Victory Over Sin - Notable Quotable

My Facebook Status Message the other day was this...

"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves -- regret for the past and fear of the future."

-- Fulton Oursler

How many of us who just read that can relate? There is hope though!

That being said, please continue reading. I pray it helps. I haven't done a Notable Quotable in awhile so here goes...

Number one, recognize the presence of sin, recognize the presence of sin in your flesh. Indwelling sin according to Romans 7:21, indwelling sin is a principle, it's a principle, it's an operative principle, it's an inward principle, it's a reality and you have to recognize that it is there. Listen to me, the problem is not outside of you, the problem is not the culture, the problem is not the absence of cultural morality, the problem is not education, the problem is not television; you are the problem. You are the problem. As Pogo said, "we have met the enemy and the enemy is us." The problem is not bad examples. The problem is not Satan. The problem is not demons. The problem is you. And if there were not any Satan and there were not any demons as will be true in the millennial kingdom there will still be rampant inequity. And the more people get educated it's not true that conversely the more moral they become. We're the most educated society in the world and we would rival the immorality of any era of human history. The problem is not our society, it's not our culture, it's not outside of us, it isn't a matter of chasing demons or creating public morality. The problem is inside; we still possess unredeemed flesh. You have to recognize you're the problem.

Well the best a non-Christian can do said John Owen is sin; the worst a Christian can do is sin. But the battle is really intimate. You're the problem recognize it. Don't blame everything around you. Start by acknowledging your own problem. Search out the poison in you. Find that hidden camouflaged darkness in your mind and your will and you will start to kill sin when you remember it is there in you, deceitful and violent, looking for an opportunity to conquer.

Psalm 139 will help you. the Psalm is prayed, "Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any," what? "Wicked way in me." Be honest enough to say God please uncover my sin. Let me see it. If there's any love of the world there, if there's any lust of the flesh, any lust of the eyes or the pride of life God show it to me. Don't be deceived that there isn't any there. Don't play games with yourself and say that the good outweighs the bad and you only have a few besetting sins and they're very private. Don't kid yourself; be honest - if you want to kill sin be honest and recognizing that it's there. The flesh is you is wretched, it spurts forth between the cracks of your supposed righteousness, it spurts forth in anger, bitter words, unkind thoughts, criticism, self conceit, lack of understanding, impatience, weak prayers, indifferent worship and public and private acts of sin. These are the deceitful lusts of Ephesians 4:22.

Secondly - first of all if you're gonna get on the path of victory you have to recognize the presence of sin in yourself. Secondly, have a heart fixed on God. And that's one of the ministries of course, the great ministry of the church in your life. I suppose you could say to me and it would be true that sometimes I give you more information than you really care to have and certainly if that is not true in a given sermon it's probably true cumulatively. Some people have called me a sort of expository dump truck; they've characterized me as somebody who just backs up and dumps the whole deal and leaves you about eight feet deep in it. I'm not here to preach you sermons so you can have more information. As much information as I give you that's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm not here to offer you some oratory upon which you can render a criticism and an evaluation. I am basically here to jerk you out of your complacency week after week after week after week after week and yank you back to a God consciousness. I'm here to pull you back into Scripture. I'm here to pull you toward heaven. I'm here to refocus your thoughts. I'm here to shift your gears off of whatever it is you think about all week. Everything from your job to your family issues to the neighborhood to fixing the fence to the TV sitcoms and whatever it is you occupy yourself with; I'm here to jerk your mind back to spiritual reality so that you can fix yourself on God. And that's why we don't forsake the assembling ourselves together. You don't need to come to church every single Sunday morning and every single Sunday night to accumulate more information but you need to be jerked back to spiritual reality. And I'm the jerk. Now why are you laughing at that? You understand that that's the function that I serve to pull you out of your complacency and out of your preoccupation with trivial things and worldly things and everything else that floods your mind. My responsibility for the hour that we're together in the word of God and the time of worship and the hymn singing and all that we do is to focus you on God. And if you don't think you need that every Lord's day you're wrong. It isn't that you miss a Sunday, you miss some more information, it's that confrontive work of the ministry of the Word and worship which pulled you back to a God consciousness.

Have a heart fixed on God. We want to assist you with that. You need assist yourself with that by reading the Word regularly, spending time in the Word, that's why we produce so many materials. We don't want you just to buy books and give them as gifts and stick them on your shelf so you can say you own them. The reason for books, the reason for our radio program, the reason for tapes, the reason for anything is to help you fix yourself on God.

One of the and the greatest side benefit of being in the ministry, the greatest side benefit of preparing to preach all the time is just spending all your time in the Word of God. Fixing your heart on Him. Thinking His thoughts.

Thirdly I would add, meditate on the Word of God. Be honest about your sin, the sin that is in you, you're the problem. Secondly, fix your heart on God. And thirdly, meditate on His word. And here we move into what I was just saying a moment ago. You get beyond just us pulling you to God, helping you to focus, and David says, "Thy word if I've hid in my heart that I might not sin." And when Jesus was being tempted in Matthew's gospel chapter four by Satan, three times he answered the temptation and each time he quoted out of Deuteronomy, didn't he? Whatever controls your mind controls your behavior. Crowd out the garbage with God's Word. It's a Word saturation.

Fourthly, commune with God in prayer, diligent, watchful prayer. 1 Peter 4:7, look Satan's going around like a roaring lion and wants to chew you up; you better get on your knees and be watchful under prayer. Be diligent with a strong sense of God's presence which flows from meditating on Scripture, true prayer that has entered the node of real confession and real honest repentance that gives the heart the sense of sin's violent character and the hatred of it. John Owen again wrote, "He who pleads with God for the remission of sin also pleads with his own heart to detest it."

True prayer unmasks Satan's deceit. True prayer forces honesty. Prayer exposes secret sins. Prayer weakens prevailing sins. Prayer fights off temptation. Prayer finds strength in fellowship with the Holy God. These are not new to you; you know these things but these are the steps to take. Recognize sin in yourself, fix your heart on God, meditate on the Word and commune with God in prayer. And lastly and simply cultivate obedience to the word. Cultivate obedience to the word. Make it your goal to obey what Scripture says.

In 1 Peter 1:22 it says, "Since you have an obedience to the truth, purify your souls." Boy, that's where it all started when you came to the gospel you obeyed the truth. And that's the way you live your life. A life of gradual, habitual obedience. And when you are honest about your own sin, the sin that is in you and your flesh, when you recognize it, when you fix your heart on God, when you meditate on His Word and commune with Him in prayer you'll begin to kill sin because you'll begin to have a pattern of obedience. It may seem hard and slow but hang in there and stay with it. And as I've said before there's a sense in which the more you kill sin the more you recognize its ugliness. The more you become holy the more sinful you will think you are. This is growing in grace. This is perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This is renewing the inner man day by day.

How are you doing? How are you doing in this battle? Evaluate your zeal for God honestly. Has sin made your heart cold? Evaluate your love for the Word and for prayer. Evaluate your delight in worship. How precious is it to be God's people, how precious is it to spend the Lord's Day with His beloved? How sensitive are you to sin in the world? Sin in the church? And more importantly sin in your life?

I wanna give you one more thought, the passion of victory. We talked about the power of victory, the Holy Spirit, we talked about the people of victory, believers, we talked about the pattern of victory, just very quickly the passion of victory. The passion of victory? Where do we get the motivation for this? Where do we get the inner motivation to drive us toward this triumph? Well, I really believe verse 12 has it and it says it in sort of a negative way. Verse 12, "So then brethren, we are under obligation," there it is, "not to the flesh but," you fill in the blank, "but to the Spirit." What's the motive? We're debtors. We are debtors to the Holy Spirit who convicted us of sin, who generated faith in us, who regenerated us. The Holy Spirit who gave us new life, we were born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who brought us into a no condemnation status, the Holy Spirit who on our behalf settled the issue of sin and death and the Holy Spirit who granted us the righteousness of Christ. The Holy Spirit who changed our nature, the Holy Spirit who has done all of that we're in debt to him. And this is how we repay that debt. This should be the passion of victory. Grace is free and salvation is by free grace but in one sense that puts us in debt. We are debtors to the gracious God, the gracious Christ and the gracious Spirit. And it should be the discharge of that debt that motivates us to triumph in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Father we thank You for this tremendous passage of Scripture, the power of it is overwhelming to us. And its truth is penetrating and so foundational. Thank You so much for the richness that we have enjoyed tonight. Thank You for these precious folks. And oh God how I pray that You'll apply this truth in their lives that they might know the fullness of joy and bring honor to Your great name. We are debtors; we are under obligation not to the flesh but to the blessed Spirit who has granted us such glorious life. And in love to Him we desire the triumph that honors Him. I pray that You'll work Your work in every heart to conform us all to that virtue that was manifested perfectly in Jesus Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.

-- John MacArthur

The Key To Spiritual Victory

A little lengthier than normal, I know, but oh so profound in the pure Biblical truth that it espouses.

Please prayerfully consider the victory we have in Christ.

Don't let Satan steal your hope and joy of an eternal future.

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