JM
Puritan Board Doctor
by J. K. POPHAM
There are three things that go into our condemnation.
First, a depraved nature we derive from a sinful parent and are therefore sinful in nature.
Second, our personal sins and transgressions. We go astray speaking lies, as soon as we are born, so saith the Scripture. Sin is a sweet morsel to a sinful nature, sin is a natural thing to a naturally sinful person. It takes different forms. Happily in many cases, it does not take the form of immorality. May none of you, you young people, ever fall into any immoral practices. Avoid lying and swearing and all things that a natural conscience, not seared with a hot iron, condemns.
Third, association with wicked people, called "the friendship of this world which is enmity with God. If any man will be a friend of this world he is an enemy of God." (James 4:4) If you choose the world for your companions then it is because you are the world. If the saints be your choice, your companions, the dear choice of your hearts, that is good. Now wherever these three things are and prevail and anyone dies in them, that person is under condemnation and will never escape it. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God."
This is in the Scriptures.
Young people, this is in the Scriptures.
Remember that it won’t matter what you think of yourselves.
If you are contrary to the Scriptures you are condemned. If you have no faith in the Son of God you are condemned. Here are people then who in all respects are polluted - nature polluted, thought and conduct polluted, associations polluted.
The third may be cut off.
You may leave the world as to practices and associations and go into a profession and mingle with religious people.
The second may be cut off.
Immorality may be denied, forsaken, and a person who walked in sin may cease so to walk and walk in uprightness among men. And one forsaking both these may be deceived and think himself a Christian and fit for religious society, for church membership, and for eternity. But then you have got the first to deal with. What will you do with a polluted nature? You have not got rid of that. You may be rid of a lying tongue, but you have not got rid of a deceitful heart. You may be clean amongst men; you may have clean garments and a polluted bad heart. You may have a healthy kind of morality, but what of a heart that is altogether diseased, of which this figurative language may be used: "The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint; from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores, that have not been bound up neither mollified with ointment." (Isa. 1:6)
What of that?
No true sanctification where this prevails.
An unchanged nature will die and sink into perdition. Sanctification then must have this in it, a real deliverance from that evil thing sin. How is it to be? Who shall effect it? When Christ addressing God in the 40th Psalm said, "A body hast Thou prepared Me," when the angel of the Lord spoke to Mary and told her that she was to be the mother of the Lord Jesus, he said to her, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be the Son of God;" and that nature united to the eternal Son of God has full and abiding provision for a pure standing before God, of one who in himself is polluted. This the Word teaches; and let me here say, by the Word we are to understand the blessed gospel of the grace of God, not the law. That can never purify, never sanctify. The law can approve of goodness, but it can never purge away badness. It can approve of righteousness and bless a righteous person, but it can never approve of a sinner. It must condemn a sinner. So that by the Word the gospel is to be understood, and by the gospel we are taught, that the Lord Jesus communicates of His purity to His people, and this is really that in which they are all to stand. He is their sanctification,
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself. I suffered to sanctify them, I bled, I shed My blood to sanctify them, to purify them, and present them to myself a glorious church, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing." (Eph. 5:27)
Sanctification, Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, on Lord's day morning September 17th, 1922
There are three things that go into our condemnation.
First, a depraved nature we derive from a sinful parent and are therefore sinful in nature.
Second, our personal sins and transgressions. We go astray speaking lies, as soon as we are born, so saith the Scripture. Sin is a sweet morsel to a sinful nature, sin is a natural thing to a naturally sinful person. It takes different forms. Happily in many cases, it does not take the form of immorality. May none of you, you young people, ever fall into any immoral practices. Avoid lying and swearing and all things that a natural conscience, not seared with a hot iron, condemns.
Third, association with wicked people, called "the friendship of this world which is enmity with God. If any man will be a friend of this world he is an enemy of God." (James 4:4) If you choose the world for your companions then it is because you are the world. If the saints be your choice, your companions, the dear choice of your hearts, that is good. Now wherever these three things are and prevail and anyone dies in them, that person is under condemnation and will never escape it. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God."
This is in the Scriptures.
Young people, this is in the Scriptures.
Remember that it won’t matter what you think of yourselves.
If you are contrary to the Scriptures you are condemned. If you have no faith in the Son of God you are condemned. Here are people then who in all respects are polluted - nature polluted, thought and conduct polluted, associations polluted.
The third may be cut off.
You may leave the world as to practices and associations and go into a profession and mingle with religious people.
The second may be cut off.
Immorality may be denied, forsaken, and a person who walked in sin may cease so to walk and walk in uprightness among men. And one forsaking both these may be deceived and think himself a Christian and fit for religious society, for church membership, and for eternity. But then you have got the first to deal with. What will you do with a polluted nature? You have not got rid of that. You may be rid of a lying tongue, but you have not got rid of a deceitful heart. You may be clean amongst men; you may have clean garments and a polluted bad heart. You may have a healthy kind of morality, but what of a heart that is altogether diseased, of which this figurative language may be used: "The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint; from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores, that have not been bound up neither mollified with ointment." (Isa. 1:6)
What of that?
No true sanctification where this prevails.
An unchanged nature will die and sink into perdition. Sanctification then must have this in it, a real deliverance from that evil thing sin. How is it to be? Who shall effect it? When Christ addressing God in the 40th Psalm said, "A body hast Thou prepared Me," when the angel of the Lord spoke to Mary and told her that she was to be the mother of the Lord Jesus, he said to her, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be the Son of God;" and that nature united to the eternal Son of God has full and abiding provision for a pure standing before God, of one who in himself is polluted. This the Word teaches; and let me here say, by the Word we are to understand the blessed gospel of the grace of God, not the law. That can never purify, never sanctify. The law can approve of goodness, but it can never purge away badness. It can approve of righteousness and bless a righteous person, but it can never approve of a sinner. It must condemn a sinner. So that by the Word the gospel is to be understood, and by the gospel we are taught, that the Lord Jesus communicates of His purity to His people, and this is really that in which they are all to stand. He is their sanctification,
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself. I suffered to sanctify them, I bled, I shed My blood to sanctify them, to purify them, and present them to myself a glorious church, having neither spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing." (Eph. 5:27)
Sanctification, Preached At Galeed Chapel, Brighton, on Lord's day morning September 17th, 1922
