|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:00:52 GMT -5
Covering Sin, Part 1 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message from radio broadcast
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Proverbs 28 and verse 13: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." In the opening up of the text thus far we have observed the universal scope of the text. It refers to "he" and "whosoever" in the broadest sense in which those words are used in the Word of God--as broad as the "whosoevers" of John 5:24 and John 3:16. We have noted the unchanging force of the text. These are the "shall nots" and the "shalls" of the living God who cannot lie. And then we have noted the specific concern of the text. Everything focuses upon the issue of sin in the form of transgression, sin when it come to light in the area of rebellion against the norms of God as conscious acts of rebellion. And then further in the opening up of the text, we have sought to ascertain what it means to cover sin sinfully. And we've looked into the Scriptures at many examples of the various coverings which the human heart weaves in an effort to cover its sins. We looked at the covering of shifted responsibility. We looked at the covering of lies, religious activity, rationalization, framing misconceptions of God, finding faults with the instruments of exposure, refusing the means of exposure. And for those of you who were not with us, these were not fanciful descriptions. Each of them was simply an effort to describe coverings for sin, which are given to us in the Word of God itself.
Wherever, whoever, under whatever circumstance sin is covered, God says, "There you will find non-prosperity." We have it from the lips of Him who cannot lie: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper." And if anyone can cover his transgressions and prosper, then God has lied; Jesus Christ was in ignorance when He said concerning the Word of God, "Thy Word is truth", for here would be a three word statement of non-truth. If it is at all possible to cover sin under any circumstances in any place and still to prosper, God has lied. The Scriptures tell us, "God who cannot lie"; therefore, this truth, the results of covered sin, is as changeless as the character of the living God who gave it. "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper."
Now what is the meaning of the word "prosper", simply the meaning of the word itself? Well, it's the general word used in the Old Testament for prosperity, and it means pretty much the same as its usage in the English language. To prosper means to flourish, to succeed, to thrive in a vigorous way, to make good. If we say of a certain man, his business was flourishing, we mean that it was succeeding in a rather marked and vigorous way. If we say, "My garden is really flourishing this summer", we mean all the plants that we planted are growing and growing well and bearing fruit. So the meaning of the word "flourish" is very obvious to even the children amongst us who perhaps could not give a technical definition. But if they went out and saw a scrubby garden with half the plants drooped over half dead, instead of big luscious vegetables, little scrawny ones, and we say to the child, "Is the garden flourishing?", the kid would say, "No way!" The child would indicate that he understood the word "flourish", even though he couldn't give a technical definition.
But now the matter for our concern this morning (and this is crucial to everything): what is the significance of the use of that word in this text? When the text says, "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper [that is, he shall not flourish, he shall not succeed, he shall not thrive in a vigorous way, he shall not make good]", to what is the text referring? Well, let me state the answer first of all negatively. It does not refer necessarily to anything physical, economic, or any other temporal observable prosperity. And I can't underscore that enough. The wicked who cover their sins often do prosper. Well then, what does the word "prosper" mean in this text? The clue is found in the text itself. The structure of Hebrew poetry is such that sometimes the second part of a passage is parallel. Sometimes it's just saying the same thing in different words. But then you have an antithetical statement. In other words, you have a contrast. And the contrast helps us to understand its opposite. You have a statement given here; then an opposite over here, and both opposites help you to understand their counterparts. Now notice, what is the opposite in our text of not prospering? Notice: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain [riches? popularity? long life? good health?]." No, no! What is the opposite of not prospering? Obtaining mercy. Now what is mercy? A physical or spiritual commodity? It's a spiritual commodity. Mercy immediately brings us into the orbit of a man's unseen relationship to the unseen God, His unseen law, the unseen commodity of peace with God, a conscience at rest before God, likeness before God, preparation to meet God, the basis of walking with God. So you see, the antithetical statement in the text itself points us in the direction of the true significance of the word "prosperity". "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper [that is, the prosperity that comes in the only realm that really matters]."
The only realm that ultimately matters is the realm of being right with God, having communion with God, knowing the blessing of God's presence in life and death and the world to come. Therefore, when out text says, "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper", it is asserting that the covering of transgressions utterly precludes the conferral or the increase of those distinctively spiritual blessings which are the essence of that life which is life indeed. And if you read into this text economics, if you read into it physical well-being, you are reading something into the text that simply is not there. Now, as we shall see in our subsequent studies, the covering of sin that results in the non-prosperity of the soul will often have physical attendants just as the mercy that comes to the soul will also bring external, physical, economic attendants. But they are incidental and disposed according to the sovereignty of God. We shall not prosper now; we shall not prosper in the future. Two basic time slots: you shall not prosper now; you shall not prosper in the world to come.
As we considered last Lord's Day, each one of us by virtue of being created in the image of God has two inescapable realities stamped upon his inner consciousness: "My deeds are known to God, and God shall bring my deeds into judgment." You can no more escape that conviction than you can escape your humanity. Like it or not, that's as much a part of your humanity as the nose on your face. Ah, when we transgress and conscience is active with respect to that transgression, and then we cover that sin, you know what we do the moment we do that? We bring into our companionship the worst companion in all the world, an accusing conscience. The worst companion in all the world is an accusing conscience. It is the companion that will be the hell of hells in hell, for Jesus said, "...where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched." It will be the accusing worm of a condemning conscience the damned in hell will know, and know for eternity: "I'm here because I chose my sin for which I'm accountable to the Lord." I say the worst companion in life is an accusing conscience.
But the moment you and I sin and conscience brings accusation, you've got to do one of two things: you've got to try to stifle his mouth; you've got to get him to change his language (you try to do that by putting coverings over the voice of conscience), or in the language of Hebrews 10:22, we flee to a fountain open to sin and uncleanness. And here the Apostle says in that beautiful language, "Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience...." The blood of Jesus Christ alone can rid the human heart of that foul companion called an evil conscience because when we come owning our guilt, and we say, "Conscience is telling the truth when conscience speaks according to the objective law of God and says, 'You're guilty, you're culpable, you're liable to judgment.'" And conscience is speaking according to the eternal law, and we say, "Where shall I flee?" We find in the death of Christ that God did punish sin. And conscience can strike in with forgiveness that is grounded in the justice of God, venting itself upon the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when the conscience comes, and in faith we embrace the Lord Jesus, in the language of Hebrews, conscience in sprinkled, and we no longer have an evil conscience.
But until you've come to the blood of cleansing, my friend, the Scripture says covering your sins, you shall not prosper. You have not that peace of conscience that alone can be given in the blood of Christ. And because you know it creates that aversion to God, the accusing, uncleansed conscience is a radical influence both with reference to our dealings with God and with our fellow men. You remember in the garden of Eden, the moment Adam had an accusing conscience, instead of running to God, he ran from God. He tried to hide. Why? Conscience was accusing. And because conscience was accusing him, what happened in the relationship with Eve? In the place of harmony and concord, there was disharmony and enmity and resentment and accusation. Why? He had an accusing conscience. "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper." What happens? There's no pacified conscience through the blood of Christ. That affects us not only Godward but manward. It affected Adam's relationship to Eve, Cain's relationship to Able.
You know why some of you young people are so shifty-eyed; you can't even look your mom and dad straight in the eyeball back to the retina? You know why some of you are so shifty-eyed with your elders at the door? I'll tell you why. You've got an accusing conscience. And because man is made in the image of God, when you're around any man or woman who reflects that image as a believer, it reminds you of your uncleansed conscience before God when you look upon one of His image bearers. And that's why you feel uncomfortable. That's why you're shifty-eyed. That's why there's small talk. There's no looking back to the retinas, no gripping a hand and feeling, as it were, the communion of soul to soul in even a social handshake. Why? I'll tell you why. You've got a companion who not only ruins vertical relationships but horizontal.
Not only will you not have the peace of conscience through the blood of Christ, but you will have none of the peculiar privileges of the children of God. That's the now. These are the areas in which you'll not prosper now. You will have none of the peculiar privileges of the children of God in covering your sin, in refusing a full and honest confession and forsaking. You've cut yourselves off from the family of God and all of the privileges of that family. Let me just enumerate a few of them.
You have no communion with God. And you see, the tragedy is, as a human being, you were made so that in a real sense, you're not a full human being until you're in communion with God. Woven into the fabric of man's manness was his capacity for and his enjoyment of fellowship with God. That's as much a part of true humanity as nose, ears, and mouth. And if you cover your sins, you shall not prosper. You will have none of that fellowship and communion with the living God. You will have no valid access to God in prayer. How can a man or woman live this life who cannot come to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need? I do not marvel that people have to belt down three or four cocktails at lunch and another three or four at night to keep themselves half numb to the real world. Why? If there's no access to the throne of grace where we can unburden the deepest concerns of our hearts and know that we have a loving Father who hears and answers, it's no wonder. I just marvel that more people don't put a gun to their head and end it all. You can't have that certainty. You see, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear, the Scripture says.
You can have, in the third place, no settled confidence amidst the mysteries and trials of life. You see, the one who's dealt with his sin and found mercy, he can stand upon the statement of Romans 8:28: "All things are working together for my good." What do you have to pull together the seeming inequities, the mysteries of life, the imbalances, the injustices? You have nothing, my friend. That's what God means when He says you shall not prosper. This is no peculiar notion of a cranky preacher. It's God who says you shall not prosper, man, woman, boy, and girl, and all because you've covered sin. But God is so willing to cleanse and purge, but which He will not purge as long as you will to cover.
But tragic as the effects of covered sin are now, for those of you who are out of Christ, the greater tragedy is to be seen in the future. As long as you cover sin, the Scripture says you shall not prosper. And I want very briefly to say just three things under this heading. And may God help you to listen as ones who with me are quickly making their way to that day when we stand before God. If you cover your sins, man, woman, boy, or girl, you shall not prosper in the future. How? You'll die without the comforts of Christ. You'll be summoned to judgment without the protection of Christ. And you'll be sent to the everlasting state without the presence of Christ. That's the price you'll pay for covering your sins.
You'll die without the comforts of Christ. One of the great consolations of the believer, the one who has confessed his sin and forsaken it and found refuge in the blood of Christ, is to know that when that inevitable experience comes and I must die, and there will be the wrenching of soul from body, and that soul goes out into that world it's never entered before, what a consolation to have the words of Jesus ringing in one's ear, distilling into the depths of the heart, "Ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am, there ye may be also." Or the words of John 11: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth on Me shall never die." What a wonderful truth to have the comfort of Christ in death.
Secondly, you'll be summoned to judgment without the protection of Christ. Men are big and bold and brave about their sin in judgment. Well, the day comes when we read in Revelation 6:16, when that day comes and conscience can no longer be stifled and its voice no longer ignored when they see the coming Judge. The language of Revelation 6:16 is graphic. I quote it: "And they say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." My friend, when you go out yelling for mountains to fall on you, you're in a bad state. Because the judgment was coming, and they knew that the Judge was against them.
Well, as the child of God, the one who has forsaken and confessed his sin, he knows that there's going to be a day in court the likes of which no earthly court ever saw. The Judge who knows all shall actually plead the case of his trial. "He that confesseth Me before men will I confess before My Father." What a wonderful thing to have the Judge say,
"Eternal God, My Father, that man--all the evidence is accurate; all the sins were committed, but, My Father, he fled for refuge to Me and to My righteousness. Father, I plead My death on his behalf. I plead the sum total of that righteousness which is Mine by virtue of My obedience, even unto death."
And the Father will be well-pleased with the plea of the Son. And the Father will not be able to find one iota of just claims of unfulfilled pardon. I tell you, what a wonderful thing to face judgment in the knowledge that we shall have the protection of Christ. But my friend, you go to judgment without that protection, and you'll plead your own cause. And the evidence will be such as will make you cry. You'll die without the comforts of Christ. You'll come into judgment without the protection of Christ.
And finally, you'll be sent into the everlasting state without the presence of Christ. When your covered sin is openly displayed and placarded before the entire moral universe (for Jesus said there is nothing covered but that shall not be made manifest--Luke 12), then my friend, the words I pray God none of you will hear: "Then shall the King say to them that are on His left hand"--and I quote from the Scriptures now--"Depart from Me ye cursed into everlasting fire."
O, I plead with you this morning in the name of Christ, believe what God has said: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." May you find mercy in the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all sin.Covering Sin, Part 2 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message from radio broadcast
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Proverbs 28 and verse 13: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy." Having sought to open up from this text and then relating other portions of the Word of God to the text, we have sought to understand what it means to cover sin in a sinful way, the various ways in which the human heart devises coverings for its sin. And we are now occupied with seeking to understand the results of covered sin as described in this text in the few words "shall not prosper." And our application, then, of the text in its truth was primarily to those who are not in a state of grace. As we sought this morning to understand what it means when God says to the unconverted who cover their sins that they shall not prosper, we saw from the Scriptures that this meant at least a number of very frightening things. It means that they shall not prosper now, nor shall they prosper in the future. They will know nothing of a pacified conscience through the blood of Christ, nothing of the peculiar joys of the people of God. And then in the future, they shall die without the comforts of Christ, go to judgment without the protection of Christ, and pass into the everlasting state without the presence of Christ to become what I called in the exposition this morning an eternal exposition of the meaning of the text, "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper."
Well, having demonstrated how it is that the unconverted who cover their sins do not and cannot prosper, it is only right that we should see some of the application of this text to the people of God. For it is a tragic reality that the people of God are also involved in this dastardly work of making coverings for their sins. But as we introduce the subject, it is important that you understand what I mean when I say "the application of the text to the people of God."
The first thing I want to do is very briefly describe what I mean by "the people of God." When I say that our concern is to understand what this text says by way of application to a specific group of individuals called the people of God, what do I mean? Well, I mean nothing less than those who are born of God, those who, in the language of the Apostle Paul, have been made new creatures through union with Christ Jesus. I am not speaking of those who have merely made a profession of faith in Christ, who have merely conformed to a religious heritage that has brought them into proximity to the ways and laws and people of Christ. Nor am I referring to those who simply engage in certain number of religious duties that are connected with the church of Christ. When I use the term "the people of God", I mean nothing more or less than those men and women, boys and girls who by the work of the Spirit through the Word have been brought to a conscious awareness of what they are by nature: lost, rebel, guilty, undone sinners who by the same Spirit and the same Word have been brought to that glorious discovery of God's way of pardoning sinners through the work of Jesus Christ. And by the same Word and Spirit, not only have they made that discovery of their need, that discovery of God's remedy for their need in Christ, but they have been brought, in the language of Acts 20:21, to deep, inward repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. They have, in the words quoted earlier, been constituted new creatures in Christ Jesus. Now that's what I mean by the people of God because that's what the Scripture means when it speaks of the people of God.
Now it is to such people, those who have had the implantation of a principle that commits them to righteousness and holiness, those who have the beginnings of God's mighty work in conforming them to the moral likeness of Jesus Christ. It is such people who are the recipients of such mercies, who have such a glorious destiny, but shame of shames, are yet guilty of covering their sins. And whenever they do, the people of God will find this text coming down upon them with inescapable authority: "He that covereth his transgressions [even though he be a child of God] shall not prosper."
But I want you to see some of the ways in which the child of God does not prosper when he covers his sins under the concept of forfeiture. I've fished for sometime for a word that would most powerfully and clearly set forth the teaching of the Word of God, and the word that I was fixed upon is the word "forfeiture". Now when you forfeit something, you give up or relinquish something because of a crime, a fault, or a neglect. And so when the child of God covers his sins, his non-prospering is seen primarily in terms of that which he forfeits. First of all, he does not profit when he covers his sins because he comes to the forfeiture of access to God in prayer. When the child of God sins, particularly in the area of transgression, and conscious of his area of transgression against the law of God, he does not immediately flee for cleansing to the blood of Christ and renewing and quickening by the Spirit of Christ, one of the first ways in which he no longer prospers is precisely here. There is the forfeiture of access to God in prayer.
No privilege of the child of God is of greater worth to him than the liberty of access to His God in prayer in the spirit of sonship. The Apostle says in Galatians 4: "And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." And one of the surest marks that you're a true Christian is that when I say there is no privilege of greater worth to the Christian than the privilege of access to God in prayer, your heart leaps out and says a spontaneous "Amen! It is so." What is wealth; what is health if there is a brassy heaven? But if there is an open heaven so that when we pray, we are conscious of having access to God, entering into that most intimate form of communion possible to the sons of men here upon this earth, we are conscious of the unspeakable privilege of that access.
But (and here we must be careful to understand the teaching of the Word of God) though the ground of this access is outside of us in Jesus Christ, the condition of that access is a good conscience within us. Turn, please, to 1 John 3:21: "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because [here's a cause-effect relationship] we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." You see what John is saying? John is not saying that we have built up a certain amount of merit by our obedience that now makes our obedience the ground of access to God in prayer. No, remember, it is John who recorded the words of Jesus "I am the way, the truth, the life; no man cometh unto Father but by Me." It is John who said, "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins." No, John has not forgotten his theology of the objective provision for sinners, being found in Christ and in the work of Christ. But John is saying there is an inward personal condition if that access is to be enjoyed, and here it is: "If our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we [are keeping] His commandments." What's the opposite of keeping His commandments? Well, surely it is covering our sins, for whenever sin or transgression is detected in a believer, the commandment of God comes home to his conscience that he is to confess that sin. He is to turn from it; he is to acknowledge it before his God and seek cleansing in the blood of Christ. Therefore, when our text says, ""He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper", in it's application to the child of God, it is saying this:
"Child of God, when you transgress and rather than go through whatever kind of spiritual agony is necessary to come to true confession before God and where necessary before man, anything short of that, you're covering your sin, and covering your sin, you will not prosper. There will be the forfeiture of access to God in prayer."
The psalmist stated it those well-known words in Psalm 66:18: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear." If I regard, that is, if I countenance iniquity, I'm conscious of its presence, but I throw the blanket of rationalization over it, I throw the covering of shifted responsibility, I throw the covering of a lie, I throw the covering of refusing to drag it out into the blazing light of the law and the Gospel. If I regard iniquity, if I countenance iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.
Now I did not say that God will paralyze a Christian so that he cannot say a prayer. Many of us have gone to our closet many times to say our prayers, but there's been no access. There's been no experimental communion with God. Why? Because God is going to be true to His Word: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper." And because we have covered sin and regarded iniquity, God has refused to us the blessing of access. There is no Christian who has walked with God for any length of time at all who does not know to his bitterness how real this is. He attempts to draw near to God and do something more than say his prayers. He wants to engage God in prayer. He wants access. And every time he gets down to serious business, that sin that he's been covering looms before him.
Are some of you living monuments of the text? You're covering sin. O yes, there's been some clever rationalization. There's been some very fancy footwork as you've woven your lies, as you've spun out that very clever shifting of responsibility. But you're covering your sin, and you're a living monument to this text: "shall not prosper." Why? For some of you, it's been weeks and months since you've access to God in prayer that you once knew in the past. And now you say your prayers, but you have no access. Why? Because God's Word is true: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper." Child of God, this text is for our warning. Is anything worth the forfeiture of God in prayer? Is anything worth that? Not if you've tasted it.
In the second place, there will not only be the forfeiture of access to God in prayer; there will be as fulfillment of this text the forfeiture of joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. Next to love, these are the great fruits of the Spirit. One of the great truths (Galatians 5:22): "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace...." See how they're put at the top of the list. You find a similar centrality of emphasis in a passage such as Romans 14:17. As the Apostle is treating the whole subject of things indifferent and what a Christian ought to do with things that are not clearly condemned by the law of God. And in this setting, the things were external matters, and the Apostle wants to inject a principle that ought to govern all such discussion. So he says, "for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking [it does not consist in these external things], but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." You see, the predominant characteristic of those who have been introduced to the kingdom of God is that they stand upon the ground of an imputed righteousness in the favor of God. And they have the inward delight of joy and peace imparted by the Holy Spirit. Now when the child of the kingdom transgresses and does not flee to Christ for cleansing and have his conscience sprinkled anew, what happens? There is the forfeiture of that joy and peace of the Holy Spirit.
A classic example is given to us in the history of King David, the David whose Psalms are full of joy and peace, which are the hallmark of those in the kingdom of righteousness. What happens to those commodities that are found again and again in Psalm after Psalm? When David sinned, we find in the language of Psalm 32 that there is the forfeiture of this joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. Notice the language of Psalm 32, one of David's great penitential Psalms. In the first two verses, he speaks of the blessedness of those whose sins have been covered by God. But then he reflects upon the misery of those who cover their own sins and will not confess and forsake them. And notice how vigorous is the language. Verse 3: "When I kept silence...." There was not that agreeing with God about the heinous nature of his sin. There was not confession. There was casting over the cloak of silence and rationalization. "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer."
Do you see what he said? In place of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, there was misery and disturbance and inward disruption of the soul. He describes his condition in the language of groaning all the day long. All you need to do is hear a person groan once in a day and that's enough to help you to never forget it: the groan of pain or disappointment or the news of tragedy. He said he groaned the entire day. It was so opposite of his state of joy that he said his moisture was changed into the drought of summer. When a man cries himself until there are no more tears, he has nothing but the dry sobs of a broken spirit. What happened? He sinned. And instead of confessing and forsaking his sin, he covered it. And in covering it, God said, "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper." And so he forfeited joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.
Mark it well, no true joy and peace will ever be found but in righteousness and the true penitence that leads to righteousness. Now there is a false peace and a false joy that bypasses an honest dealing with sin. This is one of my major complaints against modern movements that claim to have a corner on the work of the Holy Spirit and get people all happy and joyous. They do not deal with sin. "Seek an experience." And as one of their writers said, "It will be like having gin in your orange juice." And they talk about the tingles down the spine as someone laid hands upon them, the feeling of liquid love flowing over them. My friend, where is the dealing with sin?
If you've forfeited joy and peace because of sin, there's no way to its restoration but to go to the place where the Spirit of joy and peace was grieved and renew the communication of those blessed commodities. And having dealt with those points of controversy, plea that the Spirit will impart those graces again. Isn't that Psalm 51. Look at the language of it. Having owned his sin, and not until then--mark it, not until then--the first 7 verses are preoccupied with the reality and the ugliness and the guilt of sin. "My sin," he says, "my guilt, my wickedness, my uncleanness." Now he dares to say in verse 8, "Make me to hear joy and gladness...[O Lord, it was my sin that brought the forfeiture of joy in the Holy Spirit.]" "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." Then and only then would he pray for the restoration of joy. David knew that to seek the restoration of joy without dealing with the occasions of its forfeiture was to try to make mockery of God. And my friend, you can try to chuck yourself under the chin with a hundred verses from a promise box that is suppose to make you happy, but if you're covering sin, you shall not prosper in having true joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.
Now a false peace can be conjured up by the flesh as well as promoted by false prophets. You just read the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah's great complaint was every time he tried to tell the people, "You've got peace, but it's not peace that is kissing righteousness." The false prophets came along, and in the language of Jeremiah, said, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace." You better fear peace and joy that are divorced from righteousness as much as you fear hell itself. "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper."
Child of God, what sin is worth the broken bones of forfeited peace? If the joy of the Lord is our strength, in the language of Nehemiah, then the absence of that joy is our weakness. What sin is worth being so weak, so crippled. O, I plead with you, young people, adults, save the loss. Hear the word of God from the pen of Solomon: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy [mercy with its taproots in God's eternal love, mercy that flows through the wounds of Christ, mercy that is now available in the promise of Christ, in the living, exalted Christ]." Seek Him; seek the mercy that is to be found in Him.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:02:02 GMT -5
Death's Immediate Sequel for the Believer by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached October 17, 2004
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Many of you know that it was eight weeks go today, August 22nd to be exact, that I stood behind this pulpit and made an attempt to expound and apply that marvelous text in Romans 8 (verse 28): "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." And when I finished that effort at exposition and application, I made the announcement to this congregation that I was beginning what I called an indefinite leave of absence from the public ministry of the Word and from most of my pastoral duties in order to give myself fulltime and without distraction to caring for my dying wife. It had become evident that she was rapidly failing and that my care was needed at an entirely new level.
Then, again, as most of you know, it was four weeks and one day later on September 20th at 6:40 in the morning that I stood by her bedside and watched her breath her last. Several minutes after her last breath and the subsequent clear indications that she had indeed died, it was my privilege, unspeakable privilege, to cradle her lifeless body in my arms and to hold her up from the bed while my daughter Heidi and my sister Joyce stripped the bed of its soiled linen, put on fresh linen, and then together we tenderly prepared her body for the visit of the Hospice nurse who was on her way to sign the death certificate, and prepared her for the visit of the undertaker who would subsequently come and take her away to prepare her for her funeral.
As best I can recall the timeframe, in the moments between her last breath and my cradling my beloved in my arms while staring death straight in the eye without any ability to avoid the stark reality of the presence of the last enemy, feeling keenly the many profound realities that surround the intrusion of death, I asked myself this question: what happened to my beloved from the time she breathed her last and the moments later when I lifted her from her death bed and cradled her in my arms? And I bless God that as I asked that question and my mind reflected upon passage upon passage, that I can say to the praise of God and to the great joy of my own heart that I knew with unshakable certainty the sequel to her death. I knew what had happened from the time of her last breath to the time of cradling her in my arms.
And this morning I want to preach to you on the things that I knew then and know now, and which if you do not know and which you do not have grounds to expect will be true of you, then you are a fool of all fools, because the hour is coming when that ultimate reality is going to nail you to your deathbed. You may put death out of your mind, out of your thoughts; immerse yourself in present toys or present legitimate responsibilities, but the fact of common observation as well as Biblical affirmation is, it's appointed unto men once to die. And you're going to die like my beloved died. And I'm going to die like she died. So this morning I want to speak on the subject death and its immediate sequel for the one who dies in union with Christ. And in opening up this subject, I will seek to do so under two major headings. First of all, I want to speak unto you of two foundational facts of Biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding of death itself. We cannot address death and its sequel for the one in Christ unless we understand two foundational facts of Biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding of death itself. And then my second heading is four wonderful realities that constitute the immediate sequel to death for all who die in Christ.
First of all, then, two foundational facts of Biblical revelation crucial to a right understanding to death itself. Fact number one is this: it has to do with the essential nature and constitution of human beings made in the image of God. According to the Scriptures, mankind; that is, men and women, boys and girls made in the image of God are created by God and composed of two distinct entities. Now, you've had no existence apart from those two entities being joined, and in some areas interpenetrating one another by their influence. But nonetheless, the Scriptures are clear that sitting here today and my standing before you today, we are all, in terms of our fundamental and essential nature and constitution, comprised of two distinct entities.
On the one hand, there is that entity we call our bodies: physical, material, corporeal entities, touchable, visible, hurtable, killable. The body, that thing which is plunked in your pew by means of which your eyeballs are able to see me and sound waves strike upon your ear drum and go by the auditory nerve to your brain, and in the case of our deaf folks, by means of the signs our brother Lesley makes, and those things are interpreted into words that register upon this pile of gray matter between our ears called the brain. However, the Bible makes it abundantly clear and everywhere assumes that we have a second entity, an entity the Bible calls our souls or our spirits. And while the Bible everywhere assumes this, there are certain texts which are shear nonsense if this is not true.
For example, when Jesus is commissioning the twelve to go out on their preaching mission and apprise them that they are going to face opposition, possible even unto martyrdom, He says these very, very significant words in Matthew 10:28: "And fear not them which kill the body [the touchable, corporeal, physical entity], but are not able to kill the soul [the non-material, the non-corporeal entity]: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Those words of our Lord Jesus are shear nonsense if we are not composed of these two distinct entities.
Or take, for example, Paul's prayer wish in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. This is his prayer wish for the Thessalonian believers: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly [through the entire range of what makes you you]; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Without getting into the discussion of dichotomy and trichotomy, I understand soul and spirit to be interchangeable terms, and the Apostle, as it were, is simply covering the bases to identify the non-corporeal, non-physical entity, the soul and spirit, the physical, the corporeal. And he says, "It is my prayer wish that the entirety of your humanity constituted of the material and the non-material experience the sanctifying and preserving work of the living God." So that's fact number one that we've got to understand if we're to understand what happens to the believer who dies in Christ.
Fact number two has to do with the essence of death in the case of human beings. What is the essence of death in the case of human beings? The experience of death for human beings is basically this: it is the radical separation of these two entities, the soul and the body. For the first time in our existence from our conception in our mother's wombs, these two entities are radically separated the one from the other. In James 2:26, James is going to use this fundamental fact as an illustration of a more profound spiritual reality. He says, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." He assumes that anyone with any form of rationality and any contact with Biblical revelation would understand that the essence of death is the body and the spirit separated.
And the example of our Lord's death in Luke 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." And the subsequent record is, He breathed His last, and His lifeless body hung upon that cross. He was tenderly taken down by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathaea and washed and wrapped with wrappings and spices and laid in a tomb. Two distinct entities in the perfect humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or the case of Stephen, the beautiful account of his death in Acts 7:59-60: "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And when the Lord received his spirit, it says he fell asleep. And the falling asleep is always with reference to what we see in the body of the child of God. He is fallen asleep in union with Jesus.
Now concerning this radical separation of soul an body, two things need to be emphasized, especially in our totally secularized, mechanistic, materialistic age. First of all, it is unnatural and is the result of sin. Death is not a natural part of life with which we simply need to learn to cope as we cope with cutting teeth and loosing teeth and getting crowns and false teeth and all the rest. No, the Bible is abundantly clear that death is a wholly unnatural intrusion in human experience, an intrusion which has come as the result of sin. Listen to the very perceptive words of Mr. Veenema in his very excellent book The Promise of the Future. He writes,
"Contrary to many modern myths about death, that death is a natural part of life, that it marks the cessation of existence, that there's a natural dignity in dying well, the Bible paints its portrait of death with the most dark and soering of colors. Nowhere in the Bible is death treated as something natural, as something that can easily be domesticated or treated as 'a part of life.' No encouragement is given us in the Bible to minimize the terror and the fearfulness of death. It is called our last enemy. In 1 Corinthians 15:26, the Biblical understanding of death begins with the fall into sin. Death is the divinely appointed punishment of mankind's disobedience. Genesis 2:17 is part of the stipulation of obedience. Adam was forewarned, 'You must not eat of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, you shall surely die.' Adam, formed from the dust of the earth and made a living soul through the inbreathing of his Creator became liable to death through his act of disobedience, a liability which now falls upon all whom he represented as their covenant head."
One of the more prominent passages in Scripture on the subject of sin and death is Romans 5:12-21. And in that passage, sin and death are inseparably linked. And therefore, as we think of the essence of death (the separation of the soul from the body), this unnatural separation of that which constitutes us image bearers of God, we must always remember it is unnatural and the result of sin. And secondly, it is a temporary existence. It is a temporal condition awaiting the reunion of soul and body at the general resurrection, when our blessed Lord with the entourage of the host of heaven with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God will come in glory and in power. And the Scripture says that when He does, "all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." So in summary, if we're to think Biblically regarding death and its relationship to the child of God and what happens as the immediate sequel to the death of one who is in Christ, we will only think Biblically if our thinking rests down upon these two vital elements of Biblical revelation: the essential nature of human beings (we are comprised of two entities) and the essence of death (the separation of those two entities that is both unnatural and only temporal).
But now we come to what is the heart of the message this morning: four wonderful realities that constitute the immediate sequel for one who dies in union with Christ. Now let me explain a couple of words I'm using. I've used the term "the immediate sequel." While the body is still warm, as was my beloved's when I held it in my arms, and while there is still some color upon the cheek, what has happened when the soul of that one has left that body and they have died? What are the immediate sequels to that experience? In other words, I'm addressing this morning what the theologians call the intermediate state, not the consummate state at the return of Christ, when the dead in Christ shall rise first; living saints will be transformed in a moment in an instant, and together caught up together in the clouds to be forever with the Lord. I'm speaking of the intermediate state. And while the great focus of Scripture is upon the consummate state of redemptive grace (what the believers receive at the coming of Christ and the resurrection of their bodies), that is what is called the Christian's hope. Whenever you read about the believer's hope in the Bible, it is not focusd on the intermediate state. He has great confidence; he can have great joy; he can face the last enemy in faith and not be terrified. But that's never call the believer's hope. The believer's hope is what he receives at the return of Christ and the full possession of all that was purchased for him by our Lord Jesus Christ.
However, we do have from the Scripture sufficient data that we may, if we are privileged to do so, cradle a loved one in our arms and know exactly what has happened from the time they breathed their last and before the undertaker comes. So that's why I'm using the term "What is the immediate sequel to death for the one who in Christ?" Why do I use that terminology? Well, for the simple reason that the only one for whom death is a blessing is the one who's in Christ. Revelation 14:13 says, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." Those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. In other words, I could use the term "for Christians," "for believers," but those terms have become so weakened and so neutralized in much of their Biblical vigor. I want to use what is the central phrase concerning New Testament salvation: union with Christ--"They die in the Lord." "If any man be in Christ.... We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.... But of Him are you in Christ who has made of us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption...etc." That's why I'm using that terminology. Now with an understanding of that terminology, what are the four wonderful realities that constitute the immediate sequel to the death of one who is in Christ?
Number one: the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his existence immediately made perfect in moral likeness to Christ. And I'm going to use the masculine pronoun so I don't have to keep saying his or her, but I'm referring to my wife. Miss Reynolds is still with me, so you'll just have to forgive me. (That's an in house statement.) According to Romans 8:29, the great goal of God in redemptive grace is nothing less than the restoration of His moral image after the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ. "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom he called, them He also justified: and whom he justified, them He also glorified." And what is it to be glorified? It is to experience total conformity to the moral likeness of Christ in body and soul at the consummation of redemptive grace. As J. I. Packer stated it so simply and beautifully, "It will be sinless souls inhabiting deathless bodies."
That's it! But for most of us, we're going to get in two stages. Those alive at the return of the Lord are going to get the whole shebang just like that in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to be transformed soul and body. But what about my beloved? What's happened to her? What's happened to your loved ones in Christ? The moment they breathed their last and that unnatural, an albeit temporal severance of soul and body occurs, the Scriptures tell us that the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his existence immediately made perfect into the moral likeness of Christ. How do we know that? Look at Hebrews 12:22-23. The writer to the Hebrews is enumerating all of the wonderful realities to which we come in new covenant blessing. He's contrasted what they came to in the circumstantial surroundings of the old covenant. Now the contrast:
"But ye are come [something has happened, the results of which continue into the present. 'You are come,' not 'You shall come.' You have already come and remain] unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."
Here's a perfect passive participle: the spirits of just men having been and remaining in a state of perfection. Now how did they get that? The moment their spirits left their bodies, God, in His grace, puts forth a concentrated degree of the divine energy of sanctifying grace that accomplishes more in a millisecond than we have known of progressive sanctification through a whole lifetime. I tell you, that gets me shouting happy.
What did God do with my beloved? What did He do with every one of you who is a Christian? As a 19-year-old in nurses training, God brought her into contact with some Christians. And they witnessed to her and opened up the Scriptures. And little bits of seeds that had been sown along her past, God caused them to germinate and to spring forth into new life in union with Jesus Christ. And when I met her, she was in the flush of her fresh love to Christ, and was I. Nothing mattered but singing about Him and going out in the street and passing out tracts and talking about Him and praying and reading the Bible.
It was evident that God had put forth the energy of divine grace called regeneration. He had taken out the heart of stone and given a heart of flesh; made Christ the pearl of great price; implanted a passion to be holy and to be like Christ. And I was privileged to track that initial work flowering out into progressive sanctification for over 52 years. Marvelous changes--God dealing with this attitude and this disposition and this perspective and that and the other, so that as the tributes were given here from this very pulpit at her memorial service, all who knew her saw her ripening for glory.
But my friends, everything God did from age 19 to age 73 could be put in a thimble full, and God gave her the ocean the moment she breathed her last. She joined the company of just men made perfect. Never again to have to feel the twinge of grief for an envious thought, a prideful thought, an angry thought, an irritated thought, an unkind thought. Utterly rid of anything that would be the fuel of repentance. On the positive side, fully endowed with every grace that will make the soul reflective of the moral perfections of Christ. Capable of growth? Capable of development? Yes, but as to its moral constitution, it is "the spirits of just men made perfect." Mind, affections, and will fully, unreservedly conformed to the highest standard of the law of God in all of its breadth and depth and in all of its penetrating demands.
I could not help but think when reflecting on this early this morning: what happened to Isaiah when he had but a vision while still in this life of the glory of God's burning holiness? Cherubim, those strange creatures that reflect the moral perfections of God. And he sees God enthroned, and John 12 says it was the glory of the pre-incarnate Christ that he saw when he sees God in His burning holiness. What does Isaiah do? He doesn't dance for joy. He's undone; he falls prostrate and says, "O God, I've had it! I'm shattered! I'm undone!" I find great comfort to think the moment my beloved breathed her last and her spirit was ushered into that same throne room Isaiah saw in vision, she was released with nothing but unbounded joy--at home, fully at home, psychologically, spiritually, morally in every way with an utterly holy God and not a twinge of discomfort.
And my friend, I've got news for you. That's what Gods' going to do for you the moment you breathe your last. If you're in Christ, that's what He's committed to do--to make you join the company of just men made perfect. And I have found as I've been trying to shape into little maxims how to handle the deep and crushing grief of my loss, this is one that helps me: I say to myself, "Albert, think more of what she has gained than of what you have lost. She's gained what is the passionate desire of every true believer. If you can dig down through to get to the real stuff that makes us what we are, in every true believer, the deepest subterranean passion is to be done with sin and to be wholly like Jesus. And my friend, you're going to get it the moment you breath your last.
But then secondly, here's the immediate sequel to the death of one in Christ: the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his existence immediately brought into the presence of Christ. And here are two passages (you ought to know them; I hope you thinking about them): 2 Corinthians and Philippians 1.
In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul has reflected upon his sufferings and at the end of chapter calls them light afflictions that are working a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. And then he says, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." He likens his glorified body to a permanent dwelling, not this tattered tent that he has down here. And he says, "To be honest, I'd rather not be untented; I'd rather not have my soul be in a state of nakedness, a disembodied spirit. But I'd like this shredded tent to be swallowed up immediately with this eternal dwelling." But he says, "On the other hand, though that would be my desire, I'm confident of something." Look at verses 6 to 8: "Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight:) we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Words could not be clearer. Paul says, "I've got two possible modes of existence. If I stay around in my shredded tent, I'm aways from the Lord." Now remember, this is a man who was caught up in the third heaven and heard things it was not lawful to speak or write, one who had deep, intimate, passionate communion and fellowship with Christ. Yet he says, "As long as I'm in this body, there's a fundamental sense in which I am absent from the Lord." He's there wherever the glorified body of Jesus is. Sometime I'll talk to you about some things I've been thinking about along those lines--I'm not ready to preach about them. He says, "As long as I'm here in this tent, I'm not there. If I'm at home in the body, I'm absent from the Lord. However, if I leave this tent, where do I go? I'm at home with the Lord." And he says, "We are willing rather (this is the desire of our hearts) to be at home with Him." That's the text printed on all the materials in conjunction with my wife's home going.
And then, of course, the second passage, Philippians 1, where the Apostle speaks of this internal struggle within his own soul. He says in verses 21 to 24: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you." Words could not be more clear. He says there is this yearning to experience that which is very far better, and that is to depart and to be with Christ, not to go into some state of soul sleep, a kind of permanent anesthesia till the day of resurrection as the Jehovah witnesses and the 7th Day Adventists teach. No, this man who knew intimate communion with Christ could never desire a state where that communion was cut off, but only where it would be augmented to entirely new degrees and heights and depths of blessed reality. "I desire to depart and to be with Christ. That's the gain that death will bring for me. To live is Christ, and why is death gain? Because I get more of Christ in death than I could ever have of Him in life." Remember, this is the man who said, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Child of God, what can you know about the immediate sequel to your death and the death of loved ones who die in Christ? You can know from the Scriptures that their death is their gain, and their gain is ravishing face to face communion with the One who has captured their hearts, won their affections, and forever fastened all that they are to Himself in bonds of deepest love--to die is gain.
The moment the soul leaves the body, the prayer of Jesus is partially answered, not fully. John 17. In this that is commonly called the high priestly prayer of our Lord, at the end of the prayer, He uses a verb for the first time. All the other requests are used in the form of petitionary prayer. But here He exerts regal will: "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me: for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (v. 24). Jesus knows that the fullness of our joy awaits the fullness of His joy. And what's the fullness of His joy? It's seeing our joy made full in the face-to-face beholding of His glory. And so as Spurgeon in His inimitable way in Morning and Evening has a devotional on this text, he says, "Ah believer, you would keep them with you, but your Savior would have them with Him." And then he draws that out as only Spurgeon does, and he says, "Now I ask you, dear believer, whose will will win the day?"
And what a comfort it's been when I feel the crushing loneliness to say, "Lord Jesus, You want her so much, You couldn't stand for her not to behold Your glory. And Lord Jesus, You died for her. I would die for her in my love, but You did die for her. You purchased her. You had every right to say, 'I can't stand having her behold my glory through a vale and darkly. I want her joy full by seeing Me face to face.'" How in the world can I complain at a Savior like that? How could I profess to love her and want to keep her from beholding His glory as He is at the right hand of the Father?
But I said it's only partially answered, because until she and I and all of us in Christ look at His glory, which is the glory of the God-man in heaven, and we look at it with glorified eyeballs that register His glorified physical form upon our retinas, the glory is still not fully revealed. So she's got more to come. But she's gotten so much, and I envy her. But I bless God, we're both going to have it all.
In the immediate sequel to death, that's what happens to the believer's soul. It immediately passes into the presence of Christ. And these are the words that gripped me shortly after her death as I meditated upon this verse. Look at it again: "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am." The "with" and the "where" got me excited. "With" and "where"--"with Me where I am." There's the locality, but the locality would be nothing if it were not "with Me." But the "with Me" would have diminished joy if it was not "with Me where." We've got the best--bless God--"with Me where I am."
Well, I move on in the third place. From the time she breathed her last and I cradled her in my arms, not only did she experience total conformity to the moral likeness of Christ, immediately pass into the face-to-face presence with Christ, but the one who dies in Christ is in the full consciousness of his existence brought immediately into the company of all the blood-washed saints of Christ.
While each one of us is born physically as an individual, I don't care if you're one of quintuplets, they all five didn't come out once. Each one has a number. You were first, you were third, you were second. You were born individually. And each one of us is going to die individually. We may have people surrounding us, or we may be all alone. But we came in individually, and we're going to go out individually. And God's salvation must be appropriated individually. God has no grandchildren. Each one must come to personal repentance and faith. Each one must experience new birth by the individual operations of God's almighty grace in Christ and by the Spirit. However, though the Bible sets forth this kind of very dominate individualism, God's salvation is not individualistic. In planning and procuring and applying His saving grace in Christ, God has something more in view than getting individuals changed and fit for His presence. Rather, God has a desire for a new humanity in Christ called His church, called His bride, called His body; pictured as the new Jerusalem, pictured as the city of God. All of the emphasis of Scripture is that God in Christ wants a new humanity. Therefore, the final state of the new heaven and the new earth is described to us in the image of a city. And when Paul is describing to us the return of Christ in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, he says, "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord [in this state of perfect togetherness]."
Now if according to Hebrews 12:23, all who die in Christ are already in the fellowship of the spirits of just men made perfect, and we on earth have some kind of communion with Him, will not that relationship be exponentially augmented in love, in the graces that sweeten human relationships. You know what its like when here on earth there are times when the relationship and interaction with fellow believers seems to be so utterly immunized from the outcropping of sin that we instinctively say what? This was a taste of heaven, where perfect love will reign.
I had a taste of that in these weeks with my sister and my daughter. You can imagine now, my daughter ordering her household under her husband with all her patterns; my sister who's been a widow for 14 years and a very competent take-charge woman (and I don't think I'm exactly milk toast), and we're all under one roof for weeks together. It was precious. Not one time was there any outcropping of any friction. If there was a little something that could have created it, we just looked each other in the eye and said, "Don't do that, that gets under my skin." "All right, I won't do it. Sorry." It was a wonder, and it reminded my of what heaven's going to be like, where everything that creates friction and tension and suspicion and ill-will and alienation--not only will all that be obliterated, but those things we feel at times as we interact with one another, where we can't keep our hands off one another. The love so throbs through our being, we've got to crush one another with an embrace. Imagine when that's augmented to the perfection of the life of love in heaven and to some degree when the saints leave this world and they enter the world of spirits of just men made perfect; they are gathered into that fellowship of united glorified spirits in the immediate presence of God and of the Lamb. And one can only imagine the life of love that they already experience.
I've been thinking much about this in recent days. You read the biographies of saints and martyrs; we pray for brethren we have not seen, and yet what bonds of love we feel. Don't you fall in love with David Brainerd when you read his journal? Don't you fall in love with Spurgeon when you read The Early Years? "Man, where is he? I want to get him and hug him." You read the works of those whose thoughts are embalmed in printer's ink, and they become the very voice of Christ to us. And you want to embrace them; you want to see them and tell them how much you love them. If we can experience all that with this dunghill still in us, can you imagine what it's like when the dunghill's all gone and all that stuff breaks out into its full capacity in the presence of our God and the Lamb? There's a stanza of a hymn that I've sung many times, but I didn't understand it. Now I do. "The Church Is One Foundation"--what's the last stanza?
Yet she on earth hath union With God the Three in One, And mystic sweet communion With those whose rest is won.
And as we have some dimension of sweet communion now, bless God that the best is yet to come.
And then fourthly and finally, the one who dies in Christ is, in the full consciousness of his existence, brought immediately to experience the promised rest of Christ. And here I ask you to turn with me to the text I alluded to earlier, Revelation 14:13: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them." Here is a blessing pronounced upon those who die in the Lord. And the aspect of blessedness that is highlighted is not that they are done with sin, that they see Christ face to face, that they are gathered into the community of all the blood-washed, perfected spirits of saints in heaven, but in order that they may rest from their labors.
In parallel language, we have the familiar words of Matthew 11, so often preached evangelistically, and I think rightly so: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And when we come heavy laden with an accusing conscience, burdened down with a sense of the futility of life and our inability to put the pieces together, and God breaks through with the Gospel word of promise in Jesus Christ, and we come in all of our burdeness, and we cast the weight of our sin and our guilt and our hopelessness and purposelessness upon Christ, He says, "I'll give you rest. I'll put My yolk upon you; you'll learn of me. My yolk is easy; My burden is light." Yet under that yolk that Christ lays upon us, there is still the labor of life in general. It's life in a sin-cursed world, and God has not yet removed the curse that came upon our first father because of his sin. There is the labor of the Christian life that is described in some places like an arduous race, like a life and death battle, like wrestlers in striving. There is the labor of living with a decaying outward man that is indeed perishing. That's why Paul can say, "For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." What happens the moment a saint breathes his or her last? There spirit leaves the theater of all the remaining labor, all the remaining burdens of life, all the striving, struggling aspects of the Christian life, and they enter into rest. One servant of God described it this way:
"But rest too [describing heaven], they be rest above all. Here, responsibilities, pain, and temptation; here, harassment by the demonic, persecution by the world, disappointment in friends; here, relentless, remorseless pressure requiring us to live at the limit of our resources and at the very edge of our endurance, but there, rest. The battle's o'er; the victory's won. The toil is behind us, and the danger past--no more the burden of the unfinished work or the frustration of inbuilt limitations, no sin to mortify, no self to crucify, no pain to face, no enemy to fear. But it's not all negative. It's more than rest from. It means sharing in the blessed of God so that in the very depth of our being, there is contentment and joy and fulfillment; there is total shalom, a sense of shear well-being. Every need is met; every longing is fulfilled; every goal is achieved; every sense is satisfied. We see Him; we are with Him. He holds us and hugs us and whispers, 'This is forever.'"
What can we know about our loved ones the moment they breathe their last? This is what the Bible says we can know: we can know their immediate transformation into the perfect moral likeness of Christ, their immediate usherance into the presence of Christ, their being gathered with all the blood-bought saints of Christ, and they experience the promised rest of Christ.
Now let me say in my closing applications, first of all, while we do not deny that death is still an enemy--it's called the last enemy, and it's ugly, and it's cruel. I know that now like I never knew it before. When that enemy caused my beloved to feed upon her own body for the last couple of weeks of her life, it was ugly. I understood what I heard Dr. Tozer say years ago, and I didn't understand him then. He was talking about our ability to love will be in direct proportion to our ability to hate: "Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity." And he went on to say, "I hate the devil." And at the time Kruchev was still banging his shoe, and he said, "I hate Kruchev, and I hate sin, and I hate cancer." I didn't understand him then; I understand him now. Cancer was the tool of the last enemy to take away the desire of my eyes and the bride of my youth. Death's not pleasant, especially when it comes slowly, makes its presence known, and in a sense, challenges you and says, "Do what you can, I'll be victor in this life." It's an enemy; it's ugly; it's cruel.
But I want you to look at two passages of Scripture with me. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23. In the light of what I've preached concerning these four realities of the sequel to death for the one in Christ, listen to the words of the Apostle:
"Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are your's; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world [now I can understand that. He's saying, 'Why are you lining up behind your favorite preacher? They're all yours. They're Christ's gift to you. Embrace them all; receive the Word of God through them.' And furthermore, he say's, 'Life is yours; the world is yours. In other words, He who sits at the right hand of the Father with all things beneath His feet is ordering and governing everything in this world to advance His redemptive purposes in Christ. And if I'm in Christ, I'm encompassed in that universal reign of Christ. The world is mine'], or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your's; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."
Death is mine in Christ. That's what it says. Doesn't your Bible tell you that? My Bible says it. I don't care what translation you've got, it's clear, death is mine. The last enemy's mine? Yes, because in Christ, as Pastor McDearman so eloquently underscored at Marilyn's graveside, Christ has removed the sting of death, which is the condemning power of the law. And He has brought death captive to His own redemptive purposes. And all death can do is chase me out of this tattered tent and release me to be wholly conformed to the image of Jesus, to know the exquisite joy of the immediate presence of Jesus, to be found among the company of the people of Jesus, and to know the rest of Jesus. That's all death can do to me. That's all, nothing more. Death is mine.
I shall never forget standing in the graveyard of some of the Scottish Covenanters. These noble souls who were willing to be martyred rather than submit to the pressure of ecclesiastical systems that did not respect the Word of God. And they would refer to those ecclesiastical officers as Prelates. And I shall never forget a phrase on one of the tombstones. You could barely make it out. And these were the words: "And Prelates rage did but chase them up to heaven." I've never forgotten it. When they grabbed them and burned them at the stake, what did they do? They just chased them up to heaven. Death was theirs in Christ.
And then, of course, the familiar words of Romans 8, what Paul could say was his well-settled conviction and persuasion:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (vv. 35-39).
I tell you, my brothers and sisters, this passage was such a comfort to me when my wife lay in a coma with no ability to communicate. And to know that this promise is true, knowing there are unseen demonic powers that would seek to drag her soul into hell, it was such a consolation to pray and say,
"Lord Jesus, You have access to the folds of her mind in areas where my words cannot go; You have access to the texture of her soul while it's still in that body. And you can wrap it up in Yourself and wrap it up in protecting angels and wrap it up in all the things at Your disposal and so preserve it, that when it leaves that body, it will be brought safely into Your presence."
I tell you, I wouldn't trade that confidence for ten thousand worlds. "Neither death shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Then one final text that I'm still not sure I understand all of its significance, but I've been sucking sweetness from it. And I hope you will, because your time's coming, my friend; my time's coming. In John 8:51, our Lord Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death." Now the unbelieving Jews picked up on that a few verses later and they misquoted it. They said, "Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and Thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art Thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead?" He said a man would never see death. What did He mean? "He that keeps My word." That's the description of a true disciple, someone who is in life union with Jesus. And He says such a one will never see death. Well, I think what He's saying is this: because we are in union with Christ, and He has borne the wrath of God, the wages of sin which is death, we will never see death as the naked avenger of the justice and holiness of God. Christ has swallowed it up, buried it in His tomb, and we'll never see it. Marvelous promise: "If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death."
My final application, many of you know what it's going to be. There are not a few of you here, you're not in Christ. And when it comes to death, you ought to be scared witless at a sermon like this, because death will be the means by which your eternal state will be irreversibly fixed. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." As death leaves you, the judgment will find you, and as the judgment finds you, eternity will hold you.
Now you may be very comfortable sitting here this morning living without Christ. But I want to ask you, are you going to die comfortably without Him? If God gives you a deathbed, are you going to be comfortable on that deathbed knowing there is sin for which you must answer before an all-holy, just God in the day of judgment; no where to hide? Every idle word, every unclean thought, every dishonest relationship, every single violation of the law of God--and the books will be open, and you will be judged out of the books.
My friend, I beg you to listen. Bring near your deathbed and ask yourself, "Would I want to die as I'm living today?" If you're honest, you'll have to say, "No, that's why I put away thoughts of death. I keep myself busy; I dim the music in my ears. I keep my feet and hands busy. I don't want to think about death." You can't non-think it away, my friend. You're going to die. The moment is coming when your soul and body will be wrenched asunder and your eternal state forever fixed.
I plead with you, give to your loved ones the joyous confidence my beloved gave to me. The greatest gift my wife gave me is not my children, not her years of selfless service and all the things I could extol until you'd say, "O, be quiet, I've heard enough." The greatest gift she gave me was to hold her lifeless form in my arms and to know that the spirit that had left that body was now resplendent with likeness to Jesus. She looked upon the face of Jesus, however disembodied spirits see, I don't know, but I know they do. She's with Him in the company of Moses and Aaron and Elizabeth and Mary and Esther and all of the martyrs and the saints. And to know that's she's at rest--what a gift to give to a loved one. My friend, whatever else you give Mom and Dad, husband and wife, if you don't give them that, you're the biggest cheat upon the face of the earth.
I close with a little story for you children. A young girl at Portsea, Hampshire (that's somewhere in England)--she died at 9 years of age. And one day in her illness she said to her aunt with whom she lived,
"When I'm dead, I should like the pastor, Mr. Griffen, to preach a sermon to children and seek to persuade them to trust in the Lord Jesus, to love Him, to obey their parents, not to tell lies, but to think about dying and going to heaven. I've been thinking what text I should like the pastor to preach from at my funeral. [It's one thing for a 73-year-old woman to say, 'Honey, I think it would be lovely if Pastor Donnelly would preach at the funeral.' And unknown to him, one of the text he chose to preach on is one of the three texts we most frequently quoted to one another in her last days. But this is a 9-year-old girl.] Auntie, I think I know the text I want him to preach from--2 Kings 4:26. [That's the story of the Shunammite woman and the son and the prophet.] You're the Shunammite; the pastor, Mr. Griffen, is the prophet, and I'm the Shunammite's child. When I'm dead, I dare say, Auntie, you'll be grieved, though you need not be. The prophet will come to see you, the pastor. And when he says, 'How is it with the child?', you may say, 'It is well.' I'm sure it will be well with me, for I shall be in heaven singing the praises of God. And you ought to think it well too, Auntie."
Mr. Griffen accordingly fulfilled the wish of the 9-year-old child.
O, dear children, is that the kind of gift you'll give to your mommy and your daddy? If the news should break in that you have a terminal illness (and we hear in our prayer meeting letters it's not just old people that die), would you be able to say it's well? O, dear children, get into Christ. Look this seductive, lying world in the face and say, "I'll be done with it. All it can do is capture my heart and my body and my energies and drag me to hell. "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." And this is the will of God that you believe on His Son. Embrace Him in all the fullness that is in Christ. And should God give you a lengthy life, to die in peace and leave the legacy of the fragrance of a Christ-tinged life behind you, may God grant that that will be true of you.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:04:28 GMT -5
Who Are You Living For? by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached June 27, 1999
PDF Format | More Transcripts
I want to ask each one of you sitting here within the sound of my voice, young and old, boys and girls alike, a very personal and in some ways a very simply question, but a question perhaps more than many others if not more than any others will help you to know precisely where you stand before the living God. And the question I want to ask you, that simple, personal, pointed question is this: who are you living for? Not a complicated question. According to the Scriptures, everyone of you is living basically for one of two people. You're either living for someone who small, insignificant and, in reality, unworthy of being the object of your life. Or you're living for One who is great and glorious and infinitely worthy of being the One for whom you live. Who are you living for? The youngest child who can take my question and process it in his brain and at least grasp the elements of what it means, that child is living for someone, someone worthy to be lived for or someone unworthy to be lived for. The oldest man or woman in this building is living for someone, someone worthy to be lived for or someone unworthy to be lived for.
And we're going to answer that question looking together at a text found in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 5, where we read in verse 15 these words: "And He [Christ] died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." There's the two people for whom each of us is living, one or the other. Sitting here tonight, everyone of you, regardless of age, regardless of background, regardless of understanding, is either living for yourself, or you're living unto Him who died and rose again. And as we attempt to wrestle with this question and the guidance this text gives us in wrestling with that question, I want you to note with me first of all who we all live for by nature. When Paul writes these words, he is explaining what makes him and his fellow laborers in the Gospel tic. He is explaining to these Corinthians what makes him what he is as a man and as a servant of Christ. And in that setting, he said in verse 14, "For the love of Christ constraineth us [that is, it holds us in its grip. Christ's love for us as His servants so seizes hold upon us that there are times we may appear out of our tree]." Notice, he says in the earlier part of the text (v. 13), "For whether we are beside ourselves, it is unto God; or whether we are of sober mind, it is unto you." There are times when the Apostles was so constrained by the love of Christ in selfless service that people accused him of being out of his tree, having something less that a full load. And he says, "If that's so, then you must understand that something has taken hold of us. The love of Christ has taken hold of us. And that love, having taken hold of us, has changed us from what we once were. For we once were what all men are by nature, creatures who live unto themselves."
Now that's not the way God intended us to be. When we turn to Genesis 1 and 2 and read the account of the original creation, we see God creating the man and the woman in His own image, placing them down in a perfect environment, in a perfect relationship with each other; giving to them a standard of obedience that was reasonable. And the creature, man (Adam and Eve), in that context of a perfect environment with no bent to evil, found their delight and their joy in living unto the God who made them. Doing His will, enjoying communion with Him, seeking to glorify Him in His world was the deepest delight of Adam and Eve. It was their blessedness as well as their joy. But when sin entered, all of that turned inward upon themselves. And from the tragic fall recorded in Genesis 3 to this very hour, each of us by nature is a creature who lives unto himself. Sin brought about nothing less than this horrible, wretched tyranny of self-centeredness. When God was pushed out of the place of being the One unto whom Adam and Eve were living, rushing into that vacuum of a vacated God, came a new god called self.
And so when the Apostle writes these words, he can assume that all men without distinction, in terms of who they live for by nature, live unto themselves. And very early this shows itself in little ones. You see it in petulant, pouting self in a little toddler; in hot, temper tantrum self. You see it in their greedy, selfish self. Soon it merges into lying, manipulative self, into whining, sneaky self. And as the human soul and mind develop the ability to express this obsession with living to self multiplies in tragic and in horrible ways, no wonder the prophet could say, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way." In other words, we have all turned to living unto ourselves. Now in some people, the living unto self finds expression in a life of open, evident, obvious, and in many cases a disgusting lifestyle of lawlessness and debauchery. In others, it expresses itself in moral, upright, cultured, refined self-centeredness. But the common denominator of every fallen son and daughter of Adam is that by nature he lives unto himself, his own pleasure, his own satisfaction, the seeking of his own ends, the pursuit of his own happiness. By his own rules and his own standards, he lives unto himself so that the Apostle can write, "He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves," because he knows that by nature each of us does indeed live unto himself. Who are you living for? Unless you've been transformed by the grace of God--while I know little of the specific details of your life, this much I can say on the authority of the Word of God--you live for yourself. Who do we all live for by nature? We live for this idol called self.
But then note secondly who some live for by the power of God's grace. According to our text, there are some like the Apostle Paul and his companions who live unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again. Some by the power of His grace no longer live unto or for themselves, but they live unto Him. And the "Him" in this passage is obviously the crucified and the risen Christ. He is referred to as the One who died and who rose again, a clear reference to the Lord Jesus. He was the subject of verse 14: "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died." So the Apostle is saying with respect to himself and his companions, and as we shall see, this is true of him not because he was an apostle, but because he was a Christian. In the language of verse 17, his was in Christ, and being in Christ, was a new creation. So when he says, "that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again," he is not referring to himself because he is an apostle, but because he is a Christian.
And the One who for whom some live by the power of God's grace is none other than the Lord Jesus who died and rose again on their behalf. His person is lived for in a loyalty that exceeds the loyalty to any other person. His will is chosen as a way of life. His ways are desired and embraced as the pattern of life, not with perfection, not with equal constancy. But according to our text, the base line of their lives is this: when you ask them the question, "Who do you live for?", they are able to answer honestly and to validate it by the pattern of their lives. They live unto Him who died for them and rose again. In other words they can say with the Apostle Paul in the language of Philippians 1:21, "For to me to live is Christ. I live unto Him . He is the object of my life's focus, my desires, my ambitions, my standards, my goals. They all focus on Christ. They flow out of Christ and back to Christ. For me to live is Christ." Who are you living for? By nature, you with me must answer, if we're thinking Biblically, we live for ourselves. Who are you living for? If you can say, "I am no longer living unto myself, but unto Him who died for me and rose again," it is because the grace and power of God has come and changed the whole focus and the whole direction of your life.
And then note with me what it is that makes this difference. We've seen who we all live for by nature--we live for self. Who some live for by the power of grace--they live unto Christ. And what makes the difference? Well, if we read this whole section beginning with verse 14 in which the Apostle says, "The love of Christ constraineth us," we see that the death of Christ on behalf of sinners is the central theme of this whole section culminating in the Apostle's words in verse 20: "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." What makes the difference? Sitting here tonight, there are certain boys and girls, men and women of all backgrounds and degrees of knowledge. Some of you are living for yourself; some of you are living for Christ. What makes the difference? And what is the issue that divides the two groups? Well, according to the Apostle in this passage, it is the truth of Christ crucified brought home to the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Apostle could say in verse 14, "The love of Christ constraineth us [Christ's love for us holds us in its gracious pressure because we think in this way: that One died for all; therefore all died, and that those who receive life by that death, and they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again.]" What does all that language mean? Well it means this: the Apostle says when we contemplate what the death of Christ signifies, it is our understanding of the significance of His death that has brought us to the place where we no longer live unto ourselves, but unto Him who for our sakes died and rose again. This is what we understand: that living unto self is such a wretched and abominable thing in the sight of God, so provoking of His wrath and displeasure that it demanded the enfleshment of the second person of the deity; it demanded that Jesus Christ the God-man to be handed over to death to die under the wrath and curse of God. Now surely, if living unto self is such a disgusting, abominable, and wretched thing in the sight of God that nothing less than the bloodletting of incarnate deity can satisfy God's justice against living unto self, then surely, anyone who says,
"I see in a crucified and risen Christ my only hope of acceptance with this God, my only hope of the pardon of my sins, my only hope of being right with God, surely then, if I receive life from the death of Christ on behalf of sinners, that life is not to be lived to the end which demanded its death. Surely, the life received is not to be lived unto self. It was living unto self that provoked the wrath and anger of God. It was living unto self that caused the bloodletting of incarnate deity. Then surely, if I receive life from the death of Jesus, it must be life no longer lived unto myself, but unto Him for my sake died and rose again."
You see the logic of that in the Apostle's words. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died [that is, all died in Him]." And what died in Him and with Him in His death spells the death knell to living unto self "that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." This passage clearly teaches that whenever the Spirit of God shows us what we are as sinners, and shows us something of the glory of God in the face of Christ crucified for sinners, there is the constraint of the love of Christ, and there is a perception of the purpose of the death of Christ that we no longer consciously, deliberately live unto ourselves, but unto this person, the Christ who died for us and rose again.
We learn, then, from this passage that all professed faith in Christ crucified that leaves people still wedded to themselves is spurious faith. A professed faith in a crucified Christ, a professed reception of pardon and forgiveness from a crucified and risen Christ that leaves someone still living to himself is not Biblical faith. The faith that is unto salvation and the pardon of our sins is a faith that brings us into this attachment to the person of Christ. And He does not take second or third place in the life so attached to Him. But that life is found being lived unto Him. Now if that is the teaching of the passage--and I believe it clearly is--do you see the tremendous relevance it has for so many matters that we get hung up on?
I want to speak a word to you young people tonight, some of you wrestling with this whole question, "Am I really attached to Christ in faith? Or is my faith Mom's faith, Dad's faith, and the church's faith? Is it really my faith?" May I give you one way by which to come perhaps quite quickly to an accurate answer. Who are you living for? You say, "Pastor, that's nebulous." Alright, let's get specific. You and Mom and Dad are having discussions over what kind of music you're going to listen to. Well, at the end of the day, kids, isn't this the issue? Do you really want nothing to come into your ears but that which is pleasing unto Christ? At the end of the day, it's not what kind of music do I like. But the real issue is what kind of music can I listen to and know that it pleases Christ. Rather simple, isn't it? You see, something else is at the focal point of your decision about the music you're going to listen to. It isn't whether or not it fits here or there on the scale of what others say is acceptable. The issue is, you want to please Christ. And you're willing for Christ to stand as Lord over your Walkman, over your CDs, over your radio, and over your stereo, not as some kind of a celestial bogyman, not as some kind of a celestial scrooge. But you know whatever is pleasing to Him is the thing that is good for you. Now I ask you teenager, is that the way you think at all? You're wrestling with what is appropriate dress, what is innocent stylish dress, what crosses the line into the immodest and the bizarre?" Well, at the end of the day, isn't this the issue you need to come to grips with: I'm not my own. The cross of Christ has constrained me. I am now longer committed to live unto myself. The issue is not what pleases me but what will please Him. And I know He says whether I eat of drink or whatsoever I do, I'm to do all to the glory of God. So the issue is not whether I will be considered on the cutting edge of the latest styles or whether I will be considered a little doubty and a little darky. The issue is, what will my Savior think? What will please Him? And you see, when that begins to be the focal point of life, you carry about with you the means of finding the right standard, and it is living unto Him who for your sake died and rose again. In the choice of your friends, this begins to be the litmus test: what will the Lord Jesus think? What will the Lord Jesus think about my choice of these friends? Will they be instrumental in His hands to help me in my Christian life to spur me to greater Godliness. I'm not talking about the friendships that you will prayerfully establish with a view to being a witness to the transforming power of the Gospel. I'm speaking about the choice of friends in whom I'll find delight and with whom I'll have voluntary companionship because they welcome what I have to impart to them, and I know I can welcome what they have to impart to me. And we do each other good on our way to heaven. "He died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves [in the choice of their friends], but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." And when you can say, "For to me to live is Christ, pleasing Christ, doing the will of Christ, knowing what advances the honor of Christ. That's what I live for. I'm living unto Him." I say it resolves many of these little tacky issues.
I would be considered by many an old man, but my memory's not gone yet. And when God saved me as a teenager, this resolved about 98 percent of the issue with which a lot of you are wrestling. I had a passionate obsession to live unto the Christ who had rescued me from the horrible nagging guilt of an accusing conscience, the dread and fear of hell, the sense of no purpose and direction in life, the panic mode I was in as a senior in high school wondering what in the world am I going to do with my life? I'm at that age when people expect you to say what you're going to do when you're done with high school. "Are you going to college? What's it going to be? And how are you going to earn a living?" All of the purposelessness and confusion and lack of direction and accusing conscience was swallowed up in Him who died for me and rose again. And when I began to live unto Him, it was relatively easy to choose my friends, relatively easy to make choices about the music I listened to, relatively easy to make choices about clothing and a host of other issues over which I see so many young people constantly struggling until these things become almost an obsession. Can it be that the problem is you're dealing with rules and regulations, and you've never known what it is to be wonderfully arrested and blessedly obsessed with this person who alone is worthy to be the One you live under?
You're really not that big and wonderful a thing to be the object of your life. It's a tragic thing to live unto self. You're a small insignificant thing. You're not worthy to be the object of your life. There's Someone infinitely worthy. It's the glorious Son of God whose beauties cannot be described, whose glory cannot be spoken of by mortal tongues, the One who is even now the object of adoring worship of all of the intelligent creatures in heaven. God pulls back the veil in the book of the Revelation and gives us a little peek of those that cry, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Now you may think that you're pretty special, but you can't even draw your next breath unless God gives it. He gives to all life and breath and all things. And you may think you're pretty special. A few people think you're nice looking and handsome and attractive and well built. But in a national beauty contest, you wouldn't even make the second round. You say, "Pastor, that's not very flattering." That's reality. Who in the world are you to be made the object of your life, dependant upon God for your next breath? God could stop that heartbeat in a moment. What tragic folly to make yourself the object of your life, the one to whom you live.
God in Christ is prepared in His love and mercy to delivery us from that horrible tyranny of self-centeredness, and to free us into the glorious liberty of a Christ-centered life. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that One died for all, therefore all died [that is, all died in Him]." So wretched, so vile, so unworthy a thing is this living unto self that those who have thus live are judged in the death of Christ so that all who by faith beholding God's glory in the face of a crucified Savior "no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." And that is so fundamental and radical a change that it is called in 2 Corinthians 5:17 a new creation. "If any man is in Christ, : the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new." And how new they are with this whole new center of life and existence. And all of them are of God grace. Verses 18-20:
"But all things are of God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us [now speaking as an apostle and his companions] the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God."
Give up the god of self; be reconciled to the God who made you, the God to whom in Adam in Eden you were related as the center of your life. You have turned aside and turned to your own way. The Apostle said the great plea of the Gospel is, be reconciled to this God because this God has done an amazing work in Jesus Christ. And He has done it not only that we might have a righteous pardon, but that we might have a radically new center of life.
I come around full circle to where I began some 40 minutes ago with a simple, pointed, personal question: who are you living for? Are you living for yourself? You've got a tiny, shriveled, damning god. Or are you living unto Him who died and rose again for sinners? You have a glorious, saving, majestic, triumphant God worthy of being the One to whom you live. May God help you to honestly ask and realistically answer that question. And may you have no rest until you can say with the Apostle, "The love of Christ constrains me as well. For I thus judge that if One died for all, all died in Him. God has put His death sentence upon living unto self. And receiving life from a crucified and rising Savior, I now joyfully say, no longer to live unto myself but unto Him who died and rose again."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:05:58 GMT -5
Nonnegotiable Terms of Discipleship by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
May I encourage you to follow with me in your own Bibles as I read two portions of the Word of God. The first, the very familiar words of our Lord at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 28:16-20:
"But the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted. And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
And then the second passage is found in the Gospel of Luke. And the connection between the two may not evident on the surface, but I trust to demonstrate that there is a very vital connection between the portions. Luke 14:25:
"Now there went with Him [Jesus] great multitudes: and He turned, and said unto them, If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doth not first sit down and count the cost, whether he have wherewith to complete it? Lest haply, when he hath laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all that behold begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, as he goeth to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and asketh conditions of peace. So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple. Salt therefore is good: but if even the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill: men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."
Let us now pray that God would give us all ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us in these portions of the Word of God.
Our Father, we earnestly pray that as we attempt to the understand the words that have been read in our hearing, that You would send Your Holy Spirit to open the ears of our souls that we may be such as have ears to hear, truly to receive with understanding and with the response of faith and obedience all that the Lord Jesus will say to us through His own written words. Send Your Spirit upon preacher and upon hearer alike, we pray. In Jesus name, amen.
Now in the first passage read in your hearing, Matthew 28:16-20, several things are very obvious on the very surface of the text. Our Lord Jesus meets the 11 disciples at the appointed place after His resurrection and before His ascension back to the right hand of the Father. And He underscores several things that He wants them to know prior to His ascension back to His Father. First of all, He points to His supreme authority as the risen Lord. He then gives marching orders to His disciples. And then He promises His abiding presence. But in the marching orders, central to those orders is the imperative verb "[Going] therefore, make disciples of the nations, baptizing them [that is, not the nations, but those who among the nations are made disciples]."
Now how would the disciples to whom our Lord spoke and gave these marching orders understand His words? What would they understand it to mean "to make disciples"? Well, I think the answer is quite clear because they had been with the Lord Jesus throughout His earthly ministry when He Himself had been making and baptizing disciples. We read in John 4:1-2: "When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself baptized not, but His disciples), He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee." Jesus Himself was the paradigm of what it is to make disciples and then to baptize such as were made disciples. And therefore, when we come to the Gospel records and find any record of Jesus seeking to make disciples, it is right for us to read from those passages what the mandate of the church is in the making of disciples now that the Lord has returned at the right hand of the Father. And in the passage read in your hearing from Luke 14, I sought to emphasize by an exaggerated verbal emphasis the fact that three times our Lord Jesus says in this one passage, unless this or that is true, such a one cannot be His disciple. And surely, if anyone knows the terms of true discipleship, our Lord Jesus knows them, the One who said go and make disciples, not upon terms that you think are reasonable, but upon the terms that the Lord Jesus Himself has clearly articulated and as are recorded here in such a passage as Luke 14. Verse 26c: "He cannot be My disciple." Verse 27c: "He cannot be My disciple." And verse 33c: "He cannot be My disciple." Unless this is true, no discipleship. Unless this is true, no discipleship. Unless this is true, no discipleship. And I want us to spend a few moments contemplating this on the occasion of the baptism of our younger sister in order to underscore afresh in her understanding and in the understanding of each of us who claims to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus the nonnegotiable terms of discipleship, the meaning of discipleship according to Jesus.
And the first thing we note is that discipleship means that supreme love and loyalty must be transferred to Christ Himself. Notice the language of verse 26. Our Lord turns and faces the multitudes and says them,
"If any man [any woman, any boy, any girl, anyone who is interested in attaching himself or herself to Me as a disciple. If anyone comes to Me with a view to being My disciple], and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
What is our Lord saying? Our Lord saying that discipleship means the transferal of supreme love and loyalty to Himself from every other person that has a claim upon our love and upon our loyalty. And this breaks down into two categories: first of all, every attachment of human love and loyalty external to us, and then that attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to us.
First of all, every attachment of human love and loyalty that is external to us. He names those deepest ties of natural affection and loyalty: father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters. He goes into the inner circle where natural affection binds us most securely to other human beings. And with reference to those attachments of love and loyalty, Jesus said we must hate them. Now does He mean that we must conjure up an attitude of despising them and ill will towards them? Of course not. In the parallel passage in Matthew 10:34-37, our Lord makes it abundantly clear what He is saying:
"Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law: and a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."
And so what our Lord is saying is that the attachment which He both demands and expects of every disciple is an attachment that causes every other sphere of love and loyalty to pale into a secondary place. And the Bible uses this terminology of differing loves, and the lesser love being the one that is hated, and the greater being the one that is loved. And so the very Jesus who tells us we are to love our enemies is obviously not calling upon us to conjure up this negative, nasty attitude toward these who have the most natural claim upon our love and loyalty. What He is saying is He will brook no rival. Coming to Him, there must be this attachment to Christ that is utterly, unquestionably supreme above every other human love and loyalty external to us. This is one of the issues we seek to press when relatively young men and women apply for baptism and membership. We as elders seek to ascertain (while not being able to read human hearts), has this young adult come to the place where if mother and father stand in the way of their obedience to Christ, they are prepared for the sword that Christ says He Himself sends on earth? "I am come to cast a sword upon the earth to set a man against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law." And while we cannot, as I say, read the heart, we seek to probe this issue. Why? Because we have no warrant to baptize any but disciples. And Jesus said that if He does not have the place of supreme love and loyalty, there is no discipleship. What could be plainer? "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters...he cannot be My disciple." Words could not be more plain, more explicit. He will not tolerate any rivalry to that supreme place of love and loyalty with respect to any love and loyalty external to us.
But then notice, He addresses that attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to us. Look at the text: "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also...." That's the attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to us. That is our natural self love, that disposition with which we were conceived and in which we were born and by which the very wheels of our existence are driven. As 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, "And He [Christ] died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." The Apostle assumes that all of us have by nature a supreme love and loyalty internal to us called self. And that's why again and again in calling people into attachment to Himself, Jesus made as the first requisite, "If any man come after Me, let him say no to himself, let him deny himself." And Jesus says without this hatred of self, that is, this attachment to Christ in love and loyalty from that which is native and internal to us, that is, our self love, we cannot be His disciples. And so all of this talk about being a believer in Christ and being a disciple of Christ and yet not being surrendered to Christ and not loving Christ is sheer nonsense. The Son of God says if in coming to Him, there has not been that work of the Spirit of God so revealing the beauty and the loveliness and the desirableness of Christ, that you have embraced Him, and He now has this place of supreme attachment of love and loyalty beyond all attachments external to you and beyond that attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to you, He says you cannot be His disciple.
To be a disciple of Christ means that by the Word and the Spirit, we've seen in Christ what He describes as the Pearl of great price and the Treasure in the field in Matthew 13. He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in the field; which a man found, and hid; and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field." And He says, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls: and having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it." Christ is the Treasure; Christ is the Pearl. And in true discipleship, He takes that place in the human heart. And without having taken that place, He does not own us as His disciples. "He cannot be My disciple."
Therefore, none should be baptized but those who can say, "Yes, by the grace of God, Christ is now the object of my supreme love and loyalty. Every attachment of human love and loyalty external to me is expendable, but Christ is not expendable. And that attachment of love and loyalty that is internal to me is expendable as well. And I have said no to myself, to the regulating and the disposing and the living out my own life according to my own desires and my own thoughts and my own perspectives. And I am now prepared by the grace of God to have Christ Himself as my life. So we learn first of all that discipleship means that supreme love and loyalty must be transferred to Christ.
Secondly, discipleship means that we must choose the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship with Christ. Verse 27: "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after Me, cannot be My disciple." Christ says, "I own no one as My disciple but that person who is carrying his own cross." Now what would those words have meant to these multitudes who were following our Lord at thus time? Well, if you with them lived in first century Palestine under Roman rule, the concept of carrying your own cross meant one thing. You had seen men go out to a place of execution who were being disposed of in shame, in humiliation, stripped of every last vestige of human dignity. It was society getting rid of its awful. It was society saying, "You're worth no respect, no honor. You're worthy of shame and humiliation." And Christ says, "If you would be My disciple, you must voluntarily, consciously take up your own cross." And what He is saying is, we must choose the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship with Christ, Christ who would bear His cross, that cross on which He would die as the sin-bearer having our sins imputed to Him and having the sleuth gates of the holy wrath of God opened up and come billowing and cascading down upon His own soul as He hung in nakedness, in utter shame, rejected by society, rejected by the religious crowd, forsaken by His own disciples, and even abandoned by His Father. Settle it, to be attached to Christ is to be marked for the world's scorn and hatred. There is no way that someone can be a true disciple and have the world be comfortable with him. Listen to what Jesus said. In John 15, words that are so plain, so simple, so blunt that we've got to do I don't know what to get around their clear teaching. Verse 18-19a: "If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own...." If the world loves you, that is, this world system under the control of the devil with its perspective of values and standards of right and wrong, what is acceptable in dress, in entertainment, in human intercourse and action and reaction--if this world's system loves you and feels comfortable with you, it's a sign that you're still a part of it.
"If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own: but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also."
Again, the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy said in 2 Timothy 3:12, "Yea, and all that would live godly [not all who simply name the name of Christ and have a measure of what I have come to call polite, cultural reformed Baptist decency] in [union with] Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." It's a clear statement. There's no way we can get around it. Without seeking to be nasty, without seeking to be an irritant, if we are living Godly in vital union with Christ Jesus, we are instruments of light that expose darkness. And when darkness is exposed, it seeks to resist that exposure, and it directs its venom, its opposition to the instrument that is bringing that light. That's why Paul could say to the Philippians, "Because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf." And where there is this half-baked attachment to Christ that is so nervous lest in some way it upset the world, I don't understand it in light of the words of our Lord Jesus. If we are unwilling to take up our cross, that measure of shame, that measure of rejection, that measure of scorn that comes in union with Christ, He says, "You cannot be My disciples." The words are clear. No cross, no discipleship; no discipleship, no salvation. And our Lord makes it plain in this passage that not only must there be a transfer of all supreme love and loyalty to Him, but there must also be, by His grace, a commitment and willingness to undergo rejection, misunderstanding, slander, some form of suffering for His name's sake in fellowship with Him.
Then thirdly, we learn from this passage that discipleship means commitment to a life of unswerving obedience to Christ. Supreme love and loyalty attached to Christ, willingness to suffer in fellowship with Christ, but thirdly, unswerving obedience to Christ. Verse 27: "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and [follow] me, cannot be my disciple." To follow Christ is to commit ourselves to regulate all of life by the word and the ways of Christ. We begin our attachment to Christ as disciples when we heed the call of John 6:37: "All that which the Father giveth Me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." Discipleship begins in that movement of the soul in repentance and faith that leads us to attachment to Christ. But then the same Christ who said, "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out," said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Christ said come, but take and learn. And if we truly come to Him on His terms, we come not only to have Him lift the burden of an accusing conscience, to lift the burden of the horrible reality that we stand exposed to the judgment and wrath of Almighty God, but we come to Him with the disposition of willingness to be yoked together with Him. "Take My yoke upon you," the yoke either being that instrument that binds two animals together to plow in the same direction, to undertake the same task, or the yoke that is laid upon the shoulders to carry a burden, but it is Christ's yoke, that is, an attachment to Christ and His purpose, His direction, His concerns for us as His people. Then He says, "Learn of Me," that is, you come to have your burden lifted, you come to be yoked to Him, you come to have your mind increasingly saturated with His Word interpreting all reality, regulating every facet of your life as we saw in our reading in Ephesians 6 this morning. The constant reference point was that it is the Lord: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord.... Servants, be obedient unto them that according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.... And, ye masters, do the same things unto them." The whole emphasis is that the Christian life is a life lived in the presence of and unto the One who loved us and gave Himself for us. Jesus could describe His sheep in those words of John 10:27 and following. He said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand." Discipleship means commitment to a life unswerving obedience to Christ in which no area of life is cordoned off, and we say, "No sign of the cross on that area of my life," but the willingness that the sign of the cross will be stamped on every single detail of our lives. In the use of our time, in the choice of our friends, in our romantic interests, in the way we dress, in the way we spend our money, in the way we use our liberties, in the way we eat. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." I beg you, my professing Christian friend, what area do you have a right to cordoned off and say, "Jesus, I don't want Your words to touch that. I don't want your will to regulate that"? No, no, He says, "You must follow Me." The commitment of your heart, no matter how stumbling we may be, no matter how we may fail to live up to the standard, there is no conscious desire to take one facet of life and mark it off and say, "Jesus, don't touch it." Not one! Not one! And the one you mark off and say, "Don't touch it" will damn you because that's the point at which the defiance of your native rebellion against God is manifested. "You cannot be My disciple unless take up the cross and follow Me unconditionally."
But then fourthly, discipleship means the renunciation of all we possess for the sake of Christ. Look at verse 33 of our passage--again, words could not be more plain: "So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." That's what He said. Now does that me that the renunciation means the liquidation of the title to and possession of all that we have? Well, for the rich young ruler it did. But the Lord didn't tell everyone what He told the rich young ruler. He told Him, "Sell that which thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me." But He does mean something when he says renouncing all you have. And surely He means first of all the renunciation of anything we have in terms of what we might think is meritorious, that would give us brownie points with God just as the Apostle Paul said he had great possessions in the way of religious brownie points. Philippians 3:5-8: "Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ"
That's what he's talking about at the most elementary level. Renouncing all that we think in someway could commend us to God, coming to Christ in the nakedness of the realization, nothing in our hands we bring; simply to His cross we cling. But it also means the renunciation of any sense that I have an independent title to anything I have in the way of gifts, capacities, abilities; whatever I have in the way of material possessions. A renunciation of all we have is an essential condition of discipleship. And if you can read your Bible some other way and help me to understand it, please do so. But the words stand before us: "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple." And wasn't that the point of those two parables in Matthew 13? When that man (maybe he was a sharecropper following his plow, and it hit something in the field, and he dug down and there was the treasure) for joy of finding that treasure, he sold all he had--that's the language Jesus uses--that he might have the treasure. And the same thing with that pearl merchant. When we found this one pearl of rare, exquisite beauty, it says he took all of his assets and he liquidated them that he might have that wherewith to purchase the pearl. Discipleship means that we renounce all we possess for the sake of Christ. There is that disposition that says if the second person of the Godhead would come to Mary's womb and there take to Himself true humanity, true flesh and blood, a human soul and body, and in the mystery of the two natures in the one person live in this sin-cursed world and make His way through to the horrors of the cross in all of its shame and forsakenness and abandonment, then surely when we are given to see something of the love of God in Christ for sinners, we say with the hymn writer, "Here Lord, I give myself away; 'tis all that I can do."
So I lay before you these four things that our Lord Jesus says are the nonnegotiable terms of discipleship: supreme love and loyalty transferred to Christ, choosing the way of rejection and suffering in fellowship with Christ, commitment to a life of unswerving obedience to Christ, and renunciation of all we possess for the sake of Christ. I ask you, have I twisted the passage? Have I made it say more than it obviously says? If so, then the question is, am I a disciple? Do I have any right bearing the badge of baptism? "Make disciples of the nations," that is, by the preaching of the Gospel and the setting forth of the glory and the beauty of Christ in His salvation. By the operation of the Holy Spirit, He says, "You will see men and women, boys and girls brought to the place where they will see in Me My worth. And they will say with the Apostle Paul, "I count all but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."
As we come to the table, what a wonderful place to renew afresh in the presence of our Savior those commitments of heart that marked us when He drew us to Himself, and we were bound to Him as we came in repentance and faith. And with the passing of time, there has been the erosion of that single-eyed, whole-hearted, unrivaled affection to Christ. What better place than at this table to have those fountains of single-eyed love opened up afresh as we remember our Lord in His dying love? What better place to take that thing that right now you've begun to put your fingers around it--for some of you young people, an ambition, a relationship, a standing in the eyes of others--and here unclasp your hand if you're a confessing disciple who comes to this table of remembrance. As you take the bread and take the cup, say, "O Lord, may these hands hold all things this way." Inner renunciation. Those of us who are older--all of our possessions--how long has it been since you've realistically, consciously said from the heart, "Lord Jesus, everything I am and have is Yours. It's stamped with the sign of the cross. It's blood-bought property, and I'm glad to have it so"? May God grant that those of us who are His disciples will find that attachment to Christ deepened and renewed as our faith in the virtue of His dying love for us is strengthened.
And perhaps some of you who have been dallying about, may God send arrows to your heart, and my you hear Jesus say, "You're not My disciple. You haven't come on My terms. Stop this nonsense claiming you're a Christian." Three times our Lord says, "You cannot be My disciple." But by the grace of God, coming on His terms, you can become His disciple, and in attachment to Him know the blessedness of His cleansing, forgiving, renewing, and empowering grace and begin to walk as one who is indeed His disciple, present yourself for baptism, for when Christ makes us His disciples by His grace, it is His will that we openly declare that attachment to Him in the ordinance of His own institution.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:09:07 GMT -5
Perseverance in a Lawless Age by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached October 21, 2002
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Now may I encourage all of you who have brought your Bibles to turn with me to the portion of God's Word read in your hearing, the Gospel of Matthew and chapter 24. Now having the written Word open before us, let us again cry to God that the author of that Word, the Holy Spirit Himself, will be present in His special activity promised to preachers when they preach, and to the people of God when they sit under that preaching, that we may plead for that operation of the Spirit together. And in the expectation of faith, look to God to grant it to us. Let us pray.
Holy Father, we come again into Your presence, not as a matter of ritual or form, but because many of us have been brought to the place where we truly believe that unless there is in the coming minutes together a distinct, special, immediate activity of the Holy Spirit upon preacher and listener alike, our time will be in vain. And surely Lord, You have not brought us together, filled us with yearnings to know Your presence, filled many with expectation of Your blessings only to send us away disappointed and grieved. O God, for Your glory, for the praise of Your beloved Son, fulfill Your promise to us in this very place tonight, that You would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. We are asking. It is Your work to give. O Lord, give us, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen!
Many of you know that Matthew 24 is commonly designated as our Lord's Olivet Discourse. As Matthew 5-7 is known as The Sermon on the Mount, this chapter is known as the Olivet Discourse because our Lord spoke these words on the Mount of Olives according to verse 3. It begins with our Lord's prediction concerning the destruction of the magnificent temple and its adjoining buildings in the city of Jerusalem. And in response to that prediction, the disciples asked the questions recorded in verse 3: "And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" And the rest of the discourse from verse 4 onward, we have Jesus' response to these questions. Whether we regard them as two questions or three, it is evident that our Lord is responding to the questions of the disciples: "When shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?" And without attempting to unravel some of the exegetical complexities of this chapter, I am assuming that you are at least mildly persuaded that what is described for us, particularly between verses 9 and 13, are those things that will be present throughout the entire interadvental period; that is, the period between the first and second coming of our Lord Jesus, between the day in which our Lord spoke to the disciples and prior to the end concerning which He speaks in verse 14 with the words "then shall the end come."
Tonight we're going to focus our attention in the midst of that discourse on verses 12 and 13: "And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved" (ASV). With this passage open before us, I want to speak of the necessity for personal perseverance in an age of pervasive lawlessness. And we will look at our text under three heads which lie on the very surface of the text. First of all, we will note a prevailing condition predicted: "And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall be multiplied...." Then a tragic consequence anticipated: "...the love of the many shall wax cold." And thirdly, a personal implication articulated: "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
First of all, then, note with me a prevailing condition predicted: "And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall be multiplied...." The Scriptures unmistakably assert that lawlessness is the constant and universal disposition and character of unregenerate men and women in every age, in every nation, in every culture, and in every society from the fall of our first parents Adam and Eve. However, the Scripture teaches us that there are periods, there are seasons in societies and nations in which the base line disposition of lawlessness and its manifestations are exponentially increased.
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:4 that sin is lawlessness. And the disposition of lawlessness is very succinctly described in a text such as Romans 8:7-8: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." That's the baseline disposition of everyone who is a stranger to the regenerating work of God the Holy Spirit. However, as I've indicated, that baseline lawlessness is the common denominator in every society in every age. There are seasons according to the statement by our blessed Lord in which that spirit of lawlessness is exponentially increased. "And because iniquity shall be multiplied [not just mildly increased]...." This is the term that is used to describe that exponential increase of the church in the early days of its apostolic blessing in Jerusalem. Acts 6:1 speaks of the fact when the number of the disciples was multiplied (and again in Acts 6:7). And when we read the history from 120 to 3000, 3000 to 5000. And then we read that many more, including a great number of priests become obedient to the faith. And so our Lord is speaking of seasons within the interadvental period when it can be said that lawlessness shall be exponentially increased. I believe this is precisely what the Apostle Paul is referring to in what are well known words to many of us in 2 Timothy 3:1-2:
"This know also, that in the last days [the days between the first and second coming of our Lord Jesus] perilous times [grievous seasons] shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent...."
There will be seasons of the exponential increase of the spirit and manifestations of lawlessness. And surely, brethren, one need not be a prophet to discern that such a season is upon us in our own beloved country and in the vast majority of what we would call western society at large. I will not weary you with the statistics on the specific manifestations of the spirit of lawlessness. But wherever we turn, from the highest echelons of elected office a few years ago, into corporate headquarters, into every facet of the business world, the sporting world, into our universities, in our offices, the media, there is not merely baseline ordinary lawlessness, but there is abounding, exponentially increased lawlessness.
Some of us who are of the older generation have witnessed this with our own eyes. I remember as a boy when all of my hormones were churning within me. And everything in my unregenerate heart would have delighted to drink in the wretched filth of pornography. I could go to the local store and there was no pornography on the shelves--none whatsoever! And when television first began to come on in the early 50s and ordinary middle class people could purchase a little 6 or 8 inch screen, there was nothing that spoke of the lecherous, the unclean, the sordid, and the base--nothing, nothing! We're living in a period of abounding lawlessness. I say, I will not pause to give you more than those broad stroke reminders of that reality, because I want to come very quickly to our second head.
Our Lord not only sets before us that this prevailing condition will be a reality, but He tells us, then, a tragic consequence anticipated. "And because iniquity [lawlessness] shall be multiplied...." And for you Greek students, you have "dei" with the infinitive, so it's a cause and effect relationship. "Because" (in the light of this abounding lawlessness), this tragic consequence is anticipated by our Lord. And what is it? It is this: that "the love of the many shall wax cold."
Now what has fascinated me as I've meditated upon this text is, why does the Lord say "the love of the many shall wax cold"? In a period of abounding lawlessness, is it not accurate to say that faith is dampened and even abandoned; that holiness is jettisoned? Yes, it is, but our Lord focuses upon the grace of love. And why does He in setting before us this tragic consequence anticipated as a result of this abounding lawlessness focus upon love? Well, I would not be prepared to propose and answer for which I'd die, but it is one that I will give in some measure of confidence enough to preach it, and it is this: the essence of the law demanded and directed is what? Supreme love to God and selfless love to one's neighbor. What is the first and greatest commandment in the law? This is the question purposed to our Lord, and He answers. It is this: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Well, if the essence of the law's demand is whole soul love to God and selfless love to one's neighbor, then what will be the most critical manifestation of abounding, exponentially increased lawlessness? It will be the absence, the dampening of whole soul love to God and the eradication of selfless love to one's fellow man.
Then note what our Lord says about the extent of this tragic consequence. He says not merely that the love of many, but the love of the many shall wax cold. He had indicated in verses 9 and 10 that hostility and opposition to the people of God manifested in murder, hatred, and betrayal will cause many to apostatize. Do you see that in verses 9 and 10? "Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another." Furthermore, our Lord indicates that false prophets will lead many astray. Verse 11: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." Many will be in the horrible train of apostasy from opposition, betrayal, and false teaching. But it is the many whose love shall wax cold as a result of a climate of abounding lawlessness. Moffit suggests that this little phrase "the many" should be understood as the majority. Many apostatize from persecution and opposition. Many apostatize from the influence of false teachers. But "the many" shall apostatize from the influence of abounding lawlessness. The climate of lawlessness will take a greater toll upon professing Christians than the combined opposition of fierce persecution and the devious ways of false prophets. That ought to strike fear to your hearts and fear to mine.
Well, from the prevailing condition predicted ("because lawlessness shall be multiplied") and the tragic consequence anticipated ("the love of the many shall wax cold"), consider with me thirdly, a personal implication articulated. Verse 13: "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." And I have said this is a personal implication articulated because our Lord uses not a plural participle and a plural demonstrative pronoun, but a singular. If we were to give a wooden translation, it would sound something like this: "But he or the one enduring to the end, that particular one shall be saved." So by the singular participle and the singular demonstrative pronoun, our Lord is underscoring how personal is the implication of these words. It is a personal implication articulated amidst the many whose love will grow cold; amidst the many who are sucked into the vortex of the whirlpool of the influence of abounding lawlessness. To change the imagery: lawlessness that hangs in the air like a thick penetrating fog.
Amidst the many whose love will grow cold, there will be this one and that one who will endure in spite of that climate, and endure to the very end. And as a result, our Lord says such ones shall be saved. Such ones shall experience the blessed fulfillment of what our theological friends call full eschatological salvation. That's just fancy language for telling us that they shall be saved; that is, they shall come into possession of a perfected soul inhabiting a deathless body in the new heavens and the new earth in the company with a host of redeemed ones with perfected souls in their deathless bodies in the immediate presence of God and the Lamb. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "He [that particular one] that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." That one shall experience in his or her own person all of the wonder and glory of a completed salvation, that salvation purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ and secured for all of His true people; applied by the power of the Holy Spirit. They, such ones, shall be saved.
Now in the light of this brief exposition of the text with its prevailing condition predicted, its tragic consequence anticipated, and the personal anticipation articulated, I want to lay before you three, what to me are crucial burdens of application. Number one is this: you and I (each one of us) must realistically reckon with the peculiar dangers of living and, my fellow pastors, ministering in an age of abounding lawlessness. Jesus spoke these words that His followers might realistically reckon with the peculiar dangers of living and ministering in an age of abounding lawlessness. He wants them to recognize that in such seasons, there are peculiar dangers, particularly to dampen the ardor of our professed love to God and to our fellow man.
Let me illustrate it this way: those of us who have gone to so-called third world countries, we are warned, duly warned, especially by those who didn't take someone else's warning, that before we go, we ought to take certain shots. And there are certain medications that we ought to take in our suitcases and in our shaving kits (for you ladies, whatever you call the kit in which you keep your face and all the other things). We are told that in these third world situations, one's gastrointestinal system is peculiarly vulnerable to little microscopic things that will make you sick, I mean really sick. And you've got to have your track shoes on if you're going to get through the night. I know. Trying to find a little slit in a piece of concrete two inches wide by eight inches in the middle of the night in the back yard of a missionary's home in Pakistan, I realized I was a fool for not taking the warning. You've got to know, and knowing, you must take the particular precautions essential to that place of unusual vulnerability and danger. And one who ignores it is a fool, and he generally pays for it.
The Lord Jesus here says, "And because [lawlessness] shall be multiplied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. " Let him who thinks he can go to Pakistan with no shots and no pills take heed lest he gets the Pakistani trots. Now that's a crass very earthy illustration, but it carries the message.
You and I did not choose to be born when we were born, to live in this period of the history of western culture in which common grace has well nigh been swept away by the tidal flood of lawlessness in which things that 20 years ago would have shocked any decent person, even non-Christian, is now part of the thinking and the language and the whole social fabric of our society. My brothers and sisters, you and I must realistically reckon that we are not impervious to all of this. It is a thick fog that is around us and is seeking continually to seep into the very fabric of our souls. It is not neutral in its influence upon you or upon me. And I am utterly surprised at how many Christians act as though they can go to Pakistan with no shots and no Imodium and come away with no gastrointestinal sickness, no sense of our peculiar danger when all the while God says, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." We must realistically reckon with the peculiar dangers of living and ministering in an age of abounding lawlessness.
Secondly, and this is the central burden of my message tonight--and listen to me carefully--you and I must be persuaded concerning the absolute necessity of our persevering in spiritual life and vigor if we are to be saved. Now that's going to set some of you on the back of your pew, but that's what Jesus is saying. In spite of the fact that the love of the many shall wax cold, the one enduring, that particular one enduring to the end, he, that one shall be saved. Now I am not suggesting that we are able to do this apart from the continuous supplies of grace that come to us within God's covenantal commitment to His people, secured by the indwelling of the Spirit by whom we are sealed to the day of redemption, the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ which secures that all for whom He intercedes shall be saved to the uttermost. I am not denying, I am not bypassing, nor am I ignorant. But my text says if you don't endure to the end, you're presumptuous to think you're going to be saved. And I'm convinced there are many sitting here who really don't believe it. You really don't believe that unless you persevere you'll be damned. And I am here to preach tonight, and I trust with the blessing of God, to persuade you that you must believe it because Jesus said it. "He [and only he] that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved."
God never saved anyone because he persevered in the mere profession of attachment to Christ while abounding lawlessness sucked away his love to Christ, his love to man. Nor did He save anyone because he persevered in the ministry and continued to preach orthodox sermons and lead God-centered worship. His saves them by His grace in a way of persevering in the graces of the Spirit in love to the end. It is only this unshakable persuasion that will produce three things that are essential to our perseverance. These are not peripheral. They are essential to our perseverance. And I'm suggesting that it's only a conviction of the absolute necessity of our perseverance that will drive the wheels of our commitment to these three things. What are they?
Number one: perpetual, ruthless mortification of our own peculiar sins. The Lord who spoke the words of Matthew 24 spoke these words in Matthew 5:
"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her [it doesn't say every one who looks upon a woman and has a legitimate appreciation of her beauty, but who looks with a view to lusting, who looks and kindles desire to have] hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (vv. 27-28).
"But Lord Jesus, that's an unrealistic standard. We've got eyes, and there are beautiful women. What can we do?" He says, "I'll tell you what you can do. You can go to gouging out your eyes." Look at the next verse: "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." It's pluck or be cast. Jesus said it and Jesus meant it. Did He mean a literal plucking out of the eye. Of course not. If you're given to lust, blind men can lust as much as sighted men. But He's saying there must be this commitment to perpetual, ruthless mortification of sin. He repeats the words in a totally different context in Matthew 18:7-9.
Paul in Romans 8:13 says, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And it's interesting that in the Matthew 5 passage, our Lord does indeed focus upon sexual sin. And part of the aggravated manifestation of lawlessness is in that area in which we have such a God-like capacity. If some of you have wondered why, with this abounding lawlessness, so much of it manifests itself in the sexual dimension, it's because in that dimension we've been endowed with such God-like capacity to create, to enter into an intimacy with another that is reflective of the intimacy within the triune God. So the devil does his best to pervert that which in many ways makes us most like God. And it's in that area that, unless we are committed to perpetual ruthless mortification, we're going to be sucked down into the vortex because of the abounding lawlessness in that area. The shameful stuff that pours over primetime network television. I'm not talking about cable television, the videos available at the local corner--and here I'm going to speak very pointedly--the wretched, demonic use of the computer and the Internet.
One of my pastor friends was telling me the other day. He's not on the Internet. He's just got an email service, and up on the email pops up addresses for pornographic sites. And I would be very surprised if there are not sitting in this room tonight, men who in the secrecy of their studies when wife is gone to bed; no one else is there, you've fallen prey to this vile, wretched, hellish form of impurity. And you're hooked. You've repented, you've prayed, you've cried, you've fasted, but you're hooked. And nothing short of perpetual, ruthless mortification is going to deliver you. And that may mean for you getting rid of your stinking computer. If the filter services do not work, and you find yourself unable to resist when an address and a picture pops up in front of you and you don't have the will to delete, my friend, cut off the right hand. There's nothing in the Bible that says you won't get to heaven without a computer. But my Bible says if you don't mortify the sin of lust, you'll go to hell. And you don't believe it. That's why you dabble and you pray and you cry and you confess, and you go right back to the stinking, rotten, vile, hellish cesspool. You don't believe it's a matter of heaven and hell. And may God help you tonight to say, "Lord, I believe you. I must endure to the end. Therefore, I must in Your strength and in Your power pluck and cut and cast." I tell you that's vigorous language.
There's another thing essential to our perseverance, which you won't engage in unless you're persuaded concerning the absolute necessity of your persevering in spiritual life and vigor. And it is this: continuous Spartan, self-discipline of your bodily appetites. Here I turn you again to one pivotal passage: 1 Corinthians 9. The Apostle has been dealing with the subject of Christian liberty and how he cheerfully relinquishes many of his liberties, things that are not sin in themselves. But he relinquishes them for the sake of others and the progress of the Gospel. And he says in verse 23,
"And this I do for the Gospel's sake, [now notice the switch of emphasis] that I might be partaker thereof with you. [I'm doing what I'm doing, not only that others may be saved and partake of Gospel blessings, but I do what I do in the relinquishment of my liberties that I also may be a partaker of Gospel blessings.]"
And then he launches into this imagery drawn from the Grecian games:
"Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it [that is, exercise self-control. Their whole life is under a regimen of self control to win the prize. From morning till night, the thing that is before them--'I must win the prize. Everything I do, the things I don't do are all determined by my passionate commitment to win the prize'] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore [here's the personal implication] so run, not as uncertainly [not like a guy whose out for a leisurely jog on a lovely fall afternoon with no focus]; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air [not like Rocky taking his run in Philadelphia streets shadow boxing]: but I keep under my body , and bring it into subjection [bondage]: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway [not put on a shelf. That's ridiculous philology and rotten theology]" (vv. 24-26).
He says the issue at stake is being tested and disapproved--reprobate. He says, "For me, the only way I will be a joint partaker of this Gospel that I preach in a pattern of self-denial for the good of others is if I exercise Spartan, self-discipline over my own bodily appetites and passions."
Now lest some of you think this is some bizarre Al Martin interpretation, I hope J. Alexander has a little credibility. He writes,
"In the present day out of opposition to the aesthetic life, we all probably act too much as if we were children of the bride chamber [quoting from the Scripture those who are rejoicing--no self-discipline] and too much neglect the subjugation of the body. That a man as a minister is no token that he shall not be cast into hell fire. The instances of apostasy within our own knowledge stare at us like the skeletons of lost travelers among the sands of our desert way. [That's one of the saddest statements I've read in a long time.] No temptation has befallen them but that which is common to man. The apparitions of clerical drunkards and the like should forewarn us: let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he perish. Paul expresses his view of this in terms of which the force cannot be fully brought out by the translation. 'But I keep under my body (I strike under the eye so as to make it black and blue, a boxing phrase indicative of strenuous efforts at mortification, as who should say, 'I subdue the flesh by violent and reiterated blows and bring it into subjection. I lead it along as a slave having subjugated it by assault and beating, I treat it as a bondman, as boxers in the Palestra used to drag off their conquered opponents.') And the reason for this mortification of the flesh, I would use here not so much the concept of mortification, but the disciplined subjugation is, 'lest I by any reason or means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.' Dreadful words, but needed to deter us from more dreadful destruction. The Tophet, the hell of apostate ministers must be doubly severe. It is the deceitfulness of sin which hardens so many of us into carelessness about so great a danger. Pride goes before destruction till suddenly, like Saul, the careless minister finds himself inveigled into some great sin. This may never be known to the world, yet it may lead to his ruin."
It may never come to open, shameful knowledge among our churches. But there is One who walks amidst the churches with eyes as a flame of fire. What does He see? Is it fun to live a life of continuous Spartan self-discipline of our bodily appetites and passions at anytime? No, but in a society that worships at the shrine of self-indulgence, it is all the more difficult. Everything around us says, "Take it easy. Indulge yourself. Enjoy yourself."
Now Paul is the same man who says in Romans 8:35, he was persuaded that nothing would separate him from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. But he was equally persuaded he would go to hell if he didn't go to heaven in a way of Spartan, self-discipline of his bodily appetites. How do you put those together? I don't put them together. I just live with them. As Spurgeon said, "When people ask us to reconcile truths that seem contradictory, I don't try to. You only reconcile enemies. I don't spend anytime reconciling friends."
At times, my friends, it's the truth, that in spite of all of the pressure, and all the internal tendency that operates within my own soul like positive polarity to the negative polarity of sin around me, and I say, "O God, how can I ever make it in the way of maintaining the grace of love for You and for Your people, and for holiness and truth?" It is then that we throw ourselves on the wonderful cushion of God's promises to keep us, the efficacious nature of the intercession of Jesus: "Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." We feed our souls upon His high priestly prayer: "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me...." We feed ourselves upon His words: "For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which he hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." I say, "Lord's that's me. You're not going to lose me, but raise me at the last day." In the appropriate settings feed your soul upon the promises of the indefectible nature of grace. But in other settings, you feed your soul upon the absolute necessity of your persevering in the way of holiness and love and truth.
But you see, we're not going to do that. We're not going to be prepared for the perpetual, ruthless mortification of sin, the continuous, Spartan self-discipline of our bodily appetites and passions. And there's another thing we're not being prepared for, and it is this: relentless, rigorous, principled use of all the means of grace. Just as in the conversion of a sinner, the God who has elected a sinner and decreed his salvation, has decreed that he shall come to possess that salvation by means of hearing and by believing the Gospel. And I trust that there's no debate about that among us.
In the same way, the God who has decreed that the believer in Christ shall persevere to the end and be saved by Christ has ordained the means to that end. And just as it is high presumption to expect men to be saved without the means of the Gospel and without their believing the Gospel, it is high presumption to think we will be kept and ultimately persevered if we are indifferent to the means decreed by God for our preservation. Those personal means: reading our Bibles, praying, meditating. The corporate means: confessing our sins one to another, praying one for another, exhorting one another while it is called today lest any be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, provoking one another to love and to good works, not forsaking ourselves the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. And that which combines all of these personal and corporate means in their most wonderful collation is a principled sanctifying of the Lord's Day Sabbath, the great market day of the soul when we have the approval of heaven one day a week to set aside our ordinary employments and recreations, and to spend the whole day in the public and private worship of God. As one businessman said to me some years ago, "Pastor Martin, I can't understand all this flap about the Lord's Day. If God didn't mandate it, I think I'd be ready to go out and make it just to keep my sanity."
My brothers and sisters, it's a hectic age. Part of it is the fruit of the lawlessness. I won't go into how, but it is. And with that, there will be increasing pressure upon us to cut off the Sunday night service. "I mean let's be reasonable." Then it will be "Cut out that afternoon service that was put in to replace the Sunday night service." And then it will be, "Well, you know, our lengthy services need to be trimmed back a bit." And in 25 years, we'll be nothing but a mausoleum of empty religion because of our lack of relentless, rigorous, principled use of all the means of grace. And this isn't a novice talking. 40 years in one place, and the pressures to cave in sort of come in different waves periodically. You're going to feel them, brethren. You give in and encourage your people to give in, and before long, what was unthinkable in church after church in this area 100 years ago will be our experience.
There are times I come over to this building to pick up my correspondence and other things in the office, and I come up in this auditorium and walk through it, and I say, "Lord, what sounds will reverberate from this roof 25 years from now? What will be said in this pulpit 25 years from now?" Only God knows. But I know one thing, the devil knows far better than to try to attack the central nerve centers of the life of the people of God. He starts with the outer bulwarks, the disciplined use of the ordinary means of grace, the sanctifying of a whole Day unto God. And when he has torn down the outer bulwarks, it's only a matter of time when he's in the citadel and drives his knife into the soul of true and vital religion, and it's dead. Somebody got unpersuaded concerning the necessity of perseverance. You see, the very concept of "hupomeno" is "bearing up under." The indication is perseverance isn't walking through the tulips. Perseverance is not something we like. Perseverance is not native to us. "But he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved."
Well, I've laid before you my first two applications. We must be aware of the peculiar dangers of living in an age of abounding lawlessness. Secondly, we must be persuaded of the absolute necessity of perseverance in spiritual grace and vigor if we're going to be saved. But thirdly, you and I must be convinced of the absolute certainty of the keeping power of God that ensures that we shall be saved in spite of the climate of abounding lawlessness all around us. Isn't that in the text? "And because lawlessness shall abound, the love of the many shall wax cold." But in the midst of that, some will persevere and be saved. Why? Because the Holy Spirit indwells them; because the Lord Jesus intercedes for them at the right hand of the Father, and He is committed to the salvation of His people.
As the text says, "He that endures to the end shall be saved," the analogy of Scripture allows us to say, "But he that is truly saved shall endure to the end and be saved." You see, the teaching of the Bible is not, "I'm saved regardless of what I do." The teaching of the Bible is, "I am saved, and what I do is the ongoing manifestation that I am saved. And because I am truly being saved, I shall be saved." Peter rejoices that those harassed believers in Asia Minor are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:5). Romans 8:30: "Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them [without exception] He also justified: and whom He justified, them [without exception] He also glorified." All of His elect are called. All of His called are justified. All of the justified are glorified without one exception. And when we feel the horrific pressures of the abounding lawlessness around us, that's our call to look beyond and through that thick fog of lawlessness; behold at the right hand of the Father One who has carried into heaven the reminders of His sacrifice for sinners. "They shall look on Him whom they pierced" (some indication that He may yet bear in His glorified exalted state the marks of His suffering). And of Him Isaiah said, "He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." He'll be satisfied because not one for whom He shed His blood will at last be lost. And you and I need to be convinced of the absolute certainty of the keeping power of God that ensures we shall be saved in spite of the abounding lawlessness.
In recent days, in an area where I have faced some fierce assaults of the enemy, there have been times when morning after morning, I have read through the first 14 verses of Romans 6, and I have affirmed out loud in the presence of God, "O God, I do believe in Christ. I died. I was buried. I've been raised. I am in Him. And in Him, and because of my union with Him, sins' claims have been exhausted. And You have said it shall not lord it over me. And in that confidence, I reckon it to be so. I present my members afresh to you." And then I said to that sin, "You will not conquer me. I am in Christ." And a sense of triumph comes. Though it may seem to press in upon me, I can look it in the eye and say, "You're not going to get me and pin me. I'm in Christ; Christ is in me. I'm united to Him in the virtue of His death, burial, and resurrection. What a wonderful sense of triumph. Yea, I to the end shall endure. As sure as the earnest is given, more happy but not more secure than glorified spirits in heaven.
Ah, dear people of God, this is what nerves us. What a horrible thing to think you fight all your life and at the end lose. Why fight? But in the end, we're going to be found to win. And knowing we're going to win, we're ready to fight. We're ready to war in the confidence that we shall be found overcomers in the last day by the grace of our Savior.
Now, no doubt, there are some sitting here tonight who have never fled to Christ. You know nothing of what it is to be in the midst of this conscious warfare with the climate of lawlessness. You're a part of it. My friend, you need to get extricated, or you'll be carried with it down to hell. And the way of extrication is in a crucified Savior. He gave Himself for us to deliver us from this present evil world. Christ died to redeem a people from ungodliness and from lawlessness unto a life of sober, evangelical law keeping in the power of the Spirit. You need to go to Christ to get delivered from the horrible, oppressive, captivating power of this present evil age. And whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
And dear people of God, I trust, before you pillow your head tonight, you will pray back to God the truth of this passage: "O God, forgive me when I've carelessly trotted along, not recognizing the peculiar dangers of this age of abounding lawlessness. O God, more deeply persuade me that I must persevere if I am to be saved. O God, convince me afresh that I shall persevere in the grace and in the strength of Your beloved Son."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 13:12:10 GMT -5
Overcoming Discouragement in the Face of Sin by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Will you turn with me, please, in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians, chapter 2, and I shall read in your hearing verses 5 through 11.
"But if any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all. Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many; so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye are obedient in all things. But to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also: for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the presence of Christ; that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices."
Now there is one great principle that I wish to extract from this portion of the Word of God this morning and then to apply it in some very specific ways. But if we are to see the Biblical taproots of that principle, we must first of all have a feel for the passage in which it comes to. And so as we begin our meditation this morning, I want to begin by giving you a brief description of the larger context of the passage which was read in your hearing. As many of you will remember, one of the problems the Apostle had to address himself to in his first letter is the problem dealt with in 1 Corinthians 5. It was a case incest. A man was living with his own stepmother. And the Apostle had to write in very strong language to the Corinthian church, rebuking them for their laxity in dealing with this sinning brother. He rebukes them sharply; he tells them that he has already in principle exerted an act of excommunication, that they are to gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus and to deliver this one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Well, by the time the Apostle writes the second letter, he has received information from Titus--and this is recorded in chapter 7, verses 5-8--that the Corinthian church did indeed receive the severe rebuke of the Apostle and did indeed excommunicate this brother. Furthermore, the excommunication had accomplished its God-intended end. It had been owned of the Spirit of God to induce in this man genuine repentance. The man was swallowed up with true grief for his sin. He had manifested this repentance before the church so that by the time the Apostle writes the second letter, he not only records something of the repentance of this man, but he must, in the language of the passage read in your hearing, exhort the Corinthian believers to confirm their love to this sinning brother.
So much, then, for this description of the larger context of the passage. Now very briefly, a running commentary upon the passage itself. The Apostle begins by saying, "But if any hath caused sorrow, he hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all." In other words, he is saying now as he stands on the threshold of dealing with this problem,
"Don't be concerned about the grief and pain that this sinning brother caused me, though it did cause me pain. But at this point, we don't want to burden the man down with any unnecessary pressure in the area of feeling guilt for his sin. If there has been true repentance, now is not the time to rub the conscience raw. Now is the time to manifest in your congregational life in your relationship to this man the disposition which God has manifested to a repentant child of God, namely one of forgiveness and acceptance." And so he goes on to say, "Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many [that is, the act of excommunication]; so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him." So the great burden of this section of the exhortation of the Apostle is, "Forgive this man and comfort this man. Where I had to write you previously and say, cast him out from your midst. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. It is in the best interest of his soul and your congregational life to cut him off." Now he says with language that is equally plain and explicit, "Forgive him and comfort him." And then he goes on to tell them why. He says, "If you do not do this, there is the danger that he will be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow." Verse 8-19a: "Wherefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him. For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye are obedient in all things. But to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also." Remember, the act of excommunication was a congregational act with the full sympathy and endorsement of the Apostle. He said, "When you are gathered together by my spirit and in the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, deliver such a one to Satan." Now he says, "[As surely as you as a congregation excommunicated him, he has repented. And you have now restored him in the context of forgiveness. I want you to know that I too extend my forgiveness to this sinning brother.] But to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also: for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the presence of Christ; that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices."
And the strange conclusion of this exhortation is the conclusion of verse 11. It's, as it were, the summary statement giving a rationale for this entire directive to the Corinthian church with respect to the repentant brother who had been excommunicated. He says, "[You must follow these direction in order] that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices." The word devises means his thoughts, his intentions. The Apostle indicates that he knows how Satan seeks to work in congregational life. And one the ways he seeks to work was manifested in the previous condition at Corinth. Satan had brought that congregation under the spell of a sinful of indulgence, which they mistook for Christian forbearance. So a man living in incest was not only among them, but it was know and they were boastful about it. They had no shame. Satan had deceived them into misconstruing for true Christian love a wicked, carnal spirit of sinful indulgence. Now the same deceiver comes along, and after the man repented, there is apparently some reluctance on the part of the Corinthian church to make their love and acceptance as visible and earnest as had been their act of rejection in the act of excommunication. And he says, "Behind this, I see the thoughts of Satan. I am not ignorant of his thoughts, of his devices. And if we do not act in the light of these directives, an advantage will be gained over us by the evil one."
Now then, having given a description of the larger context of the passage, a brief running commentary upon the substance of the passage, now thirdly--and this is the burden of the message this morning--what is the vital principle contained in this passage? Well, the immediate or specific expression of the principle is obvious. Whenever we as a congregation must engage in the very unpleasant responsibility of church discipline, we should always count it our joy to engage in the congregational act of restoration when it is evident that there has been genuine repentance. That's the obvious application of the principle. But that is rooted in a broader principle, and the Apostle indicates it in verse 11. And it is that broader principle that I wish to open up this morning and apply in your hearing, and it is this: discouragement in the face of sins repented of is a great tool of Satan to hinder the believer's progress in grace.
The Apostle says, "Confirm your love to him. Forgive him and comfort him." Why? "Lest he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow." You see, the grief of his penitence, as genuine as it is now, can become a crippling, discouraging grief unless this dear brother who has repented of his sin has manifested in the attitude of the congregation the disposition of God Himself, one of forgiveness and of restoration. And the Apostle recognized that if that poor brother was allowed to go on limping under the pressure of discouragement over sins already repented of, Satan would have gained a tremendous advantage in the church at Corinth. And what was true of them in that specific historical context is true of every single believer in any context. The sin may not be so gross and evident a sin as to warrant public rebuke, let alone public excommunication. But any discouragement in the face of any sin towards which a believer has truly repented becomes a great tool of Satan to hinder the believer's progress in grace. And perhaps at no point is the character of the devil more evident than at this point. Jesus said in John 8:44: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning." And then He goes on to say, "He is a liar, and the father thereof." When you were contemplating that particular sin, which this morning holds you, as it were, in the grip of discouragement, what was the lie of the devil to you? "You're a Christian. You believe in Christ whose grace and forgiveness is greater than any sin. That's a little sin. Surely the grace of Christ can forgive you and cleanse you if you indulge that sin." And so by listening to the whisperings of that archdeceiver, that fiend of hell, you became bold to sin with your eyes wide open as a Christian. Your eyes were wide open and you sinned deliberately and willfully because you believed the lie, "O, it is but a little sin. The grace of Christ is greater than that sin. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound." Ah, but now what's happened? God has uncovered that sin. For some of you, in great measure He's used the ministry of the past weeks that Pastor Nichols has been bringing to us from Ephesians 4:25 and on into chapter 5 to lay bare our sins. And now that God has been pleased to work in you a spirit of penitence, a spirit of true acknowledgement of your sin, and you have turned in the direction of the Lord and His grace, what has that archfiend now whispered in your ear? He's changed his story completely.
"O, wait a minute, you weren't simply surprised by that sin. It wasn't that you were walking along with your face set to Zion and were suddenly surprised by a flank attack of the enemy. You conceived that sin willfully and deliberately and walked into it with your eyes wide open. There's no forgiveness for sins like that in the Gospel. That's the willful sin that can only bring upon you the ultimate judgment of Almighty God. Why even bother to go to the throne of grace. You sinned willfully. You sinned deliberately. You sinned against light. You even sinned against the present promptings of the Spirit of God. You were conscious of that pull of grace away from sin at the very point you indulged your sin. Your sin is too great for the grace of God."
He's a liar, isn't he? He told you a short time before it was a little sin. "Ah, grace can sweep that away in a moment." Now grace has arrested you. The spotlight of truth has burned in upon that sin. And like David, you have to say, "Though I had covered it, and though I had sought to hid it from the living God, I can no longer do that." And you have to cry out as he did, "Have mercy upon me!" But this very morning you are crippled as a Christian. Why? Because though you have to the best of your knowledge truly repented of that sin or those sins, your spirit is bowed down with some doubt as to whether or not that sin is truly forgiven and you are truly cleansed, so that your standing before God this morning in Jesus Christ is a perfect standing. My dear Christian friend, listen this morning, whenever you allow discouragement in the face of sins repented of, you fall prey to the influence of Satan who is seeking to hinder your progress in grace. And I know from pastoral dealings with some of you that this is not a theoretical danger. And it is not merely something that occurs to one or two of the people of God occasionally. If the Apostle was very conscious of the present activity in the church at Corinth, then I would be a fool to be less than conscious of the present activity of that wicked one in this assembly of God's people.
O, do you see the principle? Satan will gain a tremendous advantage if you allow him to hold you in the grip of discouragement, even when your sins have been repented of and confessed to God. You say, "Pastor, how in the world can I come out from underneath that discouragement? When you described the kind of sins you're talking about, you were describing me. How can I be brought out from underneath that?" Well, the Apostle had a specific prescription for these people. And basically for them it was this: manifest in your congregational life to this man in tangible ways that he can read and understand the disposition of the Living God toward him. Let your attitude as congregation be a mirror of the attitude and the disposition of God. And likewise, my brothers and sisters, there are some specific things which you and I can and must do if we ever find ourselves, if some of you find yourselves this morning under that crippling power of discouragement in the face of sins committed but sins truly repented of.
Let me suggest three lines of thought that I trust will be helpful to you. Number one is this: there can be no such discouragement while pleading the infinite worth of the blood of Christ. I read two very familiar portions of the Word of God. 1 John 1:7: "But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son [goes on cleansing] us from all sin." Now notice, there are no qualifications. The only condition described is the condition of the believer who's walking in the light. He is not seeking to hide from God or hide anything from God. He's living under the searching exposure of the light of God's countenance, God's law, God's holiness. And in that context, sin is continually discovered. The discovery of sin is no proof that he's not walking in the light. It's an evidence that he is. It's only the man in a pitch black room who has no consciousness as he looks in the mirror that his face is dirty if indeed it is. But the moment the switch is flipped on, if his face is covered with mud and he looks in the mirror, he discovers his true condition. And so John assumes that the one walking in the light stands in need of continual cleansing, and so he gives this gracious promise: the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. And John was not all afraid that he would overstate the virtue, the infinite worth of the blood of Christ. He was not ignorant of the fact that at that very hour in which he wrote this epistle, there in the churches to which the epistle would come would be believers who had sinned willfully, who had sinned grievously, some who had sinned subtly, and others who had sinned in ways that caused shame even to the congregation. And yet he dared to write, "The blood of Jesus His Son [goes on cleansing] us from all sin."
As surely as sinners dishonor Christ by being indifferent to His blood, indifferent to the overtures of mercy in the Gospel before they are saved, it is an act of insult, highest insult to God, when Almighty God should stoop in grace and mercy and say, "In My Son is a fountain opened for sin and uncleanness for the vilest of sinners. Acknowledge your vileness and plunge and be cleansed." What an insult to walk by that fountain either in the deception of self-righteousness saying, "I need no such fountain" (that was the Pharisee's problem--"I thank Thee that I'm not as other men"), or to believe that our sins are greater than the efficacy of that fountain, to stand by that fountain and say, "O, to think that a fountain is open for sin and uncleanness. What a blessed thing! What a wonderful thing! But the fountain does not have that which is necessary to reach the depths of my sin-stained." O unbelieving sinner, such unbelief in the efficacy of the blood of Christ is an insult to the Lord Jesus and to the Father who sent Him and to the Spirit who attends the preaching of the Gospel. Many of us sitting here this morning, by the grace of God, have found that that initial self-righteous indifference or that unbelieving hesitance have been overcome, and we have plunged initially into that fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. We can sing,
O happy day that fixed my choice on Thee my Savior and my God. Well may this glowing heart rejoice and sound its music all abroad.
But now what's happened? After the flush of your new found faith in Christ gave tremendous impetus to your early days as a believer, and in a sense, you almost thought you were ever done with sin. God often wonderfully neutralizes much of the power of indwelling sin in a new believer lest he be swallowed up with discouragement. But then He begins to bring you down to the world of reality where the rest of us live, where you're very conscious that "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" (Galatians 5:17). And as you began to discover more and more of your potential for sin even as a believer, you have fallen grievously, and in some areas you have fallen repeatedly. Child of God, you do insult to that fountain open to sin and uncleanness if you show any reticence to plunge as quickly and believingly now as you did at the first. That's why John can go on to say in verse 9, "If we confess our sins...." He does not say, "If we do penance, if we rationalize them away...." No, no, if we confess them, if we say the same things about them that God does, He is faithful. You notice, we confess; He is faithful. From our confession, we are taken immediately to something totally objective to us. From our confession, our attention is riveted upon the character of God ("He is faithful and righteous") and then upon the activity of God: to forgive and to cleanse. To forgive what? Our sins. What sins? All the sins that we confess, even the willful sins? Yes! Even the sins against light? Yes! Even the sins against privilege? Yes! "He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Why? Because "the blood of Jesus [God's] Son [goes on cleansing] from all sin. And as surely as unbelievers dishonor God and insult Him by their refusal to plunge initially, child of God, you dishonor God and cripple yourself with discouragement by failing to plead and believe in the infinite worth of the blood of Christ. There can be no discouragement in the face of sins repented of if there is a believing plea with respect to the infinite worth of the blood of Christ.
Then secondly, there can be no discouragement while resting in the prevailing power of the intercession of Christ. 1 John 2:1: "My little children, these things write I unto you that ye may not sin. And if any man sin...." And notice, he does not put a parenthesis. By that, I mean a sin of surprisal. By that, I mean a sin of ignorance. By that, I mean a unpremeditated sin. No such qualification is given. Now I'm fully aware that later on in the epistle, John writes those strange words "There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request." I'm fully aware that that language is used, but I'm also fully aware that I doubt there's anyone who can expound with certainty the significance of those words except John. Whatever the sin unto death is, it has nothing to do with that believer whose heart is broken over his sin, who desires with all of his heart to have restored communion with his heavenly Father. Whatever it is, it is not that. And so we have the word of assurance: "And if any man sin, we have [at the very point of our sin that would cry to God in terms of the rectitude of His law that judgment be meted upon us]...." And in point of time, the intercession of Christ is coincidental. It is there. The time we sin, He does not cease to be our Intercessor. But as our Intercessor and Advocate, He is there at the right hand of the Father. "If any man sin, we have Advocate [we have a lawyer, One who pleads our cause] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins." Thank God for that word "propitiation." It's a big word, but it basically means the turning away of divine wrath by the offering of the sacrifice of Jesus. For God to be propitiated means that His wrath is turned away, and Christ Himself at the right hand of the Father is the embodiment of all the virtue of His death upon the cross. And as our great Intercessor, He pleads our case. How can a Christian be discouraged over sins committed and repented of while there is a resting in the prevailing intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Now let me ask you, do you honor Christ and His work by groveling, shriveling, drawing back, going limping all your days? No, my friend, you honor the Lord Jesus when in the holy reservation that is always present in true repentance--you may have to say will a faltering tongue and with a chastened spirit, "I have grievously sinned. I have dishonored My God and grieved and quenched the Spirit. But I believe that my sin does not take me out of the orbit of the intercession of my Savior, that my sin does not cast me off from the sphere of His pleas on behalf of His own." There can be no discouragement in the face of sins repented of while resting in the prevailing power of the intercession of Christ.
And then finally, there can be no discouragement while rejoicing in the covenant faithfulness of Christ. You remember when our Lord Jesus instituted what we now call the Lord's Supper or the communion service as we sometimes designate it? He said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood." And all that the Lord Jesus was doing in His death and resurrection had reference to that new covenant. And in that covenant, God has promised to do some wonderful things. We find a summary of what He has promised to do in Hebrews 8 and 10, quoting from the Old Testament. The briefer summary is found in chapter 10 of Hebrews, verses 16-20a:
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord: I will put My laws on their heart, and upon their mind also will I write them; then saith He, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness...."
You see the boldness, which is the opposite of the discouragement, the shrinking, the drawing back, can only be ours when there is an intelligent, present rejoicing in the covenant faithfulness of Christ. He died to affect the promised blessings of the new covenant, which are given to us in this language: "Their sins, their iniquities will I remember no more." And you see, part of the problem is we remember. And because we remember, we believe God must still remember in the sense that He has not put the sin away and truly forgiven it. And it is no little part of the Christian's spiritual wisdom to know how to handle the actings of His own memory. What do I do when, in the midst of the day, the thought of that grievous sin comes back to me? Well, I must do one of two things. I must believe what is true about that sin and what is not true--one or the other. I must believe that somehow that sin fails to come in the category of the promise of the new covenant. Yes, God still remembers that sin, and therefore, because He does, I must keep at a distance. I can have no boldness in prayer. I can have no joyous communion with Him. I must go on in my so-called evangelical penance for a period of time until somehow the walls of my own memory are scrubbed and I can no longer remember before I'll believe God no longer remembers. I will magnify the grace of God in Christ by believing the promise at the point where my own memory calls the sin back and I feel, as it were, the inner shock and the inner horror that I a Christian could do such a thing. It's at that point that I need to rejoice in the covenant faithfulness of Christ and believe that for Christ's sake that sin is remembered against me no more.
Ah, but someone says, "But Pastor Martin, won't people take such a doctrine and use it as an excuse to sin with a high hand?" If they do, that's their problem. And they'll answer to God for their wicked abuse of grace. And if there's anyone here this morning who listening to such teaching would say, "O, in the light of all that, man, I can just go out and sin as I please and then I just ask the Lord's forgiveness." My friend, even to think that way shows you're not a Christian because the Christian does not want to sin with a high hand. He has seen his sin in the light of God's burning holiness. He has seen his sin, above all, in the light of the agonies of the Son of God upon the cross. And even at the point when he sins most grievously, he does not sin with total abandonment. There is within him the principle of divine grace so that he can never, as it were, just utterly throw himself on the crest of any sinful passion and ride it to the shore, and catch the next wave and ride it in again with glee and with delight, and then pick himself up and say, "O well, now I go and get a little cleansing." No, no, anyone who talks that way knows nothing of the grace of God. I'm speaking to those of you who are true believers who do with all your heart long to be rid of all sin. If you could, you would live a life of sinless perfection. And it is that for which you yearn and long and that which makes heaven heaven to you. Above all else, in the language of Robert Murray M'cheyne, is that you'll love him with an unsinning heart. Now can you say from the depths of your being an amen to that reality?
"O Lord, if I could live but one day free of sin, free from dishonoring you, disobeying you." That's the disposition of the true Christian, but the reality is that such a person sins, and not only sins ignorantly, which he does, and not only sins by surprisals, that is, a sudden temptation (you whack the finger, and before you know it, some of the old language pours out), but even Christians sin willfully and deliberately. They sin as willfully and deliberately as David sinned. When he looked, he lusted, he took, and then covered his sin. They sin as willfully as Peter did when he cursed and denied and cursed and denied and denied again. The Bible does not cover up the reality of the magnitude of the sins of the saints. But it's against that very backdrop that it magnifies the glory of the grace of God, that God's grace is such that the sin of His children does not disinherit them. The sin of His children does not put them outside the orbit of grace. And I plead with you this morning who are walking with lead feet and with bowed shoulders and with downcast eyes. Thank God you're still plotting on your way to the celestial city. But you're a terrible advertisement for the Gospel because the Gospel can do something more than it's done for you. And the Gospel is that you as a child of God are immediately and fully cleansed and pardoned by the infinite worth of the blood of Christ when you confess your sins. And that resting in the prevailing intercession of Christ and rejoicing in the covenant faithfulness of Christ, you may go on your way rejoicing in the grace of Christ.
But you say, "Pastor, won't that lead us to treat sin lightly?" No, no, there is no more powerful preservative against the repetition of sin than the joyous knowledge of the full pardon of sin, because if you're discouraged and bowed down and you find no joy in Christ, you are vulnerable to sin yet more, for you say, "I find no sweetness in Christ." And with a discouraged spirit, you're more vulnerable to sin. Satan gains an advantage. But it's the man who is so rejoicing in the privileges of grace who realizes when temptation comes, "What? Shall I exchange the joy of my Father's countenance and the ebullience of conscious communion with my Savior for this little trinket of time? Not upon your life!" You see, it was when Christian was looking at his robes, considering the scroll in his hand, it was then that he found himself most preserved against lapses into sin. No, no, my friend, God keeps us in the way of grace, not primarily by legal terrors, but by the terrible pressure of the knowledge of the greatness of His grace in Christ.
And so I have bared my heart to you in a pastoral exhortation this morning. And that exhortation is based upon the principle of 2 Corinthians 2:11 : "that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices." Discouragement in the face of sins repented of is a great tool of Satan to hinder the believer's progress. And O how the enemy would love to gain an advantage when in past weeks the Lord by the Spirit has taken that Ephesians 4 and 5 passage, shined the light upon many of our hearts. And I know from phone calls I've received, people getting things confessed to me, attitudes and others things that I didn't know were there--thank God! And I know from talking with some of the other elders that others have been dealing with sin and getting matters right with God and one another. But O, how Satan would gain an advantage precisely at this point. That having lost the ground of keeping us in the position of covering our sin, rationalizing, excusing it, now that we're prepared by grace to deal with it, then to tell us the sin is greater than the grace of our Savior. Well, it is not. And we would not allow that wicked one to gain any advantage in our assembly, but by the grace of God, magnify the worth of the blood of Christ, the certainty of the intercession of Christ and the glory of His covenant faithfulness to us His people.
You see, you who are not Christians, we're not a bunch of sad sacks. O, there are times when we're cast down because our greatest burden is the very burden that will press you to hell unless you repent. It's the burden of sin. And because God took it so seriously to send His only Son to die on the cross, we take it seriously. And until you take it seriously, there's no hope for you. But if you begin to take your sin seriously, my friend, there is hope. And don't believe the whisperings of the devil that there's no hope for you. There is hope, and it's found in Christ, but in Christ alone.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:22:48 GMT -5
Holiness: Its Necessity by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of conference message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Surely, if any of these things are true, it's because God delights to magnify His grace to unworthy sinners. And seldom do I feel more the wonder of God's grace than when it's my privilege to stand and address others in His name, particularly on occasions such as this occasion, when the awesome responsibility of addressing those who for the most part will stand as the instruments of Christ to feed His sheep and to call His own to Himself. The tremendous weight of this responsibility does not lesson with the additional and increased opportunities to bear that weight for His namesake. But the sense of awe only increases. And I trust that as I look to Him for help and can say I hope in some degree that my expectation is from Him, that that too is the language of your heart.
I have been asked to address you, as you have already been apprised through the notices and the previous intimations from Mr. Aken, on the subject of holiness or sanctification. And the announced subject for this first hour is the necessity of holiness. Now it should be obvious to all of us who have any acquaintance with Biblical materials, that this is too vast a subject to handle in any comprehensive way in one message, let alone in a dozen messages. It would be impossible for me to cover the whole spectrum of Biblical materials which underscore the necessity and the importance of Gospel holiness. Furthermore, the subject is too complex in order to be exhaustive. It would be impossible to trace any single dimension of the doctrine of Gospel holiness to its many ramifications in so short a time. And so of necessity, I've been selective. And in all of the messages, that selectivity will be evidenced. And I think I owe it to you to explain what principles have regulated my selector. In seeking to zero in on certain aspects of this truth, what has pressured my own thinking? Well, basically three things.
First of all, your own immediate edification. It is my prayer as I understand the burden of the committee which corresponded with me, that God would use these days for our mutual spiritual profit in the immediate context in which we find ourselves. And so I've tried to select those aspects of this doctrine that would address themselves to our immediate circumstances.
But then a second principle is then operative in my manner of selection, and that is the realization that many of you will have the awesome responsibility of molding the thinking of entire congregations with regard to this vital subject. And perhaps there are fewer subjects in the entire spectrum of the teaching of the Word of God concerning which mistakes are more fatal and destructive to vital godliness than this subject. A man may have erroneous views concerning the second advent and not be materially influenced in the safety of his own soul. But if you propagate defective views concerning Gospel holiness, you may cooperate with the devil in the damnation of men and women who sit under your charge. And it's in something of the pressure of that realization that I've been selective in the materials, trusting that broad Biblical concepts will be implanted in our hearts by the work of the Spirit through the Word so that when you men stand in that awesome place of being shepherds of the flock of God, you will be able to impart a balanced, vigorous Biblical view of Gospel holiness.
And then the third element that's been operative in my selection of materials is that I recognize there is a more popular audience here. We have wives of students; we have apparently visitors from the community. And I want to address myself to those aspects of truth that would be on your level; use as little technical terminology as possible so that there will be that blessing of general edification according to the mandate of 1 Corinthians 14.
Well, so much for that introduction as to why I have chosen the materials in the manner in which I have chosen them. Now consider with me in this first hour the necessity of Gospel holiness. Consider this subject with me as time permits along four lines. If I can only flesh out two of them, I'll give you the headings and you can work them out on your own.
First of all, then, consider the necessity of Gospel holiness in relationship to the human predicament. The words "regeneration," "justification," "sanctification," "glorification," "propitiation," "reconciliation"--these are not 50 cent words invented by theologians who had to have some coinage with which to carry on the commerce of systematizing and teaching others. These words are the very words which God the Holy Spirit has chosen in order to express to us something of His own answer to the multi-dimensioned human predicament brought about by sin. And there is no cardinal word expressing a provision of grace that is not a dimension of God's answer to some facet of the human predicament in terms of sin. And so when we come to the term holiness or its equivalent, sanctification, we are immediately confronting a term in Scripture which is part of God's answer to the human predicament. In other words, sanctification is a remedial grace.
Adam, before the fall, did not need to be reconciled; he did not need to be redeemed. Nor did he need to be regenerated. And he did not need to be sanctified in the sense that this term is used in the Scriptures. God's remedy is perfectly suited to the totality of man's malady. And if we try to reduce the total witness of Scripture concerning man's malady to its irreducible minimum, what do we have? Well, we have a situation in which man's problems are basically two. He has legal problems, and he has personal or practical problems. He has problems with respect with his relationship to the court of heaven, and he has problems with respect and in relationship to his own heart and to his own life.
Let me illustrate. A man has imbibed too much liquor, an act for which he is responsible, and he gets himself smashing drunk. Then he has the audacity to get in his car and stick his key in the ignition, and he has enough coordination to get it in there after a while. And he turns on his car, puts it in gear, and he drives off. Well, in his drunken stupor, he runs the car over a curb and smacks into a telephone poll, and he severs the poll. And as he hit's the poll, he belts forward and his head hits the front of the steering wheel. Then he glances over and breaks the glass on the windshield and slumps over unconscious in his drunken stupor. Now when the police come, they begin to sort out this situation, and as they do so, they do so in terms of this man's two categories of problems. Category number one is, his head is bleeding; he's unconscious. He probably has some crushed ribs. He has a multitude of immediate personal problems. And so they call for the rescue squad to take him to the emergency room and sort out his personal, immediate practical problems. But he's also got some other problems. And it isn't long before he'll become very conscious of those, as he is issued a summons or several summonses because he has been driving under the influence, has destroyed public property, and has committed a number of other misdemeanors. Now you see, his problems are basically in two categories: those which have to do with the local civil authorities (the municipal or the county court) and those which have to do with a laceration on his head, the possibility of broken ribs, and internal injuries. Now if the man is to be completely restored to normalcy in society, he must have both categories of problems resolved.
It's precisely that way with regard to man in his predicament of sin. Sin has caused some tragic and frightening relationships to exist between man the creature and God the Judge of the universe. And in His capacity as Judge, God is concerned with everything man the creature does. And every violation of His holy law provokes in God a just and holy anger towards the sin and the sinner. And the great judgment of the last day will be the visible monument to the entire moral universe that God is concerned with what a man does in the privacy of his bedroom, when all adulterers shall be cast into the lake of fire; that God is concerned when a man willfully and wantonly takes another human life, whether in the sterile conditions of the operating room in a clinical abortion or whether he takes a shotgun and blows a man's brains out and leaves them spattered on the wall behind him, for all murderers shall have their part in the lake of fire. And the judgment of the last day is the monument that God is indeed, as the moral Governor of the universe, concerned with man's legal relationship to Him. And in His infinite grace in the person of His own dear Son, the provisions of justification, reconciliation, and adoption are God's provision answering to these dimensions of man's sin in the legal realm.
But God's not concerned simply to get the drunk out of court and acquitted. He's concerned with the gash on the forehead and the broken ribs and the internal injuries, for sin has destroyed His image in man. And God is concerned with nothing less than the full restoration of that image in remedial grace. Now there is no basis upon which He can enter into intimate dealings with man to suture up the stitches and correct the broken ribs and operate upon the internal injuries until the legal dimensions are dealt with. And so, in that sense, justification is to this day the note of a standing or a falling church. And it is on the basis of all that He has done in Christ to rectify our relationship to Him as Judge that He then performs that internal work and that gracious work of restoring us to His image. And no view of salvation is Biblical or complete that does not view God's purposes in salvation as encompassing the entire dilemma of human sin. Now when we understand that, we see something of the tremendous importance of the doctrine of Gospel holiness, of Biblical sanctification. For that doctrine encompasses all that God does in us to restore His own image.
Let me say briefly by way of application, if you sit here today and have a view of salvation in which the legal dimensions (justification, reconciliation, and adoption) are not only central and fundamental, but a view in which they obscure and well nigh obliterate the centrality and the importance of Gospel holiness, you have a distorted and unbiblical view of God's remedial grace. And furthermore, if over the course of a ministry of two, three, four, five, ten years, you propagate a Gospel that is clear, emphatic, and articulate on the points of justification, reconciliation, and adoption but is not equally clear, emphatic and articulate on the matter of Gospel holiness, there will be a quality of religious life emerging in your congregation that will not match the quality of religious life reflected in the Bible. Now do you see, then, the tremendous importance of this subject first of all in terms of the human predicament?
But then, secondly, consider with me the importance (and now we'll begin to grapple with some of the great texts of Scripture) of Gospel holiness in terms of the divine plan of salvation. When we open our Bibles and attempt to understand something of the mind and purpose of God with respect to the salvation of sinners, we ask the question, "Lord, how far back may we trace Your purposes and plans to save a people?" God answers us in such texts as Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5. Paul, as the theologian, has become Paul the eulogizer. He teaches theology by eulogy in Ephesians 1. And all of these great doctrines are a part of a three-stanza hymn of praise to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for His great salvation. And as He begins that eulogy, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ," he now traces that salvation back as far as God allows him to trace it: "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." Here we see the importance of Gospel holiness or Biblical sanctification in the divine plan of salvation as it touches the original purpose of God.
When we were chosen in Christ, and coordinate with that choice were predestined unto sonship, what was there that was central in the mind and purpose of God? Well, the text gives us the answer in this language: "He chose us that we should be holy and without blemish before Him." As God envisioned His chosen ones in their native state. (And for you theologs, I've now committed myself on the infra-supra controversy, and I do so without shame or embarrassment.) He chose us not because He saw that we would become holy. And the first motions of holiness are the actings of repentance and faith. And so the Armenian interpretation of Election falls to the ground at the sheer language of this text. He did not choose us because He saw we would be holy. But He chose us in Him that we should be holy and without blemish before Him. And in that coordinated purpose that has to do with adoption, though adoption itself must be understood in terms of a legal and forensic transaction, it is never apart from that subsequent impartation of the Spirit of adoption and the impress of the family likeness upon the adopted. And so the same apostle can say in a parallel passage, Romans 8:29: "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son...." He not only predestined us unto sonship, but he foreordained us to be conformed to the image of His Son that He (Christ) might be the firstborn among many brethren. So as God graciously allows us to peek, as it were, into His secrets of His own eternal counsel, the motions of His all-infinite and eternal love to sinners, what is central in those first motions of eternal love to sinners? Holiness stands central. He never purposed a salvation for elect sinners but a salvation that had holiness at its center.
Now then we move on to the actual purchase of that salvation. Where is holiness? Where is sanctification in all of that? Well, consider several pivotal texts with me.
First of all, Ephesians 5 (in that section in which the apostle is charging husbands with respect to their duties to their wives--the great duty, of course, is to love them--and then he gives something of the measure and quality of that love), verse 25: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it." And bound up in that language is all the agony and travail of Gethsemane, that horrible, indescribable inundation of all the billows of divine wrath upon Golgotha. And what was His heart's design in all of this? "That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."
When our Lord travailed upon the cross in the awful pangs of that felt abandonment, He had something more in mind than merely rectifying and adjusting all of the claims of divine justice against sinners. He was concerned with more than satisfying the demands of the law against those on whose behalf He was dying. This text informs us that He gave Himself up for the church with a view to its sanctification and its ultimate perfection and presentation to Himself. How central is this matter of holiness. How fundamental is this matter of Biblical sanctification. It is as fundamental as the central doctrine of the New Testament. It is as fundamental as the heart of the Gospel. And what is the heart of the Gospel? Christ Jesus and Him crucified.
The same emphasis comes through very clerly in the language of the apostle when he writes to Titus. And having had to prepare some lectures and messages on Titus for a recent ministry in Australia, I was struck as never before with the fact that two of the greatest soterological statements in all of the epistles come in this very practical epistle full of guidelines for practical godliness. And it's in that very context that we have the statement of chapter 3 concerning the work of the Spirit in our salvation, resulting in our washing and our cleansing. And right on the heals of enjoining slaves to be obedient and honest to their masters in chapter 2, he says here's the rationale behind all the detailed instruction concerning practical godliness. He's been telling old women how to behave. And he tells Titus, "You're to tell the old women to behave this way, and the young women this way, and the old men this way, and the young men this way. And by the way, you're to tell the slaves to behave this way." Why? Verses 11-13:
"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."
Well, why does the grace of God come instructing us negatively, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should positively live righteously, Godly, holy all our lives? Why does the grace of God come teaching the importance and necessity of practical Godliness? Well, the rationale behind it is verse 14. It is because Christ gave Himself for us in order that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, boiling with zeal to perform good works. You see the theological rationale. He starts in chapter 2 with something that seems so mundane: "But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: that the aged men be...."
There are those in our day who call it moralistic preaching when you give detailed instruction concerning Christian conduct--moralism! On that charge, Paul stands guilty. He says, "Titus, get the old men aside and sit them down and tell them this is how you're to serve God. And get the old women and sit them down and give them instructions. And then take the young men and sit them down and give them instructions. And then get the servants aside and instruct them." And he says, "Titus, in so doing, this is what lifts it above the realm of mere moralism. Titus, impress upon them that in this kind of instruction, you're seeking to encourage them to dress themselves up in the doctrine of God our Savior in all things" (v. 10). It's only as they live consistent lives of practical Godliness in the particulars of their own sphere of existence that they're dressed up in the Gospel. What Gospel? The Gospel that comes saying, "Deny ungodliness; live a sober, righteous, and Godly life." Well, why in the world does the Gospel come telling us to dress up that way? Because it's for that purpose that Christ died. "Who gave Himself for us," not that we might run around irresponsibly happy that all the demands of the court of heaven have been satisfied. "Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
Now, do you see how central and vital and important is the subject of holiness? Not only important as we observed in God's answer to the basic needs of man in a state of sin (the human predicament), but in relationship to God's plan of salvation. It was central in the first motions of His sovereign, electing love. It was central when our Lord died upon the cross. And as we shall see subsequently, Romans 6 is the watershed text of all of this teaching that grows out of our union with Christ both federally and vitally. But then, when that salvation actually impinges upon elect sinners in time and space, what place does this whole matter of holiness have when Gods stretches forth His hand in time to arrest the sinner in his downward course to destruction and effectually unites him to Jesus Christ? Well, let's look again at several key texts, and we shall see that once more this matter of holiness is central, fundamental.
We take 2 Thessalonians 2. It's a wonderful thing when a Christian worker, having labored amongst the people, can write letters and say, "Whenever I think of you, I give thanks to God for you. No explanation for what I saw but that God did something, and that God is continuing to do something." And that's precisely what Paul does. He says,
"But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation [now notice] through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (vv. 13-14).
You want a text that has all the doctrines of grace in a nutshell, here it is. It's all there. He gives praise to God, that God had marked them out from the beginning to a salvation that was indefectible, a salvation that would not stop short of all of those who were marked out to receive it, actually obtaining to the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. None will be lost along the way. But now notice the realm in which they first partake of that salvation: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." And how did they come to that belief of the truth and that initial radical sanctifying work of the Spirit when through the Gospel as God's instrument, they were effectually called into vital union with the Lord Jesus Christ? But now let me ask a question or two based upon the text.
How central is the hearing of the Gospel to a man's salvation? Is there anyone sitting here today who believes there is any revealed way of a sinner's coming to salvation apart from the Gospel in the case of rational, responsible people? I trust you're all convinced of the truth of Romans 10. It is wonderfully true that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But they cannot call upon an unknown Lord. And the means of knowing Him is proclamation through the sent ones. And I doubt there is anyone here who believes that we come to salvation apart from the proclamation of the Gospel. But I wonder, are there men, women, fellows, and girls sitting here today who believe that there can be a belief of the Gospel and an effectual call of God that bypasses the powerful, radical, sanctifying work of the Spirit? I can produce books written to defend that very position, that it is not only possible, but it is an actual experience that many believe the Gospel, but because they have not yet yielded to Christ as Lord, because they have not yet had the baptism of the Spirit, because they have not yet learned the secrets of the deeper life or the higher life or some other terminology, they have not yet known in reality any deep, inward sanctifying work of the Spirit. God never called a person in that situation. This text says the God who chooses to salvation always calls into that salvation by belief of the truth and in the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
Now that will be one of the hardest things for you come to grips in terms of that first charge you take as a preacher. There's going to be all these lovely people who are trussed up morally in terms of cultural influence. Do you know what I mean by trussed up morally? They're held up. They don't fall in a moral heap. Nor do they fall in what we would call a general psychological heap. They have some sense of identity in terms of cultural continuity. They have some sense of worth and dignity in terms of their jobs. But, my friends, in many of them, there isn't an ounce of true, genuine mourning for sin, of a sense of their undoneness. Sin is just a word. There is nothing of felt love to Jesus Christ. There is nothing of conscious panting after conformity to His image. There is nothing of that agony and struggle that our brother spoke about in the previous hour. It's business as usual year after year, decade after decade (lovely dinners in the church). But, my friend, you will have to face the fact that, without playing God, in the judgment of the most overwhelming charity, it will be your duty to say to many of them that they have no Biblical grounds to claim they are the children of God.
You won't offend them if you say, "You're going to make it, but you won't have as big a bag of yo yos as some others; your heart may be 20 strings less than someone else's." As long as you make sanctification of the Spirit optional, you won't offend them. But when you begin to tell them, "Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord," then suddenly your preaching's too long, it's too loud, it's too this, it's too that, it's too much of this, it's not enough of this. My friend, don't believe them if you're preaching out of compassion given by the Spirit of God on your face in the closet and out of fidelity to such texts such as these we are considering. The issue is that perhaps for the first time in their lives, they've been told that holiness is not optional. It is not some advanced dimension which only a few attain to. It is the very rudimentary, the very foundational element in a saving work of the Spirit.
So in its application, I bring other texts to bear upon it. 1 Corinthians 6:11: "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." God doesn't separate them. All who are justified are washed and experience that radical sanctifying work of the Spirit. And then what about its place in the prolonged process? What place does holiness and sanctification have? Well, I give you the texts quickly.
We're told by Peter in 1 Peter 1: "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." But then a text to which I direct your attention briefly. What place does holiness have in that long process from the time we are effectually called in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth? Listen now to the language of Paul in Romans 6:22: "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God [he's describing their conversion], ye have [present tense: 'ye are having'] your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." In the case of every person who has known that radical change of masters in a genuine work of grace, that change of masters from sin to this willing servitude to God, there is fruit unto holiness. And the end of that, eternal life. So Paul capsulizes the entire experience of the Christian in that phrase, "fruit unto holiness." That's pretty central isn't it? What awaits my conversion and my glorification? Paul says, "fruit unto holiness."
What about all the people who say they're in Christ, and they're waiting to be glorified with Christ, but there's no fruit unto holiness? Whose salvation do they have? Not this one. He doesn't say, "some of you, a few of you, some elite group of you." He writes to the Roman church and says of everyone who is truly in Christ and has known something of the virtue of union with Him, which is the great theme of this chapter, there is that change of masters; there is the fruit unto holiness, the change of practice, and then everlasting life, the change of destiny.
Well, what about the consummation? What makes heaven heaven? I love the language of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. He captured it when he said,
When I see Thee as Thou art Love Thee with unsinning heart
That was heaven to M'Cheyne: to be able to love his Savior with an unsinning heart. That was heaven to the Apostle John, was it not? Listen to his language in 1 John 3: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."
Do you see now from eternity to eternity the place of holiness in the plan of salvation? It's central, my friends. It's not secondary. It's not peripheral. It's central. Tracing that salvation from the first motions of sovereign, electing love to its consummation when body and spirit are perfectly conformed to His own glorious likeness. Holiness is central. Well, in the few minutes that remain, let me give you the other two heads quickly.
How important is holiness, not only in terms of the human predicament, in terms of the divine plan, but in terms of the personal concern of every individual? Hebrews 12:14 answers the question. Here the writer to the Hebrews commands all believers to track down as a persecutor tracks down his prey. It's the same word used in the New Testament for "persecution." It's the same verb ("follow after," "track down with earnestness and great intensity"). "[Track down] peace with all men, and holiness [or sanctification], without which no man shall see the Lord." Here, the writer to the Hebrews makes holiness and the conscious, deliberate, and constant pursuit of it a condition of seeing the Lord in what the old writers would call the beatific vision: to see Him with joy; to behold Him in terms of the verse previously quoted in 1 John 3; to behold Him with something other than dread and horror in the language of Revelation 6; to behold Him with something other than that cringing fear that will cause men to cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of Him who sits upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. If you would behold Him with joy, the writer to the Hebrews says you must be following after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Now who are we to believe? Those who tell us that holiness is optional, holiness is desirable, but holiness is ultimately just a matter of lesser or greater degrees of usefulness now and rewards in the world to come? I say, brethren, that is damnable and destructive heresy. It's not merely error; it's heretical. It is to give men hopes where they have no grounds of hopes. This text tells us that as far as our own individual concerns are touched by this subject, it is a matter of life and death. You're not safe unless you're justified; you're not safe unless you're sanctified. For God never justifies a soul whom He does not sanctify.
And I would say again to you men who will have the awesome task of proclaiming to the Word to others, God help you if under your ministry, people receive any other notion than that their only hope for acceptance before the court of heaven is to be found in the doing and the dying of another, even the Lord Jesus. And God help you if they have any other notion that they can legitimately lay claim to true belief in Him who lived and died for them if they cannot demonstrate the validity of their professed faith by a holy life.
And then the final point, and again I just give it to you in a suggestive manner. We see the importance of holiness with respect to the primary requisite for those who would be office bearers in Christ's church. When we turn to 1 Timothy 3, we are told: "This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless" And if we read down to 1 Timothy 3, what do we have in that passage? Nothing more or less than a description of a life of balanced, vital, demonstrable Gospel holiness. And God says it is the indispensable requirement for that holy office. O yes, there is a word in there about being an apt teacher. A man who is to be an instrument of edification must have gifts for public ministry. Yes, but the great weight of emphasis falls upon the context out of which that gift is exercised. And it must be a life of balanced, vital, demonstrable Godliness, both before the church and before the world.
Brethren, the Lord has not come and scrubbed out of His Word the frightening words of Matthew 7: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." They had ministering gifts; they had manifest success. And Jesus does not debate their claim to gift or success. But He puts His finger on the sore spot: they were devoid of sanctifying grace. They were workers of iniquity while mighty preachers with impressive credentials.
My dear young friends sitting here with hopes for the work of the ministry, if you are not pursuing a life of holiness, do one of two things: leave this room and have dealings with God until there is implanted in your heart a hungering and a thirst after holiness, or for the time, give up all thought of the work of the ministry. What is all your assiduity in your pursuit of Greek and Hebrew and systematic and Biblical theology? What is all of that but furnishing you to damn yourself with ministerial success until you so rationalize away your absence of Godliness and balance against it your obvious success. "Well, surely God must be pleased or He wouldn't bless." "Many will say Lord, Lord...." If God can open the mouth of a dumb ass to be His mouth piece that doesn't even have a rational soul, God can use the mouth of any rational human being to call out His elect and even to build up His sheep. Don't you ever rest content that all his well because of the measure of your gifts or the measure of your success. God will take you to heaven only if you're a justified, sanctified, and holy man.
How important is this theme? I trust, if nothing else, our brief overview of this subject has implanted in your heart by the Spirit a conviction that will never be uprooted or shaken, that this great Biblical theme is central as God addresses Himself to the predicament of man in sin; as He unfolds His plan of salvation; as He actually comes in graces and applies that salvation with power, and as He Himself sets forth the standard for the work of the ministry. O, my brothers and sisters, let us not shift to a secondary, tertiary, or some other place that which God has made central to His Gospel.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:24:16 GMT -5
Holiness: Its Nature, Part 1 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of conference message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
Will you now give attention to the reading of the Word of God as it is found in Paul's letter to the church at Rome, Romans 6. And in order to catch something of the flow of thought which precipitated the question with which the chapter begins, I will begin reading at verse 19, which in a real sense, is a summary of the entire 5th chapter. I shall read from verse 19 of chapter 5 through verse 14 of chapter 6.
"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. [And may I pause to underscore that those who would take this chapter and make it purely forensic are not honest with this phrase 'walk in newness of life.' Whatever this death is, its result is not only a new standing but a transformed walk.] For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."
In our initial study yesterday afternoon, I stated that the subject of Gospel holiness or Biblical sanctification was too vast and too expansive to be treated in any comprehensive way in four messages, and that it was too complex an issue to be exhausted in any one of its parts. And so in the preparation of these studies/lectures or sermons, whatever else they are, I have sought to exercise a very ridged discipline of exclusion and a very careful selectivity. But that selectivity and discipline of exclusion, I trust, has not been arbitrary. But as I intimated yesterday, has been regulated by the desire for the immediate edification of the students, for the long-range preparation and furnishing of your minds with these fundamental Biblical perspectives so that in turn, you may impart them to your people, and then also the edification of the larger audience, the people of God in general, whom we do indeed welcome heartily into these gatherings. Then in our study, we proceeded to examine one fundamental issue, namely, the importance or the necessity of Gospel holiness. And I sought to demonstrate from the Scriptures the tremendous importance of this doctrine in relation to the human predicament, in relation to the divine plan of salvation, in relation to individual concern, and in relation to the Biblical requirements for the work of the ministry. And then last night's message from Mr. Aken was indeed the expansion of that fourth line of thought. And I hope you saw that there was a wonderful unplanned bias that I'm sure by the Lord was a wonderful synthesis of emphasis.
Now this morning, we begin a consideration of what has been entitled in the announced subject as the nature of Gospel holiness or sanctification. And because the majority of the texts we shall consider this morning are translated in our English Bibles with the word "sanctification," I will use that word in the opening up of our subject. Having underscored the necessity of Gospel holiness or Biblical sanctification, we now address ourselves to the question, "What is the precise nature of that sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord?" And may I pause in passing to say that what I told you yesterday was nothing but good Westminster Confession theology. And as a school which in all of its public statements as well as its actual framework of instruction adheres to this ancient document, I read paragraph one on the doctrine of sanctification:
"They who are once effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified really and personally through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lust thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces to the practice of holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."
So for the astounded brother who asked the question of Mr. Aken, "Was he teaching that without sanctification and holiness you're not a Christian?", I was indeed teaching that because the Word of God teaches it. And this ancient confessional document concludes it's opening paragraph with that very point of emphasis. It is that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.
Well, then, how are we to understand the nature of that holiness, the nature of that sanctification without which we shall not see Him with joy? Well, a careful study of the usage of the words in the New Testament pertaining to this doctrine, a careful analysis of the overall concept of sanctification (where the basic words "sanctify," "sanctification," "holy," or "holiness" are not used, but the concept is there) will lead us to the conclusion that we are to understand God's gracious work of sanctification as being comprised of three fundamental categories or three dimensions or three elements. And I have entitled them "Sanctification Begun: The Radical Cleavage with Sin," "Sanctification Continued: The Gradual Process of Mortification and Renewal (the negative and the positive)," and "Sanctification Completed: The Final Crisis in Which Both Body and Soul Will Be Confirmed in Holiness Forever." And we will forever leave Romans 7--hallelujah!
Alright, then, in the time allotted this morning, let us fasten our mental seat belts and attempt to cover this broad spectrum of concern forced upon us by the teaching of the Word of God. What is the nature of sanctification? Well, we must begin with grappling with that aspect of teaching that I have entitled "Sanctification Begun: The Radical Cleavage with Sin." Now most of the writing on the subject of sanctification focuses upon sanctification continued. That is the process by which we mortify remaining corruption on the one hand and develop in the positive graces of Christ-likeness on the other. And because it is that process which involves us in so many complexities and problems, it is understandable that most of the theological and practical and devotional literature written on this subject is concerned to open up and give practical understanding and direction to the people of God concerning that process. There is in the Scriptures a very clear body of teaching that we must come to grips with. And I may say that apart from coming to grips with this, we will not really understand the nature of the process. We must start where the Word of God starts. And the Word of God confronts us with a doctrine of sanctification begun, which is nothing less than a radical cleavage of sin. Now we think, and rightly so, of regeneration, justification, and adoption as definitive acts, as non-repeated and non-repeatable provisions of God's grace. But perhaps as no other theologian and exegete has done, Professor Murray has left a very helpful legacy to the church in his careful analysis of those many portions in the Word of God where the concept of process will simply not obtain in the context in which the term "sanctification" or "holiness" is used. We find a usage of the word "sanctify" which constitutes that act of God a definitive, once for all, non-repeatable work of grace.
Let us look at several specimen passages, and they are only that. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul, addressing himself to the church at Corinth, which obviously had many problems in what we might call sanctification continued, the gradual process. There was the problem of arrested growth. There was the problem of areas of sin that were not being mortified; graces that were not being cultivated. And yet notice how he addresses them: "Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints...." As he addresses himself to the church of God at Corinth, he describes them as those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. And he uses a perfect passive. He indicates that something has happened to constitute them a sanctified people and as to the fruit of which remains to that very hour. In spite of all the problems in the process, something definitive has occurred in the life and in the experience of the church at Corinth. And so with a play on words, having described them as the "having been sanctified in Christ Jesus," he then goes on to say, "called saints." And it is most likely that the word "called" there does not mean designated saints but called in all of its rich Biblical significance of that effectual work of God by which He not only summons sinners out of darkness and into the Light, but graciously brings them out of the kingdom of darkness and into fellowship with His Son, for he picks up that thought again in verse 9. It's almost as though he answers the question, "How did they become the sanctified in Christ Jesus?" They became such by virtue of their effectual calling.
Then in chapter six and verse 11, we find a similar usage of the word "sanctified." Having described those forms of sin, the practice of which is inconsistent with membership in the kingdom of God, he then says by way of contrast in verse 11, "And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." And here he uses an aorist passive. There has occurred an element of sanctification that is definitive, that is once for all. And in the experience of every Corinthian Christian, it is past; it is accomplished. It is something that cannot be repeated. It is a definitive sanctification.
And then Acts 20:32 might be brought forward as another indication of this usage. As the apostle is encouraging the elders whom he has charged with serious, solemn, and awesome responsibilities, he then says, "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified." And here we have a perfect passive participle. The inheritance is among those (not present participle: "who are being sanctified"). But He gives you the inheritance among those who have been sanctified with a sanctification that is definitive. It has already occurred in their experience. You find similar usages in the noun form in 1 Thessalonians 4:7, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 1 Peter 1:2. Other passages could be brought to bear upon the issue, but I trust these will suffice to support the assertion that there is a doctrine of sanctification begun, which in the language of Professor Murray, should be understood as definitive sanctification, a sanctification that is radical, once for all, non-repeatable.
Now how are we to understand that dimension of sanctification? Sanctification begun is to be understood in the light of two major categories of thought in the New Testament and several minor categories. I will take time only to expound briefly the two major categories, mention the minor, and then give you a brief bibliography of Professor Murray's exegetical work, which I trust you will quickly take in hand and carefully study.
Now what is the nature or character of this sanctification begun? Well, its two major categories of thought in the New Testament are, in the light of Romans 6, death to sin, and in the light of Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4, a putting off of the old man and a putting on of the new. And perhaps no passage is more fundamental in all of the Word of God in addressing itself to this dimension of God's gracious work of sanctification begun than is the passage read in your hearing, Romans 6, the entire chapter, and perhaps we should say even continuing through chapter 7 and verse 6. Paul is answering the objection, that if our salvation in terms of our acceptance before God is based exclusively upon the obedience of another, and the obedience of that other is received by faith and faith alone, then the devil's logic is now added to that theology by the anticipated objection:
"Well, if I raise a mountain of sin 10,000 feet high, and you tell me, Paul, that in the obedience of Jesus Christ is a righteousness adequate for that high mountain of sin, let us then raise the mountain to 20,000 feet so that we magnify the grace of Jesus Christ all the more. If you tell me that wherever there is a mountain peak of sin, there is a peak of grace that exceeds it and goes beyond it, let us then continue in sin that grace may abound. Let's raise mountains to grace out of the stuff of mountains of our sin."
That's the devil's logic added to the truth of justification based on the doing and the dying of another and received by faith alone. Now Paul's going to answer that objection: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. [And now notice what is the crux of his answer.] How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? " Paul's answer to the devil's logic, growing out of the doctrine of free justification based on the perfect righteousness of Christ and received by faith alone, is to introduce the entire doctrine of the nature of union with Christ. And in essence, what he says is this: the same faith which so unites you to Christ so that you now share by imputation in the perfect righteousness that He Himself has wrought, it is that same union which has brought you not only into the participation of His objective righteousness, but has brought you in a way that is inscrutable as far as dissecting it with clinical analysis but real nonetheless. It is that same union with Christ by faith that makes you possessor of an imputed righteousness that is utterly perfect. And it is in the virtue of that union that Christ's death for sin has become your death to sin. And that's the heart of his answer: "We who died to sin." And who are the "we" who died to sin? All who out of a sense of guilt and the weight of sin have looked away from ourselves and have embraced in faith the Lord Jesus Christ our righteousness. All who have thus embraced Him as their righteousness, according to Paul, have died to sin. And his question is, "How in the world can longer live in that realm to which we have died?"
Now if we were to have the time to trace out the argument in detail, we would first of all establish that our living to sin and in the realm of sin is a very real, a very existential experience for everyone of us. Let me just briefly trace out the lines of thought. Paul says that by nature all the Romans, without exception, were the slaves of sin. Verse 16: "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" Verse 17: "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin...." Verse 20: "For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness." The servitude to sin was very real. The best commentary on it is Ephesians 2:1-3. While we were sin's slaves, we fulfilled the desires of the flesh and the mind. We were animated by the impulses of our own fallen nature under the control of the devil himself. Paul says, "the spirit that now worketh [same verb used as we have in Philippians--'God worketh in you'] in the children of disobedience."
You see, the slavery to sin is real. It's not an abstraction. It was real. It resulted in their presenting the members of their bodies slaves to their master. The mind thought the thoughts that pleased the master. The eyes looked upon the objects that pleased the master. The hands did the bidding of the master. The feet walked in the paths dictated by the master. But now he says, "In virtue of your union with Christ, you have been so identified with Jesus Christ in the virtue of His death, His burial, and His resurrection that you in Him and with Him have died to sin." And notice how pervasive this emphasis is--verse 2: "...we, that are dead to sin...." Verse 6: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him..." Verse 7 (a tacky exegetical problem). It may be translated, "He that is died is justified or released from sin." Verse 14 (It's not an exhortation; it's a statement of fact.): "For sin shall not have dominion over you...." Verse 18: "Being then made free from sin...." Verse 22: "But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness...." Now, you see, the Apostle is teaching, not exhorting. At this point, he's simply teaching that for every person to whom Christ has begun His righteousness in terms of the glorious doctrine of justification so thoroughly expounded in chapter 3, verse 21 to the end of chapter 5, that such a person has died to sin. Now if the Word of God is teaching anything in this passage, it is teaching that.
Basically, then, what does this concept of death to mean? Well, I can do no better than to whet your appetite for the material that I'll mention by way of a little bibliography later on than to quote from Professor Murray who says on page 204 of Principles of Christian Conduct,
"The person who has died to sin no longer lives and acts in the sphere or realm of sin. In the moral and spiritual realm, there is a transition as real and decisive as in the realm of the psychical physical on the event of ordinary death. Those who still live in the realm of sin and whose life is constituted by sin may say with reference to the person translated from it, 'He passed away, and lo, he was not. Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found. The place that knew him knows him no more.' There is the kingdom of sin, of darkness, and of death. The forces of iniquity rule there. It is the kingdom of this world and lies in the wicked one. The person who has died to sin no longer lives there. It is no more the world of his thought, affection, will, life, and action. His wellsprings are now in the kingdom which is totally antithetical, the kingdom of God and of His righteousness. It is of this translation that Paul speaks elsewhere when gives thanks to the Father who 'delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love' (Colossians 1). "We are too ready [and O, listen to the dear man of God who now looks upon the face of his Savior with joy] to give heed to what we deem to the hard, empirical facts of Christian profession. And we have erased the clear line of demarcation which Scripture defines. As a result, we've lost our vision of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Our epic has lost its dynamic, and we've become conformed to the world. We know not the power of death to sin in the death of Christ and are not able to bear the rigor of the liberty of redemptive emancipation. We died to sin. The glory of Christ's accomplishment and the guarantee of the Christian ethic are bound up in that doctrine. If we live in sin, we've not died to it. And if we've not died to it, we are not Christ's. If we died to sin, we no longer live in it. 'For we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein?' (Romans 6:2)."
And frankly, brethren, this is why it rather disturbs me to hear people throwing laurels at the feet of this dear man of God and calling him perhaps the most careful, reformed exegete since Professor Warfield and then become irritated when someone dares to preach and press to the conscience the exegetical work that the dear man of God did.
It is true, if we died to sin, how can we live any longer in that realm? Peter gives the same emphasis in 1 Peter 2:24 and chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. But I said this is only a surface treatment. There is another dominant Biblical analogy to set forth this concept of sanctification begun in the radical cleavage with sin. And it is the concept of Colossians 3, verses 8 and 9 in which the Apostle Paul, having exhorted the Colossians to the process of mortification, the putting to death of remaining sin, says that that process is to be carried out in a context in which there's been a radical cleavage with the dominion of sin. So after exhorting them in verse 5 to "put to death therefore," he now says in verses 8 and 9, "But now ye also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man...." And here you have the concept of something that's definitive, once for all, unrepeatable. There was a putting off of the old and a putting on of the new. And all of the exhortations with respect to the problems in the process and the demands of the process derive from the radical nature of the beginning. He says since you have put off and put on, it is necessary that you continue to mortify the deeds of the flesh (negative sanctification), cultivate the graces of love, meekness, and patience as he goes on to describe them (the positive dimensions of progressive sanctification).
And in Ephesians 4 verses 22 and following, you have the parallel passage, and though the translation in most of our English Bibles would indicate that that's an exhortation, I'm convinced that Professor Murray's treatment of the exegesis and the grammatical problems is very convincing. And it's found in that chapter in Principles of Christian Conduct called "The Dynamic" in which he treats very carefully this whole problem (pages 214-217) and demonstrates conclusively that Ephesians 4 is a parallel to Colossians 3 in which the exhortations in the realm of progressive sanctification derive from the reality of definitive sanctification, the radical cleavage in which they were taught of Christ to put off the old man and put on the new.
And then there are a few secondary analogies in Scripture which underscore the same basic concept that sanctification begun is a sanctification involving a radical cleavage with sin. It is the concept of Romans 8 that every Christian has been constituted spiritual. Romans 8:7-9:
"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."
What's the obvious teaching? Well, it's this: Every believer has the Spirit of Christ. All who possess the Spirit of Christ have been introduced to the realm of the Spirit as the dominant context of spiritual reality. Flesh is no longer the dominant context. If it is, he says you're devoid of the Spirit. And if you're devoid of the Spirit, you're none of His. He does not say, "If flesh dominates, you're in the realm of the Spirit, but you're not full of the Spirit, you're not controlled by the Spirit, you have a problem in progressive sanctification." No, he says, "If you're not basically in the realm of the Spirit, your problem is your unregeneracy. You are none of His." Now, my dear friends, please see it with your own eyes in the Bible. Look at it and let it come through the ear gate and the eye gate: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." That was not written as a club by which to go after Pentecostals and say your teaching on obtaining the Spirit is unbiblical. No, it may be pressed into that use where necessary, but my friend, that's not its use in the context. In the context, the Apostle is demonstrating that all for whom there is no condemnation are those who are in union with Christ. And in union with Christ, I have been brought out of the realm of the flesh and into the realm of the Spirit. That's why Paul can say in verse 14, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God [not any others]." Now that's after writing about the reality of the struggles of Romans 7. That's in the context of verse 13 where he talks about mortification and putting to death remaining sin. There's all that realism, but don't let that realism bleed away the vigor of these passages.
And then another line of emphasis in the New Testament, of course, is the whole concept that we are a washed people. It's stated very clearly in such passages as 1 Corinthians 6:11: "Ye have been washed ." And it's put in the same context as the definitive justifying act. It's also in Titus 3. And then it's beautifully taught by our Lord in John 13: "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet...." What is that bath all over? That's definitive sanctification. That's sanctification begun, the radical cleavage with sin, with sin's dominion, and with sin's lordship. And I urge upon you at this time, if you have never examined this dimension of Biblical truth carefully, please, I urge you to obtain a copy of Professor Murray's Selective Writings, Volume 2 and read the section beginning on page 277-313. The first two articles in particular deal with this. And then in Principles of Christian Conduct pages 202-228. 38:37
But now I must hurry on in the ten minutes that yet remain to touch the other two dimensions. And though there is some imbalance, it leaves the opportunity to enlarge in the next hour that I am privileged to share with you. But now, the Bible also teaches that the nature of sanctifying work of God is not only to be understood as a radical cleavage with sin beginning this gracious work, but we must understand it as sanctification continued by means of a gradual process. And the texts which teach the necessity and reality of the process are legion. Let me try to classify them very quickly into several categories and give you just a specimen text or two for each one.
First of all, the texts which teach the reality and the struggle with remaining sin. Romans 7 and Galatians 5:17. The same Paul who teaches in Romans 6 that there is this breaking of sins dominion, and in Romans 8, that there is this fundamental transferal from the realm of flesh to the realm of the Spirit. Thank God, that sandwiched in between is that biographical transcript of his own heart: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me." And he knows the agony of the reality of remaining sin. He asserts it again in Galatians 5:17 when he says, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other...."
Now there is a secondary category of texts which force upon us that sanctification is a gradual process. And it is those texts which underscore sanctification as continuous renewal. Romans 12:1-2: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...." Well, you see, that has to be a process, as the mind is continually transformed in this work of renewal. 2 Corinthians 3:18 is another dominant renewal text: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD." There's the concept of a process of gradual renewal into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then there is a third category of texts which can only be understood in terms of a process of sanctification. It is those texts which demand the constant mortification of sin. Romans 8:13: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." There is the necessity, you see, of the constant mortification. People who have died to sins must yet put sins to death. And Colossians 3:5: "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth...." People who have put off the old and put on the new are not yet perfect new men, and they have the duty of mortification.
And then a fourth category of texts are those which lay out the duty of constantly cultivating Christian graces. We have Peter's words: "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance...(2 Peter 1:5-6)." Here is a duty laid upon people in whom the dominion of sin has been broken, which can only be performed by a gradual process.
And then there are those texts in which we are exhorted to continuous cleansing. 2 Corinthians 7:1 is a specimen text: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." That's a process, and it goes on until that last stain is removed and we are confirmed in holiness forever.
Now let me just say quickly by way of application, any person who finds no problems with this process is either indifferent to its claims or ignorant of its nature. I could hardly believe my ears when some of the fellows sitting here today told me (and so it was confirmed by two witnesses, so it's Biblical that I should repeat it) that someone dared to claim that he could no longer sing with any degree of enthusiasm or felt conviction, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O take and seal it." He dared to claim that for 13 years he had felt no proneness to wander. I say that man is ignorant of his own heart, and ignorant of the full dimensions of the demands of this process.
And then, thank God, sanctification is going to be complete someday. Sanctification will be completed as it was begun. It was begun with a radical definitive work, and thank God, it's going to be completed by what I call the final crisis. Now for most of us, it will come in two installments. When we pass the portals of death, we will join the ranks--and O, how I thank God for that one text because it's the only explicitly clear text on the subject. There are many inferences, but how I thank God for Hebrews 12:18-23, where the writer to the Hebrews says, "You have not come...." Then he describes the peculiarities of the Mosaic economy (and may I say that that passage is pivotal in some other controversies with which some of you are wrestling). But he says, "You are come...." And among the many privileges and realities to which I come through Christ the mediator of the new covenant inserted is this precious little word: "to the spirits of just men made perfect" (v. 23).
O, I tell you, if I must pass through death, this is one of the things among many others that takes away the dread of death itself, though the experience of dying is frightful to me as I think of it. To know that God has decreed that the moment this spirit is wrenched from this body, all of the energy and virtue of the death of Christ that procured the perfecting of my spirit will come--may I say it reverently--crashing in with irresistible glory. And every last stain of sin will be purged from Al Martin's spirit. And it will look upon the face of Jesus to love Him, to praise Him sinlessly.
Then they'll stick this old beat up carcass in the ground, and the worms will have a Thanksgiving meal but only until that hour when there is the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. And when He speaks, that same energy will come crashing in upon all the scattered atoms of this body and reconstitute it like unto His own glorious body. And that will be the completion of the process. In the language of Philippians 3:21, "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body...." And that perfected spirit will then join its proper habitation, a perfected body.
And then there will be none of that tension where the spirit enjoys more desires of grace than the body can hold, when with all that is within us the level of grace has brought us to the point where we long to serve with an energy the body does not have--no more of that disparity. What a wonderful thing to have a spirit, a heart that has no motions but those that are holy and a body that will be its willing servant to do all the impulses of that holy spirit. That's sanctification. For most of us, I say, it will come in two stages. For those who are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord, they'll get the double invasion of that irresistible power impinging upon spirit and body. Final phase will be, they shall be glorified with Christ.
Let me conclude by simply saying, it is a wonderful thing what God has purposed to do for His own. The same God who conceived in His infinite wisdom and sovereign love to answer all of the exigencies arising at the legal dimension because of our sin satisfies His own law by the bloodletting and obedience of His own Son. And that is the foundation of our confidence, the ground of our coming, and as it were, substructural to all other considerations, to know that God has made perfect provision for my complete restoration to His image. And He has chosen to do so in that work of grace the Bible calls sanctification. And it is set before us in these three major dimensions or categories: sanctification begun (the radical cleavage), sanctification continued (the gradual process), and sanctification completed (the final crisis). And I want to say emphatically, God never sanctifies apart from all three dimensions. All whom He sanctifies die to sin. If they live at all, even a few hours like the dying thief, they'll be evidence of process. And there will be--thank God--the final consummation.
Where does it all come from? Union with Christ. When by faith we are implanted into Christ, then in the language of the confession, it is in the virtue of His death and resurrection that sin's dominion is destroyed. And in the language of the confession, we are enabled both to mortify sin and cultivate those graces. And thank God, one day we shall look upon Him with joy. Do you know that sanctifying work? My friend, if not, you are none of His. If you do, take heart, the struggle will not be forever. Thank God, the consummation is coming. And He who has begun the good work will complete it.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:26:49 GMT -5
Home Individual Messages Series Page Submit a Comment Holiness: Its Nature, Part 2 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of conference message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
I'm sure there are many of you who are very conscious of the fact that this is about the most unenvious time in which to speak to any group of men and women gathered for serious thought. You've had lunch; the sun is at its zenith, and it seems to say with every forth-coming ray, "Take a nap. Sit back; relax." And it tests the metal of both the listener and the preacher. But I trust in mutual dependence upon God the Holy Spirit and by the engagement of all of our faculties, we will give ourselves with alertness to the Word of God. If you begin to go off into the land of nod, let me encourage you to push your lower back against the pew, throw you shoulders back, draw in a few deep breaths, and hang in their until the conclusion of the hour. At least the sound of my own voice will keep me awake, and I hope I will find you awake with me.
Now in the development of this vast and comprehensive Biblical theme of holiness or sanctification, thus far I have thought to underscore from the Scriptures the importance or the necessity of Gospel holiness, and then earlier this morning something of the nature of Gospel holiness or Biblical sanctification. And in the previous exposition, I suggested that the Biblical materials force upon us a view of sanctification that breaks it down into three fundamental categories or three dimensions: sanctification begun in the radical cleavage with sin (the breaking of sin's dominion, the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of the new), then sanctification continued in the gradual process, and then sanctification completed in the final crisis.
Now what I propose to do is to go back to that second dimension of sanctification, namely, sanctification continued by the gradual process and to open up some fundamental lines of Biblical teaching with respect to this subject. And so if I were to give a title to today's message, it would be "Cardinal Issues Relative to Progressive Sanctification." It's use without which I sincerely doubt that any material progress can be made in the nurture of sanctification unless we do have some clear understanding of some fundamental Biblical issues. And if times permits, there are three categories of thought that I will open up under this general heading of "Cardinal Issues Relative to Progressive Sanctification." First of all, the necessity of the process, and then the agent in the process, and then the pattern for the process.
First of all, then, just a word about the necessity of the process. We saw in our study this morning that the New Testament gives us abundant materials with respect to the fact that there is a process. And when we ask the question, "Why must there be a process?" The answer is twofold. Number one: because the new man in Christ is not a perfect new man. Though sin no longer reigns, sin does remain. Though it no longer exercises dominion, it does exercise constant guerilla warfare. And so because the new man in Christ is not a perfect new man, there is this necessity of process. And it is in the very context in which the radical cleavage with sin is set before us that the necessity of the subsequent process is also underscored.
For instance, it's in Romans 6:13 that we are told: "Neither yield ye you members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin." The indication clearly being that it's possible for someone in whom the dominion of sin has been broken still to yield his members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin in given areas. Again, in Romans 8, where that radical transformation from the realm of the flesh to the realm of the Spirit is clearly taught in verses 5 through 9. Just a few verses later in verse 13, we are commanded or instructed: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Paul is thereby indicating by the direction of the Spirit that, though we have been brought out of the realm of the flesh; we have been brought into the realm of the Spirit, we are not perfect men in that new dimension of the Spirit. And that emphasis could be drawn from many texts. Suffice it to say, the necessity for this process is rooted in that fundamental reality that as new men and women in Christ, we are not perfect new men and women.
Then the second reason which necessitates the process is that God has decreed and revealed that a gradual process is His will in dealing with the problem of remaining sin. God could have decreed that His salvation would be as radical in the complete dealing of the internal dimensions of sin as it is radical in dealing with the objective problems of sin. But God has decreed and revealed that it is His will to deal with remaining sin by a gradual process so that the concepts of growing in grace, increasing in knowledge, walking in the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, adding to our faith, virtue (and I've just been quoting texts from the New Testament), those concepts are forced upon us by God Himself.
Therefore, every attempt to concoct a theory of the Christian life which will bring us to some position in which the realities of process no longer obtain is really an affront upon the wisdom and sovereignty of God. Every theory of complete eradication of sin, all theories of the higher life which talk about being lifted above conscious desire for sin or conscious sin, and all of that terminology is in reality an affront upon the wisdom and sovereignty of God. For He has decreed that from the moment of radical cleavage with sin and the breaking of its dominion, the process of sanctification will advance by a process until the final crisis.
Now granted, in that process, there are low points and high points; there are plateaus. There are times when we seem to take three steps at a time; other times when we seem to be taking about one millimeter of a step at a time; other times we may take two steps backwards. But the overall pattern, like climbing a mountain, which may involve some walking in level places, walking down on your way up, the overall direction is always upward and onward in conformity to Jesus Christ.
Well, so much for that word concerning the necessity of the process. And I have said it for this simple reason: there is in the heart of every truly regenerate person a longing that it would be otherwise. You see, God has given us in the language of the New Testament the earnest of the Spirit, the down payment of the Spirit. And because the Spirit has been given to us as the down payment of what we shall be, there is a panting, and a longing, and a commitment to perfection in the heart of every single Christian. When John says, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not," the heart of every true Christian says, "O God, would that it was so." And it's because we're stamped for perfection that we're sitting ducks for any teaching that says we can have perfection here and now. And it's only the earnest Christian that gets ensnared in perfectionist teaching with regard to the subject of sanctification. And so I give that material not as filler, but because I would preserve some of you from the agony and the disillusionment of the being attracted by any form of perfectionist or semi-perfectionist teaching.
So much then for the necessity of the process. Now that which is the real heart of my burden this afternoon: the agents in the process. In that initial definitive sanctification, that radical cleavage with sin, God acts monergistically. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are operative to break the bondage of sin. But now in the process of sanctification, the agents are two. There is the agency of the triune God and the agency of the renewed believer. And so consider with me, then, this matter of the agency in the process of sanctification.
Now why is it important for you to have a clear grasp upon this aspect of Biblical teaching? Well, for the simple reason that the church in its history has been plagued with unscriptural views of sanctification which basically fall into two categories at the opposite end of the extremes. There is a polarity. On the one hand, there is sanctification by unaided human effort. People see that dimension of Biblical teaching in which human agency is involved in the sanctifying process. And completely overlooking the necessity of the divine agency, they so give themselves to the process of sanctification by naked human effort, that they always drift either into legalism, Phariseeism, or aestheticism. And the history of the church is strewn with the wreckage of men and women and whole movements that have in reality attempted to get on in the process of sanctification without a full appreciation of and commitment to the necessity of the constant divine agency in the process. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you have in the history of the church the wreckage that has come from the theories of sanctification that I call sanctification by complete passivity. These people take up the words "yield," "abide," and other such vocabulary from the New Testament, and they say,
"Ah ha, there's the secret of the process of sanctification. Get old self out of the way. And if you can just get yourself so utterly yielded, so utterly surrendered as to be nothing but a funnel, then Jesus Christ will live His life through you. And the process will go on with wonderful success as you seek to live to the glory of God."
Now that teaching has brought such things as quietism, mysticism, and not strange, the worst form of antinomianism. For, you see, if it's Christ who lives through me (and that's the essence of the process), then whatever I do or not do, ultimately Christ is to take the credit or the blame. I am neutered in the process. So, you see, it is essential for us to understand and constantly to hold in proper Biblical tension that the agents in the process are not only the triune God but the entire redeemed humanity of the new man or new woman in Jesus Christ.
First of all, then, consider the agency of the triune Godhead in the process of sanctification. Now, here again, we are tempted to say, "Well, surely, God is the one who regenerates. God is the one who justifies. God is the one who adopts. But because we have a legitimate part in the process of sanctification, we can lose sight of the fact that ultimately sanctification is as much the work of God as any other redemptive privilege. It is the work first of all of God the Father.
Some of the pivotal texts which clearly teach this. In John 17:17, our Lord prays, "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth." In John 15, Jesus says that His Father is the caretaker who is active in the proving process of all those who are in Him as the vine. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman...and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit" (vv. 1-2). So in the process of sanctification, the Father is very active as the divine husbandman pruning away that which would not be conducive to our increased fruitfulness. Furthermore, in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, the Apostle prays, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly...." And obviously, this is a reference to God the Father. And you have a similar emphasis in the context of Hebrews 13:20-21: "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight...." And then, of course, the classic passage in Hebrews 12--the whole section on the Fatherly discipline of God, which has as its ultimate goal our advancement in holiness. He says, "Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children...for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth" (vv. 5-6). And why does He do it? That we might be partakers of His holiness. Now I don't want to belabor the point by just piling text upon text. But I want to give you enough texts so that you feel something of the pressure of the New Testament witness to this fact that the agent in the sanctifying process is God the Father. He is active in that process.
Now why is it important to understand this? Well, it is important to understand it so that we may be kept from any do-it-yourself moralism. The idea that God broke sin's dominion, but now He's patting me on the back like a coach pats the flanker as he's going in with the next play and says, "Go get 'em," and now I'm on my own. No, no, the Father who broke sin's dominion is constantly active in that process of sanctification both in its negative dimensions of mortification and in the active and positive dimensions of the cultivation of the graces of Christ-likeness. So we need to understand that if we are making any progress in this process, we are to render praise and thanksgiving to the Father that He has enabled us to make that progress.
Then it will also keep us from a "Jesus only" kind of cultism. I always feel uneasy when people talk about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's something fishy somewhere, because He's always addressed in the worship language of the New Testament either as our Lord Jesus Christ or as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And He is always presented as the One through whom we bring our worship which terminates essentially and pervasively upon the Father. In the language of Ephesians 2, "We have access to Christ in the Spirit unto the Father." And though I take second place to none in asserting that as true God, Jesus Christ is the rightful recipient of praise and adoration and worship and prayer and confession, the climate of the New Testament is a climate in which we are worshippers of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Then, of course, it will also keep us understanding the place of the Father from a "Spirit only" mysticism. Whenever our religious life begins to terminate upon the Spirit, and there is a preoccupation with the Spirit, we're moving into the fringes of mysticism that can lead us into the most tragic forms of deviation from the norms of the New Testament. On the very threshold of the Christian life, Trinitarianism is dominant in the religion of the New Testament. When men undergo the initiatory ordinance, it oozes with Trinitarian implications. "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name [singular] of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." And that concept that confronts us on the threshold develops and expands in the Christian life. If you've never read Warfield's article on the Trinity, I urge you to read it, to ponder it, to chew it over as he demonstrates that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much a doctrine of dogmatics in the New Testament as it is the pervasive religious climate of New Testament life and of worship. And so we must understand the agency of the Father in the process of sanctification.
Furthermore, we must understand the agency of the Holy Spirit. In a very special and peculiar sense, He is the sanctifying agent. The phrase "sanctified by the Holy Spirit," as such, to my knowledge, is only found once in the New Testament. We do have the phrase we looked at yesterday, "in sanctification of the Spirit" from Thessalonians and its parallel in 1 Peter. But the glory of the blessings of the new covenant are described by the Apostle in terms of the work of the Holy Spirit, particularly in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4. And the Spirit is central in the administration of the blessings of the new covenant. So when the Apostle describes that transforming process in 2 Corinthians 3, the Holy Spirit is central in his description: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD." And here the relationship of the exalted Lord as the dispenser of the Spirit and the activity of the Spirit are brought into a closeness of proximity that would result in heresy if we had no other testimony from the Apostle Paul concerning the distinction between the exalted Messianic Lord and that which is His crowning gift, even the gift of the Holy Spirit. But He is central, you see, in that transforming process.
Now with regard to the mortification of sin, His activity is essential. In Romans 8:13, Paul does not say, "If ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." He says, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And so the Spirit's activity is absolutely essential in the process of putting to death remaining sin. Are there Christ-like virtues to be formed in us and expressed through us, those virtues of love, joy, peace, and longsuffering? Paul is careful to tell us in Galatians 5:22-23 that these are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of our great efforts to conjure up something that appears like love, joy, and peace. No, wherever they are truly manifested, they are the fruit of the Spirit. His direct, His immediate, His powerful agency operative in our hearts.
Now again, I ask the question, I hope, for you, why does this need to be emphasized? Well, again, for the simple reason that unless we cultivate a deep sense of utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit, we shall not know what it is to be a people who instinctively look out of ourselves to another for the cultivation for the graces of Christ-likeness and for the putting to death of remaining corruption. One of the greatest sins that characterizes us when sin still has dominion is our cursed creature confidence. And one of the most humbling remains of sin in the human heart is to be found in that precise area. And the measure of our true felt dependence is in reality in direct proportion to the earnestness, the fervency, and the frequency of our prayers. Prayer is the language of dependence. Prayerlessness is the eloquent testimony of creature confidence. Now it's easy to learn the language of dependence: "O, without You, Lord, we can do nothing." But the man or woman who believes that cultivates both the attitude and the disciplines of specific prayer. For prayer in reality is but the spreading of our helplessness in the presence of the One who alone can help us. And so it essential to know that in this process, not only is the Father active, but the Spirit is active.
But then thirdly, the Lord Jesus is active. And here it is that perhaps our understanding is most deficient. And I confess mine was for years. Yes, the Father prunes and is active. Yes, the Spirit as the indwelling life of God is active. But I must think of the Lord Jesus primarily in terms of His work of satisfying all the demands of the law both with respect to its precepts and its penalty, to rejoice in Him as my righteousness and somehow to know communion and fellowship with Him in my day by day Christian experience, but not to look to Him consciously as the powerful agent in the ongoing work of my sanctification. And yet the Scripture surely is clear. Ephesians 1:3 tells us that it is in Christ that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing, including sanctification. He is the reservoir of all blessings which the people of God will enjoy from the beginning to the consummation of their redemption. And therefore, since sanctification in its progressive dimensions holds no little place in that glorious salvation, we should expect to find our Lord Jesus Christ and His activity at the center of the process of sanctification. And that's precisely what we do find.
It is in a passage on sanctification that Jesus says in John 15, "Without Me [severed from vital communion with Me] ye can do nothing." And then He gives us the positive commandment to abide in Him and to have His Word abiding in us that we might be fruitful in this process. Paul uses the language in Philippians 1 in his prayer, that the Philippians might be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory of God. Those fruits of righteousness, he says, are fruits derived from the virtue that is in Christ Jesus. Or in the well-known text, Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." He is active in the process, not in just some general way as the great reservoir out of whom all our blessings come, and the great mediator through whom they are conveyed to us. But He is active in terms of His indwelling by the Spirit, in terms of His advocacy, and in terms of His intercession.
Now examine those things with me briefly. In Romans 8, the Apostle tells us that the Spirit who indwells us is the Spirit of Christ. "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." Verse 10: "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." In the great mystery of the indivisibility of the one God in three persons, where the Father is the Son and the Spirit. It's the only way you can sort out the language of John 14-16. Jesus says, "I'll pray to the Father; He'll send the Comforter. He comes. I come. My Father comes." Whose coming? The Godhead is coming. And though in the economy of redemption, the activity of the Spirit is central, we must never regard it as divisible from the presence and communion with the Father and with the Son. And so the New Testament sets before us a doctrine of the indwelling of Christ--"If Christ is in you...." Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Now that text has been greatly abused, as we shall see in a few moments. But we must not allow the abuse of it to rob us of the preciousness of what it does teach: Christ lives in me--and then that text in Colossians 1:27 and possibly Ephesians 3:17. But these suffice to demonstrate that in the process of sanctification, I'm not left to naked unaided human effort.
There is not only the direct agency of the Father in His pruning and disciplinary work. There is not only the direct agency of the Spirit stirring me up to long after holiness, giving me the grace to put to death the deeds of the flesh, forming the graces of Christ-likeness in me. But there is Christ Himself, the One who objectively in space and time as my surety and substitute went to the cross and died and cried, "It has been accomplished!" In the mystery of the indwelling of the Spirit, Christ Himself indwells me. And though the focal point of my faith and my religious life is not Christ in me but Christ for me at the right hand of the Father, we must never be robbed of this dimension of Biblical revelation.
But He is not only committed to my progressive sanctification as the One who indwells me, but in a special sense, as my advocate and my intercessor. Is it not in a section dealing with progressive sanctification that the advocacy of Christ is brought forward by John? 1 John 2:1: "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." You see, it is in the context of having a heart that pants after perfect sinlessness and pursues that goal that the ugly reality of imperfection is introduced. "If any man sin" is no indication he has forfeited his advocate. It is at that precise point that the confidence he has an advocate is to fill his soul with hope. We have an advocate--and notice, not with the Judge but with the Father. In all the liberty and filial delight of a conscious sense of adoption, I can come even when my conscience smarts with the sin that has been committed. And where would we be in this process without the confidence of the advocacy of Christ? Crippled, paralyzed with consciences laden down with the felt reality of our failures. O how wonderful to come and say, "O my Father, You have said Christ is my advocate." And to know that He pleads my cause in the presence of the Father.
Then there's that added dimension of His intercession as it relates to the whole subject of progressive sanctification. In Romans 8:34, the Apostle asks the question, "Who is He that condemneth?" In the face of the reality of sin, having come through the description of the actings of sin, even in best of believers in Romans 6 and 7, he says, "Who is He that condemneth?" And then his answer comes: "It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." And then he goes on to ask the classic question in the light of that: "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" If we have One who intercedes on the basis of His once for all oblation and atonement, and by that intercession in the language of Hebrews 7:25, He is committed to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. Little do we appreciate the function of the intercession of Christ in our progressive sanctification.
We have a couple of hints of how it works out in the realities of that process. For instance, you remember in the 22nd chapter of Luke, our Lord said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when [not if] thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." And then when we read on in the Gospels that Peter having denied Christ, and the last couple of times, cursing and swearing with oaths, it says, "And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny Me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." What made the look of Christ efficacious to break the heart of Peter? It was the intercession of Christ. There was nothing in that look that held inherent power to break his heart. Those were the same eyes that looked into the face of Judas and said, "betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" Those eyes didn't break his heart; they hardened his heart. And he went out and hanged himself and sent himself to hell. Those were the very eyes that looked into the face of the Pharisees, and they said, "Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?" There was no magical, mystical power in the look of Jesus to break anyone's heart. It was His intercession.
O, my friends, what a story will be told us when we get to the other side. Can you think of those times when you've been negligent in your devotional life, and your hunger for the Word of God has been shriveled until it was almost nonexistent, and when there rose up in its place conscious hankering after the leeks and the garlic and the cucumbers of your past Egyptian life; when you felt, as it were, a raging fire of carnal passion within your breast? And then it seemed, as if out of nowhere, the Word of God became precious. A text of Scripture flashed into your mind; God brought a fellow believer unexpectedly across your path, and in conversation with Him, the deepest springs of what you are as a new man or woman in Christ were suddenly opened again. What's the answer to that? The intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, praying that you would be kept in the way of holiness. Read John 17. Conscious that you're in a world in which the devil is seeking as a roaring lion to devour you, He prays, "I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil."
You see, this is one of those greater fallacies of the Deeper Life teaching that says the measure of our progress is in direct proportion to our faith. I wouldn't be standing here today if that were so. There are times when through the subtlety of Satan and the corruption of my own flesh, I've had very little conscious desire for God, very little conscious longings after holiness. But I tell you, I've had conscious passions and temptations to every form of sin imaginable. Yet I stand today kept and preserved and in the way. Why? Not because of some super duper no-reckon, yield, abide ability I have, but because I have an intercessor who committed Himself in the gory baptism of Golgotha to take this sinner all the way from a state of nature to a state of glory. Blessed be God for the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we need as the people of God to understand that He is active in this process. "Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins." And His part in the salvation is not just in the initial, but it is there in the entire process. And it will be there in the consummation. We are said to be glorified with Him. "The dead in Christ shall rise." Even death cannot dissolve our union with Him. And the consummate glory will be the manifestation of all the dimensions of that union to the wonder of an on looking universe.
Well, God is the active agent in the process. But! And in the few minutes that remain, let me seek to expound the other side of that "but." The second agent in the process is the believer himself. The second agent in the process is the believer in the entirety of all that he is as a man and as a new man in Christ. Now I say by way of repetition that much harm and confusion has come by a failure to come to grips with this fact. There have been those (and they exist to this day) who so emphasize the activity of God as to lead to quietism and passivity. And some people take that teaching seriously. I did.
Well can I remember standing in front of the refrigerator at night (and I don't want you to laugh, because it isn't a laughing matter, and I'm not saying it to be funny) paralyzed as to whether or not I should take a glass of milk before I went to bed. Was it the indwelling Christ urging me to take that glass of milk, or was it carnal gluttony--paralyzed in front of the refrigerator. I spent hours on my face paralyzed to make a decision about what to preach because I wanted the indwelling Christ to choose my text. And I didn't want my carnal mind to get in the way. And so I kept pushing it into neutrality waiting for some kind of celestial fluttering to occur in the deep recesses of my thought processes so that I could stand confident that the indwelling Christ was preaching through me. Some of us took that teaching seriously, my friends. And it's a wonder we didn't end up in a nut house.
Christ living His life through you? There is not one verse in the New Testament that using that terminology. And that's what liberated me. I took my New Testament and my Greek Testament and I started in Matthew and went clean through Revelation. Paul says one time concerning his miraculous gifts as an apostle, "I will not speak of that which Christ wrought through me." That has nothing to do with the Christian life. There is not one text in the New Testament that says Christ lives through anyone. And that opened the door. He lives in us by the Spirit. And I discovered in Galatians 2:20 there's more I than Christ. "I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me [but in what way? Notice the next phrase]: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live...." I live that life, and all that makes me me in the full integrity of my humanity quickened by the grace of God, it is that "I" which lives this Christian life, but lives it in the context of faith, faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. And if we do not understand and come to grips with this fundamental issue, we are doomed to become vulnerable on many fronts with regard to the Christian life.
Very quickly now, let me trace out a few lines of thought which show that this is the predominant emphasis of the New Testament. Is there remaining sin to be mortified in this process? And I hope you answer intelligently, "Yes, there is." Now the question is, who is to mortify it? Christ or me? If I read my Bible rightly and understand a little bit of my Greek correctly, I'm told in Romans 8:13, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify [or put to death] the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Ye put to death by the Spirit? Yes! But the Spirit's activity does not negate my agency and my activity. In the process of sanctification, are there defilements of the flesh and the spirit to be put away? Then whose to put them away? Am I to say, "O Lord, put them away from me. Take them from me." No, no, 2 Corinthians 7:1 says, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." John gives the same emphasis in 1 John 3:3: "Every man that hath this hope in him [allows the Lord to purify him]." That isn't what the text says. It says, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."
So, if there is defilement; if there is to be the putting away, what did Jesus say? "If thy right hand offend thee, [pray that the Lord will put you to sleep and give you a painless amputation in some mystical experience of the indwelling Christ]." No! "If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee." "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee." Figurative language, yes, but the point is clear. We do the amputating, and we do the casting, not the Lord. You do it. And He says if you don't you'll go to hell. Read the passage. That's strong language, but that's the language of the Son of God; that's the language of the Apostle.
Is there a tendency for bodily appetites to get out of hand and lead us to sin? Notice, I did not say that the appetites are sin. But is there a tendency through the inherence of remaining sin with respect to bodily appetites? Is there a tendency for these things to get out of hand and jeopardize us spiritually? What are we to do? Paul gives us the example in 1 Corinthians 9:27. He says, "I keep under my body , and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be [adokimos]." And that doesn't mean put on a shelf. "Adokimos" in its standard usage in the eight times it occurs in the New Testament means reprobate (tried and found wanting, and therefore rejected). Paul says, "I keep my body under, lest in preaching to others, I should end up reprobate." Who keeps it under? He says, "I do it." "So fight I." He didn't say the Lord did it for him. He didn't say, "Lord, I've got a problem with getting up in the morning. Won't you please just come and gently stroke me on the cheek when I ought to get up and pray? Nothing too violent, Lord. I'm a sensitive character, you know." No, he says, "I buffet my body." Whatever that meant for him, he did it. And he used pretty graphic language in the original.
Are there positive graces to be cultivated and developed? Yes, Peter says in 2 Peter 1:5 and 6, "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance...." You say, "But I thought they were the fruit of the Spirit." Well, if you want one that blows your mind, what's the last of the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit? Self-control--and that brings it all together. Never is the fruit of the Spirit more active than when I am more active. For His activity is not given to negate mine but to secure it and make it efficacious.
Perhaps what is the classic text: Philippians 2:12-13. And as Mr. Aken has reminded you, so much of what we bring upon occasions such as these is biographical, whether we acknowledge it or not. This again is one of the texts that God used to liberate me from the bondage of quietism and passivity in the process of sanctification: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation...." He doesn't say work for your own justification. That would be a complete negation of everything in the immediate context in which he describes Christ going in the obedience of death to the cross that we might be justified. It would contradict everything in chapter 3 in which he says, "I have no desire but to have a righteousness that is found in Christ and Christ alone." No, he's says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Notice what the text says. I'll give you just of few of the principles quickly. God's working and our working in the outworking of salvation are coextensive. God's working is not suspended because we work, nor is our working suspended because He works. You work out with all seriousness because God is working in you. His working and your working are coextensive. His working does not negate ours, and ours does not negate His.
Second great principle: God's working is the incentive and motivation for our working. Why are we to work out with fear and trembling? Because (here's the rationale) it is God who is working in you, not to bypass your willing or working, but to secure it. He works in you not to negate your willing and working. That's what quietism and pietism and higher life teaching propagate. "Get so yielded that your will is out of the way." Paul says, "No, get working because your will is in the way of His working." And it's God who energizes the renewed will to make the choices that please Him and then gives us the power to perform them. God's working, then, is the incentive for our working. I need never fear that my working will outstrip His.
The third great principle is, our working is the only certain evidence of His working. If He works in me to will and to do of His good pleasure and I'm not willing and doing His good pleasure, what proof do I have that He's working in me? You see, the evidence of His working in me is that I'm willing and working that which is pleasing to Him.
Then the fourth great principle is, God's working is to be the focus of our trust. "Work out with fear and trembling." And it's as though the Philippians say, "But Paul, the issues are so great, and sin and the devil and the world are such massive and mighty enemies, how can we hope for success?" He says, "Let your comfort be that it is God in the glorious Trinity of His being who is at work in you. Let that be the focal point of your trust."
But the final principle is, let your working be the focal point of your effort. Work it out with fear and trembling. It's serious business being a Christian. It's serious business putting sin to death. It's serious business being conformed to the image of Christ. And I say, in those five principles which inhere in this text, there is a theology of the progress and process of sanctification that is so balanced and guarded from errors on the left hand and on the right.
I close with a choice quote from Kyper that speaks to this very issue and then one brief quote from John Owen:
"When we are called upon to speak or act or fight, we do so as though we were doing it ourselves, not perceiving that it is Another who works in us both to will and to do. But as soon as we finish the task successfully and agreeably to the will of God in Scripture, as men of faith we prostrate ourselves before Him and cry, 'Lord, the work was Thine as were the prayers in which we sought Thy help and the praises which we now render for what you have enabled us to do.'"
That's it. Kyper understood it. And John Owen in his classic work Volume 6--and I urge upon you to make this book your lifetime companion. If you want to make progress in the matter of putting sin to death and dealing with temptation, next to your Bible and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress nothing will be more helpful than Volume 6 of Owen. He says,
"He does not so work in our mortification as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, our wills, our consciences and affections agreeably to their own natures. He works in us and with us, not against us or without us so that His assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself."
That in turn spins out so many implications it will make your head swim. There's never any kind of wooden uniformity. You see, whenever people take the deeper, higher life seriously, they're all cut out of the same mold because their humanity is being negated by the passivity. Can you imagine me trying to preach when I believed that stuff? Anytime I felt an emotion coming, well, that was Al Martin; that was flesh. I've got to keep it down. Imagine me trying to talk in a monotone voice with my hands at my side. I took it seriously, folks. And when God was pleased in grace to show me a better way, O how liberating it was, not only with my glass of milk before I went to bed at night, but to proclaim the blessed Word of the living God, and to proclaim it the way God ordained it should be proclaimed in my redeemed humanity so that I'm fully me with a longing and a passion that He should be praised in the proclamation of His Truth.
These are some of the fundamental aspects of this process, my friends. Don't treat them lightly. We didn't get to the pattern. But you read Professor Murray; you can get all that material better said than I could say it anyway. But may God be pleased to write these things upon our hearts for our profit now and for the benefit our people who desperately need clear Biblical instruction in these aspects of practical Christian experience.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:30:07 GMT -5
Holiness: Its Nature, Part 3 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of conference message
PDF Format | More Transcripts
In a real sense, each message in this series is built upon the content of the previous message. And if you're here for the first time, there's a sense in which you'll have to hang everything on a skyhook because you've not been present to feel something of the cumulative effect of the previous expositions. However, I trust that you will not feel totally lost, but that there will be substantial content in the message complete in itself.
Having dealt with the necessity of holiness, and then moving on to the nature of holiness or Biblical sanctification viewed in its three dimensions (sanctification begun, continued, and completed), we then addressed ourselves to some cardinal perspectives relative to the nurture of sanctification, particularly in its progressive dimension. And what I propose to do tonight is to continue to amplify one aspect of progressive sanctification. If you've been listening carefully (and from the looks of many of your faces, I believe you have been doing that), you have noted that I have continually made reference to the fact that the process of sanctification has both a negative and a positive dimension. Negatively, there is the mortification of remaining sin. Positively, there is conformity to the image of Christ in terms of the cultivation of Christ-like graces. I want to speak to that negative aspect tonight and try to glean from the Word of God some principles that I trust will be of help to us in this great Biblical duty of mortifying or putting to death the deeds of the flesh. And the two key texts which set this duty before us are Romans 8:13 and the Colossians 3:5.
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And then we have the statement, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." This indicates in its context that being led by the Spirit in no little measure finds expression in putting to death by the Spirit the deeds of the body. And then in Colossians 3, we have a similar exhortation from the pen of the Apostle. Having reminded the Colossians believers of their great privileges by virtue of union with Christ, he then draws a deduction from that great privilege and says in verse 5, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." And so the duty of the mortification of sin is a duty which is laid upon all believers. There is no believer so advanced in grace who does not stand under solemn obligations with respect to the duty of mortification.
Furthermore, with most believers, some of the most critical problems in the process of sanctification arise from an inability to make any progress in the mortification of specific sins often dubbed our besetting sins. And it is our failure to make progress in those particular sins which cause us many times to go about, as it were, limping spiritually because our consciences smite us. Our spirits, as it were, feel the defilement of those particular sins. Our boldness in prayer is hampered. Our confidence in witness is often in great measure hindered because we are not making the progress we know we ought to make in dealing with certain areas of chronic failure which we know ought to yield to the progressive sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Those areas that can be likened to some of those pockets of resistance.
In some of the islands of the Pacific during the second World War (now I'm really dating myself by quoting such things, but nonetheless it was true), after the American troops had occupied certain islands, it was weeks or months before they could rid themselves of the plague of some of the enemy who had entrenched themselves in pillboxes and literally had to be burned out with flamethrowers. And so it is in our lives, even though we are very conscious that God in grace has broken the dominion of sin, and has raised the flag of conquest in our hearts, and has put us on the way of progressive sanctification. It seemed as though certain areas of sin had found a pillbox, often constructed of something that inheres in our constitutional makeup; often constructed of the formative influences of our early years and particular associations in life. But whatever the material, there in that pill box, there is an element of carnality, a deed of the flesh, an element that is contrary to the standard of God, and it seems to stand and mock us because of our inability to make progress in putting it to death.
Now unless there is something in the graciousness of Southern culture and in the peculiarity of Southern air which radically influences those realities, then you are already in your heart saying, "Pastor Martin, you're talking about me. I know what it is to have those pockets of resistance. And I long by the grace of God to make progress that hitherto I have never known." Well, my purpose tonight, under the blessing of God, is to try to set before you from the Scriptures some perspectives which if implemented by the enablement of the Spirit, may help you in the mortification of sin.
But then I have a second purpose in the way in which I am presenting material. I want to make you all--I was going to use the word "junkies," but that's too bad a term--but I do want to get you hooked on Owen. And I want to give you some choice quotes from Owen, Volume 6 that I hope will act as some well-chosen hors d'oeuvres after you haven't eaten for five or six hours, and will simply get all of your juices flowing and just make you anxious for the main course to be brought on. So I have that twofold end in view, and since this is a conference, and I do not regard the format of these lectures/sermons, whatever else you want to call them as being subject to the more normal and accepted standard of homiletics. I have no reservations whatsoever in telling you that that is my goal. And my method will be to quote quite frequently choice paragraphs out of Owen, something I would not normally do in an ordinary service of worship.
Well, then, if we are to make progress in this whole matter of the mortification of sin, let me say first of all, we must be in the proper context and have the proper tools. And according to both of these texts, unless we are in vital union with Jesus Christ, we are not in the context in which the mortification of sin is possible. It is only the regenerate man or woman who has the tools to mortify sin. The Apostle says in Romans 8:13, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And it is only if you are indwelt by the Spirit and thereby vitally joined to Jesus Christ, so that out of the virtue of Christ and all of those redemptive privileges that are in Him, that you can make progress in this work. Unless you are in Him, then you cannot make any true progress in Biblical mortification. Or in the terms of the Colossians 3 passage, it is only those who have been raised together with Christ and are seated with Christ, whose life is hid with Christ in God who are commanded, "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth."
So if I speak tonight to men or women, boys or girls who know nothing of being vitally joined to Jesus Christ--you have a head full of notions about the Son of God and His salvation, but your heart is devoid of any true actings of repentance and faith--let me urge you at the outset to consider that you cannot make any true progress in dealing with the very sins that will damn you and destroy you until you first of all flee to that fountain open to sin and uncleanness and embrace "[that] faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." But now, assuming--and I trust it is not baseless presumption--that many if not most of you are in union with Christ, let us then proceed to consider some of those principles that must be operative if we are to make progress in the mortification of sin.
Principle number one is this (and here, those of you who are familiar with Owen will recognize a ring of Owen's language): we must keep the heart well-supplied with Gospel motives. Now, when I use the term Gospel motives, I mean motives that derive from a believing enjoyment of the privileges of the Gospel as opposed to mere legal motives; that is, motives that pertain to God's rights as lawgiver and the results of defying those rights. Legal principles and motives would be such as pertain to the danger of apostasy and the pains of hell. But Gospel motives are those motives that are attached to a believing reception of the good news of salvation in Christ (His love to us, and in turn, our love to Him), such motives as are reflected in the language of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:14 in which he says, "For the love of Christ constraineth us...." Christ's love to me, understood in some dimension by the illumination of the Spirit and believingly received into the heart, acts as a holy constraint upon the great Apostle.
The Apostle mentions similar motivation in Philippians 1 in that well-known text: "For to me to live is Christ...." Or in Philippians 3 where he outlines his great spiritual ambitions in the words, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings...." It is those perspectives and motives that derive directly from the great realities of God's salvation in Jesus Christ which are the most powerful incentives to the killing of our sin.
Jesus said, "If a man love Me, he will keep My commandments." Not only is it God's love in Christ that forms part of that complex of redemptive motivation, it is to be found in the reality of the gift of the Spirit. When Paul is dealing with the tacky problem of immorality at Corinth, you'll notice how he plants this doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit right in the middle of his treatment of the sordid sin of fornication. He says, "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost...?" He introduces the doctrine of union with Christ. He says, "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid." You see what he's doing? He's seeking to arm the Corinthians with Gospel principles and motives in their warfare against the sin of fornication. He does not hold over them in that context the frightening possibility dealt with earlier, that anyone who continues in a course of immorality has no right to claim he's a member of the kingdom of God. But he presses Gospel motives upon their consciences.
Men are able to step over legal motives day after day in the pursuit of their sins. But in the language of John Newton, it's when a bleeding Savior we have viewed that then we hate our sins. And if you and I are to make progress in the mortification of our sins, the putting to death the deeds of the body, we must guard our hearts in the language of Proverbs 4:23: "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." And we must guard our hearts to make sure that they are kept, as it were, pulsating with Gospel motives and with those great principles that flow out of the privileges that are ours in Jesus Christ.
Now if we are convinced of that truth, then it will have a twofold practical influence upon our lives. On the one hand, we will take seriously every public and private means ordained of God to keep Gospel motives fresh and burning in our hearts. What are the means God has ordained to keep Gospel motives burning in our hearts? Well, there are the private means of secret prayer; the secret, private reflective reading of the Word of God. There are the public means of coming to the fellowship of God's people and the proclamation of His Word, and coming to His table where again and again what is set before us: "This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till He come."
Our Lord knew that to the extent that Gospel motives permeated our hearts, to that extent, and to that extent alone, would we walk well-pleasing in His sight. And so, if you and I are determined to obey the command of God to put to death the deeds of the flesh, and if we are convinced that it is only in the context of the heart feeling the weight and pressure as well as the joy of Gospel motives which becomes the spring of obedience in this duty, then we will be very persnickety about private and public means of grace. We will be willing to be called pietistic when we feel twinges of conscience about secret prayer that has been missed for a day.
It's become very popular in many reformed circles in which I move (and when people begin to understand the liberty that is theirs in Christ, and that we do not live by man's rules which say you must have a halve house quiet time and all the rest) to have a very cavalier attitude to the matter of the private means of grace. But when you realize that it is ordained of God that secret prayer should be the context in which the Lord Himself draws nigh to us in a peculiar way as we draw near to Him (and that's Biblical language), then you will allow your consciences to become sensitive about consistency in the secret place. Because the man, woman, boy, or girl who is insensitive to that means of grace by degrees will find Gospel realities and Gospel motives slipping away from the center of his/her heart. We will be careful about the public means of grace where the blessings of the new covenant in Christ are announced and reiterated in preaching and prayer week by week as we are brought back again and again to the central issues of the Gospel.
Then the second practical effect this will have is this: it will cause us to beware of anything which bleeds off the vigor and reality of Gospel principles from our hearts. There may be certain associations, certain television programs, certain forms of conversation that are not sinful in themselves. But if you find they make Christ less precious, the blood of His covenant less dear, the reality of His claims over you less vigorous, you'll avoid those things as much as you'll avoid those things that are patently and obviously wicked even in the eyes of the unconverted. Why? Because you are determined to make progress in this matter of putting to death the deeds of the flesh. And you know that you cannot and will not make progress unless your heart is well-furnished with Gospel motives, feeling constantly the wonder of His love to you in Christ; feeling the amazement in the language of Ephesians 4, that the Holy Spirit indwells you, and you are sealed unto the day of redemption. That text comes right in the midst of an exhortation to put off the petty kinds of sins that wreck and ruin and split churches and drive pastors to early graves. He's speaking of wrangling and anger and bitterness and unforgiveness. And in the midst of that he says, "And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption"--Gospel motives!
You will find all the way through the New Testament in the most vigorously ethical passages out leap these tremendous statements of Gospel privilege. I underscored that with regard to those two statements in Titus 2:11-14 and 3:5-7. Right in the midst of one of the most practical and ethical portions of all the Word of God--what is Paul doing? He's arming them to deal with these matters in terms of Gospel motives and Gospel principles.
But then there is a second exhortation I would give you if you would make progress in this matter, and it is this: keep your conscience sensitive to the guilt and danger of your own specific sins. The battle against remaining sin is difficult enough when you're looking your enemies square in the eye and you know they are your enemies. But if you begin to look upon them as mere neutral observers or even your friends, the battle is lost.
As long as you're facing that spirit of envy--and in a group this size, surely there's a man or woman whose besetting sin is envy or jealousy, sins that are not placard before the community when you indulge them, not like immorality, not like thievery, not like drunkeness, but sins that God puts in the same list with thievery, drunkeness, lechery, and every from of sexual impurity. You wrestle with that matter of envy and jealousy; you can't rejoice in the gifts God gives to others; you cannot with joy abandon yourself in praise to God when you see His blessing falling upon another in a way in which it has not fallen upon you. How in the world are you going to make progress? Well, my friend, as long as you're looking at your envy straight in the eye and calling it what it is, dealing with it in terms of what God calls it, and seeking to bring your conscience to feel continually both the guilt and the danger of that sin, you're in a position to make progress in dealing with it. The minute you begin to rationalize, and envy is no longer that green wicked monster, which God says is conceived in hell itself, and you begin to look at it as some rather indistinct, nondescript passer-by who happens once in a while to pop up and say, "hello" in your heart, you'll not make any progress. If you suddenly felt an impulse to fornicate with your neighbor's husband, as a Godly wife, I trust, the first thought of that would cause you to be filled with horror. Until you begin to treat envy the same way, you won't make any progress in dealing with it.
You say, "Well, Pastor Martin, how do we bring the conscience to that point of being sensitive concerning the guilt and danger of our specific sins? Owen's counsel is wise and Biblical. We do it in two ways: bring that sin to the law in all of its purity, and bring it to the Gospel in all of its glory. Bring that sin to the law in all of its purity. What is the God-ordained function of the law? Well, let the Apostle Paul tell us as he speaks to Timothy who has to charge certain men not to misuse the law. And here God overrules heresy to bring out positive teaching. We read in 1 Timothy 1:3-11,
"As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man [when you find a perfectly righteous man, one who perfectly meets the standard of righteousness set by God, the law has no function with respect to exposing him], but for the lawless and disobedient [he starts on the out perimeter of what we would call blatant obvious sins], for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust."
You see what he says? The law is ordained of God to expose sin as sin wherever sin is present, all the way from the gross sins of the unregenerate Gentiles to the refined sins of Gospel hearers. And therefore, it is our duty as the people of God to bring our sins to the blazing light of that law which is holy and spiritual and good, because it reflects the unchanging character of Him who is holy and spiritual and good in His very essence. John Owen, speaking to this very issue, says on page 57 of his treatise on the subject of mortification (words that pointedly underscore this very principle), "This is the proper work of the law: to discover sin in the guilt of it, and to awake and humble the soul for it, to be a glass to represent sin's colors. [Now note.] And if thou deniest to deal with it on this account, it is not through faith but through the hardness of thy heart and the deceitfulness of sin." In his day, there were those who said, "O no, come to the faith of the Gospel. The law has no more function with me." Owen, as a wise pastor (and remember, these treatises were not concocted for the professors at large, but for pleading hungry sheep as a pastor preaches) says,
"This is a door that too many professors have gone out at unto open apostasy. Such a deliverance from the law they have pretended, as that they would consult with its guidance and direction no more; they would measure their sin by it no more. By little and little this principle hath insensibly, from the notion of it, proceeded to influence their practical judgments, and having taken possession there, hath turned the will and affections loose to all manner of abominations."
We must seek to bring our sins to the light of the law in all of its purity. Have you gotten beyond periodically reading the Sermon on the Mount with a view that you would see your own besetting sins in the light of our Lord's searching exposition of the full intent of the holy law of God. No wonder you're not making progress. Because your conscience is not pressured with a sense of the guilt of that sin as contrary to the holiness and righteousness of God as reflected in His own holy law.
But you must not stop there. You must bring your sin to the Gospel in all of its glory. And what do I mean by that? Simply this: bring that particular sin--I mentioned the sin of envy; let's stick with it--bring that envy to Gethsemene. And then meditate upon that passage in which our Lord sees that cup and what's presented in that cup, and He cries out, "O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." What was the cup? It was that cup full of the fury of the Almighty against the sins of His people, a cup that could not pass until He drained the last dark drop. Gaze upon that cup. See your envy as part of its conflict. See your envy pressing sweat drops from His holy brow. See your envy causing Him to stagger like a drunken man until He falls to the earth, and God must send an angel to strengthen Him. March with your envy to Pilot's judgment hall. Behold it in His spattered dignity. Behold it in the shrouded heaven. Listen to your envy when it echoes with the piercing cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Now will you bring your envy to the glory of the Gospel; to the agonies and sufferings of Christ and to the wonder that He forever put away all of our sins? If your conscience cannot be made sensitive to the danger and guilt of your sins in the blazing light of those realities, my friend, you are in a frightening posture. You and I must constantly seek the conscience sensitive to the greatness and the danger of our own specific sins. Behold their guilt in the light and the purity of the law and the glory of the Gospel.
But what is the great danger of those sins that remain as pockets of resistance, and we seem to make so little progress in their mortification? There are great dangers in them. The first great danger is the danger of a hardened heart. Listen to the language of Hebrews 3, that book in which it is my own conviction that the warnings are not appendixes to the doctrine of instruction. But the doctrine of instruction is but the foundation of the great warnings which forms, as it were, the pinnacle of the pastoral burden of this letter. And we read in verses 12 and 13 these very searching words: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."
And then as though someone says in a cavalier way, "Well, so what if I'm hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? Once in grace, always in grace." And then one of the most powerful statements of perseverance follows. Look at verse 14: "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end." And no man can hold firmly to the confidence of an acceptance in Christ who by degrees gives himself over to hardness of heart. Gospel faith and free pardon are always joined to Gospel efforts to progressive sanctification. And no little part in that process is avoiding hardness of heart. Slight thoughts of sin will always be joined to slight thoughts of God, of Christ, and of the blood of the covenant; heaven and hell will become distant.... May God grant that we shall fear a hard heart above all else that we fear.
And there is, of course, the danger of temporal correction from the Lord if we do not deal with those sins. Psalm 89:30-33 or the New Testament parallel in 1 Corinthians 11: "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." People have from time to time said to my wife, "Mrs. Martin, how can you let your husband go off to speak here and there...." You know what her stock answer is? She says, "Look, he's the Lord's property, and if I ever mess around with that, I fear what God will do to me." I thank God for a wife who has that perspective. She says, "I have enough fear of God's rod that I don't mess around with God's prophet." Now my responsibility is to be sensitive to her needs, to nourish and cherish her, and to govern the time I'm away from home by my duties as a husband and a father. And I seek by God's grace to do that, though I'm sure my efforts are stained with sin and failure. But you see the principle? A wholesome fear of God's temporal chastisement keeps the conscience sensitive, not only to the guilt but to the dangers of your sin. There's a sense in which if you go on and indulge in that sin, you're provoking God to speak harshly by the law of correction.
Then the third great principle: if we would make progress in this matter of putting to death our remaining sin, we must not only keep the heart well-supplied with Gospel motives, keep the conscience sensitive to the guilt and danger of sin, but (and this sounds so obvious, but pastoral experience has taught me never to assume that people understand, or if they understand, remember the obvious) avoid the known occasions and provocations to your particular sins. Jesus said in Matthew 26:41, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation."
If you're allergic to feathers and to flowers; if they produce in you as they do in me a reaction of wheezing and sneezing and redness of eyes, you've have sense enough when you're speaking at your retreat not to enter into the pillow fights. And when the pillow fight starts, you know that you're going to have to sleep out in the back of your station wagon. Where pillows and feathers are, you aint. Now, anyone who has been an asthmatic and knows what it is wheeze and feel his heart pounding as he tries to suck in enough oxygen to exist, a pillow fight is not a lark to such a person. For the great principle applies experience.
If experience is so new that certain company, certain television programs, certain patterns of relationships and attitudes and actions leave you either particularly vulnerable to your sin or it inevitably leads you to commit your besetting sin, until you are serious about avoiding the known occasions and provocations to sin, your not serious about dealing with the sin itself. Here Owen again speaks with such pastoral insight: "He that dares to dally with occasions to sin will dare to sin. He that will venture upon temptations to wickedness will venture upon wickedness itself." Isn't the book of Proverbs full of this perspective? The writer of Proverbs speaks to his son and says, "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." It's not an admonition to avoid wickedness. He says enter not into the very path of wickedness.
This is where the matter of holy violence that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 9 enters; where our Lord's vigorous teachings of the plucking out of right eyes and the cutting off of right hands enters. And in our soft, flabby age, it's so contrary to us. I've seen people moan and groan for years that they wasted too much time and that they were making so little progress in the use of their time. And when I questioned them, "What is it that erodes your valuable use of time?" They'd say, "It is my addiction to the television." I'd answer, "If you can't master it, get rid of it." And they'd put it in the closet. They cut off the right hand, but they hadn't cast it from them. They're waiting for the right opportunity to do a little reconnecting.
I venture to say in a group this size, there are some of you who simply do not have the necessary discipline essential to govern the television set; to say at the end of the week, "O God, this instrument has been used to Your glory and to Your glory alone. And for this, I give You thanks. In the Savior's name, amen." If you possess a television, you ought to be able to do that at the end of any week. And if you cannot so govern its use as to do that, get rid of it. "But I won't be up-to-date on the news." Who cares. It's so biased and slanted by the television media (what your getting) there's not much of it fact anyway. There are other ways to accumulate information that will keep you in touch with the real world. I'm not advocating monastic retreat. But I am advocating that there's something more important than being known as Mr. up-to-date-on-the-news man. And that more important issue is the issue of putting to death the inordinate and unwise indulgence of time in watching the television.
Now don't anyone make the mistake that because I made specific application to envy and TV, those are the two great sins. No, no, please, I'm only making specific application of the principles because if I don't, it's seldom that the people of God will make any specific application.
You most avoid the known occasions and provocations to sin. Some of you have a quick temper. God gave you a short fuse, and you're like certain firearms that I've fired. As I was coming up on the target and just beginning to squeeze--pow! off they went--a very hair-precious trigger. Well, God put some of you together that way. And you know what provokes you to unusual vulnerability? When you don't get your full allotment of sleep. Well, knowing that, my friend, you've got to exercise the discipline of adequate adjustment of your schedule to get sufficient rest. And no amount of praying and fasting and crying to God for deliverance from these outbursts of passion is going to be a substitute for holy watchfulness with regard to your sleep schedule.
For some of you, your biggest downfall is that little instrument that is attached to the wall. Up in our area, all of them are owned by Bell Telephone Company. More sin has been committed by many a church member by means of a telephone than all the whore houses in the county; than all the sin mills in the county, especially when you've got a long cord on your phone, and you can carry on all your housework while gabbing for three hours.
You called up so and so; you had a good reason to do so, to discuss a certain item. Your business was over in a minute and a half, but you felt embarrassed simply to say, "Well, Jane, that's all I wanted to say," or "Well, Mary, that's all I have to say. We look forward to seeing you in church on the Lord's Day." And you just began to ramble, and from rambling, there was, "Did you here?" And from the "Did you hear?" there was downright slander and gossip and blatant violation of the 9th commandment. You picked up false witness; you propagated false witness. You were blatantly and openly violating the 9th commandment 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes. And when you were done, you felt dirty--dirty!
For years you had become a garbage can for gossip. And your tongue had become the instrument that it poured the same into your friend's ears. And your heart was smitten, and you asked the Lord to forgive you, and you asked your sister and your brother in the Lord to forgive you. But what did you do? Next week almost the same time, the same place, and the same circumstances, you did it again.
Well, if you see a pattern, you go to that sister or brother and say, "Look, my telephone conversations with you are the occasion of sin, and this must stop. I'm too weak to enter into general conversation with you. Would you please not think ill of me if when we talk on the phone, I seem to be abrupt in cutting off the conversation." You say, "Pastor Martin, that's ridiculous." Not if you're seeking to be holy and by the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the flesh, avoiding the known occasions and provocations to sin.
In a group this size, I'd be willing to bet (and the odds, I bet, would be pretty high) there are men who are addicted to pornography in the state of that filth that is in every public place. And again, out of pastoral experience, I would be greatly surprised if someone's heart is not beating faster, and he feels the redness creeping up the back of his neck. "Honey, I'm just going down to the drugstore to get some toothpaste." It's strange how you always make your way by the magazine rack, O not to buy, but just to look long enough to know how terrible it is, so when you preach about it, you can preach with conviction.... You're thumbing through those magazines because they answer to something base in your own corruption. And you'll not make any progress in mortifying that sin until you avoid the known occasions of sin. You don't go to the drugstore alone. You take one of your kids with you. You say, "That's ridiculous." Not if you're determined to be a holy man.
Avoid the known occasions and provocations to sin, or you'll violate the Biblical commandment to watch as well as to pray. Or in the language of 1 Corinthians 6, "Flee fornication." Paul doesn't say stand around and pray about it. And he uses the general word for sexual impurity. He says flee it. Sins of that nature you don't get close enough to begin to debate with them. Passion has never lost a debate yet. It will debate down the most powerful Gospel arguments. Don't ever enter into a debate with it. Be like a Joseph who at the first tangible expression of the overtures of any uncleanness runs.
Well, my time is gone. Let me just give you the two other headings I had hoped to open up, And if you get Owen, you get it all and much more. And I have no shares in the outfit that prints it. But let me give you two other principles. Strike at the first risings of sin. James 1:14 and 15 says, "But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Seek to prevent the conception. At the first approach of that which is seeking to enter into that unholy alliance with your own remaining sin, don't allow that embrace. When you do, there'll be conception. And when there's conception, there's birth. The whole analogy between conception and birth is prominent in the language of James in James 1. Strike at the first risings of sin, because there is no sin, which if it had its way, would not carry us to its ultimate expression. The first risings of anger would result in murder if it could.
And then the last principle: continually look to Christ for the killing of your sin. Ultimately it is the death of Christ alone that is the death to our sin. Be convinced that there is provision in the death of Christ, not only for the pardon of your sin, but for the conquering of that sin, for the putting to death of that sin. That's the great teaching we saw today of Romans 6. And then constantly raise your eyes to expect deliverance from Christ and Christ alone. As we contemplated this afternoon, feed much upon the reality of His intercession and His advocacy and all of His gracious part in the process of sanctification. In the language of Hebrews 12, we are to lay aside every weight and sin which does so easily beset us all in the context of looking oft unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
O, may God help us to implement with some degree of efficiency under the power of the Spirit these simple but basic principles, that we may, by the grace of God, make progress in this great teaching of putting to death the deeds of the flesh. "Mortify thy members which are upon the earth." For we will make little progress in the cultivation of positive graces of Christ-likeness if there are these sins eating at the vitals of our spiritual life. May we look to Christ and draw from Him the necessary grace to make progress in this vital dimension of progressive sanctification.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:32:14 GMT -5
The Fear of God: Predominance in Biblical Thought by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached June 7, 1970
PDF Format | More Transcripts
For a rather lengthy period of time, I have been toying with the thought of bringing some messages on one of the great and dominant themes of Holy Scripture, one concerning which there is almost total silence in our day, a theme which was a great theme of our forefathers in their thinking and in their preaching. And it's interesting, when one would describe one of our forefathers who was marked by unusual Godliness, they would use even this particular term to describe him. He would be described as a God-fearing man. And it's that theme of the fear of God that I wish to set before you in Scripture in these next few Lord's Day mornings. One mature and very Scripturally astute man of God has said that the fear of God is the very soul of Godliness. The emphasis in both the Old and New Testaments requires no less significant a proposition. Take away the soul from the body and all you have left is in a few days is a stinking carcass. Take away the fear of God from any expression of Godliness and all you have left is the stinking carcass of Phariseeism and barren religiosity. And so in order to think our way through, at least in an introductory way to this theme, we shall this morning seek to grasp something of the predominance of this concept of the fear of God in Biblical thought. Then we shall move on next Lord's Day morning to consider the meaning of the fear of God, the essential elements of the fear of God, and then last of all, some of the practical effects of the fear of God.
This morning then, the focus of our study will be on the predominance of the fear of God in Biblical thought. Now one does not need a great measure of learning to be able to do what I'm going to do this morning. In fact, armed with a relatively good concordance and about an hour's time, you could pretty well lay out the study that I'm going to lay out before you. Or if you took your concordance and looked up the word "fear," you would notice that no fewer than 150 to 175 times there are distinct, explicit references to the fear of God. If you add to these explicit references to the fear of God all the instances in Scripture where you have the fear of God illustrated, though not explicitly stated, it is accurate to say that the references to the fear of God, both in explicit statements of the fear of God and of clear examples of the fear of God, number into the hundreds.
Now isn't it amazing that a theme so dominant in the Old and the New Testament, a theme which comes before us dozens and dozens of times, can be either on the one hand become so completely overlooked, or on the other hand so shallowly and so carelessly handled so that the average Christian, when you asked him what is the fear of God, he throws back at you a little cliche that he heard in Sunday school years ago: the fear of God is reverential awe. And he says, "Now let's get on with a more important theme." Well, I trust that after this morning, as we seek to grasp something of the predominance of this theme, that none of you will be content with a mere cursory knowledge or acquaintance of this theme, the fear of God. I hope you will not be content to just parrot a little phrase "reverential awe" and think that's the sum and substance of the teaching of Scripture on this theme.
Now with such a large number of references, I can only hope this morning to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. And so I've tried to be qualitatively selective in pulling out of the Old Testament 13 references and out of the New Testament 10 references to the fear of God. I say I have sought to be qualitatively selective. That is, rather than just select passages at random, I have tried to select those which would contribute some of the most pivotal aspects of the Biblical thought concerning the fear of God. So then, fasten your seatbelt if you will, because we're going to move this morning literally from Genesis to Revelation, though we're not going to stop in every book along the way.
Genesis 31 is perhaps one of the most significant passages in all of Scripture concerning this matter of the predominance of the fear of God in Biblical thought. In verse 42, we read: "Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty." Notice a similar reference in verse 53 of the same chapter: "The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. And Jacob sware by the fear of his father Isaac." God's name is a revelation of His character. God gave an increasing understanding of who He was by the accumulation of the names by which He identified Himself and through which He revealed Himself to His people. And here one of the names attached to God as a revelation of His character is the fear of Issac. In other words, when God is rightly apprehended, having true Biblical fear of Him is so much a part of a right response to the revelation of His character that He calls Himself the fear of Isaac. Therefore, if my apprehension of God and my comprehension of God does not lead me to fear Him as Isaac did, I have not rightly understood who God is. He identifies Himself as the fear of Isaac.
Then turn over to the book of Exodus where we have the record of Moses' problem in seeking to administer single handedly the entire nation of Israel in terms of the many needs that would come up that needed some judgment of a mature mind. And you remember the suggestion made by Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, that he share this oversight, that he was not up to it doing it by himself. And so they're going to select men that will be used as Moses' representatives to help make judgments with regards to the specific problems that would arise in the life of the nation of Israel. When the requirements are given for those who will fill this role as judges in Israel, Exodus 18:21 says, "Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens." Of all the requirements that could be thought of for men to administer justice in so mighty a nation as this nation had now become, set at the very pinnacle place of importance is that they must be men who fear God. Whatever other qualities they have or may not have, if they are not men whose primary characteristic is the fear of God, they are not qualified for this significant role of the administration of justice and the solving of problems within the nation of Israel.
Then turning over to Exodus 20, we have another very pivotal reference. For in this chapter God, is stating the whole end for which He is giving this unusual revelation of His mind and will in the Ten Commandments and doing it in the manner in which He did. You remember, there was thunder and lightening on top of the mount, and God Himself drew near that mountain in the giving of this revelation. And here in verse 20, we have a statement as to why God is so revealing Himself to His people: "And Moses said unto the people, Fear not [that is, don't be afraid with that carnal dread and fear]: for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not." If you were to stand off at a distance and see the lightening flashing off the top of Mount Sinai; you were to see the decent of the cloud and hear the rumbling of the thunder and stand there full of natural dread; if you were to turn to someone and say, "What is all this? Why is God bringing about all this phenomena in the physical realm?" The answer would be: He's doing this to rid you of carnal fear and to teach you holy fear. The whole end of His drawing near in this way is that His fear may be before you. We see then the great significance of this concept when in this verse the fear of God is set before us as the primary reason for this unusual manifestation of the presence of God upon Mount Sinai. And the parallel passage to this is found in Deuteronomy 4:9-10:
"Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children."
"The whole end," God says, "for which I drew near to you and gave this revelation is that you might learn My fear." Therefore, to be exposed to this revelation of God for this unfolding of His mind and not to learn His fear is to miss the whole purpose for which all of this was given. It's a pretty central issue then, isn't it? So much of the whole Old Testament revelation clusters around the giving of the law. And the whole purpose of the giving of the law was to teach His fear. To miss, then, what the fear of God is is to be utterly blinded to much of what God is saying in this great section of His holy Word.
Now then, we turn to the book of Job. We turn here from God's dealing with a nation to teach them His fear to a description of an Old Testament saint, one of whom God speaks, not like the Pharisee who boasts of his own attainments in supposed grace, but one of whom God speaks and boasts of the attainments in grace. And how does God describe the piety of this man Job? Chapter 1, verse 1: "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright [there was the outward expression of his life. What was the inward soul of that life?], and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." The first few words are a description of his outward bearing. This is, as it were, the body of a Godly man. And then He tells us that the soul of that Godliness was that He feared God. This thought is underscored again in verse 8: "And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" The soul of his external piety was this inwardness of the fear of His God. Verse 9: "Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?" He says, "Ah, yes, you say that the fear of Your name is the soul of his Godliness, but he has some other motive other than Your glory." Then the whole story unfolds as God is going to vindicate His claims on behalf of His servant Job. So we see, then, that the essence of Job's piety and God's estimation of all true piety is that it is suffused with this fear of God.
Now turn over to the Psalms. Remember, all we're trying to do is, by a qualitative selectivity, show in the Old Testament the centrality of the fear of God. Now in the Psalms, there are dozens of references to the fear of God, and again, we select only several. In the second Psalm, we have the command issued in verse 11. In the light of God's exaltation of His Son, God says (backing up to verse 10): "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings : be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling." He says, "In the light of what I've done with reference to My Son and the pivotal place to which I've assigned Him, the only right response is service that is carried out in the context of Godly fear. "Serve the Lord with fear." We're warranted, then, in saying that if our view of Christ and His exaltation by the decree of the Father is not such as to bring us to a place of service in the climate of Godly fear, we have not rightly understood nor responded to the exaltation of the Son by the decree of the Father.
Then in Psalm 5:7: "But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy: and in Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple." Not only is all acceptable service carried out in the climate of Godly fear, but even as we approach God in the fullest consciousness of His mercy and His love, it is never a consciousness of mercy and love divorced from the climate of Godly fear. Notice how David ties these two together: "But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy...." He says, "I will come fully conscious that God's love is like the ocean."
A few weeks ago, we stood beside the Cardiganshire Bay in Aberystwyth, Wales, and we thought of that illustration that was conveyed to us by a missionary who, when having talked with one of the natives that had gone to the coast of Africa for the first time and seen the great cities and all the rest, was asked upon his return, "What impressed you most?" Instead of talking about buildings and automobiles and locomotives, he said, "The sea." Why the sea? He said, "Because it's like the mighty love of God: ever stretching out before me but ever coming towards me." That's something of what David said. Seeing the love and mercy of God like a sea stretching out before him as far as the eye could see, yet ever breaking toward him as the waves break upon the shore. He says, "But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy: and in Thy fear will I worship toward Thy holy temple." Therefore, no worship, no matter how deep may be the consciousness of divine love, is acceptable unless it is worship in the climate of Godly fear.
Then turn over to Psalm 67, one of those Gospel Psalms which has as its vision the proclamation of the message of saving mercy to the ends of the earth, the Psalmist pleading that God's mercy will be to him and to God's covenant people to the end (v. 2) "that Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations." And what will be the result of God's saving message going out to the nations? Verse 7: "God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." In other words, the whole end for which the Gospel goes out through God's covenant people is to teach the nations the fear of God. That's a pretty central issue, isn't it? If God's blessing upon His people that they in turn may bring blessing to others is expressed in terms of purpose in these very words, "God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him," then this is no peripheral issue when it stands so central in the thinking of the Psalmist.
You have a parallel passage in Psalm 72 where this same extension of the Gospel is seen under the figure of the reign of the righteous King. And, of course, that righteous King is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. The type of that reign in righteousness, of course, was Solomon, the fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ. And what will be the result of the Lord Jesus administering that kingship in power by virtue of His exaltation to the right hand of the Father? Verse 5: "They shall fear Thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations." The result of Christ's kingship exercised over the hearts of men is to bring men into the fear of God.
Now turn over to Psalm 103. And here in this Psalm, there are several references to the fear of God. And basically what they have in common is this: they teach us that an indispensable characteristic of the people of God is that they fear Him so much so that when you wanted to describe the people of God, you could do so by using as a synonym "those who fear God." Notice how the Psalmist does it in verse 11, 13, and 17. Verse 11: "For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him." This idea that God's redemptive love is just some kind of a general gushy benevolence that is focused upon all men is not the teaching of holy Scripture. Here the Psalmist says that His mercy is upon them that fear Him. His peculiar love is upon His people. And who are His people? Those who fear Him. No fear of Him, no mercy. Down again in verse 13: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear Him." He uses as a synonym for "His children" "them that fear Him." No fear of Him, no right to claim that I'm under the canopy of redemptive love (v. 11); no right to claim that I'm one of His children (v. 13). In the whole thinking of Hebrew parallelism, you have this often in the Psalms and in other poetic writings. This is used interchangeably with the concept of child. "The LORD pitieth them that fear Him." Verse 17: "But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him...." So then the Psalmist conceives of the people of God as those who are in every instance marked by this characteristic of the fear of God.
And then Proverbs 1:7. As this book of Proverbs is going to come to us giving wise counsel with a manifold purpose (you read about it in verses 2-6), Solomon then says at the very beginning of his discourse, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning [chief part] of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction." Learning, then, the fear of God is not only the ABC from which we move on to DEFGHIJKLMN--from little words to big words as you kids will do once you learn the alphabet. And you would say, "learning my ABCs was the beginning of learning how to spell." But it is the chief part, just as the use of the alphabet is something that is not left but becomes the chief part of all your learning so that when a man is studying the most complicated book on far out physics, he's dealing with the same numbers he learned in kindergarten and first grade and with the same letters he learned. Now there could be arrangements of them that we look and scratch our heads and say it looks like a cat ran through there with ink on its paws (all the equations and the rest). But he's working with the same numbers 1-10 and letters A-Z. So then, the fear of the Lord is the chief part of knowledge. Not only the beginning, but that which permeates all accumulation of heavenly knowledge is the fear of God. Lose that, and God says you're not learning true wisdom. So it's a pretty important thing, isn't it?
Then we turn to the book of Ecclesiastes. And we listen to this man who surveyed all the possible avenues down which a man may go to find the meaning of life, to find satisfaction in life, some of those paths that some of you are contemplating. And right now they seem pretty sweet paths as they did in the beginning to this man until he went down to the end of every one of those paths and saw that it was nothing but vanity and vexation. Then he comes to this conclusion in chapter 12 and verse 13: "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter [here's the true meaning of life]: fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." What is the summary of the totality of man's duty? How is the true meaning of life to be found? Fear God and keep His commandments.
Well then, we move on into the Prophets. And it was difficult to be selective here. And I thought perhaps one of the best things to do would be to take the prophecy in the book of Isaiah, chapter 11. Here we have a beautiful prophecy of Messiah who should come out of the stock of Jesse. Verses 1-3a:
"And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD; and shall make Him of quick understanding [His delight shall be] in the fear of the LORD."
Here is an explicit statement that when the Spirit would come upon Messiah as He came upon Him in the waters of Jordan, He would come upon Him not only as the Spirit of might and power by which He raised the dead, unstopped the deafened ears, and loosened the dumb tongue, but that Spirit should be upon Him as the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. And the one aspect of that Spirit's ministry which is enlarged upon in verse 3 is that very concept, "His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord." So then, the dominant aspect of Messiah's own character is that He should walk and live and move and delight in the fear of the Lord.
Then in Jeremiah 32, as Jeremiah speaks of that new covenant which Messiah should bring to pass by His own suffering and death, that covenant sealed and ratified by the blood of Christ and expounded in Hebrews 8 and 10 in which passages there is a quotation from Jeremiah 31 and 32 and also from Ezekiel 36. Look at what God says to the prophet concerning what will happen by virtue of the blessings of the new covenant being brought to men. Verses 38-40:
"And they shall be My people, and I will be their God: and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear Me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me."
God says, "The whole end for which I will work in such power in this new covenant is to so put My fear within the hearts of My people that they will not turn away from Me." Do you claim to be one who sits here this morning a benefactor of the blessings of the new covenant? Do you frequent the Lord's table where you take the outward symbols of the blood of that covenant? God says if you have inwardly partaken of the benefits of that covenant, one of the dominant characteristics of your life will be that you are held by the fear of God. And if you're a stranger to that fear, my friend, you're a stranger to the blessings of the new covenant; you're yet in your sins; you're under the wrath of Almighty God. For every time the benefits of the new covenant are applied with power by the Spirit, it is in such a way that God says, "I'll put My fear in their hearts." So this is a central theme, then, of the great theme of the new covenant.
And then the last Old Testament reference: Malachi 4:2. Here we have the picture of that coming day when Messiah shall come forth in judgment on all His enemies to consume them. And that same day that brings the consuming of the wicked will bring the full and final glorification of the people of God. So we read in verses 1-2:
"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. [But this will not be the case with all men. In that day when He will come as a refiner's fire; in that day when He shall come to consume His enemies, there will not only be enemies to consume, but there will be another class of people.] But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings...."
The only people who will escape the fiery wrath of Christ at His second coming are those who fear Jehovah's name. That's a pretty central issue, isn't it? You say, "Who will escape His wrath in that day? All who have made decisions?" No. "All who have made professions?" No. "All who fear His name?" Yes, and only they. So we see, then, in the light of these thirteen references taken from the dozens and dozens of the Old Testament that the fear of God, whatever it is--and we've not tried to describe it this morning--is a predominant theme in the Old Testament. It is a virtue that is not peripheral but absolutely essential in the saving work of God. Now someone says,
"Ah yes, but that is part of the dark and shadowy religion of the Old Testament. Now with the full revelation of God's love and mercy in Jesus Christ, just as the types and shadows of the blood of bulls and goats and heifers have been swallowed up in Christ, so that dark, foreboding concept of the fear of God being a dominant characteristic of worship has given way to the bright and flitty quality of the joy of the Lord."
Is that true? Will the New Testament support such thinking? Well, I trust as we look at ten references in the New Testament, we will see such thinking absolutely flagged and laid dead. And may God grant that the carcass shall not be revived in the mind of any one of His people.
Alright, turn to the New Testament, and what do we find? Well, at the very conception of our Lord or shortly thereafter, you'll remember that Mary goes to pay a visit to Elizabeth. And as she does, she is filled with the Spirit, and she breaks forth in what has commonly been called the Magnificat. And in this hymn of praise, Mary sees illustrated in God's dealings with her a principle or principles which have been characteristic of God's dealings with His people throughout the centuries and characteristic of His dealings with His people through the very One she now carries in her womb. When you read the Magnificat in that light, it becomes a wonderful hymn of praise. Mary sees that what God is doing to her is simply illustrative of what He has always done with His people and what He will continue to do through the coming of the Son of God whom she now carries in her womb. And in this great hymn of praise, she says among other things, "For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation" (Luke 1:49-50). She sees what God is doing to her as an illustration of this principle, a principle that will continue to be operative as Messiah comes and carries out His mission.
What did our Lord teach? Certainly, if His presence should cause men no longer to fear God but simply to have joy in Him and to love Him, we would expect our Lord to discourage anything like fear, especially anything that had the fear of dread in it. For as we shall see in our definition, there are two basic aspects of the fear of God as in all human fear: a fear of dread and a fear of awe, one that drives us from the object of dread; one that draws us to the object of awe. But our Lord's teaching in a passage like Matthew 10 is very clear, even in underscoring this concept of fear that has an element of dread. Speaking to His disciples in the parallel passage in Luke 12, He says, "And I say unto you My friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him" (vv. 4-5). Rather than come with a mission that was to negate the fear, the fear that even has the aspect of the dread of what God can do if I fall into His hands with my sins laid to my charge, Jesus enforced it and said, "Don't be afraid of them who can kill the body, but fear that God who can cast you into hell." We shall see in our further studies, as there was ground in the shadowy revelation of God in the old covenant to fear Him, so the fuller revelation in the new covenant has only intensified the obligation of Godly fear.
Now we turn to the Epistles, 2 Corinthians 7. Is there remaining sin in the life of the believer to be dealt with? Is he negatively to seek to mortify the deeds of the flesh and positively to cultivate every grace that will bring him into closer conformity to Jesus Christ? And every intelligent Christian says, "Yes." How then is it to be done? Is he to be spurred on by the thought that "the more holy I am, the more gifts I'll get when I get before the Lord?" Is that to be the dominating thought? Is the dominating thought to be: "The more I am filled with the Spirit, the more joy and happiness and peace and vibrancy I'll have, and so I'll live life with a capital L. So I should carry out the pursuit of holiness in the climate of anticipating greater joy." Now there's an element of truth in both those things, but I suggest that's not to be the dominant thought. Look at the words of the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 7:1: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." In other words, the highest reaches of attainment in practical holiness and Godliness are to be attained and sought after in the climate of the fear of God.
In the outworking of practical Godliness, much has to do with our interpersonal relationships. The Godliness that leaves you ugly with your boss, churlish with your wife, nasty with your husband, snippy with your mom and dad is no Godliness at all. The Godliness and holiness of the New Testament and the Old as well are intensely practical things, things which show up most clearly in their presence or absence in the interpersonal relationships of your deepest human relationships (family, place of work, school, etc.). So our holiness, our going on in sanctification must be seen in those relationships. And as we go on in seeking greater degrees of holiness in those relationships, what's to do be the dominant characteristic? Well, look at Ephesians 5:21 and then Colossians 3:22. Ephesians 5:21 introduces the climate of the home: husband-wife relationship, parent-child relationship. And notice what the Apostle says in introducing that subject: "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God." All of these injunctions concerning the nitty gritty of practical Godliness in the interpersonal relationships of the home are couched in the framework of the fear of God. Therefore, any attempts to go on in holiness in these relationships that ignores this idea of the fear of God is something less than that which is set before us in the Word of God.
In the parallel passage in Colossians 3, you have your interpersonal relationships found in your place of work: servants/masters, masters/servants. And in that context, the admonition is: "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God." In other words, the fear of God is to be as present in that place of business as that lathe into which you put that piece of steel, as that foreman who passes by to check your work, as that person who stands next to you at the work bench, as that girl who sits next to you and bangs her typewriter and blows her smoke into your face, as near as her dirty smoke that you've got to absorb against your will, should be the fear of God in that relationship. Now, that's a pretty central thing, is it not? And so, rather than finding a negation of this concept, we find it intensified; we find it enlarged; we find it set before us in even a wider scope.
Turn to Philippians 2. We could say as a summary of what we're admonished to do in 2 Corinthians 7: going on cleansing ourselves from defilement of the flesh and the spirit; going on in practical Godliness in the home and in the place of business--all of this comes under the general heading of working out in greater measure our salvation. And as the Apostle commands the believers at Philippi to work out their salvation, what's to be the context of that working out? Philippians 2:12: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Now I ask you, where in the world do we get this idea that the people who are most jumping about with jolly, jolly joy all the time, time, time are the most spiritual? "Fear and trembling"--and anyone who is working out his salvation in any other context is working it out in a context unauthorized by the Word of God.
Well then, you say, "Does this have to go on all the while we're here? Can't we come to the place where's there's no longer the constraint of the fear of God?" Well, let Peter answer that question in 1 Peter 1. We've looked at the words of our Lord; we've looked at the words of the Apostle Paul. Peter speaks the same word. And he speaks it in the most interesting context. Verse 17: "And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." Ah, but you say, "If you've got real assurance that you've been saved by the blood of Christ, doesn't that negate the fear of God?" No, for he says in the next two verses, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." He says the knowledge that you've been redeemed at such an awful price will intensify the reality of the fear of God, not negate it. He uses as the very argument to enforce the necessity of walking in Godly fear the fact that we know we've been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ.
Now don't you put a meaning on that that I haven't put yet. You're temptation's going to be to say, "The pastor said you've got to walk around cringing like someone before a bully." I didn't say that. I haven't defined what the fear is. I'm simply exegeting these passages in a very surface way which shows the centrality of this concept. And Peter says you're to pass the whole time of your sojourning in fear, so that at any point in my sojourn from the moment I breathe my first breath as a new creature in Christ to the moment when the Lord comes to take me at His glorious appearing, or I pass through the valley of the shadow of death and breathe my last, the fear of God should characterize the entirety of my sojourn.
This is why Luke, in describing the maturity and the blessing of God upon the early church, sets forth the beautiful effusion of things that so often we would separate, but God brings together. Following the conversion of Saul who had been making havoc of the church, we read in Acts 9:31: "Then had the churches rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified [brought to fuller development in the fullness of Christ]; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." Why you say, "If there's the comfort of the Spirit, wouldn't that negate the fear of God, and wouldn't the fear of God negate the comfort?" No, for the Spirit who rests upon Messiah, and the Spirit He received in plentitude and now Himself pours upon His church is, according to Isaiah 11, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. And just as the fear of the Lord characterized our Lord Himself, so now, as He who received the Spirit without measure has gone to the right hand of the Father and sheds forth the Spirit upon and into the church, the more that church is filled with the Spirit of Jesus, the more that church will reflect the fear of the Lord.
So indispensable an element is this, that on into eternity, even after the last remains of sins are purged from the believer, we'll still fear God. So our last two references are taken from Revelation 15. Here in symbolic language, we have set before us the redeemed of God. Verses 2-4a:
"And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. [What should be the response of the redeemed there in His presence?] Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?"
So then, the fear of God will mark the worship of the redeemed even in His presence. And in a similar hymn of praise recorded in chapter 19, verses 4 and 5, we read: "And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen; Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great." That's taken as the dominant characteristic of the service of God, even as they know the completion of God's redemptive purposes in them.
So then, what can we conclude in the light of these thirteen pivotal texts in the Old Testament and these ten texts in the New Testament? Let me draw three conclusions very briefly.
Number one: I believe we are warranted to conclude that to be devoid of the fear of God is to be devoid of Biblical religion. No matter how much of the Bible we may know, no matter how many verses we may claim to be embracing, no matter how many promises we may claim to believe, in the light of these texts of Scripture, I believe the youngest child here would agree with me this morning, if you don't know what the fear of God is in your heart and life, you don't know the first thing about Biblical religion experimentally. Now that's a pretty serious conclusion, but no less a conclusion can be drawn from the texts of these Scriptures. Since Jesus Christ is the sum and substance of Biblical religion, and since the Spirit given to Him and sent from Him is the Spirit of the fear of God, to be without the Spirit of God is to be without the Spirit of Christ. And to be without the Spirit of Christ is to be none of His (Romans 8:9).
If you sit here this morning saying, "I don't know what in the world that preacher's talking about. I've never heard this before," you better do some serious reflection. You better do everything possible to make sure. You can be present for the further expositions; you can go home and get your Bible and start crying out to God saying, "God teach me what it is to fear you, for I see that if I'm devoid of Your fear, I have no true saving religion."
The second conclusion we are warranted to make is this: the measure of growth in any individual and in any church is the measure to which that individual or church is increasing in the fear of God. It speaks of Nehemiah in chapter 7 and verse 2 as a man who feared God above many. And so his spiritual stature above many was in great measure due to the fact that he feared God above many.
And then thirdly, to be ignorant of the meaning of the fear of God is to be ignorant of the basic and essential doctrine of revealed religion. And I believe there are many of you here who are not strangers to the fear of God in your experience, but you are very woolly about the fear of God in your understanding. And since growth in grace is always joined to growth in knowledge, I exhort you who have the fear of God in your hearts to give yourself to earnest prayer and study together with us that you might have a clearer understanding of the fear of God to the end that the understanding may lead to your growth and to your development.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 14:33:33 GMT -5
The Fear of God: Definition, Part 1 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached June 14, 1970
PDF Format | More Transcripts
"The fear of God is the soul of Godliness." And yet, as we commented last Lord's Day morning, it is obvious to any observing person that this pervasive and dominant theme of holy Scripture has well nigh been lost to our own generation. Now this morning we begin to come to the second area of our study, namely the meaning of the fear of God as defined by Scripture. It is one thing to capture and feel and sense something of the predominance of this concept of the fear of God in Biblical thinking. It is another thing to know that we attach to that concept the meaning which Scripture demands that we attach to it. And at this point, as with all learning, we have a problem, for some of us have erroneous concepts of the fear of God, concepts which we have rejected. Others perhaps have concepts erroneous, nonetheless, but because they are compatible with our own natural inclinations, perhaps we embrace them and cherish them. And so it's necessary as we come to this subject that we, who are the people of God, inwardly cry to the Lord that He would make our minds virgin minds, unspoiled, unprostituted minds, minds that can receive what He Himself would say to us through His own holy Word.
Now how shall we attempt to arrive at the meaning of the fear of God in the light of holy Scripture? Since the Holy Spirit saw fit to use the two most common Hebrew words and the most common Greek word for fear when describing the fear of God, what we're going to do in attempting to arrive at the meaning of the fear of God is, first of all, attempt to find how the word "fear" is used in its general usage. And having established how it is used in its general usage in Scripture, then we'll see how these two facets of its general usage have been attached to its usage in reference to the fear of God.
How then are the words for fear, which the Holy Spirit took to use in describing and defining the fear of God, used in everyday common language in Scripture? Well, first of all, there is the fear which can be described as being afraid (having terror or dread). It's the kind of fear a little nine year-old fellow feels when he's walking home from school and he turns the corner to go the last block between where he is and his house and he sees there standing in the middle of the sidewalk the neighborhood bully. Here's a fourteen year-old kid; he's 5 foot 10, 170 pounds, and he loves to beat up little nine year-olds. And so when this little nine year-old turns the corner and he sees the neighborhood bully standing there (and he looks like a giant to this nine year-old kid as he stretches up his 5 foot 10, 170 pound frame), and all of a sudden this child is gripped with terror and with dread. That terror and dread is based on the recognition of the potential harm that the object of that dread can do to the individual. Now the word "fear" in everyday Biblical usage sometimes is used to describe this kind of fear. Notice the reference to this in Deuteronomy 2:24:
"Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee."
God says, "I will so attend your efforts to subdue these Canaanites that when word begins to spread around of how mighty you are in battle because of My presence and power upon you and in your midst, people hearing of you shall be filled with dread. They shall be filled with terror. They shall be filled with anguish. And the word used here in verse 25 is the same word used when the fear of God is dealt with: "I will put My fear of you upon this people."
You have a similar reference in Psalm 105. Speaking of the deliverance by which God brought His people out of Egypt, verses 36-38 say, "He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength. He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes. Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them." That is, they had begun to dread the presence of the Israelites because of the terrible judgments of the God of that people which were exercised upon them and directed toward them. So this is the fear, again, of terror and of dread.
You have an example of this in the New Testament in that familiar Christmas passage. For we read in Luke 2:9, that when the angels suddenly appeared to the shepherds, they were terrified. They were filled with fear, and it was the fear of dread of these angels in this unusual manifestation.
One other reference is acts 5:11, when the news went out of how God struck Ananias and Sapphira because of their attempt to lie to the Holy Spirit. The Scripture tells us that fear came upon all men who heard these things. The exact wording: "And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things." So you have, then, both in the Old and New Testament, this common word "fear" used to describe this emotion of being afraid, of being gripped with terror and with dread.
Then there is another kind of fear, the same word used but obviously a different meaning. And it's the fear of veneration and of honor, the fear of respect. Let's take that same nine year old boy, and he's no longer turning the corner on his way home and confronting the neighborhood bully, but he's with his school. And he's taking a class trip, and they've gone to Washington. And as they're going through various parts of the White House where they go on guided tours, suddenly an official brakes the ranks and says (calling this boy by name), "The president of the United States wishes to talk to you." Suddenly the little boy's eyes get wide, and his breath begins to become hard. And he says, "He wants to talk to me?" "Yes, to you. Your name is such and such, isn't it?" And the boy is filled with fear. But it's not the fear of dread. He's not afraid that going to see the president, he's going to suddenly give the orders that will bring soldiers out and put rifles to his breast. No, it's the fear that comes when an individual stands in the presence of an object that is superior in worth and in dignity. It's the fear of veneration, of honor, and of awe.
Now notice this aspect of the word "fear" in texts like Leviticus 19:3: "You shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God." Now does God command you children every time you look at Mom and Dad to have the same feeling you have when you meet the neighborhood bully? Does He want you every time you see Mom and Dad to tremble in your boots. No, but He says you shall fear them. The same word is used. But it's obvious it has an entirely different meaning. God is saying to all children, "You are to recognize in your father and mother, not just someone who is taller than you are, someone who is bigger, someone wiser and a little bit more experienced, but they are My representatives to administer My rule and My will to you." Therefore, because of the dignity of their position, you are to regard them with veneration, honor, and awe. This is not the fear of dread but the fear of veneration and honor.
You find a similar reference in Joshua 4. And I think this will suffice to underscore what is very obvious, I'm sure, to all of us, but what I wish to see specifically rooted in texts of Scripture. Verse 14: "On that day the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Isreal; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life." And again, it is obvious that this is not the fear of dread or of terror but the fear of veneration, of honor, and of awe. As the fear of terror is based upon a recognition of the harm that the object of fear can bring to me, so the fear of veneration is based upon the recognition of the intrinsic dignity and worth and exalted position of the object of that fear.
Now these two common usages of the word "fear" that were found in the vocabulary of the people of Biblical times, that are found in some measure in our vocabulary are the two concepts that come together in the Biblical thought of the fear of God. The fear of God involves both of these concepts. There is a legitimate sense in which the fear of God involves being afraid of God, being gripped with terror and with dread. Though this is not the dominant thought of Scripture, it is there nonetheless, and I want to demonstrate it this morning. And then the second aspect of fear which is peculiar to the people of God is the fear of God in terms of that veneration and honor and awe with which we regard our God which leads us not to run from Him but to gladly submit to Him.
So then, let us move to first consider the first aspect of the meaning of the fear of God as found in Scripture: the fear of dread, of terror, and a fear that leads to anguish. The first instance of this fear is Genesis 3:10. The first recorded instance of any fear of God is in this passage. And this is the first aspect of that fear, dread, or terror. You remember the setting. God has placed Adam in a perfect environment surrounded with everything that his holy nature could desire. And then God has issued the threat: if you eat of that one tree that is forbidden, in the day that you eat of it you shall die. When the Lord comes and calls upon Adam, he responds by saying, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." God had threatened Adam with death if he disobeyed. Adam has sinned, and now upon hearing the voice of God, he says, "I was gripped with a terror and a dread which led to aversion. I was afraid; I hid."
Now the question is, is it right for a person to have this kind of dread with reference to God? Is this kind of fear any part of the fear of God which is commanded and commended in holy Scripture? Is the sense of dread and terror any part of that virtue which is such a dominant theme in holy Scripture? Professor Murray has so beautifully and accurately stated, and I quote: "The only proper answer is that it is the essence of impiety not to be afraid of God when there is reason to be afraid of God."
Once Adam had sinned, suppose he had simply tripped up to God when He called and said, "O, how are you God? Nice to see you again." That would have been the essence of impiety and hardness of heart and searing of the conscience. For if Adam had any remaining sense of who God was, of the terribleness of sinning against Him, of the certainty of the fulfillment of the threat, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," anything less than this fear of dread and of anguish would have been the grossest form of impiety and brazen religious and moral folly.
This kind of fear is right and proper in every situation where our condition makes us exposed to the righteous judgment of God. Is it right to be afraid of God? Yes, if you have Scriptural grounds to be afraid of Him. Was it right for Adam to be afraid? Of course it was. He had sinned against God. He had flown into the face of the explicit command of God, "Thou shalt not eat of it." And now, as God draws near to him, he's gripped with this dread which leads to a running from God. And I say that Scripture warrants this dread of God whenever the cause of that dread is present.
Notice the references to this aspect of fear commanded and commended in holy Scripture. Deuteronomy 17:13. The context is, if a man disregards the directives of the appointed judges in Israel, he is to be put to death. And one of the reasons for this, God clearly states in verse 13: "And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously." Here they go out one day for their neighborhood Powwow, and they find that one of their friends is missing. And they say, "Hey, where's so and so?" "Didn't you hear? He flaunted the laws of God. He was indifferent to the enforcement of those laws by the judges. He was taken out and stoned yesterday." "Stoned? For doing what?" And they mentioned something which perhaps seemed very insignificant in itself. It was not the issue so much as his disregard to the institution of the law and the administration of that law by God's directive. What happened? His friends are filled with fear. There is a dread: "We dare not do as he did lest we get what he got." And God says the very purpose for which He gave this directive was that His people might be possessed of the fear of God which has dread and horror in it. This is commended. It's the very end for which this was instituted.
In Deuteronomy 21, directives are given for dealing with a stubborn rebellious son, who in spite of the faithful discipline of his parents, refuses to walk in the ways they have directed for him. Verses 19- 21:
"Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."
Some young fellow is tempted, and he begins to be a smart aleck with regards to his parents. It's the in-thing in his particular neighborhood in that group of tents out there in the wilderness to start mouthing off about your mom and dad. And you begin to show your maturity of how smart aleckly you can be. So one day the group gets together to have their clandestine session of bragging before one another of how they've been able to get away with things at home. And one of their cohorts doesn't show up. And they say, "Hey, where's Johnny?" "Didn't you hear what happened to Johnny?" "No, what happened?" "His mom and dad took him to the elders of Israel, and he's dead under a pile of stones." Suddenly a lot of the gaiety leaves the little group. They're not so apt to be bragging now. The group just gradually dissipates, and they go to their homes gripped with the dread of fear, lest by coming into the same sphere of guilt, the same condemnation come upon them. God says, "I'm giving this mandate, not only to put away evil so that it will not be infectious but to put fear into the hearts of the people." This is the fear of dread, the fear of terror.
Ah, but someone says, "That's in the shadowy, hard-angled, iron-like climate of the Old Testament. The New Testament is a new climate." Is it? Listen to the words of our Lord Jesus: "I say unto you My friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him." What is that fear? That's not the fear of veneration and awe. That's the fear of dread and of horror. Jesus said if you come into that sphere of conduct which warrants the damnation of God, you should be gripped with terrible dread. That God can cast into hell. Our Lord not only commends this fear, He commands it.
Then we find in the writer to the Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 1, exhorting these people to press on into the full knowledge of Christ and into an unswerving commitment to the Christian faith as they begin to waver. Some of them who've been enlightened and tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come are tempted to go back to the old shadowy forms of the past. He says in his exhortation, "Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." What fear is that? He said, "Let us be filled with horror and dread at the thought that we might fail to enter into full Gospel rest, and failing to enter in, finding ourselves under the condemnation of God."
Turn over to chapter 10 where the same thought is enlarged more fully. I'm not expounding what verse 26 means. I'm simply trying to extract from the passage the concept that this aspect of fear is commended and commanded in the Word of God.
"For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
See what the writer is saying? He's saying if a man places himself in that relationship to God where judgment is inevitable, then he should be filled with a fearful looking for that judgment, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And for a man to judge himself as being a candidate to fall into God's hands in judgment and not to fear is to show a total insensitivity to all that Scripture reveals about the character of God and the terror of His judgment. So in answer to the question, "Is it right to have this aspect of the fear of God, this dread or terror of the Lord?", the answer of Scripture is clear--yes.
But a second question, I trust, arises in your mind, and it is this: "What lies at the basis of this dread and fear?" Let me state it negatively. It is not a work of God's grace. This fear is known by unconverted people. This fear and dread is rooted in things that do not necessarily have a relationship to the operations of grace within the heart. But positively, that which lies at the basis of this fear is some comprehension of the character of God as holy. And because He is holy, He is infinitely opposed to all sin. It's the recognition of who God is as a holy God. And because He is holy, how He feels with regard to sin lies at the basis of this fear of dread and of terror. It is what Adam knew of the holy character of God, a holiness that had been stamped upon his own inner being but now marred by his sin. It's what he knew of the character of God as holy that caused him to run when he heard God's voice calling him, because there was dread and terror as a result.
So when we read through the Scriptures, we find such phrases as "the fierceness of God's anger" (Isaiah 42:25). We read in the prophets: "the fury of His wrath." We read in Romans 2:9 such terms as "tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil." 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9: "In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." What's involved in all of these terms? It's the Biblical concept that when omnipotence is wielding the sword of vengeance, when the infinite God takes the finite creature into His hands for judgment, that creature ought to tremble with horror and with dread. For it is indeed a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. And it's only ignorance of the character of God or spiritual insanity that will deliver a man from this aspect of the fear of God if he's in the way of the judgment of God.
Let me illustrate. What would you think if you walked down Bloomfield Avenue today (the main street running through our town) and running parallel to it are some railroad tracks on which a train used to go or still occasionally goes, and you saw a train bearing down at 50mph about 100 yards away from a man who's walking right down the center of that track in the direction in which the train is coming and he's whistling "Yankee Doodle"? You'd say one or two things is wrong with that man: either he's blind and deaf, utterly ignorant of what's about to overtake him and utterly destroy him, or if he has eyes and ears and all his senses, he's insane. He can't relate the coming of those tons of steel at that speed to what it will do to his body, what it will do to his life. He's an insane man who has failed to relate facts that are obvious to everyone else. And so people stand back horrified, helpless to do anything. People who have their sanity are able to make a relationship between the onrushing train and this poor man. He can't. He's out of touch with reality, so he has no fear. Or it may be that the man is blind and deaf and therefore utterly ignorant of the danger that is coming. That's the only way a man can be walking down the track whistling full of apparent joy and peace, not someone who's deliberately out to kill himself or take his life because of discouragement. But here's a man perfectly happy, whistling "Yankee Doodle" going down the track. And my friend, the only reason any fallen son of Adam who is not savingly joined to Jesus Christ does not find himself gripped with a constant terror and dread of God is because he's either blind to the character of the God of the Bible, or having been acquainted with that character, he is so filled with spiritual insanity that he can make no relationship between the fury of God's wrath and his own reception of that wrath in judgment.
I would speak to you young people here this morning. You adults who may be strangers to a saving union with Jesus Christ, it's difficult to shut out of your minds this aspect of the dread and terror of God, isn't it? No man likes to live with dread and terror. So what every son of Adam will do prior to a work of God's grace is try to rid himself of that terror. So what does he do? He tries to say the locomotive is only a papier mache plaything. And he'll tamper with the character of God. "God loves His creatures too much to destroy them."
I read some sermons the other day preached by a Presbyterian minister in a liberal church not too far from here (not in this town) on the subject of the future life. And in one of the paragraphs, he said, "Now one thing I am absolutely sure of, God would never send one of His creatures to hell. That I know." Of course, he had lots of Scripture to prove it--not a one. What was he doing? He was a man standing on the track, who sees the train coming, and he knows he's to be destroyed. And he's trying to kid himself that it's not a train made of steel (and tons of it) that will crush him, but a papier mache mirage. That's what lies behind all the attempts to change the character of God, because men don't like to live with terror and with dread. And even the heathen men who've never seen a Bible have something of this terror and dread. You read about it in Romans 1: "Who knowing the judgment of God...." Romans 2: "Their conscience also bearing witness [saying the train of judgment is coming]." "No, No, it's just a mirage." That's what men will do. They'll seek to change the character of God. Or they'll seek to find some way to utterly submerge their senses in sensual delights that they can push these thoughts utterly from their minds.
What makes incessant television such a national pastime in our own country and other places where people have a plethora of televisions? May I suggest that this is the main reason behind it: men don't want to leave themselves alone five minutes with their thoughts because, unless the conscience has been totally seared, they hear the rumbling of the wheels of a God coming in judgment. And they see themselves upon the track and they say, "If only I can so fill my mind with other things between now and then, I won't have any agony until it overtakes me." So they are obsessed with activity. What will drive Americans this Labor Day weekend to cover 10 billion passenger miles? For some it's an opportunity to visit relatives. Yeah, granted. Alright, let's say we knock off half on that basis. What is it that drives others to go from crowded cities to crowded highways to crowded beaches? "I've got to keep busy lest I hear the rumbling of the wheels." What lies at the basis of this dread and fear? Some apprehension, some comprehension of the character of God as holy and of the sinner's being in the way of judgment.
A third question that perhaps has come to the minds of some. If not, it will come sooner or later. What about the child of God who knows he's accepted in the beloved one--I say it reverently--who knows that train of judgment has crushed His Lord and will never crush him? Should a Christian, one who knows there is no condemnation for him in Christ Jesus, have any of this aspect of the fear and dread of God? May I answer emphatically and then demonstrate from Scripture, yes. Think with me, even before Adam sinned, this aspect of the fear of God was to have been part of his deterrent function, for God gave the command and couched it in the form of a threat, didn't He? He said,
"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it [and He could have stopped there, but to enforce the command and give added motivation to obedience, He stated it in a negative form in terms of a threat]: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. [Adam, if you have any dread of Me as a God of judgment, don't eat, or you're going to put yourself in the track.]"
Now if this was a legitimate motive for a man in an unfallen state, how much more for us who are in a redeemed state but not yet perfected? The sin that is still within us and about us can have terrible effects upon us, can bring great reproach to the name of our God, and cause us to be wounded and pierced through in many ways with God's chastening hand. So it's not surprising, then, to find such confessions as these coming in the Old and the New Testament from the saints of God: Psalm 119:120: "My flesh trembleth for fear of Thee; and I am afraid of Thy judgments." This is the nine year-old bully on-the-street-corner trembling. This is not the trembling of awe. David mentions that in other places. But here, as he's contemplating the judgments of God and what it would be to have this God whom he knows by divine revelation, this God whom he has come to see and love in all the magnitude and glory of His holiness and omnipotence, and he thinks, "What will it be when that great God takes men in hand for judgment?" And just the contemplation of it, he says, "It causes me in my flesh to tremble."
The Christian has a greater and more accurate view of the character of God than the non-Christian. When he contemplates those darker sides of God's character as they relate to judgment, he cannot help but tremble because he knows God is true. That's the confession of Moses. Psalm 90:11: "Who knoweth the power of Thine anger? even according to Thy fear, so is Thy wrath." He says, "O God, in the light of Your anger, there is a terror and a dread that is due unto Thee." And failing to render it, is failing to give God what is His due.
Ah but again, someone says, "That's the Old Testament. Does not the New present us with a different perspective?" No, the New Testament only enforces this perspective, for we read in 1 Peter 1:17: "And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear." Never get so irresponsibly happy and so flippantly cock sure of yourself that you forget you're dealing with a God who judges without respect of persons. Let there be something of holy dread about you throughout the entirety of your days.
Paul underscores the same principle in Romans 11 where, having dealt with God's judgment upon Israel as a nation because of unbelief, he says in verses 20 and 22a: "Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God."
I believe it is clear from these passages (and others could be brought forward), the answer to the question, should the child of God have this aspect of fear? Yes, he should. It is not the dominant thought of the fear of God as we shall see in our study, God willing, next week, but it is nonetheless a vital part of what comprises the fear of the Lord which is the chief part of knowledge and of wisdom.
May I, in closing, bring a word of exhortation to you who are strangers to God's grace. Do I speak to some this morning, young and old, who are strangers to vital union with Christ, strangers to the regenerating work of the Spirit, who bear no positive marks of a saving union with Christ and of true discipleship? Have you no dread of God's awful judgment? Can you sit here this morning and say, "Yes, I believe God is the God as revealed in Scripture. And if He is that God, then like the train that is bearing down upon that man, His judgment bears down upon me." Can you say that without fear and trembling? Can you sit through another Lord's Day a stranger to grace and to the cleansing of the blood of Christ? If you came in this morning ignorant, don't leave ignorant. If you came in spiritually insane, will you leave the same way?
Ah, but you say, "Are you trying to scare me into being a Christian?" Listen, suppose I yell out to the man on the track, "Sir, a train is coming! Flee the track!" Am I trying to scare him out of the way? You bet I am, but I'm not scaring him with any phantom scare. I'm scaring him with naked reality, the reality of hardened steal that will crush his throbbing flesh. When I cry out, "Flee the wrath to come! Repent! Give yourself no rest until you know you're joined to Christ!" You say, "Are you trying to scare me into being a Christian?" Yes, but I'm not scaring with phantoms but with awful realities. If the man walking down the track hears my voice and says, "Ah, that guy's just trying to get me off the tracks because he's a killjoy." Or "He's just trying to get me off the track because he wants to hit me for a few bucks." In a few seconds, he'll know I had no motive but his own good. My friend, it will be but a few short seconds as God reckons time. You go on in your impenitence, the very cry that's entered your ear this morning ("repent and flee to Christ") will come to you. May God grant that you will fear with a fear that will cause you to flee from your sin.
And I say to you and myself as the people of God, let us not be caught up in the idea that the essence of spirituality is the measure to which we can carelessly regard the judgment of Almighty God and the terror of the Lord. As one has said,
"Humility, contrition, lowliness of mind are the essence of Biblical godliness." And the dispositional complex which is characterized by these fruits of the Spirit is one that must embrace the fear and trembling which reflect our consciousness of sin and of frailty. The piety of the New Testament is totally alien to the presumption of the person who is a stranger to the contrite heart. And it is alien to the person who never takes account of the holy and just judgment of God. No little part of our perseverance is that holy dread. When sin becomes so seductive and attractive in its overtures, and it seems as though the reality of a dying Savior and all the other motives of grace have suddenly been cut off in our minds and hearts, there is one motive that is often used of God: if I go down that path, God will have to damn me, for He says, 'The wages of sin is death.'"
Then not only with reference to ourselves, Paul, speaking in 2 Corinthians 5:10-11, says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." My friend, if you stand there seeing the train come to another man, you don't stand there and whistle and say, "Well, it's not going to hit me." The thought of what the train will do to him will make you tremble. If you have any sense of ability to identify with a fellow human being, you could do nothing but grow white with horror as the train bore down upon him. So the child of God who's been rescued from the tracks and knows he's been delivered, as he beholds the train of God's fury and wrath bearing down upon others, he cannot help but tremble. And the terror of the Lord becomes part of the motivation to persuade men to flee the wrath to come.
May God grant that this aspect of His fear will become an increasing part of our hearts, of our thinking, and may have its commensurate effect in our living. The presence of this fear is no evidence of grace. You may be like Felix and tremble this morning and still be impenitent. This fear is no evidence of grace, but it's doubtful there's any grace where this fear is not present. For grace has introduced you to the knowledge of God, the God who is terrible in His judgments. The fear of the Lord is the chief part of wisdom.
God willing, next week, we shall consider that which is the far more dominant aspect: that fear, not of dread and of terror, but of veneration and awe which draws us to our God and binds us to Him in a life of loving obedience. And that fear is the fear which is the fruit of the work of God's grace in the hearts of those who become partakers of the benefits of the new covenant.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 15:03:23 GMT -5
The Fear of God: Definition, Part 2; Ingredients, Part 1 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached June 21, 1970
PDF Format | More Transcripts
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Proverbs 1:7). That which is the chief part of knowledge, then, must be the concern of everyone who has any interest in true knowledge. So for the past few Lord's Day mornings, we've been considering that great and dominant theme of Holy Scripture, the fear of the Lord or the fear of God.
The word "fear" has two distinct connotations in everyday parlance. There is the fear of terror and dread. Then the second kind of fear is the fear of awe and reverence and veneration. Both of these concepts are caught up in the Biblical teaching on the fear of God. Now without any negating or diluting the first aspect of the fear of God which we studied last week, I wish to make it clear that this is not the predominant thought of Scripture in the many passages which command, commend, or illustrate the fear of God. Rather, it's this second aspect of fear, the fear of reverential awe and veneration which is the dominant theme of Holy Scripture. When Scripture says the fear of the Lord is the chief part of knowledge, it is not so much the fear of terror and dread which is in view but the fear of veneration, awe, and reverence. It is this fear God says He will put into the hearts of men in the blessings of the new covenant, which will cause them to adhere to His ways and to keep His statutes.
So to think through this second aspect of the fear of God, I wish first of all to give some Biblical examples of this fear of reverential awe. Last week we looked at the examples of the fear of dread and terror. We saw it in Adam. We saw it in other places in Scripture. Now this morning we want the concept to come alive in flesh and blood of Biblical examples. And then having looked at some of these Biblical examples of the fear of reverential awe, we shall begin to consider the third main area of our study: what are the indispensable ingredients of the fear of God? Having seen the dominant theme in Scripture, having, I trust, come to some basic understanding of what it is, then we want to move on to consider what must there be in a man if he is to have this fear of God: both the fear of dread and terror but primarily the fear of awe and reverence.
The Biblical examples of the fear of reverence and awe. Genesis 28:12-22:
"And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the LORD be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee."
I've quoted the entire passage because it's pivotal in understanding in a very practical way what this fear of reverential awe truly is. Jacob has a dream. In his dream, he sees a ladder; angels ascending and descending upon the ladder. And in the midst of that dream and this very strange vision, he hears the voice of Jehovah God, the voice of the God of the covenant who comes to renew that covenant to Jacob. And when he awakes from his dream and he begins to reflect upon it, now in the conscious actings of his mind, he comes to certain conclusions. Conclusion number one--and we find it very clearly in verse 16: "Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not." He said, "I came out and camped under the open skies, and I had no thought of the immediate presence of God, but I was mistaken." He says, "The Lord is in this place, and I was unaware of it." Then when his consciousness reflects upon the fact that the Lord Jehovah, the great God of creation, the great God of covenant making, covenant keeping promise has been there, and he has actually been in His presence, the reflex action of his whole being is this:
"And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! [If God is here, and He is the God He has declared Himself to be in my vision, the God of Abraham and Isaac, the God of creation, the great God of my fathers, and if I am what I know myself to be, Jacob, a fallen son of Adam, a weak creature of the dust; that I should be in the presence of this great God--how dreadful is this place. This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven.]"
Now, is that dread, that fear, a fear of terror and of anguish that makes him want to run from God? No, for the subsequent paragraph indicates that it was a fear that was coupled with the most tender characteristics of trust in the faithfulness of God, of confidence in the love and the mercy of God. It's a fear that is perfectly consistent with trust and love. For he then raises a pillar and says, "This will be a monument of the faithfulness of this same God whose presence is dreadful but who will nonetheless carefully fulfill His promise to bring me again to this place. And out of gratitude to Him, I will give Him the tenth of all that I possess." So I suggest that this is a beautiful and clear and accurate example of this second aspect of the fear of God. Though it says he was afraid, and though Jacob uses the term "dreadful," it was not that dread and terror that makes a man want to run from the object like the little boy runs from the bully. But it's a dread and a fear that is perfectly consistent with wanting to be in the presence of that object and wanting to render to it honor and worship, love, and obedience.
The second illustration is in Exodus 3. Now remember, all we're trying to do is look as some Biblical examples of the fear of reverential awe as opposed to the fear of dread and terror. Verses 1-9:
"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto Me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them."
And he goes on to say, "I will deliver My people." And Moses enters into conversation with God beginning with verse 13. Now get the picture, here Moses is out tending sheep--try to relive the situation--and all of the sudden as perhaps he's just looking over his flock to make sure they're all gathered together; that they're no stragglers wandering off to become prey to wild predators, he notices a bush that burst into flames. What would you do in a case like that? Well, all of us have this natural inquisitiveness. And it says the first thing he wanted to do is turn aside and figure out why in the world is that bush not consumed. It's burning, but it's not consumed. So he's going to make a little scientific investigation. He's going to subject that bush to a little scientific analysis, for the Scripture says he's going to turn aside to see why the bush is not burnt. That's the only reason he's going to turn aside. This was some kind of a natural phenomena which caught his eye, and he's inquisitive. He wants to know why things are operating this way. But when God gets his attention through this strange burning of the bush, then He says, "Moses, you don't come near to do a little scientific investigation. I, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have a word to say to you." And when Moses recognized that God was there, the same God whom Jacob recognized as recorded in Genesis 28, it is recorded in this passage that, instead of going over and subjecting that bush to some kind of scientific analysis, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.
Here is a clear statement that Moses was filled with a fear and a dread of God. But was it a fear that made him want to run from that God? No, for that same God then reveals His compassion for His people, His purposes to deliver His people. And rather than run from Him as Adam did when he heard the voice of God and was afraid, Moses draws near with true reverence to commune with this God and talks with Him face to face. So then, this dread that causes the man Moses to hide his face is not the least bit inconsistent with the most intimate dealings with that same God. Moses hides his face, yet he talks with this God. It's the fear of reverential awe, veneration, and honor.
Then over to Isaiah 6. This will be the last example in the Old Testament. Are you beginning to feel something? This is why I'm asking you to turn to all these passages, not for filler. I know I'm only going to get through about one third of what I had hoped to this morning. But this concept of the fear of God is so pivotal in Scripture that we must spare no pains to gain an accurate understanding of what it is. Isaiah 6:1-5:
"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
Now, there's two people here or one group and an individual, both looking upon the same object. Now what is the reaction of these celestial hosts as they look upon this sight of God? They are filled with a holy restlessness. They cannot, as it were, pause and fix their position before the throne. But it says they fly about that throne. With two of their wings they cover their feet, and with two they cover their faces. These creatures, called here the seraphim, some form of angelic manifestation who've never known sin, who've never once known the sting of conscience for doing wrong, who've never known what it is to be ashamed in the presence of God because of moral guilt, and yet in the presence of that great God, they veiled their faces. As Moses hid his face and said, "I'm afraid to look upon God," so they hide face, cover feet, and fly about that throne overcome, filled with awe at the holiness, the immensity, the omnisience of God. And they cry one to another, "Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory." But notice, there is no indication of any sense of grief or self-effacing shame because of sin.
But it's not so when the prophet looks upon this same God. For seeing the same object the seraphim saw, there is not only the reaction of being overcome by the immensity and the transcendent majesty of God and His holiness, but there is an added dimension. There is this reflex action of grief, self-effacing shame, conviction, and contrition, because this is not just a creature as the seraphim are, looking upon the exalted creator. This is a sinful creature looking upon the holy God. And therefore, the only fitting reaction is a fear of reverential awe, which is mingled with a sense of uncleanness, which in turn produces conviction and contrition, the only disposition fitting for a sinful creature who gazes upon a holy God.
As one has said, "We have the awe and adoration the majesty of God must illicit from all rational creatures." And we have that complexion which the fact of our sinfulness must impart to that reverence and adoration. Seraphim may veil face and cry, "Holy, holy, holy" with no shame of sin, but you and I can't. And if it's incongruous; if it's out of place for sinless beings like seraphim to be in the presence of God without this reverential awe, how much more is it out of place for sinful men and women laden with iniquity like you and like me to draw nigh to His presence without that reverence and Godly fear coupled with a deep sense of self-effacing shame because of our sin.
Ah, but someone says, "That's the climate of the Old Testament. In the Lord Jesus, there has come an overshadowing revelation of the softer lines of God's character." Is that true? Well, turn to one of the accounts in the Gospels which will forever abolish such a thought. In the Gospel according to Luke, we have an incident in the life of our Lord Jesus, who came for the express purpose of revealing the Father. ("He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." "No man has seen God. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.") In Luke 5, Peter and his friends had been fishing all night; they caught nothing. Verses 5-11:
"And Simon answering said unto Him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at Thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: and so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him."
Now can you bring these two strands of thought together? "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.... And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed Him." What had happened to Peter? Peter got the message of this act of our Lord. Peter saw behind the fact that the net was put down and a great multitude of fish was enclosed. He saw that the one who did this is none other than the Son of God, Messiah. And the recognition that dawned upon him--to what degree we do not know, but to some degree that this is God incarnate, this is none other than the Son of God. When that recognition dawned upon him ("I'm in the presence of deity"), what was his reaction? To fall at His feet overcome with a sense of reverential awe and dread that made him blurt out, "Depart from me, Lord. It's not fit that You and I should be in such close proximity." And yet that very reaction was coupled with the most intense longing to be with Him, to be with Him so much that he leaves his business, his home, his friends and follows Him. And there's no jangling of these concepts.
Without those two concepts being present in the heart of a man, it's doubtful there's any true attachment to the Christ of Scripture. The idea that we can just snuggle up to Jesus and feel so much at home with Him without this sense of our sinfulness; making us want to cry out, "Depart from me, Lord. It's not fit that You and I should enter into intimate relationship." And yet, wonder of wonders, He's so revealed to us the heart of God and its love and in its way of forgiveness, that we cling to Him. And like these disciples, by His grace, are willing to forsake all to follow Him.
Here you have Isaiah 6 repeated. Here is not only a creature in the presence of diety, but a sinful creature who senses something's wrong that they are so close: "Depart from me, Lord." And yet at the same time when the commission comes, there is the glad response even as there was with Isaiah. You see, unlike that fear of dread and terror that makes a person want to run from its object, this dread, this fear, this awe, this reverential veneration is perfectly consistent with attachment and with love.
One other example from the New Testament: Revelation 1. John is in the spirit on the Lord's Day, and he receives this vision of the glorified Christ as He now is amidst the candlesticks, that is, in the midst of His church. And as John has this, what is called an apocalyptic vision, there is this unique symbolism. He sees this personage with a sword proceeding from His mouth; His head and His hair white like wool, as white as snow. His voice, when it speaks, sounds like the dashing of seas upon the shore. What is John's reaction to this vision? Verse 17: "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." He said, "My life was overcome. This sight of the transcendent glory and majesty of the Son of man in His position of exalted glory overcame me. I felt as though life had gone out from me." And yet this same one lays His right hand upon John and says, "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore," and then enters into the most intimate dealings with John. So here you have again an example of this fear and reverential awe that overcomes a man, and yet at the same time captures a man and brings him into intimate relationship with his object.
So in summarizing, I believe it is accurate to say that that fear of God, which is the soul of Godliness, is a fear which consists of awe, reverence, honor, and worship, and all of these things in the highest level of their exercise. And I just quoted that sentence. It is the reaction of our minds and spirits to a sight of God in His majesty and His holiness. As Professor Murray has so accurately said in seeking to define the fear of God, "The controlling sense of the majesty and holiness of God and the profound reverence which this apprehension draws forth constitute the essence of the fear of God." Or to use the definition given by John Brown in his exposition of 2 Peter where he deals with a little phrase "fear God," he says this: "The fear of God consists in cherishing an awesome sense of the infinite grandeur and excellence corresponding to the revelation God has made of these things in His Word and in His works, inducing in us a conviction that the favor of that God is the greatest of all blessings and His disfavor is the greatest of all evils."
The practical effect of all of this is so clearly seen when the Apostle Paul, in describing the state of all men by nature, brings as a pivotal and capstone description of the state of unconverted men in Romans 3:18: "There is no fear of God before their eyes." You know why some of you live the way you do, indifferent to the claims of God's holy Law, indifferent to the overtures of the Gosel of His dear Son? It's because you do not live life with the fear of God before your eyes. You do not have a sight and sense of His infinite glory and majesty eliciting, drawing from your heart that longing to walk so as to please Him and never to walk in a way that would displease Him. That's why you live the way you do. There is no fear of God before your eyes. You look out at life and what you want, and you set yourself in a way to obtain it. What your lusts dictate, you do. What your desires and appetites crave, you pursue. And the fear of God, that is, that controlling sense of His majesty and holiness and the profound reverence which that draws forth is nothing to you; no part of it is in you. So I trust, as we've looked at these examples and sought to share these formal definitions, that you have somewhat of an understanding of what the fear of God is, particularly this second aspect, the fear of reverential awe.
Now that being so, I trust our minds are already anticipating our next area of consideration: what are the essential ingredients of the fear of God? I think they will be obvious to all of us. Let me give you the heads, and we'll see how far we get this morning. First of all, there must be correct concepts of the character of God. Secondly, there must be a pervasive sense of the presence of God. And thirdly, there must be a constant awareness of our obligations to God.
First of all, then, there must be correct concepts of the character of God, particularly His majesty, His immensity, and His holiness. Revelation 15:3-4 ask a question:
"[Here are the victorious amongst the redeemed, or the redeemed who are victorious. And they are in the presence of God.] And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest."
As they behold their God, they ask a question: "Seeing You as You are and therefore, having right views of your character and your ways and your judgments, who shall not fear Thee?" They ask this rhetorical question saying in essence, "Anyone who sees You as we see You must fear You." In other words, this is the acknowledgement that correct concepts of the character of God are an indispensable element, an indispensable ingredient in producing the fear of God.
One of the great problems in our day is that we have lost sight of those aspects of the character of God, which are calculated to produce His fear, namely His majesty, His immensity, His holiness. It's as though we're looking at a landscape, and in the foreground of that picture there are little rabbits jumping through the field chasing one another. There's a soft flowing brook winding it's way through the foreground. There are other creatures of the fields nested: birds that find themselves on the edge of the twigs of the trees. It's the perfect picture of tranquility and peacefulness. But the backdrop of that landscape is made up of mountains: rugged hunks of stone that rise up past the timberline shoot to up to 20,000 feet; snowcapped all the year long. And off the sides and behind and above those mountains is a great thunderhead cloud and lightning flashing and playing off the edges. Now if a man looks at such a picture and only focuses his attention upon the foreground with the rabbits, the brooks, and the birds, he may have a very accurate view of one part of the picture, but his response is inadequate to the totality of that picture. And if he can look at that and feel nothing but tranquility and ease and have no sense of awe and breathless wonder, it's because he's only looking at the foreground and not looking at the background.
If any of you have ever had the occasion to be in the midst of the Rocky Mountains, you'll know what I mean. There's that sense of being overpowered by the might and grandeur and sheer massiveness of those mountains. And so it is with the character of God. The Scriptures set before us the softer lines of God's mercy and His compassion and fatherly tenderness. But never do the Scriptures set those attributes before us in isolation from the more awesome and breathtaking characteristics of His holiness, His wrath, His immensity, His eternity, His omniscience, His omnipotence. And in our day, we have lost this aspect of the character of God, and therefore, we have greatly lost the fear of God.
The framers of the shorter catechism caught this concept, for in answer to the question "What is God?", they framed the answer in this way: "God is a Spirit." That's His essence. Therefore, He's boundless. He cannot be contained. Then they used three adjectives: infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. And He's those three things in all of these others in His being: wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. What they're saying is, as you look at His goodness, remember, it's the goodness of infinity--infinite and eternal, and unchangeable in His goodness, in His mercy, in His truth. They're saying don't look at the birds and the brook and the rabbits without looking at the mountains and the lightening playing off the edges of the cloud. That's what they're saying. And that's what Scripture says to us. So that to contemplate God's love is to contemplate holy love, infinite love, immense love, transcendent love. My own heart was so blessed in the reading of John Brown's thoughts along this line that I felt I could do nothing better than to read a couple of pages to you in which he says,
"Everything about God is fitted to fill the mind with awe. And it would seem as if nothing short of insanity could prevent any being possessed with reason and affection from habitually feeling the sentiment of supreme veneration for God. [You see what he's saying? He says only insanity could prevent any being who has reason and affection, who has a head and a heart or a part of his head and a part of his heart--nothing but insanity could keep such a being from constantly experiencing supreme veneration for God.] He is the unexhausted, inexhaustible fountain of all the being, all the life, all the intelligence, all the power, all the activity, all the excellence, all the happiness in the universe. He is the first and the last and the living One from everlasting to everlasting, immense, filling heaven and earth with His presence, infinite in power, having called into existence myriads of worlds; capable of calling into existence myriads more, upholding all these worlds; Himself upheld by none, controlling all things; Himself uncontrolled, doing according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, infinite in knowledge--every creature manifest in His sight, all things naked and open to His eyes, hell itself naked before Him, and destruction having no covering; infinite in wisdom, wonderful in counsel as well as excellent in working, wise in heart as well as mighty in strength, the holy, holy, holy One, infinite in righteousness. He is the Rock whose work is perfect, and all His ways are justice; a God of truth without iniquity. Just and right is He. The blessedness of the Divine Being may seem a quality fitted to excite love rather than fear, yet are there two qualities of it: its immeasurable extent and its immaculately holy character, which are well fitted to deepen the impression of awe produced by His eternal, infinite, immutable power, wisdom, and holiness."
Then he goes on to elaborate, quoting passage after passage and concludes by saying,
"Surely a being such as this is worthy to be feared. Surely He is the meet object of the supreme esteem and reverence and love of all intelligent beings. Surely to be the objects of His approval and love and care is the highest honor and happiness of such creatures. To be the objects of His disfavor is to be the deepest disgrace and misery that can come to any one of those creatures. And of course, to seek His favor in conformity of mind and will to Him is their highest wisdom and duty. Such are the convictions and feelings of unfallen and restored angelic and human inhabitants of the celestial world. Their unceasing hymn is, 'Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty. Great and marvelous are Thy works. True and just are Thy ways. Who shall not fear Thee and glorify Thy name?' And this enlightened, affectionate sense of the infinite grandeur and excellence of God is in their minds a principle of supreme allegiance to His holy government, rendering it morally impossible that they should disregard His authority or seek their happiness in anything but in union of mind and will and enjoyment with God."
What's the essential ingredient of the fear of God? It must begin with correct concepts of the character of God, particularly His immensity, His majesty, and His holiness. It should be obvious to us, then, as we draw our study to a close this morning, that when the true knowledge of God is forsaken, there can be no valid fear of God. Proverbs 9:10 ties these two things together: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding." The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And what is the fear of the Lord? The knowledge of the Holy One. That is understanding.
So where there is no concept of God to illicit this reverential awe, to produce this sanctified dread, then there can be no true fear of God, and hence, no true understanding. So the decline of the fear of God is rooted in the fact that we've lost the God of the Bible, particularly the God of majesty and His holiness. When divine love is couched in any other context than that of the omnipotence, immensity, holiness, and sovereignty of God, it becomes cheap sentiment which illicits no true fear of God.
The first and essential revelation made in the life and ministry of our Lord, according to John in 1 John, is not that God is love. John says, "The Word of life has been amongst us. We beheld Him. We touched Him. We handled Him. And now we're going to share what we learned of Him." And he says in verse 5 of chapter 1, "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." It's in that context and in that alone that we dare put the statement of 1 John 4 that God is love. It's the God of infinite pure light who is a God of love. Therefore, His love will come in a way consistent with and answerable to His burning holiness; never in a way that will cancel or negate the demands of His holiness. So then, if sinless creatures hide their faces in the presence of the God of burning holiness, who are we to think that a sight of the wounds and sacrifice of Christ will negate the necessity for us drawing near with veiled faces and with trembling hearts.
It's accurate to say that perhaps no where in all of Scripture is this principle more clearly seen than in the cross itself. For what is the cross but God's clearest revelation of His inflexible justice. God had given many revelations of His justice, but when He's put to the test--I say it reverently--and His own beloved Son must be the object of His wrath; if divine justice is to be satisfied, and He spares not His Son but brings upon Him the full brunt His wrath against sin, what a display of inflexible justice, what a display of spotless holiness, so holy that He will turn His back upon His only begotten, the One of whom He said, "This is My Son, My beloved, in whom I am well pleased." Yet the cry comes forth from Golgotha, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." And our Lord Himself knew the answer. As you read the 22nd Psalm, as He's complaining of His abandonment, in the midst of it, He says, "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Where do we see infinite, incomprehensible wisdom more clearly than at the cross of Christ? Who would have ever conceived of a way in which the offended triune God punishes Himself to be true to Himself in order to let guilty rebels go free. Infinite wisdom revealed in the cross--it's there that we see holy love revealed, love so deep as to press to death the Lord Jesus, love so holy that its channel must be cut through the heart of the Son of God, love so holy that it cannot find a channel for its expression any other way than through the heart of the Son of God, a broken heart. So an enlightened view of the cross of Christ, rather than canceling or negating or diluting anything of the whole drift of Scriptural teaching on the fear of God merely serves to heighten and to seal that concept, so that all our relationship to God though Christ is a relationship in the climate of the fear of God.
You who are here this morning strangers to grace, strangers to forgiveness, strangers to a new heart, could it be that the reason you feel so at ease is because you're doing what is spoken of in Psalm 50:21: "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." Have you been trying to make God in your own image so you can feel comfortable in your sin, comfortable in your state of impenitence? My friend, God has never been made in your image. He is still that holy One before whom seraphim and cherubim veil face and feet and cry one to another, "Holy, holy, holy." There will not be any measure of the fear of God in your heart until you begin to take seriously the revelation He has made of His own character and begin to tremble before Him with the fear of dread and terror till you would fain cry for rocks and mountains to hide you from His face. Then, dear friend, the Gospel will become good news to you, that One was hidden from the face of the Father that you and I might be forgiven, even the Lord Jesus.
And I would say to you and myself as God's people, that we will not grow in the fear of God unless we grow in our awareness of and sensitivity to the Scriptural teaching of the immensity, the majesty, and the holiness of God. This is not something that is incorporated into the life once for all. I would be intensely practical and exhort you to spend much time meditating upon such passages as Isaiah 6 and 40 and Revelation 1 and 19 and some of these other passages which are particularly calculated to set forth God in His transcendent majesty and holiness and immensity until you begin to feel something of the climate of the Biblical patterns of thought and take your place before Him in true Godly fear. As we shall see in subsequent studies, it is this sense of His majesty and holiness, bringing that reflex reaction of true Godly fear that becomes one of the great motivations for a life of holiness and Godliness.
The first essential ingredient of the fear of God is a correct concept of His character. The Lord willing, in subsequent studies, we shall look at the other ingredients. Let me just exhort you, that if your thoughts of God have been such as to leave you devoid of His fear, there's something wrong with what you're thinking about God. And may God help you to begin to adjust your thinking to the statements of Holy Scripture that you might have that fear of the Lord, which is the chief part of knowledge.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 15:05:16 GMT -5
The Fear of God: Ingredients, Part 2 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached September 13, 1970
PDF Format | More Transcripts
If someone were to read through his Bible with pen and paper in hand, jotting down every explicit, overt reference to the fear of God, and then seek to keep a column where passages dealt with not so much the words but the thought and illustrations of the reality of the fear of God, I'm quite confident he would have many pages filled with references and much in his second column of indications and illustrations of this great truth. For one of the most dominant themes in all of Holy Scripture is the theme of the fear of God. It is that which the writer of the Proverbs says is the beginning or the chief part of all knowledge. So in the past few Lord's mornings, we have been attempting to grasp something of the weight of this theme and come to a better understanding of what Scripture means when it speaks of the fear of God. The way we've approached it is, first of all, by seeking to establish the predominance of the fear of God in Biblical thought. Then we spent two weeks trying to come up with a somewhat workable definition, or perhaps I could better say, a description of the fear of God.
That the fear of God is a predominant note in Scripture is obvious to anyone who takes the Scripture seriously. Well then, if it is a dominant note and to be devoid of it is to be devoid of saving religion, then the question that ought to be focused in the mind of every serious listener is, "What then is the fear of God? Do I have it? How may I grow in it?" And so we've grappled with this matter of seeking to define and describe the fear of God. There is a fear of God which is comprised of dread and terror. And even for the Christian, the fear of God is never totally devoid of this aspect of dread. However, it is the second aspect of fear that is the dominant thought in Scripture when it speaks of the fear of God: the fear of reverence, the fear of awe, the fear of veneration, the fear which seraphim and cherubim knew when they veiled face and feet and cried one to another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the almighty."
So much then for these two lines of thought upon which we have been moving: the predominance of the fear of God in Biblical thought and then a definition of the fear of God involving dread and terror, involving the fear of reverence and awe. Now last week, what we tried to do was to begin to carry out a third line of thought: the essential ingredients of the fear of God. What is necessary if men and women are to Biblically fear God? And the first thing we dealt with was, there must be correct concepts of the character of God, particularly His immensity, His majesty, and His holiness.
Men will not fear God unless they see that there is a God worthy to be feared: either the fear of dread or the fear of awe and reverence. You don't need to dread a God who's one big gushy, formless glob of love. Who trembles before a formless, gushy, ethereal glob of love? Why tremble before that? All you need to do is push it, and a few drops of it will come over you, and you're all fixed up. And there's very little trembling and very little dread in the consciences even of unconverted religious people who sit in the best of our evangelical churches week after week and year after year. Why? Because the God whom they hear preached illicits no dread and no terror.
When unconverted people see that the God with whom they have to do is a consuming fire, and that His love is holy love, and that His mercy is holy mercy; when they see that all of His attributes are suffused with holiness, immensity, and majesty, perhaps once again the holy trembling and holy terror will seize their hearts, but not until. This God whom you can snuggle up to is not the God who will illicit the fear of dread. But more so, He's not the God who will illicit true awe and reverence from His people.
Ah, but someone says, "That sounds so Old Testamentish to me. Isn't there something in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ that just sort of like a rasp rubs off those sharp angles of the dread and terror of God." No, just the opposite is true, for I read in the latter part of Hebrews 12 where the writer to Hebrews having expounded all the greater privileges that are ours under the new covenant, having contrasted with the Old, says this:
"Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved [that which we now have in Jesus Christ in the fulfillment of the new covenant is an unshakable kingdom. Having such privileges], let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is [not was] a consuming fire" (vv. 28-29).
Therefore, we must feed our minds upon the God of Scripture and in particular, those Scriptures which set Him before us in all the splendor, might, and majesty of His person. And this is no less true of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, for the New Testament actually uses the term "the fear of the Lord" and "the fear of Christ" (Colossians 3:22; Ephesians 5:20). So if your Jesus is one who illicits no sense of awe, no sense of holy dread, not the carnal dread that unregenerate men have (Revelation 1), He's not the Christ of the Bible. He's some other Jesus. And O how necessary that we as the people of God feed our minds and spirits upon the Scriptural concept of God that will illicit true fear. So then, the first essential ingredient of the fear of God is correct concepts of the character of God, particularly His immensity, His majesty, and His holiness.
The second essential ingredient of the fear of God is what I'm calling a pervasive sense of the presence of God. The foundation of the fear of God: correct concepts of the character of God. The next building block in the fear of God: a pervasive sense of the presence of God. Some of you kids may say, "Preacher, why do you use such a big word?" Well, because I want to give you a little vocabulary lesson this morning. The word "pervasive" is a very good word, and you ought to know what it means. Something that's pervasive is something that spreads throughout a given area.
Let me illustrate from something you all know. You happen to be driving down the highway, and up ahead you see a little dead body on the road, and as you get closer, before you can even see its color, you know what that animal was, don't you? If it was one of those little black animals with a white stripe down its back, before you even get close enough to see it, you can tell that it's a skunk. Why? Because a skunk has a little gland that squirts out something that pervades the atmosphere. It becomes a very pervasive smell. It extends throughout the whole area.
Now when something is pervasive, it extends through everything. If you come into a small room where there's a potted lily, the fragrance of that lily is pervasive. It pervades the whole room. You don't need to go over within a foot of it. The moment you open the door, that beautiful fragrance strikes your nostrils and it registers--that's a lily.
So the second great ingredient of the fear of God is a pervasive sense of the presence of God, that is, a sense of the presence of God which spreads throughout the entirety of our lives so that there is no place in which we find ourselves, no circumstance in which we are found but what we know God, this great, majestic, transcendent holy God is here. And all that He is in His majesty, His holiness, His immensity is not somewhere out there but right here. So then, the fear of God will always be constructed of this pervasive sense of the presence of God.
I remember sometime years ago hearing a statement by the late Dr. Tozer. And I don't know if I'm quoting him accurately, but if I'm not, the seed thought comes from him, and it's got a little bit of my own adjustment in it. But he said this: "The most profound word in the human language is 'God'" You go to your dictionary to look up a word like "pervasive" (and that's what I did) and it said, "That which is spread throughout." You can define the word "pervasive." Now try to define God. Think of all the thousands of theological books that have been written in all the hundreds of languages throughout the earth trying to define God. If you could put them all together into one language and read them all, if God gave you some kind of computer mind that could read through them all in a year's time, when you're all done, you would have to say, "We know but the edges of His ways." The most profound word in the English language is "God." The most profound fact in all of human experience is the sentence "God is." All that the Scripture tells us about Him, He is right now.
And then the third thing: the most profound experience is the recognition that God is here. The most profound word: God. The most profound fact: God is. The most profound transforming experience: God is here. And that's what I'm driving at. It's interesting--and I want to support this now from Scripture--that in most of the instances where the fear of God is described for us in Scripture, it's described in a context of the realized presence of God.
Some of you, I trust, will remember last week when I was trying to describe this fear of reverence and awe, I went to Jacob and his vision, and he said, "Surely God was in this place and I knew it not." Moses at the burning bush said he was afraid to look upon God. Isaiah, in Isaiah 6, said, "Woe is me, I'm undone. I've seen the Lord." If you trace out these illustrations of the fear of God, the fear of reverence, the fear of awe, the fear of veneration, you will find that almost exclusively they are set in a context where men are experiencing the realized presence of God. God is there, and they know He's there, and they are in His presence, and they know it.
In Exodus 3, Moses sees that bush burning, and he turns aside to examine it, and God speaks out of it. And when he recognizes God is there speaking out of the bush, it was then that he covered his face and wouldn't even look upon it. At that point, all Moses knew of God--it wasn't the God who is up there and out there somewhere, but He's all that He is right there in Moses' presence. God is all of this right there, so he hides his face.
The same way with Jacob. He awakes from his dream, and when he reflects upon it, he says, "This is none other than the house of God. How dreadful is this place." Why? "Because right here God is and I've been in His presence. How dreadful is this place." It's made dreadful because the dreadful one was there. Even that fear of terror has this thought in it, for you remember in Genesis 3:10, Adam answers to the Lord when He says, "Where art thou?" He says, "I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid." You see, as long as Adam could think of God as being out there somewhere, he wasn't gripped with that sense of terror and dread. But he says, "When I heard Thy voice, and I knew that all You were and are, you were right here in close proximity to me, so I was afraid."
Now what does this tell us? It tells us that the second essential ingredient of the fear of God is this pervasive sense of His presence, not only right concepts of His character, but taking all that He is and bringing it here in this very place where I sit, where I stand in this moment.
Now I've tried to establish the general principle from these passages, but now let's zero in on what's probably the most sustained and concentrated passage which teaches this truth. If you were asked to select one, what immediately comes to your mind? What passage in Scripture most clearly describes a man who has right concepts of the character of God (His immensity, majesty, and holiness), but it's couched in the context, He's all of that right here, and He's filled with a pervasive sense of the presence of God? I hope you're thinking Psalm 139. If you weren't, I hope you will be in the future. Now remember what we're trying to establish is the second essential ingredient of the fear of God. Without this, there will be no fear of God. Notice how the Psalmist begins (thinking of the omniscience of God, that is, the fact that He knows all things):
"O lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, Thou knowest it altogether" (vv. 1-4).
Now up to this point, the Psalmist is giving what we might say a description of bare omniscience. He's describing what he knows about the character of God as an all-seeing, all-knowing God. But how is he thinking of that? Is he thinking of it in terms--and I want to use an illustration that I hope will bring this into focus--is he using it in terms of what we might say about one of these U-2 planes with special cameras that can take pictures from 60 to 80 thousand feet that would show the color or the shape of your car on the ground all these miles below, or some of these photographing satellites? And it's amazing the detail they can show from 100 miles up. There's not a detail they cannot see from a distance.
Now is that the concept David has? God is this great immense all-knowing, all-seeing God, and He's up there, out there somewhere. And everything I do, like the great eye of the orbiting spy satellite, He sees it; He knows it. Is that the concept? No, for notice the transition in the next verse: "Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me." Now granted, God has no hand. He's using a figure of speech, what they tell us is an anthropomorphism. God has attributed to Himself certain characteristics of men. He doesn't actually have hands and eyes and feet. But in order to convey to us His ways and what He's like, God does this. Now, David says, "The God who has searched me, the God who knows me, who understands my thoughts, who knows every word. He knows and understands [not like the orbiting spy satellite from miles away], but because His hand is upon me." Now notice how this thought is developed:
"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence [not just knowledge, but presence]? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there [he doesn't say, 'You will see me.' He says, 'Thou art there']: if I make my bed in hell [or in the grave], behold, Thou art there. [He says, 'If I go as high as a man can go in this direction, Thou art there. If I go as far as a man can go in this direction, Thou art there.'] If I take the wings of the morning [apparently a poetic picture of jumping on the first rays of the sun as they break up over the horizon and shoot out over the sea], and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me."
You see what he's doing? Do you catch this? He's not talking about bare omniscience (God knows everything), or some bare kind of heartless, formless, personalityless omnipresence (God is everywhere). No, "Wherever I go, God is there as the personal God whose hand is upon me, whose hand holds me, whose hand covers me." And then he even traces this all the way back in a beautiful poetic imagery in verse 13: "For Thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother's womb." It was in the darkness of that period before he was ever born He says, "Thy hand did cover me and envelop me. I was not only enveloped in my mother's womb, but I was enveloped in the tender protecting hand of my God."
Then he goes on to develop these thoughts until he says his head's going to split. Verses 17-18: "How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with Thee." Do you catch that strain of emphasis? Thy presence, Thy hand, with Thee. What's he saying? He's saying, "O God, the thought that has just pervaded me and that I carry with me in every circumstance and situation is that all You are as that all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-gracious God, you are to me right here."
Therefore, the fear of God to David comprised this great second element: a pervasive sense of the presence of God. And it's this that will create that awe, that sense of wonder, that sense of reverence, so that the thought of disobeying such a God, the thought of grieving Him by walking contrary to His will is unthinkable to the man who walks in His fear. That's why Scripture says, "The fear of the Lord is to depart from evil." For if I'm living in the sense of the immediate presence of this great God, I will not dare to fly into the face of His holy commandments and laws.
How often have we been tempted to do something--you children, maybe you were going to take some forbidden object, and just the presence of your sister or brother walking into the room--and suddenly you stopped what you were doing and started fiddling around like you never were going to do it. If the presence of another creature who has no power to judge you for your action--the worst they can do is squeal on you, but they have no power to judge you--if their realized presence radically changes your moral and ethical conduct, what happens to the man who knows he's always in the immediate presence, not just of one who can observe and squeal on him, but the one before whom he is accountable for all that he does. Will that have any ethical and moral implications? I'll say it has ethical and moral implications, and we'll look at a couple of them in a little bit.
May I use one more illustration? I've labored at trying to make this concept clear. Suppose we went down to the local library, and we were going to find out all the facts we could find out about the Grand Canyon. I've talked with some people who have been to the Grand Canyon, and it's made me want to go there. But we could get all the facts: so many miles across at certain points, so deep. And we've got all these facts about the immensity, the majesty, the beauty, the transcendent splendor of the Grand Canyon. And so we memorize all those facts and could pass a test and be experts on the physical properties of the Grand Canyon. But now let me ask you a question. You get up in the morning and brush your teeth, get your toast and coffee and go off to work. All that you know about the immensity, the majesty, the grandeur, the glory of the Grand Canyon doesn't affect you one bit in how you live. But if it were possible, when you got up the next morning (you've got all the facts about the Grand Canyon) and suddenly you were saddled up on the back of a ray of light that broke over the Eastern Coast of our country, and within the snap of the fingers, you found yourself standing right in the midst of the Grand Canyon. What would happen? I doubt you'd take your tube of toothpaste and start brushing your choppers. No, no, what would happen? You'd say, "O yeah, I got all the facts, but this is the Grand Canyon. This is the Grand Canyon!" What's happened? All the facts and figures--not a one of them has changed. You can look out and see the mile or two mile expanse; you can see the depth. You can see all the factors, but what's happened? You've been put into the presence of the Canyon itself, and all that should have illicited awe suddenly grips you with a sense of awe and wonder.
Now that's what I'm trying to say. We can have all the facts about God, even good Biblical and Reformed facts about God (holy, sovereign, transcendent, immense, boundless, and all the rest), but unless we learn to cultivate an all-pervasive sense of His presence, it won't make much difference in how we live. That's why some people who've got a smaller God in their theological propositions but have more of a sense of the presence of God live a lot better than people who've got a great big God in their theology but have a distant God in their experience. He's not the orbiting spy satellite. He's the ever-present personal God. And in that sense--and I say it reverently--the very environment in which we live--and I have Scriptural grounds for this--is this great God. That's why Paul, speaking to pagans and setting before them the God of Scripture, the God who is creator, the God who is sovereign, who governs the nations, made of one blood all nations, rules them--he says, "In Him we live, and move, and have our very being." It's not pantheism, but it's a Biblical concept I fear I know too little about experientially. And it is this which is the essential ingredient of the fear of God.
What we'll do is look at several illustrations of how this has its practical effect upon the life of the man who learns it. Turn to Genesis 17. Abraham has walked with God for a number of years. God has revealed Himself to him, and here we have another record of one of those self-disclosures that God makes to His servant whom He calls His friend. Verse 1:
"And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him [here's the first element in the fear of God], I am the Almighty God [Abraham, whatever you think of Me, I want you to think of boundless might. I want you to think of Me as the God in whom all might and power reside]; walk before Me [that is, walk in the constant awareness of My eye upon you, My presence with you, and your relationship to Me being the all-important thing to you in every circumstance. Wherever you walk, may your walk be before Me], and be thou perfect."
This is the practical outworking, the moral, the ethical implications of a man who says, "I believe what is revealed about the character of God. And by His grace, I shall cultivate an all-pervasive sense of the presence of God." The result will be a life of obedience to that God.
Now let's turn to a passage where this command of God was put to perhaps its most crucial test. And see how when Abraham passes the test, God interprets that test and also Abraham's successful passing through that test. Genesis 22. You remember the command of God was to take Isaac the son of promise and to kill him. I like to use the term because we miss something of the heart-wrenching nature of God's command. When God said, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering....", that sounds beautiful to us. But what He's saying is, "Go out and kill him."
"Abraham, as you've plunged the knife into many an animal and you've seen the spurt of blood and the quiver as life has struggled to maintain itself, and then you've seen that final quiver, and then it's dead, now go on up and plunge the knife into the breast of your own son and see the blood spurt forth, and see the twitching of the body as it fights for life, and then see it breathe its last."
That's what God told him to do. "Walk thou before Me, and be thou perfect." "Who has told me to go up and kill my son? This great majestic, transcendent, almighty, all-holy, all-powerful God. And I have learned to walk before Him. He's God; I'm the creature. Mine is to obey; the consequences of my obedience, His responsibility." And so, Abraham, regardless of what struggles he may have had in the wee hours of the morning (and no doubt he had them), Scripture passes them over. And all it does is record for us his implicit obedience. So we read in verse 3: "And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him." Then you remember the story. I need not go over the details. Just as he's about to do that very thing God told him to do (the knife is raised); God stays his hand; God speaks to him. Now notice what God says to him--and this is pivotal to our study this morning--verses 11-12:
"And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me." I haven't read this in. This is God's interpretation on the whole event. He says,
"Abraham, this test and now your obedience in the midst of it is an eloquent cry and eloquent testimony of many things, but above all, Abraham, this is the eloquent testimony of the depth and the reality of your fear of Me. For I know thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me. Abraham, you've shown Me that you fear Me, a fear which has as it's indispensable element such a concept of My character and the worth of My being (I'm worthy to be obeyed) and such a pervasive sense of My presence that you know that to walk before Me is to walk in the path that I've laid out for you. And in that path, I will be your reward even if Isaac must die."
He obeyed, and we see something of the effect of the fear of God in the life of a man.
Then there's that classic example in Genesis 39. And this is so relevant, living as we do in this day of Sodom-like debauchery, filth, and preoccupation, not only with legitimate flesh but with strange flesh. The pattern of any society is to move from its sexual pattern simply being one part of the whole of society to where it begins to be the focal point. Then it moves into sophisticated sex; then it moves into perversion, and then it moves into judgment. And I believe we're somewhere between the last two.
Joseph lived in a day where the Pharaohs of Egypt were known for their preoccupation with flesh: legitimate and strange flesh as well. And here's this handsome young man down in the court seeing all of this moral filth on every side; being a normal human being, unlike some of the radical scholars who try to show that he was a homosexual and had no normal heterosexual desires and all this kind of foolishness. In the midst of all that (and I'm only describing that, not to go into gory details but to show some of the relevance of this matter of the fear of God to the whole pull that you feel as young men and women living in our day, and some of us who are not so young), here Joseph receives overtures from Potiphar's wife, and he refuses.
That doesn't tell us too much about him, for a man may say no the first time for a lot of reasons. Any temptation that simply comes by once and flirts with us is relatively easy to deal with. It's when there is persistent temptation in the area of natural weakness that the real test comes. And so day after day, Scripture tells us, she comes and puts out her overtures, and Joseph says, "No," until one day in absolute frustration, seeing everyone out of the house, she actually lays hold upon Joseph physically. But before that hour of his greatest testing, Joseph says, "There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he [Potiphar] kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" What kind of God? A God who was out there somewhere? No, the moment a man begins to think of God in that distant relationship, then he can very conveniently cauterize his conscience and insolate his present circumstance from the eye and the control of God. And when he's done that, then he's given himself up to the sin in principle already.
"How can I do this wickedness and sin against God?" What God? The God who has set me behind and before and laid His hand upon me, the God who saw me and was with me in that pit when my brothers thought to kill me, the God who brought me out of that pit and put me here in Egypt, the God who has brought me to a place of exaltation before your very husband. How can I do this and fly into the face of this God?"
You know as well as I do that the first step to any sin where there is definite inducement to sin is, we must negate any sense of the immediate presence of God. Right? Because many of the things you and I do, if we started to do them and just a fellow human being were to walk in on us, that's all the check we need. We'd stop immediately. If you're having a spat with your wife, just let a person whose not even a Christian come to the door, and just the presence of another human being is enough to check your words, and suddenly you can become so sweet. If you're cheating at school and all of a sudden the teacher looks over your shoulder, you hide your cheat sheet.
O, dear ones, what would it do to us if we had this all-pervasive sense of the presence of God. Look what it did for Joseph. It kept him, and that's the only thing that will keep you from the human standpoint. Now I know there is the in-working of God's Spirit, but this is how He works, for His says in the new covenant, "I will put my fear into their hearts." He doesn't keep us automatically, but by putting within and preserving in us this fear of God, which has as an essential ingredient this all-pervasive sense of the presence of God. That's why Scripture says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." But His working in does not bypass the cultivation of the fear of God nor the natural activity of this fear.
This is why when we turn to the New Testament, we have that command dealing with this same matter of ethical and moral purity. In 2 Corinthians 6, the Apostle is asking some questions to show these Corinthians the stupidity, the moral folly of being sinfully involved with unregenerate people in unnecessary alliances that would try to mix light and darkness, God and the devil. And he would ask all these questions:
"What concord hath Christ with belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God. [All that I am, I will be, not in a distant far off way but in intimate personal relationship with My people.] Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God [carrying our holiness to perfection in the climate in the fear of God, which has as one of its indispensable elements, this all-pervasive sense of the presence of God]."
Why should I work on this area of defilement of the spirit? Because God is here. He sees and knows and is grieved with that which is unlike Him and a contradiction of His holy character. He is not out there somewhere, but "I will dwell in them and be their God." And He says, in that light of that promise, "Let us carry our holiness, carry our sanctification onto perfection in the climate of the fear of God."
Now I hope this opens up a text like Proverbs 23:17: "Be thou in the fear of God all the day long." Carry with you into every circumstance, not only right views of the character of God, but this pervasive sense of the presence of God. You see what a difference it will make in a time like this when we're gathered to worship. The preacher's going to be here--fine. My fellow believer's are going to be here--fine. But above all of that, God is here. How dare I dishonor Him with half-hearted mumbling the words of a song of praise--unthinkable. So I stir myself up to praise Him with full heart and full voice. How dare I dishonor Him by allowing distracting thoughts when the Word of God is being opened, and allowing my mind to run off about work tomorrow and the problems of yesterday and my new suit next week and my boyfriend or girlfriend. How dare I. I'm in the presence of God. God is speaking through His Word by His Spirit. O, you can carry this out. And the implications are infinite, because the God in whose presence we live is the infinite God.
Does this help? I hope it does--to understand a little more about what the fear of God is. That's the chief part of knowledge. That fear founded upon right views of God's character and constructed of this all-pervasive sense of His presence.
The Lord willing, next week we'll take up the third element: what I'm calling a constraining awareness of my obligations to Him, that in every situation and circumstance, the only thing that really matters is what God requires of me and the obedience that I ought to render unto Him.
Do you know something of this fear that I've been speaking of today? If you're a Christian, I'm sure your heart has cried out as mine has, "O, Lord, I thank you for the little I know. But O how precious little it is." And isn't this the explanation of so much of our shoddy living and so much of the areas of weakness? We have conveniently learned to push the Grand Canyon out to Arizona instead of standing in the midst of it. May God help us that we shall walk in His fear.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Oct 23, 2023 15:06:41 GMT -5
The Fear of God: Ingredients, Part 3 by Albert N. Martin
Edited transcript of message preached September 27, 1970
PDF Format | More Transcripts
In our previous studies, we have first of all sought to grasp something of the predominance of this theme in Holy Scripture. And I'm sure for anyone who has read his or her Bible for even a brief period of time, there is a conviction that the fear of God is not some concept that is tucked away in a few remote portions of Scripture. But it's found in the very main stream of Scriptural thought. And therefore, to be ignorant of the fear of God is to be ignorant and devoid of the religion which is set forth in Holy Scripture.
Then we grappled for a couple of weeks with the meaning of the fear of God as it comes to us in Holy Scripture. And we saw that, just as there are two aspects of fear in human experience, so there are two facets to the fear of God. There is the fear of dread and terror, and there is the fear of reverence and awe. Unregenerate men may have the fear of dread and terror. It's no indication of the presence of grace for a man to be afraid of God in the sense that Adam was after he sinned, in the sense that Felix was when he trembled at the thought of coming judgment. That fear is simply an indication that a man has not been given up to hardness of heart and a seared conscience. But though its presence is no evidence of grace, a total abstinence of it may be indeed, not only the indication of a hardened conscience in an unregenerate man, but an evidence of very defective thinking in the life of a believer. For there is a sense in which we never get beyond this aspect of the fear of God, the fear of terror at the thought of His judgments, at thought of His rod which will fall upon us as His children if we walk in paths of disobedience. However, the predominant concept of Scripture regarding the fear of God is that fear of reverence and awe, the very presence of which is an indication of the working of God's grace in the heart of a man. The best summary statement I know is that which is given in Professor Murray's book Principles of Christian Conduct in which he states, "The controlling sense of the majesty and holiness of God, and the profound reverence which this apprehension draws forth, constitutes the essence of the fear of God." And in that sense, then, we will fear God for all eternity. We will never get beyond that sense of profound reverence which is rooted in an apprehension of His character. In fact, we might say is that what we know of the fear of God now is only a little part of what we shall know in that day, for now we see through a glass darkly. But then we shall see face to face and know even as we are known. And so when you turn to the book of the Revelation and find pictures of the redeemed in heaven, you find them crying out, "Who shall not fear Thee, O God." Even in this state He is worthy of fear.
And then for several weeks now we've been trying to grapple with the essential ingredients of the fear of God. Having seen the predominant note of this truth, something of its meaning, now we're asking the question, "What ingredients comprise the fear of God? If that fear is to be planted in my own heart; if that fear is to grow and develop in my heart, what things must be present in me, and what things must be developed?" And we thus far considered two of the essential ingredients of the fear of God. The first was, there must be right views of the character of God. There will be no fear of God unless there are right views of His holy character. As one servant of Christ has said,
"But whatever the reason [he's speaking of the fact that there's so little thinking on the fear of God in our day] the eclipse of the fear of God, whether viewed as a doctrine or an attitude, evidences a deterioration of faith in the living God. Biblical faith means the fear of God because the only God is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. And His name is glorious and fearful. If we know God, we must know Him in the matchless glory of His transcendent majesty. And the only appropriate posture for us when we see Him as He is is to be prostrate before Him in awe and in reverence. To do otherwise is to deny the greatness of God, and to deny His greatness is infidelity. The pervasive emphasis of Scripture upon the fear of God as the determining attitude of heart and life in both religion and ethics is a characteristic mark of the people of God."
So then, there will not be fear of God in us unless we entertain right views of the character of God. And I think it's obvious to any thinking person that this is perhaps the most pivotal reason as to why the fear of God, the sense of awe and wonder, has left the church. It's because the God of Scripture has been abandoned for a substitute, who is this formless glob of sentiment called love before which no one dreads and trembles and fears, but which they can snuggle up to when they get good and ready. So there are to be right views of the character of God if there is to be the fear of God.
Then last week we considered the second great ingredient: there must be a pervasive sense of the presence of God. That this great God is not that God out there somewhere. But in the light of Psalm 139, this great God is here, and He is here now. "Do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord?" And the essence, then, of walking in the fear of God is to walk, not only with right views of God entertained in the mind and heart but to walk in the sense of His presence. God said to Abraham, "Walk before Me and be thou perfect."
Now we come to the third essential ingredient of the fear of God. And these three things that I've given you are not inspired. As with any kind of topical preaching, one must try to gather the Biblical materials, reduce them to their essential elements, and then lay them out. When John Bunyan wrote in double columns what would be if it were in single columns and normal print about a 150 page book on the fear of God, he came up with eleven ingredients of the fear of God. I came up with three. Well, who's right, John Bunyan or myself? Well, I hope we're both right. All John Bunyan did was to break these things down under different headings. And I feel that most of his headings can be gathered under the three that I've given to you. I mention this so that you will not in any way think that I claim inspiration for these things. It's simply an attempt to bring together and to collate under these specific headings what Scripture teaches on the fear of God. What then is the third essential ingredient of the fear of God? If it starts with right views of the character of God joined with the pervasive sense of the presence of God, then the fear of God will be evidenced in what I'm calling a constraining awareness of one's obligation to God. In other words, to live in the fear of God is not only to know who He is and that He is here. But in the circumstance in which I find myself, the most important issue is my obligation to this great God who is here. Do you see the connection of this? To walk in the fear of God is to walk not only with right views of God which would illicit awe and reverence, to walk in the sense that He is here (the pervasive sense of His presence), but that in the presence of that great God who is here, the most necessary thing is to know and discharge my obligation to Him. To quote one servant of Christ,
"The fear of God implies our constant consciousness of our relationship to God. While we are also related to angels, demons, and things, our primary relationship is to God, and all other relationships are determined by and are to be interpreted in terms of our relationship to Him. The first thought of a Godly man in every circumstance is God's relationship to him in it and his relationship to God."
Now let me give you a very current illustration of this. Right now sitting where you sit, you are all related--and let me take the author's terms--to angels. If you're a child of God, angels have been sent forth as ministering spirits to do service to the heirs of salvation. You are also related to men. Some of you are blood relatives. Some of you, the man next to you is your father; some of you, the woman next to you is your mother. You have a relationship to one another as casual friends, as pastor to flock: all kinds of human relationships right here and now. You're related to angels. You're related to men. You're related to demons. I don't know precisely how many demons may be actually present here this morning. But Scripture tells us that they are an organized force, that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but with principalities and powers, against spiritual wickedness. There are sometimes I need no faith to believe demons are here. I can feel their opposition to the preaching of the Word. At other times I wonder if maybe the Lord has cleared the atmosphere of them, at least in this geographical area. But you have a relationship to demons. You have a relationship to men. You have a relationship to angels. You have a relationship to things. You're related to that pew on which you sit and about which you make an assessment as to its being comfortable or uncomfortable.
Now you have many relationships here this morning. But if you came into this building in the fear of God, you came and sit here recognizing that the only relationship which really matters as the one which takes president over every other relationship is that which you sustain to God. And your concern has been as you've sat here in the previous 35 or 40 minutes is, what is God's relationship to me, and what is my relationship to Him? What does He require of me, and am I rendering what He requires of me as I sit here this morning? So if you have been worshipping in the fear of God, the evidence of that will be, or the essential ingredient of it has already been that this relationship, yours to God and God to yours, and all that's involved in that by way of obligation and submission and obedience--that has been the most important thing.
Now has that been the most important thing to you? Or has your relationship to your watch been the most important thing, and you're saying, "Boy, I've suffered through two quarters of this; only one quarter to go." Has that been your attitude? Or has your relationship to your father and mother been the most important to you--"I'm here because Mom and Dad said I had to be, so I'll suffer it out." Or has your relationship to your reputation been the most important thing--"I'm a member of that church, and if I don't go, people will think I'm all fussed and bothered and the rest, so I'll show up." Has that been what's brought you here this morning? You see how practical this is. What has been the most pressing issue to you from the time you walked through here and even before you came here and thought to come here? If you are walking in the fear of God, then you have been walking in this constraining awareness of your obligation to Him.
Now having stated the principle, secondly, let me seek to lay out before you what is the essence of our obligation to God. If an essential ingredient of the fear of God is not only right views of His character and a pervasive sense of His presence but a constraining awareness of my obligation to Him, what then is the essence of my obligation to God right here this morning, when I go out to work, when I spend that time with my girlfriend, when I sit at my desk in school tomorrow, when I go to the workbench in the place of business? I believe anyone acquainted with the Scriptures would agree that all of our obligation to God can be broken down into three great headings. Number one: to love Him supremely. Number two: to obey Him implicitly. And number three: to trust Him completely.
Love Him supremely. I don't need to support that from Scripture. What is the first and great commandment? What is the summation of all that God requires of us? "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." To love Him supremely. And then as the only proof of that love, to obey Him implicitly. Jesus said, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." And then to trust Him completely. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." There must be the carrying out of obedience in the expression of love in the context of trust. Trust Him completely. So then, to be in the fear of God is to recognize these things and to live accordingly.
Here I am in a relationship with my children, my wife, my job, my boss, my neighbors, my house, my car, men, angels, things. And in all of those relationships, the man who walks in the fear of God seeks to remember and be constrained by the recognition of His obligation to God: love Him supremely. So then, if he senses an affection for his wife which begins to border on idolatry; if he says, "Honey, I think I ought to go to prayer meeting." And she says, "I'll miss you. I want you at home." He says, "Sorry, dear, my God commands me to gather with His people." And he shows that in that situation where he risks the frown of his wife or the frown of his God, the smile of his God is more important. And if he doesn't do that, he's not walking in the fear of God. He's set up an idol in His heart. And that shiny new car glistens in the showroom, it's not a matter now of good economic planning, (he's going to have to invest so much on the old one, so it would be better to get the new one), but it's simply the fact that it sure would look nice. Now of course, it means he wouldn't be able to increase his giving commensurate to his increase in salary last year. O yes, God says, "Honor Me with the first fruits of all your increase." And his giving is to be proportionate as God has blessed, but he sure would like to have that shiny new car. And now he's in a relationship where he's going to love paint and chrome more than his God; he's not walking in the fear of God. If he's walking in the fear of God, he won't have that idolatrous attachment to that new car. Now is the pastor saying you shouldn't get new cars? No, I didn't say any such thing. All I'm saying is if the motivation is such that it means that you place such a love upon that thing which contradicts supreme love to God and implicit obedience to God, then you're not walking in the fear of God.
To love Him supremely so that Jesus, when He calls men to Himself, says, "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." If you come to Jesus, even legitimate love for yourself, which expresses itself in the desire to preserve yourself, that must be sacrificed. A love for yourself must go beyond that so that you're expendable. You don't look upon length of days and retirement at 65 and 20 years down in some little Christian community in Florida as your ambition. You're expendable. So when people say, "Doing that might get you in trouble," you say, "I'm sorry, my life's not mine anyway." This is the principle.
The essence of our obligation to God: to love God supremely; to obey Him implicitly. Now we've got to obey the laws of the land. God tells us to obey them that have the rule over you within the church (ecclesiastical leadership). We're to obey the government. We have to obey our superiors. Ah, but He is to be obeyed implicitly. And if there is any contradiction of the expressed will of any superior appointed by God, be it civil or ecclesiastical, whatever realm, then Acts 5:29 comes in where Peter says, "We ought to obey God rather than men." Notice the word "ought." It is our obligation. Peter says to obey God rather than man. Here was this man walking in the fear of God. And walking in the fear of God, he said, "I have an obligation which transcends the obligation to obey you men. The obligation is to obey my God."
You get the idea now of the principle? Now let me seek to illustrate that principle by two great Scriptural examples. I've given you a number of examples. But now I want to pinpoint this third aspect of the fear of God: a constraining awareness of our obligation to Him. The essence of that obligation: love Him supremely, obey Him implicitly, and trust Him completely. I want to take an illustration from the Old Testament and then an illustration from the New. The Old Testament illustration we looked at in part last week. It's this great man called the friend of God, this man Abraham. Now remember what we're trying to do as we look at this portion is to see the third element of the fear of God exemplified in Abraham, this constraining awareness of his obligation to God being the supreme obligation: loving Him, obeying Him, and trusting Him. Genesis 22:1:
"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. [God acknowledges His awareness of the depth of Abraham's affection for his son.] And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him"
Then you know the story: how that he took hold of the knife, and then God stays his hand. Verses 11-12: "And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from Me." Verse 18: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice."
Now God says this was a test. Verse 1: "God did tempt [prove] Abraham." And He was proving him at the very point of our study. He was proving the reality and depth of his fear of God, for when he passes the test, God says in verse 12, "Now I know that thou fearest God." This was the point of test: not love primarily, not trust primarily, but primarily the depth and reality of his fear of God.
Now what was involved in that? May I suggest that that which was involved was not only Abraham's right views of the character of God, a pervasive sense of the presence of God ("walk before Me, and be thou perfect." He's called the friend of God; he cultivated His presence), but here we see demonstrated in Abraham the fear of God revealing itself in this constraining awareness of Abraham's obligation to God: to love Him supremely. "Abraham, you deeply love Isaac, but do you love Me more?" "Yes, God, I love you more." "All right, prove it." He takes hold of the knife, ready to plunge it into the breast of his own son. He demonstrated that his obligation to love God was supreme. Sure he was to love Isaac as his son, and he found this no burden. This was the delight of his heart. This child was given to him when he was past the age when men can father children and when women can be mothers. And so this was no burden to love Isaac. And there was the depth of that attachment naturally. And then added to that, the fact that all the covenant promises terminated upon Isaac, and he could see in Isaac the whole ongoing of God's purposes of grace. And so there was that love which had not only a natural stream but a stream of spiritual identification and of spiritual purpose: all the covenant promises tied up in Isaac. And yet in the midst of that depth of love, Abraham reveals his determination to love his God supremely.
Secondly, he reveals his determination to obey Him implicitly. Notice verse 18: "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice." "Abraham, you hear the voice of your natural affection for your child. And that voice cries out, 'Don't offer him as a sacrifice.' But Abraham, you've heard My voice which says, Take thy son and offer him. And Abraham, you've obeyed My voice, not the voice of natural affection." Then there was the voice of natural reasoning: "Abraham, if you offer up Isaac, all the covenant promises terminate upon Isaac's head. How can you take and offer Isaac unto death and still see the promises fulfilled in him?" And there the voice of natural wisdom cries out. But he says, "The voice of God, that's the voice I'm obligated to obey, not the voice of natural affection, not the voice of human wisdom but the voice of the God who called me in Ur of the Chaldee in sovereign grace and mercy, that's the voice I'm to obey." And then he trusted Him completely.
You say, "How do you find that?" Well, I'm so glad the inspired writer of Hebrews (whoever he was) has told us what went on in Abraham's mind while he made his trip up that mountain side. I might guess what went on in his mind. But we don't need to guess about some things, for we read in Hebrews 11:17-19 this statement of what went on in Abraham's mind:
"By faith Abraham, when he was tried, [remember at the point of the depth of his fear of God] offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, if whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure."
What was he doing? Not only loving God supremely, obeying Him implicitly, but trusting Him completely saying,
"All right, God, if You've got to raise him up to fulfill the promises, You're able to do it. The very fact that there's an Isaac, it's almost like there's a figure of a resurrection. That You could have brought a living boy from a man whose body was as incapable of being a father, as though it had been in the grave--God, if You can give me a resurrection son by birth, then it's perfectly possible for You to raise him up, though his body is dead, for he's the son of a dead man."
Isn't that what Romans says? He looked at his own body as good as dead as far as having any power to procreate, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. So he says if two dead people can produce a living son by virtue of the power of God, then that same God can take a dead son and make a living one out of him. And here is witness to the strength and the completeness of Abraham's faith. So I say that Abraham's fear of God, which is the one virtue singled out above all others in our Lord's response to the test, is a fear which expressed itself in a constraining awareness of his obligation to the living God.
May I by way of application say that this is precisely the thing to which God calls us. When He says to us concerning our Isaacs, "Lovest thou Me more than this or more than these?" And He calls upon us to walk in a course which immediately brings up the voice of natural affection. I heard this past week in a situation that just made me want to reel (and I hear of them with recurring frequency), where you have Christian fathers and mothers who have certain ambitions for their children, and then when God seems to be leading in a different direction, not contrary to His Word but contrary to their own carnal ambitions, they seek to hinder their own children from following the will of God. God says, "Obey Me, not the voice of natural affection, not the voice of natural inclination and human wisdom." You parents, what are your ambitions for your children? If God were to summon you into His presence right now and gaze into your eyes with those eyes which are as a flame of fire before whom all things are naked and open so you couldn't fudge, and God were to say, "What do you want for your children?" Could you answer hardly without thinking,
"O God, I have one ambition, that they be what You want them to be. If that means you want to save them at age 7 and take them home at age 9, Thy will be done. If that means you want to lay hold of them and send them out to some obscure place to die in the eyes of the world and the church, total failures in poverty, so be it, Lord."
Could you say that? If not, my dear parents, you do not walk in the fear of God. You don't love God supremely. You love your own cherished ambitions for your children. I'm not talking as a bachelor. I've got three children. Where are your ambitions? Do you love Him supremely and His purpose for those children? Or will the voice of natural affection and the voice of human wisdom and personal ambition dominate. Not if you're walking in the fear of God. For if you're walking in the fear of God, there will be that constraining awareness of your obligation to love Him supremely, to obey Him implicitly, and to trust Him completely.
I say to some of you young people, who have perhaps a deep and intimate relationship with your parents, the time may come when the voice of God says to you, "This is the way you must move." You say, "But Lord, if I do that, Mom and Dad won't understand. Mom and Dad may turn against me." What are you going to do? At that point you need to say, "O God, by Your Spirit, so flood my heart with your fear that I will be constrained by the consciousness that my obligation is essentially, primarily, and supremely to You." There may be times when the only way you can walk down the pathway of the will of God is to step on your own father and mother's heart. You have to do it with tears. You have to do it with a sense of inner grief. But there are times when the only way you can walk down the path of the revealed will of God is to step on your own parents' heart.
Isn't that what Jesus said? "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me." And He said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Did our Lord say that heartlessly? No, no. Did He say that as some wild enthusiast just seeking to create some kind of disturbance? No, He said it as the meek, tender Lamb of God. But He said it out of the realism that when His Spirit sends His fear into the hearts of His people; when He calls them by grace, that fear rooted in right views of the character of God, producing a pervasive sense of the presence of God, will bring them to that place of a constraining awareness of their obligation to God to obey Him implicitly, even if it means the severance of the deepest of human ties. Has the fear of God so worked in you? It did in Abraham.
Then there is perhaps the most beautiful example in the life of our blessed Lord Himself. And He is not only the one to whom we are joined in that vital and mystical union taught so often in Scripture, but He is also our great example. 1 John 2:6: "He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." And Scripture says of our Lord in Isaiah 11:2 that the Spirit who would rest upon Him was, among other things, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. Then in Malachi, a passage I wasn't aware of until recently, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it certainly seems that He alone can fit the prophecy which is directed to Levi. Malachi 2:5: "My covenant was with Him of life and peace; and I gave them to Him for the fear wherewith He feared Me, and was afraid before My name." The Lord Jesus walked in the fear of God, not the fear of dread and of terror, though He did have dread and terror at the thought of the wrath of His Father being poured upon Him. But He walked in that sense of reverential awe.
Now how did the fear of God operate upon Him? Notice these three things again in our Lord. It shows itself particularly when we come to that inner sanctuary of Gethsemane and Calvary, that He loved His Father supremely. As a true man, He loved life. As the son of the Father's bosom, He loved and delighted in His conscious communion with the Father. He could say, "Father, I know that Thou hearest Me always." But now the Father's plan for the Son demands that He walk down a path in which He will be stripped of the sensible comfort of the support of God. He won't be stripped of the fact of God's support, but of the comfort and the enjoyment of the supporting hand of the Father.
He will have to give up life itself. And in our Lord, as a true man, this was a difficult thing, for men do not like to relinquish life. Death is a foreign element introduced to humanity. That's why we recoil from it. That's why we dread death. That's why we fear even the experience of dying. Though as Christians we don't fear death, we fear the experience of actually dying, because it's an unnatural thing for there to be this terrible severance of soul and body, a rending apart what God had joined together and will again join together in the world to come. And yet the Lord Jesus so walked in the Spirit of the fear of the God that His supreme love to the Father causes Him to say, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Though everything within Him recoils (and we just overlap these first two principles), Scripture says in Philippians 2 that He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." And in the midst of that supreme love to the Father and that implicit obedience, our Lord's trust in the Father was put to its deepest test.
Someone has said that our Lord's last words upon the cross "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit" were perhaps the greatest act of faith ever exercised upon God's world. Here was no sensible delight of the Father's countenance. The heavens shrouded in blackness; the Son of God feeling in Himself the Father's wrath and displeasure against the sins of His people. In that situation where Isaiah 50:10 was more fully realized than in anyone else, here He was the servant of God who obeyed the voice of God walking in darkness. The heavens shrouded in darkness, and yet He so stays Himself upon His Father and the certainty of the Father's promise that He says in this act of naked faith, "Into Thy hands I commend My Spirit." So in our blessed Lord we see how the fear of God operates. In every single relationship, even in the mystery of Gethsemane and the cross, He was not only held by proper views of God, walking in that pervasive sense of the presence of God but constrained by the awareness of His supreme obligation to God: "Not My will, but Thine be done."
So one is not surprised to find the fear of God often linked immediately with the whole matter of obedience. Deuteronomy 10:12-13: "And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD, and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?" Philippians 2:12: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."
Child of God, would you grow more in the fear of God and walk in that fear? Then you and I must constantly remind ourselves of this fact: as I stand and where I stand in this present relationship, the most important thing is my relationship to God and what He requires of me in this circumstance. This God, glorious in Himself, this God who made me, this God who redeemed me, this God is the One to whom I owe allegiance. So when it means I must pair off a little corner of truth in order to keep the smile of my boss, I can't do it. Why? Because of my obligation to the God who's commanded me to speak only the truth.
See the ethical implications. Though everything in me in that situation cries out for the gratification of some physical appetite in that circumstance with that young man or woman, and my passions cry out, "Gratify me!" and my flesh cries out, "Indulge me!", in that situation my God says, "Flee youthful lusts." "What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" And there is the constraining sense of the supremacy of my obligation to Him. So then, we must constantly remind ourselves of the fact that, as we stand and where we stand, our obligations to God are supreme. We must constantly remind ourselves of what obedience involves and constantly seek to enlarge the scope of our understanding of what God requires by the meditation upon and searching out of the precepts of God in His Word, and then constantly pray for grace to forget all else that would blind us to this.
Then I think we see, for those of you who are not Christians, this is the explanation of why you live the way you do. Romans 3:18 says of unconverted people, "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Why do you live the way you live? Because you have no profound sense of the greatness of God's person, no pervasive sense of His presence, and no constraining awareness of your obligation to Him. That's why you can cheat at school. That's why you can lie to Mom and Dad. That's why you can open your mouth in cursing. That's why you can give your body to sensual indulgence. And my friend, you'll go on that way until God is pleased to give you a new heart. For Jeremiah 32:39-40 says that in the new covenant, God's distinct work is to put His fear within our hearts that we shall not depart from Him.
The Holy Spirit never comes into the heart of a man or woman, boy or girl but what He comes as the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. And so if you have no fear of the Lord, it's because you're devoid of the Spirit. And "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." And so you can't conjure this up. You can't crank it out. The God of grace and mercy who has treasured up in His Son all that is necessary for the salvation of men bids you look to Him through His Son and cry to Him that in grace He would be pleased to grant you a new heart and to grant you the Spirit who is the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.
So then, the third indispensable ingredient of the fear of God is this constraining awareness of our obligation to Him. May God grant that it shall so grip us and be our portion that even our worship as we gather again tonight will be different, that every other relationship will fade into the background in light of this relationship of ourselves to our great God. And may we in every circumstance of life be given to know and constantly reminded of this principle so that we shall be in the fear of God, as Scripture commands us, all the day long.
|
|