THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Put on the Lord Jesus Christ"Rev. Carl Haak(e-mail: Rev. Carl Haak) February 19, 2006; No. 3291 |
Dear radio friends,
The Word of God
that we direct our attention to today is found in Romans 13:13, 14. Here we read:
“Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not
in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil
the lusts thereof.”
This passage of the
Holy Scriptures was used powerfully by God in the conversion of the great
church father Augustine. There are
certain verses of Scripture that, because they have been so influential in the
history of God’s church, when you read those verses, that history is
immediately called to mind. For
instance, Martin Luther, in the great Reformation, and the verse Romans
1:17: “The just shall live by faith
alone.” You cannot read that verse
without remembering the great work of God in Martin Luther.
So
also with our passage today in Romans 13:13 and 14. They remind us of the great church father
Augustine. He lived about three hundred
years after the death of the apostles.
He had become the most important of the early church fathers. John Calvin would return to the teachings of
Augustine, the teachings of sovereign grace — that God alone saves the sinner
by grace. Augustine taught those truths
because he had experienced that in his own life.
Augustine was born
as a brilliant man. He grew up
unbelieving, although his mother Monica was a believer and never stopped
praying for him, even when he lived a sinful life. Augustine later was to call himself “the son
of his mother’s tears.” As a young man,
he had become chained to fornication. He
was enslaved in sexual sins. He lived
with a mistress and had a son out of wedlock.
He became a renowned philosopher of his day. And he looked upon Christianity with ridicule
and contempt, as unsatisfactory.
To appease his
mother, he went to church, in order that, in his judgment, he would condemn and
show the folly of Christ crucified. But
he found that, under the Word of God, his heart was pricked. A thorn, the thorn of God’s Word, was placed
in his heart. He became troubled over
his sins. But he could not break from
those sins. He says to us in his Confessions,
that he found himself praying, “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.”
It was while he was
in a moment when he was utterly distraught, weeping and feeling the strength of
sin over his life, while he was in a garden, that he flung himself down. And he cried out, “How long, O Lord? What will be the end to my uncleanness?” As he sobbed, he heard on the other side of
the garden wall a group of children playing in a game. In their game they said, “Pick up and read;
pick up and read.”
Augustine
interpreted it as a word of God to him.
He returned to a spot where he had thrown down a copy of the New
Testament Scriptures. He opened it. And in silence, he read the words, “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the
flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” He was reading Romans 13:13, 14.
He writes of his
experience in these words: “No further
would I read, nor did I need. For,
instantly, as the sentence ended, by a light, as it were, of security infused
into my soul, all the gloom of doubt vanished away.” Through that Word of God, a living Savior
took control of Augustine’s heart. For
the first time, it gave him to know the wonder of pardon and showed to him the
beauty of Christ. And, by the grace of
the cross, it broke a dominion of sin.
May God use His Word the same way now in you and in me!
We read, “Put on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
These verses are
like an alarm clock. As you would set an
alarm clock in the morning and it goes off — “Beep, beep, beep” — urging you to
get up and get dressed, so God: “Put on
the Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the context of
Romans 13, God has said to us, “Do not sleep.”
He has spoken to us of the fact that the world lives in spiritual
darkness and wants us to drop off into spiritual sleep with them. They want us to go on dreaming, dreaming that
there are no consequences for our actions, that there is nothing that is a big
deal in this life, that life is simply for the taking and for yourself, that
living is all about money and gratifying every lust. Now comes the Word
of God in the alarm clock. “Wake up —
get dressed.” We read in verse 12, “Put
on the armour of light.” Yes, put on armor. You are in a war. Do not go forth in your Christian life
wearing pajamas of complacency. Put on
the armor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Put
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You are in the
midst of a spiritual battle.
We are brought,
then, to the command of God that we are to wake up and that we are not to go on
sleeping with the world of darkness.
Most of the world, says the Word of God, is sleep-walking. They are not with it. They do not live in the consciousness of the
reality of God. They sleep. They spend all night watching
television. They are saturated with the
world. Their spirits and their eyes
become narrower and narrower, smaller and smaller.
God says, Put on the armor of light.
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Put
on faith, hope, and love in Christ. That
is the No-Doze to the sleeping drugs of the world. Do not sleep, but put on Christ, that is, put
on faith in Christ, hope in Christ, love in Christ. Put them on every day and every hour.
The Bible, here,
when it says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” is calling us to a new and holy
life, to a Christ honoring life, a life that reveals Jesus Christ in all that
we are and do, a life that reveals Christ in our home, in our work, and in our
play.
We do this by
grace. Now it is true that, by grace,
Christ is put on us. The Bible tells us
that the robes of His perfect righteousness are placed over our nakedness as
sinners, so that the child of God is freely pardoned. And what a blessing that is! We do not need and must not carry that
crushing weight of the guilt of our sins.
We do not need to awake each day anew with a dread that our sins are
unpardoned. We may awake with the
glorious gospel over us that we are forgiven in the Lord Jesus Christ.
But, by grace,
Christ is not only put on us, but the Holy Spirit renews us as well and places
Christ within. So, when we are told to
put on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called to the activity of our faith, that we persistently and passionately live out of
Him. It is Christ living in you and you
living out of Him, by faith. It is being
intimately united to Him. It is
imitating Jesus Christ.
To put on the Lord
Jesus Christ means that you live a true, sincere walk of faith with Jesus
Christ in this world. It is a real
thing. It is not a make-believe thing. It is an inward thing, first of all, not an
outward behavior. It is something that
is genuine, not something that is just for show, or hypocritical. Putting on Christ is not the same as putting
on a good front. We are all very good at
that. We put on the appearance of what
we should be. We are able to put a “put”
on people. So then, before certain
people and in certain places, we put on an appearance. We can hide what is going on deep down in our
heart. We are putting on a front.
But that is not
what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
To put on the Lord Jesus Christ means that you have the knowledge of His
grace and the knowledge of His mercy to you; that you desire, then, to be
conformed to His holiness; that you are comforted in Him and in His pardon;
that you are enthralled by His beauty, love, and mercy; that you want to be
like Him, you want to reflect Him in all that you do. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not clothe yourself with the world’s darkness. Do not mimic the world. Do not grasp for more things of this world. Do not live your life out of the source of
greed. Do not seek approval and
worthiness from men. But put on the Lord
Jesus Christ.
That means, go to
the Bible. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
by immersing yourself daily in the Scriptures.
That means, come under the true preaching of God’s Word. That is the way you put on the Lord Jesus
Christ — by coming under the teaching, the preaching, of His Word in the
church. That means that you bow in
prayer. That means that you must
surround yourself in your life with those who are reflecting Him so that when
the darkness begins to surround you and depression hits you at 11:00 in the
morning and the kids are getting on your nerves or you are at work and
pornography pops up on the Internet, you put on the Lord Jesus Christ. You know Him.
You cling to Him. Put Him
on!
You are depressed,
sorrowing, and despairing and hear a voice within: “I’m worthless, I hate myself, I can’t.” Put on the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Put on the Lord
Jesus Christ when you feel waves rising up inside you of anger and bitterness
and resentment. Put on the Lord Jesus
Christ when you are tempted, when the hounds of the devil are chasing you, when
sin follows you. Put on the Lord Jesus
Christ.
But you ask me, How do we do that?
The Word of God is very specific and is very straightforward and is very
practical. It tells us that this
involves a great struggle. “And make no
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof.” How am I to put on the Lord
Jesus Christ? By the
Word of God? Yes. Under the preaching of the
Word? Yes. Through prayer? Yes.
By having godly friends?
Yes! But all of this is of no
avail to you if you still make provision for your flesh to fulfill the lusts
thereof. God says that to put on the
Lord Jesus Christ means that you must not make provision for your flesh.
To make provision
for the flesh refers to making preparations or plans. Make no provision. That is like when you go camping or you go on
a canoe trip. You make provisions, you
figure out what you need to fulfill your wants and desires. God says that the lusts of the flesh cry out
to you: “Make provision for me. Feed me.
Make plans for me.” The lusts of
the flesh say to you: “What about
me? Think about me.” For instance:
One of the lusts of the flesh is resentment. Resentment says, “Feed me. Hold on to that grudge. Don’t let go of that grudge. Don’t forgive that person. Feed me.”
Sexual lusts says: “Feed me.
Rush home at night so that you can watch me and be tantalized by me. Look at me.”
Jealousy says: “Feed me. Look at her.
She has what I should have. She
has the looks that I should have.” Greed
says: “You need more and more. Your house isn’t big enough. Your furniture is too old.”
Now the Word of God
says, Don’t make provision for the flesh. Cut off the supply line that is feeding your
flesh. Fight the sins of the flesh by
cutting off the supply line. Starve it
out, like an army would besiege a city and destroy it by cutting off their
supply lines. Don’t keep your sin as a
mistress to go back to. Tear up the
magazine. Put a guard on your office
computer. Make yourself accountable to
others. Forgive your brother from the
heart. Do not make provision for the
flesh. Do not give forethought — do not
think ahead — for the fleshly lusts.
The Word of God is saying, then, do not let any thought take root that would
supply the lusts of your flesh, but put Christ in the middle of your
thinking. Do not let anything in your
head that will awaken sinful desires leading to gratification. We all know how that works. When you begin to think about it, it awakens
in us the desire for it.
So the Word of God
speaks of three categories in verse 13 of Romans 13 that must not enter into
our thinking. We must not give provision
for our flesh.
First,
not in rioting and drunkenness.
That is, do not let any thought enter the brain to awaken the desire for
substance abuse, whether that is alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, nicotine, or
caffeine. Specifically, it means: When you are bored and lonely and discouraged
and hopeless and feeling sorry for yourself, do not even ponder alcohol or
drugs as a way to medicate yourself and to calm yourself and to satisfy
yourself and to take away the ache of your soul. They will make you a sleep-walker. They will cut the nerves of care. They will stir up the works of darkness. Do not even think “Just a little — just
once.”
Category two: Not in chambering (sleeping around) and
wantonness (that is, lewd fornication). Do not entertain, do
not give free access in your mind, to sexual uncleanness, to adultery, to
pornography. Do not itch
the desires. Do not entertain the
thoughts. Pornography does not go out of
your mind.
Let us be specific
again. You are frustrated as a
husband? You are frustrated with your
wife? Or are you frustrated as a wife
with your husband? Do not think about
another man. Do not think about another
woman. Do not think of the embrace or
the understanding of another woman or of another man. Do not give the thought, do not fantasize, do not enter the darkness where millions sleep the vile
sleep of death. Do not have access to a
computer alone.
Category
three: Not in strife and envying. That is referring to quarreling and
jealousy. Do not give place in your mind
to the desire for pre-eminence. Do not
begin to think in these terms: “What
about me? That’s not fair to me? How hurt I was by what she said.” Do not do that. By thinking that way, you are making
provision for jealousy and quarreling.
You are breeding jealousy in your heart.
If you have been wronged thirty years ago, forgive. If the wrong was of such a nature that you
must go to that person and confront him, do so.
If you have been slighted, if you have been overlooked
in a promotion, if you have been belittled, if you have been misunderstood when
you have done the best, do not carry the grudge. Do not carry it with you year after year
after year, letting it lodge in your head.
By carrying that grudge, you are making provision for your flesh. That grudge will awaken in you anger and
bitterness and hatred and resentment and enmity. And it will lead to quarreling and yelling. Make no provisions for your flesh.
But you say to me,
“How in the world do we do that?” You
say to me, “Keep it out of my head? The
very effort to keep it out of my head puts it in my head. That’s the way it is. I say to my brain, ‘No,’ and my brain heard
me. And the desires are awakened. And the brain begins to say, ‘I want, I
want.’”
I dislike very much
that slogan that says, “Just say No.” That does not work. I need something more. Because the moment I say No, my sinful will
is awakened. The “No,” has awakened in
me the desire. Oh wretched man that I
am. Who shall deliver me?
Put on the Lord
Jesus Christ. That means, plant the
cross in your mind. Plant the cross in
your soul. Plant the cross in your
thoughts. It means: Put your mind before the Words of God;
meditate upon those words; sing the psalms to your mind; call to mind His
promises. It means that you go to
We must do that
because this is the walk of love to which God has called us. We must do that because this is the life of
one who is waiting for the Savior. We
must walk honestly, says the apostle, as in the day. To walk as one who puts on Christ is the
consistent walk of one who is saved. We
are to live as one who is the child of the light in Jesus Christ. We must not live as if we would be ashamed to
stand before the Lord when He returns.
But we must live as one whose life, right now,
can bear exposure. Let us walk honestly
as in the day. Walk honestly. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, may the grace
of God rise up our spirits. May it stir
our spirits.
Oh, may this Word of God be felt within our souls. Let us delight ourselves in Christ. Let His love satisfy us at all times. Let us adorn Christ in our daily living. Let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ in all
that we do. God grant it.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank
Thee for Thy Holy Word. It is true. We pray for its blessing upon our hearts and souls. In Jesus’ name do we pray, Amen.