Address—C. Hendricks
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We're going to begin reading in Romans chapter 8.
There is therefore now no condemnation.
To them which are in Christ Jesus.
Now I stopped there because the latter part of the verse that we find in our translation.
Is, I believe, properly found at the end of verse 4.
But not at the end of verse one where we have the absolute statement.
Of the position, the new position of the believer in Christ. No condemnation.
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 ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin.
But the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you.
He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.
By his spirit 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 ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body.
You shall live.
But we stopped reading right there at this moment.
We have other passages to look at.
It's always a tremendous exercise when one stands before a.
Company this large.
To know what to bring, and this is a young people's address.
And I realize a little bit.
The problems that the young people have today, problems probably greater.
Far greater magnitude than has ever been experienced before.
And I thought it might be well to bring before us this afternoon what is a Christian.
What is a Christian?
I'm addressing Christians this afternoon.
What is a Christian is one who is in Christ.
Where Christ is.
And one who is for Christ.
Where Christ is not.
He is not here, He's gone, He's been rejected here and he's now in the glory.
And the Christian is one who is in Christ. Turn with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 for a verse.
Very well known verse.
Verse 17.
Therefore, if any man be in Christ.
He is a new creature.
All things are passed away. Behold all things.
Are become new.
You know, we take that expression so for granted. Our brother Ron was telling us yesterday a little about his desire to take a little Greek when he was in school.
Well, I got saved between my freshman and sophomore year in college and I was an engineering school.
Northwestern Technological Institute in Evanston, IL.
And I had the desire too, to take a little Greek. And there was a man that taught classical Greek. It turned out that I was the only one in the class.
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Just the teacher and the student.
And he said to me once he was a modernist.
He prided himself on being a Christian, but he was a modernist.
The fundamentals of the faith, he questioned. And I'll never forget when he said to me.
He said.
I don't know what Paul meant when he talked about being in Christ.
And I don't think he knew what he meant either, he said.
Well, that's the unbelief.
Of the first man because he couldn't understand it. He didn't think Paul understood it.
And I just looked at him.
In rank amazement.
Didn't say anything at the time.
But that's one of the most precious truths that we have. It brings before us new creation.
If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. All things have passed away. All things have become new.
We are new creatures in Christ.
And you know, that's one of the displays that the Lord is looking for.
In his church.
He's looking in your life and in mind that we display that we are new creatures in Christ, that we don't walk according to man to man after the flesh to walk as as just a normal man walk so that those around us can understand us.
If you pride yourself that they can understand you because you're walking as men.
That's really a rebuke to a believer.
We ought not to walk as men, we ought to walk as Saints of God.
Turn with me to Colossians 1.
We're going back to Romans 8, but I just want to touch upon.
Some other verses before we do.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Well in Colossians one verse 18, it says of the blessed Lord, he is the head of the body, the Church.
Who is the beginning?
The first born from the dead.
That in all things he might have the preeminence.
The 2 cardinal truths of Christianity are the death.
And the resurrection of Christ.
The death of Christ puts away all that stood against us, takes away all my sins, takes me away, for I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And every one of us who knows Him is Lord and Savior can say that.
I am crucified with Christ. He's not only put my sins away, He's put me away. But in the resurrection I see the new position that he's taken and he's brought me into it. And Christ risen has become my life and your life if you're a Christian.
And now we live of that new, risen life.
But in Christ.
There is a new creation here. He's called the beginning. The beginning of what? The beginning of the new creation as the first born from the dead. When he rose from the dead, he became the head of the new creation.
His death puts away all that was against us. His resurrection introduces us, Himself and us, into that new order of things of which He becomes the glorious head in resurrection.
Turn with me to Revelation Chapter 3.
Revelation 3, the address to Laodicea.
This is the 7th church.
Of the seven addressed in Chapters 2 and 3.
And here you have the Lord's last words.
To this assembly at Laodicea, verse 14.
Unto the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans.
Now notice the character that the Lord takes in connection with this final assembly.
These things saith the Amen.
The faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation of God. Every one of these characteristics of the blessed Lord is what he's seeking in His church, in His assembly down here in these last days, every one of them was missing.
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In the assembly at Laodicea.
Not one of them.
Not one of them. They weren't carrying a testimony where they could say they were the confirmation of God's Word.
That's what he was. He was the Amen.
He was the Yay and the Amen, the affirmation and the confirmation of all God's promises. They were all in Him. Here He presents himself at the very end of the Bible to the last church. He is the Amen.
Did they answer to that? Do we answer to that?
Are we standing on the word of God? Do our lives give testimony? Say Amen to the written Word of God. He lives by the Word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
That which sustained him as he went through this scene was the will of God which he came to do.
And then he was the faithful and true witness, as the assembly been that.
Anything but.
Especially the assembly at Laodicea, what a state they were in. Indifferent.
Luke warm.
A sickening condition.
But then he was also the beginning.
Of the creation of God as the Risen. 1 He becomes the beginning of a new creation.
And that's what we've been brought into in Christ.
We're new creatures in Christ.
That's what we're going to reflect in our pathway here. We don't belong to this world.
We belong to glory.
To heaven.
Now turn back with me to Romans 8, please.
Verse one.
There is therefore now no condemnation.
To them which are in Christ Jesus.
I've heard that quoted.
There is therefore now no judgment.
That's not what it says. It's a different word.
It says condemnation and it means condemnation.
Judgment is a different word. It's not just the thought that judgment will never overtake us.
But in Christ we are in a new position.
In the risen Christ, we are in a new position before God. He sees us as He sees Christ. No condemnation can ever be attached to that new position.
That we are.
In now in the risen Christ.
And then he goes on to say the law of the spirit of life.
In Christ Jesus.
Hath made me free from the law, sin, and death.
Now everything that I'm saying this afternoon is true of the feeblest.
Weakest.
Believer.
As well as the one that's been on the road for 50-60 years.
Everything I'm saying is basic and fundamental.
To every true believer in Christ.
The law of the spirit of life.
In Christ Jesus.
The Spirit is presented in the New Testament.
As being given in two distinct characteristic ways. The first is found in John 20. Please turn back with me to John 20.
Verse 19.
Then the same day at evening being the first day of the week when the doors were shut.
Where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.
Here's the risen Christ.
Presenting himself.
To his disciples.
Who were assembled for fear of the Jews. And He presents the fruit of His redemptive work. The first words spoken, Peace be unto you. And when He had so said, He showed unto them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.
Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you, as my Father hath sent me, Even so send I you.
First he imparts to them the peace that he had made by the blood of his cross, and then he sends them out.
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As emissaries of that message of peace to the lost.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them. Takes us back to Genesis 2, when Jehovah below him the Lord God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. Here the risen Christ breeze upon his disciples the breath of his resurrection life. He imparts to them life and the power of resurrection.
Associating them with himself is the Risen 1.
That's the life.
That you and I have in Christ.
And he says, receive ye.
The Holy Ghost.
We have the Spirit now in the power. We have the risen life of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And I believe that's what you get in verse 2 of Romans 8. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The man in Romans 7 was under law. He did not realize his new place in Christ, risen from the dead. The Spirit of God isn't mentioned one time in Romans 7. Is mentioned numbers of times in Romans 8.
And here we have it, the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
There's a fixed principle, the law of the Spirit.
Working now in the life of the believer.
We partake of the risen life of Christ in the power of the Holy Ghost.
There is never an excuse for you or for me to say, well, I couldn't help myself.
I had to do this because we're only human after all.
Well, that's to lower yourself to the level of the first man.
But in Christ, risen from the dead, Christians were not at that level anymore.
We're in a new position to which no condemnation can ever be attached, and we have a new power and a new life, the life of the risen Christ and the power of the Spirit of God, and breathed into them by the risen Christ himself. John 20.
And then we have Acts 2. I don't think we have to turn to it because there you have the coming of the Holy Ghost personally.
To indwell and to baptize those 120 believers into that new thing that had never existed before, the one Body, and to indwell them personally. Now everyone that believes the gospel receives the Spirit in these two ways. The Spirit is the characterizing power of the risen life we have in Christ and the Spirit as a person indwelling us.
Making our bodies.
His temple.
These are tremendous truths.
Beloved Saints of God.
Young people.
Tremendous truths.
This is Christianity.
I have been so thoroughly, completely delivered from the first man that I stand before God, accepted in Christ, in a new life, risen and in the power of the Holy Spirit. I am unable to walk through this scene.
Even as he did.
Do we do it? I have to hang my head in shame. The first one that would have to do that.
In confession.
How feebly that's expressed in my life.
But that doesn't change the truth of it. It's all there, and we'll never be able to say we didn't have the power. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. He's given us all we need.
To go through this scene for his own glory.
The law of the spirit of life.
In Christ, Jesus has set me free.
Delivered, there's deliverance from the law of sin and death. What is that law of sin and death? Go back to Chapter 7, verse 23 of Romans. 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. O wretched man that I am, here's a man who's under law.
He's learning all about himself. He wants to do right, and he always does.
Because what is wrong? He doesn't have any power because he's looking to the wrong place. He's looking within. And dear young brother and sister, if you look within as I used to do.
As a young man.
I used to look within for strength and then I failed and I failed and I failed because I was looking to the wrong place.
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The Spirit of God who dwells within us doesn't direct our attention even to him. He directs our attention to Christ, who's outside of ourselves. That heavenly object, the risen, glorified man in heaven.
He doesn't bear testimony to himself. The Spirit of God is the power within us as He occupies us with that altogether.
Wholly forming object Christ in glory.
So we have a power now, not just a new life.
But a power working in and upon and through that new life.
To enable us to walk here.
As Christ did.
The law of the Spirit. The fixed principle of the Spirit. The constant tendency of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Hath set me free, delivered me.
From the law, or the constant tendency of sin and death.
Or what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh.
It addressed itself to the flesh.
The law was a perfect code.
For man to live by perfect moral code, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image to bow down to it.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with promise. Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lust. And when they heard that, they said, that's good, that's what we ought to do. And they were right. That was the perfect measure.
For the first man to live by.
But a curse went with disobedience.
Death and condemnation.
And now in Christ, risen from the dead.
The life that you and I live of is not a life which was under law.
No, it's Christ risen after he was under law as a man on earth, He went into death, and now he's risen. Law has no more to say to him. Sin has no more to say to him. Death.
Has no more to say to him, and that's the life that is ours.
It's a justified life justification of life. Romans 5.
And we have the power of the Spirit.
To enable us to walk above.
The dictates of the flesh.
What the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh. There was no deficiency in the law. It was holy and just, in good and perfect, but it addressed itself to a nature.
Which couldn't obey it.
A nature which delighted in the very things that law prohibited.
The law in effect said to the first man, Thou shalt not be what thou art.
And of course.
That was an impossibility.
It was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son.
In the likeness of sinful flesh. Notice the perfection precision of Scripture. It doesn't say he sent his own son in sinful flesh, nor does it say he sent his own son in the likeness of flesh. No, He became true flesh. The Word became flesh, but it was the likeness of sinful flesh. It wasn't sinful flesh, just the likeness of it.
And as a sacrifice for sin.
He condemned sin in the flesh. Oh, I'm so happy to learn that.
I remember.
Years back now.
When a young man.
It used to be said.
When we discover as young people.
How bad we are?
Satan immediately comes in and he says you can't be saved if you're that bad.
If you have those thoughts, those wicked desires, those evil propensities, you can't be saved.
You're fooling yourself. You're a hypocrite.
And he tries to make you miserable.
And the mistake I used to make was as I learned how bad I was, I thought God was learning how bad I was in the process and when I learned.
That God picked me up.
When he knew how bad I was from the beginning and when he picked you up, he knew how rotten you were.
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He knew it through and through, and yet he loved you and he loved me.
And as we learn our vadnais.
He's not learning it. He knew it all along.
And yet he loved us.
Unspeakable grace.
He condemned sin in the flesh.
I was always looking to something.
In me that.
Maybe could produce something for God?
The hardest thing in the world for any of us is to remain in a sense of grace.
Under a sense of grace.
Grace is a very hard thing for us to get a hold of.
Very hard.
I find the tendency in my own soul.
To slip.
Under some kind of a legalistic.
System of things.
Every one of us has that tendency.
As in water, face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.
You're no different.
I know you're not.
We're all the same, we're all made out of the same stuff.
You have the same problems. They may take different forms.
But we all share the same problems.
We all have to deal with the worst enemy, and that's ourselves.
Well, we have a power now. We have an object outside of ourselves to lift us above this scene and ourselves.
And that's Christ, and we have the power to do it. The Spirit of God and a new life.
Well, it's wonderful to know.
I remember giving an address once and a brother came to me.
And in one sentence.
He summarized pretty much the whole thing.
He said. Isn't it lovely to know God doesn't expect anything from us?
I thought that was rather humbling because he said in one sentence what it took me an hour to say.
God doesn't expect anything from us.
It's all what He does, God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.
We like to think that we're doing something.
But it's all his work from beginning to end.
That the righteous requirement, the righteousness or righteous requirement of the law, what the law righteous required from the first man and never received because it addressed itself to the flesh, which was enmity against God.
That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in US.
Who walked out after the flesh, but after the Spirit?
That's a Christian.
This is the description of a Christian. A Christian is one who walks not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. A Christian is one who is in Christ. A Christian is 1 to whom no condemnation can ever be attached. A Christian is 1 in whose life the risen life of Christ, the Spirit of God, operates as power to set him free and deliver him.
From the flesh.
And from that law of sin which exists in his members.
Christian is one who fulfills as he walks in the power of the Spirit, what the law required but never got from the first man.
Now, now, verse.
But never got from the first man.
Now now, verse 5.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.
Talking about an unconverted person here.
But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
Now he's not comparing in Romans 8IN these first verses.
Spiritual with carnal Christians.
The next verse appears to do that.
But if you read it as it is in the margin.
And a more correct translation I believe.
You'll see the force of it. Let me read verse 6.
As I believe it should read.
Instead of saying for to be carnally minded is death and to be spiritually minded is life and peace, which would bring before us the thought of contrasting A spiritually minded Christian with a carnally minded Christian. That's not the point of the verse at all. The point of the verse is to contrast the mind of the flesh is death.
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But the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Now, every believer.
Every Christian in this room has the mind of the Spirit. Every Christian in this room is after the Spirit. Verse 5.
Every Christian in this room minds the things of the Spirit.
This is normal Christianity.
And it's talking about normal Christianity.
You say, well, I know a lot of Christians that don't do that.
I'm one of them.
Maybe that's your response to that. We'll get to that.
But right now I want to set before you what a Christian is according to the mind of God.
A Christian is one who is in Christ where Christ is, and for Christ where he is not.
A Christian is one who has the risen life of Christ indwelt of the Spirit of God as the power of that life.
A Christian is one who fulfills all the righteous requirements of the law as he walks in the power of the Spirit.
He minds the things of the Spirit, not the things of the flesh.
The natural man minds the things of the flesh.
Verse 6 For the mind of the flesh is death. Just think of it. Everything that the unconverted think about, everything that their mind centers in and rests upon and entertains is death.
That whole scene out there is a scene of death. There's death stamped upon everything. Everything, everything is stamped with death.
The mind of the flesh.
Is death.
Young people.
I've heard young people say we're going out tonight.
And we're going to have a good time. We're going to see life. But they're not looking at life.
They're looking at death.
They're looking at death.
The mind of the flesh is death.
But the mind of the Spirit.
The Spirit has his mind, that's the new man is life.
And peace.
Oh, to live so in the power of these things.
I feel it in my own soul, and I know we all must.
How feely?
We answer to this.
Sometimes we're afraid to minister on it because we say, well, it's way up here and I'm way down here.
But I'll be the first to confess that.
But it's the truth of God, and the only thing that's going to lift us up is to present what we are in Christ.
And by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So that we might seek to realize and enter in in a practical way.
What is really ours?
Verse 6.
For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, Verse 7 Because the mind of the flesh.
His enmity against God.
For it is not subject to the law of God.
Neither indeed can be.
The mind of the flesh. And that's why no one ever kept the law, because the law addressed itself to the flesh, and its mind is against God.
The flesh cannot keep the law of God, cannot please Him, cannot be subject to His holy will.
I want to say a few more words on verse 5.
When we came into our motel room yesterday.
There was a little leaflet on the table.
And it had to do with.
The various television programs for the week.
Well, I haven't seen one of those leaflets for a long time.
So I thumbed through it.
And I saw three things.
And everything that was being offered. Almost everything. Three things.
Adult language.
Violence.
Nudity. Those were the three things repeated over and over and over again.
Promptly, we hung our clothes over that box.
So that we didn't even know it was there.
Adult language.
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Filthy language.
Corrupt language.
The precious name of Christ.
And of God.
Spoken about in a flippant, irreverent.
Wicked way.
Violence.
Corruption.
The days of Noah.
Sodom and Gomorrah.
Right here.
Beloved young people, do you realize?
That you are living in the most wicked day that has ever, ever, ever been since the creation of Adam and Eve.
More wicked than Noah's day.
More wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah.
Why can you say that? You might say because we're living at the end of the day of grace.
And the corruption of the best.
Is absolutely the worst.
We're living.
In Second Timothy, 3 days, Jude days, as we heard yesterday.
A darker day you cannot.
Concede.
And that's where we are.
I want to say this too.
When I was in Phoenix, AZ recently on my western trip.
The sister Kilcup.
Staying with them.
Robert Kilcups and.
She mentioned the tape.
On rock music.
And I said I would like to get it.
I particularly wanted to get it because.
In the night of the murders.
Of my son's family.
There was a rock concert.
In the town next to Bloomington that night.
And as I listened to these two tapes.
I was horrified.
This is the music.
Of the present generation.
There are things that I just don't feel at liberty to say publicly.
The man who gave the tapes said them.
The first time I listened to those tapes.
I felt sick and unclean and dirty and defile.
And I wouldn't recommend.
Listening to them.
Except I'm afraid.
That there are some of our young brothers and sisters.
That might be doing that very thing.
You cannot listen.
To that satanic music.
And remain in fellowship with God. You cannot.
It's a violation of a spiritual law.
You can't do it.
You can't sit before that tube and watch it and watch it and watch it. It's nothing but defilement and remain in fellowship with God. You can't do it. Young person. Older person too.
It's nothing but defilement.
Nothing but the flesh.
They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh. We expect the world to do it.
But they that are after the Spirit mind the things of the spirit.
They have what they call subliminal techniques.
In a movie theater recently.
How the audience was watching this, The screen that was flashed on the screen very quickly, very quickly. So quickly that the human eye couldn't detect it.
Buy popcorn, buy coke, buy popcorn, buy coke. And when the intermission came about, everyone went out and bought popcorn and coke. They never saw the message, but it got impressed upon their brain.
They've tried in department stores.
Playing underneath the music at such a low audible tone that you can't hear it.
You're an honest person. You don't want to take that article. Don't steal that article. You're an honest person and that can no one can hear it. And yet that has reduced the number of thefts markedly in those areas that have tried it. Those are called subliminal techniques.
In rock music, there's the technique of back masking.
Where messages are put on backwards.
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And the reason they're put on backwards is because if it was put on forward, most people would reject it.
If it was put forward, Satan is God, you would reject it. You have a mechanism that hears that and says no, and you're rejected. It doesn't get impressed upon the memory system of the mind.
But if you hear it in reverse, you don't know what you're hearing, and so it's there.
And the brain has the amazing capability of taking a message in reverse and turning it around and making it mean something.
When I was in Fremont, CA.
Brother David Graham, at whose home I stayed, He told me about an experiment. He's a blind brother.
And he said they did an experiment. He said the image that's impressed upon the back of the brain is upside down, but the brain turns it around and makes it seem like we see everyone properly.
So he they put a set of glasses on the person that turned the image upside down. As he walked around, everything was upside down.
About two days of that went on and he told me this, he says. All of a sudden, just like that, the brain converted it and all of a sudden the image was right side up.
And he went around for a few more days that way.
And then he took the glasses off and everything was upside down.
He went around a little longer and then the brain converted it back. It took an upside down messages message and made it right. And that's exactly what they're doing in back masking.
Natasha.
Not to us.
Dog. See Natasha.
Backwards means Satan is God.
And this is.
What they've done.
In these records.
I could speak a whole hour on that and I'm not going to.
What I want to warn you about is.
In this kind of music.
They actually blasphemy the name of God.
Sometimes they do it forward.
Sometimes it's done more subtly backwards.
And the way you can tell it is you turn the record backwards.
And there's the message.
The only thing I didn't like about those tapes?
Was that the way it presented? It was as though Satan has the upper hand.
Why are we in this condition of things?
Why is?
Violence and nudity.
And adult language.
Traded right out in the open.
And this wicked music, everything that's for the flesh, why is it there?
Well, Romans One tells you, and let's turn to Romans 1.
Verse 21.
Now this I know applies to the heathen world, but it applies far better, far more, even today.
Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things. Now here's the verse. Wherefore God gave them up.
To uncleanness.
Through the lusts of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.
Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed forever? Amen.
For this 'cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.
And and likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman.
Burned in their lust, one toward another.
Men with men working that which is unseemly.
And receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which was meet, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.
God gave them over.
To a reprobate mind.
That's what we have today.
Except here it was the heathen world. Today it's the Christian world.
We're talking about.
That which names the name of Christ.
A reprobate mind, and the reason that men have that kind of a mind is the judgment of God.
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God has given them over.
Very clearly, 2nd Thessalonians 2 Says because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie.
That they all might be damned.
Who had pleasure in unrighteousness?
I know that applies in all its fullest force after the Church is raptured, but it's taking place right in front of our very eyes.
What are you minding?
What am I minding?
What are you looking at?
What are you spending your time with?
Where are your energies going?
You have all the power of the Spirit.
To lift you above this.
Cesspool of iniquity in which we're living.
That's where we're living.
I thought when I moved 300 miles South from Chicago to a little farm community, I'd escaped that kind of pollution. Not a bit of it.
It's just as much in the stores down there.
It's everywhere.
Romans 8.
Verse 7.
Because the mind of the flesh.
Is enmity against God.
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 now here comes the Christian, 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's not of his. He doesn't belong to him at all.
Is not his. He's not marked out by the Spirit of Christ.
The formative power of Christ in our lives.
You know, there are young people that are mixed up.
Drugs. There are young people that are mixed up in drinking.
My son John told me just before I left.
He said that they're taking firmer measures. I think that the.
I think the federal government is raising the.
Drinking age to 21 or two or something like this.
And there's some revolts in colleges.
And the authorities are getting alarmed. Young girls are coming to their doctors and saying I can't be pregnant.
I've never had a relationship with a man.
Well, she didn't know it, but she was under the effect of drugs or liquor when it happened.
She didn't even know it.
This is the state of things. We're living in the same days that the Roman Empire was in.
The morals of this country.
Are all but gone.
Young people.
Where do we stand?
As Christians.
You know how to possess your vessel in sanctification and honor.
There's never been a day, never been a day so wicked as today.
Men are doing in the teeth of Scripture and in the light of the full light of God's grace. We read yesterday our brother Ron and Jude.
Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness into an excuse for sin? Well, we're saved by grace, so we can do whatever we please.
And then overthrowing all authority.
That's what characterizes the day we're in.
But you're not in the flesh.
But in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
And then he says in verse 10, if Christ be in you, the body is dead.
Because of sin. Because there's sin there, there's an evil nature that's there that hasn't been burned out. I have to hold this body as dead so that it doesn't yield itself to be used by that sinful nature any longer.
The principle of death is being applied now by the power of the Spirit, so that.
This body is only to be used by Him, the Spirit of God.
If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. It's held as dead because there's sin there. And if I don't hold it is dead. Sin will get the upper hand and 'cause this body.
To be a vessel to dishonor.
But the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Verse 12. He says, therefore, brethren.
We are debtors.
It doesn't say.
He doesn't carry that out in the positive sense. He doesn't say we're debtors to God.
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He just says we're debtors, not to the flesh.
To live after the flesh.
For if you live after the flesh, ye shall die. You're about to die. You're on the road that leads to death and everything that you're, The whole range of objects that's before your soul have the stamp of death upon them. The mind of the flesh is death.
If you live after the flesh, you're about to die.
You're on that road.
But if ye through the Spirit do mortify, that means to put to death.
The deeds of the body.
You shall live there. You have the practical carrying out.
Of these wonderful truths.
Of what the believer is in Christ.
I believe we've come to the day.
What it's so important to go back to the basic principles.
Of the Gospel.
Applied to the Saints.
That were at Rome.
To the Saints here at Toledo.
To the Saints, wherever they might be found.
We've died with Christ.
We're dead to sin.
No longer to yield this body any longer as a vessel to be used by the old nature.
But rather.
We're debtors.
Debtors to mercy alone, Debtors to grace.
But because it's grace, it doesn't carry that on.
Because Grace.
Doesn't place us under a legal obligation.
But I just want to close by saying.
We're saved by grace.
We're justified by grace. We stand in grace.
We're taught by grace. We're kept by grace.
It's all grace.
It's all unmerited favor.
And the sense?
In your soul and mind.
Of grace.
Will keep us.
Near to himself.
Because he's the one that dispenses.
All the blessing.
Oh, there's so much more to say, beloved.
And with these few stumbling remarks.
That God used something.
To bring before us in just a few moments that remain.
Just a few moments that we're going to be left here.
I want to quote.
I don't know so I can quote it, so I'm going to turn to it in first Peter 4IN closing.
First Peter 4.
The end of verse one says he that hath suffered in the flesh, that is, he hasn't yielded to it, He hasn't gratified it, He said no to it in the power of the Spirit.
He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin. When you yield to the flesh, you don't suffer.
You gratify it, You please it.
But if you say no to it, then you suffer in the flesh. Then you cease from sin. That he no longer should live the rest of his time.
From right now, young people, the rest of your time that ye no longer should live, the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men.
But to the will of God.
I leave you with that verse.