Open—L. Smith, D. Rule
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Father.
Turn with me, please, to Second Chronicles.
Chapter 20.
Thank you.
In the previous chapters.
Jehoshaphat had.
Gone to battle?
Together.
With Israel.
Ahab had lost his life. Chapter 1833.
Jehoshaphat is rebuked for that there had been a division.
And the first few verses, chapter 19.
I'll try.
In Second Chronicles now it's working.
Is anybody scared? No.
Jehoshaphat had wrongly gone to battle together with he had the king of Israel and Ahab had lost his life. In chapter 19, Jehoshaphat is rebuked by the prophet Jehu verse 2.
It says in verse 2, Shouldst thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away the Groves out of the land, and has prepared thine heart to seek God.
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He sets up in that chapter.
Judges verse five, and he warns them, verse six. Take heed what you do for you, judge, not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in judgment.
Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, no respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.
Well, they said some things in order there, but in chapter 20.
It came to pass after this also that the children of Moab and the children of Ammon with them others beside of the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.
And there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea on this side Syria. And behold they be in Hazazon Tamar, which is in Getty.
And Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim the fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together to ask help of the Lord. Even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem in the House of the Lord before the new court, and set, Oh Lord.
God of our fathers.
Art not thou God in heaven rule? Is not thou over the kingdoms of the heathen?
And in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee?
Art not thou art God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people is real, and gave us it to the seed of Abraham, thy friend forever?
And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary, thee, and for thy name saying.
If when evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and invite presence where thy name is in this house, and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help.
And now behold the children of Ammon and Moab, and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade, when they came out of the land of Egypt. But they turned from them and destroyed them. Not behold, I say.
How they reward us to come to cast us out of thy possession which thou hast given us.
To inherit. Oh our God, wilt thou not judge them? For we have no might against this great company that cometh against us. Neither know we what to do. Let our eyes are upon thee. And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
I would just bring before our hearts.
That here is a king.
Who?
Has failed as a leader.
And went out into battle together.
With Israel.
But he's commended in verse three of the 19th chapter that he has taken away the Groves out of the land and prepared his heart to seek God. I hope all of us here today.
Came here with a purpose of setting our hearts.
To seek the Lord.
We get Mob and Ammon mentioned here. What's their origin?
Their origin was incestuous. What an enemy.
What an enemy is coming against.
This.
Week Testimony.
That was at Jerusalem.
In.
Verse 10 it mentions.
Mount Seir. Those are Esau's descendants.
He was a man born with a birthright.
That he despised.
Sorry to say, there are precious souls.
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But have been born into families.
Where they have the privilege of being brought up.
Where there's truth surrounding them.
And then there.
For some, the course changes.
Where they despise.
Their birthright, so to speak.
How awful. But these are enemies coming against.
Something that's of God, though it exists in weakness.
In verse 3, Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord.
And he proclaimed it fast. What is a fast?
I have a hard time fasting physically. I love to eat, I like good food.
But you know when something's on your heart.
So heavy you can't eat.
Is that where we are today, brethren?
Can we see the enemy seeking to destroy?
He proclaimed it fast. Verse 4 Judah gathers.
Verse 5. Jehoshaphat.
Praise verse six. And what does he how does he pray?
He casts himself.
On the God of his Father's.
The Lord God of our fathers, art not thou God in heaven?
You know, today we have so much technologically there's.
Just almost infinite possibilities of communication.
Is our communication with God.
Decreasing because of it.
They didn't have that distraction in Jehoshaphat's day, but they did have distraction.
Of Groves in the land.
Idols, things that had to be put away.
So he cast God on his own character.
Verse 6.
And his own power.
And.
His omnipotence.
And in verse 7.
His promises.
How he had driven out the inhabitants of the land. He had given it to Abraham. How far back does this go? This is about 900 BC, 896, my Bible margin says.
If we go clear back to Abraham.
Isn't that amazing, brother?
That you have the privilege of approaching the throne of grace with holy boldness by the blood of Jesus.
As do I and every other believer on the face of the earth.
And by the blood of Jesus, we can go back to the earliest things you can find by divine revelation.
To the Church of God, we've had a lot of that being brought before us today.
But he had given it to the seed of Abraham.
Verse seven. Thy friend.
And you've given it forever.
Merced and they brought there in and a guilty of sanctuary therein for thy name.
Then he takes up Solomon's prayer, verse 9.
You could have numerous things if you go back to Solomon's prayer.
He even takes it down to little caterpillars.
Invading the land.
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Verse nine. We stand before thee, this House, and in thy presence, and cry unto thee in our affliction.
And they'll adhere and help.
Now behold the children of Ammon and Moab, and Monsieur, whom thou wouldest not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt. But they turned from them and destroyed them. Destroyed them not. Behold, I say, how they reward us.
To come to cast us out of thy possession, which thou has given us to inherit.
The Lord has given us.
Wonderful things positionally, we've had some ministry today that Paul's doctrine would bring us into practically let each one of us might be a joy to the Lord's own heart personally.
And a wonderful that we can look back to the things that are given us.
In Christ.
But these enemies that seek to destroy seek to not just destroy.
To cast us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. He doesn't say our possession.
The church.
It consists of those souls.
That the father gave to the son.
It's his possession.
Oh, I know, I need grace.
To as each of you.
That we might cry to the Lord in our affliction.
Pour out our hearts before him as we see different ways the enemy comes in. We look at our this nation and all of the abortion. Yet the word of God says children are an inheritance from the Lord. We have to be careful to not be.
Affected.
By the world's thinking.
It's reasoning.
And so they cry, verse 13, and they're all standing there.
Families too.
Little ones, wives and children. Why? Because they know that they've got to have the Lord come into the situation, to stop the situation. It's more than they can handle.
Verse 14.
Then.
To Hazel, the son of Zechariah, the son of Bennya, the son of Jihad, the son of Matania, the a Levite of the sons of Asif, came the Spirit of the Lord in the midst of the congregation. And he said, Hearken ye all Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thou, King Jehoshaphat, Thus saith the Lord unto you. Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, where the battle is not yours, but God's.
Tomorrow go ye out against them. Behold, they come up by the Cliff of Ziz, and you shall find them at the end of the brook before the wilderness of Jeru.
Shall not need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand you still and see the salvation of the Lord with you. O Judah and Jerusalem, fear not nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you.
What a revelation. It's worth fasting.
It's worth interceding.
It's worth crying to the Lord.
The battle is his.
It reminds us dozens of exodus as they stood there on the shore of the Red Sea.
Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
What's the effect?
Verse 18 Joseph had bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before the Lord, worshipping the Lord.
And the Levites of the children of the Coethites and of the children of the Chorites, stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a loud voice on I.
And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tico. And as they went forth, Joseph stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God. So shall you be established. Believe his prophets, so shall you prosper.
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And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, that they should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and say, Praise the Lord for his mercy endureth forever.
And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord, set ambushments against the children of Ammon and Moab and Monsieur, which were come against Judah, and they were smitten.
I would like to leave time for others.
You can pursue the rest. It was a great victory.
It was great spoil.
But they had been told you don't need to fight.
But there was a great need. They needed to intercede.
They needed to cry to the Lord, be before them, be Him with their hearts.
And the result was in verse.
27.
Then they returned, every man of Judah and Benjamin and Jehoshaphat in the forefront of them, to go again to Jerusalem with joy. For the Lord had made them to rejoice over their enemies. And they came to Jerusalem with sulfuries and harps and trumpets under the House of the Lord. And the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard that the Lord fought against the enemies of Israel.
So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest round about.
Well.
Is good to meditate and perfectly consider these portions.
Thank you.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8 and verse 17.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God join heirs with Christ.
If so, be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.
This is not primarily what's on my heart, but I want to make a passing remark because this is a day of suffering for.
Some, perhaps some in this room, but particularly some that were mentioned in the prayer meeting this morning, and I want to make a remark in reference to that suffering.
Notice in verse 17 we suffer with him.
The Lord Jesus.
Suffers today.
The Lord Jesus enters into a suffering.
Connected with those who are suffering.
Because he has a perfect human heart.
Because He has participated with us in flesh and blood.
He has entered into that condition of being.
That, and its measure is like us.
And when the Lord Jesus sees a soul suffering.
It produces in his own heart.
Suffering.
It's well for us to remember that.
We tend to put the Lord Jesus in a way out there condition.
And fail in doing so to participate, to get to know him as he is.
Yes. I don't personally, in my own sense with the Lord, see him suffering with respect to Cherry, Tony or Miriam Whitaker.
Because He has brought them into a place of joy.
And I believe in measure, and great measure in the family there is the joy of her having the better part, and that satisfies and puts behind them, if you will, the sorrow.
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But there are others, when taken in what we would think an untimely point of life, enter into a pain, an intensity of pain that anyone who's experienced it knows what it is. And I just want to say here, he suffers. And in our own measure, as it says here, we suffer with him. That is, there is an opportunity for us.
To enter in with the Lord Jesus into that in which today.
October.
Eight, 2011. They're suffering in the heart of the Lord Jesus, and we have a privilege to enter into it with Him.
And to the full extent in which we feel the suffering of the world and our own souls, however limited it may be, we enter with Him, and more specifically into the individual lives where they're suffering. Here it's a privilege given to the Saint of God to suffer. Doesn't say for him we may suffer for him in service, we may be put to death and His name's sake, and so on that suffering for him.
But that's not the thought here. It's suffering with him. It is entering in as he enters in and feeling things with him as he feels them.
Turn with me now to what's more, primarily on my heart, to Galatians Chapter 2.
Galatians chapter 2 and the well known verse 20.
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
I want to emphasize those words, the life which I now live.
Person that wrote these words to us didn't always have the life that he's referring to.
Yet another life, He lived another life, and the Scriptures present that life to us in more detail than many.
But he speaking to us in spirit this afternoon and he would say to us the life which I now live.
And each one of us can apply that to our own selves. What life do I now live?
What is my life? What life do I live?
He says the life which I now live and to me it's a challenge.
What is the life which I now live?
I believe God has given this man to us.
As the pattern of Christian life.
And so when he says, the life which I now live, he, the Spirit of God, would say to you and to me, this is the life you want to live.
If you're not living it, you want to start living it. You want to be able to say with him the life which I now live.
Not some life I once lived, not some life I want to live in the future. But, he says. The life which right now I live and we need.
We want if we have.
The Spirit of God in us, as we're children of God, we want to live the life he wants us to live. And he's put before us as a pattern, a model of someone who lives the life that God wants us to live. And so he says here, the life which I now live.
I live by the faith of the Son of God. I'll briefly comment on this, but we'll look at it and the time we have in a little more detail.
I live by the faith of the Son of God.
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He says the life which I now live is that life which has an object before it.
The Son of God.
We all have a life. We all live. We all have objects in our lives.
And each one of us can talk about our lives. If you were to explain your life in detail to the person next to you, it could be discovered perhaps.
To the extent that you're aware of it, what you're living for.
The life which I now live, this man presents to us a life which has an object that formed his life. Whatever your object in life is, that's what forms it.
Maybe somebody next to you wouldn't have to ask you what your life is, they just have to observe it.
And by observation, perhaps would be able to discover what your life is.
Because they would seek to see what your object in life was, what you live for. This man, he says, the life which I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
He lived by that life which had the Son of God as its object.
He says elsewhere for me to live is Christ. Another way he expresses himself about his life for me to live as Christ, he says.
It was everything.
To him.
Everything.
That person formed his life.
And everything that he lived for found its center in one thing, one person.
Sometimes our lives get unnecessarily complicated because we try to live multiple types of lives. We try to live certain aspects of our life this way, and certain things this way, and certain things the other, and after a while we're totally confused.
By ourselves, because they don't all fit together very well and they get unnecessarily complicated and we lose our focus and with this and we that. But this man, he says the life which I now live, he lives by the faith of the Son of God, that faith which has the Son of God as its object.
And he goes on, perhaps to tell us what motivated him to have such a desire to live such a way. He says, who is that person? The Son of God? He loved me.
He loved me.
You love me.
His life was a reflection of what was in his heart toward the person that he says loves him.
Nice, isn't it?
He he was captivated. His life was controlled by a person who he knew loved him.
We say everybody likes to be loved.
He wanted to be loved, he was loved.
But the wonderful thing about his life was.
It controlled it.
Sometimes we might say I want to be loved.
Because of what it brings to me, the feelings that it brings to me.
True love.
It finds its pleasure.
In what it brings to somebody else.
Not to self.
You stop and think about it. That character of God's love that excels and exceeds is is that which he finds His pleasure and your joy.
Not first what he gets, although all things are done for His glory. His love finds its pleasure in what He brings to you and to me. And the apostle Paul appreciated that, and it turned around in him and he.
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Wanted to do to live.
For that person.
How much did he love him? He says He died. He gave himself for me, and he gave himself for me goes beyond even his death. That was one tremendous, incredible event. But the Lord, he says of this person.
He gave his life, he gave his death, he gave everything for me.
And that's the person, my life that I now live. But I want to go and look for a little bit. At the first part of the verse, it says I'm crucified with Christ.
Please, we'll start looking at some thoughts connected with that don't at first seem connected, but go back to Romans chapter 5.
Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all of sinned.
Umm, verse 15. But not as the offense, so also as the free gift, for if through the offense of one many be dead.
Much more the grace of God, and the gift of grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded to many.
Verse 17. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more, they which have received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by 1 Jesus Christ.
The life that this man previously lived was a life of slavery.
Not a very good life.
We don't, naturally.
Choose that kind of a life, do we? If we had a choice?
But this man prior to his salvation.
Prior to his deliverance.
Lived a life of slavery.
His life was controlled by something in him called sin.
And that's something in him called sin.
Was easily temptable because that sin in him.
Lusted.
And those lusts?
Had control over him.
Not a nice life.
If you're in the room this afternoon and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you may not understand this statement, but you're a slave to something inside you called sin it controlling your life.
It controls you.
You can't overcome it.
You The more you recognize the wrongness of some of the things that it produces in you, the more you may be unhappy about it.
But you really can't. You don't have the power in yourself because it's not going to change.
And it has dominion or control.
That over.
God.
Put man in responsibility and man in responsibility.
Doesn't live up to it. He comes short.
Because of what he is, because of what's in him, and he comes short.
But.
What we have in these verses we read without looking at them in detail is that God says as we had something this morning, he said. But I love.
And because I love and because I have the right to, I'm going to exercise my love and something that's he says called grace.
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I'm going to come and do something that will deliver man from his slavery.
So he can live a different life.
And so he sends as the starting point of his work, he sends his son, the Son of God, into the world to do the work that's necessary for man to be liberated.
And be changed.
Lord Jesus dies.
And through his death.
He pays for sins.
So that people's sins might be taken care of because those sins separate man from God, and so he dies to put away sins to pay for them. He does the work that the Bible calls redemption, the payment for those sins. The when it says atonement, it's to remove them from God's sight in a holy way.
And he does that.
But.
That's not all the problem.
There's not only what we've done, but something has to be done about, but there's what we are.
Sometimes when we're first saved, we think about what we've done and we're so thankful, and we should be because we're forgiven our sins and we have a joy for a while, but the joy sometimes goes away from us because there's a problem still in us that controls us.
Or we think it does.
And So what is being presented to us here is in the these chapters that follow here starting with chapter this part of chapter 5 is the first part of Romans is to take care of your sins.
The next part of Romans is to take care of you, what you are and what is needed, so that you can live like Paul lived the life which I now live.
So he says in verse 19 For by one man disobedience many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
So it says in verse 21, sin reigned. That's that awful thing in US called sin. It rained, it was in control, it ran the show. But then he says, so my grace reign. God says I'm going to come in and I'm going to do something so that instead of sin running the life, grace is going to take care and run the life.
Sin when it rains, the end is death.
Grace when it rains.
Does so in a righteous way. In the end, is eternal life through or by Jesus Christ our Lord?
So notice chapter 6 and verse three. Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Verse seven For he that is dead is free from sin.
Now we if we be dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.
That is.
The only way to take care of you.
In the need where you need to be taken care of as you've got to die.
You've got to die. Are you dead yet?
We're not talking about your physical life, but your spiritual life.
Have you died? Paul had died.
I am crucified with Christ.
God.
Had to put or allow the Lord Jesus to dismiss his own life. But the Lord Jesus had to die to put away our sins. He also had to die to put us away.
2nd Corinthians chapter 5, the end of the chapter. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. That's God dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ as to what we were in the flesh. It's not about our sins there. It's not about the individual acts of disobedience.
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It's God dealing with his Son who's taken our place and responsibility on that cross before God to deal with what we, what we were before God. That is creatures with that awful thing in them called sin. And so it says he had made him to be sin for us, that he took and stood before God on that cross to be judged and to die.
To sin.
So he says in verse seven, he that is dead is free from sin. In other words, a person that's dead, that's it. That thing has no whatever it is, it's, it's taken care of, it's dealt with, it's dead. That's the ultimate punishment, if you will, in the United States.
That man has the responsibility of God to hand out. It's to end it all as to this life through death.
And so one is delivered from that thing if he's dead.
And God wants us to understand that when he put.
That's not a really good expression, but when the Lord Jesus died.
In responsibility before God, not only were our sins taken care of, but we were taken care of too.
And So what does he say in verse 11?
Likewise, he also.
Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ?
It doesn't say feel it, think it as, it as or do I feel dead or don't I? Do I feel live or don't I? No.
God says it, and Paul believed God.
And he says, I consider, I reckon myself to be dead to that thing called sin that controlled my life.
But don't want to encourage you. Don't stop the verse there or the sentence there.
Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. Many in this room have heard this, these statements, and say, OK, I'm going to reckon myself dead.
That doesn't seem to work for me. It doesn't have worked very well in practice in my life, but at least I'm going to try to do that. But notice the last part of the verse.
But alive unto God, that's the other half of this truth.
It's an essential half of this truth. I'm not only to reckon myself dead, I am to reckon myself alive.
To my God, I am to enjoy life.
With God.
Before I was dead in trespasses and sins. Before I was controlled by sin.
That is within me and its loss and the power that it has over a person.
We know what that is.
I suspect that every half grown up person in this room has gone through the experience of saying I'll never do that again.
But you did.
And you said to yourself, I'll never do that again. But you did. We've all experienced that.
Because there's no power in the flesh.
There's no deliverance by saying I'll never do that again in the power of the human nature.
That's not the grace of God delivering, but the starting point of it is.
Alive. Reckon yourself alive to God.
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I am crucified with Christ.
Apostle Paul recognized it in that particular epistle. He not only was dead with him, but the character of the death was by crucifixion. But the point is, he was dead with Christ.
But nevertheless, I live.
He says nevertheless I live, but then what else does he say? Yet not I.
But Christ liveth in me.
Eternal life is not a life simply that keeps going and and and won't end.
As we had It's the very life of Christ.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
God has in grace put in me the life of Christ.
Not a life independent of him. It's his life. But I live not not I.
But Christ liveth in me, and so I'm alive to God.
I'm not dead in my trespasses and sins.
So then he says.
So that we're not.
Under law anymore, we're under a new power and a new principle and we it's a little time we have want to look at it in Chapter 8.
We'll read just the end of Chapter 7, verse 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? It's called the body of this death because in if you read that chapter carefully, in that body is that thing called sin.
Sin that we've referred to is always connected with the body in Scripture, and so he says I've got this thing in me called sin, so it's a body of death.
Until that thing is gone.
It's no hope for it as far as pleasing God. And so it made them that condition with right desires but no way to control them, he said. I'm wretched.
Who's going to deliver me? I can't deliver myself. Who's going to deliver me from the control of this body of death in which sin resides?
Well, he gets an answer in verse 25. I thank God God will do it.
God will do it through the Lord Jesus Christ.
How does he do it? Chapter 8 verse one? There is therefore now no condemnation to them in Christ Jesus.
Verse 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free.
From the law of sin and death we've talked about the law of sin and death. That's the life Paul used to live. It was a law of sin. That is the law, the principle of work in him Law here means not a written law, not the 10 commandments law, but that which.
Rule that which like the laws of nature, we call them, like the laws of gravity, the principle of the working of that thing called sin in Him produced in the end death.
But in contrast to that, he said, there's another.
Law.
Another principle at work by the grace of God, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
God, the life that he I now live, Paul could say, is that life which is lived.
By the Spirit of God.
Living and guiding and giving power.
Through the life of Christ that is in me.
That life is untouchable.
The life of Christ. Well, it's not. It can be tempted from without, but it won't respond to temptation from within.
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That's a perfect life.
Satan with all his Wiles. Satan can't touch that life.
He can't attract that life, he can't tempt that lifeout of the path of obedience.
But it is a life of obedience.
It's really.
A life of there is no such thing. Grace doesn't introduce man into a state of self chosen liberties.
Man is only in one of two categories. He is either a slave of sin or he is a slave really, but in the right way of obedience to God. There is no other alternative. There is no such thing as trying to want to get into a state and use grace as an idea that I'm free to kind of choose it, do it, think it will it.
And leave it No, that kind of liberty is only slavery.
To sin.
The Lord Jesus life was a life of perfect obedience to the will of God.
By pleasure in doing it.
That's the life that Paul could say I now live. I live a life that finds its pleasure in obedience to the will of God.
And the power of my life is the Spirit of God to direct it.
To make it overcome even that thing inside called sin.
It's called a body of death, but he says sin doesn't have to rule in the mortal body. Changes the words in this chapter from.
Body of death to mortal body because we can live the life that we Live Today without being controlled by our Dom.
Controlled in our everyday behavior by lust.
By passion.
By sin and its temptation, because we are alive to God, we can live.
A fellowship with God.
That sin has no.
Control over.
And as he says, it is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It was the Lord Jesus. Every action of every day was actions controlled and obedience to God by the leading and power of the Spirit of God in him.
Power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Later in verse six he says to be carnally minded is death.
That is.
To be fleshly.
To be in the condition before God that he once lived in was called in flesh, and there was no hope for that.
To be carnal is to have life, but allow the flesh to have a place in the life.
And that's what Scripture calls carnal. And Tim, when he was speaking this morning was, I would say very carefully, perhaps and wisely saying Colonel Christian, because that's a Christian who is allowing the flesh to have a place in their life. And if you're really real, then you can be carnal, but you're not in a state of being in flesh before God. Uranus. God says, no, that's not your condition before me.
Notice it says verse eight, they that are in flesh cannot please God. Verse 9 But you're not in flesh, but in the Spirit. If so, be the Spirit of God dwell in you.
If the Spirit of God dwells in US.
Then the very power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in US. Is that a sufficient power to live by?
I'm going to repeat that.
If the Spirit of God lives in us, then the very power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in US.
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Is that sufficient provision of God to live above?
The flesh.
I think we all.
That was the answer. It is, isn't it?
If God says the life I now live has the Lord Jesus Christ as its object, will that ever lead me into sin? Will that ever lead me to activities and occupation with anything that would dishonor God?
I say not impossible really, that God puts before us a perfect.
Pure, holy, wholesome.
Person to be occupied with.
Is the center and the controlling object of life God puts in US.
To dwell in us the Spirit of God.
The power of God to direct that life.
With a power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
So it says, greater is he than is in you, than he lives in the world. Satan's tremendous power, smarter than any of us, thousands of years of of practice.
And observation of human nature were no match for him.
But the Spirit of God and the life of Christ are more than a match.
And just to go back to connect and closing.
With what Tim was talking about in these remarks, turn to 1St John.
First John chapter 5 and verse 19.
Or verse 18, We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. He has a life that can't sin.
But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself. There's still sin in us, so we have to be careful.
And that wicked one toucheth him, not Satans. Wiles can't draw a soul away who is living the life.
We can easily draw the soul away the moment the flesh is allowed. It's to have a place.
And we know that the Son of God is common, have given us an understanding that we may know Him as true and we are in Him as that is true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal life. This is the life.
Leave it.
John would say.
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Keep yourself from any other object that replaces the Lord Jesus as the one and only object of life, any other object to life.
Is that which produces idolatry an idol in your heart and destroys the the enjoyment of the life that God has given?