Entangled, perplexed and distressed?'
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How many of the Lord's people are continually under
bondage to evil! What power the lusts of the flesh
have over some—how perpetually they are entangled
with everything sensual and carnal! What power the
pride of the heart has over another! And what strength
covetousness exercises over a third! What power the
love of the world and the things of time and sense
exercise over a fourth!
How then are they to overcome sin?
By making resolutions? By endeavouring to overcome it
in their own strength? No! Sin will always break through
man's strength. It will always be stronger than any
resolution we can make not to be overcome by it.
The Lord allows His people to be so long and often
entangled, perplexed and distressed, that they
may learn this secret—which is hidden from all but
God's living family—that the strength of Christ is
made perfect in their weakness.
Have not some of you had to learn this lesson very
painfully? There was a time when you thought you
would get better and better, holier and holier—that
you would not only not walk in open sin as before,
but would not be . . .
entangled by temptation,
overcome by besetting lusts,
or cast down by hidden snares.
There was a time when you thought you were going
forward—attaining some more strength—some better
wisdom than you believed you once possessed.
How has it been with you?
Have these expectations ever been realized?
Have you ever attained these fond hopes?
Has sin become weaker?
Has the world become less alluring?
Have your lusts become tamer?
Has your temper become milder?
Have the corruptions of your heart become feebler and feebler?
If I can read the heart of some poor tried, tempted
soul here present, he would say, "No! To my shame
and sorrow, be it spoken, I find on the contrary that
sin is stronger and stronger—that the evils of my
heart are more and more powerful than ever I knew
them in my life—and as to my own endeavours to
overcome them, I find indeed that they are fainter
and fainter, and weaker and weaker. This it is that
casts me down. If I could have more strength against
sin—if I could stand more boldly against Satan—if I
could overcome my besetting lusts—live more to God's
glory—and be holier and holier—then, then, I could have
some comfort. But to feel myself so continually baffled,
so perpetually disconcerted, so incessantly cast down
by the workings of my corrupt nature—it is this, it is
this that cuts so keenly—it is this, it is this that tries
me so deeply!"
My friend, you are on the high road to victory.
This is the very way by which you are to overcome.
When you feel . . .
weaker and weaker,
poorer and poorer,
guiltier and guiltier,
viler and viler,
so that really through painful experience you are
compelled to call yourself, not in the language of mock
humility, but in the language of self abhorrence—the
chief of sinners—then you are on the high road to victory.
Then the blood of the Lamb is applied to the sinner's
conscience, and the Word of God's testimony comes with
power into his soul—it gives him the victory over those
lusts with which he was before entangled—it brings him
out of the world that had so allured him—and breaks to
pieces the dominion of sin under which he had been so
long labouring.
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