The second of six posts containing the substance of teaching given by Albert N. Martin at the 1984 Banner Youth Conference, presenting a basic biblical theology of the Christian life.<\/p>\n
I do not say that the Christian life is all tension and all conflict. The kind of teaching I am attempting to expose as fallacious is as follows:<\/p>\n
At a conference a speaker takes a text out of context to which he attaches or from which he extracts a shibboleth – perhaps the shibboleth of Christ living his life through us, or the saving life of Christ, or the abiding life. Then the preacher, having expounded his theory of the Christian life, gives an appeal like this: ‘Child of God, are you weary of the tension of wrestling with your remaining sin? Are you tired of struggling in prayer? Are you weary of having to battle with impure thoughts and thoughts of envy and pride and jealousy? Are you tired of this incessant conflict?’<\/p>\n
And every true Christian sits there with his fangs dripping, saying, ‘Oh God, you know I am tired, I would give anything to have one day, one day in which I did not have to battle with dullness of heart and distraction of mind and the seductions to sin that come from without and from within’.<\/p>\n
And the speaker then says ‘Ah, if you are tired of the tension, weary of the conflict, if you will but take these steps, then Christ will so live his life through you that it will be a life marked by the negation of tension and conflict. You will be so filled with the Spirit, so taken up in the Spirit, that tension and conflict for all intents and purposes will be a thing of the past as long as you maintain the posture of the abiding life. The moment you feel tension and conflict, it is because you slipped out of that life, back to your old ways.’<\/p>\n
Now that is not a caricature, that is spelled out in page after page, book after book. Beware of the writings of Watchman Nee! Beware of some of the writings of such as Norman Grubb and Hannah Whithall Smith. Beware of these writings, because if you take them seriously they could drive you either into a world of unreality or into a world of scepticism.<\/p>\n
Now what proof do I offer from the word of God for that proposition?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1. Because of the reality of indwelling sin with its incessant and powerful actions upon us.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Galatians 5:17: ‘The flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary the one to the other, so that you may not do the things that you would’. And Paul does not go on to say that there is a way to be utterly, totally delivered from that conscious\u00adness of tension and conflict.<\/p>\n He does tell us that we need not be dominated by the flesh: ‘Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh’. But he nowhere says that the consciousness of the flesh’s lusting will be negated, and where flesh is lusting against Spirit, there is conflict. I hold to the time-proven exegesis of Romans 7:14<\/p>\n I do not say that the Christian life is all tension and all conflict. The kind of teaching I am attempting to expose as fallacious is as follows: At a conference a speaker takes a text out of context to which he attaches or from which he extracts a shibboleth – perhaps the shibboleth of Christ living his life through us, or the saving life of Christ, or the abiding life. Then the preacher, having expounded his theory of the Christian life, gives an appeal like this: ‘Child of God, are you weary of the tension of wrestling with your remaining sin? Are you tired of struggling in prayer? Are you weary of having to battle with impure thoughts and thoughts of envy and pride and jealousy? Are you tired of this incessant conflict?’ And every true Christian sits there with his fangs dripping, saying, ‘Oh God, you know I am tired, I would give anything to have one day, one day in which I did not have to battle with dullness of heart and distraction of mind and the seductions to sin that come from without and from within’. And the speaker then says ‘Ah, if you are tired of the tension, weary of the conflict, if you will but take these steps’, then Christ will so live his life through you that it will be a life marked by the negation of tension and conflict. You will be so filled with the Spirit, so taken up in the Spirit, that tension and conflict for all intents and purposes will be a thing of the past as long as you maintain the posture of the abiding life. The moment you feel tension and conflict, it is because you slipped out of that life, back to your old ways. Now that is not a caricature, that is spelled out in page after page, book after book. Beware of the writings of Watchman Nee! Beware of some of the writings of such as Norman Grubb and Hannah Whithall Smith. Beware of these writings, because if you take them seriously they could drive you either into a world of unreality or into a world of scepticism.<\/p>\n Now what proof do I offer from the Word of God for that proposition?<\/p>\n 1. Because of the reality of indwelling sin with its incessant and powerful actions upon us.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Galatians 5:17: ‘The flesh is lusting against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these two are contrary the one to the other, so that you may not do the things that you would’. And Paul does not go on to say that there is a way to be utterly, totally delivered from that conscious\u00adness of tension and conflict. He does tell us that we need not be dominated by the flesh: ‘Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.’ But he nowhere says that the consciousness of the flesh’s lusting will be negated, and where flesh is lusting against Spirit, there is conflict.<\/p>\n I hold to the time-proven exegesis of Romans 7:14\u201325, which regards it as the description of the agonizing daily conflict of a regenerate man. ‘When I would do good,’ and it is precisely at the point where I would do good, ‘I find another law in my members.’<\/p>\n The more spiritual the activity you contemplate engaging in, the more powerful will be the actings of remaining sin against it. You come home at the end of a busy day and say ‘Well, I think I’ll just pick up the Times <\/em>and take in a little news.’ Do you ever feel a powerful surge of indwelling sin when you contemplate sitting down and just picking up the Times <\/em>and reading a little news? I never have! But you come home after a busy day and say to yourself, ‘I had only a few minutes in the word this morning, I think I will sit down and read my Bible for half an hour.’ What happens? All of a sudden this dullness comes over your mind and you say, ‘I didn’t realize I was so tired.’ A dullness creeps over your mind and you feel so totally unspiritual that you think it would dishonour God to read his word in that frame of mind. What is that? It is your indwelling sin<\/em>.<\/p>\n When you go on the ‘phone to talk to one of your friends you are tired, but after talking for five minutes about this, that and the other, suddenly your mind is alert and your tongue is flowing just a mile a minute. But decide to go and spend five minutes in prayer and what happens? Your mind is dull and distracted and your tongue feels as thick and lifeless as a glob of meat hanging in the butcher’s shop. God says that indwelling sin is going to be your unwelcome companion till the day you cross the river and enter the celestial city. That is why there is no release from tension and conflict in the Christian life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. There is the world with its restless, aggressive pressure upon us. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Romans 12:2: ‘And be not conformed to this world.’ [J. B.] Phillips’ trans\u00adlation, or paraphrase, accurately catches the mind of the Spirit in that passage: ‘Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mould.’ This world’s system is life in the totality of its organized existence devoid of God, hostile to his word and his law. That is what the world\u00a0is<\/em> with its standards, its goals, its opinions, its mind-set, its people, its philosophy. It is the totality of unregenerate humanity in opposition to God. The Scripture makes plain that the world has never signed a treaty with those who have been delivered from it. It is aggressively and continually exerting pressure to squeeze us into its mould. The world cannot stand it when someone thinks contrary to its accepted canons. The world says that what counts is what you see and what you have in your bank account and what you have on your body and what you have in terms of title to homes and lands. God says what counts is the treasure that you have in heaven. The world says that what counts is that you have got your act together externally and that you are a head-turner. God says that what counts is the hidden beauty of the heart. And as long as the world exists in its aggressive restless pressure upon the believer there is going to be tension, there is going to be conflict. That is why John had to write 1 John 2:15\u201317: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof but he that is doing the will of God abides forever.’<\/p>\n One of the things that is frightening to me, and I am old enough to have seen this happen, is that I look out on the faces of young men and women and I wonder how many of those who now show a refreshing wholesome enthusiasm for the things of God will in ten years time be as dead as a dodo in spiritual things. What will make the difference? Jesus said that some receive the word, but as in a plot of land that receives good seed, the weeds grow up and they choke that plant. You know what Jesus said the weeds were? The cares of this world and the lusts of other things enter in and they choke the word. The world hates you if your life-style is a markedly contrasting life-style that exposes its vanity. If you hold things loosely and if you are not living for things and for station and ambition, and your great passion is that your life will be so controlled by Jesus Christ and poured out in the purposes of his kingdom that your life will count and you will have treasures in heaven, you are a constant irritation to the world and the world will never be content until you are just like one of them. If you have got just a little bit of religion to make you respectable, the world will love you all the more because then you are a monument of its philosophy.<\/p>\n There is no escape from conflict and tension, but as the years pass and habits of godliness are established, does it not get easier? I have seen half a century and thirty-two of those years have been spent in the way of grace and I tell you, the battle rages more fiercely as I come down the other end of the road than ever it did at the beginning. Old Bunyan had it right, there was no rest till they were carried across the river.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3. There is the devil with his vicious, devouring intentions.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n 1 Peter 5:8: ‘Be sober, be vigilant, your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking’ …to be a spectacle outside of the zoo? No, he’s in business. The business of attracting attention to himself? He walks about seeking whom he may…what? Simply bite and leave a few fang marks? No! ‘seeking whom he may devour’. <\/em>He is out to devour you. That is why James said in James 4:8: ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you’. Remember Ephesians 6:12. Our wrestling\u2014our agony, our hand-to-\u00adhand combat, the agony of spiritual struggle \u2014is not with flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, and Paul does not say that it is until you get a glorious baptism of the Holy Ghost and then it is all over! Or that it is until you go to a conference and learn the secret of the abiding life and then it is all over! Or that it is until you read Watchman Nee’s book, Sit, Walk, Stand, <\/em>and then you are in! No! As long as you are a true Christian in touch with reality, the devil is out to devour you with an unprincipled fiendish viciousness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4. We are saved in hope.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n We are saved in the context in which the best is yet to come<\/em>. All we have now is the down-payment. Notice how this works. When God is done with you what are you going to be like? According to the Bible, you are going to be like Jesus Christ. You are going to have a body fashioned like his glorious body [Phil. 3:21]. You are going to have a spirit that is fashioned like unto his. You will not be God, but every last fibre of inbred sin will be purged from you so that you will have the capacity to love perfectly in keeping with your capacity as a creature. Think of it! Not to go through just a day, but to go through a succession of aeons, and never have a distracting thought, an impure thought, a jealous thought! God has marked us for perfection\u2014a mind and a spirit unstained with sin, a body capable of carrying out all the impulses of a perfectly holy heart. You know those times when the Lord is especially precious and near and your spirit fain would leap out of this body and serve him as an angel. The thought of an hour of unbroken communion with him is sheer delight, but you find after twenty minutes that weariness steals over your body and there is distraction and dullness. You see, we are marked for perfection in body and in spirit but God has not ordained to give us that perfection now. What is the result? Tension! Because we are saved in hope and hope is not yet realized, there is tension, there is conflict. We often think, what must it have been like if we could have been in a home where the Apostle Paul lived or stayed on one of his journeys, and sneaked up to the door of the room where he was praying one morning. Oh, what would it have been to hear this man pray! Well, you know what it would have been like some mornings? You would have heard groaning! You say to yourself, this must not be Paul’s room so I had better try another one! No, it is Paul’s. He says in 2 Corinthians 5: ‘We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened’. There were times when he groaned because in that holy heart transformed by grace there was this burning passion to serve Christ. But he had a body described in 2 Corinthians 4:17: ‘The outward man is decaying day by day,’ and he groaned. Romans 8 tells us the same thing, ‘The whole creation groans and travails until now. And not only so, but we ourselves who have the first-fruits of the spirit groan within ourselves, longing for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.’ That sounds like conflict and tension, and rather than being a sign of an unspiritual frame, it is a sign of wholesome spirituality. There are groans and sighs that are the mark of a wholesome piety. There is no escape from tension\u2014if you think you have attained an escape you are out of touch with reality.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Albert N. Martin (1934\u20132026) was a pastor and preacher whose penetrating exposition of God\u2019s word has been a transformative influence on many. His noted lectures on pastoral theology, originally given at Trinity Ministerial Academy, can be accessed in\u00a0mp3<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0book format<\/a>. Al Martin is the author of four booklets published by the Trust \u2013\u00a0A Life of Principled Obedience<\/a>,\u00a0Living the Christian Life\u00a0<\/a>(a booklet comprising the content of this six-part series),\u00a0The Practical Implications of Calvinism<\/a><\/em>, and\u00a0What\u2019s Wrong with Preaching Today?\u00a0<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Look out for the remaining four posts coming in the next two weeks.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The second of six posts containing the substance of teaching given by Albert N. Martin at the 1984 Banner Youth Conference, presenting a basic biblical theology of the Christian life. Principle 2: There is no escape from tension and conflict in living the Christian life. I do not say that the Christian life is all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65473,"featured_media":297255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"resource-author":[21020],"topic":[4905],"class_list":["post-297254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","resource-author-albert-n-martin","topic-christian-living-3"],"yoast_head":"\n