Gooding, David: 5 - Holiness

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are contrary the one to the other, that ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they which practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof. If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. Let us not be vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. I wish then, in this practical discussion of holiness, to aim this lecture at certain practical difficulties that people feel on hearing the doctrines of Christianity. Difficulties which you may have felt yourselves again, if you have followed closely what I have been trying to say in the evenings that are past. I have been stressing, perhaps ad nauseam as far as you are concerned, that salvation is not by our works, but is altogether by faith. I have stated here in the name of God and in the name of the Bible, that if we come to Christ in genuine repentance and faith. We may be forgiven, we may be right with God, and that for the whole of our life, and again, apart from any works of ours at all. Now that commonly raises an objection in people's minds. They will reply, but my dear good man, you can't be a Christian without being good. And, uh, there's a sense, a very real sense, of course, in which they are absolutely correct. God's salvation certainly is not designed to save us from the consequences, the unpleasant consequences of sinning, thereafter to allow us to go on sinning with impunity. God has no salvation that allows men and women with permission to go on sinning. And in that sense, of course, you cannot be a Christian without being good. Now, why I say that, it is the fact that in many people's minds, there are inadequate and positively wrong ideas on the method God has of making us good. And this being good, so very often, is the despair of many people. I remember one woman telling me outright, as I had urged upon her that she needed to be saved and could be saved, and could be saved by simple faith in Christ and be forgiven completely, she replied, ah, that's no good. You can't be a Christian without being good, and I'm too much mixed up in things that are not good. I don't need anybody to tell me that they are not Christian, but to be honest, I like them, and I can't bring myself to give them up, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite and dishonest and pretend to come to God for forgiveness of my sin. I know right well I haven't even got the inclination to give up, uh, these things that are positively wrong. And, um, in a sense, in a very big sense, she is taking the proper and right attitude. It is useless coming to Christ for salvation, if we are not prepared to let him make us good. But, uh, while that is so, that is, as I say, open to serious misunderstanding. How many people there are who, feeling that way, and feeling the real stupidity and folly of saying, ah well, then I'll not be a Christian. They can see that such a course is foolish. To go on knowingly with sin is to court eternal disaster. And therefore they say to themselves, well, I must, I must make an honest effort to be good. And more often or not, it, it lands them either in despair or in fear. I did at one stage some work among Teddy boys in the northeast of England. I remember one of them coming to me one night when he had had just enough drink to make him tell the truth. He said, you know, sir, we we we laugh, but um, I know you're right, underneath I know you're right. He said, you know, sir, I've got to go off tomorrow with the gang to Blackpool, and I know before I go that we shall just wait for the pubs to open at ten o'clock in the morning, and we shall go in and get blind drunk, and we shall be blind drunk all day. He says, like pouring the money down the drain. I give anything I, I had to get out of it, he said, but I can't get out of it. I'm afraid of the gang and what they do. My own father is a drunkard, and I know the misery of my own home, and I don't want to be a drunkard. But I can't help it. The despair of the young man was pathetic. There are other people, and not being quite so far gone as that teddy boy, they live in a sort of vacillating hope and fear. They are honestly trying to do their very best to live decent lives. Now and again, they, they come a crash. And they live in changing hope and fear. Some days they hope they've been good enough to count themselves a Christian. And other days they, they have to face the truth that the record's not been too good. And in consequence, then they hear a Christian preacher or lecturer come along, and he begins to expound the law of God, that in the sight of God's law, nothing than a hundred percent perfection is any good at all. It absolutely breaks them down and makes them feel inside afraid. And there are still other people that, um, as a result, feel altogether indifferent. In their early days, perhaps they tried to, to be decent. They had high ideals. They found the more they tried, the more continued were their failures, and so they've grown blasé over the whole business. They've tried to forget it, and they've tried to put on a worldly face and smother their consciences. Now, I want, if I can, this evening to aim my lecture at those very practical difficulties. I want to say herewith, and very plainly, that while in that practical sense you cannot be a Christian without being good, God has a way not only of forgiving our sins, but God has a way of making us good. And if I wanted to explain that way, I suppose I could explain it in some sense exceedingly simply, uh, like the man who was endeavoring to lead his companion to Christ. And his companion came up with this self-same difficulty. He could see his need of forgiveness. He was perturbed at the thought of eternal judgment if he wasn't forgiven. And though he wanted to become a Christian, he, he nevertheless felt he couldn't live up to the standard required. And he wasn't going to be a hypocrite and profess to receive the Savior if he wasn't sure he could live as a Christian ought to live. So his Christian friend thought he would try and explain the thing simply. He said, here, my good fellow, take my pencil. Uh, make that stand upright on the table. It can be done. The friend looked a little bit incredulous because the, the, the, the pencil had a pointed end like mine has. He said, can it be done? Can you make that stand up on end on the table? Well, yes, he says, you, you have a try. So he tried, you know, he put it up, and of course it fell. He put it up another way, and it fell, and there seemed to be no doing of the thing at all. When he had failed, his friend took the pencil back. He said, I'll show you an easy way to make the thing stand. He said, look, and held the pencil up with his finger on the top. Oh, his friend said, that's cheating, you're holding it. Well, he said, that's just the point, isn't it? It can be made to stand if someone holds the thing. And therein is the whole Christian gospel on this score. Our Lord is a realistic savior. He is prepared not merely to forgive our sins and blot out our past, and give us a forgiveness that can face the future at peace, but he is able to make us stand, and his word abounds with promises and statements to that effect. Or I could put it, as another Christian worker did, he was padre in a camp in Australia. In that camp, they had a soldier that was the blackguard of the camp. He scarce could speak a word without swearing. He was utterly foul-mouthed. He came to this padre at one stage. He had begun to get dissatisfied with his life. He told the padre, he said, you know, I think I'm going out of my mind. Oh, said the padre, what makes you think that? Well, he said, tell me, is it wrong to steal? Why do you ask that, said the padre? Well, he said, I'm beginning to get the most curious feelings of recent times. I'm beginning to get sort of feelings it's wrong to steal. He thought he was going out of his mind because of it. He said, I entered the army so I could steal everything I could get my hands on. Now he was beginning to get troubled about his filthy living. He wondered if God could, and he filled it up with expletives, do anything for his life. And the padre tried to explain, but how did you get across God's way of making a man practically holy? The man had worked at various stages up in the forests in Australia on timber work, and the padre bethought himself of what might be a helpful illustration. He said, old chap, when you've been up in the forest cutting down the, in the clearings, you know how it is that men take on and agree to clear a certain area, and if they haven't cleared it by the time, they've got to pay a fine. Well, no, old chap, he said, suppose you had taken on an area and you saw that you were not going to get the thing finished in the time, and that therefore that you would be exposed to the penalty. What would you do, old fellow? Oh, he said, um, what we do up in the forest is to sublet the thing. If we find we, we can't cope with it ourselves, we sublet it to somebody else. Yes, said the padre, I knew that. Then why don't you sublet your life to Christ? Oh, he said, I didn't know Christ did that kind of thing. But then he does. For men and women that cannot cope with life, God's way out is that they hand over the thing to Christ and receive Christ in, not merely as Savior in the sense that he forgives their sins, but in the sense of a Savior that can save them every day of the week. Joining himself with them, make them strong to please God. I could sum it up then, if I wanted a simple explanation, in one verse of the Bible that runs that Jesus Christ is able to save to the uttermost, and not merely at the beginning, all those that come unto God by him. But then, while the Bible can thus be put simply, and it is a simple thing. The Bible also goes to great lengths in explaining this matter. For God would have us all to be intelligent and to understand on what terms and in what ways he works to save us in our daily living. We ought, first of all, to get this principle very clearly. That first of all, God is prepared to take us just as we are without any improvement. So many go astray just there. They are waiting until their lives have improved enough for them to begin to be able to think that they are now Christians. And they live a life of drudgery in consequence. They have never seen that God is prepared to take them and receive them just as they are, knowing all they have done and knowing all they will ever do, and knowing the whole bad account, he is prepared to take them just as they are. That is a marvelous thing. Therein is the glory of God and his gospel. He commends his love to us. While we were yet weak, Christ died for us. That is the wonderful truth that Fanny Crosby expressed in her famous hymn. Just as I am, and waiting not to clear my heart of one dark spot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each blot, O Lamb of God, I come. The marvel of God's salvation is that if a man or woman will come like that as a bankrupt sinner, he will not only receive that person there and then, but Christ promises that he will never thereafter cast them out. But he will cling to them, and his arms shall never grow tired, or his heart weary, however bad they prove to be. For he knows them through and through, from the end to the beginning, from the beginning to the end, he knows the lot, and he loves them just as they are. And he's willing to receive them quite irrespective of their past behavior and quite irrespective of their future progress. And when men and women see that and come to the Savior, the love of God begins to sink down in their hearts. That's how the Holy Spirit does it. He begins to pervade their hearts with a sense of the eternal love of God that will never let them go. And the result is, because they are at ease and secure in God's love, they have the courage to turn round and face their sins and shortcomings. You wouldn't confess your weaknesses to somebody that was your enemy, would you? Or even a friend of that exceedingly critical sort, but to a friend that you knew would love you even when he knew the worst, then you might be bold enough to confess your weaknesses. And that's how God acts. He knows the worst anyway. You can't tell him anything that would shock. You'll never do anything that will surprise him. And he offers us his love and offers to receive us, if we'll come, just as we are. And I repeat, his acceptance does not depend on our progress thereafter. But when he has thus received us and set us at ease in his presence, he also gives us our, his Holy Spirit, who will begin to wage a relentless war inside us against sin, and at the same time positively supply the desire and the power to please God. But let me take that statement, and let me amplify it, go a little bit more deeply. You don't have to understand all this in great detail before you come and make trial. All you have to do is to come to the living Savior and ask him to take over. When you come, he will, as you are able to understand it, go into further detail. Therefore, I proceed. I read you the words of Paul to these Christian people in Galatia. He was advising them to walk by the Spirit, and he made this point. If ye are led of the Spirit, ye are not under law. That simple sentence sums up an exceedingly important principle in Christian living. Christian living is not a question of law, it is a question of being led by God's spirit. Maybe a bit difficult to grasp. Think with me then for a moment on what the Bible means by law. What is it to be under law? Well, we may illustrate it from everyday life. Law lays down a commandment and attaches to the commandment a penalty if the commandment is broken. Here is young Tommy, much given to playing with matches and playing with the fire, but of no sensible age to be allowed to engage in such practices. Father comes along, and he sees that if young Tommy presently puts his hand in that fire, Tommy will get burned. That is merely a consequence of his wrong act. And because Father fears that consequence, Father goes a stage further. He doesn't merely say, Tommy, I shouldn't play with that fire if I were you. If you do, you'll probably get burned. Father lays down the law, and he says, Tommy, if I find you playing with that fire, I shall turn you. That isn't a natural consequence of playing with fire. That's a legal consequence. That's law. You break the commandment and you get tanned. Well, that's possibly a very suitable way to deal with Tommy. That's how we were dealt with, in mild form, doubtless, as I look back, when it came to coming into the house from the garden. It is a consequence of coming in from the, uh, in from the garden into the house, if you've been digging up the vegetables or something, and you don't wipe your shoes, that you'll put mud on the carpet, and that will spoil the carpet. That is the consequence. But in our house, there was a law, if you please. We were forbidden to come in to the lounge without wiping our shoes. And, uh, if the law was broken, there was a legal penalty appropriate to the misdemeanor. I might say that that law doesn't exist now in our family. When I go home now, I am not under such a law. My father would never dream of laying down such a law. Time for that is past. I can, of course, go out if I want to, get my shoes as muddy as I can, and come and stand on the carpet. I don't. Why not? I don't want to. For as a grown-up son, I now have something of the same outlook as my father. He values the carpet, well, so do I value the carpet. I have something of his spirit inside me, and I don't need the law anyway. And as far as my father is concerned, if I hadn't got his spirit, the law wouldn't do much good anyway. For now he's not able to tan me. You see, the principle of law telling people thou shalt not, and if you do, you'll be tanned, isn't really good enough. And Christianity, true Christianity, is not a system of law. Does that surprise you? You thought of being good and trying to behave as a Christian ought to behave, and you have been goaded in your efforts by the fact that one day there's going to be a judgment. That is very true. You've also been goaded by the fact that God's law says, thou shalt not covet. And you've observed the penalty that's attached to that, the penalty of breaking one commandment in God's holy law is eternal death. And you have struggled really hard and honestly to try and live as a good Christian ought to live, because you've been afraid of that coming judgment. And if you've really taken it seriously, your life has been an absolute slavery. Perhaps you haven't taken it really seriously. Perhaps you haven't yet seen how serious God's penalties are. I repeat, the commandment that says thou shalt not covet has a penalty attached, which is eternal death. My. What slavery and absolute despair it would be if I were trying to live as a Christian ought to live with that penalty hanging over my head. I might as well give up before I started, mightn't I? The fact is I've already broken the commandment. What then is the Christian principle? Well, it is positively said that the Christian is not under law like that. He doesn't go about his life trying desperately to live as a Christian ought to live because he's afraid of the penalty. No, God gives to the Christian his spirit. And with his Holy Spirit comes the desire to do the things that God likes, and the power to do those things that God likes. And, uh, I might interject that when the Bible says that, it is not talking theory. Untrue. Uh, millions of men and women have found this to be literal fact. With the coming into the life of God's Holy Spirit, old desires are changed, and new desires and powers spring up that were not there before. I remember a young man in one of the universities in which I served. I was asking him at one stage what led him to Christ? What first made him feel that he needed to be saved? The question was very pertinent because the young gentleman was studying theology and was about to enter holy orders. He frankly confessed that he had begun to study for holy orders. He was reading theology in the university, and he was not saved. I said, what made you first think that you were not right? Well, he said this, you know. He said there are a group of students in this university, uh, composed of all sorts of people, medics and scientists and, uh, arts people, and they meet together of a Saturday to study the Bible of a Saturday evening. He said, I find that a profound mystery. They weren't theologues. He said, I can understand them reading the Bible as their study during the day, as a job you've got to do, it's your work. But that anybody should read it and study it and take it seriously in their spare time, that baffled me, he said. And then what was even more galling, I went along to some of the meetings, he said, and they obviously enjoyed the stuff. I didn't enjoy it. Um, he was honest to express what a good many people feel. There are many men and women, and they find this book absolute boredom. They can't love it. It's double Dutch. And yet this is God's word. And if we don't love God's Word, how shall we love God's heaven? How can we say we love God? How can we pretend to be Christians if we don't love it, and the God who wrote it? It's no good trying to make ourselves love it, is it? That young man of whom I speak, I met him when he had found the answer to this thing. He tried to make himself love God a bit more and be a bit keen. He went on a pilgrimage to Rome, but gave up before he got there. And coming back, he hitchhiked over the continent, hitchhiked through England, was given a ride in a car by a man who turned out to be a Baptist pastor. The pastor asked him to lunch in a hotel. He said, and to my tremendous horror, he tipped the waiter with the Gospel of John. Would he never get away from these people who seem somehow to love this Bible? He found the answer to it all, when he too came as a bankrupt sinner and received not only forgiveness, but what he had never had before, received the Holy Spirit with all his new power and all his new life and all his new interests. He doesn't have to try to love it now. It is natural. Now, I am not saying that when a man or woman comes to the Christ, comes to Christ and receives the Holy Spirit, that man or woman will never sin again. I am not saying that they will never know a wrong desire thereafter. I am not saying they will never enjoy doing something wrong again. Oh, the Bible is very real and down to earth. It positively says that when a man or woman receives God's Holy Spirit, there starts within him a battle that in fact will never cease while this life on earth. Our verse explicitly described it in these terms: the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. Those old desires, the Bible says, are there still. This new power that he has begins to strive against that old power. There will be times when the old gets the mastery, but the winning of the final war will always be on the side of God's Holy Spirit. But you say, never mind, suppose, as you say, the Holy Spirit then comes into a man when he is saved, but this man still sins. What about those sins? Does God blink at them, blink at them, shut his blind eye to the thing? Oh no, indeed not. But then you'll see the realism and the extent of God's salvation. That was why Christ died on the cross, that he might deliver us from the curse of his broken law. He has paid the expense of the whole thing. And for the person that trusts Christ now, the penalty of God's law over his sins has been permanently paid. Like a father teaching his son to work with a very precious glass. He knows if he gives this young man this beautiful cut glass to finish, the unskilled hands of that son may presently smash the whole thing. The father is so keen to teach that son to do it properly, that he's prepared to pay the whole of the expenses for the breakage. Not intending to encourage his son to be careless, that's, but that's the only way of doing it. And God has a marvelous salvation through the death of Christ on the cross, for those who trust him, the penalty of all their sins is paid in full. While their lessons, while their development under the leading of God's Holy Spirit goes on. I therefore pause at this stage in the lecture and suggest that we ask ourselves on what principle we are living. Are you living as a son? Have you received God's Holy Spirit? Or don't you know what that means? You know, this is Christianity. It is so awfully possible to be content with something less. John the Baptist, you may remember, preached in glowing terms of our Lord Jesus. He himself was a godly man, but he openly told the people that there were certain things that he, John Baptist, could not do. He could exhort them to be good. He could preach to them God's commandment and show them they were sinners. He could exhort them to repent and say they were sorry. But he personally couldn't give them forgiveness, and he couldn't give them any power to do differently. But he had a wonderful secret. He pointed them to our Lord Jesus, and in him he said they would find one who could give them forgiveness on the one hand and could empower them with the Holy Spirit on the other. There were some people at one stage, and they listened to John the Baptist, and they, they only got half of the message. They gathered what he said when he, he preached against sin. They said, yes, you know, we ought to be better than we are. You have a, a real good effort. They got him so far when he pointed them to Christ, the great teacher who came to show us what God's law really is, and they said, yes, we'll do our very best now to keep the Christian ethic. And they were struggling hard to be Christians. They lived in Ephesus, incidentally, and when Paul came to Ephesus, he noticed these people. They were well-intentioned people, but he noticed that they lacked that something, which is the unmistakable hallmark of a man that has really got God's salvation. There was a something missing. He didn't like to challenge them outright, I suppose, and say, look here, are you really saved? So he put the question another way round. He said, tell me, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And their faces fell. They said, I don't quite know what you, uh, mean. What do you mean? Well, he said, um, and then the story came out. They hadn't really got Christian salvation at all. They were still merely trying to do their best by their own strength. I wonder what you would say, but then this is no place for me to ask, but still I wonder. I wonder what you would say if I asked you bluntly, did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? Did you? We can afford to be utterly honest with that question, because the Holy Ghost is a gift. We don't get it by s- him by struggling. We don't get him by trying to attain to a holy life. We get him when we come for the first time and receive the Savior. When we come to the Savior and open the heart's door and he comes in, with him he brings this gift of the Holy Ghost. I'm not asking you whether you've got wonderful feelings when you trust the Lord, and I urge you not to sit around looking for feelings or experiences of any kind whatsoever. God would not have us engage our minds with feelings and emotions. It remains the fact that everyone who has come to the Savior and received him on his term. They have the Holy Ghost. Sooner or later, he makes his presence felt as their lives are changed. Are you Christian on those terms? Is that you? But allow me, uh, for the last part of the lecture, and I remind you I started a little bit late this evening, you'll excuse therefore a little bit later finish. Let me remind you again of what those terms are. And for this, I, I want to use, by your good and kind permission, the illustration of Christian baptism. Now, I am well aware that in some cities, Christian baptism is regarded as a controversial subject, and that anybody who had any sort of Christian feeling would, uh, steer clear of it. In spite of that, by your good permission, I do want to refer to Christian baptism. I beg you, whatever your view of the same, that you will allow me, at least this evening, just to use it. It is, after all, an ordinance which Christ himself commanded, and I want to use it because it is such a beautiful illustration of the terms upon which God receives a man and undertakes to make him holy. Let me at once, of course, remind you that baptism, the ordinance in itself, doesn't do anything. The water which is used is not holy, and it has no magical benefit. It is a symbol. Allow me, if you will, to quote the classical passage on the matter. It comes, you may remember, in Romans chapter six. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the death, from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. The passage is pointing out that Christian baptism is a symbol, and it is a symbol, a a picture, if you like, representing burial and resurrection. That is simple. The question comes, however, why are Christian people buried? Why do they go through this symbol of being buried? Well, the answer is because they're dead. As you may have observed, in the ordinary physical world, we bury people because they're dead. We don't, uh, bury them to make them dead, do we? We bury them because they are dead. And Christian people go through this, uh, symbolic act of being buried because God says they are dead. You say, in whatever sense possible can they be regarded as dead? Well, firstly, from the legal point of view. God hasn't abandoned the principles of his law, and the law says we have sinned, and the wages of sin are death. The penalty must be paid. How can it be paid without the destruction of the sinner? The answer is that Christ paid, Christ died for our sins. But you say, how does that help me? Simply this way? That when a man or a woman receives the Savior, that man or woman is no longer an isolated unit by himself or herself. He or she becomes one with the Lord Jesus. Just as man and wife cease in the eyes of the Lord to be two separate pers- people, they become one flesh, physically, and in their outlook, they become one. At least that's the ideal. So in that more deep sense, when a man or woman comes to Christ, Christ receives him, and they become one. And therefore, what happened to Christ can rightly be regarded as having happened to them because they are inseparably one. The law said that that person should die. Says Christ, he is dead if he trusts me, because he and I are one, and I refuse to let him go, and I died. All that in itself is a glorious gospel message. It tells that there is absolute freedom from the penalty of the law, because the penalty has been paid by another. Some people, you know, when they see Christians being baptized, they say, hmm, you must think you're especially good, don't you? You must think you're pretty good and you're better than anybody else to go through that elaborate ceremony. The answer is, of course, that they don't think anything of the sort. Their baptism, to the contrary, is a declaration that they were incurably bad themselves, so bad that they could not be patched up, so bad that when they had done their best, they had to admit that God's law condemned them to eternal death, and they have acknowledged the fact, and they have come to Christ. Their being buried is eloquent testimony to what they think of themselves, hopeless. They would have been eternally condemned had it not been for the one who came and died for them. It's important that we start there in this matter. They are the conditions upon which Christ receives. We can be utter realist. We can confess the very worst. We can say to God, honestly, Lord, from my experience, it's obvious to me I shall, I can't improve. And anyway, I'm condemned already. I can't eradicate the past, and I've already done enough wrong to, to, to deserve me an eternal perdition. And if we'll come like that, Christ will take us just as we are, on those terms. That is wonderful. And he'll assure us that he has paid our penalty. The Christian person then is not merely buried under the water, they are raised again. To signify? That Christ has given them a new life. To walk in newness of life, not as a fond wish, but as the thing that is going to be realized because Christ has in fact given them a new life that they never did earn. So it is that the wages of sin which we deserve, Christ takes for those who trust him. And a gift of God, which is eternal life that we did not earn, he gives. Ah, but there is something deeper still. When Christ died, we read he died to sin. He faced it, and he as a man eternally conquered it. And that victory he passes on to those who trust him. He asks every Christian to take his word for it, that, uh, they are henceforth dead to sin. What does Christ mean? He says that for the Christian, that old man has been crucified. And some Christian here tonight says, but that contradicts my experience because my old man is very, very much alive. Yeah? Depends what you mean. What do you think the old man means? Situation is this, surely. In the days before we were unsaved, before we were saved, our hearts were rebellious against God's law, and as fallen, corrupt human nature worked, it set up endless habits in our personalities, perverse and strong, that we couldn't break. So that the drunkard who now has set up the habit of drinking finds he can't break the thing. When that man comes to Christ, Christ tells him, mysterious as it may sound, that the root of the trouble has been broken. That man will find that habit probably beset him for many years to come. But Christ's word is still true that the root is broken. As that man learns to take Christ at his word, he will find Christ's word is true, and the habit loses grip. When the Israelites get- were faced with the conquest of Canaan, they faced a country full of strongholds in all directions. They were com- a comparatively small force. God said to those Israelites, look here, I have given you every city in this country. I have given it. Now I'm telling you, he said, that there'll be a lot of fighting. You'll have to face those enemies individually, one by one. It may take you years to mop them up, but I'm telling you, I've given you every one. And when God said that, those enemy cities were doomed. But it took faith on the part of his people to rise up and face each of those cities and prove God's word was true. Sometimes they got a bit scared and they said, no, uh, no, we ha. This is too big a city, we can't face this one, we shall have to let this one remain. But if they'd only had the faith to take God at his word, that city too would have fallen. That, then, is God's program. I have purposely told it to you at the beginning, and in the second half of the lecture in some detail, and finally in very great detail. I must speak to every need present. But I would like to end on a note of simplicity. Whether we understand all the detailed procedure or not, the fact is that the living Lord, who will bring this all into operation, stands ready to receive us here and now. We don't have to understand the business before we find it works. Let us rather come in. Ask him to come in, and we shall find that he makes us good. Alas, how many people are wanting to keep him outside the door of their lives till they've tidied up inside a bit and made it fit for him to come in. They've never come in on those terms. But if our lives are at this moment sadly defeated and broken, and we are not saved, and we honestly cannot say we have God's Holy Spirit, and we're not certain what will happen at the judgment day, and we feel our desperate need to get right with God, we needn't wait longer till we understand. We need only open our heart's door to him, and he comes in and will immediately begin his clearing up operations.