Servants of Righteousness II

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Welcome to the

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Whole Council podcast. I'm John Snyder and we are continuing a sermon on Romans 6 and verse 18 by Martin Lloyd -Jones, the preacher in the mid 20th century

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Welshman who preached in Wales and then in London. Let me read the verse for you.

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Verse 18 says this, and having been freed from sin you became slaves of righteousness.

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And even though it's a short verse I think you'll be amazed at how much Lloyd -Jones has to say about the

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Christian life. What is it to be freed from sin and what is it not saying and what is it to be a slave of righteousness.

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We also want to introduce you to another ministry that we find really encouraging and personally

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I've used it many times. It's the Martin Lloyd -Jones Trust, MLJ Trust.

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You can find it online and you can also get an app for your phone and Teddy will put that in our show notes.

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This is a small group of people who devote their time, free, to maintaining this website and this app where all these sermons of Martin Lloyd -Jones are offered without cost.

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And even though there are costs to run that small ministry, they don't charge anyone. So they are completely funded by donors and if you would like to know something you can give to that we wholeheartedly recommend, the

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MLJ Trust is one of those. Martin Lloyd -Jones on Romans 6 is just stellar.

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I remember a number of years ago a preacher from Britain came to speak to us. His name was

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Andrew Davis. Andrew Davis actually knew Lloyd -Jones. His father grew up in Lloyd -

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Wales and so when his father became a pastor, Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones would come and they would have supper.

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The father, Martin Lloyd -Jones and J .I. Packer. And Andrew Davis has so many wonderful stories of having

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Lloyd -Jones in his dad's home when he was just a boy and hearing the theological discussions.

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We asked Andrew Davis, as a church, what books do you think are just the most helpful for you throughout your life?

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If you could only pick, you know, your top three. And on his list was Romans 6 by Martin Lloyd -Jones.

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So a little volume like this from the Roman series. And he talked about that and I thought, well that's interesting.

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I've never read that. And so a group of young men in the church got together and we said, well why don't we do a weekly study?

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And so we spent 23 weeks meeting once a week, reading through the sermon and then coming together at the end of the week and discussing it.

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And I would say that it was the most helpful small group study I have ever been a part of.

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And certainly the most impacting description of how justification and union with Christ changes everything in the

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Christian life. Lloyd -Jones is just wonderful in that chapter. Romans chapter 6. So if you don't buy the entire set on Romans, make sure you get chapter 6.

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Well we're going to go back to the sermon now and I hope you find it helpful. Well now there is our exposition of this 18th verse of this 6th chapter.

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But having done that, I now proceed to make a comment upon it.

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This is in many ways a crucial verse in the whole question of the

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Christian men and his behavior. Or if you prefer it, it's a crucial verse in the whole matter of the

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Christian men and ethics. And therefore you see, it's a very up -to -date verse.

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Probably many of you in this congregation this evening are aware how topical this subject raised by this verse happens to be.

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It's a matter of very popular discussion just at this very moment. Now I normally don't do this sort of thing, but I'm one of those who holds very strongly that the gospel of Jesus Christ should not merely be expounded as such and then left.

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It must be applied. It must be applied to our present condition and our everyday circumstances.

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And I know that probably many of you have been hearing about some statements that were made,

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I believe, last Sunday afternoon on the famous Brains Trust of the

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BBC on their television program. Now, I didn't see nor hear that program, but I did listen to the repeat sound track of that program on Tuesday afternoon at four o 'clock, and it struck me as being extremely interesting.

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There was a question put there, and many people have mentioned it to me since, that's why I'm dealing with it this evening, to show you how the gospel really answers all these problems.

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The question that was put was this. A very distinguished lawyer, a retired judge,

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Lord Birkett, had apparently said on some program, when asked what his religious position was, he said that once he had been a

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Christian, and not only that, he had been a Methodist lay preacher, but that by now his position had changed.

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He said he still held on to the Christian ethic, but he no longer believed the

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Christian doctrines and the Christian dogma. Indeed, he said he'd rather like to describe himself as a

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Christian agnostic. Now, that was the question that was raised last

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Sunday afternoon on this Brains Trust. And the question was therefore put in this form.

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Is it possible for a man to hold on to the Christian ethic and to believe in it and to practice it without the

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Christian doctrines? You see, that's the very matter that is dealt with in this 18th verse of this sixth chapter of the epistle to the

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Romans, and the authorities proceeded to discuss it. And I'll summarize for you more or less what they said.

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I can put it under three headings. The first was that you can have the

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Christian qualities without believing the Christian doctrine, that you can hold on to the

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Christian ethic but reject the Christian dogma, the Christian doctrines.

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That was the first statement. That was the case of Lord Burkett himself, of course.

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He holds on to the ethics, he rejects all the doctrines. And he has reasserted that and said that this was something that was possible.

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The second point they made was that any idea of compulsion or of a sanction in the realm of morals is wrong, and that the very idea of authority in connection with morals immediately makes it cease to be moral.

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Morality, said one of them, means your responsibility for yourself.

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And he wouldn't have this idea of compulsion or of any authority or of any sanction. Morality, he said, is your responsibility for yourself, and it's therefore something self -contained.

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But there was a third statement, and I'm quoting the exact words of one of these authorities, these great brains.

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He said belief in redemption is antithetical to morality.

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Now, that's not my statement, it's his. He said belief in redemption is antithetical to morality.

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He explained what he meant. He said this, the idea of something being done for you, the idea of you are being delivered without your doing anything, he said, does away with the sense of individual responsibility.

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It is the negation of all moral effort and striving. He says that's been the curse, this preaching of redemption, this idea that you can be delivered, that it's done for you.

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Why, he says, it's the death of moral effort and moral endeavor and any moral striving.

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And therefore, he said, that this idea of redemption is actually antithetical and opposed to morality.

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Now then, let me try to show you how the apostle in this verse that we are dealing with this evening answers all that.

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And it's very important that I think we should be able to answer it. And I would do so in this way.

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We start by agreeing that moral teaching is not confined to the

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Bible. There is much moral teaching outside the Bible. We are perfectly well aware of that.

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The ancient Greek philosophers, they taught their ethic and they taught their morality. And there are men who have made lists of the teachings of some of these great

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Greek philosophers. They've put it on one side of the ledger and they put the teaching of the Sermon on the mountain, the ethical teaching of the

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Bible on the other, and it's astounding to notice the similarity between the two. Therefore, we agree that moral and ethical teaching is not peculiarly

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Christian. You can have it all together outside Christianity. We are agreed about that.

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Further, we do know, as a matter of fact, that there have been many men and many systems of thought in the past, that having read the

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New Testament, have admired the teaching and the ethic, and have borrowed from it, have incorporated it into their own systems, and have done their utmost to live it and to practice it.

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And that is something which can be done up to a point. So, up until this point, we are in agreement with what has been said.

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But, and now this is where this verse answers the position, to say in the light of all this, that you can hold on to the

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Christian ethic, the Christian way of life, the

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Christian qualities, without the doctrines. To say that,

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I say, is based upon an inadequate view of what the

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Christian ethic really is, and as to what the Christian qualities really are.

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Now, it was interesting to notice these people in their discussion. They, in defining the Christian ethic and the

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Christian qualities, they talked about kindliness, about consideration for other people, a desire to help, and about avoiding moral evil, trying to live a good and a clean and a straight and a moral life.

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Now, they confined their definition of the Christian qualities and the Christian ethic entirely to that.

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And that is, of course, where they go so hopelessly astray. Because the

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Christian life, the Christian qualities, the Christian ethic, cannot be confined to that.

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It goes entirely beyond that. Into what realm? Well, it goes into the realm, for instance, of the beatitudes.

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, blessed are they that mourn, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.

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They didn't say a word about that. Oh, just kindliness, brotherliness, friendliness, philanthropy, and avoiding gross sins.

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But that isn't the end of the Christian qualities. That isn't the end of the Christian ethic. It goes on to these beatitudes.

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It goes on to 1 Corinthians 13. Not a word was said about that.

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This great principle of love and of charity. You can know everything. You can even give your body to be burned if you haven't got charity.

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It's of no value. It's nothing. It's of no value at all. Not a word was said about that. This whole quality of love, controlling one's actions and thoughts and motives and everything else.

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Indeed, they had no conception as to the meaning of the Christian word righteousness.

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What does it mean? Well, I've already reminded you. Let me repeat it. To be righteous in the

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New Testament sense means that you live to the glory of God, that you live to please him.

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It includes your motives, it includes your desires. Indeed, our Lord himself put it like this.

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Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

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What's the Christian ethic? What are the Christian qualities? I can put it in one word.

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It is holiness. And holiness means to be like God. Be ye holy, for I am holy.

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It's not just being nice and gentlemanly and affable and friendly and doing a good turn.

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No, it goes infinitely above it. It includes this quality of holiness which makes us,

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I say, like God. Well, listen again to our Lord putting it. When he was asked by a lawyer, what is the first and the greatest commandment?

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His reply, you remember, was this. Not that you should just be kind and brotherly and friendly.

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No, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength.

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That's the first. And he said the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

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Now, that's the Christian ethic and those are the summaries of the Christian qualities. And is it possible for a man to attain to that and shed the

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Christian doctrines? Well, let us listen to the answer of the Apostle Paul. This is what he says. There is none righteous.

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No, not one. But these men claim that they can do it. Paul goes on to say, all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

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Paul says, O wretched men that I am, who shall deliver me?

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The evil that I would not that I do, and all the rest of it. He then adds, what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, it couldn't do it.

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And then you notice in Philippians 3, he looks back at his old life when he thought he was doing so well.

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And when he thought that as regards the demands of the law, he was perfect. What does he say of it now? He says,

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I counted as but done. In other words, you see, the

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Apostle says, I once thought that I could do all this. But now I find I can't.

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And when did he find it? Well, he says in the seventh chapter of this epistle to the Romans, in verse 9, he says, as long as I was only looking at the letter of the law,

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I thought I was all right. I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

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I was a complete and an utter and an absolute failure. Now that is the reply of the

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Apostle Paul, but he's not alone. Listen to Charles Wesley. Just and holy is thy name.

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I am all unrighteousness. Vile and full of sin

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I am. Thou art full of truth and grace.

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Listen to Toplady confirming. He says, not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands.

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Could my zeal, no respite, no. Could my tears forever flow.

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All for sin could not atone. Thou must say and thou alone.

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What does it mean? Well, I sum it up like this. Let's not be misled by the distinguished character of these gentlemen.

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It's got nothing to do with the argument at all. Still less, I hope that none of us will be misled by the beautiful voice of a man like Lord Beckett and his beautiful diction, as people say, and what a fine man he is, because what we have to say about these good men is just this.

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They are nothing but Pharisees. But surely, says someone, you can't call them

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Pharisees. What else can you call them? Listen, here is the position. These are men who claim that in their own strength and power, without any of the aid of the

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Christian gospel, they can practice and live the Christian ethic. They say they can do it.

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We've seen what the Apostle Paul says. We've seen what the great saints of the centuries have said. Here are men who claim that they can do it.

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I see them represented perfectly in our Lord's parable of the Pharisee and the publican that went up to the temple to pray.

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The Pharisee went right forward to the front and he said, I thank God that I'm not like as other men are, and especially like this publican.

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I fast twice in the week. I give a tenth of my goods to the poor. He doesn't ask for forgiveness. He doesn't need it.

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He's such a good man. He's carrying out the ethic. He's a moral man, and he just thanks

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God that he is as he is. Now, I'm not being unfair to these gentlemen, because that was precisely what they were saying.

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If you say that you can carry out and practice the Christian ethic without the Christian doctrine, that is exactly what you're saying, and nothing less.

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And therefore I say that the ultimate verdict upon such persons in such a view is that it is

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Phariseeism of the worst type. What is it due to?

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How do they fall into this error? Well, it is the ancient error of the Pharisees. It was the error of Saul of Tarsus before his conversion.

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It is this. What the Pharisees did, you remember, was they picked out certain of the dictates of the law, and as long as they were not guilty of those particular prescribed sins, they thought they were perfect.

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Paul thought that he was perfect. They took the letter of the law. They never understood anything about the spirit of the law at all.

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But having defined the law in their terms, not in God's terms, having brought up their little definition of it, they carried it out and they thought they were perfect.

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What's the matter with them? The matter with them is that they've never understood the spirit of the law and the real purpose of the law.

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Listen to Paul putting it in chapter 10 of this great epistle. For they, he says, speaking about such people, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

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They've never seen the need of a Savior. Why? Because their view of God's law is inadequate.

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It isn't God's law. It's their little law. They call it God's law, but it's theirs, their own righteousness, not the righteousness of God.

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You see, they've never had the experience that Paul has, which makes him say, I was alive without the law once.

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But when the commandment came, when I saw that the law spoke about coveting and desire, well,

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I saw I was condemned, I died, sin revived, and I died. Very well, there is my answer on the first count.

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This attitude is Pharisee's, and it is based upon a terrible and a tragic failure to understand the real meaning of God's law.

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But come to the second matter. This idea that a man is responsible for himself alone, and that morality means a man's responsibility for his own self, and that there mustn't be any sanctions, or anything like that.

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What of this? Well, I have a number of questions to ask here. What is it that determines a man's view of himself?

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What is my self? Is there any objective standard whereby

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I can know that my view of myself is right? If morality is just my own responsibility for myself, the first thing

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I want to know is, well, what am I? What should I be? What is the true idea of the self? And according to what was said by these authorities, every man decides that for himself.

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And so, you see, I've landed in this position. That anything that I say is right for me is right, but another man says the exact opposite.

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There's a clash immediately. And what do you then do about these differing views and these different standards?

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The position you arrive at is one of complete anarchy and of chaos. You're back in the position of the book of Judges, when there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

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That is chaos. That is anarchy. Why, even the most primitive societies denounce such a view.

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Even the most primitive tribes have got their tribal laws, their tribal rules.

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They've got their taboos. You can't dress as you like amongst them. Why have they got their rules?

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Well, sheer necessity has forced them to do so. You cannot live life in society without having definitions, without having laws, without having rules, without having orders.

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Even the most primitive society has found them to be essential. Every other form of society has found them equally essential.

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A police force is as necessary in Great Britain tonight as it's ever been. The magistrates and the courts are as necessary as they have ever been.

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Why? Because you can't leave it to a man himself. If a man is a law unto himself, you have nothing but anarchy and chaos.

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But not only is this wrong, it is also entirely selfish.

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I mean this, that the Christian ethic and the

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Christian way of life says that a man must not be content merely with doing what he thinks is right.

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He must also consider other people. Conscience says the apostle, not thine own, but of the other also.

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I mustn't say, because this thing is right for me, I'm going to do it. What about my weaker brother? What about the other men and his welfare?

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Now, this theoretical, academic view of morality that was propounded in that discussion takes no concern at all about the weaker brother, about the other men.

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It is hard, intellectual, self -contained, and entirely lacking in sympathy for the underdog and the failure.

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It has nothing to say to it, and therefore it is selfish in addition to being wrong.

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Not only that I go further. Our own conscience is within us.

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Tell us not only that there is a need of an external standard and authority, but that there is one.

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That is why we have remorse. That is why we are miserable when we have done wrong. We know we are wrong.

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We don't want to feel that, but we can't help it. The voice of conscience compels us to recognize an objective standard outside ourselves.

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But experience adds to this. Haven't we all had this experience? There were things we were told not to do when we were young, and we disliked it.

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We objected. We thought we knew, and we said, why shouldn't I do what I want to do? As we've grown older, and are more experienced, and have more learning, we have come to see that our objection then was quite wrong, and that we needed to be taught, and to be trained, and to be instructed, and then we draw this inevitable deduction.

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I still am in that position. I still want more light. So the very fact that I recognize my fallibility, and the possibility of my being wrong, and the need of training, and learning, and instruction, is in and of itself a proof of the need of an objective standard, and some sanction upon your morality.

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And then finally, I clinched that argument in this way. The history of the human race shows abundantly clearly that religion of any sort, with its ultimate sanctions, and its threat of punishment of wrongdoing, has always been the greatest moral and moralizing force, the greatest keeper of law and order in the whole long history of mankind.

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I still have one further point. Can you bear with me? If anybody is a train to catch, please don't hesitate to go.

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But I have one further argument. I must come to this last objection, that I may deal with this matter and leave it.

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The last objection was, you remember, that this doctrine of redemption is antithetical to morality.

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It's very difficult, you know, to control oneself as one is dealing with these things. I almost wish that I could be a politician for five minutes, and deal with this argument, and the way in which it was said on that program, in the way that it really should be dealt with.

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With a glibness and a pomposity, it was uttered and stated that redemption is actually antithetical to morality.

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It was said with a sneer and with an element of laughter. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous than that?

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And particularly when the man who said it happens to be a professor of history. The professor of history says that redemption is actually antithetical to morality.

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What is the answer to him? First of all, the evidence of history. What is the evidence of history?

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It is this, that it is the ages which have been most deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine of redemption, have been the most moral ages that this country has ever known.

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Well, that's sheer fact. Read the secular history of this country. Which have been the periods when you've had most law and order, and concern about morality and good conduct and behavior?

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Here they are, the Elizabethan period. What was that? Oh, that was the period that followed the

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Protestant Reformation, when these great doctrines came back, especially the doctrine of redemption.

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They produced a higher level of morality, as contrasted with the period before the Reformation.

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What about the Puritan period? The period in which, you see, they passed these acts of Parliament that these authorities object to so much, about observing the

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Sabbath and about cinemas and theaters on Sunday, and all the rest of it, these sabbatical laws and so on.

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But what made the Puritans pass such acts? Why was morality such a great concern in the

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Puritan period? The answer is simply this. They believed in the doctrine of redemption.

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They were governed and controlled by these very doctrines that these men want to throw overboard. And then you come on to the 18th century.

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You get exactly the same thing. Read, I say again, that book, England Before and After Wesley.

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See the moral condition of this country before that evangelical awakening. Look at it afterwards.

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What produced the difference? What produced the change? What led to the so -called Victorianism and Victorian morality?

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The answer is the doctrines of grace, the doctrine of redemption. Why, I can even quote another professor of history,

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Leckie. He says quite categorically that there is no question at all, but that what saved this country from a revolution, similar to the one they had in France in 1789, was nothing but the evangelical awakening, when these very doctrines were preached and were believed by the people.

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That's the answer of history. But if it's that in general, let us take it in particular also.

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I do hope my friends are remembering the arguments, because the arguments are much more important than an immediate feeling.

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You get exactly the same thing, I say, with regard to individuals. Isn't this the great testimony of the

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Church? That men who had been slaves to sin and utterly vile and foul and immoral are completely changed and live a new life.

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What has led to that? Is it that they have decided to adopt the Christian ethic? No, no. It is the doctrine of redemption which they believe and which has been powerful in their lives.

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In other words, the answer to this contention is that not only is redemption not antithetical to morality, redemption is essential to morality.

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Why? Let me answer. Redemption is essential to morality because man is, as this verse tells us, a slave to sin by nature.

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He's not neutral. He's not detached. He doesn't merely take an intellectual view of things.

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No, no. He's the creature of powerful drives, of this tremendous energy of sin.

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He's under the dominion of sin. He's under the reign of sin. But they know nothing at all about that.

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They sit back and take a detached intellectual view. I don't know these particular men, but I know others who are like them, who can say these things very glibly intellectually.

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But when you get to know the facts about their lives, you find that they are not quite as intellectual as they'd have you believe, and are themselves the slaves of lusts and sins and passions.

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How easy it is to talk about the Christian ethic and adopting it. It comes easily to these men.

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They're that sort of person. But there are other types of person. They don't seem to realize that.

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They've got nothing to say to the man who's born with a hatred of morality and a vile nature.

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They don't seem to realize that as men and women, we differ in exactly the same way as all the creatures and the animals do.

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There are some dogs who by nature are nice and friendly and kind and obedient. You have no trouble with them at all.

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But there's another dog who's the exact opposite. He'll bite at you and snarl at you. Something natural, the same with cats, with every other type of animal.

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And it's the same of human beings. There's a sort of man who's born a nice man, and he's got a natural intellectual interest in morality and ethics, and he says,

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I'm going to live this Christian ethic without your Christian doctrines. But I say, what about the other men who's all together and entirely different?

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Where does he come in? What are they to say to him? They have nothing at all. In other words, they don't understand the doctrine of sin.

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Sin, I say, is a terrible power that is working within us. The trouble with men is not that they want more information about truth and morality and light and right.

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Our Lord said the trouble is this, that they love darkness and hate the light because their deeds were evil.

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Now that's the slavery and the power of sin. It isn't merely a matter of deciding calmly to adopt an ethic.

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Man by nature, he loves the darkness, he hates the light, in some shape or form, every one of us.

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In other words, man, as he is by nature, is completely helpless. What he needs is not good advice, not good teaching.

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He needs somebody to help him. He needs something to help him. He needs deliverance. It's his nature that's wrong, not his mind only.

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And his fundamental need is the need of power. Now it is at this point that all these clever gentlemen fail so completely.

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Oh, intellectually, they're interested in ethics and they say that they can practice it. I've shown you what a small little ethic it is, but wait a minute, let's confront them suddenly by a helpless, hopeless drunkard.

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Let's confront them by a man who's taking so much drugs that he's lost his willpower. Let's give him a man who's striven with all his might to live a better life, but who only goes down repeatedly in failure.

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What have they got to say to him? Oh, they've got nothing to say to him except that he ought to be practicing this excellent ethic.

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They have no power to give him. They don't understand him even. They've got no hope to give him. Is there then no hope for such a man?

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There is. But where is it? It is only in the doctrine of redemption. The only thing that can make this hopeless failure moral and ethical is redemption.

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What do I mean by that? I mean that God alone can help him. The trouble with this man is that he is estranged from God, and nothing will avail him until God delivers him.

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And the whole message of the New Testament, these doctrines that they want to throw overboard and about which they're agnostic, are the very doctrines which tell us how

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God has done it. How has he done it? By sending his own Son, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, the doctrine of the

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Incarnation. And he not only came and taught and lived, but he died upon the cross as we've seen in this sixth chapter.

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It is his dying once and forever for sin that enables us to die to it and to be freed from it.

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There's redemption, substitutionary atonement. He bore our sins. He's conquered that.

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He's delivered us. That's the way. And likewise with his resurrection. And likewise with the doctrine that he gives us a new nature and a new birth and a new start, and puts his

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Spirit to dwell within us, who works in us and gives us power. What is all this? This is the way in which a man is delivered and set upon his feet.

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And how do I know it? I know it only by these Christian doctrines.

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There is no deliverance. There is no morality. Apart from this, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

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Even by the law, you have nothing but the knowledge of sin. But now, this new thing has come in, this redemption, this grace of God, this righteousness as a free gift from God the

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Father. And you see, this does it because by working in us, it creates within us desires after morality and holiness.

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The pundit says redemption is antithetical to morality. The New Testament says redemption creates within men a hunger and thirst after righteousness.

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It creates longings after morality and holiness in him. Not only that, it provides him with a supreme motive to live the moral life.

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What's that? It is gratitude. It is love. He realizes that Christ has done all this for him.

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He wants to show his gratitude. It's the greatest incentive to please him who has died for us and given himself in our place.

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And above all, it provides us with the necessary power to believe in the doctrines of redemption, far from producing a lazy, immoral, irresponsible creature who is indolent and who doesn't apply himself.

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Does the exact opposite as the lives of all the saints testify and as the death of all the martyrs proves to the very hilt?

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Redemption? Antithetical to morality? No, says

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Isaac Watts. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

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This isn't compulsion. This is joyous freedom. We are no longer slaves of sin.

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We are slaves of Jesus Christ. But that isn't certain. His service is perfect freedom.

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The joy of the Lord is your strength. And nothing gives a man the joy of the

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Lord as does an understanding of the doctrines of redemption and the feeling and an experiencing of their powers.

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I apologize for having kept you at such great length this evening. But I felt that in view of the verse that we happen to be dealing with, and the great concern that I'm assured has been caused to many people by this particular statement on the program,

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I felt that I owed it to you to show you the relevance of the Apostles' teaching at this point in all the details of our daily life.

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Let us pray. O Lord, our God, we come into thy presence to thank thee that thou hast not left us to ourselves.

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O God, we bless thy name that these things which thou hast hid from the wise and prudent thou hast revealed unto babes.

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Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. We thank thee that whereas not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, thou hast called the nothings and the ignorant and the things that are not to confound the things that are mighty.

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O God, we thank thee that while we were yet without strength, in due time

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Christ died for the ungodly. O we bless thee for the grand redemption and that in thy mercy thou hast given us an exposition and an explanation of this glorious redemption in these doctrines taught in these epistles.

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O God, have mercy upon the pride, the foolish pride and arrogance of men, the natural men who receive not the things of the

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Spirit of God because they are foolishness and because they cannot receive them because they are spiritually discerned.

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God, have mercy upon them and open their blind eyes and enable them to see themselves and then to see and to believe in and to receive the riches of thy grace so freely given in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship and the communion of the

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Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night throughout the remainder of this hour's short uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage and evermore.

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Amen. Well, that concludes the sermon on Romans 618 by Martin Lloyd -Jones.

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Again, you can find that in a book, chapter 6 of his

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Romans commentary, and it's well worth owning and working through multiple times.

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But also, you can go to the MLJ Trust and you can get that sermon there. And not every sermon

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Lloyd -Jones preached is on the Trust, but there are quite a few and it's a wonderful ministry.

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And if you're looking for someone that you can give to that would be helpful, again, we really do recommend them.