Realm of the Flesh to Realm of The Spirit

To have your lifestyle conditioned and controlled by sin's patterns is to exist in a 'living death' - Pastor Martin's image for natural humanity outside Christ.

To have your lifestyle conditioned and controlled by the patterns dictated by sin is to exist in a living death. And that's why Paul can describe all unregenerate men in that very category in Ephesians 2. You hath He made alive who were dead in your trespasses and in your sins. So to be after the flesh is to be preoccupied with the things of the flesh. Secondly, it is to exist in a living death. Thirdly, it is to be in a state of total depravity. Look at verse 7. The mind of the flesh, now notice, does not say has an area or two or three or twenty or fifty or a hundred which is or which are at...

13:02 - 13:56 Read in full sermon

Driving home: If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

He insists the Spirit is not received as 'an advanced category of Christian experience' or as evidenced by some second blessing - the basic indwelling itself liberates from the realm of flesh.

the Spirit of Christ as the liberator from the realm of the flesh. Not the Spirit of Christ as some advanced category of Christian experience. Not the Spirit of Christ manifested in some highly developed realm of Christian grace and experience. But the Spirit of Christ as the agent effect

20:47 - 21:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Examine whether you know any radical, powerful break with sin's dominion - not just better behavior, but a translation from one realm to another.

Unregenerate people think fleshy thoughts about God, sin, the world to come, forgiveness, life, death, heaven, hell - their entire mental universe is shaped by the flesh.

They think fleshy thoughts about God. They think fleshy thoughts about sin, about the world to come, about forgiveness, about life, about death, about heaven, about hell. The whole of their life is under the dominion of flesh. That is, sin dominates in thought, in attitude, in will. They are not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can they be.

25:54 - 26:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Reject deeper-life schemes that treat the works of the flesh as ordinary Christian behavior and crucified flesh as advanced - Galatians 5:24 makes the latter universal.

Pastor Martin recalls his early days as a Christian sitting in 'deeper life' meetings where Galatians 5 was twisted to suggest most Christians were living in the works of the flesh while only some had crucified it. He shows the text rules out that scheme.

How well I can remember in my early days as a Christian, sitting in meetings where the so-called deeper life teaching was being propounded. And this was one of the favorite passages, at least parts of it. And the fruit of the Spirit was held up before us as a noble ideal, as one to which we should aspire. But when you came to the bottom line, it really was optional.

35:22 - 35:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold the conflict of Galatians 5:17 and the crucifixion of Galatians 5:24 together - both are true of every Christian at the same time.

True repentance involves taking the believer's sins and nailing them to the cross on which Christ died - decisive resolve, not a gradual fading.

shall be nailed to the cross on which the Savior died for those sins. And in the resolve of true repentance, and in the resolve of a heart that has been made new in the language of the ancient prophet, a new heart given in which there is grief and remorse for sin, in which there is shame and loathing for our past patterns,

40:21 - 40:49 Read in full sermon

The point: If after years of profession your life shows no measurable progress, take that as evidence you may not have experienced definitive sanctification.

He recalls Whitefield saying on his fiftieth birthday, 'I have begun to be a Christian' - the mark of a true believer is to feel his sin more deeply year by year.

He feels nothing but his sin. You remember it was Whitefield who after being a Christian, I forgot how many years, he said, this day, was it on his 50th birthday, I have begun to begin to be a Christian. Well, if Whitefield could say that, what hope is there for us? Now, I'm not speaking of that legitimate sense of a growing awareness of my undoneness and the rest which is part of growth.

52:45 - 53:10 Read in full sermon