BOUGHT WITH A PRICE

Let us assume that you are utterly ignorant of the gospel — of its doctrines, its promises, its precepts, its motives, its general influence and power upon the heart. Let us assume that you are called upon to lay down some plan whereby man might be restrained from the commission of some crime, and influences to the practice of every social and moral virtur. What plan would you adopt? You would make crime the object of severe punishment in proportion to the offence. You would propose certain rewards to virtue and good actions, graduated according to a rising scale. You would do this that on the one hand you might by punishment deter some men from committing a crime, and on the other by suitable rewards induce them to virtue.

Well, after you had done all this, it would be nothing more than has been attempted down through the ages by the law of the land, except that they have omitted the reward.

Take another case. I will assume that you are ignorant of the gospel and of God’s ways of preventing evil and bringing about good and were called upon to present some plan whereby man might most effectually be restrained from the commission of sin, and made obedient to the law of God. What plan would it be? Maybe you would lay down strict rules of life; you would appoint certain seasons of prayer and meditation; you would call upon a man to withdraw himself from all worldly society. You would prescribe to him a certain course or path or religious exercise in which he is to walk all the days of his life — that of fasting, self-denial, and continual mortification of the flesh. That he may be tame and subdue his rebellious lusts, and attain unto perfection and holiness.

Of course we assume that you are entirely ignorant of the gospel. Now this is just what Popery has done all these years. Monasteries and nunneries evidence it in both hemispheres. For centuries the wisdom of man has labored hard to restrain men from evil and to bring forth in them that which is good. And how have these attempts succeeded? There is not less crime or immorality or theft or violence or murder. Severe laws have not changed carnal nature. The very laws of God with all the terrible penalties have brought no change for the better in carnal nature. Rather these laws have put fresh life into sin, for without the law sin was dead. So no law of Moses or of man can restrain and subdue sin and bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness.

Now we assume that you know something spiritually and experimentally of the gospel; that you have been led to see, that what is called the moral law never has been able to subdue sin for the carnal mind is not subject to it, neither indeed can be; that though holy in itself, for the law is holy and just and good, it has never produced any inward sanctification of soul and spirit; that all its works are dead works, and that though the soul is naturally welded to it, it has never yielded thereby a living offspring or brought forth fruit acceptable to God. Why? Because the law had no power to save. It demanded a relentless obedience in all its points. The slightest infraction of which made the offender guilty of all. Then there was the nature of sin and the sins of nature in the weakness of the flesh because of inherited sin, and the inability of the creature to offer an acceptable sacrifice. You may have tried to keep it. It is your duty to keep the moral law or decalogue, but all you have reaped from it has been hard bondage, guilt, doubt and fear. You have never by it obtained one gleam of mercy, one answer to prayer, one gleam of God’s countenance. Why? Because the law is not of faith, but he that doeth these things shall live by them. If you have had any gleam of light, or felt any visitation of Jesus, it is because some beams of the gospel have shined into your soul.

Now let us assume that you have tasted, felt and handled something of the sweetness and power of the gospel, and so you are enabled to show from your own experience of the power, the effect which the gospel has had upon your life, and how you have been enabled to speak the pure language of Canaan.

“Ye are not your own.” Why are you not your own? You are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God’s.

To whom is God speaking here? To His people, His redeemed people; those who know the truth by its application to their hearts with a divine power. It was to such that the epistles were written.

We will now note the declaration of God in our text. ‘Ye are not your own.” The thought is this, that once we were our own, or at least we thought we were. We professed liberty when we really were in the hardest, closest bondage. We thought we had no master when we were serving the hardest of masters. We boasted of our freedom, that we could do what we liked, and say what we pleased, without being called to account for it by anyone; that we could roam at will like a bee from flower to flower, sucking up the sweets of sin and promising to ourselves as rich a feast on the morrow as we were enjoying today. We little dreamed that all the time sin held us fast in fetters which, though they seemed made of silk, yet were of iron. Now we were our own lord and master. If our body was not our own, our soul was. If the hand were bound to work for a master to earn a living, thought was free; if the day claimed us for a servant, night was ours; and with the setting of the sun came the rising of pleasure and amusement. The idea of independence was sweet to us, and to be dependent upon any one, even upon the God that made us, was a slavery too galling for our proud heart to bear.

But now assume that grace has made us free from this fancied independence, but real slavery; that the gospel has been made the word of salvation to our souls; that we have been brought under new obligations; live under fresh constraints; are influenced by different motives, are led by another spirit, and are brought into a child-like dependence upon God, both in providence and in grace, we can feel the force of the words, “Ye are not your own,” etc.

There was a time when you thought you were your own, and would have resented the idea of being under bondage to any man. This was exactly the feeling of the Jews when the Lord said to them, “If ye continue in My word, then are you My disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” What was their proud reply? They answered Him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man, though at the very time they were in bondage to Caesar, as regards their bodies, and to sin as regarded their souls. Our Lord said therefore to them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. It is a rule in both grace and nature, in things spiritual and in things temporal, that he is our master whom we serve, as the apostle says, “Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. We cannot be free when we are slaves to pride and lust, and it is a positive act of rebellion against God to claim freedom from Him, and to say with the wicked men of old, Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us?” (Psa. 12:4)

Now can you not look back upon a time when you served hard masters, and yet loved their service? The world had possession of your affections; sin domineered, rioted, and raged in your carnal heart; self was uppermost in your thoughts and desires, and whatever line of conduct it prompted or commanded, you obeyed. Now when you were under these hard masters, though their servitude was sweet to you as long as you thought you were your own, you could do, to a certain extent, as you pleased with yourself. Your jailer, though he watched you every moment like a cat that is ready to jump on a wounded mouse, yet gave you a certain latitude, knowing thereby you could more effectually do his work and bind his chains more strongly around your neck. In this way, your time, your talents, your money, the members of your body, the faculties of your mind were your own, and you could spend your time as you pleased, use your abilities as you thought best, use the members of your natural body to minister to your natural desires. And in all these there was no one to check on you at any time, to call you to account for what you said or did. You did not see that all this time sin was rooted in your heart, was your master and ruled and governed you.

Nor did you see what ignorance and blindness held your eyes in the grossest darkness. Thus you fancied you were free when you were the bondslave of Satan. But now assume that you have been brought out of this miserable bondage, and have been convinced of sin by the law, and have been brought in guilty, have found peace and pardon through the blood of Jesus, do you not see that it has liberated you from this miserable bondage to sin, Satan, self, and the world, which I have just described?

The Lord has given you mental or spiritual abilities. Now these abilities, be they great or small, are not your own. You are not to use your faculties in the service of sin, of self, of Satan or lhe world, as though grace had no claim upon you.

Gifts are to be devoted to the service of Him from whom they came. Again, your money is not your own. You may not spend it just as you please without check of conscience, without restraint of godly fear, without putting yourself to any inquiry how far you are spending it aright. You should be like a miser who looks at every shilling before he parts with it. Possibly it may be that one reason why God’s people have so little money to spend is that they may be made to feel dependence upon God the more. But even if we have money, we are not to throw it here and there to gratify the flesh, and to please pride. You are a steward over the money you have, and if you have much, you are responsible for it to use it right.

The faculties of your body are not more your own than the faculties of your mind. Your eyes are not your own, that you may feed your lusts and delight in the vain fashions, and coveting what is unbecoming to your profession.

Your ears are not your own, that you may listen to every foolish tale and drink in every political worldly or carnal report and feed upon it to the exclusion of things spiritual.

Your tongue is not your own that you may speak what you please and blurt out what passes in the chambers of your heart without check or fear.

Your hand is not your own that you may use it as an implement of evil. Our hands are not given us for sin, but for godly uses.

Your feet are not your own, that you may walk in the ways of the world, or that they should carry you to the places or resorts where you will not find the company or the countenance of the children of God, and where all around are engaged in errands of vanity and sin. So looking at these things with a gospel eye, we can see that there is not a thing belonging to us as a gift from God that we can really call our own.

But perhaps you will say in the rebellion of your heart, “Can not we look with our eyes as we like, hear with our ears as we please, and speak with our tongues as we choose?” Or again, “Will you so narrow our path that we are to have nothing of our own, not even our time or money or soul? Surely we may have a little recreation now and then, a little holiday sometimes, a little relaxation from being so religious, a little feeling of our carnal mind which cannot bear restraint? Well, but what will you bring upon yourself by the roving eye, the foolish tongue, the loose hand, the straying foot? Why, the answer: Darkness, bondage, misery, bondage, guilt and death. Now there is gospel liberty, but not liberty to sin, not liberty to gratify the lusts of the flesh, not liberty to act contrary to the gospel we profess. What do you gain by breaking away from gospel precepts? Why, contamination with the world.

Let us assume that on a Sunday in service, you sat under the preached word cold and dead to the gospel truth; that though the words in some degree enter your mind, yet they touch no secret spring of inward grace, move no tender feeling, bring no life or power into your heart. Are you happy with all this coldness and insensibility? Do you feel in the right place that you are now so much your own, and are not bound to give me your ears or your heart, but are taking a holiday to relax in? Is it a matter of indifference whether the word should reach your heart, comfort you in your trouble, and be a word of encouragement, or whether it be to you mere words with no heart import?

What meaning in the word, “Ye are not your own!” Remember, you must be someone’s. If God is not your master the devil will be. If grace does not rule, sin will reign; if Christ is not your all in all, the world will be. Someone will have us. Which is best, a bounteous Benefactor, such as God has shown Himself to be, a merciful loving parent, a kind forgiving Father and Friend, a faithful Redeemer to protect us and preserve us, or a cruel devil, a miserable world, and a wicked vile, abominable heart. Which is better, to live under the restraints of the love of Christ or to walk in fancied liberty with sin on our heart?

Old Faith Contender

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