Christ’s Transformative Power Over Sin

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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This afternoon, we're going to continue our expository sermon series through the

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Gospel of Mark. This week, as we've already heard, we are in Chapter 5.

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This is now after nearly a number of weeks that we've been in Mark Chapter 4.

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And if you remember, at the beginning of Mark Chapter 4, we introduced it as one of the longest sections of Christ's teaching and preaching ministry, at least as it's recorded in the

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Gospels of Mark. And now that we've moved away now from that edge of the

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Sea of Galilee, across the sea as we heard last week, we're going to be resuming

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Mark's fast -paced narrative where he's going to again show us

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Christ's powerful works in his interactions with the people around him. Again, Mark is going to bring us in Chapter 5 to the front of the row, as it were, where we can behold the awesome works of the

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Son of God. And as Mark does this this week, it presents us with an opportunity.

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At least that's the way that I saw it as I was preparing for this. This text presents us with an opportunity to obey the words of another book in Scripture.

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If anyone remembers back to the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews Chapter 3, this was probably just before the destruction of the

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Temple in AD 70, when the author of that book of Hebrews stood before a

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Christian audience. A lot of people think that the book of Hebrews was a recorded sermon. He stood before a

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Christian audience somewhere in the Roman Empire. Maybe it was in Rome itself. And as he taught this group of believers, this author of the book of Hebrews issued a stark warning with these sobering words.

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In Hebrews Chapter 3, verse 12, he said, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living

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God. And then he said this, But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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The welfare of these believers urged them to look out for one another, to take care, he says, and to exhort so that they would not have a casual relationship with sin, that they would not flirt with the fleeting pleasures of this world, that they would not be deceived by the subtle dulling of their consciences, and so doing, fall away from the living

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God. We don't often take the opportunity, I think not often enough, to warn each other in this way, not to be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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But by God's grace, today our text affords that opportunity. We're going to take it. Mark Chapter 5 and verse 20, or verses 1 to 20.

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In our passage today, we're going to be shown a graphic picture. And kids, I'd like you to pay attention.

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It is a graphic picture of the cruel effects of sin and wickedness in the lives of its subjects.

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Today the Lord Jesus Christ is going to interact with a man whose life has been absolutely obliterated, flattened, cratered by the forces of evil in this world.

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And then in his great mercy, in his great power, Christ is going to deliver this man.

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And as we witness this, dear saints, through the pages of Scripture, this is what we're going to learn.

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This is what we're going to see in this passage. In this story, we observe the ugly and the destructive power of evil, contrasted with the awesome, transformative power of Christ.

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Here we're going to see a face -off between Satan and sin, and Christ and the freedom that he offers.

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And here we're going to see that there are only two possible responses for every person in the face of Christ and in the face of these destructive forces of evil.

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We can either cling to sin, or we can cast ourselves upon a mighty

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Savior and enter into his service. Those are the only two options that the text before us gives.

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And while many of us, looking around this room, brothers and sisters, I know most of you very well, many of us would look at these two options and say that there's only one right answer, and it's obvious.

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But what we're going to see as we study this passage is that most people do not, in fact, choose

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Christ. Most people, in fact, do not choose righteousness and freedom in the

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Son of God. And even if we're honest with ourselves, even for those of us,

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I think most of us in this room, who consider ourselves to be genuine Christians in this room, the fleeting pleasures of sin are far more alluring than we'd like to admit.

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And like the Hebrews, we need to be regularly warned. Brothers and sisters, we in this room need to be warned of the catastrophic consequences of sin and rebellion in this life.

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So that's what we're going to look at today in this narrative. Let's get right into it. We're going to unpack the text and uncover these truths for ourselves.

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The inspired author begins chapter 5 with these words in verse 1. He says,

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Kids, can you imagine that?

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A man living amongst the graves on the side of a mountain, cutting himself with stones.

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Here we're confronted with the first truth from our text. Here we're shown the destructive power of evil.

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If you're following along in your handout, you'll see that. The destructive power of evil. As I noted, we heard last week that Christ had just passed through the storm on the

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Sea of Galilee. Some commentators would say that those were evil forces trying to stop him from getting across the sea.

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Certainly allowed by God, if that were the case. But there, Christ, our Lord, displayed his supremacy over the wind and the waves.

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And we're told that when Christ landed on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, he entered into the country of the

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Gerasenes. If you know anything about the Gerasenes, this was a largely Gentile region that was located southeast of the

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Sea of Galilee. The city of Gerasa, from which we get the word Gerasenes, was located about 50 kilometres inland.

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So it's not likely that Christ arrived immediately in this larger city.

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But it's probably far more likely that he set his foot on shore somewhere near the village of Gersa.

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Or we sometimes hear called Kersee, which was within the greater region of the

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Gerasenes. Or the Gadarenes, as Matthew tells us. And it was up until... I always find these apologetic factoids interesting.

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It was up until the 1970s that critics and skeptics, when they would read this text, they largely questioned the legitimacy of this account based on just the lack of archaeological evidence in the area.

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Scholars long mocked Christians and questioned the reliability of the Bible based on the assumptions, or on their own assumptions, of this account.

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But in the early 1970s, while heavy equipment was clearing a road or clearing land to make way for a road along the sea, workers discovered the ruins of Gersa on the southeast shores of Galilee.

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Not coincidentally, near Gersa as well, there was a large steep bank that was within 40 metres of the sea.

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And even just a short distance away from that, a collection of ancient tombs and burial caves that you could still see if you were to travel there today.

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And I've recently gotten into the habit, as I follow the narrative of Scripture, just to go to Google Maps and get on the highway along the

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Sea of Galilee. And when you do, you can see the mountains, you can see the cliffs. Again, I encourage you to do that.

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And I think if you probably had the right angle, you can even see the tombs built into the side of the mountain.

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And so it's likely that it was here that Christ stepped off the boat. And Mark, again, uses the word immediately.

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This word immediately, to swiftly introduce us to a man who had an unclean spirit.

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The man is described in this way because he had a foul or an evil spirit or spirits that had taken up residence in him.

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We might say that he was, to use today's vernacular, he was demon possessed or demonized.

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And here we see the ruinous effects of these evil spirits on his life.

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In verse 3, we're going to break this down piece by piece. Mark tells us that he lived among the tombs.

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Not only was he filled with unclean spirits, but to be a Jew or to be a person of any nationality, living among tombs, graves amongst the dead, was to live in a ceremonially unclean place.

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He probably found shelter from the elements in these burial caves on the side of the mountains.

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This tells us that this man was a social outcast. He was not received by the people around him.

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He was no longer to live amongst the living. He was so violent, the passage tells us, that his neighbors tried to bind him with shackles and chains, but to no avail.

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With the kind of superhuman strength that we would only expect from someone who's demon possessed, at least as we see it in Scripture, he would tear his bonds apart.

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At the end of verse 4, we're told that no one had the strength to subdue him. The Greek word for subdue, that's the

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Greek word damazo. It's used, if you're interested in books like James, where James says in chapter 3 and verse 7, that you subdue or you tame wild beasts.

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It's used of taming wild beasts, of taming reptiles and birds and sea creatures.

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This man had more in common with the wild animals of the hills around him than the fellow humans that were in the villages nearby.

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And then verse 5 caps it all off with a graphic description of this man's daily activities, what he did from day to day.

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Kids, does this describe your life from day to day? Hopefully not.

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We're told that night and day, he went about the tombs and mountains, shrieking and sawing at his own skin with sharp rocks.

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He was as much a danger to himself as he was to others. And I like what one commentator put, just very potently.

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They said this, they said, this is one of the most lamentable stories of human wretchedness in the

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Bible. He is a terror to himself. He is a terror to others. Even in life, he is consigned to the land of the dead.

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There, wailing among the tombs, he wreaks havoc upon himself day and night.

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This is a real man, in history, as recorded by the Scriptures.

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What a grotesque picture of the final stages of human brokenness and depravity.

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And dear Christians, I want you to note this. If you're not a Christian here, and you say, I'm not a Christian, please note this.

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This is an extreme example, no doubt, but this is illustrative. This is a powerful depiction of the damning and the brutal effects of sin and evil on a person's life.

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Make no mistake about it. The forces of evil in this world are more dangerous, more destructive, more deceitful, and more subtle than you could ever imagine.

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We don't know what led up to this moment in time. The Bible doesn't tell us what happened in this man's life prior to his interaction with Christ.

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But what we can see is this, that this is what becomes of a person. This is what becomes of a person when the devil is able to have his way with them.

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When evil is left unrestrained, unresisted. This is the natural outcome.

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Isolation. Total brokenness. Eventual self -destruction.

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This is a picture of evil in the life of a human being. Now for us as Christians today, what can we get from this passage?

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Dear ones, let this first be a warning to us, to each of us, that we would not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, because here it shows us the absolute wickedness of evil in this world.

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The ugliness of iniquity. This could be a cautionary tale of the unremitting sinfulness of sin.

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And this is an opportunity for me, to you, to exhort you not to grow indifferent and callous to sin in your life.

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Now, there's probably at least one person in this room thinking to themselves, Shane, I already know that sin is bad.

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I know that it was for sin that Christ died on the cross. I don't want to sin.

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I meaningfully, purposefully avoid sin. But brother or sister, friend, let me take this opportunity to tell you that the evils of sin,

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I'm going to say sin a lot today, the evils of sin are far worse than you imagine them to be.

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Far worse than you imagine them to be. We live in a culture, at least in our context, when people have a big view of self, a low view of God, and a light view of sin.

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And it's easy for us to acknowledge that here in this room, but I'm going to say that that is true of you.

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That you are not exempt of that condition. That you too have too big of a view of yourself, too small of a view of God, and too light of a view of sin.

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And if we were to take a moment, just a moment today, to examine ourselves, if you were to take a moment today just to examine the areas of sin and disobedience in your life, what areas of sin and disobedience do you make allowance for presently?

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What pet sins are you inclined to either nurture or excuse in your own life?

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Is it what Jerry Bridges might call a respectable sin, like grumbling or complaining?

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Is it slothfulness? Is it laziness? Is it irritability towards your spouse or a friend or a family member?

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Is it a little lie, in quotes? Is it unforgiveness?

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Is it bitterness toward a Christian brother or sister? Do you allow for just the odd lustful glance at another woman or a man?

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Is it pornography or indecent TV or internet use? Is it a growing arrogance?

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I would say amongst us in the reformed Christian tradition, is it spiritual pride?

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Is it this idea that you belong to some elite club that makes you better than other believers? For some of you in this room, dear friends, there are sins that you tolerate in your life today that you would never have tolerated five years ago.

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You believe that you've grown, that you're mature, that you can handle these kinds of sins now, but I'm telling you, it's creeping up on you.

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You have made excuses for it, and you've tried to justify it. And like this poor demon -possessed man, it is seeking to take you to the grave.

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The Puritan Thomas Watson, he wrote a book called

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The Mischief of Sin. There's just so many good Puritan books to read, more than we have time to read, but I'll distill a couple of the things that he says in this book.

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He says this, he says, Sin, giving us an abundance here of biblical illustrations, sin is such a trade that whoever follows is sure to break.

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Is sure to break. What did Achan get by his wedge of gold?

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It was a wedge to divide his soul from God. What did Judas get by his treason?

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He purchased a hangman's noose. What did King Ahaz get by worshipping the gods of Damascus?

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They were the ruins of him, and not only of him, but of all Israel. He says this, sin is first comical, and then tragical.

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It is pleased to make room for guests. It is a matter of grief to think that the dragon, the serpent, the devil, should have so many followers, and the

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Lamb so few. If then you would show yourself godly, give a certificate of divorce to every sin, kill the

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Goliath's sin, let sin not reign in your mortal bodies. This week

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I did a short study on the effects of sin. I've been taking a biblical counseling course, and I've really just been enjoying it thoroughly.

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I can't share everything that I learned, but just a couple of thoughts, a couple of words from Scripture on sin.

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And you tell me, when you go to work and you waste time on the clock, or when you have a lustful glance, or you allow for an unkind word, or slanderous thought, or slanderous speech, or covetousness, or anything like that, do you think of sin in these terms?

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In Proverbs 13 .15 it says, Wickedness leads to ruin. That word ruin comes from the

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Hebrew word etan. It means rugged or rough. I love the way, Lul's not here today, but I love the way the

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King James Version translates that one. They translate it, but the way of the transgressor is hard.

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Do you have hardness in your life, brother or sister? Is it because of sin in your life?

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The way of the transgressor is hard. Proverbs 12 .21 says, The wicked are filled with trouble.

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Now we know this isn't a promise for every wicked person. There are wicked people in the world that don't always experience trouble.

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But have you ever hung around a person who lives a wicked or a sinful life for any period of time?

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Oh, it is trouble. In the path of those people there is divorce, and broken relationships, and work problems, and a trail of heartache.

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Romans 6 .23 says that sin is the cause of all death. Oh, would any of you in this room take just a little sip of poison every day knowing that it is a deadly poison?

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Children, kids in the room, if there was a bottle on your parent's shelf that read deadly poison, would you take just a little sip once in a while?

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Then why is it that Christians come to sin as if it were not deadly when the Lord tells us the wages of sin is death?

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John 8 .34 tells us sin enslaves. Isaiah 59 .2 says, Sin puts a barrier between us and our

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God. It has separated us from God. Ephesians 2 .2

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verses 2 and 3 says that sinners are under the control of Satan. 1 Peter 2 .24 tells us that it is for our sins that Christ was afflicted on the cross.

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Oh, how many of your problems today, dear friend, are a result of the remaining sin in your life.

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Why do you tolerate sin in your life? There is no such thing as an insignificant transgression.

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Jerry Bridges, I mentioned him already in his book, Respectable Sins, he says, Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy.

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Left unchecked, it can spread throughout our entire being and contaminate every area of our lives.

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Even worse, it will often metastasize from us into the lives of other believers around us.

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I just think it's the truth today that most Christians treat sin as if it's a small matter.

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And that ought not to be the case among us. I like the way that the early church treated sin.

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At least some people in the early church. If you've ever heard of Chrysostom, he was an early church father.

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He lived during the 5th century AD. And he was threatened with execution by the

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Roman Empress Eudoxia, one of the female emperors of the

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Roman Empire. And this was a very real threat. Sometimes we read these and we think it was probably not fully real.

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This was a real threat. Chrysostom later died in exile because of his Christian beliefs and practice.

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But when he received these words from Eudoxia that she would execute him if he continued to do what he was doing, rather than capitulate to Eudoxia, Chrysostom sent word to the

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Empress and he said this. He said to the messenger, he said, go tell her that I fear nothing but sin.

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How many of us in this room fear sin more than death? How many of us in this room hate sin and have this kind of attitude?

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In the Psalms, Psalm 97 verse 10, the psalmist says, oh, you who love the Lord. Oh, do you love the

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Lord here? Oh, you who love the Lord, hate evil, hate evil.

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He preserves the lives of his saints. He delivers them from the hand of the wicked.

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So here we see the sinfulness of sin. Moving along in verse 6, we read this.

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And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him.

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And crying out with a loud voice, he said, what have you to do with me, Jesus, son of the most high

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God? Moving a little bit further into verse 11.

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Now there was a great herd of pigs that were feeding on the hillside. And they begged him, saying, send us to the pigs.

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Let us enter them. So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs.

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And the herd, numbering about 2 ,000, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned into the sea.

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And the herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened.

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And they came to Jesus and saw the demon -possessed man, the one who had just had the legion sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.

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And they were afraid. In contrast to the destructive nature of sin, here we find the awesome transformative power of Christ.

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Sin is destructive, but Christ has an awesome and transformative power within him.

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When the demon -possessed man saw Christ, what did he do? Perhaps he was in the tombs in the hills above, but we're told that he ran from afar.

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He fell down before him. And here Mark uses the Greek word proskuneo. It's the

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Greek word that informs our English word to prostrate. Here this demon -possessed man fell before Christ on his face.

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And it's often used as to fall or to bow down in reverence.

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The demon -possessed man knew exactly who Jesus Christ was. In fact, he calls him the

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Son of the Most High God. Here's an unclean man living in an unclean Gentile region, and he uses the ancient title that was used by the

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Jews and the Gentiles of old to single out the one true living

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God of Israel. For instance, when King Nebuchadnezzar had his second dream, as we can read in the book of Daniel, he refers to God as the

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Most High, the one who rules the kingdoms of men. And so here this demon -possessed man falls down in reverence before Christ.

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And in his sheer terror, he ascribes. This is what this demon -possessed man is doing.

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He ascribes the greatest authority, the greatest power on earth and above earth to Jesus Christ.

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Christ is the heir and the possessor of the awesome, or in this case, the awful power of the

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Most High God. The demon -possessed man who tormented a whole region of villages to the point they were trying to lock him up, he cries out in the name of God, do not torment me.

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I find these details interesting. But when Christ asks the demon -possessed man, what is his name?

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Do you remember what he said his name was? He said that his name was

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Legion. Legion comes from the Latin word legio, which designates a division of the

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Roman army that would consist of approximately 6 ,000 Roman infantrymen.

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If you want to get really specific, some people say 5 ,400 infantrymen and 120 cavalry, but somewhere between 5 ,600 to 6 ,000

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Roman infantrymen. So this man was possessed. He was demonized not by one demon, not by 12 demons or even 100 demons, but literally thousands of demons.

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These are thousands of fallen angels who are subservient to Satan himself.

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And Jude tells us in Jude 6 of the origins of these demons, that they are angels who did not stay in their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, who were kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

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And yet these fallen angels who rebelled against God, it would appear, still had chains that were within reach of this man's soul.

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So here Christ is dealing not only with a mere man. When I worked in uniform and had interaction with some very wild people, sometimes it was terrifying.

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There were people that did break their bonds apart, where we would have to chain their hands and their legs and then their hands and their legs together in some fashion.

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They were usually scary men. Christ is not standing before a mere man.

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He's not even standing before a mere angel. But he's dealing with a legion of rebellious angels.

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And what this shows us, as we see what Christ is going to do, is that Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, he does not have the mere power of an angel.

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If Christ, as the Jehovah's Witnesses say, was only an angel, he could not stand up to a legion of angels.

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No, Christ comes with the power of the Most High God. And so at the begging and the pleading of this man, he casts the demons into a herd of pigs, a group of unclean animals that were likely being raised by these

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Gentiles in this land for maybe the table of a Roman soldier or some other

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Gentile in the Decapolis. And so these pigs, numbering about 2 ,000, rushed down a steep hill into the sea where they were drowned.

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In Christ's infinite wisdom, aren't you glad, wouldn't you be glad if you were this man that he counted this man's life more valuable than the lives of 2 ,000 pigs?

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Or maybe even more valuable than an infinite number of pigs or livestock. So here we find the powers of fallen angels, the powers of evil, even the powers of Satan himself, are no match for Christ.

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Christ is greater than he who is in the world. A stronger man has entered Satan's house to plunder his goods and to free people from his dominion.

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The herdsmen fled, and when they returned with the crowds, in verse 15, we see what they found.

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What was the product of this awesome, transformative power of Christ?

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It was a man, this demon -possessed man, no longer demon -possessed, but clothed.

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Clothed and in his right mind and at rest. We're told that he was seated after dashing himself with rocks and running around perhaps naked.

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Here you have a man who is restored, fully restored. And the crowd who probably came from nearby

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Gersa and other villages were stunned. To them, this man had been as good as dead.

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What or who could have brought about such a powerful transformation in this man's life?

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The answer is Jesus Christ, the merciful, the gracious, the loving and sovereign

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Son of God. It's like the words of that hymn, what a wonderful, merciful

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Savior is Jesus, our Jesus. One commentator writes, he said, here in this man, seated clothed in his right mind, is a picture of discipleship and salvation, of a restored individual sitting at the feet of Jesus.

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Now what does this mean for us today? Christian, if you're a

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Christian in this room, this is the same, I don't know if you believe this, but this is the same awesome, transformative power that Christ wields in the lives of his disciples today.

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This is the power that he used to bring about your regeneration when he saved you from your sin and from Satan's grasp.

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By this power, Christ took you when you were as good as in the tomb, dead.

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You might have heard me say this before when Bode Backham reads Ephesians 2 and verse 1, he says, and you were dead.

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When you were dead in our trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, like this man following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, when you were those sons of disobedience, when you were those children of wrath,

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Christ displayed this same transformative power by ransoming you, by clothing you in his righteousness, by renewing and restoring your mind, by putting you at rest from your futile and self -destructive striving and working.

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This is the same power that the spirit of Christ even now employs as he seeks to sanctify you and to rid you of all indwelling sin.

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Now, oftentimes, we have conversations. We have conversations with each other.

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People have conversations with me about how it is that we go about killing these besetting sins in our lives.

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How do we put away sin? We've all had those days, haven't we? We get home from work and we go, again!

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Or we have that interaction with our husband or with our wife or with someone in our home.

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We say, I fell into it again. I cannot defeat this sin.

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Here, Christ gives us, dear brothers and sisters, the best way, the best tip, if you want to kill sin in your life and be conformed to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to be holy as he is holy, it's this.

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You must avail yourself of his power. You must come to him for this transformative power.

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If you want to guard yourselves against the deceitfulness of sin, you must rely on Christ's endless strength.

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Human bonds, just like the chains on this man's ankles and wrists, human bonds will not do.

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Behavior modification is not enough. You need the power of God and the wisdom of God's word to put sin to death and to pursue a holy and righteous life.

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I like what Paul did when he wrote to the Ephesians. Paul wrote this letter to the young Ephesian church.

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And he was going to lay out a whole framework of Christian ethics, of ethical instructions that these believers were to carry out.

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You might remember, when you start to think about the second half of the book of Ephesians, they were to walk in a manner worthy of the

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Lord. Husbands were to love their wives and lay down their lives for them.

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Wives were to submit. How hard is that today for wives to submit to their husbands?

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Parents were to parent their children in a godly way. In Ephesians 5 verse 1,

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Paul is even going to tell them to be imitators of God. But they needed to know the source of that power.

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They needed to know how to carry that out. And so that's why in Ephesians chapter 1, when Paul tells him how he was praying for this church, maybe you should be praying this for one another, for our church.

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Paul prays that they would have hearts enlightened to see and to rely, he says, on the immeasurable greatness of God's power, that God was working toward them.

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Apart from God's, Christ's transformative power, you will never be able to defeat that besetting sin in your life.

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Christ would later tell his disciples in John chapter 15 verse 4, he said, Abide in me, and I in you.

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As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you.

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Christ said, Abide in me. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

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For apart from me, apart from the transformative working of Christ's power, apart from me you can do nothing.

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So the not -so -secret secret to pursuing greater holiness, of putting your sin to death, of pursuing greater holiness in your life, is to maintain a deep abiding relationship with Christ.

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If you want to kill sin in your life, if you want to be holy as he is holy, if you want to hunger and thirst for righteousness, then you need to abide in him.

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Now I remember I used to have a friend, and he would always say, he's since gone to be with the

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Lord, but he would always say, Oh, I had a terrible day today. I was trying to do everything in my own strength.

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And as a new believer, I always thought, what in the world is he talking about? He's trying to do things in his own strength.

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Does that mean that he's literally thinking about God as he tries to do everything?

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What does it mean to do something in your own strength, versus doing something with the power of Christ, in the power of God, in the

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Spirit, abiding in Christ? We hear those words thrown around a lot, doing something in your own strength, or to rely on God, but what does it actually mean?

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If you want to, as it were, plug yourself in to the power source of sin -killing power, of sanctifying power in your life, what does it mean to rely on the power of Christ?

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I want to give us just three practical ways that we can abide in Christ's transformative power.

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The first is this, we need to enter into Christ's communion.

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Another way of saying that is prayer. Some of the most righteous men and women who have ever lived, were men and women who communed with God.

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Maybe you can think in your mind for a second, who's your favorite character in the Old Testament?

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It's very likely it was someone that communed with God. One of my favorite characters in the Old Testament was, we read about him, really, there's only one verse in the

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Old Testament that talks about him, we don't see him again until Hebrews chapter 11, and that's Enoch, in Genesis chapter 5, verse 24.

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This is what we read about Enoch. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

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Do you want to please God and be holy? Live like Enoch.

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Walk with God. Walk with God.

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I recently asked a group of pastors and elders from the United States, I'm in a fellowship group, and I asked how we could be praying for one another, and someone said, pray for personal revival.

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Pray that I would be holy, that God would not only revive my church, or that God would revive our nation, but that he would revive my soul.

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E .M. Bowne said, we live shabbily because we pray meanly.

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We have a lean prayer life. He says, plenty of time to feast in our closets will bring marrow and fatness in our lives.

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Our ability to stay with God in our closet measures our ability to stay with God out of the closet.

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What is your prayer life like, dear brother and sister? Are you abiding with Christ in prayer? One of the other practical ways that we can abide in him is through Christ's word, through the

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Bible, through the scriptures. Later in John 15, we just looked at John 15, in verse 7 now,

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Christ is going to link abiding in him with abiding in his word. Now I have pretty good confidence, looking out at all of you,

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I have pretty good confidence that many people in this room regularly visit God's word.

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You go there, you open it, you read it for a time, you close it, you visit God's word.

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But how many of you will you say it's true that you abide in God's word? That you don't just read it for your reading plan, but that you open it up because you want to know

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God. You want to seek him, you want to be with him, you want to be like him, because you believe that his word is true, and it's better than all the other distractions out there.

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To borrow from Ian Bound's language. Many of us live so shabbily because we read so shabbily.

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Our time in God's word is often hurried. It's perfunctory. We don't actually expect to get anything out of it, we just want to check the box.

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But Christ says, sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth.

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Another way that we can abide in Christ is to be with Christ's people, the church.

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I once had a friend who was an alcoholic. I've since lost touch with him.

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But one of the things that I continued to counsel him, regularly counseled him, was this, that if you don't want to take up the bottle anymore, you have to get out of the company of other alcoholics.

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You can't hang out with drunks all day and try to kill drunkenness in your own life.

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Paul had a way of saying that in 1 Corinthians 15. He said, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals.

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Bad company corrupts good character. But the opposite is also true.

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That if you surround yourself with Christ's people, especially people that are more holy than you.

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Oh, what a joy when you meet someone who knows God's word better than you, and who is obviously better at applying it as well.

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Do you have that experience where you seek out other mature, godly people? People that, as far as you can tell, are wiser in the scriptures than you?

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That are wiser in applying the scriptures than you? That are growing in holiness? I remember one time meeting a brother, and it was like he was on a different level.

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If I was on the 3rd floor, he was on the 11th floor. And it was so humbling and yet so encouraging to know that there are greater levels of holiness than that which

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I have attained. We see each other on Sundays.

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But do you see each other throughout the week? Do you seek to know each other and to be known by each other and to grow?

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And as iron sharpens iron, so one brother sharpens another. Do you regularly seek out to be in the company of Christ's people?

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It's a lot harder to live as a sinner when you surround yourself with God's saints.

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In the 1800s, there was a man named Charles Bradlaugh. I'm just going to engage you guys a little bit.

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Give me the name of one really aggressive atheist today that you might read about.

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Richard Dawkins. Did you say the Pope? The Pope? There's truth there.

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If anybody listens to this recording, they're going to go, the Pope? But no, you're right. Well, Charles Bradlaugh was like the

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Richard Dawkins, or the Pope maybe, of this particular era in the 1800s.

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He was a prominent atheist, and he made known a challenge. He issued a challenge in all of England, or before all of England, to a

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Welsh pastor, a Welsh minister named Hugh Price Hughes. His parents named him

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Hugh Hughes. And he issued a public debate, or a challenge to a public debate, on the value of the

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Bible, on the value of Christianity in society.

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And Hughes did not believe. He didn't feel that a debate would really accomplish anything. And so instead, in his own public way, he issued a response to Charles Bradlaugh.

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And he says this. He said, I propose to you that we bring some concrete evidence of the validity of the

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Bible's purposes in the form of, not arguments, but of men and women saved from lives of sin and shame.

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I will bring 100 men and women saved from futile lives through the

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Bible, and through Christ, and through his power. And then he says this.

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If you cannot bring 100 to match my 100, I will be satisfied if you bring 50 men and women, and we shall stand and testify that they have been lifted up from lives of sin and shame by the influences that deny the

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Bible's teaching, by your atheism. He says if you cannot bring 50 who have been transformed by atheism,

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I challenge you just to bring 20 people who will testify with shining faces, as my 100 will, that they have a great new joy in a life of self -respect, and of respect as a result of your teaching.

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He says if you cannot bring 20, I will be satisfied if you bring 10. If you cannot bring 10,

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I challenge you just to bring one, just bring one man or woman who will make such a testimony regarding the uplifting influences of your atheistic teaching.

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He said I will bring 100 men and women who have been transformed by Christ and his scriptures.

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If you can just bring one, we'll call it even. The challenge was never accepted in all of England.

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It was never accepted. Christ has the ability to transform the lives of his saints, not only at the time of conversion, it starts at conversion, but it continues.

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Sanctification is a process, but we must draw near to him, we must abide in Christ. And then lastly in verse 17, here we see that there are only two responses.

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There are only two responses, two possible responses to Christ and his sin -conquering power.

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If we look in verse 17, the crowds begged Christ, they begged Christ to leave.

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In their estimation, his ministry was too costly. Sure a man's life had been restored, but it had been at the cost of their livestock, at the cost of the pork that was going to be on their table, at the cost of the bacon and the money that it would bring.

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This was not acceptable in their eyes. What other unclean aspects would

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Christ disrupt or destroy by his righteous transformative power?

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And so at their urging, Christ, the only savior of the world, they begged him. That's what the text says, they begged him to leave.

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And so Christ got back into the boat and went the way that he came.

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But as he was about to leave, we see this demon -possessed man. He also begged, but he begged that he might come.

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But instead of bringing him along, Christ urged the man, he commanded the man to go and to tell.

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If we read in his words, he says, Go home, verse 19, to your friends and tell them how much the

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Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy. We see the sovereign mercy of Christ, how he has had mercy on you.

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And what does it say? The man went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and we're told everyone marveled.

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Christ here sends out the first Gentile evangelist. Oftentimes we think of Paul as the first evangelist to the

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Gentiles, but here Christ sends out the first Gentile evangelist to other Gentiles, to the people in the

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Decapolis. That was a name given to ten cities that was in that Roman district. And so here we see that there are only two responses to Christ.

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There are only two types of people. Both of them are humble and helpless beggars. There are only two options.

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There is no middle road. There is a narrow way that leads to life, and there is a broad way that leads to destruction, and there is no third way.

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And here we see that the vast majority of people, if we classify them in one of two groups, the vast majority of people are repulsed beggars.

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They are those people that have embraced evil. They've embraced all that is unclean, and they beg

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Christ to depart from them. They are those who see what Christ can do, and they want nothing of it.

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Now does that describe you in this room? You see the Christians around you.

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You see what Christ has wrought in their lives, and you want none of it. It is repulsive.

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It is disdainful to you. I remember at one time, shortly after Steve, after the

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Lord saved Steve, one of my co -workers met him at a coffee shop, and she came up to me afterwards and she said, you're worse than the

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Jehovah's Witnesses. You ruined him. He's totally different. He's not the same person he was before.

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And I thought to myself, praise God. Praise God. But how many of you in this room are more apt to embrace sin, and embrace evil, and embrace the status quo, rather than to embrace

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Christ? And maybe you'd say, well sure, I like the idea of God, or I like the idea of Christ, but how many of you are functional atheists, that not so much in your words, but in your actions, you want nothing to do with Christ or the change that He offers you?

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Does that describe you? When the Lord saved me, He saved me. One of the lines

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I remember, as if it were yesterday, is that many Christians today live as, professing

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Christians, live as atheists unaware, that you might claim

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Christ by word, but deny Him by action. And what

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I'm here to say is, you must have, if you're to have Christ, you must have all of Christ.

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All of Jesus Christ, or you can have none of Jesus Christ. If that describes you, you need to repent of your sins.

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You need to cast yourself upon Him. You need to beg, but beg at His feet that He might forgive you, and cast all of your love for sin, of your self -will away.

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I love hearing the story of Augustine, when he was converted. In the early days, he would pray to God, and he would say,

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Lord, save me from my sins, but not quite yet. How many of us live in that way?

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Save me from my sins. Of course, I don't want to go to hell. Of course, I want to be right with you. Of course,

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I don't want the consequences of sin. I just want a little bit more of the world. But later, in Augustine's life, sometime after that, he prayed,

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Lord, save me from all my sins, except one. Except that one that I really want to continue to do.

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And then finally, the day came when he prayed, Lord, save me from all my sins, and save me now.

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And it was when he made this final decision against evil, that he was truly converted.

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There is no joy. There is no strength. There is no peace like that which visits the soul, which has taken an unconquerable resolve against that which is evil.

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You must have all of Christ, or none of Christ. Are you a repulsed beggar?

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Or the other group, a transformed beggar, like the demon -possessed man who begged that he might go with Christ.

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The transformed beggar are those who have been rescued and transformed from their former manner of life, and who beg that they might be with Christ, that they might serve

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Christ. We see in this case, the beggar had one idea,

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Christ had another. What did he do? He went away, instead of following Christ, and he began to proclaim, and says, everyone marveled.

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The transformed beggar is the one that comes before Christ humbly, who does what he says on his terms for his glory.

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One thing that I'm regularly reminded of, that Martin Lloyd -Jones said, he said whenever he was discouraged, or whenever he got tired, or whenever he got weary, he wouldn't travel into the country to get fresh air, instead he would travel to a different time.

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And he said that he would travel to the 18th century, to those Christians who lived in the 1700s.

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And he said that when we're discouraged, we should read stories, the great tides, the great movements of the spirit, that is the most exhilarating experience, he says, to visit the 18th century, he said, was the finest tonic you will ever know.

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Just to read biographies of those godly men and women. That's what I mean sometimes in this day, that our standard for holiness is so low, when we begin to compare our generation to the generations that have gone before us.

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And I'll set one example, one example before we close, and that's the life of David Brainerd, if you've ever heard of him.

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He was a missionary to the American Indians in the 1700s. He trained to be a pastor, that's all he wanted to do with his life, was to be a pastor.

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I believe he was at Princeton. I didn't look this detail up, but at some point he made a comment that for good or for bad, he was expelled from Princeton.

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He was critical of the spiritual life of, I think he was one of the professors. And they kicked him out of Princeton.

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Like this man who couldn't go with Christ, he could never be a pastor. You needed that education.

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You needed those credentials to be a pastor in the church in that day. And so he did the next best thing.

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He went to the American Indians, the people around him, and he preached the gospel, and he sought to plant churches.

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And I love this one biographer. Jonathan Edwards actually recounted his life and documented his journals.

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But this is one of David Brainerd's prayers. Let me ask you, how do your prayers, how does your life compare to this?

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He said, I had, this is David Brainerd speaking, the most ardent longings after God, which

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I ever felt in my life. At noon in my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my dear

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Lord in a sweet calm that He knew that I desired nothing but Himself, nothing but holiness, and that He had given me these desires, and He only could give me the things

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I desired. I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself and to be so wholly devoted to God.

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My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day, felt much comfort and devotedness to God this day.

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At night it was refreshing to get alone with God and pour out my soul. Oh, who can conceive of the sweetness of communion with the blessed

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God but those who have experienced it? Glory to God forever, that I may taste heaven below.

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I retired early for secret devotion, and in prayer to God was pleased to pour such ineffable comforts into my soul that I could do nothing, know nothing, for some time, but say over and over,

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Oh, my sweet Savior, Oh, my sweet Savior, whom have I in heaven but Thee?

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And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside Thee. If I had a thousand lives, is this true of you?

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If I had a thousand lives, my soul would gladly have laid them all down at once to have been with Christ.

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My soul was this day as turned sweetly set on God. I longed to be with Him, that I might behold

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His glory. And he says, Oh, that His kingdom might come in this world, that they might all love and glorify

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Him for what He is in Himself, and that the blessed Redeemer might see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.

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Oh, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen. So let me begin, let me end where I started.

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I desire, brothers and sisters, that you not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And the best way to do that is to set your affections on Christ, to look to Christ, to be infatuated with Christ.

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I'll end with J .C. Ryle. He says this, he says, I pity those who try to be holy without Christ.

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Your labor is all in vain. You are putting money in a bag with holes. You are pouring water into a strainer.

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You are rolling a huge round stone uphill. You are building up a wall with untempered mortar.

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Believe me, you are beginning at the wrong end. You must come to Christ first, that He should give you

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His sanctifying Spirit. You must learn to say with Paul, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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So dear Christian, note the destructive power of sin. Observe the awesome transforming power of Christ.

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And then, dear saints, look to Christ. Cast yourself upon Christ. Plead with Him.