Sooner or later, we have to face it that we have to get into some things here and we have to get on with God. So, that’s part of what I’d like to bring home tonight, by pointing you to the verse that describes the normal Christian life. It’s I John 3:9, No one born of God commits sin. God is so good He doesn’t get caught up in a lot of qualifications. He just brings the truth home to us. No one born of God commits sin. I think really our own conscience is a test whether that speaks to us or not. Some of us here feel that’s all right, I agree with that. Amen. That’s because our conscience is right with God in regard to that. Some of us think, wait a minute, that’s a bit hard. I think if you feel that, you maybe ought to be more honest before God because, the normal Christian life is that any of us who are born of God, we don’t commit sin.

You remember, sin is described, it might be good to look at it lest Satan bring us into false condemnation, sin is described in James 4:17, "Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. So, that’s what God’s Word describes as sin. The philosophers may say that sin is any lack of conformity to absolute perfection whether a person knows it or not. God does not define sin that way. God defines sin as conscious, knowing, disobedience to what you know God wants you to do.

Now, I think we get into real trouble here tonight if we go on past this sentence without being real about our own lives. So, I do think that’s why many of us get into confusion. We go on after this point and we refuse to be real. Now, I would question each one of us and myself included. Let us plant ourselves against this object of Word of God and, let us ask ourselves, are any of us here who say we are born of God, are we committing sin? That is, are we doing something that we know is wrong? We should be real, you see. I think that’s where we get into difficulties and that’s where all the confusion lies, is in your mind. Do you remember that Jesus said, anybody who does what I say will know the doctrine and will know that what I say is true. Now, the opposite of that is equally true. If you don’t do what Jesus says, you’ll be confused about the doctrine. Just let’s set ourselves, each one of us, against God’s Word.

Do you say that you are born of God? Now, if you do, then you don’t commit sin. That is, you don’t do things that you know are wrong. All of us might not have been challenged to have quiet times. I understand that. In that case, you’re not responsible for that. Now, if God has spoken to you about a quiet time, a prayer time each day, do you carry that out? Why I am laying all this on you is not to beat you to death. this dear Word has kept me from insanity. It will keep us all from insanity if we face it and believe it. Really. So, please don’t go all mushy on me and then say, oh, no, you’re condemning me. I’m not condemning you. I’m saying to you we’re walking in dangerous grounds in these days. We’re walking in confusing and deceptive spiritual atmospheres and I am pleading with you to align your life with God’s Word. Do you do things that you know are wrong? If you do, you’re not experiencing the normal life of a child of God and you ought to be concerned, Loved Ones.

Nobody born of God commits sin. Now, if you say to me, well, do you mean don’t have my quiet time once or twice? No, I’m sure God doesn’t mean that. But, would you miss your quiet time more often than you’d hit it? Well, if you do, then you’re learning and teaching yourself to despise that part of God’s Word. You lose all sense of God’s presence in your life, you will.

For some strange reason I feel I should stay on that for a moment. Do you see that nobody born of God commits sin. Take that at its lowest level. Let’s say, commit sin habitually. It doesn’t mean that. It doesn’t say that. But, let’s say commit sin habitually. Now, presumably we wouldn’t say sin habitually is twice a day. We probably wouldn’t even say it’s three times in a week. We might say, well, does not commit sin maybe what - three times or four times in a month. Now, do you do that? Do you do that? I would press you a little here. You remember, I John 3, says this is how you know the children of God and can distinguish them from the children of the devil. So, before we start extending that habitual sin too far, let’s realize that there are many loved ones who aren’t Christians at all who live very good lives. So, let’s at least keep our habitual sinning above the level of the normal child of the devil and, remember, they aren’t committing adultery every day and they aren’t murdering every day and they aren’t telling lies every day. Indeed, if you and I look at the loved ones that we work with, we know many dear people who aren’t Christians and who are very kind and very honest. So, I would just press all of us again. Would you first of all be real about your outward sins? That’s what that verse is concerned about. No one born of God commits (and the emphasis is "poeo", it’s the Greek word that become poet, you remember, you make or do something, poeo), nobody does sin. No one born of God does sin. That is, you can do sin by an act or by a thought or by a word. Now, nobody born of God disobeys God knowingly in act, thought or word. Now, do you do that?

Now, there’s no difficulty, you see, with the emergency because, you remember, that’s taken care of in I John, if you like to look at it. God is fair to us. He knows that we are not perfect beings and we have minds that wander, we have emotions that are easily moved at times, we have bodies that are weak and we are in a world that is infested with evil spirits so He knows that we are not absolutely perfect in mind and emotions and body. So, He provides for that, I John 2:1, "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin." If that’s the normal life of a child of God. "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." So, if you sin in an emergency, Jesus has died for us and God will look upon Him and will forgive us because of Jesus’ blood. But, you do see that it says, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin but, if anyone does sin. I want you always to fill your car up with gas but, if by chance, you run out, then I have an arrangement for you. That doesn’t mean that you run out every day, saying, well, he has an emergency arrangement. In other words, that is an emergency arrangement. God’s norm for us is that we will not sin. So, I am asking you to examine your own life and me to examine my life.

Sin is disobedience to God’s law. Some of God’s laws, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not commit adultery, and, of course, along with that, if you look unto a woman to lust after her in your heart, you’ve committed adultery. Then, thou shalt not steal, even if it’s a person’s reputation, thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. You won’t tell untrue things about another person. Thou shalt not swear. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain. Now, knowing the commandments and knowing what is right, do you commit sin in your life? Then, I would say if you can see some area of your life where you’ve just slipped into lower gear, then I would suggest to you that you deal with God tonight about that. Really. Because you can’t go anywhere in regard to a holy and clean heart unless you first clean up your own life. If you say to me, but, Brother, I thought God would do that. No, God put into your spirit the Spirit of His Son and yet you desire to be like Him and He expects you to exercise your will to make your life conform to His image. At least, outwardly. Will you deal with that? If you don’t deal with that, anything more that we talk of tonight is just like a tale told by an idiot. You know, it makes no sense and you’re going to get nowhere. You’re just going to swallow a whole lot of doctrine and it’s going to give you indigestion and you, yourself, are going to fall back. If you are born of God, are you doing the things that you know are right. Now, if there’s anybody here who has stolen something or has been dishonest with somebody, boy, you should repent of that and repentance is telling Jesus that you apologize to Him for the pain that you’ve given Him and you make restitution to the person or apology to the person. It would be good, you know, to clear up your life and, of course, what I’m encouraging you to see is this cleans up, this cleans away all the darkness and all the confusion.

There’s so much confusion about today because we’re not taking sin seriously. We’re not seeing that sin is hateful and blinding and deceiving and sin is the thing that sent Jesus to the Cross and sin is the thing that has brought smears upon God’s name and sin is what destroys people and destroys our God. Sin is straight from the pit of Hell and, whenever you touch sin, you’re touching something that is alien to you, that you were not made for, that was not made part of you. The Bible always says, put the unclean thing far from you. Put it far from you as if you picked up dirt from the ground and just start dusting it off your hands. Get it away from you. That applies, you see. Satan deceives you. He says, what’s missing Bible study for one morning? What’s big about that? Except that you miss it the next morning and then you hit it the third morning and then you miss it again the fourth. Until you have nothing that resembles any friendship at all. Because if you treated a friend like that, there would be no friendship. That’s what it means.

I would encourage you to do what I had to do years ago and what I have to do now, line my life up with God’s Word and change my way of going, change my actions, change my words, change my thoughts. I think there are too many of us saying, oh, yeah, I know gossip is wrong, yes, I know, I know. Yes, yes, we shouldn’t gossip, ha, ha. That’s it. Well, we laugh our way to Hell, you know. We will because gossip is a nail in Jesus’ hands and it’s a nail in the casket of your own spiritual life, then, it’s a nail in some other dear heart. Unless you and I get serious about our outward sins, we have no hope of coming into this experience that we call holiness apart or sanctification. No hope.

First of all, you have to clean up your outward life. Do you know that this is what destroys a church? You understand that this is the way churches die? I don’t know if you’re aware of that. I mean most churches are dying, aren’t they? I mean, they’re just keeping going by the present excitement. But, really, they’re all going one way and they’re going one way because the preacher is preaching to them obedience and how God hates sin Sunday after Sunday and most of us are indulging in sin because we all say, Christians are not perfect, just forgiven. With that great half truth, we are throwing away a pearl. We’re throwing away salvation because we’re not driving ourselves into the arms of God. We’re sliding down a slippery slope of a sinning life. Now, there is no such thing as a sinning Christian life. There isn’t. Brothers and Sisters, if you say to me, but, Brother, most Christians are sinning. That’s right. You can see the effect that they’re having on this nation. You can see the effect that they’re having on the crime rate which is zilch, nothing. There is no change in the crime rate. There is no great change in the business practices of the nation, in spite of the fact that we’re apparently in again another boom period for church attendance. There is no such thing as a sinning Christian. There may be a sinning church goer but there cannot be sinning Christians. Why? Because God’s Word says it. No one born of God commits sin.

What is sin? Sin is knowing what is right to do and failing to do it. It’s conscious, knowing, disobedience to God’s Word. I remember that was what made me wonder if I would end up in a psych ward. Because I found that there was sin in my life and yet I said I loved Jesus. I could be loving Jesus one moment and sinning the next. That is not possible. One or other is not true. Either you’re not sinning or you’re not loving Jesus. No one born of God commits sin and sin is conscious, knowing, disobedience to what you know God wants you to do.

Many of us come to a place where we have a life that is outwardly in conformity to God. I would point out that Plato had that and also Socrates. There are many holy men even of other religions that have conformed their outward life to the particular standard of perfection that they believe in. So, I would point out to you that it is possible to do that. Just as it’s possible to speak in tongues, even if you’re not a Christian. There are all kinds of ecstatic utterances that come from Buddhists and from Mohammadans. There are all kinds of ecstatic utterances in other religions, just as his father would speak in tongues without being a Christian. So, it is possible to conform your outward life to what you know you ought to do. So, that’s the first step.

Now, many of us have done that. Many of us here are living in outward conformity to God’s law. If we do sin, we know we have an advocate with the Father. If we find ourselves into involuntary sin, we do something, we suddenly realize I did that, that was mad, it hurt God, I’m sorry, Lord, I’m sorry. There are many of us involve ourselves in involuntary sins. Many of us do things that we find out later are sins. We didn’t know them. They’re unconscious. The Bible provides for that. It’s not a mortal sin. It’s something that the blood of Jesus covers. Immediately, we realize it, God witnesses in your heart, you are forgiven, my child, I know you didn’t intend that, and we go on.

Many of us have come to that place where we live in outward conformity to God’s law but we find within ourselves still a tendency toward sin. That is, we come into certain situations and we know we should not be angry and we do, through the grace that the Holy Spirit gives, we do control our anger. May I point out to you again that there are many non-Christians that control their anger. Do you realize that? It’s no great thing to control your anger. It’s simply that we have been brought up in a generation that has encouraged us to let it all hang out and has encouraged us to think that you can’t keep it in. Well, you can keep it in and there are millions of us who have kept it in for millions of years. There are plenty of people that keep anger down and so a Christian is in that position. One who is born of God and still needs to have his heart cleansed by faith. He’s in that position. He controls the anger but it does rise within him. He knows he shouldn’t express it and he doesn’t express it. But, he does it by willpower and yet it is continually a restless, discontenting thing inside him because he finds he seems to have a bent toward sinning.

Many of us find that, after we’re born of God, we find that we want to do what God wants us to do but there is something within us that seems to bend over the other direction. So, all the churches testify that after regeneration there remains within each person inbred sin or original sin. In other words, you sin because you’re a sinner. You’re not a sinner because you sin. You’re a sinner and therefore you sin. An apple tree bears apples. Until it becomes an orange tree, it can’t bear oranges.

So, when we sin outwardly as non-Christians, we sin outwardly because our whole nature is that of a sinner and that is something that we have inherited from Adam, from our forefathers down through the years. For generations, the human race has lived without God. Ever since Adam decided to live dependent on the world and not on God, he passed on to his children that kind of attitude and they passed it on to their children and they lived without the Holy Spirit and not only did their mind become darkened and their understanding darkened, not only did their conscience become weak and their bodies sick but they themselves developed a whole inbred sin attitude.

Sin is living independent of God. So, there developed in our whole race something that the Bible calls our old nature, our old sinful nature. In other words, something that made it natural for us to sin, instead of natural to obey. So, those of us who are born of God, even though we avoid outward sin in act and thought and word, we still find within us a desire and a tendency to depend on people, on things, on circumstances, on the world. So, we find there is a battle that goes on within us and it’s the battle described in Galatians, you remember, the flesh strives against the spirit. In no way, you know, does the Bible say that’s the normal Christian life. In no way does the Bible state that’s the way you have to go on through all of your life. Indeed, the Bible states the opposite, that it is possible to live in the spirit and not in the flesh.

But, that verse in Galatians simply states a fact, that there is within us the Spirit of Jesus and yet there is this flesh that almost topples towards dependence upon people and dependence on things. It is what the Bible calls our old sinful nature. At times, it is called inbred sin. At times, it is called original sin. It is what old Paul talks about, you remember, if you look at Romans, and he’s speaking there in Romans 7 as a Jew to Jews. He makes that clear, you remember, at the beginning of Romans 7:1, "Do you not know, Brethren--for I am speaking to those who know the law." So, he’s speaking to the Jews who, of course, knew that their sins could be forgiven. You remember, there’s a Psalm that says, "Blessed is he whose sin is covered, whom the Lord doth not impute inequity." So, the Jew knew that he could have forgiveness of sins.

But, do you see how Paul describes the situation of the Jew and it’s the same as the situation of the Christian who is born of God. Romans 7:15, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." In other words, there comes a time in all our lives when we are clear we want to do God’s will. We want to obey Him. Now, we better watch. Some of us think we’re at that stage and that’s why we have real trouble coming into a clean heart or into sanctification because we think we do that. We look at that and we say, that’s right, boy, I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now, Paul really meant that. Some of us think we mean it. Some of us say, oh, yes, I really want to be patient. I really want to be like Jesus. I really want to be like Him, to be meek, and to accept punishment and let people insult me. I really want to be like that and we don’t really want to be like that. That’s what takes some of us a little time in coming into full consecration.

Paul is saying that a person who is going on after God is in that position. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So, then, it is no longer I that do it but sin which dwells within me. You see, it’s sin in the singular and sin in the singular is this inbred sin, this original sin, this old man, this old self, this old sinful nature and it is the sin in the singular that produces sins in the plural.

What God deals with as usually at the beginning, He deals with us over our sins, our acts and thoughts and words, and then gradually He reveals, but do you see there’s something still inside you that has a bent to do those things again. So, gradually, many of us become aware that there is something in us that is preventing us doing what we honestly want to do. You remember, He goes on and says in verse 18, "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh." He doesn’t refer there as other parts of the Bible do when they talk about flesh to the body, to the physical body. He’s talking about the part of us that wants to depend on what comes through the body, for our security, instead of what comes from God. So, He says, "Nothing good that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me." So, many of us have found ourselves in that position, that this thing is greater than us. That there’s something in us that will not let us do what God wants.

Paul goes a little further because he knows that that power of sin or of living independent of God can never be eliminated from the world until Jesus comes. See, it can’t. That part of sin is in the world until Jesus comes. It is. There will always be that forceful power of life that operates independent of God. That’s the life, you know, that tries to make people satisfied with the drug exhilaration instead of the exhilaration of the Holy Spirit. It’s the deception that tries to make people satisfied with the love of friends without going through to the only love that is finally reliable, the love of God. That power will always be in the world and Paul knows that. You can’t eliminate sin from the world. The power of sin will always be there but Paul shows that there is something that is allowing that power to influence him the way it does. You see in verse 21, "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members." Now, he says, when he talks about law, he is not talking about something that is handed down by the courts. He’s talking about law in the sense of a natural law. The law of gravity. It’s a way of describing something that keeps on happening. He says, I see in my members, in my body, in my mind, in my emotions, in my whole personality, I see another thing that keeps on operating in a certain way and it brings me under the power of this sin.

Do you see Paul is beginning to get at the truth that we mentioned at the beginning? That our personality has a way of working that is not fitted for obedience to God. He brings it to a head, you remember, in verse 24. "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" That’s how he describes it. He describes the old nature that cannot obey God as a body of death and in another place, you remember, as a body of sin because it’s a body that is used by sin. He’s referring, when he refers to members, you know, it’s not just our hand or our leg. He’s referring to every part of our personalities. In other words, Paul says, I can’t do what I want because this nature is not fitted for it and it makes me subject to the law of sin.

In other words, what we find ourselves with after we’re born of God is an old personality nature that is not fitted to obey God. So, the Spirit of Jesus moves within us and makes us want to do something and the whole nature that we have is falling the other way. That’s why you feel you’re lifting the whole world on your shoulders at times in order to obey God. You feel you’re lifting a whole nature that isn’t fitted for obedience and you are. You’re lifting a whole nature that has developed over the years and that you have inherited from Adam and you can never change that nature. You can never change that nature.

It doesn’t matter how many books you read about positive thinking or about modifying your temperament. You are involved in something that is supernaturally powerful and you cannot change it. That’s why so many of us have such frustration when we try to change our personality. The glory is that God changed it in His Son Jesus. That’s the meaning of Calvary. That’s what God refers to when He talks about our old man. He says our old man was crucified with Christ so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin.

God has done that and it is the glory of every man or woman that has been used mightily by God, it is the glory of each one of them that they have, after conversion, after the new birth, entered into an experience of that by faith because, what Jesus has done for us, we can experience here in this world. That’s the key to the victorious life. That our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ.

Brothers and Sisters, if you say to me, don’t so many churches teach that you’ll have that old nature with you until the grave? Yes, they do. And, it’s not true. It’s not true. The Bible says plainly in Romans 6:6, our old man, our old self, was crucified with Christ. Paul says plainly in Romans 6, you remember, "He who has died is freed from sin." He says plainly in other verses, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me." He says in Romans 6:1, shall we continue in sin? Then, he says, "By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" In other words, his whole message is, it is possible not only to live in outward obedience to God’s law in act and word and thought but it is possible also to be delivered from this bent to sinning.

George Muller. I think most of us know of and he writes like this in his diary, "I was converted in November 1825, but I only came into the full surrender of heart four years later in 1829. The love of money was gone. The love of place was gone. The love of position was gone. The love of worldly pleasures and engagements was gone. God alone became my portion. I found my all in Him. I wanted nothing else. By the grace of God this has remained and has made me a happy man, an exceedingly happy man, and it led me to care only about the things of God. This change was so great that it was like a second conversion."

George Fox, who founded, you remember, the Quakers. "I knew Jesus and he was very precious to my soul but I found something in me that would not keep patient and kind." I found something in me that would not keep patient and kind. I did what I could to keep it down but it was there. I besought Jesus to do something for me and when I gave Him my will, He came into my heart and cast out all that would not be sweet, all that would not be kind, all that would not be patient, and then He shut the door."

Now, the history of God’s children is scattered with testimonies like that. Of men and women who are the same as ourselves. Who found that we were born of God. For a while fiddled around with that outward sin and that’s why I shared that with you tonight.

First of all, you have to get rid of that. First of all, you have to do what you know is right. You have the power to do that. It’s only Satan through our educational system and through our books that suggests that we can’t do what we know is right. You can. You have power over your outward body. Hand rise. Rise. Drop. Drop. That’s right. You can do it. You can do it. Even with the cigarettes, even with the sex. You have power over your body and you know you have. You know that a man who has just managed to rush out of a fire, immediately when he falls to the ground, worn out and exhausted, immediately he hears that his little child is [in], he has energy from nowhere to get back into those flames to save the child. We know when we’re up against it, we have found that we can will ourselves to do what we ought to do outwardly. Now, that’s the first step but many of us have found many men and women have been like us and have come into outward conformity to God’s law and have still found that they have a bent to sinning within. They do not do outward sin but they feel it within. They are not angry outwardly but they feel anger. They are not irritable to the other person. They clamp up their mouths and they are patient but they feel their irritability. They do not commit adultery and they reject the thought when it comes but they feel a bent towards it. They eventually come to that place that George Muller came to. He said, "There came a day when I, George Mueller, died to self and died to sin."

The answer is that God has done it in Jesus and we receive it by faith. You cannot destroy that evil nature and you cannot strangle it. It is done in a moment by God, through the Holy Spirit. He manifests in you what He did in Jesus, His Son.

What have you to do? It’s plain. It’s in Romans, if you look at it. It’s in Romans 6. It’s so simple but it takes all you have. First of all the fact is stated in Romans 6:6. This is a fact. We know that our old self, our old nature, our old man, our old sinful nature, was crucified with Him so that the sinful body or the body of sin, the whole personality that is used to sin might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin for he who has died, is freed from sin. Then, he says, So in the light of that, just says, you were told that Jesus had borne your sins on Calvary and had brought you forgiveness. You were to believe that. So, in verse 11, "You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." You must believe that. You must have faith. Then, in verse 13, that’s the trust, you see, and then the obey is in verse 13, "Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness." That’s it. Verse 11 and verse 13. Believe it. Reckon it. Reckon that your old nature is crucified and from then on yield your whole personality to God’s Holy Spirit. That’s it, but it is by faith.

John Wessley said that it was a great day when he discovered that holiness was entered into by faith and not by works. That’s it, Loved Ones. You enter into the destruction of the old sinful nature by faith and it can be yours this night. That’s why all these men and women testify that it was done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, because whatever is received by faith can be done in a moment because it’s done by God. What is needed is a hunger and a thirst that will not give up until God does it in you.

So, each one of us, you know, need to deal with God and I’ll tell you what I’ve seen in us when we come to this point because you know I’ve been off and on preaching this for 20 years, I think, now, well, 15 years. What happens when we come to this point is you forget that there’s only one can bring you through to this and it is not Ernest O’Neill. It is not a man. A man cannot bring you through to this any more than a man brought you to know that you were forgiven by God. Only God himself can do this. But, He can do it, Loved Ones. It is possible to be freed from our evil, sinful nature so that we not only obey outwardly but we rejoice to obey in our hearts.

Now, I encourage you to seek this and to expect it every moment, to expect it every moment, and to yearn for it and to have no truck with irritability in your heart. Let’s declare war against sin in this body. Let’s declare war against sin. Let’s say, "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to put up with it any longer." Like that dear guy says in the movie. Say that. Do not put up with it. Refuse to put up with sin in your life. Say to Satan, you’ve had your day with me. You’ve had enough fun. No more. I am going to obey my God outwardly which is a reasonable thing for Him to expect. I am going to obey Him in act and thought and word and I am going to seek for a cleansed heart and deliverance from this sinful nature because Jesus has wrought it for me on Calvary and I know He has wrought it for me so that I’ll experience it.

If you have set about it that way, and you’ll determine not to make due with less, God will answer you. He will. If you will take Jacob’s attitude and say I will not let you go unless you bless me, He will do it. If you say to me, what about all the people that are clinging onto my coattails and saying, well, do you believe that? Forget them. Forget them. You won’t get anywhere if you listen to them. Forget them. Let them go. Let them do what they want to do. But, if God’s Word convinces you, and I encourage you to read it, you know, read I John 3, read Romans 6, read Romans 8, and see that it is God’s normal will for us that we would be free from outward and inward sin. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness. Why should we put up with this criticism and this anger and this irritability and this dirt and this uncleanness when God did not intend us for it?

If you say, oh, Brother, you brought me under condemnation. Well, condemnation is only for those who won’t change. Conviction is for those who will change. So, if you want to be like your Father, sure, you’ll feel conviction. If you say to me, do you think it will drive me crazy. Yeah, probably it will. Yeah. Only, before you’re through, you’ll be pretty sick of yourself. You will because it’s the most precious thing God has to give and He gives it only to, you remember, "only to those who seek Him with all their heart." I pray, you know, that some of you will begin to seek Him like this and seek Him night and day until you come into holiness of heart and then, of course, it is true, holiness of life. Could I say again, half of all the souls outside this auditorium, I know them, and they are desperate to see a holy people, both our children and our peers, are dying to see some men and women who will live what they preach. If they could only see that, they’d believe the Gospel. I pray, that there’ll be some giants here who will go on through whatever the cost.

Let us pray.

Dear Father, we sense a little of how sin smells in Your nostrils and has caused blood to flow in Your own Son and has broken up the family of God and has created a monster of Satan and a dark and lonely state of Hell. Lord, we sense some of the horror of it and, Lord, we would put it far from us this very night and we would cease to be deceived by Satan that it’s just a little bit of Bible study or a prayer we’ve missed. Just a little bit of a lie we told. Just a little bit of money that we took. Lord, we would turn from it now and have nothing to do with the unclean thing. Lord, it will strangle us if we continue. Lord, we would put sin far from us and we would commit ourselves to walking in outward conformity to Your law and Your will in act and thought and word. Now, Lord, this sinful nature, this heavy inbred sin that lies on our hearts and makes us bend towards disobeying you. Lord, we know that you have made provision for it on Calvary. Lord, we ask You to begin to bring us into this. Lord, we do not know even how to pray but, Lord, we would begin by asking You to show us where that sinful nature is in us. Lord, show us if there’s any part of it that we really want and bring us, by Your own law, and by your willing love, bring us to the place where we are ready to have done with it and hate it as much as You do. Then, Lord, we know that when we truly want to do what You want us to do, you’ll make our natures fit to do it by making real in us the destruction of that old nature that was crucified in Christ and giving us that new nature that was raised in Him on Resurrection Day. Lord, thank you. We give ourselves to You for this purpose in these coming days to seek You with all our hearts.

Before I respond to this, I have to admit that I did not read this entirely. I simply do not have time. It is too long.

However, what I did read I believe I can answer with this passage of scripture:

1Jo 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 Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
1Jo 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jo 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Please notice the use of the word "we" and "us".

'Nuff said...

My understanding of sin is that it is a principle
within our very nature that is foolish, deceived,
and disobedient. It takes the full measure of
God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to
deliver and free us from sin!! And we must
eanestly desire and long to be freed so we can
live in righteousness and walk in the will of
God!!

_________________
Martin G. Smith

I may be wrong, but I think I have listened to the author of this thread on audio many many times. Hopefully it's not him, and there is two of them. Great message from God's Word
Thanks.
moe-mac

The answer is that God has done it in Jesus and we receive it by faith. You cannot destroy that evil nature and you cannot strangle it. It is done in a moment by God, through the Holy Spirit. He manifests in you what He did in Jesus, His Son.

What have you to do? It’s plain. It’s in Romans, if you look at it. It’s in Romans 6. It’s so simple but it takes all you have. First of all the fact is stated in Romans 6:6. This is a fact. We know that our old self, our old nature, our old man, our old sinful nature, was crucified with Him so that the sinful body or the body of sin, the whole personality that is used to sin might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin for he who has died, is freed from sin. Then, he says, So in the light of that, just says, you were told that Jesus had borne your sins on Calvary and had brought you forgiveness. You were to believe that. So, in verse 11, "You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." You must believe that. You must have faith. Then, in verse 13, that’s the trust, you see, and then the obey is in verse 13, "Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness." That’s it. Verse 11 and verse 13. Believe it. Reckon it. Reckon that your old nature is crucified and from then on yield your whole personality to God’s Holy Spirit. That’s it, but it is by faith.

John Wessley said that it was a great day when he discovered that holiness was entered into by faith and not by works. That’s it. You enter into the destruction of the old sinful nature by faith and it can be yours this night. That’s why all these men and women testify that it was done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, because whatever is received by faith can be done in a moment because it’s done by God. What is needed is a hunger and a thirst that will not give up until God does it in you.

So, each one of us, you know, need to deal with God and I’ll tell you what I’ve seen in us when we come to this point because you know I’ve been off and on preaching this for 20 years, I think, now, well, 15 years. What happens when we come to this point is you forget that there’s only one can bring you through to this and it is not Ernest O’Neill. It is not a man. A man cannot bring you through to this any more than a man brought you to know that you were forgiven by God. Only God himself can do this. But, He can do it. It is possible to be freed from our evil, sinful nature so that we not only obey outwardly but we rejoice to obey in our hea

This message was given by Ernest O'Neill.

I have never made any audio messages.

In a Christian's life, Paul says, what ever is not of FAITH is sin.

So, we also know Paul said, the Law is not of Faith.

Love in Christ
Katy

This is a long post, but I reached this point and want to ask if it is [i]really[/i] biblical?

_________________
Robert Wurtz II

all I can say is thank you Jesus for your blood.
There are days I seem to need it every minute.
Yes Lord Jesus thank you.
And thank you for my ability to repent.


David

This is Chapter 2 from the life that wins by Watchman Nee

The Christian Life As Revealed in Scripture

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. (Eph. 1.3)

The Christian's Experience of Defeat

When we were first saved our hearts were filled with joy because of the grace of God. We had great hope for our life. We thought that henceforth we could tread all sins under our feet. We reckoned that from now on we would walk a victorious path. No temptation could be too great for us to overcome. No problem could be too difficult for us to solve. Our future was full of glorious hope, because at that time we tasted the peace and joy of sins forgiven for the very first time. Our communion with God was effortless and sweet. We were truly full of joy; we felt heaven was very close to us. It seemed that nothing was impossible to us. We fully believed that day after day we would live victoriously.

Unfortunately, such a beautiful condition does not last long; and this glorious expectation is not fulfilled. The sins which you dreamed were already overcome find their way back again. Sins which once could not touch you have now returned. Your old temper, pride and jealousy raise their ugly heads once more. You read God's word much, but you get no help. You pray, yet you lose the intimate taste you once enjoyed. Your zeal for the lost also decreases, and your love grows cold. You may be able to deal with some matters, but you find that certain others are beyond your strength. Your daily note is now defeat, not victory. In fact, in your daily life you experience more defeats than victories. You sense your great lack. As you compare yourself with Paul, John, Peter and those other Christians in the first century, you know how different they were from you. You are unable to help other people. You may tell them the stories of your vie' tones, but you dare not tell them the stories of your defeats. You feel your days of victory are short while your days of defeat are long. And consequently, you pass your time in sorrow. Such is the experience which many Christians share.

When we are saved, we surmise that since our sins are forgiven they will never find us again. We honestly believe that the joy and peace we now enjoy will remain with us forever. Who would therefore imagine that sin as well as temptation might ever return? Who would ever expect that there might later be more lows than highs? Who would ever dream there might be more sorrows than joys awaiting us sometime down the road? Yet, when temptation, pride, jealousy, ill temper or whatever do come back we will usually do two things: we will either exert our utmost strength to suppress sin, or else we will take the attitude that it is impossible to overcome. As these sins return, we on the one hand may exert much effort to suppress them so that they will not appear outwardly: whoever among us is able to control or suppress them will consider himself to be victorious. But on the other hand, those of us who are defeated spend our days in defeat and victory, victory and defeat, sinning and repenting, repenting and sinning: it is a life of continuously making a circle which only ends in our falling into deep despair. Hence, if we succeed in controlling sin, we merely suppress it for a time; or if we fail to suppress it, we consider sinning to be unavoidable and plunge into despair and a wringing of our hands.

Yet I need to ask you in the presence of the God whom I serve: When our Lord Jesus went to the cross on our behalf, did have in view for our future the kind of experience we too often go through today? As He was being crucified, did He envision our current living as that which would be success in the morning but failure in the afternoon? Is the work He has fully accomplished on the cross not enough to enable us to serve Him in holiness and righteousness? Did the Lord shed His blood on the cross because He only saw the penalty of hell without seeing as well the pain of sinning? Does the blood He shed on the cross only save us from the sufferings of the future but leave the sufferings of today for us to bear?

Oh! At this point I cannot help but shout, Hallelujah! for our Lord has accomplished all at Calvary! While He was on the cross, He thought not only of the penalty of hell but also of the pain of sin. He foresaw the sufferings due to the power of sin as well as those due to its penalty. He has a salvation which enables us to live on earth as He once lived on earth. In other words, Christ's work of redemption has not only prepared a position and ground for us to be saved but also provided a position and ground for us to be saved to the uttermost. We are well able hereafter to live differently from the manner that we now live. Let us say Hallelujah, because today there is a gospel of glad tidings for saints as well as for sinners.

The Christian Life As Ordained by God

What kind of life should a Christian live according to God's will? This does not refer to a matured Christian, but to each and every born-again believer. By knowing the kind of life one ought to live, he can realize his great lack. Let us look at several passages of Scripture which describe the various facets of this life.

(1) A Life That Is Free from Sins. "She shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1.21). At both Chefoo and Peking, some brothers said to me, "We liked to call Him Christ before, but henceforth we will say Jesus, our Savior." Why is He called Jesus? It is because this name means "He shall save his people from their sins."

You have accepted Jesus as your Savior, and you have received the grace of forgiveness. All this is true, for which you can thank and praise God. But what has Jesus done for you after all? "He shall save his people from their sins." This is ordained by God and accomplished by Jesus. The question now is, are you still living in sins or have you come out of sins? Does your old temper continue to flare up; do your old thoughts continue to trouble you; and has your pride or selfishness remained unchanged? In other words, are you still bound by your sins? Or have you come out completely from them?

I have used the following illustration many times before, but I will use it here once more. A life jacket is different from a lifeboat. When a person falls into the sea, he grasps the life jacket thrown to him. Thus he does not sink; yet he does not get out of the water either. He stays in a condition of neither living nor dying. A lifeboat, though, is something quite different. The person who has fallen into the sea can be drawn out of the water and put into a lifeboat. Similarly speaking, the salvation of our Lord cannot be likened to that of a life jacket but to that of a lifeboat. The Lord will not let you remain in a state of "neither living nor dying"; He will instead save His people from their sins because He has not left us in sins. Hence the salvation spoken of in the Bible is a saving us from sins. Nevertheless, how many of us, though truly still saved, continue to live in sins! Can the Bible be untrue? Certainly not. The Bible is right, whereas our experience is wrong.

(2) A Life That Holds Intimate Communion with God. "And hathraised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David . . . that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies should serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days" (Luke 1.69, 74-75). God has raised up "a horn of salvation" in the house of David. This horn of salvation we have already possessed. What does this do for us, and to what extent has He delivered us? He has delivered us "out of the hand of our enemies." How then should we live today now that we are delivered out of the enemies' hands? Is it that we should sometimes serve Him in righteousness and holiness? Thank and praise the Lord, He wants us to serve Him "in holiness and righteousness all our days" As long as we shall live, we are to serve Him in holiness and righteousness. Such is the life ordained by God.

Yet we have to shamefully acknowledge that though we have been delivered by God from the hands of our enemies, we have not served Him in holiness and righteousness all our days. If the word in the Scriptures be true, then our personal experience must be wrong.

(3) A Life That Is Wholly Satisfied with the Lord. "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (John 4.14). How precious is this word! Our Lord does not say that a special Christian will receive from Him a special grace so that in him there will be a well of water springing up to eternal life. Not at all. Our Lord says, "whosoever"! Moreover, He addresses this word directly to a Samaritan woman — a complete stranger! He says to her, If you believe, you will have this living water, which will then become a well of water springing up to eternal life.

What is thirst? It is a being unsatisfied. But whoever drinks the water offered by the Lord shall never thirst again. Every Christian may know not only contentment but even eternal satisfaction. If he knows only contentment, he has yet to know more. What God has given causes us to be satisfied forever.

Many times when you walk the city's main street, are you thirsty? When you walk by department stores such as Wing On and Sincere, (two Large department stores) are you thirsting after something? You perhaps figure if you could have this or that, how good life would be. This is thirst. When you notice what your schoolmate or colleague has, do you thirst for what he possesses? Yet our Lord declares, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life." Such is the kind of life He gives, even though our experience tells a different story.

Our Lord Jesus says that having Him is enough, but we say having Him is still not enough — we want still other things to satisfy us. Which is in error — what the Lord gives or what we experience? One of these two must be wrong. Yet the Lord never writes a check with insufficient funds to back it up. He gives whatever He says He gives. Our experience in the past is like being "half-saved." Why does He say that whoever believes in Him shall never thirst? Because something new has happened in that person. Within him there is now a new desire and a new satisfaction.

Let me ask you this: Do you live before God serving Him daily in holiness and righteousness? Is there something springing forth from you that can quench the thirst of other people? The Chinese have a saying — "Nothing doing"; but we Christians can say, "Nothing asking." We ask for nothing else because we are fully satisfied with the Lord himself. Is this true of you? If you still feel unsatisfied, your life experience is doubtlessly wrong.

(4) A Life That Is Full of Influence. "Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7.37-38). From whose innermost being shall flow rivers of living water? Not just from those so-called special Christians — such as the apostles Paul, Peter and John; but also from whoever believes — such as from within you and me. This causes people in contact with us to find satisfaction and to be thirsty no more.

I have a friend by whose presence when contact is made with her you are immediately convicted of the vulgarity of loving the world, the foolishness of being ambitious, and the tastelessness of coveting. One day you may consider a certain matter quite unsatisfactory, but as you touch her, you sense you are already satisfied by the Lord. Or you may one day find satisfaction in a certain thing, yet a touch with her makes you feel that this thing is really quite nothing. Out of the believer, says Jesus, shall flow rivers of living water. This is what our Lord has provided, and it should be the common experience of all Christians. For what I say here is not to be merely the experience of special saints, but the experience all Christians ought to have in common.

We need to inquire of ourselves, do people have no more thirst once they have had contact with us? Or do they continue to feel thirsty after they have been with us? If when people say their life is miserable, sad and undone, we in response acknowledge the same thing, then this shows we are not rivers of living water but are barren deserts which dry up the moisture and deaden the plants. Such a condition proves we are wrong. Yet God is never wrong.

(5) A Life That Is Free from the Power of Sin. "Unto you first God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities" (Acts 3.26). This is the message Peter delivered at the porch of the temple in Jerusalem. What the Lord Jesus has accomplished is in turning people from their iniquities. The minimum experience of a Christian is to be freed from sin. Whatever he knows to be sin must be overcome. I do not insist we must conquer the sins which we have no knowledge of, but I do declare we ought to overcome through our Lord all sins which we know. We should overcome all those which have entangled us for many years. The Bible says, "even if a man be overtaken in any trespass" (Gal. 6.la); yet too often our experience as believers is that we only overcome occasionally. How abnormal is our experience!

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" (Rom. 6.1-2) We who believe in the Lord Jesus have died to sin. Thus, no Christian should continue in it. How do we know we are dead to sin? Paul provides the answer in the very next verse: "Are ye ignorant that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" (v.3) In other words, those who have been baptized are dead to sin. For baptism is into the death of Christ Jesus: "We were buried . . . with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (v.4). This is the kind of life a Christian should live daily. All who have been baptized ought to walk in newness of life. These are not special Christians Paul has in view here; rather, they are the newly baptized ones. We have all been baptized, therefore we should walk in newness of life. Such experience is ordained by God for all believers.

"Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace" (Rom. 6.14). Oh, how I love this verse! Let me ask you: Who is the one in view here who is not under law but under grace? Is it Andrew Murray? or Paul? or Peter or John? Or is it, that all who believe are not under law but under grace? How many of you are under grace today? Praise and thanks be to our God, all of us are under grace, with none of us still under law!

The words which precede this statement we have just discussed are, "sin shall not have dominion over you." Here it declares that sin shall not be our lord! Victory is not the experience of special Christians, it is instead an experience all believers may share; because all who are saved are under grace. When I was first saved, I considered this verse to be most precious. In those days I confessed I had many victories over many sins, and God was truly gracious to me. Yet there was one particular sin which had dominion over me, and a few other sins which frequently returned to trouble me again and again. This can be illustrated by what happened to me one day as I was walking on the street. There I met a certain brother to whom I nodded my head in acknowledgment. Shortly thereafter I came out of a store and met him a second time. And for the second time I acknowledged him by nodding my head. I entered into still another store and when I came out of it, I met him once more. So again I nodded my head. I crossed over to another street, and there to my amazement I encountered him a fourth time! Another street after that and I saw him again. Within one day and I had met him five times, and five times I had nodded my head. This can illustrate, can it not, the way in which we meet up with sin.

We do not know why we always encounter this or that particular sin as though it were following us. Yet it does. Some find ill-temper following them; some, pride following them; some, jealousy; others, laziness; still others, lying; some, misery and self-pity; some, meanness; some, selfishness; others, unclean thoughts; and still others, impure passions. In fact, everybody seems to have a special sin that always follows him or her. I myself found a few sins that followed me most powerfully and tenaciously. I had to concede that sin did have dominion over me. I finally confessed to the Lord, "You say that sin shall not have the rule over me; therefore, I consent that the fault must be in me and not in Your word."

Although you may live a defeated life, you nonetheless know that this is not the life ordained by God. If sin still has the rule over you, you should clearly understand that this is not what God has ordained. For His word plainly says, "sin shall not have dominion over you."

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8.1). In my preaching I have explained the word "condemnation" many times. Some twenty years ago, from an old manuscript excavated from the ground, it was explained that this word in the original Greek language had two usages: one, civil; the other, legal (and thus in this latter sense, the English word "condemnation" is used). According to civil usage, it could be translated as "without strength." Hence we may legitimately retranslate this verse as follows: "There is therefore now no being without strength to them that are in Christ Jesus." How marvelous this is! Let me ask you again, whose verse is this? Only Wesley's? or Martin Luther's? or only Hudson Taylor's? What does the Scripture say here? It says that those who are in Christ Jesus are no longer without strength. Who are these people? They are all Christians — since every Christian is in Christ, and no one in Christ is without strength.

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death" (v.2). I will repeat a hundred times that it is not those special saints who are freed from the law of sin and of death. It is instead true that every Christian is set free from the law of sin and of death. What is meant by being "without strength"? It is what is spoken of in Romans 7: "to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practice" (v.l8b-19). In other words, the total thrust of Romans 7 indicates that I am without strength, I cannot do it. The history of many a Christian is marked by a cycle of resolutions and broken promises. Yet we thank and praise God that His word unmistakably declares that no Christian is now without strength.

What is law? It is something which always repeats itself. A law acts the same way and produces the same result at any place and under any circumstance. It is a constant phenomenon, reveals a continuous habit, and always ends with the same effect. There is, for instance, the force of gravity at the center of the earth. Whenever you throw an object, that object is always attracted by this gravitational force and falls downward. This force of gravity is thus a universal law.

For some, then, the losing of one's temper becomes a law. He may endure temptation once or twice, but on the third occasion of being provoked he begins to be agitated, and by the fourth time he completely loses his temper. It does not matter which person or thing he encounters. At first he can endure a provocation, but his temper will always eventually explode later. So that with each occasion he is tempted to lose his temper, and without exception it ends up with the same result.

Pride oftentimes acts the same way. You may remain untouched at the first word with which you are praised, but you will feel your face begin to glow with pride upon hearing the second word of praise. Whatever passes through the same procedure and produces the same result constitutes a law. In short, we sin till sinning becomes a law.

It needs to be said again that it is not those special Christians who are made free from the law of sin. Rather, every Christian hereafter is not to be without strength; every Christian is now set free from the law of sin. The Scripture passages quoted above are facts, not commands. They therefore ought to be the experience of all believers. Yet how sad that our experience does not measure up to God's word.

(6) A Life That Overcomes Environment. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Rom. 8.35, 37). Through the Lord who loves us we are made more than conquerors in all things. This is, in fact, the kind of experience a Christian should have. Yet a slight change in another's countenance — not to mention tribulation or sword! — will cause us to lose the consciousness of Christ's love. Nevertheless, Paul declared that in all these things we more than conquer.

Victory is to be the Christian's normal experience; defeat is abnormal. For according to God's will, every Christian should more than conquer in all kinds of environment. Whether it be tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, we shall not only conquer, but more than conquer! Any increase in difficulty will make no difference. The world may look upon Christians as mad. So what if we are deemed mad! Through the love of Christ, we will not mind these things, because we more than conquer them. And such is to be the Christian's experience as ordained by God. But what is our experience? Sad to say, we have not lived rightly. For with but a little tribulation which comes our way we scream and complain how we have endured and suffered. Yet if we live rightly, we shall more than conquer in all these things.

"Thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savor of his knowledge in every place" (2 Cor. 2. 14). The Christian life is not one that sometimes conquers and is sometimes defeated; is not one that is defeated in the morning and is conquering in the afternoon. It is always in triumph. According to the Biblical standard, it is to be deemed strange if you do not overcome and to be reckoned as common if you do overcome!

(7) A Life That Practices Good. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2.10). We all know that this verse continues from those very familiar and precious verses of 8 and 9. What is mentioned in the preceding verses is that we are saved by grace; but here it says we are His workmanship, created for good works which God has in advance prepared for us. This is not a description of the experience of some special Christians; it is instead the common experience shared by all believers — that is to say, God saves us all that we may all do good.

Do you do good according to what God has ordained? Or are you performing good works on the one hand and murmuring on the other? For instance, perhaps you are mopping the floor. As you are mopping, you at the same time wonder why only you and one other brother are doing this. Why are not the other brothers mopping too? As you muse, you become either proud of yourself or begin to murmur at others. This cannot be viewed as doing good works. Every Christian should do good with his heart full of joy, nothing stingy or stinting about it, nothing selfish, but a willingness to pour out one's life for other people. How sad it would be if only the best Christian could do good works.

(8) A Life That Is Full of Light. "Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8.12). This is the life which God has ordained for Christians. It is not that a special class of Christians can walk in the light of life, but that all who follow Christ should not walk in darkness but can have the light of life. A Christian who is full of light is a normal Christian; the one who has no light is doubtless abnormal.

(9) A Life That Is Wholly Sanctified. "The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly: and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5.23). This is the prayer of the apostle Paul for the Thessalonian believers. Since he prayed, "sanctify you wholly," it is evident that being entirely sanctified is possible and that to "be preserved entire, without blame" is also possible. For God is able to sanctify us completely and to preserve us blameless.

All these matters which have been mentioned above pertain to what the Lord has provided for Christians. His salvation is such as to enable all believers to maintain uninterrupted communion with God as well as to overcome sin so completely that they may tread it all under their feet. This, then, is the life ordained by the Lord for us all. And this is no theory but is very much a fact.

Must Experience God's Full Salvation

What is your experience today? If your experience is different from that spelled out in the Scriptures, then you are in need of full salvation. Your being saved is a fact; but you have not obtained salvation in fullness. May I therefore bring you glad tidings? What the Lord Jesus has accomplished on the cross not only can save you from the penalty of sin but can also deliver you from the pain of sin. For He has prepared such a full salvation for us that we may daily live in victory as well as receive the initial salvation.

What is victory? Victory is actually a remedial facet to salvation. This is so because at the time of our being saved, something was missing — yet not on God's part; for He never gives us a salvation which lets us live a wandering life: He wants us to have full salvation. But because we are not well saved, we today need such a remedial facet, which is none other than the experience of victory.

Would God save us and let us live on continually sinning and repenting? Can we continue in sin, having had the Son of God die for us? Is it possible that because we sinned before we were saved we cannot help but sin afterwards? Shall sin have dominion over us even after we are saved? How opposite both sin and God are to each other. Would God therefore allow sin to remain in us? Never. It is most hateful! Whether it is physical, psychological or dispositional, sin is still sin.

Let us say to the Lord, "Lord, I praise and thank You, because what You have accomplished on the cross has delivered me from the power of sin as well as saved me from its penalty. Let me see my lack and cause me to seek for victory." If our experience does not agree with what the Scripture declares, then we are surely in need of victory. May the Lord enlighten us that we may know ourselves. May we not deceive ourselves, imagining that sinning is inevitable for a Christian. I think no thought hurts our Lord more than this kind of attitude.

What do we really think the cross of Christ has accomplished? Has it accomplished only a little for us? Let us not lie to ourselves. Let us not boast that we can suppress and control ourselves. For such suppression and control of ourselves do not constitute victory. The victory of Christ is to destroy sin completely. And praise the Lord that sin has been trodden under His feet. But today those of us who have neither obtained uninterrupted communion with God nor had the power to overcome sin are in need of victory. May God be gracious to each one of us.