Preached at Redmarley, Morning of the 14th Sunday after Trinity, September 1, 1861.
“I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” —Galatians v. 16.
The Galatians, to whom St. Paul wrote these words, were a warm-hearted people, but they were very changeable. At one time they were exceedingly fond of St. Paul. They would have plucked out their own eyes, he says, to give them to him, if that would have done him any good. But within a short time they began to suspect him; they listened to people who said that he had deceived them, and that he was no true apostle. They counted him an enemy, and many of them became his enemies. How had this come to pass? It had come to pass thus:—St. Paul had brought them a good message. He said that the Eternal God had sent His Son into the world to adopt them into His family, to make them His own sons and daughters. He said that through His Son God had sent His Spirit to dwell with them, that they might know Him and love Him, and that they might love one another. The Galatians had listened to these words; they had never heard any that were like them before. They had thought the powers above looked very enviously at them, and wanted a great many things of them; they thought they had done wrong, and offended these powers; they thought if there was one power greater than all, they must have offended Him most, and He must be the most angry with them. How wonderful it was to be told that the Lord of all— He who had created them—loved them; that He felt to them as a father feels to children who have forgotten him and gone away from his house; that He was Himself fetching them back; that they were not to turn away from Him because they had done bad things, but might turn to Him, and He would put the evil from them, and blot it out. And how wonderful to hear that they had the Spirit of the Father near them at all times to help them and strengthen them; how wonderful to have all this sealed and assured to them by this token, that they were baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And yet the hearts of these Galatians said this good news must be true; and they would have been glad to put out their own eyes for his sake who had brought them the news.
But as time went on, they began to feel bad thoughts rising in them; and they yielded to these bad thoughts, and bad acts came out of them; they were bitter and cruel to one another; they cheated each other; they fell into wantonness and drunkenness, just as they had done when they were heathens—just as the heathen people around them did. ‘Well,’ they began to say to themselves, ‘but how can this be if St. Paul was right in what he said to us at first; did he not speak of our being cleansed from our sins? did he not speak of our being made new men? But our sins are with us still; we are just the same now that we were before.’ Then came people who said to them, ‘Yes, Paul has indeed led you wrong. This baptism into the name of Christ does not mean what he would persuade you that it means. You are not really taken to be children of God. If you would get any advantage from His coming, you must become like His Jews. You must come under our law; then perhaps God may give you some blessings hereafter. But you must not begin with thinking that you are already delivered and brought into God’s family.’ The Galatians gave heed to what these men said, and so they counted St. Paul for their enemy.
St. Paul was very much grieved; but the pain they caused him was nothing. He knew that he had told them the truth, and that these people who had come among them and slandered him were not telling them the truth. He knew that they wanted the truth which he had told them; that they could not be right and good men without it. But how then could he account for their having fallen into these bad ways? How could he justify what he had said to them about their being children of God and members of Christ, and of their having the Spirit of God with them to help and teach them? Could he have meant that really? Must he not have meant it for some of them and not for others?
No! what St. Paul said to all he intended all to receive. If it was true about one, it was true about another. If any who were baptized could say, ‘God has given us the sign that we are His children,’ all who were baptized could say, ‘God has given us the sign that we are His children.’ And if they believed that, they would soon find what enemies they had who were trying to hinder them from acting as if they were His children. They would soon find that they had a flesh in them that was leading them to think all manner of wrong things, and to do all manner of wrong things. And if they gave way to that flesh of theirs, it would be a very cruel master to them, and would drive them very hard. What then? Were they not to count themselves God’s children because this was so? That would be just as if any son or daughter on earth were to say, ‘I have no father or mother’ because he had been rebellious against his father and mother, and had not chosen to do the things they commanded. That would be to shrink from confessing how much they had offended, and what a gracious loving God they had grieved. That would be saying that He had changed because they had changed. That would be cutting themselves off from the only way of being set free from the evil and being made right. And St. Paul told them plainly that if they tried to keep God’s law when they had ceased to believe in this covenant that He had made with them as His sons and daughters, they would not be able to keep it; they would fight against it; they would do the things which it told them not to do.
But he says in the Epistle we have read to-day, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
What does that mean, “Walk in the Spirit?” It means:—Live as if this were true which I have told you, and as if you were God’s children, and God were looking upon you as a father, and as if He were wishing you to do right, and were helping you to do right, and were giving you His own good and right Spirit, that you may do right. And then you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. They will rise up in you; they will tell you that you must obey them. But you can say, ‘No, we are God’s children; we will not yield to them. They may be very strong, but His Spirit is stronger, we will yield to that.’ For he goes on, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary” to each other. He does not say that about other men more than about himself. He could tell other men that it was so with them, because he found out that it was so with him. It was a continued battle in him. He had something in him which was looking up, desiring what was good, and wanting to know what was good, and asking to be good. He had something in him which was looking down, and wishing for things that were not good, and not caring to find out what was good and what was evil; and choosing to have its own way, and not to ask to be guided into the right way. It was so with St. Paul; he could confidently say to each of the Galatians, ‘It is so with you, and it is so with me.’ “And, therefore,” he says, “we do not the things that we would.” The bad man does not do all the bad things that he thinks of; there is a right spirit checking him. The good man does not do all the good things that he thinks of; there is a flesh checking him. ‘But yet,’ he says, ‘you may be led by the Spirit. The weakest of you may; those who feel yourselves weak, and desire to be led by such a gracious and loving Lord. And then you will not be under the law.’ That he says in answer to those people who told the Galatians that they must not think that God was their Father; that they must come under the law which God gave men before He sent His Son to claim them as His children. He reminds them always that that is their state and their glory; they must not give that up if they wish to get the better of their bad inclinations. ‘You are led by the Spirit,’ he tells them, ‘because you are God’s children; you are not servants but sons, and, therefore, He sends His Spirit into your hearts, that you may say, Abba, Father!’
Then he goes on to tell them, in very plain language, what kind of things they would do if they were left to themselves and did just the things which their flesh stirred them up to do. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these—adultery, fornication, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelling, and such like.” As much as to say—If you look at the world and see what things are going on in it—how wives are separated from their husbands, how men and women live to ruin each other, how nations fight with each other, what strifes there are in neighbourhoods and families, how men quarrel about the least things and the greatest, even about the religion which should unite them together, how thousands and ten thousands become beasts instead of men through drunkenness, how they give themselves to revelling, and out of that comes hatred and often murder. If you look at all these things, you will understand what there is working in us all, and what we should become if we were our own masters. And he says of these things, “I tell you now, as I told you in times past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” That is as much as to say, ‘I have not changed my mind in the least. I always said to you that these things are the curse and damnation of all people who give way to them. It does not signify who they are, whether they call themselves Christians or heathens, they who do such things choose the devil for their king, and ask him to rule over them.’ But then he goes on, ‘there are other works doing on this earth, thanks be to God its King. There is love in this world, there is joy in the earth, there is peace on the earth; you see parents who are caring about their children; you see men and women who are doing kind, and gentle, and good acts; you see people in sickness and poverty who are full of faith and trust; you see people who are bearing injuries meekly; you see people who are restraining themselves when they are tempted to drunkenness.’
Where do all these good fruits come from? They come, as I told you before, from the Spirit of God. They are the things which God Himself is working in us to do. Well, if you believe that, you can take your choice. You may walk in the Spirit, and claim your place as God’s children, as baptized men; or you may follow the flesh, and then you will always be ready for some of those dark and devilish works of which I spoke to you just now. If you take the first course, you will never find God’s law against you; it will always be on your side. In you will be crucified, in Christ’s name and in His strength, those things which God hates and which make men miserable.
Now, brethren, remember that all this is spoken to us. Just as St. Paul and the Galatians had this flesh and this Spirit fighting in them, so have you and I. Just as the flesh was drawing them down to low, vile things, to those things that ruin the body and soul and set us at war with each other, so it is with you and me. We are not different, so far, from other men. Christians have not a whit better natures than Jews or heathen. Oftentimes they seem to be much worse; oftentimes Jews and heathen do good things which should make us ashamed. And why is this? If we believed in baptism we should have obeyed its teaching. We should know that all the good which is in them would come from God’s dear and loving spirit; that whatever kindness, gentleness, truth, there is in any, comes from the goodness and gentleness and truth of God. And then we should say, ‘Oh, God! Thou hast made us Thy children; Thou hast told us Thou art our Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hold us fast to Thee. Fulfil Thy promise of writing Thy law in our hearts by the Spirit. Never let us go out of this bond. Our godfathers and godmothers renounced for us the service of the world and the flesh and the devil. They said they were not our masters and should not be our masters. Help us to say the same every day and every hour. Help us to fight the good fight of faith. For it is only by faith in Thee that we can do anything that is right, or avoid anything that is wrong; only while we believe that Thou art altogether good, and that Thou art our Father, and that Thou hast delivered us from our sins, and that Thou art always on our side; it is only then we put to death our lusts and our hatred and our revelling, only then we can be meek and gentle and brave and true, as Thou hast made us to be.’