Jan 26
14
This year I may be in
heaven!
(Octavius Winslow, “Morning Thoughts”)
“Ye have not passed this way heretofore!” Joshua 3:4
How solemn is the reflection, that each traveler to Zion is commencing a new and untrodden path!
New events in his history will transpire;
new scenes in the panorama of life will unfold;
new phases of character will develop;
new temptations will assail;
new duties will devolve;
new trials will be experienced;
new sorrows will be felt;
new friendships will be formed
new mercies will be bestowed.
How truly may it be said of the pilgrim journeying through the wilderness to his eternal home, as he
stands upon the threshold of this untried period of his existence, pondering the unknown and uncertain future—”You haven’t traveled this way before!”
Reader! if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you will enter upon a new stage of your journey by a
renewed surrender of yourself to the Lord. You will make the cross the starting-point of a fresh setting out in the heavenly race.
Oh, to begin the year with a broken heart for sin, beneath the cross of Immanuel—looking through
that cross to the heart of a loving, forgiving Father!
Do not be anxious about the future—all that future God has provided for. “All my times are in Your hands.”
“Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.” “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you.”
Let it be a year of more spiritual advance. “Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward.”
Forward in the path of duty;
forward in the path of suffering;
forward in the path of conflict;
forward in the path of labor; and
forward in the path to eternal rest and glory!
Soon will that rest be reached, and that glory appear! This new year may be the jubilee year of your soul— the year of your release. Oh spirit-stirring, ecstatic thought—this year I may be in
heaven!
What
a mystery are you!
“I find then a law,
that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Rom.
7:21
Are you not often a mystery to yourself?
Warm one moment—cold the next!
Abasing yourself one hour—
exalting yourself the following!
Loving the world, full of it, steeped up to your head in it today—crying, groaning, and sighing for a sweet manifestation of the love of God tomorrow!
Brought down to nothingness, covered with shame and confusion, on your knees before you leave your room—filled with pride and self importance before you have got down stairs!
Despising the world, and willing to give it all up for one taste of the love of Jesus when in solitude—trying to grasp it with both hands when in business!
What a mystery are you!
Touched by love—and stung with hatred!
Possessing a little wisdom—and a great deal of folly!
Earthly minded—and yet having the affections in heaven!
Pressing forward—and lagging behind!
Full of sloth—and yet taking the kingdom with violence!
And thus the Spirit, by a process which we may feel but cannot adequately describe—leads us into the mystery of the two natures perpetually
struggling and striving against
each other in the same bosom.
So that one man cannot more differ from another, than the same man differs from himself.
But the mystery of the kingdom of heaven is this— that our carnal mind undergoes no alteration, but maintains a perpetual war with grace. And thus, the deeper we sink in self abasement under a
sense of our vileness, the higher we rise in a knowledge of Christ, and the blacker we are in our own view—the more lovely does Jesus appear.
J.C.Philpot
A New Nature
The person who says, “I am saved by grace alone and it does not matter how I talk, walk, or conduct my life,” is a fool and neither understands nor loves the grace of God. Our union with the Lord Jesus not only justifies and sanctifies us before the law of God and the court of heaven, but that same regenerating union implants within and imparts unto us A NEW NATURE which delights in the principles and actions of holiness.
One cannot separate the blessings of Christ from the indwelling presence of Christ. “He that LOVETH not KNOWETH not!” Learning the doctrine will not produce a new creature, but “learning Christ” will.
~Henry Mahan
“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh–and these are contrary the one to the other–so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” Galatians 5:17
J.C.Philpot
The Holy Spirit is especially tender of his own work upon the soul. He originally formed it–it is his own spiritual offspring; and as a mother watches over her babe, so the blessed Spirit watches over the spirit of his own creating. It is the counterpart of himself, for it is the spirit that he has raised up in the soul by his own almighty power. He, therefore, acts upon it, breathes into it fresh life and power, and communicates grace out of the inexhaustible fullness of the Son of God, thus enabling the spirit to breathe and act, struggle and fight against the flesh, so that the latter cannot have all its own way, but must submit and yield. For the spirit can fight as well as the flesh; can act as well as the flesh; and can desire good as well as the flesh can desire evil.
What a mercy for us it is that there are those heavenly breathings in our soul, of the spirit against the flesh, cryings out to God against it; and that the spirit within us thus takes hold of the arm of Omnipotence outside us, seeks help from the Lord God Almighty, and by strength thus communicated fights against the flesh, and gains at times a most blessed victory over it. For what can the flesh do against the spirit when animated by divine power? What are sin, Satan, and the world when they have to oppose a Triune God in arms? This makes the victory sure, that our friends are stronger than our foes, and the work of God upon our soul greater than anything sin, Satan, or the world can bring against it. This made the Apostle say, after he had been describing the inward conflict, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:25). And when he had enumerated the opposition that the Christian has to endure on every side, he cries out, as if in holy triumph, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37)
Why Am I Thus?
Romans 7:18-21
“I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing…The evil which I would not, that I do…When I would do good, evil is present with me.”
Why? Why am I in this condition? Why is sin so prominent in my nature? Why is evil always present with me? Why is there a constant warfare in my soul? These are questions that I am frequently asked by concerned souls who honestly acknowledge their sin. And these are questions I frequently ask myself. The Word of God alone supplies us with the answer to them. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). It is as simple and as profound as that. All true believers are people with two natures – “Flesh” and “Spirit.” Those two natures are constantly at war with one another. The spirit will never surrender to the flesh and the flesh will never bow to the spirit. We do not walk in the flesh. We walk in the Spirit. And those who walk in the Spirit do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. Yet, we never escape those lusts. We will never be free from “the body of this death” until we have dropped this body in death. Painful as this condition is, it is best for us, while we live in this world, that we live in this condition for three reasons:
1. We must never forget that the only thing that distinguishes us from other people is the distinguishing grace of God (I Cor. 4:7).
2. We must never forget that our only ground of acceptance with God is the blood and righteousness of Christ (I Cor. 1:30).
3. We must never become content with our existence in this world (II Cor. 5:1-9).
Don Fortner
The Old Man and the New
Romans 7:24
The inward warfare raging in our hearts, that which so painfully disturbs the peace and joy of God’s saints in this world, arises from the fact that every regenerate person lives in this body of flesh with two natures. Most people have been taught, and believe, that in regeneration the old man is changed, spiritually renewed; but the Scriptures teach that a new man is formed in the heaven born soul, making the regenerate “a new creature” in Christ.
From the moment of his heavenly birth, until he enters into glory, the believer lives with two natures, flesh and spirit, the old man and the new man, that which is born of flesh and that which is born of the Spirit. The old man is in no way changed. That which is new in him is the new man, by which he has become a partaker of the divine nature.
That the heaven-born soul is two men cannot be disputed. Who would say, “The old man is the new man and the new man is the old man”? That would be to confound the language of Holy Scripture and make it unintelligible. The new birth is not a reforming of the old man, but the creation of the new man. And with the creation of the new man in us, a violent warfare breaks out between flesh and spirit. That sad fact is verified in the daily experience of all who have “tasted that the Lord is gracious.” All confess with Paul, “That which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Rom 7:15
Yes, in every child of God two distinct natures inhabit the same tenement. The “old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.” His genealogy we trace back to his father, the “first Adam,” from whom he receives his corrupt nature. The “new man,” which after God is “created in righteousness and true holiness,” (Eph. 4:24) derives his being from Christ, his “everlasting Father,” the last Adam. Just as the old man is what he is by virtue of his union with Adam, the new man is what he is by virtue of his union with Christ. As by natural generation we receive the nature of “the old man,” by spiritual regeneration we are “made partakers of the divine nature.”
Every child of faith can say with Job, “the root of the matter is found in me.” The Root of the matter is “Christ in you, the Hope of glory.” And “if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches,” (Rom. 11:16) “for as he is so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17) Nothing pure or holy is attached to the “old man.” But even the mind and conscience of flesh is defiled. Yet, nothing impure or unholy is attached to the “new man,” to that which is born of God, for “unto the pure all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
God calls his children “the holy people,” because they really are holy, “for his seed remaineth in them.” “Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) Until then, we must continue, like the Shulamite, “as it were the company of two armies.” (Song 6:13)
Don Fortner
Such a
perpetual and unceasing conflict?
(Philpot, “The Groaning
Captives Deliverance” 1847)
“ For
that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate,
that do I. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good
thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that
which is good I find not. 19 For
the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I
do. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with
me. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?” Rom.
7:15,18,19,21,24
What a picture of that which
passes in a godly man’s
bosom! He has in him two distinct principles, two different natures—
one . . .
holy,
heavenly,
spiritual,
panting after the Lord, and
finding the things of God its element.
And yet in the same bosom a principle . . .
totally corrupt,
thoroughly and entirely depraved,
perpetually striving against the holy principle within,
continually lusting after evil,
opposed to every leading of the Spirit in the soul,
and seeking to gratify its filthy desires at any cost!
Now, must there not be a feeling of misery in a man’s bosom to have these two armies perpetually fighting? That when he desires to do good, evil is present with him—when he would be holy, heavenly minded, tender hearted, loving, seeking God’s glory, enjoying sweet communion with Jehovah—there is a base, sensual, earthly heart perpetually at work—infusing its baneful poison into every thought, counteracting every desire, and dragging him from the heaven to which he would mount, down to the very hell of carnality and filth?
There is a holy, heavenly principle in a man’s bosom that knows, fears, loves, and delights in God. Yet he finds that sin in himself, which is altogether opposed to the mind of Christ, and lusts after that which he hates.
Must there not be sorrow and grief in that man’s bosom to feel such a
perpetual and unceasing conflict?
Is there ever this piteous cry forced by guilt, shame, and sorrow out of your bosom, “O wretched
man that I am!” If not, be assured
that you are dead in sin, or dead in
a profession.
I am chained to a dead body!
(John Newton)
“Not as though I had already attained,
either were already perfect.” Philippians 3:12
Alas! alas! indeed I “have not
attained!” I love the truth, and I love to declare it, and sometimes my
earnestness in the pulpit may make the hearers think I am ‘somebody’.
But could you compare Mr. Newton in the pulpit,
with Mr. Newton at home and in himself – you would startle and exclaim,
“Nothing was ever so unlike itself!”
Well, I believe it must be so in some measure –
while, like the prisoners of Mezentius, I am chained to a dead body. But I hope the time will come, when I shall no
longer drag the loathsome corpse of a depraved nature about with me. Ah! what a
loathsome sight; what a cadaverous smell haunts me in every place!
I believe, if the Lord was pleased to increase
my little exercise of grace tenfold, I would be ten times more out of conceit
with myself than I am at present.
This is a poor subject – let us change it, and
drop a thought about Jesus! In Him we have wisdom, righteousness, peace, power,
and salvation. Grace abounds in Him, more than sin can abound in me – and His
compassion is fully adequate to my case. With Him there is plenteous
redemption, therefore I will trust and not be afraid.
The more vile I – the more glorious and
wonderful will He be in saving me to the uttermost! I wish to be humbled under
a sense of sin, to strive in His strength against it; and then to be willing to
be nothing, that He m