ADDRESSES ON ROMANS
I and every believer must reckon on this fact. We are to reckon the old nature, the old habits, the old self crucified with Christ. It is a blessed experience to kneel in wonderment and adoration at the cross, the place of salvation. It is another thing to see yourself on the cross beside your Lord. I wonder if anyone to whom I am talking has an uncontrolled temper to spoil his .or her testimony? If so, my friend, you are to reckon it where God has put it-on the cross. Do you love money? Drink? What is your besetting sin? That old nature will want to climb down off the cross, but it is your duty and privilege to see that it stays there beside the Lord. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin," Paul tells us. I once heard of a woman with a bad temper. She loved the Lord, yet her maid knew the bitterness of her tongue. One day she read the sixth chapter of Romans, after which she got on her knees, asking the Lord to give her victory over her besetting sin, her sharp tongue. Immediately after she rose from her knees, she heard a crash. The maid had broken a vase, an antique, prized greatly by her mistress. Not know~ ing of the change that had come into the life of the woman, the maid trembled with fear, lest she lose her job. As the mistress walked down stairs, her old temper wanted to climb down off the cross, but she reckoned it where God put it. And this is what she said to the trembling servant: "Never mind; I don't suppose you could help it. After all, it was made only of burnt clay." Can you imagine how surprised the maid was to see the change that had been wrought in her mistress? That woman had learned the secret of power over sin. She had learned to say. "I am crucified with Christ." In the days of Martin Luther there was a preacher to ·whom throngs of people listened. He ministered in a great cathedral. But one day an unknown man, a reformer from Switzerland, listened to his message. After the sermon the stranger went up to the preacher and said, "You must die. You must die before God can use you." The minister
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