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We go to meet the.
Strength.
No, no.
Because.
1 #201.
Sin can't condemn for grace has justified.
Sin shall not reign, for grace has set us free.
Sin we abhor, since Christ are sure he died.
His grace now rules our souls in liberty.
#201.
We fly not now from.
The.
1St * since I sprung.
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For.
Me.
Yeah.
View of what our brother brought before us this morning. Brother and I would like to suggest we.
Go to Romans chapter 8.
I'm not sure how.
Far we can get there's only two readings designated as readings, but perhaps there might be more.
The Lord guides.
But I feel, as Bill had on his heart this morning, the importance of understanding the life.
That we have been brought into in the Lord Jesus.
And I suggest that I.
Submit to my brother and if they feel that something else should be taken up to.
Yeah. Very good, Bob.
Read the whole chapter.
Romans chapter 8 beginning at verse one.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh?
God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flush, do mind the things of the flush.
But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
Before to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, Neither indeed can be so. Then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit, which dwelleth in you.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, but to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the Spirit do mortified the deeds of the body, ye shall live, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God.
They are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the Spirit of ******* again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry ABBA, Father, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and join heirs with Christ.
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If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckoned that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in US. For the earnest expectation of the creature waited for the manifestation of the sons of God, For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who had subject.
The same in hope.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the ******* of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and triathlon in paying together until now, and not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruit of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit.
The redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. But hope, that is, that is seen, is not hope.
But what a man here. Why does he hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with the patients, wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, For we know not what we should pray for as we are, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the heart knoweth what is the the mind of the Spirit.
Because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God, and we know that all things work together for good to them the love God to them who are called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow. He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren, moreover, whom he did predestinate.
Them he also called.
And whom he called them he also justified. And whom he justified them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spare not his own Son, but deliver him up for us all? How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.
Who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. Yeah, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.
Who also maketh intercession for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or Pearl, or sword, As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, no things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Chapters 6-7 and eight go together, as we all know.
Chapter 6 gives us the doctrine of deliverance from sin.
Chapter 7 gives us the experience that leads to it.
In chapter 8, which we're reading, gives us the result of the two.
In deliverance lived in a conscious, practical sense.
The chapter really is to do with the believer's deliverance.
Both the present and a future deliverance is before us in this chapter.
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It's so interesting that in the very first pages of the Bible.
When Satan came to man, he said, you shall be as God's knowing good and evil.
But The Dirty little secret there is that just knowing the difference between good and evil didn't leave the happiness, didn't leave or provide the ability to choose the good and to reject the evil. And his brother said so, so nicely and succinctly a second ago in in Romans 7, you even have a person who has a new life, budding regenerated life in them, with all kinds of good desires.
But at the end of the chapter, it says, oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. And there's the experience, as someone put it, Romans 7 describes the past experiences of a delivered man looking back and remembering the feeling of.
And the experience of right godly desires without the power, the spiritual power, to choose the good, to walk in it and to enjoy it.
And that's, I think was William Kelly who wrote that from Romans 7 into Romans 8. So it's one chapter goes to another is like a hinge, the beautiful hinge. And you just swing that door that way and all of a sudden the wonderful, happy, normal Christian pathway can be realized that that new life does have a source of power and energy where the new desires could be realized.
And I'm sure others will develop. It's the wonderful privilege that we now have of God's Holy Spirit indwelling us and being the energy for that new life.
It's important to notice and understand that the new life that we possess is a dependent life. It's a life that needs power and an object. The man in Romans 7 has neither, but we see them both, found beautifully in the 8th chapter, with Christ the object and the Spirit of God in the believer working for power for deliverance in a practical way.
The first.
8 chapters of Romans is divided into two parts right up to chapter 5. Verse 11 is the first part and from chapter 5 verse 12 on it takes up the question of sin or that sin nature that produces the sins. So God in the work of Christ is not only addressed the one, but is addressed both issues.
And the first five chapters, up to verse 11 of chapter five, we have him addressing the question of our sins, those ungodly deeds that we have committed.
Is resolved that issue.
But what about the nature that produces those sins?
In those other chapters then, we find that God has addressed that issue as well, and it's very important to realize it, like Bill was saying.
You in his address.
Sometimes after we've been saved, we realized that I thought I was going to be different.
And we start looking in. Instead of looking out to Christ, we start looking in and we get all discouraged.
And it seems to me that sometimes, especially those of us who have been brought up in Christian circles and have.
A rather protected life from the corruption of the world sometimes have the tendencies tendency to think, well, maybe I'm just a little bit better than the rest of the world out there. And so the Lord allows the experiences we have in Chapter 7.
What a miserable, miserable experience. I remember going through some of it myself in my own experience.
In my growing up years and the Lord and.
I would prefer not to ever been born than to have to go through all this. What is this about? But we have to come to the conclusion that the Apostle Paul comes there. I think it is in verse.
17.
He says in verse Chapter 7.
Excuse me, it's not 17 is verse 18, for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Completely rotten to the core.
I'm not any better than that criminal.
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And the president out there?
No, not one bit better in the flesh. And so finally at the end he comes to like you say, brother Bruce, he comes to that point where he says who shall deliver me?
And he turns from himself and he finds the answer in the Lord, and then the door swings open on chapter 8. What a beautiful chapter Chapter 8 is. But I think if you're going to appreciate chapter 8, it helps to understand those previous chapters as well.
Perhaps helpful to go back for a moment to Chapter 5.
Where as Bob just described the subject changes.
But in chapter 5.
In verse six he says, for when we were yet or still without strength.
And then in.
Following that, he speaks of us joying in our God.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ in verse 11.
When Roman starts, the concern of the need of the soul is to be right with God.
And he's worried about his acceptance with God because of his sins.
And when he puts his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He immediately has a joy that results from it. He joys in God. He feared God before, but when he realizes that the Lord Jesus has paid for his sins, then he finds an immediate joy in his God that he didn't have prior to that.
But in a general sense, God said you were without strength.
But in the Christian life, we also have to learn that.
That in ourselves we're still without strength. We have a right desire. We want to please God. We have joy in things we didn't have a joy in before. But there is the necessary process that God has to work with us and in us to recognize that yes, I want to please God. I love the Lord Jesus. God is I have peace. That God has saved my soul. And yet there's a difficulty in living it out in a practical sense.
And so the discovery process of the root in US of sin.
Somebody says you've got sin in you and that's the problem. And yeah, we hear the words.
But it's it's not easy for the soul to accept it.
And everyone has to go through it in the recognition, in the practical sense of not only in me dwelleth no good thing, but there's no strength in me either to do the good. Now that I want the good, I still don't have the strength to do it in myself. And consequently, when we get to chapter 8, the 1St 30 verses emphasize the spirit of God.
Because the Spirit of God is the power of the Christian life. And as Bruce already mentioned, we have the object to set before us that we need as well. But we often don't learn dependence.
Until we learn our helplessness and the experience of the man in Romans 7 was to learn his helplessness in the face of something that he discovered in himself, which was his own sinful nature.
And then when he recognizes it, he's ready for a deliverer.
Who shall deliver me? And many of us can spend years of our lives going through that process because we.
Don't have to, but very often we do.
And until we can say who shall deliver me?
Romans chapter 5.
In verse 14.
The spirit of God brings us before us 2 two men in Romans chapter 5 and I believe it's it's very helpful to get ahold of of the two men that we see here. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses. Even over them they had not sinned. After this military of Adams transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come?
We have the subject.
Of really our our being an atom.
And the condition that were found in Adam. God really only sees two men. He sees Adam and Christ, and in his purposes he wants to bring us into the conformity of Christ.
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And so he introduces and if if if you read the rest of the 5th chapter, you find the comparison of these two men.
Adam was a complete and total failure, but God is not occupied with Adam.
Adams been fully and completely tested and he has proved to be totally unworthy of our occupation. So in chapter six we find what God does with Adam, we find what God wants us to understand about Adam. And at the cross God dealt with Adam and we see the end of Adam there in chapter 6 in the sense of our death at Calvary's cross.
In our connection with Adam.
And in Chapter 7, I like to think I've enjoyed the thoughts that you've brought out about Chapter 7, but I also like to think of Chapter 7 as being delivered from law.
It's through law that we find the power of sin. Sin is that which, when we're brought in contact with the law, we realize the inner workings of the power of sin. The law has that effect on us. It has a tendency to show us exactly the power of sin in my Adam nature. And so in chapter seven we have also Adam introduced to death.
So that he becomes free from the power of sin and he becomes free from the claims of law, the demands of law. Death is the answer.
To being under this *******.
And so in chapter 8, what do we have here?
In this first verse we have two things that are very significant. In Chapter 8 we have Therefore there is therefore now no condemnation.
That, therefore, is referring to the chapter before in which the soul was learning the power of sin.
Due to its exposure to law.
Well, he finds himself delivered from law. And what does he find himself? What? What happens? Then he realizes.
There is therefore now no condemnation. The law brings condemnation.
And when a soul realizes he's dead to the law, he is freed from the condemnation that law brings. And so there is liberty. I am no longer under condemnation. But there's also something else here in this verse, and it is those that are in Christ Jesus. Remember we talked about in Romans 5 the introduction of the two men Christ.
And Adam?
Well, we've seen in position our death.
In our connection with Adam and in Romans 8.
We're fine now. We find now that we're in Christ Jesus, we're no longer seen in Adam. Our connection with Adam is over.
And our our connection now is in another man in God's man in that man that is going to endure Christ Jesus.
These are things that have to be laid holed up by faith, and like our brother Bill is bringing out in his address, says in Romans 6, reckon ye get there for yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God.
I don't feel dead to sin.
When those temptations come around, I don't feel dead at all.
We have to learn not to go by feelings, brethren. They have to learn to go by God's word.
And what is our position now as believers in the Lord Jesus?
In Christ Jesus.
Wonderful place.
And I must say, my own feelings sometimes battle around inside of me pretty violently.
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But I don't base my faith on my feelings. Feelings are very real.
And I don't say you can totally ignore them, but our faith is not based on feelings. Faith is based on fact.
And the fact is that as believers in the Lord Jesus.
Our place is in Christ Jesus.
I often give the illustration here in this verse one of chapter 8.
Of Noah in the Old Testament. The Old World was under condemnation.
And God said he was going to destroy it completely with a flood.
And in time.
God said to Noah and his family, Come thou and all thy house, into the ark. Noah went in with his whole household, and God shut the door.
And after another seven days.
The rain came down.
How many drops of water?
Touch Noah and his family.
Not one single drop. It all fell on the Ark.
Noah and his family were protected brethren. That's the picture we have here. We are in Christ Jesus.
Our feelings might.
Vary violently.
But we must learn to base our faith on the facts of the precious word of God, the Lord Jesus on that cross.
The storm of judgment broke on him in all its fury. He bore it all, he said. It is finished at the end.
And if we are in Christ Jesus to suggest.
That any condemnation, any judgment could fall on us is to put a big question mark on the Lord Jesus and on his work of redemption.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
Beautiful, Bob. Because if someone were to come to us, at least the majority of us here in this room, and raise a question about their salvation.
Raise a question about whether their sins were all gone. We wouldn't turn them to feelings, would we? We would turn them to the word of God.
And with no uncertain or with no uncertainty, I should say we would bring scriptures before them that would point out.
Their blessed position, as you say, in Christ.
It's the same with deliverance from The Power of Sin, isn't it?
Someone says I don't feel safe. What gives me the assurance? The word of God. Someone says I don't feel delivered. What gives me the assurance? The word of God. Now the Lord says, you act on that which I have already given to you. You live up to the position into which I have already put you. And that's the way Romans 8 starts off, doesn't it?
Just as an addition to that, is it right that the last?
Couple of clauses of this verse really should not be there, that is.
It shouldn't read as if there is a condition on there being no condemnation, the condition, namely that I walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. The whole thing really is the position into which we are brought. Is that correct?
At the end of verse four, Really, doesn't it? That's where it's properly.
But it's characteristic, perhaps you could say, of a believer, but it's not conditional. It should not leave any question marks in our minds at all.
So at verse one we get acceptance, verse two we get deliverance.
Before a person can know deliverance in a practical way, he must first know his acceptance in Christ, and we've touched on that already. The term in Christ Jesus, I think it's something like 48 times in the New Testament. And it refers to that position in which the Lord Jesus now is in at the right hand of God. And all the favor and acceptance that rests upon him in that place from God is the very measure of the acceptance that I have and you have as believers down here in this world.
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For his place is ours, and there's a nice verse in First John chapter 4, and it says as he is, so are we in this world. As He is is in the measure of his acceptance and the delight of the Father that rests upon him. As he stands there in God's presence, so are we in this world.
To be in Christ means simply to be in Christ's place before God. You can remember it that way. It's a simple way of remembering it. I say that for the younger brethren that are here in Christ simply means to be in Christ's place before God.
That's your place. That's mine.
Question mark on your salvation. You'll have to lay that question mark on the presence of the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God.
What follows?
Impossible. Impossible.
Verse two, he says.
Continuously. I recall when I was first saved the difference between a believers standing in his state, and I don't know if those two expressions are as commonly used today as when I was younger, but I found it very helpful to learn that my standing as a brother has already.
Explain is tied to God's acceptance of the man, Christ, Jesus, and glory.
But also my standing is the same as every other believer. It can't be affected. It can't be improved upon. God has placed me there and it nothing can be taken from it or added to it. And this is really quite something to think about, that we have this standing that that is just so solid in the way God sees us in Christ.
And you notice as you read through the epistles of the New Testament that when it gets down to the practical side of things, which will take up shortly, I'm sure.
The Spirit of God, I'd almost say always, but I can certainly say often.
Brings up the standing by way of a point of reference, a point of solidity in our minds.
Typical example is Colossians 3. Since or if you be risen with Christ, that's the standing. You are indeed set your mind on things above. That's the practical side. And so the practical side flows from the standing. And this is the opposite of the way a religion would work, or the way something that man would invent works as well. Do this to get back.
And God says all that is over now. His brother has explained with respect to Adam, This is where you are now. I placed you there. I've given you all that you need there. And now live it out manifested. Enjoy it, display it in your practical life and so.
You know, but the two are connected. Because if I become careless in my practical life, I lose the enjoyment of my staffing. It's the Holy Spirit indwelling me that sheds God's love abroad in my heart.
And keeps reminding me and assuring, assuring me how much I'm loved, how privileged I am. When I get careless, the spirit of God is going to be grieved, seeking to nudge me and wake me up about my carelessness, more so than shedding God's love abroad in my heart and taking the things of Christ and showing them unto me. And so it's interesting in First John where it says.
I think it's in the 4th chapter.
Brethren of our hearts condemn us. Not then have we confidence towards God. So the two are related in that way, respect to our enjoyment.
Verse 2.
It says the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
That brings before us how the Lord Jesus Christ lived his life.
And to recognize, to learn how we have a practical deliverance.
God starts by showing us the character of the life of the Lord Jesus here on earth.
His life was lived in this way.
I delight to do Thy will, O my God, every morning He woke up, if you will, and the very fixed purpose and desire of his life.
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Was to delight, to do the will of God.
And every day of his life.
The direction the working in his soul of his living out of his life was according to the working of the Spirit of God in him.
To live it according to the will of God.
And that in this verse is called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
You and I might immediately say, I'd like to live a life like that.
I'd like to practically live like the Lord Jesus lived his life.
And if you will, God could say to us, that's the life I want you to live. And so I'm going to give you everything you need to live that character of life.
First thing I'm going to give to you is life, the life of Christ. If you're going to have a life like his, then you need that life. And so he gives to us. As Colossians says, Christ is our life.
That eternal life which we have is that life. That is it Christ.
It says the law or the principle of the spirit of life in Christ. And the Spirit was the one that directed and empowered every motive and activity of the life of Christ. You say you want to live that life. God says yes, I know you do. And so I'm not only giving you the gift of life, I'm going to put my spirit in you so that with my spirit in you, you also.
May walk in a practical way in that character of life, the spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus.
And if you do.
Live it out. That way. It delivers you from the type of character of life you had before, which is the law of sin and death, or the principle of sin and death. When I lived the life of Adam, if you will, with his sinful nature, I lived a life that could be called the law of the Spirit.
Of death, sin, and death. Because the only results of that life in the flesh was that producing sin in me that leads to death.
But in order to be practically in the enjoyment of it.
It's necessary for us to 1St see the life that was in Christ, that God has enabled us to live that same character of life.
And then to live it out in a practical sense, of which the verses which follow show us what the conflicts are and what we need to judge, perhaps, and what we need to depend on in order to walk in that character of life.
Saying that first Peter chapter 4 verse one is the living out of the teaching that we have here in this verse.
For as much then as Christ has suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind. For he that has suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin.
The practical making the flesh suffer not in the sense of the concision, but recognizing what Christ has done and.
Not gratifying the flesh. Would that be right?
The Spirit of God to give us the power to fulfill what Peter instructs us to do. And that's because the flesh in US never changes.
You're born with it. As long as you live in this world, you're going to have it. And it absolutely, and its desires never, ever changes.
It loves sin.
It loves what's sinful it has.
The desire to have its own will regardless of what God's will is, or what God thinks, or what anybody else thinks, for that matter.
We have a nature in us that says I do not want to be under.
Anyone else's law of any sort, or anyone else's authority. Sin is lawlessness and we're born with a nature that loves lawlessness and.
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Not to give it its way.
Causes suffering.
In a practical sense, as Peter brings it out.
It's a little bit off the subject, but I think it's it's kind of helpful to recognize the society in which we live.
And the conflict, the natural conflict of the society in which we Live Today with Romans 8 and the truth for Christianity. And it's this.
God put Adam in a garden and he gave him a rule.
That he was to be obedient.
Man is a creator of God to be dependent and obedient, and God is never going to change that. Even in heaven we will be dependent and obedient creatures.
We are to live our life as dependent and obedient.
And man's tendency is I don't want to be either dependent or obedient. I want to be independent, and I want to have the character of being free to do my own will.
And the consequence is the society in which we live is going on toward the direction of absolute lawlessness, which means every man is free completely to do his own will.
In the spirit of independence, and the ultimate of it is that the Antichrist is called the lawless 1.
Because society and this country and every young person and every older person is constantly bombarded with the idea of.
You do what you want.
It's up to you.
Morality is your choice, whatever you believe, whatever It allows man to be independent and lawless in his character, and it's the ultimate thing of which God is going to judge.
In in government he's already judged it at the cross, but he's going to bring his hand upon it in governmental judgment at the end of After the Lord takes us home. But in the contrast of of this man.
In what we have in Romans, we have to recognize that we resist. We, as Bill said this morning, it's turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and that lascivious means the unrestrained.
Activity of my own flesh.
And that's where society is going.
Good point to make that our brother just brought up, because what we get here in Romans 8 is victory, isn't it? It's that new life in Christ being lived out in the power of the Spirit of God and with Christ as its object.
But in a world that is still characterized by sin, a world in which sin still is present.
In seeking to live that new lifeout, it's going to result in suffering. There is no way out.
Let's take an example. And we don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but suppose I'm a poor man and I don't have the money to buy food and I'm hungry.
And I walked down the street, and there I see that which would satisfy my hunger.
I'm tempted to steal.
But I don't steal because I want to please the Lord. What's the result? I suffer in the flesh. My hunger isn't satisfied In a normal world, if we could say it that way, in a world like the Garden of Eden, that would never happen. But in a world that still has sin in it, the one who wants to please the Lord will sometimes end up suffering in the flesh. So we need to be prepared for that. But we have a resource for it just the same, don't we? We can go to the Lord.
Because he was one who, as dawn has brought out in seeking to do the Father's will and not his own will. If we could say it bluntly, it cost him his life, didn't it? He suffered right to the final end, as you could say, of suffering even unto death.
Principal and that verse you mentioned this morning in Galatians 220 says I am crucified with Christ.
Anybody here like to be crucified?
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Did you find that pleasant?
Nobody. It's excruciating. And the flesh.
Complaints. Come on, give me a break.
And you'll have to Simply put it into effect. Recognize that's where I have been put. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, so life is in a different area.
What we live for our living. And so in this verse 2 here we have two laws broken up. Sometimes the word law is used as a principle of.
Life. And so is this law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Has made me free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is what prevails in this world.
Sin, which is lawlessness Don has been talking about that brings death. Are there any exceptions to that? Anybody that lives the life of sin does he get away from?
Death. No, it's a law. You sin, you die. The soul that sinneth it shall die.
But now we're going to introduce a different law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, And it makes us free from the law of sin and death. Wonderful to realize our deliverance in this way.
South America amongst the brethren down there, they I use a different illustration and perhaps some of you can appreciate it, I think.
Some of you have heard of Simone Bolivar. He was the Liberator from the Spanish in South America not the only Liberator, but there was 1 Liberator that.
They know well on the western side of the continent pretty well.
But the Spanish dominated for many years down there with an iron hand, and Simone Bolivar came and he liberated the continent from the power of the Spanish.
Supposing there is a town in the mountains of the in the Andes mountains, very isolated, and they have not heard that the Liberator has liberated them.
So here comes one of the Spanish agents of the King of Spain.
Says you've got to pay your taxes obligatory, you've got to bow. And since they don't know that there has been a Liberator, what are they going to do? They're going to just say, OK, we'll have to do it.
And a Christian that doesn't know our place of deliverance.
Temptation comes along. Yeah, that's what everybody else does. I guess I'll do it too.
That's not our place. Our place is somebody something completely different.
And so those agents of the King of Spain come to another town where they know they're liberated, and he tries to foist on them, paying taxes to the king of Spain. What are they going to do? They're going to make that man get out of there as fast as humanly possible. That is treason.
Now that they have been liberated, brethren, we've been liberated.
Soon death no longer dominate. It's going to mean, yes, suffering, as we've heard, to enjoy this new life in Christ that we've been given life in the power of the spirit of God, life, independence on the Lord. But this is the life that we've been given. And it really exercises me, brethren, that I see sometimes young people just living to please themselves.
Is that what Christian life is about?
I suggest that Christian life is something completely different.
It's the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We've been given a new life and the object is not pleasing ourselves.
The object is pleasing that one who died for us and rose again. What a wonderful place we've been brought into brethren. Oh, that we would revel in it. Dear young people, live the life you've been given in Christ Jesus.
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The other life is a.
Is a lie.
The American thing, like Don was saying, the culture we live in, please yourself.
Often say, Burger King says have it your way, OK?
I don't mind if you don't want onions on your burger, but it's the principle brethren. Just to do things your own way is not what Christian life is about. It's not at all.
Sometimes I think it's difficult for us to understand when it speaks of the law of something.
We we can, we can maybe be helped in understanding that principle by thinking of gravity. It's a force. It if you throw a basketball up in the air, the law of gravity is going to bring that ball down. It's there's a force behind it. It's it there's there's power there. And we're not talking about when we speak of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. We're not talking about some concept. We're not talking about some idea. We're actually talking about a force.
Of new life exhibited in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in Him. We have the same life under the direction and power of the Spirit of God that causes things to happen.
It changes. It brings about a change. If it exists in our life, there will be results because it is a law.
It's a governing principle.
It's reality.
I have the last chapter we read.
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God.
Now the Pharisees were.
Serving the law, they were under the law.
And they are criticizing the disciples of the Lord Jesus.
And the Lord Jesus says whatever they tell you to do, do.
Where Don't do after their walk.
And that's what we have then later here to them which are in Christ Jesus.
So when we are in Christ Jesus, that means when we are safe.
We don't walk after the.
But after the spirit.
Now we walk after the spirit.
Don't we sin anymore?
Because elects first speaks about sin, all the same words actually speaks about sin.
And in first John 3.
We read about.
Sin. You know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.
Whosoever abideth in him, sinners not.
Whosoever sinners had not seen him, neither know him.
So if we sin.
Don't we know him anymore?
Because we are capable of sinning.
But we are not looked at as sinners because we are looked at being liberated from sin.
And then we believe that Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin.
And death.
Well, we also made free from death. That doesn't mean either that we don't die anymore.
But we die also unto the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we?
So when we die, we don't go to be condemned, so we don't go to hell.
I wonder if I could just add one more thought to the thought that I just brought out.
The the Spirit of God often teaches us.
By way of contrast, oftentimes he'll take he'll he'll take things that we do understand.
Something that we can, we can readily get a hold of. And then he'll he'll teach us a principle from that.
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Well, the law of sin and death is something we do understand.
We're well familiar with Adam.
And what characterized Adam was sin and death.
And so.
There, there we understand the power of sin.
We understand that force, don't we? The law of sin and death. We understand that because we've actually experienced it, and we know what it is to be under that law, that governing force.
Well, we have a new law and a new governing force now.
And that new governing force is the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
What a wonderful thing to experience this in our life as we allow the Spirit of God liberty to bring about that that that the power of divine life in our life.
Say something that I heard years ago at a conference that.
Think it was AC Brown that used to say it, that he was contrasting the commandments of the Old Testament and the commandments of the New Testament. And he put it this way, and I found it very helpful. Commandments of the Old Testament were Do this and you will live.
Commandments of the New Testament.
Is live and you will do this.
And that's basically the thought, because he gives us life. And what kind of life is that?
It's life in Christ by the power of the Spirit, and so there are commandments in the New Testament.
Can't say that there's no commandments now, but they are commandments given to a life that delights to do the will of God.
Verse and it's been touched on by Brother Phil. But just to reemphasize it again, the point here in this second verse is that God has brought a new principle into the life of the believer, a new power by which he is able to live a life pleasing to God and above the propensities and the inclinations of the fallen sin nature. And that's of course is what we have been saying. It's a new law, the law, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
And it has made me free or set me free from the law of sin and death.
And so we can thank God for the greater power, a greater principle that's present in the believer by which deliverance can be had. And I thought someone would have mentioned this illustration already but an old illustration has often been used to to really illustrate this is, suppose I hold up a book or something and I I hold it over the ground and I let go of it. What's going to happen? It falls to the ground because there there's there's such a thing as the law of gravity. It pulls it down.
It is a fixed principle. It happens every time you do it. I could hold my book up 10 times and let go of it every time. It would fall to the ground because there is that power of gravity at work on the book.
But suppose I bring another power to override that book falling to the ground, and I tie some balloons filled with helium to the books sufficient enough so that is it, that when I let go of that book, the book no longer falls to the ground, but it actually rises. What has happened as as the experiment of tying helium balloons?
To the book, Taken away the law of gravity? No, it's still there.
But it's a greater power at active, and it causes the book not to fall to the ground anymore, but to rise. And so when God has saved the believer and given us the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God, he has not taken away the flesh, as brother Don has been telling us, and some of the others that the flesh is still there. The power of fallen sin nature is still there with all of its propensities, but God has brought a greater principle, a greater power, into the life of the believer, which will override that every time.
If we allow the Spirit to do His work, if we walk in the spirit, we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And from verse five onward, he's going to show us how we can have an ongoing practical deliverance from this in nature in a daily way. In the 1St 4 verses, he's just mentioning the principle of it. But there's another thing altogether of having the practice of it as a daily thing in our lives. So let's remember that that there's a greater principle in the life of the believer today.
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The power of the Spirit of God.
Notice what it says in chapter 6, going along with what we're saying here in chapter 6 and verse 12. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lust of the thereof. Nor does he doesn't say Let not sin dwell in your mortal bodies, because that's something we can't help. It's going to be there until the day we die or until the Lord comes. So he doesn't make any expectation to tell us to get rid of the sin nature, as if there's some way of doing that.
But he says let not sin reign in your mortal body. We are responsible to not let that fallen sin nature have dominance in our life because of this great deliverance. It's because of this great principle that is now.
Available for the believer in his life in the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Said that, the flush does not change when we become believers.
I would submit, Brother Don, that if there's any change, it's always for the worse.
And I still remember how impressed I was.
Some of you remember Brother Eric Smith, dear brother.
He used to talk about an old brother that used to pray, Lord, help me not to die a wicked old man.
Impressed me.
The flesh in US never gets any better. If anything, it gets more putrid.
So don't look young people at older brethren like Bill was saying and think that they've got it all taken care of. We don't. It's a struggle as long as we're here in this life.
The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these things are contrary to one another, so that you might not do the things that you would. So there's going to be that struggle. But thank God we have a principle of life now that is stronger by the Spirit of God.
We have a principle of life.
So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God.
Well, that's what I'm supposed to do.
In verse six we read.
But to be spiritual minded is life and peace.
Now that's what I'm supposed to live by, to be spiritual minded. And then I have life and peace.
So I have eternal life.
And I have peace with God.
Now how do you work without practically?
#200.
A stranger's light to.
Play with.
For souls from.
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Glory Hill, I promise.
You.