3. A deeper reverence for God's commandments. Sin entered this world by Adam's breaking of God's law, and all his fallen children are begotten in his depraved likeness (Genesis5:3). "Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4). Sin is a species of high treason, spiritual anarchy. It is the repudiation of God's dominion, the setting aside of His authority, rebellion against His will. Sin is having our own way. Now salvation is deliverance from sin, from its guilt, from its power as well as its penalty. The same Spirit who convicts of the need of God's grace also convicts of the need of God's government to rule us. God's promise to His covenant people is, "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God" (Hebrews 8:10).
A spirit of obedience is communicated to every regenerated soul. Said Christ, "If a man love me, he will keep my words" (John 14:23). There is the test: "Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments" (1 John 2:3). None of us keeps them perfectly, yet every real Christian both desires and strives to do so. He says with Paul, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Romans 7:22). He says with the Psalmist, "I have chosen the way of truth," "Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever" (Psalm 119:30, 111). And teaching which lowers God's authority, which ignores His commands, which affirms that the Christian s, in no sense, under the law, is of the devil, no matter how oily-mouthed his human instrument may be. Christ has redeemed His people from the curse of the Law and not from the command of it; He has saved them from the wrath of God, but not from His government. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart" never has been and never will be repealed.
1 Corinthians 9:21m expressly affirms that we are under the law of Christ. "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk, even as he walked" (1 John 2:6). And how did Christ walk? In perfect obedience to God; in complete subjection to His law, honoring and obeying it in thought and word and deed. He came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). And our love for Him is expressed, not in pleasing emotions or beautiful words, but in keeping His commandments (John 14:15), and the commandments of Christ are the commandments of God. The earnest prayer of the real Christian is, "Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight" (Psalm 119:35). Just so far as our reading and study of Scripture is, by the Spirit's application, begetting within us a greater love and a deeper respect for and a more punctual keeping of God's commandments, are we really profiting thereby.
4. A firmer trust in God's sufficiency. Whatsoever or whomsoever a man most trusts in his "god". Some trust in health, others in wealth; some in self, others in their friends. That which characterizes all the unregenerate is that they lean upon an arm of flesh. But the election of grace have their hearts drawn from all creature supports, to rest upon the living God. God's people are the children of faith. The language of their hearts is, "O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed" (Psalm 25:2). and again, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15). They rely upon God to provide, protect and bless them. They look to an unseen resource, count upon an invisible God, lean upon a hidden arm.
True, there are times when their faith wavers, but though they fall they are not utterly cast down.Though it be not their uniform experience, yet Psalm 56:11 expresses the general state of their souls: "In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me". Their earnest prayer is, "Lord, increase our faith." Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). Thus, as the Scriptures are pondered, their promises received in the mind, faith is strengthened, confidence in God increased, assurance deepened. By this we may discover whether or not we are profiting from our study of the Bible.
~A. W. Pink~
(continued with # 10)
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