Romans 7 vs Romans 8 — Leonard Ravenhill

If you don't go, you don't keep running to the dentist and say, I wish these dentists too, but you know, it's too long to let a tooth grow now. I wish they'd cut, you know, I think particularly about the, I don't know where the tooth is in this chapter, they've cut quite a lot of it, as a matter of fact, but, I don't think there's anything much further beyond year 37, this kind of, get to where Mr. Solheim was talking about a few minutes ago, cut you down to size kind of thing.

More Than Conquerors Through Divine Love

Knowing all these things, you're more than conquered through him that loved you. The text is a lot easier if it said, just that you're more than conquered. If you go to the dentist too, that situation you're in, and say, well, of course, poor Hector meant this, you know, like he never had another in-law like mine with another problem.

He didn't mean that, he just said more than conquered, you know, speaking generally, but he says in all these things, and it makes the study look smart if you just read the chapter, at least seven times in the chapter he mentions things.

You remember in, Rodney Winkler's insertion in the greatest poem of love that was ever written, and I was thinking of the theme, Spirit of the Living God, a little Irish lady, the donor of our fellowship, Annie Wilson Carmichael, and I've got my son to back some of these books, Annie Wilson Carmichael, she wrote another verse for that love letter, and it's well worth knowing, for the theme tune, Spirit of the Living God, she wrote, Love of God, eternal love, pour thyself through me.

Nothing less than tells you, love, that I ask of thee. Fill me, flood me, overflow me. Love of God, eternal love, pour thyself through me. But then in that same poem, Paul says, about this love, this divine love, and it is this kind of contentious love, he says it bought us all things, it gave us all things, it hurt us all things, it then gave us all things.

Separation From Earthly Things

It was Dr. Tozer, I think, that first said, I think it was Dr. Tozer that said that the, particularly Adam, broke his relationship with God from that moment, he got interested in things. And he'd been interested in things ever since.

And I think that as we go on in our Christian lives, very often what God has to do is cut us off from things, He cuts us off from this thing and that thing. When we get saved, you see, we give up all the bad things.

You may disagree here, but when you really get filled with Spirit, you give up the good things. It's the good things that are the enemy of the bad things. See, the letter God says that we have fellowship where, does it say fellowship with who?

No, no, no, that's what we think. What does He say? We have fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, and with one another. But you see, very often we make fellowship with each other, and such a thing as fellowship with Him.

So the good is the enemy of the bad. This meeting tonight, as good as it may be, and I hope God will contribute something to our faith and soul life, uh, spirit life really. But it is no substitute for communing, first of all, with Him.

Our fellowship is with the Father. I need one another. I need Jesus Christ, His Son. But I can make fellowship with Sister Nattie over the phone in the morning. I get the kids off, it wouldn't be great when I get back to school.

I can yawn over the phone, and hope them won't be home. And I can talk to Sister Sue for twenty minutes. Oh, I enjoy that every morning, and I sip coffee and talk to her. Well, you couldn't get fellowship much better, could you, than sitting in a, uh, a lousy boy's chair, drinking coffee and having fellowship.

But, uh, it's a course I could do, again, for fellowship with the Father, you see. And with His Son, Jesus Christ. But again, going back to the, we get involved in things. So many things, so many things.

Paul said again, what things are going to be our chances at life, because I'm going to bring Christ. And if nobody can tell you, if nobody has ever worked this spiritual life out for me, it's a dream.

Progressive Revelation and Spiritual Maturity

You know, I say sometimes to teachers, there are lots of people looking for a book, on six easy lessons on how to become a saint. Well, there isn't one, but if you find one, please send it to me, and I'll make you one promise I won't read it, because it'll be full of nonsense.

There are not six easy ways to become a saint. Uh, sometime, we'll be coming next week, if you want us, but then I'll be away for about a month, or five weeks. Then I'll be coming back, as the Lord wills, and I'll sit around.

I'd like to make a series of studies that expand because revelation has progressed. All revelation has progressed. I don't care who you've heard, and I don't care how many times you've swung on the chandelier, to lay flat on your tummy, but I'm ending up.

The, uh, the fact is this, that nobody under heaven, not the Apostle Paul, or anybody else has ever explored all the possibilities of this day. There's still an unsolving. God has something for us in our day, that he didn't have for people's sake.

I was saying last week's day, or some other day, because they were not living in the atmosphere that we're living in now. I don't think there's a devil who's ever had such a good time as he's having right now, though it's outside of the church and inside of the church, by all accounts.

And, uh, there's no such thing. There's nobody this side of eternity has yet arrived. And I know there's some little excluded groups that won't let you pray with them because you're not mature enough, you see.

Five years from now, I'll try again. Uh, but right now, you're just not mature enough. You don't know why they contend to stay on earth when they're so mature, but nobody on earth has yet arrived. I've been a Christian for, I can't tell you how many years, but more than half a century, anyhow.

I've been a Christian more than 50 years, if that helps you, but, uh, I should teach better than I teach. But the fact is that with all I know, I know very little. Revelation's progressive. God is continually, uh, developing us, thinking, children only grow to a certain height.

Blessing, they don't grow, shall we say, the second 15 years as tall as they did the first 15. Now, you'd have to lift a roof around here. But they go other ways. They go mentally. They go emotionally.

They go spiritually, we hope. I look at you in the, in the errors of our nature. You see, we, we, we can't. God is so vast. Next week, I'd like to talk and leave you with it because we can show it over for a few.

I want to talk about worship, which I don't think, uh, frankly, I don't think one person in a hundred Christians, uh, maybe even spiritual Christians know much about worship. You see. But that again is another matter.

Romans 8: No Condemnation, No Separation

Now, here there's a, here is the, uh, challenge to our hearts tonight. Romans 8 and verse 37. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Now, oh, you're looking, but that, I'm not saying you're cheating, but if you weren't looking, how does Romans 8 begin?

How does it begin? Right, all right. And it begins, no, therefore, that is, therefore, now no condemnation. How does it end? Crucial separators from the love of God. So the chapter begins with no condemnation and it ends with no separation, but it doesn't say there's no tribulation.

In fact, the whole thing, between the two, is packed with tribulations in Christ's coming, sadly, nakedness, and sorrow. You can't paint a picture. I used to paint when I was younger. I paint now with a brush about so wide, but I used to paint with a little brush.

And, and I learned one thing at the beginning. You can't paint a good picture without shadow. And I was always trying to have what Dr. Chalmers called a corrective ministry because somebody wrote to us the other day and said, would you come up to our group?

And it's four or five hundred miles away from here. We got tired of just, again, not that it's wrong in itself, but when you do it, most of the meeting and all the meetings, you're trying to get blessed.

That's soulish. You could do the same thing on the soul train. The thing is, but they got to the place now where things were beginning to calm down. They came out of a dead church into a lively church with excitement and prayer and you clap your hands and you sing and you live with God.

But they say, you know what? There's something missing. It's all up in the air. It's a balloon. It doesn't get down. It's got nothing solid. And again, when I'm in meeting five, I'm a victim. I don't have a great time.

You know, tomorrow when I get up again, I go, I feel bad tempered. Now, now, that's not the right way. A doctor, another good man, if you ever read about him, Dr. James Stewart of Edinburgh, says he wouldn't believe a man is really born again if he has a bad temper.

New Creation and the Reality of Regeneration

Now, see, that ought to fill the well. On the basis of 1 Corinthians 5, 17, that if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. He's not an old creation. Perhaps he is a new creation. And when God makes all things new, he makes it new.

Therefore, he argues, he said if a man still has a bad temper, he lives somewhere on the earth of regeneration. All right. So, the chapter begins with no condemnation. That is, no condemnation. And it ends with no separation.

But it doesn't say there'll be no tribulation. In fact, there's an awful amount of it listed here in this chapter again. Now, what's the first reaction to a text like that? In all these things, we are more than conquerors for him that led us.

You know, there's no sharper division, not between night and day, or hardly between heaven and hell than there is between Romans 7 and Romans 8. Now, when we go home, oftentimes, we write through Romans 7, take a pencil, and every time we come through that, you know, that little awkward thing, I, I, I, I, you just put a line under it.

You know, I want to do this. I can't do it. I don't want to do that. I do it. It's not I. It seems irrelevant. Take a pencil and go down and mark everyone's face with a red pencil. I, I, I. And then take a green pencil and mark how many times the whole experience is mentioned in Romans 7.

You won't have anything to do because it's not mentioned at all. Then you cross over the bridge out of Romans 7 into Romans 8. And take your pencil in Romans 8 and mark how many times the I is there, and it's only there twice, in verse 18 and verse 48.

Doesn't it say, it says in verse 18, that I reckon. You see, in verse 48, I am persuaded. Now, it can't put any other, it can't put us there. It is personal. But Romans chapter 7, it's 31 times. It's I, I, I, I, I, and no Holy Spirit.

Romans chapter 8, 19 times the Holy Spirit and no I, except on the two occasions where they can't do anything else. So plainly, Romans chapter 7 is a sin-centered or a self-centered chapter, and Romans 8 is a Christ-centered chapter.

Or, if you want it in colored language, shall we say, Romans 7 is ego-centered and Romans 8 is Christian or Christ-centered. You see. Now, Romans chapter 7, to me, is a graveyard. Or, if you like, Romans 7 is a funeral march and Romans 8 is a wedding march.

Here's a man bursting out with ecstasy. You know, hallelujah, there's no condemnation to those who incite Jesus. Romans 8, chapter 7 is what? Well, I think Romans, when he says that Romans 8, chapter 7, I can do all things through Christ extensively, I put it this way, as I was saying the other day, this is an exclamation and jubilation for liberation.

You see. We are more than conquerors, he says. Now, what can you do? I mean, if you're dealing with that text, remember, if you're looking to do it, therefore, we are more than conquerors for him, but look at, there are only three possible approaches to a text like that.

The Experience Behind “More Than Conquerors”

Number one, it's in my God, I don't know what he's talking about. In other words, let's put it in military language. Here is a man in uniform. I remember, I'm giving my age away, but I can remember before World War I, never mind World War II, my cousin came to our home.

He joined one of the crack regiments in England. He was about six foot two and a red jacket on and blue trousers and he was a straight as a ramrod. Marching off the street and boy, I thought he was the king of the world.

Oh, I told her she's not my cousin, little my cousin. That's my cousin. In one of the crack regiments, certainly the king of England. He let you know that he was in the best regiment and oh, it was difficult to get in.

I remember seeing him just once after he came home after World War I. He was a wreck. Boy, he was straight as six foot two and he went out. When he came back, he was beaten up. He was sliding his feet.

He had been massacred around him after shrapnel tore his bonnet. There's a great deal of difference about the young guy that says, boy, we're going out to fight and conquer and do this and the man that came on was battle scarred.

Now, the man that says, we're going to conquer, he was the one that landed in the youngster with his buttons all polished and said, we're going to do the job. He's a man who's straight, he's torn up, he's back in bed.

He is. You say, well, how do you know? You're guessing. No, I'm not. After all, if they tied you to a whipping post and last year, 195 times, and that's what he said. He said five times I was beaten with rugs.

40 stripes saved one. So the next five quarters makes 200 on my computer. Five less because we're only 39. He's 195 lashes. He was in the beach a night and a day, that's 36 hours. He was in readiness, in fasting, in painfulness, in tribulation, in distress.

He just goes through the whole range of trial and temptation. And what's more, he lists them again in this chapter because he says in verse 38, I'm just ready that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prince of colleges, nor powers, nor things present, nor things become, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature.

Now, you can't get much further than that. Even when he's listed all that is, he says neither things present, nor things become. In other words, he puts his shoulders back and if you pardon the rather, what might sound a vulgar phrase, he spits in the face of the devil and says, look, there's nothing that you can invent that can separate me from the love of God.

You've tried about everything, it doesn't work. And I'm so confident in the Lord Jesus Christ that I'm absolutely sure that there's nothing you have that can separate me from the love of God. And that a sufficient way for me to be more than conqueror to him that loves me.

So first of all, I say one approach is that this is a statement of somebody that's ignorant and irresponsible. Just saying, well, of course, you can give a victory and everything. I don't care whether you live in a palace or a prison or a pigsty or whether you're in the same sort of group.

It makes no odd. It doesn't have an effect. It's only somebody immature that's saying this. The second thing is to say, well, it's an unvalid statement of a super optimist. I mean, you could say for sex, supposing somebody threw the text out and said, what do you think about sex?

You say, well, it's philosophical, you know. It's a state. It's the kind of guy who says, well, hit me on the chin. It doesn't make any difference. I've still got my brains. You know, you can't beat him anyway.

You could say, well, I don't think it's philosophical. It's theoretical. He hasn't found it out. Or if you like, you could say it's theological. Or if you want to come down to it, you might even get down to the state where you say it to yourself at least.

I think it is. It's practical. You see, this isn't some youngster going into war again. It isn't a man that sat down and started to build a tower and wasn't able to finish it. It isn't a statement of an unbalanced super optimist.

It's an experiment experience. Because elsewhere he uses the same meaning when he says, I can do all things. You won't hear much about this usually. We're so blessed with gifts and other things we keep bringing the changes.

But get off them for a minute. How is it working out in your life? Paul says, I can do all things, not some things. All things. We are more than conscious to the thing that loved us. He uses the same word in 1 Corinthians 13 and it's a pretty rough word there, you know.

When you come to think of that word, it's a difficult word. But he says, what did he say? He says that this love beareth all things and it believeth all things and it hotheth all things and it endureth all things.

That's the comprehensive part of the whole of life, isn't it? In other words, Paul's saying there isn't a thing that can come into your life on any given level, physical, mental, spiritual. Because if you sort the things out at the end of Roman race, you'll discover he's not talking about things you can see.

He's talking about, oh, he's just talking about things you can't see. So he says, what's so special as child tribulation? Well, tribulation could be physical but it can be mental too. Disgrace could be physical, it could be mental too.

Imperils of the sword. You can't put a sword through my spirit. But you can put a sword through my body. So I could be suffering physically. This man's trials are not on this level at all. This man's trials are on a different level entirely.

So as the word of God says, the more money you get, the more possessions you get, all you do is increase your headache. If you owned all the houses on this floor, I don't know whether by the day he does, I'm not going to ask, but supposing he owns all the houses from here to the end of the street and suddenly they say, well, there's going to be a tornado and it's coming right down that street.

Now, if he owns 50 houses, he's got 50 times more worries than if he owns one house, ain't he? It's been blowing off a lot of deals away. I remember once a tornado came up when we were up the other side of Chicago, at Robson, and it happened to hit the Chrysler plant.

Well, I mean, it's the best way to hit it. It isn't going to hit anybody. It's better than hitting four houses. But you know, it picked those cars up and it took them right across the road, the tracks, and then found Buckingham State was 20 miles away.

It picked us up and just, boy, there's a lot of searching for precious things, you know. Now, some people didn't bother to say, well, I don't own the house anyhow, and they told, boy, now he's going to attend to the plumbing and do a few things he wouldn't do.

He's going to have to rebuild the house, so the hurricane's going to be good. But you see, there are levels that Satan can get to some people and he can't get to other people. And it's no good saying, well, oh, but I don't, oh, that doesn't bother me.

Well, maybe the thing that's getting you down doesn't bother him either. You see, there are temptations and fires and distresses. A temptation in itself is a big, big, vast area that I'm not going to even get into tonight.

All right, Paul, then, is in Romans 7. He's got a dark, bleak chapter. It's bonded. How did he finish? Remember the illustration is at the end. At the end of that chapter, he says what? He says, well, I'm tied up to certain laws.

Now, if you go through the chapter, you'll find four or five laws in Romans 7. But in Romans chapter 8, there's another law. In Romans 7, one law warring in his members. Remember that chapter 8? A different one.

Now, I say that on any level that you come to, even if, supposing we end up in concentration camps, which we should do, I don't doubt that at all. Supposing we lose, the government gets to a socialistic, a communistic state, and we lose all our independent rights, property, ownership, and everything else, which could happen.

It's happened to another 10 people I know here. We're heading up pretty fast anyhow. The Rockefeller's not a guy who'll see to that. Supposing we lose all that, and I say to you, we can be more than conscious.

Well, it sounds a bit exaggerated, because, as Brother Baird was saying earlier tonight, we don't read in Romans about tribulation, or this prayer. Well, of course, we're not going through the tribulation.

Praise God. Oh, I see. Well, you know, there are two things that, amongst others, people don't like to do. Number one, not many of us embrace suffering. If you haven't done suffering, you don't go. You don't keep running to the dentist and say, I wish you'd yank this tooth out of me.

It's so long since I've had a tooth grown out. I wish it'd just pull it out. Just put a chain, you know, and I'd like to... No, you say, oh, let's keep spying away and keep... We don't want to lose any teeth.

We don't embrace suffering, if we can get away. And people don't like to suffer, and secondly, we don't like to die. And if you have a rash, you get out of both of them. You don't have to suffer, you don't have to die.

False Prophecy and the Reality of Suffering

Top story of the evening. I think we're going. The only thing is, it so happens that Hale brought out in China a few years ago, 1925, and I happened to have met a man whose friend was challenged not so long ago coming through Formosa because when he stopped off to see some Chinese, and he greeted them, oh, they said, those men in that factory come from Hunan province, where he used to be.

And he went in and greeted them, you know, he was eloquent, and he's Chinese, he's an American, but he speaks Chinese like a native. So he goes to these men working, little yellow men working and wearing their ironing and doing other things, and he greeted them, and they took an order from him.

They greeted him again, and they took an order from him. So the first time he said, oh, I see now, I see. Of course, you haven't seen me for 35 years, and I've got a bit fatter, and I've lost my hair, but I'm a pastor.

I'm from Formosa. Stick my head. He was feeling pretty bad, he'd made about three approaches, so finally he said, listen, I'm a pastor from Formosa. And the man looked with tears in his eyes and said, not pastor.

Not pastor? No. False prophet. He's a false prophet. I never told you the wrong thing enough? Oh, yes, you did. Oh, no, he said, I used to have a banner, and I used to teach your heritage, and, uh, but the man said, look, you told us?

Sure, but you told us the Russians were going to come and invade this country and rape the women and break in the banks and burn the churches and tear our Bibles up. But just as they come over the border, they're going to be raptured, and you're going to see your churches smoking, and you're going to see blood in the streets, and you're going to see your Bibles being torn up, but the Lord won't let one hair of your dear little head to suffer.

You're going to be called to that in the rapture. The man said, the only thing that happened was my dear wife was torn out of my arms, and my children were thrown in such. My church was burned, and my Bibles were torn up, but there was no rapture.

And maybe I mentioned this before, the man in, in, uh, Canada is 71 years of age. He went through the Russian Revolution, and he told me that the fundamentalist pastors had a greater heartache to the Christians than the Communists were.

Because they told him it was coming. They said, the Tsar will be murdered, the streets will flow with blood, you'll lose all your rights, it's going to become a prison camp. Antichrist is in array, and John says to the many antichrists, the only thing they do is be raptured, and you won't see it.

But he said, I happened to live through the Revolution. You see, very often we see through our American language is, if I had yellow glasses on tonight, everything would be yellow. If I had blue glasses, everything would be blue.

And, uh, there was a dangerous teaching, and I never tried to do this, and God helped me. I don't have to brainwash people. You've got a head, you've got a mind, and remember the Word of God says that for your own master, your family, your force, you have to live according to the life that God gives you.

Now, if you think there's going to be a rapture, you're going to get out all right, but, supposing you miss it, you end up in a concentration camp. You don't chew at me, for one thing. You might be arguing with some other pastor, somebody else, and say, well, why don't we condition?

Holiness, Adversity, and the Christian Calling

You see, because God's business isn't just to make us happy. God's business is to make us holy. The reason I'm saved, and from the time I'm saved until I die, God is knocking me into shape, in my judgment, for a position to rule within him a millennial age, and to rule within him eternity.

And we're not all going to be the same. Rule over five cities, rule over ten cities, rule over one city. How are we going to be the same for everybody? Some are going to be beaten with many stripes, and some with few stripes.

And I think I've said this before, let me say it again, that sometimes I think that the sign of God's blessing in the Old Testament is prosperity. Possibilities of God's blessing in your life. Prosperity.

But in the New Testament, it's adversity. Saying that the greatest man that ever lived, after Jesus, I think the greatest brain was the apostle Paul. And never once did he desire a material thing. He said, could you bring my clothes?

I'm shivering in this jail. If you could bring it, it would be pretty helpful. But what did he say? He said, I want to fill up the sufferings of Christ. I want to so live like Jesus Christ. He said, I want to bear burdens in the dead.

And he says, I've sorrow of heart. I've great sorrow of heart. He talks more about sorrow and anguish and burdens for the lost world. In fact, in Romans 9, where he says, I could wish myself a curse for my brethren.

That doesn't sound much like jubilation. And in fact, God about it, he had joy because he expresses that. But you see, he's not hopping on one leg all the time. And therefore today, you've got two feet.

Now it's an economic day and shoes are getting scarce and so on. Why don't you hop on one leg? And then you're more mature. I'll hop on the other, you know. I mean, you don't have to go around on two legs just because everybody else does it.

It's a silly habit. Nobody knows why we do it. But anyhow, you say, well, no, no, we've got two legs. We can keep balance. Sure. Sure. And this is the whole truth. It is a spiritual life keeping balance.

Not shutting that thing out. Not taking too much as they say. But by the grace of God, in this spiritual kingdom, keeping a balanced life. All right. Romans then, chapter 7 is darkness and Romans 8 is light.

Romans chapter 7 is a funeral march. Romans chapter 8 is a wedding march. Romans chapter 7, he says, all wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from up the body of this bed? That's what he's talking about.

Deliverance From Sin and the Meaning of the Cross

You know, there are a hundred and twenty different types of crosses. From the cross on which the prince of glory died, as Isaac Roth said, when he wrote it before Wesley's day, he wrote where the young prince of glory died.

There's a cross like that, we call it the traditional cross. There's a cross like a letter T, where a man was crucified and his head was knocked back. There's a cross like a letter X, where they stretched a man up, his arms and his legs and stretched him out.

There's a cross which has a tree with just a big copper spike and they push the man's body on and turn him around and left him hanging at whatever angle he stopped at. But the most cruel death maybe of all that the Romans had was to take a man who had murdered a man and tie him to the body that he murdered.

They would lay the corpse on the ground, they would lay the man on top of him and tie the living hand to the living hand, the living legs to the dead legs, the trunk to the trunk, the head to the head, then stand him up and say, go on, carry that body.

And he carried that dead body. Now that's the most pernicious, horrible death. Because when he went to sleep at night he could try and find a place where he could at least stretch out and when he woke up in the morning he waked up looking into the glassy eyes of a corpse and before long what happened?

The death in that body began to wash his own body. Now that was the most cruel death. And Paul said, I have in me a bodiest sin, I have a... Who should deliver me from the body of this death? Well, you could eat old scoffers, he was the only person that knew everything, of course, apart from the Lord, but if you eat scoffers, you'll discover he says, well, a scoffer's no way of deliverance.

Well, then you may as well be a Mormon, or a Jehovah's Witness, or a Buddhist, if there is no deliverance from sin. If you don't get into trouble when you preach salvation to being saved from sinning, from your sins, it's when you say, but you can be saved from sinning.

And doesn't it say in Matthew 1 .27, that it's Paul, his name is Jesus, for he should save his people from their sins. If it's sin, and righteousness, they mutually exclude each other. If you put lights on in this room, the darkness goes out.

If you turn the lights off, the darkness comes in. You can't have them both, you have one or the other. Now, of course, you hear people say, I mean, it sounds so holy, doesn't it, to say, oh, well, you know, as good as we are, we are, we're saved, and we're filled with the Spirit, and the Lord's being good to us, but, you know, all our righteousness is a filthy rag.

Oh, come on, why don't we read a bit lower down in the chapter? Everybody quotes it as like a holy thing to do. But I happen to read the book that you read, tell the Bible, and it says in the first that they put it down, that he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

It's not imparted righteousness, imputed righteousness, Mary, but imparted righteousness, because, to use another analogy, a corrupt tree can't bring forth good fruit. And a rotten tree can't bring forth good fruit, and a good tree doesn't bring forth bad fruit.

Now, well, you say, that sounds a bit like sinless perfection. No, no, it's not sinless perfection. It's not that it's impossible for us to sin, it's possible for us not to sin. Let's go on a minute. He says, well, here I am, I'm embonded.

Call it the old nature, call it what you like. Well, he's just said in the next chapter that in all these things, in the body, in the spirit, things present, things to come, if you're facing the devil head on every day, if you're in a concentration camp, or you live in a house where you shouldn't, Martha and I often stay in a home that we share over in the Bahamas, and we've got curtains, and we have a couple of yachts, and we have a coat, and we have everything laid down.

Being conscious of dying, that's why we like to go in there. But it's very nice. The meals are served up, everything's gorgeous. And, you know, sometimes I look at those folks, and they say, oh, I've had such a tiring day today.

Well, that's good. You're writing checks all day. I mean, you get, you know, you get very demanding, very tiring. And you eat dinner with a lady who's saying, oh, my Lord, my Lord, and I thought she was going to die.

I looked at Martha. I said, Nancy, what's wrong? Oh, I just realized, you know, I've given away a quarter of a million dollars in less than a year, and I'm not sure I've given it all away yet. Well, I thought she hadn't, because she hadn't given me a dime, but, you know.

You see, if you're living in that kind of atmosphere, you know, it's not very difficult to talk about victory, but whenever you wish to have. I mean, the lady comes in and says, would you like to tell me, which would you like?

How shall I do the steaks today? What is the menu? You say, oh, just a minute. Let me see. Today, you have, Martha, say, what shall we have? Do you have pencil? Well, Martha writes the menu out. They have a store.

They just tell you the store and anything you want. They just ask you to say, would you like fish? Would you like this? Would you like... And I think sometimes, boy, it's a pretty easy life compared to some people I know who are meeting trial and difficulties or a widow that asks to receive children or somebody who's pregnant.

There are so many levels on which people live. Now, it would be easy to say to those people where Romans 8, 37 says, in all these things we have not encountered. Right. All right. He says we have a body of the kitchen in bondage.

Oh, wretched man that I am. I appreciate it. Who's going to deliver me from the body of this death? Hmm? Well, you say, Mr. Wagner, if you went down from the chapter of Romans 8, verse 8, it says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

There you are, you see. Aha, you see. Now, that torpedoes your argument, doesn't it? You've got me tied up except that little hole in the wall a man saw tomorrow I can get through. I'm getting out through here where it says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God.