God gives some of His sent messengers great ability to express the truth with
great words of felt experience, even outside of, but always in subjection to,
divine inspiration. Our brother Robert H was one of those men. And yet the
problem is with me. For even the least able of Christ’s sent ministers (please
suffer me to put it thus) who preach God’s truth, when they preach THE truth,
their words are as powerful as when Christ said, Let there be light! I say that
because to preach the scripture is to preach Christ the Word. Oh that I had an
ear, an eye and a heart to see Christ every time He is preached - preached most
ably or otherwise - when Christ is preached the Father has great delight.
Walter P.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 30, 2021, at 7:16 AM, Soraya Reis <sbreis50@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So very true, Brother Mike.
Thanks.
Blessings,
Soraya
Em seg, 29 de mar de 2021 22:42, mike mcinnis <ratmotor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
escreveu:
Greetings sis Reis, et al;
Once again mr. Hawker "nails it" in his exposition of this verse. Paul,
in describing himself to the Romans, in reality describes all of those who
are awakened by the SPIRIT of GOD to see the holiness of the law and the
depravity of their own heart. Religious men presume that they can overcome
their sins by their effort and dedication. Yet that man who has been
exercised to discern good and evil is made painfully aware that in this
flesh dwells no good thing. That mind which is renewed by the work of the
SPIRIT, daily longs to glorify GOD yet is made to acknowlege that apart from
HIS righteousness he has none. HE is our DELIVERER and we live solely
because HE lives.
Blessings, mike
On 3/29/2021 5:00 PM, Soraya Reis wrote:
"So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh
the law of sin." Romans 7:25
Is this thy language, my soul? Hast thou learnt with Paul, with Job, with
Isaiah, and all the faithful gone before, to loathe thyself in thine own
sight? Dost thou groan, being burthened with a body of sin which drags down
the soul? Pause over this view of human nature. In the first place - think,
my soul, what humbling thoughts such a state of corruption ought to induce.
Though the mind be regenerated, though with the mind the believer serves
the law of God, delights in the law of God, loves the law, and would make
it the subject of devout meditation all the day; yet such is the body of
sin, the flesh with its affections, and appetites, and desires, that it
draws away the attention, imperiously, puts in its claims, and rises up in
rebellion continually.
And are the souls of God's children thus exercised, thus afflicted, in the
struggles between the different motions of grace and corrnption from day to
day? Yes, such is the state, such the uniform experience of God's people in
all ages. Paul thus complains, though he had been so highly sanctified.
Perhaps there never was a child of God brought into a closer and more
intimate communion with God. He had been caught up to the third heaven, and
heard unspeakable words. He had laboured more than all the apostles. He had
been converted by a miracle from heaven, and by the immediate call of the
Lord Jesus personally to him. But yet this highly favoured servant of the
Lord, this blessed apostle, who was continually flying on the wings of zeal
and love in the service of his Master, even he, with his flesh, he-tells
us, served the law of sin: nay, he felt and discovered "a law of sin in his
members, warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into
captivity to the law of sin which was in his members;" and under a deep
distress of soul he cried out - "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death!"
Is it so, then, my soul, with thee also! Dost thou discover the same in
thy experience? Dost thou feel the rebellions of sin rising up within thee?
Dost thou detect thine heart, wandering even in the moment of solemn
exercises; and, in short, thine own body, the worst and greatest enemy thou
hast to contend with? Oh then, learn from hence, what humbling views
oughtest thou to have of thyself, and to lay low in the dust in consequence
thereof before God. When thou hast duly contemplated this state of fallen
nature, let thy next improvement of this subject be to endear the Lord
Jesus to thee, my soul, more and more; to fly out of thyself, to fly to
Jesus, to take refuge in him and his great salvation; from even thyself,
with all that body of sin and death, under which thou thus continually
groanest; and to derive here from a daily and hourly conviction, yet more
strong and unanswerably conclusive, that nothing but the blood of Jesus can
cleanse, nothing but the righteousness of Jesus can save and justify a
sinner. Say as Paul did, when from the bottom of his heart that
soul-piercing question arose," Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Robert Hawker (1753-1827)
