Servants of Righteousness by Grace

Introduction: The Master-Slave Analogy

0:02 Now will you please carefully follow in your own Bible as I read from the 6th chapter of Romans, Romans chapter 6, verses 15 through 23. Romans 6, verses 15 through 23.

0:21 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? God forbid. Be free from sin and become servants of righteousness.

1:02 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What?

1:27 What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification and the end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

The Devil's Logic and the Apostle's Answer

1:57 Our Lord. Now it should be obvious to anyone who has listened just to this reading of the passage without any comment that to introduce a study of this portion with the question, whose slave are you, is not to find something that is hidden under the surface of the obvious sentiments expressed by the apostle. For the very clear teaching of this passage, is that no one within the sound of my voice tonight is a free man, a free woman, a free boy or a free girl, but that each of us is a slave. The word servant, in the translation that I read in your hearing, should properly be translated slave. In all the ugliness of the connotation of slavery and the teaching of this passage, is that no man, no woman, no boy, no girl is free. We are either the slaves of God and of righteousness, or we are the slaves of sin leading to death. Tonight as we come to the second of our expositions and meditations in this portion of the word of God, I would remind you very briefly of the ground that we covered last Lord's Day evening.

3:26 We noted that the basic thread, the thread of the apostle's thought in this passage, is one in which he is answering the objection that is based upon what I call the devil's logic. Having established in the previous chapters that guilty sinners are saved not by what they do, that is the works of the law, but by the doings and the dyings of another, even Jesus Christ, and that the benefit of his doings and dyings are received by faith alone, why the objection might come, well, since salvation is free and gratuitous, and where sin abounds, grace does much more abound, let's continue in sin that grace may abound. The objection delineated in verse 1 of the chapter. Well, the apostle answers that objection with one unit of thought through the first 13 verses, and then he introduces an expansion of that thought in verse 14, for sin shall not lord it over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Well, the devil's logic comes along again and says, what then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?

4:40 And then the apostle answers again, God forbid, and then introduces this whole analogy of the servant and the master. So if we were to distill the essence of chapter 6, it is the divine answer, the divine answer to the devil's logic, to this perversion of the truth of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. In the first 11 verses, the answer is our union with Christ forbids that we should continue in sin, and the passage read in your hearing tonight, verses 15 to 23, is an indication that our servitude to righteousness precludes our servitude to sin. Well, it's in this imagery then of the slave and the master that we are seeking to discover some of the richness of the thought given to us through the inspired apostle, and last Lord's Day evening, we considered only what the Roman Christians were by nature, and we noted in that description that their former condition was asserted in verse 17, they were the slaves of sin, their former condition was described in verses 19 and 21 as consisting in a voluntary obedience to the demands of sin,

The Former Condition: Slaves of Sin

6:09 they presented their members, and they regarded nothing of the demands of righteousness, verse 21, and the end of that condition is described in the word death. So this was true of all the Romans, and as we noted last week, it is true of every unconverted man, woman, boy or girl upon the face of the earth. Each one, without exception, is a slave of sin by nature. There is that expression of that slavery and the voluntary obedience yielded to sin, the total disregard of the demands of righteousness, and as such each one, is in the path which leads only to death. Now tonight we move to the second major area of thought in the passage, namely what the Romans had become by grace. Last night we looked at the before picture, tonight we look at the after picture. Having seen the ugly sight of man as he is by nature, we now come to the beautiful sight of what man becomes by grace.

The New Condition Asserted: Emancipation and Enslavement

7:28 And we'll follow basically the same outline as we did last week, since it seems to be a convenient teaching model or framework, and we will consider first of all their new condition asserted, and then their new condition described, and then the end of their new condition given to us in the passage. First of all then, what is the Apostle's assertion with respect to their new condition? Well, he says two things by way of assertion. He says first of all that it is one of liberation from sin, and secondly it is one of servitude to righteousness. Notice the vigorous language now in verse 18. And being made free from sin, or more literally, or I should say more vigorously translated, and having been emancipated from sin. For the word emancipation speaks more to our ears, and it is an accurate embodiment of the thought of the Spirit in the word that was used.

8:45 He asserts that their new condition, is to be understood in no less a vigorous imagery than that of the emancipation of a slave from the claims of his former master. The former master in the passage is sin, personified into the image of a cruel master who demands the full engagement of all the faculties of his slaves, and when they are all done, he pays them nothing but the wages. of death. He takes them to hell with himself.

9:22 Whereas now the apostle says, since the grace of God has come, the new condition is one of liberation, emancipation from that cruel master who no longer has the sovereignty over them. Verse 14. As real as was their slavery to sin, is their emancipation from sin. But then he says, by way of assertion, that their new condition is also to be understood as one of servitude to righteousness.

9:59 We might literally translate verse 18 in this way. And having been emancipated from sin, ye became enslaved to righteousness. And the word ye became servants simply means to become enslaved. So here is an assertion indicating a very real enslavement which attended their liberation.

10:35 And we may say, though it seems paradoxical, it is true, it was liberation and emancipation by enslavement. What a strange thing. To be emancipated by becoming enslaved. But that's precisely the teaching of this text.

10:57 Being emancipated from sin, ye became. Upon that emancipation, you came into another form of slavery and of bondage. You came into this slavery to righteousness. Now you see, righteousness is personified into the person of the new master.

Righteousness as the New Master

11:25 And what does it mean in this context? Well, it means that which conforms to the law and the will of God. Righteousness is that which is in conformity to the law and the will of God. You remember last week we noted from verse 20 that in their former state they regarded themselves as free men in the presence of righteousness as a master.

11:54 Remember Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, master analogy, you who are here? And he says, when righteousness would speak its demands in your former state, you said to righteousness, who are you to tell me what to do?

12:08 I don't belong to you. You're not my master. I do not acknowledge your headship or authority or lordship. He says you were free.

12:16 You regarded yourselves as free men with regard to righteousness. But now he asserts that in their new condition they have come into a servitude to righteousness. But now notice it is not righteousness in the abstract, just a principle or code of conduct, but he uses another phrase in verse 22, which shows that it is righteousness in conjunction with servitude to God Himself. Look at verse 22.

12:53 But now having been emancipated from sin and become enslaved to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness. You see how he uses the two things interchangeably? All who have become enslaved to righteousness have done so as they have become enslaved to God Himself. And these two things are inseparable not only in fact, but in the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

13:28 He goes on in the 8th chapter to say, concerning the carnal mind, he says this in verse 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God, His person, and is not subject to the law of God, the standard of righteousness. And the Apostle joins the two things here as he did in the previous chapters when he speaks of men's opposition to God, it is always in terms of their opposition to the law of God. The two cannot be separated, for the law is the transcript of the righteous character of God as it impinges upon man the creature in his circumstances as dictated by God. And so he asserts that the new condition, is one of servitude to righteousness, but not righteousness in the abstract, but righteousness as the standard of the God to whom they have become enslaved. And yet by saying, you are enslaved to righteousness in the practical expression of the standard of right and wrong, he delivers them from any kind of mystical notion, oh yes, I am the bond slave of God, isn't that wonderful, I have such warm thoughts about God now, and I just feel all, no, no, he says, if that bondage, if that servitude is real, it will be practical.

The Practicality of Servitude to God

14:54 It will be servitude to righteousness, to a practical, tangible standard of right and wrong, but if it is true conversion, it is not an empty legalism in which you get converted from one way of life to another, in which you merely give up one set of standards for another, no, no, it is servitude to God. There is warm, living, pulsating, person to person relationship, but that never degenerates, you see, into mere mysticism. In the most intimate recesses of that one to one, person to person intimacy, there is always the recognition that I am the creature under solemn obligation to obey the law of Him who is my Creator and my Redeemer. And so the Apostle then asserts the new condition in these simple terms, and I am so glad for verse 19 in which he said, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. I find the whole doctrine of sin and the liberation of the Gospel concretized so beautifully in this whole matter of the master-slave relationship, and it takes it out of the realm of abstract thought. It gets it down where we can touch it and feel it and look upon it in all of its sharp delineation.

16:18 So the new condition then of every Roman Christian is, number one, emancipation from the sovereignty of sin, number two, servitude to righteousness. Now before we pass on, I just want to underscore, I am not applying now, I am simply expounding, that the Apostle asserts that this new condition is present in every true Christian at Rome without exception. Notice how sweeping, how general is the language. God be thanked, verse 17, that whereas ye were the slaves of sin, all of you without exception, that was your former condition.

17:03 When the Gospel came and you were cast into the mold of the Gospel, that will be our exposition for next week, God willing, how this change occurred. What happened? He says, having been emancipated from sin, ye became enslaved to righteousness. How many?

The New Condition Described: Shame for the Past

17:22 Every single Christian at Rome without exception. There was no middle class who had simply trusted Jesus and were now saved and on their way to heaven, but who had not had this radical emancipation from sin's dominion and this fundamental, fundamental subjugation to God and to righteousness. The notion of a class of Christians in whom there has been no radical breach with sin, in whom there has been no transfer of government, is utterly foreign to the teaching of the Word of God. Well, we pass on now to consider in the second place the new condition described in its acting. You see, the Apostle asserts what the new condition is, but then he's not content with that. He goes on to describe the new condition in its acting, and he says three things. Number one, this new condition in its acting is characterized by constant shame with respect to their former life.

18:36 Look at verse 21. We go back up to verse 20. When ye were the slaves of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness, what fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? You see, the emphasis is between then and now.

19:01 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now, and he uses a present tense verb, where you are now continued. And there the Apostle, as it were, touches the deep inner springs of the heart of the Roman Christians, and he says when you open up the springs of the heart, you will find this new condition manifesting itself continually in a sense of shame with regard to the life lived in obedience to that old master. Now the word shame, though it's difficult to give a formal definition, is obvious in its meaning. You children know what it is to be ashamed. If you had a father or mother who dressed shabbily and never bathed or washed, and all the kids in the neighborhood were bringing their moms or dads to a party of some of the kids in the neighborhood, you'd feel ashamed to bring your mom and dad. What would that feeling of shame mean?

20:13 Well, it means you didn't want to be seen with them. You'd rather disown them in that situation. You could not, as it were, bring them to the front and say, hey kids, here's my pop, and then bust your buttons while you do it. Or here's my mom, and be proud of it.

20:28 You see, shame is the opposite of feeling that sense of pride and wanting to be identified with something or someone. Now the apostle says, concerning the past life of these Romans, as they think of that lifestyle and all that it involved, he said every time you think of it, you feel deep pangs of shame. That's the new condition described in its actings. Shame for the past life.

The New Condition Described: Voluntary Obedience

21:05 Embarrassment, a sense of spiritual chagrin in the presence of every memory of what they were. But then, in the second place, he says the new condition in its acting is marked by this, a voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness. Verse 19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh, as you presented your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members slaves to righteousness unto sanctification. Verse 16, know ye not that to whom ye present yourselves, slaves to obedience, his slaves you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? You see what he is saying? He's saying the new condition manifests itself in this voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness. The slavery to sin was not theoretical.

22:19 When your master sin spoke, Paul says, you gave your members as instruments of unrighteousness to do his bidding. You gave your eyes to lust and your ears to gossip and your tongues to vicious speech. You gave your feet to walk in unholy paths and your emotions to feel unholy thoughts. When sin dictated, you gave your faculties, your members, instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.

22:50 Now he says, because the emancipation is not theoretical but real. This transformation, which he has already asserted, that involved liberation from sin and servitude to righteousness, it is not a theoretical concept. He said, as surely as it manifests itself in the constant sense of grief for what you were, it manifests itself in the voluntary and practical yielding of yourself to the demands of righteousness. When God exerts His demands in terms of His word and His law, as surely as the hand was given to do forbidden things and the eyes and the ears to perform forbidden acts, so now, when He calls upon us with our eyes to look upon men for what they are and let the eye be the inlet of compassion and grief, He says, you now present your members instruments of righteousness unto instruments of obedience unto righteousness. As the ear was once given to listen to gossip and to drink it into the soul, so now the ear will refuse to be presented unto gossip and will seek to listen to that which is good to the use of edifying. And as the feet walked in paths

The New Condition Described: Fruit of Sanctification

24:17 that were in direct violation to God's law, so they now walk in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. He said this is the manifestation of the new life in action. And then He said the third thing that characterizes it is this, there is the practical fruit of sanctification. Verse 19, you present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification.

24:47 Verse 23, verse 22, I'm sorry, now having been emancipated from sin and become enslaved to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness or unto sanctification. You see what the Apostle is doing? He is again undercutting any thought that this transformation is just a flight of mystical feelings, some kind of a nebulous Jesus experience to be felt and known only in the closet of prayer or in the heightened emotional tension of a religious gathering. No, no, he says, there was actual fruit that resulted in a life of separateness unto God, for that's the essence of the concept of sanctification or holiness, that which is set apart unto God and therefore being set apart unto Him is marked by those things that are pleasing in His sight. You remember the contrast? He said your former life was characterized by that uncleanness within. You presented yourselves, verse 19, as your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity.

The End of the New Condition: Eternal Life

26:15 So now, he says, this practical involuntary presentation of your members results not in uncleanness as in your former life, but in sanctification of heart, that is, heart holiness, sanctification of life, holiness as it touches conduct and our demeanor before God and before men. Now let me simply underscore again, there is not a hint of a suggestion that the apostle is in any way inferring that this transformation, both as asserted and described, is something exceptional. He is saying it is universal, it is general, it will be found wherever you find a true Christian at Rome. Alright, then very briefly, the end of this new condition is stated in verse 22. But having been emancipated from sin and having been enslaved or become slaves to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification and the end eternal life. In other words, he says, all in whom there has been this emancipation from sin and this servitude to righteousness, and then the practical manifestations

27:43 of that new standing before God and the power of sin, he says such a one is in that narrow road that leads unto life. And of course the contrast in the passage is with death. The former master and all that he demands, he says the end of those things is death, verse 21. Again in verse 23, the wages of the sin is death.

28:13 You see the picture is still that of the personification of sin into a master and when you've served him all your days and it comes payday, what does he give you? Death. Horrors of hell and of outer darkness. Whereas here, the person who's experienced that radical cleavage with sin as his master, who has become enslaved to God and to righteousness, he says, having his fruit unto holiness, the end is eternal life.

28:51 Now is he suggesting that that eternal life is that which they earn because of their holiness? No, look at the next words in verse 23. The wages of sin is death, but though you get what you deserve if you end up in hell, the free gift of God is eternal life. No, it is gracious all the way through.

29:18 But now follow. It is grace that breaks the dominion of sin. Not gray heaven, whether dominion is broken or not. There is in the word of God doesn't bother the apostle at all that eternal life comes at the end of a life of holiness and then turn right around and say eternal life is the free gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

29:51 And it's only when we add the devil's logic to the gospel that we find any difficulty in moving very easily and naturally from verse 22 to verse 23. It didn't seem to jangle the apostle's mind in theology one bit. And if it jangles ours, ours needs to be adjusted to the word of God. Well, that very briefly is an opening up of what I understand to be the teaching of the apostle in this portion of the word, what the Romans became by the grace of God.

Application: Is This Passage a Description of You?

30:29 Now as we did last week, I want to take that exposition having, as it were, opened up the text. Now let's put the text on. And I want to press the question upon the conscience of every person in this building tonight. As we look at this passage and the description of the transformation which grace brought to the Romans, I would ask you as you sit here tonight, is this passage a graphic description of you?

31:06 In other words, if everyone were to make an exodus from this room, and you were left sitting right smack down there in the middle all by yourself, all alone, no one else, and the apostle Paul were given momentarily the insight of God as to the true condition of your heart, could he pen these words to you personally and say, Whereas ye were the bond-slave of sin, ye have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching unto which ye were delivered, and having been emancipated from sin, and having become enslaved to righteousness, ye are having your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. Could he write that of you? If not, my friend, you are yet a slave of sin. You are yet in the way that leads to death.

32:07 You are yet in bondage to your sins. Let me then briefly apply what we've seen in the text as we work as we weigh our way back through the lines of thought open to us in this passage. If you are a Christian, you have been loosed from sin's lordship, and you've been made a slave of righteousness and of God. Now, is that true of you?

Application: Shame for the Past

32:39 Is that true of you? Has sin's dominion over you been broken? I am not asking you, are you sinlessly perfect? For I have no grounds to ask that question of any but an angel or a glorified saint beyond our Lord Himself.

32:59 And anyone else lays claim to it, God says he's a liar. But, though we turn in horror from the false teaching of sinless perfection, we must face realistically the clear teaching of this passage, that if we, by the power of the Spirit, have been cast into the mold of the Gospel, verse 17, we have experienced that emancipation which has led to this blessed enslavement to God and to righteousness. We are not strangers to that emancipation unto subjugation, which is the experience of every true Christian. And rather than try to help you to answer that question in the abstract, I want to move very quickly to the second area of thought that we opened up tonight. What was the manifestation of the change in the Romans? You remember the three things, shame for what they had been, the voluntary giving up of their members to righteousness and to God, and the practice of the physical fruit unto holiness.

34:18 And my friend, if you have experienced the change of masters, this will be true of you. Are you ashamed of what you once were? Now notice, he doesn't say you were ashamed when you got caught. Now you children, listen to the pastor.

34:37 I've rarely met a child who did not feel very ashamed when he got caught in his sins. I can remember as a boy when my mom and dad would catch me in my sins. I would cry, and it was very real tears. I didn't manufacture them.

34:56 My shame was so deep I'd sob at times like a baby, even up into my teenage years. But if they didn't catch me, I didn't shed any tears. There was no godly shame. The thought that I would take these hands and these eyes and these ears and these feet, and this mind and these affections, and willingly give them up to the master's sin, that caused me no real shame before God.

35:31 Oh yes, it caused some pain of conscience continually. I never was happy in my sin. Deep pangs of conscience. And when caught, shame I had been caught.

35:44 But it could not be said of me what is said here. What fruit had ye then in those things where ye are now ashamed? For what the things brought? Isn't that what the text says?

36:09 What fruit had ye in? And one of the marks of a person who's been transformed by the grace of God is that sin is ugly because it's sin. It is seen now in the light of God's gloriness, in the light of the strict justice and reasonableness of His holy law. It is seen above all in the light of the cross of Jesus Christ.

36:44 And there it is stripped of all glamour and awe. When I realized it was my sin, my presenting of my members as instruments of righteous unrighteousness unto sin that opened up the wounds of the Son of God, caused the shrouded heavens wrong. Now my friend, do you know any of that shame of the things that characterized you, Pastor? Shame for the things. You children, are you ashamed of your lying because it's a contradiction of everything God made you to be as an image-bearer? He made you to reflect His image.

37:49 He's the God of truth. Every time you lie, you contradict. Are you ashamed of that? Shame!

37:59 Does it fill your heart, children? If you're not ashamed of your lies, then you still love your lies and you love your sin and you love the Master. Are you ashamed of your pride for what is pride but an attempt to unseat God? He claims Himself to be the giver of every good and perfect gift, the only one worthy of praise and adoration.

38:29 I am Jehovah. I will not give my glory to another, neither my praise. Neither my praise to graven images. What is pride but an attempt to nudge God from His throne and say, I'll share it with Him and I will receive some honor.

38:44 I will receive some praise. Are you ashamed of pride about some of you young women? God's given you a fair face and a fair form. Are you full of pride about your face and your form?

39:01 Are you ashamed? Are you filled with a sense of revulsion, shame for the things of your past life? Need I go on into greater detail? You just stop and think of all the things that you did when sin was your Master and you willingly gave Him your members externally and internally.

39:33 You gave them. As you think of that, are you filled right now as I preach with a sense of holy disgust and shame? I remember the late Dr. Tozer saying on one occasion, if any man can think or speak of his past without shame, he's never repented of it.

39:56 If any man can think or speak of his past without shame, he's never repented of it. He was pretty much on target in the light of this verse. Oh, but you say, Pastor Martin, I was reared in a Christian home. And because for one reason or another I was basically obedient to my mom and dad, I went to catechism class and I was confirmed and I became a confessing believer.

40:25 I went to church all my life. I never frequented the honky tonks and I never made my way bar hopping and bed hopping and all the rest. What is this? You should be ashamed of my friend if that very question is on your lips.

40:40 It's proof you're still alive. It's proof you're still a slave of the devil. For few know the shame than does the self-righteous, that which is known to the self-righteous religious hypocrite who thinks of all those Sundays he spent warming a place in a Christian church building, mouthing the Christian devotion, listening to the proclamation of the Christian gospel, and his heart was as far from the same hour. When that grips him, it fills him with shame.

41:20 All of his prayerless praying, all of his heartless singing, all of his heartless listening to sermons, he's filled with shame. Do you know anything of that shame, my religious friends? Paul says that's the manifestation of the new condition. Shame for the past.

Application: Voluntary and Practical Obedience

41:47 But then he says there will be the voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness. And he says, as you presented your members to sin, that was a real presentation, even so now present your members instruments of righteousness unto God. Ah, but someone says, Pastor, that's an exhortation. Yes, it is.

42:14 But it's not an exhortation which has any doubt as to the issue in a true believer, for he's already said in verse 15, don't you know that to whom you actually present yourselves servants to obey his servants you are? So know, my friend, the fact that it's an exhortation does not negate the fact that it is the experience of every true believer. Now let me press the question upon your conscience. Are you voluntarily, consciously, and practically presenting your members as instruments of righteousness unto holiness?

42:49 Are you consciously presenting your eyes to be the inlet of holy sights and thoughts or are you consciously, deliberately giving your eyes to watch the lecturers on the TV, to watch the unclean in the modern magazine, to watch the prurient and that which is in a contradiction to the word of God at every point? What are you doing with those eyes? Are you making a covenant with them as did Job that you should not look upon forbidden objects? God describes wicked people in these terms as eyes full of adultery.

43:31 Does that describe you? He doesn't say beds full of adultery. It's his eyes. Eyes may never go any further than the eye and God says you can be classified as an adulterer when the only member of your body that's ever involved is your eye.

43:51 Now we're not talking about the poor man wrestling with lust in a sex-soaked age who cries to God a hundred times a day Lord cleanse my eyes and cleanse my heart and who seeks to wage in all our degrees of success. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the purposeful, deliberate yielding of the eyes to be the inlet of lust. The ears to be the inlet of unkind speech and gossip.

44:28 Do you deliberately and willfully stretch out your ears like antennae to pick up the ladies? Do you present your ears instruments of righteousness unto God saying Lord make me sensitive to the first crackling sound of gossip and help me to change the channel to love? What about your mouth? Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you.

45:06 James says the one who professes religion and does not bridle that tongue that tongue has vain religion. Vain religion. Do you present your tongue an instrument of righteousness unto God to speak words of healing, words of comfort, words of instruction where necessary, words of loving rebuke to administer those faithful wounds of a friend? Or is your tongue an instrument that slashes and cuts and stings and wounds and leaves a trail of blood?

45:48 The apostle says if this liberation has been real and the new subjugation has been real there will be the voluntary and practical obedience to the demands of righteousness. And it's not just keeping a standard. It's servitude to God. Instruments of righteousness unto God.

Application: Fruit of Sanctification

46:11 It's in that sense that I love to be in this relationship of servitude to the one who made me for himself. And then he says there will be the practical fruit unto holiness. And perhaps the most comprehensive description in short compass is Galatians 5, 22 and 23. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

46:37 The love that thinketh no evil. The love that puts the best construction on a given set of facts. It doesn't look for the most dastardly, the most possible mean, ugly motive and then assume it's right and extract it and then pronounce it as fact. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

46:58 Love that thinketh no evil. Love that seeketh not her own. Love that is selfless. That is concerned for others.

47:09 Love that beareth all things. Puts up with everything. Love that believeth all things. The fruit of the Spirit is love.

47:19 What is this fruit unto holiness? It is the growing, outworking of this kind of love. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. That is that inward sense of delight that comes from knowing that I am the Lord's and he is mine.

47:37 Peace, that rest of heart that comes from knowing that my sins are pardoned through the blood of the everlasting covenant. Love, joy, peace, long suffering. Suffering long. Well you go on with that seven, that nine-fold fruit of the Spirit.

Application: The Choice of Masters

47:59 That's the practical fruit unto holiness and the apostle says no one is in the way to life who is not in the way of producing that fruit. Ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. Now we come around the circle to where we began with the question whose slave are you? Whose slave are you?

48:30 Are you sin's slave? My friend if you are take a good look at your master. What does he exact from you? What does he demand of you?

48:40 He demands nothing less than that you give him your members to be instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. He demands that the price of your service to him will be violating the law of God and listen to me because we were made to obey God and find our true fulfillment as his creatures in obedience to him the price for service to sin is self-destruction. The price of service to sin is self-destruction. That's why the only wages he'll pay you at the end is death. The wages of sin is death. Now what would happen in the world if you were to stand a group of people before two masters and the masters are described in terms of their character and their past performance. One is described as being mean self-centered, insensitive, cruel, unreasonable and if you give yourself to serve him he'll not only pick your pocket while you're working for him he'll not only work you to the point of exhaustion and weariness and torture you with every imaginable means at his disposal

50:07 but when he's done with you he'll take you out and shoot you. The other master is one who is known to be full of nothing but kindness and goodwill to all of his servants. He considers their constitution their needs all that they are in all the demands that he makes upon them. He is known to have a record for being patient with those that are a bit slower to catch on than others.

50:39 He's known at his own expense to stoop to meet the needs of those whom he takes under his authority to be his slaves. And his record is absolutely impeccable and wonder of wonders. After a certain period of time of servitude to him he takes his slaves and then adopts them into his own family and makes them his sons and daughters and gives them the full run of his royal headquarters or of his mansion. Now imagine if two such masters were set before you a group of people and people were asked choose which one what in the world would you think of those who willfully deliberately and with delight chose the former. You'd say they're insane and you're right you're right and my friend that's exactly what sin has made you morally and spiritually insane. I'm speaking to men and women and boys and girls sitting in this building tonight who are deliberately willingly voluntarily serving a master who is robbing you of any last vestige of a good conscience of any last vestige of delight in life.

52:06 He is promising you everything that he cannot give and giving you everything that he does not promise. And when he's done with you death will be your reward. While there stands over against him the gracious Lord Jesus Christ whose yoke is easy whose burden is light. Who has a host of servants who can testify that he was always considerate of their frame he remembered that they were but dust.

52:41 His commands were not grievous and when he laid burdens that were too heavy for them to bear he himself came and shouldered the burdens with them. He has a host of those who rise up and say his service has been naught but sweetness. And with all that testimony of those who've served him and all the record concerning that which he is why will you not embrace so gracious a master? I'll tell you why.

53:15 Because you're morally and spiritually insane in your sin. But my friend if you have any semblance of concern for your soul may I urge you to do something tonight. Will you cry to all mighty God to break the bewitching spell of your moral and spiritual insanity? What have you got to lose by crying to God and saying Oh God if what Pastor Martin's told us is true what have I got to lose if I'm insane?

Concluding Illustration and Plea

53:49 Lord show me! I racked my brain for illustrations ways that I might bring this home to the conscience until I said this afternoon Lord it can't be done. You must break through and somehow seal your word and cause them in the language of 2 Timothy 2 to return to soberness and to choose this gracious master. Last week I tried to quote from a hymn and I said I couldn't locate it.

54:29 Well I know at least six people were listening to the sermon because during the week I got six copies of the hymn. It's the hymn of George Matheson who lived in the 1800s or at least he wrote this hymn in 1890. And as I close tonight I want to read two stanzas of this hymn because it does indeed express the thought of the apostle in this passage and something of that which I've been trying to convey to you tonight. Make me a captive Lord and then I shall be free.

55:07 Force me to render up my sword and I shall conqueror be. I sink in life's alarms when by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms and strong shall be my stand. My will is not my own till thou hast made it thine.

55:35 If it would reach a monarch's throne it must its crown resign. It truly stands unbent amid the clashing strife when on thy bosom it has leaned and found in thee its life. That's the truth of this passage. Paul says you were the slaves of sin.

56:03 You have become the bond slaves of God. And he makes it clear in his final word in this chapter that that whole transaction came about as they were brought into union with Christ. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Oh my dear friend I know not what else to do.

56:32 I feel the frustration of preaching when I come to a point like this. And I can only plead with you in the name of the God of heaven before whom we shall all soon stand in that awesome day. Don't shake off the question. It's just another conclusion of another of Pastor Martin's sermons.

56:54 But may you take it to heart. Whose slave are you? Sin unto death? Obedience unto righteousness.

57:05 And the end for lasting life. And God willing in our study next week we shall address ourselves particularly to verse 17 and ask the question by what means did this wonderful transformation occur? And there the apostle gives us some of the richest lines of thought to be found anywhere in all of the word of God concerning that great question. How do the slaves of sin become the servants of God and of righteousness?

57:40 Well we know it's through Christ and in Christ. But by what means are they actually brought from that state to this? Well the wonderful truth is embodied in the words of verse 17. And God willing we shall examine the teaching of that verse when we gather next Lord's day.

Prayer and Benediction

58:00 Let us unite our hearts in prayer. Our Father we feel very keenly this night how utterly impotent we are to impress upon the minds and consciences of any of our fellow mortals the awesome weight of these great spiritual realities. But when we think of our own blindness and how mercifully you opened our eyes and turned us from darkness to light we are then filled with a sense of hope and expectation that you are able to do the same for others. Oh God be pleased.

58:45 Be pleased we pray by the power of your word to prevail upon some who sit here in this very moment as the slaves of sin. Oh God set them free to become the slaves of righteousness and of yourself the living God. We pray that you would help us who have been liberated by this exchange of masters. Oh help us that we may not be found less zealous in our service of our gracious redeeming master than we were in the service of sin.

59:27 Oh forgive us that our zeal so quickly flags and our desire to honor and serve you so very quickly recedes and we are filled with a fresh sense of what a mass of weakness and tendency to sin we are. Oh God keep us even in the days of the week that lies ahead of us from growing cold in our love to you and to your Son. Stir us up that it may be our delight day by day and hour by hour to present our members as instruments of righteousness unto yourself. May we bear much of that fruit unto holiness and then hasten the day when our Lord Jesus will fill up the role of his elect and come and take us home to be with himself. Even so come Lord Jesus. Amen.

60:34 Hear then the prayer that we offer in your presence and be with us as we part from one another and may the blessing of your own presence abide with each one who is in Christ. Amen.