This morning, we'll begin a new series of sermons connected to the Pilgrim's Progress that will parallel, not event by event, but that will parallel Christians' pilgrimage to the Celestial City. If you have not read that book, that's just fine. I am not endeavoring to preach the Pilgrim's Progress. No, we're commended, commanded, and committed to preaching the Bible here at Providence Chapel. And yet, my aim will be to use different scenes from the book, The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan's Great Allegory, to illustrate the themes of these sermons. The sermons are going to focus on topics of salvation and sanctification, and I trust will spiritually stir you according to God's will. I'm not aiming merely to be topical in my approach, but textual. I really do, week by week, want to dig into the particular text. And I trust that maybe as a byproduct of this series of sermons, some of you may be encouraged to read, or even reread, or re-read, re-reread Pilgrim's Progress. My chief aim will be to remain faithful to the Word in a way that honors the Lord, to awaken the lost, and to edify the saints. So that's the game plan in the weeks to come for an indeterminate period of time. Thank you for bearing with me. This morning's theme is a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening. So turn with me to our text. In Romans 7, I'll be reading verses 12 and 13. Romans 7, verses 12 and 13. the Word of God. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Pray with me. Father, we commit this time to you. This is the written word. This is Holy Scripture. and yet who can understand it apart from the illuminating work of your Spirit? So please, Spirit of the living God, work amongst us, work in our midst, work in our understanding, work in our hearts, that Jesus may be glorified, that we may be built up, that the unconverted among us may be saved. Thank you for hearing us this morning and thank you for meeting us, O holy and honorable guest of all guests. We love you, Lord, and we ask that you would redeem this time for the sake of your beloved ones. In Jesus' name, amen. On July 8th, 1741, I know some of y'all thought I wasn't going to go there. July 8, 1741, in the town of Enfield, Connecticut, there was a midweek church meeting that shook the East Coast. This is before America was America, wasn't it? The preacher who was scheduled to speak that night had come down with an illness and he was unable to even attend the meeting. but one by the name of Jonathan Edwards happened to be passing through Enfield just that evening. So, within the church, a man by the name of Eleazar Wheelock, who would later go on to be the founder of Dartmouth College, asked Edwards if he would fill in for their new pastor that night. And Edwards preached that evening, again a midweek meeting, what is almost certainly the most famous and most read sermon ever preached on American soil, sinners in the hands of an angry God. The gathered assembly that midweek meeting night got far more than they expected. The power of God descended upon that meeting in overwhelming force. As they heard Edwards speak of the judgment of God, of the reality of hell, of God as a consuming fire, many began to shriek in fear and cry out aloud for God's mercy. It was said that the people clung to the pew in front of them, feeling as though they could slip into hell at any moment. As Edwards continued preaching, The imagery of judgment was then followed by the imagery of redemption. This is often overlooked about that sermon for some reason. He proclaimed in his own words, quote, Christ has flung the door of mercy wide open and stands in the door crying and calling with a loud voice to poor sinners. Not only were many brought from spiritual death to spiritual life that evening, but the fires of the Great Awakening began to burn. That night, in Enfield, Connecticut, men and women and even children who were asleep to the things of God and sin and salvation, they were shaken awake by this powerful movement of God's Spirit among them. So shaken and so awakened that they would never, ever be the same. This is the very situation one is presented with on the opening page of The Pilgrim's Progress. In one of the most affecting and I think captivating paragraphs that ever introduced a story ever, allegory, novel, or otherwise, we read this, the opening paragraph to the book. As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I came upon a certain place where there was a den And I lay down in that place to sleep, and as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed in rags, standing in a certain place, with his face turned away from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden on his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein. And as he read, he wept and trembled. And not being able to contain himself any longer, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do? It's quite an opening paragraph, isn't it? Bunyan, the true master, most excellently gives us even within those few sentences, a clear picture of a man in the midst of a spiritual awakening. No, that man, this mystery man on page one, didn't hear Edwards preach in Enfield, Connecticut that night. Rather, he has somehow laid hold of a Bible, opened it, and begun to read it. And what he's read has him terrified. Not only is he clothed in rags, which of course carries its own imagery, illustrating the soul's bankruptcy before God, but now he finds upon his back a great burden. To his wife, he says he is undone. To his family, he says the city in which they live is soon to burn with fire from heaven, night after night. He stays in his room, spending the time, the passing hours in sighs and tears. What must I do to be saved is his cry, much like the Philippian jailer in Acts 16, much like the gathered multitude on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. What must I do to be saved? He doesn't yet see Christ. He has but little light at all. But what he does see in that book in his hand both frightens and exposes him as the sinner he is. What does speak loud and clear as he reads that faithful book is the holy law of God. Indeed, the Spirit of God had taken the law of God and pierced that sinner's heart. And this was nearly identical to Paul's experience in Romans 7. Verse 9, when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. Paul's eyes had been opened. He suddenly finds himself a guilty sinner. And that's a good thing. Even a gracious thing, which leads us to our text this morning. Let me read it once more. Romans 7 verses 12 and 13. So the law is holy. And the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Beloved, the law is good. I think probably some of you here this morning needed to just hear that. The law is good, even as the text says, holy and righteous and good. Good is repeated twice over, as you can see in the text. Or holy, excuse me. According to Romans 7.14, the law is also spiritual. Isn't that something? I think a lot of people want to rip it away from that which is spiritual as though it's just the revealer of sin. No, according to Romans 7 14, the law is also spiritual, so it's holy and righteous and good and spiritual. Meaning that it is given by God, meaning that it forbids spiritual wickedness and commands spiritual service, meaning that it cuts to the heart of the matter. It goes deeper than the mere externals of what we do with hands and feet. And this is exactly what we see here in the life of the Apostle Paul. Look at Romans 7, 7. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. God, in this moment, put his finger on Paul's covetous heart. His sin was suddenly uncovered. And this is where spiritual awakening begins. The first sign of spiritual life is the recognition that you're dead. That sounds odd, doesn't it? But it's true, and it's evidenced here in the text, the first sign of spiritual life is the recognition that you're a dead man. The moment the sinner realizes his deadness, there is the possibility of life and resurrection. The man who sees himself as alive doesn't see his need for resurrection. Remember, the well don't need a physician. It's the sick and the lost Jesus came to save. But Paul, according to his own testimony, has become as one dead. He, in an instant, it seems, realized his sinfulness, his misery, and his hopelessness. And the man who was once so confident is now a man condemned. His self-righteousness was gone. His self-reliance had vanished. And isn't that just what we see with this mystery man in the opening paragraph of the Pilgrim's Progress? The knowledge of his sinfulness, of course, is pictured with that great burden that now weighs down upon his back. His trembling cry of what shall I do is his newborn awareness of his desperate need. Well, this morning, I simply want to elaborate on the work of the law in awakening men to their miserable condition. And I hope that will be encouraging to you. In our day, beloved, we've lost some degree of biblical understanding of this. even lost an appreciation for the use, the existence of God's law. And so I feel like we need to be reminded of a few things this morning. The law, brothers and sisters, is excellent when it comes to doing what God always intended it to do. It's not good for other things, but it's excellent when it does exactly what God intended it to do. And I want to help you to see that this morning. And God using this law this day to awaken sinners to their spiritual danger so that they would flee to Christ. This is something we should desire and even pray for. Now, I've broken the remainder of the sermon up into three parts. Number one, alive to God. Number two, awareness of sin. And number three, alarmed by wrath. Alive, aware, and alarmed. And so we begin with number one, alive to God. Look at the text once again. Did that which is good then bring death to me? by no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure." This, alive to God, I'll admit, is something the text only implies. It isn't explicitly stated in these verses, and yet it seems fundamental, foundational even. And so I want to examine it because I do think it becomes obvious as we think through what Paul is saying. Here in the text, we see Paul autobiographically pointing back to a time when suddenly he's aware of things he's never seen before. As a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he knew the law of God. He had memorized large portions of the Old Testament. He could recite these things in his sleep. It's not like the Tenth Commandment was something new to him, like he had dismissed that verse the hundreds of times he had read through the Decalogue. No, this man had read and memorized and verbalized the Tenth Commandment hundreds, even thousands of times. But one day, everything changes. And this is what we need to see. Paul says in his own words in verse 9, the commandment came. He's saying it came home to me. It struck me. It penetrated my hard heart. It pierced my thinking. It came to Him. And the result was that sin came alive And Paul died. It's what verse 9 tells us. The Word of God, the voice of the living God pierced Paul's self-righteous heart that day. It not only cut him, it cut him down to the ground. He wasn't an inch tall, he was nothing. And all of this happened in a moment when God opened the eyes of his understanding, when God spoke to this sinner. Zealous as he was, religious as he was, he was a sinner still, and God spoke to him. Amy Carmichael says something along the lines, if you have never been hurt by a word from God, it is probable you've never heard God speak. And this is what happens to the Apostle Paul in this moment, a word from God. In an instant, it seems, Paul's view of himself has radically changed. No more, according to Philippians 3, is Paul standing there saying, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. No more is Paul saying, as to the law, a Pharisee. No more is Paul saying, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church. And definitely no more is Paul saying as to righteousness under the law, blameless. No, it's all together different with him now. He suddenly sees himself for what he is. And he sees all of this in light of who God is. All those years, Paul had been radically even interfacing with religion. in terms of the externals, in terms of what he knew, what he read, what he studied, what he gave himself to. This is a man who could have said with the rich young ruler, all these things I have kept from my youth. Paul's mouth, his mind, they were all engaged in things religious, but his heart was far from the living God. So much so that his theology had driven him to persecute the church and the people of Christ, Christ himself, according to Acts 9. And then came the law, and it crushed Paul. The whole orientation of his life was shaken to the core. He was now confronted with a God far more holy than he had ever realized. His eyes were beginning to be opened to the true majesty of God. He thought God was big, but he had no idea how big God was. And beloved, this is exactly what happens today when a person is first being spiritually awakened. They see things that they've never seen before. When all one's life the sinner has been ignoring, no, we should say something more, suppressing the truth about God that is evident all around him, suddenly the big walls the sinner had built around himself begin to crumble and fall. The reality of God and grace and God's greatness begins to break into the sinner's heart and mind. So let me ask you, are you alive to God? Have you experienced this yourself? Has God, in a penetrating way, manifested Himself to you? Do you see Him as He is according to Scripture? Second, an awareness of sin. Just trying to describe the moment that we're reading about here in Romans 7. Look at the text again. In order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Paul suddenly sees sin as sin. He sees it for what it really is. He feels the weight of it, just as the man in Pilgrim's Progress did with the vivid imagery of the burden upon his back. He feels the weight of it for the very first time. Sin wasn't anymore something abstract. It was no longer just something that bad people do, that irreligious folk do, that the Gentiles do. No, sin had now come home to Paul. And sin was now to him sinful beyond measure. I think he's right when in Galatians he says that the law is truly a schoolmaster or a guardian to bring us to Christ. He lived that reality. in a remarkable way. Indeed, God's holy law accomplishes several things in terms of awareness of sin as one is being spiritually awakened. First, the law exposes sin. Now, I know sin isn't a hot topic these days. It's rather unpopular, rather old-fashioned, some might say. I mean, if you ever want to kill a conversation, all you have to do is bring up the topic of sin. That'll shut things down real quick. So if you ever need a way out, there you go. You know, the modern psychological world has tried its best to explain sin away. Postmodern thinkers have attempted to banish the word from the dictionary. Not literally, probably. Maybe they will. And yet, how else can we explain the moral insanity that is so saturated this world? Read the news headlines, listen to political debate, look at the typical suburban home. Sin is real, it's prevalent, it's pervasive, it's unavoidable, it's devastating in its effects. But we have to go further than that because sin isn't just out there. Sin is personal to you and to me. As much as we don't want it to be, it is right here at our own doorstep. And the law doesn't merely expose that guy's sin or the world's sin. The law exposes the individual sinner's sin. The commandment has to come home to you as much as it came home to Paul, as much as Bunyan describes it coming home to Mystery Man on page one. If people are simply left to themselves, they will think themselves to be fine specimens of humanity. Because they don't naturally think themselves evil. They don't see themselves as sinners. You know, I may make a few mistakes occasionally. Certainly, I've made some bad choices along the way. But a sinner? They may not view themselves as perfect, but they certainly don't see themselves as depraved. Truth be told, nobody sees themselves as truly sinful apart from the supernatural illumination. of the Spirit of God. And this is where the law comes in. The law wielded by the Spirit of God shines the bright light of God's holiness on our moral mess, our moral insanity. The law brings the character of God to bear on our crooked and defiled lives. You remember what John the Apostle said, and when he comes, There in the upper room, this is what Jesus said, and when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. The law exposes man's sin. If you're in Christ here today, I guarantee you the law has exposed your sin. Second, the law expands sin. We see it right in the text in the phrase sinful beyond measure. On the one hand, the law exposes the sinful heart. It's no longer just about the hands and the feet. We're going to go a layer deeper here. We're going to get to the very heart of the matter because it's a man's heart that is truly the heart of the problem. So while Paul could say that he had never stolen anything, with his hands, he could no longer say. He never coveted in his heart. And on the other hand, the law exposes and expands one's view of sin. Sin is nothing to be casual about. No, sin according to this text is exceedingly sinful. So not only do we see in Paul's statement, sinful beyond measure, But we see something else in the fact that Paul now describes himself as a dead man. Sin has produced death in him, just as it does every man. Outside of Christ, brothers and sisters, you were not merely sick, you were dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2. So we don't then need a spoonful of cough syrup and a good night's rest, we need a resurrection. The law expands our view of sin. It shows a man who he really is according to his nature. And then third, the law executes sinners. It brings us to the end of our self-righteous selves. It slays our hope that everything one day is going to be okay. It shreds our confidence in the flesh. In verses 9 through 11, Paul describes a time, doesn't he, when he felt alive. It's not that he was spiritually alive, he's not contradicting himself by no means, no, he just thought he was alive. And it's the problem with all of us from birth. We are born dead in sin and transgression, dead to God, but more than that, We are also dead to understanding the reality of our problem. We don't see it. But then the law comes and changes everything. The law wielded by the Spirit of God shakes us awake. So when we once felt ourselves on a Tuesday to be alive and well, the law comes to us on Wednesday and we see ourselves as dead men. It, as Paul says, produces death in us, meaning we suddenly see ourselves just as we are, alive to sin and dead to God. We finally see ourselves as we sang in the hymn preceding the sermon, poor and needy sinners. In all of this, we are awakened to a true awareness of sin. Dear ones, have you ever seen yourself and your sin as exceedingly sinful? Are you really good at minimizing it when it's bigger than you can imagine? Sinful beyond measure. Have you seen sin's attachment to your flesh, to your heart? Is sin great in your eyes even as it is so in the eyes of God? Questions you should answer. Third, alarmed by wrath. alarmed by wrath. When you see God as holy and good, when you see yourself as sinful and bad, when you come to the realization that as a physically living man, you are a spiritually dead man, when you see sin for what it is, sinful beyond measure, it's then that you cry out. wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death." Paul was alarmed by the revelation of his own sinfulness. Once he'd say of himself as to the righteousness under the law, blameless, but not anymore. Now, it's wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me? When at once you see your sin and misery, you recognize the trouble you're in. The living God who is a consuming fire, the holy and just one, he is opposed to all evil and sin. And so the sinner in this state who sees himself now as a sinner is undone. Undone. He is without hope and without God, He needs a deliverer. This is where true spiritual awakening begins. Not with good news, but with bad news that is necessary news that leads you to the greatest news of all. Jesus Christ, who came to save sinners, who saves to the uttermost those that by faith come to Him. This is where spiritual awakening begins. This is exactly where our mystery man in the opening page of Pilgrim's Progress is. He stands in that field with a great burden in his back and the book in his hand. For some, This moment happens quietly, as it did with Lydia in Acts 16 at the river's edge. For some, it happens violently, as it did with the Philippian jailer, also Acts 16, sword in his hand. But happen, it will. It's the Spirit's work, after all. He is well-equipped to make you and me see our sin. see how short we have fallen. To wield the law, to convict of sin and righteousness and judgment, the Spirit is abundantly, even infinitely gifted in that work. I so appreciate how Sinclair Ferguson puts it. There can be, quote, there can be few more alarming sights than the sight of where we would be were we left to ourselves or what we are by nature in and of ourselves. He goes on to say, it's a sight which few of us are able to bear for any length of time. That is why such experiences are usually brief pointed, but not prolonged. God shows us enough to make us see our need, to break down any illusions we may have had about ourselves. Like a skilled surgeon, his knife is fast, accurate, and clean." End quote. Do you ever think back, dear Christian, to the very first movements of God upon your soul? Can you remember those painful moments that were soon to bring in the King of Peace to your soul? The truth is that until a sinner is convinced of his sin, he can never be converted from his sin. The truth is, so long as sin is unseen, Christ will remain unsought. The truth is, those who are whole have no need of a physician, only those who are sick. Be sure that you have come to see what Paul sees in this text. Be sure Dear ones, that you really, to some degree, see your sin for what it is. Be sure that you haven't taken the name of Christian to yourself because mom and dad did, because Providence Chapel is as wonderful as it is. Because this is what you do on Sundays. Because this is what grandma did. Because this is what seems right, feels right, looks right. Because this assuages your conscience in some way. No, make sure you see your indebtedness to God and your depravity in his holy presence. Be sure you see your sin. Also be sure, dear Christian, that you're as sensitive to sin today as you were the first day. And stop playing games with sin. It's no trifle. It's as significant as it was prior to your conversion, except now even you sin against light and grace. Life that you didn't have grace that you didn't know. Sin is still sinful beyond measure. Be sure you know that and feel that and remain sensitive to it so long as you live. And be sure, dear church. that you prayerfully seek after and even come to expect such awakenings among us today. My heart yearns to see people born again in the midst of these Sunday meetings. I love when families visit us and they hear about us or find us online and they're looking for a good, healthy, warm, biblical, reformed church even. That's special and no doubt God moves his people and provides for them in such ways. But I long for new blood. I long for the new birth. I long for baby Christians to be walking and living amongst us. So be sure. that you pray for this, because God still works as powerfully as he did in Paul's day this day. So come to expect these things and plead with God for these things and hunger for these things, because God is still mighty to save. Pray with me. Father, we are thankful for your word. We have Moses and the prophets and Paul and Luke and Peter and John. Give us your spirit that we may hear them. Penetrate our thoughts and our hearts by your word. and please. Glorious Father, righteous Father, Holy Father, give us eyes to see. Thank you for speaking to us in scripture that we have the living voice of the living Lord. Work your holy will in us. Convict of sin where conviction is needed. and convert the sinner, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.