NO. 2671<\/b><\/p>\n
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD\u2019S-DAY, APRIL 22ND, 1900,<\/b><\/p>\n
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,<\/i><\/p>\n
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,<\/b><\/p>\n
ON LORD\u2019S-DAY EVENING, OCT. 29TH, 1882.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.\u201d \u2014 Psalm 119:168.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.\u201d \u2014 Psalm 119:176.<\/i><\/p>\n
If anyone says that these two texts contradict one another, I say that they do not. They form a paradox, and they are both true, and true of the same man, at the same time. I will read them to you again: \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.\u201d \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n
I purpose to take our first text as a sincere summary of a godly man\u2019s life, <\/i>and our second text as a searching scrutiny, <\/i>or as the result of a searching scrutiny, which looks below the surface, and then comes to a conclusion, not contradictory to the former one, yet supplementary to it.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
I. <\/b>First, then, dear friends, our first text is a sincere summary of a godly man\u2019s life. Looking back, he can say of it in general, \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, let me say that it is needful that we should have so lived that this shall be the summary of our life; <\/i>for if we have not so lived, what evidence have we that we have been born again, \u2014 that we have passed from death unto life, \u2014 that we have been delivered from the bondage of sin, and brought into the way of holiness? If our life is not different from what it used to be, how can we try to deceive ourselves with the idea that we are converted? If our lives are no better than the lives of unregenerate men, what reason can we have for believing that we are regenerate? After all, at the last, we shall be judged according to our works. \u201cBy their fruits ye shall know them,\u201d is a test that still stands good, and will stand good even to the end. \u201cBe not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.\u201d And, in looking back, if our life has been ungodly, \u2014 if it has been wanton and unchaste, \u2014 if it has not been characterized by sobriety, honesty, prayerfulness, consecration, what can we say of it? We shall have to judge ourselves to be still \u201cout of the way,\u201d and to have need that we should turn to God with full purpose of heart, and seek what, evidently, we have not at present found. If the grace which we are supposed to have received has not made us to differ both from our former self and from men of the world, then it is not the true grace of God.<\/p>\n
Next, whenever a man can truly say, with the psalmist, \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies,\u201d it is a fruit of grace. <\/i>It is not a product of the legal spirit; it is not a result of free will un-helped by God\u2019s grace and love. Wherever there is even a spark of holiness, it must have come from that great central fire which is in the heart of God. \u201cEvery good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.\u201d There is not on earth a rare flower of loveliness and purity which is not an exotic; it is blooming in a clime to which it is a stranger. God has planted it with his own right hand.<\/p>\n
So, then, he who can thus sum up his life has nothing whereof to glory, for he has received from God everything of good there is in it, and therefore he gives all the glory of it to the Giver, and takes none of it to himself. It is faith that works by love, purifying the soul, and producing the devout and godly character; and faith never claims any honor for itself, for it is itself the gift of God. Christ says much in praise of faith because faith says so much in praise of Christ; and faith is used, in the covenant of grace, as a means of blessing, because it excludes boasting, and gives all the glory to God, who works all that is good within us. So, you see, dear friends, that there is nothing of legality in what I am saying now when I testify that a godly, Christian man, when he sums up his life, can say, \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next, this summary of life is excellent for its breadth. <\/i>Notice how it is worded; it comprehends the precepts and the testimonies of the Lord; that is, the practical and the doctrinal parts of true religion. There are some persons who appear to be very scrupulous concerning the precepts, and they are very anxious to keep them. So far, they do well; but as to the doctrines of grace, they say, \u201cWe do not know much about them,\u201d and they appear to think that it is not at all necessary that they should know about them. A very large part of God\u2019s Word, which teaches most precious truth, they slur. They think that it does not matter to them. Should they not believe according to the denomination in which they were born or brought up? They say that there is no particular necessity for them to be so diligent in searching and knowing the Word. The psalmist thought not so, but he said to the Lord, \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies.\u201d I feel that I am as much bound to believe right as to act right; and it is just as truly a sin to believe error, when I can learn the truth, as it is to commit iniquity. We are responsible to God for the use we make of our understanding, as well as for the exercise of our affections, There is nothing in the Word of God to justify men in believing what they like, and any one who neglects to search out the truth commits a sin of ommision. He who holds an error, which he might see to be an error if he looked in the mirror of God\u2019s Word, is guilty of rebellion against the teaching of God. If we would live a life such as we can look back upon with pleasure, we ought to try to keep the testimonies as well as the precepts of the Lord.<\/p>\n
I have met with some people, who used to be more numerous than they are now, who were very strenuous about the doctrines of grace. If anybody differed from their view of the doctrines, they at once said that he was unsound. I should hardly like to repeat the hard things they used to say about such a person; but, certainly, to be sound in the truth was the grand thing with them. And I do not condemn them for that, but I do blame them because, sometimes, practical preaching seemed irksome to them, and the enforcement of the precepts of the Word made them wrathful; they could not endure it. You could tickle their palates, and delight them with a good strong sermon on the doctrines of grace; but when you came to insist upon holy walking, they would turn upon their heel, and say that the preacher was \u201clegal.\u201d Now, inasmuch as I before said that, to neglect God\u2019s testimonies, is an evil, so I add that, to neglect the precepts, is an equal evil. Be thou, O man of God, as earnest to do the right as to believe the right; and, on the other hand, as earnest to do the right as to believe the right! Thy whole nature should be subject to God. He is to be thy Teacher as well as thy Law-giver. Wilt thou not sit at the feet of Jesus, like Mary did, to learn of him, as well as rise up, like Martha did, to serve him? If thou wilt not, then thou givest to him a lame and limping obedience. \u201cThe legs of the lame are not equal,\u201d and thine obedience is lame, since the legs of it are not equal. There is a long doctrine and a short obedience; or a long precept and a short doctrine. Be it not so with thee, O man of God, if thou wouldst look back upon a well-ordered life! Happy shall that man be who can say, \u201cEver since that glad day when I was brought as a penitent to my Master\u2019s feet, I have studiously endeavored to do what he has bidden me do, and I have just as earnestly shunned and turned away from everything which I have known to be sin. I praise the Lord that he has helped me to keep my garments unspotted from the world.\u201d But if he would be a complete Christian, he must be able to add, I have also striven to believe all that is taught in the Word of God. I have not given myself up blindly to be led by priest or minister. I felt that God had given me a conscience for which I was responsible, not to my fellow-men, but to him; so I have gone to the law and to the testimony, testing everything by that infallible standard. I have not sat down in idleness, taking things for granted because they were preached with brilliant oratory; but, like the Bereans, I have searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so or not.\u201d Ah, beloved! it will make a soft pillow for your head if, in the retrospect of life, you can say, \u201cI have made the law of God, in its teachings and in its commands, to be the rule of my whole life.\u201d God grant that you may have that satisfaction at the last!<\/p>\n
Further, dear friends, this summary is excellent for its length, <\/i>as well as for its breadth, for here the man of God says, \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies.\u201d I do not know how long the psalmist had kept them, but it seems to me natural that he should make this summary towards the close of his life. I pray that it may be so with us when we come to die. I have known the greyheaded old man \u2014 how well I knew him, and how greatly I loved him, for I mean my venerable grandfather, \u2014 who, when he was dying, could say, \u201cThat which I preached when I first entered the pulpit I have and eight years, to the best of my knowledge I have preached nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified. I have nothing to retract of the testimony which I have given, for what the Spirit of God taught me, that have I taught to others.\u201d And he could equally have said at the last, \u201cI have, as a father, trained my children in God\u2019s fear, and they are all following in my footsteps. I have, as a pastor, watched over my flock with sedulous care. I have set them an example which they can safely follow; and there is no man who can truthfully lay a charge against me, for in all uprightness and integrity have I walked before God.\u201d Mark you, this dear old man was a Calvinist, an out-and out preacher of free grace, who would not for a moment take the slightest credit to himself for anything that he was, or had done; yet he could not have said less than this unless he had pretended to possess a modesty which was not true, and mimicked a humility which was based on falsehood. In like manner, may we be kept, by the grace of God, clear of all trusting in our works; but, at the same time, may we abound in good works to the glory of God, and both in thought and in life, may we be clear in the sight of God. Oh! how I have envied that first Quaker, George Fox, who, with all the eccentricities of his life, could honestly say, on his death-bed, \u201cI am clear, I am clear, I am clear of the blood of all men.\u201d This is the highest ambition that a minister\u2019s heart may indulge, \u2014 that he should be able to say that at the last, as other men of God have been able to do.<\/p>\n
So, you see, this is a blessed summary as to length as well as breadth. Above all things, it is excellent from its cause. <\/i>Notice how the psalmist says to the Lord, \u201cI have kept thy <\/i>precepts and thy <\/i>testimonies.\u201d That is what the true man of God still says, \u201cI followed the precept because it was God\u2019s precept. I did not care whether a Church or a Council of any sort had set its stamp upon it. It was God\u2019s precept, and that was enough for me. And I believed the doctrine because it was his testimony. It might not be the testimony of any Reformer, or Confessor, but it was enough for me that it was God\u2019s testimony.\u201d That should be the reason for our conviction and our action also.<\/p>\n
The psalmist kept God\u2019s precepts and testimonies because all his ways were before God. He felt that God was watching him, he lived under the consciousness of God\u2019s presence with him both by night and by day; and, therefore, he dared not believe anything contrary to God\u2019s truth, or act contrary to God\u2019s command. \u201cThou God seest me\u201d either held him in check or else impelled him onward. This is the way for us also to live. Dear friends, I pray that you may live thus.<\/p>\n
I think the psalmist also meant, when he said that all his ways were before God, that they were under God\u2019s smile of approval. He not only observed, but he communed with and commended his servant. Another psalmist, or perhaps the writer of these words which form our text, said, \u201cI will walk before the Lord in the land of the living;\u201d and Enoch might have said, \u201cI have walked with God from day to day. Communion with him has been my continual delight, and all my ways have been before him.\u201d The Book of Psalms begins thus: \u201cBlessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.\u201d His ways are ever before God, and he has respect unto the law of the Lord evermore.<\/p>\n
Such a life as that, dear friends, is excellent from its use. <\/i>It is sure to be a life of happiness, even though it should bring on persecution. It is certain also to be a useful life. It is an example which your children, and your children\u2019s children may safely follow. It is an argument for the gospel which the most sceptical cannot refute, and it is a most blessed way of propagating that gospel, for men are more often convinced by our actions than by our words. Seek after it, dear friends, and let your lives be such that you may close them with the words of my first text: \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
II. <\/b>Now let us pause a moment, and observe that the psalmist, after he had spoken thus, and spoken quite sincerely and truly, yet felt that he must close his long life\u2019s summary in another fashion. He then uttered our second text, which I called a searching scrutiny: \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n
His life was perfect, after the manner of Scriptural perfection, but when it was carefully examined and scrutinized, it was found to be manifestly imperfect. Suppose you take a needle, one of the very best that has ever been made; \u2014 any seamstress would be glad to use it. She would never think of sending a packet of such needles back, and saying that they were not good. They are bright, untarnished, sharp, smooth, all that they should be, quite perfect needles. But just put one of them under a microscope, \u2014 I have done so, \u2014 and then see what it is like. Why, now, it is a bar of steel, \u2014 rough and ugly-looking, tending towards a point at one end, but certainly very blunt. That is just the difference between the microscopic examination and the ordinary observation of our poor eyes. So, the life of a believer may be like that of Job, \u201cperfect and upright,\u201d but when it comes under the scrutiny of an eye that is illuminated by the Spirit of God, and touched with the heavenly eye-salve, quite another verdict is given; and, tremblingly, with many tears, the confession is poured into the ear of God, \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep ;\u201d followed by the petition, \u201cSeek thy servant;\u201d and the renewed declaration, \u201cfor I do not forget thy commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here is, first, a confession of imperfection and of helplessness. <\/i>It means really a continual imperfection and helplessness, for the Hebrew verb relates not only to the past, but to the present. It might just as well be read, \u201cI am still going astray like a lost sheep;\u201d indeed, it must be so read, for the psalmist goes on to say, \u201cSeek thy servant.\u201d He would not have offered such a prayer if his confession had only related to something that was at an end. There is, here, not only imperfection, and the tendency to a continuous imperfection, but there is also an acknowledgment of helplessness. The psalmist does not say, \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep, but I can return when I please.\u201d No; he prays to the Lord, \u201cSeek thy servant,\u201d as if the only help for him lay in the search which the great Shepherd would make, and the consequent restoration which would come by his gracious and powerful hand.<\/p>\n
Let us just think for a little while, and then I feel sure that we shall soon say that we must confess to God as the psalmist did. I mean that each one of those here present who have led godly lives will still have to say to the Lord, \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep.\u201d Think first of God\u2019s precepts. Have we never gone astray in heart from any one of them? Suppose you never have departed from them in life, \u2014 which is a very charitable supposition, \u2014 have you never in heart felt the precepts to be hard? Had you been really perfect, it would have been easy, it would have been natural to you to keep them. Have you not sometimes had to whip yourself up to a duty? The need of being whipped up to it proves that evil is still remaining within you. Then, have you never forgotten a precept? Lives there a man who has carried out all the precepts of God without forgetting any one of them? I would like to see the brother who has done so; but such a brother I never expect to see.<\/p>\n
I think that, with the most of us, it is thus. There is a certain duty, and we try to do it with all our hearts; but, meanwhile, we forget another duty which is just as binding upon us as the first was. We look right on, and so we overlook the duties that lie on the right hand and on the left. The very intensity which makes us earnest about one thing often prevents our attending to another thing which is equally important, and thus we present to God one duty stained with the blood of another. I have known a father, in aiming at being firm with his children, err by being too severe; and far oftener have I known others, intent upon being kind to their children, who have grown like Eli, and have winked at their sin. That is but one instance among thousands of the evil I am deploring. A man may say, \u201cI shall rebuke So-and-so for his fault;\u201d but he does it too sharply, and therein he errs. Or, afraid of being too severe, he says nothing, and therein he errs. Did you ever, in all your life, do any one thing so well that it could not possibly have been done better? The difference between the good there was in what you did, and the good there might have been in it, is just so much of deficiency; and sin is any want of conformity to perfection. Whether you fall short of the mark or go over the line, matters little; in either case, you have missed the perfection God demands. If you do not reach his standard, you have not yet attained to perfect holiness, and there is still something of sin to confess.<\/p>\n
The precepts of the Lord are so broad that they touch the secret imagination of the heart. Is there a man living who never has an unclean desire? \u201cI fought against it,\u201d says one. I know you did; but the very desire was sinful. Or, if it has not come to a desire, was there never an impure imagination that crossed your mind? \u201cYes, it just flitted across my mind,\u201d you say. Well, in proportion as you yielded to it, in that proportion it was a guilty thing. Ay, \u2014 I must say it, \u2014 if even a dream has had anything of sin in it, and you have been complacent over it, it detects the sin that is within you, for were you really perfect, even the very passing thought, though it were but as a bird of the air that flew above your head would still, by casting a shadow over your spirit, cause you vexation and sorrow. Keep that microscope close at hand, and it need not have very strong lenses either; only look fairly into your own life, first, by the light of the law of God, and, secondly, by the light of your obligations to Christ who hath redeemed you with his precious blood, and then I feel sure that you will have to say, \u201cI fall short even of my own ideal, and I am persuaded that my ideal falls very far short of what God\u2019s ideal of perfection is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Has it not often struck you, dear friends, as a very wonderful thing that good men \u2014 some of the best of men who have ever lived \u2014 have nevertheless been guilty of things which, at the present moment, we regard as heinous crimes? Mr. Whitefield had a strong objection to slavery, but still it did not seem to him to be wrong to have a number of negroes at the orphan house at Savannah, and to speak of them as his goods and chattels. That was a matter about which the conscience of the good man was not then enlightened. We do ill if we condemn men too strongly for things about which no enlightenment has come to them; but are they not themselves guilty in the sight of God? Of course, they are. There are men, nowadays, carrying on trades that are doing mischief and only mischief to the populace, but they are not aware of the evil, their conscience is not enlightened about it.<\/p>\n
To take another line of thought, suppose a man is worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and all the while there are millions of people abroad perishing for lack of the gospel; and, often, the great deficiency of the Missionary Societies is not in the men, but in the means to send out the preachers of the gospel. Is that man right, before the living God, who says, \u201cI am not my own, for I am bought with a price, and all that I am and have belongs to Christ,\u201d and yet who nevertheless remains immensely rich, \u2014 rich beyond anything that he or his children after him can ever want? Yet, possibly, his conscience is not enlightened about that matter, and it is no very great crime in big judgement; neither may you and I condemn him, for our own conscience is probably quite as much in the dark upon something else. But whenever anybody, who is very rich, gets up, and says, \u201cI am a perfect man,\u201d I feel inclined to say what Christ said to the young man who thought that he was perfect, \u201cSell all that thou hast.\u201d Somebody asks, perhaps, \u201cDoes Christ propose that test to every one of us?\u201d No, certainly not; but to any of us who say that we are perfect, that test may be applied. If you are such a perfect man, see if you can do as our Lord said, sell all that you have, and give the proceeds to the poor. I have known a man sing \u2014<\/p>\n
\u201cYet if I might make some reserve,
And duty did not call,
I love my God with zeal so great
That I should give him all;\u201d \u2014<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
but, all the while, he has been trying to feel whether it was a threepenny-piece or a fourpenny-piece that he was going to give to the collection.<\/p>\n
As I begin to think of these various things which I have mentioned, \u2014 just casting, as it were, a little ray of light upon them, not the great light of the eternal purity of God, \u2014 I cannot understand how there can be any man, even though he has kept God\u2019s precepts and testimonies as far as he could, who, nevertheless, is not bound to say, \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, further, suppose it to be possible that we have not gone astray from the precepts of the Lord, how about his testimonies? Is any man here prepared to say, \u201cI feel that I have, in every respect, believed the truth as it is revealed in God\u2019s Word, and that I have never erred from it?\u201d Do you believe all the truth, and all the truth in its right proportions and relations? And do you give due emphasis to each truth at the right moment? Have you never believed that which afterwards you found to be incorrect and false? Possibly, you have not wilfully done this; but have you done it at all? Think of Augustine, that mighty master and teacher in the Church of God, sitting down in his old age, and writing his \u201cConfessions.\u201d Alas! even he found that he had plenty of things to confess and to amend; and it must be so with us too. The very man who can say, \u201cIn the main, I have preached the same things all through my ministry;\u201d yet, nevertheless, adds, \u201cI preached them as far as I knew them, but I did not know them at the first as I learned them afterwards. I did not know this truth in relation to that truth; and I sometimes misrepresented God in my very zeal to give a correct statement, and I slew one truth in my defense of another.\u201d Ah, friends! we are all so fallible; nay, more than that, we do all so sadly fail, in one way or another, that we must meekly bow our head, and each one say, \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep.\u201d I am afraid that I might have put this matter much more strongly than I have ventured to lay it before you, and still have been within the mark; but there I leave it, as I want to speak upon one more point.<\/p>\n
In that prayer of the psalmist, \u201cSeek thy servant,\u201d I discern conscious faith in the divine power. <\/i>He seems to say, \u201cLord, <\/i>I am as silly as a sheep; but if I were only a sheep, I could not pray. I am a servant, too, \u2014 \u2019thy servant.\u2019 It is my joy, it is my glory, to be thy servant. Now, Lord, because I am thy servant, seek me. Do not lose me, Lord. Thou hast bought me with thy blood. I am seeking thee, Lord; so, come thou, and seek me. I want to be perfectly holy, come and help me now. Forgive every sin of omission or of commission. Draw me away from every mistake. Draw me nearer, and yet nearer to thyself. \u2019Seek thy servant.\u2019\u201c Perhaps you are ill, or even dying; well, living or dying, this prayer may still suit you: \u201cSeek me, Lord, \u2019seek thy servant.\u2019\u201c Then, lastly, comes in that sweet reflection, \u201cFor I do not forget thy commandments.\u201d \u201cI have a love to them, I have a longing for them, and I am sure that this never grew in my heart by nature. It is the gift of thy grace; and, because thou hast put it there, Lord, and thou hast begun to work in me, finish thy work, I pray thee. Lord, thou hast made me long to be quit of every false way; therefore, deliver me from it. Thou hast made me wish to be transparent and sincere, thou hast made me hungry and thirsty to be like thyself, then wilt thou not satisfy the craving thou hast thyself imparted?<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019The dearest idol I have known,
Whate\u2019er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from thy throne,
And worship only thee.\u2019<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cIf I hold an error, yet thou knowest that I wish not to hold it. Show me that it is an error, and I will have done with it at once. And if I am acting in good faith in a wrong way, Lord, do thou but lot me see that it is wrong, and, cost what it may, I will do the right, and cease from the evil.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a blessed way in which to close our life, but there is a more blessed thing still, and that is, after all is said and done, and after God\u2019s grace has been praised for everything that is lovely and of good repute that it has wrought in us, then to cast bad works and good works all away, and just look to the cross, and to the cross alone, and see our life in Jesu\u2019s death, our healing in his wounds, our glory in his shame, our heaven in his anguish. Look, saint! Look now. Sinner, you may do the same. Where the saint\u2019s salvation is, there is yours too. And if the greybeard, hoary with years of honor and of virtue, gathering up his feet in the bed, knows no better or brighter hope than that of being justified through the righteousness of Christ and washed in his blood, it is a joy to know that the same hope is free to you, guilty ones, who have not kept the precepts or the testimonies of God. Turn you to Christ on Calvary; cast your eyes on him who, like the brazen serpent, is lifted up that every sin-bitten one may look unto him, and live. Oh, by his grace, look unto him now, and you shall live, for never soul looked to him, and died while looking there.<\/p>\n
God bless you, dear friends, for Christ\u2019s sake! Amen.<\/p>\n
HYMNS FROM \u201cOUR OWN HYMN BOOK \u201c \u2014 185, 232, 119 (SONG II.), 538.<\/b><\/p>\n
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON.<\/p>\n
ROMANS 7., AND 8:1-4.<\/b><\/p>\n
Romans 7:1-3. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.<\/i><\/p>\n
He merely states this as an illustration.<\/p>\n
4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.<\/i><\/p>\n
While we were under the law, we could not come into the bonds of the new covenant, \u2014 the covenant of grace. But, through the death of Christ, we are dead to the law, and therefore we are set free from the principle and covenant of law, and we have come under the covenant of grace.<\/p>\n
5. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.<\/i><\/p>\n
Sin is the transgression of the law. Therefore, out of the law, by reason of our corruption, springs sin. And, in our past lives, we did indeed find sin to be very fruitful. It grew very fast in our members, and it brought forth much \u201cfruit unto death.\u201d<\/p>\n
6. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.<\/i><\/p>\n
No longer is the message to us, \u201cThis do, and thou shalt live.\u201d No more are we slaves under bondage; but we have come into a new state, we are free, rejoicing in the glorious liberty of the children of God; and what we now do is done out of a spirit of love, and not of fear. We are not seeking after holiness in order to be saved by it, neither do we seek to escape from sin because we are under any fear of being cast into hell. We have another spirit altogether within us.<\/p>\n
7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid.<\/i><\/p>\n
Nay, so far from being sin, the law is the great detective of sin, discovering it, and letting us know what sin really is.<\/p>\n
7, 8. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.<\/i><\/p>\n
Or, \u201ccovetousness.\u201d The very fact that God said to us, \u201cDo it not,\u201d wrought upon our nature so that we wanted to do it, and that which God commanded, which was a matter of indifference to us while we were in ignorance of his will, became, by reason of the depravity of our hearts, a thing to be resisted just because he had enjoined it upon us. Ah, me! what wicked hearts are ours that fetch evil even out of good!<\/p>\n
8, 9. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI did not know how sinful I was until God\u2019s commandment came to me. Sin seemed to be dead within me, and I thought myself a righteous man; but when the law of God came home to my heart and conscience, and I understood that even a sinful thought would ruin me, that a hasty word had the essence of murder in it, and that the utmost uncleanness might lurk under the cover of what seemed a mere custom of my fellow-men, \u2014 when I found out all this, sin did indeed live, but I died so far as righteousness was concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n
10-13. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cIf I sinned the more when God\u2019s commandment was revealed to me; and if, by the light of the law, sin was made more apparent to me, and became so exceeding sinful that it drove me to despair, and so to commit still worse sin; the fault was not in the law, but in sin, and in me, the sinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
13, 14. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual:<\/i><\/p>\n
The law of the Lord is a far higher thing than it seems to be in the esteem of many people. Talk not of it as a mere \u201cdecalogue.\u201d It has far-reaching hands, and it affects the secret thoughts and purposes of men, and even their stray imaginations come under its supremacy. \u201cThe law is spiritual.\u201d<\/p>\n
14. But I am carnal, sold under sin.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cI am carnal.\u201d There is the source of all the mischief, \u2014 a disobedient and rebellious subject, not an irksome law. The law is good enough, it is absolutely perfect; \u201cbut,\u201d says the apostle, \u201cI am carnal,\u201d \u2014 fleshly, \u2014 \u201csold under sin.\u201d<\/p>\n
15. For that which I do I allow not:<\/i><\/p>\n
The man himself does that which is evil, but his conscience revolts against it.<\/p>\n
15. For what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.<\/i><\/p>\n
This is a strange contradiction, \u2014 a man who has grace enough to will to do good, and yet does it not. There are two men in the one man, \u2014 the new nature struggling against the old nature. This must be a renewed man who talks in this fashion, or else he could not say that he hated sin; yet there must be a part of him still imperfect, or else he would not do that which he hates.<\/p>\n
16. If then I do that which I would not, if consent unto the law that it is good.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cIf I do that against which and my conscience rebel, so far, the better part of me owns the goodness of the law, though the baser part of me rebels against it.\u201d<\/p>\n
17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.<\/i><\/p>\n
The renewed man still stands out against sin. His heart is not wishful to sin, but that old nature within him will sin even to the end.<\/p>\n
18, 19. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.<\/i><\/p>\n
Oh, how often have men, who have been struggling after holiness, had to use these words of the apostle! The more holy they become, the more they realize that there is still a something better beyond them, after which they struggle, but to which they cannot yet attain; so still they cry, \u201cThe good that we would we do not: but the evil which we would not, that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
20. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.<\/i><\/p>\n
The true man \u2014 the newborn man \u2014 is struggling after that which is right. The real \u201cI \u201c, <\/i>the immortal \u201cego\u201d, is still pressing forward, like a ship beating up against wind and tide, and striving to reach the harbor where it shall find perfect rest. Oh, what struggles, what contentions, what rightings, there are within the men and women in whom the grace of God is working mightily! Those who have but little grace can take things easily, and swim with the current; but where grace is mighty, sin will fight for the mastery, though it must yield ultimately, for there can never be any true peace until it is subdued.<\/p>\n
21. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.<\/i><\/p>\n
Speaking for myself, I can say that, often, when I am most earnest in prayer, stray thoughts will come into my mind to draw me off from the holy work of supplication; and when I am most intently aiming at humility, then the shadow of pride falls upon me. Do not gracious men generally find it so? If their experience is like that of the apostle Paul, or like that of many another child of God whose biography one delights to read, it is so, and it will be so.<\/p>\n
22-24. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?<\/i><\/p>\n
These are birth-pangs, the throes and anguish of a regenerated spirit. The Christian man is fighting his way to sure and certain victory; so, the more of this wretchedness that he feels, the better, if it be only caused by a consciousness that sin is still lurking within him, and that he longs to be rid of it.<\/p>\n
25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.<\/i><\/p>\n
Romans 8:1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n
Some people talk about \u201cgetting out of the 7th chapter, into the 8th.\u201d But who made this into an eighth chapter? Certainly, the Holy Spirit did not. There are no chapters in the Epistle as he inspired Paul to write it, the whole of it runs straight on without a break: \u201cTherein therefore now no condemnation\u201d \u2014 while struggling, fighting, warring, contending, \u2014<\/p>\n
2. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cHath made me <\/i>free\u201d \u2014 that is, the real \u201cI\u201d<\/i> of which he wrote a little while before \u2014 the true man himself: \u201c\u2019 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.\u2019 I have broken its bonds, I am a free man. Contending against its usurpation, I have escaped from under its yoke, and I shall yet tread sin under my feet, and God shall bruise even Satan himself under my feet shortly.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:<\/i><\/p>\n
That he has done most effectually.<\/p>\n
4. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.<\/i><\/p>\n
Oh, what a blessed thing it is to walk, freely, \u201cnot after the flesh, but after the Spirit\u201d even though, all the while, there is, within the soul, this strife that the apostle has been describing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO. 2671 INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD\u2019S-DAY, APRIL 22ND, 1900, DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD\u2019S-DAY EVENING, OCT. 29TH, 1882. \u201cI have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.\u201d \u2014 Psalm 119:168. \u201cI have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; … Continue reading “A SINCERE SUMMARY, AND A SEARCHING SCRUTINY.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}