Octavius Winslow

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UNDER THE DOMINION AND POWER OF SATAN

“A gruesome death like the one that Christ endured for me would only be required for one who is exceedingly sinful and unable to appease a holy God” Milton Vincent (ref#60, p33).

“[T]he awful condition of the unconverted. [They are] under the dominion and power of Satan, led captive by him at his will (2 Tim 2:26)” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—“ (Eph 2:1-2 ESV).

“[T]o live under the dominion of sin connotes a settled course of life” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p71).

“[I]t is a faithful portrait of you, if you are yet not born again of the Spirit. The strong man armed, who is the devil, has still the full possession of your soul and will remain in undisputed, and willing occupation until a stronger than he enters, spoils him of his goods, and casts him out. It is his aim and policy to keep your soul in carnal security, in false peace, in the stillness and insensibility of spiritual death. Mistake not rash confidence for humble faith, groundless expectation for assured hope! Satan is a great counterfeiter! He not only can quote Scripture, but he can imitate grace” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p46).

“As long as you are in the position of trying to justify yourself, you have not repented” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 29th).

“If you have quit being defensive and are now willingly and humbly approachable, you know that transforming grace has visited you. Sin makes us all shockingly self-righteous. It makes us all committed self-excusers. Because accepting blame is not natural, it takes rescuing, transforming grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, help-seeking heart” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Apr 26th).

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He changes; I trust

TWO WAYS TO REACT TO SIN

“[T]he problem of man with respect to God is not only the problem of the guilt of sin. Merely to be forgiven is not enough; we have to keep the law of God that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. [B]ut we have not kept it; we cannot do so, and we can only keep it in Him. He has kept the law for us” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p54).

“You can’t try to be better than you really are. [Y]ou try to re-create yourself by becoming spiritual. Jesus said that he came for sinners, for messed-up people who keep messing up” Paul E. Miller (ref#62, p33-34).

“Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p16-17).

Two ways to react to sin: concern to how it affects humans and concern to how it affects GOD: “In the one case, the heart is only mortified; in the other, it is truly humbled. The one is a feeling that deals only with others; the other is an emotion that has to do with God. Once the believer is solemnly conscious of acting beneath the eye of God, the gaze of other eyes barely affects him. Oh, how little do some who profess faith act as though they had only to do with God! How imperfectly do they look at sin as God looks at it! But if they lived more with the Lord always before them, how would they rise above the poor opinions of others! It would then appear a very little matter for them to be judged with man’s judgment” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Apr 16th).

This is what happens to my sin when I concentrate on JESUS: I remember that I am a new creature—a person who does not desire to sin—a person who is more interested in maintaining a relationship with JESUS than striving to be righteous. Do I want to be right, or do I want to be with JESUS? For the more I love Him the more I want to please Him. St. Augustine one said, “Love God and live as you please.”

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EXCEEDING EVIL OF SIN

“God’s grace is active, rescuing, transformative grace. You celebrate this by being as serious about your need as the God of this grace is. God took sin so seriously that he did two things when the first transgression occurred—he immediately meted out punishment and he immediately set in motion his plan of rescue and redemption. Both demonstrate God’s seriousness about what we all too easily deny or minimize” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, June 5th).

“[T]he truth of what the Word of God declares concerning the exceeding evil of sin; for the same eye that discerns the transcendent beauty of holiness necessarily therein sees the exceeding odiousness of sin; the same taste which relishes the sweetness of true moral good tastes the bitterness of moral evil. And by this means a man sees his own sinfulness and loathsomeness; for he has now a sense to discern objects of this nature, and so sees the truth of what the Word of God declares concerning the exceeding sinfulness of mankind, which before he did not see. He now sees the dreadful pollution of his heart; and this shows him the truth of what the Scripture reveals concerning his nature, and his need of a Savior” Jonathan Edwards (ref#229, p83).

“Why did the Son of God come into this world of sin? He came ‘to save that which was lost’, to provide pardon and forgiveness of sin by the shedding of His own blood and the breaking of His own body upon the cross. If I say I have no sin, I am denying the incarnation, the death and the resurrection—I am making God a liar” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p113).

“[F]ailure to realise that we as sinners need forgiveness is the failure to realise the nature of sin, to grasp that our own natures are sinful and to understand that we have all actually sinned and need forgiveness” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p113).

“Corruption does not lie dormant in the Christian: though it reigns not supreme (because of a principle of grace to oppose it) yet it molests and often prevails to a very considerable extent. Because of this the Christian is called upon to wage a constant warfare against it: to ‘mortify’ it, to struggle against its inclinations and deny its solicitations” A.W. Pink (ref#269, p112).

“[W]hen divine justice is seen requiring the very heart’s blood of God’s only son in order to quench its infinite need for satisfaction; when God in Christ is seen in His humiliation, suffering, and death, all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin; how fearful a sin against this holy Lord God seems! Do not be discouraged if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart’s hidden evil” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Aug 13th).

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SIN AGAINST A HOLY GOD

“Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Ps 51:4 ESV).

“David does not deny that he has sinned against the others, but here he is going a step further. He realizes that his actions are not simply actions in and of themselves. He sees that they not only affect and involve other people, but their real essence is that he has sinned against God” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#189, Dec 28th).

“[L]ook at sin as an offense against a holy God, instead of a personal defeat. It is only as we see His holiness, His absolute purity and moral hatred of sin, that we will be gripped by the awfulness of sin against the Holy God” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p20).

“Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To demonstrate the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such sacrifice could remove it and be consistent with the glory of the divine nature and the honor of the divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. If we avert our eye from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, confessed without sorrow. But when divine justice is seen, requiring the very heart’s blood of God’s only Son in order to satisfy its infinite requirements, how fearful sin against this holy Lord God becomes! Cultivate a constant, ardent thirst for holiness” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, July 24th).

“God does not require a perfect, sinless life to have fellowship with Him, but He does require that we be serious about holiness, that we grieve over sin in our lives instead of justifying it, and that we earnestly pursue holiness as a way of life” Jerry Bridges (ref#244, p36).

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SCRIPTURE

“Let us learn from this single fact if we learn nothing else. [T]he high authority of the Bible and the immense value of a knowledge of its contents. Let us read it, search into it, pray over it, diligently, perseveringly, unweariedly. Let us strive to be so thoroughly acquainted with its pages that its text may abide in our memories and stand ready at our right hand in the day of need. The Bible is indeed a sword, but we must take heed that we know it well if we would use it with effect” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).

“Learn to meet Satan’s suggestions, to answer his arguments, and to repel his temptations by the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ . . .He too can quote and apply Scripture, only to misquote and misapply it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42).

“Our whole life is beset with temptations. Satan watches all opportunities to break our peace, to wound our consciences, to lessen our comforts, to impair our graces, to slur our evidences, and to damp our assurances, etc. Oh! What need, then, have we to be always upon our watchtower so that we keep close to God and His Word” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p35).

“Lend not your ear for a moment to a temptation that comes clad in Scripture authority. Suspect Satan. The Word of God is very pure. It is on the side of holiness, of uprightness, of goodness, of love. It teaches the protection, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of Jesus. It unfolds many exceeding great and precious promises; announces many gracious and free invitations; and it is designed to support the tempted, to comfort the mourner, to soothe the sorrowful, to hold out the promise of pardon to the guilty, salvation to the lost, and to reveal the hope of glory to all those who humbly and simply believe in Christ. The moment, then, beloved, that a text of God’s Word is suggested to your thoughts in favor of sin, of distrust of God, of disbelief of Christ, of self-injury, repel it” Octavius Winslow (ref#381, p42-43).

“If you would not be taken by any of Satan’s devices, then walk by rule [of the Word]. When men throw off the Word, then God throws them off; then, Satan takes them by the hand and leads them into snares at his pleasure. He that thinks himself too good to be ruled by the Word will be found too bad to be owned by God” Thomas Brooks (ref#379, p32).

“Labor to remember what you read, Satan would steal the Word out of your mind. [R]eading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart. The only cause why you forget so fast as you hear is because you went from sermon to dinner, and never thought any more of the matter” Henry Smith (ref#225, p246).

“He Who was ‘fully of the Holy Ghost’ was yet not ashamed to make the Holy Scripture His weapon of defense and His rule of action” J.C. Ryle (ref#374, p13).

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FEAR OF GOD

“Do you hope in the one you fear and fear the one you hope in” John Piper (ref #220, p197)?

“[T]he LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread” (Isa 8:13 ESV).

“When the fear of God overwhelms and controls your heart, it protects you from the paralyzing and debilitating fear of other things” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Aug 26th).

“[F]ear reflects the greatness of his power and our hope reflects the bounty of his grace. God delights in those responses which mirror his magnificence. This is just what we would have expected from a God who is all-sufficient in himself and has no need of us—a God who will never give up the glory of being the fountain of all joy, who will never surrender the honor of being the source of all safety, who will never abdicate the throne of sovereign grace. God has pleasure in those who hope in his love because that hope highlights the freedom of his grace. When I cry out, ‘God is my only hope, my rock, my refuge!’ I am turning from myself and calling all attention to the boundless resources of God” John Piper (ref# 220, p199).

“’The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him,’ and to fear Him is not to dread Him as a slave, but, as a child, to walk blameless in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Sept 30).

“What kind of response can God demand from us so that the demand gives good news to us and glory to him? This is the answer: the demand to hope in his love with an earnest, profound sense of his awesome power: John Piper (ref#220, p199).

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love cast out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (1 John 4:18 ESV).

“[W]hen you hope in God you show that he is strong and you are weak; that he is rich and you are poor; that he is full and you are empty. When you hope in God you show that you are the one who has needs, not God” John Piper (ref#220, p200).

“Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence, assured of his glad welcome” (Eph 3:12 NLT).

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REALIZING THE TRUTH ABOUT MYSELF

“To be humble as we should be, we must know ourselves. There must be no disguising of our true condition from ourselves or from God. Where love declines, there must be a cause; and, when found, it must be immediately removed” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Jul 16th).

“Some people feel pure, but they are filthy and unwashed” (Prov 30:11-12 NLT).

“[T]here is none who does good, not even one” (Ps 53:3 ESV).

“[T]here is only one way I know to realise the love of God, and that is to realise the truth about myself. We have to be made worse before we can be made better; there are times when we have to be cruel to be kind. We may have to clean that wound before we can put in the oil that will soothe it. We must get rid of certain things, and that is a painful process. Therefore, the highway to realising the love of God is to realise the truth about ourselves. [T]hat is to realise that you are a hopeless, damned sinner, that you can do nothing about yourself. You can never put yourself right; you can never make yourself fit to stand in the presence of God. You must realise that you are altogether lost and undone and heading straight for hell, and that is where you would arrive, were it not that God in His infinite, everlasting love sent His only begotten Son not only into the world, but to the cruel death of the cross, so that you might be forgiven, that you might be saved” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#332, p524).

“God loves: an open, honest confession of sin. Though He searches and knows all hearts, He yet delights in the frank and detailed acknowledgment of sin from His backsliding child. Is this all He requires of His poor wandering child? That is all! I am a backslider, a wanderer, a prodigal. I have strayed from Thee like a lost sheep. My love has waxed cold, my steps have slackened in the path of holy obedience, my mind has yielded to the corrupting, deadening influence of the world, and my affections have wandered in search of other earthly objects of delight. [A]ll we do is defaced with sin” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Jul 17th).

“ [S]top having fellowship with the unfruitful works of this darkness, but rather be rebuking them so as to bring out confession and conviction” (Eph 5:11 Wuest)

“Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression” (Ps 19:13 ESV).

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GRACE TO BE HONEST ABOUT OUR SIN

“I am not really that excited about grace. Why? Because I have convinced myself that I don’t really need the rescue and forgiveness that grace offers. And to the degree that I am able to work myself into believing that I am righteous, I have less esteem for the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is the only righteousness with which I can stand before God. [S]elf-righteousness stands in the way of that grace having functional and transformative value in my life” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, May 18th).

“Here was my functional theology of my life as a child of God: I knew that by grace I had been granted God’s forgiveness and I knew that I had been graced with an all-inclusive pass into eternity, but I thought that between now and then, my job was to just gut it out. It was my responsibility to identify sin, to cut it out of my life, and to give myself to living in a much better, more biblical way. I tried this, trust me; I tried it and found it didn’t work” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 7th).

“How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort” (Gal 3:3 NLT).

“[I]t is a right affection if we desire to do well; if we hate sin, though we falter, seeing our purpose is good; and if we strive to go forward in the fear of God and in obedience to his will. Jesus Christ then accounts us as though we were just; he frees us from all our faults and does not charge them to our account. The faithful, though they are not entirely perfect and though they have many sins, are considered to be God’s children. Jesus Christ considers it no dishonor that they are called by his name, for he causes the goodness that is in them and through his grace makes them acceptable to God” John Calvin (ref#164, Nov 10th).

“We must keep going back to His grace. Only the grace of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ will give us the courage to get up again and keep on going even after we have failed for the umpteenth time. It is only grace that will allow us to be as honest about our sin as David was about his” Jerry Bridges (ref#192, p206).

 “[J]ust as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification” (Rom 6:19 ESV).

“Here is one of the most beautiful fruits of grace—a heart that is content, more given to worship than demand and more given to the joy of gratitude than the anxiety of want. It is grace and grace alone that can make this kind of peaceful living possible for each of us” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Jan 6th).

“Make no allowance for sin, frame no excuses for inactivity, shrink from no cross, be disheartened by no difficulty, give place to no temptation, yield to no excessive grief” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Mar 28th).

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SINNERS SAVED BY GRACE

“Grace has given you a fleshy heart, one that is moldable by transforming grace. [W]hen you sin your conscience bothers you. [O]r you can erect some system of self-justification that makes what God says is wrong acceptable to your conscience. We are all so good at doing this. We are good at pointing to something or someone who justifies what we have done. What is deadly about this is that when you convince yourself that you are righteous, you quit seeking the grace that is your only hope in life or death. We are all in daily and desperate need of forgiving, rescuing, transforming, and delivering grace” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, March 30th).

“The battle with indwelling evil is still waged, the loving chastisement of a Father is still experienced, self-condemnation is still felt yet ’No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 8:1). The freedom of the believer is just what it is declared to be—entire exemption from condemnation” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, Nov 5th).

“Today you are not alone against temptation because the One who is your Savior is also your fortress, your hiding place, and your defense. [Y]ou live in a world that has been dramatically broken by sin and does not function the way God intended. Because the world you live in isn’t operating as per God’s original design, it presents you with temptations everywhere you live. These temptations play to the sin and weakness that still lives inside you and that is being progressively eradicated by God’s transforming grace. [E]ven though we are God’s children, we lack the power on our own to fight the spiritual battles in which the world of sin and temptation engages us. As we face our vulnerability and weakness, there are things you and I should pray for regularly. We should pray for purity of desire, wisdom to recognize the enemy’s tricks, and strength to fight the battles we can’t avoid. [W]e need protection, not just from external temptation but from our own blind eyes and wandering hearts. [W]e are never, ever alone. God is with us He provides the safety we could never provide for ourselves. He fights on our behalf even when we don’t have the sense to resist” Paul David Tripp (ref#190, Feb 2nd).

“We know that none of the God-born makes a practice of sin—fatal sin. The God-born are also the God-protected. The Evil One can’t lay a hand on them. We know that we are held firm by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the Evil One” (1 John 5:18-21 MSG).

“Your sins and mine do not any longer belong to us; they have been taken from us; He has made Himself responsible for them. He is bearing away my sins and yours” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (ref#211, p55).

“[H]e walked through my death. And he didn’t simply die. He was condemned. He didn’t simply leave heaven for me; he endured hell for me. He, not deserving to be condemned, absorbed it in my place—I, who alone deserved it. That is his heart” Dane Ortland (ref#382, p192).

TRUE CHRISTIAN OR FAUX?

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PHARISEES

“…others…have strained after holiness of life, but have denied the faith, like the Pharisees of old” Charles Spurgeon (ref#34, Sept 18th AM).

“…few people are aware how far an individual may go—not merely in an outward change of character and an external union to Christ, but in a strong resemblance to the positive and manifest evidences of the new birth—without actually possessing any of them….the soul…the will…and the heart…are all unrenewed by the Holy Spirit….It is surprising how far an outwardly moral individual may seem to progress—spiritual knowledge, eminent gifts, and even great usefulness—while yet retaining the carnal mind, the rebellious will, the unhumbled and unbroken heart….we should be perpetually beguiled into the belief that a head filled with rational, theoretical truth must necessarily be connected with some degree of divine grace in the heart… let no man be so deceived as to substitute knowledge for grace” Octavius Winslow (ref#135, May 7th).

An outward man may have occasionally slight works of the SPIRIT.  The SPIRIT may be present to convict him by not convert him.  “True conversion and repentance consists of a true and thorough change of the whole man, whereby not only some actions are changed, but first and chiefly the whole frame and disposition of the heart is changed.  He is now set aright toward God, from evil to good, as well as from darkness to light (Eph 4:22-24)” Henry Scudder (ref#225, Oct 11th).

A characteristic of a Christian is: “He cannot prevent bad thoughts from entering his mind, or shortcomings, omissions, and defects from appearing in both his words and his actions….But…his whole nature does not consent to them” J.C. Ryle (ref#222).

“The believer’s calling is to think and feel and will just what Jesus thought and felt and willed” Andrew Murray (ref#266, p154).