The Spiritual Conflict 2
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1. Does "the flesh" then lay some subtle scheme to glorify, honor, or exalt itself? "The spirit" breathes out its solemn protest against such God-dishonoring conduct. As a secret monitor, whose voice though gentle will be heard, it whispers its condemnation against every step the flesh takes to gratify itself. It is no silent spectator of the awful enormities going on within; it is no blind, deaf, or dumb judge, who has no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no tongue to speak against the criminal. It cannot be bribed or muzzled– it is God's viceregent; and, therefore, it stands up for the honor of God, and testifies for him in a tone of authority that must be heard. Bunyan sweetly sets this forth in his "Holy War," where he says, "that when the judge spoke, he made the whole city tremble." And I believe, when "the spirit" speaks, as the Holy Spirit dictates, he makes the soul bow down beneath it, for he speaks with a voice clothed with authority and power.
2. Does "the flesh" make excuses, and carnalize, so to speak, the whole man? When we would seek the Lord's face, does the flesh make a thousand pretexts why it should not be done there and then? "The spirit," wrought upon from above, desires communion with God, and to seek his presence; and as these desires work, from time to time, against the flesh, it will often sweetly overcome the opposition. And thus the Lord's face is sought after, whatever excuses the flesh may make.
3. Again. Does the flesh say, "Away with all watchfulness and carefulness! If you are a child of God, you cannot perish; if you are of the election of grace, you cannot be lost. What harm is there in this thing or that? It is not a great sin; and, if God has pardoned your sins, he has pardoned this among the rest." When the flesh comes with these hellish suggestions, the spirit will bear a secret testimony against such vile reasoning, as it did in the case of Joseph, when he said, "How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" (Gen. 39:9.) You will say, when these thoughts arise, "Shall I take occasion from pardoning love to sin against it? Shall I be so base as to trample the blood of the Redeemer under foot, and crucify to myself the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame? Far, far be it from me!"
4. Again. Does "the flesh" lust after sin? Does it wallow in imagination in the vilest iniquities? Does it lay plots and plans how its desires may be gratified? Does it, in its filthy cravings, bury itself in those sinks and mud-holes where it loves to grovel? "The spirit" speaks for the honor of God; "the spirit," armed with authority from God himself, pure as he is pure, and holy as he is holy, bears a secret testimony against all the plots and plans the flesh may lay down to indulge itself; it accuses the traitor, arrests him in the very council-chamber, and denounces his meditated crimes.
5. Does the flesh want to resent injuries; to draw the sword that hangs at its side, and smite down the first that insults it? Does it say, even when a Christian brother is the offender, "I will never forgive this injury; I will never overlook that offence; I will die rather than not satisfy my revenge for that wrong?" There is a gentle monitor within, speaking not in accents of anger, but in soft and mild tones, yet with a voice that makes itself heard amid the thunders of the flesh, "Is this as a Christian should act? Is this as the Lord would have his people walk? Has he not forgiven you your sins, and will not you forgive your brother his?" The spirit speaks in these soft and gentle remonstrances, and thus overcomes all the fiercest workings of the flesh, when it would madly rend asunder the dearest and nearest ties rather than be reconciled. It calmly takes the sword out of the hands of the flesh, and brings us once more to peace and union with those to whom a moment before perhaps we were resolved never to speak again.
6. Does "the flesh" seek to lift itself up against the authority of God? Does it, like Antichrist, "oppose and exalt itself against all that is called God, or that is worshiped?" (2 Thess. 2:4.) The spirit, "clothed with humility," bears a secret witness against this self-exaltation and arrogance of the flesh, and points the eye of the soul to a suffering Christ.
Thus these two principles are in continual collision; and scarcely a day passes without the quickened family of God knowing and feeling the conflict of these two distinct principles within them.
My friends, what does true religion consist in? Is it in coming to chapel, reading the Bible, having family prayer, and kneeling down night and morning with due regularity? Is it in being called a Calvinist, a Baptist, or an Independent? This is but the shell; and he who has nothing but the shell is destitute of vital godliness. True religion consists in the blessed teachings of God's Spirit in the conscience, in the work and witness of the Holy Spirit in the soul. If, then, you have a religion worth a straw, if yours is a religion that will stand by and save you when you need it most; when you are stretched upon a dying bed, and are passing into an opening eternity; if you have such an internal, experimental religion, as God has described in his word; you know something of the conflict I have been attempting to describe, "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;" and you feel what it is, by personal and painful experience, to have in you the "company of two armies."
III. But the Apostle has added, "So that you cannot do the things that you would;" and a blessed addition it is. Now, as "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh," we must apply this last clause of the text to both sides of the question. To make my meaning clear, you have two opposing principles, and therefore two distinct wills in your bosom– the will of the flesh and the will of the spirit. Because then "the flesh lusts against the spirit," you cannot do the things that you would spiritually; and because "the spirit lusts against the flesh," you cannot do the things that you would naturally.
A. We cannot do the things that we would SPIRITUALLY.
1. We would, for instance, spiritually believe on the Lord of life and glory, and feel, from time to time, the actings of faith upon his blood and righteousness. That is a branch of our spiritual will; but "we cannot do the thing that we would." Why not? Because "the flesh lusts against the spirit." Lusting against the spirit, it lusts to unbelief, unbelief being the very element in which it lives. We cannot therefore believe, and by believing do the thing that we would, because "the flesh lusts against the spirit," and works unbelief against it.
2. Again. Spiritually we would love the Lord. We would have our whole affections fixed on him; we would have our hearts so given to him, and so entirely his, that there should be no room for a rival. But "the flesh lusts against the spirit;" the flesh can only love itself; it cannot love God, nor the things of God. All it can do is to go after idols; to "hew out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water," (Jer. 2:13); to seek its own gratification. When, therefore, we would, according to our spiritual will, love God, we find a rival come forward; the flesh claims its share of our hearts; the wife, the husband, the children, the world, the things of time and sense around us, all creep in, and steal away our affections from God.
3. Again. We would, according to our spiritual will, be heavenly-minded; we would have our thoughts fixed on eternal things; we would sweetly meditate, comfortably read, powerfully and unctuously pray; we would have our hearts where Jesus sits at the right hand of God, and feel the world under our feet– but we cannot do the things that we would. The world within us will intrude, which is ten thousand times worse than the world without. We may shut and bar our doors, and exclude the world without, but the world within cannot be so shut out. No, we might go and bury ourselves in a hermit's cave, and never see the face of man again; but even there we would be as carnal and worldly as if we lived in Vanity Fair. We cannot shut out the world; it will come in at every chink and crevice. When, therefore, we would be heavenly-minded, think only on God, and enjoy some spiritual meditation, this wretched world will intrude itself into every thought and every imagination, so that spiritually we cannot do the things that we would.
4. We would, according to our spiritual will, walk as becomes the gospel. We would "make a covenant with our eyes" that we would not lust after forbidden things; we would walk before God as conscious of his presence; we would never wish to do a single thing that has not the approbation of God; and we would have the testimony of God in our conscience that our hearts are right before him. But we cannot spiritually do the things which we would. We cannot walk through the street, but Satan tempts; we cannot look or speak, but sin intrudes; no, let us shut our eyes, and close our lips, evil will still come in. I don't know how it may be with you, but I have no more power to keep out the workings of sin in my heart, than I have power by holding up my hand to stop the rain from coming down to the earth; sin will come in at every crack and crevice, and manifest itself in the wretched workings of an evil heart.
B. But, in the second place, we must not forget to look at the blessed converse. If we cannot do the things that we would spiritually, we cannot do the things that we would NATURALLY. To have this, as well as the other side of the question, is our great mercy.
1. What would we, then, do naturally? We would cast aside all true religion; at least we would have nothing to do with experimental and vital religion. The flesh hates what is vital and spiritual; it may and does love the form; but the power and reality of vital godliness the flesh hates. Thus, if we could have had our natural will, we would long ago have cast away our profession. Have you not been often tempted to do this? Have you not sometimes felt the way so rough, and found so many contradictions and obstacles, that you have said, "I cannot go on any longer in it;" and have felt sorry you ever made a profession at all? And would you not at times gladly throw it all aside if you could? You have, perhaps, made the attempt to do so; and have said, "I can go to Chapel no more." But when the Lord's day came, you have found a secret cord within you that drew you there. You might have secretly said, "I will read the word of God no more; I will never pray again; I will not speak with the people of God." But there has been a secret compulsion in your heart that has made you do the very things which you wished to abandon. Thus naturally we cannot do the things that we would; and it is our mercy that we cannot.
2. Again. Could you do the things that you would naturally, you would wallow in sin; not merely take a drop or sip of sin; but, were your hearts unrestrained by God's grace and your carnal mind left to do what it would, you would lie down and roll in it! But it is our mercy that we cannot "do the things that we would;" for, thanks be to God, there are spiritual checks in the conscience; there is the fear of God springing up in the soul, as a "fountain of life to depart from the way of death;" and these inward flashes of the Spirit, producing convictions of the dreadful evil of sin, keep a man from doing those horrible things which he would do, if God did not thus powerfully restrain him.
3. Again. Could you "do the things that you would naturally," you would be the most accomplished hypocrite that ever entered the doors of either Church or Chapel! If you could be just what your flesh would wish to be, you would have all the form of godliness, but not a grain of its power; and thus would be the most varnished hypocrite that ever stood up to disgrace a profession. But you cannot do or be what you would. A spiritual sincerity and godly simplicity is wrought in your soul, so that you cannot put into action that which your hypocritical flesh would live in; the workings of sincerity in your heart oppose it. It is in the thorough hypocrite only that the flesh can have its full swing.
4. But again. Could you "do the things that you would" naturally, there would not be a more proud, presumptuous, arrogant, self-exalting, and self-conceited wretch than you would be!
Now, my friends, if I have painted you in very black colors, remember that I have dipped the brush in my own heart. I have not gone from Zoar pulpit into the sinful haunts of London to find out and describe the flesh. I feel all the workings that I have been describing. Do not think that I stand up in the pulpit as some holy being, who knows nothing of the workings of sin; that I have been imagining what evil might be in others, and then painting it out in the blackest colors I could devise. Be assured that every line in the picture I have been tracing of human wickedness is taken from myself. Not that God permits me, thanks to his blessed name, to do those evils that I know and feel by painful experience daily working in my heart. The seeds of every crime are in our nature; and therefore, could your flesh have its full swing, there would not be a viler wretch in London than you, or one that puts into practice more evil than you imagine. But God's blessed Spirit works in your heart to counteract these evils, so that you cannot be what you would, nor do the things that you would.
Let us look, then, at both sides of the question. You "cannot do the things that you would" spiritually, and that is your misery; and you "cannot do the things that you would"naturally, and that is your mercy. If you cannot be altogether holy, you cannot be altogether vile. If you cannot be wholly swallowed up in the love of God, you cannot be wholly swallowed up in the love of the world. If you cannot be entirely spiritual, you cannot be entirely carnal. If you cannot be daily and hourly prayerful, heavenly-minded, meditative, and have your affections fixed on God, you cannot go on day after day in carnality, without a single lash of conscience, or without the secret remonstrance of the Spirit bearing its witness in your spirit.
Let us take the question, then, in all its bearings. If we cannot do the things that we would spiritually, neither can we do the things that we would naturally; so that we are preserved, as the Lord manages it, by the action and reaction of these two principles. For, as in nature so in grace, action and reaction are mutual. By action and reaction, the world and all things in it stand in their place– and so spiritually, by action and reaction, contradiction and opposition, working and counter-working, we are kept in an even path. God has so wisely ordered things, and so tempered matters, that we are preserved in that place which is most for our good and his glory.
Thus, we learn two important LESSONS. First to ascribe to the grace of God and to his unmerited mercy everything in us that is spiritual; hence springs matter of thankfulness and praise. And, we learn on the other hand, to ascribe to our wretched selves all the sinfulness, vileness, and evil that is working in our bosom; and hence spring humility, self-abhorrence, and godly sorrow. Thus, by watching the movements of "the flesh," we learn to hate ourselves; and by watching the movements of "the spirit," we learn whence come our help, hope, and strength. So that, while on the one hand, we have sufficient to thank, praise, and bless God for; on the other, we have sufficient to condemn and loathe ourselves for. And on the one side, if we cannot do spiritually the things that we would, through the opposition of our flesh, we are kept on the other walking humbly before God, and avoid those shoals on which many gallant barks have made shipwreck.
There are two sandbanks on one or other of which all but God's people run– licentiousness, and pharisaism. We are kept instrumentally from pharisaism by having our vile and wicked hearts laid bare by the Spirit, and thus painfully learning the opposition of the flesh. And we are preserved from licentiousness by the work of the Spirit leading the soul up to Jesus' blood and righteousness, and thus opposing the flesh. And thus, in a strange, mysterious, and often to us inexplicable way, we are preserved in a right path, and are kept from error on the right hand and on the left. O may we be enabled ever to trust in God's mercy, and hope in his grace, that he will guide us every step of our life, until ultimately he shall bring us to the eternal enjoyment of himself, in that blessed kingdom where tears shall be wiped away from all faces, and the only employment known, shall be to ascribe eternal honor, power, salvation, and glory unto God and the Lamb!
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