Well, we begin a new series today on the topic of the mortification of sin. And giving credit where credit is due, I would like to say that in the original preparation of this series some years ago, I was helped a great deal by a series done by Pastor Bob Fisher. And so I reaped somewhat of the labors of our dear brother. I've related, I think, on other occasions, I'm sure, an incident that happened in my life, probably 1981, 80, 81, somewhere along in there. In Phoenix, Arizona, working with the Mexican Gospel Mission, and read The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. He footnotes some of the Puritan writers. Several times he footnoted The Mortification of Sin. I believe the title he used there was Sin and Temptation by John Owen. That aroused my curiosity. I began looking for that book at the local Christian bookstore, much to their consternation. It wasn't available. They said they probably could order it. The director of the mission and myself traveled frequently to Mexico going through Tucson. He knew of a used bookstore. He stopped to look and I began looking. And on the bottom shelf, quite out of the way and dust covered, I saw a great covered book and I reached down and pulled it out. It was Set in Temptation by Joan Owen. And I was quite pleasantly surprised. I began reading the book and found it to be of tremendous help and a mighty impact in my life personally. My son was in probably high school at the time or early university days. I shared it with him, I believe he was still in high school, and he began reading it and couldn't put the book down and commented one day, he said, Dad, that's the best book I have ever read. A mortification of sin. Romans 8.13 is our text. Paul writes these words. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. John Owen wrote this book called Mortification of Sin based on this text. John Owen lived from 1616 to 1683. He lived in the age of the Puritans. He lived in England and his ministry was concentrated in the city of London. He was a man of unusual gift and talent. He was a pastor, an educator, chancellor, vice chancellor of Oxford University. He was a chaplain in the armies of the nation under Conrail. He was something of a statesman and that he was often called to address Parliament to bring the scriptures to bear upon matters of political significance. Oh, that today we have men who would call upon men like John Owen to bring the scripture to bear upon matters of political significance. He was a man of great academic gift, but also of great spiritual insight. The fact that he was a pastor as well as an educator makes his writings to be of extreme importance. He was not only given to academic accuracy, which is vitally important in the exposition of the scripture, but he was able to take that accuracy and bring it to bear directly upon the heart of men. He was a contemporary of John Bunyan. It is often commented on of the mutual esteem they had for one another. John Bunyan is supposed to have greatly wished that he had the academic furniture that John Owen had. And John Owen is said to have said that he would have given up all of his academic learning if he could just preach like John Bunyan. The fact that he would make such a statement is a very clear picture of the kind of man that he was. He was not taken up with the fact that he had great mental abilities. His concern was to be able to minister to the people of God and therefore would have been willing to give it up if he could have preached as that tinker. John Owen has been called the greatest of British theologians. People of all sorts of persuasions have said that about him. not just the ones who love the Puritans, but even those who have been opposed to Puritan teaching. Many believe that this treatise that we are going to be considering on the mortification of sin is perhaps the very best thing in that area that has ever been written. Before and after the 1600s, there has never been anything that has equaled his writings. The reason for saying this is that not only is he accurate in his exposition of the scripture, but because he wrote as a pastor, writing to his people. He knew his own heart very well, and therefore knew the hearts of his people very well. And if you have the occasion to read the book, in fact, let me go say that differently. Take the occasion. I encourage you, I exhort you to read the book, Mortification of Sin. Now, that's a brief sketch. But what I would like to do next is set this theme of the mortification of sin in the context of the biblical doctrine of sanctification. When you think of biblical sanctification, you should think of three perspectives. The first is what John Murray has so well described as a radical break with sin. A radical break with sin. That is the beginning of sanctification. When a man becomes a Christian, he is freed from the dominion of sin, whereas once he was completely dominated by sinful impulses. In fact, the very best thing that he could do was simply an expression of those sinful impulses. And while he was once completely dominated by that, When God comes to a man and converts him, brings him into the orbit of grace, and he becomes dead to sin, dead to the old man. But there is a second aspect, and that is progressive sanctification. Once having been freed from the dominion of sin, That does not mean that we are perfectly sinless. He is freed from the dominion of sin and that he no longer must sin. But because of the habits of the past, because of the twisted aspects of his mind and nature, he still has remaining sin, remaining habits. and the corrupting effects of sin within him. So from the day that he becomes a Christian until the day he enters glory, he is progressively more and more being sanctified. And then there's the third aspect. It is final sanctification. The biblical term is glorification. And when a man enters into the presence of God, when he is freed from this body of sin, for he no longer sins anymore. It is in the second area, the area of progressive sanctification, however, that we will be mostly concerned with. And when we think of becoming more and more sanctified, we are thinking of two things. In the first place, to be progressively sanctified in the very language of Scripture is to be putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. Growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ means becoming more and more like Christ. That is the positive aspect of progressive sanctification. But now there is also the negative aspect, where a man is putting away more and more his sin. Or in the language of Scripture, he is mortifying sin. Now in reality, The positive and the negative must be seen together. If a man is to become more and more like Christ in that positive sense, that means putting away sin. And if a man is really to put away his sin, he must become more and more like Christ. But even though these two aspects are very tightly and intimately connected, We may speak of them separately. And what John Owen does in his writing is mostly concern himself with this negative aspect of putting away sin, of mortifying sin. Now, the reason for going through all of this is to free us from any delusion. that once we have mastered the contents of John Owen's work, that we now have a handle on every aspect of sanctification. That is not the case. We're dealing with a restricted area, that of dealing with sins, mortifying sins. This brings us to the third part of our introduction. And that is reasons for dealing with this topic. Why would we deal with this topic? Well, there are a lot of reasons. It is true that the people of God hate their sins. But it is also true that for the most part, the people of God do not know how to deal with their sins. It is one thing to have a hatred for sin. But that hatred can degenerate into a frustrated dislike. John Owen delivered a series of messages to his people on this matter when he was a pastor. And this writing is the outgrowth of a series of sermons. He was writing out of pastoral concern And therefore, because of our pastoral concern, it seems appropriate to use his writings. There's another reason why we ought to deal with this topic. And that is because there are a lot of errors being taught in this matter of dealing with sin. We will not attempt to deal with all of them, but let me mention two. One area is what we might refer to as self-help. There is the non-evangelical type of self-help. advocated by people like Norman Vincent Peale, where you can take yourself in hand. And by following so many steps and procedures, you can make yourself into whatever you want to be. But there is also an evangelical form of self-help. Actually, it is not very different. in principle. But it is taught by evangelical people, and therefore, it is much accepted. And therefore, it is a much more subtle error. You will have a teacher that will come along and give lectures or seminars, and he will give you several steps. And if you will just follow these several steps, You will be able to be what you want to be. You will be able to stop this or that kind of sin. You will be able to develop this or that kind of virtue. And the statement will be made by following these steps, anybody, whether he be a Christian or not a Christian, can develop these virtues and abstain from these sins. Dear ones, that is nothing more than a Christianized form of self-help. It is very far removed from the biblical doctrine of sanctification, very far removed from the doctrine of the mortification of sin. Many have been affected by this kind of error. The basic problem with this kind of approach is that it doesn't do anything with the root of the problem. It may help us to be like the unconverted alcoholic who can leave his alcohol, but it doesn't do anything to the root of the problem within his heart. And it makes no room for the work of the Holy Spirit. which, according to the scripture, is absolutely necessary for sanctification. There is another form of error, often called the higher life teaching, where you believe that since God is the one who does the saving work of grace, that God is also the one who sanctifies. The catch word becomes, let go and let God. Have you heard that before? Or something similar? The way we plan now to approach this whole matter, having described the reasons, is to take the writings of John Owen and seek to make them easier to understand. It has been written in what we might call heavy English. And I must say the Puritans for the most part, and some like John Owen, have ways of going with very long sentences and being very thorough and so much content that I assure you it is not the easiest thing you will pick up and read. But there's a greater purpose, and it is this, that God would help us to make actual, measurable progress in grace. That God would come to us and help us not to be merely floundering around in the quagmire of our sins, but that God would come and help us. Help us to understand this truth. that we would be able to follow biblical instruction and put to death the root of sin that is still remaining in us. As we begin this series, it will be helpful over the next few days if you will examine your own life in order to determine what sins you need to deal with. What are the sins that cause you the most shame? What sins do you find yourself bringing most before God in confession? And you should have these sins consciously in your thought as we progress in this study and make application of truth to sin in general, but also make this application to sins in particular. And then weeks from now, God helping us, Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could determine that there has been real progress made in dealing with our sins? Measurable progress. Whether it be the sin of lust, whether it be the sin of impatience, whatever sin. And dear ones, whether or not we have made progress, A large measure will be determined on just how serious we are about the matter. Now there are four major divisions to the writing. I can see I'm not going to get through. The moment of truth has dawned upon me. Let me give you these headings. I think you have them in your notes and perhaps we'll cover one. I may have to extend this until next time we meet because this is the foundation of what we're going to be studying. We've got to get it straight and we've got to get it thorough. Let me name them for you. Four divisions in his writings. The foundation of the doctrine. Two, a definition and illustration of the term mortification of sin. Three, the general presupposition regarding the doctrine of mortification. And last of all, specific directives for mortifying sin. The foundation of the doctrine is based on our text. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if you through the Spirit are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And the foundation consists in an exposition of this verse and the deductions that we will draw from that exposition. the five things which Owen draws from this verse. Number one, and I think that's probably as far as we will go, if we can just get a handle on this. Did you notice the ifs? Four, if, if, you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. What we have here is what we are calling the conditionality of the passage. Here we see the invariable connection between the mortifying of the flesh on the one hand and living on the other. If one is to live, it is necessary that he mortify the deeds of the body. His living, whatever that living means, is conditional. He will only live if he will only live whatever live means, if he mortifies sin, whatever mortify means. Now here I want you to listen very carefully. He is not talking about the relationship between cause and effect. Remember that. He is not saying that you will live, that is, that you will have eternal life, because you have mortified your sin. He is not saying that the cause is mortification and the effect is life. He is not saying that. Dear ones, the cause of life is because Christ has redeemed us from the curse of death. That's the cause of life. The cause of life is because the Spirit of God has come and made that redemption which Christ purchased to be applicable to us. That is the cause of life. What he is saying is that there is a connection of means and the end. Not cause and effect, but means and the end. If the end is to be had, In other words, if that end which was purchased by the blood of Christ is to be ours, according to this passage, this means that the means to which we will attain is the mortification of the deeds of the flesh. And you need to think about this and pray about it. This is not a denial or a contradiction of the doctrine of justification by faith. It is just a part of that doctrine. It's a very integral part of that doctrine. That if one is truly justified by faith, that faith will be working itself out by putting to death the deeds of the body. That is the condition. If one is to have life, he must be mortifying sin. If he is not mortifying sin, he will have death. And you see, this inevitable constant sequence to live after the flesh is inevitably to die. To mortify the deeds of the body is inevitably to live. Now, we're going to stop there. I regret that we can't continue on. We'll have to retrace our steps and pick up here and try to finish this one next time. And don't get discouraged. We're plowing through some basic, very basic things that we need to get a good handle on. And let's pray that God will instruct us. Father, help us to be very serious about this matter. Help us, Lord, to desire to get a good grasp on these truths. Lord, help us to think much about the words of this text, that if you live after the flesh, you must die. But if, through the Spirit, you mortify the deeds of the body, you will live. Open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of thy law. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.