Christianity was a new thing in the world when these words of inspiration were penned. The gospel had gained its peaceful triumphs even amidst the idolatrous wickedness of the pagan cities of Greece and Italy.
Philippi had seen the establishment of a Christian assembly. The Apostle Paul had brought them the glad news of the gospel, which had been the means of gathering them to the Lord, and out to His name. His sojourn in their midst was of the greatest possible help to these young converts.
But the time had come when he was held fast in prison and they were left without the help of his spiritual energy and experience. They were to be thrown upon their own resources. Thus the Apostle wrote, “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION with fear and trembling. For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).
Is there not a voice to young Christians, who have been brought up in Christian homes, today in this? I write to such. You have been brought up under Christian instruction. You have been taught the character of what the Scripture calls the flesh, that is the principle of sin within, whose tastes answer all too well to the allurements of the world. You have been taught the meaning of the world, as a system away from God, that found its full expression when it crucified the Lord of glory.
You have been instructed from holy writ to yield your members—that is, the actual component parts of your bodies—as instruments of righteousness to God, to holiness (Rom. 6:13). You have been exhorted to mortify—that is, put to death, a very practical matter—your members which are upon the earth. These are not the component parts of your body, but the moral members of a sinful fallen nature, even the ungoverned lusts and passions of the body, which, given rein to, lead to the dishonouring of the material members of the body. They are such things as fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection—that is infatuation of such a nature as to throw the right relations of life out of gear—evil concupiscence, covetousness which is idolatry. In passing, it is remarkable how again and again these evil passions are condemned in the same breath as covetousness. William Jennings Bryan once described a man, who had toiled night and day to amass wealth, never heeding the awful strain he submitted his body to, nor the fearful mental excitement entailed in his mad pursuit after wealth, as being kicked to death by the golden calf.
Further, having been sheltered in a Christian home, it may be you have had to leave home, and go to a distance, it may be to London, or some continental city, in the pursuit of your calling. You are possibly in lodgings. You can go in and out, and there is no one to ask where you go and what you do.
It is just in these circumstances that the Scripture quoted has its special voice to you. Just as Paul worked out the practical day-by-day salvation of the young inexperienced Philippian believers, so your salvation has been worked out, hitherto, under the care and influence of your godly parents. Their influence had a restraining effect upon you, not always relished, sometimes resented. Now you are free from this restraint. Are you going to places, and doing things that you would not like your godly parents to know about? If so, it is time to pull up. If your godly parents would be grieved, and rightly grieved, at some things you do, and some places that you frequent, what about your loving Lord.
I have known young Christians in these circumstances go by choice to theatres, picture palaces, restaurants, where things were to be seen that were calculated to stir up the flesh within them. Expensive wines have been partaken of, and conduct indulged in for the moment, that was anything but working out their own salvation.
Young Christians, do you know what it is to mortify your members which are upon earth? We are not Christians worth the name if we have not to say “NO” to ourselves many a time. It is well to really face matters, and once and for all decide to seek by the grace and help of the Lord to be true to Christ in all things, and to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
This, of course, is not the salvation we get through the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, but the daily salvation or deliverance from the world, the flesh and the devil, which is so necessary as we go through this world.
Do you know what “fear and trembling mean” in this connection? We may well fear, knowing that we carry the traitor within our breasts, even the flesh; knowing too how the world is decked out to catch the eye, to appeal to the flesh and the pride of life. Behind all this is the subtlety and craft of the enemy. If he cannot rob us of the grace of God, he can rob us of its joy, and mar our testimony for the Lord. For remember that every yielding to the flesh, every time we put ourselves in questionable surroundings, we grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
Further we have God on our side. We are told that He works IN what we should work OUT. He works in to will and to do of His good pleasure; in other words, He gives us the desire and the power to do His good pleasure. We can confidently appeal to young Christians, for God works in you these desires. Now it lies with you to work OUT what God works IN. What a blessed partnership.
We need plain speaking now-a-days. There is everywhere a loosening of things that are right. The apostasy is well on the way. We need to be on our guard.
May the Lord use these few lines to give some young Christians fresh exercise as to working out their own salvation. For you to do it yourself is a thousand times better than for your godly parents to seek to do it for you, though when you were young and growing up it was necessary and right for them so to do. But when you launched forth on the sea of life for yourselves they followed you with their prayers, and wistfully watched for the results they have worked for and prayed for ever since you came to gladden their homes at birth.