realistically
the clear teaching of this passage, that if we, by the power of the
Spirit, have When cast into the mold of the Gospel, verse 17,
we have experienced that emancipation which has led to this blessed
enslavement to God and to righteousness. We are not strangers to that
emancipation unto subjugation which is the experience of every
true Christian. And rather than try to help you
to answer that question in the abstract, I want to move very
quickly to the second area of thought that we opened up tonight.
What was the manifestation of the change in the Romans? You
remember the three things. Shame for what they had been.
The voluntary giving up of their members to righteousness and
to God. and the practical fruit unto
holiness. And my friend, if you have experienced
the change of masters, this will be true of you. Are you ashamed
of what you once were? Now notice, he doesn't say you
were ashamed when you got caught. Now you children, listen to pastor.
I've rarely met a child who did not feel very ashamed when he
got caught in his sins. I can remember as a boy when
my mom and dad would catch me in my sins. I would cry, and
it was very real tears. I didn't manufacture them. My
shame was so deep I'd sob at times like a baby, even up into
my teenage years. But if they didn't catch me,
I didn't shed any tears. There was no godly shame. The thought that I would take
these hands and these eyes and these ears and these feet and
this mind and these affections and willingly give them up to
the master's sin, that caused some pain of conscience continually. I never was happy in my sin. Deep pains of conscience! And when caught, shame that I
had been caught! But it could not be said of me
what is said here. What fruit had ye then in those
things? Whereof ye are now ashamed? Not ashamed for what the things
brought you, exposure, humiliation, but for the things themselves. Isn't that what the text says?
What fruit had ye in those things? Whereof ye are ashamed. And one of the marks of the person
who's been transformed by the grace of God is that sin is ugly
because it's sin. It is seen now in the light of
God's glorious holiness, in the light of the strict justice and
reasonableness of His holy law. It is seen above all in the light
of the cross of Jesus Christ. And there it is stripped of all
of its glamour and all of its tinsel beauty and naked ugliness. There at Calvary, when I realized
it was my sin, my presenting of my members as instruments
of righteous unrighteousness unto sin that opened up the wounds
of the Son of God, caused the shrouded heavens, wrung the agonizing
cry from His heart, I cannot help but be ashamed of the things Now, my friend, do you know any
of that shame of the things that characterized your past life?
Shame for the things. You children, are you ashamed
of your lying? Because it's a contradiction
of everything God made you to be as an image-bearer. He made
you to reflect His image. He's the God of truth. Every
time you lie, you contradict that image. Are you ashamed of
that? Shame! Does it fill your heart,
children? If you're not ashamed of your
lies, then you still love your lies, and you love your sin,
and you love the Master. Are you ashamed of your pride? For what is pride but an attempt
to unseat God? He claims himself to be the giver
of every good and perfect gift, the only one worthy of praise
and adoration. I am Jehovah. I will not give
my glory to another, neither my praise to grave and images.
What is pride but an attempt to nudge God from His throne
and say, I'll share it with Him, and I will receive some honor.
I will receive some praise. The ashamed pride What about
some of you young women? God's given you a fair face and
a fair form. You're full of pride about your
face and your form. Are you ashamed? Are you filled
with a sense of revulsion? Shame for the things of your
past life. Need I go on into greater detail?
You just stop and think of all the things that you did when
sin was your master. And you willingly gave him your
members, externally and internally. You gave them. As you think of
that, are you filled right now as I preach with a sense of holy
disgust and shame? I remember the late Dr. Tozer saying on one occasion,
If any man can think or speak of his past without shame, he's
never repented of it. If any man can think or speak
of his past without shame, he's never repented of it. He was
pretty much on target in the light of this verse. Oh, but
you say, Pastor Martin, I was reared in a Christian home. And
because, for one reason or another, I was basically obedient to my
mom and dad, I went to catechism class, and I was confirmed, and
I became a confessing believer, I went to church all my life,
I never frequented the honky-tonks, and I never made my way bar-hopping
and bed-hopping and all the rest, what is there that I should be
ashamed of, my friend? If that very question is on your
lips, it's proof you're still a slave of the devil. For few know the shame than does
that which is known to the self-righteous religious hypocrite, who thinks
of all those Sundays he spent warming a place in a Christian
church building, mouthing the words of Christian devotion,
listening to the proclamation of the Christian gospel, and
his heart was as far from God as though he'd been in a brothel
in the same hour. When that grips you, it fills
you with shame. All of his prayerless praying,
all of his heartless singing, all of his heartless listening
to sermons, he's filled with shame! Do you know anything of
that shame, my religious friends? Paul says that's the manifestation
of the new condition, shame. for the past. But then he says,
there will be the voluntary and practical obedience to the demands
of righteousness. And he says, as you presented
your members to sin, that was a real presentation, even so
now present your members instruments of righteousness unto God. Oh,
but someone says, Pastor, that's an exhortation. Yes, it is. But it's not an exhortation which
has any doubt as to the issue in a true believer, for he's
already said in verse 15, don't you know that to whom you actually
present yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are? So know my friend, the fact that
it's an exhortation does not negate the fact that it is the
experience of every true believer. Now let me press the question
upon your conscience. Are you voluntarily, consciously,
and practically presenting your members as instruments of righteousness
unto holiness? Are you consciously presenting
your eyes to be the inlet of holy sights and thoughts Or are
you consciously, deliberately giving your eyes to watch the
lecherous on the TV, to watch the unclean in the modern magazine,
to watch the prurient and that which is in a contradiction to
the Word of God at every point? What are you doing with those
eyes? Are you making a covenant with them, as did Job, that you
should not look upon forbidden objects? God describes wicked
people in these terms eyes full of adultery. Does that describe
you? He doesn't say beds full of adultery,
He says eyes. Eyes may never go any further
than the eye and God says you can be classified as an adulterer
and the only member of your body that's ever involved is your
eyes. And we're not talking about the poor man wrestling with lust
in a sex-soaked age, who cries to God a hundred times a day,
Lord, cleanse my eyes and cleanse my heart, and who seeks to wage
an all-out warfare with varying degrees of success. We're not
talking about that. We're talking about the purposeful,
deliberate yielding of the eyes to be the inlet of lust. the
ears to be the inlet of unkind speech and gossip? Do you deliberately
and willfully stretch out your ears like antennae to pick up
the latest little whisper of gossip? Do you present your ears, instruments
of righteousness unto God, saying, Lord, make me sensitive to the
first crackling sound of gossip and help me to change the channel
too large? What about your mouth? Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you. James says the one who professes
religion and does not bridle that tongue has vain religion. Do you present your tongue an
instrument of righteousness unto God? to speak words of healing,
words of comfort, words of instruction where necessary, words of loving
rebuke to administer those faithful wounds of a friend? Or is your
tongue an instrument that slashes and cuts and stings and wounds
and leaves a trail of blood? The apostle says, If this liberation
has been real and the new subjugation has been real, there will be
the voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness.
And it's not just keeping a standard, it's servitude to God, instruments
of righteousness unto God. It's in that sense that I love
to be in this relationship of servitude to the one who made
me for himself. And then he says there will be
the practical fruit unto holiness. And perhaps the most comprehensive
description and short compass is Galatians 5, 22 and 23. The fruit of the Spirit is love. The love that thinketh no evil.
The love that puts the best construction on a given set of facts. It doesn't
look for the most dastardly, the most possible mean, ugly
motive and then assume it's right and extract it and then pronounce
it as The Spirit is love. Love that thinketh no evil. Love
that seeketh not her own. Love that is selfless. That is
concerned for others. Love that beareth all things.
Puts up with everything. Love that believeth all things.
The fruit of the Spirit is love. What is this fruit unto holiness?
It is the growing, outworking of this kind of love. joy, that
is, that inward sense of delight that comes from knowing that
I am the Lord's and He is mine. Peace, that rest of heart that
comes from knowing that my sins are pardoned through the blood
of the everlasting covenant. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
suffering long. Well, you go on. with that seven
and nine fold fruit of the spirit that's the practical fruit unto
holiness and the apostle says no one is in the way to life
who is not in the way of producing that fruit ye have your fruit
unto holiness and the end everlasting life now we come around full
circle to where we began with the question who's slave? are you? Whose slave are you? Are you sin's slave, my friend,
if you are? Take a good look at your master.
What does he exact from you? What does he demand of you? He
demands nothing less than that you give him your members to
be instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. He demands that the
price of your service to Him will be violating the law of
God. And listen to me, because we
were made to obey God and find our true fulfillment as His creatures
in obedience to Him, the price for service to sin is self-destruction. The price of service to sin is
self-destruction. That's why the only wages he'll
pay you at the end is death. The wages of sin is death. Now what would happen in the
world if you were to stand a group of people before two masters?
And the masters are described in terms of their character and
their past performance. One is described as being mean,
self-centered, insensitive, cruel, unreasonable, and if you give
yourself to serve Him, He'll not only pick your pocket while
you're working for Him, He'll not only work you to the point
of exhaustion and weariness, and torture you with every imaginable
means at His disposal, but when He's done with you, He'll take
you out and shoot you. The other master is one who is
known to be full of nothing but kindness and goodwill to all
of his servants. He considers their constitution,
their needs, all that they are, in all the demands that he makes
upon them. He is known to have a record
for being patient with those that are a bit slower to catch
on than others. He's known at his own expense
to stoop to meet the needs of those whom he takes under his
authority to be his slaves. And his record is absolutely
impeccable. and wonder of wonders, after
a certain period of time of servitude to him, he takes his slaves and
then adopts them into his own family and makes them his sons
and daughters and gives them the full run of his royal headquarters
or of his mansion. Now imagine if two such masters
were sent before you. a group of people, and people
were asked, choose which one, what in the world would you think
of those who willfully, deliberately, and with delight chose the former? You'd say they're insane. And you're right. You're right. And my friend,
that's exactly what sin has made you. Morally and spiritually
insane. I'm speaking to men and women
and boys and girls sitting in this building tonight who are
deliberately, willingly, voluntarily serving a master who is robbing
you of any last vestige of a good conscience, of any last vestige
of delight in life. He is promising you everything
that he cannot give and giving you everything that he does not
promise. And when he's done with you,
death will be your reward. While there stands over against
him the gracious Lord Jesus Christ, whose yoke is easy, whose burden
is light, who has a host of servants who can testify that he was always
considerate of their frame. He remembered that they were
but dust. His commands were not grievous, and when He laid burdens
that were too heavy for them to bear, He Himself came and
shouldered the burdens with them. He has a host of those who rise
up and say, His service has been naught but sweetness. And with
all that testimony of those who have served Him, and all the
record concerning that which He is, why will you not embrace
So gracious a master. I'll tell you why. Because you're
morally and spiritually insane in your sin. But my friend, if
you have any semblance of concern for your soul, may I urge you
to do something tonight? Will you cry to Almighty God
to break the bewitching spell of your moral and spiritual insanity? What have you got to lose by
crying to God and saying, Oh God, if what Pastor Martins told
us is true, what have I got to lose if I'm insane? Lord, show
me! I racked my brain for illustrations,
ways that I might bring this home to the conscience until
I said this afternoon, Lord, it can't be done. You must break
through and somehow seal your word and cause them in the language
of 2 Timothy 2 to return to soberness and to choose this gracious master. Last week I tried to quote from
a hymn and I said I couldn't locate it. Well I know at least
six people were listening to the sermon because during the
week I got six copies of the hymn. It's the hymn of George Matheson,
who lived in the 1800s, or at least he wrote this hymn in 1890. And as I close tonight, I want
to read two stanzas of this hymn, because it does indeed express
the thought of the Apostle in this passage, and something of
that which I've been trying to convey to you tonight. Make me
a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword,
and I shall conquerer be. I sink in life's alarms when
by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms,
and strong shall be my stand. My will is not my own, till thou
hast made it thine. If it would reach a monarch's
throne, it must its crown resign. It truly stands unbent amid the
clashing strife, when on thy bosom it has leaned and found
in thee its life. That's the truth of this passage.
Paul says you were the slaves of sin. You have become the born
slaves of God. And he makes it clear in his
final word in this chapter that that whole transaction came about
as they were brought into union with Christ. The free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh my dear friend, I know not
what else to do. I feel the frustration of preaching
when I come to a point like this. And I can only plead with you
in the name of the God of heaven before whom we shall all soon
stand in that awesome day. Don't shake off the question.
It's just another conclusion of another of Pastor Martin's
sermons. But may you take it to heart. Who slave you? Sin unto death? obedience unto righteousness,
and the end of her lasting life. God willing, in our study next
week, we shall address ourselves particularly to verse 17, and
ask the question, by what means did this wonderful transformation
occur? And there the Apostle gives us
some of the richest lines of thought to be found anywhere
in all of the Word of God. Concerning that great question,
how do the slaves of sin become the servants of God and of righteousness? Well, we know it's through Christ
and in Christ, but by what means are they actually brought from
that state to this? Well, the wonderful truth is
embodied in the words of verse 17, and God willing, we shall
examine the teaching of that verse when we gather next Lord's
Day. Let us unite our hearts in prayer. Our Father, we feel very keenly this night how utterly impotent we are to
impress upon the minds and consciences of any of our fellow mortals
the awesome weight of these great spiritual realities. But when
we think of our own blindness and how mercifully you opened
our eyes and turned us from darkness to light, we are then filled
with a sense of hope and expectation that you are able to do the same
for others. Oh God be pleased, be pleased
we pray. by the power of your word to
prevail upon some who sit here in this very moment as the slaves
of sin. Oh God, set them free to become
the slaves of righteousness and of yourself, the living God.
We pray that you would help us who have been liberated by this
exchange of masters. O help us that we may not be
found less zealous in our service of our gracious, redeeming Master
than we were in the service of sin. O forgive us that our zeal
so quickly flags And our desire to honor and serve you so very
quickly recedes and we are filled with a fresh sense of what a
massive weakness and tendency to sin we are. Oh God, keep us,
even in the days of the week that lies ahead of us, from growing
cold in our love to you and to your Son. Stir us up that it
may be our delight, day by day and hour by hour, to present
our members as instruments of righteousness unto yourself. May we bear much of that fruit
unto holiness. And then hasten the day when
our Lord Jesus will fill up the role of His elect, and come and
take us home to be Come, Lord Jesus, hear then the
prayer that we offer in your presence, and be with us as we
part from one another, and may the blessing of your own presence
abide with each one who is in Christ. Amen.