Nov 11
13
The flesh
(J. C. Philpot)
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” John 3:6
There is no promise made that in this life, we shall be
set free from the indwelling and the in-working of sin.
Many think that their flesh is to become “progressively
holier and holier”–that sin after sin is to be removed
gradually out of the heart–until at last they are almost
made perfect in the flesh. But this is an idle dream,
and one which, sooner or later will be crudely and
roughly broken to pieces.
The flesh will ever remain the same–and we shall ever
find that the flesh will lust against the Spirit. Our fleshly
nature is corrupt to the very core. It cannot be mended.
It cannot be sanctified. It is the same at the last, as it
was at the first–inherently evil, and as such will never
cease to be corrupt until we put off mortality–and with
it the body of sin and death.
All we can hope for, long after, expect, and pray for–is
that this evil fleshly nature may be subdued, kept down,
mortified, crucified, and held in subjection under the power
of grace. But as to any such change passing upon the flesh
–or taking place in the flesh as to make it holy–it is but a
pharisaic delusion, which, promising a holiness in the flesh,
leaves us still under the power of sin.
The true sanctification of the new man of grace–which is
wrought by a divine power–is utterly distinct from any
imagined holiness in the flesh–or any vain dream of its
progressive sanctification.
“Everyone Shall Be Salted With Fire”
Mark 9:49
If you die in your sins, if you perish without Christ, you will be cast into hell to suffer the everlasting, indescribable horror of the wrath of God. There the worm of your tormenting conscience will relentlessly gnaw at your soul. There the fires of God’s wrath will burn forever. The fires of God’s wrath in hell will do the same thing that salt does to the flesh of slaughtered animals. As the salt preserves the flesh from putrefaction and corruption, so the fires of hell, while burning, torturing, and tormenting you, will preserve your body and soul in being. In other words, the very fire that burns you will keep you from being consumed. Your soul shall never die. Your body will not consume away. You will lose none of your powers, faculties, or senses. Rather, they shall all be intensified! That is what our Lord means by you being salted with fire and the fire being unquenchable!
Don Fortner
HOW DOES THE BELIEVER PLUCK OUT THE OFFENDING EYE AND CUT OFF THE OFFENDING HAND?
Romans 7: 25: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The way we pluck out the offending eye is only by God’s grace, through the Spirit of God as we are enabled to behold Christ Jesus our Lord with the eye of faith in the inner man. The way we cut off the hand of the flesh is by laying hold of Christ with the hand of faith. The just shall live by faith.
Matthew 6:22: The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Romans 8: 13: For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
No threats of hell, no law, no mere outward acts will do what only we can do through the Spirit of God. Mortification of the flesh comes by beholding the faithfulness of Christ in honoring the righteousness of God and fulfilling the law on behalf of the believer.
Matthew 5: 30:…it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
The Hand Cut Off
When we are made to behold once again, more clearly, in the heart, that our Substitute so delighted to magnify the law of God, that he was willingly made sin for us, cut off out of the land of the living under the fierce wrath of God in our place, because it was profitable in honoring the righteousness of God that one member of the body should perish, and not the whole body should be cast into hell then are we made to walk after the Spirit (Mt 5: 17; 2 Cor 5: 21.)
Only when a sin-plagued sinner beholds the depths of his sin, the inner workings of lust in his heart does he cry out for mercy. The mercy-begging sinner is strengthened to walk after Christ through the gospel of Christ Jesus the Righteous Representative and Substitute who lived and died and rose again so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. It is impossible for us to both behold Christ with the eye of faith seated at God’s right hand and at the same time yield to the offending eye, to lay hold of Christ with the hand of faith and yet yield to the offending hand. When our new man is renewed that is when we through the Spirit do mortify–cut off the evil eye and the evil hand. It is all of God, in Christ, all through the power of the Holy Spirit, all through the gospel which declares the wonderful works of Christ Jesus our King and Savior. Clay Curtis.
THE SALT ROOM
“Every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. Leviticus 2:13
Every minute detail, both in substance and service in the ceremonial law ordained by God for the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, points to and is a picture of our blessed Redeemer. The significance of salt is obvious in this verse and is no less than required hereafter with every meat sacrifice offered.
Salt has at least two outstanding and beneficial uses. One is to give desirable and satisfying flavour to food. Another is to preserve food from perishing. Not only is the meat offered a type of our Substitute, the salt is as well. He is the Salt of the everlasting Covenant of Grace. Without Him there would only be a covenant of works and it would be tasteless and even less satisfying and consequently a ministration of death.
As we eat of Him, He is that meat which is salted with all of His graces in His accomplished work, as He is our Redeemer and satisfies His Father and the taste of the inward man. “Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” Job 6:6. It is “Christ in you” that makes His people the salt of the earth. “Ye are the salt of the earth” Mt 5:13.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our preservation as well. The Covenant of Grace is an everlasting covenant because Christ is the salt, or Surety of that covenant. As long as He endures we will endure – “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed” John 6:27. A message without Christ is a message without salt. It has no desirable taste and absolutely no enduring benefits.
In the “Salt Room” there was an abundance of salt to saturate the sacrifice. In the gospel there is an abundance of Christ. By God’s grace may we labour for that Meat which satisfies the soul and endureth unto everlasting life. Tommy Robbins
Sitting side by side with corpses?
The following is from Spurgeon’s sermon,
“Alive or Dead- Which?” No. 755. 1 John 5:12.
The moralist says, “Oh! I have always lived a
chaste, upright, moral life. I have been attentive
to religious duties….” I tell you, unbelieving
moralist, what you are- you are a corpse well
washed and decently laid out, daintily robed
in fair white linen, sprinkled plenteously with
sweet perfumes, and wrapped in myrrh, and
cassia, and aloes, with flowers wreathed about
your brow, and your bosom bedecked by the
hand of affection with sweetly blushing roses.
But you have no spiritual life, and therefore
your destiny is the grave, corruption is your
heritage, and your place of abode is fixed,
“where their worm dies not, and the fire not
quenched.” For, “He that believes not shall
be damned.”
With all your excellencies and moralities,
with all your baptisms and his sacraments,
“He that believes not shall be damned.”
There is no middle place, no specially
reserved and superior abodes for these
noble and virtuous unbelievers.
If they have not believed, they shall be
bound up in bundles with the rest, for God
has appointed to all unbelievers their portion
with liars, and thieves, and whoremongers,
and drunkards, and idolaters.
Beware, you unbelievers, for your unbelief
will be the most condemning evidence against
you at the great judgment day.
Some of you are spiritually dead. Is not this
terrible? Oh, if by some touch of an angel’s
wand, our bodies should all become as our
souls are, how many corpses would fill these
aisles, and crowd these pews! Oh! what a
sight this place would be! Those of us who
are alive would hasten to gather up our things
and say, “Let us be gone! How can we
sit side by side with corpses?”
Perpetual fuel to the flames of hell!
(Thomas Brooks, “London’s Lamentations” 1670)
Our earthly fire destroys and consumes whatever is cast
into it. It turns all combustibles into ashes. But the fire of
hell is not of that nature. The fire of hell consumes nothing
which is cast into it. It rages—but it does not consume or
destroy either bodies or souls.
“Men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long
to die, but death will elude them.” Revelation 9:6
They shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
They shall cry to the mountains to fall upon them and
to crush them to nothing! They shall desire that . . .
the fire which burns them—would consume them to nothing,
the worm which feeds on them—would gnaw them to nothing,
the devils which torment them—would tear them to nothing!
They shall cry to God, who first made them out of nothing,
to reduce them to that first nothing from whence they
came! But “their Maker has no compassion on them,
and their Creator shows them no favor.” Isaiah 27:11
They shall always be burned—but never consumed.
Ah, how well would it be with the damned, if in the fire
of hell, they might be consumed to ashes! But this is their
misery—they shall be ever dying, and yet never die; their
bodies shall be always a-burning—but never a-consuming!
It is dreadful to be perpetual fuel to the flames of hell!
What misery can compare to this—for infernal fire to be still
a-preying upon damned sinners, and yet never making an
end of them! The fierce and furious flames of hell shall burn
—but never annihilate, the bodies of the damned. In hell
there is no cessation of fire burning, nor of matter burned.
Neither flames nor smoke shall consume or choke the
impenitent. Both the infernal fire, and the burning of the
bodies of reprobates in that fire—shall be preserved by
the miraculous power of God!
“Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath!”
1 Thessalonians 1:10
“For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to
receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Thessalonians 5:9