From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We are still considering the great words that I'm going to read to you out of Paul's epistle to the Romans in chapter 13, reading from verse 11 to the end of the chapter. "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof."

I described this as a great statement. It is, historically and from every other standpoint, one of these great moving passages that you find so freely scattered about in the epistles of this great and mighty Apostle Paul. Now, what he's doing is, of course, to give us the final and the ultimate great motive for Christian living. Paul never stops at doctrine. Doctrine and practice are to him inextricably mixed together. And so, having laid down his great doctrine in the first 11 chapters of this epistle, he now comes to his practical application.

And here is the final argument. He's told us how we are to live, and now he gives us reasons for doing so. Now, we've been seeing that he starts by saying "knowing." He assumes we know certain things. And the things we've already considered that he reminds us of are these: we know the time. "And that, knowing the time." How tremendously important it is that we should have a right view of the time in which we are living. I don't mean only the present time, this actual period in which we are living in history.

What he means is the importance of our having a true view of the whole of history. To us as Christians, the time in which we are living is the time between the first advent of Christ and his second advent, his final coming. And that, as we've seen, also means that he's assuming that we have, therefore, the right view of life in this world. Our view of life as Christians is altogether different from the view taken by the man who's not a Christian. He glories in the life of the world, but to us, that is night; it is darkness.

So, you see there is a complete change in our view of life in this world. Still more striking is the difference between their view of the future and our view of the future. They have nothing to look forward to without a hope to cheer the tomb. Death is the end, and they're ignorant of what lies beyond it and are afraid even to consider it. But to us, the outlook is entirely different. The day, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. This great doctrine of the second coming of our blessed Lord and Savior.

And then, last week, we were dealing with the fourth thing that the apostle assumes that we know. And that is that we are aware of the great change that has taken place in us: "our salvation." "Us," he keeps on saying. We are not as other people are. We know that our salvation is nearer than when we believed. And so he says, "Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly." You can't say that to anybody but a Christian. He doesn't know what you're talking about. He thinks you're mad, and he thinks you're narrow and so on, because you are living this kind of life that is here described by the great apostle.

But the thing we ended on is one of the most glorious things of all. And that is that we know that we already belong to the day. That's the beginning of the 13th verse: "Let us walk honestly, as in the day." Though the day is to come, we already belong to it. This is the most thrilling, in many ways, of all these great doctrines that we have put before us in the New Testament. Well now, there are the great essential doctrines of which he reminds us here.

So then, we move on to this point, which is the argument that arises inevitably from the knowing and the realization of this doctrine. That is exactly what the apostle is doing. He works out the argument for us. But he's assuming, as he says, that we are familiar with this argument and that it is an argument that appeals to us and that we see the inevitability of the argument. And that's the thing which we've got to consider this evening. Now, I'm anxious to stress the fact that it is an argument.

And that is the way in which the New Testament always presents its teaching on sanctification. We can never emphasize this too frequently. There are many other views, as you know, with regard to sanctification, many other forms of teaching. People who tell you that you can receive it as an experience. Now, that does seem to me always is quite incompatible with a statement such as this which we are looking at together. Here is the typical New Testament way of preaching sanctification.

And the passage we read at the beginning out of the epistle to the Ephesians is just another example of precisely the same thing. It's always this "therefore," this argument. Sanctification is something that follows on directly from the truth, the doctrine, everything that we have been reminded of concerning ourselves. Well, now, let's see, therefore, what some of the deductions are which we should draw inevitably from the doctrine of which he has been reminding us.

The first is obviously this: we belong to the day. We've seen it in its doctrinal form. We are not of the night; we are of the day. We are children of the day. We no longer belong to the darkness. Now, here, you see, is the basis, as it were, of this practical argument which we have to work out for ourselves. And the way he puts it is this, and it's something you find in every one of these epistles, everywhere. Not only the epistles of Paul, but all the other epistles. They're all really saying exactly the same thing.

When they deal with this question of conduct and of behavior and of practice, what they're all really saying to us is this: now, don't forget what you were, but do realize that you are no longer that. Now, it's a good thing for us to be reminded as to what we were, what our position was, what our condition was. We were under the wrath of God. That is true of the whole of mankind. The whole world lieth guilty before God. The wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. The apostle has started this great epistle by laying down those great propositions.

Now, our danger there was a terrible one. We were face to face with nothing but perdition and with hell. And we were completely helpless. We could do nothing about it whatsoever. But this is the message that we have believed and this is the thing that makes us Christians: we believe that we have been delivered from that by the action of God himself. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," he's already said in the first chapter, verse 16. Why not? "It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth."

Or as he puts it in that favorite way of his in the third chapter, where, having described that we're all under condemnation—"therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin"—but now, and here's all the difference, but now, something new. Only the Christian knows this. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but we are being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and so on.

Now, this is how the Christian faces the problem of living in a world like this. He doesn't just look at actions. He doesn't just look at possibilities. He starts by reminding himself that he was a hopeless sinner under the wrath of God, facing nothing but hell, but that God, out of his infinite grace and kindness and love and mercy and compassion, has delivered him, even at the cost of the death and the shed blood of his only begotten Son. That's what he's saying. Now, you realize at once that this is something he says everywhere: you are not your own, you have been bought with a price.

Peter uses exactly the same argument. "You have not been redeemed," he says, "with corruptible things such as gold and silver from your vain conversation inherited by tradition from your fathers." What with them? Well, with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. It's because of that, he says, you ought to live in this way. "Be ye holy for I am holy," saith the Lord. Now, this was the whole object of the coming of the Son of God into this world. Why did he come into the world?

He didn't merely come to deliver us from punishment and from hell. He's done that; that was the first thing. If he hadn't done that, that is what would happen to us. But the work of the Lord was not merely a negative work. It's a very positive work. And you remember the way in which this apostle, it's here all implied in this passage we're dealing with, but he states it very explicitly in so many places. There is no better statement of this than in the second chapter of the epistle to Titus: "Who gave himself for us." What for? "That he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

You see, the object of the atonement is not a negative one. It's a very positive one. So often we stop at forgiveness and regard the cross merely as a message of forgiveness. Some people carry this to the ridiculous extreme as to say that you can take Christ as your Savior and go on like that for years, and then, later on, take him as your Sanctifier or as your Lord. What an utter abuse of Scripture that is! What a wresting of Scripture in a wrong way that is! You can't separate these things. He died not only that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good.

The object of his coming, the whole object of everything he did, was to redeem us from all iniquity and to separate unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. Indeed, you remember that the angel, announcing his very coming, said that to Joseph: "He shall save his people from their sins." It's in the plural. Not from sin, but from their sins. This is the whole object of the great salvation that God planned before time and has been, which has been executed in all that has happened in our blessed Lord and Savior.

Now then, this is the object. And, of course, the ultimate object is that we might be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Peter says that our Lord came and did all that he did, what for? To bring us to God. To bring us to glory. To undo the works of the devil. That's the object of our Lord's coming. To 1 John 3:8 and 9, there he says exactly the same thing again. This is why the Son of God has come, he says: that he might destroy, undo, nullify the works of the devil. Now, that's not negative; this is positive.

He has come to restore again all things, that all things might again minister to the glory of God. Now, you see, this is a part of the argument. And this is how the New Testament presents us with this teaching of sanctification, this appeal that the apostle is making. "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God," that's it, you see, "that you present your bodies a living sacrifice." Well now, he's summing it all up here again. But you and I have got to work out this argument.

The trouble with so many of us, I feel, is that instead of facing the problem of Christian living in this way, we tend to face it in terms of particular sins and particular problems. I find that so often as people talk to me. They don't seem to be reasoning as the apostle tells us to do, but they look at things in and of themselves. That's reducing Christianity to the level of morality. But this is the Christian way: you must always derive it and see its inevitability from the great doctrine that you already claim to have believed. Well, now, there it is put very generally.

Now, let me put it to you again more particularly in terms of certain particular arguments that you work out. Having, therefore, seen that the great object and purpose of redemption at all is to deliver us from the bondage and the captivity of sin and Satan, and from the darkness and the night and all the rest of it, then you go on, you see, the second argument is this: the obvious inconsistency, therefore, of still living in the old way. Now, it seems so simple, doesn't it? It seems so obvious. And it is simple, and it should be obvious.

But why are we in trouble then, any of us? Why do we experience remorse and repentance again, and why are we miserable and cast down and defeated? Well, it's because we haven't grasped as we should have done, or we've forgotten temporarily what is so simple, so obvious. "Knowing," yes, but you see we don't. That's why Paul had to write his letter, and that is why preaching is still necessary: the utter inconsistency. He says, "Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in." You see the thing he says is incompatible.

"Let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." If you don't, he says, you're inconsistent with what you know and claim to know. Now, I read that section out of the epistle to the Ephesians at the beginning because there he puts it in greater detail. And he works out the argument for us in greater detail. Look at it again. "This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk." Why not? Well, because you no longer are one of them. You were, you were Gentiles, and you lived the life of the Gentiles, but you're no longer that.

You were that, you're no longer that, you're something different. "Therefore," he says, "I testify that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness." Now listen: "But you have not so learned Christ."

Is that what you've learned from him? Is that the truth that you claim to have believed concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as the Savior of your soul? "You have not so learned Christ, if so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus." Now, he says, you really must face this. Is Christ the author of sin? Did Christ simply come into the world in order that you could go on sinning and he just has come to guarantee that you're going to be forgiven though you do sin? Did he come into the world to do that? Is that what you've learned?

Is that the gospel that you've believed? That Christ just provides you now for a safe way of sinning? That you know however much you sin, he's died for you and you're covered by his blood? If that is the way you have learned Christ, you are denying him. That is nothing but antinomianism, and there is nothing more dangerous than antinomianism. You have not so learned Christ! He didn't come to do that. Now, the Apostle John, of course, puts it even stronger. People call John the apostle of love.

John is the apostle of love; they're all the apostles of love. But John is so greatly misunderstood in this matter. John is much severer than the Apostle Paul ever is or ever was. This is how John puts it: "This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth." That's it. He says it still more strongly in the second chapter: "He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

That's Scriptural teaching. That's very different, isn't it, from appealing to people to come forward to receive the blessing of sanctification? Where has this teaching come from? It's not in the Scriptures. It's a contradiction of the Scriptures. This is Scriptural teaching: if you say you know him and are living in darkness, there's only one thing to say about you: you're a liar. You're a barefaced liar, and the truth is not in you. You have not so learned Christ.

And I think I read to you last week that statement in the first epistle of Peter in the fourth chapter, where again he really is working out the same utter inconsistency of saying we know these things and living as if we didn't know. "My," from whence, oh this is James, this is the first epistle of Peter in the fourth chapter. "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

"For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquetings and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that you run not with them still to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you." Now, you see, that's his way of saying exactly the same thing. It is completely inconsistent with what we claim to believe and what we claim to be true of ourselves as born-again men and women that we should still go on living and behaving in the way that we did before we were born again, in the way that people who are not born again still go on living. That's Scriptural teaching. You work out the argument.

And this, I say, is something that we can never emphasize too much. But then here's another argument: the dangers of living in that old way. You see, the apostle is appealing to us to live in this way because we now belong to the day. "We are let us walk honestly, as in the day." And he tells us what we mustn't do. Why does he do this? Well, he does this because of the danger of living as if we belonged to the night and as if we were still in the darkness.

This is a most dangerous thing for the soul. Now, let me give you some examples of this. Let's see the apostle stating this quite plainly himself in his epistle to First Epistle to Timothy. He's got it there in the sixth chapter, and he puts it quite clearly and quite plainly to Timothy. Listen to this: "Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, oh man of God, flee these things; fly away from them as far as you can and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." Why? Well, because he is a man of God. And he shows him the danger. It's very dangerous. On the other hand, he says godliness with contentment is great gain.

But the other is always a life of loss. It works against the soul. And then you remember his word about poor man called Demas: "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." He didn't intend to go wrong or to go back, but it's the subtle influence of evil and the life of the night and of the darkness. But Peter, with regard to this matter, puts it if anything still more clearly. Listen to him. And here you get exactly the same argument, the same way in which the doctrine is stated first and then the deduction is drawn. First epistle of Peter, chapter two, begin at verse nine, where he says: "But you," first of all reminds them who they are.

"You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, a people for God's own peculiar possession, if you like." Why are you this? Well, "that you should show forth the praises, the excellencies of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." That's what you are. "Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." Do you notice how these men all say the same thing? They not only do that, they repeat it themselves. There's nothing else to be said.

This is Christianity, and this is the way in which it presents the doctrine of sanctification. Realize who you are. You were that, you're no longer that. And now realize positively who you are: this chosen generation, royal priesthood, holy nation, peculiar people. And your big business in life is to show forth the excellencies of this glorious God who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And then, quite practically: "Dearly beloved, I beseech you," same word as Paul, "he beseeches us," "I beseech you," says Peter.

"As strangers and pilgrims," which is just another way of telling us that we are no longer what we used to be. We no longer belong to this world. We are strangers in it. We are pilgrims. We are travelers. We are journeymen. We are people away from home. Our citizenship is in heaven. We belong to that world. "I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims." Now, you see, this is pure argument. Realize that you are a stranger and nothing but a pilgrim in this world. Remember that the honor of your homeland is in your hands, as it were, and the honor of your family.

You're a stranger in this world. Same argument, you see: we no longer belong to the night, we no longer belong to the darkness. We're the children of the day and children of the light. We're in God's marvelous light, and we're here to show him forth and his excellencies and to make people see the glory of God. But he says you're therefore nothing but strangers and pilgrims. "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts." Why? "Which war against the soul." They war against the soul.

Now, he's writing to Christians, remember. You see the artificiality that has often come in with false sanctification and holiness teaching. You've got to realize that you're still face to face with these things that war against the soul. They're dangerous to you. John Bunyan, of course, has put it once and for all in Pilgrim's Progress, where he talks about Christian and others going through Vanity Fair. That's what the world is: Vanity Fair. And we're going through it, but these things are dangerous. And read old Bunyan again, and you'll see how people, failing to remember that they're pilgrims and strangers, they turn aside and they become interested.

Down they go and they get into trouble, and they have to be extricated from it, and all sorts of problems and difficulties arise simply because they don't realize that these things war against the soul. Now, the point I'm making is this: that we mustn't look at these things in and of themselves. I keep on saying this because I have to say it, because I find that people come to me always about the thing in and of itself. And all I have to do is to say, "Look here, relate all this to your soul."

Don't be praying about this particular thing so much. You're suggesting it to yourself. Realize the truth about yourself. Be positive in your whole outlook. That's the way to overcome sin: not to be dealing with the sin itself always, but see yourself as you are. Be positive in your whole approach. And you, amongst other things, you realize that these things war against the soul. And it doesn't matter how holy you are, sin is always dangerous. And all these things, they war against the soul.

And then he goes on, of course, to the further argument: "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles." That's a further argument. Not only for your own sake, but you see these other people are watching you, and you bring the whole of the glory of God into disrepute if you fail in this particular way. On the other hand, if you do the right thing and live as you should, well, you never know the effect you're going to have upon them. They may glorify God in the day of visitation by what they've seen in and through even you.

So, here is a tremendous argument: these things are a positive danger to us, so we mustn't play with them. We mustn't live as near as we can to them. So many people try seem to be doing that these days. There's a new thinking that has come into evangelical circles, it seems to me, which seems to say get as near as you can to these things. And they think they're clever. They'll soon find that these things war against the soul. Indeed, the evidence is already forthcoming. There's a slipping, there's a lowering of standards, even approach to the Bible, everything else. You start compromising in your practice, you'll soon be compromising in your beliefs, view of the scripture, and all these other matters. I think we are witnessing a great deal of this at the present time simply because we don't realize the danger of the night and of the darkness. Why should we want to be in any way similar to the world? Oh, I know the specious argument is that you're going to win them. So you put on your lipstick in order to win the women of the world who use lipstick. That's the argument that's used, and you're like them so you'll draw them and attract them. It's the exact opposite of what you read in the New Testament.

Very well, there's that argument. Let's go on to another. And here is a tremendously solemn deduction or argument, whichever you like to call it: the terrible danger of presumption. Now, I've got to handle this carefully because it can often be misunderstood. We've got to be aware of the terrible danger of presumption. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean this: it's the danger of glibness. It's the danger of wresting the scripture to our own destruction, to use the language of Peter. In what way? Well, this kind of thing: a false kind of assurance which is based only upon a kind of intellectual deduction.

You know the people who say there's only one type of assurance, that is this: do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? "Yes, I do." Very well, then you are saved and leave it at that. They don't use the arguments of the first epistle of John, the tests of whether you truly are a Christian or not. And remember, keeping the commandments is a very prominent test in the first epistle of John. In other words, there is this terrible danger of presumption. And in order to deal with that, there are some very terrifying passages in the scripture.

You are familiar with them. Take the beginning of the sixth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews: "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." And there's a parallel passage you remember to that in the 10th chapter of that same epistle: "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

"He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Well, and ending in this tremendous statement: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Now, I'm not concerned at the moment with the full exposition of those passages. I believe in the final perseverance of the saints as taught in the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans. Well then, why were those passages ever written? They were written in order to warn us of the terrible danger of presumption. In other words, a Christian must never live solely in the realm of the intellect. He's not allowed to. You can argue intellectually about assurance. If you only argue intellectually about assurance, you may be going to hell.

Because there's a consistency in the Christian. The man who really is a Christian is a man who's concerned as much about his heart and his will as he is about his mind. The theoretical man who is living a life that is the exact opposite of what he claims to believe is a man who is in the greatest possible danger. And he should be pointed always to Hebrews 6 and to Hebrews 10. Very well, we leave it at that. But there is the danger of presumption. But let me give you some further scriptures which teach the same thing.

Listen to this in Philippians 2. How often have you heard this read out in holiness or sanctification conventions? Listen to this: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Fear and trembling." That's Philippians 2:12. "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Fear and trembling! Not "take it by faith." Not "hand it over to the Lord." Work it out yourself, but remember, with fear and trembling.

But you say, "Where is his faith? How can he possibly say a thing like that? I'm saved, everything's settled, I'm finished, I don't have any doubts or troubles." This is what the apostle said: "Fear and trembling." Why? Well, the Christian is a man who knows something about the holiness of God. So he walks always and approaches God always with reverence and with godly fear. The Apostle Paul knew more than anybody, it seems to me, about fear and trembling. He preached in fear and trembling. He lived in fear and trembling. It's not a craven fear, this. This is the fear of offending against such a loving God and Father.

The fear of in any way bringing the gospel into disrepute. The fear of falling by the wayside. You see, it's full of this sort of thing. "Lest having preached to others," he says in 1 Corinthians 9 at the end, "I myself might be a castaway," which means disapproved, disqualified, as it were. Now, you see, these statements are all in the scripture. And they're all here in order to warn us against presumption. "Let your moderation be known unto all men," he says in Philippians 4:5. Why? "The Lord is at hand."

Same argument. The Christian is a man who, though he is assured of his salvation, he walks in the fear of the Lord. This is what the fathers used to call godliness, and we hear so little about it today. The glibness and the assurance and the business methods and the worldliness, you know, it's foreign to the New Testament. Everything here is in fear and trembling. There is the joy of the Lord, but it's a holy joy. It never presumes. It's never glib, it's never slick. It's never superficial.

Or if you like, listen to James saying the same thing in his way. This is how he puts it, perfectly clear in the fifth chapter of his epistle: "Be patient therefore, brethren," he says, "unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure," and so on.

Now, but then you see he addresses the rich people: "Go to now," he says, "ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

"Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you." And then, "be patient," he says to those who have suffered. But it's all in terms of the coming of the Lord. Peter has exactly the same argument in the first epistle and in chapter four: "The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer," and so on.

It's exactly the same argument. And you remember, I think I read it to you last week: "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer." Remember he's writing to Christian believers. "Let none of you," he says, "suffer as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf. For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

I need say no more. All these are warnings against presumption. But let me turn to another note before we conclude this evening. There are the warnings. Look at the positive. Think of the glory that is coming, that is awaiting us. This day of which he writes. Here it is. John puts it so wonderfully, so gloriously in his first epistle and in the third chapter: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."

We've had it all in the eighth chapter of this epistle to the Romans in verses 18 and following: the appearing, the manifestation of the sons of God. "Sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." This is about us! That's coming. So the final argument, you see, is this: the shortness of the time which you and I have got to prepare for this glory that awaits us. Now, these epistles are full of this kind of exhortation: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

Do you know what comes after that? "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth." Because of that glory which is coming. It's coming to you. You shall be manifested. You shall appear with him in glory, and you will be glorified by then. Therefore, mortify your members which are upon the earth. You've got Peter using exactly the same argument in his second epistle and in the first chapter: "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

There isn't much time. The time is at hand. We must be preparing. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" That's the third chapter of Second Peter. "Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless."

You see, it's all an argument. It's an appeal based upon an argument. You're reasoning it through. And I read to you just now 1 John 3:1 and 2: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God," etc. "We know not yet what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Listen, next verse: "And every man that hath this hope in him," what does he do? "He purifieth himself, even as he is pure." He is preparing himself for it.

Let the Book of Revelation speak its last word to us on this very thing in the 19th chapter. Listen to this. Here he's got a great picture. "I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is," what? "Is the righteousness of saints."

The church is the bride of Christ, and the appeal is this: prepare your trousseau! Get ready for the marriage ceremony! Get ready for this great wedding that's to take place. And the linen, the fine linen, is righteousness. Get your trousseau ready. Be diligent. It's coming. The day is at hand. Prepare for this glorious wedding of the bridegroom with his bride the church, of which you and I by the grace of God are members, having been called by him out of the darkness into his marvelous light, translated from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of his dear Son.

Well, my dear friends, that's the argument that is here in this section at the end of the 13th chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. We haven't finished with it even yet, but there it is. He's been reminding us of what we know, then he says if you know this, these are the inevitable, inevitable deductions which you must draw.

Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we come again to thee, and we thank thee, oh Lord, that we do know something about these things. We know it entirely because of thy love and grace. We know that we were blind and we were ignorant, we were dead. But through thy word and thy spirit enlightening us and opening thy word to us, we have come to know these things. And we thank thee and bless thy great and holy name that we do rejoice in them.

Oh God, help us to draw the inevitable deduction. Help us to see that we are but strangers and pilgrims in this world and that the works of darkness war against the soul. Oh God, write these things we pray thee in our minds and hearts and wills that with the whole of our being, we shall show forth thy praises who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvelous light.

And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us, now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and until we shall see him as he is and be made like unto him. Amen.