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A prospect, price and a baby for dark shines shall shine. Invite 169.
Lord, we can see by faith in the prospect.
Bright, unfailing.
Where God shall shine.
In my divine, in divine, in glory.
Glory.
And joy.
The story.
That way our spirits.
Down.
And learn to flow in love.
Glow with hearts like joy surrounded.
No more.
Assurances.
To fear I'm horrific.
No more to thank the.
Lamb of slain but.
No more.
No, I jaws and kill it.
But drinking fish?
Grace that gave them.
Fortunate.
Of love. Let's pray.
That prospect, right?
Shall join us, shining.
Before we ask for help.
May we read together in Nehemiah chapter 8.
Nehemiah, chapter 8.
In the first verse.
And all the people gathered themselves together as one man.
Into the street that was before the Watergate.
And they spake unto Ezra the scribe.
To bring the book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
And Ezra the Scribe brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women.
And all that could hear with understanding.
Upon the first day of the 7th month.
And he read therein before the street.
That was before the Watergate.
From morning until midday before the men and women and those that could understand.
And all the ears of the people were attentive into the book of the law.
Now verse 8.
So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly.
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And gave the sense.
And caused them to understand the reading.
So that's when Ward's help.
I would suggest you go on Meditation on Romans chapter 8 while it's.
The subject is still fresh and doesn't get disconnected from what's necessary to make it complete and what follows.
Romans chapter 8.
We start at verse 3.
Romans chapter 8, verse 3.
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 walked not after the flush, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flush 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 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.
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 that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh, For if ye live after the flush, he shall die, but but if he through the flush do mortified 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. For ye have not received the Spirit of ******* again to fear, but ye 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. For I 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 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 travaileth in 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 yet hope for?
But if we hope for, that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth 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. And he thus searcheth the heart, 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 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.
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And whom he justified them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God before 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 die. 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 sake we are killed all the day long we are counted 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, nor 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.
Lest we lose the thread of things that the Apostle is bringing before us, or just passed over, a couple of things in a measure of in a way of outline in the first verse, we've had a new position.
And then in verses 2-3 and four we have a new law to govern us, and then verses 5 through perhaps 10A new sphere to live in verse 11 will give us a new prospect of our bodies being quickened when the Lord comes.
So those first 11 verses go together very beautifully before he comes in with some very important practical expectations based on that at verse 12.
Therefore, brethren, he's got something to say. Now we're going to put this truth into practice.
And so he shows what is characteristic of a Christian who lives in the power of the indwelling Spirit.
What Romans 8 really brings before us is what is characteristic of the Christian. You may say, well, I know some Christians. Or you may look within your own heart and say, well, I don't label like that. I wish I did. That's not the point. He's talking about what is characteristic of a spirit filled Christian who's walking in the power of the spirit of God.
So having said that, in verse three, we might wonder after speaking about the the new law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus being available.
There for us to live a life above the propensities of the sin nature. Why would he bring in this subject in verse three with regard to the condemning of sin in the flesh and all that? What has that got to do with it?
And I think it's just that we need to understand that God himself could not improve the fallen nature. He's done away with it in the death of Christ, He has condemned sin in the flesh.
Might wonder, well why is it that God would affect deliverance in this particular way, which we've had in verse two. It's because he could do nothing with the flesh but condemn it. He could not improve it. He could not embark on some sort of a renovation of the flesh.
And bring the Spirit of God to apply his principles to the flesh and try to improve the flesh or educate the flesh. There is nothing that could be done but to bring judgment upon the flesh. And so that's what he brings in in this third verse showing that even God himself could not improve the fallen sin nature. And I was saying to Bruce behind me, you hear between the meetings, you know we have two natures, we have two natures, We have the new nature, we have the old nature.
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And both natures cannot be improved. Think about that. Both natures cannot be improved. The fallen nature can't be improved. But the new nature that we have, which is the very life of Christ, it can't be improved either. It's there's nothing better. And so God has not embarked on some sort of a program to improve the flesh. He has condemned the flesh, set it aside, and has sent the Spirit to work in that new life that we have.
Last chapter says that the law is holy, just and good. So there was number problem with the law was there?
But it only proved how fallen man was.
And the whole Old Testament, in a certain sense, was a test of man in the flesh. How did that test end?
God sending his own Son in the likeness of sin of flesh. In other words, he is not flesh full. He doesn't have sinful flesh. He was sinless, He was holy at his birth, but in the likeness of sinful flesh.
If there was anything good in man, certainly it would have responded to the Lord Jesus. But what It was their answer The most awful rejection and the most awful death awarded to this sinless.
Son of God. They nailed him across. God, in effect, said the test is over.
I'm no longer looking for anything good. In man, sin in the flesh is condemned. It's important to see the difference between our sins, which he forgives. But sin in the flesh is never forgiven, it's condemned sometimes. Give the little illustration.
You have an apple tree that produces sour apples. Man. Can't use them anyway. All you can do is get them together and throw them away.
And let's let's dig around it. Let's fertilize it, let's give it every chance possible to produce good apples. And instead of producing any good apples, it just produces that much more.
Sour apples.
What do you do with that tree? It's condemned. You cut it down.
So sin in the flesh is condemned, and it's important to see that God is not trying to improve any longer sin in the flesh. And we cannot do that either, brethren. And what Brother Bill is bringing out this morning of some who try to take up legal codes to try to get men, men to cooperate is simply recognizing that the flesh isn't all bad. We can put some legal codes here, and we can get something good out of it.
You cannot, because God has condemned sin in the flesh, and so legal codes don't work, brethren.
No, we're in a completely new position now in Christ Jesus.
Law.
Legal code.
Really is has been introduced to man in the flesh, hasn't it? The purpose of the law was to generate righteousness.
From the first man, and I think that we need to be very careful because we have by nature a legal nature. When God told man that he wanted to bless him, the first thing man did was he said.
OK, God, all that you say unto us, we will do. That was man's immediate response.
Was you just tell me what to do and I'll do it. That is our nature.
And we probably don't realize the effect that the law has, even as believers.
In our own lives, sometimes we might experience difficulties in our families or difficulties in our assemblies.
And if we're for before the Lord about about them, the Lord just might trace the route back.
Back to the principle, the fact that we are under law, that we've placed ourselves under law, we've placed our families under law, we've placed our brethren under law.
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Why? Well, the the motive is good because we want to produce righteousness.
But it never, it never takes us to that, to that.
End Why? Because of the weakness of the flesh.
If we want to see results in our lives, if we want to see results in our family's life, we want to see results in the assembly, we must point them to these truths that we're having today.
That we have a new life and as we communicate these truths that.
Righteousness is going to come through the Spirit of God working in the new life of Christ that has been given to us. Now that might be a little bit hard for us to communicate to small children, and there may be some need for a few boundaries to keep children under.
Walking in a in a path of order.
But as soon as we can communicate to them, they have a new nature, they have a new life, they have the power of the spirit of God to help them in producing righteousness. Then that is what is going to bring about results. And so this verse here for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, just let's just remember that.
If we're trying to, we're trying to improve.
Adam, there's always going to be that problem that the flesh is weak.
We present to souls that they have a new life.
Of the Spirit of God. And that's when we're going to see them. If we go on to verse four, we see that the righteousnesses of the righteousness of the law is produced, and then that walk in the Spirit.
Principle to be seen in it, and that is.
Knowing good.
Knowing what's good before God.
Does not give me the desire to do good.
Nor does it give me the power to do so.
We live in a world that has the false impression that education, for example, can change the world.
Well, yes, education has its place and it has its helps. But if it's treated as something that, as some would suggest, well, if man only understood the consequences of his behavior, you just need to educate him and he won't do it. It's not true.
It's not a correct conclusion. God gave man a perfect rule of life called the Law and in verse.
Three, it's the Law of Moses that's in view. It's not, as we were talking in the first reading, the principle.
Of something, but it's referring to the law of Moses. And the law of Moses was a perfect rule of life, but it was used of God to teach us that man.
Is not changed.
By a perfect rule of life, he's still what he is. His nature doesn't change. And so if he wants his own way, even though you give him a perfect rule of life, he still wants his own leg.
And he has. Even if he says I'll do it.
Having that rule does not give him the power to do it easier, because it doesn't change the desire of his heart, which is controlled by that thing in him called sin, which has its own will.
And there's the will of the flesh, and it always wants that which is.
In keeping with what it is and it's corrupted.
And it's a corrupted will. It's a corrupted set of desires, and they remain such. And so God used that perfect rule to teach us what man is, and then He condemns the nature that's in us, that sinfulness, and he replaces it in us, that we might live pleasing in His sight by giving us a new nature, which, as Bruce already said, can't be improved on because it's perfect.
It wants to do the will of God and nothing else. That was the life of Christ when he was here, Even though he was in the likeness of our flesh. Like us, he didn't have sin in him. And his every desire was to do the will of God. And he lived by the Spirit of God, so that he always did the will of God and nothing else and further than that.
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That was the source.
Of the joy of his heart.
If you tell somebody to do something they don't want to do, it only intensifies in them the desire to do what they've been told not to do. And so the law added intensity to man's desire to have his own will because it was contrary to what he wanted.
In contrast to that, God has given us a life that wants nothing but the will of God, and He's also given us the Spirit to enable us to live above the power of the flesh in US. And so is the verses that follow contrast What it means to be in spirit, in contrast to be what it means to be in flesh and to be in spirit is is that which enables us to rise above.
The fashion us the sin in us that wants to drag us down to do the old.
So that follows in verse four that the righteousness of the law. Notice it doesn't say that the law might be fulfilled in US.
But the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in US, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. There we have those.
Uh, lines that are proper.
And so the believer is not under law.
The law said Thou shalt not steal, since we're not under law.
Shall we steal? What does it say in Grace says let him that stole steal no more.
But let him rather labor working with his hands, that he may have to give to him that suffers need.
So we fulfill the righteousness of the law.
Without really being under the law.
And we really go far beyond that.
Not only have we not stolen, but we give to the person that suffers need so that perhaps an unsafe person doesn't have to steal either. You'll have something to eat.
So it goes way beyond the law when we walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh.
Like the expense on the comment were not under law.
What that statement means is.
Our relationship with God is not based on a law.
The relationship of Israel to God was based on the law.
They had that conditional relationship with God that if you keep these rules, you live.
If you fail, you die. That's what it is to be under law. It's to be into a relationship with God, where as it was with Israel. Your life and your death is based upon the fulfillment of that relationship.
And so if you were under the law and you sinned, you died.
God has established a new and different relationship between US and God that isn't based on the law, it's based on the work of Christ at the cross for us. And God, having established us as righteous before him on that basis of that work, has brought us into a different relationship with himself. He's brought us into a relationship that's based on his own grace.
And so we stand before God, not living or dying by keeping or failing to keep a set of rules. We stand before God, perfectly accepted in Christ.
And our relationship is based on the righteousness that's established in the work of Christ with God. So we're not in that way under law anymore.
But when it says the righteous requirement of the law, what it's telling us is.
If you live the Christian life, if you live the life that has now been given to you, you will actually do the things that were required of those who were under law. You will keep the righteous requirements that the law placed upon man, and God will be honored and glorified in that. And so to a Jew under law, if he stole, he died.
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But for us not to steal is to glorify God and honor God in our as His children, but it doesn't touch our relationship with Him for His children through faith in Christ Jesus.
In connection with the law, you know, sometimes it's nice for us to be able to recognize even in our own lives, or possibly when there's difficulties amongst brethren.
The, the, the the existence of the law, the principle of the law at work.
And one thing that the law will always do, the law will always occupy me with myself.
Because there's an effort to live up to a standard and the question is how am I doing? And then if I feel like I have gained a certain level of success.
Then the effect of the law will have a tendency to ask the question, how are those around me doing?
And that is the tendency of law.
But the.
Working of the Spirit of God is just the opposite.
If we were to turn back to Romans 7, we would find I mentioned how many times.
A bunch of times because the question is, the individual there is under the effect of the law, and so I is the focus.
But when an individual is delivered from law, the Spirit of God has the.
Liberty to do what he does.
Occupy the soul with Christ.
And so that is, I trust that can be a little bit of a help for us sometimes to detect in our own soul, sometimes when we're being influenced by the wrong principle in order that we might live righteously before God.
The law will occupy me with myself.
Or with my brethren, because the.
Focus is righteousness.
The Spirit of God where there is liberty and the new life.
Will occupy the soul with Christ.
We talked about.
What motivates us?
It's a very common thought in each one of us.
What motivates us? What makes us want to do?
The things we do, how do we come to the decision?
Of doing this or not doing that?
One of us lives, lives where there's a very fundamental issue of what motivates.
And the words are not used here, but the thought is embodied in what's being taught here if you go back to Chapter 7.
It says.
In verse 23 bringing me into.
Verse 23 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. Sometimes we know where we have a conflict in us because we seem to have mixed motivations. We want to do this, but we don't want to do it. We want to do something else. And we say as a if we have life in Christ, I don't want to do that. And then we find ourselves doing it.
The very thing that in our mind we say I shouldn't do that, I don't want to do that and yet we would say we feel powerless.
Because we go ahead and do the thing that we may hate. And that's what he's bringing out in verse 23 of the 7th chapter. There is a principle here. It's not the law, Moses in verse 23, it's that principle. It's that principle of sin that is.
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Intent upon what it wants.
Its desires, the desires of the flesh, and it motivates the person to act according to those desires. And even though the mind wants to do otherwise, the body, because that sin is seen as in the body, the body acts according to that sin which is in it to fulfill its desire and it doesn't.
And we say everyone in this room.
Probably innumerable times in their lives, even little kids have said that was bad. I don't, I'm not going to. I'm not going to do that again.
Our mind said no, that was bad. I'm not going to do that again. And we did it again and again and again. It's because there is sin in the body. It's seen here in Chapter 7, is in the body and it has the ultimate, if you will, in Adam, it has the ultimate control of the behavior, even though there might be motives which are otherwise. And that's why in the deliverance in our chapter.
He speaks of the contrast of that which.
Was and that which is that which was is walking after the flesh, walking in the manner in which I just described. But now that the Spirit of God has come in us, he brings in a new and contrasting principle of life.
It's life, the spirit of life, as we already had in verse 2, but which he now is going to explain more. It says they that are after flesh, do mind the things of the flesh, that person, that that's the way it works, that's the way it is. That's what's going to motivate and that's what's going to win.
If you will. Even though the mind says no, I don't want to do that again. And so it says they that are after spirit mind, the things of the Spirit, the Spirit of God working in US, occupies us with different things than the flesh occupies us with. It occupies us with the Lord Jesus Christ and his things. And it gives us the desire of that new life to do them because it wants to.
And so it introduces a whole different way of forming.
The motives of the heart in us that result in obedience to the will of God.
And so God forms the motives in us by the Spirit of God, and empowers us.
To do them.
To fulfill them.
And as I think it's Mr. Darby or someone said, there's nothing so strong as the spirit of God, and there's nothing so weak as the flesh. And so the moment the mind turns to the way of the flesh, that's what acts at that point. And yet the Spirit of God is greater than this, than what is in us in the flesh, so that there is victory.
When the Spirit of God is given the place.
Freedom to direct the soul into that path where there's liberty.
So these next verses are searching brother.
Verse five, They that are after them flesh do mind the things of the flesh.
But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
What do I mind in my life?
I'm talking about my everyday life.
What are the things that I occupy myself with?
We live in a culture and a world where the stream.
Of perdition is very strong.
And I think it's important, brethren, to not deny the fact that we are affected by it as we pass through it.
We are.
But that is not our life.
And we need to mind the things of the Spirit.
I sometimes say.
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In South America, go out into the countryside.
And there's an animal wallowing in the mud.
I say what animals should that could that be?
They always say a pig.
I say, Are you sure it's not a cheap?
Yeah, we're sure. Why not? Why are you still sure a sheep doesn't do that?
A pig does that.
What are you minding in your life? Are you minding the things of the flesh?
Or the things of the spirit.
He's telling us here how the spirit is minded and how the flesh is minded so it's searching as we're passing through this world. It's so easy.
To get under the influence of things.
All around us.
I'm going to park myself in front of a TV screen.
What is it going to make me mind? You know what it's going to make me mind? It's not going to be the things of the Spirit. It's going to be otherwise.
And it's not going to be positive.
So these things are searching, brethren.
What are we minding in our lives?
Where somebody mentioned that verse in Colossians chapter 3.
If you then be risen with Christ.
Set your mind on things above.
So it's a definite exercise on our part.
What do you allow your mind to be occupied with?
Is there searching?
Considerations, Brad.
These two spheres in which we can live in, and it's our responsibility to live in the right sphere, and they're designated by, as what you've already mentioned, the things of the flesh and the things of the Spirit.
And he's saying that if we live in that realm of the things of the Spirit, there will be a practical, ongoing power of deliverance evident in our life. If we choose to live in the sphere of the flesh and surround ourselves with all those things that the flesh goes into, we can be sure that the flesh is going to lift up its ugly head in our lives, and the Spirit is going to be quenched. And so now the onus is on us. Which of these two spheres am I going to live in through the day? And I have a choice to make every single day, and so do you.
Where am I going to live? What am I going to occupy myself with? And so practical, ongoing deliverance of the Spirit depends upon the believer living in the right sphere. We have the power. The principle of it has already been taught in verses 2.
But now we have a responsibility of the believer to live in the things of the Spirit.
Someone said if you pamper the flesh.
You'll hamper the Spirit. And if we live in the things of the flesh we can surely be, we can be sure that the Spirit of God is going to be grieved and quenched.
Such an important matter to be careful.
Of our thinking patterns, brethren minding.
Look at the 12Th chapter There we're getting into the.
Practical side, But notice what it says in verse two of chapter 12. It's the practical.
Implementation of what we're talking about.
Be not conformed to this world.
But be ye transformed.
How? By the renewing of your mind.
That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Living in a world that is contrary to God.
Everything needs to be.
Challenged by the light of the precious word of God renewing your mind.
The Lord help us in that, brethren.
We speak of the things of the Spirit. Someone may be asking the question, well, what things are they? And that's a good question. It's a fair question to ask What are these things? Well, there are things concerning the interests of Christ.
And where He is the center of all God's thoughts and his purpose. And so if we're occupied by those things that pertain to Christ his interest in this earth, we're going to be occupied with the things of the Spirit, because that's where the Spirit is occupied with glorifying Christ.
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And so if I take time to read the scriptures and take time to pray, take time to write and communicate letters to my brethren in spiritual matters, Or if I take time to phone somebody, visit somebody with a word of encouragement, and take time to sing, and take time to hymns I'm Speaking of. And all these other things that we could speak of that are what a Christian ought to be occupied with. If I live in that, the power of the Spirit will be evident in my life to keep the flesh in check. But as I say, if I choose to live in the things which the flesh go in for.
And surround myself with all these things that the world has to attract my heart. And all this I will not have that victorious Christian life that the Scripture speaks of.
And then I began to think, what's going on? There's a power failure in my life.
I have the spirit. I know I do because I'm saved. And when every saved person has the seal of the spirit, he's indwelling what's going on? He's been hindered. That's what's been going on. Because I live in the wrong sphere. I'm living in the sphere of the things of the flesh. And so it really is an exercise, as you say, as to how much of Christ we want. You know the old saying that Mister Hayne used to say, we can have as much of Christ as you want, and your life shows how much you want. It's so true that it hurts.
The things of the Spirit.
Everything that is communicated to my soul of Christ. Everything that is communicated.
Of this book every truth that I receive.
Is the work of the Spirit of God in my soul.
I it's not that I have been occupied necessarily. It's not effort on my own, you might say. I realize we need to take up the word of God. We need to read it, We need to spend time in it. But if I receive something?
It's via the Spirit of God. It's through him He is He is the communicator of of of all of God's truth. If I receive, if I sit on in Lord's Day morning and I'm in the enjoyment of the Lord's death, it's because the Spirit of God is at work and he's generating those thoughts within my soul.
It's not some activity that I'm generating, you might say, apart from him.
Responsibly exercised in the matter. The Spirit of God has been given and we may say, well, it's up to the Spirit to do it. You know, I'm just going to sit here, but that's never the way scripture presents the truth. There are two sides of things. There's a sovereign side that God has and there is also man's responsibility. And that's why when he gets down to the practical side of things and verses 12 and 13, particularly verse 13, he says and if he live after the flesh you shall die and is after the things of the flesh, you should be translated. And there we show, it shows that we have.
Responsibility to choose what sphere we live in.
And then he shows the outcome of it all. He says you shall die. He's not speaking literally literal death, but a moral death where there is a separation of our communion and our lifeline with God if I live after those things. That's the aspect of death that's mentioned here. And so that's a that's a very, very big if.
And he writes it in this way to make us responsibly exercised about the matter.
Six. He says the same thing.
What's characteristic of the flesh to be carnally or fleshly minded is death. That's the direction it leads.
Do you want that in your life? You want that direction but to be spiritually minded?
Is life and peace. What a tremendous contrast.
Which is characteristic of our lives, brethren.
This is what God desires for us. Life and peace. Beautiful.
I'd like to read 2 verses connection with these things.
1St is back in Romans 5.
In Romans chapter 5.
How to find in verse 11?
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And not only so, but we also joy in God.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
For commenting on it, I'll go over to Philippians chapter 3.
And if I get to Philippians instead of Ephesians, I might find the verse I want.
Philippians chapter 3.
And.
Looking for the verse for me to live is Christ.
1/21.
Thank you John Philippians chapter one, not three and verse.
21 For me to live as Christ.
The Spirit of God.
Delights to work in us to fulfill the very purpose of our existence.
God created us as creatures.
To have a creature that could know him and with whom he could have fellowship.
And God wants us.
To find our joy in himself.
And in fellowship with himself, he made us for that purpose.
And the Spirit of God delights to fulfill that purpose of God.
And every day, in a very practical way, when we wake up in the morning, we wake up with the privilege and the opportunity to go through the day.
And fellowship with God.
In the enjoyment of himself.
And the enjoyment of what he enjoys.
And the great object of his own heart is his own beloved Son.
And the Apostle Paul, in a very practical way, had learned that because the Spirit of God working in him gave him to say for me to live as Christ, because he was the one and is the one that is the center of all God's heart. And when God created us to enjoy himself, he wants to enjoy what he enjoys, and that is his beloved Son. And his purpose is to glorify or.
Display himself.
In the majesty of his own son.
And so the Spirit of God in us practically delights to occupy us with that which God is occupied with, which is his Son and his honor and his glory.
And it's the same character of life that the Lord Jesus lived as we had in verse 2.
He delighted everything. To his soul was his fellowship with God.
And every single day, everything he did, he did to please the one with whom he had his fellowship in that day. And God has given to us a life that finds his satisfaction and its delight in the same thing. It isn't something we have to produce in ourselves. It's not producible by us.
But it's rather the Spirit of God.
Would bring us into the enjoyment of that which God has brought us into.
In that which he has given to us as a gift and made us his own. And I believe that's something of the essence of what it is to live by the Spirit is to live by that which the Spirit of God, the things of the Spirit that bring us into the fellowship with God and that which he enjoys and we enjoy. And the moment I seek my satisfaction, which the flesh always does, What's the flesh say?
We will not have this man.
The flesh says I don't want him. That is Christ. Get rid of him.
And it'll never change as we have in our chapter Romans 8. The flesh is that enmity against God. Enmity means it has a fixed ill will against.
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God.
Because God wants one thing and the flesh wants another. And if God lays down a rule and says you're not to do that, there's ill will in man against God for telling him to do something he doesn't want to do. And so he struggles against God. He doesn't want to have God in his knowledge. If God sends the Son into the world, his enmity says I won't have him.
I don't want you and I don't want your son, because man in the flesh is at enmity with God and it will not change. The only way that we were reconciled to God is through death.
Not through a reconciliation. Well, let's get together and talk it over and come out of this.
Man, peace with God and reconciliation and those truths are founded on the work of death at the cross. And we are only brought into peace with God on the other side of death and the work that accomplished it. So for us to live this life that we're talking about.
The practical enjoyment of it starts, if you will, with the responsibility side is.
I want to find my joy in God.
I want to find my life, my joy. I'm going to find it in my God, and anything which hinders it isn't worth it.
If you find yourself occupied with something that is a hindrance to your enjoyment of God, give it up.
Say it's not worth it.
One other comment and I'll stop, and that is fellowship with God must be in absolute light.
John First, John, Chapter one. This relationship of fellowship with God by the Spirit. There can be no darkness in it at all. The moment I allow something in my heart and in my life which is inconsistent with God.
I cannot in that have fellowship with him, because God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. In First John one the principle is we want to have fellowship with him, but it must be with everything open and out in the light and consistent with it.
We had a comment to that too as to the whole question of joy.
We have some children that come to our Sunday school back home.
And they like to come up to our home.
But it's a major problem to entertain them. Why?
Because they can't stick at anything for more than about 3 minutes, and I don't say that unkindly. That's the way they've been brought up and that's what they're used to. And in order to keep them entertained, you better have an awful lot planned because anything that lasts more than a few minutes.
Anything that has any matter of routine or stick to itness involved in it is not going to work.
And I've thought of that as being characteristic of the natural man, the carnal man.
It's always having to have something that continually stimulates because there's no satisfaction. And so we talk about these things, and I hope that none here are thinking that we are advocating a dry formalism where there is no real, shall we say, for want of a better word, real fun or anything like that, but that I'm always sitting in a chair reading my Bible or on my knees in prayer.
If my heart is right, those will be wonderful times. Never a duty, never a ritual.
But will it keep me from going about everyday life in the normal way? No. If you're a young child, you'll get up in the morning, you'll have your breakfast, you'll go off to school in one way or another. You'll do a certain amount of work. If you're in high school or college, same thing. If you have a job, it'll mean getting up, going about it, and so on. And there will be the element of routine in just about everything that we do.
Someone who was writing many years ago made a beautiful comment that I've never forgotten, he said. I would attach more significance to peace than to joy.
And we use the word joy, and I think it's a right word to use because in a general way it does express what we have in Christ. And there are times of very special joy that the Spirit of God seeks to give us. But there are other times when it is simply going about the normal, everyday responsibilities of life, whether in the home or in the workplace or in connection with education or whatever it may be.
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But it's a wonderful piece, a wonderful rest in the soul, simply to have the sense that we are walking with the Lord, that the Spirit of God is free to minister to my soul whatever he would.
Alternately, that the Spirit of God is free to use me in whatever way he would, and then at the end of the day, to lay my head down on the pill with the conscious sense, as Don has said, that there is nothing that I know of that is between me and the Lord.
And that I have the conscious sense that I sought to please him during that day.
It's not that I'm always if we could use a common expression on a high, no. But there is that calm peace.
In going on with the Spirit of God.
Able to minister Christ to my soul, Able to give me that peace and rest and joy, then I'm not going to find that circumstances are going to ruffle me in the same way.
I'm going to find there's liberty to take my circumstances to the Lord, to look for, to look to Him, independence for what I need, if a difficulty arises, and ultimately to learn something from everything that he allows in my path.
It's a wonderful experience. I don't say that I've done it constantly, but I believe that God would have us to be able to live that way and to enjoy Christ in our hearts.
You think about routine, Bill. It makes me think of the Lord Jesus himself, who we get a glimpse of him at 12 years of age, and then we really don't see him until he's about 30 years of age, 18 years. What was he doing in 18 years? We're talking about the creator and sustainer of the whole universe. What was he doing?
The only thing we can get from scripture that he was the Carpenter.
In a Carpenter shop.
Is that the only place he was? Far as we know, didn't that speak volumes to your soul? I mean, it speaks so tremendously to me of the value of good physical labor.
And in a routine.
We don't know, even after he went out into public ministry.
I'm impressed, brethren, with how simple his life was.
Some think he may have had a house, but I mean, that wasn't the focus of his life.
As he went around, you never read of him having a piece of money in his hand. He asked to see denarius one time.
But when it came to fulfilling the scriptures and writing into Jerusalem.
On a donkey, he had to borrow one to do that. His life was the ultimate of simplicity.
Oh, brethren, to me it's tremendous just to look at this life we're talking about.
But getting back to our chapter, because our chapter, our time is just about gone here, I like to just focus a little bit more on this verse seven and eight before we close.
The carnal mind, Don has been talking about this.
Is enmity against God.
That carnal.
Nature in me is an enemy of God, just as much as that in the case of any unsaved person. If I allow that to act, I am going to act as an enemy of God.
O brethren, it shows the importance of living in the Spirit, the place that we are called to.
And then it says it is not subject to the law of God. Neither, indeed can be.
Why give the law then, if it cannot be subject to the law of God?
And then verse 8 says so. Then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
That's a pretty strong, definite statement.
But notice the next verse and this is beautiful and just like to end on this.
But ye, he's speaking to the believers.
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Are not in the flesh. If we were in the flesh, brethren, we would have to obey the demands of the flesh. We are not in the flesh.
But in the spirit, isn't that wonderful to realize that this is the place that we occupy?
Now not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
296.
Glory.
My God.
In love.
Will pray.
For me.
Number 87.
Number 87.
In Jesus.
Himself.
The.
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Could we read one verse before we pray?
Book of James.
James Chapter One.
Verse 23.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer.
But a doer of the work.
This man shall be blessed in his deed.