From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I should like to call your attention this morning to the words which are to be found in Paul's epistle to the Ephesians, the second chapter and the first three verses. The first three verses in the second chapter of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

We come back for the third time to the consideration of this tremendous and most vital statement. We are considering it as we are working our way through this mighty epistle. And we are reminded ourselves that the Apostle introduces this statement in these three verses in order to bring out the great idea which he has started expounding in the previous chapter, namely, that we as God's people should realize the greatness of his power to usward that believe. He's praying for these Ephesians that they may know three things. First, what is the hope of their calling. Second, what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And thirdly, the exceeding greatness of his power to usward that believe.

That's the main trouble with all of us who are Christians, that we don't realize those three things, and especially perhaps this third one. So the Apostle is helping us to come to such an understanding. And he says what we need to do is to measure this great power. And the way to measure it, he says, is this: realize first of all the depth out of which God has had to raise you, and then the height to which he's taken you. And as you understand the depth and the height, you'll have some conception of the exceeding greatness of God's power.

Well now, obviously, we must start with the first. We must know the depth from which we've been raised if we're to understand this power. And again I suggest that it's because of the neglect of this doctrine of sin, the biblical doctrine of sin, and a failure to understand it truly, that so many have such a totally inadequate conception of the greatness of this great salvation. We're so ready to start just at the point of where we are made happy, but we must go back. It's only as we understand the nature of sin that we shall truly understand this power. So the Apostle is unfolding it to us.

Now I've suggested that perhaps the best way to divide up the message of these three verses is to look at them like this. First of all, the Apostle describes our state and condition in sin. What we were like before this power took hold of us. And what he says is that we were dead, spiritually dead. And in that state of deadness, were entirely subject to and the victims of the power of the principle of evil that is in this world. We were subject to the unseen spiritual forces that govern this world, headed up by the devil himself, who is called here the prince of the power of the air.

That is man in sin. That's his state. He's dead, he's outside the life of God. He is spiritually dead and helpless and completely under the dominion of Satan, as expressed through these spiritual powers and the whole mind and outlook of the world. That's the first thing. We've already considered that. The second thing he states here is this: he gives us an explanation of how we've ever got into that state. And there he introduces us to this great doctrine of original sin. We are children of disobedience. We are by nature, by birth, the children of wrath.

And it's true of all. We all had our conversation in times past and were the children of wrath, even as others, like the remainder of mankind. Now that we considered last Sunday morning. You see the steps? He describes the condition, he gives the cause of it, he explains how it's come to pass. And now he comes on to the third thing which we're going to look at this morning, which is the actual way in which all this shows and manifests itself in practice, how this reveals itself. What is true of us, in other words, in our ordinary life and living.

And of course, as he deals with this, he incidentally introduces us to the third great power against which we have to struggle in this our earthly life. He's already dealt with the world and the devil. Here he comes to deal with the flesh. We have a conflict against the world and the flesh and the devil. And we're now going to look at this conflict against the flesh. Man in sin, according to the Apostle, is a man who is living a life after the lusts of the flesh.

And that is because he's born with a polluted nature as the result of original sin. And that resulted from the original transgression and rebellion of man against God, which produced the fall. In other words, you see, we are here in these three verses in the very midst of the greatest profundities of Christian doctrine. And all, I say, with an object: to enable us to see the greatness not only of the power of God, but of his love and of his grace and of his mercy, that he's ever looked upon such people and ever troubled about us at all.

Very well now then, let's have a look at this together. Man's life, according to the Apostle, in a state of sin and outside grace, is a life of trespasses and sins. You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Man's life apart from the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is just a life of trespasses and sins. That sums it all up. You can sum up the life of the whole world this morning in those two words: trespasses and sins.

What do they mean? Well, the Apostle obviously is concerned about shades of meaning here, otherwise he wouldn't have used the two words. He's done so quite deliberately. What is a trespass? Well, a trespass is an outward transgression. The actual root meaning of the word is that it's a falling away from the true and from the upright. Man was meant to be upright and true and righteous and holy. He's fallen away from it. He's deflected from it. He's no longer upright. It's like something leaning or falling to the ground. It's gone out of its true position, out of the perpendicular. Trespasses.

Well, what does he mean by the word sins? Well, it's a very large and comprehensive term, this. It's a term which includes all the manifestations of sin considered as an inward principle. That's what he means by the term sins. Sins are the outward manifestations of this inward principle called sin, which we were looking at last Sunday. There is in every one of us this polluted principle, and that manifests itself in what we call sins. So there you've got a very comprehensive definition.

Any falling away from the true and the right and the upright and the righteous, any outward manifestation of this evil principle that is within us, there you have trespasses and sins. And according to the Apostle, that is the life of man apart from the grace of God. That is how he walks, he says. You notice how he puts it: wherein in time past ye walked. And then he's got another phrase: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past. And what he means by conversation there, as is generally the case in this Authorized Version, is not speech; it means tenor of life.

You remember the Apostle says at the end of the third chapter of the epistle to the Philippians, he says, our conversation is in heaven. Well, he doesn't mean speech again. This is a term which was used in the 16th and 17th century in that more general form to express a general mode or way or manner of life. Well now then, says Paul, before you received the grace of the Lord, you walked in trespasses and sins. Your conversation was like that. Every possible manifestation of evil and of sin. That's a description of our actions.

But actions, after all, are expressive of something else. There is a saying to the effect: as a man thinks, so he does. Examine a man's conduct and behavior, and you will discover his philosophy, if you examine it truly. We all express our ideas of life in the way in which we live. Well, it's exactly true of man in sin, says the Apostle. What you see are the trespasses and sins. Yes, but what is it that leads to the trespasses and sins? Well, he's got his answer for us.

It is all due to this polluted nature, which he puts in these words: among whom we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Now, that's the statement to which I'm directing attention this morning. That is man's life without the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It's polluted. It's a life lived in the lusts of the flesh. And the thing that the Apostle emphasizes, and which I'm anxious to emphasize therefore, is this: that this is true of all men without exception.

This is universally true of the whole of mankind. Not only of certain bad people, but of all people. We all had our conversation in times past and were the children of wrath, even as others, like the remainder of mankind. We must hold onto this idea of the universality of this condition. All men by nature are living a life in the lusts of the flesh. Well now then, let's look at this great statement. You notice the extraordinary logical development of the Apostle's statement.

The trespasses and sins are the result of this lust of the flesh. But that's a general expression, says Paul. So he subdivides it. The lusts of the flesh manifest themselves along two main lines: the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the mind. Now I trust I'm making the subdivision and the classification which the Apostle uses perfectly clear. The fundamental trouble is that we're living in the lusts of the flesh, and that manifests itself in the obeying the desires of the mind and the desires of the flesh.

Now let's examine his terms so that we may understand something of what he's saying. This I say is the truth of everybody who's not a Christian this morning. I go further: this is something which every Christian has to contend with still. The old man, if you like. The whole problem which is dealt with in these various epistles. Well now then, let's look at the terms. What is the meaning of this term flesh? It's a very important term in the New Testament, and it's very important that we should understand clearly what it means.

There are systems of theology which seem to me to go wrong mainly because they've never understood this scriptural term flesh aright. There's a system of theology by a man like Charles G. Finney, for instance, which seems to me to go all wrong just because of this. It is the whole basis on which his system is erected. He's got a false understanding of the meaning of flesh. We shall find it as we work out these terms, even in these verses this morning. You notice that at once this very term is used twice in this third verse.

Listen: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Well, it's obvious at once that the word flesh is there used by the Apostle in two different senses. Otherwise he's just repeating himself. He uses flesh in a general sense and then he uses it in a particular. So it's very important that we should know the precise connotation each time he uses his term.

Therefore let me suggest to you that this word flesh is used in the scripture in four main ways. And you can divide them up if you like like this: two of them are general, and two of them are particular. What I mean is this: the word flesh is sometimes used in scripture to represent the whole of mankind. Take a phrase like this: all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of men like the flower thereof. Flesh is there just used to cover the term mankind. All flesh. Very well, that's one, very general.

But it is also sometimes used to describe the covering of our bones. What does a man's body consist of? Well, there's this skeleton, the frame which consists of bones and so on. But you don't see my bones. My bones are covered by what we call flesh. Muscles, fat, ligaments and so on and so forth. Now, the term flesh is sometimes used like that. Job says, in my flesh shall I see God. And he meant there really in the body, in the covering of our skeletal frame. It's sometimes used like that. Those are the two general meanings.

But I say there are two other meanings which are more particular and more spiritual in their connotation, and these are the important ones for our purpose this morning. The first one is again a fairly general one or a fairly wide meaning of the term. Flesh is used by the Apostle especially as that which is the complete antithesis to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Now you noticed it in the reading this morning in Galatians 5:17: For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary the one to the other.

So that there he is using the term flesh in a wide spiritual sense. It represents everything in man that is opposed to the working and the power and the influence of the Holy Spirit. Now this is tremendously important. Let me give you further definitions of it therefore. Flesh in this sense means human nature in a state of sin. Or if you like, it means man in sin. That's the flesh. Or let me give you a more comprehensive definition of it: it is the entire nature of man apart from the renewing grace of Christ.

So it embraces the soul and the moral and the intellectual faculties as well as the body. Now that's it. Flesh in this wide, general, spiritual sense is the entire man in sin apart from the grace of Christ. It includes therefore my body and its workings, my mind, my affections, my everything. The total man, the whole of him in a state of sin. Flesh. But then the Apostle uses this term flesh in a more restrictive spiritual sense.

And when he uses it in the more restrictive spiritual sense, he is referring only to what you may call the sensuous part of our nature, to the body, to the animal part of our nature and the manifestations of that animal portion. Now I trust we've got these four main definitions in our minds clearly, and especially the second two, the ones that have their spiritual reference: the whole man in sin, and secondly, the animal part of man in sin, the bodily part of man, the sensuous, sensual part of man in sin.

Now I want to show you the importance of saying all this. You see we've got this word flesh twice over in this third verse. And obviously, the Apostle is using them in two different senses. Well, someone may say, isn't this very muddling and confusing? How am I ever to know which is the one he's using at any given point? The answer is quite simple. If you take the context into consideration, you can never go wrong. Keep your eye on the context, and the context will always put you right.

Take for instance this example here: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh. There's the whole thing, the whole man. Particularly he says: fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the desires of the mind. Well now, in this second instance, flesh is the opposite of mind, so it is no longer the whole man. What is it then? Well, it's the bodily part of man only. It's the animal part of man's nature only. You see the context gives you the answer.

First time flesh is general, second time opposite to the mind, the intellect, the higher part. So that flesh in general covers the desires of the body and the desires of the mind. Now let us therefore always observe these distinctions as we are reading these epistles and as we come across this vitally important term flesh. Now then, what the Apostle is saying is that in general, man lives his life of trespasses and sins because he's governed and controlled by the lusts of the flesh, flesh in a general sense.

What do you mean by lust, says someone? Well, again of course, a very important term. A lust is a strong desire. And actually, the term lust means no more than that. The strong desire may be good or it may be bad. For instance, there's a well-known statement made by our Lord: he says as he eats the Last Supper with his disciples: with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you. That's Luke 22:15. With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you. What he actually said was this: with lust have I lusted to eat this Passover with you.

It's the exact same term as is used here. So you see, in general, a lust means a strong desire. But again obviously, if you pay attention to the context, you will find whether the meaning is a good one or a bad one. And generally speaking, the term lusts in the scripture has reference to a strong, urgent craving for something which is prohibited or forbidden. Now then, having there our basic definitions, we can look at man in sin.

We can look at all who are not Christians this morning. We can see what we ourselves were until God in his infinite grace took hold of us and dealt with us and gave us a new life. There is the natural man controlled by strong and urgent cravings after that which is opposed to God and his holy laws. But you see, the Apostle is so anxious that we should get this clearly that he doesn't leave it as a general statement. He wants us to see how complete this pollution is.

He wants us to see and to realize how it affects the whole man and every part of man. When Adam fell, the whole man fell. It wasn't merely his body that fell; everything in Adam fell. His mind, his affections, his will, the whole man fell. And you see it's because so many in their theological systems don't realize that, I say, that they go astray. They put it only in the sensuous part of a man's nature, and therefore their whole outlook must be wrong.

They think they can choose salvation, that they can save themselves almost and decide to be sanctified and so on. There at the center, they've never realized the totality of man's fall in sin. The whole man is involved. And the Apostle of course shows us that by dividing it up here into these two main subdivisions. And you see how important it is to grasp this. We all tend to say by nature and to think, don't we: oh yes, we say, a sinner. And when we say that, we think of a certain class of person: drunkard, murderer, adulterer and so on.

But of course, we say there are nice people, there are good people who've never done things like that. And you surely don't say that they live according to the lusts of the flesh. Lust of the flesh, we say. Of course, we read about them in the newspapers, there they are, and there they are crowding through the divorce courts: lusts of the flesh. But I'm a respectable man, I'm an intellectual man, I'm a man who's lived a good, moral life. Surely you don't say this is true of me? Yes, I do. The Apostle says so.

We all by nature live in the lusts of the flesh. Not a single exception. There hasn't been a single exception since Adam fell. The whole of mankind lives in the lusts of the flesh. Let me prove it to you. First of all, he says the desires of the flesh. What does he mean by a desire? Well, he uses a different word to express desire from lust. A desire is a command. A desire is a strong behest. I'll go further: a desire is an imperious will urging us to action, driving us to action.

I remember hearing an expression once which was used by a mother concerning her children, her daughters. This poor woman was not overblessed with the goods of this world. And yet we saw her daughters very well dressed on a certain occasion like everybody else, and one knew that she couldn't really afford to do it. And people were speaking to her about this and wondering at how it was done, and her reply was this: they must have it. Must have it. There was no arguing. She couldn't really afford it, but the children must have it.

That's a desire, this imperious demand that comes and will not be resisted. The lusts of the flesh manifest themselves in the desires of the flesh. And here I say flesh means the body, the animal part of our nature. What's he thinking of? Well, he's thinking of hunger, thirst, the desire for sleep, the desire for pleasure, the desire for happiness, the desire for contentment, sex, the desire to attract and to be attractive. Now all those things, you see, are an essential part of our bodily, animal nature and makeup.

There is that side to man and it's been made by God. And therefore in and of itself, it is essentially good. Hunger, desire for food, the desire for drink, the desire for rest and sleep and repose, for joy and happiness and pleasure, sex, the desire I say to be attractive. You see it in the whole of animal creation, don't you? You've simply got to look at the animals and the birds. It's equally true of man. And I say there is nothing wrong in all this. Man was made thus by God and endowed with these various faculties and powers and propensities and instincts. And they're all good.

When God had made man in addition to everything else, he looked upon it all, man included, and saw that it was good. Well, what's the Apostle talking about, you say? He's describing man in sin. Well, how does it show itself? It shows itself like this: these things which in and of themselves are right and good suddenly take control, become imperious in their demands, begin to assert themselves and to drive us. I'm using a technical term there: the psychologists talk about drives manifesting themselves in the sick person's whole life and living. It's quite a good term.

It's a drive, it's a power, it's a force. You see that golfer driving, and the power and the force? Well, these things, they begin to drive us. There's a very good scriptural term which is even better: it talks about inordinate affections. There's nothing wrong in your being hungry. But if you live to eat, it's all wrong. If the desire for food is controlling you, you're suffering from the desires of the flesh and it's a manifestation of the lusts of the flesh. Eating, drinking, how they like to talk about it and to write about it, and a man's a connoisseur.

He can give you the exact age of the bottle. He knows all about the vintage. That's a desire of the flesh. You see the man is not merely drinking to quench thirst or even to have enjoyment. No, no. It's gone beyond that. It's become a desire of the flesh. And it applies to sleep. We're all meant to sleep. But there is such a thing as being a glutton for sleep, and at that point it's become a desire of the flesh and can ruin a man. Likewise with pleasure. Pleasure's all right, there's nothing wrong with pleasure.

Ah, but when pleasure begins to dominate and become so important that you're prepared to quarrel with people about it, then it's a desire of the flesh. Need I say anything about sex? God ordained sex, but God never ordained sexuality. God never ordained the kind of thing that's staring at us and glaring at us in the newspapers every day. That's not the thing. There's man extracting sex, putting it out, painting it up, placarding it. It's dominating life. Desires of the flesh.

And so on, you see, with this whole idea to attract, which in and of itself may be quite innocent. There's nothing wrong in everybody desiring to look nice and attractive. But when you begin to have your whole mind centered upon it and when you live for it and think about it and talk about it and spend too much money on it, it's become a desire of the flesh. I could keep you endlessly. Work these things out for yourselves. There are the desires of the flesh.

These things are in us, they're there, they're put there by God, but they're meant to be subordinate, they're meant to be kept in order, we are meant to be in control. What's happened to man is that they have become controlling. They've entered into a position of authority and they're driving us and urging us. We all know all about it, don't we? The urges, the desire that'll make a man even tremble, the power of it all. The desire of the flesh. But wait a minute, we haven't finished.

That's only one subdivision of the lusts of the flesh. Everybody's prepared to agree with what I've been saying so far. Oh yes, of course they say, look at them, we see it, how terrible it is. But my dear friend, I'm now going to show you that however respectable you may have been all your life, that you are equally guilty of living in the lusts of the flesh because the lusts of the flesh not only manifest themselves through the desires of the body, but also, you notice, through the desires of the mind.

It's at that point a man like Charles G. Finney goes wrong in his theology, doesn't recognize that. He confines it all to what I've been saying and doesn't realize that this is as true of the mind, the intellect and understanding, as it is of the other. Well, let me define the word mind. It stands for the whole process of thinking, and it includes the emotional, the affective part as well as the purely intellectual. The whole process of thinking. Because thinking, you know, is not purely intellectual; we all think emotionally at the same time.

Even your scientist does. That's why he's got his prejudices. We all think with the whole man: intellect and affections. Well now then, the desires of the mind are as much an expression of the lusts of the flesh as are the desires of the body. How does this show itself? Well, I'd give you a general definition by putting it like this: anything which tends to control and to absorb and govern your attention and your activity is a desire of the mind. Anything for which you live apart from God is a desire of the mind.

This kind of lust of the mind, if you like. I wonder whether anybody needs convincing about this matter. Is there anybody here who hasn't realized that he has as much trouble with his mind as he does with his body? You know all about the lust of the body, don't you, but have you realized the lust of the mind and how the mind can run away with you and all this power and force that exercises itself there? Well, let me give you some illustrations. I find it very difficult to classify this. Let's take it at its very lowest level: jealousy, envy, malice, pride, hatred, wrath, bitterness.

What are they? They are nothing but manifestations of the desires of the mind. Every single one of them. And you see the lust element coming in. Haven't you seen people literally shaking in a rage, trembling in a passion in anger and wrath? Have you seen malice and jealousy and envy? It'll stop at nothing. Killing croaker with your mouth, as the poet puts it. All these things are manifestation of the desires of the mind. People who've never got drunk and have never been guilty of adultery, oh, how guilty they are of this! You see, it's a manifestation of the lust of the flesh.

And another way in which it's seen so commonly and prominently today is this: in what the Scriptures call foolish talking and jesting. The desire to be clever and to say something clever and to produce a laugh. Foolish talking and jesting. Oh, how common it's become in life! People who'd never dream of doing those other things, they live for this kind of thing: the smartness, the glibness, the cleverness. It's a desire of the mind. It's a lust of the mind. It's as much a lust as is the other.

There it is at its lowest level. Let's go up a little bit higher. Take ambition. What a driving force ambition is. It's as great a power as is a lust of the body, the animal part of our nature. The lust for wealth, the lust for money, the desire for position, the desire for a given social status, the desire for importance in life, the desire for power, the desire for success. Keep your eyes open, keep your ears open. Read your biographies and autobiographies, and you'll see that the lives of some of the most respectable men the world has ever seen have been full of this kind of lust.

Ambition governing and driving. They'll spend fortunes on it. They'll spend money just in order to have a name or something. It's a desire of the mind. It's a true expression of lust. Or take another one: the craving for something new. You remember that illuminating phrase about the Athenians in the 17th chapter of Acts? We are told that all the Athenians and strangers that were there did nothing else but to tell or to hear some new thing. Desire of the mind.

The restlessness of the modern man, always out for a new thrill and excitement, and manifesting itself particularly perhaps in gossip. Have you heard? And at once you see the power enters. The one who says it is already being driven by the desire: he knows something the other one doesn't. Have you heard it? Have you heard the latest? It's nothing but a lust and the whole world is living on it. It's rampant even in Christian circles: gossiping and talk.

The desire to be important: we know something somebody else doesn't and we want to know it to pass it on. It's a lust. Hence the denunciation of gossiping and such talk in the New Testament so constantly. And then in exactly the same way, we can put it like this: clever talk and argument and disputation. I don't know what you feel as I go through this sorry and terrible list. But as I was preparing this sermon, it filled me with a loathing and a hatred of myself.

I look back and I think of the hours I've wasted in mere talk and argumentation, and it was all with one end only: simply to gain my point and to show how clever I was. The other disputant and myself would both claim, I suppose, that we were interested in truth. We were not. It was the mere enjoyment of argument and disputation and scoring and being clever. It's a lust. It's a desire of the mind. And then think of it in terms of reading: reading books, I mean, reading journals and so on.

You see, it becomes a lust when, instead of thinking and of meditating and of praying, we read. One of the tragedies of the modern world is that reading has become a substitute for thinking in the vast majority of people's cases. At that point, it's a desire, it's a lust. It has become a disease. Haven't you known it? Oh, I could tell you a great deal about this, my friends. This is one of the ways in which it shows itself. Reading is an excellent thing. We can never know too much.

We should be reading to have greater understanding and to improve our minds. But you know, it becomes a lust like this: you've started reading one book, then you suddenly hear about another book and you get that also. You haven't finished the first yet but you start reading the second. Then a third comes and you're reading three books. Well, it's a lust at that point. You're no longer in control. The thing has mastered you. It's run away with you. It's captured you. And it can happen at all levels.

I've seen people read novels exactly in the same way as others take drugs. I remember the case of a poor woman who was even to be seen walking round her house with a novel in her hand even while she was cooking, still reading her novel. Well, all right, it may be something to laugh at, but I'm not sure it isn't something to weep at. I see no difference in principle between that and taking drugs or taking alcohol or giving way to a lust of the body. I see no difference whatsoever.

It's equally a lust. But it's a desire of the mind and not of the flesh. Well, there it is. It manifests itself like that. Then you think of it in terms of people with their hobbies and their games and their instruments and their interests. These things are quite innocent. A hobby's all right, a game's all right, but if you live for it, it isn't all right. It's become a desire of the mind. Well, let me take you to the highest level of all: the lust for knowledge, the lust for learning.

Therefore literature, art, music, drama, philosophy, they all come in. These things are all right, but not if you live for them, not if they master you, not if they've become a drive in your life which you can't control. And isn't that true of some of the most respectable people in the land? The people I mean who feel: well of course, they say, that gospel of salvation and conversion and regeneration I suppose it's all right in the East End of London but not in the West.

It's all right for people who've lived in gutters and have been adulterers and so on. But I've never—there they are, they may be in high academic positions in the university and they say surely I don't need to have this rebirth you're speaking of. The answer is you do because you're as much a creature of lust as is the other. And it doesn't matter whether the lust is in the mind, the intellect, or whether it's in the animal part, it's the same thing exactly and it's equally opposed to God.

And there is this lust, this quest for mere knowledge as knowledge and understanding. It's pervasive. It runs right through the whole of life. There is not a living creature but is guilty of this lust of the flesh. Such is man in sin. Sin, oh the depths, the foulness, the ugliness, the power of it all. And you see, my friends, the importance of all this. I can imagine a kind of person saying to himself: well of course, that's very interesting if you're interested in that kind of thing.

But after all, this country is passing through a bit of a crisis at the moment. A new budget, a supplementary budget's going to be introduced. There are articles being written with a very ominous suggestion that we may be faced with some very serious financial situation in this country. Why don't you do something about that, they say? Haven't you got something to say about that? Well, it surprise any of you if I say that I've been preaching about that the whole time this morning? How do you make that out, said someone? I'll tell you.

It's as you understand this doctrine of sin that you see the futility and the fatuity of all the politicians because the politicians, you see, think that this kind of situation is to be met by calling upon men and women to discipline themselves voluntarily. We must eat less, we must smoke less, we must import less, and therefore we must take less ourselves. They've already made the appeal. We don't seem to have responded. So they put up the purchase tax. They say that'll do it, but it isn't doing it. Why not?

Because they've never realized the meaning of the word lust. Men simply won't. They're driven. They're captives. It's a force. It's a power. You put up your price, they'll still have it. They may moderate their smoking for a week or two after the budget, but after a few weeks, the statisticians tell us, it goes back to the former level, and it will go on. Why? Man's driven by desires, by lusts. He cannot discipline himself. I'll even prove that to you.

If we're in the midst of a terrible war and we're actually fighting for our lives, then you will find men will smoke less and drink less and do various other things less than they did before. But you see what's happening? Here a bigger instinct has driven out the lesser instincts. The instinct of self-preservation has driven out the various other lusts, but it's still a lust. So that the moment the crisis passes, men drop back to where they were exactly before.

The whole fallacy of mere political thinking is based upon a failure to realize the biblical doctrine of sin. It isn't enough to tell men what's right and what's wrong. They can't help it. They're slaves, they're victims. The lusts, the passions, the desires control them. There is only one thing that can deal with a situation like this. It's the thing I mentioned at the beginning: it is the exceeding greatness of his power toward usward that believe. It's what Thomas Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection.

So if you're thinking simply of this country and its immediate crisis, the direct route to the answer is to be found in this scripture. But over and above this, if you're thinking as you ought to be thinking about the end of your life in this world and about the end of the whole world and God and judgment and eternity, well then you must think about this because in that state, you cannot stand before God and you can't enjoy him.

You've got to be delivered from this control of the lusts of the flesh, manifesting itself in the desires of the body and the desires of the mind. And it is only the power of God in the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that can deliver us. But blessed be the name of God, it can, it does, it will. Sin, oh the depths, the foulness, the ugliness, the power of it all. There is only one place of safety and that is ever to be looking unto him, receiving of his fullness, relying upon the power of his might. For there we are safe. Amen.