confined within this narrow house, man; suppose the two were compelled to live together, can you imagine to what a desperate pitch of fury these two would have with one another. The evil thing says, “I will turn you out, you intruder; I cannot be peaceful as I wish, I cannot riot as I wish, I cannot indulge just as I wish; out with you, I will never be content until I kill you.” “No,” says the new born nature, “I will kill you, and drive you out. I will not allow any stick or stone of you to remain. I have sworn war to the death with you; I have taken out the sword and cast away the scabbard, and will never rest until I can sing of a complete victory over you, and totally eject you from this house of mine.” They are always at enmity wherever they are; they were never friends, and never can be. The evil must hate the good, and the good must hate the evil.
11. And note although we might compare the enmity to the wolf and lamb, yet the new born nature is not the lamb in all respects. It may be in its innocence and meekness, but it is not in its strength; for the new born nature has all the omnipotence of God about it, while the old nature has all the strength of the evil one in it, which is a strength not easily to be exaggerated, but which we very frequently underestimate. These two things are always desperately at enmity with one another. And even when they are both quiet, they hate each other none the less. When my evil nature does not rise, still it hates the newborn nature, and when the new born nature is inactive, it has nevertheless a thorough abhorrence of all iniquity. The one cannot endure the other; it must endeavour to throw it out. Nor do these at any time allow an opportunity to pass from being revenged upon one another. There are times when the old nature is very active, and then how it plies all the weapons of its deadly armoury against the Christian. You will find yourselves at one time suddenly attacked with anger, and when you guard yourself against the hot temptation, suddenly you will find pride rising, and you will begin to say in yourself; “Am I not a good man to have kept my temper down?” And the moment you thrust down your pride there will come another temptation, and lust will look out of the window of your eyes, and you desire a thing upon which you ought not to look, and before you can shut your eyes upon the vanity, sloth in its deadly lethargy surrounds you, and you surrender to its influence and cease to labour for God. And then when you bestir yourselves once more, you find that in the very attempt to rouse yourself you have awakened your pride. Evil haunts you no matter where you may go, or stands up no matter what posture you choose. On the other hand the new nature will never lose an opportunity of putting down the old. As for the means of grace, the newborn nature will never rest satisfied unless it enjoys them. As for prayer, it will seek by prayer to wrestle with the enemy. It will employ faith, and hope, and love, the threatenings, the promises, providence, grace, and everything else to cast out the evil. “Well,” one says, “I do not find it so.” Then I am afraid for you. If you do not hate sin so much that you do everything to drive it out, I am afraid you are not a living child of God. Antinomians like to hear you preach about the evil of the heart, but here is the fault with them, they do not like to be told that unless they hate that evil, unless they seek to drive it out, and unless it is the constant disposition of their new born nature to root it up, they are yet in their sins. Men who only believe their depravity, but do not hate it, are no further than the devil on the road to heaven. It is not my being corrupt that proves me to be a Christian, nor knowing I am corrupt, but that I hate my corruption. It is my agonizing death struggle with my corruptions that proves me to be a living child of God. These two natures will never cease to struggle as long as we are in this world. The old nature will never give up; it will never cry truce, it will never ask for a treaty to be made between the two. It will always strike as often as it can. When it lies still it will only be preparing for some future battle. The battle of Christian with Apollyon lasted three hours; but the battle of Christian with himself lasted all the way from the Wicket Gate to the Jordan River. The enemy within can never be driven out while we are here. Satan may sometimes be absent from us, and get such a defeat that he is glad to go howling back to his den, but old Adam still remains with us from the first even to the last. He was with us when we first believed in Jesus, and long before that, and he will be with us until that moment when we shall leave our bones in the grave, our fears in the Jordan, and our sins in oblivion.
12. Once more observe, that neither of these two natures will be content in the fight without bringing in allies to assist. The evil nature has old relations, and in its endeavour to drive out the grace that is within, it sends off messengers to all its helpers. Like Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, it brings other kings with it, when it goes out to battle. “Ah!” says old Adam, “I have friends in the pit.” He sends a message down to the depths, and willing allies come up from it — spirits from the vasty deep of hell; demons without number come up to help their brother. And then, not content with that, the flesh says: — “Ah! I have friends in this world”; and then the world sends its fierce cohorts of temptation, such as the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. What a battle, when sin, Satan, and the world, all at once together target the Christian. “Oh,” one says, “it is a terrible thing to be a Christian.” I assure you it is. It is one of the hardest things in the world to be a child of God; in fact, it is impossible, unless the Lord makes us his children, and keeps us so.
13. Well, what does the new nature do? When it sees all these enemies, it cries to the Lord, and then the Lord sends it friends. First to come to its help is Jehovah, in the everlasting counsel, and reveals to the heart its own interest in the secrets of eternity. Then comes Jesus with his blood. “You shall conquer,” he says; “I will make you more than a conqueror through my death.” And then appears the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. With such assistance, this newborn nature is more than a match for its enemies. God will sometimes leave that new nature alone, to let it know its own weakness; but it shall not be for long, lest it should sink in despair. Are you fighting with the enemy today, my dear Christian brethren? Are Satan, the flesh, and the world — that hellish trinity — all against you? Remember, there is a divine trinity for you. Fight on, though like Valiant-for-Truth, your blood runs from your hand and glues your sword to your arm. Fight on! for the legions of heaven are with you; God himself is with you; Jehovah-Nissi is your banner, and Jehovah Rophi is the healer of your wounds. You shall overcome; for who can defeat Omnipotence, or trample divinity beneath his feet?
14. I have thus endeavoured to describe the conflict; but understand me, it cannot be described. We must say, as Hart does in his hymn, when after singing the emotions of his soul, he says —
But, brethren, you can surely guess,
For you perhaps have felt the same.
If you could see a plain upon which a battle is fought, you would see how the ground is torn up by the wheels of the cannon, by the horse hoofs, and by the trampling of men. What desolation is to be seen, where once the golden crops of harvest grew. How sodden is the ground with the blood of the slain. How frightful is the result of this terrible struggle. But if you could see the believers’ heart after a spiritual battle, you would find it just a counterpart of the battlefield — as much cut up as the ground of the battlefield after the direst conflict that men or fiends have ever waged. For, think: we are combating man with himself; no, more, man with the whole world; no, more, man with hell; God with man, against man, the world and hell. What a fight is that! It would be worth an angel’s while to come from the remotest fields of ether to behold such a conflict.
15. III. We come now to notice THE WEARY COMBATANT. He lifts up his voice, and weeping he cries, “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is the cry of a panting warrior. He has fought so long that he has lost his breath, and he draws it in again; he takes breath by prayer. “Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” He will not give up the conflict; he knows he cannot, and he dare not. That thought does not enter into his mind; but the conflict is so severe, the battle so furious, that he is almost defeated; he sits down to refresh himself, and thus he sighs out his soul; like the panting hart, longing for the water brook, he says, “Oh wretched man that I am.” No, it is more than that. It is the cry of one who is fainting. He has fought until all his strength is spent, and he falls back into the
