The Motives of Our Warfare with Sin

The Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church: Maintaining a Balanced New Testament Perspective

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, August 2nd, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. One of the most evident and tragic marks of a degenerate and a decadent society is the absence of men and women who possess Bible-based convictions. Convictions which cannot be dislodged or compromised by the pressure of convenience, expediency, current consensus, or even by the threat of death itself. However, as surely as God reserved to Himself in a decadent and degenerate society in the days of Ahab, seven thousand who had not bowed, bowed the knee to the false God, Baal, as surely as God had His John the Baptist in a day of tremendous moral and religious decadence, a man described by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 11, 7, as no reed shaken by the winds of current religious apostasy, so in our day, God has His people in this place,

1:30 in the places for which we prayed in our season of intercession, and bless God in many parts of the world of which we are aware, and many more of which we know nothing. People who by His grace are prepared to say with Martin Luther, my conscience is held captive by the word of God. Here I stand, so help me God. Amen.

2:00 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:00 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:00 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:01 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:03 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

2:05 Amen. And while we grieve that in our own degenerate and decadent society, relatively speaking, there are so few of that spirit, we bless God for those that do exist, and as an expression of our prayerful desire that their number in this place shall increase and be perpetuated by the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. grace of God, that there will be a growing army of men and women, boys and girls, with unshakable, Bible-based, spirit-wrought convictions, we are using this year of our 25th anniversary as a church to consider together a series of messages which I have entitled, A Manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church. And in this series of studies, I'm attempting to state, to prove from the Scriptures, and to call us all to fresh allegiance to those truths which have constituted both the structural backbone of our life as a church, as well as its heart and its very breath.

3:27 Considering the ninth affirmation of this manifesto, an affirmation that I've couched in the following words, we are determined to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations concerning conversion, the Christian life, and the mission of the church. For a number of weeks, our exclusive focus has been on the Christian life, and the mission of the church. And upon the first issue addressed in this ninth tenet of the manifesto, namely, our determination to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in both our teaching and expectations concerning the doctrine of conversion. We established, first of all, the absolute necessity for conversion, our pivotal text being Acts 26, 18-20. We then stated the obvious diversity of the ways of God in the impartation of converting grace. And we have now been seeking to discern from the Scriptures those essential elements which are present in every genuine conversion.

The Indispensable Fruits of True Conversion: Broken Dominion and Continuous Warfare

4:49 And we have seen that there is, first of all, an acute sense of need wrought by God through various means. The Scriptures being foundational, an acute sense of need which the sinner eventually becomes convinced can be met only in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Further, in every genuine conversion, God brings the sinner to a lifelong disposition of repentance and faith with its appropriate fruits. Now, it is in opening up this issue.

5:28 It is in opening up this issue of the lifelong disposition of repentance and faith that we came last week to this proposition that we are still working with and will be working with this morning and, God willing, again next Lord's Day morning. This matter of being brought to a lifelong disposition of repentance and faith involves, and here is the proposition, a radical break with the dominion of sin followed by a continuous and real warfare. With the remains of sin, and we have stated that these things are the indispensable accompaniment and fruits of real conversion. A radical break with the dominion of sin followed by a continuous and real warfare with the remains of sin are the indispensable accompaniment and fruits. Now, this is a matter of real conversion, and all we had time to do last Lord's Day was to establish those two central issues, namely, that in true conversion, the dominion of sin is really radically broken in everyone who is soundly converted.

6:52 Romans 6.14 is true of every converted man or woman. Sin is true of every converted man or woman. Sin is true of every converted man or woman.

6:59 Sin is true of every converted man or woman. And if sin has dominion over us, we are still in bondage to the law. We are still under the condemning power of the law. We are simply unconverted and lost as the devil.

7:22 Then we demonstrated from the scriptures in the evening that if the dominion of sin is truly broken in us. The same Bible which teaches that, teaches that remaining sin that yet abides in us becomes the focal point of a real and continuous warfare. And such texts as Galatians 5, 17, Romans 8, 13, and many others were the basis of opening up this teaching. Now, trusting that your judgment has been convinced by the Scriptures of those two realities, that a radical break with sin's dominion, issuing in a real and constant warfare with the remains of sin, are the indispensable fruits of true conversion, then the concern of your heart surely is this. How can I tell if, I'm really in the battle?

Threefold Purpose of the Sermon: State, Unmask, Confirm

8:28 And if I am convinced that I'm in the battle, how can I wage that battle more effectively? And my concern this morning is threefold, and it will carry over, God willing, into next week's ministry. First, accurately and clearly to state the biblical teaching with respect to the major aspects of the warfare. This is not going to be a Gurnall-type,

8:57 indefinite, extended-over-years exposition of spiritual warfare. No, my purpose is to accurately and clearly state the major biblical teaching with respect to this ongoing warfare. Secondly, my purpose is to unmask the hypocrites and the self-deceived among us. I believe there are hypocrites, that is, people, who are wearing a mask, for that's the etymological meaning of hypocrite.

9:29 You know that you're not warring with sin. God knows it. But you've got most people convinced you are. You're a hypocrite.

9:40 You are knowingly, deliberately wearing a mask. And I love you enough, under God, to do my best, armed with the word of God, to pull your mask off and get you to face the fact, so what, if you wear your mask so effectively that no one knows it but God, a day of judgment, a day of judgment is coming when God will pull it off and the whole moral universe will see you sink into hell, unmasked. And I'm out to pull your mask off. And thirdly, under that same heading, some of you are not hypocrites, you're self-deceived.

10:21 You're not deliberately wearing a mask. You're self-deceived. You've played head games with those passages we've looked at, and you've learned how to do what someone said supposedly happened in England, in another country. In another century, there was a man by the name of Burke who was a professional murderer.

10:42 And so clever was he that he left no signs of how he murdered his victims. They were just found dead. And some of you have learned how to Burke every passage that shows up the fact you don't have the root of the matter in you. You've learned how to kill it and leave no signs of death.

11:01 You're self-deceived. You've latched on to certain aspects of biblical truth concerning the imperfection of the saints, concerning the reality of backsliding and varying degrees of growth. And you have concocted from those biblical materials a framework of self-deception. And under God, I'm out to get you undeceived.

11:27 That's my second great goal, accurately and clearly to state the major aspects of the biblical teaching of this warfare. Secondly, to unmask the hypocrite and the self-deceived. But thirdly, to confirm, direct, and encourage the truly converted. Of which I believe there are not a few of you here.

11:47 And I want to confirm you in the conviction sin's dominion has been broken. Because you see, the more you're confirmed in that conviction, the less power remaining sin will have over you. Every time it comes in its usurping role, the more you're convinced its dominion has been broken, the more effectively you'll look it straight in the eye when it barks its orders and say, you have nothing to say to me. You have no authority over me.

12:18 Your dominion was broken in my life union with Christ in my conversion. And by being confirmed in your assurance, you will not become careless. You will become more effective in waging the ongoing warfare with remaining sin. And from a pastoral standpoint, that's why I want to confirm you.

12:37 I want to direct you. I want to give light. I want to give light and direction as to how you may better be fitted for this warfare. And I want to encourage you.

12:48 I want to see you in the language of our hymn, stretching every nerve in the confidence that no sin warred against will fail to have a glorious reward in the day of ultimate triumph. Now all we'll have time to do this morning is to address two aspects of this war. We tel of this warfare, the motives which constrain us in the wara fair. And secondly, the goal, which has kept debated us in this warfare too things, the motive switch.

Predominantly Evangelical Motives for Warfare

13:24 Thexton strain us in this warfare, and the goal, which has kept the debated us in this warfare, first of all, then the motives which constrain us in this warffare, as with the matter. of the obedience which follows true conversion, so with this warfare that follows the breaking of sin's dominion. The motives are predominantly evangelical and never exclusively legal. That's the statement I now want to open up and demonstrate from the scriptures.

14:04 The motives are predominantly evangelical, but never exclusively legal. Don't write that off as an undigestible mouthful of theological mush. To grasp that statement is life and death stuff. What do I mean?

14:28 The motives are predominantly evangelical, though not exclusively evangelical. Well? I mean that motives, motives are reasons for action. A motive is a reason for action.

14:45 Either registering at the level of the understanding, some motives are motives primarily resident in the mind, other motives are resident in the affections, others in our senses. For example, your motive for backing off and putting your hand on a hot stove is it doesn't feel good at the end of your fingers.

15:09 And it's a motive of avoiding pain. Now the motive for going out and finding just the right card that expresses those nuances of your peculiar relationship to your wife on her birthday that will keep you for half an hour or 45 minutes in the card shop, that motive is a motive of love. Resides primarily in the affections, in the emotions. So a motive, a motive is that which, which impels us, gives rationale to given actions.

15:44 And what I'm stating is this, that in this warfare, the motives are predominantly, though not exclusively, evangelical. And what do I mean by evangelical? Simply this. They are motives arising from objective gospel truths and their subjective implications and application to the condition of life.

Gospel Motives: Love for Christ, Mercies of God, Purchased Property, Grieving the Spirit

16:09 converted man or woman. Gospel motives, evangelical motives are motives arising from objective gospel truths and their subjective implications and application to the heart and life of a converted man or woman. What are some of them? Turn with me to John 14. The most powerful of all evangelical motives. In John chapter 14, our Lord identifies the motive of love to his person. John 14 and verse 21, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself unto him. Verse 23, Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my word.

17:19 Now it is the word of Jesus that calls us to constant and real warfare. It is Jesus who says, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. It is our Lord Jesus, through his love and his love, who calls us to constant and real warfare. It is our Lord Jesus, through his love and his love, who calls us to constant and real warfare. It is our Lord Jesus, whose name is tired apostle, who says, be strong in the Lord in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. It is the Lord Jesus who says to the apostle, acquit yourselves like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. It is our Lord who calls us to this warfare.

18:05 He is theator of this warfare. He is the players in this warfare. He is the people who are not He is the captain of our salvation. He has conscripted us by grace and placed us in his army. It is he who says seven times in Revelation 2 and 3, to him that overcometh, to him that overcometh.

18:22 And so the motive which must predominate in this warfare must be an evangelical motive, the motive of love to Christ. And where does that come from? Well, according to the scriptures, the answer is very simple. We love him because he first loved us.

18:46 In the language of 2 Corinthians 5.14, the love of Christ construed. It constrains us because we thus judge if one died for all, therefore all died. It is Christ's love for his people constraining him to die for them. It is that love which becomes a predominant motive constraining us to engage in this warfare.

19:14 For it is our Lord Jesus who has broken sin's dominion, who has placed us into his army, who caused us to die for him. He calls us to watch and to fight and to pray. It is the one who laid down his life for us, who calls us to a battle that is real, to a battle that is difficult, but who has delivered us from the most horrendous of all battles. And that is the battle with an accusing conscience in the lake of fire forever and ever, tormented soul and body with the damned.

19:52 And having been delivered. From that eternal battle with the proper and just desert of our sin, our hearts, though in varying degrees, yes, though in varying dimensions of intensity, yes, our hearts are in love with him who first loved us. That's a gospel motive. And it is that gospel motive that must be predominant in this.

20:24 This constraint to stay in the warfare until the need for warfare is over. And it won't be over until we're safe at last in his presence. Romans 12, 1 and 2 is another example of gospel motives. That is, motives rooted in the objective realities of the gospel and their subjective implications and application to the heart and life of a converted man.

20:55 Romans 12, 1, familiar words, but may God help us to see them in a new light.

21:03 I beseech you therefore, brethren, and by what lever or lever, as our English brethren would say, shall he seek to pry these Roman Christians into a path of more intense devotion to Christ and to the Christian life? He takes the most powerful instrument he knows. I beseech you, brethren. Brethren, by the mercies of God.

21:30 The mercies of God. What mercies? The mercies he's been opening up chapter after chapter in the book of Romans. The mercies of God that provided a propitiatory sacrifice in the person of Christ to turn away God's wrath from us.

21:47 The mercy of God that provided in the perfect life and death of Jesus a righteousness that answers to the demands. The mercies of God. A justifying righteousness. The mercies of God that have provided a way of deliverance from sin's dominion through union with Christ in the virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection.

22:12 Romans 6. The mercies of God that will deliver us from that horrible conflict of Romans 7, 14 to 25. The mercies of God that have already delivered us from the realm of flesh into the realm of the spirit. The mercies of God that will keep us so that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ.

22:40 The mercies of God that wisely ordered that his conduit of redemptive light and activity should for centuries flow through the Jewish nation but now through their unbelief has found a new conduit and come to us Gentiles we unclean, cawing, we off-stowering of the nations. This is what he's been opening up and he says now by these cumulative mercies of God I beseech you to take your whole redeemed humanity and give it up to God as a living sacrifice. Not a dead sacrifice, a living sacrifice that with all of your faculties joyfully presented to him you may work out in the specifics of your life. The good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God. There's not a shred of a legal motive here. It's pure gospel motive.

23:36 Turn to 1 Corinthians 6 for another gospel motive. I just want to give you a feel for what I mean when I say that the motives which constrain us in this warfare are predominantly evangelical motives. Love to Christ because he first loved us. A sense of the pressure of the man.

23:57 Manifold mercies of God to us and all that that mercy has brought to us. Paul is dealing with the naughty problem of fornication at Corinth. A city so steeped in immorality that people had no more conscience about fornicating than they did about sneezing when they'd smelled pepper. In that pagan society adultery was bad.

24:22 That was a no-no. But fornication? Nothing wrong with that. You got an itch in your nose?

24:28 It's because you smelled pepper? Sneeze. You got a sexual itch? Fornicate.

24:32 That's why the early church had to deal so straightforwardly with this. The council of Jerusalem, part of their decree was to abstain from fornication. Our society is coming more and more to the place where we'll begin to understand this. Where people no more look upon fornication as evil, then they look upon it as an evil thing.

24:50 When a man in a restaurant gets too much pepper on his potatoes and sneezes, no one says, He did a horrible thing.

24:58 We've got a society now. People appear. We're on national television. Without shame.

25:03 Talk about their live-in relationships. Their fornicating relationships. Utterly shameless. That was the setting.

25:10 Now how is Paul going to attack it? Well, he comes at it from many perspectives. But notice the crowning motivation he gives to these Corinthians to wage warfare against this tendency to fornicate. How does he do it?

25:24 Verse 18. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. He appeals to what we would call a legitimate motive of self-interest.

25:39 To fornicate is to be in the way of self-destruction, but then he rises higher. Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God, and you are not your own? And ye were bought with a price. Glorify God, therefore, in your body.

26:04 For these Corinthians, there was no way to enter into a path of biblical purity. Total abstinence outside of a marital bond. He's going to establish that so clearly in chapter 7, that the only legitimate outlet of sexual burning is the sacred bond of marriage. How are people who fornicated from puberty and thought no more about it than, and sneezing when they smell too much pepper?

26:33 How are they going to stand against all of the pressure to fornicate?

26:40 Well, he arms them with many motives, but the crowning motive is a gospel motive. In that warfare, he says, never forget it. This body, including your sexual organs, was bought on a Roman hibbit. It was bought when the incarnate God immolated, face-thripping, with blood and spit, undershrouded heavens with the wrath of God poured upon him.

27:09 Your body was purchased in that context.

27:16 The next time you go by a temple where the temple prostitute bears her thigh and beckons, plant that ugly scene of Golgotha between you and her bared thigh. You were bought with a price. That's exactly what he's saying they need to do.

27:37 That will do something. Something as ugly as a witch's crooked finger in the light of the cross. Behold!

27:51 You were bought with a price.

27:55 That body of yours is indwelt by God. Think of it. God came to the pigsty of that body that fornicated.

28:07 That body!

28:12 To make it his temple.

28:15 To make it his sanctuary.

28:19 Pretty powerful motive, isn't it? That's gospel motive. And my friend, you're never going to get to first base in the warfare. Unless you're furnished predominantly with gospel motives.

28:32 I give you one more. Just will quote it in the interest of time. Ephesians 4.30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.

28:43 What a motive! When I indulge sin of any kind, but in the context particularly sins of the heart and of the mouth, bitterness and wrath and clamor and evil speaking, I grieve the Spirit. The very Spirit who by coming to indwell me has sealed and marked me as God's possession. And that will become evident in the day of redemption.

29:07 Right now, John says, the world knew him not. It knows us not. When we go out of this place and we walk somewhere where people mingle, there's no halo over our head. There's no mark on our forehead.

29:19 There's no key for Christ. The world knows us not. We're just people who've got a little more religion. And they've got a little more strict.

29:29 That's all they think of us.

29:32 There's a day coming when they'll know who we really are. We are those that God loved from eternity. We are those whom he marked out to reflect the glory of his Son to such a degree that he'll be the elder brother and we'll be the family sitting around him all sharing the family like this. The world doesn't have a clue who we are.

29:53 But there's a day coming when they'll know. And this is the motivation. He says, look, look. Don't grieve.

29:59 The Son of Man is with you. Don't grieve. The Spirit, who is the divine seal and attestation that you belong to God. And he has sealed you.

30:06 Not up to the point where you do something naughty. Not up to the point where you stumble and you fall. He said, no. In whom you were sealed unto the very day of redemption.

30:20 What a motive to roll up my sleeves and fight against the bitterness, the wrath, the anger, the clamor, the evil speaking. What a motive to look that sin in the eye that is seeking to bluff me back and down and batter me into subjection and say, no. God's laid hold of me. God's put his seal upon me.

30:44 God's marked me for the day of redemption. And if he's going to purge from me every last vestige of sin of soul and body and mind and affections so that I'll be fit for heaven and bear perfectly the image of the Son of Man, the Son of God, then you little squirt sin, what are you before the likes of me?

31:05 That's what God is saying. Gospel motive. Gospel motives. And these must become the dominant motives to fight sin.

Not Exclusively Evangelical: The Place of Legal Motives

31:18 But I did not say they must be the exclusive motives. And I see I'm going to get no farther than motives this morning. But I don't care, dear people. We must grasp these things.

31:31 Anyone tells you that only gospel motives are needed, they've become wiser than God.

31:41 There are other motives. Look at 1 Corinthians 9.27. Why does Paul discipline his body?

31:49 Reign in his bodily appetites? And though this is not the imagery of warfare, it's close to it. It's the imagery of the Olympic Games. Verse 25.

32:02 Every man, 1 Corinthians 9.25, that strikes, thrives in the games, exercises self-control in all things. A man wants to win the 100-meter dash. The woman, the man that wants to win the marathon, does not simply exercise self-control over how they use their calves.

32:24 They exercise self-control over sleep, eat, drink, relationships. All of life is regulated by one thing. I want to bust the tape first.

32:37 That's what he says. They exercise self-control in everything. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, as not beating the air, but I buffet my body.

32:55 And the Greek verb is very vigorous. I bruise myself. I give myself a blow under the eye.

33:05 I buffet my body and bring it into body. I will not allow my bodily appetites and passions to be my master, whether it's my appetite for food, so I become a glutton, for sleep, so I become a sluggard, for sex, so I become a fornicator, for comfort, I become a covetous man. All of my bodily appetites, I buffet them, I bring them into lest by any means after that I have been I have preached to others. I've preached to others a gospel of liberating grace that breaks sin's dominion, leads all in whom the dominion of sin has been broken into a lifetime real warfare with remaining sin, lest in preaching this to others I myself should be abdachimos. Eight times that Greek word is used in the New Testament and every time without exception it means tested and rejected.

34:19 Abdachimos!

34:28 Do you believe a man can be saved and lost? No, neither did Paul.

34:32 But neither did he believe you can be saved regardless of how you live.

34:37 He knew he would be saved to the end!

34:48 That's not a gospel motive. That's a legal motive. He said, I don't buffet my body, I'll burn. Buffet or burn.

34:57 Have your choice. Have your choice!

35:01 You want to give up this lust for food? I'm tired!

35:25 Months when the gains are over, they can take it easy. God doesn't give us any vacation from the fight. Day and night, seven days a week, if we live to be 150, you don't cease fighting until you cross the river. You say, I'm tired of fighting.

35:42 All right, what you're saying is I don't care to go to heaven.

35:46 It's either buffet or burn. Paul knew it! And he said, therefore,

35:59 all the way, I'll burn. You yet don't believe that. I believe it. You say, Pastor Martin, you talk nonsense.

36:11 You're a saved man, you talk nonsense. You're a saved man, but I am. And I know I am. And if I ever so live that the Bible doesn't describe me as a saved man, I better not describe myself that way.

36:23 And you better not entertain any hopes for me.

36:27 That's what Paul is saying. Buffet or burn. That's not a gospel motive. That is a legal motive.

36:34 Matthew 18.35, that's a legal motive. The whole parable about forgiveness. And Peter thought he was really, really coming in with highs when he said, Lord, how often my brothers sin against me and I forgive him?

36:46 Seven times?

36:50 I'm really coming in high. And the Lord said, oh no, Peter. Seventy times seven. He said, then I'm going to tell you a little story, Peter.

36:59 You missed the whole thing. The spirit of forgiveness has no ledger book. No ledger book, Peter. No computer.

37:07 Oh, seven times. No. He told a parable. Remember the guy that had the big debt?

37:13 And the master forgave the big debt. We'd say it was millions.

37:18 And he turned around and got his underling, grabbed his underling, and by the throat owed him a handful of quarters.

37:24 Give me your money or you're going to have it. When the master heard about it, he said, look, take that man and deliver him to the tormentors. Now you look at Matthew 18, 35. He's talking to disciples.

37:36 Peter raised the question. He won the Pharisee now.

37:41 This was Peter raised the question. And you see what the Lord said? Verse 35. So shall my heavenly Father do unto you if you forgive not everyone his brother from your heart?

37:54 What shall he do? His Lord was wroth and delivered him to the tormentors till he should pay all that was his due. That's a legal motive. He says, you either cultivate a forgiving spirit or you'll burn in hell.

38:08 You can't skip. My friend, listen to me. If you won't forgive, you'll go to hell.

38:15 And Jesus uses that motive to impel us to forgiveness. Now that's not the only motive even in the parable. The whole truth of it is this. That if that first servant had ever really understood what it was to be forgiven, he would have turned to his underling and said, hey man, you owe me a pocket full of quarters.

38:33 The chief honcho forgave me millions. Forget the quarters, man.

38:39 You see, he never drank of the spirit of forgiveness in the first place. Had he drunk of the spirit of forgiveness, he'd say, what's your pocket full of quarters to me?

38:50 But the point is, Jesus used this as a legal motive to disciples.

38:56 Don't you get wiser than the Lord?

39:00 A recent book has been written that's imbalanced by a man who's written otherwise good stuff. And thankfully, someone has lovingly pointed out his imbalance. He's acknowledged it and is going to follow it up with another book to balance that out, hopefully in a more biblical way. But it gives the impression that unless exclusive evangelical motives motivate us, we have an incipient legalistic spirit.

39:23 That's not true. That's not true. And I don't want anyone to get the impression when I say that the motives for this warfare are the motives for this warfare. They are predominantly evangelical.

39:34 I'm not saying they are exclusively evangelical because that would be unbiblical. Paul says, I buffet lest I burn. Jesus said, forgive or you go to the tormentors. 1 Corinthians 11, very appropriate coming to the Lord's table.

39:50 Why ought you to be right with God, right with one another, and come tonight discerning the Lord's body in His table, coming truly to commemorate tonight that you have present participation with Christ and His saving mercy exemplified in His body and in His blood, symbolized in the bread and in the cup? What motives are there to make sure that you don't come and make a mockery of the supper? Well, many motives, but if you look here, Paul brings motives that aren't very evangelical. At the end of 1 Corinthians 11, he says, verse 29, for he that eats and drinks, eats and drinks, judgment to himself if he discern not the body.

40:34 For this cause, many among you are weak and sickly and not a few sleep. He said, some of you have got a bad case of lumbago. Others of you, you've got a terrible case of a kidney that won't function right. Others of you have got a bunch of gallstones and some of you have got migraine headaches.

40:54 And some of you are dropping off to the funeral parlor long before you normally would. You know the reason? He says, you're coming in an unworthy manner to the table. Isn't that what he says?

41:04 For this cause. Many among you are weak and sickly and not a few sleep. But if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world.

41:19 Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait one for another. You see what he's saying?

41:25 Doesn't sound like a very evangelical motive. He says, hey, get your act together with regard to the table or God may lay His chastening hand upon you and touch your kidney.

41:36 God may make your ticker go out of whack. God may touch it and stop it.

41:43 Now, if that isn't what the passage says, you tell me what it says. Now, that doesn't sound very spiritual, does it? But it's a biblical motive. And the Bible is full of these secondary motives.

41:55 He that would love life and see good days refrain his tongue from speaking evil. You want to have a good life? Control your tongue. Well, that sounds selfish.

42:04 Well, let it be. God's not ashamed to say it. 1 Peter 5. Verses 8-11.

42:09 So look at it this way. Think of a mountain range where you have foothills, then you have real live mountains, snow-capped all year long, and then in those mountain ranges you have the famous ones that shoot up above all their mountain piers. You have the Mount McKinley's. You have the Mount Hood's.

42:28 You have the Mount Rushmore's.

42:31 In the Himalayas, you have your mountain peaks that soar above all the others. Well, in the full mountain range, in the mountain range of motives that you're found in the Word of God, you have your foothills. Then you have your real live mountains, snow-capped all year round. Then you have your Mount Hood's and your McKinley's and your Matterhorn's.

42:55 Those are the cross of Christ. The indwelling of the Spirit of Christ. The truth of the coming of Christ. The reality that I'm the purchased property of Christ.

43:06 And it is those massive mountain peak gospel motives which must always be in the center of our spiritual eyeballs. And then in our peripheral vision, the full range of the mountains of all the other motives. But you say, Pastor, sometimes I don't see the Matterhorn's and the Hood's. And all I see is the foothills.

43:30 Well, brother, anything that will keep you from sin, thank God for it. Don't get so fussy. But as soon as you recognize the only thing that kept me there was a legal motive. And the only thing that kept me there was a self-centered motive.

43:43 Lord, they won't keep me long. Get your eyes back on Mount Hood and Mount Rushmore and the Matterhorn's. Because eventually, it's gospel motives which must predominate or will not be kept in the warfare.

44:00 John Owen understood this well in writing not so much as theologian, but writing as perceptive, godly, insightful pastor. Listen to what he says. He says, if we're to make any progress in this battle, he says there must be gospel motives. If thy lust has driven thee from stronger gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also.

44:28 Do not suppose that such considerations, that is, considerations of what sin will do to me and the consequences of sin, legal motives will deliver thee when thou hast voluntarily given up to thine enemy those helps and means of preservation which have a thousand times more strength. Rest assuredly in this, that unless you recover yourself with speed from this condition, the thing you fear will come upon you. What gospel principles do not, legal motives cannot do. Now you see, put in its context, he's saying, all right, less than gospel motives have kept you back for a time, but you better get Rushmore.

45:13 and McKinley and the Matterhorn back in your eyeballs or you're on your way out.

45:21 That's one of the reasons of all the different things Christ could have given us. Why did he give us one standing ordinance of an open physical ritual and it focuses exclusively on the cross?

Never Exclusively Legal: The Insufficiency of Legal Motives Alone

45:41 Because he knew that gospel motives must predominate. And if we don't, if we've begun to forget that, it's viewing this in remembrance of him that brings us back to where the Matterhorn of the cross and the McKinley of the open tomb and the Rushmore of the ascended Christ and the massive mountain peaks of the open clouds at his coming, those motives will again possess us and nerve us for the battle. So, I say with regard to motives, they must be predominantly, though not exclusively evangelical, but then just let me touch on this briefly before we're done this morning. They are never, in the heart of a truly converted man, they are never exclusively legal in a real Christian. Now, what do I mean by exclusively legal? I mean that's the person whose whole battle with sin, never knows anything beyond the fear of hell.

46:52 If I don't battle sin, I'll go to hell. If I don't battle sin, I won't receive the reward of glorification. If I don't battle sin, God will zap me. If I don't fight with sin, I'll bring shame to myself.

47:08 I'll bring reproach to my family. All of those things are true, but those are legal motives. And hear me carefully, in someone who's truly converted and is battling sin, as one in whom sin's dominion has been broken, and who's been placed into the real and constant warfare with sin by the operation of the Holy Ghost, he is never, never, never found exclusively armed with legal motives. There are people who sink beneath the most base lust every day with legal motives clawing at every part of their sin.

47:50 They know there's a hell, they know there's a God, they know there is judgment, and these legal motives reach out their talons and try to hold them. But I tell you, they have no power over that beast called the unregenerate human heart, and it will tear itself out of the talons of the most powerful. And there are people in this building today who are living proof of the fact that you can sin the grossest forms of sin while your conscience is screaming at you that that thing will take you to hell, but the legal motive isn't enough to keep you. My friends, the talons of the eagle of legal motives, though they may restrain you here and there, they will never, never hold you from the dominion of sin, and therefore will never be enough to keep you in a real and constant warfare. With remaining sin, what you need is the cables of the cross of Christ to be wrapped around your heart, to be wrapped around your lust, to be wrapped around your faith, and when you're lashed to the cross, though you may lapse, you'll never go far,

49:15 and that's the problem with some of you who've never been lashed to the cross. You've only been temporarily and sporadically held back by the talons of legal motives, And that's the root of your problem. And that's why I'm trying under God to get you undeceived. Why have you made so many false starts in dealing with that dominant lust in your life?

49:43 Why has it been made when you felt the pinch of the talons of some legal motive and it kept you for a week?

49:57 You didn't make a dot of your belly for a week. You were able to leave your porno literature alone for a week or two or three. But look at your life over the past five years and you've got to admit that if you throw out those few periods and Owen deals with it masterfully, we don't have time to read it, though I Xerox the page in volume six. You've had periodic stirrings after a sermon like this and you say, I'm going to fight that sin. I'm going to war against sin.

50:27 And you do for a week or two. But you look back and the whole pattern for years now has been there's really been no progress. You know why? You've never known anything.

50:37 But legal motives and you need to go to the cross this morning and to him who died upon it and say, Oh, Lord, Jesus, come and break the dominion of sin. Give me such a sight of what my sin did when it plunged you into the abyss of your father's wrath. Lord Jesus, open my eyes to see my sin in the light of your agony. There in Gethsemane, your shame at Gabbatha, when they beat you with rods and spat upon.

51:08 You and blaspheme, give me to feel and see my sin in the light of your cry of dereliction. And, oh, Lord Jesus, break sin's dominion and lash my heart to your cross. And then get specific. Say, Lord Jesus, lash.

51:27 Then name that appetite. Name that passion. Name that thing that's been your master and the symbol of sin's dominion over you. And say, Lord Jesus, come and break the dominion of sin.

51:39 Say, oh, Lord Jesus, lash that faculty, that capacity, that appetite. Lash it to your cross and there master it. And make of me a fighter and a battler who will conquer in the strength of your cross.

Call to Conversion and Closeness to the Cross

52:00 Some of you don't need another round of counseling with another elder. We've had it with some of you. We love you. We're not disgusted with you.

52:09 We're not writing you off. But the only fair thing to tell you is after three and four and five rounds of counseling with different elders, maybe the problem is not that we haven't come up with the right wrinkle,

52:23 but that you haven't got the right stuff to work with. Because we're appealing to you on gospel motives and with the assumption that gospel dynamics are at work in you, but obviously they're not. So what you need is to be converted.

52:40 You need to be converted, friend. You need to go to God through Jesus Christ and plead that sin's dominion be broken. And then God will make you a battler. Of whom it can be said, this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.

52:57 He that is of God overcomes the wicked one. You're not overcoming. Why? Because you're not of God.

53:05 Doesn't say we overcome perfectly, but we do overcome.

53:09 Could it be, my friend, that's your fundamental problem? And we love you enough to tell you, at least to ask you, to get honest with God and say, Lord, could this be the problem?

53:21 And for others of you, what do you need? You need to live nearer to the cross of Christ. You need to pray, oh God, lash me closer to the cross. Don't let me get out of my vision.

53:34 The Rushmore's and the Matterhorn's and the Ramir's and the Hood's of the cross, the open tomb, the coming glory, the indwelling, the spirit, the mercies of God. That's what you need.

53:50 That's what will keep you kids when you feel the peer pressure. It's real. Some of you guys, I look out at you as far as I know. You're in your early to mid-teens and you're still virgins.

54:03 And the guys mock you out. You're a fag. You ain't had a woman yet. And if any of you older people are offended at this, shut your ears off, will you?

54:10 This is where these kids live and I want to help them. This is where they live. They get mocked out if they're virgins. You just look your buddies in the eye and say, look, my sexuality was bought at the cross of Jesus Christ and the one who bought it owns it.

54:27 And he smiles that I'm keeping it till my wedding night. You don't like that, lump it. And if you won't be my friend, without trying to batter down that conviction, you and I have a friendship that ends today. Goodbye.

54:42 That's right. That's what you're telling. That's what young women say.

54:47 Some guys start soft-talking you. If you loved me, what's a piece of paper? If you loved me, look him straight in the eye and say, yeah, I do kind of like you. I might even love you.

55:00 But I love somebody more. And he loved me enough to die for me. And he purchased. All that I am, including my sexual organs at his cross.

55:12 And all that I am as a woman, as a sexual being, is purchased property. Keep your hands off. Nobody touches it till the master who bought it says, give it freely to the man that I've given to you.

55:29 You say, Pastor, I think you're really serious. I am dead serious. You want to know the quickest way to get some hot-breathing young buck out of your...

55:37 You just tell him that.

55:42 He'll go real quick-like. That's right. Why do you say that?

55:56 Are you ashamed of Christ? If not, then you tell him that. And say, that's reality. You can't live with that, buddy?

56:03 Then you and I have nothing more in common. I'll shed a few tears. Cry myself to sleep a few nights, but I'll get over you. But I've got a never-dying soul, and I have a body purchased by the blood of Christ, and I'm not going to have it staying by you.

56:18 That's how you deal with peer pressure, kids. You see why Christ has got to be real to you? You just can't say, well, my mom and dad don't...

56:27 They don't look favorably on petting. You know how long that'll last?

56:33 It ain't going to last long. My mother and father don't prove a premarital sex. That won't last either. Unless your heart and your body are lashed to the cross, you're not going to make it.

Joseph as an Example and Warning Against Pornography

56:47 But if they are lashed to the cross, you can be like Joseph. When that older woman that got the hops for him, Dale, after a day tried to get him in bed, and one day she got desperate, and she went beyond words. You talk about sexual harassment.

57:09 I wonder if she was a big birther, too.

57:13 I mean, I'm not trying to be funny. I mean, she thought she could physically subdivided him. If I read my Bible right, she laid hold of him. Joseph said, woman, I'm getting out of here.

57:23 And she was holding so hard, she held his coat. He said, how shall I do this great wickedness and do what? Disappoint my papa? No.

57:31 Go to hell? No, he said. And sin against my God. His heart was lashed to his God.

57:40 That's the only thing that's going to keep some of you. So you're going to be able to walk by the girly magazines.

57:48 Otherwise, you're going to be a hopeless addict. And that addiction is going to get worse and worse. Some of you young guys have just begun to fool around with pornography. Mark my word, it is addictive.

57:58 It's just like drugs. It's the law of diminishing returns. And after a while, Clayboy and Penthouse, begin to be mild stuff. And then you've got to escalate.

58:09 Mark me, young men. Don't go near that stuff. It'll destroy you.

58:16 But you won't have the power to walk by it unless your eyeballs and your heart are lashed to the cross of Christ. Oh, go to Christ. Give yourself no rest. Do you know that you're His?

58:31 And dear people of God, if God has ordained that in this battle into which He has put us, by His grace, and for which He has equipped us, if He has said, the only motives that will keep you strong and vigorous and overcomers are those dominant gospel motives, then, and I say the words reverently, for Christ's,

59:00 who died to make you a victorious warrior, stay close to His cross. That's why you've got to read your Bible every day. That's why you've got to confess your sins every day. Because every sin confessed that calls you back to the cross and you don't go to the cross drives you further from the cross.

59:22 So you've got to go back. If we confess He's faithful and just, live near to the cross and be a warrior who fights every battle in the sign of the cross, in the power of the cross. And then one day, you'll join the company of the conquerors who overcame by what? The blood, the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

Prayer for God's Help in Warfare

59:51 Let us pray.

60:00 Our Father, how we praise You for Your Holy Word. We thank You. Oh, we praise You that You have not left us to flounder about and find out a way to fight effectively this warfare unto death. But we confess, O Lord, the sin of seeking our own devices.

60:22 Forgive us, we pray, and as we have come afresh to that armory that at every point is marked by the sign of the cross, will You not help us to take to heart the things we have heard? Oh, Lord, be with these dear young men and women seeking to be godly in such a godless age. May they store up the things they've heard today. May they remember them in the moments of temptation.

60:51 May they be bold to declare to anyone who would turn them aside, whose they are and what they are determined to be. We pray for any who are living the life of a hypocrite. Lord, pull their mask off. For any who've been self-deceived.

61:07 Oh, God, give true self-knowledge today. Oh, God, use Your Word in ways we could never dream it would be used. And may the last day reveal that this was the day of days for not a few. Oh, God, especially as we think of our coming to the table, tonight, may our meditation this morning inflame our hearts so that as we come to that table and as Your Word directs us further to that table and to our Savior dying for sinners, oh, God, may many make new strides in being equipped for the battle.

61:44 Help us, hear us, and answer us, we plead. In Jesus' worthy name, amen.