Threefold Cord of a Saving Experience

Introduction: The Threefold Cord of Saving Experience

0:04 I invite you to turn with me to the sixth chapter of the letter of Paul to the church at Rome, that portion of our New Testaments that we call the book of Romans. And I want to read in your hearing verses 15 through 23.

0:25 Romans chapter 6 and verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? God forbid!

1:09 In the form of teaching whereunto you were delivered, and being made free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. For when you were the slaves...

1:39 When you were the slaves of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit had you at that time in the things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and become slaves to God, you are having your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life.

2:09 For... The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2:22 The scriptures are unmistakably clear in asserting again and again that without a supernatural experience of the saving grace and power of God, you and I are utterly unfit... Unfit to live as we ought, unprepared to die in peace, and unequipped to appear before God in the day of judgment.

2:58 This supernatural work of God's grace and power is designated by various terms and is described in various images and is illustrated in various ways throughout the scriptures. We come this morning to consider a text which in a simple and clear manner portrays this sovereign work of God's grace and power as a three-fold cord of saving experience. The text to which I refer is verse 22 of Romans 6.

3:38 But now, being made free from sin and become servants to God, you are having your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life. This text, I say, is a three-fold cord describing true saving experience. The first strand is this change of masters described. But now, being made free from sin and become...

4:15 Slaves to God. That's a change of masters described. Secondly, we have a change of practice affirmed. In the light of this change of masters, you are having your fruit unto sanctification.

4:34 That is a description of a change of practice. And then thirdly, we have a change of destiny promised. And the end...

The Context: Answering Questions from the Gospel of Grace

4:45 Eternal life. However, before examining the text under those three simple heads, let us take a few minutes to consider the setting in which this text comes to us. All of Romans chapter 6 is calculated to answer the questions posed in verse 1 and verse 15. Look at them.

5:09 Verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? That grace may abound?

5:19 And verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Now, what caused these questions to be raised, to which the entirety of Romans 6 is God's answer?

5:38 Well, basically, it was the clear teaching of Romans chapter 3 and verse 21, all the way... to the end of chapter 5.

5:49 Paul, having established universal sinfulness and guilt and wrath-deservingness in the first three chapters of Romans, begins in chapter 3 and verse 21 all the way through to chapter 5 to set before us the very heart of the good news of the gospel of the grace of God. And that gospel sets forth two fundamental realities. The first is that guilty, hell-deserving sinners are accepted as righteous before God solely on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ.

6:31 In other words, Paul has been outlining a gospel which says, In Christ alone is there an answer to the problem of human sin. Would we avoid...

6:47 our just deserts as guilty, hell-deserving sinners? We must have dealings with Christ and the salvation procured by His life and His death on behalf of sinners. It was the proclamation of the gospel that says we are saved by Christ alone that precipitated these questions, and it was a gospel that says Christ and what He...

7:17 has done for sinners is received by faith alone. In other words, the only way in which guilty, hell-deserving sinners can enter into the benefits of what Christ has done for them is to abandon all hope of performing deeds of their own. They are to embrace Christ in the naked hand of faith. It is trusting in Christ alone.

7:47 So it was this gospel reduced to its irreducible minimum as a gospel of Christ alone, faith alone, that precipitated the two questions. For when the apostle comes to the end of chapter 5, he says in verse 20, And the law came in beside that the trespass might abound. In other words, the law was intended to show us how much we need...

8:21 We need such a salvation. But where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly. In other words, there is no mountain of sin we can raise that is so high that God's grace in Jesus Christ cannot swallow it up, and in this salvation that is by Christ alone, received by faith alone, there is no amount of sin that can hinder the...

8:51 a sinner from finding acceptance with God. And so Paul raises the question, Well, what then, in the light of this, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? If I raise a mountain 10,000 feet high with my sin, and grace comes along with a 20,000 foot mountain to overshadow it, and Christ alone, by faith alone, can take care of that mountain, well then let's go on and sin some more, so the...

9:21 The higher we raise the mountain of our sin, the more the mountain of God's grace will be magnified. That's what raising...

9:27 And Paul has asserted in chapter 3 of Romans, and here again in chapter 6, that in laying hold of that salvation, it is totally apart from the works of the law. That when it comes to the question of how do I lay hold of that massive mountain of grace that overshadows and swallows up however high a mountain of sin I raise, well, it's without obedience to the law and without the deeds of the law, but simply trusting Christ. Well then, look at verse 5. Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?

10:09 If we are not under the condemning power of the law, the commanding power of the law as a means of finding acceptance with God, then it doesn't matter whether we keep the law. We can live a lawless life. And Paul says no. That's impossible.

10:26 So you see, these two questions of Romans 6, around which all the contents of Romans 6 is organized, grow out of the very nature of the gospel that Paul has been expounding in the earlier chapters. And so in answer to that first, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, the fundamental answer of verses 2 through 14 is given in verse 2. God forbid we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? And his basic argument is this.

11:09 The faith that unites us to Christ in possession of his perfect righteousness also so unites us to Christ that his death becomes our death to sin. His resurrection to newness of life becomes our resurrection to newness. So if we say that we are saved by God for us to have the mentality, well then, let's continue in sin. He said no.

11:44 Because our very identity is we are such as have died to sin. In union with Christ, I have died to sin's dominion and to sin's power and I have risen to newness of life. In answer to the question, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace, God forbid, it may it never be, the fundamental answer is verse 16. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself as a slave to obedience, his slave you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness?

12:27 The apostle says, look, the answer to this second question is very simple. If you are truly united to Christ by faith, not only have you died to sin, the teaching of verses 2 to 4, but you have had an exchange of masters from sin to righteousness, from being a slave to your sin to being a slave to righteousness and to God. The fundamental thesis of the entire chapter broken down.

13:03 Now then,

13:06 summarize. Second answer or the answer to that second question, the essence of which is no. Even though we are not under the law, we don't go on sinning. Because to do so would negate who we really are.

13:23 To go on sinning would be to declare, sin is still my master. But if I'm in Christ, sin is not my master anymore. I have a new master. It is God.

First Strand: A Change of Masters Described

13:35 So in summarizing it, he comes to verse 22, which is our text for the morning. But now, the article is used to emphasize this is true in the present moment of every true Christian. You sit here this morning, and claim any kind of association with Jesus Christ right sometime later, if you get more serious. Not sometime down the road, if you get more surrendered and more yielded and more filled with the Spirit.

14:13 This morning, sitting where you are in that pew, standing in his pulpit.

14:20 But now,

14:27 become slaves to God. You are having your fruit of sanctification. And, now let's unpack as time permits. First of all, we have a change, of masters described.

14:46 Change of masters described. And let's ask three questions of this first part of the text. Who was the old, the old master?

15:15 Sin.

15:17 Personified throughout this entire section as a master. And all men are its servitude to sin,

15:33 evident to the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. He said, I know, I'm using human, I'm using human analogies. I'm using the slave master analogy in order to help you. As he is speaking with that analogy, notice what he says.

15:53 For as you presented your members, that is the various faculties of your mind and of your body, as slaves to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity, even so now present your members slaves to righteousness. He said in your past, your slavery to sin, to sin was real. And it was, it was not an abstract theological concept. He said in your past, every one of you, in your, your members,

16:36 the faculties of your mind and body as slaves to uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity. You gave your mind to think arrogant thoughts. Better what life was all about than God did. Used your mind to set up your own standards of right and truth and error.

17:04 Your mind was never given to be the arbiter of truth and error, of right and wrong. It was meant to be the receptor of God's definition of truth. That faculty, that mass of gray matter. And you made it a member to serve sin.

17:26 A chamber. You made it a chamber of envious. You made it a chamber of murderous, hateful thought. Presented your, you presented your mind as an instrument, literally the Greek word is used sometimes in the military sense as a weapon of iniquity.

18:00 Presented your eye to look upon objects you had no business to look upon with desire. And your eye became the inlet of covetous desire. Your eye became the inlet of lustful, covetous thoughts with regard to sexual objects. You took your hand.

18:20 Presented them to touch the erogenous zones of that man or woman, that fellow, that girl, that you had no business. Your sexual organs, your feet to go in paths forbidden by God. Your affections to be set upon objects unworthy of your affections as an image bearer of God. Paul says your slavery was real.

19:02 And what did he say? For your members, as servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity. With all of us, for some of you, your sins were more refined. For some of you, they were gross and evident and obvious to all.

19:30 But Paul could say across the whole spectrum of our different sinful lifestyles, he said the whole bunch of you Romans, no matter where you fit in that spectrum, every one of you had a slavery, or he says in verse 20, it was exclusive. For when, adverb of time, when you were slaves of sin in regard to righteousness. What does he mean? This is what he means.

20:07 When you were the slaves of sin, yourself the same way, a free former master. A master can speak and he says, you've got nothing to say to me. I'm free with respect. He says righteousness, totally abandoned, and the remnants of God's holy law are yet there, inscribed upon your consciousness, as Paul says in Romans chapter 2, so that conscience functions, albeit imperfectly, yet really, and in some ways, answering to the standard of God.

20:51 And when God spoke through your conscience, I choose to make sin, my master. I choose to obey sin, is my master. I'm free with respect to you, Mr. Paul is saying that their slavery to sin was not only real and evident, but exclusive.

21:24 For some of you, righteousness not only speaks in conscience, but by the law of God that you've learned. In this church, some of you sit here this morning, and righteousness speaks, and you say, I do not regard righteousness. I am my own master. What do I want to do with my mind, my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my tongue, my hands, my sexual organs?

21:52 I recognize no Lord, but the old master, who is the father, the son of God, who is the father of the church, and the son of God, the son of God, and the son of God, the son of God, and the son of God, and the son of God. And when God speaks to these Roman Christians, it was sin. And their servitude to sin was real, it was evident, and exclusive. But now, second question,

The New Master: God, Obedience, and Righteousness

22:31 with this first heading, who is the new master? Look at verse 22a. But now, being in sin, and become slaves, God who in redemptive grace and activity has revealed Himself in all the wonder and mystery and glory of His triune being, so that throughout the book of Romans the salvation set forth is a salvation from God by Jesus Christ made effective by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

23:16 And Paul says, now your new master is God Himself. But then look at verse 16a. Know ye not that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obedience, His slaves you are, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? Here he says, your new master is a disposition of obedience that leads to a pattern of right as we ought.

23:49 The light of God is my new master, God. Your obedience. Unto righteousness. Or look at 18b.

24:00 Being made free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Well, am I, in my new master, am I the slave of God, the slave of obedience unto righteousness, or the slave of righteousness? Make the choice. It's all one and the same.

24:22 For you see, I cannot become a joyful slave of God without committing myself to a life of obedience to God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And I cannot commit myself to a life of obedience to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without being committed to a life of righteousness. That is, living by the right standard of God's Holy Word.

24:58 Calling sin what He calls it. Calling virtue what He calls virtue. Choosing what He delineates as the will of God for me. So Paul can use these terms interchangeably.

25:12 Because it's all one ball of wax. The new master is ultimately God. And in being God, lest we be and say, oh yes, I'm God and I get the will of Jesus. And I get the goosebumps when I think about the Holy Ghost.

25:32 He says, look, if God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is your new master, there's an objective standard by which to evaluate whether or not you have the new master.

25:57 You see it? Who is the old master? Sin. Sin.

26:03 That servitude was real and evident and exclusive. Who is the new master? It is God. And that servitude is real.

26:13 Verse 16. Know you not that to whom you present yourselves as slaves to obedience, His slave you are whom you obey, whether of sin to death or obedience to righteousness. That new slavery is not a theological concept. It is not a religious phrase.

26:33 It is a real servitude resulting in obedience. It is a servitude, notice, of verse 19. Just as you actually presented the members of your body, slaves and instruments to sin, iniquity to iniquity, even so now present your members, slaves to righteousness, unto sanctification. This is real stuff that meets you.

27:02 This is real stuff that meets you in the real world. This is real stuff that meets you in the real world. This is real decisions of life where once you willfully, wantonly gave your eyes to look upon lustful objects. Now you willfully will choose to set your eyes upon that which is pure and lovely,

27:25 with a language and lawless, screeching, screaming, in a cacophony of hellish sight from the pit.

27:37 Say, my soul, died by the blood of Christ, will not be spared. And in the manner, of the music they create.

28:00 No! A slave of righteousness.

28:13 Whatsoever is lovely. Whatsoever is virtuous. Whatsoever is of good report. I give my ears, my members, I give my hands, to purity, in all of my relationship with those of the opposite sex.

28:33 Where once my thoughts were, how can I with my words, and my touches, get them under the sheets.

28:43 Now my thoughts are, how can I conduct myself in such a way, that it will be evident that I recognize my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit. I am not my own. I've been bought with a price. And I'm committed to glorify God in my body.

29:06 Which is His. Stop folks. This ain't airy-fairy, get religion and just flop around and ooze around. No, no.

29:18 Now Paul said your servitude to sin was real. Your servitude to righteousness is real. It's evident. And it is exclusive.

29:30 For Jesus said in Matthew 6, 24, No man can serve two masters. Either he will love the one, and hate the other. Cling to the one, or despise the other. Who is the old master?

29:51 Sin. Who is the new master? God. Obedience and righteousness.

How and When the Change of Masters Occurs

29:57 Third question under this first head. How and when did the change of masters take place in these Romans? And if it's going to take place in you, if it has taken place, it will always be the same way. Look at verse 17.

30:13 Having described what they once were. Verse 17. But thanks be to God. Now that's the first thing you've got to understand.

30:24 If the change ever takes place, God's going to get all the credit.

30:28 You can't break your own servitude.

30:33 He that commits sin, said Jesus, is the bond slave of sin. And the devil gloats over all of his hordes of slaves and says, They are mine. I have them. And they can't free themselves.

30:49 Along comes the mightier than the strong man, who binds the strong man and spoils his goods. Thanks be to God. That's what this whole epistle has been about. How God has intervened in human sin to find and to implement a way of salvation that will not only grant the forgiveness and the pardon of guilty, hell-deserving sinners, but will snap their chains and make them the sons and daughters and loving slaves of God through Jesus Christ.

31:24 How did it happen? Look at verse 17. Thanks be to God. That whereas you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered, and being made free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

31:49 How and when did the change of masters take place? Paul says it took place when some of these Romans, he says, became obedient from the heart to a form of teaching, not that was delivered to them, but unto which they were delivered. Look at your Bibles, and if it doesn't have that translation, it's not an accurate rendering of the tenses of the verse. It's not obedient from the heart to the form of teaching delivered you.

32:25 No, but unto which you were delivered. Passive! Paul says there came a time in the lives of you Romans when a form of teaching, which is a beautiful synonym for the apostolic gospel, the apostolic gospel that has form and has shape, the very gospel he has been expounding in this letter that speaks of human sin and human guilt and human depravity and human helplessness. When we were without strength, he wrote in chapter 5.

33:05 When we were sinners. When we were enemies. And in that gospel, there is a form of teaching that declares man's sinfulness, man's helplessness. It declares that in love and pity to a helpless, sinful, hell-deserving race, God sent His only begotten Son.

33:29 God commended, extended His own love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And it is this form of teaching that declares the God-man Christ Jesus came, took upon Himself all the liabilities of His people, lived the life of obedience we should have lived but did not, and then died under the curse of the broken law. And God raised Him from the dead to validate that the price He paid for us was not to die, was adequate, He was raised, Paul says in 4.25, for our justification.

34:07 That's the form of teaching that came to these Romans that focused upon human sin and guilt, divine intervention in the person and work of Jesus. The necessity of repentance and faith for Paul says that the gospel that he preached throughout the entire world, though we have no record that he had been at Rome to found the church there, the gospel that got there was the apostolic gospel testifying to Jews and Greeks repentance toward God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And that form of teaching, the vigorous, God-centered apostolic gospel, Paul said, it came to you. And you know what happened?

34:49 It was shaped. The contours of the disposition of your heart toward reality began to be shaped by that gospel. The contours of your ethical and moral trust, what you do with your brain, what you do with your hands, what you do with your feet, how you live in families, in society, in the world, everything about you

35:29 began to be shaped by that gospel. Be thanked. When you were the slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart. Almighty God did that work promised in the new covenant, taking out the heart of stone, giving a heart of flesh, a heart that, that turns to please God.

36:11 Sin's domination was broken when you were cast into the mold. That's how the change occurred. When they submitted from the heart to the gospel in its marvelous provision. When they embraced the gospel indicatives, that is, they believed what God said about His Son and about His death and His resurrection and the pardon of sins in Him.

36:47 But then they obeyed, obeyed from the heart the gospel imperatives to repent, to stack arms. God, who alone has the right to determine good and evil and right and wrong and truth and error, to get out of the God business, stop running their own lives, and to believe, to throw themselves into the desperate death grip

37:25 by way of application under this first heading. It's evident that just as Paul assumes all of the Christians at Rome were by nature slaves of sin, he's assuming that they are now all a weird concept of Christians, some who were sold out and surrendered in their serious disciples, and some that are still dabbling,

38:09 one foot in the world, one foot in the path of self-determination and self-will and self-interpretation of right. No, no! He said just as truly as you were sold out slaves to sin, you are now the sold-out slaves of God. No middle ground.

38:35 Paul says, you were, but you now are. And he didn't put a parenthesis. That is, some of you. That is, many of you. He said, no. If you're the real thing, there's been a change. And that

38:53 change of masters is real. And that change of masters is not unknown to the person who has experienced it. You were, but now you are. And when he wrote that, there was nobody sitting there when the epistle was read for the first time, scratching his or her head and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, excuse me, Mr. Elder, read that again. It sounds like Paul

39:16 is saying that every one of us who's part of the church here at one time was a slave of sin and now we're the slave of righteousness. And well, Lord, I'm not so sure about that.

39:27 When these things were read, there was a whole assembly of people who sat there saying, oh, God, thank, God be thanked. That's when Paul says in verse 17, but God be thanked. Yes, Lord, how we praise you. We remember what it was like to go around.

39:43 With our clanking chains bound in slavery to sin and to the death. But we know now what it is to have our chains broken and to be free and have a gracious, blessed, sovereign master. To have the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as our master. A change of masters. Now then, very quickly, secondly note, the change of practice affirmed. The

Second Strand: A Change of Practice Affirmed

40:15 change of practice affirmed. Here we're back to our practice. We're back to our practice. We're back to our text, verse 22. But now, right now, having been made free from sin and become

40:25 slaves to God, now notice the tense. Greek word, echete, you are having. As present, continuous experience, you are having your fruit unto sanctification. Here is the change of practice.

40:50 It's not a command. It's not an exhortation. But it's a statement of fact. It is an affirmation.

41:00 That in the life of every Roman Christian to whom this letter came, having experienced the change of masters. What is this fruit? And how many Christians is it found? In number one. Paul says, you are having your fruit unto sanctification. What is this fruit unto

41:34 sanctification? It is something being produced in their lives as a tree or plant. And what is that something? Well, look at verse 19.

41:47 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you presented your members, servants to uncleanness and iniquity, even so now, present your members as slaves to righteousness unto, and here's the same word, unto sanctification. It is when our members are functioning as slaves of righteousness, sanctification, that is a life marked by being separated. Unto God. Doing the things that are pleasing to God. The mind now thinking God's thoughts

42:31 after that which is clean and up and help and edifying. Eyes looking upon that which pleases God. The feet going where the law of God demands they should go and not going where the law of God forbids they should not. Fruit unto righteousness, the exact opposite of what Paul said. As giving our members.

43:01 Day by day, hour by hour to the service of sin. We now present them to God and to the service so that this is sanctification. Not something you feel when you're having your devotions. It is not something you feel in the midst of a religious service and you feel good and you've got all of these. No, no. It is the practice committed in the details

43:35 of that life. Look at the passage. In all of them. But now, being made free of sin, from sin and become slaves to God. Not some of you. All of you ought. It's an affirmation

44:03 of reality. You are having your fruit unto sanctification. My friend, if you're not having the fruit, if you've become the slave of God, here's the proof of it. You are having. So

44:33 that if someone were able to get inside your head with a notebook, recording your thoughts, if someone were able, without you knowing it, to follow you. Listen to every word you spoke on the phone. Observe everything you watched on the internet. And at the end of the week, had to tally it all up. They'd come to one of two conclusions.

45:11 You were living as a slave of sin. When thoughts of uncleanness entered your mind, they would record that you were grieved and pained and you confessed to God what no one else knew about. And you mourned, oh God, those filthy thoughts, those envious thoughts, those jealous thoughts. Forgive me.

45:39 That's fruit unto sanctification. It's what you do. The person who is under the lordship and the servitude of God is not merely concerned with externals. A life righteous enough for other people to say, yeah, your Christian profession is credible. No. They are not servants

46:08 of their peers, not slaves of the opinion and acceptance of their fellow church members. They're slaves of God. In the language of Hagar, thou, God, seest me. Wherever I am, I know he sees me and I want to please him and I want to be his bond slave.

46:31 The chambers of a widower's house, present but gone, since my wife's body was carried out of my house. And the loneliness and the pain of that separation. Myself turning to

47:04 my God and to the things that please him when no one knows but me and my God. Crushing hours of my life.

47:30 I'm only turned to nothing but about you, young person. Come on, get honest. Your fruit unto sanctification. That's the tenor of your life. That's the drift of your life. That's

Third Strand: A Change of Destiny Promised

48:05 the flow of your life. Not always evenly, but really. Then finally, there's not only the change of masters described, the change of practice affirmed, but thirdly and finally the change of destiny promised. Look at the text.

48:34 Now, being made free from sin and become slaves to God, you are having your fruit unto sanctification and the end, eternal life. The telos, the end. What comes at the end of a life where there's been a change of masters, issuing in a change of practice, eternal life. Now, sometimes the Bible speaks of eternal life as a quality.

49:06 I have given unto them eternal life, and this is life eternal, that they may know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. But there are times when eternal life is pointing to the consummate, glorious finish of all the work of God's grace in the hearts of his own, and it's obvious that that's what Paul is referring to here. Now, that's the present age. Free from sin and slaves to God, now you are having fruit unto sanctification, and then

49:44 the telos, the end, eternal life. What was the former destiny? Look at 21b. What fruit had you at that time in the things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end, telos, same

50:05 Greek word, the end of those things is eternal life. Death! The end of those things is death. The things whereof you are now ashamed. When

50:18 you think of them, you're filled with shame, as we heard in the previous hour. And though they've been repented of and turned from, any thought of them removes the shame. The end of those things is death. And where is life found? At the end. At the end of a life

50:39 that has experienced a change of masters. And a change of practice. Not at the end of a life where anyone has raised a hand, prayed a prayer, tipped their hat to Jesus, and said, I'm fixed up, I'm in. No. John Owen said,

50:59 and his words came back to me so powerfully in preparing for this morning, two of the greatest damning errors in the world are these. Number one, that people think they will attain heaven in the end who are strangers. To the new birth. People who think they will attain heaven at the end who are strangers to the new birth. For Jesus said, except the man be born again, he cannot see, he cannot

51:26 enter the kingdom of heaven. But then Owen said, there is a second damning error, and it is this. People who think they've experienced the new birth, who are not pursuing a life of holiness. People who think they have experienced the new birth, who are not pursuing a life of holiness.

51:46 The end. Eternal life. The end for whom? Those in whom there's been a change of masters, issuing in a change of practice, and the end for them is eternal life. Ah, but someone

Addressing Objections and Warning Against Delusion

52:02 sits here and says, oh, but Pastor Martin, that's salvation by works. Look at verse 23.

52:10 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This salvation is a free gift, but my friend, the gift works. Paul didn't think this was teaching salvation by works. He follows up this very statement, change of masters, change of practice, change of destiny, for. Why is it this way? Because the wages of sin is death,

52:47 and no matter what you profess, if you're living under sin's mastery, you're going to get sin's payday.

52:56 Sin as a master has his payday, and it's death. You serve that master, you get paid by him. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord, and when we embrace him in the death grip of faith, and are united to him, and we are cast into the mold of the gospel, we not only have a change of destiny, we have a change of masters, issuing in a change of practice, culminating.

53:29 Isn't it amazing how people saying they believe their Bibles can come up with these horrible soul-destructive doctrines of the carnal Christian, that you can live dominated by carnality, and all you do is lose a bag of yo-yos in the last day. You see what the apostle gives us here. Some of you may have already thought of it. The apostle gives us in straight, plain, language what Jesus gave us in a beautiful pictorial imagery. Remember what Jesus said?

54:12 Enter in by… for wide is the gate, broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are they that go in thereat because… … Compressed is the way that leads unto… You've got to get through the gate, and if you get through the gate, you're going to be on the narrow way, the compressed way, but you're going to be on the narrow way. Why? but it's only the gains in the way that lead to life. Change of masters, change of practice, change of destiny.

Pastoral Exhortation: Go to the Lord Jesus

54:49 There's a beautiful agreement in the Word of God. If you sit here this morning and you know nothing of that change of masters, my friend, I plead you, go to the Lord Jesus, who alone can break the chains that bind you. One of the passages that has been so precious to me in recent days is Isaiah 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.

55:22 He has anointed me. To do what? The Lord Jesus has been anointed by the Spirit. To do what?

55:28 To open the prison to them that are bound, as well as to bind up the brokenhearted. In times without number in recent days, I've just said, Lord Jesus, I can't fix it.

55:44 It's broken. It's shattered. All the pieces are scattered on the floor. I can only gather up the pieces and hold them.

55:53 I can only gather up and say, Lord Jesus, you do what you were anointed to do. You take my broken heart and you mend it. And He's been doing it. And in the same way, I beg some of you this morning, go to the Lord Jesus with all your chains and all the bars that hold you in the prison house of sin and say, Lord Jesus, I can't break the chains.

56:22 I can't burst the bars. But you were anointed to do that for helplessness. Sinners like me. Lord Jesus, magnify your grace.

56:32 I'm for me. And He will. For He said, Him that comes to me, I will know why. That you will take your word and by your Holy Spirit make it effectual in every heart of every man, every woman, every boy or girl gathered in this place today.

57:10 Thank you for this text that is so clear, that sets before us the change of masters that you, in effect, whenever you lay hold of a sinner, the change of practice that issues by the power of the indwelling Spirit, the change of destiny that awaits us. Oh Lord, strip away the delusion that some are in. Comfort those who need to be comforted. Encourage those who need encouragement.

57:41 We trust you to seal your word to our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Praise of your blessed name.