Romans 6:22 But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end everlasting life. I. The first stage of the Christian journey is CONVERSION, "now being made free from sin." What, then, is this "freedom from sin"? What, then, this emancipation we get at the Cross? Sin is here. Sin is in us, sin is on us. Sin has flung on our soul the double coiled chain of penalty and power. We are prisoners bound by the two-twisted grapple of guilt, but it is all snapped and shivered in the surrender of the soul to the Lord. "He hath sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Here's the gospel for you. "The Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Every fraction of my awful debt Christ has rendered, and now I am pardoned, justified, "reconciled unto God by the death of His Son," and God righteously bestows upon me the full remission of my sins, "that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." I am, in conversion to Christ, free from sin, its penalty. Yet once more, conversion brings freedom from the power and presence of sin. Slaving in the rice fields of sin was I! hoeing along in the heat of the plain of hell was I! manacled was I! But, "happy day!" on the horizon a broad sail appeared, and a vessel bore down to the terrible shore, and lo, the blood-stained banner of the Cross of Christ waved its welcome to my weary soul, and I lifted myself from the swamps and fled, and plunged into the deep with a cry for help. "Lord, save me, I perish." Help came, salvation came, the Lord walked on the wave and brought me on board, and "I fell down at His feet as if dead." II. The second station on the line to glory is what we call, for want of a better name, CONDUCTION, "become servants to God." You know what conduction in physical science is. It is the communication of heat from one body to another by contact. There must be touch, or there will be no passing along of the caloric wave. Can't you realise this "natural law in the spiritual world"? It is the secret of effective service to God. Examine the extremities and see that the touch is certain. Is your soul, Christian worker, in contact with God? Is your soul, Christian worker, in contact with man? Have you regeneration from God? Have you sympathy with man? A soul saved, and soul seeker. That is service. Bring the soul into living contact with the living God, and the Divine heat by the law of conduction will ripple its waves through the mass of humanity till all the earth shall acknowledge Him; "and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." But where shall I work? How shall I serve? how labour for God on the earth? Where you are called, there preach. Serve God with your new life where He gave it you. Serve you your God by doing His will in "the trivial round, the common task." "Who sweeps a room as for His laws makes that and the action fine." Be a "servant to God." III. The third platform we reach on this royal route to heaven is CONSECRATION: "Ye have your fruit unto holiness." Rowland Hill says truly, "he wouldn't give a fig for a man's religion if his very cat wasn't the better of it!" Be a fruiter in the Christian life, not a florist. It was said of one of those perfection florists, "Ay, he's perfect, he says, but ask his wife!" Many will pray that will never pay, and yet paying not praying is the "fruit unto holiness." To one of those florists of holiness I once lent my last coin, and I've never seen it nor him, and it's ten years now since he, with three or four hundred more of the coins of others to keep mine company, took his spring-heeled flitting in the bonnie moonlight! Many will talk that will never walk, and yet walk not talk is the "fruit unto holiness." The world needs Christs, be you a Christ! Live holiness by living Christ, for the blessing is not an it, but a "He." Christ in you, working through you, that "we should be to the praise of His glory." IV. And now, the terminus of this railway journey to "the regions beyond" is what we call, also for the want of a better name, and to keep to our "cons" for your memory's sake, CONGREGATION, "the end, everlasting life." Right has been, left has been, right again has been, it is now straight on! On screams the engine whistle, and the piston plunges, and the wheels move. Night! Thunders the iron steed on its ringing track, smoothly on, steadily on, into the darkness. (John Robertson.) Parallel Verses KJV: But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. |
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