Address—Bob Thonney
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Start this afternoon with #254.
254.
Death and judgment are behind us.
Grace and glory are before all the pillows are. O Lord Jesus. There they spent their utmost power.
The verse I'd like to focus on, especially as verse 3.
Jesus died, and we died with him.
Buried in his grave we lay.
One with him in resurrection.
Now in him, in heaven's bright day.
Death and judgment are behind us.
Grace and glory are before.
All the bellows roll, Lord Jesus.
There they spent their utmost time.
Renaissance.
I'd like to this afternoon.
Speak from Romans chapter six and seven.
Before we start to read in those chapters, I'd like to make a few comments on.
The book of Romans and the 1St 8 chapters. I think many are aware that there is.
Two major divisions in the first eight chapters, from chapter one to chapter 5 and verse 11, we deal with the question of sins. Those evil deeds we've all done. Scripture says we.
All have sinned and come short. Nobody is exempt from that.
And so God deals with that question. If there's going to be a relationship with God, it's necessary that he addressed that subject and he has addressed that.
And I'd like to say that God Forgives sin.
But from chapter 5 verse 12 Through chapter 8, when it uses the word sin, it's referring maybe not exclusively, but almost always.
Not to those evil deeds we've done, but the root of those evil deeds.
Sin, sometimes called sin in the flesh, sometimes called what we call the old nature.
But it is the root cause of those sins sometimes. I give the illustration.
Of an tree. There's a tree out in my backyard. It produces apples. Let those apples are so sour.
And I can't do anything with them but just get them together and throw them away.
Nothing else to do it, so I'm gonna try to.
Give that tree a chance and I'll dig around it and I'll put good fertilizer around it. And what is the result? It only produces that much more of those sour apples.
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What do I have to do with that tree?
That tree is going to be condemned to be cut down. If you look at chapter 8 before we get begin, just want to read a verse there because this is what we want to speak about and I find that in our world today, sometimes we do not identify the source of the problem. We struggle with it in our lives. I have to say I struggled with it. Chapter 8 and verse three, notice it says for what the law.
Could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. There's that sin, sin in the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. So this sin nature that is in me that all of us have from Adam forward.
God never forgives it, He condemns it.
And this is important to understand if we're going to walk.
In the life that God has given us in Christ.
That sin nature that is in US is condemned. Don't try to fix it up. You're not going to be able to if you try to fix it up. He's just gonna produce a whole bunch of more sour apples, that's all.
But.
You need to understand, like I need to understand what God has done with that. And when we read that third verse of the hymn, we sang.
Jesus died, and we died with him.
Buried in his grave, we lay now in him in resurrection.
And in him in heaven's bright day.
Oh, brethren, and I'm speaking to you young people. I'm speaking to you older ones too. Nobody is exempt here. But it seems to me that in the world we live, there is such a focus to please what is man in the flesh, that sinful nature, that we kind of get caught in the current of it and taken along. And so we recognize what we are as men in the flesh when God has condemned it.
And in the death of Christ he has buried it and given us a new life in Christ.
That is completely beyond the sphere of death.
We have a life, and I say this to everyone of you, young people and older ones too. We have a life that is beyond death. Death cannot touch the life that you and I possess in Christ.
Yes, this body, death can touch, but the life I have in Christ is a life in resurrection. It's a life in union with Christ. And Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. You cannot die.
Now it's beyond the sphere of death, and that's the life you possess. You know what exercises me? Young people and older ones too, is that sometimes we grasp this as a doctrine in our lives.
But we don't live it.
This is something practical, this is the life that you possess if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus and it costs a whole lot for you to have that life and you should enjoy it. But if you don't understand the position that God has put us in.
Dead with Christ and buried with Him.
And risen with him.
And most likely, as we pass through this world, you're going to give attention to that which appeals to the flesh in this world. And there's a whole lot of it, let me tell you.
I can't stand up here and say I'm beyond that temptation and I can't say that.
Because I can see that it appeals to me in the flesh. But I'd like to go over in a brief way these two chapters and speak about it. And I hope I can speak about it clearly enough that you can get a hold of it, because it is so important.
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To get a hold of it, what your position is in price. Remember, the Son of God came into this world, He hung on that cross, He paid the price in full for our sins, and in his death all that we were as men in the flesh.
Is condemned and as far as God's concerned, is buried. It's gone.
Somebody dies.
We take him out the cemetery and we bury him.
Do you go out there and dig them up once in a while to see how they're doing? No, you leave them there.
Because if you dig dig them up, it wouldn't be a very pretty picture.
And that's what happens. We get occupied again with what we are in the flesh. And every time you do, young people, it's gonna get stinkier. The problem?
I struggled with that as a young person.
And I do believe that there is an answer here in these chapters, and I'm going to try to go through it and read stop from time to time to make some comments, but.
My desire is that not be something that is put to you for your understanding merely, but to be put to you in a way that will be practical so that you can live. That's what God means for us to do with it.
Truth of God is not something merely for the head.
In fact, I'm going to suggest that if you only have it in the head, you don't really have it.
Goes in through the head. Yeah, we have ears on our head. Goes in there.
But the proper place for the truth of God is the heart, and to get to the heart it has to go through the conscience. And so to touch you in practical matters of this life. Let's go to chapter 6 then and begin to read there.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue? And sin, that grace may abound?
You just said in the end of the 5th chapter just like to so you can get the reason why he says this, he says.
Verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound.
But where sin abounded?
Grace did much more abound. Isn't that a beautiful verse?
God send problem. Yeah, we all did.
But where sin abounded, grace did much more about. If that's the case, then shall we continue in sin that grace might continue to bound?
This is his reasoning and he says.
Verse two, God forbid.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? You're a believer in the Lord Jesus. God looks at you as dead to sin. Have you ever seen a dead man sinning?
Supposing there's a body laying out here of a man who in life was known as a drunk.
Air is always drunk. He couldn't get away. He was an alcoholic. Poor guy. He was enslaved to it.
Let's offer him a beer or a glass of wine. You think he's gonna grab it?
No. Is he gonna struggle with it to deny that? No. Why? He's dead. That's where you are in the eye of God. You're dead.
You haven't died physically, but Jesus died for you.
And in his death, we died.
And so there is no problem. Maybe that man also knew how to fight.
Let's give him a kick. You think he's going to get angry?
No, I don't think so.
He's dead.
How shall we that our debt to sin live any longer therein? It's not that there's a struggle to resist those things. And I must say, in my own life as a believer in the Lord Jesus, I remember struggling to resist sin.
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And you know what? Sin is powerful. I couldn't handle it.
I remember it was a particular.
Besetting sin of mine. You know, it wasn't what we'd call that serious.
But I just felt every time I did it that it was displeasing to the Lord.
And I felt grieved in my conscience.
Make it before the Lord and I say Lord, sorry I messed up.
And I get off my knees after confessing it with better determination. They're going to do that again.
Before I knew it, I was doing it again.
Soon as powerful.
I said, what is wrong with me? Why do I keep on giving in to the sin and the flesh?
Until I was brought to realize.
You can't fight sin in the flesh. No, you can't do it. You have to take God's word that says you are dead indeed unto sin. And you know the next time the temptation came to do the same thing.
I said I'm dead.
And the temptation dropped right off. It wasn't a struggle. It was simply a matter of accepting the truth of God's Word.
So what do we do with a dead person?
We take him out and bury him. Verse three Know ye not so many of us as we're baptized unto Christ Jesus, we're baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, Even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Baptism is identification.
You are baptized. You are identified as a Christian.
You're identified with Christ in his death.
And it mentions the question of resurrection here. It's not so much the focus as it is resurrection is more the focus in Colossians when it speaks about this.
But here it is death, and it's important to understand.
We are identified with him in his death.
You know, I, I don't think we grasp.
The awfulness of what the Lord Jesus went through for us, honestly, you know, when we come to remember the Lord. And I don't want to discourage anybody from doing that. I really want to encourage everybody to do it. But so often I get the feeling we sit down in a nice room where it's all comfortable.
Nice comfortable chairs to sit on.
But there is nothing comfortable about death for the Lord Jesus.
They crowned them with thorns. They beat those thorns into his head.
He faced death in all its awful reality.
The rejection of man, the reproach that broke his heart.
And then those three hours of darkness when God laid on him the Lord of our sins and the.
Full fury of divine judgment broke on his head. For three solid hours the waves and billows of divine judgment rolled over him.
We're so comfortable, brother.
We don't get the picture. It's important that we understand that his death was for us, he died for us, and we need to know what it means then to identify with him in his death.
And then we're buried with him.
And then were risen with him as well.
So we are buried, and that's what baptism speaks of. Person is put down under the waters, identified with Jesus in his death.
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Don't leave them under the water and bring them back up again because Jesus came back from the dead.
He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father.
So that we should walk in newness of life. Now let's go on reading here verse 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection knowing this.
That our old man is crucified with him.
Not interesting. It doesn't say our old man is dead.
It's crucified.
What's dead then? We are dead.
Sometimes we say our old man is dead.
Scripture doesn't say that, says we are dead, and it's important that we understand it that way. We are dead with him. And very verse six again, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is free from sin.
It's interesting.
I asked. Sometimes in the prison where we go.
What is it that cleanses from sins those bad things that we have all done and that stain our souls? And generally everybody knows the blood of Christ is the only thing that can cleanse from sin. But then I pose another question. Often I say, what is it that will free you from this in nature?
Not the blood of Christ.
It is death.
As soon as a person dies, that's in nature has no longer any power in you or me.
Not that we have died, but it is that Jesus has died for me, and the death of Christ is the end of all that we are as men in the flesh. Now we speak of a new creation.
Because Jesus rose from the dead, and in his resurrection he has become the head.
Of a new creation and everyone who is a believer in the Lord Jesus is part of that new creation, that wonderful, wonderful truth. The truth that we need to understand well and practice.
Let's keep on going here, verse 8. For if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead.
Dieth no more.
Death hath no more dominion over him, for him that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
There it is very clear, the light that the Lord Jesus has is the life and resurrection.
Is a life beyond death? Is a life that death can not touch any longer? I think that's so wonderful. We live in a world full of death. Everywhere you hear about people dying, and people are wise to make other people die.
They have all sorts of gimmicks, bombs and certain things to make people die.
But now the place that you and I possess is a place beyond death and resurrection.
And we need to lock in the enjoyment of that brother. Think of those early disciples in the book of the Acts.
Oh, we're living in the power of his resurrection.
Beautiful to see it, you know.
Can you threaten a dead man?
Saying I'm gonna kill you, will that scare him?
No, it's not gonna scare her dead man. And that's why the disciples in the beginning of the book of the Acts, there was real power and they threatened them time and again will kill you. And that's the maximum threat you can do in this life. It didn't have one little bit of a effect on them. They just kept right on preaching the gospel.
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And it was a power that just totally baffled the religious authorities, especially because it was a light that was beyond death and resurrection. That's the life that you and I possess. And you know, dear brethren, it's an exercise to me to see another lands, our brethren, who live in real circumstances of persecution.
The threat of losing their life at any time.
I don't know what it would mean to have to live in those kind of circumstances.
And I come back here to the United States and I see.
People just want to live it up in this life.
Something's not right here.
You and I understand that life that God has given us in Christ.
Wonderful life. Life beyond death.
And I don't think we should tempt the Lord and walk into dangerous situations, but I fear that sometimes we're so concentrated on conserving what we are as men in the flesh that we lose the sight of the wonderfulness of that life we have in Christ which is beyond that.
I challenge you young people to live this life, this life of resurrection that we have. We come to verse 11 of this chapter and to me it's a very signal verse.
Please pay attention.
Likewise.
Reckon, yeah, also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
He says you are dead, you are buried.
Now reckon yourselves or think this way.
Form your thoughts this way.
So that when you come along to a temptation that appeals to what you are as a person in the flesh.
You think? Wait a minute.
I'm dead.
I The life I have is a life to be lived into God.
No.
That's not where I belong. I belong over here where I can glorify the Lord in my life. Think that way. This is really important because I've had young people say I don't feel very dead inside. Yeah, I'm not saying whether you feel dead or not. I'm saying what God says, that you are dead. If you're a believer, you are dead. You may say I don't feel it. Then maybe that's true. Maybe you don't feel it.
But who are you gonna trust?
Your feelings are God.
I'm sorry to young people. Do your feelings ever change? Oh yeah, they change all the time. So you're gonna trust your feelings.
I would suggest you don't trust your feelings, you trust God. I have to say too, my dear young brother and sister and the Lord, that OFT times I don't feel that dead when there's temptation around, but I have to take God at his word, and he says we're dead. Reckon or think this way. Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Now let's go on in this chapter. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.
That you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness.
Unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.
Oh, this is wonderful. It's not that there is a rule of law. Don't you dare step over that line or you're going to get it. No, that's not the point. You're not under law. You're under grace.
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But do you understand what it costs our Lord Jesus?
In his grace to forgive you those sins, if you understand, if your heart is touched, I say to you, you are going to want to live to his glory. Nobody is standing over your head with a club saying I'm going to whack you if you get out of line. No.
But it's the constraining power of love.
Of His grace. He did so much for me. Now I want to live all I can for Him. That's the point. You know, people don't understand that principle very well.
We were living in South America. There was a time of economic.
Stress in the country and there is a lot of people on the high Alta Plano, Bolivia that were hungry.
And we were able to take some foodstuffs with help that came from up this area.
You take him up into the altar Plano to distribute them. And a lady once came to me and says, Sir, you must get a lot of favor with God doing this kind of work.
I said, ma'am, I don't do any of this work to get favor with God.
I already have favor with God because of what Jesus did on the cross.
But you know what? I feel so terribly indebted to him for all that he did for me. I'm trying to show in my little efforts how grateful I am to him. That's the principle of grace. It's not law. Dear young people, if you can get a glimpse in your heart and soul of what He did for you to save you from such a terrible death.
I tell you, nobody is going to be able to stop you.
In your desire to live that life He gave to you for Him. A little while we have left. But notice in these verses it speaks of instruments.
Read a little bit more here.
Verse.
15 What then shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace, God forbid?
Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey?
His servants ye are to whom ye obey.
Whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you.
Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members.
Servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity, and to iniquity Even so, now yield your members servants to righteousness.
Unto holiness, for when we were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
What fruit had ye been in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
But now, being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness in the end.
Everlasting life for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Speaks of instruments, it speaks of members, and I'd like to just apply it in this way.
We have members.
We sing him in Sunday school sometimes. Too little eyes to lick the guy.
Who is to hear his word? Two hands.
Is that the next one?
It was 2 feet to walk his ways.
One little heart and one little tongue. Instrument of 10 strings. What are you doing with those instruments on your body? Your hands? What do you do with your hands? Remember, he paid a price for those hands of yours. What are you doing with your feet? Where do your feet take you?
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Do they take you places you know you shouldn't go?
Your eyes.
What do you watch?
Is there movies you like to watch that you know?
Are not pleasing to the Lord.
Did you know that those eyes were bought with that precious blood on the cross?
You get on the Internet and watch stuff that you know is not pleasing to the Lord.
Are you using your members that way?
When he paid such a price? Come on, dear young people, I don't want to give you the idea that I'm standing over your head and threatening you, but I want to encourage you to live the life that you're called to. It's a far more fulfilling life than that stuff that this world offers you.
Don't give in to it.
I speak to my dear, dear young sisters.
You know, did you know that Scripture tells the sisters to adorn themselves?
Two times it tells him to Dorn himself.
You're supposed to be adorned.
But how do you adorn yourself?
There is a.
Ornament that is spoken of in First Peter chapter 3.
Very beautiful ornament that women are told to adorn themselves with. There's also another thing in First Timothy chapter 2 That women are to adorn themselves with. But if you look at it carefully, you're going to see that it was not anything outward.
I want to encourage you, my dear young sisters.
To adorn yourself properly for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
And I see many of you that do that. I thank God for that.
May the Lord encourage you.
The way you dress, something that makes the young men look at you in an improper way. Remember, our bodies belong to the Lord Jesus. Now, not only did He redeem us, our spirit and our soul, but our bodies belong to Him, and anything we do should be for Him. So those instruments, those members of yours.
Yield them to God.
I like to think.
Getting up in the morning.
And saying to the Lord Jesus.
Lord Jesus, today, another day before me. Here's my hands.
Here's my feet, here's my ears, here's my eyes.
I want to use them for you.
I want to yield them to you. Do your will.
Oh, how important that is in our lives. Make it practical. You know what I'm going to tell you? If you have the grace to do that, you're gonna find life thrilling and worth living.
You know what really impresses me?
In South America especially, there's lots of countries in South America you wouldn't call third world countries because they're not poverty stricken like others. Like Argentina is a fairly well off country.
But there are countries that are very poor and you find families that are extremely poor.
I have never found.
A child in a poor family saying I'm Borg.
Doesn't have time to be born, he has to get out there with his shoeshine kit and earn some money.
They come back to this country where we have luxury all around.
And kids are saying I'm bored, don't have anything to do.
You know what?
We don't have it's straight what life we're really living.
We've been appealed to by this world to live what we are as man in the flesh. That's dead, that's buried, that's gone. Leave it there. Live the life that He gave you in Christ. Oh, the thrill on it. To live for Him, to live for His glory.
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There will be fruit. What kind of fruit do you want?
It talks about the fruit.
That they had to be ashamed of.
That was unto holiness in the end. Everlasting life. You know, I noticed that sometimes young people shy away from that word holiness.
Sometimes they say I'm not that holy.
I'd just like to.
Make a comment on that.
Holiness means separated to Christ.
Separated.
You know, what's so interesting to me is to see how much we like to go to weddings.
Why do people always like to go to weddings? What's the big deal at a wedding? You know what the big deal is.
A young lady.
Separates herself from everybody else to be joined to one man. Likewise, the man separates himself to be joined to one woman.
That is so beautiful and everybody likes to come and see it.
And I must say, I enjoy it too. I really do.
Find it.
Beautiful.
Let me tell you.
To be separated to the Lord Jesus is beautiful. Don't shy away from that word holiness.
It's beautiful. I sometimes say it to young people.
This didn't happen to me, but.
What would you think if this would have happened to me when I asked my wife to marry me?
If she would have said, OK, I'll be 95% for you, but I like to reserve 5% for somebody else, what would you think I would say?
Oh, I wouldn't be very happy.
So maybe she's up at 99%, just 1% for me.
It's all or nothing.
That's the only option.
Young people, are we saying, OK Lord, I'll be most of my life for you, but I'd like to have a little reserve to do my own thing in my own time.
Are you living like that?
You're robbing yourself a tremendous joy by saying that.
Holiness means all separate to him.
Those members of yours, don't use them for other things.
Use them for him. You're going to find the joy. That's the result.
Let's go to the 7th chapter now because in the 7th chapter and I'd like to only have 15 minutes left, I'd like to read through the chapter.
And as we do, you're gonna see that there's a struggle that's going on with this person in this chapter. And I find that this is often the case with us, that we go through a real struggle in connection with this sin in the flesh.
It begins in verse one. Nor ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law.
How that the law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth.
For the woman which hath and husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he liveth.
But if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called and adulterous.
But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law.
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Did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death, but now we are delivered or freed from the law that deemed dead, wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of spirit, not in the oldness of the letter. I'm gonna pause there. You're speaking about the law here, and you know there is the thought.
Sometimes with Christians that the law is a rule of life.
Is the law a rule of life for the Christian?
Very clear here that we are dead to the law.
We are delivered. We are free from the law.
The law is not the rule of life for the believer in the Lord Jesus. What is the rule of life?
It's Christ himself.
His glorious person, it's nothing more, nothing less than that. Beautiful to see it. But I, I bring this out so that we can understand. He uses a illustration of a married woman here and that she cannot be to another man while her husband is living because that is what is called adultery.
But if her husband is dead, then she's free from that loss to be married to another.
And the apostle Paul is using that to show that by the death of Christ, through the body of Christ we have been delivered. We are dead to the law by the body of Christ. Sometimes give the illustration.
In the prison, there is a man on death row.
Is sentenced to be taken out of his prison cell tomorrow morning at 8:00 and to be executed.
Tomorrow morning at 8:00 the guards go in to take him out of the cell for his execution, but they find that during the night he died.
Now what are they gonna do?
He was sentenced to be executed. Are they going to take him out and execute him?
No. Why not? The sentence was passed by law.
The law is made for men who are alive in the flesh.
And in Christ we are dead to the law by the body of Christ.
And what we have in the verses that follow that I want to read something of, you're going to see that the law is an instrument that provokes the flesh to sin. Don't use the law. It's not the proper norm for the Christian. It is perfect. Nothing wrong with the law, but it will only provoke the flesh in US.
Verse seven. What shall we say then? Is the lost sin? God forbid.
Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
When you lose law to contain the flesh, you just provoked the flesh.
That flesh sin in the flesh in US.
Is provoked. We don't want to be told what to do.
And if I say do this, you don't want to do it. And if I say don't do this, you want to do it because it's contrary to the law of God.
It is an enemy of God.
Verse.
Let's see verse 9. For I was alive without the law once, But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just and good. Nothing wrong with the law.
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The problem is.
This sin in the flesh.
So the law is holy, the commandment holy, just and good. Verse 13 Was then that which is good made death unto me, God forbid but sin, that it might appear, sin working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For what? For that which I do I allow not. For what I would that I that do I not but would I hate that I do notice there is a struggle inside of him.
Perhaps it relates to what we have in Galatians, where it says the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these things are country, the one to the other, so that we would not do what we.
Should.
You ever feel that struggle, young person?
I felt it strongly in my life, you know, and I think it affects those of us who have been brought up in Christian homes.
I have to say for myself what the Lord has taught me in this struggle is.
Being brought up in a Christian home and lived fairly sheltered life, sometimes we think we're not just quite as bad as all the rest of those bad people out there.
You know, as long as you have that idea about yourself, even if it's unconsciously there.
You're not going to enjoy the grace of God.
You're not going to enjoy.
And so this man struggles. Verse 16 it says.
If then I do that which I would not, I can send unto the law that it is good.
7th Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. OK, he's coming to the point where he's identifying the problem in him. It's not I I want to please God, but sin in me.
It's there.
And I struggle with it.
For I know that in ME verse 18. Notice this is a signal verse in this chapter.
I know that in me that is, in my flesh dwelleth.
No good thing for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good? I find not.
Come on, Paul, aren't you a little bit hard on yourself?
I've heard some.
Christian.
He came to the right conclusion here. I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Far as the man in Adam, there is nothing. You're absolutely corrupt. Corrupt.
Can take the worst criminal in the judicial system of the United States of America and stand him up beside me and say there is no difference for all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
Brother, it's important to come to that point because if you don't get to that point, you're not going to appreciate properly what is the grace of God. The only standing I have before God is in grace. If it depends on performance, and sometimes we give that idea, we who are older sometimes give that idea to our young people. It's performance.
That's the principle of law.
And as long as we put the law down, there's going to be a provoking to sin. That's not the answer.
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Verse.
19 For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now notice verse 20 again. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. There again he is identifying the problem.
Sin that dwelleth in me, that sin nature.
And he says I find then a law that when I would do good.
Evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
And then he cries out in his wretchedness.
Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.
You know there's word pictures in the scriptures and I understand that one of the.
Punishments for criminals in the Roman Empire when this was written.
The Roman Empire was for a criminal, and I don't know for what crime it was given to him, but.
A dead body was chained to him until it actually rotted off his back.
He had to live with it.
This is the picture.
Oh, wretched man that I am.
He cries out, Who shall deliver me? What do we need? We need deliverance.
That's what we need.
And the answer for deliverance is in the next verse, the last verse of this chapter.
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.
Now the next chapter is the tremendous expose of this new life in Christ that we have beautiful. You'll notice that in the 7th chapter the Spirit of God is not mentioned. It is mentioned time and time again in the 8th chapter because the Spirit of God is the power of that new life so that we don't obey that sin in the flesh any longer.
But that we give place to those.
Wholesome desires of that new life that we have in Christ. Well this is what I had on my heart, dear young people, and let me stop here just to.
Once again, encourage you and exhort you in the name of the Lord Jesus. This is the life that you have if you are a real believer in the Lord Jesus. I Sometimes we think we sometimes treat our young people as if they're just people in the flesh. Sometimes they act that way, don't they? Sometimes we older ones act that way too.
But we need to recognize if they are a real believer in the Lord Jesus. You have a life that wants to please God. Let's encourage that. Let's be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Let's not lay down a law.
The law will provoke the sin in the flesh, and that's not the life that we have been given in the Lord Jesus. May the Lord help us.
I trust.
That you can take these scriptures and meditate on them and get the profit from them. Dear young people and dear brother and sister and the Lord Jesus that are older as well. May the Lord help us.