There Is a Double Need.

The work of Christ at Calvary is of a two-fold character. He died for what we are and He died for what we have done. Our character condemned us and our evil deeds brought us under the judgment of God.
There are those who think that because their deeds are not very bad, therefore they have a very good chance of getting to Heaven. These friends have not realized the fact that their own person and self and character are so evil that a righteous God cannot have them in His association as they are.
There are others who think that their character is so delightful and admirable that their deeds cannot be very bad and therefore they must be acceptable to God. The Scripture condemns both of these attitudes of heart and mind and reveals to us clearly the need of a Saviour.
Let us consider first that Christ must die for what we are. In Romans 5: 6, we read: "Christ died for the ungodly." Again in verse eight we read, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.''
Because we belong to a fallen race, and because we have descended from sinful parents, therefore we ourselves are sinners and unfit for God's presence. No matter how much we compare ourselves with others who are worse than we, that standard will not avail. As we compare ourselves with Christ Jesus in His spotless character, it is then that we see how quite unlike God we really are.
Animals cannot change themselves. Pigs produce pigs, chickens produce chickens, and horses produce horses. The peculiar characteristics of the father and mother are seen in the offspring. A yellow Buff Cochin hen will have baby chicks that are yellow. Poland China pigs will produce pigs that have the same markings. The Shepherd dog will bear puppies that grow to be large, lovely Shepherd dogs. Each kind produces its own kind.
It is so with human beings. Sinners can only pro­duce sinners. Sinful parents give birth to sinful children. What the parents are, determines what the children are. It is because of this unalterable rule that the Lord Jesus says, "Ye must be born again.” No amount of self-cultivation or training or culture can change a sinner into a saint nor transform a worldly heart into a righteous heart. No amount of training an animal will change a wild animal into a domestic one. Lions, tigers, pumas, bears and panthers are all trained in circuses and shows, but they never become tame. Just as soon as the trainer removes his restraint and steps out of the arena, the animals reveal their wild instincts and return to their cages, retaining their fierce wild nature. Human beings are quite like this. Children, under the restraint of their parents, will live an obedient life. As they get older and get into the school life and social life of the world, the wild nature reveals itself and oftentimes the parents lose their control, and the children go into sinful ways and practices as though they had never been restrained at all. The new birth is essential in order that this wild nature may be changed and made docile and pliable in the hands of the Lord.
A prominent attorney in one of our great cities heard a message which I gave over the radio in his city and asked me for an audience. He informed me that he had been teaching a Bible class of several hundred men for a number of years but that he was trying to teach them something which he had not experienced himself. He was urging them to live Christian lives while he was finding it quite impossible to do so himself. He had a number of bad habits which he had vainly endeavored to correct and had often been tempted to throw his religion over-board because he was such a hypocrite himself. He had been trying to change the desires of his heart so that he would not love sinful things but would love holy things. He found nothing but failure in all of his attempts. We went to lunch together and at the table, I had the privilege of showing him from the Scriptures that he was quite unable to change or alter himself, that only Christ could transform the heart. He had never known this truth before and soon bowed his head in adoring worship to Christ Jesus and accepted Him as the Lord and Saviour of his life. He found that Christ could do very quickly that which he could not do.
Great minds of the world have spent much time devising ways and means of making human beings live good lives as they should. All of these have taken for the basis of their operations, a belief that man is naturally good and only needs proper training and teaching to cause the life to be good. We might as well say that the rattlesnake is really a nice, docile, lovely animal but it has suffered from its surroundings and associations which have developed vicious habits. Any school boy knows that this is not true. No amount of changing the circumstances in which the rattlesnake lives will cause this serpent to become a safe pet or beautiful plaything for the home. Its heart is bad. Its nature is cruel. Its desires are only for the destruction of others. No human being can change this creature and make out of it a desirable pet for the family. Sinners are like this. I have often befriended men who were released from the penitentiary. They appeared to be reclaimed. They announced that they were converted and intended to live good lives. Hardly ever have their class proved to be true. The whole nature has not been altered. The new life has not entered that heart.
You will never know just how evil your heart is until the proper conditions arise for the manifestation of the things that are hidden there. That woman, who cruelly crushed the head of her husband with the bed slats because she wanted another lover, never would have dreamed in her wildest fancies that she would be so cruel and ferocious. If, when she was a high school girl, some one had told her that her heart would desire and accomplish this horrible crime, she would have been insulted and probably would have sued that person for libel. When the proper conditions came about and the sufficient desires were aroused in her heart, then the evil that had always been in that heart became manifest.
Men who in times of prosperity appear to be kind and peace-loving, prove to be cruel and ferocious when their liberties are checked or the privileges of their lives hindered. You do not know what is in your heart until certain conditions arise which cause that heart to do what you never dreamed it would do. Because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, we need a Saviour to deliver, to redeem, and to bring about that new birth in the soul.
The story is told of an African hunter who found a small lion cub which he took home for a pet. The little thing was quite playful and was like a puppy or kitten running around the home. He fed it, taught it tricks and enjoyed the novelty of having it for a plaything around the house. One day as he sat in his chair reading, he felt a little sting on the hand that was hanging down beside the chair. He quietly looked down at it and found that the lion cub had scratched the hand until the skin was broken and the blood was running. Without making any effort to remove the hand, he reached over to the table where his revolver lay, picked it up and shot the lovely little pet. He knew that the taste for blood would rouse in that little heart all of the wild desires of the forest and his pet would no longer be docile and playful.
You may have found this to be so in your life. In the lovely surroundings of your protected home, you were kept from the test of sin and sinful pleasures. Then in an unguarded moment when you were released from that restraint and were free, you found with other companions, that a sip of sin was most pleasing and new desires were aroused in your soul which you never knew were there. Because this is true, you need Jesus Christ to save you from that heart so filled with evil. He will create in you a new spirit that loves righteousness and hates iniquity. You will never know the full extent of the sinful desires of the soul until, as you grow older and greater temptations arise, you will find a strange response in your heart to enticements that you thought would never effect you at all. Let me urge you to let Christ Jesus become the Saviour of your soul so that your character and life will be transformed.
When a few German sailors sank the Lusitania, the United States declared war against the whole country of Germany. The boys who fought in the trenches on the German side were not the ones who had sunk the ship. Those in the battle were friends of the sailors. They belonged to the same country and were considered as enemies because of their relationship. It is true that all sinners have not crucified Christ, but all sinners belong to the same race, the same humanity and are verily guilty because of who they are.
The Lord says that the human mind is at enmity with God. The very nature of our humanity is that it is opposed to God. We live for ourselves, we plan for ourselves, we love ourselves and are not very much interested in God except as that interest may accrue to our own profit. It is for this reason that we need the Saviour to die for us in order that we might be saved.
None of us are naturally fitted to enjoy the presence of God, nor to understand His ways. The things of a man are well understood by the spirit of man, but the things of God are not so understood. Any man may learn the things of man by study and careful application. We may learn to be a carpenter, an electrician, a doctor or a lawyer. We may learn to erect great buildings or build bridges or make furniture or write music. All of these are human things available to the human mind.
The things of God cannot be understood except as the Spirit of God reveals them to the heart. It took the death of Christ at Calvary and living faith in Him to bring about that miraculous reality in a man or a woman which is called "The New Birth." By means of this heavenly transaction, the Holy Spirit is enabled to reveal spiritual things to the heart which before was blind and could not comprehend.
Christ, by His sacrifice, His resurrection, and His place of power on the Throne, changes the soul, the mind, and the life of the person who believes in Him and trusts Him. By this transformation, the individual is made fit for a walk with God who gives him a home in His presence. Only by this great change is one equipped to enter into spiritual things with delight and with understanding. A dead sinner, one who is lost and in the dark and without Christ, may live a very beautiful life. He may be kind, thoughtful, benevolent, cultured, educated, dignified and of good reputation. He still remains a lost sinner until he definitely accepts the Lord Jesus and receives the gift of eternal life.
The death of Christ was also for our deeds because the guilty actions, thoughts and words must be paid for as God prescribes. Somebody must pay for broken laws—laws which you have broken. Someone must pay the debt. Somebody must clear the record in the courts of Heaven. Somebody must answer to the indictment and be responsible to settle the account. No matter how many sins you have committed, each one must be made right in God's sight.
We read in 1 Cor. 15: 3, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." In this case, it is not a question of our character, but of our actions. Christ gave Himself for our evil deeds and for the iniquity in the heart. He suffered at Calvary because of what we have done. Each individual sin, whether actually committed or only thought in the heart, must be covered by the precious blood of Christ, there is no other remedy.
Nothing that you can do will blot out a single sin-stain nor alter the record of Heaven. No one can do this but the Saviour. He only has the right to go into the records of the Divine court and remove from those files the evidence of your guilt and the list of sins committed. By virtue of Calvary, He may do this. Because He was wounded for our transgressions, therefore He has the right from God the Father to blot out the record of every man or woman who comes to Him in simple faith and commits both his cause and his case to Him.
To understand only that Christ paid the debt and blotted out the sins at the Cross, is to leave the soul untaught in that greater and deeper truth that Christ must die for what we are. He died to deliver us from this present evil world.
To make an endeavor to quit the old sins without the new birth, is to bring utter failure and despair to the soul. The sinner, without eternal life, may amend his ways and his doings somewhat, but he will still find religious exercises a wearisome thing, while the attractions of the world prove more and more alluring and enticing. Unless he is born again, the life will continually want to gratify itself in human enterprises. If however, Christ Jesus becomes to you the Lord of the life as well as the Saviour of the soul, then you will enter into the joy of a new-found experience in which the presence of Christ not only calms the conscience because of past deeds but fills the soul with a new hope in future prospects.
Let us observe finally, that no matter who you are, it is necessary that you receive the gift of a new life, a new nature, a new spirit from the Lord Jesus who died for you. It is also necessary that your heart and soul believes that at Calvary's Cross, Christ Jesus bore your sins and blotted them out. "He that hath the Son hath life." And therefore, will live a new kind of life, rejoicing in power over sin and in forgiveness of sins.
All things in nature live and act according to the nature given them by God. The little wren finds its way back to the tiny house in your backyard after its long excursion to the south land. The busy bee flies over fields and orchards and finds its way back to the hive without any difficulty. Baby eels are born in the Caribbean Sea and find their way back to Scotland or Canada where their parents came from. The opossum carries her babies on her back without any previous training. The morning glories will run around here and there on the ground seeking to find a pole to climb and will at once climb whatever it can find for that is its nature. The night blooming cereus will bloom during the midnight hours because it is not made to bloom in the daytime.
You, too, do that which your nature calls for, and you will notice that your nature is not usually seeking the presence of God, nor loving His Word, nor desiring His presence. You love human things, natural things, that which pertains to this life. You live true to your nature. A new nature must be implanted in the soul in order that you may seek the presence of God and love the things of God with all of your heart and soul. This new nature is exclusively a gift from God, "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Again, Christ said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life." It is not found in church ordinances, it is not found in Christian exercises of any kind, nor will you obtain it by joining the rules and regulations of any church. Christ alone is the giver. He will transform your life, make it a Christian life when He Himself becomes the Lord of that life and the Master of that soul.
The futility of seeking to obtain this nature by any other process may be illustrated by the case of a very fine young man, perhaps twenty-five years of age, who came to me at the close of a service with a remark, "Doctor, I do not believe what you were preaching today."  "Thank you, sir, for your frankness," I replied, "do tell me what you believe for I am very much more interested in what you do believe than in what you do not believe." He was quite willing to talk to me about it and said, "I have a religion of my own and I believe it is just as good as yours."   "Perhaps it is quite as good as mine," was my reply, "would you like to tell me about it? If it is good enough for you, it should be good enough for me. If it is substantial enough for you to rest your soul upon and go out into eternity with, then I should like to know what it is that it might be a blessing to me also. Do tell me about it. Tell me where you got it." He replied that his religion was a combination of a number of things that he had learned in one of our great universities. He had taken the best out of Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, the Darwinian hypothesis of evolution and flavored it all with some of Bob Ingersoll's theology. It was indeed a wonderful mixture. It was "home brew" to the limit. After he had expressed all of this marvelous intricate psychology to me, I looked straight into his face and said, "Does this complication of religion satisfy your heart completely? Do you recommend that I accept it for my theology and rest my soul on it for eternity?" He paused a little while before answering me and then said, "No, Dr. Wilson, I would not recommend it to you, for it does not exactly suit me."
You can readily see, my friend, that the faith we have must satisfy both God's requirements and our own desires. We must have that sort of theology which centers in and around Christ Jesus as the Saviour of the soul and the blood to blot out the sins. Nothing else will do.
There are natural results which follow natural courses. We read in James 2: 12: "So speak ye and so do as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." This law of liberty obtains in every department of life.
When hydrogen is released, it immediately ascends. When a piece of iron is released it immediately falls. When water is released, it finds its lowest level. When a bird is released, it finds the open fields. When a rabbit is released, it finds shelter in the hedges and the bushes. When a lion is released, it goes on a path of destruction. The law of liberty obtains in this life. When you are free, you will do what you please and what you please to do will be determined by what you are. A Christian will seek the presence of Christ. A worldling will desire to be in and of the world. That one who likes horse races will seek the race-track. That one who loves his Father in Heaven will seek the prayer meeting. That one who loves Satan's delusions will seek the world's novels, but that one who loves God's truth, will seek His holy Word. You may well place this test upon your own life to see whether or not Christ Jesus has saved you or if you still belong to this world, a stranger to God.
What do you do when you have perfect leisure and liberty? Do you take advantage of such time to know God better and to serve Him more fully, or does liberty afford you an opportunity to play with the world and give to the world your money and affection? The sheep of Christ follow that Good Shepherd. Those who are not His sheep, seek other pleasures.
Sometimes despair fills the heart at the thought that the life is so unbearably bad, so full of sinful practices that even God Himself can do nothing with such a wreck. This attitude of heart reveals that this friend has forgotten that Christ Jesus can implant a new life and new nature in the soul of the worst sinner and no case is too hard. No guilt is so black, no condition is so hopeless that He cannot fully save and completely change. There are no limitations to the power and love of God's grace. If you have some habit that has bound itself upon you and entrenched itself in your soul, the Lord Jesus Christ can conquer and recover. He is able to give the victory, "The Lion of Judah can break every chain, And give us the victory again and again."
I remember the story of a little lad whose life was so rebellious that his parents despaired of his future. They could see nothing but trouble, sorrow, and perhaps the penitentiary in the coming days for that young man. He set himself against everything that his parents were for. Punishing him seemed to do no good; words of council fell on deaf ears. He was opposed to everything that was right and good. One day he heard the Gospel of God's grace put in such a way that it appealed to his heart. The Holy Spirit touched him. We do not know exactly what it was that did the work, but we do know that that lad went to his father and confessed his faith in Christ Jesus and his purpose and plan to live only for Him. The rebellious spirit in that boy became like the colt upon which Jesus rode. He was tamed at once. His life became likable and lovable. He became a follower of the Lord and a lover of the Lord's people. Christ has done it for him and He will do it for you if you will bring to Him a hungry heart, an expectant heart, a heart that desires the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
It would be well for you to examine your heart and ask what the outflow of that life would be in your judgment. Do you want a life of holiness and godliness? Do you prefer to be a Christian and to have both your character and your conduct moulded by Christ Jesus? Perhaps you prefer to be like the world and be among the enemies of God and in the camp of those who curse Christ Jesus. I trust it is not so, for Christ is the ultimate conqueror and the eternal victor. His enemies will all be put beneath His feet and you will be with them. Those who are opposed to Christ will find that He will be opposed to them in the day of His wrath.
The saving power of Christ in your soul will not hinder your mental ability nor curtail the activities of your mind and heart. H. J. Heinz, the great packer and manufacturer, was a devout Christian. Lord Roberts, who gained such fame in the Indian mutiny was proud to belong to the army of the King of kings. Lord Nelson expressed his trust in God, the eternal God of his soul, for the victory so richly given. General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate Commander-in-Chief of the Civil war, was a true Christian and sought to make Christ known among the soldiers. Count Leo Tolstoy, the famous Russian writer, has told of his conversion to the person of Jesus Christ and the great transformation which took place in his life. J. Pierpont Morgan, the elder, publicly acknowledged that Christ Jesus was the Lord and Saviour of his soul. Caleb J. Baker, manufacturer of tents for the whole world, often told of the value of Christ Jesus to his heart and soul. Cyrus W. Field who laid the Atlantic cable in 1866 told of the joy of his heart in a living faith in God. Michael Angelo, the noted artist, confessed that Christ Jesus was his only Lord and Saviour and he trusted only in the blood of Christ. Wm. Cullen Bryant, the lovely poet, told in beautiful language of all that the sufferings of Christ meant to him. Daniel Webster, the great American statesman, declared his faith and trust in Jesus, the Son of God, and said, "I believe there is no other way of salvation." George Washington lived a life of faith and trust in the living God and His Christ. Oliver Cromwell, "The protector of England," expressed to those around his death bed, his confident trust in the mercy of the living Lord. Charles Dickens declared, "I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ."
Let me urge each one who reads these pages, to find in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the soul, the Transformer of the life and the One in whom there is to be found joy and peace never ending.
"In Green Pastures" 1937