Sin Problem in the Christian Life, Part 2

Driving home: When His Son hung upon that cross, the Father turned His face of pure and holy vengeance towards His Son until His Son cried, It is finished.

God is still the God of vengeance, but when His Son hung on the cross, He turned His face of pure and holy vengeance toward His Son and vented upon Him the full measure of wrath due His people. That face is no longer turned toward believers - Christ absorbed it.

Jesus Christ did not change the face of that God. He is still the God of vengeance. But blessed be God, if I am a justified man, a justified woman, He no longer wears that face to me because He turned it to His Son. And when His Son hung upon that cross, the Father turned His face of pure and holy vengeance towards His Son.

16:35 - 17:05 Read in full sermon

Peter uses the image of tying up the loose folds of a robe around the waist so a person can move with purpose. The believer is not to be a spiritual scatterbrain but to have concentrated spiritual perspective as he contemplates the coming grace.

Now notice the emphasis of this paragraph beginning with verse 13. We have first of all a call to a settled hope of a completed salvation Verse 13 Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind he using a figure of speech when a man or a woman particularly was in earnest about getting somewhere, they would take the loose folds of the garment and tie them up around the waist. Girding up the loins of your mind, don't be a spiritual scatterbrain, have concentrated spiritual perspective. girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly

24:39 - 25:24 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Perfect love casts out the fear of the cringing, guilty criminal... but if it's the love of God in Christ applied by the Spirit, that very love implants this fear.

When 1 John says perfect love casts out fear, it means the cringing fear of the guilty criminal afraid the evidence will come forward. Love does not cast out the filial fear of a son before a holy Father; indeed, love implants that fear.

I have no fear. My friend, don't you make the Holy Ghost contradict himself. Perfect love casts out the fear of the cringing, guilty criminal who's afraid the evidence will come forward and condemn him, thank God, love casts out that fear. But if it's the love of God in Christ applied by the Spirit, that very love implants this fear.

33:52 - 34:19 Read in full sermon

A man determined to walk the center of a highway will get hit by traffic coming from both directions. Martin says he has been called both a rank antinomian and a vicious legalist for hewing the biblical line between them.

He walks in sobriety. He refuses to be fashioned by this world. He's kept from the crippling errors of antinomians. oh dear people do you see the balance in scripture and any man that's determined that he'll hew this line like the man who walks down the center of a highway he'll get smacked with boats flows of traffic coming opposite directions I've been called everything from the rankest form of an antinomian to the most vicious legalist on the face of the earth and I'm being called that right to this very day because we insist that the Word of God teaches that when a sinner believes on Chris...

38:53 - 39:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Practice the reflex until it is automatic: when conscience smarts, come to your Father, confess, and ask pardon based on Christ.

If you must tell yourself a hundred times a day until it becomes a matter of spiritual reflex, do so: when conscience smarts, come to your Father, acknowledge you have incurred His displeasure, and ask His pardon based on what He is to us in Christ.

To know that your guilt is utterly and forever swallowed up in the death of your Redeemer, and that because it is, though your indwelling sin is a reality, and it causes you grief and pain, even unto groaning, as it did the Apostle Paul in Romans 7 and 2 Corinthians 5. though your dealings with sin must be honest and specific according to 1 John 1, 9 and Matthew 6 and a host of other passages have you come to grips with the fact that in all your dealings with sin you're dealing with your Father you're dealing with your Father and if you must tell yourself a hundred times a day until it becomes...

45:19 - 46:05 Read in full sermon