JM
Puritan Board Doctor
by J. K. POPHAM
Faith is a wonderful grace and its conflict is with its opposite unbelief; its conflict is with sin ever clamoring for the mastery, sin clamoring for this and that in the world.
Faith says: "God is everything, God is everything. All is in Christ."
If the world is mine, it is because Christ is mine. If Paul, if Apollos, if Cephas, if providence, all belong to Him. It is because they are all in the hand and under the management and government of the Lord Jesus. "Sanctify them through Thy truth." Take the world, what an enemy this is to God, and if you are its friend you are an enemy to God. "If any man will be a friend of this world," says John, "he is an enemy to God." People try to bring the world and the church together as they now-a-days speak, but they are trying to do what they will never accomplish. For what God has separated man shall never join, and He has separated the world from the church in this chapter most solemnly: "I pray not for the world."
Do you run to that which the Lord Jesus did not pray for?
Are you friendly with that which has no place in His petition, in His intercession? Then you are in a solemn position. "Separate them, they are not of the world; separate them from it. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. They are in it. 0 keep them from the evil of it!" And if you follow this in your spirit through faith, you will certainly follow it in your practice. Yes, however much the enemy may dangle things before your eyes to tempt you, you certainly will follow the Lord Jesus, as it is written: "Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." (Heb. 13:13) May it please the Holy Ghost to work in us this work of faith with power, for it never will move in you without purifying your heart in some particular. "Purifying their hearts by faith." Why, error will go away where faith lives and thrives Truth will thrive where faith is, because she lays hold of Him who is the truth. Faith is, so to speak, the very first grace and wherever it is there will be gracious exercises, and also because there are gracious exercises, there will be opposition, the opposition of sin. How much death you may feel!
The question will be, not has a child of God any real life, but has he life enough to be in conflict with death?
It is not, is a child of God so full of faith as to have no unbelief, but has he faith enough to be in conflict with unbelief?
Do you feel this in your own souls?
Are you really on the side of Christ?
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself: now sanctify them." You will, if a truly sanctified person, be on the side of Christ...
- Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, on Lord's day morning September 17th, 1922
Faith is a wonderful grace and its conflict is with its opposite unbelief; its conflict is with sin ever clamoring for the mastery, sin clamoring for this and that in the world.
Faith says: "God is everything, God is everything. All is in Christ."
If the world is mine, it is because Christ is mine. If Paul, if Apollos, if Cephas, if providence, all belong to Him. It is because they are all in the hand and under the management and government of the Lord Jesus. "Sanctify them through Thy truth." Take the world, what an enemy this is to God, and if you are its friend you are an enemy to God. "If any man will be a friend of this world," says John, "he is an enemy to God." People try to bring the world and the church together as they now-a-days speak, but they are trying to do what they will never accomplish. For what God has separated man shall never join, and He has separated the world from the church in this chapter most solemnly: "I pray not for the world."
Do you run to that which the Lord Jesus did not pray for?
Are you friendly with that which has no place in His petition, in His intercession? Then you are in a solemn position. "Separate them, they are not of the world; separate them from it. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. They are in it. 0 keep them from the evil of it!" And if you follow this in your spirit through faith, you will certainly follow it in your practice. Yes, however much the enemy may dangle things before your eyes to tempt you, you certainly will follow the Lord Jesus, as it is written: "Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." (Heb. 13:13) May it please the Holy Ghost to work in us this work of faith with power, for it never will move in you without purifying your heart in some particular. "Purifying their hearts by faith." Why, error will go away where faith lives and thrives Truth will thrive where faith is, because she lays hold of Him who is the truth. Faith is, so to speak, the very first grace and wherever it is there will be gracious exercises, and also because there are gracious exercises, there will be opposition, the opposition of sin. How much death you may feel!
The question will be, not has a child of God any real life, but has he life enough to be in conflict with death?
It is not, is a child of God so full of faith as to have no unbelief, but has he faith enough to be in conflict with unbelief?
Do you feel this in your own souls?
Are you really on the side of Christ?
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself: now sanctify them." You will, if a truly sanctified person, be on the side of Christ...
- Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, on Lord's day morning September 17th, 1922
