I. EVERY MAN HAS TWO SELVES - A HIGHER SELF AND A LOWER SELF.

1. A bad man has his better self. When temptation is away, in calm thoughtful moments, or when he is stricken by mortal illness or bowed with a great sorrow, or perhaps when the beauty of a sunset or the strains of sweet music call up memories of childhood, the true self will rise in the heart of a wicked man with pain and unutterable regrets.

2. A good man has his lower self. The human saint is far removed from the heavenly angel. The body and its appetites are with him; the soul has its meaner powers, its earthly passions, its self-regarding interests. There are times when the spiritual life is dull and feeble; then some sudden temptation, or even without that the depressing atmosphere of the world, will reveal to a man his worse side.

II. THE TWO SELVES ARE IN CONFLICT. They are not content to lie at peace each in its own domain. Both are ambitious to rule the whole man. While the flesh brooks any restraint, the Spirit strives to bring the body into subjection. Thus it comes to pass that life is a warfare and the Christian a soldier. The battle of life is not mainly a fighting against adverse circumstances and external concrete evils of the world. "A man's foes are they of his own household," nay, of his own heart. The great conflict is internal. It is civil war - rebellion and the effort to quell it; of all wars the most fierce.

III. THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE TWO SELVES IS SUCH THAT EACH IS HELD IN CHECK BY THE OTHER. "Ye cannot do the things that ye would." There is a dead-lock. Each army holds itself safe in its own entrenchments. Neither can turn the enemy's position. Not that there is perfect balance of power. In most of us one or other force gives a temporary advantage. In many the lower self has the upper hand; in many, let us thank God, the better self maintains the supremacy. But neither has the victory that will enable it to drive the other off the field. Bad men, now and again, see yawning before them deep, black pits of wickedness, from the brink of which they start back in horror, arrested by the invisible hand of conscience. No man is wholly bad, or he would cease to be a man - he would be a devil. On the other hand, it is clear to all of us that no good man is wholly good.

IV. IN THE STRENGTH OF THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST THE BETTER SELF OF THE CHRISTIAN WILL ULTIMATELY OBTAIN COMPLETE VICTORY. The stress and strain of the war is but for a time. In the end all enemies shall be subdued. Meanwhile the secret of success is with those who "walk by the Spirit." So great a hope should lighten "the burden of the mystery."

"The heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world." Now life is broken, confused, inconsistent, discordant. But this is but the time of passing conflict. With victory there will come true harmony of being and growth to the full stature of the soul. - W.F.A.

It is not said: They that do such things daily; for even though one does any such thing only now and then, on certain occasions, yea even only once, but voluntarily, he forfeits the Kingdom of God, so long as he remains under the dominion of this work of the flesh. Nor is it said: They that do all this. It is not needful for a man to do all these sins, or many such, to fall under the penalty; it is enough if he lets one single sin rule over him, let it be what it will. Now it rules over him, not only while he is committing it, but so long as the purpose never to commit it again is not fully fixed They shall not only not procure eternal life by their works of the flesh (as may well be supposed), but, if they set their hopes, not upon earning eternal life by their works, but receiving it as a gift to be received by faith, they will not, leading a dissolute life, inherit it any more than earn it. Such a man inherits not the kingdom of grace, still less the kingdom of glory, even though his funeral sermon extols him as blessed.

(Starke.)

I. WHAT IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD? TWOFOLD.

1. Of grace (Matthew 5:19, 20).

2. Glory (Matthew 18:1, 3; Matthew 19:23). Where

(1)Jehovah is king

(2)the laws are just;

(3)the subjects unanimous;

(4)sin and misery banished;

(5)righteousness triumphant;

(6)the citizens happy.

II. HOW IT APPEARS THAT THE VICIOUS CANNOT INHERIT IT.

1. From the Word of God (Ephesians 5:5; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Hebrews 12:14).

2. The rules of justice.

3. The conclusions of reason; because not capable.

(Bishop Beveridge.)Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul: it is equally true that there are materials enough in every man's mind to make a hell.

(H. W. Beecher.)

Were a cup of pleasant wine put into your hands, and you knew for certain that a deadly poison was mixed up with the wine, which would rack you with the fiercest pains, and ere long tear soul and body in sunder, who would drink it? — who would not dash it from him forthwith? Yet, if we had but faith, we should know and feel that sin is deadlier than the deadliest poison, that it racks us with fiercer pains, and gives us over to a more terrible dissolution; for it cuts us off from God — from Him who is the only source of all blessing and peace.

(Hare.)

The tale of the goblet, which the genius of a heathen fashioned, was true; and taught a moral of which many a death-bed furnishes the melancholy illustration. Having made the model of a serpent, he fixed it in the bottom of a cup. Coiled for the spring, a pair of gleaming eyes in its head, and in its open mouth fangs raised to strike, it lay beneath the ruby wine. Nor did he who raised that golden cup to quench his thirst, and quaff the delicious draught, suspect what lay below, till, as he reached the dregs, that dreadful head rose up and glistened before his eyes. So, when life's cup is nearly emptied, and sin's last pleasure quaffed, and unwilling lips are draining the bitter dregs, shall rise the ghastly terrors of remorse, and death, and judgment, upon the despairing soul. Be assured, a serpent lurks at the bottom of guilt's sweetest pleasure. To this awful truth may God, by His Word and Holy Spirit, open your eyes!

(T. Guthrie, D. D.)

Galatians, Paul, PhilippiansGalatiaAlready, Beforehand, Carousing, Clearly, Drinking, Drunkenness, Drunkennesses, Envy, Envying, Envyings, Feasting, Forewarn, Forewarned, God's, Guilty, Inherit, Kingdom, Murders, Orgies, Past, Practice, Practise, Reign, Revelings, Revellings, Revels, Riotous, Share, Uncontrolled, Warn, Warned1. He wills them to stand in their liberty,
3. and not to observe circumcision;
13. but rather love, which is the sum of the law.
19. He lists the works of the flesh,
22. and the fruits of the Spirit,
25. and exhorts to walk in the Spirit.

Galatians 5:21

     4434   drinking
     8492   watchfulness, leaders

Galatians 5:2-25

     6511   salvation

Galatians 5:9-21

     6026   sin, judgment on

Galatians 5:16-21

     8777   lust

Galatians 5:16-23

     3248   Holy Spirit, conviction

Galatians 5:16-24

     6746   sanctification, means and results

Galatians 5:16-25

     3203   Holy Spirit, and assurance
     5110   Paul, teaching of
     6030   sin, avoidance

Galatians 5:16-26

     3233   Holy Spirit, and sanctification

Galatians 5:17-21

     6022   sin, causes of

Galatians 5:17-24

     6166   flesh, sinful nature

Galatians 5:19-21

     2377   kingdom of God, entry into
     4185   sorcery and magic
     5786   ambition, negative
     5850   excess
     5975   violence
     8273   holiness, ethical aspects
     8733   envy

Galatians 5:19-24

     8311   morality, and redemption

Galatians 5:19-25

     6166   flesh, sinful nature

March 28. "The Fruit of the Spirit is all Goodness" (Gal. v. 22).
"The fruit of the Spirit is all goodness" (Gal. v. 22). Goodness is a fruit of the Spirit. Goodness is just "Godness." It is to be like God. And God-like goodness has special reference to the active benevolence of God. The apostle gives us the difference between goodness and righteousness in this passage in Romans, "Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." The righteous man is the man of stiff, inflexible uprightness; but he may be …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 1. "The Fruit of the Spirit is Gentleness" (Gal. v. 22).
"The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness" (Gal. v. 22). Nature's harshness has melted away and she is now beaming with the smile of spring, and everything around us whispers of the gentleness of God. This beautiful fruit is in lovely harmony with the gentle month of which it is the keynote. May the Holy Spirit lead us, beloved, these days, into His sweetness, quietness, and gentleness, subduing every coarse, rude, harsh, and unholy habit, and making us like Him, of whom it is said, "He shall not strive, …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Works of the Flesh and Fruits of the Spirit.
Text: Galatians 5, 16-24. 16 But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. 18 But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity Church Officers Warned of Vain-Glory.
Text: Galatians 5, 25-26 and 6, 1-10. 25 If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk. 26 Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another. 1 Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3 For if a man thinketh himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

'Walk in the Spirit'
'Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.'--GAL. v. 16. We are not to suppose that the Apostle here uses the familiar contrast of spirit and flesh to express simply different elements of human nature. Without entering here on questions for which a sermon is scarcely a suitable vehicle of discussion, it may be sufficient for our present purpose to say that, as usually, when employing this antithesis the Apostle means by Spirit the divine, the Spirit of God, which he triumphed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

What Makes a Christian: Circumcision or Faith?
'In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.'--GAL. v. 6. It is a very singular instance of imaginative misreading of plain facts that the primitive Church should be held up as a pattern Church. The early communities had apostolic teaching; but beyond that, they seem to have been in no respect above, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations and dehortations which …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Fruit of the Spirit
'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness, temperance'--GAL. v. 22, 23. 'The fruit of the Spirit,' says Paul, not the fruits, as we might more naturally have expected, and as the phrase is most often quoted; all this rich variety of graces, of conduct and character, is thought of as one. The individual members are not isolated graces, but all connected, springing from one root and constituting an organic whole. There is further to …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Faith the Sole Saving Act.
JOHN vi. 28, 29.--"Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." In asking their question, the Jews intended to inquire of Christ what particular things they must do, before all others, in order to please God. The "works of God," as they denominate them, were not any and every duty, but those more special and important acts, by which the creature might secure …
William G.T. Shedd—Sermons to the Natural Man

Walking with God.
(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.) GALATIANS v. 16. "Walk in the Spirit." The life of a Christian must be one of progress. S. Paul says, "Walk in the Spirit;" he does not say, stand still. It is not enough for us to have been born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, and to have received the Gifts of the Spirit from time to time through the different means of grace. We are bidden "to stir up the gift that is in us;" we are told to "grow in grace." God has set us upon our feet in the right …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

Sixth Day for the Spirit of Love in the Church
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Spirit of Love in the Church "I pray that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them and Thou in Me; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me ... that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them."--JOHN x"The fruit of the Spirit is love."--GAL. v. 22. Believers are one in Christ, as He is one with the Father. The love of God rests on them, and can dwell in them. Pray that the power of the Holy …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Brokenness
We want to be very simple in this matter of Revival. Revival is just the life of the Lord Jesus poured into human hearts. Jesus is always victorious. In heaven they are praising Him all the time for His victory. Whatever may be our experience of failure and barrenness, He is never defeated. His power is boundless. And we, on our part, have only to get into a right relationship with Him, and we shall see His power being demonstrated in our hearts and lives and service, and His victorious life will …
Roy Hession and Revel Hession—The Calvary Road

The Dove and the Lamb
Victorious living and effective soul-winning service are not the product of our better selves and hard endeavours, but are simply the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We are not called upon to produce the fruit, but simply to bear it. It is all the time to be His fruit. Nothing is more important then, than that we should be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit, or to keep to the metaphor, that the "trees of the Lord should be continuously full of sap"--His sap. How this may be so for us is graphically …
Roy Hession and Revel Hession—The Calvary Road

The Holy Spirit Bringing Forth in the Believer Christlike Graces of Character.
There is a singular charm, a charm that one can scarcely explain, in the words of Paul in Gal. v. 22, 23, R. V., "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." What a catalogue we have here of lovely moral characteristics. Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness in us, …
R. A. Torrey—The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit

Joy
'The fruit of the Spirit is joy.' Gal 5:52. The third fruit of justification, adoption, and sanctification, is joy in the Holy Ghost. Joy is setting the soul upon the top of a pinnacle - it is the cream of the sincere milk of the word. Spiritual joy is a sweet and delightful passion, arising from the apprehension and feeling of some good, whereby the soul is supported under present troubles, and fenced against future fear. I. It is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow, which is a perturbation …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Routing of Giant Doubt
THE ROUTING OF GIANT DOUBT Doubts! doubts! doubts! Just a company of them around me all the time worse than Job's miserable comforters. What can I do with them? I should like to dismiss them, but it seems I can not. They make me much trouble, but it seems I can not get them to leave me. Especially are the doubts concerning my entire consecration aggravating, and those, too, concerning my entire cleansing. I fear to come out boldly and declare that I believe that Christ fully saves me now. I believe …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

Conflicts with Giant Mistake
CONFLICTS WITH GIANT MISTAKE I make so many mistakes, it seems I am just a bundle of contradictions. I try to do good; but at times my efforts are so crude that I seem to do more harm than good. What shall I do? And though all the time I try hard not to make mistakes, yet I still make them. It seems to me that surely I am not sanctified, or else I should be more perfect. Do not the Scriptures command us to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect? I am not perfect; far from it. Really I …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

I have Said This, Lest Haply Married Fruitfulness Dare to vie with virgin Chastity...
7. I have said this, lest haply married fruitfulness dare to vie with virgin chastity, and to set forth Mary herself, and to say unto the virgins of God, She had in her flesh two things worthy of honor, virginity and fruitfulness; inasmuch as she both continued a virgin, and bore: this happiness, since we could not both have the whole, we have divided, that ye be virgins, we be mothers: for what is wanting to you in children, let your virginity, that hath been preserved, be a consolation: for us, …
St. Augustine—Of Holy Virginity.

The Inward Warfare. Gal 5:17
…
John Newton—Olney Hymns

And on this Account That, Which, the Parts that Beget Being Bridled by Modesty...
5. And on this account that, which, the parts that beget being bridled by modesty, is most chiefly and properly to be called Continence, is violated by no transgression, if the higher Continence, concerning which we have been some time speaking, be preserved in the heart. For this reason the Lord, after He had said, "For from the heart go forth evil thoughts," then went on to add what it is that belongs to evil thoughts, "murders, adulteries," and the rest. He spake not of all; but, having named …
St. Augustine—On Continence

All we Therefore, who Believe in the Living and True God...
18. All we therefore, who believe in the Living and True God, Whose Nature, being in the highest sense good and incapable of change, neither doth any evil, nor suffers any evil, from Whom is every good, even that which admits of decrease, and Who admits not at all of decrease in His own Good, Which is Himself, when we hear the Apostle saying, "Walk in the Spirit, and perform ye not the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: For these are opposed …
St. Augustine—On Continence

And Also, when He Exhorts Us, that we Live not after the Flesh...
9. And also, when he exhorts us, that we live not after the flesh, lest we die, but that by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we may live; surely the trumpet which sounds, shows the war in which we are engaged, and enkindles us to contend keenly, and to do our enemies to death, [1832] that we be not done to death by them. But who those enemies are, it hath set forth plainly enough. For those are they, whom it willed should be done to death by us, that is to say, the works of the …
St. Augustine—On Continence

Here Therefore These Men Too Evil, While they Essay to Make Void the Law...
9. Here therefore these men too evil, while they essay to make void the Law, force us to approve these Scriptures. For they mark what is said, that they who are under the Law are in bondage, and they keep flying above the rest that last saying, "Ye are made empty [1715] of Christ, as many of you as are justified in the Law; ye have fallen from Grace." [1716] We grant that all these things are true, and we say that the Law is not necessary, save for them unto whom bondage is yet profitable: and that …
St. Augustine—On the Profit of Believing.

The Daily Walk with Others (iii. ).
Thrice happy they who at Thy side, Thou Child of Nazareth, Have learnt to give their struggling pride Into Thy hands to death: If thus indeed we lay us low, Thou wilt exalt us o'er the foe; And let the exaltation be That we are lost in Thee. Let me say a little on a subject which, like the last, is one of some delicacy and difficulty, though its problems are of a very different kind. It is, the relation between the Curate and his Incumbent; or more particularly, the Curate's position and conduct …
Handley C. G. Moule—To My Younger Brethren

How those that are at Variance and those that are at Peace are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 23.) Differently to be admonished are those that are at variance and those that are at peace. For those that are at variance are to be admonished to know most certainly that, in whatever virtues they may abound, they can by no means become spiritual if they neglect becoming united to their neighbours by concord. For it is written, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace (Gal. v. 22). He then that has no care to keep peace refuses to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Hence Paul …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

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