To [b]mortify[b]old man[b]old man[b]death blow
Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? You must always be at it while you live; do not take a day off from this work; always be killing sin, or it will be killing you.
- From "The Mortification of Sin" by Rev. John Owen
good word!
Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore, there is always a need for it to be [b]mortified[b]dead to sin[b]inner nature[b]only in part[b]mortify
- From "The Mortification of Sin" by Rev. John Owen
yes, i agree that mortifying is a daily work. but, does he believe we can be free from practicing (habitual) sins, like the sins names in gal.5? does he believe we can walk free from KNOWN sins? paul speaks of a clean conscience (from known sins).
God bless
Dear myfirstlove,
The sins mentioned in Galatians 5 are termed "the works of the flesh" by Paul (v. 19). These are:
Adultery, Variance, Fornication, Emulations, Uncleaness, Wrath, Lasciviousness, Strife.
Idoltary, Seditions, Witchcraft, Heresies, Hatred, Envyings, Murders, Drunkeness, and Revellings.
Your gracious question is "Did Owen believe a Christian can be set free from indulging in the abovementioned activities?" My response is an unequivocal [b]Yes![i]willpower
Yet, as we grow, we are bound to slip, and WILL slip. We will, most assuredly "miss the mark" as a bowhunter can occasionally miss a deer. Growing in grace is a tough maturational process, a learning process where we must undergo the Spirit's daily tutelage (sometimes painful) which progresses from glory to glory, until the day we die. This is typical of any type of growth, spiritual or physical. Do I believe we'll reach a state of sinless perfection on earth before the celestial glorification of the saints? Absolutely not. But the Bible is clear that we must wage war with our flesh to put to death our rebellious members while here on earth. If we do not master sin, sin is sure to master us. This is our service to God, mind you; God will not hunt down and kill fugitive sin if we do not allow Him first entry into our personal jurisdictions to apprehend the hiding felon.
I think Owen believed the same. I've never found him to say that we can be utterly free from ever practicing another sin. Such a notion would be unscriptural! The greatest Christian who ever lived - Paul himself - is on record saying he hadn't yet [i]attained[b]tempted[i]give in to the tempation
Of course, this is how I see it. You may see it differently! I welcome your gracious discussion, for I feel it is crucial that we have a proper understanding as to what mortification is, how it is wrought, what it is [i]not
With love and respect for a dear sister in Christ,
Brother Paul
AMEN!
God bless you!
Thanks Paul for bringing this up. I have noticed this word from time to time and its good to have a more solid understanding of the usage.
Thus, it is the constant duty of believers to render a death blow to the deeds of the flesh,
I wonder if this is what the Apostle had in mind by [b][i][color=000000]...I die daily.[/color]
If so, how would that relate to the first part of the verse: [b][color=000000] I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord,..[/color]
Any thoughts?
PaulWest on 2006/8/30 23:08:16 posts...
I am not sure that this is what Owen is saying. In fact your quote seems to suggest that he isn't saying this.Indwelling sin is compared to a person, a living person, called the old man, with his faculties, properties, wisdom, craft, subtlety, and strength. The old man is utterly mortified and slain by the cross of Christ. He is said to be "crucified" with Christ (Romans 6:6), and ourselves to be "dead" with him (v.8). This takes place in regeneration. The work of the Holy Spirit, Who is planted in our hearts, also opposes the lusts of the flesh (Galatians 5:17). Is he not making a distinction here?Indwelling sin always abides while we are in this world; therefore, there is always a need for it to be mortified. Some have wrongly and foolishly believed that we are able in this life to keep the commands of God perfectly and are wholly dead to sin.
I am not sure that this is what Owen is saying. In fact your quote seems to suggest that he isn't saying this.
Dear brother, you'll have to take it up with Owen. Both quotes are his.
But to answer your observation (in defense of John Owen, sorry): no, I don't really see a distinction. I see sin referenced as the 'old man' in one, and in the other as an abiding and thriving presence, in need of daily mortification.
Respectfully and with Christian love,
Brother Paul
Dear ChrisJD,
The statement about the "death blow" is Owen's own. Everything here is from Owen's "Mortification of Sin". What's mine is the response I wrote to myfirstlove, philologos and now this response here to you. I just wanted to clear up any confusion and put my disclaimer down!
Okay, my brother, you wrote:
I wonder if this is what the Apostle had in mind by ...I die daily.?
If so, how would that relate to the first part of the verse: I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord,..?
Well, I think we need to take all of chapter 15 into consideration. What is Paul talking about here? The preceeding verses are dealing with the resurrection, and how some men were saying that there wouldn't be one (v.12). Now, Paul preached the resurrection, and he had suffered much for this gospel, and freely admitted that all his efforts were in vain if this was true (v.19). Paul's crux is that, although in Adam all died, even so, all men shall be made alive in Christ (v.22). Paul says, "Why stand we in jeopardy every hour" if the resurrection I preach is but a myth? He tells the Corinthian church that he is facing death every day in hope of the resurrection. He protests what's the use of all his efforts, if the dead do not rise. Might as well do as the Epicureans do - eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die (v.32).
JB Phillips says it like this: "I assure you by the proud certainty we share in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I face death every day of my life!"
The question then arises, by which manner does Paul face death daily, according to the context of the present chapter? Is he speaking of a literal death in the face of danger? His was certainly a dangerous job! The next verse (v.33) he speaks of "fighting with beasts" after the manner of men in Ephesus. We know he was stoned. We know some Jews had put a bounty on his head. We know he was chased and beaten and jailed with peril after peril heaped. He certainly faced death daily in this literal aspect.
Yet Paul also spoke of another death - the death of his 'old man' that had been crucified with Christ Jesus (Gal. 2:20). Paul speaks of a daily self-denial, a mortification of the works of the flesh. He issues warnings to Timothy and the young churches to flee such things as youthful lusts that may give rise to sin. He exhorts us to "mortify" or to kill or put to death the deeds of the flesh. John Owen proposes that this process of mortification is daily, on-going, progressive and untiring. I plan on expanding this teaching here, to show the relationship between the 'old man' which is slain with Christ and our ever present responsibility of systematically mortifying any efforts he may have in coming down from the cross.
I believe the death Paul speaks of in 1 Cor. 15:31 may very well encapsulate both ideas of death - the physical jeopardy of his own mortalitiy, as well as the death of brokeness and daily self-denial whilst walking in utter submission to God's Spirit.
Just my thoughts, brother!
Paul
"When sin lets us alone, we may leave sin alone; but sin is always active when it seems to be the most quiet, and its waters are often deep when they are calm. We should therefore fight against it and be rigorous at all times and in all conditions, even when there is least suspicion. Sin is always acting, always conceiving, and always seducing and tempting. Who can say that he has ever had anything to do with God or for God which indwelling sin has not tried to corrupt? This battle will last more or less all our days. If sin is always acting, we are in trouble if we are not always [b]mortifying.
There is not a day goes by where sin either foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed upon. It will always be so while we live in this world. Sin will not spare for one day. There is no safety [b]but in a constant warfare
- From "The Mortification of Sin" by Rev. John Owen
PaulWest on 2006/8/31 23:08:54
Protest is a little bit stronger than I feel about this but I welcome the opportunity to talk through some of these issues. I think I have not read Owen thoroughly enough to grasp what he is saying yet.What is your protest? Is it the fact that in Owen's second statement, sin is already determined as "mortified" or "slain with Christ" and thus completed? I believe Owen is describing ideally how it should be, how God wills it to be.
If 'protest' is the right word it would be in terms of 'does the scripture ever speak of mortifying sin?' I think the two key references are probablyRom. 8:13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
Col. 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: In the Romans reference the word is θανατοω (thanatoO) from thanatos meaning 'death'. So 'put to death' would be a good translation here. While the Colossian reference uses the word νεκροω nekroO, nekros is a corpse. The idea is the same in both passages but the divergence from Owen's usage is that he equates the 'old man' of Romans 6:6 with 'indwelling sin'; and I agree with him. The 'executioner' however in Romans 6:6 is not 'me' but God Himself.
Both the Romans and the Colossian references seem to be relating to 'deeds' rather than 'nature'. Indwelling sin, the old man, is God's business. I cannot execute it although even in an unregenerate state I am held culpable if I do not restrain it. The deeds (praxis), "doings" are my responsibility although even here my weapon of execution must be 'the Spirit' and not my own will power.
What do you think?
Ron, you have made some great observations.
First and foremost, the issue, I think, we are facing is: Is there a difference between 'the deeds of the flesh' and 'sin'? Are they one and the same? Does one result from the other? Are we responsible for actively dealing with one and not the other? If sin is our nature, does the 'old man' merely exhibit the deeds of our nature? Is the 'old man' a reference to sin, or he in reference to the flesh?
You have correctly said that only God can execute indwelling sin, and I agree with both you and Owen! I don't think this was ever an issue, as I think we'll see when we dig deeper. I am excited!
Brother, I working in a funeral home right now (appropriately enough!), and unfortunately, I must bring this post to an abrupt close, as a family has just walked in. I will continue our gracious discussion later on this evening!
By the way, I am well acquainted the with the Greek "thanos"; as a mortician/embalmer, I had to undergo grueling classes in thanatochemistry and thanatological anatomy. "Mortification" is right up my alley, so to speak! 8-)
With love and respect,
Paul
By the way, I am well acquainted the with the Greek "thanos"; as a mortician/embalmer, I had to undergo grueling classes in thanatochemistry and thanatological anatomy. "Mortification" is right up my alley, so to speak!
Paul,
Thank you for posting these powerful writings by John Owen on the Mortification of Sin. They are poignant and powerful. Bless you for all the time and energy you put into sharing such wonderful truths with the readership of SI. Our lives are blessed, challenged and enriched by them. How desperately we need this truth to touch us in the deepest recesses of our hearts.
Bless you, brother!
The deeds (praxis), "doings" are my responsibility although even here my weapon of execution must be 'the Spirit' and not my own will power.
Amen!
Would you say that sinful deeds manifested are a result of indwelling sin unmortified? In other words, can mortified sin (the slain old man), give life to unmortified deeds? If iniquitous deeds displayed in the flesh of the believer are not the result of indwelling sin slain by God, from whence do our wicked deeds germinate? Can that which is dead, bring forth life?
Paul says in Romans 6:6 that our 'old man' is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin be destroyed. If the body of sin be permanently destroyed by God, from what source then is the genesis of sinful deeds? Do the deeds which we are called to mortify come only from third-party sources of temptation, or are they personally manufactured?
Before we go any further, I think we need to make a determination. Has God done his job in slaying the 'old man' with utter finality at our moment of regeneration, and all that is left for us to do is monitor and mortify in the Spirit our temptational 'deeds' in the members? Or is there still something wicked dwelling within us, fighting, rebelling, contending and vying for our faculties - albeit half-dead and screeching from the grave? Something that must die daily, something that only God can kill, and something that God will not kill without our willful surrender? Something that, if not mortified daily, will begin to clamour within our inner chambers and work its way with gathering strength to fleshly exposure? As the 'old man' is slain with Christ, can he, like Christ, per chance undergo a similar resurrection? It is certain the 'old man' haunts us from beyond the grave: "...and by it he being dead yet speaketh," can certainly apply to the 'old man', as Paul exhorts us to: "...put off the former conversation of the 'old man'..." (Ephesians 4:22). Is this a warning to relinquish the nasty tendencies of a thing now mortified, or is it instead a call to protect against dead men rising from caskets?
Let me hear your thoughts, brother. This is so very important to understand. Either sin's root is living in us, or it isn't. Either sin is crouching at our door, still attempting to master us, or it is totally obliterated and we have nothing to fear but our own misdeeds from yielding to hell's extraneous temptations.
BTW, I apologize for my last post. It wasn't until later that I realized you had already dealt with the questions I put forth!
Brother Paul
[b]"Sin, if not continually mortified, will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, and soul-destroying sins (Galatians 5:19-20).
Every time sin rises to tempt or entice, it always seeks to express itself in the extreme. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, and every unbelieving thought would be atheism. It is like the grave that is never satisfied. In this we see the deceitfulness of sin. It gradually prevails to harden man's heart to ruin (Heb. 3:13). Sin's expression is modest in the beginning, but once it gains a foothold, it continues to take further ground and press on to greater heights. This advance of sin keeps the soul from seeing that it is drifting from God. Sin precedes higher by degrees, and it hardens the heart as it advances. This enables the deceitfulness of sin to drive the soul deeper and deeper into sin. [b]Nothing can prevent this but mortification.
- From "The Mortification of Sin" by Rev. John Owen
The 'executioner' however in Romans 6:6 is not 'me' but God Himself.
I agree, and I also propose that the 'executioner' in Rom. 8:13 and Col. 3:5 is God as well. We alone can do nothing except exercise sheer [i]willpower
Brother, I hope you can agree that we have a responsibility to walk in the Spirit and mortify indwelling sin daily, and that it is our business to do it in the Spirit through faith. Since God has slain indwelling sin, according to Rom. 6:6, could it not be proposed that we are now "without sin" if someone confuses your line of reasoning?
We [b]prevent[b]indwelling sin[b]root
If the root of sin is already slain with Christ, how then do Christians backslide? Where do the oubursts of rage come from? Pride? Do they not lie dormant within us, waiting to come forth when provoked? It is clear that a pot of "hot tea" is brewing within us, waiting to slosh out onto our skin should we fail to keep the flame down. You're a Brit, so I figured I'd give you an illustration you could relate to! ;-)
Any thoughts?
The Oberlin Evangelist.
July 15, 1840
Professor Finney's Lectures.
Lecture XIV.
DEATH TO SIN
TEXT.-- Romans 6:7: For he that is dead is freed from sin.
In the discussion of this subject I shall notice,
I. THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEATH MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE.
II. WHAT KIND OF DEATH IS INTENDED HERE.
III. WHAT IT CONSISTS IN;
IV. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN IT;
V. HOW IT IS EFFECTED.
I. Different kinds of death.
1. Natural death. This is the death of the body.
2. Spiritual death. This is death in sin. It is total depravity or a state of entire alienation from God.
3. Eternal death. This consists in the endless curse of God.
4. Death to sin.
II. The kind of death mentioned in the text.
The death here spoken of is manifestly a death to sin. This is very evident from the context. At the close of the preceding chapter, Paul had been speaking of the super-abounding grace of Christ, and commences the sixth chapter by saying, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Here Paul is speaking of those who were alive and yet dead to sin,[.] He spoke of their having received a baptism into the death of Christ. By their spiritual baptism they had been solemnly set apart or consecrated to the death of Christ. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:" He speaks of them as not only dead, but, by their spiritual baptism buried into the death of Christ. And to carry the idea of their being still farther from the life of sin, He speaks of them as being planted into the likeness of his death, and crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed. And then adds in the words of the text, "Now he that is dead is freed from sin." In the margin it reads "is justified from sin." The term here rendered justification may be rendered "is made righteous."
It is plain from this connection, that Paul is speaking of those who had been so baptized by the Holy Spirit so as to be dead to sin, buried, planted, crucified, as it respects sin.
III. What it consists in.
Summarily, death to sin consists in the annihilation of selfishness, and the reign of perfect love to God and man in the heart and life.
IV. What is implied in it.
1. Death to sin is the opposite of death in sin. Death in sin implies living for self, or being dead to God's glory and interests and only alive to our own glory. Death to sin implies the reverse of this. It implies a death to our own interests and happiness as an end of pursuit, and a living wholly to the glory of God, and for the up-building of his kingdom.
2. Death in sin implies a will opposed to the will of God. I speak here of a fixed and permanent state of the will in opposition to a single particular volition. A will in this state is not at all influenced by the will of God. It has never submitted to his will, and consequently a knowledge of the will of God is no influential reason to determine its volitions. But death to sin implies a will wholly subservient to and under the control of the will of God. I speak now also of a state of will. One who is dead to sin has no other will than that God's will should in all things be done. Lay before him any question in which he is in doubt in respect to what the will of God is, and he will find himself unable to decide upon a course of action. All he can decide upon in such a case is to search and inquire what is the will of God. But until he is satisfied in some way in respect to the will of God, he is utterly in doubt and finds himself unable to make up his mind and come to any decision in respect to the question before him. This is a state of mind directly opposite to a death in sin. In a state of death in sin, the will of God is not inquired after as the great and only influential motive to decide the will. A man in this state has, as we say, a will of his own. He decides upon his own responsibility, in his own strength, and entirely in view of selfish reasons. While one who is dead to sin, has so submitted himself to the will of God--so bowed his will to God's will, that he decides nothing in view of selfish reasons, and the will of God has come to be the controlling reason or motive of his conduct. Let him but know what is the will of God in the case, and his will is yielding as air. But shut him out from this knowledge, and he is in a state of the utmost perplexity and cannot decide upon any course of conduct. He can only say, I have no will about it. However uncommon it has been for christians to come into this state while in life and health, it has not been at all uncommon for them to be in this state while on a death bed. Every one conversant with death bed scenes has probably witnessed such cases of entire surrender of the whole being to the will of God, as that the individual was unable to choose whether to live or die and could only say, I have no will about it. Not knowing what the will of God was, there was no other choice than this, viz. that the will of God, whatever it was, should be done. Ask an individual whether sick or well, living or dying, who is in this state, whether he wills or chooses a certain thing; and if it be a question in respect to which he is in doubt, as to what the will of God is, you will find him to be entirely at a loss. He is conscious of choosing that the will of God should be done. But until he knows whether this or that is the will of God he has no choice about that particular event.
3. Death in sin implies a self-indulgent state of mind. To consult ones own ease, happiness, reputation, and interests is natural to him who is dead in sin. If he is on board a steam boat you will find him ready to contend for the best berth, and hastening to obtain the best seat at the first table. If riding in a stagecoach you will observe him seeking for the best seat. To consult his own comfort, his own indulgence and happiness is the law of his mind. And in ten thousand ways will this state of mind develop itself.
But a death to sin implies a self-denying state of mind, a disposition to give others the preference, a choosing to accommodate others, and bless, and benefit others, at the expense of self-interest or self-indulgence.
4. A death in sin implies the real and practical regarding of ourselves as our own. But death to sin is the real and practical regarding of our whole being as God's.
5. A death in sin implies the love of our own reputation. Death to sin implies the making of ourselves no reputation as Christ did.
6. A death in sin implies the practical regarding of our possessions as our own. Death to sin implies the real and practical regarding of our possessions as God's.
7. Death in sin implies the dominion of the flesh and a will in subjection to the flesh. A death to sin implies a subjection of the body to the soul. It implies the keeping the body under and bringing it into subjection, and that all its appetites and propensities are brought into subjection to the will of God.
8. A death in sin implies a state of mind that is influenced by sensible objects, by the honors, riches, opinions, and things of this world as much as if its possessor expected to live here forever. Death to sin implies the giving up the world substantially as a dying man gives it up. Its riches, honors, amusements, pursuits, ambition, strifes, and envyings, what are all these to him? If he knows himself to be a dying man, he regards them not. He desires them not. He seeks them not. He does not, cannot, under these circumstances, will to have them. He chooses nothing of this world's goods, but those things that are really necessary for the few hours or moments which remain to him of this life. A little more breath--perhaps a few spoons full of water--a little of the kind attention of his friends are all that is left for him to desire of earthly good. Now death to sin implies this giving up all desire and expectation of the wealth, honors, and selfish pursuits of this world. The man who is dead to sin is as absolutely satisfied with a competency of earthly good as a man is who is on a bed of death. He would no sooner lay his schemes of earthly aggrandizement, or for enlarging and perpetuating his selfish gratification, than a man would upon a bed of death. In a word, he has given up the world as an object of pursuit, as really and emphatically as if he knew himself to be doomed to live but one hour. He has entered upon a new and eternal life. All his plans, desires, and aims are heavenly, and not earthly, sensual or devilish.
[V.] IV. How this death is effected, or how persons may enter into and exercise this state of mind.
1. Not by the strength of your own resolutions. You will never die to sin by merely resolving to die to sin. It is one of the most common delusions among men to suppose that they can stand against temptation by the strength of their own resolutions. Peter thought himself able to follow Christ even unto death. But his resolution, like all mere human resolutions, failed him just when he most needed its support. A brother said to me the other day, "I have learned this of my resolutions, they are firm enough when there is nothing to overthrow them, and just when I do not need their support. But they always fail me when I do, just when I have a trial that demands their sustaining power, I find they are like air and good for nothing.["]
2. This state of mind is never to be entered into by any unaided efforts of our own. Sin has too long had dominion over us. Our powers are too much enslaved by its protracted indulgence. Sin has too long been our master, to be at once put down by any unaided efforts of ours. But,
3. This state of mind is effected by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit does not imply the bestowment of miraculous gifts, as some seem to have supposed. The Apostles possessed miraculous gifts before they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. The power of miracles may or may not be incidental to spiritual baptism. But it, by no means, constitutes any part of it. Nor does spiritual baptism imply great excitement.
But it does imply such a degree of divine influence as will purify the heart. The New Testament writers manifestly use the term baptism as synonymous with purifying. Water baptism is typical of spiritual baptism. Spiritual baptism, is the purifying of the heart by the Holy Spirit. Miraculous gifts, great excitement of mind, great rejoicings, or great sorrowings over sin, may be incidental to spiritual baptism, but they are not essential to it. You that have read the memoir of J. B. Taylor will recollect that on the 23d of April 1822, while he was engaged in prayer, he felt his whole soul sweetly yielding itself up to God. Such a sweet thorough yielding himself and all his interests for time and eternity, into the hands of God he had never before experienced. Now I suppose that this was the effect of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He ever after remained in a state of mind entirely different from anything he had before experienced.
In receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit we are by no means passive but eminently active.
This influence is secured by faith. Faith in Christ throws the mind open to the influence of his truth and gives the Spirit the opportunity of so presenting truth as sweetly to bring the entire person under its whole power. Christ administers spiritual blessings, and this is received by taking hold of his promise to baptize with the Holy Spirit, and throwing the mind open to his influences. The baptism of the Apostles, by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, will illustrate what I mean. Christ had promised them that they should be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence. They fastened upon this promise, and waited in a constant attitude of prayer and expectation, throwing the door of the mind open to his influence. Now Christ has given to all believers a great many promises of the freeness of the Holy Spirit. He has said that the "Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children." The "water of life" which is so abundantly promised in both the New and Old Testaments is the Holy Spirit. This everyone knows who has attentively considered the real meaning of those promises.
And now if you would enter into this death to sin, you must be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If you would be baptized with the Holy Spirit you must fasten upon the promises of Christ and take hold of them in faith, laying your whole soul open to receive his influences. Rest with the utmost confidence in his promise to give you of the "fountain of water of life freely." And when you have taken hold of his promise, be sure not to let go or let your confidence to be shaken until you feel a consciousness that "you are baptized into his death."
REMARKS.
1. In the connection of this text, Paul speaks of himself and others as dead to and freed from sin.
2. If death to sin does not imply entire sanctification, death in sin does not imply total depravity, for they are manifestly opposite states of mind.
3. As death in sin is consistent with persons doing many things which the world regards as righteous so death to sin may be consistent with many things which the world would regard as sinful.
4. Paul's history confirms the profession which he here makes of being dead to sin.
5. The circumstances of the primitive Church rendered a death to sin almost inevitable, at least in many instances. The profession of attachment to Christ must inevitably cost many of them all that the world holds or calls dear. They had to enter upon the christian life by a renunciation of the world, by giving up worldly expectations and pursuits, as much as men do on a bed of death. This state of public sentiment was eminently calculated to facilitate their entrance into a state of spiritual death, and was no doubt a prime reason for their rapid advancement in the divine life.
6. We see why it is that state and other violent persecutions have already greatly contributed to the spirituality of the Church.
7. We see also why it is that state and worldly favor has crippled the energies, and overthrown the purity of the Church.
8. We see how the idea comes to be so prevalent that Christians are not wholly sanctified until death. As a matter of fact, this no doubt generally is true, that Christians are not wholly and permanently sanctified until about the close of life, until they come into that state in which they expect very soon to die. I once knew a good man who was told by his physicians, that in consequence of the enlargement of the large blood vessel near the heart, he was exposed to instant death, and that at all events he must expect to die very soon. This intelligence after the first shock was over, was instrumental in baptizing him into the death of Christ. He very soon entered into a most blessed and heavenly state of mind, let go of the world, and seemed to stand looking and waiting with most heavenly serenity for the coming of the Son of Man. In this state of mind he was informed after a while, that he might probably live for a long time, notwithstanding his disease. This so staggered him as to well nigh bring him again into bondage. Not seeming to understand the philosophy of the state of mind in which he was, and how to remain in it by simple faith, he staggered and groaned under this intelligence till Christ, true to his promise, interposed and set his feet upon eternal rock. After this he lived and died to the wonder of all those around him, few if any of whom perhaps, so much as dreamed that his state of mind was what is intended by a death to sin.
[9.] 8. Payson and multitudes of good men have found it easy to enter into this state of mind when all expectation was relinquished of remaining longer in this world. But it seems impossible or difficult for most persons to conceive, that this state of mind may be really entered into, with a prospect of any amount of life still before us.
[10.] 9. But there is no need of waiting until the close of life before we die to sin. We have only to thoroughly let go of all selfish schemes and projects whatever, and give ourselves as absolutely up to the service of God, as much as we expect to when we come to die, and we enter at once into this infinitely desirable state of mind.
[11.] 10. If persons have entered into this state of mind, new trials may call for fresh baptisms of the Spirit. While we are in this world of temptation, we are never beyond the reach of sin and never out of danger. If selfishness could be called into exercise in holy Adam, how much more so in those who have lived so long under the dominion of selfishness? If a man has been intemperate or licentious although these appetites and propensities may be subdued, yet it behooves him to keep out of temptation's way; and renewed temptation calls for fresh and more powerful baptisms of the Holy Spirit. Be not satisfied then with one anointing. But look day by day for deeper draughts of the water of life.
[12.] 11. If we allow any form of sin to live, it will have dominion. It must be wholly exterminated or it will be our ruler. The principle of total abstinence in regard to sin is wholly indispensable to the reign of spiritual life.
Let us then, beloved, not rest satisfied until we are conscious that we are dead and buried, by spiritual baptism into Christ's death, until we are planted in the likeness of his death, and so crucified with Him that the body of death is fully destroyed.
Or is there still something wicked dwelling within us, fighting, rebelling, contending and vying for our faculties - albeit half-dead and screeching from the grave? Something that must die daily, something that only God can kill, and something that God will not kill without our willful surrender? Something that, if not mortified daily, will begin to clamour within our inner chambers and work its way with gathering strength to fleshly exposure? As the 'old man' is slain with Christ, can he, like Christ, per chance undergo a similar resurrection? It is certain the 'old man' haunts us from beyond the grave: "...and by it he being dead yet speaketh," can certainly apply to the 'old man', as Paul exhorts us to: "...put off the former conversation of the 'old man'..." (Ephesians 4:22). Is this a warning to relinquish the nasty tendencies of a thing now mortified, or is it instead a call to protect against dead men rising from caskets?
This is so very important to understand. Either sin's root is living in us, or it isn't. Either sin is crouching at our door, still attempting to master us, or it is totally obliterated and we have nothing to fear but our own misdeeds from yielding to hell's extraneous temptations.
Mr. Owen's thought's here are exacting.
Every time sin rises to tempt or entice, it always seeks to express itself in the extreme. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could; every covetous desire would be oppression, and every unbelieving thought would be atheism. It is like the grave that is never satisfied. In this we see the deceitfulness of sin. It gradually prevails to harden man's heart to ruin (Heb. 3:13). Sin's expression is modest in the beginning, but once it gains a foothold, it continues to take further ground and press on to greater heights. This advance of sin keeps the soul from seeing that it is drifting from God. Sin precedes higher by degrees, and it hardens the heart as it advances. This enables the deceitfulness of sin to drive the soul deeper and deeper into sin. Nothing can prevent this but mortification. Mortification whithers the root and strikes at the head of sin every hour. The best saints in the world are in danger of a fall if found negligent in this important duty."
Brothers and Sisters on SI,
God has been pressing upon me the need for absolute obedience in my life. The only way to grow in grace and wisdom is to obey the Lord in all matters and die to (mortify) all known sin. Obeying God when it's merely convenient will not do. Mark my words: There is no substitution or alternative to immediate obedience in our walk with Jesus Christ. I propose that if one desires to grow in the Lord and experience a greater measure of the Spirit's presence in one's life and ministry, then one must obey His voice at all costs. Anyone can accumulate knowledge and academics; the "smartest" people alive today in terms of astrophysics and philiosophy are unbelievers. The "wealthiest" people are of the unbelieving camp as well. Hence, I am talking about more than mere intelligence and riches - there is something incomparably deeper and infinitely more precious God offers those who are trusting and obeying and dying daily. This "something" surpasses man's understanding, and if our regenerated spirits are not seeking a greater daily measure of this glorious bestowal of God, something is amiss.
It's not easy, this quest! God's Spirit and your flesh are sworn enemies, and when God speaks, the flesh naturally rebels. This gives rise to bloody battles, and many would-be soldiers have been cut down by the swashbuckling techniques of hell. Go and look back at each one of your own defeats in the past: You will find each failure was unequivocally due to a lack of obedience in heeding the Spirit's repeated exhortations.
The truth is, God is dealing with a hidden killer harbored within each of our bodies - sin. When we refuse God access to the location of the fugitive, the killer goes into hiding. We may live for months and months with no visible sighting of the killer. We soon grow complacent and lazy in our pursuing the things of God, and our undisciplined mind drifts into the dark shadows where the forgotten killer lurks. How many of us have gotten our throats slit in these gloomy shadows?
If we were obeying God in all directions and fore-commands, our throats would have never been slit. God, since the time of our conversion, has been beckoning us to give up the killer's rights. Yet we hold the murderer in a form of spiritual amnesty. God is pleading with us to hand him over for crucifixion, yet many refuse - and for multiple reasons - to relinquish this convicted felon over to the hammer and nails.
Why do you not deliever this killer over to the Authority? Has the liar promised you pleasure, a share in his spoils if you continue to conceal his identity? No doubt you have found he keeps his promises! Sin's delicacies are indeed sweet! Stolen water quickly quenches the flesh's thrist. Have you been hearkening unto the voice: "If you turn me in, I'll only escape with a sharper knife"? This may be, but only if you help him escape. If you aid and abet his release, he will surely show his gratitude - with a brutal knife in your back that very same hour! He is vicious, wicked, crooked...and he lives within you.
The only way to subdue this villian is through obedience to the Word of God. Your obedience allows God to raid his habitation. God calls us to surrender our personal domains, our private jurisdictions, for there are terrorists in the camps! How many acts of spiritual genocide will it take until we come to our senses and deliver these indicted criminals over to Absolute Justice?
Saints, we must hearken unto the Word of God with immediate obedience! We must hunt down and hand over these evasive terrorists to God for swift execution. There is no other way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven but through spiritual violence and bloodshed.
Are you prepared to get violent? Welcome to the business of mortification! From now until your spirit leaves its corrupted clay tabernacle, you must be occupied with keeping diligent watch over and systematically destroying all known sin in your members. Any christless uprisings within the tabernalce must be foiled and then terminated, before they hatch into defilements. God will not kill these rebels if the temple priest does not first trap them and lay them them upon the altar; you can't stop temptations from approaching, but you can keep them from infiltrating. They must be arrested at the gates, bound and gagged, and then we can expect the fire of God to consume them. Oh, precious saints, we must learn to walk in the Spirit. We must learn to trust and obey and always look to Jesus Christ whilst coveting humility and daily self-denial.
For there is no other way to heaven, but through death and holiness.
Brother Paul
Just wanted to bring this back up again.
"The Holy Spirit and our new nature are given to us to oppose sin and lust (Gal. 5:17; 2 Pet. 1:4).
"It is our participation in the divine nature that gives us an escape from the pollutions that are in the world thorugh lust. We need to emply the Holy Spirit and our new nature in this battle for our souls. If we neglect to make use of what we have received, God may justly hold His hand from giving us more.
(* PW - I have found this last principle to be most true)
"His graces and gifts have been bestowed upon us to use, exercise, and get benefit from. If we do not seek daily to [b]mortify
- From "The Mortification of Sin" by Rev. John Owen.
PaulWest on 2006/9/2 15:46:31 posted:
Brother, I hope you can agree that we have a responsibility to walk in the Spirit and mortify indwelling sin daily, and that it is our business to do it in the Spirit through faith. Since God has slain indwelling sin, according to Rom. 6:6, could it not be proposed that we are now "without sin" if someone confuses your line of reasoning?
You are missing my point. My point is that the deeds of the old man and of the flesh are daily dealt with by my cooperation with the Spirit of God. It is never will-power. But the 'old man' is a different entity and if the 'old man' and indwelling sin are synonyms then it is important to see that God deals with the 'old man' without any assistance our our part, AND 'once for all'.
Has God not 'slain indwelling sin' according to Romans 6:6? As far as I am aware the phrase 'without sin' only appears in three places:John 8:7 (KJVS) So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.Since God has slain indwelling sin, according to Rom. 6:6, could it not be proposed that we are now "without sin" if someone confuses your line of reasoning?
However the phrase 'free from sin' is only used twice but it is used of men and women. Perhaps the third verse in this list makes the connection...Rom. 6:18 (KJVS) Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Rom. 6:22 (KJVS) But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.
Rom. 8:2 (KJVS) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
To be 'without sin' is not a biblical description of human beings but under certain conditions 'free from sin' is a biblical description of men and women.
But the 'old man' is a different entity and if the 'old man' and indwelling sin are synonyms then it is important to see that God deals with the 'old man' without any assistance our our part, AND 'once for all'.
A lot of times reading through these things it seems there is a case of 'almost saying the same thing', which I am finding somewhat here between what Ron is bringing forth and Paul.
But Ron, could you elaborate a bit more on the above out take? I am sensing a dichotomy, a distinguishing between the 'Old man' and the flesh. If my reasoning is close, the one being the former, the 'old man' as in [i]past tense
So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; [u]but with the flesh the law of sin
To get myself in even more trouble, it is what the flesh does, what it desires, holding to that 'law'. The great "if" coming about elsewhere ...
"[i][b]If
"[i][b]If
"but [i][b]if
And so on. This last one perhaps drawing out the point of saying the 'same thing', namely;
[b]ye .... through the Spirit
Mike,A lot of times reading through these things it seems there is a case of 'almost saying the same thing', which I am finding somewhat here between what Ron is bringing forth and Paul.
When we move into Romans 6 something else surfaces. Paul has described the 'blessednesses' of Abraham and David and all who rely utterly upon the God who raised Jesus from the dead. This being the God who gave him up for our offences and whose raising was positive proof that God had accepted his sacrifice. By this 'sins' have been dealt with and can be dealt with in the future....“if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
(1John 2:1-2 KJVS) The one death is the propitiation (price paid) and 'if' (not "when") no further sacrifice is needed because the 'once-for-all' payment has been made. Justice divine is satisfied. I must come again and again in faith, but the Advocate still pleads by case on the basis of His death on Calvary.
That is the foundation but Roman 6 has more to say. In fact, "much more".Rom. 5:9 [u]Much more
Rom. 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, [u]much more
Rom. 5:15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, [u]much more
Rom. 5:17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; [u]much more
Romans 5 then leads naturally into the topic we are discussing on another thread. The 'power of Sin'. We are no longer talking about infringements to a legal code but Paul reveals that we have a far more dangerous enemy. Something that he calls "The Sin" took advantage of Adam's transgression and 'entered' the world. If you have access to a Youngs Literal Translation of Romans 5:12ff please check it out. We discover that something happened to our race that brought the whole race into bondage and established another king over us. No amount of forgiveness, cleansing or atonement will deal with this tyrant. But Christ has taken it on for our race.
The verses between Rom 5:12-21 make constant reference to 'one'. In fact, there are two 'ones' but not 'two' if you understand my meaning. I would recommend that folks wanting to see the impact of this print out Rom 5:12-21 and circle every time the word one is used or implied. It begins with the statement that it was “...through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin,”
(Rom 5:12 NKJV) The word 'through' is 'dia'. Adam's transgression was the route by which an alien power entered the world. Eve's transgression which was earlier than Adam's did not do this but Adam's transgression did. There was something unique in the nature of what Adam did. Paul tells us that not only did Sin enter through Adam's transgression but that Death came in by the same route. Adam's one disobedience opened up the human race to an invasion by something (in fact as it is personified we might even say 'someone') call Sin. This all happened in Adam. A new entity came into being; humankind was invaded by an alien spirit, a devilish dynamic. This enemy spirit is locked into confrontation with God and it has its seat in human beings.
God has never let this spirit loose in all its full malevolence other than at Calvary where it was seen to be bent on the destruction of God Himself. What remedy can there be for this monster? Christ's death was multi-faceted. It represented not only the full penal judgement of God upon all sins but it took hold of this thing called Sin that became the human condition at Adam's disobedience. Having spoken constantly of the effects of Adam's action in Romans 5 when we get to Romans 6 Paul says he 'knows' something“knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin.”
(Rom 6:6 DRBY)
Greek has many words for 'old' but the 'old man' of Rom. 6:6 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.
Eph. 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
Col. 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; ... is "palaios". This is the word we get 'paleontology' from. It might be translated 'our ancient man'. This is a fascinating and illuminating description. 'man' is singular but the possessive pronoun in plural. In the Romans 6 revelation is not 'the old man', nor 'our old men'. Apparently this is an 'old man' we have in common. It is the man that Adam became as a result of his transgression. It is man with a usurper on the throne. It is the race under the wrong head. It is the Sin-entity of the human race and the Satanic counterfeit to the New Man. It is 'the body of Sin' as distinct from the 'body of Christ'. This monster was gripped in Christ's baptism on Calvary and taken down into death with Him; this was the death of Death.
The man or woman who is baptized into Christ's death has already experienced this 'death of the ancient man'. We DO NO T die to the 'old man'. In Christ he has already been crucified. All that I need is to be united to Christ in a baptism into His death.
The reason I am so pedantic about these things is because I am a 'pastor' and I have watched people battling with 'the old man' for years. They try to crucify him, they try to starve him, they try to mortify him (our theme). None of it can possibly help. One of the tragedies of modern translations is that they persistently change this particular phrase;"For we know that our old self was crucified with him" = NIV
"knowing this, that our (A)old self was (B)crucified with Him" - NASV
"Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ" - The Message
"Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ" - New Living Translation
"We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him" - ESVIf I were a conspiracy theorist this is a verse I would concentrate on! 'the self' is is psychological concept and has no biblical basis. Is a 'new self' likely to be an improvement on 'the old self'. It breaks the continuity of contrast with the New Man and buries a vital truth. What Adam 'created' by his transgression was brought to an end in Christ at Calvary.
This happened at Calvary. I do not need to 'experience' it. It is part of the nature of the Christ who is revealed in me by His Spirit. The life which the Spirit brings is a life which has already passed through Calvary and finished off the ancient man. I do not need an 'experience' of resurrection or being seated in the heavenly places either; the life I have received has these as its testimony. The 'genes' that I receive in Christ have 'the death of the ancient man' and 'the resurrection to new life' and the 'being seated in heavenly places'... the 'genes' have all that already. I do not need to 'die to sin'. He 'died to sin, once' (Rom 6:10) If I asked the life in me to give its testimony it would say "I took the ancient man into death. I died to Sin, once. I am living unto God."
Now there is a continuing battle that I am part of, but it is not with the 'ancient man'. That battle was fought and won at Calvary.
my apologies, far to long...
My! Dear Ron, no apologies necessary.
For all that I have gleaned through these things here and by way of books, what have you, I surely must have missed this if it was ever brought to light before. This is a tremendous thought! Amazing how changing (poor word there), translating this;
"palaios". This is the word we get 'paleontology' from. It might be translated 'our ancient man'. This is a fascinating and illuminating description.
Grand understatement! This bowled me over, what a revelation, had never entertained the thought. It goes without saying that this is almost a subconscious understanding out there that the 'old man' is 'us' ...'personaly'. Like your extraction there much better, the tie with 'self'.
Can see I might tie myself into a pretzel if I am not careful here. Still need to chew on this a bit more...
The reason I am so pedantic about these things is because I am a 'pastor' and I have watched people battling with 'the old man' for years. They try to crucify him, they try to starve him, they try to mortify him (our theme). None of it can possibly help.
Now there is a continuing battle that I am part of, but it is not with the 'ancient man'.
There is a couple of things that have never quite sat right in my understanding and have left them just suspended. One is the idea of 'original sin' as it is termed and the other was this in regards to the 'Old man' or even 'Old nature', always felt a hesitation there and they seem very teamed together. Am getting a bit ahead of myself, but this is going a long towards fleshing it out.
I've learned yet another thing from Brother Ron. Thank you! I totally agree with Mike - what a tremendous post! I'm going to print it out for further study purposes. The Ancient Man. Paleontology. Incredible! Brother, it would be an great honor and privilege to sit under your teachings as a pastor.
I have watched people battling with 'the old man' for years. They try to crucify him, they try to starve him, they try to mortify him (our theme). None of it can possibly help.
Ron, though the 'old man' is indeed slain with Christ, I know you agree we must still mortify sin (call it the 'deeds of the flesh' if you wish). Brother, I say this with love, but I think we can get too hung up on our theology and knowledge and unduly complicate things and obfuscate that which babes can clearly see in the Spirit without semantics. I understand you, and agree with everything you've said, and greatly appreciate your objections and corrections, but I feel the life will be sucked right out of this thread if we continue in such a manner. There's no contention on my part, never was; I admit, there have been times where I've interchanged 'old man' with 'indwelling sin' and 'sin' with 'sinful nature', and now see that this may have been less than accurate, especially when I've used such terms in reference to the "deeds of the flesh" - which, in my book, is sin anyhow. Hence, the 'Mortification of Sin'. I am sorry to have gotten your pastor radar up through a false alarm (though it seems to have been Owen's usage of 'indwelling sin' that tripped your wire). I feel like we're going around in circles!
Now, just to reiterate what Owen says: "[i]Indwelling sin
I am a 'pastor' and I have watched people battling with 'the old man' for years.
Ron, in all respect, how do you know they were not battling unmortified sin? By your own words, a Christian cannot battle with the 'old man', because the old man is already executed by God. Sin, however, (in our members) is executed (mortified) by us walking in the Spirit.
Are we getting closer? :-D
"The word “flesh” is used in Scripture in a number of senses, but throughout Romans 8 it signifies that corrupt and depraved nature which is in us when we enter this world. That evil nature or principle is variously designated. It is termed “sin” (Romans 7:8), “warring against the law of my mind” (verse 23). In James 4:5, “the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy,” to indicate that it is not a tangible or material entity. But more commonly it is called “the flesh” (John 3:6; Romans 7:25; Gal. 5:17). It is so termed because it is transmitted from parent to child as the body is, because it is propagated by natural generation, because it is strengthened and drawn forth by carnal objects, because of its base character and degeneracy. It was not in man when he left the hand of his Creator and was pronounced by Him “very good.” Rather was it something that he acquired by the fall. The principle of sin as a foreign element, as a thing ab extra, as an invading agent, entered into him, vitiating the whole of his natural being — as frost enters into and ruins vegetables, and as blight seizes and mars fruit.
The “flesh” is the open, implacable, inveterate, irreconcilable enemy of holiness, yea, it is “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7) — an “enemy” may be reconciled, not so “enmity” itself. Then what an evil and abominable thing is the flesh: at variance with the Holy One, a rebel against His Law! It is therefore our enemy, yea, it is far and away the worst one the believer has. The Devil and the world without do all their mischief to the souls of men by the flesh within them. “The flesh is the womb where all sin is conceived and formed, the anvil upon which all is wrought, the false Judas that betrays us, the secret enemy within that is ready on all occasions to open the gates to the besiegers” (Thomas Jacomb, 1622-87). We must distinguish sharply between being in the flesh and living after the flesh. Thus, “For when we were in the flesh” (Romans 7:5) has reference to Christians in their unregenerate condition, as “they that are in the flesh cannot please God” speaks of the unsaved; whereas “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit” (8:8,9) is predicated of believers. “In the flesh” imports a person’s standing and state before God; living after the flesh describes his course and conversation. The one inevitably follows and corresponds to the other: a person’s character and conduct agree with his condition and case.
The flesh is radically and wholly evil: as Romans 7:18, declares, there is “no good thing” in it, It is beyond reclamation, being incapable of any improvement. It may indeed put on a religious garb, as did the Pharisees, but beneath is nothing but rottenness. Fire may as soon be struck out of ice as holy dispositions and motions be produced by indwelling sin. As the “flesh” continually opposes that which is good, so it ever disposes the soul unto what is evil. To “walk after” or to “live after the flesh” (both terms have the same force) is for a person to conduct himself as do all the unregenerate, who are dominated, motivated and actuated by nothing but their fallen nature. To “live after the flesh” refers not to a single act, nor even to a habit or a series of acts in one direction; but rather to the whole man being governed and guided by this vile principle. That is the case with all who are out of Christ: their desires, thoughts, speech and deeds all proceed from this corrupt fount. It is by the flesh that the whole of their souls are set in motion and their entire course steered. All is directed by some fleshly consideration. They act from self, or base principle; they act for self, or base end. The glory of God is nothing to them, the flesh is all in all.
The flesh is a dynamical, active, ambitious principle, and therefore it is spoken of as a lusting thing. Thus we read of “the lusts of the flesh,” yea, of “the wills of the flesh” (Eph. 2:3 — margin) for its desires are vehement and imperious. “But [indwelling] sin, taking occasion [being aggravated] by the commandment [“thou shalt not covet”], wrought in me all manner of concupiscence” [or “lust”] (Romans 7:8). Education and culture may result in a refined exterior; family training and other influences may lead to an espousal of religion, as is the case with the great majority of the heathen; selfish considerations may even issue in voluntarily undergoing great austerities and deprivations, as the Buddhist to attain unto Nirvana, the Mohammedan to gain paradise, the Romanist to merit heaven — but the love of God prompts none of them, nor is His glory their aim. Though the Christian be “not in the flesh” as to his status and state, yet the flesh as an evil principle (unchanged) is still in him, and it “lusteth against the spirit” (Gal. 5:17) or new nature, and therefore are we exhorted, “Let not sin [i.e. the flesh] therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:12).
It requires to be pointed out that there is a twofold walking or living after the flesh: the one more gross and manifest, the other more indiscernible. The first breaks forth into open and bodily lusts and acts, such as gluttony, drunkenness, moral uncleanness: this is “the filthiness of the flesh.” The second is when the flesh exerts itself in internal heart lusts, which are more or less concealed from our fellows, which lie smouldering and festering within our soul, such as pride, unbelief, self-love, envy, covetousness; this is the filthiness “of the spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). In Galatians 5: 18,19, the apostle gives a catalogue of the lustings of the flesh in both of these respects. He does so to expose a common fallacy. It is generally assumed that walking or living “according to the flesh” is limited to the first form mentioned, and the second one is little considered or regarded. So long as men abstain from gross intemperance, open profanity, brutish sensuality, they think that all is well with them, whereas they may be quite free from all gross practices and still be guilty of living after the flesh. Yea, such is the case with all in whose hearts there are inordinate affections after the world, a spirit of self-exaltation, covetousness, malice, hatred, uncharitableness, and many other reprehensible lusts.
Our text makes crystal clear to us the fundamental and vital importance of the duty here enjoined, for our performance or non-performance thereof is literally a matter of life and death. Mortification is not optional, but imperative. The solemn alternatives are plainly stated: neglect ensures everlasting misery, compliance therewith is assured eternal felicity. The whole verse is manifestly addressed unto saints, and they are faithfully warned, “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die”: that is, die eternally, for as in 5:12,21; 7:23; 8:6, “death” includes all the penal consequences of sin both here and hereafter; so in our text “die” manifestly signifies “shall suffer the second death,” which is “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev. 21:8). The express reason is here advanced why Christians should not live after the flesh: they are not debtors to it to do so (verse 12): if they surrender to its dominion, the wages of sin will most certainly be paid them. “The flesh belongs to the world, and the man who is yielding to its promptings is in the world, living like the world, and must perish with the world” (J. Stifler).
It was by yielding to the lusts of the flesh that Adam brought death upon himself and all his posterity. And if I live after the flesh, that is, am governed and guided by my old nature, acting habitually according to its inclinations — for it is a persistent and continuous course of conduct which is here mentioned — then, no matter what be my profession, I shall perish in my sin. It is the gratifying and serving of the flesh, instead of the will of God, which eternally ruins souls. “It may be asked whether one who has received the grace of God in truth can live after the flesh. To live in a continued course of sin is contrary to the grace of God; but flesh may prevail and greatly influence the life and conversation for a while. How long this may be the case of a true believer under backsliding, through the power of corruptions and temptations, cannot be known; but certain it is that it shall not be always thus with him” (John Gill).
The whole of our verse pertains to professing Christians, and at the present moment. The Apostle did not simply say, “If ye have lived after the flesh,” for that is the case with every unregenerate soul. But if ye now live after the flesh, “ye shall die” — in the full meaning of that word. It is a general statement of a universal truth. We fully agree with the explanation furnished by B.W. Newton, who was a decided Calvinist. “An expression of this kind is addressed to us for two reasons. First, because in the professing church the apostle knew there were and would be false professors. So whenever collective bodies are addressed, he always uses words implying uncertainty and doubt, for tares will be among the wheat. And second, true believers themselves (though grace can preserve them) have now nevertheless always a tendency in them to the same paths. Therefore descriptions like this, which are true to the full of those who merely profess, may yet be rightly applied to all who are wandering into those paths.” Examples of the one are found in such passages as Galatians 4:20, and 6:8;Ephesians 5:5-7; Col. 3:5, 6. Of the second it must be borne in mind that a backsliding Christian had turned aside from the narrow way of denying self, and that if he follows the course of self-pleasing to the bitter end, destruction awaits him.”
See here the faithfulness of God in so plainly warning of the terrible doom awaiting all who live after the flesh. Instead of thinking hardly of God for His threatenings, we should be grateful for them. See the justice of God. To be pleasing self is to continue in the apostasy of mankind, and therefore the original sentence (Genesis 2:17) is in force against them. It is contempt of God, and the heinousness of the sin is measured by the greatness of Him who is affronted (1 Samuel 2:25). Moreover, they refuse the remedy, and therefore are doubly guilty. See here the wisdom of God in appointing the greater punishment to curb the greatness of the temptation. The pleasures of sin are but for a season, but the paths of sin are for evermore: if the latter were soundly believed and seriously considered, the former would not so easily prevail with us. Behold the holiness of God: an unmortified soul is unfit for His presence. Vessels of glory must first be seasoned with grace. Conformity to Christ fits for heaven, and where that be lacking there can be no entrance.
“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:13). The whole of this verse pertains and belongs to believers, who are “debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh” (verse 12); but, instead, debtors to Christ who redeemed them, and therefore to live unto His glory; debtors to the Holy Spirit who regenerated and indwells them, and therefore to live in subjection to His absolute control.
On this occasion we will state very briefly what is signified by “mortify,” leaving till later a fuller explanation of the precise nature of this duty. First, from its being here placed in apposition with “live after the flesh,” its negative sense is more or less obvious. To “live after the flesh” is to be completely controlled by indwelling sin, to be thoroughly under the dominion of our inbred corruptions. Hence, mortification consists in a course of conduct which is just the reverse. It imports: Comply not with the demands of your old nature, but rather subdue them. Serve not, cherish not your lusts, but starve them: “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). The natural desires and appetites of the physical body require to be disciplined, so that they are our servants and not our masters; it is our responsibility to moderate, regulate and subordinate them unto the higher parts of our being. But the cravings of the body of sin are to be promptly refused and sternly denied. The spiritual life is retarded just in proportion as we yield subservience to our evil passions.
The imperative necessity for this work of mortification arises from the continued presence of the evil nature in the Christian. Upon his believing in Christ unto salvation he was at once delivered from the condemnation of the Divine law, and freed from the reigning power of sin; but “the flesh” was not eradicated from his being, nor were its vile propensities purged or even modified. That fount of filthiness still remains unchanged unto the end of his earthly career. Not only so, but it is ever active in its hostility to God and holiness: “The flesh lusteth against the Spirit [or new nature], and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). Thus there is a ceaseless conflict in the saint between indwelling sin and inherent grace. Consequently there is a perpetual need for\\him to mortify or put to death not only the actings of indwelling corruption but\\also the principle itself. He is called upon to engage in ceaseless warfare and not suffer temptation to bring him into captivity to his lusts. The Divine prohibition is “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness [enter into no truce, form no alliance with], but rather reprove them” (Eph. 5:11). Say with Ephraim of old, “What have I to do any more with idols?” (Hosea 14:8).
No real communion with God is possible while sinful lusts remain unmortified. Allowed evil draws the heart away from God, and tangles the affections, discomposes the soul, and provokes the Holy One to close His ears against our prayers: “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them?” (Ezek. 14:3). God cannot in any wise delight in an unmortified soul: for Him to do so would be denying Himself or acting contrary to His own nature. He has no pleasure in wickedness, and cannot look with the slightest approval on evil. Sin is a mire, and the more miry we are the less fit for His eyes (Psalm 40:2). Sin is leprosy (Isaiah 1:6), and the more it spreads the less converse will the Lord have with us. Deliberately to keep sin alive is to defend it against the will of God, and to challenge combat with the Most High. Unmortified sin is against the whole design of the Gospel — as though Christ’s sacrifice was intended to indulge us in sin, rather than redeem us from it. The very end of Christ’s dying was the death of sin: rather than sin should not die, He laid down His life.
Though risen with Christ, their life hid with Him in God, and they certain to appear with Christ in glory, the saints are nevertheless exhorted to mortify their members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:1-5). It may appear strange when we note what particular members the apostle specified. It was not vain thoughts, coldness of heart, unwary walking, but the visible and most repulsive members of the old man: “fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence”; and in verse 8 he bids them again, “put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication” and lying. Startling and solemn it is to find that believers require calling upon to mortify such gross and foul sins as those: yet it is no more than is necessary. The best Christians on earth have so much corruption within them, which habitually disposes them unto these iniquities (great and heinous as they are), and the Devil will so suit his temptations as will certainly draw their corruptions into open acts, unless they keep a tight hand and close watch over themselves in the constant exercise of mortification. None but the Holy One of God could truthfully aver, “the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me” (John 14:30) which could be enkindled by his fiery darts.
As the servants of God urge upon the wicked that they slight not any sin because in their judgment it is but a trivial matter, sayng, “Is it not a little one? and my soul shall live” (Gen. 19:20); so the faithful minister will press it upon all of God’s people that they must not disregard any sin because it is great and grievous, and say within themselves, “Is it not a great one? and my soul shall never commit it.” As we presume upon the pardoning mercy of God in the preserve us from the committing of great and crying sins. It is because of their self-confidence and carelessness that sometimes the most gracious and experienced suddenly find themselves surprised by the most awful lapses. When the preacher bids his hearers beware that they murder not, blaspheme not, turn not apostates from their profession of the faith, none but the self-righteous will say with Hazael, “But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” (2 Kings 8:13). There is no crime, however enormous, no abomination, however vile, but what any of us are capable of committing, if we do not bring the cross of Christ into our hearts by a daily mortification.
But why “mortify the deeds of the body”? In view of the studied balancing of the several clauses in this antithetical sentence, we had expected it to read “mortify the flesh.” In the seventh chapter and the opening verses of the eighth the apostle had treated of indwelling sin as the fount of all evil actions; and here he insists on the mortifying of both the root and the branches of corruption, referring to the duty under the name of the fruits it bears. The “deeds of the body” must not be restricted to mere outward works, but be understood as including also the springs from which they issue. As Owen rightly said, “The axe must be laid to the root of the tree.” In our judgment “the body” here has a twofold reference. First, to the evil nature or indwelling sin, which in Romans 6:6, and 7:24, is likened unto a body, namely “the body of the sins of the flesh” (Col. 2:11). It is a body of corruption which compasses the soul: hence we read of “your members which are upon the earth” (Col. 3:5). The “deeds of the body” are the works which corrupt nature produces, namely our sins. Thus the “body” is here used objectively of “the flesh.”
Second, the “body” here includes the house in which the soul now dwells. It is specified to denote the degrading malignity which there is in sin, reducing its slaves to live as though they had no souls. It is mentioned to import the tendency of indwelling sin, namely to please and pamper the baser part of our being, the soul being made the drudge of the outward man. The body is here referred to for the purpose of informing us that though the soul be the original abode of “the flesh” the physical frame is the main instrument of its actions. Our corruptions are principally manifested in our external members: it is there that indwelling sin is chiefly found and felt. Sins are denominated “the deeds of the body” not only because they are what the lusts of the flesh tend to produce, but also because they are executed by the body (Romans 6:12). Our task then is not to transform and transmute “the flesh,” but to slay it: to refuse its impulses, to deny its aspirations, to put to death its appetites.
But who is sufficient for such a task — a task which is not a work of nature but wholly a spiritual one? It is far beyond the unaided powers of the believer. Means and ordinances cannot of themselves effect it. It is beyond the province and ability of the preacher: omnipotence must have the main share in the work. “If ye through the Spirit do mortify,” that is “the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ” of Romans 8:9 — the Holy Spirit; for He is not only the Spirit of holiness in His nature, but in His operations too. He is the principal efficient cause of mortification. Let us marvel at and adore the Divine grace which has provided such a Helper for us! Let us recognize and realize that we are as truly indebted to and dependent upon the Spirit’s operations as we are upon the Father’s electing and the Son’s redeeming us. Though grace be wrought in the hearts of the regenerate, yet it lies not in their power to act it. He who imparted the grace must renew, excite, and direct it.
Believers may employ the aids of inward discipline and rigour, and practice outward moderation and abstinence, and while they may for a time check and suppress their evil habits, unless the Spirit puts forth His power in them there will be no true mortification. And how does He operate in this particular work? In many different ways. First, at the new birth He gives us a new nature. Then by nourishing and preserving that nature. In strengthening us with His might in the inner man. In granting fresh supplies of grace from day to day. By working in us a loathing of sin, a mourning over it, a turning from it. By pressing upon us the claims of Christ, making us willing to take up our cross and follow Him. By bringing some precept or warning to our mind. By sealing a promise upon the heart. By moving us to pray.
Yet let it be carefully noted that our text does not say, “If the Spirit do mortify,” or even “If the Spirit through you do mortify,” but, instead, “If ye through the Spirit”: the believer is not passive in this work, but active. It must not be supposed that the Spirit will help us without our concurrence, as well while we are asleep as waking, whether or not we maintain a close watch over our thoughts and works, and exercise nothing but a slight wish or sluggish prayer for the mortification of our sins. Believers are required to set themselves seriously to the task. If on the one hand we cannot discharge this duty without the Spirit’s enablement, on the other hand He will not assist if we be too indolent to put forth earnest endeavours. Then let not the lazy Christian imagine he will ever get the victory over his lusts.
The Spirit’s grace and power afford no licence to idleness, but rather call upon us to the diligent use of means and looking to Him for His blessing upon the same. We are expressly exhorted, “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1), and that makes it plain that the believer is not a cipher in this work. The gracious operations of the Spirit were never designed to be a substitute for the Christian’s discharge of duty. Though His help be indispensable, yet it releases us not from our obligations. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (John 5:21) emphasizes our accountability and evinces that God requires much more than our waiting upon Him to stir us unto action. Our hearts are terribly deceitful, and we need to be much upon our guard against cloaking a spirit of apathy under an apparent jealous regard for the glory of the Spirit. Is no self-effort required to escape the snares of Satan by refusing to walk in those paths which God has prohibited? Is no self-effort called for in separating ourselves from the companionship of the wicked?
Mortification is a task to which every Christian must apply himself with prayerful diligence and resolute earnestness. The regenerate have a spiritual nature within that fits them for holy action, otherwise there would be no difference between them and the unregenerate. They are required to improve the death of Christ, to embitter sin to them by His sufferings. They are to use the grace received in bringing forth the fruits of righteousness. Nevertheless, it is a task which far transcends our feeble powers. It is only “through the Spirit” that any of us can acceptably or effectually (in any degree) “mortify the deeds of the body.” He it is who presses upon us the claims of Christ: reminding us that inasmuch as He died for sin, we must spare no efforts in dying to sin — striving against it (Heb. 11:4), confessing it (1 John 1:9), forsaking it (Prov. 28:13). He it is who preserves us from giving way to despair, and encourages us to renew the conflict. He it is who deepens our longings after holiness, and moves us to cry, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psalm 51:10).
“If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body.” Mark, my reader, the lovely balance of truth which is here so carefully preserved: while the Christian’s responsibility is strictly enforced, the honour of the Spirit is as definitely maintained and Divine grace is magnified. Believers are the agents in this work, yet they perform it by the strength of Another. The duty is theirs, but the success and the glory are His. The Spirit’s operations are carried on in accordance with the constitution which God has given us, working within and upon us as moral agents. The same work is, in one point of view, God’s; and in another ours. He illumines the understanding, and makes us more sensible of indwelling sin. He makes the conscience more sensitive. He deepens our yearnings after purity. He works in us both to will and to do of God’s good pleasure. Our business is to heed His convictions, to respond to His holy impulses, to implore His aid, to count upon His grace.
“If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Here is the encouraging promise set before the sorely tried contestant. God will be no man’s debtor: yea, He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). If then, by grace, we concur with the Spirit, denying the flesh, striving after holiness, richly shall we be recompensed. The promise unto this duty is opposed unto the death threatened in the clause foregoing: as “die” there includes all the penal consequences of sin, so “shall live” comprehends all the spiritual blessings of grace. If by the Spirit’s enablement and our diligent use of the Divinely appointed means we sincerely and constantly oppose and refuse the solicitations of indwelling sin, then — but only then — we shall live a life of grace and comfort here, and a life of eternal glory and bliss hereafter. We have shown elsewhere that “eternal life” (1 John 2:25) is the believer’s present possession (John 3:36; 10:28) and also his future goal (Mark 10:30; Gal. 6:8; Titus 1:2). He now has a title and right to it; he has it by faith, and in hope; he has the seed of it in his new nature. But he has it not yet in full possession and fruition."
- A.W. Pink
[b]Neglection of mortification makes the inner man decay instead of renewing him.
"Paul affirms that the 'inner man' is renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16), while the 'outward man ' perishes. Sin seeks to harden our hearts (Heb. 3:13). It is a sad thing to consider the fearful outcome of this neglect, which threatens us each day. Do we not see broken-hearted Christians, who were humble, tender, fearful to offend, and zealous for God in all His ways, turn earthy, carnal, cold, and wrathful through neglect of this duty? Today, true mortification is all but lost between the rigid, stubborn frame of spirit which is earthly, legal, harsh, critical, consistent with wrath, envy, malice, and pride, and with pretences of liberty, grace, and I know not what, on the other."
- From Owen's "The Mortification of Sin"
I wanted to bring this back up to the forefront. I have a personal need to once again charter these waters, and would graciously welcome any and all discussions dealing with the mortification of sin in the follower of Jesus Christ. Brother Ron has posted some amazing insights on this thread and I strongly encourage anyone not familair with this currently unpopular topic to delve into what has already been uncovered by our wise and learned brother.
I am actually a mortician by profession, and am basically "surrounded" by death and grief daily. God's granting me exposure to "mortification" in the physical has wrought within me a seriousness in the approach to the mortification process in the spiritual. I'll be using Rev. John Owen's "Mortification of Sin" treatise on Rom. 8:13 to provide a backdrop and open doors to many prayerfully profound and profitable discourses.
May the Lord use the spirtual knowledge gained here with the illumination of the Holy Spirit to bring us to a place of increasing depth in our walks with Jesus Christ.
Respectfully yours,
Brother Paul
Thank you for bringing this back up or I would not have seen it. there are many nuggets to be had within this mine!! :-D
[image][img align=left]http://www.cwrc-rz.org/assets/pics/people/JohnOwen.jpg
"If sin has been corrupting your heart for a long time, and you have allowed it to prevail and abide in power, without vigorously attempting to kill it, and heal the wounds that it causes, this is a serious condition. Have you permitted worldliness and ambition to divert you from the important duties that promote communion with God for a long season? Have you allowed unclean thoughts to defile your heart with vain, foolish, and wicked imaginations for many days? This is a serious and dangerous symptom. "My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness" (Psa. 38:5).
When a lust has remained a long time in the heart, corrupting, festering, and poisoning, it brings the soul into a woeful condition. Such a lust will make a deep imprint on the soul. It will make its company a habit in your affections. It will grow so familiar to your mind and conscience that they are not disturbed at its presence as some strange thing. Unless a serious and extraordinary course is taken, a person in this state has no grounds to expect that his latter end will be peace. It may be that great afflictions and mercies did not dislodge it, even though these gained the special attention of your soul. The lusts have weathered many a storm and prevailed under the display of a variety of ministries of the Word of God. If this is the case, do you think it will prove an easy thing to dislodge such a room-mate, pleading to stay? Old and neglected wounds can prove to be fatal, and are always dangerous. Indwelling lusts grow rusty and stubborn because they have long continued in ease and quiet. Such a sin will never die by itself, and if it is not killed daily, it will only gather strength."
- John Owen
SI Saints,
Any thoughts, experiences, or battle victories to report on this front? It is indeed a dangerous thing to flirt with unmortified sin, whether in the secret chambers of your heart, or in actual manifestation behind closed doors. Those who are held in such bondage know very well the ruthless and bloody insurrection such lusts will scream for when the believer finally realizes the need for mortification. You know how painful this death campaign is! I wonder how many new and potential believers are truthfully briefed on what to expect while marching in Christ's army. I know that I wasn't! I'd never heard anything about war or armour or mortification or self-denial when I was given an invitation. I was told the direct opposite: blessings and peace and unlimited favor in life and eternal paradise afterwards - with no strings attached.
It was like when I went to visit the recruiter to see what being a soldier in the United States Army could do for [i]me[i]lie![i]Arabic
I also learnt rather quickly after becoming a Christian that things weren't going to go my way in [i]God's[i]living in my own heart.
Anyone care to add?
Brother Paul
Labour to mortify your affections, and to get your will melted into the will of God. As the winds are to the sea, so are the affections to the soul of man. So long as the sea is hurried with the wind, it has no rest or quiet; and what is the reason our hearts are no more calmed an quieted, but because we have not resigned our will to the will of God? It is our own will that troubles our peace, but get your will mortified into the will of God, and you will say, "Lord, I would fain have peace; yet not my will, but Thy will be done. Therefore, Lord, when Thou wilt, and as Thou wilt, not my will , but Thine own will be done."
This do, and you will be at rest at once.
- William Bridge [i]"A Lifting up for the Downcast"
The [i]old man[i]flesh[i]wants
- Zac Poonen
As the years go by, I find myself again and again returning to this topic. I think the most liberating truth I have come to since my conversion is that [i]the old man has been crucified with Christ
When I really know I am crucified with Him, then spontaneously I reckon myself dead (Romans 6 verses 6 and 11) ; and when I know that I am raised with Him from the dead, then likewise I reckon myself " alive unto God in Christ Jesus " (verses 9 and 11), for both the death and the resurrection side of the Cross are to be accepted by faith. When this point is reached, giving myself to Him follows. In resurrection He is the source of my life -indeed He is my life; so I cannot but present everything to Him, for all is His, not mine. But without passing through death I have nothing to consecrate, nor is there anything God can accept, for He has condemned all that is of the old creation to the Cross. Death has cut off all that cannot be consecrated to Him, and resurrection alone has made consecration possible. Presenting myself to God means that henceforth I consider my whole life as now belonging to the Lord.
-Watchman Nee
When I really know I am crucified with Him, then spontaneously I reckon myself dead (Romans 6 verses 6 and 11) ; and when I know that I am raised with Him from the dead, then likewise I reckon myself " alive unto God in Christ Jesus " (verses 9 and 11), for both the death and the resurrection side of the Cross are to be accepted by faith.
Yes, this is the "reckoning" Paul speaks of. I have been fascinated with that word - "reckon" - I have sat and looked at that word in scriptural solitude for long periods of time in the attempt to grasp this. How can it be that all this, all the freedom and victory and triumph in Christ, over lusts and the flesh and dirty thoughts can be overcome through this immaterial concept of only "reckoning" ourselves in our proper positions in Christ. It's scandalous to the intellect of man!
I would in an instant give up all I have, all my books, everything to just at last come to the full revelation of this word, and employ its efficacy to my walk. Keep the tomes of Henry and Pink and Clarke and Gill. Keep all the works of Finney and Owen and Spurgeon, but just give me the blessed reality of "reckoning" myself dead.
Hi Paul,
I have not read this thread properly yet, but will try to, soon.
Noticing your mention of the word 'reckon', I just wanted to draw your attention to Young's consistent use of the word, in places where it does not appear in the KJV. This (I think) helps us to follow Paul's arguments with even greater ease, and more importantly, to lay all the [i]reckonings
I have been fascinated with that word - "reckon"
Well, rats ... A whole reply wiped out by some thing Microsoft wanted to inject into the browser ..
Forgot all about this post brother and interesting with the similar "Am I a wretched man ... still" running concurrently.
This threw me back on to these considerations all but forgotten. Think I will have to go and see if I cannot run down our brother\\pastor to further give this unfinished business on the 'Ancient man' and my wonder, 'wretched man' some more food for thought.
I had a discussion a few weeks back with another brother from my church, concerning the difference between the flesh and the old man. The two are often used synonymously, with innocence, and we can understand why. But there is actually a big difference between the two. The old man is dead, but the flesh "nature" is still alive and must be mortified. I had a Bible study a few weeks ago concerning the use of armour, and how armour protects the body from [i]outside
Before our regeneration, when the "Old Man", dwelled within us, the employment of armor would be futile. This would be like installing a virus-protection software into a computer that already had a virus. But now that the "Old Man" is slain with Christ, we are swept clean and told to put on the full armour of God, to guard, to protect, to withstand and resist. The enemy is no longer within, but outside.
I think it is so very important to understand this. Those who have been washed clean need to take heed, and those wo are still infected need also to understand that none but Christ's blood can kill the Virus. This is why I take offense to Moral Government preaching and anyone who tells people to "stop sinning" before they can be healed. I know I came to Christ just how I was - in brokeness and sin - suddenly aware I had the "Virus" and was dying, a dead-man walking to hell. God showed me my horrible, fatal biopsy - and I fell to my knees and wept in helplessness, condemned, smashed, broken and inexorably hellbound. O, Lord! In mercy please save me and heal me! Ah, and then He showed me the cure - [i]which had already been put in place before I knew I was sick!
Dear Paul,
How and I must stress how I ever missed so much of this is well beyond me. The post from back in March(!) The enemy within, nay, the [i]enemies[i]man
I took some of my own advice and used the "Poonen principle" of 'taking up reading of the scriptures everyday as if for the first time' and just now finished reading through all of Romans, start to finish.
My! Even after all this time and after repeated bobbing about and in and around, highlighting and underlining ... pausing and ...[i]reckoning
With all of this there was a couple of lingering things that I had some ... pulling into the thought train as I went through reading. "The Ancient man" as replacement if you will for the 'old man', am beginning to see the ... difference but not enough to elucidate or comment on it, still a bit evasive.
But all this is reinforcing the present tense\\past tense aspects and more and more am slowing coming to grasp just what Paul is talking about here and maybe that which both you and Ron are as well.
But have to set all that aside for what jumped up and grabbed and the things taken more notice of ...
[i]Faith
Believing ...[i]God[i]This[i]the[i]that
[i]And being [u]not[u]He staggered not[i]through unbelief[u]strong in faith[i]giving glory to God[b]being fully persuaded[u]promised[u]perform[b]therefore
It's as if to say there is ... another 'kind' of faith, a 'reckoning' faith perhaps? A faith so full of assurance that God says ... "Therefore!" most emphatically!
This may well be far off subject here but I am somewhat compelled nonetheless.
There is much spoken to of [i]members[i]a limb or part of the body
Maybe I am strangely coming back around to that which is going on in the other thread, [i]this body of death
Tribulation.
As much as I have stopped reading all the commentary in this MacArthur study bible I have, by that meaning a certain reliance on, I did pop down to this section and then went over to the Strong's again, but it was this;
[b]G2347
θλίψις
thlipsis
thlip'-sis
From G2346; pressure (literally or figuratively): - afflicted, (-tion), anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble.
Main emphasis, [i]pressure![i]trouble[i]affliction[i]pressure!
From there another thought came in under the fold while it was still being dwelt on;
Hope.
[i]Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Instantly the recollection back to James;
[i]My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
And Peter as well ...
[i]Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Adding one thing to another, the line of progression ... But what stood out in Romans was the placement of [i]hope
[i]we glory in [u]tribulations[i]worketh[i]experience[b]hope
Most interesting! In my mind I was tying all these things back-wards and forward as I went on through the whole of it. I did keep seeing reoccurring themes from Paul throughout, reinforcing and repetition of the same things.
What I recognized about hope is that it increases and solidifies, maybe I want to even say that it is the proving ground and fruit of ... perseverance and endurance, wrought out of [i]tribulation[i]is[i]wagering
[i]But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
In a nut shell, doubt.
Have known for a very long time that nothing I believe is more injurious and grievous to the Holy Spirit than just plain unbelief ... Oh wretched man that does not believe God!
And how many times, how many repeated failures come full bore on to this tremendous and diabolical thing, the voice of the enemy, within and from without;
"Has God said?"
this body of death. That is the escape from, the desire of it's riddance, even your own trading of all the books and all those things you mentioned for it's complete deliverance. Oh I am well with you here brother, in fact I awoke this morning even to it's ... pain? This inner disruption
[b]Absent from flesh!
What unknown joys this moment brings!
Freed from the mischiefs sin has brought,
From pains, and fears, and all their springs.[b]Absent from flesh!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay;
And I can feel my fetters broke.[b]Absent from flesh!
Where feet nor wings could never climb,
Beyond the heav’ns, where planets roll,
Measuring the cares and joys of time.
I go where God and glory shine,
His presence makes eternal day:
My all that’s mortal I resign,
For angels wait and point my way.
Isaac Watts
[b][u]Drowning in the Sea of Self
Watchman Nee relates a story from one of his experiences as a Christian leader in Communist China. A group of young Christian brothers were gathered together to take a swim in one of the many creeks that run throughout the countryside there. Since most were not good swimmers they were careful to remain close to the banks so as not to get in water over their head.
One of the brothers got out a little too far and begin to struggle in the deep water. Realizing his predicament he began to cry out to his neighbors, who by now were out of the water and drying off. "Help! Save me!" he yelled, all the while thrashing his arms and legs in a futile attempt to keep his head above water.
Brother Nee knew that only one man was experienced enough at swimming to provide some assistance, and he turned to him for help. But strangely enough, the would-be rescuer calmly watched the man's plight but made no move to save him, to the great consternation of Brother Nee and the rest of the group. "Why don't you do something?" they all screamed in unison. But the man just stood there apparantly unconcerned.
After a few moments the drowning man could stay afloat no more. His arms and legs grew tired and limp and he began to sink underwater. Now the slow-moving lifeguard dove into the creek, and with a few quick strokes reached the victim and pulled him to safety.
Once all was well, Brother Nee was beside himself. "I have never seen a Christian who loved his own life quite as much as you," he scolded. "How could you stand by and watch your brother drown, ignoring his cries for help and prolonging his suffering?"
But the man calmly explained. "If I were to jump in immediately and try to save a drowning man, he would clutch me in panic and pull me under with him. In order to be saved, he must come to the end of himself, and cease struggling, cease trying to save himself. Only then can he be helped."
The spiritual lesson here is hard to miss. Nee concluded, and we also conclude, that just as a drowning man cannot be saved until he stops struggling, so must all who would be saved by Christ. Until you come to the end of yourself Jesus will not intervene.
You may be thinking, "Oh, I AM at the end of myself!" Yet you continue to make your own plans, your own decisions, your own choices. You think, reason, debate, argue, and seek counsel according to your own devices, your own thought, your own way. How hard it is for you to stop struggling and give yourself completely into the hand of God.
I believe that God would not have us do any great thing, only the next thing. If we will commit our lives to Him, give Him the preeminence in all things, and stop trying to save ourselves, I believe we will have more peace and heart-trust.
To struggle and thrash about like a drowning man is not faith, but desperation. And it will not bring you the help you need.
Psalms 62 expresses this thought exactly: "I stand silently before the Lord, waiting for Him to rescue me. For salvation comes from Him alone. Yes, He alone is my Rock, my rescuer, my defense and fortress. Why then should I be tense with fear when troubles come (vv. 1, 2 Living Bible)?" Good question. Why should we be afraid? Since David realized salvation comes from God alone, he could well afford to stop trying to bail himself out of every situation.
What does it mean to trust like a little child? Think of the Lord Jesus lying in a manger. Totally dependent upon his earthly parents for food, for clothing, for shelter, for protection. He cannot do a thing for Himself.
Fast forward a few years. Now Jesus is a Man. Now He may feed Himself, clothe Himself, find His own shelter, defend Himself. But inwardly, He is still as dependent upon His Father as He ever was. Not the earthly, but the Heavenly. His own Words: "I can do nothing of Myself. It is the Father Who works in Me. I am come to do His will, not Mine."
The sooner we give the reins of our life over to the direction of an all-knowing God, the sooner we will experience the blessed assurance and calm trust that are only to be found in the heart that has come to the end of itself, and has committed itself unreservedly to follow Jesus. -C.Brogden
[b][u]HUMILITY AND DEATH TO SELF
[i]"He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death." -Phil.2: 8.
Humility is the path to death, because in death it gives the highest proof of its perfection. Humility is the blossom of which death to self, is the ,perfect. fruit. Jesus humbled Himself unto death, and opened the path in which we too must walk. As there was no way for Him to prove His surrender to God to the very uttermost, or to give up and rise out of our human nature to the glory of the Father but through death, so with us too. Humility must lead us to die to self: so we prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to God; so alone we are freed from fallen nature, and find the path that leads to life in God, to that full birth of the new nature, of which
We have spoken of what Jesus did for His disciples when He communicated His resurrection life to them, when in the descent of the Holy Spirit He, the glorified and enthroned Meekness, actually came from heaven Himself to dwell in them. He won the power to do this through death: in its inmost nature the life He imparted was a life out of death, a life that had been surrendered to death, and been won through death. He who came to dwell in them was Himself One who had been dead and now lives for evermore. His life, His person, His presence, bears the marks of death, of being a life begotten out of death. That life in His disciples ever bears the deathmarks too; it is only as the Spirit of the death, of the dying One, dwells and works in the soul, that the power of His life can be known. The first and chief of the marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus, of the death-marks that show the true follower of Jesus, is humility. For these two reasons: Only humility leads to perfect death; Only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature one: humility is the bud; in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.
Humility leads to perfect death. Humility means the giving up of self and the taking of the place of perfect nothingness before God. Jesus humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. In death He gave the highest, the perfect proof of having given up His will to the will of God. In death He gave up His self, with its natural reluctance to drink the cup; He gave up the life He had in union with our human nature; He died to self, and the sin that tempted Him; so, as man, He entered into the perfect life of God. If it had not been for His boundless humility, counting Himself as nothing except as a servant to do and suffer the will of God, He never would have died.
This gives us the answer to the question so often asked, and of which the meaning is so seldom clearly apprehended: How can I die to self? The death to self is not your work, it is God's work. In Christ you are dead to sin the life there is in you has gone through the process of death and resurrection; you may be sure you are indeed dead to sin. But the full manifestation of the power of this death in your disposition and conduct. depends upon the measure in which the Holy Spirit imparts the power of the death of Christ And here it is that the teaching is needed: if you would enter into full fellowship with Christ in His death, and know the full deliverance from self, humble yourself. This is your one duty. Place yourself before God in your utter helplessness; consent heartily to the fact of your impotence to slay or make alive yourself; sink down into your own nothingness, in the spirit of meek and patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept every humiliation,. look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you, as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling' yourself before your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God. God will accept such humbling of yourself as the proof that your whole heart desires it, as the very best prayer for it, as your preparation for His mighty work of grace, when, by the mighty strengthening of His Holy Spirit, He reveals Christ fully in you, so that He, in His form of a servant, is truly formed in you, and dwells in your heart. It is the path of humility which leads to perfect death, the full and perfect experience that we are dead in Christ.
Then follows: Only this death leads to perfect humility. Oh, beware of the mistake so many make, who would fain be humble, but are afraid to be too humble. They have so many qualifications and limitations, so many reasonings and questionings, as to what true humility is to be and to do, that they never unreservedly yield themselves to it. Beware of this. Humble yourself unto the death. It is in the death to self that humility is perfected. Be sure that at the root of all real experience of more grace, of all true advance in consecration, of all actually increasing conformity to the likeness of Jesus, there must be a deadness to self that proves itself to God and men in our dispositions and habits. It is sadly possible to speak of the death-lile and the Spirit-walk, while even the tenderest love cannot but see how much there is of self. The death to self has no surer deathmark than a humility which makes itself of no reputation, which empties out itself, and takes the form of a servant. It is possible to speak much and honestly of fellowship with a despised and rejected Jesus, and of bearing His cross, while the meek and lowly, the kind and gentle humility of the Lamb of God is not seen, is scarcely sought. The Lamb of God means to two things--meekness and death. Let us seek to receive Him in both forms. In Him they are inseparable: they must be in us too. contd....
-Andrew Murray
Brother Kire, I read the story about Watchman Nee and I really appreciated it. Thank you for sharing.
For some reason when I saw these two articles you brought to us I thought of this statue that is in the train station here in Philadelphia.
It is a huge statue that depicts an angel, with huge wings, and they are folded together, pointing upward. In his arms he is grasping a man, the man's head is tilted to the side and he appeares to be slumped down, except that the angel is holding him. Below them it looks as though there is fire.
According to the writting on the statue it is to honor the memory of members of the Pennsylvania Railroad(Pennsylvania is our state) who died during the second world war.
Looking at this statue it makes me think of how low, and frail, and powerless we are. We are very weak creatures. Not like the mighty angels that excell in strength.
We are very weak and low creatures.
God bless you,
Chris
Hi everyone,
I thought I would share this here with you all.
This past friday I met a man on the streets and while we were talking he shared how he had experienced a great and powerfull delieverance some time ago, but now was struggling with being drawn back into the life he had been in before.
During our conversation he happened to relate how on his trip to the city he had felt like he should stop by the train station for some reason(as I recall it he said he had never been to this train station before). As he was talking, before he could finish saying this, I mentioned the statue there of the angel holding the man(which I related to you all in the previous post). And he had been struck by the same thing.
We know that a statue is nothing and I don't want to make anything of it either, but perhaps there is a confirmation here, for us also, of our great need for help from God, no matter who we are.
Well, he and I talked about the warnings of scripture, and the promises, and of Christ making intercession for us, and he determined to go on.
Please remember him in prayer to God, for God's help and grace. And pray for me also, for I am a weak man also.
Chris
he shared how he had experienced a great and powerfull delieverance some time ago, but now was struggling with being drawn back into the life he had been in before.
I tell you, this is a whole other discourse in need of discussion. There's this fallacy floating around Christian circles that believes if one has been [i]delivered[i]can
I've learnt a long time ago that there's no final experiences, no absolute attainments or irrevocable deliverances in our walks with God. The Christian walk is a daily, calculated, deliberate death, and the Lord gives us daily bread to sustain our inner men [i]this day[i]This day,
PaulWest wrote:
I've learnt a long time ago that there's no final experiences, no absolute attainments or irrevocable deliverances in our walks with God.
I recently experienced that i am being "tempted/drawn " to wards things that i was totally delivered from, things i suffered under for years as unsaved and at my meeting with the Lord i was totally delivered from, not even the slightest trace from these oppressors.... but i recently has been thrown into the "battle" against these giants again, for some time i was very afraid and cried out to God "what is this?" and the big "why?"
I have not an answer except what God said to Paul "my grace is sufficient for you"
I was thinking about this and some times we will have to go through the battle several times, sometimes i think God wants us t "overcome", he will not just lift the burden/temptation/battle, he may at times work this way and do this thing....but others he may let us go through the battle and struggle because his grace is sufficient that we can bear it and endure it, and in the process become like purified Gold. It takes extreme heat to purify away all the dross.
I so often just look at God as an "aspirin" to deliver me from anything that may seem hard for me, when God works through these things, I think of Jesus, he was 40 days fast in the desert, not only 40 days without food and water, but alone, in the hot desert... and in this weak and worst case scenario came the devil to him.
But he overcame
but I am thankful for this school of God, he constantly shows us new things...
I recently experienced that i am being "tempted/drawn " to wards things that i was totally delivered from,
Brother hmmhmm, how awful much can I relate to this post, how vulnerable we all are in the flesh, between the world, satan and our flesh, at times, it seems as we could never be [i]totally
May God remind us to pray always "lead us not into temptation.." and to pray for one another, with fervent and unfeigned love.
mamaluk
(btw, brother hmmhmm,I am thankful also, through you, I was brought to learn quite a bit from A.Pink this past year)
HJHLHLJHLJHLJHLJH
repentcanada wrote:
HJHLHLJHLJHLJHLJH
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I recently experienced that i am being "tempted/drawn " to wards things that i was totally delivered from, things i suffered under for years as unsaved and at my meeting with the Lord i was totally delivered from, not even the slightest trace from these oppressors.... but i recently has been thrown into the "battle" against these giants again, for some time i was very afraid and cried out to God "what is this?" and the big "why?"
I can certainly identify. I remember a few years back, I preached a message about how God can totally deliver you from the love of money and seeking acceptance from the world. I preached it hard, knowing there were those in attendance who loved money and sought acceptance from the world. My passion came from knowing God had delivered me and my zeal was built on the belief of me now being impervious from ever again falling back into that rut.
Well, shortly afterwards, I found myself in a situation where a financially-irresponsible brother came to me asking to borrow a very large sum of money. I was shocked to discover the sudden vexing emotions, the greedy impluses that immediately began surging within my heart! As it turned out, they had been there all along, just in clever hiding. I didn't want to part with my money! I didn't want to help him, I wanted to charge interest, and I admit, I was very bitter.
What a wretched man I am; my heart deceived me. I had given birth to a whole sermon from a false premise. I had foolishly used myself as an example as one freed from the love of money, but all God had to do was shine the light of a flaming test into my heart...and a whole nest of squirming, money-loving bugs came right up to the surface.
This is one of the many reasons why God sends trials into the lives of His children: to reveal and bring out to the open that which is hidden within us. The fire flushes out and reveals the dross of sediment beneath our faith - dross which would be otherwise invisible and sit at the bottom of a cool heart and dim eye.
paul, thank you for this .
I read the dialog between you and mike and ron.
Wow really good!
David
Dear brother Paul,
This kind of honesty ... ah for more of it! I know of it of my own makeup this, that what you spoke of.
"Made of sin" ...
Was struck by the force of the following and it seemed to fit in here.
[i]“Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.”—Matt. xxvi. 36.
The second Evangelist far surpasses all the rest, and he far surpasses himself, in his extraordinarily bolt and soul-piercing word—“He began to be sore amazed.” Luther declared that, to him, these words of Mark about our Lord were the most astonishing words in the whole Bible. And that saying of Luther’s is to me a sure measure of the greatness and the freshness of the Reformer’s mind and heart. Speaking for myself,—I have not come on any word in the Bible that has more both invited and then utterly baffled me to bottom than just this word “amazed.” I cannot see my Lord’s human soul as I here seem to be invited in to see it. I cannot picture to my mind His experience at that supreme moment. What was it that so “amazed” our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane? What was there that could begin to so sore amaze Him to whom all things were naked and open? There was nothing that could so sore amaze the Son of God, but only one thing. And that one thing was sin. It was sin “laid upon Himself” till He was “made sin.” Sin is so unspeakably evil, and so unspeakably awful in its evil, that it “sore amazed,” and struck down, as to death and hell, the very Son of God Himself. He had been “amazed” enough at sin before now. He had seen sin making angels of heaven into devils of hell. And He had seen sin making men, made in the image of God, to be the prey and the spoil, and the dwelling-places, and the companions, of devils. He had seen and He had studied all His days the whole malice and wickedness of the heart of man. It had been amazement and horror enough to stand and see deceit and envy and pride, and all of that kind, as He describes it in terrible words, “coming out of the heart” of man. But it was a new thing to our Lord to have all that poured in upon Himself. To be made sin “amazed” our Lord; it absolutely overwhelmed Him,—cast Him into “an agony”: it loaded Him and sickened Him, and slew Him, down to death and hell. A terror at sin and a horror: a terror and a horror at Himself—to absolute stupefaction—took possession of our Lord’s soul when He was made sin. The only thing anywhere at all like His amazement and heaviness, and exceeding sorrow and anguish, is the amazement and the heaviness, and exceeding sorrow and utter anguish of God’s saints; when, in their life of highest holiness and most heavenly service, they, at the same time, both see and feel that they are still “made of sin,” as Andrewes has it. Their utter stupefaction of soul as they see all hell opening and pouring up its bottomless wickedness all over their soul,—that is to taste something of what is behind of the ‘amazement” of Christ. That is to drink of His cup: that is to be baptized with His baptism. It was sin that so amazed and agonised our Lord. Take away all its terrible wages: take away its sure and full discovery and exposure: take away its dreadful remorse: take away both the first and the second death: take away the day of judgment and the fire that is not quenched,—all which is the mere froth of the cup,—take away all that, and leave pure sin: leave pure, essential, unadulterated sin,—what the apostle so masterfully calls “the sinfulness of sin.” Conceive that, if you have the imagination. Look at that, if your eyes have been sufficiently anointed. Taste that, if your tongue is sufficiently tender and strong. Carry about that, continually, in a broken, prayerful, holy heart—and you, of all men, are within a stone’s-cast of Christ in the garden: you are too near, indeed, for mortal man to endure it long: if you remain long there you will need an angel from heaven to strengthen you.
Excerpted from [i]XI. OUR LORD IN THE GARDEN[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=20793&forum=34&start=20&viewmode=flat&order=1]Lord, Teach Us To Pray[i]Alexander Whyte
[b]"Then cometh Jesus........"
Thank you for posting that.
Look upon Him. Don't stop. All the more easier to reckon then.
Blessings!!
Thank you again.
I am thankful for this school of God, he constantly shows us new things...
Amen to that -br. Paul West!
God gives meaning to life. There is a reason why He is called the alpha and omega. He is neverending. How exciting is that?!
I am constantly learning new things, and I am looking forward to new things to learn. Meanwhile, I pray that what I learn and have learned would only stick to me, and become part of who I am.
May all the nasty bugs come out of me as well. Permanently.
* Warning - grapic material
The other day I had to go remove a body from the medical examiner's office in downtown Austin. It was a decomp case - meaning the body had already begun decomposing. I didn't know it was a decomp till I got there (which is always fun). Typically, the M.E.'s office puts all the decomps in separate room, in heavy disaster bags. Part of my job as the mortician claiming custody of the body is identifying the ankle tag and making sure the name matches my release form.
Now, if you've ever been in the vicinity of a decomposing body, you'll know what I'm about to say. It is the most rank, vile, putrid, horrible thing in the world. It's not the same as a dead animal, or dog on the side of the road, or any other kind of rotting carcass you've seen in the past. Humans decompose differently. We melt, literally. The stench is the most abominable, brutal odor you can imagine...very much different than the odor a dead dog or deer gives off. Well, I had to step forward to identify the remains. To do this, the technician unzips just a tiny portion of the crash bag near the feet to where I can see the tag. It takes about 3 seconds (any longer and you'll begin heaving), and in that time you hold your breath and squint and the technician grimaces and squints and you look at the name and step back quickly as he zips the case back up and both of you can breathe once again.
Well, in those 3 seconds - and depending on how decomposed the body is - maggots will squirm out of the disaster bag and onto the prep room table. The size of the maggot determines how long the body has been dead. The maggots coming out of this bag were very big, and even the technician remarked at how advanced this particular decomp was.
On the trip back to the funeral home, I began to think about about how absolutely horrible the spectacle of human decomposition is, and how the whole body turns green and melts...and then black (as if burnt), and how this abominable sight you can't even look at was once someone's loved one, or some mother's son or daughter who may have been breast-fed and nurtured, or someone's father who used to play catch footbal and laugh and eat pizza with his kids. I thought about how this physiological change begins as soon as the spirit of life departs from a person, and soon my thoughts went to how ineffably horrible the existence of the damned will be when the life of God departs for the last time - after the second death. As sin-sick and ungodly this world is, the Holy Spirit of God is still brooding over the earth. Roses still bloom, the sun still warms, the rain still falls, the earth yields its grain. When the life-giving Spirit of God departs from a man or woman, laws immediately go into effect governing how long the body can be left where it is. In Texas, you 24 hours to either bury, cremate, refrigerate or embalm. The dead must be put away quickly from the living for public health and santitary reasons.
Now, I have gotten into the habit of viewing dead bodies as a microcosm of our relationship with sin and the judgment of God...and just how precious the life of God is. The flip side is just how noxious life [i]without
Brethren, all this is intrinsically linked to sin. When we begin to get these monstrously morbid thoughts - thoughts that can drive a person mad - we've only just begun to scratch the surface of the heinousness of sin in our Father's eyes. It's no accident the terms "mortification" and "worm" and "sheol" and "outer darkness" are used by God in scripture when describing how we are to deal with sin, the judgment God has placed upon it, and punishment for it thereof.
More to come later. Any thoughts?
Brother Paul
Paul,
It's interesting that you have posted this message. I had considered asking you specifically concerning your job and the evidence of the fate of mortal bodies you witness regularly.
I have a great burden for the mortician in town. We have a small population here and so if someones dies, you more than likely know who it is. I can't imagine how he must bear witness of damnation even in the expression of those he must embalm. On top of that, the funerals he must attend.
This gentleman is very kind and this has been a family business for years. He had planned on retiring but took it over because his brother had to leave for health reasons.
How can an unsaved person steel himself against what you just described? Both he and his brother have the appearance of those that drink privately and maybe it is what they use to numb themselves from being affected as most would be.
My father was discovered by my brother last year after being dead for an estimated five days. None of my siblings are saved and both he and my sister, who insisted that she see him, ever discussed this but were obviously terribly distressed by what they saw. My father did not know the Lord.
This line of work must open numerous opportunities for you to share some of your faith. Knowing that we are earthen vessels indeed should only fuel the intensity with which we view the conditions of the lost and the choices that we make as saints.
Paul,
You have touched on a subject that I have begun to think about lately and thought of posting here on SI hoping to get some reactions.
Scriptures teach us the person in hell:"where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.." Mark 9:44-46. I have this morbid question: is it possible the human body in hell will be reduced to the size of a worm?
Now the mental picture I get is gross. I hate worms, even fish worms. They are gross. The only one I can look on with any favor is the one which will produce a butterfly. In any case worms are gross! And I also hate snakes; anything that slithers, I hate. A human body in hell reduced to a worm? Oh, LORD! have mercy!!
What say?
ginnyrose
Ginny,
It does appear that the Word specifies that our worm dieth not and that means that we would be continually eaten by worms eternally as well as burned. I don't mean to sound graphic but just as Herod in the book of Acts was eaten of worms, I take this as literal.
Just before I returned to the Lord after 15 years of backsliding, I had a horrible couple of dreams which I know were intended as warnings to come back to Him. One involved looking down at my left arm and seeing very large grubs imbedded in my flesh and trying to remove them.
I believe this would be a portion of hell's suffering. I know we must have a clear knowledge that it is NOT a tolerable place. Many times satan will whisper that it really is not as bad as the scriptures declare and, of course, " how could God send people to a place like that?"
It really is that bad and for all eternity. How horrible. May we yearn for the lost.
"The Lake that burneth with fire and [i]brimstone
It is interesting to note that brimstone is another name for [i]sulfur[i]which doesn't need oxygen to survive
Something to think about, in anycase. Worms, outer darkness, heat, brimstone, the Spirit of God gone, the abyss. Mortification. Lord, it must be an unspeakably terrible, foul smelling place of endless pain and decadence and woe.
And here is the reverse:
My aunt was in a plane crash. She was in a small plane that crashed during take-off. There were four people on board, the younger man that jumped out before the crash had minimal injuries but the other three were horribly burned. My mother had just brought them to the airport and witnessed the smoke from the fire.
It just so happened that I was in town when this occurred, so I was able to rush over and see my aunt before she died. God showed me the most incredible thing - while externally my aunt was burned beyond recognition, the beauty of her spirit out shined what my eyes were beholding. She was actually beautiful!
I did not know anything about spiritual things when this happened - but I came away knowing that there was much more than what things appeared to be.
.....
Speaking of darkness:
When I was putting together my darkroom, the biggest challenge was getting rid of the light. Every time that I thought I had cut it all off, another source would show up. Even a pin point source is like a glaring light bulb after your eyes dilate. While I was working on this problem, God showed me how the light comes into the darkness, but the darkness does not come into the light - like the light that comes in under the door.
When one does color work, you can not even use a darkroom light. It is the strangest sensation - all sense of relativity is lost and your mind begins to create it's own images. As I think about it, even though it is totally dark, there is still a sense of light . . .
Brother Paul,
Tell us more about the melting. I have not heard of this, but now that you mention it, I have seen it in paintings.
Tell us more about the melting. I have not heard of this, but now that you mention it, I have seen it in paintings.
Well, it's pretty simple. The human body is comprised mainly of water, I forget the percentage, but it's well more than half. When you die, your cells stop respirating and just shut down. All resistance to outside pressure and regulating enzymes stops and when the cell wall finally breaks, all the stuff inside the cell (cellular fluid, cytoplasm, etc.) starts flowing out. The body begins to implode on itself. Basically, your entire body is made up of different kinds of cells; muscle cells, nerve cells, lipids (fat cells), tissue cells...and they all start leaking and bleeding out their insides through their ruptured cell walls. This is called autolysis.
After a few days, if a body remains undiscovered, it will "melt". I've heard of funeral directors going on removals in a house where the body went missing for a few days. When they arrive at the house, the body is on the floor (or mattress) and there is a five foot radius of liquid surrounding the corpse. You can't retrieve the body without stepping int the fluid, and you destroy your shoes (anyone up for being a mortician?) Funeral homes have allowances for our shoes. And ties.
By the way, that fluid is so foul that you have to rip up the floorboards and tear out the sheetrock from the walls if the decomp gets in it. That smell will never come out. People actually own companies that specialize in disaster area clean-ups, and they'll come around and leave their business cards at funeral homes. A melting corpse found in a house is considered a "disaster", by virtue of the level of damage the decomp will cause. Major restoration to the home is needed.
This smell you talk of, it is hard to imagine. When my old dog died, he was buried 4' under - a couple of days latter I could smell the rotting of his flesh - even under that much dirt. And my other dog likes to roll in dead fish - an incredibly putrid smell (which she must actually like).
What is different about man's flesh - that it would smell worse?
Does this have anything to do with it?
"All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." - 1 Corinthians 15:39
What is different about man's flesh - that it would smell worse?
I think it may be because of our eclectic diet. Amimals don't eat meats full of steroids and preservatives and chocolate bars and fried chicken and gummy bears and Frito corn chips and drink Pepsi. I really don't know. Your guess here is as good as mine.
Lord, it must be an unspeakably terrible, foul smelling place of endless pain and decadence and woe.
I am certain you are right on. This idea of worms like Paul and Kathleen wrote is something I am just becoming aware of...It staggers my imagination and grosses me out so bad...reckon I will have to read Paul's description again so I can understand it better with my mind and not allow my emotions to interfer...
ginnyrose
The stink, the smell....
I had my husband read these recent posts and he told the story how his uncle's body was shipped back to the states during WW2. He had died in Germany as a result of an accident. The body was in a sealed casket...as a small child the thing he remembers about it was the odor...
Paul, I deeply appreciate you sharing on SI this info...methinks it should get a wider audience. Why do you not use parts of it and write a tract for mass distribution? And incorporate some of the responses here in it? It could make for a powerful read...think about it, pray about it...
ginnyrose
Something to think about, in anycase. Worms, outer darkness, heat, brimstone, the Spirit of God gone, the abyss. Mortification. Lord, it must be an unspeakably terrible, foul smelling place of endless pain and decadence and woe.
The Spirit of God ... [i]gone
Have made this post 'sticky' and pray that it does find a wide audience. There is so much that comes to mind, so much verse ... The replies as well, tremendous thoughts from all. I do know perhaps about 20% of what Paul speaks of in regards to the smell and fluids. I cleaned up the trailer where my cousin died and was not found for a number of days. At that time it was unmistakably the grace of God that allowed me to do what needed to be done ... all the emotions, the warnings from the Sheriff's department about the stench, the bedding where he was found ...
Of the many, perhaps just this one for now;
[i]But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
Or just, [i]The exceeding sinfulness of sin
Paul,
After thinking a lot about what you have said about the decaying process of the human body, my mind went to a Scripture, Acts 2:25-31 (NASB):
25"For David says of Him,
'I SAW THE LORD ALWAYS IN MY PRESENCE;
FOR HE IS AT MY RIGHT HAND, SO THAT I WILL NOT BE SHAKEN.
26'THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE;
27BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY.
28'YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.'
29"Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30"And so, because he was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE,
31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.
According to this scripture, Jesus' body never experienced any kind of decay while it was dead and lying in the tomb those three days and nights...Never gave this much thought before (oh, I knew it said this but my mind did not dwell on it), but if this is the case this will make the death and resurrection of Jesus much more awesome. Come to think about it I suspect this fact will teach us more then what I am aware of at the moment.
What does the mortician say? Any thoughts?
ginnyrose
What does the mortician say? Any thoughts?
It is noteworthy that the process of washing and anointing with oils and perfumes is to keep the body from decay long enough to have the 24 hour wake. After the 24 hours are up, the body must be buried. What I would draw your attention to here is the [i]anointing in relation to decay.
As a Christian mortician and one who dearly loves the Word of God, I am finding more and more evidence that human decomposition and decay and sulfuric odor (brimstome) and saprophytic worms (worms that feed on dead organic matter) and all the other things associated with death and putrefaction will somehow be present in the abyss after the final judgment. All the horrible things that we already see happen today when the Spirit of the life of God departs from the physical body. The only difference here is that a [i]consciousness
[i]"The worm that dieth not..."
"Wherever the dead body is, there the vultures will gather..."
This melting thing really has my attention.
melt
MELT, v.t. [Eng.smelt,smalt. We have in these words decisive evidence that s, in smelten, &c. is a prefix. Melt, in English, is regular, forming melted for its past tense and passive participle. The old participle molten, is used only as an adjective.]
1. To dissolve; to make liquid; to liquefy; to reduce from a solid to a liquid or flowing state by heat; as, to melt wax, tallow or lead; to melt ice or snow.
2. To dissolve; to reduce to first principles.
3. To soften to love or tenderness.
For pity melts the mind to love.
4. To waste away; to dissipate.
In general riot melted down thy youth.
5. To dishearten. Josh.14.
MELT, v.i. To become liquid; to dissolve; to be changed from a fixed or solid to a flowing state.
And whiter snow in minutes melts away.
1. To be softened to love, pity, tenderness or sympathy; to become tender, mild or gentle.
Melting with tenderness and mild compassion.
2. To be dissolved; to lose substance.
--And what seem'd corporal,
Melted as breath into the wind.
3. To be subdued by affliction; to sink into weakness.
My soul melteth for heaviness--strengthen thou me. Ps.119.
4. To faint; to be discouraged or disheartened.
As soon as we heard these things, our heart melted. Josh.2.
http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,melt
1. Exodus 15:15
Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.
2. Exodus 16:21
And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted.
3. Joshua 2:11
And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.
4. Joshua 5:1
And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.
5. Joshua 7:5
And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water.
6. Joshua 14:8
Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God.
7. Judges 5:5
The mountains melted from before the LORD, even that Sinai from before the LORD God of Israel.
8. 1 Samuel 14:16
And the watchmen of Saul in Gibeah of Benjamin looked; and, behold, the multitude melted away, and they went on beating down one another.
9. 2 Samuel 17:10
And he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt: for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men.
10. Psalm 22:14
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
11. Psalm 46:6
The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.
12. Psalm 58:7
Let them melt away as waters which run continually: when he bendeth his bow to shoot his arrows, let them be as cut in pieces.
13. Psalm 58:8
As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.
14. Psalm 68:2
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
15. Psalm 97:5
The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.
16. Psalm 107:26
They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
17. Psalm 112:10
The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.
18. Psalm 119:28
My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
19. Psalm 147:18
He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.
20. Isaiah 13:7
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:
21. Isaiah 19:1
The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
22. Isaiah 34:3
Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
23. Isaiah 40:19
The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains.
24. Isaiah 64:2
As when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!
25. Jeremiah 6:29
The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.
26. Jeremiah 9:7
Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?
27. Ezekiel 21:7
And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighest thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings; because it cometh: and every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord GOD.
28. Ezekiel 22:20
As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.
29. Ezekiel 22:21
Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst therof.
30. Ezekiel 22:22
As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.
31. Amos 9:5
And the Lord GOD of hosts is he that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall rise up wholly like a flood; and shall be drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
32. Amos 9:13
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.
33. Nahum 1:5
The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.
34. Nahum 2:10
She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness.
35. 2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
36. 2 Peter 3:12
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Paul,
You're going to have to write this all out in a tract form!!! I am glad Mike made this thread sticky - that helps some. But you need to compile all this info into a cohesive form and please include Kathleen's testimony of her dream when she was away from God....somehow the parable of the widow who came to the judge and made a pest of herself to get what she wanted comes to my mind just right now...
ginnyrose
brother Paul your insight into the decomposition of the body is just amazing and brings about many thoughts for me. Three of which are ever so present since I have read this post.
1. Gods Hatred for sin
3. His grace in saving me from sin
2. The final state of the wicked
When I think of how you discribed the rotting of flesh and how putrid and potent of a smell it produces,the human reaction to the sight and smell of such an atrocious incident. My mind wanders intensely at how a Holy God reacts to the depraved state of the sinner in that his heart is woefully bad so bad that the scriptures say that he is dead in sin. lets say the man goes on for 70 years without being saved then all of his day were spent in that wrecthed state of sin this just shakes me. its as if for 70 years this man has been melting away decomposing rotting away and offending a Holy just God. I think of Ephesians 2:1-2 which states
Ephesians 2:1-2
1.And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2.in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Just hearing your statements about a rotting body just causes me once again to say wow "I wonder how God sees our sin" were we like this rotting body to him, dead, under the power and course of death, the stench of our lives going up before him and offending him . Our sin must totally, totally offend this Holy God causing him to look away, and deal with a man rotting in the death of sin. I hear Jesus scream "MY GOD MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME" now he said that with our sin on him and he knew no sin. this is amazing and may we all have a revelation of the sinfulness of sin. I can only imagine the state of the sinner before God. I say imagine because with my finite mind I could not fully get the scope of the heinous nature of it unless the Holy Spirit shows me.
2. This makes me praise God that by his grace he has saved me and may others from such a deplorable state of sin a state that was offensive to God causing his wrath to be kindled against me but God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners christ died and that my friends is just wonderful. I mean when you encouter a dead animal all you want to do is bury it to kill the stench how much more a dead body. But thank God that he with his great love has saved us from such a state as sin.
3. The final state of the wicked. Causes me to see that this is not game we play. When a man preaches he preaches to lives that hang in the balance showing them that the mouth of a voracious beast ( Hell and the second Death) wants to suck them into its belly and feed on them for an eternity. Isaiah 5:14. Oh may we by the grace of the spirit see the importance of the mortification of sin, the hatred of sin, and the unregenrated to be converted from sin and death.
Thanks brother paul this is eye opening.
You're going to have to write this all out in a tract form!!! I am glad Mike made this thread sticky - that helps some.
These thoughts on death and judgment and mortalitiy and sin are quite unorthodox, I admit...but I believe scripture alludes to a great portion of it. None of us can possibly imagine what eternal damnation will be like, and even more staggering no one can possibly fathom how horrendous sin is in the eyes of God. I think that is what astounds me the most. I mean, you get up close with death every week prety much like I do, and sobriety begins to seep into your life. You pretty much see the facade which is life as multitudes continue their march to doom in a trance. I see college kids partying and drinking beer and screaming like lunatics at football games and all I can think is that every last one of them has an appointment with the worm. All the vain laughter, the fun, the youthful beauty and aspiration, all the exercising and care of the body...only to go down into the ground or into the flames of an 1,800 degree cremation machine. And that day could be tomorrow.
I think death and morbidity are wonderful primers for profound Christian thought; I can find no other subject that yields so many rich allegories, object lessons, similies, foreshadowings, and light on scripture than a healthy meditation on death. Death and mortification - that is, to put something to death - are the respective doors and knobs leading into the parlour of eternity. I think it behooves us to study and give much thought to these things. It keeps us healthy; it keeps us sober; it engenders a greater reverence for God and the unknown...and it opens many scriptures in astounding ways when viewed though a conscience cleansed in the blood of Christ.
I think death and morbidity are wonderful primers for profound Christian thought; I can find no other subject that yields so many rich allegories, object lessons, similes, foreshadowing,and light on scripture than a healthy meditation on death. Death and mortification (that is, to put something to death) are the door and knob which lead into the parlour of eternity. I think it behooves us to study and give much thought to these things. It keeps us healthy; it keeps us sober; it engenders a greater reverence for God and the unknown...and it opens many scriptures in astounding ways when viewed though a conscience cleansed in the blood of Christ.
King Solomon would agree with you. He penned these words in Eccl 7:2: "It is better to go to the house of mourning,than to go the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart." And this has been my experience as well - although I have never seen the worms! and do not hope to - EVER!
ginnyrose
Our sin must totally, totally offend this Holy God causing him to look away, and deal with a man rotting in the death of sin. I hear Jesus scream "MY GOD MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME" now he said that with our sin on him and he knew no sin. this is amazing and may we all have a revelation of the sinfulness of sin. I can only imagine the state of the sinner before God. I say imagine because with my finite mind I could not fully get the scope of the heinous nature of it unless the Holy Spirit shows me.
So I look at a dead body, and I see the wages of sin. But this is just the beginning. At funerals I see mothers and fathers sometimes pass out when they approach the casket of their child who was maybe killed by a drunk driver or overdosed on drugs. We've had to call the paramedics a few times to bring oxygen and crash carts to take them away, the grief was so intense. But, again, this is just the beginning. If they could stay there long enough, they would see their beloved begin to [i]melt
And, according to scripture, for those who die in sin, this is the beginning of a process that has no end.
If they could stay there long enough, they would see their beloved begin to melt before their very eyes, flies lay eggs in their nostrils and eyes and the larvae begin squirming in and out of the orifices. The would see their body change color, first yellow, then lime green...and then black. Black like the body is engulfed in flames...unseen flames.
Somehow I think that they do see, for their faces betray their woe - and yet, still they will not turn, and they put on a brave smile as they continue in their disobedience - each day bringing them nearer to their own day of judgment. For they love their sin and reason amongst themselves that surely they will not die.
2. To dissolve; to reduce to first principles.
That stood out.
[i]And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?
I said in my heart concerning the matter of sons of men, that God might reveal them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which happens to the sons of men also happens to beasts, even one thing happens to them. As this one dies, so that one dies; yea, they all have one breath; so that a man has no advantage over a beast; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again.
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.
Gen 2:7, Job 12:10, Ecc 3:18-20, Psa 146:4
"Breath", another good word study.
HeartSong I shortened your link earlier (Long URL's make the page 'wide') hope you don't mind.
So much here ...
HeartSong I shortened your link earlier (Long URL's make the page 'wide') hope you don't mind.
Thank you for fixing it for me - I will keep that in mind for the future.
There's a book in me somewhere, waiting to come out, a book that will be my grand-treatise on all this. I need to wait for the Lord's timing. I honestly have no idea who would publish it, but when the Lord gives vision, He also supplies provision.
Know we have touched on this before and my on again\\off again musings have been to write a book on death for a very long time. You never know brother, my thoughts are so intertwined in ... this matter that I struggle to even call it a matter. It is everything boiled down to the last, to the last gasp and sputter and breath ...
I think death and morbidity are wonderful primers for profound Christian thought; I can find no other subject that yields so many rich allegories, object lessons, similies, foreshadowings, and light on scripture than a healthy meditation on death. Death and mortification - that is, to put something to death - are the respective doors and knobs leading into the parlour of eternity. I think it behooves us to study and give much thought to these things. It keeps us healthy; it keeps us sober; it engenders a greater reverence for God and the unknown...and it opens many scriptures in astounding ways when viewed though a conscience cleansed in the blood of Christ.
I think I am almost somewhat surprised that it is not preached more often and more forcibly, written about and forced upon the conscience of believer and unbeliever alike. I am with you in totality brother, it keeps me humble when I draw back to it and challenges the perspective when circumstances are all up in a heat.
[i]But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee:
For those peering into all this who may not have come across it, another corollary;
This keeps coming into my head.
One day I was out taking pictures and went to a local lake. The lake had a small dam where it spilled over and became the headwaters of a small stream. We were in a drought so the small stream had turned into small puddles of water. As I walked down by the bridge I became aware of the noxious smell of dead fish. All was still except for the occasional calls of some birds that were picking at something amongst the rocks. There were trees on both sides of the stream area that framed the whole scene. As I neared the area of the birds I realized that I was standing amongst hundreds and hundreds of dead fish. They were carp, and they were big, and they were everywhere - laying in the stream bed, draped over rocks - here, there and everywhere. I just stood there amazed - realizing that they had gone over the dam, and that as the waters receded they had became trapped, with no way back - and there they laid unto death.
The smell of it all stayed with me for the rest of the day.
PaulWest: [i]“I tell people that there is incredible grief in the heart of God, unspeakable grief, grief so intense that it would kill you I if you were given the full revelation of what He endures when He sees man.
incredible grief ....unspeakable grief ....
grief so intense that it would kill you”
yes
and added the pain of [b]so loving
[i]“grief so intense that it would kill you”
(yes)
Only God could ....ALL Glory be to God.
And for us, Oh that WE would have [b]no more part
......
John 11:40 will be part of your powerful book. “Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” Yes, to see the Glory of God. No wonder there is such joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth.
Paul,
I was reading these recent posts all over again...You mentioned how people react who approach the body of a loved one taken unexpectedly....
I would like to share something, wondering whether you have ever seen this or heard of it?
When our daughter was lying in a casket (she died at age 25 from a brain tumor -glioblastoma - was a Christian, married, had two small children) and I approached it for the first time after she was embalmed - I was present at her death - I saw what I thought was her chest moving as though she was breathing. I said nothing to anyone, thinking I was 'just seeing things', that is was a figment of my imagination. Later I heard of others who saw it, among them my brother-in-law and I forget who else. When we got to talking about it we all agreed -with no discussion about our perception - this was a sign from God that Regina is indeed now alive, but in the presence of the LORD.
What say, mortician? And while you are at it, perhaps you might have a few observations to share of people who died who did know the LORD. Or, are there none?
ginnyrose
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 7:24,25).
You know the wonderful place that this text has in the wonderful epistle to the Romans. It stands here at the end of the seventh chapter as the gateway into the eighth. In the first sixteen verses of the eighth chapter the name of the Holy Spirit is found sixteen times; you have there the description and promise of the life that a child of God can live in the power of the Holy Ghost. This begins in the second verse: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." From that Paul goes on to speak of the great privileges of the child of God, who is to be led by the Spirit of God. The gateway into all this is in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter: "O wretched man that I am!"
There you have the words of a man who has come to the end of himself. He has in the previous verses described how he had struggled and wrestled in his own power to obey the holy law of God, and had failed. But in answer to his own question he now finds the true answer and cries out: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." From that he goes on to speak of what that deliverance is that he has found.
I want from these words to describe the path by which a man can be led out of the spirit of bondage into the spirit of liberty. You know how distinctly it is said: "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear." We are continually warned that this is the great danger of the Christian life, to go again into bondage; and I want to describe the path by which a man can get out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rather, I want to describe the man himself.
First, these words are the language of a regenerate man; second, of an impotent man; third, of a wretched man; and fourth, of a man on the borders of complete liberty.
The Regenerate Man
There is much evidence of regeneration from the fourteenth verse of the chapter on to the twenty-third. "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me": that is the language of a regenerate man, a man who knows that his heart and nature have been renewed, and that sin is now a power in him that is not himself. "I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward man": that again is the language of a regenerate man. He dares to say when he does evil: "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." It is of great importance to understand this.
In the first two great sections of the epistle, Paul deals with justification and sanctification. In dealing with justification, he lays the foundation of the doctrine in the teaching about sin, not in the singular sin, but in the plural, sins - the actual transgressions. In the second part of the fifth chapter he begins to deal with sin, not as actual transgression, but as a power. just imagine what a loss it would have been to us if we had not this second half of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, if Paul had omitted in his teaching this vital question of the sinfulness of the believer. We should have missed the question we all want answered as to sin in the believer. What is the answer? The regenerate man is one in whom the will has been renewed, and who can say: "I delight in the law of God after the inward man."
The Impotent Man
Here is the great mistake made by many Christian people: they think that when there is a renewed will, it is enough; but that is not the case. This regenerate man tells us: "I will to do what is good, but the power to perform I find not." How often people tell us that if you set yourself determinedly, you can perform what you will! But this man was as determined as any man can be, and yet he made the confession: "To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not."
But, you ask: "How is it God makes a regenerate man utter such a confession, with a right will, with a heart that longs to do good, and longs to do its very utmost to love God?"
Let us look at this question. What has God given us our will for? Had the angels who fell, in their own will, the strength to stand? Verily, no. The will of the creature is nothing but an empty vessel in which the power of God is to be made manifest. The creature must seek in God all that it is to be. You have it in the second chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, and you have it here also, that God's work is to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Here is a man who appears to say: "God has not worked to do in me." But we are taught that God works both to will and to do. How is the apparent contradiction to be reconciled?
You will find that in this passage (Rom 7:6-25) the name of the Holy Spirit does not occur once, nor does the name of Christ occur. The man is wrestling and struggling to fulfill God's law. Instead of the Holy Spirit and of Christ, the law is mentioned nearly twenty times. In this chapter, it shows a believer doing his very best to obey the law of God with his regenerate will. Not only this; but you will find the little words, I, me, my, occur more than forty times. It is the regenerate I in its impotence seeking to obey the law without being filled with the Spirit. This is the experience of almost every saint. After conversion a man begins to do his best, and he fails; but if we are brought into the full light, we need fail no longer. Nor need we fail at all if we have received the Spirit in His fullness at conversion.
God allows that failure that the regenerate man should be taught his own utter impotence. It is in the course of this struggle that there comes to us this sense of our utter sinfulness. It is God's way of dealing with us. He allows that man to strive to fulfill the law that, as he strives and wrestles, he may be brought to this: "I am a regenerate child of God, but I am utterly helpless to obey His law." See what strong words are used all through the chapter to describe this condition: "I am carnal, sold under sin"; "I see another law in my members bringing me into captivity"; and last of all, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" This believer who bows here in deep contrition is utterly unable to obey the law of God.
The Wretched Man
Not only is the man who makes this confession a regenerate and an impotent man, but he is also a wretched man. He is utterly unhappy and miserable; and what is it that makes him so utterly miserable? It is because God has given him a nature that loves Himself. He is deeply wretched because he feels he is not obeying his God. He says, with brokenness of heart: "It is not I that do it, but I am under the awful power of sin, which is holding me down. It is I, and yet not I: alas! alas! it is myself; so closely am I bound up with it, and so closely is it intertwined with my very nature." Blessed be God when a man learns to say: "O wretched man that I am!" from the depth of his heart. He is on the way to the eighth chapter of Romans.
There are many who make this confession a pillow for sin. They say that Paul had to confess his weakness and helplessness in this way, what are they that they should try to do better? So the call to holiness is quietly set aside. Would God that every one of us had learned to say these words in the very spirit in which they are written here! When we hear sin spoken of as the abominable thing that God hates, do not many of us wince before the word? Would that all Christians who go on sinning and sinning would take this verse to heart. If ever you utter a sharp word say: "O wretched man that I am!" And every time you lose your temper, kneel down and understand that it never was meant by God that this was to be the state in which His child should remain. Would God that we would take this word into our daily life, and say it every time we are touched about our own honor, and every time we say sharp things, and every time we sin against the Lord God, and against the Lord Jesus Christ in His humility, and in His obedience, and in His self-sacrifice! Would to God you could forget everything else, and cry out: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Why should you say this whenever you commit sin? Because it is when a man is brought to this confession that deliverance is at hand.
And remember it was not only the sense of being impotent and taken captive that made him wretched, but it was above all the sense of sinning against his God. The law was doing its work, making sin exceeding sinful in his sight. The thought of continually grieving God became utterly unbearable - it was this brought forth the piercing cry: "O wretched man!" As long as we talk and reason about our impotence and our failure, and only try to find out what Rom 7 means, it will profit us but little; but when once every sin gives new intensity to the sense of wretchedness, and we feel our whole state as one of not only helplessness, but actual exceeding sinfulness, we shall be pressed not only to ask: "Who shall deliver us?" but to cry: "I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord."
The Almost-Delivered Man
The man has tried to obey the beautiful law of God. He has loved it, he has wept over his sin, he has tried to conquer, he has tried to overcome fault after fault, but every time he has ended in failure.
What did he mean by "the body of this death"? Did he mean, my body when I die? Verily no. In the eighth chapter you have the answer to this question in the words: "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." That is the body of death from which he is seeking deliverance.
And now he is on the brink of deliverance! In the twenty-third verse of the seventh chapter we have the words: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." It is a captive that cries: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He is a man who feels himself bound. But look to the contrast in the second verse of the eighth chapter: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." That is the deliverance through Jesus Christ our Lord; the liberty to the captive which the Spirit brings. Can you keep captive any longer a man made free by the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus"?
But you say, the regenerate man, had not he the Spirit of Jesus when he spoke in the sixth chapter? Yes, but he did not know what the Holy Spirit could do for him.
God does not work by His Spirit as He works by a blind force in nature. He leads His people on as reasonable, intelligent beings, and therefore when He wants to give us that Holy Spirit whom He has promised, He brings us first to the end of self, to the conviction that though we have been striving to obey the law, we have failed. When we have come to the end of that, then He shows us that in the Holy Spirit we have the power of obedience, the power of victory, and the power of real holiness.
God works to will, and He is ready to work to do, but, alas! many Christians misunderstand this. They think because they have the will, it is enough, and that now they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift, an attribute of the new nature. The power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be each moment received from the Holy Spirit. It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can live a holy life. This man is on the brink of that great deliverance; the way has been prepared for the glorious eighth chapter. I now ask this solemn question: Where are you living? Is it with you, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?" with now and then a little experience of the power of the Holy Spirit? or is it, "I thank God through Jesus Christ! The law of the Spirit hath set me free from the law of sin and of death"?
What the Holy Spirit does is to give the victory. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live." It is the Holy Ghost who does this - the third Person of the Godhead. He it is who, when the heart is opened wide to receive Him, comes in and reigns there, and mortifies the deeds of the body, day by day, hour by hour, and moment by moment.
I want to bring this to a point. Remember, dear friend, what we need is to come to decision and action. There are in Scripture two very different sorts of Christians. The Bible speaks in Romans, Corinthians and Galatians about yielding to the flesh; and that is the life of tens of thousands of believers. All their lack of joy in the Holy Ghost, and their lack of the liberty He gives, is just owing to the flesh. The Spirit is within them, but the flesh rules the life. To be led by the Spirit of God is what they need. Would God that I could make every child of His realize what it means that the everlasting God has given His dear Son, Christ Jesus, to watch over you every day, and that what you have to do is to trust; and that the work of the Holy Spirit is to enable you. every moment to remember Jesus, and to trust Him! The Spirit has come to keep the link with Him unbroken every moment. Praise God for the Holy Ghost! We are so accustomed to think of the Holy Spirit as a luxury, for special times, or for special ministers and men. But the Holy Spirit is necessary for every believer, every moment of the day. Praise God you have Him, and that He gives you the full experience of the deliverance in Christ, as He makes you free from the power of sin.
Who longs to have the power and the liberty of the Holy Spirit? Oh, brother, bow before God in one final cry of despair: "O God, must I go on sinning this way forever? Who shall deliver me, O wretched man that I am! from the body of this death?"
Are you ready to sink before God in that cry and seek the power of Jesus to dwell and work in you? Are you ready to say: "I thank God through Jesus Christ"?
What good does it do that we go to church or attend conventions, that we study our Bibles and pray, unless our lives are filled with the Holy Spirit? That is what God wants; and nothing else will enable us to live a life of power and peace. You know that when a minister or parent is using the catechism, when a question is asked an answer is expected. Alas! how many Christians are content with the question put here: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" but never give the answer. Instead of answering, they are silent. Instead of saying: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," they are forever repeating the question without the answer. If you want the path to the full deliverance of Christ, and the liberty of the Spirit, the glorious liberty of the children of God, take it through the seventh chapter of Romans; and then say: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Be not content to remain ever groaning, but say: "I, a wretched man, thank God, through Jesus Christ. Even though I do not see it all, I am going to praise God."
There is deliverance, there is the liberty of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is "joy in the Holy Ghost."
Andrew Murray Absolute Surrender
I think I am almost somewhat surprised that it is not preached more often and more forcibly,
Mike, death is not a pleasant subject. I know this firsthand when I share with others about how the LORD comforted me after Gina's passing. They look at me weird and I know what they are thinking - been there. Now what would happen if a preacher were to announce that "tonight I will be talking about Death"... reckon it would draw a large crowd? I can't image it would unless it would be like a speaker said this afternoon that revival happens when people are not expecting it.
My opinions...
ginnyrose
I saw what I thought was her chest moving as though she was breathing
His was my first funeral, and I stared at my friend's face in the casket...for a long time. After awhile, it looked as though his chest was slowly moving up and down. I knew it really wasn't - but it sure looked real when I was "in the zone". Maybe you were in the zone at that moment with your daughter; maybe you weren't. Either way it was personal moment for you that God could speak through regardless. I think it's beautiful how you interpreted this as a sign of Regina's life in the presence of God.
My Sanctfication by Bud Robinson
In 1886 Dr. W. B. Godbey held meetings across central Texas. He was called to hold a meeting at Alvarado, in Johnson County, Texas. I lived ten miles in the country and heard that there was a man in to preaching sanctification and that the people said he was crazy. They said he preached that a man could get so much religion that he would never get mad and didn't want to chew tobacco any more and that he couldn't sin if he wanted to. The people almost became wild. They said he was the craziest man on the subject of religion that they had ever heard of. I said, "I am going to hear him." So I saddled my pony and rode into Alvarado and heard him preach on entire sanctification as a second work of grace. After listening awhile I said, "That is the best religion I ever heard a man preach, but a man could not get it." About a week later I went back to hear him again and I said, "That is the best religion I ever heard a man preach in my life and it does look like one might get it." The reader can see that I was growing in grace.
After a few days my heart grew hungry and I went back to hear him the third time. I said, "That is the best religion that I ever heard a man preach and I will have it or die," so I became a seeker then and there for the experience of entire sanctification.
His meeting was far-reaching; people coming from all parts of the country. He closed with a great convention. Rev. L. L. Pickett came all the way from Columbia, South Carolina, and Dr. Dunlap came from Atlanta, Georgia. Brother C. T. Hogan came from Ennis, Texas, with many other fine holiness people. That was my first introduction to a holiness meeting. It was during this convention that I heard Sister Mary Hogan, the wife of C. T. Hogan, preach. It was a great message. I believe that fifty to seventy-five people were at the altar seeking God. For the next four years I did my best to get the experience.
Soon after the close of this convention, I moved from Johnson County to Hill County, Teas, but I went on with my work. After I had sought the blessing for two years, it seemed to me that if I would begin to preach holiness, I could get into the experience, therefore I began to preach holiness as a second work of grace. I told the people that I did not have it but that I wanted it worse than anything else. I recall that one preacher came to me and told me he did not believe in sanctification and he asked me if I had ever seen a preacher that had the blessing. I told him that I had seen a great many at the convention and that Dr. W. B. Godbey was the first man that I heard preach it.
I said to him, "Now Dr. Godbey has the experience."
He said, "How do you know that he has it?"
"Well," I said, "from the way he acted."
"How did he act?"
"Well," I said, "he did not act like anybody else. The men cussed him on the streets and he didn't talk back, and they broke stale eggs all over him and he didn't even wipe them off his clothes."
"Well," he said, "I would call a man like that crazy."
I said, "No, he was not crazy but sanctified." When he preached he did not even refer to the stale eggs. He preached and shouted and praised God just as though nothing had happened, and I said, "Finally the merchants felt ashamed of themselves and sent for him. They took him to a clothing house and gave him a new suit. They said it would disgrace the town to allow as great a man as Dr. Godbey to come to the city and be egged and cussed and leave with stale eggs on his clothes." They said they did not know what kind of religion he had but of its kind he had more of it and it was the best kind they had ever seen.
I preached holiness two years and that brought me down to the early summer of 1890. The first Sunday of June, 1890, in the morning I preached from 1Th_5:23 : "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." I preached the best that I could on holiness as a second work of grace and told the people that didn't have it but that I wanted it and was going have it at any cost. That night I preached about six miles from where I had preached in the morning, from Heb_12:14 : "Follow peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." God so burdened me that night for the experience that I wept as I preached and told the people that we were going to have an altar service that night and we were going to have at least one seeker and that was me. At the close of my sermon I came down out of the pulpit and knelt at the altar seeking the experience of holiness under my own ministry. No sooner had I knelt than heard some man's big bootheels corning down the aisle, ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump and he fell on his knees at my side. It was F. M. McNary, our school teacher, a Presbyterian elder, the most cultured and scholarly gentleman in the community. He said, "Brother Bud, you don't need this blessing any worse than I do," and began to pray and ask God to sanctify Brother Bud. While he prayed I said "Amen," for that was what I wanted; to get sanctified wholly. When he said, "Amen," then I began to pray for him. I prayed my level best and he said, "Amen," and when I had finished my prayer we got up. Neither of us had got the blessing, but we agreed as we shook hands that we never would stop until God gave us that experience.
At the close of the service he said, "Go home with me and let's talk it over." We got on our horses and galloped across the prairies several miles to his home and sat up and talked until one o'clock in the morning, each telling the other what we thought it would do for us when we got it. He brought out an old book written years ago by the Presbyterians in which they had called this experience "The Rest of Faith." He told me that was the Presbyterian name for the experience I was preaching. I told him the name the Methodists gave it was "Sanctification or the Second Blessing properly so-called." When one of the early Methodists received this experience John Wesley said, "God did give you the second blessing properly so-called." The historians tell us that this was a new word John Wesley had coined; that the second blessing had never been heard of until he named it.
After we had talked until one o'clock in the morning, trying to make it plain to each other, we knelt and had prayer together and went to bed. At a very early hour I was up, had my pony saddled and rode home by the time my good mother was getting ready for breakfast. I unsaddled my pony and turned her into the big pasture, went to my room and hung up my saddlebags, and changed my clothing, getting ready for my day's work on the farm. When breakfast was over mother and I had prayer together and I went to the field and began to preach to Bud Robinson from the text I had used the night before: "Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." I would pray awhile and thin corn awhile and then preach to Bud Robinson awhile. I did not get much corn thinned, though that was what I was supposed to be doing. My corn was up then beginning to tassel and silk, and I was pulling out the big weeds and taking out the corn where it was too thick. That was a good place to get sanctified, but beloved, the devil never allows any man to get the experience of sanctification without putting up a mighty fight. He fought me to the last ditch.
While I was thinning corn and preaching to Bud Robinson I could hear my brothers a few hundred yards away as they were plowing cotton. I could hear the rattle of their cultivators, the braying of the mules and the boys driving the teams. But as long as I heard anything that was going on I did not get the blessing. I finally knelt and offered prayer. I tried to consecrate soul, spirit and body. I remember that I stood up and the last thing that I turned loose was my hoe handle. I saw everything I had: my farm, my mules wagons and plows, and the crib of corn, the ricks of hay, and the pen of black hogs, and everything else floating off on the clouds.
I had begun to seek this blessing in 1886 and this was now the second day of June, 1890. There were four years that I had struggled trying to get perfect victory. I had often consecrated all that I had; I would put my mules, cows, hogs, corn and barn, and everything else on the altar and climb up on the pile and ask God to take us all, but that did not bring the victory. Beloved, the blessed old Book says, "Whatsoever touches the altar is made holy," and I had not touched the altar. There was a stack of hay, and a corn crib, and several big mules between me and the altar, but when I saw everything I had drift away and I was left alone with God in the cornfield it seemed to me I could hear the Lord say, "I will bring everything back and leave it here with you and I will go; or, if everything else goes then I will stay with you." I said, "Lord, let everything else go." Then I had that strange, peculiar feeling that God was so close to me that my soul trembled in God's presence and it seemed that God kindled up a fire in the very bottom of my heart.
The only way that I can describe the feeling is that anger boiled up, and God skimmed it off, and pride boiled up, and God skimmed it off, and jealousy boiled up and God skimmed it off, and envy boiled up and God skimmed it off, until it seemed to me that my heart was perfectly empty. I said, "Lord, there won't be anything left of me." God seemed to say, "There will not be much left, but what little there is will be clean."
When my heart was emptied, then it seemed that a river of peace broke loose in the clouds. It was as sweet as honey and the honeycomb. It flowed into my empty heart until a few minutes later my heart was full and overflowing and the waves of heaven became so great and grand and glorious that it seemed to me that I would die if God did not stay His hand. How little we know about the fullness of God and the greatness of God's power. Not half an hour before God cleansed me and filled me I had told the Lord that I wanted Him to come with all the power that He had and sanctify me. Then I had told the Lord that very morning that I had read in His Book that if I would bring all the tithes into the storehouse and prove Him He would open the windows of heaven and pour me out a blessing that there would not be room enough to receive it. Out of a hungry heart I had said, "O Lord, you cannot satisfy me with the windows of heaven; you will have to open the doors of heaven to pour out a blessing big enough to satisfy my hungry heart and soul;" but beloved, I did not know how large God's windows were and how small my heart was. God had never used that language but one time before and at that time God opened windows, of heaven and poured out a flood on the earth. If God's windows are so large that He can pour out a flood through them, then you can see at a glance that God's windows are large enough, to pour out a blessing into the heart of one of His believing children to the extent that he cannot receive but little of it. As the waves of heaven rolled over my soul I finally got down on the ground and stretched out and as wave after wave of glory rolled over me, told the Lord that if He didn't hold up a bit there would be a dead man in the cornfield.
From that day to this I have been convinced that God can kill a man with His glory just as quick as He could kill him with lightning. On one occasion Moses said to the Lord, "Show me thy glory," and the Lord said, "You cannot see my face and live." That proves to me that to behold the glory of God would be to look upon His face and no man in the flesh could behold God's face and His glory and live. Therefore, in order to keep company with God, we will have to be glorified and this mortal will have to put on immortality.
After lying there in the field about three hours, for it was about nine o'clock in the morning when God sanctified me, it was about twelve when I got up and walked to the house. My beautiful old mother, who has been in heaven for a number of years, was an old-fashioned, shouting Presbyterian. She believed, "Once in grace always in grace," and she also believed that we could not be sanctified until we come to die, so for four years my precious old mother had argued with me that I would never get the blessing until I died. When I walked up the hill and into the dining room my mother was putting dinner on the table. It was one of those, old-fashioned country dinners cooked on the big wood stove. There was a big stove kettle nearly full of snap beans and streaked country bacon mixed with them; then mother had scraped two or three dozen new potatoes and laid them on the beans and as I went I in and stood by the table my mother took up a large dish of beans and bacon and potatoes. I told mother that I had met Jesus Christ in the cornfield and He had sanctified my soul. My mother did not shout over the news of my being sanctified, bless her precious heart. She took up her checked apron and wiped a few trickling tears off her beautiful old face and went back to the stove and took out the big stovepan full of brown cornbread...
My mother took out the big breadpan, set it on the stove, got her knife and a big bread platter and cut out the bread in big square pieces till she had filled up the big platter. She came back and set it on the table. Next she went and got a big two-gallon crock full of buttermilk and then brought on nearly a dozen pint cups for her boys and girls to drink milk out of. Now dinner was ready.
My mother looked sad. She would look out of the window and her chin would quiver and her eyes would fill up with tears. It looked to me like my mother thought that her preacher boy had lost his mind and would have to go to the insane asylum, for she had believed all the time that you never could get sanctified until you die and now I had got the blessing and behold I was wonderfully alive. But thank the Lord, after holding on in prayer and faith and believing God, and living the experience to the best of my ability, it wasn't many years until mother was gloriously and powerfully sanctified.
Beloved, it pays to get the blessing and to live it and preach it and sing it and shout it, for we have the best thing in the wide world, and why not let the world hear about it? The first man that I met after God sanctified me was one of the stewards of our church. I told him about my being sanctified in the cornfield. It seemed to insult him. He did not rejoice with me, but said with a vim in his voice that I will never forget, "Brother Bud, you had better go mighty slow about that sanctification business." He told me that it was nothing in the world but fanaticism, and wild fire and that if I didn't give it up I was ruined.
In a few weeks I started a meeting in the community and one of his boys who had been wild and reckless was beautifully saved in my arms. I had prayed many hours for the young man and God wondrously saved him, but his father then joined in with the Methodist circuit rider who was very bitterly opposed to holiness, and that dear father fought holiness until his boy backslid. That man lived to see the day when his son that he had caused to backslide was brought home from a night's carousal with a bullet through his body. His own father was the man that caused him to give up his experience and backslide.
Beloved, I have often said that a man had better fight a buzzsaw open-handed than to fight holiness. In a fight with a buzzsaw he might lose a hand or two, but to fight holiness he is liable to lose his precious immortal soul...
Beloved, I thank God that for all of these thirty-seven years as a holiness preacher, though the preaching has been very poor, yet my heavenly Father and the devil know that I have been dead in earnest. I have never rounded off a corner, I have never called it, by any name that I thought the rich, worldly people in the church would accept instead of the real experience, but I have called it entire sanctification; I have called it scriptural holiness; I have called it the second blessing; I have called it the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire; I have told the people that the old man had to be crucified and that the body of sin had to be destroyed; that there was no such an experience as what as been called suppression; that there was not any such experience as counteraction...
Thank God, the new birth cleans a man up while the baptism of the Holy Ghost cleans him out. And if we are cleaned up and cleaned out, then we can be filled up and sent out, and there is no use to go if you don't go on fire for God.
If a preacher has no fire only what he carries in his pipe or on the end of his cigar, he may start a fire that will burn up the forest and burn down houses but he will never start a revival fire that will causes sinners to weep their way to the foot of the cross and find pardon...
Thank God, since He put the fire in my soul I have scarcely been out of a good revival in thirty-seven years...I praise God that I was converted in time to get into the holiness movement and sanctified in time to get the movement into me...Glory to His name! I think the first year after God sanctified me I had more people saved than I did during the ten years that I preached as a licensed exhorter and a licensed preacher without the experience of holiness...
Source: "My Life's Story" by Reuban A. (Bud) Robinson. THE END
Maybe you were in the zone at that moment with your daughter; maybe you weren't. Either way it was personal moment for you that God could speak through regardless. I think it's beautiful how you interpreted this as a sign of Regina life in the presence of God.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on what I and others saw.
I understand your suggesting that one's senses can play tricks on the mind on what you are seeing. Grief can do that or any other intense emotion, I would suppose. In my case I do not think this was the case and will explain why.
I was at Regina's bedside the entire day before she died in the mid-afternoon, praying and singing hymns. When she died, I understood this to mean that God said NO to our prayers and now that He did, there was work to be done: calls made, etc. I was now ready to get to work. After the body was embalmed, I did not linger by it or at any time since she died because she was not there. The body was detestable: cancer had destroyed a beautiful looking woman. Her body was bloated because of fluid retention caused by steroid use. Some of her acquaintances did not recognize her body when they came to the viewing. But when I looked at it in the coffin for the first time I saw her chest move and thought it was a figment of my imagination. And believed that until I heard others comment on it. Now, I do not believe the body was alive at all, but that God did this to demonstrate to all who saw it that she is still alive but not in that body. (You see people in our culture are not superstitious in that we look for signs and wonders under every other rock or cloud.)
May I suggest that God will use lots of ways to comfort loved ones, even in ways that make little or no sense. He did this for us. And would you know that with world events getting worse I am glad she is not here to endure it?! I envy her at times! Oh, I cry for her, missing her sometimes - not often, though - but I have made peace with that emotion.
Sometimes God says "Yes", sometimes He says "No" and sometimes He says "wait awhile". And he uses adversity, chastisement to teach us these things. If we submit to it, we will find peace during these times. And it looks like we may really be in for it in the not too distant future.
I really appreciate your take on death on this thread. Gross and inspiring - both at the same time - how strange can a person get? Or, maybe it is God who can be strange..:-o
Blessings,
ginnyrose
I was at Regina's bedside the entire day before she died in the mid-afternoon, praying and singing hymns.
May I suggest that God will use lots of ways to comfort loved ones, even in ways that make little or no sense.
When my old dog died (please do not take it that I believe the loss of a dog is anywhere near the loss of a child - but my old dog was the only faithful loving presence that I had ever known in my life - that is, until I was found of the Lord) the Lord had the vet distract me by explaining how the sodium penithol (?) worked - how it slowly stops the electrical signals that trigger the heart to beat. It was amazing how quickly his body went limp once the electrical signals stopped and the heart was no longer pumping the life giving blood. Immediately I could detect that my old dog was gone - that all I was holding was a bag of bones - that all the goodness had left him. As I lifted him, I realized the meaning of dead weight. There is a lightness in life that is missing upon death.
Yes, as things progress, it will be the pain of our loved ones that will be hard to bear. From what I am seeing, our blessed Saviour is taking many home before the tribulation to come.
Am torn between placement of this ... On the one hand [i]pride[i]death[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=10733&forum=34&post_id=&refresh=Go]Jonathan Edwards - Undiscerned Spiritual Pride
Hope it can be beared with that two different aspects have grabbed the attention. One of the great benefits of all this discussion, across a variety of posts and conversations is the pull and push to go back to re-reading the scriptures. Found myself back in Romans a great deal of late, back over the whole of the book and certainly with an eye towards that unfortunate chapter break between 7 and 8 and all that has been made of it ...
Appreciate and find it difficult to contend with Andrew Murray's thoughts presented here and maybe it is one of perspective;
[i]Be not content to remain ever groaning, but say: "I, a wretched man, thank God, through Jesus Christ. Even though I do not see it all, I am going to praise God."
That seems to be a great summarization of the whole, that there is a tension of both things simultaneously. "I am a wretch" and "Thank God". What I do often wonder at though is why the halt at the continuation of the text;
[b]So then[i]with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
Which also seems to summarize the whole of Paul's previous argument. Now I have another problem, the same one that has occured to me time and again ... It is almost impossible to excerpt Matthew Henry. So I will shelve one for the sake of the other, this is a tremendous treatment of the subject;
[i]O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
[b]Rom 7:14-25
Here is a description of the conflict between grace and corruption in the heart, between the law of God and the law of sin. And it is applicable two ways: - 1. To the struggles that are in a convinced soul, but yet unregenerate, in the person of whom it is supposed, by some, that Paul speaks. 2. To the struggles that are in a renewed sanctified soul, but yet in a state of imperfection; as other apprehend. And a great controversy there is of which of these we are to understand the apostle here. So far does the evil prevail here, when he speaks of one sold under sin, doing it, not performing that which is good, that it seems difficult to apply it to the regenerate, who are described to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and yet so far does the good prevail in hating sin, consenting to the law, delighting in it, serving the law of God with the mind, that it is more difficult to apply it to the unregenerate that are dead in trespasses and sins.
I. Apply it to the struggles that are felt in a convinced soul, that is yet in a state of sin, knows his Lord's will, but does it not, approves the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and yet lives in the constant breach of it, Rom_2:17-23. Though he has that within him that witnesses against the sin he commits, and it is not without a great deal of reluctancy that he does commit it, the superior faculties striving against it, natural conscience warning against it before it is committed and smiting for it afterwards, yet the man continues a slave to his reigning lusts. It is not thus with every unregenerate man, but with those only that are convinced by the law, but not changed by the gospel. The apostle had said (Rom_6:14), [i]Sin shall not have dominion, because you are not under the law, but under grace[i]O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?[i]consent to the law that it is good[i]I died; the commandment I found to be unto death;
II. It seems rather to be understood of the struggles that are maintained between grace and corruption in sanctified souls. That there are remainders of indwelling corruption, even where there is a living principle of grace, is past dispute; that this corruption is daily breaking forth in sins of infirmity (such as are consistent with a state of grace) is no less certain. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 1Jo_1:8, 1Jo_1:10. That true grace strives against these sins and corruptions, does not allow of them, hates them, mourns over them, groans under them as a burden, is likewise certain (Gal_5:17): [i]The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would
1. What he complains of - the remainder of indwelling corruptions, which he here speaks of, to show that the law is insufficient to justify even a regenerate man, that the best man in the world hath enough in him to condemn him, if God should deal with him according to the law, which is not the fault of the law, but of our own corrupt nature, which cannot fulfil the law. The repetition of the same things over and over again in this discourse shows how much Paul's heart was affected with what he wrote, and how deep his sentiments were. Observe the particulars of this complaint. (1.) [i]I am carnal, sold under sin[i]sold under sin[i]What I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I[i]When I would do good, evil is present with me.[i] In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good[i] I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind[i]It brings me into captivity[i]With the flesh I serve the law of sin[i]O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?[i]O wretched man that I am![i]Who shall deliver me?
2. What he comforts himself with. The case was sad, but there were some allays. Three things comforted him: -
(1.) That his conscience witnessed for him that he had a good principle ruling and prevailing in him, notwithstanding. It is well when all does not go one way in the soul. The rule of this good principle which he had was the law of God, to which he here speaks of having a threefold regard, which is certainly to be found in all that are sanctified, and no others. [1.] [i]I consent unto the law that it is good[i]sumphēmi - I give my vote[i]I delight in the law of God after the inward man[i]sunēdomai[i]delight[i]After the inward man[i]First[i]Secondly[i]inner man[i]hidden man of the heart[i]With the mind I myself serve the law of God[i]I myself - autos egō
(2.) That the fault lay in that corruption of his nature which he did really bewail and strive against: [i]It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me[i]Dwelleth in me
(3.) His great comfort lay in Jesus Christ (Rom_7:25): [i]I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord[i]Who shall deliver me?[i]Blessed be God that giveth us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Matthew Henry[i](Italics extant
Remain, [i]remaining[i]extraction
Recently had a return comment in response to an admission of this wretched state; "[i]No, you are beloved of the Lord[i]Grace[i]How can this be?
[i]It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. This he mentions twice (Rom_7:17, Rom_7:20), not as an excuse for the guilt of his sin (it is enough to condemn us, if we were under the law, that the sin which does the evil dwelleth in us), [u]but as a salvo for his evidences
long thread!
Someone wrote to me in a PM, asking for the title of this thread. I was going to send it to her privately, but I felt led to bring it back to the forum for the benfit of others. There are some graphic images and thoughts here, but I believe all of them were offered under a sober premise.
I hope this is the thread you were looking for, dear sister.
I tell people that there is incredible grief in the heart of God, unspeakable grief, grief so intense that it would kill you if you were given the full revelation of what He endures when He sees man.
I was rereading this thread and this statement caught my eye - missed it before.
You said something here that I believe to be so very true. When God calls one of his children home to be with him, He is there to comfort the loved ones left behind - we experienced this in a real way after Regina died.
Now, when a person walks away from God, turns his back on Him, this causes the loved ones much grief and there is no comfort anywhere to give you [i]any
The only comfort one has during times like this is that God will do whatever He can to bring about reconciliation between Him and this person. But he cannot save a person against his will: this person MUST decide he will allow God to transform him.
My thoughts...
ginnyrose
"The Lake that burneth with fire and brimstone"
After rereading this thread, this concept rose in my mind: how does hell-fire factor in with the horrible process of rotting flesh. I am sure you have an idea...
ginnyrose
Bump: The forums seem to be going in this direction once again, and I think this thread in its entirety would be helpful.
I found an audio book of this Puritan Classic. And it's a free download! Look Here:
http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/the-mortification-of-sin-in-believers-by-john-owen
Great thread Paul, it will take a while to get through it but the subject is worth it. I love hearing as many takes as I can. Thanks Truewitness for the link to the book. Fantastic!
James
This is i great thread and I've finally read through all of it. I would very much like to hear more practical examples of how the mortification of sin was put into practice in the lives of believers like the example Brother Paul gave about the trial he faced after preaching on deliverance from mammon.
James
Mike (Crsschk), I really enjoyed your study of Romans 7 and the two aspects it seems to put across. Sorry I'm only just now replying.
Personally I have always (since receiving Christ that is) believed the first aspect to be truth and that it is written for the "convinced yet unregenerate man", and that Paul applies it to himself as a matter of identification with a soul under the conviction of the law.
However, when I consider myself and my own state, I can easily accept the second interpretation as I find in me, that is in my flesh no good thing.
But this, I believe is where the second aspect is wrong, as is looking at a man (like myself, or Paul) who is considering his own state, instead of by faith looking away to Jesus Christ. And we all are tempted to do this self examination at times. But the moment the soul in the chapter looks away from himself to the deliverer, Jesus Christ, immediately, there is no condemnation and he finds himsel in the sweet state of chapter 8.
Who is Paul speaking to in this 7th chapter? "To those who know the law" v1. And in verse 6 he writes: "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.". Them from verse 7, he explains the true purpose of the law, which is to reveal the true nature of sin: "that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." v13
Without going into detail, verses 14 to 22 show how such a soul is brought by the law to agree with God that he is a sinner. This is true repentance and at the same time, it is the beginning of faith, as the soul agrees with God honestly from the heart, God shows him his deliverer. There are, it is true, many who stay, it almost appears to be they enjoy staying in this wretched state. These must get their eyes off themselves (reckon themselves dead) and onto Christ who comes with free grace to deliver such a one.
Blessed be His name forever
David
After reading through this thread a few things struck me. Firstly how blessed we all are here to have sermonindex and spiritually rich postings from so many brothers and sisters. I am so thankful to the Lord for providing us with this.
I had forgotten how wonderful brother Mike Balog's posts were. I hope he is doing ok. Brother Paul thanks so much for your continued ministry here. A great insight into the life of a mortician. It was interesting how this thread moved from the spiritual mortification of sin to be complemented by the graphic descriptions of physical death. Then to the genuine grief felt by those suffering heartbreaking tragedy in their lives. The discussion on the grief felt by God stood out for me.
Indeed sin must be mortified. Delving into this subject on this thread has been very inspiring. Sometimes I marvel that in prayer we can come into the very presence of a Holy God even with this sin nature still in us. It's only because of Christ. Oh, may His name be glorified.
David
I am so thankful to the Lord for providing us with this.
I had forgotten how wonderful brother Mike Balog's posts were.
You ever meet someone that leaves such an impression of the Lord with you in love and childlike adoration that you never forget them? Where every time you spoke to them, there was never any theology or highbrowism; just the pouring out of a heart in goodtimes and badtimes and an honest, down-to-earth assessment of what it means to follow Jesus Christ in the midst of reality?
That was brother Mike, all the way, and I love him and miss him so much.
Have youu reed John Own' Mortifimation of the Fleshg. It help me understand this more and more in my life and wife.
Some have been wondering about some edifying threads....I am bumping this one up because I think this one is among the most profound one posted here on SI.
Read and be edified, might be grossed out at times, but keep on reading...
ginnyrose
thanks ,,sister this thred is mesrmising ,,,in a good scence ,,iv only read for 20 minutes from the end towars the beginning,,,its quite amasing
If you do not have the time to read everything, read Paul's posts - that is where the meat is. The rest are only comments on what he wrote.
My opinion...
Thanks for bringing this back up Sandra. Definitely a weighty thread. You know if Ron Bailey and Mike Balog are contributing there's going to be some good fruit! Mortification is indeed a cardinal topic.
I would be willing to discuss these things more in depth if others have an appetite to hear about them. All it takes is one good question of morbid curiosity to open the crypt ;)
Paul, you have any additional insight to share? Kind of a dumb question, I suspect, but do wonder - a body's insights will grow deeper as time passes on...
QUOTE:
"morbid curiosity to open the crypt ;)"
Love it! :-)
Sandra, because of the nature of my profession, and the occurences I see on a daily basis at the mortuary, along with the study of Holy Scripture and a yearning to have absolute victory over all unchristlikeness in my body and mind, God has shown me what I believe are great truths pertaining to sin mortification.
I would perhaps like to author a book one day with these insights, if God wills it. I love discussing these things, as I believe that during times of anointed fellowship God often reveals very choice riches. The topic of mortification is so broad, so rich, so profound a topic. The best way to extract new insight on mortification is to "prime the pump" by asking specific questions relating to death. God has paralleled many spiritual truths with death and the postmortem stages, and the world of microorganisms during putrefaction carries much astonishing insight as well, as does bereavement and lamentation.
QUOTE:
"God has paralleled many spiritual truths with death ...... as does bereavement and lamentation."
Please explain....
As a mother who buried a child and who has two wayward sons, I tell people I would a whole lot rather bury a child who was ready to meet the LORD then to to see a child live for SELF.
Solomon also says it is better to go to the house of mourning then to a house of feasting. I agree, although we moderns have become skilled in mixing the two.
I am going to stop right now - I want to hear your take on my question...
Sorrow and pain is richer than laughter and mirth. The carnalities of this present world propagate the opposite, of course. The ruler of this world system, Satan, manufactures pleasure and entertainment to divert people from the spiritual reality of God's Kingdom which is beset with pain, trials, tribulations, and spiritual mourning resulting from death (to self). The barely-scrutible fine print, however, conceals the effects and wages of such: death. There are basically two types of death: the death that delivers from the world, and the death that occurs within and because of the world; the death in Adam that occurs in sin, and the death in Christ that delivers us from sin. Death is ubiquitious and inevitable in this universe no matter how we view it.
Most Christians occupy themselves with the first death; that is, how to prevent their death within the world. A vast amount of Christian preaching and ministry revolves around a preservation of life and avoidance of pain in Adam, and, as result, exhibits a misunderstanding and reluctance to embrace the pain and celebrate the death proferred in Christ.
If we accept the Christian death, God begins ushering us through the halls of mortification and the subsequent pain, and if we choose the Adamic death, Satan begins ushering us through the halls of his own kind of mortification and pain. Every day we must make this decision, we must choose the hallway. A double-minded man blurs the two hallways, the two deaths, and thus experiences double the pain and is the most wretched and lamentable. Many of us are such. We endure death pangs from both camps, depending on the day. Imagine a man waking up during his own embalming! Or during an autopsy! What a horrid thought. Yet, this is what happens when we fluctuate between the two deaths. God's aim is to have us be follwers of Christ in all similitude of His life - and death as well. Notice that Christ on the cross died quickly. He didn't fight to prolong the Adamic death, as did the two thieves who book-ended Him on Golgotha. Even though one of them became regenerate, and was in the final moments ingrafted into the tree of life, he still took longer than Christ to die in the flesh.
We've heard many sermons on Jesus Christ being our example in life, but how many sermons have you heard of Him being our example in death? Before we can experience the resurrected life, we must experience the correct death, walk the correct hallway that leads to the correct antechamber of mortification. And like our Captain, we should do it quickly. If we do not die in the footsteps of our Lord, the Father will send the "leg-breakers" to hasten it. I speak as one who has had his legs broken many, many times.
I'll pause for now. Any thoughts? My prayer is that this thread will continue to transmit life, by the grace and good pleasure of God our Father.
QUOTE:
"but how many sermons have you heard of Him being our example in death? Before we can experience the resurrected life, we must experience the correct death, walk the correct hallway that leads to the correct antechamber of mortification. And like our Captain, we should do it quickly. If we do not die in the footsteps of our Lord, the Father will send the "leg-breakers" to hasten it."
I have often thought of this but from a different angle.
If we think eternally, in light of us living forever somewhere, expecting it to be with the LORD Jesus, can we not forsake this besetting sin joyfully that Paul writes about? Why do we linger and hang onto it knowing it only drags us down?
What would happen if we would meditate about heaven and all its glories. Then contrast it to hell with its heat, darkness, gloom, agony. Now why on earth would I want to hang onto something that will assure my arrival in hell instead of heaven?
Dying with a single purpose of ridding myself of all that contaminates - why do we think it is too hard? We never had to hang on a cross because of someone else's sin...but Jesus did.
QUOTE:
"how many sermons have you heard of Him being our example in death?"
Something serious to ponder on...
hi,many times i reflect on what len ravenhill used to say..."during an invitation, how many times have you heard the preacher say come to the altar and die.he would say that altars were a place for total sacrifice and death" we present ourselves as living dead men or better, sacrifices to God.deadmen have already fulfilled there fate.jimp
im not sure if i should ask you paul to keep tiping ,,,or do i need to go over this whole thred first
dear brothagary, start at the beginning ans read the post by phililogos and mike balog and it will bless your socks off. these were two of the best people to ever post here.jimp
yea ,,,i better do that ,thanks
i could not let this exortation disapear in the pages of this thred,,i hope you dont mind be bumping this by PaulWest on 2006/9/3 6:20:29
Brothers and Sisters on SI,
God has been pressing upon me the need for absolute obedience in my life. The only way to grow in grace and wisdom is to obey the Lord in all matters and die to (mortify) all known sin. Obeying God when it's merely convenient will not do. Mark my words: There is no substitution or alternative to immediate obedience in our walk with Jesus Christ. I propose that if one desires to grow in the Lord and experience a greater measure of the Spirit's presence in one's life and ministry, then one must obey His voice at all costs. Anyone can accumulate knowledge and academics; the "smartest" people alive today in terms of astrophysics and philiosophy are unbelievers. The "wealthiest" people are of the unbelieving camp as well. Hence, I am talking about more than mere intelligence and riches - there is something incomparably deeper and infinitely more precious God offers those who are trusting and obeying and dying daily. This "something" surpasses man's understanding, and if our regenerated spirits are not seeking a greater daily measure of this glorious bestowal of God, something is amiss.
It's not easy, this quest! God's Spirit and your flesh are sworn enemies, and when God speaks, the flesh naturally rebels. This gives rise to bloody battles, and many would-be soldiers have been cut down by the swashbuckling techniques of hell. Go and look back at each one of your own defeats in the past: You will find each failure was unequivocally due to a lack of obedience in heeding the Spirit's repeated exhortations.
The truth is, God is dealing with a hidden killer harbored within each of our bodies - sin. When we refuse God access to the location of the fugitive, the killer goes into hiding. We may live for months and months with no visible sighting of the killer. We soon grow complacent and lazy in our pursuing the things of God, and our undisciplined mind drifts into the dark shadows where the forgotten killer lurks. How many of us have gotten our throats slit in these gloomy shadows?
If we were obeying God in all directions and fore-commands, our throats would have never been slit. God, since the time of our conversion, has been beckoning us to give up the killer's rights. Yet we hold the murderer in a form of spiritual amnesty. God is pleading with us to hand him over for crucifixion, yet many refuse - and for multiple reasons - to relinquish this convicted felon over to the hammer and nails.
Why do you not deliever this killer over to the Authority? Has the liar promised you pleasure, a share in his spoils if you continue to conceal his identity? No doubt you have found he keeps his promises! Sin's delicacies are indeed sweet! Stolen water quickly quenches the flesh's thrist. Have you been hearkening unto the voice: "If you turn me in, I'll only escape with a sharper knife"? This may be, but only if you help him escape. If you aid and abet his release, he will surely show his gratitude - with a brutal knife in your back that very same hour! He is vicious, wicked, crooked...and he lives within you.
The only way to subdue this villian is through obedience to the Word of God. Your obedience allows God to raid his habitation. God calls us to surrender our personal domains, our private jurisdictions, for there are terrorists in the camps! How many acts of spiritual genocide will it take until we come to our senses and deliver these indicted criminals over to Absolute Justice?
Saints, we must hearken unto the Word of God with immediate obedience! We must hunt down and hand over these evasive terrorists to God for swift execution. There is no other way to enter the Kingdom of Heaven but through spiritual violence and bloodshed.
Are you prepared to get violent? Welcome to the business of mortification! From now until your spirit leaves its corrupted clay tabernacle, you must be occupied with keeping diligent watch over and systematically destroying all known sin in your members. Any christless uprisings within the tabernalce must be foiled and then terminated, before they hatch into defilements. God will not kill these rebels if the temple priest does not first trap them and lay them them upon the altar; you can't stop temptations from approaching, but you can keep them from infiltrating. They must be arrested at the gates, bound and gagged, and then we can expect the fire of God to consume them. Oh, precious saints, we must learn to walk in the Spirit. We must learn to trust and obey and always look to Jesus Christ whilst coveting humility and daily self-denial.
For there is no other way to heaven, but through death and holiness.
Brother Paul
Death is our natural last choice... so it takes a divine helper, i been contemplating a phrase Art Katz spoke, he said "people rather walk down the aile as if it where an invitation to a "deeper" christian life of some sort, but the call was not to a deeper experience but to a utter and horrible death from all we are and have security in"
I think the death in mortifying sin, our own self is intertwined.
I think the "spiritual mortifying" of our sins and so forth are often romanticized to be in ways that we read inHebrews 11, conquer and shut the mouths of lions. And i think for some it is this way in their overcoming, but for most I think it is as it was for those that where
36And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38(Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
I think for most of us this is the kind of mortifying we will be occupied with, the problem in our pampered age is we shun this way as not Gods way or method for dealing with us.
Also speaking as one that have "broken my legs" several times over and over.
I am glad this thread has been resurrected.
The reason we don't hear much preaching and teaching on mortification and death is because very few actually have plumbed the depths of this realm and have come out the other side with power over sin and resurrection victory. Christianity today teaches us instead to seek an experience or some other kind of fantastic finality by which we may attain perfection minus mortification.
But in the end, it is death only, a learning to die, a slow daily death, a daily crucifixion, that can only avail and accomplish the highest for what God purposes for our lives. If this death does not occur, if we are not hastening toward it, actively seeking it, allowing God to burden us and drive all our waking moments for it, it matters not how much we participate on SermonIndex, our local assemblies, study theological concepts, or listen to the finest preachers the world has to offer. We will be forever stunted, forever spinning our wheels in the muck of theories and paper Christianity. Until we learn to mortify our self-will by the Holy Spirit and through the power of God, we will be alive and miserable.
I can think of nothing worse than having the sentence of death upon you, yet not knowing when or how you will die. Day after day you sit confined in a stone tower, awaiting the day of your execution. You can't hardly eat, you can't sleep. Your face ages 20 years in three days. The anticipation of your doom throws your entire nervous system into chaos. Before long, you're hoping, begging, pleading your death will come soon and put an end to the misery the prolongment of life is now rewarding you. I read somewhere that before his execution, Sir Walter Raleigh asked to see the axe that would behead him. When it was shown to him, he said, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is the cure for all diseases and miseries!"
God will see to it that learn to embrace, welcome death. As we sit condemned in the cold, stone towers of our Adamic flesh, we should cry out to Him for mercy - that is, of sweet death. How many weeks, months, years must we continue on in fleshly limbo, subject to fulfill the lusts of our rebellious flesh and depraved mind? Carnal preaching caters so popularly with the masses because instead of teaching the condemned to cry out for death, it rallies the prisoners to beseech the jailer for clemency. God is pro-death in this aspect, whereas contemporary Christianity is pro-life. All our troubles, defeats, embarassments, failngs, strivings, factions and unrest spring from a single source: from not allowing the Spirit of God to work His mortifying influence in us.
I'll pause here. Any thoughts?
Amen Brother Paul,
The Lord has repeatedly reminded me of this verse.
And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, "Wheresoever the body [is], thither will the eagles be gathered together".
-Luke 17:37
I have never understood what the Lord meant by this verse
but He has been telling me that the body the eagles gather
around is my own body of death. But Jesus, by the blood of the covenant shed for me on the cross, and by the power of his Spirit, has given me the power to drive them away, by faith.
"And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away".
-Genesis 15:11
Brother I pray that we pick up our cross
and die daily because
"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it"
-Luke 17:33
Peace in Christ Jesus,
Travis
Paul West; God is pro-death in this aspect, whereas contemporary Christianity is pro-life. All our troubles, defeats, embarassments, failngs, strivings, factions and unrest spring from a single source: from not allowing the Spirit of God to work His mortifying influence in us.
----
I think my own struggle is that i "fool" myslef into beliveing it will be a "once and for all" victory, a moment of divine intervention and in a second god will deal with my flesh and self and after that its a smooth sailing from here on and to eternity, the words of Jesus weigh heavy in my mind "every day....."
Pick up our cross every day, not just once we die this death but every single day of the rest of our life, it is tempting to display a "spirituality" as if this is "normal" or natural to me, but i think this is a very "hard Saying" and i still battle with this.
It may be "easy" some days, but most i feel this dying is very hard, i suspect mostly because my flesh is still very much alive, and since it is a daily "discipline" to obey God, and walk down our spiritual "via dolorosa" of shame and humiliation to end at a cross with all that brings with it, on a daily basis is really in human eyes insanity.
To every day suffer this death and yet to embrace it and long for it makes our faith very "morbid" in a sense, but yet we know this way is the only way to total freedom and unity with God and separation from this world and sin. this we long for... but it put in perspective those that so often invite people "just pray after me" or whatever "easy" way there is to become a christian.
If we in contemporary christianity where to tell about this sojourn that occurs every day, easy belivism would not be an issue i suspect.
Just some thoughts....
Thanks brother Paul for taking time and share your thoughts and writing.
I seriously would ask you to ask God to write a book or similar, God has gifted you brother.
brother christian
this helps me alot brothers ,to hear you talk about this
i was set free from a drug and party culture
god set me free from meth and drugs like extasey and partying
and after that he set me free from the love of my life marawana
he realy did change my desires
but i still stugle with evil thoughts ,,lust
iv started fasting to see if that will help
i expect to be set free from that as well
but also expect to be tempted
it surly is a dayly battle
but much different from being a slave to sin
a willfull sinner
thanks for you wise conversations
Yes, brethren, it is a daily death. The Lord said in Luke 9:23 that any man who doesn't deny himself and take up his cross "every day", cannot come after him. Jesus Himself must have carried a cross every day, otherwise He wouldn't have had the auhtority to tell us to do the same. He is our example in every jot and tittle. He carried an external cross on the last day of His life, but for 33 years before that, He bore an internal cross and died to His own will. We see the summation of His cross of self-death in Gethsamane when he struggled to accept the will of the Father's cup over his own.
Yes, our Lord carried an internal cross each day of His life, and showed us how to overcome Satan, the world system, and the flesh every step of the way. This does not mean we can become "sinlessly perfect"; it means rather that by the Word of God, daily mortification and faith in the enabling grace of God, we can become steadily transformed and perfected. Our aim is to become more and more like Jesus Christ, to each day partake more and more of His divine nature and be a blessing to everyone we come in contact with, as He Himself was. At any given time in our walks, we should either be a fragrance of life or a fragrance of death. The mortification of sin in our bodies should either produce a conviction unto death for those presently in sin, or a vivacity unto life for those who seek to be conformed to the image of God's Son.
Mortification (or lack of) is the catalyst for these affairs.
Methods of Mortification
How exactly does one mortify? What differentiates our task from the task of the Holy Spirit in the daily practice of mortification? In all circumstances the difference between the two tasks is this: the Holy Spirit works in us the will to mortify sin and the grace to enable mortification and win the victory; our task is to simply answer “amen” to His instruction with obedience.
Fiery darts bombard our minds each day, seeking to enter our hearts by way of temptation. The discernment of the Holy Spirit exposes each dart as it attempts to lodge into our minds for embracement. Every fiery dart embraced by the mind seeks to gain entry to the heart where it can then become a powerful stronghold. Mortification prevents this entry from beginning in the mind. Our minds are the entry points to the fortress of the heart. If Satan can infiltrate your mind, it will be just a matter of time before the heart will be overrun as well. God tells us that a person without mortification in this regard is like a city broken down and without walls (Proverbs 25:28). Every suggestion, every impulse needs to be discerned before we let it into our minds for rumination.
Think of your mind as the embassy of your heart, with foreign diplomats and tourists and students constantly applying for work and study and travel visas. These foreigners are the thoughts and suggestions and impulses and temptations we face each day. Every single foreigner must have his passport checked at the gates before he is allowed entry. At these gates we look for the certified visa seal of the Holy Spirit. If a visa has not been stamped by God, the alien must be immediately turned away, cast down and brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (II Cor. 10:3-5). This is mortification. The disciple of Jesus Christ must practice this spiritual custom of mortification each day, all day if he is to stay healthy and keep his heart with all diligence (Prov. 4:23).
When we bring these alien thoughts into captivity, we put to death our flesh, for if such impulses are allowed entrance, they gradually seek to revitalize the flesh into disobedience toward God. By systematically casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, we deny our flesh the food it needs to thrive, and thus starve it. This is mortification. The Lord has given us many scriptures that warn, encourage and empower us to guard our vessels against the flaming missles that seek to target our hearts via our minds. Observe the following:
We are told to keep our minds strong and tight (I Peter 1:13); to keep our minds occupied by pure and wholesome things which are approved by God (Philippians 3:13-14); to scrutinize and arrest any and all unauthorized thoughts (II Corinthians 10:3-5); to keep our hearts and minds in peace by not worrying (Philippians 4:6-7); to diligently keep our hearts from being subverted (Proverbs 4:23); to protect our hearts by taking on the very mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5); to be renewed in the spirit of our minds (Ephesians 4:23); to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to know the perfect will of God (Romans 12:2); to have rule over our own spirits (Proverbs 16:32; 25:28); to not allow past failings to torment us (Philippians 3:13,14); to mortify by “putting on” the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), so that by failing to provide the flesh with substance, the lusts of body will not be fulfilled.
All these verses and many others speak in some way of mortification and the subsequent guardianship of the mind and heart. In God’s Word, we are instructed to put on spiritual armor and take up the weapons of Jesus Christ for mortification. Armor is defensive; weapons are offensive. If you’ve never made it a holy practice to mortify, you can begin today by the grace of God. By the Word of God and faith, make it your business to put to death the deeds of the body and thus keep the gates of your mind girded and heart pure.
Brother Paul
It's funny, before I entered this room I thought, I hope PaulWest says something on this subject and there it was. I don't know why I thought of you brother, but I am thankful that you wrote that piece, it's chalked full of the very things we need to know. Food indeed.
I really never had a good understanding of what that word meant.
Praise God!
amen aproved
The Blessings of Mortification
When we mortify temptation and yield not to the lusts of our flesh, we enter into a blessed realm of God’s peace, joy and protection. If our consciences are undefiled, our hearts then draw confidence to enter into God’s presence without any impediment or hindrance (I John 3:21). As we continue to walk in the light of the Holy Spirit and put to death all motives of ungodliness presented to us, God begins to give us more light and revelation on scripture that pertains to our sanctification. We gain precious insight on the cleansing and restorative power of the blood of Jesus Christ. This sort of life-giving insight is impossible to obtain otherwise, but by divine experience through continuous obedience to the light God has already given. This is a law of God: to him who has (light), more will be given (as he obeys).
The Lord has given us all light on certain areas of our walk. The reason some believers grow and go on unto perfection, whereas other believers remain spiritually paralyzed is due to how they respond to the light they have already been given. When God gives a man light, the revelation involves some form of mortification. Perhaps it is light on an area of his life to which God is calling him to surrender. The very word “surrender” denotes death by relinquishment. An area of self must die to whatever habit or pleasure God has put a finger on. Though God has decreed that such a thing must go, He puts the responsibility of mortification in our power and observes how we respond. Our response determines if we continue to go on unto perfection (Hebrews 6:1), or if we remain where we are in the school of God. If we say “amen” to God’s will and put the thing to death, new light will then be given and advancements made.
The blessings that spring from saying “amen” to God’s decrees of death are monumental. Through the putting to death of that which God commands, life-giving power bursts forth from our spirits to bless other believers. We find the seed that fell to the earth and died suddenly springing to life as a living tree, and giving blessed rest to those who sit beneath its shade.
I'll pause here again. Any thoughts? Lord willing, these excerpts and much more will comprise the meat of the chapters of the book "Understanding Mortification - The Pathway to Victory" which I am now compiling.
It is good to have practical advice when considering how weare to walk in the Spirit, but is the method described by our brother Paul scriptural?
The method he described, is working from the mind to the heart, we deal with the mind in order to have affect on the heart. Correct me please if I have misunderstood.
However scripture places the root of the problem and the seat of sin in the heart not in the mind.
Gen. 8:21 For the imagination of mans heart is evil fvrom his youth.
Ecc. 8:11 The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Ecc 9:3 Madness is in their heart while they live
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked.
Matt 12:34 For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.
It is the heart that needs the work of God because it is that which men love which leads them to sin. In a heart whch has not been made pure, the man does not give God his entire devotion. There is no improving this through working on the mind, either the heart is pure or it is not and once a man has been entirely sanctified, there is nothing which comes from his past desires and passions - it is all for God.
This is the heavenly order from the heart outwards, loving God entirely and having the thought patterns renewed so that the man becomes spiritually minded but the heart issue has already been dealt with and the man has no issues over obedience or cutting out evil thoughts before they get into his heart. Thoughts come from the heart and any which are unpure have their source of an impure heart which needs the sanctifying work of God to be yet performed.
The seat of sin is indeed the heart - until God regenerates. After He slays the "old man", He installs a "new man" which is the very life of Jesus Christ, sometimes refered to as the "inner man" (see II Corinthians 4:16, Ephesians 3:16, etc.) All the scriptures you've provided deal with men's hearts under the Old Covenant, prior to Calvary.
Under the New Covenant, God gives us grace to overcome sin by working in conjunction with the Holy Spirit though faith. This was not possible under the Old Covenant, for even the Apostle Paul admitted that though he was blameless in terms of keeping the law, when he came to the final commandment, "Thou shalt not covet", he discovered he was enslaved and could not get victory. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, and by killing the "old man" who repentlessly opened the heart to embrace lust and covetousness in our former lives, He now installs a "new man" in his stead, fashioned in the likeness of His Son that now only wants to do the will of God and keep the heart sealed off from all outside spiritual contaminates.
We are now called to mortify our members and not feed the flesh, which wars against the spirit. By failing to mortify impure thoughts, temptatins, entirements and affections at the point of entry through our minds, our eyes, and our ears, we can allow outside influences to invade the heart and overpower the starved "new man". When the heart is invaded, the man is defiled, and this is when the believer is defeated.
God has already accomplished the inner work we could never do, i.e. killing the old unfaithful servant who opened the doors of our heart to sin and defilement. We now wear the complete armour of God to keep these defilements OUT of the heart via the landingstrips of Satan.
Regarding the prophesy of God giving us a new heart in the Old Covenant, these scriptures everyone should know:
Ezekiel 36:26,27: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be
careful to keep my laws."
Ezekiel 11:19, 20: "I will give them an undivided heart and will put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."
And as pertaining to the New:
II Corinthians 5:17: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come."
Galatians 4:6 "...God hath sent the the Spirit of His son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out "Daddy, Father."
Romans 5:5: "God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us."
There is nothing in the regenerate heart of a believer that produces sin; the "old man" geyser of corruption was slain with Christ on Calvary. But our flesh still lives. The flesh is allied to the Satanic temptations of the world system and powers of hell that still rule the air. Mortification keeps these outer defilements from entering back in through the empowerment of flesh to corrupt the heart. Mortification always begins in the mind, in the members, over which we have control through the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Satan goes through the ungirded and unrenewed mind with the goal to once again subvert and defile the heart which God has cleansed and occupied. The new heart filled God's Spirit does not want to sin, but by not taking every thought captive (through the mind), and looking consistently unto Jesus, a stronghold may be formed by the entry through a "chink in the armor" and, as result, a believer can once again find his or herself fashioned to and enslaved by a former lust.
The process is perhaps best described in James 1:14-15. The context is temptation. Notice the progression if temptation is not imnmediately mortified at the entry level:
"But every man is tempted (in his mind), when he is drawn away of his own lust (the flesh agreeing with the temptation) and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived (in the womb of the heart) it bringeth forth sin (the fruit of the conception), and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (the consequential judgment)." James 1:14,15.
Brother hmmhmm said: "I think my own struggle is that I "fool" myself into believing it will be a "once and for all" victory, a moment of divine intervention and in a second God will deal with my flesh and self and after that its a smooth sailing from here on and to eternity, the words of Jesus weigh heavy in my mind "every day....."
You and me both brother.
2 Kings 17:33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
I was reading this yesterday and it really stuck to me. Pointing the finger at myself, I am guilty of this. I do fear God but I find myself serving other gods. Doing my own thing, busy busy busy. At times when I am weak I fall headlong into lustful pleasures.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, it doesn't say it's the end, it's the starting point. We can have all knowledge, understanding of the scriptures and still fall short of surrendering areas of our lives to the Lordship of Christ. The story that surrounds this is something to read. I had read that many times but I read it as if reading for the first time.
Today as I was thinking on the things of God, the Lord impressed on me that I was afraid of Him. He went on to say, "Certainly there is to be a measure of the fact that I am God but I don't want you to fear Me in being scared of Me, rather to enjoy Me as well as your Saviour, Father and Friend."
I melted knowing that I have been afraid of Him and the need to mortify is now a priority. For a long while now I have been avoiding certain things and not willing to let go of certain sins, I had known the act of mortification but I have forgotten some things. When I do sin I don't want this ever looming thought that God is against me, rather that He is desirous that I agree with Him in all things pertaining to guarding one's mind, one's thoughts learning all over again what it means to follow Him by taking up the cross.
They feared the Lord and served other gods. Amazing deception!
I melted knowing that I have been afraid of Him and the need to mortify is now a priority. For a long while now I have been avoiding certain things and not willing to let go of certain sins, I had known the act of mortification but I have forgotten some things.
Mortification should indeed be the priority, for failing to mortify the lusts of the flesh invalidates every other area of our walk. Take, for example, the tongue. James says that if a man is unable to bridle his tongue, his religion is rendered worthless (James 1:26). Immediately, an unmortified tongue invalidates all his theology, all the sacrifices of good deeds, all his knowledge of scripture and hermeneutics, eschatology, et cetera. It all becomes empty theory.
There is a clever deception today in contemporary Christianity that promotes the finality of an amazing experience over the reality of progression. God's ways of bringing us into a proper understanding of mortification takes time. Most of us need to broken over and over and over again, pulverized repeatedly by defeat and failure until such a reduction is wrought in our spirits to where the cross of mortification is finally embraced. The pull of the flesh, our intelligence, the bonds of legalism and other erroneous teachings all grasp at straws with methods that purport to deliver a man from the power of sin. None of them work outside of holy mortification. Those who attempt mortification without brokeness often end up putting the cart before the horse by trying to put to death the deeds of the flesh without first walking in the Spirit. It's a formula for disaster!
The way God works true mortification is by first purifying your heart and then instructing you on how to maintain the purity. He guides us through His Word with blessed instruction on how to take every thought captive to keep strongholds from re-invading our hearts; he shows us with what sort of substance we ought to keep our minds "busy": things that are true and honest, just and pure, of good report, things that are lovely and virtuous and praiseworthty; he shows us that mortification is a daily affair and not a one-time-fix occurence; He gives us deeper understanding and divine revelation on the cleansing power of the blood of Christ; and the best is that as we walk in this constant state of mortification, we continuously abide in Christ, continuously under the blood, continuously in a state of heart-confidence for prayer, and continuously receiving instant light on new areas targeted for mortification. This I believe is the true meaning of walking with Christ, and it is activated as we walk in the Spirit and mortify through the Spirit.
Through the blessed act mortification, our ministries become rivers of life-giving water. People are set free from bondage. God is glorified. Satan is vanquished.
PaulWest wrote
"There is a clever deception today in contemporary Christianity that promotes the finality of an amazing experience over the reality of progression. God's ways of bringing us into a proper understanding of mortification takes time. Most of us need to broken over and over and over again, pulverized repeatedly by defeat and failure until such a reduction is wrought in our spirits to where the cross of mortification is finally embraced. The pull of the flesh, our intelligence, the bonds of legalism and other erroneous teachings all grasp at straws with methods that purport to deliver a man from the power of sin. None of them work outside of holy mortification. Those who attempt mortification without brokeness often end up putting the cart before the horse by trying to put to death the deeds of the flesh without first walking in the Spirit. It's a formula for disaster!"
Wesley put paid to that false theory by affirming that there is a process both before and after deliverence from the power of sin and as you rightly point out, there is a breaking involved and those who try to mortify the flesh without being broken are heading for disaster. Indeed the breaking point is the cross and reckoning ourselves dead to sin.
However, until this piont, the heart has not been made pure, which many find in their daily walk - it is why there are so many problems in the church. They hear that their heart was made pure at conversion and they try their hardest to `mortify the flesh` yet know nothing but discouragement and failure until some come to the point of giving up on the quest of holiness and sink into antinomianism.
With all due respect, what is needed is for men to know how to receive the pure heart, and then, after, it is not plain sailing as there is no point we can reach where we can say it is finished, - we cannot fall or be touched - they can indeed mortify their members in a place of victory where they find the rest of God and the peace which passes all understanding. Striving to find these things shows that the pure heart has not yet been received. The pure heart and the direct teaching from Christ, enables a man to do easily what previously he tried to do amidst failure.
This walking in the Spirit is not a battle against impure thoughts and impulses however once it has been reached. The battle is against the other part of flesh, not sin as such as understood by those in the flesh, but in being led by the inspiration of the HS alone and not mans natural wisdom. This is now the fight of faith, to do only the will of the Holy One. The battle against sin has ceased as that part of flesh ie the old man has been out out of action. Keeping him there is a matter of faith and not of effort ort striving.
The great need for many is to receive the pure heart. The evidence that they have not got it is to be seen everywhere, not through failing to a put it in action but through not even having it yet and not being crucified with Christ. If one has it then the fruit will be obvious. Blessings to you brother for bringing up the subject.
QUOTE:
"Sorrow and pain is richer than laughter and mirth. The carnalities of this present world propagate the opposite, of course. The ruler of this world system, Satan, manufactures pleasure and entertainment to divert people from the spiritual reality of God's Kingdom."
And church leaders have worked to incorporate entertainment into the worship service to enhance their message. Now I know why it does not sit well in my spirit. I always felt something was so very wrong...
God bless...
A thought: It’s not surprising that a mortician here uses the word “mortification”. In scripture you see this same pattern – the language and imagery used is that which most closely related to the people's experiences.
Interestingly, Jesus did not tell the rich ruler to become mortified, to be justified by faith alone, to accept the exchanged life, the surrendered life, or to undergo sanctification. He simply said “Go sell your possessions.” That’s almost too simple, isn’t it – and yet, that’s exactly where that man needed “mortification”. Jesus talked his language. And that's how the man understood exactly!
Diane
The Old Man and the Flesh
Most Christians have trouble differentiating between what the Bible terms the “old man” and what the Bible terms the “flesh”. These two are often confused, because mortification and death are related to both in scripture. But there is a very important distinction to be made between them, and we should understand this distinction before we can effectively mortify. The former is dealt with by God; the latter is dealt with by our collaborating with God.
The “old man” is the root-power of Sin that is legally enthroned in the hearts of all unconverted sons and daughters in the race of Adam. The “old man” came into the world when Adam disobeyed God, and through his invasion, death came and spread to all of Adam's progeny. The indwelling “old man” freely opens the doors of unconverted hearts to embrace the lusts of the flesh without any compunction or regard for God; he is the reason the whole world lays in wickedness and ruin and is under condemnation. Under God's law, unregenerate men are held responsible for not restraining him. But whereas the law could only temporarily restrain him, Jesus Christ came to set the captives free by taking the "old man" down to death with him in crucifixion. When He said, “It is finished”, he was telling the world that the tyrannical reign of the “old man” was finally over. Men’s hearts could now be set free from the power of Indwelling Sin by faith in the Son of God’s accomplishment on the cross. This dethronement becomes manifest in us at conversion when God installs a “new man” to occupy the deceased resident’s place. Unlike the “old man”, this “new man” wants to keep the doors of our hearts closed to evil, and obey God with absolute resolve. But, alas he has a threefold implacable nemesis with which he is locked in perpetually violent warfare: the world-system, the flesh and the devil.
The “flesh” was not destroyed on the cross, nor was Satan and the powers of hell annihilated, nor was the world-system renewed. The flesh does not vacate the believer at conversion; it remains the same. The flesh is allied to all carnal temptation: it is allied to and governed by the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, to greed, to self-gratification and personal ambition, to angry outbursts, to fault-finding and religious hypocrisy, et cetera. All these temptations spur the flesh on to fulfill these devilish affections and lusts in our members. God instructs us to deal with the flesh by way of mortification through the power of the Holy Spirit. If we walk in the Spirit, Paul says, we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. It is of utmost importance then to see what Paul meant by “walking in the Spirit.” How is this accomplished? The effectual, holy power of mortification rests upon our very understanding and fulfillment of this term.
I’ll pause here. Are there any thoughts or testimonies? My prayer is that this discourse will be a blessing to those seeking total victory in Christ Jesus. I pray it changes lives as it has changed mine.
Your brother,
Paul
im alittle confussed ,,about when pual said
put of the old man and it deeds ,and put on the new man which is renewed according to him who created ,,,,,,,somthing like that
whay is paul saying this ,,if the old man is crusafied with and died with christ
paul is talking to christans is he not
can this old man become resarected by feeding the flesh
yea just a little confused ,,but i understand what you are saying ,,,,,,,,that verse just cam to mind ,and im trying to reconcile the two
blessings
Dear Gary,
Well, you've asked a great question, and one that is controversial among different theologians. When God does something, He does with finality. When Jesus said, "it is finished" (John 19:30), I take that to mean just what He said. The old man was killed as thoroughly and decisively as Jesus was. When a man dies of a disease, everything inside of his body - including the disease - goes into the grave and dies too. Ashes to ashes.
The same way the "new man" can't possibly live in an unregenerated person, the "old man" can't possibly indwell a regenerated person. If he did, that person wouldn't be a Christian any longer -- which is a whole other subject, and one we will not get into here :)
In Col. 3:9,10 Paul is reminding Christians that "since" (or "seeing that" KJV) they have put off the old man (reinforcing the immutable fact of the old man's death) and put on the "new man", that they should also "put off" anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, evil communication, lying (v.8). Note that these sins are not being brought forth due to the old man, because, as we've already seen, he is gone. If you backtrack a few verses to verse 5, you read this:
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth..."
Paul here is exhorting the believers in Colossae to mortify their flesh so that the horrid fruit of sin will not again become manifest in their bodies. The flesh is allied and aroused by sinful temptations, and we need to keep them out of our members via mortification. He says for the Colossians to mortify "therefore"; the "therefore" takes us even further back to verses 1-3 of the same chapter: Ye are risen with Christ (in the new man) because ye are dead (concerning the old man). By virtue of the new man which is renewed and connected to God in Christ, Paul exhorts the believers to MORTIFY their flesh through the faith of the operation of God, namely:
"In (Christ) ye are circumsised...in putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ" (v.11).
Hope this helps brother.
thanks
Could it not be said PaulW that what Paul was talking about was stating the facts that we are certainly dead, that is a fact, however the process to which we come into that death is to mortify the deeds of the body?
The reason why I say this is based upon this verse,
Hebrews 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
The latter part which says, "Although the works were finished from the foundation of the world".
The works were finished back there before Christ came, and when He did come He says,
Hebrews 10:9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
I hope your getting what I am trying to convey.
As far as God is concerned the works are done. It's like when God would speak through a prophet when they prophesied, as far as God is concerned what was spoken is already done, even though we don't see it materialize as far as God is concerned it's done.
Abraham seeing the promises but didn't receive them, yet He considered what was promised to Him to be a done deal, now all that was needed for it to manifest. As it written Gal4:4
Likewise, though we are dead the fullness of that death in us has not yet materialized or we have not yet realized or reckoned until we have mortified the deeds of the body. As far as God is concerned we are dead based upon the fact that Christ died.
Now does that make any sense? And do you see where I am coming from?
Could it not be said PaulW that what Paul was talking about was stating the facts that we are certainly dead, that is a fact, however the process to which we come into that death is to mortify the deeds of the body?
Likewise, though we are dead the fullness of that death in us has not yet materialized or we have not yet realized or reckoned until we have mortified the deeds of the body. As far as God is concerned we are dead based upon the fact that Christ died.
But we never "felt" ourselves dead, because the unmortified lusts of the flesh still ruled us. So someone had to teach us from the Word of God about mortification and how to actually "materialize" as you say, on this positional death. The order is this: God purifies our heart by faith (we'll talk about this more in detail a bit later on), and then He teaches us by way of mortification how to maintain the purity He established. The more you mortify, the stronger you become in the "inner man" and the more light on scripture is given to you, along with abundant grace to overcome Satan and the lusts of the flesh at every turn. This is how we partake of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in this world through lust (II Peter 1:4).
The realm of holy mortification in Christianity is an area which is conspicuously silent in the pulpits, because of what it involves and what it demands. It is not a popular subject because flesh-resistance is widely considered legalistic in contemporary Christianity, and also because so very few believers have actually understood and entered into the true experience. But to those who have been brought to the place of relinquishing all they are and all they have at the feet of Jesus Christ, it is a quiet, hidden death that begets a life of power and victory. This I write so that you also might live this most blessed life by dying that death.
If you would be an ambassador of Christ to the world around you, make it your life’s holy ambition to mortify by the Spirit the faintest trace of any unchristlikeness found in your members as soon as God graciously shines His light upon it. Covet His ruthlessness in revealing any risings of the flesh against the inner man of your heart. Die to your flesh’s nature, accept the pain as high honor, suffer temporarily in the flesh and thus cease from sin. Your Heavenly Father will reward you openly for that which you give in private. He will establish your heart in righteousness. Give unto Him therefore truth in the inward parts by denying your flesh to rebel. Offer up to Him spiritual sacrifices in Christ, and His honor and pleasure will be upon your life.
I think more light is needed Brother on this subject. Not for the sake of knowledge but the practicality of it.
It must boil down to choices that we make.
I remember years ago when I was working at night my employer would come in late night and I personally thought that she would be better off if she left me to my work and she staid in bed. Well, one of those nights as I was taking things out of the oven, she came through the door and at that moment I burnt myself and I can see it all now, it was if it was all planned by God for this moment to teach me a lesson about dying to self. At that moment when I burnt myself and then I heard her come in I was irked that she came in and the Holy Spirit spoke to me in that instant, you have two choices, you can either say nothing or go with the flesh. Well, I went with the flesh and I swore and I wanted her to hear it because she was a strict religious person and I knew she hated that word.
Well, do you know what happened after that? For the next 6 months my tongue needed a good cleaning, I swore left right and centre in everything that I conversed myself in until I got so sick of myself that I buried myself in repentance.
I chose the flesh, and I reaped corruption.
Is this anywhere that your getting at Brother?
i think many people would call strick mortafication ,legalism ,,what do you all think
I think more light is needed Brother on this subject. Not for the sake of knowledge but the practicality of it.
My 9 month-old daughter likes to be held and walked in the evenings so she can fall asleep. Well, it was my turn to walk her, and I had had a long day, and I wasn't feeling very well. I went into the bedroom with her in my arms and layed down on the bed. Naturally, she started crying.
Now, let me pause here.
The Lord had told me not to lay down. My wife was very tired too, and the baby crying would frustrate her. She would have to soothe her and then rock her to sleep and that wouldn't be fair. She had taken care of the baby all day long, and now it was daddy's turn to put her to sleep. But daddy was selfish and was thinking only of himself. Daddy wasn't walking in the Spirit; he hadn't spent time with God in the Word, renewing his mind, and when a selfish impulse rose up, he was unable ask God for the grace to overcome and put others above himself.
So, I layed down, and disobeyed the light God had given me in my conscience. As result, the baby cried and my wife got upset with me. Angry words were exchanged back and forth, and I defiled myself. My peace was gone. I was suddenly defeated. It happened so fast, like a bomb.
When we fail to mortify at the inception of a selfish impulse, it sets off an unraveling that eventually ends in a full manifestation of flesh. It's just a matter of time before we fall. If our minds are not being renewed through the Word of God, if we are not being daily strengthened with might in the inner man, and if we are not feeding our new man with Spirit-led prayer, we will spare a little rising of "self" and get blindsided. It may seem innocuous at first - a simple laying down with your daughter in your arms - but sin is lurking. Flesh is like a powder keg, and one act of hidden disobedience is like a spark. Once the fuse is lit, our conscience is defiled and an explosion of flesh is just a matter of time. This is why we mortify: the man who follows Christ must deny himself daily, as he walks in Spirit he tosses wet blankets upon the flesh.
Is this anywhere that your getting at Brother?
Brother Paul
hi, i think that the word teaches us that we have two lives and when we present ourselves as a living sacrifice we put one to death and live in the flesh which is dead and walk in the spirit which is alive...our spiritual lives are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and the sin we commit is payed for in the flesh.pauls disobedience did not loose his standing with Christ but it hurt his standing with his wife.be sure your sins will find you out. if a glutton eats and eats and grows to 370 he will have hip,knee and ankle problems and heart problems likely.when a drunk goes back to drink ,his life becomes an awful mess of poverty,sadness and family ills etc. as we mortify our members we become happier and our lives become more productive but we do not gain anything with God for that was taken care of by Jesus on the cross,once and for all.jimp
may I suggest this as reading material on the subject
Straight to the point and sound for doctrine
should be mandatory reading for every true believer
Mortification by John Owen
Amen, it was actually Owen's great work on Mortification that began this thread. It's a wonderful treatise.
Interesting then how the thread has drifted so far from the content of his writings.
Leaves one with the feeling of a "Ah but" moment
hi ro,you were not here when this started and in sem. and bible col. we always enjoyed rabbit trails.
The purpose of John Owen's treatise in this thread was to kickstart a conversation on the practicality of mortification - which it did nicely in my opinion. I, for one, have been super blessed, and I hope others have!
Paul
"Interesting then how the thread has drifted so far from the content of his writings."
I hope your joking, this thread has done amazing well in explaining mortification, I appreciate PaulW taking the time to express it and giving examples through his own personal life and reminding me a subject that I had forgotten about and now brought it back to life in my life.
dear paul, thank you for your great contribution and time. re reading mikes and rons posts withyours was heaven to me.jimp
Have you ever been to a home where the owner is a dog or cat lover? Some people "love" their animals so much, they let them overrun the house and do whatever they want. I'm sure you've seen it. The dog sleeps in his master's bed, sits on the couch, eats from the table. The dog has become the master, though the owner would never admit it. The animal growls at guests with no correction from his master. The house is full of dog-hair, the odor of dog, stains all over the carpet, the corners of the walls and the sides of the furniture are chewed-up, etc.
I saw this as a pretty accurate picture of the carnal flesh nature ruling our hearts in our unconverted state. The "old man" lets the dog - the lusts of the flesh - come into the heart and rule. He loves the dog; he loves the filthy, unmuzzled sin nature and makes excuse after excuse for keeping the dog in his bed each night, on the couch, eating from the table, dirtying the floor, et cetera.
When a man gets born again, God evicts the old "dog-lover" from the filthy house, and He throws the dog out. The home is made clean. He puts a "new man" in the new home, and this man is not a dog-lover. He wants to keep the place pure; he is neat and tidy and sanitary. The dog is still outside, however, barking day and night to be let back into his old home.
Now, this dog is utterly disobedient and cannot be re-trained. He must be beaten into submission and muzzled every day. Temptations, as we know them, are enticements from the powers of darkness to "stir" this dog up once he is laid low and crucified to the kennel. Temptations are the bloody steaks Satan waves at him to get him howling for the lusts of the flesh, for lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
This frenzied pitbull is ever with us daily, tethered to a stake outside the house of our heart. The "new man" is inside the home and watching the picket gate that surrounds the house. The gate is the entry point of the mind, ears, and eyes by which the rulers of this world attempt to throw steaks into the yard to arouse the tethered dog. If the dog snaps the chain, he can break into the house and cause a stronghold.
The integrity of the chain that holds the dog is directly proportionate to the amount of grace the "new man" receives from God. The "new man" cannot prevent visitors from bringing meat to the gate; but once thrown into yard, he can take each steak "captive" to the obedience of God, the Landlord who built the house and the chain. When the meat is captured, the dog is denied power, and the Landlord's law of Grace once again overpowers the law of Dog and Steak.
Thoughts? There is scripture threaded throughout this entire parable, but I figure most of you are already familiar with all the verses.
Brother Paul
Arf!! Arf and Amen brother! You have captured the essence of the carnal nature vs the spiritual nature. You would think we would kick the dog out when we recognize his mission. Grateful for the post.Blessings
dear evangelastic, don't you think you are stretching it a bit.lol
"There is scripture threaded throughout this entire parable, but I figure most of you are already familiar with all the verses."
Not so brother, many may know of those verses but not know the understanding that is contained in them. Like the Pharisees they knew the law, but they didn't now anything about the righteousness that was contained in it. (They may have known it, but they didn't practise it).
So if you have more understanding on the subject in these other verses brother, don't be discouraged because there might be a splinter that disrupts the flow of what your conveying, keep up your diligence for many who are not members on here are reading and learning and growing thereby.
don't be discouraged because there might be a splinter that disrupts the flow of what your conveying, keep up your diligence for many who are not members on here are reading and learning and growing thereby.
Believers need simple, practical instruction. This is how Jesus taught the divine things of His Father's Kingdom, by using parables and down-to-earth illustrations and simple practicality. The world has enough tomes of books filled with verbose theology. There is much to be gleaned from men like Owen and Sibbes, but not all believers can daily stomach such rich and thick meal, and even those who can are not necessarily transformed by reading them. Many "Puritanheads" I know of are yet defeated by sin and love to debate on the internet. What good is devouring John Owen or Spurgeon or Pink if their writings won't help you get victory over anger or lusting with your eyes?
My goal is to present deep, life-transforming truth in way that a 12 year-old can comprehend and put into practice and reap the immediate benefits. If a 12 year-old can understand mortification, anyone can. May God give me more grace to humbly present these living Bible truths to the world, and to preach them through a pure heart by a daily walk of hidden death in Christ.
Brother,
The parable increased my understanding of temptation and the flesh. The other day on my walk with the Lord I was approached by two growling and barking dogs. God gave me the Grace to walk by them without fear. I believe the dogs could sense the unseen, that I was unafraid of them, and that God was dwelling inside me as I walked. Today on my walk I was meditating on a verse from Revelation that says:
"And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass"(Revelation 21:21, ESV).
I believe that a saint walking in transparency has more eternal value than gold. This what I believe the Spirit is teaching me about this verse. Perhaps this relates to the mortification of sin in some way. On my walk today the Lord was saying to me that light shines brighter inside a saint walking in transparency, than a Saint who is hiding a besetting sin. I pray God continues to teach us all. God Bless you Brother Paul and everyone who reads these words. May the peace of Jesus reign in our hearts.
-Travis
Loved the parable, Paul. It is a fitting and apt description of man vs the flesh.
QUOTE:
"Believers need simple, practical instruction. This is how Jesus taught the divine things of His Father's Kingdom, by using parables and down-to-earth illustrations and simple practicality. The world has enough tomes of books filled with verbose theology."
AMEN!
One thing I have noticed about the OT prophets, Jesus' teachings is how brief and to the point they were in their teaching/preaching. There was no hair splitting and wrangling with words that left a person wondering what on earth they are talking about. Since God, through the Holy Spirit, is the author we need to take lessons, I think.
BTW, did you apologized to your wife for ruining her sleep with a fussy child? Raising children has within it the tools God uses to expose our flesh in its raw, true form....Yes, been there done that. Now it is the body that is failing to obey our wishes. SIGH Always something...Sure would be nice if the flesh would be killed once and for all time - reckon that is why we need tests, trials and afflictions - to expose our hidden sins.
Love the thread, Paul...
I believe that a saint walking in transparency has more eternal value than gold. This what I believe the Spirit is teaching me about this verse. Perhaps this relates to the mortification of sin in some way. On my walk today the Lord was saying to me that light shines brighter inside a saint walking in transparency, than a Saint who is hiding a besetting sin.
Amen. The "transparency" you speak of is of an undefiled conscience and pure heart. Walking in a state of repentence and mortification ensures such transparency, because both are predicated upon "honesty" - the one thing God values above all else in His saints.
It doesn't matter how many times you've failed or made a mess of your life; if you can this day accept sole responsibility for your sins, wholly take the blame, and say "I am the man" with brokeness and sorrow over your yet unmoritified passions, I tell you, there is no limit to what God will do in your life. Just be honest with Him, be utterly transparent. Own your sin, bewail your failure, cry out for God to make you more like Jesus Christ. I started down this path about two years ago. I resolved to make it continually my heartcry and be ruthlessly honest with God about my depravity.
Well, things got a lot worse before they got better. The Lord brought a firestorm of trials and temptations into my life, and they began to peel off all the layers of "holiness" and "security" I had been clinging to. I was brought to utter ruin and despair. I told God it was impossible, the Christian life was totally impossible and I had had enough. For refuge, I turned back to the onions of Egypt, if only to get my mind off God and my indefatigible wretchedness. Sinning just made it worse, for as a wise Puritan once said, "Satan's apples all have worms in them".
God's Spirit was on me like a bloodhound. I can't tell you how many times I cried myself to sleep as I lay next to my wife and children late at night. My life was beyond wretched and I was a perfect failure. Truth be told, I had suicidal notions at night; the powers of darkness took advantage of my situation and had started injecting these types of thoughts in my head.
When it became clear that God was not going to forsake me, grace to renew the cry for victory and purity suddenly came. Some months after this renewal of hope, the Lord delivered me from all the strongholds, cleansed me completely, baptized me in Holy Spirit and gave me the authority to minister this truth unto others with the same comfort the Lord had given for my deliverance. Most importantly, He showed me how to maintain the purity of heart and conscience by the act of holy mortification. This is His blessed order: God delivers, cleanses, fills with the Spirit, and then teaches you how to stay clean. One thing God showed me is that it is better to keep a clean home clean, than it is to always have to clean up a dirty home. Mortification in the Holy Spirit by the blood of Christ is the daily maintainance that keeps a clean home clean.
Mortification is going to the throne of grace each minute of every hour of the day to fetch power from God to put to death the unchristlike deeds of the body and take captive the unchristlike thoughts of the mind. God's will for us is perfect victory in these areas, all day every day. But He has made provision that if we fail, we have the immediate power of the cleansing blood of Christ that operates by true repentance and faith - by being totally honest with God concerning our woeful estate. In a moment, you can be restored and put back on the pathway of victory and led into deeper battles of mortification. The house need never get trashed; it can be cleansed instantly, as soon as a fingerprint smudge appears on a window.
Brother Paul
Paul West,
I so appreciate This .
The Lord SO Bless you and your continued Knowledge of Him.
Elizabeth
Brother Paul,
I understood what you wrote.
The Lord is helping me.
I am a sinner
but the Lord continues
to sanctify me.
Amazing Grace!
Praise God!
May the Truth shine in all our souls.
-Travis
Quote When a man gets born again, God evicts the old "dog-lover" from the filthy house, and He throws the dog out. The home is made clean. He puts a "new man" in the new home, and this man is not a dog-lover. He wants to keep the place pure; he is neat and tidy and sanitary. The dog is still outside, however, barking day and night to be let back into his old home.
This frenzied pitbull is ever with us daily, tethered to a stake outside the house of our heart. The "new man" is inside the home and watching the picket gate that surrounds the house.
----------------------------
What your saying that there is no sin in his heart after conversion?
If this so I cannot believe it, because it is contrary to the word. Paul the Apostle says in 1Cor 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Understand this nothing outside a man can makes him "unclean" Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him "unclean” For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man "unclean." Mark 7:14-23
James in Chapter 3 is talking to Brethren (Believers) he starts of talking about the tongue but as we read on he narrows it down and asks a question, does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? No a spring does not set forth bitter water or fresh water. If the Spring is bitter it will send forth bitter water, if the spring is fresh it will send forth fresh. The spring represents men’s heart men whom James calls brethren meaning that they are Christains…..
James 3:14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. Remember he is talking to Brethren…
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there Jam 3:16 If there is any selfishness in you where you put yourself first then there is also every evil thing in your heart, and remember that he is talking to Brethren
Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? James 4:1 He is asking the question to Brethren…
The Desire for pleasure that war “in our members” do these desires come from the body or from the heart. In the next verse we are given a clue.
You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain James 4:2
What did Jesus say these evils come from “within men’s hearts” and make a man "unclean." this also is what James is saying to us that out of the heart of these “believers” came Lust, and Murder it is there hearts after conversion and this is what Paul tells us we need to be cleansed from. 1Cor 7:1
If the believer's heart can become like a spring of bitter water (as you quote from James), it is because a stronghold has been established and the stronghold's root is bringing forth its corrupt fruit, and not because of sin just springing up intrinsically. That said, all the scriptures you've provided, including Jesus' explanation in Mark's gospel, deal either with the unconverted heart under the Old Covenant, or with the cleansed heart in the New Covenant becoming defiled by not dealing with the flesh through the Holy Spirit.
There is nothing in the regenerate heart of a believer that produces sin; the "old man" Adamic geyser of corruption was slain with Christ on Calvary. But the flesh still lives. The flesh is allied to the Satanic temptations of the world's system and the powers of darkness that still rule the air. They cater powerfully to our flesh nature, even after conversion. These outside defilements entice the flesh through the ungirded mind, and ultimately aim to establish a root in the heart. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus enables us to pull down these strongholds before they can reach the heart to corrupt it.
Satan goes through the ungirded and unrenewed mind with the goal to subvert and defile the heart which God has cleansed and occupied. By not taking every thought captive, and looking consistently unto Jesus, a stronghold can be formed through a "chink in the armor" and, as result, a believer can once again find his or herself fashioned to and enslaved by a former lust.
The process is perhaps best described in James 1:14-15. The context is temptation. Notice the progression if temptation is not immediately mortified at the entry level: "But every man is tempted (in his mind), when he is drawn away of his own lust (the flesh embracing the temptation) and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived (in the womb of the heart) it bringeth forth sin (the fruit of the conception), and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (the consequential judgment)." James 1:14,15.
In the Old Covenant, the evil was inside the heart, working its way out through the flesh. God gave the law on stone and the blood of beasts to punish and cover. In the New Covenant, the evil is outside the heart, working its way back in through the flesh. God gave us grace in the Spirit and the blood of Christ to overcome and cleanse.
Brother Paul
Some believers have a hard time reconciling Romans 6:6 with Ephesians 4:22. Different theological systems say different things about the state of the "old man". Is he conclusively dead? Can he revive? When I sin, has he come down from the cross, as it were? For many, the supposed "slain" finality of the old man in Romans 6:6 clashes with Paul's exhortation when he tells believers to "put off" the old man in Ephesians 4:22. Can these two verses be settled in the sphere of mortification?
Yes! The key is found in the faith of "reckoning". Allow me to explain it in a simple way:
Imagine you live in poverty. Your clothes are tattered, the rent is overdue, the phone is disconnected. Your children are sick and hungry, and you have no money to purchase medicine or food. Your life is in shambles. Yet hanging on the wall in the entry way of your apartment is a very peculiar framed letter.
It's a promissory note written by a King who lived thousands of years ago. It's been in your possession for years. The note says that anyone who can dare believe it - that is, anyone at all who reads the letter - can take the letter at its face value and claim unlimited funds in the Name of the King. It was given to you as a gift, sort of like a "Home Sweet Home" novelty. Hence, a decoration is all you see it to be. Very few people, however, have discovered that this letter is no mere decorative platitude: It is an absolutely true promise.
This is the fact that is layed out in Romans 6:6: The Ancient King's power is there, the wealth of grace is there, the funds to mortify and overcome sin in your life are there. This fact was settled long ago before you were born. It has nothing to do with whether or not you believe the promise to be true. The reality of it is conclusive.
You have yet to realize this, however, and therefore you daily live in abject poverty and defeat. Something is missing to appropriate the promise. This something is the "reckoning" of the King's power to be, in fact, totally applicable and available for you. Ephesians 4:22 encourages us to "put off" our present state of defeat and our hopeless mindsets of squalor and depression, and "reckon" (i.e "put on") the reality of that promissory note.
Desperate people go to desperate lengths. For many, the poverty of defeat must become so great that they'll do something as foolish as actually believe a bronze age King's fable in this technologically-advanced and vastly superior 21st century. As long as we can manage our own affairs and get by, the note will stay framed on the wall as a flowery nicety. The King's funds will go untapped.
I can tell you dear brothers and sisters: it's real. God uses weak and foolish things, and He reveals the power of those weak and foolish things unto babes who can believe. The smart and strong labor in the streams of strife and pan a wage of fool's gold. The babe crawls to the King's ocean of grace in time of need and all the treasures brought forth from it are of pure gold.
Don't be led astray by seeming inconsistencies in God's Word. The "old man" has been crucified in Christ if you are truly converted; all things, including your heart, have been made new. Knowing this blessed truth is the doorway to the antechamber of reckoning. What remains is a daily walk by faith of reckoning ourselves dead to sin, and alive unto God. God's Spirit dwells in you, the Spirit of the King. His very life and power will equip you with grace to mortify and repel Satan's influence over your flesh and mind. With such rich grace indwelling you and such divine power, never again do you have to live in the habitual poverty of defeat.
We can pay every bill on time when we are tempted. Reckon the King's funds ever abundant to meet the need and vanquish every bill-collector when the flesh rises to impoverish. Never again need we be evicted from the domicile of the joy of the Lord.
Brother Paul
At the funeral home where I work, we sell two types of caskets: the sealers and the non-sealers. The “sealers” have a rubber gasket along the length of the lid that is designed keep the casket air-tight when closed. The “non-sealers” have no gasket at all. The gasket works by suction, by metal suctioning against rubber. Think of a refrigerator door closing, the swoop and “seal" sound. The purpose of the gasket is twofold: to keep what’s inside to stay inside, and what’s outside to stay outside.
We have windows and doors and walls in our homes for the same purpose of keeping the outside elements from invading. If we find our home is becoming infested with roaches or mice, for example, most of us will want to investigate where and how they are getting in. Basic wisdom dictates blocking the entry point and then killing whatever pests are in the house. When you see a line of ants marching along the floor, you can always trace the pathway back to some breach in a window pane, or beneath a door or through some crack in a wall.
Llkewise, if we are yielding our members to sin and being continually defeated by the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, we should see this as an infestation. And because it is an infestation, trying to kill the sin is pointless if we do not first deal with the breach by which it is entering the heart.
Some people think that the bugs originate from inside the house, from somewhere within the dark recesses of the cellar or attic. This is an extremely perplexing situation, as the only defense for an invasion is to just spray and squash whenever a sighting occurs. This was all the Old Testament law could do: when you saw a roach, you sprayed it dead. Another roach may appear tomorrow beneath a bathroom sink. Squash it. But don’t worry about trying to find out where all the roaches are coming from. They are everywhere, and you'll just have to live with them. As long as they stay beneath the flooring and drywall, count it all victory!
This is sad error. The roaches are actually coming in from the outside and laying their eggs inside the house. The termites enter in from the outside and are drawn to wood. The ants march in from the outside and invade for food. In the Texas Hill Country where I live, scorpions come into our home during the months of September and October. Don't ask me why.
A rat does not suddenly molecularize out of thin air and appear on the bathroom floor. This only happens in a state of delusion, in a fantasy world, when a person hallucinates. Many believers actually have a hallucinatory idea of sin and the new heart. If rats are spontaneously appearing in someone’s home, what possible defense could there be for the homeowners except for the Old Covenant extermination law?
Thankfully, all the pests are outdoors, the heart is indwelt by the spirit’s new man, and the armor of God is in place to shield the heart by faith. Under the blood of the New Covenant, allow the Lord to instruct you in the ways of mortification. He has given us the Holy Spirit as a type of sin-exterminator. He renews our mind so it can work as sealing gasket for the treasury of the new heart.
When a dirty thought suddenly scurries across your mind like a cockroach, the first thing to do is understand that this filthy bug is on the outside, trying to get in. At once, by faith in the operation of the Holy Spirit, set a defense by closing the gasket of your mind’s door. Permit it no entrance to lay eggs that will eventually hatch into strongholds. Do you see an attractive woman and are tempted to look at her in lust? This is a scorpion on your doorstep. Keep the door sealed, resist the devil, suffer temporarily in the flesh. You will find that when you look at the door again, it will be gone. You will have ceased from sin and won the victory. Are you tempted to assert yourself, to argue your rights, to criticize and accuse other people? These are the thought-whispering termites of Satan, seeking to devour and nest in the wood of your flesh. Allow them no carnal accommodation; gird-up the gasket of your mind. Protect your home.
Satan prowls outside the doors of new homes, looking for weaknesses in the structure, and waiting for opportunities to barge in through the front door like a roaring lion, or sneak in through a crack in the wall like a roach. Maintain therefore golden thoughts, iron doors of mortification. Go boldly to throne of grace in time of need to obtain flesh-mortifying power. The sanctifying blood of Jesus Christ grants us such a triumphant privilege!
Brother Paul
nice figure of speach paul
we need to resist the inisial evil impulse ,as if it is the devil him self,,,,and never intertain the slitest insect of a lustfull thounght or the eggs will be laid
and will always hatch and breed more lustsects or pride sects ,,these filthy insects ,,must be stoped at the scorce,, if we are to move towds victory ,.and the perfect manmature man so to speak
we must stop them before they breed as the holy spirit shows us whare they are hiding in the deep reseces of our heart ,,other wise we will be like a cat chasing its tail ,,we will only have a fasle scence of victory ,if any scence at all
oh i prasie god for his conviction
Did you know there are two types of suffering in the world? One type takes place "in" the flesh, where we cease from sin; the other takes place "because" of the flesh, when we experience the soulful sorrow of the world on account of failing to mortify flesh. When our flesh stirs on account of pride, greed or some other form of selfish evil, we find ourselves facing a fork in the road. Both paths lead to suffering. We can choose to suffer in the flesh as Christ suffered and deny ourselves, or we can go the way of the heathen and suffer as they suffer.
I felt my flesh begin to "buck up" today when a decision I made was questioned by another funeral director. A judgment of mine was challenged. Immediately, the rulers of darkness went to work and shot a flaming missile into my mind: "Tom shouldn't question your judgment. He treats you like an amateur. Stand up for yourself and prove him wrong!"
The flesh really bucked at this, and so I countered him. He countered back. Then suddenly, light came. "What are you doing?" the voice of the inner man said. "Just die to this. Suffer in the flesh." I suddenly knew I was doing something Jesus Christ would have never done: asserting himself to be right for the sake of propelling his ego. Light came, and I immediately conceded and brought the rogue thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Then the pain entered as I suffered in the flesh for the sake of righteousness and holiness.
It felt like I was holding a rabid dog by the throat against the ground. After a few moments, however, it was all over. It lay mortified, silent, the life snuffed out as it vanished. Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters: This is the warfare which engenders the sin-quenching victory God gives us in the Spirit. The Spirit-led power to mortify is our birthright in Christ.
May the Lord grant us the power to immediately mortify flesh. The more mature a man grows in Christ, the quicker and more precise he is in the art of mortification. The more agile he is with the sword of the Spirit, the quicker he is able to put the dog down. As soon as he snarls, he's put down to the ground and run through with the blade.
With the flaming missle quenched, the familiar peace of God returned and flooded my being. The joy of the Lord once again became my strength.
The next time you face a fork in the road, choose the correct path of suffering and cease from sin. Determine in your spirit to have the mind of Christ all throughout the day; extinguish all flaming darts. If we are careful to judge ourselves in the light of God's will for our sanctification, He will alert us when the enemy is nigh.
Bump
It really is startling how many illustrations and spiritual parallels one can find with the things of God and mortuary science and thanatochemistry. God has often given me the most wonderful revelations on scripture while embalming. My profession certainly affords me a wholly unique slant on certain aspects of God's school.
For instance, as embalmers, we look for good fluid distribution and diffusion as we replace the blood from the vascular system with a chemical that acts as a preservative to the tissue. This can be noted by the color of the skin and the texture. A good embalmer can instantly tell which appendages are getting fluid and which are not. If the right leg, for example, is not getting fluid or draining properly, it is probably due to a block somewhere in the illiac region or above.
We'll know if an area is not getting fluid or adequate drainage when it begins to look differently from the rest of the body and the texture of the skin is different. Something - most likely a blood clot - is impeding the rate of flow. The embalmer's job is now to discover where the blockage is occuring, raise the artery past the block, and continue injecting from that point on to ameliorate any swelling.
I've found in my own walk with Christ Jesus, certain "blocks" in my spirit that have come about from failing to mortify flesh. Unmortified flesh resists the spirit (the preservation agent) and causes the entire procedure (if we may call the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit such) to come to a temporary standstill until we discover and remove the block. Once the "block" is removed, the fluid (Spirit) can continue through the vessel on its path of preservation.
Embalming fluid sometimes contains hydrating agents called "humectants" which act in restoring fluid to emaciated tissue for the purpose of rendering a "healthy" appearance to the deceased. Some humectants come with a built-in dye to restore a pinkish color to the skin as they replenish. Here I think of the restorative power of Christ's blood (the red dye) and the Spirit's grace which flows like a river (the hydrating agent).
We often use another chemical, called an "arterial modifier", to reduce blood viscosity and bust up clots, in conjuction with the formaldehyde. This aids in draining interstitial fluid and congealed blood from the body and preventing clots from forming in the veins. A "modifier" has no preserving quality of its own; it only facilitates movement. I see prayer and Bible study as "spiritual modifiers" - that is, as vehicles through which the Spirit of Preservation and Restoration operates and moves most freely.
I will stop here before becoming too morbid for certain people. As you can see, there are plenty of Christian illustrations to be found within the parameters of mortuary science. If you have read this thread from the beginning, you have probably found that there is a trove of insight and illustration to be gleaned from a study on "putrefaction" (human decomposition) as well.
Brother Paul
The unrenewed mind is the landing strip for the cargo of Satan and the generator of fleshly rebellion in our members. The powers of darkness wage careful attacks with the goal to infiltrate our thoughts and steer our meditation from the loftiness of God in Heaven to the baseness of carnality on earth. Popular preachers are used as tools in the hands of Satan to effectuate this principle: when you hear a minister speak often of physical things such as monetary blessings, houses, automobiles, education, personal ambition, outward beauty, or earthly attainments and/or obtainments in any measure as a focus for prayer or as a result of godliness, he is unknowingly being used by Satan to stir flesh against spirit.
God has given discernment to His children for the purpose of knowing what they are to mortify and what they are to embrace. If a thought or impulse surfaces in your mind that causes you, even momentarily, to fixate on a personal gain to improve or facilitate your sojourning here on this cursed earth, the believer must identify the thought as rogue and subject it to instant mortification. If we allow a reprieve, the flesh will rise and persuasively advocate the thought’s cause. Suddenly it is not so easy to banish the impulse to the obedience to Christ, as it would have been had we immediately executed it at inception.
Bring this principle now to the sleek tarmac of our eyes. Many men fight a war with the temptation to lust with their eyes. If the mind has not been renewed in Christ, the inciteful image will be unloaded from the eyeport and brought into the mind for processing. Once in the mind, the image will summon the flesh for advocacy. A war then ensues, with the new man struggling to keep the new heart closed off to the impending sabotage.
If the spirit of the mind has not been renewed, and the inner man not strengthened with grace by the Holy Spirit, a stronghold can be formed. A stronghold is a fortress buttressed by unmortified flesh rising to defend a flaming missle from Satan. The Ephesian armor of chapter 6 speaks of the helmet of salvation, of a quenching shield, of a breastplate of righteousness. A revelatory understanding of Satanic warfare, and how the rulers of darkness seek to infiltrate our vessels via the mind, will shed tremendous light on the putting on of the armor of light. The armor of God is for mortification, for our protection, for keeping spirits of wickedness from invading our thoughts through the tarmac of our senses, and the sword of the Spirit is for countering each fiery dart of suggestion with “it is written” as it pulls it down to into captivity.
If we are careful to be renewed in the spirit of our minds and seek grace to overcome each assault, we can win a steady victory in our mind each day. O dear brothers and sisters, the joy of walking before God with a clean conscience and pure heart is an asset without price, but one we all can partake of without exception, for God is no respecter of persons. Dear saint, are you learning something of the holy art of mortification?
Brother Paul
The way God delivers a believer from sinful habits is quite unorthodox when compared to the logic and ways of man. Man’s way is to grit his teeth and exercise willpower and keep a stiff upper lip in the midst of abstaining from a darling lust. He memorizes mantras of scripture to recite in the heat of battle, and although at the onset he may win a few skirmishes, eventually he caves back into his lust and indulges yet again to his deep chagrin.
In comparison to man’s laborious struggle, God’s way to overcome lust requires no sweating, no fighting to maintain composure, no teeth-gritting or keeping a stiff upper lip in the heat of battle. God’s method of deliverance from sin is as natural as breathing. When a man is walking in the order God has prescribed for victory, triumph over sin is as effortless as an eagle gliding over a canyon, and as totally pervasive as light banishing darkness. This is because the power to mortify flesh is governed by a divine law.
The law that overcomes the power of indwelling sin is called the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ. (Romans 8:2). If you are a born-again believer, you may have walked in the Spirit’s law before, and not even known it. Think back: was there ever a time when you experienced a sudden power, a transcending awareness of God’s ineffable holiness and purity which flooded your being, causing an instant demolition of any stronghold of sin you may have had in your heart? Perhaps it was after a blessed time of prayer, or during an anointed Bible study. Or perhaps it came while singing a hymn in corporate fellowship. You knew you were in the presence of God; His love and purity suddenly saturated your being in a very tangible way and you knew you had been made clean by the blood of Christ and faith.
At that moment no allurement of Satan or the world held any power in your flesh. You were coasting like an eagle over any and all things carnal. No woman’s beauty could dare divert your eyes from the majesty of Christ, and no amount of money or worldly recognition could sway your heart from God’s embrace. You were apprehended of the Spirit of God and tasting but a miniscule portion of what awaits the Redeemed in Jesus Christ in eternity. The thought of sinning against this light, against the Holy Spirit’s glorious grace was utterly abhorrent and unfathomable. In fact, you tried to imagine how you could have ever yielded to temptation before! You must have been blind!
Well, “being blind” is actually not too far off. Walking in the Spirit is akin to “walking in the light” (I John 1:7), and putting on the armor of God is akin to putting on the “armor of light” (Romans 13:12). During those times when you basked in the presence of God and tasted victory, the powers of darkness had no hold upon you. The flesh lay crucified. You had the mind of Christ. Your heart sanctified God. Do you recall gritting your teeth to keep the victory? Do you remember sweating and fighting and desperately reciting scripture mantras? No, because victory at that moment was as effortless as breathing. The love of God in Christ Jesus was shed abroad in your heart like a million suns. The light in the face of Christ automatically banished all things unlike Him. Now, as long as you could just figure out how to maintain this transcendental (because no other word describes it) estate, you would have unlocked the grand secret of abiding!
However, reality soon returns and the eagle begins its descent. You come down from the and sky into the canyon. Shadows – ever so slightly – start creeping in from the corners and elongating. The light fades. Gravity increases its pull. The flesh begins stirring, and here, if not dealt with by the Spirit, it will ominously rise up once yet again to subjugate and strangle and the cycle will have started all over.
Dear Christian, please be not dismayed: the eagle must needs come down for testing, by God’s own decree. Remember that God permitted His own Son to be tested in every point while on earth, as we are (Hebrews 4:15); He allowed His flesh to be assailed and tempted, His mind accosted with the pull of self-preservation. But where the First Adam failed the test, the Second Adam passed with a perfect score. Hallelujah! This Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, is now our test-taking example and our mentor in mortification. And much more than this: He is our very life. The very same resource he availed Himself to pass all tests and anoint His public ministry, His Father poured out also upon His seed at Pentecost.
Enter now flesh mortification by the Holy Spirit. It is God’s will that you and I soar like eagles high above the world, the flesh and all Satanic rule. And after proving this victory, to show other captives how they too can be set free from the power of the law of sin and death. The resource we have is bold access to the “throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), and our ministry is to point others to this blessed place. It is opened to all believers who dare approach it by the blood, by faith, and with bold assurity. The heart must be confident in such an approach, so that we can receive the provision we need (I John 3:21, 22; 5:14, 15). Dear saint, a pure heart is a confident heart, and a confident heart receives the petitons of grace it comes to God for.
When the spirit’s light ebbs low, the flesh takes flight, like a swarm of bats leaving a cave at nightfall. The flesh itself is not sinful, but like the mind and the affections of the soul it has been programmed by years of selfish sensuality and disobedience to God’s law. The flesh therefore must be mortified, and the mind’s contents subjected to the Lordship of Christ by the Spirit of God. It must be renewed, girded-up, fortified and occupied.
Satan's forces are outside the walls of the city, even now, planning a campaign to infiltrate the castle of your new heart and resurrect the flesh to defy God. God’s armor is given to preserve spiritual purity through the withstanding of the powers of hell. It cannot be emphasized how important this is to grasp. Once we understand the strategies of Satan, and how he moves by attacking and invading the mind, we will have discovered a crucial element in our successful resistance of him, through submission to God and having the renewed mind of Christ (James 4:7; Ephesians 4:23; Phillipans 2:5).
- to be continued
Thank you brother Paul. Wonderful encouragement in these writings. Oh what a Lord and Savior we have in Christ Jesus!
David
Dear Christian, have you declared open war on your flesh?
Have you, like the Apostle Paul, been driven to the necessity of a daily crucifixion, a daily putting-off, of a daily mortification? Do you each day enter the gates of death that you might find life?
Can you see the iron gates looming before you? If you profess to follow Christ Jesus, this is where the Spirit always leads. Many imagine God’s Spirit to lead the believer down a flowery, sunlit path of effortless living, of soul-happiness and physical content, without a graveyard in sight. But it’s the broad paths in life that lead to an easing of the flesh. The narrow road leads to a cemetery.
When you pray for God’s will to be done in your life, expect to be tested. Expect for something unpleasant to happen, expect someone to verbally abuse you, to be belittled, expect someone to question your integrity, count on being tempted by the opposite sex, to be at a personal disadvantage, to be inconvenienced, misunderstood, misconstrued, lured by the prospect of making dishonest money, etc. These are divine appointments to provoke the flesh to get you to sin and lose your peace with God. Along these lines you can expect a dreadful manifestation, and you will have a grand opportunity to mortify. At that moment, you will find yourself at a fork in the road.
One part of the fork - the broad path - keeps going on in the direction you were heading, to the venting and appeasement of the flesh. The smaller road takes a sharp detour off the beaten path. If you were walking with the Lord up to this point, this is where Jesus stops and exits. Dear saint, follow Him, as He leads you toward the gates.
At the cemetery gates you can smell the rot. The temptation to look back to the main road is there, for it is never far from the graveyard entrance. Though you can smell the death, on the broad side the sweet smell vibrant life still mingles. You can still hear the sounds coming from the broad road: the laughter, the sensualities, the merrymaking of flesh and exhaltation of self. The roar of Satan’s fiery missiles bombard you mind: “Say something! Defend yourself! Take a second look!”
Dear Christian, the next time you are tested, always remember the gates of death, for this is where the Holy Spirit leads you. Are you enticed to indulge in an impure thought? See the gates of death suddenly loom before you. Have you noticed an attractive person of the opposite sex? Look away and smell the rot, for the Lord is near. Do you see an opportunity to make some money that compromises your godly integrity? Mortify your members and push the squeaky gate forward. The gates of death loom before you. Remember them. Enter them.
As you enter through the gates of death, you lose your flesh life – but gain a new spiritual vibrancy a thousand times over! The gates of death suddenly become the gates of grace. True death, paradoxically, is outside the cemetery, back on the broad highway of unmortified flesh. Within the cemetery, however, there is protection from the powers of hell, from the tormentors, from the entrapments of harlots, charlatans and devils.
- Brother Paul
If we do not understand the totality of the forgiveness, cleansing and subsequent justification afforded us by the blood when we confess our sins, the powers of darkness can easily drag us back down into pits of despair after each failure. Dear saint, do you know the extent of God’s unspeakable love for you as manifested through the blood of His Son?
It is true that such love cannot be comprehended in our mortal, corruptible minds. On clear nights I’ll sometimes gaze up into the immense void and try to think of God’s compassion for human beings. As I stare into the face of the dark universe, I'll often become overwhelmed by my pathetic finiteness, my littleness, my miserable attempts at trying to understand the logic behind the mind and ways of God. To think that the Almighty Creator would manifest Himself upon this miniscule rock in space to atone for our sin is enough to cause tears to flow, but such thoughts only prove to be an antechamber to an even greater profundity that begs my attention: God's amazing love and compassion for sinful men like me.
In the past, I'd often doubted God’s love for me in light of my sin and failure; I doubted the efficacy of power in the blood of Christ to utterly cleanse and restore me to perfection. Because of this, I found that if Satan detects even the slightest doubt in your faith regarding the power of Christ’s blood and the breadth of God's love, he will torment you ruthlessly. He will badger you with ideas of your uselessness to God, of the hopelessness for victory, and of the futility of Christianity. He will make you doubt your birthright and distort the image of God to such a degree as to make Him seem like a hideous tyrant. Ever increasingly will the rulers of darkness be steering your thoughts toward an abandonment of religion. Atheism, at last, is the grand fruit of this pathway, and its course begins at the inception of disbelief in God’s love to the dismissal of Christ’s blood.
Faith in the restorative power of the blood of Christ is absolutely essential to the mortifying saint. This is because there will always be failure while we don this fleshly tabernacle on earth. There will always be surprise outbursts, secret thoughts, hasty words, and tainted motives which escaped immediate captivity to Christ and now require cleansing. We are all in a process of being perfected unto Christ-conformity, and so there will forever be room to repent for things we’ve done and things we haven’t done. This is where an understanding of Christ’s blood is integral for mortification to flourish unto our perfection and growth in grace.
Dear saint, if you sin, do not allow Satan the ability to distort God’s true feelings for you. Realize that, even as you fail, God's love for you still never changes. God’s love for you is more righteous, more just, more compassionate, and infinitely deeper and higher than the purest act of human love can muster in comparison. Hear this, then, and never doubt it: The Lord loves you more deeply than any mother ever loved her child; He has infinitely more compassion for you than the finest example of compassion was ever displayed; He pities you with nurturing gentleness and wills the perfect, absolute good for you at all times.
Remember these true descriptions of God as you mortify flesh. Though He gives you His Spirit of holiness, He yet loves you unchangably and always seeks to restore you to peace and perfection after your most grievous failures. His love, His Spirit woos you back to the holy blood, back to the precious blood of God the Son, to an Immortal Testament of His love for you. Dear saint, God is loving you from within the boundless realms of eternity, through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, His Spirit by the blood indwelling us and inspiring us to immediately confess and repent from each occurring impulse of unchristlikeness conceived in our flesh. From the unapproachable portals of bliss to our flesh-tabernacled spirits on earth, the blood of Christ endlessly flows and pardons and pleads on our behalf, while the Holy Spirit confirms within us our positions of God’s beloved children in Christ. We must minute-by-minute receive by faith this love which extends out to us from the Blessed Abode.
O, dear saint, pray that God open your eyes to this life-transforming truth. Ask Him to show you His love by the blood of Christ. Understand and accept that you are a flesh-tabernacled mortal, called to mortify all unchristlikeness in your thoughts, speech and actions. Learn to walk steadily in the Holy Spirit with your mind renewed in Christ and its affections trained upon His beauty and goodness. Abide each second of the day by faith in the sin-cleansing and peace-restoring blood of Jesus Christ, and let all your mortification be done concurrently in this realm.
Amen!
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