We might give this title to the study,
No Condemnation.
May we open our Bibles to Romans,
the 8th chapter, where we read, There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after
the flesh but after the spirit.
You know that in some versions these last
words, who walk not after the flesh but
after the spirit, are left out.
We're told in the earlier manuscripts it's not
found.
It's true, and it appears a little later
in the chapter, in its proper place, verse
4, who walk not after the spirit.
But there was a time, I remember, in
my life, when I was very happy to
discover that this is not found in all
versions, and we're told not found in the
earlier manuscripts.
It really should read, There is now, therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in
Christ Jesus, without the words, who walk after
the flesh, not after the flesh, but after
the spirit.
And it was quite a relief to me
to discover that, because I was having a
terrible time, my Christian experience, and when we
read that it is here, it seems to
throw us a bit over on words, as
though our condemnation, no condemnation should spring from
the fact that we walk in the spirit.
Well, it doesn't.
It really springs from Christ.
It springs from the blood.
It springs from the blessed Redeemer himself, and
what he wrought for his son Calvary.
I say it is true, and it appears
a little later, but the fact that there
is no condemnation does not have to do
with our words.
I think we're all agreed that this thing
is very prevalent, and on occasions I'm sure
we're all victims of it, and we know
what a crippling thing it is in our
experience and in our Christian service, this being
under condemnation.
It can be like an annoying toothache, which
would knock one out, leave one altogether helpless.
Or it could be like the undertow.
If one were to get in certain positions,
going swimming of the sea, you know how
the undertow is.
And I say this thing of self-condemnation
is a terrible thing, and we're to be
free from it, altogether free from it.
And the points I have here this morning
are to help us in this regard.
In the first place, I think if we
would face the thing squarely, look it right
in the eye, it would be a great
step towards victory, because often it springs from
pride, a certain pride in the reverse.
It looks like humility, but it's not humility.
When we begin condemning ourselves, it's really pride.
As Newell brings out in his book on
Romans, it shows that we're still expecting something
great from ourselves.
If we weren't, we wouldn't be under condemnation.
We're still expecting something from ourselves.
Now, if all of our expectations from the
Lord, it would be otherwise.
I found such a good word this morning
in this book, The Deep Things of God,
by Norman Grubb, about this.
But then, equally, we must not stay, even
temporarily, under condemnation when Satan has caught us.
It is the easiest thing to do, and
our distressed feelings are really self-pity and
pride.
It is not so much that we have
grieved the Lord that disturbs us, as that
we have failed.
The acceptance of condemnation is a form of
self-righteousness.
Now, we may not like that, but I
think it's true.
It's a form of self-righteousness.
Then, in the second place, we must be
very careful not to confuse the voice of
conscience with the voice of the evil one,
Satan.
I think here we have, in relation with
this particular point, one of the subtlest workings
of the evil one.
I remember an experience with a dear lady
over in Cuba about a year ago, a
little less, for it was just after having
been with you here that I went to
Cuba.
This lady had come down from Havana to
be in the gathering, and she told me,
she asked to speak with me alone, and
she said, now I've come for this very
purpose.
I seem no longer to be in victory.
I lost my temper sometimes back with the
girls.
Now, just what am I to do?
Her feeling was that she was somehow to
pray this thing through, get back to a
tremendous experience with the Lord in order to
regain his favor.
She said she had become estranged, no longer
in victory.
At the head of a school for girls,
what was she to do to recover her
victory and she kept going over this fact
that she had lost her temper and she
was turning in on herself and going around
and around this.
And I finally said, no, my dear lady,
I think you're mistaken.
I think perhaps you're confusing the voice, your
conscience with the voice of Satan.
And I said, you know, he loves to
come up alongside of conscience like this and
all of a sudden slip ahead and take
over and it's no longer the voice of
conscience, it's the voice of Satan.
The Lord's not nagging you over this thing.
You haven't lost the favor of the Lord.
You're underestimating the efficacy of the blood.
Now, just believe in the efficacy of the
blood.
If we walk in the light as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another in the blood of Jesus Christ,
his Son cleansed us from all sin.
If you feel you must confess that again,
you may.
But just believe in the efficacy of the
blood.
You don't have to struggle and go through
some great spiritual crisis to gain the favor
of the Lord again.
You've got it.
There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them
that are in Christ.
And in a sudden moment, she saw it
and snapped right back into position and she
didn't struggle in prayer, she just gave thanks
for the efficacy of the blood and walked
out of there triumphant.
This is one of the subtlest tricks of
Satan, to come up alongside of conscience and
suddenly step ahead and turn on us with
accusations.
And if we accept in thinking that it's
the voice of conscience, it'll become an ever
-increasing stream until it's an avalanche and we
may go under altogether and something could happen
to us like what's happened to a young
lady in Japan.
I was taken to see her one day,
Sunday after a service, along with Corrie Ten
Boom.
Some of you have read after Corrie Ten
Boom.
Oh, I never saw such a sight.
This dear missionary, under such condemnation, she seemed
to have blacked out altogether.
It was no longer herself and all she
could see was the pit open and tearing
her hair and exclaiming that there was no
hope for her, she was lost.
Well, there was a gathering of missionaries there
at the time, 250, 300, and they prayed
with the clock 24 hours for that dear
girl.
And she did come out of it and
to peace again and yet they sent her
back to South Africa.
We felt that she would have had a
more complete victory, only her doctor wasn't cooperating.
She put it down to purely natural causes
and wouldn't let people come to her to
read the Word or to pray and sing
or anything.
It was just sickness and she was sent
back to South Africa.
Now, no doubt it began with this thing,
this thing of condemnation, self-condemnation.
Perhaps at first it may have been the
voice of conscience.
An elderly missionary lady told me that it
was a difficulty she'd had with a friend,
I don't know the nature of it.
It may have begun with self-condemnation and
then suddenly Satan stepped in and took over
and it was the accuser of the brethren.
And if you take it as the voice
of conscience, well, and he'll just keep plowing
in as you give more and more and
more and more until something like what happened
to our dear missionary sister over there in
Japan might happen.
Now I have here on my list four
things that are, how shall I put it,
a great aid, a mighty bulwark from the
Word against this thing of self-condemnation.
First of all, what we read in 1
John, the first chapter where this precious word
I've just referred to stands out so gloriously,
the seventh verse, 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 sins.
You know that in the Greek it's in
the present active tense, it's forever cleansing.
You know that this was the word, is
the word, which brought Francis Haverhill into a
life of victory when she passed away and
was called home to glory.
Her Bible was opened on the casket in
this word, the text by which she lived.
This great spirit, you know, the author of
so many of our hymns, that hymn of
consecration that we sing, we have it in
the Spanish, a daughter, the daughter of the
mass, as it were, a father, a preacher,
and truly a saint.
But we read in her biography that there
was a period in her Christian life when
she was under a cloud.
She was so unhappy because she felt she
wasn't measuring up all together, something like the
experience of Roman seven, to the dictates of
conscience, her Christian conscience, all the blemishes of
life.
And, of course, they are without number, and
they come to us every day for one
cause or another.
Loomed up so in a picture that she
was failing to see all the meaning of
the cross and the efficacy of the blood,
and she walked under condemnation until one day,
reading her New Testament in the Greek as
she was wont to do, she came upon
1 John 1, 7, the blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son.
For a long time I've been calling the
attention of our boy to this.
He's still getting under condemnation.
He has a very keen conscience, and he's
under law, and it's
really, again I say, it's not humility.
It's really pride in the, well, when you
shift from one gear to another, in reverse.
It looks like humility, just to be condemning
yourself.
Oh, I haven't measured up again.
Oh, I failed again.
Oh, if I should only see from ourself,
we should be expecting great things.
Because if we allow ourselves to come under
condemnation, let me refer to evil thoughts.
They come to all of us, and they
come continually to all of us, friends.
Now, if we take our eyes off the
crucified risen Lord and forget about the efficacy
of the blood, we could come terribly under
condemnation.
You know, it's like the eye is forever
washing its face.
You know that.
You're not conscious of it.
But the eye is forever washing its face,
because it's such a delicate organ, and so
it is with the soul, even more delicate.
Why, it's forever washing its face.
If you walk in the light, there is
an application of the efficacy of the blood
that's going on.
We're unconscious of it.
And so, our communion.
Now, that doesn't mean, of course, I understand.
And John refers to that in his first
chapter.
There are some things that need to be
confessed.
We know that.
I told a lie.
Lord, forgive me.
And I may have to straighten it out
with my brother.
That's a different thing.
I'm talking about all these things that were
smirches, moment by moment, just a contact with
the world.
You know that.
I feel as though I've taken a bath
in the slimmiest pool on earth.
But I've just got to keep remembering that
the blood is forever...
And then, too, in the second place, we
must refuse to think in these terms which
are negative, which spring from doubt.
We must think as Paul was thinking when
he wrote Romans 8.1. But there is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are
in Christ Jesus.
I affirm it.
Paul affirmed it.
For the law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.
I think Paul was forever coming back to
his position and refusing...
I ran into a beautiful illustration in this
book this morning.
Grubb says it's like elastic.
You pull it, you let go, and it
snaps back into position, into place.
Well, he said we're forever being drawn by
the power of temptation out of position.
But, you know, we could snap right back
in if we were just to remember in
a moment what our rightful position is, the
union with Christ.
And if we were just to refuse this
thing which really springs from pride...
Now, there are times, of course, we know
when conscience is doing its rightful work and
we've got to hasten to the foot of
the cross and confess the thing.
That's another story.
But we can do that in a moment,
too, and move right forward with the Lord
in the life.
We can do that in a moment.
You can do that on the street.
Lord, forgive me.
Right there on the street.
That's another thing.
We're not talking about that right now.
We're talking about this coming under condemnation by
letting the old self.
Now, the old self is wedded to the
law.
We know that.
The old life needs law.
We've simply got to refuse to come under
law.
We're not under law.
We're under grace.
And refuse to let law pull your finger
at it.
Now, law is a tremendous thing.
It has its place.
But as Grubb points out, it's really for
the kindergarten.
It's different.
Law brings conviction of sin.
And the law, as we read in Romans
7, brings the conviction of our helplessness without
the power of the Spirit and the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But we're not under law.
We're under grace.
Imagine a mother being over a year.
Well, now the Lord is infinite.
He's not accusing us, brethren.
This doesn't come from that sword.
The devil likes to say we're not under
the law.
And in this position, there should be no
self-accusation.
We're free to do our work.
So as this thing comes up, no, that
springs from the old nature.
You're a crucified thing.
And I've been set free.
I refuse to return to that position.
We can do that.
We must.
Hold to our true position of oneness.
Then, in the third place, of course, we
must take the weapons, weapons which are not
carnal but mighty, through God for the putting
down of strongholds.
We've got to take the weapon of the
Calvary's victory.
This is the subtlest machination.
You know, of course, with the world, anything
works in a different way.
But with the Christian, ah, he gets alongside
of that keen conscience.
You know?
What a slimy thing.
He just pretends he's your conscience.
Come right alongside of it.
Now we need a conscience, and God has
given us a conscience, and it has its
function.
But there's a vast difference, and then he
steps beyond and turns in on you.
And if you confuse the two and accept
that it's the voice, often we think it's
the voice of the Lord, the voice of
conscience.
No.
Oh, then comes the flood of accusation.
And one can live under constant oppression through
floods of accusation.
The enemy likes to accuse for everything.
There you are.
And here again you slipped up on this.
And look at how you acted over here.
And look at this and look at that.
You're a liar.
Get dehumanized in the holy name of Jesus.
And he flees.
And then you come out again from the
clouds, just like when an airplane goes through
a storm.
He is the accuser.
And this thing can become so tormenting, friends,
that it can lead to the insane asylum.
There are people in the insane asylum who
should not be there.
And they get to believing that they've committed
the sin against the Lord, for which there's
no forgiveness, just by listening to the voice
of the accuser.
He doesn't begin at that point.
Of course, he begins, but as he gains
ground, more and more and more the moment
will come and he'll be committed to sin
again.
But we know he's not interested in getting
his rights with the Lord at all.
He pretends to be interested in getting his
rights, you know, your sins.
He's the power of lies.
He's interested in getting us all turned in
on ourselves, looking away from ourselves.
And he can get the Christian to look
away from his Savior at himself.
Let me say that good self.
You know, that's really the meaning of the
Roman self.
What was Paul doing?
He was looking at himself.
You run through Romans 7 and that's all
you find is self.
There's nothing there but self.
But it was his good self.
But there is no such thing as a
good self, you know.
Oh, I, if I only could.
I would.
I struggle.
I pray.
I do.
Oh, I must.
I.
Oh, if I could only fulfill the law.
I will be a great swelled-up Pharisee.
Oh, the Lord will never let you get
in.
That's not the function of the law, to
sanctify.
I'm referring to my Chinese friend again.
In his chapter on Romans 7, he so
beautifully illustrates it.
Telling about a group of young men who
were out at a camp.
At a camp.
He was there.
Some Bible camp.
And they were swimming.
A lake there.
And one of the young men was drowning.
And there was an expert swimmer standing there.
And they were all looking to him to
plunge in and save this man.
And he didn't move.
Until finally this man was going down for
the last time.
And then he plunged in and simply snatched
him out.
And they came to him.
Why did you wait so long?
Oh, he said, I.
He had to come to the end of
it.
We've both gone down.
Fortunately, he said, of our own resources.
And are willing to rest like babes in
his arms.
And just let him move within us.
And just let him who is the law
giver, as Grubb puts it, be the law
keeper.
For as he carries you in his arms,
why, he fulfills these things through you.
But if you are passionate, you cooperate with
the Holy Spirit.
And he fulfills these things through you.
I say we must take the weapon of
the Calvary victory.
And refuse what does not come to us
by the cross.
Now sometimes, you know, it's a little confusing.
You don't know, well, what are these for?
You can test it out very quickly.
If it's of the Lord, it won't pass
away.
If it's of the devil, it'll pass away
when you take a stand and say, now
what does not come to me by a
Calvary, I refuse.
I silence the enemy.
In the holy name of Jesus.
You know, he was silenced at Calvary, as
we read in Revelation, the twelfth chapter, where
we are told that he deceived the whole
world.
He was cast out, that great dragon was
cast out, that old serpent called the devil,
which deceiveth the whole world.
That's not the verse I'm looking for, where
we are told, ah, the tenth.
And I heard a loud voice saying, in
heaven now has come salvation and strength and
the kingdom of our God and the power
of his Christ, for the accuser of our
brethren is cast down, which accused them before
our God.
Notice this.
He doesn't only accuse us to ourselves, before
us, to our own consciences.
He, who accused them before God day and
night.
Well now, we know that the Lord could
only silence him on righteous grounds.
He wasn't, he couldn't silence him by a
divine fire, because of his sovereignty and his
authority as the living God.
No, he couldn't.
But he silenced him only through the shedding
of his most precious blood, putting them away.
That's the way he silenced the devil.
Now what more have you got to say
about this sinner?
He believes in me and I pour his
sins on him.
And cast out, of course.
Now that's the only way the Lord could
silence him.
He couldn't silence him on the grounds of
just power and omnipotence and sovereignty by means
of a divine fire.
No, because God doesn't work that way.
And now in view of that fact, we
can silence him.
The Lord God stopped his mouth.
There is Calvary.
And that belongs to you.
That's yours.
He didn't need it in heaven.
He won that victory as a man.
In that victory you were.
That's you.
That's for you.
Now enjoy it.
How?
Well, every time the devil tries to get
you under condemnation.
Rise up again.
Oh, this thing is so common.
I think I referred to a young man
in Japan.
I was going to mention his name at
the ministry.
Who called me a pirate after one of
these wars.
He accused and gives
a command of the Holy Name of Jesus.
There won't be this gnawing toothache all day
long.
And so he began taking hold.
I received a letter from him some time
back.
Legends are changing.
Of course, if the devil could knock out
a missionary with that sort of thing, you
see.
Just moving up alongside a cousin.
Lovely.
Just cripple him and knock him out.
But we have weapons, friends.
They're here in the world.
Of course, they're very humbling.
There's the point.
They're very humbling.
We find them in the cross.
Where the Lord Jesus not only put away
our sin, but I went.
The accuser of the brethren.
On strictly righteous grounds.
Moral grounds.
Absolutely satisfying to God.
To man.
The devil himself has got to recognize it
in all hearts.
We read that Luther, the reformer in the
castle there where he undertook the translation of
the Scripture, went through great conflict with the
devil.
Modern biographers don't like this.
Oh, they like Luther, you know.
All the world knows how great he was.
But they can't understand this thing, you know.
It doesn't fit into modern theology.
They make light of it, you know.
They laugh about it.
They don't like this in Luther's life.
What does this mean?
They point out a place in a wall.
On a wall where a great black blotch
Luther threw the inkwell at the devil.
What does this mean?
Well, you know, it means surprises.
This man was the spearhead of a new
day for the world.
It means surprises that the devil mobilized his
forces and struck there again and again and
again to try and defeat this man.
The more advanced your position is in Christ,
the more you're going to draw enemy fire,
brethren.
So if you're looking for an easy time
of a drop all this, it's insane.
We're soldiers.
And we wrestle not with flesh and blood,
Paul says.
And it comes at the end of the
Ephesian letter where you have the church and
the heavenly places.
But against principalities and against the darkness of
this world, with its spirits in heaven, it
seems the world itself is enveloped by this
thing and finds it day by day.
The devil will contest every inch of ground
the Christian can gain.
But he's in a city full.
And the weakest Christian can rise up and
command him.
That's the lovely thing about it all.
Actually command him.
Tuck off.
Even as the Savior.
For the Christian, he's the Savior.
And he shares his authority.
And that's the meaning of strange passages that
we find there in the gospel.
Did you say to this mountain, Be thou
removed, and doubt not in your heart.
Well, now, what does that mean?
Yet doubt not in your heart that what
you say shall be done, shall.
What does that mean?
Mountain of satanic oppression.
We've got to speak up.
We've got to release the glorious cowards.
The enemy flees.
I say, referring again to Luther, on one
occasion, so the story reads, history the devil
put before him, the story of all his
sins, as though they were written on the
walls of the south.
He loves to do this, you know, rake
up the whole patch and pour it in.
Who would accept that sort of thing?
No one.
But it's a lie.
It doesn't exist.
It was washed away in the blood of
the Lamb.
He had no right to rake up these
things.
And so Luther rose up and said, yes,
yes, these are my sins.
And now right, the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses him.
The devil fled.
And that's what the Lord said to dear
Amy Carmichael.
Many of you know the story of her
wonderful life there in India, the founder of
the Downward Fellowship, and those last years, 20,
of suffering through arthritis and much oppression.
Why should that have been?
This great saint.
Well, the Lord used those closing years.
She ministered to insurables and hospitals all over
the world.
And the Lord said to her after a
mental depression, look at Calvary.
By the merits of my blood, all is
well.
Hallelujah.
Now you can look and look and look
and journey from Shanghai to San Francisco and
look into all the books and into all
nature and into all the flowers and into
all the stars.
You'll never find any relief.
Ah, but when you look at Calvary, then
you know that by the merits of the
Redeemer's most precious blood.
So if we've been having a hard time
of it, been going under because of the
accusation of the enemy, let it resolve.
Never to take anything from that source.
Walk alone in the armor of light, take
the shield of faith wherewith we may.
Well, it comes to me in the Spanish,
apagar todos los dardos del fuego.
Quench all the fiery darkness.
Holy Father, we're so thankful that we have
him.
He's just a perfect savior.
Oh, it's so wonderful what we read in
Revelation 12.
That there on a cross he silenced the
devil forever.
And oh, with what an effective weapon, Father.
Why, he didn't deny our sin.
That would not have availed.
He couldn't just cast the devil out of
court because of omnipotence.
There was our sin.
No.
Through the shedding of his most precious blood,
he put it away.
And oh, what a glow to Satan.
What a glow to his entire kingdom.
Now, Father, enable us, we pray, to stand
on redemption and to absolutely refuse this whole
business of self-condemnation.
If there are things in our lives, Father,
that need to be straightened out, well, we
know that can be done very quickly because
of the efficacy of the blood.
Others tell us if we confess our sins,
thou art faithful and just to forgive us
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, from that point on, we can go
on rejoicing, Father, overcoming the prince of darkness
and all his subtle machinations in the blessed
name which is above every name, the name
of Jesus, our Savior and our Lord.
Amen.