A GREAT PROMISE
‘Sin shall not have dominion over you.’
Never think that a really religious life will go on by itself. There are a very great many things necessary to carry on a religious life.
I. All life worth the name, all spiritual life, is in Christ.—He is the life, and nothing lives but as it is in union with Christ. No branch can live unless joined to the tree. You must be in Christ, a real member of His mystical body. Then, as He says, ‘Because I live, ye shall live also.’ ‘As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.’ ‘I am the life.’ If you do not recognise and act out that principle, whatsoever be the position of your soul to Christ, before you can overcome, you will be bitterly taught how true and accurate it is that Christ and Christ only is life.
II. There must be the constant inward breathing of the Holy Spirit in you.—He must prompt, He must guide, He must strengthen, He must give both the will and the power, He must make you to understand, He must make you to love God’s Word, He must pray in you, He must reprove, He must encourage, He must impart grace to you as the sap gathers nourishment for the branch. Without these two grand truths you will never hold from your domineering sin. The only way to get rid of any ‘sin’ is to put God in His right place.
III. A life which is not under the dominion of Christ is under the dominion of some sin; and, if eternity were to dawn at this moment, the question with you would be, ‘Sin or Christ? Sin or Christ?’ More of sin and less of Christ, or more of Christ and less of sin? But remember, remember that heart of yours is, and is meant to be always, the seat of the kingdom of Christ.
Illustration
‘There is no master so wretched, there is no tyrant so cruel; there is no chain so fast and so galling; there is no bondage so degrading, as the “sin” which has “dominion.” ’