Deliverance From Sinning

The heart is so hard, the will is so obstinate, the passions are so furious, the thoughts are so volatile, the imagination is so ungovernable, the desires are so wild, the google is so convenient. I would like to say a word or two to those who understand the method of justification by faith but who have a hard time refraining from sin. We can never be happy, restful or spiritually healthy until we become holy. We must get rid of sin, but how can we? Which reminds me of a quote from "Desperate Housewives", the father were saying to the mother about their son "He's 16 years old, take away his penis he'll still try to have sex".


I could believe that Jesus would forgive sin, but then my trouble is that I sin again and that I feel such awful tendencies to evil within me. As surely as a stone flung into the air soon comes down again to the ground, so do I, though I am sent up heaven by earnest preaching, return again to my insensible state. After all I am only human.


Salvation would be a sadly incomplete promise if it did not deal with this part of our ruined state. We want to be purified as well as pardoned. Justification without sanctification would not be salvation at all. It would be like calling a leper clean but leave him to die. It doesn't make sense.


Remember that the Lord Jesus came to take away sin in 3 ways. He came to remove the penalty of sin, the power of sin and last, the presence of sin. At once you may reach the second part - the power of sin may immediately be broken - and so you will be on the road to the third - the removal of the presence of sin. We "know that He was manifested to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5)


If however you are troubled about the power of sin and about the tendencies of your nature, as you well may be, here is a promise for you. Have faith in it, for it stands in that covenant of grace which is ordered and sure in all things. God, who cannot lie, has said in Ezekiel 36:26, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh."


You see, it is all "I will" and "I will." "I will give" and "I will take away". It mentions nothing about you.


The Lord knows very well that you cannot change your own heart and cannot cleanse your own nature. But, He also knows that He can do both. Hear this and be astonished, He can create you a second time, He can cause you to be born again. This is a miracle of grace but the Holy Spirit will perform it.


It would be good if I can stand under the Niagara falls and order the water to start flowing upstream. Nothing but the power of God could achieve that marvel. That would be equivalent to reversing the nature. But all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). He can reverse the direction of your desires and the current of your life. Instead of going downward from God, He can make you go upward to Him.


A cat is a clean animal, it washes herself with it's tongue and paws. A pig on the other hand prefers to wallow in mud. Go teach a pig to clean itself and you'll have little success. It is a useless task. You may by force wash the swine, but it quickly runs to the mud again. The only way in which you can get a pig to clean itself is to transform it into a cat.


So it is with an ungodly man, you cannot force him to do what a renewed man does most willingly. You may teach him to set a good example, but he cannot learn the art of holiness because he does not want to. His nature leads him another way. When the Lord makes a new man of him, then all things bear a different mark.


It is not you that work but He who works in you. It is Him who gives you a new heart. If you yield yourself up to His divine working, the Lord will alter your nature. He will subdue the old nature and breathe new life into you. Put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will take the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.


Will you be perfectly holy? No, never will you be while on this fallen earth. But can change happen to you? Can it lead you at the right way, on the right path to a better life? Yes it can. Wherever the grace of God has appeared to a man, it has trained him to deny "ungodliness and worldly lust," and "live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:12). It will do the same for you. What is the benefit of living a good life then? I don't know, ask those who had died of Aids through freesex. Ask them who rages war and kill, and steal and destroy humanity. I don't know, ask that son of a bitch who lied to you, who back stabbed you and made your life miserable. Ask your wife who committed adultery on you. I don't know but it seems to me that sin destroys more than it does to building lives. And it is neither my will nor God's to see your life ruined.


"I cannot make this change," say someone. Who said you could? The Scripture which we have quoted does not speak of what man will do, but of what God will do. It is God's promise, and it is for Him to fulfill His own commitments. Trust in Him to fulfill His Word to you, and it will be done.


"But how is it to be done?" What business is that of yours? Must the Lord explain His methods before you will believe in Him? The Lord's working in this matter is a great mystery. Oh, that you would believe it! Oh that you would do the gracious Lord justice to believe that he can and will do this for you, great miracle though it will be. Oh, that you will believe that God cannot lie! Oh that you would trust Him for a new heart and a right spirit, for He can give them to you! May the Lord give you faith in His promise, faith in His Son, faith in the Holy Spirit, and faith in Him. To Him be praise and honour and glory forever and ever! Amen.