The words of the 51st Psalm, and I
would like to read the first two verses
in that psalm, though I suggest that you
might like to keep your Bibles open because
we shall be referring to various verses as
we proceed tonight.
The opening two verses then in Psalm 51.
1.
Have mercy upon me, O God, according to
thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude of thy
tender mercies.
Blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly from
mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For somewhere around twelve long months, a skillfully
made mask of pretense and of hypocrisy has
succeeded in concealing the dark devilish acts perpetrated
by the greatest of Israel's kings, namely David.
David continued in the exercise of his kingly
functions, just as if nothing untoward had taken
place, just as if Bathsheba had never been
molested by him, nor her husband Uriah murdered
at his instigation.
He continued very much as if he was
still the great God-fearing man he had
generally been.
Then came the shattering blow.
A man specially appointed by God, skilled and
prepared for this decisive hour in the history
of Israel's great king, came to speak to
this saint in disgrace.
Nathan tore to shreds the mask that had
camouflaged the truth about this man, so that
in consequence the stark naked facts of the
sin of David were brought to the fore.
Now, following upon that shattering experience, David was
forcibly made aware of his grave spiritual need,
and he passed for some time through the
crucible of a terrifying experience, in which he
was made aware of the fact that he
had wronged not only man, but as he
tells us in this psalm, that he had
especially sinned against God.
And then, at last, David was brought to
the place that we were reminded of last
night.
You will remember that Callan Crag's last word
to us last night was a call to
repentance, and David was brought there.
And in the mercy of God, he had
a mind that was changed, concerning himself, concerning
his sin.
And now I want to come in and
see just one aspect of the experience that
follows from that, as it is woven into
the warp and woof of this psalm.
I want us to look first of all
at what came to David just at that
point in his experience.
Namely, I want us to be looking at
the possibility of renewal and restoration, that now
for the first time seems to occupy David's
mind.
This great psalm reflects, first of all, let
me repeat, the excruciatingly deep sorrow with which
David emerged from a prolonged encounter with the
Holy Spirit, who spoke to him through his
servant Nathan, pierced through the very heart by
arrows of conviction, brought out into the open
from his refuge of lies, torn down from
the high perch of self-justification.
This man is made to acknowledge at last
that he had sinned in these words.
You notice in verse 1-2, he refers
to my sin, my iniquity, my transgression.
In other words, he has been brought to
the place where he has to confess the
truth concerning himself.
But now the Holy Spirit never leaves a
penitent saint nor a penitent sinner just there.
I think this is a most important point.
One vital distinction between the work of the
accuser of the brethren, the devil, and the
convincing and the convicting ministry of the Holy
Spirit comes to the fore here.
There are times when the accuser of the
brethren comes after the saints, and he accuses
you of this and of that and of
the other, many of the sins that have
been long since buried under the precious blood
of Jesus.
And his aim is this, it is to
cast you dear redeemed people of God into
a pit of despair from which you can
see no possible way of escape.
Now the Holy Spirit never works like that.
Oh, he may take you through a dark
night in your soul's experience.
It may be as dark in patches as
that through which the devil would take you.
But it is never to a pit from
which there is no exit.
The experience of the conviction of the Holy
Spirit is always in the nature of taking
us through a dark tunnel.
And when we have been exercised thereby, and
when we have come to the place of
confession and contrition, he will always show us
the way out into liberty, into life, into
peace with God again, and into the place
of restoration.
Now David has been brought there.
And I'm really thrilled, as I see in
this psalm, how some of the long lost
blessings come back again within the vision of
this man of God, this saint in disgrace,
King David.
I'd like you to look, for example, at
some of the things that David sees again
as possible for himself.
Now I can only mention one or two
very briefly.
Look at verse six, for example.
David, now having come through the crucible of
penitence, he sees again the possibility, notice, of
integrity of heart.
Thou desirest truth, he says in the inward
parts.
He's very much aware of what God demands,
but notice what he says next.
And in the hidden parts, thou shalt make
me to know wisdom.
Isn't that wonderful?
Here is a man that has been down
living in the valley of lies and hypocrisy
and deceit.
Here is a man who has been unsafe
to follow these past months.
And once again he sees the possibility.
Thou, he says, thou almighty God, thou shalt
yet make me to know wisdom.
In other words, David sees that the gracious
God whom he is now praying to, is
able to give him the very wisdom in
the exercise of which he shall know truth.
That is integrity, honesty in the depths of
the soul.
Look again, look at verse seven.
Not only integrity, but he sees the possibility
of heart purity.
I think this is very wonderful.
Purge me, says this man with hyssop, and
I shall be clean.
Wash me, he says, and I know I
shall be whiter than snow.
Oh, he's been down in the depths of
despair.
His sin has been weighing heavily upon him.
But you see, the Holy Spirit who brought
him down is now bringing him out of
the tunnel.
He sees the dawn of the new day,
and he sees that the God to whom
he is praying is able to cleanse the
sin and the filth of sin away, so
that he shall be again, as he tells
us, without any solitary mark of defilement upon
him, whiter than the driven snow.
No less wonderful was the vision of the
further possibility of fullness, of joy, and of
gladness.
In verse eight, but let me just mention
one other.
Look at verse 10.
I must say this thrills my soul.
Create in me, says David, a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit within
me.
He sees the possibility of becoming spiritually stable
again.
Now that comes out of the word that
is translated, right spirit.
Probably it is much more correct to translate
it in this way.
Create or renew in me a steadfast spirit.
David has been wandering hither and thither, morally
and spiritually.
His eyes have been wandering.
His heart has been wandering.
And now this wandering saint, emerging from his
disgrace, cries to God, and sees in the
very hand of the God to whom he
cries, the steadfastness that can be his again.
Now my dear friend, you who have been
going through the dark experience of penitence, these
last 24 hours maybe, I want you to
see that the God that brings you down
into penitence is a God that will never
leave you there if you are exercised by
the ministry of the Spirit.
And I trust that even through my feeble
words reminding you of this word of his
tonight, you are beginning to see that even
for you there are these possibilities too.
All the promises of God to you tonight
find their yay and their amen in Christ
Jesus.
My good friend, there is the light and
there is hope for the penitent yet.
The possibility of renewal that began to occupy
David's mind.
Now that brings me to the next thing
that I want to say a few words
about, namely to the very urgent necessity that
was recognized by David's conscience, almost instinctively of
course.
The penitent king realizes his need for pardon.
That's the first essential need.
His very first recorded request is for such.
He prays with a profound sense of feeling
here, and he cries, notice in verse one,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies,
he cries, blot out my transgression.
That's a most expressive word, blot out my
transgression.
And I believe it brings right to the
open the first burden upon the soul of
this man.
He sees that before he can again recapture
the long lost blessings, he must be pardoned.
The word that is here translated blot out
very graphically, expresses the experience of pardon.
It's used in scripture for such things as
the erasing of the name of someone from
a register, or the erasing of a record
from a parchment, or the wiping of the
tears from the cheek, or of the complete
obliteration of something from the memory, or perhaps
better still for our purposes now, of the
complete extermination of a people.
And this is what David cried.
The Holy Spirit enables him, out of the
excruciating anguish of his penitent, to look as
it were into the face of Jehovah, the
God of Abram, his fathers, and cry, Oh
God, blot out, exterminate, completely, the very memory
of my sin.
And God did just that.
My good friend, my penitent brother or sister,
listen to me.
You need to be forgiven of your sin.
Every solitary sin requires to be confessed as
such.
Deal realistically with your sin, my friend, if
you would know a sensitivity of fellowship with
God.
Don't minimize your sin.
Look it in the face.
Call it by its name.
Contest it before the Lord.
And then, with penitence and with faith, look
to him and cry to him, Oh God,
blot it out.
But that's not the only need of the
saint that has lost.
And the real burden in this psalm is
for something beyond pardon.
It's for the need of cleansing.
Now, every act of disobedience, every incident that
involves a Christian in sin, inevitably brings defilement
upon him.
There are no exceptions to this.
And this is something that we Christians sometimes
tend to forget.
We know that we need pardon.
We know that we earn the wrath of
God when we sin.
And we need pardon.
We need forgiveness.
My dear friend, we need something beyond forgiveness.
Let me put it to you in terms
of David's experience.
The eyes that looked lustfully upon Bathsheba were
defiled and needed cleansing.
The imagination that lusted in thought before it
ever committed the act needed cleansing.
The mind that planned the dastardly escapade was
polluted and defiled, needed cleansing.
The will that saw the wretched business through
was defiled.
And the conscience that was outraged not only
by the adultery and the murder, but also
by the covering up processes.
The conscience was defiled and needed cleansing.
I may be speaking to some young Christian
that has never realized the ravages of sin
upon his or her life.
Listen, my friend, this may be the reason
why God is so distant from you tonight,
and prayer is not real, and fellowship is
not vital.
You've never realized that sin defiled.
And David recognized in the depth of his
soul that he needed cleansing.
He needed purging.
He needed the defilement taken away.
So do you, my friend.
Now, David, as usual, expresses his profound sense
of need by the use of some very
suggestive words here.
I want to mention two or three which
I think are really crucial.
First of all, look at the word that
he uses in verse two.
Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, he cries.
Wash me, wash me.
Now, this is a very remarkable word.
Behind this word there is really a picture
in the Hebrew language, and that picture would
take us to an old-time Semitic washer
woman.
She has a bundle of very dirty clothes
under her arm, and she's making probably for
a brook or a river.
When she comes there, she will look for
some nice clean flags on the riverbed, and
then she will undo the bundle of very
dirty clothes, and she will begin to wash.
But she will not wash as a modern
person would wash.
What she will do will be this.
She will put the garments under her feet,
and she will begin to trample upon them.
Then she will look around her, and she
will see gradually how the water, the clean
flowing water, becomes polluted, discolored by the dirt
that is going out of the garments, and
going away with the flowing water.
And she will continue the process of trampling
and trampling and trampling, rubbing and trampling with
her feet, until there is no further discoloration
of the water.
You know, David cried to God literally, Oh
God, he says, trample on me.
I feel I'm like dirty linen, he says,
and the pollution has gone deep into the
texture of my being.
Oh God, he says, get it out.
Even if it means that you have to
trample and trample and trample upon me.
Oh God, cleanse me from my sin.
There may be someone in this tent, or
elsewhere, listening to my voice tonight, who has
become so desperately polluted by sin.
That's your cry too.
Look at another word here.
The word to cleanse, in verse two, cleanse
me from my sin.
Now this again is most suggestive.
In the Old Testament, it's used in two
particular connections.
It's used primarily in relation to the work,
the miraculous work, whereby a leper was cleansed.
It's used for example of Naaman.
It is also used of the declaring of
the cleansed leper as ceremonially clean.
And it is also used by Ezekiel of
a blessing that was to be given in
terms and according to the promise of the
new covenant.
I don't know whether David, with the eye
of faith, beheld in the distance seen the
promises of the new covenant, but I do
believe this.
In his heart of hearts he felt himself
to be a moral and a spiritual leper.
He felt that he carried with him as
being a deadly disease of sin, that is
not only contaminating his own soul, but also
others.
There were others that had been smudged and
mocked.
And he cries to God, Almighty God, he
says, wash me as you would cleanse the
leper and declare me and certify me clean
again.
There's another word here.
I must say a word about this.
Purge me, in verse 7.
This word introduces yet another thought.
The thought of the costliness of the cleansing
which he required.
Such a purging as David needs can only
be secured at the cost of sacrifice.
That's what this word tells us.
One commentator puts it in this way.
He says that this word denotes purification from
sin either by the actual payment of the
penalty or by vicarious satisfaction.
David knows he can't pay for it.
I can't give you the sacrifices of thee
or the offerings, he says, that would purge
my sin.
But by the eye of faith, with the
eye of faith, I believe it is possible
from the hand of my God, nevertheless, to
be purged.
My dear penitent friend, I'm speaking to you
particularly tonight.
My dear befouled companion, you who have seen
yourself in the light of the throne of
God, will you not say with David of
old, wash me, cleanse me, purge me?
If you'd like to use the word of
George Rundle Prynne, you can do that if
you prefer.
You remember his words in one of our
well-known hymns?
So wash thou me, he cries, without within,
or purge with fire, if that must be.
No matter how, says Prynne, no matter how,
if only sin die out in me, is
that your concern?
Listen, my good friend, you who have seen
yourself as a deeply soiled garment, as a
leper, as one who requires someone to be
sacrificed, yea, the very Son of God, in
order to bring you cleansing and purging and
purity, I want to announce in your ear
tonight that a fountain has been opened for
sin and uncleanness.
There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn
from Immanuel's veins, and sinners and saints that
have sinned, plunge beneath that flood, lose all
their guilty stains.
The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth
us from, yes, hold your breath, my dear
friend, from all sin.
My dear penitent brother or sister, put your
arms of faith around that tonight, will you?
This is God's word to you.
All sin, everything, the possibility of renewal, that
begins to occupy David's mind, the necessity for
pardon and cleansing that appears to his conscience.
Now I'm closing with just two or three
words about one other very precious thing, the
certainty that assured David's faith.
I think I know the experience of some
of you who are listening to me tonight.
God has found you out and you've been
exposed.
You know full well that you have wandered
and you've lost out here and there and
there.
I know how you feel.
I've been this way myself far too often.
Times come in the experience of a saint
that has latched when he can hardly forgive
himself.
And you may be beginning to wonder whether
God has mercy for you saints of God.
You've confessed your sin so often.
I want you to look tonight at something
that David pinned his all upon, namely the
marvelous grace, the unspeakably great grace of God.
And listen to me, David didn't know it
as you and I know it, but he
knew something about it.
And he uses three words here which bring
out several aspects of him and reveal to
us how David was so confident that he
could be forgiven and cleansed.
Now first of all in verse one he
uses the word mercy.
Have mercy upon me, O God, he cried.
Mercy refers to that quality of favor that
is utterly and completely undeserved.
It is that quality of kindness that is
always expressed by a superior being to an
inferior, by the one that has been hurt
to the one that hurt him.
And God is a God of mercy.
And David knew that.
David was sure of that.
Indeed, I want to reiterate in your yurts
tonight that that is so.
Do you remember the words of the prophet
Micah?
The Lord delighteth in mercy.
Listen my friend, God has forgiven a thousand
myriad saints throughout the times and the years,
but he's never once forgiven or cleansed a
solitary sin with a grudge.
Never.
He delights in mercy.
He is glad to have mercy.
He rejoices to have mercy.
And David clings to that.
There's another thing here.
See that word loving kindness.
At the heart of that word there is
the thought of absolute devotion to something.
And in the Old Testament when it is
used it speaks of God's absolute devotion to
his covenant promises.
They froze my heart at any rate.
What did David see?
David saw what Professor Norman Snape calls, he
saw that great loving kindness of God which
speaks of his steady persistent refusal to wash
his hands of wayward Israel despite their rebellion.
He always comes back to them because of
his covenant.
And David saw that he had a place
in the covenant promises of God.
Oh my dear fellow Christian tonight who wondered,
you've got a place in the covenant.
And I close with this.
Look at the word that translated tender mercies
and to me this is the most precious
of all.
This comes from the Hebrew word for womb.
Mother's womb.
And what it speaks of is this.
The unspeakably sympathetic understanding gracious compassionate grace of
God.
He's not a sovereign that speaks from his
throne only.
He's as close as you as a mother
to the child of her womb.
My dear friend will you not come to
him then tonight.
Conscious of your sin and weary of it.
Will you not come to the God that
delights to show mercy.
That has covenanted to forgive and to cleanse
his people.
And that has assured you of a warmth
greater than a mother could ever give.
Say to him, I hear thy welcome voice
that calls me Lord to thee.
For cleansing in thy precious blood that flowed
on Calvary and tell him with you will
you.
Oh tell him with a whole heart that
tonight you're coming and believing and by faith
receiving what in the covenant he assures for
every penitent child.
May God bless you in the doing.
And we pray now speak Lord for thy
servant here.
Speak just now some message to meet my
need which thou only dost know.
Speak now through thy holy word and make
me see some wonderful truth thou has to
show to me for Jesus sake.
Will you open your New Testament please at
Romans chapter 6 and verse 6.
The sixth chapter of Romans and the sixth
verse.
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.
Do you often wonder why it is that
so many of us as Christians reveal so
little spiritual growth.
Why is it that we spend years in
defeat?
Why is it that there's so little clear
cut bringing testimony to victory?
David was a man of God.
He became a man after God's own heart.
But he knew desperate defeat in his life.
And you and I are children of God.
And does not one of us here who
as Christians has not had the experience at
some time or other of being absolutely bowled
over by the devil.
Why should these things be?
With the result that very often many of
us are utterly disillusioned with the Christian life.
When we were converted we imagined that everything
would be plain sailing.
And we would find there were no more
problems about sin at all.
We had entered into the joy of Romans
8.1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus.
I remember the day of my conversion 40
years ago nearly.
I was given that verse and a new
bible.
And I opened the new bible at that
verse.
And I underlined that little word now.
And by the way we had no borrow
pens in those days.
We owed only pens that actually wrote.
And I underlined that little word now so
heavily that I went through to the epistle
to the Philippians and ruined it on the
first day.
Oh but it was worth it for I
had given three leaps for joy.
And I was free from sin hallelujah.
But I want to tell you quite frankly
that subsequent years have proved that view of
sin a fallacy.
For while I have never doubted my conversion
from that day to this.
I have found myself all too often engaged
in a battle that has been far too
much for me.
And my testimony has been silenced.
We've had nothing to say some of us
about Jesus as savior.
Simply because we've had no real experience of
deliverance from sin.
Why should these things be?
I am sure that the answer to that
question has got to be found.
If ever we are to recover the ringing
clear note of authority in our testimony.
The late Dr. Graham Scroggie a great favorite
on this platform used to say too many
Christians live on the right side of Easter
and the wrong side of Pentecost.
The right side of pardon and the wrong
side of power.
The right side of fellowship and the wrong
side of forgiveness.
They are out of Egypt but they haven't
reached the land of promise and blessing.
And are wandering about in the wilderness of
dissatisfaction and frustration.
My dear friend Keswick is no side issue.
We're not gathered here tonight in a happy
little holiness huddle which isn't relevant to these
critical days.
But we are here to see how the
church can recover her lost power and vitality.
And once again become a dynamic force which
could sweep through this 20th century materialism sin
and opposition and sheer defiance of the gospel
with a note of authentic authority and power.
But that can only be done by believing
people throughout the world who are living in
the joy of full salvation.
Why the defeat?
What's the reason for it?
Personally I'm convinced that the reason for it
is that we've never really appreciated the full
significance of the cross.
We're tremendously concerned about experiences of the Holy
Spirit these days.
But the thing we need to remember above
all else that the supreme work of God
the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord
Jesus.
And point us to him as our risen
savior.
And therefore tonight that's exactly what we want
to do.
To look again into his dear faith.
To see what he has done for us
at Calvary and can do in us by
his spirit every day of our lives.
It isn't a question of going on to
Pentecost.
It's a question of getting back to Calvary.
For if we get back to the cross
a personal Pentecost is inevitable.
Listen, I believe that a defective view of
the atonement is always due to a defective
view of what sin really is.
And Romans 6 in no uncertain terms gives
us the definition and spells out the true
character of sin.
We've no time to consider this chapter in
detail but I ask you just to concentrate
for a few minutes with all your ears
wide open your heart open to what the
Spirit of God shall say to you upon
verse 6.
Let me read it to you again as
it appears in the living letters paraphrase of
the New Testament.
Your old evil desires were nailed to the
cross with him.
The part of you that loves to sin
was crushed and fatally wounded so that your
sin loving body is no longer under sin's
control and no longer needs to be a
slave to sin.
Here we see in the first place deliverance
from sin explained.
In Romans 6 the subject Paul is dealing
with is much more than sinful acts.
It's the principle of sin itself in all
of us by nature.
Sin with a capital S.
The old self, a tyrant, a rebel.
All that I am apart from the grace
of God which is unalterably sinful.
Now all of us have found it comparatively
easy to understand that the Lord Jesus was
wounded for our transgression and bruised for our
iniquity and that he died for our sins
on the cross and that as we receive
him as our Savior we have forgiveness full
and free.
But somehow we found that that hasn't dealt
with the principle and the tyranny of sin.
We see that the cross has dealt with
the fruit and not with the root, with
sins but not with sin, and unless we
understand this other aspect of the meaning of
Christ's death we simply can't help going on
sinning because we haven't the resources to do
otherwise.
And do you mean to say the gospel
is intended to leave us in that mess?
Why the first verse of this chapter comes
like a thunderclap from heaven?
What?
Shall we continue in sin that grace me
abound?
God forbid.
Surely he has done more for us at
Calvary than to give Jesus to die for
a fruit of our rebellion and simply to
offer forgiveness for sins, wonderful as that is.
Certainly God wouldn't think of having in his
family a company of people who are still
rebels.
The cross has struck at the very heart
of our rebellion against his authority, which of
course is at the root of all sin.
Our old self is crucified with him, says
scripture.
One of the founders of Keswick Convention was
that great saint of God, Evan Hopkins.
During the course of his long ministry at
Holy Trinity Church, Richmond in Furry, he wrote
a masterpiece of a book entitled, The Law
of Liberty in the Spiritual Life.
The late beloved chairman of this convention, Fred
Mitchell, writes in his foreword to that book
that it could be described as the textbook
of Keswick.
So I think I'm fairly safe tonight in
quoting just a brief paragraph for it, from
it.
Now ears wide open, listen.
Oh listen, this thrills my soul.
Christ's death, which has separated the believer from
the consequences of sin as a transgression, has
also separated him from the authority of sin
as a master and set him free.
The believer sees that Christ, by dying for
him, has completely delivered him from the penalty
of sin.
So it is his privilege to see that
because he was identified with Christ in that
death, he is also delivered from sin as
a ruling principle.
Its power is broken.
He is in that sense free from sin
and the cross is the efficient cause of
this deliverance.
Freedom from sin's ruling power is the immediate
privilege of every believer.
It is the essential condition, our starting point,
of true service, as well as real progress.
Such service and grant are as possible for
the young convert as that mature believer.
Therefore freedom from sin's dominion is a blessing
we may claim by faith, just as we
claim pardon.
We may claim it as that which Christ
has purchased for us, obtained for our immediate
acceptance, and we may go forth as set
free from sin's dominion, and as alive unto
God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
And to all of which, excuse me, but
I can't help it, I must say hallelujah,
for I believe that with all my heart.
This is the freedom from sin as a
ruling principle.
That's the teaching of the New Testament, and
that is basically why Keswick Convention was founded,
to declare that tremendous truth.
And that is why we are in this
tent this evening, in order that we may
enter in by faith to an experience of
deliverance from sin's tyranny, as vital and real
as at our conversion, when we received Jesus
Christ as our Savior and entered into the
joy of forgiveness of all our sins.
Deliverance from sin, as well as forgiveness for
our sins, were both provided at the cross.
But most of us have for years of
our Christian life settled for a half salvation.
Now look with me again, and let us
see how this deliverance for sin was established.
Read part of Romans 6 verse 6, and
I read it in living letters.
The part of you that loves to sin
was crushed and fatally wounded, that your sin
-loving body is no longer under sin's control.
Oh, but you all say to me, as
indeed my own heart wants to say to
itself tonight, these old desires that have been
nailed to the cross are always with me,
and I am very conscious of them.
If that part of me which loves to
sin was crushed and fatally wounded, why is
it that I am so conscious of his
existence?
Now just a minute, let's think again what
Jesus Christ did for us at Calvary.
Listen carefully, are you with me?
Not only was he dying for sins, but
that transaction which affected a complete forgiveness for
our sins, was accepted in heaven, because it
was based upon a life that he had
lived, in which he had died to the
principle of sin.
Having died to sin as a principle in
his life, he was able in his death
to forgive our sin.
You remember that wonderful word of the Apostle
Paul in Philippians chapter 2, let this mind
be in you which was in Christ Jesus,
which were, who being in the form of
God, thought it not robbery to be equal
to God, thought it not to think to
be grasped after to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation, took upon
himself the form of a servant, was made
in the likeness of men, and being found
in the passion of men, he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death
of the cross.
See, watch him, he's come right down from
the throne to the manger and to Calvary.
And all the time he was living a
life which forsook his rights and refused to
act independently of the will of God.
In Jesus there was no sin principle, he
never rebelled, he always was submissive, and because
of that life of meekness and submission against
which all power on earth and in hell
fought him tooth and nail, and to whom
he never yielded an inch, because that life
was entirely and utterly a dependent life, a
submissive life, an obedient life, he had died
to the sin principle and condemned it in
the flesh.
And he hung upon the cross as a
condemned criminal, not only to forgive our sins,
but as one who took to Calvary a
nature that had never sinned.
Listen, if I have claimed the benefit of
a share and oneness in his death, in
order that I might be forgiven, surely I
can also claim a share in the life
he lived, which he took to the grave,
in order that in him I might know
deliverance from the principle of sin.
If I can say he bore my sin
in his body on the tree, thank you
Lord, hallelujah, can't I also say that at
Calvary he nailed every evil desire to the
cross, and crushed and wounded that faith, that
part of me that loves to sin, so
that this body of mine no longer under
sin's control.
That should also be part of my confession
experience, for the life that he lived and
the death he died resulted in his perfect
humanity being raised to the throne.
Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given
him a name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, and every tongue confess him Lord.
Of course death couldn't hold him, the grave
had no power of him, he broke loose
and rose into heaven and received from the
Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.
And he imparted at my conversion and at
yours into our lives his nature, in which
he had triumphed over every temptation to sin,
and we received at our new birth a
life in which there was no rebellion and
no sin principle, and he's come to dwell
within each one of us to make that
real in our everyday experience.
So you see, the experience of deliverance is
a glorious liberty.
It means that we no longer try and
improve the self-life, it just means we're
finished with it.
It has been nailed to the cross, and
in its place we've all the resources and
all the power of the life of the
indwelling Christ, our risen Lord.
How many of us have spent years on
attempts at self-improvement, polishing up the flesh,
and just as many of us have found
all our efforts to be utterly futile.
God has never tried, never planned that we
should try to improve ourselves or to make
us better.
He's only one thing to do with you
and me, with all that we are apart
from grace, not to improve us but crucify
us, kill us, slay us.
And he done it in Jesus, and he
has a plan to replace ourselves with Christ,
that we should by faith draw upon his
life and power.
Now just one more thing, the most important
of all, how is those who all work
out in daily life, how is this experienced?
Listen again to Romans 6, that the body
of sin might be destroyed, might be made
of none effect, that henceforth we should not
serve sin.
In his great commentary on Romans, a classic,
Professor Godet says this, listen to it, this
is the divine secret of Christian sanctification which
distinguishes it from simple natural morality.
The latter says to a man, become what
you want to be.
The former says to the believer, become what
you are already in Christ.
It puts a positive fact at the foundation
of moral effort to which the Christian can
return and have resource renew at every instant.
This is the reason why his labor is
not lost in aspiration and does not end
in despair.
The believer is not disentangled from sin gradually,
he breaks from it in Christ once and
for all.
Oh but wait a minute, that deliverance from
sin has no existence in us whatsoever apart
from Jesus Christ himself.
You put a lighted candle into a dark
room and the darkness disappears.
But the tendency to darkness remains and the
room has to be maintained in a state
of light by continual counteraction of light to
darkness.
The law of the spirit of life is
always in force and we're always dependent on
it.
This is the proof that the law of
sin and death is not, is not extinct
and the tendency of sin in us all
is still there.
Never in this life are we free from
the presence of sin.
Apart from Christ as our indwelling light, even
the most mature Christian would at once relapse
into a state of spiritual decay.
It is by his indwelling life that he
sets us free from sin and counteracts the
tendency to sin by the law of the
spirit of life.
You see it all boils down to just
this, there's only one good thing about the
Christian and that is Jesus.
And Jesus in you is the opposite to
all that you and I are by nature.
You conscious of your unholiness, I am.
40 years a Christian, I know better a
man now than I was when I was
converted.
Potentially I'm a bigger sinner, that's all.
Are you conscious of your unholiness?
Oh yes, but he is holy.
Are you conscious of your own impurity?
Yes, but he is absolutely pure.
Are you conscious of your impatience?
But he is infinitely patient.
You conscious of your lack of grace?
But he is gracious.
Oh what a joy to be able every
moment to lay hold of him and therefore
find that indeed this body of sin is
made of none effect because the victorious life
of the Savior has become ours in daily
experience.
In Christ we are dead to sin, but
sin is never dead to us.
It is with us and in us always
and will overwhelm us the moment we cease
to draw upon the life that Jesus has
imparted.
That is the only holiness which the New
Testament teaches and is the only holiness which
Keswick teaches.
Holiness by faith in Christ, by appropriation of
the life of Christ and the power of
Christ every day.
Failed to yield and appropriate, then the Holy
Spirit fails to work.
He goes out of business, not out of
your heart, but out of business and our
relapse into spiritual decay and defeat which has
made a mockery of so many years of
Christian living.
But you yield and he works.
Keep on yielding and he keeps on working
and so in daily living you experience the
dynamic of the upward pull of the Holy
Spirit.
That overcomes the downward drag of a sinful
nature.
Oh again, hallelujah.
Now listen in the closing moments of this
meeting.
Just be with me one more minute.
My dear friend, let's face it honestly.
Haven't we settled for far too long for
a half salvation?
Received forgiveness of sin and never known deliverance
from the principle of sin.
Perhaps we didn't know that it was provided
for us at Calvary.
What a miserable life it's been hasn't it?
Mine was for years.
How defeated, how lacking in reality and dynamic
our testimony has been.
Would you make this moment tonight the moment
when you not only claim by faith the
death of Jesus to forgive your sins, but
the life of the risen Lord indwelling you
by his spirit to deliver you from the
sin principle?
Just as you appropriate the one by faith,
so take by faith the other.
My savior thou hast offered rest, oh granted
then to me the rest of ceasing from
myself.
What release?
To find my all in thee.
And that's what changes the Christian life from
sweat and drudgery and toil and effort and
barrenness into luxury and joy and victory and
fullness.
Into a raging glowing testimony to the power
of the living Christ to do in you
what you can't do by yourself.
Will you take Jesus now to be your
deliverer?
Don't try to improve yourself anymore, but moment
by moment take his life from above.
And just as you took the step of
faith that led you to become a child
of God as you believed in the cleansing
power of his blood, now take the step
of faith that takes you into the land
of full salvation.
Is that a second blessing?
No it isn't.
Do I believe in a second blessing?
Yes I do, because I believe in a
third and a fourth and a fifth and
a million blessings.
But I simply say that you've taken Jesus
for pardon.
Oh but friend take him for power, take
him for deliverance, take him for victory.
For it's when a Christian has died out
to himself and ceases to have any more
confidence in the flesh and knows that there's
no good thing in him.
The whole of his self-life has been
nailed to the cross.
And when he begins to lay hold of
the life of Jesus, that the living Christ
is revealed through him.
And that's revival.
That's revival.
That's how the church is going to experience
a new breath of power and reality and
life.
But remember you must be willing to die.
He must hear your assent and the readiness
of your heart to what has been accomplished
at the cross.
I have been crucified with Christ and of
course that goes right to the root of
pride and self and reduces you to an
absolute minimum, but enables God to do his
maximum for you.