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Romans Chapter 8. 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 flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For 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 you 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 had raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die, but if he through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, he shall live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
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 joint heirs with Christ. If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Reckon 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 waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected 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 travaileth and pain together until now, and not only they but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves.
Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
For we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does he had hoped for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patients wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also help with our infirmities. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. For he that searches the hearts knoweth what is 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 that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose, for whom he did for know He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.
Or over 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 say then to these things? It's God before us who can be against us.
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 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 justifies. 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 peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sakes, 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, our principalities and our powers, and our things present, and our things that come, our height, our depth, or any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
00:05:15
The chapter starts with no condemnation and ends with no separation.
What a range of truth is between the two?
In the 7th chapter.
He was looking for an answer to his dilemma within himself and the reason that there is no condemnation in Romans 8. Because a man is in Christ, he's in a new position.
And in the 7th chapter, the desires are right and yet there's no power. The good that I would do that I do not. And there's this struggle going on.
And now we see, as you pointed out, that this chapter starts. There's now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
That's unconditional, isn't it? There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. That's our position. That's why the latter part of that verse does not belong there.
But you find it a little further down.
Verse 4 Where the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, we certainly have to walk into spirit in order to fulfill the righteousness of the law as far as the fact that condemnation for every believer is fast.
Does not depend upon our walk.
And if we don't understand that, we'll never understand God's dealings with us, because man thinks God's against him and he's trying to get him, punish him. But the believer, that is not God's purposes for what he allows in our lives. And we see that the infirmities and all things working together for good. That it's not the condemnation that God is working in our lives because there is none. I just want to offer a little bit of an explanation because sometimes for the younger ones we hear this.
Thought well, you know the latter part of that verse shouldn't be there, and that is true.
We sit on our with Bibles on our laps. But as we know that the Bible was written in manuscript in hand, and so the old manuscripts, they picked them up and just like some may write in their Bibles, that there were little expressions, maybe handwritten into a handwritten Bible. And it wasn't quite clear in the New Testament as to what was there in the original and what was not. And that's why it took a spiritual translator to see perhaps what had been.
Added as a little comment because the statement is true.
It is not characteristic of a believer that they walk after the flesh, but that is not the truth that the first verse is trying to bring out.
The Old Testament there is not that problem because the scribes when they count it when they copied it.
They attributed A numerical value to every letter and they added up the value of the manuscript that they copied. And if it if it didn't add up, they would not try to correct it. They would destroy it and start over because they thought if they found one mistake, perhaps they made two or three, and so only if the manuscript proved to be perfect. But in the New Testament there was more of this problem.
Of these little interjections that are put in.
And the spiritual translator could consider the manuscripts and to see whether they belong there. And as you see that it's a true statement, but it's not really what the first verse is trying to bring out.
In this chapter, the Spirit of God is mentioned about 18 times.
What characterizes Christianity is a man in the glory, having accomplished redemption by his work on the cross, and then the coming sending down the Holy Spirit to indwell us, to unite us. This is not in Romans to unite us into one body. That's in Ephesians, but.
The We're living in the day of the Holy Spirit.
Where all that is ours in Christ. Whenever you read about being in Christ, it means in Christ's place before God. There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. God sees us in the same place of acceptance and favor and blessedness as his own Son, and He's given us the Holy Spirit so that we can be in the enjoyment of that and live in the good and the power of that.
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And that's true Christianity, isn't it? The spirit of God is here. He's been here now for 2000 years, and when we're raptured, he'll he'll.
Leave in the sense in which he's here now and what he's doing now. He still works. He still works always. God works by the Spirit from the very beginning. In fact, he's the first person of the Trinity that's mentioned in Genesis 1.
The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and.
He's one of the He's the last one. In Revelation 22, the Spirit and the bride say come, so we have the Spirit of God.
Fully characterizing this day of grace and every single one of us who's a believer has a divine person dwelling within us. That's a fantastic thought, isn't it?
Tremendous thought. God the Spirit indwells us and enables us to enter into his thoughts of his beloved son and all that he's done for us. Well, there's so much. There's so much in this chapter. I remember I used to go to the County Hospital in Chicago and I read Romans 8 to the patients there so many times that I didn't try to memorize it, but I pretty much did.
When I was a young man, because of reading it so often and their faces just lit up with joy as you read some of these precious verses that are in Romans 8.
There are two things in connection with the indwelling of the Spirit to get in Corinthians, and that is that we're individually indulged by the Spirit of God, that our bodies are the temples of the Spirit of God, and they give us the power, as we see in this chapter, to walk in the last chapter. There was no victory, There was a desire.
But there's power in this chapter and.
In Corinthians you get our bodies are indwelt by the Spirit of God individually, but we see something else in Acts that comes out in Corinthians. Is that the House of God? That is the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God came down and filled the whole house, and that is what is characteristic of that. This day and dispensation in which we live is that that place is is filled with the Spirit of God.
And maybe even possible for one that is not saved to be in the enjoyment to enjoy the benefits of the fact that the spirit of God has come down and filled the house and you're not be personally.
A. A indwelt by the spirit of God and be a saved person at all.
But what we get here in Romans is the personal side of things, is the Spirit of God coming down and and what he's done.
What God has done as a result of the Lord Jesus Christ being exalted.
Notice in the 7th chapter where you have a quickened soul, but he's under law and he says in verse 22 I delight in the law of God after the inward man. He had a nature that could delight in that. But he says 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 if.
A quickened soul, one who's been born of God, gets under law. He's going to be miserable.
So he says here, O wretched man, that I am, who shall deliver me, deliver me from the body of this death. And then he says, I thank God the deliverance comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. And notice the second verse of Romans 8, the law of the Spirit of Christ, of life in Christ Jesus. That's not the law that the man was under in the 7th chapter. This is a fixed principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Made me free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death made the man wretched. In Chapter 7, if you find a true believer that's under law, he's not happy because.
It's that's not what is the power. The power of the Christian life is in the spirit of God. It's a new life, and he operates on that life and sets us free from the law of sin and death.
Do you think that maybe Cornelius could have experienced what we have in the 7th chapter of Romans because he was a quick and sold but not yet saved?
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I had my Bible open to that very place, and it might be good to look at that because it may seem to some of the younger ones that this is some strange doctrine that's been surveyed, is that a person might be quickened or have life towards God, not be saved. But we see that perhaps we should turn to to Peter.
To to see this, but let's just look at Cornelius.
In Acts chapter 10.
There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the van called the Italian band, a devout man, one that feared God with all his house, and which gave much alms to the people, and which prayed to God always.
Well, we know that he was earnestly looking to the Lord, and the story is familiar to you. Let's go down to the 34th, 1St.
Then Peter opened his mouth. Instead of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, and that in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him the word which God sent under the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ.
He is Lord of all that word I say he know was published throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, and went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. Well, Cornelius knew that. But there's something that Cornelius did not know, and that is what he goes on to say, and we are all witnesses of those things which he both did.
In the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem, who they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God raised up the third day and showed openly.
Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and drink with him when he arose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the quicker, the judge of the quick, and the dead, or the living and the dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth on him shall receive the remission of sins. And while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word.
Why was that? Well, Cornelius had known that Jesus had come preaching peace and doing good, but he did not know that Jesus had died on the cross and that God had raised him from the dead, and that by preaching in that name that a man could receive the remission of sins. And so on, Ephesians, you get that truth, that after you believe the gospel of your salvation, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. And that's what happened to Cornelius.
I believe that's what happened to the Zacchaeus, because Zacchaeus said to the Lord to half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I've taken anything, I've restored it fourfold. Zacchaeus was doing that before the Lord Jesus ever came along. But he said come down, I'm going to come to your house. Salvation has come to your house this day. And when he had that personal encounter with the Lord that he really came to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a personal way. And that is really what salvation is.
You get a picture of it also with the prodigal son.
And I think it's an experience that in some measure all of us have been through.
And so the Spirit of God can perhaps use that picture to bring these truths home to us. That young man, he went away from home, and he he followed a wicked path in his own will.
But in the end, he comes to himself and he judges himself. He looks at himself and he owns this condition and that's the activity of the new life.
He says I'm just reading from Luke, chapter 15.
And verse 17. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bred enough, and to spirit I perish with hunger.
It's really repentance. He's He's owning his true state, and so he's converted. He turns around. Verse 18. I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.
So haven't we all been in a position in our lives where we disobeyed? We've done something and our conscience is convicted about it, and we've got to go tell Dad or we've got to go tell Mom. And it's not a very pleasant journey to find them and to have that out before them. And we go with a heavy heart, and there's a question of whether we'll be accepted or not.
00:20:17
There is therefore now no condemnation.
Or we could put the word judgment in there to them which are in Christ Jesus.
You know, this young man didn't know what was before him. He couldn't say. There's no judgment for me.
But he wanted to do what was right. It was the activity of a new life that had right desires.
And so he goes back to his father. And as he comes to his father, he makes this little speech up. And I mean, you've done that too, You know, you've got to face the music, as they say, and you kind of try and figure out what you're going to say. You come up with a little prepared speech of how you're going to approach this situation. And that's what he did. And he said, you know, I'll just tell my father that, that I've sinned and I would be so happy if he would just take me in as one of the hired servants.
And, you know, it's been grace on this father's part to accept that. But after that, what would happen? He'd have to work for that acceptance, and he'd never be out from under the position of wondering whether he was accepted or whether everything was good and right, or whether he was facing condemnation.
It would never be a settled thing in his soul and so he comes to his father. But his father brushes that all the way and a beautiful picture there, you know, his father's song says from afar off. You know Joseph's brethren song from afar off and they've inspired to slam, and that was our heart towards the Lord Jesus, but the Father's heart towards us as he saw us afar on.
He ran and fell on his neck and kissed him, and he put that robe on him and shoes on his feet, the ring on his hand. And you know it's all a little picture of the fact that like that robe that was put on him were accepted in the Beloved. You're in Christ. And that ring on his hand, the ceiling of the Spirit of God, and he brushes that all the way, that prepared statement, No, he won't take him in as a servant. He says there's no condemnation for you. And he brings him back in and the full acceptance of the Son.
And brings them into that household. And you know, there's coming a day, as we just read in Acts as Peter said, the Cornelius, that the Lord Jesus as the Son of Man, he'll sit on his throne and he'll judge the living and the dead.
And the nations of this earth and his own people will be gathered before him, pictured in Matthew as sheep and goats. And they're going to learn at that throne their eternal destiny. But for you and I, we know it now. There's never a day coming where we're going to stand before the throne of God to find out what our eternal destiny is.
There is therefore now no judgment. We're never going to stand in judgment like that again. No condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
I'd like to turn to that verse in Peter because it summarizes what?
This.
Matter of.
Salvation and the Spirit working first Peter chapter one and verse 2.
Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the through sanctification of the Spirit.
Unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.
It begins with God elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
Were set apart by the spirit, and the angels were ministering spirits of them that should be heirs of salvation. They perhaps preserved our life from death before we were even saved, but we were set apart for God.
Unto
obedience the gospel is to be obeyed. God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.
And so there's obedience of faith, and then there's sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. And it's this grace and peace we realize, that if you were Speaking of the prodigal son.
Is that when he came back and confessed his sin to his father, what grace and peace he enjoyed? And that is the result of that. And that's the Holy Ghost, is what gives us that sense of the grace of God and peace. But it's the blood of Christ that's been applied to wash our sins away and puts us in this perfect standing that we have here in Romans chapter 8. No condemnation.
In the third verse of our chapter it says for what the law could not do.
00:25:04
It demanded obedience.
It could not produce it.
It could not do that.
So anyone that gets under law and breaks it is condemned by it. What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. This man in Romans 7 found that out. He had a nature that wanted to do what was right, but he always found he did what was wrong. He hated the wrong that he was doing in the new life, but he didn't find any power in in carrying it out until the spirit of God. The spirit isn't mentioned once in Romans 7.
He's mentioned 18 times or more in Romans 8. Spirit is the power of life, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Spirit of God operates upon that new life that we have in Christ and enables us to.
Fulfill the requirements of the law without being under it. We're under the power of the Holy Spirit. Notice it says what the law could not do and 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. So that sin nature that we have, it's not just our sins are gone, but the very nature that we had in the flesh is condemned, not forgiven. Our sins are forgiven, but the nature's condemned.
That the righteousness, the righteous requirement of the law, what it required, might now be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. That's very precious, that the Spirit of God operating in that new life that we have in Christ risen.
Takes us all together.
Above the law. Not that there's anything wrong with the law. The law is holy and just and good.
But.
We are taken into.
Association with the risen life of Christ.
Now by the power of the Holy Spirit you get that in in in John 20, where the Lord breathed on his disciples his resurrection life, and said, receive you Holy Spirit, the Spirit operating in that new life.
Leads us into.
To walk as he walked down here, it's possible for a Christian to say I can't live. The Christian life is wrong, Totally wrong, because he's given us all that we need to live it. He's given us a new life and it's a resurrection life, a life which is beyond the law.
They're making a lot of hullabaloo about the 10 commandments and though, and that would be better if they put John 316 up instead of the 10 commandments, because we all the law does is condemn us. But what Christ has done has put away all the condemnation brought us by a new life in the power of the spirit of God into association with Christ in glory, and the righteous requirement of the law is now fulfilled.
In US who are not under law but under grace.
That's so important because there's a general thought in Christendom is that when Christ died on the cross, he got rid of this awful thing called the law. That was against me. Because when I wasn't saved, I thought I was going to be happy by getting my own way, by lying, by stealing, by wanting what somebody else had. And I thought, like the prodigal son thought he was going to be happy by getting his own way. And so the general thought in Christendom is that God, Christ died on the cross, has got rid of this awful thing alone. I'm free now. That's not true.
God has fulfilled the righteousness of the law is fulfilled because.
A man is in Christ, and Christ was never really He was born under the law, but he was never under the law because he never had a desire to do anything that was contrary to his Father's will. We did, and that was the weakness, was that all I could do was condemn what I wanted to do.
It couldn't deliver me. It could look for something, but it couldn't give anything. Grace gives me something.
Law requires something of Maine and so we see that that the righteousness.
The work of the Lord Jesus Christ maintains the righteousness of God and the righteousness of the law too. And what was quite thinkable under the law is unthinkable under Christianity. If I went out into the forest with you, and we were cutting down a tree, and I got careless and it fell on you, then your relatives could come and and pursue me to a city of refuge. And if you got to me before I got there, you had the right to kill me. That was the law. Well, such a thought is unthinkable under Christianity.
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And there are many things that an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, that two children were playing and 1 poked out there. The other ones eye through carelessness. Well, the law said poke out the other ones eye. But that's such a thought is is unthinkable under Christianity. Grace brings us into a part higher position than we were ever under when the man was ever under, when he was under the law.
Because it really gives us the desires of Christ as he walked. In this world I do always those things which please my father I meet to eat.
Teeth that you know not of my will is to do the will of him that sent me. That is the life of the believer now.
I want to read a verse in Deuteronomy 6, two verses 24 and five. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is at this day and notice. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as He hath commanded us.
That would be man's righteousness.
He's kept the law. Well, can't do that. But that would be something we could boast in. There'll be no boasting in heaven, there'll be nothing in us that we can boast of. We are now viewed as in the righteousness of God in Christ. And that's an entirely different thing. Paul says being found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, even the righteousness which is of God by faith.
That's what we brought into God sees us as righteous as his son.
That's infinitely better than having a righteousness which is keeping the 10 commandments.
How many times have we had Gordon say that when you get saved that you don't lose the old man, You still got the old man. And there's two of them are inside. And every time somebody knocks on the door, which one do we let go to answer it? And the one that we let go to answer it is the one that we're feeding, and that's our responsibility. Are we feeding the old man?
Because if we are, he's the one that's going to answer it.
There's something else that the apostle brings out and a little bit later in the chapter, and it has to do with love. And it's really in our understanding of the love of Christ that leads us to understand that we are not condemned. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And so we understand that because of the love of Christ there doesn't need to be that fear, it says in first John Chapter 4.
That umm.
It says in verse 16 partway through God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in Him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the Day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is No Fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. And so we have that thought of the prodigal son. He's coming back. He has.
He knows what the law demanded, perhaps, and he had no sense of the grace and the kindness and the love of the Father. But then he comes in, he sees he experiences that love, and he recognizes that there is not that condemnation. He's in the place of the sun. And so it's a lovely thing for us to lay hold of, and as we go through this, that the law goes no farther than a boundary, as it were. But the heart of God was not going to be bound by the law.
He goes way beyond that, and he presents his Son, and our blessing is entirely based upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus.
Probably typified also by a Mephibosheth that David said that he would sit at his table as one of the King's sons, and I assume that the custom in those days was that his lame legs would be under the table. The custom was a little bit different in the days of the Lord where they lay at table.
And your feet was out behind so that the Sinner woman came and anointed the feet of the Lord while he was at the table. I don't think that was the custom in David's day.
00:35:06
I want to make a comment. It's hard. The acoustics here are poor.
We're not getting everything but the in the third verse. Notice the perfection of Scripture. Look at it carefully. 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. It doesn't say in the likeness of flesh. No, it was true flesh.
But it was in the likeness of sinful flesh. It wasn't sinful flesh.
And for sin condemned sin in the flesh, God sending his own Son in not in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. But it wasn't the likeness of flesh. It was true flesh that you can't take any of those words out and get the truth. He he he he sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh. He looked, he looked just like.
You and I look.
Externally, I've often reflected on this. We often criticize the disciples and that because they didn't realize who he was. But put yourself in their shoes, here was a man in their midst. You look just like them. Spoke the same language, ate the same food, did the same things. He was just a man. Oh, was he just a man?
It took a tremendous work in their souls to for them to see that he was infinitely more than just a man. Now we have a tremendous advantage in this 21St century. We can read John 11. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God that tells us right off who he was. He just saw a man. What manner of man is this that even the wind in the sea obey him?
How can who maketh thou thyself the things that he said and did?
Takes a tremendous leap of faith on the part of the Observer to realize that he's more than just men.
God and man and one person, tremendous. We know that. We have a tremendous advantage. We have a complete Bible in our hands. They didn't have that. They didn't have that.
And we do. We are so blessed in this present day, are we?
No one said to me, what's the greatest miracle?
The Bible.
Think of a miracle that's more, I mean, how could 66 books written over a long period of time by all different authors in that? And perfection, perfection and God and and and it was trying to get rid of the Roman Catholic Church, burned it and burned it and burned it. And the enemies were there and they're still at it. But you can't get rid of the word of God. And we have that which is the greatest miracle right in our hands.
I.
It's not characteristic of a believer to be after the flesh. We may act like that, but what is true of us, they that are after the flesh, behind the things of the flesh.
Is really characteristic of a man that is not safe?
In a new position. And so the Lord in looking at the Lord, they could look at the Lord and see contemplate. That's why John said her hands have handled and they've been close to the Lord. They never saw the Lord act.
According to sinful flesh, I may say, well, I'm Irish, or I've got red hair, or or, you know, or I may excuse myself, but as we have here, He condemned sin in the flesh, but the Lord never acted according to the flesh. Every reaction was according to the Spirit and the will of His Father.
What a terrible thing it was for Judas to be with the Lord. Never ever saw the Lord react in self-interest or or doing anything to please himself.
And so that is what is true of the believer now is that we're after the Spirit, that we belong to Christ. But as our brother May, he brought out is it It's possible that we might walk after the flesh. I'm, I'm a man. I may walk in here in a dress and sit down in a dress.
And it doesn't turn me into a woman, but it sure makes me look like one and causes a lot of confusion. And it's the same thing a believer is belongs to Christ and he has a life of Christ. And I may act in a way that is a practical denial of that. If you do that, it's an abomination to God.
00:40:13
Where where are Woman's Apparel?
Verse six it says in our King James to be carnally minded. That really gives us the wrong thought. It really reads the mind of the flesh is death but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.
The mind of the flesh is death. It can only lead to death. It is.
The flesh.
Is looked at as as controlling someone as a mind, and it always thinks of evil things.
But we have the mind of the Spirit now, and it always thinks of things which are pleasing to God.
There's four times in John's gospel that the Lord states that he does the will of the Father. The first time is in John's Gospel, chapter 4 and verse 34, where he speaks of what the new man really would desire to feed on it. And so he says in verse 34, Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. And so he was satisfied to do only that work and to feed upon that which was.
Of the spirit, and then it says.
In chapter 5 and verse 30 I can of mine own self do nothing as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me. And so in judgment then he only does the will of the Father, he doesn't do his own will, as we often try to get our own way even in things of in matters in discipline and so on.
But the Lord only wanted that which his Father wanted. And then in chapter 6 and verse 37 it says, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and shall he that cometh to me I will and no wise cast out, for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And then one more in John's Gospel, chapter 8.
And verse 29 He that sent me is with me. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him. And as he speaks these words, many believed on him. And So what we recognize is that the flesh does not please God, and it says that in in our chapter. So then in verse 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but you and I have the capacity to walk as Christ did.
Through this world, and seek his will and that which would glorify him.
It's possible, the Lord said. I do always those things that please him. It's possible for a Christian because he has the new life. He's born of the spirit. He's in dwelt of the spirit, he's sealed of the Spirit, He's anointed of the Spirit. And the Spirit of God is in control. It's possible for him.
To say I do those things that please the Father, because we are now in the life and nature and power that operated in our blessed Lord Jesus when he was here as a man, and He's given us all that is needed for us to walk as he walked. That's what John says. He did say if he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked, how can we walk as he walked?
In the power of the Holy Spirit.
The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. I could not walk as Christ walked. How many of us do? Well, we have to say we don't, but we can. We have all that's needed to do it. Isn't it right?
Let's look at a verse in Colossians in connection with this Colossians one verse.
21 Connection with the 7th and 8th 1St year.
And you that were sometimes alienated, an enemy in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, unblameable, and unruh, provable in his sight. That's our standing. But the practical side comes in if you continue in the faith ground, and settle, and move not away from the hope of the gospel. So that's where the responsibility comes in. But.
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The answer to the fact that we're alienated and enemies by wicked works in our minds. We have that in our seventh verse, that the mind of the flesh is an enmity against God was that he condemned sin in the flesh. I'm crucified with Christ, and so, as we've often heard, the blood of Christ puts my sins away, and the death of Christ puts me away in the cross of Christ.
The world away as far as we are, and so before God. And so the power to walk in that life is if we continue to walk as he walked.
But we're not going to get a different life when we get to heaven, because if we turn over in Colossians, he says, when Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.
He is our life.
And that is really why.
He brings this in, and the Spirit of Christ in the 9th 1St is speaking about our position, but you are not in the flesh. That's our standing, but in the Spirit.
And if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you, the Spirit of God indwelling the believer is in a new position before God. He is not in the flesh, but he is in the Spirit. And what is the proof that one is indwelt by the Spirit of God? If so be he goes on to say Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of his it doesn't say the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of Christ and the proof that one belongs to Christ and is indwelt by the Spirit of God.
As he manifests the Spirit of Christ.
Noah was not indwelt by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God came upon him, but he manifested the Spirit of Christ. We see that in Peter the Spirit of Christ which was in them did testify of the Spirit of the sufferings of Christ and the glory which should follow. When he pled with them to come into the ark, he manifested the Spirit of Christ. And when a child comes to their parent and says, Mommy, I got saved last night and we heard that about a little girl in Saint Thomas.
And you could see that the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ in that child, that that that child was indwelt by the Spirit of God.
And that is really what the proof And if you don't see that, you don't see the Spirit of Christ in an individual, they are not as far as we can see and dwelt by the Spirit of God.
And it's more than it's more than that. It's the the having the life of Christ.
We're we're quickened by the Spirit. We're born by the spirit, and then we're sealed by the Spirit. And I want to address young people, especially now. I want to set before you from Romans 8 here the seriousness of you entertaining the idea of getting engaged and and eventually married to an unsafe person.
I want you to think of this now. I'm going to read this passage as it is in the new translation.
They that are verse 5.
They that are after the flesh.
Do mind the things of the flesh.
Are you going to entertain the idea of getting linked up the rest of your days with a person that only has the mind of the flesh and they can only enjoy the things of the flesh? They don't have the spirit, They don't have a new life.
They that are after the flesh, mind the things of the flesh. Now you, a Christian, have the flesh and the Spirit.
You still have the flesh, so you can. I mean, the only thing that's going to happen, if you married one that only has the flesh, they're going to bring you down to their level. You can't lift them up to yours because they don't have a new nature, they don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit. So it's a serious thing to even don't even go out with them. If a if a young man ask you young lady, to go to a dancer, to go to the show or whatever it might be, if they're not the Lord, it's absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Listen verse 6.
For the mind of the flesh, new translation is death. Everything the mind of the flesh sets its heart upon has the stamp of death upon it. When they say let's go out to see life, they're not looking at life, they're looking at death. They're looking at these things that the world enjoys.
This is solemn.
The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit.
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Life and peace. That's life, That's peace. That's joy. That's happiness. The the mind of the spirit. Life and peace. Notice verse 7 because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God. Are you going to marry a man or a woman that has nothing but a nature that is enmity against God?
Serious. The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God. Neither, indeed can it be so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. You're going to marry someone that can't please God. This is serious. This is serious because he only has a nature which minds the things that are deaf.
Things of the world.
So be careful.
Say absolutely no I can't go. Can't go with you I can't have I can't even have a date with you or whatever it might be. I I you know some people they go on a blind date have no idea what that other persons like. No idea. You should never go out with anyone that you aren't sure is the Lord's and has a life that the lights and the things of God. Otherwise you're you're you're you're dealing with fire.
And it's it's it's gonna be the worst decision you have ever, ever made. And it's irreversible. Marriage is an irreversible yoke, as you say. But there are other yokes into which we can get the scripture says be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And so there's a maybe a great temptation to get into business with someone that's not a believer, but they have only one object and that's the pleasing of self. But when a believer goes to work.
Whether it's collecting tickets or whatever that's doing there, they have an object to do that for the Lord and that's the desire of the believers heart. And but the moment that we yoke ourselves together with unbelievers, we're now together in a yoke with one that has only one object. And they may be good and decent people. Maybe they don't go to shows and movies and drink and that sort of thing. There's a lot of morally decent people in the world, but they they still have the mind of the flesh and it's still death.
And so we can sometimes we can see the air of our way and get out of those situations, unlike marriage. And that's the the one which cannot be broken, the yoke, but you're still in a yoke. And so it's very important and there's a lot of carelessness with this. And also what religiously is getting together with those that have an interest in the things of God who may not really be belong to the Lord at all. And there's a great deal of that, of joining together with those that are not. I worked with a fellow and he got involved in this Habitat for Humanity and there's a great big banner on the Mormon Church.
Partner Church and Habitat for Humanity. Are we going to involve ourselves in good works with those that hate the person of Christ that denies eternal sonship?
Well, that's a yoke that we get involved in and good works and so on. And you say, well isn't a good and a noble thing to help the poor build houses? Well, it's not. We the God's given us a work to do, and if we we will be just Hanford and limited, because as you pointed out, and the scripture points out so clearly that the mind of the flesh is just at enmity with God. And then the next verse, like ye are not in the flesh verse 9 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's the spirit of God. He's the Spirit of Christ. He's the formative power of Christ in our life. He's none of his.
Serious, But we're completely different. We live in a different world if we're living in the Christian sphere.
We have a new life, new power, and without that, nothing but the flesh and the world and all the entertainment that's there and all that.
It's terrible.
Probably that eighth verse would help to explain.
The first we have in Proverbs 21 four, it says. The plowing of the wicked is saying.
If you don't go to movies and dances and all that, what's wrong with plowing?
But as long as the person continues on without acknowledging Christ in their lives.
There in the central course.
This they first says that they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
It's the same thing. They can't do anything to please God so long as they don't acknowledge God in their lives, in the lordship of Christ. To go on in that way, you cannot please God. You could take that verse you and the plowing of the wicked is sin. You could change it and say anything that the wicked does is sin.
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Because you didn't have a new life.
The Lordship of Christ is brought out in connection with marriage in First Corinthians Chapter 7, and it's good to look at it. In verse 39 it says, I'll read the whole verse. It says the wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth. But if her husband be dead, she's littered at liberty to be married to whom she will only in the Lord.
It doesn't say only in Christ, doesn't say only in another Christian.
But it really speaks of one that would own the lordship of Christ, and it's a lovely thing for us not only to be saved.
To know our sins forgiven, to be gathered to his name by His grace, But then to acknowledge the authority of the Lord in our lives, the authority of the Lord in our homes, the authority of the Lord in the assembly, and by the grace and kindness of God. There are those that are young people that are growing up in the in the very presence here this afternoon that by the grace of God have a desire to acknowledge the lordship of Christ, to acknowledge his authority. Well, that's.
That's really a picture of Christ, he acknowledged the authority of his father entirely.
And what blessing it brought.
There's a little picture, I know it comes the end of our time, but this little picture in second Kings?
And Chapter 6.
And just kind of give it to you in brief.
The sons of the prophets said, The place that we dwell in is too straight for us.
And so.
Elisha says.
They said, Elijah, first one of second kings. 6 Behold now the place where we dwell with these two straight for us. Let us go. We pray thee unto Jordan, and take thence every man of beam, and let us make a place where we may dwell. He answered, Go ye. And once I be content, I pray thee, and go with thy servants. And he answered, I will go. So then he went with them. So they when they came to Jordan, they cut down wood.
But as one was spelling a beam, the axe had fell into the water, and he cried.
And so the last master, for it was borrowed, the man of God said where Philip, and he showed him the place, and he cut down a stick and cast it in thither. And the iron did swim, therefore said he take it up to thee. And he put out his hand and took it. And so there's a picture there of Romans 7:00 and 8:00. There's these ones. And you know the place they dwell in is too straight. They're feeling the pressure, like that man in Romans 7 desiring to do that which is right, but not finding within him the power to do it.
They say, let's go to Jordan.
And he says, go. And they say no, be content. Go with us. You know that there's a test there of affection, but they've got the right idea. They want a license to go with them, a picture of Christ. And they're going to the right place down to Jordan, the picture of our death with Christ. But, you know, they each take a beam, They take something that's going to give them relief of their straightened place that they live in. And there's one he's, he's got an accent. He's feeling a beam, you know, the means.
Whereby he's going to get deliverance, whether it's turning over a new leaf, whether it's New Year's.
Resolutions or whatever it might be. He's going to get relief from this straight place that he's in and that iron flies off and it goes into the water. And he asked, asked to own his complete incapacity. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me. You know, Elijah comes down.
And he puts that stick a picture of the cross of Christ, and he cast it into that place where the iron fell.
And you know the nature of iron as it goes right to the bottom, right down to the muck, and that's the nature we were born with in this world. It goes right to the bottom.
But when the cross that stick is applied the Jordan, the death of Christ, and we see that that.
Spin. That old principle that produces sins has been fully judged in Christ on Calvary's cross.
That iron swims well. Iron doesn't swim, That's not its nature. And So what we see is a whole new principle at work in that iron, a whole new nature.
The principle of life, the law of life, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the loss and the death. But now he says, Now take it to thee, if you have to, reach out and pick it up and take it to yourself, and apply these things that we've had before us to your own self. Take it to your breast. Take it to your heart, make it good to your soul.
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But seeing that verse keep us Lord or keep us cleaving.
To thyself and still believing promise, Joyce, with these at 2:56.