(Clip) Dead In Sin Or Dead To Sin

Wouldn't you like, I was going down Orange Grove in London some years ago, I was speaking at London Keswick. I saw this swell place and flunkies there in knee breeches, you know, and oh, they looked so nice. Boy, I'm glad I don't have to wear that, I've got such terrible legs, I've got thin, thin legs. If I wore breeches like that I'd be arrested for having no visible means of support. But here was this flunky standing at the door and he had his beautiful velvet coat and a cravat there and his hair, and I stepped back and he says, good afternoon, sir. I said, good afternoon, could I come in there for a second, oh no sir, no sir, no you can't come in here to eat. Well, yes you can, if his lordship the Duke of Westminster brings you or the Duke of Argyll or Lord Tallmash, but you see, well, it was just before the Queen, our Queen got married in England. The Queen was here last Friday night and her sister was here too. They stayed until two, well we closed at two in the morning now, you know like most church prayer meetings close at that time. And, thank you, you can't come in here. Why not? I'm clean, I'm upright, I'm a preacher, I mean, I've never been to jail, but sir, you're not of royal birth, you're not a distinctive aristocrat, you can't come in. Why would you like to come in? I said, I would like to see all the lords and ladies and dukes in society with their sparkling diamonds, and I'd like to get my chair, turn it round, and stand up and raise my voice and say, she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. Oh sir, he said, you'd get thrown out. I said, well that's what I expected. Isn't it offensive to say to people, listen, you may be a genius, you have a colossal intellect, if you fall out of bed you invent something, but do you know right in the sense of you, you're dead, because you've no living relationship with God. Now there are two kinds of people in the world, only two kinds, not black and white, not rich and poor. There are those who are dead in sin, and there are those who are dead to sin. If I say most people are half-saved, do you know what I mean? I mean this, you go to the cross, but you never get on the cross. You go and get your sins forgiven and feel happy, and you go do the same lousy thing again the next day. Come on, what kind of a salvation is that? I heard a famous preacher, and he's an Englishman, terrible, he shouldn't have said that, and he said, you know the Lord, he said, you come here tonight, he'll forgive your sins tonight, he'll forgive your past sins, forgive your sins for today, and he'll forgive your sins for tomorrow. Isn't that nice? Can you imagine a man going up to a judge and the judge says, you've been found guilty of stealing a lady's purse. Did you steal it? Mm-hmm. Oh, you did steal it, yeah, it had a hundred dollars in it. Ever stole any other purse? Yes, I have a record, this is the three hundred and forty-fifth purse that I've stolen. Are you sorry? Yes, I'm sorry. Well, he said, you're forgiven. I forgive you for all the purses you've stolen in the past, all that you've stolen today, and all you're going to steal for the rest of your life. Wouldn't that be wonderfully saying, or insane? You see, the miracle of the new birth is this, that when a man is really born, when he gets this life, he doesn't want that life. Oh, I don't think anybody gives it better than Paul. To wind this up, writing to the Colossians, he says, if ye then be risen with Christ, or as the literal translation is, if you've been raised with Christ, you seek those things which come about. You say to people, are you saved? They say, well, I don't really know. Oh, supposing you're carrying a hundred-pound sack on your back, and you're struggling up a hill, and your knees are going down, and somebody whips the sack off your back, and you get to the top of the hill without the sack, and the man says, hey, have you lost your sack? You say, I don't really know. I kind of figured he'd know when somebody took a hundred pounds off his back. And by the same token, a man knows, because the miracle of the birth isn't some intellectual somersault. Jesus says it is this, that we're dead in trespasses and in sin, and he brings us to life. So now we love the things we didn't like, and we hate the things we used to love. So Paul says, if you're risen with Christ, or you've been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not things on the... Come on, come on, come on, you fellows, now, okay, you're saved. And yet, I guess you talk more about baseball than you talk about Jesus, is that right? In the last week, you've been more interested in the return of Jedi than you are in the return of Jesus. And you've talked to your buddies about it. As far as I'm concerned, the little bits I've seen on TV, they show you'd have to be crazy to go watch it. Set your affection on things which are above, not things underneath, for ye are dead, and your life is head with Christ in God. Can you think of anything more wonderful than that? Here is your life. It's head in Christ, and it's head in God. What are you going to do? Sneak out and drink a bit of the world's junk? Do you know how you need entertainment, or any of us? You only need entertainment when you've lost the joy of the Lord. And when we've no joy, we need entertainment, and when we've entertainment, we've no joy. That went over like a lead balloon, but that's true. Ye are dead, and your life is head with Christ. Now he says if you're risen with him, that deals with the past. You're dead, and your life is head with Christ in God. Not when I die, but even now on this earth, I bid the world goodbye. Not tearfully, but cheerfully. All of its pleasures, its pomp, and its pride. Paul puts it best, as he usually does when he talks in Galatians 5, and he says, from henceforth let nobody trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Weymouth translates that, Weymouth Moffat translates it, I bear in my body the branding. They know a lot about branding around here. You might get to see some cattle branded. And when Paul wrote this, a man who was a slave could run away from his wicked master, his cruel master that nearly took the skin off his back every day, that demanded a full day's work and hardly gave him enough food to last an hour. This man gets away. The first thing he does, he flees to a temple, and there were priests always awake. At least they were always there, maybe not always awake. And the altifiers were burning. And the man runs in breathlessly and wakes the priest and says, brand me, brand me, in the name of which God, and there's different irons to brand him. And the man puts his hand out and closes his eyes, and the branding iron's put on his flesh and it sizzles, and he yells, and then if he's a garment, he's stamped in the back of his neck, and then he lifts his foot up and he's stamped in his instep. And there are other kind of ointments, and leave him there for days until he's able to get out. He goes out, and as he goes down the street, his old master sees him and says to his friend Marcus, there's Aristarchus, go bring him back here. And Aristarchus comes up and his master says, listen, I'm going to take you back and whip you like you've never been whipped before. You're going to carry loads you've never, and he starts telling him what he'll do, and he says, just a minute sir, what do you mean? He says, look, look, look there, and the old master says, I've got no claim on you, I've got no claim on you, you're the possession of a god. And Paul says, listen, I got branded there, at the base of my head, because all my thinking is going to be about Jesus, this man being you which was in Christ Jesus. You think he went to the Olympic games because they had them in his day? You think he fooled around with the material things of the day? His head was branded, his hands, his feet. So a hymn writer says, let my hands perform his bidding, let my feet run in his ways, let my eyes see Jesus only, let my lips speak forth his praise, all for Jesus, all for Jesus. All my being's ransom powers, all my thoughts and words and doings, all my days and all my hours. Listen, are you just a Sunday morning Christian? You live and move and have your being in Jesus Christ every waking moment of your life? Has he got your thinking? Would he be embarrassed to rap to you at some certain point in your life?