Hello everyone! We are back with part 5 of Victory Over Sin. We can have the assured victory of sin in our lives. Can we do it? Christ can do it in us as long as we are willing. Please continue your reading of part 5 of this reassuring topic.
Here is Part 5. Enjoy!
And now, as to the greater safety of those that fear always-I answer, that he who trusts in Christ to be kept from all sin, is the man, and the only man, that does fear always. He not only fears, but knows that he never shall, in any instance, keep himself, and therefore always flies to Christ; while he who does not fear always, does not trust in Christ, and therefore falls into sin. I do therefore most fully believe, that he who fears always, is most safe, provided his fears are sufficiently great to drive him to the Lord, in whom alone he has righteousness and strength. This fear hath no torment: it is a sweet reliance on Christ. {1839 CF, VOS 18.1}
I do not, therefore, think that any man’s absurdities, irregularities, inconsistencies, or crimes, are in any sense chargeable upon the doctrine which I advocate. The more precious the coin, the more desirable the counterfeit, to a wicked man. That the blessed doctrine of being kept from all sin by faith in Christ, will be counterfeited by unholy men, for licentious purposes, I have not a doubt; but shall I, therefore, cast away the coin-the most precious that ever fell down to lost man, from the exhaustless mint of heaven! No, my brother. The Word of God assures me that my Redeemer was “called Jesus because He should save His people from their sins;” “that He was manifested to take away our sins, and that whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not;” and to that Saviour I must cleave as with the grasp of death; for I see a moment’s safety nowhere but under the shadow of His wing. “I will therefore say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver me from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover me with His feathers, and under His wing will I trust. His truth, in the fulfilment of His own exceeding great and precious promises, shall be my shield and buckler.” {1839 CF, VOS 18.2}
And now, brother, I believe there are those who do embrace this great salvation fully, so that their characters are formed by it, and who can say, “The life that I live here in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me ;” and I do believe that they are not only decidedly, but eminently, more meek and heavenly than any other class of men. I ought here to say, however that nothing, in my apprehension, is holiness, which falls short of the fulfillment of that promise, “The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart , and with all thy soul .” The child of God is not, in my apprehension, a “whited sepulchre .” Holiness is “the righteousness of the law fulfilled
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in us .” With any view of sanctification which does not make it consist in loving God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourselves , I have no fellowship. If a man expresses to me his belief that, through the operations of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, received by faith in Christ for the fulfillment of God’s promises, he is enabled “to love God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself,” inasmuch as I know that God has promised to “circumcise his heart, to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul,” I have no right to doubt that the promises of God are thus fulfilled in Him, unless I see that in his life he does depart from the “the right way of the Lord,” as it is revealed in His holy Word. But “to the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” {1839 CF, VOS 18.3}
I am fully aware, however, that there are those who claim to be “perfect in Christ Jesus ,” who do fall into gross mistakes on this very point; and in this way do, in a very grievous manner, cause “the way of truth to be evil spoken of .” By laying aside the plain written Word of God, as the rule, and the only rule by which they are to govern their faith, and try their feelings, and form their opinions, and shape all their conduct, and taking up the belief that the Holy Spirit so dwells in them that they need not resort to the Bible as their only guide, but may follow whatever impulse arises within them, they step at once on the broad ground of fanaticism, and become what Christ would have been, if He had, at the suggestion of Satan, thrown himself from the pinnacle of the temple-tempters of God. While God has promised me, in His Word, everything requisite to meet all the real necessities of my being, even to the full accomplishment of my highest good, both on earth and in heaven, He has nowhere given me license to transgress either His physical or moral laws, with the expectation that he will meet a necessity that I thus presumptuously create. If I were to leap from an eminence, with the expectation that God would save me from death by counteracting the law of gravitation, or by giving me wings; or, if I were voluntarily to abstain from food, with the expectation that God would preserve my life without eating; or venture to sea in a leaky ship, with the confidence that God would save me from a watery grave, I should be tempting God, by a willful transgression of physical law. I have no right to expect any miraculous assurance before hand, as He did to Moses, that He will be with me in a miraculous manner. No more am I to transgress moral precepts, by casting myself into the way of temptation unnecessarily, thinking that God will there keep me from being overcome; or by doing an act which God’s Word plainly forbids, through the presumption that the Holy Spirit guides me to it, and that it, therefore, is not sin. I know there are those who have ventured on this ground, and by so doing, have brought amazing reproach on Christ and His cause. I am not to “believe every spirit, but try the spirits,
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whether they are of God.” But by what rule am I to try every spirit? Plainly by the revealed Word, I have no other rule, and I need no other. If I feel an impulse, then to do a thing contrary to the plain Word of God, I need not mistake the source from whence such an impulse comes. I know the devil is the originator of such an impulse, just as infallibly as though I were to see his snaky head, or his forked tongue, or his glaring eyes, or hear the hissings of his hellish throat. I know there are those who are accustomed to say, “Whatever the Lord should tell me, I would do.” But I know the Lord will never tell them to do a thing contrary to the Bible; and when led to anything of this sort, they are surely led by Satan. Besides, I do not expect to influence the conduct of my fellow men, unless I can show them good and sufficient reasons for the course I wish them to pursue. Much more may I expect, that where the Holy Ghost would lead me, He will show me the best reasons for following Him; and for these reasons, I am to look into that Word which He has inspired. {1839 CF, VOS 19.1}
From this very error of following impulses instead of the Word of God, have grown up all the inconsistencies, absurdities, irregularities, and in some cases, as I do not doubt, licentious practices of some, called Perfectionists. Instead of cleaving closely to the Word of God, making it their only rule of life, writing it on their hearts, and setting it always, “as a frontlet between their eyes ,” they have imbibed the idea that the Holy Spirit so dwells in them, as to be an infallible guide, without any reference to God’s plainly revealed will. And when a man steps on that ground, he may well expect, like him who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, to find himself wounded, stripped of his raiment, and left, at least, half dead. He throws himself defenseless among mortal foes; for the Word of God should be to him sword and shield. He might as well cast away rudder, and compass, and chart, and quadrant, and chronometer in mid-ocean, and expect God to guide him to his desired haven. Or as well, wandering among pit-falls in black midnight, cast away his only lamp, and think to walk safely by faith. The Holy Spirit has indeed been given to guide us into all truth, but all the truth we need to know is in the Bible; and all the guidance we need, is to a right understanding and practice of what the Bible contains. {1839 CF, VOS 20.1}
But when God has plainly revealed to me that He is ready “to sprinkle clean water upon me, and make me clean from all my filthiness, and from all my idols, to cleanse me, and to save me from all my uncleanness when I inquire of Him to do it for me ;” and when He has sworn that He will grant unto me, that “I being delivered out of the hand of my enemies, may serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of my life, and has raised up Christ, an horn of salvation for me, to perform that covenant and oath , and has assured me that all the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by me ;” do I follow impulses
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and not the Bible, when I fully trust in Christ, that these promises and this oath of God will be fulfilled to me for Christ’s sake? Can I be in danger of going astray by thus cleaving to my own horn of salvation, whom God has raised up for me, and by just trusting in Him, that He will perform for me the very thing that He came to do? {1839 CF, VOS 20.2}
On this point My Brother, my heart is oppressed, and labors for words to express its gushing emotions. I seem, to myself, to be standing in a position whence two ways diverge. In the one, I see a class of persons walking, who cry out, “Away with the Sabbath days, ordinances and the written Word of God-away with all laws and rules of conduct, both human and divine. We need no law, no rule of faith or practice, no means of grace, no private devotion and communion with our Father in secret, no domestic altars, no earnest, wrestling prayer, and faithful, persevering effort, to convert a lost world to God. We dwell in Christ and He in us, and therefore we cannot sin; and whatever impulse we feel, we know to be the influence of the Holy Ghost, who cannot err, and we may therefore safely follow wherever such an influence leads.” In the ears of such I should cry out at the top of my voice, Danger, danger, danger! Beware, beware! Go not in such a path! Avoid it-pass not by it-turn from it and pass away! Here are the class of men called Perfectionists. Can I walk with them upon such ground? Not a hair’s breadth. So far from forsaking the commandments and ordinances of the Lord , my Bible tells me to “submit myself to every ordinance of man even for the Lord’s sake,” that “the powers that be are ordained of God,” and that “whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.”- With such men, on such subjects, I have, I can have, no sympathy. I believe there are some truly converted souls who fall into these errors, and are dreadfully led astray. I believe that others take up these notions, in whose hearts no fear of God ever for a moment had a place, and follow them out into all manner of licentious and criminal excess. Such become the most perfect and accomplished servants of Satan that he ever raises up to do his work. I cannot conceive that the arch-deceiver can ever originate a worse set of principles than these. I could as soon sympathize with any form of infidelity that ever cursed the earth. {1839 CF, VOS 21.1}
But on the other hand, and in the other path, I see a multitude of professed believers walking, who through fear of going astray, dare not believe God when he tells them, “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols ,” and when He swears to them that He “will grant unto them, that they being delivered out of the hand of their enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of their life.” Can I sympathize with the unbelief of such? I believe that it is their privilege, and my privilege, so to “abide in Christ, that we sin not,” -that “the work of such righteousness is peace; the effect of such righteousness, quietness and assurance
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for ever; and that all who will thus believe in Christ, may find in Him a peaceful habitation, a sure dwelling, a quiet resting place.” I long to have God’s people know and enjoy their high privilege of thus abiding in Christ, for I fully believe that it will redound to the highest degree to God’s honor and their good. This view of sanctification, I claim, has nothing to do with the essential element of what is termed Perfectionism. Their name and their principles I utterly disavow, and declare to the world that no man has a right to charge them upon me. {1839 CF, VOS 21.2}
But when I look around upon the professed followers of my Saviour, and see how little they know, apparently, and how little they seem to enjoy, of this great salvation of our God, I feel like lifting the prayer,- {1839 CF, VOS 22.1}
“Every weary, wandering spirit,
Guide into Thy perfect peace.” {1839 CF, VOS 22.2}
And when I see how many, bearing the name of Christ, seem wandering among doubts and fears, and groping in thick darkness at noon day, falling before spiritual enemies whom they know not how to vanquish, and weeping over the repeated commission of sins which they know not how to overcome, I long to say to such: {1839 CF, VOS 22.3}
“Watchman! let thy wandering cease,
Hie thee to thy quiet home;
Travellers! Lo! the Prince of Peace-
Lo! the Son of God is come!” {1839 CF, VOS 22.4}
Look no longer, like scattered, unbelieving Israel, for a Saviour yet to come. Say, with believing Zacharias, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation to perform His promised mercy, His covenant, His oath; to deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and to grant unto us that we may serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.” {1839 CF, VOS 22.5}
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