Gooding, David: 5 - The Magnitude of the Gospel

Shall we read together from the Epistle to the Romans and chapter seven? Epistle to the Romans and chapter seven. Beginning to read at verse seven. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. How be it I had not known sin except through the law. For I had not known coveting except the law had said, thou shalt not covet. But sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting. For apart from the law, sin is dead. And I was alive apart from the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was unto life, this I found to be unto death. For sin, finding occasion, through the commandment beguiled me, and through it slew me. So that the law is holy and the commandment holy and righteous and good. Did then that which is good become death unto me? God forbid. But sin that it might be shown to be sin by working death to me through that which is good. That through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I know not. For not what I would, that do I practice, but what I hate, that I do. But if what I would not, that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I practice. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then the law that to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity unto under the law of sin which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who should deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself with the mind serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. And God give us good understanding of his holy word. We began last week our study of this part of Romans which you might describe as God's way of making us holy. For if the first five chapters of the book can be rightly described as God's way of making us just, in chapter six we turn to this other topic, God's way of making us holy. As we found last week, the idea that we are saved by grace, that we are forgiven, that we are justified by grace, does not mean that we are at liberty to continue to sin. The man that claims to have been saved by grace and yet deliberately continues in sinning. That man is giving the lie to everything he professed in his Christian baptism. That baptism symbolizes the fact that we died to sin, symbolizes the fact that in Christ we have been raised to walk in newness of life. So that there is no thought of deliberately continuing in the old paths of sin, but rather there is every intention of laying hold of this new life with its new desires and new qualities and new potentials, and really learning to turn its potentials into actualities, learning to walk in newness of life. Now, we found last week, of course, that the early verses of chapter six are somewhat difficult and somewhat technical, and it was a tremendous relief for me to have not only a question time afterwards, but the help of one and another in adding their contributions to the understanding and elucidation of the passage. What I want to do tonight, however, is to attempt a bird's eye view very rapidly of chapters six and seven, so that we don't get ourselves too lost among the detail, to try and see what are the main ways that God has of releasing us from sinning and leading us in the way of freedom, liberty, and holiness. And first of all, God sets us free to live a life of holiness by breaking the legal bonds that bound us to our past. I spent some time last week, and I don't propose to go over it in detail, I spent some time last week arguing that the first paragraph of Romans six has to do with God's law, with things legal. I based myself, for instance, on the end of verse six. For he that has died is justified from sin. So the phrase should be translated literally, is justly set free from the guilt of sin and from the claims of the law upon the sinner. And again, in verse fourteen of chapter six, we read, for sin shall not have dominion under you, over you, for you are not under law. You'll notice it doesn't say here, for sin shall not have dominion under you because you are full of the power of the Holy Spirit. Chapter six hasn't got round to talking about that. It is still concerned with the legal side of things. Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under law, but you have been justly freed, justified from sin. Do let me repeat, however, what is the importance of grasping this legal point? If we had not legally been set free from sin, there could be no hope of our beginning to walk in newness of life. A man who has failed in business and gone bankrupt for ten thousand pounds cannot begin to say, oh, well, look, tomorrow I will turn over a new leaf and I will begin again. For the law will say, oh, but my friend, there's no beginning again until we can settle the matter of the past. And it's quite idle, though many folks who are not yet saved think it can be done. They think that they can go on sinning till the end of Saturday night and suddenly wake up Sunday morning and say, right, now I'll begin over a new leaf. But you can't just turn over a new leaf like that. God's realism and his holy law will chain us to the past until some means can be found of legally breaking the bonds that hold us to our past. And moreover, when we have become Christians, and we look forward to beginning a life of holiness, we shall still need to be assured of our legal freedom. We are all aware of our own hearts to realize the truth of God's word. That although we have come to Christ and through faith in him we have been justified, sin is still with us. And while we pray God's help and the power of his spirit that tomorrow, so to speak, we may not, may be kept from sinning, we will be altogether foolish to imagine that tomorrow will pass in some sinless state. God's own holy word tells us that if we ever got it into our heads that we were completely without sin, why we should be making God himself a liar. And therefore, while I shall expect progress under God's grace in my life as a Christian, I cannot realistically expect to be made utterly sinless tomorrow. Then what about my sin? Am I going to say that my sin as a Christian doesn't matter? Why, of course not. God forbid. It will matter as much now that I'm a Christian as it mattered when I was not a Christian. Therefore, until I can get this legal thing settled, it will be quite unrealistic for me to think about seriously trying to live a life of holiness from tomorrow onwards. So the word of God comes with its reassurance. We have not only been set free from sin, justified, justly set free from the chains of our guilt in the past, but now as I look forward to the future, I am told that sin shall not have dominion over me because I am not under law. Let's just pause a few moments longer to grasp what that means. Hm. Let me illustrate it. I do remember once in a meeting that I was a member of at one stage, there was a young sister in the meeting, and the superintendent of the Sunday school wanted her to take a Sunday school class. She was a godly young sister, a very God-fearing young sister, but she said, you know, no, I don't know, no, I don't think I, no, I don't think I could take a Sunday school class. Why not? Well, she said, I don't think that really I'm holy enough to do it. And one could admire the tenderness of conscience, couldn't you, that, uh, came out with that remark? What she felt was, of course she was saved. She had no doubt she was saved, justified freely by God's grace, of course. But then she didn't feel perhaps she was altogether sinless, and what right had she to take a Sunday school class if she wasn't sinless? And do you see what was happening? Here was a good, dear, godly sister with a sensitive conscience, and sin was chaining her down to the ground, so to speak. Was in fact having dominion over her, to use the biblical phrase. For you see, if we were under law, God's law, we should ever remember, is not just a little bit of generous advice that comes alongside and says, now, if I were you today, I should love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and I should love your neighbor as yourself if I were you, and I wouldn't hate anybody, and I, I wouldn't think unclean thoughts. God's law isn't just like that. It is holy advice, it is righteous instruction, but law is not merely instruction. Law is command plus penalty. It says thou shalt wipe up those dishes and do it with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength as a tribute of praise to God. And if you murmur and complain, then God's law will curse you to the deepest hell. It's no good saying to the law, look now, Lord, now be reasonable. I can't be perfect tomorrow, but I'm going to be a little bit better tomorrow, and I hope, by God's grace, to be a little bit better the next day, and I hope in a week's time still to be better, and give me ten years, Law, and I shall be getting on pretty well. But Law would look you straight in the face and say, don't talk such nonsense, don't. Don't talk such unholy nonsense. You will be a hundred percent perfect tomorrow, and if you come a hairbread short, you might as well have broken the whole law if you've broken it and incurred its penalty. Can't you see how utterly impossible it would be for the likes of us to think of beginning a life of holiness, any serious attempt to live a life of holiness, if we were still under law? Well, tomorrow wouldn't be five minutes old, but what the law would say, no good. Condemned. And therefore, this matter of being legally free is of fundamental importance. If ever with any realism, with any real sense of the standards of God's law, with any real sense of God's holiness and righteousness, with any real sense of the seriousness of our sin. If we are nevertheless seriously and energetically and vigorously and consistently to have a go at developing a holy Christian life. We have to get it straight. Therefore, listen to this wonderful statement. Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under law, not under law, but under grace. Therefore, it says, let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey the lusts thereof, neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto God. Sin, if you let it, will be the biggest bully you ever set eyes on. And even as Christians, we could let us, let it bully us until it really got us down and chained and ineffective for God. I wonder if you older folks will remember the days, I've heard my father speak about them, when men, young men perhaps, would let themselves be pressed into the army and take the queen's shilling, as it used to be. Once they'd taken the shilling, they had sold themselves to Her Majesty and the army, and then became- then started a tremendous bit of training, when they could be anything up to shouted at or flogged or beaten. So browbeaten and cowed by the drill sergeant major that he only had to shout, and they would come to attention at once. Reflex action of fear. Lashed round the old barrack square, by good British standards of military discipline. You can imagine a young man that had been ten years or twenty years in the army, couldn't you? Drill until it was absolutely reflex action. The old drill sergeant only had to look at him and he'd half tremble and do what he was told. If a cannon mouth was facing him right in the face about to shoot, he'd walk right down it if the drill sergeant told him to. Yes. You can imagine a man like that wanting to be free, but he couldn't, he couldn't buy himself out. Couldn't face the law. The law said if he tried to run away and do something else and yield his members in another direction, the law would come down on him and say, you mustn't do that. And some great maiden aunt comes along and pays the penalty and buys him out of the army. And here he is, he's going down the road one day in city clothes, when up comes the drill sergeant. Here, what are you doing? Get back on the back. And, you know, if he wasn't careful, he, he, he's so built in, inbuilt reflex action, he'd be going back to the back square, wouldn't he? And he might have to be told, no, look here, old fellow, you needn't listen to the old bully anymore. You leave me free, man. Legally free. Sin has a way of bullying us. A Christian man or woman may set out and say, look here, life hasn't been what it ought to be. I'm a saved man, I'm a saved woman. I do really seriously want to live for God. Life has got to be different. And they make some real effort of regular prayer, of spiritual discipline, of doing the things that God wants them to do, and for a while maybe they get unwell, and then presently they fall here, or they slip there. And they try to pick themselves up and go again, but they find, uh, their evil nature is present with them, and when they would do good, evil is present with them, and in the end they say it's no good, you know, no good. If I'm going to take this business seriously, I can't play at it. I can't accept anything less than God's standards. And yet if I'm going to be serious and face God's standards in his word and try to live up to it, then the moment I take it seriously, I find I've come short and the law condemns me. Well, what is the use of carrying on? I might as well give up and just drift. Oh no, friend, you mightn't. For the wonderful thing about not being under law is that suppose tomorrow, in spite of all the best will in the world, you fall. Then you are legally free to get up and have another go. And it won't mean that you are saying sin doesn't matter. You are still saying sin matters every bit. That thing I did just now was positively awful in God's sight. I can see its gravity. I can learn to hate it. I can, in fact, find the courage to take sides with God against myself and say, Gooding, you did a thing there that was perfectly abominable in God's sight. And yet, because I know the penalty has been paid, I can get up and have another girl without lowering God's standards. You see, I'm not under law. Christ has paid for all my sins and all my mistakes. From beginning to end. I nearly said my education is free. It's paid the bill. Though tomorrow I fall, yet there is no ultimate condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. And therefore, in all realism and godliness and holiness and fear of God and his word, I can look forward to a gradual progress in the life of holiness. So then I am to know then that the penalty has been paid in the past, and our old man was crucified with Christ. We had all that over last week, didn't we? Not our old nature was crucified with Christ. We're not thinking in chapter six of the difference between the real me and the sin that dwells in me. We're thinking of me as a man, the old man, all I was in Adam, all I am apart from Christ, from birth to death, all I am in myself, not just my old nature, but the whole lot was crucified. When Christ died for me, you know, it wasn't his old nature died, for he never did have one. But he died. I am to know that I died to sin in the sense that I died with him. Not my old nature died, I died. As we said last week, that we symbolize in our baptism, don't we? We don't bury the old nature and leave the rest of us standing on the side. Can't be done. We bury the whole man as a complete write-off. Because we died with Christ, we have been justly set free from the past. And then we are to know this, as well as knowing that, says, um, um, uh, verse nine, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once, but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ. And you will see at once, surely what we're talking about, what Paul is talking about. We're to reckon ourselves dead unto sin. How does that mean? And in what way? Says somebody quoting another verse of scripture from a completely different context, well, you have to die daily. That isn't what this is talking about, is it? For Christ doesn't die daily. When Christ died, and this is what I want you to know, says Paul, when Christ died, he died how many times? Daily? No, no. He died unto sin once. Even so, reckon yourselves to be dead. How many times? Oh, he's not talking about, in this context, he's not talking about mortifying our members which are on the earth, which will be a day by day program. He is still talking legally, and when Christ died to sin, on account of our sin, under the judgment of God's law, please, how many times did he die? Well, he died once. All right. When you died with him then, how many times did you? Well, only once, isn't it, sir? What does it mean, you say? What's the point of it? Why this, my dear good fellow? When tomorrow, if the Lord spares us, in spite of God's grace and the power of his Holy Spirit, we shall have to admit at the end of the day we are unprofitable servants, we have not lived perfectly. And therefore, as far as God's law is concerned, it would condemn us as sinners that fall short of God's glory. What's got to happen then? Has Christ got to die all over again? Does this ax- this upset my acceptance with God? No, friend. For Christ died once. And as far as God's law is concerned, that once when he died was when you died as well, for you died with him. That death once covers the whole of life from start to finish. Covers all its penalty, pays all its debt. Oh, how lovely and liberating, therefore, are those words. There is therefore no condemnation, no rejection. It doesn't mean that God will tell us, as I say, and let me repeat it, that our sin doesn't matter. God will call upon us Christian folks to judge ourselves. Every time and before we come to the Holy Supper of the Lord, we are to judge ourselves. If ever we were to get into the frame of mind to think that our sins don't matter and we can live carelessly, then God might have to take drastic steps of discipline to show us that sin does matter, until we come to agree with him and take sides with him against ourselves and agree with God that sin does matter. But this now, all this now, who are you who are in Christ and wanting to live holy. There is no ultimate rejection. There is no condemnation. Sin, therefore, has not the power to chain you down. You're free to get up. And I say, if I may put it bluntly, have another go. Go. And if tomorrow, like Joshua and the Israelites before Ai, because of some allowed sin, God brings you into defeat. That isn't the end of the campaign, is it? You can get up and have another go. Then God not only sets us free legally, but in the second paragraph of chapter six, he announces another method by which he proposes to make us holy. And he begins that paragraph, chapter six and verse fifteen, by saying, what then, shall we sin? Because we're not under the law, as we have been thinking, we are under grace. Shall we sin then? Oh no, we won't sin. Well, why won't we sin? Well, he doesn't say this time, as he said in the first paragraph, virtually because it would deny all that you professed in your Christ- Christian faith and baptism. He says, if I may paraphrase him, you won't sin because if you yield yourself to sin, you will become sin's slave. That's on words. It was the fact that we're before we became, uh, Christians, so this very paragraph tells us. We were, verse seventeen, you were slaves of sin. By constantly yielding your members to sin and its suggestions and doing its dictates, you have become its veritable slaves. That, of course, is is a a is a feature that many people have often observed. Sin very quickly enslaves by the power of habit, by the furrows it plows out in our brains. That turn themselves into such lightning-like actions. That if we have constantly yielded to sin, the very suggestion of sin will mean the doing of the sin. We become its slaves, and before we were converted, we were slaves of sin. We mightn't have noticed it. You can get on sometimes very comfortably as slaves if you don't try and get yourself free. If you will agree with your master, if you like your master, you may go along and never be reminded that you are a slave because you hung your chains to yourself. But if ever we tried to release ourselves, then we found out how strong those bonds were. How did we get saved? We were the servants of sin. How did you get saved, my brother? Cool, what a story we should get if we got every man, woman, and boy, and girl in the meeting tonight to tell us how they got saved. I wonder how the patterns would run. I wonder if anybody would, uh, describe it in the words that Paul here uses. Be interesting, wouldn't it? You were the servants of sin, well then what happened? How did you become free? Oh, Paul says, I tell you, God be thanked that whereas you were the servants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered. Do I hear somebody here say that, uh, tonight that before I was saved, says this good man, I was a veritable slave of sin. And I struggled to be free from sin, but couldn't break it. I was like the demoniac, dwelling in the tombs, trying to burst the chains that they put round me, trying to free myself from the power of sin that indwelled me, and I couldn't free myself until there walked into my life that blessed sovereign person of Jesus Christ our Lord. And he said, repent. And he said, believe. And somehow, as he spoke, his words carried divine power and authority. And I yielded to his word of command, and I did repent. And somehow, curiously enough, if you'd have told me it was going to happen, I couldn't have believed you. But when he said, believe, of a sudden I found power to believe. Hmm. That would make a very good conversion story, wouldn't it? And what Paul's talking about here, you obeyed from the heart. Oh, please, he's not saying that to get saved, you have to promise to keep the whole law. There's many folks trying to keep the law, and they're not saved. If they don't change, they never will be. He is talking, oh, and here we come back to it again. We found out, didn't we, earlier in this epistle, that you can trace human sin back all through its a thousand and one expressions, back to this matter of the heart. When we got justified, it was an attitude of heart we learned to believe. Hear him now say, when we got saved, it was an attitude of heart we learned to obey. We yielded the obedience of faith. We have purified our souls, as Peter would put it, by obeying the truth. As many a Pharisee, you know, busy trying to keep God's law, but when Christ came along and pointed out to him that he was failing in that law and that he must repent, he must judge himself a sinner, he must agree that God is right, that God condemns his shortcomings, even as a righteous Pharisee, that he must repent and be baptized. Oh, not him. He was so sure that he was making such glorious progress in keeping God's law, I'm afraid he got one eye shut, as far as the scripture went, that he felt quite annoyed if he was commanded to repent. How about the man that really gets saved? Obeys from the heart, and if God says repent, then you repent. You obey from the heart that form of teaching, and the authorized version says, which was delivered to you. And that makes sense, of course. But the better manuscripts of the New Testament, the better Greek manuscripts, read, you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered. Now, could I step aside from the passage and give you a lesson in cookery, how to make jellies? I've never attempted it myself. It's all theory that now I relate, but I believe I know how it's done. If you want a jelly that stands up with nice knobs on the top, you know, like you can get some jellies, um, the way to do it is not to say to the jelly, now jelly, ooh, try to build it up, you know, put a little bit on here and there and a knob on here and it won't stay put. No, you have to get a mold, that's the secret of the thing, and it's no good putting that solid sticky stuff you get out of the cellophane paper and looks all red and gummy, it's no good putting that into the mold. Not so likely. You've got to melt the old stuff down, and then you've got to deliver it into the mold. And as it penetrates into that mold, hey, presto, when you take the mold away, there's the jelly, and it's taking the form of a mold. And it's a funny thing with jellies, I don't know if you've noticed it. If you let jellies have their own way, they'll run all over the place and become a sticky mess. You'll never make anything out of them if you let them have their own way. But if you appear to restrict them and put them in a mold, why they're the best looking jellies you ever did see. I'm far from suggesting you are jellies. But if you want to live a holy life, then don't please imagine that you can do it by being left to yourself. You know, young Christian friend, or we older folks friends, I'm sure we know it. We all get the impression sometimes we like to kick over the traces, don't we? We want to be free. Want to look at it twice, that desire to be free. For there are only, there's only one true freedom in this world. In fact, let me put it this way, to be honest, all there is in this world are two slaveries. You reject Christ because you want to be free. Oh, but my friend, you'll no more be free than that poor old demoniac. Sin will have you for its master and shame. You want to be really free? Well, the way is to accept the other kind of slavery. Oh, says Paul, I'm talking after the manner of men, of course, you mustn't press this too far. I'm talking after the manner of men for illustration's sake. You want to accept that mold. Believe it from the heart, and let God pour you into the mold of his will and purpose and word. You know, that's a, that's a thing we find a little bit difficult to do, isn't it? Not only is it difficult for the unsaved man to be brought to the point where he's prepared to bow the knee of obedience of faith to the word of God and become regenerate by the power of the Spirit. It's difficult for us sometimes as Christians to do it, isn't it? The Bible says this, and the Bible says that, and we feel it's hemming us in a bit, and we want to be free, and we don't want to be rigid. Uh-huh. What do you want to be? If it's like Christ we want to be, if it's holy we want to be, there is only one known recipe, and that is that we obey from the heart that false doctrine into which we've been delivered. My dear good friends, and I say it to my younger Christian contemporaries, please don't imagine there is some wonderful magic wand that God can one of these days wave over you and make you into a perfect saint, apart from obeying that holy word. There is no such thing. It will mean obeying from the heart. And I repeat, it isn't saying you must, you must keep all the details of the law to be saved. No, no, no, no, no. It's talking about the matter of the heart. And wouldn't you say it right now, sitting on that seat? Wouldn't you admit it? You would say, yes, today, oh, how far short I've come. But wouldn't you add, ah, but this is the ideal. Oh, with all my heart, I want to be like this. Wouldn't you? Well, listen. You must face this matter of obedience very honestly, if we can. Now we've become free through obeying the Lord, through receiving Christ as Savior, yielding the obedience of faith. We have become servants, slaves to righteousness. But Mark, you can't stand still. If you obey, if you yield your members unto sin, says Paul, you'll find it is unto sin, unto uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity. It always has a snowballing effect. You can't tell yourself I'll do a little sin, but not a lot. It always has a snowballing effect. Oh, thank God the opposite way is true, that we learn to obey from the heart what the Lord lays down. That too has a snowballing effect. You'll present your members as servants to righteousness unto Sanctification. sanctification. And one last thing on this topic. Paul talks like this. When ye were servants of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit had ye then 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 Jesus Christ our Lord. And that last verse, verse twenty three of chapter six, is a verse we frequently hear- hear quoted in gospel meetings, don't we? To warn sinners of the consequence of their ways. Actually, you'll see, won't you, it's in chapter six of Romans, not chapter three. It's it's in chapter six of Romans. A chapter that is talking not particularly to unconverted folks, trying to bring them to the Savior. It's talking to folks who are already saved, talking to them about the life of holiness. And it says, you will remember, won't you, that the wages of sin is death. We should get in our minds clearly, should we not? Two very distinct things. Sometimes I fear we all of us get them muddled. We should get clearly into our minds the difference between the penalty of sin and the consequences of sin. You say, what is the difficulty? Well, I normally illustrate it by gooseberries. Suppose a father has a boy of ten years old, and he says to the boy, now you see that gooseberry bush in the garden there, don't you? And it's got some big green gooseberries, but they're as hard as numbers. He says, now, my boy, you're not to touch those gooseberries. Well, the father wants the gooseberries to ripen and get nice and soft, then the boy can have some. He says to the boy, now, my boy, you're not to touch those gooseberries. If I come home one of these days and find you've stolen those gooseberries, I should give you six of the best. Huh. For you know the reason, don't you, why father is so keen. It's not merely that mother wants the gooseberries for Jan. It is that, um, um, if the boy eats those green gooseberries, he'll get a violent stomach ache. Yeah. One of these days, father comes home and Johnny's in bed rather suspiciously early. Father inquires after the whereabouts of Johnny. Ah, Johnny's gone to bed with a terrible stomach ache, says Father. He hasn't been eating those good fish, has he? I'm afraid he has, says Mother. And upstairs goes Father. There's Johnny in bed, big tears down his cheek. Oh, he's got a stomach ache. The consequence of eating the gooseberries. The penalty of eating the gooseberries? Well, it should be six of the best from father for having broken the law. But you know, there are fathers in this world so kind-hearted that one look at Johnny writhing with his stomach ache would say, ah, well, perhaps that's taught him a lesson, and I won't inflict the penalty. And Johnny escapes the penalty. He doesn't get six of the best, he gets forgiven. But forgiving him the penalty doesn't remove the consequences, does it? There is no condemnation. We shall never suffer the penalty of sin. There is no condemnation. Oh, but friend, we can't afford to forget that being released from the penalty does not mean being released from the consequences. Can we not all remember instances that we have known in life of dear Christian people that once walked well. And they fell into disobedience and sin. Sin so unfortunate that it broke their homes, broke their hearts, and led to suicide. Haven't you noticed? Oh, there is no condemnation. That won't, uh, relieve us of the consequences. Unless you think I'm announcing some strange new doctrine. Will you let me quote what Paul says in his letter to the Galatians? My dear brethren, he says, now that I have argued that justification is by faith through grace plus nothing, let me urge you to walk in the power of the Spirit, says Paul. For take heed, if you bite and devour one another. Oh, you say, but I don't mind because there's no condemnation. Oh, brother. There is no condemnation, but if you divide, if you bite and devour one another, says Paul, you want to look out because you'll be devoured one by another. For the wages of sin is death, and it still remains death. The fruit of sin. We're not talking about the penalty, we're talking about the fruit. And it's still death. He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. The fruit of sin is death. Oh, my dear young Christian, you can't afford to flirt with the world, do you know that? You slip down a slippery slide into sin. You could do things that would reap you a harvest of fruit. Ah, sad, deep, hot tears. Four years. Oh, there's no condemnation. But it still remains true that the fruit, the wages, the consequences of sin is death. And it is one of the saddest things in Christian life to see Christian folk come to old age with sinful attitudes that they haven't faced, that they haven't learned to condemn, in themselves, I mean. To look back through life and see a road strewn with the wreckage of bad temper and spite and selfishness and lovelessness. The wages of sin is death. All but the free gift of God. It is eternal life. Let us therefore yield ourselves to him as our members, that we get all the blessed harvest of eternal life, for he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life. So then we are legally free from the past. We're legally free as we look into the future. Uh, we must learn the secret of obeying from the heart. But let's think just a few more moments on what it means to obey. The chapter seven opens in its early verses with a discussion of what it means to obey. And it points out that in the Christian life, once more, there is a difference. Under the law, obeying was a question of obeying commandments. But, uh, to put it frankly, says Paul, very often attempts to obey commandments had the very opposite effect from what was desired. For, says verse five of chapter seven, when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law brought in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Would you notice that? The verse says that the sinful passions were, in some sense, through the law. Whatever can it mean that the law made us sinful? The law made us do wrong things? Or does it mean that the sinful passions were through the law? I thought the law was given to stop the sinful passions. Well, so it was really. But, says God, again with tremendous realism and observation, very often law has the very opposite effect from what you want it to have. There's a boy going down your drive. And the gate is closed, of course, but knowing boys, you say, now what shall I do? Shall I leave it to his good sense to close the gate? No, you say, better not, I think, I better tell him. So you say, boy, shut the gate, boy. There he goes. Throws it wide open and off he. Yeah, you know him? Not all boys, of course, none, no boys here like that, of course not, but boys like that have been known. What ho. And I can see some grown up boys sometimes. You walk down the street with me as a friend, and you leave me to make all the decisions, and we'll get along very happily, but you start telling me what to do and see what happens inside me. Wow. And I'm told, though I scarcely believe it, you know, but I'm told by the people who ought to know better, that sometimes the Irish, uh, you know, they know what you mean by that kind of thing, because if you have a law, it's an excuse to break it. Hmm. God's own holy law is no exception. Century after century has demonstrated that that holy law somehow or other rubs us the wrong way, provokes the very sinful passion inside to defy it. And so much is that true that God says in the end, law keeping as a means of making a man holy is not the answer. I shall have to find some other method. I am not going into the difficulties of the parable that Paul uses here in chapter seven. I'm going merely to draw out one phrase from it. There's got to be a new way, says God, and it isn't going to be so much keeping of laws, rules, and commandments as it's going to be this. Verse ah wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you should be joined to another, even to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit unto God. Paul is using the simile of a marriage, and he says the secret of a Christian's bringing forth fruit to God is not to be found so much in keeping rules, laws, and regulations. As it is in learning what it means to be married, if you like, joined to Christ. Do you know what that means? It means that the way of holiness ceases to be a matter of rules and law. It becomes an affair of love and of the heart. It ceases to be me struggling to keep some external code, and it becomes the blessed Son of God in me. My old flesh is no better today than it was ten years ago, thirty years ago, forty years ago, and I won't tell you how much more. And my old flesh no more wants to read the Bible today, to witness for Christ in the world, to pray. No more wants to do that today than the man in the moon. If only, uh, we could believe it. In my flesh, right now, nineteen sixty nine, February, the whatever it is, there still does no good thing. It's as irreligious and ungodly and ungrateful and selfish as ever it was. There's only one way of really, one secret of making me do holy and Christ-like things. It is Christ joined to me, living in me. You know what that means, young Christian? Were you ever like I used to be and am still very often? Oh, you got saved. Yes. Because after all, you recognize that what the preacher said was true, that to remain unsaved would be to perish in the lake of fire forever, and you didn't want to do that. So to get our sins, our skins safe, we got saved, eh? Then we knew we weren't going to hell, we were going to heaven. And for a while, we were a bit grateful. You can't always be grateful, can you? I mean, it's sad. Yeah, the Bible said we ought to come to meetings, and we ought to come to breaking of bread, and we ought to witness for the Lord, we ought to love praying to the Lord. We didn't go, did we? Or perhaps you may be different from me. You may be absolute hundred saint, but I didn't. Oh, I remember the days after I was saved, when I loathed meetings, loathed them. And those interminable Bible talks, oh. And witnessing for the Lord, not me. Oh, I didn't mind giving a bath to the missionaries. It was a good thing to do. But really to get keen about the law? Well, I went to the breaking of bread. If I didn't, I got a conscience, you see. It said it here in the Bible. You had to do it, and to me it was a law that you had to do. And you did enough of those laws about praying and reading a bit of the Bible now and again, and sometimes giving out a tract or something, did enough just to ease the old conscience, but you easily took the view, ah, but they want to expect too much of me, you know. Ah. Yes. It was merely a law, and more often than not, it provoked us the wrong way. You can't get far that way, you know. Mere coming to meetings as a matter of law. Trying to serve the Lord as a matter of law, that won't get us very far. What is the secret? In learning what this means, that we should be joined to another. I don't want to read God's word, but the blessed Lord who died for me and is in me, he does. I'm not interested in the unconverted man down the road. I'm not interested in our ma full of unregenerate people. If they like to go to hell, oh, ah, here's a near man, oh, why not? I'm comfortable. Ah, but the blessed Christ in me isn't prepared to let them go to hell just like that, is he? Sometimes I don't mind studying the Bible as an intellectual study, but to love people like Christ likes them not. That isn't in my bankrupt old heart, I'm afraid, but it is in the heart of the Christ who has joined himself to me. And in that blessed and holy fact that Christ is in every believer and has joined himself to that believer is the secret of the power of a holy life. It is yielding from the heart, yes, but it's yielding from the heart to a person, increasingly to discover what this means, Christ in In you. you. Our very life. Our very holiness. And only this will be good enough. For sin is a bigger disease than you might think. We've already had two large-scale diagnoses of sin in this epistle, in chapter one and two, at the end of chapter five. But in the passage we read at the beginning of this meeting tonight, there comes another. Sin is so terribly simple. We shall not really learn to lay hold of Christ, perhaps until we've learned how utterly impossible for us to overcome sin in our own weak state. I'm not going to trouble you with that diagnosis now, for I've talked too long, as usual, already.