June, Ì942
THE K I NG ' S BUS I NES S
206
Victory —How?
By ARTHUR HEDLEY Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England
Young converts who could not quite understand wTiy David, Paul, and the saints say such humiliating things about themselves do understand, in time. They soon begin to turn to the penitential Psalms of David for com- .fort and hope, and they learn to take upon their hearts and lips the con- • fessions and prayers of the psalmist. Evidence of Mew Life It is in this fact that we recognize our sin and weakness that we can find comfort in our distress. It is the surest guarantee that a c h a n g e of heart has taken place, that we have experienced the new birth. Before. your conversion you did not grieve ' over your sin, because you were really ignorant of the true state of your heart and of the power of sin over you. In our unregerierate state we are v e r y self-righteous,' Regarding our selves quite as good as most Chris tians. From this standpoint, sin to us seems* merely a bad habit which, in our self-deceit, we think we can easily throw off when we want to. Before being saved by Christ, we do not see sin in its relation to God as an act of transgression and rebellion But now, “in Christ” as born-again children of God, we see sin as a wrong committed against a holy and a lov ing God; we see it as something which grieves God, and it is to God we lift up our prayer of penitence: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Psa. 51:4). Before your heart was changed, you
the sin of impurity, among o t h e r sins; therefore says Paul, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holi ness in the fear of God” (2 Cor., 7:1). Made Sensitive to Sin Th? whole Christian life is a pro gressive dying unto sin and living unto righteousness. God makes no man perfectly holy by a miracle of grace. It is not until we begin to live unto God and unto righteousness that we begin to realize how d e e p l y rooted sin is in our life. Even as the saint draws near to the end of life’s journey, he is conscious there is still much within that needs to be de stroyed; still much land remains to be conquered. An old saint who lived until his ninety-third birthday said that he-must often have been swal lowed up by despair because of his sinfulness had it not been for the seventh chapter of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Thank God, the story need never stop at this passage, for chapter 8 follows immediately after ward. The believer is often discouraged and sad when he discovers that sin is still present with him. When he seems to have conquered One sin, he finds himself overcome by another sin. In the hour of defeat and hu miliation, the Christian is sometimes led to question whether there is such a thing as the new birth; he is in clined to doubt w h e t h e r any real change has taken place in his heart.
T N THE EARLY DAYS of our con- _ version, when the heart is glad 1 and light because its burden of guilt is gone; we are almost led to believe that we have conquered Sin, once and for all. But alas, we soon get a, rude awakening, for, in an un guarded moment, we may fall into sin, and we are forcibly reminded of Paul’s warning words, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12.). We all have tP learn by experience that the power of sin is not completely broken in a moment; the “old tnan” with his evil nature is not destroyed in a day; the territory occupied by self and sin is not secured for Christ, for righteous ness, truth, and love at one stroke. We are justified in a moment of time—that moment when by faith we embrace Christ as our Saviour. We are also “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2); we are set apart to live unto God and unto holiness. But the work of sancti fication is a lifelong process, for the old nature in us dies hard. Paul knew this only too well in his own experi ence. There was often Within his heart a conflict between good and evil, the new nature and the old. He could not cast off his old nature as easily as he could discard his outer garments. In all of Paul’s epistles there is the recognition of this fact, that al though his 'converts are new creatures in Christ Jesus, they are still liable to sin, as one may clearly see in read ing Paul’s epistles to the church in Corinth. This church had condoned
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