A declaration of faith that we are sanctified by grace is part of the answer to the power that sin has in our life. But after we have declared ourselves crucified with Christ and free from the law of sin and death we keep right on with our coveting, hatred, and backbiting.

Human will power against sinning is part of the answer, and through will power we attempt to resist temptation. However, since will power depends on human efforts to overcome evil spirits, and since our will power may not be coupled with Divine grace and power, we may continue with our adulterous imaginations, hatreds, and covetousness.

It requires an unceasing yielding to and cooperating with the Holy Spirit of God if the Christian is to gain enough wisdom and strength to drive the sin from his or her life.

Anxious struggling on our part will not overcome sin. Christians maintain their spiritual poise and deeply settled peace in the midst of the spiritual conflict by abiding in Christ.

Christ reigns in majesty, having overcome the authority of Satan. Christ is working in us each day to bring all of God's enemies into subjection under His feet. The victory of Christ is total! final! absolute! We are to rest unflinchingly, consistently, courageously, hopefully, faithfully in that fact. As we do, and walk in the light of God's will for our life, we are without condemnation.

When the Spirit of God blows the trumpet it is time for us to follow Him into battle. He is ready to wage war against the sins that dwell in us. He is prepared to enable the church to invade "the land of promise." The promised land of the Christian is whatever God has given him to possess, particularly his own personality (I Thessalonians 5:23).

If we are unwilling to respond to the trumpet of the Lord with a readiness to fight we will come under the curse on Meroz:

Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. (Judges 5:23)

The attitude of God is revealed in Deuteronomy:

Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. (Deuteronomy 9:3)

The Lord does all the fighting when we come out of "Egypt," although we by faith must sprinkle the Passover blood on the "doorway of our house" and then get up on our feet and move out of the world spirit as the Lord leads us. However, when it comes to entering our land of promise, we must fight. The Lord guides and helps us, but we have to do the fighting.

God is a commander of armies and a God of judgment. We must adopt the attitude of war and of judgment against sin if we hope to press forward with God past the Pentecostal experience of speaking in tongues and prophesying.

To be continued.