A Sincere Summary–and a Searching Scrutiny
(No. 2671)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, APRIL 22, 1900.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
OCTOBER 29, 1882.
"I have kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are
before You." Psalm 119:168.
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not
forget Your commandments."
Psalm 119:176.
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. "I have
kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are before
You." "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I
do not forget Your commandments."
I purpose to take our first text as a sincere summary of a godly man's
life and our second text as a searching scrutiny, 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.
I. First, then, dear Friends, our first text is A SINCERE SUMMARY OF A
GODLY MAN'S LIFE. Looking back, he can say of it in general, "I have
kept Your precepts and Your testimonies: for all my ways are before
You."
First, let me say that it is necessary that we should have so lived
that this shall be the summary of our life, for if we have not so
lived, what evidence have we that we have been born again–that we have
passed from death unto life–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. "By their fruits you shall know them," is a
test that still stands good and will stand good even to the end. "Be
not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he
also reap." And, in looking back, if our life has been ungodly–if it
has been wanton and unchaste–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 "out of the way" 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.
Next, whenever a man can truly say, with the Psalmist, "I have kept
Your precepts and Your testimonies," it is a fruit of Grace. I t is not
a product of the legal spirit. It is not a result of free will
un-helped by God's 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. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning." 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.
So, then, he who can thus sum up his life has nothing of which 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,
when he sums up his life, can say, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
testimonies."
Next, this summary of life is excellent for its breadth. 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, "We do not know much about
them," and they appear to think that it is not at all necessary that
they should know about them. A very large part of God's 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,
"I have kept Your precepts and Your testimonies." I feel that I am as
much bound to believeright as to actright 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 anyone who neglects to search out the Truth of God commits a sin of
omission. He who holds an error which he might see to be an error if he
looked in the mirror of God's 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.
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 of
God 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 heels and say that the preacher was "legal."
Now, inasmuch as I before said that to neglect God's testimonies is an
evil, so I add that to neglect the precepts is an equal evil. Be you, O
man of God, as earnest to do the right as to believe the right and, on
the other hand, as earnest to believe the right as to do the right!
Your whole nature should be subject to God. He is to be your Teacher as
well as your Law-Giver. Will you 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 you will not, then you give to Him a lame and limping
obedience. "The legs of the lame are not equal," and your 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 you, O man of God, if you would look back upon a well-ordered
life! Happy shall that man be who can say, "Ever since that glad day
when I was brought as a penitent to my Master's feet, I have studiously
endeavored to do what He has bid 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."
But if he would be a complete Christian, he must be able to add, I have
also strived 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." Ah,
Beloved, it will make a soft pillow for your head if, in the retrospect
of life, you can say, "I have made the Law of God, in its teachings and
in its commands, to be the rule of my whole life." God grant that you
may have that satisfaction at the last!
Further, dear Friends, this summary is excellent for its length, as
well as for its breadth, for here the man of God says, "I have kept
Your precepts and Your testimonies." 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 end of his life. I pray that it may be so with
us when
we come to die. I have known the gray-headed old man–how well I knew
him, and how greatly I loved him, for I mean my venerable
grandfather–who, when he was dying, could say, "That which I preached
when I first entered the pulpit I have preached to the last. And for 58
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." And he could equally have said at the last, "I have,
as a father, trained my children in God's 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."
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
deathbed, "I am clear, I am clear, I am clear of the blood of all men."
This is the highest ambition that a minister's heart may indulge–that
he should be able to say that at the last–as other men of God have
been able to do.
So, you see, this is a blessed summary as to length as well as breadth.
Above all things, it is excellent from its cause. Notice how the
Psalmist says to the Lord, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
testimonies." That is what the true man of God still says, "I followed
the precept because it was God's precept. I did not care whether a
Church or a Council of any sort had set its stamp upon it. It was God's
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's testimony." That
should be the reason for our conviction and also our action.
The Psalmist kept God's precepts and testimonies because all his ways
were before God. He felt that God was watching him. He lived under the
consciousness of God's Presence with him both by night and by day and,
therefore, he dared not believe anything contrary to God's Truth, or
act contrary to God's command. "You God see me" 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.
I think the Psalmist also meant, when he said that all his ways were
before God, that they were under God's smile of approval. God 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, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." And
Enoch might have said, "I have walked with God from day to day.
Communion with Him has been my continual delight and all my ways have
been before Him." The Book of Psalms begins thus–"Blessed is the man
that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in
the Law of the Lord; and in His Law does he meditate day and night."
His ways are always before God and he has respect unto the Law of the
Lord evermore.
Such a life as that, dear Friends, is excellent from its use. 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's children may safely follow. It
is an argument for the Gospel which the most skeptical 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, "I have kept Your precepts and Your
testimonies: for all my ways are before You."
II. 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's summary in another fashion. He then uttered
our second text, which I called a SEARCHING SCRUTINY. "I have gone
astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant; for I do not forget Your
commandments."
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–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–I have done so–and then see what it is like! Why, now, it
is a bar of steel–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, "perfect and
upright," 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, "I have gone
astray like a lost sheep"–followed by the petition–"Seek Your
servant" and the renewed declaration, "for I do not forget Your
commandments."
Here is, first, a confession of imperfection and of helplessness. I t
really means 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, "I am still going astray like a lost sheep." Indeed, it
mustbe so read, for the Psalmist goes on to say, "Seek Your servant."
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,
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep, but I can return when I please."
No, he prays to the Lord, "Seek Your servant," 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!
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, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep." Think first
of God's precepts. Have we ever gone astray in heart from any one of
them? Suppose you never have departed from them in life–which is a
very charitable supposition–have you ever in heartfelt the precepts to
be hard? Had you been really perfect, it would have been easy, it would
have been natural for 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 ever 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.
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. But 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, "I shall rebuke So-and-So for
his fault," 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 lack 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.
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? "I fought against it," 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? "Yes, it just
flitted across my mind," you say. Well, in proportion as you yielded to
it, in that proportion it was a guilty thing. Yes–I must say it–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–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 has
redeemed you with His precious blood–and then I feel sure
that you will have to say, "I fall short even of my own ideal and I am
persuaded that my ideal falls very far short of what God's ideal of
perfection is."
Has it not often struck you, dear Friends, as a very amazing thing that
good men–some of the best of men who have ever lived–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 slaves 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.
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, "I am not my own, for I am bought with
a price, and all that I am and have belongs to Christ," and yet who
nevertheless remains immensely rich–rich beyond anything that he or
his children after him can ever need? Yet, possibly, his conscience is
not enlightened about that matter and it is no very great crime in his
judgment–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, "I am a perfect man," I
feel inclined to say what Christ said to the young man who thought that
he was perfect, "Sell all that you have." Somebody asks, perhaps, "Does
Christ propose that test to every one of us?" 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–
"Yet 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"–
but, all the while, he has been trying to feel whether it was a
three-penny piece or a four-penny piece that he was going to give to
the collection!
As I begin to think of these various things which I have
mentioned–just casting, as it were, a little ray of light upon them,
not the great Light of the eternal purity of God–I cannot understand
how there can be any man, even though he has kept God's precepts and
testimonies as far as he could, who, nevertheless, is not bound to say,
"I have gone astray like a lost sheep."
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, "I feel that I have, in every respect, believed
the Truths of God as they are revealed in God's Word, and that I have
never erred from them"? Do you believe all the Truths of God and all
the Truths in their right proportions and relations? And do you give
due emphasis to each Truth at the right moment? Have you ever believed
that which afterwards you found to be incorrect and false? Possibly you
have not willfully 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, "Confessions." 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, "In the main, I have preached
the same things all through my ministry," yet, nevertheless, adds, "I
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 of God in my
defense of another." Ah, Friends, we are all so fallible! No, more than
that, we do all so sadly failin one way or another, that we must meekly
bow our head and each one, say, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep."
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 need to speak upon one more point.
In that prayer of the Psalmist, "Seek Your servant," I discern
conscious faith in the Divine power. He seems to say, "Lord, I am as
silly as a sheep, but if I were only a sheep, I could not pray. I am a
servant, too–'Your servant.' It is my
joy, it is my glory to be Your servant. Now, Lord, because I am Your
servant, seek me. Do not lose me, Lord! You have bought me with Your
blood. I am seeking You, Lord, so come and seek me. I want to be
perfectly holy–come and help me. Forgive every sin of omission or of
commission. Draw me away from every mistake. Draw me nearer and yet
nearer to Yourself. 'Seek Your servant.'" Perhaps you are ill, or even
dying–well, living or dying, this prayer may still suit you–"Seek me,
Lord, 'seek Your servant.'"
Then, lastly, comes in that sweet reflection, "For I do not forget Your
commandments." "I have a love for 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
Your Grace and, because You have put it there, Lord, and You have begun
to work in me, finish Your work, I pray You. Lord, You have made me
long to be rid of every false way, therefore, deliver me from it. You
have made me wish to be transparent and sincere. You have made me
hungry and thirsty to be like Yourself! Then will you not satisfy the
craving You have, Yourself, imparted?–
"'The dearest idol Ihave known, Whatever that idol be, Help me to tear
it from Your Throne, And worship only Thee.'
"If I hold an error, yet You know 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 You but let me see that
it is wrong and, cost what it may, I will do the right and cease from
the evil."
This is a blessed way in which to close our life, but there is a still
more blessed way and that is, after all is said and done, and after
God's Grace has been praised for everything that is lovely and of good
repute that it has worked 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 Jesus' 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's salvation is, there is yours, too.
And if the graybeard, 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 to Christ on Calvary! Cast your eyes on Him who, like the bronze
serpent, is lifted up that every sin-bitten one may look unto Him and
live! Oh, by His Grace, look to Him now and you shall live, for never a
soul looked to Him and died while looking there!
God bless you, dear Friends, for Christ's sake! Amen.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "–185, 232, 119 (SONG II), 538.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS 7; 8:1-4.
Romans 7:1-3. Know you not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know
the Law), how that the Law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
For the woman which has an husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he lives; but if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the
law ofher husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she is married
to another man, she shall be called an adulteress, but if her husband
is dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress,
though she is married to another man. He merely states this as an
illustration.
4. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the Law by the
body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to Him who
is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
While we were under the Law of God, we could not come into the bonds of
the New Covenant–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.
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. Sin
is the transgression of the Law of God. Therefore, out of the Law, by
reason of our corrup-
tion, 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 "fruit unto death."
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 No longer is the message to us, "This do and you
shall live." 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,
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.
7. What shall we say, then? Is the Law of God sin? God forbid/No, so
far from being sin, the Law is the great detective of sin, discovering
it and letting us know what sin really is.
7, 8. No, Ihad not known sin, but by the Law: for Ihad not known lust,
except the Law had said, You shall not covet But sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. Or,
"covetousness." The very fact that God said to us, "Do it not," worked
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!
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
did not know how sinful I was until God's 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–when I found out all this, sin did, indeed, live, but I died so
far as righteousness was concerned."
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. Therefore the Law is holy, and the commandment holy,
and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God
forbid.'' 'If I sinned the more when God's commandment was revealed to
me. And if, by the light of the Law, sin was made more apparent to me,
and became so exceedingly 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."
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 exceedingly
sinful. For we know that the Law of God is spiritual. 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 "Decalogue." It has far-reaching hands
and it affects the secret thoughts and purposes of men. Even their
stray imaginations come under its supremacy. "The law is spiritual."
14. But I am carnal, sold under sin. "I am carnal." There is the source
of all the mischief–a disobedient and rebellious subject, not an
irksome Law! The Law is good enough, it is absolutely perfect, "but,"
says the Apostle, "I am carnal"–fleshly–"sold under sin."
15. For that which I do, I allow not. The man himself does that which
is evil, but his conscience revolts against it.
15. For what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that I do. This
is a strange contradiction–a man who has Grace enough to will to do
good and yet does it not! There are two men in the one man–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.
16. If, then, I do that which I would not, I consent unto the Law that
it is good. "If I do that against which my will and my conscience
rebel, so far, the better part of me acknowledges the goodness of the
Law, though the baser part of me rebels against it."
17. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.
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.
18. 19. For Iknow that in me (that is, in my flesh), dwells 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. Oh,
how often have men who have been struggling after holiness had to use
these words of the Apostle! The more holy they are, 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 they cry still,
"The good that we would, we do not: but the evil which we would not,
that we do."
20. Now if I do what I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin
that dwells in me. The true man–the newborn man–is struggling after
that which is right. The real, "I," the immortal, "ego," 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 corrections there are within the men
and women in whom the Grace of God is mightily working! 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
ultimately yield, for there can never be any true peace until it is
subdued.
21. I find then a Law that when I would do good, evil is present with
me. 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 always be so.
22-24. For I delight in the Law of God after the inwardman: but Isee
another law in my members, warring against the law ofmy mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O
wretchedman that Iam! Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?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 is only caused by a consciousness that sin is still lurking within
him–and that he longs to be rid of it.
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.
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 Some
people talk about "getting out of the 7th Chapter, into the Eighth."
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–"There is,
therefore, now no condemnation"–while struggling, fighting, warring,
contending–
2. For the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free
from the law of sin and death. ' 'Has made me free"–that is, the real,
"I," of which he wrote a little while before–the true man, himself.
"'The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from
the law of sin and death.' 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 shortly bruise
even Satan himself under my feet."
3. For what the Law couldnot 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. That He has done most effectually!
4. That the righteousness ofthe Law might be fulfilledin us, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit Oh, what a blessed thing it
is to walk freely, "not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," even
though, all the while, there is, within the soul this strife that the
Apostle has been describing!