Aug 16
12
what it is to “walk in him.”
A. We often, through the power of sin, the subtlety of Satan, and the strength of temptation, get drawn aside from the simplicity that is in Christ.
1. When the Lord is pleased in any manner to manifest himself to the soul, SIN receives a paralyzing blow—it cannot lift up its head in the presence of Jesus. He puts his victorious feet upon its neck, for he will not allow it to reign and rule in the believer’s heart; nor indeed can it do so when under the influence of his grace, according to the promise—”Sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14.) But when he withdraws his gracious presence, sin that before lay dead begins to revive. It is like the sleeping serpent—torpid in the winter, but revived by the warm beams of spring. So when sin once more comes forth out of its torpid state, and begins again to manifest itself in all its secret power and all its dreadful influence, the soul gets into worse confusion and trouble than ever; for fresh sin brings fresh guilt, and when guilt falls as a dark and gloomy cloud over the conscience, it hides and obscures all that God has done in the heart; it buries evidences, casts a mist of darkness over the throne of grace, shuts out access to God, and fills the whole mind with bondage, doubt, and fear.
2. SATAN, too, who, when the Lord was pleased to manifest himself, withdrew for a time, begins again to lay his secret snares—sometimes puffing up the heart with pride; sometimes secretly insinuating what a good and blessed experience the soul has been favored with, so as to lift it up with vain confidence and presumption, exalting itself and despising others; sometimes spreading a hidden trap for the feet, whereby he entangles it in some vile sin, or thrusts it down at once by some sudden slip or fall. If he does not succeed in this way, he will sometimes beguile the mind with some error, or work upon our reasoning powers, or raise up infidel thoughts, or whisper vile suggestions, or insinuate that all the soul has tasted, handled, and felt, was but delusion and deception; that he was the author of it all; and that we have been guilty of hypocrisy in speaking of anything which we thought God had done for us.
3. The WORLD, again, which seemed to have little influence when the soul was under the blessed teaching of the Lord, begins again to work with renewed power. The worldly spirit which exists in every believer’s bosom is easily inflamed, for sin and Satan are ever at hand to pile up combustible material and set it on fire. Under this wretched influence a whole troop of worldly thoughts and desires begin again to take possession of the mind—and as these regain their former strength, they shut out union and communion with the Lord of life and glory, and produce inward darkness, deadness, coldness, hardness, barrenness, and a general stupor of mind, all which sad evils give great encouragement to the powers of hell to renew their attacks, and often with too much success.
By these and various other ways which I cannot now enter into, the soul is drawn aside from the simplicity that is in Christ, and stripped of its enjoyments, its spirituality of mind, and its heavenly affections; and is thus no longer able to walk with God in the sweet fellowship which it had been favored with when Christ was made precious to the soul. I have gone through all this in order to show you how in our text the apostle meets this case. He says, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” Do you wish, he would say, to maintain that life of faith which you once enjoyed; to keep up that sweet fellowship which you once experienced; to retain those clear evidences and bright testimonies with which your soul once was favored? To obtain this, he says, you must walk in Christ as you received him.
B. But now arises the question– how did you receive him? Was it not as a guilty sinner, despairing almost of life, and finding in yourself neither hope nor help; in a word did you not receive him as a poor, needy sinner? Then you must walk all your days as a poor, needy sinner, that you may ever be walking in him as you first received him. What wisdom, what strength, what righteousness, what goodness of your own first gave you any spiritual acquaintance with Jesus, or brought him into your heart? Did he not appear to you in his own time, in his own way? Was it not true of him that his coming was “as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass that tarries not for man, nor waits for the sons of men?” (Micah 5:7.) Then you must walk in him, that is, in union with him, in his ways, in his dealings, in his teachings, in the display of his sovereignty, just in the same way as when you first received him as I have described.
What claim did you then lay to him, what merit did you bring before him? You came to him needy, naked, and unclean; so, as regards yourself, you must walk all your days in union with him as the branch with the vine, simply receiving of his fullness what he has to give. You came to him with cries and sighs, groans and petitions; you must walk in those cries, sighs, groans, and petitions, that you may have that same simplicity, sincerity, and necessity all the days of your life. You came to him as a poor sinner, justly doomed to die, and when you received him, you received him as a full, perfect, and complete Savior. You must walk then as a poor sinner still in yourself justly doomed to die, and only saved day by day by the same grace which saved you at first. Thus, you must walk all your life as poor, as needy, as dependent upon free grace, infinite mercy, atoning blood, as when you first approached the throne of grace, and Christ was made precious to your soul by the power of God. J.C.Philpot.