Spiritual Life #92
Freedom from the
Power of Sin
I John 3:9
Sooner or later, we
have to face it that we have to get into some things here and we have
to get on with God. So, that’s part of what I’d like to bring
home tonight, loved ones, by pointing you to the verse that describes
the normal Christian life. It’s I John 3:9, "No one born of
God commits sin." God is so good, he doesn’t get caught up in
a lot of qualifications; he just brings the truth home to us. "No
one born of God commits sin." I think really our own conscience
is a test whether that speaks to us or not.
Some of us here feel
that’s all right, I agree with that. Amen. That’s because our
conscience is right with God in regard to that. Some of us think wait
a minute, that’s a bit hard. I think if you feel that, you maybe
ought to be more honest before God. Because, loved ones, the normal
Christian life is that any of us who are born of God, we don’t
commit sin.
You remember where
sin is described, and it might be good to look at it lest Satan bring
us into false condemnation. Sin is described in James 4:17, "Whoever
knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
So, that’s what God’s Word describes as sin. The philosophers may
say that sin is any lack of conformity to absolute perfection whether
a person knows it or not. God does not define sin that way. God
defines sin as conscious, knowing, disobedience to what you know God
wants you to do.
Now, I think we get
into real trouble here tonight, if we go on past this sentence
without being real about our own lives. So, loved ones, I do think
that’s why many of us get into confusion. We go on after this point
and we refuse to be real. Now, I would question each one of us and
myself included. Let us examine ourselves against the Word of God,
and let us ask ourselves, are any of us here who say we are born of
God, are we committing sin? That is, are we doing something that we
know is wrong? We should be real, you see. I think that’s where we
get into difficulties and that’s where all the confusion rises in
your mind. Do you remember that Jesus said, anybody who does what I
say will know the doctrine and will know that what I say is true?
Now, the opposite of that is equally true. If you don’t do what
Jesus says, you’ll be confused about the doctrine. Loved ones, just
let’s set ourselves, each one of us, against God’s Word.
Do you say that you
are born of God? Now, if you do, then you don’t commit sin. That
is, you don’t do things that you know are wrong. All of us might
not have been challenged to have Quiet Times. I understand that. In
that case, you’re not responsible for that. But, if God has spoken
to you about a Quiet Time, a prayer time each day, do you carry that
out?
Now, why I am laying
all this on you is not to beat you to death. Loved ones, this dear
Word has kept me from insanity. It will keep us all from insanity if
we will face it and believe it. Really. So, please don’t go all
mushy on me and then say, oh, no, you’re condemning me. I’m not
condemning you. I’m saying to you we’re walking on dangerous
grounds in these days. We’re walking in confusing and deceptive
spiritual atmospheres and I am pleading with you to align your life
with God’s Word. Do you do things that you know are wrong? If you
do, you’re not experiencing the normal life of a child of God, and
you ought to be concerned, loved ones.
Nobody born of God
commits sin. Now, if you say to me, well, do you mean if I don’t
have my Quiet Time once or twice? No, I’m sure God doesn’t mean
that. But, would you miss your Quiet Time more often than you’d hit
it? Well, if you do, then you’re learning and teaching yourself to
despise that part of God’s Word. Loved ones, you lose all sense of
God’s presence in your life, you will.
For some strange
reason I feel I should stay on that for a moment. Do you see that
nobody born of God commits sin? Take that at its lowest level. Let’s
say, commit sin habitually. It doesn’t mean that. It doesn’t say
that. But, let’s say commit sin habitually. Now, presumably we
wouldn’t say sin habitually is twice a day. We probably wouldn’t
even say it’s three times in a week. We might say, well, does not
commit sin maybe three times or four times in a month? Now, do you do
that? I would press you a little here.
You remember, I John
3 says this is how you know the children of God and can distinguish
them from the children of the devil. [I John 3:7-8] So, before we
start extending that habitual sin too far, let’s realize that there
are many loved ones who aren’t Christians at all who live very good
lives. So, let’s at least keep our habitual sinning above the level
of the normal child of the devil. And, remember, they aren’t
committing adultery every day and they aren’t murdering every day
and they aren’t telling lies every day.
Indeed, if you and I
look at the loved ones that we work with, we know many dear people
who aren’t Christians and who are very kind and very honest. So,
loved ones, I would just press all of us again. Would you first of
all be real about your outward sins? That’s what that verse is
concerned about. No one born of God commits (The emphasis is "poieo".
It’s the Greek word that becomes poet -- you make or do something,
poieo), nobody does sin. No one born of God does sin. That is, you
can do sin by an act or by a thought or by a word. Now, nobody born
of God disobeys God knowingly in act, thought or word. Now, do you do
that?
Now, there’s no
difficulty, you see, with the emergency because, you remember, that’s
taken care of in I John, if you like to look at it. God is fair to
us. He knows that we are not perfect beings and we have minds that
wander, we have emotions that are easily moved at times, we have
bodies that are weak and we are in a world that is infested with evil
spirits, so he knows that we are not absolutely perfect in mind and
emotions and body.
So, he provides for
that, I John 2:1, "My little children, I am writing this to you
so that you may not sin." That’s the normal life of a child of
God. "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." So, if you sin in an
emergency, Jesus has died for us and God will look upon him and will
forgive us because of Jesus’ blood. But, you do see that it says,
“I am writing this to you so that you may not sin but, if anyone
does sin.” I want you always to fill your car up with gas but, if
by chance, you run out, then I have an arrangement for you. That
doesn’t mean that you run out every day, saying, well, he has an
emergency arrangement. In other words, that is an emergency
arrangement. God’s norm for us is that we will not sin. So, I am
asking you to examine your own life and me to examine my life.
Sin is disobedience
to God’s law. Some of God’s laws, "Thou shalt not covet,
thou shalt not commit adultery", and, of course, along with
that, "if you look unto a woman to lust after her in your heart,
you’ve committed adultery." Then, "thou shalt not steal",
even if it’s a person’s reputation, thou shalt not steal. "Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." You won’t
tell untrue things about another person. “Thou shalt not swear.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain."
[Genesis 20:3-17]
Now, knowing the
commandments and knowing what is right, do you commit sin in your
life? Then, I would say if you can see some area of your life where
you’ve just slipped into lower gear, then I would suggest to you
that you deal with God tonight about that. Really. Because you can’t
go anywhere in regard to a holy and clean heart unless you first
clean up your own life. If you say to me, "But, Brother, I
thought God would do that." No, loved ones, God put into your
spirit the Spirit of his Son and gave you a desire to be like him and
he expects you to exercise your will to make your life conform to his
image, at least outwardly. Loved ones, will you deal with that?
Because if you don’t deal with that, anything more that we talk of
tonight is just like a tale told by an idiot. It makes no sense and
you’re going to get nowhere. You’re just going to swallow a whole
lot of doctrine and it’s going to give you indigestion.
And you, yourself,
are going to fall back. Loved ones, if you are born of God, are you
doing the things that you know are right? Now, if there’s anybody
here who has stolen something or has been dishonest with somebody,
boy, you should repent of that. Repentance is telling Jesus that you
apologize to him for the pain that you’ve given him and you make
restitution to the person or apology to the person. It would be good
to clear up your life and, of course, what I’m encouraging you to
see is that this cleans up, this cleans away all the darkness and all
the confusion.
Loved ones, there’s
so much confusion about today because we’re not taking sin
seriously. We’re not seeing that sin is hateful and blinding and
deceiving and sin is the thing that sent Jesus to the Cross. It is
the thing that has brought smears upon God’s name and sin is what
destroys people and destroys our God. Sin is straight from the pit of
Hell. Whenever you touch sin, you’re touching something that is
alien to you, that you were not made for, that was not made part of
you. The Bible always says, put the unclean thing far from you. Loved
ones, put it far from you. As if you picked up dirt from the ground
and just start dusting it off your hands. Get it away from you. That
applies, you see, if Satan deceives you. He says, what’s missing
Bible study for one morning? What’s big about that? Except that you
miss it the next morning and then you hit it the third morning and
then you miss it again the fourth. Until you have nothing that
resembles any friendship at all. Because if you treated a friend like
that, there would be no friendship. Loved ones, that’s what it
means.
I would encourage
you to do what I had to do years ago and what I have to do now --
line my life up with God’s Word and change my way of going, change
my actions, change my words, change my thoughts. I think there are
too many of us saying, oh, yeah, I know gossip is wrong, yes, I know,
I know. Yes, yes, we shouldn’t gossip, ha, ha. That’s it. Well,
we laugh our way to Hell. We will. Because gossip is a nail in Jesus’
hands and it’s a nail in the casket of your own spiritual life and
then it’s a nail in some other dear heart. Loved ones, unless you
and I get serious about our outward sins, we have no hope of coming
into this experience that we call holiness or sanctification. No
hope.
First of all, you
have to clean up your outward life. Do you know that this is what
destroys a church? You understand that this is the way churches die.
I don’t know if you’re aware of that. I mean most churches are
dying, aren’t they? They’re just keeping going by the present
excitement.
But, really, they’re
all going one way and they’re going one way because the preacher is
preaching to them obedience and how God hates sin Sunday after Sunday
and most of us are indulging in sin because we all say, Christians
are not perfect, just forgiven. With that great half truth, we are
throwing away a pearl. We’re throwing away salvation because we’re
not driving ourselves into the arms of God. We’re sliding down a
slippery slope of a sinning life.
Now, loved ones,
there is no such thing as a sinning Christian life. There isn’t.
Brothers and Sisters, if you say to me, "But, Brother, most
Christians are sinning." That’s right. You can see the effect
that they’re having on this nation. You can see the effect that
they’re having on the crime rate which is zilch, nothing. There is
no change in the crime rate. There is no great change in the business
practices of the nation, in spite of the fact that we’re apparently
in again another boom period for church attendance. Loved ones, there
is no such thing as a sinning Christian. There may be a sinning
church goer but there cannot be sinning Christians. Why? Because
God’s Word says it. No one born of God commits sin.
What is sin? Sin is
knowing what is right to do and failing to do it. It’s conscious,
knowing, disobedience to God’s Word. I remember that was what made
me wonder if I would end up in a psych ward. Because I found that
there was sin in my life and yet I said I loved Jesus. I could be
loving Jesus one moment and sinning the next. Loved ones, that is not
possible. One or the other is not true. Either you’re not sinning
or you’re not loving Jesus. No one born of God commits sin and sin
is conscious, knowing, disobedience to what you know God wants you to
do.
Many of us come to a
place where we have a life that is outwardly in conformity to God. I
would point out that Plato had that, and Socrates. There are many
holy men even of other religions that have conformed their outward
life to the particular standard of perfection that they believe in.
So, I would point out to you that it is possible to do that. Just as
it’s possible to speak in tongues, even if you’re not a
Christian. There are all kinds of ecstatic utterances that come from
Buddhists and from Muslims. There are all kinds of ecstatic
utterances in other religions, so just as his father would speak in
tongues without being a Christian, so it is possible to conform your
outward life to what you know you ought to do. So, that’s the first
step.
Now, many of us have
done that. Many of us here are living in outward conformity to God’s
law. If we do sin, we know we have an advocate with the Father. If we
find ourselves into involuntary sin, we do something, we suddenly
realize I did that, that was mad, it hurt God, I’m sorry, Lord, I’m
sorry. There are many of us who involve ourselves in involuntary
sins. Many of us do things that we find out later are sins. We didn’t
know them. They’re unconscious. The Bible provides for that. It’s
not a mortal sin. It’s something that the blood of Jesus covers.
Immediately we realize it, God witnesses in your heart, you are
forgiven, my child, I know you didn’t intend that, and we go on.
Many of us have come
to that place where we live in outward conformity to God’s law but
we find within ourselves still a tendency toward sin. That is, we
come into certain situations and we know we should not be angry and
we do through the grace that the Holy Spirit gives, we do control our
anger. May I point out to you again that there are many
non-Christians that control their anger? Do you realize that? It’s
no great thing to control your anger. It’s simply that we have been
brought up in a generation that has encouraged us to let it all hang
out and has encouraged us to think that you can’t keep it in.
Well, you can keep
it in and there are millions of us who have kept it in for millions
of years. There are plenty of people that keep anger down and so a
Christian is in that position. One who is born of God and still needs
to have his heart cleansed by faith, he’s in that position. He
controls the anger but it does rise within him. He knows he shouldn’t
express it and he doesn’t express it. But, he does it by willpower
and yet it is continually a restless, discontenting thing inside him
because he finds he seems to have a bent toward sinning.
Many of us find
that, after we’re born of God, we find that we want to do what God
wants us to do but there is something within us that seems to bend
over the other direction. So, all the churches testify that after
regeneration there remains within each person inbred sin or original
sin. In other words, loved ones, you sin because you’re a sinner.
You’re not a sinner because you sin. You’re a sinner and
therefore you sin. An apple tree bears apples. Until it becomes an
orange tree, it can’t bear oranges.
So, when we sin
outwardly as non-Christians, we sin outwardly because our whole
nature is that of a sinner and that is something that we have
inherited from Adam, from our forefathers down through the years. For
generations, the human race has lived without God. Ever since Adam
decided to live dependent on the world and not on God, he passed on
to his children that kind of attitude and they passed it on to their
children and they lived without the Holy Spirit and not only did
their mind become darkened and their understanding darkened, not only
did their conscience become weak and their bodies sick but they
themselves developed a whole inbred sin attitude.
Sin is living
independent of God. So, there developed in our whole race something
that the Bible calls our old nature, our old sinful nature.
[Galatians 5:17] In other words, something that made it natural for
us to sin, instead of natural to obey. So, those of us who are born
of God, even though we avoid outward sin in act and thought and word,
we still find within us a desire and a tendency to depend on people,
on things, on circumstances, on the world. So, we find there is a
battle that goes on within us and it’s the battle described in
Galatians, you remember, the flesh strives against the spirit. In no
way does the Bible say that’s the normal Christian life. In no way
does the Bible state that’s the way you have to go on through all
of your life. Indeed, the Bible states the opposite: that it is
possible to live in the Spirit and not in the flesh.
But, that verse in
Galatians simply states a fact, that there is within us the Spirit of
Jesus and yet there is this flesh that almost topples towards
dependence upon people and dependence on things. It is what the Bible
calls our old sinful nature. At times, it is called inbred sin. At
times, it is called original sin. It is what old Paul talks about,
you remember, if you look at Romans, and he’s speaking there in
Romans 7 as a Jew to Jews. He makes that clear, you remember, at the
beginning of Romans 7:1, "Do you not know, brethren -- for I am
speaking to those who know the law." So, he’s speaking to the
Jews who, of course, knew that their sins could be forgiven. You
remember, there’s a Psalm that says, "Blessed is he whose sin
is covered, unto whom the Lord doth not impute inequity." [Psalm
32:1] So, the Jew knew that he could have forgiveness of sins.
But, do you see how
Paul describes the situation of the Jew and it’s the same as the
situation of the Christian who is born of God. Romans 7:15, "I
do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I
do the very thing I hate." In other words, there comes a time in
all our lives when we are clear we want to do God’s will. We want
to obey him.
Now, we better watch
it. Some of us think we’re at that stage and that’s why we have
real trouble coming into a clean heart or into sanctification because
we think we do that. We look at that and we say, that’s right. I do
not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now, Paul really
meant that. Some of us think we mean it. Some of us say, oh, yes, I
really want to be patient. I really want to be like Jesus. I really
want to be like him, to be meek, and to accept punishment and let
people insult me. I really want to be like that and we don’t really
want to be like that. That’s what takes some of us a little time in
coming into full consecration.
Paul is saying that
a person who is going on after God is in that position. "I do
not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what
I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So, then, it is no
longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me." You see,
it’s sin in the singular and sin in the singular is this inbred
sin, this original sin, this old man, this old self, this old sinful
nature and it is the sin in the singular that produces sins in the
plural.
Loved ones, what God
deals with is usually at the beginning, he deals with us over our
sins, our acts and thoughts and words. Then, gradually he reveals,
but do you see there’s something still inside you that has a bent
to do those things again. So, gradually, many of us become aware that
there is something in us that is preventing us doing what we honestly
want to do.
You remember, he
goes on and says in verse 18, "For I know that nothing good
dwells within me, that is, in my flesh." He doesn’t refer
there as other parts of the Bible do when they talk about flesh to
the body, to the physical body. He’s talking about the part of us
that wants to depend on what comes through the body for our security,
instead of what comes from God. So, he says, "Nothing good, that
is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I
do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin
which dwells within me." So, loved ones, many of us have found
ourselves in that position, that this thing is greater than us. That
there’s something in us that will not let us do what God wants.
Paul goes a little
further because he knows that that power of sin or of living
independent of God can never be eliminated from the world until Jesus
comes. You see, it can’t. That power of sin is in the world until
Jesus comes. It is. There will always be that forceful power of life
that operates independent of God. That’s the life, you know, that
tries to make people satisfied with the drug exhilaration instead of
the exhilaration of the Holy Spirit. It’s the deception that tries
to make people satisfied with the love of friends without going
through to the only love that is finally reliable, the love of God.
That power will always be in the world and Paul knows that.
You can’t
eliminate sin from the world. The power of sin will always be there
but Paul shows that there is something that is allowing that power to
influence him the way it does. You see in Romans 7:21-23, "So I
find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at
hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see
in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making
me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members." Now,
he says, when he talks about law, he is not talking about something
that is handed down by the courts. He’s talking about law in the
sense of a natural law. For example, the law of gravity; it’s a way
of describing something that keeps on happening. He says, I see in my
members, in my body, in my mind, in my emotions, in my whole
personality, I see another thing that keeps on operating in a certain
way and it brings me under the power of this sin.
Do you see Paul is
beginning to get at the truth that we mentioned at the beginning?
That our personality has a way of working that is not fitted for
obedience to God. He brings it to a head, you remember, in verse 24.
"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death?" That’s how he describes it. He describes the old
nature that cannot obey God as a body of death and in another place,
you remember, as a body of sin because it’s a body that is used by
sin. When he refers to members it’s not just our hand or our leg.
He’s referring to every part of our personalities. In other words,
Paul says, I can’t do what I want because this nature is not fitted
for it and it makes me subject to the law of sin.
In other words,
loved ones, what we find ourselves with after we’re born of God is
an old personality nature that is not fitted to obey God. So, the
Spirit of Jesus moves within us and makes us want to do something and
the whole nature that we have is falling the other way. That’s why
you feel you’re lifting the whole world on your shoulders at times
in order to obey God. You feel you’re lifting a whole nature that
isn’t fitted for obedience and you are. You’re lifting a whole
nature that has developed over the years and that you have inherited
from Adam. You can never change that nature.
It doesn’t matter
how many books you read about positive thinking or about modifying
your temperament. You are involved in something that is
supernaturally powerful and you cannot change it. That’s why so
many of us have such frustration when we try to change our
personality. The glory is that God changed it in his Son Jesus.
That’s the meaning of Calvary. That’s what God refers to when he
talks about our old man. He says our old man was crucified with
Christ so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin.
Loved ones, God has
done that and it is the glory of every man or woman that has been
used mightily by God, it is the glory of each one of them that they
have, after conversion, after the New Birth, entered into an
experience of that by faith because, what Jesus has done for us, we
can experience here in this world. Loved ones, that’s the key to
the victorious life: that our old sinful nature was crucified with
Christ.
Brothers and
Sisters, if you say to me, don’t so many churches teach that you’ll
have that old nature with you? But you remember Paul says, "He
who has died is freed from sin." He says plainly in other
verses, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth
me." He says in Romans 6:1, shall we continue in sin? Then, he
says, "By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in
it?" In other words, his whole message is, it is possible not
only to live in outward obedience to God’s law in act and word and
thought but it is possible also to be delivered from this bent to
sinning.
George Müller
[1805-1898] ran an orphanage in Bristol. I think most of us know of
him and he writes like this in his diary, "I was converted in
November 1825, but I only came into the full surrender of heart four
years later in 1829. The love of money was gone. The love of place
was gone. The love of position was gone. The love of worldly
pleasures and engagements was gone. God alone became my portion. I
found my all in Him. I wanted nothing else. By the grace of God this
has remained and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man,
and it led me to care only about the things of God. This change was
so great that it was like a second conversion."
Then there is George
Fox, [1624-1691] who founded, you remember, the Quakers. "I knew
Jesus and he was very precious to my soul but I found something in me
that would not keep patient and kind. I did what I could to keep it
down but it was there. I besought Jesus to do something for me and
when I gave Him my will, He came into my heart and cast out all that
would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be
patient, and then He shut the door."
Now, loved ones, the
history of God’s children is scattered with testimonies like that.
Of men and women who are the same as ourselves. Men and women who we
found were born of God but for a while fiddled around with that
outward sin and that’s why I shared that with you tonight.
First of all, you
have to get rid of that. First of all, you have to do what you know
is right. You have the power to do that. It’s only Satan through
our educational system and through our books that suggest that we
can’t do what we know is right. You can. You have power over your
outward body. Hand rise. Rise. Drop. Drop. That’s right. You can do
it. You can do it. Even with the cigarettes, even with the sex. You
have power over your body and you know you have. You know that a man
who has just managed to rush out of a fire, immediately when he falls
to the ground, worn out and exhausted, immediately he hears that his
little child is still inside, he has energy from nowhere to get back
into those flames to save the child. We know when we’re up against
it; we have found that we can will ourselves to do what we ought to
do outwardly.
Now, loved ones,
that’s the first step but many of us have found that many men and
women have been like us and have come into outward conformity to
God’s law and have still found that they have a bent to sinning
within. They do not do outward sin but they feel it within. They are
not angry outwardly but they feel anger. They are not irritable to
the other person. They clamp up their mouths and they are patient but
they feel their irritability. They do not commit adultery and they
reject the thought when it comes but they feel a bent towards it.
They eventually come to that place that George Müller came to. He
said, "There came a day when I, George Müller, died to self and
died to sin."
Loved ones, the
answer is that God has done it in Jesus and we receive it by faith.
You cannot destroy that evil nature and you cannot strangle it. It is
done in a moment by God, through the Holy Spirit. He manifests in you
what he did in Jesus, his Son.
What have you to do?
It’s plain. It’s in Romans, if you look at it. It’s in Romans
6. It’s so simple but it takes all you have. First of all the fact
is stated in Romans 6:6. This is a fact. "We know that our old
self, [our old nature, our old man, our old sinful nature] was
crucified with him so that the sinful body [or the body of sin, the
whole personality that is used to sin] might be destroyed and we
might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died, is freed
from sin." Then, he says, so in the light of that, it says, you
were told that Jesus had borne your sins on Calvary and had brought
you forgiveness. You were to believe that.
So, in verse 11, "So
you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus." You must believe that. You must have faith. Then,
in verse 13, that’s the trust, you see, and then the obey is in
verse 13, "Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of
wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought
from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of
righteousness." That’s it. Verse 11 and verse 13. Believe it.
Reckon it. Reckon that your old nature is crucified and from then on
yield your whole personality to God’s Holy Spirit. That’s it, but
it is by faith.
John Wesley said
that it was a great day when he discovered that holiness was entered
into by faith and not by works. That’s it, loved ones. You enter
into the destruction of the old sinful nature by faith and it can be
yours this night. That’s why all these men and women testify that
it was done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, because whatever
is received by faith can be done in a moment because it’s done by
God. What is needed is a hunger and a thirst that will not give up
until God does it in you.
So, each one of us
need to deal with God. I’ll tell you what I’ve seen in us when we
come to this point because you know I’ve been off and on preaching
this for 15 years. What happens when we come to this point is you
forget that there’s only one can bring you through to this and it
is not Ernest . It is not Leighton Carlson. It is not Robin Davidson.
It is not Al Mullen. It is not a man. A man cannot bring you through
to this any more than a man brought you to know that you were
forgiven by God. Only God himself can do this. But, he can do it,
loved ones. It is possible to be freed from our evil, sinful nature
so that we not only obey outwardly but we rejoice to obey in our
hearts.
Now, I encourage you
to seek this and to expect it every moment, to expect it every
moment, and to yearn for it and to have no truck with irritability in
your heart. Loved ones, let’s declare war against sin in this body.
Let’s declare war against sin. Let’s say, "I’m mad as hell
and I’m not going to put up with it any longer" -- like that
dear guy says in the movie. Say that. Do not put up with it. Refuse
to put up with sin in your life. Say to Satan, you’ve had your day
with me. You’ve had enough fun. No more. I am going to obey my God
outwardly which is a reasonable thing for him to expect. I am going
to obey him in act and thought and word and I am going to seek for a
cleansed heart and deliverance from this sinful nature because Jesus
has wrought it for me on Calvary and I know he has wrought it for me
so that I’ll experience it.
Loved ones, if you
have set about it that way, and you’ll determine not to make do
with less, God will answer you. He will. If you will take Jacob’s
attitude and say I will not let you go unless you bless me, he will
do it. If you say to me, what about all the people that are clinging
onto my coattails and saying, well, do you believe that? Forget them.
Forget them. You won’t get anywhere if you listen to them. Forget
them. Let them go. Let them do what they want to do. But if God’s
Word convinces you, and I encourage you to read it -- read I John 3,
read Romans 6, read Romans 8, and see that it is God’s normal will
for us that we would be free from outward and inward sin. Whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness. Why should we put
up with this criticism and this anger and this irritability and this
dirt and this uncleanness when God did not intend us for it?
If you say, "Oh,
Brother, you brought me under condemnation." Well, condemnation
is only for those who won’t change. Conviction is for those who
will change. So, if you want to be like your Father, sure, you’ll
feel conviction. If you say to me, do you think it will drive me
crazy? Yeah, probably it will. Yeah. Only, before you’re through,
you’ll be pretty sick of yourself. You will. Because it’s the
most precious thing God has to give and he gives it only to those as
Blaise Pascal [French Christian Philosopher, 1623-1662] says, "only
to those who seek Him with all their heart." I pray that some of
you will begin to seek him like this and seek him night and day until
you come into holiness of heart and then, of course, it is true,
holiness of life. Could I say again, on behalf of all the wee souls
outside this auditorium, I know them, and they are desperate to see a
holy people. Both our children and our peers, are dying to see some
men and women who will live what they preach. If they could only see
that, they’d believe the Gospel. I pray that there’ll be some
giants here who will go on through whatever the cost.
Let us pray.
Dear Father, we
sense a little of how sin smells in your nostrils and has caused
blood to flow in your own Son and has broken up the family of God and
has created a monster of Satan and a dark and lonely state of Hell.
Lord, we sense some of the horror of it and, Lord, we would put it
far from us this very night and we would cease to be deceived by
Satan that it’s just a little bit of Bible study or a prayer we’ve
missed. Just a little bit of a lie we told. Just a little bit of
money that we took.
Lord, we would turn
from it now and have nothing to do with the unclean thing. Lord, it
will strangle us if we continue. Lord, we would put sin far from us
and we would commit ourselves to walking in outward conformity to
your law and your will in act and thought and word. Now, Lord, this
sinful nature, this heavy inbred sin that lies on our hearts and
makes us bend towards disobeying you. Lord, we know that you have
made provision for it on Calvary. Lord, we ask you to begin to bring
us into this. Lord, we do not know even how to pray but, Lord, we
would begin by asking you to show us where that sinful nature is in
us. Lord, show us if there’s any part of it that we really want and
bring us, by your own law, and by your wooing love, bring us to the
place where we are ready to have done with it and hate it as much as
you do. Then, Lord, we know that when we truly want to do what you
want us to do, you’ll make our natures fit to do it by making real
in us the destruction of that old nature that was crucified in Christ
and giving us that new nature that was raised in him on resurrection
day. Lord, thank you. We give ourselves to you for this purpose in
these coming days to seek you with all our hearts. Amen.
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